THE DUFFER ZONE

   These days I find myself inclining more and more to the poetic. And therefore, like Wordsworth, my heart leapt up with joy the other day on seeing a photo of our Defense Minister in  Ladakh: it was reported that he was near the Line OF Actual Control (LAC), but since no one these days has even a clue where the LAC is, he could have been anywhere within two hundred kms of it. The cardiac calisthenics, however, were not due to his GPS coordinates, but the rifle in his hand. Finally, I exulted, an Indian is carrying a weapon on the border with China, even though it took the deaths of twenty of our finest to achieve that. But then, very soon, poetry reasserted itself and I felt, like Shelley, bright reason mocking me like the sun from a wintry sky. Was he, I asked myself, in the buffer zone? If so, then was it the Indian or Chinese buffer zone? If the latter then was it on the Indian or Chinese side of the LAC? Valid questions which Col. Ajai Shukla has answered, as has our Prime Minister, and for once both agree- that the buffer zone is on the Indian side, though as usual the Prime Minister's Delphic utterances can be interpreted only by Republic TV or Times Now. But then why are the bhakts cheering if the Chinese are on our side of the LAC? I am reminded of the story of Lady Godiva riding side saddle, completely naked, through a Coventry street and the guys on the side of the street exposed to her derriere, screaming:  "Hurray for our side!" I guess it all depends on how one is inclined.

   Regardless of where our buffer zone lies, however, it is clear that the Indian side of the LAC is one big duffer zone, all the way to Kanyakumari. And this is not something we can blame the Chinese for. It's all "made in India." Just look at some of the events that have been playing out these last few weeks, like a C grade Bollywood movie produced by Dawood Ibrahim and directed by Karan Johar. It is an invasion of the asinine.

  In which democracy(we will give India the benefit of doubt and call it a democracy) is a Chief Minister prevented from proving his majority in the Assembly? Even the wily Goebbles of the Third Reich fame could not have come up with a better formula than the one perfected in Rajasthan by the BJP and its ancillary institutions: use the courts to prevent the CM from acting against the defectors, and use the Governor to prevent him from proving that the majority are still with him! Heads I win, tails you lose.

  The contempt case against Prashant Bhushan is another instance that demonstrates that the law is an ass, no matter how you spell that last word. A three judge bench of the Supreme Court first  disregards an earlier judgement of a five judge bench on the powers of the Speaker. It then elevates defection to "dissent". To add insult to injury, it then pontificates on the importance of dissent in a democracy (and refuses to permit the Speaker of the Rajasthan assembly to act against the defectors). Then why does it frown on Prashant Bhushan's dissent concerning the SC's recent judgments or his opinion of certain judges, widely shared by a large percentage of the population? Dissent for the goose should be dissent for the gander- you can't genuflect to one and have the other for dinner. And then, of course, there is the question of priorities: are the views of Prashant Bhushan on judges (one of them eleven years old!) more important than the challenges to the Citizenship Amendment Act and Electoral bonds, removal of Article 370, dismantling of a state, pending bail and habeas corpus petitions, all of which have been awaiting the court's pleasure for months? 

  My poetry takes me further. Increasingly over the last couple of years, our judiciary has been reminding us of the truth of what the black American poet, Langston Hughes, said in 1926, viz. that  "justice is blind." Finally, however, the Maharashtra govt. has decided to do something about it: its Cabinet has recently sanctioned Rs. 50000/ to every High Court judge to buy spectacles! A far-sighted decision indeed, maybe it will now encourage the honourable judges to take off those blindfolds, have another look at various bail petitions of incarcerated scholars, intellectuals and activists the govt. finds inconvenient, and convince us that all is not dark. Read the writing on the wall, as it were, with the aid of the newly acquired optic devices.

   Hallucinating is now the official policy and past time. Its onset was gradual, beginning with ascribing all the present ills of the country to Mr. Nehru, the hosannas to demonetisation and GST (Goods and Services Tax), the delusion of a five trillion dollar economy. But then it gathered pace as delusions progressed to full blown neurasthenia and dreams became psychic visions: an opposition mukt Bharat, a declaration that India was the best performing country against the pandemic even as we are overtaking one country after another in number of cases and deaths, repeated assertions that not an inch of land had been occupied by China even as its troops were dining on chopsuey and showing us the finger-what else?- at Finger 5, that India was the best investment destination in the world even as its own capitalists were making a beeline for Portugal, the Bermudas and Canada.

   Our institutions have become totally dufferised, to coin a term. The ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) has been running around like a confused streptococus ever since the pandemic started, concerned more with the politics than the pathogen. It has decreed that a vaccine will be ready for public use by the 15th August 2020, taking the world by storm and elevating science to an art- the art of fiction and fantasy- causing Chetan Bhagat and Amish Tripathi to have sleepless nights: how could they have missed up on this as an idea for their latest novel ? It continues to maintain that there is no community spread of the virus, even as we have crossed 1.50 million cases, with the fastest growth rate in the world. Does it even matter whether it is a community spread or a committee spread or a peanut butter spread?- the fact is that almost a thousand people are dying every day, and the Director of ICMR is patting himself on the back instead of smelling the coffee. Maybe he is confusing "community spread" with "communal spread", but even here he would be dead wrong in denying it. ICMR's own sero-testing shows that herd immunity is developing in some states- how then can you have herd immunity without community spread? It's time for the ICMR to concentrate on the science and not on the politics of the pandemic.

   The CBSE (Central Board for Secondary Education) and NCERT (National Council for Educational Research and Training) have finally lived up to their promise of making India's largely unemployable students even more unemployable, of ensuring that its much vaunted "demographic dividend" shall be getting no dividends (or jobs) in the foreseeable future. Using COVID-19 as a heaven sent opportunity to promote a particular ideology, it has suddenly decided to lighten the load of students by throwing out everything worth studying! Its new syllabus has done away with the chapters on secularism, citizenship, nationalism, demonetisation, India's plurality and diversity, gender, federalism ,social movements, relations with the country's neighbours. Even a half wit cannot fail to notice that the deleted subjects are either anathema to the ruling dispensation or inconvenient issues which it would rather not have discussed. And so the next generation will grow up totally oblivious of the very values on which our great republic was founded, they will make better fodder for the abominations which will replace them in the New India.

   But it would be unfair of me to single out just a few of our institutions for honourable mention, for the fact is that all of them have become deranged and rogue: the police were "atmanirbhar" long before the Prime Minister's clarion call, for they need neither the law, nor the courts, nor the press to arrest everyone for sedition, bumping off a few on the way to "justice"; the media will drool over  poor Sushant Singh Rajput's grave rather than find out why the Chinese were allowed to picnic on our land, or report on Amitav Bacchan's bowel movements in hospital rather than tell us about the floods in Assam. The state of our bureaucracy is well represented by the brazen sycophancy of Mr. Nageshwar Rao, IPS, ex- Director of CBI who , in a tweet just last week, accused the likes of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed of distorting our history to pander to Islamism. Here is a uniformed (also uninformed), unlettered pygmy whose stature cannot rise to the level of even the bootlaces of Azad and our late President, making a desperate bid for reemployment (he retired on 31st July), displaying his pathetic ignorance of history, of Maulana Azad's appeal from the Jama Masjid in 1947 to his co-religionists to not got go to Pakistan, for India was "their land"; of his getting the Ramayana and the Mahabharat translated into Persian so that the Islamic world could study our timeless epics. When midgets like Nageshwar Rao start vilifying  giants like the Maulana and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, with assured impunity (and possibly a fat bone as a reward), you know that the country is doomed.
  Other countries evolve for the better, we have been consistently doing it for the worse, and are proud of it.

  Which is why the Chinese are not too bothered about Ladakh and the 220 million desh bhakts in the duffer zone. Xi just has to sit on his side of the buffer zone (and our side of the LAC) with his inscrutable smile, and wait for the duffer zone on the other side to collapse under the weight of its own idiocies. He doesn't have to destroy us- we'll do it ourselves, thank you. We are "atmanirbhar", you see.

THE LOCKDOWN DIARIES ( XVII) -- PURANIKOTI AND THE OTHER SIDE OF COVID

   Social distancing actually works! It's been more than a month since I arrived in my little village near Shimla from Delhi and my Oxymeter already shows an improvement in my pulse rate/ heartbeat. The reading used to be 82-85/ minute in Delhi and now its a rock solid 65! I attribute it to the social distancing from the Kejriwal-Amit Shah- Arnab Goswami factor, all pervasive in Delhi but non-existent here in Purani Koti. Nobody here is bothered about  them, and its all for the good. Delhi talks only politics, breathes only conspiracies, sneezes only Covid, and spreads only rumours- even a Schwarzenegger would need a ventilator there. In my village they occasionally curse the Chief Minister but that's it. The rhythm of rural life is blessedly unchanged for the most part. My oxymeter proves it. Even the come hither glances from Neerja( getting rarer by the day) don't move the pulse rate, though Neerja attributes it to my advancing years: she may well be right, for I now no longer covid my neighbours' wives, as the new Commandment prescribes.

   To be fair, Purani koti has not remained unscathed from the effects of the pandemic. We have three hotels and four homestays here and all of them have been shut since March, resulting in about 30 local youth being rendered unemployed; a couple of shops which catered to the visitors and their drivers are also practically closed. My good friend, Geetika Khanna, who runs a boutique home stay called Khanabadosh , tells me that she has received a large number of inquiries from prospective guests, but has decided to stay shut for the time being, owing primarily to the confusion about the govt's regulations and SOPs about tourists. The sensitivity of the local panchayat to the rising infections also has to be factored in, though fortunately our panchayat has not reported a single case so far.

   As can be expected, the mainstay of the village is agriculture- mainly two cash crops of cauliflower/ cabbage and peas. These days it is the cauliflower: about ten pick-up loads are dispatched to the market every day- six thousand kgs or so.

                                   

                  [ Fields of cauliflower ready for harvesting ]

    Typically, the local landowners don't farm the vegetables, they give the fields to Nepali labour on annual lease. Hard working folks who have been staying here with their families for many years, the Nepalis are as indispensable to the agricultural economy here as they are to the apple cultivation in upper Shimla: without them both would collapse. They usually pay a flat sum to the land owners, whereafter all expenses for the cultivation of the crops are their's, as are any profits. They too have been hit by the corona this year: whereas last year they got about Rs. 20/- per kg for cauliflower at the wholesale mandi, this year they are averaging between Rs. 10/- and Rs. 15/-, the down turn caused by the earlier lockdowns, disruption of supply chains and impediments to inter-state movement of trucks. But of late things have been improving. Even in the midst of the pandemic, it's a much better life than the squalor, tension and joblessness of the cities. And people are beginning to realise this. As my caretaker, whose family owns more than 50 bighas of land, told me the other day: the locals, especially the youth, now appreciate the deeper meaning of the phrase " dharti mata", that she can provide for all our basic needs like any mother, provided we do not forsake her; he tells me that the villagers are now realising that, rather than sell their lands to outsiders for their hotels and villas, they should farm it themselves and earn a decent living rather than seeking jobs in cities and living in their fetid slums. That if they look after and value their lands, the land will look after them, that this is the true "atmanirbhata" that the virus has taught them, not the empty slogan of the Prime Minister. Many of the youth now rendered unemployed are going back to their lands, tilling the fields which had been allowed to go fallow and hoping to make a life in the village rather than in the towns, as earlier. Some may return to the towns but even if a few stay back it will be a new and welcome beginning.

                                   

                                 

                        [ Evening rush hour in Puranikoti ! ]

  Puranikoti is, in many ways, a much better place today than it was before the pandemic came knocking at our doors. It has reclaimed its natural rhythms of life and its landscape: gone are the hordes of tourists who littered its forests and streams with beer bottles and plastics, bird calls have replaced the blaring music of car stereos,  the nightscape is once again illuminated by the stars and not the intruding lights of hotel rooms and the glare of car headlights, shuttling between parties. A graphic illustration of this is a little stream which runs through our forests, just about half a kilometre long, fed by the rainfall captured by the dense growth of cedar, blue pine and oak. It feeds many village houses downstream. Till last year it was choked by the plastic, bottles and rubbish generated by the hotels and picnickers. This year, I was delighted to see, it flows crystal-clear, released from the bonds of irresponsible tourism, the way it has done for decades. The only traffic jams are those caused by cattle returning from their daily grazing in the forests, another beat in the rhythm of everyday life here. Notwithstanding the economic hardships imposed by corona, the villagers appear happy to have reclaimed their rural landscape.

                                             

    [ The stream in 2019, littered with garbage]

                                     

                                           

 [ The same stream in July 2020, minus tourism ]

Villages like Puranikoti, it appears to me, do not need controversial stimulus packages or the RBI's confused monetary policies- in any case those lucrative lollipops never reach the villages, siphoned off by the double A's and the triple A's on the way. They need sensible agricultural, environmental and tourism policies, and then need to be left alone. They need basic good governance, not promises of becoming a super power or a "vishwaguru". Whether our rulers will see this light at the end of the Covid tunnel, I don't know- my guess is, probably not. After all, we live in an age when tunnel vision is mistaken, and praised, as real vision.

THE LOCK DOWN DIARIES ( XVI)- FLIP FLOPS DO NOT A TOURISM POLICY MAKE

   One of the more unsavoury, man-made consequences of the pandemic has been the almost total concentration of power in the executive arm of governments. There is now no legislative oversight, consultation with civil society, dialogue with stake holders or even scrutiny by the press. All decisions are taken by a socially distanced Chief Minister and a handful of bureaucrats. Now, the IAS may be the cream of administration ( actually, the whipped cream, but that is another story) but it does not represent the sumum bonum of all wisdom, and much of the confusion that prevails today is the result of this delusion. If any proof of this were needed, one need look no further than the current policies of the Himachal govt. to reopen tourism in the state.

  Given the importance of tourism to the state's GDP and its employment potential there can be no doubt that it needed to be revived. But any plan to do so had to factor in the rising graph of covid cases, the sentiments of the local population and the concerns of the local hotel and hospitality industry. What was needed was a carefully calibrated, phased out reopening, not an abrupt lifting of the flood gates, which is what the state did in the first week of July.

  Clearly, there was no urgency to immediately allow the ingress of tourists into the state. Himachal typically has two tourist seasons: March to June and then again from September to December. The first season had already been lost due to the lockdowns and the second was still a couple of months away, so there was no hurry to open up right now. As I had suggested in my earlier piece on the subject(https://avayshukla.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-lockdown-diaries-xii-himachals.html ) the govt should have used this period to wait for the infection graph to decline and then to draw up a phased- out plan, opening up the state gradually: home stays, rural areas, adventure sports and outdoor tourism first and then moving to urban based tourism in the second phase. This time should also have been utilised to register all hospitality units, weed out the illegal ones, list the approved ones on its Tourism Deptt website, and insist that any prospective tourist would have to have a prior booking in one of these units to qualify for entry. I had also warned that there could be resistance from local communities and panchayats and the govt. would have to engage with them and bring them on board. This type of planning would have struck a balance between livelihoods and lives and would have had the endorsement of all participants.

  The state tourism department, however, appears to have taken the reckless and lazy route and has thrown open the whole state at one go last week. The consequence has been utter chaos as thousands swarmed the state's borders. It is a lose-lose situation. Hundreds of tourists, unable to comply with the stringent conditions for entry are being turned back. Those who meet the requirements encounter resistance from local panchayats. The HILLPOST has reported that entry into Kullu is allowed only if the panchayat Pradhan gives his/her consent ( something not required by the rules), and many families had to spend nights at the border in their cars because the Pradhan's phone was switched off! Hotel associations in Manali, Shimla and Kangra have unanimously refused to open their hotels, as have taxi unions, for fear of the disease spreading and in protest against the prescribed SOPs for them. The few tourists who have entered are a harried lot, with no place to stay and nowhere to go. Everyone is unhappy- the tourist, the hoteliers, local communities, an over worked police force. And most worrying of all, in the last few days the state's covid positive cases have increased significantly. The only ones who gain are the illegal and unregistered home stays and guest houses which the department has failed to capture on its radar.

  Even the rules and conditions for entry may not stand scrutiny. Since every tourist has to carry an RT-PCR negative certificate, what is the logic of prescribing a minimum stay of five days? Weekend tourism is the mainstay of tourism in Himachal, and the average stay is only two days. If the idea was to limit the number of tourists overall then why open up at all now? Especially if, with almost all major cities from where tourists generally come on the negative ( instituitional quarantine) list, no tourist from there would even consider coming? A leading Shimla hotelier I spoke to expressed his frustration in no uncertain terms: SOPs and rules were being changed every second day, hoteliers were caught between the panchayats and the government, the govt. had offloaded its own responsibilities of verification of tourists on to the hotels, who had no means of doing so. The govt. had still not withdrawn its earlier threat that the hotel management would be held liable if any of their guests was caught flouting rules or tested positive. He was very clear that he would not open up unless all this confusion was cleared up- reopening a unit which has been shut for months requires a lot of investment in both time and money, and it would all come to naught if either the tourists did not turn up or the govt. again changed the rules to his disadvantage. He said that it was more prudent to wait and watch. That, unfortunately, appears to be the general attitude of the industry.

  Granted that it is not an easy job to find the perfect formula, if there is one. Other states like Goa and Uttarakhand are also struggling to discover the right protocols. But copy-pasting each others' wrong ideas is not the answer. ( Goa already appears to have conceded defeat by imposing another lock down from the 16th July). Himachal should scrap the current policy in its entirety, reimpose a ban on external tourists till end of August, and go back to the drawing board. Its tourism sector is far too important to be handled in a cavalier and ad-hoc fashion. The government should listen to all the stakeholders and first address their concerns- after all, it has been elected by the people and not by a virus. Its legitimacy comes from the former and not the latter. A lesson worth remembering in these authoritarian times.  

JOURNALISM AS NEWS LAUNDERING AND BHAKTI.

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   Move over, Arnab Goswami and Sambit Patra- the putrefying corpse of Indian journalism has a new poster boy! None other than our resident, apoplectic walrus, Major General G.D.Bakshi. The good general has ascended/descended (depending on whether you are a bhakt or a gentleman) to hitherto unplumbed heights/depths of depravity by recently calling a co-panelist a motherf----r in a televised discussion. It is quite apparent that his nationalistic credentials and dubious expertise in history notwithstanding, this rabid apologist for the government has not been able to make the transition from the barracks to a television studio without losing the inherent coarseness that is probably now a part of his character. But I don't blame him for his gutter demeanour, and for two reasons: one, the primordial facial follicles he sports cannot allow for any other form of behaviour. If you have the moustache of a saber- toothed tiger you have to behave like one, or else every brontosaurus would be cocking a snook at you. And second, he is a faithful depiction of the sorry state of Indian journalism these days.

   It would be fair to say that not since 1947 has the standard and character of the fourth estate plumbed the depths it has today; it is, in fact, no longer the fourth pillar of democracy but has become its fifth column, using its privileged status and constitutional freedom to hollow out the republic from within. Under the onslaught of inimical forces generated since 2014 most publications and channels have mortgaged their spines to remain in favour with the powers that be; only a few outposts and editors are still holding out, but they have now been dealt a mortal blow by the corona virus and may not long survive. For, unlike Mr. Modi's two front war, the press is under attack on three fronts.

  For a regime whose stock in trade is lies and untruth it is absolutely essential that its dissembling not be found out; the free press therefore has to be tightly controlled and inconvenient editors, anchors and reporters have to be taken out of circulation, in more ways than one. Easy enough for a government which has all corporates on a leash, and the corporates have the media in their pocket. The pest control process began smoothly enough and outspoken journalists like Harish Khare, Abhisar Sharma, Punya Prasun Bajpayi and Vinod Dua were eased out of their positions quietly. The Arnab Goswamis, Rahul Shivshankars, Navika Kumars, Anand Narsimhans took over, quickly fell in line and rebranded themselves as megaphones of the government. But a few pesky individuals still held out; it was time to roll out the heavy artillery.

  And so began the age of the F.I.R under the convenient smokescreen of an imported virus. The Delhi based RRAG ( Rights and Risk Analysis Group) which tracks such things has recorded that 22 FIRs have been filed against 55 journalists between 25th March and 31st June this year, for reporting on Covid 19 and for exercising freedom of expression or opinion- the former is unwelcome and the latter is anathema to the governments of the day, notwithstanding which party they represent. The most blatant among them are the cases against Sidharth Vardarajan of THE WIRE, Vinod Dua, Aakar Patel, and Supriya Sharma of SCROLL.IN (she had simply filed a report depicting the poor living conditions in Dohari village of Varanasi, adopted by the Prime Minister under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana.) This is, of course, par for the UP govt which had earlier filed an FIR against a vernacular journalist for reporting on the poor quality of food served under the Mid Day Meal scheme. None of these cases will end in conviction, of course, but they will have served their purpose of further gagging an already intimidated media. It does not matter that such actions have brought the country to the 142nd spot (out of 146 countries) in the Press Freedom Index- badges of dishonour don't matter as long as you keep winning elections.

   In this unequal battle the press has been rendered defenseless because the higher judiciary has decided to don its blinders precisely when it should have been keeping an eagle eye on an executive which has appropriated to itself unprecedented powers under the cover of the pandemic. The judiciary's recent decisions tend to look kindly on journalists perceived to be close to the govt. and the ruling party, while its ire is reserved for those who speak truth to power. The scales of justice would not today pass any metrology test. FIRs against Arnab Goswami (who gave a blatantly communal angle to the migrant exodus in Mumbai) and Amish Devgun (who called the revered Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti as " Lootera Chishti" in a June 15 telecast) have been stayed by the higher courts, but no such "entente cordiale" has been shown by them in the case of Sidharth Varadarajan,  Vinod Dua and Aakar Patel for alleged offences that are imaginary at best and maliciously contrived at worst.

   And the govt. is not content to just put a few journalists in police lock ups. For those who are still outside, it constantly issues helpful "advisories" on how they should do their job- how to show deference to a Prime Minister, how to report on the pandemic, the correct manner of reporting on the standoff with China. It does not even stop short of issuing threats, as Prasar Bharati recently did to the country's oldest and most respected news agency, PTI, over its interviews with the Chinese Ambassador and our envoy in Peking. It termed these, what else, anti-national, and announced that it was "reviewing its relationship" with PTI- which is bureaucratese for cancelling the Rs. 7 crores or so it pays the agency for its services every year. It does not help the cause of the free press that the only other national news agency, ANI, has already gone belly up when it comes to honest reporting. It is a hand maiden of the government, competing with the likes of  "nationalistic" TV channels in the sycophancy sweepstakes. It tailors its releases to fit the govt's tastes and conducts interviews of the Prime Minister, Home Minister and other worthies with a Victorian politeness that extracts everything but the facts. Its Managing Editor even defended the controversial killing of Vikas Dubey by condemning, in a panel discussion last Saturday,  its criticism as " intellectualism" of the urban elite. The difference between news reporting and news laundering is fast disappearing.

                                                          Garbage recycled as news
                                              

   This being the eco system of journalism in India today, it should come as no surprise that the field is being taken over by parasites who destroy the very host they feed on. The so called "news" channels, especially the English ones, deal only in views, not news. Their republican credentials and reflection of the times, now or previously, is all a charade for they have become the ultimate recyclers- they recycle the govt's handouts and untruths as news, and the stench of the resultant garbage exceeds that of the Ghazipur landfill in my area. Their arrogant, jack of all trades, opinionated anchors spread the poison of communalism and intolerance on a nightly basis, defending the indefensible, spawning bullies and reprobates, reducing discussion and debate to a Billingsgate spectacle. The print media is only slightly better- its editorials no longer have the courage of their convictions, its op-eds pussy- foot around issues instead of tackling them head on, they are more akin to exercises in tight rope walking than courageous journalism. They are asking questions all the time, but of the Opposition, not the government of the day; they don't wait for the answers, because they have already manufactured them "en studio"; they do not serve a nation but an individual, a revived bhakti cult.

  Precisely when Indian journalism has reached its nadir, it has been struck a mortal blow by the pandemic. Already in dire straits before the pandemic, the economic turbulence and loss of both readership and advertisement revenues is forcing many papers, on-line sites and channels to shut shop. The circumstances are particularly difficult for small town newspapers who barely survived at the best of times. Since March there have been large scale lay offs, salary cuts, forced furloughs and closures even in the biggest media organisations: hundreds of journalists have lost their jobs.

   This is an alarming trend for the health of our democracy. Mofussil and small town publications are vital in keeping a check on governments for it is they who have a finger on the real pulse of nations and are the first to report on a government's misdeeds, doing the spadework for the national media. Equally important, as Cyril Sam of  NEWS@ COVID 19 puts it, "Each lay off and closure signals our information eco-system becoming poorer and our information sources becoming poorer. Each layoff, cut-back, closure also signals the weakening of democracy in India as newsrooms hollow out and there are fewer journalists to keep a check on power and raise questions in the public interest on our behalf."

  India's free press is at its weakest precisely at the moment it is facing its most severe challenges since Independence. It does not help, but it was inevitable, that it is now represented by someone like Major-General GD Bakshi. 

   

THE LOCK DOWN DIARIES( XIV)- QUARANTINED IN EDEN.

   My family and I normally "migrate" to our cottage in Puranikoti village near Shimla every year in April but couldn't this year because of the lockdown and subsequent sealing of various state borders. But we finally made it in the last week of June on a domicile Himachali pass, and it's another world here! Delhi is a toxic place, and I refer not just to the pandemic but to the whole vitiated atmosphere there- the Kejriwal- Amit Shah politics over everything, the infantile debates on TV, the perennial battle between bhakts and non believers, the claustrophobic existence of gated communities, the surreal universe of Whatsaap. We have left it all behind us now, temporarily perhaps, but for long enough to restore our mental balance and get some perspective on a life beyond the metros.

  I was slightly apprehensive of the long drive from Delhi to Shimla, about 360 kms, and the three border crossings, what with each state imposing its own entry rules. In the event, however, it was uneventful: the bustle on this major highway was missing, most dhabas were closed ( my favourite, ZHILMIL at Karnal was open, however, and had even installed a sanitiser spray cubicle for guests!) The only ones making money were Mr. Gadkari's cohorts at the toll plazas, charging exorbitant amounts for unfinished fly-overs, multiple irritating diversions and badly maintained tarmac. But the liquor vends were all open, one had even recovered its spirit enough to put up a sign with its own man ki baat: " Sabka saath, sabka vikas; Hamari botal, aapka glass."

   Himachal is pretty well organised to receive visitors. The first barrier at Parwanoo checks your pass, the second at Shoghi ( just before Shimla) rechecks and verifies it, and also carries out a perfunctory medical check-up to ensure you won't add to the state's rising corona statistics. It's hassle free, the only grievance being that it takes as much as 45 minutes to an hour, quite unnecessarily in my view; the time is taken by one having to fill in all the details of the vehicle, passengers, city of origin and destination etc in a register. Why? All the information is already in the system, as are the details of your e-pass, and it simply needs to be physically verified by identification/ address proof. Why does it have to be entered manually again in a register? I do hope the DC/SP would take note of this: it would reduce the waiting time and the long queues of vehicles drastically and make one's arrival in Himachal a much more pleasant experience.

  Notwithstanding the minor glitch above, however, the efficiency of Shimla's district administration was on display in my village. We reached Puranikoti in the evening, and were having our breakfast on the porch the next morning, the first time in three months without an AC panting in the background, when a team of four ladies appeared out of the mist. It was the local verification squad, tasked with physically verifying all who had arrived in the panchayat from outside on a pass and reiterating the home quarantine conditions. It consisted of ASHA workers and panchayat representatives. I was truly impressed by the administration's promptness: we had arrived here just 12 hours earlier and the surveillance system was already in top gear! The verification over, the ladies stuck a quarantine poster near our front entrance and departed without even the cup of tea Neerja offered them. Here is the proof:
                                 

                                         ( The all ladies verification team from our Panchayat.
                                            The quarantine poster can be seen on the wall.)

They told me that the photo was needed for submission to their supervisor but I'm sure they did not want to pass up an opportunity for a photo op! To the govt's credit, the surveillance was thorough even on subsequent days- during our two week quarantine period we have been contacted twice by the police, twice by the ASHA health worker, once each by the Health Officer and the Panchayat Pradhan. This efficiency perhaps explains why Himachal is in a relatively good place as regards the pandemic.

                               

                           

                                      [ Quarantine villa! The author's house in Puranikoti]

But at the community level there is a double edged under pinning to this surveillance if it is exercised by the locals and not by the govt. machinery, which is also happening. On the one hand it is good that rural communities are aware of the dangers posed by the virus and its potential to infect; their distrust of people from the cities is also perhaps understandable- after all, the corona has urban origins and five cities account for 80% of all cases in India. On the other hand, however, this concern and distrust can quickly degenerate into vigilantism, and we already have enough of that in India. It is also creating new divides: urban-rural, farmer-non farmer, insider-outsider, rich-have nots. These too we can do without, riven as we are with more social fault lines than we can handle.

   Unsavoury incidents have already taken place in Himachal. In Kaza, the capital town of Lahaul-Spiti district, a Minister who was coming from Shimla was not allowed to enter the town and was forced to go back. There was no restriction on inter district movement within the state but the seven panchayats of the tribal district had enforced its own diktat that required all outside visitors to undergo a two week quarantine. Similarly in Kinnaur, another tribal district, a Deputy Secretary to the state govt. who was a Kinnaura himself was not allowed to go to his home in a village because he was coming from Shimla (on retirement). It required police intervention to ensure that the poor chap could enter his own house! The actions of villagers on both occasions were contrary to the govt's policies.

   My own village of Puranikoti, otherwise quiet and law abiding, has also not been exempted from the effects of this sub-virus. A couple of months ago , when the lock down was in effect, a senior retired IAS officer along with family and a few friends ventured out on a drive/ trek to a nearby temple. He was accosted by the villagers, the panchayat and police were summoned and a case registered against all of them for violating the lock down restrictions. More recently a prominent Punjab politician who has a property in the village, arrived here on a pass with a large retinue of security and domestic staff. Some of the latter were allegedly not covered by the pass and the locals once again protested vehemently; they had to return. These incidents show a heightened awareness in the rural communities, which in itself is not a bad thing. Those coming from outside, or even those lately settled in these communities, should be sensitive to their concerns, scrupulously adhere to the govt's rules and keep the local administration informed of their arrival/ movements. But as the Kinnaur and Kaza episodes show the local zeal can quickly get out of hand. I decided to be careful and transparent about my visit and had whatsapped a copy of my pass beforehand to the panchayat Pradhan to belay any concerns she may have had. There were no problems subsequently.

  But Covid has sown the seeds of mistrust of "outsiders" for the future. This is bound to be exacerbated in the days to come in two ways. One, I suspect tourists will face a lot of hostility when tourism finally opens up. Second, post the pandemic more and more city dwellers will be looking to acquire a second home in states like Himachal as a retreat for the inevitable subsequent pandemics. This may be met by resistance from rural communities who already feel that these birds of passage have no stakes in these places and simply gobble up scarce land without contributing in any way to the local economy. It is a fair criticism, for most of us do not integrate into these rural communities and are content to behave like vacationers. This has to change for trust and acceptance to happen. Just as the world is headed for deglobalisation, our states may also be on the path to insularity and a different form of quarantine. Remember, it was the betrayal of trust which destroyed Eden.

[ Post script: today is the 12th day of our 14 day quarantine period. On the 10th day I was asked to take an RT-PCR test, which I did. Not since my IAS exams in 1975 have I waited so anxiously for the results! Today I was informed that my result was negative- Pappu pass ho gaya! In these topsy turvy times being negative is a positive. ]