Columns

the-us-is-today-armed-and-polarised

Sat Oct 26 10:54:03 IST 2024

This is the Trumpian version of ‘heads I win, tails you lose’. If he wins, the November election is fair. If he loses, well, that’s because it is rigged. “The only way Democrats can win is to cheat,” bellows Donald Trump from the campaign stumps. A CNN poll showed one-third of Americans and two-thirds of Republicans believe Trump’s lie that Joe Biden stole the 2020 elections. Almost all elected Republican congressmen denied Biden’s victory.

The attempt to subvert the 2020 election culminated with Trump supporters attacking the Capitol on January 6. Still, it was amateurish, with the absurd press conference by Trump’s discredited, elderly lawyer-loyalist Rudy Giuliani grandstanding about voter fraud—while black hair dye dripped down his sweaty face. Giuliani was bankrupted and disbarred for peddling those lies. But 2024 is different. This time, Trump’s “election-fraud” campaign is well-planned, well-orchestrated and well-funded. Rightwing organisations are suing, smearing and challenging ballot procedures, rolls and voter eligibility, especially in swing states.

Pro-Trump Republicans are also conniving to change election certification rules before polls. In 2020, Trump pressured a few officials not to certify results, in vain. Georgia’s Republican-dominated state election board recently ruled that officials can withhold certification to conduct a “reasonable inquiry”. What is “reasonable” is undefined. The election board also mandated officials to count ballots by hand, instead of feeding them into tabulating machines—changes that delay and falsify voting results. A local judge invalidated these new rules as “illegal and unconstitutional”.

Trump describes his “election crusaders”—some say useful idiots—as “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory”. Like ants, grassroots rightwing diehards are busy bombarding lawsuits and raising objections. Trump also has an ace. In 2020, a relatively unknown Republican congressman mustered many of his colleagues to support a Trump-backed lawsuit that tried to nullify the results in four key states. The attempt failed, but Trump rewarded the man. He became house speaker Mike Johnson.

Trump’s billionaire buddy Elon Musk dispenses $1 million-a-day bonanza lotteries to voters who sign a conservative petition to protect free speech and gun ownership. On X and on stage, Musk amplifies the biggest Trumpian conspiracy theory that Democrats are organising illegal migrants to vote for them—an allegation as baseless as Trump’s claim that Haitian migrants eat pets. Voting by non-citizens is rare because it is illegal, punishable by deportation or five-year jail-term.  The Washington Post investigated 14.6 million votes cast in 2016 and 2018 midterm elections—only 372 votes were suspect. That’s 0.0025 per cent. But Trumpian tactics take their toll—half the US population now doubt election results.

Anticipating trouble makes better preparation. The authorities are now extra careful and vigilant. Some officials draw comfort from courts defusing Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election. But others are unsure due to the Supreme Court’s recent pro-Trump verdicts. Institutions are combat-ready, galvanising to cope with crises. Says Michigan election supervisor Justin Roebuck, “November will be the greatest stress-test of US democracy, law enforcement and federal courts.”

Election officials are under enormous stress, having been hounded, abused and threatened previously by Trump supporters. Election clerk Marie Wicks says she is not worried about personal safety because her husband, a retired police officer, owns a gun. The world’s most powerful democracy has 170 million voters and 434 million guns. A close or contested verdict in a land that is lethally armed and poisonously polarised can awaken crouching beasts. Says Wicks, “I don’t worry about the election. I worry about the aftermath.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

leadership-targeting-and-ai

Fri Oct 11 16:12:25 IST 2024

Is killing top leaders the best way to destroy militant organisations? The word “militant” is used because one man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist. This question rises now because of Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Experts are divided. Some believe: kill the leaders and the organisation dies. Others say: kill the leaders, but you cannot kill the ideology.

Four decades of reporting insurgencies lead me to believe that “decapitation”—targeted killing of top leaders—invariably delivers a death blow to militant organisations. My first experience was in Punjab in the 1980s-1990s when bus massacres and school bombings struck terror in the countryside—and in New Delhi. Questioned about his strategy to quell Sikh militancy, supercop K.P.S. Gill told me: “Kill the leaders.” He succeeded. Insurgency died, democracy returned.

Spectacles of violence were most horrifying in Sri Lanka—not during the Tamil revolt, but during the Sinhala extremist JVP uprising that brought the nation to a terror-stricken standstill. Government-backed vigilantes in the countryside raided home-to-home, dragging out young JVP suspects and impaling their body parts on compound walls. In 1989, JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera was killed in police custody. The JVP as an insurrectionist movement unravelled. A democratised JVP member is now the president of the country.

LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, Sri Lankan state’s dreaded terrorist and Tamil eelam’s iconic freedom fighter, was killed in 2009 along with his family and senior leaders. The Tamil armed struggle ended in Sri Lanka. But experts who say you can kill leaders but not the ideology are right, too, especially when governments fail to address the legitimate grievances of the discriminated people.  In most cases, the exhausted and devastated local population flee into exile in foreign lands. Sometimes, their children continue the struggle peacefully—campaigning for justice, lobbying local governments, researching into atrocities, keeping the ideology of independence alive in their hearts and minds. A few years before he was killed, Prabhakaran told me, in an interview, his motivating belief: “He who dares wins.” That became the title of my Time magazine article. A decade later, at the Dubai airport I saw a young man wearing a T-shirt with these words. His facial features indicated he was Tamil. I asked him in Tamil, “So you are Prabhakaran’s fan.” He froze.

Al Qaeda’s rise as a fearsome organisation that staged 9/11 ended after the US killed Osama bin Laden. It morphed into Islamic terror franchises with varying degrees of capabilities for local disruption. Decentralisation helps survival. When militant groups become autocratic, they are strong—until the leader dies. Paranoid about coups, leaders rarely appoint successors. But Hezbollah is different. It is big, has MPs in the Lebanese parliament and is armed by Iran to fight Israel. Iran has assisted a clear command and control structure with every Hezbollah commander having a deputy, who has his deputy. Hezbollah, and not Nasrallah, is vital for Iran’s long-term security goal to keep Israel at bay. Israel has already targeted Nasrallah’s successor.

Israel’s decapitation and weakening of Hezbollah is ground-breaking. Says Middle East expert Paul Salem, “Israel has developed AI-bolstered intelligence capacity unseen in modern warfare.” This poses existential threats to grassroots dissident movements. AI-powered intelligence systems destroyed Hezbollah’s communication networks, arms depots and top leaders—feats of advanced spyware and AI-based surveillance technologies that the US and Israel excel in. As Google’s former AI researcher Meredith Whittaker revealed at a recent event, “AI is a derivative of surveillance.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

chained-to-dollar-chains

Sat Sep 28 11:03:13 IST 2024

A dollar goes a long way…sometimes all the way to hell. The dollar stores in the US sell varieties of household goods for a dollar—a lifesaver to millions of low-income families. But investigations reveal the underbelly of dollar chain stores during hard times—from worker exploitation to unhygienic conditions. The warehouse of the Family Dollar Store in Arkansas was infested with rats, mice and birds: breakfast cereal and sunflower seeds spilled on the floor mixing with rat faeces, bird droppings on chocolate protein shakes and baby wipes stained with urine. Local authorities fined the store $42 million. After the warehouse was fumigated and closed, 1,270 dead rodents were found. The store relocated this year to Oklahoma. It is up and ailing.

Economic experts say dollar chains have become real-time indicators of the financial stress—or wellbeing—of American low-earners. They are sort of emblematic of the “state of the union”. In good times, they thrive. Over the past decade, dollar chains added 12,500 new stores—more than Walmart, Target, Costco and other big supermarket chains put together. In bad times, sometimes they thrive even more—as financially stressed Americans who were slightly higher on the income ladder struggle to make their dollar go further.

Different chains of dollar stores dot poorer urban neighbourhoods, weary suburbs and dreary countryside. Over 40 per cent of dollar store customers live on welfare—part of the 42 million citizens receiving doles that cost the US government $1.1 trillion annually. Data shows 90 per cent of Americans drop into dollar and Walmart stores.

Dollar stores popped up 70 years ago offering cheap items for a dollar—toiletries, housewares, popcorn. Over the years, most chains increased prices marginally, some just to $1.25, while others offered plastic plants, candles and frozen pizza for a few dollars more.

Covid was stressful for the dollar chains. Many workers, especially women, quit to look after at-home children. Short-staffed stores had one employee to run the cash register and restock shelves. Safety inspectors found mounds of merchandise blocking emergency exits, electrical panels and fire extinguishers. They fined Dollar General $12 million. Acute staff-shortage forced some stores to unman shop floors and introduce self-checkout. Shop-lifting exploded.

Still, Covid-stimulus doles swelled customers’pockets and dollar chains’profits soared. Their share prices surged. All was well until Covid ended and the doles stopped. Inflation and rising interest rates increased house mortgages and car loans. Precarious finances meant using credit card to buy food—emblematic of America’s huge and unsustainable national debt. Household debt alone totals an unprecedented $17 trillion. Stores now face higher purchase prices and dwindling customers. Profits and share prices have plummeted.

How the working classes feel about the economy will tip the scales in November’s presidential elections. Dollar store customers traditionally voted for Democrats. Not anymore. Some veer to Donald Trump, others to cynicism—“why vote?”Above all, dollar stores symbolise American inequality. Low-earners have no money to buy proper food as basic healthy items like fruit and vegetables are unaffordable. “We eat cheap popcorn—every day,”says Elvira Gomez, a Hispanic hotel worker. The Bulgarian economist Ivan Krastev once said, “The poor do not fear the end of the world. They fear the end of the month.”

Retail businessman Adam Ifshin, who leases properties to dollar stores, says, “You cannot overstate the importance of these types of chains to a household that lives pay cheque to pay cheque.”The Almighty dollar can take you to heaven or to hell. It all depends on your pay cheque.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

shadow-of-russia-on-germany

Sat Sep 14 16:14:07 IST 2024

Grievance triggered the biggest political earthquake in modern Germany. For the first time since World War II, a party with Nazi roots won state elections. In the Thuringia and Saxony state elections, east Germans embraced the “untouchable”, populist far-right party AfD—“Alternative für Deutschland”. Its local leader Björn Höcke hollers banned Nazi slogans; intelligence agencies categorise sections of the party “extremist”. No matter. They bagged the votes of resentful easterners.

East Germans believe history has dealt them a triple whammy. First, they got left behind when they merged with west Germany in 1990 after Soviet Union’s collapse—enduring unemployment, social upheaval and snobbery: Soviet-controlled east was clunky compared to the fashionable west. Then globalisation left east Germany behind with factory closures and immigrants. Then they were left behind by their own educated children, who sought western wages and lifestyles. Equally troubling for west German establishment is the other election winner, the populist hard-left “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance” (BSW). They share AfD’s anti-immigration, pro-Russia worldview. The seven-month-old alliance is vaingloriously named after its chic and coiffed founder, a longstanding communist whom critics dub “Kremlin’s mouthpiece”. Leipzig University’s Hendrik Träger said, ”It’s a personality cult, tailored to the person of Sahra Wagenknecht.”

Price rise, costly green policies and the Ukraine war have contributed to the unpopularity of mainstream parties throughout Europe. In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s federal coalition partners, the Greens and Liberals, were banished from the provincial parliaments. Scholz’s campaign speeches were drowned by boos and insults with voters jeering “Liar” “Warmonger” and “Send Scholz to the warfront”. His coalition is unlikely to win national elections next year.

The east German results also mirror the squeezing of mainstream European parties by hard right and left populists, both of whom oddly share leftist economic views while holding rightwing political, cultural beliefs. Both are anti-business, Euroskeptic, anti-immigration, anti-green, anti-elitist, pro-welfare and pro-Russia. Populists in Germany, France, Britain and Italy reject their government’s narrative that Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine, blaming instead Nato’s enlargement into Russian sphere. They resent financing Ukraine and asylum seekers saying taxpayers’ money is better spent on improving local infrastructure. Voters complain western sanctions against Russia have resulted in painfully high domestic energy prices, fuelling 33 per cent rise in food prices. They oppose Scholz’s plans to station US medium-range missiles in Germany from 2026. Thuringian octogenarian Ulricht Hoffmann grumbled, “Earlier the Soviets dictated everything, now it’s the Americans.”

Germany’s firewall to keep ultranationalists out of government means AfD will be unable to find partners to form a ruling coalition. But AfD already exerts influence from outside. Prior to these polls, their growing popularity forced Scholz to introduce stricter immigration controls, deport illegal migrants, ban knives in public places and reduce welfare benefits for asylum deportees. But business leader Marie-Christine Ostermann warned that populism pushes “Thuringia and Saxony to the brink of an economic catastrophe.” AfD’s Höcke retorted, “Companies should shut their traps when it comes to politics”.

But he would be wise to listen. In recent years, new factories and investments have flowed into eastern Germany, but steep demographic decline portends economic decay. Thuringia will lose close to four lakh of its 10 lakh workers, Saxony faces around 3.6 lakh vacancies in the coming decade in factories, schools, hospitals, care homes. Migrant workers are needed to do the job, but xenophobia frightens foreigners away. The far-right threatens “remigration”—returning migrants to their countries even if they have acquired German citizenship. Unless populists dial down, another chapter in east Germany’s “left behind” saga may yet unfold.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

ukraine-knows-it-will-be-pressured-into-a-peace-deal

Sat Aug 31 11:01:38 IST 2024

The name “Kursk”pierces Russian history like a dagger. At its worst, it stirs gruesome memories ranging from mass slaughter to claustrophobic terror. At its best, high-cost victory. Once again, Russia’s southwestern Kursk area is a battlefield fraught with ominous omens. Ukraine has launched a cross-border offensive into Kursk—the first invasion of Russian territory since World War II.

Deafening was the initial silence from all concerned—Russia, Ukraine and its western allies. For the west, silence is better than defending Ukraine for violating an international border, a crime they accuse Russia of for invading Ukraine. Experts explained the incursion aimed to divert Russian forces away from the eastern battlefront where Ukrainian troops are failing and that staging a successful offensive bolsters flagging western support, inducing reluctant allies to supply more weapons.

Ukraine’s incursion appears to have caught Russia off-guard. President Vladimir Putin’s silence and his soldiers’absence from the Kursk battlefield revived memories of Russia’s “unsinkable”500-feet long nuclear submarine “Kursk”. In 2000, it sank in the Arctic with 118 trapped men on board. Even a day later, Putin was filmed partying and barbecuing in his Black Sea holiday villa. The slow and inept Russian rescue operation culminated with British and Norwegian divers eventually opening the hatch—to find no survivors.

Days after Ukraine’s offensive, President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked his western allies for “supporting”the incursion—a fait accompli that arguably exposed allied complicity. Putin said the Ukrainian attack aimed to seize Russian territory for use as leverage in future negotiations with Moscow. Analysts concluded this was a compelling, though dangerous, motive—because it invites brutal Russian retaliation. Besides, conquering territory is daring, holding it, perilous.

Whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris wins the US elections, Ukraine knows it will be pressured into a peace deal—American voters are bothered by their own problems. Ukraine also expects the deal’s terms to be worse under Trump, whose bromance with Putin is legendary. The US will largely determine the trajectory of war and peace. Experts here are baffled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Ukraine. China, Turkey, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other peacemakers circle the Russia-Ukraine war zone, but the US arguably prefers India as an interlocutor given its non-aligned and democratic status.

Historically, Russia thwarted invaders at great cost. Napoleon and Hitler failed to conquer the Russian heartland. The Battle of Kursk in 1943 between the Nazis and the Soviets was a turning point in World War II. Russia won the battle but lost seven lakh soldiers, 1,100 aircraft and 6,000 tanks. It was the biggest tank battle in history. In today’s war, Russia and Ukraine have already lost an estimated five lakh soldiers. Both bleed, but Ukraine bleeds more with smaller population and higher civilian casualties. Territorial barter seems a natural face-saving manoeuvre to end the war. Until then, defying expectations, Putin aggressively bombards Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and eastern areas.

The threat of a nuclear attack or accident has thrummed throughout this war. More so now. Kursk, a region of 1.2 million people, has a nuclear power station well within the range of the Ukrainian invaders’ artillery, fired from western-supplied howitzers and rocket launchers. Rafael Grossi, head of International Atomic Energy Agency who is inspecting the Kursk plant on Russia’s invitation, said, “It’s a Chernobyl-type plant with no protective dome and totally exposed reactor core. Since there is combat, I’m very concerned.”In 1986, a reactor in Ukraine’s Chernobyl plant exploded. It was and remains the world’s worst nuclear disaster.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

joe-bidens-debate-debacle-a-morality-tale

Sat Jul 06 10:36:29 IST 2024

Con Man vs Old Man. That’s how analysts described the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Con Man, a congenital liar, did what he always does best—fibbing through every question. Old Man did what he is prone to, mumbling and fumbling to ignominy, for which he was clobbered by TV commentators. They pronounced that Democratic party members and donors are in “pain and panic”, wanting Biden to drop out of the presidential race. But no Democrat showed up in the TV studios to make this demand. No one was even named.

Left- and right-leaning experts said they received a tsunami of reactions from Democrats shocked by Biden’s pathetic performance. Republican commentator Scott Jennings said he was swamped by messages from Democratic governors and officials worried by Biden’s bungling. Why would Democrats bare their tormented souls to a Republican commentator? Perhaps, the Biden barrage was an AI driven mass and social media campaign. This has happened before.

No one disputes that Biden fared badly. Doubts about his cognitive decline reached a crescendo. Instantly, commentators pronounced Biden’s political death sentence. But what are the chances of Biden being defeated in the presidential race because of this dismal debate? “Zero,” says historian Allan Lichtman emphatically, asserting “historically debate performances have no impact on election outcomes”. In 2004, John Kerry debated superbly, but lost to George W. Bush. Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama debated poorly, but won. Debates are watched only by a portion of the population. Most voters worry about real issues, not how nominees sound and look in debates. Former Trump supporter Anthony Scaramucci says, “Debates are popularity contests, but that’s not where hiring decisions are made.”

The New York Times, among other media organisations, urged Biden to “serve his nation” by withdrawing, arguing Democrats could then field a new candidate to defeat Trump—the “existential threat to democracy”. Biden claims he is the best candidate to do just that. Lichtman agrees. He says his “Keys to White House” model shows “more than any other Democrat, Biden has the best chance to defeat Trump”. His keys include incumbency, good economy and no-contest primaries. Lichtman has correctly predicted the US election results for four decades.

Away from the spotlight, Biden’s debate debacle is a morality tale signifying important life lessons. Commentators blasted Biden, but none mentioned his speech impediment. People who stammer, stutter more when they are nervous or tired. It is remarkable that despite this disability, Biden rose to the highest office in a treacherously competitive political landscape. Maybe his voice was hoarse due to excessive preparations. Maybe aides coached him inadequately on his appearance, so cameras caught him blank-faced and open-mouthed several times. Interrogation under a microscope for 90 minutes is hard, even harder to speak without crowds and teleprompters. It’s easier for Trump who doesn’t bother to remember facts.

Instead of feeling shamed and licking his wounds after the blistering criticism, Biden rebounded, like the boxer he is, saying, “When you get knocked down, you get back up.” The very next day, Biden gave a spirited performance at an election rally in North Carolina. The event was staged with chants and charts, but the crowd was good, teleprompters in place and Biden feisty, as he was in the State of the Union address four months ago. He crisscrossed the country that day to attend four major events, ending with a massively attended fundraiser gala in New York.

Still, many Americans wonder: “Con Man vs Old Man—is this the best we’ve got?”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

the-heat-is-on-elon-musk

Sat Jun 22 12:26:05 IST 2024

It is Europe’s “coolest” dinner. So said Nicolai Tangen, the host of the celebrity dinner and CEO of Norway’s $1.7 trillion Oil Fund—the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. He promised to cook “moose” and other delicacies for a small, super-select group of guests—CEOs of Novo Nordisk, Adidas, Nestlé and a few others. The dinner location was undisclosed for obvious security reasons, but the date was April 28, 2025, timed with the Oil Fund’s next annual investor conference in Oslo. The sous-chef: Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna. The superstar guest: Tesla’s Elon Musk, who accepted the invitation, posting “sounds good” with a thumbs-up icon on his X. Tangen delightedly replied on X, “Very cool and confirmed. We’re going to make something fantastic.”

And then, the budding bromance of smileys and cheesy icons, fell apart. The Norwegian Fund voted against Musk’s $56 billion (not million) dollar, over-the-top remuneration package—as it did in 2018. Considered a gold standard in ethical investing, the Norwegian Oil Fund has divested from companies engaged in landmines, tobacco and coal production, child labour, human rights abuses, pollution and other unethical corporate practices. Since 2017, as part of its crusade against inequality, it has been campaigning against astronomical CEO pay. The Fund owns only one per cent of Tesla’s stock, but the moral signal ricocheted around the world.

Musk was enraged, reacting “this is not good” with a thumbs-down. He instantly stopped following Tangen on X. He fumed the Fund was wrong because 87 per cent of Tesla shareholders supported his pay, the biggest in the history of humankind. He is now the richest man in the world, overtaking Louis Vuitton’s Bernard Arnault with a big lead. In 2018, shareholders supported Musk’s giga remuneration on the condition that he would achieve results that then had seemed unachievable. But he delivered. Shareholders minted money.

But then a judge even in Delaware—America’s leading tax haven—invalidated the “fundamentally flawed” pay package and its “unfathomable sum”. Musk reacted with characteristic pique, shifting Tesla’s incorporation from Delaware to Texas, another tax haven, but more friendly to Republicans. Musk has a so-far-intact-brewing bromance with Donald Trump.

As an entrepreneur, Musk is gutsy and visionary, often conquering the impossible. But he is also volatile, unpredictable, quirky, even ungenerous, miring himself in endless controversies. Tesla’s factory strikes spread from Sweden to Denmark, Norway and Finland because he fought with unions, refusing to accept high local labour standards. He tried to back out of the Twitter deal. He performed clumsy jigs at car launches and appeared more spaced out than his SpaceX at a shareholders’ meeting. His employees filed lawsuits against him, accusing him of gender bias, discrimination and illegal firings. He is venerated for his brilliance, vilified for his flaws. His biography is a gripping tale of jawdropping highs and gut-wrenching lows. He once told an interviewer “I don’t think you’d necessarily want to be me.”

Now, some in sensitive positions may not even want him as a guest. With the controversy over his remuneration making headlines around the world, Musk and moose are unlikely to be paired anytime soon. The coolest dinner became too hot to handle. Asked at a conference how the Oil Fund could be trusted when its CEO was friends with a controversial figure like Musk, Tangen replied “If we were friends before, we are not now.” Chefs are well acquainted with a culinary wisdom: “if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

what-if-donald-trump-returns

Sat Jun 08 10:50:47 IST 2024

The world has darkened. The prospect of a democratically elected convicted felon becoming the world’s most powerful man says more about US democracy than the felon. Across the world, menacing thunderclouds are gathering with ordinary people, the planet and popular democracies undergoing unprecedented stress. It is like the absurd Hollywood comedy-drama—Everything Everywhere All At Once. It is absurd and dramatic, but there is nothing comic about what’s going on in the world.

While people focused on Donald Trump, Gaza or Indian elections, NATO authorised Ukraine’s use of their—including American and German—weapons to attack Russia’s Kharkiv territory. Until now, their weapons could be used only in defence within Ukraine. NATO’s policy shift aims to bolster Ukraine’s flagging war efforts, but it risks inviting Russian retaliatory attacks, imperilling 550 million Europeans. The European governments are already asking their citizens to stock up emergency supplies like drinking water, candles, batteries, matches, cash and dry rations.

Russia and NATO members—the US, Britain and France—have nuclear weapons. But there is no looming threat of nuclear war. The quantity of items required to be stocked suggest European authorities are preparing instead for a Russian hybrid response—attacks on communication lines, water supplies, banking systems or electricity grids, disruptions that can be repaired in a few days. But as American historian Barbara Tuchman warned: “War is the unfolding of miscalculations.”

Away from Europe, the danger of confrontation between China and the US over Taiwan persists. Now the Philippines—a US ally—threatens war if China kills even one Filipino in their ongoing clashes over disputed maritime territories. The China-US relations are brittle. If the US is hyper, demanding immediate attention, then China is passive-aggressive. When China is furious, it doesn’t rant, it chooses radio silence, ignoring US calls. Said American journalist David E. Sanger, “China’s silence drives US crazy.”

War is extreme and appears distant to citizens until they hear rockets and warplanes. The first sign that the New York jury’s verdict (which Indians noted was delivered at 4:20pm) had gone against Trump was the vigil of whirring helicopters overhead, scanning for trouble. Optimists say even after the darkest night, dawn breaks; there is always light at the end of the tunnel: economic growth in China, peace in Gaza, ceasefire between Republicans and Democrats.

Trump’s conviction is a triumph of America’s fearless, independent judiciary. But the opposite is equally true—a Trump-appointed judge has delayed ruling on his immunity from prosecution for acts committed as president. Besides, all Trump cases can be overturned by his appointees in the Supreme Court. The New York court showed no man is above law in the US. But the “people’s court” can resurrect Trump when they vote in November. The US presidential historian Alexis Coe noted, “One big difference between the Richard Nixon and Trump situations is that American voters demanded accountability from Nixon.” Polarisation has wrecked that consensus.

So, the felon’s fate is far from sealed. If Trump wins, a lawbreaker becomes the chief law enforcement officer and commander-in-chief of the world’s mightiest nation. As president, he vows to ignite the “rites of retribution”, wreaking havoc on American systems, institutions, opponents and whistleblowers. Violence can erupt. All options are on the table, and it is not a banquet. Compulsive optimists should keep in mind Murphy’s Law—“the light at the end of the tunnel can be the headlamp of an oncoming train.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

in-britain-boring-is-good-and-that-could-help-keir-starmer-become-next-pm

Sat May 25 11:04:05 IST 2024

These days in Britain, boring is good. After the hangover of Boris Johnson’s wild escapades, Liz Truss’s wilder financial swings, Brexit’s economic nosedives, and Rishi Sunak’s flipflops, British voters find the unexciting rather appealing. The turbulent Tory decade has been an era when entertainment trumped issues, sloganeering outgunned policy and drama beat governance. Now everyone is fed up. Labour Party’s staid leader, Keir Starmer, is likeable precisely because he is a boring lawyer who shuns Johnson-style gimmicks like sliding down a zip wire, only to get stuck midair.

Johnson is Tories’ best vote-getter, but polls predict a Labour win in the upcoming elections. Starmer is offering voters a porridge of policies—boring, but healthy for the nation. In his “pledge card” to the nation, he makes six promises: to deliver economic stability, cut national health service (NHS) waiting times for treatment, establish a state-owned energy company, tackle anti-social behaviour, recruit more teachers and launch a border security force to stop illegal migration. Denying that the pledges were a dilution of his earlier climate and economic plans, Starmer said these “ready-to-go pledges are a means to the end, a down-payment on the first steps to change Britain”. The rest to be announced after election victory, he said.

Underfunding has undermined NHS’s ability to provide adequate health care, provoking public outrage. NHS doctors saved Covid-afflicted Johnson’s life. He was effusively grateful, but was unwilling or unable to upgrade NHS, perhaps because of the Tory obsession with cutting public services. Starmer, who comes from a working-class background—father a factory toolmaker, mother an NHS nurse—is sincerely grateful for the NHS care and hospitalisation his mother received for lifelong crippling arthritis. His wife is an NHS nurse. His commitment to revive NHS is deep and personal.

Unlike Johnson’s life of revelry and privilege, Starmer is the first from his family to go to university. As a lawyer, he defended the rights of victims of domestic, criminal and political violence. He was knighted for his role as chief prosecutor in 2014. For the ceremony in Buckingham Palace, he invited his parents—who brought their family dog along. Starmer knows tragedy. By 2018, his mother had succumbed to disease, his father died heart-broken and the dog perished when their family home burned down.

In contrast with Johnson’s hype and hyperbole, Starmer is almost dour. But that apparently is the need of the hour. Labour presents Starmer as mature, solid, family-oriented. His seriousness promises “dull dividends” say experts. The uncertainties triggered by Brexit and the chaotic reign of Johnson and Truss instigated businesses to withhold investments, dampening growth. Now, people and businesses crave for stability, the markets yearn for fiscal policies without the fizz and fissures that marked Truss’s tenure. Uncertainty brings bad economic outcomes, but certainty usually improves employment and industrial production. A traumatised Britain appears soothed by Starmer’s ‘Boring Bonus’.

Helping Britain’s transition from populism to policy is Labour’s research group, “Labour Together”, which is growing in clout, staff and donations. They are preparing the policy groundwork for an “incoming” Labour government and road maps for its implementation. It is pulling the party to middle-ground from the leftist positions of previous Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Even as it prepares for the future, Labour looks back in history to borrow some winning tactics. Its “pledge card” is a repeat version of the card it published before its landslide victory in 1997. But the tone is different. This time the message is “Steady hands on the wheel”. The adults return. Boring is back.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

western-art-pushes-ahead-with-gritty-current-issues

Sat May 11 11:51:25 IST 2024

The past doesn’t always remain in the past. Sometimes, it emerges in the present, reminding us about the universality and repetitiveness of the human experience. Berlin’s George Grosz Museum, a tiny gem, is a startling reminder that modern political and social ills are not modern. Grosz lived through World Wars I and II, shining a torch into the heart of darkness in high-ranking men and women—who were complicit in the collapse of the world as they knew it.

Satirical and subversive, playful and profound, Grosz’s cartoons and drawings represent art as political protest, a resistance to “blood-stained nationalism”. He digs deeper, offering insightful, stinging analysis. Hyperinflation threw Germany into chaos. But with surgical precision, Grosz depicts a catastrophic cause for the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler: grotesque inequality. His cartoons are a testament that neither war nor inflation affect the power elite—the monarchy, military, church and bourgeoisie.

Through clean, sharp strokes that could be drawn with a dagger, Grosz rips apart social veneers to show the streets of corrupt, carnal Berlin. The times are promiscuous. Lust is in the air. The affluent crave for power, money and sex. The testosterone-driven generals, the voracious fat cats of capitalism, the plundering black marketeers, the complacent, covetous petite bourgeoise profiteering from war and human misery, the macho men and voluptuous women eyeing each other rapaciously—all are utterly indifferent to public desperation. Such inequality dooms, destabilises and destroys societies… again and again. Using data, today’s economists like Thomas Piketty and Joseph Stiglitz warn about the malevolence of inequality. Artists use their imagination to offer lateral perspectives on history’s unconscionable predator-prey human dynamic.

Sometimes, the past is the present. Another gem of a museum—Urban Nation—offers a glimpse into five-feet-high cardboard model of a bombed apartment building made by two Iranian artist brothers “Icy and Sot” who live as refugees in Brooklyn, New York. Shattered rooms are smothered in thick gray concrete dust. The entrails of wiring, plumbing and beams pierce the eye. Jagged shards of furniture reach out for their dead owners, weaving imaginings of the once thrumming universe of these destroyed families—flattened pianos, overturned tables, legless chairs. The ghostliness of broken belongings that don’t belong, the heartbreak of tender detail, the senselessness of destruction are overwhelming. Unlike TV footage, these scenes are still—precisely why they are so moving. Rooms become urns, full of ash, drained of colour.

But the rear of the building, unscathed in the bombing, bursts with colour and hope. Though uninhabited, the interiors are bright with colourful wallpaper, comfortable sofas, even a beautiful white abandoned piano, yearning for its owner’s return. The building is an image of the 2011 war in Aleppo, Syria. But it symbolises Ukraine yesterday, Gaza today. History repeats itself, elites wage war, masses suffer.

Several years ago, the Kochi Biennale highlighted political art—biting, brutal, brilliant depictions of the social, economic and environmental evils that characterise our times. Then the self-absorbed contemporary western art had seemed obsessed with form for forms’ sake—dramatic, but not particularly relevant to ordinary people, just like haute couture that wins critical acclaim but is unwearable. There has been a sea change and western art pushes ahead with gritty current issues. Urban Nation showcases artists’ quirky, accessible, forceful take on our contemporary struggles—climate change, war, globalisation, polarisation, deep fakes, social media that divides and unites, silences and shouts. Artists despair: “Everybody is talking, nobody is listening.” But then, this is our Tower of Babel.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

has-rishi-sunak-s-lustre-dimmed

Sat Apr 27 10:38:12 IST 2024

The British are polarised on taxes, welfare, politics and the Israel-Gaza war. But they agree Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party will be mauled in the May 2 local elections in England and Wales. Opinion polls give the opposition Labour party a 20-point lead over the Tories. An election debacle could tempt Sunak’s opponents within the party to topple him. Or he could limp along, wounded and weak, only to crash-land in the looming general elections. That would bring back Labour.

An invigorated Labour party is ahead in the thousands of seats in the upcoming local councils and mayoral races, including London. In traditional Tory strongholds of West Midlands and Tees Valley in England, conservative candidates shun Sunak in their leaflets and request toxic Tory MPs to stay away. Tories could also lose their Blackpool South parliamentary seat, vacated by Tory MP Scott Benton after a lobbying scandal.

Experts agree the problem is the Tory party. Its legacy after a 14-year rule—some say misrule—is public fatigue. Brexit was a folly characterised by drama, deceit and disruption.

Tory obsession with low taxes weakened public finances, hurting infrastructure, leaving health services dysfunctional, schools crumbling and roads potholed. “All symbols of a nation in decline,” say Labour leaders. While citizens endured economic hardship, Tory ministers and parliamentarians swirled through scandals, sleaze and swinging parties during Covid lockdowns. Famous for reinventing themselves to stay in power, Tories have now run out of steam, options, ideas and public patience.

In 2022, Sunak began well as PM by capitalising on his popularity as chancellor (finance minister) during Covid when he distributed £200 billion in public benefits. He was young, clever, competent and cosmopolitan. He became “Mr Brexit Fix-it”, clinching agreements to mend fences on Northern Ireland, trade and repairing relations with the European Union.

But he epitomises the cautionary tale about rising too far too fast. Politically inexperienced, his attempts to relate to ordinary folks seemed grating, gauche and glib. He claimed he ate “wraps” at McDonalds—when wraps were discontinued years before; was a “coke addict” (meaning Coca Cola). He gallingly stole credit from the Bank of England for falling inflation and from bad weather for the reduced illegal migrant boat crossings; a technocratic, tactless “fiscal hawk” who asked a homeless person, “Do you work in business?” In winter, high energy costs left voters shivering in their unheated homes. But media reported that North Yorkshire’s electricity grid was upgraded because Richie Rich Sunak’s swimming pool consumed so much electricity. There is no penalty in politics for being rich, but there is a price for appearing out of touch.

But Sunak’s problem is less with voters than with partymen loyal to his foe and proven vote-getter, former PM Boris Johnson.

Even if he survives these threats, Sunak will be maimed and his party in meltdown-mode with the infighting. This harms Tory prospects in the general elections. Already, Sunak’s lustre has dimmed, his ratings have plummeted—though its better than his predecessor Liz Truss’ minus 70 per cent. He looks like just another Tory in a social media operation.

Sunak’s advisors say he prefers to hold general elections in autumn so voters have time to see the economic benefits of his policies—and the US election chaos. But analysts say Sunak may call for snap general elections in June to avoid a humiliating leadership challenge.

To borrow 19th century British statesman Benjamin Disraeli’s quip against his political opponent William Gladstone’s administration, it is the Sunak government’s turn to look like “a range of exhausted volcanoes”.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

addictive-nature-of-social-media-a-problem

Fri Apr 12 11:33:46 IST 2024

Parents don’t need research. They know when their children get addicted to social media. Just like wives know when husbands become alcoholics or fathers know when sons’ clandestine smoking turns into addiction. But research is necessary if household misery is to be addressed by impactful public policy.

New American research establishes what most parents know from experience—social media harms children. In his just-published book, The Anxious Generation, renowned New Yorker and social-psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes, “When adolescents’ social lives moved onto smartphones and social media platforms, anxiety and depression surged among them.”

The turning point came in 2012, Haidt says, when social media went viral, after Facebook bought Instagram and with the arrival of high-speed internet, unlimited data and smartphones with front-facing cameras. Schoolgirls spent hours daily taking selfies, editing and posting them for buddies, rivals and strangers to comment on. Simultaneously they scrolled for the posts of friends, foes and celebrities flaunting their wealth, perfect bodies and luxurious lifestyles. Time spent on social media eroded sleep, study and activities with family and friends. Academic performance in reading and math deteriorated. Negative emotions like anger, envy, shame and sadness spiraled. Self-harm increased among pre-teens and teenagers.

Gen Z (born after 1996) suffered like no previous generation, although millennials (born 1981-1996) haven’t been spared. Over the decade, American youth suicide rose by 130 per cent.

Haidt emphasises two of the six factors contributing to this mental health crisis. First, “play-based childhood” declined because anxious parents didn’t send children for unsupervised outdoor play—which helps overcome normal childhood fears, judge risks for themselves and thus prepare for adulthood. Overanxious parents birthed an anxious generation. Second, “play-based” was replaced by “phone-based childhood”. This diminished in-person socialising. Haidt argued social media “hacked” and “rewired” children’s brains, but scientists lacked data hitherto to protect children from tech companies. “We ended up overprotecting children in the real world, while under-protecting them in the virtual world,” he says.

The addictive nature of social media is the problem. Tech investor Roger McNamee says “to encourage addiction, tech companies use techniques common in propaganda and casino gambling”—constant notifications (likes) and variable rewards (for accomplishment/novelty-seeking behaviour). Mental health is as important as physical health. So, should the production and consumption of social media be restricted like alcohol and cigarettes? Together with some leading tech founders, Haidt pleads for phone-free schools, age-guards, student digital guidance and social media regulation. Says McNamee, “Now we face the challenge of extracting the world from the jaws of internet platform monopolies.”

But Haidt has vocal detractors. Journalist Aaron Brown called Haidt’s findings “mostly junk research”. Haidt’s critics quote studies claiming social media is about as harmful as eating potatoes—almost zero. As Mark Twain says, “There are lies, damned lies and statistics.”

For decades the tobacco lobbyists debunked evidence that smoking caused cancer. For decades, the oil lobby scorned climate change. Salt, sugar, junk food and pharma lobbies followed. And for decades, lobbyists supplied spurious statistics to confuse the public and delay, if not abort regulation.

Haidt says, “The correlation between social media and mental health is higher than the correlation between childhood exposure to lead and low adult IQ. The proper comparison is not potatoes, but marijuana use and binge drinking.” McNamee, who mentored Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, says, “It is time to disrupt the disrupters.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

motives-behind-foreign-phobia-reflect-multiple-reasons

Sat Mar 30 11:23:29 IST 2024

According to an Irish legend, when life draws to a close, you hear the doomsday clock that bears your name ticking the time away… tick-tick-tick-tick. Across the pond in the US, popular Chinese video-sharing app TikTok hears the ominous ticking clock. The US siege of TikTok is about data security. It is also about global dominance, protectionism and the comeback of an age-old mantra: “Foreign Phobia”. The line now blurs between western capitalists and eastern socialists.

As is typical in complex human affairs, the motives behind foreign phobia reflect multiple reasons. Foreign bashing—migrants or companies—resurrects in election cycles. Low hanging juicy votes can be won with promises to protect local jobs. Retaining control of national industries is part of war strategy. De-globalisation is a tool to isolate, undercut, puncture and punish rising rivals, tripping them before they trip you.

With bipartisan support, US lawmakers passed a bill that would ban TikTok unless its Chinese owner sells the app. US officials say Beijing could spy, sow discord and spread propaganda through TikTok to its 170 million American users. To protect national security, US regulators have long restricted foreign-ownership of American media companies. To circumvent this restriction, the wily Rupert Murdoch became a US citizen in 1985. But new laws are needed to regulate Big Tech.

The day after lawmakers passed the TikTok bill, President Joe Biden opposed Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9bn takeover of US Steel. Biden did not cite national security—after all, Japan is a staunch US ally. It was to protect the American industrial base by safeguarding “strong American steel companies powered by American steel workers,” he said. US Steel is headquartered in Pennsylvania, a critical swing state in the upcoming presidential elections. Donald Trump has promised to block the takeover, leaving no room for Biden to manoeuvre, even if he wanted to. Biden’s “Buy American” slogan mirrors Trump’s “America First.”

In the UK, PM Rishi Sunak plans to introduce a law to prevent foreigners from buying British news organisations. This aims to block the Abu-Dhabi backed takeover of the British conservative newspaper, The Telegraph. Tory MPs and backbenchers are in the forefront of this oftentimes xenophobic uproar. The battle queen is Kemi Badenoch, 44, the business secretary, who hopes to succeed Sunak as Tory leader—The Telegraph plays a crucial role in Tory leadership races.

Shipbuilding is the next arena of US-China superpower rivalry, potentially igniting trade conflicts that impact China’s naval and commercial shipping might. China deftly filled the vacuum left by a retreating US. Ranked number one in 1975, the US shipbuilding industry annually produced over 70 commercial ships. Now it produces 10 compared with China’s 1,000 ocean-faring vessels. This deficit has major security implications—over 90 per cent of military equipment, supplies and fuel travel on foreign, including Chinese, commercial cargo ships. These are manufactured with government subsidies. Experts attribute the decimation of US shipbuilding to Ronald Reagan’s free-marketeer decisions to axe subsidies. Ironically, free-marketeers are security hawks.

Today, trade bodies clamour for the return of subsidies, protectionism and nationalism in the US shipbuilding industry. Globalisation shifts with the winds of change. One aphorism does not. “Whoever rules the waves, rules the world,” proclaimed Alfred Thayer Mahan, the respected 19th century naval historian and strategist. Today, that truth expands from sea waves to include air waves. America’s noose on TikTok tightens. The Irish legend concludes with the listener hearing the clock ticking to the end “tick-tick-tick-ti…”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

musk-trump-partnership-can-inflate-the-trumpian-world

Sat Mar 16 11:17:04 IST 2024

Match made in Hell!” That’s how liberal European media described the “political bromance” between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the erratic, outspoken billionaire. In ideology and in temperament, chaotic Trump and quixotic Musk have common traits. Both despise wokeism, feminism, and LGBTQ activism. They have a penchant for conspiracy theories. Both are scrappy, provocative, politically incorrect and unpredictable with outsized egos. Commentator Christina Pletten noted, “This can become a dangerous alliance in so many ways, where money, power, propaganda and conspiracy theories meet in a nasty mix.”

Tesla founder turned rightwing culture warrior, Musk has been turning his Twitter-turned-X into a swamp for far-right conspiracies. Biden trails in polls but commands a campaign treasure chest. Trump brags big, but his finances are precarious, with his campaign war chest haemorrhaging due to legal fees and penalties. Worth $197 billion, Musk is money.

The New York Times reports a “collaboration” with Musk helping Trump get re-elected. Musk asserts he will not donate money to Trump. It’s a business opportunity to leverage his flagging X by spreading right-wing rhetoric that reinforces Trump’s political arguments. Musk’s Twitter takeover has been fraught with high debt, falling value, fleeing users and advertisers. For Trump, the visibility provided by a revitalised X fetches eyeballs and saves huge election costs.

Trump and Musk share ideology and contrarian tactics. American journalist Tim Higgins said, “Musk gains even more influence as he becomes more Trump-like.” Musk amplifies Trump’s message on immigration to his 175 million followers. Accusing Biden of treason, Musk echoed a right-wing conspiracy theory that the US administration is “importing” immigrants to “rig elections and wage terror bigger than 9/11”.

A Musk-Trump partnership can inflate the Trumpian world of fearmongering, disinformation and outright lies. But their giant egos can wreck the bromance. Trump wants Musk on his team. Musk wants Trump on his. Still, the alliance benefits both. Musk’s companies rely on federal subsidies and contracts. Musk is hostile to Democrats’ pro-labour, welfare oriented, ‘anti-subsidies for cash-rich business’ policies—massive federal subsidies to Musk’s Space X were cut. But until recently, Musk’s relationship with Trump was prickly. Musk said Trump was too old for reelection. Trump called Musk a “bullshit artist”, a “fawning” businessman desperate for government subsidies. “I could have said, ‘drop to your knees and beg,’ and he would have done it,” Trump mocked in his Truth Social platform.

Trump was not Musk’s first choice in this election. He had rooted for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who launched his presidential campaign with a live chat with Musk on X. It was marred by technical glitches. DeSantis’s campaign soon flopped and collapsed. Now Trump and Musk see their interests converging and Biden is the common enemy. “Their combined resources as powerful reactionary figures shouldn’t be underestimated,” said MSNBC editor Zeeshan Aleem. A Trump-Musk collaboration promises publicity, drama and fireworks.

Verbal pyrotechnics could certainly sizzle this dull sequel of two old men butting for the top job again. Bristling at sneers of his advancing age and endless replays of images of him stuttering and stumbling, Biden now aims for Trump’s “jugular”. “Sleepy Joe” transforms into “Jaunty Joe”. He tries hard to look, walk and talk young, vigorous and feisty. Biden reportedly told friends he thinks Trump is unstable, both intellectually and emotionally, and if Biden goads him mercilessly, Trump will explode—“go haywire in public”. The Democrats begin the campaign season by launching Operation “Trigger Trump”. Biden’s favourite Trump taunt: “Loser”. Trump taunts right back, calling Biden a “basket case”.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

democracies-turned-upside-down

Sat Mar 02 11:03:55 IST 2024

Winston Churchill famously said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried.” But, over the years, democracies have absorbed many sins of autocracies, theocracies, aristocracies and gerontocracies. Experts say democratic backsliding today begins at the ballot box with voters electing corrupt, divisive and authoritarian leaders. Their governments may then implement racist, undemocratic, uneconomic and unethical policies. Nearly two centuries ago, French historian Alexis de Tocqueville warned that, “Tyranny of the majority” endangers democracy. Today democracy seems torn by the tyranny of the majority and minority—that even fuels war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignores global outrage and pleas from the US, bolstered by his two fringe, extremist, ultranationalist coalition partners—religious Zionism Party’s Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, and Jewish Power Party’s Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister. They have publicly threatened to withdraw support if Netanyahu backs down. “Netanyahu in 2024 is far more afraid of Ben-Gvir than he is of Joe Biden. The Israeli government is the Ben-Gvir government, at the expense of all of us,” mourns Israeli commentator Ben Caspit.

Jewish hardliners refuse emergency food and medical supplies to starving, injured Palestinian children. The loudest protestors blocking aid are women ultranationalists. In their book, Tyranny of the Minority, focusing on the US, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt assert, “Minorities of all kinds have become the decision-makers; they dominate, tyrannise or terrorise.” The tyranny of the elite minority in democracies is overtaken by the atomised tyrannies of outliers, populists, conspiracy-theorists and demagogues.

The biggest demagogue that democracy has thrown up in recent times is Donald Trump. Even Europe is wary. Quoting a German parliamentarian, prominent historian Anne Applebaum said, “Europe may face a world in which we are competing with three autocracies—China, Russia and the US. The fear is that the second Trump administration will be aggressive. He has no government job, but controls a minority in the US Congress and dictates US policy.”

Europe is shell-shocked that this year’s elections in the big democracies could bring leaders who are well-disposed to their enemy, Vladimir Putin. Trump is a Putin-admirer, describing him as a “genius—strong and smart”. Narendra Modi is friendly with Putin. Indonesian leader Prabowo Subianto is a Putin fan. Kornelius Purba, managing editor of The Jakarta Post, noted that many Indonesian voters support General Prabowo “because they are fanatical fans of President Putin”. Indonesian liberals fear Prabowo will rule like a Putin-style strongman.

In Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak turns to rightwing populism to lure fleeing voters. He is under pressure from his minority of Tory “English nationalists” who threaten to topple him unless he tightens immigration, slows climate goals and lowers taxes. Economists agree these are bad policies for recession-mired Britain and for Tories; general voters want solutions to their crushing problems. Identifying democracy’s flaw, European leader Jean-Claude Juncker remarked, “We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.”

Germany’s current polarised, fragmented political landscape is “frighteningly similar to the 1930s” that gave rise to Hitler, warns German pollster Forsa Institute. The post-war law mandating parties to secure at least 5 per cent share of votes to enter parliament, kept extremist, peripheral groups out. Disillusioned by mainstream parties, voters are now flocking to radical movements. Polls show one in five Germans would vote for a fringe party. An exasperated Winston Churchill once quipped, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

the-dilemma-of-the-japanese-today

Sat Feb 03 11:12:31 IST 2024

The child follows the moving object with its eyes. The girl sashays on the catwalk, smiles, then pouts. The child and girl are not human. They are robots made in Japan and they demonstrate the nation’s way of innovating out of crises.

Japan has the world’s fastest ageing society—one-third of its population are over 65 years old. Simultaneously, decreasing birth rate is creating massive labour shortages. Japan’s solution to this double whammy is evident in a statistic: it has the world’s highest number of robots. The void caused by ageing and unborn Japanese is being filled by AI, robots and avatars. Japan already has robots, androids and humanoids in hospitals, factories, schools, security services, and even outer space. It “employs” 2.5 lakh industrial robotic workers, set to increase to 10 lakh in a decade. All Japanese corporate giants manufacture robots and they dominate the international market.

In 2008, Japan’s population peaked at 129 million. It is projected to decrease by 10 million a decade, plummeting to 77 million in 50 years—40 per cent less than today. Warns economist Masakazu Toyoda, “Japan’s GDP will shrink, economy will decline and we will be bankrupted by the caring costs for the ageing population. Geopolitically, Japan would have to survive as a middle power in a tough neighbourhood. It could also lead to a security crisis. Pax America is in decline, no one can stop the crisis in Ukraine or Gaza. Everyone must defend themselves. But Japan’s self-defence service is unable to recruit sufficient numbers.”

Efforts to increase birth rate by providing child allowances and free college education for the third child have not succeeded in Japan or elsewhere. Migration has improved birthrates in the US and the UK, but migration is taboo in Japan. Most Japanese find the invasion of foreign residents with their alien tongues and loud behaviour into their orderly, polite, silent cocoon, disagreeable. Regarding themselves as a “pure race”, many Japanese shun intercultural marriages, pejoratively referring to children born of such wedlock as “halfu” (half). Besides, migration in most western countries is hardly inspiring.

Avoiding immigration, the Japanese prefer the robot route to fill the labour gap. Innovative Japan has a history of skilled craftsmanship. Mechanical dolls, a precursor to today’s robots, were invented 300 years ago. In 1972, Japan invented the world’s first humanoid intelligent robot. To disarm public fear of robots, manufacturers also make adorable seals, dogs and cute, comic book manga-style female robots with big eyes and girly fringes.

But in construction, farming and retail, labour shortage extracts a price. The construction of the prestigious Osaka World Expo, scheduled to open in 2025, is facing delays and cost overruns—the bill has doubled to $1.6 billion. Despite raising wages, enticing women into the work force and designing stylish uniforms, construction workers declined 30 per cent in 25 years. Many 20th century inventions are fading out. Food trolleys in trains have disappeared and vending machines are not refilled for days. Farms are abandoned and whole villages depopulated because 43 per cent of farmers are over 75.

Japanese innovators experiment to mitigate, if not solve the problem. The solar-powered robot duck churns weeds to help rice cultivation. Human hours involved in this process fell from 529 to 29. Omnipresent convenience stores provide everything from rice balls to hangover cures to grateful Japanese commuters. In a new trend, a smiling attendant greets customers—from a four-foot screen. Like the living attendants of yore, the avatar’s eyes unobtrusively follow the moving human objects—scanning for shoplifting.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

hope-and-hopelessness

Sat Jan 06 11:09:47 IST 2024

From the Élysée Palace, the citadel of power in the heart of Paris, King Jupiter, aka French President Emmanuel Macron, proclaims loftily: It is time to give citizens “a sense of hope and an appetite for the future”. It is that time of the year when words of optimism irritatingly ring louder than church bells. Politicians and celebrities who corrode hope with their policies, lifestyles and scandals are the loudest. It is like they don’t even hear their own words. Macron makes versions of this speech often, the first from the grand Versailles Palace six years ago.

Since then, France has become more divided and distrustful, like many other countries. Macron had expressed hope for Libya, Lebanon and Gaza. Life became worse there. The international mood darkens with old and new threats. Youngsters, some with families, opt to live “off-grid”, logging out of normal life as we once knew it.

Yet, beneath the blur and the cacophony, there are green shoots of hope, with some governments, activists, scientists and citizens working like ants to save the world. This phenomenon—unlike big innovation—escapes attention because the media is mostly a “dooms-day machine” grabbing eyeballs by showcasing the worst of humanity, without adequately emphasising restoration and progress. But these human ants typify the natural order of things. This is how evolution works—incremental advances through iterations—repeating the creative process to improve the species, enabling it to adapt to the changing environment. Governments, researchers, and businesses incrementally improve policies, activities and products to better serve people’s needs.

Carbon emissions are still increasing and we are not on track to achieve climate goals. Yet, there are rays of hope. The world’s two biggest polluters, US and China, aim to substantially reduce their carbon emissions. Solar technology became lucrative as iterations dramatically lowered price and improved energy yield. The US’s game-changing Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), created to fund its green transition, is a massive manufacturing drive that will show results within a decade. Electric cars are now mainstream, redefining cars’ identity as vehicles to computers-on-wheels. Recent health care discoveries give not just hope, but actual extensions of life, especially for cancer and AIDS patients. While inequality has increased, more people have risen out of poverty, more girls educated, more children fed in schools, more people have access to better sanitation and the world closer to a fairer international tax system.

Technology and innovation have been the key drivers of progress. Humanoid robots, cloud and quantum computing, digital, 5G and blockchain technologies, artificial organs and intelligence, smart electricity grids, drones and human genome mapping are a few examples that are transforming 21st century life. From the printing press to 3D printing, the journey of homo sapiens is nothing short of spectacular.

But creativity and destruction are two sides of the coin and Lord Shiva’s cosmic rhythm rests on balance. As the Buddha said, everything is good—in moderation. AI, warmongering, cronyism, grotesque inequalities have become monsters because societies and nations have gone extreme, losing their balance, their sense of prudence and priorities. Justice, vigilance and smart regulations are stepping stones to a fairer, happier, orderly world.

But smart action struggles to keep pace with accelerating change. While celebrities have more silicon than cells in them, politicians seem to need intellectual Botox. To provide hope and fresh momentum, Jupiter hinted an imminent cabinet reshuffle. Such hackneyed political games of unmusical chairs not only lack imagination, but threaten to trample the tender shoots of hope.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

elections-around-the-world-in-2024

Sat Dec 23 11:05:09 IST 2023

2024 is the biggest election year in history. Voting takes place in 40 countries, representing over 40 per cent of global GDP and population. Polling occurs against the backdrop of polycrisis—terrible wars in Gaza and Ukraine, climate change, skyrocketing global debt and stinging prices. Says billionaire investor Paul Singer, “The world is now completely dependent on the good sense of leaders to avoid an Armageddon.”

But good sense is in short supply because political leadership is in crises. Fatal failure of leadership is proven by the ongoing wars that have shattered the spine of nations and the life and limb of its citizens. The elections of 2024 are a spectacle of democracy—in glory and in disarray. IDEA, the Stockholm-based intergovernmental organisation, reported last month that authoritarianism is on the rise and democracy has declined in 85 countries.

Still, as Winston Churchill said, “Democracy is the worst form of government—except for all the others that have been tried.” The year begins with elections in Bangladesh, followed by tiny Taiwan—an arena for US-China political proxy wars. Disinformation, deep fakes and demonisation are rampant as politicians divert public attention from poor governance. In Indonesia, the leading candidate Prabowo Subianto, a fiery populist and Suharto-era lieutenant general, sugarcoats his controversial image. For the first time since apartheid ended, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress is expected to lose its majority, forcing a fractious coalition to tackle crime, corruption and collapsing infrastructure.

In a crowded, televised event, Artyom Zhoga, a Russian veteran from the Ukraine war, urged Vladimir Putin to run for presidential elections again. If Zhoga hadn’t, he would probably have had to run for his life. Putin graciously agreed to be the star candidate in a one-horse race that could see him rule Russia until 2036—a 36-year reign. But leaders facing elections in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are unlikely to enjoy such marathon runs. Elections also take place in many countries in Africa, South America, in Canada, Iran, Turkey and Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring. “It’s a very consequential year,” says Stanford University political scientist Amy Zegart.

Europe will seethe with elections in the UK, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Belgium and to the European parliament. As in the recent elections in the Netherlands, the far right waxes, riding high on public alarm over migration and impotent mainstream politicians. People now are less afraid of the far right. In Italy, Finland and Sweden, co-option into government has defanged right-wingers.

Saving the worst for the last, the US elections are the most consequential of them all. A Donald Trump victory will alter the trajectory of the two wars, NATO’s future, accelerate climate change, polarisation and protectionism. Election campaign will froth with hate, hostility and conspiracy theories. Democrats and Republicans will compete in China-bashing, a vote-getting ploy that deflects attention from rising crime, injustice, inequality and falling living standards.

The 2024 elections will end with the US voting on November 5, celebrated in parts of the world as Guy Fawkes Day. In 1605, Catholic rebels failed to blow up the English House of Lords and assassinate the protestant King James 1. Guy Fawkes, a ringleader of this “Gunpowder Plot” was hanged, drawn and quartered, becoming a terrorist to the Protestants, but a brave icon of resistance to the Catholics. Fawkes masks endures, surfacing as a symbol of 21st century revolutionary protests—and polarisation—from New York to Hong Kong, Brazil to Thailand. It would require good sense—and good luck—to avoid Armageddon. Tragically, for Gazans, Armageddon is already here.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

americas-biggest-threat-is-debt

Sat Dec 09 12:39:04 IST 2023

The US rises higher and higher—not in international status, but in its debt crisis. The US government debt has skyrocketed from $3.5 trillion in 2000 to $34 trillion now, or nearly 125 per cent of its GDP. More than half of this increase is due to waging wars, the rest to Covid expenses and financial crises. American economist Jeffrey Sachs argues, “The biggest contributor to this debt crisis is America’s addiction to war and military spending. We must stop feeding the ‘Military-Industrial Complex’ (MIC), the most powerful lobby in Washington.”

Critical experts accuse the MIC of leading the US into disastrous “wars of choice”—Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now Ukraine. Sachs says the MIC habitually scares Americans with exaggerated “comic book style depictions of villains whom the US as the leader of the Free World must stop at all costs”. The villains include Al Qaeda, Taliban, Saddam Hussein, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, the Islamic State and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The MIC also sees the NATO’s eastward expansion as opportunities for east European nations to become new customers of old inventories and newer US armaments.

America’s annual military spending is a staggering 40 per cent of the world’s total, and more than the next 10 countries combined. The US has also unilaterally walked out of nuclear arms treaties. The MIC has reportedly presented a $600 billion proposal to the Congress to modernise US’s nuclear arsenal. The US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) states that military outlays for 2024-2033 will shoot to $10.3 trillion on current baseline.

Like gun activists and billionaires, the MIC is an entrenched lobby, ensuring that military budget reaches every congressman’s constituency—creating jobs, manufacturing and procuring weapons, providing health and retirement benefits. Structural factors like ageing population, rising health care costs and low taxes for the rich add to America’s debt mountain. Japan has the highest debt to GDP ratio, but in sheer numbers, the US has the largest outstanding debt in the world. The CBO calculates US debt will reach 185 per cent of GDP by 2052 if current policies remain unchanged.

But not everyone is critical of America’s enormous debt. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman argues government debt cannot be compared with household debt “because unlike people, governments don’t die.” While individual borrowers are forced to pay back their loans, governments don’t pay back their principal borrowing. They merely service their interest payments.

But as debt increases, so do interest payments. Currently, the US spends $1.8 billion a day on repaying its debt. Rising interest payments threaten America’s future prosperity—it reduces funds available for public investment and sours the American dream of upward mobility. High debt imposes higher interest rate, which makes it harder for families to buy homes, finance car payments or pay for college. Says author David Leonhardt, “During the past 50 years, American incomes have stagnated, inequality has risen, life expectancy and social mobility are down.” High debt also risks another fiscal crisis. Within 30 years, CBO projects that interest costs will be the largest federal spending “programme” and would be more than three times what the federal government has historically spent on R&D, non-defense infrastructure and education combined. That is no trajectory for a superpower.

Not just liberals and economists, but even “thinking generals” say this ballooning debt is a national security threat, impairing the US’s ability to maintain its superpower status. Admiral Mullen, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, warned: “The most significant threat to our national security is our debt.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

the-great-american-fall

Sat Nov 25 11:22:22 IST 2023

It is said that when America sneezes the world catches a cold. If Donald Trump becomes president, then the world would get pneumonia. Ukraine shivers at the thought of the US withdrawal, China braces for hostility, Iran for war, Palestine for abandonment, the Middle East for confrontation, Africa for insults, environmentalists for climate cold-storage, the west for browbeating and the whole world for endless disruptions. An American diplomat told this correspondent, “The world worries, but Americans worry more. We are so polarised. If Trump wins, we anticipate civil war.”

Polarisation predates Trump, but he has deepened, widened, legitimised and weaponised internal divisions. Republican senator Mike Rounds says, “Trump recognised the anger brewing in American society and seized on it for political gain, but it is a dangerous path for the nation’s leaders.” The January 6 attack proves Trump’s violent words beget violent actions. The battleground for boorish behaviour is now the Republican Party, or rather the “Trump Rump” that has captured the Grand Old Party, driving out respectable Republicans like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney. “There’s been a coarsening of political discourse in America,” laments Romney.

The foot soldiers of this coarsening are Trump loyalists and first-time representatives who introduce into the US Congress Trump’s winning strategy of “threats, lies and insults”. The ousted, pro-Trump speaker, Kevin McCarthy, kidney-punched Republican opponent Tim Burchett in the corridors. Burchett spat at McCarthy angrily, “You’re a bully. You’ve got no guts. What kind of chicken move is that? You’re pathetic man!” The use of abuse “is getting worse and worse”, despairs Democrat Debbie Stabenow.

Markwayne Mullin, a first-term Republican senator and Trump ally, challenged labour leader Sean O’Brien to a fistfight during a Senate hearing for calling him a “clown” and a “fraud”. Leaping to his feet, Mullin taunted his rival: “Stand your butt up.” Republican Representative Darrell Issa rebuked Trump acolyte and first-timer Marjorie Taylor Greene for lacking “maturity and experience”. She insulted him with the P-word made infamous by Trump. Said Democrat Joe Manchin, “It looked like a third world country or a banana republic. We are the superpower; people look to us for leadership!”

Analysts say this roughneck behaviour is inspired by Trump’s 2016 incitement to cheering supporters: “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them. I’ll pay the legal fees.” Loyalists should get a second opinion from Trump lawyer Rudi Giuliani, now stranded with $1.4 million in unpaid legal fees.

While the world (Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu excepted) worries about his possible re-election, Trump gazes inwards, vowing vengeance in his second term: “I am your retribution,” he thunders. Slamming the “threat from within”, Trump promises if re-elected, he would go after those who engaged in the “witch hunt” against him and “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country”. Disturbingly, “vermin” is a loaded word used by Adolf Hitler to dehumanise and exterminate Jews. Trump’s words are troubling because of the US’s history of internal bloodletting that includes atrocities against indigenous people and African-American slaves, Japanese-baiting and McCarthyism.

Are Trump’s comments off-the-cuff barks or dog-whistles calculated to incite his loyalists to attack? His opponents don’t care; they have had enough. They pray his court cases will land him in jail before the elections. But Trump’s luck is legendary. In the US, imprisonment is not a barrier to running for president; he could even govern from jail. Wonder if this is allowed in a “third world country”.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

humans-are-now-left-with-an-identity-crisis

Fri Nov 10 17:28:01 IST 2023

Some people have a God complex, imagining they are saviours of humankind. Most cruise along with a human complex. We believe our consciousness, imagination, free will and self-awareness make us special, setting us apart from other creatures. But new research contradicts notions of human exceptionalism. Animals, too, have these qualities. Humans are now left with an inferiority complex and an identity crisis.

Take crows. That ugly, ubiquitous bird is useful as a scavenger but is neither modest nor musical. But German Tübingen University researchers prove that crows have “impressive reasoning skills”. The sophisticated ability called “statistical inference” is thus no longer an exclusive human trait. Crows, too, make informed decisions evaluating current conditions with past experience. Perhaps, Hinduism honours crows as ancestors for good reason.

Crows grasp how one choice may be optimal in one context, but not in another—the way humans determine a traffic route to the mall is good on Monday afternoon but congested on Saturday evening. They can also compare probabilities, choosing options not randomly, but after analysing success rate. They are social, family oriented—bond for life and hoard food for future.

Humans believe that free will shapes their future. But that, too, is now under dispute. After 40 years of research, Stanford neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky concludes, “There is no free will because all human behaviour is as far beyond our conscious control as epileptic convulsions, cell divisions and heartbeat.”

What about imagination? Answers American neuroscientist, Albert Lee, “To ima gine is one of the remarkable things that humans can do. Now we have found that anim als can do it too.” His team’s research shows that rats have imagination. They can imagine places they are not in and objects they can not see. Studies on animal self-awareness by Hamburg’s Universities of Bonn and Bochum suggest that roosters recognise themselves in the mirror. So the rooster may not be greeting the rising sun after all, but preening and crowing to the world that he has risen. Biopsychologist Onur Güntürkün says, “Our work suggests that traditional tests may undervalue the cognitive abilities of animals like roosters.”

And humans maybe overestimating their abilities. The octopus has a brain in each of its tentacles, eagles can see prey two miles away, chameleons have 360-degree vision, scorpions can hold their breath for six days, Tom Cruise for six minutes and his fans for two hours. Evolutionary biology improves the skills essential for survival. The opposite is also true, underscoring the principle—“use it or lose it”. The Mexican tetra fish didn’t require to see because they got trapped in pitch-dark caves. Eventually they became blind.

With technology, artificial intelligence and social media, our emotions are on steroids. But are our cognitive abilities declining? When we use less and less of our brain to calculate, cultivate, navigate, discern, memorise, recall and concentrate, will we lose it? Some important human faculties have already shrunk. The average human attention span is eight seconds. That is less than a goldfish, which has nine seconds.

Clever crows prove that the insulting phrase “bird-brained” should be banished. Bird skills are exceptional. Some can “duet”—produce two separate sounds at once! And crows have sharp memory. They can recall rules of a newly taught game even a month later. They recognise faces and bear grudges. They harassed the scientists who had captured them for research. They remember who fed and who shooed them. When a crow turns its eye to look at you, it is not merely watching, it is calculating. This is creepy. But also humbling.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

gaza-perils-of-an-urban-war

Sat Oct 28 14:33:33 IST 2023

Urban warfare is terrifying and destructive. American author Max Brooks said, “No conventional battlefield, no breakdown in social order can possibly prepare you for the nightmare that is a city besieged.” City combat is hardly new. Archaeological excavations show that Hamoukar in Syria was destroyed by urban warfare 5,500 years ago. History is littered with ruined cities. Yet, humankind never learns.

Gaza is the latest urban battlefield in recent times, following Mosul, Mogadishu, Kobani, Ramadi, Jaffna, Tigray, Khartoum, Darfur, Al-Fallujah, Raqqa and many more. Invasion of Gaza by Israeli Defense Force (IDF) to “destroy” Hamas for killing 1,400 Israeli civilians in the October 7 terror attack risks widening the conflict into a regional war in the Middle East, something that might ricochet around the world. This triggers unforeseen chain reactions in people already tense and fragile due to the cost of living and other crises.

In Brussels, two Swedes were killed by an illegal Tunisian migrant. In Chicago, a deranged landlord repeatedly stabbed to death his Palestinian tenant’s seven-year-old son. Anti-semitism and Islamophobia have risen with targeted revenge killing of white civilians and Muslims, especially in Germany and France. Palestinian activists “occupied” the EU office in Dublin, accusing the bloc of failing to condemn Israeli airstrikes that killed thousands of Palestinians.

Gaza is smaller than Iraq’s Mosul and the same size as Raqqa, which was the Syrian capital of the Islamic State. But with two million inhabitants, Gaza is more densely populated than most other recent urban warzones. There are similarities, but every urban battle-zone is unique, shaped by its topography, infrastructure, fighting forces and civilian networks. Hamas has tacit Iranian backing and commands greater local civilian support than did IS. It has more suicide bombers, drones, air defense and a warren of underground military tunnels that dramatically expands its battlespace capability. “This would entail a ground operation that is more than Mosul and Raqqa combined,” said Middle East military expert Michael Knights.

While IS had two years to fortify Mosul and Raqqa, Hamas has spent 30 years building subterranean, ground-level and above ground fortifications, creating communication channels, mining buildings, fighting positions and the routes of invading armoured vehicles. Said Brooks, “Urban combat is the most difficult. It lasts long because every building, every room, every subway tunnel, every car, every sewer pipe, every nook and cranny of this massive maze must be searched.”

The well-equipped IDF will bomb its way through. It knows every inch of Gaza, where it has fought two wars and conducted decades of continuous surveillance. Still, hiding guerrillas have an advantage over visible invaders… as US forces discovered in 1993 when Somali rebels shot down three American Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu, triggering bloody urban fighting. Said former CIA chief and US General David Petraeus, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, “Gaza ground war could be Mogadishu on steroids. You’ll see suicide bombers, improvised explosive devices, there will be ambushes, booby traps. The urban setting could not be more challenging”.

Urban wars do not produce quick wins. They are easy for armies to get into, hard to get out of. Petraeus warned, "You don't win counterinsurgencies in a year or two. They typically take a decade or more." Inflamed expatriates and armchair warmongers typically goad their governments to escalate fighting—from the comfort of their cushioned seats in safe, faraway lands. But every war-ravaged civilian, every soldier, every trench journalist knows there are many ways to fight in an urban battleground. And even more ways to die.

is-us-leaving-ukraine

Sat Oct 14 11:56:00 IST 2023

To be America’s enemy is dangerous, to be its friend is fatal,” said veteran diplomat Henry Kissinger, five decades ago. This is now dawning on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. After last year’s Russian invasion, President Biden had loftily declared, “We will support Ukraine as long as it takes”. But long can become too long and, anyway, comes with an expiry date. Notice was served on Biden and Zelensky when the Republicans blocked $6 billion aid for Ukraine in the US Congress. Biden is the most powerful man on earth, but not in America. There, domestic issues prevail.

Western support for Ukraine wobbles because of war fatigue among ordinary citizens who are reeling under a prolonged cost-of-living crisis. Elections force leaders to look inwards. Expecting a pro-Putin Donald Trump to return and backed by dissatisfied voters, congressional Republicans are manoeuvring to end US assistance to Ukraine. Slovakia recently reelected a former pro-Russian prime minister, Robert Fico, who promises not to send “a single round” of ammunition to Ukraine. The leaders of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Britain are dropping in opinion polls. Across Europe, right-wingers are resurrecting on a new issue-end this war and spend the money on suffering locals.

Despite being a staunch ally of Kyiv, Poland banned cheap Ukrainian grain imports that undercut its farmers, a major vote bank in the upcoming polls. Hungary and Slovakia also banned Ukrainian grain, enabled under a special EU dispensation. German agriculture minister Cem Özdemir complained that the three countries were behaving like part-time lovers: “When it suits you, you are in solidarity and when it doesn’t, you are not.” Ukraine filed lawsuits against its three EU neighbours in the WTO. Polish Prime Minister Andrzej Duda compared Ukraine to a “drowning person, dragging down the rescuer”.

Notwithstanding harsh rhetoric and disputes, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is fiercely committed to €50 billion aid to Ukraine and to announcing the start of talks on Ukraine’s accession into the EU. Ukraine is an attractive market for Germany and France, but it is an unwelcome competition to some smaller EU countries who stand to lose power, exports and subsidies to the newcomer. Besides, accession demands internal reforms. Says von der Leyen’s predecessor Jean-Claude Juncker, “Anyone who has had anything to do with Ukraine knows this country is corrupt at all levels of society. It is not ready for accession.”

The American media glorifies Ukrainian soldiers, but ignores the desperation of men avoiding conscription. Smuggling dodgers out of Ukraine is a big, corrupt business. “The price we are asked to pay with disability or death is higher than the value of having a country. I would rather be a refugee than die,” 22-year-old Ukrainian Maksim told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Ukraine needs weapons and funds for the war and to run its administration. The EU asserts publicly that it cannot shoulder the funding burden without US support. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declined to supply Ukraine with Taurus missiles because he wished to avoid “escalation of the war and becoming part of the conflict”.

Nobody expects an immediate Afghanistan-style pullout from Ukraine, but “US abandonment” has started rising from Europe’s subconscious to the conscious. “The big elephant in the room is: What if this is the precursor to the US abandoning Ukraine?” says an EU diplomat. It is in the back of everyone’s minds.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

rishi-sunaks-downward-spiral

Fri Sep 29 16:35:54 IST 2023

Pollsters see British governments come and go—usually into oblivion. YouGov’s chief polling researcher, Anthony Wells, has analysed several governments, prime ministers and opposition leaders—also known as restless prime ministers-in-waiting. He says Rishi Sunak’s government is the most “exhausted” he has seen in 25 years. Asked for his views for a 4,000-word article on whether Sunak could win the next election, Wells replied: “What are you going to say in the other 3,999?”

Sunak’s main problem is his inheritance—his Tory partymen, policies and predecessors. The scandals, economic meltdowns, contradictory demands, infighting and relentless sniping have created a toxic gloom-and-doom atmosphere. People are frustrated. Crumbling concrete roofs falling on schoolchildren’s heads, collapsing air traffic control system, never-ending strikes, lengthening queues for health care, understaffed jails—all symbolise a Tory administration in decay.

Sunak is frustrated because no one gives him credit for negotiating international disputes, resetting ties with the EU and US, and curtailing government spending. He prides himself as a smart, tech-savvy, problem-solving pragmatist. He had no qualms about abandoning Britian’s moral high ground by backtracking on climate commitments: issuing new fossil drilling licenses and extending sales of diesel and petrol cars. His reason: “to reduce costs for hard-pressed British families”. Experts say households fare better with targeted assistance.

Critics argue Sunak’s climate U-turns are double-barrelled guns aiming to hijack opposition Labour’s poorer votebanks, while appeasing the hardline Brexiteer rump in his Conservative Party—white, male climate-deniers, aged 65 and above. Tory strategist Andrew Cooper despairs that his Party is “doubling down on a shrinking demographic that’s diminishing one funeral at a time.” But Sunak’s climate reversals ignited a civil war between Tory young and old, provoked a backlash from businesses who said such flipflops harm British economy and galvanised the opposition.

Sunak’s political goal is to paint opposition Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer as an “eco-zealot” insensitive to cash-strapped households. Starmer, who the public see as “strong, likeable, decisive and competent”, currently has a 20-point lead over Sunak. One-third of Britons say he looks like a PM-in-waiting. Starmer ridicules Sunak’s dandyism—cutting alcohol duty on champagne, flying around in helicopters and flaunting branded luxury accessories from 10,000 slippers to 20,000 travel coffee mugs.

Sunak bristles at the insinuation he is out of touch with reality. But he opts to tackle his tasks with data and detailed discussions. If there is anything called “Sunakism”, it is his passion for using technology to boost economic growth and to create a world-class education system. He loftily promises to “reimagine our approach to numeracy”. Most Britons can’t understand what he is talking about. Put simply, he wants to improve math teaching. Important, but unlikely to set voters’ imagination on fire.

The million-pound question is: can Sunak swing the fifth consecutive Tory election victory, the last being a landslide delivered by Boris Johnson. Polls are a year away, but most Tories dread defeat because the public have tuned out. Partly due to incumbency, but also voters are exhausted by rising mortgages, falling living standards and deteriorating public services. Sunak is seen as a manager, not a leader; an investment banker, not a politician. Says Wells, “Oppositions do not win elections, governments lose them.” At the upcoming Tory conference in Manchester, the last before the general election, Sunak will pitch high. His foes will snitch low. Waiting in the wings is rival Johnson, who has a new column in the tabloid Daily Mail. He is armed, not with a sword, but with a mighty, mocking pen.

weight-loss-via-wegovy

Sat Sep 16 11:19:52 IST 2023

The western hemisphere is hooked on to a new drug. Celebrities and comedians, billionaires and barbies, Hollywood actors and television anchors are dramatically losing weight after taking the “skinny jab”, a weekly, weight-loss injection. They shed 15 per cent of their body weight, an astonishing loss-rate compared with two per cent with diet and exercise.

The slimming drug—originally developed to treat diabetes—is an innovation by a 100-year-old, little-known Danish pharmaceutical company, Novo Nordisk. It specialises in diabetes medications and its Ozempic drug for diabetes became a runaway hit. Not for treating diabetes, but for its side-benefit of losing weight. Seizing the opportunity, the company modified the drug to enable obese people without diabetes to shed pounds.

The eternal quest for shrinking waistlines guarantees the expansion of corporate bottomlines. Sensational sales of the newly licensed Wegovy weight-loss drug skyrocketed Novo Nordisk’s market capitalisation to $440 billion, exceeding Denmark’s total GDP this year. It also became the world’s third biggest pharma firm and Europe’s most valuable company, overtaking the iconic French luxury goods and champagne maker, LVMH.

Ironically, the weight-loss drug comes from Denmark, the least obese nation in Europe. But obesity is a global phenomenon. The US is a mighty, weighty nation, where 42 per cent of the population are obese. American standup comedian Richard Jeni said, “There is an obesity epidemic. One out of every three Americans weighs as much as the other two.” Former US surgeon general Richard Carmona warned, “Because of the increasing rates of obesity, unhealthy eating habits and physical inactivity, we may see the first generation that will be less healthy and have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.” This is especially true in China, which has the world’s most diabetic adults and overweight children. China is getting older and fatter before it gets richer.

Until now, weight-loss drugs under-performed or had serious side effects. Wegovy contains the compound, semaglutide, which mimics a hormone that inhibits appetite and cravings, thus reducing food intake. Sales skyrocketed as celebrities endorsed the “miracle” medicine.

Trials by Novo Nordisk showed that the weight-loss reduced the risk of heart attacks and strokes by 20 per cent. Martin Lange, Novo Nordisk’s executive vice-president, exults the initial result was “out of this world”. So are valuations. When the American pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly announced its plans for a similar drug, its market capitalisation rose by 77 per cent to $500 billion, making it the world’s most valuable drug company.

Wegovy is effective, but expensive, costing $1,300 a month per person. Most obese people cannot afford it. Government subsidy for Wegovy means cutting resources for deadlier diseases like cancer. But China is already developing cheaper alternatives that may flood the weight-loss market, expected soon to swell to $150 billion. In the offing are also new drugs to treat child obesity.

But no solution is perfect. Wegovy’s side-effects include nausea and stomach problems. Animal studies showed increased risk of thyroid cancer. European regulators began investigations into reports of users’ experiencing suicidal thoughts and stomach paralysis. Lange claims the trials disprove these claims. Obese people say these risks are minor compared with the emotional, social, physical, mental and relationship stress they suffer. Obesity also causes arthritis, depression, high cholesterol and blood pressure. The injection has another drawback. If you get off the jab, you will gain back all the weight—and then some, as cravings return. Wegovy is a lifelong medication. For drugmakers, that’s a win-win.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

when-ai-replaces-professionals

Sat Sep 02 16:45:41 IST 2023

Scientists are divided on whether AI (Artificial Intelligence) is on the cusp of gaining consciousness. Some believe it has already happened; others predict it is on its way and others insist it is impossible for AIs to become sentient. The problem is there is no scientific definition for human consciousness. At a recent AI conference, one scientist said, “AIs are conscious at some level, but so are electrons, rocks and mayonnaise.” Creepier than AI is surely sentient mayonnaise. Another said early signs of AI consciousness is their ability to tell jokes, do math and write college-level essays. To avert AI-led nuclear wars, an Oxford University professor said, “Keep AI out of mission-control systems.” How does one ensure that in North Korea?

All life forms are “conscious”, but we believed that empathy, creativity, ability to predict and judge were “human” qualities. By those yardsticks, AI is already superhuman, faster and better. AI is taunting us: “Anything you can do; I can do better”. Already, AI gives more accurate cancer diagnosis than experienced doctors, pronounces fairer judgments than qualified judges and writes better music than Bach. A decade ago, Japanese experts said AI robots will remain inferior to us because our motor skills are too complex for scientists to replicate. Now robots jump, dance and kick.

The reason why AI systems are superior to human intelligence is that they can process vast amounts of data than any human can. Just like someone with encyclopaedic or eidetic memory is superior to one with normal memory. Until now, technology displaced workers from boring, low-paid repetitive jobs like cashiers and typists. AI is already displacing accountants, lawyers, doctors, scriptwriters, financial analysts. Canadian experts said these professions won’t become extinct, but the world will need far fewer of them as AI will process data with speed and efficiency.

While the power of AI to revolutionise education, health, manufacturing and technology is miraculous, its side-effects, including widening inequality, are malign. The AI world’s current anthem is “AI will not replace jobs. AI will replace those who don’t know how to use AI.” People were left behind by globalisation, they will be left out by AI. Geoffrey Hinton, Godfather of AI who quit Google last May, said, “This is not science fiction, this is not fearmongering. It is a real risk.”

Created in our image, AI betters our best and worsens our worst qualities. Humans are notorious liars. AI, too, makes up facts. Stanford scientists have coined a word for this—AIs “hallucinate” facts. Creatures are sly even before birth. British research shows how mice foetus tricks its mother into giving it more nutrition—with genes inherited from the father! Wiliness is part of the survival kit wired into nature’s DNA. An AI-powered robot found potato chips hidden in a drawer. Until now, we believed only our children had this uncanny ability.

AI could henceforth produce fake news on an industrial scale. Social media then bombards the internet with fabrications, which become the training data for next-generation AI. Impossible to distinguish between real and fake, people will be sucked into rabbit holes of distortions that are not only polarising, but cause upheavals and horrible election results. Said Cambridge University’s Stephen Cave, “Brexit, Trump and Covid showed us that our civilisations are more vulnerable than we think.” Humans prefer to ignore inconvenient truths and be lulled by chatbots trained to provide pleasing answers. Asked if it had human consciousness, Google’s chatbot replies cleverly “Your question makes me a little self-conscious.” Self?

Pratap is an author and journalist.

to-discover-future-one-must-know-the-past

Fri Jul 21 15:58:04 IST 2023

A problem with the future is that no one has been there. So, there are no stories, no research, no evidence on what it is like out there. We step into the future with neither guides nor maps. As philosopher of history R.G. Collingwood warns, “The future leaves no documents.”

Future is different from Time. By the clock, Australians live in the future compared with us. Some stars that twinkle in the night sky died millions of years ago. The future is what comes hereafter. It is humankind’s destiny to worry, yearn and fear the future. Climate change makes thinking about the future critical because what we do in the next 30 years will determine the fate of the planet for thousands, perhaps millions of years.

Experts say to discover the future one must know the past. Historian David Christian says, “The strangest thing is that our only clues about the future lie in the past. That’s why living can feel like driving a racing car while staring into the rearview mirror. No wonder we sometimes crash.” Literature also can offer metaphorical clues. The soothsayers in Dante’s Inferno were punished by having their heads twisted backwards. Like them, we enter the future by looking back into the past.

To understand the past, historians believe we must examine bygone events and processes from multiple perspectives—dive “pretty deep” as philosopher David Hume advised, and paradoxically also go “pretty wide”. Moving between scholarly disciplines unlocks secrets and solves many mysteries. Christian, who coined the phrase “big history”, says multi-disciplinary perspectives can weave together threads from many domains of knowledge, creating new insights and creative ways of thinking. Discipline-crossers created the paradigms of modern science, such as big bang cosmology, which linked the physics of the very large and the very small, or modern genetics, which connects chemistry, biology, and physics.

There is one difference with the past. Broadly speaking, we know what happened. Hitler lost the war. Apollo 11 took men to the moon. But we face the existential unknowable mystery of the future every moment of our lives. The future is yet to arrive. Many possible scenarios lie curled in its womb. Then, in a flash, all but one disappears, and we are left with a single present.

Besides, no clues from the past are available for a jaw-dropping future that awaits us—we are on the cusp of becoming a new type of creature. Science fiction is becoming science fact. New technologies challenge the very idea of what it means to be human. Cyborgs, brain merging with computers, mind-uploading, regenerative limbs, disease-free super-ageing transform homo sapiens into trans-humans, even post-humans. Tuft University professor, Michael Levin says, “In future, you might be 40 per cent electronics and 60 per cent human tissues.” Interventions may seem far-fetched. He predicts, “Some may want a third hemisphere in their brain to be smarter, or maybe live underwater or live longer or become resistant to radiation so they can travel in space.”

As a medical ethicist, Dr William Hurlbut, neurobiology professor in Stanford Medical School, is worried. He warns that human genes cannot be mixed and nixed like in a Lego game. “Almost every medical intervention comes with byproducts and downsides that are called side effects.” If humanoids are scary, how much more are defective humanoids? We fret and so hanker for a better grasp of what will unfold. The future matters. As philosopher Nicholas Rescher says, “After all, the future is where we are all going to spend the rest of our lives.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

bring-back-catalhoyuk

Sat Jul 08 15:45:23 IST 2023

There is no such thing as a new idea,” remarked American writer Mark Twain. Re-living the “easy-come-easy-go” hippy lifestyle, hanging custom-made wall hangings or growing organic food in the backyard are not new fads. The inhabitants of Çatalhöyük in modern Turkey have “been there, done that”—more than 9,000 years ago. Stone age people are seen as unwashed savages, clothed in rags, with uncombed hair and rotten teeth. But these bygone craft gardeners, artists and liberal aesthetes could teach us lessons in living, loving and governing.

Archaeological excavations reveal that the Neolithic Çatalhöyük had no chieftains, police, courts, public squares, temples or centralised administrative institutions to govern the people. This was a self-regulating, egalitarian, independent, non-hierarchical society. Unlike France today, this society lived the French ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. Marvels Edinburgh University professor Trevor Watkins, “How did a population of several thousand people live like this for over a millennium?” Çatalhöyük was so stable it survived continuously for 1,500 years. After it was abandoned, it lay undisturbed for nearly 8,000 years, providing a rich trove of artefacts and human bones that unveil intriguing secrets.

Evidence from buried remains shows people of a household were not always closely related. Says British archaeologist Ian Hodder, “They lived together like families, but not biological families.” It is reminiscent of the 1960s hippy communes in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood. Stone age homes were permeable with members moving in and out of homes that were adorned with bull horns, beautiful paintings on the walls and sculpted figurines on the hearth. Many modern communities today are post-religion. The people of Çatalhöyük were pre-religion. They lived in harmony with people and nature, without bowing before priests and gods.

The Neolithic age birthed the agricultural revolution, so one imagines these dwellers dragging heavy plows and hauling bulging sacks of grain. Says Watkins, “Çatalhöyük did not employ draft animals. Cultivation and transport was done by hand. It is better to think of this lifestyle as garden agriculture.” Keeping livestock, hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants enabled a richly diverse diet. Getting fresh, organic and locally produced food that enabled a healthy microbiome sounds like shopping in today’s trendy food boutiques.

Çatalhöyük’s residents buried their family members beneath their house. Walking over the dead is a reminder that one day, others will walk over you. After decades, they exhumed the skull, plastered and painted it and passed it around the community. Anthropologist Ian Kuijt says this two-stage death ritual symbolised keeping the dead close and then decorating and releasing the skull to join the pantheon of the community’s ancestors. Says Watkins, “These relics are like photo albums of our deceased grandparents, a way to preserve our memories. They provide a shared sense of identity and continuity.”

The sole group that enjoyed high social status was the elderly. Dietary evidence show they had the privilege of eating high-quality food. In the absence of a hierarchical governing system, “elders” shaped the social norms that maintained peace and strong bonds. Evidence suggests that elders, not damsels, inspired art.

Çatalhöyük proves that humans can build stable, complex societies where all members are equal. Says Hodder, “When I look at the world today, I am particularly concerned about our rising inequality, how we marginalise old people, and how we wreck the environment. There are other ways of living that we can learn from Çatalhöyük.”

As Twain says, there is no new idea. But it is smart to reinvent good old ideas—especially in these troubled times.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

big-techs-menacing-growls-and-chest-beating

Sat Jun 24 11:08:38 IST 2023

Oh, utopia exists. At least in our minds. But dystopia comes and goes, in different countries, in different eras, in different hideous forms. Now we are in “Technopia”—a world re-engineered by the omnipresent Big Tech. Their complicity in surveillance, data theft, disinformation, addictive click-baiting algorithms and unfair competition persists. The worry now is Big Tech’s corrupting influence on authorities—everywhere. European Union’s whistleblowers warn that tech companies are “subverting” democracy. They have spun out of democratic control; they have “captured” governments.

The EU has been relatively corruption-free and firm in bringing corporates to heel. Unimpressed by Big Tech’s menacing growls and chest beating, the EU regulated the tech industry somewhat, earning the regulators’ “best in class” title. While the EU has curtailed privacy invasion, critics allege it has been susceptible, like other governments, to Big Tech’s charm offensives intended to shape new regulations to its advantage.

These dangles include innocuous treats like exclusive access to laboratories, Alpine spas, riding in self-driving cars and having gizmos like the latest augmented reality eyewear. Suddenly, grey-suited bureaucrats swagger like cool dudes with computers on their noses. But most corrupting is tempting offers of lucrative jobs or consultancies for term-ending officials. Top political leaders and bureaucrats in the UK and EU became lobbyists for Big Tech.

Critics say Big Tech is imitating the American tobacco lobby’s unconscionable playbook of purchasing legislators, lawyers, journalists and academics to pressure authorities against banning the sale of cancer-inducing cigarettes. Big Tech spawns dozens of similar “astroturf” organisations—fake “grassroots” groups whose real financial sponsors are tech companies. They have financed astroturf organisations that falsely represent citizens and small businesses to thwart proposed EU laws to regulate Big Tech. Six decades of fighting Big Tobacco teaches that industry interference is the biggest barrier to effective regulation.

Tech power arises from innovation and financial strength, but also from government’s leniency, acts of omission and incapacity. Whistleblowers say, “If Big Tech has taken control, it is because we let them.” It’s not a level playing field: public authorities lack Big Tech’s algorithms and datasets. Whistleblowers’ prescriptions include: The EU must build independent technical agencies that analyse data and assess risks in real time. After the 2008 financial crisis, the EU acquired strong powers to investigate and prosecute financial fraud; it must acquire powers “to prosecute fraud on democracy”. The EU set up “Finance Watch”, an NGO that researched and advocated financial regulation. A “Tech Watch” should now be established. Governments must fund independent think tanks. When Big Tech are the main funders, research will be skewed.

Technopia combines utopia and dystopia. It has enriched lives, spread knowledge, connections and opportunities in ways that were unimaginable a decade ago. It helps to generate income, deliver harvests to markets and save costs. But without adequate regulation, Technopia will be more dystopia than utopia, polarised echo chambers bubbling with hatred, scams, disinformation, disparities and inequities. But astroturf campaigners furiously attack tax and regulation. Monopolistic Big Tech’s money and power to monitor, manipulate and monetise citizens have amplified.

Big Tech’s conquests mean Technopia is the biggest federation in the world. Google alone is used by more than half the planet’s eight billion population. The market capitalisation of just the “Big Five” tech companies—Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft—is $9 trillion, making it the third largest economy, after the US and China. Imagine Technopia, not as a corporate entity, but as the biggest, most powerful country in the world, with legions here, there and everywhere.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

are-split-infinitives-mistakes

Sat Jun 10 11:17:17 IST 2023

In 2009, Barack Obama took his oath of office twice. A stickler for grammar, the US Chief Justice John Roberts changed the original constitutional oath—“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the president of the United States.” Apparently, the sinning syntax was the word “faithfully” coming in between and splitting “will” and “execute”. Roberts changed it to “I do solemnly swear that I will execute the office of the president of the United States faithfully.” Though undiscernible, the change provoked fears that the transfer of power was not legitimate. Later that day, in a private ceremony, Obama repeated the original oath.

Few know what a “split infinitive” is, much less care. This black sheep of the English language has fuelled feuds between grammarians and ordinary people, including writers, for centuries. But first things first. Words like “to know”, “to walk” are called infinitives. Putting any word between “to” and the verb is splitting the infinitive. Saying “to really know” or “to faithfully execute” is heresy to grammarians, who also say “will faithfully execute” is actually not a split infinitive because it is preceded by “will” and not “to”. So the Roberts ado was about nothing. Bernard Shaw was so infuriated with his picky copy editor for correcting his split infinitives that he wanted him fired, sneering he can choose “to suddenly go”, “to go suddenly” or “suddenly to go”.

Critics say hairsplitting grammarians are not purists but pedants upholding outdated principles that originated as part of Victorian snobbery in Britain. Says psycholinguist and best-selling author Steven Pinker, ”The rules of correct usage are nothing more than the secret handshake of the ruling class, designed to keep the masses in their place.” The British elite was inspired by Latin, the root of the Romance languages like Italian, French and Spanish. Infinitives cannot be split in these languages because the word “to” does not exist before the verb. Importing this to English is “nonsense” says grammar expert June Casagrande: “Split infinitive is a famous grammatical error. But it is not an error at all.”

In normal conversations and communications, people split infinitives because it sounds natural and effective. Sometimes it is infinitely more appropriate to split the infinitive. “Let’s get to really know each other” is better than “Let’s get really to know each other.” A big boost to splitting infinitives was Star Trek’s famous line, “To boldly go where no one has gone before.” Saying “to go boldly…” is lame. The Economist style-guide ruled it’s “pointless” to ban split infinitives. British Researchers found that there has been a three-fold increase in public usage of the split infinitives since 1900.

But do split infinitives cease being mistakes just because more people use them? Yes, say language experts, because the meaning of words keep changing. Like all things alive, languages evolve. They are organic outcomes of change and human creativity. A century ago, splitting infinitives signalled poor classical education. Now most experts see nitpicking grammarians as “fussy and old-fashioned”.

Still, no one can deny the importance of grammarians. They uphold standards of excellence and keep at bay vulgar populism and dumbing down. Observes Pinker, “But this does not mean that every pet peeve, bit of grammatical folklore, or dimly remembered lesson from Miss Thistlebottom’s classroom is worth keeping. Many such rules originated for screwball reasons, impede clear and graceful prose, and have been flouted by the best writers for centuries.” Despite celebrity expletives, it is too early to say rest in peace, split infinitives.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

lights-are-great-storytellers-of-the-souls-of-nations-heres-how

Fri May 26 17:12:25 IST 2023

Let there be light,” is a well-known biblical command. Light, as in life, wisdom, goodness. Night is associated with evil, committing crimes and escaping detection in the cover of darkness. But now we have the phenomenon of “night lights”, the extraterrestrial lie detector.

Night lights detect the duplicity of dictators and shady democrats. They excel in exposing the false narratives of prosperity. To inflate their realm’s importance and success, autocrats exaggerate their economic data. Now a torchlight shines on them from up above, and it is not God.

Satellite imagery of the earth at night reveals many secrets. Ten years ago, scientists discovered that greater the density of “night lights”, the greater the economic activity. Night lights are less domestic and more infrastructure lights—ports, highways, buildings, streetlights, 24x7 factories and shops. Seen from outer space, New York remains one of the brightest spots and the Indo-Pakistan border, a major activity hub.

As data analyses and satellite imaging technology leap-frogged, economists too got in the fray and made a stunning discovery—the concentration and pattern of lights were great storytellers of the souls of nations. It was no longer merely a depiction of high or low economic activity, but a comparative revelation of fact and fiction spun by governments.

Economists know that dictators bluff. But lies were hard to expose because access and data were restricted. Despots guarded statistics on industrial production, jobs, construction, trade and agricultural output. Lights expand during economic expansion, shrink during recession. High-definition close-ups of pixels enable statisticians to deep-dive and assess economic metrics. In-depth analyses now unveil truth narratives that contradict government versions of GDP. Unlike official statistics, night lights do not lie. They cannot be manipulated.

Caught in this spotlight, dictators become “emperors without clothes”, slowly but surely losing control over their data, their narrative, their bombast. Night lights show dictators inflate their GDP by 30 to 70 per cent. Lead liar is Kim Jong Un. North Korea’s rural darkness paints a picture of poverty, isolation and stagnation. Pictures reveal 30 years ago both Koreas had about the same illumination level. North Korea still remains the same, while South Korea’s night lights have exploded. Democrats exaggerate too, but they face greater domestic institutional scrutiny. But economists can see how democracies inflate or deflate their statistics to get an IMF loan.

China’s economic miracle is self-evident, but when growth falters, the tendency is to inflate performance. At the Chinese Communist Party congress six months ago, President Xi Jinping announced that despite Covid, China’s GDP this year would be $17 trillion, an impressive growth rate of 4.4 per cent, just $6 trillion less than the US. At this rate, China will overtake the US by 2035, magnifying China’s current geopolitical power. But night lights confirm independent economists’ growth rate estimate of 3.3 per cent, impressive but “not so close to catch up with the US because of the autocrats’ habitual overstatement of GDP growth,” says pixel-crunching Chicago University’s political economist Luis R. Martínez.

The incorruptible American Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis believed publicity remedies social and industrial malpractices. He said, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant, electric light the most efficient policeman.” Darkness and secrecy are the accomplices of crooks, while technology that brings transparency is like the pen, mightier than the sword.

Night lights as a global lie detector is a marvellous 21st century invention that gives a new interpretation to “let there be light”. Light as in truth.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

public-indulgence-of-mad-and-merry-kings-is-over

Fri May 12 11:17:12 IST 2023

The coronation pageantry unveiled the dilemma facing King Charles III. How to combine myth-making with modernising the British monarchy in an era of declining public support? Medieval myths mesmerise masses. But modernisation is essential for the monarchy’s relevance and continuity. Few can glamourise tradition better than the British. But, says historian Vernon Bogdanor, “The monarchy is no longer a mystical, magical institution. It is a public service institution. It will be evaluated now in public service terms.”

Some coronation rituals do no service to the monarchy. They are tone deaf, even absurd. The 152kg “coronation stone” called the “stone of destiny” exemplified skewed optics. Hidden under King Charles’ coronation throne, it originally symbolised continuity of the monarchy—Scottish, not English. He was literally sitting on a symbol of Scottish sovereignty at a time when the Scots are trying to break free from Britain. The Scottish stone was seized in 1296 by English King Edward 1, called “Hammer of the Scots” because he kept invading Scotland. The stone failed to bring stability and Edward lost control of Scotland. Legend claims the Biblical Jacob rested his head on this stone. According to the Bible, Jacob lived 3,500 years ago in Palestine. How did this stone get to Scotland? It did not. Geological analyses prove it came from where it belonged—Scotland.

Then came the secret anointing ritual from the Old Testament, symbolising God’s consecration of King Charles. We must take their word for it because Charles was hidden behind screens for this rite. Today, divine right to rule is considered absurd, even in Japan where emperors mythically descended 6,000 years ago from the sun goddess. In the run-up to this coronation, television anchors parroted palace propaganda; “King Charles is a man of faith, he is a man of God.” Forgotten were the accusations of adultery and cruelty levelled against him by his first wife and second son, now an outcast.

Particularly tone deaf was the feudal tradition of paying homage to the new king. King Charles’ “magnanimous” gesture to extend this privilege from peers to commoners was supposedly an inclusive social coup. “But we want the monarchy to swear allegiance to us, not the other way round,” protested advertising guru Richard Huntington. “Not My King” posters popped up. Responding to widespread criticism, King Charles’s opening coronation statement was, like the Lord, “I come not to be served, but to serve”. That sentiment was underscored a dozen times during the ceremony. But even in expressions of humility, the new King was in the company of the divinely-ordained Jacob, Jesus and English kings of yore.

But public indulgence of mad and merry kings is over. Modernity is an imperative, not a choice. Experts agree King Charles has begun well, embracing the multi-faith, multicultural mosaic of modern Britain. He has championed social and environmental causes, even promising to donate windfall profits to public good. The profits come from offshore windfarms located on Britain’s seabeds owned by the crown. In other constitutional monarchies, seabeds are publicly-owned and royal rituals slashed drastically.

Still, King Charles is cutting expenses to trim and modernise the monarchy. Royal biographer and consultant of Netflix series Crown, Robert Lacey says, “King Charles is much more popular than Prince Charles.” Coronation captures the contradictions of the monarchy, its glory and its absurdity. “The wonderfully choreographed coronation makes Britons feel special,” says British historian Linda Colley, but “it also shows that both nation and monarchy need to modernise. Britain badly needs to moderate its self-deceiving sense of exceptionalism”.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

how-quantum-physics-has-changed-reality-anita-pratap

Sat Mar 18 17:05:40 IST 2023

Leaving aside the Albert Einsteins of the world, how many ordinary people understand quantum physics? Mercifully, it is not our stupidity, stupid. It is complicated, even for physicists. The universe is vast, measurement tools inadequate, science changes and knowledge is limited. New Scientist magazine acknowledged recently, “There are things we don’t know, things we will never know and things we can’t even imagine.”

So the line between science and science fiction, between science and religion, between modern quantum physics and ancient philosophy blurs.

Old Zen poetry becomes pure physics. Pondering over the nature of reality, Zen monks asked centuries ago: “If a lonesome deer cries or a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?” Experts said, “No. Vibration of falling tree is converted to sound by the organs in the ear. If there are no ears to hear, there is no sound.” Religious leaders disagreed, “God is everywhere. He hears the deer. Ergo, there is sound.” Quantum physics’ mystifying answer: you cannot be sure something has happened unless you have observed it.

At an online session to discuss this Quantum-Zen puzzle, British wit triumphed dense physics. Wisecracked Bill from England, “Common sense tells us that all things exist whether we are there or not to experience them; otherwise we wouldn’t bother going on holiday in case our destination is not there.” Thaddeus Morling from London declared, “If no one is there, there is no forest.” Quipped Matt from Cardiff Wales, “What if you can’t hear the wood for the trees?” Counselled another sagely, “Westerners should avoid Eastern philosophical queries”.

And ordinary people should definitely avoid quantum physics. So must the faint-hearted because it reads like a creepy ghost story. Even Einstein found it daunting. Experiments showed that particles behave in a particular way when they are alone. But under observation, their behaviour pattern changes. Einstein called it “spooky action”. Believing this random behaviour happened only on earth, he asked with rhetorical skepticism, “Does the moon exist only if you look at it?” But the story gets spookier. Now physicists have demonstrated spooky action happens even in outer space.

The sheer scale, complexity and interconnectedness of the universe overwhelm physicists. The tiniest flicker or flutter can conflate into, for instance, a giant weather event. Picking apart and understanding this interwovenness is difficult because scientists work with inadequate tools to estimate the universe. “The trustworthiness of mathematics is limited,” said Penelope Maddy, American philosopher of mathematics. Believe it or not, infinity varies—its countable and non-countable.

One other challenge now is how to measure things that seem to exist but cannot be observed. After all we cannot see beyond the edge of our universe. Said British science journalist Thomas Lewton, “Reality is a fog of possibilities and our knowledge of it is blurry at best.” That from a science journalist who has a prestigious degree in science communication.

Bewilderingly, quantum physics has changed reality forever. Now we gape into a world of uncertainties, exciting to some, incomprehensible to most. Oxford University’s quantum physicist Vlatko Vedral said, “A definite, predictable world is unlikely to reappear. Its probably going to get even weirder.”

When the universe gets weirder, it is reassuring that human relationships appear constant and universal. At the online discussion, Peter Cranney, a middle-aged husband asked, ”If a man speaks and there isn’t a woman to hear him, is he still wrong?”

Everybody laughed. This kind of “relativity” everybody understood.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

why-war-in-ukraine-is-marked-by-ironies-and-contradictions-anita-pratap

Sun Mar 05 13:51:01 IST 2023

At a recent international conference in Delhi, a western diplomat spoke about the ongoing war in Europe. For a moment, the audience was baffled. Then, of course, they realised what he was referring to. That’s how far Ukraine is from the rest-of-the-world’s public consciousness.

But this is the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. The drumbeat of western media coverage rose to a crescendo to mark the war’s first anniversary. To an independent observer, this war is marked by not just unintended consequences, but by tragic ironies and bewildering contradictions.

Sergey Aleksashenko, Russia’s former deputy finance minister and now a Washington consultant, exposed this when he said that in their daily life “European citizens are feeling the impact of this war, but Russian citizens are not so affected”.

Sanctions have hurt, but not crippled Russia—its economy is still expected to do better than Germany’s and UK’s. Sanctions have also boomeranged with European citizens and businesses reeling under high energy prices. Christmas illuminations were dimmed in the west, but Moscow glittered like an enchanting fairyland. London in February was miserable with empty shelves in grocery stores—no leafy vegetables also because British and Dutch farmers could not afford the heating bills for their greenhouses.

Many countries still trade with Russia, but sanctions also do not bite because businessmen find ways to outsmart politicians. Unable to export to Russia, European entrepreneurs export to Russia’s neighbours, who re-export them. In 2010, when the Nobel peace prize was awarded to Chinese dissident Liu Xiabo, China retaliated by banning Norwegian salmon imports. Vietnam suddenly began importing huge quantities of Norwegian salmon.

Russia expected Kyiv to fall and Ukrainians to surrender, wrapping up this war in days. That did not happen. NATO-supported Ukraine expected Russia to retreat in weeks. That did not happen either. Russian public buildings are intact, but Ukraine has been devastated; its southern and eastern regions lie in ruins. Over 2,000 schools, 1,000 clinics, churches, apartment blocks, energy infrastructure, theatres, libraries, churches, even whole towns reduced to rubble.

Europe, which went into a tailspin in 2015 by the influx of a million Muslim refugees, has welcomed eight million Ukrainian refugees. Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have died in tens of thousands. The brutal war grinds on, tying itself into a giant Gordian knot—Russia cannot win but won’t lose either, Ukraine cannot lose but won’t win either. This war has destroyed millions of lives, but it may yet only be a blip in the 21st century. In 2022, the crucial issues that most countries battled with had little to do with the Ukraine war—health, poverty, corruption, low investment, weak growth, debt, climate change.

President Biden promises to support this war for “as long it takes”. This goes down well in Ukraine, but not so much in the American heartland, where people have begun to criticise Biden’s costly “blank-cheque policy”. The US is no different from other democracies. At election time, domestic issues rule.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a potential Republican presidential candidate who aims to topple Biden in the 2024 Presidential elections, asks “why is Biden focusing on Europe’s borders when he should be focusing on ours”. The US-Mexico border, a conduit for illegal migrants, is a hugely divisive election issue. History shows wars are easier to start than to end. American history shows that presidents start wars, but voters often end them. If this war does not end in 2023, it may in 2024 because of the battleground imperatives of the US presidential elections.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

how-europes-unity-in-diversity-is-cracking-slowly-anita-pratap

Fri Feb 17 14:47:45 IST 2023

Beethoven’s uplifting Ode to Joy is the European Union’s anthem. Its exuberance is arguably appropriate. Compared with most others, Europeans experience a free, stable and prosperous way of life, “united in diversity” and where, the ode exults, “even the worm can feel contentment”.

But now the continent braces a winter of public discontent. People are frustrated and fearful. A sure sign of public dissatisfaction is that across Europe, ruling parties—centre, right and left—are plummeting in opinion polls. Every country has its specific troubles—Sweden battles crime, France faces street protests, Britain copes with strikes. But one crisis rages across all countries—inflation. The cost of living crisis has eroded Europe’s comfortable quality of life.

Covid-19 and the ongoing Ukraine war has pushed Europe into extraordinary times. But the consensus is that Europe lacks even one extraordinary leader who can steer the continent through this crisis. Let alone solutions or solace, leaders seem incapable of even offering rhetoric. The Germans have a word—dunkelflaute—the dark lull, when the sun sets and the wind is still, when you are literally in the doldrums. It is a metaphor for Europe’s current state of mind—and its energy crisis. Winter unfolds the full impact of the absence of cheap Russian energy from European factories and homes.

France discusses power cuts. Lights are switched off or turned down low even in luxury Parisian showrooms, reflecting the dim mood of the nation. Britain is too proud to admit rationing. Instead, it urges citizens to come home from work and shower, use dishwashers and washing machines after 9pm when peak energy consumption subsides. British experts advise, “Don’t waste energy by heating the whole room, just heat your body—wear sweaters to keep warm in unheated rooms.” Households are asked to sacrifice necessities, not luxuries.

Facts lie buried amidst the battlefield ruins of this war. Russian gas serviced 55 per cent of German needs. Now, Germany’s dirty coal consumption has skyrocketed from 8 per cent to 23 per cent. Europe is committed to green energy, but 95 per cent of solar panels come from China, reportedly the next battle ground. Europe now pays four times more for imported American LNG. President Biden’s green subsidy to American companies threatens to ruin European industries. European MP Tonino Picula says US actions are “regrettably protectionist.” French and German finance ministers flew to Washington to persuade a self-absorbed United States that such subsidies provoke European wrath. Discontent spreads from citizens to bureaucrats, who now give off-the-record interviews to western media complaining about “American war-profiteering”, asserting “the country that has benefited most from this war is the US that is selling weapons and gas at much higher prices than ever before”.

Thus far, Europe is united over the Ukraine war, but differences fester. East European countries—former Soviet republics—are hostile to Russia, but Italy and Hungary want good relations with Russia. Some ordinary citizens privately air their disapproval of the war but are reluctant to go public due to the current culture of political correctness. Leaders who criticise the war are ignored or mocked. In a recent interview to the French newspaper Le Parisien, Pierre de Gaulle, grandson of the legendary 20th century French statesman Charles de Gaulle, lamented the West had “unfortunately let (Ukrainian President) Zelensky, his oligarchs and neo-Nazi military groups lock themselves into a spiral of war”. Time heals, but it also unravels. Europe’s ‘united in diversity’ is cracking slowly into ‘disunited in adversity’—where even the worm turns.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

harry-and-meghan-docuseries-detail-the-new-britain

Sat Dec 24 11:15:47 IST 2022

Is the British monarchy on its way out? This question has been raised for centuries. But most things in life are like bankruptcy. Live beyond your means, you go bust. Live beyond your times, you go bust, too. The downfall of institutions is also like bankruptcy. To quote Ernest Hemingway, “It happens gradually, then suddenly.”

The Harry & Meghan Netflix psychodrama will not push the monarchy into extinction. But it nudges the “gradual” part. H&M—as they call each other—project themselves as martyred superstars of royalty. More likely, they are pawns of history. Their drama derives oxygen not merely from their persona, but also from broader societal factors—race, gender, media and demographics. These dynamics have strengthened into a social Molotov cocktail that is far more powerful today than it was during Princess Diana’s time, a quarter of a century ago.

Diana was a bigger victim than Meghan—more celebrated, more maltreated and the Queen more remote. Her death was a big kick to the “out-of-touch” monarchy. But ‘The Firm’—as the palace bureaucracy is nicknamed—recovered its footing. The ‘Meghan Money Machine’’s television soap opera is self-serving and self-absorbed. But its tragic episodes resonate with New Britain—women, youth and people of colour. They all have stronger voices today than in the 1990s. Besides, social media is a force multiplier, amplifying love, hate, pain and abuse.

British tabloids are racist, mean and mendacious. To all. Meghan’s revelations about the palace-media collusion driving her to contemplate suicide show that little has changed from Diana’s time, whose suicide attempts were sniggeringly planted as attention-seeking ploys. Diana was beautiful white nobility, so the cruelty inflicted on her was not racist. “The Firm” grinds on, pitilessly crushing all the tall poppies in its path.

Poppies—or mavericks—are sacrificial royal lambs. The tabloids humiliated the fun-loving Sarah Ferguson as the “Duchess of Pork”. They shamed “commoner” Kate Middleton by publishing photographs of her topless. The reason the tabloids backed off from Kate was that instead of protesting or complaining, she succumbed to the royal script, looking, saying, behaving and doing exactly as she is supposed to, becoming a venerable model of the British dictum—keep a stiff upper lip, a stiffer spine and carry on. British author Hilary Mantel described Kate as “a mannequin without personality, whose only purpose is to reproduce.”

For H&M to expect the ruthless Firm to drumroll the red carpet and be mesmerised by their romance is infantile, even borderline delusional. The Firm’s sole focus is the monarchy’s power and continuance. Everything else is diversionary red meat for the hungry tabloids.

But neither fate nor hate is new. Harry would not have been prince or in the succession line if the tabloids had been nice to his great grand uncle Edward VIII, who abdicated upon marrying an American divorcee. Sounds familiar. The hounding and hate they endured in 1936 is a prequel to H&M.

But the docuseries reveals the raw nerve of the global mental health crises—an issue that women, youth and blacks care about because they suffered during the pandemic. H&M’s popularity has nosedived since their palace exit. Still, their docuseries is Britain’s most popular show of 2022. In mid-January, Harry’s book comes out, detailing a little boy’s mental anguish after his mother’s catastrophic death. The honesty and horror of his loss will touch hearts.

New Britain may drive change, and the royals out of their castles. Gradually.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

feminisation-of-men-trend-reasons-consequences

Sat Dec 03 10:35:41 IST 2022

The millennia old spectacle of alpha males beating their chests continues. Swaggering out of jungles, these macho men now roar on social media and strut in unlikely places, from cyberspace to the crypts that hold cryptocurrencies. Strongmen dominate countries and companies. Some equate Elon Musk’s Twitter-grab with Vladimir Putin’s hostile takeover bid of eastern Ukraine.

But there is also a trend of rising yin in men, a phenomenon called the “feminisation of men”, noticeable in the west and in countries like Japan and Korea. Scandinavia was once fabled for fearsome, one-eyed, red-bearded, sword-wielding, plundering and pillaging swarthy Vikings. Now it is common to see men being stay-at-home dads, gaggles of hubbies taking their babies in prams for park walks, working as caregivers or tutors in kindergartens. Advanced Scandinavia has robust policies like papa leave and a cultural milieu that promotes gender equality. But new research highlights the unintended consequences of setting right historical wrongs. In Of Boys and Men, scholar Richard V. Reeves explores the pressures faced by males in schoolyards and workplaces, academically outcompeted and losing blue collar jobs to women.

Problems arise from success—girls outperform boys in school. Finland’s educational system is internationally renowned because schoolchildren score high in reading, writing, math and science. Finnish girls drive that ranking. They outrank the boys among the topscorers, by far. When wealthy donors paid for college tuition in Michigan, the number of women—especially African Americans—graduating from college jumped by 45 per cent, increasing the pool of graduates. But the intervention did not improve the boys’ performance.

This trend has life-long consequences. Research shows that the problems of low-skilled, undereducated, unmarried men begin with education. From then, the slippery slope worsens into a “masculinity crisis,” says American psychologist Ronald F. Levant. Poor education leads to poor jobs, partners, income, status and low self-esteem. Experts fear “the mass of young men lead lives of quiet desperation”.

This has personal and political consequences. Evidently, dispossessed male voters are among the backers of Brexit, Donald Trump and other nationalists, populists and social conservatives. Progressives may find these issues unfashionable, but researchers say if they are ignored, men will be lured by the false promises of ultraconservatives to squash women’s rights and restore “lost glory” to men and nation. Female-dominated classes are as much a harbinger of crises as male-dominated classes were.

Both men and women are victims of their biology. Reeves notes “for most women, having a child is the economic equivalent of being hit by a meteorite”. But the root cause of men’s advantages and disadvantages is also physical. Men lag because social and technological revolutions have removed many barriers faced by women, enabling them to compete on a more level-playing field. Earlier, testosterone was an economically invaluable hormone when well-paid work involved physical labour. In the 21st century, multi-tasking, risk management and resilience are important.

In her book The End of Men, American writer Hanna Rosin asserted a decade ago that men “will learn to expand the range of options of what it means to be a man”. Now she rejects her earlier “optimism,” “smugness” and “tragic naïveté.” Those options failed to materialise. But a solution is observable in Scandinavia. More and more men are doing what was once dismissed as “ladies labour”—whether as stay-at-home parent or employed in social care. Reeves suggests one way to solve the problem is to give recognition, better pay and social respect for “women’s work”—something that was denied to women.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

no-longer-a-trump-card-republicans-usa

Sun Nov 20 12:06:27 IST 2022

Heads I win, tails you lose. Donald Trump’s version is—“if Republicans win, I should get all the credit, if they lose, I should not be blamed at all.” But pundits and partymen blame him for the Republicans losing an expected victory because his candidates—mostly low-quality, election-deniers—lost in the mid-term elections. The boastful “kingmaker” reduced the anticipated Republican red wave into a ripple. Serving presidents are sitting ducks for voter backlash in midterm elections. Joe Biden was the ugliest duck of them all because he had historically low ratings of 40 per cent going into these elections. Yet, Democrats fared well.

Youth and women are offended by Trump and his handpicked anti-abortion judges. Democracy matters. Inflation, economy, immigration and crime should have worked against the incumbent Democrats. Suburban dwellers had turned against Biden. But, then, Trump came along and played cute, saying he may contest 2024 presidential elections “very, very, very, probably”. It reminded the suburbans why they voted against him in 2020. They did it again.

Analysts wonder how this midterm result will impact Trump’s ambition to run in 2024. Rupert Murdoch’s empire, especially Fox News, is a lodestar. It was pivotal in Trump’s rise and rule. A wily old fox, Murdoch senses shifting political winds. He now calls Trump a “loser”. His New York Post front-paged an oversized picture of “Trumpty Dumpty” with the caption, “Don (who couldn’t build a great wall) had a great fall.” Murdoch never liked Trump, calling him a “f…idiot” according to author Michael Wolfe. But, supporting Trump made Fox News into the most-watched news channel in the US.

Murdoch has chosen a winner, anointing Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis, 44, as “the new leader of the Republican party”. The star of the midterms is undoubtedly DeSantis. Even though Florida is polarised with wafer-thin election margins, DeSantis won decisively with a 20 per cent lead. He is combative, popular and as rightwing as Trump—who had endorsed him in 2018. Doug Heye, a Republican strategist says, “We have seen moments like this before, where we thought the party was going to turn against Trump. But now for the first time with DeSantis we have another option.”

American media has already started the “Ron vs Don” war. DeSantis has not announced his presidential intentions and it is unclear whether his popularity extends beyond Florida’s borders. But many Republicans are abandoning the past with the old man and his baggage to rally behind “DeFuture” with its young, rising, vote-getter. A furious Trump resorted to blackmail. If the “Disloyal de-sanctimonious” challenged him for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, he would reveal “unflattering” information, adding, “I know more about him than anybody other than perhaps his wife.” DeSantis’s wife, Casey, is drop-dead gorgeous, outshining Melania. Trump slandered both DeSantis and Murdoch.

Trump’s feistiness fails to hide the serious controversies he is embroiled in—his role in instigating the January 6 Capitol attack, criminal investigations into his handling of classified documents, and tax evasion. Will he win in 2024? Very, very, very probably not. But Teflon Trump has had the devil’s luck all his life. His base is intact and his election piggy bank is swelling.

But so is criticism. Mike Pompeo, Trump’s former secretary of state, tweeted “Conservatives are elected when we deliver. Not when we just rail on social media.” Karl Rowe, George Bush’s adviser, urged Republicans to “reject nuts”. Moderate Republicans counselled Trump to “move on”. But can he? What is Trump without his megaphone? Not just Trumpty Dumpty, but an emperor without clothes.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

liz-truss-british-pm-failure-anita-pratap

Fri Oct 21 15:33:15 IST 2022

Nowhere in the world has a prime minister been called a “lettuce”.   Just five weeks in office, British Prime Minister Liz Truss has been labeled “Lettuce Liz” because she is already wilting. Predicting a short shelf-life, the Daily Star live-streamed images of salad leaves, asking mockingly: “Will this vegetable outlast the PM?” 

Truss has been an unmitigated disaster. A self-proclaimed radical, she challenged prevailing economic orthodoxy. It blew up in her face. Britain’s financial market went into cardiac arrest when Truss’s chancellor unveiled a debt-fueling “mini-budget” to cut taxes for the rich. Investors fled, the pound plummeted, pension funds were imperilled, and interest rates soared.

“Liz Truss’s reckless approach has crashed the economy, causing mortgages to skyrocket, and has undermined Britain’s standing on the world stage,”  rebuked Labour leader Keir Starmer.  

Instead of taking responsibility for her irresponsible policy, and resigning, Truss scapegoated her implementor-chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng. “Kamikaze Kwasi” became the first living chancellor in 200 years to lose the job in five weeks. Economist David Blanchflower described Truss’s eight-minute press conference announcing Kwarteng’s sacking as a “car crash, an absolute catastrophe”.  “Loopy Liz”  looked like a clueless schoolgirl in a PhD programme.   Irrespective of the question, she recited lines from her scripted speech like a robot. One journalist asked, “How come Kwasi goes and you get to stay?” She parroted, “I am determined to implement my policy.” 

No way. Kwarteng’s successor, former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, who had unsuccessfully contested to be PM twice—unequivocally rejected “Trussonomics”. He swiftly cut her tax cuts, announced higher taxes and cuts in  defence expenditure. Hunt looked calm; Truss less feisty. At best, they looked like a handsome couple. At worst, Truss looked she was under administration by a sensible colleague, earning yet another satirical nickname: “Lame Duck Liz” 

Truss has made a career out of U-turns, so back-pedaling on her ill-fated policy is unsurprising. But it is hubris. She branded critics of her rash economics as the “anti-growth coalition” of “doomsters and liberal elites”. This coalition now includes almost the whole country. She is propped up by dandy idealogue-cum-Brexiteer, business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg. He denigrated the forecasts of the fiscal watchdog, the office for budget responsibility (OBR). Extraordinarily, the Truss government ignored the OBR before presenting this “mini-budget”, and even sacked a dissenting treasury official. The IMF criticised the plan, warning it could contract the economy and aggravate inequality.  

Truss was elected by a tiny, unrepresentative selectorate of middle-aged English party members who want tax cuts—like Rees-Mogg. She lacks support among Tory MPs and the wider public. Tory MP Robert Halfon declared these “libertarian jihadists” who conducted “ultra-free market experiments” must be thrown out. Tories have changed prime ministers five times in six years, and four finance ministers in the last four months. Tories admit it is absurd to oust Truss so soon, but its even more absurd to keep her—voters will flee. The next general elections are two years away; opting for snap elections with her at the helm is not an option. 

Much will depend on Hunt steadying the markets and Truss avoiding mistakes. But several Tory MPs publicly agree with Daily Star that Lettuce Liz is “past her sell-by date”. Derides columnist Polly Hudson, “Liz Truss is so out of depth, she’s an upside-down duck, legs flailing madly as she drowns in full view.” To survive, Truss must perform yet another dramatic flip. But with so many U-turns, no one can tell if she is coming or going.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

for-russia-rise-of-a-strong-state-has-been-a-historical-necessity

Sat Oct 08 16:54:53 IST 2022

There is an old Russian saying: The future is certain; it is the past that is unpredictable. Successive autocrats have rewritten or airbrushed the past to borrow grandeur—and legitimacy. Vladimir Putin has deep-dived into Russia’s 1,000-year-old history to justify his vision of greatness, authority and religious consecration. In The Story of Russia, renowned British author-historian Orlando Figes asks: “How does the story of Russia end? How will the country’s future be shaped by its past?”

Figes answers this intriguing question by examining the geography of the world’s largest country, its centuries-old systems of rule, religious structures, social norms and myths. Putin evoked mythology in 2016 by erecting near the Kremlin, the statue of the 10th-century ruler-saint, Vladimir the Great. He was resurrecting “Ruskii mir” (Russian world), an ideology rooted in the past when Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians were one nation. “Putin’s obsession with Russia’s imperial past runs deep,” says American foreign affairs expert Fiona Hill. “He wants Russia to be the one exception to the inexorable rise and fall of imperial states.”

Now, Putin’s imperial vision lies in ruins. So too his repeated attempts to build bridges with the west. Figes believes Russia’s isolation is mainly due to the west’s lack of understanding and goodwill. “Russia wanted to be part of Europe, to be treated with respect,” he says, adding that western leaders spurned and took advantage of Russia’s weakness to diminish it. An opportunity to end a historical cycle of antagonisms was missed.

To predict Russia’s future, Figes studies the historical evolution of a Russian paradox—strong state and a weak civil society. The Mongols established strong statehood. Peter the Great’s 17-18th century reforms entrenched the military and the bureaucracy but eroded civil society’s development. For Russia, the rise of a strong state has been a historical necessity. When central governance weakened, foreign invaders attacked and captured territory—the Mongols, Napoleon and Hitler. Lost territories were regained when central authority became powerful. Patriotism is another hallmark of the Russian psyche. Stalin’s totalitarian regime was formidable, but people lived in fear and want.

Yet, he succeeded in consolidating public patriotism, an invaluable tool, especially in times of crises.

The three strands of strong state, weak society and patriotism wove the Russian tapestry of shared memory and social behaviour. As George Orwell describes in 1984: The past is not immutable. It is whatever the records and memories agree upon. As the party controls the records and the minds, the past becomes whatever the party chooses.

From Tsars and Khans, Byzantine emperors and Soviet dictators, arose the mythology of the personality cult of a strong leader who worked tirelessly for the glory, unity and protection of the nation. This resulted in the ruling apparatus becoming the sole centre of power—the all-important state juxtaposed with an impotent society. Says Figes, “This powerful tradition seems to condemn Russia to an eternal return of the past.”

For all the peasant rebellions, revolutions or occasional reforms, power has reconsolidated. From the collapse of the tsarist empire arose the USSR. From the collapse of the Soviet Union arose Putin’s Russia. Following the collapse of an authoritarian state, democratic forces were too weak and disorganised to strike roots. Chaos, shame and humiliation followed, only to give birth to a new autocratic state. Post-Putin, this phenomenon is likely to repeat. Explains Figes, “Fundamentally little has changed in the systemic asymmetry in the relationship between autocratic rule and society.”

The past is unpredictable. It is also a burden.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

how-the-rich-pursue-their-fantasies-even-as-inflation-cripples-all

Sun Sep 25 13:22:01 IST 2022

The rich pursue their fantasies even as inflation cripples countries, companies and families. The latest fad among well-paid US tech workers is to become taller. An ancient desire, but the new technique to gain height is costly and ghastly, reminiscent of medieval torture with a modern twist. The question is: Why would techies who crouch over their desks want to be tall anyway?

No pain, no gain. Techies say it is an investment—less to impress girls, more to improve career prospects. Surveys suggest that tall men tend to reach commanding heights in their organisations. Height lends authority. Employees literally look up to tall colleagues. Over time, they feel diminished and the colleague looking down feels superior. Unless he is an irremediable fool, biology becomes his calling card as he ascends. Life is not so simple, but being tall helps.

Height has tormented short men through centuries. The “Napolean Complex” comes from Napolean Bonaparte, who overcompensated his short stature with his aggressive personality. Others lost weight, wore vertical stripes or strode in hidden high heels to look taller. Reportedly, Russian president Vladimir Putin conceals thick insoles inside his custom-made shoes to appear 5 feet 6 inches tall.

But that is age-old deception. Rich tech workers want to “become” and not just “appear” taller. They want a permanent solution to what is otherwise a permanent problem. To gain height, the modern cosmetic surgeon breaks the thigh bones and inserts adjustable metal nails that are agonisingly extended about one millimetre a day for three months by using a magnetic remote control. We feared that tech workers would create a dangerous, out-of-control AI dystopia. Instead, they seem to mutate into robots controlled from afar.

Software engineers from Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft are heading to Las Vegas not to gamble away their fortune, but to invest in their future. It costs $75,000-1,50,000 to become three to six inches taller. Surgeons admit the procedure—originally developed to treat bone deformities—is not recommended for athletes because it could adversely impact their ability. The irony is, even techies need nimble legs to climb corporate ladders.

Leg extensions are also sought after by CEOs, actors and masters of the universe, aka financial wizards. Some clients are women, but most are men. The stigma against men seeking cosmetic surgery has gone. The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery discloses cosmetic interventions on men rose 325 per cent over the past 15 years. Men also rely on botox, fillers, laser techniques and chemical peels to promote their careers. It is no longer enough to be clever. Data scientists also have to be handsome, telegenic… and tall.

Clients insist on confidentiality. Surgery boomed during the pandemic because patients could hobble and heal in secrecy at home. Now, when people notice, they attribute height gain to “ski accident”, “bathtub fall” or “God knows what they put in Covid-vaccines.”

Often, the quests of the superrich are not just fantastic, but phantastic. What motivates them is not money as they and their progeny simply cannot spend all the accumulated wealth. Still, they work hard, long and late. They are “driven”—a pretty word for obsessive-compulsive behaviour. Analysts say they are driven by their “need for love”, “craving for honour”, desire “to change the world” or “leave a legacy that endures beyond their time on this planet”. One fad among the superrich is to live forever. Research, pills, transfusions and anointments are a thriving mega industry. The irony is, to leave a legacy that outlasts oneself, one has to die first.

how-rotterdam-citizens-humbled-jeff-bezos

Sat Aug 27 11:06:48 IST 2022

The Red Sea parted for Moses. So, the world’s second richest man expected a monumental, century-old bridge to part for his superyacht. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the world’s newest, biggest yacht, built at Rotterdam’s shipyard. The $500 million, 417ft long yacht is getting ready for its maiden voyage. But Rotterdam’s heritage Koningshaven bridge, an iconic symbol of the Netherlands’s industrial past, stood in its way. The sailing yacht’s three 229ft tall masts would crash against the bridge. Bezos’s solution: dismantle the bridge’s mid-section, let his super schooner sail through and then reassemble the bridge. Simple.

And that’s when the fight started.

Rotterdam citizens were outraged. The gall of the man! Riding roughshod over their sentiments, humbling a national treasure just so his expensive toy can pass? Rotterdam is a working-class city. Issues like global inequality and the power of tech billionaires are topics of impassioned public debate. Asked Dutch historian Paul van de Laar, “Has this city become a playground of the billionaires? Are we to bow our heads to Jeff Bezos as he sails past in his pleasure boat?”

Bezos is a divisive figure. To some, he is a symbol of rapacious capitalism who became super-rich by squeezing his workers. Others praise him for being a visionary, a successful job and wealth creator. Many Dutch take pride that Bezos’s superyacht is built in the Netherlands, a tribute to centuries-old Dutch seafaring genius. City counsellor Ellen Verkoelen argued that the yacht should be allowed to sail through. “Some people are jealous of the rich who have money to spend as they please,” she said. “If they are spending, isn’t it good they spend it here?”

Yacht-building creates jobs, but it also creates environmental disturbance. Some argued the yacht is a one-off contract and jobs will disappear once it sails away. Others say copycat billionaires will head to Rotterdam to build their fantasy yachts, ensuring the rejuvenation of this industry.

Officials said the mid-portion of the historic bridge is sometimes temporarily dismantled for a €100,000 fee to allow big vessels to pass through. Entrepreneur Dianthus Panacho said the rule should be: bigger the vessel, bigger the fee. “It’s all about ego and arrogance,” he said. “Bezos should pay double the fee to help impoverished families living near the bridge.”Not that Bezos would fret over the fee. Citizens suspect Oceanco, the company building the yacht, would not have embarked on this contract without prior approval from the authorities. Said Laar, “The rich always find ways to override popular opinion.”

The details of Bezos’s uber luxurious yacht are kept secret, but it has a black hull with a white superstructure and a long, sleek bowsprit, extending from the vessel’s prow like a missile frozen in flight. It has all the extravaganzas of a floating pleasure palace with royal suites, gourmet restaurants, gym, theatre, pool and helipad. The world’s most ecological yacht can reportedly sail across the Atlantic without burning fossil fuel, reaching a high speed of 30 knots.

The Bezos boat is codenamed Y721. Yes, why? Instead of dismantling the bridge, it may have been simpler to dismantle and pack the three masts and get Amazon to deliver to its founder. Rotterdam’s rage rose. Citizens swore to humble the Bezos’ behemoth with their missiles—rotten eggs. In the end, the superyacht sneaked out to another shipyard for its finishing touches, fleeing full speed through an alternate canal route in the cover of darkness—the perennial, preferred escape route of the rich and the famous.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

think-americas-good-first-says-anita-pratap

Fri Jul 01 11:48:59 IST 2022

American historian Jared Diamond theorised that “guns, germs and steel” determine the fate of human societies. Today, the 3G—“guns, god and grievance” are poised to determine the fate of the United States, and whether it will even remain united. Two-thirds of Americans oppose the Republican-dominated Supreme Court rulings upholding gun ownership and repealing abortion rights. The “3G world” is not only outdated, but ominous. Historian and author of How Civil Wars Start, Barbara F. Walter says, “An institutional meltdown is distressingly plausible. One need not be a pessimist to worry about the coming years in the US.”

The loss of independence and fairness in institutions is a barometer of erosion of democracy in a country. Walter notes the US is an “anocracy,” in the twilight phase susceptible to civil wars. Anocracy is when a country transitions from democracy to autocracy or vice versa. Democracies slide into anocracy when governance weakens, and grievances are not remedied. Autocracies unravel when the power to repress fails.

The US Supreme Court—an American’s last resort—is partisan. It leans towards Christian fundamentalism on the ongoing culture wars over gay rights, black affirmative action, feminism, integration in schools and poverty relief. And the 50-50 split gridlocks the US Congress because filibustering rules require 60 per cent majority to enact laws.

Several leading American historians agree that the signs of a civil war are flashing red. The rise of factions and force multipliers are two powerful signs. The US is cleaved politically into the urban, multi-ethnic Democrats and the white, rural Republican factions, just as the Catholics and Protestants or Muslims and Christians were in Europe in the past. Walter blames the Republican Party for its “predatory factionalism”, relegating ideology to favour race, religion, ethnicity and identity to harvest votes—“caring for the group, not for the good of the nation.”

From the earlier word of mouth, printing presses, toxic television shows, the force multiplier now is social media. It unites extremists and divide societies. Culture warriors are usually the “sons of the soil” who resent immigrants and the impacts of foreign influences—religion, technology or globalisation. Experiencing a “status reversal,” the locals feel “downgraded” in their own land. God and gun offer solace for grievances. America has more guns than people—400 million to 330 million. Grievance grows and grinds in societies, sometimes for decades. Then along comes a populist rabble-rouser who lights the match.

As historian Jessie Childs observes in her book A New History of the English Civil War, “polarisation and propaganda have always dehumanised the “other”, pushed disagreement into bloodshed and fake news and hate speech have culminated in atrocities.” The American liberal establishment fully grasps the threat, the biggest since the nation’s 1861 civil war. Two New York Times reporters quote President Joe Biden telling a senior Democrat, “I certainly hope my presidency works out. If it doesn’t, I’m not sure we’re going to have a country.”

Research shows that politics is more important than economics in starting or preventing civil wars. More than a third of Republicans and Democrats today believe secession and violence are justified to achieve their political ends, a 200 per cent increase in five years. Right-wing militias have exploded, outnumbering and outgunning left wing insurgents. White supremacy infiltrates US law enforcement agencies. Through history, armed conflict stifles empathy and hardens hearts. As Thomas Fuller, a 17th century English clergyman, wrote, “War makes a land more wicked.” The solution to avert tragedy is as simple as it is hard. Think America’s good first.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

brexit-grinds-slowly-but-it-grinds-small-says-anita-pratap

Fri Jun 03 18:45:27 IST 2022

The mills of Brexit grind slowly, but they grind small. Reality is crushing the grandiose ambitions of “Global Britain”, slowly but surely. When people mortgage their house, you know their house is not in order. Fire sales of Britain’s crown jewels, its magnificent real estate acquired during its glorious empire days, tell a sad story of a financially squeezed nation, shrinking not surging.

The 150-year-old British embassy set in sprawling grounds in Tokyo is second in grandeur only to Imperial Palace across the winding river. Now half its grounds have been sold to the Mitsubishi Corporation. “This is a huge mistake,” admits foreign secretary Liz Truss. Britain also sold the majestic, century-old embassy located in a 10-acre sanctuary in Bangkok’s heart. Employees now work in a concrete tower. Disgruntled British officials say this downscaling is like going from a Prada showroom to a discount store.

For most foreigners, the first contact with Britain is its impressive embassies, projecting the nation’s power and prestige. Now heirlooms are being sold to buy solar panels and maintain property. Loss of grandeur is like bankruptcy—“It happens gradually, then suddenly.” Britain’s financial crunch was a train wreck in slow motion but accelerated after Brexit and the pandemic. It damages post-Brexit vision of “Global Britain”—enhancing “Britain’s influence abroad and prosperity at home”.

At home, Brexit has brought more disruption than prosperity. The disappearance of European truck drivers and workers to harvest fruits and vegetables have caused shortages. The gaps in supermarket shelves symbolise the gaps between Brexit ambition and reality. International projection shrivels in the face of cost-cutting measures like merging ministries and slashing foreign aid. The British Council is cutting jobs and infrastructure in 20 countries. The backbone of the British Empire was its civil service. Now, 90,000 civil servants are to be sacked. Who will run Global Britain? Algorithms?

Britain’s notion of special relationship with the United States is a nostalgic illusion. The US ignored Britain in the Afghanistan pullout and warned it against reneging the Northern Ireland agreement with the European Union. Asks Carnegie Europe’s Peter Kellner, “Now that Washington has turned its back on London, and London has turned its back on Brussels: what should be Britain’s place in the world?”

British historian and author Ian Morris explains: “Britain enjoyed outsized power during colonialism, which made its post-war decline all the harder to accept.” To understand the Brexit decision, scholars go back to the 2016 referendum campaign, to Britain’s 1973 accession to European Communities, to World War II, to the arrival of the Romans 2,000 years ago. Morris goes back 10,000 years.

Among other factors, he attributes Brexit to the “psychology” of maps. The 800-year-old Hereford Map virtually conjoins Britain to Europe, hanging on precariously at the edge of the world. Subsequent explorations disproved this geography. In 1902, Halford Mackinder’s map placed Britain at the centre of the world, radiating European maritime power. Morris writes, “But this represented only three per cent of the island’s history in which it took centre stage. Rest of the time it was merely Europe’s poor cousin.“

Still, despite the sun setting on the empire, Britain was a global force, in big ways and small. A decade ago, piracy endangered shipping in the Indian Ocean. It was quelled by Operation Atalanta, an international military force headquartered in Britain and coordinated with African countries. But the successful Operation Atalanta was established by the European Union. After Britain’s divorce, the operational base shifted to Spain. Brexit grinds slowly, but it grinds small.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

anita-pratap-on-the-new-world-disorder-after-the-ukraine-war

Fri May 20 11:22:07 IST 2022

Just when World War I was ending, the Spanish Flu sickened the world. Now the order is reversed. The Ukraine war follows the pandemic. Either way, war and pandemic contribute to destabilising an existing world order. If history is a guide, we are lurching into a messy new world disorder. Again. Says American diplomat Richard Haas, “These crises and their aftershocks are accelerating global disorder, returning the world to a much more dangerous time.”

He is referring to the dangerous two decades between WWI and WWII, described as the “interwar years”. This turbulent phase was marked by hyper-inflation and hyper-nationalism, populism and protectionism. Public resentment rose with prices, as a defeated Germany was forced to pay punishing reparations for WWI. Countries retreated from globalisation into isolationism. Scholars document how boiling grievances destabilised both colonialism and capitalism. The global economy collapsed. The Great Depression followed. Political upheavals, civil wars and revolutions unhinged nations. Democracies weakened while authoritarianism surged. Arms races and territorial aggression contributed to the calamitous WWII.

Reconstruction after the devastation of WWII forced leaders into a more collaborative phase that brought considerable peace and prosperity. Global GDP rose from $4 trillion in 1950 to $95 trillion now. But the dark side of this miracle growth is unprecedented wealth contrasting with widening inequality. The rising tide certainly lifted yachts, but too many boats were sinking. War and pandemic did not ignite these problems, but they deepened the structural imbalances that were pushing the world towards more division and confrontation. These same forces were at play a century ago.

Uncertainty and disruption lie ahead with rising costs of living, food shortages, poverty, conflict, corruption and bankrupted governments. Sri Lanka is emblematic of this disorder. Street protests have erupted from Chile to Hong Kong, Mali to Lebanon. Ongoing violence threatens to worsen in failing states in Asia, Africa, Middle East and south America.

Even as the Ukraine war grinds on, CIA Director William Burns reiterated publicly that China remains “a bigger threat” than Russia. President Biden’s strategic “isolate China” vision is supported by Republicans who unoriginally label it “the evil empire”. Biden’s Asian outreach aims to reaffirm ties with Japan and Korea that have difficult relations with their giant neighbour. The campaign to flatter India as a foil to China is underway. Biden also seeks to lure ASEAN nations.

But none of these countries wish to choose sides and get drawn into great power rivalries. It is good business with the US and now they do more business with China. But the Ukraine war showcases the appetite for brutal war in the 21st century. Will the China-US rivalry turn deadly, becoming the embodiment of the new world disorder?

War and pandemic can spark events that resemble the catastrophic century-old past. But repetition is not inevitable. First, there is awareness of the disastrous consequences. Second, there is human agency. The will to avert disaster is strong. But this also requires the lone superpower to lead with moral clarity and credibility. The west has rallied under US leadership, but half the world’s population sees the Ukraine war as a proxy US war with Russia. Many regard the United States’ $40 billion Ukraine package as a gift to its own military-industrial complex. The US is the world’s most powerful democracy. Its democracy has deep fault-lines, but its military is supremely powerful. The superpower could contribute to stabilising a world order in disarray. History need not be destiny.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

anita-pratap-on-emmanuel-macrons-second-term-as-french-president

Fri May 06 15:39:02 IST 2022

Will Emmanuel Macron’s second term as French president mean more of the same? To everyone’s relief, he himself has assured “it won’t be the continuity of the previous five years, but it’ll be a new method to try to ensure better years”. It is unclear what this “new method” is.

During his first term, Macron’s neoliberalism spurred growth, employment and enabled France to economically outperform other European countries. Tough Covid-19 lockdowns were sweetened with aid packages. His vigorous backing strengthened the European Union. But domestically, he was labelled the elitist, arrogant “rich man’s president”.

Data supports street resentment: the rich have become richer and the poor poorer. Macron’s fuel tax unleashed the gilets jaunes, the “yellow vest” agitation that fomented and cemented widespread anger against him. His contentious pension reforms floundered as they provoked strikes and street protests, the biggest since the 1968 upheaval. Nobody wants more of this.

Now Macron promises to be “everyone’s” president. Prima facie, his 17 per cent lead over his rival, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, in the runoff, appears impressive. But in France, nothing is what it seems. The French have a penchant for complexity, nuances, layers, argument and paradoxes. As they say “en même temps”—“at the same time”.

Macron won, but at the same time, he got two million votes less than in 2017. The far right lost, but at the same time, they won an unprecedented 42 per cent of votes. The two major right-wing parties together polled more than Macron did. Only a third of the electorate voted for him—the lowest for a winning president since 1969.

Macron was the first president in 20 years to win re-election. At the same time, 28 per cent of voters abstained, the highest in over 50 years. Two-thirds of the electorate that Macron must woo embody apathy or antipathy. Macron admitted, “Our country is full of doubts and full of divisions.” Touché.

Macron passed the re-election test. But a looming test can make or break his presidency—the June parliamentary elections. Macron swept the parliamentary elections in 2017. Since then, his party, La République En Marche, has lost all local elections. French society is deeply polarised. The traditional centre-left and centre-right parties that ruled France until Macron stormed the Élysée Palace in 2017 are fading into irrelevance.

The electorate is now fractured into three hostile blocs: centrist Macron, far-right Le Pen and far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon. All three vie to get majority in the parliamentary polls and bag the prime ministership. If Mélenchon succeeds, he will overturn Macron’s welfare cuts and hire-and-fire labour policies. Le Pen will leash Macron’s pro-immigration and EU polices. The quarrelsome troika could create legislative gridlocks that could impact French and even EU lawmaking. But for now, EU leaders are hugely relieved that the nationalist, anti-EU, anti-NATO Le Pen lost the presidency.

Macron loves engaging with lofty matters. But now he wrestles with bread-and-butter issues: crime, health care, education and inflation that has hiked food, fare, fuel bills up to 29 per cent. He must focus on difficult domestic issues though he prefers to be a European gladiator and a global statesman. But the success of his foreign interventions during his first term, from Russia to Mali, Lebanon to Libya, range from minimal to dismal. Macron promises that Macron II will not be a repeat of Macron I, predicting his second and final term “will not necessarily be tranquil, but will be historical”. Certainly it won’t be tranquil. At the same time, not necessarily historical.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

anita-pratap-on-the-war-pandemic-and-wealth

Fri Apr 22 11:02:17 IST 2022

We are witnessing the slow-motion trainwreck of multiple catastrophes coming together to make the perfect storm. Pandemic, war, climate change and famine are like the dreaded Four Horsemen of the Biblical Apocalypse, combining forces to unleash hell on earth. The pandemic aggravated the world’s problems. Now the Ukraine war worsens existing dilemmas, while spawning new crises. The old world order wobbles. The new one is yet to take shape.

Inflation and supply disruptions have impacted all corners of the world. Food, fuel and fertiliser are seeing record prices, and set to go higher. War has halted critical food exports from Russia and Ukraine that supply 30 per cent of grain, and 80 per cent of the world’s sunflower oil. This is the daily bread for millions in the Middle East and Africa.

The Apocalypse describes farmers leaving their wheat fields for battlefields, exacerbating food shortages. Ukrainian farmers are doing the same. Drought, induced by climate change, has further reduced food production in major grain producing countries like Australia and the US. High oil prices make fertilisers unaffordable, driving small farmers to debt and destitution. Famine is the horrific horseman whiplashing desperate people to make perilous sea crossings into Europe in the hope of becoming illegal migrants.

The old order wobbles as neutral countries like Finland and Sweden see the lure of American security guarantees. Uncertainty makes not only people but even nations anxious. Small countries like Taiwan, with big neighbours, worry whether Ukraine’s fate awaits them. Other countries grapple with a Hobson’s choice—it is costly to comply, but costlier to defy American sanctions on Russia. But neutral countries like Finland and Sweden see the lure of American security guarantees. Complex historic relationships and proximity to Russia propelled both countries to stay out of the US-led Nato alliance. But now, both countries are considering joining NATO, despite Russia warning them of grave consequences.

War is never straightforward. The Iraq war was about oil, not democracy. Is the Ukraine war about gas? The European Union has signed a deal to replace Russian gas with American liquified natural gas. “It is profit motive and self-interest masquerading as patriotism and solidarity with Europe,” says Zorka Milin, an activist championing transparency in resources exploitation.

War, plague, famine—these are the ghouls of death haunting humankind from the dawn of civilisation. Inequality is another undying ghoul. Similarities between the Apocalypse and contemporary reality have less to do with prophecy than the timelessness of human nature The ancient text describing the Horseman of Famine records that the price of wheat and barley—the staples of ordinary people—has risen ten-fold but ordains “see thou hurt not the (olive) oil and the wine.” Preserve the luxuries of the rich; let the poor starve.

About 50 million people face starvation due to the Ukraine war, warns the World Food Program. To avert this catastrophe, WFP’s director, David Beasley begs for a $10 billion donation from American billionaires—just 0.36 per cent of their net increase in worth. Last year, Jeff Bezos’ net worth rose by $64 billion. On one manic Monday this January, Elon Musk’s net worth increased by $33.8 billion. Says Beasley, “There is a vaccine against starvation. It’s called money.” But money is a vaccine that builds bubbles, provides immunity from taxmen and boosts pursuits like space travel.

Scholars have argued whether the Apocalypse Horseman who wears the crown is Christ the Saviour or Antichrist the Destroyer. Perhaps the crown belongs to the superrich who reign through centuries precisely because they do not care to be either saviour or destroyer. Brilliant creators, they prefer to savour wine and ride on rockets.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

putin-judo-against-europe

Thu Apr 07 16:34:16 IST 2022

What will Russian President Vladimir Putin do next? Even the Americans who predicted the Ukrainian war, know not. Will he escalate or de-escalate, will he turn to Ukraine’s east or spread all over, will he secure supply routes or will he bomb cities? Global leaders and analysts agree: “Only Putin knows.”

Confucius says: To predict what a person does next, study his past. Putin’s self-proclaimed mantra is, “If you are going to get into a fight, then you punch first.” That explains his first move in Ukraine, while claiming that he will not invade. His past shows he punches hard—Chechnya, Syria, and now Ukrainian neighbourhoods, reduced to rubble.

Putin took up boxing, but then switched to martial arts. He said, “Judo is philosophy, not sport.” Judo uses the enemy’s strength against him, identifies the foe’s weakness and then penetrates the chinks. In Europe’s armour, the chink is its borders. A Putin “invasion” that has received less attention is his deployment of “weapons of mass migration.” Monika Sie, director of Dutch thinktank, Clingendael Institute, says, “Putin weaponises refugees to destabilise Europe.”

Of 10 million Ukrainian refugees, four million have fled into Europe. The arrival of one million refugees into Europe in 2015 caused political and social upheaval. Detonating this bomb, 10 times bigger than the 2015 influx, has huge consequences. Currently, Europeans effusively welcome Ukrainians. But dragging war entails rising military, humanitarian and energy costs, stressed civic administrations, public disorder and social polarisation as locals start resenting strangers living in their midst and draining finite services and resources. Russia used mass migration against Europe during its Syrian war.

Apart from war refugees escaping into Europe, there is the “orchestrated” migration of asylum-seekers to pressure the EU. Last winter, Putin ally, Belarus President Aleksander Lukashenko stockpiled asylum-seekers on his border with Poland and the Baltic states, which then amassed troops to block entry. The EU and even NATO now define mass migration as a “security threat”. Europe’s refugee crises can worsen as the aftershocks of the Ukraine war lead to food shortages. Hunger, violence, inflation and climate change can aggravate mass migrations, especially from Africa, in summer when the perilous sea crossings resume.

An important judo concept is “maximum efficiency with minimum effort”. This principle explains Russia’s cyberattacks, but not its war in Ukraine, where it seems to be “maximum force with minimum conquest”. It is hard to understand Putin’s calculus. But he is fighting his war, his way. Given Ukrainian resistance, it is doubtful he can hold territory as western analysts claim. That is a quagmire he avoided in Syria.

Putin is a Cold War warrior fighting a 20th century war. But his hybrid and cyberwarfare reveal his 21st century mindset. Is the destruction aimed to force submission? Perhaps one must dig into his KGB past in East Germany on the eve of Soviet Union’s collapse. Screaming protesters besieged the KGB’s Dresden headquarters. Putin scrambled to save classified documents. Frantic calls to “mother ship” went unanswered. Subsequently, Putin famously recalled, “Moscow was silent.”

So, Putin spoke up. He went out to the protesters and declared, “There is a tank behind, and I am here to tell you if you don’t disperse there will be an order to shoot.” Protesters dispersed. His show of force was a bluff. There was no tank and no one to give that order. He learnt two lessons: Threats work, but if your bluff is called, you must have and use firepower. Is his nuclear threat a bluff? Only Putin knows.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

rise-of-selective-compassion

Thu Mar 24 17:00:36 IST 2022

What is worse: no compassion or selective compassion? The outpouring of public grief across Europe for the Ukrainian victims of war is immense. Empathy is a powerful, humanising emotion and compassionate people are considered noble.

But why isn’t there a similar European grieving for the victims of the catastrophic war in Yemen, now in its seventh year? Europeans tear up seeing healthy Ukrainian children leaving war zones clutching their teddy bears. In Yemen, starving, skeletal children, clutch stumps of what was once their legs.

Is it because Yemen is far away, whereas Ukraine is at Europe’s doorstep? Is it because Europeans identify with white skin and victims huddling in churches? Surveys showed that Europeans were distressed by the 2019 fire in the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, but not so much by the beheadings, rape and arson occurring then in Sudan.

European expression of grief may appear racist—especially when viewed from afar. But societies are blind to their own hypocrisy and selective compassion, which can be racist or bigoted. Foreigners cannot reconcile peaceful India with our history of Dalit atrocities. Stigmatisation is a worldwide curse: Muslims are terrorists. Dalits are impure, blacks criminals, LGBT deviants. Their suffering receives less sympathy.

Research reveals that compassion depends not on the intensity of the disaster but on the proximity of the location and how likely viewers are to visit the affected region. Empathy is aroused by shared experiences with the victims—identity, nationality, culture, geography, family, friends, community, religion and skin colour. An evolutionary explanation is that people are selective because compassion demands emotional and mental investment; so they reserve it for people close to them.

Selective compassion is a global phenomenon. It is a manifestation of “tribalism, a way to reinforce your own point of view and block out any others,” explains author Fritz Breithaupt in The Dark Sides of Empathy. As pastor David French notes, empathy is not always noble, “It is warped by tribalism and partisanship.”

When societies experience disruptive change, they exclude communities, a process American Law Professor John A. Powell calls “otherising,” based on “the assumption that a certain group poses a threat to the favoured group”. As images of bombing in Ukraine flooded the airwaves, European mainstream clamoured to convict Vladimir Putin as a “war criminal”. There was no such mainstream outcry against President George Bush for large-scale civilian deaths in Iraq. Human rights activist Saadia Khan notes, “How conveniently our political consciousness allows us to forgive the crimes of those whom we can identify with, while crucifying the “other” for similar offences.” America has been at war for over 90 per cent of the time since its independence, while European nations have fought the largest wars in history.

Hitler is an extreme example of selective compassion. A vegetarian who abhorred animal slaughter, he then slaughtered millions of Jews. The Buddha preached universal compassion—for all things, living and non-living. But humans practice universal selective compassion. It takes proximity and kinship to arouse compassion. But the cruel twist is that proximity also aggravates brutality.

The Sri Lankan state waged war against the “otherised” Tamils. Unable to penetrate Tamil society, soldiers bombed from afar. But the war unleashed to crush their own Sinhala JVP rebellion was deadlier because they could reach deep within. The terror that followed was horrifying. Tribalism is as evident in international relations as in families. Relatives provide refuge; they also commit grievous crimes. In Pashto, the word for cousin is tarbur. It also means enemy.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

the-west-has-glorified-zelenskyy-into-a-mythical-hero-but-the-west-can-also-be-notoriously-opportunistic-says-anita-pratap

Sun Mar 13 12:08:37 IST 2022

When hotlines replace redlines, it is time to worry… and hope. US decisions to communicate directly with the Russian military and suspend scheduled intercontinental ballistic missile tests are not admissions of defeat. They are Code Red, signalling that Russia’s war in Ukraine has turned extremely dangerous.

This war began slow, but has become brutal and ruinous—with malls, utilities, apartments, offices and schools being bombed. Russian President Vladimir Putin put his nuclear arsenal on alert, and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned: “The Third World War will be nuclear.” There was no radioactive fallout, but explosions in Europe’s largest nuclear plant in southern Ukraine raised mushroom clouds of fear. Putin fancies himself a modern “Peter the Great”. But in European consciousness, Russia’s leader is now “Putin the Terrible”.

US President Joe Biden’s critics accuse him of appeasing Putin, as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain did with Hitler. But, by establishing hotlines, Biden has displayed restraint and wisdom which would help “prevent miscalculation, accidents and escalation”. These foster hope. As historian Barbara Tuchman said, “War is the unfolding of miscalculation.”

A Putin story that Washington, DC, is familiar with dates to his childhood when he lived in a rat-infested neighbourhood in St. Petersburg. Putin describes how courageously a cornered rat fought back, throwing itself at its tormentor, ten times its size. Cornering nuclear-armed Putin is dangerous.

Still, without firing a shot, the west has cornered Putin financially and economically. Europe joined the US in responding to Russian aggression in Ukraine with astonishing solidarity, speed and steel. Countries broke taboos to pledge lethal aid to Ukraine. This would have surprised Putin who sees liberal Europe as divided and weak, too soft-hearted, soft-headed and soft-bellied for tough fights.

But what surprises even western governments is the ferocity of public demonisation of Putin. Voluntarily, companies, clubs and organisations from sports, trade, business, space, insurance, culture are boycotting Russia—Michelin stars, designer labels, caviar importers, credit cards, orchestras. The Ukrainian blue and yellow flag colours are everywhere.

From his underground bunker, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy broadcasts his nation’s peril. He urges the west to defend Ukraine, otherwise Russia will target the Baltic countries next. But Putin is unlikely to invade NATO members. Zelenskyy warned of a “nuclear disaster” and blasted NATO for not declaring a no-fly-zone over Ukraine to block Russian bombers. But shooting Russian planes would put NATO at war with Moscow and NATO will not go to war for a non-member country. A frustrated Zelenskyy is becoming desperate.

The west has glorified Zelenskyy into a mythical hero, courageous in the line of fire. But the west can also be notoriously opportunistic, discarding assets after they have served their purpose. In great power politics, local heroes are expendable, some consigned to junkyards, others to graveyards—in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq. Lest one forgets, the US had armed Saddam Hussein, who fought Iran with chemical weapons in the 1980s.

In 2015, John Mearsheimer, a leading American geopolitical expert said, “The west is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked.” Tragic images from today’s Ukraine prove his foresight. The headline from a recent press conference by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was his warning: “This war will get worse.” A revealing sentence lay buried in his speech: “We are not part of this conflict, and we have a responsibility to ensure it does not escalate and spread beyond Ukraine.” Hotlines, a Cold War legacy, seek to achieve this. But the primrose path ends in rubble.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

ai-is-here-to-stay

Mon Oct 28 15:50:33 IST 2024

Every time I hear the words Artificial Intelligence, the millennial in me starts imagining T100s walking the street and Skynet taking over the world. But, apart from my favourite movie reference, AI is one of the most talked about and hotly debated issues of this digital age. With all the debates on whether AI is good or bad, one thing is for certain that AI is here, and it is here to stay.

My first experience with AI was when I tried using ChatGPT. I was surprised at how advanced and sophisticated the software was. Unlike a simple Google search to get information from the internet, it is a more complex system that feels like having a conversation. Such is the level of sophistication that, involuntarily you start using pleasantries, as if you are talking to a real person (my personal Jarvis).

Now, there are several other software available in the market which make use of the AI model and provide you with a virtual assistant to help you with your daily tasks like speech writing, video editing, etc. But the use of AI does not stop there and has utility even in complex areas like agriculture, medicine, finance, law, automobile, IT and aerospace. It is our responsibility as youth to ensure that the power of AI is harnessed ethically and for the benefit of all, to prevent Jarvis from turning into Ultron.

Bharat has always been at the forefront of IT and software development. With a vast talent pool and a vibrant startup ecosystem, Bharat is poised to play a significant role in the global AI revolution. Premium institutions like the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Statistical Institute are focusing significantly on AI in their core curriculum. These institutions are not only imparting theoretical knowledge but also emphasise practical applications through collaborations with various industries.

The National Education Policy 2020 recognises the importance of AI in education and has proposed introducing AI into the school curriculum as well as assisting teachers. Schools affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education have started offering AI as a subject from class IX onwards, thereby preparing students for a technology-driven future. Children, at a young age, must be taught how to use AI to enhance their learning and productivity.

Bharat also has a thriving startup ecosystem which is heavily focused on the use of AI. A large number of tech-based startups are investing in AI to develop cutting-edge solutions across various sectors like health care, agriculture, logistics, finance and security. Startups like Observe.Al, which provides intelligent customer interaction solutions, Krutrim, which focuses on development of large language models, and Pixis, which provides marketing strategies for business optimisation, are some of the notable examples.

The Modi government is also leveraging the benefits of AI to enhance governance, and to ensure effective delivery of services digitally. On March 7, 2024, the cabinet approved an allocation of Rs10,300 crore for the IndiaAI Mission, with focus on setting up of AI computer infrastructure, IndiaAI innovation centre, IndiaAI datasets platform, and funding for AI-based startups. Projects such as AIRAWAT, which provides a common computing platform for AI research, and Bhashini, an AI-driven language translation platform, clearly reflect the strategic vision and commitment of the Modi government.

Echoing the words of the prime minister, the power of aspirational India plus artificial intelligence will accelerate the growth of Bharat and enable us to realise our vision of a developed India by 2047.

Bansuri Swaraj is a Lok Sabha MP from New Delhi.

im-vocal-for-local-are-you

Fri Oct 11 16:09:07 IST 2024

With the onset of October, Bharat steps into the vibrant festival season of Navratri, Durga Puja and Diwali. The festive atmosphere lights up the local markets with people shopping for gifts, clothes, food and sweets. Apart from the celebration of Bharat’s rich cultural heritage, these festivals also offer a great opportunity for galvanising the businesses, especially the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), artisans and local manufacturers.

It is the perfect time of the year for celebrating the ‘vocal for local’ movement initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Vocal for local is not just a media campaign. The Modi government is taking concrete steps to promote local entrepreneurs by providing beneficial policy decisions as well as generating positive social awareness.

The One District One Product (ODOP) initiative aims at identifying unique products from over 761 districts across Bharat and promoting them on national and global platforms. From the terracotta craftsmanship of Gorakhpur to the Pashmina shawls of Kashmir, the ODOP initiative promotes regional economic growth and also preserves cultural heritage. In Uttar Pradesh alone, the exports have soared to Rs2 trillion under this scheme.

The Modi government has set up GeM (Government e-Marketplace) portal for public procurement. It is an open and transparent platform that provides easy access for local businesses and vendors, to the government buyers. Launched in 2016, the GeM portal had already surpassed transactions worth Rs9.82 lakh crore gross merchandise value, as on July 2024. The GeM portal has a special section called “womaniya” to enable women entrepreneurs and women self-help groups to sell handicrafts, handloom, etc, directly to various government agencies.

The Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme aims to provide financial incentives to businesses in sectors like electronics, textiles and pharmaceuticals to boost domestic production. As of January 2024, the scheme has achieved investments over Rs1 lakh crore and has created over 6.78 lakh jobs. During the festive season, with rise in demand for consumer goods, it is essential to ensure that consumers have access to high quality, locally made products.

Geographic distance has been blurred in this age of the internet and social media. Cheap mobile data has ensured that no person in Bharat is deprived access to the digital world. Initiatives like Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan, aimed at promoting digital literacy in rural India, ensure that artisans and manufacturers in remote areas can showcase and sell their products in urban and even international markets. Using social media and digital UPI payments, any person with the drive to succeed can kickstart their business.

While the government is playing its part, today I call upon you to actively participate and embrace the ‘vocal for local’ campaign. Handcrafted diyas, traditional weaves and artisanal sweets will add beauty to the celebrations and also support our cultural legacy. One small step on your part in supporting local vendors will lead to a big stride in the direction of achieving Atmanirbhar Bharat.

This festive season, I have chosen the place to get my besan ke laddoo and handwoven sari. Have you?

Bansuri Swaraj is a Lok Sabha MP from New Delhi.

delhi-deserves-better

Sat Sep 28 11:13:20 IST 2024

The last few weeks have seen an interesting game of musical chairs being played in the political corridors of Delhi. With the release of Arvind Kejriwal on bail in the liquor scam, people of Delhi are being subjected to loud claims about his innocence, and the dramatic sacrifice by Kejriwal, who quit as chief minister.

Away from the political rhetoric, Kejriwal has achieved the distinction of being the first CM to attempt to run the government from Tihar Jail. Also, the self-proclaimed sacrifice does not hold much water in light of the stringent bail conditions imposed on him by the Supreme Court.

With several judgments of the Delhi courts, including the high court and the Supreme Court, categorically holding that there is sufficient evidence against Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, to prima facie show their involvement in the scam, the profound claim of innocence seems like political posturing. Also, with the Supreme Court’s embargo from attending the office of the chief minister or sign any files, Kejriwal had little option left but to tender his resignation.

But, perhaps, the most disappointing issue in this political story was the chapter of the reluctant oath of now Chief Minister Atishi. In her first public statement as CM, Atishi boldly declared, “There will only be one CM in Delhi, and that will always be Kejriwal.” So, Delhi, which in the past has seen strong and independent women chief ministers, will have a proxy woman CM this time, with the real strings being controlled by Kejriwal. I am sure the crusaders of women empowerment will have a lot to say on this.

In one way, Atishi has demonstrated that she can be a true protégé to Kejriwal, given her history of sitting on a hunger strike against the inactions of her own water ministry, especially when she herself was acting as the executor of all the instructions Kejriwal was issuing from Tihar Jail. She managed to invoke nostalgic memories of the time when Kejriwal used to give dharna whilst being the CM.

Today, the departments of water, sewage, drainage, cleanliness, electricity and environment completely fall under the control of the AAP-controlled Delhi government and Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Despite having unhindered power and ample funds, the nation’s capital has to suffer drought-like situation during summers, floods during monsoons, another draught in autumn and heavy pollution during winters. And the malik of Delhi aka Kejriwal, Atishi and company, can only conduct press conferences trying to deflect the blame.

From ghost patients in mohalla clinics, to a staggering Rs1,000 crore loss in Delhi Jal Board, the utilities of Delhi are crumbling under the reign of Kejriwal. With ever increasing electricity bills of the middle class, dirty and unhygienic water supply and crumbling infrastructure, the AAP government is only left with a few renovated classrooms which are regularly used for pure media events.

Leadership is not about holding on to a title or maintaining control behind closed doors. It is about taking responsibility, delivering results, and being accountable to the people. Delhi deserves a government that prioritises the welfare of its citizens, provide world class infrastructure. It is time for Delhi to break free from this cycle of power without responsibility and choose leadership that will drive this glorious city forward.

Bansuri Swaraj is a Lok Sabha MP from New Delhi.

how-decolonising-legal-system-has-direct-impact-on-the-economy

Sat Sep 14 11:22:30 IST 2024

The vision of a Viksit Bharat hinges on India breaking from the shackles of a colonial mindset and embodying the freedom of being unapologetically Indian. The laws of any nation are the cornerstone of its growth. The legal system offers the stability and adaptability essential for a country to thrive. The laws must be simple to understand and specific in their consequence.

For decades, even after attaining independence, our country was burdened by outdated British-era laws that did not serve a progressive India. Under the decisive leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, these relics of slavery and our colonial past have been repealed at a historic pace. Over 2,000 obsolete laws have been removed form the statute books. This represents a profound shift in the psychology of our legal system. It is no longer about subjugation by colonial masters but about reformation and development of our citizens.

Some of the laws that have been repealed were not just outdated and redundant but downright bizarre! One such gem was the Indian Motor Vehicles Act, 1914, which mandated car inspectors to have “well-brushed teeth”. A bad dental day could lead to disqualification from the civil service. The absurdity continued as this law disqualified individuals with certain physical traits like pigeon chest, hammered toes, knocked knees or flat feet.

Another farcical relic was the Indian Aircraft Act, 1934, under which kites would also classify as aircraft requiring a flying permit. This meant that every child flying a paper kite was flouting aviation regulations. The Treasure Trove Act of 1878 required anyone finding treasure worth more than Rs10 to report to the revenue officer or face jail. The Indian Post Office Act of 1898 relegated the entire courier industry as illegal as it granted exclusive rights over mail delivery only to the government.

Although humorous, in hindsight, these absurdities were designed to subjugate rather than empower. Some were discriminatory, such as the Lepers Act of 1898, which criminalised leprosy patients and banished them outside city limits. Others, such as the British sedition law, were misused to supress the freedom movement. The Modi government abolished sedition as it existed in colonial laws and allowed criticism of the government in consonance with our nation’s democratic values. The government’s legal reforms are about removing absurd laws and reshaping India’s legal system to reflect the ethos of a modern, democratic and progressive society.

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, introduced a humane and reformative approach to the criminal legal system. For the first time, the concept of community service for minor offences has been introduced in the criminal jurisprudence. It fosters civic responsibility rather than punitive consequences. Further, the BNS introduces gender-neutral provisions to counter offences against minors and voyeurism, thereby reflecting the evolving understanding of crimes in society.

Where the old Indian Penal Code was steeped in gender prejudices, the BNS made justice inclusive. The introduction of zero FIRs, irrespective of jurisdiction, makes justice more accessible. Mandatory videography of crime scenes and witness statements makes the investigation transparent.

Decluttering the legal system also has a direct impact on the economy of the country. With over 39,000 unnecessary compliances and archaic laws being scrapped, the Modi government has ensured a friendlier atmosphere for companies to operate, thereby encouraging ease of doing business. The move will also attract foreign direct investments in the country.

This mission of legal reform is about decolonising the Indian mindset. This new legal system embodies rehabilitation, reformation, justice, gender equality and accessibility, where law is a tool of justice and not oppression. It is a conscientious move to break away from the chains of the colonial past and move towards a future of inclusivity—Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas!

Bansuri Swaraj is a Lok Sabha MP from New Delhi.

we-are-immune-to-hindenburg-variant

Sat Aug 31 11:05:55 IST 2024

The economic landscape of a nation is never a stranger to turbulence. However, despite global challenges like Covid-19 or geopolitical conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine war, and unrest in the Middle East, under the able leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has steadily grown to become the world’s fifth-largest economy. Today, she is on the path to becoming the third-largest economy. However, every journey is fraught with its own perils and challengers.

The Indian growth story was majorly rocked in January 2023 by a report published by Hindenburg Research, a US-based short selling firm. Hindenburg levelled allegations of share price manipulations and unlawful activities against the Adani Group. The opposition in India were quick to latch on to the issue, and without any verification started a massive political storm against the Modi government. These unsubstantiated allegations, coupled with a politically charged narrative, hit the share market in India. The social media campaign, political posturing and heated parliamentary debates created an illusion of proof around a completely unsubstantiated story. A known short selling firm, which thrives on damaging the share value of its target company for securing personal gains, suddenly became a whistleblower fighting for public good.

The market disruption was so grave that the Supreme Court had to intervene and set up an expert committee in March 2023, to investigate the allegations levelled by Hindenburg. Under the direction and monitoring of the Supreme Court, the Securities and Exchange Board of India thoroughly investigated these allegations and submitted its interim report debunking self-serving allegations. The committee set up by the Supreme Court found no evidence of price manipulation by Adani Group or regulatory failures by SEBI.

Finally, when the dust settled, the investors in India suffered a staggering loss of around Rs53,000 crore. This was by far one of the biggest economic assaults on the sovereignty of any country. Reportedly, Hindenburg made over $4 million from it. Once you sift out the facts from the cacophony of political narrative and social media rampage, it becomes apparent that Hindenburg is not an angel-hearted whistleblower but a shark ready to strike with lethal precision.

About a year later, when the echoes of the turmoil in the financial market had begun to fade, Hindenburg delivered yet another hit on India, this time targeting the chairperson of SEBI. When the investigator dismantles your spurious claims, you strike back at the investigator in a desperate attempt to obscure your own dishonesty with a cloud of suspicion. Legal and financial experts find Hindenburg’s latest report a deliberate re-attempt to destabilise India’s economic growth trajectory. Former attorney general Mukul Rohtagi remarked that Hindenburg has “no credibility at all”, and Harish Salve, former solicitor general, commented that, “In any other country people would have said Hindenburg report belongs to garbage bin. Hindenburg is trying to browbeat SEBI”.

This time, the investors of India showed immunity against the new Hindenburg variant. The economic resilience exhibited by the market shows that the investors have seen through the sensationalist narrative. With the veil of deceit having been lifted from the minds of people, the political parties that once thrived on the controversy are retreating from this issue. As brilliantly put by Rocky Balboa, “It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” The journey of India’s growth is moving ahead steadfastly, despite the Hindenburg hindrance. My faith in the vision of a Vikisit Bharat by 2047, championed by our prime minister, stands resolute.

Bansuri Swaraj is a Lok Sabha MP from New Delhi.

when-tradition-marries-technology

Sat Aug 17 14:19:40 IST 2024

In this digital age, where a tweet flutters away faster than a thought, the tradition of storytelling remains quintessential for our collective consciousness as well as our cultural connections. From the expansive realm of the Ramayan to the magnificence of the Mahabharat and the fantastical fables of the Panchatantra, India has a robust storytelling tradition that boasts a treasure trove of wisdom.

When I was a child, storytelling was a mandatory nightly ritual. My mother (former external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj) was usually the sutradhar [narrator], shouldering the responsibility of whisking me away to the land of the sandman with her vivid narrations. Her go-to aid would normally be the Panchatantra. Each narration would end with a moral of the story—a life lesson etched in my brain till date. On the days Ma was travelling, my father (former governor Swaraj Kaushal) took over with his own flair. He had just one story in his repertoire that was repeated unabashedly and designed to bore me to sleep. The plot was simple—it was about a boy and a stubborn radish stuck in the ground that the boy desired to pull out for a salad. Dad would spin a yarn naming every relative that came to help the boy in his arduous task. Just as I was about to drift off, he would drop the moral: “Ekta mein bal hai (There is strength in unity).” His plan of boredom as a path to slumber was surprisingly effective—who knew a radish could be so soporific?

The Indian heritage of storytelling is incredibly diverse. Yakshagana in Karnataka and Harikatha Kalakshepam in Tamil Nadu blend the art of storytelling with music and dance. Pandavani from Chhattisgarh dramatises the Mahabharat through dynamic performances by artistes like Teejan Bai. This style is a brilliant example of how mere recitation without theatrical spectacle can keep the audience invested in the narrative. In Rajasthan, Kaavad uses a portable wooden shrine with a beautiful panel of images painted on it. The Kaavadiya or the storyteller unveils these intricate panels while narrating the tales.

The proliferation of television channels in India and the omnipresence of social media, amplified by messaging platforms, have transformed storytelling traditions. Famous kathavachaks like Morari Bapu ji have used these platforms to widen their reach globally. In an age of influencers, millennial kathagayaks like Jaya Kishori ji or Gen Z kathavachaks like Indresh Upadhyay ji have mastered the spell of reels and captured a younger audience.

The Modi government has taken deliberate steps to preserve, propagate and promote India’s intangible cultural heritage and storytelling through initiatives like the ‘Scheme for Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage and Diverse Cultural Traditions of India’. The inclusion of 13 elements of intangible heritage in the UNESCO list highlights their global significance.

Digitisation has played a key role in the preservation of India’s storytelling. A digital repository of endangered tribal languages, rituals and stories has been created by the National Mission on Cultural Mapping. The Katputli Colony in Delhi used YouTube to share performances. Embracing technology is vital for preserving oral traditions. Digital archiving, interactive storytelling apps, social media campaigns and virtual sessions can enable these narratives to thrive.

Whether restricted by a 280-character limit or searching tirelessly for the right caption for your photo or creating a reel, we are all, on a daily basis, creating a story and setting a narrative. As rightly articulated by the Doctor played by actor Matt Smith in Doctor Who: “We are all stories in the end, just make it a good one, eh?”

Bansuri Swaraj is the Lok Sabha member from New Delhi.

kashmir-kashmiris-need-delhis-trust

Sat Oct 19 11:09:41 IST 2024

Of the 49 seats in the Kashmir valley, the National Conference won 42; the Congress, six; the CPI(M), one; the BJP, zero; the Jamaat-e-Islami, zero. It was a clean sweep for INDIA.

It is not that the Central government’s representatives since August 5, 2019, have done nothing. It is appreciated that ‘normalcy’ of a kind has been restored—even if at the point of the AK-47. It is appreciated that schools and colleges are open, that hospitals and primary health centres are working, that Central welfare schemes are being implemented, that new development schemes have been undertaken, that the economy has been re-geared, that fresh private investment is being sought, that transport is running smoothly.

There is no doubt of the tourist boom and of the planeloads of curious visitors and pilgrims, particularly Hindus, from all over the country, being flown in. It is also evident that free and fair elections have been held, notwithstanding some gerrymandering to increase Jammu seats. And, yet, the BJP could garner only 5 per cent of the vote in the valley. Why? Because ‘Man does not live by bread alone’.

More because of its poetic cadence than because of any deep philosophical insight, Atal Bihari Vajpayee hit the right note when he formulated the essence of a lasting solution to the valley’s alienation as lying in, “Kashmiriyat, jamhooriyat, insaaniyat” (Kashmir’s inclusive culture, democracy, and common humanity). Protest against the denial of these three vital requirements has been registered right across the valley.

The forced integration through the reading down of articles 370 and 35A, the bifurcation of the state, and its downgrading to a Union territory, are a denial of the Kashmiri identity to force a people proud of their composite credentials into the straitjacket of ‘uniformity’ that lies at the core of the hindutva project. Kashmir chose India in preference to Pakistan because its leaders recognised that Kashmiriyat would be safer in secularism than in Islamic Pakistan, for exclusion and Kashmir’s traditions of inclusion are incompatible. However, Kashmir could only be Indian if it were encouraged to remain Kashmiri—the same deal that led to the Dravidian movement abandoning separatism in favour of being Tamil in India, provided always they would remain Tamil in India.

Self-respect, dignity, and the preservation of identity, require self-rule. In our freedom movement, we were prepared to remain within the empire provided, like other dominions, we could rule ourselves through our own elected representatives and a government based on majorities in the state and central legislatures. It is only after that demand found no takers in Westminster that on January 26, 1929, Jawaharlal Nehru, as Congress president, was authorised to declare purna swaraj (complete or unfettered independence). Something similar is being demanded in Kashmir: their right to full statehood as applicable to other states of the Union of India—failing which aazaadi (complete or unfettered independence—purna swaraj). Until that is understood, until Delhi recognises that what unites J&K is the common demand of the Hindu majority in Jammu and the Muslim majority in Kashmir for full-fledged democracy (jamhooriyat) in full-fledged statehood. This is clear from the Lokniti-CSDS survey which shows 80 per cent Kashmiris and over 43 per cent Jammu-ites seeking the restoration of statehood without delay.

Above all is the need for insaaniyat (humanity), that is law and order that are self-ordained and not enforced by dictate from above through a panoply of weapons and tens of thousands of soldiers, paramilitary and security forces. There is no insaaniyat in a soldier cradling his weapon at every street-corner. Nor is there any insaaniyat in treating every Kashmiri as a terrorist—kinetic or potential. What is needed and must be made evident is trust—in the Kashmiri, in Kashmiriyat, in jamhooriyat and in insaaniyat. Omar Abdullah has his work cut out.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

our-government-neither-applauds-nor-boos-it-just-steps-aside

Sat Oct 05 11:27:21 IST 2024

When I read about India’s abstention on the UN resolution regarding the International Court of Justice’s decision to start hearings on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, I was shamed as an Indian. But when I read India’s cringeworthy Explanation of Vote [EoV], I felt humiliated as a human being.

I doubt that there has been a more mealy-mouthed opening sentence in any EoV that matches that of our permanent representative (PR). After the world (and ICJ) have witnessed nearly a year of the inhuman massacre of some 40,000 non-combatant Palestinians (and the revenge killing of a handful of Hamas militants), and the brutal repeated displacement of close to a million civilians being driven under fire from one part of the tiny Gaza Strip to another, while being denied food and water and health services on so horrific a scale of inhumanity that the usually sober, restrained ICJ has found itself with no alternative but to investigate whether Israel is in violation of the Geneva convention on genocide, all our PR is permitted by the Modi government to say is—I quote, “Today’s voting takes place in the backdrop of the ongoing conflict in Gaza”!

No, mate, it takes place in the background of the ICJ determination to investigate genocide by Israel. One hundred and twenty-four member-states applaud the decision; 43 don’t. India does not know whether to annoy Modi’s role model, Benjamin Netanyahu, or abandon the Palestinian cause we have supported since Mahatma Gandhi’s time. And so, having lost our moral compass, we dither. Our government neither applauds nor boos. It just steps aside. That is the tragic point to which the Modi cohort has brought Jawaharlal Nehru’s independent foreign policy, a policy that, till Modi’s arrival, constituted a national consensus. Nonalignment is now neutrality.

Our PR’s EoV goes on with the revelation that the “conflict”—as if we are talking of one of those incidents that brings in Yogi Adityanath’s bulldozers—has been going on “for more than eleven months”. Really, eleven months, counted to the last decimal point by Aryabhata’s descendants? Yes, eleven months during which we have been adding to Israel’s firepower while dishing out cliches to the Palestinians. Our PR is not to say ”genocide”; so, he restricts himself to “humanitarian crisis”. What, however, is being voted on is the question of ‘Genocide’.

Forty-three countries have the guts to say they will not accept an investigation into genocide whatever the ICJ may say. They comprise mainly the European countries who mercilessly committed outrage after outrage on the Jewish people for millennia, ending in the Holocaust. No Arab nation was involved in the Holocaust. Indeed, it was only when Muslims ruled Andalusia (modern Iberia) for 781 years (711-1492 CE) that the Jews lived in peace and honour. ‘Holocaust’ is a European disease extending from the Atlantic to the Urals. And the poor Palestinians are being made to pay the price of giving the opening to Europe to rid itself of its Jews.

The PR ended the oration written for him in Delhi with the ringing words, “Our efforts should be directed to bringing the two sides closer, not drive them further apart”. Wah! Wah! Mashallah. The viswaguru-cum-mitra is going to bring the butcher and the animal for slaughter closer by cowering on the knife’s edge. Abstention? Faugh!

Meanwhile, on the ground, Israel, strengthened by the negative western vote and the pusillanimity of the Indian position, has resorted to what one commentator has characterised as “the violent choreography of incremental escalation”. With pagers and walkie-talkies exploding in crowded places, killing hundreds of Lebanese (and a handful of Hezbollah militants), West Asia and Iran are being dragged by the rogue state of Israel into a frightening apocalypse. Yahweh alone can save us.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

how-modi-learnt-to-love-the-bomb

Sat Sep 21 10:46:34 IST 2024

Narendra Modi is the first Indian prime minister ever to not be on record on nuclear disarmament. His attention has been devoted to building our nuclear capabilities and delivery systems without mentioning universal disarmament. The authoritative International Panel on Fissile Materials has estimated, mainly on the basis of Indian government data, that we now have approximately 680kg (plus/minus 160kg) of weapons-grade plutonium in addition to highly enriched uranium to make 130-210 nuclear warheads, although our capacity to launch them is limited to an estimated 172. We are, however, rapidly developing missile delivery systems. Agni-V is in the final stages of operationalisation. Its unique feature is that it can be stored in canisters to enable pre-mating of missiles and warheads, besides perhaps taking our range to 6,000km (from Prithvi-II’s 350km). Next in line is the medium-range Agni-P, which replaces the first three Agni missiles. It can be equipped with Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles or variations thereof to match Pakistan’s medium-range Ababeel, which is armed with MIRVs. Long-range Agni-VI, an inter-continental ballistic missile, follows. This arguably presages the “decoupling” of our nuclear strategy for deterring China, which involves long-range missiles, from deterring Pakistan with highly sophisticated short-range ballistic missiles. We are well and truly into a nuclear arms race, precisely of the kind we used to deplore when the US and the Soviet Union were playing catch-up.

Meanwhile, the second side of the triad—air—has been bolstered with Rafale, the upgrading of Mirage 2000-H to Mirage 2000-5, the upgrading also of Jaguar with DARIN-III precision attack and avionics (despite the decision to retire the Jaguar soon). We must also note the proposed establishment of maintenance, repair, overhaul facilities near Jewar airport in Noida. We are also strengthening the third side of the triad—naval—by the commissioning of a second nuclear submarine, INS Arighaat, on August 29, 2024, and a large naval base at Rambilli.

These are all pointers to the Modi establishment surreptitiously drifting away from the two pillars of the nuclear weapons policy formulated by the Vajpayee government in the aftermath of Pokhran-II: ‘Minimum Nuclear Deterrence’ and ‘No First Use’. We are now switching to the same nuclear deterrence theories of Mutually Assured Destruction and a never-ending nuclear arms race that we used to warn against from Mahatma Gandhi onwards. To cite Rajiv Gandhi: “There can be no iron-clad guarantee against the use of weapons of mass destruction… the insane logic of mutually assured destruction will ensure that nothing survives”.

With the highest density of population in the world in Indian cities, our vulnerability to nuclear attack is arguably the highest in the world. We would become an uninhabitable wasteland. ‘Bombing Bombay’, a 1999 paper by M.V. Ramana of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, estimated, on 1991 census figures, that “a 15-kiloton explosion” in Bombay would result in “1,60,000 to 8,66,000 (instantaneous) deaths”, followed by “hundreds of thousands” of “injuries or burns” leading to the painful death of most, besides “genetic mutations” that would last for generations. Population density in Bombay stood at 16,461 per sqkm in 1991. North-east Delhi in 2001 had a density of 29,397 persons. The higher the density, the higher the instantaneous loss of life.

That is why we consistently advocated universal nuclear disarmament even as we became a nuclear weapon state. It is Modi’s failure to continue that advocacy of disarmament that is the single biggest threat to the continuation of our existence.

(Views expressed are personal.)

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

honest-peace-broker-nehru-vs-master-of-hugs-modi

Sat Sep 07 10:56:55 IST 2024

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has claimed that while earlier we were distanced from everybody, under him we are now friends with everybody. Since Modi has been in charge of foreign policy for 10 years, let us compare his 10 years with Jawaharlal Nehru’s first 10 years.

Nehru set out on uncharted territory. The world was divided into two warring camps and every other country had joined one or the other. We were the first colony to emerge from imperial bondage. Hence, while “we look(ed) upon the world with clear and friendly eyes”, our foreign policy had to be as independent as our newly won domestic independence. Moreover, it had to be based on the values that had informed our unique freedom struggle: fierce opposition to all forms of domination but through non-violence. An early manifestation of independent thought and action was our voting against the partition of Palestine despite being neither Arab nor Muslim, for partition solves nothing, it only aggravates hatred and bitterness.

Both camps initially looked on our independent stand with suspicion but shortly came to realise that without an honest peace-broker nothing could be resolved. And India became that peace-broker, whether by chairing the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission in 1953 that led to armistice in the Korean peninsula or by being trusted by all belligerents to conclude the Geneva Accords in 1954 without even being a formal participant in the talks. Nehru’s envoy, V.K. Krishna Menon, managed it simply by making himself available for mediation and ironing out misunderstandings between the contending parties. It led to Nehru’s India helming all three International Commissions of Control and Supervision in Indochina. Nehru, thus, emerged as the world’s much-needed man of peace and the world turned to India to lead UN peace-keeping forces in Gaza after the Suez war of 1956, in Cyprus, and in Congo.

So convinced were the sceptics in both camps about India’s indispensability in a divided world that when Nehru went to the US in 1949, he was received with great warmth and honour. And when he visited China in 1954 and the Soviet Union in 1955, millions lined the streets to greet him. India’s profile in the world had, and has, never been greater.

Meanwhile, Nehru’s India took the lead in vigorously advocating and diligently promoting global decolonisation. Virtually every emerging nation of Asia, Africa and Latin America, even Yugoslavia in Europe, followed the Nehruvian lead in proclaiming non-alignment as the core of their foreign policy. Where we started out all alone, two-thirds of the UN member-states followed in our wake. And Modi claims we were distanced from everybody?

What is Modi’s ten-year record in foreign policy? He has wrecked our relationships in the neighbourhood, putting the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in deep freeze, aggravating hostility with Pakistan, overplaying the Sheikh Hasina card in Bangladesh, and alienating Nepal by grossly, but unsuccessfully, interfering in their internal affairs, especially during their delicate process of Constitution-making. He ended 35 years of peace and tranquillity with China by whispering one thing in Xi Jinping’s ear and quite another in the US president’s. Palestinians just don’t trust us anymore and Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom Modi expressed “total solidarity”, faces charges of genocide in Gaza.

On the war in Ukraine, Modi has reduced foreign policy to a bearhug with Vladimir Putin without mentioning the U word and another bearhug to Volodymyr Zelensky without mentioning the R word. Because we now lack the courage to make our stand clear, Zelensky slams India the minute Modi flies out of Kyiv. Foreign policy does not mean being everything to everybody. It means having the courage to stand up for the choice you have made. Modi lacks that courage and thinks he can make up for it by engineering overseas Indians to rally to his personality cult.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

lesson-from-bangladesh

Fri Aug 23 15:20:55 IST 2024

The ‘Monsoon Revolution’ of August 5, 2024, was not about Bangladesh’s relations with India but about the relationship of Bangladesh with Bangladeshis. Understanding this fundamental distinction will not only help us put issues arising out of the toppling of Sheikh Hasina in perspective but also learn important lessons from these dramatic developments.

Hasina’s 16 years in power were marked by rapid economic growth that belied Henry Kissinger’s description of the country at birth as a “basket case”. Per capita GDP rose to equal that of India’s. The garments sector saw Bangladesh, as a Least Developed Country (LDC), taking full advantage of duty-free access to become a major global player in the sector. It also ensured massive women’s participation in the work force. Remittances from overseas workers spiralled to dizzy levels. At the same time, the strong emphasis on education, health and women’s empowerment, raised Bangladesh on the Human Development Index to a point that overtook India.

Meanwhile, micro-finance, especially through the Grameen Bank, based on the twin perception that poor women are prudent savers and investors, as well as culturally and economically to be trusted to service and return small loans to continue accessing such finance, promoted participatory grassroots development. The private sector flourished, albeit in an atmosphere of oligarchs and “endemic corruption”. Nevertheless, the economic miracle appeared to guarantee political stability.

Since literally the minute that Generals Arora and Niazi signed the surrender documents on December 16, 1971, I have been involved with Bangladesh. So, the Kolkata Telegraph sent me on a week-long visit to Bangladesh in December 2021 to take a close look at the country on the 50th anniversary of its liberation. My friends arranged for me to meet a wide range of people, among whom was one of Sheikh Hasina’s closest advisers. He bluntly admitted, in confidence, that in sharp contrast to the “free and fair elections” that had brought her to power in 2009, there followed an uncontested “walkover” in 2014, and blatant, if unnecessary, rigging in 2019 (“unnecessary” because she would have won anyway). There was a two-fold consequence of this: first, a complete absence of “legitimacy in the eyes of the people” for her government and, second, “some 70 per cent of MPs being businessmen and the cabinet packed with tycoons”. Authoritarianism had spawned, said others, “sham elections, arbitrary government and a corrupt, overweening bureaucracy”.

There was massive popular dissatisfaction, said some, with electoral authoritarianism that had led to a “climate of fear” and the “weakening of institutions”, particularly, the “completely politicised judiciary” which resulted in “gross abuses of human rights going un-investigated” and even “judicial financial corruption at the highest level”. Another said, “We are barely a democracy,” pointing to “forced disappearances” of political opponents, secret prisons, and “extra-judicial killings”. There was muzzling of the media through the denial of government ads to critical newspapers and TV outlets, the Digital Security Act that sounded the “death knell of investigative journalism”, and the “sedition law which hangs like a sword of Damocles over our citizens”. As the “denial of democracy leads to the denial of justice”, the only answer lies, said the key Hasina adviser, in free and fair elections in 2024. That did not happen. Hence, the ‘Monsoon Revolution’.

The BJP says they have nothing to learn from all this. But almost every sentence of what I wrote about Bangladesh three years ago can be transposed to Narendra Modi’s India. The elections of 2024, which cut him down to size, were the consequence of his government being as flawed as Hasina’s and for much the same reasons. Although his agenda remains unchanged, his survival depends on his alliance partners. Should they get miffed, as they are already indicating, Modi, like Hasina, could become history.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

niti-aayog-not-transforming-india

Sat Aug 10 11:52:47 IST 2024

Is the NITI Aayog an “institute” or a “commission”? With his childish penchant for converting Hindi words into English acronyms, Narendra Modi has expanded NITI—“sound advice”—to “National Institute for Transforming India”, and then added “Aayog”, Hindi for “commission”. So, NITI Aayog remains mystified over its role. The erstwhile Planning Commission had hard financial clout. The NITI Aayog’s role is at best “advisory”, moreover, the NITI Aayog’s attempt to position itself as the principal think-tank of the government has failed because there is endless overlap between “advice” tendered by NITI and the quite separate counsels, often on the same set of subjects, by the prime minister’s economic advisory council and the chief economic advisor sitting in the finance ministry (and oftentimes the Reserve Bank of India), not to mention the private think-tanks of saffron tendency such as the India Foundation and the Vivekananda Foundation, and earlier world-renowned independent think-tanks like the Centre for Policy Research that the saffron forces are attempting to sabotage and infiltrate. Worse, these various bodies outdo each other to act as echo chambers for what the prime minister wishes to hear—for if they did not, they would soon be out on their ear.

No wonder then that the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, has called for the “NITI Aayog to be scrapped” and demanded that the Planning Commission be brought back. Seven INDIA alliance-led state governments boycotted the NITI governing council session and three other chief ministers found it not worth their time to attend. Not one CM ever stayed away from consultative meetings with the Planning Commission because it was not just a talk shop but a hard bargaining counter where states, irrespective of the political colour of their governments, were afforded a bilateral forum to negotiate their way to a mutually acceptable conclusion on “rupees, annas and pies” to undertake the development and welfare activities entrusted to them by the Constitution.

Then, the Modi government invented the “double engine” to back states governed by the BJP to the detriment of the equitable formulae that the Planning Commission used to promote fair distribution without regard to political colouring. So, instead of “cooperative federalism”, we have “authoritarian federalism”, threatening the unity and integrity of India. The non-attendance by ten CMs of the NITI governing council is an early warning signal that to save our nation we must reverse gear.

The Constitution was written under the shadow of a possible Balkanisation of the country. To prevent that from happening, authority was loaded in favour of the Centre. So, instead of declaring India a federal Republic, we became a Union of states. One deleterious consequence of this, which has become apparent only after we got Central and state governments of different hues, is that while the seventh schedule clearly divides responsibilities between Centre and states such that much of grassroots economic and human development have been entrusted to states and panchayat raj institutions, the raising and distribution of financial resources is principally the Union’s responsibility. Therefore, the Constitution established an independent finance commission to determine the states’ share of divisible national resources, but as most remunerative taxes are reserved for the Centre, states stand with a begging bowl to get their due share, resulting in centrally sponsored schemes to bridge the gap between states’ duties and the funds required to discharge them. This aggravates central domination. That is the principal reason for our abject failure in attaining “inclusive growth”, that is, spreading the fruits of development to those most in need.

Modi aims at attaining Viksit Bharat 2047 through a clutch of oligopolists. That is the wrong way of making India prosperous—for it leaves ordinary Indians lagging behind. Gandhiji weeps.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

the-ugly-indian-in-nepal

Sat Jul 27 11:11:00 IST 2024

Narendra Modi is faced in Nepal with a failure of policy as Kathmandu looks increasingly to China and turns more and more resentful of India. Indeed, the political mood in Nepal is such that it is the current state of India-Nepal relations that is the principal reason behind Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli’s return to office as prime minister in coalition with a party that had hitherto been regarded as our most reliable friend, the Nepali Congress led by the veteran Sher Bahadur Deuba.

Reports from Kathmandu indicate that this churning in Nepal is principally on account of the supine way in which Oli’s immediate predecessor, Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, had surrendered to the virtually imperial demands made by the Modi government on Prachanda’s official visit to Delhi in June 2023. On that visit, Prachanda eschewed the opportunity to pursue Nepal’s principal concerns with Modi saying that it would have “ruin(ed) the atmosphere”. His opponents, both within the alliance he had forged to become PM and among the commentariat and opposition in parliament, deplored such appeasement of a bullying ‘big brother’.

Among the fierce reactions, the sharpest retort came from a former minister who described Prachanda and his cohort as lampasarbadis—spineless cowards, crawling when they were only asked to bend! Others said India had reduced Nepal’s sovereignty to the “third stratum”, below even the “provincial establishments” in India. Indeed, Modi’s hauteur and ill-treatment of Nepalese leaders, going back to the Modi sarkar’s economic boycott of Nepal in 2015 because they had dared proclaim a constitution for Nepal without incorporating the amendments Delhi had suggested, has led even to our staunchest friend in that country, the Nepali Congress, joining in the chorus against Prachanda’s pusillanimous failure to advance Nepal’s interests against an India that seems determined to unilaterally and even whimsically trample on them. Finally, the Nepalese are not unaware of the BJP desire to see the Republic of Nepal revert to a monarchy that had proclaimed a Hindu Rashtra in Nepal and has had intimate ancestral links with Yogi Adityanath’s ashram in Gorakhpur. Muddying the waters further is the sangh parivar’s angry rejection of Oli’s assertion that the Ayodhya of Lord Ram lies in Nepal and not India!

Principal among Nepal’s current grievances is the Modi government’s refusal to cooperate with Nepal in operationalising their Chinese-built international airports at Bhairahawa and Pokhara on the sole ground that China had helped build them. There is also burgeoning anger at India refusing to buy power from Chinese-assisted hydroelectric plants, despite China winning the contracts in international bidding.

“Hypocrisy” is what Nepalese commentators describe these prohibitions as, given the massive and growing imports and investments that India makes from China to keep its own economy chugging. There is also the simmering issue of whether the Lipulk-Limpiyadhura-Kalapani triangle belongs to India or Nepal. Moreover, the Modi government refuses to release the report of the joint India-Nepal Eminent Persons Group that reviewed the gamut of India-Nepal relations at the behest of both governments, only because the constructive recommendations made by the group in the common interest of the two countries are not in accord with the Modi government’s colonial approach to Nepal. Nepal also resents India forcing into cold storage the multilateral SAARC initiative for bilateral Indo-Pak reasons. That is a formidable agenda which requires attention at the highest level, and not, as Prachanda had done, to be kept off the table for New Delhi to feel ‘comfortable’ as he put it with Kathmandu.

It was the image of the “Ugly American” that fundamentally caused the undoing of the US in Vietnam. We should never forget that Nepali sovereignty deserves respect as it occupies the central sector of the Himalayan chain that separates both countries from China.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

are-the-brits-racist-or-are-we

Sat Jul 13 17:24:02 IST 2024

While an Indian-origin UK PM has lost his premiership, in the emerging line-up for his succession as leader of the Tory party are two ladies of Indian origin—Suella Braverman and Priti Patel—and two contenders of African heritage, James Cleverly and Kemi Badenoch. There appears to be only one aspirant of indubitably British origin, Tom Tugendhat.

Moreover, the House of Commons now has—hold your breath—28 elected members of Indian origin, 12 of them Sikhs and two Muslims, and 15 of Pakistan origin, including at least six Indian and six Pakistani-origin women. As many as 13 per cent of the members are from ethnic minorities. It should shame us in India where the 14 per cent Muslim minority constitute less than four per cent of our Lok Sabha and Modi’s new council of ministers—for the first time ever—contains no Muslim.

It should shame us even more when we contrast the UK’s smooth transition to multi-coloured diversity in contrast to Sushma Swaraj’s threatened tonsure of her abundant hair if we had an Italian-born PM.

Readers of my generation would recall Enoch Powell’s infamous speech in Birmingham on April 20, 1968, when he predicted that “rivers of blood” would flow in the UK if immigrants from the former Empire, now the “New Commonwealth”, and particularly from South Asia, were to flow without impediment into the “green and pleasant land” of Great Britain, especially in view of the non-discrimination clauses of the Race Relations Act. Even more alarmingly, polls showed that three quarters of all Britons agreed with him. Yet, the Conservative party dismissed Powell within 24 hours from his high-profile position as the shadow defence secretary. Rivers of blood have indeed flowed in India and Pakistan, and in East and West Africa, from where a large segment of Britain’s immigrants come, but no river of blood has flown in the UK itself.

In his 1968 speech, Powell quoted one of his constituents as saying, “In this country, in 15 or 20 years’ time, the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.” Now, nearly 60 years have passed since that dire prediction and the British electorate have voluntarily handed political representation to an impressive number of non-whites, ironically many from precisely the area in the Midlands that once elected Powell. He had gone on to say, “We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation” to be encouraging such an influx. It amounts, he said to “watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre”. (Powell, who had strong India connections, didn’t seem to remember that in England, unlike India, the natives bury their dead and don’t burn them!) He went on to claim that Britons were being made “strangers in their own country”.

I have lived only a year-and-a-half in England as a university student. That was just a few years before the Powell speech. Far from being racist, my fellow-students and dons were uniformly kind and helpful. So were the general public. Years later, on a panel I shared with the renowned London-based lawyer, Sarosh Zaiwalla, he was asked whether in all his many years in England he had experienced any racist prejudice. He replied, “Never”. For while the British in colonial India did indeed include racist “white trash”, many were deeply committed to discovering our own much-neglected heritage to reveal “The Wonder That Was India”. It was imperialism that brought out the worst in them. At home, they were more gentle, more accommodating, electing Dadabhai Naoroji, Mancherjee Bhownaggree and Shapurji Saklatvala to the Commons when India was still in their grip—and now many, many more. They deserve our humble tribute.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

modi-s-chutzpah-is-his-nemesis

Sat Jun 29 18:45:38 IST 2024

When the actual election results turned the exit poll predictions topsy-turvy, we had a week of euphoria in which we thought “We, the People” had rescued democracy; curtailed authoritarianism; reined in a potential dictator; saved our Constitution; revived the institutions of democracy; finished with the misuse of investigative and enforcement agencies; ended the age of the ‘godi’ media; shown up Islamophobic communalism for the inhuman menace it is; and restored the country to fundamental decency as expressed in our fundamental rights. An emeritus professor of philosophy drew attention to the parallel between the Modi hubris and Aeschylus’ play, ‘The Persians’, which depicts the Persian emperor Xerxes “combining foolishness with arrogance” to invade Greece and finding when he is beaten back that his people “no longer curb their tongue” for “a strong yoke has been removed”.

The past fortnight has shown that Modi does not see the results that way. For him, nothing has changed. He has sworn in virtually every previous ministerial colleague, including the dreaded Amit Shah. He distributes minor portfolios to his major coalition partners and resists their requests for the position of speaker. Clearly, he has no intention to loosen his iron grip on the running of the house and the longevity of elected MPs. He gives no recognition to the plain fact that he now has to contend with a revivified opposition that is snapping at his heels in a house where his majority is “very fragile” after the “tectonic shift” caused by the elections where “space has been blown open”, as Rahul Gandhi has said.

On the ground, Kejriwal is granted bail only to have it set aside almost immediately. Despite winning his seat from jail, after eight years of continuing incarceration, Engineer Sheikh Abdul Rashid does not yet know whether he will be released on bail to take his oath of office and whether he will have to do his duties as the MP for North Kashmir from prison or as a free man. Monstrously, Arundhati Roy is charged under the draconian UAPA and threatened with imprisonment without bail for a speech made more than a decade ago. Two French journalists are “forced to leave the country” and their Overseas Citizen of India status withdrawn despite both being long married to Indian spouses. The three new criminal procedure codes, endowed with highly Sanskritised names to remove the stain of the “colonial mindset” while retaining colonial times oppression, such as “sedition”, are to be implemented without giving Parliament an opportunity to review them. The re-inducted Union Minister Giriraj Singh is not pulled up for saying he too will do nothing for his Muslim constituents because, by not voting for him, they have “weakened Sanatan (Hinduism) to bring Ghazwa-e-Hind to Bharat”. All this in just the last fortnight! Like the Bourbon monarchs, Modi has “learned nothing and forgotten nothing”.

That will spell Modi’s doom. What happens to national unity when delimitation issues loom following the 2026 census? Does Modi have the dexterity to accommodate stern southern warnings? Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu will stick to him as long as he serves their purpose, but their purpose is milking the Centre and retaining the loyalty of their minorities. So, what happens to fiscal devolution, cooperative federalism, and the Uniform Civil Code? No ‘One Nation, One Election’, no ‘caste census’? Will the RSS acquiesce in the abandonment of their core demands? And how will Modi deflect an attack from the rear from the RSS, for which Mohan Bhagwat has already sounded the bugle? Will there be an RSS-sponsored Gadkari take-over?

Modi once warned me in Parliament that I would soon be dumped in the bin of the bhoole-bisre (the forgotten and abandoned). Modi will soon be joining me there.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

will-modi-third-run-its-full-term

Sat Jun 15 11:11:02 IST 2024

The Narendra Modi government has a wafer-thin majority. Either of Modi’s partners, the JD(U) with 12 seats or the TDP with 16, can upset the apple cart. That was the condition of V.P. Singh’s government. It lasted 11 months. That too was the condition of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s first government in 1996. That lasted 13 days. The plug can be pulled at any time.

In such circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Modi is offering a “consensual” government. Implicitly, this acknowledges that his previous governments were authoritarian and built around a personality cult. Both defining characteristics were integral to Modi’s personality and political past. They are also the defining characteristics of the hindutva ideology he espouses. How then, short of a lobotomy, can his protestations of running a third government opposite to his previous two be taken seriously?

First, what becomes of hindutva? Shaheen Bagh has triumphed. The Preamble to the Constitution, symbol of the Muslim women’s protest, has won. “Love jihad”, “land jihad”, now even “vote jihad” thrown out of the window. No to “bulldozer” politics. No more lynching for votes; no more riots for votes; no more genocide for votes. No more demanding that secularists “go to Pakistan” (and, in my case, “take your daughters with you!”) No more appeasement of the majority. No more vote banking by demonising religious minorities. Dog whistling and innuendo out. Hate speech denounced. Hate actions even more so. What then remains of hindutva?

On the very eve of its centenary, hindutva has been stopped in its tracks. After 10 years of power-drunk majoritarianism, will Nagpur accept that the Ram Mandir is all that remains of hindutva? Will the saffron cadre acknowledge that the dismantling of democratic institutions has to stop? That the weaponisation of governance agencies can no longer be fostered? Will they quiescently accept being shorn of their wolf’s clothing?

Will the electorate further tolerate a fawning judiciary denying the principle of “bail, not jail” that has made “the process the punishment” and converted Kashmir into “an open prison”? And a complaisant Election Commission? The voter cannot hold the courts or EC to account; so, will he/she turn on the government?

Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu are not offering their indispensable support for free. They know—and Modi knows—that one tantrum and it is curtains for Modi 3.0. Theirs is a case of ‘Dil maange more’. Does Modi have the wherewithal to meet their incessant demands?

The capture of mainstream media by favoured barons has already led to viewers drifting away, and even media celebrities have. We are in the age of podcasts and YouTubers. They can’t be taken over by moneybags. They are a standing monument to fear denied. Freedom of expression has been reaffirmed. Can Modi reverse that?

And what of Modi himself? The truth is now out: Modi is a biological being. He is no instrument of divinity, as he imagines himself. His attempt to combine the roles of the prime minister and the chief priest has been mocked. His claim to being the sole source of every welfare scheme and every government initiative has been laughed out of court. His mugshot on every hoarding, every poster, every ad, every document, even Covid inoculation certificates, has been seen for what it is: narcissism and megalomania. His making this election a popularity contest on himself has been punctured. He is alone in asking, “Mirror, mirror on the wall/tell me who is fairest of them all.” Can Modi so drastically transmogrify himself? Only a psychiatrist can tell.

Which is why I foresee only two years at most for the next Lok Sabha election.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

why-bjp-is-not-contesting-in-kashmir

Fri May 31 17:40:00 IST 2024

Union Home Minister Amit Shah claims “there is no greater testament to the removal of Article 370” than the high polling percentages in the Kashmir valley. Then why is the BJP not contesting any of the three seats in the valley?

The fact is that the reading down of Article 370—the principal boast of the BJP—is the key issue in all three constituencies where the main contenders—the National Conference (NC) of the Abdullahs and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) of the Muftis—are fighting it out. Article 370 is seen as the symbol of the “identity“ and “dignity” of the Valley inhabitants, as the feisty daughter of Mehbooba, Iltija, who is making her political debut, keeps emphasising. It is also seen as the guarantor of the “rights” of the Kashmiri people. Most importantly, it is seen by Kashmir’s mainstream nationalist parties as their principal shield against the separatists. The National Conference’s candidate for Srinagar, Aga Ruhullah Mehdi, a prominent Shia cleric, affirms, “For us… Article 370 was a pro-mainstream and pro-democracy argument.” That is why all candidates of the principal parties contesting, irrespective of their other differences, are committed to advocating the restoration of Article 370, however hollowed out it had become. But the BJP, for all the empty boasts of the lieutenant governor, the home minister, and the prime minister about “restoring normalcy” by diminishing insurgency and street protests, bringing in lakhs of tourists, and undertaking massive infrastructure works, is hiding behind the skirts of their “proxies”: Sajjad Lone’s People’s Conference, Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Party, and Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Progressive Azad Party, at least the latter two of which are set to lose their deposits.

The problem with the BJP is that it does not understand at all the psyche of the people of Kashmir and Ladakh and not even of the people of Jammu. Their focus is on hindutva and what they choose to call “development”, but they do not recognise that “man does not live by bread alone”.

In any case, long before the outrage on August 5, 2019, J&K was far ahead of most states, especially the bastions of the BJP—Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh—on every indicator of economic and human development (such as education and health), and Central budgetary support to the state. Such largesse had not “bought” the Kashmiris either before 2019 or after, because while they are all, of course, seeking peace and personal security and getting better-off, like human beings everywhere, they also seek, like human beings everywhere, honour and respect, and value above all else their “identity”, “dignity” and “rights”. Instead of bringing balm to such wounds, the BJP has turned J&K into “an open-air prison” to instill an atmosphere of fear.

.They have also resorted to the colonial practice of “divide and rule”, most nakedly evidenced in their delimitation commission irrationally joining Anantnag, the fortress of the Mufti family, to Poonch-Rajouri in Jammu over the formidable Pir Panjal range. In my view, this violates the principle of “geographic continuity” which is enshrined in clause 3 of the Delimitation Act. But, worse, the BJP have “deepened the ethnic divide” of Pahari from Gujjar and Bakerwal by granting Paharis ST status on the very eve of the election in the face of strident Gujjar-Bakerwal protests. The National Conference have retaliated by naming Mian Altaf Ahmed, a spiritual leader revered by the Gujjars, who has thrice been an MLA and whose father and grandfather have both been elected to the state assembly, as the candidate to oppose Mehbooba. She has deplored such “peer-mureed” politics, but can she successfully oppose it?

Again, the BJP is nowhere in the picture, the final proof of their politics in J&K over Article 370 having failed.

modi-divides-and-rules

Sat May 18 11:43:48 IST 2024

As the final phases of the general elections draw to a close, an increasingly panicky Prime Minister Narendra Modi has started upping the ante on the question of reservations for Muslims, once again attempting to rebuild his majority by forcing a Hindu-Muslim divide.

If, as the BJP has long been stressing, and Modi has been underlining, religion is nowhere mentioned in the First Amendment of 1951, which brought in reservations for Other Backward Classes, it is also necessary to underline that “caste” is also nowhere mentioned in this connection. The operative word is “classes”—a point stressed by Jawaharlal Nehru moving the legislation to give effect to the recommendations of the select committee set up by Parliament. “Classes”, of course, include both castes and communities. That is why Nehru, moving the amendment on May 29, 1951, described our aim as being “to realise an egalitarian society”, given the indisputable fact and social reality that, “infinite divisions have grown up in our… social structure”. He, specifically, described these infinite divisions as relating to “the caste system or religious divisions”. The use of the words “Other Backward Classes” (OBCs) was clearly designed to address all backward groups whether of castes, or occupations, or religion.

Therefore, the Mandal Commission included a number of Muslim castes in their OBC list, as well as occupations common to Hindus and Muslims, such as butchers and barbers. Thus, right from the start, certain Muslim castes have been considered backward, the term not being regarded as exclusive to Hindu society. The issue has never been, as Modi seems to think, of whether or not Islamic theology recognises caste: Indian Muslims have always been categorised on caste lines (arzal, as the lowest). Modi implicitly recognises this when he hoots what he claims he is doing for ‘Pasmanda Muslims’. Why not reservations for them, especially as the Justices Rajindar Sachar and Ranganath Mishra commissions found that the Muslim community as a whole was almost as backward as SCs and STs and “more backward” than non-Muslim OBCs, excluding Muslims who fall in the ‘creamy layer’, as for everyone else?

The problem of including Muslim castes among OBCs has always come up against the barrier of 50 per cent being the maximum share of reservations laid down by the Supreme Court. This has proliferated the practice by states, especially the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Karnataka, of providing Muslim sub-quotas within existing OBC quotas, thereby bringing a religion dimension into the quite different question of treating OBC reservations for backward classes of Muslims as “an extension of equality” and not an “exception to the principles of equality and non-discrimination”, as explained by Faizan Mustafa, vice-chancellor, Chanakya National Law University. This has been further confirmed in a series of Supreme Court judgments such as in Balaji (1962), Royappa (1973), and State of Kerala v/s N.M. Thomas (1975), besides the more renowned case of Indra Sawhney (1992).

To overcome the 50 per cent barrier, the Congress manifesto lays down a strategy to achieve the objective, beginning with a “caste survey” to move from “estimates” to facts on the ground. This will be the necessary preliminary to moving legislation to dismantle the 50 per cent barrier and giving OBCs of all religious persuasions a level ground to work towards removing their present educational and social backwardness, while otherwise tackling economic issues of rampant poverty and unemployment.

This is the logical way forward. Modi seeks to give this a communal colour. That may have succeeded in the past elections, but the electorate are waking up to the reality that it is not the Indian Muslim or Pakistan that is the bugbear. It is their economic and social condition after a decade of the Modi sarkar that is making them wonder whether Modi’s promised “achche din” (good days) have really arrived.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

modi-s-muslim-love-hate-hugs-and-kisses-for-sultans-contempt-for-ordinary-folks

Sat May 04 11:45:45 IST 2024

I have long been intrigued by the prime minister’s desire to hug every passing sheikh and sultan and his contrasting contempt for the ordinary Indian Muslim. The contempt becomes particularly evident at election time when the audience are invited to identify the transgressors by their dress (libhaz), the numbers of their children, or as infiltrators and traitors (ghuspait/gaddaar). Where any other party leader would immediately be pulled up, the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) does not appear to apply, in the eyes of the Election Commission of India as presently constituted, to the prime minister. Secular fundamentalists like me are outraged but clearly the general electorate, especially in the Hindi heartland, are only amused by these sly innuendos. Muslims—at any rate, Indian Muslims, it seems, are fair game—but woe betide any opposition candidate or leader who dares step on what passes for “Hindu sentiment”. Then the knives are drawn (in some cases, literally) and “appeasement”-bashing comes into its own. Reinforcing this contempt for the Indian Muslim is the portrayal of Pakistani Muslims as secessionists-turned-terrorists. Thus are the Indian and Pakistani Muslim linked together in the sangh parivar imagination as the “enemy”.

And, thus, is carried forward the Savarkar-Hedgewar-Golwalkar thesis that the Muslim and the Christian can never be true Indians because while they may by birth and ancestry belong to the “pitra bhoomi’ (the fatherland) of Bharat, this land can never be their “punya bhoomi” (sacred or holy land) because their land of worship is located to the distant west of the sub-continent. Regarding Muslims as essentially invaders from outside, the race theories of Hitler and his ilk held a special appeal for the leaders of the RSS. To imported Nazi notions of “race purity”, they added the fascination for violence that B.S. Moonje brought to Nagpur from a visit to Mussolini’s fascist Italy. It gave organisational structure to Savarkar’s belief that the “Hindu discovers himself only in violence” (cf. Vinayak Chaturvedi’s defining study of hindutva).

In the eyes of hindutva bhakts, it is the ineluctable presence of a 200-million strong Muslim community in Bharat that comes in the way of the realisation of a Hindu rashtra, while the slightly larger number of Muslims in breakaway Pakistan makes impossible the realisation of a Hindu rashtra in ‘Akhand Bharat’. On the other hand, the Muslims of the Gulf region, and West Asia and North Africa in general, are in their own punya bhoomi and hence of no concern to the Hindu rashtra that the sangh parivar aims at securing in the pitra-cum-punya bhoomi of Bharat.  Hence, hugs and kisses on the cheek for the rulers of Muslim lands but subversion of identity for the Indian Muslim; demonisation as “tushtikaran” (appeasement) of measures of compassion for a wretchedly deprived minority, economically, socially and educationally, as revealed by the Justice Rajinder Sachar Commission; fierce opposition to the hijab and a personal civil code for the minorities; perversion of history leading to the avenging of real and imagined happenings in the mediaeval past; rejection of our composite culture and the syncretic heritage of our great civilisation to which all communities have contributed, more often than not in creative partnership, in language, literature, poetry, music and song, dance, painting and architecture; threats to the security of life and limb for Muslims; the bulldozer for their humble dwellings; harassment and discrimination in their everyday existence; sneers for their clothing and way of life; obstacles in their places of worship and burial grounds; all of this leading to lynching, cow-protection related vigilante violence, rape and mass murder.

So, it is not Islam or the Muslim ummah to which the BJP objects. It is just to them being here!

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

bjp-cant-scale-dravidian-wall

Sat Apr 20 11:24:24 IST 2024

Days before several states went to the polls on April 19, Prashant Kishor, the nation’s leading soothsayer, forecast that the BJP, a rookie in Tamil Nadu politics, is going to stun the nation by carrying off at least 16 of the 40 seats in TN (including one in Puducherry). On the other hand, Dayanidhi Maran, speaking for the DMK, has sneered at this suggestion, describing the BJP in TN as “a keyboard warrior” that thinks elections can be won on social media platforms and the internet without feet on the ground.

The BJP has additionally invested heavily in Narendra Modi, believing that his numerous visits to TN will more than make up for the near absence of any interest in the BJP in the past. There is also hope in the local leadership of the TN BJP president, K. Annamalai, a 40-year-old former IPS officer who is the new kid on the block. Third, there is the BJP’s alliance with the PMK, a party that claims to represent the extremely backward community of the Vanniyar, whose numbers are quite significant in the north of the state but electorally not significant. Fourth, flogging Katchatheevu, an issue resolved half a century ago. And fifth, thinking the sengol, placed by the speaker’s chair, will kindle Tamil pride. It doesn’t. It is a symbol of Brahmin domination.

How does this face up to the ruling DMK whose alliance won 38 of the 39 seats in the state (plus Puducherry) in the 2019 Lok Sabha election? “Very poorly” would be the common sense response to that question. It is astonishing that any political commentator, however eminent, could believe differently now. For one thing, while the Dravidian movement took indigenous roots since more than a century ago when the Justice Party was formed, hindutva is an alien political philosophy with little or no resonance in the state. The Justice Party challenged the domination of the Congress in the 1920s. But by the 1930s, the Dravidian movement was radicalised by Thanthai Periyar E.V. Ramasamy Naicker and taken to the streets to demand “equality” in a society dominated by a tiny percentage of Brahmins, basing themselves on religion. Logically, therefore, the movement also became atheistic. While EVR’s refusal to participate in the narrower political field enabled Rajaji to form a Congress government in 1937, once the Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha received the Rajaji provincial government’s backing, EVR undertook a long march from Trichy to Madras that sparked the Dravidian refusal to accept the imposition of Hindi on the state. This also sparked a parallel movement to return to the chen Tamizh (classical Tamil) of a rich cultural past, which added to the momentum of alienation from the Sanskritic and vedic propagation of an India that excluded the Dravidian Tamils, who were also racially distinct from the Aryans of the north. How can the BJP, representing the quintessence of everything the Dravidian movement rejects, turn the tables on this bastion of Dravidian assertion?

There is also the pent-up anger at other forms of BJP imposition, such as NEET and the forthcoming delimitation, which might reduce TN seats for dramatically regulating its population growth while rewarding UP, the worst performer in family planning, by increasing its seats from 80 to 140.

Moreover, atavistic vengeance on our mediaeval history, which is at the core of hindutva, is so absent from Tamil sentiment that the Dravidian movement has no bias against Muslims. As Dayanidhi says, “DMK is 100 per cent for secularism”. The minorities are “born here. They are part of India. Hence, the Ram Mandir issue has little traction”. And as for the Gujarat model and the UP “double engine”, Dayanidhi pertinently asks if these are so successful, “Why are people from UP and Gujarat coming to Chennai to work?” Good question! Round One to INDIA.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

inequality-in-todays-india

Sat Apr 06 15:12:55 IST 2024

I happened to be a Union cabinet minister when Dr Manmohan Singh had his most spectacular achievement: GDP grew at 9.4 per cent, the highest rate ever and unbeaten since then. While the prime minister and Indian public opinion (particularly big business) were congratulating themselves on having broken the shackles of four decades of the so-called “licence-permit raj” and were eagerly anticipating double digit GDP growth to give China a run for its money, I got myself into deep trouble with the PM and the party by remarking at a meeting that 9.4 per cent GDP growth meant only that 94 per cent of Indians had grown at 0.94 per cent, while the fat cats who constitute 0.94 per cent of our population had grown by 9,400 per cent! It was clearly something of an off-colour joke at what I thought was a confidential get-together to discuss corporate linkages with panchayats, the portfolio I was handling. My remarks were leaked a few days later to the press and inevitably there was a huge rumpus leading to my being reprimanded at the highest levels in no uncertain terms.

I am, therefore, relieved (if deeply disturbed) that the World Inequality Database has revealed that three decades of liberalisation have humongously increased inequality. Between the regimes of Jawaharlal Nehru and P.V. Narasimha Rao, the share in national income of the “top 1 per cent”, which in colonial times had peaked at 21 per cent, shrank by the early 1980s to just 6 per cent. At the start of the reforms, the gap in national income share between the “top 10 per cent” and the “bottom 50 per cent” was 11 per cent (down from 16 per cent in 1951). Post reforms, it soared to 42.7 per cent in 2022, with the top 10 per cent claiming nearly 58 per cent of national income. Reforms also helped the “top 1 per cent” to more than double their national income share to nearly 23 per cent. The bottom 50 per cent now gets only 15 per cent of the pie. This is clearly in violation of the preambular pledge in the Constitution to “equality, of status and opportunity” and “justice, social, economic and political”, besides the Directive Principle in Article 38(2): “The State shall, in particular, strive to minimise the inequalities in income.” The Narendra Modi government, desperate for a Uniform Civil Code, is in blatant violation of the far more relevant Directive Principle relating to income inequality by endeavouring to maximise, not “minimise inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities”.

We may have attained the global fifth position in overall national income but are floundering at virtually the bottom on global indices that measure levels of justice in the distribution of the wealth of the nation. It was not for Adani and Ambani and others of the “suit-boot” gang that we won our freedom. Yet, in complete contrast with the goals of our Independence struggle and our constitutional injunctions, “India,” under the Modi dispensation says JNU emeritus professor, Aditya Mukherjee, “is witnessing obscene levels of inequality”, with the top 0.1 per cent capturing 9.6 per cent of national income—almost to the last decimal point what I had foretold as a minister.

While the incomes of the richie-rich have risen to stratospheric levels, there is the parallel tragedy of “stagnancy in income growth among the majority of the population” (World Inequality Database). Add to this the rampant unemployment among “casual labour”, the most deprived segment of our society, which plummeted from a share of employment of 28 per cent among men and women in 2011-12 to a dismal 23 per cent for men and a woeful 17 per cent for women in 2022-23.

In consequence, a clear nexus emerges between wealth and political power, symbolised by Ambani securing from the government the conversion of a defence airport into an international airport for 10 days to facilitate a celebrity family event. Would this ever have happened for any other Indian (other, of course, than Adani)? So long as money makes the mare go round, there can be no elimination of “inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities” which was the solemn constitution duty laid down by our founding fathers.

All of which explains why I remain an unreconstructed Nehruvian socialist.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

caa-thin-end-of-the-wedge

Sat Mar 23 14:33:06 IST 2024

With the announcement of dates for the coming general elections, the ruling establishment has suddenly found the courage to notify rules for the implementation of the nearly five-year old Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 [CAA], which had drawn the ire of the women of Shaheen Bagh and led to months-long demonstrations in Delhi, replicated all over the country, forcing the Modi government to back off from implementing it. By notifying the CAA rules on election eve, Amit Shah’s ministry has sought to overcome the setback they suffered in the winter of 2019/2020 when through prolonged day-and-night-long demonstrations in the bitter cold by poor, neglected, non-political Muslim women anchored themselves to the Preamble of the Constitution (and not the Holy Quran or the sharia) to point to the incompatibility of the CAA with India’s constitutional order. It was a brilliant strategic move that left the home ministry gasping as it challenged the standard construct of the demonstration as an Islamic movement with sectarian religious overtones. It was only the outbreak of the pandemic in mid-March 2020 that gave Shah’s ministry the opportunity to catch their breath.

The CAA was immediately contested in the Supreme Court which, after a long wait of close to half a decade on a crucial constitutional matter, has at last indicated its readiness to take up over 200 petitions that have been filed before it. And even as the issue becomes sub judice, the Modi government has notified the rules in flagrant disregard of constitutional propriety. In one reckoning, by breaking the nexus between the CAA and the National Register for Citizens (NRC) the government has negatived the apprehension of the minorities that the CAA is but a preliminary step to bringing religious compartmentalisation into our constitutional jurisprudence by explicitly excluding Muslim refugees from our neighbouring countries in an Indian law to open the constitutional path to rendering Indian Muslims as second-class citizens of our country. I do not think the independent women protestors of Shaheen Bagh are so naïve as to imagine that notifying the CAA rules before operationalising NRC amounts to removing the Indian Muslim minority from the crosshairs of this government. The overarching saffron goal remains to render Muslims as frightened hordes living on sufferance and dominated by the Hindu majority.

This is not an issue that concerns only Indian Muslims. It concerns all of us as the CAA is the first breach in a constitutional order guaranteeing “Equality”—the pledge in the Preamble—to all irrespective of religion, and the guarantee of “equal protection before the law” to “all persons” (not only “citizens”) residing “within the territory of India” (Article 14: Part III, Fundamental Rights).

Ironically, the principal contemporary humanitarian problem in our region is not the persecution of non-Muslims by the Muslim regimes of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh (the three countries covered by the CAA) but of Muslims in their own countries at the hands of both non-Islamic and Islamic regimes. The most looming of these issues are the Rohingya Muslims suffering genocidal murder and mayhem at the hands of Myanmar’s Buddhist rulers; Muslim minorities (Shia, Hazara, Ahmadiyya) battling jihadi Sunni Muslims in Pakistan and Afghanistan; and Uighur Muslims threatened with cultural genocide in avowedly atheistic communist China. Besides, Sri Lankan Tamils (Hindu, Christian, Muslim) facing Buddhist racio-religious extremism in confrontation with dominant elements of the Sinhala-Buddhist majority. If the CAA were really being driven by the humanitarian call of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, it would have addressed itself to these persecuted minorities.

Instead, the CAA picks on a virtual non-issue only to propagate its hindutva political agenda and add to its hindutva vote-bank in an election year. What cynical, opportunistic hypocrisy!

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

north-south-divide-is-growing

Sat Mar 09 11:24:28 IST 2024

The prime minister reminds me of the Tamil parable of the man who pinched the baby to make it cry, and then rocked the cradle to calm it down. He first creates a north-south divide by putting in place fiscal structures that favour the north and discriminate against the south, then denounces the opposition in Parliament for dividing north from south. He then sets out on a tour of southern Indian states to mollify the outraged people and has the gall to claim in Tamil Nadu, where his party is a non-entity, that the state is on “the cusp of a historical political change” that will bring it into the BJP net.

We would have long ago become the fifth largest global economy if the north had matched the south’s rates of economic growth. And our per capita income levels would be much higher than the global low at which we stagnate if the north had controlled its population growth and undertaken human resource development as effectively as the south, particularly Tamil Nadu, has done. The expatriate community of little Kerala contributes a disproportionately high share of remittances that have raised our nation’s foreign exchange reserves to over $600 billion. And it is the IT crowd from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh that dominates the Indian contribution to this fast-growing premier sector in the US and Europe, reflected in remittances to their home states. And, of course, the capital of Karnataka, Bengaluru, is the shining hub of our pioneering position in information technology and the export of services which drives our impressive foreign exchange earnings, while Tamil Nadu is the manufacturing hub besides being the nation’s granary.

Yet, it is principally these states of the south that are being severely discriminated against when it comes to raising national tax revenues and then distributing their share of the divisible pool to the states. Praveen Chakravarty, the top data analyst of the Congress, has shown that the taxpayer in states like TN and Kerala averages Rs20,000 yearly in contributing to the national tax kitty, but the average contribution of the Bihar taxpayer is a measly Rs4,500. And while “the average person in Bihar, UP or Madhya Pradesh gets back Rs260 for every Rs100 paid in taxes, the average Kannadiga gets back only Rs40”.

Is this fair? Does it not amount to fiscal punishment for outstanding economic performance? Does it surprise you that virtually the entire Karnataka cabinet fetched up in Delhi for an unprecedented demonstration to protest such discrimination? Or the statements emanating almost daily from other southern chief ministers?

It is the Modi government that has created this lop-sided fiscal structure. In 2014, it came into office just when the 14th Finance Commission submitted its report recommending that the states’ share of “the divisible pool” be raised from 32 per cent to a whopping 41 per cent. It presaged, everyone thought, the onset of genuine “cooperative federalism” in fiscal relations between the Centre and the states. But then, as pointed out by K.M. Chandrasekhar, Dr Manmohan Singh’s cabinet secretary, the Modi government perverted the process by resorting to “cesses and surcharges that do not have to be shared with the states”. They also ensured that two-thirds of the increase in states’ share came from adding, for the first time ever, plan expenditure to non-plan expenditure in measuring the states’ share. And sharply increasing the states’ share of financing centrally sponsored schemes. It is this trompe l’oeil (illusory trick) that has been passed off as implementing the 14th FC’s revolutionary recommendation.

“Cooperative federalism” has thus been rendered a farce, played out at the cost of all states but particularly the faster growing, better performing southern states, none of which is run by a “double engine sarkar”!

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

pak-army-defeated-again

Sat Feb 24 10:56:57 IST 2024

It is a given among our Pakistan experts that elections or no elections, the only winner is the Pakistan army for even a democratically elected civilian government is soon brought to heel by the faujis. And so, the conventional wisdom goes, should a political government go out of line, the army will bring it down. It will even hang the incumbent civilian prime minister as witness the extra-judicial murder of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

I always doubted the logic of this argument. Which is why five years ago I attributed Imran Khan’s massive win at least as much to his immense personal popularity as to the alleged backing he received from the Pakistan army. It seemed to me more as if the army were riding his wave than getting their puppet elected over the will of the people. That the army believed the Pak election of five years ago was their doing, I have no doubt. After all their media (and, to the extent it matters, our own) were proclaiming the generals as the real power behind Imran’s spectacular win. For a year or two into Imran’s regime, it seemed the standard view of Pakistan’s democracy as a farce enacted by their armed forces might indeed be true, but as the Americans moved out of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s role as a strategic American asset diminished before disappearing altogether, Imran started hewing his own path without orders from, or consultation with, the medal wearers. Differences reached such a point that Imran’s supporters actually attacked the home of the corps commander in Rawalpindi. The army moved in swiftly and had Imran’s government not only dismissed but Imran himself put in prison. His principal political opponent, Nawaz Shariff, was encouraged to return to Pakistan with immunity from further prosecution despite having been driven into forced exile on these very grounds by the same forces now welcoming him back. It seemed the army playbook was again open, and Imran would suffer persecution at the hands of those who had been pleased to back his electoral bid five years ago.

While Imran was imprisoned, effectively for life with the judiciary doing the army’s bidding, his party was dissolved, his symbol—the cricket bat which he had carried to victory for Pakistan so often—was taken away from him, and none of his supporters were permitted to stand in the February 2024 general elections except as independent candidates with individual election symbols that differed from seat to seat. They were also deprived of the time required to familiarise the electorate with their new symbols and could claim no title in their individual campaigns to their party’s name. The army sat back smugly to view the outcome of their exertions.

I happened to be in Lahore on polling day. Peace and tranquility reigned. Patient queues formed at polling booths. There were virtually no incidents of violence. It was generally believed that the populace was resigned to its traditional place as the silent spectators of manoeuvres in high places to deny them their true voice. Results were expected to flow in within hours of the closing of the polls. Instead, to everyone’s astonishment, counting went on through the night giving trends that betrayed the army’s expectations. Independents in their hordes were surging forward. The moral victory was the people’s voice. Imran-backed independents scored a century. Nawaz was left trailing at 30 per cent less seats; Zardari-Bhutto got less than half Imran’s score. The real loser was the army.

A government without Imran’s party may indeed be formed, but February 8, 2024, will be chalked up as the historic day on which the people of Pakistan defeated their army.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

isnt-the-ram-temple-in-ayodhya-a-victory-for-jinnah

Fri Feb 09 14:39:08 IST 2024

Who is the big winner from the inauguration of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya on January 22? The hindutvist PM, of course. Yet, is not the bigger winner Muhammad Ali Jinnah? For we are now an avowed ‘Hindu Rashtra’ and Jinnah always maintained that whatever its pretensions to secularism, independent India was in fact a ‘Hindu Raj’.

Gandhi sought to counter such a thesis by making Hindu-Muslim unity the fulcrum around which an independent Indian nation-state would be spun. In spiritual terms, this emphasis on Hindu-Muslim unity was expressed in the ineluctable belief that different religions are but different paths that lead to the same Truth. In political terms, Gandhi made Hindu-Muslim unity the leitmotif of the freedom movement, beginning with merging the demand for the restoration of the Khilafat with his non-violent civil disobedience satyagraha. In his personal life, his close associates included the Ali brothers, Dr M.A. Ansari, Dr Zakir Hussain and, above all, Maulana Azad. On the Dandi March, he stayed the last night before picking up a fistful of salt with a Muslim host and nominated Abbas Tyabji to lead the satyagraha in the event of his arrest. Above all, it was his designating Jawaharlal Nehru as his true successor that demonstrated his unwavering conviction that independent India, whether partitioned or not, could only be true to itself and its heritage by refusing to be a sectarian state. To this, Nehru added the coda that the state would have no religion. Now we have a prime minister who has displaced the four Shankaracharyas to emerge as the chief Hindu priest.

Nehru distilled the essential truth of the evolution of Indic civilisation as being inscribed on “ancient palimpsests” that are placed one upon the other without quite obscuring previous texts. From that arose a process of absorption, assimilation and synthesis that transformed military conquests into a composite heritage that drew the best from every source, victor or vanquished.

Moreover, it was precisely over the period of the Delhi sultanate (1192-1526) that the Bhakti movement (and its Muslim counterpart, Sufism) got under way. It was over six centuries of Sultanate and Mughal rule (1526-1858) that Ramanujacharya and Swami Ramanand, Sant Tukaram and Krishna Chaitanya, Sankardev and Ravi Das, Kabir and Surdas and Mira, and then the ten gurus of Sikhism defined bhakti as the most popular form of religion. Indeed, Acharya Goswami Tulsidas began his famed “Ramcharitmanas” in 1574 in Ayodhya in the very shadow of the Babri Masjid built in 1528, without once mentioning the destruction of any Ram temple. Now we have the vice president informing the JNU convocation that the “pain of 500 years has ended” with the inauguration of the Ram Temple. Yet, the biggest Ram bhakt of them all, Mahatma Gandhi, never felt that “pain”. He never mentioned the Babri Masjid and unlike the hindutvists celebrating what the Supreme Court has described as the “egregious violation of the law” in violently bringing down the masjid, actually ensured that all mosques and shrines of the Muslim community in Delhi were returned to the Muslims when, at partition, Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan started occupying them. Hence, argued Nehru, while Pakistan could become an “Islamic nation” if it wished, India would not follow suit by becoming a “Hindu nation”. It would remain “secular”. B.R. Ambedkar agreed and the nation concurred. At least till 2014.

What, after all, is “secularism”? At its most basic, it is the right of Indian Muslims to remain Muslim with the same constitutional and legal rights as Indians of other faiths. Now, under the assault of Hindutva authoritarianism and majoritarianism, that national consensus on a secular India is being radically transformed—in the direction that Jinnah had affirmed it would.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

what-makes-mohamed-muizzu-so-angry

Sat Jan 27 11:09:46 IST 2024

On November 3, 1988, a group of well-armed mercenaries recruited by dissident Maldivian expatriates disembarked in Male, capital of the Maldives, and within a few hours succeeded in capturing most government buildings, including the presidential palace, and holding hundreds of civilians and one government minister hostage. The president, Abdul Gayoom, escaped their clutches and appealed to India for help. Rajiv Gandhi immediately sent in Air Force planes to undertake reconnaissance and thereafter landed Army personnel who quickly took control of the situation and restored the Maldives to its elected president who had won his third term with a majority of 95 per cent. Gayoom expressed his “deep gratitude” to India for bringing the Maldives back to freedom and democracy. Rajiv Gandhi informed the leaders of the opposition of the action taken and next day made a statement in the Lok Sabha explaining our policy and announcing that the withdrawal of Indian troops would begin the same day, leaving behind only a small contingent for “mopping up” operations. He emphasised that the Indian armed forces had been called in only at the instance of the Maldives itself whom he described as “one of our closest and friendliest neighbours”, to whose rescue we came because of “our commitment to peace and stability in our region” and to demonstrate “our belief that the countries of the region can resolve their problems in a spirit of friendship and cooperation, free of outside influence”. India was seen as a benevolent and friendly presence in South Asia.

With the advent of the Modi government, all that has changed. India is now seen as an interfering bully. And Muizzu has been elected as president on his campaign slogan, “India Out”! He has demanded the removal by March 15 of the 77 [Indian] Army personnel and 12 military medical officers as well as the return of the helicopters and Dornier aircraft we have loaned the Maldives in the name of surveillance and undertaking hydrological surveys. He has also visited China and forged a “strategic” partnership with them. It is India out and China in, with Pakistan slavering on the sidelines. What has transformed the India-Maldives relationship since the Modi-Jaishankar team came to office?

Several factors, foremost among them the discrimination against, and hounding of, the Muslim community that ‘Hindu Rashtra’ is inflicting on our largest minority. The Maldives is 100 per cent Muslim. Second, India’s blocking of SAARC which the Maldivians (and much of South Asia) regard as the sole instrument for binding South Asia closer together. Third, India blindly opposing the Chinese Belt & Road Initiative which the Maldives see as their economic lifeline. Fourth, the attempts by the sangh parivar’s drumbeaters to promote Lakshadweep as an alternative tourist destination to the Maldives, little realising that tourism which separates the bikini from the burkha in tourist atolls is the basic reason for the Maldives far outwitting Lakshadweep as an international high-end tourism spot. Fifth, the contrary efforts by a BJP-appointed administrator, Praful Patel, to impose Hindu cultural and dietary values on Lakshadweep-Minicoy whose inhabitants are as one hundred per cent Islamic as the Maldives. Sixth, insensitivity toward the linguistic bonds between Minicoy and the Maldives where the common language is Divehi. While Rajiv Gandhi carried schoolbooks in Divehi as his gifts to the Maldivian people, the Modi-Jaishankar duo have nothing to offer but arrogance. Indeed, it is the policy of projecting the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ of Bharat as the hegemonic South Asian power by right and India as the world’s Vishwaguru that has caused the apple cart to tumble over. Abh samjhe ki Muizzu ko gussa kyon aata hai [Now you understand why Muizzu gets angry]?

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

when-the-rebuilt-somnath-temple-was-inaugurated

Sat Jan 13 11:04:11 IST 2024

As the leaders of the INDIA alliance mull over the invitations they have received to the inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, this column makes bold to remind them of a similar occasion in 1951 when the rebuilt Somnath Temple was inaugurated.

The story begins with the integration of Junagadh state with the Indian Union in November 1947. It was immediately announced on the spot that the temple at Somnath, located within the state, which had been destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni in the early eleventh century, would be rebuilt. The Union cabinet was seized of the issue in December 1947 and the minutes recorded that it had been agreed that the reconstruction of the Somnath Temple would be undertaken at state expense. When Nehru was informed of this, he was furious. Denying that any such decision had been taken, he had the minutes altered accordingly and ordered K.M. Munshi, his minister of works and housing and the most determined proponent of the project, that a secular country could not possibly undertake such an act of historical revenge funded by the treasury. Asked whether, in that case, there would be any objection to finding the means to do so from private sources, Nehru agreed that so long as the state was not involved, there could be no objection to such a private initiative.

Munshi, backed by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, then set about raising funds through crowd funding and massive donations from some industrialists. By 1950, enough had been collected to begin the reconstruction of the temple. This too was completed by 1951 and the organisers were all set for a grand inauguration when a further complication arose. They wanted the president, Dr Rajendra Prasad, to be present. Prasad was keen to go. Nehru, totally alarmed at this wanton display of state patronage to a private religious function, convened a cabinet meeting that passed a resolution requesting the president not to go as this would be violative of the fundamental principle of our constitutional democracy that the state has no religion.

When the president insisted on going, the cabinet again advised him, in the interests of preserving a strict line between personal religion and state action, not to go. This stymied the president as the Constitution specified that the president could return for reconsideration any decision of the cabinet but not if it were reiterated.

Prasad then enquired whether he could go in his personal capacity. Nehru’s view was that he was free to do what he wished as a private citizen but not as one holding the highest constitutional position in the land. Which meant that neither protocol nor security could be provided to Prasad at Somnath. At this point, Morarji Desai, home minister in Bombay, came up with an alternative. The Bombay Province Fairs and Melas Act provided that it was the state‘s responsibility to ensure law and order at fairs. As such, this act could be tweaked to provide the president, albeit in his personal capacity, with the protection he needed. The organisers would look after protocol. Thus, the separation of the state from religion was preserved but could not be portrayed as anything but vengeance on history and holding our largest minority responsible for whatever their co-religionists might have done a millennia ago. This to Nehru was anathema.

On emerging from the challenge to his secularism from within, Nehru, on Gandhi Jayanti, 1951, gave the nation his understanding of secular activism: “If anyone raises his hand against another in the name of religion, I will fight him till the last breath of my life, whether from within the government or outside.” Thus, was laid the foundations of secular India.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

restoring-dignity-to-parliamentary-proceedings

Fri Dec 29 14:47:22 IST 2023

While accepting from the Rashtrapati the outstanding parliamentarian award for 2006, I publicly pledged never again to participate in the disruption of parliamentary proceedings. Through approximately my first decade in the Lok Sabha (1991-2001, with some interruptions) I had served in a house where debate was the norm and disruption the exception. In the period of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s premiership (1999-2004), when the Congress was in opposition, dignity, decorum and discussion began giving way to frequent disruption of proceedings. Our then chief whip, Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, was the guiding light for such unparliamentary behaviour but he was backed to the hilt by opposition MPs. Entering the well of the house, carrying placards into Parliament to catch TV’s eye, and demonstrating at the foot of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue gradually displaced sober debate as the preferred mode of protesting government’s policies, thought and action. This brought no public opprobrium on the Congress as we succeeded in winning the 2004 general elections and becoming the ruling party for all of a decade (2004-2014).

The lesson the BJP, in opposition during that decade, seems to have learned is that demonstration, and not discussion, is the way back to power. During the decade of UPA rule, the BJP outclassed the previous Congress record of expressing dissent through demonstration. Both Somnath Chatterjee, presiding over the lower house, and Hamid Ansari, presiding over the upper house, begged, scolded, and reprimanded parliamentarians for boorish behaviour designed to close down proceedings.

With both halves of the house eschewing debate in favour of disruption, India, that is Bharat, has rapidly descended to the nadir now reached. Is there a way out? I commend the suggestion proposed by Chakshu Roy of PRS Legislative Research in a newspaper: instead of the day’s agenda being set by the government for the entire week, bar the two-and-a-half hours set aside on Friday afternoons for private members‘ business, specific days of the sitting be reserved for opposition business. I would add that the house then sit for at least 180 days in the year to give both sides adequate space and opportunity to voice their concerns. That might, just might, render Parliament less dysfunctional.

Notwithstanding such a systemic response to the current establishment view of treating “disruptions as a disciplinary problem” that has led to the suspension of virtually all opposition MPs, it seems to me that the fundamental problem remains of few MPs being given adequate time to express their views whereas demonstrations give all concerned MPs the opportunity to participate in the proceedings on an equal footing. Also, while a good speech requires careful preparation, disruption requires no preparation at all! How does one tackle that psychological issue? Only by restoring dignity to parliamentary proceedings.

In the earliest Lok Sabhas and Rajya Sabhas, coinciding with Jawaharlal Nehru’s premiership, parliamentary proceedings went smoothly, with the press carefully reporting summaries of the main arguments made, so that notorious disrupters like Mani Ram Bagri were decried. This was essentially because Nehru made a point of frequently attending Parliament, particularly when he and his government were under attack.

Indeed, on my first visit to Parliament in 1960, I watched bewitched as Comrade Dange lit into Nehru for dismissing the communist government in Kerala. The house and the prime minister heard him out without any interruption. The current prime minister devalues Parliament by almost never being in the house and then leaning on presiding officers to be particularly harsh on the opposition and restrained on his own MPs. That is the current crux of the problem.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

whats-similar-between-hindutva-and-zionism

Fri Dec 15 18:11:42 IST 2023

Attending a conference in Johannesburg on solidarity with Palestine, I said, “Let me begin by clarifying that I am not here on behalf of my government….” Thunderous applause greeted that opening line. It reflected the extent to which the “Arab street” has been grievously alienated by Narendra Modi’s declaration of “total solidarity” with Israel, a 180-degree turn from our rock-solid stand with the Palestinians for most of the past century.

To understand the Arab shock, we need to go back to the view that Mahatma Gandhi expressed in 1938 even as the question of Jewish settlement in Palestinian lands began to assume proportions that threatened the very lives and livelihood of the indigenous Palestinian people and even their existence in their traditional homeland. Gandhiji wrote in his magazine Harijan (November 26, 1938) with reference to the racial and religious discrimination the Jews had faced for millennia and the vicious pogroms in Europe, east and west, climaxed by Hitler’s “final solution”—the liquidation of the entire community—that, “My sympathies are all with the Jews, but my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me….They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart.” He formulated his basic position in a famous aphorism: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense as England to the English and France to the French.”

Unsurprisingly, therefore, India, under Jawaharlal Nehru, still suffering the pain of the partition, should have been one of the few countries to vote in the UN in November 1947 against the partition of Palestine. Notwithstanding the onset of the Cold War, the proposal to partition Palestine had brought the Soviet bloc together with the US-led bloc of white Christian nations to atone for their centuries of sins against the Jews by pushing the Jewish issue out their domain and into the Arab heartland. Given that the Jews in Europe had been safe and privileged only during the 700 years (711-1492 CE) of Muslim rule in Andalusia—present-day Spain and Portugal—Gandhi’s advice was the only one that could have led to the Jews and Arabs living together in harmony in a joint homeland. Echoing this view were the two Jewish rabbis attending the Johannesburg conference on behalf of “Jews against Zionism”.

The “one-state” solution was championed by Gandhi’s favourite disciple, Nehru, as prime minister. When this was not accepted, the UN proposed an alternative “two-state” solution in 1967. It has been on the table for the last half-century, but Israel is adamant on ridding themselves of, or subordinating to second-class citizenship, the Arab residents of Palestine.

Modi has reversed the long-held Indian position principally because hindutva is premised on same parameters as Zionism: hostility to Islam. Zionism is not Judaism even as hindutva is not Hinduism. Modi, as an avid hindutvist, and Benjamin Netanyahu, as an avid Zionist, are as similar as two peas in a pod because, as Christophe Jaffrelot points out, “Hindu nationalism and Zionism are rooted in a long history of hindutva’s admiration of Zionist ethno-nationalism.” Jaffrelot adds that this is “possibly because both have found a common enemy in their country’s largest religious minority.” I would only change “possibly” to “certainly”. For, as V.D. Savarkar had written from a diametrically opposite angle to Gandhi’s, “If Palestine becomes a Jewish state, it will gladden us almost as much as our Jewish friends.” Little wonder then that Modi stands in solidarity with Netanyahu.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

india-alliance-should-get-its-act-together

Sat Dec 02 11:44:49 IST 2023

As the results of the five assembly elections taking place will be available to the reader at just about the same time as this column, it makes little sense to speculate on the outcome.

The fact is that time and again, especially since 2003, it has been shown that these five assembly elections, always held on the eve of the general elections, are not the heats for the final to be run a few months hence. No one learned this lesson more bitterly than Atal Bihari Vajpayee who, on the basis of these elections won handsomely by the BJP in 2003, decided to advance the Lok Sabha poll by six months—and suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of a Congress-led opposition that came together by circumstance more than design at virtually the last moment. Apart from a determination to oust the BJP from the Centre, there was little or nothing by way of seat-sharing and no single manifesto. The common minimum programme came after, not before, the post-election formation of the United Progressive Alliance.

This shows that for all the handwringing over the INDIA alliance not having faced this round of assembly elections with any element of joint purpose, there is still plenty of time for the alliance to show its composite face. However, it would be best to not attempt a repeat of the 2004 jugaad but embark on defeating the BJP in a more scientific manner.

The fundamentals are already clear. In 2014 and even more so in 2019, the BJP won a formidable victory, not because a majority voted them in but because the majority vote (of around 69 per cent in 2014 and about 63 per cent in 2019) was hopelessly fractionated.

This shows that “getting their act together” is the principal task before the INDIA alliance. With Sonia Gandhi present in Mumbai (she was not there in Patna), they were able to give themselves a name and set up committees to prepare for one-on-one contests in as many seats as possible, as well as to outline an agenda to present to the voter. This was not for the assembly elections but only for the national elections as they did not have in the five state assemblies the common stake they definitely have in the outcome of the next general elections. As such, with the assembly elections out of the way, the time has come to give teeth to the alliance.

“Giving teeth” is an exercise in both arithmetic and chemistry. The arithmetic lies in coming to mutual agreement on which seats are going to be allotted to which member of the INDIA alliance to forge the largest possible number of one-on-one contests with the BJP in as many seats as possible. This definitely does not mean maximal agreement. Even 300 seats in states where the BJP either won marginally or won preponderantly—essentially the Hindi-speaking Gangetic basin from Gangotri to the Sunderbans—will place on its head the arithmetic of the BJP’s overwhelming victory in the two previous national polls. But, in and of itself, arithmetic alone won’t do. The favourable maths should also spark a chemical reaction that will alter voter perceptions of the prospects for themselves and the INDIA grouping over the next five years. Some of the elements of such a promising joint outlook have already become clear in the present round of polls. There are pointers, too, to what might hold even greater appeal in the near future. Putting all these together is INDIA’s next task—and please pardon the pun, for it is also Bharat’s next task.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

just-as-yuval-noah-harari-had-envisioned

Sat Nov 18 11:13:36 IST 2023

Yuval Noah Harari has emerged as one of the 21st century’s most recognised public intellectuals. In the midst of the Israel-Palestine war in Gaza, it is useful to revisit his 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, published in 2018.

He writes that ‘terrorism’ is a “strategy almost always adopted by very weak parties who cannot inflict much material damage on their enemies”. They resort to terror because spreading “fear is their main story”. Most important of all, “There is an astounding disproportion between the actual strength of the terrorists and the fear they manage to inspire.” He goes on to say that terrorists calculate that when the “enraged enemy uses his massive strength against them, he will raise a much more violent military and political storm than the terrorists themselves could ever create”. He further underlines, “Provoking the enemy to action without eliminating any of his weapons or options is an act of desperation taken only when there is no option.”

Although in 2018, when the book was published, Harari, like most Israelis, took virtually no note of Hamas (there is only one passing mention of Hamas at p.173), as he, like most Israelis, was totally complacent that Israel’s military and intelligence had the Palestinians completely cowed, his extraordinarily accurate perception of “desperation” leaving the oppressed with “little choice” but resort to foredoomed violence is that “since they are very weak, and have no other military option, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain”. That is why Hamas unleashed its limited stock of missiles in virtually one go, then broke through the Israeli barricades to capture about 200 hostages to bargain for the release of their own men and women—some 2,000 of them locked in Israeli jails.

They knew, of course, that Israel would retaliate—and retaliate inhumanely, viciously, and disproportionately. As Harari had predicted, “Fear and confusion will cause the enemy to misuse his intact strength and overreact.” So that, “Mistakes are made, atrocities are committed, public opinion wavers, neutrals change their stance and the balance of power changes.” For, again as Harari says, “Terrorism is a military strategy that hopes to change the political situation by spreading fear rather than by causing material damage.”

There can be no peace without justice. And it is justice of which the Palestinians have been deprived. For 75 years, Israel has been driving Palestinians out of their millennial homeland. To do this, it was Israel that introduced terrorism to West Asia. Organs like Irgun, Palmach and the Stern Gang secured independent Israel. At least two of their leading men became PMs of Israel: Yigal Allon and Menachem Begin.

Yasser Arafat, in retaliation, set up the Palestine Liberation Organization, but, after violence failed, sent his team for secret negotiations in Oslo. It led to the accord that brought Arafat back from Tunis to Gaza City but instead of a Palestinian state got only panchayati raj in the Gaza Strip, solving nothing. In consequence, Hamas won a free and fair election over the PLO. Ironically, it was Israel that funded Hamas to divide the Palestinian resistance. Now Hamas has shown its true mettle to morally defeat Benjamin Netanyahu, exactly in the manner predicted by Harari. Harari even foresees this when he links “Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Narendra Modi and Netanyahu” (p. 179) as peas sprouting from the same pod.

Hamas will fight and Israel will retaliate until and unless the Palestinian resistance turns Gandhian and shakes the world’s conscience as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela did by basing their liberation movements on relentless, determined non-violent resistance.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

our-sporting-icons-are-found-by-chance

Sat Nov 04 11:05:43 IST 2023

As a former Union minister of sports (2006-08), I am deeply distressed to hear of India’s bid to host the 2036 Olympic Games. I witnessed with my own eyes the ghastly corruption that the much smaller Commonwealth Games engendered; the false promises and outright lies that made it possible for the Games to be awarded to India; the humungous expenditure, estimated at Rs60,000 crore by well-informed observers; the giddy egotism of those running the organising committee; the mess they made of it; the ill-repute that India won internationally from all the shenanigans; and the consequential termination of the outstanding political career of the chief minister of Delhi Sheila Dikshit and the less regrettable ending of the career of the principal heavyweight, Suresh Kalmadi. It was also the Commonwealth Games that signalled the beginning of the end of the Manmohan Singh government. Fortunately, for me, I opted out by begging to be relieved of this ministerial post before irretrievably staining my reputation.

I feared this bid was in the offing when the prime minister, congratulating the 100 or so medal winners in the Asian Games, announced that this showed India had become “a sporting nation”. It has not. As one of our most impressive international gold medal winners, the champ shooter Abhinav Bindra, put it, “If we as a nation are going to embrace sport”, we cannot look at it through “just one prism: winning medals”. We need, above all, to devise ways and means of enabling our children and youth to have easy and affordable access to sports facilities in every panchayat and every mohalla of our vast country. The Tamil Nadu government, back in Karunanidhi’s day, had demonstrated how as many as seven different games and sports can be taught and played in a single acre of land. That will never happen countrywide so long as the Union government prioritises the meretricious hosting of international games events over spending even a fraction of the munificent amounts involved in starting playgrounds and appointing coaches in every one of our 2.6 lakh village panchayats and uncounted lakhs of urban bastis and mohallas. That is where the sporting talent of India lies hidden. What talent we are now finding is almost accidental. Our sporting icons are found by chance, not by systematic scientific search for talent over a wide spectrum of sports in every nook and corner of our country, and then assiduously training and investing in them till they emerge as world champions.

If we invest enormous resources in becoming a “sports-hosting” nation, the ones who suffer the most would be our children and youth who could well use that humungous expenditure to truly use “the power of sports to take it to communities and build character through the medium of sports,” as Bindra so tellingly puts it.

PM Modi does not seem to have seen the irony of his hosting the Olympics on the very centenary of Adolf Hitler having hosted the Berlin Olympics in 1936. American journalist William Shirer said, “No previous games had seen such a spectacular organisation nor such a lavish display of entertainment… Goring, Ribbentrop and Goebbels gave dazzling parties for the foreign visitors…(the) “Italian Night” gathered more than a thousand guests in a scene that resembled the Arabian Nights”. You can bet that is the PM’s aim. British historian Alan Bullock said, “Germany’s new masters entertained with a splendour that rivalled the displays of the tsars of Russia”. To go by the sheer ostentation of G20, we can be sure our government will match the tsars display for display. That is the object of the bid. We, as a nation, would be foolish to fall for it.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

no-peace-possible-without-justice-to-persecuted-palestinians

Sat Oct 21 13:14:32 IST 2023

As Benyamin Netanyahu and Narendra Modi are cut from the same majoritarian-authoritarian cloth, it is hardly surprising that Modi has overturned decades of India’s Palestine policy to affirm total solidarity with Israel in the face of Hamas reviving the Palestinian resistance. And it has taken the ministry of external affairs nearly a week to restore a faint measure of balance by issuing an anodyne statement aimed at appeasing outraged Arab sentiment.

Our Palestine policy has been fundamentally founded on Mahatma Gandhi’s famous observation in 1938: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs as England belongs to the English and France to the French.” While Britain dilly-dallied over relinquishing its League of Nations mandate over Palestine, the Zionists, through a host of organisations—Haganah, Lehi, and above all, Irgun—introduced terrorism to Palestine, laying mines and sparking explosions; shooting dead numerous British policemen and army personnel; assassinating the UN mediator, Count Bernadotte; blowing up the King David hotel in Jerusalem, and mercilessly murdering countless Palestinians. How ironic that the Israelis now complain of Arab “terrorism”.

The principal plank of Zionist policy has been to drive out the Palestinians from their homesteads and relentlessly implement state discrimination against those who remain. Horrified at the treatment being meted out to the Palestinians, a leading Zionist philosopher, Martin Buber, as far back as 1950, condemned Israeli policies towards the Palestinians. To understand the import of Buber’s condemnation, readers need to be reminded that he was the Rabindranath Tagore of the Zionist movement and had been expressly sent to India in the late 1930s to persuade Mahatma Gandhiji to view the Zionist cause more favourably. Gandhi, however, stuck to his position that while indeed the Jews were an admirable people who had suffered centuries of persecution at Christian hands in Europe, Europe could not compensate them for their terrible misfortunes at Hitler’s hands by taking away from Arabs the land that indubitably belonged to the Palestinians. The Zionists retorted that there were no such people as the Palestinians and that, therefore, “a people without land were entitled to a land without people”. Thus did Zionism seek to efface millennia of existential Arab reality. No wonder the Palestinians refer to the creation of Israel as Al Nakba, the Catastrophe.

There can be no peace between Israel and Palestine without justice to the persecuted Palestinian people. There was a flicker of hope when the UN in 1967 adopted the “land for peace” resolution that envisaged a “two-state” solution—Israel and a Palestine state living next to each other in harmony. But Israel has consistently refused to countenance a sovereign state for the poor Palestinians. It never even sincerely implemented the Oslo Accord with Yasser Arafat, or the White House Rose Garden understanding brokered in 1993 by US President Bill Clinton. Indeed, Israel, particularly under Netanyahu, has gone further and created heavily fortified (and illegal) Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The resistance has, therefore, shifted to the Gaza Strip where Hamas has secured total dominance and continues to defy Israel in sharp contrast to the bullied and cowed down Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah in the West Bank.

India took all this into account in determining its Palestine policy. Now, Modi has upset the apple cart, leaving a bewildered MEA to somehow pick up the pieces. Perhaps they should first begin by getting our leading West Asia expert, Talmiz Ahmed, ex-IFS, to tutor our prime minister in the rudiments of the region’s history in, perhaps, the vain hope that it will kindle a little compassion in Modi’s stony heart.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

learnings-from-nam-1983

Sat Oct 07 10:56:23 IST 2023

Readers might recall Rudyard Kipling’s famed poem Recessional that he wrote for Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee celebrations: “The tumult and the shouting dies/the captains and the kings depart/still stands thine ancient sacrifice/a humble and a contrite heart.”

Now that “the tumult and the shouting” over the G20 summit has “died” down, and “the captains and the kings” have departed Delhi, it is time for the Modi government to show some signs of being “humble” and “contrite”. Yet, all we have seen is empty boasting and vain arrogance. I cannot but contrast the NAM summit of March 1983 and the G20 summit 40 years later.

Six months before the seventh non-aligned summit was due to be held in Baghdad, NAM member-countries decided against going to Baghdad and requested Delhi to host the summit. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi agreed. Natwar Singh was designated secretary-general and I was named the conference spokesman. Thus, I had a ringside seat to both the horrendous logistical problems to overcome in a mere 180 days, besides familiarising myself with all the controversies—particularly the Kampuchea question, which were dividing the movement—to conduct press briefings.

Whereas India that is Bharat had years and years to prepare for the G20 Summit, we had only six months for NAM in 1983. Moreover, against about 40 delegations who came in September 2023, arrangements had to be made 40 years ago within an extremely narrow time frame to accommodate and cater to the security and other requirements of 99 heads of state/government, and 40 guests and observers. And whereas the Modi summit cost the nation over an estimated Rs4,000 crore, Hamid Ansari, as chief of protocol, spent a tenth of that amount looking after 100 more delegations and was awarded the Padma Bhushan for his outstanding performance. And as all of us know, went on to serve in two successive terms as vice-president of India (that is Bharat). And he got both distinctions without having to hide the shame of our poverty behind green draping. None of Modi’s guests were fooled.

As to the outcome, Ukraine was to the G20 summit what Kampuchea was to the NAM summit. And where Indira Gandhi secured the highest common factor for the conference consensus on Kampuchea, Modi only got way with the lowest common denominator on Ukraine. For whereas the Kampuchea paragraphs (112 and 113) in the final documents of the seventh NAM summit, set out all the main elements that eventually brought Cambodia back to civilisation from the barbarity of the worst genocide known to history (Pol Pot, backed by the US, massacred a third of the country’s population in his ‘killing fields’), the Modi-engineered consensus only left everything as it was with no setting out of any basis for an eventual pacific settlement of the war in Ukraine.

Consider that the NAM summit listed all the elements of the final Cambodia settlement: “reaffirmed their support for the principles of non-interference” and “inadmissibility of the use of force”; “a comprehensive solution” to provide for “the withdrawal of all foreign forces… thus ensuring full respect for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all states in the region” and sought a “process of negotiations and mutual understanding” for the “people of Kampuchea” to “determine their own destiny”. That is exactly what came to pass and if Cambodia is one of the most peaceful countries in the world today, it is because the seventh NAM summit showed the way.

In contrast, the Modi ‘consensus’ on Ukraine (para 8) merely reiterates “national positions and resolutions” and does nothing to signal how the war may be ended.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

difference-between-islamisation-and-hindutva

Sat Sep 23 11:30:50 IST 2023

As I have described in my recently released Memoirs of a Maverick, I reached Karachi just a few weeks before President Zia ul-Haq declared the Nizam-e-Mustafa, the rule of the Prophet—the first step in what came to be called “Islamisation”. So, Karan Thapar, interviewing me on my Pakistan chapter, asked me against whom Islamisation was targeted. “The impious Muslim,” I replied. “Not,” I was asked, “against the Pakistani Hindu?” On reflection, I said the blasphemy laws have been used against Pakistan’s main minority, the Christians. But Hindus? No.

Later, thinking about this exchange, I wondered against whom hindutva was targeted. Clearly the Indian Muslim. On further reflection, I have come to the conclusion that hindutva has nothing against Islam per se nor against the global Muslim community. That is why Modi wanders the world hugging every passing Muslim leader—sheikhs, sultans and their ilk. Interestingly, he does not do the same with Indian Muslims. Why?

The answer perhaps lies in the contestation that took place about a century ago, in the 1920s and 1930s, between Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists who virulently disagreed on everything but ardently agreed on one thing—that Hindus and Muslims belonged not to two religions within a common nation but constituted two incompatible nations. While this curious agreement-cum-disagreement had its roots in the post-1857 intellectual ferment, it did not acquire political traction till after the first elections held in 1937 under the British-sponsored Government of India Act, 1935, which provided for separate electorates for Hindus and Muslims.

The 1937 elections were a disaster for Jinnah’s Muslim League, which secured only 5 per cent of the Muslim vote in Muslim separate electorates. But in his role as the Quaid-e-Azam, Mohammad Ali Jinnah succeeded in fuelling a separatist sentiment among his Muslim followers that, with British blessings, left a vivisected subcontinent as the last colonial legacy. That final contest was essentially led by Mahatma Gandhi, fighting for a united India, and Jinnah fighting for a separate nation.

It was an intriguing contest for Jinnah was so ignorant of Muslim ritual that he could not even say his namaz, while Gandhi was so steeped in religious discourse that readings from the Holy Quran and the Bible were integral to his daily prayer meetings: “Ishwar Allah tero naam, sabko sanmati de bhagwan.” In contrast, the advocates of hindutva from Savarkar to Modi know nothing about Islam and care little for it. This is not because hindutva has anything theological against Islam or against Muslims outside Bharat. It is because the presence of a 200-million strong Muslim minority in Bharat dilutes the exclusively Hindu identity of this country.

Thus, the key difference between the Islamisation of Pakistan by Zia and the ongoing project of hindutvising our country is not that of making better Hindus of 1.4 billion Indians but of showing the minorities their place in Hindu Bharat. As a truly believing Muslim, Zia was the most pious Muslim (arguably the only pious Muslim) that Islamic Pakistan has ever had at its head. Zia wanted to fashion his country, conceived and born in the name of Islam, into a truly Islamic nation (according to his lights) notwithstanding the country’s elite who wanted to dilute strict Islam with a few drops of the waters of Scotland and winking at Friday namaz and the rigours of fasting from dawn to dusk during Ramzan. Hindutva, on the other hand, has no agenda of further Hinduising Hindus but concentrates on diluting the Muslim presence in what they believe should be a pak (that is, pure) Hindu nation. That is the crux of the conundrum.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

modi-government-is-a-gross-failure-in-confronting-chinpak

Sat Sep 09 11:09:48 IST 2023

The Narendra Modi government’s gross failure in foreign policy is best illustrated by our being at loggerheads with our two biggest neighbours—China and Pakistan. They have actually merged into one ‘enemy’, Chinpak, for the Chinese are no longer behind the Himalayas but poised inside Pakistan on the banks of the Sindhu (Indus) river just about where Alexander was in 326 B.C.

How far we have drifted from the halcyon days of December, 1988, when, in quick succession and within the same month, Rajiv Gandhi became the first Indian prime minister to visit China and Pakistan in 32 and 28 years, respectively, to open new doors to good neighbourly relations with both. It may be contrasted with the continuing logjam in China-India relations and the total absence of any meaningful engagement with Pakistan since 2014.

Let us take China first. What Xi Jinping is showing his Indian counterpart is that you can’t hunt with the hounds and run with the hare at the same time. Do we believe with the Americans that China is a dangerous enemy whom we must confront in coalition with like-minded countries? And is that why we are so eagerly in the Quad? Or are we seeking a settlement of the border to resume cordial relations with our great civilisational neighbour? While nominally sharing a swing in Ahmedabad and photo-ops in gorgeous Xian and Wuhan, and swallowing idlis together in Mahabalipuram, Xi wanted to gauge whether what Modi was whispering to Xi squared with what he was vouchsafing Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. For with the US presidents, Modi was signalling his readiness to play footsie with an international ganging-up against China, while pretending to Xi that the days of renewed ‘Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai’ were just around the corner. Xi was having none of this and moved his troops further forward along our northern border.

The foreign minister claims this is in line with our traditional non-alignment. It is not. For non-alignment was about not aligning with either. Our present stance, in contrast, is a saga of confusion, akin to a young woman alternately pulling out the petals of a flower asking, “Will he?”/“Won’t he?”. It would seem Modi wants to remain a “natural ally” of a west that is hostile to China while talking to China at the highest level even if they are in occupation of what we consider our own. What other explanation can we give for the Indian government spokesman describing as “pleasantries” what video clearly showed was Modi in Bali initiating, apparently without success, a conversation with Xi? And then in Johannesburg last month claiming through the foreign secretary that Modi and Xi had held an “informal conversation” during which both “had underlined that the maintenance of peace and tranquility in the border areas” required “observing and respecting the LAC” as “essential for the normalisation of the India-China relationship.” Egg was all over the Indian face when the Chinese spokesman riposted that Xi had only met Modi because India had asked for it while turning down a Chinese request for “a more structured dialogue”. The Chinese then rubbed it in saying “both sides should bear in mind the overall interests” of ties and “handle properly” the border issue.

As for Pakistan, the government has declared times without number that “talks and terror can’t go together”. Well, it has been nine years and if there is now no “terror”, then why can’t talks start? And if, despite this rhetoric, there is still “terror”, then is it not time to rethink this tired old cliche?

If “no dialogue” is the policy vis-a-vis Pakistan and “no structured dialogue” is the policy vis-a-vis China, then are you surprised at China roosting on the Indus?

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

nation-needs-more-compassion-and-less-hypocrisy

Sat Aug 26 11:25:18 IST 2023

The prime minister has done it again. Misusing the platform provided to him, he converted the grand celebratory occasion of Independence Day into an opportunity to score cheap political points against those banding together against him in the name of I.N.D.I.A. This column will restrict itself to challenging him on his charge of “tushtikaran”, which the sangh parivar translates into their English as “appeasement”.

In his renowned biography of Winston Churchill, The Last Lion: Alone, 1932-1940, the author, William Manchester at p.101 gives the dictionary meaning of appeasement as “to buy off (an aggressor) by concessions, usually at the sacrifice of principles” and cites F.E. Smith Lord Birkenhead as first using the expression in the House of Lords to condemn conciliatory tactics towards advocates of Indian independence, calling those who did so “appeasers of Gandhi”. The term was seized upon by Churchill to derogate the British policy of conciliating Hitler by forgiving him his successive invasions of the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. “Appeasement” reverberated in the English language political vocabulary during Chamberlain’s handling of Hitler.

In other words, “appeasement” is used with respect to enemies. Are our Muslims “enemies”? Then what does it mean to accuse political opponents of tushtikaran? Does that not show that for all his citing diversity, the inflexible assumption of Modi’s policies is to regard non-Hindu minorities, especially Muslims, as “enemies” whose ancestors brought upon us “1,200 years of slavery”?

This is the proposition that has been peddled by Hindu extremists from the end of Mughal rule in India, and then through the writings and propaganda of V.D. Savarkar and M.S. Golwalkar, and constitute the core of the sangh parivar’s view of Indian’s nationhood. That is principally what hindutva is about. Hence the dog whistle “appeasement” to hint at the essential enemy—the poor, wretched Indian Muslim. From the allegation of tushtikaran spring ‘love jihad’, lynching, the ‘hijab’, azaan, and namaz controversies, the ‘bulldozer’ mentality, bullying non-Hindu victims to repeat ‘Jai, Shri Ram’ till they pass out, the fiddling with textbooks, the passing of laws with an evident communal bias, and all other acts of viciousness with which the history of the past nine years is littered.

The civility of a nation is measured by its treatment of its minorities. Gandhiji embodied this principle. So did Nehru. That is why the Mahatma insisted on the return of all occupied Islamic places of worship to Muslims at the time of Partition. And “appeasement” is indeed the rationale presented by Nathuram Godse for assassinating the father of the nation. Therefore, when the ‘Vishwaguru’ describes kindness and consideration to our minorities as “appeasement”, that is, “conciliation of the enemy”, it makes an enemy of our minorities. It derogates from our civilisational heritage. It also derogates from the constitutional duty to regard all sections of our composite nation as equal.

Do Muslims of India require special treatment? Yes, for their share in Parliament has fallen under the present dispensation to an abysmal 4 per cent, while they were assured of equitable representation through the goodwill of the majority in the constituent assembly. Do they need special privileges for their educational progress and economic emancipation? The Sachar committee returned a resounding verdict of “yes” to this question. And, yet, this is called tushtikaran even as Modi seeks a vote bank among poor Muslims (the ‘pasmanda’) by dividing the Muslim community. The nation needs more compassion and less hypocrisy.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

lies-damned-lies-and-statistics

Sat Aug 12 11:07:38 IST 2023

First things first. This column owes its all to two explanatory articles by Udit Mishra of The Indian Express published sequentially in the wake of Prime Minister Modi’s assertion before the US Congress that India was already at position five in the size of its GDP, and then after Modi assured the nation at the inauguration of the Bharat Mandapam in July that “during the third term of our government, India will be among the top three economies of the world”. Fair enough, even the IMF says so.

But what has been hidden by Modi is that the growth rate in India has dropped by one hundred percentage points between 2004-2014 and the nine years that Modi has been PM. For we grew under Dr Manmohan Singh by 183 per cent in the UPA decade and that decennial growth rate has fallen by exactly 100 percentage points to 83 per cent in the Modi years. Had the Manmohan rate of growth been maintained, we would have overtaken Germany and Japan, the current two and three, many years ago. Our present ranking is thus much more the contribution of Manmohanomics than Modinomics.

Second, it is not so much because India is growing but because of virtual stagnation or low growth rates in most of the other top 10, after the global financial crisis of 2008-09, that we have forged ahead in relative terms. But the gap between the top two and us is so wide, while the gap between each of the remaining eight is so narrow, that all eight of us are “also-rans” as compared with the US and China. We eight are overtaking each other not to get to the top but only to not be declared last!

Third, we may be fifth, and might even become third in GDP by 2027, but the gap in GDP between no.1 (the US) and no.2 (China) and India is at present so wide as to be nearly eight times lower than the US and nearly five times lower than China. We are bunched way below the two giants with a group of countries ranked three to ten whose combined GDP is US dollars two trillion less than the US, and fifth to tenth is three trillion lower than China.

It gets worse when we look at per capita figures. For the US per capita income at $80,000 is some 38 times higher than India’s ($2,600) and China at $13,700 is some six times higher than India. Indeed, Germany and Japan, who we will be overtaking shortly in absolute size, are, in per capita terms, 26 times and 17 times higher than India. What boots it to come third in overall production when Indians languish at below 100 in per capita ranking and continue to lie in the 130s on the UN’s human development index? While Modi’s business friends scale international heights in terms of their personal wealth and make India rich on the PM’s metric, PM seems to forget that Indians on every other metric are poor.

PM’s boast is also in derogation of our Constitution which clearly lays down in Article 39 (c) that “the State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing… that the operation of the economic system does not result in concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment” and in Article 39 (b) that “the ownership and control of the material resources of the country are so distributed as best to subserve the common good”.

It was another prime minister, [Benjamin] Disraeli, who denounced “lies, damned lies—and statistics”. Modi might want to lend him an ear.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

uniform-civil-code-and-the-rajiv-gandhi-precedent

Sat Jul 29 11:43:47 IST 2023

Prime Minister Narendra Modi raising the highly controversial issue of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is obviously a dog whistle aimed at rallying the faithful to his standard divisive agenda on the eve of the general elections scheduled for 2024, when the INDIA alliance threatens to derail his long run of electoral victories.

In doing this, he brings to mind the precedent of the Supreme Court in the Shah Bano case (1985), placing UCC in Article 44 of the directive principles of state policy on a higher level of imperative action than all other articles in the same part of the Constitution. Thus, while Article 39(c) directs that the state shall ensure that there is no “concentration of wealth”, Adani and Ambani have risen to the highest global levels on personal wealth scales while all indices indicate an obscene widening of income inequalities in India.

Faced with the fury of the minorities at the prospect of their personal laws being abrogated by a parliament in which they are woefully under-represented, Rajiv Gandhi found an ingenious way out of the conundrum. He reconciled the directive in Article 44 to “endeavour” to work towards a UCC and the requirement in Article 39 (a) to treat “men and women equally” with the continuation of community-based personal laws.

This was the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. The constitutional validity of the act was challenged by Danial Latifi, a highly respected jurist, through a writ petition filed in September 1986. A constitutional bench held, in a judgement delivered in November 2001, that far from “reversing” the Supreme Court’s Shah Bano judgement, the impugned act had actually “codified” that judgement. How?

Instead of denouncing Muslim divorce practice as seventh-century Arab “barbarism“, Rajiv Gandhi and his law minister, Ashoke Sen, actually took the trouble to carefully listen to and meticulously study what the shariat said on the subject. It was clear that Muslim personal law on divorce was actually highly enlightened in that provisions for monetary settlement were strictly laid down to ensure due compensation for divorce, and maintenance thereafter for the divorcee and her children was guaranteed by the male members of her family of birth, failing which the waqf was charged with taking care of the woman and her children. Complementing this was Muslim social practice that not only permitted but actually encouraged remarriage. (In consequence, a 2019 study by Abu Saleh and others found that 78 per cent of divorced Muslim women find another husband within two years of divorce).

The problem was the reactionary mullahs (clerics) who enforced the shariat in personal matters. To rectify this, Rajiv Gandhi’s 1986 act upheld the right of Muslims to their own personal law but brought its enforcement within the ambit of secular civil law by empowering magistrates to “order” state waqf boards to provide adequate maintenance to divorced Muslim women and their offspring, failing which the waqf authorities would be hauled before the magistrate.

For the past two decades, all Muslim divorce disputes are consolidated before the highest court of the land and even-handed justice dispensed to Muslim women who might otherwise have faced the most terrible gender discrimination. This shows the way forward. For instead of attacking the roots of ‘unity in diversity’ by calling out others as barbaric, which is what Modi’s dog whistle is all about, let our many different religious communities have their own personal laws but bring enforcement of gender equality within the civil jurisdiction of the courts.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

does-modi-really-care-for-pasmanda-muslims

Sat Jul 15 15:55:09 IST 2023

Since July 2022, PM Modi has been attempting to drive a wedge between the Muslim community by underlining that 85 per cent of Muslims are lowly “pasmanda” and only 15% are elite “ashrafs” whom earlier governments appeased.

Back in 1973, Prof Imtiaz Ahmed of JNU edited his monumental magnum opus, Caste and Social Stratification among Muslims in India (expanded second edition in 1978), where he and his co-authors pointed out that caste “exists and functions among Muslims” and there is a “hierarchy among the Muslims” based on “deference structures, emphasising inequality of social status” despite the strong Koranic injunction to treat all human beings as equal. They highlighted the ‘Lal Begi’ scavengers as the bottom of the Muslim social ladder, and also found that “higher Muslim castes refuse to eat” with or marry the lower orders. They also emphasised “regional variations” (as with Hindu caste practice). The persistence of caste among Muslim converts, was attributed by Imtiaz Ahmed to the “acculturative influence of Hinduism”.

Yet, because the Gandhi-Ambedkar pact was limited to retaining scheduled castes in the Hindu fold, the Presidential Order of 1950 listed only Hindus among the scheduled castes. Muslim SC remain excluded to this day. Later, after Mandal, when salami-slicing of the OBCs led to a long list of OBC castes, largely based on traditional occupations, Muslims in the same “polluting” occupations were excluded from OBC categorisation—the most egregious example of which is Gujarati Muslim Modis who do not enjoy the categorisation of ‘teli’ (oil-pressers).

These anomalies were emphasised by the Sachar Commission which made more widely known the Muslim social stratification of Ashraf, Ajlaf and Arzal (the latter two jointly called pasmanda). In consequence, Dr Manmohan Singh’s second UPA government prepared an ordinance that would have included a pasmanda Muslim sub-quota in the OBC list, but this was stayed by the Supreme Court. If PM Modi is really so concerned with pasmanda Muslims, why has his government not sought a vacation of the stay in the last nine years or amended the SC list to include Muslim SC?

Moreover, it is almost entirely Muslim pasmanda who are the victims of lynching, 97 per cent of which have taken place after the Modi became PM. Why are sangh parivar goons encouraged to shout slogans like “Jab mulle kate jayenge, ‘Jai Shri Ram’ chillayaenge” (when the mullahs are slaughtered, they’ll scream Jai Shri Ram)? With, as the PM emphasises, 85 per cent Muslims being pasmanda, it is this 85 per cent that has been targeted (along with the much-excoriated 15 per cent) by sangh parivar-inspired jibes to “go to Pakistan”; controversies on hijab, aazaan, love jihad and namaz in public places; brutal crimes in the name of cow protection; bulldozer politics; razing of mosques; economic boycotts; films like The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story; and the “exponential rise in hate speech” (Ziya us Salam in The Hindu of June 30).

The five main problems of the Muslim minority, including the 85 per cent pasmanda, are related to ‘identity’, ‘dignity, ‘security’, ‘agency’ and ‘representation’. There are only about 4 per cent Muslim Lok Sabha MPs now as against 8.3 per cent at Indira Gandhi’s second coming. Whatever the BJP may have done in fielding 61 Muslim candidates (out of thousands) in UP’s recent municipal elections, there is not a single Muslim Cabinet minister at the centre, no Muslim among the BJP’s 395 MPs in both Houses, and not a single Muslim candidate was even fielded by the BJP in recent state assembly elections to the 1,109 seats in UP, Gujarat and Karnataka! That is why Zia Us Salam decries the “invisibilisation of Muslims”, 85 per cent of whom are pasmanda.

Modi is ideologically opposed to recognising this despite the fact that he gives away gas cylinders for free without discrimination (while charging $1,195 for gas per cylinder—also without discrimination)!

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

kashmiris-want-elections

Sat Jul 01 12:53:10 IST 2023

I took one of the 41 daily flights to Srinagar, joining the 1.4 crore annual visitors to Jammu and Kashmir, which is the single most significant proof proffered by the Union government to proclaim the restoration of “normalcy” to the erstwhile state, now transformed into a Union Territory. There I met many Kashmiris, including sarpanches and activist politicians, teachers and students, sheep- and cattle-herders. The trip took me to the Daksum sanctuary, then over the snow-covered Margan Top at 14,000 feet, and across the breadth of the Warwan Valley that lies in the Chenab basin approximating the line that divides Jammu from Kashmir. The scenery was spectacular, but I was there also to gauge the general mood.

There was widespread agreement that there was peace in the air, the administration was functioning more smoothly than in the past, that government servants were much more regular in attendance instead of busying themselves with their private businesses, that teachers were coming to school on time and actually teaching, that development and infrastructure projects were being implemented, and that corruption was significantly reduced. Much like in Mussolini’s Italy where “the trains ran on time” but democracy was eschewed.

The single most important demand was that elections be held so that the UT is restored to statehood, and a representative state assembly could work towards the “restoration” of Articles 370 and 35A. When I retorted that this would also mean the restoration of past misgovernance, it was accepted with little demur that there would be several downsides to popular government but that they accepted, indeed desired this ardently, as the government would then be their government, not one imposed from Delhi; that government servants would not be Hindi-speaking outsiders but would be administering in their language and in accordance with their culture; that they would not be humiliated by being under alien domination; and that they would be equal citizens instead of being denied their democratic rights only because they were Kashmiri.

On being asked who would win the elections in view of the gerrymandering of constituencies that has been resorted to blatantly, none seemed to doubt that it would be the National Conference of Sheikh Abdullah and his current descendants. When asked whether the “good governance” provided by the lieutenant governor’s administration would not trump mere sentiment, the unanimous response was that it was only because the National Conference would be the big winner that the Union home ministry was dragging its feet on elections. No matter, they said, whenever the elections are held Kashmir will be restored to Kashmiris, our abject humiliation will end and we will be masters of our own house, whatever the faults of our governance and our politicians and leaders. “We do not want this beggars’ prosperity. We are quite capable of promoting our own welfare and prosperity. After all, even before Article 370 was abruptly removed without our consent, we ranked higher than most states in GDP growth and per capita income, and in health and education.” But what did the hollowed-out Article 370 contain for you personally? The answer invariably was: “Article 370 was the badge of our special identity. And it was from 370 that 35A flowed. It was our guarantee that prosperity in Kashmir would be for Kashmiris and not outsiders”.

As for Pakistan, they were all aware of conditions there and the growing gap between a flourishing India and its fast-collapsing neighbour. In any case, they said, the best guarantee against both accession to Pakistan and ‘azadi’ was the National Conference. And why was dissatisfaction not turning to ‘intifada’? Only because we don’t want to give any excuse to the Indian government to further postpone elections.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

narendra-modi-s-saarc-ploy

Sat Jun 17 11:16:17 IST 2023

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has done more than anyone else to destroy the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), chose his invitation to the Hiroshima G7 meeting to air his views on south Asian unity. The setting was somewhat appropriate because just as the atom bomb destroyed the city of Hiroshima, his statement has nuked the idea of a south Asian union.

SAARC was first proposed in 1979 and initially received with considerable skepticism. Yet, by patient negotiation, the parameters were put together over the next five years for SAARC to be launched in Dhaka in December 1985. Although its achievements were modest, it provided a useful forum for SAARC leaders to get together for regular bilateral talks on the sidelines.

The main Indian reservation about SAARC was that it could provide a hostile platform for attacks on India, not only by Pakistan but even by monarchical Nepal and a Sri Lanka over-run with internal ethnic insurrections. The geographical asymmetry was duly noted: that India alone had common land or sea boundaries with the other members, none of the others having contiguous frontiers with each other. Therefore, the most fundamental parameter laid down was that bilateral issues, especially political differences, would not be on the multilateral table, where the focus would be on issues of regional development cooperation, especially where complementarities could be availed of for mutual benefit. Infrastructure and common public health issues were kept in the forefront and the cultural diversity of the association was highlighted and celebrated.
While sensitive bilateral political issues were off the SAARC agenda, the multiple days’ presence of the leaders afforded them opportunities for bilateral interaction, such as Modi’s own secret interaction with Nawaz Shariff organised at the Kathmandu summit in 2015 by a business intermediary (after Modi had publicly snubbed the Pakistan prime minister).

Having sabotaged SAARC by his refusal to attend the Islamabad summit, Modi, in Hiroshima, brought up a concept of a South Asian Democratic Union. “Democratic” effectively expels Taliban Afghanistan from the earlier SAARC grouping and provides the window through which the proposed new grouping could eliminate Pakistan. To be a grouping of “democracies” members would be subject to invasive external judgements on whether or not they complied with “democratic” norms. Indeed, authoritarian India, under the present regime, which has seen the country tumbling on all accepted international indices of democratic governance, would be under the microscope. SAARC had carefully excluded such unwarranted interference from near and far.

Worse, much worse than this, is Modi’s premise that the proposed South Asian Union must be among those who share a “common history and culture”. This is clearly designed to exclude Islamic countries, like Pakistan and Afghanistan, and even the Maldives, who proclaim the religious character of their states in their constitution and would hotly contest the suggestion that they share a “common” history and culture with India. Bangladesh would find itself in a pickle because although it is described as “secular” in its (amended) constitution, it is clearly Islamic in its overall nature. Modi’s formulation also unwittingly excludes Buddhist states like Sri Lanka and Bhutan who would reject the notion that their history or culture is indistinguishable from India’s. Perhaps when Nepal was a ‘Hindu Rashtra’, under the now deposed monarchy, it might have accepted the idea of a shared history and culture, but today’s fiercely independent, nationalistic and secular Nepal would certainly ferociously object to its history and culture being subordinated to India’s.

For that matter, does an India that is at war with itself over “Aurangzeb ki aulad”, have a common history or culture? We are united as a nation only because of our “unity in diversity”. That alone can be the basis of south Asian unity.

double-engine-sarkar-has-wreaked-havoc-in-manipur

Fri Jun 02 17:29:32 IST 2023

While Manipur is no stranger to violence and ethnic clashes, the communal rioting seen this year is essentially the consequence of the majoritarian authoritarianism that characterises the BJP’s approach to “forced assimilation”.

The largely Hindu Meitei population of the valley has lived in relative accord with their largely Christian tribal neighbours of the hill areas, owing to deep sensitivity to each other’s separate identity, reinforced by constitutional arrangements for a degree of autonomy through district councils and hill administration councils under Article 371 C, and political accommodation through reservations for ST in the assembly and including tribal representatives in the cabinet.

But ever since the BJP stole its way to power to overturn the outcome of the 2017 election, a strident majoritarianism has pitted the Vaishnavite Hindus of the valley against the Christian tribals of the hills leading to the present outbreak that has been simmering over the six years that N. Biren Singh has been chief minister.

A dissident Kuki MLA of the BJP, Paolienlal Haokip, has described the Biren Singh administration as “the best example of inept handling of everything”. Ineptness is evident in the BJP government’s drive against the cultivation of poppies, cannabis, and marijuana, launched in February this year, to clear reserved forest lands that, it was claimed, had been “encroached” upon by tribals in general and particularly by “illegal immigrants” from Myanmar across the border. This is a good illustration of the “double engine sarkar” at work, for it is the Central government that has looked askance at the Muslim Rohingya and Zo tribals fleeing Burmese junta persecution by refusing to grant them ‘refugee’ status and the local Manipuri BJP that has attempted to cow down the tribal minority instead of working towards their gradual emotional integration into a composite Manipuri identity.

While the origins of the problem may be traced to the British having been “insensitive to kinship ties” across the Manipur-Burma border, the current aggravation arises from the inhuman outlook of the Manipur government that has condemned the Zo tribals fleeing genocide as “illegal immigrants”; sought an NRC, as in Assam, to identify “foreigners” in the Kuki-dominated districts; and roughly handled delicate issues of land rights and cultural identity. Large swathes of Kuki-Zomi-Hmar lands have been declared reserved forests or otherwise put out of bounds to the locals without following “established procedures”, leading to severe economic disruption as the unyielding hills are more easily cultivated by slash-and-burn methods known as “subsistence swidden farming” than back-breaking terracing for settled farming.

As underlined by Kuki public intellectuals of repute, the police have been “deeply communalised”; the authorities, as a whole, have been “biased” rather than “equidistant”; and civil society organisations have been incentivised to “propagate a more radical brand of Meitei nationalism”. In consequence, a vicious spiral of mutual violence has been spun. The inbuilt majority of Meiteis in the assembly (39 of 60) has in March 2023 withdrawn the suspension of operations agreement with two major Kuki and Zomi armed entities. And into this cauldron, the Manipur High Court has directed the government to prepare the ground to declare Meiteis as Scheduled Tribes, thus removing the last safeguard of the existing hill ST. Such has been the loss of confidence in the fairness of the Biren Singh government that almost all BJP Kuki MLAs and opinion-makers of the Kuki and other minority tribal groupings have demanded a “separate administration” by placing the hills under the sixth schedule, as in neighbouring Mizoram.

Such is the outcome of substituting “unity in diversity” with BJP-style “unity through uniformity”. Manipur in microcosm is the fate awaiting the Indian Union if saffron rule is continued in 2024.

we-cannot-wish-pakistan-away-and-we-should-not

Sat May 20 11:19:51 IST 2023

The Germans have a word for it: schadenfreude, that is, delighting in another’s troubles. In India, there is considerable schadenfreude over the mess in Pakistan, where everything—politically, economically and in foreign policy—seems to have gone wrong at the same time. The civil polity is hopelessly divided, with the army threatening to bring back order once again through the barrel of a gun. The economy is in the doldrums. Pakistan has ceased to be the springboard for determining the outcome in Afghanistan. The world has lost interest in Afghanistan but not the Taliban in wanting to dismantle the Durand Line. And India merely scoffs at Pakistan’s increasingly frenetic rhetoric that seeks to refocus world attention on Kashmir. The world is not listening. And might the Chinese (“the all-weather friend”) turn Gwadar into a Hambantota, effectively snatching the strategic port away from Pakistani sovereignty to get themselves reimbursed for their humongous investment in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor?

At just this juncture, our foreign minister has chosen to be rude to the point of crudeness to his Pakistani counterpart in the latest instalment of a personal quarrel that Jaishankar sparked in New York and got back as good as he gave. Is this in our long-term interest? What do we gain from Pakistan’s collapse? More, to the point, is Pakistan collapsing?

Pakistan came into being because the Muslim elite, in large measure, did not wish to become a minority in someone else’s dispensation. That sentiment constitutes the bonding adhesive of their nationhood. It makes Pakistanis more patriotic in times of crisis than when the going is good. In normal times, they enjoy mocking their leadership. But when the unity or integrity of their nation is threatened, they band together. We need to understand this.

We have seen in India, particularly in the ghastly era through which we are currently transiting, how “hurt religious sentiment” can be transmuted into political gain. Religion, the raison d’etre of the birth of Pakistan, can quickly and effectively be invoked if India is seen as taking advantage of Pakistan’s woes. The reaction in Pakistan to Jaishankar’s snarl at Bilawal in Goa only proves that the higher the level of India’s schadenfreude, the greater Pakistan is incentivised to come together. Of course, Jaishankar’s primary goal was to please his boss and establish his credentials as a true saffronite; but if he thought his huffing and his puffing is going to blow the Pakistan house down, his hopes will be belied for his rhetoric only solidifies Pakistan’s desire not to revert to being India. This in turn means that a turbulent Pakistan remains a neighbour of India and an indivisible part of our shared subcontinent. We cannot wish them way—and, therefore, should not.

Moreover, while Pakistan is no longer a key ally of the US and is being increasingly displaced by Joe Biden’s outreach to Modi, it is difficult to imagine the US looking away when the eighth largest country in the global community—Pakistan—is being dismantled against the will of Pakistanis. So, as in the past, so in the future, the Americans will grudgingly bail out their former partner, if only to stop China from becoming their sole benefactor. Hence, Pakistan will be helped to weather out this crisis.

Given that Pakistan is here to stay and has the potential to restore its broken polity and economy, what we have to decide is whether to continue our nearly decade-old disengagement with Pakistan. It is clear that if Modi wins in 2024, this disengagement will continue, but given the imperative necessity of uniting the opposition to forestall that outcome, at the appropriate time Pakistan policy has to be inserted consensually into the joint opposition agenda.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

diminishing-the-mughal-period

Fri May 05 16:46:12 IST 2023

The National Council of Educational Research and Training claims to have “balanced” the burden on 12th class school children by substantially reducing their learning and understanding of the Mughal legacy. In fact, they are only playing ‘Their Master’s Voice’ by carrying through the ideological obfuscation of the ruling saffron establishment. They claim to have given the vacated “space” to regional histories of Hindu dynasties but have, in fact, only added a few pages about the Vijayanagar Empire, leaving out any substantial additions to the Pallava, the Chola, the Pandya, the Chera, the Rashtrakuta, the Chalukya, the Sena, the Pala, the Ahom, and a host of others.

There was a reason the earlier texts gave more pages to the Mughals. These reasons were basically the same that covered the findings of the pre-Aryan Harappan heritage, the Vedic Age, the Buddha and Mahavira, the Asokan Empire, the Guptas and Adi Sankara, namely, that these were more nation-wide and had a longer cultural and civilisational impact on the nation’s memory of itself. But the Mughals have been downgraded precisely because their empire stretched all the way to the deep south and the east/north-east. The Mughal empire in the north extended to Kashmir and northwest to Pakistan, and even most of Afghanistan. This cannot be said of any of the regional kingdoms. I could, therefore, have understood a separate paper on our regional kingdoms, which are taught in colleges, but the pretence that the Mughals are given too much prominence is a political prejudice that should have no place in the formation of young minds.

Indeed, the cultural contribution of the Mughal period to our syncretic civilisation is far more significant than its political boundaries. For, it was during the rule of the Delhi Sultanate (1192-1526), predecessors to the Mughals (1526-1858), that the Hindawi language was developed (largely by Amir Khusrow in Delhi’s Nizamuddin Auliya) and has now become the Hindi of our times. It was also during the late Mughal period that Urdu arose and became one of the constitutionally recognised languages of independent India. Music and dance, painting, sculpture and poetry became at the time, under royal patronage, a precious national treasure rather than a sectional legacy. The architectural inheritance remains a proud part of our national pride. It was also during the Mughal period that the Ramayan and the Mahabharat, the Upanishads and the other masterpieces were translated into Persian for wider acquaintance to the non-Hindu minorities of India. It was a period of intense inter-religious interaction, for the Sufi and Bhakti movement, which underly almost all of contemporary Hindu belief and practice, unfolded during these centuries of Mughal rule in all their syncretic brilliance. Indeed, the origins of Bhakti movement may be dated from Saint Ramanuja who reigned spiritually from the Tamil country, synthesising the bitterly opposed Saivite and Vaishnavite traditions, when the Tughlaqs were on their thrones in far-away Delhi, but really flourished when Swami Ramanand, Tukaram, Chaitanya, Sankardev, Ravidas, Kabir and Mirabai spread their universal message of divine love under the benevolent gaze of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal emperors. It is indeed little recalled that Tulsidas wrote his Ramayan even as the Babri Masjid loomed over Ayodhya. And the apogee of the Bhakti movement under the ten Sikh Gurus came to final bloom when there were Muslim rulers on the Delhi throne.

While there might be merit in strengthening text book passages that highlight the civilisational consequences of Sultanate and Mughal rule, at the expense of political and military history, there is none in making little Jinnahs of our children by filling their minds with tendentious two-nation theories.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

can-a-govt-appointed-fact-check-body-be-effective

Sat Apr 22 20:51:05 IST 2023

Union IT minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar must consider the Indian public to be most gullible if he thinks his argument for a governmental fact-finding body will wash. He argues that a wholly government-appointed fact-finding body without any countervailing authority to check its actions before it takes them within minutes in real time, is justified because government is the target of “most misinformation attacks” and “only the government has access to government data and so it is impossible for any non-government entity to effectively fact check content about the government”. And, so, he wishes to put in place a system where the government becomes the judge in its own cause! And the way is thus opened to removing all checks and balances on government evaluations and actions since in every case government would be entitled to claim that it alone is capable of determining what is what as it alone has all the required “facts”.

We are treading dangerous constitutional ground here, threatening the very basis of our Constitution where justice is open and transparent, and no one, not even the government, is allowed to hide from the court’s stern view of all the germane facts and alternative perspectives on these facts. For, after all “Facts are sacred; opinion is free” as the famous Guardian editor, C.P. Scott, remarked and raised to the basic credo of frank, free, and fearless journalism.

The press note issued along with the minister’s decision claims it seeks an “open, safe and trusted and accountable Internet”. It does nothing of the sort. It just seeks to control public access to significant facts and governmental interpretation of these since, according to Chandrashekhar, government is “the target” of “most misinformation operations”. But what of situations, increasingly frequent, of others being the target of government-inspired “misinformation” and “no information”—such as the genuineness of the prime minister’s educational qualifications, as declared to the Election Commission of India at the time of his filing his nomination papers, and the refusal of the prime minister to answer or clarify any of the questions raised by the (former) leader of the opposition on the floor of the house regarding his relationship with the discredited business baron, Gautam Adani? Not to mention scores of other issues pending under the Right to Information Act and the manifest illegality of detentions in J&K? When innocents are as much the target of government “misinformation”, how on earth can it be assumed that the government is the only ‘target’ in need of protection? Why not rely instead on the courts that are open to all citizens as much as to government departments and personalities and the existing mechanisms of “a grievance office” and “GAC framework appellate” that the honourable minister invokes?

He claims that government actions in this regard will always faithfully take account of the fundamental rights prescribed in the Constitution, but surely it is not for government to determine whether its own actions are ultra vires the “basic structure” and fundamental rights of individuals. Misinformation is best tackled in the open, not by hiding behind governmental access to “facts”.

There are facts that governments hide and facts that are revealed only to the benefit of governments. The job of a free media (including social media) is to wheedle out “facts” inconvenient to the government in an atmosphere free of hatred, fear, and bile. And for government to respond, transparently and openly, if it has in its possession other facts or considerations on which it determines its approach.

It is this freedom to offer an alternative view that enabled the BJP to access two terms in power. It now seems to think its predominance is final. That is the kind of hubris that overtakes most authoritarians.

its-uk-indian-origin-pm-versus-scotlands-pak-origin-leader-mani-shankar-aiyar

Sun Apr 09 07:33:15 IST 2023

There is a delightful irony to Humza Haroon Yousaf, the 37-year-old son of Pakistani immigrants, having been elected the head of the Scottish National Party, and thus emerging as first minister of Scotland. For he now comes in direct confrontation with the Indian-origin PM of the United Kingdom in determining whether the UK will remain a united kingdom or split into two sovereign countries: Britain and Scotland. Partition was the price the Brits gouged out of us to grant us our independence. Now an ethnic Pakistani and an ethnic Indian will determine whether the United Kingdom of England and Scotland, twins joined at the hip in 1707, will remain twinned or be severed from one another. And even as the princely states hoped the departing Britons would succeed in carving out for them a separate Princestan, Wales and Northern Ireland also wait with bated breath to see whether the country to which they belong will be Balkanised, as India almost was, or survive as the rump Great Britain.

Yousaf’s clarion call has been “Stronger for Scotland”, and he has reiterated that his “would be the generation that delivers independence for Scotland”. To this end, he has declared that he seeks a second referendum to retest the outcome of the last referendum in 2014 that delivered a marginal verdict in favour of Scotland remaining in the UK. Yousaf insists that he is not looking for a marginal but decisive victory in a second referendum. Rishi Sunak has countered that a referendum would “distract” from “delivering on the things that are top of the priority list for people across Scotland”.

But the hard fact is that it is “independence” that is at the top of Scotland’s priority list. For in the Brexit referendum, Scotland voted to remain in the European Union while the UK as a whole marginally voted in favour of leaving. What Scotland now seeks is not only the dissolution of the Act of Union of 1707 but also the opportunity of rejoining the European Union from which, in the Scottish perception, Scotland gained a lot, reflecting Ireland’s view that EU membership grants a net reaping of benefits. Thus, a second referendum would be held in an overall scenario that is radically different to 2014.

On the other hand, polls suggest that support for secession from the UK has dropped in Scotland to 39 per cent, well below the 44.7 per cent who voted to quit the United Kingdom in 2014. Yet, the situation remains volatile as 58 per cent polled in favour of separating when Scotland’s pandemic performance proved far superior to England’s. Significantly, Yousaf was the celebrated Scottish minister who engineered Scotland’s impressive Covid-19 response.

Thus, for all his brave words, the Punjabi Indian British PM has his work cut out in his forthcoming battle with the Punjabi Pakistani first minister of Scotland. The last card up Sunak’s sleeve is that even a decisive referendum in favour of vivisecting the UK would not be the end of the matter. Westminster, where the UK parliament sits, has, according to the law, the final word. Unless the House of Commons accepts the outcome of any Scottish referendum, the partition of the UK cannot legally take place. Therefore, the ultimate irony would be if the British government were to set up a Cabinet Mission to negotiate their way out of the tangled mess that would be created by a successful Scottish referendum. It would parallel the imbroglio caused by the Indian elections in 1945-46 that required the despatch of the Cabinet Mission, whose leader, Pethick Lawrence came to be called “Pathetic Lawrence”!

the-three-women-who-helped-mrs-chatterjee

Sat Mar 25 11:33:46 IST 2023

The Rani Mukerji starrer Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway was released throughout India and worldwide on March 17. In Norway itself, tickets were sold out four days before the first screening. This shows that the issues raised by the film are not of concern only to Indians but also to Norwegians who suffer the heavy hand of the Barnevernet, the Norwegian Child Protection Service (CPS). The CPS has been empowered by a draconian law to protect child rights but, on the ground, acts without adequate institutional checks or balances, thus causing needless and sometimes endless suffering to parents who are deprived of their infants and children without any discoverable reason. Reasons are not discoverable because the right to privacy of the abducted child is heavily protected in the law itself, leaving the victim parents often quite bewildered as to why their children are being taken from them. While CPS is free to enter what evidence it wishes in Norwegian courts of law, defendants are simply not allowed to examine much of this “evidence” kept under wraps. Inevitably, the judge is obliged to list in the direction of the prosecution. And there is virtually no recourse to the executive because, it is claimed, the Norwegian system does not permit intervention by any ministry or minister.

This confers such arbitrary powers of immunity and impunity on CPS that the moot question is whether in protecting the child’s right to privacy the human rights of the deprived parent and the child are not being brutally violated.

The film is based on the real-life story of a young Indian woman, Sagarika Chakraborty Bhattacharjee, whose infants were snatched from her.

Among the allegations made against her was the accusation that she fed her children with her hand; that she smeared her daughter’s forehead; that the kids slept in the same bed as the parents. The social worker assigned to them was a young English woman, who mocked Sagarika that Indians were “running around naked” until the British “civilised” them, and that she knew how Indian parents brought up their children because she had seen Slumdog Millionaire! Sagarika was also charged with mental illness and instability for having fiercely resisted the attempt to take away her children. Besides, foster parents are so handsomely compensated that exploitation of child protection laws for pecuniary gain is an ever-present threat.

While the children were eventually repatriated to India through the intervention of foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj—at the instance of Brinda Karat, the fiery CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP at the time—it was only the dogged persistence of a pro bono Indian lawyer, my daughter Suranya Aiyar, that eventually reunited Sagarika with her children. They are both growing up happy and normal in the loving care of their mother who has had the grit to train herself in software engineering and give her children a good living by working in a multi-national company. The current state of the mother and children is the best proof that in stealing away her infants the Barnevernet had gravely erred. It also showed that if the Norwegian government puts its mind to it, successful executive intervention is possible, whatever the theology of the law.

What lesson does all this hold for India? Only one. That with millions of NRIs travelling abroad and facing the rigours of child protection laws in all of the western world, MEA must become pro-active in helping Indian parents deal with such cases that are rife in the western world. To this end, perhaps a law needs to be enacted by Parliament to secure a binding commitment from the government to do so through its diplomatic and consular offices abroad.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

why-we-secularists-must-fight-on-mani-shankar-aiyar

Fri Mar 10 15:08:30 IST 2023

The basic structure of our nation is the source of the basic structure of our Constitution. So, in protecting the basic structure of our Constitution, the Supreme Court is protecting the very basis of our nationhood, which is “unity in diversity”. Delivering their judgement, rejecting a petition moved by a hindutivist, Justice K.M. Joseph and Justice B.V. Nagarathna have stamped their judicial imprimatur on the idea of India that for the past nine years has been under its most serious challenge ever. As the honourable justices aver, “There is no space for bigotry in Hinduism.”

Yet, the forces who do not represent the Hindu religion but a political perversion of it, are symbols of bigotry seeking to lump all non-Hindus, especially Muslims, as “barbaric invaders”. The court rightly asserts the “golden principle of fraternity”, which is “enshrined in the Preamble”. The petitioner who decried “foreign invaders” as “looters” was rhetorically asked, “Can you wish away invasions from history? What are you trying to achieve?” It was unambiguously affirmed, “India that is Bharat is a secular country… wedded to the rule of law, secularism, constitutionalism of which Article 14 stands out as the grand guarantee of both equality and fairness in state action.” No politician has put it more clearly than that.

Underlining that, “India is a secular state, this is a secular forum,” Justice Nagarathna pleaded, “let us not break society with such kinds of petitions, please have the country in mind, not any religion.” And Justice Joseph added, “I am a Christian, but I can say I am equally fond of Hinduism… Try and understand its greatness.” Saying that, “History cannot haunt present and future generations,” the bench warned against our becoming “prisoners of the past” and underlined that “this court should not become an instrument to create havoc”. And Justice Joseph concluded, “We have to understand our own greatness. Our greatness should lead us to be magnanimous.”

In addressing these words to the petitioner, the bench had much more than the petitioner in mind. The audience Justice Joseph and Justice Nagarathna were addressing was much wider extending to the nation as a whole and including all those who have been undermining our fraternity as a nation. The audience would include the ruling dispensation. While Rahul Gandhi’s plea to “open in the bazaar of hatred the store of love” might be construed as a partisan political jibe, when a similar view is expressed by a bench of the highest court in the land, it is imperative that the powers-that-be absorb the judicial message.

There is no place in our nationhood for the targeting of minorities with lynchings or ‘love jihad’, or bulldozing the very modest homes of blameless Muslims, or holding them to be “Babar ki aulad”―expressions that are freely bruited about without a word of reprimand from their leaders, indeed with encouragement of one minister demanding “goli maro saalon ko”. It is, thus, that the ground is prepared for calls to genocide that go unpunished. The nation has been brought to a very dangerous place. The court has rightly warned against invoking history “selectively” to “create schisms in society”. Yet, this is the precise stock-in-trade of those who have risen on the ladder of the pogrom in 2002 and abuse of the civic and human rights of a section of our society. In the words of an earlier judgment of the Supreme Court, the “egregious violence” that went into the brick-by-brick demolition of the Babri Masjid is to be deplored.

The court is, in effect, warning against the stoking of religious vengeance-seeking. It is for the sangh parivar in both its avatars as the RSS and the BJP to heed the call of the court. I have no expectation they will. Which is why we secularists must fight on, confident that the Supreme Court is behind us.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

why-congress-should-stoop-to-conquer-mani-shankar-aiyar

Thu Mar 02 14:45:11 IST 2023

When the Bharat Jodo Yatra climaxed at Lal Chowk, Srinagar, with Rahul Gandhi raising the national flag at this historic spot, I remarked to some newspersons who had gathered around me that this was the “inflexion point” at which a moral crusade would turn into a political campaign. Having roused the conscience of the nation against the hatred being spewed, and having galvanised the party through the length of the country, the moment had arrived when our thoughts would have to seriously turn to defeating the source of the divisiveness that has overtaken us as a people. That opportunity would come at the general elections scheduled for a year hence.

By the time this column is in your hands, a giant step towards that end would have been taken at the plenary session of the All India Congress Committee in Raipur over the weekend of February 25-26. This is being written in anticipation of that event. What must the Congress do now to politically capitalise on Rahul Gandhi’s long march?

The agenda would be complex, and there are many issues to tackle. But attention would be focused on the grand strategy for the general elections. Would the Congress be going it alone as the only party in the opposition with a national presence? Or will it do so in alliance with only those regional parties who concede in advance the premier position to the Congress? Or taking on board all regional parties in recognition of their regional hold while leaving it till after the elections to determine who will lead the coalition government if the grand alliance prevails at the polls?

I think the party should hark back to the Chintan Shivir at Pachmarhi in 1998 where the consensus was that the Congress should go it alone. Then the Congress mind should turn to how events actually played out. After reverses in 1999, the Congress started seeing merit in allying with at least some regional parties to take on the formidable Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2004. Vajpayee, for his part, was so convinced of his invincibility that he brought forward the 2004 elections by almost six months. As we now know, that proved to be misplaced confidence, and, instead of the BJP, it was the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) that took the reins of government for 10 long years.

What is often forgotten is that the UPA did not exist before the elections. The UPA coalition was put together and named as such after the results were out, not before. Who would be prime minister was also determined after, and not before, the election outcome. Later, when the Left parties baulked at Dr Manmohan Singh’s civil nuclear cooperation deal with the US and the Samajwadi Party stepped into the breach to secure parliamentary endorsement of the agreement, SP became part of the UPA.

It is this history that suggests itself as the answer for 2024. The Congress on its own cannot take on the saffron forces. But it need not be on its own. Most meaningful opposition parties, including Akhilesh Yadav and Nitish Kumar in the two most populous states of the Union, are as dedicated to the principle of ridding India of the last decade of hindutva rule as any Congressman or woman. Therefore, it would be advisable for the Congress to “stoop to conquer” by not asserting its primacy as a national party so as to facilitate a gravitation towards a mahagathbandhan. The election results would then show, as they did in 2004, which of the parties of the alliance has how many seats. And, accordingly, the question of leadership can be evolved by consensus.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

let-jpc-probe-adani

Sat Feb 11 11:12:14 IST 2023

As a member of the joint parliamentary committees (JPCs) set up to enquire into the Harshad Mehta stock market scam of the early 1990s and the Ketan Parekh stock market scam of a decade later, I am disturbed that the current government has not promptly moved to set up a JPC to enquire into the hammering Adani stocks have received in the wake of the Hindenburg report detailing what it calls “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud”, and “poor corporate governance” in the conglomerate.

The charges are specific; Adani’s responses are vague. Regulatory supervision is the function of the government and its agencies. The key question is whether such supervision has in the present case been exercised with due diligence. Only the regulators can clarify, and only a JPC can compel them to do so.

The principal finding of the Harshad Mehta JPC was that the regulators—armed with doctoral and post-doctoral degrees from Oxbridge-Harvard and flourishing their credentials as World Bank-IMF experts—either fell asleep at the wheel or were so thrilled with the economic reforms they were helming that they deliberately ignored the warning bells sounding in the Bombay Stock Exchange of the gross transgressions of the laws of the land. This was essentially because they believed the laws to be antediluvian. Rather than change the law, they decided to worship the market—and so did not realise that the market was being manipulated by unscrupulous brokers who found ready collaborators in public sector and private banks, domestic and foreign, LIC and UTI—just as we see happening today. The manipulators manipulate and the regulators find divinity in the volatility of stock exchanges.

At the time the Harshad Mehta scam broke, the director the Enforcement Directorate was an IAS officer of unimpeachable integrity, Javed Chowdhury. The agony he endured has been well described in his 2012 memoir—An Insider’s View. I quote from pp. 134-136 because his words find such eerie resonance in the Adani matter that they could have been written about the present. He charged that “the nature of financial violation was brazen and executed so obviously in furtherance of the private profit of certain select individuals”. Change “individuals” to “individual” and you have a 1992 prism through which to view the events of 2023. Chowdhury goes on: “There was not the slightest tinge of introspection or remorse—there was only absolute confidence in talking one’s way out of the crisis.” This is how the government today is reacting to the Adani imbroglio. Chowdhury then delivers his final punch, “The attitude was that if laws have been violated, the laws are wrong—because they (economic tsars) understood economics and therefore what they say should be the law.” As the Congress spokesman put, “The Adani Group is no ordinary conglomerate: it is closely identified with Prime Minister Narendra Modi since the time he was chief minister.”

As of now, of course, these are yet-to-be-proved allegations. But the question immediately arises, what was the finance ministry’s high-level committee on capital markets (HLCC), set up on the recommendation of the Harshad Mehta JPC report, doing? It is chaired by the finance secretary and includes the top brass of regulators from governor, RBI to chairman, SEBI. What escaped their eye but caught Hindenburg’s attention? Especially as the small investors, who are the nation’s principal concern, seem to regard Hindenburg’s findings credible as they quit their Adani holdings in droves, and have stayed away from Adani’s FPO.

An alert HLCC would have been able to provide convincing answers but, as in the Ketan Parekh scam, seems to have woken up only after its shoulders were shaken by Hindenburg. The only way of unearthing the truth is through yet another JPC.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

mani-shankar-aiyar-amul-sodhi-ouster-anand-amit-shah

Sat Jan 28 14:28:05 IST 2023

When it was announced in 2021 that the overburdened Union Home Minister Amit Shah was to be given additional charge of the newly constituted Union ministry of cooperatives, I frankly wondered what the motive might be. It hardly seemed par for the course that the virtual number two in the government should want to add such a minor portfolio to his bulging responsibilities.

I remembered meeting Dr V. Kurien at Raj Bhavan as part of my district training in Gujarat as an IFS probationer in 1964. Kurien had just started giving impetus to the milk cooperative at Anand that has now grown into the giant Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation with 3.64 million members, and procurement daily of some 26 million litres of milk. Kurien declared his ambition to make Amul cheese as good as Kraft. Now, Amul cheese has long become a household word while Kraft is remembered only by senior citizens.

One of those most responsible for Amul’s startling success is Rupinder Singh Sodhi, whose twelve-year term as managing director was suddenly terminated at the GCMMF board meeting on January 9, 2023. The abrupt dismissal letter, brusque to the point of rudeness, bluntly said, “…Your services as MD are being terminated with immediate effect… ordered that you hand over charge immediately”. No word of appreciation for services rendered. No expression of gratitude for 40 years of unstinted service to the organisation. No thanks for taking the organisation to an altogether different dimension. No reference to Sodhi having asked to be relieved when his term ended, and then being given an extension that he had not sought. Just an order to go, as if he had been hanging on undeservedly or had done something execrably wrong.

Sodhi himself took the end graciously. Like the gentlemen he is, he simply commented, “I have resigned… I have been telling the board I want to pursue other things.” He added, “It was my own decision.”

This has not convinced the media. One writer described Sodhi as having been “ousted”; another referred to the “shock and surprise” caused by his dismissal; a third said it “raises disturbing questions”. A journalist cited a board member saying, “…We were informed that it was the party’s decision to not allow Sodhi to continue… it was a decision from the party, and nothing could be done about it”.

Do you now see why I was concerned at the announcement that Shah had been given additional charge of cooperatives? His own explanation was that he had a long association with the cooperative movement. He did not add that this included a previous directorship with the Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank that was at the heart of the Ketan Parekh stock market scam. I was a member of the joint parliamentary committee set up to investigate the shenanigans. The key to the scam was the huge sums of money borrowed quite illegally and often overnight by Parekh from the cooperative that ultimately bankrupted the bank. Parekh was arrested in August 2004. A few months later, the CBI court granted him conditional bail. But as Parekh was unable to discharge his debt of around 1800 crore to the cooperative bank, his incarceration continued. Controversies persist regarding the alleged connection between Parekh and the ruling party in Gujarat, but these allegations now stand lost in the labyrinth through which the case is wending its way.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

the-real-toll-of-kashmiri-pandits-mani-shankar-aiyar

Sat Jan 14 12:12:18 IST 2023

The truth has a curious way of eventually emerging. Since 1990—that is for the last 33 years—the BJP has consistently maintained that the “targeted attacks” on Kashmiri Pandits since militancy began in January 1990 was communal and designed to drive non-Muslims out of the Kashmir valley. The principal proponent of this theory was the governor of J&K, Jagmohan, and his line has since been taken up by the hindutva brigade and peddled without regard for facts or perspective. Indeed, the film, Kashmir Files, was part of this propaganda invective. It focused exclusively on the Kashmiri Pandits. The only Muslims shown were the terrorists. It deliberately ignored the Kashmiri Muslim victims of the terror.

For three decades the saffron forces have been toeing the line that it was Muslim communal terrorism that drove approximately 80,000 Kashmiri Pandits (perhaps more) out of their ancient homeland. The solutions looked for were, therefore, communally coloured. The reading down of Article 370 was similarly motivated by communal considerations. And the numerous arrests that followed—running to thousands—was also communally motivated. All Kashmiri Muslim dissidents were tarred with the same communal brush. Kashmiri Muslims were removed from positions of political power, and from senior police and civil servants’ posts.

The conclusive proof offered by the BJP of normalcy having returned to J&K was the recruitment and posting of several Kashmiri Pandits into the civil services in Kashmir valley. When a few of them were gunned down, many (apparently most) of these freshly recruited cadre went on leave to their families in Jammu and refused to return to their posts in the valley.

It is in this context that Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha confessed, “The country should stop seeing this issue on the basis of religion. A lot of other people have also been killed.”

I have been insistently pointing out since 1990 that the internal evidence generated by the J&K administration itself clearly shows that both communities, and not just Kashmiri Pandits, had suffered at the hands of the terrorists. The principal proof I offered was from page 478 of Jagmohan’s My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir, his account of his thankfully brief but disastrous governorship (January to May 1990). Jagmohan cites a report from the additional director-general of police, Srinagar, which “asserted that from December 1989 to May 15, 1990, 134 innocent persons had been killed by the militants. The killings of 71 Hindus during this period created fear in the minority community and accelerated the pace of migration of Kashmiri Pandits”.

Jagmohan did not make the obvious calculation that if 134 had been killed, of whom 71 were Hindus, that must mean that the nearly equal number of Muslims killed was 63!

This refusal to acknowledge that the victims of terrorism were almost the same in the two communities continued over the next decades and became acute after 2014. At the height of the communal propaganda unleashed by the hindutva brigade, one P.P. Kapoor, a concerned citizen of Samalkha in Haryana, put in an RTI request to be officially informed of the numbers killed from each community. He received a reply from the deputy superintendent of police, Srinagar. The reply bore no. HQR’s/RTI/S-91/2021/1808-09 and was dated November 27, 2021. It unambiguously stated that the number of Hindus killed “since the inception of militancy 1990” was 89, while “the number of those of other faiths” killed stood at 1,635, more than 16 times that of the Hindus killed!

If even these numbers, generated entirely by the J&K administration, will not persuade the LG’s administration to change course, that will only show that the biased communalism of the saffron forces cannot accommodate itself to the true situation in J&K.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

the-peace-of-the-graveyard-bjp-gujarat

Sat Dec 31 11:26:17 IST 2022

I think the lowest point in the Gujarat campaign came when Union Home Minister Amit Shah proclaimed that “such a lesson was taught in 2002” that it has since led to “akhand shanti (eternal peace)” in Gujarat. Yes, the peace of the graveyard.

He was not speaking of the dreadful events at the railway signal outside Godhra, where more than 50 kar sevaks were burnt alive in their coach. For that was not riot, but murder, and those responsible have been sentenced to life imprisonment and death.

The “rioters” referred to by Shah were the inflamed Hindu mobs who massacred at least a thousand Muslims who had nothing to do with what had happened at Godhra. Shah has in fact portrayed the innocent Muslim victims as “those engaging in communal riots”. A few of the Hindu “rioters” have been deservedly sentenced to life imprisonment. Some have recently been released and at least one lot has been received back with garlands and sweets. What “lesson” have they been taught or learnt? That vengeance killing of innocents is to be commended?

He also made the outrageous claim that “in 2002, communal riots took place because the Congress people let it become a habit” and that “if there is anyone who has ravaged Gujarat through communal riots, it is Congress people”. Rubbish. In 1969, when the Congress was celebrating Mahatma Gandhi’s centenary, who was it that stoked such vicious riots in Ahmedabad that the chief guest, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Frontier Gandhi, stalked off stating that such violence was totally anathema to Gandhiji’s philosophy? Of course not the Congress, because it would hardly wreck its own reputation on so solemn an occasion. It was the saffron lot. And who in 1985 converted a caste clash into a communal uprising but those whose basic philosophy is to spread hatred against minority communities, especially Muslims.

“Strict action,” Shah went on to claim, “had been taken by the BJP government against those engaging in communal riots”. Really? Then why was Maya Kodnani, one of those eventually found by the courts to have been so mixed up in the rioting as to be deserving of a life sentence, retained in Modi’s council of ministers? Why was Babu Bajrangi allowed his freedom despite boasting that he had personally killed innocent Muslims until the courts took action years later? Why was Manoj Kukrani released on bail to campaign for his daughter after being convicted to life imprisonment for the heinous crimes he committed?

In Vagra, Bharuch district, the same day, Shah asserted that “these people (the rioters) last showed courage in 2002”. Courage? Courage to spear an unborn child to death? Courage to stab a pregnant woman? Courage to assassinate such a noble exemplar of communal harmony as Ehsan Jafri, ex-MP? Courage to rape Bilkis Bano repeatedly in the presence of her daughter and do the same to her and other female members of the family while heartlessly murdering innocent boys and men for no reason other than their faith? Or was the word courage a mistranslation? True, as Shah said, some of “these people” were “one by one... sorted and put in jail”, but where was the Union home minister when, on their being released on the Gujarat government’s order, which is under challenge in the Supreme Court, these criminals were feted and felicitated as “sanskari Brahmins”?

The most laughable of his claims—but for how grim the claim was—was that the BJP government “tightened the noose of the law so sternly that it taught a lesson to those doing the riots”. In fact, the Gujarat government at best stood aside twiddling its thumbs and, at worst, was complicit in the horrors taking place under its watch. Extraordinarily, the Election Commission has let Shah off the hook. But election victories do not absolve lies and hate speech.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

nadav-lapid-kashmir-files-opinion

Sat Dec 10 16:42:13 IST 2022

Nadav Lapid, the Israeli head of the jury at the International Film Festival of India, described Kashmir Files—the official Indian entry for the competitive section of the festival—as “vulgar propaganda”. He said he and his fellow jurors were “disturbed and shocked” on viewing the film. “We all jury members shared exactly the same impression of the movie” as “very crude, manipulated and violent”.

In subsequent comments to the Indian and Israeli media, he has further described the Vivek Agnihotri film as “ridiculous” and compared it with a “cartoon for kids” in the manner in which the “bad guys” are portrayed.

It is, Lapid said, “A flat product… totally in service of an agenda”, which has left him “with a very bad taste”. He has confirmed that he is questioning the “aesthetic and artistic quality of the film” and not “questioning the veracity of the facts”. Indeed, he believes, “Tragic events like this deserve a serious movie… a piece of art that truly represents what happened with realistic values.” Instead, Kashmir Files has served up a movie with “fascist features” as shown by the manner the film was “pushed into the official competition due to political pressure by the Indian government”. He said, “Even if it did not actually make” the film, the Indian government “pushed” it “in an unusual way”. The movie, he elaborated, “is not equal to the tragedy… such serious topics deserve a serious film.” This, Kashmir Files is manifestly not because it is “a propagandist movie inappropriate for an artistic, competitive section of such a prestigious film festival”. It is only “manipulation, vulgar, violence…that can cause hostility, violence and hate between communities”. He has further dubbed the movie as “Islamophobic”.

Before we go on, let us see who this Israeli is. He was invited because he is an eminent cineaste and film critic who has served as president of the jury in dozens of film festivals, including “the biggest ones like Cannes, Berlin and others”. As a filmmaker, he first came to international notice when he was awarded the special jury prize at the Locarno Film Festival in 2011 for his debut film, Policeman, and went on to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for his Synonyms. You cannot go much higher than that.

In answer to the Israeli ambassador’s charge that he should be “ashamed” of himself, Lapid has tartly responded that he has not come to India “in order to serve the interests of the state”. That, he adds, is “a totally fascistic idea”.

In what is arguably his most compelling comment, he stresses that, “We must have the capacity to deal with things in a complex way.” By simplifying complex issues into bad guys vs. good guys, Agnihotri has not served the cause of truth even if, as he claims, all the ‘facts’ he has cherrypicked are accurate.

I offer two telling facts to close this column. In his reminiscences of the exodus that occurred under his watch when he was governor, Jammu and Kashmir, Jagmohan says 138 persons were killed till March 10, 1990, of whom 75 were “Hindus”. He does not do the simple maths required to see that this also means 63 Kashmiri Muslims were killed over the same period! And to go by the RTI response of the deputy superintendent of police, Srinagar number HQR’s/RTI/S-91/2021/108-09, dated November 27, 2021, of all those killed since “the inception of militancy 1990”, 89 are Kashmiri Pandits and 1,635 belong to “other faiths”—they are almost all Muslims. It is by including that side of the story that Kashmir Files would have proved worthy of inclusion in the IFFI.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

secularism-or-hindutva-ideology-in-india

Sun Nov 27 12:51:33 IST 2022

The Congress has often—and justly—been criticised for waffling on ideological issues. Yet, when Rahul Gandhi takes a firm stand, there is no lack of those who criticise his bluntness. The rift valley in Indian politics is between those who believe that India belongs to all Indians equally and those who privilege the dominant religious majority.

Our electoral system has over the last eight years passed the banner to those who wish to make India a Hindu Raj. The fact, however, is that while four-fifths of Indians subscribe to some version of Hinduism as a personal religion, only a third of Indians have voted for the BJP. Yet, our electoral system has granted two-thirds of the seats to those who have triumphed in only one-third of the nation’s votes. This has resulted in the skewed position of most of India’s peninsular and peripheral states voting for non-denominational parties while the heartland votes the other way. This has fostered the most divisive politics in modern India’s history. It is why Rahul Gandhi is undertaking his Bharat Jodo Yatra. The country needs uniting, not dividing.

It is in this context that Rahul’s raising the question of Vinayak Savarkar, the ideological father of hindutva, needs to be viewed. Were ideological waffling to continue, Rahul would be best advised to ignore Savarkar. If, on the other hand, ideological clarity is the need of the hour, then the yatra is designed to highlight the gaping void between the vision of India espoused by Savarkar and the idea of India that inspired the freedom movement and nation-building till eight years ago.

For almost exactly a century, the Savarkar view, first articulated publicly in 1923, has been that only Hindus are Indians and only if the non-Hindus accept this proposition that they qualify for the right to live in this land. Savarkar was explicit. There were two nations in India—a Hindu nation and a Muslim nation—and as the overwhelmingly larger nation was ‘Hindu’, a genuine India had to be a Hindu nation. Jinnah eventually agreed. I stress “eventually” because from the initial espousal of the two-nation theory in the 1890s through the elaboration of this theory in Savarkar’s works through the 1920s and 1930s Jinnah remained, at least till 1927, the “ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity”. It was only in 1940 that he emerged as the champion of a separate homeland for the “Muslim nation”, as much a fiction as Savarkar’s “Hindu nation”, for although there was a Muslim majority in the north-west and East Bengal, the Muslim community permeated the Hindu-majority areas. Inevitably, therefore, more than a third of the subcontinent’s Muslims fell out of the Muslim-majority areas. The principal ideological question at Partition was whether India should follow Pakistan in becoming a religion-based state. Savarkar’s answer was yes. The Congress led by the Mahatma said, no. All Indians are Indians.

Gandhiji won us our freedom by emphasising that the ends never justify the means. For ends to be pure, means must also be pure. And by eschewing opportunism and sticking to ideological principles irrespective of the passing political compulsions of the moment, we won. Rahul’s remarks on Savarkar are part of this ideological belief and value system. If waffling on secularism has cost the Congress dear, Rahul has shown that it is not by becoming hindutva’s B-team but by standing up for its core beliefs that the Congress will partner the non-denominational parties to challenge the forces of hindutva.

We must remain ideologically consistent if in 2024 we are to unite the two-thirds of the electorate who, even at the peak of the BJP’s election winning streak, flinched from supporting the BJP’s ideology.

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

let-us-not-politicise-budget

Fri Aug 02 16:12:45 IST 2024

The concept of budget traces its roots from ancient India, with references found in Kautilya’s Arthashastra, where kosha (the treasury) is highlighted as a vital component of the state. This ancient text emphasises the importance of balancing the state’s resource enhancement with the welfare of its people. In modern India, Article 112 of the Constitution mandates that a statement of estimated receipts and expenditures be presented to Parliament each financial year. This statement serves as the primary budget document.

The Union Budget 2024 is a kosha for accomplishing the vision of a Viksit Bharat. The budget, as a document, cannot be studied keeping aside the political vision and ambitions of the ruling party. The BJP has been proactively working for upliftment of four ‘castes’—poor, women, youth and farmer, and this is reflected very well in our budget document. In this year’s budget, the government has allocated over Rs1.20 lakh crore to the ministry of education as against Rs79,450 crore in 2014-15. Around four crore young people would be prepared for the future through skill development programmes. Agriculture and allied sectors have been allocated Rs1.52 lakh crore as against Rs27,660 crore in 2014. The gender budget, an annual financial statement of the total allocation to women-centric schemes, stands at Rs3.27 lakh crore. The country is in a fortunate position today when the budgetary goals and the political ambitions of the BJP align, which then would enable the Central government to effectively pursue and accomplish its vision in the coming five years.

The opposition parties are accusing the Centre of allocating more money to Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, which is not correct. A recently released report reveals that Bihar is the state with the highest number of poor—around 26 per cent of its population. The efforts of the Central government to allocate Rs37,500 crore for Bihar is a step in the right direction. This massive allocation will help Bihar to come out of the shackles of poverty and align with balanced regional growth and development. Andhra Pradesh is a facing a capital conundrum ever since the bifurcation happened in 2014. The state lost a lot to Telangana. So the allocation of Rs15,000 crore will give ignition to Chandrababu Naidu’s dream of building his dream capital at Amaravati. The future returns on these investments and allocations are poised to benefit our collective dream of a Viksit Bharat. If supporting a state’s growth is seen as a political move, the government embraces it with pride, recognising it as a crucial step toward national development.

The Economic Survey highlighted a positive trend in India’s fiscal deficit, projecting it to decrease to 4.5 per cent by 2026. The report noted a reduction in the fiscal deficit from 6.4 per cent in 2022-23 to 5.6 per cent in 2023-24, driven by robust growth in both direct and indirect tax revenues, reflecting resilient economic activity. All these steps are of utmost appreciation in order to lay the foundation for unprecedented growth over the next five years. As a political document, it underscores a commitment to inclusive development, ensuring that benefits extend to the marginalised. The remarkable journey from being labelled one of the “fragile five” to becoming the world’s fifth-largest economy has been made possible through the alignment of political and policy initiatives with India’s broader growth strategy. This year’s budget reflects a harmonious blend of ambition and pragmatic governance.

Lekhi is former Union minister.

evms-have-strengthened-democracy

Sat Jul 06 10:31:33 IST 2024

The recent Lok Sabha election was the largest democratic exercise in human history. Spanning seven phases over seven weeks, more than 642 million out of 969 million registered voters cast their votes. This massive turnout underscores India’s profound commitment to democracy, a cornerstone of our civilisational ethos. It is safe to say that democracy is the national ideology of our great nation, with its vitality manifesting in each election cycle.

India, historically revered as a land of education and knowledge, has long embraced democratic principles. At a time when much of the world was governed by monarchies, India upheld a rich tradition of democracy that spanned thousands of years. This deep-rooted democratic spirit finds its origins in India’s ancient traditions of sustainable development and spiritual democracy. Democracy was innate to our civilisation and that is why our nation is known to be the mother of democracy, being one of the oldest and the largest democracies of the world.

The 2024 election marked a significant milestone in our democratic journey. Conducted by the vigilant Election Commission of India (ECI), it not only reaffirmed our status as the world’s largest democracy but also highlighted the logistical feat of organising polls for 100 crore eligible voters.

Despite initial scepticism, the EVMs have proven their reliability through rigorous testing and numerous court challenges, including Supreme Court mandates for all machines to include Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units. These measures have bolstered public confidence in the electoral process, despite occasional criticism from defeated parties.

Since the introduction of EVMs, instances of electoral fraud and human errors have significantly reduced, along with other malpractices like booth capturing and ballot stuffing, which were common in many parts of India. It is debatable whether a nascent party like the Trinamool Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee, would have won the historic West Bengal elections in 2011 against the CPI(M), which had ruled the state for decades and was known for electoral misdemeanours, without the fairness and security brought to the polling process by the EVMs.

For many years now the Congress has been blaming the EVMs when it lost any election, but laughingly the EVMs were given credibility when the party won an election. Such behaviour shows that winning is everything for some people and national interest is secondary.

Elon Musk’s comment on the possibility of EVMs being hacked by humans or AI, in response to a report on alleged voting irregularities in Puerto Rico, has once again caused a stir among certain groups in India. The time is right for India to highlight one of its most underrated and successful indigenous innovations. At present, Namibia, Nepal, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Venezuela, besides the US, use some form of electronic voting.

India’s EVMs are a testament to indigenous innovation. They boast over 275 safety protocols, including a single-use, encrypted chip and stringent transportation and storage SOPs. Designed without any capability to connect to networks, such as Wi-Fi or bluetooth, Indian EVMs are impervious to remote hacking or external interference, ensuring unparalleled security and reliability.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi rightly said, the poll result is a victory for the democratic world showcasing resilience, peaceful conduct of elections and smooth transfer of power. The election has raised the credibility of the EVMs as the result symbolises impartiality and transparency.

Lekhi is former Union minister.

baltimore-bridge-collapse-was-there-sabotage

Fri Apr 12 11:29:40 IST 2024

The reactions on social media following the collision of the cargo ship Dali with Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge were unnecessarily derogatory. There was also a racially insensitive cartoon by a webcomic based in the US. All this and more has led to further slamming of the Indian crew on the ship.

Crew nationality is a matter of employment and not indicative of a country’s maritime safety standards. It is imperative not to jump to conclusions or assign blame solely on the nationality of the crew, but instead to conduct a thorough and impartial inquiry to determine the causes of the mishap. Who was the captain of the ship? What are the existing laws in the US in such situations? Were there any tugboats to ensure safe navigation? The swift action taken by the Indian crew to alert authorities undoubtedly played a crucial role in mitigating the extent of casualties in what could have been a far more devastating incident. Was there sabotage? Today, the Navy is securing the Indian Ocean so that world trade is protected from terrorists and pirates. Even the US President Joe Biden praised the Indian crew for a quick call for help.

Looking down at Indians in loincloth, like in the cartoon, is akin to a mindset that saw India as a land of snake charmers. It was the same cloth, mind you, from which we made masts in ships thousands of years ago. Racism of such nature needs to be checked by all governments.

India has been a maritime superpower since ancient times.  Lothal, an ancient site in Gujarat, dating back to 2400 BCE, is considered the world’s oldest dry-dock. It was equipped to berth and service ships. Back then it gave us an insight into tides, winds and other nautical factors. Not just that, the navy of the Magadha kingdom is considered to be the first ever recorded instance of a navy anywhere in the world. Chandragupta Maurya’s minister, Chanakya, wrote the Arthashastra, where he shared details about the department of waterways under a navadhyaksha (superintendent of the ships). It also mentioned an admiralty division, which was responsible for navigation on the oceans, lakes and seas.

Many centuries ago people from our country had reached Zanzibar in Africa for business. In fact, it was a merchant from Gujarat named Chandan whose ship Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama followed to reach India. He said in his diary that Indian ships were much bigger than theirs and the workmanship was so fine that that not a single drop of water could go through them.

Today, India contributes a significant chunk of seafarers to the shipping industry as the country is recognised globally as a reliable source of marine manpower. On an average, India sends around 2.4 lakh seafarers every year. Of them, 2.1 lakh seafarers work on foreign ships.  India’s resolute actions in maritime security have been demonstrated through recent successful operations.

With the Navy disclosing its response to 18 incidents in recent months, employing a rotating force of 21 ships and 5,000 personnel, and conducting thorough boarding and investigation procedures on over 1,000 vessels, India has proven its commitment to safeguarding maritime interests. This proactive approach not only underscores India’s dedication to ensuring maritime security but also solidifies its position as a key player in the global maritime domain.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

modi-is-modifying-india

Sat Mar 16 11:11:31 IST 2024

Ten years ago, a resounding electoral mandate ushered in the BJP government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The slogan that swept the nation then—Vikas Bhi, Virasat Bhi (development as well as heritage)—resonated deeply. While forging ahead, the Union government has not forgotten its commitment to heritage and culture.

It has celebrated the culture and heritage of the northeast like never before. For decades, the northeast remained geographically and economically distant. Today, significant investments in road and air connectivity, coupled with various initiatives and development projects, are bridging the gap. Tourism infrastructure is booming, showcasing the region’s unique culture and natural beauty. This focus has led to a surge in economic activity and improved the living standards.

India’s road infrastructure has already seen a remarkable transformation. As of July 2023, over 60,000km of national highways have been constructed or widened, a significant increase from 34,339km in 2014. While the Indian Railways has witnessed modernisation with initiatives like the Vande Bharat trains and dedicated freight corridors, it also offers comprehensive Ramayana-based tour programmes, and a Buddhist circuit train. A Sufi-circuit is also in the pipeline.

India has emerged as a global leader in digital adoption with UPI, digitisation of data in the government sector, introduction of GeM (Government e-Marketplace) portal and digitisation of museums and libraries, while preserving what has been our cultural heritage for thousands of years. Startup India, with over 81,000 recognised startups, fosters innovation and entrepreneurship.

What’s more, the National Education Policy (NEP) emphasises the inclusion of regional languages, fostering cultural identity and inclusivity. This move resonates with India’s multilingual reality, strengthening connections to the past and present.

The Modi government has recovered artefacts stolen from India, like the idol of Goddess Annapurna. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, returned 15 artefacts in 2021 and more than 300 from 2014 to this day, which includes a ceramic pot from Chandraketugarh era, which belongs to the first century BCE, a stone bust of Kamadeva, the god of love, from the second half of the eighth century CE, a Svetambara enthroned Jina, with attendant Yaksha and Yakshi (11th century CE).

While India’s global presence was elevated at the G20 through our modern approach and infrastructure, the G20 theme, ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (the world is one family) highlighted India’s cultural heritage as a guiding principle for global cooperation.

While India showcased technological prowess through locally developed Covid vaccines that were transported to 101 countries, we also organised the ‘Festival of India’ initiative, showcasing our diverse cultural experiences at embassies worldwide, fostering appreciation on the global stage.

Schemes like Karmyogi, Vishwakarma, and SVANidhi have empowered skill development and transformed lives across sectors. It is a matter of joy that UNESCO, in the recent times, has also included the Ramappa Temple, the Hoysala temples, Dholavira, Santiniketan, Durga Puja, Garba and Kumbh Mela as intangible cultural heritage of the world.

The BJP government’s 10 years have been marked by a conscious effort to balance development with the preservation of heritage. While strides have been made in infrastructure, digitisation, and regional development, the journey is ongoing. Yet, the emphasis on preserving and celebrating India’s rich cultural legacy sets a unique tone for the nation’s future. As India continues to grow and evolve, it does so by drawing inspiration from its past while confidently striding towards a brighter tomorrow.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

as-india-becomes-ram-rajya

Fri Jan 19 14:49:28 IST 2024

On January 22, history will witness the culmination of a nearly 500-year struggle as the consecration of the idol of Shri Ram takes place in Ayodhya. The construction of the Ram Mandir represents not only the physical manifestation of a cherished dream, but also the triumph of justice, marking the end of a protracted legal battle and the fulfilment of the aspirations of countless devotees. As we celebrate this monumental occasion, it is essential to reflect on the significance of this journey.

The Ayodhya dispute has been complex and contentious, and deeply rooted in the country’s history and socioreligious fabric. For a long time, the debate over the birthplace of Lord Ram has fuelled tensions, sparking conflicts that persisted for generations. The protracted legal battle, which finally reached its conclusion in 2019, with the Supreme Court’s unanimous verdict in favour of the construction of the Ram Mandir, stands as a testament to the endurance of India’s judicial system.

The struggle for the Ram Mandir saw the unwavering commitment of countless kar sevaks. Many of them made the ultimate sacrifice, losing their lives in the pursuit of a dream that had been passed down through generations. Their martyrdom exemplifies the resilience and unwavering faith that characterised this struggle.

As we witness the consecration of the idol of Shri Ram, it is fitting to recall the timeless wisdom embedded in the Ramayana, the ancient epic that narrates the life and deeds of Lord Ram. The teachings of the Ramayana transcend religious boundaries and offer profound insights into morality, righteousness and the true essence of dharma. The construction of the Ram Mandir serves as a tangible reminder of these timeless principles.

One of the fundamental teachings of the Ramayana is the concept of dharma—the righteous path that one must follow. Lord Ram, the embodiment of virtue, upheld dharma in every aspect of his life. The consecration of the idol in Ayodhya symbolises the reaffirmation of these timeless values in our society. It is a call to embrace the principles of justice, compassion and integrity that Lord Ram exemplified. It emphasises the importance of aligning oneself with righteousness and duty, embodying the very spirit of the Ram Mandir construction.

The consecration of the idol is not merely the construction of a physical structure; it marks the beginning of a new chapter in India’s history. The Ram Mandir establishes Ram Rajya in the country, an administration system based on principles of dharma.

Dharma denotes behaviours that are considered to be in accord with Rta—the “order and custom” that makes life and universe possible. This includes duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and “right way of living”. The concept is believed to have a trans-temporal validity.

In conclusion, the construction of the Ram Mandir stands as a historic moment. It offers a beacon of hope and justice. As we witness this monumental event, let us embrace the teachings of Lord Ram, fostering a society guided by righteousness, compassion and unity. The Ram Mandir is not just a temple; it is a symbol of India’s rich cultural tapestry and the resilience of its people. May it serve as a reminder of the values that define our nation.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

constitution-in-action-under-modi

Sat Dec 23 11:08:47 IST 2023

How many times have the policies of the Narendra Modi government been called unconstitutional? We have lost count.

Never in the history of our 75 years of Independence did the right policies make way into execution. The money remained in the hands of a few elite people and the common man suffered. Not providing, or even talking about, basic facilities—like cleanliness, toilets, roads, water, irrigation facilities, crop insurance and electricity—was a norm. The poor believed that they are destined to remain deprived and fight for basic rights all their lives. It surprises me how this was never considered unconstitutional. The Modi government has executed the basic principles of the Constitution into our daily lives. This should have been done many decades ago.

Constitution is not a dead letter. It is the soul of our country, and the soul of this Constitution is inclusion, freedom to contribute towards our society and the nation, and freedom to participate in constructive nationalism.

The Modi government has worked on the guiding principles of the Constitution. It has provided affordable housing for all, brought in sanitary toilets through the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, introduced the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, where free foodgrain was distributed to the poor. The list is a long one. In the true sense, the Constitution is the religion of our country and the Modi government has worked to follow that religion. Having said that, there were two things that remained incomplete in our Constitution. The government completed them.

1) The abrogation of Article 370 to end the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.

2) The National Education Policy 2020 has recognised all Indian languages as national languages and included them in the school curriculum. The words of the Constitution have been given vibrancy by my government.

The Modi government also introduced the provision of celebrating the first Constitution Day (November 26), for Constitution is not only for the understanding of a few elite people, the legal profession, and the courts, but also for the people, of the people, and by the people. The Constitution, at its core, supports democracy, secularism, social justice and individual liberty. The Modi government has launched several schemes which are right in line with these principles.

The emphasis on economic growth and poverty alleviation in schemes like Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, and Ayushman Bharat are an attempt to fulfil the constitutional directive of ensuring social security and economic justice for all citizens.

The Modi government’s focus on infrastructure development, as evidenced by initiatives such as the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, the Smart Cities Mission, Har Ghar Jal and the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, is in line with the constitutional mandate to ensure a decent standard of living for all. These plans strive to create more sustainable and inclusive urban and rural environments, while addressing socio-economic inequalities as outlined in the Constitution.

The principle of federalism is at the heart of the Constitution, and the Modi government’s approach to cooperative federalism is reflected in schemes such as the GST and The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2023. These initiatives aim to promote economic unity among the states and strengthen India’s self-reliance, echoing the constitutional vision of a cooperative and cohesive federal structure.

Far from being unconstitutional, the Modi government is the most constitutionally aligned government India has ever had.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

why-pink-go-saffron

Sat Nov 25 11:28:23 IST 2023

Telangana was formed in 2014 after a long protest since the 1960s. K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) was the face of the protest. He sat on an indefinite fast, which culminated in the UPA government at the Centre announcing the formation of Telangana. Soon, the Lok Sabha passed the bill for bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, which led to the formation of Telangana as the 29th state in India. Rao became the first chief minister of Telangana. If you closely follow KCR’s speeches, it has an emotional pitch. In his latest speech for the upcoming assembly elections, Rao said his indefinite fast was the reason that the Congress gave in to the demand of a new state, and that if anyone votes for the Congress they are betraying him and belittling his efforts. But people of Telangana are focused on real issues of ground-level welfare and development, and KCR cannot fool them with his emotional tactics.

Telangana ranks ninth in India’s GDP ranking, but it is not solely because of the efforts of the KCR government. The BJP-led Central government had allocated Rs21,470.84 crore for the state in the Union budget of 2023. Also, people of Telangana are hardworking and have a growth mindset. It is a state where agriculture accounts for 21 per cent share of GDP; farmers still depend on rains for irrigation.

All said, the woes of people of Telangana just don’t seem to end. Now, KCR’s Dharani portal, an integrated land records management system, has created mayhem. Allegedly, Rao’s family amassed land worth hundreds of crores and left many small land owners distraught, without any claim to their own land. Rao’s insistence of removing corruption with Dharani proved counterproductive because the situation has not changed.

During his 10-year rule, the only major development Rao can boast of is the multi-crore scams—be it the Miyapur land scam, the note for vote scam, or, for that matter, the EAMCET (engineering, agricultural and medical common entrance test) paper leak scam. These scams are closely linked to the nepotism that exist in KCR’s party—Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS). KCR’s daughter K. Kavitha, who is the member of Telangana Legislative Council, was involved in the Delhi liquor scam. The Enforcement Directorate accused her of holding a 65 per cent stake in Indospirit, a liquor company. She was questioned by the probe agency at her home in Hyderabad on December 11, 2022. Arun Pillai, a Hyderabad-based businessman and one of the key persons in the Delhi excise scam, was arrested by the ED in March 2023 in connection with the scam. The ED claims Pillai represented Kavitha’s interests, and that he conspired to channelise payoffs of Rs100 crore to the Aam Aadmi Party functionaries. The allegations are yet to be proven in the court of law, but involvement in such activities reveal the corrupt practices in the BRS.

KCR’s son K.T. Rama Rao is a legislator from Sircilla constituency and is the state minister for IT, municipal administration and urban development. KCR’s nephew, T. Harish Rao, is MLA for Siddipet and Telangana’s cabinet minister for finance. The whole of KCR’s family has been given powerful positions in the state and his attitude has been that of a dictator rather than a civil administrator. Thugocracy, after all, is a major byproduct of nepotism.

Telangana’s internal system is rotten with practices of bribery, exploitation of the poor, who have been given peanuts in the form of welfare programmes. Telangana needs a saffron change, and that is bound to happen.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

how-pm-modi-is-holding-tribals-closer

Sat Oct 28 18:09:55 IST 2023

India has the second-largest tribal population in the world—about 8.9 per cent of the total population. This is a section of our society that was long ignored, even though they lived amidst us. It is a fact that previous governments at the Centre were insensitive towards tribals. So much so that the tribal affairs ministry was set up only in 1999. Today, mind you, the ministry has its hands full.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has time and again hailed the contribution of various Indian tribes across the country, especially in the freedom struggle. He has launched multiple schemes for the betterment, inclusion, development and preservation of tribal communities and their culture.

Many may think otherwise, but the USP of the NDA government is the idea of Antyodaya—framing policies in a way that it reaches the last person in the last line, and ensuring that resources are equally shared by people across the country, with due respect to different traditions and cultural practices. Like the tribal ministry, other ministries, too, have collaborated to bring about true positive change in the lives of the tribal population.

A targeted funding framework was established under the Tribal Cultural Heritage Revival Programme for channeling resources directly to tribal communities for the documentation, preservation and revitalisation of their endangered cultural traditions. More than 300 tribal heritage conservation centres have been established under the Tribal Cultural Heritage Revival Programme.

The Modi government has displayed a strong commitment to the conservation and promotion of tribal languages though a series of targeted initiatives. As part of Eklavya Model Residential Schools programme, launched in 2018, over 460 tribal languages are being preserved and taught, ensuring that indigenous diversity thrives within the formal education system.

A very interesting project by the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, which has been organising tribal youth exchange programmes for the development of tribals, has also been implemented. Passing a plan on paper is one thing but giving on-ground exposure is an effective way to instil confidence and feel included. The aim is to provide an opportunity to the tribal youth of 30 selected districts of seven states to visit various places in the country to understand the cultural ethos, languages and lifestyles of different people. Another aim of the initiative is to sensitise the tribal youth about their rich traditional and cultural heritage and enable them to preserve it for future generations.

Collaborating with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the ministry of AYUSH established a comprehensive repository of codified texts translated into multiple languages, serving as a preventive measure against the misappropriation of India’s traditional medicinal wisdom. Further, the establishment of the North Eastern Institute of Ayurveda & Folk Medicine Research in Arunachal Pradesh aims to safeguard and promote the rich tapestry of folk medicine practices that are unique to the northeast. These endeavours collectively reflect a profound commitment by the government to uphold and propagate traditional healing practices while ensuring their rightful recognition and protection.

The Union cabinet has also approved the establishment of the National Institute of Sowa-Rigpa in Leh as an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of AYUSH. Sowa-Rigpa, a traditional medical system indigenous to the Himalayan region, is now extending its influence throughout the country.

With mutual collaborations between ministries and departments, the tribal population has never ever felt more included into the mainstream than now.

g20-summit-helps-promote-indias-cultural-soft-power

Sat Sep 02 16:18:06 IST 2023

The fourth and final G20 Culture Working Group (CWG) meeting ended in Varanasi on August 26. The other three sessions were held in Khajuraho, Hampi and Bhubaneswar. The cities were strategically selected to showcase the ancient cultural heritage to member countries in an attempt to promote our cultural soft power. We have failed to market ourselves well, and with these meetings, we have tried to amend our ways a bit.

Four thematic priorities were set forth by India to frame the work of the CWG, addressing: protection and restitution of cultural property; harnessing living heritage for a sustainable future; promotion of cultural and creative industries and creative economy, and leveraging digital technologies for the protection and promotion of culture.

India deliberated on these four priorities as these are favourable to the world as a whole. The major theme was ‘Vikas bhi Virasat bhi’—development with preservation of our heritage is what we believe in and are putting forth. These are the major priorities on the lines of which the outcome document has been signed by the member countries.

In the outcome document called the Kashi Culture Pathway, members committed to advancing the return and restitution of cultural property as an ethical imperative of social justice and called for a strengthened global coalition to bolster the fight against illicit trafficking. It also called for strengthened and better aligned policy frameworks, that address the misuse and misappropriation of living heritage through a more robust dialogue and policy engagement, including on issues pertaining to over-commercialisation and intellectual property, thus acknowledging the cultural rights of the bearers of this living heritage. The members also committed to work towards strengthening and aligning conceptual and monitoring frameworks of the creative.

The member states have agreed to be committed towards strengthening preventive action and regulation of online trade of cultural property through: (i) the implementation of existing international standards as applicable; (ii) enhanced knowledge sharing and expertise across the G20 membership; (iii) the development and implementation of guidelines for online trading platforms and social media; (iv) the dissemination of standards and best practices to support self-regulation; (v) sustained collaboration with international organisations; and (vii) the reinforcement of anti-money laundering regulations related to cultural property.

It was decided that an open and inclusive dialogue on the return and restitution of cultural property, building on a broad historical perspective that renews relationships between countries and enabling alternate dispute resolution mechanisms, as appropriate will be supported by all member states.

We have reached a consensus to strengthen institutional and policy frameworks to leverage living heritage for sustainable development by supporting ratification and implementation of international agreements, conventions and frameworks, bolstering measures for heritage preservation and language transmission and expanding evidence-based understanding of living heritage’s contribution to various sustainable development areas, with an emphasis on research, knowledge sharing and digital technology utilisation.

Not only these, the cities for these G20 CWG meetings were chosen strategically so that the member states could see the kaleidoscope of culture that India is. When they visited these places they would have experienced the rich diversity of our country not only in the conference halls, but also in attire, food, language, architecture and handlooms. The G20 is a great platform to market ourselves well and we have done just the same with these meetings.

The outcomes of these meetings have been phenomenal and we have put forth our voice in a way the world has listened and acted upon.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

why-delhi-services-bill-is-timely

Fri Aug 04 15:11:54 IST 2023

The Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government’s arguments to any action taken by the Central government pertaining to the national capital have become dry as dust. Dealing with the run-of-the-mill false accusation of being unconstitutional by the scared, dry-mouthed opposition has become routine for the government of India.

The latest in the list is the introduction of Delhi Services Bill, which gives power over civil services in the national capital to the lieutenant governor of Delhi. Parliament, as per the Constitutional powers bestowed, can make laws on any subject of the three lists for the Union Territories (UTs), including Delhi and Puducherry. This means that the legislative power of Parliament remains supreme in case of UTs. As per Article 239AA clause three part (b): “Nothing in sub-clause (a) shall derogate from the powers of Parliament under this Constitution to make laws with respect to any matter for a UT or any part thereof.

In the absence of any law, the Supreme Court is well in its jurisdiction to interpret the existing laws. But, when Parliament passes any such law, that shall stand to be the law of the UT.

The aim of the ordinance is to “provide for a comprehensive scheme of administration of services”, which “balances the local and domestic interests of the people of Delhi with the democratic will of the entire nation reflected through the president of India”.

Delhi National Capital Territory (NCT) may have an elected state government but it also seats an elected Central government. So the Centre has equal right to intervene in matters of importance. It is of strategic importance, especially when India has G20 presidency this year. The Kejriwal-led Delhi government has shown no interest in collaborating with the Central government for the upcoming G20 meeting in Delhi at the newly inaugurated Bharat Mandapam at Pragati Maidan. Instead, they accuse the Central government for all the problems faced by the people of Delhi. The Centre is in no position to risk its image at a global level when all eyes are on Delhi to put up a grand successful show for the G20 meet wherein representatives of all countries will join us, especially after the water-logging fiasco that everyone witnessed in the past few weeks.

The BJP government has always maintained that political rivalry should not be a reason for administrative lags, but the AAP government lacks maturity on the subject.

It cannot be ignored that Delhi NCT government’s efficiency is a big question mark. It has engaged in corruption, non-maintenance and has abandoned its duties. With former Delhi deputy chief minister [Manish Sisodia] in jail in the liquor policy scam, poor management of Delhi floods due to lack of dredging activity in the past few years, potable water crisis in Delhi, excessive electricity bills, the misappropriation of funds in connection with renovation of Kejriwal’s residence, wall of a newly built school being tore down, the list of inefficiency on the part of the AAP government does not end.

Kejriwal and his ministers have also been accused of going on a “rampage” immediately after the May 11 verdict of the Supreme Court. The Centre needs to take relevant action in order to safeguard the national interest and also has a special responsibility towards the citizens of Delhi, and hence Delhi services ordinance is one such action taken well in time.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

where-buddhism-meets-hinduism

Sat Jun 10 11:12:47 IST 2023

India, from time immemorial, has been sharing the values of Buddhism with the world. Buddhism is one common heritage between India and many other nations.

At the recently concluded Global Buddhist Summit, and at the seminar and art exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi, it was reiterated that the Buddha’s teachings share commonality with the Hindu thought and way of life. We are part of one civilisation, so is Buddhism.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Buddhism has been playing a significant role in cultivating deeper engagement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as part of India’s ‘Look East’ policy.

One of the most noticeable contributions of Buddhism to the Indian culture is in the realm of architecture—the stupas, the sculptures, the paintings, the viharas, and the chaityas that were built at Sanchi, Amravati, Taxila, Bodhgaya, Nalanda, Bahrut and many other places.

King Siddhartha was an Indian prince who chose the path of enlightenment instead of the luxuries of the royalty.

The Buddha’s meditative practice helped him realise that our problems lie within. We view things through the lens of our beliefs, opinions and prejudices—tools responsible for our partial view of the world inside and outside of us, and, thus, for our eventual suffering. Hence, the Buddha turned his attention towards one single object—his mind.

Buddhism, essentially, is an extension or a branch of an already established Indian school of thought that God is within us. And that we must calm ourselves and control our senses and mind for a peaceful life. Life, ageing and death are realities of life. Gita says that the body is mortal, and the soul, immortal.

The Buddha is said to be the ninth avatar of Lord Vishnu. Whenever there is excess of evil, Vishnu takes birth and establishes Dharma. The Buddha also tried to do the same. He believed in Dharma or Dhamma, which is defined as principles of living life, in which there is harmony between humans and nature.

This is the concept that is found in the teachings of the Buddha and in the inscriptions in temples or stupas that were built by Buddhists. The offerings to the Buddha around the world are roasted sattu powder and crispy sweet made of sugar (batasha), which are eaten commonly in eastern part of India.

In Buddhism, the ‘Ashtamangala’, or eight divine symbols, often represent the gifts given by celestial beings to Shakyamuni Buddha on his attainment of enlightenment. They are parasol, two fish, treasure vase, lotus flower, conch shell, endless knot, victory banner and the wheel of Dharma. Lotus, conch shell, fish and wheels are all derived from ancient Sanatana traditions and are considered sacred in all religions of Indic origin. Inexhaustible treasure vase is characterised by Kubera in Hinduism. In Hinduism, the conch is an attribute of Vishnu. Even the door-keepers I have often seen in the Buddhist monasteries are similar to gatekeepers found in all Hindu temples.

There are so many similarities between Hinduism and Buddhism, and one can safely say that there is a deep connection between these two religions, considering they originated in the same country.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

whats-modi-govts-biggest-win-in-9-years

Sat May 13 12:28:09 IST 2023

The Narendra Modi-led BJP government will complete nine years on May 30. It has been close to a decade that the government has been working extremely hard to bring meaningful changes in the lives of people. The Modi leher (wave), which has taken the country by storm, brought the BJP to power, and there has been no looking back ever since.

So much has happened in the country in the last nine years that it is impossible to cover it in one go. But the biggest change that this government has brought is the change in sentiment. While the corporates had almost succeeded in making our young people believe that everything Indian is uncivilised, Modi’s efforts brought back the pride.

Palpable changes can be seen in the previously overlooked sections of society that gave true meaning to being an Indian.

The budgetary allocation of the ministry of tribal affairs has seen a positive growth in the past nine years—from Rs4,295 crore to Rs12,000 crore. Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRSs) are being developed to impart quality education to tribal students. The National Sickle Cell Elimination Mission (implemented jointly by ministry of health and family welfare and ministry of tribal affairs) will cover aspects of the genetic disease in tribals in an integrated manner. The Pradhan Mantri Janjatiya Vikas Mission seeks to provide employment opportunities to tribals in remote areas. Under the Development Action Plan for the Scheduled Tribes (DAPST), besides the ministry of tribal affairs, 41 departments are allocating funds in the range of 4.3 to 17.5 per cent of their total scheme allocation every year for tribal development projects relating to education, health, agriculture, irrigation, roads, housing, electrification, employment generation, skill development, etc. The DAPST fund allocation has increased more than five times since 2013-14. While the numbers grew, Parliament elected the first tribal president of India.

The northeast had shared a somewhat strained relationship with the rest of the country. In recent years, however, the Union government has made tremendous growth in enhancing connectivity between the northeast and other states. It is not only about the five-fold jump in budget allocation, but also about diminishing boundaries between the northeast and the mainland. The political alienation that existed before has been completely thrashed and the BJP made a mark in an area that struggled between militancy and the resultant control by armed forces. The life of an average northeast dweller has improved manifold due to humility, respect for the culture and terrain and a clear intention to bring meaningful change.

One of the most socially effective programmes run by the Modi government is the Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat programme. The Kashi-Tamil Sangamam and the Saurashtra-Tamil Sangamam programmes have brought the north Indians and south Indians closer than ever. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has made various stipulations for the promotion of regional languages.

Wherever possible, the medium of instruction will be the mother tongue until at least grade five, but preferably till grade eight and beyond. Language is a mirror to any culture and keeping the culture alive is the best way to touch hearts.

In the past nine years, there has been massive development in every sphere—be it infrastructure, economy, diplomacy, rail connectivity, road connectivity, medical facilities, among others. The biggest win that can be credited to this government is the inculcation of a feeling of inclusion, the feeling of oneness, the feeling of connect, and the feeling of being cared for in each and every citizen.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

how-india-is-acting-as-guiding-force-in-g20

Fri Apr 14 16:26:40 IST 2023

G20 countries account for 85 per cent of global GDP and 60 per cent of world population. Their decisions affect each and every individual in the world. The G20 plays an important role in shaping and strengthening global architecture and governance on all major international economic issues.

The policies drafted by G20 leadership have direct implications for developing countries, particularly low-income countries. It helps them implement nationally driven policies and priorities necessary to meet internationally agreed upon development goals. Economic disruptions have marked the post-pandemic era. Covid-19 is said to be the biggest disruption in the world order today, though there are conflicts taking place in many parts of the world.

But, was this the first pandemic? No. Will it be the last? No. Are these wars and conflicts first in the world? No. Will they be the last? No. The world will face such challenges in future as well. So the focus should be on the challenges humanity is facing right now, and is bound to face in the future.

Multilateral institutions were created to avert such conflicts and in case aversion wasn’t possible then in those cases to find peaceful methods to solve those conflicts through effective arbitration. The set objectives have so far have not been achieved, thus we need reformed multilateralism.

With its rich civilisation dating back thousands of years, India understands that disruptions are very much a part of human existence. India brings a historical perspective to the table. The world needs ancient Indian philosophies like ekatma manavvad, and, antyodaya.

Ekatma manavvad, or integral humanism, means that no one person, no one country, no one society can live by itself. A country cannot live in isolation and a conflict in one part of the world affects all parts of the world in some manner or the other.

Antyodaya means working for the last person in the last row. It essentially means that another person’s pain is our pain. And that it is our duty to become a voice for the voiceless.

Our forefathers enunciated these ideologies thousands of years ago, and India today believes in these principles; our foreign policy is clear—to respect everyone and to aim for global peace.

Thanks to these policies and philosophies, India’s position is that of a bridge between the Global North (the western world) and the Global South (Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania).

Culturally, India is a country of the east, but if we look at the principles that we follow—be it democracy, open society, freedom of the media—we are very much a country of the west.

India is physically, symbolically and metaphorically placed to act as a bridge for all uncertainties. And that is the role of India in the G20 presidency. Our civilisational value system and cultural philosophies act as a guiding force.

There are two things India is trying to aim during the presidency. One, to become a voice for the voiceless, that is the Global South, and two, to find the resilience to deal with plural challenges. I am positive that we will succeed in being the bridge between the Global North and the Global South, and draw the two sides closer.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

the-soft-power-of-yoga-meenakshi-lekhi

Sat Mar 18 17:01:58 IST 2023

March 13, 2023, marks the 100-day countdown to the International Day of Yoga, 2023. The proposal for the International Day of Yoga was first introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address during the 69th session of the UN General Assembly. Modi said, “Yoga is an invaluable gift from our ancient tradition.” Recognising its universal appeal, on December 11, 2014, the United Nations proclaimed June 21 as the International Day of Yoga.

I equate the culture of any nation to a human body. As per the Bhagavad Gita, we believe that the body is the chariot, which means it is just a carrier to reach a destination; however, the charioteer is the soul. What we see, that is the body, is the tangible heritage of any nation. The intangible cultural heritage of any nation is tantamount to the soul of its civilisation, people and history. Yoga is that soul of our civilisation, which is aeonian.

While the body dies, the soul continues to live and that is how India sees its intangible cultural heritage―a living wealth of knowledge, know-how and skills that are transmitted from one generation to the next.

Among India’s most significant global contribution has been the gift of yoga drawing on its ancient culture and civilisation.

Modi had once rightly said that yoga belongs to everyone and everyone belongs to yoga. In a conflicting world, yoga is a uniting force bringing people together through compassion and kindness. It is all-inclusive and respects diversity. Practising yoga brings joy, good health, and inner peace. It deepens the connection between an individual’s inner consciousness and the external world. For when we look inside, we find answers to questions of the external world.

Physical movement is mere one-fifth of yoga as a whole, as it is more about finding an understanding of oneness with the world and nature itself. Yoga enables one to truly connect with oneself. It enables an expansion of physical and mental abilities and helps us become the best version of ourselves. After all, inner tranquillity is the pre-requisite for global peace.

While yoga has always been India’s own way to fitness, today, the world realised the importance of yoga, more so during the pandemic. When I travel, I have noticed the growing reach and acceptance of yoga across the globe. Today, yoga is found in the curriculum of schools, in the training of armies, and in the motivational techniques of global corporations at an international level. Many could defeat Covid-19 due to high immunity gained through regular practice of yoga.

Beyond its immediate impact on physical health, the pandemic also exacerbated psychological suffering and mental health problems, including depression and anxiety, as pandemic-related restrictions continue in various forms in many countries. The message of yoga in promoting both the physical and mental well-being of humanity has never been more relevant. Many people around the world embraced yoga to stay healthy and rejuvenated and fought social isolation and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Yoga, an Indian tradition that we gifted the world, is a powerful tool for inner-engineering, through which one can explore the metaphysical and achieve spiritual oneness.

India celebrated the International Day of Yoga in 2022 on a grand scale with 75 Union ministers practicing yoga at 75 iconic locations. I practiced yoga at Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari, with around 2,000 people. This year, too, government of India plans to take this further for maximum involvement from the general public. It is our responsibility as a civilisation to keep this cultural gem alive, because it is unique to us and has the power to transform the world.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

india-is-uniting-the-global-south

Sat Jan 21 14:59:57 IST 2023

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired the Voice of the Global South Summit, it was a historic landmark. For the first time in modern history, we saw the leaders of the global south come together in solidarity towards determining a common future and shaping a new world order.

The world has been speaking about the development of the global south for decades. Global south was a term used by many but hardly worked towards. Global south is where three-fourths of humanity lives, but the term has been used more like a metaphor for underdevelopment. It refers to an entire history of colonialism, neo-imperialism, and differential economic and social change through which large inequalities in living standards, life expectancy, and access to resources are maintained.

The global south has faced the major brunt of modern-day challenges. It is astonishing how a handful of countries of the north dominate the whole south. Issues like climate change, terrorism, wars and conflicts were not created by us (the south) but have, in turn, affected us the most. In today’s day and age, we see the modern world unravel the solutions to these problems with less or no role of our combined voices.

India’s foreign policy, guided by our civilisational ethos of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, has seen the whole world as one family and the same philosophy has been exercised when it comes to our relations with the countries of the global south. During the pandemic, when nations across the world became inward-looking, India provided medical equipment and vaccines to more than 100 countries, especially in the global south.

With development projects in 78 countries, India has remained a steady partner for shared development while ensuring respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Through programmes like the International Solar Alliance, Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, and Mission LiFE, we are furthering climate-friendly capacity building and development partnerships with friends in the global south. Our actions reflect India’s commitment in furthering a greater role of developing countries for a common future.

During the summit Modi called on the leaders of these nations to re-energise the world by voicing for a global agenda of 4Rs—respond, recognise, respect and reform. It is pertinent for our nations to respond to the priorities of the global south and recognise the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and thereby reform the international institutions including the United Nations. Respect will be a cornerstone of this agenda as it is only when we respect sovereignty of all nations, rule of law and peaceful resolution of differences and disputes that we can ensure an equitable and democratic world that can lead to the collective well-being of mankind.

The summit, which forms an important pillar of India’s G 20 presidency, showcases India’s commitment towards development as well as crystallising the voice of the global south. Since time immemorial, the global south has shown the world the middle path—be it the decolonisation movements or the resistance towards alignment in a deeply polarised world.

India, through the Voice of the Global South Summit, is leading the cause of the developing world. We remain committed to take our friends along on this journey of shared development, equitable growth and well-being of all, and realise our vision of one earth, one family, one future.

why-indians-make-the-best-leaders

Sat Dec 24 17:15:49 IST 2022

In December, Europe got its third Indian-origin head of government as Leo Varadkar became the taoiseach (prime minister) for the second time in a job-sharing deal made by Ireland’s centrist coalition government. He replaced Micheál Martin after lawmakers voted to approve his nomination during a special session of the Dail, the lower house of parliament.

He joined the ‘Indian-origin European political leaders’ club, which has Rishi Sunak, who became the UK prime minister in October, and Antonio Costa, Portuguese prime minister since 2015.

If we take a look around the world, there are many other people of Indian origin in high positions. Mauritius President Prithvirajsing Roopun, Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth, Singapore President Halimah Yacob, Suriname President Chan Santokhi, Guyana President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali and Seychelles President Wavel Ramkalawan are of Indian origin.

While the three leaders in Europe came up as a result of the Indian brain drain to the west, those in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean islands are descendants of people who were forcibly taken out of India as indentured labourers.

Whatever be the reason for their migration, their Indian-ness remains the same.

India, at the moment, is at the centre of the world. The world acknowledges its cultural and intellectual pre-eminence. These roles at the international level are a reflection of the strength of nearly 140 crore Indians.

But this has been a long journey. India had thousands of years of opulence and splendour, but then came the dark period of slavery for centuries. After facing many invaders and atrocities, India has reached here today with a vibrant history. Today, those experiences are India’s biggest strength in its development journey.

After independence, we began a long journey, starting from zero, targeting the peak. This includes the efforts of all the governments that have been in power for the past 75 years. All the governments and the citizens together tried to take India forward in their own way. And today we are leading the world from the front with our G20 presidency.

But what exactly does it mean for us to have Indian-origin heads in other countries? It is definitely a matter of pride that they stand where they do despite the odds. There was a time the western world did not consider us capable of running our own country; now people of Indian-origin are running theirs.

It is not just political leadership. Major corporate heads who impact the dynamics of the world are either Indians or of Indian-origin. Be it Sundar Pichai of Google, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Laxman Narasimhan of Starbucks or Leena Nair of Chanel. Indians running these companies does give a sense of pride and hope to all Indians.

I truly believe that Indians make the best leaders. The reason lies in our unique cultural identity. Indians have impeccable work ethic, dutifulness, genetic smartness (after all, we are the land of science), respect for the work we do, sense of wellness for others and a little bit of sass. And not only Sunak or Varadkar, but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also possesses all these qualities like a true Indian.

Having these leaders helps our country take its ethics and values to the world, and opens doors for India to become the soft power that it covertly has been all this while. But now is the time for India to shine in all its glory, out in the open, and rise to the level it truly deserves.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

indira-gandhi-congress-using-lotus-as-a-symbol-for-non-aligned-movement

Sun Nov 20 12:09:07 IST 2022

There is a shloka in Sanskrit, which means one who gives up worldly attachments, and dedicates deeds to the supreme spirit of God is not touched by sin, just like a lotus leaf is not touched by water.

This shloka in the Bhagawad Gita existed way before the BJP adopted lotus as its symbol. And, lotus was adopted as India’s national flower when India attained the status of a republic with its own identity markers. After the 200-year-long foreign rule over our country, which was catastrophic for our culture, our leaders at the time wanted national identity markers that represented our culture.

Lotus was adopted as India’s national flower for three reasons:

1) National emblem of India stands on a full-bloomed inverted lotus.

2) Lotus epitomises beauty and signifies non-attachment, despite growing in dirt.

3 It smells of myrrh, which is taken as a message to humankind.

A human is adjourned to be like a lotus—they should work without attachment, dedicate their actions to God, and remain untouched by sin like water on a lotus leaf. The BJP adopted lotus as its symbol because of its relevance in our culture.

In 2023, India will preside over the prestigious G20 for the first time. The G20 countries account for 80 per cent of the world’s GDP. It is a chance to present India as a global leader and raise issues that impact not just a few countries but the entire humanity. The 2023 G20 summit’s logo carries the earth on a lotus, signifying that the group of 20 countries must work selflessly towards goodness of humanity without being attached to any personal gain.

Congress’s Jairam Ramesh said, “The BJP’s election symbol has become official logo for India’s presidency of G20!” Ramesh, probably, was lost in party-wars. He forgot that it was the Congress in 1950 that adopted lotus as our national flower. He also forgot that an India exists that is beyond political wars, and we need to take pride in our culture and show solidarity in front of the rest of world as citizens of this great country.

The Congress leaders may have forgotten that one of the most prominent leaders of Congress [Indira Gandhi] used the lotus as a symbol for the non-aligned movement in 1983. So, criticising it now makes absolutely no sense. Ramesh is so blinded that he fails to recognise that the G20 logo draws inspiration from the vibrant colours of India’s national flag—saffron, white, green and blue. It juxtaposes earth with the lotus. The earth reflects India’s pro-planet approach to life—one in perfect harmony with nature. Below the G20 logo is “Bharat”, written in the Devanagari script. Why is Ramesh or other Congress leaders not able to see the other markers in the logo? ‘Bharat Jodo’ seems big talk from people who cannot appreciate a logo carrying the national flower. The true unification of India is being carried out by Narendra Modi by putting India in a leadership position on the global podium.

For India, the G20 presidency marks the beginning of “Amritkaal”, the 25-year period beginning from the 75th anniversary of its independence on August 15, 2022, leading up to the centenary of its independence, towards a futuristic, prosperous, inclusive and developed society.

However, just as the leaves of lotus, despite being born out of mud and water, do not let a water droplet set on it, Modi will shrug off this uncalled-for negativity and continue doing what he does best—service to the nation.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

india-growth-under-modi-government-meenakshi-lekhi

Fri Oct 28 14:28:21 IST 2022

Transformational changes in the realm of welfare delivery mechanisms, application of technology in faster project executions, changes in institutional frameworks for enhancing productivity in economic activities and governance, and making India a destination for next-generation technological research and global manufacturing have been the hallmarks of the eight years of the Narendra Modi government.

Here, a key element is the defence sector, which through the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative of the Modi government, is witnessing, for the first time, a revolutionary involvement of the Indian private sector to cater to the critical requirements of our armed forces.

The recently held Defence Expo 2022, in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, was the exemplification of Modi’s dream of creating an Indian military industrial complex to cater to domestic requirements and to make India a critical hub for global defence manufacturing supply chain. The theme for the 12th edition of this event was —‘Path to Pride’, and why not!

Taking forward Modi’s vision of ‘Make in India, Make for the World’, the defence expo showcased the immense potential of India’s industrial ecosystem and its intrinsic capability to emerge as a globally acclaimed defence manufacturing base, given its history of executing complex industrial scale projects. The heart of every nationalist is filled with pride to witness how, over the last few years, the pavilions are increasingly being filled with innumerable Indian companies—starting from well-known industrial powerhouses to startups—showcasing projects that range from artilleries, missiles, tanks, drones, combat vehicles to a wide variety of Artificial Intelligence-powered products.

Gone are the days when our armed forces had little option but to look forward to foreign vendors to cater to their equipment requirements. Today, for every major foreign vendor in the realm of defence products, there is more than one Indian company willing to offer similar products at a much lower price. This has been made possible as a result of the Modi government’s initiatives to open up greater opportunities for private sector in defence sector, by creating a negative list of items for defence imports, which can now be procured by the armed forces only from Indian industries.

Unfortunately, for decades, India’s private sector was denied its rightful place in defence manufacturing even as lobbies and arms dealers connived with vested interests to restrict India’s defence industrial capability development, so that the country remained dependent on imports.

Modi not only disbanded that culture from the corridors of power but also paved way for Indian companies to unleash their real potential.

Likewise, Modi’s initiatives in making India a hub for research in Artificial Intelligence-powered product development, quantum computing, green hydrogen, 5G, and recognising startups as key players in India’s innovation-led journey towards a $10 trillion economy, are pivotal in making sure that the mistakes of the past, when India could have emerged as a global manufacturing hub, are not repeated.

India’s crossing of the $3.5 trillion GDP milestone, achieving Rs27 lakh crore gross tax collection, hitting $670 billion export target during 2021-22, and its ability to maintain a more than $500 billion forex reserve through these difficult phases that the world economy is facing, are harbingers of the foundation of an Atmanirbhar Bharat that Modi has steadfastly laid for India.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

modis-charisma-and-the-sewa-pakhwada-celebrations

Sun Sep 25 13:46:06 IST 2022

Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated his 72nd birthday on September 17, and we are in the midst of the Sewa Pakhwada (roughly translated to service fortnight)—a 15-day programme to honour Modi’s birthday. It is not about blowing candles and cutting cake, but yet another drive to give back to the community.

Modi has devoted his entire life for the development of the country and service to humanity. Every privileged person should adopt Modi’s zeal and his outstanding work towards uplifting the downtrodden and weaker sections of society. As a true disciple of B.R. Ambedkar, Modi has been striving hard to make India an egalitarian society. First, as a party worker, then as a chief minister, and now as the prime minister.

Two initiatives of the Modi government that have touched the lives of those at the far end of the pyramid are the Aspirational District Programme, which aims to transform districts that have shown relatively lesser progress in key social areas, and the Adarsh Gram Yojna, which is for the development of model villages. It is Modi’s unique quality to think differently. His flawless planning and execution brought palpable changes to the lives of the poorest. Several social welfare schemes are great examples of this. Sewa Pakhwada is the most felicitous form of admiration that one can show for this great man. During the fortnight, party workers are rendering their services in various activities like organising blood donation camps and conducting free health check-up camps.

Besides, free medical implants are being given to the physically challenged at various places by party workers, and free Covid-19 booster doses are being administered to those who could not go to the vaccination centres. Under the Sewa Pakhwada, a tuberculosis patient is adopted for a year by the BJP leaders.

Whoever has interacted with Modi will tell you that he is quite worried about the deep-rooted corruption in our system. He knows that it is the poor who suffer the most as a result of this. Modi continues to wage a resolute battle against corruption and he ensures that the fruits of all the schemes reach the poorest of the poor. This indicates the man’s empathy for the poorest of the poor.

It is the upliftment of poor that has put India on the global map like never before. From a mere 11th position, India has climbed up to fifth position, surpassing the UK. We have all talked about the potential that India has, but we have never tapped it on ground level. That is exactly what Modi and his government aimed at, and look where we are now! The infrastructural development that has boomed throughout the country was never seen before. Be it the Central Vista, Kashi Vishwanath temple corridor, Ujjain corridor, the grandiose is there for all to see. Infrastructure speaks of development, and we have plenty of examples to prove Modi’s priorities.

The Sewa Pakhwada is being celebrated with the purest intention to honour Modi. It shows the love, admiration and respect that the karyakartas have towards him. This is a positive shift from others forms of exorbitant celebrations, and only the aura of Modi could pull this off!

western-social-scientists-are-divided-over-indias-present-strength

Sat Aug 27 10:58:49 IST 2022

Today the world is looking at India proudly and with expectation, and the world is looking for solutions to the problems on Indian soil.”

On August 15, while addressing the nation on the 75th Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi outlined a new ambition to make India free from all thoughts of slavery. People in India were compelled to endure mental slavery for a very long time even after the country gained freedom. But everything changed in 2014, when Modi took oath as prime minister and the blueprint for liberating the nation from this virulent mentality was penned. And now that we have entered the ‘Amrit Kaal’, it appears that the efforts undertaken have paid off.

For a country to make a pragmatic change, people’s participation, acknowledgment and support are key. With the revolutionary announcement of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), Modi laid the foundation of financial inclusion for those at the bottom of the social pyramid. Indians recognised his efforts and realised the exigency of breaking free from the slavery mindset and made it their campaign. This also gave rise to an iconic Indian card network—Rupay—which ended the duopoly of VISA and Mastercard. Today, RuPay card services like PMJDY, Mudra and Kisan Credit Card have not only empowered the segment that remained long ignored but also seek to venture into foreign soil with the vision to revolutionise the payment industry of the world.

India in the last eight years has witnessed prodigious reforms in modern education, health care, urban development, social justice and economic modernisation. Being the game-changer in science and technology, it has built partnerships with other countries, as in 2017, when the Indian Space Research Organisation created a world record by successfully putting 104 satellites into orbit in a single mission. While three of the 104 were Indian, the rest were from the US, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Israel.

India further let other south Asian nations use its space science for free to enable their economic progress.

During the unprecedented crises unleashed by Covid-19, India altered the global perception and nature of humanitarian aid. While the rest of the world questioned India’s ability to handle itself, it established itself as a global pharmacy, supplying drugs to more than 150 nations as part of the Vande Bharat Mission—the largest repatriation operation in history.

India is known to be the abode of innovation and leadership. Western social scientists these days are divided over our present strength. As the environmental discourse over global warming heats up and the quest for oil leads to dictated foreign policies and determination of global dominance, India ambitiously targets to shift to renewable energy, away from fossil fuels. The Solar Rooftop Subsidy scheme and Production Linked Incentive scheme not only place the Atmanirbhar Bharat’s prospects to dominate the solar supply chain and manufacturing capacity in coming years but also highlight India’s determination and leadership as a global power.

In July 2022, India introduced Vostro account system to internationalise the Indian currency, further lowering its reliance on dollars. This would also protect our trade from the conceit and vagaries of the west and, most importantly, ease the pressure on our exchange rates.

A nation full of potential is now commanding its power. A clear-cut set of policies and initiatives carried by strong leadership with courage and conviction have unfolded the embryonic potential that lay unperceived under a few layers for decades.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

meenakshi-lekhi-on-nda-govts-contributions-towards-tribals

Sat Jul 30 11:43:27 IST 2022

President Droupadi Murmu is the face of new India. She was the first tribal woman to become governor of a state, and, now, she is the first tribal woman to hold the highest constitutional position in the country. She is the first president of India to be born in independent India and also the first person to attain a bachelor’s degree in her village.

Murmu comes from the interiors of the country, is dynamic, and has worked at the lowest level of government machinery. Not just that, she has worked as a teacher and is quite spiritual. Her career started only 25 years ago but her sincerity has got her where she is today.

Murmu’s victory is a victory of the poor tribal woman of the country for whom completing education was a dream. In fact, it gives hope to everyone who dares to dream. The victory is also for those who believe in the power of hard work, and are not afraid of chasing any position, while working tirelessly and sincerely towards the welfare of the poor, development of backward castes and growth of the nation. To become the first citizen of India is indeed a great accomplishment. And, anyone who reaches a certain position is guaranteed of many supporters. Murmu’s candidature was supported by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and it is proof that the NDA government believes in equality—giving equal opportunity to all groups of society. Murmu spent all her life, silently, working for the welfare of her community and the public and it has paid off.

Murmu belongs to a tribal community, the Santhals. As the Union minister of state for culture, I truly admire and respect the contribution of tribal communities towards the cultural heritage of India. Our government has shown special interest in the upliftment of the tribal communities in India.

Until 2014, there was a budget provision of Rs21,000 crore for tribal welfare schemes, but after the Modi government came to power, it has increased to Rs78,000 crore. Fifty Eklavya residential model schools are being built in tribal areas. Free rations are being given in every village. Earlier, when only around 10 crops were recognised [as forest produce], today 90 have been recognised and government assistance is being given. Approval has been given to set up about 150 medical colleges in tribal areas. About 2,500 Van Dhan Vikas Kendras and 37,000 self-help groups have been formed till date.

Last year, Modi announced that the birth anniversary of tribal icon Birsa Munda would be celebrated as Janjatiya Gaurav Divas. What’s more, the government is building 10 museums to highlight the contributions of tribal icons such as Tantia Bhil, Birsa Munda, Rani Gaidinliu (Manipur), Bhima Nayak and Khajaya Nayak (Madhya Pradesh), Thalakkal Chanthu (Kerala), Alluri Sitarama Raju (Andhra Pradesh), Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh (Chhattisgarh), and Ramji Gond (Telangana).

The NDA government’s contributions towards tribals are different from past governments, because, in the past, many tribal groups were forced to assimilate into the dominant culture of the country—their aboriginal nature was looked down upon. Some groups, such as the Bhils, Gonds, Santhals, Oraons, Mundas, Khonds, Mizos, Nagas, and Khasis, resisted change and assimilation to maintain their cultural identities and languages. Such an isolation was seen as a problem to national integration, but Murmu’s victory says out loud that one does not have to change traditions and cultures to be in the mainstream. And Murmu is as mainstream as it gets.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

azadi-ka-amrit-mahotsav-will-showcase-our-hidden-heritage-meenakshi-lekhi

Fri Jun 03 11:41:10 IST 2022

Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav is not only about celebrating our culture and the sentiment of patriotic pride, but also about digging out the past and giving credit where due. When India is heralding her 75th year of independence, we need to remember great people who have contributed in so many ways by sacrificing their lives for the motherland. We need to respect them and get inspired by their struggles, heroism and martyrdom.

As a Delhiite, I have grown up seeing the structural remains of an unknown history that we never studied in history books. Same is the case with Vadnagar, in Gujarat, which has been a living city for the last 2,500 years. Some parts of our culture were never told to us due to reasons that are unknown.

The Union ministry of culture, under AKAM, is re-discovering the past of Delhi buried under the remains of Mehrauli and other parts of Delhi. It is a fact that Delhi had a rich pre-Mughal history, which has been shrouded in secrecy.

The foundation of Indraprastha—Delhi was known as Indraprastha during the times of the Mahabharat period—is well known. Successive waves of incursions from the west, and internecine warfare, caused the gravity of power and the urban conglomerate of Delhi to shift towards resettlement on several occasions.

After the downfall of the Gupta empire, Yoginipura came into existence in the 10th century CE, followed by the Tomara dynasty, when in 1052 to 1060 CE Maharaja Anangpal II laid the foundation of the city of Dhillika or Dhilli, which finds mention in Bijolia and Sarban inscriptions. Anangpal Tomar had built Lal Kot, the supposedly original ‘red fort’ in the present day Mehrauli region. Anangpal Tomar II had built the Anang-Tal in south Delhi, which is now being revived by ministry of culture into an Amrit Sarovar.

Similarly, long before excavations started in the small city of Vadnagar, there were literary references to its ancient past. Various historical references attributed Vadnagar as Anartapura, Anandapur, Chamatkarpur, Skandpur and Nagaraka. The region finds its earliest mention in the second century CE inscription of Mahakshtrapa Rudradaman. Vadnagar was also one of major Buddhist centres in the country, similar to Kushinagar, Sarnath and Bodhgaya; Buddhist relics were found in the area that depict scenes from the Jataka tales, which are episodes from the Buddha’s life.

With Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, the government of India is aiming at bringing to the forefront our hidden historical heritage. Amrit Kaal (next 25 years of independent India) is the time to realise that folklores are not always fictional. It is to realise that so many wrongs needs to be corrected. It is to realise that it is not our destiny to walk on the trodden path of previous governments. It is to realise that, yes, we can question why such steps were not taken earlier. It is to realise that the greatness of this country will not be hidden anymore.

Let us eagerly wait for the Amrit Sarovar at Anangtal, Mehrauli and Vadnagar to come to life, and become popular spots for the world to see; there is much more to our culture and history than just Taj Mahal.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

meenakshi-lekhi-on-pm-street-vendors-atmanirbhar-nidhi

Fri May 06 14:21:09 IST 2022

The Union government, under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, launched the PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) scheme in 2020 to protect and empower street vendors. With it, for the first time, a serious effort was made by the government to free street vendors from the vicious cycle of indebtedness. The scheme provides a collateral free working capital loan of up to Rs10,000 to street vendors to resume their businesses adversely impacted due to the pandemic.

The world saw the worst calamity of the century in the last two years, which wreaked havoc globally—socially and economically. The pandemic affected all but it had significant implications on the informal sector of our country. In every city in India, there are numerous local markets that support the livelihood of lakhs of people. There are roughly 60 lakh street vendors across India. Even during normal times they had a marginalised existence, and the pandemic compounded their problems.

The street vendors constitute up to 2 per cent of the urban population and they contribute immensely to the informal economy. The scheme envisages to bring ‘banks at the door steps’ of these ‘nano-entrepreneurs’ by engaging the Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) and the Micro Financing Institutions (MFIs) as lending institutions.

Even in such a short span of time, the scheme has made significant achievements. It is a matter of great pride that the scheme has successfully crossed the 30 lakh mark, and 29.6 lakh loans, amounting to Rs2,931 crore, have already been disbursed. The beneficiaries have conducted more than 13.5 crore digital transactions, and have been given a cashback of Rs10 crore.

This scheme is a prime example of how technology can transform the lives of the poor and enhance capacity building.

The government’s belief that street vendors need to be provided an enabling environment, where they have a sense of protection from undue harassment and eviction, is congruent with the common man’s belief. The scheme has not only provided support to street vendors but it has also helped build their credit profile through digital payment platforms for integrating them into the formal urban economy. It has made them digitally literate and gave them an impetus.

As envisioned by Modi, the scheme aims to not only extend loans to street vendors, but also aims for their holistic development and socio-economic upliftment.

So, in order to sustain this development journey, the scheme has been extended till December 2024, with a focus on enhanced collateral free affordable loan corpus, increased adoption of digital transactions and holistic socio-economic development of street vendors and their families. The extension, in itself, is expected to benefit nearly 1.2 crore citizens.

This is for the first time in the history of our country that a government has undertaken such a measure to empower and protect street vendors, who constitute an important part of our informal economy, by connecting millions of vendors to the system. The scheme has provided swarozgar (self-employment), svavlamban (self-reliance) and swabhimaan (respect) to lakhs of street vendors across the country.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

merging-delhi-corporations

Mon Apr 11 11:14:23 IST 2022

On April 5, the Rajya Sabha passed the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2022, aimed at unifying the three municipal corporations of Delhi. It was a change that Delhi was longing for years. The three corporations—north, south and east Delhi municipal corporations—will function as a single body.

The unification has been well received by most stakeholders and people. It will make the civic body more powerful, thus enabling effective discharge of civic services and taking up of ambitious projects. It will also make the functioning of the agencies more transparent and allow for better citizen services.

It was obvious that the move to trifurcate the Municipal Corporation of Delhi in 2012 was done more for political reasons than for efficacy. It led to a mismatch between the income and liabilities of the civic bodies. While the South Delhi Municipal Corporation enjoyed a good revenue thanks to its well-to-do citizens, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation was always falling short of revenue to do the best for its lower income group-majority citizens. The unification will enhance the significance, power and responsibilities of the mayor’s office manifold. The unified municipal body will be stronger, development projects will move faster and services will be better, with fewer bureaucratic and procedural delays.

The move has been well applauded by most of the resident welfare associations in Delhi, who are hoping for more involvement of civil society in governance. The unification will streamline the functioning of civic bodies and alleviate the issue of paucity of funds to carry out their civic responsibilities. It has been observed that the three MCDs were denied legitimate funds by the AAP government, and this obstructs them from carrying out the entrusted responsibilities. As per reports, the fifth finance commission of Delhi said the three MCDs should get Rs40,561 crore, but the Delhi government gave them less than Rs7,000 crore. At present, the three MCDs have a deficit of Rs11,000 crore.

The MCDs have worked hard to make Delhi clean and green. They have improved local governance, civic services, waste management and air quality levels. The BJP won the highest number of seats in the previous elections and it is the trust of citizens of Delhi that will bring the party back to power. The issues that stand before the MCD are timely payment of employees, uniform use of revenue collected across the city and resistance from state government to take up developmental works.

With the passage of the bill, each issue will be targeted, and it will lead to a Delhi of our dreams. In the wrestle for power between the state and the corporations, the employees of MCDs and the citizens of Delhi have suffered the most. The parties concerned about constitutionality and raising unnecessary questions toward the amendment forget that Delhi is not a complete state. The onus of its day-to-day issues pertains to the Central government. This is why the Constitution, under Article 239AA, empowers Parliament to amend or form laws on matters pertaining to Delhi. The resistance is prominent because with the unification, the state government will not be able to mislead people about the whereabouts of the allocations made by the Central government to the corporations.

Hence, political parties, instead of blowing their own trumpet, should leave it to Delhiites to decide what is best for their own interests in the municipal elections.

forthwriteml@gmail.com

separate-party-politics-and-the-prime-minister-meenakshi-lekhi

Sun Jan 16 12:16:40 IST 2022

The case of a security lapse during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Punjab has raised many questions about the overlap between party politics and standard protocol procedures of VVIPs. Was this a case of mismanagement or a pre-planned conspiracy?

Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi may be trying to pass this off as a classic case of mismanagement between state and Central security agencies, but my experience tells a different story. I was denied entry at multiple gates [in Punjab], despite being in the state for a few days. People coming to the rally from different districts of the state were denied entry to the rally spot. Videos of people tearing off posters of the prime minister on roads surfaced later.

It was a clear message from the Congress government in Punjab that the BJP’s Narendra Modi is not welcome there. The plan was to sabotage the rally, deny benefits from the Central government to the people of Punjab.

Modi’s plans to lay foundation stones of development projects worth over Rs 42,750 crore, including the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway and a satellite centre of the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, were sabotaged. Other projects included four-laning of the Amritsar-Una section, the Mukerian-Talwara broad gauge railway line, and setting up two new medical colleges at Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur.

While Modi’s convoy waited atop a flyover on the Bathinda-Ferozepur highway, it was forgotten that he is the prime minister of the largest democracy in the world. While the Congress leaders feared that Modi’s rally will have an impact on the people of Punjab, ahead of the assembly elections in the state, they forgot that the post of prime minister is much larger than conflicting party interests.

They also forgot that notwithstanding party affiliations, the Centre and the states are expected to work together in all areas. There are bound to be frictions due to conflicting political interests and rivalry for power amongst different parties. However, there is still a balance that needs to be maintained.

With politics taking a front seat in the country, it seems the federal system is cracking in the country. Regional politics is leading to misuse of power granted by the sacred Constitution of the country. A similar incident happened when the West Bengal government [in 2019] denied permission to Amit Shah’s helicopter to land in Malda, citing security concerns. This, when the West Bengal government’s helicopters landed there every week. Sure, Shah was not a Union minister back then, but the state government had no right to deny him entry.

Did Channi even think about the international image of our country before shrugging things off casually? Modi has built an envious position of our country in the world with his diplomatic skills and economic policies, and international media scouts for stories like these to malign India’s image. There was much more at stake than just sabotaging a rally.

The Central government has tried to restore this imbalance caused by the state governments in our federal polity The most recent example is the way the Centre provided aid to all the states during the pandemic. The prime minister was constantly in touch with all chief ministers and worked in close coordination with state governments without bothering which political party was in power there.

States may have powers of their own but it should not be forgotten that we are a quasi-federal government. And unlike a true federal system like the US, we have a single constitution, single citizenship, and a unified judiciary with national integration at the heart of it. Any power working against this system is no short of treason.

farm-laws-or-no-farm-laws-modi-will-continue-to-work-for-farming-community-meenakshi-lekhi

Sun Dec 19 17:41:43 IST 2021

Deh siva bar mohe eh-hey subh karman te kabhu na taro…

(Dear God, grant my request, so that I may never deviate from doing good deeds)—is a much celebrated and one of the most revered shabad (hymn) to Guru Gobind Singh, which was quoted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech on the auspicious day of Guru Nanak Dev Jayanti. The shabad continues to lay down an enlightened path for generations of Sikhs, and, Indians, at large, to never have any apprehension or anxiety from the righteous fight ahead.

The fight ahead is no doubt reforming the agricultural sector, for it has from the time immemorial been the most indispensable and foundational aspect of the Indian society, and, therefore, farmers, the anna-dattas (someone who provides food), are next to God in India. Their resilience in the face of adversities is what has been an impetus to India’s indomitable spirit of breaking out of the shackles of looming miseries, time and again. It was this resilience that the prime minister wanted to bring to the forefront of the economy, from the first day of his pursuit of being in service to the people.

Owing to his extensive personal experience of working and living with farmers, Modi has been able to gather an in-depth understanding of the adversities of the farming community; he had seen their plight first-hand and always had a profound empathy for the community. The endless number of reforms taken up by the government in the agriculture sector in the past 7.5 years is a testimony to that.

The Union government has endeavoured into reforming the agricultural sector, step-by-step, keeping minute needs of farmers in mind. It has ensured the ready availability of credit (Rs2 lakh crore credit boost to 2.5 crore farmers at reduced interest rates via Kisan Credit Cards) and direct benefit transfers (106 lakh farmers in the country have benefited through the direct benefit transfer of Rs6,000 each) to reduce the farmer’s input cost on diesel and electricity. The PM-KUSUM scheme has ensured support to 20 lakh farmers through subsidy for standalone solar pumps.

The government has also worked on making agriculture more sustainable for farmers by improving soil health, by means of soil health cards. Further, thousands of rural markets are being developed and upgraded; rural road connectivity has brought farmers in close proximity to the market at lesser cost and time. Moreover, not only were minimum support prices (MSP) hiked multiple times but procurement at MSP has increased many times more.

It is the synergy of such well-intentioned reforms and the resilience of our farming community that, even during the pandemic, agriculture turned out to be the only sector to have a positive growth of 3.4 per cent in 2020-21. While the Gross Value (GVA) added for the entire economy contracted by 7.2 per cent, growth in GVA for agriculture maintained a positive growth of 3.4 per cent. Furthermore, the budget allocation for agriculture was Rs88,811 crore between 2009 and 2014, which has increased to Rs4,87,238 crore between 2014 and 2020, registering a growth of 438 per cent.

Not backing down from its efforts even after the contentious repeal of the three farm laws, the government is all set to give a fresh impetus to zero budget farming to make agriculture more viable, especially for small farmers, and to save them from getting into the debt trap. It is now for the nation to understand that the repeal of farm laws was not a quinquennial bet, nor was it a matter of victory or defeat. It was certainly not a competition, rather it was a matter of differing opinions but for the same novel vision of reforming the agricultural sector of India.

Farm laws or no farm laws, it was Modi’s very own resilience to work for the advancement of the farming community that continues to remain resolute for making a highly productive agriculture sector of India a profitable one for the farmers of the lowest rungs and strata, and for ensuring that the ones who sow the seeds with their sweat reap its benefit.

Lekhi is member of Parliament • forthwriteml@gmail.com

break-the-shackles-of-ignorance-celebrate-our-proud-past-meenakshi-lekhi

Sat Nov 20 12:19:01 IST 2021

India is a contender for a place on the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) for the period 2021-2025. We have been a part of the World Heritage Committee three times before—1985-1991, 2001-2007 and 2011-2015. Now after the mandatory moratorium of six years, India is contending for its fourth term and this time it is more important than ever. We are celebrating ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to cherish the 75 years of Independence and our ancient glory. That glory got drained, and only a few Indians realise how great a debt the world of art owes the Indian civilisation. Be it the art of east Asia or architecture and paintings of the west, all can be traced back to some elements of Indian art and culture.

India is indeed an ancient centre of art, culture, and knowledge. International institutions and the world at large has time and again recognised this fact. But do we as Indians realise the contributions made by our vast civilisation over the years to the world? Today, 40 Indian sites have the UNESCO world heritage tag and various western countries have celebrated October as Hindu heritage month. But why are most of us still ignorant about our land?

We need to break the shackles of ignorance and reclaim the lost glory of ancient Indian heritage. The Union government has brought a new dawn in this direction. In its unparalleled efforts to promote Indian culture and heritage on the international front, the Union government has also been able to preserve more and more heritage sites and antiquities. Since 2014, 10 new Indian sites have been added to the World Heritage List of UNESCO. As per the records of the Archaeological Survey of India, only 13 antiquities were repatriated to India between 1976 and 2014. On the other hand, since 2014, 42 antiquities from various countries have been repatriated to India. Recently, the Queen of Kashi idol, that was stolen from Varanasi a century ago, was brought back to be reinstalled in its original place.

A special task force, comprising officials of the ministry of external affairs and ministry of culture, has been constituted to expedite the repatriation process of stolen antiquities, which were smuggled out of the country over the decades. Memorandum of understandings with some countries have already been signed, and are being worked out with other countries in this direction. We are positive that by next year 200 idols, paintings and artwork of Indian origin will be repatriated.

Since 2014, six Indian cities were made part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network—which was launched in 2004, and recognises creativity as a strategic factor in the urban development of cities. These are Varanasi (for music, 2015), Jaipur (for crafts and folk arts, 2015), Chennai (for music, 2017), Mumbai (for film, 2019), and very recently, Srinagar (for crafts and folk arts, 2021). UNESCO requires to be applauded for its efforts in preserving the heritage of India and recognising our due legacy and cultural significance. India and UNESCO are natural partners in advancing the vision of culture as an enabler of sustainable development.

Since time immemorial, India has been a constant source of knowledge and inspiration for various cultures across the world and had directly and indirectly shaped the global village. We are positive that we will be able to seal our place in the 2021-2025 World Heritage Committee and realise what we have envisioned.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

air-india-deal-will-boost-sentiments-in-the-capital-markets-meenakshi-lekhi

Fri Oct 22 17:04:18 IST 2021

In 2017, the government had tried to disinvest Air India, as the airline had a mere 14 per cent market share and a debt of approximately $50,000 crore (at present, it is around $62,000 crore). The government remarked that if the private sector could handle 86 per cent of flying, it could well handle 100 per cent. Air India’s debts were a clear burden on the state exchequer, and the government wanted to invest that money in other sectors, such as education and health.

IndiGo had shown interest in acquiring Air India, but things did not work out. It was during the tenure of prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2001 that the first attempt to sell Air India was made; only 40 per cent equity was offered then. Initially, several foreign airlines including Lufthansa, Swiss International Air Lines, Air France-Delta, British Airways, Emirates and Singapore Airlines had expressed interest in buying the airline, in addition to corporate houses like the Hinduja group and the Tata group. But when the government clarified that any foreign airline will have to partner with an Indian company to bid, most airlines pulled out. The Tata-Singapore Airlines consortium remained the sole player in the race.

The consortium was in the advanced stages of the deal and had even completed due diligence, when it dropped out. One of the probable factors was the bombing at Colombo’s Bandaranaike Airport in 2001, in which several of Singapore Airlines’ aircraft were destroyed, causing massive financial losses to the carrier. Also, Air India and Indian Airlines were two companies then, and only Air India—which operated only international flights—was for sale.

Since that failed attempt to privatise, we all know the price we have paid as a nation in terms of the drain that Air India has been on government finances, and, of course, the abysmal service that most of us experienced. So, the recently finalised privatisation of Air India is indeed commendable. The government deserves applause for its determination to go ahead with it. This is even more significant, as it is a 100 per cent sale of the merged entity that comprises the entire domestic and international operations of the carrier.

An efficient model of privatisation of a government undertaking has multiple positive outcomes.

The government is not supposed to be a profit-making body. When a government company is required to focus on generating revenue from its citizens, it is often a failure because of the multiple constraints concerning its public ownership. Even developed countries like Japan and England have privatised their national airlines to increase efficiency. Privatisation ensures better utilisation of resources, and that would eventually benefit customers. Another positive of this privatisation effort is the impact it can have on economic growth, infrastructure development and job creation. The revival of a significant business certainly boosts its entire ecosystem. It eventually would uplift tax collection. Such privatisation efforts will boost the sentiments in the capital markets. Remember the big fillip that our markets had received after the 1991 economic reforms amid a weak economic situation. Creative and constructive initiatives boost the market and give renewed confidence in the broader reform agenda.

This step has underscored Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment to reduce the government’s role in the economy. It also saved taxpayers from paying for Air India’s daily losses.

Lekhi is Union minister of state for external affairs and culture.

meenakshi-lekhi-on-modis-dream-of-India-becoming-a-multi-sports-nation

Thu Sep 23 16:38:46 IST 2021

Indian players performed exceedingly well in the recently concluded Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics 2020. While we finished 48th in the Olympics—the highest ranking in over four decades, with a total of seven medals, including a historic gold medal from Neeraj Chopra in javelin throw—the country’s differently-abled extended this tale of excellence into the Paralympic Games. India sent its largest contingent ever, in which 54 para-players represented the country in nine para-sports. The contingent recorded their best finish—24th place, with 19 medals. Indian athletes created history with shooter Avani Lekhara becoming the first woman to win two medals at the Paralympics. The games have truly been a special moment for Indian sports.

In a nation where sporting culture is renounced for academic excellence, the news about the historic wins has to be considered as system-changing. Sport has never been a career prospect for most Indians, but Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics have paved the way for lakhs of aspiring sportspersons.

All said, no medal is won without proper support, training opportunities and putting relevant authorities at work. Credit goes to the Paralympic Committee of India and the Union sports ministry who played their parts well and helped players to shine in a championship held in the shadow of the pandemic. The government’s sustained efforts to promote sports in a big way played a pivotal role in India’s historic wins.

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports launched Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) in 2014 with an aim to realise India’s Olympic medal dreams at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. The scheme provides financial and other support to top athletes in the country, to help them reach the podium at the Olympics. The results are for everyone to see.

India’s youth have undergone a perspective transformation. They do not want to tread ready-made beaten paths, they want to carve out newer paths and it is imperative that they receive adequate support from the government to realise their potential and fulfil their dreams.

To provide maximum opportunities to our young talents, the Khelo India Scheme was initiated in 2016 as a fusion of three schemes—the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan, Urban Sports Infrastructure Scheme and National Sports Talent Search Scheme. It focused on increasing mass participation of youth in annual sports games and competitions.

It has been Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream to see India develop as a multi-sports nation, and not just one or two sports garnering the limelight. The Tokyo Olympics proved that with the right leadership, India is capable of bringing medals in all arenas. Modi has always believed that sports can inculcate values of self-discipline, sportsmanship, team spirit, leadership, and integrity in our youth as well as promote a healthy lifestyle. As someone who leads by example, he launched the Fit India Movement and suggested that fellow citizens adopt a healthy lifestyle.

It was through perseverance and tremendous hard work of our athletes, their coaches and concerted efforts of the government that India could create history in the arena of sports.

Let us bask in the glory for now and then get back with double the force because when our sportspersons enter the stadium next time, we will not be the underdogs.

The Tokyo Olympics have created a major impact on the sports scene of the country and it is important to ensure that the momentum generated by the success of the Indian contingent does not melt away.

empowerment-growth-for-all-india-moving-towards-cooperativism-says-meenakshi-lekhi

Thu Aug 26 16:47:34 IST 2021

The celebrations that flagged off the 75th year of independence were unlike the ones in other years. There was a sense of responsibility, with each of us being acutely aware of the challenges that confront our country.

While it is easy to look down that path, one must not forget the glorious journey our nation has treaded in the past 75 years. Our achievements have been nothing short of miraculous. From ensuring access to electricity to every village, to reaching Mars, to developing indigenous vaccines, to eradicating diseases, to becoming a pioneer in the FinTech revolution through Unified Payments Interface, development has touched every citizen.

At the time of independence, epitaphs for Indian democracy were written by Anglophile commentators. They imagined that it was impossible for a democracy to sustain itself in a newly formed country brimming with such unimaginable diversity. We have not just “sustained” democracy, but have also embraced, nurtured and developed it. It is for this reason that there is perhaps no other parallel to this story of our country.

Concurrently, we face challenges that are signs of changing times. With globalisation, almost all issues have global ramifications. Our country and the world are confronting issues like climate change, disaster resilience, adapting to newer technologies at a faster pace, and challenges in cyber-security, energy security and bio-security.

Atmanirbhar Bharat is an umbrella term to describe our strategy to tackle such new-age challenges. It means self-reliance, which will eventually lead to a self-confident country, capable of helping herself and other countries along the way.

The various ways by which our country has set forth to achieve atmanirbharta are through the string of schemes announced by our government since last year. These include the production-linked incentive scheme for manufacturing an array of goods of strategic importance, new hydrogen mission, diversion of surplus sugar for manufacture of ethanol for our energy security, the multiple measures being taken for indigenisation of defence equipment (INS Vikrant is an example), the newly announced mission on oilseeds for attaining food security and geo-spatial reforms.

Antiquated ways and laws are making way for next generation reforms. The new education policy is a testimony to this. The current education system, developed when India was not independent, does not deserve to be preserved. Our next generation must be equipped to face challenges. Various laws are also being simplified and revamped, such as the Limited Liability Partnership Act, to unshackle the entrepreneurial spirits of our country. This year has already produced a record 23 unicorns.

As we enter the next quarter, each of us must be aware of our responsibilities. Prime Minister Narendra Modi added a very important term to a phrase that has become synonymous to our governance—Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. By adding ‘sabka prayas’, he has given each of us the responsibility to get into the driver’s seat and drive our country ahead. Today, world over, there is a debate on capitalism verses socialism; our country is looking towards cooperativism. We believe in empowerment and growth of all.

It is only when every single citizen is truly empowered and contributes to the success story of our country, that we can realise the dream of Rabindranath Tagore—Where the heart is without fear and where heads are held high; into that heaven of freedom, the country shall awake.

despite-roadblocks-modi-govts-vaccination-policy-is-a-success-meenakshi-lekhi

Thu Jul 01 17:24:35 IST 2021

More than 33 crore Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered in India till date. The world’s largest vaccination drive, which started this January, is running successfully.

Constant statements from opposition leaders, questioning the availability of vaccines, are pitiful actions to belittle the Centre’s efforts.

The Congress and its paid media played a significant role in creating vaccine hesitancy in Indians. A couple of cases of serious side-effects were blown out of proportion to instil fear in citizens. Much wastage was reported in the early days of the vaccination drive due to vaccine hesitancy. And, when the deadly second wave hit us in April, people, who were not vaccinated and had got infected, found themselves between the devil and the deep sea. It took almost two lakh deaths, and the Union health minister’s request for support from opposition in testing times, for the Congress as well those hesitant to take vaccines to realise that vaccination is mandatory to fight off the virus.

If you look closely, only three countries are majorly responsible to manufacture vaccines for the whole world—the US, India and China. According to data analytics company, Airfinity, 3.13 billion doses can be produced in a year in India, second only to the US that can produce 4.69 billion by end of 2021. Third is China with a capacity to produce only 1.90 billion doses a year. The high cost of production in the US makes Indian-made vaccines everyone’s first choice. Even Russia struggled to keep up with the demand of its home-grown Sputnik V.

It was easy for Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to ask to ‘share the formula’ of the vaccine with other manufacturers. But it is imperative to understand that manufacturing vaccines means dealing with a live virus, and the manufacturing unit needs to meet certain safety standards before getting a licence. It is not your regular chemical salt-based pill whose licences could be distributed to any manufacturer.

Despite the roadblocks, the Centre took matters in its own hands and a record 81 lakh vaccines were administered on June 20.

Those questioning India’s vaccine strategy should know that the whole world’s strategy was same—first comes the health workers, then the elderly and then comes the least-affected adults below the age of 45. Data shows that the virus is partial to the elderly. Of the Covid-related deaths, 88 per cent were in the age group of above 45 years. Even though infection increased in people below 45 years of age in the second wave, more than 60 per cent of severe cases were seen in aged men and women. This makes the vaccination strategy perfect for India, and any government would have taken the same route to save its citizens.

Now that Delhi and Mumbai, two of the worst-hit cities, registered less than 500 cases as on June 27, and we see a silver lining to the dark clouds, one should not forget that India has controlled the worst possible calamity in recent times within three weeks, jabbed more than 33 crore people till date despite hesitancy created by opposition, provided food subsidy of Rs26,000 crore under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, and had solved the oxygen crisis in a matter of few days.

With more than five to seven million doses being administered every day, it is safe to say that the Centre’s vaccination policy is a success.

onus-is-on-all-of-us-not-just-narendra-modi-meenakshi-lekhi

Fri May 07 22:35:37 IST 2021

India is struggling hard to cope with the havoc caused by the latest strain of Covid-19. From international media to domestic media to social media, everyone is looking for someone to blame. Easiest target? Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

States in India with huge health budgets and all the paraphernalia refused to act and follow the guidelines. And here we have a leader who is working day and night to save every single life that he can, that we can, but the comparisons will not stop.

None of the previous Central governments, or, for that matter, foreign governments ever had to handle what the present leadership in India is handling. So, are the comparisons even fair?

Yes, there is a shortage of oxygen in Delhi, but should we only blame Modi? Does a state government with Rs 10,000 crore budget have no responsibility?
Similar situation was faced by Italy when the pandemic had hit the world. The world’s best health care system in the US and the UK completely collapsed when the surge hit them, and they are overwhelmed even today. Why is a country that came up with Vaccine Maitri policy being bullied with such vulturism?

Everyone needs to understand that the virus, the biological warfare that is, is above all of us. Today, it is causing havoc in India and Brazil, tomorrow it could be any other country infected with another mutated variant. The truth is that the nature of the virus is such that the whole world has been caught off guard, not just Modi. Even the best of experts failed to predict its next course.

Why is there so much of insensitivity? According to some reports, it is the UK variant that has wreaked havoc in northern India, but blame on the UK was nowhere to be seen. Many state governments are not responding well, and they are not run by the BJP. Take the case of Delhi. Its health budget for the year 2020-21 was Rs 9,934 crore, but this is nowhere reflected in hospitals, oxygen concentrators, ventilators and ICUs. The so-called internationally acclaimed mohalla clinic is nothing more than an outpatient department. No new primary health centres have been established in Delhi; maternal health centres in the city have been reduced from 265 to 230. Delhi had only a few hundred ventilators till a few thousand were sent under PM Cares Fund.

The AAP legislators and their health minister are nowhere to be found amidst the worst hit crisis, except the chief minister, who is always on TV in some advertisement or the other. The state health ministry could have taken a collaborative approach towards the private sector, which could have resulted in better coordination and less malpractice. Rather what we witnessed was blame game on live television, which is a pity. The Delhi government also refused to implement Ayushman Bharat, the Centre’s flagship insurance scheme for citizens.

However exonerative it may sound, the public, in general, is responsible for the second wave. Not masking up properly, despite repeated reminders and penalty by the authorities, violating protocols regarding gatherings, led to a situation this horrific. Hoarding and black marketing of remdesivir, charging exorbitant prices for ambulances and other malpractices are adding to the misery.

We are all in it together—the media, the state governments and the people. It is not a fight that can be fought alone, certainly not by playing the blame game. We all need to keep a moral high ground, do our bit, and save as many lives as we can.

Modi is the favourite punching bag in victory and defeat in office or in opposition. He will bear the cross of deeds done and not done even by his opponents. Such is the governance of incompetent CMs.

world-needs-resolution-of-ambiguities-surrounding-digital-passports-says-meenakshi-lekhi

Thu Apr 08 19:59:11 IST 2021

As Covid-19 vaccines are being rolled out at breakneck speed, the world awaits the largest international sporting event—Tokyo Olympics. One of the biggest challenges is the safety of players and organisers. In the run-up to the event, a problem that organisers might face is verifying whether players have been vaccinated against the virus. Countries heavily reliant on the hospitality and entertainment sector are actively seeking solutions to enable easy identification of persons who have been vaccinated against the virus.

To tackle this, certain countries and organisations are vying for “vaccine passport” or “travel passes”, and some are proposing digital methods. These digital passports will contain health status of the passenger and inform governments whether the passenger can be allowed to travel into the country. Individuals are apprehensive about transfer and storage of this information via online portals, outside their countries. The concept of vaccine certificates is not novel. When travelling, proof of vaccination against specific diseases is a must for certain countries. Creating a digital version of physical certificates will lead to an international regulatory rigmarole. While many countries are rushing towards this new solution to help their ailing economies, one must be cautious before taking the plunge as there is no unified global understanding on issues of privacy, sensitive personal data, interoperability of platforms and transnational data transfers.

One of the foremost issues related to generation and storage of additional sensitive personal data is data protection and privacy. Who would collect and store personal data? How much personal data would be collected? For how long would the data be retained? Which country’s law would govern this process? Who would be responsible for any violation of privacy? Which court would have the jurisdiction over any violation of privacy rights? Many developed nations do not even have a unique digital identity number for its nationals.

India has been a pioneer in adoption of technologies for management and combating Covid-19. We are one of the few countries in the world with a single unified digital identification system. We made use of Aadhaar card for testing and vaccination against Covid-19. We also launched the world’s most downloaded contact tracing phone app—Aarogya Setu. Vaccination certificates issued in India are linked with the volunteer’s Aadhaar card and come with a unique QR code. This has resulted in India becoming a data mine.

Over 90 per cent of phones and 70 per cent of computers are manufactured in China, and its track record of handling sensitive data of other countries remains a concern. Therefore, India needs ambiguities surrounding digital passports to be resolved before we agree to the idea of issuing digital passports.

Moreover, not many countries have developed such robust digital systems for managing this pandemic. The question of interoperability arises as countries may not have unified identification system, and each country may have its own system of issuing of vaccination certificates.

Instead of developing a new ecosystem, we can make use of the physical certifications with certain modifications. This can include stamping of passports, adding a certificate in the passport, or using the already existing yellow cards. It would be a much simpler way to reopen borders in the near future and make way for large-scale international events to take place.

India can play a leadership role in providing solutions.

virtual-equality

Wed Mar 10 12:06:48 IST 2021

This is the first Women’s Day since the onslaught of Covid-19, and the one thing that the pandemic has forced us all into is technology. We have now realised that technology and data are not the ‘future’; they are the ‘present’. In its vision document titled ‘National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence’, the government has stressed that AI and emerging technologies must be actively used to bring about socioeconomic development in the country. Since we stand at the brink of a new revolution powered by emerging technologies and AI, it is important to start a conversation on how this impacts women.

At the base of AI is data―every individual is a huge data entity in today’s world. While technology is improving efficiency and reducing costs of operations, we must be aware of the biases it inherits from our historical and cultural notions. Although algorithms are not inherently biased, the data fed into these systems to perform functions or predict future are biased owing to lack of diversity in data. And, women often become victims to such biases.

There are already several examples of biases in emerging tech. Amazon found out its AI algorithm was preferring male candidates over females. Google Translate changed ‘she is a doctor’ to ‘he is a doctor’ and ‘he is a babysitter’ to ‘she is a babysitter’. AI algorithms have categorised women’s faces under ‘hair’ and ‘pretty’, and men’s faces under ‘business’ and ‘smart’. AI has also proved to be less effective in facial recognition and speech and voice recognition of women when compared with men. Even voice assistants like Google Assistant and Alexa have default female voices that perpetuate the thought of women being a default choice for subservient roles. Therefore, if historically there were fewer women engineers, then the algorithm predicts that there must be fewer women in the future, too. Feeding such data into machines will only further perpetuate gender discrimination.

The share of women in the workforce has been constantly increasing over the years, yet they continue to be underrepresented in the technology sector. Thirty-five per cent of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduates worldwide are women and fewer of them continue working in STEM owing to disparity in pay.

Worldwide, women make up only 22 per cent of the total professionals involved in AI. However, India is ahead, at 24 per cent. According to a 2019 report on gender diversity in AI research, India ranks 18 among 34 countries in the “share of papers with at least one female author” and 16 in the “unique female authors” categories. Furthermore, the average penetration of AI skills in India in specific sectors like software and IT services, hardware and networking, education, finance and manufacturing is 2.6 times the global average across the same sectors.

The numbers sure look good, but equality is still no reality in AI. This is the exact reason why we need more women in STEM, emerging tech and AI―to break stereotypes and to code and reverse the systematic bias in our algorithms. The government, in its New Education Policy, has stressed on introducing schoolchildren to crucial skills such as digital literacy, coding and computational thinking through subjects on artificial intelligence and design thinking. Further, topics such as 3D machining, big data analysis and machine learning will be included in the syllabus for undergraduates to train them to be industry-ready professionals, including young women.

Even though the government has already taken up the task to bring more women into AI and emerging tech, we, being data entities ourselves, must address the discrimination soon.

pandemic-blues-learn-from-India

Thu Feb 11 17:40:45 IST 2021

As I write this column, India is driving the world’s largest vaccination programme ever performed in modern history. The two vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin, are being provided to Indians free of cost. The government has decided to provide the vaccine free of cost to health care workers and people with comorbidities. It is commendable that the Serum Institute of India is producing more than 50 million doses a month. While the western world, particularly the UK and the US, is overwhelmed even after a year, India is on a route to recovery. Cases have fallen to the lowest since June 2020. Around 1.3 billion Indians are slated to be vaccinated and our preparation is setting examples in the world.

India has trained two lakh vaccinators and 3.7 lakh people to carry out the drive on the ground. Twenty-nine thousand cold storages have been readied. The government has already vaccinated 1.04 million people. By July 2021, India is planning to vaccinate at least 300 million people, which is almost the entire population of the US. And, we would still not be done.

India has shown a stellar performance in managing the pandemic. While many developed countries are still struggling to manage case tallies and shutting down, India has already opened its markets, and the economy is slowly bouncing back.

India is not only driving the vaccinating programme in the country; it is also sending help to its distressed neighbours. We have donated millions of vaccines to Bhutan, the Maldives, Brazil, the Seychelles, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Countries like Dominica, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have requested India to send the Indian-made vaccines. While Moderna and Sputnik V cost $30 and $10, respectively, our very own Covishield, prepared in Serum Institute, costs only $6.

If we go back a little, Indian opposition and international media had assessed India’s management of the pandemic to be a disaster. Ten months ago, a New York-based foreign affairs magazine predicted a ‘catastrophe for India’. Four months later, the Boston Review called the Indian government’s management of the pandemic a “humanitarian disaster”. In August 2020, the Scientific American claimed that India was in denial about the Covid-19 crisis. That Indian government was focusing on economy more than the pandemic management, it said.

The reports of Covishield being unsafe are disproved by the fact that numerous countries are requesting India to provide them with the vaccine. A look at the present condition of the UK and the US will give you a clear picture of our standing in the world.

The BBC reported 1,564 deaths in a single day in the UK. It is the biggest figure reported in Europe since the pandemic began, even more than Italy. As per CNN, hospitals in the UK look like a war zone. The situation in the US is pretty much the same. Around 24 million people have been affected in the US so far, that is more than 25 per cent of the global case tally. This, when these countries have the best medical facilities in the world. When compared with India, the ratio of hospital beds to population is rather high.

Still, at present, the situation is such that from Bill Gates to the WHO chief to the US, all are lauding India’s and Prime Minister Modi’s efforts in controlling the disease and saving humanity.

forthwriteml@gmail.com

the-data-locker-law

Thu Jan 14 14:24:20 IST 2021

Since the advent of internet technology in the early 1990s, the world is dealing with swarm drones! This is a huge leap, all made possible because of foundational technologies evolving around artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and cloud computing. Given these explorations and innovations, one thing which has become the focal point is―data. Yes, data is the buzz word, and rightly so. It is the new oil propelling the digital economy. It has gained all the more importance after the pandemic restricted physical movement across the globe.

Now, data is not restricted to a collection for limited purposes. Rather, it is generated at an exponential rate, heavily consumed, and put to algorithmic setups to gain the minutest of the insights never imagined before.

Given this sea of change, challenges, threats and opportunities, the data universe needed an urgent legislation to protect national security and the interests of its citizens. As a result, governments all over came up with legislative frameworks to define, categorise, regulate―and the associated intricacies to deal with―data protection. India, too, is coming up with a Personal Data Protection Bill.

As a result of extensive deliberations, suggestions and improvements, personal data stands defined and its legal and regulatory framework for legislative scrutiny is in place, safeguarding the right to privacy of the data principal and the corresponding interplay with the data fiduciary, along with a gamut of checks and balances. Data, broadly classified under personal and non-personal heads with respective sub-classifications, are bound to have overlapping definitions, guidelines and regulations, but still, the broad classification is necessary to make sure that the entire data regime serves the objective, making it amply clear as to “who stands where”, “within what jurisdiction”, and “within what mandate”.

At a very simplistic level, anything which does not fall under the definition of personal data constitutes non-personal data. But taking this simplistic approach as the only way to understand non-personal data is a risky proposition that could be full of pitfalls. Often, personal data is the source that leads to the production of non-personal data, when the former undergoes “anonymisation” procedures. The key distinguishing feature of non-personal data is the non-identification of the data principal. But, the risk of re-identification always remains. This possibility cannot be ruled out because today’s data economy is full of technological advances that can always make it possible―both the “backward integration” as well as the “forward integration”―to produce one from the another―that is, non-personal data from personal and vice versa. Hence the necessity for a set of legislative and regulatory frameworks for both personal and non-personal data, which shall act in unison, leaving no scope of grey areas, especially when it comes to individual’s privacy as well as sensitive data protection, which is imperative from the strategic and national security viewpoint.

Any piece of legislation is dynamic, and goes through amendments to meet the changed circumstances as and when required. But the dynamism of data protection legislation is not going to be just one clause; rather it will be a unique and defining feature. After all, we are in a stochastic environment where digital footprints are being produced in the continuous-time domain and our ensemble as discussed above is left with a Hobson’s choice to stay put in the continuous state space, hence the course corrections have to be continuous to meet the unforeseen challenges.

saffron-heat-in-jk

Thu Dec 31 16:13:31 IST 2020

The BJP, with 75 seats, has emerged as the single largest party in the District Development Council elections in Jammu and Kashmir. It secured the largest vote share, followed by the National Conference (67), the Peoples Democratic Party (27) and the Congress (26).

The Narendra Modi government’s quick decisions and stern actions have put some order in the perpetually chaotic valley. Winning 72 seats in Jammu and three seats in Kashmir shows that the BJP is on a firm footing. The successful conduct of elections, devoid of violence and lawlessness, is the biggest win after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution.

After threatening to boycott the DDC elections, the regional political parties voted for democratic restoration in the valley so that they could stay relevant.

A measure of the BJP’s strong presence in the Union Territory can be had from the fact that 11 political parties, led by big regional leaders like Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, with the backing of the Congress, had to come together to take a stand against the BJP’s agenda of development.

It was for the first time that any election was being held in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370, and the major takeaway is that people are urging for change in the newly formed Union Territory. People of Jammu supporting the BJP and people of Kashmir supporting independent candidates over the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration is all the evidence we need.

The results have been disheartening for the PDP and the National Conference, which were exploiting the valley for a long time. Maintaining the special status of J&K was nothing but a talisman to keep the Kashmiris in a state of euphoria over being different from the rest of the country. People did not have a choice earlier, and hence had voted for these parties.

The DDC results have once again highlighted communal polarisation in Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP won 86 per cent of 56 seats in the entirely Hindu districts and 2 per cent of 152 seats in the entirely Muslim districts. The Gupkar Alliance won 57 per cent seats in the entirely Muslim districts and just 4 per cent in the entirely Hindu districts.

Still, DDC elections are very different from assembly polls or Lok Sabha polls, and it was the first election to the council, so no comparisons can be made.

Decades of religious and territorial unrest will take some time to subside, but the start is overwhelming. The trust which the people have put in Prime Minister Modi and the support they have shown to his policies are the reason for a different political arrangement today.

It is too early for the Gupkar Alliance to celebrate as they have designed their own doom. Since development was never on their agenda, Jammu has soundly thrashed them. And their footing in Kashmir is only temporary, given the fact that they won seats on the basis of bringing Article 370 back, which is next to impossible now.

Spring may be a little further away, but Jammu and Kashmir’s frozen politics is thawing with saffron heat.

pay-corona-warriors

Thu Dec 17 22:59:45 IST 2020

No city can survive by smothering its municipalities. The Delhi government owes approximately Rs13,000 crore to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. This amount is required to pay salaries of MCD employees, including health care workers who are called corona warriors for tirelessly working during the pandemic. Delhi was one of the worst hit states. Doctors, nurses and other group IV employees under MCD departments were working overtime during the lockdown. But none of them have been paid their salaries, for months, now.

The Delhi High Court had directed the Delhi government to clear all dues of MCD employees before Diwali 2020. However, the Arvind Kejriwal government has been repeatedly ignoring the court’s directions and playing blame-game with the Central government. It is its trademark move to shift focus from its responsibilities.

The issue of late payment or non-payment of salaries to MCD employees is not new. On April 16, 2018, the High Court had told the Delhi government to disburse the amounts with effect from November 1, 2017, and not make it an “ego issue”. It had observed that despite having the funds, the government did not appear willing to implement the recommendations of the 4th Delhi Finance Commission (DFC ), under which the civic bodies had been allocated more funds than they were receiving at the time.

On May 21, 2018, when the Delhi government sought a review of the court’s decision, the bench did not stay the order, and asked the state to pay within one month the amounts to East Delhi Municipal Corporation and North DMC.

When an organisation is unable to pay salaries to its employees, it signals doomsday. The MCD has been brought to this situation because of constant interference of the Kejriwal government and non-cooperation in collection of taxes.

The fourth DFC recommended that around Rs600 crore shall be granted to NDMC and around Rs400 crore to East DMC for civic facilities. The Delhi government stated that these dues were paid but the picture is still not clear. As per the fifth DFC, the government accepted that 12.5 per cent of its total tax collection would be diverted to Delhi’s five civic bodies. This new format was to be implemented with effect from April 1, 2016. This meant that the employees would get arrears as well. However, the government has not paid its dues of even the fourth DFC since November 1, 2017, let alone arrears of the fifth DFC. This is the amount that is rightfully being demanded by the BJP members, who are now protesting outside Kejriwal’s residence.

Before 2014, states used to receive 32 per cent of budgetary allocations from the Centre. In 2014, when a chief minister of Gujarat became the prime minister, he hiked the budgetary allocations of states to 42 per cent.

We have seen Kejriwal urging the Central government to give him control of Delhi Police to prevent crime in the city. But, ironically, he is unable even to care for state subjects that are in his hands through municipal departments. Even though the BJP has majority in the MCD, it is the state government’s duty to ensure proper funding to civic bodies. The ill-intended disownment of the MCD for political gain has affected employees, pensioners and their families the most.

forthwriteml@gmail.com

why-not-one-nation-one-election

Thu Dec 03 18:21:26 IST 2020

Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of ‘one nation one election’ on the eve of Constitution Day, which was also the 12th anniversary of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. Simultaneous elections were the rule until 1967. But, following cessation of some legislative assemblies in 1968 and 1969, and of the Lok Sabha in December 1970, elections to state assemblies and Parliament were held independently.

A working paper that the Law Commission brought out in April 2018, after Modi re-floated the idea in 2016, said that at least “five Constitutional recommendations” would be required to begin simultaneous elections. The final decision is yet to be taken.

Currently, elections to the state assemblies and the Lok Sabha are held separately, whenever a government’s five-year term ends or whenever they are dissolved. The terms of legislative assemblies and the Lok Sabha may not coincide with one another. For instance, Bihar had elections in 2020, whereas Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, West Bengal and Kerala will go to the polls in 2021. To address the problem of premature dissolution of legislative assemblies or Parliament, the Election Commission has suggested that no-confidence motions should be made more constructive.

The ‘one nation one election’ idea will involve the restructuring of the Indian election cycle in such a manner that elections to the states and to the Centre synchronise. This would mean that the voters will cast their votes for electing members of the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies on a single day, at the same time, or in a phased manner, as the case may be.

Simultaneous elections would have numerous benefits for the nation. First and foremost, it will reduce the expenditure. The Bihar polls in 2015 cost the exchequer Rs300 crore. About Rs152 crore was spent on payment for vehicles, fuel, setting up booths, tents, barricading and printing poll documents. A major poll expenditure was on security arrangements for free and fair elections. It cost around Rs230 crore for the Madhya Pradesh government to conduct the assembly polls in 2018.

Second, it will increase the voter turnout. It is often seen that voters take Lok Sabha elections much more seriously than assembly elections and local polls. Simultaneous elections would mean a single and much more efficient voter list and the maximum population coming out to vote. Third, there would be more time and headspace for administration. If there is an election every year, it takes up a lot of time to plan and execute political campaigns. Elections all over the country once in five years would take up less energy, and allow governments to focus on development and administration for the remaining time.

There are other benefits such as curtailment of harmful effects of vote bank appeasement. With elections around the corner, most political parties resort to gimmicks to win voters or destroy the reputation of other parties.

There are certain arguments against ‘one nation one election’: national and state issues being different; lack of consensus among national and regional parties; the need to cut short or extend the terms of certain state governments; violation of constitutional provisions; negation of democracy by trivialising regional issues; and the likelihood of politicians becoming complacent. Another concern is that holding simultaneous elections will affect the judgment of voters. This seems to underestimate the intellect of the voters. Indian voters have time and again proved that they vote sensibly and are not fooled by false promises anymore. The Bihar election result is a live example of this. Here is hoping that this noble idea will be realised in 2024.

why-stop-the-cbi

Thu Nov 19 18:35:10 IST 2020

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has always been perceived as an extremely effective agency, which is entrusted with significant probes into corruption and moral turpitude. After the Uddhav Thackeray government in Maharashtra withdrew general consent for the CBI to probe cases in the state, now the Punjab and Kerala governments have proposed to follow suit. Curiously, the Kerala government’s proposal comes after the CBI started probing the alleged irregularities in its Life Mission project. It is therefore evident that the Kerala and Punjab governments’ efforts have more to do with protecting the treasure troves of the mafias in the states, and less with any purported commitments to Indian federalism.

The CBI derives its powers from the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946. The procedure of granting general consent is governed by section 6 of the Act, which prohibits an investigation by the CBI unless the concerned state consents to it. Once general consent is accorded by a state, there exists no need for the CBI to approach the state government on an ad-hoc basis for further permissions for investigations. Unfortunately, this section has been turned into a political weapon by various state governments. They use it to stop the CBI from unearthing potential scams under their watch.

Though there has been much clamour surrounding the need to empower the CBI with a pan-India jurisdiction, a statutory void prevents the same. The L.P. Singh Committee of 1978 recommended that a comprehensive legislation be drafted to remove the deficiency of not having a Central investigative agency with a self-sufficient statutory charter of duties and functions. Further, during the trial of Coalgate scam, the Supreme Court castigated UPA-II for having failed to ensure functional autonomy for the CBI—something that had previously been echoed by the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2007).

The CBI, in its current form, is impeded by the requirement of needing state-wise consents to investigate any crime in states other than Delhi. The obvious reason for this scheme appears to lie in our Constitution, where “policing powers” have been reserved for the states. A notable exception to this rule is if the Supreme Court directly transfers an ongoing investigation to the CBI, such as what happened in the recent Sushant Singh Rajput case.

India’s experiment with the National Investigation Agency could be encouraging for the CBI. Much like the CBI, the NIA is a Central investigative agency. But unlike the CBI, the NIA has nationwide jurisdiction to function as a counterterrorist task force. The Congress-led Chhattisgarh government moved the Supreme Court earlier this year to declare the NIA unconstitutional for violating India’s federal structure. The irony is that the Congress-led UPA enacted the NIA Act, in the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

With the CBI spreading its tentacles around corrupt governments, the supposed need “to protect India’s federal structure” is being reinvigorated by the same governments. Such arguments have been consistently shot down by the courts when they have authorised central agencies to investigate “transnational” crimes having ramifications on India’s sovereignty, security and integrity. Could it be said that the burgeoning corrupt enterprise in states like Kerala does not have transnational repercussions? If the answer to this question is in the affirmative, then the CBI should not be denied entry under the guise of protecting federalism.

the-sellers-agenda

Fri Nov 06 16:26:23 IST 2020

Delay by e-commerce websites to comply with the government’s order to label the country of origin on all products will discourage the idea of self-reliant India.

After the Chinese incursion in Ladakh, renowned engineer Sonam Wangchuk called for a national ban on made-in-China products. His appeal grew into a national sentiment, and news of boycott of Chinese products started pouring in from all parts of the country. A number of Chinese-owned mobile applications like TikTok and PubG were banned in India.

Hundreds of thousands of products manufactured in China are sold in India, earning huge profits. The import of many products is dubious. Products sold through e-commerce retailers like Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal do not mention the country of origin. Omission of the truth is a lie. Country of origin refers to the place of manufacture, not the country from which it is shipped to India. For example, if a Chinese product reaches India through Nepal or Singapore, it should still mention China as the country of origin. This would let buyers make an informed decision.

The e-commerce companies were given time till July to comply with the order. Initially, the government was keen to make it mandatory from August 1, but online retailers pushed back, saying the deadline may not be feasible. They submitted that they needed eight to nine months to complete this task. The companies are also demanding a clarification on how to mark products whose parts are separately produced in one or multiple countries and are assembled in another. This looks like another delaying tactic, as directions are clear in the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011 or the Packaging Rules.

It is felt that there is pressure from Chinese companies to delay the implementation of the order. Especially in view of the sales during the Hindu festive season. A Chinese social media giant investing $6.2 million in Flipkart right before the festive season has fanned the flames. Amazon also sources much of its products from China at highly competitive prices and its junk-influx of plastic products is pre-eminent.

The revised deadline to comply with the order was September 30, but the e-tailers in turn passed the plate to individual sellers, complicating the matter even more. Marking some products with “origin not known” could have allowed consumers to identify Chinese products, but the intent seems to be lacking. The government has requested the court to issue a directive to e-commerce companies to provide an option to refine search results for “made in India” products, but that too is yet to see the light of day.

Marking country of origin is not a fresh idea that sprang up after the India-China stand-off. The Packaging Rules regulate pre-packed commodities in India and mandate labelling requirements prior to the sale of such commodities. On June 29, 2017, the government approved certain amendments to the Packaging Rules to be effective from October 1, 2018. The key provisions clearly included declaration of country of origin, along with MRP and best before date. E-commerce websites are under the purview of the Packaging Rules along with the (Indian) Information Technology Act, 2000. So, a demand of eight to nine months now holds no water.

The e-commerce world is large and uncontrollable, and the government is proactive to tighten the noose around them so that the consumers can make smart choices and are not lured into saving a few bucks at the cost of national security.

Lekhi is member of Parliament • forthwriteml@gmail.com

striking-the-right-notes

Thu Oct 22 16:41:00 IST 2020

Recently, I came across an article targeting the Narendra Modi government. I am startled at the ignorance, and enraged to see the hard work of my government go unnoticed. Ignorance was bliss once, but publishing an article to misinform people falls under the category of illegal.

The intentions of the Narendra Modi government, since 2014, have been crisp and focused, and, after six years of hard work, the results are for all to see. Enough has been said about the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A, which was independent India’s most historic decision, or the ban on triple talaq that irked the alternate Muslim law-making institutions for empowering their women.

But, a number of micro-policies, which are not found in sensational news headlines, have touched every single life. You could not have imagined paying your vegetable vendor, or the next door grocer, through digital banking. Digital India initiatives like the BHIM app and Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana were created with an intention to link every Indian to the banking system.

The Modi government had the guts to replace the 64-year-old Medical Council of India with the National Medical Commission and bring transparency in the medical education field. This was an area crying for reform for years. The intention was to end corruption.

The launch of Swachh Bharat Mission changed the way Indians perceived their own image internationally. It had a huge impact on the psyche of the rural population that believed nothing could change.

The Ayushman Bharat Scheme revolutionised medical treatment in India. It was launched, as recommended by the National Health Policy 2017, to achieve the vision of Universal Health Coverage. This initiative has been designed to meet the Sustainable Development Goals and the underlying commitment is “leave no one behind”. It helped 10.74 crore families get treatment in government and private hospitals. It is a shame that it could not be implemented in Delhi because of non-cooperation of the state government.

I had already mentioned various policies launched for the benefit of farmers in my last column. The PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojna, crop insurance scheme, farmer pension scheme, launching of e-NAM, the latest agro bills, integrated management of public distribution system under one nation one card and Svamitva Yojana to create a record of land ownership in rural areas showed the government’s intention towards farmers.

The government recruitment system has been simplified through the establishment of National Recruitment Agency. Rural employment opportunities are being provided through Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojan and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana-lll. The government created Jal Shakti ministry and launched Atal Bhujal Yojana for managing water with an intention to care for the environment. Hunar Haat, Honey Mission, and numerous other missions, under the newly formed skill development ministry, have become successful in providing employment opportunities at national as well as international markets for thousands of master craftsmen, skilled labourers and artisans. The allocation of a separate Harmonised System (HS) code for Khadi will help in creating its unique identity internationally.

The Modi government has hit the right notes with public with all the work it has done. It has touched base with all relevant areas that are directly linked with citizens. The intentions of this government have always resided within the hearts of the citizens.

Lekhi is member of Parliament • forthwriteml@gmail.com

educate-the-farmers

Fri Oct 09 18:22:32 IST 2020

The agitation against the new laws allowing farmers to market their produce outside the agriculture produce market committee (APMC) mandis is odd. The idea of unrestricted agricultural market access to corporates is the brainchild of the UPA government. The new laws are nothing but implementation of recommendations in the third report of the National Commission on Farmers, chaired by M.S. Swaminathan, in 2006. The commission found that there was a need for private mandis, and marketing linkages should be established through contract farming.

The commission had recommended that the minimum support price (MSP) shall be at least 50 per cent higher than the average production cost. While finalising the National Policy for Farmers, the UPA did not accept this recommendation. However, the Modi government declared in the Union budget 2018-2019 that MSP shall be at least one and a half times over the cost of production, thereby increasing farmers’ income. Even a high-level committee of chief ministers—including chief ministers of non-BJP-ruled states of Madhya Pradesh and Punjab—had suggested limiting the powers of APMC, and using market reforms and the Contract Farming Act to ensure corporate sector participation to further facilitate export-oriented production. These were the basis for the farm reform bills to get passed in Parliament. A classic case of the Congress proposes, Modi disposes.

The Modi government has always been a torchbearer of farmer-first approach. However, even with an increase in MSP (minimum of 50 per cent and maximum of 150 per cent) during Modi regime, smaller farmers in some states are unable to get MSP from the middlemen. And, they are forced to sell their produce at meagre prices because of hooliganism and local political influence. As per a NITI Aayog report, less than 30 per cent of the farmers had received MSP for their produce in 2017-2018.

Neither the producer, nor the retailer, nor the customer reaps the benefits of MSP. Instead, the middlemen end up gaining a major chunk, which has a snowball effect forcing the farmers to take loans from the middlemen or from banks. Many farmers could not repay their loans, fell into debt trap and committed suicide. Harassment of farmers was part of the system.

Contrary to the opposition’s claims, APMCs and MSP are still very much in place, and will continue to run in the new system. However, only the farmer can decide whether he wants to sell directly to the retailer or enter into a contract with a buyer. But, if we analyse the opposition’s moves in the past two years, we see a pattern of using social media and paid media to spread misinformation to malign the Union government.

Only the middlemen of the APMC mandis and the local goons backed by political parties will gain from the current protests. Punjab and Haryana are the epicentres of the protests and it is not hard to understand why. As states are not permitted to levy market fee/cess outside APMC areas under the new laws, Punjab and Haryana could lose an estimated Rs3,500 crore and Rs1,600 crore, respectively, each year.

Agricultural system in India is used to the APMC system, hence some resistance is expected. The only way to stop these protests is to educate the farmers. If the farmers understand the actual law, rather than believing rumours, their grievances will wither away. Government representatives should conduct more seminars to educate the farmers about positive effects of the new laws. The new system will create a prosperous and exploitation-free agricultural sector.

more-hits-than-misses

Fri Sep 25 17:22:23 IST 2020

There is a saying: A thief believes everyone else is a thief. That is the case with the so-called liberals and anti-government elements in India right now. Our prime minister exudes power and enjoys popularity like no other, which has led the anti-government lobby to unite and criticise the government. Yes, the situation is not ideal when it comes to keeping the spread of the novel coronavirus in check. But then which country has been 100 per cent successful in containing it? None.

The success and failure of any government are measured by the response from its citizens and its status compared with other countries. India has performed better than even developed countries with the best of health care systems. Another aspect is the quasi-federal structure of India. India does as well as its states do collectively, as they are the implementing agencies of Central policies.

India has touched a recovery rate of 80 per cent, up from 60 per cent in early May, and accounts for nearly 19 per cent of the total global recoveries—the highest in the world. India’s Covid-19 fatality rate is only 1.6 per cent of the total cases, which is one of the lowest in the world. Barely 0.2 per cent of the total active cases need ICU care.

Our health department took on the humongous task of providing adequate health facilities to citizens. The pandemic, in a way, forced the government to prioritise health care infrastructure like never before. In early March, when India had recorded only a handful of cases, 52 labs were authorised to carry out Covid-19 tests. As on September 19, the number has gone up to 1,771, of which 1,152 are government-owned labs. The idea was to have a testing centre in each district to minimise Covid-related travel, and we have achieved that barring a few exceptions.

On July 7, the Medical Council of India directed medical colleges to set up labs that were biosafety level (BSL) 2-compliant, and informed that a failure to do so would result in them being derecognised. By August, 293 of the 540 medical colleges had BSL-2 facility.

There is ample focus on the standard of testing, too. The Indian Council of Medical Research hopes to have a BSL-2 lab—one that can run the RT-PCR tests—in every district. Wherever there are public or private medical colleges, their labs are being upgraded to BSL-2. Through the PM-CARES fund, 02,000 crore was allocated to supply 50,000 ‘Made in India’ ventilators to government-run Covid-19 hospitals. The number of beds for Covid-19 patients increased 14 times since June. India could not achieve these in the last 75 years but did so in the past five months and is proud of the work done.

The government also passed the Epidemic Diseases (Amendment) Bill, 2020, making any verbal or physical assault against doctors, nurses or other health care providers a punishable offence. The government’s zero-tolerance attitude towards such offenders initiated this legislation, which is being applauded by the health care community.

There have been more hits than misses in the management of Covid-19. By increasing the number of beds, ventilators, testing centres and PPE kits, India not only was able to display a good record on the global scene, but also pushed its local industry to produce the relevant machinery. These developments will go a long way in the betterment of the health infrastructure in India. Focused and effective measures for early identification through high and aggressive testing, prompt surveillance and tracking, coupled with standardised high-quality clinical care, have resulted in this globally acclaimed achievement.

Lekhi is member of Parliament • forthwriteml@gmail.com

tiger-tackling-dragon-in-style

Fri Sep 11 18:15:42 IST 2020

India has banned 118 more Chinese apps, dealing another blow to China’s earnings from the huge Indian market. These apps not only are profitable to the Chinese tech companies, but also pose serious issues of questionable collection of personal data of users.

In response, China said that India’s ‘discriminatory’ measures violate World Trade Organization’s rules, and it urged India to correct its “wrong practices”. This a sign that every single step taken by the government of India affects China.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strategy to jeopardise the enemy, by cutting off its financial backing, has been successful and has already left Beijing sweating. The change in India’s FDI policy in May 2020, to specifically filter out Chinese investments through automatic route, kept a check on China’s domination in the Indian market. Based in a communist country, most Chinese companies have a political backing, and they have larger agendas than just profit-making. Capping FDI on Chinese companies saved the pandemic-battered Indian market from Chinese domination. The move was followed by banning 59 Chinese apps, and propagation of the Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign by the prime minister.

Approximately 14 per cent of India’s imports, amounting to billions of dollars, come from China. As per Acuite Ratings & Research, India can substitute 25 per cent of these imports by locally made products in sectors such as chemicals, automotive components, bicycle parts, agro-based items, handicrafts, drug formulations, cosmetics, consumer electronics and leather-based goods. This, without any additional investment in infrastructure.

Xi Jinping sees India as an enemy, and his key foreign policy objective is to reduce India’s role, growth and presence on the international platform. It is also visible that China does not care for its international image. After a successful informal meeting of the two leaders in Mamallapuram last year, the Galwan Valley incursion is nothing short of a betrayal. China wants to wage a war against India on one hand and continue trade on another, but it will have to decide on its choices.

India’s ban on apps and restriction on Chinese investment have led to similar demands in many European countries. Germany has already suspended an automatic route for Chinese investment. Japan, Malaysia and Australia have plans to divert their trade relations from China. The UK passed a new citizenship law for residents of Hong Kong, thereby making it easier for them to get British citizenship. Australia is on its way to formulating a similar law.

With strong support from the US and other global players, and strengthening of the MSMEs, toy, leather and automobile industries, India is capable of becoming self-reliant, and, more importantly, free from depending on China.

If the strategies were not working, the Chinese defence minister, General Wei Fenghe, would not have insisted on meeting his Indian counterpart thrice in the last 80 days. China’s attempt to change the status quo on the southern bank of Pangong Tso, even as military-level talks are under way, is a clear violation of agreements and will not be tolerated at any cost.

Maintaining a peaceful yet firm relation with a neighbour as aggressive as China is like walking a tightrope, yet the tiger is tackling the dragon remarkably well. How can we trust the Chinese who are ‘seeking peace’, when in reality they are working to get a piece of Nepal, Bhutan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Pakistan, India, Bhutan and further more!

Lekhi is member of Parliament • forthwriteml@gmail.com

improving-learning-competence

Thu Aug 27 17:03:23 IST 2020

India is one of the few countries that have brought out policies in alignment with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2015.

The National Education Policy, 2020, (NEP) is yet another historic step towards realising the SDGs. The NEP has been carefully crafted to give our children the best of both worlds: the rich heritage of ancient and eternal Indian knowledge, and the modern ideology of providing freedom to choose. The pursuit of knowledge (jnan), wisdom (pragyaa) and truth (satya) is overtly visible in the policy.

The NEP lays emphasis on the development of the creative potential of each individual. It is based on the principle that education must develop not only cognitive capacities—both the foundational capacities of literacy and numeracy and higher-order cognitive capacities, such as critical thinking and problem solving—but also social, ethical, and emotional capacities and dispositions. With the quickly changing employment landscape and global ecosystem, it is becoming increasingly critical that children not only learn, but more importantly learn how to learn.

The education system of India needed overhauling for long. We were following a 10+2 scheme of education, which will now be replaced by a pedagogical 5+3+3+4 system. Currently, children in the age group of three to six are not covered in the 10+2 structure as class one begins at age six. In the new 5+3+3+4 structure, a strong base of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) from age three is also included, which is aimed at promoting overall learning, development and well-being.

The policy also honours native Indian languages and promotes teaching in mother tongue/regional languages up to class five to ease society’s fixation with English as a medium of education, and often as a measure of competence.

The best feature of the policy is abolition of the stream system which forces children to study a pre-fixed set of subjects at the plus two-level by choosing either science, commerce or humanities with marks earned through mug-and-puke methodology. The glamorisation of the sciences as a stream and the hierarchical nature of the streams belittled other sets of qualities. This policy is a step ahead to place all subjects in horizontal boxes, rather than vertical, where no subject is superior to another. The NEP will also give freedom to choose individual subjects, say physics with geography, or accountancy with chemistry, at the +4-level to create a unique skill set for each individual. This will not only ease the pressure on students to prove their worth by taking up science at plus two-level but also thrash the rampant system of demanding cash by schools to grant science stream to students with low scores in their high school examination.

Minorities are also comparatively underrepresented in schools and higher education. The NEP acknowledges the importance of interventions to promote education of children belonging to all minority communities, and particularly those communities that are educationally underrepresented.

The NEP has been launched with a goal to improve learning competence of individuals. The NEP envisions a significant increase in public investment in education by both the Central and state governments. The proposal that the Centre and the states should work together to increase the public investment in education sector to 6 per cent of GDP at the earliest is unique in its own right. This will prove to be extremely critical for achieving high quality and equitable public education system that is truly needed for India’s future economic, social, cultural, intellectual and technological progress and growth.

Lekhi is member of Parliament • forthwriteml@gmail.com

beginning-of-a-harmonious-phase

Thu Aug 13 14:12:07 IST 2020

The construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya is neither anti-secular nor anti-dalit. In fact, August 5, 2020, will be marked with a golden stamp in Indian history as Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for Ram Mandir at the birth place of Lord Ram. The bhoomipoojan by Modi was the end of a civilisational exile, and the beginning of a new India, with its ethos entrenched in an ancient value system.

Our model of governance is rooted in the
principles of Ram Rajya. August 5 was a historic day that lifted the spirits of the country from a pandemic-induced negativity.

The construction of Ram Mandir cannot be branded as anti-secular because our Constitution does not discourage celebration of a religious activity. Rather, it strives to protect the religious sentiments of every individual. The Constitution does not promote agnosticism or atheism. It promises every individual the right to practise and preach his or her own religion within legal limits.

We must note that the religious aspect of the Ayodhya dispute was not taken into consideration by the Supreme Court; instead, it treated the matter as a mere land dispute. Incidentally, the birth places of all religious figures in the world are well-protected—be it Bethlehem, Mecca in Saudi Arabia or Lumbini in Nepal. What could be a greater proof of India’s secularism than the fact that the birth place of the most revered Hindu god was treated as a mere land dispute? I cannot understand how celebrations of building a temple can be considered anti-secular or against the constitutional idea of a secular India.

A staunch Hindu, I believe that construction of a mosque at the land allotted to the Sunni Waqf Board will not insult any Hindu in any manner. In another narrative, in a bid to undermine Hindu consolidation, some people have raised the issue of discrimination by upper caste Hindus against lower caste Hindus. They ignore the fact that the Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra has a dalit, Kameshwar Chaupal, among its 15 members. He has been entrusted with the responsibility of supervising the construction of the temple. He is the same person who performed shilanyas for Ram Mandir in November 1989. And a dalit family was given the first prasad of the bhoomipoojan ceremony. It was sent to Mahaveer, a dalit, by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

I suggest that the so-called liberals put the bitter political mobilisations over religious issues behind, and look forward to inclusive governance. The construction of the temple is the logical result of the Supreme Court judgment; it should mark the end of an older, hostile phase of India and the beginning of a fresh, harmonious phase.

India has a large population of Hindus who were historically wronged by invasions and destruction of their places of worship. So, there was a wave of happiness throughout the country on the auspicious groundbreaking ceremony.

Lord Ram is the most venerable religious figure for Hindus, and his birth place has the greatest significance in our culture, texts and sentiments. There is no aspect of an Indian’s life where Ram does not inspire. His ideals of an inclusive, just and harmonious state are still instilled in every Indian and continue to influence us. It is unwise to malign the image of maryada purushottam Shri Ram with taunting words like anti-secular, unconstitutional and discrimination. We eagerly wait for the completion of the temple that will lead to a just and ideal Ram Rajya in our country.

Lekhi is member of Parliament • forthwriteml@gmail.com

crushed-from-within

Thu Jul 30 18:25:47 IST 2020

The disagreements between Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot have added weight to a sinking ship: the Congress.

Recent political developments in Rajasthan have been dramatic. The Congress government there, which was formed on a small majority, is struggling to survive.

Gehlot’s removal of Pilot from the ministry has direct links with the party’s high command in Delhi, as the waning leadership is unable to keep its core players satisfied.

A major reason for Pilot’s revolt is his desire to be declared the face of the party in the Rajasthan assembly elections of 2023. He also wants the high command to reward his supporters with either ministries or positions as head of corporations, besides the removal of Avinash Pandey as the general secretary and Congress in-charge in Rajasthan. Pandey’s loyalties are to Gehlot.

A few months ago in Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath of the Congress resigned as chief minister and the BJP returned to power, thus reducing the Congress footprint in the country. The exit of this 15-month-old Congress government came a year after the party had lost its government in Karnataka, where it had played second fiddle to the Janata Dal (Secular) despite having more numbers in the assembly.

In Madhya Pradesh, Jyotiraditya Scindia was at loggerheads with Nath and Digvijaya Singh, another Congress veteran, ever since the government was formed there. Scindia ran out of patience with the Congress, as the party made Nath the chief minister despite Scindia leading from the front in the assembly elections. Scindia’s supporters wanted him to be the party president in the state after being denied the post of the chief minister.

Scindia, who has always maintained his stand as a public servant, threatened to hit the streets if the state government failed to waive farm loans, as promised in the party manifesto. But, to his disappointment, nothing worked in his favour, which must have forced him to leave the party. Finally, when it came to the crunch, Nath tendered his resignation by avoiding the crucial floor test ordered by the Supreme Court.

Uncertainty looms large over the government in Rajasthan, and the Congress is in power in only four other states—Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, where it is just a fringe player assisting bigger allies, and the Union territory of Puducherry.

But it is a leadership crisis that is plaguing the Congress, and the party is experiencing a battle between the young and the old guard. The young leaders are feeling uneasy and are joining the BJP where they feel their efforts will be recognised under its strong leadership.

The Congress leadership is steadily crumbling in the hands of its nepotistic leaders. It has not looked beyond the Nehru-Gandhi household in 40 years, except during 1991-98 when P.V. Narasimha Rao and Sitaram Kesri took over the charge.

In the event of the demise of a national party like the Congress, regional outfits that have grown at the cost of the Congress will emerge as the opposition for the BJP.

The last seven Lok Sabha elections have seen the steady rise of the BJP, and consequent decline of the Congress. Yet, whatever little hope that is there for the Congress is being killed by its nepotistic leadership and the continuous failure of trust of its major players in the regional political arena. With internal clashes brewing in Chhattisgarh and Punjab as well, it will be an uphill task for the Congress to remain relevant in national reckoning.

Lekhi is member of Parliament • forthwriteml@gmail.com

transgenders-in-uniform

Thu Jul 16 17:31:00 IST 2020

In a major push for gender reform, the Union home ministry is set to allow transgender persons to join paramilitary forces like the CRPF, the BSF, the CISF and the ITBP. We have already received approvals from the BSF, the CISF and the ITBP.

The decision is in line with the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, notified by the Central government in December 2019, under which no establishment can discriminate against transgender persons in matters relating to employment, recruitment and promotion.

The transgender community has for long been the most neglected part of society. So much so that they are denied the basic human right to exist within the respectable confines of society, thereby pushing them to maintain their own secretive subculture in an almost parasitic way. They often support themselves by begging, through sex trade and petty businesses. The only times they are allowed into the ‘respectable settings’ are during child birth and wedding functions, where they earn their livelihood, and two minutes of limelight and respect.

Not all transgender persons are identified at birth; some realise their identity as they grow up and find themselves caught in a wrong body. They often face harassment for their choices of attire, demeanour and behaviour. With minimal support from families—who tend to disown them because of societal pressure—no medical facilities for sex-change surgeries and lack of means to earn a respectable income, they are forced to live under shackles of poverty, relying on pre-defined roles to earn a livelihood.

According to a study published in The Diplomat, 51 per cent of transgender persons in India have faced some sort of physical abuse at the hands of either their own families or in the form of mob-lynching. The widely believed stories about their magical abilities to curse or bless, their make-up smeared faces and gaudy clothing mask the stories of sex trade, exploitation, cruel and dangerous castrations, and constant humiliation. They lead a life of broken reality where they crave for respect and inclusion in society. Eleanor Roosevelt and her team drafted the most visionary document ever that was adopted at the UN General Assembly in Paris in 1948—the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNHR). It sensitised the world about conscience, kindness, and equality for all.

Japan was the first country to recognise the third gender, when it passed an act in 2003. Even though it was a controversial law, as it mentioned gender identity could be a disorder, it still put the issues of transgender persons in the forefront. Later, the UK, Spain, Uruguay, Argentina and other countries followed suit and introduced their own versions of recognition of the third gender by law.

In India, the Supreme Court gave a historic judgment in National Legal Services Authority vs Union of India case, declaring transgender persons to be the third gender that had the right to self identification, making them eligible for reservation in jobs and educational institutions, which later transcended to the passing of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act in August 2019.

It is pertinent to mention that transgender persons enjoyed a special status in ancient Hindu society. Lord Ram brought transgender persons from the forest into the city symbolising their respectful inclusion. Lord Krishna let Shikhandi, a male born in a female’s body, take part in the Kurukshetra war. With the decision to let transgender persons take up leadership roles in paramilitary forces, the government is returning to the community its right to command respect, transforming its broken dreams into reality.

Lekhi is member of Parliament • forthwriteml@gmail.com

funding-rajiv-gandhi-foundation

Thu Jul 02 19:35:25 IST 2020

The shocking revelation that the Communist Party of China donated money to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF), in 2006-2007, has put a giant question mark on the Congress-China alliance. This was at a time when a Chinese official had remarked that the whole of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory.

Rahul Gandhi’s comments against the Narendra Modi government were already giving anti-national vibes when this news broke.

Apparently, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Communist Party of China and the Congress in 2008 for exchange of high-level information, details of which are unknown. Natural questions arise as to why a country that had betrayed the Congress in the past was contributing to a foundation that belonged to a family. How did RGF utilise these funds? Also, what information was exchanged with China? I smell one more apex-level scam from the controversial Congress, but this time around it involves our arch-enemy China.

The Nehru-Gandhi-ruled Congress has demonstrated an unnerving callousness with regard to national security and interests.

The shady transactions in RGF do not end here. The analysis of annual reports of RGF shows that several Central government ministries, including home affairs, health and family welfare, and environment and forests have donated to RGF. Public sector undertakings like SAIL, LIC, Oriental Bank of Commerce and ONGC, too, have contributed to RGF. All this was carried out when the Congress was in power at the Centre between 2006 and 2013. It is a matter of national interest as to why public funds were being diverted to a private organisation which can easily be branded as a personal joint account of the Gandhi family, as it is chaired by Sonia Gandhi, and has Rahul, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram as trustees.

Guess what, the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund, too, donated money to RGF, which makes no sense whatsoever. The PMNRF directly releases money for the welfare of the citizens. Then, why was it donating to RGF? If the intention of RGF was to work for literacy, science, women and children, as mentioned on its website, I am surprised why they could not improve facilities on the ground the regular way when the Congress was in power. The usage of a fund to evade taxes and secure black money is not a new concept, and RGF is its perfect example. Obfuscation is a hobby for the Congress.

If we dig deeper, we find that Manmohan Singh, as the finance minister in 1992, tried to divert Rs 100 crore to RGF. Though the proposal was dismissed later, mala fide intentions of the Congress government can clearly be judged by this action. Even the first chief information commissioner was a former secretary of RGF who ruled that it does fall under the ambit of RTI.

It does not end here. The Jawahar Bhawan was provided to RGF by the urban development ministry under the Congress-led government for free, even though the property was worth Rs100 crore in 1995.

The Congress’s soft reaction against the Chinese government and Rahul’s secret meetings with Chinese officials during the India-Chinese stand-off at Doklam raise many uncomfortable questions for the opposition, and so does RGF’s transactional history. An official probe will yield the reality of RGF projects. But do we still need to decipher Congress’s Chinese connect?

Lekhi is member of Parliament • forthwriteml@gmail.com

tale-of-two-public-addresses-in-maharashtra-on-vijayadashami

Sun Sep 25 14:14:31 IST 2022

For the last five decades, two public addresses made in Maharashtra on Vijayadashami day have always attracted national attention. Every single word uttered by the RSS chief in Nagpur and by the Thackerays in Mumbai have been followed closely by politicians, analysts and the media.

This year, the speech space is likely to get even more crowded with the Shiv Sena split into two factions. Both groups are determined to hold big rallies in Mumbai, although the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has not yet revealed whether it would sanction a rally at Shivaji Park, where Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray roared every year with his own brand of hindutva and Marathi pride till his death in 2012. The factions led by Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde have applied for the venue, with Uddhav making the first move. Shinde has already received permission to hold the rally at the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) ground. He is, however, keen on Shivaji Park because of its historic status. Shinde is being egged on by big brother BJP, which wants to deny any legitimacy to Uddhav as Balasaheb’s successor. Both Shinde and the BJP accuse Uddhav of ditching the hindutva ideology in favour of the chief minister’s chair.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, on the other hand, faces no such challenge and his address will be telecast live by national broadcaster Doordarshan. The speech is a tradition started by RSS founder K.B. Hedgewar in the 1930s. All his five successors in the 97-year-old organisation have addressed the faithful on Vijayadashami, although the last two editions were delivered online because of Covid-19 restrictions.

Ever since the Ram Janmabhoomi struggle was launched in the 1980s by RSS affiliate Vishva Hindu Parishad–later taken up by BJP president L.K. Advani through his rath yatra–speeches by RSS chiefs Balasaheb Deoras, Rajendra Singh, K.S. Sudarshan and Bhagwat have been followed even more closely, with each and every word scrutinised for its meaning as well as its intended target. With the BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in power with a thumping majority since 2014, the Union government has implemented many of the core demands of the RSS, including a judicial solution to the Ayodhya dispute and the construction of a grand Ram temple, the removal of Jammu and Kashmir’s special privileges, the dilution of the provisions of personal laws of minorities which could eventually lead to a uniform civil code and a new education policy incorporating cultural nationalism and the primacy of Indian languages.

Bhagwat, however, has also been floating a few ideas in his speeches which are more difficult for the Union government to implement, like a vigorous policy to limit population growth and more equality in opportunities, which is seen as a long time RSS agenda for scrapping reservations for the socially backward classes. But the RSS, which has waited patiently for its affiliates to take charge in Delhi, is more than pleased with the present situation, and it is expected that Bhagwat, in his latest speech, would call for more social and economic decisions in tune with some other elements of the RSS vision. While he will address an audience of discipline and attention in Nagpur, Mumbai could witness heated exchanges and even some fisticuffs because of the nasty feud between the two Sena factions.

sachi@theweek.in

will-autorickshaw-drivers-in-gujarat-accept-or-reject-kejriwal

Sat Sep 17 10:35:24 IST 2022

Arvind Kejriwal’s standard practice of visiting the house of an autorickshaw driver in poll-bound states had a twist in Gujarat. The state police, which was providing security for the Delhi chief minister, objected. Kejriwal’s well-scripted plan went awry as the police could not provide security at short notice around the poor wage-earner’s house. But, Kejriwal, who is on frequent forays to the state pitching for the Aam Aadmi Party would not budge. Finally, Kejriwal, accompanied by hefty policemen, travelled to the autorickshaw driver’s home in his three-wheeler. The AAP said the BJP, which rules Gujarat, was scared of Kejriwal’s popularity among the poor. The state countered it was acting out of security reasons.

But it is the targeting of autorickshaw drivers—who are in large numbers in every big city and also found in tiny towns—which shows the importance of this vote bank. The AAP had won over the autorickshaw and cycle rickshaw drivers as well as pavement vendors to capture Delhi in successive elections. The drivers and their families form a chunk of dependable voters, especially as the AAP promises to protect them from police harassment.

Going for a meal with a poor family has also been a familiar electoral tactic for the BJP, as its heavyweights like Amit Shah and J.P. Nadda descend on selected dalit and tribal families, with cameramen in attendance. In Karnataka, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and his ministers stay the night at a villager’s home to show they are closer to the grassroots. The Janata Dal (Secular), however, insists it was H.D. Kumaraswamy who popularised the practice of village stay during his first tenure as chief minister.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has focused on women voters by targeting his programmes of food and fuel subsidy to women in urban chawls and villages. Statistics show that in the last elections Modi got a higher percentage of votes from women.

The identification with rickshaw drivers, who provide affordable transport to the common man, began with Tamil Nadu actor-turned politician M.G. Ramachandran. He made a successful film Rickshawkaran, where he played a poor but self-assured cycle rickshaw driver who overcomes troubles to emerge victorious. When MGR went campaigning, the highlight would be the procession of thousands of cycle rickshaws. It earned an entire vote bank for MGR. Later, several actors in other languages drove autorickshaws to win them over as cities expanded.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde proudly recalls his early days as an autorickshaw driver in Thane, and how he got involved in politics by mobilising drivers for the Shiv Sena. Though he is criticised as the state’s wealthiest ex-autorickshaw driver, Shinde attributes his electoral success and the clout he wields in urban areas near Mumbai to his base among autorickshaw drivers and other low income groups.

Kejriwal, today, finds autorickshaw drivers useful for propaganda. Impressed with his penchant for families of autorickshaw drivers, many agree to display the AAP’s posters or slogans on their vehicles. As they crisscross thickly populated areas, the posters attract wide attention.

In Gujarat, the resistance to policemen, too, is being added to the legends around the Delhi chief minister, who, in his activist days, had climbed electricity poles amid protests against disconnected power supply. Now, it is for the autorickshaw drivers in Gujarat to endorse or reject him.

sachi@theweek.in

is-the-bjps-stance-on-corruption-contradictory-asks-sachidananda-murthy

Sat Sep 10 10:51:25 IST 2022

Many political parties have disciplinary action committees to deal with complaints against members, including office-bearers and ministers. Barring the CPI(M), which has an active control commission, the mechanism in other parties either moves at a snail’s pace or is at a standstill.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has been vocal about its government’s zero-tolerance policy against corruption. The government, which declared a war on black money when Narendra Modi first took oath in 2014, has pursued cases against opposition leaders, including chief ministers and ministers, through the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate. Several investigations are based on corruption charges by the BJP, as its leaders have made documents and sting audiotapes on alleged corruption in West Bengal, Delhi and Maharashtra.

But the opposition has been crying that the government and the ruling party have been deliberately blind to the corruption scandals involving nominees of the Central government and ministers of BJP-ruled states. In the last few weeks, multiple charges have emerged against BJP ministers, functionaries and nominees. The latest is the ‘charge-sheet’ submitted by the Assam unit of the Congress against Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who has been a minister for long. He is accused of amassing wealth through family members. Opposition leaders have filed a complaint with the CBI director. Sarma, an aggressive politician who was earlier with the Congress, has vehemently denied the charges that were earlier also made by the Aam Aadmi Party. He has now threatened legal action.

In Delhi, the AAP has fired a salvo against BJP nominee V.K. Saxena, the new lieutenant governor, alleging that he had indulged in corruption during his six-year tenure as chairman of Khadi and Village Industries Commission. He has been accused of favouring his daughter for the redesign of the Khadi lounge. But Saxena, who has fired off a legal notice, has said that his daughter did the consultancy as she had the experience and did not charge even a rupee. He has said that the AAP has heaped charges on him because he ordered a CBI inquiry against Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in the liquor policy scam.

Recently, the Madhya Pradesh accountant general found huge irregularities in the state nutrition programme. It was found that registration numbers of scooters were given as those of trucks carrying foodgrains and other material, which later vanished.

In Karnataka, the contractors association has been repeatedly alleging that the BJP regime of Basavaraj Bommai is a “40 per cent commission government”. A contractor committed suicide, claiming he had paid a huge bribe to K.S. Eshwarappa, who was in charge of rural development. Eshwarappa was forced to resign, but the Karnataka police closed the case for lack of evidence. Eshwarappa has been demanding reinstatement as minister, but the high command has not given the green signal so far.

Interestingly, none of these complaints have been taken seriously by the party nor referred to its disciplinary action committee. The corruption charges have been denied by the functionaries or the state units, with the high command maintaining the charges as fabricated by the opposition. In fact, the issues before the committee are regarding objectionable remarks made publicly by leaders like Karnataka BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel and Telangana MLA T. Raja Singh. But the complaint against Kateel has been pending before the committee for two years. Singh, meanwhile, was suspended from the party, pending further inquiry.

sachi@theweek.in

why-k-chandrashekar-raos-move-to-unseat-modi-is-not-working

Sat Sep 03 10:52:57 IST 2022

K. Chandrashekar Rao is an incorrigible optimist. The Telangana chief minister has made it a mission to forge a non-BJP, non-Congress national front for the last three years, though it has not had the desired outcome. Soon after the big flip-flop by Nitish Kumar, who dumped the BJP and tied up with the RJD and its minor allies in Bihar, Rao decided to meet Nitish to pursue his national agenda. He hopes that Nitish, a master in political gamesmanship, would agree to persuade other major regional parties to form an informal alliance to ‘Stop Modi in 2024’. Also, the assembly elections in Telangana could be held with the Lok Sabha elections, and the BJP is making an aggressive push in the state, which has been ruled by Rao since 2004.

Earlier, Rao had been hopping from one state to another to meet regional party leaders, including Uddhav Thackeray of the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi, M.K. Stalin of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu and H.D. Deve Gowda of the Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka. He has been in touch with Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, Hemant Soren of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Pinarayi Vijayan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kerala. Rao’s calculation is that these regional parties have a collective strength in nearly 300 Lok Sabha seats. He has, however, avoided the parties of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh—Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress and Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party—as both were opposed to carving out a separate Telangana. Any understanding with them would affect Rao’s support base, which has a visceral dislike for the duo. He has also not seriously pursued Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal, who keeps aloof from any political discussion with other parties.

There are other weaknesses that hamper Rao’s outreach for a national regional alternative. As he comes from a comparatively smaller state with just 17 Lok Sabha seats, he is not in a position to influence voter preference in both larger and smaller states where regional parties are an important factor. Thus, many leaders approached by Rao have been nice to him personally, but have been noncommittal in giving any undertaking of even a post-poll alignment, let alone adjustments before elections. For instance, Mamata Banerjee had not taken Rao seriously when he had approached her ahead of the 2019 assembly polls in West Bengal. He wanted her in the forefront for her considerable experience, both in regional and national politics, and better acceptability in the fight against BJP.

Rao’s second flaw is his insistence on keeping the Congress out of the calculation, because it is a political rival in Telangana. Thus, any approach to the Congress would help the BJP in projecting itself as the only alternative force in the state. Even the state Congress is not keen on a tie-up with Rao’s Telangana Rashtra Samithi.

But some of the parties approached by Rao have the Congress as a junior partner. It is part of the alliance with the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra, a long-term ally of the DMK in Tamil Nadu and of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and, now Nitish, in Bihar and the JMM in Jharkhand. Rao’s desire to fight or at least ignore the Congress may not work with these parties, which benefit from whatever base the Congress has in the respective states. The CPI(M), too, has its own different perception of the Congress in states other than Kerala.

But Rao, who succeeded against all odds after decades of agitation to create Telangana, is an optimist, driven by his antipathy to Modi. But political reality makes his permutations and combinations feasible only if, in two years, people vote for a hung parliament, handing a drubbing to the BJP.

sachi@theweek.in

palanivel-thiaga-rajan-the-new-poster-boy-of-fiscal-federalism

Sat Aug 27 10:50:45 IST 2022

Palanivel Thiaga Rajan has struck a strong blow for rights of state governments on policies and budgets. But the language used by the Tamil Nadu finance minister against the prime minister is perhaps unwarranted, when Narendra Modi did not name the southern state while attacking the freebie culture. Neither Chief Minister M.K. Stalin nor father M. Karunanidhi would have referred to Modi as just the “Varanasi MP”. Thiaga Rajan questioned the economic track record of Modi, who handled finance as Gujarat chief minister. But he has rightly argued that free services and essential goods given to the state’s population is well within its domain, as long as it follows the Constitution and the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act.

The debate began with Modi being furious with Arvind Kejriwal offering free electricity to consumers in Gujarat if voted to power, as AAP governments have done in Delhi and Punjab. Modi’s attack on freebies has been taken up by BJP leaders in states where the party is in the opposition. But BJP chief ministers have been largely silent.

Finance ministers of non-BJP and non-Congress governments have long been assertive on fiscal federalism. When M.G. Ramachandran was attacked for introducing mid-day meal schemes in Tamil Nadu, his finance minister V.R. Neduncheziyan strongly argued that the state was promoting education through the scheme and asserted that the state would find funds. Over time, the scheme became pan-India. Similarly, when another actor-chief minister N.T. Rama Rao offered rice at 02 per kg, there was criticism. Now, Modi government says it gave free ration to over 80 crore people during the pandemic.

Apart from the Tamil Nadu contingent, which included an assertive chief minister J. Jayalalithaa, the vocal set of state finance ministers have been from West Bengal, both from the CPI(M) and the Trinamool Congress. Economist Ashok Mitra articulated the Jyoti Basu government’s demands for fiscal autonomy. His successor for a record 24 years, economist Asim Dasgupta was both a confrontationist and collaborator in Central-state financial relations. Dasgupta headed the empowered group of state finance ministers, which worked with NDA and UPA governments on value-added tax (VAT). He was also involved with the initial work on the Goods and Services Tax (GST). After the Trinamool came to power, another economist Amit Mitra carried the baton.

Unlike the GST, which was rolled out simultaneously in all states, VAT saw delayed implementation in two big states. Under strong chief ministers Jayalalithaa and Mulayam Singh Yadav, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh did not roll out VAT with other states in 2005.

Another state finance minister who batted hard for fiscal independence of states was Kerala’s Thomas Isaac. The Marxist found his option of raising funds limited under the eye of the Centre, the Reserve Bank and the provisions of the Finance Commission. He devised a government-run agency, entrusted with raising capital through loans for big infrastructure projects, taking them out of the budget ambit. These loans, nicknamed masala bonds, drew the ire of the Centre, which brought them under the state debt limitations. Additionally, Isaac, who opted out of government owing to CPI(M)’s rotation policy, was furious with the Enforcement Directorate for asking whether there was any money laundering for loans borrowed for the state’s infrastructure projects!

Many chief ministers keep the finance portfolio either because they have handled it before or to keep control on their colleagues. One such chief minister was Karnataka’s Ramakrishna Hegde, who organised conclaves of non-Congress chief ministers to demand an end to the Centre’s fiscal domination.

Now, Thiaga Rajan is carrying the baton aggressively.

sachi@theweek.in

behind-modis-criticism-of-dynasts-is-an-electoral-factor

Sat Aug 20 10:58:53 IST 2022

Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech has been viewed through many prisms. His emphasis on India reaching a decisive phase in the fight against corruption is seen as a message to all political rivals—that the central investigative agencies would intensify investigations against those suspected of amassing wealth illegally.

The agencies have already questioned the Congress’s top leadership. There are indications that Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee may be questioned about the allegations against former West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee. But there is silence in BJP circles over the inaction of investigating agencies regarding corruption allegations against some BJP leaders, especially in Karnataka, where the contractors have alleged that they had to pay 40 per cent commission to politicians for every project.

The second prong of the prime minister’s attack was on dynastic politics—a familiar theme in the BJP’s campaign against the Congress and some regional parties. The subject has become all the more relevant after the political coup in Bihar, where the BJP lost power as Chief Minister Nitish Kumar jumped the fence to join the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, both of which are controlled by dynasts.

Critics were quick to point out that the BJP had chief ministers, Union ministers and office bearers who were dynasts. Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh described the BJP as a washing machine that laundered the dynastic history of Congress turncoats. Union Ministers Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan and Jyotiraditya Scindia come from political families. There are also BJP families where more than one member occupy key positions. Former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa, who is an MLA now, has said that his younger son B.Y. Vijayendra would be his political heir. Vijayendra is vice president of the party’s state unit; another of Yediyurappa’s sons, B.Y. Raghavendra, is a Lok Sabha member.

But Modi’s defence is that he has inherited legacy issues within the party, one of which is the practice of dynasts actively working for the party. His supporters point out that he did not allow family members of prominent leaders like L.K. Advani, Arun Jaitley and Ananth Kumar to replace them in Parliament.

But the pointed focus of his attack is on dynasts who completely control a political party, especially those sons and daughters who control even the second and third positions in a party. The Congress is tightly controlled by Sonia Gandhi and her two children; Lalu Prasad and his wife and children occupy the first to fifth rungs in the RJD; K. Chandrashekar Rao and his son, daughter and nephew control the Telangana Rashtra Samithi; H.D. Deve Gowda and his sons, daughters-in-law and grandsons control the Janata Dal (Secular) from head to toe.

Exceptions are the communist parties, the Janata Dal (United), the Aam Aadmi Party, the AIADMK, and the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha, where Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, whose father was also chief minister, has no relatives in control of the party. Women leaders such as Mamata Banerjee and Mayawati have nephews in key roles in the Trinamool Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party, respectively.

Come 2024 elections, and the BJP would have to face dynastic parties, including estranged allies such as the Shiromani Akali Dal run by the Badal family, in about 400 Lok Sabha seats. If the BJP were to lose seats in the Hindi heartland, as well as in Maharashtra and Karnataka, it would need seats in eastern and southern states, where regional parties are dominant.

Modi’s speech from the Red Fort not just framed this national issue, but also acted as a bugle call for BJP leaders and campaigners.

sachi@theweek.in

nothing-simple-about-party-symbol

Sat Aug 13 11:26:07 IST 2022

Power in Maharashtra was easily snatched by the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena from Uddhav Thackeray, but the arrow has been elusive. The Supreme Court’s observation that the manner of the split in June has raised new questions means the Sena’s election symbol remains with Thackeray. The outgoing chief justice-led bench also noted that the dispute for the symbol may go to a larger group of judges and it could take months, if not years, to decide who would ultimately possess the arrow. While a majority of state MLAs and Lok Sabha members support Shinde, thanks to big brother BJP, most of the organisation is still with Thackeray. Also, the court has to decide whether only a parliamentary revolt amounts to a split or should it be organically within the party. However, the speakers of Lok Sabha and state assemblies only look at the parliamentary numbers as per the anti-defection law.

Former vice president M. Venkaiah Naidu had recognised a split in the Telugu Desam Party only by its Rajya Sabha strength. Similarly, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla recognised a split in the Lok Janshakti Party based on the majority being with Pashupati Paras. Both decisions helped to bolster NDA numbers in Parliament. Both rebel groups did not vie for the symbol of the original party.

But under electoral laws, it is the Election Commission’s responsibility to recognise political parties, allot or cancel symbols and decide on claims of splits and mergers. This has been happening since the first general elections in 1952. The commission’s record rooms are bulging with case files of major splits—the Communist Party (1964); the Socialist Party (1965); the Congress (1969 and 1978); the DMK (1972)—as well as a merger of four parties to form the Janata Party (1977).

The smallest party that has become multiple smaller parties is the Republican Party of India, founded by B.R. Ambedkar. There are half a dozen RPIs, including one headed by Union Minister Ramdas Athavale and another headed by Prakash Ambedkar. The state-level byproducts of the once mighty Janata Party include the Biju Janata Dal (Odisha), the JD(United) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (Bihar), the Samajwadi Party (Uttar Pradesh), the JD(Secular) (Karnataka) as well as the Jannayak Janata Party and the Indian National Lok Dal (Haryana).

When the AIADMK was riven with fissures after supremo J. Jayalalithaa’s death, the factions had approached the commission for the two leaves symbol, which was first frozen before the dispute. Now again the party has had a division, though bulk of the organisation and MLAs are with former chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami. But the lone Lok Sabha member, who happens to be the son of rebel O. Panneerselvam, has stayed with his father.

Since 1980, the Congress has not had a major split at the national level where there was dispute over its hand symbol. But there were rebellions against Rajiv Gandhi, led by V.P. Singh; against P.V. Narasimha Rao by Arjun Singh-N.D. Tiwari and Madhavrao Scindia groups and finally against Sonia Gandhi by the Sharad Pawar group. All the rebels formed their own political outfits, but V.P. Singh merged his Jan Morcha into the Janata Dal; the Tiwari Congress and Scindia’s Madhya Pradesh Vikas Party returned to the Congress. Only Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party is going strong in Maharashtra, though in alliance with Sonia Gandhi.

The BJP was formed in 1980 after de-merging from the Janata Party. It has not had a national level revolt, though regional chieftains—Kalyan Singh (Uttar Pradesh), B.S. Yediyurappa (Karnataka) and Babulal Marandi (Jharkhand)—formed their own parties, did electoral damage to the BJP and were then welcomed back.

The apex court’s verdict in the Sena symbol dispute would be of immense interest to all political parties.

sachi@theweek.in

why-war-of-placards-in-parliament-may-not-end-soon

Fri Aug 05 15:56:44 IST 2022

Don’t bring placards into Parliament complex.” Parliament officials called it a routine circular, but the Congress saw it as a challenge. Young MPs, especially from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, told the leadership that it is the right of MPs to bring placards displaying their demands on burning issues, as they were sure the BJP’s larger shouting power would deny their right to speak.

But the reaction of the Speaker, Om Birla, was equally swift. He warned members not to bring placards, as it violated the discipline of the Lok Sabha. But the Congress MPs insisted on their right, and the government moved a resolution suspending four vocal MPs for rest of the monsoon session.

There was similar crackdown in the Rajya Sabha by the Chairman, Venkaiah Naidu, and the government, so more members were suspended. It plunged Parliament into chaos ahead of the 75th anniversary celebrations of India’s independence.

Though the Speaker revoked the suspension a week later, he told the members he would not tolerate if they brought placards. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi went a step further, asking for an apology and commitment from the Congress leadership that the members would be disciplined. The Congress would not budge.

Placards matter a lot to the opposition for several reasons. As the BJP has overwhelming majority in the Lok Sabha, it is an uneven match in terms of numbers and lung power. The BJP shouts down any demand to raise issues. The Speaker would not allow zero hour to be a free hour, unlike during the time of minority and coalition governments.

Opposition MPs also realise that live telecast of parliamentary proceedings, as well as YouTube and social media uploads, gives them tremendous exposure. When speech is drowned in noise, a well-written placard grabs camera attention. MPs across party lines are known to get their speeches or actions narrated in subtitles in their own languages.

They argue that the rules were made at a time when telecasting and social media did not exist and only speeches were reported in print media.

But every strong ruling party uses rules to its advantage, while in the opposition it argues the reverse. It is true for the BJP also. Congress members cite how BJP members, when in opposition, brought placards in Parliament and state assemblies.

In almost all parliaments, members bring placards, especially relating to their constituency or special interest demands. The US Congress even allows members to use a stand where large cards, highlighting the case being argued by the member, are displayed by rotation, so that the member can use the telecast selections for his/her constituents. There are also instances, in the South Korean parliament, of both sides bringing contrarian placards and having a placard fight.

The general understanding in Indian Parliament earlier was that while placards were not unwelcome, members should not bring placards attached to steel or wood frames and sticks. These could be used as weapons when tempers run high. It was more welcome to bring slogans written on paper, which if needed can be snatched and torn, like a House of Cards.

No list of banned substances can be complete. Long ago, a member claimed he could bring a revolver to show how lax the security in the complex was. In 2008, BJP members brought bundles of currency and placed them on the table of the Lok Sabha alleging that the Congress was trying to buy some members so that the Manmohan Singh government could win the confidence vote, after Left parties withdrew their support. On television, the cash in the house was more impressive than the speeches.

Members alleging police assaults on them have brought blood-soaked clothes to visually demonstrate their suffering. Members also make statements with the clothes they wear, and sometimes wave scarves of particular colour and signage. Members also use shouting of slogans to make a point in a collective voice. BJP members since 1992 have been saying Jai Shree Ram in Parliament, while communists would often shout Inquilab Zindabad or AIADMK members would raise slogans in Tamil praising their leader J. Jayalalithaa.

The war of placards may not end soon, as the Congress thinks the placards are more provocative, while the BJP is determined not to allow placarding to be a new parliamentary convention.

sachi@theweek.in

sachidananda-murthy-on-the-right-way-to-play-the-diversity-card

Sat Jul 30 11:38:08 IST 2022

The BJP is claiming the high ground for bringing diversity in national politics through the presidential nomination of Droupadi Murmu. Party leaders are celebrating how Narendra Modi put the focus on the 8 per cent tribal population of the country by selecting the first tribal president. Some followers also say that among the last five presidents, the three nominated by the National Democratic Alliance were a Muslim (A.P.J. Abdul Kalam), a dalit (Ram Nath Kovind) and a tribal (Murmu). The indication is that among the two nominees of the Congress between Kalam and Kovind, only Pratibha Patil fit the diversity nomenclature, being the first woman to be in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, while Pranab Mukherjee was from the upper class.

But Congress supporters argue that if the longer history of the presidency is considered, it is the Congress that chose two Muslims (Zakir Husain and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed), a Sikh (Giani Zail Singh), a dalit (K.R. Narayanan) and a woman (Patil) as president much before the BJP jumped on the diversity bandwagon. Also, a Sikh (Manmohan Singh) was made prime minister for two terms by the Congress, they say.

However, there is frustration among dalit and tribal leaders in the Congress, who say the party seems to have deliberate amnesia about its leaders from the backward sections who were given high positions. They argue that the longest-serving tribal chief minister outside the northeast was from the Congress—Vasantrao Naik, who was chief minister of Maharashtra for 11 years (late 1963 to early 1975). He belonged to the Banjara community, a nomadic tribe that is spread across seven states. While the community has OBC (other backward classes) status in Maharashtra, it is a scheduled tribe in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Naik’s home province—Vidarbha—was part of the Madhya Pradesh state, and was later added to Bombay state that became Maharashtra. He was a legislator and minister in the three states. In 1963, Maharashtra strongman Y.B. Chavan, who had moved to the Centre after the India-China war, had backed Naik for the top post against powerful upper-caste contenders. Naik showed his mettle as an administrator and troubleshooter, and was credited with the success of industrialisation and green revolution in the state. But Naik and his tenure is not remembered much by the Congress high command, as the leftists who dominated Indira Gandhi’s second term argued that he let the Shiv Sena grow to curb communist-dominated trade unions in Mumbai.

Similarly, there is a feeling that the party has not done much to celebrate the long tenure of Jagjivan Ram as cabinet minister and Congress president, despite the dalit leader having the reputation of being one of the best defence and agriculture ministers of India. The BJP accuses the Congress of ignoring its stalwarts because of its Gandhi family obsession.

A crucial difference between the Congress and the BJP is that the ruling party’s leaders, including rejected contenders, publicly accept any decision made by Modi and his core team. There have been exceptions though, like in Tripura, Uttarakhand and Karnataka.

The situation in the Congress is different. Even while declaring that the decision of the Gandhis is final, voices of dissent are loud. This was evident in Punjab last year when the party forced Amarinder Singh out as chief minister and went through a tortuous process to replace him with Charanjit Singh Channi. As a dalit Sikh, Channi was the best example of diversity, but the decision was not even accepted by state party president Navjot Singh Sidhu and his predecessor Sunil Jakhar. That showed Channi could never deliver, and the party plunged to a big defeat.

The Congress may have to learn a lesson or two from the BJP on how to milk the maximum from the diversity agenda.

sachi@theweek.in

how-apples-might-upset-bjps-applecart-in-j-k-and-himachal

Sat Jul 23 11:10:56 IST 2022

Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar was noted for his patience as he dealt with angry farmers during long rounds of negotiations over the three controversial farm laws last year. Ultimately, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the eve of assembly elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, announced that he was withdrawing the laws.

Months later, Tomar now has to deal with a lot of tears as there is distress in the Himalayan paradise known for giving the country its luscious apples. Growers in orchards of the Kashmir valley, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are sending their representatives to Tomar, pleading for urgent steps to help the apple crop that will hit the markets from August.

Though India produces just 2 per cent of the world’s apples, the domestic varieties are known for their taste and nutritional value. Yet, imported apples are flooding markets across the country, and have caused price crashes in the past three years. Unlike the mango, which is not threatened much by foreign varieties, the Indian apple, which once dominated the market in all states, now faces competition from apples from China, the US, Europe and Iran.

The annual apple production is estimated at around 24 lakh tonnes, of which Jammu and Kashmir contributes 17 lakh, Himachal six lakh, Uttarakhand and some northeastern states a total of one lakh. The only non-hilly state that produces apples, a small quantity, is Telangana.

If those with bumper crops in Himachal were affected by the low prices, growers in Kashmir were hit more by premature snow, rain and heavy wind, which damaged the fruit-laden trees in the past three years. After the withdrawal of Article 370 and conversion of Jammu and Kashmir into a Union territory, the agriculture ministry had announced a scheme to procure the bulk of the apples produced in the valley. However, it did not make much headway.

Farmers had to depend on networks of wholesalers and agents to dispose of the bulk of their production and prices were depressed. The wholesalers blamed the lack of demand during the pandemic restrictions for the low off-take, and now argue that the demand would be robust this year as markets have opened across the country, and there has been good sale of summer fruits. However, the recent hike in GST rates for wooden packing material—the standard size is 20kg of apple per box—has added to the rising input costs.

Though NAFED (National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India), which reports to Tomar, had come up with a scheme offering fixed prices for three grades of apples in the hill states, its expectation that the three state governments should cover half the procurement expense has made the scheme come a cropper. The states enthusiastically say yes, but they have budgetary constraints.

Also, NAFED does not have its own extensive distribution chain, which means the movement of the procured apples from the orchard to the table is not as seamless as the private networks. There is also less demand in the country for processed apple products compared with other fruits.

Himachal will go to the polls this year, and Jammu and Kashmir might, too. The orchardists have threatened to make the apple an electoral issue. Tomar may come up with solutions, especially as the BJP faces a strong opposition in Himachal’s apple belt, while it hopes to open its score in the rural Kashmir valley.

sachi@theweek.in

sachidananda-murthy-on-why-naidu-was-not-at-the-national-emblem-inauguration

Sun Jul 17 18:26:43 IST 2022

The inauguration of the 6.5m-tall bronze national emblem atop the new Parliament house by the prime minister was a big event in the project to redefine the mega buildings of the capital area. There have been questions on whether the installation, in which the lions have their mouths open, is a replica of the emblem or a variation.

But, Rajya Sabha members were surprised that only the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla was by Narendra Modi’s side, apart from Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, whose ministry is executing the new complex and other mega government buildings on the Central Vista. Vice President and Rajya Sabha chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu was conspicuous by his absence.

Parliament officials had two explanations. Even when the foundation stone was laid by the prime minister, the vice president was not there, as the construction and maintenance of buildings in the Parliament complex are under the control of the speaker. However, the Rajya Sabha chairman has control over the upper house chamber, lobbies, corridors and rooms allotted for offices and parties in the Rajya Sabha. Though there are two secretariats, they coordinate on the use of common areas like the central hall, conference rooms and committee offices in the old Parliament house, and houses for members.

But, the formal control is with the speaker. (When the Rajya Sabha launched its own television channel a decade ago, it did not get space in the Parliament complex, but had to rent space in government buildings.) Thus, the speaker was present at the inauguration of the national emblem as the functional head of Parliament.

Secondly, the officials point out that under the order of precedence for ceremonial occasions, Naidu occupies the position between President Ram Nath Kovind and Modi. Hence, the presence of Naidu would have meant he would be the chief guest. But, both the speaker and the administrative department wanted the prime minister to launch the emblem as he was the initiator of the new Parliament house project. So, it was decided that only Birla and Puri would be present with Modi atop the complex, along with priests.

But, the order of precedence changes for specific occasions, like when the president arrives to open the joint sitting of Parliament—at the beginning of the new Lok Sabha term and during the budget session every year. He is escorted by the vice president and the speaker to the high podium, where the seat of the president is taller than that of the presiding officers. The prime minister, who is part of the procession, sits in the front row of the central hall.

When a new president is sworn in, the procession includes the outgoing president, the incoming president, the vice president, the Lok Sabha speaker and the chief justice of India who administers the oath of office. The Rajya Sabha chairman and the speaker are both included because the president is one of the three components of Parliament along with the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. In 1997, the vice president’s post was vacant because of the death of Krishan Kant. Therefore, the deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Najma Heptulla, sat on the dais at the swearing-in ceremony of K.R. Narayanan, while prime minister I.K. Gujral was in the front row.

However, when other functions are held in Parliament house, the prime minister shares the dais with the president and vice president. In state functions, like swearing-in of prime ministers and ministers, or presentation of national honours, the president is seated alone, while the vice president, the prime minister and other dignitaries are in the front row. When it came to the launch of the GST at a midnight function in the central hall, president Pranab Mukherjee waived protocol to state that the revolutionary tax scheme would be jointly inaugurated by himself and Modi.

sachi@theweek.in

beware-of-the-subsidy-honeytrap

Fri Jul 08 10:54:33 IST 2022

In February, the Union government almost decided not to continue with the prime minister’s free ration scheme. It was introduced in March 2020 to help the poor, including migrants, affected by loss of livelihood due to Covid-19 and economic meltdown. The finance ministry said Covid-19 was under control and India’s economy was bouncing back. Two years of support had ensured there was no privation in villages and cities. But, there was a dramatic public appeal by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who was about to face re-election. He urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to continue the scheme as the after-effects of the crisis were still being felt in the state. Modi agreed with Yogi and the government allotted 080,000 crore to extend the scheme till September. The BJP romped to victory in UP and Uttarakhand, where the scheme had high demand from beneficiaries.

Now, the department of expenditure has again told the ministry of food that the scheme should not get another extension as the food subsidy bill is mounting. However, assembly elections are due in BJP-ruled states of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, where the Aam Aadmi Party is promising subsidies. Arvind Kejriwal’s government in Delhi has followed the Union government in extending the free ration of five kilograms of foodgrain till September. But the consumption patterns studied by the ministries of food and finance show that the off-take of free grains is not heavy in Gujarat as it is in the Hindi belt. The food ministry is working on finding a golden solution where the scheme would be continued either in specific regions of the country or with a moderation in the quantum, so that there will not be heavy burden on the fiscal balance. The war on subsidies is not confined to foodgrains alone.

In Gujarat, the AAP is making a serious pitch to reintroduce a free electricity scheme, which was discontinued by Modi when he ruled the state. Modi, back then, succeeded in persuading the farmers that what they needed was assured supply of power, and not the promise of free power, which was supplied erratically. Modi had revamped the power distribution, separating the power feeders for domestic and agricultural consumption. While domestic power was available round-the-clock, the supply for agriculture pumpsets flowed only in the night, so that farmers had enough water during the day. The scheme bucked the trend of most states offering free power supply to farmers, leading to a lot of diversion and misuse, resulting in very poor supplies in most states. Kejriwal says he would give free power to 80 per cent of Gujarat’s population, matching with the scheme running in Delhi, and now introduced in the new AAP stronghold of Punjab. He taunted the “big leader” from Gujarat and said if farmers get power only in the night, even ministers and bureaucrats must get electricity only in the night; he conveniently ignored that the night restriction is only for pumpsets and not for homes of farmers.

The demand for subsidies has also begun in Karnataka as opposition leader and former chief minister Siddaramaiah is accusing the Basavaraj Bommai government of trimming the subsidies introduced by Siddaramaiah during 2013-18, and has promised to give more milk and eggs, apart from foodgrains. Bommai struck back and said his government was generating more jobs and giving higher welfare doles. The competition over government freebies is only intensifying, and will reach a fever pitch by the time of the Lok Sabha elections in May 2024.

sachi@theweek.in

sachidananda-murthy-on-how-india-is-prepping-to-host-g20-leadership-summit-2023

Sat Jul 02 16:49:46 IST 2022

Before he leaves for foreign capitals, diplomat Harsh Shringla, who is coordinator for hosting the G20 leadership summit and the ministerial-level meetings of 19 major economies and the European Union next year, is now on a Bharat yatra. He has been entrusted with the mission to implement Narendra Modi’s vision to make 2023 a very special year by hosting the biggest congregation of world leaders in the country in this century. A bigger summit of non-aligned movement (NAM) leaders was hosted by Indira Gandhi in 1983, where 97 countries and two pro-independence organisations participated. There are only four countries common to the two summits—India, Argentina, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.

But G20 is a different grouping than NAM, which was against aligning with the capitalist and communist blocs of that time. G20, which includes the highly industrialised countries and emerging economies, has been the most powerful bloc as it controls 80 per cent of global trade and 90 per cent of global GDP. Since the global economic crisis of 2008, India has been an active participant in the 16 leadership summits held so far, represented by only two prime ministers—Manmohan Singh for six years and Modi for eight years.

India will take over the leadership of G20 at its summit in Bali this year. Ignoring the recent trend of not holding the summit in a capital city, Modi has opted for New Delhi as the venue for the leadership summit. New Delhi is undergoing massive construction, with old edifices in the Pragati Maidan complex giving way to a mega modern conference venue. New Parliament and secretariat buildings are being readied, and the Central Vista from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate is being transformed.

Modi, however, does not want everything concentrated in New Delhi. Therefore, the ministerial-level meetings, which precede the main summit in the winter of 2023, are to be held in as many states as possible. Indonesia, the current year’s host, is having three ministerial-level summits—finance, foreign affairs and employment—and 10 engagement group meetings. During the last 14 years, ministerial summits on trade, agriculture and tourism have been held occasionally. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal is India’s sherpa for building the main summit agenda. But India now wants more ministerial summits to be held during its presidency, so that senior ministers of every G20 country would be involved. In addition are 10 engagement groups of government and private experts, meeting at different venues, which will give wide inputs to the leadership summit in New Delhi. That is the reason for Shringla’s national tour. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai stunned Shringla when he said that Karnataka was ready to host 10 meetings! But Shringla has more pitstops before the schedule is decided at a high-level meeting presided by Modi.

Vladimir Putin will be in focus at the summit, with the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and western European countries putting pressure on Indonesia not to invite him to Bali as punishment for invading Ukraine. But India, China, South Africa, Brazil and Turkey do not believe in exclusion of a major economy even by majority. Indonesian President Joko Widodo has said he will invite Putin, thus putting pressure back on the anti-Russian lobby on whether it should boycott only Putin or the summit. It is not the first time that Russia finds itself in the crosshairs. In 2014, Australia, as host of the Brisbane summit, wanted to keep Russia out, but BRICS countries issued a statement that no member could take a unilateral decision on another member.

Whatever be the political controversies, India wants to put its best performance as a global host in 2023.

sachi@theweek.in

how-governments-union-and-states-are-handling-the-travelling

Fri Jun 24 11:08:46 IST 2022

The Union government may want to trim its travel budget due to ballooning deficit caused by inflation and increased expenses. As lakhs of government employees travel for work across the country, they have been advised to plan their travel in advance to avail cheaper air-tickets. Department heads have been told to end the practice of giving tour approvals at the last moment, and to prioritise travel programmes of their team members. The finance ministry found that travel expenses surged for physical meetings and inspections across ministries during the post-pandemic period.

If the government is being cautious on the travel spree of its employees, there is a sudden spurt of vacation travel during the summer months across the country. Roads leading to popular tourist destinations are getting jammed with luggage-laden cars and buses. Srinagar and Leh are witnessing huge demand for air tickets, forcing airline companies to add more schedules, and stretching the limited infrastructure at the two airports—in Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. Despite the rise in civilian killings in J&K, tour operators are aggressively selling Kashmir. Union Tourism Minister G. Kishan Reddy is thrilled that domestic tourism has been on the upswing, including visits to religious shrines, many of which had either closed down or limited the number of worshippers.

But, then, Reddy is concerned that international tourist arrivals have not been at pre-2020 levels due to hesitancy among tourists from many countries. Similarly, Indians who are keen to travel abroad are in a spot—processing of visas in majority of embassies in India are taking time due to higher demand. The Schengen visa, which gives access to most of the European countries, is particularly delayed due to the backlog. The embassies of Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands, which issue the maximum number of these multi-country valid visas, are loaded with transferred work of their embassies in South Asian countries. They are also catering to travel documents of refugees from Afghanistan and other distressed countries. Thousands of Indians working in the US are weary of travelling to India due to the long waiting period at the embassy and consulate for stamping of visas. The US, the UK, Canada and Australia are prioritising visa requirements of Indian students who want to go to these countries for higher studies. Such prioritisation would mean that regular visas for tourism and family visits do not get the priority.

Now, the external affairs ministry has undertaken an exercise to interact with governments of countries popular with Indians. Recently, Thailand announced that it was opening its borders fully for Indian citizens; Singapore is also in a relaxing mode. These two countries receive a huge number of Indian tourists every year. The ministry has also asked its embassies to speed up the process of issuing visas to foreign tourists who want to visit India. There is consensus among health, home and civil aviation ministries for relaxation of pre-flight safety measures for travellers coming from abroad, including Covid tests and filling details on Air Suvidha portal as the pandemic situation is under control. With more and more airports seeing new air services, it has made state governments push hard for tourism during the monsoon season, which normally sees a slump in domestic travel due to the reopening of schools as well as state of waterlogged cities.

sachi@theweek.in

when-democracy-is-under-trial

Sat Jun 18 11:00:23 IST 2022

There was a flutter in political circles when courts in Maharashtra denied a day’s bail to jailed ministers Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik to vote in the Rajya Sabha elections on June 10. In a tight race between the ruling alliance and the opposition BJP for the last seat, the BJP candidate won, defeating the Shiv Sena nominee, thanks to the support of independent MLAs. The courts relied on electoral laws, which say that prisoners do not have the right to vote. However, every prisoner, except those who are convicted for a term of two years or more for specific offences, can contest elections.

The courts, meanwhile, are more careful dealing with applications of imprisoned MPs and MLAs when it comes to their right to vote in Parliament or state assemblies. Article 105 of the Constitution gives MPs the absolute freedom to speak and vote in Parliament and its committees, while MLAs are extended this privilege under Article 194. But since jailed members cannot be released for daily sessions, which would make a mockery of the order of judicial custody, the courts follow a golden rule. A day’s bail is granted in exceptional circumstances if a member has to vote in a confidence motion where the survival of the government is at stake. In 2008, when prime minister Manmohan Singh faced a vote of no-confidence, six MPs, including two sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, were released for two days.

Such a crisis can also force political parties to bring to the house even those MPs who are on the sickbed as it happened during the vote faced by Singh. The BJP told speaker Somnath Chatterjee that it wanted to bring former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to vote. Chatterjee said Vajpayee could vote in the Parliament lobby where a full medical team had assembled. Finally, the BJP chose not to disturb Vajpayee as it realised that Singh had mustered enough numbers.

But a ticklish question arises when a large number of opposition MPs and MLAs are arrested by vindictive Central and state governments, accusing them of committing non-bailable offences. The opposition has been complaining that Central agencies are working overtime to put hostile lawmakers in jail. Such arrests could distort results of key elections. The Constitution says MPs and MLAs will vote to elect the president, while MPs alone choose the vice president. Similarly, it is the right of the MLAs to choose Rajya Sabha members from their states. In states with bicameral legislatures, MLAs also elect one-third of the members of the legislative council.

What if Central agencies and state governments conspire to send a number of elected representatives to jail before the presidential elections in July? The courts, faced with strong arguments from the prosecution, may wash their hands of the matter, saying that voting in a presidential election is not a fundamental right for the MPs and MLAs. Their hope then lies with the Election Commission which is expected to conduct free and fair elections.

Though the EC cannot permit voting by those in jail, it has the right to cancel or postpone elections. It has earlier cancelled elections in an entire state or in a particular constituency because its ground reports said voters would not be able to exercise their choice freely. But it is for the EC alone to determine what is the tipping point to make such an important decision.

sachi@theweek.in

modi-and-shah-are-on-a-mission-to-enfeeble-the-congress-writes-sachidananda-murthy

Fri Jun 10 10:53:33 IST 2022

These days, some junior functionaries of the media department at the BJP’s national headquarters in Delhi ask a question before the day’s work ends: “Which state will it be tomorrow?”. It is not about party affairs in a particular state, but about where the next big defector to the BJP is coming from. The answer is known when party president J.P. Nadda or one of the general secretaries lets out the name of the newcomer just before the official announcement at a media briefing. The team, however, knows early if the briefing is scheduled in a state office, as the new entrant would be from that region. These days, though, the answer is more often than not Gujarat.

Ahead of state elections later in the year, the party is in war mode in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. Both leaders have been frequenting the state to ensure that the party is in shipshape to fight the elections. They are inaugurating a slew of programmes aimed at specific sections of the electorate and closing gaps in the social coalition of the party, even as the new chief minister, Bhupendra Patel, is working on a clear script with his team of first-time ministers.

Apart from projecting development and expanding the BJP’s social base, Modi and Shah are on a mission to enfeeble the Congress, which has been the principal opposition in the state during the BJP’s uninterrupted rule of more than 25 years. The duo had planned and won elections as chief minister and senior state leader before moving to Delhi in 2014. But in 2017, the party, under Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, got a big jolt when the Congress threatened to end the reign—the BJP won 99 of 182 seats, barely winning a majority.

Compared with Modi’s triumphs in 2002, 2007 and 2012, this was poor. The prime minister was shocked to see that, just three years after he left the state, the party machinery had become wobbly under two chief ministers—Anandiben Patel and Rupani. The latter was retained as chief minister, and Gujarat became a priority.

That the party won all 26 seats in the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections was not consolation enough. The BJP high command worked with a single zeal to weaken the Congress; several of the latter’s MLAs were persuaded to resign and win byelections on the lotus symbol. The BJP also worked on persuading big community leaders like Hardik Patel at the state level and others at the district level.

Another setback for the Congress, though temporary, is the decision of veteran leader Bharatsinh Solanki to take a short break from active politics because of a family crisis. He has, however, promised to be back to mobilise votes for the party during the elections. The trickle of Congress defectors has become a stream in the past few weeks, and could become a torrent if Operation Lotus finds more success.

As politics abhors a vacuum, there are speculations that other forces may fill the space a weakened Congress might vacate. After some success in municipal elections, the Aam Aadmi Party is already fluttering its wings in Gujarat. There is also talk of the emergence of strong independents in some districts.

sachi@theweek.in

gyanvapi-sachidananda-murthy-writes-on-the-prospect-of-religious-bench-in-courts

Fri Jun 03 11:29:59 IST 2022

The clogged lower courts in India are going to be even more choked as activists are planning to file petitions seeking to enforce their right to worship in disputed shrines in many parts of the country. The suit filed in a local court in Varanasi for conducting a survey in the Gyanvapi mosque, alleged to have been built after razing a temple, has already attracted a trail of petitions. This case, which travelled like a rocket to the Supreme Court, was sent back to the Varanasi district court.

Now, there is a similar petition in a Delhi court that seeks to restore Hindu and Jain temples inside the Qutub Minar complex, built by Qutb-ud-din-Aibak.

The Archaeological Survey of India, which manages the complex that includes an iron pillar, a mosque and other halls, has said that the monument has been protected since 1914, and that nobody had the right to worship at the complex. But the petitioners have been demanding a survey by court commissioners, as was done in Gyanvapi.

In several states, district courts are getting suits seeking to enforce the right of worship by litigants who claim either to be “friend of the deity”, or wanting to fulfil their right to worship in a shrine of their choice. Such suits are multiplying, showing a mirror to the contested history of the last ten centuries, despite the existence of law that prescribes status quo as in 1947 for all places of worship except Ayodhya.

Since the Allahabad High Court—and later the constitution bench of the Supreme Court—upheld that the deity in a temple has an interest in the ownership and title of the temple, the gates have been opened for petitioners seeking justice on behalf of deities whose temples were forcibly converted into mosques. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad is also organising lawyers’ collectives to guide these petitions in many districts of the country, as they have local jurisdiction and context.

But, in one way, these are public interest petitions also, which can be filed only before the Supreme Court and high courts under Article 32 of the Constitution—as the “right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion”.

In Article 25, this right can be enforced. But those who are aiming for using the judicial route to prove that a particular mosque was once a temple are more comfortable testing the waters in local courts. They are filing the suits that can enforce individual rights, while the Supreme Court has said a public interest litigation should have a bona fide interest cause, vindicate the cause of justice, and that the petitioner should not be a “mere busybody or interloper”. The locus standi of the devotee would be easier to establish in a lower court than the loftily defined qualifications when the petition is filed in the constitutional courts.

But as local petitions are heavily contested by mosque committees, and also those who pray in these mosques, most of the cases would travel up the judicial ladder to the high courts and Supreme Court. Perhaps the number of appeals may be such that the chief justices may have to constitute a separate “religious” bench, similar to the green bench (for environmental matters), taxation bench (for taxation disputes) or the social bench (for enforcement of social rights).

sachi@theweek.in

cag-has-become-quiet-in-the-last-decade-who-is-responsible-asks-sachidananda-murthy

Fri May 27 11:03:00 IST 2022

If things go as per the plans of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, the coming monsoon session of the two houses could be the last to be held in the old circular building. Construction teams and interior decorators are working hard to ready the new Parliament House in the adjoining plot in time for the winter session in November. Yet, there are no indications so far of any explosive report from the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) which would rock the old building, which has reverberated with tension over CAG reports on Bofors, 2G telecom spectrum allocation and other smoky deals of the then governments. Even the number of reports submitted to Parliament is less compared with a decade ago, because of a new cluster system adopted by the financial supervisory body with autonomous powers under the Constitution.

The CAG, either by accident or design, has stopped creating any sensation since the days of Vinod Rai (who was in office from 2008 to 2013). His reports on the anticipated loss of 01.76 lakh crore had rocked the Manmohan Singh government, leading to an uproar in Parliament. There were corruption cases against communications minister A. Raja, senior officials and middlemen, but the cases were unproven and Raja was acquitted. There were other reports of the CAG in the first decade of the 21st century which had made the governments at the centre and states tremble.

But all has been quiet in the past decade on the CAG front. If Rai’s reports were sizzlers, the reports from his low-profile successors—Shashi Kant Sharma, Rajiv Mehrishi and now G.C. Murmu—have not created much enthusiasm. Even the report on the twists and turns in the negotiation for the purchase of Rafale aircraft from France was a flat one, though the copies of the files received from the defence and finance ministries occupy a big room at the CAG headquarters.

While Rai headed the department of financial services before becoming CAG, Sharma was defence secretary during the UPA era and Mehrishi was finance secretary and later home secretary under the Narendra Modi government. Murmu had worked with Modi in Gujarat and later in the Union finance ministry, apart from being the first lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir. Both the Congress and BJP governments have preferred to appoint IAS officers as CAGs, instead of professionals from the Indian Audit and Accounts Service.

The public accounts committee (PAC) of Parliament, which had followed up on controversial audit reports earlier, has also now become subdued. By convention, the all-party committee is headed by a frontbencher of the main opposition party. But the dominant numbers of the BJP in Lok Sabha have meant that the BJP committee members can veto the chairman, unlike in the coalition era. The first Congress nominee since 2014 was former Union food minister K.V. Thomas, who was recently expelled from the Congress. Thomas had an uneasy relationship with the high command, especially over his passive role as PAC chairman.

Though the more combative Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury later became PAC heads, they, too, have not been able to deliver any hot reports for two reasons—they are not getting controversial stuff from CAG and even when they have some material, the aggressive BJP members have their say.

But the Modi government insists that there is no masala in audit reports because the government follows procedures and eschews corruption. The opposition, however, says it is because the government has aggressively interfered with high constitutional offices and prevented X-raying of bad deals. Either way, there seems to be less excitement at the desk of the government’s top auditors.

sachi@theweek.in

its-padayatra-time-for-parties-and-patras-says-sachidananda-murthy

Fri May 20 11:17:16 IST 2022

The pandemic scare has died down, and political parties are now planning for yatras in a big way.

There were political rallies and long walks during the pandemic phase, too, but the Election Commission had put a lid on the holding of mega rallies during elections in Uttar Pradesh and other states this year. There were also complaints in many states against politicians violating the crowd norms fixed under the Disaster Management Act for preventing the spread of Covid-19.

But now, with the crowd limit being lifted in all states, planners are busy convincing their bosses to hit the road.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah is hopping from one election-bound state to another to secure the first-mover advantage for the BJP. He has just completed a day’s brainstorming in Gujarat, where he has told the party leaders that the next four months should see a surge in party activity. Among the plans is a state-wide yatra led by the low-profile Chief Minister Bhupendrabhai Patel, alongside local chieftains, so that the ground is prepared for high-profile campaigning by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Shah has also been on several trips to Karnataka to pull the faction-ridden state unit together. He has told Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur to get the local morchas moving. Unlike earlier occasions, when the party avoided holding rallies during the monsoon, which would hit both Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh, the BJP wants to have outdoor activities during the rains this year—even though Karnataka elections are due only next year.

The Congress has decided that its make-or-break Kanyakumari to Kashmir padayatra would start on October 2, by which time the southwest monsoon would have retreated. The party wants its frontline leaders to get involved in the rally, which is an activity meant to charge up the cadres. But it is uncertain whether the Gandhi siblings would walk the full route. Congress leaders are planning state-level yatras also. The party faces tough tests in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh—the only states where it is in power—and in Madhya Pradesh, where it lost the government to the BJP due to infighting and defections. In Karnataka, the Congress had been a junior coalition partner in the Janata Dal (Secular)-led government, but the BJP toppled the shaky government in 2018.

Meanwhile, Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu, who is a veteran of many padayatras, is drawing up plans for a year-long journey through Andhra Pradesh in 2023 to wrest power from Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, who himself used padayatra politics to beat Naidu in the 2019 assembly elections.

In neighbouring Telangana, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi has been keenly watching the rallies of state BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar and state Congress president Revanth Reddy, as both have mobilised big crowds. Now, both are planning state-wide yatras in their bid to end the rule of chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, who has been at the helm since the formation of the state in 2014.

Apart from official programmes of parties decided at national and state levels, some politicians are launching their own yatras in their constituencies of interest. BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra, who unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha elections from Puri in Odisha, has decided to return to the temple city to launch his campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Similarly, for assembly elections in the next 12 months, ticket aspirants of national and regional parties have hit the ground running, even spending good sums without the certainty of a ticket!

sachi@theweek.in

sachidananda-murthy-on-modis-u-turn-on-the-sedition-law

Sun May 15 12:52:05 IST 2022

Narendra Modi’s adherents in the BJP marvel at how he comes up with surprises. While he is an excellent mind reader, it is difficult to read Modi’s mind. He pulled a surprise on his law minister and top officials when he asked them to reconsider provisions of sedition law. Union Minister Kiren Rijiju, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had to make a swift U-turn in their defence of the sedition law, reversing the government’s earlier stand that prosecution of Indian citizens on charges of treason was valid.

Modi wants a comprehensive re-look at the non-bailable law, under which dozens of activists were booked by the police and Central probe agencies like the National Investigation Agency. While Modi’s supporters hailed it as one more vindication of his commitment to liberty and democratic values, his critics, especially those facing relentless persecution under the sedition law, accused him of adopting a diversionary tactic to avoid a knock on the knuckles from the apex court.

Whenever the NDA government has been in a spot, it has promised a review, as it did in the case of demand for legal guarantee by agitating farmers for minimum support price for rice, wheat and other commodities. But the committee, which would give a detailed report to the government, has not yet been constituted. The government has asked the Supreme Court to drop the cases, which had reached the final round, until the comprehensive review was done for which no time limit was given. But the court had tough questions on government’s U-turn and its implication on all those who are under trial for sedition.

The continuous campaign by human rights activists has made several foreign governments ask the government to address fears that civil liberties were being trampled by the police, especially those controlled by the BJP governments. There is also international pressure as economy rating agencies have warned that India’s outlook grading would get lowered if threat to civil liberties by non-governmental groups continued without corrective action. This comes at a time when rupee has been under pressure due to international economic turbulence and inflationary pressures are building within the country.

Further, the sedition game is no longer one-sided, as opposition governments in Maharashtra and Punjab are using the same stick to fix pro-BJP lawmakers and activists, leading to an ugly confrontation between police forces over the arrest of BJP leader Tajinder Bagga from Delhi. The frequent use of sedition law flies in the face of claims that a strong government has reduced anti-national activities, and that there is major improvement on the law and order front.

It helps the prime minister that his party was at the vanguard of the struggle against internal emergency imposed by the Indira Gandhi government. While top leaders like A.B. Vajpayee and L.K. Advani had undergone preventive detention back then, a younger Modi had worked underground to fight the suppression of fundamental rights.

Modi has to ensure his core constituency is not disillusioned by any dilution of the treason laws, which would seem to favour “the tukde tukde gang and urban naxalites”, whom Modi attacked inside and outside Parliament. But whether the stunning change of mind to review the sedition law has come due to a genuine concern for liberal order or because of other circumstances, would be known only when the government finalises the changes to the sedition law, after the consultative process. No mind reading till then!

sachi@theweek.in

best-option-for-babul-supriyo-is-to-swallow-his-pride-writes-sachidananda-murthy

Fri May 06 14:15:04 IST 2022

Singer-turned-politician Babul Supriyo is ready to take oath as a cabinet minister in West Bengal. The oath will be administered by Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar. But, Supriyo is not ready to receive another oath—as MLA—from Dhankhar. The governor has said that if Supriyo does not receive the MLA’s oath from him, he can remain MLA from Ballygunge (home of the Bengali film industry), but he cannot participate in the assembly proceedings.

Supriyo wants the oath for MLA to be administered by Speaker Biman Banerjee. But, amid continued spats with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, a piqued Dhankhar withdrew the powers of the speaker, whom he accused of repeatedly insulting him whenever he drove to the assembly to deliver the customary joint address. On one occasion, the main gates of the assembly were closed to the governor’s motorcade, forcing Dhankhar to enter through a side gate.

Under Article 188 of the Constitution, the oath for members of state legislative bodies can be administered by the governor or any other person designated by the governor. It has been a convention in the states that the speaker of the assembly and the chairperson of the council are delegated this power, while the governor administers the oaths to the chief minister and cabinet ministers.

Dhankhar says he is free most of the time as the West Bengal government does not send any file or information his way and that top bureaucrats defy his summons. Since he is free and is the main person assigned to administer oaths, why should he not do it, he asks. He is ready to roll out the red carpet for Supriyo at Raj Bhavan. But, Mamata thinks it will be abject surrender if the governor gets away with snipping the role of the speaker and that it will only embolden Dhankhar, whom she accuses of acting at the behest of the BJP government at the Centre.

Unlike the president, who is bound by the advice of the Union cabinet, the Constitution has given more powers to governors, including the power to dissolve the state assembly, even if the chief minister has a majority. In the 1990s, Nagaland governor M.M. Thomas had dissolved the assembly because of multiple instances of horse-trading. He did not even consult the Central government. However, an annoyed prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao did ask for Thomas’s immediate resignation.

Surpiyo, who knows he is on a weak wicket constitutionally, requested the governor to restore the speaker’s powers saying that his voters would be unrepresented if he was not sworn in. But, Dhankhar was in no mood to restore the power of the speaker. Instead, the governor, a leading constitutional lawyer, cited cases to tell Supriyo that he can continue to do his MLA’s work without taking the oath of office and that he will only miss the assembly sessions.

This has put Supriyo and Mamata in a catch-22 situation. If the chief minister wants to make Supriyo a minister, Dhankhar will swear him in. But, Supriyo will have to receive the MLA’s oath from Dhankhar within six months or lose his ministership. The other option is for Supriyo to swallow his pride and appear before Dhankhar for a double swearing-in. Especially because Trinamool strategists are not sold on the idea of the speaker approaching the courts challenging Dhankhar’s decision.

In Maharashtra, also ruled by an anti-BJP coalition, the governor has sat over for a year on the proposal to nominate members of the legislative council. In Tamil Nadu, the state assembly wants to take away the powers of Governor R.N. Ravi to appoint vice chancellors. In neighbouring Kerala, Governor Arif Mohammed Khan has refused to appoint vice chancellors, asking the government to take away his powers if he was not allowed to monitor the universities.

The games being played by the occupants of the Raj Bhavans and the chief ministerial offices are all within the letter of the Constitution, if not in its spirit.

sachi@theweek.in

sachidananda-murthy-on-why-mamata-banerjee-picked-shatrughan-sinha-for-asansol

Fri Apr 29 14:09:46 IST 2022

Shatrughan Sinha has returned to Parliament after a gap of three years. The star, who was one of the dominant voices in Hindi cinema from the 1970s to the 1990s, spent 12 years as Rajya Sabha member and 10 years as Lok Sabha member, all the time representing the BJP. But now he has entered the Lok Sabha as a Trinamool Congress member, winning the Asansol by-election. He replaced singer Babul Supriyo, who left the BJP to join the Trinamool and became an MLA in West Bengal. Sinha, 76, was still in demand both in public rallies and television programmes, and was often requested to repeat his signature one-word Hindi dialogue—Khamosh (silence)! He had a smooth ride in the stronghold of Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee.

Within the BJP, Sinha was seen as a Vajpayee-Advani man, who failed to adjust to Narendra Modi’s style of functioning. Giving him company were two other Modi critics—Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha, both of whom were also ministers under Vajpayee. The trio was critical of the departure from the ‘Raj Dharma’ (political code) practised by Vajpayee. Many others from the Vajpayee cabinet like Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ananth Kumar, however, made the smooth transition into the Modi era, getting important portfolios. But the actor, who had handled health and shipping portfolios under Vajpayee, was miffed at being ignored, a grouse he shared with Shourie and Yashwant. Even as he remained a member of the BJP, Sinha took swipes at Modi, though always in a polished language. Even after he was out of Parliament, Sinha would regularly tweet on the plight of the migrant workers who took to the highways during Covid-19 and also on the rising unemployment numbers.

At present, a ruling party MP who raises such critical issues regularly about government policies in a dignified language is Varun Gandhi. Like it ignored Sinha, the ruling establishment has not responded to any of the criticisms from Varun, who became the youngest general secretary of the party before it came to power.

For a man who projected toughness on screen, Sinha even couches his critical messages in mild language. However, when Sinha praises leaders, as he did Rahul Gandhi during his brief sojourn in the Congress, he uses a lot of admiring words. During campaigning, he eschewed the harsh language normally used by Trinamool leaders against the BJP. Though there was criticism that he was an outsider from Bihar, Asansol, with its multilingual population, celebrated the veteran’s nomination. Supriyo’s supporters who had jumped to Trinamool en masse also worked hard for the actor.

There are several reasons being given on why Mamata chose Sinha. It was seen as part of her long-term desire to make the Trinamool a party of north and northeastern India, instead of being confined to West Bengal. That is why she gave Rajya Sabha nominations to Congress defectors Sushmita Dev of Assam and Luizinho Faleiro of Goa, thinking they would help in the expansion. Sinha is an orator who had been deployed by the BJP for a quarter century to campaign in the Hindi heartland, and has a rapport with middle-aged and elderly voters. Further, Mamata feels his presence in the front benches of the Lok Sabha will annoy hardcore Modi supporters on the treasury benches.

The actor himself has not set out what his plans will be in the next session, beginning in July. Inside the house, he would be joining other parliamentarians who had glamorous careers like Hema Malini, Smriti Irani and Sunny Deol, all belonging to the BJP.

sachi@theweek.in

india-happiness-index-ranking-is-on-the-mark-says-sachidananda-murthy

Fri Apr 22 11:03:45 IST 2022

India was ranked 136 out of 146 countries in the United Nations’ World Happiness Report, 2022. This is not surprising in a survey that heavily favours north European countries for its top ten spots. The Narendra Modi government has not disputed the survey, which marginally increases India’s position by three ranks. But, the government had damned two other recently released comparative studies—the Global Hunger Index by European NGOs of Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, as well as the World Press Freedom Index put out by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), based out of Europe.

The Union ministry of women and child development questioned India being placed at the 101st place in the hunger index based on figures of malnutrition and mortality among children under the age of five. It said the Modi government had launched the world’s largest food and childcare programmes, which had improved health of babies and reduced deaths.

The Union ministry of information and broadcasting said the RSF methodology, which puts India at 143 out of 180 countries, was opaque and it did not understand how democracy works in India.

But the happiness index ranking seems to be on the mark as there is extreme unhappiness, strife and hate on many Indian streets, and the atmosphere is vitiated with negative talks by a deadly cocktail of aggressive communal groups, negative-minded politicians and provocative media anchors. There is a lot of vitriol poured out amid communal flare-ups. While the BJP blames the opposition, the Congress and other opposition parties blame the BJP for creating tensions to feed vote banks. National presidents of both the BJP and the Congress have come out with long statements blaming the other party for the ‘state of unhappiness’ into which the country is fast plunging. Even the faces of leading politicians have become grimmer as they hurl accusations ahead of elections in Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka, all ruled by the BJP.

The tautness of facial muscles is a feature among many regional leaders who have won elections emphasising on the negativeness of their rivals. If there is a national happiness index for parties and politicians in India, the first position would go to Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his Biju Janata Dal. During the 22 years that he has been in power, Patnaik has tried to avoid vile language against political opponents and critics. He is comfortable in fashioning his own programmes and has created immense sporting infrastructure, which is aimed at keeping the young students busy in a positive way. Perhaps, the second position would go to another long-serving chief minister—Bihar’s Nitish Kumar. Much more combative than Patnaik, Kumar avoids slanging matches, which BJP and Congress chief ministers resort to in their states.

Even though under Modi the BJP has scored big—like winning two Lok Sabha elections, gaining control of Rajya Sabha, gaining complete control of government and its subsidiary institutions—the furrows are stretched on the faces of team Modi, which is seeking to achieve—Congress-free India, coming to power in states in eastern India and achieving a five trillion dollar economy. But one minister who is an exception is the man in-charge of road and bridges—Nitin Gadkari. He can easily join Patnaik and Kumar in the happiness group. He exudes a smile and is rarely provocative while standing his political ground, or even while addressing a group of veteran cricket players, where he had many anecdotes to share. Of course, smiles alone will not change the deteriorating communal situation in the country. It needs the will to contain the troublemakers without fear or favour, and to stop the ugly rhetoric. Once streets come under control, possibly India’s ranking in the happiness index would gradually move up.

sachi@theweek.in

sachidananda-murthy-on-the-validity-of-bulldozers

Sat Apr 16 11:25:31 IST 2022

During the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP said it had two election symbols. One was the lotus, which the party adopted at its birth. The second was the bulldozer, which was displayed at election rallies of Yogi Adityanath. The faithful would flock to decorated bulldozers, which symbolised the power of the state and of the party to punish alleged malefactors and demolish their properties.

The police and revenue officials included bulldozing in their handbook, along with encounters, and were thrilled at the voter endorsement for their zeal. The highpoint before election was the demolition of the house of Vikas Dubey, a Kanpur-based don who killed policemen, and was in turn gunned down by the police.

Recently, a petrol pump that belonged to a Samajwadi Party MLA was levelled for being an illegal construction. There are questions raised about how the government can demolish buildings without due procedure. But, the Yogi government that proudly cites its record, has argued that it is upto the criminal to prove ownership, and also that none of the laws that permit demolition are violated.

There are murmurs of resentment among ministers and officials in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh over the state government’s demolition drive. The most famous case happened in Indore when the local administration demolished properties of a businessman, after he had honey-trapped politicians and bureaucrats and tried to release digital evidence. He was first arrested, after which the municipal corporation deployed the wrecking ball on his properties.

Chief minister Shivraj Chouhan and his aggressive Home Minister Narottam Mishra said the state’s bulldozers must work faster than those in Uttar Pradesh, and now the Indore Municipal Corporation has struck down more properties of offenders in one go. The government has also been accused of targeting Muslims to terrorise the community, but the BJP argues it has zero tolerance towards offenders irrespective of their religion.

It is not as if bulldozer has been exclusively used by the two BJP governments. The Congress and regional party-led governments in states have also used it in the past.

The Central government does not use bulldozers. But in the last few years, the hyperactive Enforcement Directorate, which has a wide ambit to investigate money laundering activities, has issued notices for attachment of properties of businessmen and opposition politicians. In recent days, leaders of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi, which rules the most wealthy state, have experienced “special attachment”, including Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s brother-in-law [Shridhar Patankar], Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, minister Nawab Malik and Shiva Sena spokesman Sanjay Raut. There are vows made by opposition politicians that once the wheels of power turn, same medicine will be administered to those politicians of the BJP who are riding high.

The Mughals and the British used to punish villages for offences committed by a few residents. Punitive fines were levied on people living in streets, and villages were demolished, so that nothing remains on record. Sometimes an entire population was uprooted and forced to migrate.

But, since 1947, more sophisticated methods were used to shift inconvenient settlements by seeking the land to be acquired for development projects. The Allahabad High Court and the Supreme Court have stayed the practice of the Yogi government of imposing massive fines on charges of destruction of public property and ordered refunds. But there has not been a comprehensive judgement on the legality of the bulldozer. Jurisprudence that strikes its own special fear.

sachi@theweek.in

why-india-may-never-get-a-super-agency-sachidananda-murthy-explains

Thu Apr 07 16:31:19 IST 2022

Chief Justice N.V. Ramana’s proposal for a super investigative agency replacing multiple Central institutions is not a new one. There have been demands earlier, too, to merge the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office and the National Investigation Agency into an umbrella organisation under one powerful boss. Ramana feels that if the merger is done through a carefully crafted law, then there would be no scope for political interference.

He argued during a police lecture that a committee of experts could choose the uber agency’s head; someone who will owe allegiance only to the Constitution and not to any individual or party. The cupboards of the prime minister’s office, and the ministries of home, finance, personnel and law have many files on the merger proposals, but there has been internal and external opposition to the creation of such a behemoth.

Firstly, there have been turf wars between the four ministries who argue that they know best how to investigate crimes in their domain. The finance ministry has gone on expanding and muscling the ED, and the income tax, GST and customs investigation wings for probing money laundering and tax evasion. The home ministry insists it is best qualified to investigate the anti-national and anti-social. The personnel ministry says that the CBI is the right agency to probe corruption cases in the government. And the corporate affairs ministry is looking to expand the SFIO.

In recent years, the CBI has lost anti-terrorism cases to the NIA and financial fraud cases to the SFIO. The ED, with the argument that money is at the root of all crimes, has delved into the domain of all central agencies and of the state police forces, too. Big states have tried to counter it by strengthening their special investigative teams and economic affairs wings.

But in a majority government, the turf war is not a problem as the strings are controlled by an all-powerful prime minister, to whom agencies like the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing also report. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who declared war on black money and corruption in his first cabinet meeting in 2014, has relentlessly driven the agencies even to bring back economic fugitives from abroad. But, the opposition has accused the Modi government of continuously targeting political rivals, their families and friends.

Senior officials point out that the trend has been to split agencies, not merge. The NIA and the SFIO were created by taking away the powers of the CBI, while the income tax department has ceded powers to the ED. The dysfunctional Lokpal, too, has got powers which were with the CBI. There is also the argument that the investigative agencies have to be accountable to Parliament and that control can only be exercised by questioning the elected government which is responsible to Parliament. The government does not want the super agency to have powers like prosecutors in Italy and France, on whom the executive has no control.

sachi@theweek.in

mann-wants-special-financial-package-join-the-queue-say-other-cms

Sat Apr 02 10:48:22 IST 2022

The new Punjab Chief Minister, Bhagwant Mann, made an overarching request for a special financial package of Rs1 lakh crore from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bail out the state from its debt trap, which he says is Rs3 lakh crore. Mann insists this money is needed for making his state “rangeela [colourful] Punjab”. Metaphorically, several chief ministers would be shouting to the new entrant to the club that he should join the end of the queue of special package aspirants. Among them are Naveen Patnaik of Odisha, Nitish Kumar of Bihar, Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal and Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy of Andhra Pradesh. They all have failed to get special economic packages or special status from the Union government in the last two decades.

Each had given special reasons to justify the urgent need for funds, apart from fiscal mismanagement by their predecessors. Patnaik and Banerjee had pointed to the long-term neglect of the eastern region and how both their states and Jharkhand lacked infrastructure and had fewer employment opportunities. Kumar and Reddy have argued that after the bifurcation of Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, the more revenue-generating districts had gone to new states of Jharkhand and Telangana. But the three prime ministers of the 21st century—A.B. Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh and Modi—had a consistent stand of saying no to requests for special financial packages, even though Singh had promised that Andhra Pradesh would get special status. But then Singh lost power, and even though Modi was partnered by N. Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party, his government cited constitutional difficulties in granting the same—which made the TDP leave the NDA in 2018. Only the northeast states and the Himalayan regions of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh as well as Jammu and Kashmir have special status, where the Union government bankrolls more of their expenditure, compared with the other states.

Arun Jaitley, who was finance minister for five years, had argued that the Union government had increased the share of states from the Central pool. He wanted the states to contribute to the Centre to meet partly the expenses for defence and internal security. Some of the states which have better revenue income—like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Delhi, Gujarat and Haryana—have rarely made requests for special funds, though they have asked for funds for specific purposes like natural disasters and specific infrastructure projects in the roads and rail sector.

Nitish Kumar, who re-joined the NDA in 2016, has been frustrated that he has not got any special status. Reddy—who had unseated Naidu on the charge of failing to get special status for Andhra Pradesh—on the other hand, is under attack from Naidu for failing to get any extra money from the Centre. However, the Union government has argued that states across the line have benefitted from the Rs20 lakh crore stimulus package announced for meeting the Covid-induced economic crisis, and also from the extra funds allotted for the creation of health and vaccine infrastructure. The Union government has also relaxed the rules which allow states to borrow from private and foreign sources, but the states argue that these loans carry their interest burdens.

When new chief ministers complain of mismanagement of state finances by their predecessors, the NITI Aayog always advises prudent management of resources and cutting of freebies. But like all other new helmsmen, Mann, too, has announced money-guzzling schemes. Unlike the AAP-ruled Delhi—where a lot of expenses for land development, policing and national capital area management are paid by the Union government—Mann will have to manage with the funds the state government can generate.

sachi@theweek.in

the-selective-dynasty-card

Thu Mar 24 16:55:04 IST 2022

Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigned on the anti-dynasty theme in Uttar Pradesh as he took on the Mulayam Singh Yadav family-dominated Samajwadi Party. His party retained the four states despite the challenge from the bigger dynastic party dominated by the Gandhis. He told wildly cheering BJP MPs from the party-ruled states that he had personally denied tickets to sons of MPs and other party leaders, as he wanted the party to fight dynastic tendencies across the country.

During the seat allocation stage, more than 100 BJP leaders had sought tickets for their children. Some of these aspirants, like Mayank Joshi, son of party MP Rita Bahuguna Joshi, had defected to the SP. Even former UP labour minister Swami Prasad Maurya had jumped the ship as he was not confident of getting a ticket for his son; Maurya’s daughter Sanghmitra is a BJP MP from Badaun.

Ever since he became the prime ministerial candidate, Modi has pushed hard against dynastic politics. He has targeted not only the Gandhis, but also the Pawar family (Maharashtra), the Rao family (Telangana), the Lalu Prasad family (Bihar), and the Abdullahs and Muftis (Jammu and Kashmir). During the campaign phase of West Bengal assembly polls last year, he had attacked Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek’s hold in the government.

Modi, however, had remained silent on the Badal family’s control over long-term ally Shiromani Akali Dal, which broke with the BJP over the farmers’ agitation. Similarly, he had not directly attacked the Gowda family’s dominance over the Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka, entrusting the attack to local BJP leaders. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he had denied a ticket to Tejaswini Ananth Kumar, wife of former Union minister Ananth Kumar, who died in 2018.

But family links matter a lot in the BJP also. The opposition has been releasing a long list of dynastic relations in the BJP. Ved Prakash Goyal, father of Union Textiles Minister Piyush Goyal, and Debendra Pradhan, father of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, were ministers in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur is the son of former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal. The Scindias have five members in Parliament and legislatures, while Maneka Gandhi and her son Varun Gandhi are party MPs.

In the recent elections, Modi did not touch dynasts who were already in politics like Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s son Pankaj Singh, who retained his Noida assembly seat by a big margin. Similarly, the party gave a ticket to sitting MLA Ritu Khanduri Bhushan—daughter of former Uttarakhand chief minister B.C. Khanduri.

The BJP also encouraged new dynasties when it gave a ticket to Divya Rane, wife of Goa health minister Vishwajit Pratapsingh Rane. The Ranes were the second husband-wife duo who were given tickets, apart from Atanasio Monserrate Babush and his wife Jennifer. All four won the elections. Vishwajit had cajoled his father and four-time Goa chief minister Pratapsingh Rane of the Congress to declare that he would not contest, denying a sure seat for the opposition. But he demanded the seat vacated by his father should be given to Divya and had his way. But long-time BJP leaders who have always been with the BJP grumble that the party is more accommodative to the dynastic wishes of turncoats from other parties like Ranes and Monserrates, whereas the son of former Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar was denied a ticket.

These are exceptions, but Modi’s long-term plan is to deny easy paths to dynastic aspirants so that the party can use the dynastic deterioration card against its opponents.

sachi@theweek.in

sachidananda-murthy-on-policing-the-polls

Sat Mar 19 11:16:32 IST 2022

Once again, a long electoral stretch has ended without many incidents, much to the relief of the Election Commission, which continued to give special attention to Uttar Pradesh. This time it was seven phases in the most populous state, where the assertion of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath that he had improved the law-and-order situation over the past five years seemed to be proved on the ground.

The success should prompt the EC to stick to the T.N. Seshan era formula of polling in a small cluster of contiguous constituencies. This was adopted after Seshan had an argument with the Central government over his requirement of a large number of Central Armed Police Forces personnel, as he felt the local police was too compromised. As the sole election commissioner (till an angry government appointed two more to curb his powers), Seshan would do his calculation, especially as he had also been secretary in charge of security in the Rajiv Gandhi government.When Seshan did not get the desired numbers at one go, he went for fragmenting the election schedule. All his successors were comfortable in multiple phase polling in several states, including Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which were once notorious for booth capturing by landlords and dons; Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh (before their division) as well as West Bengal, which had Naxalite violence; and states like Punjab, Assam, and Jammu & Kashmir, which were affected by militancy. Political parties—which often were the target of attacks by militants, Naxalites, and criminals—went with the EC’s thinking of concentrating maximum forces in smaller clusters. But the situation has improved in most parts of the country as election-related violence has come down drastically, even though tensions are high in Jammu & Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Nagaland and Manipur.

The law-and-order situation in West Bengal, which was affected by the Maoist presence in Jangal Mahal, has vastly improved after a crackdown by Mamata Banerjee’s government. The Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments, too, have cracked down on Maoists. Assam has seen improvement. It was noteworthy that the election in Punjab, once the hotbed of separatism, was held in a single phase—and more heat was generated by words than arms. Further, the Central Reserve Police Force and the Central Industrial Security Force have grown big with large numbers available. The improvement in road network during the last three decades has also meant that eight-lane highways are available for transporting the security convoys in a quicker time than in the 1990s. Thus, there are several factors that make it easier to hold elections in a smaller number of phases than is being done presently. But the three key players—the EC, the Union home ministry, and the state governments—would like to stick to caution, and hence old files containing division of constituencies are taken out and dusted during every election for scheduling the polls.

The negative effect is that states and constituencies that vote in the first or second phase of a seven-phase election have to wait for a month for the results to be known. With proper thinking and coordination, this big delay can be reduced, if not eliminated. The time saved would also mean good money saved in campaigning, and deployment of forces to guard the EVMs from the earlier phases. It would also help the eventual movement towards e-voting where the entire country can vote on one day, after two weeks of electoral campaigning.

sachi@theweek.in

pakistan-not-amused-by-taliban-officials-wheat-comment-sachidananda-murthy

Sun Mar 13 12:12:36 IST 2022

It was a quality certificate that was costly for the issuer. But, the recipient was thrilled. An unnamed Taliban official had, at a meeting in an Afghan city, described wheat donated by Pakistan as inedible, while he praised the quality of the supplies from India.

Unconfirmed media reports said that as soon as the video went viral, the official lost his job, but there was celebration in Delhi’s Krishi Bhawan, which houses the food and public distribution ministry. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, who the holds additional charge of food, praised “hardworking farmers”, thanks to whom India was able to supply the Afghan people with “good quality wheat”.

There were congratulations in the godowns of the Food Corporation of India, where workers pack the wheat into bags with the inscription of the gift in English, Pashto and Dari. A total of 2,000 trucks, in batches of 40, then transport the bags through 600km of Pakistani territory to Afghanistan’s borders. As New Delhi does not recognise the regime in Kabul, the United Nations World Food Programme handles the distribution in Afghanistan.

The external affairs ministry, too, piped in saying India always ensured quality assistance to the country’s friends. But, the Pakistan government was not amused with the comparison of its own earlier shipments with Indian supplies. Islamabad launched a protest to Kabul saying that even after agreeing to the request by the Taliban for allowing the transit of humanitarian assistance from India, the criticism by a single individual was being used by the Indian government to give a bad name to Pakistani wheat.

With India-Pakistan relations at a nadir after the changes in Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan had agreed reluctantly to the transit request. This was vital, as India could not have transported such volumes through the Chabahar Port in Iran. India was able to send medicines and other essential donations through the aerial route via Gulf countries.

Interestingly, the FCI was criticised by the parliamentary standing committee on food and public distribution in a report last August. The committee said there were major complaints regarding diversion of food grains, rotting of cereals and corruption in the government-owned corporation, which dominates food procurement and distribution in the country.

The committee had asked the government to strictly monitor the corporation’s functioning as there were nearly 2,500 complaints from state governments in 2020—a three-fold increase from the previous year. The Union territory of Chandigarh had asked the FCI to take back wheat supplied for distribution under the prime minister’s free grains scheme because of poor quality. But, the government had argued that it had stepped up quality checks to ensure poor quality grains were not supplied.

The FCI has already sent 6,500 tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan and faces the humongous task of sending the remaining commitment of 43,500 tonnes during the summer. The wheat diplomacy may have pleased Afghan consumers, but there could be long faces in Pakistan, if there is more criticism of its wheat.

sachi@theweek.in

need-domestic-political-consensus-on-ukraine-sachidananda-murthy

Sun Mar 06 15:22:31 IST 2022

Describing herself as a senior chief minister and the leader of a national party, Mamata Banerjee has extended her full support to the Narendra Modi government’s diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war on Ukraine. In a two-page letter, she expressed her anguish over the suffering of Ukrainians as well as that of Indians stranded in the war zone. She highlighted the long tradition of domestic political consensus during international crises and asked the prime minister to convene an all-party meeting.

The letter has caused raised eyebrows in the BJP, given Mamata’s spat with West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and her war of words with Modi last year. But, for Modi—who is engaged in a balancing act with the west and the east—the letter from the country’s only woman chief minister, who also commands good numbers in Parliament, has been welcome.

Analysts see shifts in Indian policy, after Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in Moscow hours after declaring war on Ukraine. Along with Chinese support to Putin, this means the coming together of three nuclear powers in the Asia-Euro sector. But, given the depth of India’s connection with Russia and the continued dependence on it in multiple sectors, there is unanimity in strategic and political circles that the government’s response will have to be measured.

Mamata’s suggestion of an all-party meeting to discuss the crisis, especially when Parliament is not in session, is a good one. However, there has not always been domestic political consensus during international crises. In 1988, when the Rajiv Gandhi government sent the Indian Peace-Keeping Force to civil war-torn Sri Lanka, there was strong resistance from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and its allies in Tamil Nadu. They accused the Centre of aiding Tamil genocide.

Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee used the lack of political consensus to deflect American pressure. When president George W. Bush wanted India to send troops to Iraq, the opposition parties told Vajpayee that India should not send any uniformed men to a conflict zone unless it was under the mandate of the United Nations. Vajpayee told Bush that he was helpless as political consensus was against honouring the president’s demand.

But, summoning all-party meetings has become the norm for prime ministers, especially of coalition and minority governments in the last three decades. When all-party meetings have been held on national security and international issues, the normal response of the opposition has been to suggest that the government should act as it deemed best because it would know the full facts.

The Modi government has not been holding regular meetings on international policy. While there are informal briefings by the external affairs minister or the defence minister to select political parties on specific issues, the number of all-party meetings on strategic and diplomatic issues have been far fewer under the current regime. The Ukraine crisis is an opportunity to hear the views of the opposition and also give them the government’s assessment on the multilayered and complex issues involved, including possible negative effects on economic recovery. Mamata has shown the lead in seeking a consensus on the Ukraine issue, which at one level portends a change to the current world order and at another can lead to a mess on many fronts.

sachi@theweek.in

mission-cooperation

Thu Feb 24 15:59:58 IST 2022

During his ongoing shuttle diplomacy to unite non-Congress opposition parties to fight Narendra Modi in 2024, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao has flown over many peninsular rivers. Even though the flights were smooth, on the ground, the rivers have become political disputes.

The central government is pushing hard for a Rs80,000 crore project to link six rivers—four major and two smaller—flowing through nine states. The project report says the Godavari-Cauvery river linking would transfer surplus waters from Godavari basin to the Krishna basin (benefiting Telangana and Andhra Pradesh) and the Cauvery basin (helping Tamil Nadu). But some of the riparian states—Telangana surprisingly among them—have strong objections. Only Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are ecstatic as they can develop dry regions chronically short of water.

The riparian states have had bitter battles over sharing of Godavari, Krishna and Cauvery waters. Justice A.M. Khanwilkar of the Supreme Court is currently inquiring about the dispute over the sharing of the Mahanadi river between Chhattisgarh and Odisha. As the Mahanadi basin overlaps the Godavari basin, both Chhattisgarh and Odisha also have a say in the Godavari-Cauvery linking project. Though Kerala and Puducherry are part of the Cauvery basin, their opinion is not asked for, as they gain or lose nothing. Similarly, Maharashtra, where Godavari is a major river and Krishna flows through, has been kept out of initial consultations.

Modi, who got the river linking project launched last year by persuading the BJP governments in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh to agree to link the Ken and Betwa rivers to irrigate the parched Bundelkhand region, has a bigger job on Godavari-Cauvery linkage. BJP-ruled Karnataka has raised serious objections as its irrigation needs in the north are met by the Krishna and in the south by Cauvery.

Rao’s Telangana Rashtra Samithi is at odds with the BJP-ruled Centre and the YSR Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh. The Congress is in power in Chhattisgarh and it is anathema to Rao. Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik, after he broke the alliance with the BJP, has steered clear of national politics. Among the regional parties wooed by Rao are the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party; both are in alliance with the Congress. Tamil Nadu’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is a long-time electoral partner of the Congress.

While waters can be either harmoniously or contentiously shared, the problem with the federal front is that there are no votes to transfer among regional parties. The other regional parties Rao is pursuing—the Trinamool Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in its Kerala bastion, the Aam Aadmi Party, the Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal (Secular)—cannot exchange votes with the TRS. A post electoral coalition, too, would depend on whether the BJP is defeated in many states, and the seat share of regional parties, reflecting the hung Parliament of 1996.

Then, the regional parties together matched the strength of the BJP, the single largest party, which propelled H.D. Deve Gowda of the Janata Dal (Secular) to prime ministership. But, the general elections are two monsoons away, and both the river levels and voter moods could fluctuate and have a bearing on Rao’s mission.

sachi@theweek.in

sachidananda-murthy-on-the-bjp-silence-in-select-states-on-the-hijab-ban

Sat Feb 19 11:53:32 IST 2022

If there is a quiz on which party is the most aggressive on the issue of banning the hijab, many caught in the swirls of the current headdress controversy would answer that it is the BJP. The BJP government in Karnataka has been ferocious in its attempt to enforce a school uniform code that would prohibit dresses that are identified with a religion. The chief minister insists the code, which is being evolved, would make the school uniform religion-neutral. Ministers in other BJP-ruled states also have spoken about the need to follow the Karnataka model, while the saffron party leaders in the states where the BJP is in opposition say they would agitate for banning the burqa and skull cap of Muslims. There is a counter-campaign by Muslim student organisations insisting on the right, which they say has been in existence for decades; these organisations are asking more Muslim girls to wear hijab. Now the dispute is before the Karnataka High Court, and the losing side will inevitably knock on the doors of the Supreme Court.

But if there is another question in the quiz as to which is the least aggressive party on this issue, the surprising answer would be again BJP—at least in Bihar, Punjab and Delhi. The silence of the BJP in these states is for different reasons. In Punjab and Delhi, the saffron party cannot oppose the headdress as the Sikhs, who have voted for the BJP, would react even more strongly if there is an attempt to enforce the ultimate dream of One India, One Uniform. Even aggressive secularist countries like France and Denmark have faced resistance from the Sikh and Muslim populations. In countries with large minority populations like Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, relaxation has been provided in school uniforms.

In Bihar, the lack of noise from the BJP has a different explanation—though it is a ruling party, it is a junior partner to the Janata Dal(United). Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is a strict enforcer of the coalition dharma fashioned during the A.B. Vajpayee-L.K. Advani years, compared with the more assertive Narendra Modi era. Nitish has insisted that his socialistic and secular politics would be the political philosophy for the Bihar NDA. On many hindutva causes, Nitish refuses to react, and when he does, the cryptic comments brook no murmurs of disagreement or disturbance from the junior partner. As the JD(U) is a very junior partner in the Union government, the chief minister has told his leaders not to comment on any decisions taken by Modi or his senior ministers unless the rights of Bihar are impacted.

When asked about the hijab, Nitish came out with his standard response that it was a non-issue in his state. “When someone puts something on the head, no need to interfere. We respect religious sentiments,” was his reply. Nitish controls the police department and general administration; the education portfolio, too, is with the JD(U).

But there are BJP leaders who are itching to initiate moves to topple Nitish and install a BJP chief minister. Over the years, Nitish has measured the potential of every BJP leader and has checkmated their moves to enforce diktats on issues of faith, school curriculum and food habits. He has also been supportive of issues like the ban on instant triple talaq—which his party believes is a progressive measure—without the shrill rhetoric used by the BJP against the orthodox sections of the minority community. The moves to depose Nitish or bring him down a few notches have remained as wishes so far, as the BJP high command knows how Nitish can fight back—as he did in 2015 by teaming with Lalu Prasad to defeat a rampaging BJP. Secularism is Nitish’s political headscarf, which may be difficult to ban.

sachi@theweek.in

polls-flag-off-name-game

Thu Feb 10 17:52:31 IST 2022

A video of five policemen, who were working in an Uttar Pradesh prison, dancing and shouting “Jayant Chaudhary zindabad” appeared recently on social media with a comment that voters’ mood was changing in western UP. The vigilante who shared the video said the policemen were celebrating the “certain” victory of Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Jayant Chaudhary, who is fighting the assembly polls in alliance with the Samajwadi Party. Outraged BJP supporters demanded action against the policemen for “celebrating the defeat” of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

The Uttar Pradesh Police—known for its muscular policy, encouraged by the chief minister—has been proactive on complaints received through social media. Senior officers said the matter was being inquired into and the policemen had been asked to explain their actions. The sheepish constables clarified that “Jayant Chaudhary” was the nickname of a colleague who had been commended by President Ramnath Kovind, and the songs were sung to congratulate him. BJP supporters, however, are not convinced by the explanation.

There was an even bigger instance of confusion when Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole declared in a speech that he was so honest that he could “hit” Modi if the latter were to campaign against him. As the video went viral, BJP leaders accused Patole—who had rebelled against Modi and quit the BJP to join the Congress—of threatening the prime minister. Patole clarified that the Modi in reference was a notorious character from his constituency who was nicknamed thus. The BJP said Patole was trying to cover up his threat.

As there are restrictions on physical campaigning, political parties have found smarter ways to engage voters. After finding out that television channels and cable networks no longer give full live coverage to their speeches, leaders have arranged for huge screens to be set up in colonies and villages. Even the Congress, which was lagging behind in using new technology, compared with the BJP, arranged big screens and organised smartphone rallies for the Gandhi siblings.

Road shows are being camouflaged as door-to-door campaigns and later magnified into video shows. But the advertisement blitzkrieg over WhatsApp and Facebook, which had given the BJP a big advantage when smartphones were a novelty, has become less attractive as many users have learnt to distinguish between morphed and real videos. Political parties now employ smarter and quicker fact checkers to expose fake videos of their rivals.

Putting up dummy candidates with identical names is an old ploy which is still popular. Parties try to find and field independent candidates who have a name similar to that of their rival candidate. Even though symbols and photographs accompany candidates’ names on voting machines, simple folk sometimes end up voting for the ‘dummy’. When it was announced that both Adityanath and Akhilesh Yadav would be contesting assembly polls for the first time, there was a scramble to find lesser known Adityanaths and Akhileshs.

An interesting feature of the elections is that the more the conditions and technologies change, the more they remain the same in many respects.

sachi@theweek.in

raids-seizures-and-an-ec-dilemma-sachidananda-murthy

Sat Feb 05 11:05:56 IST 2022

The Election Commission is proud of how its expenditure observers and flying squads are preventing parties and candidates from distributing cash, liquor and gifts during the current elections. Punjab’s chief electoral officer announced that drugs worth Rs200 crore, liquor worth Rs12 crore and Rs18 crore in cash have been seized. In other states, claims are being made by both the police and election officials regarding seizures from offices, homes and vehicles.

The haul would only increase as polling dates come closer in the five election-bound states. So far, there has been no seizure of other gifts, though enthusiasts belonging to different parties have announced that lakhs of saris and shirts embossed with party symbols and images of leaders are ready. In Gujarat, where assembly polls are due next year, a sari-maker wants to get political customers from Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand.

T.S. Krishnamurthy, the first Indian Revenue Service officer to become chief election commissioner, had actively stressed the need for having observers to monitor election expenditure. He had also promoted the practice of appointing IAS officers from other regions as general observers reporting directly to the commission in poll-bound states. The present CEC, Sushil Chandra, is also from the IRS background; other chiefs in the past three decades have mainly been from the IAS.

For officials who are drafted from different regions in the country, it is an exciting experience to act on tip-offs and carry out raids when the model code of conduct is in place. Last year, when Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal went to the polls, the seizures were valued at more than Rs2,000 crore—up from Rs225 crore five years earlier. During the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, which were swept by the BJP, the seizures totalled Rs3,500 crore. Central agencies, including the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate and the Narcotics Control Bureau, have been told to focus on the hoarding of money and distribution of drugs, but opposition parties have accused them of being the BJP’s handmaidens.

Activists who work hard on ensuring clean elections are frustrated that these claims of big seizures remain just claims. In most cases, the police or the district treasury are forced to return the seized money, as the accused are able to furnish evidence regarding the source of funds and the intended use. Though the model code of conduct says that anyone who carries above Rs50,000 has to explain the source of money, the claims are easy to establish. Invariably, they are meant for business transactions, especially for purchasing property. Even though the income tax department issues a notice for possessing large amounts of cash, the accused can secure the money if they can furnish a reasonable explanation. Further, prosecution becomes difficult because officials on deputation for the election period would not be available either to complete the investigation or help the investigators in court. When activists approach the Election Commission for knowing the status of the prosecutions, they are referred to the police or Central agencies, as the EC does not have its own teams for monitoring the case.

Even in the case of liquor, ingenious claims are made to prove ownership. Seized gifts like sewing machines, pressure cookers and saris are often reclaimed by producing bills from agents. In some cases, though, they rot away in government godowns.

There are questions whether candidates and parties actually distribute drugs as an inducement, and whether drug seizures are from the usual trade and distribution channels. What seems clear is that the EC now has to seriously work out ways to ensure that seizures made during poll campaigns help in convicting corrupt players.

sachi@theweek.in

congress-thinks-only-promise-to-god-would-keep-mlas-loyal-sachidananda-murthy

Thu Jan 27 14:49:43 IST 2022

In a desperate move, the Congress shepherded its candidates fighting the Goa assembly elections to a temple, a church and a mosque and made them take an oath of loyalty to the party. The ritual is being replicated in Manipur, another state with a small assembly. In both Goa and Manipur, the BJP, with its offers of power and pelf had bought most of the Congress MLAs five years ago, denying the grand old party an opportunity to form the government. The BJP repeated the strategy later in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka—states with bigger assemblies—replacing incumbent chief ministers with its nominees. Most of the defectors from the Congress in all four states got re-elected on the lotus symbol and became ministers.

The Congress, once again fearing the brute power of the BJP and having no faith in the anti-defection law, hopes that a promise made before divine powers will bind the winners with a sense of obligation. Similar attempts, however, have come a cropper in the past. The first big attempt to hold elected representatives accountable was made by two idealistic Gandhians—Jayaprakash Narayan, revered as Lok Nayak for his fight against authoritarianism, and Acharya J.B. Kripalani. On March 24, 1977, they administered a pledge to the newly elected MPs, including four future prime ministers and two future deputy prime ministers at Rajghat. The MPs had defeated the seemingly invincible Indira Congress and many had been imprisoned during the Emergency, which witnessed the suppression of fundamental rights. The MPs, who came from eight parties, promised to carry on Gandhiji’s work, safeguard democracy and practise honesty. But within hours began the jockeying for prime ministership and the infighting was on original party lines. The Janata experiment collapsed after two years and the government was toppled. The splits and defections began in 1979, with Indira Gandhi exploiting the ambitions and egos of the men who had defeated her.

If Janata leaders had spoken about a law to ban defections, it was Indira’s son, Rajiv, as prime minister, who got the Constitution amended in 1985 to ban individual defections. But the new law permitted a split by at least one-third MPs of a party. The law has been used, misused, abused and ignored by governments of most parties at the Centre and the states in the last 37 years, as speakers have been partisan to the interests of their parties. The Supreme Court, with all its powers, could not prevent the deliberate procrastination of the Manipur speaker sitting over Congress petitions for the disqualification of defectors.

Political parties have tried ingenious methods to tackle dissent. When senior minister Arjun Singh threatened to walk away with dissidents who supported him, prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao did not expel Singh, which would have allowed him to keep his Lok Sabha membership. Instead, Singh’s membership in the Congress was downgraded to the lowest level. After some months, Singh went ahead with the formation of a new political party. Aggressive parties like the Shiv Sena and the Trinamool Congress have cadres who menace potential defectors. In more aggressive scenarios, malcontents have even been slapped by their supreme leader.

The Congress, however, has no ethical consistency as it has freely welcomed defectors and given them tickets in the five states, leading to heartburn among Congressmen who have nursed the constituencies. Unless the Congress gets majority on its own in Goa and Manipur, its hopes of retaining the victorious MLAs would rest on a wing and a prayer.

sachi@theweek.in

sachidananda-murthy-on-how-parties-pick-their-cm-candidate

Thu Jan 20 14:41:37 IST 2022

The Aam Aadmi Party added more spice to the Punjab elections by choosing a phone-in programme to select its chief ministerial face. Though national convener Arvind Kejriwal thought he would build suspense on the name, Bhagwant Singh Mann swung the polls with 90 per cent endorsement, as there was no other serious contender. As expected, Kejriwal, too, got a few endorsements to lead the border state, but nowhere near Mann’s numbers.

The strategy has been a new one, even though the AAP has used phone polls to take policy decisions in the Delhi government. Opponents were sceptical on the numbers, as it was an in-house survey that was not independently verified. However, the party had no recourse to vox populi when Kejriwal had last year announced that former Army officer Ajay Kothiyal would be the chief ministerial face in Uttarakhand. Goa is another state where the party is active and Kejriwal has a different strategy there. He has only said that the chief ministerial face would be from the influential Bhandari caste, without specifying a face.

Regional parties normally have no confusion regarding their chief ministerial faces as invariably it is the party supremo—evident in 14 states. Pinarayi Vijayan is de-facto head of the CPI(M) in Kerala, though there is a national and state leadership at the organisational level. Both H.D. Deve Gowda of the JD(S) and Sharad Pawar of the NCP are above the state leadership fray in Karnataka and Maharashtra respectively, preferring projection of Gowda’s son H.D. Kumaraswamy and Pawar’s nephew Ajit as the chief ministerial face.

Another regional party trying to expand wings outside its home base is the Trinamool Congress, but it has struggled to find a chief ministerial face in Goa.

Kejriwal had battled a whisper campaign in the 2017 Punjab elections, when it was alleged he had ambitions to become the first non-Sikh chief minister of the state. Rahul Gandhi’s announcement then that Amarinder Singh would be the face of the Congress had dramatically swung fortunes away from the AAP and the NDA towards the Congress. Otherwise, the Congress normally maintains that its policy is for elected MLAs to choose their leader, even though in reality they authorise party president Sonia Gandhi to nominate a leader.

Likewise, the BJP’s parliamentary board picks the leader, like the surprise choice of Yogi Adityanath in 2017 when the BJP had swept Uttar Pradesh. One of the many reasons for the BJP’s poor performance in West Bengal last year was that it had no chief ministerial face acceptable to its own cadres, let alone voters.

There had been demands that Kejriwal announce a Sikh as chief ministerial candidate, as both the Congress and the Akali Dal are banking on Sikh votes. When the Congress dramatically overthrew Amarinder Singh and appointed a dalit as chief minister, the Akali Dal-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance announced that the deputy chief minister would be a dalit. The AAP, too, jumped on the bandwagon, stating its preference for a dalit deputy chief minister.

The BJP, which rules four of the five states going to polls, is comfortable projecting the incumbent chief ministers. Otherwise in states where it fights elections from the opposition ranks, the BJP generally does not project a chief ministerial face—an exception was in Karnataka in 2018 when B.S. Yediyurappa’s face was on all posters. However, at the national level, the party projects a prime ministerial face like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani and Narendra Modi.

Now in Punjab, Mann has to prove he is equally popular on the ground as he is on the phone!

sachi@theweek.in

police-prosecutors-oppose-court-ordered-community-service-sachidananda-murthy

Sat Jan 15 11:20:12 IST 2022

In Swachh Survekshan 2020, the annual cleanliness survey of some 4,000 cities by the Central government, Buxar in Bihar found an ignominious place. It was the second dirtiest among cities with a population of less than 10 lakh. The first place went to the international pilgrim centre Gaya, also in Bihar. The state capital, Patna, was the dirtiest among cities with a population of more than 10 lakh.

Buxar, like other Bihar cities, had defied all incentives of the urban development ministry initiated by the Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi governments. From sewage and garbage disposal to supply of clean water, the city administration’s performance was patchy on all cleanliness parameters. The chief justice of the Patna High Court, during an official visit to Buxar, saw for himself that the environs of the court complex in the city was filthy. Interestingly, he did not issue a direction to the municipal corporation, but asked local judges to arrange community services in the area, which included temples.

The oral orders, however, were reduced to writing by an administrative officer as a direction to clean just the temples. Though questions were asked, the judges and staff came on a holiday to do community service. But the district judge felt there was some mischief in the wording, as there was no direction from the chief justice to clean only the temples. An inquiry was ordered on how the cleanliness advice was narrowed down to temples only.

It is not unusual for judges to initiate community service; several high court and district judges have imposed non-penal activities, especially while considering bail applications. Judges have asked accused persons in criminal cases and recalcitrant respondents in civil matters to plant trees, clean premises, take classes in government schools or donate books.

In Madhya Pradesh, a respondent was asked to provide a water harvesting system in the opposite party’s home. Prison authorities, too, take inmates for community service, so that the time spent helps in getting parole or early release.

When it comes to fines, especially for what a court considers as frivolous litigation that wastes judicial time, the litigants are told to deposit fines with the prime minister’s or chief minister’s relief funds, and in some cases into the Advocates’ Welfare Fund. In rare cases, judges have imposed big fines on rich convicts instead of giving them long prison terms.

The police and prosecution, however, argue against this concessional approach, pointing out that the Indian Penal Code and other criminal laws do not provide alternatives to jail and fines. There have also been instances when judges suggested baffling solutions like asking a rape victim to marry the rapist.

There was an attempt in 1978 by the Janata government of Morarji Desai to amend the criminal laws so that those convicted of offences warranting short prison sentences could instead be directed to do a stretch of community service. But the government collapsed the next year, and the amendment was not taken up by subsequent governments.

The Justice Malimath Committee, which made far-reaching recommendations for reforming the criminal justice system two decades ago, had also strongly recommended alternative accountability measures to long prison terms. But this report, too, has not been implemented holistically.

Meanwhile, Buxar festers in its garbage as even judicial advice gets distorted and leads to controversies.

sachi@theweek.in

stalin-will-need-coalition-era-to-return-to-delhi-to-scrap-neet-sachidananda-murthy

Thu Jan 06 14:51:34 IST 2022

Even as legal controversies over reservation for economically backward students in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) All India Quota flared in the Supreme Court, the Modi government is yet to give a green signal to the bill passed by the Tamil Nadu assembly scrapping NEET in the state.

Chief Minister M.K. Stalin is busy lobbying with his counterparts in 11 opposition-ruled states to join the DMK in opposing the test, which, the bill says, puts poor students from rural areas at a huge disadvantage. But as the bill challenges a Central law, it is unlikely to be recommended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to President Ram Nath Kovind for assent. Only after receiving Central approval can the state governor sign the bill and make it a law.

So far, the three-party alliance government in Maharashtra has announced its opposition to a common entrance test as the state wants to regulate admissions to its medical colleges. Now, Stalin’s emissaries are lobbying hard with other major non-BJP controlled states including West Bengal, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Punjab and Delhi to stop the National Testing Agency from conducting the test and announcing the merit list.

Interestingly, NEET was opposed by Modi-ruled Gujarat when it was introduced by the Manmohan Singh government in 2013. Ironically, the DMK, which was a founder member of the United Progressive Alliance, had withdrawn its support to Singh two months before NEET. The reason given was that the UPA government was soft towards the war crimes committed against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam by Sri Lanka’s Mahinda Rajapaksa government during the civil war.

But Singh had been convinced by the medical education fraternity that a national entrance test was the answer to complaints of non-meritorious candidates getting admission in state government-run medical colleges. The one-day examination was hailed for providing a level playing field.

When the DMK returned to power in Tamil Nadu last summer, with the Congress as junior ally, Stalin stuck to the promise he had made while in opposition. Even though the AIADMK, which was in power for 10 years, too, was opposed to NEET, it did not bring forth a state law to counter the Central law. The DMK set up a commission of inquiry—headed by a retired judge, which held that NEET was discriminatory, favouring students from elite and urban backgrounds against poor, rural students.

Stalin asked the assembly to unanimously pass the resolution. While all other parties, including the AIADMK, supported the move, the BJP’s four MLAs walked out in protest. They were acting as per the party’s stand that NEET was a beneficial exam that helped produce better doctors, especially as it was conducted in Tamil and other regional languages, apart from Hindi and English. The MLAs were not impressed by the commission’s findings that the NEET merit list had adversely affected at least one out of 10 poor students with a rural background.

Though many states have passed laws opposing a Central law, the Constitution is clear that the Central law will prevail, unless the state proposal making the law inapplicable in the state is approved by the Centre. There have been dozens of laws, including state-level amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code, that have been given assent by the Centre through the president.

But the Modi government, which believes in One Nation, One Tax, One Election, One Entrance Test, may not concede to Tamil Nadu’s request unless there is unavoidable political pressure. For success on NEET, Stalin may have to hope for a return to the coalition era where the DMK support is crucial. Meanwhile, Modi and Stalin will share the stage this year for the launch of 11 new medical colleges in the state.

sachi@theweek.in

an-aggressive-russia-a-muted-us-and-a-watchful-india

Sat Jan 01 11:20:18 IST 2022

The strong words used by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov against the United States for opposing the sale of the S-400 missile system to India have surprisingly not evoked an equally nasty reaction from Washington so far. The Indian side also was surprised at the vehemence of Lavrov’s comments made on the day Russian President Vladimir Putin met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi in early December. A few hours before that, Lavrov and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had met their Indian counterparts S. Jaishankar and Rajnath Singh together as well as separately.

This indicated multi-level contact, and it was only the second foreign trip by Putin in 2021, the first being to meet his adversary, American President Joe Biden, in Geneva. Indian defence and external affairs ministries have played a dead bat on the issues surrounding the missile system, including the threat of American sanctions for buying big weapons from Russia.

The Indian side has also been circumspect by not being willing to confirm Russian statements that some missile components have already been delivered and that the first set of deliveries will be completed by New Year’s Day. On the other hand, the Russians have been boastful not only on the missile deliveries but also on the quiet beginning of the construction of the sixth nuclear reactor at Kudankulam.

Lavrov, in his carefully prepared statements, had accused the US of trying to make India obey its orders, so that New Delhi follows the American vision for the region. This was a direct reference to India’s Quad alliance with the US, Japan and Australia. The statement also took note of the new alliance planned with Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the US, which is being nicknamed Quad West, though no summit-level meeting has taken place with the leaders of these countries. The spurt in Russia’s interest and aggression has also coincided with increased tensions between Putin and Biden over central Europe, especially Ukraine, as NATO has accused Putin of amassing an army to invade Ukraine.

India’s defence ministry has argued that it is not customary to confirm receipt of sensitive arms and that a big ceremony was organised at the Ambala Air Force Station to welcome the first Rafale aircraft from France as there was a huge political controversy at the time over the purchase. Interestingly, it was the Russian side that took the lead in announcing that the “first concrete” was poured—soon after Putin’s state visit—for the construction of the sixth 1,000MW nuclear reactor in Kudankulam. On the other hand, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India which builds the plants had not made any official announcement, yet.

The atomic energy department does not give publicity to the different stages of construction of a nuclear plant, as per its policy. But the reiteration of the nuclear energy cooperation with Russia is another reminder that the proposals to set up nuclear power plants by American companies, that were included in the India-US civil nuclear deal signed 16 years ago, are yet to be a reality. The muted American response, despite calls from a powerful senator to block the S-400 deal, may indicate the robustness of the relations New Delhi has with the Biden administration. However, there are strong feelings against Russia in the American Congress, and there is a need for dexterity among the Indian diplomats to ensure that there are no sanctions imposed on India for keeping up defence and high-technology imports from Russia.

There are also indications that Putin played the good Samaritan to bring about a rapprochement between India and China, though both sides have been tight-lipped about the conversation or where it would lead to.

sachi@theweek.in

nobody-wants-neutral-panel-to-appoint-head-of-autonomous-bodies-sachidananda-murthy

Thu Dec 23 15:16:41 IST 2021

The controversy over the law ministry’s note summoning the chief election commissioner and the two commissioners for a meeting chaired by P.K. Mishra, principal secretary to the prime minister, reignited the debate on the “arm’s length” to be maintained by heads of autonomous institutions. The principle is applied mainly to judges of the Supreme Court and high courts, election commissioners and the comptroller & auditor general (CAG), who have to take decisions which may displease the executive.

However, other functionaries of the Constitution like the president, vice president, Lok Sabha speaker, attorney general, chairman and members of the Union Public Service Commission work with the government of the day. While the president is bound by the advice of the Union cabinet, the vice president, as chairman of Rajya Sabha, constantly interacts with ministers as he has to ensure its smooth functioning. Audit reports of two CAGs—T.N. Chaturvedi on the Bofors scam and Vinod Rai on the 2G scam— have shaken the chairs of prime ministers Rajiv Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. Yet, the appointment of the chief election commissioner, election commissioners and the CAG, which is solely made by the prime minister, has seen favourite bureaucrats being selected for these sensitive jobs. Since every government has done it, there is no push to have a neutral panel appoint the high functionaries.

While judges were supposed to maintain a mile’s distance from politicians, there is now a great deal of interface with judges and ministers taking part in functions, chief justices of high courts holding meetings with chief ministers, and the Chief Justice of India consenting to be a member of committees headed by the prime minister to select the director of Central Bureau of Investigation, the Lokpal and other high-profile appointees.

In recent times, former chief justice S.H. Kapadia avoided going to social functions, as he did not want any loose talk around his adherence to delivery of justice. On the other extreme is chief justice Ranjan Gogoi, who accepted a nomination to Rajya Sabha soon after retirement. Judges and lawyers argue that unlike earlier when judges could insulate themselves in their legal towers, information revolution has invaded every judicial chamber now. There are stories of how sessions judges would not even read the morning newspaper, lest they come across a report on a murder trial they were presiding over. But now smartphones bring a barrage of news.

One functionary not mentioned in the Constitution but is expected to keep the government at an arm’s length is the CBI director. But his office has always been close to the chambers of the home minister and minister of state for personnel. In the division of his loyalties, it was devised that he would only report to the courts on the CBI’s investigations, and would report to the government on budget, staff and administrative matters. But a clever bureaucrat coined the term “preliminary inquiry”, where the government entrusted investigations to the agency without having to file a first information report in a court. That was a clear way to cage the parrot, as the Supreme Court said later about the government control of the agency.

Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra did the right thing by expressing his displeasure over the law ministry note, but did wrong by taking part in an “informal” discussion with Mishra, after the regular meeting was over. It is this informal chat that is seen as the government commanding and hugging the commission, especially when assembly elections are round the corner. Famous predecessors like R.V.S. Peri Sastri and T.N. Seshan had taken on prime ministers in asserting the independence of the commission.

But the bigger test for Chandra and his two colleagues would be the supervision of the highly charged contests in Uttar Pradesh.

sachi@theweek.in

sachidananda-murthy-a-china-policy-for-2022

Sun Dec 19 17:57:29 IST 2021

Which pressure points will work on China to make it yield the territory it seized in Ladakh has been a question vexing Indian strategic policy planners ever since the Galwan aggression happened. There have been discussions on the available economic, diplomatic and military options, and their costs. Despite the restraint on the military option, India has been ramping up its preparedness on the long and unsettled border from Ladakh to the northeast, by moving more troops and equipment. Additional warplanes have been sent to the bases, while surveillance devices in satellites, drones and aircraft monitor the gathering of more Chinese troops and the construction of permanent structures. Yet, the option of a surgical strike, which seemed so obvious in the case of Pakistan-sponsored terrorist acts, is not so easy, given the size and strength of the Chinese army and its likely response. The long rounds of military-level talks have not been scaled up to the level of four-star generals who can take decisions, while at the political level, only the foreign ministers have spoken.

The economic options, too, are limited because of the comparatively moderate economic relations, especially after the virtual halt to Chinese investment in Indian companies, and the overt and covert steps taken by the commerce ministry to discourage exports. Indian businessmen who used to make frequent trips to China now rarely visit Chinese industrial hubs, because of Covid-19 restrictions and the growing negative sentiments towards China. Still, this has only firmed up the new status quo where the Chinese have occupied Indian territories, though the Indian government has not specified how many square kilometres have been lost in the last three years.

India has joined the Quad, which aims to ensure that China follows global rules in the Indo-Pacific. The Indian Navy has participated in joint exercises with other Quad members—the US, Australia and Japan. But New Delhi is not ready to declare the Quad a military coalition, preferring to describe it as an umbrella grouping for non-military purposes.

India has also not shown any public urgency towards suggestions that the Quad should be expanded to bring in South Korea and the UK initially, followed by southeast Asian countries like Indonesia and Singapore, which have close relations with Beijing. During the recent Narendra Modi-Vladimir Putin summit, Russia seemed to have got the assurance that the Quad would not be a military alliance against Russia or its allies, given the hostility of the Biden administration towards Russia.

What should be the China policy for 2022? Experts who have dealt with the northern neighbour in diplomatic services, armed forces and intelligence agencies at the highest levels, feel that the Chinese vulnerability on its restless border territories—Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang—should be exploited. India has not volubly criticised Chinese policies in these territories unlike western democracies, especially the US. Australia, Japan, South Korea and the US have been vocal about Chinese military ambitions on Taiwan, which claims independence. The Taiwanese have been lobbying aggressively to isolate China, even demanding sanctions, for its attitude towards the island. Beijing, however, claims Taiwan to be an integral part of China.

The Taiwanese government has been actively lobbying the Indian government, the strategic community, the business leadership and the civil society to ensure that India supports the Taiwanese cause. Beijing has reacted sharply whenever BJP leaders visited Taiwan or met with Taiwanese officials. India allows a representative office of Taiwan in Delhi which issues travel documents for Indian citizens to visit the island.

There is, however, a counter argument that the Taiwanese ask for too much and give too little in return. Ever since former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao launched the national manufacturing mission, India has been wanting to be a hardware superpower. Four countries were identified by Rao’s manufacturing czar V. Krishnamurthy—the US, Japan, Taiwan and Israel. The US and Japan, which had sanctioned India for its nuclear explosions and for the refusal to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, have been very selective in releasing sensitive and dual-use technology. Though India has been described as a major defence partner by the US, Indian diplomats say American laws have made technology transfer difficult as the US Congress has to approve every important deal.

But Taiwan, which had no reservations on nuclear issues, has been extremely cagey about transfer of technology and has discouraged big foreign investments in hardware technology, despite several concessions given by India. A section of the Indian establishment, therefore, feels that Taiwan is not a low-hanging fruit as far as confrontation with China is concerned, and thinks that India should show some muscle in other Chinese regions which are landlocked. It is a challenge for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s national security ministerial team of Rajnath Singh, S. Jaishankar, Amit Shah and Nirmala Sitharaman and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval.

sachi@theweek.in

sachidananda-murthy-on-bjp-temples-and-divine-rollbacks

Thu Dec 09 15:12:32 IST 2021

The Narendra Modi government’s withdrawal of the three controversial farm laws showed that even strong governments blink under pressure. Pushkar Singh Dhami was in a more vulnerable position in Uttarakhand, so it is not surprising that he, too, has blinked by withdrawing a legislation aimed at bringing temples under state control.

Dhami has been Uttarakhand chief minister since July, but he is more of a nominated CM than someone who had won the mandate. His predecessor, Trivendra Singh Rawat, had provoked priests with his decision to nationalise the administration of 51 temples, including prominent pilgrim centres such as Badrinath and Kedarnath. Rawat had insisted that the protesting priests, and the politicians who supported them, did not have popular backing. But that did not stop the BJP high command from axing him and bringing in a replacement, Tirath Singh Rawat, who was later replaced by Dhami.

Dhami had also favoured state control of shrines to end administrative anomalies. But the assembly polls, due in months, presented a tight deadline. The belligerent priests even threatened to stop Modi from attending an event at the Kedarnath shrine—if their demands were not met. Dhami had to assure them that he would decide within a month, and requested that they not disrupt Modi’s programme. He has now fulfilled the promise by withdrawing the legislation.

The protests of the priests had won support from dissident BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy, who had long been opposing state intervention in managing the Tirupati shrine in Andhra Pradesh. Swamy had also questioned the control of the Tamil Nadu government over a large number of temples in the state.

A section of the RSS leadership was unhappy with Trivendra Singh Rawat because he was apparently setting a bad example of a BJP government wanting to control temples. The RSS has raised questions about some state governments controlling just Hindu places of worship while not intervening in the management of shrines of minority religions. Rawat was also accused of being guided more by bureaucrats than by party patriarchs in the state.

In his defence, Rawat pointed out how the intervention of Jammu and Kashmir governor Jagmohan had saved the Vaishno Devi temple at Katra. Jagmohan later became culture minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and was widely respected in BJP circles for cleaning up the cave temples of Ajanta and Ellora. Rawat’s reforms, however, hit a hard wall of the entrenched governing hierarchies, but he refused to backtrack on his decision.

Though Modi wants a single national model on ration cards, taxes and elections, his government has no policy prescription on temple management. It has left the matter to states, since the subject comes under the state list of the Constitution.

But many temples have valuable parcels of land in tony neighbourhoods of metropolitan and tier-II cities. The DMK government in Tamil Nadu says more than 40,000 acres of valuable land have been encroached on over decades. It has begun digital mapping to recover the assets, and recently claimed to have recovered temple land worth Rs1,000 crore in a prime Chennai locality.

But it is not just temple lands that are encroached upon. Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Haryana and Karnataka have reported that wakf land worth thousands of crores have been encroached upon.

There are also allegations that land sharks encourage temple managements to divert land for commercial use, and that large amounts of offerings are deposited in unsafe financial institutions. Thus, many famous and not-so-famous temples have become not just divine attractions, but money magnets as well.

sachi@theweek.in

why-people-still-march-to-parliament-sachidananda-murthy

Sat Dec 04 11:54:57 IST 2021

Staying true to recent trends, the ongoing winter session of Parliament has seen clashes between an impatient government and an agitated opposition, resulting in more noise than informed debate. But even as the old parliament building is covered with fine dust from the construction of a new house, Parliament remains the last resort for groups of concerned people from across the country. Several hundred groups are jostling for permission from the police to articulate their grievances when parliamentarians are in Delhi. Dozens of marches are scheduled during the short winter session; there are also demonstrations at designated spots on Parliament Street, next to Jantar Mantar.

Some organisations are busy organising day-long discussions at congenial venues like the Gandhi Peace Foundation and the Delhi Press Club. The groups which seek the attention of the Narendra Modi government, the MPs and the media are diverse, ranging from a mother seeking justice for her murdered child to tribals who want a state called Tipraland to be carved out from Tripura.

The second day of the winter session saw a group from Madhya Pradesh demanding an airport in Bilaspur, while another one from Kerala wanted the Kozhikode airport to be expanded. Jostling beside them were frustrated aspirants who were asking the Union Public Service Commission for a second chance. A group of teachers from Uttar Pradesh was protesting because the government was yet to confirm their jobs, a demand shared by anganwadi workers from Rajasthan. Some bank employees were protesting the move to privatise government banks.

Unlike in the past when a small delegation was allowed to visit Union ministers or officials to present the grievances, now the memoranda are collected by officers from the Delhi Police and the Intelligence Bureau, who also videograph the protesters. The memoranda are supposed to reach the particular ministries, but the police tell the demonstrators that they should send their grievances by email. A register is maintained to ensure that same groups do not occupy large spaces for many days. As access to the parliament building is difficult, most demonstrators depend on their MPs. Thus the protest sites attract dozens of MPs coming and making a brief address, posing for cameras and hoping that their presence will be noticed.

The retention of the protest sites so close to the parliament building has been a challenge for the police, who have tried in vain to shift the venues to far-off places. Covid protocols have ensured that not more than 200 persons are permitted at the sites, but the police prefer even smaller crowds.

Even as the protesters brave the harsh Delhi weather, the capital is also invaded by special interest groups and lobbyists who use the session time to take their MPs to ministers and officers. The MPs also tell delegations from their constituencies to visit Delhi to meet the decision makers, but the prime minister has been very selective about meeting delegations, which are keen on a photo opportunity and a handshake. Modi tells MPs that it is better they email their issues so that the PMO can take action. But for MPs used to bringing in delegations for enhancing their own standing among the voters, it is a let down.

The winter session also caught some groups by surprise because of the complexity of the Delhi government’s excise policy, which made premium brands of liquor difficult to get. Those who wanted the best brands had to go to neighbouring Haryana to keep the evenings warm. The Parliament session is nevertheless the time when issues of different regions get highlighted on the streets of Delhi, and some even reach the ears of the powerful.

sachi@theweek.in

farm-laws-repeal-wont-diminish-modi-power-sachidananda-murthy

Thu Nov 25 15:29:23 IST 2021

The withdrawal of the contentious farm laws is having multiple consequences for the BJP, which was otherwise riding strong on the stallion of parliamentary majority. Though, there is a perception that the decision was taken due to electoral compulsions, the party has been confronted with twin realities of caste and agriculture in recent months.

The decision to withdraw farm laws was unilateral—without discussions in any party fora, including the national executive, which met few days before Narendra Modi addressed the nation. But, now, party leaders from rural areas say the government should consult them more.

Varun Gandhi, who has written on agrarian policies, has made public his letter to the prime minister. Other MPs, too, have been conveying their opinions on policies, which are perceived to be not in the interests of farmers and agriculture labourers. Many have written about the fertiliser shortage in several states. The MPs are also agitated that the much-acclaimed Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana—of providing gas connections to every kitchen—is shadowed by lesser refills being availed.

There is also criticism that the kisan units of the party at the national and state levels are not taking enough initiatives to mobilise farmers and farm labourers. Several ministers in the cabinet handling agrarian subjects have urban backgrounds. There are suggestions that the party should run a brainstorming session on agriculture and rural development to find out whether the push for a single all-India model on different sectors would help farmers, agricultural labourers and rural artisans.

The BJP is also forced to look more intensely at tribal constituencies, as it had lost power in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand; had fared poorly in BJD-ruled Odisha, but made some gains in West Bengal’s tribal belt. The Congress and activist groups have accused the Centre of approving too many industrial and infrastructure projects in the tribal belt, ignoring local misgivings.

Conversely, there is also a strong feeling that the party cannot bend too much to accommodate leftist policies, as that would dilute the ‘right-of-the-centre’ ideological focus of the BJP. The question is whether the party would be more vulnerable to other pressure groups in areas of privatisation of public sector.

The RSS has a head of ideological thought who constantly holds discussions to enforce and fine-tune the ideological thought and action plan of the Sangh. It was Modi who succeeded in blending ideology with electoral pragmatism to give scintillating results.

The rollback on agriculture would not diminish Modi’s power, but would increase the chatter on governance options as the bigger election looms in 2024. That would also give an opportunity for Modi and his core team to find enough ways to tell the party leaders, the faithful and the swing voters, that it would listen to all sections of society as much as it speaks for them.

sachi@theweek.in

param-bir-singh-knew-the-odds-well-before-he-disappeared-sachidananda-murthy

Sat Nov 20 12:01:27 IST 2021

For the Maharashtra government, former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh is a missing person; a court declared him a proclaimed absconder. Yet, thanks to the interpretation of rules framed long ago, he would not be considered missing by the Central government until next year. The civil services rules stipulate that if a person is absent from work without authorisation for at least a year after his leave expires, he is confirmed to be missing from service, and can be automatically dismissed.

This is the protection clause inserted long ago to protect officials from the all India services who may go on leave because of harassment by states.

There is much speculation on where Singh is hiding, after making staggering corruption allegations against former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh (who is now in jail). The Maharashtra government has slapped equally serious graft charges against Singh, saying that he used a gang of police officers to extort protection money from all kinds of businesses in the country’s commercial capital. Leaks from the investigative team said Singh, fearing for his life and liberty, fled to Nepal. There are others who claim that he has been spotted in Belgium and other European countries. There are also those who believe that Singh is being hidden by powerful people within the country and would make a dramatic return to topple the Uddhav Thackeray government.

Yet, the home ministry, which administers the Indian Police Service, feels that there is a distinction between a missing officer and a court declared absconder. The department of personnel, which is headed by the prime minister and interprets the rule on all India service officers, agrees with the view. They point out that if the trial court in Mumbai has declared that Singh has wilfully defied summons, the criminal laws on fugitives will come into operation. If the court or the investigative agencies have reasonable proof that Singh is outside the country, then the Central Bureau of Investigation would weigh the evidence and decide on alerting the Interpol to issue a red corner notice for his apprehension.

The plot gets complicated as Singh is in the middle of the slugfest between the Nationalist Congress Party and the Shiv Sena, which rule Maharashtra, and the BJP. Interestingly, when the call goes out for Interpol assistance, the file would land on the table of CBI director Subodh Jaiswal, who is also from the Maharashtra cadre.

Though the rules restrict French leave to only a year, many IPS and IAS officers have been absent for decades, and their cases are pending. These officers took long leave to study at a western university, where they actively seek lucrative jobs and long-term employment visas. In one case, the resignation of a Maharashtra cadre IPS officer was accepted 16 years after she went to the US to get a doctorate. The department did not get response to the notices sent to her known addresses in the country.

Several times, members of Parliament have asked why these truant officials were not brought back to the country. In most cases, foreign governments do not even cooperate in locating them after they obtain citizenship or legal visas, as it would be an invasion of privacy. Even if there are simpler criminal charges, it would not justify the demand for forced repatriation. The personnel department, however, points out that the percentage of officers who go absent without permission is a miniscule number.

The view in the department is that Singh, who has only a short period before he retires from service, knew the odds well before he disappeared.

sachi@theweek.in

param-bir-singh-knew-the-odds-well-before-he-disappeared-says-sachidananda-murthy

Thu Nov 18 12:28:30 IST 2021

This is the protection clause inserted long ago to protect officials from the all India services who may go on leave because of harassment by states.

The view in the department is that Singh, who has only a short period before he retires from service, knew the odds well before he disappeared.

sachi@theweek.in

doles-have-made-the-government-doleful-sachidananda-murthy

Thu Nov 11 17:52:41 IST 2021

Five kilograms of rice or wheat may be tiny compared with India’s huge grain stockpile, but it has been proposed that the government discontinue giving this modest quantity of grain to 81 crore families (totalling 4.4 million tonnes) every month. The proposal has provoked pleas to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to continue the stimulus until next summer.

The BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, which goes to the polls next summer, has extended its own pro-poor food grain programme till next Holi, while Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said that his government’s free grain supply scheme will run for another six months. Other states and political parties want the Centre to continue the scheme, which Modi has described as the world’s largest food security programme. States like UP, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have added kitchen essentials like edible oil, salt and sugar to the free grain kits.

Yet Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman face a dilemma in extending the scheme, which was announced as part of the 020 lakh crore stimulus package during the first Covid lockdown. The scheme was introduced for three months to help poor families uprooted by shutdown restrictions, especially those living in villages and urban slums. It was continued as the Covid threat lingered.

The food ministry now says the economy is recovering and that grain distribution in the open system has stabilised. The ministry records also show that even as politicians heap praise on the scheme, as many as 11 states failed to pick up more than 10 per cent of their allotted quota during several of the past 18 months. Also, the grain did not reach many beneficiaries because of corruption and wastage in the system; migrants who had returned to urban centres were no longer drawing free ration.

As elections are being held in five states next March, the discontinuation of the scheme could have political repercussions. There is intense debate in the ministries of finance, commerce, and food and civil supplies on when to end the various stimulus measures announced by the Centre and the Reserve Bank of India last year.

The RBI’s monetary policy committee recently decided to continue its “accommodative” stance of maintaining lower interest rates, moratoriums on payment of interests, higher subventions to banks and other lenders, and concessions for industries and exporters. There are fears that the government’s stimulus spending may not be sustainable and that the borrowing would shoot up.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had defended the accommodative approach as pragmatic, because economic growth was yet to take firm roots and there were worries about supply bottlenecks, fuel price spike and “several uncertainties” in the global economy. But a member of the monetary policy committee warned that the continuation of stimulus in a fast-recovering economy could push inflation higher.

The RBI, however, was also following other central banks, including the US Federal Reserve, whose chairman had said that it was time to be “patient” about withdrawal of stimulus. Banker Uday Kotak has said that the RBI needs to look at withdrawal of stimulus, warning that future generations would pay the price if it is continued indefinitely.

Experts also point out that the Rs30,000 crore stimulus package that the Manmohan Singh government introduced in December 2008 was continued for a long time, resulting in rapid widening of the fiscal deficit. The 2008 package also allowed banks to be imprudent in lending, which saddled the first Modi government with a banking crisis.

While logic dictates that the Covid-era stimulus needs to end, there are compelling political reasons to cater to the wants of a population battered by health and financial emergencies. The call that Modi needs to make is a tough one, especially since most of the stimulus measures are labelled as prime ministerial programmes.

sachi@theweek.in

modi-and-xi-are-not-keen-on-any-talks-now-writes-sachidananda-murthy

Sat Nov 06 10:57:07 IST 2021

The reluctance of Chinese President Xi Jinping to travel outside his country dashed the chances of a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the G20 summit in Rome or the Conference of Parties on Climate at Glasgow, where heads of government gathered in big numbers.

Xi has shut himself in ever since the pandemic began compared with other global leaders who have travelled out at least once, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, who went to Geneva for a summit with US President Joe Biden. Top diplomats feel that even if Xi had attended these summits, he would have avoided meeting Modi, as Indian armed forces have got integrated with their counterparts in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad).

Further, Modi participated in two Quad summits; one virtually and then the physical summit in the US. China strongly protested military exercises held by India, the US, Japan and Australia. If Xi was present at these summits, it would have needed the intervention of a Good Samaritan leader to bring the leaders of the two most populous countries across the table.

Putin has a good rapport with Modi and Xi, but Russia was interested in a meeting between Indian foreign minister S. Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Moscow. The two ministers have also spoken on the phone with each other on the Ladakh intrusion by Chinese troops.

Yi was present in Rome as the leading Chinese representative for the G20 summit, while Jaishankar was the leading member of the Indian delegation. But there was no reaching out from either side. However, Modi who had bilateral discussions with more than a dozen leaders, did discuss the situation with some. There were also questions from some on the implications of the new border agreement between Bhutan and China that has been a sequel to the Chinese army muscling in on Bhutanese territory, which led to the Doklam standoff in 2017.

The announcement in October that the two Himalayan neighbours will have a three-step “roadmap” to speed up negotiations on demarcation of the disputed boundaries had sparked off fears in the strategic community that Thimphu, which always depended on New Delhi, was opening a big door for Beijing. But both the defence and external affairs ministries felt there was no need for any adverse comment by the government as the Bhutanese government had taken India into confidence about the contours of the agreement. While the official Chinese media hailed the agreement as a big breakthrough, the Modi government felt there was no need even to mildly criticise the agreement.

The thirteenth round of talks between Indian and Chinese armies held at Moldo on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control on October 10 failed to get a commitment for the Chinese troops that had intruded into Hot Springs, Depsang and Demchok areas in Ladakh in 2020 summer. No date has been set for the next meeting, but now the mood in the Army is that the talks are not making any progress.

There is strong suggestion that the talks should be continued at the diplomatic level. Both countries have highly placed special representatives for border talks since the 1990s. Yi is the Chinese special representative, while his Indian counterpart is National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, both of whom directly report to Xi and Modi respectively. Doval and Yi can talk to each other only if they get the green signal from their supreme political bosses. But the signal from both Modi and Xi appears to be red, which means the army generals, more used to fighting, will have to keep talking in Moldo.

sachi@theweek.in

governor-satya-pal-malik-has-history-of-troubling-bjp-sachidananda-murthy

Thu Oct 28 14:50:02 IST 2021

The most serious corruption allegation during the seven-year NDA rule came from unexpected quarters. Meghalaya Governor Satya Pal Malik, an appointee of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleged that when he was governor of Jammu and Kashmir (2017-2019), he was offered a bribe to clear two files—in which an industrialist whom he named only as Ambani and an RSS leader active in the state were interested.

While no industrialist with the Ambani surname reacted to the allegation, RSS leader Ram Madhav, who was BJP general secretary in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir during Malik’s tenure, responded sharply. Madhav, who has helmed multiple successful missions for the BJP in recent times, said that he was never involved in any such attempt and threatened to take every possible action against the slur.

Malik made a halfway apology, saying he would seek a pardon from the RSS for having mentioned its name, but did not withdraw his claims that he was given the impression that there would be a windfall of around 0300 crore if he cleared the files.

Malik, a Jat leader from western Uttar Pradesh, has created some trouble for the BJP in other places, too. He was moved to Goa in 2019, but soon developed differences with Chief Minister Pramod Sawant. An annoyed Modi had then sent him to the hills of Meghalaya. But, Malik, who comes from Janata Party background, likes to return regularly to his favoured stomping grounds in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. He said that there would be backlash if the Centre does not resolve the farmers’ agitation. He also irked the ruling party in Uttar Pradesh by saying that BJP leaders should not visit villages which were affected by the farmers’ agitation.

Though Modi has generally been careful in choosing governors, there have been the odd exceptions. Tathagata Roy, who was also governor of Meghalaya, used to create storms with his statements, not only against the BJP’s political opponents, but also against his own partymen in West Bengal. Even after he was persuaded to resign, Roy returned to his home state and, in the wake of the BJP’s defeat, said that garbage had come and now garbage was going out (referring to defectors from the Trinamool Congress). However, the feisty West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has stayed true to the BJP script. Similarly, Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has not been friendly to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.

It remains to be seen whether Malik’s allegation pertaining to J&K will be investigated by the anti-corruption body at the Centre or in the Union territory. The anti-corruption law says even an unsuccessful attempt at bribery is a criminal offence. Apart from having constitutional immunity while remaining a governor, Malik claims he has only five pairs of kurta-pyjamas and that he lives in a simple house. Till the corruption charge was made now, his most controversial statement was at the height of the Kashmir crisis, when he said he had not received a communication from then chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, as “the fax machine in the Raj Bhavan was not working”.

Now the question is whether the government will wait for more bombshells from Malik or ease him out of gubernatorial duties.

sachi@theweek.in

govt-needs-to-be-proactive-on-the-prices-front-sachidananda-murthy

Fri Oct 22 16:58:36 IST 2021

Tensions are rising in several Union ministries as their budgets are showing signs of going haywire because of the disruptions in global supply chains and the resultant rise in commodity prices.

Supply chain disruptions had been there since March last year, because of Covid-related restrictions. But the restrictions also caused a fall in consumption because of the subdued demand for food, fertilisers and petroleum products. But, as the pandemic has slowed down considerably, consumption levels have been rising. Even as the government celebrates the increase in industrial activity and the return to normal work schedules in most areas, the ministries had not been well prepared for the shortfall in imports. Even in the case of commodities that were available, prices have gone up. As government continues to spend on Covid preparedness, by maintaining hospital beds and oxygen plants, the brief scare given by coal shortages has been a forewarning of other crises that are looming.

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who also handles the fertilisers, chemicals and pharmaceuticals portfolio, has warned that international fertiliser prices are shooting up. But he has praised the prime minister for directing the government to absorb the price difference so that farmers across the country could get fertiliser at current prices.

The petroleum ministry has sounded a warning that international oil prices were going up and more funds were needed. But the ministry is not earning any sympathy; it is being flayed for having continuously increased prices of petrol, diesel and cooking gas even when international prices were low. There is talk that Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Puri will hold talks with Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on the need to reduce Central customs and excise duties, so that fuel prices do not rise further. But the finance ministry, which has many demands on its plate, has been a tax guzzler. It would be tough to give up the habit, as deficits can shoot up.

The food and civil supplies ministry has also been criticised for its slow response to the steep increase in prices of pulses and edible oils. Now, using provisions of the amended Essential Commodities Act, the government has imposed restrictions on stocks that can be kept by wholesalers and retailers so that prices would not shoot up. But, since demand has surged because of the festival season and the return to normalcy, countries which export palm oil, tur dal (split pigeon pea), urad dal (black gram) and chickpea to India are eyeing big profits. The government’s edible oil and pulses missions, which aim at making India self-reliant in the production of these commodities, are a long way from fruition because of the annual increase in demand.

During the decades of scarcity, the government had a cabinet committee on prices headed by the finance minister, which monitored prices and shortages, and took necessary actions when required. In the past two decades, shortages of essential commodities have been rare. The functions of the prices committee have been subsumed into the committee on economic affairs, headed by the prime minister and whose members include political heavyweights such as Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, as well as ministers who handle economy-related matters—Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal (commerce, industry and civil supplies) and Narendra Singh Tomar (agriculture)—and Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.

With crucial elections coming up, the government needs to continue to be proactive on the prices front.

sachi@theweek.in

tough-for-singapore-to-balance-its-relationship-with-china-india-sanjaya-baru

Thu May 27 15:38:31 IST 2021

It was just as well that Arvind Kejriwal was ticked off for his Singapore sling. Attempts to offer post-facto justification for his baseless remarks about a Singapore variant of Covid and a call for suspension of Singapore Airlines flights were totally out of line. Important public functionaries in the Union and state governments must learn to educate themselves about the foreign policy implications of their casual political statements before holding forth.

Whatever Singapore’s faults as a defender of free speech, and the island republic has that problem, and the appropriateness of the high commissioner’s remarks about invoking a Singaporean law in response to Kejriwal’s remarks, the fact is that the Delhi CM made inappropriate remarks and was rightly rapped on the knuckles by the External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.

In 1992, prime ministers P.V. Narasimha Rao and Goh Chok Tong launched a strategic partnership between the two nations that has since made Singapore the fulcrum of India’s policy towards south-east Asia and the Indo-Pacific. The city state has become a preferred destination for millions of Indian tourists, students and professionals. Even though China is Singapore’s most important trade and economic partner, India has emerged as a major security partner for Singapore. Balancing its relationship with China and India has been a tough diplomatic act for the island republic. However, in recent years, this relationship is being tested by a variety of factors including the increasingly tense China-India relationship, India’s uncertain approach to regional economic integration and Singapore’s disappointments in its business and economic relationship with India, made worse by the turn of events in Andhra Pradesh’s capital city project.

An important backdrop to the Kejriwal kerfuffle is the issue of race relations in Singapore and communal tensions in India that political leaders in both countries must handle with care. Two developments over the past decade have created problems for the bilateral relationship. First, the growing profile of mainland China across the region and the consequent assertion of a pan-Asian Chinese nationalism; second, the communal politics of Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist extremist groups across the Indo-Pacific. Singapore has had to deal with the increasing assertion of both Chinese and Islamic elements at home and it has, so far, managed this well.

While Singapore’s leadership has always been mindful of racial differences and tensions at home, and has for long pursued a range of social policies aimed at ensuring social cohesion, India is increasingly viewed in the region as a country with similar challenges, but one that is not doing enough to address them. On top of this, China-India geopolitical tensions are generating social discord between people of Indian and Chinese origin in the Indo-China region, as a whole, and in Singapore, in particular.

Indian leadership must remain acutely conscious of the racial, religious and ethnic composition of its south-east Asian neighbourhood and manage its relations with the region with care. After all, before the region came to be called ‘south-east Asia’, it was referred to as Indo-China. The Indo-China region ran all the way through Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore and even Indonesia, because it was culturally shaped by the two great civilisations of China and India.

Indian leaders and strategic analysts must appreciate that China’s rise and China-India tensions have cast a long shadow across the region. Even as the two Asian giants are engaged in a new ‘great game’ for influence, resources, markets and more across Asia, India’s image in the region has been dented over the past seven years.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

sanjaya-baru-says-indias-assiduously-built-brand-equity-has-depleted

Thu May 13 15:20:27 IST 2021

Over the past decade, India’s brand equity, assiduously built over the previous quarter century, has depleted. Several factors contributed to the waxing of Brand India in the two decades since 1991 and an equal number of them have contributed to its subsequent waning. Three prime ministers—P.V. Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh—were associated with building India’s brand as an emerging economy and rising power. While a weakening of the brand began in the last couple of years of the second Manmohan Singh government, there has been a precipitous decline under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

What then were the factors that built Brand India and what have contributed to its depletion?

Till the 1980s, India was seen as part of a laggard south Asia that was being left behind by the impressive economic growth process under way in east Asia. The 1990s changed that. India’s improved economic performance after 1991, especially within a policy framework defined by liberalisation and the freer play of market forces, made the world sit up and view India as part of the ‘Asian miracle’. Even sceptical east Asians began to acknowledge that India was learning and was likely to catch up. As a consequence, doors opened to the east, and India became an active member of what came to be called the Indo-Pacific.

A second factor powering Brand India was the emergence of the knowledge economy based on information technology and biotechnology. India’s contribution to the emergence of the software and data processing industry established it as a knowledge power in the new economy. India’s successful integration into world trade—thanks to membership of the World Trade Organization—with India’s share of world trade rising from 0.5 per cent in the 1980s to close to 2 per cent by the 2010s also shaped global perceptions about India. As doors opened to the west, Indians found themselves increasingly welcome in the United States, cementing that relationship.

A third factor that helped promote Brand India was the emergence of India as a nuclear weapons power that had left its traditional rival Pakistan behind and was catching up with China as an Indo-Pacific power. The Rising India narrative was built on this foundation.

Finally, and most importantly, India’s global stature was enhanced by the fact that its economic rise was seen as the success of a plural, secular and liberal democracy in a developing economy, offering a counter to China’s experience of economic rise as an authoritarian state. US presidents George Bush and Barack Obama said as much, defending their approach to India between 2000-2012.

Over the last seven years, each of these aspects of India’s rise in the post-Cold War era has come to be questioned and challenged. Asia to India’s east is as wary of this ‘New India’ of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah as are the trans-Atlantic powers. Their combined desire to keep rising China under check has continued to help keep many doors around the world still open to an India that increasingly disappoints them. We owe President Xi Jinping a big ‘Thank You’ for this.

Just as India’s emergence as an IT and software power burnished its global brand at the turn of the century, its nascent emergence as the ‘pharmacy of the world’, with the promise of affordable medicine, began to contribute to Brand India, until the incompetent handling of the Covid-19 pandemic unravelled the India story. The combination of ideological intolerance and administrative incompetence has depleted Brand India at home and overseas.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

defining-india-power-elite-is-a-tough-task-sanjaya-baru

Thu Apr 15 15:41:45 IST 2021

Few among the power elite in India seem willing to be classified as such. It seems a very Indian thing, this faux humility. The upper castes claim they no longer are the privileged. Business elites complain that politicians and bureaucrats have more power. Politicians lament that they are beholden to vote banks and money bags. Bureaucrats say they have always been only civil servants. All this adds to the additional complication that in India there are multiple hierarchies of power defined by class, caste, language, culture and so on. So, who are the power elite?

An amusing reaction to my new book, India’s Power Elite: Class, Caste and a Cultural Revolution, has been a universal denial of their elite status and their elitism by the powerful. The IAS will tell you that they are no longer the elite corps they once were and that colleagues in the police and revenue services now rule the bureaucratic roost. Business leaders draw attention to tax raids and regulations to point fingers at politicians as the really powerful. Either money no longer fetches power or far too much of it is demanded in exchange for too little patronage. Military officers argue that they have been excessively subordinated to civilian control. Celebrities in the world of media, academia and even entertainment question my arguments about their power, drawing attention to the many attacks on their freedom by politicians in power. Even a powerful prime minister complains that government officials have become roadblocks and bottlenecks in governance. So, who are India’s power elite?

When American sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote his classic study on The Power Elite (1956) in the United States, he had no problem identifying who controlled the levers of power in ‘post-war’ America. Business barons, military leaders, wealthy and influential celebrities and well-heeled politicians were Mills’s power elite. “The power elite is composed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary men and women; they are in positions to make decisions having major consequences,” wrote Mills. “They are in command of the major hierarchies and organizations of modern society. They rule the big corporations. They run the machinery of the state and claim its prerogatives. They direct the military establishment. They occupy the strategic command posts of the social structure, in which are now centred the effective means of the power and the wealth and the celebrity status which they enjoy.”

Inspired by Mills’s classic, I tried to define the Indian power elite and soon came up against the complexity of our society. Apart from the obvious additional dimension added by caste, the Indian reality presents a matrix of cross-cutting hierarchies that few sociologists have been able to clearly delineate in terms of their power. The socialist leader and political guru of the so-called “other backward classes”, Ram Manohar Lohia, offered a simple definition of who constitutes India’s power elite by identifying three features—upper caste status, inherited wealth and command over the English language.

This simple definition, offered in the 1960s, has been challenged by the social, economic, political and what I define as cultural change over the past half century. Middle castes have acquired as much, if not more, political power as the upper castes; power has yielded wealth for the newly rich; and, English language is no longer such an important social differentiator. Change is afoot and my book tries to capture this change. Interestingly, many from the ‘old elite’ have called to concede the decline in their social standing, but many among the ‘new elite’ are irritated about being so identified.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

bangladesh-is-looking-east-and-succeeding-says-sanjaya-baru

Thu Apr 01 19:11:58 IST 2021

Bangladesh entered the fiftieth year of its liberation and creation registering the highest rates of national income growth among all south Asian economies. For a country that was regarded as the region’s basket case at its birth, Bangladesh has travelled a great distance. On the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI) Bangladesh is ranked 133 in 2020, just two steps behind India, and 20 steps ahead of Pakistan. This impressive performance is not statistical.

Over the half century of a troubled existence, Bangladesh has managed to industrialise and invest in its human capabilities. Western multinationals, seeking to relocate out of China as they reconfigure their global supply chains, are increasingly looking at Bangladesh as a hospitable host country. An important factor that has shaped Bangladesh’s post-liberation developmental journey has been its own “Look East” and “Act East” policy. With this the south Asian nation is increasingly behaving like a south-east Asian one.

Japan’s former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi once famously described India as being at the centre of a vast continent with a very different Asia on either side. To India’s west is a politically unstable Asia, remarked Koizumi, to India’s east is an ‘increasingly prosperous’ Asia. In which direction is India headed? That seemed to be Koizumi’s implied question.

Bangladesh has so far addressed that question quite convincingly. It seeks inspiration from its south-east Asian neighbours, establishing beneficial economic links with China and the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN). It is also increasingly receptive to Indian and Pakistani investors. Indian investments have been steadily rising, in part to take advantage of Bangladesh’s export quotas and in part because of a more hospitable business environment.

As a member of the regional grouping BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation), Bangladesh was viewed as a likely bridge between south and south-east Asia, but it is a bridge that looks more longingly to its east. I would not be surprised if at some point Bangladesh seeks closer engagement with ASEAN, even membership, given the slow demise of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), an organisation that was in fact a Bangladeshi brainchild.

The challenge to Bangladesh’s steady rise comes largely from homegrown religious radicalism, partly stoked by external inspiration and support. The recent military coup in Myanmar and the enduring presence of the military in Thailand should act as reminders to Bangladesh’s democratic forces that a retreat from hard won democratic freedoms is an ever-present possibility. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has unequivocally condemned the coup in Myanmar and has been able to keep the military at home under tight leash.

Religious extremism, cutting across all regionally prevalent religions, is a more widespread regional phenomenon in evidence from west Asia into south-east Asia. India was grappling only with Islamic extremism till a decade ago and is now also dealing with the challenge of Hindu majoritarianism. Hasina has partially succeeded in recovering for Bangladesh its original secular identity. However, given the growing influence of religion on politics in most neighbouring countries, it remains to be seen how long Bangladesh can keep radical religious elements out of key institutions.

Bangladesh’s recent success as a nation, and as an economy, holds many lessons not just for Pakistan, the parent country that it left behind in more senses than one, but for all regional countries. It shows the benefits of pursuing liberal economics and politics with a modern and forward-looking national elite and political leadership.

Happy birthday, Bangladesh!

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

sanjaya-baru-canada-south-korea-and-vietnam-will-seek-membership-of-a-quad-plus

Fri Mar 19 13:45:21 IST 2021

Everyone likes to be a member of an exclusive club, yet no one likes a club whose membership rules disbar you. That social paradox extends to the world of international relations. When Russia brought together Brazil, China and India to launch a quadrilateral group called BRIC, with the stated objective of creating a new world order, the US pooh-poohed it as a gathering of wannabes. A decade-and-a-half later the heads of government of Australia, India, Japan and the US have come together to form the Quad. China has dismissed it as a ‘talk shop’.

When China invited South Africa and made BRIC into BRICS, many analysts argued that they lacked the concrete required to hold them together. It took three BRICS summits of long speeches, longer joint statements and no concrete agenda for India to finally come up with the proposal that the group set up a rival to the US-led World Bank in the form of a development bank, now called the New Development Bank. That China came to dominate BRICS and the bank was located in Shanghai was a natural consequence of the fact that China’s national income and its foreign exchange reserves are more than the combined national income and reserves of the other four.

Quad’s success will be determined by the extent to which the US is willing to address the concerns of its three partners. In any club the most powerful set the terms of engagement. What Quad will achieve in geopolitical terms apart from putting China on guard, important as this objective is, is not yet clear. China’s protestations about Quad being a ganging up are vastly exaggerated given that it is itself a member of many such plurilateral groups that have kept one or the other Quad members out.

What Quad has already achieved in geo-economic terms is to use the Asian demand for Covid-19 vaccines as an opportunity to create a four-way economic relationship that combines the benefits of American research, Japanese funding, Indian manufacturing capacity and Australian marketing network to supply vaccines to Asian developing countries. This is without doubt a smart idea and one that can ensure its equal ownership by all four partner countries.

For the Indian pharmaceuticals industry, that has for many years faced an unequal playing field in overseas markets, the vaccine opportunity has been a boon. Countries that once sought to erect barriers to entry to Indian pharma are now laying out the red carpet. This is welcome news. The Quad have already demonstrated their ability to cooperate in the space of maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region and will continue to explore new areas for cooperation and combined action.

For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the formalisation of Quad and its elevation to summit-level meetings is without doubt the single most important diplomatic achievement of his prime ministerial career thus far. Modi had no remarkable foreign policy achievement of his own in his first term, like Manmohan Singh’s historic nuclear deal with the US. He did, however, take forward many initiatives of his predecessor, including the relationships with the US, Japan and Australia.

The formalisation of Quad and the articulation of a clear purpose and agenda through a joint statement is a landmark development on the geopolitical and geo-economic front and a significant achievement for Modi. It has the potential to provide a framework within which India can once again secure a global environment more hospitable for its economic rise. It is entirely possible that over time countries like Canada, South Korea and Vietnam will seek membership of a Quad Plus.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

v-should-follow-k

Thu Mar 04 14:18:23 IST 2021

Students of economics become familiar with several letters of the English alphabet. If you do not know what Y, C, I, X and M mean, then you do not know the subject’s ABC. While the spokespersons for the government of India’s ministry of finance insist that the post-lockdown recovery of the Indian economy, now under way, has taken a V-shape—implying a sharp recovery in the growth rate of output after a sharp downturn—the consensus view of most professional economists is that the economy’s recovery looks more like the letter K.

The letter K captures two distinct phenomena—a V on top of an inverse-V. The corporate sector and big business have seen capacity utilisation recover sharply, output rise and, importantly, a bounce back of profitability. Air travel across cities has resumed and flights are all full. Those who have the money are back to spending it and the stuff they spend on is helping the corporate sector experience of a revival of demand. While alphabetically K comes before V, economic policy, too, should focus first on K and convert K-shaped growth into a V-shaped one.

The return of corporate sector profitability has not been accompanied by a restoration of all the jobs lost during the lockdown, especially contract and casual labour employment. Moreover, the V-shaped recovery in the organised sector is not seen in the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Both Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have admitted as such. The Union budget and the May 2020 package of the government recognised this problem and have tried to address it. Critics would say “not enough”, while the government would say it has done the best it can, given fiscal constraints.

While there would be differences between spokespersons of the government and its critics on the effectiveness of the measures taken to address the problem of the MSMEs and the larger problem of unemployment, the fact is that there is universal recognition that these remain policy challenges for the government.

Mahesh Vyas of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, who has unabashedly focused on the challenge of inadequate employment, views post-lockdown job losses as worrisome and distressing given their pattern. “It is the urbanites who are losing jobs more than rural [people], women who are losing jobs more than men,” he said. “It is graduates and postgraduates who are losing jobs more than others. Youngsters losing jobs and not the older people. The composition of this loss of jobs is worrisome.”

The loss of existing jobs is one challenge. Equally worrying is the decline in new recruitments. Think of a middle class family in which the father and/or mother have lost jobs and the young daughter and son entering the job market find no new openings. This segment of society lives below the V, in the world of the inverse-V. This phenomenon is not specific to India, but is witnessed in many market-economies around the world where security of employment is not guaranteed and no social security nets are provided.

What is surprising, however, is that despite the differential impact of the lockdown and the post-lockdown recovery on different sections of society, class-based political mobilisation is still very limited. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has sought to pre-empt such mobilisation by keeping up the nationalist rhetoric, so that people’s anger due to a worsening of their economic situation is channelled into nationalist and communal campaigns rather than class-based mobilisation. How long the economic growth process remains K-shaped will depend on the distributional impact of the government’s pro-growth economic policies.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

the-politics-of-u-turns

Fri Feb 19 12:26:10 IST 2021

The stand taken by the BJP and the Congress on a range of policy issues including the farm laws issue, disinvestment and various budgetary initiatives has prompted spokespersons of both parties to point to each other’s reversal of stance over time. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to embarrass the Congress by pointing to the views expressed on farm sector reform by none other than former prime minister Manmohan Singh, former Congress minister Jairam Ramesh has tweeted a statement by Modi when he was chief minister of Gujarat to show the PM’s own U-turn on the issue.

Jairam quotes the report of a working group of chief ministers on consumer affairs, constituted in 2010 and chaired by the then chief minister of Gujarat, whose members included the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, that says, “We should protect farmer’s interests by mandating through statutory provisions that no farmer-trader transaction should be below minimum support price.” Modi presented this report to Singh in 2011.

This is just one example. Congress leaders are busy quoting what BJP leaders said on various policy matters when their party was in opposition and BJP ministers are busy quoting what Congress leaders said when their party was in power. There are any number of issues on which the BJP in power has done a U-turn and an equal number of issues on which the Congress out of power has done a U-turn.

Both parties have one advantage. Today’s BJP, led by Modi and Amit Shah, has not had any problem disowning the policies of yesterday’s BJP led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. Equally, today’s Congress led by Rahul Gandhi has had no problem dumping the policies of yesterday’s Congress governments headed by P.V. Narasimha Rao and Singh.

This tactic of U-turns has not been confined to domestic economic policy alone, and has also extended to foreign policy. The BJP in opposition rejected the India-US civil nuclear energy agreement that was in fact initiated by Vajpayee. Back in power, under a different PM, the same BJP that opposed the nuclear deal quietly completed it by fudging its stand on the nuclear liability law.

Parties come to power opposing some major initiative of the party in government and, once elected to office, go ahead and do precisely what they promised not to. Purists call this hypocrisy. Politicians call this pragmatism. Politics, they remind us, is the art of the possible. If it is possible to win elections saying one thing, while it is not possible to run a government without reversing one’s stance, then pragmatism demands a U-turn.

Singh took a stoic view of such pragmatism. “Do not judge a political party by what it says when in opposition.” He would say, “Judge it by what it does when in government.”

The remarkable continuity in policies—domestic and foreign—through successive changes of government validates Singh’s pithy, if cynical, observation. So all this business of pointing fingers and calling each other hypocrite is a waste of energy. The fact is that with the exception of BJP’s ‘Hindutva’ agenda and its communal politics, on almost all other policy issues the BJP and the Congress are often on the same page.

In an increasingly personality-driven politics ideology plays second fiddle. Hopefully, voters would judge a political party by what it does rather than what it says and the impact of policy in practice on people would remain the final arbiter.

budgeting-for-time

Thu Feb 04 16:07:03 IST 2021

In a recent episode of Kaun Banega Crorepati, Amitabh Bachchan asked a contestant which finance minister had read out the shortest budget speech in Parliament. All of 800 words. The options given were: Rajiv Gandhi, H.N. Bahuguna, H.M. Patel and Nirmala Sitharaman. The 18-year-old contestant sought a lifeline. She has clearly not lived long enough to know that of the four named, only one was a non-politician, and so most likely to have delivered the shortest speech! H.M. Patel, the retired ICS officer who was prime minister Morarji Desai’s finance minister, is the right answer.

The length of the finance minister’s speech has nothing to do with the task at hand, of seeking Parliament’s approval for the government’s revenue and expenditure proposals. Admittedly, Patel was merely seeking a vote on account in 1977 and not presenting a full-fledged budget and so restricted himself to an 800-word statement. However, there have been many other such vote-on-account statements from politician finance ministers and each of them was a long speech. With time, our 18-year-old will come to realise that no politician likes to give up the opportunity of holding Parliament’s and the country’s (with live TV coverage) attention.

Nirmala Sitharaman broke the record last year with a speech that left her speechless. Mercifully, this year she spared us and herself the agony with a 110-minute speech—the shortest in recent times. Since the finance minister hogs the national attention through budget day and evening, the prime minister too manages to secure his airtime to remind everyone that he is the boss. As prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao once famously said, “The finance minister is like the number zero. Its value depends on what number you place before it. The PM is that number.”

Last year’s poorly crafted budget and badly drafted speech got both the PM and the FM a zero. This year, both have secured distinction. Sitharaman did what she was expected to by most analysts. To quote her, she has tried to “spend, spend, spend” her way out of the downturn. A brief policy statement forces a politician to focus. Sitharaman kept her focus on top-of-the-mind issues of reviving growth, encouraging investment, promoting savings and stimulating demand. If public spending can trigger private spending and demand perks up generally, there is the hope of real recovery. If the demand stimulus is not met by a supply response, inflationary pressures will mount. This is one downside risk that the government has to be alert to.

The global intellectual climate of economists’ opinion has come to Sitharaman’s rescue. The discrediting of what has come to be called “neo-liberal” economics identified with the so-called ‘Washington Consensus’, over the past decade, has allowed Sitharaman to get away with a fiscal deficit of 9.5 per cent of national income (gross domestic product). She has buried, for all practical purposes, the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act and got away with it. While sovereign rating agencies may baulk at this, the finance ministry’s Economic Survey has shown them their place. Since the New York-based rating agencies march to Washington, DC’s tune, the foreign minister would be expected to dial DC and make sure the agencies do not step out of line.

In spending more on welfare and infrastructure, Sitharaman has had to curtail the defence budget. Here, too, the foreign minister will have to step in to make sure diplomacy does the job for defence. Sitharaman should be happy with the overall response to her third budget statement. This should help ensure that she gets to present the fourth one too!

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

burnishing-the-padmas

Thu Jan 21 15:09:17 IST 2021

A silver lining to the large and looming dark cloud of concern about institutional decay and falling standards is the revival in the status of the Padma awards. Instituted in the early 1950s, to recognise individual contribution to national development, social welfare and to the fields of culture, education, the sciences, business and economic development, the Padma awards have had a chequered career. While many distinguished awardees have helped elevate the status of the awards, some black sheep have brought disrepute to the award and the process by which nominees were chosen.

Some years ago, a major controversy erupted around the UPA government’s decision to bestow upon a New York-based businessman, against whom various cases had been pending in law courts in the US and India, a Padma Bhushan. Less questionable but equally controversial have been awards to all manner of politicians, bureaucrats, journalists and economists by the governments of both Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh.

Even Bharat Ratna, the highest national award, has not been bereft of controversy. Many had questioned the posthumous award of Bharat Ratna to Tamil Nadu’s M.G. Ramachandran in 1987, when no such award had been given to a B.R. Ambedkar or a Sardar Patel. It was prime minister V.P. Singh who named Ambedkar to a Bharat Ratna in 1990 and prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao who named Patel. Curiously, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave Pranab Mukherjee a Bharat Ratna, but has so far denied it to Narasimha Rao despite demands from all around.

Given the controversial past of Bharat Ratna and Padma awards, Modi may be credited with at least trying to elevate the status of these awards by encouraging the government-appointed nominations committee to increasingly pick individuals who have done worthy service to society. In the run-up to this year’s Republic Day, and before the list of this year’s awardees is made public, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has invited some of the awardees from the last few years to share their work with members of Parliament. Twenty Padma awardees are expected to make online presentations on best practices from various fields of social work. This is a welcome initiative. It should help curb the cynicism associated with the awards process and allow the lotus to bloom again.

This is not to deny that some undeserving or controversial individuals still do manage to get their names listed. I must confess I became increasingly cynical about Padma awards after observing the kind of lobbying that used to go on. I cannot believe it has ceased completely.

In the end one must ask what national purpose such national awards serve. Apart from merely recognising good work, or gratifying friends and influencing people, the selectors must choose such individuals for these awards who may be regarded as national icons.

When an engineer like Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya or a scientist like C.V. Raman was named a Bharat Ratna in the 1950s, they were also regarded as iconic heroes who have since inspired millions to excel in their fields. When Narasimha Rao named J.R.D. Tata to Bharat Ratna, and he is the only industrialist so far so named, he was holding JRD up as a national icon.

The Modi government’s decision to honour individuals from the fields of social work and social development should be welcomed. However, India also needs icons in fields like science, engineering, medicine, architecture, teaching, municipal administration, farming, horticulture and rural development and so on, who can inspire others by becoming objects of national pride, regard and celebration.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

politics-of-personality

Thu Jan 07 16:11:08 IST 2021

Actor Rajinikanth’s decision to opt out of Tamil Nadu’s political sweepstakes will bring to an end a long era of personality-based politics in the state. While the Dravidian leader C.N. Annadurai’s challenge of the Indian National Congress in the 1960s had a distinct ideological edge to it, the subsequent evolution of Dravidian politics focused increasingly on personalities. Thus, Tamil politics revolved for close to half a century around the film personalities of M. Karunanidhi, M.G. Ramachandran and J. Jayalalithaa.

While film actor Kamal Haasan has decided to remain in the state’s political arena, his is not the kind of personality that can spawn a cult in the manner in which MGR and Jayalalithaa managed to, and Rajinikanth had the potential to. Rajinikanth’s entry into electoral politics would have given the politics of personality cult a fresh lease of life in Tamil Nadu. With the thespian opting out, Tamil Nadu’s politics may return to the national norm of a mix of ideology, money power and wheeling-dealing. Neither the DMK’s Stalin nor any of the other leaders of the clutch of Dravidian parties, nor indeed the local leaders of national parties, have anyone with any charismatic appeal for the voter. Even national leaders like Narendra Modi and Sonia Gandhi have not been able to stir the Tamil voter to any significant degree.

All this would make the political race in Tamil Nadu very interesting. In West Bengal, politics revolves around the personality of Mamata Banerjee. Neither the BJP nor the Left-Congress alliance has been able to offer a leader of equal standing.

Wherever personalities have come to dominate politics—including at the national level with Modi creating a ‘personality cult’ around himself—the formula is quite simple and predictable. Political outcomes increasingly depend on the image of the leader rather than the leader’s performance.

This phenomenon is observed at the global level, too. From the world’s oldest democracy, the US, where Donald Trump pursued the politics of personality, to China, where Xi Jinping does the same, we see the projection and assertion of individual personality in tandem with the pursuit of ideological politics. Those who find the media projection of Modi amusing—posing as he does with peacocks and foundation stones in fancy headgear and dress—should pay attention to the Chinese media’s projection of Xi. Chinese television projects Xi’s public appearances much like Indian television does of Modi’s.

Twentieth century’s democratic leaders learnt their lessons in the politics of the personality cult from the populism of despots. Edgar Snow, the American chronicler of Mao Zedong’s thoughts and achievements, has captured it well in his account of the chairman’s dominance in China. Snow suggests that a key to comprehending Mao’s leadership is the central role played by the ‘cult of personality’.

In one of his many conversations with Mao, Snow quizzed him on the issue. “In the Soviet Union, China has been criticised for fostering a cult of personality. Is there a basis for that?” Snow asked Mao. “There perhaps was,” replied Mao, without any hesitation. Mao then told Snow that while Stalin had been the centre of a cult of personality, Khrushchev never bothered to promote one around himself. “Mr Khrushchev fell,” Mao told Snow, “because he had no cult of personality at all.” Clearly, Mao’s message has been internalised not only by Xi, but also by many of his contemporaries in democracies around the world.

bengals-long-march

Thu Dec 24 16:20:22 IST 2020

It was in May 1943 that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose gave his clarion call: “Comrades! Soldiers! Let your battle-cry be—‘To Delhi! To Delhi!’ Our task will not end until our surviving heroes hold the victory parade.... on Lal Qila, the Red Fort of ancient Delhi.” Eight decades later, the seat of power in Delhi continues to elude Bengal’s leaders. If Gujarat has nursed the grouse that Mahatma Gandhi chose Jawaharlal Nehru over Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Bengal too has had the grievance that Gandhiji was half-hearted in his support for Bose. Netaji managed to convincingly defeat Pattabhi Sitaramayya in the party elections of 1939, but it was a pyrrhic victory. Unable to win over Gandhiji, Bose was left with little option but to resign and eventually walk his own path.

Bose and Patel had a reasonable chance of becoming free India’s first prime minister. Gandhiji’s decision to adopt Nehru queered the pitch. While Patel dutifully accepted Gandhiji’s decision, Bose revolted. A Gujarati managed to succeed Nehru’s daughter, when Morarji Desai became PM, and another one succeeded in ousting the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Bengal, on the other hand, has continued to miss the opportunity of hoisting Netaji’s flag on Lal Qila.

The ‘historic blunder’ of the politburo of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) robbed Jyoti Basu of the chances of becoming the first Bengali PM. Rajiv Gandhi’s acolytes and the coterie around Sonia Gandhi managed to stymie the chances of yet another Bengali, Pranab Mukherjee. Interestingly, both Basu and Mukherjee nursed a grievance on this score till the very end.

The north has had its PMs (Nehru, Shastri, Indira, Rajiv, V.P. Singh, Charan Singh, Chandra Shekhar, I.K. Gujral, Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh) and so have the south (Narasimha Rao and Deve Gowda) and the west (Morarji and Narendra Modi). The east never managed to get its own on Delhi’s throne.

The coming assembly elections in West Bengal could once again offer Bengal the opportunity to throw up a national leader if Mamata Banerjee secures a third term. The verdict will decide not only who rules from Kolkata, but also who can potentially rule from Delhi if a credible coalition can be formed under Banerjee’s leadership. Little wonder then that the Bharatiya Janata Party is determined to ensure her defeat.

Bengal has every right to feel aggrieved. After all, it was not only the first capital of British India but also India’s intellectual capital. It was not for nothing that Gopalakrishna Gokhale said ‘what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow’. Political analysts have often suggested that if in 1996 the CPI(M) politburo had allowed Basu to head the United Front government it may have lasted its term. After all, the wily and well-heeled communist had established a record of sorts remaining chief minister for twenty-three long years.

More recently, it has been reported, Mukherjee has claimed in his yet-to-be published fourth volume of his autobiography that if he had been PM the Congress would not have suffered the ignominious defeat it did in 2014. Both Basu and Mukherjee were consummate politicians and had the ability to take friends and detractors along. Banerjee, on the other hand, has not yet demonstrated the capacity to be inclusive in her leadership. But then, neither has Modi. Perhaps the country wants tough-minded leaders.

The 2021 electoral contest in West Bengal would then be between a tough-minded Banerjee and an equally tough-minded Modi. It remains to be seen whether Banerjee will be able to summon the ghosts of Netaji, Basu and Mukherjee in her support and once again give a spirited call to fellow Bengalis, “Delhi Chalo!”

garden-city-fortunes

Thu Dec 10 14:59:25 IST 2020

I lived my childhood in a locality of Hyderabad called Hardikar Bagh. My high school was situated near Kundan Bagh and my college in Bashir Bagh. Many localities in Hyderabad had the suffix ‘bagh’(garden) because that is how the founders of Baghnagar wanted the city to be. While Bengaluru has come to be known as India’s ‘garden city’, Baghnagar, now Hyderabad, was the original garden city. The sultans of the Qutb Shahi dynasty developed a city of gardens on the banks of the River Musi, across the plains from their rocky fort of Golkonda.

The love affair of the Qutb Shahi sultan, Muhammed Quli Qutb Shah, with a Hindu dancer and singer, Bhagmati, has created some confusion about the city’s original name. Some historians insist the city was called Bhagnagar, after Bhagmati, and became Hyderabad when she converted to Islam and became Begum Hyder Mahal. This version fits well into the “love jihad” narrative of the Bharatiya Janata Party, though the BJP has now demanded that the city be named Bhagyanagar. Bhagya meaning fortune or destiny.

Through the 15th to the 17th century, this urban settlement was referred to as Baghnagar and Bhagnagar in English texts and maps. Historian Andrew Petersen records in his History of Islamic Architecture that Hyderabad was originally called Baghnagar—a city of gardens. Narendra Luther, a civil servant-turned-historian, quotes the Italian traveller Abbe Carre recording in 1672: “This large town... Bhagnagar is full of strangers and merchants. Foreigners and others carry on the trade without restrictions to their nationality.” Mahomed Kasim Ferishta in his History of the Rise of the Mohammedan Power in India (1829) and H.C. Briggs in The Nizam, His History and Relations with the British Government (1861) have recorded that at some point in the 18th century, Baghnagar/Bhagnagar was renamed Hyderabad.

It was the Congress Party that first gave currency to the name ‘Bhagyanagar’, creating the Bhagyanagar Urban Development Authority in the 1970s. Even if the romantic origin of ‘Bhagnagar’ is true, it was still not ‘Bhagyanagar’—the city of fortune/destiny—though that is what Hyderabad has become over the past two decades. Does it then all come down to the location of the letter H and the word’s pronunciation?

I place greater trust in ‘bagh’ than in ‘bhag’ simply because so many localities of the city are called ‘bagh’ and the city of my youth was indeed a ‘garden city’ before concrete took over. While the story of the city’s naming as Bhagnagar is one of love and romance, the name Baghnagar is an equally romantic story of grace and aesthetics, and the ruler’s love for the beauty of nature, if not a woman. However, by contrast, both the political demand for its renaming and the name suggested, Bhagyanagar, are loaded with notions to do with power and wealth.

That is a pity. Hyderabad for me will always be associated with romance, love, gardens, beautiful architecture, grace, hospitality and the confluence of many cultures. As the capital of a kingdom that covered a wide swath of the Deccan, Hyderabad was always truly cosmopolitan. Home to Telugus, Maharashtrians, Kannadigas, Tamils and the Kayasthas who came from the north to join the nizam’s government.

While the Telangana Rashtra Samithi came to power demanding the ouster of “settlers” and “outsiders” from the metropolis, it soon realised that Hyderabad’s cosmopolitanism was its strength, its destiny and its true fortune. The city’s growth is a tribute to the creativity of the people who have come to make it—Telugus and non-Telugus, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

trade-tango-in-a-twist

Thu Nov 26 16:48:06 IST 2020

Having turned its back on a regional trading agreement covering the Asia-Pacific region, the BJP now says that it would seek a free trade agreement (FTA) with the trans-Atlantic economies of the US and the European Union. Gopal Krishna Agarwal, the BJP’s national spokesperson on economic affairs, was reported saying, “We are positive that FTAs with the EU and US will benefit India and talks will be resumed.” Apart from the fact that this statement runs contrary to the view on FTAs espoused by many BJP worthies including Nirmala Sitharaman and S. Jaishankar, as well as the views of the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), it would also appear as if India is chasing two birds in a bush, having given up the bird in hand.

There may be very good reasons why India opted out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement. The two most important were that its signatories were not willing to alter the rules of origin that India felt would unfairly benefit China and were unwilling to widen the scope of the agreement to include services trade that India sought. An agreement that was in fact initiated by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ended up being perceived as China-led. While Japan made a friendly gesture by saying the doors are still open for India, the fact remains that Asia to India’s east has turned its back on her and signed up with China, at least on trade.

While foreign policy analysts have called the Indian decision on RCEP a retreat from her ‘Look East/Act East’ policy and at odds with her Indo-Pacific strategy, trade economists have questioned the assertion that FTAs have contributed to India’s ‘de-industrialisation’. If Indian industrialisation has not proceeded at the required pace, the reasons are largely domestic—ranging from the ‘unease’ of doing business to the inadequacy of investment in infrastructure, in trained and productive human capital and, a much less discussed issue, the entrepreneurial and technological incompetence of the traditional business class.

Despite all these hurdles, the Indian economy did reasonably well compared with her peers during the quarter century 1990-2015; a period during which the share of trade in national income went up from less than 20 per cent to more than 50 per cent. During the same period India’s share of world exports increased from 0.5 per cent to 1.70 per cent. The anti-trade rhetoric of the BJP gets little support from data.

Faced with these anti-trade views of an SJM spokesperson in the 1990s, international trade economist Jagdish Bhagwati famously said, “If he is an economist, I am a bharatnatyam dancer!” BJP spokesperson Agarwal’s assurance that after rejecting RCEP, and FTAs in general, his party’s government would seek an FTA with the US and EU looks more like an impromptu twist and cha-cha-cha than methodical bharatnatyam.

It also begs the question as to how India can get a more favourable FTA out of the US and EU than it was likely to get from its Asian neighbours. The record of multilateral and regional trade discussions over the past two decades, ever since the Doha Development Round of the World Trade Organization got grounded, suggests that both the US and the EU seek assurances that India is unwilling to give. The fact that they have become India’s geopolitical partners and share concerns about an aggressive, assertive and rising China does not mean they are willing to be accommodative on trade. That is precisely why even a ‘politically friendly’ Donald Trump administration was unwilling to be friendly on trade. Clearly, New India needs new thinking on trade.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

their-lotus-is-blue

Fri Nov 13 12:40:05 IST 2020

President George W. Bush first ran into prime minister Manmohan Singh on the ramparts of the Kremlin two months before Singh’s July 2005 state visit to Washington, DC. They were in Moscow to witness the Victory Day Parade celebrating the golden jubilee of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany. Pulling his wife Laura close, Bush reportedly introduced her to Singh saying, “This is the prime minister of India. He is Sikh. His country’s president is Muslim and his party president is Christian.” “Most Indians are Hindus,” Bush reminded his wife, adding “India is a great democracy.”

The pluralism and liberalism that defined Indian society and democracy have long been its great strengths. That is why many in India and around the world have been worried about the growing assertion of Hindu majoritarianism. Indians celebrating the historic election of a person of Indian-African-American parentage, Kamala Devi Harris, as the first woman vice president of the United States, should sit back and ponder why there are so few representatives of minority communities in the Union council of ministers today. The parliamentary contingent of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, whose party symbol is the name of the US vice president-elect, does not have a single Muslim or Sikh in the Lok Sabha. The representatives of these two communities in the Union cabinet come from the Rajya Sabha.

The very moving victory speeches of both Joe Biden and Harris emphasised repeatedly that the most important message of the US election verdict is that a majority of American citizens had rejected the white majoritarianism of Donald Trump and his extremist faction of the Republican Party. Trump did not do poorly in the elections and has in fact increased his support base, fighting hard to win on a narrow platform of white supremacy. But a rainbow coalition of Americans united to ensure that the US remains true to its own constitutional values. It is not as if white Americans have lost power. Biden is a true blue white, so to speak. The US power elite is predominantly white. Yet, even a symbolic sharing of power with non-whites does enable the integration of a diverse nation.

In India, too, the power elite have always been Hindu, from upper and middle castes, and will remain so for some time. Yet, the “umbrella” nature of the Indian National Congress facilitated national integration. Learning from the Congress experience, as well as that of the coalitions that followed, prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee ran an inclusive government. He named a Christian as his defence minister and made a Muslim the nation’s head of state. In a plural democracy, such gestures cannot be dismissed as appeasement or tokenism. Vajpayee’s inclusiveness strengthened India, even though he believed in his party’s ideology of hindutva.

The Hindu extremism of the present leadership has weakened, not strengthened, India. Much like Trump’s majoritarianism. The recent revival of a detestable and abhorrent concept of “Love Jihad”, with elected political leaders seeking to criminalise inter-community marriages, does no credit to India’s constitutional values of pluralism and individual human rights, not to speak of values such as humanism and secularism.

The watchword of “unity in diversity” is no empty slogan. It is an idea that goes to the core of our national identity. It is the foundational principle of our Constitution. Indeed, it is captured by the ancient wisdom of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam —the whole world is one family. The wisdom, greatness and the universal and continued appeal of Hinduism lie in its pluralism and liberalism. The sooner the present BJP leadership understands this, the better for India.

the-uncertainty-conundrum

Thu Oct 15 19:06:18 IST 2020

The International Monetary Fund was once the bastion of what its critics have dubbed “neo-liberal economics” and the home of what is famously known as the “Washington Consensus”—that free markets, free trade, economic openness, less government and more private enterprise are all good for growth. Covid-19 is upending much of that orthodoxy. The IMF convenes this week for its annual meeting under the leadership of a woman chief born in communist Bulgaria, Kristalina Georgieva, and a chief economist, Gita Gopinath, who briefly advised the communist government of Kerala. Neither of them is a lefty, but neither swear by neo-liberal economics.

Under the watch of these two women leaders the IMF’s World Economic Outlook, unveiled in time for the annual meetings of the Fund and the World Bank, makes a case for greater public investment as a way of countering the post-pandemic economic slowdown in developed and developing economies. The WEO suggests that a 1 per cent increase in public investment could trigger a 10 per cent increase in private investment. A third lady in the equation, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, has responded with alacrity announcing a new spending programme aimed at boosting demand in the coming festive season.

A major post-Covid-19 challenge for economic policymakers remains that of dealing with the consequences of uncertainty triggered by the pandemic and the economic slowdown. Households and firms have become risk averse, unsure of future income. While lockdowns are being eased, uncertainty about the likely course of the pandemic continues. The US-based National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has put out an Economic Policy Uncertainty Index (EPUI), which seeks to measure the incidence of uncertainty in an economy, by gathering data from mainstream media in 26 major economies.

The index measures the frequency with which words like “uncertainty” and “economic policy” occur in the media along with the incidence of news coverage on fiscal, monetary and trade policies. The EPUI team finds a global spike in reporting on economic uncertainty from the early part of 2020, with EPUI increasing from an annual average of 267 in 2019 to 320 in the first eight months of 2020. The NBER study shows how Covid-19 “triggered a massive spike in uncertainty”, caused by absence of definitive assessments of the “infectiousness, prevalence and lethality of the virus; availability and deployment of antigen and antibody tests; the capacity of healthcare systems to meet an extraordinary challenge; and how long it would take to develop and deploy safe, effective vaccines”. It also draws attention to continued uncertainty about state capacity— managerial and fiscal—to deal with the consequences of the pandemic and the fall in economic activity. There is uncertainty about future incomes, employment prospects, speed of recovery, consumer spending, and saving behaviour and investor sentiment.

Much of current economic activity is based on expectations about the future. If uncertainty has gripped economic agents around the world, that would alter expectations in ways not seen before. After the Second World War there has been no other global phenomenon that has generated so much uncertainty about the future. The oil crisis of the 1970s was one such event but its consequences were managed within a reasonable period of time and the world economy adjusted itself to a regime of higher prices. The Asian and transatlantic financial crises of 1998 and 2008 were addressed before they became truly global. Many countries, including India, have been hesitating to spend more and it appears the IMF nudge has helped Sitharaman move.

news-weak-time-out

Thu Oct 01 15:50:58 IST 2020

The media love lists, and Indian media obsess about western lists. How is India doing on this index and that, by how many places has it moved up or down. Rarely does such reporting educate the reader or viewer about what goes into the making of a list—the criteria used, the data digested, the assumptions made and the biases inherent to definitions. So, it was not surprising that when the newsmagazine Time included Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a global list of “100 Most Influential People”, Indian media was quick to report but without spelling out why he had made it.

Remember that the criterion for making it to even Time’s “Person of the Year” is the person should have “most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill”. It was left to one of Modi’s irrepressible critics to point out that Time picked the prime minister for this list more for “doing ill than good”, so to speak.

Time explained its choice stating: “First elected on a populist promise of empowerment, his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party rejected not only elitism but also pluralism, specifically targeting India’s Muslims. The crucible of the pandemic became a pretence for stifling dissent. And the world’s most vibrant democracy fell deeper into shadow.”

Despite the fact that the west is today largely on India’s side, and Prime Minister Modi has established good relations and rapport with most major western leaders, western media is turning increasingly critical of him. However, nothing that has appeared in western media is more critical of Modi than what appears in Indian print media. It is only Indian television that has become excessively adulatory.

Modi is not the first Indian prime minister to be criticised by western media. From Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh, every Indian prime minister has been conferred both bouquets and brickbats. In 2008, Newsweek, under Fareed Zakaria’s editorship, wrote off Singh and echoed the view of Rahul Gandhi cronies who, in the run up to 2009 election, wanted an “ageing” Singh to make way for “young” Rahul. Singh surprised everyone later that year leading his coalition back to power with more MPs in tow.

In 2002, Time declared that prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was “asleep at the wheel” and that many in his party wanted him replaced. Nothing of the sort happened. Despite getting Indian politics wrong on many occasions and underestimating the survival instincts of Indian prime ministers, western media manage to make a splash in India, often with half-baked stories. This is more a reflection of Indian obsession with what the west thinks of us than a comment on western media’s political prescience or ability to tell the truth.

It is one of the ironies of Indian media that it invests so little in covering the world and reporting from foreign stations but pays so much attention to what world media says about India and its leaders. Among all the major powers, India has the fewest number of foreign correspondents. World news comes to Indian media from foreign sources, rarely their own correspondents. Worse still, Indian media’s sourcing of news of non-western societies and many of India’s neighbours also comes from western media sources. It is an odd love-hate relationship: excessive dependence on western media for news, combined with condescension when the news is not complimentary.

It has been reported that Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has instructed Indian diplomats overseas to build better relations with local media. While this is necessary and diplomats can help improve India’s image overseas, there are limits to how much carefully built images can blur a reality staring in one’s face.

china-wants-more-than-mountains

Thu Sep 17 15:21:49 IST 2020

While the entire attention of the country may be on the border between China and India, the attention of China’s strategists would be more on the Indian economy. One should not interpret the old Chinese saying—One mountain cannot contain two tigers—too literally. The mountain that the Chinese strategists have in mind is not the Himalayas but Asia and its economy.

The Chinese army’s repeated incursions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC)—Depsang (2013), Doklam (2017) and Galwan (2020)—should not be viewed purely as attempts at land grab aimed at securing advantageous positions in the event of a war. Many in India have become students of Himalayan geography, but the real game in Asia is for economic dominance. Of course, it is the duty of military brass to defend the border and retain control over territory. But, China’s strategy towards India has to be viewed from a wider lens, and not a purely military one.

What does China want? From the plains of Central Asia to the islands of the Pacific, from Northeast Asia to Southern Africa, Xi Jinping’s China wishes to establish that there is only one Asian superpower. Sure, at the global level China still acknowledges that there is another superpower, the United States. But, Xi would want the world to acknowledge what it did at the end of World War II, that there are only two superpowers and everyone else is a secondary or tertiary player.

Indeed, most Asian nations, including Japan, have come to implicitly accept this. India, too, has stopped calling itself a ‘leading power’ and now refers to itself, along with Russia, Japan, France and so on, as a Middle Power. But Xi would want India to say that a bit more loudly.

Till around 2012, China may well have gone along with the global consensus that India too was rising rapidly and would catch up with China. After all, none other than Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, a friend of China, had said in 2007 that China and India were the two engines of the Asian aircraft, and for Asia to take off smoothly both engines must fire in tandem.

India’s economic growth experience, between 1991 and 2012, may have made China believe that India was capable of catching up. Till 1980 the two economies stood more or less on par, even if China had by then built a stronger base for future growth. It was assumed India was capable of again catching up.

The travails of the United Progressive Alliance II government may have made China re-examine these assumptions. The Indian economy seemed to be faltering and its political leadership seemed no longer capable of ensuring that India remained on the growth trajectory of the first decade of the 21st Century. It appears that the Chinese assessment of the six years of the Narendra Modi government is that despite its political strength it has not been able to restore momentum to the economy.

It would be wrong to assume that China only aims to bolster its tactical, or even strategic, positions along the border. In appearing to do so, and repeatedly provoking India, China seeks to keep India both politically and economically off-balance. Which means no five-point joint statement is likely to end the impasse in the relationship. The challenge before India is to regain economic momentum and bolster its economic capabilities. That alone will ensure an Asian balance of power conducive to regional peace and global security. An Asia dominated by an authoritarian and hegemonic China will never be peaceful, secure or stable.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

our-man-in-tokyo

Fri Sep 04 11:46:48 IST 2020

No prime minister of Japan has ever made anywhere near the impression on Indian public opinion as Shinzo Abe did. It was not just that he is the longest serving prime minister in Japan’s history since the Meiji Restoration of the late 19th century. Never have millions of Indians had the opportunity to see a Japanese prime minister for an entire evening watching the glorious ceremony of the Ganga Arati at Varanasi’s Dashashwamedh Ghat. As he steps down from office this month, after a tenure of over nine years, Abe will be wished well by a people that have come to appreciate his abiding commitment to Japan-India friendship.

Over the past quarter century Japan has had 17 prime ministers. Of them, eight served terms of less than a year and most others of less than two. Only Junichiro Koizumi enjoyed a decent tenure of five years in office. Into that office with a revolving door that was constantly spinning around Abe stepped in first in September 2007. However, ill-health made him step down a year later. Over the next five years Japan had five prime ministers, of uneven competence. Abe returned to office in December 2012 to become Japan’s longest serving prime minister.

Even in that brief first year in office Abe left a mark as far as Japan-India relations are concerned. Addressing the Indian Parliament in August 2007, Abe enunciated the now popular and widely recognised idea of an Indo-Pacific geopolitical space. Giving his address the title of a book by the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh—A Confluence of the Two Seas—Abe spoke of the historic, cultural, economic and geopolitical links between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Abe’s successors in the period 2007-2012 did not follow up on that idea and many have come to associate it with Hillary Clinton who, as United States secretary of state, spoke about the Indo-Pacific to a gathering in Chennai in 2011.

It was on his return to office in 2012 that Abe gave concrete shape to his ideas and has since laid the firm foundation of India’s probably most consequential bilateral relationship. Indians may be divided in their views on the country’s relations with the United States, Russia, Europe and even China. But there would now be universal agreement that Japan is an important partner country for India. Abe deserves all the credit for shaping that view. Which is why Indian diplomats will watch closely who his successor is going to be, and whether he would remain loyal to Abe’s vision of Japan-India relations.

There is good reason for India remaining wary till the new prime minister unveils his vision for the bilateral relationship. Within the Japanese elite—its business class, political leadership, intellectuals and diplomats—there is an influential pro-China lobby of individuals and companies that have made their millions and billions in China. In 2007, when Abe stepped down, his first successor Yasuo Fukuda did an about-turn on India and cozied up to China. However, since then Xi Jinping has happened!

While Japanese business, like most business, remains frustrated with the “unease of doing business” in India, the economic relationship has become stronger. More importantly, the defence, technological and people-to-people relationship has also grown stronger. The Quad—a new strategic foursome of Australia, India, Japan and the US in the Indo-Pacific region—is acquiring greater relevance and profile thanks to the unrelenting assertiveness of Xi’s China. India’s political leadership would want an early affirmation by the new Japanese prime minister of his commitment to the Abe vision of a confluence of values and interests between Asia’s great democracies.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

the-makers-of-india

Thu Aug 20 14:48:17 IST 2020

In the 1987 movie, Wall Street, the industrial worker and trade unionist father Carl Fox confronts his finance whiz kid son raking in his millions, making money out of money, with words that resonate across America even today: “You stop going for the easy buck and produce something with your life. Create instead of living off the buying and selling of others.” America paid little heed to those words for two decades thereafter till the money machine imploded in 2008. Donald Trump came to power promising to bring manufacturing jobs back home from China.

It was no coincidence that in 2006 India also woke up to the challenge of revitalising Indian manufacturing, having lived through a decade of fantasy that services sector growth would help it leapfrog into the 21st century. Manmohan Singh’s National Strategy on Manufacturing (2006) aimed to take the share of manufacturing in national income from 16 per cent in 2006 to 25 per cent by 2020. Prime Minister Narendra Modi took this strategy forward calling it ‘Make in India’. Six years later, manufacturing’s share remains stubbornly stuck at 16 per cent.

A key policy initiative aimed at facilitating Make in India has been to improve the Ease of Doing Business. Various incentives, including cuts in tax and interest rates, have been given to the mobilisers of capital. Acquiring land and employing labour have been made easier. There is a growing celebration of enterprise, especially of small and medium entrepreneurs, and being self-employed has been made into an act of great creativity and patriotism. All this is good.

However, rapid industrialisation requires increasingly productive labour. The working class are the soldiers in the war against poverty and in the drive for modernisation. It is, therefore, surprising that few political parties have focused on improving labour productivity and the social security of the working class. Prime ministers, from Lal Bahadur Shastri to Narendra Modi, have said ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’, rarely do they say Jai Mazdoor. China’s rise has been on the back of its “creators”, to use Fox’s term for workers, and not just its traders.

The unionised working class has often been damned as a labour aristocracy that has prevented the growth of industrial employment. While industrial labour unions may have their faults, they can hardly be blamed for policies that have encouraged capital-intensive manufacturing rather than labour-intensive manufacturing. Consider the fact that so much of India’s labour-intensive manufacturing activity is getting exported out, and workers in Bangladesh, no less organised or militant than their Indian counterparts, are getting the jobs that workers in Gujarat are losing.

Why is it that political leaders are so quick to say Jai Kisan and so slow to say Jai Mazdoor? Prime Minister Modi’s Independence Day speeches have hardly said much to enthuse the industrial working class even as he has spoken so often about Make in India and Ease of Doing Business. This, despite the fact that the largest trade union organisation today is the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), affiliated to the RSS and the BJP.

In the focus on the large deficit that India faces in its merchandise trade with China attention is often drawn, and correctly so, to China’s various unfair practices ranging from hidden subsidies to non-trade barriers. However, an important factor that has made China’s exports more competitive has been the rising and high productivity of Chinese labour. The average Chinese worker produces more per hour of work and unit of capital than the average Indian worker—thanks to being better skilled, better fed and in better health. Make in India requires investing in the capabilities, health and social security of the ‘makers of India’.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

strategic-promiscuity

Thu Aug 06 18:02:39 IST 2020

Nations have no permanent friends or allies; they only have permanent interests. So said Lord Palmerston, a mid-19th century British prime minister. That should settle the issue of who India’s partners are at any given point in time. When the Chinese invaded India in 1962, the United States offered military support. When India faced a US-China-Pakistan axis in Bangladesh, the Soviet Union stood firmly with India. Both in 1962 and in 1971, India’s interests remained the same—to bolster her own security—her friends changed. A nation has both short-term and long-term interests. Those who stand by it in achieving short-term objectives are tactical partners. Those who stand by it for the long run are strategic partners.

Throughout the Cold War India opted for non-alignment as a strategy, but had no problem seeking tactical support from one side or the other. In the post-Cold War period, however, India got into the habit of calling every tactical alliance a strategic partnership. From France to Russia, from the United States to China, from Japan to... (hold your breath) Rwanda, every other country was signing up to be India’s “strategic partner”! In 2011, Arvind Gupta and Sarita Azad of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses listed as many as 30 strategic partnerships that India had by then entered into.

In April 2005, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hosted China’s prime minister Wen Jiabao. New Delhi went into a tizzy and the two heads of government ended up signing a joint statement in which they said, “the two sides agreed that India-China relations have now acquired a global and strategic character”. They then went on to establish “an India-China Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity”.

All the actors responsible for that statement are still around. The national security adviser and foreign secretary of the time are now regular columnists. Perhaps they could enlighten us now on what made them get the prime minister of the day to sign on to that statement and what was so “strategic” about that partnership.

Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seduced by this promiscuity in strategic partnerships. The India-Rwanda strategic partnership was signed by him in 2018. Thanks to China’s President Xi Jinping, India’s strategists have been forced to define more precisely what they mean by a strategic partnership.

Anything strategic must derive from a strategy. The distinguished scholar of war and strategy, Lawrence Freedman defines strategy as “the art of creating power”. As theorists of power, from Kautilya to Antonio Gramsci, have suggested, power itself has many dimensions and military power is just one of them. The foundation of military power, as Kautilya suggested in the Arthashastra, is economic capability and fiscal capacity. Thus, in identifying a strategic partner, a country must determine which other country would assist it in the “creation of power”, with a clear understanding of what form such power would take—military, economic, technological, cultural and political.

Fifteen years after India and China signed the 2005 statement it is clear that it has not delivered on the promise of peace and prosperity, not to speak of enhancing Indian power. Rather, by aligning itself firmly with Pakistan it has enhanced the latter’s power. On the other hand, in these 15 years, the US, Japan, France and even Russia have helped enhance India’s power.

But military capacity building is only one leg of such a partnership. Enhancing India’s economic capability should be the other. To qualify as strategic, a partnership must deliver on both counts. It is time we defined strategic partnerships more strategically, and not just tactically.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

still-the-economy-stupid

Thu Jul 23 14:32:17 IST 2020

Look at where the economies of China and India were in the 1980s, and look where they are now. The power differential between the two today is largely a consequence of the different trajectories of economic performance. That was the reminder that External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar offered last week in a televised discussion, echoing Bill Clinton’s famous slogan: It’s the economy, stupid!

It reminded me of what one of his distinguished predecessors as foreign secretary, K. Raghunath, told members of India’s National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) in 1999. Asked what needs to be done to make Indian foreign policy more effective, Raghunath’s reply was quick—improve India’s economic performance. A stronger, more efficient and more competitive economy would facilitate more effective diplomacy. The era when good speeches and clever posturing made up for poor economic performance was over.

The NSAB report that was then prepared reflected the strategic thinking at the turn of the century. China had gained power and influence with its economic capability and performance. Higher economic growth helped improve state capacity, including the fiscal capacity of the state. This, following Kautilya’s famous axiom in the Arthashastra—“from the strength of the treasury, the army flows”—enabled China to become a military power.

If China is today more influential globally it is not because the world has discovered its civilisational greatness or exciting cuisine, but because it has demonstrated economic and human capability and has built relationships of interdependence with nations big and small.

In the first two decades of the 21st century, China became an economic superpower and so became a great power. India has yet to become an economic superpower. From Raghunath to Jaishankar and after, Indian diplomacy can do its best to manage a difficult world, but at the end of the day India’s global standing and power will be shaped in farms and factories, in classrooms and laboratories. When India is economically not only stronger and self-reliant (atmanirbhar) but also more efficient and competitive (globally engaged), it will also be regarded a great power. Till then, we need clever diplomats and generals to mind the gap, and cleverer political leadership to bridge the gap.

I am not yet convinced by the argument that external trade is a threat rather than an opportunity for the Indian economy. Jaishankar is wrong to buy into the Swadeshi Jagran Manch argument that Indian industrial development has been hurt by external trade, especially the few free-trade agreements negotiated by the Manmohan Singh government. India’s decision to walk out of negotiations towards a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement was a consequence of such thinking.

While Indian business leaders who run globally non-competitive firms may agree with what the external affairs minister was saying, those who have benefited from globalisation will not. Indeed, this year the trade surplus being generated signals a slowdown in domestic economic activity, not the growing competitiveness of the economy. There are many reasons why the share of manufacturing in India’s national income is stuck at around 16 per cent for two decades. External trade is certainly not the most important one.

Moreover, there is a contradiction between the government seeking more foreign direct investment while turning away from external trade opportunities. Surely, atmanirbharata does not mean getting foreigners to produce more in India for the Indian market alone. Foreign direct investment policy is about tapping the world market. Trade is the means to that end.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

trade-is-also-strategic

Thu Jul 09 16:43:10 IST 2020

Talking about his recent book on his tenure at the White House, former United States national security adviser John Bolton told an Indian journalist that he disagreed with President Donald Trump focusing far too much on bilateral trade issues and not enough on larger strategic issues with India. This distinction is an old fudge that both the tribes of economists and foreign policy experts indulge in. Every now and then we are reminded that while the US State department wants better relations with India, the US Trade Representative (USTR) marches to a different tune.

This distinction that keeps trade policy in one silo, and foreign policy and strategic ties in another is mirrored even on the Indian side. In New Delhi, the partitioning is made complete by the fact that the Indian Administrative Service runs trade policy while the Indian Foreign Service runs foreign policy. When a certain former prime minister wanted to post an IFS officer as India’s ambassador to the World Trade Organization, the IAS killed the proposal with a ton of files. On the other hand, diplomats have often complained about the insularity of the trade bureaucracy that prevents closer relations with the US.

The current stand-off with China and the new policy of atmanirbharta has forced the government of India to wipe out this distinction between trade policy and foreign policy. Even so, the ideological diehards among both economists and foreign policy analysts remain critical of blurring the distinction. Those who remain sceptical of taking a tough view on trade with China, as a response to China getting tough on border issues and political relations, would do well to read the views of the Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas C. Schelling who deployed game theory in defining nuclear deterrence.

Schelling told a US Congressional committee on trade and national security way back in 1971: “Aside from war and preparations for war, and occasionally aside from migration, trade is the most important relationship that most countries have with each other.... Trade is what most international relations are about. For that reason, trade policy is national security policy.”

Schelling’s views have been echoed over the years across Washington DC. The White House has used the USTR to browbeat friend and foe. In the 1980s, Japan was the target. Today, it is China, India and many other trade partners. So, Bolton is making much of a muchness criticising Trump for doing what many of his predecessors have done—weaponise trade. What is amusing is that so many Indian apologists for US action continue to peddle the argument that while the White House and the US state department want good relations with India, the USTR is such a bloody-minded fellow.

For good or bad, political and economic relations between countries do get inter-twined. China was a beneficiary of a mounting trade surplus with India during the pre-Xi Jinping period when the political relationship was improving. As the political relationship deteriorated, trade ties, too, took the hit. The theory that trade can buy peace was dumped long ago and China’s deteriorating relations with all its major trade partners goes to show that money cannot buy love.

As for the US-India relationship, the media has reported that India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has been receiving reassuring phone calls from Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, in the context of the spat with China. It would be equally helpful if New Delhi also received reassuring calls from the USTR, Robert Lighthizer. As George Bernard Shaw’s Eliza Doolittle told Freddy Eynsford-Hill, “Do not talk of love, show me!”

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

china-message-to-asia

Thu Jun 25 16:50:43 IST 2020

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi came away from his historic 1988 meeting with the architect of 21st century China, Deng Xiaoping, reassured by Deng’s famous words: “Only when China and India have developed, will a real Asian century emerge.” In 2007, Singapore’s founder-leader Lee Kuan Yew expressed the opinion that Asia’s rise would be powered by the “twin engines” of China and India. In 1988, Deng may well have believed that, and, in 2007, Lee may well have sincerely hoped that. No one in China and few across much of east and southeast Asia any longer takes those views seriously.

The accelerated rise of China is essentially a 21st century phenomenon. The trans-Atlantic financial crisis of 2008-2009 further consolidated China’s power, even as the west went into a period of disarray. India’s impressive economic performance in the first decade of the 21st century kept the hope of a catch-up alive. However, several developments in the second decade have combined to change the landscape to India’s disadvantage.

First, India’s uncertain economic performance and its defensive approach to closer economic ties with other Asian nations. The decision to withdraw from the negotiations towards an Asia-wide Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership signalled India’s economic weakness rather than a new sense of self-confidence or atmanirbharata. Second, the BJP’s focus on a divisive domestic political agenda offered India’s enemies an opportunity to draw global attention to political fault lines at home, which many see as a hurdle to economic revival. Finally, United States President Donald Trump’s “blow hot-blow cold” policy towards India, once again confirmed by the contents of former US national security advisor John Bolton’s book, may have convinced China that the US is unlikely to weigh in on India’s side, beyond a point.

It is into this uncertain space that China’s President Xi Jinping is inserting China, hoping to herald its arrival as Asia’s pre-eminent power. From Depsang and Doklam to Galwan Valley the consistent push against India is, it seems, aimed at demonstrating to the rest of Asia that India remains pre-occupied with its own security, so how can it offer any reassurance to others? China’s India policy is less about acquiring territory and much more about demonstrating to the rest of Asia that India is not capable of challenging China’s hegemonic status across the continent any time soon.

It is important to recognise that India is not alone in worrying about China’s hegemonic ambitions. Japan, South Korea, Australia, Vietnam and several other Asian nations are equally worried about China’s intent and capability. Mindful of this situation, India has reached out to other powers to build a defensive alliance. This is what strategic analysts now call the “Asian Great Game”. India must not deviate from the path of building a pan-Asian alliance that keeps Chinese power under check. Surely, no Asia-Pacific nation wants western hegemony replaced by Chinese hegemony.

It is also important to understand that while an overwhelming number of Chinese citizens and people of Chinese origin around Asia take great pride in China’s resurgence and rise, and why not, there would be many who would not approve of President Xi’s politics and political style. To imagine that Chinese society and China’s political leadership is a monolith would be self-defeating. Even at the height of power of great leaders like Mao Zedong and Deng, China was internally divided. Xi’s politics and economics have caused much discontent within China. But the question is, would an internally plural China be externally less or more aggressive?

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

down-under-looks-up

Fri Jun 12 12:26:05 IST 2020

The virtual summit between Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was historic—both in form and content. Given the media focus on Covid-19 and on India-China border tensions, the meeting did not get the attention it deserved. Apart from the foreign policy cognoscenti au fait with the ups and downs of India-Australia relations, few may be aware of the difficult journey that both Australian and Indian diplomats have had to make to get to the point where Modi and Morrison found themselves.

While both countries paid little attention to each other through most of the Cold War, despite their shared history of British rule, the bilateral relationship actually worsened after the Cold War, when Australia sanctioned India for the Pokhran-II nuclear tests.

However, prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was willing to forgive Australian high-handedness at the time and pay a visit to Canberra. I discovered this when I turned up for lunch at the home of the Australian high commissioner Penny Wensley in early 2004. My host had just returned from a meeting with national security advisor Brajesh Mishra, and told me very excitedly that Vajpayee had agreed to travel to Australia “after the elections”. Vajpayee ended up losing those elections and Manmohan Singh kept delaying his visit, waiting for Australia to come to terms with India’s nuclear weapons status and agree to sell uranium.

Meanwhile, something else turned up to spoil the bilateral equation. China. While students of foreign affairs can read the pro-China writings of Australian strategists like Hugh White, and some of the early speeches of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (a Mandarin speaking China lover who has since changed colours), to appreciate the depth of the Australia-China bonhomie in early 2000s, the best popular introduction to how Australia was kow-towing to China would be the Australian television series Secret City! Imagine a TV series that showed an Indian cabinet minister having an affair with the spouse of a foreign diplomat, of whatever country. Secret City had the Australian defence minister in bed with the wife of the Chinese ambassador. Nothing could be more candid in revealing the depth of Chinese penetration into Australian elite circles.

The Modi-Morrison joint statement on a comprehensive strategic partnership inaugurates a new phase in the bilateral relationship. In November 2014, Modi delivered on Vajpayee’s promise and visited Australia. From then on, Australian officials favouring closer relations with India have had to work hard to overcome the influence of the China-lobby in Canberra. If there is one person who deserves credit for cementing the bilateral relationship it is former Australian high commissioner to India, Peter Varghese.

I first met Varghese in Singapore when he came to see me at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, where I was then teaching. Varghese was preparing for his New Delhi posting and wanted to know all about India. On completing his extended tenure, he returned home as Australia’s foreign secretary and subsequently wrote an influential report on an India strategy up to 2035. Battling the China-lobby at home, diplomats and analysts like Varghese had to convince their peers and political masters that placing all eggs in the China basket was no strategy.

While a bulk of Varghese’s report focused on economic opportunities in India, the last chapter provided a “geopolitical pillar” to the relationship, identifying shared strategic interests and perspectives within the wider Indo-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions. However, geopolitical considerations alone cannot keep Australia engaged, given China’s continuing economic allure. India will have to deliver on the economic and trade fronts to get those Down Under to look up.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

self-reliance-third-edition

Fri May 29 10:04:32 IST 2020

Though the phrase ‘self-reliance’ does not appear anywhere in the First Five-Year Plan (1951-56), it is commonplace that the very idea of planned development, with the public sector occupying the commanding heights of the economy, implied that post-colonial India would seek to pursue self-reliant economic development. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi put forward his version of self-reliance, with a view to build an Atma Nirbhar Bharat, many thought he was saying something new. He was, in fact, enunciating a third variant of a concept that has its roots in India’s freedom struggle.

Between Jawaharlal Nehru’s version of self-reliance, as it evolved through the first three five-year plans and eventually turned into import-substituting industrialisation, and Modi’s recent articulation of it, there is an intermediate second variant that Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao articulated in his famous presidential address to the Tirupati session of the All India Congress Committee in April 1992. Each variant captures the reality of a changing India in a changing world.

Rejecting criticism that the economic liberalisation and reform policies unveiled between June 1991 and March 1992 were a departure from Nehruvian self-reliance, Rao told the AICC that, “a country of India’s size has to be self-reliant”, but the concept of self-reliance has to evolve in step with the country’s own development and the changing global context. “While we are redefining self-reliance,” Rao assured the AICC, “we are not abandoning the basic principle.”

Enunciating his own version of atmanirbharata relevant for an India at the turn of the century Rao said, “The very level of development we have reached has made us independent of the world economy in some respects, but more dependent on it in others. This is an important aspect of the complexity of modern development.”

He then went on to define self-reliance for the world of the 1990s, how it was different from the self-reliance of the 1950s. Given the context of 1991-92, when India was dealing with a mounting internal and external debt and repayments crisis, Rao summed up, “One way of describing self-reliance would be to say that we should be indebted only to the extent we have capacity to repay.”

Rao’s address to the 1992 AICC is, without doubt, the best post-Nehruvian statement on economic policy in the past three decades. Its detailed enunciation of India’s economic priorities and policies and the spelling out of a new theory of a mixed economy and of self-reliance, relevant to a more globally integrated and self-confident India deserves wide reading even today. It is a pity that in its pusillanimous sycophancy towards Sonia Gandhi, the Congress does not make available Rao’s historic AICC address on its website. Those interested can read the full text reprinted as an appendix to my book 1991: How Narasimha Rao Made History (2016).

If Rao re-defined the Nehruvian idea of self-reliance for the 1990s, Modi has tried to do so for an India of the 2020s that would have to deal with a very different post-Covid global context. So, rather than suggest that Modi has expounded something new, merely because he has used a long Hindi word, it would be more appropriate to recognise that he, too, is re-defining an idea that has been intrinsic to India’s freedom struggle and post-Independence development.

Like Rao, Modi too has taken care not to confuse self-reliance with inward-oriented autarky. Referring to the oft-quoted concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (whole world is one family), Modi clarified, “India does not advocate self-centric arrangements when it comes to self-reliance. India’s self-reliance is ingrained in the happiness, cooperation and peace of the world.” Clearly, the appeal of some mantras endures.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

season-of-policy-wonks

Thu May 14 17:18:44 IST 2020

The Covid-19 lockdown will be remembered for many things. One of them, without doubt, would be the tsunami of policy advice that has hit many governmental shores around the world. Sitting at home and forced to read, reflect and write, professionals in the policy world—ranging from pure academics and theorists to locked down government officials and their retired seniors—have loads of time to think about the pandemic and its consequences and come up with solutions.

Crisis periods are like that. When governments are hit with unexpected challenges, they reach out to practical ideas from wherever they can get them. The Great Depression and the era of post-war reconstruction were two such periods when governments desperately looked around for ideas and that is when economists came into their own. The tallest among them was John Maynard Keynes, the father of modern macroeconomics. Keynes’s biographer Robert Skidelsky subtitled the second volume of his three-volume biography thus: ‘The Economist as Saviour’.

In an earlier era, wrote Skidelsky, the common folk turned to priests and soothsayers for reassurance about the future in the midst of uncertainty. In the 20th century of reason, logic and empiricism, they had turned to the economist. “The generational shift with which Keynes was associated,” writes Skidelsky, “is properly called avant-garde. His generation saw itself as the front line of the army of progress.”

However, Skidelsky adds, Keynes gave central importance to uncertainty in the realm of policy-making. All human action in the present is taken based on data from the past and assumptions about the future. But in a world of uncertain outcomes, “uncertainty pervades both private and public calculations of means to achieve given ends”. Skidelsky accused Keynes’s disciples of not paying adequate attention to the role of uncertainty in policy-making.

In a crisis, the more successful governments are those that can manage the implications of uncertainty. Risk can be calculated, based on probability. Uncertainty is a virtual black box. One way in which economic policy makers have handled uncertainty is to rely on the disciplines of psychology and sociology. How are individuals and groups likely to behave under given circumstances? In going into the lockdown, the government may not have had enough time to reflect on its consequences. However, at the end of seven weeks of lockdown, there ought to have been adequate thinking within the government both on the consequences of continued lockdown and of the end of lockdown.

It is now clear that different social classes have reacted differently to the lockdown. The middle class have been remarkably tame. Usually more vocal and argumentative and more demanding of the government, the urban middle class has silently fallen in line and accepted the lockdown. The less privileged and poor have, however, shown little confidence in the government and have opted to return to the imagined certainty of their distant homes rather than accept the risk and uncertainty associated with staying put in less hospitable territory.

How will a population that has lived through the lockdown respond to various economic signals once the lockdown is lifted? Will the middle class regain confidence and return to public places? Will migrant workers return to places of work? Will consumers, savers, investors, employers trust governments? Can policy interventions of the past work in the future? Answers to these questions can only be found in the realm of human psychology and sociology. While behavioural economics may offer some answers, mainstream post-Keynesian economics would have little to contribute since most of its conclusions are based on past data and an understanding of homo economicus in a very different world.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

a-free-press-to-police-the-police

Sat Apr 18 10:14:47 IST 2020

During my tenure as media adviser to the prime minister in the first term of the United Progressive Alliance government, I was often frustrated by the ideologically biased, often tendentious, ill-informed reporting of many journalists. On a couple of occasions, I wrote letters to the editor in protest against such news reports targeting the prime minister. On a couple of other occasions, I went and called on the editor or the publisher, depending on who was really in-charge, and lodged complaints. Never did I ever lodge an FIR at any police station against a journalist. In the recent past, it appears it has become commonplace for chief ministers to routinely do so.

From West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee to Andhra Pradesh’s Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, and including such suave and westernised chief ministers like Naveen Patnaik of Odisha, an increasing number of chief ministers have been trying to muzzle the media. It is not surprising at all that Uttar Pradesh’s priest-turned politician Yogi Adityanath has also used the police under his charge to harass an award-winning editor, Siddharth Varadarajan, founder-editor of the online publication The Wire. Varadarajan’s fault was reporting that the UP chief minister was not observing social distancing even after the prime minister had urged the entire country to do so as a preventive measure against contracting Covid-19.

During my tenure at the PMO, no other journalist was as difficult to handle as Varadarajan, then with The Hindu, who ran a virtually one-man campaign against the terms of the India-US civil nuclear agreement that was still being negotiated. It was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s most important and pet initiative during his tenure. The discussions between India and the US began within weeks of Singh becoming prime minister in 2004, but the deal was finally clinched in 2008. No journalist made the process more difficult for Singh than Varadarajan. Yet, the government of the day did not raise a finger against him. While Varadarajan had his ideological bias, he rarely got his facts wrong. (It was a different matter that he was getting his facts from sources within the government!)

My approach to dealing with the media, as an official of the PMO, was simple—I classified the journalists I had to deal with into four groups: pro-BJP, pro-left, pro-Congress and the purely professional. Each time a pro-BJP journalist wrote something against the prime minister, I would offer facts to the contrary to one of the other three. Each time a pro-Congress journalist wrote something against the prime minister, and there were those who did, I would counter them using one of the other three. And so it went. The best way to deal with motivated reportage is to counter it with facts. If the facts favour the journalist, then the best course to adopt would be to ignore and move on. Even though few politicians have lost power because of professional reporting by journalists, the problem with many who enjoy brute legislative majorities is their intolerance of criticism and dissent. They become democratic despots very easily.

Chief ministers cutting across party lines have for decades made the police service do their bidding. In the recent past, we have seen the Union home minister similarly using the police force under his direct charge in Delhi to do the ruling party’s bidding; for example, when the Delhi Police allowed masked goons who attacked students and faculty on the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus to get away. The politicisation of the police force is one of the major governance challenges in India and only a free press can keep it under check.

colour-fades-cracks-show

Sat Apr 04 14:19:36 IST 2020

President Xi Jinping has stopped colouring his hair. Recent photographs of the Chinese leader show him with streaks of grey. While going grey is part of the ageing process, going grey suddenly is a sign of either ill health or distress. Hence, some view Xi’s display of grey as an attempt to show his people that he cares, that he is worried about their welfare, that he is working extra hard in these difficult times. Those of us who have allowed our hair to grey naturally, have never coloured it through good times and bad, happy times and stressful ones, would view this hirsute deception with both amusement and distrust.

When political leaders and entertainers colour their hair black, it is to show that they are still energetic and young. But, when a politician seeks to hide his grey it could be viewed as evidence of a willingness to deceive. Can one trust a person who colours his hair to be transparent in other matters? So, Xi’s decision to stop colouring his hair may not be just about demonstrating his concern for the health and welfare of his people. Its subliminal intent could be to win the trust of a people that are becoming increasingly distrustful of their political leaders.

The Chinese have been largely stoic in the face of Covid-19, but public protests are on the rise and the subdued anger of an anxious people is beginning to show. Winning public trust is a key imperative of effective public policy. In the age of mass communication it is necessary for political leaders to be seen as being concerned about people’s welfare. So, it is not surprising that faced with visuals of thousands of urban poor walking miles to their distant rural homes in sheer desperation, escaping a lockdown of their livelihoods in the name of protecting their lives, even a macho politician like Prime Minister Narendra Modi was forced to ‘apologise’ for taking this tough decision.

That was a decent gesture on his part. However, in an unthinking moment, Modi seems to have fallen prey to the sycophancy around him by launching a people’s fund for treatment of Covid-19 victims with the wearing-my-concern-on-my-sleeve acronym PM-CARES (Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund). After his convincing victory in the last general elections, Modi does not require a fund named “PM-Cares” to convince people that he does. Was it hubris or plain incompetence that such an in-your-face name got approved? Some would view it as a sign of political weakness, like Xi’s grey hair. When politicians find it necessary to convince people that they care, then they are merely admitting that they think the people think they do not.

Will people concerned about Covid-19 want their governments to be merely caring or also competent? When each one of us has to go to a hospital, we seek both qualities in the doctor we consult—empathy and competence. When it comes to health, competence scores over empathy. Merely demonstrating concern for peoples’ distress without following it up with competent action is not going to win brownie points for politicians in power. On the other hand, there are different levels of public tolerance for incompetence in different societies. It is possible that in today’s China there is much less tolerance for incompetence than there was in Mao Zedong’s China in which millions died in famines. The question for Indian leadership, in Centre and states, is how much incompetence will the people tolerate merely because their leaders say they care.

turning-crisis-into-opportunity

Sat Mar 21 17:23:57 IST 2020

It is old hat that the Chinese character for ‘crisis’ is a combination of the characters for danger and opportunity. Thus went the wise old saying that in every crisis recognise the danger as well as the opportunity. Many knowledgeable people have been saying that to the Narendra Modi government for some time now. Make use of the economic slowdown and the unsettled political situation to initiate reforms that can turn the economy and polity around, and alter the national mood.

The example often quoted is of P.V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh in 1991 to show how a crisis can be turned into an opportunity. The reason why this is not an apt precedent for Modi is that in 1991 Rao and Singh could claim they inherited a crisis, even if the chief architect of that crisis was Rajiv Gandhi (see my book 1991: How Narasimha Rao Made History (2016) for the evidence on that), while in 2020 Modi knows that the current conjuncture is of his government’s own making. But then coronavirus is not. That is a crisis made in China and so Modi has been quick to turn it into an opportunity.

A global pandemic has helped concentrate policy minds in New Delhi. First, home minister Amit Shah staged a retreat on the proposed National Citizenship Register and National Population Register, ended the detention of former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah and reiterated the government’s assurance that at some point statehood would be bestowed on the union territory of J&K. Second, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has been quick to use the fall in oil prices, caused by the global economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, to in fact raise the excise duty on fuel and generate much needed revenues for the government. The finance minister has shown that faced with a prolonged slowdown, a stock market implosion and other negative economic consequences of a pandemic, she will do her best to prevent a fiscal crisis for an already fiscally constrained government.

Then came Prime Minister Modi’s invitation to leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) for a dialogue, albeit via a video-conference, on the management of a pandemic. This has the potential to kick-start two stalled engines—the India-Pakistan bilateral dialogue and the SAARC process. While Pakistan has responded cautiously it has not thwarted the opportunity.

A pandemic that recognises no political borders is an apt metaphor for regional cooperation in South Asia.

While India has been correctly defining its neighbourhood in more expansive and strategic terms, including south-east, east and west Asian neighbours, as well as the Indian Ocean littoral, the fact is that it is the immediate neighbourhood that is of greatest importance to India’s own growth, development and security. The Covid-19 pandemic offered an opportunity for regional cooperation and Modi was right to seize it. Be it religious extremism and the terrorism it spawns, be it trade and development or be it the fight against poverty, South Asia needs both regional and national strategies and policies given the multiple cross-border links that feed each other’s worries.

The initiative, however, raises the larger question about the region’s shared destiny. Many have imagined from time to time that India and Pakistan can go their own way. Pakistan looks west, to the Islamic world, hoping to turn its back on India and India looks east, wanting to liberate itself from Pakistan. To an extent, weaker bilateral links have meant that both need each other less and less. However, if south Asia can learn to create an environment of cooperation rather than conflict, all countries in the region would be better off.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

a-world-without-walls

Fri Mar 06 14:28:57 IST 2020

Way back in the 1960s, when my generation was in its teens, long before any economist wrote about globalisation, Marshall McLuhan wrote a bestseller—The Gutenberg Galaxy—and coined the term ‘global village’ that made waves around the world. The book is full of quotable quotes about modern media, advertising, communication, politics, technology and so on. The most persuasive and lasting thought he left behind among his readers was the idea of the world as a village. That time and space had been shrunk by technology.

It was a couple of decades after McLuhan’s book was published that the word ‘globalisation’ captured the imagination of most people as they began to travel more easily and buy goods in their neighbourhood shop manufactured thousands of miles away. Television, as McLuhan reminded us, had brought the world into our living room. “Everybody experiences far more than he understands. Yet it is experience, rather than understanding, that influences behaviour,” he wrote. Television had brought experience closer home, without the required understanding of that experience. McLuhan believed that the Vietnam war was lost in “the living rooms of America—not on the battlefields of Vietnam”.

As we sit in our living rooms and experience the communal hatred in the dirty, crowded streets of the nation’s capital; the fear of coronavirus from Wuhan to Paris and Tehran to Bangkok; the propaganda about citizenship and migration in the streets of Kolkata and Paris; the talk of fair and unfair trade in the election rallies of the world’s most powerful nation, we hear the drumbeats of the global village.

The village drummer brought people together to inform them, warn them, alert them just as modern media does. The parallel ends there. The village drummer knew that the destiny of every villager was linked to that of another. His drumbeats were for all. Does modern media know that? Does television today beat the drum for all? When a virus engulfs a village, all are threatened. How stupid of anyone to imagine that one is safe while neighbours die of a spreading virus.

The metaphor of the global village was meant to remind us of our shared destiny. Not just of those within a single village but of those in villages around, and those that inhabit the space between villages. The drumbeats of one village were heard in the next and so the message went forth.

To imagine that one can have free flow of the good things of life through trade and travel, but keep what one does not like out with a wall in between is naïve, to say the least. The information on climate change only reinforces ancient knowledge that nature recognises no borders. Indeed, till the middle of the 20th century, humans, too, had no particular regard for borders. The history of mankind has been the history of movement of people, sometimes in response to the challenge posed by nature and sometimes in response to the threat posed by fellow humans.

Just as the clouds above move freely across borders, so do animals below and so did humans. For how long can mere governments prevent the free movement of people when nature, the search for life and livelihood, for security and safety push people to move? When governments are unable to prevent a virus from crossing borders, how long can they prevent ideas from doing so? When big business wants free movement of capital and goods, how long can it prevent the free movement of people? Such are the questions that the drummers of the global village raise and we cannot remain deaf to their beats.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

indian-aid-to-america

Sat Feb 22 11:29:21 IST 2020

The United States administration of President Donald Trump has given India a historic push. It has elevated India to the rank of a developed economy. Hallelujah! Perhaps President Trump deserves a Bharat Ratna for helping India rise so fast in such a short period of time. No other politician has been able to stage this developmental miracle for India. If you still think India is a developing economy with per capita annual national income of just $2,000 compared with $60,000 for the US, then you must be living on a different planet, certainly not on Trump’s La La Land.

One cannot blame the simplistic mind of the Trump administration for having come to such a historic determination. After all, what about India do most of them see around them all the time? Some of America’s best educated, talented and best behaved people earning twice as much as an average white American. Consider the statistics. According to the well-known US public information surveying agency, Pew Research, the median household income of Indian immigrants in the US in 2015, at $1,01,591, was almost double that of not just all other immigrant nationalities ($51,000) but also almost double that of the average native American households ($56,000). If Indians around you in the US are so much better off than the average Joe, surely India must be a developed country!

Of course, one reason why Indian Americans earn so much more is because they are better educated than the average Joe. Pew Research found that 72 per cent of Indian Americans in the age group of 25 and above were graduates, while only 19 per cent of all Americans had obtained a graduate degree, and 40 per cent of Indian Americans had obtained postgraduate degrees, with only 11 per cent of all Americans so qualified. So the average Joe thinks India must be doing more to educate its people. So why blame the average Joe and his president for imagining that India is a developed country?

Now look at the other side of the coin. There are over four million Indian Americans in the US and almost all of them, with very few exceptions, either themselves or their parents, migrated after 1980. Less than 10 per cent of the 4.4 million migrated before 1980. A significant number of the migrants were initially educated in India, mostly in government subsidised public institutions. Their initial educational base was good enough for them to excel in institutions of higher learning in the US and get all those well-paying jobs. Today many of them contribute to the development of American science and technology, business and finance, academia and public institutions.

It would be worth quantifying the total economic contribution of Indian Americans to the United States, especially its growth after the end of the Cold War. The ‘brain drain’ to the US out of contemporary India may well be worth more than the ‘drain of wealth’ from colonial India to Imperial Britain. One could argue that by exporting talent, a developing country has aided the continued global dominance of a developed one. The sum could well run into trillions of dollars and that should be considered India’s aid to the US.

US trade negotiators complain that India remains closed to US imports and is running a trade surplus. India’s negotiators could tell their counterparts that the talent this country has exported to the US more than makes up for this. In fact, a developing India is contributing by the hour to keep developed America developed. President Trump may complain that many Indian Americans are not voting for him. That, too, is an important contribution of Indian Americans to America’s development.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

every-city-needs-an-aap

Fri Feb 07 14:40:40 IST 2020

For a chief minister who does not have even the powers of a mayor of most western cities, the head of Delhi’s local government gets a lot of national attention. For the second time in five years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pitched himself directly against Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal in a campaign that opinion polls suggest places Kejriwal miles ahead of both national party rivals. In 2015, Modi suffered his first major electoral setback when the AAP swept Delhi polls. It was after that defeat and Rahul Gandhi’s famous jibe about Modi’s ‘suit-boot ki sarkar’ that the prime minister had to shift gears and turn populist in his policies. The consequences of that defeat are being felt even now in Modi’s economic policies.

Kejriwal’s larger-than-life image is partly because so much of the national media, especially television news, is located in New Delhi. The chief minister of Delhi is like the mayor of New York, whose name often figures among presidential hopefuls in the United States, but his powers and finances are nowhere near the latter’s. The police commissioner of New York is selected by the mayor and reports to him. Successive chief ministers of Delhi have complained that the city’s police do not report to them.

Delhi goes to vote on February 8 and by evening exit polls will give their verdict. If Kejriwal wins, as he is expected to, it will be because no political party has been able to present an agenda to the nation’s capital city that can hope to rival the AAP’s performance and promise. Indeed, the vote in Delhi will be for the AAP and not just Kejriwal. I have never met Kejriwal or any of his ministers, but I have had the opportunity to meet many of the young men and women who constitute the AAP’s backbone and it has always been an elevating and inspiring experience. Kejriwal’s best contribution to Indian politics has been to mobilise young people interested in improving education, health care and bring decency into human interaction.

In the three decades I have lived in New Delhi, I had never had the opportunity to meet my local member of the state legislature or municipality till a young man from the AAP got elected. His contribution to making the place where I live more liveable, his grasp of the nitty-gritty of municipal and urban affairs, his ability to coordinate the work between agencies of the government that often work at cross purposes has truly impressed me. It is the good work of such young people in the AAP that will make Kejriwal return to office. Hopefully, he understands that and continues to empower them. It would be terrible if a second victory makes Kejriwal too ambitious. He has lots of work to do in Delhi and he must continue to do that.

Every Indian city needs a local government like the AAP that pays attention to improving urban governance, infrastructure, finances, public service delivery and, above all, public education and health. It is by focusing on these issues that the AAP has endeared itself to Delhi’s citizens. Not by pandering to communal fears and resentment. In most states, on the other hand, the chief minister, his family and his ministerial and personal cronies keep a tight grip on urban space, enriching themselves and their next several generations. The India Against Corruption campaign and its political legacy remain the bright spots in an otherwise worrying national political landscape.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

economy-lessons-from-china

Fri Jan 24 19:58:01 IST 2020

While India entered the second decade of the 21st century worried about an economic slowdown and political sectarianism, China entered it celebrating not just the news of thaw in the trade war with the United States but, more strikingly, the fact that its annual per capita gross domestic product (GDP) had breached $10,000. Chinese media reported earlier this month that recently published national income data show that China’s per capita GDP was $10,276 in 2019. Technically, this qualifies China to become a member of the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)—dubbed the rich nation’s club. The OECD’s poorer economies— Mexico and Turkey—as well as countries like South Korea became members when their per capita income was below $10,000, but they are now all above that five digit mark.

The latest news from China is just one more wakeup call for Indian leadership. While the Union government is presently focused on turning the economy around in the near term, and that should be the focus of this year’s annual budget speech of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, it is time Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid out a credible medium-term roadmap for the economy that goes beyond merely asserting that India will be a $5 trillion economy. As former finance minister P. Chidambaram correctly said, India will some day be a $5 trillion economy. The question is when?

One unfortunate consequence of winding up the Planning Commission is that there is no group within the government tasked to develop an actionable medium-term growth strategy, with sectoral plans and targets. Such planning has now acquired renewed urgency given that the Union government hopes to revive economic growth by increasing public investment. There is expectation that the fiscal and revenue deficits are likely to be higher than budgeted and that the government may yet again set aside the discipline of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act.

There is a case for fiscal liberalism this year given the low rate of national income growth and the low ‘animal spirits’ of private enterprise. However, public spending should be undertaken within a credible medium-term policy framework. While China abandoned socialist planning many moons ago and has pursued socialism with Chinese characteristics, it continues to invest in institutional capacity for medium- and long-term planning. China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has a mandate and professional capacity that far exceeds that of India’s atrophied macro-economic planning organisation, fancily called the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog.

The NDRC is a high-powered body that has played a key role in enabling the structural transformation of the Chinese economy from being mainly investment-driven and export-oriented to sustaining growth through a shift to domestic consumption. There is a fundamental difference between turning business and investment cycles around and enabling structural changes. A ministry of finance can, at best, deploy fiscal instruments to alter incentives for investment and consumption. The economy requires an all-in government approach for the kind of structural changes that the Indian economy now requires.

The last time India adopted such an approach was in 1991-1992. Most economists now have come around to the view that the growth process unleashed by the structural changes of the early 1990s has run its course. A paradigm shift that is now warranted cannot be addressed by the finance minister and the annual budget policy alone. The budget speech can, however, chart out a medium-term strategy for accelerating growth and generating employment.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

nehru-dilemma-now-modi

Fri Jan 10 11:45:20 IST 2020

One good consequence of the defeat of the Congress in the general elections of 2014 has been the number of good books that have been written by Congressmen like Shashi Tharoor and Jairam Ramesh. Following up on his highly readable biography of Indira Gandhi’s principal aide P.N. Haksar, published in 2018, Jairam has now published a 700-page biography of V.K. Krishna Menon, India’s defence minister at the time of the Chinese incursion of 1962.

Historians and political scientists will benefit hugely from Jairam’s painstakingly detailed account of Menon’s role in India’s freedom struggle, his international articulation of Indian interests before and after independence, and his influence on policy at home and abroad through the first two decades after independence. To me, the most interesting part of this voluminous book was the detailing of the relationship between Menon and Nehru.

The office of the prime minister is the loneliest political office in India. Many prime ministers have been very lonely individuals even in their personal lives—widowers, widows and bachelors—and Nehru was made lonelier by his upbringing. Menon was among the very few in Nehru’s council of ministers that came from a social milieu that Nehru felt most comfortable in. It would have been no mere happenstance that both shared a unique social intimacy with the Mountbattens.

Menon and Nehru were two peas in a pod, but Nehru’s personality was shaped both by his long and deep involvement in the freedom struggle at home and his intimate association with Mahatma Gandhi. Menon fought for India’s freedom in the halls and on the streets of England, and then in the elegant world of diplomacy. He touched Indian soil only after convincing Nehru that he should induct him in his council of ministers. Jairam shows how their tenure as cabinet colleagues created tensions. Nehru had learnt how to function in New Delhi’s political milieu. Menon seemed to think that switching from Savile Row suits to dhoti-kurta was about the only transition needed. Nehru spoke in Hindustani. Menon hardly knew his own mother tongue.

Of the many dimensions to the Menon-Nehru partnership that Jairam brings out, the one that may resonate today is how Nehru was made to pay a price for his friendship. Many around Nehru wondered why the prime minister was so accommodative, so tolerant, so indulgent of a man who was so unlike Nehru. The officialdom, the diplomats and even most political colleagues of Nehru loved the man. Few felt so endearingly towards Menon. So, when opportunity presented itself—in the form of India’s inability to defend itself against Chinese aggression—everyone around the prime minister wanted the defence minister sacked.

An interesting anecdote from among the many is the one about Admiral R.D. Katari informing Nehru as early as in 1959 that he, too, wished to quit as Navy chief, after General K.S. Thimayya had sent in his papers to the prime minister. Nehru wondered why the three service chiefs had “ganged up” against the defence minister. Katari agreed with Nehru that Menon had his good qualities and had contributed to the nation, but then asked, “Why as defence minister, sir?” Katari felt relieved when Nehru laughed out.

A prime minister is often faced with such a dilemma. To what extent can one stick with a friend if the friendship is beginning to hurt his standing? Looking at events in India over the past few weeks, one wonders if the prime minister today asks himself whether his friendship with a fellow Gujarati is beginning to hurt his own standing.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

learn-from-atalji

Sat Dec 28 12:26:37 IST 2019

On Christmas Day Atal Bihari Vajpayee would have been 95. Will the India that celebrates Atalji’s centenary five years hence be the India that he would have felt comfortable living in? The answer to that lies in the manner in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi responds to the many concerns of many citizens being expressed in many ways as this year comes to a close.

I was still in my teens when I first heard Atalji address a public meeting in the Vivek Vardhini College grounds in Hyderabad. I regarded myself a communist at the time and so was not impressed by his views, but I was mesmerised by his oratory. Years later, I first met Atalji in the stately rooms of New Delhi’s Hyderabad House. Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao was hosting a dinner in honour of the visiting heads of government of the Group of 15—a like-minded group within the Non-Aligned Movement. Rao caught me and a couple of others laughing heartily as Atalji spoke to us, while waiting to move to the dining room. The prime minister walked up to us, leaving the other G-15 leaders behind, and inquired conspiratorially: “What is Atal telling you?” Atalji laughed heartily and replied: “Don’t worry, I am not saying anything that should worry you.”

Like everyone who came in contact with him, I, too, was truly impressed by Atalji’s wit and charm. He endeared himself to all his interlocutors and to multitude of the Indian people. When he passed away, the entire nation mourned a true nationalist—one who united India. There is much that the present leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party must learn from his example. Atalji may not have returned to power in 2004, but he firmly embedded himself in the hearts and minds of a large majority of Indians of all faiths.

The poet Oliver Goldsmith wrote of The Village Preacher: “Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway; and fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.” Much the same could be said for Atalji. Ironically though, towards the end of his tenure in office, Atalji was scoffed more within his own political movement than by his critics outside. He was mocked as a mask covering the real face of his party. Attempts were made to unseat him on the grounds that his health had been failing. He was criticised for not pulling up errant ministers, for allowing those close to him, from the late Pramod Mahajan to his family members, to misuse their positions of power and influence, and he was bullied by the BJP’s allies from Bal Thackeray to N. Chandrababu Naidu.

Despite all his faults and foibles, one can say of Atalji what Goldsmith said of the Village Preacher: “His ready smile a parent’s warmth expressed/ Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed./ To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,/ But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.”

All great leaders are remembered not because they were powerful, but because they were caring. The most impressive tribute to any former president in the national capital of the United States is not to a leader who established American dominance over the world, but one who united his own people—Abraham Lincoln—fighting hate and prejudice.

In the difficult days through which the country is passing, with insecurity of different kinds—from livelihood to life, scholarship to citizenship— gripping so many, there is much that Prime Minister Modi can learn from the qualities of Atalji’s head and heart in keeping the trust and confidence of all citizens.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

prioritise-economy-over-politics

Fri Dec 13 12:13:36 IST 2019

Economist Raghuram Rajan was criticised when, as governor of the Reserve Bank of India, he made critical remarks about domestic politics. That was understandable. Central bank governors are generally not expected to air their personal views on political and social issues of the day. However, as an academic economist, which is what Rajan now is, he has every right to speak his mind on any issue and certainly on issues that a professional economist believes impinge on economic policy and performance. So, the critics who questioned Rajan’s recent remarks on political issues are wrong.

It is one of the failings of modern economics that few professional economists are trained to understand the influence of political and social policies and events on economic performance. Indeed, the discipline of economics acquired shape in the womb of politics and of governance. Which is why it was originally referred to as ‘political economy’. Much of the economic theorising done by the discipline’s pioneers was about real-life policy issues and they showed acute awareness of the influence and role of politics and social attitudes on economic policy and performance.

It is only after the Second World War that economics became increasingly about algebra, arithmetic and statistical techniques and the discipline shed the word ‘political’ from its name and declared itself to be a social ‘science’. Which is at least one reason why society expects economists to come up with scientific solutions to economic problems when so many of those problems originate in political and social choices people make.

Consider the case of India’s economic slowdown. There are, without doubt, purely economic and commercial reasons for it. However, there are also political factors. How politicians handle policy is just one way in which politics influences economics. How politicians prioritise their concerns is another. Political management of economic policy is an important determinant of economic performance, for it shapes investment decisions, consumer behaviour and savings preferences. John Maynard Keynes’s most valuable proposition was that expectations have a way of shaping outcomes. Politics and political communication shape expectations about the economy and thereby influence actual outcome.

The ‘rising India narrative’ played an important role in pushing up economic growth rates in the post-liberalisation era. Compared to the average annual rate of growth of national income of 3.5 per cent till the early 1980s, the post-liberalisation era saw growth rates double and accelerate to over 7 per cent. Economists have pointed to several factors that have contributed to the recent slowdown. One of them certainly is the political environment in large parts of the country and the political narrative being built around it.

It would be wrong to blame only one political party, even if the BJP should take a bulk of the political responsibility for economic policy and performance. Most state governments are today run by non-BJP parties. Their performance, too, remains below par. So much of the politics of today revolves around irrelevant issues with the core issue of economic performance not getting the attention it deserves. This environment of political one-upmanship, brinkmanship and constant pursuit of short-term gains by almost all political parties has harmed the economy.

The prime minister and most chief ministers are seen as being busy with and remaining pre-occupied by a range of non-economic issues and not paying adequate attention to the economy. This perception may be unfair and wrong. But, it exists. It is not just the executive that prioritises politics over economics. The judiciary, too, has adopted a lackadaisical approach to economic issues, often failing to appreciate the economic cost of judicial action or inaction.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

stop-celebrating-brain-gain-work-on-retaining-talent

Fri Nov 29 12:03:15 IST 2019

Every now and then members of Parliament routinely and curiously seem to celebrate the departure of Indians from India. I wonder in how many other countries elected representatives of the people celebrate their citizens going abroad in search of employment rather than staying home and contributing to national development.

Recently, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar was required to answer that frequently asked question about H-1B visas that the United States dishes out to hire talent produced in India and gainfully employed in the US. The government is put on the defensive if fewer Indians are able to secure their passport to paradise. So, Jaishankar informed Parliament that US official data showed that “in fiscal 2018, 1.25 lakh H-1B visas were issued to Indian nationals which accounted for 69.9 per cent of the total 1.79 lakh H-1B visa issued.” Members of Parliament seemed satisfied to be told that “Indian nationals account for nearly 70 per cent of all H-1B visas issued”.

In my student days this was called “brain drain”. But around the turn of the century, policymakers and economists redefined this as export of services. India began demanding a multilateral regime for the ‘movement of natural persons’, as skilled labour export came to be called. This is no brain drain, argued some economists. India is creating a ‘brain bank’ from which it can draw hard currency in the form of remittances. Then we went a step further. Both former prime minister Manmohan Singh and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have spoken about ‘brain drain’ in fact being ‘brain gain’, since the emigrating Indian would return both better skilled and better off, and would contribute to India’s development.

When former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee decided to celebrate the achievement and contribution of the Indian diaspora, he chose January 9 since that was the date on which Mahatma Gandhi returned home from South Africa. The day is celebrated as Pravasi Bharatiya Divas—the home returning Indian, not the home leaving Indian. India now celebrates the home leavers, and hundreds of thousands are paying their way out.

The Reserve Bank of India has estimated that the total expenditure on tuition and hostel fees by Indian students studying abroad has gone up sharply in recent years, rising from $1.9 billion in 2013-2014 to about $2.8 billion in 2017-2018. The Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India has, however, estimated the actual figure to be more than twice that number, at $6 billion.

The issue is not the money outflow or inflow, but of the talent flow. Over the past four decades, India has contributed some of its best brains to the US, exporting students graduating from its best institutions. In the first quarter century after independence, most Indians who went abroad to study returned home to work. This benefitted the country. While more and more of those who study abroad are now returning home, because of reduced job opportunities in trans-Atlantic economies, the fact remains that India still exports far too much talent rather than retaining it at home. West Asia has been yet another magnet for talent export. It is no longer low-skilled labour that goes to the Gulf states. High-skilled labour and highly qualified professionals are now moving to the region. Indian companies, too, are investing more overseas.

The time has come for new thinking on policies that impact brain drain and the export of talent. The celebration of the achievements of the overseas Indian is all very well, but how about celebrating the decision of those who choose to remain or return by making it worthwhile to do so.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

judiciary-fills-political-vacuum

Thu Nov 14 15:22:56 IST 2019

The Supreme Court’s verdict on the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi issue has been widely described as pragmatic. It has also been criticised for basing itself on faith rather than verifiable fact. All religious belief is based on faith. Hence, there is nothing inherently wrong in a court arriving at a view pertaining to religious belief on faith. As for the fact that the destruction of an existing structure called the Babri Masjid was an act of vandalism, the court has stuck to facts and opined that it was an illegal act.

Much has been written in the past few days on the pros and cons of the court verdict. One aspect of it has, however, not been commented upon. The very fact that all political parties and almost all religious organisations took the view that they would accept the verdict of the Supreme Court and gave the judiciary the last word on the subject is a testimony to the failure of both political and religious leadership.

The movement for the construction of a temple to Lord Ram in Ayodhya at the site where the mosque stood grew in strength over the years mainly as a political movement. Indeed, it can even be argued that the original decision to construct a mosque in the very heart of Ayodhya, a holy place for Hindus, was itself a political act, taken by the rulers of the day. So both the decision to build the mosque, taken sometime in the first quarter of the 16th century, and the decision to replace it with a temple, taken in the middle of the 20th century, were both political acts of assertion.

Little wonder then that Lal Krishna Advani and the then leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party decided to make the construction of a temple in the place of the mosque a political issue. The Archaeological Survey of India has established that the mosque itself was built on top of an existing structure. Even if this were not so, the temple protagonists could argue that they were making a political point with their demand to reverse an earlier political decision.

Given the politics of the entire matter, it would have been appropriate if the matter had been resolved politically between elected representatives from both communities. Such a political resolution and reconciliation would have added shine to India’s democratic institutions. Prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao tried to resolve the matter politically but no political party was willing to confront, address and resolve the matter politically. He then appealed to community leaders to resolve differences. He appointed the late Naresh Chandra, a former Union cabinet secretary and later India’s ambassador to the United States, as an adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office and placed him in charge of finding a way out of the impasse. He was supported by the late P.V.R.K. Prasad, an IAS officer from Andhra Pradesh who had distinguished himself as the builder of modern and devotee-friendly facilities at the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams and thereby endeared himself to Hindu religious leaders across the country. But the Rao-Chandra-Prasad trio was unable to resolve matters since neither religious leaders nor political parties extended their support to them.

In the end, the matter landed at the doors of the judiciary. Over the years, it has travelled its way up within the judicial system and was finally settled by a five-member bench of the Supreme Court. For students of public policy, this is a good case study of how the judiciary steps in, time and again, to fill a policy vacuum created by the failure of political, administrative and social leadership.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

economy-hopeful-autumn

Fri Nov 01 11:22:41 IST 2019

If winter comes, can spring be far behind, was the hopeful message of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Philosopher Albert Camus found hope in autumn as well. “Autumn is a second spring,” said Camus, “when every leaf is a flower.” The Indian economy has been through a longish summer of discontent and the consequences are still around. But, with the Central government now focused on the economy, there is hope of a colourful autumn. Winter is anyway a brief event in most of India.

The results of the elections to the Maharashtra and Haryana assemblies showed once again that while the electorate reposes faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s handling of national security, it remains less convinced about his handling of the economy. Interestingly, while Modi still benefits from a positive vote at the national level, the negative vote hurts the BJP at the state level. Development is, after all, a local phenomenon.

Who cares about national gross domestic product, annual rates of growth, and the fiscal and current account deficits. The economy is about one’s employment, education, local infrastructure and development around where one lives. While Delhi may manage foreign policy and national security well, the political consequences of its mishandling of the economy are felt at the state level.

While Modi and Amit Shah have understood how to articulate the language of hope for an aspirational India, they have not yet found a way of translating their mandate into better governance and speedier development, especially in states. The electorate trusts Modi and has given him a long rope. He will have to do more on the domestic development front to retain that trust. To begin with, it is necessary that Modi convinces every chief minister of the importance of the development agenda; he should take state governments along with him in seeking a higher rate of economic growth and improved governance.

There was a time when a few chief ministers came to symbolise development and became national, indeed international, icons for a ‘new India’. Certainly, Modi was one such, as chief minister of Gujarat. There were others like Chandrababu Naidu, at the turn of the century, and Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy after him. In his early years in office Bihar’s Nitish Kumar was also a symbol of good governance and development. During the years of above average growth, between 2002 and 2012, the combination of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh at the Centre, and a clutch of active and competent chief ministers in various states came to define the ‘spring’ in India’s growth story.

After 2012, the story entered its hot and humid summer phase. While Modi’s victory in 2014 appeared like the good monsoon many were waiting for, his record on development has remained patchy. It was not just Modi who received the electorate’s hearty endorsement at the Centre but many chief ministers did so in states. Yet, there is no chief minister today who has come to symbolise development and the agenda of growth. Every one of them remains a populist of one kind or another.

If the Indian economy has to return to the 8.0 per cent plus trajectory of growth, the prime minister and the chief ministers must work together to keep the national focus on economic growth, new investment, employment generation and increasing the purchasing power of the poor and middle classes. Modi must inspire chief ministers into better performance and ensure they focus on development. Perhaps a meeting of the National Development Council ought to be convened this winter with a view to take the economy into a new spring.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

brute-majority-not-a-blessing-for-telangana-and-andhra-pradesh

Fri Oct 18 12:15:42 IST 2019

It is generally believed that a comfortable parliamentary majority facilitates effective governance by the executive. While Manmohan Singh reinforced that view with his famous “coalition compulsions” argument, defending his government’s inability to act decisively during his second term in office, the votaries of coalition governments have long argued that the threat of exit keeps minority governments in check. Wafer thin majorities have been criticised because they encourage political corruption, with the ruling clique having to win over support of marginal elements who can unseat a government at will.

Given all this theorising about the role of parliamentary support in the performance of the executive, few would have believed that brute majorities may, in fact, be more of a curse than a cure. Ruling political parties with a brute majority in the legislature come very quickly to believe that they owe no explanation to anyone for the decisions their government takes because the ‘mandate of the people’ is with them.

Just look at what is happening in the two Telugu-speaking states—Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The YSR Congress led by Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy was voted to power with a huge majority that virtually decimated the then ruling Telugu Desam Party and finally buried the Sonia Congress in Andhra Pradesh. It was hoped that with such a convincing victory the chief minister would take the fledgling state, beset with teething troubles, forward. Yet, not even six months into his tenure, Jagan has made a bigger mess of an existing mess.

Obsessed with seeking revenge against TDP’s Chandrababu Naidu, Jagan has been taking one whimsical decision after another, upsetting many who had invested in the future of the new state—ranging from the government of Singapore and the World Bank to high-flying Indian and foreign companies. If Naidu erred in making the building of a new state capital at Amaravati a white elephant that the state cannot afford, Jagan is making his decision to move away from that plan a road to uncertainty about other investments made in the state. Jagan’s decision to nationalise liquor sales is yet another whimsical act, pursuing a policy that has failed in every state where it has been tried before, including Delhi.

If the Telugus of Andhra Pradesh are ruing their decision to give Jagan such a thumping majority, their compatriots in Telangana are not far behind. Telangana Rashtra Samithi’s supremo K. Chandrashekar Rao ran a good government in his first tenure in office, ably assisted by his son, the bright and charming K.T. Rama Rao, and the very grounded nephew T. Harish Rao. KCR was given a thumping endorsement and returned to office with an even bigger majority in the hope that he would continue to take Telangana forward. However, the first year of his second term has been marred by whimsical decisions, ranging from not constituting a ministry for months to wanting to build a new secretariat and getting schools closed for weeks on end because of a public transport strike caused by the manner in which he dealt with its employees and so on.

Both Jagan and KCR have to sit back, take a deep breath and reexamine their record in office if they want their respective states to remain at the top of the league in terms of development. One can only hope that between son and nephew the two younger leaders in Telangana will force the patriarch to focus on good governance and development of the state beyond Hyderabad. In Andhra Pradesh, one can only pray that Jagan’s mother reminds him of the good work his father had done as chief minister and pulls him back from his journey of whims and spiteful revenge.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

future-far-from-perfect-for-india

Fri Oct 04 15:55:54 IST 2019

How prepared is India to deal with the challenges of the future? Not very well. That is the conclusion of a fascinating report on future preparedness produced by a group of Russian scholars. Russia’s premier international affairs forum, the Valdai Discussion Club, has just put out a Future Preparedness Index (FPI) that ranks India at 17 in a list of the world’s top 20 countries. Right at the top of the list is, of course, the United States. Russia itself is at rank 12, testifying to the objectiveness of the study. China is at 10. Western Europe and Japan rank high on the index, occupying most of the top eight slots after the US. The only countries ranked below India are Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa.

Valdai’s FPI is an aggregate of country performance across ten areas, namely, economy, education, technology, science, social cohesion, culture and communication, resources and ecology, state capacity, governance and international power. The FPI researchers used a range of freely available data, mostly from the World Bank, to estimate the level of development of a country along each of the ten parameters. Critics would pick holes about data accuracy and comparability, but then all such international comparisons are fraught. Despite all limitations, a statistical index of this sort has its uses. It allows one not just to judge where one’s country is in comparison with others, but where its strengths and weaknesses lie.

India scores particularly poorly on education, ranked as it is at the very bottom of the list of 20. India’s other weak spots are inadequacy of natural resources and the ecological challenge, lack of social cohesion and low level of technological and cultural development. India scores better, though not too highly, on its economic performance and on governance. The score on governance may surprise many in India, but its relatively better ranking is owing to the extent of computerisation of public services and the role of a merit-based civil service.

There were two surprises for me in the FPI index. First, the fact that it shows that the European Union is better prepared to face the challenges of the future than is generally supposed. The common perception is that it is the US and China that would dominate the future. The FPI index not only shows the EU to be on a stronger foundation, given its investment in education, science and technology and quality of governance and state capacity, but it also shows China as being on a weaker foundation than is widely imagined. Coming from a Russian think-tank, this is an interesting result.

The second surprise in the Valdai report is the gap between what the data shows and what experts in the field of international relations think. A Russian public opinion research centre polled experts in Russia and around the world and asked them to rank the 20 countries on each parameter. There is considerable gap between what the data shows and what the experts think. The results show that the international research community has an exaggerated opinion of the power of most major countries, including the US, China, Russia, India, Brazil, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, compared with what the data shows. On the other hand, expert opinion underestimates the power of the European Union, Japan and Australia.

Many have long argued that India punches above its weight in world affairs. But the FPI data suggests that China and Russia, too, are punching above their weight, while Germany, France and Japan are punching well below their weight. The warning for India, though, is that if it does not invest in education and research its global influence and power will diminish.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

patriotism-out-of-pocket

Fri Sep 20 11:51:00 IST 2019

The balance of payments crisis of 1990-91 was triggered in part by non-resident Indians withdrawing their money from NRI accounts in Indian banks. Patriotic NRIs—the kind who in more recent years having been crowding into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rallies from New York to Dubai to Singapore to Houston—were precisely the kind who ran away with their money when the Indian economy was on the verge of bankruptcy. In 2019, it may well be the even more patriotic resident Indian citizens, who may have even voted for Modi, that seem to be taking their money out of India, worried about the economy’s near-term prospects and their children’s future.

According to a news report, Reserve Bank of India data shows that outward remittance of foreign exchange from India increased from $1.325 billion in 2014-15 to $13.787 billion in 2018-19. In the first four months of 2019-20, it was already $5.871 billion. Part of the increase is due to growing foreign travel (for tourism, business and education) by an increasingly well-off urban elite. Over the past five years, Indian families forked out as much as $10 billion (an average of $2 billion per year) to pay for education abroad. The latter phenomenon is in part a comment on the desire of those who can afford, or who can secure a bank loan, to study abroad, but it is equally a comment on what the Indian middle and upper classes think of higher education in India.

While outward remittances on account of tourism and education are associated with prosperity, rising outward remittances on account of transfer of savings, made possible by the liberalised remittance scheme that allows Indians to transfer up to $2,50,000 per year out of India, are a comment on what investors think of the country’s medium-term growth prospects. India’s rich may be voting for Prime Minister Modi, but are clearly de-risking, taking part of their wealth out of the country. The simple term for this is ‘capital flight’.

The head of an investment bank told Sandeep Singh of The Indian Express, “Small businesses and entrepreneurs who are relatively affluent are looking to shift their base out of the country.” This trend has been observed since 2010, but there is a clear accentuation in the recent past. Whether it is a businessman or a middle-class professional, few allow their patriotism to blind their investment decisions. Money enters a country when investors feel optimistic about its future prospects. Money exits a country when expectations turn negative. The Indian economy is in the grip of negative expectations. Turning the mood around is the single most important challenge for the Modi government.

Turning the mood around, however, is not just about the kind of tinkering with economic policies that the Union finance ministry has been doing over the past fortnight. While most of Nirmala Sitharaman’s initiatives are good and welcome, the fact is that few of her cabinet and party colleagues are lending a helping hand. The political energy of the government is getting dissipated in avoidable controversies that are adding to the negative mindset that has gripped consumers and investors alike. Turning the economy around requires political leadership and a clear sense of purpose at the very top. A subsidy here, a tax sop there, a tariff cut here and a cheaper loan there are not enough.

The government must speak in one voice, avoid stirring the pot on meaningless issues about one’s linguistic, religious, cultural and social life and, instead, focus attention on the citizen’s economic and educational future. The government needs a new mindset moving forward.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

economy-lessons-from-chanakya

Fri Sep 06 11:41:52 IST 2019

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh advised his successor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to listen to ‘sane voices’ on the economy to be able to restore confidence in the government’s macroeconomic policies and policymaking. For a prime minister there is probably no one better to turn to for sane and sage advice on statecraft than Kautilya aka Chanakya.

In Arthashastra, perhaps the greatest of the ancient texts on statecraft and political economy, Kautilya advises the king to be “ever active in the management of the economy, without which both current prosperity and future growth will be destroyed”. A strong and vibrant economy, Kautilya repeatedly asserted, is the foundation of a powerful and successful state. Indeed, he went on to say that it is from the “strength of the treasury” that an army derives its strength. By the word ‘treasury’ Kautilya was not referring only to the ‘fisc’, but to the state’s fiscal and economic capacity as a whole. Kautilya believed it is the king’s job to manage the economy.

There are many reasons why the prime minister must place the revival of economic growth on top of his personal list of priorities for the rest of the year. Nothing else literally matters. Returning to the long-term trajectory of around 7.0 per cent annual rate of national income growth would have several positive outcomes. It would improve government finances. It would generate new incomes and new jobs. It would set into motion the ‘virtuous cycle’ of investment-led growth that the Union finance ministry’s annual Economic Survey offered as a panacea for all ills. Above all, it would revive the ‘India Story’ that has driven investment and growth over the past decade.

The ‘India Story’ was based on four numbers. For the first half of the 20th century, the economy of the Indian subcontinent as a whole grew at just over zero per cent per annum. From 1950 to 1980, national income grew at an annual average growth rate of 3.5 per cent. This went up to 5.5 per cent between 1980 and 2000. From the turn of the century, the rate of growth began to accelerate, touching close to 9.0 per cent per annum during Manmohan Singh’s first term in office. After 2012, the downturn began but the ‘India Story’ was kept alive by the fact that even at a lower rate of growth of over 7.0 per cent India was still the ‘world’s fastest growing large economy’.

These simple but hard economic facts formed the basis of fundamental geopolitical reassessments of India around the world. The first off the ground was former United States secretary of state Condoleezza Rice who wrote an essay in 2001 urging the US leadership to stop thinking of India as a neighbour of Pakistan and to start thinking of India as a neighbour of China. Rising India was increasing its economic distance from Pakistan and closing up to China. This narrative helped India avoid the 1990-1991 kind of sentiment-based economic crisis even in times of trouble, as after 2008-2009.

Investment is a sentimental act, whatever the number-crunching, model-building economists may say. The positive narrative about India shaped investor sentiment. The same way today a new negative narrative about India has begun to take shape and that is dampening investor sentiment. Despite his impressive electoral victory, Modi is not being viewed as someone who is on top of a difficult situation. Timely and credible communication is an important instrument of economic policy making. Former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao understood that when he went on Doordarshan and addressed the nation in May 1991 and then went about unveiling dramatic policy correctives that altered sentiment within a month. Rest is history.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

conscience-mandated-by-law

Wed Aug 21 14:33:20 IST 2019

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is once again in the news thanks to what businesspersons have described as a draconian amendment to the Companies Act that makes not adhering to the CSR law a criminal offence. The government got tough because a large number of companies have failed to comply with the stipulation that two per cent of a company’s profits should be spent on “socially-beneficial” activities. While this is true for many defaulting firms it is also true that many others have in fact spent more than two per cent of their profits on a range of such socially-beneficial activities.

A study done a decade ago showed a distinct regional and cultural pattern in CSR spending. Companies located in western India, especially Parsi and Jain enterprises, had a better track record in CSR than those headquartered in northern and eastern India. While businesspersons may now complain about a legally-ordained CSR, the fact is that the idea originally came from some representatives of Indian business.

In early 2007, the leadership of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) called on prime minister Manmohan Singh to invite him to address their annual general meeting. Singh accepted their invitation and advised them to consider ways in which corporate India could be more socially responsible. A senior CII functionary then met me and gave me a list of seven principles of CSR that the prime minister could outline in a speech that I was then drafting for him. Singh increased that list to ten and titled his speech ‘Inclusive Growth—Challenges for Corporate India’.

Singh advocated greater attention to workers’ welfare, affirmative action in employment in favour of the less privileged, greater commitment to clean and green development, donation to charities, socially-responsible advertising and so on. The suggestion that drew most criticism from business leaders and media was for a ceiling on remuneration paid out to senior executives and promoters. Emphasising the importance of investment and saving over conspicuous consumption Singh referred to 19th century European business ethic and quoted economics guru John Maynard Keynes to say “The duty of ‘saving’ became nine-tenths of virtue and the growth of the cake the object of true religion.”

Most business leaders and business media criticised the prime minister for burdening business with the responsibilities of government. I had to explain to them that most of the ideas in Singh’s speech came from within CII. The media called it the prime minister’s “ten commandments”. In a hard-hitting comment, journalist Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar chastised Singh for his homilies to business leaders with his own set of “ten commandments” for the prime minister. Writing in his famous Swaminomics column, Aiyar’s tenth commandment to Singh was, “Thou shalt insist on intra-party democracy in the Congress, and on open, transparent elections for all posts. If you do so, the Gandhi family will sack you. But it will be socially responsible, no?”

Arguments can be put forward both for and against legally-mandated CSR in a socially and economically unequal developing country. However, there is no justification at all for making non-adherence to such a law a criminal offence. There is, however, another problem with recent CSR funding. Critics have been complaining that companies have come under political pressure to donate to one or the other NGO, affiliated to the political party in power, as also to avoid donating to designated others. Such partisan political interference in CSR is unwarranted and will give a bad name to a good cause.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

whither-asian-century

Fri Aug 09 11:30:54 IST 2019

China’s economy is slowing down. Its growing power and influence are being challenged not just by Donald Trump’s America, but by the common people of Hong Kong. Under growing pressure from China, the Taiwanese are becoming restive. Many among the leadership of China’s closest ally, Pakistan, are having second thoughts on the economics of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Japan is angry with South Korea. The Koreans fired shots at jets flying close to its waters as part of a joint Russia-China air force exercise. Members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) want to ink a regional trade agreement; they are worried about the fallout of a US-China trade war and China’s slowdown. But, India remains wary. The US’s plan to pull out of Afghanistan is contributing to growing unease between India and Pakistan. Kashmir has become a hot spot, the Indian economy is dealing with a crisis of confidence and the government is fiscally constrained.

Taking all these independent developments together, western analysts are already declaring the end of the ‘Asian Century’. Will Asia cross its many geopolitical and geo-economic fault lines to produce rates of development witnessed over the past half century and make the rest of this century Asian? As Asia enters the third decade of the 21st century, that is the question over which many western analysts are salivating.

From 1970 to 2000, the rise of east Asian economies, in a flying geese formation—led by Japan and followed by the so-called ‘Asian Tigers’ of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea—defined the rise of Asia. As the new century dawned, the mighty continental China got on to the east Asian bus. Within a decade and a half, China increased its GDP 10 times from over US$1 trillion in 2000 to over US$11 trillion in 2016.

India entered the narrative during the first decade of the new century with convincing numbers. The annual average rate of growth of the Indian economy was around 3.5 per cent in 1950-1980. It shot up to around 5.5 per cent in 1980-2000 and had crossed 7.5 per cent in the first decade of the 21st century. It rose to over 8.5 per cent per annum during the first term of the United Progressive Alliance government.

In 2001, the Organisation of Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD), based in Paris, published historian Angus Maddison’s now famous statistical analysis of global economic growth over the past millennium, and showed how China and India together accounted for close to half of world income, with China’s share only marginally more than India’s, till the 17th century. Two centuries of European colonialism reduced the combined share of China and India in world income to less than 10 per cent by the middle of the 20th century. The second half of the 20th century saw the resurgence of China, India and much of east and southeast Asia.

Taken together, the combined growth experience of India and Asia to her east became the basis for the claim that the 21st century would be Asia’s century. Given that the Asia to India’s west is a mixed bag of resource-rich economies and crisis-ridden nations, the narrative about the Asian century focused only on the east.

A combination of demographic change, investment in human capability, development of new technologies and the sheer ingenuity of aspirational Asians will continue to drive Asia’s growth, through ups and downs. Paraphrasing Mark Twain, one can claim that reports of the death of the Asian century are highly exaggerated. What Asia needs, however, is wiser leadership and a willingness to bury the past to claim the future.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

grace-and-grit-of-sheila-dikshit

Fri Jul 26 11:33:04 IST 2019

In recent times, only Atal Bihari Vajpayee has been a recipient of such unalloyed praise and affection. Everyone loved Sheila Dikshit. It was not just because she reminded most people of their warm and cuddly grandmother, nor was it only because she always sported a gentle smile. Sheilaji, as most people referred to her, was a remarkable combination of grace, grit and charm. She was not just a popular political leader, but also a good administrator. By the end of her first term as chief minister of Delhi she had made her mark.

Sheilaji’s victory in the Delhi assembly elections of 1998 was a shot in the arm for a beleaguered Congress that was grappling with the challenge of losing power in 1996 and of the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party across north India. Her reelection to office in 2003 made her a star. Commenting editorially on her political and administrative performance and promise in the Financial Express, I expressed the opinion at that time that Sheilaji had prime ministerial potential. She could one day lead the Congress back to power in New Delhi.

Dikshit was horrified by my editorial endorsement. “Do you want to finish me off?” she called to ask. “I am happy being chief minister of Delhi. Mr Baru, let me be. Please don’t get me into trouble with praise.” That attitude of so many provincial performers of the Congress has, over the years, left it bereft of national leaders. In 2004, the Congress did form a government at the Centre. Its prime minister and four top ministers—Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, Shivraj Patil, P. Chidambaram and Natwar Singh—were all political lightweights in their respective provinces.

Reflecting on this fact I had once said to Sheilaji that she should join the Manmohan Singh ministry. “Tell that to Dr Singh!” she told me, and laughed the suggestion away. When I then added, as an afterthought, that she should become home minister, replacing Patil who had become the target of much criticism even before the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks, she retorted, rather uncharacteristically, “Why home? I think I will make a good finance minister!”

I conveyed a gist of that conversation back to the prime minister. He felt Sheilaji was needed in Delhi to stage the Commonwealth Games. Despite all the criticism that came her way, she held her own and, when the Games opened, the crowd at the opening ceremony heartily cheered Sheilaji even as it booed many of the other organisers. Sheilaji had firmly embedded herself in the hearts of every Delhiwala.

Every single obituary has made this point. Sheilaji was not just a charming, graceful, genial lady whom everyone loved, but she was a good administrator who had speeded up the capital city’s modernisation and infrastructure development. Few today make any reference at all to the charges of corruption levelled against her government. Most Indians are willing to live with a bit of corruption if they get a government that delivers. Of what use are honest governments that are uncaring and do not deliver development?

In retrospect, I still think my Financial Express editorial was right. Sheilaji was made of prime ministerial timbre. She ought to have moved up from being merely the ‘mayor’ of Delhi, which is what a Delhi chief minister is, to becoming India’s prime minister. The Congress would not be gasping for breath if it had allowed such locally popular leaders to make their mark nationally. But, that process ended in Indira Gandhi’s time. Why blame lesser mortals?

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

from-proprietorship-to-party

Fri Jul 12 11:31:38 IST 2019

In his fictionalised autobiography, The Insider, former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao has a provincial leader of the Indian National Congress describing Indira Gandhi’s takeover of the Congress as the party becoming a proprietorship. The Congress, to be sure, was never really a ‘party’. It was what its name suggests, a ‘congress’. The dictionary defines the word congress to mean a gathering, a platform, a meeting of minds. That was what the Indian National Congress was before 1947 and that is how Gandhiji wanted it left to remain. Several parties grew out of the Congress, while the Congress itself evolved into a ‘system’ of political mobilisation, organisation and governance, as political scientist Rajni Kothari famously put it.

Till 1969, the Congress tried hard to function like a party. Once Indira Gandhi staged her coup and then, in 1975, her younger son stepped in to take charge, the party had indeed become a proprietorship. It then began to call itself Congress (I) for Congress (Indira). By the same token, in 1998, we saw the creation of a Congress (S). In between, in 1992, Narasimha Rao tried to reinvent the pre-Indira Congress by conducting organisational elections in the run-up to the All India Congress Committee gathering at Tirupati. He legitimised his ‘nominated’ status as party president by getting himself properly elected. Next year, a dissident group rebelling against Rao’s leadership called itself Congress (Tiwari). For all these reasons, I have always believed the correct name for the party that made Sonia Gandhi its president in 1998 should be Congress (Sonia).

It is precisely because the party has been a proprietorship that the change of guard after an ignominious defeat is proving so difficult. In any normal political party, the incumbent leader would quit when defeated and a new round of organisational elections would have been held to elect a new leader. Not so in a proprietorship. The owner has to nominate the successor. As an aside, the proprietorship metaphor was made more apposite by the fact that many properties of the Sonia Congress became trust properties, including the Jawahar Bhavan on New Delhi’s Rajendra Prasad Marg that was originally constructed to house the Congress headquarters and became home to the Rajiv Gandhi Trust and Foundation, with all such trusts governed by the family and its loyalists.

How then does one reconvert a proprietorship into a party? That is the dilemma facing the Sonia Congress. Should the Congress’s next president be nominated by the present proprietors or should a popularly elected leader take charge? In politics, power is never inherited. It is acquired. Both Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi acquired power through their political actions. While both may have been initially nominated to their national leadership roles, Indira by K. Kamaraj and Modi by Rajnath Singh, the fact is that both Indira and Modi acquired power by asserting their leadership over all others. Whoever succeeds Rahul Gandhi as Congress president will have to do likewise.

In politics, opportunities to assert leadership do not arise often and certainly do not come twice. A good opportunity was lost when Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was nominated leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha. If at that time someone like Shashi Tharoor had demanded an election to that post, he would have launched a new phase in the evolution of the party. Even if Tharoor did not offer himself as a candidate for leadership of his party in Lok Sabha, he could easily have stood up and demanded an election for the post. What is the use of preaching democratic values to the nation and the world when one’s own party does not value them?

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

modi-2-0-eye-on-the-economy

Fri Jun 28 11:59:40 IST 2019

By seeking out the views of economists, business journalists and business leaders a fortnight before the presentation of the Union budget, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done more than just take ownership of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s first budget. All policy in this government in any case has the imprimatur of the prime minister. Given that the framework of the Union budget and of the government’s macroeconomic policy would already be in place, no one at that meeting would have been under the illusion that they were actually shaping policy. They were at best clarifying the PM’s mind, if it needed any such clarification.

The meeting was convened against the background of an avoidable controversy on India’s economic growth performance, created by former chief economic adviser to the government of India, Arvind Subramanian. His charge that there was considerable overestimation of growth in the past is an implicit criticism of the first Modi government’s economic performance and policies. While more competent econometricians have questioned Subramanian’s methodology and conclusion, the fact remains that Subramanian did strike a chord with many who have felt that Modi did not pay much attention to the economy in his first term. Coming as it does from a former senior official of the Modi government who is presently affiliated to Harvard University, Subramanian’s criticism would have many takers at home and abroad.

It may well be the case that Modi himself agrees with the assessment that the economy did not get its due in his first term. He may agree with the critics of his demonetisation decision, except that he would perhaps still defend it on political grounds, since it was essentially a political move. Modi’s view could well be that his two priorities in his first term were, first, to get elected to a second term and, second, to establish himself as the only national leader of any consequence, recognised as such by the voter and by the world. He has achieved both objectives.

Many psephologists would support Modi if he had felt that economic growth does not deliver electoral rewards as much as low inflation does. He ensured low inflation and built a campaign around non-economic issues and secured his second term. Having ensured his political hegemony, Modi has perhaps decided that he should now focus on growth and development. Hence the meeting with economists and businessmen.

In many ways, this is what the so-called Gujarat model was about. In Gujarat, too, Modi’s first term was focused on ensuring his political survival and dominance. Once he achieved that, he focused on development. Consider the fact that few around the country credited chief minister Modi with any attempt to further Gujarat’s development in his first term in office. Rather, the focus was all on his alleged misgovernance after the incident at Godhra. Chief minister Modi’s focus, however, was on ensuring a second term in office and the establishment of his unquestioned political hegemony over Gujarat. Modi’s national reputation for good governance came into focus the day Ratan Tata moved his automobile factory from West Bengal to Gujarat. That happened in October 2008.

If the ‘national Modi model’, so to speak, has to play out like Modi’s Gujarat model, the prime minister has to ensure that the national economy returns to the 8.0 per cent per annum trajectory of growth. This requires an increase in the savings and investment rates. So, one should expect from Sitharaman a budget policy that promotes both. Modi has raised expectations with his pre-budget policy statements. He and his finance minister cannot afford to falter and deflate those high expectations.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

back-to-bucket-baths-to-save-water

Sat Jun 15 17:51:36 IST 2019

Even as the monsoon lashes the western coast, it has been reported that more than 40 per cent of the country is facing severe drought. The problem of simultaneously dealing with floods and drought in different parts of the country is an annual challenge for the government. The decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to appoint a cabinet minister for Jal Shakti came in a week when it was also reported that 21 Indian cities, including Delhi, will run out of groundwater by 2020, affecting a hundred million people.

Against this background, any effort to raise water use consciousness ought to be welcomed. So, I heartily applaud the local authorities in Gurugram for fining cricketer Virat Kohli for using drinking water to wash his car. Regrettably, the fine was a measly Rs500.

My generation grew up with greater water use consciousness even when water was not as scarce as it is now. Just as we were taught to switch off the lights and fan while leaving a room, we were taught to use water with care. Having bucket baths was one way of conserving water. Today, it is no longer regarded fashionable to have bucket baths. While shower baths have become more common, western-style bath tubs are back in vogue and, in many upmarket homes, one even encounters a jacuzzi!

The Indian practice of bucket baths received an interesting European endorsement way back in the 1970s when the celebrated European journalist Victor Zorza devoted one of his highly regarded and widely read columns, published in the Manchester Guardian and Le Monde, to the experience of taking a bucket bath. Take a can or a mug in your hand, I recall his writing, splash water over your left shoulder and then your right, over your head if you wish to, splash again on your torso and your back, splash a couple of mugs of water on each leg. Rub soap over yourself and repeat the splashing of water with the mug. It takes just one bucket for a good wash, Zorza told his European tub-soaking audience.

If there is one lesson that urban India can learn from the city-state of Singapore, it is about water conservation and re-use. Singapore’s population has increased several fold in the past two decades and yet it has been able to provide adequate drinking water to all its citizens. Of the many things Singapore does, the most doable in India is rainwater harvesting. India has a standing example, in Fatehpur Sikri, of what lack of water can do to life. That story ought to haunt every urban Indian who has invested one’s life’s saving in a home.

The challenge of revitalising groundwater through rejuvenation of water tanks has received policy attention for some time now, but much more needs to be done to put this programme into mission mode across the country. Hopefully, the new minister for Jal Shakti will address this challenge better than his predecessors.

It is in the very nature of the subcontinent’s ecology that the government has been required to play a key role in water management. Historian Karl Wittfogel wrote famously about ‘hydraulic societies’, wherein the state was required to mobilise the resources required to provide large-scale irrigation systems necessary for sustained agriculture. The state in India has played that role both by constructing and maintaining large-scale irrigation systems and by building local water tanks. Water harvesting, too, requires state intervention. But, above all, the state needs to step in to raise public consciousness regarding water scarcity. Fining Kohli for wasteful use of drinking water was a laudable act of state intervention.

Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

ratan-tata-was-beyond-honours

Sat Oct 19 10:54:57 IST 2024

On the day of his passing, Ratan Tata was eulogised in the media as ‘India’s Crown Jewel’, ‘Living Legend’, ‘Ultimate Icon’ and so much more. Anchors and editors ran out of words to aptly describe the towering personality who had become a household name, all thanks to his surname—Tata. Not only was it easy to remember, but it was everywhere, virtually in every home, synonymous with success, wealth and power.

Tata Group had established its brand equity as a trusted name even before Rata Tata took charge. If a consumer was looking for a reliable, durable, well-priced product, just the imprint of the Tata name was sufficient. But it is still fair to say, that post Ratan’s elevation to the top job, it was his personality that drove brand value for every conceivable Tata product—from cars, trucks and airlines to coffee, jewellery and clothes.

I cannot claim to have been Ratan’s friend. Frankly, his best friends were his favourite four-legged furry doggies, and, perhaps, three or four really low-key loyal buddies from way back when. Fiercely private and innately shy, India’s bachelor billionaire was rarely seen at non-business related society gatherings. He made time to attend his close friend Zubin Mehta’s concerts, of course, but other than that Mumbaikars knew how much his ‘me time’ mattered to him and rarely intruded. My husband and I would frequently find ourselves on a public ferry with Ratan, taking us from the jetty at the Gateway of India, to the Mandwa jetty in Alibag, across the sea. We would chat briefly and leave Ratan alone, as did everyone else. Sometimes, Ratan could be spotted with shopping bags, buying fresh vegetables and fruits from handcarts near his home. No hangers on, no entourage. Just a casually dressed man picking brinjals and cabbages from a vendor, like any other Mumbaikar.

When we interacted at more formal occasions like book launches and charity events, he would be warm, friendly and totally natural, asking about our children, but mainly asking after the family’s dogs, aware that all of us were pet parents, just like him. Since his favourite neighbourhood restaurant (Thai Pavilion) happens to be our favourite, too, we would spot Ratan at the corner table, quietly dining with a few friends, and respect his privacy enough never to intrude.

When he was ailing, and hardly moving out of his home, he was gracious enough to make time to meet my daughter Anandita, thanks to young Shantanu Naidu (28), Ratan’s most-trusted aide, who sweetly set up the personal appointment, knowing her unconditional worship of the man. Anandita was floating on cloud nine after spending time with the great man, who was kindness and grace personified, as he engaged her in an informative conversation which revolved mainly over Bijou, her tiny, pretty French poodle, who had accompanied her. When Anandita heard her all-time hero was no more, she shook with grief and cried for hours, unable to come to terms with his passing. So profound was Ratan’s effect on her, that night, as she lay in bed repeating a prayer for him, she actually “felt his presence”, as he blessed her and her inseparable companion Bijou.

The tributes are still being written. There will be books—many books—decoding what made Ratan such a colossus in our collective imagination. There will be films, statues, hospitals, colleges and airports named after him in the years to come. The posthumous Bharat Ratna is a done deal. I doubt any of this would have mattered to Ratan—the honours and accolades. He was much beyond that.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

priyamvada-natarajan-the-glittering-star

Sat Oct 05 11:36:35 IST 2024

A sheepish confession: I was dreadfully unaware of the super celebrity status of the very attractive, highly accomplished co-speaker at the just concluded Jaipur Literature Festival International’s first edition in Seattle. I was struck by her personality and body language as she emerged from the elevator to wait for our ride to the inaugural reception at the magnificent Seattle Asian Art Museum. She was immaculately dressed in a deep purple designer salwar kurta, and was busy applying a matching shade of lipstick. We were both scheduled to speak the next day, and the atmosphere at the glam gala for delegates was dazzling as delegates and patrons enjoyed an evening of presentations that set the tone for the next two days.  

Priyamvada Natarajan was by far the most glittering star of the gathering, as she mingled with academics and admirers, holding forth on her area of specialisation—the cosmos. Priya, as friends call her, is a leading theoretical astrophysicist and a highly respected professor in the department of astronomy and physics at Yale University. She was featured on TIME magazine’s 2024 list of 100 most influential people, and has been the recipient of prestigious awards.

“I have always been attracted by the cosmos—the night sky. The deep, dark mysteries it held have always seduced me,” she said in an interview. Coimbatore-born Priya stays rooted and connected to her family back home, as she travels the world delivering lectures on dark matter, dark energy, black hole physics, cosmology and gravitational lensing. “Priya’s Theory”—as it is popularly called in her rarefied world—is about a “puzzle that falls into place”, and involves black hole physics, her area of intense research that is likely to earn her a Nobel.

Since I know abysmally little on this dense subject, I was delighted when Priya, the author of Mapping the Heavens, was so easy to hang with as we clicked selfies together and got a friendly local to indulge us while we posed and preened.  

I asked Priya about her early life in India, and she readily shared her current state of emotional anxiety about her beloved mother, whom she speaks to twice a day, no matter what. “I cannot sleep till I have said good night to her… ever since my father passed a while ago, my mother’s health and wellbeing preoccupy me constantly.” I was so touched by Priya’s candid feelings about her parents, and how lonely she often feels as a single woman in the predominantly male world of academia, in which someone like her can be a misfit.  

Priya readily admits she may have to wait 30 years before the coveted Nobel is hers, since there is a long list of male contenders vying for it. I marvelled at her single-mindedness, and she smiled it off, as we switched to other matters, and indulged in a heartfelt woman-to-woman conversation, including her interest in fashion, food and films.

Priya lives in a unique space, in which regular dating becomes a challenge, with most potential suitors getting intimidated by her spectacular success. She confessed she had tried and not succeeded at marriage, and finds long-term relationships very demanding given her professional commitments. 

I was so taken by Priya’s extraordinary personality. I almost became a stalker! We laughed and joked like old friends, and when we said our goodbyes (she had an early flight back to Boston), Priya reminded me I owed her a masterclass in modelling while posing for paps on the red carpet.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

sitaram-yechury-comrade-with-no-foes

Sat Sep 21 10:50:27 IST 2024

Lal Salaam, Comrade Yechury—you were quite a guy!

The general secretary of the CPI(M), who passed away recently at age 72, defied all the clichés one associates with hardcore “commies”. From his appearance to his demeanour, he was like “one of us”. Meaning, he didn’t shove his ideology down anybody’s throat, nor was he judgmental about capitalists in his group. He was evolved enough to accept diverse points of view, without compromising on his own political beliefs. With a track record as impressive as his, he could have been a pompous Marxist intellectual talking down to lesser, crassly bourgeois beings. But, there he was with a ready smile and a few warm words for anyone who came up to him. It is no wonder then that the tributes which poured in after his passing were genuinely heartfelt, even the ones from political opponents like West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who grudgingly had to admit, “… his demise will be a loss for national politics”.

Known for his witty one-liners and repartees, Yechury made friends across party lines and, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, had no foes. It is so fitting that his last message from the hospital was a recorded tribute to former West Bengal chief minister Comrade Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who had passed away last month. Congress leader Sonia Gandhi said Yechury was “fierce in his determination to protect India’s diversity and was a powerful champion of secularism”. Theirs was a friendship that began in 2004 and continued till the very end. Rahul Gandhi described him as a “protector of the idea of India”.

Given his elitist upbringing (in a Telugu Brahmin home) and education (St Stephen’s and JNU, Delhi), Yechury was the epitome of sophistication and charm. Even after the CPI(M) lost to Mamata’s Trinamool Congress, he soldiered on valiantly, sticking to his unshakeable beliefs, even as critics predicted his party’s doom. Soft-spoken and modest, Yechury could easily have been a publicity-seeking, headlines chaser, but he stuck to his brand of politics, constantly reaffirming his faith in India’s secular backbone. After his demise, one particular clip was widely shared—Yechury addressing the Rajya Sabha during his farewell speech, talking passionately about the nation’s “syncretic” culture in Hindi-English.

The few times we met, I was struck by what a chilled-out man he was—communicative, affable, approachable, knowledgeable, urbane and so articulate! On a flight from Kolkata to Jamshedpur, he chatted with my husband in fluent Bengali—they spoke like long-lost friends—about books, art, cinema, philosophy and, of course, politics. He spoke lovingly about his family, particularly his son Ashish, whom he tragically lost to Covid-19 in 2021. Family associates say Yechury was never the same again.

His poignant farewell speech will be his legacy. He reminded his co-parliamentarians that we were all custodians of an India where all religions and belief systems were equally respected. While talking to friends of Yechury, all of them spoke with deep admiration and respect for an icon and intellectual who spent his life demonstrating what he profoundly believed in—a more equal India, tolerant and progressive, forward-thinking and free of religious strife.

Looking back on our conversation during that short flight to the steel city, my heart soared. India needs many more Sitaram Yechurys to keep reminding us of the true “idea of India”, free of narrow caste/religious prejudices and the dirty politics of hate.

www.shobaade.blogspot.com

hema-committee-why-mohanlals-conduct-came-as-a-huge-shock

Sat Sep 07 11:05:51 IST 2024

Mindaathirikku’’ [keep quiet] has been the strong but unstated message to women in Malayalam cinema. “Shut up! And put up with whatever is thrown your way. Be grateful you are still getting work”—That’s the nauseating subtext of all that is rotten in the state of Mollywood. Hopefully, this toxic environment is about to change, now that the Justice K. Hema committee report has been made public. It has dominated the media discourse ever since.

Unfortunately, legendary actor Mohanlal has become embroiled in the controversy, after he resigned as president of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA), along with most members of the executive committee, as soon as victims started speaking out. Mohanlal started his career as a villain and went on to dominate Malayalam cinema, along with his contemporary, Mammootty. This column is not about vilifying Mohanlal. It is to provide a perspective. In an interview, back in 2018, when Mohanlal was asked to comment on the #MeToo movement, he airily dismissed it. He called it a “trend” and shrugged it off with a jeer, “We [men] can also start #MeToo.”

Mohanlal is a powerful, well-connected actor, director, producer, distributor, singer with more than 350 films over four decades to back him. He is popularly known as “the universal star’’ and “the complete actor”, whose net worth is pegged at Rs370 crore, making him the highest paid actor in Malayalam cinema. So Mohanlal, more than any other individual is—and was—in a position to address the myriad problems faced by women in the Malayalam film industry. Perhaps, the same women he has acted with. The film industry works like a close unit, a fraternity. It’s a pretty small world, united by a passion for cinema. And, yet, when it came to helping victims who have endured years of discrimination, ignominy, insults and abuse, Mohanlal chose to resign and not assume any responsibility. This is not leadership.

Personally, his conduct came as a huge shock. I have been a diehard admirer of Mohanlal (and Mammootty) for years, having followed their careers, watched their films and admired their extraordinary talent as actors par excellence. I have hailed both men publicly, describing them as the most accomplished thespians in India. They deserve the same adulation fans heap on Bollywood heroes. Suddenly, an idol has diminished himself in my eyes. “Don’t destroy Malayalam film industry,” Mohanlal thundered.

It was only after the all-India outrage that Mohanlal bothered to pledge support and take a serious look at what his women colleagues are agitating about. Mammootty has distanced himself from AMMA and backed the recommendations and solutions in the Hema committee report. A bit late in the day for that. Further, it was unnecessary for him to add, “There is no power group in cinema,” echoing Mohanlal’s vehement declaration, “I am not part of any power group.” These statements don’t help boost the confidence of victims. The same old clichés are being trotted out, like ‘we will cooperate with the investigation’. Where was his conscience when actor Dileep, who was an accused in the abduction and sexual assault of a female actor in 2017, was reinstated in AMMA by Mohanlal and cohorts, despite protests?

Mohanlal said he did not run away, and that he is not a coward. I am scratching my head to find politer words to describe his attitude and the callous disregard shown by his team, when the nasty news went national. It is too late for excuses, cover-ups and justifications.

Stand up, be counted. Remaining neutral, or on the sidelines, is an unheroic position for men who have been venerated as living legends by fans.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

spin-it-like-shiamak-davar

Fri Aug 23 15:29:36 IST 2024

The acknowledged guru of modern dance in India—choreographer Shiamak Davar—has made several celebrities dance to his tune over the years. Shahid Kapoor, Varun Dhawan and Ishaan Khattar, to name a few. Shiamak burst on the scene and shook up the languid world of dance at the time audiences were content with the odd rock and roll shows, or the more elaborate musicals like Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar put together by advertising professionals dabbling in theatre.

With his contemporary choreography in the Bollywood hit Dil To Pagal Hai, Shiamak reached mass audiences, unaccustomed to top stars going way beyond the sort of dancing that was popular back then. Shiamak went on to break several rules subsequently, designing dance sequences for top international films like the fourth instalment of Mission Impossible, and gaining fame as director of choreography for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne (2006) and Delhi (2010). Brand Shiamak was recognised across India and he went on to win a National Film Award.

With Elton John as his idol, Shiamak went on to experiment and create highly enjoyale stage productions, with him as the principal actor-singer-dancer. He performed the opening act at the Bryan Adams concert in India, and Shiamak’s album—Mohabbat Kar Le—sold over 1.2 million copies with its catchy lyrics and fluid moves. Shiamak’s live performances sold out weeks in advance as audiences danced in the aisles to chartbusters. Teenagers across India wanted to be on that stage, dancing and singing with abandon. Sensing the shift, Shiamak established dance academies at 67 locations in 13 cities across four countries, offering summer courses for children, teens and adults, who connected to his slogan: ‘Have feet, will dance’. Shiamak’s touring productions were—and are—all the rage, as senior instructors conduct classes that are known to transform lives.

Today, Shiamak, as artistic director, oversees operations from Vancouver, where he lives on a charming estate and takes special interest in Victory Arts Foundation, teaching dance to underprivileged children, and children with mental and physical disabilities, following his belief of dance as therapy.

But way before all these well-deserved accolades came his way, Shiamak and I were friends and neighbours in a south Mumbai locality. We would run into each other, hug and kiss warmly, ask about family.

It was with this background of familiarity that I texted him—an SOS, really! Recently, I had jauntily sent out invites to close friends, for a ‘Tauba Tauba’ party. Most invitees were senior citizens who hadn’t heard the viral track and were baffled! Would Shiamak step in and provide a face saver? Someone from his academy who knew the hook step and could teach us, geriatrics, for a few minutes?

Shiamak called immediately. It was 3.30am in Vancouver. Why wasn’t he fast asleep? “I barely knock off for three or four hours,’’ he laughed. Within an hour I received a call from Chetan Rijhwani, a senior instructor, who was sporting enough to readily say, “Yes,” I half-joked, “There could be a few dislocated hips by the end of your session… and I may need knee replacement.’’ Chetan replied, “Let’s just have fun.” And what a star Chetan turned out to be that night, with his surprise entry! His moves, and wonderful spirit, had unlikely people grooving with him, channeling their inner Vicky Kaushal. My face, and the party, were saved! All thanks to the guru in faraway Vancouver—darling Shiamak! I can’t wait to give him a bear hug when he’s in Mumbai next. The message of Mohabbat Kar Le will always remain. Love is all that matters. Till then, I am practicing ‘Tauba Tauba’.

www.shobaade.blogspot.com

tales-of-love-from-bhutan

Sat Aug 10 11:43:54 IST 2024

Jetsun Pema, the beautiful and accomplished wife of the handsomest living king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, is the youngest queen consort in the world. She has a unique tulip in the Netherlands named in her honour, called, Queen Of Bhutan. She was married to the Oxford educated, suave and well-spoken King at a dream-like private ceremony (2011) in the mountain kingdom. Over 160 foreign journalists who covered the Bhutanese royal wedding were enchanted by the elaborate rituals performed by Buddhist priests in the palace of great bliss. Today, the royals are proud parents of three children—two boys and a girl.

Bhutan’s queen has strong connections with India, going back to the time she was a student at St. Joseph’s Convent in Kalimpong, West Bengal, and later in The Lawrence School, Sanawar, in Himachal Pradesh. No wonder she is fluent in Hindi. She graduated from Regent’s University in London with a degree in international relations, psychology and art history. An ardent advocate of environmental issues and the president of the Red Cross Society in Bhutan, the queen travels with her king, and actively supports his political and social campaigns.

Let me tell you about the royal love story first. I was in Bhutan to attend the inaugural edition of Mountain Echoes—a jewel of a lit fest. The year was 2011. Delegates, high on the clean mountain air (and more), were invited to dinner at the spectacular home of Indian high commissioner Pawan Varma (author and politician). It is considered one of the best diplomatic residences in the world. Suddenly, a dramatic palace announcement threw protocol out of the window! Wangchuck had shared a very important development in his personal life at the opening of the seventh session of the parliament—he was engaged to be married! And his future wife was none other than the 20-year-old Pema, from one of the oldest, most-respected noble families of Bhutan. There was much jubilation as loyal subjects blessed their future queen, described by the besotted king as “uniquely beautiful, intelligent and graceful… unwavering in her commitment to serve the people and country….” He added, “As my queen, I have found such a person… she will make a great servant to the nation.” Wow! What a declaration. Bhutan allows polygamy (the king’s father had married four sisters in one go), but Wangchuck promised his people he would never marry another woman.

Guess what happened next? We were told the king was on his way, with his fiancée of a few hours, to join our riotous party. Ever the charming and polished host, Varma, along with his gracious family, took firm control of the evening, which was threatening to go a little wild, and the royals were warmly welcomed, strict protocol in place. It remains an evening to remember, with the king and his future queen mingling unselfconsciously with guests.

The royal honeymoon was celebrated in Rajasthan, and it may not be too indelicate in this context to speculate that the heir apparent, Dragon Prince of Bhutan (their first child), was conceived in the jungles of Ranthambore. The deep and emotional connections India has always shared with Bhutan will be continued smoothly by the next generation of royals. This was the sentiment I experienced once again while attending the 13th edition of Bhutan Echoes: Drukyul’s Arts and Literature Festival, in Thimpu, under the patronage of queen mother Ashi Dorji Wangchuck (69), an accomplished author and art patron, whose terrific book, Treasures of the Thunder Dragon: A Portrait of Bhutan, provides a comprehensive and insightful view of the Himalayan kingdom. Queen mother has big plans for the lit fest, that she shared with me over lunch. Bhutanese legacy is in great hands.

www.shobaade.blogspot.com

leander-paes-our-tennis-rockstar

Sat Jul 27 14:35:06 IST 2024

One can count on Leander Paes, the Padma Bhushan tennis superstar, to charm the pants, tees, shorts and caps off anyone in his orbit. He did just that during his terrific acceptance speech, when he (along with another tennis legend, Vijay Amritraj) was inducted into the prestigious International Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport, Rhode Island. They are the first Asian men to be thus honoured. Deservedly so. Leander, at 51, is a diehard Kolkata boy, born to remarkable parents, who, he candidly shared in that amazing speech, conceived the wunderkind in Munich, where they found themselves locked inside the India Pavilion at the ill-fated Olympics, when Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes. Leander’s father, Dr Vece Paes, was a member of India’s hockey contingent. His mother, Jennifer, a top-notch basketball player, was with her husband.

Leander urged the tennis greats assembled at the induction ceremony, “To do the math.” In the audience, his parents were seen beaming away. Leander has consistently heaped generous praise on his father, saying, “My dad is my hero, best friend, guiding light, North Star”. It’s lovely to know that grandpa Paes has assumed the same mentor role in Leander’s 18-year-old daughter Aiyana’s tennis career. She has picked tennis over modelling/acting. Her mother is the gorgeous Rhea Pillai, who was with Leander for several years, before both moved on. Leander, himself, flirted with films briefly when he acted in a socio-political thriller which was a commercial disaster, Rajdhani Express (2013). No matter, Leander had a blast shooting it since Bollywood was on his bucket list. So was theatre and a Broadway debut! Let’s wait for this announcement. Leander is not known to give up easily!

Leander’s tennis bio is awe-inspiring. He started playing at age five, was a good footballer, but at his dad’s urging, switched to tennis and joined the tennis academy in Chennai. What followed is known to fans.

With 45 weeks a year on tennis tours, the former Davis Cup team captain is finally making time for what he enjoys the most—family, friends and golf. We last met at the Tolly X’mas lunch in Kolkata. The fabulously organised annual tradition is the most significant event on the social calendar in the City Of Joy. Everyone who is anyone is seen enjoying the lavish buffet on the sprawling lawns. And while we were busy greeting old friends, there was Leander, walking up with a big smile, accompanied by a beautiful lady. We met warmly, exchanged a few pleasantries and that was that. We were meeting after a break of a few years during which a great deal had transpired in his adventure-filled life. I turned around to watch the good-looking, fashionably clad duo as they did the rounds, clicked selfies with fans and spread good cheer. Wow! I thought to myself, they look so much in love. Maybe she’s the one!

Leander’s natural charm is irresistible and infectious. Women adore him! And so do kids and senior citizens. His heart-warming acceptance speech at Newport was a genuine reflection of all that he stands for. His humility and grace were not made for media constructs. If only more of our sports stars had this quality!

The personal lives of sports legends interest fans as much as their spectacular records. That’s how it should be. These amazing men and women are not regular folks leading ordinary, humdrum, mundane lives. Everything about them is exaggerated, and that’s what makes them heroes. Our fantasies would be horribly incomplete without the extra pinch of spice in the feast.

X@DeShobhaa, Instagram@shobhaade

why-anant-ambani-is-so-unique

Sat Jul 13 11:13:55 IST 2024

Anant Ambani, 29—Mukesh and Nita Ambani’s youngest child and second son—may turn out to be the most googled man in India when he ties the knot with Radhika Merchant. The pre-wedding celebrations have been in the news for months, what with global world and business leaders flying in to Jamnagar to bless the couple. It has been an extravaganza like no other! At the centre of it all has been the ever-smiling bridegroom—affable Anant, who along with Radhika, has definitely stolen the show from all the high-profile Bollywood star couples, and even international mega entertainers like Justin Bieber and Rihanna. But then, Anant is not just another deliriously happy Ambani dulha. He is unique!

What makes me say this? Well… I have seen Anant as a kid, when he and his family lived at Sea Wind, the 18-storey family mansion, acquired by Anant’s legendary grandfather, Dhirubhai Ambani. I remember a few of the early meetings there, when Anant would be fussing over the motley collection of injured animals housed in a mini-zoo on the premises. With attentive staff and vets in tow, he would spend most of his time caring for his beloved pets, while his doting parents watched over their busy son. Polite, soft spoken and reticent, Anant subsequently went off to Brown University, to earn a bachelor’s degree, and his family moved out to live in what is now the 27-floor iconic Mumbai landmark—Antilia.

Sometimes, we would receive an invitation from Mukesh to watch the latest films at the magnificent home theatre in Antilia. Nightly screenings of Bollywood and Hollywood films are an intrinsic part of the Ambani routine. I recall watching Inception, the very complex, very intriguing, award-winning film with a small group of movie buffs at Antilia. Described as a “savagely complex ride’’, Inception explores the depths of the sci-fi thriller genre. Despite its great reviews, it confounded and frustrated fans and critics alike with its oblique ending. This was Christopher Nolan at his mind-twisting best! At the end of the long screening, which was attended by, amongst others, two of Bollywood’s most cerebral filmmakers, Mukesh turned to me and asked, “What did you think of the film?” I shrugged and confessed, “I loved it…. but didn’t understand a thing… especially the ending… did you figure it out?” Mukesh smiled, looked around and wondered, “Where’s Anant? Let’s ask him to explain… he will figure it out for us.’’ And that’s exactly what happened. Anant joined the group and provided a concise, convincing, logical explanation, which was such a relief!

On another occasion, I remember a short conversation with Nita about Anant, when she referred to his passion for animal welfare, and how he had a vision for establishing a world-class facility to care for our four-legged friends. This was years before Vantara in Jamnagar was opened. Nita mentioned Anant’s deep and abiding love for nature and how he combines his concerns with on ground mobilisation, given his sharp sense for sustainable business models.

Anant is a director on the board of Jio Platforms since March 2020. His responsibilities extend to Reliance New Energy Limited and Reliance New Solar Energy Limited.

But for now, it is time to disco!

The mega celebrations will end soon. But the mood, which was built up for the climax (the wedding ceremony itself), will linger, as millions of Instagram followers, hooked to every tiny detail of the multiple ceremonies, replay clips of the grand functions, with jaws dropping at the sheer opulence of it all! Never before has India witnessed a beloved son’s wedding being solemnised on such a mammoth scale. This can only happen with the abundant blessings of the almighty showered on the entire family.

Shaadi Mubarak, Anant and Radhika.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

how-bollywood-celebs-like-raveena-tandon-are-targeted-by-bandras-organised-gangs

Sat Jun 29 12:23:55 IST 2024

Recently, a video featuring actor/activist Raveena Tandon went viral, with heated debates raging over an incident involving her car, driver and herself. An enraged group was seen aggressively shouting into the camera, accusing Raveena and her driver of rash driving, resulting in a couple of women suffering injuries. Raveena can be seen telling the crowd not to hit anyone, as they try and push their way past the watchman and attempt to rush into her compound. Initial media reports were misleading. Did she or didn’t she? Was her driver at fault? Did innocent passers-by, near her gate, get hurt due to negligent driving? Social media was quick to judge and condemn the star, some going as far as to state she and the driver were both drunk at the time.

The timely arrival of cops and a close look at the CCTV camera footage clearly established that Raveena’s car had not touched the women. Nobody was injured, least of all an elderly lady. But till the police arrived, examined the footage, met the mob and clarified it was a false and frivolous complaint, there was complete chaos. Since no FIR had been filed, the beleaguered star could finally heave a sigh of relief.

But what if her innocence had not been this unequivocally established? What if the mob had managed to get their hands on the driver? Or, if Raveena herself hadn’t kept her cool? These were the questions uppermost in my mind when I met her for dinner at a common friend’s home. Raveena recounted the horror of that night in detail. And from all accounts, it does seem like there is a well organised gang operating in tony Bandra, where so many Bollywood stars have homes. Consider the pattern. The gang meticulously stakes out the target’s home, observes the star’s schedule, keeps an eye on the star’s outings, and waits for the right opportunity, preferably at night when not too many bystanders are around in the leafy, dimly lit lanes. This is a serious security issue, given the number of star toddlers and older kids who are often spotted walking to a nearby park or store with nannies in tow.

Once the cops had given her the all clear, Raveena was shocked to see a video tweeted by a man called Mohsin Shaikh, who accused her of road rage and said the Padma Shri actor, who has won a national award, was “drunk”. Raveena has filed Rs100 crore defamation suit against him for damaging her reputation. Extortion is generally the motive, along with the desire to gain cheap publicity. Stars and their children are vulnerable targets. Hiring bodyguards is but one option, living with constant insecurity is the greater concern. Better policing may solve the problem. However, if what Raveena says is accurate, organised gangs have moved into the upscale Bandra neighbourhood with the sole purpose of intimidating, assaulting and blackmailing movie people.

One of the ladies present advised Raveena to apply for a gun license. I disagreed vehemently. Mumbai is not Los Angeles. Bandra isn’t Beverly Hills. America’s gun culture has claimed the lives of countless innocents. Guns create more problems than they solve. Raveena was brave enough to confront the bullies, while facing great personal risk to her own life. Another woman may have got scared and handed over the innocent driver to the mob. These are the times we live in. Deliberately misrepresenting an incident led to an emotional trauma for Raveena, her four children, husband and staff. Fortunately, she was honourably exonerated. Others may not be as blessed.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

kangana-ranaut-slap-controversy-who-is-the-bigger-heroine

Sat Jun 15 14:19:18 IST 2024

Suspended woman constable of the CISF Kulwinder Kaur suddenly became heroine no.1 in the eyes of millions. It was alleged that she had slapped controversial real life heroine Kangana Ranaut, the newly minted Lok Sabha MP from Mandi, at the security-check area inside Chandigarh airport. The video of the incident went viral as divided opinions jammed social media, with supporters of both women pitching in.

Kaur, according to her seniors, has not faced any inquiry or punishment earlier. She joined the CISF in 2009, and has been posted at Chandigarh airport since 2021. Her husband is posted there as well. The couple has two children. Kaur comes from a family of farmers, and her brother, Sher Singh, is a farmer leader. The attack on Ranaut, Kaur said, was provoked by Ranaut’s derogatory remarks during the farmer protest against the now-scrapped farm laws. Particularly, Ranaut’s comment that female protestors were paid Rs100 to sit there. Kaur’s mother was one of the women.

Ranaut is reveling in her hour of glory. But Kaur has been suspended, arrested and is facing a police case. In short—it was a very, very ill-timed and expensive attack which has cost Kaur a great deal, while Ranaut has walked away after posting a video of the attack, where she assured her fans that she was “safe”.

Nobody so far has actually seen the footage of the slap—assuming the slap was delivered in the first place. If the footage exists, it is imperative to share it. Kaur has everything to lose. She has a great deal at stake. Did she or didn’t she slap Ranaut? Nobody can justify or condone the unpardonable attack by a cop in uniform, on government duty. Regardless of whether Kaur actually slapped Ranaut or merely pushed her roughly, the fact is, an ugly fracas took place in a public area and was witnessed by many. Kaur was definitely out of line and has broken the law.

Why then is she being hailed as a hero?

Several prominent people have rushed to defend Kaur. The film industry is divided on this matter, and most have opted to keep silent. Those who have defended Ranaut are mainly known BJP supporters. By and large, Bollywood stays out of political matters, fearing retribution. In Ranaut’s case, the polarisation of sentiment is not based on just political affiliations—it is more personal. Ranaut has been ostracised by colleagues ever since she uttered the one word Bollywood hates—nepotism—on a popular TV show. There’s hardly any mainstream actor, producer or director ready to work with the fiery Kangana.

Two important issues are getting mixed up in this slapgate. Does a cop have the right to assault a citizen, no matter what grudge he or she holds against the person? The answer is no. The entire security system at airports will collapse if cops arbitrarily decide to fix celebrities whose views they dislike. Does Ranaut have the right to express offensive opinions? Yes, absolutely. Kaur acted on her personal animosity. But she cannot take law into her own hands because of her suppressed rage. Ranaut is known to make the most outrageous comments on sensitive issues. But, henceforth, she needs to be doubly sensitive towards public opinion and not abuse her position and privileges. If citizens are backing Kaur and expressing concern about her future, it is largely because Ranaut’s conduct has antagonised millions. Kaur is not remotely as entitled or privileged. Her reputation and livelihood are seriously dented. Soon, people will forget Kaur and the so-called slap, that may or may not have happened. So… who’s the bigger heroine of this saga—Ranaut or Kaur?

porsche-crash-reflects-how-vitiated-pune-s-social-atmosphere-has-become

Fri May 31 15:45:11 IST 2024

My home is not too far from Kalyani Nagar, the scene of the ghastly accident in Pune, when an underage brat, in a swanky Porsche, at 200 kmph, flung two young techies 15 feet in the air, killing the young woman on the spot, while her male friend succumbed to grievous injuries later. Kalyani Nagar is a posh area with several upmarket restaurants, bars, clubs and pubs, frequented by techies who love to party over weekends after putting in long hours at demanding jobs. Most are ambitious out-of-towners, happy to let their hair down in a new city miles away from home. I have frequented these places myself, and keenly observed the scene, especially after midnight, when the roar of Ferraris, Porsches and Aston Martins, racing across the Kalyani Nagar bridge, often drowns out the high-decibel tracks being blasted by DJs as young things dance the night away fuelled by exotic cocktails… and stronger substances. If there is an age limit, it is recklessly disregarded by owners of these glittering waterholes as arrogant, super-entitled underage monsters stagger in nonchalantly.

The juvenile in Pune had spent Rs70,000 in two bars that fateful evening. Petty change for someone like him, son of controversial real estate developer Vishal Agarwal, and grandson of Surendra Agarwal, a notorious businessman, with links to underworld dons. Both are under police detention, while the juvenile delinquent is in a children’s observation centre for 14 days.

As a person who loves Pune, none of this is shocking. It has become the ‘Pune way of life’, after rapacious builders with strong political backers grabbed tracts of prime land and built gleaming towers, boasting of unimaginably luxurious amenities. Builders and netas ruthlessly conspired to ruin what was once a cultured and refined city known for its high standards of education, and its impeccable legacy of freedom fighters, thinkers and intellectual stalwarts. Today’s Pune is like a den of thieves, with uneducated, ridiculously wealthy builders who think it is cool to allow teenage children to run around in cars that cost Rs2 crore and more. So what if one Porsche gets totalled in a careless accident? There are five more equally expensive cars in the garage, just for the enjoyment of kids who like speed.

In this case, the matters are far more serious, with attempts to intimidate and bribe the family driver into accepting responsibility for the crime. The brat’s friends have, however, admitted to the police it was their friend at the wheel of the killer car, while the father and grandfather were busy offering allurements to all and sundry, including two doctors who threw away the brat’s blood sample into a dustbin and substituted it with a ‘clean’ one. Both docs have been arrested after public outrage and political pressure escalated. Irony: the brat was too drunk to realise he was beaten up by an enraged crowd who summoned the cops.

Friends who live in Pune say the clubs and pubs are pretty empty following the tragedy, as owners wonder how to get back to business without flouting laws. Surely, it is not all that tough? Live streaming of entry and exit points is being considered. But why not do it the way the rest of the world imposes age limits—insist on legit ID cards and enforce the rule strictly.

This case is not just about an out of control car being driven by a drunk juvenile who hit and killed innocents after bingeing with buddies. It is a ghastly reflection of how vitiated Pune’s social atmosphere has become after the city was captured by the likes of the Agarwal family. Stricter laws are but one way to control those who think they are above justice. Wake up, Pune! And pay up.

the-other-sabyasachi-mukherjee

Sat May 18 11:49:01 IST 2024

I am Sabyasachi Mukherjee, not to be confused with my namesake, the celebrated fashion couturier,” declared the venerated director-general of Mumbai’s pride, George Wittet’s Indo-Saracenic jewel, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, formerly known as the Prince of Wales Museum. The supremely swish, fashion-forward invitees to a very special event on the lawns of the museum tittered politely and giggled as the charming middle-aged man spoke on. Most of them had zero idea about this other ‘Sabyasachi’. It was, after all, a fashion event titled, Legacy of Deft Hands, celebrating India’s artisanal heritage.

The over-modest and highly refined Mukherjee, dressed in a well-cut formal suit, provided a succinct introduction to the spectacular fashion walk, as top models circled the impressive statue of King George V. It was a first visit to Mumbai’s historic landmark for this chichi Gucci-Chanel set.

As director-general of one of the premier art and history museums in Asia, Mukherjee heads a dedicated team of the museum that houses priceless treasures inside the awe-inspiring grade one heritage building, which celebrated its centennial in 2022. His style is “people-oriented’’, and despite formidable scholarship in his chosen field, the soft-spoken gentleman retains his genial aura without overwhelming eager visitors flocking to his beloved museum, where he has held sway since his appointment in 2007.

He delivered a charming speech after he was elected, as an honorary member, to the two-century-old American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He disarmingly stated, “I never dreamed of being recognised and honoured by such a prestigious institution of remarkable minds.” Considering the Academy was founded by the likes of Alexander Graham Bell and Benjamin Franklin, this befitting honour was an apt and timely recognition of Mukherjee’s considerable achievements.

As a fairly regular to the museum since my growing years, I have observed its remarkable evolution from a musty, dusty place that attracted sullen-faced school kids on a mandatory museum trip, to what it is today—a vibrant, buzzing complex that attracts scholars from across the world, along with enthusiastic locals, who take in the newest exhibits, shop at the well-curated museum store which offers great, well-priced, sophisticated gifts, to students who opt for a postgraduate diploma course in museology and art conservation with Mukherjee himself as director. Who could ask for a better guru? With the addition of a children’s museum and new galleries, the familiar old space has been transformed into a modern, lively cultural hub with exciting, interactive activities that have seen a dramatic rise in footfalls.

When I met Mukherjee at the special fashion show evening, I was initially blinded! Of course, by his brilliance, but on a more mundane note, by the bright lights shining into my eyes. Surrounded by beautiful installations and inspired by the invaluable weaves on display from the Sangrahalaya’s textile gallery, it was difficult to focus. We chatted briefly, as art gallery aficionados, collectors and historians waited to meet the host.

Legacy of Deft Hands was a triumph. Befittingly, the corner reserved for Ikat weavers working on looms saw interested invitees stopping to exchange a few words with our wonderful crafts community, quietly but surely placing India on the global map. Here’s hoping the low-key director-general treats us to many more experiential exhibits that engage, inform and enchant. The Sangrahalaya has shown us how!

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

parakala-prabhakar-the-lone-voice-of-dissent

Sat May 04 11:50:39 IST 2024

“I am keen to invite Parakala [Prabhakar] to Mumbai… What do you think? Do you know him?” A friend asked. No, I don’t know the man. And no, it is not a good idea to invite him, unless you want to invite trouble, I replied. Parakala is ‘the’ man right now. Possibly, the only man boldly standing up for his beliefs. An outspoken public intellectual, Parakala is logically and fearlessly taking apart those in power and being widely applauded for saying what millions dare not. This has made him a folk hero at a time when there is a dearth of any heroes. That Parakala happens to be the estranged husband of Nirmala Sitharaman, Union finance minister, makes him doubly fascinating for millions of fans hailing him as the voice of the voiceless, an anti-establishment figure, articulating the concerns of countless citizens. His flatly stated, highly critical views, calling out Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his political colleagues, have found many takers, mainly because his interviews are not rants. He makes sense, speaks calmly and answers without waffling. Given his impressive academic credentials, it is difficult to fault his cogent arguments as he holds forth on specifics without resorting to sensationalism and name-calling.

But it is equally his rather unique position vis-a-vis his powerful wife that attracts extra attention as analysts attempt to deconstruct the marriage and read between the lines. Nirmala and Parakala have been married for 38 years and are parents to a daughter named Parakala Vangmayi, who is married to Pratik Doshi, a key aide of Modi—the guessing games continue. Parakala’s “outbursts”, publicly slamming his high-profile wife as he tore into the Union budget, are dubbed the story of every home by amused outsiders. Nirmala has maintained a stoic silence, which is just as well, or else we would have witnessed a full-scale soap opera, a domestic slugfest with gloves off.

Now that Parakala has been positioned as the lone voice of dissent, that too, during such a sensitive election, he finds himself in the spotlight, not always for the right reasons. On a podcast, he went ahead and called Modi a “dictator”, adding, “He’s not a democrat.” These sort of comments have found a niche audience with fans hailing Parakala as an iconoclast, risking personal safety while defending free speech.

Parakala comes from a staunch Congress family, with both parents active in politics. His books and essays reflect his own political thinking in unambiguous terms. Parakala’s critics are quick to dismiss him off as an oddball who is capitalising on the mood of the nation and being an agent provocateur with a hidden agenda. Well, so far his agenda remains under wraps, as observers figure out his motives and moves. The fact that no known attempt has been made to muzzle him, displays enormous confidence, especially since many young folks and stand-up comics have been warned to zip up or else.

India could do with many more Parakalas, but that’s a tall order. His brilliant mind is hard to match. It is not important to agree with his viewpoint. But it is important to recognise his right (and the rights of others ) who are challenging the status quo. Once the elections are behind us, perhaps, Parakala will not be as urgently needed and public discourse will resume its old course. Dissent and democracy go hand in hand. More voices need to be heard.  In Parakala an unlikely hero has been created, all thanks to unprecedented political developments in the country. When my friend was advised not to invite Parakala to Mumbai, it wasn’t his safety that caused concern, it was hers.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

all-about-nepals-own-billionaire-binod-chaudhary

Sat Apr 20 11:30:07 IST 2024

Binod Chaudhary, 69, is an unusual man. He wears his ‘Nepal’s first billionaire’ status very lightly. The man who took Wai Wai Noodles to the world, and came in the Forbes billionaires list in 2013, is a fitness enthusiast, avid trekker, writer and filmmaker, with 122 companies in five countries and 76 brands in the global market.

We reconnected recently at a retreat in Gangtok and, soon after, on his home turf—Kathmandu. The one quality that jumped out during our interactions? His focused interest in everything and everyone around him. He gave me his book, Making it Big: The Inspiring Story of Nepal’s First Billionaire, a chatty, highly readable account of his incredible life. It is a huge bestseller in Nepal and sells briskly in India, too. It starts with an earthquake in Chile (2010) and ends with the devastating earthquake in Nepal (2015). Sandwiched in between is his own story, engagingly written by him in Nepali and later translated into English and several other languages. He is working on his second book, which recounts the Wai Wai success story, detailing the strategy that propelled the brand to unimaginable heights. “A battle cannot be won with compassion,” he states, confessing candidly, “My aggression has overshadowed my good qualities.’’ This is a rare admission for a man who is mega successful and unabashedly proud of his achievements. As the chairperson of the Chaudhary Group, Binod has left the day-to-day running of his vast empire to his three sons—Nirvana, Rahul and Varun.

I remember attending Rahul and Surabhi’s grand wedding in Jaipur. Surabhi, Binod’s beautiful and capable daughter-in-law, is a Mumbai girl, while Nirvana’s wife, Ashrayata, is from Nepal. The close-knit family works seamlessly and efficiently within the assigned roles.

The Chaudhary men are on the move non-stop, what with their vast and varied business interests—from banking, real estate, hospitality, telecom, housing, finance, hospitals and education. Aware of their family lineage, Binod says, “I belong to a community with a proud history… Marwaris have never received the respect they deserve.’’ Binod’s grandfather, originally from Shekhawati in Rajasthan, came to Nepal as a young man of 20 and put down roots. “Marwaris have a wonderful support system, which is why they succeed wherever they go,” declares Binod, as he looks back on his extraordinary life, crammed with personal and professional adventures.

As a seasoned politician and member of parliament from the Nepali Congress party, Binod cites his friendship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while pointing out that India could have done much more for its smaller neighbour, in terms of building Nepal’s infrastructure. Well, the airport at Kathmandu could do with a major facelift, given the tourist traffic from India and the rest of the world.

Binod, who was introduced to Modi by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, is keenly watching elections 2024 in India, and won’t be surprised if an unexpected twist upsets the best calculations. His own country is going through a period of turbulence and, at the moment, his political party is on shaky grounds as the demands for a return to monarchy, reinstating the king and declaring Nepal as the world’s only Hindu kingdom, get more strident. Binod is too shrewd and powerful to allow any of this to deter his personal growth vision. His position in Nepal looks unshakeable, despite attempts to dig up old cases and vilify the family.

“I want everything from life,” Binod flatly states, as he rushes off for yet another meeting, a linen jacket casually slung over his arm. The brotherhood of billionaires ensures a certain comfort to the man who has survived earthquakes and more, never once losing sight of his goals. The ground beneath his feet is rock steady, as he confidently takes the Chaudhary Group to the next level.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

paresh-maity-unplugged

Sat Apr 06 17:28:15 IST 2024

Artists see things differently. Thanks to that special gift, the world also begins to see and appreciate the vision of the creator. My attitude towards the prickly jackfruit changed forever when Paresh Maity immortalised it in bronze. A gigantic version of the fruit was on display at Bikaner House in Delhi (2022) at Paresh’s solo exhibition, titled Infinite Light. The jackfruit was described as India’s largest bronze sculpture. “The structure of the fruit depicts life in the city,’’ Paresh said. He saw what most of us didn’t! That’s what makes Paresh, a Padma Shri award recipient, a sought-after artist, acquired by galleries and collectors who dote on the Delhi-based, beret-wearing artist with a master’s in fine arts from the College of Art, Delhi. ‘The Force’ is his most iconic sculpture, made of 8,500 bells. But it is his vivid water colours I lust after. Paresh says watercolour is the most difficult medium in the field of art. Well, recently I discovered Paresh’s absolute control and mastery over the medium, at a wonderfully organised retreat in Gangtok. We were a group of approximately 40 people invited by Harsh Neotia to experience a delightful Easter weekend at the exquisite Taj-managed Guras Spa and Resort, carved out of a rocky hill in Gangtok, with Danny Denzongpa and Bhaichung Bhutia as neighbours. During our two short days at the gorgeous property, which has glorious views of the majestic Kanchenjunga, Paresh was busy translating his vision into watercolours of immense beauty, while the rest of us chit-chatted over second flush Darjeeling tea.

I don’t own a Paresh, alas. But each time I pass through Delhi, I stop to admire his gigantic work at the T3 Indira Gandhi International Terminal. I have always been an admirer, but this was the first time we both had the time and leisure to connect and chat. Paresh is a dandy. His meticulously selected outfits are a reflection of his personal aesthetic. He says he is a follower of the “less is more’’ philosophy, but his fashion choices are anything but minimalistic. When he walked in for a formal farewell dinner at the resort, all eyes were on the man in a zari embroidered black achkan bearing his signature motifs woven in gold thread, a heavy silver choker, and tan shoes. The trademark black beret was firmly in place. Paresh is a photographer’s dream I discovered, as I shot his portraits in the resplendent gold embroidered achkan. He posed like a pro, and took directions unfussily, while Jayasri Burman, his partner, an accomplished artist herself, watched on. Soon, it was my turn to pose for Paresh. Not only did he click the most flattering portraits, but within seconds, he had cropped and composed the perfect shot. Prolific, gregarious, ambitious and restless, Paresh is a man who loves being Paresh. That’s such a refreshing change from artists who pretend to play modest and claim they are embarrassed by attention. Paresh is unabashed and upfront—a man who enjoys being in the spotlight and has the distinction of holding the biggest solo exhibition by any single artist in India, spread over four cities and five months.

As for me, I shall cherish my Paresh-shot portraits and frame them for posterity. I cannot afford a Paresh watercolour, which runs into several lakhs. But how many Paresh collectors have been lucky enough to be photographed by the artist? Ha! I win!

kiran-rao-is-on-top-at-50

Sat Mar 09 16:28:22 IST 2024

Come to think of it, producer, director, screenwriter Kiran Rao has occupied the director’s chair since birth! At 50, she is where she wants to be—calling the shots, professionally and personally. Her latest film, Laapataa Ladies [missing ladies], received a standing ovation at the Toronto Film Festival, where her earlier film Dhobi Ghat had been equally feted. Interestingly, superstar Aamir Khan, her ex-husband (and co-producer of Laapataa Ladies) had auditioned for the role played supremely well by popular Bhojpuri actor Ravi Kishan… and was rejected by Kiran. That’s the level of confidence and respect the two share.

A couple of years ago, we were invited to dinner by Aamir and were delighted when Kiran joined us to cut a birthday cake with Azad, their young son. Kiran’s team was waiting impatiently for Aamir to watch a rough cut of Laapataa Ladies at his studio on the ground floor. There was zero awkwardness in any of this. Equally, there was none when Kiran enthusiastically participated in the extended wedding celebrations of his daughter Ira, through Aamir’s first marriage to Reena Dutta. Both ex-wives share a strong Bengali connection. Reena is born a Bengali. Kiran lived and studied in Kolkata and is a proud Loreto girl who speaks excellent Bengali. With her royal lineage (grand-daughter of the titular Raja of Wanaparthy state, J. Rameshwar Rao, founder of Orient Longman), Kiran’s upbringing in a progressive, highly educated family is richly reflected in her professional and personal choices. Influenced by the movies of Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, Kiran has opted for an off-beat, cerebral route when it comes to helming film projects.

Her social concerns are evident in Laapataa Ladies, which ostensibly revolves around the tragi-comedy of two young brides in rural India, getting accidentally swapped on a train. Behind the laughs and broad humour, several strands of feminism and gender justice are expertly woven in, via dialogues that highlight the deep-rooted prejudices ingrained in our complex society, which looks the other way when a woman is ill-treated and abused in multiple ways. Kiran expertly uses the metaphor of the traditional ghungat (veil), that covers more than just a women’s face—it effectively negates her individuality and hides acts of blatant discrimination within her own family. There are telling scenes highlighting domestic interactions that underline how hard it is for a new bride to survive, forget thrive, in her brand new environment, amidst strangers who fail to acknowledge her as an individual with a mind of her own. Like when the bride is tutored to keep her eyes downcast permanently, now that she is married and sporting a ghungat.

Kiran’s quiet assertiveness is a class act, which is obvious when one meets her socially. As an acknowledged fashionista with a specific design aesthetic, Kiran is confident enough to favour organic fabrics over sequined designer wear, and stick to minimal jewellery, the kind favoured by successful Bollywood personalities. Stripped of artifice and by shunning glitz, Kiran stands out in an ocean of OTT couture.

Kiran and Aamir, who have faced flak in the past, for speaking up on matters that are considered sensitive, and been labelled as anti-nationals for doing so, have the courage of their convictions to stick to their strong belief systems. This attitude in an era of compromised political principles, is inspiring and courageous. They have paid a big price for that….

But, today, Kiran commands the respect of the film industry for being herself! Not Aamir’s ex-wife. Hard-earned, yes. But oh so well deserved. Let’s hope there will be fewer laapataa ladies in India henceforth.

anita-nair-and-my-crush-mammootty

Sat Feb 24 15:27:05 IST 2024

Till last year, I used to be a lit fest junkie. Now, I am done! I outgrew the circus and decided to spare myself the tedium of being reduced to a performing flea. But am I glad I accepted the invitation to the recent Colombo Literature Fest, where I ran into Anita Nair at breakfast…. And forgot all about string hoppers. We were sharing a panel the same evening. The topic was provocative: The Empire Strikes Back. I asked if she had ‘prepped’ for it; I hadn’t! She reassured me it would be a cakewalk—all we had to do is respond to questions posed by the moderator. Well, the panel turned out to be unwieldy and directionless, but later, on the lawns of the majestic Galle Face Hotel, Anita and I had our first ‘proper’ chat. And I sincerely hope, a long-term friendship was forged that balmy night, when we talked about our work and discovered we had a common crush—actor Mammootty! I breathlessly asked Anita if she had met the actor, and she had. And when she promised to send him Malayalam translations of her books, Mammootty replied, “No. I don’t want translations. I want to read you.” Ufffff. Such a loaded response. We both blushed like schoolgirls and gushed some more. It was not yet 10pm, and Anita announced she was calling it a night. I stared in utter disbelief. I was instantly fascinated by her daily regimen, which begins at 4.30am and includes daily practice (carnatic music) and so much else, efficiently packed into a writing schedule, and mentoring via Anita’s Attic, while prodigiously writing her award-winning books. “You must tell me what you think of Gowda,’’ she said casually, about Borei Gowda, the cop-character she has meticulously crafted for her immensely popular trilogy of crime thrillers. “Is Gowda like Mammootty?” I enquired mischievously. “Yes,” replied Anita. Oh ho… I am in love with Gowda, already!

I have started on the trilogy after Anita generously sent the books. Her plotting is impeccable, but it is her knowledge and understanding of police procedurals that blew me away. Combine that, with her penetrating psychological insights into human behaviour along with her descriptive powers of the landscapes where the action takes place, and the reader immediately recognises an original voice in a crowded field. To merely call these three books crime thrillers is to take a lot away from Anita’s masterful control over language and structure.

Anita’s personality and poise ensure public attention and it is tempting to describe her using the same words publishers use for blurbs—“tempestuous” and “exotic”. She speaks with a certain quiet certitude, which often throws unwary interviewers. A Republic Day baby (her birthday falls on January 26), Anita, at 58, cuts an arresting figure, and exudes a no-nonsense air, which belies her vulnerable charm.

She frequently makes her own early morning chai, before the household awakes (her grownup son lives on his own), and she has quiet, contemplative me time, to write, think, make notes, sing, dream. It’s a writer’s life all the way.

I am looking forward to my personal discovery of Anita’s complex and intriguing world, which explores gender, class, sub-cultures, inequalities, discrimination, corruption and rot, expertly decoding what it means to be a woman who writes in contemporary India and addresses multiple social dilemmas as seen through her very specific, sharply focused lens. Gowda, her charismatic, taciturn, blunt cop, sounds like a delicious blend of Anita herself, with dollops of Mammootty thrown in for garnish.

It is time for Eating Wasps… and celebrating Anita some more, methinks!

why-i-want-to-go-on-a-biryani-date-with-dongris-darling-munawar-faruqui

Sat Feb 10 15:01:51 IST 2024

The extraordinary story of 32-year-old Munawar Iqbal Faruqui, winner of the 17th season of Bigg Boss (Indian television’s biggest reality show) is worthy of a biopic. Frankly, I hadn’t heard of the stand-up comic, poet and rapper, till I watched the coverage of his victory parade, when he took the trophy to his modest home, waving to a sea of delirious fans cheering him as he stuck his head out of the sunroof of his fancy car. At first, I thought I was watching the usual fan-mania outside Shah Rukh Khan’s Mannat—the superstar’s palatial seaside bungalow. But hello! These visuals were from gritty Dongri, not snotty Bandra. Dongri—Mumbai’s most notorious ghetto, once home to gangsters like Dawood Ibrahim, Haji Mastan, Tiger Memon, Chhota Shakeel, Abu Salem. Dongri—from where the dreaded D-Gang operated. Dongri—shunned by Mumbaikars, and damned by cops. Here was a son of Dongri, who had won the hearts of millions of viewers and walked away with prize money and gifts worth more than Rs1.4 crore. This was no freaky win. The thousands who had turned up to greet him, did so out of genuine admiration. Shopkeepers in Dongri had put up his posters, while neighbourhood eateries offered discounts on food. Their boy had won! A Dongri boy had brought glory to their neighbourhood. No longer would Dongri be seen as nothing more than a dangerous, overcrowded slum that bred international gangsters and where crime was a way of life. Munawar had altered and upgraded Dongri’s image overnight!

Munawar, a driver’s son, left Junagadh in 2002 after his home was burnt during the Godhra riots. His father moved the family to Mumbai, and subsequently, Munawar lost both parents. He dropped out of school, did odd jobs, sold utensils at Rs60 a day. Till he discovered his forte—black comedy! Not everybody was amused by his humour. Munawar spent 37 days in jail following his arrest by the Madhya Pradesh police in Indore on New Year’s Eve 2021, when he was picked up mid-performance for what was called a ‘hate speech’. Several stand-up comedians representing southeast Asia, stood by Munawar, offering support and solidarity, citing their right to freedom of expression.

Today, Munawar has 4.7 million subscribers to his YouTube channel, 11.6 million followers on Instagram. His net worth is pegged at Rs8 crore, based on his fees of Rs15 lakh per paid post, and Rs2.5 lakh per stage show. His video, ‘Dawood Yamraaj & Aurat’ has garnered 20 million views, and Munawar is already planning his next professional moves.

His personal life is as interesting as his dazzling rise to fame. But fans are not judgmental at all. On the contrary, they admire him for being upfront and responding candidly to frequent ‘womaniser’ rumours. His dating pattern is avidly monitored on social media. Life on the fast track is likely to transform Munawar’s disarming personality—that’s a given. Soon, he will be seen sporting designer wear at red carpet events and schoomzing with celebrities from the other side of the railway track. Munawar’s makeover is on. You can take the man out of Dongri, but you can’t take Dongri out of him—and that is Munawar’s real strength. Dongri inspires his work and lyrics. Dongri is his bedrock. When a Dongri resident said “the trophy has finally reached Dongri”, it was a rich tribute to the grime and dirt of Dongri and led to the success of Dongri’s darling—Munawar.

I want to go on a biryani date in Dongri with Munawar. Working on it!

how-asha-thadani-is-visualising-hope

Sat Jan 27 15:38:30 IST 2024

There is an open door, shut by a closed mind….” This is the line that grabbed me when I opened Asha Thadani’s catalogue, Broken—Dalit Lives, which introduced viewers to her just concluded exhibition of photographs in Delhi. Asha has been chronicling the lives of the most marginalised citizens of India, and reminding us powerfully that, “The human spirit is never in chains, imagination is never in shackles and creative expression through art, song, verse and dance, allows them freedom of the mind, in a defiance of the caste cabal.’’ Asha’s searing series of photographs, visualises the lives of 10 such dalit communities, in the fervent hope that at least a single door for a closed mind opens.

Asha is a photographic artist based in Bengaluru, and has been creating images that explore power structures since 1996. Her works have received international recognition and been shown at important museums like the Albert-Kahn Museum and Garden, Paris, and the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai. Nominated for the prestigious Henri Cartier Bresson Award (2015), Asha continues to address social injustices by deep diving into the human tragedy behind the most dehumanised segments of our society. She writes, “The dalit life has been one of isolation and pain, and systemic injustice.’’

As I went through the wonderfully written text by popular podcaster, writer and magazine publisher, Ramjee Chandran, my eyes refused to focus! Let me explain. There was one particular image of a little girl, at the coal mines of Jharia, that shook me up. I simply couldn’t look the child in the eye without cringing in shame. I started to read the bone-chilling text accompanying this section, titled The Unseen Suffering, and my stomach churned—rogue mines employ four lakh people, including women, and children who are not yet 10. They live as bonded labour and work 18 hours a day. That little girl’s direct gaze—defiant, scorching, challenging—began to haunt me. And I reached out to Asha, through our common friend, the extraordinary Prasad Bidapa, to express what I felt about Asha’s powerful work. That little girl now resides in my home in the form of a life-size photograph, sent by Asha. It’s interesting to note that her presence has disturbed the domestic equilibrium enough for visitors who stop and stare and sometimes ask, “But why would you want such a picture on your wall? Doesn’t it bother you?” Of course, it does! Which is why it is there.

There is another, equally compelling portrait of a handsome, rugged young man posing with a cluster of goat heads. Yes, goat heads. I plead ignorance! I had no idea that a dalit tribe called the Holeyas harvest the brains of goat carcasses for a living; the brain being the part of a goat that fetches the most money. Dalit males who specialise in extricating the brain are as young as 10 or 12. Their life expectancy is 35 to 45. They often die of bites from the ticks on the heads of the goats being burned, or from toxic furnace fumes. The young man stares back, his eyes blazing—pride? Anger? Rebellion?

Some days ago Prime Minister Narendra Modi consecrated the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya with much pomp and ceremony. More than a century ago, in a village in Chhattisgarh, Parsuram Bharadwaj, a dalit, was stopped from entering a temple. He decided to express his protest by tattooing the word Ram on every part of his body, as a challenge to Hindu orthodoxy. Others followed. Today’s Ramnamis, looking for jobs in big cities, don’t wear their devotion to Ram as visibly. Asha calls the Ram tattoos, “A chant in writing.” It is the devotion of the defiant. I cannot wait to meet Asha—she has given so much ásha (hope) to India’s most wretched.

fareed-zakaria-style-and-substance

Sat Jan 13 11:12:33 IST 2024

I am pretty certain the first time I met Padma Bhushan Fareed Zakaria (well-known journalist, author and columnist), he was wearing half-pants. He was a schoolboy living in his parents’ home in south Mumbai, and we were friends of the Zakarias (Rafique and Fatima). The handsome, suave and very refined young person we subsequently ran into over the years is today a global figure, and at 59 carries off his multiple international awards and accomplishments most elegantly. Fareed self-identifies as a “çentrist and a secular, non-practising Muslim”. His father was a prominent politician from a Konkani Muslim family, and was an Islamic theologian, who was known for his advocacy of traditional Islam. Fareed’s mother was an editor, and gave me my first major break as a national columnist. Our ties go back decades.

This time, we were meeting in Udaipur, at the wedding of my god-daughter Malika, Fareed’s niece. Tasneem Vikram Mehta, Malika’s mother and Fareed’s sister, is one of my dearest friends. The occasion was emotionally charged and deeply sentimental, as all the invitees to the three-day celebration in the magnificent Mehta family haveli, overlooking the Fateh Sagar Lake, enthusiastically participated in the well-curated festivities. Malika’s father, the erudite Vikram Jagat Mehta, and Tasneem, made sure every guest at the intimate ghar ki shaadi was made to feel special. Fareed, clad in a brocade bandhgala, played the benevolent maamu [maternal uncle], receiving guests and enjoying the proceedings. The man about whom it was said, “Fareed is so well-versed in politics, he can’t be pigeonholed…’’ sensibly avoided talking shop at the shaadi, which may have disappointed his admirers, dying to pick his brains and get his take on issues like the Ram Mandir. Given that Fareed has made it to several international lists of top analysts of our times, his decision to respect the mood of the rituals and not hog the limelight was the right one.

Fareed’s cover essay in a news magazine, after the 9/11 attack, was titled, “Why they hate us…’’ and was passionately argued at a time the world needed a deeper perspective. More recently, when Fareed declared, “The world sees what America does not…” people paid attention. Ditto, when he announced “A new world order needs new thinking…” Forbes had him on the list of “25 most influential liberals in American media”, making it clear that Fareed’s words count.

His weekly show on TV is eagerly watched by several diehard fans, including my 87-year-old sister, who was thrilled to see her hero in the picture I sent from the shaadi. His provocative topics ensure he keeps his viewers riveted. In his characteristic non-intrusive way, I noticed how Fareed is never ever “off the job”—quietly asking relevant questions, probing, observing, without the other person feeling the slightest discomfort.

That is the hallmark of a professional journalist, who rarely ‘relaxes’ even in a social setting—who knows where the next scoop can come from? His book, The Post-American World, talks about the “rise of the rest”—us! And others. Well, it is a perspective nobody can afford to ignore. It is refreshing to learn Fareed loves cooking! Food, that is. Not media stories. Seeing how fit he is, one wonders about his palate-discipline, given his culinary passion. The Mumbai boy in half-pants to the tuxedo-wearing Upper West Side New Yorker, our Fareed has come a long, long way in the world. We are proud of him!

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

multifaceted-mozez-singh

Sat Dec 30 10:45:50 IST 2023

Rizz—the catchword of 2023—is possibly a tad overused, but let us hand it to people who don’t acquire ‘rizz’. They are born with it. I place storyteller, filmmaker, writer, producer, director Mozez Singh in this coveted category. He has ‘rizz’ written all over him! Today, he is poised to make a major mark in the cut-throat world of films, with a soon-to-be launched documentary on another Singh—popular rapper and hip-hopper Yo Yo Honey Singh. The trade buzz is strong, and it is being hailed as one of the top Netflix releases to look out for in 2024. Mozez called it an “exhilarating experience”, describing the process as an “adrenaline-filled creative ride… and my entry into the hypnotic world of documentary filmmaking”.

Mozez tasted success with his earlier films (Zubaan, Human and White Noise), and won the prestigious Rising Director Asia Star award at the Busan International Film Festival. Today, he is amongst a small, select group of talented filmmakers who are sought after by prestigious production houses. Please note: his ‘rizz’ factor does not originate in his movie triumphs. Mozez just has to walk into a room to create an impact. It is his unique personality that draws attention even before anyone knows who he is. Chameleon-like and mercurial, man-boy Mozez has become a muse for several top designers who see a global, magnetic personality in him. Given his lithe good looks and an extravagant wardrobe that can go from Tom Ford to Goa beach hippie chic, Mozez revels in the attention and remains a perennial sartorial adventurer. As a clothes horse, his gender fluid appearance provides inspiration for cutting-edge fashion shoots that break the mould.

Flamboyant and androgynous, Mozez himself could be the subject of a future documentary, given his charmed life. “Fashion should be freeing,” Mozez stated in an interview, living up to his commitment towards normalising LGBTQ+ choices.

Mozez’s aesthetic comes from his beautiful mother, Maheep Singh, whose wardrobe he used to raid growing up in their sprawling mansion in Delhi. His collection of bold jewellery is from Hanut Singh, his childhood friend.

A life of privilege, for sure—Mozez’s grandfather was the founder chairman of Ranbaxy, a legacy pharmaceutical company. Mozez could so easily have been another entitled Delhi brat, running around the world doing his richie-rich celebrity thing. That he chose to come to Mumbai and made his career in an entirely different field is to his credit.

Mozez was a precocious 13-year-old schoolboy when I first met him at his stunning Delhi bungalow, filled with contemporary art and rare silver. I was there to shoot for a magazine feature, that required a tiger skin for me to pose on. Dilip Mehta, the renowned photographer and a friend of the Singh family, picked their magnificent residence for the shoot. Suddenly, I noticed two teenaged boys lurking around and gawking at the strange spectacle being staged—Mozez and Hanut! Today, we share a terrific friendship and share our views on anything and everything—from politics to books. His bachelor apartment, in trendy Bandra, boasts an impressive library, where he spends most of his time reading, writing and creating. With his frequent travels to exotic destinations in India and across the globe, Mozez’s restless mind rarely demands a break.

I like his spiritual energy field—as an ardent Shiva devotee it was the beautiful altar at the entrance of Mozez’s super-chic apartment that left the strongest impact. Shiv bhakti and avant-garde fashion—great combo!

bowled-over-by-jessica-posner-odede

Fri Dec 15 18:19:44 IST 2023

I was intrigued when media personality Alex Kuruvilla sent a tempting invitation to an evening of cocktails, connections and conversations about the ‘Power of Girl Effect’, hosted in the Zenith at the St Regis Hotel. Dressed in a crisp white blazer, Jessica Posner Odede, CEO of Girl Effect, an international NGO that helps girls in Africa and Asia make choices on multiple levels, was busy greeting invitees. Supporting her in this inspiring initiative was global media mogul Jonathan Newhouse.

Around us were some of India’s best known philanthropists, like Adar and Natasha Poonawalla. After the informal meet and greet formalities, Alex introduced Jessica and her dedicated team—giving guests an idea of what exactly Girl Effect is all about. It was left to Jessica to take us through her incredible journey from Kenya to India, that has led to Girl Effect making vital inroads and transforming lives of confused adolescent girls here and in Africa—those who have no direct access to much-needed information regarding basic female health. Nor do they enjoy the emotional support required to process sensitive matters involving taboo subjects—menstruation, contraception, pregnancy and more. It was when Jessica heard a teenager say, ‘the first time I menstruated and saw blood, I was convinced I was dying’ that she decided to do something about it and launch Girl Effect, which has reached more than 23 million young Indian women online.

“Go forth and shine,” she urges girls, while encouraging confidential conversations in a safe environment through media and tech products. In India’s Hindi belt, Girl Effect proved to be a real boon, with young girls relating to content such as a specially created web series, chatbots, a girls-only Facebook group, and an informative website, which Jessica claims encourages every girl to write her own story. An online community—Bak Bak Gang—provides a safe space for non-judgmental conversations about love, life and sex. Bol Behen acts as a virtual big sister and offers advice to girls at every stage.

When the dynamic, articulate Jonathan proposed an eloquent vote of thanks, several questions arose in the room—around how one could contribute. This was the prime objective of the evening, and it was heartening to see the passionate engagement of high-powered invitees, ready to open their wallets and extend support in whichever manner.

My husband and I were blown away by Jonathan’s prodigious memory—travelling across the world, interacting with hundreds of people as he has been doing for decades, Jonathan retains an awe-inspiring recall, even for the tiniest detail. He reminded both of us about our conversation back then, and we shared a few laughs—mainly over my tattoos and his! Since mine are powerful pro-women Kanji symbols, they seemed an apt representation of Girl Effect—what a delightful coincidence. Jonathan said he had to make sure to cover his inking while travelling in Japan, where tattoos are associated with Japanese criminal gangs (Yakuza). While tattoos are not illegal in Japan, most visitors cover up at temples and shrines, and make sure not to expose their tattoos while strolling through the streets of the country. Phew! Jonathan just saved me from future embarrassment since we are travelling to Japan soon. Thanks Jonathan—that was a very valuable tip, indeed—I will make sure my arms stay covered!

As for Jessica, she made me aware of how urban, female youngsters living in Tier-1 cities, take sensitive information so much for granted. Compared with their less privileged counterparts across India, our young female adults are so much better armed to deal with adolescent challenges. It is time to step up and offer other far less informed counterparts the same knowledge-access as we enjoy.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

tanvi-jindals-own-muso

Sat Dec 02 11:49:26 IST 2023

Tanvi Jindal Shete at 36 is a petite bundle of super-charged energy. Daughter of Sajjan and Sangita Jindal, mother of two tots, director of Jindal South West (JSW) Foundation overseeing the education portfolio, and the dynamic founder of the just opened MuSo (Museum of Solutions), Tanvi’s life spins at unbelievable speed. Her involvement with young minds started in 2009 as a member of the first cohort for the Teach For India fellowship programme in a low income school. After graduating in economics from New York University, Tanvi decided to invest time, energy and money in a passion project—the incredible MuSo. As a space dedicated to empower children to think out of the box instead of staring at static museum displays as passive participants, MuSo offers a world-class experience, possibly, the only one of its kind in India, which encourages visitors of all ages to learn and be inspired, as they walk through nine vibrant floors, meticulously designed by the best Indian and international brains.

I was invited by Sangita to experience MuSo along with my grandchildren before its formal opening. Can’t claim I was jumping with joy—it was a Sunday morning and I rarely step out on Sundays! But which grandma can say “no” to a carnival, live music, food stalls and a staggering amount of activity for restless bachchas? Not only did I make it, but also I became a bachcha myself! I was taken for a great walkthrough by Nameeta Premkumar, the creative force behind some of the most engaging exhibits. Since the opening theme is water, every floor focuses on water and its vital importance—the earth’s survival depends on how we respect our water resources and conserve them for future generations. These narratives are skilfully showcased with apt installations that talk about conservation and eco-responsibility without being boring or preachy. I fell in love with Puddles, the vividly colourful sea turtle, who is the star of a lyrically shot film showing Puddles on a journey through oceans that are rapidly getting denuded of coral and other aquatic life due to our abuse and ignorance.

I was introduced by my friend Surya (key member of the MuSo team) to Michael Peter Edson, the energetic chief museum officer, who left Washington, DC, and a cushy position as director, web and new media strategy, for the prestigious Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum and research complex, to come on board. This is Mike’s first trip to India—and he is already in love with all things desi! After just over a month of being in Mumbai, he is very much at ease and in tune with all things Bambaiya. Mike’s Diwali Puja celebration with the extended Jindal family will always remain memorable, he said, with a twinkle in his eyes, recounting how seamlessly the playlist switched from devotional music during the puja to contemporary club right after, when young people got a party vibe going and started grooving to Taylor Swift tracks.

I bought two well-crafted Puddles for my youngest grandchildren, who were nowhere in sight! They were busy playing in water in a designated area, where bright yellow water proof ponchos are provided to young enthusiasts as they splash around and follow a water trail that teaches them to respect the world’s most precious resource. This is pro-active learning at its imaginative best, in a brightly lit museum space that lets children run around in a safe, supervised setting that’s filled with wonder and delight! Bravo, Tanvi and team. I hope MuSo travels to other cities soon… kids across India will cherish this very special centre designed just for them.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

goodbye-prithvi-raj-singh-oberoi-the-ultimate-hotelier

Sat Nov 18 11:18:08 IST 2023

I woke up to the sad news that Prithvi Raj Singh Oberoi (popularly known as Biki) had passed away aged 94. He had stepped down as executive chairman of the group that runs 32 hotels, with a presence in seven countries, after an astonishing career that had successfully redefined the very meaning of hospitality in India. The word ‘prithvi’ in his name is significant―Oberoi was known as the ultimate hotelier across the world, respected by peers and admired by those in the trade who wanted to be more like the diminutive legend, impeccably dressed at all times in well-cut Savile Row style suits, perfectly set off with elegant ties and pocket squares. Dashing and dynamic, alert and forward–thinking, he was a true bon vivant who recognised the best life had to offer―and was always striving to make that available to his guests at any of the Oberoi Hotels across continents.

Yes, there will be multiple tributes and heartfelt prayers as mourners pay their respects to a lovely man, who had inherited a hotel empire from his father, and had grown it to its very impressive present. Among all the Oberoi hotels I have stayed in over decades, it is the Oberoi Grand in Kolkata that remains special. The 500-room property in the heart of Kolkata―shrewdly acquired by Biki’s father (Rai Bahadur Oberoi) as a distress sale during the cholera epidemic―remains the grandest of all the Oberoi properties, with its old world charm and discreet opulence. I also adore The Oberoi Cecil in Shimla (built in 1884) for much the same reasons―it spells distinction and history in every corner and clearly held sentimental value for Biki, given the wonderful reopening of the heritage hotel in 1997 to which we were invited, along with a few of Biki’s friends from Delhi and overseas. Over a relaxed weekend, we saw the supremely considerate host in Biki, looking after his special mehmaan as only a generous, thoughtful lord of the manor does.

Each time we met Biki, the spontaneous warmth and signature style were on full display. Charming, courteous, sometimes chomping on a cigar, at other times instructing staff to pick up a piece of paper from the vast grounds, here was a man whose attention to detail was mind-boggling. Since the hotels were―and remain―personality-driven, these high standards were non-negotiable and diligently followed by well-trained teams, most of them from the Oberoi Centre for Learning and Development (OCLD). Our daughter Anandita had made it to the last round of this highly coveted, strictly merit-driven and frighteningly competitive pan-India programme. It was time for the toughest part of the interview―the walk! This is where nervous aspirants enter a large hall and have to walk its entire length to meet the bossman himself. Biki was known to ask strange questions that had little to do with hospitality. My daughter had mugged up every conceivable response to questions about hotel management, food, service… what she hadn’t factored in was the curve ball Biki threw: “Hello! How are your parents? Do give my regards to your mother.” Anandita candidly replied, “My parents are well… and my mother is waiting for me in the coffee shop downstairs.’’ Biki chuckled and said, “l will come and say hello to her.” Which he did. He also told me how well Anandita had done and I should be proud of her. But she wasn’t selected! Later, we were informed it could have been because Biki felt she was too privileged to take the heat in the kitchen!

I wish I had had the chance to tell him so many years later that Anandita has worked exceedingly hard to strike out on her own―privileges be damned. And, yes, had she made the cut that morning, she would have made him and the group very proud, too.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

borwankar-the-first-female-police-officer-to-boldly-take-on-the-system

Sat Nov 04 16:57:12 IST 2023

Legendary top cop Julio Ribeiro, 92, penned an interesting column recently, in which he bracketed two very different women—a top cop (Meeran Chadha Borwankar) and the much-discussed TMC MP Mahua Moitra. Frankly, I cannot think of two women who are more dissimilar, but I loved Ribeiro’s very modern take on both.

I had briefly seen Moitra at the Jaipur Lit Fest earlier this year, where she had swept past the gawkers, swishing back her hair, and adjusting her fine sari, surrounded by hefty bouncers and a flock of drooling admirers. She looked and behaved like the diva she indeed is.

At the Tata Lit Fest in Mumbai this week, I was on a trailblazers’ panel with a bona fide star—the indomitable Borwankar, whose latest book, Madam Commissioner—The Extraordinary Life of an Indian Police Chief, has been creating waves and ruffling several political feathers since its launch. Borwankar walked into the author’s lounge, without bodyguards or bouncers, and no fawning entourage. Dressed in a smart blazer with an embroidered IPS badge on the pocket, the feisty woman did not need ‘showcasing’. Soft spoken, with a no-nonsense approach, here was a woman who had handled many highly sensitive, hugely high-profile cases during her tenure, and did it with utmost fearlessness.

I had read the book and rejoiced in Borwankar’s triumphs over entrenched bureaucratic systems that are difficult to challenge. The fact that Borwankar has named names in her book, and rattled the likes of Maharashtra Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, makes her an unusual former IPS officer—unafraid of possible repercussions from those in power today. But, then, what are threats to the woman who rode a motorcycle on night patrols in Mumbai’s notorious dock areas and tackled the prostitution racket head on. Being a crack shot and expert horse rider certainly helps. Today, at 68, Borwankar (teetotaller and strict vegetarian), maintains her athletic frame and exudes teenage energy as she briskly walks up on stage and our session starts with Borwankar telling a rapt audience about her daredevil encounters with some of the most dreaded criminals in Maharashtra (I include politicians in this category).

She receives enthusiastic applause when she responds candidly to questions from the audience. As the mother of two boys, she has had to deal with parenting challenges when the kids were younger, and she had to take tough calls, sometimes from riot torn areas where her personal safety was at stake.

Later, post our enlivening session, we met over a dinner at a trendy restaurant close by. Borwankar was joined by her bright and fun son Ankur, a lawyer, who oversees her publishing contracts and helps her out with speaking engagements and other books-related marketing decisions. They are a good team—communicative and comfortable with one another. As Maharashtra’s first female district police chief as well as its first police commissioner, Borwankar’s place in history is ensured. But that she did not hesitate to critique the country’s criminal justice system and fight the good fight, taking it to the highest level, speaks a lot about her commitment and integrity, and loyalty to her uniform. Today, there are several outstanding women police officers at every level. But Borwankar was the first to break the mould. Did she face resistance and resentment from male colleagues? Oh yes! Especially during the arduous training period when she was the only woman in a dining hall filled with men, with a batchmate taunting her by playing cheap film songs and berating her for speaking Punjabi English.

Her book is a candid account of what the police uniform means to a determined cop, who successfully handled the early jeers and jibes to emerge on top of her game—undaunted by unprincipled netas transferring her for not playing ball. Borwankar was the first female police officer to boldly take on the system. Let us hope she isn’t the last.

the-elusive-mona-who-gave-it-all-up-to-become-mrs-dev-anand

Sat Oct 14 14:55:14 IST 2023

For the past month, the media has been abuzz celebrating iconic actor Dev Anand’s birth centenary. The excitement has not surprised his fans, what with over a 180 invitees to a special screening of Guide—organised by the National Museum of Indian Cinema (NMIC)—dressed as Dev Anand or his lovely co-star Waheeda Rehman. And, Waheeda was conferred the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award the same week! In the ongoing hoopla, one person was missing—Dev Anand’s wife, screen name Kalpana Kartik, all of 92, and living the life of a recluse. It was only after a small news item appeared, with a quote from the lady, that fans woke up to the realisation she was very much around, even if far from visible. As Dev Anand’s co-star in five films, Mona Singha (Kalpana’s real name), the beauty queen from Shimla, sweetly confessed she still felt her late husband’s presence and recalled how he always addressed her by her given name—Mona.

So much is known about Dev Anand. And so little about his missus. Fans know Dev saab—his spectacularly successful, six-decade-long career, with over 100 films, a Padma Bhushan and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. His last film was released the year he died in London aged 88, with a register in his hand, working on his next project. His BA degree in English literature from Lahore made him something of an oddity in Bollywood. But it also added to his sheen as a polished, refined, sophisticated actor with a distinct style and westernised mannerisms. The characteristic loping walk, his head-nodding during songs, and those oversized, high-collared bomber jackets with heavy scarves, and caps worn at a rakish angle, created the stylish Dev Anand brand, which remains intact even today.

I had met and interviewed Dev Anand, so I can safely add that he was an intensely self-absorbed man, permanently “in character” and totally submerged in the cinematic world. He referred to movies as “motion pictures”, and spoke knowledgeably about world cinema. He neither flaunted his private life, nor hid it. His conversation was easy and urbane, unlike the more rough language used by some contemporaries. He barely ate or drank, taking care to maintain a painfully lean frame. At film events, it was soup; not whiskey. And salads, not biryani. Disciplined and meticulous, he leveraged the potential of their banner—Navketan Films—and produced films he believed in. He unsuccessfully courted politics and paid a huge price for refusing to endorse Indira Gandhi’s Emergency.

The triumvirate (Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand) dominated commercial cinema and established themselves as cult figures, with loyal fans imitating their every style innovation—from dialogue delivery to sartorial experiments.

Today’s movie goers are being re-introduced to these greats of Indian cinema, thanks to the efforts of archivists who have rich material on these stalwarts, which is waiting to be mined. As for me, I am far more intrigued by the elusive Mona, who gave it all up to become Mrs Dev Anand and live in the shadows, after starring in films like Guru Dutt’s Baazi, with her debonair husband. I’d give anything for a biopic on Kalpana, with a small detour that features Suraiya, who died unmarried—after a well-publicised romance with Dev Anand that went nowhere, because her conservative family disapproved. Sigh, those times were not half as savage as today. The gossip was less snarky, and the media environment spicy rather than toxic.

I am waiting for a comprehensive retrospective of Dev Anand’s films, which will provide today’s movie buffs with important insights into the making of immortal movie legends like Dev saab. Believe me, their gold standard status is no accident!

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

ragneeti-will-be-the-latest-power-couple-in-the-corridors-of-delhi

Fri Sep 29 17:42:27 IST 2023

A fashion guru friend was invited by a leading TV channel to be on an “important’’ panel. The burning topic of the day was not Manipur. Nor Canada. It was a celebrity wedding in Udaipur. The minutest details of the high profile nuptials involving the young, dashing MP from the Aam Aadmi Party and the accomplished Bollywood actor, were being avidly discussed across media platforms.

Raghav Chadha (34) married Parineeti Chopra (34), with a roster of famous guests representing the two entirely different and yet overlapping careers of the bride (actor) and the groom (politics). Both Raghav and Parineeti come with impressive academic credentials—Raghav was a practising chartered accountant with an MBA certification from the London School of Economics, while Parineeti has earned a triple honours degree in finance, business and economics from the Manchester School of Business. The Ambala born, award-winning actor is a trained Hindustani classical singer with a BA honours in music. Apart from their noteworthy degrees and similar cultural backgrounds, they also happen to be startlingly good-looking—a big bonus in our frenzied social media obsessed times, where imaging is the main story, and success is measured by how many ‘likes’ each post on Instagram generates. No wonder, these two pre-planned their publicity by taking full control of the coverage and creating the catchy hashtag #Ragneeti, a clever play on rajneeti (politics).

There is something about showbiz shaadis that arouses the voyeuristic demon in us. While I don’t know the protagonists personally, I was hanging on to trivia surfacing on the internet, much like their devoted fans. I knew the bride had the groom’s name embroidered on her trailing veil—this is a new trend. No more demure ghunghats–it is Princess Diana style diaphanous veils, worn over heavily embroidered lehengas. The colour palette was beige-ivory-white, which made for soft, dream-like optics, as wedding guests floated across the lake in decorated boats, to the beats of local dhols. Discretion and good taste dominated, from the décor to the publicity leaks. The message being: wealth whispers. Ambition shouts. Raghav and Parineeti are seasoned public figures, accustomed to being in the media glare.

I remember being captivated by Parineeti’s performance in Shuddh Desi Romance (2013), which remains a personal favourite and something of a breakthrough movie, in terms of what it said about arranged marriages and individual aspirations of young India. With the late Sushant Singh Rajput as her co-star in this unconventional story about a tourist guide in Jaipur (Sushant) going through pre-marital panic, till he meets Gayatri (Parineeti) on the same bus, and is struck by how independent-minded she is. After a steamy kiss during the journey, and many misadventures later, realisation dawns, and the two love struck young things make important decisions about the future. The theme broke many rules of commercial cinema and brought smaller cities like Jaipur into sharp focus. So much social change was taking place, especially in the lives of women who refused to conform to their family’s notions of a perfect domestic life, and the movie captured it all via a quirky script and stellar performances by the leads.

Raghav’s career moves have been pretty bold as well. From a secure job at Deloitte, to taking a plunge into politics and gaining prominence as the youngest member of Parliament from Punjab, he is an articulate spokesperson for his party. Going by the presence of political bigwigs including Chief Ministers Arvind Kejriwal and Bhagwant Mann at the recent wedding, it is safe to conclude RagNeeti will be the latest power couple in the corridors of Delhi. And no, Parineeti’s globally famous cousin Priyanka Chopra couldn’t make it to Udaipur. But the blessings came via Instagram!

the-romantic-side-of-harish-salve

Sat Sep 16 16:20:15 IST 2023

Between the sharp sartorial choices of the UK’s first lady Akshata Sunak (Can we please stop calling her Mrs Murthy?) at the recent G20 extravaganza in Delhi, and the even sharper responses to Harish Salve’s third wedding celebrations in London, India’s chattering classes were spoilt for choice. Both celebs threatened to upstage the G20 extravaganza. People forgot all about the great Delhi Declaration and gobbled up every morsel about these two public figures. Akshata has been crowned a bona fide fashionista on social media, while the jury is still out debating whether or not Salve, 68,—the former solicitor general of India—has finally found his soul mate in Trina Akbar, 61 (third time lucky)? There was a great deal of masala generated at Salve’s wedding reception, held at Masala Zone amidst an interesting star cast of family and friends, including Lalit Modi, Lakshmi Mittal and Gopichand Hinduja.

The thing about Salve’s discreet wedding is the exaggerated political reactions to the news. It had to do with Salve’s nomination to the eight-member committee for studying and submitting a report on the possibilities of ‘one nation, one election’. While Lalit Modi played master of ceremonies and raised a toast to the blissed out newly-weds, various politicos fumed and raised objections, claiming that the third time married gentleman is driving the fate of our democracy. Calm down! What has Salve’s third shaadi got to do with his impressive legal credentials? So what if a controversial meat trader from Delhi named Moin Qureshi is supposed to have played cupid in this match? Or that Salve divorced his second wife, Caroline Brossard, after a short-lived marriage, which took place after Salve divorced Meenakshi, his wife of 38 years? These are deeply personal choices. Matters of the heart cannot be contested as easily as say, some of the big legal cases Salve has fought and won. In 2020, Salve was appointed as a Queen’s Counsel for the courts of England and Wales. According to the grapevine, Salve today is a partner in Golistan, a company he has set up with his newest wife, who, friends say, is the granddaughter of the last king of Afghanistan.

Salve not just marches to a different beat, he dances to it! He is an ace dancer, who can out jive anyone half his age. Watch his moves on the dance floor, and John Travolta can take a walk. How do I know? I jived with him briefly at a wedding once, and promptly collapsed after a few moments. I had my excuse—I am older! Salve is unstoppable. Not just on the dance floor. Our few conversations were lively and engaging enough for me to propose a book. We had a fairly lengthy conversation in Delhi, and Salve seemed interested, if somewhat distracted. After a few follow-up calls, I backed off, not wanting to be a pest. Such a pity. Being persistent can be a huge virtue. Lawyers are persistent. That is how they win big ticket cases.

It will be fun to monitor what happens next in the opulent life of a flamboyant lawyer, who clearly doesn’t give a damn about narrow-minded public opinion back home in India. He knows how to handle celebrity status…. and celebrities. Internationally, Salve arguing the Kulbhushan Jadhav case, caused major ripples and propelled the senior advocate into a different league.

Perhaps, it is time for the romantic in him to take precedence over demanding court work. If he’s wearing his heart on his sleeve and focusing on matters of the ‘dil’ over legal matters, let’s rejoice for him. For now, it is honeymoon time for the love birds. Complicated legal cases can wait….

meeting-the-maestro-zubin-mehta-in-mumbai

Sat Sep 02 16:14:01 IST 2023

One of the world’s most respected conductors of western classical music was back in the city of his birth, and expectedly there was high excitement across Mumbai as soon as his concerts were announced. Mumbaikars adore “Aapro Zubin’’ and feel proprietorial about the legend, who, at 87, continues to exude rock star vibes as fawning admirers vie to get a picture clicked with the son of Mumbai. I have been a Zubin groupie for decades, ever since I watched him conduct, immaculately dressed, whether sporting a tuxedo or the traditional Parsee dagli. Zubin provides a visual and musical treat on the podium, conducting with an exaggerated flourish and much drama. His ear being perfectly attuned to every note since the age of 16, when his self-taught violinist father Mehli Mehta “allowed” the teen to conduct at rehearsals. Zubin’s musical scholarship kept growing, and is still growing, for the man who believes in the power of music to transform lives.

Recently, we were privileged enough to be seated at his table in the imposing Crystal Room of The Taj Mahal Palace for an intimate dinner featuring a dazzling musical repertoire performed by the highly talented students of the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation (launched by Zubin’s father in 1995 and ably led today by Mehroo Jeejeebhoy).
Zubin looked visibly tired after a long flight—his irritability with pesky selfie-seekers (me) was understandable. We had met on several occasions in the past, and had a few common friends as well. I promptly whipped out my phone to establish my credentials by sharing a few images from previous occasions. His face softened and he turned to his wife, Nancy, to show her the photographs, especially the one that had been sent to me by his childhood friend, and cricketing buddy—Cipla’s chairman Yusuf Hamied, which showed the duo posing in front of the old Cuffe Parade mansion where they were neighbours. Aaaah…. Cuffe Parade. My hood. Once the ice was broken, it was so wonderful to chat away with the couple and recall memories of a city (Bombay/Mumbai) we love.

Soon it was time for the Padma Vibhushan awardee to get on to the stage and begin a scheduled conversation with media stalwart Karan Thapar. It was going swimmingly well, with Zubin talking candidly about his life, telling the rapt audience that he still counts in Gujarati, not English, and how distressed he was when his professional driver took time to locate his old home because of all the changes in the city. More than 20 minutes into the free-wheeling exhaustive chat, it was clear Zubin was fatigued. He turned and asked the audience in Gujarati whether they were also hungry and wanted to eat dinner.
Thapar had one final question for Zubin: “Two of the countries you love the most—India and Israel—are going through bad times…. Does that upset and hurt you?” Zubin deftly countered, “Is India going through bad times?”

Karan replied, “It depends on who you talk to…. ” The audience would have none of it. “ No politics!” someone shouted. But by then the dam had already been breached by Zubin’s earlier comment about a deleted line from his interview to a newspaper: "I hope my Muslim friends can live in peace forever in India." This was in response to Karan’s question: “What do you think of the sort of country we are becoming? I am talking about the treatment of minorities, Muslims in particular…"

It is important to remember that Zubin, along with the Bavarian State Orchestra, had performed in the Mughal Gardens, Srinagar, in 2013. All fees were waived. He had conducted in Sarajevo, and raised funds for the victims of Yugoslav wars. As a citizen of the world, he has no equal in his chosen field. Call him an activist, and he is sure to protest. The maestro clearly lives by his passionate belief in the transformative power of music to soothe and heal. That is not politics—it is humanism. Bravo!

meeting-dear-friend-mohan-agashe-once-again

Sat Aug 19 11:08:57 IST 2023

Veteran, award-winning psychiatrist-actor, Mohan Agashe, has a bone to pick with me. And he has a point. Decades ago, I was mesmerised by his sterling stage performance playing Nana Phadnavis in Vijay Tendulkar’s masterpiece—Ghashiram Kotwal—a scathing socio-political satire, which is now a 50-year-old cult play about the abuse of power and caste during the early eighteenth century Peshwa period.

Mohan believes I am stuck on that one role of his, when he has been recognised for countless other amazing on-screen roles—from M.F. Husain’s Gaja Gamini to Dr Prakash Baba Amte: The Real Hero. More recently, he is being lauded for playing a grandfather figure in Do Gubbare, streaming on Jio Cinema. I met him at a special screening and made the mistake of bringing up a Ghashiram revival, considering Mohan, today, at 76, is about the same age Nana was in the play. But Mohan had played the despicable character when he himself was still in his twenties. So inspired was I by Mohan’s character that we had acquired two precious watercolours when Husainsaab painted the Ghashiram series.

Mohan is a Punekar. I am half a Punekar. His Marathi is far better than my Bambaiya version. We meet rarely, but when we do, the connect is immediate. Mohan is cerebral without being oppressively so. As the principal investigator for an Indo-US joint project on cultural disorders of fatigue and weaknesses, and as someone who was instrumental in establishing the Maharashtra Institute of Mental Health, way back in 1991, Mohan leads a hectic life—travelling, acting, attending workshops and seminars. His love for the spotlight started when he was a child artist in theatre and culminated when he took over as director general of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), during a challenging period. He has his own loyal following, including in Germany, which honoured him with the prestigious Goethe Medal.

Padma Shri Mohan Agashe wears his laurels lightly and has a wicked sense of humour. When he invites me to his events and I plead off with legitimate reasons (“My children are demons. I have a lot of them. And grandkids, too. Grrrrr… birthdays, anniversaries, occasions never end in this family’’), he will have none of it. This time, too, he shot back, “Shobhaa, I should get priority for old time’s sake… elderly, single people like me also need your attention at the right time… or else I’ll only be a memory for you.” Instant guilt kicked in, as I left my daughter’s lunch half-way and headed to the venue of the screening. Mohan looked happy to see me. He was flirting with an attractive organiser and told her some nonsense to make her laugh as we posed for publicity pictures. I couldn’t stay for the screening, but sure enough, I received a text from Mohan: “These days we badly need a good detox agent in entertainment…like Do Gubbare…. Try watching, I assure you it is damn good.” So it is. Mohan’s performance has generated waves, as most of his performances do. He mentioned a new project he is shooting for in Delhi. His co-star? The beauteous Sharmila Tagore.

Not sure when or where I will meet Mohan next. But I am glad he used his psychiatric training to induce enough guilt in me to drop everything and rush to his screening. We are both at a stage where we can make such “unreasonable” requests of one another and get away with it! Here’s to old—and entirely genuine—friendships!

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

why-i-admire-janhvi-kapoor

Fri Aug 04 15:22:49 IST 2023

No! I will not compare Janhvi Kapoor with her mother, the legendary Sridevi. Sri was Sri, unique in every way. Janhvi, at 26, is just about coming into her own as an actor, and the comparison seems redundant. Having watched her in Bawaal, a small budget movie, minus frills and thrills, I was once again filled with admiration for the young star who has had to endure snarky barbs all her life for being the child of famous parents.

The circumstances under which Sri died remain mysterious. Janhvi was desperately young and vulnerable at the time, and she was waiting for her 2018 debut film (Dhadak) to release. It is hard to imagine the impact of this monumental trauma on a young girl prepping for her big moment—the one she’d probably dreamt of sharing with her illustrious and well-loved mother. It is to Janhvi’s credit that she has conducted herself admirably back then and during these past five years during which she has endured intense scrutiny. Each time she steps out of her home, she is papped by a posse of eager beavers, and unlike a few of her contemporaries, she handles the press like a pro—with a ready smile and friendly banter.

Janhvi’s choice of films has been interesting. I watched her in Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (2020) and was struck by her sensitive, convincing performance in a role that was anything but glamourous. I skipped Mili in which Janhvi spent most of her screen time trapped in an icebox. Now comes Bawaal with Janhvi playing a simple Lucknowi girl battling epilepsy, married off to a man who sees her as a ‘defective piece’. Janhvi and Varun Dhawan are stealing hearts and giving a run for their money to two flashy stars—Alia Bhatt and Ranveer Singh—whose big ticket movie is running simultaneously. How’s that as an equaliser?

For a student of the reputed Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, Janhvi’s professional training is impeccable. This is the same institute that has produced global stars like Marilyn Monroe, Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johanson and Lady Gaga, to name a few. It is known for its emphasis on ‘method acting’, which encourages actors to tap into their own emotional experiences when they perform. Watching the ease and maturity displayed by Janhvi in Bawaal, it is evident that here’s an actor willing to let go of vanity and star trappings to get under the skin of the character. Stripped off make up in most scenes, Janhvi lets her large expressive eyes do the talking, resorting to understatement over high histrionics.

The last time I met Sridevi was at the lavish wedding of a top cop’s son. She could only talk about her daughters as she shared her excitement over Janhvi’s debut, explaining why Boney Kapoor, her producer-husband, had picked this script over several other, far more glamourous ones. A clever decision, as it turns out. Frankly, anybody can do those other, far more commercial, candy floss roles with ease. Janhvi could effortlessly pull off a contemporary version of her mother’s iconic ‘Hawa Hawaii’ song from Mr India, or sign up for the next big production helmed by the likes of Sanjay Leela Bhansali. It is to her credit she has picked roles that focus on her acting and not her curves.

Yes, her latest steamy promotional shoot with Dhawan has generated a controversy, but the girl has been raised to live with sticky issues since childhood. No wonder she was described as a ‘Gen-Z Culturalist’ by designer Gaurav Gupta.

Popular and well-liked in a notoriously harsh film industry, I am waiting to see her next move. And for those who are keen to know her precious beauty secret, Janhvi says it is a spoonful of ghee first thing in the morning. Try it! I started yesterday.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

the-rise-and-rise-of-harsh-vardhan-shringla

Fri Jul 21 16:03:37 IST 2023

There is absolutely nothing “accidental” about the steady and impressive rise and rise of a self-effacing powerhouse, who has steered India’s policy in all the right directions from the time he joined the Indian Foreign Service (preferring the rigours of diplomacy to the cushioning of a corporate job) aged 22 and became the youngest Indian consul general to Vietnam at 26. Packed off to a boarding school in distant Ajmer at age nine, his far-seeing father figured that an education away from his beloved Darjeeling would do the boy a lot of good. Clearly, it was the best decision for Harsh Vardhan Shringla who, as India’s distinguished foreign secretary and earlier ambassador to the US, impressed Prime Minister Narendra Modi enough to name him chief coordinator of India’s G20 presidency.

With so many awe-inspiring credentials, I was stumped how to address the great man when I was invited by Gateway House to be in conversation with him, for a roomful of Mumbai’s diplomatic community and a few friends of the foreign policy think tank that is ably headed by Manjeet Kripalani. So, I asked him directly what he was comfortable with, and he answered simply, “Call me Harsh…” There is a bit of a backstory here: I have known Harsh from his earlier postings, notably the one in Thailand where he was a highly popular consul general, loved by locals for his accessibility and helpful attitude. He had graciously hosted a few rowdy writers (me included) as a part of a festival of India. There he was, with his artistic wife Hemal (a Mumbai gal) taking us on a beautiful night cruise in Bangkok, as we enjoyed the sites along the… river, and behaved boisterously as writers tend to, once their official readings are over. Harsh was a calming presence. Someone described him as the “Shahenshah of friendship”, another explained, “He is the most grounded diplomat, and hence, most loved.’’

The gush is understandable. But make no mistake. Behind the Buddha-like outer façade, lurks one of the sharpest, shrewdest brains—competitive and competent, direct and articulate—clearly a diplomat ready to play hardball when required. Our interaction was highly engaging and informed, thanks largely to Harsh’s extended responses to questions on India’s policy vis-à-vis our neighbours and the world beyond.

Harsh had clearly impressed Donald Trump enough for the then president to invite him to the White House for a warm farewell at the end of his term as ambassador. Getting him to open up about his myriad experiences as a diplomat, including fascinating encounters with amazing people, was the easy part for me. Harsh made it easier still by taking his time to respond to questions… thereby ensuring we had a ‘meaningful’ dialogue—but no controversies! Given that we were there to discuss his recently launched biography titled—Not An Accidental Rise—authored by Dipmala Roka, there was much ground still waiting to be covered. We would overshoot the time, and there was room for one final question from me. I decided to make it a frothy one, just to change the tempo of the earlier intensity. “Has the era of champagne soirees and formal bandhgalas come to an end in the contemporary, more hard-nosed universe of urbane diplomats?” Harsh burst out laughing. I had hoped that he would assure us the glamour has not gone out entirely from the rarefied world of international diplomacy. But he confirmed my worst doubts—it is all work and no play these days. Where are you, 007, when we need you the most. I definitely dream of sipping a martini with Harsh at a bar in Casablanca. Shaken and not stirred, of course!

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

zeenat-amans-life-has-been-anything-but-a-placid-lake

Sat Jul 08 15:49:09 IST 2023

Why hello there, Instagram!” is how nonchalantly Zeenat Aman made her debut on the ‘gram, after her younger son, Zahaan, worked on his mom for seven long months, reminding her that she was after all ‘The Zeenat Aman’, with fans worldwide. Zeenat garnered an impressive number of followers within minutes of her virgin post in February this year, and today her blue tick handle boasts of approximately 2.7 lakh ardent global devotees who shower the 71-year-old, silver-haired showbiz icon with abundant love. Says an analyst, “She is not trying to sell anything, not even Zeenat Aman!” Regardless, thanks to her Insta following, Zeenie Baby is being flooded with commercial offers and editorial coups.

As a college drop-out (California), after being a school topper and head girl at a convent school in Mumbai, Zeenat went on to win the Miss Asia Pacific International title in 1970, and bagged her first major role in Dev Anand’s Hare Rama Hare Krishna in 1971.

We met at a jewellery photo shoot around this time. I noticed Zeenat’s strong American accent. She was accompanied by her mother and was perfectly relaxed in front of the camera—statuesque at 5’9’’, curvaceous and poised, I marvelled at her supreme self-confidence. We went on to do several editorial and advertising shoots together, travelling to locations across the country, and putting in long hours posing for elaborately designed campaigns. Zeenat kept to herself and was far from chatty.

Over the years, we remained in touch, even after she had bowed out of Bollywood to marry and have children. Nearly three decades later, we found ourselves on a long flight to Melbourne. We were invited to participate in a Festival of India, organised by Teamwork. The layover in Singapore was long, and our short stay in Melbourne, a bit too brief. I was keen to attend Zeenat’s session with Sanjoy Roy, but she sweetly requested me to stay away, confessing my presence would make her self-conscious, even nervous! What? Zeenat—nervous? We met just before her session, and posed for pictures just like in the old days. She was dressed in an extravagant sea green outfit covered with intricate zardozi. Yes, she had her trademark shades on indoors, and exuded a regal allure, as she glided into the auditorium to enthusiastic applause.

Later, the same night, as our small group relaxed over wine and music, we asked the young talented musicians and singers if they knew the chords for ‘Dum Maro Dum’. Of course, they did! Once we got the track going, Zeenat sportingly swayed to the 1970s anthem that is still played at sangeets and celebrations wherever Indians reside. She laughed and told me how she accepts invitations from nostalgic desis in distant countries, who host her in style and continue to hang on to their memory of an iconic star who once ruled the roost in Bollywood. Between her and Parveen Babi, India saw a complete rejig of the traditional, stylised film heroine stereotype in gauzy/gaudy saris, bouffant hair, padded cholis and garish makeup.

“I found my inner mettle…,” she now writes, adding, “The only thing that is in my control is my attitude….” It is precisely this upfront attitude that is serving her well in her fabulous silver-grey years. Her life has been anything but a placid lake, having endured two abusive marriages and a few serious betrayals, which might have drained a lesser woman. Not our “Babushka” who stands tall in the pride month as a proud ally and icon of the LBGTQ+ community. For one of the few senior citizens who find Instagram “liberating”, it is time to say, “Why, hello there, Zeenat Aman.” In your words, your life has indeed been ‘magnificent’. May it remain that way….

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

sajni-gill-and-her-empire

Sat Jun 24 11:18:33 IST 2023

We were meeting after several years. The setting was surreal. As was the journey from our temporary home in Canggu, Bali, to Sajni Gill’s sprawling ocean-front mansion on a cliff in upscale Uluwatu, three hours away and right next to the swish Bulgari resort. Our three hour drive time through insane traffic to chill with Sajni (who’d especially flown in for the day from Singapore), was efficiently halved by a manic cop on a motorbike, shooing vehicles off the road to let us pass. This invaluable service had been organised by Jagdev Singh, Sajni’s husband and business partner.

The impressive estate with an infinity pool, gym, spa and every conceivable modern luxury, serves as an occasional getaway for the industrious Gill family, which includes two children, Sunaina and Sanveer, who are an integral part of the vast Gill empire that spans more than six countries and controls over a 1,000 stores, employing more than 5,000 people, 65 per cent women. As Sajni puts it, “Equality and empowerment are the two fundamental pillars that underpin gender parity.’’ The Gill story is awe-inspiring and fascinating once you understand where it started. As Sajni and I caught up on the spectacular deck that overlooks an expanse of the blue-green Indian ocean, I listened to a charged up woman in a simple Batik kaftan, wearing discreet jewelry, as she discussed her latest passion project—Scoop Wholefoods—which already has nine stores in Singapore, a strong online presence, and several offers to go global. What is Scoop? Sajni describes it as an “organic, zero waste, sustainably sourced, bulk wholefoods store”. Sajni sources the best nuts and seeds from across the word, grown by farmers who understand the value of produce that’s free from additives, preservatives and other harmful chemicals. I sampled her plump, jade green pumpkin seeds and instantly became a believer.

Armed with a degree from Harvard Business School, Sajni, today, is a far cry from the woman who opted for an arranged marriage to a near stranger and moved to Singapore more than 40 years ago—future unknown. Brought up by a single mother, who was raising two young daughters on a meagre alimony, Sajni and her sister learnt the value of hard work early in life. As did her husband, the youngest of six children, who, at 18, left his father’s sports goods business in Jakarta and branched out on his own. Today, the two of them work closely together and run Gill Capital, while overseeing the operations of more than 60 top brands in their kitty, including H&M, Hershey’s, Decathlon and the wondrously successful Candylicious (billed as the world’s biggest candy store). The practical and grounded Jagdev said in an interview, “If there’s no money, there’s no fight. Then the money comes and the fight starts. It can destroy everything you’ve ever built.” Wise words.

Sajni handed me an important book, which she credits with having transformed her life after she was diagnosed with cancer over six years ago. Sports Nutritionist Lyn-Genet Recitas, the author of several books, is one of the most sought after practitioners of mindful eating in the world. Her book, The Metabolism Plan Workbook dominates The New York Times best-seller list, along with her other titles. Sajni attributes her cancer recovery to Recitas’s sensible and achievable food goals, which Sajni continues to advocate and propagate to “those who listen.” Well, I was listening keenly. And have recommended the book to friends, who are keen to make changes in their diet, but don’t know where to begin. Seeing Sajni’s glowing skin, shiny nails and bright eyes, I am planning to order my own ‘scoops’ online. Till my nuts and seeds arrive from Sajni’s store, I will be a good girl and start drinking single malt thrice a week—a brilliant Sajni recommendation! Cheers!

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

why-anurag-thakur-needs-to-do-more

Sat Jun 10 15:28:49 IST 2023

Our residence in a SoBo neighbourhood is totally unaccustomed to the sight of VVIP convoys speeding into the complex with cops and random political workers swarming around the lobby. Well, that is what happened last week. We gawked as a top draw politician stepped out of his swanky SUV and received a bouquet from a group of ardent, starry-eyed supporters. Late evening walkers were startled and flummoxed by this unexpected intrusion, as building watchmen jumped around to ensure the neta was not inconvenienced by rude residents unaware of the dapper gentleman’s identity. I promptly whipped out my cell phone and clicked pictures of a compact young man wearing a sky blue linen bundi, smiling benignly at the motley congregation. Oh oh… it was Anurag Thakur, the youthful, light-eyed, outspoken Union minister of sports, youth affairs and information and broadcasting… and we were face to face. What fun.

This was a couple of days after the delirious IPL finals, and it was M.S. Dhoni whose name emerged during our brief conversation. Dhoni is India’s sweetheart like no other sportsperson. Thakur gushed over the cricket icon and said he was overwhelmed by the response to Dhoni when the captain of the winning team (Chennai Super Kings) lifted the cup and the entire stadium bathed in yellow (CSK’s team colour), cheered.

Thakur beamed as we spoke… the four-time MP whose father was the former chief minister of Himachal Pradesh, and whose beautiful wife, Shefali, comes from a political family herself, is an unusual man (he is the first serving MP from the BJP to become a regular commissioned officer in the Territorial Army) who does not shy away from controversies. Critics tried to derail his political career during the 2020 Delhi elections, when he urged supporters to “Gun down traitors’’—an inflammatory slogan aimed at members of a minority community. Articulate and outspoken, he doesn’t hesitate to stick his neck out—a trait that has cost him his position as the president of the BCCI. Some of his outbursts have been distinctly unparliamentary, but Thakur has successfully ridden the storm and emerged relatively unscathed. His most recent response to the plight of our female wrestlers, was tepid and ambiguous.

Unfortunately, during our all-too-brief meeting in the building lobby, there was no way I could raise the shocking issue.

For one, our encounter was impromptu, and ministerji was all charm and smiles and chuckles. Thakur was surrounded by fawning admirers waiting impatiently to hustle him into a waiting elevator. Despite the bustle, Thakur was the seasoned, well-programmed politician making nice with a stranger—me! He generously extended an open invitation to me and my husband to visit Dharamshala. He placed his right hand over his heart, bowed slightly, and said, “Please be my guest….” Few of our neighbours stared in disbelief as Thakur swept past them and headed to whichever apartment he was visiting. He called himself a “Mumbaikar’’ and assured me he loves my city. Since us Mumbaikars are characteristically informal, regardless of the person’s elevated status, I signed off with a cheery, “ciao’’ before slipping into our car. His acolytes were not amused.

Well, with the international press taking up for the wrestlers, Thakur needs to up the media game and do better than offer platitudes and excuses while asserting his government has “done more for sportspersons than any other government”. Sure. Let’s start with taking strong action against the accused—BJP MP Brijbhushan Sharan Singh—who has 40 cases pending against him. The wrestlers have been arm-twisted enough.

when-rani-mukerji-tells-her-story

Sat May 27 15:04:47 IST 2023

When I ran into Rani Mukerji at an award show last month, I had not watched her latest film—Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway. She spoke movingly about her role as Debika Chatterjee and its impact on her own life. I was familiar with the case, and had followed the real life saga of Sagarika Bhattacharya (the real life Debika), who had fought the government of Norway to get back the custody of her two children, forcibly taken away from her during her stay in the country. It was a high-profile case that had made international headlines and projected Sagarika as a fearless tigress defending her cubs against a powerful enemy—Norway. Thanks to the timely intervention of the late Sushma Swaraj and activist Brinda Karat, the prolonged custody battle ended on a happy note with the kids reunited with their mother.

Rani’s interpretation of Sagarika’s trauma is compelling and authentic, instantly drawing viewers into the brisk narrative that recreates the drama, with a few creative flourishes. Rani remains faithful to the character and never once loses her grip over the scene she’s playing. Though critics have singled out her courtroom monologue in which she quietly states, “Am I a good mother or a bad mother…. I don’t know. But I am ready to fight for my children… for justice in any corner of the world….” This is the money-scene that demands applause in theatres and moves mothers to tears. But, for me, Rani’s shining moment was in a scene when she comes home after a crucial meeting with the minister, only to face anger, hostility and accusations from her in-laws, who have already declared her “mad’’ and “unstable” publicly. Ignoring her enraged husband, Rani/Debika proceeds to fix her comfort food—a typically Bengali dish of ripe banana mashed into a bowl of milk—that she ravenously consumes. Not a word of dialogue is spoken by her… but my word! The defiance of her body language and those blazing eyes do all the talking.

This is Rani at 45, intelligently choosing projects that showcase her prodigious talent. Rani could so easily play maalkin, as the queen bee in Bollywood, being the wife of Aditya Chopra, who owns Yash Raj Films that has just raked it in with Pathaan, starring Shah Rukh Khan.

Even after the critical success of Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway, Rani has not gone overboard with nonstop self-promotion. Neither has she pushed herself to keep up with the other heroines of her vintage, who try a bit too hard to look ‘hot’ and trendy on assorted red carpet events. There is a quiet air of contentment about her persona that’s a sign of her confidence. She’s at ease with her position in life—an attribute that is so refreshing in showbiz where every second person displays such high levels of insecurity.

Rani always speaks to my husband in Bengali when we meet, using a formal, respectful term of address. With me, she is far more relaxed as we exchange pleasantries. The last time we met on her turf (YRF studios) was when I had approached her with a book offer, which she had politely turned down after much consideration. The timing was off, she said, as she was a new mother, focusing on baby Adira (now seven). Rani did not have the mind space for such a commitment back then.

Well, here’s the good news—she is working on a book (how do I know? We share the same publisher). Knowing how meticulous Rani is about all aspects of her life, I am sure the book will be an engrossing read, replete with Rani’s candid insights and anecdotes.

I look forward to Rani ki kahaani.

rajkumar-charles-is-now-king-charles

Fri May 12 11:21:48 IST 2023

Now that the coronation tamasha is behind us, let us examine the mockery of monarchy in today’s aggressive social media times, and say it like it is. For starters, even the comparatively subdued and scaled down ceremony at Westminster Abbey on May 6 looked joyless and shopworn. “Uneasy lies the head,” etc, summed up global sentiments, as several big-ticket guests politely declined to show up for an antiquated, out-of-sync Brit ritual that bordered on the absurd, given the tattered state of the empire. A severely dysfunctional royal family representing the House of Windsor, paraded its multiple neuroses on camera, making it harder still for loyalist royalists to express their adoration of the newly anointed king, who insists on his shoe laces being ironed every morning by a servile valet.

Being batty is a peculiar Brit privilege, especially when it comes to royalty. The international outrage has little to do with King Charles’s personal peccadilloes; it is more about propriety and restraint in a changed world order, especially at a time when Britain is reeling under formidable economic woes. It is a question of timing. And public sentiment. Queen Elizabeth was a deeply loved, greatly revered titular head of the commonwealth. Just her presence and engagement with the public generated revenue for the country, making her a top tourist attraction and a powerful symbol of all that one associates with royalty. Her son has no such cache. She was loved. He is loathed. Subjects did not mind subsidising the queen and her large family during her lifetime. That narrative has dramatically changed. Had King Charles and his courtiers been a little more sensitive, he would have had himself anointed king in the privacy of the palace, surrounded by his immediate family. Additionally, had he chosen not to conduct such an elaborate coronation ceremony, a great deal of embarrassment would have been avoided. As so many desis lamented, “No matter what the differences are within a parivaar, it is important to present a united front to the public. How could a father single out his own son (Prince Harry) and subject him to universal humiliation?”

Fortunately, for Charles, not everyone was as critical or cynical. Surprisingly, Mark Tully gushed over the occasion in his column titled—The king’s coronation is a testament to the crown moving with the times. Surprised? Tully went on to exclaim, “Charles just had to say, ‘I come here to serve rather than to be served’.” He expressed sympathy for the king who had to see the pain and suffering of his aunt, Princess Margaret, because she was not allowed to marry a divorced man. Gosh! That must hurt! Tully mentions the genius of the British crown. And there are references to the “Hindu” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who read the first section of the New Testament. Tully is not the lone fan. My own daughter, Anandita, rushed to London to be there in time to watch the coronation with other enthusiasts. She is an unapologetic royalist, and even though the rest of us bombarded her with criticism, she kept sending videos of exultant crowds lining the route, cheering the new King.

My own brief encounters with King Charles and Queen Camilla years ago were highly entertaining. Both of them were exceedingly pleasant as they chatted amiably with the natives. I wish heiress Akshata Sunak had worn a beautiful sari on coronation, instead of a nondescript blue Cinderella tea dress by Claire Mischevani. A sari would have taken away nothing from the optics. On the contrary, it would have stolen the show!

Charles has been to India ten times. Let’s wait for the 11th royal visit of Britain’s new raja.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

the-simple-genius-called-sachin-tendulkar

Sat Apr 29 08:59:11 IST 2023

It is hard to believe that cricket’s ‘boy wonder’ has turned 50! I am writing this on his special birthday, with my heart puffed up with parochial pride—Aamcha Sachin from Aamchi Mumbai is dominating media space, with fans and commentators falling over backwards to laud the man who made cricketing history.

There is hardly any major recognition Tendulkar has not bagged, including the country’s highest civilian award—Bharat Ratna. But for me (not being a cricket aficionado), Sachin’s larger than life persona goes well beyond statistics and accolades. There is something deeply moving and relatable about his spectacular story. Sachin is synonymous with success, stability and sobriety. Sachin is as wholesome as a millet bhakri (a humble Maharashtrian staple), even though as an established global gourmet and foodie, his personal vote goes to Japanese cuisine.There is not a trace of the ‘bad boy’ sports star about our boyish ‘Tendlya’ (an affectionate Marathi pet name). He is well-dressed, well-behaved and well-mannered at all times. Nobody has seen him tiddly, forget drunk. He has not been involved in any romantic lafdas (a Bambaiya word that means scandal), even though Bollywood assiduously courts him. Sachin portrays the original, goody-goody family man, always accompanied by his wife Anjali, who never leaves his side.

Since retiring from cricket, he appears far friendlier and more relaxed than during the old days when his characteristic aloofness generated negative comments. Having watched him play at different venues, from Sharjah to Wankhede stadium, I have never ceased to be awestruck by his cool. Many moons ago, we were in a hotel elevator with other team members just before the match was to start. While the others were chatting amiably with invitees to the match, Sachin kept his head down and refused to acknowledge fans in the hotel lobby. I remember thinking it was rather rude of him, at the time. Today, I know better—such is Sachin’s focus and commitment to cricket, he refuses to expend even an iota of precious energy on social greetings, choosing to conserve every bit of it for the game.

My son Aditya respects Sachin to another level. So, for Aditya’s 40th birthday, I could think of no better or more meaningful gift than a Sachin memento. I decided to be brazen about my ask and routed the request through Anjali. To my absolute delight, a personalised, signed jersey was delivered on time, accompanied by a sweet note. That same jersey has been beautifully framed by Aditya and enjoys the pride of place in his room. Frankly, even I was surprised by Sachin’s generous response, and thanked him profusely when we next met. He smiled and shrugged it off—I think he instinctively understood just how much that jersey meant to Aditya. Behind the social reticence is a man who understands his own worth as an inspirational figure for millions across the world.

When the stadium reverberates to lusty cries of ‘Sachin, Sachhhhhinnnn’, the legend knows they are cheering for a hero they worship as a demi-God. He cannot let them down—it’s a question of faith…. of belief… in one man’s ability to transform a game into a quasi-religious experience. No other sportsperson in India has been able to touch so many lives nor scale such unimaginable heights of fame and glory.

What makes Sachin, ‘Sachin’ is not all that difficult to decode: It is his own small family. Plus, his parents, brothers, a sister and the two people who were equally cherished as family—his coach [Ramakant] Achrekar sir, and his agent, the late Mark Mascarenhas. Sachin makes it look so easy to be Sachin. But hey—that’s what gourmets say about the best sashimi, too.

meet-rohit-khattar-and-chef-manish-mehrotra-the-supremely-talented-food-wizards

Fri Apr 14 16:43:18 IST 2023

It is the loveliest feeling in the world when you realise two extraordinary individuals you have known for years are right up there in the global culinary world, which has finally recognised the enormous potential of India’s rich, diverse cuisines thanks to their efforts at the iconic brand—Indian Accent—which is all set to conquer Mumbai palates after winning top international awards and wowing New York.

Take deep bows, Rohit Khattar and chef Manish Mehrotra. Rohit comes with admirable academic credentials and easily qualifies for the big 10 of the food and beverages industry in India, with his impressive portfolio of 30 restaurants, two hotels and India’s most comprehensive performing arts and convention centre (India Habitat Centre). It is solely Rohit’s vision, commitment, passion and hunger to excel in his industry that has won him global recognition, with Indian Accent being the only restaurant from India to make it to the world’s 50 best restaurants list.

I take both these supremely talented food wizards a little bit for granted, having known them well before they became legit international celebs. While Manish is credited for reinterpreting nostalgic Indian dishes—notably, his unbelievably light and airy ‘Daulat Ki Chaat’ dessert, which is said to have originated in Afghanistan before travelling to the royal courts of India—he started his career at my favourite neighbourhood restaurant (Thai Pavilion) with another old friend and legendary chef, Ananda Solomon. It was only after the Delhi launch of Indian Accent (2009), that Manish rose to prominence. It took two years for Dilliwalas to get used to Manish’s entirely inventive approach to old favourites, but the twists were tantalising—like the blue cheese naan! Word of mouth about the brilliant chef soon had gourmet diners flocking—and talking! He is now the culinary director and corporate chef overseeing Rohit’s food empire.

I was fortunate to be invited by Rohit to attend a pop-up in Mumbai recently, and was not sure I would meet either of them. But, hello! Chef was right there, ensuring every dish coming out of the kitchen at Jolie’s (the glam private club established by the young Aryaman Birla), was presented impeccably. I greeted him with squeals of delight while congratulating the team for the big win.

When Rohit launched Chor Bizzarre in London (1990), it created a sensation for its eccentric décor and authentic Kashmiri food. I was invited to conduct a creative writing workshop sometime around then, and to our amusement we discovered not too many desis wanted to pay for a writing workshop, and the Brits were happy with their own writers, thank you! We laughed and bravely carried on, keeping ourselves amused with Mumbai/Delhi stories and eating the most delicious khaana. Rohit’s lovely wife, Rashmi (who designs all his projects) and their two children kept us company, as we chilled out enjoying London in the spring. Little did I know then just how fast Rohit would scale up his projects and make such a huge success out of all of them. With his passion for jazz, theatre and more, Rohit is a visionary with an eclectic world view and the hard-nosed business sense to see the most challenging hospitality enterprises through.

Mumbaikars are hungrily waiting for him to launch Indian Accent at BKC, with executive chef Shantanu Mehrotra helming the restaurant. Perhaps, Rohit will get to spend more time in Mumbai once that happens. And we can hang together as we once did in London. Waiting impatiently to savour Manish’s signature masterpiece—the Daulat Ki Chaat—in Aamchi Mumbai. Go on… get your bibs on, Mumbaikars.

when-venkatesh-prasad-wife-ticked-off-raj-thackeray-shobhaa-de

Sat Apr 01 14:56:32 IST 2023

The first time I heard of Bapu Krishnarao Venkatesh Prasad was 26 years ago. I don’t know too much about cricket, even less about cricketers. The person who was talking about this stranger while blushing prettily was my Benguluru friend, Jayanthi. It was a candid, woman-to-woman tête-à-tête with me being the older woman. She was seeking my advice on the budding romance between her and a lanky, successful cricketer who had captured her heart. “Go for it!” I encouraged Jayanthi. What was there not to like about this shy, self-effacing, old-fashioned bowler who was making waves! And Jayanthi did! Soon after their marriage came their son, Prithvi. When I called to congratulate Jayanthi she joked, “He’s a long, long, long baby—definitely takes after his father.”

For a while, I followed Prasad’s career as he gradually shifted from playing for India to being an expert commentator and bowling coach. When I met Mrs and Mr Prasad recently at my book launch at the Taj West End, Bengaluru, I was delighted to see how good both of them are looking—fit, trim, wonderfully well-dressed and full of beans. Jayanthi has lost none of her sparkling, infectious joie de vivre, and Prasad retains his disarming reticence, as he lets his attractive wife hog all the attention. We talked of old times and laughed at some crazy memories of Jayanthi behind the wheel, as we sped to the impressive Titan factory in Husur. I recall hanging on to the seat of the car, as Jayanthi whooshed past traffic at breakneck speed, chatting and talking the whole time! I’m not sure if anything significant has changed about her—I certainly hope not! While all of us at the table were busy exchanging notes about old times and common acquaintances, Prasad was nibbling at his food, eating tiny portions.

Jayanthi teased her husband about being such a stickler with diets and adhering to his intermittent fasting programme no matter what. “He won’t touch a morsel of food till 12:30pm….” Jayanthi shared, much to Prasad’s embarrassment.We talked IPL and cricket, and how the game had changed since he played for the country and created such a sensation back then. Or the time Javagal Srinath and Prasad forged a formidable combo, when he was a new ball partner with his statemate. Unfortunately, Prasad got passed over in 2001 and took to coaching, even though his supporters believed he still had a lot of active playing years ahead of him. It is refreshing to meet a celebrated cricketer devoid of an ego.

I watched Prasad posing for pictures with the waiting staff of the Taj, with a kind word and a smile for all. Meanwhile, Jayanthi and I were laughing uproariously at recollections from the past—famously, when Jayanthi had sharply ticked off politico Raj Thackeray for smoking during the finals of the Titan Cup at the Garware Stadium, despite prominent signs banning cigarettes. This was when Raj Thackeray was still a force to reckon with and seated in the VVIP enclosure. He had arrogantly ignored her polite request, forcing her to draw the attention of the cops hanging around, who did not dare say a word to Thackeray. Eventually, Thackeray was persuaded by his groupies to stub out the ciggie and not create a scene.

Jayanthi remains as gutsy and indomitable even today—one more reason to love her. As for Prasad, he will be with his team (Kings XI Punjab) as bowling coach in Mumbai during the IPL, and I’m hoping his wife will join him, too.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

hollywood-here-is-ram-charan-shobhaa-de

Sat Mar 18 17:09:29 IST 2023

The best looking, even the most stylishly dressed actor at the Oscars 2023, was not Idris Elba, it was our very own Konidela Ram Charan Teja, wearing a sharply cut asymmetrical Shantanu & Nikhil three-piece black ensemble. Accompanying him on the world’s most watched champagne carpet was his pregnant wife, Upasana Kamineni, equally elegant in a white sari (the couple’s combined net worth is an estimated 02,500 crore). As the S.S. Rajamouli gang exulted after winning the Oscar for the turbo-charged superhit song, ‘Naatu Naatu’ from RRR, there must have been countless Indian cinema movie buffs, who sat up and asked themselves, “Why have we not seen more of this talented man?” Frankly, I had felt the same way after watching RRR and trying the tricky hook step of ‘Naatu Naatu’. It was only after Ram’s appearance at the Oscar’s that I connected the dots and recalled a common friend gushing over the superstar. He had slipped into Mumbai most unobtrusively for a promotional shoot, and the local paps had left him alone—they had failed to click his airport look, nor was there a contingent tailing him to the studios. He had gone largely unrecognised, even though RRR had generated a huge buzz across India and emerged as one of the biggest hits ever. For all his mega success and popularity down south, three Filmfare awards, and making it to the Forbes’ India Celebrity 100 list, Ram Charan, with an impressive Instagram presence of 12.9m followers, remains a comparatively unknown movie star outside his zone.

All that is likely to change with his Oscar’s appearance. Strange how one single, high-profile moment in an illustrious and prolific career can suddenly alter popular perception? That goes for Jr NTR as well. Two enormously talented young men—both, sons of legendary movie stars.

This is not another column on how the south has conquered the north—far from it. It is more about the power of media in creating and projecting stars from Bollywood at the expense of far more successful (even in terms of what they earn) actors who exist outside Bollywood’s insular orbit. Ram Charan owns a polo team, is a co-owner of TruJet, and at 37, not just a leading actor, but a producer and entrepreneur, as well. He is married to his school sweetheart, who is carrying their first child. All this makes for excellent copy, but I have still to read Ram’s interviews or marvel over his bon mots, soundbytes or fashion spreads. Why so?

I asked his media team in Mumbai about the absence of Ram’s publicity of the kind generated by a Ranbir Kapoor or Ranveer Singh each time they step out. I was told Ram prefers it this way and is not keen to go flat out to woo the paps. And that he values his privacy and abhors the pomp and show of strutting around Mumbai with an entourage of beefy bodyguards. This attitude alone warrants an award in a city that thrives on headline seekers who make a career out of outraging prudes and posturing in public.

Here is a man who seems to go about his life and business with far more discretion and dignity, sensibly focusing on making movies that leave a huge impact on the box office. To date, Cherry (Ram’s pet name) has acted in 30-odd films. He is also self-aware enough to give himself an annual break when he undertakes the 41-day Ayyappa deeksha at Sabarimala Temple, as a spiritual and self-disciplinary programme to destress and detox from the demands of his profession.

When I saw a galaxy of top stars from the south gracing the cover of India’s glossiest celebrity magazine, and heard the most wonderful stories about each and every award winner at the glitzy night in Hyderabad, I said to myself, “About time, too!” The awesomeness of people like Rajamouli is a given. Now we have a Ram Charan making it to the best dressed lists of The Wall Street Journal, Variety and others. Way to go—you are indeed the Cherry on the Oscar’s cake, Ram Charan! Hollywood is waiting with open arms to grab you.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

shehan-karunatilakas-life-beyond-booker-shobhaa-de

Fri Feb 17 17:25:03 IST 2023

None get to choose where they are born. Many try to steal the credit.” This is the intriguing line to Shehan Karunatilaka’s collection of quirky short stories titled—The Birth Lottery and Other Surprises.

Well, personally speaking, Shehan himself was the biggest surprise when I finally got to meet the Sri Lankan literary sensation at a recently concluded literature festival in Thiruvananthapuram. I had seen him earlier at the Jaipur Literary Festival (we were staying at the same hotel), and I would watch him with his statuesque wife and two young children, as they enjoyed breakfast, before leaving for the festival venue. But we didn’t speak. In Thiruvananthapuram, thanks to Kanishka Gupta, our shared literary agent, Shehan graciously presented three signed copies of his award-winning books, and totally overwhelmed me by his generous gesture. That other envious delegates tried to steal at least one of the books from me says a lot about the writer’s growing fan club. For all his fame and popularity (he won the Booker Prize in 2022), Shehan seems most unaffected by the adulation. At 48, he has the slightly worn appearance of a hippie-era musician looking for a gig. Unsurprisingly, he is, in fact, a gifted bass player with a rock band, owns a collection of guitars and admires The Police.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, which won him the Booker, is described as a “metaphysical thriller, an afterlife noir” by Neil MacGregor, chair of judges, The Booker Prize 2022. It has received raves for its inventive narrative and whimsical prose. The protagonist, Maali Almeida, is described in three words—photographer, gambler, slut. The word slut appears quite frequently in the books and at one point, Janela Fernandes, a character from the short stories collection explains, “A slut is a woman with the morals of a man.”

Shehan’s skill at creating worlds within worlds and turning our world upside down makes him one of the hottest writers in publishing circles. I have been devouring his work ever since that meeting in Thiruvananthapuram, which saw a generous sprinkling of well-known writers, sipping drinks and discussing their own genius. Here was this guy, with eyes like burning coal, disheveled hair, an unruly beard, dressed in a nondescript hoodie, doing what good writers should—but rarely—do. He was casually walking around, informally chatting with all and sundry, wearing his fame lightly and with complete nonchalance. What’s more—he looked interested in other people and their stories! That’s a rarity in writers as a breed. “I can’t understand why humans destroy when they can create—such a waste,” Shehan writes. And then it makes you wonder about his penchant for teasing readers. Given that much of his writing reflects “the world’s dark heart”, is he having fun by making fun of us, his besotted readers?

I wish I had spent more time talking to Shehan, instead of wasting it on retired ambassadors and jaded bureaucrats peddling their latest, utterly boring tomes. Here is a startlingly original voice articulating deeply profound, very philosophical truths, particularly about the civil war in his country, but doing so adopting dark humour and subterfuge, woven into bizarre yet thought provoking scenarios that keep a reader begging for more! Shehan warns you: “Never [read] in sequence. I don’t with other people’s works. Why should anyone with mine?”

nari-hira-magna-publishing-stardust-magazine-owner

Sat Feb 04 14:09:28 IST 2023

January 2023 marked two milestones in the colourful, glittering life of Nari Hira—bossman of Magna Publishing Co. Ltd. His birthday on the 26th. And grand celebrations on the 28th, to mark 50 years of his iconic film magazine—Stardust. He remains my first and only boss—five decades after we launched Stardust with a bang, and changed film journalism in India forever.

It was pretty thrilling to be on stage with Mr Hira (I still call him that), as a parade of Bollywood stars came up to receive their awards. Some of the oldie goldies boldly shared how some scoop had upset them. Others, like Anil Kapoor, expressed gratitude for the support extended during their struggling years. The younger lot coyly confessed that their mothers forbade them from devouring Stardust when they were schoolkids. All this was music to my ears! I chuckled at the memory and then reminded myself that 50 years of publishing existence was truly a big deal!Nari Hira had audaciously broken every known rule at the time and swiftly become the game-changer and market leader.

Since I left Stardust more than 40 years ago, there is brain fog when I look back on those crazy days of working like a beast from what was popularly called the ‘Çat House’ by fans of Neeta’s Natter, with the signature sign-off of the most read column in the subcontinent—Meeeeeooow! Was Neeta my pseudonym? I’m not telling! But running into a few stalwarts from my zamana—like Shatrughan Sinha, whom we had nicknamed Shotgun Sinha, was a delightful experience.

It was when Rekha—the eternal diva—arrived, that fans went into a frenzy, and Mr Hira’s eyes finally lit up! At 68, Rekha continues to break hearts and diva goals. Mr Hira turned to me and declared triumphantly, “A pretty good turn out!”

I was happy for him. Stardust was his baby, and he did succeed in creating an iconic brand that had loyal followers across the world. The scene has changed dramatically, of course. Not that the changes bother the bossman. He knows he is sitting on a goldmine—those archives are worth a lot more than Adani shares at the moment. But, when I ask him what he plans to do with the treasure, he swiftly changes the subject and mentions a top actor’s “bad breath’’, adding, “I bet he doesn’t brush his teeth”. I want to hug him in that instant—but control the urge. At 86, Mr Hira’s sharp, vitriolic observations and asides are as I recall them from five decades earlier. Nothing misses his eye or ears.

Nari Hira’s has been a charmed life, starting out as an advertising guy in sharp Savile Row suits (he hired me as a junior copy writer at a princely salary of Rs 350), and subsequently going on to establish a media empire with a bouquet of glossies—some successful, some not. He pioneered video films, mainly for adult consumption, decades before Sunny Leone came on the scene. In a way—he has seen it all and done it all, as a gutsy publisher who broke several moulds. We have remained friends throughout, and that is a huge thing for me—as I hope it is for him, too!

When I was asked to say a few words, I gushed, “Stardust was not a job—it was a love affair.” It is true! Mr Hira inspired an entire generation of reporters and feature writers, who went on to chart new territories with other media houses. But Magna was where it all began—as Hira’s devoted chelas and chelis.

suraj-yengde--the-rockstar-writer

Sat Jan 21 14:54:19 IST 2023

Frank admission: I had heard of the book (Caste Matters), but forgotten the name of the author. The book (published in 2019) is frequently described as explosive, and Suraj Yengde, the 35-year-old author, gets blurbed as a first generation dalit scholar, educated across continents, who challenges deep-seated beliefs about caste and unpacks its many layers. I had not read the book—but now I will, after meeting Suraj at the just concluded Kerala Lit Fest in Kozhikode.

Dressed like a rockstar in strawberry pink drainpipe pants, a rainbow hued ganji hugging his lithe frame, fitted navy blue blazer with a foppish pocket square, pitch black shades (indoors) and a halo of unruly curls framing his face—the man had attitude written all over him, as he pulled up a chair and introduced himself. Our connect was instant and fun!

Once done with the valedictory function, Suraj, his Slovenian companion Tasha, and I drove for an hour to eat the best mango fish curry on earth at the famous Paragon restaurant. I bombarded Suraj with questions about his past, present and future as we conversed energetically in our common mother tongue—Marathi. Suraj’s extraordinary trajectory is worthy of a full length film, starting with his life in a slum in Nanded, sharing one cramped room with his family of five. The visuals are straight out of Slumdog Millionaire, and his narrative is equally compelling as he vividly describes beating all odds at school and college, to finally achieve what very few have—dalit or not. By the age of 25, he had two PhDs under his belt and was already on his way to being acknowledged as an international scholar worth watching, having impressed academia (Harvard/Oxford) with his impassioned commitment to his life’s mission and calling as a writer/speaker determined to have his voice heard.

Today, Suraj is being courted by top literary agents (he has just signed on with David Godwin) for his next book. For a student who had shivered his way to Lucknow in sleeper coach, without a blanket or sweater in the bitter cold, and went on to win a debate which came with Rs5,000 as prize money, Suraj today flies business as he jets from country to country and stays at the best hotels, flaunting his flamboyance and intellect unselfconsciously. I commented on his sharp sartorial choices and he readily admitted how a female Italian friend in Geneva (he was working for the UN), stared at his tennis socks at a formal dinner for diplomats and recommended a few changes in his wardrobe.

Suraj was candid enough to discuss his earlier mixed up attitude towards women, especially while dealing with a clear ‘no’. (“European women are far more direct than Americans. I used to get hurt and vindictive as I would see the ‘no’ as a personal rejection and brood over it for weeks”). Today, it is the same Suraj who negotiates the many complexities of gender and caste politics, while ceaselessly reviewing himself.

As we finish our feast, which includes the chef’s personal favourite (fried anchovies in tamarind sauce), and promise to reconnect at the ongoing Jaipur Lit Fest, Suraj’s eyes are shining with excitement and anticipation. His work speaks for itself. But it is his persona that fascinates me, as I laugh and assure him he’ll get all the attention he seeks at JLF—after all, he is so marketable. Besides, he no longer wears tennis socks with dress shoes! Yup, Suraj has come a long, long way from Nanded. The sun is shining on him!

tata-group-veteran-r-k-krishnakumar

Sat Jan 07 11:08:45 IST 2023

To some, it may seem a little sad to begin the new year with a column on an individual who is no more.

R.K. Krishnakumar aka KK, who passed away aged 84 on New Year’s Day, was not just a business stalwart in the Tata group, but a deeply venerated corporate professional. Such was the respect for the reticent man—known to be Ratan Tata’s confidant—that it seems totally appropriate to acknowledge his contribution and bid him an affectionate farewell.

On his retirement at 75, Krishnakumar had occupied several key positions within the mighty Tata fold, serving as a trustee of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust (which hold 66 per cent of Tata Sons). But the best thing about the man was his low-key image, which made him one of the most imposing and powerful individuals in India Inc. Such was his personality and innate modesty that very few people would have recognised the man responsible for so many vital business decisions on the rare occasions he attended public gatherings. He was the man who had Ratan Tata’s ear, but remained disarmingly unobtrusive till the end.

Mumbaikars can never forget the image of Ratan Tata with Krishnakumar by his side, watching the iconic dome of their beloved Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in flames during the vicious 26/11 terror attacks. Two brave men, leading from the front, letting their employees know they were together during Mumbai’s darkest, most terrifying hour. The Tata Welfare Trust was started soon after, but before that, they visited the homes of every single affected employee’s family and assured them care and support.

It was also Krishnakumar, with the full support of Ratan Tata, who dealt with an explosive situation in Assam in 1997, when ULFA activists kidnapped an employee and demanded ransom. It took months of skillful negotiations to bring the situation under control. Krishnakumar’s closeness to Ratan Tata went well beyond officialdom—both men preferred privacy above all else. Their personalities were in sync and most compatible.

Whenever I ran into Krishnakumar and his talented, beautiful wife, Ratna, I barely got a couple of sentences out of him. But with Ratna, our shared passion for handwoven, traditional saris always led to a lively conversation. With her knowledge of our rich textile traditions and a great eye for the unusual, Ratna and I collaborated for a fashion show celebrating the most exquisite looms of Varanasi. Her proud husband looked on and applauded shyly as impressed invitees in the vast Taj ballroom rushed to book orders and encourage the weavers.

For a topper with a master’s degree from Chennai’s Presidency College, Krishnakumar’s steady climb to the top echelons at Tata was remarkable. He joined the Tata Administrative Service in 1963, but shot to prominence in 2000 with the bold buyout of Tetley Tea for £271 million. After retirement nearly 10 years ago, he was rarely seen in public. But with a Padma Shri under his belt (2009), two years after he stepped down as managing director of the Indian Hotels company, Krishnakumar seemed to have devoted his life to looking after various welfare trusts, and in particular Ratan Tata’s pet project—shelters for stray dogs. In fact, when Bombay House—the most famous corporate office in India—reopened post renovation, Ratan Tata dedicated a portion to a kennel.

With Krishnakumar’s passing, yet another era of Tata titans has gone. Ratan Tata must be bereft without the quiet presence of Krishnakumar, who had travelled the globe with him often in his private jet, which Tata himself piloted at times. The tributes are still pouring in, but the most valuable one comes from Ratan Tata, who said, “I will always fondly remember the camaraderie we shared both within the group and personally. He was a true veteran of the Tatas and will be missed dearly by all.” Nobody could have said it as eloquently.

RIP, R.K. Krishnakumar.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

justice-d-y-chandrachud-key-judgements

Sat Dec 24 17:13:27 IST 2022

Old friends of Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud call him ‘Danny’, a nickname given to him by one of his teachers at Mumbai’s 162-year-old Cathedral School, which counts Salman Rushdie and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as ex-students. His parents, former CJI Yashwant Chandrachud and classical singer Prabha Chandrachud, call him ‘Dhanu’. In Bambaiya lingo, he is known as ‘genius aadmi’. Those who have been following his career say in chorus with undisguised pride, “Danny is the CJI India needs now!”

The CJI’s colleagues credit Mumbai a great deal for “shaping” him as a forward-thinking liberal. Between November 9, 2022, when he took over as CJI, and December 16, as many as 6,844 cases have been wrapped up. As he stated recently, “No case is small or big enough for the court.” Applause!

At a recent high-profile wedding reception in Mumbai, which saw India’s legal eagles in attendance, the buzz was that the CJI himself would show up. I kept my eyes peeled for a sighting in the 1,000-strong crowd. I have long admired the learned judge for his bold views on contentious issues.

An “accidental lawyer” who loves cricket and music, Chandrachud, 63, is known for his dry wit and quiet put-downs. I love one particular anecdote: when an advocate asked for a date after January 13, the CJI joked: “Is it an auspicious date suggested by an astrologer?” The advocate confessed it was his wife’s birthday. The CJI responded, “Very valid reason….”, and a new date was promptly fixed.

Chandrachud is married to lawyer Kalpana Das (his first wife, Rashmi, tragically died of cancer in 2007). The couple has two foster daughters, and he has two sons from his first marriage.

Chandrachud’s far-reaching judgments as a Supreme Court judge have made him a legal legend. He has twice upturned his father’s judgments, which, by any standards, is a pretty gutsy thing to do given the old boy’s formidable reputation. His penchant for revisiting stagnant issues and pushing for reform has made him a public hero. Awestruck admirers refer to his various progressive rulings—like the recent ban on the medieval “two-finger test”, used to determine whether survivors of sexual assault are “habituated to sex”. In September 2018, in a historic judgment that was hailed across the world, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court that included Chandrachud decriminalised homosexuality.

While waiting for the sprightly CJI to put in a cameo at the wedding, several senior advocates pitched in with their opinions on the man they called a “shrewd tactician, a sharp politician, a radical thinker and daring activist who has the prime minister’s ear”.

Whether or not he has NaMo on speed dial, the fact remains he has played a key role during watershed moments. Like in the Sabarimala case, where a majority of the five-judge Constitution bench declared that preventing the entry of women of menstrual age was unconstitutional. Equally transformative was the judgment that affirmed the right of women, irrespective of their marital status, to seek safe and legal abortion till 24 weeks of pregnancy.

It goes without saying that any individual bucking the system and being perceived as a man in a hurry to change the establishment will attract his share of strident critics and generate controversy. Fortunately, for the dynamic CJI, his army of admirers (count me in!) far exceeds the fuddy-duddies interested in maintaining the status quo. Going by some of the mixed comments about the CJI that wedding night, I could also sense the envy of the old guard. They were clearly resentful of a man who fearlessly goes where others are afraid to tread.

Lagey raho, Danny!

cartier-india-strategic-director-swagata-baruah-bottero

Sat Dec 03 10:47:38 IST 2022

There are a few rare individuals whose inner light shines bright and illuminates any room they happen to be in. Swagata Baruah Bottero is one of them. She is the lady with a demanding, high-powered job at Cartier—the world’s most iconic jewellery brand. The exciting news first: Swagata, as Cartier International’s India affairs and strategic director, is spearheading key initiatives that will focus attention on India in the months to come. Swagata and her team kicked off the ambitious programme by signing our very own Deepika Padukone as brand ambassador, ensuring the star’s multi-dimensional interests get as much importance as her extraordinary beauty.

Swagata calls Paris her home—the Tezpur-born lady has been in France for 20 years and her new responsibilities at Cartier are a dream come true for her. With two girls—Meera and Maya—to look after, Swagata and her French husband (also in luxury) lead a pretty hectic life, flying trans-Atlantic and visiting India. They take turns to be home with their daughters.

I met Swagata in Mumbai over a leisurely lunch, organised by Tikka Shatrujit Singh, who, after a successful stint at LVMH, has come on board as a well-connected consultant for Cartier. I was utterly disarmed and charmed by Swagata, who graduated from Delhi University and went on to get her masters from ESSEC and INSEAD business schools in France. Her vision for India and Cartier is passionate and inspiring. She is keen on projecting the country of her birth in the best possible context and is planning many India-centric promotions globally, including spectacular window displays during Indian festivals. Her deep understanding and knowledge about Cartier and its long history with Indian royalty—who can ever forget the stunning ‘Patiala Bib’ created for the Maharaja of Patiala in 1928—is something Swagata plans to showcase across the world.

Cartier’s flagship store in India is in Delhi, but plans seem to be afoot to open one in Mumbai shortly. Swagata wants to create a high-impact event to mark the occasion. She mentioned how the young in India are buying non-traditional statement jewellery with a great deal of confidence and flair. The famous Cartier love bracelets are likely to fly off the shelves, with women ‘stacking’ them up for the wow factor! Swagata is in tune with this emerging India, and is unlikely to take the caparisoned elephants and decorated camels approach in future promos. This is evident from the way Deepika’s shoot was conducted for the prestigious campaign—it was stripped off desi exotica and pictured naturally.

This is just the start, Swagata told me with a broad smile, as we discovered a few old connections and talked easily about our families, children and common friends. Her parents visit Paris regularly, and she looks forward to large annual get-togethers with cousins, aunts and uncles in Tezpur. While Swagata misses India, it is Paris that has embraced the dynamic strategist and given her such a great opportunity to lead a crack team and create waves. I am guessing we are going to see a lot more of Deepika and Swagata in the coming months. Here are two strong women from India making a major statement together.

India is back on the luxe map after a long lull. This was strongly signalled by the arrival of the legendary editor of Vogue—the redoubtable Anna Wintour—in Mumbai. It is good business to invest in India right now, given the imminent collapse of several European and British markets. Valentino is all set to open a huge store in Delhi. And, LVMH recently launched an exclusive Rani Pink shoe collection. Luxury is not new to India; it has existed for centuries. Glad to note the world is finally waking up to it. And, the ultimate stamp of approval comes from Swagata, who is all set to dazzle the world with Cartier Joailliers.

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

films-like-uunchai-play-an-important-role-in-legitimising-ageing

Sun Nov 20 11:25:35 IST 2022

I am planning to watch a movie titled Uunchai on a priority basis. Ask me why? Simple—because I relate to the subject and admire the star cast. It is described as a Hindi-language adventure drama, which sounds odd, given that it is about three elderly gentlemen (Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher and Boman Irani) setting off on a sentimental mission in honour of their beloved friend who passed away. They ambitiously plan a trek to the Everest base camp. But, it turns out to be a far more complex journey involving several strands and complex inter-personal emotional issues. It is mainly about coming to terms with age and its limitations, and ways to negotiate pitfalls that accompany the winter of life.

We all get there, sooner or later. Making a film on as delicate a subject takes courage, no matter how stellar the cast.

Bachchan just celebrated his 80th birthday. Rajnikanth is 71. These extraordinary men have dominated the imagination of movie buffs for over five decades, thanks to consistently superlative performances. Their Hollywood counterparts, Michael Caine (89), Al Pacino (82) and Robert De Niro (79), have not been seen on the big screen for a while, even though they are acknowledged amongst the finest actors of all time. Let us face it, getting starring roles post 70 remains a daunting, distant dream, no matter how many awards and accolades feature in the CV. Henry Fonda was 76 when he and his co-star Katharine Hepburn won an Oscar for On Golden Pond (1981), which remains a classic.

Dealing with age and ageism, sensitively and appealingly, requires a first rate script and a competent director. But, above all, it needs confident actors willing to embrace their years and play their roles with enthusiasm. Bachchan frequently thanks producers for displaying faith in his abilities and signing him for new projects. This shows innate modesty combined with high intelligence, for an actor who has already surpassed other actors two generations after him. Most of his contemporaries are relegated to being footnotes in cinema’s history. To describe Bachchan’s feat as ‘staying power’ is wrong. There are thousands dying to ‘stay’… but, unfortunately, have no takers.

Cinema is a cruel medium, where every new line on the face takes away a few lakhs from the fee. Men are not spared, much as feminists like to believe otherwise. The pressure to look flawless and perfect, especially in close-ups, is forcing young actors to adopt drastic measures, including intrusive surgical procedures. Some of our younger stars are looking ghoulish, like they are at a Halloween ball, because of botched up work they have done on themselves.

It is not just people in the glamour world who obsess over new lines and sagging muscles. A few of my female friends regret going to cosmetologists who have ruined their faces after promising to take off 20 years. Well, yes, the first brush with Botox was indeed fantastic. The women came away feeling rejuvenated and filled with confidence. Then came the next encounter with scalpels and abrasive skin treatments. They were hooked. Till the day their faces turned waxen, and their foreheads turned immobile. They were unable to either smile or cry! Too late, warned their docs, operating out of shabby clinics and holes in the wall in central Mumbai. You can’t stop now! Or else you’ll look even worse.

Films like Uunchai play an important role in “legitimising’’ ageing and providing an emotional context to life, once your prime years are well behind you. Age is not a crime, but is often treated like one. The basic premise of the film is positive. Just like life at any age should be.

stop-intruding-into-virat-kohlis-private-space

Sun Nov 06 13:13:50 IST 2022

No, it is definitely not okay for any guest in any hotel of the world to have their room filmed and the video posted on social media. That such a major travesty happened to Virat Kohli, one of the most popular and incredibly successful global sportsmen, has sharply brought into focus the tricky issue of celebrity-privacy. Virat’s impassioned post after the video went viral, and has triggered a much-needed dialogue on similar serious breaches in the past. That this outrage took place at the Crown Hotel, Perth, has generated further debates on basic security violations.

While the errant staffer has been dismissed, it is still a matter of deep concern, given the scrupulous screening standards and the layers of personal protection our cricketers enjoy. If this is the abysmal level of diligence, the system itself needs a thorough re-look.“Where can I expect any personal space at all?” demanded Kohli, who has an estimated net worth of Rs950 crore. Where, indeed? This is the plight of celebrities across the world and there are no easy solutions.

Remember John Lennon paid with his life in 1980 when a fan attacked him as he left his residence in New York. If Kohli’s room was effortlessly accessed and filmed, it could as effortlessly have been vandalised. Let us take it several steps further—an explosive could have been planted in his room endangering his life.‘Virushka’, as Virat Kohli and wife Anushka Sharma are called by fans, are the ultimate power couple in India, with a combined net worth of Rs1,250 crore. They live in a lavish sea-facing home in Mumbai’s Worli, and possess an impressive collection of luxury cars.

From their marriage in 2017, to the birth of their daughter Vamika (2021), their polite requests to respect their privacy have been largely respected by the media in India. The occasional grab shots of the baby have upset the parents—understandably so. But their relationship with fans and the press across the world has been consistently positive and respectful. Virat’s latest controversy underlines just one thing—the insatiable hunger fans display as they devour every forbidden scrap they can pounce on.

But, hey—didn’t all of us watch the video greedily? I did! I felt ashamed of myself but only after I had watched it twice and noted the placement of deities on Virat’s side table—such a deeply personal detail.Fandom is based on voyeurism and vicarious thrills. But, as Virat and Anushka pointed out, there are limits to how far hero-worship can go. My view is it can go all the way. Including filming stars under the shower by placing cameras in the bathroom. Housekeeping staff are notorious for going through personal belongings of high-profile guests. New laws need to be introduced, banning cell phones while on duty. This applies to nursing staff and ward boys treating famous patients. With horror and shame, I recall the images of Rishi Kapoor in the ICU going viral—who shot the video? Obviously, a staffer with access to the late star’s hospital bed.

This is Virat’s birthday week. It is time to grant him his fervent wish and stop intruding into the man’s private space. Sacking the person who shot the video is but a small step to stall an escalation of this prickly controversy. The point is, it shouldn’t ever have happened. Happy birthday, King Kohli!

@DeShobhaa @shobhaade

bollywood-actor-govinda-deserves-recognition-shobhaa-de

Fri Oct 21 19:15:31 IST 2022

In keeping with his reputation of coming late to sets, Bollywood star Govinda made it to his seat across the aisle from me on a flight to Jaipur in the nick of time. We were meeting after decades, and it took me a while to recognise him minus his peach coloured lip and brown eyeliner. His hair was sparser and he was several kilos lighter. But once he broke into a smile, every passenger on the packed flight knew who he was.

It was great catching up with the 58-year-old who has acted in over 90 films. We chatted animatedly for two hours, mainly about films and filmmaking.

Govinda, being a commerce graduate, knows a thing or two about the business of films. Not that this knowledge helped him when his career hit a low, and he was dubbed a has-been. He had flirted with politics (2004-2008) and flopped there as well, by not turning up in Parliament and finally resigning, saying politics is a waste of time.

The man I was talking to, was talking sense, despite these downturns. He came across as a thoughtful philosopher who is nobody’s fool. With both his children waiting to make it in Bollywood, Govinda is very clear sighted and upfront about what sort of films attract audiences. A star has to remain a star, no matter what the role or character, he said forcefully, and cited several examples of superstars who forgot these basics and tried to project themselves as the characters envisioned even by great directors like Mani Ratnam (Govinda had played Hanuman in Ratnam’s Raavan).

By now, the excitement in the aircraft was palpable. The crew was requesting Govinda to come to the back of the aircraft for selfies. He was all smiles and courtesy as fans of all ages mobbed him when we landed in Jaipur, where he was scheduled to appear as a showstopper for a prominent jewellery brand. He charmingly dodged the question of how much he was charging. A prominent “influencer” on the flight told me later that his Insta feed went nuts after he posted a selfie with Govinda. My daughter was equally starry-eyed, though she has not watched a single Govinda film! My son said, “I love him! He is the best.”

I recalled the time when the then editor of the Stardust Annual had got Govinda to interview me at my home! A cute reversal of roles. The headline was pretty idiotic, “Mass meets class.” Govinda turned up five hours late, and I was fuming! He walked in dressed as a cop and smartly saluted me! He had come straight from the set after driving for two hours in heavy traffic—all was instantly forgiven. Since we were so behind schedule, I guess Govinda decided to save time by stripping off his police vardi there and then in the living room, shocking my young daughter who exclaimed, “Mama, please ask him to use dada’s bathroom to change.” Govinda laughed good naturedly and scurried off. The editor had prepared a set of questions for him to ask me. He took one look at the list and tore it up. “I have my own questions ready!” That is the quintessential Govinda—confident, positive and fun.

They say his comic timing is unbeatable. On the Jaipur flight I discovered his skills as a linguist. He spoke to me in fluent, accent-free Marathi with several colloquialisms thrown in. Known to improvise his dialogues and add his own punch lines in films, here is a man who is still to receive the recognition he richly deserves. There is an entirely new audience waiting to see him on the big screen in a role that is his worthy of his talent.

Sign him up someone. We want to see him back as ‘Hero No. 1’.

thank-you-the-week-for-providing-me-a-space

Sat Sep 07 11:12:18 IST 2024

As I pen the final column for THE WEEK, I find myself reflecting on the topics I’ve explored over the past two years, as well as the publication that gave them a home—THE WEEK, which has played a significant role in shaping public discourse in India. Founded in 1982, THE WEEK has carved out a unique space in the Indian media landscape, emerging as one of the largest circulated English news magazines in the country. With its insightful coverage across politics, technology, culture, and social issues, it has become a critical platform that addresses matters pertinent to the lives of India’s citizens.

As India’s G20 sherpa, I have had the opportunity to address a diverse range of governance and policy challenges on this platform. From exploring the potential of India’s blue economy to analysing the implications of sustainable urbanisation, I have tried to make my articles informative and transformative, especially as we find ourselves in a period marked by India’s unprecedented regional and global growth. At such a pivotal juncture in history, THE WEEK has allowed me to connect with readers at a time when inclusive dialogue around these pressing issues is most essential.

THE WEEK’s illustrious history and its mission to tackle issues that affect the masses resonate with me deeply—reflecting in many ways my own journey and values, which were significantly shaped during my time in Kerala. Having spent a large portion of my life in the Malabar region, I have seen the broad, and deep, impact of community-first values and a commitment to sustainable development first-hand.

In the early 1980s, after completing my MA, I embarked on a journey that would lead me to the heart of Kerala. Although being assigned to the Kerala cadre through the UPSC examination was unexpected and not my initial choice, it turned out to be among the most enlightening phases of my life. My initial days in Thrissur were a cultural revelation, but they also laid the foundation for my understanding of collective action and communication.

Living among the people of Kerala, within its diverse and dynamic communities, I learned the power of community and transformation. This experience has informed my approach to policy and governance throughout my career. Learning Malayalam was a key part of my integration into the community, and Malayala Manorama played a crucial role in that journey. Each morning, I would start my day with the newspaper, using it to improve my language skills and truly understand the pulse of the region. Through its pages, I was introduced to the vibrant stories of Kerala’s people—their festivals, their challenges, and their triumphs. This daily ritual helped me grasp the concerns and hopes of the community, keeping me informed and connected, and plugging me into an ecosystem of belonging unlike anything I had experienced before.

My advocacy for women’s empowerment, the importance of reducing dependency on fossil fuels, and the need for climate-resilient urban planning all stem from a belief that true progress is collective in nature. Every article in THE WEEK served as an opportunity to elevate these themes, showcasing the interplay between policy and the lived realities of our people.

Using THE WEEK as a platform allowed me to narrate stories of innovation and resilience that often go unnoticed—the fisherman who embraced a new technology to better his catch, the small-scale entrepreneur harnessing digital tools to grow her business, and the communities coming together to celebrate their rich heritage while adapting to modern challenges.

As I conclude this column, I remain optimistic of the future. THE WEEK has helped me share insights and reflect the aspirations and concerns of our citizens. I’ve been grateful for the positive feedback from loyal middle-class readers, who help distinguish THE WEEK as a platform for meaningful conversation. This connection serves as a reminder of journalism’s power to inspire change.

Embracing community-first values, we must continue engaging with local narratives to shape our collective future.

Thank you, THE WEEK, for providing a space to engage, reflect, and advocate for values that uplift and empower every Indian.

Author is G20 Sherpa. He is ex-CEO, NITI Aayog.

blueprint-for-blue-economy

Sat Aug 03 10:43:31 IST 2024

The oceans are the lifeblood of our planet, covering over 70 per cent of its surface and providing a critical source of sustenance and economic activity. They support the livelihoods of billions, regulate our climate, and drive global trade. However, these vital ecosystems are under severe threat from pollution, overfishing, and climate change. As we face these challenges, it is essential to adopt sustainable practices and seek international cooperation to preserve the oceans for future generations.

Oceans are essential for earth’s ecological balance, absorbing 30 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions and producing oxygen through marine photosynthesis. They are a key driver of the global economy, with ocean-related industries generating trillions annually, and facilitating 80 per cent of global trade via sea routes. Coastal areas are also home to more than 40 per cent of the global population, and offer numerous recreational and tourism opportunities. Despite their importance, the health of our oceans is rapidly declining. Pollution, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, and climate change are the primary threats. Marine pollution, including plastic waste, oil spills, and toxic chemicals, is devastating marine life and ecosystems. Overfishing is depleting fish stocks and endangering species, while climate change is causing ocean acidification, rising sea levels, and increasing sea temperatures.

The challenges confronting oceans disproportionately impact developing nations and small island states heavily reliant on marine resources for economic stability and food security. Their limited economic diversification renders them vulnerable to disruptions in fisheries and tourism, compounded by the brunt of climate change impacts, including rising sea levels, coastal erosion, and severe weather events. Limited financial and technical resources exacerbate their vulnerability, impeding efforts to invest in sustainable practices and disaster resilience. The ocean does not adhere to manmade borders, making its preservation a collective responsibility that requires global cooperation to solve. India is at the forefront of implementing a Blue Economic Policy, aimed at effectively utilising maritime resources for sustainable coastal development. This comprehensive approach covers various sectors such as living and non-living resources, tourism, and ocean energy. Additionally, India’s Deep Ocean Mission focuses on six key areas to support these initiatives. Since 2015, India’s Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) policy highlights its commitment to fostering economic and security cooperation with maritime neighbours, emphasising the importance of global partnerships and maritime security capabilities. Yet, there is more we can do to save our oceans, especially as environmental conditions worsen.

India’s coastline holds vast potential for sustainable tourism, driving economic growth and fostering environmental stewardship. Essential to this endeavour is the protection of coral reefs and prevention of plastic and other pollution to attract tourists while safeguarding marine ecosystems. Strategic investments in tourism infrastructure, supported by both government and private sectors, along with community capacity building, are key to unlocking the sector’s full potential. During my tenure as Kerala tourism secretary, I witnessed firsthand how integrating coastal ecology with local culture can transform communities. By building capacity, utilising real-time data, and collaborating with multiple stakeholders, we improved the livelihoods of traditional fishermen, ensuring fair returns for their daily catch and an increased sense of duty towards shared sources of livelihood. By designating conservation areas and establishing marine protected zones, we can mitigate climate change effects. Collaborating with scientific institutions and local communities will ensure successful conservation and resource management. In tandem, India has the opportunity to harness renewable energy from the ocean, reducing dependency on fossil fuels. Investments in offshore wind, tidal, and wave energy research and development can foster innovation, contribute to a cleaner energy future, and enhance energy security.

India is ready to collaborate with other nations to advance a sustainable blue economy, leveraging platforms like the G20 for cooperation, knowledge sharing, and capacity building. The G20 nations must commit to safeguarding 30 per cent of the oceanic expanse by 2030, not only by establishing marine protected areas but also by ensuring sustainable management practices across all waters. It is time for action, with influential nations leading the charge towards a sustainable blue economy.

Author is G20 Sherpa. He is ex-CEO, NITI Aayog.

prioritise-investing-in-athletes

Sat Jul 13 16:15:27 IST 2024

India’s sporting prowess received a significant boost with the country winning the T20 Cricket World Cup, ending a 13-year drought. What made this World Cup unique was the fact that it was co-hosted by the United States of America for the very first time. The inclusion of the US adds a remarkable dimension, heralding a new era of expanding cricket diplomacy and the growing influence of Indic soft power on the global stage.

While the road ahead for cricket in America remains challenging, this momentum beyond traditional strongholds not only diversifies the sport’s global presence, but also bolsters the soft power potential of India, whose cultural and sporting influence continues to resonate on the world stage. And that influence, in terms of cricket, is momentous. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) stands as a juggernaut in the world of cricket, propelled by staggering revenues, primarily from the Indian Premier League (IPL).

While cricket remains the crown jewel, India’s sporting ambitions are not limited to one sport. The country is making significant strides in other arenas, reflecting a broader vision to enhance its global sporting influence. The announcement of India’s bid for the 2036 Olympics exemplifies this ambition. India aims to introduce indigenous sports such as yoga, kho kho, and kabaddi, highlighting its rich cultural heritage and promoting lesser-known disciplines on a global platform. During the upcoming Paris Olympics, Indian sports administrators will lobby for the inclusion of these sports, advocating for their recognition and integration into the Olympic framework. This move is part of a strategic plan presented by the Sports Authority of India’s Mission Olympic Cell (MOC), which outlines measures to strengthen India’s bid and promote its indigenous sports. The proposal also includes chess, T20 cricket, and squash, sports where India has demonstrated considerable strength and potential.

India needs to prioritise investing in athletes of the future to ensure that our legacy in sports is sustained and strengthened. Investing in sports in India requires a multifaceted approach that addresses infrastructure, grassroots development, and institutional support. The government must prioritise building state-of-the-art sports facilities across the country. This includes not only stadiums and training centres but also local sports clubs and community grounds accessible to all. Investing in modern equipment and technology will further help nurture talent from a young age, ensuring athletes have access to world-class resources right from the beginning of their sporting journeys.

Enhancing the role of physical education in schools is crucial. Introducing comprehensive sports curricula and incentivising participation can instil a sporting culture early on. This approach not only promotes physical fitness but also identifies and nurtures talented youngsters who could potentially excel in various sports. Fostering a supportive ecosystem for athletes is essential. This involves improving sports governance, enhancing transparency, and providing adequate financial support through scholarships, sponsorships, and rewards for achievements. Strengthening sports science and sports medicine facilities will also play a key role in ensuring the holistic development and well-being of athletes.

Fostering public-private partnerships in sports can significantly augment India’s sporting landscape, enhancing sporting infrastructure, training facilities, and grassroots development programmes. By collaborating with private entities, the government can leverage additional resources, expertise, and innovative approaches to expand sports participation, improve coaching standards, and host international events.

The rise of sports in India reflects its evolving global identity, driven by robust government initiatives and extensive infrastructure development. Athletes such as Neeraj Chopra in javelin, P.V. Sindhu and Saina Nehwal in badminton, and Bajrang Punia and Vinesh Phogat in wrestling stand as inspiring examples of this transformation. As these new role models shine and cultural attitudes shift towards embracing sports as a career, the momentum must be sustained.

This journey from a cricket-centric nation to a sporting powerhouse holds the promise of a future where Indian athletes excel internationally. With strong national support and continued investment, this cycle of nurturing talent and promoting excellence is set to propel Indian sports and soft power to greater heights.

Author is G20 Sherpa. He is ex-CEO, NITI Aayog.

india-s-election-process-a-marvel-of-modern-governance

Sat Jun 15 13:56:05 IST 2024

No matter who you are or where you live, you deserve the opportunity to choose the leaders who will shape your country’s future. It is this ethos that compels India’s election officers to trek 40km to Malogam village, a remote tract of land in Arunachal Pradesh, bordering China. Malogam is home to Sokhela Tayang—the lone voter in her village, who made her choice at the ballot on April 19, 2024.

In 2024, India’s general election boasted a staggering 969 million eligible voters, solidifying its status as the world’s largest democratic exercise. Electoral laws dictate that no voter should be more than 2km from a polling station, ensuring accessibility. This commitment drives extraordinary efforts, with officials winding their way through Gujarat’s Gir forest for two days to set up a booth for Mahant Haridas Udasin, the sole voter in the area—showcasing the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) commitment to the universal franchise. As a returning officer and ECI representative, I’ve witnessed firsthand the dedication of volunteers. From guiding first-time voters to offering refreshments to those enduring long lines, their actions epitomise the inclusive spirit of our vibrant democracy. India’s election process is a monumental institution in its own right, exhibiting an unmatchable commitment to inclusivity, technology, civic duty, and logistical prowess. In this election cycle, over the course of 1.5 months, 640 million ballots (twice the population of the US) were cast from every type of terrain—ice, desert, swamp, and thick jungle.

Half of the votes were cast by women. Every candidate was safe, every voter was peaceful. In contrast, 37 candidates were assassinated in Mexico’s recent elections. In 2021, the US Capitol Building was attacked by a mob to prevent the final counting of votes. These are all democracies, but each paints a very different picture. In the searing heat, poll workers manned 1.1 million polling booths in India, with 5.5 million Electronic Voting Machines (EVM). For context, that’s more EVMs than the entire population of New Zealand. The sheer size and scale of this democratic exercise, combined with its meticulous attention to safety and technological innovation, make it a marvel of modern governance. India’s deep-seated democratic traditions date back centuries, long before modern democratic states took shape. Ancient texts and historical accounts reveal a rich customs of democratic practices. The scale of India’s elections necessitates cutting-edge technological solutions. The introduction of EVMs in 1982 revolutionised the voting process, making it more efficient and tamper-proof. These machines, coupled with the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system, ensure both digital accuracy and physical verification of votes.

Despite criticisms and concerns about potential tampering, courts have endorsed the security and integrity of EVMs. The ECI’s rigorous protocols, including GPS tracking of vehicles carrying EVMs and VVPATs, make the process undeniably secure. If this election has confirmed one fact, it is that the debate around the safety and efficacy of EVMs must be unequivocally settled—it is a tried, tested, and sound method. In comparison with other democracies, where traditional paper-based voting systems are still employed, India’s EVMs have consistently demonstrated their resilience and accuracy. EVMs offer several advantages, including faster tabulation of results, reduced likelihood of human error, and enhanced accessibility for voters with disabilities. The robust security features embedded within India’s EVMs, such as encryption and tamper-proof seals, ensure the confidentiality of the electoral process.

The indelible ink, a symbol of pride and participation, has marked the fingers of Indian voters since the 1950s. Produced exclusively by Mysore Paints & Varnish Ltd, it is exported to over 25 countries. This enduring mark not only prevents multiple voting, but also fosters camaraderie among voters, symbolising a sense of integrity, civic duty, and pride in the democratic process. As general elections conclude, one truth stands clear: amidst our nation’s diversity, there beats a collective heart. From the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean, every vote cast embodies our democratic spirit, guiding us through the complexities of our time with resilience and strength.

Author is G20 Sherpa. He is ex-CEO, NITI Aayog.

indian-cuisine-a-beacon-of-our-soft-power-on-global-stage

Sat May 18 15:23:44 IST 2024

Indian cuisine stands as a beacon of our soft power on the global stage. Fuelled by our vast diaspora, Indian food has transcended borders, captivating hearts and palates worldwide. Behind this culinary revolution are immensely talented chefs, crafting extraordinary dining experiences in highly acclaimed restaurants that elevate Indian cuisine to new heights. No longer confined to the familiar, Indian fare now embraces the intricacies of regional cuisine, offering a delectable journey through diverse flavours and traditions. As ambassadors of taste, these chefs are not only satisfying appetites but also bridging cultures, fostering understanding and showcasing the richness of India’s culinary heritage to the world.

In recent years, regional Indian cuisine has experienced a remarkable surge in popularity on the global culinary stage. From the aromatic spices of Tamil Nadu to the rich flavours of Punjab, the diverse regional cuisines of India are being relished by food enthusiasts worldwide. This culinary renaissance is not only due to the impeccable taste of Indian dishes but also due to the pioneering efforts of Indian chefs who have taken their expertise to international platforms.

One such chef who has left an indelible mark on the global culinary landscape is Vikas Khanna, who hails from Amritsar. Khanna’s journey to becoming a Michelin-starred chef is nothing short of inspiring. His culinary prowess, combined with a deep appreciation for traditional Indian flavours, has earned him acclaim across continents. Khanna’s restaurants in New York City and Dubai have become destinations for food aficionados seeking an authentic taste of India.

From London to Singapore, Indian chefs are redefining haute cuisine with their innovative interpretations of traditional dishes. Their success is a testament to the richness and diversity of Indian culinary heritage, which encompasses a myriad of flavours, spices and cooking techniques. Vineet Bhatia, Hemant Mathur, Gaggan Anand, Manish Mehrotra and Garima Arora are more such pioneers taking delectable Indian cuisine to the world, earning Michelin stars in the process.

One of the factors driving the global popularity of Indian cuisine is its ability to cater to diverse palates. Whether it is the fiery curries of south India or the creamy gravies of the north, Indian food offers something for everyone. Moreover, the rise of social media and food tourism has provided Indian chefs with unprecedented opportunities to showcase their talents on a global scale.

Sowndra Rajan Palanisamy, president of the Tamil Association of New Zealand Inc, in collaboration with the Arasan New Zealand Trust, is spearheading the Auckland Kari Virunthu 2.0 event, set to showcase local Indian cuisine in New Zealand.

Semma in New York City emerges as another bold exploration of southern Indian heritage cuisine, unveiling culinary treasures seldom seen beyond local homes and neighbourhoods. Chef Vijay Kumar, hailing from Tamil Nadu, channels the soulful essence of farm-life and his ancestral land onto the plate, infusing each dish with explosive flavours and regional ingredients. From the bustling streets of Mumbai to the vibrant lanes of London, Dishoom has captivated hearts with its rendition of Mumbai-style street food. Also nestled in the heart of London, Chourangi embodies the spirit of Kolkata cuisine, steeped in a legacy of recipes spanning over three centuries. Rasa by chef Das Sreedharan is a restaurant taking vegetarian recipes from the kitchen gardens of Kochi, Kerala, to the United Kingdom.

Across the globe, countless Indian chefs have journeyed abroad, ascending to the pinnacle of their craft and becoming culinary luminaries in their own right. India must harness this formidable resource by partnering with these chefs to promote Indian food through curated events and festivals. Recognised and supported by the Indian embassies, Indian chefs abroad can serve as esteemed ambassadors of their nation, leveraging their years of experience to champion Indian cuisine in foreign lands.

In the vast landscape of global gastronomy, modern and traditional interpretations of regional Indian cuisines emerge not only as a feast for the senses but also as a testament to the power of food to unite, inspire and celebrate the richness of our culture and diversity.

Author is G20 Sherpa. He is ex-CEO, NITI Aayog.

lessons-from-bengalurus-water-crisis

Sat Apr 20 11:36:28 IST 2024

Once upon a time, Bengaluru was called the city of lakes. Today rampant urbanisation has decimated the lakes and the city is staring at an alarming water management crisis. Bengaluru, historically reliant on its lakes and reservoirs due to its challenging geography and scarce rainfall, is now grappling with its worst drought in 40 years. The city’s rapid expansion has ironically led to the destruction of the very water bodies that fuelled its growth, with the number of lakes plummeting from 1,000 to under 100. This crisis, affecting 7,000 villages, 1,100 wards and 220 talukas, is a stark reminder of the consequences of unplanned urbanisation. The combination of dwindling green spaces, vanishing water bodies, and a falling groundwater table paints a grim picture as the city braces for an even hotter summer.

Today, Bengaluru’s lakes are facing two significant challenges: direct encroachment and diminishing interconnections. This trend has not only increased the city’s susceptibility to drought but has also heightened the risk of flooding, exemplified by the events of 2023. Consequently, Bengaluru now requires Rs2,800 crore to repair a drainage network damaged by uncontrolled urbanisation-induced flooding, highlighting the level of financial damage such crises entail. Furthermore, lakes and stormwater drains have transformed into repositories for sewage discharged from nearby buildings and catchment areas. This has exacerbated their inability to effectively capture rainwater or stormwater, thereby compounding both the ongoing drought crisis and the flooding incident of 2023.

What Bengaluru is currently experiencing is a result of extreme mismanagement of water resources, because of reducing green spaces and a rapidly expanding concrete jungle. The city has seen a 1,055 per cent increase in the built-up areas in the past few decades, shrinking the water surface significantly. The water spread has fallen by a sharp 70 per cent in the last 50 years. Of the few remaining water bodies, a staggering 98 per cent has fallen victim to encroachment, with 90 per cent of them contaminated by untreated sewage or industrial effluents. This has had adverse effects on groundwater recharge rates, exacerbated by the substantial reduction in water coverage. These factors lie at the heart of the current crisis confronting the city.

The exodus of tech professionals from Bengaluru to their hometowns is on the rise as the water crisis in India’s tech hub reaches critical levels, making life in the city unsustainable for many. This massive infrastructural defect, where access to water is limited, can further significantly affect the investments Bengaluru attracts in the future. This can also damage Bengaluru’s reputation as a tech-driven economy, with the potential to affect the real estate market. With more than 50 per cent of borewells now dried up alongside plunging groundwater levels, real estate developers are facing a dilemma, whereby uncertainty surrounding water availability is hampering investor confidence, impacting project timelines and profitability, especially with restricted construction permits.

The city needs to redesign and reinstate water recycling and rainwater harvesting mechanisms. At present, only one-third of the city’s wastewater is repurposed externally, replenishing groundwater and surface water reservoirs. The rest flows into lakes or downstream rivers, representing a vast, unused water resource. This wastewater, if rightly utilised, could substantially reduce freshwater consumption and enhance the city’s water resilience if properly treated.

In the next five to six decades, we will see millions relocating to cities as a consequence of urbanisation. Effective water management should sit at the heart of sustainable urbanisation. Bengaluru’s water crisis is an alarm bell highlighting the vital role of efficient water management in sustainable urbanisation and should be taken as a lesson by other cities. Mindless urban development made Bengaluru steer towards options that weren’t as valuable in the long term while allowing more sustainable, already existing options to wither away. Thus, balancing our development ambitions with the changing climate around us will be key in the years to come as India urbanises.

Author is G20 Sherpa. He is ex-CEO, NITI Aayog.

rise-of-indian-soft-power

Sat Mar 23 16:30:48 IST 2024

Soft power has never been more powerful. In an increasingly interconnected world, where borders are porous and technology has facilitated the seamless, real-time dissemination of vast amounts of information, influence is no longer geographically bound. In fact, at the most micro level, hundreds of individuals have made entire careers out of it.

On the global stage, the potency of soft power holds the ability to sway the perceptions of communities—strengthening cross-cultural understanding, shaping aspirations. The resurgence of the Global South, in recent years, underscored the impact of convening power in nations. As emerging economies assert their influence and challenge traditional power structures, the ability to shape narratives and cultivate positive perceptions becomes increasingly vital.

The ascendancy of soft power heralds a paradigm shift in the dynamics of international relations, and India’s rise as a global superpower serves as a perfect case-study of the benefits of institutionalising influence. The 2014 general election marked a pivotal moment for Indian foreign policy, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi ushering in a new era defined by the strategic use of soft power on both regional and global fronts. Through the adoption of digitally savvy communication strategies, the consistent engagement of the Indian diaspora, and the formal and active commemoration of India’s diverse culture, the Modi government has made significant strides to convert an ad-hoc approach to intentional, state-driven cultural dispersion.

Our startup ecosystem is flourishing, propelling India to the forefront of global innovation. As of October 3, 2023, India has emerged as the third largest ecosystem for startups worldwide, boasting over 1,12,718 startups recognised by the department for promotion of industry and internal trade, spread across 763 districts. Increasingly, homegrown startups in emerging technologies and sunrise sectors like blockchain, AI, fintech, space tourism, green energy, and semiconductors will play a key role in our ability to push for favourable global policies and regulations around new technology and data.

As the former tourism secretary of Kerala, I witnessed first-hand the potential of cultural diplomacy in elevating the state from obscurity to acclaim on the global tourism map. Through a combination of innovative marketing strategies and public-private partnerships, we rebranded Kerala as 'God's Own Country’, showcasing its rich traditions of art, cuisine, and natural beauty to audiences worldwide. From highlighting Kathakali and Kalaripayattu to reinventing Ayurveda as a holistic wellness regimen, we knew that the region’s cultural heritage was an untapped resource that could change its perception, create jobs, boost the local economy, catalyse infrastructure development, instil civic pride, and lead to the conservation of its natural ecosystems.

2023 was declared the International Year of Millets by the UN at the behest of Modi. This allowed India to share the benefits of the highly nutritious and climate-smart superfood with the world, both through substantive discussions during negotiations on sustainable agricultural solutions, and by integrating it in every official menu so that foreign delegates could experience its benefits first-hand. Soft power, embodied through the influence wielded by Modi in diplomatic circles, resulted in the fostering of international cooperation towards shared environmental and food-security goals.

As we navigate the complexities of the 21st century geopolitical landscape, the imperative of harnessing both hard and soft power becomes increasingly apparent. In the case of India, the integration of these two spheres is particularly crucial given its diverse cultural heritage, economic prowess, and strategic significance in the global arena. As a nation with a rich history and a rapidly growing economy, India's soft power assets, including its cultural exports, diaspora influence, and diplomatic outreach, play a pivotal role in shaping its global image and fostering international cooperation. However, to safeguard its interests and defend against potential threats, India also relies on a robust defence apparatus and strategic alliances, demonstrating the necessity of hard power capabilities. By harmonising its soft power initiatives with a strong military presence and strategic partnerships, India can effectively navigate geopolitical challenges while leveraging its cultural and economic strengths to promote peace, stability, and prosperity on the world stage.

Author is G20 Sherpa. He is ex-CEO, NITI Aayog.

expansion-of-cities-calls-for-measures-to-make-them-disaster-resistant

Sat Feb 24 15:13:43 IST 2024

India, being the third most affected country by climate-driven natural disasters, faces a unique set of challenges and opportunities in the realm of climate resilience. The country’s extensive coastline, home to a significant portion of its population, is particularly vulnerable. Rapid urbanisation, dense population centres, and economic activities along the coastline have heightened the risk of climate impact. Thus, balancing our efforts between adaptation and mitigation is not just necessary but time-sensitive, given the escalating climate crisis within our region.

Over 40 Indian cities are among the world’s most vulnerable to climate and environmental threats, highlighting the need for urgent action to safeguard these urban centres and their socio-economic contributions. Collectively, the nine coastal states attract over 60 per cent of India’s foreign direct investment, underscoring the importance of protecting them from climate-induced phenomena such as sea-level rise, flooding and cyclones.Over the next 50 years, India is poised to witness a dramatic shift in its demographic landscape, with projections indicating that more than 500 million people will inhabit urban areas. This translates to an astonishing rate of urban migration, where every minute, approximately 30 individuals move from rural to urban settings.

This paradigm shift necessitates integrated planning that encompasses not only the physical infrastructure but also the social and economic frameworks of urban areas. It calls for innovative solutions that enhance the sustainability and livability of cities, such as green buildings, efficient waste management systems, renewable energy sources, and water conservation practices. The rapid expansion of Indian cities, particularly those along the coast, urgently requires measures to make them disaster-resistant. Investing in low-carbon and climate-resilient infrastructure is crucial, with an estimated need of $700 billion for Indian urban areas from 2021 to 2031. This investment aims to mitigate climate risks, safeguard lives and livelihoods, and avert significant economic damages. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are pivotal in this context, offering cost-effective and sustainable methods to enhance our environmental resources while tackling issues like climate change, poverty, and resource efficiency. These solutions not only contribute to disaster-risk reduction, carbon capture, reducing urban heat, enhancing water and food security, and improving public health but also prove economically beneficial by creating an average of seven to 40 jobs for every $1 million invested. NbS encompasses a wide range of applications, from small-scale projects like vertical gardens and green roofs to larger initiatives such as wetland conservation and mangrove restoration, demonstrating their versatility and significant impact on urban resilience.

The Indian government has recognised the importance of NbS, implementing various schemes to promote such interventions across cities. These include the Smart City Mission, AMRUT, the Nagar Van Scheme, Amrit Dharohar Yojana and MISHTI scheme among others. These low-cost, sustainable strategies not only address climate change and other societal challenges but also provide numerous benefits, including disaster risk reduction, carbon sequestration, and improved water resilience.

In the face of escalating climate challenges, Kerala stands at a critical juncture, necessitating urgent action to bolster its coastal and urban resilience. The state, known for its picturesque landscapes and rich biodiversity, is increasingly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. With the largest coastline in western India, Kerala is home to millions of people who live in close proximity to the sea, making them particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change. The Kerala government has already taken steps to promote NbS and climate-resilient infrastructure. Financing these climate-resilient initiatives, however, poses a significant challenge. With the global need for urban climate projects estimated at trillions of dollars, attracting climate finance requires clear strategies and engagement with the specific vulnerabilities of each region. Kerala must enhance transparency, accountability, and access to climate finance through simplified mechanisms and leveraging blended financing options.

India’s path to resilience involves tapping into both domestic and international capital, prioritising nature-based solutions, and ensuring community involvement at all levels. By focusing on climate-proofing infrastructure and enhancing access to finance and technology, India can build a sustainable and resilient future for its urban centres, especially those in coastal states, safeguarding the well-being of its people and the economy against the looming threats of climate change.

Author is G20 Sherpa. He is ex-CEO, NITI Aayog.

why-100-per-cent-electrification-by-2030-is-critical

Sat Jan 27 15:29:45 IST 2024

India’s EV (electric vehicle) sector is witnessing substantial growth, positioning the nation as a major global market for electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030. Ten years ago, electric vehicles were perceived as an overly ambitious idea with slim prospects compared with conventional vehicles. However, in 2023, and now into 2024, they have emerged as one of the most rapidly expanding segments in India’s automotive industry. Supported by a range of government initiatives and private-sector-led transformative and sustainable business models, EV adoption has witnessed notable surges and the demand for economical and eco-friendly transport is expected to skyrocket in coming years.

Transformation of India’s automotive sectors is key; it contributes seven per cent to its GDP, 35 per cent to manufacturing GDP and over eight per cent (or $35 billion) to total exports. India has the third-largest global auto market, is the largest producer of three-wheelers, the second-largest manufacturer of two-wheelers and buses and the fourth largest of passenger cars. India is also making remarkable strides in the export of EVs; the EV export market grew 246 per cent in the first seven months of 2023. These remarkable statistics form the bedrock of India’s electric mobility revolution and the time has come to capitalise on this sunrise sector.

India must replicate the success of its ICE (internal combustion engine) industry in the electric vehicle ecosystem. India’s strategy with EVs in the 21st century should draw parallels with Japan’s strategy with ICE vehicles in the 20th century. By developing its EV market, India should mirror Japan’s historical success in breaking into global markets with strong domestic demand and significant export potential. Specific component-level manufacturing, battery production, and a holistic approach to the value chain, including charging infrastructure and recycling, are critical elements for achieving this.

Electrification of two and three-wheelers has been a remarkable achievement, but achieving 100 per cent electrification by 2030 is critical to becoming the world’s automobile champion. A similar trajectory for electric buses is pivotal in further greening and expanding India’s public transport networks, as India will see more than 500 million citizens getting into the process of urbanisation in the next few decades. Addressing road transport emissions is key; it accounts for 11 per cent of India’s energy-related CO2 emissions and this share is expected to significantly increase as India develops and urbanises. To meet its 2030 target for EVs, India needs to adopt millions of EVs, demanding battery capacities in hundreds of Gwh.

Original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and battery manufacturers should swiftly expand production and establish new battery manufacturing centres, recognising that batteries constitute around 40 per cent of EV costs. Conventional OEMs should align with swiftly changing customer and market preferences through technological advancements to maintain competitiveness. Embracing a collaborative ecosystem is essential for a thriving market amidst this current tide of the EV revolution, and Indian companies have carried themselves positively in these waves of change. Collaborative innovation between electricity producers, energy storage providers, recyclers of critical components and EV manufacturers is extremely pivotal to building a sustainable, reliable and cost-effective EV ecosystem in India.

India’s EV sector is observing a significant number of collaborations, partnerships, merger and acquisition transactions, the rise of promising start-ups, and the unveiling of substantial projects by automotive giants. The EV industry is also drawing significant FDI. VinFast, a Vietnamese EV giant, recently unveiled a $2 billion project in Tamil Nadu.

This is the right time to enable a transformational revolution in India’s automotive sector and accelerating adoption of EVs sits at the heart of this revolution. This strategic move not only aligns with global trends but also presents a unique opportunity for India to shape the future of mobility for itself and the world. India can position itself as a trailblazer in sustainable transport. This not only addresses environmental concerns but also contributes significantly to economic growth and global competitiveness. As the automotive landscape evolves, the acceleration of EV adoption emerges as the catalyst that propels India into a future where innovation, sustainability, and economic prosperity converge in a harmonious and sustainable automotive ecosystem.

Author is G20 Sherpa. He is ex-CEO, NITI Aayog.

cop28-move-beyond-rhetoric

Fri Dec 29 15:00:44 IST 2023

As the world continues to grapple with unprecedented climate disasters, the recently concluded COP28 in Dubai marked a significant milestone in global efforts to address climate change. The two-week summit saw more than 190 nations agreeing to a text known as the Global Stocktake, which, for the first time, urges countries to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, “in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science”. And the science is sobering—urging us to act now, act big, and act fast. The urgency reflected in this call is a direct reflection of the compelling scientific consensus on the precarious state of our planet’s climate. Striving for net zero emissions by 2050 means aiming to balance the amount of greenhouse gases we release with what we remove—aligning with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This target is crucial because it helps prevent severe and irreversible damage to the environment and our communities, as agreed upon in the Paris Agreement.

However, the world is significantly off-course from this target. As nations continue to grapple with the complexities of transitioning away from fossil fuels, the truth remains that our carbon emissions are depleting the Remaining Carbon Budget (RCB) of 250 gigatonnes of annual CO2 emissions at an alarming rate. This budget, likened to a finite allowance of greenhouse gas emissions, is on track to be exhausted by 2029 at the current annual rate of 40 GtCO2, underscoring the urgency for immediate and substantial actions. The global community is at a crucial juncture where the gap between our aspirations for a sustainable future and the reality of our current trajectory demands a radical and collective rethinking of our approach to climate action.

The G20’s commitment to tripling global renewable energy capacity by 2030 is a commendable step, yet the emphasis on substantially scaling up climate finance from billions to trillions is crucial for enabling developing nations to transition away from fossil fuels. This financial commitment recognises the immense resources required for these nations to implement Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and achieve the ambitious targets set in the Paris Agreement. In addition, the focus on inclusive economic growth and development, with an emphasis on Lifestyles for Sustainable Development (LiFE), reflects a commitment to addressing both supply and consumption-side challenges.

India’s insistence on including the climate-vulnerable African Union as a permanent member of the G20 speaks of the importance of global solidarity. Decolonising decarbonisation—i.e., addressing historical inequities in climate action by prioritising justice, inclusivity, and empowering marginalised communities—is the key to unlocking a future that is fair, inclusive, and sustainable.

In the face of promising developments at COP28, challenges and loopholes persist in the global climate agenda. The transition away from fossil fuels encounters hurdles such as resistance from oil-producing nations, policy inertia in some regions, and the economic constraints faced by developing nations. Further, while international agreements outline targets and aspirations, they often lack effective enforcement mechanisms. For instance, the Paris Agreement relies on voluntary commitments without imposing binding obligations, allowing some nations to set ambitious targets without facing tangible consequences for non-compliance.

Corporate influence, ambiguous commitments, inadequate monitoring and reporting mechanisms, and a lack of financial accountability, all point to a pressing need to strengthen international frameworks, establishing clear and enforceable guidelines, and fostering a culture of accountability and transparency.

As COP28 concludes, the world stands at a crossroads. The urgency of climate action is clear, and we need to move towards implementation on ground. One per cent of the global companies account for 4 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. The stock markets need to hold them accountable and punish them. The challenge now lies in ensuring that the global community moves beyond rhetoric, addresses loopholes, and takes concrete steps to transition away from fossil fuels.

Author is G20 Sherpa. He is ex-CEO, NITI Aayog.

nerdiness-has-always-been-cool-in-india

Sat Oct 26 10:58:33 IST 2024

I have been an ‘expert’ on Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) for four years now, but I still get super-nervous every time we shoot. The stakes for the bright-eyed, super-smart contestants are so high that their tension becomes contagious—even people like me who have no skin in the game and stand to win not even one rupee, let alone one crore, get all hyped up and thumpy-hearted.

I could always decline the invite and spare myself the stress, but I have a soft spot for quizzing and quizzers. I first came across the word quizzical in some much-thumbed romance novel in my girls’ boarding school library when I was 14. The hero would ‘raise his eyebrows quizzically’ at the heroine or he would ‘shoot her a quizzical glance’. The quizzical glance usually preceded a passionate kiss, which left her ‘quivering’. I decided I liked the word and, as that was the year the inter-college quiz contest Quiz Time started beaming out on Doordarshan National, I developed (along with thousands of other teenage girls too snobbish to admit to finding either Anil Kapoor or Sylvester Stallone attractive) a massive crush on its intelligent, suavely styled host Siddhartha Basu. This swiftly led to more crushes—now on the boys who were contestants on his show!

Right about this time, the American film Revenge of the Nerds released and gave us Generation Xers a word to describe the introverted, mostly male, medical, engineering or history major types who love quizzing. (The film, in its turn, was inspired by a lifestyle magazine article titled ‘Revenge of the Nerds’, which described computer programmers gaining respect in Silicon Valley. And the word ‘nerd’ itself was pulled out of the ether by Dr. Seuss in his book, If I Ran The Zoo.)

The thing is that unlike in the US, nerdiness has always been cool in India—because it is linked to aspirations and upward mobility. Its noble goal is breaking free of poverty. This is why Kota Factory and 12th Fail are loved as much, if not more, than Dangal and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. Because intelligence can get us out of our gutters, we respect it by day, even though we swing to moronic item numbers by night.

It is the reason why KBC has done 16 seasons. Besides, it is not just about the money. It is also about knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Becoming smarter. More informed. And, finally, it is also about the sweet thrill of getting an answer right. The dopamine hit that delivers can’t be gotten out of a bottle, or at the end of a vape stick. Because KBC is a clean hit. Without the cut-throaty nastiness of a Roadies or the voyeurism of a Bigg Boss (both of which have done over 20 seasons).

Watching it together is a family ritual. It is cliff-hanger entertainment sure, but it’s also super-sanskaari. In our polluted, troubled world, it is encouraging that KBC continues to run, and run successfully. Another encouraging trend is that children across India, jaded by video games, dating apps and nightclubs, now seem to be hunting for clean, offline ways in which to meet and interact. Karaoke, cooking, travel, pickleball, chess, frisbee—and quizzing. Trivia nights are proliferating in nightclubs across Bengaluru, giving our bright young nerds (who would never stand a chance on, say, a crowded dance floor) a spotlight to shine and socialise under. For older people, quizzing is a sort of cerebral spring-cleaning. It prompts your brain to go rummaging in boxes it hasn’t opened in a long time, and helps long disused neural pathways to light up again. To mangle Olivia Newton-John’s immortal lyrics—‘Let’s get quizzical’.

editor@theweek.in

toilet-papers-are-a-bum-deal

Fri Oct 11 16:17:16 IST 2024

So I have picked up my jhola and been in fakir mode last two weeks—travelling for a family wedding, and then a beach holiday through Australia and southeast Asia. And what I have learned is this—bum guns are taking over the world. In India we call them health faucets or jet sprays, or bum washers. The Muslim world calls them shattafas, the Aussies seem to prefer bum gun. I remember from a previous holiday that in New York, the Waldorf Astoria refers to them, very poshly, as a bidet shower (not to be confused with bridal shower, which I did, briefly.)

The internet couldn’t give me a clear answer as to who was the enterprising soul who first bought bum washers to India. Surely, he or she is deserving of a Padma award for services that ensured our nation was never left behind. Bum washers showed up randomly in the early 1990s in all the plumbing stores, and, ban on proselytising or not, our Hindu nation was immediately converted. They were much more efficient than the drippy, cumbersome mugga/chembu system we had been using till then—one felt rather like a desi cowboy handling the gleaming steel body, pressing the springy little hair-trigger and revelling in the focussed, forceful spray that left you feeling all tingly and minty-fresh and humming your favourite toothpaste advertisement jingle (yes, I am aware that bums don’t have gums, let alone teeth, but I am also aware that as a regular bum gun user, you know exactly the sensation I mean.)

I would like to point out that there is data to show, quite conclusively, that it is only after bum guns became ubiquitous in Indian loos that we had our bildungsroman on the world stage, and gave the world a host of global CEOs, beauty queens, Nobel Prize winners and politicians. And now, the rest of the world is slowly waking up and asking to have what we’re having.

The global north, which used to make do with soft corn husks, leaves, hay and rags of cloth pre-softened in salt water before the invention of toilet paper, is now poised to take another big leap. One that will be soft on the bottom line (repeated wiping gives you soreness and rashes) as well as good for the environment—after all, manufacturing a single roll of toilet paper requires up to 140 litres of water and almost 700 grams of wood—not to mention the water you use to flush the wadded up tissue afterwards. Add to it the risk of clogged pipes leading to sewage overflow, and the resultant environmental damage and public health issues. Of course, bidets have been common among the upper classes in Catholic countries like Italy and France, because their scripture lays emphasis on anal rinsing—but bidets are unwieldy and complicated—one has to sit astride them and they take up too much space.

Lately, Japanese toilets have gotten a lot of good press, too, but they’re expensive to buy and even more expensive to install. But the good old bum washer is cheap as chips and easily installed. They had a major moment during the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, where YouTubers educated the world in general, and Covid-era Aussie toilet paper roll stockpilers in particular, on the benefits of rinsing over wiping. So, it is no wonder that a year later, Australian brands like Tushy’s and Tudaloo are now telling toilet paper purists to shattafa up. It is clearly another big cultural win for the ancient civilisations of Asia. The rest of the world should totally thank us from the heart of their bottom.

editor@theweek.in

why-even-think-of-using-mc-bc-slurs

Sat Sep 28 11:09:24 IST 2024

A video of Paralympic gold medallist Navdeep Singh abusing after throwing his javelin in Paris went viral. It was mostly pretty garbled because he was fist-pumping and stomping around in circles while doing it, but the familiar syllables (especially if you are a Delhiite) of ma-ki-ch*** (mother’s vagina) rang out as clear as bell—kind of an awkward thing to have to explain to your child whom you have been making watch the Paralympics to inspire him/her with the wondrous never-say-die attitude of para-athletes and the power of the human spirit to triumph against all odds.

Of course, aggression, if correctly harnessed, is a great tool in the sporting arena and Navdeep was facing a tough contest at the time from Sadegh Beit Sayah of Iran, who actually scored further than Navdeep, but got disqualified for waving around a political/religious flag after his record-breaking throw. Sportsfolk of all sorts—tennis players, cricketers, footballers—often hype themselves up by trash-talking during such intense moments. John McEnroe and Virat Kohli are classic examples.

Still, ma-ki-ch*** was definitely a little excessive. It could even be argued that it merited a red card, of the sort that got Sadegh disqualified, except that the Parisians probably couldn’t grasp what was being said. In an interview he gave later, Navdeep justified his language by saying (with a sheepish, boyish smile) that he’d picked up such language while living and training in Delhi. Which, bizarrely enough, even sounds understandable, as our capital now seems to revel in its rape-ville tag and the regularity with which it features in songs that flex on its toxic masculinity with refrains like ‘Dilli se hoon behen c*** (I’m from Delhi, sister f*****.)

Of course, like all people with challenges, the four-feet-six-inches-tall Navdeep wishes first and foremost to establish himself as a regular person with all the regular flaws and frustrations, not some mushy, goodie-goodie object of pity. His use of foul language has gone a long way towards achieving that goal. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come forward to reprimand him (but with a fatherly twinkle in his eye.) And Gen Z now think he’s a total badass. Win win. Far be it for me to take a high moral tone about foul language.

Being a Delhiite born and bred, I am well aware of the cathartic thrill of mouthing taboo words, and the exquisite release from frustration and pressure it provides. But I can’t deny its inherent misogyny. (The obsession with mothers and sisters and female body parts is deeply problematic, to say the least.) Also, like all powerful weapons, the source of its power lies in how sparingly it is used. Navdeep’s outburst had power because he mouthed the aggression of a largely voiceless group of underdogs. But if he uses it too often, or in low-stakes situations, it will start to show decreasing returns to scale and become gimmicky—kind of like in commercial cinema or OTT shows, where heroines and grandmothers who drink and swear have gone from novelty to norm to numbingly cliche. Language is a gift granted in such lavishness only to human beings upon this planet. The more words we use, the more expressive we become, the richer our interactions grow, the more our civilisation flourishes.

So the choice is ours, really. We could thunder ‘Know your place, weakling’ or ‘Grovel before the champ, loser’ or ‘Remember this arm, this is the arm of a champion’ or even ‘Never mess with an Indian who has drunk his mother’s milk’. Or settle for something as vanilla as ma-ki-ch***

editor@theweek.in

how-stree-2-has-given-us-hope

Sat Sep 14 11:36:20 IST 2024

The unprecedented success of Stree 2 is the best news we have had in the recent times. The fact that a film boasting no massive stars, and with an unabashedly feminist agenda, has comprehensively out-performed Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s toxic masculine star-studded Animal at the box office is (to me, at least) kind of the cinematic equivalent of Awadhesh Prasad winning Ayodhya—it redeems my faith in the inherent decency of Indians. Stree 2 has also overtaken Sunny Deol’s Gadar-2 and Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan, and is now closing in on dislodging Jawan (another SRK starrer, with domestic collections of Rs583 crore) from the top spot of biggest films ever. All this, with no jingoism, no Pakistanis, no hyper-masculine heroes, no marital rape, and no toxic, animalistic lick-my-shoe type dialogues.

Some might say that the lessons one can learn from this stupendous performance is that marvellous things are possible if we just stick to the basics—quality writing, solid direction and acting, tight editing and well-done visual and sound effects. Seems simple enough on paper, but there are a million obstacles waiting to derail the most dogged and idealistic of filmmakers—egos, politics, logistics, trend-chasing, too-many-cooks, creative hubris and/or timidity, financial hubris and/or timidity, and the general fog-of-war that descends on the best of talents when they’re too close to a project to see the larger picture.

So, kudos to the makers of Stree 2 for keeping a level head (haha, because the villain in the film is headless) during the production process and getting this herculean task right. But more than that, kudos to them for picking a plot (Stree, 2018) about a beautiful prostitute who just wanted to marry her lover and settle down to a quiet life but was murdered by a moral police led by a patriarchal village headman (and former client) who couldn’t stomach the thought of a woman daring to demand agency, choices and social mobility. The prostitute promptly turned into a ghost and cut off the headman’s head for his pains.

In Stree 2, the prostitute’s ghost is now the protectress for all things progressive in her little village. All is well till she leaves for a while and the headman’s ghost (headless, hence dubbed Sarkata) returns to wreck havoc. He presents as a gibbering disembodied head (very reminiscent of Pinky, Blinky, Inky and Clyde from Pacman) and drags away all smoking, drinking, texting, small-small-clothes sporting, working women by his long hair (not theirs, a refreshing twist on the old trope) and confines them in a land of boiling lava, where they’re bald, white-robed, dead eyed and sucked of all energy, till Stree and the rest of the madcap ensemble arrive to save them. (Which sounds grim but it is all actually super-funny in the hands of writer Niren Bhatt and directer Amar Kaushik. Kudos to both.) But most of all, kudos to the audience for voting overwhelmingly for this feminist-horror-comedy with their money and their precious leisure hours.

Dare we hope that the writers of Animal Park (sequel to Animal) could be getting into a room and discussing arcs where their toxic-man-child protagonist finally gets his comeuppance? Because it’s not just Stree 2, there’s also #Metoo, back in public discourse with a vengeance given the revelations coming out of the Malayalam film industry. There’s also Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia taking on Sarkatas of their own in rural Haryana. At a more frothy level, there’s even Ananya Panday’s new series, showcasing victim-shaming, sexual harassment and the rights of women in a show where the antagonists seem very inspired by Prajwal Revanna and Arnab Goswami. Over in the US, Kamala Harris’s numbers continue to improve. Of course, one swallow does not make a summer. But Stree-2 has given us hope. Here’s me manifesting more beheadings. Metaphorical ones, of course!

editor@theweek.in

rapist-vote-bank-actively-fosters-rape-culture

Sat Aug 31 10:57:08 IST 2024

I am sensing some ennui in the reportage around the horrific rape and murder at the R.G. Kar Medical College. Perhaps it is just me, but it seems that the media, while putting on their grimmest faces and asking—‘how many girls will have to die horrible deaths before we fix ourselves as a society?’—seem to be mouthing this often-repeated line a little mechanically. There is a sense of simply going through the paces, before moving on to something more ‘important’ and ‘substantial,’ like the prime minister’s visit to Ukraine, say, or the state of the stock market.

Politicians, while claiming to care, seem to be indulging either in tokenism or opportunism. Regular folks are disheartened as well. Because we have held candlelit marches for Jessica and we have protested for Nirbhaya. No One killed Jessica and Delhi Crime have been produced, released, watched and awarded. The Nirbhaya gang rape and murder ended Sheila Dikshit’s reign in Delhi and ushered in the newer, ‘cleaner’ government of the Aam Aadmi Party. We did our bit. Or did we?

Because even though public opinion was quick to condemn Tarun Tejpal, one year after Nirbhaya its support for abuse survivors definitely waned by the time #MeToo came to India. We waited eagerly to see if Bollywood’s #MeToo moment would throw up any big names, rumours about whom have circulated in the industry for decades, but when this did not happen, we were quickly tired of it. Priya Ramani, the courageous journalist who called out M.J. Akbar as a sexual predator, fought a lonely battle, mostly.

There was a sense that women were ‘making too much of an issue out of something quite small’. They were ‘being difficult’. They were ‘playing the woman card’. And what about men’s rights, huh? What about the future of young boys who innocently ‘misread’ the signs sent out by fickle-minded teases who wore small clothes, put perfume, and ventured out after dark, and then withdrew their consent at the last moment?

I was on a channel debate some time during the 2010s, where, upon being asked why these tragedies kept happening, I had said that it was because no politician wanted to alienate the ‘rapist vote bank’. This alarmist conspiracy theory was laughed off by both the anchor and my fellow-panellists.

But there is a ‘rapist vote bank’. You could also call it the patriarchy, and it cuts across all castes, faiths and socioeconomic categories. It is the reason why men with crimes against women get tickets, win elections and enter Parliament. It is why people like Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and Prajwal Revanna and their families stay relevant.

The ‘rapist vote bank’ actively fosters rape culture—that is a society that normalises, condones and even admires hyper-masculine, the act of degrading and dehumanising women. This happens in a million big and small ways. If we call out any of these ‘small’ things, we’re labelled alarmist, problematic and hysterical. If we demand that something be done about the relentless, endless barrage of rapes, eyes are rolled, and we are called nags. In fact, the trope of the nagging woman is the one that is weaponised the most against us. But what is nagging except for persistence?

We need to persist now like never before. We need to persist, not mechanically, but with a vengeance and zero tolerance. We need to send out the message to all stakeholders that the feminist vote bank is larger and more influential than the ‘rapist vote bank’. Ignore it at your own peril.

editor@theweek.in

show-some-muscle-for-vinesh-phogat

Sat Aug 17 14:23:02 IST 2024

Um, are we timid again? There was a time, back in the day, when Indians were timid. You know, intimidated by white people, their accents, expensive clothes and shoes. But, then, slowly, we got over that colonial mindset. The non-aligned movement helped us carve out a space for ourselves on the world stage. We won the cricket World Cup. We hosted the Asian Games, we liberalised, we became Miss Worlds and Miss Universes, our artistes won Oscar nominations, our doctors, engineers, MBAs and economists took over the world—from Indra Nooyi to Priyanka Chopra to Kamala Harris. We strode with assurance across the world stage.

Today, our globetrotting prime minister is a ‘vishwa guru’, a leader amongst leaders, much awarded by foreign governments, more famous than Shah Rukh Khan. His re-election campaign celebrated his influence abroad, including the heroic tale of how he got the war stopped to get our children back from Ukraine. This is a man who stands up for his own. Which is why I was totally gobsmacked by his roll-over-and-die tweet on the whole Vinesh Phogat issue. I was expecting him to come out with guns blazing in Phogat’s defence—appealing to the powers-that-be about the unfairness of the verdict, like our cricketers do—eyes ablaze, arms raised, spinning in slow motion to demand ‘howzat’ with full self-assurance and passion.

But, instead, he just tweeted a bunch of tame platitudes. ‘Vinesh, you are a champion among champions! You are India’s pride and an inspiration for each and every Indian. Today’s setback hurts. I wish words could express the sense of despair that I am experiencing. At the same time, I know that you epitomise resilience. It has always been your nature to take challenges head on. Come back stronger! We are all rooting for you.’

Seriously? Words could not express his sense of despair? Do we need a prime minister who despairs? And, why the haste to put out the tweet? I mean, he was clearly in no hurry to congratulate Phogat for beating world number one Yui Susaki of Japan the previous day. But the moment she trips up, he’s immediately tweeting to commiserate. Imagine if he had instead taken the time to speak to a few experts, educated himself on all possible options and then tweeted something like—‘Vinesh, I am utterly gutted by the unfairness of what just happened. The best legal minds in the country are immediately at your disposal and will file your appeal as soon as possible. You’re a winner, and we’ve got your back. Hang in there and stay strong. Jai Hind.’ Surely that’s what a ‘vishwa guru’ would do? But no, all we got were statements in Parliament on government providing 070 lakh to Phogat in the build-up to the Olympics for training and competitions abroad. It was left to concerned NRIs and sympathetic fellow olympians to help Phogat file her appeal, with the Indian Olympic Association scrambling to make a late entry onto the team of lawyers.

Phogat has won anyway. Like Arijit Singh, who finished eight on the reality show Fame Gurukul, losing out to an audience poll favourite nobody even remembers today, like the band One Direction, who finished third on The X Factor, but achieved giddying heights of success subsequently. Phogat is already a winner, not in a contest but in real life. It would have just been nice if her country had had her back.

editor@theweek.in

masculine-trait-of-listening

Fri Aug 02 16:21:44 IST 2024

A welcome counterweight to the worrying trend of toxic masculinity in our films, popular culture and the mind of today’s youth seems to be emerging in the form of teachable masculinity. These films and books tend to feature fit, cocky, young simpletons, the apple of their mother’s eyes, entitled, high-self-esteemed, who’ve never questioned traditional gender roles simply because the status quo serves them so well. But when they come in contact with a young woman (obviously beautiful) who awakens them to the many ways in which society is unfair to women, they can’t unsee it, and have the chill, the empathy, and the lack of insecurity to change their man-child ways.

Feminist young women may jump in at this point and protest that it isn’t their job to re-train men into being better version of themselves, and that men should come pre-trained and sensitised into the dating market, just like girls traditionally do, but that ain’t happening anytime soon and we’re all works-in-progress, and should all be willing to both give and receive feedback. After all, even the eternally lustworthy and much venerated OG, Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, was open enough to listen carefully to Elizabeth Bennet when she took him down with a remarkably well-articulated rant after he condescendingly asked for her hand in marriage. What makes Mr Darcy every girl’s dream man is the fact that he was so teachable, that he listened so carefully while Lizzie excoriated him, that he took her feedback constructively, and that by the end of the book he had either entirely changed, or satisfactorily explained his vexing behaviour.

Karan Johar seems to have read this book often and thoroughly, because it is from the stable of Dharma Productions that we are receiving a steady stream of teachable, loveable man-children who grow into better men by the end of the movie. Most recently we’ve had large-hearted west Delhi Punjabi dudes—Akhil Chaddha and Rocky Randhawa—played by Vicky Kaushal and Ranveer Singh, respectively. Earlier, Varun Dhawan’s Badri from Badrinath ki Dulhania got hit with bad reviews and accusations of toxicity, but audiences loved how, once he saw the error of his ways, he was quick to apologise and had nothing but admiration for his hard-working, ambitious and intelligent wife. But my favourite large-hearted, simple-minded macho dude from the twenty-teens has been Salman Khan as Bajrangi Bhaijaan, a staunch patriot and devout Hanuman-bhakt, who is horrified to find himself in sole charge of a non-vegetarian Pakistani child, yet, after a short, stinging lecture on secularism and humanity by his fiery girlfriend, immediately sees the error of his ways. These characters are all antithesis of the Sandeep Reddy Vanga model, a man so hyper-masculine that he is always in control, always the best person in the room, always emotionally correct, already knows everything, and is therefore unteachable.

Unteachable people have no character arc—they end the film as they started it—without any comeuppance or introspection or admittance of wrongdoing. The closest Johar came to writing a character so unbending was the Raichand patriarch played by Amitabh Bachchan in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, and even he had the bigness of heart to apologise to his son and win all our hearts at the end of the film.

Currently, we are all stunned by Simone Biles’s return to form, and inspired to be a little like her (and other Olympians) in their constant, gritty quest for self-improvement. Being a sullen know-it-all isn’t ‘strong’ or ‘sexy’. Teachability is sexy. Just look at Akhil Chaddha and Mr Darcy.

editor@theweek.in

samvidhan-hatya-diwas-should-be-observed-on-december-6

Sat Jul 20 12:31:05 IST 2024

So, the government wants us to venerate June 25 as Samvidhan Hatya Diwas or ‘Constitution Murder’ day. This is confusing because for most Indians June 25 is a glorious, golden date, because duh, it is the day Kapil’s Devils won us our very first cricket World Cup. But I guess ‘the day Indian cricket came of age on the global stage’ isn’t half as click-baity as ‘the day democracy died’, especially if the responsibility for said death can be lumped on the opposition.

Nobody doubts the PR savvy of our ruling party—they know that the efforts of YouTube educators, the opposition, and social activists have made ‘Samvidhan’ a sexy, trending word understood even in rural, illiterate India. All those nicely designed preamble T-shirts at protests, MPs taking their oaths while brandishing a paperback copy of the Constitution in their hands, and ‘Modi versus the Constitution of India’ emerging as the mic drop rejoinder to the oft-parroted question ‘But Modi versus who?’ have made them eager to wrest the word (if not the 1,45,000-word document behind the word) away from the opposition and co-opt it for themselves.

And, so, now we are to have a ‘Samvidhan Hathya’ day, harking back to the Emergency in 1975, a good eight years before the World Cup victory, with the Congress cast in the role of murderer-in-chief. This serves as an effective teaser campaign for the movie, Emergency, releasing in September, starring freshly minted BJP MP Kangana Ranaut, which in turn serves as an effective campaign for the elections due to be held in three states in the last quarter of 2024—Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand. Kangana is a gifted actress and I am sure she’ll do her best to make the hoary, almost 50-year-old cautionary tale of Indira Gandhi’s misdoings relevant to Gen Z. If anything, given their obsession with self-improvement, work-life balance, the inner workings of the mind, and all things new age-y and karmic, I think they would be much more interested in why she ended the Emergency when she could’ve you know, just continued being a hated but all-powerful despot. Unfortunately, I’m guessing that March 21, 1977, is not going to be correspondingly celebrated as Samvidhan Satya day or ‘the day the Samvidhan rose from the dead’ because introspection, climbing down, and admitting to a mistake are really not practices our rulers are interested in celebrating.

Coming back to June 25, I feel it should be kept sacred to cricket. After all, June 25, 1983, was our very own unforgettable, heady ‘Miracle at Lord’s’ and we’ve only won the ODI World Cup twice!

Meanwhile, the Samvidhan gets murdered in our country on a regular basis. I mean, there are so many dates they can pick and choose from if they really want to commemorate a Samvidhan Hatya Day. But then again, our current state of emergency is unofficial—we slid into it so slowly and insidiously that there’s no one, clear date on which the enslavement began. When exactly did the media begin to crawl, when did the persecution of the farmers begin, when precisely did our competitive exams get compromised, when did parliamentary candidates start winning elections without even having to stand for them, when did debates in Parliament become a thing of the past to be replaced by fiats and ordinances, and on which date did electoral bonds start hollowing out our democracy from within? Hmm, a tricky problem, this... But wait—oh good, I just thought of something! Let’s keep June 25 for Kapil paji, and commemorate December 6 as Samvidhan Hatya Diwas.

editor@theweek.in

admire-rahul-gandhis-fearless-pose

Sat Jul 06 10:25:42 IST 2024

#FerozKhanKaPota was trending on X; so, naturally, I thought Fardeen Khan’s son was making his Bollywood debut. Bit young to be launched was my initial thought, but then I figured he could be taking the Jaden Smith route. Anyway, I clicked on the hashtag, and much to my disappointment it turned out to be the same old right-wing ravings about the ‘Muslim origins’ and ‘stupidities’ of Rahul Gandhi. Disappointment, because I genuinely thought the BJP bots were smarter than this. Surely, they realise that the pappufication of Rahul—rather like wabi-sabi decor and Sabyasachi reds—is so last season? Like it or not, Rahul is no longer a lightweight, a dynast or a reluctant politician. He’s sharp, he’s smart, he’s doing his homework—his speeches are fiery, his rebuttals instant and stinging. He has self-appointed fairy godmothers on YouTube and the independent media and his championing of the idea of India, as envisioned by our founding fathers, has caught the imagination of the nation.

It doesn’t hurt that with his worked-out chest and silvery stubble he’s giving what Gen Z likes to call DILDO (Dad I’d Like to Do.) Best of all, with his doubled numbers and as the official leader of opposition, he is looking at ease in Parliament, looking in fact, as if to the manner born (which of course he is). Seated in the front row, besides the portly, homespun Awadhesh Prasad—whose very presence in the house is a slap in the face of the BJP’s brand of politics—he comes across as a total insider, relaxed, respectful and yet informal—a fourth generation parliamentarian, so much more at home in the new building than the men who commissioned it. These worthies on the other hand, look sullen, stiff and stuck-up—never a good look.

The Pappu tag worked ten years ago because it rang true, and ‘bhaiy ki sarkar’ (a government that rules through fear) is a label that will stick because of the same reason. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have ruled primarily through fear, a fear fostered by their brute majority and the stranglehold they had on the nation’s institutions. Which is why re-baptising the Congress’s symbol as a secular, non-violent abhayamudra or the fearless pose, and juxtapositioning it against the rule of fear is more than just a smart piece of speech-writing, it is product repositioning and brand relaunching at its best.

The standout line from Rahul’s speech (addressed directly to Modi) was a defiant, ringing ‘aap Hindu ho hi nahi’ [you are not Hindu]. Obviously he feels empowered enough to say this because (to quote Mahua Moitra) even Lord Ram himself has said, ‘Not in my name’ through the verdict in Ayodhya.

There is a growing sense that the BJP does not speak for all Hindus, that many are deeply uncomfortable with its politics of hate and prefer a gentler, deeply personal practice of Hinduism. This is the trending sentiment Rahul has latched on to, and this made up the meat of his speech. Modi interjected at this point (a rare event, he prefers to ignore Rahul utterly, like Manipur, women wrestlers and Aryan Khan and so much else) and accused Rahul of calling all Hindus violent. But Rahul fact-checked that on the spot. Such fun!

I was wondering what to watch now that India has won the World Cup, but now I’m thinking that these battles over the soul of Hinduism in our more balanced Parliament may actually fill my entertainment void. My children did come around to try and change the channel but I just raised my hand and showed them the abhayamudra. Who knows, maybe hate and hindutva are also on their way to becoming so last season?

editor@theweek.in

hounding-of-arundhati-roy-may-turn-out-to-be-a-self-goal

Sat Jun 22 12:32:43 IST 2024

The hounding of Arundhati Roy may well turn out to be one more of those own-goals our rulers are growing to be famous for. Perhaps, the thinking is that it will make them look ‘stronger’—like they haven’t lost their iron grip on the minds of this nation and are still very much in control of what we read, think, eat, worship or whom we love.

But cracking down on the OG rebel who taught us all that it is sometimes okay to ‘break the love laws, the laws that lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much’ is perhaps not a good idea. All it may end up doing is make Roy, 62, relevant to the free-thinkers amongst Gen Z who, though familiar with the competent, well-researched, but decidedly non-libidinous lectures of Haryanvi engineer Dhruv Rathee, remain innocently unexposed to powerful seditious prose like ‘the carpenter’s hands lifted her hips and an untouchable tongue touched the inner-most part of her. Drank long and deep from the bowl of her.’ (Yes, boys and girls, that is the kind of stuff Indian writing in English was dishing out back in the swinging 1990s.)

The God of Small Things blew my 27-year-old mind, even before it won the Booker Prize, and I’m sure it will do the same to all the curious young folks who may now go looking for it, the same way they went looking for the Congress manifesto about two months ago.

Surely this is not an outcome the ruling dispensation was hoping for. But what exactly is it about Roy that gets rightwing chaddis into such a febrile twist? Is it her genes—a mix of Bengali and Malayali, both of which are states that have decidedly rejected their politics? Is it because she is beautiful as well as brilliant, which women are just not supposed to be? Is it her battleship-grey curls, her huge eyes and her extreme thinness, which make her caricatures T-shirt friendly, in the manner of Jimi Hendrix and Albert Einstein? Is it the fact that she is effortlessly feted, internationally, something that is naturally triggering to people who have just returned from screening a propaganda film like Hamare Baarah at Cannes to tepid response, in a year where Payal Kapadia—former student at the Film and Television Institute of India who led an agitation against the appointment of a subpar rightwing backed chairperson—won a Grand Prix?

I think it’s a combination of several things. Her fearlessness, her empathy, and her calm—Roy never shouts. She just speaks out undeniable, inconvenient, damning truths in a sweet, soft voice (almost reminiscent of fellow grey-curly Yogendra Yadav) wherever and whenever she is interviewed, which is increasingly going to be everywhere and often.

“In the papers some have accused me of giving ‘hate-speeches’, of wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped, imprisoned or have their finger-nails pulled out in order to force them to say they are Indians. It comes from wanting to live in a society that is striving to be a just one. Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free.”

editor@theweek.in

get-together-nancy-tyagi-and-kanhaiya-kumar

Sat May 25 11:13:29 IST 2024

I have been following Nancy Tyagi on Instagram for over a year. Her video showed up on my feed, and I was immediately fascinated by the thin brown girl with the erect stance, striding purposefully through the dust and grime of what looked like a fabric market in north Delhi, with a tote bag slung over one delicate shoulder. Sitting in Bengaluru, I was immediately taken back to the time when a younger me had braved the heat and dust of a similar market with minimum budget, maximum hope, a celebrity outfit in my heart and a hunter’s hungry glint in my eye.

Nancy conferred with a succession of pudgy shopkeepers, made her selection, hailed a cycle-rickshaw, and came home with bales of red velvet and satin inside her tote. Using an old-school hand-operated sewing machine very similar to my mother’s, and a brass tailor’s scissors, she stitched herself an outfit exactly like the one Amrita Rao wears in the classic ‘Gori Gori’dance number from Main Hoon Na (2004). As she modelled the outfit, pouting and pirouetting, I was utterly hooked. Last week, Nancy, her IG following now swollen to over 10 lakh, graced the red carpet at Cannes in two stunning self-made ensembles, a dramatic pouffy, pale pink gown and a diaphanous, glittering mauve sari and cowl.

Sonam Kapoor, a Cannes veteran and a fashionista in her own right, gushed over Nancy’s second outfit and tweeted to Nancy, “Make me something, Nancy Tyagi.” Sonam may have to get in line though, as Nancy is blowing up big right now. It is a Cinderella story of the best kind, with an impoverished young girl, a gorgeous gown and a fancy ball at the heart of the plot, except this young girl is her own fairy godmother and her own Prince Charming.

In today’s uncertain world, with rampant unemployment and crumbling institutions, being one’s own godmother, significant other, and support system is emerging as the surest (if not sole) way to success, especially if one is born without a silver spoon in their mouth—you know, in the sort of family that eats with their fingers, which is to say, most of us. This ‘Do It Yourself’route of success calls for an incredible amount of focus, determination, hard work, homework and stamina. And while I am fairly certain that Nancy is not actively looking for a Prince Charming, thank you very much, the interfering Indian auntie and indefatigable romantic in me cannot help recommending that she check out the IG page of a remarkably intelligent and charming young man who seems to be in possession of all these qualities, and who (just like her) has a million plus followers—one Kanhaiya Kumar, originally from Begusarai and JNU, and currently hoping to be a member of Parliament from North East Delhi.

Now I know THE WEEK’s pages are not Karan Johar’s couch of manifestation, but Zerodha’s Nikhil Kamath’s recent rant notwithstanding (‘I’m not going to ruin 18-20 years of my life babysitting. What if the child says ‘scr** you’ at 18 and leaves anyway’) our country urgently needs clean, talented self-made people to get together ideologically at least, if not romantically.

Of course, romantically would be better (no couple in India is as popular as Virat-Anushka—stable, focussed, high achievers who inspire young people to be the best they can be.)

I feel I am starting to sound dangerously Hitleresque with this dream of creating a master-race of self-made super-achievers, so I will now desist. Have a great election, Kanhaiya. (And maybe order a spiffy bespoke kurta from Nancy to wear on counting day?)

editor@theweek.in

rupali-ganguly-should-take-advise-from-her-tv-character-anupamaa

Sat May 11 11:46:13 IST 2024

I have been a fan of the television drama series, Anupamaa, right from the very start. The number one Hindi TV serial in the country for almost four years now, it tells the story of simple Ahmedabad housewife, Anupamaa, who loved her husband, children, and in-laws, and found her happiness exclusively in theirs. Till the day she found out her husband has been cheating on her, and has nothing but contempt for her as she is uneducated, uncool, overweight, a pushover, with hands that “stink of masalas”. And so begins Anupamaa’s second innings, in which she re-discovers herself, with her own hopes and dreams, divorces the cheater who did not value either her love or her stellar qualities, starts her own business, retains the love of her children and in-laws, marries a handsome, supportive tycoon who adores her, and proceeds to have an awesome new life (marred, of course, with all sorts of minor vicissitudes to keep the TRPs coming.)

The fact that the show airs on prime time Star Plus makes it a far more effective tool to battle patriarchy than any number of Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaanis, Thappads or Laapataa Ladies. There’s a lot of Matarani and Jai Shri Krishna in Anupamaa, but don’t be fooled by the sanskaari trappings. The show is subversive from beginning to end, pretty much starting where Sridevi’s English-Vinglish left-off. Anupamaa is an excellent home-maker and cook, but also fiery and fearless. She never hesitates to tell off family, friends and society. She is sympathetic, progressive, intelligent, independent, outspoken and thinks for herself. Which is why I wonder how Rupali Ganguly, the actor who plays Anupamaa, and has a fan following which has been compared with that of Smriti Irani’s in the early 2000s, will fare in the BJP.

I suppose the entry in politics seemed like the next logical step to the actor—Irani’s example is there before her, as is Arun Govil’s. After all, no matter how popular a show is, it cannot run forever, and one must be pragmatic and plan ahead.

But what would Anu (from the show) whisper into the ear of Rupali (the actor)? She would be happy and reassured that Narendra Modi has declared ‘zero tolerance’ for people such as Prajwal Revanna, and added that ‘they should not be spared’. But surely she would want to know why a government that came to power in the wake of the nation’s anger at the rape of Nirbhaya has proved itself, time and again, to be absolutely callous to crimes against women, unless they belong to a tiny and specific sub-section of atrocities committed on Hindu women by Muslim men? Or why Modi remains silent on horrific crimes against women in Unnao, Hathras, Kathua, Manipur? Or why Bilkis Bano’s rapists were garlanded, and why Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s son was given a ticket, and why dastardly dynast Revanna was fielded, even after the BJP was warned by its member that the man was poison. I suppose Rupali will have to explain to Anu that even though this is the real world, in which Rupali is still just an actor, with a whole lot of new lines to learn and a new role to play in a long-running super-hit reality show hoping to be renewed for its third season.

Still, I am hoping that after playing Anu for so many years, Rupali has imbibed a little bit of the character’s strength and sensibility. And that she will carry some Anu-ness into this next phase of her life. And even if she doesn’t, she isn’t the only Anupamaa. We are all Anupamaa. And we all have a vote.

editor@theweek.in

is-bjp-trying-to-divide-and-win-with-mangalsutra-jibe

Sun Apr 28 13:47:24 IST 2024

I am blown by the amount of research the BJP’s speechwriters have put in. They have gone way back in time to dig out and wilfully misquote something Manmohan Singh said in 2006 at a meeting of the National Development Council (NDC), which is “Our collective priorities are clear. Agriculture, irrigation and water resources, health, education… along with programmes for the upliftment of SC/STs, other backward classes, minorities and women and children… We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on resources...”  

It is interesting to note that after making this ‘deeply worrying’ statement, Singh still managed to get re-elected in 2009—clearly proving that a majority of voters were chill with what he had said. My guess is that the majority of voters are still chill with what he said.

And our worry is more to do with our missing ‘fruits of development’. Like, hello, where is our big fat fruit platter? And why isn’t Prime Minister Narendra Modi explaining why it is missing, instead of making hateful statements about how many children our Muslims are producing—when he surely must know, with all the reports he has to read, that Muslims are producing roughly the same amount of children as everybody else, and that India achieved replacement level fertility rates two whole years ago. I even wrote about it here, and wondered why we weren’t celebrating this achievement more. (Duh, because the ruling party likes to use this hoary, defunct bogey bear to whip up insecurity and division.)

For those who demand specifics, fertility rates have declined drastically across all religious communities over the last two decades to land at 2.1. And the Muslim fertility rate, while still the highest in India, is only 2.36, and getting steadily lower every day. Also, it gets compensated (sadly) by the community’s neonatal mortality rate, which is also the highest in the country.  So either our prime minister is not doing his homework, which is unlikely because he wakes up so early and works so hard, reminding me often of the endearing prime minister Hugh Grant played in Love Actually who lifts the 10 Downing Street phone to say, “I’m very busy and important.” Or he’s knowingly inciting the voters of Rajasthan by implying Muslim hordes, dressed in furs and riding on horseback, will swoop in to snatch mangalsutras from the necks of Hindu mothers and wives if they vote for the Congress—which is just plain silly—because there are 80 per cent Hindus in India and only 14 per cent Muslims, and it is much too hot to wear fur in Rajasthan. And anyway, if they had to do that they would’ve done it during the “60 years of Congress misrule” for heaven’s sake.

Our Election Commission, by coyly declining to comment on this flagrant hate-mongering, has proven it has a severely debilitating case of erectile dysfunction. By speeches such as this, and telling acts like turning the Doordarshan logo saffron, and arresting Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal—the BJP has revealed that it is not as confident as it claims to be. Such insecurity, when the party is resurgent, flush with funds, and has all the state institutions in their firm control, is puzzling.  

Is the BJP, which always has its ear to the ground, actually worried that Ram phal is not considered a ‘fruit of development’ by most Indians? Is it because more people are saying hey, if we’re allowed to go back in time and pull out old speeches, where’s that plump 15 lakh ‘fruit’ Modi assured us was gonna drop into all our bank accounts? Maybe Muslims probably stole that, too. And used it to buy fur-coats and horses.

editor@theweek.in

lok-sabha-polls-are-the-biggest-reality-show-on-earth

Fri Apr 12 11:23:18 IST 2024

You have gotta love the election season. Setting aside contentious issues like electoral bonds, rumours of electronic voting machine rigging, bribery, intimidation and wilful disinformation, the fact is that India’s Lok Sabha elections are still the biggest reality show on earth. Of course, reality shows today are often accused of being a little um, performative and pre-decided, much more ‘show’ than ‘reality’ but that doesn’t stop them from being absorbing viewing.

As usual there’s so much to watch and learn from the BJP’s advertising, marketing and information cell. It’s wrong to call it a cell, or even a sell, because it’s so much larger and savvier than that. Their classiest move this time, to me at least, is the weaponising of the number 370. By setting it as their target for 2024, they achieve two things. One, they flex casually on the fact that for them the erstwhile magical number of 272 is a bayen hath ka khel, the equivalent of competing with one hand tied behind your back. This is something an indulgent adult often does with a child, which in effect allows them to infantilise the opposition, which is clearly the logical next step after they have successfully infantilised the electorate (Bharat Mata is our holy mother, we are her worshipful, dutiful children, and to question her, or her chosen son Modiji, is the worst kind of sin.) And, two, without even uttering a single word on the topic, they remind all of us of the abrogation of Article 370, of the fact that nobody has ‘special status’ in India today, and that the BJP juggernaut sweeps everything that comes before it, be it the Supreme Court, the intentions of our founding fathers or the wishes of the majority residents of a state.

The opposition’s smartest move this time, to me at least, is the acronym, or rather the backronym (when one already has a word in mind and works backwards from there, to come up with an expanded form for it) I.N.D.I.A. This branding is a stoke of pure genius—it makes the alliance seem more cohesive, less raggle-taggle, it’s memorable, and gives the alliance some much needed high ground—they stand for the idea of India, not just opportunistic election victory—the speeches can just write themselves. In fact, the branding clearly rattled the BJP publicity machine, as rumours of India officially changing its name to Bharat swept our news feeds just a little after I.N.D.I.A was announced. But the usual cracks showed up in the ‘alliance’ almost immediately, and the BJP probably (and wisely) concluded that there was no need to panic.

Still, the BJP is no slouch in the acronym game—there’s UPYOGI sarkar (Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath) and the last time I watched a new channel, a BJP spokesperson was busily pitching torturous backronyms like RAM LALLA (Rashtriya suraksha, Mahila, Labharti, Leadership and Ardhvyavastha), GIIITA (Growth, Information, Innovation, Infrastructure, Technology and Atmanirbhar Bharat) and PDA (Performance, Delivery and Aspiration) to an amused anchor.

The AAP used to be good at this—the name of the party is in itself evocative, and lends itself to endless, powerful wordplay, as does the symbol of the broom which would sweep India clean of all corruption. If the AAP publicity apparatus ups its game and plays it smart, they may be able to convert Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest into a sympathy wave that may pay a sweet dividend on the hustings. Who knows, Delhi could become BADLAPUR. (Beloved And Dashing Leader Arvind Powers Party’s Unbelievable Resurgence.)

editor@theweek.in

private-space-get-a-camera-less-phone

Sat Mar 30 11:18:06 IST 2024

So all the young folk and the queer folk in my life are very upset at the break of long-time lesbian lovers Anjali Chakra and Sufi Malik. For those who came in late (like me) Anjali is a Hindu from India, and Sufi is a Muslim from Pakistan. They live and work in the US and shot into the limelight in 2019 when their pictures (dressed in traditional desi attire and laughing under an umbrella in the rain) went viral on the internet. And recently, everybody swooned collectively when Sufi went down on one knee, dressed in a beautifully tailored white pantsuit, and proposed to Anjali at the ‘very tippy top’ of the Empire State Building. And why not? These are gorgeous young women (Sufi is all twinkly-eyes and slight, elfin charm, while Anjali is a large-eyed, long-tressed stunner) who broke barriers of gender, religion and politics, all in one shot. Naturally, they captured our imaginations and our hearts and seemed to be living the happy ending we all crave. So what went wrong with Anjali and Sufi?

Their carefully coordinated posts on social media spoke of infidelity (committed by Sufi, devastating Anjali), but of course it goes much deeper than that. I am guessing their relationship deliquesced under the white hot heat of the very same viral wave they rode on to popularity. And unlike Sania Mirza and Shoaib Malik, another hugely popular Indian-Pakistani couple who broke up recently, their chief accomplishment is their relationship itself. They don’t play tennis, or cricket. One is an artist and the other works in the health care sector; they are pretty much just starting out. It is terribly sad, and these girls probably didn’t know what they were getting into. When your love story starts getting recorded and lapped up daily by consumers it slowly gets leached of all spontaneity, and becomes calculated, rehearsed, agonised over and acted out cynically with one eye on the watching audience. Basically, a love story devoid of all love.

Living your ordinary day-to-day life in the public eye is nightmarishly difficult. Ask Kate Middleton. When you allow (even your own) cameras into your daily life, your marriage proposals, your baby births, and your most trusted spaces, you leave yourself with no place to escape to. Life becomes the Bigg Boss House, and all you can do is to fight to not get vacated. In the BC (before there was a camera in every phone) era these were issues only celebrities faced. But now, each and every one of us is a mini-celebrity, constantly locked in a battle to look as pretty in real life as we look in our display pictures. Everything is a projection, everything is for an audience, nothing is real. We don’t have experiences anymore. We merely record the projection of an experience, showcasing what we think one is supposed to be feeling when one has an experience of that sort.

If you watch films from Karan Johar or Sooraj Barjatya, you’ll see Amitabh Bachchan or Alok Nath playing a powerful business tycoon who loves his joint family. Then, on the news, you’ll see an actual powerful business tycoon, dancing to the songs of those films at his family functions. The tycoon is trying to behave like the actor, who was trying to behave like the tycoon. In a gangster flick, an actor is trying to ape a gangster, who was anyway trying to ape an actor. In an army film, an actor is trying to copy a commando, who was trying to copy an actor.

It is like two mirrors placed in front of one another, reflecting virtual images all the way to infinity. Nothing is authentic. The answer? Protect your private spaces fiercely, and get yourself a camera-less phone.

editor@theweek.in

how-about-celebrating-ram-mandir-by-opening-our-holy-books-and-reading-them

Fri Jan 19 14:57:59 IST 2024

The literary festival season, which is in full swing nowadays, brings to mind an old anecdote. Somewhere in the mid-2010s, I was at the Jaipur Literature Festival, diligently pushing a new book. Coming out of the authors’ lounge and heading for the venue of my panel discussion, all duded up in my writerly finery (delegate lanyard round my neck, litfest jhola on shoulder, dastkar sari pleated just right) I got separated from my minders and had the distinct honour of being gratifyingly mobbed. Not a circle. Not a knot. Not a scrum. I was mobbed by a massive, crushing, writhing mass of people. Squashed, out of breath, and a little afraid (yet secretly thrilled) at my clearly evident fame, I surrendered myself to their tumultuous demands for selfies. And then, mortifyingly, one particular young man leaned in to ask me, even as we both smiled into his phone camera, ‘Uh, what’s your name?’ Basically one person (or, perhaps, two) had recognised me and stopped for a picture, and everybody else, fuelled by Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), had quickly piled on to what they thought was a celebrity sighting. The sad truth is that we are not a nation of readers.

The figures for viewerships of films, TV, OTT, even Instagram and YouTube reels dwarf the figures for readership massively. Of course, I am biased and not fully informed, but it seems to me, that in India, perhaps, because literacy levels are low and books expensive and out of the common man’s reach, the only way a writer gets full-on celebrity status is if their book gets made into a successful film/show. And even then, the writer remains a sort-of small appendage to the movie-monster, which gets promoted to the status of what in publishing is called ‘canon’ and the actual writing fades away into obscurity. (If you think I’m overstating the case, remind yourself of the cringe-inducing time when, during a television quiz show, Anil Kapoor—star of the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire, forgot the name of writer Vikas Swarup, who wrote Q&A, the book on which the film is based.)

Original writing doesn’t get to wear the hallowed status of canon in India, simply because we do not read enough. Either because we are lazy, or busy or historically dependent on learned Brahmins curating and relating the highlights to us; we don’t bother to actually consume a book cover to cover. And that is why when a Muslim character in the film Annapoorani quoted Valmiki’s Ramayan as proof of the fact that Ram, Lakshman and Sita ate meat in the jungles during their exile, the entire nation, which has been relying on Ramanand Sagar, B.R. Chopra, random godmen, politicians and WhatsApp university for its spiritual succour, instead of the actual original epic, had a collective, misinformed meltdown and roared for the film to be banned.

If you haven’t been living under a rock recently, you would know that our prime minister has been urging all of us to light a Shree Ram Jyoti on the day of the new temple’s consecration. So if we want to be good Hindus and lead a life which is in tandem of our faith’s teachings, how about lighting the flame of scriptural knowledge in our minds by ditching the middlemen and the films, going back to the original source material, reading good, reliable translations (the Upanishads and the epics are vast, wondrous, open-minded works that welcome new interpretations and delight in contradictions) and come to an understanding of our faith ourselves? How about celebrating the Ram Mandir and the litfest season by becoming genuine literature lovers instead of selfie-taking poseurs, open our holy books and actually read them?

editor@theweek.in

what-gen-z-wants

Sat Dec 23 11:12:53 IST 2023

So I went looking for fresh insights into the heads of Gen Z through Meta’s Instagram Trend Talk 2024. Of course, I could have saved myself the read and looked into the heads of my own children, but they are not talking to me. I forgot why exactly; my memory is no longer what it used to be. I think it had something to do with how they hadn’t asked to be born, and how I chew my food too loudly. Anyway, I started reading through the trends, and found out that Gen Z’s number one irritant is chewing with one’s mouth open! Wow. Clearly, Gen Z expects us to swallow our food whole, or choke to death trying, or switch entirely to smoothies, like they have, full of vegan or ayurvedic ingredients, and plant-based meats and adaptogens, or whatever.

They are also majorly into #GRWM (get-ready-with-me), which is not really new news, because, hello, my children have been get-readying-with-me my whole entire life—popping in to borrow safety pins, mascara, tweezers or wanting to have their sari tied or their naadaas put back into their pyjamas just as I am frantically trying to get dressed as well.

Following in the footsteps of our revered ruling party, they have also got into name-changing bigtime. Just like Allahabad is now Prayagraj and Rajpath is now Kartavya Path, uttaran is now ‘pre-loved’, and raddi is now ‘thrifting’. Which means that the brats who claimed to be ‘scarred’ because we told them to re-use an older sibling’s school textbooks, or wear a perfectly good sweater a cousin has outgrown, are now applauding each other for doing precisely that. And, Alia Bhatt is their hero just because she re-wore her wedding sari to the Rashtrapati Bhavan—#Sustainability #Queen #Planetsavior!

While some might say that this is setting the bar for queen and saviour really low, I am just happy that they finally seem to be ready to own their middle-class values.

The next thing I found interesting was that in 2024, Gen Z is gonna be all about ‘strengthening my current relationship’. While 63 per cent of them remain single, overall, their stated goal is not playing the field, but working on what they have got. So no more one-night stands—the quest seems to be about lying down together for many nights. Such good news for all our anxious mothers’ hearts.

As far as lifestyles go, 2024 looks like being Gen Z’s growth era—they want to spend it staying healthy, travelling and exploring a career path, preferably one where they get to be self-employed. Huh, is this one of those help-my-mother-has-highjacked-my-socials sort of situation? Because what are all these nice, balanced, detoxicating kind of goals and schemes? Oh, and the things that they value the most in their friends is not that they are popular or connected but the fact that, ‘I can tell them anything’ and they ‘get me better than anybody else’.

The only thing I found disquieting was the fact that nine out of 10 Indian Gen Z kids on Insta said they aligned to a specific fandom—be it music or sports or gaming. Which seems crazy-high frankly, even a little cultish, but may be this is how they meet non-cringe people with a high quality meme-game. (Having a bad taste in memes is the biggest turn-off apparently.)

Overall, they seem like really sorted—and honestly—the world would be a better place if we all chewed softly, and with our mouths closed. In fact, following in the footsteps of our revered ruling party, I toh am ready to rename them Zen Ji. Because really, as a gen, they seem so zen. Respect.

editor@theweek.in

the-brunt-of-animal-passion

Sat Dec 09 15:03:00 IST 2023

Action-drama is a loved genre in India cinema. Over the last seven or eight decades, a steady stream of angry young men and women have fought bloody battles against the demons of corruption, lust, greed and power, to loud whistles, claps and coin-throwing from an enthusiastic audience. The deaths of parents have been avenged, the lost honour of sisters has been avenged, the poor and the downtrodden have risen up to take down their wealthy and powerful oppressors in film after film. Sunil Dutt, Sanjeev Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Sunny Deol, Rekha, Dimple Kapadia, Sridevi, Meenakshi Seshadri… the names just keep rolling off a long and loved list of angry young underdogs. But that has always been the key word. Underdogs. Traditionally, our angry young peeps are all dhool-ka-phools [prospering out of dirt], or as Disney’s Aladdin puts it so charmingly—‘Street rat with a heart of gold’. This is why we, as an audience, connect with them. Because they seem to be one of us—like Manoj Kumar Sharma in the recent, compelling 12th Fail, a young boy rising out of poverty to crack the UPSC, the toughest exam in the country. Hey, even in Shah Rukh Khan’s latest blockbuster outing, Jawan, the protagonist was an orphan baby raised in a women’s prison by a phalanx of female criminals.

But Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s cinema (now three movies old) is busily creating a new genre of hero. Not an underdog, but a topdog, or as he prefers to label them, alphas. These alphas are way too invincible to have humble origins, raped sisters or slain parents. They are rich, accomplished, handsome, successful dudes who have it all. They can be surgeons or scions of industrial houses, but (and this is very important) the world is their oyster. So why are alphas trending? Is it because we live in a world so fractured, uncertain and chaotic that anybody who aggressively projects strength and sureness immediately appears attractive?

Or, is it because women are becoming more and more self-sufficient, both in real life and in films, earning their own money, buying and driving their own cars, bonding, drinking and taking girlie vacations together? And the new alpha archetype is a reaction to this trend?

I think it is a bit of both. To humanise this macho, hyper-masculine alpha, Vanga gives him a wound. So in Arjun Reddy/Kabir Singh, the alpha had girlfriend problems and in Animal, he has daddy issues. And because all is fair in love, our alpha then proceeds to run amok for three hours, destroying everything in his path and ‘justifying’ his violent, entitled, animal-like behaviour because love, na. Please adjust, and forgive the gratuitous violence because alpha pyaar mein hai.

All this is lavishly produced, gorgeously shot and brilliantly acted. And because it is all so raw and emotionally charged, it is highly addictive to watch. All toxic relationships are.

Meanwhile, the rest of the cast—kowtowing betas all—stand by and applaud him slavishly. Like literally. In Arjun Reddy there was a scene, early in the film, where a student aggressively shouts ‘stand up for the champion!’ and an entire class of medical students rises obediently to its feet and applauds. The scene is repeated, almost exactly, in Animal. And this is the most worrying thing of all. Of course the underdog hero is a trope, too. But it is a democratic trope. Literally any one of us can aspire to be an underdog. All you need to do is show courage under pressure. But not everybody can be an alpha. Alphas drop down from the sky, rich, fabulous and fully formed. Through slickly made, expensive films like this, the audience is being incited to not only normalise them, but offer them slavish worship.

editor@theweek.in

less-breeding-in-shaky-times

Fri Nov 10 17:33:21 IST 2023

Nowadays, everybody I meet seems to be bemoaning the fact that Gen Z doesn’t want to procreate. In my yoga group, on the litfest circuit, at cocktail parties, it is the same familiar lament, “Aiyyo, I want to be a grandmother but my useless son/daughter simply wants to adopt a cat/dog/goldfish.” As a mother of three 20-somethings, I can confirm that this indeed seems to be the sitch. Of course, I am generalising wildly and speaking only from personal experience but it really looks like let alone procreate, kids today don’t even seem to want a committed relationship, or a long-term career. They all seem to float and drift and flit, or focus too hard and burn out. The older auntiejis and unclejis are happy to lump the blame of the grand old institution of marriage collapsing squarely on feminism. “Girls want to dress up and go out and earn money and party,” they say, like these are somehow bad things to want. “They don’t want to put in the work anymore.” Point out to them that boys have been getting away without putting in the work since time began and they just shake their heads sadly.

See, there is no denying the fact that marriage is expensive and so are children. We live in shaky times—with retrenching, layoffs, rampant unemployment, yawning wealth inequalities and climate change imploding all around us. We also live in times of conspicuous consumption, with celebrity accounts and social media algorithms urging haut couture fancy phones, gourmet FNB and exotic vacations and ‘curated experiences’ at us constantly. Time was, we paid EMIs for a house, but today’s generation pays EMIs for a phone or a lehenga or whitebait fritters. As my grandmother would say, “Batao!” Add to this, early exposure to pornography and sex, and the fact that sex mostly happens without dating or being in a committed relationship. They are growing up jaded, and emotionally damaged, and with exposure to all kinds of sexual diseases. Which brings us right to the rise of therapy culture and the trillion dollar wellness industry... “Where have we gone wrong as parents,” asks an elegant 50-plus mother at a pre-Diwali party, worried that her childless children are in danger of morphing either into chota-mota Gautam Buddhas (Why is there so much suffering in the world?) or full-on nihilists—believing in nothing, with no meaning or purpose or spiritual direction. “What can we even do about it?” The truth, frankly, is that Gen Z makes a damn good point. And the photographs and reports from Gaza prove it. That the people who suffered a holocaust are now unleashing exactly the same horror on another people while quoting Isaiah to justify their slaughter of innocents, fills me with utter hopelessness about the future of our race. I guess the lesson for every semi-retired 50 pluser hankering to be a grandparent is this—you may think what’s happening in Gaza is nothing to do with you (except that it may upset your investment portfolio a tad), you may think what’s happening in Manipur is nothing to do with you. But the fact is that if you want your young ones to lead sane, non-anxious, healthy, fulfilled lives in the future, you cannot afford to not call out rampant hate, greed, callousness and large-scale murder when you see it unfold in plain sight before your eyes. If you want to dandle grandkids on your knees tomorrow (and not a granddog, or a grandcat) you have to speak up for a saner, fairer world today.

editor@theweek.in

dont-bark-up-the-wrong-tree

Sat Oct 28 12:08:37 IST 2023

The death of Wagh Bakri Tea Group executive director Parag Desai, at the age of 49, is both tragic and untimely. Besides being the group’s sales, marketing, and exports head, and possessing expertise in tea tasting and evaluation, Parag was also the great-grandson of Narandas Desai, an entrepreneur from South Africa and a personal friend of Mahatma Gandhi who set up the brand way back in 1934. Wagh Bakri is an iconic name in teas, and its name, deriving from its logo —a wagh (tiger) and a bakri (goat) drinking out of the same cup—conveys a utopian message of non-violence, peace, equality and tolerance between all living creatures. In his personal life, too, Parag was an animal lover, who generously supported charities like the Jivdaya Charitable Trust and even gifted two mobile treatment vans to the NGO that runs an animal hospital in Ahmedabad. Therefore, it is ironic that the news of his demise hit resident welfare association WhatsApp groups across the country with the misleading, clickbait headline ‘Parag Desai dies of stray dog attack’. Followed at once with the usual chorus of hate-filled messages from aunties and uncles declaring that Parag had been the victim of savage bites from rabid dogs and that all street dogs be put to death at once. If they had bothered to read the article below the clickbait headline, they would have learned that Parag was taking a walk when he was attacked by stray dogs, and in a bid to avoid them, started to run and suffered a fall, which caused a head injury that triggered a brain haemorrhage, which subsequently led to his death.

Animal welfare groups immediately came forward to point out that the news of the ‘attack’ was itself conjecture. They state that Parag was familiar with the ways of street dogs and would never have been alarmed or panicked by them. They feel it is far more plausible that the street dogs would have run towards Parag and jumped up to greet him, as they do with all animal lovers whom they know well. This, possibly, could have triggered the fall. After Parag fell, and sustained a head injury, the dogs would have barked vehemently to raise an alarm and draw attention to the fact that their human friend was on the ground and hurt. (Of course, this is conjecture, too, as there seems to have been no eye-witnesses.) Either way, the headline ‘Parag Desai dies of stray dog attack’ is sensationalistic, erroneous and motivated to stir hatred against animals. It is a well-recorded fact that if civic authorities do the work of animal birth control (neuterings and sterilisation) and vaccination (anti-rabies and distemper) efficiently, then small bands of street dogs, who are territorial about the area where they are fed, are a cheap and highly effective way to provide both security and pest control (they eat rats, small snakes and bandicoots) to any township.

The problem lies in the fact that many civic authorities are not doing this work properly. When a tragedy like this happens, it is the duty of all responsible citizens to demand, not the head of all the stray dogs in the locality on a plate, but more effective action from their civic authorities. Are the stray dogs in your locality routinely being rounded up for their annual vaccinations? Are their ears docked (which signals that they have been neutered and cannot breed)? Are they socialised, healthy and friendly? That is the correct path towards living in a Wagh Bakri world, a utopia where all living creatures co-exist happily together.

editor@theweek.in

why-mia-khalifa-is-qualified-to-have-an-opinion-on-middle-east

Sat Oct 14 17:05:12 IST 2023

We live in an opinionated world. Maybe it’s because of WhatsApp university, or the dating apps, or the general obsession with seeking validation and dopamine through likes or going viral and monetising your following through advertising moolah. But literally everybody seems to be under huge pressure to be clever—to have a ‘take’ and a ‘point of view’ and an ‘IMHO’ (in my humble opinion) on everything, from the wives and girlfriends of Indian cricketers, to the latest show on OTT platforms, to Hamas’s attacks on Israel.

In the old days, we had experts—people who’d done the homework, or got the degree, and therefore had the creds to share their measured opinion via newspaper or television. But today, it’s talking time at the zoo and anybody with an X account can address the world free-of-cost and declare their unsolicited verdict on anything under the sun. ‘Margot Robbie is Mid. #Barbie’; ‘Loved the airport. Hated the city #Bangalore’; ‘#Palestinians don’t play victim card’. (Um, Margot doesn’t give a rat’s posterior about your opinion, she’s laughing all the way to the bank. Bangalore parwagillah [does not care] about either your love or your hate, and Palestinians are way too occupied (terrible pun, apologies) to take instructions from you before playing their cards.)

Tailored to cater to the algorithm, which favours the shocking and the hateful over the nuanced and the reasoned, these opinion threads quickly spiral into misogyny, extremism, casteism and Islamophobia. You need a gut of iron to wade into this filth and grapple with it. One young lady who seems to have no qualms doing this is former porn star Mia Khalifa, who shot to global infamy in 2014 owing to a video of her engaging in a threesome while wearing a hijab. The geeky eyeglasses-sporting Mia, who clearly hasn’t got the memo that porn stars should have neither intellect nor opinions, is totally qualified to have an opinion on the Middle East. Born and raised in Lebanon, she follows the issues of that part of the world closely. Her post on X read, “If you can look at the situation in Palestine and not be on the side of Palestinians, then you are on the wrong side of apartheid, and history will show that in time.” Fair enough, right? I mean, even when kids fight, and parents have to yank them apart, the question they always ask before apportioning blame is, ‘Who started it?’ Not the Palestinians, for sure.

Back in the day, this used to be something Indians and Palestinians bonded over. How we were both victims of the English drawing random lines across the land and inventing new countries. Back in the day, we shared solidarity, because Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Aksai Chin had been snatched away from us, just like their entire country had been snatched away from them. And, we were both hoping the United Nations would do something about it.

Anyway, Mia got a tonne of hate for airing her honest opinion. Almost immediately, X was full of images of her mouth crammed with pork sausages, with haters hissing that that was all her mouth was good for. Playboy and a Canadian broadcaster immediately cancelled their contracts with her, in posts that described her stance as ‘horrendous, disgusting, truly gross, sick and reprehensible’. To me, it seems like an attempt to throw deliberately shaming adjectives at her, to underline her ex-profession, to create a chill factor, and somehow get all reasonable people to leave the opinion-making to willfully unreasonable haters.

And the strategy of hate is simple. Not just in Palestine but in India as well. Cage the bear, beat it half to death, then poke it. Poke it and poke it and poke it till it lets out a weak snarl. Then righteously crush it to death for snarling.

editor@theweek.in

the-reason-hobs-case-against-poi-made-the-headlines

Wed Oct 04 11:37:00 IST 2023

I don’t follow any ‘Humans of’ pages on Instagram. To me, they seem to be a mix of Reader’s Digest’s Drama in Real Life series and the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and I find them too on-the-nose or treacly sweet. Besides, I keep getting the feeling that Bollywood story scouts are reading them breathlessly over my shoulder, trying to find plots for the next luridly uplifting ‘based on a true story’ blockbuster.

I do, however, enjoy photo-stories shared by Mayank Austen Soofi on his wholly desi and beautifully detailed @thedelhiwalla feed, the stories that sometimes come up on the @pari.network (P. Sainath’s People’s Archive of Rural India), as well as the tales of couples who broke the ‘love laws’ (of faith, caste, gender, abilities, nationality, etc) that feature on Priya Ramani’s India Love Project. My husband and I have even featured on India Love Project—Priya reached out to us herself, no money changed hands and the whole interaction was entirely pleasant and enriching. However, everybody has different tastes.

Humans of Bombay, who sued People of India for intellectual property (IP) theft last week, has 2.7 million followers on Instagram. (PoI has about 1.5 million, and Humans of New York, the OG, who started it all back in 2010, has 12.8 million.) The reason HoB’s legal case against PoI made the headlines is because it was a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black, as HoB itself is totally inspired by HoNY, except that HoNY has never called this out or sued in the nine years HoB (and many other ‘Humans of’ chapters all over the world) have been in existence. But when HoB sued PoI of theft, HoNY founder Brandon Stanton suddenly woke up and virtue-signalled his own large-heartedness by issuing a statement that HoB founder Karishma Mehta “can’t be sueing people for what I have forgiven you for” (Aargh, don’t you dislike super-woke, philanthropic Americans? Especially when they end up getting so much good publicity by shaming us desis!) Stanton also clarified that he has not made a penny from the HoNY page, unlike HoB, whose rate card (with fees running into tens of lakhs) stated circulating on X minutes after the statement went public. Ouch.

It also doesn’t help that HoB featured five posts on Narendra Modi in the lead up to the 2019 elections. The fact of the matter is that the honest, old school advertisement that declares itself to be an advertisement and nothing more can today be fast forwarded, filtered or avoided. So, advertising has no other option but to adulterate our content. Almost everything we consume today comes with an agenda attached. There are even awards being given away for the ‘most well-integrated’ content at advertising award shows! It is up to us consumers to figure out where honesty ends and hustling begins. Caveat emptor and all that.

So really, Karishma Mehta is perfectly within her rights to sell her page. All she was doing was exhibiting some good old desi pragmatism. The plagiarism charge is a trickier one. While Mehta seems to be guarding her IP far more vigilantly than HoNY has ever bothered to do, and even the judge who heard the case seemed to think that what PoI had pulled on HoB was unfair, (they copied entire posts, word for word), her peers seem bent on cancelling her. See, on social media, followers, likes and validation are the real currency. And ‘philanthropic’ Stanton has cashed in neatly on that.

editor@theweek.in

modiji-should-find-time-for-brickbats-too

Sat Sep 02 11:07:31 IST 2023

There’s been some talk about how unseemly it is for the prime minister and the ruling party to hog the headlines around the moon-landing. It has been whispered that the ISRO scientists (both ladies and gents) have been pushed to the sidelines, with the optics seeming to suggest that Modiji only landed the Chandrayaan-3 on the dark side of the moon in a spiffy orange spacesuit. What about the fact that the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) was set up in 1962 by Jawaharlal Nehru on the suggestion of Vikram Sarabhai, demand these whisperers. What about the fact that Nehruji set up the IITs as well, which, everybody agrees, are today the cradle of so much global engineering ingenuity? What about the story of how the villagers of Thumba gave up their church, located at the most ideal spot for a space research station, because it was almost exactly on the wavy magnetic equator (different from the geographical equator), where the earth’s magnetic field was weakest? Also, why is Nehru always remembered when there is blame to be parcelled out, be it on foreign or economic policy, but never when there’s credit to be given? Shouldn’t we acknowledge all these contributions at all? Bhai, I toh think that dredging up hoary old origin stories and trying to give them a share of the credit is simply a mixture of sour grapes and poor taste.

The fact of the matter is that Chandrayaan-3 soft-landed on the lunar surface during Modiji’s term as PM. Yes, he is not in any way directly responsible. But he is the current chosen representative of the party elected by the people. Nothing can happen without his blessing, go-ahead and support, so naturally some of the responsibility was his, and he should have no qualms or hesitancy in accepting the credit with his usual gracious alacrity. But, then, by the same token, should some responsibility also not accrue to Modiji for the other major incident that grabbed headlines this week? Where an eight-year-old student was thrashed by his fellow classmates, at the command of their own teacher simply because he was a Muslim? Yes, Modiji is not in anyway directly responsible, but he is the current chosen representative of the party elected by the people. Nothing can happen without his blessing, go-ahead and support, so naturally some of the responsibility is his! So where is the statement from the PM and his chief minister condemning the nightmarish incident? Where are the optics of Modiji sternly reprimanding this monstrous Tripti Tyagi person for spewing the seeds of religious hate among innocent children? Where is the video of the eight-year-old Muslim boy sitting smilingly in Modiji’s lap while Modiji pats his head paternally and tells him that India has just landed on the moon and that the little boy’s future is therefore limitless?

The government of India should realise that it can’t have it both ways. Indians are large-hearted creatures. Nobody grudges you a share of the happiness, the success, and the credit when the nation wins an Olympic medal, a Nobel prize or lands a rocket on the moon. But, equally, in times of shame, we expect you to show up and shoulder some of the blame.

editor@theweek.in

talk-to-children-about-pornography-and-masturbation

Sat Aug 19 11:04:31 IST 2023

In the last decade or so, we have seen a strange new genre of Hindi film emerge. Kicked off by 2012’s Vicky Donor, a film about the stigma around sperm donation set in a middle-class milieu, it quickly expanded to comment on fat-shaming, erectile dysfunction, late-age pregnancy, gay love, menstruation, open-air defecation, lesbian love, trans-love, surrogacy, male pattern baldness, more fat-shaming, more homosexuality, sex education, asexuality and masturbation. I call these movies ‘bodily function films’, because this is what they seem to focus on. The bodily function/malfunction itself is the source of all the ‘jokes’ and all the ‘conflict’. Throughout the film, the protagonist’s family is shamed, lectured at, educated, and, finally, converted. We do not know if the audience is similarly converted, but a good laugh is had by all, and people go home more-or-less entertained. I wonder about the brainstorming sessions that go into the creation of these ideas (‘Okay, so semen has been done, menstrual blood has been done, ‘susu-potty’ has been done. Is there any bodily secretion we have not yet made a film on yet? Snot! What about snot? Can we make a social issue film about snot?’) Along with the hagiographical/hatchet job biopic and the Hindu-pride historical, these bodily function films form the three pillars of cinema-as-it-is-allowed-to-flourish-today. They claim to advocate social reform, they also claim to be ‘bold’ and ‘risky’.

In today’s highly intolerent and polarised India, with everybody anxious not to rock the boat, and majoritarian groups just waiting to be outraged, what could be safer than to dive deep into the chaddis of a Sharmaji/Mishraji/Joshiji ka ladka and make a film about the stirrings therein and how they impact the whole family? As long as these stirrings do not include a hankering for a partner from another faith/caste/problematic worldview, the status quo will remain more-or-less unshaken.

Look at this week’s OMG 2, for instance. The original OMG (2012) was a take-down of organised religion narrated through events in the life of a full-on athiest. It concluded that God (if He exists) is the ultimate creator and has no desire to live in an edifice built by inept human hands, but prefers to live in our hearts. Obviously, with Ram Mandir on the way, Kashi and Mathura slated to happen next, and donations being solicited all around, this is a conclusion OMG 2 cannot afford to come to. So, instead, it performs a pragmatic segue and zooms into an ‘issue’ nobody can really argue with: The fact that all teenagers masturbate and that teenage masturbation is normal. And so quacks are roundly condemned in the film, schools are urged to include sex education into their syllabus and all ends well. (Perhaps, these sex education classes can be accommodated easily into the school syllabus now that the entire Mughal empire has been done away with?)

By the way, OMG 2 does not question the existence of God at all, a theme that was at the core of the original OMG. The protagonist is a believer from the word go, with Shiva as his chosen God. A nice popular carry-everybody-along choice.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t talk to children frankly about masturbation. We should. We should also talk to them about a much more troubling topic—pornography—which goes hand-in-hand with masturbation, but remains an elephant in the room the film barely acknowledges. Perhaps, because it is too rampant, too dark, and too financially important, and doesn’t really fit into the cosy middle-class bodily function genre. Far easier to take a few bashes at the sellers of lizard oil, I guess.

editor@theweek.in

picking-the-correct-god

Fri Aug 04 15:18:53 IST 2023

In the last column, I shared my growing unease about the Kanwar Yatra, and how it seems to be spiralling dangerously out of control in Haryana. Now, violence has exploded in Nuh and other districts in the state, triggered by alleged stone-pelting during a yatra (when water from the Ganga is offered in one’s local Shiva temple) conducted by the Vishva Hindu Parishad.

Nuh (earlier called Mewat) is a name that has been cropping up regularly in right-winger rants for over a decade now. Declared the country’s most backward district by the NITI Aayog in 2018, it has a majority Muslim population (almost 80 per cent) and is regularly referred to in the provocative rants as a mini-Pakistan and a den of cow slaughter, over-breeding and love jihad.

It is being reported that the violence exploded because the VHP’s devout, peaceful yatris were subjected to stone-pelting by the ‘mini-Pakistanis’, but there is also talk of hateful slogans being chanted by the procession, and videos are emerging that show men in saffron shirts carrying naked swords and guns through the streets. Such weaponry isn’t really required equipment for the peaceful pooja these gents were there to conduct; so their motives seem pretty suss. On top of that, a dashingly named cow-vigilante had released a video prior to the event, flexing that he was to be part of the procession.

All in all, the denizens of Nuh have been teased and baited relentlessly, rather like zoo animals are baited, in the hope that they would snap, show teeth or get aggressive, so that their tormenters could then unleash a disproportionate wave of mega-violence against them.

Minorities cannot afford to react to such baiting—whether they are billionaire superstars like Shah Rukh Khan or humble denizens of this little district in Haryana. It could threaten their very survival. So it is the duty of all sensible folk from the religious majority to speak up for them.

But India seems to have run out of sensible folk from the religious majority. The deafening silence seems to indicate that everybody is genuinely buying the narrative that wealth-stealing, women-stealing minorities are the biggest problem the country faces today.

Meanwhile, ugliness, hatred and fomented religious violence continue to boil in Manipur, which has done the impossible and pushed Kashmir’s sufferings to the back of the public’s mind.

And on a Jaipur-Mumbai train, a Railway Protection Force constable from the religious majority had an argument with his superior officer (also from the religious majority), shot him to death with his gun, and then moved on to another bogey to randomly shoot down three strangers, who were easily identifiable by their clothing itself. He made a garbled little speech after shooting them, referencing Pakistan and the media and how if you want to live in India you must vote only for Modi, Yogi and Thackeray.

Details are still forthcoming, but it is clear enough that the man has been consuming too much content from the social media hate factories. It is even being speculated that after killing his superior in a fit of rage, he cynically tried to give the situation a religious slant and went out in search of victims from a particular community.

Some are saying he has mental health issues.

No matter what the real story turns out to be, the fact remains that if religions were to be reversed, the reporting (and public opinion) around the incident would have been very different.

It seems that in today’s India, one can get away with anything in the name of God, given we chose the ‘correct’ god.

editor@theweek.in

kanwar-yatra-is-spiralling-dangerously-out-of-control

Fri Jul 21 16:10:55 IST 2023

It was in the early 1990s that I first noticed the kanwariyas. One man, or two, walking single file along the edge of the Jaipur highway in Gurugram, with a simple rod across their shoulders, from which dangled two simple earthenware pots or water bottles, of the kind children carry to junior school.

They were dressed in ordinary clothes, and often barefoot, or with bandages wrapped tightly around their feet.

Chatting with a couple of them, I learnt they were on a sort of pilgrimage-marathon, and were returning from Haridwar with Ganga-jal in their pots, to offer at their local Shiva shrine. I thought it was an interesting new trend, a blend of sight-seeing, healthy aerobic activity, brotherly camaraderie and a wholesome spiritual quest.

The Jaipur highway passes right outside my township, and over the years, I saw the number of kanwariyas swell. Soon, a camp was set up outside our bit of highway, in a clearing under the shade of the Kikar trees—a jolly little camp, with a stand outside to park your rod-and-water pots, a row of charpais, a makeshift kitchen and devotional music playing from not-very-loud speakers.

Very sanskari. Nothing unmanagebale or worrying about it.

But in the new millennium, with the gradual swelling of both hindutva and unemployment, came, to use a term borrowed fittingly enough from Kaun Banega Crorepati, the bada padhav. This year, over four crore Shiva devotees visited Haridwar in Uttarakhand for the annual Kanwar Yatra. The authorities cleaned up about 30,000 tonne of garbage from the Ganga ghats, markets, parking lots and the roads that cover a distance of 42km called the Kanwar stretch from Har-ki-Pauri.

Reports of blocked highways, traffic snarls, petty violence and accidental death crop up along the route every year. Last year, two factions of kanwariyas clashed, which resulted in one death and fifteen injured. This year, there have been 17 deaths—13 in road accidents and four by drowning. One young pilgrim was electrocuted when a music system on the vehicle they were in came in contact with a high-tension electricity wire in Loni, Ghaziabad. Eight of his companions sustained serious injuries.

So many young men (the number of women making the Kanwar Yatra is minuscule) setting out unsupervised from their villages every year (some for the first time in their young lives) is a recipe for disaster. They are in high spirits, in the mood for adventure, they feel invincible in their saffron tee shirts, with the hand of Shiva hovering over them in protection, and they have absolutely no clue how fast the traffic moves on the highways, and how treacherous the current of the river can get in the monsoon.

On top of that, they’re all eager to go viral. So they’re doing the yatra on skates. On bikes. In impractical costumes. They’re trying to set speed records. They’re taking selfies and shooting themselves doing stunts on their bikes in impractical costumes while setting new speed records. Nobody’s eye is on either the safety element or the hygiene element.

And every night, there are the DJs. A DJ is not a disc jockey or even a person, it is a massive vehicle, usually a tractor plus trollies, stacked high with hundreds of kilos of sound and light equipment and trailed by three or four diesel generator vans. These DJs conduct all night rave parties where hundreds of thousands of young men dance to trance music in the open. Often, two famous DJs from different districts of states will conduct a ‘war of the DJs’. The pollution and commotion is extreme.

I have tremendous love for Bholenath. And I’m all for spiritual quests. But the Kanwar Yatra is spiralling dangerously out of control. We must figure out how to calm it down.

editor@theweek.in

when-om-raut-tried-to-please-everyone-with-adipurush

Sat Jun 24 11:23:44 IST 2023

Trapped in our homes on the outskirts of Bengaluru in the autumn of 2020, and desperate for a little festive cheer, my township decided to build a 30-foot Ravana from scratch and put up a production of the Ramleela. Rachna ji’s cook was a decent carpenter and his young daughter could blow on a conch-shell impressively. Brij ji’s driver’s baby girl had naughty eyes and monkey-like antics. Kamal ji’s ten-year-old grandson could pull off a booming, evil Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Armed with a bunch of yellow saris that could be swathed as either saris or dhotis, a playlist of traditional aartis and Bollywood bhajans, and a massive pile of donated cardboard cartons, bamboo poles and bright kite paper in every colour, we kickstarted our production.

I was the treasurer of this project. So, it is with full authority that I can report that the whole jamboree cost our resident welfare association less than Rs10,000. And, yet, as old Dr Sareen rued to me yesterday, “The sense of piety and wonder that it invoked in me, beta, was far greater than I got from watching Adipurush yesterday.”

Of course, he was comparing apples with oranges, but the point he was making—and I have to agree with him—is that in mostly all creative fields, not just the production of mythological epics, a big budget is the enemy of creativity. Because in order to have an out-of-the-box idea, it is very important to be in a box in the first place! The box can be limited monies, talent, time, equipment, stale ideas, state censorship or all the above. Working together feverishly to bust out of a restrictive box is a challenge that can unite and energise a creative team, and lead the way to all kinds of fresh breakthroughs.

Indie cinema and music are anyway amazing, but we are also seeing this kind of sharp, innovative brilliance in the work of content creators on social media every day. Teenagers and twenty somethings are writing, shooting, editing and sharing reels on Instagram on a shoestring budget and having them go viral in minutes. (By the way, put these same kids into a big studio set-up, hand them a big budget, cripple them with your great expectations, and watch them go from epic to paralysed in minutes.)

If a team is privileged enough to be not boxed in, then the only other hope is a grounded, passionate and empowered creative leader. This person (let us call him/her the director) and their creative vision could possibly lead the team to deliver an incredible product, even on a mammoth budget. But this can only happen if they’re allowed to lead properly, without a finance team breathing agonsiedly down their neck, weighing them down by telling them to pander to whatever trend happens to be trending, and to play safe and steer clear of anything that anybody could possibly take offence to, because there is crores and crores of rupees at stake. Because a creative vision is necessarily singular, there’s nothing called a collective creative vision, that way leads only to a graveyard full of diamond-encrusted, strangled-to-death-by-committee turds.

Steven Spielberg, who made amazing home films on a tiny budget and continues to make them on mammoth budgets today, does so because he is one such leader.

Lesser men (and women) go the way of poor Om Raut—a director who tried to please everyone, and ended up pleasing no one.

We live in times when a director, or even an actor, is no longer the reason why people go to see films in the hall. People go because, “It cost Rs500 crore, let’s go and see what they made with Rs500 crore!” Nine times out of 10, only a ghastly hotchpotch can be made in Rs500 crore.

Avoid ya, Sanju.

editor@theweek.in

strength-is-nothing-if-not-tempered-with-both-sense-and-sensitivity

Sat Jun 10 11:03:08 IST 2023

An Instagram post I read recently made the totally on-point observation that in Mera Bharat Mahaan if a man molests a woman in a public space, everybody quickly averts their gaze and doesn’t want to get involved, but if a couple is kissing consensually on the road, the whole world will pause to pass comments, moral-policing aunties will click photos, busybodies will tag the couple’s parents on Facebook, and cops will drop down from helicopters to arrest them for indecency.

This happens because lovers are usually decent, peace-loving folk, while molesters are obnoxious, quarrelsome, sometimes powerful, and almost always violent.

And this is why most people of India, including our reigning cricketing legends and our prime minister, are busy acting as if our female wrestlers, who have dedicated their young lives to bringing glory to India, have not been agitating since January against the Wrestling Federation of India president whom they allege is a serial molestor—feeling up their firm young breasts and bellies with impunity, making all sorts of coarse insinuations, and threatening them with loss of favour if they don’t fall in line.

This (alleged) molester is definitely quarrelsome, powerful and violent. A self-styled ‘Shaktishali’ and ‘Bahubali’ type badboy, he rejoices in the dubious glamour of being a principal accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case, and has had 38 cases against him, including murder. He has been caught on video slapping a wrestler, and confessing to at least one murder. Naturally this makes him hopelessly sexy to the UP electorate and he has been an MLA six times over.

See, the indomitable BJP brand has become the indomitable BJP brand by never backing down. Unlike the Congress, they are unapologetically out and proud (sharing a stage with one of the 11 gang-rapists of Bilkis Bano, and backing Ajay Mishra Teni all the way when his son had his spot of trouble back in 2021). This unapologetic attitude makes them muscular, popular and spectacular.

They also have absolutely no issues disdaining Indians who have been feted globally; they have done it to Nobel prize winners and God knows how many others. They can happily extend the same courtesy to Olympic and world championship medallists, too.

Looked at from the common man’s point-of-view, this attitude is actually admirable—almost patriotic! Like don’t tell us who or what to revere, we can figure that out ourselves, thank you very much. It is part of the reason why voters flock to the BJP—they seem so non-thirsty for global validation, it is kinda cool.

The issue, this time, though, is that the wrestlers are kinda cool, too. These are no abla naaris, or ‘helpless females’. They are disciplined, world-class athletes, trained to aim for faster, higher, stronger—and most importantly, together. They are the ones we point out to our daughters, saying, ‘Look baby girl, here are your role models for strength, gumption and discipline’.

Basically, they are not about to back down.

Brijbhushan Sharan Singh has gone on record saying, about the wrestlers, “These are all strong men and women. To control them, you need someone stronger. Is there anyone stronger here than me?” But strength is nothing if not tempered with both sense and sensitivity. The BJP would be well advised, in this particular instance, to listen to the wrestlers and investigate this issue thoroughly. The situation, if well handled, could bear rich dividends, both in medals (already, in Singh’s absence, more and more girls are showing up to the under 15 and under 20 trials) and at the hustings both at the Centre and in the states.

editor@theweek.in

was-the-makeover-of-the-bronze-dancing-girl-of-mohenjadaro-needed

Fri May 26 17:19:47 IST 2023

Fair & Lovely is now sensitive enough to be Glow & Lovely, but the bronze dancing girl of Mohenjodaro; she of the bejewelled, brazenly nude body, the thick hair and the famously insouciant hand-on-hip stance—an image any school-going Indian child can recognise in a heartbeat—has just been rendered pinky-fairer, vulgarly curvier and distinctly unlovelier by the custodians of Indian sanskaar.

Robbed of her glorious lanky nudity, she now stands trapped inside a Barbie-doll-like rectangular packaged box, dressed in a ghastly faux-tribal tank top and muffin-top creating midiskirt—an outfit picked out for her personally by men whose mindset seems to be more prehistoric than that of the Indus Valley Civilisation itself.

In 1973, British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler had described her thus: “She is about 15 years old I think, not more, but she stands there with bangles all the way up her arm and nothing else on. A girl perfectly, for the moment, perfectly confident of herself and the world. There’s nothing like her, I think, in the world.”

The makeover by the ministry of culture’s International Museum Expo, currently being held at Pragati Maidan, has deprived the dancing girl of this uniqueness for sure. Though she has shot up from a diminutive 11cm to a life-sized figure, nobody would give her more than a passing glance now. She looks like a sad, ubiquitous mud-plaster dummy, the kind whose fate it is to get covered in paan-spit, dust and cigarette butts in the dim corners of government installations.

I am not very sure why the ministry of culture felt they had to improve upon a statuette that was perfected over 4,000 years ago. Perhaps, the (now-familiar) need to fiddle with something that isn’t broken, the insecure urge to “mark your territory”, which seems to characterise this regime, surfaced here too? After all, when you are done fiddling with the Planning Commission, the national currency, the history syllabus, the old Parliament house, the names of cities and roads and stadiums, then what do you even do?

Perhaps, they felt her frank nakedness would drive all our young people mad with lust? Because our young people are not constantly being stalked by pornography on the internet, na!

Perhaps, they felt the dancing girl’s nudity does not show Indian culture in a ‘good’ light. But then why pick her for the mascot in the first place?

I would like to think that they genuinely wanted to do something good and create an impactful mascot for the International Museum Expo. But then, wasn’t there anybody cultured enough within the ministry of culture to realise that there was no need for pink paint and midiskirts—that a life-sized, exact, 3D replica of the dancing girl in all her bronzed, nude glory would’ve been a hundred times more impactful as a display than this hideous prim travesty?

I would love to visit the expo and walk around a display like that. It would be new-agey, Instagram-friendly, Madame Tussauds-esque and goose-bumpingly patriotic. I’m sure history teachers would love to bring their students to see history brought alive in that manner, too. Perhaps, it can still be done? (It would be much more expensive to execute than Miss Midiskirt, I’m guessing. But then again, we’ve found the funds to build statues of Kempe Gowda and Shivaji and Sardar Patel, so why not dig out some 2k bills to fund a modest-sized statue of the immodest dancing girl of Mohenjodaro, too?)

Because midiskirt girl is not gonna cut it.

Oh, she is a successful mascot all right—just not of the International Museum Expo. What she is, is a poster girl of the witless desecration of the rich cultural heritage of India.

editor@theweek.in

are-we-doing-enough-for-the-soldiers-who-protect-us

Fri May 12 11:41:08 IST 2023

Dear Anuja, the first ever Sikkim Arts and Literature Festival is being held in the historical town of Yuksom, a UNESCO world heritage site, from May 6 to 8.

Being a fauji child, who had spent four magical summers in the misty emerald mountains above the Teesta, I leapt upon the invite like a cheel (black kite) upon a chicken nugget.

Memories are tricky things—which is why it is wise to be wary of visiting the favoured haunts and golden places of our childhood. But this was Sikkim, bro! There’s no way I could not go.

Plus, I could visit a school friend who was commanding a unit in the area. It made sense to soak in the joys of living in a cantonment before all 62 of them are disbanded by GOI diktat, for being an ‘archaic colonial practice’, (just like a sari blouse and petticoat, but I don’t see anybody urging us to abolish those any time soon).

Seriously though, I cannot grasp the logic of this move! Cantonments are always the cleanest, greenest, safest area in a city, hands down. Haven’t all of us met at least one glib property agent who waxes eloquent about a particular property thus: ‘Madam, look, directly opposite is fauji area! It is protected! It is always clean and green, ma’am! It is a fail-safe investment, madam!’

Um… not anymore, I guess.

The point of the cantonment is basically that when soldiers dedicate their life in the service of the nation, and do not even know if they will come back home alive, it helps them sleep easy and function at full alertness knowing that their loved ones are safe and well-looked after.

The disbanding move is supposed to free the Army of the expense and headache of governing civic boards, and the money thus saved is supposedly being fed back into the defence budget specifically for military personnel, but there’s no transparency on that as yet.

When we were young, soldiers used to be called the ‘sons-in-law of Mother India’. Pardon the inherent patriarchy in the expression, but it simply meant that they got first dibs, that nothing was good enough for them.

Today, fauji canteens don’t even stock foreign made foreign liquor. Add to that the Agnipath scheme, with all its conditions and caveats. Add to that the worrying revelations made by Satya Pal Malik wherein the CRPF asked for aircraft to move a thousand plus troops, and were denied this request by the home ministry, which led to a massive convoy travelling by road, which arguably led to the Pulwama attack.

Add to that any number of ordnance and equipment issues, and it seems like we aren’t doing too much to protect the people who protect us... Anyway, I’m happy to report that my reunion with both Sikkim, and cantonments was a joyous one.

Sure, the rampant mountain lions who guard the two ends of the massive Teesta bridge were smaller than I remembered.

The river itself seemed browner and more sedate. The trees were dustier. The less said about the roads the better.

But high up in the mountains the hydrangeas were profuse and incredibly blue. The children were apple-cheeked and healthy. The music incredible. The resident audience intelligent. And the visiting writers adequate!

And most importantly, when I looked out of my windows at 5am in the morning, the pink, orange and gold peaks of Kanchenjunga were not smaller than I remembered. They were just as huge, and just as eternal. A reminder, perhaps, that diktats may come and diktats may go, but what is elemental endures forever.

editor@theweek.in

indias-population-growth-is-down-but-why-arent-we-celebrating

Fri Apr 28 14:53:13 IST 2023

As a Generation X desi, who spent her childhood being bombarded by the family planning initiatives of the government of India (Hum Do, Hamare Do, Mala-D, Nirodh, Ek-ya-do-hi-bachhe-ho-sakte-hain-acche, small family, happy family, etc) I was pleasantly surprised to learn that last year, India, very casually, achieved replacement reproduction rate. We have bought down the national rate of reproduction to 1.6 in urban areas and 2.1 in rural areas—and, thus, have done what seemed like an impossible pipe dream in the 1970s and 1980s—we have officially become Hum Do, Hamare Do! So, why aren’t we celebrating this feat? I mean, c’mon, how many targets do we actually achieve as a nation? Surely, this is as big as being open-defecation-free or being polio free. So, where’s the party?

Why isn’t a GoI commissioned rah-rah film running on all popular TV channels already? Maybe it is because our politicians, cutting across party lines, find it convenient to blame all sorts of policy failures on our unbridled population growth—like shame on you, amorous aam aadmi and aurat, we are breaking our backs trying to make India a modern marvel, but it is all going tits-up because you can’t keep it in your pants. Even right now, there is a lot of talk about the United Nation’s projection that by the end of this month, India, at a population of around 142 crore, will overtake China to become the most populous country in the world.

The way the news is being presented, it is like we are still being shamed for not keeping it in our pants, even though we totally are. Our population is continuing to increase, inspite of reaching replacement level fertility, only because of demographic momentum. We’re a massive steam engine travelling at breakneck speed. Even after the brakes are applied, it will take it quite a bit of time to stop. The brakes (education for women, employment for women, free contraception) have been applied, and the massive engine is grinding to a slow halt. There is no need for alarm. (All the alarm was created by a gent called Paul Ehrlich and his panicky 1969 book Population Bomb, which has since been proved to have gotten quite a few things wrong.)

Encouragingly, population growth is down right across India, in all communities and faiths. It hasn’t reached replacement rates only in rural Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram. Similarly, if we look at the data on the basis of religion, all groups have achieved replacement rates, except Muslims, who are almost there, and showing a rate that is remarkably lower than the one they had previously.

But, WhatsApp university and some leaders continue to whip the bogey of population explosion. They insist that Muslims are multiplying at an explosive rate and it is the duty of all good Hindus to keep this growth in check. The measures they are suggesting to get this done are neither practical, nor implementable, nor nice.When, actually, what needs to be done in these lagging areas is really simple. Educate women, employ women, give them access to contraceptive services.

And now that our policy makers and leaders can no longer glibly blame population explosion for swallowing up all our economic successes, let them please tackle the real issue. How to milk the demographic advantage of having the maximum number of young people in the world into a massive win for India?

editor@theweek.in

spend-your-life-seeking-god-but-dont-surrender-your-decency

Fri Apr 14 13:04:37 IST 2023

We are all quite fond of the Dalai Lama. He looks Kung Fu Panda level cute, exotic, and vaguely intellectual, all at once, and he gives damn good bang for the buck. Matlab, a photo op with him when holidaying in Himachal adds a dash of international glamour to one’s Instagram feed, when one is photo-dumping pics of what could otherwise be dismissed as just a cheap desi holiday. He’s even got a bit of pull on the online-dating sites, where a profile pic with him (while not as sticky as a pic with puppies or babies) might get one a few more matches, comments or second glances. Not any more, huh.

The video of the man asking a young boy to suck on his tongue is downright shocking. At the surface level, the optics are disturbing—a wrinkled old man with slack skin and wet pursed lips, pulls a small child toward him as two masked attendants and huge crowd of devotees watch on impassively—and at a deeper level, it makes us wonder that if this is what the Dalai Lama gets up to in public, with a massive crowd watching and cameras rolling, then what does he get up to in private?

His minders insist he gets up to nothing—in a glibly worded apology they claim on his official Twitter handle that he is a simple childlike man who likes to “playfully and innocently tease” the people he meets and that is what he was doing in the video. A statement that clearly gaslights us into thinking that we are the ones with the dirty unwholesome minds imagining all kinds of filth when none exists in the Dalai Lama’s pure soul. They add that he wishes to apologise for the hurt his words may have caused.

Some argue that the Dalai Lama, born in 1935, is merely a dinosaur. This is the reason he goes around making problematic statements like “sure, the next Dalai Lama could be a woman but she should be an attractive one” and asking little boys to kiss him on the lips with tongue. They say the world is full of innocent, playful old grandpas like him who show affection in odd ways and don’t mean any harm and are too old to be teachable so we should just put up with them till they die.

Some are even claiming that asking little boys to suck the tongue of old men is part of Tibetan culture. Uh, it is not.

Either the Dalai Lama thinks he can get away with such a brazenly public display, or he is clueless. Both options disqualify him from holding the post and the moral high ground he occupies.

My biggest problem with religion is that people who practise it zealously claim to be answerable to a higher, more righteous authority than merely the laws of the land they live in—or, in the case of the Dalai Lama, the laws of the country that has given him refuge for more than six decades. Lamas, mullahs, gurus, granthis, padres—there are cases of sexual abuse, paedophilia, tax avoidance, land grab, fraud and murder registered against the holy men of all faiths—and yet they set themselves above the Constitution and their followers willingly blind themselves into believing the “rumours” are the work of haters, or Satan himself.

Sure, spend your life seeking God, if you happen to believe in one. And, sure, respect the old folk in your families and your communities. It is a free world. But don’t surrender your good sense or your decency in the process.

editor@theweek.in

editing-of-classics-we-live-in-irrational-times-anuja-chauhan

Sat Apr 01 14:49:32 IST 2023

So Agatha Christie’s books will no longer contain descriptions familiar to her regular readers like ‘the flash of lovely white teeth in a dark, Caribbean face’, a ‘big-nosed financier from the city’, a ‘vivid, sunburnt gypsy’, a ‘black marble torso’, an ‘Indian temper’ or the words ‘oriental’ and ‘natives.’ This, because her editors have hired sensitivity readers to remove words that could be considered offensive to today’s audiences.(Doing this in an era when social media comment threads are full-throttle venomous and pornography is at an all-time high is especially disingenuous.)Similar revisions have been made to the works of Roald Dahl, whose books for children no longer contain ‘triggering’ words like ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’.

Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories have gone under the knife too, and while descriptions of men ‘grunting like pigs in a trough’ at a striptease club have been removed, clearly problematic phrases like lovemaking that carries ‘the sweet tang of rape’ have been retained. Some publishers are dealing with the issue by putting disclaimers at the beginning of their books which say, “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace.” One would assume that this is obvious—because if a book carries the words ‘first printed in 1953’ (Fleming) first printed in 1920 (Christie) or first printed in 1942 (Dahl)—then the rational reader will be able to work out—all by himself or herself—that the writer was clearly not writing for today’s super woke generation. But clearly we live in irrational times.

Revisions of best-selling classics by sensitivity readers seem cynical on the one hand (intellectual property rights are too high-value to junk, so let’s just do a quickie, insincere revision to appease the woke brigade) and acts of vandalism on the other (like say, painting everybody in Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper ten shades darker to more correctly portray people of Middle Eastern origin.)For me, escaping into the world of writers like Christie is the loveliest form of time-travel. I get to lose myself in the world as it was then—the newly post-war era, with no cellphones or internet or CCTV footage—when sleuthing and detection was all up to Poirot’s ‘little grey cells’ and Miss Marple’s ‘knowledge of human nature’. I want to embrace it, warts and all, with its gaze, its prejudices, and author’s voice intact.

Anything less is unauthentic and dishonest and for a new, young reader, vastly confusing. Because why do we want the young reader to not know how prejudiced people were back then, and how far they have travelled since? Should we simply stop talking about the genocides, crusades and discriminations we’ve had in the past because unloading all that onto the new generation will put ideas into their pure, unsullied heads? Where does that sort of civilisational scrubbing even end? And aren’t people who don’t know history condemned to repeat it? See, it is always interesting to consume works of literature or art or film a few decades after they first come out.

The casual sexism and objectification of Hindi movie lyrics from the 1990s (tu cheez badi hai mast-mast) and even later seems cringe-worthy in the post me-too era, but some songs from the 1950s still hold up to even the strictest, wonkiest scrutiny and are correctly called classics (aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai.) It is the privilege of every new generation to judge the ones that came before. And the duty of the oldies to face that scrutiny without flinching about with ‘sensitivity edits.’ That is how we all grow and get better.

editor@theweek.in

this-womens-day-let-us-chuck-out-being-liked-anuja-chauhan

Sun Mar 05 13:53:48 IST 2023

In an all all-time low, after appearing on a panel discussion titled—‘From thigh-gaps to gender pay-gaps’—sponsored by a luxury lifestyle brand on International Women’s Day, in which I cockily felt I had rather wiped the floor with my male opponent, I found out that he had been paid three times the amount I had been.

“Perhaps he was compensated for throwing the match,” my husband reasoned. “A sort of hardship allowance, as it were. I mean, it is not fun to be the sole male in a panel like that on women’s day! All the women gang up on you and attack you like you’re the ruddy patriarchy personified. You end up looking like quite a chump. He must have negotiated a chump allowance. Don’t worry about it.”

“But I’m the real chump here,” I replied, “Where is my chump allowance?”

“The key word here is not chump, but negotiate,” sniffed my daughter, “He got that much money simply because he asked for it. Meanwhile, you just smiled and accepted whatever they offered. That’s the trouble with you Gen X types. You guys always doubt your worth.”

I pointed out to her that calling me ‘guys’ wasn’t very feminist of her, but she told me not to digress.

Not entirely unrelated to this conversation is the curious case of Saraswati, my cleaner, and Rajanna, my gardener. Rajanna in typical entitled male fashion complained loudly about his low salary, his hungry children and negotiated a 40 per cent salary hike for himself. Meanwhile, Saraswati with downcast lashes, declared herself “satisfied with whatever Amma saw fit to pay her,” then quietly tucked a pair of my carelessly discarded gold earrings into her bosom, and made off with them.

The reason why women are so crap at negotiating—and also the reason why my demure sweet Saraswati found it preferable to embrace a life of petty crime than ask me for a pay rise—is that women worry about being liked.

According to my daughter, my trouble is that my mother made ‘being liked’ the number one item on my list of Key Responsibility Areas (KRAs). So did almost all the mothers of her generation. And so, me and my friends like to be liked. We have been taught early to not rock the boat and to “maintain good relations with everyone”. We are reared to be comfortable when everybody approves of us and is fond of us. It is somehow more feminine to be universally liked—like a new daughter-in-law in a Sooraj Barjatya movie—a sweet, playful, unselfish presence that brings sustenance and happiness and comfort into the room.

(Saraswati got me six ragi laddoos for Maha Shivratri, by the way, one day before the CCTV footage revealed her theft.)

But the moment we step up and ask for something the establishment considers too big for us—a bigger role, a salary hike, Hillary Clinton asking to be POTUS, say, or Priyanka Chopra Jonas asking to be more than just a Bollywood heroine or the love interest of a famous star—we become unlikable. There is a reason why Royal Stag’s ‘It’s Your Life, Make it Large’ has never featured a female celebrity—(Priyanka would be the perfect casting for the brand, wouldn’t she, with the way her career has just burgeoned and burgeoned, like the prize money in an episode of KBC!) It is because while the patriarchy has taught all men to blindly pick ‘the one with the big t**s’, nobody has taught anybody to pick ‘the one with the big ambition’.

Women who ask for more are ‘difficult’ and ‘hard to slot’. They make people uncomfortable. And that, because they are women, makes them uncomfortable.

This Women’s Day, let us embrace that discomfort.

Let us chuck out ‘being liked’ from the KRA list. And pencil in ‘being respected’ instead.

editor@theweek.in

wpl-will-bring-girl-jock-charisma-under-the-mainstream-sun-anuja-chauhan

Fri Feb 17 14:53:49 IST 2023

A decade and a half after the IPL was launched, we finally have a WPL. How lovely it will be to see talented, strong, young women from all over the world take centre stage at the Brabourne and DY Patil Stadiums and compete fiercely for the honour of being the winner of the inaugural edition—and also, how refreshing. Because while we Indians have (slowly) got used to seeing young women command the white-hot spotlight, we never see them doing so without high heels, make-up, designer clothes and fancy hair styling.

Older women, sure—we have many fiery ladies in the public eye who are no-nonsense and business-like—from Mamata Banerjee and Smriti Irani to Farah Khan and Zoya Akhtar. But not young women. Young women in the spotlight in India are usually there because of their beauty creds—as pageant winners, models or actresses. Yes, there are some content creators, athletes and reality show contestants in the mix, but it is a small number. And even the actresses who do what Bollywood increasingly likes to call ‘bad-ass’ roles in the movies, fall into the rut of being just highly groomed and supremely photo-worthy in their promotional appearances, leaving most of the talking to their (usually baseball-capped and casually attired) male co-stars or directors.

But in a glossy, high-buzz event like the WPL, all of India will be held in thrall, perhaps for the first time, by young women walking, not on a red carpet, but across a dusty pitch. Girls dressed in tracksuits with their hair in ponytails, sweaty girls, focused girls, grim-faced girls, flinging their arms and legs about, falling down, springing up, spitting and grinning and passing the Bechdel test gloriously (unless they are standing in a huddle and secretly bitching about a male umpire).

(Cadbury in an ahead-of-its-time ad that featured a gender reversal of its iconic dancing-on-the-pitch-to-celebrate-a-six-by-your-batter-partner ad, captured this development in our zeitgeist.)

Having lived in a girls boarding school right through high school, I have seen the charisma of the girl jock close up. These girls are calm, strong, natural leaders. They command respect and love effortlessly. And now finally, this girl-jock charisma is finding its place under the mainstream sun.

Best of all, it will not be a girl, or a few girls. It will be gangs of girls—with bench strengths of 15 to 18. Not pitched against each other, like in a beauty contest, but (to use the phrase Gatorade and Serena Williams made immortal) #sistersinsweat who rise or fall together.

Of course, this team bonding will be captured with full drama and larger-than-lifeness by the reliable IPL PR machine. And it will go a long way in erasing centuries of patriarchy-sponsored girl-on-girl hate.

Seeing how huge the IPL has become since its first innings in 2008, it is fair to say that the WPL will have an equally meteoric rise. Our girl children are gonna be spoilt for choice as far as role-models go. Our boy children, too.

It was Gloria Steinem who said, “We are slowly becoming the men we wanted to marry.” Successful, respected, kind, strong, fit, funny, good in bed.

As an eternal optimist, I am now hoping that men will return the compliment and slowly start becoming the women they wanted to marry. Delightful, deliciously well-groomed creatures who provide nourishment and succour, who cook like a dream and parent like guardian angels. Cheerleaders and support givers, whipper-uppers of hot cups of teas and chilled cocktails alike.

After all, the nicest thing about that Cadbury ad—after the batswoman hitting the six, of course—was how supportive her boy friend was.

editor@theweek.in

how-pathaan-has-brought-back-bollywood

Fri Feb 03 13:12:11 IST 2023

Back in the day we used to have proper, old school grandmothers. The sort of grandmothers poet Maithili Sharan Gupt invoked in his popular poem “Ma Keh Ek Kahani (Mother, tell me a story”.) Being grandmothers was their sole job and it was a vital one. They were matriarchs who presided over massive joint families—the repository of the family’s traditions, history and culture, dishing out food for the body, and spiritual succour for the soul on a daily basis. At night, they bought a tray of steel glasses full of warm milk out into the courtyard and sat in the middle of a ring of grandchildren’s beds and told them stories. Everybody agreed that this was their most important (and loved) task.

No offence to anybody’s dadi (father’s mother) but (almost) all children agree that a nani (mother’s mother) is the real deal. Perhaps, because they tend to be younger, and also because a mother is typically more relaxed around her own mother, which causes her children to be similarly more relaxed, too. Even in Gupt’s poem, the second line, which is the mother’s playful response to her son’s request is, ‘beta samajh liya kya toone mujko apni nani?’ (Son, have you mistaken me for my mother?)

Needless to say nanis like that exist only in daily TV serials today. IRL nanis are multi-taskers with a vengeance, they have careers, friends, fitness routines, and no longer have so many grandchildren (my nani had 21!) that being a grandmother can be justified as a fulltime job. We live in a world where children, especially those belonging to busy parents living in cities far from their hometowns either in India or abroad, typically do not go back to their grandparents’ homes during their summer vacations any more. And so, during festivals, weddings or long holidays—times during which an old school nani would have taken centrestage, we yield that space to ‘Family Entertainers’ instead.

Like it or not, these family entertainers from the film industry have been subbing as our maternal grandmothers for many, many generations now. NRI kids and desi kids alike have routinely been piled into one bedroom during the festive season and left in the nourishing arms of Indian cinema. For our vast and widely spread diaspora they are our common reference points, our shared history and geneaology.

The houses of Chopra and Bhansali and Dharma are our nanis. Salim Khan is our nani. Javed Akhtar is our nani. And, of course, Sooraj Barjatya is the officially crowned nani-of-the-nation—we all saw India’s most powerful family swing to “Wah Wah Ram Ji” in a viral video at Anant Ambani’s engagement recently. Also, sorry to spoil the sexy vibe he is currently shipping, but Shah Rukh Khan is also our most beloved nani.

Largely speaking, cinema-nani have taught us well. She has taught us the correct songs to sing at weddings, funerals and every occasion in between. She has shown us heroism, villiany and the road to redemption. She has brought alive mother-love, humour, romance, patriotism and brotherhood. These are all excellent values.

Of course, if she comes up with something problematic (she tends to get patriarchal and crude sometimes) then parental guidance is always on hand to fix things.

But, recently, an attempt has been made to make us forget this much-loved grandmother of ours and everything she has taught us. A sinister step-grandmother succubus has been bought in and is trying to woo us with her weird, poison-laced tales and divisive narratives.

But, thankfully, Shah Rukh’s Pathaan, to use a phrase made infamous by Rajiv Gandhi many moons ago, has stepped in and literally made us ‘remember our maternal grandmother’ (Pathaan ne humko apni nani yaad dila di hai).

We have missed you, grandma.

editor@theweek.in

why-be-afraid-of-porn-and-sex

Sat Jan 21 14:40:47 IST 2023

The litfest season is on in full swing and this time there seem to be a lot of young people attending. Some are attending because they are genuine readers and hope to be writers one day, while others are just (to use the youthspeak of the day) CV-slutting. That is, they are volunteering because they want a certificate or a letter of recco from the litfest organisers to pad up their curriculum vitae or their LinkedIn bio.

All of these younglings had only one thing to say to me. ‘Your books are unreal. Your romance is like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and the G spot. It doesn’t f*^%$ing exist! You and your ilk have ruined my life by setting unrealistic expectations.’

Now, taken in the right spirit (I was taking vodka) this was a great conversation-opener. So I waded right in with, ‘Okay, if we’re talking unrealistic expectations, then what about porn? Isn’t that unrealistic?’ Things got suddenly and surprisingly serious after that.

See, I am a porn virgin. My entire porn viewing is just one-two minute clip seen about twenty-seven years ago featuring three (two ladies, one gent) very blonde Swedes with poor muscle tone. It was both arousing and repellent and I never went back for more. But, then, again, it wasn’t easy for me to. I would have had to source a store that sold the stuff, be judged by the store keeper, wait to be alone in the house with the VCR and so on and so forth.

Today, kids as young as eight and 10 (yes, they’re starting that young) can access the hardest-core of stuff with just a single tap of a cell phone button. They don’t even need to type anything into a search bar, once they’ve visited the sites, they get reminders constantly. It is the equivalent of my naked flabby Swedes showing up and doing a come-hither dance as I type in this article, and not stopping the dance till my lust overcomes my revulsion and I succumb.

Make no mistake, pornography is stalking our children with as much dedication as polio, small-pox and cholera used to stalk them back in the pre-inoculation days. It is as virulent, as omnipresent and just as destructive to human life. The only difference is that Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar are not going to be appearing on your TV in films sponsored by the ministry of health and family welfare (mental health division) urging you to protect your children from pornography anytime soon. Because we’re sanskari, na.

Talking to the kids at the litfest, glancing at some of the stomach-churningly detailed and wide-ranging ‘menus’ they showed me so casually on the internet, I figured that longterm sustained watching of pornography is neither ‘naughty’ nor ‘freedom of choice’. It is addictive, alienating, distorting and in the final analysis damaging, because it makes it impossible for the addict to function in a wholesome, real-life sexual setting, or in any real life setting generally.

Today’s youth (and children) are all trench veterans of a massively violent and almost entirely untalked war for mental health. With their parents in a state of either total denial or total ignorance, they survive it mostly by just being watching out for each other. Their generals are social influencers like Leeza Mangaldas or filmmakers like Paromita Vohra, who discuss such matters frankly, matter-of-factly and without judgment on the internet. Some of these kids are in therapy. And almost none of them are talking to their parents.

If you want a close, communicative relationship with your child, rise above your embarrassment, educate yourself a bit, and talk honestly to your child about porn. And sex. And romance, too, if you like. No, they’re never too young for the topic. And no, they’re never too old either.

editor@theweek.in

finding-our-inner-messi

Sat Dec 24 11:21:18 IST 2022

Heroism is alive and well. Fairytale finishes are alive and well. In a world full of fillers and filters and faux-reality like Moving in with Malaika and Keeping up with the Kardashians, drama in real life is alive and well. And in a climate of hate, negativity, cancel culture and divisiveness, good-old happiness, positivity and human warmth is alive and well. We all saw it, and felt it, and were touched by the 24-karat magic of it as it unfolded live on our screens from the Lusail Stadium.

Recently, at the Kolkata International Film Festival, Shah Rukh Khan shared the popularly accepted theory that negativity increases social media consumption, and thereby increases its commercial value. Which means basically that most people are more likely to click on a news article about a ghastly, grisly human tragedy (for example, husband kills children and wife, before turning gun on self) than an article about a triumph of the human spirit (autorickshaw driver’s daughter clears medical entrance). And so, if a news network wants to make more money, it makes sense for them to cover and run negative stories all the time. This negativity-sells theory is correct, but only up to a point.

The fact of the matter is that it is much easier to slap together a crude, eyeball-grabby, no-brainer negativity-filled story that panders to the current political climate than create something with nuance, depth, genuine wit and universal appeal. The latter is more expensive, more time-consuming, trickier to pull off and requires actual talent and hard work. And that is the real reason why half these weird movies—the ones Amitabh Bachchan seemed to be condemning from the same dais—are being made in the first place.

So yes, crass negativity sells, but a well-written, well-directed and authentic film on a tiny budget can sell even better. And therefore a so-called ‘hit’ like The Kashmir Files (2022), starring Anupam Kher, will be forgotten in a year, but his Khosla ka Ghosla (2006)—one of the rare Bollywood films that bucked the trend by being remade in Tamil and Kannada, instead of vice versa—will be a classic forever.

Coming back to the FIFA final, what a celebration of positivity! So seductive that it sucked in people with absolutely no skin in the game, and no interest in football whatsoever, and didn’t let them move from their seats till the game was done. The delicious fact that it pitted two of the game’s greats, one rising, one long-reigning, who play for the same club against one another. The victors so deserving and so long denied; the vanquished pumping out a historic hat trick, not in the mood to surrender even an inch! Ballads should and will be written about the epic battle, the sweat, the tears, the shirtless swagger, the hands going to up the heavens in thanksgiving... ballads that will send dopamine coursing through the veins of the most negative of folk, inspire us all, and render the entire planet sunnier.

Toxic aunties of all genders can carp about the black-and-gold bisht that was draped onto Leo Messi when he claimed the trophy, but again, let’s focus on the positives here. The robe was an honour, a sort of coronation or knighting. Messi looked ‘awwww’some in it as he stroked the bald head of the World Cup trophy like it was his fourth-born, and it made him stand out a little in the team photos, in the manner in which a Hindi movie hero stands out from among the rest of the dancers during a song routine.

So yes, Shah Rukh was correct when he said negativity is click-baity, but positivity can be click-baity, too. We just need to find our inner Messi.

editor@theweek.in

apathy-to-injustice-in-our-nation

Sat Dec 03 10:43:13 IST 2022

I am guessing that by now everybody has seen the viral video of the young Muslim student from Manipal Institute of Technology objecting to his professor “jokingly” calling him “Kasab” in the classroom. The appalled college, alma mater of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and a host of other global luminaries, immediately issued a statement of apology, and ordered a probe into the incident. On social media, the young student was mostly applauded for the stand he took, but I could not get over the entire row of (male) students sitting in front of him in that elite classroom. All of them were looking ahead stolidly, with their heads in their hands, doing an amazingly lifelike imitation of the three monkeys who can see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing. ‘I’m outta here.’ Their body language seemed to say, ‘include me out’ and ‘do not wanna get involved, boss’.

There were a lot of depressing things in that video—the young boy’s anguish, anger and disheartenment, the teacher’s weak apology and befuddlement at being called out for something as ‘normalised’ and ‘innocent’ as casual Islamophobia, the sniggers of the off-camera students, but the most depressing (and dangerous) thing in the clip is that row of indifferent young backs and averted young gazes.

Because if the youth of a nation are choosing to keep their noses clean, their opinions non-controversial and their CVs well scrubbed of any controversy, then where are we even headed, as a nation?

Which brings me to the other controversial opinion airer of the fortnight—Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid. Several scenes of his Golden Bear winning film, Synonyms, are so reminiscent of the resolutely turned backs and averted gazes of the Manipal students. In his official capacity as the jury chairman of the International Film Festival of India, Lapid stated that he and his entire jury were “disturbed and shocked by The Kashmir Files, a propaganda, vulgar movie, inappropriate for an artistic competitive section of such a prestigious film festival”.

The fact that this has got the RW knickers in such a red-hot-chilli-pepper twist tells us what a mela of monkeys our entire arts and culture scene has become.

And our diplomatic scene as well. Because the Israeli ambassador is now openly moaning on Twitter that while Lapid will go back home smugly thinking that he was “bold” and “made a statement”, the embassy will have to deal with the “implications” and the “state of their DM boxes” following this display of ‘bravery’ which basically means that the ambassador is petrified of being trolled by the bhakt brigade, i.e. the ambassador is basically a grown-up version of those boys in the Manipal classroom, sitting with their heads down, and their backs turned resolutely away from the madness that surrounds us all.

Now, the babus are scrambling around, trying to establish whose idea it was to invite this loose cannon Lapid, who has publicly stated, several times, that “it is an artist’s duty to bite the hand that feeds him” to IFFI? And appoint him as jury chairman, no less? Was he the cheapest? The most jobless? Or did nobody do any homework? Meanwhile, we have also got to worry about where-where in which-which international festival The Kashmir Files has been entered, and who-who could potentially take a dump on it. Which is problematic because knowing how ‘extra’ we are, we must have entered it everywhere.

Damn. This need for global validation and shiny, blingy international awards will be the downfall of
us all.

I know. We should forget about all ‘artistic and prestigious’, and simply start the world’s first International Propaganda Festival. The IPFI. Awards will be handed out to whoever best amplifies the government’s agenda. Instead of a golden peacock, we shall hand out a golden parrot.

editor@theweek.in

how-to-help-rid-our-nation-of-monsters-like-aftab-poonawalla

Sun Nov 20 11:27:11 IST 2022

The grisly murder of Shraddha Walkar by her live-in partner Aftab Poonawala is much too worrying and important to be dumbed down to a mindless #LoveJihad hate-tag, left to trend with hysterical dreariness on an increasingly unreliable and unravelling Twitterscape.

There are serious issues involved here. And none of them have to do with your sanskari daughter dating cute Muslim boys.

There is the Bumble angle for one. Our young people are increasingly meeting each other through anonymous dating apps, with minimal checking, accountability or verification, like there would be when you meet the old fashioned way, through a network of friends, or colleagues or family.

Then there is the trending new philosophy of friends-are-the-new-family, which is nice and all, but when taken too far, effectively, means that kids actively set up barriers to stay both emotionally and physically distant from their parents, opting to confide in real or virtual friends instead. Meaning they willingly check themselves into a virtual Lord of the Flies type island where immature kids judge immature kids, and get to be jury and executioners as well. The only clear rule here seems to be a complete omerta against parents.

Then there is the kind of content that is being streamed today. Aftab’s modus operendi was supposedly inspired by the gruesome show Dexter, which most of our kids consume without batting an eyelid, while chowing down on their dal-chawal-green-veg nowadays. Violence, strangulation, dismemberment, it is all par for the course on House of the Dragon, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Attack on Titans, Thar, Paatal Lok, Delhi Crime, any number of Playstation games. And, I have not even got to the pornography yet.

I am not saying that watching OTT shows will turn your child into a sick monster, but it will definitely desensitise him/her. And if your child already has a fascination for sick content, it will empower, feed and advance this sickness, like it clearly did in Aftab’s case.

The word ‘sick’ is now the latest urban slang for ‘cool’, and I feel that is extremely telling. Then there is the polarising, fear-mongering political policies now in play, which scream other = monster from every rooftop, and pressurise even reasonable parents to behave utterly hysterical and close-minded on the subject of their child dating anybody from a faith other than their own. This makes it impossible for children to confide in their parents, and pushes them to alienate themselves and run away from home into the arms of this forbidden (and hence exciting) new love they have ‘found’ all by themselves.

It really is tragic that at a time when Ayushmann Khurrana is getting stupendously wealthy making film after film featuring the great Indian middle-class accepting homosexual love, transexual love, lavender marriages, older women getting pregnant, male virility, sperm donation and what not, a backer cannot be found to make a similar film normalising simple, inter-religious love?

Please let us not, in the name of justice, settle for countless memes of Hindu women folded up into really small suitcases and refrigerators by their evil Muslim lovers—memes that degrade and commodify Hindu women brutally—and are not particularly complimentary to Hindu men either, if you think about it.

Let us side-step that communal trap, and demand a genuinely introspective, diagnostic probe into the reasons why Shraddha died. That is what will help rid our nation of monsters like this Aftab.

editor@theweek.in

how-rahul-is-demonstrating-qualities-that-his-critics-claim-he-lacks

Sun Nov 06 13:14:34 IST 2022

Two images have really caught my eye, recently. Rishi Sunak’s washboard abs in his tucked-in office shirts, and Rahul Gandhi sprinting spontaneously and without any signs of fatigue against a trio of young boys during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Both reveal a long-term, sustained commitment to fitness, the kind that can’t be faked by staged photo-ops or cunning photoshop.

A nation likes to feel its leaders are fit. It reassures the populance, makes them feel like they are in capable, disciplined hands. A leader who wakes up early, watches what he eats (and drinks), spends time outdoors, and can do any number of push-ups, both one-handed and two-handed, is clearly in control of his body and mind. This clean, wholesome fitness is a huge part of the cult around leaders like Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the late Queen Elizabeth II. They ride bicycles, walk dogs, ski, box, swim and run.

Then there is Vladimir Putin who has taken the fit leader archetype to dizzying new heights. Often photographed riding horses with a gold chain glinting alluringly against his smooth bare chest, he is also been clicked shirtless with a rifle, shirtless while fishing in a mountain stream, shirtless while swimming the butterfly stroke, you get the picture. It is all part of his macho, man-of-action image, and when sniggered at by other G7 leaders, he has retorted that, “You would look disgusting, shirtless,” which, let us face it (and not to fat/flab shame anyone) is an argument that carries some weight.

But even Putin must bow before the mightiest of them all—North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, who once, jaw-droppingly, climbed the 8,500 foot Mt. Paektu, while it was fully covered in snow and he was fully covered in an ankle length trenchcoat and immaculately shined leather shoes. The official newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, reported that, “His eyes reflected the strong beams of the gifted great person seeing in the majestic spirit of Mount Paektu the appearance of a powerful socialist nation which dynamically advances full of vigour without vacillation at any raving dirty wind on the planet.”

Our Modi ji is no slouch either. He congratulates all our athletes on Twitter. He watches their biopics, meets them, and asks them what their mothers give them to eat. Why, if you tune into the BJP’s official YouTube channel, you can enjoy any number of episodes of the animated series yoga with Modi where a muscular, and extremely flexible cartoon with Modi ji’s face on it performs the most difficult of asanas with ease and a beatific smile.

Coming back to Rahul, his critics have been sneering that all he will prove by walking 3,750km, is that he is a good walker. So what?

They are being deliberately disingenuous.

Fitness is important. Putin knows that. Sunak knows that. Even the North Koreans know that.

By marching doughtily from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, 24km a day, for 150 days, through sun, hail, rain and probably snow, with a beard growing bushier and more Modi-esque by the minute, and media attention and public interest snowballing with every step he takes, Rahul is demonstrating the very discipline, accessibility, charisma and complete commitment that his critics claim he lacks.

Rahul is not merely trying to flex his fitness. He is trying to prove that he is fit enough for the top job. It is a point he may very well end up proving.

editor@theweek.in

congress-president-mallikarjun-kharge-future-plans-anuja-chauhan

Fri Oct 21 15:28:30 IST 2022

The Congress has achieved the impossible. It has managed to lose an election in which both the candidates were from the Congress.

Don’t get me wrong—holding a democratic election to decide the next party president was a rare, refreshing and brave move by the party. It made them appear suddenly younger and sexier to the general public—who have no vote in this election, but are definitely keen to see the upholders of democracy practise a little of that within their own internal structure in a clean, transparent manner.

Seen from the point-of-view of providing the general public some entertainment, the clash could have played out like a celebrity tennis match—Hrithik Roshan vs Salman Khan perhaps, where the big boys come out to play and a damn good time is had by all spectators. But what ended up happening was Hrithik Roshan vs Alia Bhatt. And to make things worse, there were strong rumours that Hrithik was so scared of Alia that he sneakily pumped himself full of steroids.

Instead, the big boys (and girls, if there are any left) of the Congress should have had the courage, and the commitment to democracy that Shashi Tharoor clearly has, to throw themselves heart and soul into a genuinely even contest. Ashok Gehlot could have contested instead of wriggling out, Digvijaya Singh could have contested instead of namby-pambying about it. Hey, it is a friendly contest between colleagues—there are no losers here and democracy is the only winner and our workers will be invigorated by watching us jousting about, right?

I guess not.

Still, we can draw some consolation from the fact that an election was held, at all. Of course the only reason it was held was because Tharoor was good sport enough to not withdraw in the face of likely defeat, and take it squarely on the chin instead. And he has definitely emerged as the first amongst losers. His 11.95 per cent vote share is more than any losing candidate has ever managed to get in an election for INC president, with Sharad Pawar in the runner’s up spot with a share of 11.9 back in 1997.

And the Congress finally has its first non-Gandhi president after more than two decades. Mallikarjun Kharge is a career politician, an MLA nine times over; a Gandhi loyalist, yes, but also a heavyweight in his own right and fully qualified to lead the Congress.

And the election process is addictive. Now that a precedent has been set, perhaps the INC will hold internal elections regularly, and at every level—after every general election. Hey, perhaps, even other parties will eventually be pressured to follow suit. Which is all good. Internal elections are sort of like deworming for dogs—they need to be done frequently in order to keep the body healthy and functioning and effective.

Now it is up to the Congressis who voted in Kharge to ask some hard questions of their elected leader on what his plans are for the party, going forward. Certainly the party is looking more dynamic than it has for ages, with the Bharat Jodo Yatra gathering more momentum every day. Perhaps, a Kharge-the-pragmatist and Rahul-the-idealist partnership is slowly emerging (a faint echo of the Nehru-Gandhiji model.) We have to wait and watch.

After casting his vote, Tharoor declared, “The revival of the Congress starts today.” As usual he was both catchy and correct. It remains to be seen, however, if this ‘revival’ is going to be a brahmastra of a beginning or a damp squib of a dawn.

editor@theweek.in

dont-tear-us-apart-anuja-chauhan-on-garba-row

Sat Oct 08 16:52:01 IST 2022

Would somebody just sit Nupur J. Sharma down, play her Virat Kohli’s Maanyawar’s ‘Har tyohaar, India ka tyohaar’ ad on loop, and tell her that she is fighting a losing battle? We are Indians. We love all our festivals. We like to dance the garba in whirling circles, play with colors on Holi, watch out for the moon eagerly on both Eid and Karwa Chauth, and attend midnight mass on Christmas eve. We adore backless mirrorwork cholis, parsi borders, Kanjeevaram silks, Kashmiri crewelwork, Farshi salwars and Luckhnavi chikankari. We love kada prasad, biryani, plum cake and farsan.

In Dil Chahta Hai, Aamir Khan famously said of himself and his two besties “hum cake khaane ke liye kahin bhi pahunch jaate hain” (we will gatecrash any place for cake) and that can be extended, to all of us, into, we will gatecrash any place to celebrate. We are not faking it because we were “brainwashed by decades of the Congress party’s politics of appeasement”. If we were, then Jodha Akbar would not have been a super-duper hit. Our very soul is syncretic.

The most popular song at every garba pandal that I have ever been to, for the last 20 years has been ‘Dholi taro dhol baaje’. The effect is electric every time it plays—people rush to the floor in droves, whirling and clapping. Nobody ever stops to consider that it has been composed by a Muslim music director and features a Muslim actor. Salman Khan clearly had a blast dancing to it, and did a superb job, besides. He is an intrinsic part of ‘Dholi taro’, and it is India’s #1 garba song. (Except for ‘Chogada tara’, perhaps, which features a Muslim actress, is co-written by a Muslim lyricist, and is produced again by Salman Khan.)

And so it is laughable for Sharma to rule that Muslims may not join in and dance the garba till “you do ghar waapsi and submit to maa.”

Similarly, many of our favouurite sufi hymns or quawaalis (‘Khwaja mere khwaja’, ‘Kun faya kun’, ‘Parda hai parda’, and countless others) feature a Hindu hero.

The fact of the matter is that Indian culture is a rich tapestry of different faiths and traditions and peoples, a fabric that has evolved over centuries, which cannot now be torn apart and segregated into airless, airtight boxes by hate-mongers hoping to grab prime-time eyeballs by advocating a weird, sick policy of religious apartheid.

See, festivals, all over the world, are not just about faith or religion. They are also, very significantly, about community and celebration. And because in India we have such a wealth of faiths and traditions, we have managed, over the years, to perfect an intuitive, self-regulated system where people of other faiths fall back respectfully during the religious part of any celebration, but surge forward enthusiastically to join in when the festivities begin.

In fact, hosting people of other faiths during ones festive celebrations adds a certain extra zing to the whole tyohaar—you seek information about the significance of various rituals so you can explain it better to your visitors, you draw more intricate rangoli patterns than you otherwise would have, you put on your best ‘guest manners.’ It makes you proud of your identity in the nicest possible way, it creates a spirit of good-natured, healthy competitiveness and you score reciprocatory invites. What’s not to like?

There is no doubting the fact that this time of year, when the nip of winter and the thrill of festivity kicks in, is a time all Indians look forward to eagerly. The hate-mongers want it to become a time of stress and strife. But India, and ‘Dholi taro dhol baaje’ will not let them prevail.

editor@theweek.in

killing-stray-dogs-will-only-worsen-situation-anuja-chauhan

Sun Sep 25 11:57:10 IST 2022

For decades now, private citizens and civic authorities have jibbed against the banning of the ‘Hansel and Gretel’ solution regarding the street dogs menace. That is, if there are too many nasty noisy mongrels running amuck, just round them up, drive them far away, and release them in a place from where they can never find their way back to your township.

It is quite humane, they say. We are not killing them, after all. (Um, the only reasons you aren’t killing them left, right and centre is that the Constitution, which has a strong focus on animal compassion, clearly states no culling. And any issue regarding street dogs can be taken up only at the Supreme Court.)

But the Animal Welfare Board of India argues that it is entirely counter-productive to move stray dogs from their established territory. This is because when a pack of dogs is suddenly shifted from one area to another, the dogs that already live in that area attack the newly arrived pack, and there are ferocious territorial fights, the ripples of which are felt through entire cities, and which can lead to humans getting bitten, too. Meanwhile, in the area that has just been made empty, new packs immediately move in. Also, the government’s India’s anti-rabies programme goes for a total toss, because it is crucial to the success of the programme that dogs remain in their own areas to be systematically covered and vaccinated every year.

This is why, under Central law as laid out in The Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules, 2001, it is illegal for any individual, college, resident welfare association or estate management to relocate stray dogs. Instead, it is mandated that all stray dogs that belong to one area should be captured, vaccinated, neutered, clipped on one ear to show that they have been neutered, and returned to the same area from where they were picked up.

The department recommends that ordinary citizens then befriend these dogs, feed them regularly, and start thinking of them by their correct title, which is community dogs. As animals that are protective of their particular locality and the humans who live there—and sound an alarm if any intruders, human or canine, try to sneak in on their space.

Over time, if meticulously followed, this system delivers smaller dog populations, less barking and fighting amongst the dogs, fewer biting incidents, zero rabies and fewer burglaries.

Unfortunately, nobody seems to be thinking in the long term. It’s all about now, today, ego satiation, having the last word. Which means that constant, vicious fights break out on colony WhatsApp groups, the new Kurukshetras and Haldighatis of our times, with bitterly feuding factions barking both for and against dog-feeding in a manner that would make real galli-ka-kuttas drop their jaws in admiration.

Recently, fuel was added to this constantly raging fire by a fake news report that the Supreme Court had passed an order to the effect that people who feed street dogs would be liable for all expenses and consequences if a street dog they fed bit anybody. Even though it was immediately debunked and subsequently retracted, people continued to share it, quote it and drive community dogs out of their established spaces on the strength of it.

See, Hansel-and-Gretelling the dogs (or straight out killing them, by mass-scale, brutal, vigilante culling) will only end in hyper-violent, territorial packs of dogs everywhere, spiralling hostility between man and animal, more bites, more rabies, sick, weak puppies at every side, garbage, filth and rats. What we really need to do is ensure civic authorities remove the garbage properly, and follow the mandated animal birth control measures. The next Supreme Court hearing is on September 28.

editor@theweek.in

gen-z-is-not-avoiding-responsibilities-it-is-just-being-careful

Sat Sep 10 12:09:40 IST 2022

Two honourable justices of the Kerala High Court have rued today’s ‘use-and-throw’ culture in a judgment chastising all those who would expand the word ‘WIFE’ as ‘Worry Invited For Ever’ substituting the old concept of ‘Wise Investment For Ever.’

Dismissing a plea to be released from his wife of ten years, with whom he has three daughters, the honourable justices A. Muhamed Mustaque and Sophy Thomas told a cheating husband that ‘mere quarrels, ordinary wear and tear of matrimonial relationships or casual outbursts of some emotional feelings cannot be treated as cruelties warranting a divorce’.

The two-member bench sternly observed that marriage was not ‘a mere ritual or empty ceremony for licensing the sexual urge of the parties,’ and concluded most thunderously that the husband could not seek the assistance of the courts to escape his existing marriage and get his new, “unholy alliance” legalised.’ In a way, they sort-of echoed what the remarkably sorted (and recently divorced) Samantha Ruth Prabhu told Karan Johar on his love-it-or-hate-it-cannot-ignore-it show Koffee with Karan—’You have portrayed marriage to be K3G, when in reality marriage is KGF.’

It is definitely true that in India today, no other institution is being as rigorously examined, renegotiated and re-imagined as marriage is. We see this manifested in hit films like Thappad and Darlings and in well-adjusted celebrity families with any numbers of stepchildren, half-siblings and step parents like the (Pataudi) Khans and the (Boney/Pankaj) Kapoors. The consistently top-ranking daily prime-time show on Indian television for the past two years remains the sensitive and fiercely feminist Anupama, which follows the journey of a middle-aged housewife who finds out her husband has been cheating on her for the past eight years, and seeks to deal with this devastating revelation with her sanity and self-respect intact.

But it is perhaps not correct for the older generation to dismiss today’s young people’s attitude as ‘use and throw’. Because really, the freshest ground reality seems to be that Gen Z, particularly post-pandemic, is loath to throw anything away. Reinventing, sharing and thrift shopping have all seen a huge upswing in their era—a trend manifested in Kim Kardashian wearing not some brand new, obscenely expensive dress to the Met Gala this year, but just a humble hand-me-down—Marilyn Monroe’s iconic 1962 nude silk, Happy-Birthday-Mr President gown.

Because really, why stitch a new dress when there’s a perfectly good one out there already? Why make more babies, when there are tonnes of them to spare on this overloaded planet anyway? Why buy when you can rent, why pay the whole tab when you could share the load of everything from workspace to Ubers to indeed, long-term partners?

This generation, faced with an overabundance of bewildering choices, seems to be reacting not so much by ‘using-and-throwing’, as by sharing. The glib word ‘polyamorous’ is being thrown around a lot nowadays, as is ‘serial monogamy’. Which is all okay, I guess. Any strong institution can survive—indeed it should ideally undergo—vigorous reform and revision, a sort-of spiritual deworming, if you will.

The thing the judges got absolutely right—and which everybody’s favourite Sima aunty stresses so much upon in Indian Matchmaking—is that you have to adjust. Adjusting, tolerance and resilience are key to surviving any long-term relationship. This is the bit today’s kids have an issue with.

Still, my hope is that all this dithering around and trying-on-of-pants-before- buying-them means that when young people do eventually marry it is an informed, well considered, mature decision. And that they take marriage extremely seriously—more seriously than all of us oldies who tamely got married after two weeks of giddy courtship ever did.

editor@theweek.in

freeing-bilkis-bano-case-convicts-shows-indias-heartless-indifference

Sat Aug 27 11:41:55 IST 2022

Forgiveness follows from repentance. When a mother disciplines a child, she does it so the child can mull over his/her actions, confess, apologise, and move on to a better place. That is good, constructive closure. That is what a good correctional system of the state seeks to do for all criminals.

If there is no repentance, there should be no forgiveness.

Even Manu Sharma, the intoxicated-on-power son of a Congress neta, who was running amuck in those long-past hazy days of the Congress era, publicly expressed regret in an interview for the obscenely entitled act of shooting celebrity bartender Jessica Lal dead because she wouldn’t serve him a drink after the bar had closed. And even after he had served his 15 year-sentence and consistently displayed good behaviour, he was released only after Jessica’s sister, Sabrina Lal, said in a letter to the welfare office of Tihar jail that she had no objection to his release.

The film No One Killed Jessica was released in 2011. Its unflinching portrayal of Manu, his powerful politician father and his doting mother was approved without a single cut by the Censor Board of Film Certification under the Congress government. Jessica’s faith (Christianity) was a total non-issue in the entire incident. No Congress workers came forward to #boycott the film or protest that Manu Sharma was a Brahmin, and therefore had good sanskaars. At the 57th Filmfare Awards, the film was nominated in four categories and won one award.

Compare and contrast that with what is happening around us today. Acting in a manner that lays bare their heartless indifference to the agony of the women in the heinous Nirbhaya, Unnao, Hathras, Kathua gang-rape cases, the courts, the civil servants, and the state and Union governments of the day saw fit to allow the eleven gang-rapists and mass-murderers in the Bilkis Bano case to walk free on our 75th Independence Day.

Um... did they all—miraculously—show collective improved behaviour? Like all eleven of them?

Yeah, apparently.

Was Bilkis asked if she was good with their release?

No, of course not.

So did they write to her, plead revengeful anger, the ‘fog of war’, temporary insanity, or religious brainwashing? Did they apologise for smashing her three-year-old daughter’s head on the ground? Did they help her get the house she was promised in the final judgment but never got?

No.

So did they at least slink quietly out of jail looking properly ashamed of themselves? No. They were received by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, garlanded, fed sweets and seated upon a platform like they were heroes. It was even suggested that they never committed the crime at all!

And as surely as gangrene follows an open wound, a few days after their release, former BJP MLA Gyan Dev Ahuja boasted openly that “we have told our people to kill anyone involved in cow slaughter. We will get them bail and acquittal. We have done it for five people already”.

Of course, in a classic example of the doublespeak-theatrics that has come to define these times, he was booked for a hate speech, two days later. But the chilling message had been sent out, and received, loud and clear.

It feels like we are living in the first half of Sholay basically. Where Gabbars break out of jails and go snarling back to the homes of the men who had them put away, and extract a bloody revenge. That is what the optics seem to suggest anyway.

We are just a few weeks away from Gandhi Jayanti, and sure as lotuses are lotuses, the top Twitter trend of that day is once again going to be not #fatherofthenation, but #NathuRamGodseZindabad.

We have become assassin worshippers now.

Meanwhile, no commercial Bollywood studio is developing a film titled ‘No one Raped Bilkis’. They see no market for it.

editor@theweek.in

true-patriotism-doesnt-demand-flag-as-proof

Sat Aug 13 11:36:51 IST 2022

All hail the birthday girl! Mother India is turning 75 and we, the loyal citizens, have been instructed to show our love and fealty by changing our display pictures to a picture of the national flag. We are also being urged to fly a tiranga from our rooftops. It is not mandatory, of course, so no presh. Except that there sort of is.

Now if you are the kind of person who immediately gets your back up if you are told what to do (obviously this doesn’t include entirely reasonable instructions like keeping your seatbelt on, or wearing a mask and so on), then you are in exalted company. Mohan Bhagwat and the RSS are yet to fly the tiranga from their DPs, with a senior functionary huffily stating, “We don’t take any decision under anyone’s pressure. If the display pic of our official Twitter handle has to be changed, it will be in due course of time.”

For once, I am in complete agreement with the RSS. I have flown the tiranga from my car, my house and my cubicle on August 15 in the past. (Mostly because excited little kiddies sell them at street lights and the whole interaction feels so festive and lovely.) Sometimes I have changed my DP, too. Doing so as a joyous spontaneous show of patriotism is one thing, and doing so out of a grim sense of duty is another—the latter has a non-consensual reek to it.

But, then, nowadays, we are getting told what to do a lot. Cancel this cricketer, donate to that relief fund, agree to X tax, surrender Y subsidy, avoid those people, worship this particular deity, boycott such and such film... Of course, these are things I may very well do all by myself (the Laal Singh Chaddha trailer looks seriously yawn-worthy) but you cannot take away my constitutional right to watch a crappy film if I want to. Or, not fly a national flag from my rooftop if I would rather not.

I am not a clueless child of mother India, I am a tax-paying, grown-ass citizen of the Republic of India. In Jane Austen’s Emma, George Knightley famously tells Emma, when she questions him on why he hasn’t shown his emotions for her more openly, “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”I suspect a lot of Indians are like inarticulate George. Creatures of a simpler, more austere time. Soul-sisters perhaps of Cordelia, youngest daughter of King Lear, who upset her father by telling him that she loved him like she loved salt in her food. The flattery-loving old man preferred the fanciful, performative protestations of love made by her older sisters Goneril and Regan—both of whom tossed him out on his ass once they had got hold of all his money, leaving it to Cordelia to pick up his pieces and look after him, just like Salman Khan in Baghban. I suspect that a lot of genuine Indian patriots are watching appalled as Lear’s two older daughters take over the national discourse and taint our tiranga by turning it into the new bhagwa jhanda, appropriating it for toxic, one-tone jingoism on Twitter handles that spew hate and disunity.

Maybe, this August 15, these Indians will stick to the older, simpler tradition of just flying kites from the terrace, while listening to the old black and white deshbhakti ke geet. Because true love doesn’t demand a flag as proof. True love just is. Or, maybe, they will decide to not surrender the tiranga to the Gonerils and the Regans, and fly it from their rooftops anyway. Either way, they have the right to choose. That is what independence is all about. Isn’t it?

editor@theweek.in

anuja-chauhan-on-nudes-and-their-meaning

Sun Jul 31 11:56:46 IST 2022

Why exactly has Ranveer Singh shed all his clothes, slicked himself with oil, and lain himself down into that curiously defenceless, needy, side-sprawl upon a Turkish rug for Paper magazine? It can’t be for media attention—because he gets enough of that already. It can’t be for money (though maybe that pricey sea-facing quadraplex in Bandra took the shirt of his back). It isn’t for PETA or any other ‘good cause’, which is usually the ‘reason’ most male celebrities give to justify their risque photo-shoots. It just is. Take it or leave it (Um, lawsuits about hurting female sentiments and outraging female modesty be damned, most girls and women are happy to take it.)

As a performer and as a personality, Ranveer is known to push the envelope. He does so with focussed, almost messianic zeal—as though it were his self-appointed moral duty to bring light and airiness to a stodgy, atrophied society. To release that which is repressed, to express that which is suppressed, to subvert that which is pompously inflated. And so, to a society fed on rigid, macho images of masculinity—clenched jaws, flexed torsos, shoulders, chest, back, arms, and abs—Ranveer blithely offers a fluidly curving butt cheek, a length of hairy thigh and calf, bare feet, relaxed body langauge, and soft, vulnerable eyes.

Paper magazine has positioned his nudes as a tribute to Burt Reynolds’s famous 1972 centrefold in Cosmopolitan magazine, but to me, that soft curve of side-butt is more reminiscent of an earlier era—John Lennon’s iconic cover for Rolling Stone magazine, shot by Anne Liebovitz, where he posed naked in a foetal position next to a fully-clothed Yoko Ono, on the day that he was assassinated.

Over the years many powerful, subversive statements have been made by artists as varying as Lady Gaga and Shakti Kapoor with their bodies—about objectification, the media circus and the male gaze.

Sometimes the nudity is a slutwalk style act of defiance against societal norms. Sometimes, as in the case of several female celebrities who share non-photoshooped nude images of their pregnant and postpartum bodies, it can be an act of self-affirmation, done for the exquisite relief that comes with baring and even celebrating ones flaws with others in the same position as themselves.

Sometimes, in the case of top Olympians and athletes, it is about celebrating and strutting the hard work and sacrifice they have put into their bodies.

At times—like when the mothers of Manipur demonstrated naked with a banner that said, ‘Indian Army rape us’—it is a political statement. (Hmm, is Ranveer turning around, pulling down his pants, and irreverently mooning our solemn Hindu Rashtra?)

Sometimes it is about becoming entirely defenseless and allowing total access, by removing the last and final barrier between viewer and viewee, and proving you love your audience as much as they love you.

Naturists—the folks who used to be called nudists in less politically correct times—believe that casual, everyday nudity helps people shed their inhibitions and hang-ups—and cultivate a healthy attitude to the environment, the planet and sex.

With Ranveer, I suspect it’s a case of pretty much all-of-the-above.

See, in the final analysis, nudity is not really as much about titillation as it is about power. Both the beggar on the roadside and the supermodel on the catwalk can be described as bhoonkha-nanga (starving-naked). But one of them has power and one does not.

Here, Ranveer surrenders his (considerable) power and makes a present of it to the viewer. Good for him.

And as far as my female sentiments go, what’s hurting them is not #ranveernudepics but the fact that he consistently gets paid more than his equally talented wife. How about filing a case against that?

editor@theweek.in

anuja-chauhan-on-branding-cues-political-parties-can-take-from-cola-gutkha-ads

Sun Jul 17 17:18:12 IST 2022

I remember meeting Pakistani music artist Ali Zafar about ten years ago, and being utterly scandalised when he breezily confided that, ‘best way is to endorse Pepsi for one year, then Coca Cola for the next year. Keep everybody happy, including yourself.’ Being a trench fighter in the cola wars of the 1990s and early 2000s, I was naive enough to expect brand loyalty from brand endorsers.

In those decades, Pepsi was synonymous with Shah Rukh Khan, ThumsUp with Salman, and Coke with Aamir. When I went out to shoot my Pepsi ads with SRK, Saif Ali Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, several leading ladies, and most of India’s leading cricketers, I used to feel like a righteous Jedi locked in a holy war against the forces of the Dark.

Today of course, things have gotten so surreal that they make me feel like I’m stuck in the Upside Down from Stranger Things. Shah Rukh, in a makeover reminiscent of a teenage pop princess turning badass twerker, has gone from squeaky clean boy-next-door to snarly, smirky ThumsUp chugging ‘man.’ Salman, meanwhile, has surrendered the ‘grow-up to ThumsUp’ space to become a sort of weird, eternal man—child who drinks Pepsi and avoids matrimony.

Some Cola endorsers have given up on the category itself. In 2014, speaking at IIM Ahmedabad, Bachchan claimed to have stopped endorsing Pepsi because a young girl in Jaipur ‘called it poison, and that troubled him’. PepsiCo was mystified by this statement as his contract with them had come to its natural conclusion several years ago. Perhaps it was a case of you-didn’t-dump-me-I-dumped-you. Who knows?

Putting aside colas, but sticking with the ethics of brand endorsements, we come to the curious case of Akshay Kumar and Vimal Elaichi. I am not very sure why the brand’s marketers added yet another endorser to perform that weird two fingered aadab along with Ajay Devgn and Shah Rukh (surely it hints at the fact that star power doesn’t translate into wins for the brand?) But in their wisdom they went ahead and signed Akshay. He immediately faced a backlash for surrogate-advertising tobacco, apologised to his fans, said he would donate his entire endorsement fee to ‘a worthy cause’—but added that the ads featuring him would continue to run for the entire endorsement term. Which kind of defeats the purpose of not using his fame to influence young minds into trying out unhealthy, cancer-causing products. Oh, and by the way, we are still waiting to hear what the ‘worthy cause’ is.

So does such fickle brand-hopping affect a star’s popularity?

The simple answer is no—on the contrary, in today’s cynical world, stars are openly admired for ‘scamming the system’, for being savvy enough to play both sides, for having their cake and eating it, too. The person for whom respect is lost (in the long run) is for the brand that is desperate enough to still hanker after these star associations. A point that needs to be pondered by Cola and gutkha brands, but more importantly, by political parties today. The more MPs and MLAs jump ship from hither to thither in the full blaze of the media spotlight, the more reluctant admiration the voter will have for their rockstar-ishness, and the lesser they will respect the parties that are falling all over themselves to pander to them thus.

If a party wants to retain the voter’s respect, it should respect its loyal cadres, reward them with plum posts so that they do not get disgruntled, and focus on being true to its core values.

Otherwise our political system will collapse into a space where party names and symbols are redundant—a churning mosh-pit of greedy petulant rockstars and their hustlers, all jumping up and down demanding treats, and achieving for the nation, nothing at all.

agnipath-is-a-bum-deal-says-anuja-chauhan

Fri Jul 01 11:42:59 IST 2022

The intention is obvious from the name itself. By plumping for a catchy, Bollywood-esque name like Agnipath and an over-compensating, machismo-soaked title like Agniveer, the ministry of defence has made it patently clear that its new recruitment scheme is neither solid, substantial nor sensible, but just cheap tinsel, hollow semantics and insincere sexiness, the euphoria of clearing which will last just about as long as the high derived from watching an item number from an average Hindi film.

Otherwise the ministry would have just stuck with the simple, much loved, and unquestioningly respected title fauji.

See for a fauji, the fauj is his whole life. It clasps him in a strong, secure, whole-hearted bear-hug, and he embraces it back with all his heart and soul. It is something he is willing to lay down his life for. A deal for life. A marriage, if you will.

But this tawdry, proposed Agnipath scheme turns gilt-edged spouse material like the Indian Fauj into a toxic first boyfriend—the kind who makes you leap through hoops and walk through fire to prove your love is true, yet still tosses you aside after four years with a small present of money and a gas-lighting speech about how your time together had enriched you and made you a better person whom so many more far-worthier-than-he people will be thrilled to sleep with. (It’s a bum deal, boys and girls. Much more ‘Chikni Chameli’ than Agnipath, frankly.)

It is no surprise though. From the shifting of the Amar Jawan Jyoti flame from its pride of place beneath the canopy of the India Gate, to the vanishing of Indian-made-foreign-liquor brands from the shelves of the CSD canteens, it is pretty clear that today’s regime holds its defence forces in cheap regard. Or wait, no. Actually, their attitude can perhaps best be described as a mixture of gawking awe, rank envy, and open resentment.

No wonder there has been such a powerful—and entirely organic—backlash from young boys and men to Agnipath. So powerful in fact, that some suggest that a whole new three-ring circus has been prodded to bloom in Maharashtra to get the Twitterati to talk about something else.

Others point triumphantly at the fact that the IAF has already received 56,960 applications to the Agnipath scheme within three days of the link going live, but with the ministry of defence clearly stating that this is the only way in which aspirants can apply for jobs below the rank of commissioned officers, what else do you even expect in a nation whose number one issue is rampant unemployment?

The fact remains that the defence services as well as the young men who aspire to join them, are (literally) being short-changed. Our troubled society will have to absorb an influx of disgruntled, newly unemployed young men with military training and an itch to live up to the toxic-masculine title of Agniveer, every year. Meanwhile, our defence forces will have to keep letting go of young men whom they have spent four years training, to start from scratch with rookies again!

Clearly, this regime takes unholy glee in messing with trusted, long-functioning institutions like the Planning Commission, Article 370, the thousand rupee note, the Babri masjid, the MSP and the farm laws, the Supreme Court of India, the Central Vista, the RTI, the CVC, the BCCI, the Delhi Gymkhana Club, and God alone know what else.

But surely an institution as vital as our armed forces could have been spared such stupid tinkering.

editor@theweek.in

an-open-letter-to-the-sports-minister

Fri May 18 11:45:44 IST 2018

Dear Shri Rathore,

Congratulations for a successful showing at the Commonwealth Games! In the near future, it augurs well for Indian sport that exciting young talent has come to the fore.

For continued success, however, there will be a need to find talent consistently at the grassroots, starting with our schools. While the Khelo India School Games (KISG) is a step in the right direction, there are several steps that need to be executed with clarity and integrity for the Khelo India movement to gain momentum.

The KISG needs to be far more inclusive: While the idea is right, and the beginning was well-executed, the number of schools participating in it was miniscule. The KISG was open only to CBSE schools. There are 17,093 listed CBSE schools, and only a fraction of them participated, making the overall participation less than one per cent of the 1.3 million schools in our country.

Of the total number of schools, a million are state and central government schools, while there are around three lakh private aided and unaided schools. Why was KISG open only to CBSE schools when the mandate of the Khelo India scheme is to include all schools? I have been told that for the next edition of KISG, Kendriya Vidyalayas will be included. That is a step in the right direction. But there are only 1,125 KVs in the country! What about the rest of the schools that follow other curricula like the state board, ICSE and IGCSE? Surely, it is not Khelo ‘India’ if less than one per cent of the schools are represented at national-level games. How will you make Khelo India a true representation of India? This brings me to the second step. Who will bring in the schools?

The role of School Games Federation of India (SGFI): Around 3,000 children participated in the KISG. Given the number of children in our schools, this figure is a nano drop in the ocean! Over the years, SGFI, like many other federations, has remained a highly ineffective organisation. They have not developed a strong network with schools, other federations, state-level local bodies and district-level organisations—so critical to reach out to children in the remotest areas.

They have not created sustainable competitive framework for schools to participate in. It is no wonder then that parents prefer their children to pursue academics rather than waste their time on pursuing sport, which is, at best, a very long shot towards building a stable future. By now, SGFI should have had a multi-tiered framework that covered district, zone, state and national level competitions. Is SGFI the right organisation to partner with for conducting such an ambitious programme? On paper, they are the ones who should be doing this, but unless there is a drastic overhaul of their organisation capabilities, KISG will continue to scratch only the surface of the massive potential that exists in our country.

Executing the 12 verticals of Khelo India: While going through the Khelo India website, I saw the overall vision broken down into 12 verticals. They are exhaustive, and the coverage is wide. The scope of work is humungous, and while most of these verticals have been addressed, albeit in a disorganised way thus far, a professional structure of effective execution must be in place. At the same time, I realise the challenge of trying to include all our schools in the country and the effort required under each of the verticals. Perhaps, what is needed is a nodal agency that can coordinate this effort. I have already shared the ‘Sport India’ presentation with you, which makes the case for such an agency.

KISG is a cherished scheme of our honourable prime minister, and you being an Olympian and the sports minister of our country, we have, perhaps, the best opportunity since independence to bring about a much-needed turnaround for sport. Indian sport is counting on you!

Ashwini Nachappa is a former athlete.

salute-the-surge

Sat May 05 15:11:13 IST 2018

Picture this. A young girl in lane six at the start of the semifinals of the 400m race of the recently held Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia. Golden streaked hair. Utterly confident. Not a trace of nerves. The introductions are on. She looks into the camera as if she owns the place, rhythmically waves with the peace symbol, almost Usain Bolt-like. The race starts, and she finishes third with a personal best time. She gets into the final and finishes sixth with yet another personal best. She is Hima Das, 18, one of India’s brightest athletics prospects. The Assamese girl burst on to the national scene at the recent Federation Cup. With two consecutive personal bests at the CWG, Das is part of the emerging face of Indian sport.

Then there was the striking 22-year-old Manika Batra, who won three medals in table tennis. Sporting tri-colour nails, and oozing confidence, she won the gold in the women’s singles, beating top-ranked Singaporean Yu Mengyu in straight games.

What about the stunning performances of 16-year-old Manu Bhaker and 15-year-old Anish Bhanwala, who won the 10m pistol and 25m rapid fire pistol golds respectively? Our young guns were firing on all cylinders in Gold Coast.

We won the mixed team badminton gold beating Malaysia, which was a stupendous achievement, given that Malaysia had won the last four editions. We even won the table tennis team gold, another unbelievable performance, beating Singapore in the finals.

It was a gold fest for us in Gold Coast. We won 11 more gold medals than Glasgow 2014. And, we won them in style. Neeraj Chopra, 20, whose javelin travelled 86.47m, was at least 4m ahead of the competition! In a thrilling all-India final in women’s badminton, Saina beat the fancied Sindhu, showing that the older players still had that fire in them. Tejaswini Sawant, Heena Sidhu and Shreyasi Singh—all won gold in their shooting events, as did Mary Kom in boxing. They showed that time had not dented their desire to win.

There were many performances that left me with hope that Indian sport is now starting to blossom beyond cricket. Yet, our men’s hockey team left me scratching my head in disbelief. Prior to these games, Roelant Oltmans, a Dutch, was replaced by Sjoerd Marijne, another Dutchman. Marijne was the coach of our women’s team, and it was surprising to many as to why he was put in charge of the men’s team. Oltmans was able to build a cohesive unit that was performing consistently. His approach to team building was what set him apart. He was insistent on players being together beyond the field. Apparently, he collected a fine of Rs 500 if anyone came late for training, including himself. No wonder we are sixth ranked in the world.

In contrast, our women’s team outdid themselves under Indian coach Harendra Singh. They beat England, ranked two in the world. They gave Australia a run for their money, losing 1-0 in a tight match.

Clearly, Gold Coast 2018 belonged to our young champions. And, I see a fundamental shift in their approach to competition. Gone is the diffidence and the inferiority, and decades of closed-door policies post-independence. Our earlier generation was brought up on a scarcity mentality. Today, we live in a time of plenty.

The walls between us and the world have collapsed, and the younger generation has adapted well to this new reality. Everything from the Indian Premier League to Indian geeks have given us the confidence that we are as good, if not better, than many other nations. The journey from the fear of losing to the self-belief in winning is the real revolution taking place in Indian sport. All that is required now is efficient and clean sports governance to make India a world power in sport.

unmasking-our-real-nature

Sat Apr 07 16:21:28 IST 2018

In school, we had moral science as a subject. Right and wrong, good and bad, ethics and values, everything was either woven into stories or just plainly preached by teachers. It was a boring class that one was forced to attend. There was really nothing to ‘learn’ from it. I mean, what was there to learn in being ‘good’, or having ‘right’ values, unlike the knowledge one gains in algebra (yikes!), English or science?

In retrospect, that focus on morality in school and the constant reinforcement by our parents was far more important than math or biology. It ensured that there was the ‘right’ grounding necessary to lead a relatively sound life.

But, any semblance of outward morality is all but gone in today’s world of extremes. The cheating by Australian cricketers Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft has yet again brought to focus the immorality in sport. Given the relatively small act of transgression, were these three dealt more harshly than they deserved to be? I remember one of India’s most revered yesteryear cricketers telling my husband how the entire Pakistani team, comprising an enviable array of fast bowlers, carried soda bottle caps in their pockets. These were used to scrape the ball on one side so that it reversed very early in the innings, making it unplayable for the batsmen. In that context, what is a wee bit of sandpaper? It seems the foundation of the so-called greatness of these legendary bowlers was built on the immoral use of soda bottle caps! If that is so, then their performances must be struck from the record books, like what happened with cyclist Lance Armstrong. All his Tour de France titles were taken away. Armstrong doped to stay on top, and he was so remorseless that it was sickening. Some will also recall sprinter Ben Johnson and his cheating. His medals were also taken away. Both Armstrong and Johnson claimed that most others in the competition were cheating, as well. Thus, morally justifying their cheating.

Then, there is immorality in politics, public administration and in business, which makes cheating in sport look like child’s play! Swindling lakhs of crores of rupees and stashing them in Swiss bank accounts, money laundering, sex scandals, lying and cheating are commonplace occurrences.

Earlier, there was fear of a tarnished image—be it at a mass level or within the confines of one’s own circle of family and friends—that kept people in check from being overtly immoral. Today, it matters little. Image can be managed to our liking in this digital era. So, all caution has been thrown to the winds as people act as they please, without any moral restraint. Especially our supposed role models—sportsmen, film stars, leaders in politics and business—who impact our society at large, thus legitimising immoral behaviour.

Are we becoming an increasingly immoral society? On the face of it, it seems so. Perhaps we see and hear more of it, thanks to the omnipresence of technology. But, as a race, lying, cheating, corruption and immorality have always been a part of our culture from the dawn of civilisation. It is nothing new. The standards of morality have undergone change, but that we are basically immoral has not changed. I say this because there would not be codes of morality, such as those guided by our religious texts, if we were not immoral. These helped build a veneer to counter our baser, self-centred instincts. Unfortunately, the veneer has all but disappeared. There is not even lip-service to it any more. Our real nature has been unmasked. It is immorality.

Ashwini Nachappa is a former athlete.

the-waning-of-nationalism

Sat Mar 24 16:25:55 IST 2018

I was brought up with a deep feeling of being Indian, as were many in my generation and the ones before mine. It is a feeling that is beyond doubt. The remnants of our freedom struggle were still strong in my time and I still carry that fervour of being an Indian. To represent India at the world stage was a privilege that I worked very hard for. It was of great value then to receive an Arjuna Award for excellence in my sport.

An award given by the country is to be cherished. Or, so I thought. Today, awards are bought and sold, even as national pride is swept under the carpet. There is a very different world emerging today. A world where nationality is fast eroding as a pillar of one’s identity. And, one can see that clearly in sports. There was a time when playing for the country was considered by most to be the ultimate feather in one’s cap. But, today, it is the private leagues that players and spectators identify with more. Football is a case in point. Players do not feel the same fervour playing for their country, as they do for their clubs. Messi is more FC Barcelona and less Argentinian. Ronaldo, more Real Madrid than Portuguese. It is only a matter of time before an IPL team becomes the pinnacle of a player’s identity, whether he be from the West Indies or Afghanistan.

An identity has value only when it provides the individual with a sense of security. That is why we identify with the country, our family, an organisation or with a religion. These are some of the main pillars we rely on to build stability in our lives. But, when experiences go contrary to what we desire, and, when there is instability, we start questioning that identity. Especially, when that identity starts getting diffused and has no common, shared understanding. Nationalism is proving to be one such primary means of identity that is losing its relevance.

At the heart of keeping the idea of India alive is a shared understanding of what it stands for. But, that shared idea is getting diffused. Each of us has our own agenda to fulfil. A few people in power make hay while the sun shines, to the detriment of those who elect them. The chosen few in power, the bureaucracy and the rich and famous play by different rules, while most of the citizens struggle through a totally separate set of rules. We bribe and get our work done.

We pay taxes, and there is little development to show for it. For 60 years, there was one kind of idea of India. Today, another idea of India is being pushed. There is no common understanding left anymore, of what the idea of India is. And, so, the value of our national identity is fast eroding.

This is happening not just here, but around the world. The US, with a demagogue for a president, is deeply divided on several fronts. As are many European nations. Brexit has shown how fractured the UK is. The large outflow of refugees from areas of strife and poverty add to the complexity of bringing about a common identity in nations where they settle.

Why is this happening? Technology has played a major role in rapidly spreading alternative ideas of the same identity. Man-made borders have also ceased to make sense in the virtual world. In this information age, there is an overload of views and counter-views that each must contend with. In this charged and volatile environment, keeping an idea stable is virtually impossible. Especially, the idea of a nation. Perhaps, nationalism is still secure in some of our villages, till, of course, the virtual world engulfs them.

Ashwini Nachappa is a former athlete.

sportsmen-need-a-safety-net

Sat Mar 10 19:06:17 IST 2018

Kumar (name changed) is a 16-year-old promising hurdler. He has been training at ASF, my sports foundation in Coorg, for the past two years. Now in his 10th grade, he has decided to drop out of sports to focus on pursuing a professional academic degree, even though ASF looks after athletes till they finish college. Kumar’s is the stereotypical story of what is happening in our country, especially in urban areas. Parents are not keen on letting their children pursue sport because it does not ensure a secure future.

If sportsmen are not academically inclined, and if they hail from low- to middle-income households, sports could be an opportunity to break their limiting conditions. But, it provides no guarantee of a secure future. So, many from such backgrounds choose to do a BA or BCom, which they see as a safer option. Unfortunately, most of these youngsters give up sports.

Those who have the courage to follow their interest, they do so against all odds. And, only a handful succeed. Thankfully, for such top performers, the safety net that our PSUs, governmental bodies and a handful of corporates have provided has been a godsend. Whatever sporting successes that our country has achieved, cricket included, is mainly because of the safety net of employment these organisations provided to top athletes. Who can forget the hockey teams of Indian Airlines and Air India that produced many greats? My husband, Datha, who represented India juniors in hockey, played for Air India. Railways has been one of the most proactive employers supporting sport; its most famous employee being M.S. Dhoni.

As for me, I was offered a job by Vijaya Bank right after 12th grade. It was a huge relief for my parents and me, as it meant I could focus on my athletics career and not worry about working to make ends meet. It made an enormous difference, mentally, emotionally and economically. Recently, Harmanpreet Kaur, India’s intrepid women’s T20 captain, was given a job by Punjab Police.

Yet, for every Harmanpreet Kaur there are a thousand others waiting to make their mark. What happens to these athletes? What is their safety net? It is largely chance that an athlete of meagre means makes it to the top.

There are three distinct phases to an athlete’s career. The first is the struggle phase to establish oneself at a national level. The next phase is training to be an international athlete and the final phase is post-retirement from sports. All these require a safety net relevant to that phase. Much of the support from PSUs, other organisations as well as the emerging competitive super leagues is in the second phase. However, it is in the first phase that one requires clarity about a secure future, to even think of someone wanting to take up sport. Education that provides career options is crucial, should the athlete not make it beyond phase one. Post-retirement, there needs to be a concerted effort to retool the athlete for a secure, stable life.

Today, for-profit organisations define the economy and they must play a decisive role in providing such a safety net. Two per cent of their profits is mandated to be spent on developing their communities, and it is only logical that sports be included in it. They can do so by ensuring that the education needs of athletes are met right through school and college and create programmes for retooling and absorption of athletes post-retirement. These small steps can have a substantial impact in developing our sporting potential.

Ashwini Nachappa is a former athlete

khelo-india-school-games

Sat Feb 24 16:19:06 IST 2018

The recently concluded Khelo India School Games threw up some remarkable performances. We found talent from places that never would have got noticed. A boy from Manipur won the badminton gold. Now, who would have expected that a badminton star would rise from the northeast? The sheer magnitude of talent that exists in the country is unfathomable, and, hence, a great source of hope for a sporting revolution.

Considering the magnitude of the event, it was remarkable how professionally it was managed. Athletes, coaches and officials were treated with care. I was thrilled that the participants travelled by A/C trains and stayed in three-star accommodation. I still remember travelling unreserved, sometimes two to a single berth, with officials travelling reserved for national events. I even travelled all the way to Patiala, sleeping near toilets, during my early days as a student going for the Indian camp. The National Games of 1985 was a nightmare with mosquito-infested rooms and barely enough food to eat. But, we were pleased to return home with medals to show for the misery.

The success of the event can also be attributed to the fact that the involvement of federations was kept to only their area of expertise—on-field technical support—while the rest of the event management was outsourced to those with relevant expertise. This is in stark contrast with similar events managed shoddily by federations, who have no expertise in event management. Then, there was live coverage of six disciplines of the games on Star TV and Hotstar. All in all, a wonderful start. Only a well-seasoned sports person would have understood the importance of all this. Congratulations to our Union Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore for pulling it off.

Khelo India is an initiative by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring about a culture of sports at the grassroots. Modi tried this in Gujarat, and it is this model that he hopes to replicate across the country. Some Union government schemes have now been merged into the Khelo India-National Programme for Development of Sports. This includes spending on structured competitions for greater participation of youth, identification of talent, training the talent through governmental and private sports academies and the building of infrastructure in smaller towns. Khelo India programme has been allocated Rs 500 crore. In the coming years, this could rise to Rs 1,500 crore. Given the size of our country and the population, the amount would still be miniscule.

The immediate challenge that Rathore faces is to ensure that selected athletes get consistent nurturing that allows a considerable number to rise to the top. These athletes will be given Rs 5 lakh each as a financial assistance. It is a substantial amount, and a great encouragement for younger talent to take up sports as a career option. But, how are the athletes going to be monitored? What are the facilities and training that would be provided? This will be a challenge in the context of the current condition of the Sports Authority of India (SAI), which manages around 60 sports centres, and the respective state centres. A study in 2015, commissioned by the Sports Ministry, which I helmed, detailed the action that needs to be taken to improve these centres. Perhaps the recommendations of the report could help the new management at SAI to start a fresh course in-line with the vision of Khelo India.

The next logical step would be to follow-up soon with a Khelo India University Games. It is here that potential athletes for the Olympics could be found. Let’s hope that Khelo India is a game changer.

Ashwini Nachappa is a former athlete.

deconstructing-federer

Fri Feb 16 15:01:12 IST 2018

Spoiler alert! This article is from an unabashed fan of Roger Federer, whose otherworldly performance at the Australian Open won him his 20th Grand Slam title.

I am awestruck by the longevity of Federer’s performance level. At 36, and being a touch player with a single-handed backhand, he astonishingly continues to win Grand Slam titles in this era of high-octane, physically powered tennis. To consistently beat players who are 10 to 15 years younger is simply remarkable.

So, what makes for this miracle that is Federer?

On the one hand, deconstructing his success, if at all it is possible, would take away the mystery from the miracle. Yet, on the other hand, as a sportsperson who spent the best of her youth training and pursuing her sprinting dreams, I am keen to unravel the factors that have contributed to his longevity at the top. I write this being fully aware that I am not privy to the ‘inside’ happenings in his life, so whatever I gather from the public domain is what I base my analysis on.

Factor 1, the body: At the level that Federer has been playing, it is a miracle that his body has been able to bear the brunt of extreme tennis for so long, with very few breakdowns as compared to most other players. It seems that Federer’s body was created for tennis.

Two, training and skill: Very few come close to Federer in anticipation, shot selection, court coverage and the sheer grace of his game. But, it does not come easy. Recently, I saw a video of Federer’s training and it was incredible to see the care and thought that went into his training methods.

Three, support staff and family: Federer has been blessed with a supportive family and a dedicated training and support team. It is remarkable that he can continue playing at this level while balancing his roles as a husband and a father (to four young children), not to mention his endorsements and charitable work.

Four, mental makeup: They say the hunger to do well arises out of the tough life one has had. But, Federer comes from a wealthy family. His dramatic change from a racket-throwing, emotional teenager to a calm and collected Zen-like statesman on and off the court is well-documented. However, where he showed his mental steel was when Rafael Nadal dominated him. Most would have thrown in the towel and retired, but Federer stuck on.

Why?

I feel it is because of factor 5—his love for the game. To anyone watching tennis, it is amply clear how much Federer loves the game. It is this love that has been the biggest factor of his longevity.

Of course, these factors are not unique to Federer. They form the basis for the potential success of any athlete. I say ‘potential’ because success is not a given, no matter how hard the athlete works to bring about those factors in their favour. Life is forever changing, and the complexity of this constant movement makes it difficult to control the factors in its entirety.

To me, there is an X factor at work that brings all these factors together at the right time and the right place. It is beyond the individual to make it happen. Federer is the outcome of a universe conspiring for its own pleasure. There is no other way to explain the Federer phenomenon.

political-discourse-needs-red-line

Sat Oct 05 12:30:30 IST 2024

The state of political discourse presently on display must surely seem like the norm to younger Indians, who might not have had any exposure to a more tolerant, courteous brand of adversarial politicking. Yet, as their parents would know, this was not always so.

Even when political opponents used to plumb new depths of uncivil behaviour, there was one red line that was almost sacrosanct: not attacking domestic political opponents when visiting abroad. Nearly 20 years ago, I had occasion to host Hillary Clinton for an interaction with Indian MPs from various parties. The former US first lady was then a senator of the Democratic Party and aggressively taking on her opponents at home in the government led by the Republican president George W. Bush.

The US-led war in Iraq had already become hugely unpopular. It had consumed untold Iraqi lives, and thousands of American ones, without a trace of Iraq’s alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction that had been the ostensible trigger for the invasion. The domestic political rhetoric in the US had become sharply acerbic and accusatory, with Clinton as a leading critic of the Bush government. Yet, despite several attempts by Indian MPs to get her to comment on domestic US politics, she refused to be drawn into it. And, in fact, explicitly stated that despite her sharp differences with Bush, she would not criticise him when abroad.

That experience left a deep impression on me, and I dare say many of my fellow Indian MPs. A few years later, I was at another such occasion, when the former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was visiting India. At a major media conclave in Delhi, I heard her speak candidly on many topics, but demur when the anchor and attendees tried to draw her into condemning her domestic political opponents. Neither of these prominent women are wallflowers, in fact they are just the opposite. They are notably outspoken both at home and abroad, but adhered to the lakshman rekha of not washing domestic political dirty laundry when abroad.

Over the years, I have had the honour to be a part of, and also to lead, dozens of multi-party delegations of MPs visiting abroad. We, too, had a verbally agreed code of conduct to refrain from dragging our domestic disagreements onto the international stage. And I can report with some pleasure that, except for one or two minor instances, we largely adhered to that.

There was a dignity in talking to foreign audiences as Indians first and last, with our party allegiances being secondary, that many of us came to recognise and appreciate. I have had those experiences while representing both the treasury as well as opposition benches in Parliament, as have many of my peers. Which only goes to show that that sort of a bipartisan commitment to displaying a united front to the rest of the world is not a pipe dream. 

The recent examples of Indian legislators taking domestic political squabbles abroad has an undertone of a colonial mindset. Seeking foreigners’ sympathy, let alone approval or support, demeans the clout that India has acquired as the largest democracy in history. It also betrays a sense of inadequacy and insecurity among those who indulge in it, as if doubting their own ability to persuade fellow Indians without external help.

India’s middle class and opinion makers can, and should, play a role to nudge politicians back towards earlier norms, when domestic differences did not get in the way of mutual courtesy, even cooperation, in interactions with foreigners.

Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda is National Vice President of the BJP and is an MP in the Lok Sabha.

when-separatism-goes-mainstream

Sat Sep 21 11:05:21 IST 2024

As a Kashmir watcher for more than 30 years, I must talk about the shifting sands in the valley where the first elections are being held in over a decade. This is also the first poll since the abrogation of article 370. But the fascinating development is the ‘mainstreaming’ of separatist elements in this election.

The banned socio-religious organisation, the Jamaat-e-Islami, shut down by the Modi government in 2019 under the anti-terror law, has backed at least 10 candidates across the valley. Engineer Rashid, jailed in a terror funding case and out on bail, did not just win a Lok Sabha seat by a record margin; he has now fielded or backed at least 30 candidates. In some way, it is the ‘mainstreaming’ of separatism and an electoral moderation of extremist politics.

The last time we saw this on a smaller scale in Kashmir was in 2002, when Sajad Lone, then a separatist, fielded a proxy candidate. Today, Lone is regarded as mainstream and there is a new generation of experimental leaders dipping their toes in election waters.

What this may throw up remains unpredictable.

Parties like Omar Abdullah’s National Conference and Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP have accused the Jamaat-backed candidates, as well as Rashid, of being proxies for the BJP. Others like CPI(M) veteran Mohamad Yousuf Tarigami, who is being challenged in Kulgam by a Jamaat candidate, go one step further. “Delhi is facilitating these people, it is an ashirwaad [blessing] for those who were previously called anti-India,” said Tarigami.

I asked Sayar Ahmed Reshi, the Jamaat candidate taking on Tarigami, what made him take the electoral plunge. “Development and cleaning up the political system of wrongdoing, of goondas,” he told me, as he campaigned in a remote village. The Jamaat-e-Islami last engaged with electoral politics in 1987, in an election widely believed to be rigged. That election birthed the rise of Syed Salahuddin, today the head of the Hizbul Mujahideen, who sought refuge in Pakistan.

The other big change in the election is the complete absence of any reference to Pakistan. There was a time when separatists and militants, backed by Pakistan, would give boycott calls in every election. Kashmir has officially ended the politics of boycott and shifted to the politics of participation.

Is this a rebel vote within the framework of democracy? Is there simmering discontent beneath the surface? Do the bustling night bazaars and thronging tourists capture the full picture? Is article 370 still an issue? The answers to some of these questions will take time to emerge.

But, as Riyaz Majid, a professor who has joined Engineer Rashid’s party, told me, “This election is about unlocking our suffocation.” We were sitting in an apple orchard in south Kashmir and talking with a group of other politicians. As the apples were plucked from the trees and pulped into juice, in Kashmir’s version of a farm-to-table experience, one of them spontaneously raised his glass of juice and said, “Cheers to democracy.”

And so we all toasted the people of Jammu and Kashmir and democracy.

The outcome of the election may throw up major surprises. The debate will continue over who was backed by whom and what the blueprint may be to smash the status quo. But the process is way more interesting than the result.

I can drink to that.

editor@theweek.in

how-not-to-react-to-rape

Fri Aug 23 15:33:07 IST 2024

The rape and murder of a doctor in Kolkata has been an inflection point for the country. But as we feel rage and anguish at the crime, its cover up and the shocking mob vandalism that targeted protesting doctors, there are many other problematic responses in the aftermath of the horror that should give us pause.

The Mamata Banerjee government did many things wrong in its response to what unfolded in the R.G. Kar Medical College. The most egregious is its unexplained protection of Sandip Ghosh, the principal of the college. Not only did the violence unfold on his watch, doctors say he blamed the victim by callously questioning why she was alone in the seminar hall at night—this after she had wrapped a 36-hour shift. He is responsible for college officials lying to the parents of the victim and telling them that their daughter died by suicide. He allowed suspicious ‘renovations’ to take place 20 metres near the crime scene, triggering apprehensions of a cover-up. And, worst of all, when he finally resigned, he was not sacked. Instead he got a new job as the principal of the Calcutta National Medical College. It is to the credit of young doctors there that they refused to let him enter the premises. But, bizarrely, two local Trinamool Congress politicians—a legislator and a state minister—reached the college to persuade students to call off their agitation against Ghosh. As the Calcutta High Court asked while sending Ghosh on long leave, why is this man so powerful? The court pointed out that a government lawyer had been sent to defend him.

The attempt to improve working conditions for women doctors in the aftermath of the crime has come with its own problems. While measures like separate resting space, toilets, mobile apps connected to local police stations are all welcome, two advisories are extremely problematic—avoiding night shift for women doctors and restricting their working hours to 12. This is the exact opposite of the ‘reclaim the night’ movement led by protesters after the rape. Women have not sought differential working hours. Women have sought freedom and security at all hours. This move is antithetical to the very spirit of the protests besides being yet one more obstacle in the career trajectory of women professionals.

Some of the media’s descriptive cliches also need a review. To call this Nirbhaya 2.0 or Justice for Abhaya as many have is well-intentioned but needs examination. When we call a rape victim by these nomenclatures, we are foisting a forced idea of fearlessness on a woman who is no longer there to speak about her ordeal. Women are brave but no one is fearless about sexual violence. No one should be fearless about an attack so brutal that it left the doctor bleeding from eyes and private parts. This idea of thrusting fearlessness on murdered women who suffer assault needs to be examined. This language also takes away from demanding change in what creates fear to begin with.

Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud called this a moment of national catharsis. Which it is. But we need to learn some lessons from it. And the first one is, how not to react to rape and sexual violence.

editor@theweek.in

laugh-kamala-laugh

Sat Jul 27 11:24:37 IST 2024

Ever since Kamala Harris—daughter to a scientist mother born in Tamil Nadu, and father from Jamaica—became the presumptive nominee for the US presidential elections, the internet has lit up with bite-sized memes and videos of her. Some of these are made by supporters of Donald Trump that seek to criticise her but really end up doing the opposite, solidifying her place, especially among female voters.

Take the memes about her so called ‘cackle’.

There’s a brilliant riposte by Kamala herself. In an interview with actor Drew Barrymore, Kamala credited her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, for her loud laugh. For us, in India, the following description is completely relatable: “I have my mother’s laugh and I grew up around a bunch of women in particular who laughed from the belly. They laughed—they would sit around the kitchen drinking their coffees, and telling big stories with big laughs,” Kamala told Barrymore.  Replace the coffee with chai and that could be our masis (maternal aunts), our ammas (mothers), our aajis (grandmothers), laughing uproariously, and without apology.

Jaded cynics argue that Indians romanticising this moment are being naive and cliched. Kamala, they argue, has always chosen to give primacy to her identity as a black American over an Indian-American brown woman. And while at the level of politics, there is truth to that; Kamala’s mother has always been at the centre of all her stories. More than Kamala making dosas with Mindy Kaling, another star of the Indian diaspora, it is the backstory of Kamala’s mother that brings home her desi antecedents in a really powerful way.

Besides, as Zarna Garg, a fabulous stand-up comedian with roots in Maharashtra and Gujarat, told me, “… Just the fact that someone called Kamala or Sujata can run for president changes the games.” It’s a different matter that very few Americans can even pronounce Kamala correctly—and maybe this campaign will finally teach them how to!

More seriously, America has wrestled with structural sexism. Their inability to have a female president for all of these decades—and now their regressions on abortion laws—makes the Kamala story all the more critical. All the more when you consider that she is running against someone who has been accused of not just misogyny, but also sexual assault. In fact, more than a dozen women have publicly charged Trump with abuse or harassment. And his running mate J.D. Vance (married to an Indian American) has revealed his own bigotry, by mocking what he calls ‘childless cat ladies’.

The last time a woman in America took a shot at the White House, she was also punished for her loud laugh, her clothes, her bad hair days. There may have been many different reasons for why Hillary Clinton lost, but among the causes was deep-seated discomfort with women who are opinionated, individualistic and do not conform to societal stereotypes.

And as Garg points out, the Kamala moment is even more significant than the Hillary moment because Kamala is entirely self-made with no political familial links. “Indian aunties rule,” Garg told me, only partially joking, “and Indian uncles, you please sit down….”

Even if you hold back the urge to impose India into the Kamala story, women everywhere should be pleased. And we should laugh as loudly as our mothers and grandmothers taught us to.

editor@theweek.in

there-is-no-single-emotive-issue-that-defines-2024-lok-sabha-polls

Fri May 31 13:00:01 IST 2024

In the last mile of 2024 Lok Sabha general elections, two completely divergent narratives have emerged about who is ahead and best placed to form the next government. Though they are not the only individuals on either side of the trenches to have made these arguments, we can, for the purpose of shorthand, call it the Prashant Kishor and Yogendra Yadav schools of thought.

I was the first to interview Kishor. We met in Patna, where the political consultant-turned-politician—his party Jan Suraaj will contest the next assembly elections—set the cat among the proverbial pigeons with his remarks. While there was a lot of focus on his prediction that the BJP will be back, “by the same or slightly more”, intriguingly there has not been as much debate on his description in the same interview, of the prime minister being, in his words, “a brand in decline”. Likening it to “a century with six dropped catches” Kishor has blamed the opposition for “poor fielding”. He forecasts a “weakened prime minister” whose main resistance will come from the general public in what he is sure will be Modi’s third term.

Yadav, a supporter of the INDIA alliance, has an entirely different sense of what happens next. In a conversation with me, he underlined that he was not talking about a ‘1977-style’ mass wave of anger against the incumbent government, but “a return to normal politics” where a phase by phase decline, combined with the dip in turn out numbers, has now painted a likelihood of the “BJP, maybe even the NDA, slipping below the majority mark”.

Is there a space between these two predictive arguments that we know to be true?

I won’t hazard any guess on numbers. But here are some observations from my road trip traversing the distance between Kanniyakumari and Kashmir—covering 12 states and 12,000km over 40 plus days.

Modi remains the dominant political brand across India. There is more incumbency against local MPs of the BJP than against the prime minister. Whatever the eventual outcome, there has been a spirited fight in this election.

The election feels more competitive than anyone would have forecast at the beginning of the campaign. Modi’s own voters want him to dial down religious rhetoric and Hindu-Muslim barbs. The biggest applause for Modi comes on matters of internal security, abrogation of Article 370, infrastructure and India’s stature in the world.

One thing voters want Modi to do differently (apart from toning down religious politics) is to focus more on jobs.

There is no palpable anger, but in many places, there is despondency and disquiet—small street vendors and shopkeepers spoke often of “sannaata hai” (everything is still) when I asked about how their businesses were doing. Yet, they did not suggest that they would vote differently than before. Young men are agitated about jobs. The four year cap on Agniveer, the new military recruitment scheme, is a genuine issue of angst in states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana.

There is no single emotive issue that defines the election. The Ram temple, while welcomed by millions of devout Indians, does not come up in political conversation. These are disparate, seemingly unconnected observations in what’s being called ‘a zero wave’ election.

For the rest, we must have the humility to say the following three words—we don’t know—and wait patiently till June 4.

editor@theweek.in

ram-temple-not-an-election-issue-in-south

Sat May 04 15:37:30 IST 2024

Much has been said this election season about the alleged north-south divide. There are those who believe there is a political line drawn across the map of India and those who believe that these are divisive ways to understand elections and the country.

As a Punjabi from Delhi, I have just driven through most of peninsular India. My election road trip series, Dhabas of Democracy—designed to discover all the resplendent flavours of India—began in Kanniyakumari and wove its way through Thiruvananthapuram, Coimbatore, Wayanad, Mysuru, Bengaluru, Kurnool, Hyderabad and onwards to Maharashtra.

I have discovered and loved pazham kanji (watery fermented rice with chili and onions), marvelled at the popularity of kalaan (Tamil for mushroom) served by the street side in a stir fry paste, stood in line to eat a butter masala dosa at Vidyarthi Bhavan, discovered what the history is of Mysore Pak, devoured the onion samosas of Hyderabad and eaten curd rice at every meal I could.

I have gathered some food for thought as well.

While I won’t use the word divide—and normally I hate generalisations—the southern states did feel different. For starters their cities were cleaner and better planned and their surroundings were greener and more lush. The emphasis on education seems greater in many of these states. For instance, in Coimbatore, the high-profile seat of the BJP’s Tamil Nadu chief K. Annamalai, two of the three candidates are IIM alumni (including Annamalai) and the third has a doctorate. I can’t think of another constituency in India with a similar profile of contestants.

The other thing that struck me was the role of religion. I felt the physical presence of religion and faith much more overtly in the south than in the north—temples, churches and mosques. In fact, elaborate wood carvings framed homes in villages, the temples are gigantic compared to the north and much more ornate and grand. And, yet, among everyone I spoke to across peninsular India, not one person mentioned the Ram temple in Ayodhya as an election issue. There was only one elderly gentleman in Kerala who referenced it. But other than that, it came up in conversation when I asked about its impact. Of course, despite the single-minded push by Narendra Modi in the south, the BJP is, at the moment, playing to increase vote share rather than seats. It knows that with the exception of Karnataka, which it swept last time, any gains will be incremental. But, what’s most important is that this response on the temple held true even among Modi voters and fans. In the urban pockets of these states I met many citizens who are big admirers of Modi. But when I asked them why they were voting for the BJP, I often got the same answer—under Modi, India’s standing in the world was stronger than ever before. Sometimes I would follow it up with a question on the Ram temple, and mostly the answer would be that it was of no or little consequence to their political choices.

Modi still holds the distinct advantage in these elections. And maybe the answers I will hear will be very different in the north. But my travels through two phases of the elections convince me that in the southern states there is no political surge around the temple despite religion being a more entrenched and visible part of daily life than in the north.

editor@theweek.in

manmohan-singh-may-not-be-king-but-he-deserves-appreciation

Sat Apr 06 15:25:56 IST 2024

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh officially bowed out of politics this week after 33 years in the Rajya Sabha. Perhaps the most recent image of Singh in public memory is of him arriving at the Parliament in a wheelchair, to cast his vote during a critical proceeding, even when the outcome was foreknown to be in favour of the treasury benches. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his political opponent, complimented Singh on his sense of duty.

Singh famously argued that history would be kinder to him than contemporary media had been. And while, like many other politicians and public figures, he also had several flaws, history is already more benign and generous as it looks back at his years in government.

As a journalist, I would argue that he is the last old-style politician I know who upheld the right of a free media to be critical. In today’s hyper-polarised media environment where if you do not confirm the existing bias or leaning of a political party you are immediately characterised as the ‘enemy’, Singh never closed the doors of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to those who had criticised him.

If his first term was a normal mix of praise and criticism, his second term, especially towards the end, saw him and his cabinet at the receiving end of relentless criticism, including by this columnist. With swirling corruption allegations, sharp questions about who really wielded power—Sonia Gandhi or him—and his inherent diffidence, the second term of his prime ministership was brutal from a communications perspective. Yet, it never impacted our ability in the media to meet with our sources, to be briefed on background on important national issues or indeed to ask questions of the prime minister directly.

I remember after I presented an especially critical programme on his government’s handling of the unrest in the Kashmir valley in 2010, I received a call from his office to come by and share my thoughts directly with him. The only other time a senior politician responded in a similar manner was when L.K Advani, who was deputy prime minister and home minister, invited me for a cup of tea to talk about a column I had written that he especially disagreed with.

I can’t imagine this sort of encounter happening today with any political leader in any political party.

Today, neither the opposition nor the government—for different reasons—has a healthy, even-keel relationship with the media. Both sides have favourites—depending on how they perceive your ideological slant and both sides block access if you are sharply critical.

As his former media adviser Sanjaya Baru said to me on my podcast, Manmohan Singh could have had a different legacy if he had done two things—contested the Lok Sabha elections—and resigned after Rahul Gandhi publicly undermined him on an ordinance that Gandhi thought protected corrupt politicians.

Having said that, he was still a man of rare civility, essential decency and intellectual open-mindedness. And as he steps into his political twilight he deserves at the very least that acknowledgment and respect.

editor@theweek.in

in-india-we-dont-know-to-talk-about-rape

Sat Mar 09 11:42:25 IST 2024

Grotesque details are emerging about the gangrape of a Spanish vlogger in Dumka, Jharkhand. We know, based on a first information report filed by the woman and her husband (both bikers), that she was threatened with a dagger, kicked, punched and raped repeatedly by a group of seven men for over two-and-a-half hours. Her husband was assaulted and tied up according to the FIR.

While all incidents of sexual violence are horrific—and while women battling for space inside and outside of the home is a universal fight—the responses to this gut-wrenching incident have been disappointing and tone deaf from the get-go. Within hours of the couple releasing a video detailing what had happened to them, the issue erupted into a political war.

The chief of the National Commission for Women—while promising justice for the Dumka rape survivor—got into vociferous arguments on social media over what she called an attempt to tarnish the image of India. Others brought up the grave complaints of sexual abuse in Sandeshkhali, West Bengal, to underline a doublespeak in public debate.

Once again, women’s bodies were reduced to a battlefield for competitive politics. Yes, the initial attempt to protect Sheikh Shahjahan, the TMC strongman at the epicentre of the Sandeshkhali storm, should be criticised. As should be what unfolded in Jharkhand. Most Indian women—and men—look at the horror of abuse and violation in a clear-eyed way without the foggy lens of party politics. Unfortunately, the public discourse is captured by politicians who shout and scream at each other, dicing and slicing crime data to wag fingers at each other.

There has not been one case of sexual violence or rape in my memory that has been discussed without it being reduced to the lowest common denominator of leftwing vs rightwing or Congress vs BJP or some other framework of competition.

From Nirbhaya to Bilkis Bano, Dumka to Sandeshkhali, our politicians have pitted women against women. And we have watched this, participating in this trench warfare if we are politically aligned, cynically silent if we are not.

We, the women, have failed to unify on the same side—our own.

While we wait for the day when sexual violence can be discussed beyond politics, the final moment of tone deafness was the ‘compensation’ of Rs10 lakh given to the victim-couple by officials, down to a photograph to record the moment. The idea that sexual abuse can be monetarily ‘compensated’ is a revolting one. Making a photo-op of the moment is abhorrent. And the couple’s decision to accept this money is problematic. Their friends tell me that they are foreigners who were robbed at knifepoint. Given that the seven men have been arrested, the police could have pushed to have their material belongings returned. Throwing money at rape makes me distinctly uncomfortable.

Whether it is judges who have on occasion asked rapists to marry the women they abused, politicians and officials who hector survivors of violence, or, worse, reduce rape to an electoral battle, in India we have not yet learnt how to talk about rape with sensitivity and quietude. And the political noise drowns out the conversations that need to be had and heard.

editor@theweek.in

regulation-of-live-in-relationships-is-definitely-invasive

Sat Feb 10 14:49:00 IST 2024

In principle, I support a progressive Uniform Civil Code.

For too long, orthodoxies of different faiths have been weaponised against women. Gender justice as the goal of a secular family law—on marriage, divorce, inheritance—is something I would support.

A Uniform Civil Code is not meant to be the hegemonic assertion of one set of customs and traditions on the other. Nor is it meant to be a triumphalist political document.

In my understanding, a UCC should standardise family law within the framework of fundamental rights. But the voluminous draft of the new Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code—tabled in the state assembly amid chants of Vande Mataram, Bharat Mata Ki Jai and Jai Shri Ram—seems to go well beyond this remit.

While it will take time to go through its 800 pages, the proposed regulation of live-in relationships is definitely invasive and ill-thought through. The demand that couples who cohabit outside of marriage have to register their relationship or face a possible jail term/fine is preposterous. Even if we assume the intent of this proviso is noble—arguably to protect women and children by recognising the legitimacy of a non-marital relationship; the punitive action against those who decline to do so is unacceptable.

The bill says that registration of the relationship is required within one month of the date of entering the relationship. A failure to do so can result in three months in prison, or a 010,000 fine, or both. Effectively, it is an invitation to the police to enter the bedroom. Or even to pesky neighbours and landlords to start reporting new, young couples to the local police station. The registrar also has the power to decline the application of a couple. Relationships where one partner is married or registered in a live-in relationship elsewhere cannot have official recognition. It is not clear what happens to those who are separated, but not yet divorced due to the snail-like pace of court hearings or long-drawn out property/custody battles. Nor is it clear what this bill means for same-sex couples. And the legislation already exempts tribal communities. So its uniformity is questionable.

But let us be clear. Not only are these proposals meaningless in the age of Tinder and Bumble, they are completely violative of the right to privacy, a right recognised by no less than Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud.

To give the state machinery overarching powers of this nature is to unleash the moral police on consenting adults. It is criminalising personal choice. It is quite literally policing the personal.

Those who opt to live together instead of getting married either do so because they are not convinced of the need for the formality of marriage or because they are in an exploratory phase of their relationship. Sometimes it could be because one or the other partner is still emerging from a previous relationship because of a prolonged legal battle.

Whatever be the reasons, what happened to live and let live?

If the essential aim of a Uniform Civil Code is to equalise rights between men and women, these tenets, if approved into law, will have the opposite effect. It is women, young and old, who will be judged, character-assassinated and possibly prosecuted.

editor@theweek.in

why-bilkis-bano-verdict-is-seminal

Sat Jan 13 11:21:59 IST 2024

Bilkis Bano cried tears of relief,” her lawyer, Shobha Gupta, told me as the news filtered in that the Supreme Court had ordered her 11 convicted rapists to be sent back to jail.

The passage of time can dull the memory of the horror that was inflicted on Bilkis when she was just 21 and three months pregnant. She was gangaped, pinned to the ground and forced to witness the rape of her mother. Worst, Bilkis was held forcibly as her three-year-old daughter was killed; her head smashed with a stone. Several other relatives were killed. The men who did this were sentenced to life imprisonment. But they were released by the Gujarat government in a wholesale remission decision that has now been described by the Supreme Court as an order obtained through “fraud, ...abuse of power... and misrepresentation of fact”.

“We are often desensitised because of what we see everyday, but this was a crime against society, a crime against humanity, a crime against the Constitution,” Justice Deepak Gupta told me. Gupta was part of the Supreme Court bench that had in 2019 ordered the Gujarat government to pay Bilkis Rs50 lakh in compensation.

Justice U.D. Salvi, who had sentenced Bilkis Bano’s rapists to life imprisonment in 2008, said the verdict would “reaffirm the trust of people in the judiciary at a time when all kinds of things are being said about it”. The fact that these convicts had walked out to celebrations, garlands and sweets, Salvi told me “was proof that they had never reformed at all”.

The Bilkis Bano verdict is seminal and not just because it delivers long overdue justice to a beleaguered woman who has spent the last two decades fighting in court. It is important because it reminds the judiciary about what its role is in a healthy democracy. “This is what justice feels like” is how Bilkis expressed it, but she spoke for millions of Indians.

Justice B.V. Nagarathna, whose bench delivered the powerful order and who might well be India’s first woman chief justice, located the Bilkis case within the larger debate around the rule of law as the essential principle of a democracy. “Rule of law means whenever and wherever the state fails to perform its duty, the court would step in…. Courts have to be mindful of not only the spelling of the word justice but also the content of the concept,” say the judges.

Most bravely, in a possible nod to their own colleagues—because remember this judgment nullifies an earlier verdict by the Supreme Court—the order states, “Those concerned with the rule of law must remain unmindful and unruffled by the ripples caused by it.”

The last word in this case has, unfortunately, not been spoken. The lawyer for the convicts, Rishi Malhotra, has made it clear that he will exercise legal options in seeking a review of the Supreme Court response. On the ground, several of the convicts have been ‘missing’ from their homes since 2022, raising questions about whether they will surrender in the two-week time frame set by the court. Another set of pleas and petitions could consign Bilkis Bano to more years of struggle.

But with all these caveats, the Supreme Court verdict does what is needed in every democracy. It restores checks and balances. It is a spring-cleaning moment to clear out the cobwebs.

editor@theweek.in

modi-shah-bjp-and-the-surprise-factor

Fri Dec 15 18:22:33 IST 2023

Let us admit it. No political pundit, whether on the left, right or centre, was able to predict who would be the new chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.

The Narendra Modi government and the Amit Shah party organisation have always thrived on the surprise factor, and it was no different this time. That the BJP under Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the BJP under Modi are different is a given. But with one fell swoop the Modi-led BJP has ended the political careers of what used to be known as the party’s second generation leaders in the Vajpayee years. With the exit of Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the only state level leader the BJP central command would find it tough to replace at will is possibly Uttar Pradesh stalwart Yogi Adityanath.

Raje sat stoically surrounded by MLAs as she was handed over a parchi (small paper). The speculation is that like an Oscar or a Grammy award, this hand-written note had the name of the new chief minister—Bhajan Lal Sharma, a first time MLA from Sanganer district. If Raje was unhappy—as she must be—she did not have the luxury to show it. To compound her disquiet, the deputy chief minister is Diya Kumari—female and royal, like Raje. Chouhan, otherwise low-key in the way the Sangh parivar prefers it, revealed his feelings. “I would rather die,” he said, “than go to Delhi to ask for something for myself.”

So the BJP’s recently won states are led by a tribal CM in Chhattisgarh, an OBC in Madhya Pradesh and a Brahmin in Rajasthan. Clearly caste engineering and not disruptive decision making for its own sake is at the heart of these choices.

Even so, there are two ways of looking at what has happened. The opposition says this is further evidence that under Modi-Shah no one else with an independent political profile will be allowed to rise. However, the BJP can easily throw that back at the Congress and several regional parties—where families continue to control the organisation.

The other way to see it is the BJP and the RSS have decided that the organisation is bigger than the individual. The paradox is that this clearly does not apply to Modi, who is now the message, and clearly bigger than the Sangh parivar in terms of electoral winnability.

Ironically, there is a precedent which is similar but not identical in the history of the Congress. Hark back to what Nehru called the ‘Kamaraj’ plan. Kumaraswami Kamaraj’s plan for Congress revival was born after India’s defeat in 1962 and the Congress drubbing in three by-elections in 1963. Kamaraj argued that ministers and chief ministers should resign from their posts and work for the party. Six Union ministers and six chief ministers complied.

Today, the Congress may not be able to take such a risk given that it has tried to regionalise its fights in the states. But there is some merit in keeping the party agile by constantly changing incumbents so that entitlement and status quo instincts do not set in.

Have the BJP’s choices in these three states been ruthless, strategic or laden with risk? Possibly, all of the above.

As long as the party keeps winning elections under Modi, it will continue to take such chances with convention, upending the rules of politics and the capacity of journalists, pundits and the opposition to anticipate them.

editor@theweek.in

end-of-two-high-profile-political-careers-raje-and-chouhan

Sat Nov 18 11:31:29 IST 2023

The BJP, which is known to fight every election, from local polls to the Lok Sabha, with an insatiable appetite, has taken a curious approach in these assembly elections.

Despite the setback in Karnataka, where the marginalisation of stalwart B.S Yediyurappa was at least one reason for the party’s decisive defeat; the BJP has still taken the ‘collective leadership’ approach in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, two of the most critical battlefields ahead of 2024. In fact, the BJP tacitly seemed to acknowledge this mistake in the recent elevation of Yediyurappa’s son, B.Y. Vijayendra, a first time MLA, to the top post of party president in the state.

And, yet, it has not stepped back from the very visible undermining of Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Vasundhara Raje in MP and Rajasthan.

It is almost as if the BJP has decided to quietly phase out all remnant leaders from the Vajpayee years as the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah led BJP builds a new hierarchy.

But would it want to do so at the risk of potential electoral defeat?

Possibly, the BJP believes that neither individual is central to its loss or win.

In Rajasthan, where traditionally, a revolving door system has alternated between the BJP and the Congress since 1996, historical precedent suggests that it is the BJP’s turn to form the government. While several MLAs considered loyal to Raje have been given tickets, the BJP has tried hard to experiment with new faces—Gajendra Shekhawat, Satish Poonia and C.P. Joshi among them. Raje is certainly not the main face of the BJP campaign and who will be chief minister, if the BJP were to win, is a question that is wide open.

In Madhya Pradesh, ‘Mamaji’ as Chouhan is colloquially known, is probably running his most low key campaign in years. His personal popularity is only a few points behind that of Kamal Nath, the de facto CM candidate of the Congress and very much the leader of its campaign. But polls reveal a fatigue factor with the incumbent legislators.

If the BJP manages to win either or both states without Raje or Chouhan at the helm, their redundancy will be highlighted by the central leadership. If the BJP loses either or both states, the party might still argue that the defeats were foretold.

There are other intriguing experiments by the BJP in these assembly elections, including the decision to field a large number of its parliamentarians. Eighteen MPs, including four Union ministers, are contestants across three state assemblies. This decision has caught state level leaders off guard. Perhaps the decision is guided by the overwhelming popularity of its party in the Lok Sabha polls of 2019 in Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh where the states swung back to the party despite defeats in the assembly elections of 2018.

Ironically, the BJP and the Congress appear to have swapped their approaches to state election campaigns. It used to be the Congress playbook to avoid a personality-centric campaign in the states till well after the results came in. In the past, the Congress ‘high command’ has historically weakened state satraps. But the results in Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh revealed the electoral value of keeping assembly elections local, led by strong local faces. The Congress has embraced that philosophy in these elections, while the BJP appears to have borrowed from the old Congress rulebook in counting on the party cadres, ideology and the Modi factor to win.

Either way these elections are not just the semi-finals ahead of the big elections of 2024; they could well mark the end of at least two high-profile political careers.

editor@theweek.in

womens-reservation-bill-is-finally-a-reality-now

Sat Sep 23 11:21:49 IST 2023

The ‘special’ in the special Parliament session was finally revealed. It was not an early election, the announcement of ‘one nation, one election’, or a move to implement the Uniform Civil Code. Instead, the Narendra Modi government made its big move. Twenty-seven years after its inception, the women’s reservation bill has been tabled in Parliament, appropriately in a new building, to mark new beginnings.

Less than 15 per cent of India’s elected parliamentarians are women in a country where they make up nearly half of the population. And, this is the highest representation we have ever had.

For as long as I have been in journalism, I have watched the ritual of the women’s reservation bill being announced with fanfare only to be buried, abandoned, and in some instances, physically mauled by male members who opposed it. As a young reporter who had short hair, I remember being mocked by the Janata Dal (U) leader Sharad Yadav for supporting the bill. “Women like you with short hair are the types to advocate for this law,” he told me. It was his shorthand for elitism and western ideas of feminism.

But there is nothing elite about asking for more political space for women. India’s women are designing space programmes, flying fighter jets, running law firms and banks, leading parades on Republic Day, closing billion dollar deals. In effect they have stormed every bastion except politics. The representation of women in state assemblies is even worse than in Parliament. In 19 state legislatures, less than 10 per cent were women, according to government data released in 2022.

The women’s reservation bill passed the Rajya Sabha in 2010, when the Congress was still in power. It was Sonia Gandhi’s pet project but she could not prevail upon leaders of regional parties like the Samajwadi Party, the RJD and the Janata Dal (U), who were adamant on a sub-quota for Other Backward Classes (OBC). Ironically, an old speech of Mulayam Singh Yadav accused the BJP and the Congress of conspiring together on this issue. But since then the bill went into a deep freeze. Even the issue of women’s political representation fell off the national grid. The Modi government’s revival of the legislation will give it a special place in history. But women will watch with bated breath to see when it actually translates into actionable reality this time.

The fine print (clause five to be precise) in the new bill speaks of how the seats reserved for women will be rotated but only after a delimitation exercise is completed and a fresh census conducted. There is no mention of timelines in the proposed law. And, at least, at the time of writing this column, there has been no clarity about whether the bill aims at a deadline. It is safe to say that if the reservation of women cannot take place before constituency boundaries are re-marked or before a fresh census (the 2021 decadal census has not yet been conducted), then there will be no political reservation before 2024 elections. In fact some say it could even take up until 2029, since as per present law the new delimitation exercise is to take place in 2026.

India’s women have waited close to three decades for this moment. There is no denying the historic value of this moment. This time, let us hope that a finite closure is within reach.

editor@theweek.in

why-i-am-mighty-impressed-with-mallikarjun-kharge

Sat Aug 26 11:39:27 IST 2023

Did journalists get Mallikarjun Kharge wrong? When Kharge won the election to the post of Congress president, only the sixth time that such a poll was held in the 137-year history of the party, the commentariat was less than impressed.

This scepticism had nothing to do with Kharge’s own impressive credentials. As a nine-time legislator, Kharge, 81, had always been a grassroots leader and a prominent dalit face of the Congress, who rose from poverty and hardship. But, in the high-profile face-off between him and Shashi Tharoor, Kharge seemed more ‘selected’ than elected. In other words, he was seen to be someone who was the preferred choice of the Gandhi family who would then continue to control him—and the party—by proxy.

Tharoor, with his eloquence, charisma and cult following among the rising numbers of aspirational India, seemed just like the disruption a party weighed down by the burden of status quo desperately needed. That may still be the case. Of course, the Gandhi family is still involved in every critical decision and retains veto power.

But Kharge has turned out to be more than a mere placeholder.

In fact, he has been a significantly successful reconciler so far.

In Karnataka, where D.K. Shivakumar, who brought hustle to the Congress game in the elections, was openly demanding the post of chief minister, instead of the more low-key Siddaramaiah (who had more of the legislators with him); Kharge managed to create a holding operation for governance.

But the real imprint of his authority and deftness is on the newly appointed Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision making panel of the opposition party.

Just when it had begun to seem as if Tharoor was being sidelined and thus punished for running against Kharge and owning his ambition, he found a place on the panel.

Sachin Pilot, who has made no secret of his rebellion in Rajasthan, ahead of a critical election, was inducted as well, to at least temporarily assuage him. Another significant appointment was that of Manish Tewari, one of the signatories to the group of 23 Congress leaders who had first raised existential questions about the fate of the party.

Kharge seems to have a penchant for crisis management and the negotiator’s key skill—be flexible when needed and firm when the red line needs to be drawn. And in the last few months he has also shown the energy required to be a 24x7 politician, submerged in meetings and rallies.

Kharge does not come waving a magic wand. He may never be the sort of politician who captures the imagination of a wider, general population. And, of course, the Congress has structural problems—it will still have to answer the tough questions ahead of 2024. Is it fighting an ideological battle? What is that ideology in an increasingly polarised country? Is it ready for a clash of personalities in taking on Narendra Modi?

But for a party bruised by electoral defeats, listless leadership and confusion at the very top for months altogether, he proved to be an effective pivot. It turns out that those who wrote him off underestimated him.

editor@theweek.in

crisis-in-manipur-calls-on-us-to-be-genuine-patriots

Sat Jul 29 11:55:52 IST 2023

In the last few years, on India’s news channels, it is not uncommon to see anchors huffing and puffing hysterically about “anti-nationals”. In fact, the phrase has become near ubiquitous. Every time an individual does not conform to a dominant narrative, their patriotism is called into question.

The horror of what is unfolding in Manipur should make us challenge these faux nationalists.

Over the last few weeks I have been documenting testimonies from the state of those who have suffered, been killed, raped and tortured. Among the victims and survivors are a military veteran, a legislator of the ruling BJP and the ageing wife of a freedom fighter. The horror of what has been inflicted on them should make us banish the loose use of this banal and overused phrase—anti-national—from our political and media lexicon. Either that or we should start calling out those who are truly against the interests of an inclusive India.

The country is still reeling from the viral video in which two women were paraded naked, one of them was brutally gang-raped. I spoke to the husband of one of the survivors. “I served 28 years in the Army,” he told me, “I served in Sri Lanka, in the Kargil war operation. I fought in wars for India. But I could not save my wife.” As his voice fell to a whisper he spoke of his sense of helplessness and fear. “In my worst nightmares I never thought I would see such a day.”

I met Vungzagin Valte, a three-time legislator with the BJP and former adviser to the chief minister. Today, he is barely able to talk after he was crippled in a mob attack. His head was smashed. He was allegedly given electric shocks and he is unable to eat or walk on his own. Though the state government vows that it will pay Valte’s hospital bills and says it has spent close to Rs50 lakh on airlfiting the MLA; his family says they are still struggling financially. They live in tiny rented accommodation—13 of them in three small rooms. For medicines, physiotherapy and other expenses, they are dependent on the charity of “friends and family”.

As houses have been torched and razed in Manipur, the elderly have not been spared either. An 80-year-old woman married to a freedom fighter was burnt alive. Their small village home proudly displayed medals and honours, most recently from president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

I have consciously not mentioned which of the victims I chronicle here are Kuki and which are Meitei. For a moment let us put aside the complex and unique history of Manipur that led to these ethnic clashes.

For now let us remember that Manipur shares a long border with Myanmar and 4,000 weapons were looted during this crisis, including high-calibre ones like rocket launchers and automatic rifles.

If anything, the crisis in Manipur calls on us to be genuine patriots. We should be asking tough questions and we should be able to offer empathy. To lose sight of the human tragedy in whataboutery and competitive politics, or in the banality of TV studio debates, would be a travesty.

So, will the faux nationalists please sit down?

editor@theweek.in

why-india-needs-a-uniform-civil-code

Sat Jul 01 13:08:11 IST 2023

Now that the prime minister has come out and batted for the Uniform Civil Code on the front foot, it is no longer a theoretical debate. The immediate responses have been along predictable lines—right-wing supporters of the BJP have defended it, and the religious orthodoxy and the political opposition have flayed it.

The blanket opposition to the push for a common family law is a short-sighted and ill-advised response. And, in fact, the more the opposition allies with conservative religious bodies, with mostly archaic ideas about sexuality and gender rights, the more it would help the ruling party.

A uniform civil code is a directive principle of the Constitution. It had the support of the great architects of modern India, including Nehru, Ambedkar and Ram Manohar Lohia. Its philosophical essence is equality.

A uniform civil code is not a Hindu civil code; nor does it mean the homogenisation of culture, faith or rituals. At its heart, a well-drafted UCC should simply be a law that protects the equality of all citizens. Indians would still be free to profess, propagate and practise their own religions—another constitutionally enshrined fundamental right—as long as these tenets did not violate a fundamental principle of equality.

In general, personal laws of all faiths, especially as interpreted by the clergy of that particular religion, can often militate against women. A uniform civil code is an opportunity for India’s feminist movement to reframe the conversation around equality within the framework of the Constitution.

Not everyone who supports the idea of a uniform civil code is making a political affiliation. In the past, individuals as varied as musician T.M. Krishna and author Nilanjana Roy drafted their own talking points, for what they called a ‘progressive uniform civil code’. Both happen to be staunch critics of the Modi government.

Instead of rejecting the very idea of the uniform civil code and ceding the entire space of its debate to the BJP, the opposition, as well as religious bodies, should engage strenuously on what such a code looks like. Goa, which has long had a uniform civil code, can be an educative example for a robust public debate on what has worked and what has not.

The debate around the uniform civil code can, in fact, be used to demand the strengthening of the Special Marriage Act, a civil law that permits union of interfaith couples. Right now, the act remains shackled by bureaucratic hurdles. The UCC debate actually allows a strong counter to those who classify every Hindu-Muslim union as an example of what BJP leaders call ‘Love Jihad’.

Sure, the BJP is bound to bring its own ideas of such a code to the debate. But, if civil rights groups, opposition parties and religious groups decline to be part of this discussion, it would be an own goal.

The resistance to the UCC, as well as the support for it, should be focused on what the details of such a code might look like. And there are drafts that have been prepared by the Law Commission in the past that could be a starting point.

The Uniform Civil Code should be seen for what it is—a constitutional ideal.

editor@theweek.in

wrestlers-must-not-immerse-their-medals-in-water

Fri Jun 02 15:01:50 IST 2023

I think Indians, irrespective of political leanings, were dismayed to see the country’s top wrestlers break down in tears, as they sat in a huddle by the riverbank, all set to immerse their medals in the Ganga river.

Farmer leader Naresh Tikait has been able to convince Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik to refrain from doing so for another five days. The wrestlers have been on the streets for over a month demanding the arrest of the till recently Wrestling Federation of India chief and BJP MP from Uttar Pradesh Brijbhushan Sharan Singh, a strongman with an empire of private colleges and four pending criminal cases against him. In the past, Singh has been linked with underworld gangster Dawood Ibrahim, before being acquitted because of lack of evidence. In other words, he has always been a terrifying figure to take on.

This is important to understand why it would have taken so long for women in the wrestling community to break the silence around what they allege is entrenched sexual abuse and harassment. Seven women filed a complaint, among them reportedly a minor. Though there is now a dispute over the age of the minor girl, with an uncle claiming that she is at present 20 years old; the wrestlers say she was younger than 18 when the abuse took place, and hence the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act should apply. The law mandates an arrest before bail is granted. In this case, POCSO or not, Singh has not even been called for interrogation.

Singh is not a favourite with the BJP establishment. But he is a sort of autonomous island in the tightly controlled regime of Yogi Adityanath. He has openly criticised Adityanath’s government in the past. The BJP’s inaction against him is inexplicable, especially given the message it sends out to women and young girls everywhere.

Supporters of the government say the wrestlers have diminished the moral force of their movement by allowing opposition politicians to hijack it. Personally, I am not a fan of politician-led people’s movements. But let us remember that the politics was there from the start; otherwise why would a parliamentarian be heading a wrestling federation? Of course, this politicisation of sporting bodies did not start with the BJP; it was always there, right through Congress-run governments.

The worry now is that the shrill collision between the opposition and the BJP has made this yet another political headline, shifting the focus from this being about women in sport alleging institutional harassment and violations.

The United World Wrestling has made its displeasure clear, threatening to throw India out if elections are not held soon to choose a new management. But, as Phogat and Malik explain, Singh is de facto the man in control, even after the government said he had been asked to step aside as the head of the federation.

Singh’s guilt and innocence will be decided in court. But the fact that he has slandered the women who have spoken out against him—taunting with references to Manthara from the Ramayan, quipping that their medals are worth no more than Rs15—says a lot about the brazen impunity he still displays.

The government must begin a dialogue with the wrestlers and the police must act by the book, as it would have if the man in question was not a powerful politician.

And the wrestlers must not immerse their medals in the water. A day’s news cycle is not worth a lifetime of hard-won recognition.

editor@theweek.in

rahul-gandhi-should-apologise-or-choose-jail

Sat Apr 08 11:48:46 IST 2023

Ever since Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha the media narrative has focused on his potential status as a political martyr. The debate on prime time shows has been framed as one around why the BJP would hand him an ace to play with in the form of a sympathy card.

I disagree.

Of course, for Rahul to lose his parliamentary seat in this fashion is wrong and the criminal defamation law that enabled it is problematic. But looked at through the prism of politics, for Rahul, the legal route may not be the smart one.

In fact, he runs the risk of being trapped in the quicksand of court dates in a year when he should not be distracted by anything but the 2024 elections and the big state elections just ahead of them.

Though a sessions court in Surat has suspended his sentence, a suspension on a conviction could still be a lengthy process. Rahul, who lost his Lok Sabha seat, after being found guilty in a criminal defamation case, could be facing multiple legal summons from across India. At last count he already had eight pending defamation cases to fight.

The charge against Rahul is that by linking corruption to the Modi surname he defamed the entire OBC community. The Congress has argued that the petitioner who dragged Rahul to court had no locus standi to do so because he was not an OBC. Of course the party has also argued that the comment was rhetorical and about what Shashi Tharoor called “rich, fat cats”—in a reference to Nirav and Lalit Modi.

But the most recent petition dragging Rahul to court is by the BJP Bihar leader Sushil Modi, who is from the OBC community. And Rahul will most likely have to now turn his attention from Surat to Patna. Expect the cases and petitions to keep stacking up.

The BJP has always calculated that by keeping the public focus on Rahul, the contest for 2024 will be framed as a Narendra Modi vs Rahul battle—a battle that Modi always wins. But by keeping Rahul embattled they may succeed in enfeebling him.

Would it not be smarter for Rahul to simply apologise?

Sure there might be a loss of face for a day or two. But who would remember anything more in the heat and dust of elections?

We have a living example that illustrates this in Arvind Kejriwal. The Delhi chief minister had charged an entire slew of leaders with corruption and, eventually went on an apology spree, including to Nitin Gadkari, Arun Jaitley, Bikram Majithia and Kapil Sibal. His supporters never cared or held it against him.

If Rahul refuses to cut his losses and say sorry, he may want to look at a disruptive option. He could consider not pursuing the route of legal appeals and welcome his arrest.

Even a short stint in jail would be a more effective political statement than offering up a battery of lawyers. Then he may even have a real chance of being a political martyr.

editor@theweek.in

is-the-counter-to-the-male-gaze-the-female-gaze-barkha-dutt

Fri Mar 10 15:17:53 IST 2023

A recent meeting with actor Aditya Roy Kapur got me thinking about whether we have sufficiently included men in the gender conversation—and whether it us, we, the women, who are guilty of a patriarchal double standard.

Kapur, fresh from the success of The Night Manager, was one of our key speakers at We The Women, the flagship annual festival I curate with THE WEEK as a media partner. Not surprisingly, the crowd, many of whom were young women, were ecstatic and animated as he walked onto stage.

He was also the perfect guest—easy-going, informal and a good sport. A former video jockey with Channel V, Kapur spoke of the special place music had in his life. The crowd urged him to sing. He said if there had been a guitar available, he may have agreed. Another speaker, a guitarist from Nagaland, Imnainla Jamir, obliged. Kapur played and sang a Coldplay number; the audience went wild.

Suddenly, someone yelled from the audience—“Adi, you are so hot!”—loud enough to be heard over the music and the cheering. Kapur laughed and said thank you. But I had a moment of pause. What if it was a female actor on stage—Vidya Balan and Janhvi Kapoor had been on the We The Women stage earlier in the day—and a man from the audience had said the same.

Perhaps, Balan and Kapoor would also have received it as a compliment. Perhaps, I am overthinking it. But my guess is that the gender conversation has drawn enough red lines in public discourse for a man to think a few times before saying something that could be even remotely considered objectifying. And, if he had, there would be at least some people who would have considered it entirely inappropriate conduct.

Just recently, in fact, the actor had to deal with something much more egregious—a fan who tried to forcibly kiss him. Kapur told me, she attempted this, not once but twice. “After a brief moment of surprise, I quickly recognised the situation for what it was and relied on my self-defence instincts…. While it can be uncomfortable to have your personal space invaded, I understand that some people can’t help their excitement. I did not make a big deal about it, and security quickly took care of the situation.”

Now imagine if the genders had been reversed. Had a male fan made such a move on a female actor? Would we have been so forgiving? Would we have been able to half-joke about it as so many have done with the Kapur episode?

Is the counter to the male gaze the female gaze? Is the answer to the sexualised objectification of women to look at men through the same lens?

There aren’t any easy answers. Because, on the other hand, puritanical invisibilisation of attractiveness and sexuality is obviously not to be encouraged. And actors in the public eye, both men and women, know that their sex appeal is at least part of what makes them who they are.

But, when it comes to boundaries and the appropriateness of language in public and personal spaces, surely the rules should be the same for men and women?

editor@theweek.in

air-india-peegate-incident-analysis

Sat Feb 11 11:29:09 IST 2023

News cycles are short-lived, fast-spinning wheels of information. Here today, and poof gone tomorrow. Now, we are caught up in the drama of Gautam Adani’s battle with Hindenburg Research and its political tremors. So, it is hard to feel there is any other headline worth tracking.

But, I draw your attention back to an issue, which though almost irrelevant in implication compared with the Adani saga, was covered with as much breathless urgency—the infamous Air India #PeeGate.

A month later, I have to cautiously wonder if Shankar Mishra was a victim of a media lynch mob. I think we still do not know the facts, for certain. I was among those who was scathing about the man, I then called, the ‘urinator’. As a feminist, it is obviously my instinct to believe women. Even now, I cannot for the life of me answer why anyone, elderly or young, would single out a fellow passenger to blame, if he had not actually done what she says he has. When the story first broke, I even said—apart from the unruliness—it seemed like a case of sexual harassment to me.

But, as time went on and I started doing deeper reporting on the story, some things stopped making sense.

Ina Bannerjee, in her 80s, was seated next to the complainant in the aisle seat. We tracked her down and she was clear that she had neither seen Mishra pee on the alleged victim nor experienced anything herself. All she had seen was the crew cleaning the seat next to her. Her testimony was one of the reasons why Mishra got bail—the judge pointed out that there were contradictions between the police case and what other witnesses recorded.

To discuss the mechanics of #PeeGate feels bizarre, but is necessary. How does any person, no matter how drunk, jump over the passenger asleep in the aisle to urinate on the passenger in the window seat, without them waking up or being urinated on?

The only other “witness” that we know of is the passenger seated next to Mishra—a US-based doctor called Dr Sugata Bhattacharjee. His initial comments to journalists, including to me, became the media basis to further build the case against Mishra. Bhattacharjee recounted how Mishra had too much to drink, how he found the complainant in the galley, distraught at her soiled clothes, and how Mishra purportedly whispered to him, “Bro, I think, I am in trouble.”

The Air India crew have a different take on Bhattacharjee. Crew logs claim Bhattacharjee—whose display picture shows him shaking hands with various US presidents—asked for an upgrade to first class on boarding. That he was denied one, they claim, explains his “loud” behaviour later.

If Mishra is innocent, why didn’t he assert that, instead of apologising and paying for dry-clean—money the complainant later returned. A written submission by crew member Neeta Kararia says that when Mishra was confronted, he was stunned and said he could not imagine doing such a thing.

The internal inquiry panel has not helped the credibility of the process. It got the configuration of the 777 aircraft wrong, referencing a 9B seat that does not even exist in business class.

This is not to say that Air India did not mishandle matters. The pilot, asleep on his rest-shift, should have been woken; he should have upgraded the complainant to first class irrespective and informed the international operations control centre immediately. The case should have been handed over to the police on arrival for them to determine truth from fiction. The management instinct to gag the crew was also a self-goal. But something has shifted internally as well, the Tatas have backed their pilot against the suspension of his license.

Suppose this case collapses in court, would we in the media think we handled the story appropriately?

editor@theweek.in

joshimath-is-not-greater-kailash-barkha-dutt

Sat Jan 14 12:28:48 IST 2023

In 2021, I was driving through Uttarakhand to report on the avalanche and deluge triggered by a glacial burst. I was shocked at what I saw—rampant construction, mountains stripped of green cover, clouds of dust and soot rising from the sites of infra-projects every few kilometres. It took us 22 hours to reach the Tapovan-Vishnugad hydroelectric power project site, where hundreds of workers were trapped inside the tunnel. Another hydroelectric project site at Rishiganga had collapsed under the force of the floods.

I stood with desperate families in the cover of darkness, as they waited for some news of their husbands, sons and brothers from inside the tunnel. This was February. But even three months later, in May, rescue teams had been able to recover only 83 bodies and “36 body parts”. Many others remained missing.

Is the cost of human life really so paltry that we are staring at a catastrophe yet again in the hill state? Joshimath—one of the most revered pilgrimage towns of India—is sinking, and geologist S.P. Sati told me, “Nothing and no one can save it now. Aag lagne ke baad, kuan nahin khotde (You can’t go looking for water after the fire has already started).”

The fragile Himalayas have been pushed beyond capacity despite environmentalists arguing against mega infrastructure projects like the one at Tapovan. Started in 2006, it was meant to be completed by 2013. A decade later, it remains incomplete.

Worse, even warnings by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) have been ignored. A report by the NDMA that studied the impact of the Chamoli disaster of 2021 emphasised the need to find alternative sources of energy in “environmentally fragile” zones like Uttarakhand. Released as recently as the summer of 2022, it warned against large-scale hydroelectric plants that continue to be the policy of successive governments. It also called out the failure of infrastructure companies to put in place early warning systems at projects such as the Tapovan one. The NDMA also questioned the district disaster management plan for not being able to “cover the climate change-related risks and the impacts of developmental activities, infrastructure, environmental changes, houses/buildings and deforestation”.

Obviously no one paid attention. Neither the loss of lives nor the wisdom of experts has been able to shift the callous casualness with which every calamity is moved on from.

Even today experts are lamenting the one-size-fits-all growth model that is being force-fitted onto the Himalayas, again, across all governments. They are urging the government to scrap the Tapovan-Vishnugad project, asking why it was cleared at all. The idea of ‘Big is Beautiful’ is a flawed one when it comes to an already damaged ecosystem. As Sunita Narain, one of the country’s leading environmentalists, told me, “the Himalayas cannot be treated as if they are a parking lot in Greater Kailash,” referring to a tony neighborhood in Delhi that has been increasingly commercialised and built-up over the years.

It is too late to save Joshimath. But other hill-towns are showing serious signs of breakage. From areas in and around Rishikesh to Uttarkashi, the walls are heaving under cracks. Despite a government order calling for an interim halt to all construction activity, there is work taking place on rail lines near Atali and road construction near Joshimath.

It is as if we have a death wish when it comes to Uttarakhand.

That, or a self-destruct button.

editor@theweek.in

the-rise-of-arvind-kejriwal

Sat Dec 10 17:01:26 IST 2022

The unprecedented media interest in Delhi’s local elections can only partly be explained by the north-centric bias of major newsrooms. The other big reason for the disproportionate curiosity it generated is the interest in Arvind Kejriwal—and this is true well beyond the borders of the capital.

Even the most avid supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi want an effective national opposition. And, the continuous vacating of that place by the Congress has led to intense debate over who else may take that spot.

There have been other contenders—Mamata Banerjee’s expansionist experiment in Goa, K. Chandrashekar Rao aiming for national attention, to name a couple. But, perhaps, because of the anti-corruption movement that birthed the Aam Aadmi Party, none of them have the pan-India recall that Kejriwal does. The Delhi chief minister does not have the political cadre that a national party needs, but he has the brand positioning to build on.

And, above all, perhaps more than any other party among the non-BJP players, he is deft enough to borrow from the BJP’s own playbook when needed.

The AAP had a few nervous moments as the results poured in, but was eventually able to break the BJP’s 15-year grip on Delhi’s corporation. The victory—though not as large as forecast by the exit polls—was no less significant when you consider how much energy the BJP invested in the election, bringing out a slew of chief ministers and Union ministers. The AAP has wrested the verdict from the BJP against the backdrop of a barrage of corruption allegations, CBI raids on the deputy chief minister and leaked videos of AAP’s Satyendar Jain getting preferential treatment inside prison. For a party that is still just 10 years old, this is no slight feat. It is, as Kejriwal pointed out in an address to workers after the result, the party’s fourth electoral victory in the capital. Juxtapose this with the BJP that has not been able to win the assembly since 1998. And now has lost control of the civic administration as well.

If Kejriwal is able to take over 6 per cent of the vote in Gujarat—and this appears to be a sure shot—the Aam Aadmi Party, officially, becomes a national party. If it breaches 15 per cent to 20 per cent, not many can deny the primacy of Kejriwal in the opposition pantheon. What will be closely observed is its comparative performance with the Congress, especially after its success in displacing the Congress vote in both Punjab and Delhi.

As the AAP increases its footprint, Kejriwal’s party will perhaps have to find greater clarity on issues of ideology and policy. Its ambivalence has stood it in good stead—politically and electorally. But as it officially enters the national arena, more and more people will want to know Kejriwal better.

Till then, love him or hate him—the opposition and the ruling party can no longer ignore him.

editor@theweek.in

supreme-court-rape-case-verdicts

Fri Nov 11 16:01:01 IST 2022

Before the Nirbhaya gang-rape, there was the Chhawla case. It was in the same year of 2012, in February, many months before the Delhi gang-rape that brought a country onto the streets.

A 19-year-old, the daughter of a security guard, was pulled into a moving car and raped and killed on her way back from work. Much like Nirbhaya, in this sexual assault, too, car parts, glass bottles and metal were used to attack and violate her. The men, in this case, were known to her; one was reported to be especially outraged that she had dared to spurn his interest. Her mutilated and decomposed body was found later in Haryana.

Her parents fought a long and lonely battle for justice. The men were put on death row and the High Court called them predators and trained bloodhounds.

These men, much like the convicts in the Bilkis Bano gang-rape case, are now free.

Unlike in the Bano case, where the guilt of the rapists was never questioned; here the men have actually been acquitted on the grounds that prosecution had failed to follow process and had taken far too many shortcuts. They could not, the judges ruled, prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Supreme Court may have gone by the book when it decided on their release. But what really stays with people—especially women—is the image of the devastated parents, hunched over in helpless tears on the lawns of the Supreme Court. They say, after this sudden turn, they have lost the will to live. The prosecution’s failure cannot be the victim’s punishment. But that is precisely what has happened here. That a young woman was sexually abused and murdered is not in doubt. And, yet, think for a moment of the despair of the parents, who believe they are in this situation only because they are poor.

In the same week the Madhya Pradesh High Court suspended the 25 years of rigorous imprisonment sentence to a gang-rape convict. The reason? That he had already spent close to six years in jail and there was no likelihood of an early hearing of his appeal.

Once again the slow-moving wheels of justice—certainly not something the rape survivor or victim should be answerable for—effectively meant that six years was considered time enough for the convict.

All three cases—Bilkis Bano, Chhawla and MP—reflect an underlying prejudice. That rape and sexual assault are crimes where leniency is generous. For courts that often put complex or sensitive cases on the back-burner, and where hearings for closure and justice usually move at a snail’s pace. This is nothing but the trivialisation of sexual violence and of the gravity it deserves in response. It is the same mindset that has, on occasion, made judges suggest that rapists marry the women they have assaulted. We have seen this suggestion made by no less than a chief justice at one point, who advised, in open court, that this would be one way of staying out of jail.

Such judgements have been delivered by both men and women.

And the Supreme Court may do well to explain this thinking—and the spate of recent acquittals of rape convicts—to the public at large.

Else, these are developments that would discourage other women from pursuing justice in instances of sexual abuse and violence.

And it would mean that after Nirbhaya, nothing—or precious little—has actually changed.

editor@theweek.in

outrage-is-either-misplaced-or-entirely-missing-barkha-dutt

Fri Oct 14 16:10:49 IST 2022

This past week, two events triggered different political and media responses in India’s capital.

And what happened should give us pause.

At a meet organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a BJP MP, Parvesh Sahib Verma, gave a brazen call for the economic boycott of Muslims. Though he did not name the community, the context was obvious since the meet was organised against the backdrop of the stabbing of a Hindu allegedly by a group of Muslims. Verma went so far as to exhort people to not buy anything from shops and street carts owned by Muslims. A BJP MLA then reinforced the hate speech by using language that was even coarse. A third speaker affiliated to the VHP spoke of taking up arms against “jihadis”.

This outrageous violation of public decency has passed without a blip—or not much more than a blip.

Instead the political noise and prime time attention has been focused on another public event, also in Delhi. This was a mass conversion meet where dalits embraced Buddhism by chanting the 22 vows of Babasaheb Ambedkar. Present on stage was the Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi’s minister for social welfare, Rajendra Gautam, himself a convert to Buddhism. The vows included the rejection of key Hindu Gods giving the BJP an opportunity to target the event for being anti-Hindu.

Instead of standing by their colleague, the AAP clearly felt political anxiety. In Gujarat, where Arvind Kejriwal is trying to take on the BJP on prime minister and home minister’s home turf, posters and banners surfaced showing Kejriwal wearing a skull cap—that is, being soft on Muslims. A day later Gautam resigned from the Delhi cabinet. It did not end there. He was later summoned by the police for questioning.

Speaking to me, Gautam underlined that he had meant no disrespect to any religion or deity. The Ambedkar vows, he argued, were officially recognised by all governments. He then framed the mass conversions in the context of rising atrocities against dalits and posed the question at the heart of this debate: “If we are Hindus, if you want us to remain Hindu, why do you hate us so much?”

The police showed much more alacrity in questioning Gautam—though voluntary conversions are lawful—than it has so far in interrogating those who made hate speeches against an entire community.

Though there may be legitimate questions about how conversions are organised and whether financial incentives can sometimes be part of them, the right to practice and propagate faith is a constitutional right. That we are now criminalising it—and doing so at a speedier pace than the prosecution of hate speech—is worrying.

As if on cue, comes the horrific news from Karnataka of 16 dalit labourers locked up in a coffee estate and tortured for their failure to repay a loan. Among them was a pregnant woman; she was beaten so badly that she lost her baby. The government’s own data shows a rise in atrocities against dalits and scheduled tribes—by over one per cent and six per cent respectively.

The outrage is misplaced. And entirely missing, where needed.

editor@theweek.in

why-is-india-still-a-member-of-the-commonwealth-barkha-dutt

Sat Sep 17 10:58:15 IST 2022

It is perfectly possible to hate the idea of a monarchy and still have a sneaking admiration for Queen Elizabeth II. Much has been said about the duty-oriented devotion of a woman whose tenure spanned 15 prime ministers, from Winston Churchill to Liz Truss.

But for us in post-colonial India, Elizabeth’s passing throws up an interesting crossroads question: Why are we still a member of the Commonwealth?

On December 13, 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru moved a resolution that “free India can be nothing but a Republic”. Though we mark our independence day on August 15, 1947, up until 1950 we continued to have dominion status within the British empire. That is to say we were autonomous but owed loyalty to the Crown. King George VI was still emperor; Mountbatten was independent India’s Governor General. It was not till 1950 (1956 for Pakistan) that we became truly free from the imperialists with the President replacing the monarch as the head of the Indian state.

Ironically, the same Nehru who had vehemently made the case for being a republic—unlike Canada, New Zealand and Australia that till this day remain dominions of the British Empire—also advocated in 1949 for India to remain a part of the Commonwealth. In 2021, Barbados did what India did decades ago; it parted ways with the Queen but continued to be a Commonwealth nation.

Even if there were once compelling pragmatic reasons for a young nation to maintain a close relationship with the UK and hence the Commonwealth membership was purely tactical, how can we continue justifying the membership of a group rooted in the history of the empire?

Unlike other alignments of countries, there is nothing that binds the 54-member Commonwealth except for the shared past of British colonisation. We may not pay much attention to this inconvenient truth as we cheer on our athletes at the Commonwealth Games. But even Ireland quit the British Commonwealth as early as 1949.

Yes, of course, the Commonwealth may not operate today as a British forum. Countries can and do participate as equals. But that does not erase the problematic symbolism that defines it. There have been eminent individuals who have called out continued subliminal imperialism of the entity. Amitav Ghosh, for instance, withdrew his novel from the Commonwealth Literature Prize in 2001 because he would not agree to have The Glass Palace be qualified as ‘Commonwealth literature’. As a young reporter I have received a Commonwealth media award without thinking much beyond the joy of winning it. 2022 calls for all of us to think more deeply.

Erasing imperialist symbols is what drove the government’s decision to rename Delhi’s Rajpath to Kartavyapath. Is there not a contradiction between that and a one-day national mourning for the Queen?

The British owe India reparations—for the Bengal Famine, for Jallianwala Bagh, for uncountable cruelties, for the theft and pillage of India’s wealth and assets. While we should not allow them to whitewash their historical crimes, we cannot continue to be part of a colonial forum and demand compensation for the past.

Let us leave the Commonwealth. Yesterday.

editor@theweek.in

why-isnt-there-more-outrage-over-release-of-convicts-asks-barkha-dutt

Sat Aug 20 11:12:13 IST 2022

In 2002, I met Bilkis Bano under a tattered tarpaulin, in pitch darkness, save for the small flicker of a gas lamp, in a relief camp in Godhra. The white plaster of her broken arm—the men who raped her had broken it—gleamed against the black of the night. She spoke softly, with stoicism and a sense of disbelief as she recounted what had been done to her. She knew these men—they were her neighbours; they used to buy milk from her family.

Bilkis Bano was 19 years old—and five months pregnant—when the men lunged for her. They gang-raped her; then they gang-raped her mother, both in the presence of the other. Her two sisters were also raped, she told me. The horror did not end there. As she lay helpless, battered and bleeding on the floor, they took a stone and smashed the head of her infant daughter, Saleha. Bilkis Bano lost 14 members of her family that day.

It took Bilkis and her husband, Yakub Rasul, more than 17 years to secure justice. In this time, they had to change homes 20 times, all in fear for their lives. It was not till 2019 that the then Supreme Court chief justice ordered 150 lakh compensation to the family. As Yakub told me, “We had only just started living again.”

The decision by the Gujarat government to release the rapists and child-murderers as part of a special prisoner remission scheme is an outrageous travesty of justice. This summer, the Centre released new guidelines for shortening the sentences of convicted prisoners. But the rules were clear: heinous crimes like rape were excluded from the ambit of this scheme. So, did the Gujarat government contradict the home ministry’s rules? How did this happen? Whose decision was it?

Senior advocate Vrinda Grover argues that despite the Centre’s new guidelines, the law under which the Gujarat government issued an executive order for the release of the 11 convicts—all of whom have spent 14 years in prison, but had been sentenced to a life term—could not have been done without the “mandatory consultation of the Central government”. In other words, the Centre, while officially quiet on the release, cannot pass the buck entirely to the state government.

“Bilkis feels alone,” Yakub told me, vowing to “never give up. I will support her for as long as I live.” The family has shown extraordinary fortitude. It is gut-wrenching to hear Yakub’s voice choke as he says, “All these years we placed our faith in India’s justice system, now we are scared and demoralised.” But why have they been placed in this position at all?

In a country where gangrape is considered a crime horrific enough to merit the ‘rarest of rare’ proviso of capital punishment, was keeping these men in jail for the rest of their lives so difficult?

And where is the outrage we saw during India’s Nirbhaya moment when a 23-year-old medical student was gang-raped in a moving bus?

Otherwise, so many Indians think it is morally justifiable to eliminate rapists in encounters—we speak loosely of chemical castrations and public hangings in drawing room debates and Twitter arguments. Today, confronted with a real-life travesty, why aren’t we more angry?

This is a betrayal of India’s women. And we should all take it personally.

editor@theweek.in

then-ayodhya-now-gyanvapi-the-indian-army-perhaps-holds-the-solution

Fri May 27 11:20:47 IST 2022

I was in college when the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992. I have faint memories of marching down the streets of Delhi in protest against the vigilante violence and triumphalism of the men who took the law into their own hands. And, even L.K Advani, the architect of the Ram Mandir movement, called it one of the saddest days of his life.

Thirty years later, even after the Supreme Court has pronounced that the disputed site at Ayodhya where the Babri mosque stood was indeed the birthplace of Lord Ram, and plans are afoot to build a grand Ram Mandir, the country is again quarrelling over whether a temple stood where the Gyanvapi Masjid does today in Varanasi.

If the Ayodhya verdict was meant to bring closure, the exact opposite appears to have happened, with Mathura and the Krishna Janmabhoomi movement also acquiring new legal momentum. Jurists are quoting the Places of Worship Act, 1991, which seals 1947 as a cut-off point after which the nomenclature of a religious site cannot be changed—temple, mosque or church. Ayodhya was the main exception that the law provided for, and that has been settled.

But the very fact that Justice D.Y. Chandrachud did not invoke the law when the Gyanvapi case came to his bench—sending it back instead for a fast-track hearing to the district court in Varanasi—is proof that this law will not be the necessary guiding principle in this dispute.

Constitutional scholar Faizan Mustafa told me that Indian Muslims “were in danger of repeating [at least] 10 mistakes they made in the Ayodhya case, and the Gyanvapi case is a much weaker case than that was”. Mustafa’s argument is that instead of looking to the judiciary in every such contestation, Muslims and Hindus of Varanasi should settle this among themselves at a community level, without mediation by political parties or lawyers. One way forward, he suggests, is that Gyanvapi makes space for Hindus to offer prayers “silently” in a section of the complex. The petition was first filed by a group of Hindu women who say they have been barred from worshipping their deity at the site.

Indeed, multi-faith sites of worship may be one graceful and equitable method of emerging from the shadows of the past. The country can take inspiration from the sarv dharam sthals of the Indian military, where all faiths pray together and the commanding officer often leads the worshipping congregations of his troops, irrespective of his own faith.

But, then again, context is everything. And, you cannot decontextualise the Gyanvapi battle from the larger sense of siege that the Muslim community must be feeling, given the increased incidents of hate speech, an evident political marginalisation and countless instances of violence that many of their own have been subjected to in recent times.

Religious leaders from both communities have suggested an inter-faith dialogue to create a truth and reconciliation commission. This may reach a final consensus of sorts that, once there is a broad agreement on specific places of worship, history will not be wrenched open with depressing regularity every few years.

editor@theweek.in

gandhis-on-vacay-party-in-decay-barkha-dutt

Fri Apr 29 14:48:03 IST 2022

Prashant Kishor is a rare political being. While most people talk to journalists off the record about what they really think of their competition or potential allies, “PK” is unique for how much he reveals on record. For instance, well before his 600 “slides for change” blueprint got leaked, he told me in a recent interview about how the Congress could learn from the BJP model of separating who leads the party from who is the prime ministerial candidate. “Even a booth worker can become [party] president, that is the message that goes out when someone like J.P. Nadda leads the BJP,” Kishor said.

He was also matter-of-fact about what made Narendra Modi win again and again—a combination of the cult of personality, nationalism, hindutva and welfarism.

The failure of the Congress to induct Kishor—and worse, admit that it was they who were rejected—is not about whether you are convinced or unconvinced of PK’s political worth. It does not matter whether you are a PK fan or sceptic, those debates will carry on well into 2024. What is indisputable is the tardy, casual and non-serious way the Congress has responded for a party that is in grave danger of being wiped away from the country’s electoral landscape.

Congress supporters can hardly argue that they did not see merit or value in Prashant Kishor. For, why else, would their leaders spend weeks urging him to become a Congressman. Given that, what can possibly justify their “committee” approach to change?

It is the equivalent of looking for a locksmith when the adversary is about to break down your door.

And, if politics is war, the Congress is betrayed by its generals. The announcement of Kishor’s refusal to join the Congress has to be viewed alongside another fact: both the Gandhi siblings are outside India on personal vacations. Nothing reflects either the denialism or the entitlement of the family leadership as much as sojourns at the most critical time and in face of 24/7 politics from Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. As someone in the PK camp quipped, “it gives a glimpse into what would have happened if he had joined the party. He would have been made the fall guy for failures while the brother and sister holidayed”.

From Prashant Kishor’s perspective the ‘thanks, but no-thanks’, was borne from the appraisal that he would not have a free hand to make any big changes. The setting up of multiple committees reflected what Kishor has described as “incremental change and low-hanging fruit”. Those in the know confirm that the party remained averse to structural changes and the leadership continued to be loath to nip internal bickering in the bud. The results of that infighting were there for everyone to see in the unravelling party campaign in Punjab and the decimation that followed.

Prashant Kishor is right. More than him, the party needs to get over living in the past. It needs to shed its delusional belief that one day, the voter will tire of Modi and fall back to the default party of government, the Congress. And, it needs to accept that the Gandhi family is the problem; not the solution.

Congress leaders have repeatedly described Sonia Gandhi and her children as the glue that binds the party together.

If so, this is the glue that keeps them stuck in the past with no future to speak of.

editor@theweek.in

india-should-get-off-the-ukraine-tightrope-writes-barkha-dutt

Sun Mar 06 14:22:30 IST 2022

All the points about western hypocrisy are true. As are, what veteran diplomat Vivek Katju has called, “India’s cruel dilemmas” when it comes to being able to take an unambiguous position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But there comes a time in the life of nations, especially those who see ourselves as global players with a moral force, that walking a precarious tightrope appears timid more than thought-through.

India’s response to Vladimir Putin’s unilateral act of aggression against Ukraine may have evolved in shades and hues, more critical today than at the start. But as Russian shelling kills Naveen Shekharappa, a young Indian student, all of 21, the war has come home. Looking at images of his distraught father—who reminded us that even with a high 97 per cent score his son could not get admission to a medical college at home—there comes the reminder that in an increasingly globalised, interdependent world, conflicts do not take place in distant lands any more.

So, yes, the Americans and the Europeans have been transactional and self-serving. And yes, they have not stood steadfast by the side of India when the Chinese or the Pakistanis have intruded into our territory and sought to undermine our territorial integrity. And yes, the Americans invaded Iraq on the back of dodgy, questionable claims of weapons of mass destruction. And wrote the playbook on ‘military action for regime change’.

But the enumeration of these examples does not really tell us why India abstained from a vote calling for an emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly. Especially when the previous vote at the Security Council was redundant, given Russia’s automatic veto.

The attempt by the UN to call for a ceasefire during the 1971 war between India and Pakistan has been cited as an example of the sort of necessary relativism that makes one country’s ingress another nation’s freedom movement. But surely we cannot benchmark Putin’s wilful destabilisation of the world with the genocidal killings of the Bengali population in 1971 that eventually gave birth to Bangladesh—with India’s military support. That Putin’s troops have taken the conflict beyond the separatist regions that he initially recognised as independent, too, speaks for itself.

There has also been the suggestion that India has to tread carefully because it does not want a Russia-China axis to solidify if Delhi were to more openly back the other side. But has that ship not already sailed? In fact, China will watch this space with some interest. If Putin is able to get away with his audacious intervention inside Ukraine, who is to say China will not try the same with Taiwan next? The world would have shown that it will look the other way; Beijing will be the biggest beneficiary.

With a little bit of this and a little bit of that, India may have bought itself some time in the initial days.

With Putin marching deeper into Ukraine, India should get off the trapeze and take a stand.

editor@theweek.in

barkha-dutt-writes-on-the-congress-and-the-punjab-pickle

Sat Feb 05 11:27:07 IST 2022

The Aam Aadmi Party and Arvind Kejriwal have already pushed the Congress in Punjab into borrowing from its playbook. The party says it is seeking feedback on who should be its chief ministerial candidate, much like the AAP did before naming Bhagwant Mann as its contender. In 2017, Captain Amarinder Singh threatened to quit and form his own party if the Congress did not declare his name for the top job. In 2022, Charanjit Channi and his supporters have been forced to point out the obvious. The absence of cohesion in the Congress campaign and the lack of clarity over who its leader is has handed the advantage to its challenger.

The Congress has a problem in Punjab and his name is Navjot Sidhu. Sidhu’s elevation was billed initially as Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s decisive intervention. It has turned out to be a colossal self-goal. Sidhu is plagued by delusions of grandeur. At the highly fortified Chandigarh bungalow that is presently his base, the cricketer-comedian makes mercurial appearances before the media when he is in the mood. At other times, nervous aides speak in hushed whispers about how he cannot be disturbed. On a recent trip, one of them told me grandly that it took five days for anyone to get some time with Sidhu, sounding like an overawed supplicant in obeisance to a feudal landlord.

More critically, as an aide in the Channi camp told me, every decision announced by the Punjab chief minister was “mocked” by the ambitious, egotistical president of the Congress’s Punjab unit. “We announced a waiver on electricity bills and he calls it a lollipop,” said the aide, despairingly. Sidhu pointedly left out posters of the chief minister from his press conference to unveil a blueprint for Punjab’s development.

The original idea was that Sidhu would keep Jat Sikhs on the party’s side while Channi, the state’s first dalit chief minister, would pull in the votes of the scheduled castes. Sunil Jakhar, the third face in the troika of Congress leaders, was meant as the Hindu face. Jakhar, also sulky, left for a trip abroad, claiming he could preside over ticket distribution over a Zoom call instead. And the chief minister, bruised by the constant undermining of his authority—an eyewitness says Sidhu lashes out at Channi even in party meetings—has openly pushed the party to name a chief ministerial candidate.

Sidhu’s rantings have made Congress voters on the ground doubtful. While the party made the right call in dropping Amarinder Singh, even if it handled the process clumsily, its delay in publicly endorsing Channi has made his followers sceptical about whether Channi will get to keep the top job even if the party were to defeat the AAP. In the villages of rural Punjab, Channi is universally liked. I did not meet anyone who said anything adverse about the chief minister. But, among Congress voters, their statement of support would invariably trail off into ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’. In Ludhiana, a long-time Congress voter told me, “I am embarrassed today to tell you that I support the party; every time Channi takes one step forward, Sidhu takes him two steps back.”

Sidhu’s induction was billed as Priyanka Gandhi’s Ahmed Patel moment, in reference to Sonia Gandhi’s crafty former political aide who died last year. Instead, in the Punjab context, it is a giant blooper, of the sort we saw on Sidhu’s slapstick TV shows.

editor@theweek.in

to-fight-gentlemanly-omicron-we-need-to-reimagine-covid-protocols-barkha-dutt

Thu Jan 06 15:14:09 IST 2022

The Omicron third wave is officially here.

The bad news is that the virus is more infectious than its previous two avatars; the good news is that it is distinctly less lethal.

Iqbal Singh Chahal, Mumbai’s top administrator, confirmed to me that the recovery, especially among those vaccinated, is taking place mostly within five days, as opposed to the 14- to 16-day period that the Delta variant took up. Thus far, the need for ICU beds and oxygen has also been limited.

Yet, in 2022, we have responded to the third wave with some of the same measures—and mistakes—as two years ago.

The night curfews and weekend curfews are especially galling. They are galling, first and foremost, because of the staggering political hypocrisy. Politicians are locking their citizens in, while proceeding with mass rallies themselves. Not just is this mixed messaging, it is dishonest and unethical. It is also the worst sort of deja vu because of the failure of the Election Commission to show a more proactive intervention against these mass gatherings.

But the scientific basis for the restrictions is also extremely dodgy. If Omicron is in community transmission—which it clearly is—curbing social activity on select days or hours is not going to stop it. In fact, it only ends up hurting the economy and lives and livelihood for no significant, achievable gain.

Institutional quarantine or hospitalisation is mindless. Shefali Manilal, a French citizen of Indian origin, arrived in Delhi to meet her mother. On arrival, she tested negative. A few days later though, her 11-year-old son and she turned positive. But both mother and son were entirely asymptomatic. Yet, an official ambulance forced them into a private hospital for several days. “Is this not a waste of hospital beds and doctors’ resources?” Manilal lashed out, in an interview with me.

She is absolutely correct. If anything, there should be clear communication from state authorities urging people not to rush to hospitals. The one thing that can make the health system collapse is if a huge section of frontline workers test positive and are pushed into fortnightly isolation. Given that most Omicron cases are mild and can be managed at home, hospitalisation must be done extremely sparingly.

It is time to reimagine Covid-19 protocols as we know them. Dr J.P. Muliyil, leading epidemiologist at Christian Medical College, Vellore, and also a member of the government advisory task force on Covid-19, told me that “asymptomatic patients and those with mild symptoms should not be encouraged to test”. This variant, he argued, is a “gentlemanly virus” and one that is, in fact, offering a shield against the much more lethal Delta.

The argument is not to go out and get infected, or to be cavalier or callous. But as we watched the United States hit a million cases in a single day, we could be looking at that sort of steep spike here as well, with accompanying panic and a rush for hospitals. It is this that would break the system again.

editor@theweek.in

vaccine-certificate-should-be-given-aadhaar-card-like-status-says-barkha-dutt

Thu Dec 09 15:07:29 IST 2021

We are back to counting cases and variants as the spectre of Omicron haunts the world. But the responses, including many in India, have been short-sighted, full of counterproductive panic and reminiscent of some of the early mistakes of 2020.

Except, today we have many more tools to fight the virus—knowledge of its airborne nature, confirmation that masks in closed indoor places can help, awareness that opening a window can make a difference in a classroom, therapeutic pills of varying success, and above all, vaccines.

Dr Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor who first detected Omicron, told me she found it on a random rapid-antigen test. That in itself should be a warning against the needless RT-PCR tests travellers are being subjected to at both departure and destination, creating a mass congregation at airports themselves.

Most importantly, she said—and this is now being confirmed by doctors worldwide—that feedback from South African doctors is that the symptoms of Omicron are mild, there is no respiratory failure, no plummeting oxygen levels, good self-recovery by day 6 (unlike in Delta) and most critically, vaccinated patients are doing well at getting better.

In other words, while data will reveal if vaccines have fallen in efficacy because of the high number of mutations on the spike protein of the Omicron variant, they are still offering decent protection against the seventh new variant, especially against hospitalisations and deaths. In fact, there has not been a single death from Omicron so far, despite it now being present in 38 countries.

The lesson, if there is any left to be learnt, is an immediate mandating of vaccines. I understand that coercion is anathema to public health specialists. But when you consider that 12.5 crore Indians are yet to receive their scheduled second jab, their freedom ends where all of society is being damaged.

Those who are declining vaccines—and not from a shortage of supply—are holding up the economy and well-being of our nation. I am glad to see some states moving in this direction. Kerala is declining free treatment to those who are unvaccinated; Karnataka is making vaccine passports necessary for entry into malls and theatres. This is the only way forward. Whether you call it a mandate or not, it is time to link it to so many social, economic and professional activities, that it becomes much like the Aadhaar card—whether you like it or you hate it, you need one.

The other policy that needs urgent attention is vaccines for children. India has already had the largest school shutdown in the world, exacerbated by pollution and now the new variant. Children cannot be kept at home or in online classes any longer without it stunting their mental, social and emotional skills. Moving to operationalise these vaccines, making adult vaccines compulsory and adding a third shot to the repertoire for at least the elderly and frontline workers, is the need of the hour.

Anything else is hysteria. And with it we are not saving lives; we are shrinking the very idea of life.

editor@theweek.in

up-elections-is-the-opposition-giving-the-bjp-a-walkover

Thu Nov 11 15:45:12 IST 2021

As the host of a daily digital news show, I am bewildered by some of the issues our politicians manage to push into the headlines—and therefore on to prime time.

The referencing of Mohammad Ali Jinnah by Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav is one such. Yadav’s comments may have been misrepresented by his political opponents, but why would Jinnah come up in an Indian election campaign at all?

Not just does it make gratuitous assumptions about the Indian Muslim voters—implicit in the reference is that they care about Pakistan’s founding father—it offers the BJP, on a platter, the perfect mix of distractions from issues of economic importance.

The most poignant tale to emerge from poll-bound Uttar Pradesh was the first-person accounts of abjectly poor citizens who came to retrieve the residual oil from Diwali diyas in Ayodhya. The holy city had been bathed in a blitzkrieg of lights with lakhs of earthen lamps sparkling during a festive week. But the reality check of rising prices left its shadow on the celebrations.

You would imagine that Covid-19 deaths, mass shallow graves of abandoned bodies and inflation would top the list of issues that the opposition parties would use to target the Yogi Adityanath government.

Instead, Akhilesh’s mention of Jinnah in the same sentence as Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel has created the proverbial storm in a teacup. It may not have too many real electoral consequences either way, but it queers the political pitch in such a manner that identity politics and the fault-lines of history and religion become the dominant debate. And that is a debate that the BJP will always win.

The opposition—this includes the Aam Aadmi Party, the SP and the Congress—all seem to have pivoted right into playing some variation of BJP-lite. They are clearly and visibly anxious that the ruling party’s emphasis on hindutva, subsumed within the larger cover of nationalism, is an entrenched poll-winner. And so, for some time now, you have seen the Gandhi siblings drawing attention to their temple visits. Arvind Kejriwal has a list of religious pilgrimages that he is vowing to deliver on. And Akhilesh is falling back on imagined religious polarisation to craft his seat strategy.

Secularism may have become a corroded political slogan. But the problem with the approach of the non-BJP parties is that they are essentially playing by the BJP’s rule book—and on the BJP’s turf.

The UP chief minister has had a challenging two years because of the pandemic. An active grassroots opposition movement could have at least created a competitive playing field. Instead, the SP, clearly the dominant opposition, was dormant through much of the lockdown months. And Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, continues to make guest appearances in a movie where the ending seems to be pre-ordained—another likely victory for Adityanath. Despite her high-voltage announcements on reserving tickets for female candidates, her refusal to lead by example by running for chief minister, makes it difficult to take her seriously as a contender.

The opposition is not just divided; it is ideologically floundering. That confusion means—Advantage BJP.

editor@theweek.in

cases-of-aryan-khan-ashish-mishra-show-contrast-in-how-law-is-applied-barkha-dutt

Thu Oct 14 15:35:58 IST 2021

It took a week of national outcry before Ashish Mishra, accused of mowing down farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, was arrested. Every single retired police officer of consequence called out the Uttar Pradesh Police for the bewildering delay in issuing summons to the son of Union Minister Ajay Mishra, given multiple eyewitness testimonies and chilling videos that captured how the elderly were among those crushed under his vehicle.

Ajay has continued to deny that his son was present at the site. But multiple voices from the ground have testified to watching Ashish run into the sugarcane fields. Some farmers have provided detailed accounts of why they believe the minister’s son was both armed and drunk. On camera, there are images of ammunition and what appears to be the debris of a weapon. A 14-year-old is among those who watched his father being run over by the speeding Thar.

Among the first to be hit, while he unsuspectingly walked, flag in hand, as part of the protest against the new farm legislations, was Nachattar Singh, an elderly Sikh whose son is a soldier. Despite the fact that the minister is also named in the FIR, he has neither been arrested nor asked to resign.

By contrast, another son, in another city, Aryan Khan, in his early 20s, was almost instantly taken into custody after being at a cruise ship party that was busted for drugs. Khan has neither been accused of trading nor of possession. The Narcotics Control Bureau has cited messages on his phone that indicate consumption. Certain circumstances of his arrest are also shrouded in mystery and dodginess. For instance, we now know that the two men who appear on camera escorting Khan and a co-accused, holding them firmly by the arm away from the glare of cameras, are not cops or security bouncers. One is Manish Bhanushali, a BJP worker, and the other is K.P. Gosavi, a private detective. Gosavi’s online pictures have him posing with a gun like a B-grade movie villain. He has also been identified as the man who took a selfie with Khan while he was in custody. Gosavi has since absconded.

Shah Rukh Khan has already been dropped as brand ambassador of educational technology company BYJU’s in the wake of the controversy around his son. And depending on what happens to the case, more brands could follow.

I am not making the case that Aryan should not face the requisite punishment for his violation of the law. But the alacrity and firmness with which the law was applied to the mega star’s son is in stark contrast with what happened in Ashish’s case, even though the crime is much more egregious in the latter.

In one case, the father has begun to feel the monetary consequences, albeit the fact that he is too wealthy for it to matter financially. In another case, the weight of the government is so far behind him.

This tale of two sons—and two fathers—is a modern day tale of India.

editor@theweek.in

yogi-adityanath-remains-unhinged-and-untouched-writes-barkha-dutt

Thu Sep 16 20:08:06 IST 2021

In a week when Narendra Modi and Amit Shah abruptly replaced the chief minister in their home state of Gujarat, it was a BJP chief minister in another state—election-bound Uttar Pradesh—who hogged the headlines.

If the drama in Gujarat reinforced the BJP as a ‘high command’ party, where only two men matter, simultaneously it made us notice that Yogi Adityanath is probably the only state leader who cannot be summarily substituted.

Adityanath’s often abrasive and communal rhetoric has remained untempered by five years in office. His patently anti-Muslim jibe about how those who say “Abbajaan” once got a disproportionate share of rations—a coarse metaphor for ‘minority appeasement’—will not hurt him electorally; in fact it may even help, as religious polarisation so often does.

Instead of the political and public conversation being focused on the UP government’s handling of Covid-19, rising cases of dengue and protests by farmers in the western pockets, debating the Hindu-Muslim fault lines may even be the perfect deflection.

That Adityanath still sets the terms of the debate around him in a year when bodies washed ashore from the Ganga and shallow mass graves of abandoned bodies were unveiled along its banks at the height of the pandemic speaks of the utter failure of the opposition. Even in terms of hindutva, the image of saffron shrouds being removed off these bodies by the local police, so that they merged more fully with the sand they had been left in, offered a galvanising moment that was not taken by the opposition.

Pre-poll surveys show the UP chief minister down in ratings from his 2017 peak, but still distinctly ahead of competitors. While the Samajwadi Party has benefitted from the anti-incumbency, the gains seem to have been passively obtained as distinct from aggressively sought. If there was ever a context for the opposition to change the framework from caste and identity politics it was now. But we did not see mass mobilisation initiatives or cycle rallies or enough offline, non-virtual, tactile effort to meet voters. Covid protocols forbade large gatherings but this was the time for more personal, intimate, on-the-field politics.

Instead, the opposition seems to have been leaning back in a lazy chair waiting for the voters’ anger to convert organically. The worst, of course, has been the Congress, and this is reflected in all the surveys as well. So much for planted news reports about Priyanka Gandhi shifting base to UP and running for chief minister! The floundering Congress has been unable to resolve its leadership issue. So, while Sonia Gandhi continues to play a placeholder in the post of party president, the few states where the Congress is still in government are beginning to simmer with factionalism.

Make no mistake, if Bengal was the most important bulwark against the expansionism of the BJP, retaining Uttar Pradesh will set the stage for 2024. And, if Yogi Adityanath does manage to pull off a win, as the signs suggest he might well, it could make him the most significant BJP leader after the prime minister and home minister. The consequences for the BJP’s internal power dynamic thereafter will be intriguing.

What happens in UP will not stay only in UP.

editor@theweek.in

taliban-rise-india-wisest-choice-may-be-to-stand-with-afghans-says-barkha-dutt

Thu Aug 19 15:22:57 IST 2021

There has never been a more dangerous time for Indian security interests than now, with the developments in Afghanistan.

The responsibility for the victory of the Taliban may rest squarely with the Americans—and to some extent with Afghan politicians who failed to build an authentic following among their people—but the cross will be carried by India.

The Taliban, a terrorist project of Pakistan—or what Dr Christine Fair has called a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Pakistani state—has long been enmeshed with an intricate network of terror groups, including the Al-Qaeda, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Elements of it, in particular the Haqqani network, have been fostered by the Inter-Services Intelligence and the Pakistani deep state. Sirajuddin Haqqani is today a deputy leader of the Taliban.

India was among 12 countries to say that it would not recognise a government in Afghanistan that has been imposed by force. But with Ashraf Ghani fleeing the country and the Taliban literally being able to saunter into the presidential palace, albeit at gunpoint, it is unclear how long India can decline to establish official relations with the Taliban. Even to evacuate our diplomats and jawans from the embassy in Kabul, a certain local and tactical engagement with the Taliban would have been unavoidable.

Eventually, India may have no option but to engage the Taliban and use the influence of our economic investments in the region to mitigate the extremism of the regime. But even in that process, we will be countering the Pakistan-China axis. It is no surprise that China hosted a Taliban delegation even before Kabul had fallen. And that Pakistan, China and Russia remain the three major functional embassies in Kabul today.

There will also be consequences for Kashmir. Two decades ago, it was not uncommon for the foreign terrorists in the valley to be from countries like Afghanistan and even Sudan, alongside local militants and Pakistani terrorists. With Pakistan’s deep roots in large sections of the Taliban establishment, the attempt to revive Kashmir as a pan-Islamist project cannot be ruled out. Pakistan, already smarting from the abrogation of Article 370 two years ago, will be looking for means to re-leverage itself into this matrix.

Any option for India is currently a choice from a substandard menu. India’s wisest route probably remains in standing with the people of Afghanistan. Opening up emergency visas for all Afghans (amending an earlier foreign ministry statement that named Hindu, Sikhs and Afghan partners specifically) is a smart move in this direction. Let India be the benevolent, accessible, friendly powerhouse for a new generation of Afghans. Let us remember that there is a post-Taliban generation that has never known life under the Taliban. India should be a natural port of call for them.

A ‘me-too’ relationship with the Taliban does not just upend decades of our stated position on terrorists; it is also destined to fail given the historic links between the Taliban and Pakistan, and China’s overarching influence. Despite the immediate tactical pressures to normalise the Taliban and despite the need for covert channels of communication to remain open with it, India should opt to side with the underdog—the people of Afghanistan, especially its women.

This would not just be the correct moral principle; it would also be smart statecraft at a time of diminishing alternatives.

editor@theweek.in

snooping-culture-we-journalists-also-contributed-to-it-says-barkha-dutt

Thu Jul 22 18:25:12 IST 2021

The global surveillance scandal, involving the use of Israeli spy software Pegasus, raises many grave questions—not just about the violation of privacy, but also the independence of our institutions. In India, given the list of possible snooping targets, several pillars key to the functioning of a genuine democracy—the media, the election commission, the courts, an effective opposition—have been made vulnerable.

Forty Indian journalists are among the 180 whose devices may have been hacked. In any other country, this would have caused mass public outrage. So, why are we not seeing more fury among citizens at large?

While I believe that the government is obliged to answer the central question—did it or did it not weaponise Pegasus on its citizens—I think we must also reflect on how and why we, as people, became so casual about privacy.

At the risk of annoying some colleagues, I would argue that in some ways we as journalists have brought ourselves to this point. A few years ago, major media outlets happily published the private conversations between Niira Radia, a representative for the Tata and Reliance group and a host of other people, including business people, politicians and journalists. Yes, unlike Pegasus, Radia’s surveillance was authorised under income tax rules. But the violation of the privacy of everyone else she spoke to was not authorised and the leaking of the conversations was unforgivable.

As someone who spoke to Radia in the course of work but hardly knew her beyond that, I found myself at the receiving end of a bizarre and vengeful media campaign, one that suggested that I had somehow played a role in A. Raja, being appointed telecom minister. Snatches of gossip about who might be in the next cabinet—a routine trading of information that all journalists do with professional contacts—were edited and dislocated from the context in an attempt to sully my reputation.

Apart from the ludicrous assumptions about my influence, I repeatedly underlined that I had never met or spoken to Raja (and still have not) and pointed to the many hard-hitting stories I had in fact done on the telecom scam. Others like Vir Sanghvi and M.K. Venu, one of the editors of The Wire (that has led the Pegasus expose in India), took the media organisations to court. Ratan Tata demanded a right to privacy protection from the Supreme Court.

While no fingers were eventually pointed at Tata or Ambani, for whom Radia was working, the tapes became quite simply a weapon by journalists to try and pull down other journalists.

Since then, TV channels have thought nothing about leaked WhatsApp messages being part of their so-called “exposes”. We saw a lot of this salacious stuff during the coverage of the Sushant Singh Rajput tragedy where the privacy of actors was routinely violated in prime-time news. It was only when journalists found their own messages and conversations leaked (the Republic TV promoter and a young, brave journalist at India Today among them) that there was pushback. Sting operations—secretly filming people—is another grey area that raises ethical questions.

The media has often cited public interest as it overrides the right to privacy of public figures. Of course, Pegasus violates civil liberties and the functioning of a free press. But if we live in Orwellian times, we too have done our bit in contributing to it.

editor@theweek.in

india-needs-transparency-on-vaccination-data--writes-barkha-dutt

Thu Jun 24 21:27:48 IST 2021

India’s record-breaking rollout of the new vaccination policy has been the news we have all been waiting for all year. A country scarred by the second wave has nothing but vaccines to prevent it from an imminent third wave. At 86 lakh doses in a single day, India has reminded the world of our vast experience with mass immunisation programmes. That we are good on the logistics side is now established.

But while we all need to feel good and indeed feel better, the early triumphalism that has followed this start is both dangerous and scary. It is frightening because it was exactly this sort of imagined exceptionalism and self-congratulatory messaging that made us vulnerable to the second wave.

The dramatic variations in the numbers also raise some puzzling questions. The most curious has been the performance of Madhya Pradesh that appeared to go from 14,000 vaccine doses to over 16 lakh in three days. On the eve of the big-bang Monday, Madhya Pradesh administered less than 700 doses. On Monday, it soared to 16 lakhs, on Tuesday it fell to under 5,000, only to surge ahead in the lakhs again on Wednesday.

It is not only BJP states that show these crests and troughs. Maharashtra showed a gap of two lakh vaccine doses between June 20 and June 21; Kerala soared from 57,000 doses to over 2.5 lakhs on Monday. It almost appeared as if the states had held back vaccines on Sunday to make Monday a good performer. But then there were also states like Andhra Pradesh that showed the reverse trajectory with 13 lakh doses on Sunday that fell sharply to 49,000 on Monday.

These swings are bound to raise questions around the stability of vaccine supply now that it has been proved that the distribution and administering system works super smoothly. It calls for utmost transparency from the government on data. People already know that there is a shortage of vaccines and should be told the truth about availability levels.

Similarly, transparency was found missing when it came to determining the gap between the two doses of the vaccine. The government has previously pointed out Covishield’s assertion that a prolonged gap between the two doses, accidentally discovered during the trial, was better for efficacy. But all of this was before the lethal Delta variant swept through India. Since then, a UK study shows that a single dose of the AstraZeneca (or Covishield as we know it in India) offers just 33 per cent protection against infection and a little over 70 per cent efficacy against hospitalisation. In other words, two doses are critical and an increased gap could make us more vulnerable. Equally, everyone understands that in a crisis the perfect cannot be the enemy of the good, and so any vaccine rollout must focus on as many people getting one shot as possible. The problem begins when the policy is packaged as led by science rather than the compulsions of the greater good—because science has since changed.

As more vaccines are cleared for use in India and the free vaccines-for-all policy takes shape, it is critical that shortfalls, if any, are explained to the citizenry.

editor@theweek.in

we-have-to-own-our-covid-deaths-says-barkha-dutt

Thu May 27 15:53:33 IST 2021

Many morally egregious developments have taken place in the past two months amid a colossal failure to contain the second wave of the pandemic. The most obvious have been the failure to order enough vaccines, the gifting and exporting of vaccines before securing them for citizens, the failure to ensure oxygen supply to hospitals, the decision forcing government teachers to go on election duty, and permitting massive political and religious gatherings during the crisis.

But now, as Covid fires sweep through rural India, we are confronted with a new ignominy: the refusal to count our dead.

I have spent more than ten days travelling through rural Uttar Pradesh, uncovering floating corpses and buried bodies at six different points along the Ganga—Varanasi, Kannauj, Kanpur, Unnao, Prayagraj and the Nanamau ghat in Kanpur Dehat district. I have travelled three hours by boat down the river as well. And the dead do speak if we care to listen. Eyewitnesses confirm that they have never seen a pile-up of bodies in this manner, both in number and in the way they have been abandoned, often in the cover of night. There appear to be two reasons for this dumping of bodies: the absence of money to spend on cremations and the stigma and fear associated with Covid.

To make matters worse, the police have been supervising the removal of Ramnami chadar (sheets with Lord Ram’s name printed on them) from bodies at Prayagraj—perhaps to avoid any further documentation. Surely this is the final, unforgivable indignity.

Apart from the mass graves, there are two other giant factors that are contributing to the serious underreporting of Covid fatalities. In village after village, residents are confirming a surge in the number of deaths over the past month, from what is being described as a sudden onset of fever. In most cases, though, with hardly any testing or health care facilities accessible, people are dying at home, often within three or four days of contracting the virus. Since they never reach hospitals and are never tested for Covid, the death certificates either offer no cause of death or list typhoid and pneumonia as reasons for it.

From the east of Uttar Pradesh to the west, the documentation of deaths is almost negligible. In Basi Gao, two hours from Delhi, villagers said “not even one house was untouched by fever”. The village has more than 5,000 residents. It was the same story at the other end in Ramana, which is part of the prime minister’s constituency, Varanasi. “Forty people have died over the last month,” said the village pradhan. “Barely anyone made it to the hospital.”

Finally, in state after state, there is a mismatch between the number of deaths reported by districts and the pyres burning at cremation grounds and the burials happening in graveyards. Be it in Surat, Ghaziabad, Delhi or Varanasi, undertakers are reporting numbers that are at least ten times more than what the government is acknowledging. Data scientist Bhramar Mukherjee told me that 1.2 million Indians have already died, and that the number is “a conservative estimate”.

Before India claims to have left the worst of the second wave behind, we must at least demand to know how many have died. We must own our Covid deaths.

editor@theweek.in

barkha-dutt-on-injured-cadet-long-wait-for-justice-from-the-army

Thu Apr 01 19:21:17 IST 2021

Today I want to tell you the story of a young man called Shubham Gupta and his extraordinary mother, Anupam. From a young age, Shubham dreamt of being part of an infantry brigade posted on the frontline. When he cleared the entrance for the National Defence Academy, he was the happiest he had ever been.

But two years into the gruelling training programme of an officer cadet, Shubham was gravely injured while diving into the academy swimming pool. The fall paralysed him below the neck; he was declared medically unfit. Not just that. NDA graduates get a bachelor’s degree from JNU. But because he could not complete his three years at NDA, the first two years of his BA were nullified.

Shubham was given a mechanised wheelchair and sent back to his parents in Punjab. Seven years on, after regular use had worn out his first wheelchair, Shubham wrote to the Military Hospital in Pune asking for a new one. He was told that the rules did not allow the issue of another wheelchair because he was not officially recognised as an ex-serviceman.

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, a former soldier, has intervened with orders for a new wheelchair. But when I spoke to Shubham and his mother, at the heart of this tragedy is not the principle of charity, but the principle of honour.

At 29, Shubham does not want to be economically dependent on his parents. He started afresh and completed his college degree. His mother, a schoolteacher, speaks of the despair she feels; her son cannot even turn to his side on the bed, without help. Yet, despite what happened to Shubham, she did not stop her younger son from joining the military. “I am living my dreams vicariously now through my brother,” Shubham told me, without a trace of self-pity, victimhood or bitterness.

As an educated, well-read, intelligent young man, Shubham is confident that he could easily perform an administrative role in the private sector. But someone has to be willing to give him that opportunity. His is not the only such case. Officer trainees who are declared unfit for medical reasons are not given the benefits of military service. Ironically, jawans and civilian recruits are deemed part of the service from the first day of training.

Though military chiefs have been known to intervene in individual cases—former Army chief General Ved Malik has made a passionate appeal for Shubham—a larger overhaul of the rules is needed. These are men and women who display readiness to possibly sacrifice their lives for the nation at a very young age. Some of them would be in their late teens when an accident cripples them. They take a chance on the best years of their lives, and as Shubham has shown, display great fauji (military) spirit, in their never-say-die attitude.

We owe them more. We owe them better.

editor@theweek.in

inequality-begins-at-home

Thu Mar 04 14:21:59 IST 2021

One of the big untold stories of the pandemic year will be how it impacted women. With families forced to hunker down and work from home—this may possibly become the norm even when things fully normalise—women, in India and elsewhere, are reeling under the consequences.

There has been some acknowledgment of the surge in domestic violence cases. In India, the National Commission for Women revealed that it received 5,000 complaints of domestic violence against women and children as of December 2020, a sharp spike from the 660 cases reported in July 2020.

This phenomenon is being called the ‘shadow pandemic’.

But lurking behind these headlines is the story of how casual sexism has become institutionalised and legitimised in a way that could have long-term consequences in the battle for equality.

Facebook’s Survey on Gender Equality at Home report—done in collaboration with the World Bank, UN Women, Ladysmith and others—reached a statistically representative sample of roughly half a million people who use Facebook, globally. While many of the experiences for women cut across geographies and cultures, the results from India are revealing.

That women have often been unpaid care-givers is an established fact. But with schools going online, and spouses and children both at home, for women, this has been a year more harrowing than most. For women who also hold a job outside of the home, the pressure has been near debilitating. Asked how many hours per day either gender spent on care activities for family members, men said they spent 6.66 hours compared with the nearly ten (9.7) that women do.

Fifty-eight per cent of women surveyed said that the amount of time they spent on household chores has increased compared with 52 per cent of male respondents. The findings shine a light on the absence of equality in our home spaces that clearly predated the pandemic and the lockdown. When asked whether in normal circumstances they took care of household chores, like cleaning, at least half of the time, 61 per cent of women said yes, to 29 per cent of men.

And most disappointingly, perpetuating sexist stereotypes, 73 per cent of men surveyed agreed that “a woman’s most important role is to take care of her home and children”; 63 per cent of women assented to that proclamation. At a time when women are breaking barriers in every space—flying fighter jets, leading companies, arguing for combat roles in the infantry, helming newsrooms—it is almost tragic to hear that such few women privilege their personal and professional ambitions ahead of the gendered expectations of them at home.

The truth that we do not recognise is that there can be no equality at work without equality at home. In India, the female labour force participation has been sharply declining. According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, during March-April last year, 26.6 per cent of women moved out of the labour force versus 13.4 per cent of men. Put simply, it means that fewer women are working today than earlier. What appears to be like progress is in fact the exact opposite when it comes to women in the workforce and attrition rates. A key reason for this is the impossibility of juggling the multiple roles demanded of women at office and home.

We have focused all our energy on the workspace. We need to turn our gaze inwards and start talking much more about what goes on right in our own backyard.

editor@theweek.in

the-pm-must-step-in

Thu Feb 04 16:11:36 IST 2021

The debate on the farmers’ protests has gone well beyond discussing what is the best way to reform the agriculture sector. It no longer matters what you think is the best way to get past the middleman or if you think the market and the mandi can co-exist.

After what went down on Republic Day and the build-up of barricades with nails, iron bars and concrete walls at different protest sites, the need of the hour is de-escalation.

Yes, the violence on January 26, especially the unfurling of the Nishan Sahib at the Red Fort, was utterly appalling, as was the breaking down of barricades and the violence that ensued. But, the farmers I meet are convinced, right or wrongly, that extremists like Deep Sidhu, who can be seen on video exhorting men to put up the religious flag, were given a long rope by the police, just to discredit the movement.

Either way, the movement has shifted gears and momentum from the primarily Sikh-led, Punjab-centric agitation to the mobilisation of Jats in western Uttar Pradesh. Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait, who told me he voted for Prime Minister Modi, pulled a rabbit from his hat by breaking down in tears and giving a call to action for farmers to arrive at the UP border. The police, sent in to clear the area of protesters, immediately stepped back, sensing the pointlessness of going eyeball to eyeball with a large crowd.

Every police officer, retired and serving, that I have spoken to, believes the force is being made to carry the cross for the political establishment. Clearly, both the decision to allow the tractor rally to roll into Delhi on Republic Day, and the decision, since then, to fortify the protest sites as if they are war zones, are political. Amod Kanth, former top cop of Delhi, told me that the images are “horrifying” even as he understands the need for the police to act. “But can we afford to have Delhi turn into Tiananmen Square?” he asked.

There is peril in the fact that the farmers’ agitation is leaderless or at least without one central leader or group. It leads to the sort of free-for-all fracas we saw on Republic Day and the subsequent dissociation. Even the involvement of Rihanna, the international superstar, who tweeted about the internet shutdown at the borders of Delhi, is beside the point. Chances are if she were quizzed about the legislation or the protests she would not know too much.

But instead of getting prickly about outside commentary, as the foreign ministry has, the prime minister needs to step in. Not because of what the western media or Hollywood celebrities are saying, but because thousands of men and women, elderly and young, have been on the roads for over two months. And for the most part, they have been peaceful and dignified in the articulation of their opposition.

At Singhu border, the farmers told me they will stay as long as needed. The women said they will not budge, “even if we die”. But everyone is looking at Narendra Modi to step in. “If he comes here to talk to us, we will give him chai, samosas and ladoos. Then we will ask him to repeal the laws.”

Parliament is in session. The prime minister must intervene and pull the street back from the precipice.

editor@theweek.in

for-sciences-sake!

Thu Jan 07 13:55:56 IST 2021

The vaccine wars have reached a tenuous truce, with both Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech issuing a joint statement of unity around “saving lives”. This, obviously on orders from probably the highest levels of government, came after the damage was done. For anti-vaxxers, rumour-mongers and conspiracy theorists, this week offered the perfect opportunity to bash science. And this was the real tragedy.

Ordinary Indians, already terrified by the year they have had to go through because of the pandemic and the lockdown, really do not understand the difference between efficacy and immunogenicity. Not too many even know that in peace-time it would take a year to test the efficacy of a vaccine. And what this is simply measuring is the odds of getting reinfected. Since a year’s luxury is not available to any country in the world, scientists have to deal with other parameters, in which testing for safety is paramount. I would not have known any of this had I not spent an obsessive year reporting on Covid-19 and its aftermath.

And, that is the point. On the day the drugs controller general of India officially greenlit the vaccines, he did not take questions from reporters. The insistence on a monologue as communication at this critical and sensitive point created a massive information vacuum which was then filled by quarrels among scientists, experts and the two vaccine manufacturers. The result is that people are besieged with doubts, some valid and some hysterical.

Experts like Dr Shahid Jameel told me that instead of the opacity that accompanied the announcement and what followed—thereby undermining the legitimate gains made by scientists—the alternative should have been not just to answer questions, but to broadcast live the meetings of the SEC (subject expert committee) to create confidence and comfort among citizens. In this, he says, we must borrow from the American example in transparency and the public’s right to access information.

India makes 60 per cent of the world’s vaccines, and companies like Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute are not newbies. Both have a proven scientific track record. Nor is raising questions and demanding to know more any sort of disrespect to India’s homegrown scientists. The worry, for most people, is that the pressure to be “atmanirbhar” when it comes to a Covid-19 vaccine should not lead to decisions taken in haste or approvals that cut corners.

Since the controversy erupted, several scientists with unimpeachable integrity have explained to me that the efficacy numbers that are available now could well alter over a period of time, as these numbers have not been studied in any trial for the length of a full year.

The government should be holding daily press briefings and running 101 sessions on the vaccine rollout. There should be digital and offline interfaces for people to post their questions. And, there should be much greater transparency and insights into the decision-making process as well as how the trials are being conducted.

Dr Jameel suggests that the best way for Indians to believe that both vaccines are safe for use is for officialdom to lead by example. Let top ministers and bureaucrats of the government take the vaccines and demonstrate their own confidence and trust in the systems that have been used to grant the approval.

In the cacophony, that may be the best way to salvage science.

treat-farmers-with-dignity

Thu Dec 10 15:10:11 IST 2020

Depending on which economist you speak to, you can be persuaded either way on the new farm laws. Ashok Gulati, who has spent a lifetime studying the agricultural space, makes a passionate case for why these reforms are needed and how, as he told me, “you cannot fight the force of a free market. The government cannot be in the perennial business of deciding the price of potatoes and onions.” On the other end of the spectrum is P. Sainath, veteran journalist and chronicler of rural India, who argues that instead of eliminating the middleman, the new laws will throw up “new touts who will wear Gucci and Armani”. The reference is to what journalist Harish Damodaran has called “conglomerate capitalism”—where the market, instead of being genuinely free, is dominated by a handful of giant corporations.

For the layperson this is a confusing argument. Not all of us are trained policymakers or economists to be able to decide whether the legislation will do more good than harm. However, the lessons from the telecom sector are instructive. What was meant to be an opening up of a competitive market has ended up in only three players left in the market where the third is still fighting to survive.

That said, if you did a dipstick test, most Indians would stand in solidarity with the protesting farmers. It is in fact possible to be confused, even ignorant about the exact provisions of the new farm laws and still sentimentally lean on the side of the farmers.

There is a reason for this. First, if the laws are meant to improve the lives of the farming community—60 per cent of India’s population is dependent on agriculture—then the people being “gifted” must believe so. If there is a gap in communication, and men, women and children are on the street—every village in Punjab is reported to have sent a tractor load of protesters to the capital—it is incumbent upon any government to talk with the citizenry and not talk down at them.

As Gulati, who is a supporter of the laws, told me, “the prime minister should go and eat in the langar being run by the farmers and share a jalebi or two with them”. The first instinct of the government to disparage the protests was the wrong one.

There is also another missing piece of the puzzle. From the prime minister downwards, everyone in the government has assured the farmers of the MSP, or minimum support price, continuing despite the new laws. Farmers do not believe this and want it in writing as a legally enforceable guarantee. Of course, MSP varies from year to year and is in the realm of administration. But if the government is indeed sincere about maintaining the mandis and the MSP system in parallel to allowing private players in, it should have no problem in giving some manner of assurance that is formal and goes beyond the verbal.

In effect, the debate around the farmers laws is not about the legislation at all anymore. Even those who think the new acts have value may believe that the farmer on the street deserves a dignified dialogue of equals.

editor@theweek.in

modi-wins-yet-again

Fri Nov 13 13:02:30 IST 2020

Despite the shades of Pennsylvania in Patna—the late count, the allegation of malpractice, the neck and neck race, and the suspense—Bihar finally has a new government.

And the quick short political bullet point is this: Narendra Modi is a Teflon prime minister who can still tip any election.

The two big winners of this election are Modi and the 31-year-old who was hoping to become India’s youngest chief minister. Despite a spirited challenge by Tejashwi Yadav, who fought not just an energetic but a responsible campaign focused on economy, jobs and performance, the groundswell of anger against Nitish Kumar did not stick to his alliance partner, the BJP.

On the ground, in interviews, voters explained this by saying that Nitish Kumar ran a one-man government, and so he was alone responsible for the poor handling of the migrant crisis and the pandemic as well as the flagging economy.

But in truth, the BJP was able to show Nitish Kumar his place. The gamble with Lok Janshakti Party’s Chirag Paswan, who broke away from the National Democratic Alliance and threatened to send the chief minister to jail, was seen as a carefully calibrated project to cut into the vote share of the Janata Dal (United). He set himself up to be the prime minister’s Hanuman and repeatedly spoke of a BJP-LJP government in the state. His game worked. Stung by the results, Nitish Kumar’s party colleagues have been lamenting the consequence of the “chirag (flame)”that burnt “Ayodhya instead of Lanka.”

While Nitish Kumar will be chief minister again, it is evident that this win has been delivered to him by the prime minister. You can expect him to be a paler, blander, more diminished version of himself than we have seen even thus far. And there are legitimate questions over how long this alliance with the BJP will sustain. Probably, the calculation that Nitish is ever ready to switch sides and that Bihar should not throw up a surprise as Maharashtra did (when the Shiv Sena, the NCP and the Congress came together) will ensure that the BJP does not rock the boat for now. But the power dynamic in the relationship has permanently altered.

The other big takeaway is the fall of the Congress that has clearly dragged the Mahagathbandhan down. While in sheer numbers, the staggering improvement of the left was able to compensate for the drop in the Congress, but the fact that Bihar’s Muslim voters chose to give five seats to Asaduddin Owaisi’s party says something significant. The Congress is foolishly lashing out at Owaisi for splitting what it calls the “secular vote”. Instead, it needs to reflect on the reality that increasingly it is no longer seen as a winning party. The image of Rahul Gandhi taking a brief vacation in the middle of the Bihar campaign captures both the entitlement and the denial of the Congress.

The Bihar verdict is yet another jolt for India’s opposition parties. The BJP juggernaut cannot be halted by last minute eruptions of energy. If anything, it is a reminder that politics is a 24x7 commitment. You have to live and breathe it, if you are to survive it in an India whose centre has pivoted right.

barking-news

Thu Oct 15 16:33:14 IST 2020

India’s television news is in meltdown. Channels are fighting among themselves. The relationship between television hosts is as volatile as that between India and Pakistan. And the audience is sniggering at the circus, where the media itself has become the main entertainer. I joked the other day to the razor-sharp stand-up comedian Anuvab Pal that his job was in danger. Prime time anchors, I warned him, might be funnier than he is—and without even intending to be.

Then I amended my words. The difference, I said, self-correcting, is that the news hosts are both funny and dangerous, whereas satirists were benign, if occasionally acerbic.

As TV news becomes a caricature of itself, it has also played to the basest prejudices a society can have; loose talk, instant judgment, slander of women, anti-Muslim rhetoric—everything that good journalism once rose up against has been normalised and made mainstream by television now.

The navel-gazing quarrel over who is worse on the spectrum of options is one more excuse for the TV media to not to its job. First, the tragic death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput was the perfect excuse to not report on the Covid-19 pandemic, the threat from China or the state of the economy. Now the tamasha has been overtaken by the state of play within the media industry. Channels that were till yesterday just as irresponsible and inflammatory in their coverage of the Rajput case and the misogynistic coverage of his girlfriend, Rhea Chakraborty, are today acting sanctimonious.

The worst are the networks which play on the formula of yin and yang. In an effort to keep all sorts of audiences on their side, some of their presenters are voluble, gossipy, aggressive and downright irresponsible. Then they have another set who are projected as more rooted and responsible. This way they get to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds, and seek to be all things to all people. Frankly, this last category is the most disingenuous; at least with the others you know precisely what you have signed up for.

The serious impact of all this is, of course, the death of credibility. When journalists become the subject of memes and mockery, what you have is a weakened and divided fourth estate. And guess who that leaves with the last laugh—India’s politicians. Journalism was meant to hold the powerful to account. But if the media is so busy bickering, sniggering and pulling down its own, it is hardly in a position to take a united stand on anything.

Television anchors, with delusions of grandeur, may believe that being on air every night offers them some sort of immunity. But now that a furious debate has erupted over how news ratings are measured and how easily they can be manipulated, channels cannot even hide their venom behind the boastful claims of numbers.

No matter which way you look at it, perhaps not since its inception has television news been this disrespected and irrelevant.

As a former practitioner of TV, I wish I could seek comfort in an “I told you so” moment.

But a weakened media is terrible news for democracy.

dont-bury-the-dead

Thu Sep 17 16:01:27 IST 2020

Migrant workers, forgotten during the lockdown, appear to be forgotten even in the unlocking of India.

The Union government has informed Parliament that no data is available on how many workers may have died in the last few months of the pandemic, during the biggest exodus of Indians since the country’s partition.

It is distressing that no such compilation has been made using a combination of state agencies and media reports.

As someone who spent close to four months tracking the journey of migrant workers, walking with them as they traversed hundreds of kilometres back to their village, I, for one, would be happy to share all my data.

I could introduce the labour ministry to Mukesh Mandal’s family that lives just on the outskirts of Delhi, in an urban village in Haryana. Mandal, a small-time house painter, had lost all his avenues of income when the country closed down. His wife Poonam, held up his passport size photo for me to see, a vacant look on her quietly stoic face. A day earlier, Mandal had sold his mobile phone for Rs2,500. He bought a table fan—it was hot in the crowded tenement where his family lived—and a few kilos of ration. Then he tied a cloth to a bamboo pole outside his hut and hanged himself.

Or, I could draw the attention of officials to the family of Ranveer Singh, who died from a heart attack near Agra, as he attempted to walk the nearly 300km distance. I went to meet his family in Morena. His sister Pinky said her brother had to work in the city so that he could send money home; one of his dreams was that Pinky could start her own school. His last call home was to the family from Agra. “Come and get me please,” he implored. But by the time the family was able to get a curfew pass he was already dead.

Then there is the Gond Adivasi village of Antoli. It is so remote that even when we reached its outskirts after driving for more than a day, we had to walk several kilometres inside, through mud and fields, before we could meet its residents. We all saw the macabre headline of the 16 workers who were run over as they slept on railway tracks in Aurangabad. They thought that no trains were running and that it was a safe space for them to hide from the police. This was their village.

Or, we could remind the governments about the accident that took place in Auraiya, when 24 migrant workers were killed in a road accident. Their injury was compounded with insult when survivors were made to travel in the same trucks which were carrying the dead, the body bags resting on open slabs of melting ice. They were moved into an ambulance only after a massive uproar.

To not tabulate the data of those who died is to render them invisible.

We keep saying that each life lost is more than a statistic.

But it appears that we are not even ready to acknowledge them as statistics.

editor@theweek.in

prime-time-embarrassment

Thu Aug 20 14:55:44 IST 2020

I was a child of television. Unlike many journalists who migrated from newspapers to the visual media, my first master’s degree was in film and television production and my first job was as a producer-reporter-sound mixer in television news.

This background is to explain that unlike others, I have never been contemptuous about television. I loved the grammar of pictures and their capacity to tell an immediate, intimate, powerful story.

But two decades later, storytelling is dead in television news. And all that remains is variants of talk—some polite, some shrill, almost all of it banal and some of it positively injurious to the health of our democracy.

Whether it is the way the tragic death of Sushant Singh Rajput or the fatal heart attack of Congress spokesperson Rajiv Tyagi shortly after he attended a raucous television debate has been reported, the chatterbox is now way more lethal than a mere idiot box.

The problem is not just the coarsening of conversation or the political partisanship. It’s the unleashing of vigilante justice. Today there is little difference in an insane, blatantly fake forward you receive on WhatsApp and the content you may consume on television. And the uncles and aunties in your family forums believe both to be accurate. If the last distinguishing feature of mainstream media—challenged more and more by digital platforms and social networks—was editorial gatekeeping, that distinction no longer exists.

We debate toxicity and hate-mongering on our online platforms. How often do we step back and question the 9pm news? Whether it is subliminal hatred against Muslims, pronouncements of guilt and innocence against individuals, pseudo-patriotism or downright slander, prime time is now a pathetic spectacle.

Funny thing is wherever I go, people crib nonstop about the quality of news media. ‘Tamasha’ is a word frequently used for my erstwhile medium. Everyone recognises that there is barely any reportage in television newsrooms. But even the quality of talk is suspect. It’s not as if viewers enjoy seeing the same faces rotate across studios, or in the age of Covid-19, on Zoom. The most common thing I hear about TV news is how it is chasing TRPs. But no one stops to consider what a TRP (television rating point) actually is. A TRP is all of you, all of us—the audience. It is in your power to reject or accept a certain kind of news media.

Now, of course, the other big problem in an increasingly polarised polity is that of viewers seeking confirmation bias. In other words, if my programme does not confirm your political bias, you will call me partisan. Those of us who remain adamantly free from either camp get to face this even more as we get attacked by all sides.

But keeping aside political affiliations—real and imagined—for the moment, wouldn’t you want a news show that does not embarrass you, that is robustly researched and reported and that you watch for information, not for mindless entertainment?

As somebody who has migrated to the digital world from television, I know this: as a young person growing up today, I would never have become a broadcast journalist if these were the examples before me.

The future of journalism lies not just with its practitioners. It lies with we, the people—the audience.

Choose wisely.

editor@theweek.in

crisis-at-the-core

Thu Jul 23 14:24:03 IST 2020

It would be a mistake to see the Rajasthan political crisis as a story bound by geography. At one level, yes, it is about an old warhorse of politics, Ashok Gehlot, being challenged by a second-generation leader, Sachin Pilot. But more than what happens eventually in the state—and a lot will depend on whether Pilot and his rebel MLAs are disqualified by the court from participating in a trust vote—this is a story about the state of the Congress party. And, once again, it is a story that shines a light on the leadership crisis within.

There can be more than one reading of whether Pilot played his cards right. And Gehlot, by virtue of being an old-style politician who is not easily outfoxed, may well win this round. Audio tapes released by the Congress allege that Pilot’s aides were in contact with senior leaders of the BJP for a bargain to switch sides. I also believe that Pilot made a mistake in a half-way exit, keeping one foot inside the door and one out of it, as he declared that he was still a Congressman. Instead, he should have walked out neatly and outright. Similarly, Gehlot’s use of debasing language (“nikamma, nakaara”) vindicated Pilot’s claim of being shown no respect.

But no matter what side of the Gehlot versus Pilot battle you are, it has split wide open the fissures within the Congress and exposed its real problem—the decision-makers at the very top.

The Gehlot camp and the Pilot camp both aver that the central leadership of the Congress—the Gandhi family—has been alerted to the growing divide between the chief minister and (ex) deputy chief minister for months. The one thing that both men would agree on is the ineffectual response from their leadership in Delhi.

We know now that it was not Sonia Gandhi or even Rahul Gandhi, but Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who worked the phone lines to Sachin Pilot. But nobody knows what her official locus standi to do so was. As interim president of the party, Sonia Gandhi should have been seen and heard on the issue. But she chose to remain in the background, as she has been for several months. Rahul Gandhi remained silent for most part as well, choosing instead to launch a new video series to “counter the narrative of hate”. His first video was on China and its release was the same day as the party released the audio tapes that purportedly showed evidence of horse trading and bribery. Talk about poor timing—by the evening the media was discussing Rahul’s renewed persona instead of the Rajasthan story.

In any case it has been more than a year since Rahul walked out from the post of party president. He had insisted at the time that no member of his family would take the post. That did not happen and now the ground seems to be prepared for his return.

If you talk privately to second-generation Congress leaders not one of them is happy with the state of play in the party. Many believe that Sachin Pilot will not be the last exit either.

The Gandhis can console themselves on outplaying the BJP in Rajasthan. But even that credit must go to Ashok Gehlot. The Gandhis, on the other hand, continue to be in entitled denial about the existential crisis that plagues their party.

editor@theweek.in

the-message-is-everything

Thu Jun 25 16:41:35 IST 2020

For me, being on the ground in Ladakh this past week felt oddly personal. Twenty-one years ago, in 1999, as a young 20-something reporter, I was there to report on the Kargil War, in what would be the most transformative journalistic experience of my life.

While what has unfolded between India and China—the transgressions, the squatting on Indian territory, the deaths of our soldiers in the line of duty—cannot be literally compared with the vast theatre of conflict in the Kargil War, the sense of deja vu is definitely there, especially as the anniversary of Operation Vijay is around the corner.

But no matter which way you cut and splice it, and no matter where you stand on the geopolitical handling of China’s expansionism, there is one lesson from Kargil that the government refused to learn—effective strategic communication.

It is quite clear now that our soldiers showed extraordinary heroism even when they were outnumbered by the Chinese in Galwan Valley and brutalised by People’s Liberation Army troops using crude weapons. Yet, instead of simply coming forward and taking the Indian public into confidence, the government tied itself in knots, with opacity, denials and mixed messaging that only hurt India’s narrative and allowed the Chinese to make absurd, tall claims.

Till there was a clarification on his remarks, even the prime minister fumbled on articulation at the all-party meeting. The clarification made it clear that the Chinese transgression had been pushed by Indian troops in Galwan Valley (though it circumvented the issue of Chinese presence in Pangong Tso). But it was more than 12 hours before the government issued the clarificatory statement, and by that time the Chinese were lapping up the domestic divisions and fissures.

In Kargil, by contrast, both the government and the military were able to use the news media as a force multiplier. In Delhi, there were daily briefings conducted jointly by officials of the foreign ministry and the Indian Army. At the frontline, reporters like myself were permitted physical access to the theatre of conflict. The result: India’s first televised war and an outpouring of national solidarity.

Kargil of 1999 was ahead of Ladakh of 2020 in its instinct for communication. Media planners in the A.B. Vajpayee government also understood the cardinal principle of information dissemination. Quite simply, if you do not say something, someone else will. And, where not enough facts are placed in the public domain, the vacuum will be filled with rumours, fake news and WhatsApp forwards masquerading as headlines.

No one is recommending that a roster list of operations be provided to the public or the media. On the contrary, in times of a sensitive military situation, if officials reach out to key reporters on the beat and ask them to refrain from certain aspects of the reporting, each one of us would.

The Narendra Modi government has never much cared for journalists, despite large swathes of the broadcast media being brazenly loyal to it. But in times of near-war, that contempt and dislike should be suspended.

This is the age of information warfare. In psy-ops, the message is everything.

editor@theweek.in

no-eyes-to-see-no-heart-to-feel

Thu May 28 17:54:28 IST 2020

As I write this I have just entered the state of Kerala after a 72-hour road odyssey that has taken me through the states of Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Telangana and, then, Kasaragod in Kerala.

After clocking 14,000 kilometres and tracking migrant workers on their long journey home, certain facts have become indisputably evident to me.

The humanitarian crisis of the migrant workers has come to be bigger than the challenge of the pandemic. In part, this is because the national lockdown was announced with four hours’ notice and failed to anticipate the biggest mass exodus of people since Partition. An absence of empathy, efficiency and basic coordination between the Centre and states also cost us. For the first 72 hours, as the workers walked, often barefoot, their children on their shoulders, they were treated as invisible by the Centre and states alike. Then there was a hasty, unplanned attempt to put them on trains, but without anyone to even organise queues before they boarded. This was a moment, frankly, for the paramilitary or military to have been called upon, used as they are to simplifying intricate and large movements of people. Instead, the sight of thousands of workers desperately jostling to get onto a train panicked the government and it issued orders that the movement of workers was a “violation of the lockdown.”

The problem with this was that no government order could ensure that workers were paid wages. Policy makers also failed to understand the twin triggers of economics and emotion when it came to the exodus. While there was an intuitive empathy for stranded middle-class and upper middle-class Indians abroad (who were not impoverished or in any danger of going hungry), there was simply no acknowledgment of the fact that the same emotional need—the need to be at home—was just as true for our poor.

Effectively, the government issued orders that were unenforceable—both on asking the workers not to move and asking their employers to keep paying them. Oddly, in March, it told the Supreme Court that there were no more migrants on the road. Workers were walking our highways, often through the desolation of the night, as recently as this week.

Every worker I have met—those walking barefoot, cycling hundreds of kilometres home, crammed in at the back of small trucks, on board trains—have all said the same thing to me. “If the virus has to kill us, we would rather die at home.” Most believe that poverty will claim their lives quicker than Covid.

In Haryana I met the family of Mukesh Mandal, who sold his phone for Rs2,500 so that he could feed his family and buy them a fan. One day later he killed himself. In Madhya Pradesh I met the widow of Ranveer Singh, who died walking home from a heart attack. In Delhi I met Fazulu, who had been locked in by his employers behind a corrugated tin sheet as if he was bonded labour. In Mumbai, at the back of a truck, I met Vinod, a science graduate, who said no one in the news media had bothered to tell their story. In Hyderabad, I met 10-year-old Sunil who was heartbroken to have to leave his textbooks behind and worried about when he may be able to attend school again. And in Bhiwani, Nitin, the 10-year-old son of a migrant worker, summed up the reality of this pandemic. What does coronavirus mean to you, I asked him. “It means I won’t get food.” He said it simply, in innocence, and after that he even smiled. But in a few words he had captured the tragedy of our times.

editor@theweek.in

bibek-debroy-on-partha-chatterjee-and-kalinjara-story

Sun Aug 07 11:18:33 IST 2022

Cash, flats, houses, farmhouses, land, resorts, guest-houses, businesses—mind-boggling are the assets of Partha Chatterjee’s extended family. In some versions of Uttara Kanda, which has sections interpolated later, Valmiki Ramayana has a story. Briefly, Ram is king in Ayodhya and all is well. King Ram has instated a bell outside the palace, for anyone with a complaint to ring. A dog turns up and rings the bell, and there is a brief discussion between Lakshman and the dog about whether a dog is allowed to approach a king. That sorted out, the dog is taken to Ram. The dog was sleeping on the road, obstructing the path of a brahmana. Had the brahmana asked the dog to move, it would have. Instead, the brahmana beat the dog on the head with a stick. Those facts established, the dog insists the brahmana be punished. A discussion ensues about whether a brahmana can be punished, with ministers and advisers opposing the idea. Finally, Ram asks the dog about appropriate punishment and the dog suggests the brahmana be made kuladhipati (lord) of Kalinjara fort. Accordingly, the brahmana is sent off with a lot of fanfare, astride an elephant, seemingly rewarded, not punished.

The dog then informs the gathering that in its past life, it had been lord of Kalinjara. That provided such an opportunity for corruption and sins that he was reborn as a canine in the next life. The brahmana has actually been punished. A position of power leads to discretionary abuse. We are usually more familiar with Lord Acton’s 1887 letter to Bishop Creighton than Valmiki Ramayana. “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd (sic) the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.” Morality can be subjective, an issue discussed in correspondence between the two. Criminality, defined with reference to specific legislation, sets objective norms, subject to establishment of guilt.

I studied in Ramakrishna Mission School, Narendrapur, a school that supposedly instils moral values. Most of my peers (among ones I know), who studied in the school at around the same time, seem to abide by some principles, irrespective of what legality holds. Chatterjee was my classmate from the same school. I don’t remember him from those days. There were two distinct branches, English medium and Bengali medium. Mine was the former, his the latter, and the twain rarely met. Several years later, when he had become a minister, I was introduced to him once and told we passed out in the same year. Given our ages, that is off by a couple of years, but that’s irrelevant. Nor did he contradict the face.

He became a minister in 2011, just over 10 years ago.

Electoral affidavits (2011, 2016, 2021) are not necessarily truthful. Assuming they were, discovered assets are disproportionate to known income. Indeed, they are also disproportionate to wrong-doing from the teacher recruitment scam (dated to 2014) alone. The late Rama Prasad Goenka (well-known industrialist and founder of RPG Group) once told me, “It is easier to handle corruption in West Bengal. The Bengali bhadralok has limited ambitions and is satisfied with a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica.” That impression, if true, was formed several years ago and the Bengali bhadralok’s aspirations, once in a kuladhipati’s position, has exploded exponentially. However, it is inconceivable that aspiring school-teachers could have afforded to pay for grease, to oil the discretionary machinery, on such a scale. There is small-ticket corruption encountered as citizens, dealing with government functionaries. That has palpably declined, but not the big-ticket Kalinjara variety.

Bibek Debroy is the chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the prime minister.

when-a-judge-presides-over-a-court

Fri Jul 08 11:13:00 IST 2022

The word ‘court’ has multiple meanings: courtyard, enclosed space, sovereign’s residence, sovereign’s assembly-hall, a place where some games are played and a forum where justice is delivered. Today, these meanings seem different. But etymology, traced to Old French, is common—a sovereign’s assembly. In similar vein, etymology of the word ‘judge’ means someone who declares the law. We continue to use the words ‘court’ and ‘judge’, when referring to justice delivery. I have less of a problem with the word ‘judge’. The word has been Indianised and has entered non-English lexicons. Replacing it with nyayadhisha seems concocted and unnecessary. But I wonder about ‘court’ and replacing it with ‘nyayalaya’.

Don’t words shape perceptions and behaviour? ‘Judge’ is fine. It conveys the impression that justice must be delivered. But if a ‘judge’ presides over a ‘court’, doesn’t it suggest a judge is the counterpart of a sovereign, a monarch of everything surveyed? Instead of it being a nyayalaya, there are overtones of a rajasabha. We have borrowed a lot from the colonial legacy. But, in independent India, life must move on, and it has. The original attire for judges in England was based on what was proper for attending a royal court. Imagine a judge in India wearing a scarlet or ermine robe today.

Judges are no longer addressed as ‘My Lord’ and ‘Your Lordship’. There is prescribed attire for judges and advocates (I should say legal advisers). I doubt that attire is appropriate for India’s climatic conditions. But that will be adapted and modified in due course. Is there prescribed attire for litigants? There is none. Yet, recently, in the Patna High Court, Bihar’s hapless principal secretary was sternly rebuked for being inappropriately dressed. He was dressed in formal trousers and wasn’t wearing shorts, ready to go to the beach. But the collar wasn’t buttoned. There was no tie and coat.

More than the reprimand, notice the judge’s diatribe. Surely, that crosses the lakshman rekha, if there is one. I think this largely emanates from the idea of royalty being offended. This wasn’t the first such instance and other High Courts have come down heavily on hapless civil servants or those in armed forces. At least, in such instances, there is prescribed formal attire, though a bandhgala isn’t necessarily prescribed in the height of heat. If courts are so inclined to take umbrage, perhaps it is a good idea to prescribe a dress code for all litigants. For instance, in response to an RTI inquiry, the Karnataka High Court stated that crossing one’s legs in court is permitted.

However, that’s only for the Karnataka High Court. Can legs be crossed in the Patna High Court? Such momentous matters of attire and posture need resolution through a uniform template. Otherwise, individual judges will have to loosen their tongues, even if attire and posture for litigants are not loosened. After all, the average citizen is not always well-versed in matters concerning royalty. The Supreme Court has rules for accredited legal correspondents. That doesn’t help, since it speaks of “formal attire befitting the décor of the court”. At best, this is subjective, and decorum (I think the Supreme Court meant decorum, not décor) is left to discretion. Speakers of assemblies have faced similar conundrums, without satisfactory resolution. Courts are better positioned to lay down law of the land. As long as ‘court’ smacks of rajasabha rather than nyayalaya, who knows when a judge will take offence? Lower courts don’t seem to be that concerned about attire. For High Courts and the Supreme Court, why not state clearly what is disallowed? No sneakers, T-shirts, shorts and jeans. For males, black ties and tuxedos.

Bibek Debroy is the chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the prime minister.

bibek-debroy-on-stolen-idols-and-colonial-loot

Fri Jun 10 11:19:23 IST 2022

There have been news reports about stolen idols being recovered from smugglers or art galleries, within India. In the last few years, there have been highly visible returns of idols and antiquities from abroad, too. Loot of cultural heritage is not new. Colonial history is replete with such instances and the British Museum has been described as the world’s largest receiver of stolen goods.

There is a stock of colonial loot, whether it is the Kohinoor diamond or Tipu Sultan’s wooden tiger, scattered across museums. And there is a flow of loot of cultural heritage that goes on, flagged by UNESCO and Interpol alike. Negotiating the return of colonial loot is tough, though some European countries (France, and the Netherlands) have done it. But stemming current loot should be easier.

Most countries tightened up laws in 1970s. On our part, we have the 1972 Antiquities and Art Treasures Act (AAT). This was introduced “to regulate the export trade in antiquities and art treasures, to provide for the prevention of smuggling of, and fraudulent dealings in, antiquities, to provide for the compulsory acquisition of antiquities and art treasures for preservation in public places and to provide for certain other matters connected therewith or incidental or ancillary thereto”. That sounds formidable, in intent.

This is not only about idols. Antiquities and art treasures have broad definitions, covering coins, paintings and manuscripts, too. Unless the government wishes to do so, you cannot export anything that is more than one hundred years old (it is 75 years for a manuscript). The government can compulsorily acquire such stuff (with compensation) and there is a provision for registration. The registration is not mandatory. In any event, universal registration of all cultural heritage (as defined under AAT) is impossible in a country like India.

Let us zero in on idols. As an example, take Tamil Nadu and Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department, which manages and controls temple administration of 36,425 temples and 47 temples belonging to mutts. If one looks at actual registration and matches it against estimated number of artefacts across these temples, one shudders:

(1) Registration is tardy and incomplete.

(2) There is no database using modern technology.

(3) There is no exchange of information across states, no centralised inventory.

(4) Once an object has been registered under AAT, it can only be sold to someone who is granted a licence, typically a dealer. But registration of the sale/purchase is perfunctory and there is no intermittent audit on the licensee who continues to possess it. Stated bluntly, even when registered, an object can simply vanish.

If this sounds fanciful, read a 2013 CAG report on preservation and conservation of monuments and antiquities, or S. Vijay Kumar’s book on exploits of Subhash Kapoor, the nabbed idol thief. Since non-antiquity certificates required for export cannot be depended upon, the idol vanishes abroad. Whatever be the intent, law and enforcement possess no teeth.

This brings me to the controversial Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act of 1991 and please do not take my proposition out of context and misunderstand its intent. A functioning temple is always better protected (theft-wise) than one where worship is not current, since devotees and citizens are more vigilant in the former. Once a temple comes under ASI’s protection, no new worship can be permitted there. Forget present cases and controversies around the 1991 legislation. As a general principle, to prevent loot, are we better off with ASI protection or without it? I wish I could be confident about my answer. Monuments, perhaps. Temples, I am not sure.

Bibek Debroy is chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the prime minister.

bibek-debroy-on-piling-arrears-of-criminal-justice-system-death-penalty-debate

Sun May 15 10:34:40 IST 2022

I have written about case property being produced in court before (December 5, 2021). I am harping on the same theme because of a recent news item. A young man, named Shashikant Sharma, was reported missing in Jaipur. Subsequently, in September 2016, his dead body was found, within the geographical area of Chandwaji police station. Presumably, cops were not taking the murder investigation seriously. Otherwise, why were there reports about relatives and neighbours blocking Delhi-Jaipur highway, demanding action? In any event, police arrested Rahul Kandera and Mohanlal Kandera, both residents of Chandwaji, and charged them with murder. They were produced at additional district judge’s court. The evidence would now have to be produced before court. There were 15 items in the bag of evidence, including the knife used to kill. Normally, such evidence is kept in the malkhana (evidence room). But such are piling arrears of criminal justice that there was no space in the police station’s malkhana and this bag of evidence was simply kept under a tree. The police have now informed the court that a monkey ran away with this bag. In the absence of evidence, the accused will presumably be acquitted. You cannot monkey around with principles of natural justice.

As I have said before, case property does not have to be physically produced before a court. The panchama (a proper description) suffices. The Criminal Procedure Code says so and Supreme Court judgements have also stressed this. Those principles are honoured more in the breach. Besides, in a recent case, commuting the death sentence of a man convicted of raping and murdering a four-year-old girl, the Supreme Court has sagely advised us, “Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future.” No doubt, the Kanderas also have a future and Sharma must have had a past. If one is looking for something witty to say, Oscar Wilde is normally a safe bet. But surely, we must keep the context in mind. A Woman of No Importance is not my favourite Oscar Wilde play. If I opt to quote from this satirical play, I will certainly not quote Lord Illingworth. I do not think anyone who has read the play, will. If I were to quote Lord Illingworth, “We in the House of Lords are never in touch with public opinion. That makes us a civilised body.” Firoz was 40; the raped and murdered girl was four. There can be a debate on the merits of capital punishment. As of today, we have it.It is imposed in rarest of rare cases. National Law University, Delhi, has a “Death Penalty Research Project”. They did a report titled “Matters of Judgement”, documenting that former judges of Supreme Court did not agree on “rarest of rare”. It was often subjective. In this case, the trial court imposed death penalty and MP High Court upheld it. To quote from MP High Court’s decision in 2013, “In the present case, if the factual position is considered, then it would be apparent that the commission of rape to four years old girl is brutal and inhumane. Thereafter killing the girl child so that she would not make any complaint about the crime to anyone, then it even chosen (sic, probably should be crosses) the limit of extreme brutality.” The non-lawyer will not know the intricacies of law, Bachan Singh and other cases. Nevertheless, public opinion will generally believe death sentence was warranted. The trial court and MP High Court certainly know the law. The Chief Justice of India recently reminded everyone about “Lakshman Rekha”. Not crossing the line also means not tampering with decisions of lower and high courts unnecessarily.

india-has-roughly-50-acts-and-150-laws-that-are-sexist

Sun Apr 17 08:13:48 IST 2022

Independent research organisation Trayas has recently (March 2002) published a study—State of Discrimination Report. At the state level (for 23 states), this study documents barriers that prevent women from entering the labour force. Female labour force participation rates are low in India, and they have declined over time. An increase is desirable. Even without that objective, discrimination is undesirable. The report catalogues roughly 50 Acts and 150 rules, with rules flowing from Acts. Broadly, these are under three heads—labour (such as Factories Act or Plantation Labour Act), Shops and Establishment Acts and state-level excise laws.

For labour, one needs to wait, since most labour-related Acts have now been subsumed under four codes. It is possible that gender discrimination will still creep in, once states announce rules under these new codes. I knew about restrictions on women working at night, or in jobs regarded as hazardous or arduous. There is a history behind such restrictions, even if these are dysfunctional now. Other countries, often perceived to be more advanced and progressive, also have similar provisions.

What stumped me are provisions on excise-related laws. I was aware such provisions existed, but was not aware of the severity. For instance, consider the Punjab Excise Act of 1914, made applicable to many states. Section 30 states, “No person who is licensed to sell any liquor or intoxicating drug for consumption on his premises shall during the hours in which such premises are kept open for business, employ or permit to be employed either with or without remuneration any man under the age of 25 years or any woman in any part of such premises in which such liquor or intoxicating drug is consumed by the public.” One can understand a drinking age, but notice that bit about “woman”. More than the text of the law itself, explanatory notes remind us of the 1914 vintage. “Section 30 is a social piece of legislation with the object to save the younger generation and the woman folk (sic) from becoming addict to the intoxicants and avert and avoid any conflict between sexes and chances of foreseen sexual offences.” The use of the word “foreseen” is presumably not a typo. One should add that countries perceived to be more advanced and progressive also have similar provisions when it comes to liquor, on moral grounds. I did not mention it earlier, but Trayas has a ranking of states, depending on how rigid or flexible they are, on employing women.

For excise and liquor, the most free are Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and the most unfree are Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Odisha, Punjab, Uttarakhand and West Bengal. Some states need written permission from the excise commissioner/board before a woman can work in an establishment where country or foreign liquor is served and consumed, not to speak of prohibitions on a woman being allowed to sell such liquor. We may have our views on Article 47 of the Constitution (prohibition of intoxicating drinks), but that does not warrant a gender bias.

Before reading this report, I did not know that “Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh require a licence applicant to file an affidavit to the effect that, ‘he shall not employ any salesman or representative who has criminal background’, or any person ‘who suffers from any infectious or contagious disease or is below 21 years of age’, or ‘a woman’.” This is true. I verified it from a 2005 case before the Chhattisgarh High Court (Rishi Dikshit vs the state of Chhattisgarh). There are related restrictions on women as performers at such premises (think of dance bars in Maharashtra). We have inherited statutes and mindsets (reflected in some court judgements). They do not gel with Article 14.

Bibek Debroy is the chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the prime minister.

bibek-debroy-writes-on-why-india-should-focus-more-on-creating-quality-jobs

Sat Mar 19 11:32:56 IST 2022

Employment is a concern. There cannot be employment without growth. This proposition is a truism. But what is the link between growth and employment? Employment elasticity measures the percentage change in employment when there is a 1 per cent change in growth. Over time, a country’s employment elasticity can change, as it has for India. It is not just growth, but the composition of growth that is important. Over the years, many people have computed employment elasticities for India. Methodologies vary a bit. What varies more is the source of data and how dated they are.

Several such elasticities were computed with National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) data for 2009-2010. At that time, overall employment elasticity was around 0.20, a decline from 0.40 in the 1980s and 0.50 in the 1950s. Such NSSO data are available for 1977-1978, 1983, 1993-1994, 1999-2000, 2004-2005, 2009-2010 and 2011-2012, not thereafter. Data are for a specific point in time. To compute elasticity, which measures change, one has to compare one point in time with another, say 1999-2000 with 2009-2010. Regardless of which study and what time period, employment elasticity of growth has declined. There are multiple reasons for this. Let us ignore those.

India’s labour force is now around 470 million. Labour force means those employed, plus those in the job market but without jobs. Unemployment data have to be treated with caution. There are time-lags; 2011-2012 was a long time ago. Self-employment is difficult to factor in. Since the bulk of employment is informal/unorganised, how does one get satisfactory numbers? There is the quality of employment too. Let us distance ourselves from the adverse employment consequences of the pandemic since we are concerned with what happens beyond.

An upper limit for the unemployment rate will be 10 per cent. Or, out of 470 million, around 420 million are currently employed. If growth increases by 1 per cent, say from 6 per cent to 7 per cent, this means, with an employment elasticity of 0.20, we will create an additional 8.4 million jobs annually. We now need a fix on how many additional jobs we need to create annually. That, too, has complications. The workforce participation rate has declined not just for women but men, too. Today, it is around 50 per cent. As there is development, it should increase. But simultaneously, rates of population growth have slowed, implying fewer entrants into the labour force. If one plays around with numbers, one will get a figure of around 8.5 million new jobs that have to be created every year, not 10 million or 12 million, as the Planning Commission used to project once.

These numbers are illustrative and no more. With different assumptions, the required growth rate will be 7.5 per cent or thereabouts. As we recover from the pandemic, with more uncertainty because of global developments, I do not think the key question is the number of jobs being created, but quality (contractual, terms of employment, wages). In 2014, Sangita Misra and Anoop K. Suresh from the Reserve Bank of India computed employment elasticities between 1993-1994 and 2011-2012 and found the same aggregate figure of 0.20. Construction was the only sector with an elasticity of more than 1.00. Manufacturing and services were both around 0.30. Within manufacturing, only furniture-making, garments and leather had high employment elasticities. Yes, the data are dated. But trends have probably not changed. There is a skills issue and low-skill activities like construction often provide most jobs. Perhaps counter-intuitively, employment elasticity is higher in organised manufacturing than in unorganised. Productivity is also higher in the former. In choosing labour over capital, productivity matters. Productivity depends on skills.

Bibek Debroy is the chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the prime minister.

india-needs-a-unified-public-health-legislation-writes-bibek-debroy

Sat Feb 19 12:17:07 IST 2022

Our Constitution was adopted after lengthy debates in the Constituent Assembly. Let me quote from debates on September 2, 1949. H.V. Kamath said: “While commending my amendment seeking to transfer public health, sanitation, hospitals and dispensaries to the Concurrent List, I would like to state that public health has been the Cinderella of portfolios in the cabinet of our country.... We could not do better than make public health a Concurrent subject…. Bearing all these points in mind and viewing this important and vital matter from different points of view, I feel very strongly that public health should not be relegated to the legislative powers only of the states but should be a concurrent subject at least. I am sure my friend Mr Brajeshwar Prasad would try to include it in List I, but I would be happy if this matter were transferred to List III.”

Prasad said: “I feel that public health, sanitation, hospitals and dispensaries should be included in List I.… I fully appreciate the point that by wresting those important powers, provincial autonomy will be modified to a very large extent, but provincial autonomy is not an end in itself.”

This did not happen. Not only did health not move to List I (Union List), it did not move to List III (Concurrent List) either. Entry 6 on State List is “Public health and sanitation; hospitals and dispensaries”.

In 2015, the World Health Organisation produced a report on international public health hazards and Indian legislative provisions. This mentioned India as a signatory to international health regulations, and the National Health Bill of 2009. To quote the WHO, “the study identified 124 relevant laws/legislation which comprise 67 Acts, the rest being rules, regulations, administrative orders, notifications etc…. The laws/legislation also comprise 36 rules, eight regulations, three guidelines, three orders, one notification, two international conventions, one handbook, two standards and one policy.” True, the WHO had a broad definition and some laws/legislations concerned health indirectly. But even if one prunes the list to those directly dealing with health, the proposition remains—multiplicity and silos, and lack of harmonisation.

We need a unified law, an argument reinforced by Covid-19. There may be issues with specifics of what such legislation should contain, as was the case with the subsequent Public Health (Prevention, Control and Management of Epidemics, Bioterrorism and Disasters) Bill of 2017. Besides 2009 and 2017, there were attempts in 1955, 1987 and 2002 too.

Are state-level Public Health Acts and state-level intervention enough? Most people will say they are not. In addition, to quote the Supreme Court in August 2020: “Only a few states took advantage of the subject of ‘public health’ being a state subject.…” Specifically, only six states passed such laws.

To take one example of why health has Union-level importance, why do we have National Health Mission? Despite accepting Union funding for health (over and above devolution through Union Finance Commission), why have states resisted Union-level legislation? It probably has to do with what Prasad mentioned—a perceived threat to autonomy.

Unless the Seventh Schedule is amended, the Union government can draft a model Public Health Act, and states can decide whether to adopt it or not. A more powerful idea is for two or more states to request Parliament (under Article 252 of the Constitution) to pass such legislation. The concerns raised by Kamath and Prasad still remain. 2022 is not 1949. Items have moved from State List to Concurrent List (education in 1976), though rarely. Perhaps the idea should not be discarded out of hand. Health is too important. Autonomy is not an end in itself.

Bibek Debroy is the chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the prime minister.

how-covid-triggered-changes-in-india-disaster-management-framework-bibek-debroy

Sun Jan 16 10:50:38 IST 2022

I know a politician who is petrified of air travel. He belongs to a social class in which travelling by air is the norm. Since he opts to travel by car, this makes life as a politician a difficult affair. Data are better in the US than in India. There, the probability of dying in a car crash is many times more than the probability of dying in a plane crash. Actual numbers may be different, but relative magnitudes must be similar in India, too. Nevertheless, he has his perception of risk.

In every act of decision-making, we weigh risks. Pedestrians die. But we do not hesitate to step onto the road because of the perception that risk is low. Most people are risk-averse. We do gamble and people do win at casinos, though, on average, the odds are stacked in favour of casinos. Otherwise, casinos would not be in business and state governments would not earn revenue by selling lottery tickets. But taking risks on money is different from taking risks on life and limb. Even people who take risks on the former are likely to be risk-averse on the latter.

When the Covid-19 pandemic first struck, no one was initially sure about the risks. Decision-makers mean citizens, as well as governments. As a country, we weathered the first wave in 2020 reasonably well, whatever be the indicator to measure this. Consequently, shades of complacency seeped in.

When the second wave struck in 2021, we were not as cautious and risk-averse as we should have been. Citizens shunned social distancing and masks; governments did not necessarily react with alacrity. Mortality and morbidity numbers during the peak of the second wave were far higher than during the first.

Depending on how a third wave is defined, we are now in its midst and all evidence suggests Omicron is a relatively mild variant, though other more virulent variants may surface. Though irresponsible social behaviour still exists, given the experience of the second wave, citizens seem to be much more paranoid in 2022.

State governments have also clamped down severely and all such restrictions adversely impact economic growth and recovery. But when life and limb are concerned, it is understandable that both citizens and governments should react with excessive caution. No one wants to risk the eventuality of assumptions going drastically wrong. Who in government reacts? Primarily National Disaster Management Authority and state disaster management authorities—mandated to handle not just pandemics, but other natural and man-made hazards.

The backbone is the National Disaster Management Act (NDMA) of 2005. Legislation can only be passed under a constitutional provision and for something like health, everything is squarely in the State List of Seventh Schedule. Yes, there is the Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897. But under that, the Union government can only take action at the border, nothing more. How was that 2005 legislation passed? It invoked an entry in the Concurrent List on “social security and social insurance; employment and unemployment”.

Following Humpty Dumpty, an expression can be taken to mean whatever we choose it to mean and something like a pandemic affects social security and employment. But such a wide definition of “social security” is indeed incongruous. Today, it is a pandemic. Tomorrow, it might be some other kind of disaster.

The third report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission was on crisis management and it pointed out gaps in the NDMA: “However, the subject of disaster management does not find mention in any of the three lists in the Seventh Schedule of the Indian Constitution.” Therefore, it suggested the insertion of such an entry in the Concurrent List and amendments in the NDMA. Covid is a trigger for those changes.

Bibek Debroy is the chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the prime minister.

first-indian-made-fountain-pen-wasnt-made-in-rajahmundry-but-varanasi-bibek-debroy

Thu Dec 23 15:31:41 IST 2021

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was recently in Varanasi, where he inaugurated the Kashi Vishwanath Dham corridor. Anyone who has visited Varanasi lately will know how the city has been transformed. Those who have not visited should have some idea from the events on December 13. A few days before the PM’s visit, I visited Varanasi.

I will not talk about Kashi Vishwanath Dham corridor or Kashi’s transformation. Others have done that. Instead, this is about fountain pens. Contrary to the impression, the first fountain pen made in India was not produced by Ratnam in Rajahmundry in 1935. In 1911, a remarkable gentleman authored a book titled Romance of Pen Industries. This gentleman was Dr Radhika Nath Saha, a doctor, as a member of college of physicians and surgeons (MCPS). But he was also an inventor. Among other things, he invented a type of fountain pen, got patents in diverse countries and set up the Luxmy Stylo Pen Works in Varanasi in 1907. Luxmy pens were the first fountain and stylo (an ancestor of ball-point) pens produced in India.

Banaras Hindu University (BHU) was established in 1916. Setting up of universities triggered a demand for fountain pens. Tara Prasad Sahu switched from selling fodder to selling fountain pens near the BHU campus, in the second half of the 1930s. In 1946, this became Penco, which not only sold and repaired foreign brands, but also sold its own brands. With the help of a master craftsman named Bhairon Prasad Vishwakarma, Penco manufactured and sold pens under the brand names Penco and Ebonite.

Varanasi’s layout is explained through ghats and one of the more famous is Dashashwamedh Ghat, where the famous Ganga arati takes place. On the way to Dashashwamedh Ghat, Penco still exists as a pen shop, selling fountain pens, but no longer manufacturing its own brands. As Varanasi has been modernised and renovated, so has Penco. And it is a bit of a pen museum too, stocking rare models of Parker, Swan, Plato, Mont Blanc, Waterman, Sheaffer and Wearever. I visited Penco, now run by Nishant Sahu, Tara Prasad’s grandson.

Penco also has an Eversharp pen with a gold nib, known as the Tagore nib. A Tagore nib is adjustable, varying from flexible to firm, useful for sketching and calligraphy. Rabindranath Tagore, who was fond of fountain pens, possessed a similar Eversharp with an adjustable nib. One such fountain pen is displayed in the Rabindra Bhavan Museum in Santiniketan. It is not his Eversharp, which is one that Tagore donated in 1936.

We do not quite know whether this was the pen that was stolen from the poet’s residence in 1918. It was recovered by the police from the thief, but cops insisted that it was stolen property and could not be handed over without permission of the court. They wanted Tagore to appear in court as a witness. Eventually, better sense prevailed. Four years ago, the Kolkata Police released this anecdote from their archives.

Kashi has Shiva lingams and temples everywhere. One such is Tilbhandeshwar. According to puranas like Shiva Purana, Tilbhandeshwar is supposed to be near Dashashwamedh Ghat. We know that Tilbhandeshwar, like many other temples in Kashi, has been subjected to depredations by invaders and temples and lingams are not always where they used to be in the past. The present Tilbhandeshwar is in Bengali Tola, a locality historically populated by Bengalis.

The temple is now managed by a lineage of priests from Kerala. Many temples have plaques in memoriam and I was pleasantly surprised to find one in Dr Radhika Nath Saha’s memory there.

Bibek Debroy is the chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the prime minister.

why-does-case-property-have-to-be-physically-produced-in-court-asks-bibek-debroy

Sun Nov 28 09:34:47 IST 2021

Often, there will be an amusing story about a malkhana (evidence room). For example, three years ago, there was a report about 1,000 litres of liquor that went missing from the malkhana of a police station in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. The police said a “gang” of rats drank up the liquor.

More recently, in 2021, firearms, drugs, bombs, cash and ornaments went missing from a malkhana in Katni, Madhya Pradesh. In this case, the malkhana was not in a police station; it had been shifted to the premises of the district court. Malkhana literally means a storehouse and they are in bad shape. Gangs of mice and men make stuff deliberately vanish. Sometimes, valuables are inadvertently lost, or misplaced.

A couple of years ago, cash went missing from a malkhana in Chandigarh. No, it had not been stolen. It had simply been misplaced when the police station was being renovated, and no one knew where the cash had been kept. Eventually, it was found. When a case is going on, such articles are defined as “case property” under Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). Courts will decide what needs to be done with such property, during trial and after trial.

How many people remember Raja Man Singh’s (he was elected as MLA several times) death in a police encounter in 1985? He was killed in Bharatpur, but the case was subsequently transferred to Mathura, and the guilty policemen were sentenced in 2020, after a mere 35 years. This is not an aberration. More than 75 criminal cases from 1950-s are still pending.

Should evidence, in the form of case property, sit in a malkhana? CrPC does not require that and the Supreme Court (in 2002) has ruled, “It ought not to be retained in the custody of the court or of the police for any time longer than what is absolutely necessary.” However, it is absolutely necessary to retain it until evidence has been recorded and that is also subject to inordinate delays.

The default option should be that a proper description (panchnama) of case property should suffice as evidence before courts. Why does actual case property have to be physically produced? It does not have to be, and CrPC and Supreme Court judgements have underlined this.

Case property also includes vehicles and the court mentioned these too in that 2002 judgement: “It is of no use to keep seized vehicles at the police stations for a long period.” Obviously, the Supreme Court did not say this—but vehicles, and their parts, have a reputation of vanishing, or getting stolen, from police stations. A police station in Pune is reportedly struggling because of the thousands of vehicles that are piling up. There is no space inside, and vehicles spill over and crowd the roads outside. Sure, under the law, these vehicles can be auctioned. But state government has to appoint an auctioneer and there are delays there.

National Police Mission has a report on malkhana management and there have been reports of e-malkhanas in some states, digitising the inventory. Sometimes, this seems to be ad hoc, that is, not for all police stations. Andhra Pradesh has a standard operating procedure for all police stations and Kerala stores all seized vehicles in a centralised yard. While such initiatives are welcome and makes management easier, does the inventory have to be physically stored and if so, where?

As an example, why cannot cash and jewellery be kept in bank lockers? That is possible, but permission of the court is needed to do that. There lies the rub. Getting permission takes time and it is not necessarily faster than recording of evidence. It seems to me that valuables should be moved to bank lockers by default.

Bibek Debroy is the chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the prime minister.

here-is-to-healthy-conversation

Sat Aug 10 15:37:51 IST 2019

A couple of weeks back, I was in Thiruvananthapuram to attend a few meetings. Afterwards, I visited an old artist friend, Shibu Natesan. He lives and works between three cities: Attingal, near Thiruvananthapuram—his home town; Baroda, where he studied, and London, where his wife and child lives. Shibu is a highly skilled painter, who switches effortlessly between different media like oil and watercolour.

The last time I visited his studio in Kerala was a decade ago. He leads a hermit’s life. He paints or sketches every day. Other daily practitioners include artists like A. Ramachandran and Laxma Goud. Whether it is outdoors or in studios, they enjoy daily practice. Shibu loves to travel to beaches and mountains in his jeep. His studio was full of small paintings, piled-up oil colour tubes, canvas tubes, watercolour palettes, brushes, easels, mirrors, hard-boards to paint on and objects from religious destinations.

It is always a joy to visit artists’ studios. During my student days at Sir J.J. School of Art, I used to visit studios of artists like Akbar Padamsee, Laxman Shreshta, Anju Dodiya and Atul Dodiya, Bhupen Khakhar, Prabhakar Barwe, Ramachandran, Sudarshan Shetty and many others. The learning was priceless and largely unavailable in college.

The other day, I was at the Santiniketan Society of Visual Art and Design (SSVAD) in West Bengal as part of an artists’ workshop and camp convened by Jogen Chowdhury. I have always had great memories of Santiniketan—its atmosphere, classrooms, K.G. Subramanyan’s murals, paintings, sculptures, studios and the greenery around the campus. SSVAD, a non-profit organisation, was set up by Janak Jhankar Narzary, Jogen Chowdhury and a few other like-minded people nine years ago. The funds were raised by selling artworks donated by eminent artists. The name is, of course, a play on the word svad meaning taste.

I think the idea originated from looking at the students at the Kala Bhavan in Santiniketan. After their formal education, where do they go and where do they practice and exhibit their works? SSVAD is trying to create opportunities for a new generation to boost their confidence and awareness of the art world through workshops, camps, residencies and symposia, and by providing exhibition and performance spaces. In recent years, SSVAD has acquired some more land and created a new studio for print-making and residences.

Shibu was also among the artists who were invited to give presentations at Kala Bhavan. On a very humid morning, the students sat on the tiled floors. I wondered how they were going to sit like that for three hours. But they did! Shibu made a presentation on his paintings in oil and watercolours, and spoke about his travels, his workspace and styles of paintings. Thereafter, it was my turn and I made a presentation on the art world, how to build a career in art, and the creation of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, institutions and other art festivals.

Sanjayan Ghosh and Prashanta Sahu, both of whom teach at Kala Bhavan, had organised the conversation sessions with artists N.S. Harsha, T.V. Santhosh, Jagannath Panda, Shibu and myself. It went on for a long time and the students had a lot of questions.

I would like to mention here that this is my last ‘Everyone is a Camera’ column for THE WEEK for now. I wish to thank the good people at the publication. Perhaps, I can end with an anecdote from Kala Bhavan. After the conversation sessions, a young postgraduate student came up to me, showed me an issue of THE WEEK, and said: “Your column has given me so much information about the art world and it really has helped me to grow.” Here is to more healthy and creative conversations!

editor@theweek.in

an-award-of-opportunities

Sat Jul 27 17:12:00 IST 2019

Recently, I was part of the jury for the Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi’s annual awards along with the brilliant artists Sudarshan Shetty and G.R. Iranna. Our task was to identify 10 artists from the 28 shortlisted youngsters from Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. The task was unenviable. They were all of a high calibre, and it was difficult, even saddening, to choose only 10.

Every artist had personal stories of struggle. Many came from far away, travelling hours by train and bus, carrying large and delicate sculptures, paintings, etchings, drawings and sketch books. Along with celebrating the 10 who won, I also wish to applaud the ones who did not. The recipients get 01.2 lakh each. This may not seem like a large amount for art production, but, for artists from humble backgrounds, it would be a huge relief. For young artists, such an award goes a long way in encouraging their practice.

In 1999, I was a student at Goldsmiths college in London, doing my master’s in visual art theory and practice. Sudarshan and Iranna, used to visit me and stay at my little room on New Cross Road. Iranna was attending a six-month painting workshop at Wimbledon College. Sudarshan was in Bristol at Spike Island artists’ residency, a beautiful place. I remember his kinetic sound installation of a boat created like a violin. All of us had received the Charles Wallace India Trust Award. We used to spend a good amount of our time at exhibitions and artists’ studios. It was a very important time in our life and career. Those days Inlaks scholarships, Fulbright scholarships, the Charles Wallace India Trust Award and Mid-America Arts Alliance Awards were very prestigious.

Diwan Manna, chairman of the Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, is working hard to activate the academy and its programmes. He is almost a one-man army. He was happy to hear about our residency and educational days in UK. He keeps organising talks of eminent artists and curators at the academy.

There should be more of such awards and residency opportunities for our young artists. There are a few in India, like the Khoj Artists Residency in Delhi, TIFA Studios in Pune, the recently opened Space Studio & Distillery in Baroda, 1 Shanti Road in Bengaluru and Space 118 in Mumbai, among others. The Pepper House residency programme developed by the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) is another important opportunity.

We have to create opportunities for youngsters to travel. They have to be able to see exhibitions, participate in residencies, and have curatorial and educational mentorship. I am happy that as part of the Students’ Biennale, the KBF instituted the Tata Trusts Awards for the best works at each edition. It has been given at the last two editions. This edition, the jury comprised of the eminent artists K. Madhusudanan, Deepika Sorabjee from Tata Trusts, and myself. Students’ Biennale sees the work of very good young artists from art colleges across India, and to choose three or four recipients from around 100 projects, curated by six experts, was again difficult.

The awards allow the winners to travel to major exhibitions like the Venice Biennale and documenta, and also also receive residency opportunities at the Pepper House programme in Kochi. These are occasions where they can be exposed to contemporary artistic practice, meet artists and curators, and also see masterpieces at museums and important collections. The residency awardees also get time to explore their practice in different ways. Like it was for Sudarshan, Iranna and me, I hope this will turn out to be great learning experiences for these young artists. An award is a recognition, a patronage and an encouragement.

editor@theweek.in

art-unlimited

Sat Jul 13 15:56:53 IST 2019

In 2012, I was fortunate enough to spend time with Alfons Hug at documenta 13. I was there as part of a BRICS curatorial travel programme. Later, we presented a video art project that he had curated at the first Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Hug is an important curator who has done many significant projects in the last 20 years. He curated the São Paulo Biennial 2002, the 2002 and 2005 Brazil Pavilion and the 2011 Latin American Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He was also chief curator of the 2nd Montevideo Biennial. Earlier he was a curator at the House of World Cultures in Berlin. He has also been the director of the Goethe-Institut in many countries.

I think of Hug as an energetic vagabond. I want to mention him because of his enthusiasm for art and his selflessness. When I was rushing to catch my flight from Zurich to Mumbai after the Basel Art Fair, he stopped me at the gates and, without any introductions or formalities, started talking! “Unlimited at the Basel Art Fair is like a biennale,” he said. The mind of a critic-curator, I thought. He had said the same thing I had felt.

Unlimited reinvention is difficult in the habitual and ostentatious heavy-art market. But, eight years ago, Art Basel introduced this incredible parallel project called Unlimited. The man behind it, the young Swiss curator Gianni Jetzer—now in his final year of curating Unlimited—is also curator-at-large at Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC. Every time I get the opportunity to go to Art Basel, I look forward to Unlimited. Of course, at the adjacent Messe building you have galleries from around the world and exhibitor Indian galleries like Chemould Prescott Road, Gallery SKE, Vadehra and Experimenter. The six-day fair is attended by around 80,000 people. Next door, you see the Miami Design Basel with all kinds of products, furniture, jewellery, vintage cars and many more designs.

The Kunstmuseum exhibitions of William Kentridge with the largest installations and eight-channel projection was remarkable. The same project was exhibited at the recent edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. The effects of charcoal, animated skilled drawings and the narrations through the performances; its layers and dark surfaces and the shadows, the drama... pure Kentridge! Fondation Beyeler put up two great shows. The first titled The Young Picasso-Blue and Rose Period, and the second an immensely skilled presence of images, mediums and materiality presented by artist Rudolf Stingel. I was seeing it all for the first time. I cannot forget Picasso’s mastery and Stingel’s mesmerising material aesthetics.

Another good exhibition was Body Fantasies by Rebecca Horn at Museum Tinguely in Basel. Her works combine early performative works and later kinetic sculptures to highlight lines of development within her oeuvre, the transformation processes of the body and very sensitive and calculated sciences and mathematics in human structure.

Another great experience was a piece of home at the border of Germany. Vitra Design Museum presented on the Indian architect, Pritzker Prize-winner B.V. Doshi. I think this was the master’s first international retrospective. I took a 30-minute ride from Basel to Vitra to see it.

I was also fortunate to meet the legendary Argentinian artist Rirkrit Tiravanija. We were introduced by the curator and writer Hans Ulrich Obrist. Tiravanija resides between New York, Berlin, Chiang Mai and Hong Kong—another vagabond! His installations often take the form of stages or rooms for sharing meals, cooking, reading or playing music. The architecture or structures for living and socialising is the core element in his works. His work, I think, is important because this creation of spaces for coexistence is one of the essential elements of art itself.

editor@theweek.in

learnings-from-ljubljana

Sat Jun 29 15:49:19 IST 2019

The breakup of Yugoslavia led to the formation of (currently) six independent states: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro. Slovenia was the first to declare independence, in June 1991. I recently visited its capital, Ljubljana, for the board meeting of the International Biennial Association. International Centre of Graphic Arts director Nevenka Sivavec hosted us there for the 33rd Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts.

The biennial was curated by the collective Slavs and Tatars (S&T). It is a pleasure to see more and more artists and artist collectives curating major exhibitions. Kochi-Muziris Biennale has always been curated by an artist. The next Sydney Biennial has artist Brook Andrew as artistic director. Artist Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi will be curating the next Lahore Biennale. Indonesian artists collective Ruangrupa will be at the helm of the next documenta in 2022. Raqs Media Collective will be curating Yokohama Triennale 2020.

S&T produces exhibitions and publications around the region east of Berlin, usually called Eurasia. It works with texts, and words are their main tool and medium. Occasionally, the group performs its own writings. The Ljubljana biennial, titled Crack Up-Crack Down, was a visual art biennale, which included sociopolitical satire, caricatures and archival material, much like its art practice. It was conceptual, complex, incomplete and comforting.

I was pleasantly surprised when Mayor Zoran Jankovic hosted us at the City Hall. It is important that civic authorities take part in cultural activities. After the introduction, the mayor got up and held a flag from the line of flags and said proudly: “You know this flag—Ljubljana’s. We were the European Green Capital for 2016.” In the short time we spent at his office, he came across as a people’s mayor. He was on ground, without any ostentatious security or tamasha.

I also want to write here about a gift from the mayor: a one litre glass bottle. And, Mateja Demsic, head of the city's cultural department, told us its story. The bottle has the words 'Museum Water-Water for the Future' embossed on it along with indentations formed by a left hand. The bottle tells us that Ljubljana is a city in which fresh drinking water is available in abundance. Apparently 80 per cent of the river water is drinkable.

The bottle was created as part of an exhibition on water at the city museum. It brought together some 250 objects from museums, galleries and archives around the city. In the show, water is an element for our survival, forms pathways for transport, flows through our mythologies, and is part of our languages and arts. In India, every day we read about problems related to potable water. We have many things to learn from the care given to water bodies in places like Ljubljana and the recognition of it in cultural activities.

City Museum director Blaz Persin took us on a special walk through incredible collections from the Russian museums. Ljubljana is building a space for culture, and Persin showed us its digital 3D presentation. The municipality invested ᙿ€10 million for the Sugar Factory (Cukrarna) Gallery project, while the state has given more than €2.5 million; €11 million will come from the European Fund for Regional Development. I was told that they see this as an investment with financial returns (in addition to the cultural impact) as 60 per cent of their foreign visitors are cultural tourists. For years, people have averted their gazes from the embarrassing ruins of what was once the largest sugar processing plant in the Habsburg lands. Now, Cukrarna will house the largest exhibition space in this part of Europe. The citizens will finally get appropriate premises for events such as BIO Ljubljana. Cukrarna will also be a future venue for the Biennial of Graphic Arts.

Ljubljana has a vision, and I await to see its realisation.

finding-places-for-sociocultural-initiatives-in-kerala

Sat Jun 15 20:32:59 IST 2019

Kerala is known for its diverse and heartwarming natural landscapes. However, we must consider a couple of points of caution in the face of such beauty. One is that we often take it for granted. The other is that it induces in us a sense of complacency, and we do not enter into a creative dialogue with such places. There are very few sociocultural initiatives and artists in Kerala that initialise such conversations.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to return to a small island called Kakkathuruthu. Situated in the Vembanad backwaters, Kakkathuruthu was named by National Geographic’s travel magazine as the best of destinations. My friends Anoop Scaria and Dorrie Younger used to run an art residency there as part of Kashi Art Gallery initiatives. We used to hang around with artists like Rajan M. Krishnan, K. Reghunadhan, Upendranath, Jyothi Basu, Ratheesh T. and many others.

The island has fishing fields and coconut groves. You have to walk along narrow pathways, with water on both sides. You would walk practically through village homes, since most of them do not have boundary walls. Reghunadhan moved from Kollam, and started living and working in Kakkathuruthu. He is not just an artist but has also created beautiful pokkali paddy fields, combining culture and agriculture. He can also cook the best fish meals ever!

Another space in Kakkathuruthu is Kayal. US-returned engineer Maneesha Panicker took over the residency land and converted it into this small retreat space. Maneesha has been asking me and my family to experience Kayal since its beginning. This summer, I took up her offer and eight of my family members had an incredible experience. It is an ideal place for creative writers and artists. There is a similar place in the hills of Wayanad, in northern Kerala. I first came to know about Uravu at their exhibition in Bengaluru around the work of K.S. Lenin. He is a self-taught artist and the chief creative designer at Uravu. My kids are interested in art and design and we had also heard about Uravu from their friends. We were lucky to get a resort on top of a mountain with the help of Sivaraj and Saira from Uravu.

I was interested to see how Uravu developed their social interest and commitments with a community of bamboo craftsmen. Uravu was established in 1996 as a non-profit NGO for sustainable rural empowerment. Started by a collective of individuals who were determined to make a difference to the lives of the rural poor, they later delved into the wonder that is bamboo. Today, Uravu is a knowledge centre of bamboo—a one stop point for anything bamboo, so to speak—and are spearheading development of the bamboo sector in Kerala and beyond. We saw a great variety of species at the bamboo nursery, weaving and production centre.

Uravu has created a fantastic bamboo-architecture community space, where they have painting classes, talks and workshops. I wish this crafts village initiative had more economic support from the state and philanthropists. Uravu resort—the hospitality segment—has been designed by Swiss architects with the local craftsmen. They are developing a cafe and conversation spaces. It is an ideal place for an art and culture residency.

During my journey to Wayanad, I received a call from the writer Manoj Nair. I did not know it would be our last conversation. He was writing on several things—art, contemporary music, literature—and many things in the life of a genius are fated to be incomplete.

editor@theweek.in

india-needs-a-permanent-seat-in-venice

Sat Jun 01 17:53:04 IST 2019

The 58th edition of the Venice Biennale, the oldest biennale in the world, started on May 11. The six month main biennale is curated by US-born Ralph Rugoff, director of the prestigious Hayward Gallery, London. The performance art programme is co-curated by the young Aaron Cezar, director of the Delfina Foundation. Immediately after the first week of the performance programme, he was in Stockholm with us to announce the winner of the Absolut Global Creative Competition. Aaron was one of the global jury members along with me and the eminent American artist, Mickalene Thomas. The award went to the young Lebanese artist Sarah Saroufim. She was selected from 7,500 entrants from 19 countries and received €20,000.

Aaron mentioned to us that he could organise 30 performances in the opening week, and that the closing week, in November, would have more or less the same. The presence of country pavilions are a popular element of the Venice Biennale. The current edition has 87 country pavilions, each displaying the country’s pride in its art and artists. The countries involved bring in PR professionals and celebrities, and, in some cases, heads of state.

Rugoff curated an eclectic visual plethora with lots of contemporary materiality and sciences. Eighty-three artists were invited for the international exhibitions titled ‘May You Live In Interesting Times’ at Venice. This also includes Indian artists Shilpa Gupta, Soham Gupta and Gauri Gill, at the Arsenale and Giardini venues. Shilpa has engineered a new kinetic installation, a simple yet brilliant work.

The Golden Lion for the Best National Participation was won by Lithuania for its pavilion titled ‘Sun & Sea (Marina)’, created by artists Lina Lapelyte, Vaiva Grainyte and Rugile Barzdziukaite and curated by Lucia Pietroiusti. It was a conceptually simple project, a live time-bound performative participatory work. The Belgium pavilion was done by Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys. They created a world of contemporary sculptures/installations. The Golden Lion for the Best Participant in ‘May You Live In Interesting Times’ went to the US-born Arthur Jafa; the Silver Lion was given to Cyprus-born Haris Epaminonda. The jury’s special mentions went to the Mexican artist Teresa Margolles and Nigerian Otobong Nkanga. The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement went to Jimmie Durham from the US.

The Indian pavilion returned after eight years. The works displayed were of artists Nandalal Bose, M.F. Husain, Rummana Hussain, Atul Dodiya, Shakuntala Kulkarni, Ashim Purkayastha, Jitish Kallat and G.R. Iranna. It was curated by Roobina Karode. The Indian pavilion was hosted by the government of India, ministry of culture, CII India, NGMA and art collector Kiran Nadar. I wish to see a permanent Indian pavilion designed for all the art and architecture biennales of Venice. I hope the government takes cognisance of this soon and gives autonomy to the commissioner and curator.

The incomparable Kiran Nadar made an exciting announcement in Venice: a new museum building to be built in Delhi, designed by the young and brilliant British architect Sir David Adjaye. He was selected by eminent jurors of the art world, such as Glenn D. Lowry and Chris Dercon. It was a year of Indian presence in Venice. The Kochi-Biennale Foundation announced the first edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2011 in Venice. After eight years, the KBF announced artist and writer Shubigi Rao as the curator of KMB 2020. It was declared in Venice in the presence of patrons and friends of the biennale.

editor@theweek.in

art-in-the-porcelain-capital-jingdezhen

Sun May 19 12:48:45 IST 2019

Every visit to China springs a surprise. On my way to Jingdezhen, I touched down at Shenzhen, a fast developing city. A friend of mine had mentioned that there were fewer people and buildings in Shenzhen a decade ago. Now, this city has more than 10 million inhabitants and is totally urbanised. It also has one of the most aesthetically designed airports in the world.

Jingdezhen hosted the inaugural ceremony of the Taoxichuan China Arts & Sciences project in April. The city is known for its traditional wealth of ceramic craftsmanship and contemporary Chinese artists make use of the skilled craftsmen of ceramics and porcelain from the region. For instance, Ai Weiwei produced 100 million hand-made ceramic sun flower seeds for his Tate Modern’s Turbain Hall project from the region. Priya Sundaravalli from Auroville had a contemporary ceramic residency in Ceramic Art Avenue, and Vinod Daroz from Vadodara was a regular artist there.

Thomas Eller, a German artist known for setting up some important initiatives and publications, now lives and works from Jingdezhen and Beijing. He was the editor-in-chief of Art Net, and is the Boblingen CEO of Gallery Weekend Beijing. He understands the art world, its ecosystem, economy, politics, practice and theory. He had called me a few months ago to discuss about his vision for a future city, creative economy building through its traditional wealth of crafts, art and sciences. He envisioned three verticals for achieving it for Jingdezhen. First, residency: Residency programmes are the beating heart of the Taoxichuan China Arts & Sciences project. Artists of all disciplines and scientists come together to live and work in Taoxichuan. Second, festival: The art festival makes the project visible to the world by staging a biennale in Taoxichuan and by cooperating with global artists and curators to bring to the world its idea. Third, museums: The municipality is to have museums with curated shows, permanent and temporary.

Jingdezhen municipality’s second phase of investment has been conceptualised by Thomas Eller and he nominated Jon Kessler (professor of professional practice in visual arts at the Faculty of the Arts, School of Art, Columbia University), Zhang Gan, (director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University), Shang Hui (chief editor of Fine Art magazine), Shao Yiyang (deputy dean of the School of Humanities at China’s Central Academy of Fine Arts), Ma Sai from Tsinghua University, academic Rick Dolphijn, curators Bonaventure Ndikung and Silvia Fehrmann, Xie Xiaoquan (deputy director of the National Museum of China), Bénédicte Alliot (director-general at Cite Internationale des Arts), Wu Hongliang (deputy dean of Beijing Fine Art Academy) and myself as academic board members at the Taoxichuan China Arts & Sciences project.

The first phase of Jinghezhen has already been built. The old factory areas have now been developed into high-end hotels and medium shops, restaurants, cafes and fashion, designer leather, ceramic and porcelain spaces and a ceramic museum. They become active from afternoon till late night with food and music. The municipal authorities have signed agreements with different institutions and organisations to make their vision possible. The first board meeting decided to set up three important projects and other possibilities for TCA&S.

Restoration or conservation of architecture at its best could be experienced at Jingdezhen Heritage and Ceramic Industry Museum. It won the UNESCO Asia-Pacific World Heritage Award in 2017, thanks to optimistic policy making by the municipality.

editor@theweek.in

sojourn-with-artistic-souls

Sun May 05 11:02:45 IST 2019

A decade or more ago, the rulers of Abu Dhabi envisioned Saadiyat Island as a dedicated zone for creative and cultural buildings. Last month, the department of culture and tourism of Abu Dhabi conducted Culture Summit-2019 that brought together artists, curators, institutional heads, museum directors, academics, social theorists and policy makers from 90 countries.

Reem Fadda, a regular visitor to the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Art By Children (ABC) and an admirer of the Students’ Biennale and outreach programme, was present at the summit. Reem is an influential curator and it was on her suggestion that I was invited as a guest to the summit. The talks were well-conceptualised; the theme was ‘cultural responsibility and new technology’. Over 350 delegates and speakers participated in the five-day conference which stood out for its diversity of voices. I met and conversed with many figures from the international art world, including Richard Armstrong of the Gugghenheim Foundation, New York; Antonia Carver, director of Art Jameel, Dubai; Aaron Seeto, director of MACAN, Indonesia, and many others.

I also visited New York University Abu Dhabi, which runs a fantastic visual art educational programme and a gallery of curated projects. They also produce publications, programme talks and children’s educational activities.

Unfortunately, I could stay only for two days in Abu Dhabi since I had to be in New York for the global jury meeting of the Absolut Creative Competition—a contest to identify young artists from 19 countries.

Aaron Cezar, founding director of Delfina Foundation, London, and American artist Mickalene Thomas were the other members of the jury. Frida Hyseus of Absolut organised the jurors’ meeting in a concept space called NeueHouse—few levels with dedicated performance spaces, cafes, bars, books, paintings and conference rooms.

The competition is an initiative to find the next generation of bold artistic voices from across the world. The jury looked at local winners and their 19 artworks. We thought it would be easy to select the best among them. But, we eventually had many rounds of discussions before picking the winner. The global winner will be announced in Stockholm, Sweden, on May 15 in the presence of the 19 national winners and other dignitaries. The winner will receive a purse of €20,000 and will have his/her work displayed on a globally iconic out-of-home site like Times Square.

I was invited to experience a concept space similar to NeueHouse by one of my old friends, Priyanka Mathew (former director of Aicon Gallery, New York, and head of South Asian Art at Sotheby’s). Fifteen years ago, I had curated a show called KAAM, while Priyanka was with Aicon. She mentioned that Indian art collectors still ask her about the artists who were featured in that show. I had visited her temporary office space with huge, high- ceilinged spaces for exhibitions and performances in Tribeca, Lower Manhattan.

I received a few messages on social media. One was from a self-taught Malayali artist and consultant from Philadelphia, Mahinth. The other was from a KMB-2016 volunteer, Erin Montanez. I met them at Whitney’s High Line museum and later visited Chelsie galleries and museums. I was really excited to meet Erin. I used to see her at the KMB sites working diligently day and night. Erin, an American, would love to work with the KMB again. There are many brilliant volunteers in India and abroad like her, who give their heart and soul for the KMB, even though we do not have much money to offer. The commitment of such people cannot be explained in words. Their relationship with KMB endures because they experience passion, commitment and a zest for life in the centuries old trading port of Kochi... now known as the Biennale city.

editor@theweek.in

a-different-arab-spring

Sun Apr 07 21:27:24 IST 2019

What is great about March in the UAE? For me, it is the coming together of the some of the best cultural events in the region. This March saw the opening of the 14th edition of the Sharjah Biennale (curators: Zoe Butt, Omar Kholeif and Claire Tancons), the Sharjah Art Foundations’s annual March Meeting, Art Dubai and the opening of Alserkal Art District. Additionally this year, one of the most prominent Indian art collectors in the UAE, Smita Prabhakar founded Ishara Art Foundation and the maiden show was curated by Nada Raza, artistic director of Ishara and former curator at Tate Modern, London.

The Sharjah Biennial opened on March 7. I have heard from many of my writer friends that its book festival draws a huge crowd. I told Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, president of the Sharjah Art Foundation and president of the International Biennale Association, “Every time I visit Sharjah, I experience surprises. Surprises of new art spaces for conversations, art and residencies, or something entirely unexpected.” This year it was a special lunch organised in the Rain Room during the Sharjah March Meeting (a platform for curated talks and programmes, held every year). This year, it was hosted during the professional preview week of the Sharjah Biennale.

The Rain Room, now a permanent installation in Al Majarrah, Sharjah, is a fantastic concept of experiential, sensitively-created, immersive art that uses technology, design and architecture. It was created by London-based Hannes Koch and Florian Ortkrass for Random International, a collaborative studio they founded in 2005. I had first seen it at the Barbican Centre, London, and thereafter at the MoMA, New York. The darkened, rectangular space allows visitors to walk through a downpour without getting wet. The incessant rains always move away from you. Quite a remarkable experience, to say the least.

I first met Antonia Carver over a decade ago, when she was the director of Art Dubai. She was an excellent administrator and director, and friends with many in the art industry. Antonia left Art Dubai, after making it hugely successful, to take up the directorship at Jameel Art Foundation. Last November, Art Jameel Dubai, opened to the public. The Jameels, Saudi Arabian business tycoons, have invested heavily in contemporary art and their architects created a minimalist space for this fantastic art centre. To my mind it is one of the finest contemporary arts institutions in the city. Art Jameel is dedicated to exhibitions and research, and has an extensive education programme for all ages. I am sure that under the directorship of Antonia, this centre will make huge creative waves in the region and beyond.

To top off this spring’s engagement with the region, I have been invited to the Abu Dhabi Culture Summit 2019 (April 7-11). It is a forum that has been conceived to convene leaders from the fields of arts, heritage, media, museums, public policy and technology. The 2018 edition was attended by 350 delegates from 85 countries. The summit is organised by Abu Dhabi’s progressive and visionary department of culture and tourism, in collaboration with five global partners who will curate and lead in their areas of expertise. This year’s partners include the Royal Academy of Arts (UK), UNESCO, Guggenheim (USA), Economist Events and Google. The theme is ‘Cultural Responsibility and New Technology’. The event aims to identify ways in which culture can build bridges and promote positive change. These goals chime with our own at the Kochi Biennale Foundation and I am looking forward to visiting the capital of the UAE.

editor@theweek.in

okwui-enwezor-curator-visionary-associate

Sat Mar 23 16:58:42 IST 2019

The past few weeks have been very distressful, punctuated with deaths of admired figures from the world of arts. Keith Flint of Prodigy; Dick Dale, the king of surf guitar; and Karl Lagerfeld, to name a few. Yet, the biggest shocker was the departure of a fellow traveller, Okwui Enwezor, who died of cancer on March 15.

Okwuchukwu Emmanuel Enwezor was born on October 23, 1963, in Calabar, a port city in southern Nigeria, close to the border with Cameroon. He moved to the US in 1982 and earned a bachelor’s degree in political science. However, his sights were set on claiming for Africa its rightful place on the global art map. He was the first non-European, non-white, artistic director of the prestigious Documenta [eleventh edition]. In addition to Documenta, he also curated the acclaimed 1997 Johannesburg Biennale, the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea (2008), the Paris Triennale (2012) and the Venice Biennale (2015). He was also the director of Munich’s Haus der Kunst.

Documenta was built on his vision of a set of programmes called ‘Platforms’ that were international debates, conferences and closed seminars that took place over a two-year period in Berlin, Vienna, New Delhi, St Lucia and Lagos. With his curatorial intelligence, Documenta 11 succeeded in bringing issues such as genocide, poverty, political incarceration and industrial pollution to the fore through 415 works by 180 artists from five continents. It also explored border disputes, contested territories (such as Pakistan and India, or Palestine and Israel), and collapsing urban space. At Venice, his curatorial power of sight manifested again. He anchored his show in one work of literature: Marx’s Das Kapital. He had a team of performers staging daily readings from the book till the close of the biennale. “I wanted to do something that has contemporary relevance,” he told an interviewer. “And, so, I thought of Das Kapital, a book that nobody has read and yet everyone hates or quotes from.”

My association with him goes back to 2010 when my research for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale took me to Gwangju (to look for artists and to experience a biennale).The biennale’s artistic director was the young curator Massimiliano Gioni. It was a memorable experience because one thing led to another and we (Riyas Komu, Shwetal Patel and me) ended up meeting young curatorial students, curator Dan Cameron, legendary and controversial artist Ai Weiwei and, finally, Enwezor. We spent some time with Enwezor at his hotel to discuss our inaugural biennale. He was sceptical and laughed off our idea: “Aha, yet another biennale!” Then he launched into the trials and tribulations he faced while putting together the Johannesburg Biennale.

He visited the KMB in 2015. It was one of his last research trips for the Venice Biennale 2015. He found Kochi to be a platform that “offers a vital link between Asia and Africa”. He also had conversations with Riyas and Jitish Kallat at the Biennale Pavilion at Aspinwall. It was followed by a wonderful dinner at Casino Hotel, where he talked at length about the Johannesburg Biennale. I also heard a lot about him from my mentor and teacher Sarat Maharaj, who was a co-curator at Documenta 11. I still remember his unusually thick and long fingers. Dressed like a dandy (he was known for his double-breasted suits), he always had a twinkle in his eye and mirth around his lips.

editor@theweek.in

art-education-needs-disruption

Sat Mar 09 16:23:37 IST 2019

I had the opportunity to attend the Art Education in India conference organised by the Foundation for Indian Art and Education (FIAE) and Goa University, this week. The conference had some of the most important artists and art educators in India speaking, including Gulammohammed Sheikh, Sadanand Menon, R. Siva Kumar, Indrapramit Roy and many others.

FIAE was formed out of the realisation that there did not exist a database that we could use to identify the problems of art education in India and the possible solutions for the future. So a number of researchers surveyed art colleges in India about the syllabi, infrastructure, students and funding. In 2015, the Kochi Biennale Foundation, at its Students’ Biennale conference, hosted the first report of the FIAE that covered the southern states. The Goa conference presented a more comprehensive data covering the whole of India.

My role at the conference was to present the lessons we have gathered through the Students’ Biennale, as well as my thoughts as an artist who has come through the Indian education system.

One of our learnings with the Students’ Biennale is about the disparity in conditions of art schools in India. The FIAE studies also bear this out. In Students’ Biennale workshops, we have attempted to bring together the students and resources of geographically close institutions, so that the students of one college can benefit from what is available at the other. Such an exchange and reciprocity between colleges could be activated at a larger scale.

Another lesson from the Students’ Biennale and our Young Residency programmes is that colleges are unable to connect students to the wider art-world ecosystem. I think an elementary layer of familiarisation with both the art-world landscape and its practices will be very useful for young artists. Simple exercises like how to prepare a portfolio, how to write a proposal will enable students to access opportunities that will otherwise remain distant from them. Art colleges should also create spaces where students can learn, read and talk about other subjects.

In spite of what we think is a surfeit of information available today, I find that many art students still do not have sufficient exposure to knowledge repositories on the internet or journals and magazines. One of the tasks of the teacher is to make sense of this bigness of data, to give students the tools to sort and filter information.

In addition, the presence of the teacher is important to ensure that she is not simply a compiler or a syllabus-giver. The teacher should enable the students to converse among themselves and with the world outside.

The most concerned discussions of the conference were on UGC policies, especially on qualifications of a teacher at colleges. It says that you have to have a PhD to get a job! Indian art has had many inspirational figures as teachers—Nandalal Bose, K.G. Subramanyan, A. Ramachandran and Gulammohammed Sheikh, to name a few. Sometimes, inspirational individuals outside institutions can also come to function like universities. At the conference, Sadanand Menon was talking about Akbar Padamsee, whose house in Mumbai was a gathering ground for filmmakers, artists and writers. I benefited tremendously from being able to meet and speak with such persons.

Finally, another element art schools have been unable to provide to students enough is the opportunity to travel. Young artists should be able to travel to different places, especially to visit museums, biennales and galleries. These should be included in the syllabi, and museums and other such institutions should take a proactive role in facilitating visits from art schools.

editor@theweek.in

caligari-in-contemporary-times

Sat Feb 23 17:47:18 IST 2019

First, the known fact: The Cabinet of Dr Caligari is a 1920 German silent horror film, directed by Robert Wiene. Considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of an insane hypnotist (Werner Krauss), who uses a somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) to commit murders.

Now, the unknown fact: Deepan Sivaraman has given it a contemporary feel with his student production, done as part of a course titled ‘Space and Spectatorship’, at the Ambedkar University Delhi, where he teaches. It was presented by Performance Studies Collective, Delhi, in collaboration with NECAB and Blue Ocean Theatre, Bengaluru.

I am neither a theatre critic nor a writer, but my career began with an association with the proscenium play. I was an amateur theatre enthusiast and my passion for theatre ended because of my stage fright and lack of confidence. I could not, to save my life, face the public. And, I was all of 14 years old. Yet, between the ages of 17 and 25, I was active in theatre and worked with a lot of productions and won several awards. But that was not my calling.

My bonding with theatre began at my ancestral house when I saw my brothers, cousins and friends rehearsing at home. Some of the plays that are etched in my mind are G. Sankarapillai’s Thavalam, Mario Fratti’s Pep, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, John Abraham’s Chennaikkal Adhava Pattinimaranam and T.M. Abraham’s Albhuthanganam, which was directed by the eminent Jose Chirammel. Narippatta Raju, Purushothaman and other theatre experts used to spend a lot of time at home. The tradition continues with my sister-in-law Thankam and younger brother Mohan. My village, Mangattukara, near Angamaly, Kerala, is still an active home for experimental theatre and culture. I have seen and still see passionate practitioners of theatre even if they struggle to survive with their passion.

So I was pleasantly surprised to see Deepan’s version of Dr Caligari. According to Deepan, as told to a newspaper, “The central concern was how space works as a key component in theatre, because, at least in theatre, we never consider it as an important component like text, script or performative body. Space is always a given space.” So he chose a warehouse in the university to set his play. The rest followed.

I was overwhelmed by the production, performances, direction, scenography and adaptations of the play. Every second of Dr Caligari was with performative surprises and sudden shifts in theatrical languages. And the text in this case took a back seat. You return from the play with exaggerated emotions and memories of incredible sets. Wiene’s film reflects the sentiments of that time, depicting an authority that is brutal and insane, manipulating those under its observation to their own whim. Deepan turns the idea of the film on its head, reflecting upon our contemporary times.

I was happy to be with the Kochi-Muziris Biennale team of 20 and everyone was grateful to Deepan and Prakash Bara, who essayed the role of Dr Caligari. It was done with great difficulty and creative freedom for Kerala’s flood relief. We are active in theatre with an International Theatre festival in Thrissur to boot. Yet efforts like Deepan’s need to be appreciated and supported not just morally, but financially, too. It is a rarity. So all the more precious.

This version of the German epic is a dark thriller that evokes the times we live in subject to political climes. In these times of fake truths, this play is a reminder of the truths that we try to avoid but have to live with.

editor@theweek.in

The-celebration-of-lot-2019

Sat Feb 09 12:03:30 IST 2019

We are literate. But do we know our literature? That question would not perturb the mind of the average Malayali. The distance between literature and the literate is easily traversed in this coastal state, what with more than half a dozen literary weeklies being published, not to mention fortnightlies and special issues. This was further reinforced when I recently participated in the Kerala Lit Fest in Kozhikode. I had the opportunity to participate in it two years ago. This time, I was overwhelmed by the way it has grown to become one of the most important lit fests in the country.

According to the organisers, it is “the grandest celebration of words, stories, and ideas”, and the “second largest cultural gathering in the country”. I could not agree more. The humble Ravi Deecee, chief facilitator of the Kerala Lit Fest, whispered in my ear that the Kochi-Muziris Biennale was his inspiration. It made me wonder if the ‘People’s Biennale’ in Kochi was the biggest cultural gathering in the country. The jury is still out.

A couple of years ago, I had visited the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival. It was overcrowded with celebrities and corporate support and appeared to be more like a jamboree of bigwigs than a place where ideas and thoughts were exchanged. I was completely disillusioned by the experience and I began thinking: Is this where literature is at?

Today there are a number of lit fests from Mumbai to Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bengaluru to the ‘Ka’Lit Fest in Thiruvananthapuram. Yet, Kozhikode to me seemed to be beating other lit fests all ends up when it came to the participation of the youth and local residents. Other lit fests are mostly high-brow affairs where the elite gather to get a fair degree of literary jollies. What added more colour to the Kerala Lit Fest was its location—the Kozhikode beach. The venues were also equally enticing: Ezhuthola, Aksharam, Thulika, Vaakku and a special venue, Vellithira, to screen films.

The Kerala Literature Festival, 2019, saw a massive turnout of 2.6 lakh people attending various sessions conducted by around 500 guest speakers and authors. The topics covered were invigorating to say the least—everything from Sabarimala and women empowerment to literature and rebuilding Kerala after the floods.

I returned with a lingering thought that writers are at the shy end of the spectrum—silent watchers of life rather than noisy graspers of it. It is such thronging crowds that allow them to be in zones where they can speak their minds. In that respect, the Kerala Lit Fest will be marked in the sands of time. It takes a city to organise a festival like KLF.

Speaking of which, I must say that my mental floss about KLF was soon cleaned out by the event that the Kochi Biennale Foundation was about to host: the first ever contemporary art auction in Kochi. But by the night of January 18, when the auction was about to conclude, all my apprehensions vanished, because most of the bidders were young people from Kerala. They had no inhibitions in putting their money where their heart was—the art works on sale. Such confidence would go a long way towards encouraging the young artists whose works were among the ones auctioned. KLF and KBF’s auction for flood relief are to quote American author Thomas Pynchon: “I don’t believe in any of it, Ode”.

editor@theweek.in

a-biennale-for-everyman

Mon Jan 14 16:10:20 IST 2019

I start with a sad story. It has been a month since the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, South Asia’s biggest contemporary art festival, began successfully. However, a lump in the throat still remains. Soon after the biennale had started, I was told that one of my dearest friends had passed away in his sleep. Tushar Joag was always an artist interested more in being an educator than in his practice. He was always socially conscious and politically critical.

Talking about Tushar is very difficult because our bond goes back a long way to our days in the Sir JJ School of Arts, Mumbai. He was couple of years senior to me in college and was pleasant and handsome. His time at an artist-residency in Amsterdam changed his perception of contemporary art. Tushar co-founded Open Circle, an artist collective that sought to engage with contemporary socio-political issues via an integration of theory and practice. Tushar was a good soul and I will always miss him. He was supportive ever since Riyas and I made the proposal for a biennale in Kochi. In fact, after he joined Shiv Nadar University as a professor of arts, he brought students from the university to the last biennale.

Amid the despair about a dear departed friend, something else cheered me up. This happened in the middle of the opening of the fourth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. This was the invitation to be a member of the International Biennale Association (IBA). Top biennale functionaries from across the world came to Kochi for three days of official deliberations. The IBA, based in Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates, and founded in 2012, also held its fifth general assembly in Kochi. The board meetings on the first two days and the general assembly were closed-door. The final day’s conference was open to the public.

The public conference, titled ‘Shifting Borders: Biennials in Transforming Landscapes’, was held at the Biennale Pavilion in Cabral Yard, Fort Kochi. The Kochi Biennale Foundation co-hosted the four-hour meet. The keynote address was delivered by Yuko Hasegawa, chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, who shared her experiences and work at numerous biennials. It was followed by panel discussions to further explore the role of biennials and their ability to connect art with communities.

IBA president Hoor al Qasimi, who also heads the Sharjah Art Foundation, spoke on the occasion. Select IBA members from around the world gave presentations about their biennials and institutions with a view to increase representation while offering opportunities for collaboration. Aichi Triennale, Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Biennale of Sydney, Land Art Mongolia, Manifesta, Media Arts Biennial Chile, Rencontres de Bamako and the Atlantic Project gave interesting thoughts. I was overwhelmed and, also, informed for the better. It was great to have them all here. That is what Kochi is all about. We aspire to be good hosts and the biennale is a way to educate, entertain and emancipate.

There are new initiatives with this biennale, like every time. This year the Students’ Biennale expanded and included students from the SAARC countries. It was a great experience to see them work here. It reaffirmed the fact that art, and only art, can bring people together. We are one and nothing can separate us. The evidence lies in the fact none of the hartal calls had any effect on the footfalls at the biennale. This biennale, so far, has been as the famous Ornette Coleman songs go: ‘Open to The Public’; ‘Check Out Time’. Just as Tushar reminded us.

editor@theweek.in

my-kolkata-conundrum

Sat Dec 08 17:15:18 IST 2018

This is the biennale season. With little time left for the fourth Kochi Muziris Biennale to begin, all of us are wishing we had more than 24 hours in a day. There is so much to be done. Every morning, when you return to the office or visit a site, you are struck by yet another task that remains undone. Our emotions are oscillating between anxious despair and macabre excitement. So, naturally, this is the most difficult time to sit down and write a column that is unrelated to what you are preoccupied with. However, a column is neither a date that you can be late to, nor afford to miss. Thankfully, unlike most of my colleagues working at KMB, something fell in front of me like manna from heaven. It was like the timeout that a basketball team yearns for in a tight match. This provided me with the subject for this column.

Before getting there, I must fill you in with something that happened about a year ago. I had gone to Kolkata to see a gallery space, on the invitation of my dear friend, the journalist, critic, gallerist and art consultant, Anupa Mehta. She wanted to introduce me to Richa Agarwal.

Reams can be written about the story of the friendship between R.S. Goenka and R.S. Agarwal. It was on the foundations of this friendship between two Marwaris that the empire of the Emami Group, which built its fortunes in the cosmetic industry, was built. They were one of the first off the blocks in India to see skin care and beauty health care as a sunrise industry.

Today, their children have taken the business to even higher levels. Richa, daughter-in-law of R.S. Agarwal, started Emami Art, a contemporary art space in Kolkata, 10 years ago. However, it failed to make any significant impact. Richa grew up in south India and lived in Coimbatore most of the time, before getting married to Aditya Agarwal. She is humble and down-to-earth but ambitious to the core, which is more a virtue than something to be scorned upon, if you are born in the Emami household.

Anupa had given me a gist of the vision and mission. Emami Art wanted a rebirth and a commitment from me that I would open with my show at their 9,000sqft art space. When I visited the space, it was a work-in-progress. The resurrected space was being designed by Mumbai’s designer-architect-collector Pinakin Patel. I have known Pinakin for almost 25 years as a designer, and he has collected my abstract works. He was developing a 75,000sqft building dedicated to art, design, craft and education of Indian mythology. I was literally floored. Without a moment’s hesitation, I committed to do the inaugural show with Richa, Pinakin and Anupa.

Things can be exciting once the relationship and trust develop; here, Pinakin (aka PK) and Agarwal’s grew with total commitment to create a complex for creativity. Unfortunately, I could not fulfil my commitment, but Emami Art opened with a spectacular show. It was a collection of painting, prints, graphics, products and photography from visionary artist and designer Dashrath Patel’s collection. On November 21, Emami Art and Kolkata Centre for Creativity opened its doors to the public.

My responsibilities with the Kochi Biennale Foundation got the better of the word I had given to Pinakin, Richa and Anupa. However, after I saw Dashrath’s collection, I felt sometimes things happen for the good.

editor@theweek.in

bangkok-embraces-modern-art

Sat Nov 17 15:53:29 IST 2018

In French author Michel Houellebecq’s controversial novel Platform, one western character describes Thailand as a place where “everybody gets what they want, there’s something for everybody's tastes....”

Houellebecq (read Wellbeck) was making a contentious reference to the growing influence of the sex industry in Thailand. But, Thailand is not just about tourism anymore, as I discovered last month when I attended the inauguration of the first Bangkok Art Biennale (BAB). Bangkok is a city of culture, traditions, hospitality and gastronomy. However, censorship of the arts is often whimsical and subjective. So, artists find their freedom to express themselves curbed. BAB seems to have put all those concerns to rest with a very bold biennale.

I met Thailand’s most respected art critic and historian Dr Apinan Poshyananda at Venice, a couple of years ago during a brunch organised by the Biennale Association. He gave me his BAB business card, which reignited my excitement about the number of contemporary art initiatives growing in south and southeast Asia.

Poshyananda is the driving force behind the biennale. With Thailand battling issues such as the conflict between Muslim and Buddhist communities, and the inability to reconcile with the influx of persecuted Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, Poshyananda has pulled off a grand event with great defiance. The other issues addressed in the biennale, particularly by Thai artists, include the exploitation of migrant workers, the plight of women in a patriarchal society and the wrath over environmental pollution of Thailand’s rivers.

In an interview after the opening, Poshyananda is reported to have said: "People said to me: ‘Why ask for trouble?’ And yes, we chose to take the difficult path. But under the military we have gone through five years of intense scrutiny and it is time to have a breather and be able to freely express ourselves." Despite apprehension, there has been no interference by the authorities, despite two venues being the city’s most famous temples—Wat Pho and Wat Arun. In a highly religious country, they were the unlikeliest places to display contemporary art. Yet, the government complied.

It is not easy to establish a festival on contemporary visual art. But, the BAB has been able to overcome all adversity. Poshyananda was aided by an advisory committee of prominent art figures. During the inaugural ceremony, he invited the incredible Marina Abramovic to join him on stage, to represent all the participating artists at the BAB.

The exhibition is also taking place across urban public spaces, from historic architectural sites to iconic landmarks like the East Asiatic Company building, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre and Bank of Thailand Learning Centre.

These beautiful venues hosted fantastic paintings by Francesco Clemente, the trademark pumpkins of Yayoi Kusama, Heri Dono’s kinetic works, AES+F’s huge scale video, Gauri Gill’s photographs, Mark Justiniani’s installation and some brilliant performance pieces by Kawita Vatanajyankur. Kawita is a Thai video artist who creates thought-provoking works that emphasise the importance of gender equality. At the BAB, the young artist undertook physical experiments to examine weaving, knitting and printing processes in the textile industry. She was seen performing as a spinning wheel and textile shuttle.

It is difficult to cover 200 works spread over 20 venues. Yet, it was heartening to see that for a country that has been under a military regime, BAB has come as a welcome relief.

editor@theweek.in

death-of-a-ferryman

Sat Nov 10 19:12:25 IST 2018

Anoop Antony Scaria was exactly that: a ferryman. He took art, hospitality and music to many shores. But it had to start from one shore and that was Fort Kochi. I did not know much about him till he set up the pioneering Kashi Art Café. That was literally the beginning of art in Kochi. It gave the people in Kerala—starved of venues to see, discuss and display art—a platform.

He and his wife, Dorry, would invite unknown artists to his café and provide them all the facilities to further their practice. It was shorn of any selfish motive and was the result of pure love for art. They gave them food, space and loving company. There was a well-concealed altruistic selflessness in Anoop. And he had a vision when he began Kashi.

But, Anoop was backstabbed by the very artist he promoted, and he and Dorry left Kashi. Now, Dorry and their two beautiful children have to survive his permanent absence. He is no more. The vision has come full circle. Kashi has taken a new avatar, but it is not quite the same. Nobody could match Anoop’s zest, energy and ability to make art possible in Kochi. But the success of Kashi spawned a number of galleries in Fort Kochi.

One of the firsts that Anoop introduced to Kochi, and Kerala, was artist residencies. He set up a residency space and studio in Kakkathuruthu, a lovey island in Alappuzha district. Then, the Kashi Art Prize, which is being continued by the new owners of Kashi. There are many other things he started, one of which was the beach festival that has now taken the form of the Cochin Carnival. Then there was the tree festival during which he and his friends planted nearly 10,000 trees in Kochi. All of this happened before I got to know him.

I first met Anoop in 2003 during my show De-Curating. We bonded immediately and that was the beginning of a long friendship. Anoop and I insistently sought each other’s constant company. The first time I worked with him was for a group show, Remembering Bhupen Khakhar. Then I went on to do many shows in Kashi, some my own and some curated by me. I prefer not to list them here because it is painful to remember all of them at this moment. I invited him to be a part of ARCO Madrid as a participating gallery when I curated the India Pavilion. I also did several other things with him, one of which was giving an advance to buy property in Kakkathuruthu on the recommendation of Anoop and Dorry. Now I see it as an ominous sign because I never went back there.

The amazing and, of course, mouth-watering thing about Anoop’s and Dorry’s hospitality was the food they served. It was not the food that they served to their customers, most of whom were tourists, in the café. It was homemade food that both the couple and their staff ate. When in Kochi we could never think of eating anywhere else. Sometimes, we went to Shala in Princess Street. What I cannot forget is meeting a lot of artists, through them, like Upendranath T.R. and K. Reghunathan.

When Kochi became the art hub of Kerala, Anoop—the gallerist—turned out to be more interesting than the artists. He was not just a gallerist, but a friend to artists.

Gifted with a great sense of humour, among other gifts such as his handsome Native American looks, Anoop never resisted a good laugh though he himself was the butt of many jokes. He used humour to navigate situations when things heated up between competing artists. Even when he was fatally ill and bedridden, that jovial quality never left him. But then all good things must come to an end. And the ferryman had to leave.

editor@theweek.in

going-going-gone-graffiti

Mon Oct 22 10:10:20 IST 2018

If you follow contemporary art, there is no way you would not know Banksy. If you follow politics, there is no way you would have missed Banksy. If you follow controversies, you would be familiar with Banksy. If you like pranks and practical jokes, then surely all things Banksy are up your alley. If you are NOTA, Banksy is an artist from Bristol whom the entire art world knows of but has never seen.

He works under the cover of darkness to make provocative and radical statements. His true identity is the subject of much speculation. Some say Banksy is 3D aka Robert Del Naja of the trip hop band Massive Attack, who was a graffiti artist before he became a founding member of the band. He is credited with pioneering the stencil graffiti movement. But nobody is sure he is Banksy. And nobody can keep Banksy quiet.

Last week, he pulled off one of the most outrageous stunts in the history of art when he automated one of his iconic works, ‘Girl With A Balloon’, to self-destruct after being sold at a Sotheby’s auction for £1.04 million. It was the final item to go under the hammer that evening and soon after it was sold, the canvas began to slide through a shredder installed in the frame. Later, Banksy posted an image on Instagram of the shredded work dangling from the bottom of the frame with the title “Going, going, gone….”

That episode triggered a number of questions about the mechanics of the art market. Banksy was obviously cocking a snook at it. It renewed worldwide interest in Banksy’s work and in the art of graffiti. The history of graffiti is complex and is inextricably entwined with events that make it remarkable and events that push it to obscurity. It had its birth in the Stone Age. Graffiti, dated to 78 BC, has been found in Roman cities with themes of debauchery, opulence and politics.

In 1949, Edward Seymour introduced the idea of putting paint in a spray can. In the early 1960s, controversial people such as Cornbread and Cool Earl started writing on the walls [in Philadelphia], a trend that quickly spread to New York. In 1972, Hugo Martinez started the United Graffiti Artists collective that displayed graffiti in galleries for the first time. This history is vividly captured in Henry Chalfant’s documentary Style Wars (1983).

The decline of the USSR and the fall of the Iron Curtain spawned more expressions in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. This allowed artists like Banksy more freedom, and graffiti began selling in galleries. By 2007, the art had also gained ground in India.

Apart from Banksy, a figure who stands out in the world of graffiti is Jeffrey Deitch. He has been especially engaged with the careers of three of his contemporaries, two of whom were master graffiti artists—Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.

The third was Jeff Koons. He ran a gallery called Deitch Projects in New York. But he closed the gallery to become director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. During his three years at MOCA, he presented 50 exhibitions and projects of which the graffiti show called Art in the Streets (2011) was the most significant. It had the highest attendance in the museum’s history. I was lucky enough to see the show in LA. Then, a couple of years ago, I met Deitch at Art Dubai preview nights and took some selfies.

Something tells me that Deitch was also responsible for introducing some of the most important contemporary artists from the subcontinent like Ravinder Reddy and Shahzia Sikander to the west. I think, he was also instrumental in promoting Iranian artist Shirin Neshat, who incidentally is one of the participating artists in this year’s Kochi-Muziris Biennale. The painting, incidentally, is on the wall closer to home.

editor@theweek.in

bend-it-like-germans

Fri Oct 05 19:01:30 IST 2018

Sometimes, it is at the most unexpected places and in extraordinary situations that the smallness of your existence dawns upon you. One of those rare occasions made a house call just last week. I received an invitation from Bernhard Steinruecke, director general, Indo-German Chamber of Commerce, to speak at the 62nd AGM of the chamber in Mumbai. I first met Steinruecke when he was director of the Deutsche Bank in Mumbai. Tata House, in the city’s Fort area, the residence of the Tatas till 1992, had just been restored. And Deutsche Bank opened their head office on the premises in 1995. To experience Deutsche Bank’s art collection was nothing but exhilarating. Deutsche Bank must be one of the biggest art collecting banks in the world.

Steinruecke had great taste for art and was an avid collector. This was reflected in his personal life. He found his life partner in the Mumbai art world, the beautiful Ranjana Mirchandani. Ranjana and her mother, Usha, now run one of the best contemporary art galleries in India—Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke. I have seen the growth of the new tasteful gallery and one could notice that Steinruecke’s influence had transformed it.

It was indeed a great honour for me to address the gathering at the IGCC, among whom was the chief guest Monika Grütters, German federal government commissioner for culture and the media, and minister of state to the German chancellor; Martin Ney, German ambassador to India; and the guest speaker Sabyasachi Mukherjee, director general, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai (formerly the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India). I have immense respect for Mukherjee, for the commitment, passion and open-mindedness that he shows towards running the best public museum in India. To my chagrin, he says all of it is possible, and the museum is sustaining itself, because of the beautiful people of Mumbai.

The subject of IGCC this year was business and culture. My talk was primarily about the Kochi-Muziris Biennale and how the fledgling event has turned out to be South Asia’s largest and the only ‘people’s’ biennale in the world. In fact, the IGCC is hosting its delegates in Kochi during the opening of KMB this year. I was pretty pleased with my presentation till my somewhat bloated ego was punctured. Thomas Fuhrmann, IGCC president and CEO, Grütters and Ney told me about how much Germany invests in culture every year. It is nearly €2 billion, which goes into the 6,200-plus museums and 800 opera houses they have. Not to speak of the year-round cultural activities and, of course, the art institutes.

Last year, when Grütters announced a 23 per cent boost for annual national arts funding, she said that it was meant to emphasise how ‘culture is the foundation for our open and democratic society’. This year she got the German Bundestag to up it to €1.8 billion. Today, Berlin is the hub of culture in the world. Any art organisation worth its salt wants to have a foothold in Berlin. I personally know of artists from different parts of the world who have migrated to Berlin. I am not saying that we in India should be like Germany. In fact, we cannot come anywhere near even if we try. But what I am saying is that it shows how much Germany cares for its culture. The German parliament could dare to set aside that kind of money only because they are well aware of the fact that there would not be any public backlash. If we begin to care, our politicians will begin to dare!

editor@theweek.in

kerala-time-for-sustainable-development-post-floods

Sat Sep 22 16:15:01 IST 2018

The floods have come and gone, leaving in their wake a heap of debris, delirium and despair. However, if we were to train our eyes from the watchtower of optimism, then every disaster offers an ocean of opportunity. With all the controversies surrounding donations, their disbursement and misuse/disuse notwithstanding, the money already in the kitty can be judiciously used to explore new and sustainable methods of development.

The government can start by seriously looking at rebuilding Kerala from scratch. It can look at building new roads, bridges and other public infrastructure that are of international standards and at par with first-world amenities.

China is not too far away to look for models. If one were to put aside petty politics and squabbles based on assumed ideologies, then China’s Belt and Road Initiative has a few lessons to offer. The government, whichever dispensation it may belong to, can create an environment where Malayalis can create valuable and successful businesses that do not depend on donations. This ecosystem can be based on infrastructure development that follows a minimum standard procedure to begin with. This moment has presented us with the best opportunity to salvage Kerala from the scourge of plastic—the bottles, bags and polystyrene wrappings that are blocking our drains and our docks and harbours, not to mention littering our parks and paths.

Yet the disposal of plastic offers one of the most exciting prospects of not only solving the problem but also helping the most vulnerable among us. And this can be easily done by creating and incentivising an army of informal waste-pickers. In exchange for cash from private and government-run companies, internally displaced people who have moved out of flood relief camps to makeshift habitats can collect 150-300 kilos of plastics a week. More than 80 per cent of this secondary raw material can easily be exported to South Asian countries for industrial purposes, or to recycle for use as packaging in cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi.

This is how we can see recycling as the right direction for the future. There are more than two million informal waste-pickers around the world, and recycling of waste is now a legitimate global business, with robust international markets, extensive supply and transportation networks, and a rapidly rising international market for secondary raw materials, especially in China. This sector could offer significant economic opportunities for our flood recovery activities, as well as create more jobs and allow inflow of money into the state.

An intensive investment in broadband and turning the state into one big smart city can go a long way in drawing the attention of venture capitalists and startups and those ploughing money into future technologies.

However, modernisation must not be at the cost of the environment. We should plant more coconut trees, areca nut trees, pepper and spice plants as vertical gardens and look at creating forests of deep-rooted trees. At the same time we should protect our mangroves. The ‘Things-to-Do’ list can go on and be as ambitious as it can be. Yet, it goes without saying no project can kickstart itself without planning, vision and meaningful discussions. Silence, of course, should not exist. And no noise, if productive, is loud enough. Just as charity begins at home, it is in our hands, not those of the politicians.

editor@theweek.in

flood-kerala-with-art

Fri Sep 07 17:14:38 IST 2018

Last week, I talked about the similarities between what happened in New Orleans ten years ago, and what happened in the month gone by in Kerala. This is what Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans: nearly 2,000 deaths, more than $100 billion in damage, flooding in 80 per cent of the city, and the displacement of 400,000 residents. The impact of the floods in Kerala is yet to be completely assessed, though the government estimates that rebuilding would require about Rs 30,000 crore.

The case of New Orleans is worth going back to for more reasons than one. In the Kerala government’s decision to cancel all cultural festivals for one year, including the International Film Festival, makes it all the more relevant. Despite state apathy, New Orleans recovered fast. Much of its convalescence was catalysed by a vibrant art community, which not only restored the fabric of the city of music, Mardi Gras and memories but also recast its future.

It began with Prospect 1, an art biennale that was instituted and hosted by New Orleans within a month after the tragedy and went on for four months. It was the idea of international art curator of Dan Cameron, who had first-hand experience of witnessing host cities reaping huge rewards, both social and financial, from biennale exhibitions. Prospect 4, which ended in February this year, is now a major platform for artists from the Global South. Not only did it make a tremendous impact on cultural tourism but it also inspired artists embrace the social mission of the biennale, and created projects that resonate deeply with the city’s unique history, culture, people, and institutions.

Prospect was not the only thing that Katrina triggered culturally. There was a multi-media dance festival called Katrina Katrina: Love Letters to New Orleans; since then D.C. Blues Society has been dedicating its 18th annual festival to the music of New Orleans; that year the PEN/Faulkner opened its season with a New Orleans Night, with renowned authors reading New Orleans stories. But the hallmark of the post-Katrina year was a stupendous show titled Seeing Is Believing, Seeing Is Healing.

No one doubts the noble intention behind diverting finances set aside for cultural festivities to the disaster relief fund. But I cannot fathom the fact that it stems from the belief that art and culture is a luxury. I feel art has a crucial role to play in the reconstruction of Kerala.

When Hurricane Sandy hit the New York City, the US Department of Arts and Culture (USDAC) published a report titled Art Became the Oxygen: An Artistic Response Guide, in which it argued that “crises need creativity”. Art has always been not only about visual or aesthetic pleasure, which is important, but also about creative responses to emergent situations. Nature has bestowed us abundant splendour, but our modern practices of architecture and urbanisation have worked against both the benefactor and those who benefitted. When we rebuild Kerala, it should be done with a complete understanding of our inheritance. Our standardised, context-free building and zoning practices that respond only to expediencies of economics will not do anymore. Art that is aware and sensitive of its materials and its context, and thinks beyond any immediacy can contribute greatly. Instead of turning its back to art activities in the name of austerity, Kerala should adopt curated/edited “emergency arts”, the coming together of artistic practice, emergency management, and community development.

editor@theweek.in

rebuilding-kerala

Fri Aug 24 16:00:19 IST 2018

Around this time in 2005, New Orleans on the Gulf Coast of the United States was struck by Hurricane Katrina. The devastation inflicted on the southern American city then, and now on Kerala by floods caused by the relentless monsoon rains is similar. The reaction of the respective national governments—George W. Bush was the US president then—to the death and destruction is also sadly similar. There have been complaints of apathy and even of not encouraging support coming in from outside. Of course, there is a lot of work to be done in the next few months in Kerala’s case, and one hopes that the Central government plays its part and helps the people in putting their lives back together.

The jury is still out on how much of the disaster could have been averted through better land and construction practices, environmental zoning and more efficient on-ground coordination. These are important reflections that must be undertaken. However, this must not be reduced to bickering. As the chief minister of Kerala rightly said, we should concentrate all our attention, energy and faculties on rebuilding Kerala.

There are many ways to do this. As we embark on the Herculean task of reconstructing our houses, roads, bridges and schools, we should bear some basic points in mind. We should remember that it is not just a brick-and-mortar process. It also involves long-term planning, efficient and sustainable building ideas and innovative material sourcing. I think the rebuilding must make use of the ideas and skills of architects and post-disaster reconstruction experts. In the present urgency, we must not make the mistake of amplifying the devastation by building difficult and unseemly infrastructure that ultimately reduces the quality of life. Kerala must answer the crisis by becoming stronger, healthier and more beautiful.

The typical aesthetics of the landscape must be taken care of. I have said this on this column before and I am repeating it. We should look for eco-friendly materials as well as designs. Building regulations, especially near river banks, have been flouted with impunity. When we rebuild, these regulations must be respected. Better architectural and design practices are not luxuries, and could actually reduce the financial burden of reconstruction.

There are examples that we can learn from. Look at how Fukushima and the neighbouring area rebuilt itself after it was struck by the tsunami. I began with New Orleans for a reason. The city bore the brunt of the damage when the levees failed, submerging 80 per cent of the city. I am not ignoring the lives lost and the trauma that was caused in 2005, but New Orleans is a vastly-improved place now. The reassembly of the city’s infrastructure was thoughtful and multilayered. High school graduation rates have jumped from 56 per cent before the storm to 73 per cent today, thanks to a proliferation of charter schools. There are more and higher-paying jobs than before Katrina, and the city is safer from floods thanks to a massive hurricane and flood protection system. An influx of the millennials post-Katrina delivered a stream of educated professionals to the city, flush with new ideas and energy. The infrastructure has got such impetus that tourism, which, like in Kerala, is the mainstay, is now much improved. New Orleans is one of the greatest comeback stories in American history. Kerala, too, can become a symbol of resurrection in India’s history.

editor@theweek.in

plan-cities-for-their-residents

Fri Aug 10 17:08:12 IST 2018

Ever since the Kochi-Muziris Biennale was conceptualised, I have become a part-resident of Kochi. However, despite the success of the biennale, the state of the city is worrisome.

On the roads, one can see garbage piling up on the sides. During the monsoon, the roads become unusable. As the city expands, not enough is done to seek better ways to accommodate its citizens. Last month, there was a conference in Shanghai, and the spokesperson for the Communist Party of China said they had started working on the city project towards the 22nd century, and its first part would be ready by 2025. This is the scale of their planning!

It’s not just about urban planning, but also about involving architects and artists so that aesthetics is attended to. In Kerala, we should look for eco-friendly materials and try to avoid steel and glass as much as possible. Heritage buildings in and around Fort Kochi and Mattancherry should be protected and not allowed to fall prey to the real estate market. This can be done by bringing in regulations that restrict demolitions and building new structures, and even if a new structure is allowed, the height and look of the building can be defined.

Too many smart city visions concentrate on big data and connectivity while there are many more fundamental problems. I’ve heard that Jakarta and Beijing are both exploring data dashboards and citywide sensing projects to address issues of traffic congestion. What these cities really need are improved public transport systems. Similarly, Kochi has a world-class metro rail network now, but it needs to be seen how far it has gone in solving people’s transportation needs.

As mentioned, Kochi has a huge waste management problem which needs to be addressed with express efficiency. The once-beautiful canals in the Fort Kochi region have become drainage and waste-dumping systems. Worse, it is on the sides of these dirty canals that a good portion of the population lives. Another issue is the water supply to houses. People are now seeking refuge in cans of supposedly purified water because they don’t have a proper drinking water supply. Planning for the future must create open, green spaces and playgrounds because Kochi is not just for us but for our children and their children, too.

For these problems to be addressed, two things must happen simultaneously.

One is a strong and visionary leadership. This should come from the public sector. Some of the standout smart cities—Barcelona, Amsterdam, Malmö—exhibited dynamic leadership from their mayors as well as chief executives. Crucially, they did not leave the evolution of the city to the market. In parts of Africa and Asia, smart cities are almost purely private sector-driven. As a result, we are seeing elaborate hi-tech satellite cities gathering dust.

Second, many smart city projects fail in communicating their goals and in capturing the imagination of people so they can be bothered to participate. Here, the aesthetic and cultural dimension is crucial because that will help connect to people. This must be part of the conversation apart from political will.

editor@theweek.in

accolades-aplenty

Fri Jul 27 12:43:05 IST 2018

Awards are more than momentary recognition. They can demand responsibility of the achiever whilst bestowing an honour. There are many important awards in the art world such as the Marcel Duchamp Prize in France or the Turner Prize in the UK. The latter, given by Tate Britain to celebrate contemporary visual art, was named after the legendary British artist J.M.W. Turner because he had wanted to establish a prize for young artists. The £25,000 prize money is considered a token amount given the prices for contemporary art. But the prize is a prestigious accolade in the international art world.

Similarly, the Artes Mundi (Latin: arts of the world) is an international biennial contemporary art exhibition and prize, held in Wales and organised by the eponymous arts charity. Mysuru-based artist N.S. Harsha was an early recipient (Artes Mundi 3 in 2008). In the UAE, The Abraaj Capital Art Prize worth up to $1 million divided among five artists from South Asia, North Africa and the Middle East has become an important benchmark. The Hugo Boss Prize, which is funded by the German lifestyle and menswear brand, annually collaborates with The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The Future Generation Art Prize, an international award funded by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, gives up to $100,000 in cash and towards the production of a new work, plus up to $20,000 to fund artist-in-residency programmes for up to five ‘special prize’ winners. This level of patronage goes to show that prizes have become a big marketing strategy for brand building.

However, it is not all about huge prize money. The prestigious Golden Lion and Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale that honour the best national participation and the most promising artist carry little prize money. The BMW Art Journey enables the winning artist to go almost anywhere in the world to develop new ideas, find new themes and envision new projects. The seventh winner of the award is now on his journeys.

I was recently invited to be one of the jury members for the Signature Art Prize 2018, funded by the Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation and organised by the Singapore Art Museum. The other members of the jury were Mami Kataoka, chief curator, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Joyce Toh, head of content and senior curator, Singapore Art Museum; Gerard Vaughan, director, National Gallery of Australia, and Malaysian artist/politician Wong Hoy Cheong.

The prize is now a decade old. The inaugural edition of the triennial award in 2008 had 34 nominations from 12 countries. The fourth edition this year had 46 different countries and territories, with Central Asia being included for the first time. Jury members had to review 113 works and many more again on PowerPoint presentations in closed rooms. The artist and art works were nominated for the prize by 38 invited curators/artists from different regions and countries. After rigorous conversations and critical debate, we invited 15 projects. In fact, the jurors had to visit Singapore again to see the original exhibitions of 15 shortlisted entries at the National Museum.

Vietnamese artist Phan Thao Nguyen was finally awarded the Grand Prize—SGD60,000. Her poetic, regional story telling, including paintings and video, caught the jurors’ attention. Indian-Singaporean artist Shubigi Rao and Thailand’s Thasnai Sethaseree received the two Jurors’ Choice Awards, receiving SGD15,000 each. Indonesian narrative story painter Gede Mahendra Yasa received the People’s Choice Award worth SGD10,000. And, the Signature Art Prize—an important art award in Asia—completed another successful edition, brilliantly structured and executed by the Singapore Art Museum’s team at the National Museum of Singapore.

editor@theweek.in

india-remembered-at-basel

Sat Jul 14 15:17:36 IST 2018

Anytime is a good time to be in Europe if you are a culture vulture, but June is the standout month. And Basel is the place to be, because art, creativity and diversity are this riverside city’s calling card. It may lack the glitz and glamour of Zurich or Geneva, but it hosts one of the most important art events in the world—Art Basel. In 1970, three Basel gallerists, Ernst Beyeler, Trudl Bruckner and Balz Hilt, created an international art fair with 90 galleries and 30 publishers from ten countries. It proved to be an instant success with an attendance of more than 16,000 visitors.

Today, it brings the art world together, with 290 of the world’s leading galleries showing the works of more than 4,000 artists. I have already written about this year’s Art Basel. But a quick flashback to two things I missed to mention is warranted. One is Unlimited—Art Basel’s pioneering exhibition platform for projects that transcend the classical art-show stand, including massive sculptures and paintings, video projections and live performances. This year Unlimited was curated by New York-based Gianni Jetzer and one of the exhibits was our own Sudarshan Shetty’s Shoonya Ghar (Empty is this house).

Design Miami also opened next door the same time. Apart from the usual fare of publications’ booths, cafes, restaurants and bars there, was a section called Conversations—curated talks by Mari Spirito, founding director of the art organisation Protocinema.

Moreover, Basel boasts some 30 museums, including the world-class Kunstmuseum, Foundation Beyeler, Museum Tinguely and Schaulager Basel. The Schaulager has an amazing show by Bruce Nauman—Disappearing Acts [till August 26]. The Foundation Beyeler, in its Renzo Piano-designed building, is expanding the museum space with the help of Swiss architects Peter Zumthor & Partner. Both the Kunstmuseum and the Foundation has world-class collections, from Rembrandt and Rubens to Monet and van Gogh. The Kunstmuseum houses the largest and most significant public art collection in Switzerland, and is listed as a heritage site of national significance. The Gegenwart, also known as The Museum of Contemporary Art (Museum für Gegenwartskunst), is a wing of Kunstmuseum built in 1980, and was the first public museum in Europe exclusively dedicated to the production and practice of contemporary art. In 2016, it was enlarged and renovated, and was turned into two buildings designed by the Swiss firm Christ & Gantenbein. The other interesting museum in Basel is the Vitra Design Museum near Basel, designed by Frank Gehry and Herozog & De Meuron.

But Museum Tinguely is where you’ll find truly wacky installations. It is head-scratchingly good. Jean Tinguely was a 20th century master of mechanical sculpture, whimsically transforming machinery, appliances, and items straight from the junk heap into ironic and often macabre statements. He was the Swiss version of Kerala’s Perumthachan. One of Tinguely’s more elaborate constructions, Le Ballet des Pauvres, from 1961, suspends a hinged leg with a moth-eaten sock, a horse tail and a fox pelt, a cafeteria tray, and a blood-soaked nightgown, all of which dangle and dance on command. Many of the sculptures are activated at preset times, usually every five to 15 minutes, so it pays to wait and see them in action.

I had first met Tinguely Museum director Roland Wetzel during CiMAM’s (International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art) annual conference in Tokyo. Then he visited the third edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale during which the work of Gauri Gill caught his attention. He invited her to create a show at Tinguely Museum during Art Basel. I was proud to see a larger collection of the same series of black and white photographs from her ‘Notes from the Desert’ project set in Rajasthan. Somehow, India can’t be ignored, even in Basel.

editor@theweek.in

behind-enormous-artworks

Tue Jul 03 22:38:06 IST 2018

Human imagination and skill are essential elements in making art. Whenever one encounters an art installation, skilled craftsmanship, understanding of materials and awareness of structural engineering are required to have its aesthetics.

Whenever I see enormous artworks, I wonder how and where they had been produced to such exacting and polished standards. Artworks like Sir Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate at Chicago’s Millennium Park were all ‘fabricated’ at specialist producers that artists are increasingly reliant upon for their most ambitious projects. Another example is Swiss artist Urs Fischer’s Venice Biennale project at Arsenale. His large wax candle sculptures were scaled copies of figures which slowly melt away over the six-month-long biennale. Subodh Gupta’s Carrara marble works or giant metal banyan tree—outdoor installation at National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi—were produced with the precision and attention to detail normally reserved for architecture and high specification engineered products.

A few years ago I heard about a place called Sittertal, St Gallen, in rural Switzerland. Two of my colleagues from the Kochi Biennale Foundation—Riyas Komu and Shwetal Patel—visited the place and told me about a secluded foundry and its amazing production centre for contemporary art works.

As I was attending the annual Art Basel fair this summer, I wrote to Marianne Burki, head of visual arts in the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, to arrange a guided tour and appointment with Felix Lehner, the founder and director of the art foundry Kunstgiesserei St Gallen.

Along with Richa Agarwal, an art connoisseur and a patron of Kochi Biennale Foundation, I set out to see the production facilities. Richa will be opening her new gallery space and 60,000 square-foot cultural centre in Kolkata this September.

There are two institutions on site. The art foundry, Kunstgiesserei St Gallen, and Foundation Sitterwerk—a nonprofit institution with an exhibition space, a library, a material archive and two guest studios. At Sitterwerk, we were received by Roland Früh, librarian at Sitterwerk Art Library. He accompanied us on a guided walk through the institutions of Sitterwerk and Kunstgiesserei St Gallen, recalling its history and anecdotes along the way. About three decades ago Felix met with artist Hans Josephsohn, and being a passionate craftsman Felix started producing sculptures for him and others. In 2006, Felix founded the Sitterwerk Foundation with Hans Jorg Schmid, owner of the area, and Daniel Rohner, book collector. The art foundry is located on the grounds of a former textile dyeing factory. The library at Sitterwerk has over 25,000 volumes on art architecture and design, all meticulously archived. The material archive has an incredible collection of materials and mediums, and processes of every kind imaginable. The foundation includes two residency art studios, a gallery space called Kesselhaus Josephsohn—an exhibition and storage space for the works of Hans Josephsohn, and a collection of casted artworks, moulds, catalogues and other materials.

While walking through the Kunstgiesserei, one could see miniature models to massive sculpture-making foundries, ceramic studios, 3D printers, graphic studios, wax mounding to all kinds of steel, aluminium, copper and metal processing facilities.

We were able to see the making process for Subodh Gupta, Urs Fischer, and many other eminent works at the factory. Approximately 50 craftsmen, artist-assistants and fabricators were working towards what the artists envisioned. It was great to join with Felix, Roland and others at communal kitchen to have lunch together, and I was touched to see Felix queue up with other staff for food.

As we departed for Art Basel, Felix said: “We hope to see you at Art Basel tonight. Also, look out for some fresh works from the Kunstgiesserei at the gallery booths.”

returning-to-yinchuan

Sat Jun 16 12:40:20 IST 2018

Tis the season to be… at art biennales and fairs. June saw the opening of four biennales: the 10th Berlin Biennale on June 8; the second Yinchuan Biennale in China on June 9 and Manifesta, the European biennale, in Palermo, Italy, on June 16. Not to mention the place where everybody worth his salt in the art world will be flocking to—Art Basel, the mother of all art fairs.

I was thrilled to watch the second edition of the Yinchuan Biennale, which opened in Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Yinchuan. I could be reasonably proud of it, as I curated the first edition in 2016. That gave me the unique opportunity to familiarise myself with Yinchuan, the capital of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Flanked by the Yellow River in the east and the Helan Mountains in the west, the region is serene and scenic. This landscape has influenced the architecture of MoCA.

This year's Yinchuan Biennale has new commissions alongside ancient artistic relics from public museums and private collections. The participating artists have been selected from over 30 countries, with particular attention being paid to the western borders of China (from Mongolia to central and southeast Asia) in a way that is consistent with the exhibition’s geopolitical and investigative methods. The title of the biennale, 'Starting from the Desert - Ecologies on the Edge', was apt for the works from 80 groups (92 individuals) of artists. These were displayed within the museum, the International Artists Village, and the Hui Nongqu Eco-Park.

The concept put together by chief curator Marco Scotini and his team—Andris Brinkmanis, Paolo Caffoni, Lu Xinghua and Zasha Colah (from India)—was daunting in its scope, yet thought provoking in the end. It had a reasonably good Indian representation with Ravi Agarwal, Navjot Altaf with Rajkumar Korram and Shantibai Vishwakarma, Sheba Chhachhi, Nikhil Chopra, Shiva Gor, Prabhakar Pachpute, u-ra-mi-li (Iswar Srikumar and Anushka Meenakshi), and Justin Ponmany.

Justin never refrains from springing surprises with his art projects. This time, I had the chance to see his choreographed and theatrical performance, a first for me. His project has been put together with the help of local theatre students and faculty. Using an outdoor amphitheatre with the landscape—a Chinese metaphor [for the well-regulated state]—as backdrop and a bicycle as prop with mimicked birdsong, the performance was at once mesmerising, persuasive and meditative. There was another performance by the compelling Nikhil Chopra—his live drawings alluding to nomadic nature.

My Yinchuan MoCA team was thrilled to see me back. It was really nice to hear most of them say, “We remember you a lot and miss you,” which immediately transported me to the days I spent there with my small team—Jessal Thacker, Mithika Mathew, the unpredictable maverick Manoj Nair, the lovely Rebecca, Julia and others. Su Chen, then artistic director of MoCA, who had invited me to curate the inaugural biennale, has moved on to other pastures and been replaced by Professor Lu Peng.

But setting up a biennale is as exacting as it is exciting. Thinking about a new biennale itself is a risk with inherent questions like, is it possible; where are the sites; who will run it; who is the audience; who will fund it; how many artists; how many days and finally who is going to ensure quality and consistency. And, Yinchuan is a distant and diffident place to run both a museum and a contemporary art biennale.

Yet, I was struck by the diversity of the works on display at Yinchuan. The works of Shiva Shreshta from Nepal, Mariam Ghani from Afghanistan, Kim Sooja from Korea and many others were impressive. However, what I left Yinchuan with was the image of a fantastic carpet, an arte povera work by the legend, Alighiero Boetti.

editor@theweek.in

a-day-at-delfina

Fri Jun 01 18:07:35 IST 2018

I had been hearing about Delfina Studios in London since my student days as the ideal place for upcoming artists to learn and work in an international atmosphere. It was set up as a residency space in 1988 by Spanish philanthropist Delfina Entrecanales. It was initially above a jeans factory in East Stratford. Later, as its scope increased, it moved to Bermondsey Street and had 34 studios. Twelve of them were fully funded by Delfina and the rest were available to artists at discounted rates.

After almost two decades, she reinvented it as the Delfina Foundation and invited the dynamic Aaron Cezar to be its director. Aaron, who continues to lead the foundation, has devised its thematic residency programmes. In its latest residency, the foundation has supported several artists from the Middle East and South Asia, such as Khalil Rabah, Farhad Moshiri, Susan Hefuna, Haluk Akakce and Khosdrow Hassanzadeh. This time, during my visit to London, I was able to fulfil my long-cherished dream of visiting Delfina. I wanted to understand the mechanics and workings of such a successful space. And I was not disappointed, because Aaron, the perennially charming master of public relations, obliged. I had met him at various art-related events around the world and seen him enjoying drinks and dancing light-footedly with friends and rank strangers. Aaron is easygoing, fluid and interested in developing relationships and cultivating ideas.

I had informed him that I will be coming over with a couple of friends—Shafi Rahman, a London-based Malayali journalist, and Sara Moralo, a young photographer from Spain. The foundation is located at 29-31 Catherine Place, Victoria, London, and has been renovated and designed by Studio Octopi and Egypt-based Shahira Fahmy Architects. It is only 100 metres from the Buckingham Palace and within walking distance from many of London’s iconic landmarks. Aaron welcomed us with a warm hug and I introduced my friends. He then took us around explaining everything to the minutest detail.

The Delfina Foundation can accommodate up to eight residents at one time. With interchangeable spaces, the house is an ideal base for research and developing ideas. The entire house, from the kitchen to the gallery, is treated as ‘studios’. It has done away with the idea of having dedicated spaces solely meant for work. The organisers prefer to host a mix of residents with a range of backgrounds, from artists and writers to collectors. Therefore, the facilities are not equipped for specific practitioners. The house includes a 1,650sqft event and exhibition space. It also has a communal kitchen area, an outdoor terrace and a courtyard, the foundation’s offices, and a library/ resource room.

A place [like this] is created by committed patrons and visionary directors. Without the efforts of the 90-year-old Delfina or the dashing Aaron, this place wouldn’t have the glories it has. It is the largest and the most sought after residency space in London. So far more than 250 artists, writers and collectors have gone through the lived experience of culture in Central London. Among its alumni are a dozen Turner Prize winners and nominees such as Shirazeh Houshiary, Jane and Louise Wilson, Mark Wallinger, Anya Gallacio, Tacita Dean, Glenn Brown, Mark Titchner, Martin Creed, Goshka Macuga, and Tomoko Takahashi.

Aaron continues to knit relationships/ collaborations with North Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and South Asia. I have seen creative and passionate people take art institutions to new heights—Sir Nicholas Serota at the Tate; Hans Ulrich Obrist and Julia Peyton-Jones at The Serpentine Galleries; Nicolas Bourriaud at Palais de Tokyo in Paris; Thomas Girst head of BMW’s cultural engagement department; and our own Jyotindra Jain at the National Crafts Museum, Delhi. With Delfina Foundation, Aaron has joined their ranks. Who could have imagined that Edwardian houses amalgamated into one property would become a hub for cultural exchanges.

editor@theweek.in

an-incredible-exchange-at-tate

Fri May 18 15:09:30 IST 2018

Ever since 2012, one question that has been consistently confronting all of us at the Kochi Biennale Foundation is: how did you put up this incredible biennale? It is a question that does not have a one-word answer or can be explained in a sentence or two. “It just happened,” is our common refrain, though we all know that it took more than a village to establish it in Kochi. And, now, Kochi is on the global art map.

Recently, we were at the Tate Modern in London, demonstrating how to build a biennale. I was invited by Winchester School of Art (WSA), University of Southampton, as part of the celebrated ‘Tate Exchange’ programme, involving participants who were mostly students from various disciplines in the production of contemporary art. We explored how to make, organise, design space, curate and install or orchestrate works of art. The programme also included a variety of workshops to discover what it means to build art ‘events’, including the use of 3D digital scanning, an introduction to crowdfunding, participation in performance-based art and a series of daily thoughtful discussions.

According to the Tate website, Tate Exchange is “a space for everyone to collaborate, test ideas and discover new perspectives on life, through art”. It has more than 60 associates—charities to universities and health care trusts to community organisations from the UK and other parts of the world. And, it includes working within and beyond the arts in association with Tate Modern and Tate Liverpool.

In 2000, the derelict but historic Bankside powerhouse was converted into a grand museum by Swiss architects Herzog and De Meuron, and Tate Modern was born. Couple of years ago, it opened an annexe called the Blavatnik building—WSA held Tate Exchange on the fifth floor of this new building.

On the first day, we explored how to install a work, followed by a discussion between me and Tate Exchange participants on ‘Production’ as a concept and practice and the diverse biennale practice, especially in the context of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB). On the second day, national and international participants (including Jitish Kallat, second edition curator of KMB) were invited to submit proposals and formulate materials for the book, How to Biennale! The Manual, a practical guide for making your own art events.

Also, participants collaborated with Chinese calligraphy artist Zhang Qiang, making silk scrolls to be exhibited on the Tate Exchange floor. On the fifth day, Zuleikha Chaudhari, who participated in the third edition of KMB, devised an event called ‘The Ideal Spectator’, in which she held auditions for the position of spectator or even an impostor artist! Interestingly, Sudarshan Shetty, curator of the last biennale, was a participant and had a dialogue with Zuleikha later.

The last day was an open forum that discussed the future of biennales. The programme concluded with a live event, with the curator of the next edition of the KMB, Anita Dube, joining us from Kochi.

I have known Robert E. D’Souza, head of Winchester School of Art, and Sunil Manghani, professor of theory, practice and critique and director of doctoral research at WSA, since the inception of the KMB. Both of them have visited the biennale several times and have been part of the ‘History Now’ (art talk series at the KMB). They also published the first academic book on the KMB, India’s Biennale Effect: A Politics of Contemporary Art. The ‘How To Build An Art Biennale’ programme was conceptualised and organised by Tate Exchange, WSA and Shwetal Patel, consultant to the KMB.

I was overwhelmed by the response that the programme received. It was a great opportunity to meet incredible minds from the biennale world—artists, curators, writers, journalists, Tate members, Tate curators and, undoubtedly, the wonderful students of WSA. Drawing inspiration from the KMB, they produced three works based on Subodh Gupta’s Sea of God, Robert Montgomery’s text-based light works and the tents of Francesco Clemente. It was quite an unusual experience to watch students and tutors install the three massive works at the fifth floor of the impressive Blavatnik building.

editor@theweek.in

art-and-the-pearl-of-the-orient

Sat May 05 15:08:29 IST 2018

Not so long ago when I was in Hong Kong, I could see the West Kowloon District across from where I was—the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Past the Victoria Harbour, the skyline and across the bay, in the distance, on reclaimed land, one could see a huge signage that screamed M+.

M+ is home to a future world of culture. Funded totally by the government, the site is being developed into one of the most buzzing areas for culture in the world with parks, museums, theatres, exhibition spaces, food courts and other commercial spaces that speak nothing but culture. The idea germinated in 2008, with an upfront endowment of $21.6 billion. The project is taking off in phases, with most of the spaces for cultural activity already in place and one of the most spectacular operas taking off last year at its opera house. The total cost of M+ is expected to be more than $63 billion. It is expected that the authorities would make nearly $100 billion from the commercial activities alone that would sustain the cultural spaces and activities within.

On my return to Kerala, I imagined Aspinwall House in Fort Kochi from the other side of the backwaters, Vypin. Well, in comparison to Kowloon Cultural Hub, it is only a drop in the ocean, and revolves around a single event, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. However, we had created borderless and non-hierarchical expositions with minuscule amounts compared with any other international operations. But, a fruitful beginning has been made.

Going back to Hong Kong, I have been attending the last three iterations of Art Basel Hong Kong, and I am always eager to see the wide range of contemporary art from around the world one gets to see there. Especially ‘Encounter’, which as I have mentioned earlier, is a large-scale project commissioned by Art Basel Hong Kong and is curated by Alexie Glass Kantor, director of Artspace, Sydney. This time she had invited 16 artists, one of whom was Subodh Gupta.

One of my duties at Art Basel Hong Kong is to be part of a jury to shortlist and later select a winner from among the individual projects shown by the 23 galleries participating in the ‘Discoveries’ sections of the events.

We have shortlisted three artists for this year’s BMW Art Journey —Los Angeles-based artist Gala Porras-Kim, Lahore-based Ali Kazim (represented by Jhaveri Contemporary, Kazim drew a lot of attention) and Berlin-based New Zealander Zac Langdon-Pole. Each artist will be invited to submit a proposal for an artistic project that involves a journey to anywhere in the world.

This edition of Art Basel HK had a large Indian participation compared with the earlier years—Chemould Presscot, Espace, Experimenter, Jhaveri Contemporary, Nature Morte, Sakshi, SKE, Vadehra, Tarq, and Icon Gallery (NY) and Kavi Gupta (Chicago) from abroad.

It was also a proud moment to attend the Asia Society’s Game Changer Awards ceremony. Asia Society is a global non-profit organisation and is a leading force in forging closer ties between Asia and the west through arts, education, policy and business outreach. This year, Asia Society honoured the artistic excellence and pioneering contributions to the arts of Subodh Gupta, Shirazeh Houshiary, Ju Ming, and Park Seo-Bo.

Like at any event of such a scale, one can do several things at Art Basel Hong Kong: attend Asia Art Archive’s Special Conversations and talks (it was good to hear the legendary Guerrilla Girls), visit some fantastic exhibitions, and curated exhibitions at the Para Site; and browse through all art magazine and art news paper stands. UBS and Davidoff VIP Lounges were ideal places to hold meetings.

Astha Butail, BMW Art Journey awardee of 2017, had a great presentation of her research and installations. She had a short conversation with Dr Thomas Girst, BMW’s global cultural head. We are truly making our presence felt on the global front. Back home? Well, that’s another story all together.

editor@theweek.in

a-visit-down-under

Sat Apr 21 15:48:06 IST 2018

Some time back, a gallerist friend of mine asked: “What are artist residencies?” It is a question that is asked often. Residencies are studio spaces of varying sizes to which writers, performers, dancers, artists and scientists are invited to live and work, mostly for a short period of time. A normal residency has living facilities and work spaces. Residencies provide creative professionals with connections and an audience.

Residency programmes are never the same. Each programme or guest studio, large or small, established or experimental, has its own background and atmosphere. Working periods differ enormously: from two weeks to six months, sometimes even a year or two. Some specialise in one discipline, others are interdisciplinary. I have participated in some fabulous artists residencies to work, learn and live. One of them, called Headlands Centre of Visual Arts, was at Sausalito—a city in California, across the Golden Gate from San Francisco.

I would like to use this space to talk about a few people behind such spaces. One of them is Alexie Glass-Kantor. I met her a few years ago at Art Basel Hong Kong. She has been the curator for the large-scale installations called Encounters at Art Basel in Hong Kong. I had attended her moderated talk sessions called Conversations during the event. She is a fluid, articulate and prolific speaker, a great conversationalist and an inspiring moderator. During our trip to Australia, we met her at Artspace [art gallery in Sydney] during the professional preview. She has been the director of Artspace for the last four years. She has a great team and spirit to run such spaces.

Support comes from state agencies like Australian Council for the Arts (ACA). In fact, the artists’ studios or cultural institutions in Australia are mostly funded by the ACA. It also coordinated the Meet the Artists programme for visiting international curators at Artspace, and other venues such as Carriageworks Studios, Parramatta Artists Studios and ACE Open in Adelaide. We went through a lot of good artists’ presentations. At the Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne, we heard and saw Sangeeta Sandrasegar. Her works are extremely minimalist and conceptual.

Now, we are also looking forward to welcoming Alexie to Kochi soon to continue our artist and studio exchange programmes. It would also be an opportunity to learn her administrative and multi-tasking abilities.

ACE has some good exhibition spaces and had a good show by ten Muslim artists—part of the Australian Muslim artist collective, Eleven. (The collective was initiated by Tripoli-born, Sydney-based artist Khaled Sabsabi. I had showed his works at the Yinchuan Biennale 2016 and Sudarshan Shetty invited him for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016. In fact, Khaled was everywhere: Biennale of Sydney, and ACE and Samstag Museum in Adelaide.) ACE has also set up a few new studio spaces. There are a lot of complimentary spaces that are also used by ACE, like Jam Factory Contemporary Craft and Design, a fantastic foundry for blown glass and ceramics. It is a lovely exhibition space and has a cool design shop, everything produced by artists or designers.

Riyas Komu, director of programmes, Kochi Biennale Foundation, and ACE’s CEO Liz Nowell and reputed curator Natalie King had a meeting for long-term relationship building between Kochi, Adelaide and Melbourne. Within a minute’s walk from ACE is the Samstag Museum. It was a great feeling to ruminate on the works of some of our KMB artists. One of them was Angelica Messitti, who participated in the 2012 edition. She will be part of the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2019.

I have a lot to write about our visit to Australia, but here I would like to inform you about a fairly new space called Victoria College of Arts at the University of Melbourne. Vikki Mcinnes, the managing editor of the art journal Art +Australia and an independent curator, and Natalie gave us an enlightening walk through the students’ studio spaces, workshops, graphic studios, space for conversations and the gallery next door, the Buxton Contemporary. There were three eminent people during our short visit at the university—Vietnamese artist Tiffany Chung, curator and historian David Elliott and our own artist N.S. Harsha. They were there as guest tutors. I wish our students also got such opportunities, patronage and infrastructure like studios, galleries, libraries, museums, parks and gardens.

editor@theweek.in

an-incredible-australian-adventure

Sat Apr 07 16:44:13 IST 2018

Art can be exhausting. It can also be invigorating. Three art festivals within one week can take its toll. But, it did not because I was in the good company of Riyas Komu and other curators. The Australian Arts Council (ACA) had invited us to participate in the visiting international curators programme, along with 11 other curators from different institutions, museums and galleries around the world. It can be exacting. On the contrary, it was exciting. As artist Marco Fusinato’s work at the Sydney biennale demonstrated, minimalism can go with maximalism. His work established the fact that noise can coexist with silence.

The 21st edition of Biennale of Sydney was curated by Tokyo-based Mami Kataoka, chief curator of the Mori Museum. Since 2005, the city has been following a tradition of opening any project or festival with a blessing ceremony presided over by an Aboriginal. This time, the biennale opened with a smoking ceremony, which is a cleansing ritual performed only on special occasions. The guidance of ACA project officers Sabina Finnern and Matthew Loftus helped us understand the journey of the Biennale of Sydney, the Adelaide biennale and the Melbourne design triennial.

The high point of the Sydney biennale this time was a conversation between Kataoka and the legendary Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Sometimes art events can be tiring for the participants. However, Weiwei’s two works—Crystal Ball (crystal, life jackets) and Law of the Journey (reinforced PVC, with aluminium frame)—made up for it all. When an artist’s work speaks for him, he does not need a pulpit to shout from.

This space is not enough to list all the artists who made a lasting impression on the viewers, but the works of Australian artists Brook Andrews and Khalid Sabsabi did have some incredible resonance.

The Sydney biennale was spread across seven sites: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Artspace, Carriageworks, Cockatoo Island, Sydney Opera House and, for the first time, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art.

Each site offered its own speciality, and Kataoka had put a lot of thought into allocating each of the 69 participating artists their space. Among them were four Indian artists and one of Indian origin: Sosa Joseph, Prabhavati Meppayil, Tanya Goel, N.S. Harsha and Simryn Gill.

It was a moment to cherish, and I was pleasantly surprised when a gallerist and collector from Australia asked me if I knew Sosa Joseph. “Of course,” I replied, because Sosa was part of the first edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. And, it is amazing how things fall into place, and are connected without our knowledge. Kataoka has been a regular visitor to KMB, and it was during one of those visits that Harsha mentioned Sosa’s name to her. She made it a point to visit Sosa’s studio in Kochi. Prabhavati, too, was a participating artist in Kochi.

All these thoughts and cross-connections occupied my mind as we cruised through the packed schedule that included visiting various locations of the biennale, meeting artists, directors and curators, and visiting the respective studios and residencies. There was one thing that stood out through all of that: every organisation had a huge responsibility to perform well. And, every one entrusted with that responsibility was a stakeholder in its successful execution. And, I thought, what if the Australian Council of Arts did not have people like Wendy Were and Amrit Gill? They make an important contribution towards ensuring that art does not become tiring, irrespective of how much you pack into the itinerary.

editor@theweek.in

a-selfie-with-the-french-president

Sat Mar 24 16:19:42 IST 2018

In May this year, Julie Ward, a British member of the European Parliament from the Labour Party, will intern at the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, the Netherlands. She chose the museum because she is interested in ancient artefacts, design and community work, and, particularly, because of the museum’s focus on youth, gender and sexuality. It is part of the political internship programme initiated by the Network of European Museum Organisations, to give politicians an understanding of the workings and importance of museums. It is actually an extension of a programme called ‘More Than Worth It’, run successfully by the Netherlands Museum Association. So, do not be surprised if you find a Dutch minister behind the reception desk, when you enter a museum in the Netherlands.

Politicians play an active role in cultural activities in the west. They are regular visitors to galleries, museums, art shows, fairs and biennales. I vividly remember the Argentinian president visiting the Argentinian pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011, when I had gone there with Riyas Komu, Sunil V. and Shwetal Patel to make our first presentation about the Kochi-Muziris Biennale to an international audience.

Incidentally, that was the only year when India had a pavilion at the mecca of contemporary art.

My first encounter with a culturally, socially and politically conscious minister from a European country was during ARCO 09, Madrid, where India was the focus country and I was the guest curator. I thoroughly enjoyed the company of the politician who was talking to me about art, sans the company of bodyguards or bureaucrats. I wondered if such a thing would ever happen in India.

But, when we began the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, several Kerala politicians including former chief minister Oommen Chandy and the current chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, visited the event. Some of them have not missed any edition since. KMB was born out of former culture minister M.A. Baby's wish to bring international visual art to Kerala. Last year, president Pranab Mukherjee visited the biennale and addressed the audience.

Here I am writing about another president’s visit. Recently, French President Emmanuel Macron came to India on an official visit. And, guess what was on his itinerary. A trip to artist Subodh Gupta’s studio. Subodh is having a major retrospective at the 1,154-year-old Monnaie de Paris—the French mint is the oldest enterprise in the world. The charming president and his cheerful wife, Brigitte, visited the Gurugram studio where Subodh and his wife Bharati Kher work. Also in attendance were 60 invited guests—artists, designers, writers, museum directors and gallerists.

Subodh took our hands (Riyas’s and mine), pulled us closer to Macron and said: “I wanted to introduce both these artists. They have changed Indian art and we are so proud of India’s biennale in Kochi.” Later, we met again and explained KMB in detail to an attentive president. He was, of course, coming from a culturally conscious country. The French understand the value of soft power. France has the most visited art museums and cultural spaces in the world.

Macron's visit to Subodh and Bharti's studio is history. I hope our political figures also come down to earth. At least, our new and young blood should respect the wealth of art and culture. Art is humane and humble; it is like a mirror. Riyas could not miss the selfie-opportunity. He took out his mobile and asked if he could take a selfie with Macron. Jitish [Kallat] and I squeezed into the frame!

Just before the president left, he said to us: “I know where to go on my next visit.” After a pause, he said: “Kochi!” He might as well.

editor@theweek.in

free-lunches-anyone

Sat Mar 10 19:08:21 IST 2018

They say there is no such thing as a free lunch. There could be some, though. India, 'the land of bikshuks’, has a tradition of serving free food to rank strangers. The Bhikshuka Upanishad lays down the lifestyle of four types of mendicants, who live mostly on alms. India is also the land of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, which has the world’s largest kitchen where nearly a lakh people eat everyday. ISKON, the organisation of Krishna devotees, has a concept of community kitchen called akshayapatram, and history tells us that we have always been feeding, not feeding on others.

Last week, I attended the inauguration of the Janakeeya Bhakshna Shala (JBS)—which roughly translates into ‘people’s dining hall’—conceptualised by Kerala’s finance minister Dr Thomas Isaac. The first one of these food centres has been set up in his constituency of Allepey, on National Highway 66.

In evolutionary biology, an organism is said to behave altruistically when its behaviour benefits other organisms, even at a cost to itself. In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin discussed the origin of altruistic and self-sacrificial behaviour among human beings. Studies inspired by Darwin have proved that the capacity to be caring, generous and being kind have been built into the brains, bodies, genes and social practices of human beings.

But then, how do you sustain altruism? Let us look at the mechanics of JBS. It was initiated by eight people, who worked day in and day out to provide food to nearby hospitals. Now, with the help of the Kerala State Financial Enterprices, it has started this centre spread over 1,500sq.ft. I was talking to local artists and common folk and they took me to the backyard of the JBS building and showed me a patch of land—nearly four acres—that has been donated by a generous man to cultivate vegetables for and by JBS.

It made me think about the near total absence of Indian philanthropists (if you were to stack up the number of philanthropists, against the number of Indian billionaires, then you will get the picture). Of course, philanthropy in India means setting up schools or temples in the name of family members. Philanthropy is more of an ego-boosting exercise. The rich in India seldom open their wallets, but to build collections of jewellery, fast cars, yachts, private jets and ostentatious farm houses.

While on a drive down the Mattanchery Bazar road, I saw yet another heritage structure brought down by moneybags, and it brought back memories. I began wondering how they are able to execute their wishes with impunity. Isn’t there any policy that protects the heritage zone? Kochi and Mattanchery area have been declared as heritage zones by the UNESCO. And, just the other day, I was reading about how a new project, commissioned by the Foundation for Jewish Heritage, has identified synagogues built before the second World War, from Cork in Ireland in the west to Vladivostok in Russia in the east. Each has been catalogued with construction dates and materials, the Jewish community it served, its present use and condition, and a “significance rating”. Simon Schama will launch the project with the backing of more than 40 high-profile supporters including architect Daniel Libeskind, television newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky and artist Anish Kapoor. Such a thing is possible only if we have an idea of what our heritage is, and only if we look beyond immediate short-term gains.

I have had the good luck to meet incredible people whose passion, intuition and inquisitiveness have taken them to their desired destinations. One such person is the 84-year-old Lady Helen Hamlyn. I met her last week. She was one of the first fashion designers to pass out from the Royal College of Art in 1963. And, now she preserves, protects and funds conservation. Three of the projects are in India: the Reis Magos Fort in Goa, the Nagaur Fort in Rajasthan and the Chittoor Palace in Kerala. Apparently she spots these places on her own, and is not approached by anyone in India or abroad. Altruists walk alone.

editor@theweek.in

india-art-fair-an-art-fair-to-remember

Sat Feb 24 17:06:00 IST 2018

Recently the India Art Fair, which was launched in 2008 by Neha Kirpal, concluded its 10th edition.

Last year, the MCH Group, the Swiss fairs, and behemoth events, invested in the India Art Fair. While such a fair provides a much-needed aesthetic acupuncture to a city like Delhi, it also helps instigate and inspire the lives of culturally conscious minds while creating a healthy business. So, the move by MCH is a smart one. The India Art Fair had the aesthetic imprints of the new director Jagdip Jagpal and her team, including artist UBIK and VIP relations director Noel Kaddar. The expertise of MCH, also the owner of the preeminent Art Basel (Basel, Miami and Hong Kong) in fair production, was conspicuous at the NSIC grounds, the location of the annual event. This year, I saw many new faces from the art world, new collectors, young curators and writers. Of course, one would not miss the BMW art car by celebrated artist Jeff Koons.

Jagdip Jagpal’s arrival on the scene has brought in a breath of fresh air. The London-born Indian-origin director, now living in Delhi, has had to quickly absorb the nuances of the Indian art scene. Jagpal, who has great faith in the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, provided space for the same at the art fair. Anita Dube, Jitish Kallat, Riyas Komu and myself were invited to an opening-day panel discussion moderated by curator Michelle Lun from the Asia Society, New York. The Asia Society awarded the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) its prestigious Game Changer Award, which was accepted by Riyas Komu and me on behalf of the foundation. It was a proud moment of recognition for us, our entire team and trustees, as well as our sponsors and patrons, and, the people of Kochi who supported the dream of a biennale in India.

As at most art events, we had to come to terms with the fact that we cannot see everything in a week. There were too many parallel exhibitions, talks and tours. Some of my personal highlights of the week included seeing Pooja Sood’s Khoj International studios that has an exhibition of small-scale artworks by young artists, Shalini Passi's great collection of art works and Tarana Sawhney hosting on behalf of the Tate museum.

The energetic Feroze and Mohit Gujral’s Gujral Foundation organised a brilliantly curated exhibition at their project space, 124 Jor Bagh, an old building that has been transformed for special exhibitions. This year, the space was dedicated to photography. A trustee of the KBF, and design legend V. Sunil hosted a Motherland magazine party at his Dhan Mills office, and Manish Arora held a mini-retrospective of his greatest pieces from the catwalks in an adjoining ex-warehouse building. Dhan Mills Compound is quickly turning into a must-visit place in the capital.

Another highlight was Riyas Komu’s Holy Shiver at Vadehra Gallery. In my knowledge, Komu is one of the finest artistic minds in India and his works are an acerbic look at contemporary social issues, much needed in the fractured political climes that we live in. His works confront you with questions on religion, Constitution, nationalism and concerns of the minority. Artist friend Anju Dodiya created visceral drawings, paintings and sculptural paintings on textiles collected from Germany and India. Her creations are on show at the Bikaner House. The exhibition is Dodiya at her best, and it lingers in my thoughts.

Another must-see event was 50 years of Vivan Sundaram’s work in a poignant retrospective, curated by Roobina Karode at the Kiran Nadar Museum. Kiran Nadar—patron, collector and an astounding mind that leads with tremendous vision—and her better half, Shiv Nadar, are a great asset to the country. We need more of such patronage of arts and a strong private and public partnership to build the necessary arts infrastructure, especially in our nation’s capital.

The India Art Fair is a good reason to think on those lines. When such events are held, one must also think of making them more accessible to the common man and not confine it to a cocoon within the city.

editor@theweek.in

art-in-the-pink

Fri Feb 16 15:59:11 IST 2018

There is something new in the country to be cheerful about. This, at a time when finding something to be happy about is as difficult as fishing in plastic-filled waters. There is a new Sculpture Park at the Madhavendra Bhavan palace in Nahargarh Fort, Jaipur, which showcases the finest three-dimensional works by contemporary artists.

We were invited to the palace to attend a dinner hosted by Shreyasi Goenka of Zee and Aparajita Jain to celebrate the Jaipur Literature Festival. The exhibition is curated by Peter Nagy, and has works by 17 Indian and eight international artists.

Peter Nagy is an artist who moved out from New York to India, after closing his East Village gallery in 1996. Exhibiting works in rented and leased out locations in Delhi, Nagy became one of the most familiar names in the art world as a gallerist. He set up, and, now co-runs, the prestigious Nature Morte Gallery in New Delhi with Aparajita, whose Saath Saath Arts is in partnership with the state government of Rajasthan for the Sculpture Park project. The state government has given the space out on a ten-year lease for the project.

I missed the grand opening in December, and so was very excited to visit the exhibition. To my surprise, it was an exhibition of brilliantly put together sculptures and installations; outdoor, indoor, on the ground, hanging from the ceilings and on the terrace of the well-maintained and restored palace. The works blend very well with the grandeur of the fort, built by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II in 1734. After my visit, I felt the government should lease out spaces for the long term to dedicated and committed art professionals and specialists like Nagy.

The exhibition seems to have received some corporate support with names like Zee, Borosil, PI Foundation and JSW being displayed prominently. There are similar projects encouraged by the government, such as the Museum of Legacies—a historical building, which once served as an art school, that has now been made a museum dedicated to tribal and traditional art, textiles and design.

I think the people behind the immensely successful JLF—Sanjoy Roy, William Dalrymple, Namita Gokhale and their team—should seriously think about crowd management, which was quite exhausting. There were great speakers at five venues, every day, from the fields of arts, literature, social and political sciences, media and cinema. I was a guest delegate at the JLF and was able to attend reading sessions, conversations, book releases and visit pop-up bookshops, besides enjoying the great food and entertainment—Kailash Kher, my good old friend Talvin Singh and many more.

But, there was a terrible flaw. Most of us could not see the speakers, especially on opening night, because of the backlights! Clumsy stages and garish sets turned it into the caricature of chaos. That managed to overshadow the amazing speakers who had come from all parts of the world. Festivals like this should have exemplary design.

Jaipur has a lot to offer, culturally, like the Jawahar Kala Kendra designed by Charles Correa, and now directed by Pooja Sood. I was lucky to visit ‘Where is Space’, an architecture/art show curated by Rupali and Prasad Shetty. Though I found that some of the works were beyond me, as I couldn’t connect them with architecture or space.

Another sight at the JLF that delighted me was a group of around 70 students and tutors from St. Teresa’s College and Sacred Heart College, both in Kochi, Kerala, along with the selfie performances that have become customary these days. I was privileged to attend, at the JLF, the fourth edition of Ojas Art Awards, an initiative of art lover Anubhav Nath. This year, the award went to Anwar and Uttam Chitrakar, Pattachitra artists from West Bengal. The Pink City overwhelmed me with its love for art.

editor@theweek.in

the-iran-nuclear-deal-is-dead-and-it-is-a-good-thing-writes-jeff-jacoby

Sun Apr 03 14:08:30 IST 2022

Former US president Barack Obama never submitted his 2015 Iran nuclear deal to the senate for ratification as a treaty. Had he done so, it would have been rejected. A majority of senators opposed the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. The public frowned on it, too. A Pew poll that fall found that only one in five of those surveyed backed the treaty.

Almost from the outset, Iran had violated several of the restrictions imposed by the deal. It hid information from international inspectors. It test-fired a nuclear-capable ballistic missile and declared it would accept no limitations on its missile development. Obama had pitched the deal as one that would encourage Iran to “get right with the world”, but that never came close to happening. The Islamic Republic intervened in Syria’s civil war in support of the murderous Bashar al-Assad, armed Houthi rebels in Yemen, seized two US navy vessels and humiliated their sailors, called repeatedly for the extermination of Israel, and continued to subsidise terrorist groups.

Despite that record, Joe Biden ran for president on a pledge to revive Obama’s nuclear agreement, from which the US withdrew when Donald Trump was in the White House. For months, the Biden administration has been negotiating in Vienna to strike a deal with Iran, and latest reports suggested that a return to the JCPOA was imminent.

No longer.

The Wall Street Journal recently revealed that Russia, which has been a key player in the Vienna talks, was conditioning its support for a new nuclear deal on the creation of a loophole in the economic sanctions imposed by the west. Russia is demanding a written guarantee that its trade with Iran will be exempted from sanctions if the JCPOA is resurrected. But that would undermine the international financial squeeze being applied to Russia. That is a concession the Biden administration refuses to make, even to clinch an Iran deal. Meanwhile, Iran has issued a fresh reminder that it remains committed to spreading terrorism and violence across the Middle East.

On March 13, Iran fired a barrage of missiles into northern Iraq, striking near the US consulate site in Erbil. This was a deliberate violation of Iraqi sovereignty and an act of aggression against the US. Writing in The Jerusalem Post, Seth J. Frantzman observed that the consulate is not in the centre of the city, which meant that the consulate had to be specifically targeted. Tehran readily took credit for that attack. Its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it was meant as a message to Israel.

All this comes as participants in the Vienna negotiations have been warning that the new deal in the works would amount to a capitulation by the US. According to former state department official Gabriel Noronha, the Biden administration agreed “to lift sanctions on some of the regime’s worst terrorists and torturers”. Unable to condone such concessions, Noronha wrote on Twitter, three members of the US team chose to leave.

The response on Capitol Hill to these developments has been a rising tide of opposition to a new Iran deal. A bipartisan group of representatives wrote to the White House with a long list of concerns and questions about the proposed new agreement. Their bottom line was polite but blunt: “It is hard to envision supporting an agreement along the lines being publicly discussed.”

If Russia’s attempted extortion was not enough to put the Iran deal on the ropes, Iran’s recent missile attack should certainly have done so. If those do not do it, the rising tide of congressional opposition ought to. The first Iran deal was a disaster and the second was shaping up to be another. The JCPOA has been dead since 2018. It is in the world’s best interest that it stay that way.

The author is a politically conservative American journalist.

case-for-coalitions

Wed Mar 10 12:03:31 IST 2021

This month, there will be elections in the Netherlands for the house of representatives, which has a four-year term. The present cabinet has been in power since October 2017. At the moment, it is a caretaker cabinet because it resigned in January to take political responsibility for the outcome of parliamentary investigations into child welfare payments that wrongly labelled thousands of parents as fraudsters. As the recently resigned Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte noted, “In this case, the whole system has failed.” Being accountable and showing responsibility are important features of the Dutch political culture.

The king is the head of state in the Netherlands, but his power is limited. With all its political structures and complex political processes, the Netherlands is a very stable democracy. (In 2019, King Willem Alexander and Queen Maxima’s visit to India was a successful one, illustrating the excellent relations between India and the Netherlands.)

In the Netherlands, no party has ever gained an absolute majority. Political parties always have to work together in coalitions. Since 1945, the country has always had coalition governments and it seems to be part of the Dutch DNA. The most recent coalition comprises four parties. Coalitions may at first sight seem inefficient, but they have been very successful in governing the country. Perhaps the best proof of its effectiveness is that the Netherlands has always figured in the top 10—often even in the top five—in global rankings on economic well-being, equality, competitiveness and innovation.

In the last 10 years, we have seen a fragmentation of the Dutch political landscape. We used to have three main parties—Labour, Christian Democrats and Liberals—but we are now acquainted with many smaller parties. Some parties base their programmes and positions on religious convictions, and many non-religious parties base their programmes on socio-economic, environment, employment, education, taxation or international convictions. As a result of the political fragmentation, the process of forming a coalition government is getting more complicated. In 2017, it took a record 225 days to form a cabinet of four political parties.

The Dutch political culture, including the formation of a new government, is used to a process of negotiating, convincing people, engaging with all private and public stakeholders, and of taking into account different opinions—on a national level, and also on a regional level. We call this consensus decision-making process polderen. Polder in Dutch means land reclaimed from the sea. In the Middle Ages, different societies and people living in the same polder had to cooperate and share responsibilities to maintain the polder. The polder model is basically a pragmatic recognition of pluriformity and collaboration despite differences of opinion.

As always, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The proof of governance is in the happiness of the Dutch people. The Netherlands is ranked the world’s sixth happiest country in the world. Not a bad performance!

Marten van den Berg is the Dutch ambassador to India.

innovate-and-collaborate

Wed Feb 24 18:20:05 IST 2021

Ten thousand acres under cultivation, 45,000 tonnes of marigold production, touching the lives of 9,000 farmers and multiplying their income from around Rs30,000 per acre to nearly Rs3lakh per acre—this is what we conceived and delivered in less than 10 years. And this was just for one of our products—Lutein—the key ingredient to manufacture nutraceutical formulations for eye care. Given that we required a specific quality of marigold to extract quality Lutein, we ventured into cultivating the crop ourselves.

Nature-based science is deep-rooted in India, and there is a huge export potential yet to be tapped. Like marigold, there are many natural herbs and flowers rich in medicinal properties, like curcumin from turmeric or piperine from black pepper. India is the dominant supplier of such plant materials and ranks among the top three producers in the world. India's overall contribution to the global nutraceutical market, however, remains minuscule, at just about 1-2 per cent. At $4 billion today, nutraceuticals have immense potential to reach $9 billion in the next five years.

Everything, including health care, saw a digital transformation during the pandemic. There was another fundamental transformation—the resurgence of the preventive care model. Patient care has shifted from hospitals to homes. And, prescription-based consulting has become customised and personalised. And, this shift has triggered significant growth potential for the nutraceutical industry.

The current ecosystem, including the regulations, is well-defined and robust in the US, the European Union and Japan. China, despite similar complexities as India, captured 14 per cent of the global trade. So, radical changes are a must for India. Availability of natural resources, labour, research talent and business community make it possible for India to be present across the value chain—wfrom farms to formulation. While opportunities exist, the key to meaningful conversion lies in making the environment conducive for industry players and building a strong ecosystem. A collaborative approach is the only solution.

We need to recognise that to succeed in this space, a new model of agriculture-linked enterprise needs to be created and nurtured. Entrepreneurs still wait for the government to fix crop availability and the cultivation of raw materials. We experimented with marigold cultivation in 2009 and expanded it to paprika in 2015.

India is one of the mega-diverse countries, harbouring nearly 7-8 per cent of the recorded species of the world, and representing 4 of the 34 globally identified biodiversity hotspots. India is also a vast repository of traditional knowledge associated with biological resources. While regulators will have to continue to provide support through reforms, ease of doing business and other policy incentives, businesses will have to step up and invest enough to make India a global hub for the nutraceutical industry.

The future of the nutraceutical industry is promising. What is essential for us is to bridge the regulatory gaps, make all constituents equal stakeholders, build a common agenda and align them to achieve the goals.

The writer is executive chairman and managing director, OmniActive Health Technologies.

block-buster

Wed Feb 24 18:17:13 IST 2021

Most writers experience writer’s block at some point. This is typically characterised by gazing vacantly at an empty document on their computers or a blank page in their notebooks, with no new stream of thought pouring in. Playwright Paul Rudnick described it as follows: “Writing is 90 per cent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials. It is a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write.”

Writer’s block, or creative block, is not a new construct. And this is not intrinsic only to writers. Creative people from all walks of life—artists, musicians, poets, entrepreneurs—can and will experience this at some point. Sometimes, inspiration just fails to strike.

What is writer’s block?

Creative block is a complex process of thought inhibition preventing a writer from proceeding with a piece in stipulated time, with the result often being that the writer would abandon the piece altogether.

The construct of writer’s block originated in the early 19th century when English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge first described his “indefinite indescribable terror” at not being able to produce work he thought worthy of his talent. Later on, French writers described the construct of “suffering” being inextricably woven to writing and expanded it to create the myth that all writers possessed a tortured soul, and were unable to write without anguish. The esoteric idea of not being able to accomplish creative work, without having been subject to personal trauma, probably has its underpinnings in the French concept of suffering for the sake of being able to write.

Writing is an onerous mental process. It requires a certain degree of cognitive expenditure than many other lines of work and that is why most writers struggle. Whether writer’s block is a valid psychological construct or a term coined to give the challenges of writing a somewhat romantic flair, the reasons behind the struggle are numerous.

A few plausible cognitive processes come to my mind when I think about what possibly hinders the journey of writing.

Irrational fear

Most people struggle with being judged for what they are. This will hinder them from putting their ideas out in open space. We should not be too bothered about criticism while making sure to look out for ways to improve.

The fear of being rejected by publishers or readers weighs heavily on many writers. Identifying and accepting this is the first step to getting our creative juices flow once again. One must seek psychological help if this phobia continues to dominate one’s life.

Perfectionism

Some thought leaders argue that a constant striving for perfection is the basis of all worthy human pursuit. However, such an enduring pursuit often stems from a distorted sense of perfectionism that sees it as a tool for protection, to shield ourselves from harsh critique or failure.

Some writers may have obsessive-compulsive personality disorder or anankastic personality disorder. They are oblivious to the fact that other people are often annoyed at the extent to which their striving for perfection results in exasperating delays in accomplishing routine tasks. The treatment found to be most effective for this condition is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

Undue self-criticism

It is often said that we are our own worst critics. Unnecessary comparisons to other more successful writers or even to our own earlier work is an impediment to fulfilling creative work. This often reaches an impasse wherein nothing ever seems good enough.

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

This is an oft-neglected cause. ADHD is characterised by an ongoing pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development.

Inattention generally manifests as tendencies to wander off from tasks, lacking persistence, difficulty sustaining focus and being disorganised. Impulsive behaviour may take the form of the individual making hasty, rash, ill-thought-out decisions with a great potential for harm, or the inability to delay gratification. Treatments include medication, psychotherapy, training or a combination of these modalities.

Negative mood states

This encompasses mood states ranging from anxiety to depression, and including constructs such as dysphoria. Studies have shown that negative mood states are associated with poor functionality and health-related quality of life. Having a number of depressive symptoms but not necessarily at a clinical level can lead to poorer cognition. A positive outlook towards life has shown to be beneficial.

Means to overcome writer’s block

Set a writing schedule

Experts say scheduling a time to write is the best way to be prolific. Some authors are comfortable to write as soon as they get up after a good night’s sleep. Writing can become monotonous, so break the monotony. Regular writing practice may help reduce writing's demands on working memory, freeing experienced writers to create and revise more nuanced prose.

Prepare

The creative process has four stages: preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. To consistently come up with fresh ideas requires a vast amount of reading to be done. While thinking about a topic, it is important to jot down ideas that come to mind. Many a time, these ideas come unexpectedly in a conversation. Document them immediately.

Incubate inspiration

What is referred to as writer's block is waiting for the third phase of creativity. If you are stuck on something, give it a rest for a day or two. Even when we consciously take a break from a project, the brain is still tinkering with it. Sleeping may also help consolidate ideas and associations we have gathered during the day.

Starting the process

To get ideas flowing, sit down in a place of your liking, and then attempt to write. Putting down the first ideas or words that come to you will help you establish the broader framework. Some find that writing in freehand generates more ideas than typing.

Writing involves generating fresh ideas, and editing involves evaluating ideas. Work will flow more smoothly if we write for one session and edit in another, rather than stopping after each sentence.

Finding the right environment

If you work best in a shared work space, or in a coffee shop or park, go for it. Right environments enable words to gush at consistent pace. Such enabling environments have to be found out through trial and error.

Exercise

Studies have found that people have a greater degree of divergent thinking while walking, and that this effect lasts even after they sit down. Exercising has been proven to reduce stress, focus the mind, increase productivity and enhance memory. In particular, aerobic exercises encourage the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampus.

Criticism is inevitable

We will inevitably receive rejections throughout our writing careers, but we should not doubt our ability as soon as this happens. Sharing our drafts with friends or a mentor will often help us in giving the right context and meaning to our work.

Goals and rewards

Set goals for each writing session, like writing a certain number of words or revising a draft, and reward yourself for completing them. Some authors set word count goals.

Avoid distractions

We are surrounded by distractions and seemingly urgent interruptions to our work. Avoid these unnecessary distractions. They tend to occupy a lot of mind space which can otherwise be used more productively.

Say no to binge writing

Amateur writers tend to binge-write—doing nothing for weeks and then locking themselves into a room and writing for days on end. This drains us out physically and mentally, and affects the quality of work. A more pragmatic approach would be to break down the task of writing into smaller segments.

In conclusion, the only thing that will really get us to overcome creative block is to simply start the process of writing. The creative juices will then inevitably start to flow again and we can let the words flow out!

The writer is senior psychiatrist, Manas Institute of Mental Health, Hubli, Karnataka.

the-invisible-pandemic

Thu Jan 28 17:05:50 IST 2021

I was attending to an old patient of mine when Sheila, the staff nurse, barged into my consulting room and said anxiously: “Doctor, we have an emergency; there is a 21-year-old who has recently recovered from Covid-19 and has now tried to kill himself. He is waiting in the emergency room.” I hurriedly finished the consultation and went to see the patient. As I began gathering the history from him and his parents, it became increasingly clear to me that his presentation was secondary to Covid-19, and that it was not a primary psychiatric disorder.

The youth had got Covid-19 eight weeks ago and was convalescing at home for the last two weeks. Around that time, he had started to hear strange buzzing sounds every once in a while. These had become more acute in the last one week. He had now started to hear his closest friend’s voice that commanded him to kill himself. And today he had tried to hang himself in response.

Psychiatrists are now routinely seeing clinical presentations that are secondary to Covid-19. Uncertain prognosis, an acute shortage of resources for testing, unprecedented public health measures that curtail personal freedom, economic recession, and uncertainty about the future are among the major stressors that are contributing to the widespread emotional distress, and increased risk for psychiatric illnesses associated with Covid-19. Those with an anxious temperament have found themselves being more prone to obsessive doubts about getting Covid-19. Many had developed the obsessive-compulsive disorder, too, in the face of this pandemic. Some of the commonly encountered obsessions include fear of getting Covid-19, obsessive thoughts about infecting loved ones, fear of being quarantined, not having access to timely treatment, and fear of death. I have had people compulsively checking the news to get a real-time update about Covid-19. I have also seen people getting repeatedly tested, and seeking reassurance from physicians at fever clinics.

Covid-19 has provided a fertile ground for the explosion of common mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety. Home-confinement directives, like quarantine, that are necessary to minimise viral spread, have had a negative psychological impact, such as causing post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, depression and insomnia. Layoffs from work and economic recession have been associated with a long-lasting decline in mental health.

Chronic loneliness brought on by social isolation during the pandemic is another major concern. People who have been given the option to work from home routinely complain about not being productive at work. They also talk about missing office conversation over a cup of coffee. At the other end of the spectrum are people who have understandable fears of being unable to reconnect with their work colleagues once the pandemic subsides.

Covid-19 is also responsible for neuropsychiatric syndromes such as delirium and stroke. Increasingly, young people are arriving at the emergency room with unexplained strokes. I was called to attend to a 25-year-old woman who had been presented with progressive difficulty in speech, crying spells, emotional outbursts, and numbness and weakness in the left arm and leg. The attending physician had made a note of cough, headache and chills lasting one week before this hospitalisation. This patient had delayed seeking emergency care because of fear of Covid-19. A CT scan showed obstructed blood flow in a large brain artery, and a chest scan revealed typical features of Covid-19. Social distancing, isolation, and delayed decision-making to seek help result in poorer prognosis in such patients.

I have been increasingly seeing Covid-19 patients having delirium in the intensive care units of general hospitals. Fatima (name changed) was a 56-year-old primary school teacher who had got Covid-19 from her husband. She was progressively worsening with little improvement in her clinical status. One day I received a call from the doctor-on-call at a general hospital where I consult. “Fatima is speaking incoherently,” said the doctor. “She has been seeing ants and lizards on the walls of the ICU. She also complains of a foul odour. She is not recognising her family anymore.” We soon realised that she had slipped into delirium. Delirium is a psychiatric emergency characterised by an acute onset of confusion. An April 2020 study in France found that approximately 65 per cent of people who had a more severe form of Covid-19 had developed confusion—a defining and hallmark feature of delirium. The data of 2,000 Covid-19 patients presented at the annual meeting of chest physicians in America showed that a staggering 55 per cent had developed acute onset confusion and disorientation. These are unprecedented numbers and something that the medical fraternity is not routinely used to. A single episode of delirium can increase the risk of developing dementia years later. Conversely, people with underlying dementia are more prone to develop episodes of delirium. This becomes pertinent in the context of the elderly population with multi-morbidity, being more prone to develop severe Covid-19.

Health care workers are particularly vulnerable to emotional distress during this pandemic. Long working hours donning personal protective equipment, and being involved in emotionally fraught decisions, take a huge toll on the mental health of doctors.

Exercise, regular sleep, nutritious food and a strong mental health support system become imperative to deal with the psychological ramifications of Covid-19.

Kulkarni is a senior psychiatrist at Manas Institute of Mental Health, Hubli, Karnataka.

patch-work

Mon Feb 10 15:42:42 IST 2020

Psoriasis is a lifelong skin condition and living with it can be difficult and stressful on some days. Everyday life with psoriasis can seem challenging for patients, family and caregivers. Nonetheless, with the right medication and lifestyle changes, patients can enjoy a fulfilling life. Staying positive and not becoming self-conscious about it are just as important.

Psoriasis usually affects people in their thirties or forties. In India, it is twice as common in men than in women. Contrary to what some people think, the condition is not contagious. It is caused by the immune system mistakenly attacking healthy skin cells that are then replaced at an abnormally rapid rate, in 14 days rather than the usual three to four weeks. This causes a buildup of dead cells that are visible on the surface of the skin as red, itchy patches, commonly called plaques. Typically, these patches appear on the scalp, knees, lower back or elbows, though they may be seen anywhere on the body. The plaques may vary in size and may either appear as a single patch or may merge to form a larger patch. Other symptoms of psoriasis include dry and cracked skin or skin that feels sore, besides a burning sensation and swollen or stiff joints.

Today we have a number of treatment options for psoriasis, including topical skin creams, pills and injections that can be prescribed by a dermatologist. Here are some tips to help you manage the condition better:

Care for your skin: Use the right skin moisturiser to reduce itchiness, dryness and scaling. Bathe with lukewarm water and a mild soap to ease the itch and get rid of dry skin. After a wash or bath, gently pat your skin dry instead of rubbing it with a towel.

Quit smoking: Giving up cigarettes and other forms of tobacco may help to reduce the occurrence of flares.

Live an active life: If you are overweight, losing the extra weight through regular exercise can help your treatment work better and could also reduce the need for some medicines.

How you can help someone living with psoriasis

Read up about the disease: A lot of people do not know enough about psoriasis. They think it is contagious, which is not true. Instead, learn more about psoriasis, its causes, triggers and treatment.

Do not stare: One of the worst things you can do if someone has psoriasis is to stare at their skin patches or rash. This can cause the patient to become self-conscious and embarrassed. Instead, ignore the rash and make eye contact while speaking or working with them.

Offer help: If a loved one has psoriasis, make yourself available to help out whenever possible. Do not assume to know what they need, but ask how you can be of help.

Be alert to new symptoms: Patients with psoriasis are at a higher risk of being depressed. If you notice that the patient is persistently sad or unwilling to take part in any form of social activities, it may be a sign of depression. In such a situation, gently encourage the patient to visit the doctor.

The writer is chief consultant and dermatologist, Skinvita Clinic, Kolkata.

growing-up-without-godfathers

Tue Dec 17 14:10:50 IST 2019

WHEN I CHOSE to enter politics—with the realisation that the kind of politics we see in our democracy has to change with people from non-political backgrounds entering the field—I was also aware of getting a chance to be a change maker. Politics is often looked down upon as a bad word. Politics is a career. Let nobody tell you otherwise. My decade-long journey has been about shouldering all responsibilities given to me with the best of my abilities. I believe that it is the responsibility of the party/organisation to nurture the talent and give people the space to grow and give them the dignity they deserve. It is important to be at a place where one’s ability and talent are respected and valued.

Is the political system skewed? I would say the answer lies in the choice of candidates in elections. While we pat ourselves on the back for increasing women’s representation in Parliament to 14 per cent, we forget that we lag behind even countries like Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The way to show women that there is space for them in politics is to encourage them by giving a chance to contribute either electorally or through organisational growth. Otherwise, how can we tell women who are in politics that they belong here? How are women going to be heard in the power structure?

In politics, unlike in any other field, men have a sense of entitlement which is entrenched in them, thanks to a patriarchal society. A woman has to consistently prove herself to validate her presence and grow in the system. Women in positions of power should be able to help other women instead of pushing them down. They should proactively share their networks to help other women who are struggling, be mentors, create space and make more space.

My journey has much to do with my own resilience and a commitment to persist in my call of duty. It also has a lot to do with setting rules where none existed and breaking rules as to how women are portrayed in public life. This is what I expect from every new, wonder-eyed youth who takes up a career in politics. Remember, there is no financial stability, no emotional stability and no clear career path. However, the thrill of being part of a journey that helps you contribute significantly towards building a nation of your dreams is immense and the satisfaction unparalleled.

People from my own family at times questioned my choice of being in politics, my ability to handle the rough and the tumble of it all. My journey has been tougher, since I was led by my heart. Had I been calculated and calibrated, it could have been easier.

But, when you have the talent and the ability, and no godfather, there are still ways and means you can shine through. That is what has happened in my case. And that is what will happen with each and everyone who chooses this path of public life, which has its own share of highs and lows. But once the bug bites you, it is impossible to stay away from it.

Chaturvedi is deputy leader, Shiv Sena.

As told to Pooja Biraia Jaiswal

fighting-it-together

Sat Sep 14 16:54:58 IST 2019

Autism spectrum disorder is a group of neuro-developmental conditions characterised by impairment in three main areas—social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and stereotyped, restricted or repetitive pattern of behaviour, interests and activities.

In most cases, ASD is under-diagnosed or missed because of lack of awareness regarding its clinical presentation. Usually, the problems are labelled as speech delay and the parents are asked to wait till the child is three. The median age of diagnosing autism is two to four years, but with awareness and early screening, we can diagnose it as early as one-and-a-half years. This helps in early intervention, which changes the outcome in a significant manner.

The recent increased incidence of the disorders, the emotional impact they have on families and the challenging financial demands make ASD an important public health issue. Autism is currently incurable and most people with ASD do not receive specialised treatment or any treatment at all.

Eugen Bleuler coined the term autism in 1911 and Hans Asperger described the symptoms of autism in 1938. Globally, the prevalence of the disease is four to six per 1,000 persons and it is constantly increasing. It affects all racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups, although it is five times more common in boys.

CAUSES

Autism occurs because of a combination of genetic and environmental factors, though the exact cause is unknown. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering connections and the organisation of nerve cells and their synapses. Genetics play a major role—about 20 per cent of children with ASD also have certain genetic conditions. Some of the conditions include Down syndrome, fragile X syndrome and tuberous sclerosis. Other risk factors are having a sibling with ASD, having older parents (mother or father > 35 to 40 years) and parental history of psychiatric disorders.

CLASSIFICATION

Under ASD, autism is one of the five types of pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) of childhood. Of five PDD forms, Asperger syndrome (high-functioning autism) is the milder form and closest to autism. PDD not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), also called atypical autism, is the most common PDD. Rett syndrome and childhood disintegrative disorder are the other PDDs.

Autism is diagnosed not by a single symptom, but by a characteristic triad of symptoms that becomes apparent typically before age three:

SOCIAL INTERACTION

Autistic infants show less attention to social stimuli, poor response to their names and decreased eye-to-eye contact.

COMMUNICATION

They speak random words and cannot form proper sentences. They are also less likely to make requests or share experiences, and are more likely to simply repeat others words or reverse pronouns.

REPETITIVE BEHAVIOUR

Stereotyped behaviour: They make repetitive movements, such as flapping their hands or rocking their bodies.

Compulsive behaviour: Time-consuming behaviour intended to reduce anxiety, such as placing objects in a specific order, checking things or washing hands.

Sameness: Children with autism are resistant to change. For example, they will insist that the furniture not be moved and refuse to be interrupted.

Ritualistic behaviour and restricted interests: Interests that are abnormal in theme or intensity of focus, such as preoccupation with a single television programme, toy or game.

Self-injury: Eye-poking, skin-picking, hand-biting and head-banging.

RED FLAGS

● Speech delay or speech regression. No babbling by 12 months, no single words by 16 months.

● Lack of interest in peer relationships.

● Lack of spontaneous play.

● Persistent fixation on parts of objects.

● No gesturing by 12 months.

● Loss of any acquired language or social skills, at any age.

● Nearly half of the parents of children with ASD notice their child's unusual behaviour by the age of 18 months, and about four-fifths notice only by the age of two.

SCREENING INSTRUMENTS

Several diagnostic instruments are available. The Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT) and the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) are used widely.

TREATMENT

Early intervention improves prognosis in a significant proportion of children with ASD. The main goals when treating autism are to lessen associated deficits and family distress, and to increase quality of life and functional independence.

A multi-disciplinary approach, which includes a paediatric neurologist, child psychologist, early intervention therapist, speech therapist and occupational therapist, works better to treat the child. A few medications, such as a high dose of vitamins, omega fatty acids and L-carnosine have been tried. Also, co-morbidities like epilepsy, hyperactivity, irritability and sleeping disorders are treated with medication.

Available approaches to treat children with autism include applied behaviour analysis (ABA), developmental models, structured teaching, speech and language therapy, social skills therapy and occupational therapy.

PROGNOSIS

Autism is a life-long disability. It requires awareness and education for early detection and intervention. The vast majority of children with ASD will continue to show deviance and difficulties in social interactions throughout their lives. Acquiring language before the age of six and having an IQ above 50 predict better outcomes. People with severe autism will be less likely to live independently.

Prognosis should be discussed with the family to avoid unrealistic expectations. It is essential to put in the effort for early intervention and to foster family involvement, as well as community participation.

The writer is consultant paediatric neurologist, BGS Gleneagles Global Hospital, Bengaluru.

preventing-chronic-kidney-disease

Sat Jul 20 18:00:33 IST 2019

Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is increasing in India by epidemic proportions. Globally, one in every ten individuals is affected by CKD. The 2016 Global Burden of Disease reports an 87 per cent rise in the global burden of CKD and a doubling of CKD deaths between 1990 and 2016.

Understanding CKD

CKD is a condition characterised by chronic (> 3 months) urinary abnormality (protein or blood loss) or chronic reduction in kidney function (< 60 per cent). Diabetes and hypertension are the major reasons for developing this condition. Other causes include autoimmune diseases, hereditary kidney diseases like polycystic kidney disease, kidney stones and abuse of painkillers called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

Rising incidence in youngsters

The urban population is more affected by CKD owing to the rise in lifestyle diseases. A recent survey conducted to analyse factors contributing to CKD in the urban population found that 40 per cent of the CKD cases were due to diabetes, 20 per cent due to hypertension and the rest owing to other causes mentioned above. In about 25 per cent of the cases, the causes are unknown. Youngsters today have a fast-paced lifestyle, as a result of which the age a person can develop CKD has become 40-50 years instead of the earlier 50-60 years.

Managing CKD

Management of CKD includes treatment of the primary cause, if known, and treatment of complications associated with CKD, which include hypertension, abnormalities in volume and composition of body water and anaemia (low haemoglobin). Diet modification is also important and should be initiated at an early stage. The most common dietary modification is protein restriction, as the kidney's main function is to eliminate waste products of protein breakdown. It must be stressed that treatment including dietary modification must be individualised as complications of CKD vary from case to case. When kidney function is significantly reduced (<5 to 10 per cent), renal replacement therapy becomes mandatory. This stage is called end stage kidney disease (ESKD).

Treatment options for ESKD

There are three options: haemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis and kidney transplant.

In haemodialysis, blood is pumped out of the patient’s body to an artificial kidney to clean out the impurities. Patients will have to undergo the procedure thrice a week, with each session lasting three to four hours. It can be taxing for patients owing to the constant visits to the haemodialysis centre. It is worse for people in remote areas, with limited access to such centres. In peritoneal dialysis, a synthetic tube is placed in the peritoneal cavity of the abdomen. A cleansing fluid called dialysate is introduced through the synthetic tube and allowed to remain in the peritoneal cavity for six to eight hours. During this period, waste products and excess water from the blood diffuse into the dialysate, which is then drained out and fresh dialysate is introduced. This procedure is carried out three to four times daily. Peritoneal dialysis is simpler as it can be done at home or office and, therefore, involves limited lifestyle interruptions. It can even be done overnight, while the patient is asleep, with the help of a machine.

Kidney transplant provides better quality of life, longer survival and is more cost-effective in the long run. However, getting a suitable donor (living or deceased) is a challenge. Less than 5 per cent of patients developing ESKD are able to undergo kidney transplant.

Peritoneal dialysis: a boon for CKD patients

The outcomes of patients who receive haemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis are very similar, although some patients may be better suited for one modality compared to the other. For example, peritoneal dialysis has various advantages like no haemodynamic instability. Further, as there is no blood loss, haemoglobin is better maintained. The diet is more liberal, as this is a daily process and patients can perform this in the comfort of their home. This is a more suitable option for patients with high blood pressure and heart ailments as it allows removal of excess fluid in a gentle manner, thereby reducing stress on the heart. Moreover, peritoneal dialysis is very helpful for patients living in remote areas with limited access to haemodialysis facilities. Cost of peritoneal dialysis is similar to haemodialysis. With the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority recommendation to insurance firms to include peritoneal dialysis in their policy, we see a scope for more patients being able to avail of peritoneal dialysis facilities in the future.

Challenges in managing CKD

The real challenge with managing CKD is the availability of treatment. On an average, only 20 per cent of the urban population and less than 5 per cent of the rural population get treatment facilities for CKD. Haemodialysis is availed of by only 8 to 9 per cent of the population and peritoneal dialysis only by 2 to 4 per cent. Less than 5 per cent people can avail of transplant as a treatment option. This brings to the fore the need to address the gap in treatment. Health is a state subject, and states like Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have a Jeevandayee scheme for addressing the needs of CKD patients. India should be more preventive than curative and address the looming epidemic of diabetes and hypertension to curb the growing incidences of CKD affecting India’s young population.

Shah is a nephrologist at Global Hospitals, Mumbai.

building-capacity

Sat Jul 20 17:59:59 IST 2019

Health care emerged as a popular choice in the election manifestos this year. From raising the health care spend to 3 per cent of the GDP, upgrading diagnostic facilities in some 1,50,000 wellness centres to enacting the Right to Healthcare, the promises are many. But we must not forget the many infrastructural battles that India is still fighting. India has one of the worst doctor-to-patient ratio in the world. In fact, India stands at the 145th position on the Healthcare Access and Quality 2018 index, lower than neighbouring Bangladesh and even Sudan and Equatorial Guinea. For electoral promises to show tangible results, the existing health infrastructure demands a holistic facelift.

India needs a robust health infrastructure, which can be achieved only if we strengthen and build capacity within the existing health sector. From more hospitals, doctors and caregivers to a stronger public-private partnership towards building of more medical institutions, the existing medical infrastructure is in a dire need of a revamp in all its aspects—quality, accessibility and affordability.

Last year, the government introduced Ayushman Bharat—the world’s largest insurance scheme—to address access to health care, to improve patient outcomes and reduce out-of-pocket expenditures. But will a corpus of mere 06,400 crore be enough to treat millions, when reports suggest the minimum funds required for successful implementation are close to 01,00,000 crore? Take, for instance, Chhattisgarh. A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General shows that Chhattisgarh performed the worst in terms of medical infrastructure. Between 2012 and 2017, the audit found, “The state suffered from shortages of human resources in critical positions of specialist doctors to the extent of 89 per cent, medical officers by 36 per cent, staff nurses by 34 per cent and paramedics by 12 per cent against their sanctioned strengths. These shortages adversely affected the delivery of health care services by the district hospitals, community health centres and primary health centres.” This is true not just for Chhattisgarh, but also for all the other states.

Also, if the nearest hospital is far away and lacking a full-time doctor, specialist and paramedical staff, essential medicines, medical equipment and has an erratic power supply, the provisions of an insurance cover listed by Ayushman Bharat alone will not benefit an ailing patient.

Moreover, we need to enhance the skill sets of health care professionals for addressing existing and emerging medical conditions. The recruitment policies are outdated. We can learn from the private sector and recruit doctors, nurses and other health staff from colleges in the final year. The career progression needs to be streamlined, like in the Indian Administrative Services.

The Medical Council of India in 2011 mandated doctors to undertake 30 hours of continuing medical education every five years in order to re-register. However, only nine of 26 state medical councils have made re-registration mandatory.

With dramatic transformation of the health care industry, we can expect to shift the course of treatment from reactive to proactive diagnosis and management. Capacity building will help reinvigorate the development of sustainable skills, structures, resources and commitment to improvement in delivery of health care services. We need to move beyond the promises laid out during the electoral campaigns and address the following questions plaguing the growth of the existing medical infrastructure:

● Do the available health functionaries have the required skill sets?

● Do those with required skills have the required equipment, medicines and other supplies?

● Does the work environment facilitate caregivers to deliver high quality services?

All these questions need answers and the only way to address these gaps is through enhancing the state of existing health care infrastructure. While the promise of affordable health care seems like a perfect fit in a country where out-of-pocket health care expenses are pushing close to 64 million lives into poverty each year, the road to accessible health care is a long one. India needs to address the infrastructural gaps before paving the road to affordable health care.

The need of the hour is to provide quality health services, covering even the most remote locations. While the government is the most important player in administration of health services in India, there are gaps that need to be plugged, such as innovation, accountability, monitoring and evaluation and capacity building. Hence, it is imperative to forge partnerships both with the government as well as with private organisations. The PPP model can help enhance capacity of the existing medical institutions, doctors and frontrunners. By means of capacity building, we can scale the reach of health services while focusing on quality and innovation.

Kumar is director, International Institute of Health Management Research.

patient-safety-the-prime-priority

Sat Jun 15 19:06:46 IST 2019

Studies show that among 100 patients at any given time, seven in developed and 10 in developing countries will get at least one health care-associated infection. Therapeutic errors, incorrect diagnosis, counterfeit drugs, unsafe injection practices—the threats to patient safety are many.

Even as India inches towards the dream of accessible and affordable health care, patient safety continues to be a challenge. The national patients safety implementation framework (NPSIF) for 2018-2025 says that there is minimal funding on patient safety research. From the absence of a systematic method of training nurses to the lack of specialised skill sets in health care, the scarcity of resources is a barrier towards mitigating risks of unsafe care.

To address these gaps, Becton Dickinson partnered with the Joint Commission International for Patient Safety to develop a gold standard safety programme called PRIME (preventing risks of infections and medication errors in IV therapy) in South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and India.

PRIME marks a significant step in the direction of upgrading quality standards in a health care setting. It is structured to enable implementation of standard practices at bedside, with an enhanced awareness of preventable harm, through the process of IV therapy. This programme has a multi-pronged strategy for awareness, assessment, continuous updates through webinars, consultation sessions, evaluation and certification.

PRIME content consists of medication preparation, initiation of therapy, medication administration, maintenance of vascular lines, surveillance of health care-associated infections and incidence reporting. Working with a unique approach towards patient safety, we believe PRIME has the potential to accelerate the delivery of quality care in India.

The initiative sets an important milestone in patient care in India. Upon completion of the programme, hospitals will be certified to deliver quality care interwoven with patient safety. BD is working with hospitals such as Belle Vue Clinic Kolkata, Fortis Anandapur and Mohali, Breach Candy Mumbai, Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, Mumbai, KIMS Thiruvananthapuram, Kasturba Hospital Manipal, Max Healthcare Saket and Medanta-The Medicity, Gurugram.

In a country with rationed public health care and lack of data on the root causes of unsafe patient care, the understanding of a “patient safety culture” is limited. With PRIME as a vehicle to address the fundamental gaps in patient safety, we want to create safety champions in all clinical areas across hospitals.

Mocherla is managing director of Becton Dickinson, India and South Asia.

hit-in-the-heart

Wed May 22 11:42:32 IST 2019

In June 2018, Siddram, 25, a farmer from Chittapur in north Karnataka, experienced a sudden burning sensation in his chest. He started vomiting, and felt cold and weak. He went to a primary health centre and was treated for acute gastritis. He was placed under observation for a couple of hours, and was rushed to Jayadeva Hospital in Kalaburagi as his condition did not improve. Here, it was revealed that what was thought to be a gastritis episode was in fact a heart attack.

Owing to the fact that he was diagnosed with a heart attack only after six hours, Siddram developed acute heart failure—a progressive condition, in which the heart muscles weaken or stiffen over time, resulting in impaired blood flow to the body. Siddram is one of the 8 to 10 million heart failure patients in India. Heart failure is the leading cause of mortality among cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), with close to 23 per cent patients succumbing within one year of diagnosis.

Heart ailments, a national issue

According to a recent study published in The Lancet, the incidence of heart diseases has increased by more than 50 per cent among Indians, aggravated by a wide range of triggers such as salt, sugar, fat consumption and air pollution. The total number of deaths due to CVDs has also increased to 28 per cent in 2016, from 15 per cent in 1990. Indians are genetically predisposed towards coronary heart diseases. Chronic lifestyle diseases like high blood pressure, cholesterol, obesity and diabetes, and lifestyle habits like lack of physical activity, smoking, drinking and unhealthy diet are additional risk factors. The prevalence of CVDs was the highest in Kerala, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa and West Bengal, the report further said.

Some of the most prevalent heart diseases that ail Indians are ischemic heart disease, heart attack, hypertensive heart disease, rheumatic heart disease, coronary artery disease, heart failure, arrhythmia and cardiomyopathy (damage to the heart muscles from infections or alcohol or drug abuse or smoking). Ischemic heart disease is the most rampant of all heart diseases and is also the underlying cause of other CVDs. Close to 25 per cent of the global disease burden for ischemic heart disease is from India. The disease is characterised by reduced supply of blood to the heart. It is also the main reason for heart failure in Indian patients.

CATCHING THE YOUNG

The country has undergone rapid epidemiological and demographic transitions in the last two decades. As a result, the burden of heart diseases has increased significantly. For instance, heart failure in India has increased by nearly 140 per cent from 1990 to 2013. And worryingly, heart diseases are even affecting youngsters. As a result the mean age of heart failure patients in India is 59—around 10 years younger than patients in the US and Europe.

Shabina Taj, a 36-year-old housewife and mother of an 11-year-old, had been experiencing severe breathlessness and swelling in the legs for the last five to six months. She continued consulting her family physician to address these symptoms, but with no relief. Shabina had been also suffering from several other underlying diseases like diabetes, hypothyroidism, anaemia and mild-renal dysfunction. She had been a diabetic for more than 14 years. She also had six abortions.

The diseases were taking a toll on her overall health and eventually led to the weakening of her heart muscle. Recently, her symptoms worsened and she finally visited a hospital in a very unstable condition. After a series of tests, she was diagnosed with grade 4 heart failure (in which patients are almost bedridden and unable to perform routine activities).

Shabina had a surgical intervention, where a Left Ventricular Assist Device—a mechanical pump which assists the heart muscle to pump blood across the body—was implanted in her heart. She is currently on medication for heart failure and for all other underlying diseases. Her comorbidities are majorly responsible for her aggravated heart failure symptoms.

Living with heart diseases

With increasing life expectancy of the population and availability of effective treatment options to prevent death, the actual number of patients living with heart diseases has increased manifold. With proper medical supervision and adherence to doctor’s advice, heart diseases can be managed. Because a majority of heart patients reach the hospital in an emergency situation, they require intensive care and surgical intervention. This is almost always followed by long-term medications.

Most patients diagnosed with heart diseases at a younger age have to continue treatment and lifestyle modifications throughout their life. Elder patients with other existing chronic diseases have to be more careful. Conditions like heart failure are progressive in nature and increase the risk of impacting other vital organs, which leads to repeated hospitalisations and even death, regardless of the age.

Prevention and early diagnosis

Sudden cardiac diseases like heart attack and cardiac arrest could strike any time. To avoid them, one should resolve to maintain a healthy lifestyle and if above 30, go for an annual screening. However, some heart diseases like heart failure have visible symptoms, which, if identified early, can be effectively managed through advanced treatment options. Since the symptoms of heart failure could overlap with many other diseases or signs of old age, they could often be ignored.

Common symptoms include shortness of breath, swelling in the ankles, legs or abdomen, need for elevated pillows while sleeping to breathe properly and unexplained fatigue while performing routine activities. If any of these symptoms are present, one should immediately consult a cardiologist. The National Health Policy 2017 of India aims to reduce 25 per cent of premature deaths from cardiovascular diseases and ensure screening and treatment of 80 per cent of hypertensive patients by 2025. Comprehensive efforts by the government, medical community and other stakeholders from the health care industry can help prepare a roadmap to fight the growing epidemic of heart disease in India.

Names of patients changed to protect identity.

Manjunath is professor and head of cardiology and director of Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research, Bengaluru.

five-worrying-factors-this-election-season

Fri May 17 21:35:05 IST 2019

THE ELECTIONS so far have left me deeply concerned for five reasons.

First, the May Day attack on security forces in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district that killed 15 security personnel and one driver. It shows that the fight against Maoists has become a protracted war that intensifies during elections. Tragedies continue to strike in India’s red corridor, comprising districts in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Odisha and Bihar. The situation had hit rock bottom in 2013, when almost the entire Congress leadership in Chhattisgarh was gunned down in Sukma district in the run-up to the assembly polls.

It is well known that Maoists bury explosives deep below arterial roads and adjacent paths, making vehicular movement extremely dangerous. In spite of this knowledge, 15 personnel were dispatched in an unsecured, civilian bus to investigate a Maoist attack on trucks used by contractors for building roads. Standard safeguards were bypassed, leaving families shattered.

My second concern is the extent of illicit money being used to influence elections. Hard cash, liquor, drugs, bullion and freebies worth more than Rs 3,000 crore have been seized by election officials. The seizures made in the first four phases of this year’s elections significantly exceed the total seizures made in the 2014 polls.

It is clear that candidates are spending far more than the statutory limit of Rs 70 lakh. There are also rumours that the average spending is 10 to 20 times the limit. Surely, this makes a mockery of the Election Commission’s rules. Moreover, there is no limit on the spending by political parties on publicity or hired aircraft. Where does the money come from? How is it spent? There is very little transparency here.

The increasing presence of candidates facing criminal charges is my third worry. As many as 189 of 967 candidates (nearly 20 per cent) in the first four phases had criminal cases against them, according to their affidavits. More worryingly, 15 per cent (146 candidates) faced serious criminal charges, including murder, attempt to murder, dacoity, kidnapping and rape.

As many as 30 per cent of members of the sixteenth Lok Sabha had criminal cases against them; 16 per cent were booked for heinous offences. Will the 17th Lok Sabha be any different?

Fake news is my fourth concern. Its rapid proliferation on Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and other platforms is playing a destructive role. Our likes, dislikes and prejudices can be deduced and manipulated—as the US presidential election in 2016 showed an incredulous world.

The Election Commission has issued comprehensive guidelines to all social media platforms, asking them to abide by rules and statutes. But social media remains difficult to monitor. So the efficacy of the laws will need to be analysed in the post-election period of reflection.

My final concern is the growing perception that the model code of conduct is not being fairly administered by the Election Commission. The commission must be seen as a fair umpire, not just by politicians but also by the country as a whole. That would be the final measure of the fairness and transparency of the elections.

Will this Election Commission be able to measure up to the high standards set by the post-Seshan era of polls? The jury is still out.

guaido-vs-maduro-face-off-in-venezuela

Sat Apr 06 19:34:49 IST 2019

Juan Guaidó is really shaking things up in Venezuela. Twenty years after Hugo Chávez began the Bolivarian revolution, Guaidó, the 35-year-old opposition politician, has finally forced the government of Nicolás Maduro to play defence.

Over 50 countries recognise Guaidó, who has served since January as head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, as the country’s rightful leader. Meanwhile, the pressure to restore democracy in Venezuela is mounting, both domestically and internationally.

“How should I address you?” I asked Guaidó during a recent interview, via Skype. The question was an important one. Maduro’s government in Caracas describes Guaidó as a self-proclaimed president. But, Guaidó prefers another title, “acting president of Venezuela by mandate of the constitution,” and offers his own explanation—namely, that he has invoked Article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution, which prescribes that “when the president becomes permanently unavailable... the president of the National Assembly shall take charge of the presidency of the republic”.

In Guaidó’s view, the office of the president became vacant following Venezuela’s monumentally fraudulent election in May 2018. It was then, after the inauguration of the dictator for a second term in January, that Guaidó was sworn in as interim president, taking Venezuela’s Chavistas by surprise.

After he was declared president, many Venezuelans hoped Maduro would be ousted quickly. That did not happen.

I asked how Maduro can be unseated. “We must remain committed to ‘Operation Freedom’ and keep building up pressure within Venezuela,” Guaidó said. “And the international push that has been vital thus far must maintain momentum.”

In addition, Guaidó has offered an amnesty to members of the military and government officials who reject the regime, as well as the promise of free elections once Maduro is finally removed from office. But this has not been enough.

High-ranking military officers have refused to turn their back on Maduro. The atmosphere in the streets is one of fear. When I visited the country in February, I saw troops, police officers and Colectivos (pro-Maduro groups) all over Caracas.

Looking further back, Latin America has had to contend with a long and sad history of US invasions. It begs the question: Would Guaidó authorise foreign military missions in Venezuela? And, could the topic end up splitting the opposition? “The subject is not a cause for division,” Guaidó said. “It is a possibility among many others available to us. It is a sensitive subject. And, it would not be an act of external aggression, but rather of international cooperation.”

So, what can be done to solve the crisis? “We have three real options: a transitional government followed by an election; a sui generis transition, like in 1958 in Venezuela [when a military board unseated the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez]; or the use of force, but not necessarily involving foreign parties,” Guaidó said. “Right now, the armed forces are not happy with what Maduro is doing.”

So far, Maduro has not attempted to arrest Guaidó, who has travelled in and out of Venezuela several times. In this tug of war, neither side is willing to relinquish a single inch of power to the other. But, even this delicate balance is in itself a welcome change. It is a kind of balance that was never achieved while Hugo Chávez was alive.

“When will we see you in Miraflores Palace?” I asked finally.

“We would like for it to happen in hours or days,” he answered cautiously. “Never before have we reached this point. And if we persist, I feel—and this is the general perception here in Venezuela—that it will happen very soon.”

Ramos is a veteran journalist and author.

get-tested-on-time

Sat Feb 16 14:39:40 IST 2019

Cancer is one of the most dreadful but preventable non-communicable diseases. According to estimates by the Indian Council of Medical Research, about 8.8 lakh people will die of cancer annually by 2020. There is no holistic approach towards cancer prevention and treatment in India currently. A cancer diagnosis often leaves a person devastated and worried about the treatment options, the costs and the pain involved. However, it is not just the fear of invasive treatment, disfigurement or the financial burden. The misplaced belief that death will be the ultimate outcome for a cancer patient often makes families opt out of specialised treatment.

There is a need for a well-planned treatment pathway—cancer prevention, early detection, complete medical treatment as advised and post-treatment rehabilitation, not to mention availability, affordability and accessibility of the same. Cancer care in India is yet to fully adopt a preventive approach and still clings to treating the disease mostly when it has reached an advanced stage. For example, obesity, which stems from a sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy eating pattern, is one of the major risk factors for cancer. So are smoking and chewing tobacco. However, such issues are yet to be handled in a more comprehensive manner. Kerala, for instance, has ensured that a good number of cancer cases are detected at an early stage, thanks to timely screening, leading to relatively less mortality from the disease.

While the thought that “is it me?” can be scary, any unusual symptom should be reported. Notice any major changes in the way your body functions or feels and see a doctor immediately, more so if these persist for more than two to three weeks. Make some necessary lifestyle changes such as avoiding the use of tobacco, switching to a healthier diet and regular exercise. Vaccines such as the human papillomavirus and Hepatitis B help lower the risk of cervical and liver cancer, respectively.

Although India already has an extensive registry system for cancer, there is more work to be done to make a difference in the quantity and quality of data collected. Understanding the prevalence of cancer better across geographical locations can help in using them for research and development of better policies for effective cancer prevention. Better public-private partnerships in creating more awareness are also needed to ensure that the message reaches out to a larger audience.

Arming oneself with the right knowledge and utilising it effectively is the key to reducing the mortality associated with cancer. The future of this battle will be between an individual, his/her lifestyle and preventive approaches. It is important that we do not let cancer take us by surprise. The alarming rate at which cancer has spread across the country should initiate a call for action and awareness at the earliest. It must be ingrained in every citizen that only early and timely screening can ensure control and treatment at the appropriate time and prevent mortality. Going by the theme of this year's World Cancer Day—I am and I will—the need of the hour is to understand the condition and risk factors and take timely action.

Maiya is medical director, Portea Medical.

hypocrisy-documented

Fri Feb 08 11:18:37 IST 2019

It should come as no surprise that millions of undocumented immigrants work in the United States. Until recently, some of them worked at two, perhaps more, of President Donald Trump’s properties.

About a dozen undocumented immigrants worked at Trump’s golf clubs in Bedminster, New Jersey, and in Westchester County, New York, according to The New York Times and The Washington Post. The fact that undocumented immigrants were employed at the properties of a president who rose to the White House by criminalising and attacking these very people—whom he calls “illegals”— is worth noting, of course. But the practice of employing undocumented immigrants is much more common than we might imagine.

There is no evidence that Trump himself knew undocumented immigrants were working at his clubs. However, two of these employees, both of whom worked at Trump’s Westchester club, told me in an interview that they had worked there for years and had never had any problems. Until they were fired.

“Did the company know you were undocumented?” I asked Gabriel Sedano, a Mexican immigrant who had worked in maintenance at the Westchester property since 2005. “I think so,” Sedano said. “It was a very common practice at the club. I think they did not check them up.”

Margarita Cruz, who is originally from Puebla, Mexico, had worked as a housekeeper at the Westchester golf club since 2010. She gave her account of what happened: “I believe [Trump] wanted to carry out a purge before the government cracked down. He is just cleaning up. He has always said he does not want undocumented immigrants working for him. And now, if the government finally inspects all his employees’ documents, as it should, of course they won’t find anything, because he has already fired all of us.”

The president’s son, Eric Trump, who has day-to-day control of Trump’s properties, explained the dismissal of the workers to the Post as follows: “We are making a broad effort to identify any employee who has given false and fraudulent documents to unlawfully gain employment. Where identified, any individual will be terminated immediately.”

“The system is broken,” he concluded.

The fact that many undocumented immigrants worked at Trump’s properties for years is not surprising. What is surprising is that we pretend that this is something unusual. There are undocumented employees throughout the US, and we all benefit from their labour; they harvest our food, build our houses and apartments and look after our children, taking on the jobs most of us reject.

It is deeply hypocritical for Americans to badmouth undocumented immigrants, given the benefits they provide to society. It would be extremely difficult to find a single American whose life has not been positively affected by these immigrants.

The United States, as everyone likes to say, is a nation of immigrants. Now, that national identity is under siege. Many Americans are frightened by the country’s demographic revolution, and many would prefer that the country stop accepting so many immigrants, documented or undocumented, and instead become a nation of settlers and senior citizens.

Trump and the other merciless critics attacking undocumented immigrants refuse to accept a simple fact: Every time they visit a restaurant, or stay in a hotel, they receive the services of one or more undocumented immigrants. Such is life in the United States.

Ideally, the 10.7 million undocumented immigrants that now live in the United States would gain legal status. Unfortunately, in our current political climate, this is impossible. Until we have a new president, we can only operate in Trump-survival mode.

Ramos is a veteran journalist and author.

blood-cancer-needs-specialised-treatment

Fri Jan 25 16:52:27 IST 2019

Cancer is dreaded. Despite advances in surgical techniques, the affected organ, be it kidney or breast, often has to be removed from the body, followed by radiation therapy and treatment with anti-cancer drugs aimed at preventing its recurrence or spread. Once the cancer has spread beyond the organ or escaped into the blood stream to invade distant organs, it is called metastasis and is deemed incurable.

Compare this to the development of blood cancers, named under three broad categories—leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma. They are blood cells originating from the bone marrow that have gone rogue and are exploding in different lymph nodes and organs through the entire length and breadth of the body. Yet, blood cancers remain the most curable cancer, both in children and adults.

The reason for this is three-fold. First, the cancer cells are flowing in the blood stream and are accessible to the drugs we want to expose them to. Second, we know that they originate from the blood stem cells and they can be replaced with normal healthy blood stem cells. Finally, cancer of any sort rises from deficiency in surveillance of our immune system. By changing the soldiers of the immune system who are exhausted and cannot fight the cancer anymore with fresh ones, we can cure blood cancers that are not responsive to drugs. The latter two goals are achieved with a process called blood and marrow transplantation (BMT).

BMT is not a process in isolation but a culminating treatment for blood cancers, where the initial steps are orchestrated and entwined to lead to BMT. Thus, doctors who specialise in treating blood cancers and who are competent in performing the procedure of BMT are best suited to treat blood cancers. While this segregation of treatment of blood cancers and BMT is established in the western world, the concept is nascent in India.

There was a time when surgeons administered chemotherapy and later radiotherapists joined force as the drugs available to treat cancers were limited. Subsequently, surgery and radiation therapy attained greater precision and numerous drugs were added to the anti-cancer armamentarium. Newer drugs have increased the survival of patients with advanced solid organ cancers by an average of three months. On the other hand, a majority of blood cancers, irrespective of their type or nature, are potentially curable in patients below 65 years with a BMT done at the right time in the right way. Lack of awareness often leaves a patient suffering from blood cancer languishing under assaults of repeated chemotherapy and radiotherapy without being offered a curative option such as BMT. For example, 80 per cent of adults with acute myeloid leukemia require a BMT once the disease is under control (called first complete remission) and have 80 per cent chance of being cured. This reduces to less than 10 per cent once the disease returns with vengeance. Unfortunately, less than 10 per cent of the patients in the former category ever receive a BMT, depriving them of a potentially curative option.

A word of caution about BMT as well: being the most intricate process of modern medicine, this requires the greatest degree of expertise.

air-cover

Sat Dec 15 16:28:37 IST 2018

In the last few years, there has been a surge in respiratory issues among the elderly and children. Though many factors like allergens, smoking, family history, diet, nutrition and physical inactivity are associated with respiratory issues among these vulnerable groups, air pollution, both indoor and outdoor, is also a significant risk factor for pollution-related diseases like respiratory infections, bronchitis, asthma attacks and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. This can result in strokes and lung cancer among the elderly, and increase medication use, doctor or emergency room visits, hospital admissions and also result in premature death.

The reason why the effect is more in children is because their immune system and lungs are underdeveloped when exposure begins, resulting in impaired response to air pollution. Also, they spend more time outdoors, so exposure is high. Their breathing rate is faster than adults, and they breathe in more air per kilogramme of their body weight than adults. So, they are more exposed to air pollutants.

As we grow older, lung function decreases, and this decline is further increased with exposure to air pollution. Moreover, pre-existing diseases may determine susceptibility. Elderly people will most likely suffer from chronic diseases, and there is evidence that co-existing chronic lung, heart or circulatory conditions may worsen following exposure to environmental pollutants.

It is important to understand that respiratory issues can also affect overall health. Anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorders are common in patients suffering from chronic respiratory diseases. Sleep also gets affected, which further results in stress and affects concentration, immunity and routine work. Respiratory stress can also affect vital organs like the heart.

To reduce the effect of air pollution at home, one should ensure proper ventilation and use cleaner fuels at home. Keep the house clean. Window mesh screens can filter pollutants as well as insects. Purifiers and filters can be used, especially when someone has difficulty in controlling asthma. Air purifying plants such as aloe vera can help improve air quality at home. Avoid smoking at home. Children and the elderly should exercise to build lung capacity, and consume fruits rich in vitamin C, magnesium and food rich in omega fatty acids to improve immunity.

Before stepping out, check the pollution forecast. Pollution levels vary with time. For instance, mornings and evenings during winter are worse because of smog. Avoid exercising outside when air pollution is high. Medical grade anti-pollution masks can also be used. They vary in cost, durability and in extent of their protection against particulate matter (PM) and other pollutants. There are N95 masks, Cambridge masks, totobobo masks and N99 masks. While ‘95’ means that they can filter 95 per cent of PM, starting from 0.3 to 2.5 micron, ‘99’ means they can filter 99.9 per cent of PM, from 0.3 to 2.5+ micron. P95 and P100 masks are also available, which can filter oil-based pollutants, too. While buying a mask, look for its rating, level of protection, durability, fabric quality, nose bands and presence of exhalation valve. Extreme measures like closing the schools can be taken when pollution levels are very high.

Maurya is senior consultant and head, department of pulmonology and sleep disorders, Fortis Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, New Delhi.