Columns

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.

redlines-red-flags-and-red-rags

Thu Feb 24 15:58:22 IST 2022

As the crisis in Ukraine intensified, facial expressions changed. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who always looks impassive, became steely-eyed. Across the Atlantic, US President Joe Biden, who always looks jolly, narrowed his eyes to convey deadly intent, saying, “Make no mistake. Russia will be responsible for a catastrophic and needless war.”

The superpower draws redlines on the desert, on frozen ground, on oceans and across the skies. The hottest redline now: Russian invasion of Ukraine invites infliction of unprecedented economic pain by the US and its NATO allies. Redlines are customary in diplomacy, but international relations experts have always questioned their efficacy. Failure to enforce the punishment makes the “punisher” look weak—as president Obama did when he failed to execute his redline against the Syrian government for using chemical weapons. “It was a colossal mistake,” said his first national security advisor Jim Jones. Still, Obama left office with good international ratings.

Credible redline threats work only if accompanied by credible assurances. Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi decommissioned his chemical and nuclear weapons programme in exchange for normal ties with the west. Business flourished; but after a foreign-backed uprising, NATO countries bombed oil-rich Libya. Gaddafi was eventually brutally murdered by a mob, making opponents wary of western assurances. Likewise, Afghan civilians feel betrayed by the US pull out. In 1994, Ukraine returned to Russia its nuclear arsenal inherited from the Soviet Union. In return, Moscow had guaranteed Ukraine’s security. As Russian assurances are not credible, NATO suspects that even if they deny membership to Ukraine, Russia will only be encouraged to ask for more.

Threats invariably fail. Sanctions, sabotage, bombardments and cyberattacks rarely compel countries to comply. Former prime minister Morarji Desai once told me in the context of India-Sri Lanka relations, “Never underestimate the capacity of a small nation to defy the big bully.” Even small and weak nations resist and retaliate, rather than retreat when faced with what they see as injustice.

The reason for such behaviour is psychological. Redlines provoke powerful emotions in the receiving country—anger, fear, hatred, humiliation, suspicion, resentment and defiance. Emotions are unstable and unpredictable, leading to reactions ranging from exemplary courage to suicidal stubbornness. Redlines can be counterproductive. Says political psychologist Kathleen E. Powers, “For strategic and psychological motivations, redlines sometimes trigger the very actions that they seek to deter.”

Russia intended to widen divisions within NATO, but its show of force against Ukraine succeeded only in unifying it. The US wished to condemn Russia as a declining power, but succeeded in inflating it into a resurgent force. Whenever the US sells weapons or sends battleships to Taiwan, China reacts with a big display of power. Forceful US warnings aim to deter Chinese violations of Taiwanese airspace. But the rhetoric provokes more violations.

Studies by security analysts reveal two important findings that prove dialogue is more effective than redlines. “The reputational risk of walking back from a redline is not as severe as countries fear,” notes political scientist Dan Altman. Obama proves this. Nor are the strongest or fiercely worded redlines the most productive. Altman says, “Clear, measured redlines are more effective than blunt, aggressive language.”

Using dialogue to address Russia’s insecurity aggravated by NATO expansion can be more productive than threats, sanctions or attacks. Whether eyes are steely or narrowed, an eye-for-an-eye slugfest, will, as Mahatma Gandhi said, “Leave the whole world blind.” An impassioned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked, “After a great war, we are a country without borders… is there anything left to pick up?”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

hell-of-a-party

Sun Feb 13 10:21:34 IST 2022

A popular refrain in London these days is “the wheels of Boris Johnson’s government are falling off”. Johnson’s closest aides are spinning away and out from the prime minister’s office for reasons ranging from his or their misbehaviour. The resignations have come in the wake of Partygate—the scandalous series of chummy, boozy parties held in 10 Downing Street when the rest of the country was isolated under strict lockdowns. Tabloids described it as Johnson’s “Week from Hell”.

For the first time, a section of his own Conservative partymen revolted, joining ranks with the opposition to demand that he go. But unless 54 Tory MPs sign up for his ouster, Johnson’s jalopy careens on, with or without wheels. British politics commentator Prof. Erik Mustad said, “Johnson will cling to power until it is completely impossible to remain as prime minister.”

Johnson’s past suggests he will keep running, ducking and punching until he has no place to hide. Partygate reinforced the image of the PM and his aides as a bunch of rambunctious dorm buddies unfit for high office—cavalier, irresponsible and insensitive to national suffering. They celebrated in Downing Street with garden parties, “Wine Time Fridays”, quiz and fizz festivities, secret Santa soirees and,” bring your own booze” (byob) party. Outside, 500 people were dying of Covid every day, ordinary people arrested and fined for “unlawful” get-togethers. The acronym ‘byob’ went viral, while banners sprouted like poisonous mushrooms: “He partied, while people died”.

The biggest of the wheels to come off was Munira Mirza, Johnson’s policy chief, a loyal aide of 14 years, since he was London mayor. She left because she could not stomach his scurrilous lies against opposition leader Keir Starmer that he failed to prosecute a celebrity paedophile. Johnson’s reflex reaction was to quickly put stepneys in place, hoping his promises to induct new staff, refresh his cabinet and reboot his relationship with the party, would defuse party rebellion.

The superseding of the critical Sue Gray report that investigated Partygate with a new police inquiry has bought Johnson time. The embattled PM, who swings from crises to crises, calculates a new crisis will eclipse Partygate and the calls for his resignation will lose steam.

But the British public are tired of crises and his poll ratings are sinking. His handling of Covid was a policy of errors, rife with contradictions, violations and decisions that doubled the death toll, scientists said. Covid shaved off a jaw-dropping 20 per cent from the GDP. When the job subsidy that supports 8.9 million workers ends in June, experts predict a 10 per cent unemployment rate—the worst in Britain since the Depression. Inflation, supply shortages and high energy prices have been brutal. A YouGov poll found that 72 per cent of Britons disapprove of Johnson—a big shift from his 2019 landslide election victory when he landed the Conservative Party 359 MPs.

With Brexit, Johnson divided Britain. Now, he divides Conservative Party. With varying intensities of internal opposition, it is difficult for him to rule with authority. The battle has shifted outside, between his loyalists and would-be assassins. More exposes or election losses can be fatal. In December, the Tories lost the North Shropshire seat that they had held for a century. Said Mustad, “Johnson has dug his grave deeper and deeper. But for now, he is still sitting there.” Everybody agrees Johnson cannot survive another “Week from Hell”. Then again, he has the devil’s luck. Then again, luck is fickle.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

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.

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.

governors-should-govern-themselves

Sun Nov 13 11:15:08 IST 2022

The bad example set by elevating the former governor of West Bengal to vice president as a reward for his running battle with Mamata Banerjee has, it would seem, signalled BJP-appointed governors to follow the Jagdeep Dhankhar path by insinuating the Centre’s preferences and priorities into the functioning of popularly elected state governments who are opposed to the BJP, thus undermining of our federal polity.

We have already seen this blatantly done in non-BJP run Maharashtra, Telangana, Jharkhand and, of course, West Bengal, but has now come to the fore in the two sensitive southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu where the CPI(M) and the DMK, respectively, have won impressive mandates from the electorate, reducing the BJP to ashes.

In Kerala, the over-ambitious Arif Mohammad Khan, who has run the gamut of virtually every political party in the north—starting with the Congress, and come a cropper consistently—and is now in the tight embrace of the BJP (against whose religious majoritarianism he was a champion at the start of his long and convoluted political innings) has created a constitutional crisis, the latest manifestation of which is the lie that Jawaharlal Nehru invited the RSS to participate in the first Republic Day parade.

Whereas maintaining decorum is the first requirement of the holder of so senior a Constitutional office as governor, and above all keeping himself strictly above partisan politics in the spirit of the Constitution, Khan actually convened a press conference in Raj Bhavan where he levelled accusations against the Left government and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, senior CPI(M) leaders and others ministers. Now, it is not only Khan’s right but duty to inform the CM privately of perceived shortcomings in governance and complaining to the President at whose “pleasure” he holds office, but to actually drag such dirty linen into the public discourse surely amounts to abuse of office.

Khan has publicly stated that, “Left parties are following communist ideology, which is a foreign concept that authorises the use of force to silence dissent.” He forgets that the CPI(M) is a duly registered party by the Election Commission that has checked its antecedents before granting recognition. It is all right for a political party to make the claim that he has made, but it is not for a governor to sneer in such a manner at a political party that has repeatedly been elected by the people of Kerala and created history recently by getting itself re-elected.

In neighbouring Tamil Nadu, Governor R.N. Ravi has withheld consent to as many as 20 bills passed by the state legislature. He has provoked all the parties of the alliance that runs the DMK-led government, to prepare a memorandum to the President to withdraw her “pleasure” since the governor lacks “basic knowledge, integrity and impartiality” and is “an embarrassment to the people” of the state. The memo indicts him for “incit(ing) hatred and creat(ing) communal unrest” by assertions such as India being “dependent on one religion” and propagating “conservative and poisonous ideas” amounting to “sedition” as they “attempt to bring hatred and contempt and excite disaffection towards a state government established by law”. Moreover, he has inflicted “deep wounds to Tamil sentiments and pride” by denouncing the state’s “Dravidian heritage”. He has involved himself in partisan politics by returning a bill against the Centre’s NEET and publicly rebuked the state government for rejecting the BJP’s National Education Policy. His latest transgression has been the allegation that the state government delayed bringing the NIA into the investigation of the Coimbatore bomb blast. All this and more “deforms cooperative federalism and destroys our democracy”.

Does the Constitution allow the BJP to fire from the governor’s shoulder in states where the electorate have rejected the overtures of the sangh parivar?

Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.

indo-china-1962-war-military-drawbacks-mani-shankar-aiyar

Fri Oct 28 14:24:44 IST 2022

On October 20, 1962, the Chinese launched a pre-emptive counterattack to the threat held out to them by the Indian prime minister eight days earlier that he had ordered the Army to “throw the Chinese out” of the Thagla Ridge. Within a month, they had conquered all of NEFA; then, as their troops stood poised on the edge of the Brahmaputra Valley, the Chinese suddenly undertook a unilateral withdrawal from the territories they had conquered, including even Tawang.

Who was responsible for this humiliating disaster? Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and defence minister V.K. Krishna Menon have been flayed for mistaken political assessments that led to the catastrophe. Air Vice Marshal (retd) Manmohan Bahadur raises the pertinent question: “Why was it that the Army top brass was not strong enough to stand up to the political interference in affairs that were purely military?”

The answer has been given in the Henderson Brookes-Bhagat report that was commissioned by the Union government in the wake of the military setback. The report was submitted a few months later while all the errant participants were still around. Since then, the “Army top brass” has succeeded in preventing the release of the report. Now, none of those indicted is around. And spending on the armed forces has risen precipitately. There is no comparison between the state of our battle readiness today and what it was in 1962. Yet, the braided generals refuse to let the defence ministry authorise the release of the report.

Not that that has stopped leaking the political conclusions so that the blame is comprehensively shifted to the civilian politicians involved. There is no denying their role and responsibility. Yet, cloaking the truth with regard to the Army generals involved continues. All we know is that from the chief of Army staff, General P.N. Thapar down, the entire Army leadership was officered by young men who received rapid out-of-turn promotions with the departure of the British. They just did not have the training or experience of higher command that they would have had if their promotions had come in the normal way. But apart from that one fact, what they did wrong remains a state secret—but, meanwhile, the political indictment has been leaked. What went wrong militarily remains out of bounds. The one exception is Lieutenant General B.M. Kaul, commander of the newly created IV Corps, who has deservedly been hauled over the coals, but only because his was essentially a political appointment without military justification. But of all the other commanders, there seems to be a vow of bureaucratic omerta that has compromised any objective analysis of what went militarily wrong.

One is reminded of a conversation among German generals during the First World War:

Ludendorff: “The English soldiers fight like lions.”

Hoffman: “True. But don’t we know that they are lions led by donkeys.”

It is to confirm or reject such a description of the Indian jawan and his commanders that requires the release of the Henderson Brookes-Bhagat report of 1963. For, as AVM Bahadur argues, the war colleges of the three services “need to delve into what transpired during that fateful period”. He does not add that we might thus get over our national ’62 complex. This, in turn, might encourage us to a “fair and reasonable” settlement of the border as envisaged at the conclusion of Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to China in 1988, which led five years later to the Treaty on Peace and Tranquility on the border.

Modi thought he would reinforce the treaty with a personal charm offensive but that only exposed the contradictions between his overtures to Xi and his contrary overtures to Trump. Galwan followed with the inevitability of night following day.

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.