A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN.

 " There's a new Sheriff in town," was what the newly minted TD Vance, Vice President of the USA, informed Europe in his typical hillbilly way on his first visit there. He was, presumably, referring to Trump and not to the federal marshal, Musk, who appears to be riding shotgun for the former as the American prairie schooner rides rough-shod over what's left of the rules-based global order. But this piece is not about American sheriffs- it's about the new sheriff that has just arrived in India.

It's name is Grok, Grok 3 to be precise, which has just been released by Elon Musk and  is instilling more fear among India's powerful than Wyatt Earp and Doc Halliday ever did in the Wild West, to continue with the frontier imagery. In just a week of its launch it has had the hombres and rats running for cover, and forced Amit Malviya to observe a "maun vrat" while he tries to figure out how to make his untruths Grok- proof. It's not hard to figure out why.

For any near-totalitarian state the main tool to control the population is not the police, it's disinformation- fake news, witholding of information and official data, capturing the media to disseminate only propaganda, build narratives based on lies, distort history. This has worked very well for the ruling party in India so far, for there are now very few channels of authentic news left, and the govt's official data (unemployment, household consumption, census, deforestation, inequality, poverty, electoral data) is either suppressed, distorted or outright denied. The voter has no choice but to rely on whatever is manufactured by govt. agencies.

Not any more, for the new sheriff in town is changing the rules of the game, albeit in a much more democratic and kosher way than Sheriff Trump. In just a few days, in response to questions put to it, Grok has thoroughly exposed and contradicted the narratives we have been fed on for the last ten years. It has told us, for example, that there is no evidence that Mr. Modi (or Mrs. Irani) have a degree, that it was Muslims and not the RSS that participated in our freedom struggle, that Mrs. Sonia Gandhi was never a bar dancer, that Arnab Goswami and Sudhir Choudhry are the top sycophants among the godi media anchors, that Rahul Gandhi has held 43 press conferences compared to Mr. Modi's 1, that Nehru donated Rs. 196 crores of his personal wealth (current value Rs. 49000 crore) to the country in 1946, that when he became UP Chief Minister in 2017 Yogi Adithyanath had 28 criminal cases registered against him, all of which he withdrew. The country's sold-out media would never have shared these gems with us.

No wonder the rats are bolting into their holes. For the credibility of Grok cannot be questioned: its responses are based on archival data from across a multitude of sources-left, right and center-, it has no ideology, its algorithms have no political leanings, it relies on hard data and not presumptions or manufactured  narratives. The ruling party and its right wing acolytes cannot even accuse it of bias, for does it not belong to the friend of our Prime Minister's buddy Doland? Irony just died a thousand deaths here.

As access to Grok multiplies, and as social media and Youtubers become more aware of the possibilities, expect a torrent of authentic, hitherto concealed information and data to flood our information universe, with more and more exposures of the disinformation blanket thrown over the country these last few years. This can only make for a more open society, a better informed citizenry, and a more responsive government. But I am more excited than the average Joe (it takes a lot to excite me these days) for I visualise a limitless potential for this magical AI tool.

Take, for instance, the RTI apparatus which has been almost completely disembowelled by the govt. Grok has the potential to replace our RTI Commissions to some extent because it will unearth and mine information from millions of disparate sources on any subject/ question in a nano second, which your PIO cannot or does not want to do. Even better, can we hope that some day Grok will replace our lumbering courts with their 50 million pending cases, their judgments increasingly based on preferential expectations and majoritarian ideology, their benches staffed by indifferent practitioners of law, accused waiting for years for a judge's pleasure just to get bail, forget about a trial ? Can you imagine a judicial system where there are no lawyers, no judges, no pendency? Just feed the facts of a case (civil or criminal), the evidence, the pleadings, previous case law into the algorithms of Grok- and hey Presto!- you have a judgment in minutes! Based on law and merits, which is becoming a rarity these days. I don't know about Donald Trump or Mr. Modi or Justice Chandrachud, but Solomon would certainly have approved of this. And oh! Umar Khalid too.

[Also published in The Tribune of 23rd March 2025]

ARE BANKERS DRIVING YOU BONKERS?

                             ARE  BANKERS  DRIVING  YOU  BONKERS ?

Unlike our Prime Minister or Mr. Narayan Murthy, I do not labour for 18 hours a day; in fact, I don't labour at all- having toiled for 35 years I have now left it to others to clear out the mess I've created during that period. But this doesn't mean I don't put in many productive hours every day- for, as the L+T Chairman never said: "they also serve who only stand and stare." Deleting the hours I spend in sleeping, and staring at Neerja, I do work for about four hours every day at my office table which I picked up at a Delhi "chor bazaar" just before someone nicked my wallet. But- and here's my grouse and the trigger for this piece- about 2 of these hours is spent sorting out issues with my banks.

This constitutes my daily nightmare, of the digital kind. All banks have now gone online and that has its advantages, especially in the matter of withdrawing cash through ATMs, making payments, opening FDs etc. through net-banking. Beyond these, however, if you have an issue like change of phone number or address, or a suspect credit or debit, or closing an account, and need to contact the bank or its manager, or do a KYC, then you need to gird up your loins, prepare for a few frustrating weeks and long for the old days when you could drop it at the branch to have a cup of tea with the BM while your issue was sorted out in a cordial manner. Not any more. These days you have to deal with an anonymous, faceless, algorithmic monster called Customer Service, a legal fiction which you are led to believe exists (like God) but actually doesn't (again, like God).

I have accounts in four banks, having decided to spread the risks when they start collapsing whenever Mr. Adani decides to buy Cyprus or St. Kitts and move there with his trillions. But, since it's now quite clear that he is happy to stay in India and buy this country instead, I decided to close two of these accounts before dementia catches up with me and I forget about all of them. I've been waging a battle with one of these banks for the last month to close one account. A Speed post letter to the Branch Manager has elicited no acknowledgement-I suspect he is also a legal fiction and doesn't exist. Six emails to Customer Service ("we value our relationship with you") have elicited six identical responses saying it can't be done online and that I should visit the branch with as many papers as I carried to my UPSC interview 50 years ago. I pointed out that I am a senior citizen and should not be expected to physically go to the Branch which is twenty kilometers away: no response from the bot at the other end, but I thought I could hear a snicker from the Bank's URL. The account is still not closed: I think I shall bequeath it in my Will to someone I detest, preferably a "bhakt" or some dandy from St. Stephens College (do I need to tell you that I'm from Hindu College?)

There are other missiles in the armoury of Customer Service which they unleash in the whee! hours of the night. One morning you'll be suddenly informed that your basic savings account has been upgraded to Burgundy or Platinum or Super Value, which requires you to maintain a few lakhs in your account at all times, on pain of penalty charges. In return, you will get your own Relationship Manager, free access to an Indigo airport lounge and a discount on meals at a five star restaurant. I've tried telling them that Neerja manages my  relationships, and does a pretty good job at nurturing and terminating them too, if she is so inclined; that I wouldn't fly even if God gave me wings and the rank of Air Chief Marshal; that it makes no sense to have a biryani in a hotel where Ms Sitharaman takes 28% of the food off the plate even before I've had the first bite and Service Charge takes 15% of what's left. But he algorithms are designed not to take NO for an answer and I didn't get far with this line of reasoning.

And then there is the bane of our digital lives- the KYC. Every once in a while we are asked to re-verify our mug shots, finger prints, addresses and telephone numbers. The public sector banks, those remnants of the dinosaurs, insist that you physically visit their branches to do so, even if you are on the International Space Station with Sunita Williams. (Incidentally, you now have to do this also for your FastTag, gas connection, insurance policies, mutual funds, land holdings, electricity connection, etc.) It doesn't matter a whit that you've had an account with the bank for 40 years, or that it's a pension account verified by the AG himself, or that you've never, ever, defaulted on a loan or a credit card payment, or ever had any dealings with Suresh the Con-man, or Mallya or Choksi or Nirav Modi. While people like these gentlemen are siphoning off thousands of crores from the banks, we cannot touch our own moneys. KYC it has to be, or start begging at the Khan Market red light for your daily bread.

One can't help but feel that we are rushing too fast into wholesale digitalisation without adequately preparing our personnel, processes and culture for it, just like Mr. Gadkari with his express-ways and Ms Sitharaman with her GST. Sometimes one longs for the older ways. I recollect my dad, after retirement in Kanpur, used to visit his bank branch  two or three times every week, have a gossip session with the BM, get tips on investments, cash a cheque or two over tea and aloo ki tikkis and return home a satisfied customer. He died of old age, not the effects of dealing with Customer Service and Digital India. Me, I'll probably die of an embolism caused by a Customer Service algorithm.

I'm considering closing all my bank accounts, withdrawing the funds and going into partnership with my village money lender; he's promised me an annual return of 8% (no TDS, of course), which is more than what these banks give. Problem is, he wants me to do a KYC too!

[ This blog was published by the TRIBUNE]

THE DISNEYFICATION OF RELIGION

 

THE DISNEYFICATION OF RELIGION

 

Marx missed the full picture when he described religion as an opiate of the masses. so did George Carlin when he  claimed that God was a fiction. For today Neo-Capitalism and right-wing fundamentalism have assigned God a new role and turned Him into an FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Good): far from being an opiate He is now a stimulant for consumption on a gigantic scale, the driver for GDP and GST growth. If, along the Laffer curve, a few consumers die in a stampede or fire, that is acceptable collateral damage, a tax write-off where the public picks up the bill while the high priests of Mammon go chuckling to the Bank. The on-going Maha Kumbh, which the U.P. government claims will add Rs. 2 lakh crores to the state's GDP, is the apotheosis of this new divine role.

The Hindu religion being one of the main pillars of the BJP's very existence and power-play, it has to be constantly glorified, burnished and made larger than life. As Yuval Noah Harari asserts, a religion is not just its deities but also the social functions it performs. The BJP's aim is to ensure that one of these "social functions" is the legitimising and consolidation of its power and narrow world-view. Given these high stakes, Hinduism can no longer be left to the tender mercies of the Shankaracharyas, Mahamandeleshwars, priests, purohits or the humble devotee and pilgrim in the villages. It must be ornamentalised, over hyped and aggrandised, made a television spectacle, a platform for projecting the party and the Prime Minister as its prime custodian. This is a continuation of a medieval mindset we thought the modern world had left behind: did not the emperors and kings of that time build cathedrals, pyramids, gigantic statues, temples and monuments to perpetuate their own myths, dogmas and personalities, to remain in the public eye and memory? Were kings and Pharohs not considered embodiments of the divine power? Religion may be a fiction, so it has to be dressed up, for the grander the fiction the easier it is to get the public to swallow it.

It is in this backdrop that we must understand this government's hostile takeover of the religion, and its obsession with the Disneyfication of our religious places and the conversion of all major Hindu festivals into  Cecil de Mille type of Hollywood productions. A few recent instances will help to establish this point:

* The inauguration of the new Parliament building on 28th May 2023 was done with all the splendour of a Roman coronation, complete with the sengol substituting for a scepter and procession of high priests. A secular political function was transformed into a religious one.

* The consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, built at a reported cost of Rs. 1800, crore was an even grander event, the tempo having been built up for weeks before, like some gladiatorial show at the Colosseum.

* The Kashi Vishwanath corridor, which will cost Rs. 800 crores when all its phases are complete, was hyped up as the rebirth of Varanasi, another re-affirmation of a resurgent Hinduism; the destruction of hundred of houses and private temples to make way for the corridors was, of course, acceptable collateral damage.

* The Char Dham Highway, ripping through the heart of the Himalayas and built against all environmental considerations, is again an emblem of religious revivalism, even though it is rationalised on strategic defence grounds. It will cost about Rs. 12000 crores and is already causing irreversible damage to the mountains.

* A dedicated and wholly unnecessary highway is being built for the Kanwariyas in U.P. at a cost of Rs. 650  crores and a reported 33000 trees, once again to project the religion in a larger than life format and to milk religious sentiments.

* The exaggerated claims of the Mahakumbh, its deafening publicity and non-stop 24X7 media coverage, the Guinness scale of infrastructure created at a reported cost of Rs. 7000 crore (and Rs. 5000 crore by the Railways) is again meant to amplify the same message.

It's the same with festivals. The Kumbh has been celebrated since time immemorial, every decade or so, but the frenzy created around it this year is unprecedented, with even Blinkit home- delivering sangam water, virtual dips being offered online, and someone else taking a dip on your behalf at the sangam for a nominal charge! I have lived in Delhi for fifty years but have never witnessed things like Ganesh Chaturthi, the Chhat Pooja or the Kanwariya Yatras being magnified to the kind of spectacles we witness nowadays. This resurgence of a placid faith is clearly contrived, funded and Disneyfied with a purpose.

Somewhere along the way, the spiritual and ascetic in Hinduism has been replaced with the commercial and extravagant, to serve the "function" of a political party. Which should not surprise anyone, because religion has always been a business and tool for power. As Prof. Paul Seabright says in his extraordinary book, The Divine Economy, the divine science (religion) has always had a large element of the dismal science (economics) mixed with it. It offers a product (salvation), has a network of providers (priests) and well established distribution channels. There are many "products" in the market (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etc.) and they all compete with each other for market share.

It should not surprise anyone, therefore, that the corporatisation of Hinduism now has a righteous , if not liturgical, angle to it, to serve a political purpose. It has become a bustling share market where the common investor gets his returns in divine indulgence, and the new corporates get theirs in votes. And those who do not buy into this stock market are the new kafirs. Nietzsche had famously said that God is dead. He was wrong- God has now been repositioned as a marketable product.

[ This blog was published in the TRIBUNE on 2.3.2025 under the title REPOSITIONING GOD AS A MARKETABLE PRODUCT.]

THE NEW THREAT FOR HIMACHAL'S RIVERS

                               

                                        [ This blog was published in THE TRIBUNE ]

THE  NEW  THREAT  FOR  HIMACHAL'S  RIVERS

Himachal's beautiful and priceless rivers are facing a new threat in their ongoing battle against "development". First it was the roads hacked out in their valleys, dumping tens of millions of tonnes of earth and debris into their waters, constricting their flows and  devastating aquatic life. Then came the hydel projects, extinguishing whatever little aquatic life was left, drying up the waters, and causing floods downstream. Now there's a new threat, ironically, the very sector and activity they nurture- Tourism.

As tourism expands into the remote interiors of the state under the indulgent and sightless gaze of the state government, its tentacles are snaking their way up the river valleys, bringing with them the same mercenary ruthlessness that has destroyed the state's urban centers. Haphazard constructions- hotels, homestays, guest houses, dhabas, workshops- are coming up all along these rivers, sometimes even on the river beds and their flood plains, obscuring the lovely views of rivers, dumping muck in them, discharging their sewage directly into the flowing waters, narrowing their channels. There are very few rivers left that are relatively undisturbed by this ravaging; having travelled (on foot) to practically all of them, I can count and name them on one hand- the Tirthan, Pubber, Uhl, Baspa, Chandrabhaga, Parvati (above Pulga), Rupen. Unless the government-particularly the departments of Forest, Town and Country Planning, Fisheries, Deputy Commissioners, Tourism- wakes up urgently the days of these rivers are numbered.

The Tirthan in Kullu district is perhaps the last of the relatively untouched rivers, because most of its course lies in the Great Himalayan National Park; it is also the final bastion of the endangered free roaming rainbow trout. Sadly, however, it has been discovered by Tourism and dozens of hotels and homestays have started springing up along its length below Gushaini, most of them "benami". A picture of a typical construction that is going on there even as I write this is given below, sent to me by some friends there:

                         

                 [ Construction of a hotel on the bed of the Tirthan river in Kullu district]

This massive construction (it's a hotel) has occupied almost two thirds of the width of the river bed, leaving just a narrow channel for the river to squeeze through. The problems it presents are obvious to all, except perhaps the government agencies who are supposed to prevent this: the obstruction caused by the structure will alter the course of the river, deflecting the water to the opposite bank and eroding it and washing away the orchards clearly visible in the photo.; any flood in the river will pose  a grave danger to this building and its residents; the entire sewage and grey water from this building has no other way to go but to be discharged into the Tirthan, no matter what its owners may say: the building is fifty below the road level and the sewage can only go down, not up. It doesn't matter if the construction is on private land- it is on the river bed, interferes with the flow of the river which should have the first right of way, will cause pollution in a river the locals consider as holy as the Ganga, and poses a threat to life. The locals have been protesting against this ongoing construction, and four panchayats of Banjar have passed a resolution asking for the work to be stopped but as usual, money and influence talks louder because the work continues, with redoubled vigour!

How are these types of constructions being allowed to come up? Is it even legal under the stringent land ownership laws of the state, debarring outsiders from owning land here? Has it obtained TCP and Pollution Control Board approvals, and if so, how were these granted in the face of the obvious implications on safety and the environment? The Deputy Commissioner Kullu and concerned departments need to address these questions. (I learn that a temporary stay had been issued by the Forest department now, but that is now vacated).

Similar constructions are happening along all the rivers. After the floods of 2022-23 the government has taken some decisions about banning constructions on the flood plains of the Beas. This is not enough. Similar action should be taken for all the rivers in the state, at least the ones mentioned above, which are under grave threat. Any type of construction (regardless of land ownership) should be prohibited within at least 50 meters of the river bank, or upto its HFL (High Flood Level). It is imperative that an Eco-Zone be declared along the entire length of these rivers under the Environmental Protection Act, on the pattern of National Parks. Before granting approvals a thorough scrutiny should be made of the land title to rule out "benami" deals. It is common knowledge that this is rampant in the Tirthan valley.

Himachal's rivers are its most precious assets, especially given the prospect of the looming water shortages in the coming decades. They should not be destroyed for commercial profits and political rent seeking.

IT'S NOW OFFICIAL-- WE ARE A NATION OF PARASITES

 A long, long time ago when people still read books and were not educated exclusively by Whatsapp forwards or Tik-Tok reels, Nirad Choudhry, the last Englishman in India, claimed in his book of the same name that India was a continent of Circe, where humans were turned into beasts. Now, 70 years later, he has been vindicated by no less an authority than the Supreme Court of India itself. In a recent judgment a bench of the Court termed the under privileged and poor of the country (there are 230 million of them, and 800 million get free rations) as "parasites", thereby improving upon Nirad Babu's formulation of mere beasts. It said, in effect, that the poor, the jobless, the homeless, the landless- the most vulnerable and helpless sections of our 1400 million people- were unjustly consuming the resources of the state through subsidies, doles and "freebees" and implicitly castigated them for their sorry fate. "Are we not creating a class of parasites?" it asked, going on to lament that "they are getting free rations without doing any work!" A demonstration of empathy not seen since the times of Nero.

The Court, in its zeal to sound both learned and neo-liberal, has unwittingly provided its imprimatur and endorsement to the insensitive, cold hearted and callous attitude of the present government to the ordinary citizen of the country, whose fate it is to be counted at election time and then to be consigned to the dungeons of oblivion. Public suffering, hardship and grievances does not matter to it so long as it continues winning elections. This has been amply demonstrated in the last ten years on numerous occasions when the government has not batted an eyelid to provide relief or redress wrongs, or to even display some compassion: the interminable queues at banks and ATMs, in the rain and cold, during the disaster of demonetisation; the year long protest of farmers resulting in more than 600 deaths, the ill-conceived and sadistic Covid lockdown forcing millions of the urban poor to WALK back to their distant villages in the searing heat, being de-contaminated and beaten by police on the way; the messed up Covid policies resulting in more than 40 lakh deaths according to WHO and international observers, the hundreds of corpses floating in the Ganga, the dead in the Kumbh hyper marketing. Even as I write this the Railways are herding Mahakumbh pilgrims into trains like sardines, 5000 in a train meant for 1200, simply so that Mr. Vaishnaw, the Railway Minister can notch up a few records like his Chief Ministerial colleague in Uttar Pradesh. The fact that people are dying in this pursuit of Guinness records and brownie points from an uncaring Prime Minister is, of course, of no concern. For aren't these pesky people parasites who deserve nothing better?

 The Hon'ble court would do well to realise that mere obiter dicta of this type only dehumanises people and brutalises an already brutal government. A solution needs a deeper understanding of the origins of the problem. If people do not work it is because there are no jobs for them. If they need free rations it is because they do not have the money to buy them, if they are homeless it is because millions have to forcibly migrate to cities for employment. The Court would have done well to reflect on where these hundreds of millions of "parasites" came from. For they did not have an immaculate conception, my lords, but were birthed by consistently unwise, avaricious and exploitative policies of past and present governments. They are not poor out of choice, or dependent on governments because they are lazy, but because they have been reduced to this state by governments they have elected over the years, by policies that have consistently favoured just the top ten percent of the population. Consider some of them:

* More than 50 million people have been displaced by projects- dams, cement plants, power projects, urbanisation, highways, mines, airports.  Rarely do these projects improve their lives, for the benefits flow to cities, industrialists and politicians. They are not parasites, they are internally displaced persons, refugees in their own country.

* The destruction and denudation of the environment which accompanies these projects has immense adverse impacts on the livelihoods of the rural population, forcing more and more to migrate to urban areas. This is particularly true of the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan states. Just the havoc of reckless dam building has displaced 16 million people.

* The worst effected are the category who most need the state's help- tribals, forest dependent communities, and indigenous people. In an article by Roshan Varughese and Soumen Mukherjee in the journal Nature.com (23.5.24), 40% of the victims of development induced displacement are Adivasis, even though their share of the population is only 8%. Thousands are being evicted on an almost daily basis because of state governments' unwillingness to implement the Forest Rights Act: only 3 states have implemented its provisions, but that too only partially.

* Short-sighted, compliance based, propaganda oriented policies are being rammed through a system where its stakeholders are unprepared to navigate their rules. A prime example is the ubiquitous and pernicious tyranny of the KYC process for banks, ration cards and MNREGA. This is a nightmare for even the digitally aware, but for the uneducated poor it has become a matter of survival and a cause of destitution. According to a report by the NGO Lib-Tech, more than 80 million workers were removed from MNREGA rolls in just two years, 2022-24, because of KYC issues. A Down to Earth magazine report of 28th October 2024 quotes a study carried out in two districts of Jharkhand (Latehar and Lohardaga) which revealed that bank accounts of 60% of the families had been frozen for want of completed KYC verification, depriving them access to whatever little money they had, MNREGA wages and Direct Benefit transfers, leaving them at the point of starvation. Similarly, millions of the poor are being denied ration under the PDS because they are unable to complete their KYC. It has been reported that 7 million and 6.9 million beneficiaries in Odisha and Tamil Nadu, respectively, have had their cards frozen for want of KYC verification.

* Not only has the present government failed to create new jobs in adequate numbers, it has destroyed millions of existing jobs through demonetisation, GST and neglect of the SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) sector. Employment, under-employment and disguised unemployment are at their highest levels in 45 years, even as 12 million new job seekers enter the market every year. Who do the poor turn to if there are no jobs for them? And how do they eat if they get no wages?

* We may tom-tom that we are the fifth or fourth largest economy in the world but that offers no succor to the poor, for we rank 140 in per-capita income, below Bangladesh. In a shocking analysis of Household consumption data, T. Muralidharan in an article in Telengana Today (Nov. 13, 2024) has revealed that the bottom 30% of our population ( 420 million people) spend just Rs. 50 on food per day per capita, whereas a vegetarian thali costs more than Rs. 50 (Economic Survey 2020). Worse, the poorest 5% of the country lives on just 2/3 rds of a thali per day!

One is left wondering if the Hon'ble court had informed itself of these facts before terming these unfortunates as parasites. Quick-fixes are okay for joining shards of broken Dresden pottery, but will not repair the broken edifice of a nation's conscience or a government's splintered feeling of compassion, or faulty neo capitalist policies. Judicial quick-fixes are particularly dangerous for they impart a legal legitimacy to half baked ideas. Yes, there are plenty of undeserving people benefitting from these welfare schemes and they should be weeded out. The court would have rendered yeoman's service to the nation if it had focused on this aspect and directed the government to prepare a time bound plan to do so, instead of using a broad brush to castigate and condemn the poor. We have robbed the country's poor of their lands, jobs, food and health; let us not strip them of their right to be called human beings. It is all they have left.

AAP IS ALIVE AND KICKING--IT'S THE ALLIANCE WHICH IS ON (CONGRESS) ASSISTED DYING

 Yes, Kejriwal has lost the Delhi elections. But make no mistake- the AAP put up a valiant and courageous fight, and came to within inches of winning. Don't let these sold out media platforms and sundry Yogendra Yadav clones tell you otherwise, look at the official figures. The BJP at 46% of the vote share was only 2% ahead of AAP at 44%- it is the oddity of the first-past-the-post system that converted this into a 26 seat lead for God's Own Party. In a proportionate system both the parties would have been tied at 35 seats apiece. By no means has the AAP been "wiped out", as some commentators and bhakts would have you believe: in Delhi AAP remains a potent force which can still take the fight to the BJP over the next five years. Don't look at the size of the dog in the fight, look at the size of the fight in the dog.

Nobody in his right senses expected the AAP to win, the odds against it were overwhelming- relentless persecution by the Center over the last five years, jailing of all its top leaders on trumped up charges unsubstantiated by any evidence even after three years of arrests, raids and investigations, blatant sniping and sabotaging by the Lieutenant Governor, blocking of all its popular schemes on one pretext or the other, a partisan police force, a defiant bureaucracy with loyalties to the Center rather than the elected government of the state, an Election Commission which is now a player in the game rather than an umpire, the deletion and injection of thousands of dubious votes before the elections, a somnolent judiciary which has failed to curb the executive or deliver timely justice, a Corporate India rooting for the BJP in the hope of churning out more billionaires, an announcement of major tax breaks just four days before polling in a condemnable violation of the model code of conduct.

And yet, it is testament to the resilience of the AAP that it almost won. For the first time in any state the BJP was forced to modify its electoral strategy, as Harish Khare has pointed out in an article: the BJP was compelled to soft pedal its communal tool- kit and adopt a leaf out of Kejriwal's welfare book. No other political party could have come even close to matching AAP's performance. Certainly not the Congress with its recent track record of being annihilated in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhatisgarh and Haryana.

That being said, one hopes that Kejriwal and his advisors are also doing some deep reflection and soul-searching. For their mistakes too are many: a will o' the wisp ideological opportunism, embracing of a copy-cat "soft" Hindutva, keeping silent on Muslim persecution at Shaheen Bagh and the NE Delhi riots, uncalled for hounding of Rohingya refugees, excessive welfarism at the cost of Delhi's crumbling infrastructure. These have contributed to the 9% away swing of its vote share, but they are not the prime reason for its loss. The death blow was delivered by its Alliance partner, the Congress.

One  hopes that the Congress will also do some introspection, once they are finished gloating over Kejriwal's "downfall." For it is this, now largely irrelevant party, which ensured the AAP's defeat. Figures now released by the ECI show that in 14 constituencies the Congress candidates polled more votes than the BJP candidates' winning margin, thus ensuring the latter's win; these include seats contested by Kejriwal, Sisodia, Somnath Bharti and Saurabh Bharadwaj. Rahul Gandhi (or the coterie of sleeper cells around him) have extracted their "revenge" even though the party got just 6% of the votes, did not win a single seat, and 67 of their candidates lost even their deposits! At the rate this party continues to cut off its nose to spite its face in every election, it will soon have no nose left, just a void where it will bury a hundred years of its history and achievements.

Congress apologists have been defending its contesting against AAP in Delhi by pointing out that this is exactly what the latter did to the Congress in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Himachal, but this analogy is faulty. For in none of these states was the Congress, or any Alliance partner, the ruling party at the time of the elections, both parties were fighting against the BJP. But in Delhi the Congress was fighting against an Alliance partner and trying to dislodge one of its own. It did not have a claim to even a single seat in Delhi given its miserable 4% vote share and performance in the last ten years. And yet, for reasons that can only be attributed to a sense of entitled egotism and the thirst for revenge, it decided that "na jeetunga, na jeetne doonga."

The Congress has now become a spoiler at the national level, a clear and present danger to the restoration of democracy in India. It cannot forget its grand past and refuses to accept that it is no longer a "national party" at the state level- the brutal truth is that it is now just another regional party in a couple of states. It will not play second fiddle to any other regional party and refuses to abide by an unwritten Alliance Dharma. For the sake of the nation it must be persuaded to abandon its delusions of grandeur, to accept reality and to recognise that its first priority has to be to fight the BJP, not its allies.

The Delhi model of governance that AAP offered as an alternative to the Gujarat model worked, as two successive massive wins by the AAP proved. For the first time in our history an alternate model of politics was offered in Delhi, one based on concern for the under privileged, "life-line" services as a right, unsupported by money bags and corporates, without any communal agenda, all actively propagated by a cadre of educated, committed and idealistic workers and volunteers. This was the anti-thesis of all that the BJP stands for, and could not be allowed to succeed. The ruling party has achieved its demolition objective, and Kejriwal has to share part of the blame for this, as pointed out in earlier paras. He must now course correct, go back to the party's original drawing board, seek out saner counsel and advisors and remain true to the original vision with which his party was founded. The coming days will not be easy for him for all the dogs of war will be set loose on him and his leaders. AAP has to rediscover the gritty resilience which had brought it to power in the first place- it still has the support of the electorate (it's core vote of 44% is more than the BJP's 38%) but it has to rebuild its ideological foundations. It has to stand for something positive and unambiguous, not be all things to all people or have a negative or equivocal ideology.

 The Congress must realise that the voter must be given a binary choice only. Or else, by 2029 there will be no party left to do any fighting, and nothing worth fighting for.

BOOK REVIEW - ANANDA: AN EXPLORATION OF CANNABIS IN INDIA

                     

                             

                     [This review was published in The Tribune on 12th Jan. 2025]

BOOK REVIEW- "ANANDA- AN EXPLORATION OF CANNABIS IN INDIA" by Karan Madhok.

                                                    ON  THE  CANNABIS  TRAIL

This is a rather unusual book, grafted on the back of the author's travels in elevent states in pursuit of his research on the cannabis plant and its derivatives- ganja, hemp, bhang, hashish and charas. Most of us have a nodding, if not sniffing, acquaintance with cannabis but know little about its botanical structure, origins, history, economics, legality, religious connection or medicinal value. Karan Madhok has dug deep to educate us on these aspects, but in a manner which is personal, anecdotal and sometimes humorous. 

We learn that the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis is a chemical called THC, and the higher the THC the more potent the drug. The plant consists of the stem and the flower, it is the latter that contains the highest concentration of THC, from which the hashish and charas are produced, and hence banned in India. The stem has a very low level of the chemical, from which bhang and ganja and hemp are derived and these are legal. The hemp is used for making ropes, baskets, footwear, clothing etc. and is an important part of the economy of the Himalayan villages such as Malana in Himachal, whose Malana Cream is acknowledged to be among the finest in the world. There are also the Idukki Gold of Kerala, Sheelavathi of Odisha and Koraput Purple of the Andhra-Odisha border. Whether in its potent or weaker form, cannabis has been used for centuries for medicine, recreation, nutrition, and has a deep connection with religion.

The United Nations estimates that 4.3% of adults consume cannabis, it is the most widely used, cultivated and trafficked illicit substance in the world. But states are ramping up the pressure to legalise controlled cultivation of cannabis for medicinal, scientific and industrial purposes and to amend the NDPS Act. Uttarakhand has already done this to some extent and Himachal too has passed a resolution to this effect in September this year. Such a measure could revolutionise the economies of these states and create huge employment opportunities in agriculture, processing and transportation sectors.

Supported by statistics and independent studies, the author raises a pertinent point: is the state justified in spending humungous amounts of financial, administrative and judicial resources in enforcing the NDPS Act on drugs like cannabis? Is this even serving any purpose? The kingpins of the drug cartels are never caught, it is only the "foot soldiers"- the impoverished farmer, the carrier, the middleman- who are convicted and imprisoned. The Act gives the police and other agencies a blank cheque to harass and extort money (as in the Aryan Khan case) and breeds corruption. The draconian prohibition of these milder and organic drugs is driving the youth to harder, more dangerous, chemical formulations; (the author points to the epidemic of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, which is reportedly responsible for two thirds of drug related deaths in the USA and is now the leading cause of death for Americans aged eighteen to forty nine). And finally, he argues, this harsh policy is also depriving the state of billions of dollars of revenue, and denying livelihood opportunities to the poorest farmers in the most backward, forested and hilly areas where the plant thrives. We should learn from the USA where half the states have already legalised cannabis, and a state like California earns about US$ 6 billion (Rs. 50000 crore) annually by licensing its use and consumption. 

For me the most interesting part of the book is where the author details the connection between ganja/ bhang and India's syncretic culture and religion. For, as he puts it brilliantly, "much like the Indian constitution, cannabis is secular" and representative of the "Ganga-Jamuna Tehzeeb."

Religion: cannabis is associated with all major religions of India- it is extolled by Persian poets as a "heavenly guide", considered by some Muslim sects as the embodiment of the spirit of the prophet Khidr in whose honour the Sufis consume it; in Tantric Buddhism it is extolled for its medicinal powers; the Sikh Nihangs refer to it as Sukha prasad and it is consumed during the Hola Mohalla festivities (even though Guru Nanak is supposed to have opposed its consumption). It is almost at the core of Hinduism, associated with practically all its major Gods- Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, Balrama, Hanuman, Jagannath in one way or the other, and its festivals-Holi, Khumb, Shivratri, Vijaya Dasmi, Trinath Puja. It is offered to the Gods, or consumed in many forms, at many major temples across the breadth of the country.

Food: bhang is to be found in many of the favourite dishes/drinks in many states- ice-cream, laddoos, gajar ka halwa, suji ka halwa, Christmas plum pudding, pakoras, panipuri, rosogolla, majaun (a confection enjoyed by Babur).

Bollywood: the Zeenat Aman song "Dum Maro Dum" in the film Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1973) has become the cannabis anthem for the nation,  defining the nous of a whole generation. Since then the association has stuck with the Hindi film industry, for better or worse, through Aap Ki Kasam (Rajesh Khanna, 1974), Silsila (Amitabh Bacchan, 1980), Yeh Jawaani Hai Diwanee (Deepika Padukone, 2013), culminating in the drug related controversies of Sushant Singh Rajput and Aryan Khan. As the author observes, we have a Janus faced attitude to cannabis- we both worship and villainise it, there's a thin line between spirituality and sin! 

Madhok also gives us a thumb-nail account of the history and geographical spread of cannabis, beginning with Columbus arriving in America wearing a hemp jacket! We learn that more than fifty nations have legalised or decriminalised the plant for medicinal and industrial purposes, and are reaping the benefits in terms of revenue, tourism, reduced alcohol consumption, employment and treatment of various chronic diseases. There is a huge global market for hemp products ranging from textiles, furnishings, construction materials to ropes, paints and plastic substitutes. India is not even a player in this market, with its share of the global trade at just 0.0002%. He cautions that if we do not quickly revise our NDPS centered policy on cannabis we shall miss this bus completely. Small beginnings have been made- there are about one hundred start-ups in areas such as ayurvedic medicines, wellness centers, restaurants, textiles etc.- but this is not even scratching the surface of the vast potential that this, our very own Indian plant, offers. 

The author's final message? That it is time to reclaim the cultural, religious and medicinal heritage of cannabis as our own, before it is expropriated by other countries. We have to look back to look forward, he says. But is anyone listening?