RACE TO THE BOTTOM

   The year 2020, according to the Chinese zodiac, was the Year of the Rat; it actually turned out to be the year of the Bat, but that's another story. In India it was the year of the Rat- race, and the race is nearing the finish line in 2021. The participants are all our constitutional bodies, vying with each other to be crowned King Rat. Little do they realise that the winner of a rat race continues to be a rat. It's a relay race to the bottom, and the devil take the hindmost. The two front runners are the Supreme Court and the ECI (Election Commission of India). The others- CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation), ED (Enforcement Directorate), NIA (National Investigative Agency(, Income Tax Deptt., NCB (Narcotics Control Bureau)- did not have to take part in this race; with their impeccable credentials they have been given a bye and are already at the bottom of the pit.

  The Supreme Court has led the relay for most of the time since 2014, with its indifference to the enforcement of fundamental rights, the citizens' liberty and the executive's accountability. Its pusillanimity has been one reason why we are being continuously downgraded as a democracy by international watchdogs, whether or not Mr. Jaishanker cares to listen to their barking. And the court has just got closer to the finish line by its shocking decision to hear a petition against the Places of Worship Act (1991), less that two years after it had (in the Ram Mandir case) reaffirmed the Act as a  bulwark against "retrogression", and called it a part of the basic structure of secularism and hence of the Constitution. Its strange decision to re-open the matter has, quite naturally, emboldened a Varanasi court to order the ASI to find out whether Gyan Vyapi mosque and the one in Mathura have been built over the ruins of Hindu temples. Ayodhya is playing out all over again, and we are getting closer to the bottom of the pit.

  For an apex court it has a surprising short memory too. Barely a year ago it had refused to entertain a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) to ensure the human rights of millions of migrant labour, but a few short months later it was compelled to intervene suo moto. Today again, its resounding silence is stupefying, as all around us the night sky is lit up by burning pyres, hospitals are running out of oxygen, vaccination centers are being shut, the case count has touched 250,000 per day- all while the men entrusted to keep the citizens safe are either campaigning in Bengal or bad mouthing any one who makes a sensible suggestion. The Supreme Court will not budge, which is bad enough. What is worse, however, is that it will not even allow a few plucky High Courts to do something about it. At least eleven HCs including Allahabad, Telengana, Calcutta, Gujarat and Delhi- have castigated the executive in harsh terms, the first of them ordering the UP govt. to seriously consider imposition of a lockdown in five districts. Within hours the SC stayed the order without citing any reasons, and- hold your breath!- asked the govt. to file an affidavit within one week, and posted it for further hearing after two weeks! Did it occur to the Hon'ble justices that in this period approximately 21000 more of their less advantaged country-men would die, at the current rate of fatalities? The court  left no one in any further doubt about where it may be headed- abrogating to itself the hearing of all petitions on Covid management. It did not specifically say so, perhaps, but that is the perception of many eminent lawyers who have severely criticised this order. As an ex High Court Judge, Justice Anjana Prakash put it- the higher judiciary has been reduced to a bureaucracy. And as she DIDN'T say- there is now no difference between the two, in many ways, if you get my drift. One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at this state of affairs; it needs someone like Ghalib to describe one's feelings:

        " Koi ummeed bar nahin aati,

           Koi soorat nazar nahin aati,

           Aagey aati thi dil pe hansi,

          Ab kissi baat pe nahi aatee."   

  Of late, however, another constitutional institution, the ECI (Election Commission of India) appears to be overtaking the judiciary and may just pip it to the bottom. It had faltered a bit in 2019 when one of its Commissioners had shown the courage to dissent, but he was soon kicked upstairs and forced to quit the race- it's not easy being Caesar's wife when one may have a few "flagrant delictos" of one's own tucked away between the sheets. Since this stumble, however, the ECI has picked up its pace and has now entered the final lap, the Bengal and Assam elections, with a terminal burst of blinding speed.

  Even the inventive Piush Goel, who thinks Newton and Einstein are the same person and who has lately emerged as an authority on how dying persons can consume less oxygen, would be hard put to explain some of the ECI's recent decisions. How is it that an institution which slavishly toes the BJP line of One Nation One  Election needs eight phases and one month to conduct elections in just one state? And three phases to carry out polling in one district? Are these elections or eight course meals cooked by the BJP chefs and served by the ECI, like the elaborate "dham" of my state? It certainly doesn't say much about its ability to conduct Parliament and Vidhan Sabha elections simultaneously.

 West Bengal these days seems like an occupied territory, what with 1000 companies (or about 130,000) personnel of the CAPF (Central Armed Police Forces) deployed there to ensure "peaceful" polling. I'm sure it would take fewer cops to conduct elections in POK. To use the words of Nalini Singh in a recent article, this looks more and more like "democracy at gunpoint "- to selectively intimidate the voter and provide friendly fire for the shenanigans of one political party. And the "peaceful" part, of course, met a violent end when four voters were shot dead last week by a force with no training in crowd control, more used to reading your passport (upside down) in airports than in handling legitimate protesters. Talk about wolves guarding sheep.

  In the words of the TMC delegation, every action and decision of the ECI suffers from inaction, under action or over-action, all carefully calibrated to suit the hand that feeds it: the minutely planned phases to enable the ruling party's well funded carpet bombing, the shameless partisanship in handing out bans, the volte face on the issue of Electoral Bonds, the refusal to club the last three phases of polling into one, the spurning of the demand to ban rallies to check the spread of the virus. And why does it continue to reject the demand to count the VVPAT paper slips, on the specious ground that it will take too much time? Are a few more hours of their time more important than the confidence of the citizens in our electoral process? After all, our democracy did survive the pre-EVM days when each ballot paper was painstakingly counted. Has the ECI even bothered to read the report of the Justice MN Lokur committee which has categorically stated that EVMs can be easily hacked? The only reason we are still a "partly free democracy" is because of our hitherto fair election process, in which parameter we scored 4 out of 4 in the Freedom House markings. Even that has been put in jeopardy now by the incomprehensible dogmatic attitude of the ECI.  

  I'm old enough to have seen an Election Commission that used its legs to stand up straight and tall, not as something to curl its tail between. I've conducted one state and one Parliamentary election as District Magistrate, and have been ECI Observer in four states at different times, including in the golden age of TN Seshan and Lyngdoh.  Protected by a fiercely independent Commission we took no shit from anyone. Yes, there were glitches, but no one doubted the Commission's intentions. In my time polling booths were occasionally "captured" in the old fashioned way, by sending in a bunch of armed goons. It was a risky operation, reparation was swift, the offence was not deniable, and repolling was invariably and swiftly held. On the other hand, the growing perception now is that the  hijacking of elections today is much more simple and sophisticated: that all it needs is control of the ECI, and perhaps of the EVMs. The ECI has had innumerable opportunities to disprove this perception, in court and outside; tragically, its obdurate conduct instead only reaffirms this perception.

  Things have come to such a pass that very soon we may be able to buy EVMs on Amazon and Flipkart, and there are suggestions on social media  that the ECI may as well be privatized along with BPCL and Air India; let it be sold to the highest bidder. That way at least the country's exchequer too shall get some money, rather than just one party getting all the benefits and the Election Commissioners getting their Governorships and what-not.

  Since 2014 India has already slipped down on 47 internationally accepted indicators of good governance, human rights and social cohesion. It doesn't really make much of a difference which of the two -ECI or SC- reaches the bottom of the pit first. The country is already there.

BOOK REVIEW: KINNAUR-UNLIKELY TALES by JOGISHWAR SINGH.

 A TALE OF TWO LOVE AFFAIRS.

   Jogishwar Singh ( IAS 1976 ) is the bureaucrat who literally came in from the cold- from his almost ten thousand feet high perch as Deputy Commissioner of Kinnaur to the pleasant cantons of Switzerland. He is also a most unusual civil servant, probably the only one who was selected twice for the IAS, rejected it outright the first time and resigned it the second time after eight years' service for a greater love. The fact that he hails from redoubtable Punjab must have had something to do with it, because I certainly can't see someone from U.P. or Tamil Nadu doing this !

  His book is a delight to read- anecdotal, honest, impish and at times outrageous in his comments ( such as the one about the ladies of Kinnaur: " I could smell her from a distance since local people are not known to bathe very often." ). But his love and fascination for this most remote and beautiful of Himachal's districts comes through strongly, as does his passion for Lia, the Swiss girl who carried him off to Switzerland in 1984. This book is, therefore, essentially an account of these two romances ( with some "sexual gymnastics" with an Italian Mona Lisa thrown in to establish his Punjabi credentials).

  Jogishwar recounts his posting as Deputy Commissioner of Kinnaur in 1982, his service there for two years before resigning: how he falls in love with a visiting Swiss tourist who fully reciprocated his ardour. After their marriage he moved to Switzerland where he did a doctorate from Heidelberg University ( on alternate credit systems in Kinnaur), tried to join the UN but failed because he lacked the necessary "connections", went on to banking for reasons he has not fully explained in the book. He had a very successful career as a banker and finally hung up his boots ( including the banker's pin-striped three piece suit, presumably) in 2018. He is now a free-lance consultant, and I shudder to imagine what kind of advice he gives his clients, if this book is anything to go by!)

  The book honestly reveals his fascination for the powers and authority of a Deputy Commissioner in a remote region, and Jogishwar exercises them to the hilt, with scant regard for the Conduct Rules or simple prudence- all in the public interest, of course ! When an obdurate Finance Deptt. will not sanction him an official car, he withdraws cash from the Treasury, goes to Chandigarh and helps himself to the latest model ( The Ambassador and I ). When a smoker on a road blows smoke in his face  he is hauled to a police station to be taught proper civic behaviour ( Gone with the Smoke). A butcher who sells rotten meat is made to publicly eat it, raw and with the maggots and worms, rather than just pay an ineffective fine ( Don't Cheat on Meat). Jogishwar has his own ways of dispensing justice, without reference to the IPC or the CrPC.

  He has little patience for hide-bound rules or notions of Victorian propriety. He brings in lady visitors to the restricted area of Kinnaur without the prohibitive Inner Line Permit because he cannot abide the red tape ( Mona Lisa in Kinnaur), relying on the   "lese majesty" effect of the DC's flag. He smuggles Lia into his room in a training institute as his wife ( Hyderabadi Masala) leaving his colleagues to stew in the juice of their curiosity. He insists on deploying a police pilot car in advance of his official vehicle ( against the rules, naturally), and is overjoyed when an overbearing Brigadier is tricked into saluting him ( The General's Salute). But on at least one occasion the young DC is caught on the backfoot: on a night halt in a remote place in Nichar the local Pradhan gifts him a young Kinnauri girl for the night  (The Pradhan's Gift in Nichar), apparently a local custom to express hospitality. But it was too much for even Jogishwar who sends her away, much against the run of play.

  It's not all fun and games in Kinnaur, however. Jogishwar takes his job and responsibilities seriously. He has visited every remote village in his district, sometimes trekking as much as sixty kms to reach the more inaccessible ones, like Hango, Chuling, and Namgya. On one occasion, on an April visit to Chitkul  , the last village in the Sangla valley, he remarked on the beauty of the place. The local Pradhan had a differing view, informing the young DC that it was completely snow bound in the winters and no official or tourist visited them then. Jogishwar promised the Pradhan that he would come and spend New Year's eve at Chitkul that year. And he kept his word, much against the advice of his staff and Tehsildars, tramping for eight hours over waist deep snow, only to find that the Pradhan himself had betaken himself to Shimla for the winters! He has studied, and worked on, alternate credit systems in Kinnaur and conducted a national Census even though all govt. employees were on strike.

  He is also an environmentalist at heart: he opposed any plans for mass tourism in his district, arguing that the fragile topography and unique culture of Kinnaur would be seriously endangered by hordes of visitors and vehicles. This brought him into some conflict with the local MLA and Speaker of the Assembly, the legendary T.S.Negi, who, however, deferred to his DC's views and did not force his own on him. Subsequent events have proved how right Jogishwar was in opposing over-tourism. Incidentally, the author devotes a whole chapter to Mr. Negi, indicative of his high regard for the bureaucrat turned politician.

  The pre-ordained, three year, Inner Line Permit romance with Lia is true to the character of the man, not exactly love at first sight but love in hind-sight. It took Lia a midnight walk to the thick-headed DC's residence for Jogishwar to realise that this was the girl he wanted to marry. His mother was not too happy, he confesses. When she was looking for a bride for him he had insisted that any prospective candidate must tick four important boxes, the fourth being ( in his own words): she must be large breasted. We are informed that Lia did not tick the first three boxes, about the fourth he remains reticent!

 I finished this book in two sittings. Unlike most of his ilk who too have penned their memoirs, Jogishwar does not preach or pontificate. He shares with the reader the joy of being a young DC in a unique place, the satisfaction of cocking a snook at the staid bureaucracy of which he too is a part, the miracle of how a chance encounter metamorphosed into a love that changed the whole trajectory of his life. It is precisely these qualities that make this book so readable, especially for those who have served in Himachal. His has been a most unusual life and this book makes for very interesting reading for Jogishwar does not pull his punches. It's probably a good thing he decided to quit the strait-jacketed ranks of the IAS, for one can't help feeling that had he continued in the service he would have either become a Chief Secretary or  would have been charge-sheeted for his out-of-the-box nature. There is no middle ground for this raconteur! 

Published by SANBUN PUBLISHERS, NEW DELHI 110028

124 PAGES

RS. 1995.00 

OF PROBATIONERS, PATWARIS AND PROPHETS.

   It's impossible to get 10 IAS officers to agree on anything except the virtues of the Apex scale,  which is why any contentious matter is passed on to a committee of such officers, to bury it for all time. But there is one thing they will agree on: ask them which was the most memorable and enjoyable phase of their careers and they will all respond in one voice- their probation period. And with good reason: this is the stage of their life when they are full of hope and idealism, they are learning something new every day, they genuinely believe they can change the world, each one of them is a potential Chief Secretary or Cabinet Secretary though they will tread different paths to rise to their respective levels of incompetence and, perhaps the most important of all- they have not yet met the politicians who will be the curse of their later careers! Life looks and feels good when you are a probationer!

   After the UPSC made a grave error of judgment in selecting me in 1975, one underwent four phases of probation- in the Academy at Mussoorie, the Himachal Institute of Public Administration, district and settlement training. It's the last of the four which my mind wanders to today, a day on which I have just shelled out Rs. 910.00 for another cylinder of gas. One would expect that with the BJP leaders emitting so much gas in Bengal and Assam they would be giving it away free, but there are no free lunches with this party. In any case, you are entitled to ask: what is the connection between gas and my settlement training? Bear with me, gentlemen, and I shall tell you all, including how I conned Neerja into making a graver error than the UPSC by marrying me. 

   I am aware that not all fairy tales begin with "Once upon a time..."; quite a few begin with "When I was posted as Deputy Commissioner of..." This account, however, predates my DC days by a few years and can therefore be told with a straight face and a slanted bat. It is by no means a fairy tale but the highlights of my revenue-cum-settlement training in Jwalamukhi, then a small but bustling town about 38 kms from Dharamshala in Kangra district of Himachal. Jwalamukhi's fame is based on the fact that it sits on an unexplored reservoir of natural gas. Some of this comes out of vents in the famous Jwalamukhi temple and the resultant flames have been sold to devotees of the Devi as miracles-the eternal and mysterious flames. The town makes a good living out of this fiction, and good luck to it. After all, the govt. makes an even more profitable living out of gas- natural and man made- doesn't it?

  There were four of us dispatched to Jwalamukhi for three months to learn the arcane art of measuring land, recording rights, settling disputes and fudging revenue records. Our capo di tuti capi was Mr. Kainthla, the Tehsildar, one of the finest revenue officers I have worked with. The problem, however,   was that we rarely saw him: a chain smoker, he was always engulfed in a haze of cigarette smoke from which he occasionally emerged like an Old Testament prophet, to preach to us about Jamabandis, Shajra nasabs, girdawaris, khasras, khataunis and other lasting legacies of Todar Mal. An amiable man, he nonetheless believed in the concept of "lese majesty" where IAS probationers were concerned. I once gave some clothes to the local dry cleaner (there was only one within a radius of 20 kms and he used engine oil instead of petrol) who misplaced my favourite track pants but refused to admit it. I complained to Mr. Kainthla who summoned the truant burgher and reminded him that his family had not paid any "mal guzari" for their land for the last two generations and he was thinking of recovering it as arrears of land revenue. The track pants were found the next morning, the mal guzari is probably still outstanding.

  The bane of our existence was the local Executive Engineer (XEN) who had the power to permit, or deny, us rooms in the PWD rest house. (There were no hotels in this one horse town, not that we could afford a room in one). He would throw us out every second week just for the heck of it, and we would then have to sleep in the drivers' quarters. He outranked Mr. Kainthla, and since the bureaucratic hierarchy is more rigid than that of the great apes, there was little the latter  could do except light up another Charminar. Rumour had it that this XEN had taken the UPSC exams three times and had shown great consistency by failing in them all. He had then made it his life's mission to make every IAS probationer wish he had never joined the ruddy service. He almost succeeded in my case. Luckily, however, the XEN of neighbouring Ranital had no such bias against the IAS- he had failed to make it to the IPS- and invited us to stay in his rest house. We gladly accepted his offer even though we had to go half a kilometer into a forest to take a dump. It enabled us to see a lot of wildlife at close quarters from a squatting position, an opportunity denied to most people.

   Our real field training was done under Mr. Kehar Singh, the Halqua Patwari. I soon realised why my grandmother in Husainganj village, pop. 272, had opined that I should have become a Patwari instead of joining the IAS. For rural India a Patwari is the nearest thing to God, the Pope and Mr. Modi not excluded. He can, with just one stroke of the pen, turn a barren plot into a tropical forest, an encroacher into a landowner, a tenant into an encroacher, paddy into wheat, a Bangalore nerd into an agriculturist, black money into apples. Kehar Singh, overawed by his stupid but twice born trainees, revealed all the secrets of his trade to us, including how, by removing or adding a couple of links to a "zareb" ( measuring chain), your bighas could be converted to acres, and vice versa. I don't know whether this knowledge from the dark web helped me in my later career but, now in retirement, I can understand the wise words of a retired Chief Secretary: always make it a point to send a couple of bottles of the demon rum to one's Patwari every Diwali . A retired Additional Chief Secretary is, after all, a mere tick mark in his Girdawari register and can be smudged out with  just a drop of erasing fluid, an Adani reduced to an Anil Ambani with one shrug and a rub. 

  Enter Neerja, with whom I was destined to plight my troth. We had just met in Lucknow and decided to get to know each other- at least I decided, Neerja just did what her mother told her. I wrote her a letter from Jwalamukhi ever day, except second Saturdays and Sundays when no bureaucrat traditionally lays pen on paper- our own Sabbath. Fresh out of Delhi Univ. I would quote extensively from the Romantic school of poets, which made a deep mark on her then still impressionable LSR (Lady Shree Ram) mind. Hedging my bets, however, I figured that Keats and Shelley were not the potion for her mother, a person made of sterner stuff but one who just had to be in my corner if I was to win the match, as it were. Here is where the flames and temple of Jwalamukhi came in handy. I had myself photographed before the deity in all poses: while offering prayers, touching the feet of the priests, genuflecting before the idols; I even did a Rahul Gandhi long before he did- posing in my janau (sacred thread) and the found-again track pants. I obviously did a better job than him because Neerja's mom was soon convinced that here was a devout man who would worship her daughter like he did the idols of goddesses in the temple. The nuptials were announced, the banns made public and objections invited. Some of Neerja's admirers did lodge protests but they were disregarded with the same aplomb that the Election Commission nowadays dismisses complaints against the Prime Minister. The rest, as they say, is ancient Indian history. I don't go to temples any more and Neerja can't abide Keats, Shelley or Byron, not even Wordsworth and his rainbows. Being a cautious man I have not asked her mother for her opinion.

  I don't know how much revenue knowledge I picked up in Jwalamukhi but I did get me a life partner there, thus ensuring that the Shukla "shajra nasab" would continue for another generation at least. I invited Mr. Kainthla for the wedding but the postman couldn't locate him in the cloud of smoke.

 

A NEW YEAR RESOLUTION-- DO NOT LET THE BOOKSTORE DIE.

   The times they are a-changing- no one makes New Year resolutions any more, except perhaps Mr. Amit Shah and Mr. Adani. The former naturally resolves to fell a couple more Opposition governments in the states, and the latter to double his income yet again in twelve months. They are becoming so predictable I wish they would resolve something new, like Mr. Shah abjuring the use of the word "termites" or Mr. Adani saying "No" to another airport.

  My cup generally overfloweth on New Year's eve, usually with single malt and soda, but the only  resolution I allow myself is to get back to my flat before I pass out. I do not follow the herd in making New Year resolutions because my short-term memory is rather weak, though the long-term one is fine. I can remember, for example, when in 2012 Mr. Modi demanded a legislation for MSP for agricultural crops, but cannot remember why now he is refusing to bring such a law. In my more lucid moments ( which are becoming rarer) I can clearly recollect that I was married on 24th of  January 1977 but manage to forget the date every year- it's worse than forgetting an EMI payment, for I get saddled with principal, interest, penal interest, fine and a three day quarantine with the doggie. Given the state of my telomeres, therefore, it is better not to make any resolutions.

  But this year is an exception and I have made two New Year resolutions which I intend to share with the reader, whether he likes it or not. My first resolution is that I shall not buy any books through e-commerce companies like Amazon, Flipkart etc., I shall buy them from brick and mortar bookshops. Not that I have anything against the former, it's just that I would like to help preserve a little bit of the civilised world I grew up in. Digital is fine, but we can't allow it to take over our lives.

  Bookshops just cannot compete with the deep pockets, discounts and reach of on-line platforms (not to mention Kindle and similar apps), and are going out of business at an alarming rate. Ten years ago there were five bookshops in Greater Kailash M Block market, today there are none- all replaced by jewellery stores. It's the same with South Extension, Khan Market, Connaught Place; there's not a single bookshop within a two kilometer radius of where I live in East Delhi. An article in Scroll.in sometime back reported that about 100 bookstores in Delhi have closed down but this is most likely an underestimation.

  Ironically, this is happening precisely at a time when there has been a boom in the number of books published, authors and readers also. The benefit of this, however, is going to the on-line platforms. Apart from the convenience of home delivery, they offer deep discounts which the bookshop with its fixed expenses cannot possibly match. These digital platforms typically get a 40%-50% margin on the published price of a book and can afford to share most of this with the buyer as a discount; they can even opt for predatory pricing below even their buying price- the JIO model of pricing- to drive the competition out of business. Their AI algorithms modify the prices every day to keep the competition at bay. Once they have exterminated these Brick and Mortar shops, of course, prices will be jacked up and you will even be charged a hefty sum for delivery. 

 But this unfair competition is not the only reason why bookstores must be encouraged and protected. The reason is best expressed by Satabdi Mishra, the owner of a travelling Indie bookshop, in an article on Nov. 25, 2020:

" Bookshops are one of the few spaces that uphold democratic values, social justice and freedom of thought and speech. Bookshops are our best hope of keeping truth alive, to help us speak up, more loudly, with more courage, each time our voices are silenced by oppressors. Bookshops are spaces that bring us together, help us empower ourselves with knowledge...."

  Bookshops, like libraries, are oases of civilisation in the lumpen world of Twitter and Facebook; they are the stuff of a lively democracy; they connect us with like minded people, with our cultural past, the world of distant lands, the romance of history. They inculcate and stimulate a love for books by the very act of browsing over titles, picking them up lovingly and riffling through their pages. You cannot do this by scrolling on a lifeless website or URL. You have to touch, feel and smell a book to appreciate the attraction of the written word. I find nothing more comforting than the musty smell of a bookshop.

 I had an early exposure to them. My grandfather and uncles owned three bookshops in Calcutta (it was not known as Kolkata then): two in New Market and one in the lobby of the Grand Hotel on Chowringhee, collectively known as SHUKLA+ CO. All the tea planters of Assam and north Bengal bought their reading material from our shops. During my school holidays I spent all my days in them, helping my uncles in selling the books: I received four annas for every book I sold. I didn't make much money for I was more interested in discovering new books and authors, and devouring them before the vacations came to an end. In college in Calcutta and New Delhi, Sundays were spent in the second hand bookshops on College Street and Free School Street, behind Red Fort, Chor Bazaar and Daryaganj- all of them now removed for reasons of traffic management or security (the catch-all phrases for philistine ignorance, whether the govt. is dealing with bookshops or farmers!). My engagement with bookshops has been a love affair that will go with me to the grave along with, I hope, a bound copy of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam.

                            [The author on a  book signing visit to Full Circle, Khan Market, New Delhi ]

  Buying (or selling) a book should not be a vulgar mercenary transaction, as it is when you press a key on your computer to buy one. In my times we did it differently, a vanished art which I re-discovered last month. I was taken on a "signing" tour of Delhi's best known bookstores by Penguin Random House, as part of the marketing strategy for my last book, POLYTICKS, DEMOCKRAZY AND MUMBO-JUMBO. After many years I met again the bookshop owners and their customers. A book is not supposed to be just picked off a shelf like a packet of cigarettes, a certain etiquette has to be followed- after half an hour of browsing through the various sections, you ask the owner for a certain title or author, mein host produces half a dozen of them, suggests some books of his own, shows you the latest issues. It's time now for a cup of coffee or a cigarette, over which the two of you discuss who actually wrote Shakespeare's plays or whether Hemingway was a better journalist or  writer. No one is in a hurry and in the fullness of time a book is bought, a bond cemented. I witnessed all this again after many years, and my heart did what Wordsworth's usually did on seeing a daffodil. Surely we cannot allow this dimension of our culture to die at the hands of Amazon and AI algorithms which know NOTHING about books: my book, which is pure political satire and humour, has been categorised by Amazon under " Social Sciences!" 

                                             [

                                         [ Author at Bahri Sons in Khan Market, New Delhi. ] 

  If we do not change our pernicious habits the  time is not far away when the last bookstore will down its shutters for ever, perhaps to be followed by public libraries which too have been dealt a mortal blow by the pandemic. Delhi has about 150 of them and many of the non-government ones are on the verge of closure. They need to be assisted by the government for they provide a public service, especially to people/ students from the lower economic sections who cannot to afford to buy books. As regards the bookshops, I noted that many have attempted to supplement their revenues by selling cosmetics, toiletries, coffee and snacks. But some other interventions can be considered by the government too. For example, 12 countries in the EU, including Germany, have legislated a "Fixed Pricing Policy" which prevents on-line portals and platforms from selling books below the printed price; empirical evidence shows that this has in fact helped B+M bookshops to better compete with their on-line rivals. I am not holding my breath for this one, however, for nothing would suit the present political dispensation better than the closure of all means of transmitting real knowledge.

  Libraries and bookshops are public goods/services for they are repositories of knowledge, of that which distinguishes homo sapiens from all other living creatures- the intellect and the mind (not the brain, for that is just a collection of synapses and tissue, which AI has already bettered). To survive the digital age they need the support of the state as well as of each one of us, individually. And so I went to Faquir Chand's in Khan Market and bought two books: Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari and Ten Lessons For A Post Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria; I even got a 10% discount! Neerja swears she could see the halo around my head as I exited the shop.

   I've forgotten what my second resolution was.