A REVIEW OF 'SPECTRE OF CHOOR DHAR" BY AVAY SHUKLA.

                                                     BY    ANIL     PRADHAN

                                           

 [ VISHWAKARMA PUB. AMAZON. 136 PAGES. RS. 180.00 ]

Avay Shukla writes with a flair which is unmatched. A true Nature Lover, the ten stories in his book, 'Spectre of Choor Dhar', weave a magic tapestry with words that transmute ordinary natural scenery to scenes of wonderment.

The raconteur is Onkak Yadav, the retired Chief Secretary, better known as the Collector, who lives in his cottage at Namhol village. The setting is the Officers' Club in the district headquarters of Bilaspur town near Shimla. The motley crowd consists of the District Collector, the Sub Divisional Magistrate, an IAS Probationer, the Executive Engineer, the Chief Medical Officer, sometimes the Superintendent of Police and a businessman or two. To this assorted crowd, the Collector recounts his tales of yore, enlightening them about places, myths, proclivities and a few home truths.

The writer's choice of words marvellously echoes the scenery that he describes. Early in his first story he writes, "Bilaspur's USP, however, is the picturesque Gobindsagar lake, curling around the town in a loving embrace as if loath to part with its companion of centuries past." A little later in the same story, describing the avalanche of rain, he says, "Claps of thunder blasted the stillness and echoed around the crags like some menacing symphony. The whole atmosphere was still and inert as if waiting for the arrival of some primordial force. And then the force arrived - huge dollops of rain cascaded down in their millions of litres ....."

The writer’s knowledge of his locale is astonishing. Every trek worth knowing in the state of Himachal Pradesh is listed. Every mountain and valley and stream is mapped out. In 'The Lost Treasure of Dibbi Bokri', he writes, "The Parbati river, as you know, originates from the glacial Mantalai lake just below the Pin Parbat range ...... It cascades furiously down its narrow, thickly forested, habitation-less valley .... before it confluences with the Tosh stream at the village of Pulga." In 'The Devta of Jiwa-Nal', the local legend of the Pandavas' wanderings in the upper reaches of the state is peppered with accurate descriptions of the locale.

Each story has an element of palpable suspense. In 'The Judgement', till almost the last paragraph we do not know how the wily judge will negotiate between the twin dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, between the death sentence and life imprisonment, while fulfilling his bounden duty with the utmost regard to rectitude and fair play. The ending of 'Ambush At Chanshil Pass' is chilling while that of 'The Lost Treasure Of Dibbi Bokri' and 'The Spectre Of Choor-Dhar' are both Hitchcockian. Equally unexpected is the way the lanky, expressionless, penitent representative from the Naxalite region is dealt with in the 'The Midnight Visitor'.

Cynicism is the leitmotif in 'The Cave Man Of Sainj Valley', the background being the Teachers Awards Day. The Collector laments that, "It's sycophancy and networking that brings awards". Be it the Republic Day or Independence Day Awards, or even the Teachers' Day Awards, the rule is, the more senior the more awards. The misandry and political give-and-take forms the core of the story, 'The National Park', so reminiscent of the hilarious but cynical BBC serials, 'Yes Minister' and 'Yes Prime Minister'.

As the writer confesses in his 'Introduction', "... his stories reveal everything about him". His love for the outdoors and for long, lonely, arduous treks, his intense passion for Nature, his utter and unwavering belief in Destiny, are all there splashed across his ten stories. The last tale, 'The House That Died Of Grief', is an intensely personal slice of the author's life. Yet, there is no rancour or bitterness at the way things are. Rather, there is a certain mirth, a certain joy mingled with a grin and an indulgent smile at the varied and multilayered dimensions of life in this world of ours.

At times, the reader may feel bogged down by the language used by the Collector while narrating his anecdotes. Then again, how else will a retired bureaucrat speak but in measured tones, using words which the assembled crowd of district officials encounter in their daily grind of officialdom. They don’t bat an eyelid .... and neither should you.

[ Anil Pradhan retired from the IPS as Director General of Police, Meghalaya. He lives happily in Shillong.]

VIOLATING THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE CONTRACT

                        VIOLATING  THE  CRIMINAL  JUSTICE  CONTRACT

   The criminal justice system is based on an implicit four sided contract: the legislature shall pass the laws, the judiciary will interpret them, the people will observe them, and the police will enforce them. This contract appears to be breaking down in India because the law enforcers( the police) in an increasing number of cases is refusing to abide by the judiciary’s interpretations of some critical laws. The lower courts too in an increasing number of cases are failing to exercise the diligence to check this tendency.It would suffice to refer to three of them- Sec. 124A of IPC ( sedition), Sec. 306 of IPC( abetment of suicide), and Sec. 66A of the Information Technology Act( restrictions on on-line speech and content)- to prove this point.

   The sedition law is perhaps one that is most being misused by the executive to serve its political and ideological ends. Ever since the Kedar Nath Singh case in 1962, which first read down Sec. 124A, the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the mere raising of slogans, writing of articles or even possession of pamphlets does not constitute the offence of sedition ( Balwant Singh 1995, Common Cause 2016). It has stated unambiguously that Sec. 124A is attracted only if there is a clear and immediate incitement to violence, or actual violence, “ or the tendency or intention to create public disorder.” In the absence of these ingredients all free speech is guaranteed by Article 19(1) of the Constitution. In Balwant Singh it held that even the mere raising of  “Khalistan Zindabad” slogans did not amount to sedition.

   And yet the executive/ police keep on registering sedition cases and arresting people voicing anti-government opinions. The Congress had arrested the cartoonist Aseem Trivedi in Mumbai; earlier this year three intellectuals have been charged in Assam for criticising the Citizenship Bill, the BJD in Orissa last year arrested a journalist for daring to speak against the state govt., in January the Delhi police have charge sheeted Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others for raising anti-India and pro- Kashmir slogans in JNU, and on February 11^th UP police have lodged sedition cases against 14 students of Aligarh Muslim University after a scuffle with some ABVP activists. It has been reported in the media that in UP alone 150 sedition cases have been registered in the last few years. From all reports appearing in the public domain so far none of these cases come within the definition of sedition mandated by the SC, but this has not deterred the police from going ahead. According to a news report based on MHA statistics 179 sedition cases were registered between 2014 and 2016; the number of convictions was only 2! The figures speak for themselves, and what they are saying is that the intention of the govt. is not to convict but to harass and persecute through our tortuous judicial process.
   It does not help the cause of free speech when High court judges themselves consider books such as Tolstoy's WAR AND PEACE a seditious piece of writing ( an obiter dicta by an Hon' judge in Maharashtra just this week in the Koregaon trials).

   The misuse of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act is just as pronounced, even though the Supreme Court had struck down this section too in the Shreya Singhal case( March 24, 2015). The court held that this section was violative of Art.14 ( equality before the law), Art. 19( freedom of speech and expression) and Art. 21( right to life and personal liberty). And yet it is employed freely by administrations to stifle dissent or settle personal scores:  the legal data site Indian Kanoon has listed 45 cases between just January and September 2018; a petition in the SC claims that 22 persons have been arrested since 2015. A typical example is that of one Zakir Ali Tyagi of Muzaffarnagar( UP) who was charged and arrested under this section in April 2018 for posting on his Facebook page that the UP Chief Minister had 28 cases registered against him! He is currently out on bail but the case continues.

   In fact, so pervasive and widespread has this blatant misuse and illegality become that on 7^th January of this year the Supreme Court, acting on a PIL by PUCL( People’s Union for Civil Liberties) even threatened to arrest govt. officials for violating its orders and continuing to harass people by foisting this section on them!

   The law pertaining to abetment of suicide ( Section 306 of the IPC) provides another fertile ground for the police to demonstrate their disregard for settled law. Both the SC and various High Courts in a plethora of judgments have laid down the essential ingredients that can constitute abetment. They have ruled unambiguously that the mere naming of a person in a suicide note is not enough to infer the offence; there has to be mens rea to commit the offence; for the charge to be made it is necessary that the accused should be    “instigating a person or intentionally aiding a person to commit the act.” In fact in one case ( Madhav Rao and others vs. state of Haryana, June 2018) the Punjab and Haryana High Court has gone so far as to say that “ another person cannot be blamed for the wrong decision taken by a coward, fool, idiot, a man of weak mentality, man of frail mentality.”

  And yet, all over the country, dozens of people are charged, and arrested, for abetment without any evidence, merely because they are named in a suicide note or accused by the next of kin of the deceased. An irresponsible media  exerts pressure on the police to act.  School teachers are arrested because they scolded a pupil who then killed himself, employers because they took some action against an employee, men because their refusal to marry someone prompted the latter to take their lives. In the most shocking such case in Noida in December last year one Swaroop Raj, an executive in a multi-national company, was accused by two female employees of sexual harassment. An Internal Complaints Committee was set up to enquire into the matter and Raj was placed under suspension. He went home and committed suicide. On his wife’s complaint the Noida police registered a case of abetment of suicide against the two lady complainants and members of the ICC. Not only does this fly in the face of the SC ruling, it is also a major set back against efforts to ensure the safety of women in their work places: it will seriously discourage women from coming forward to complain about inappropriate behaviour by male colleagues. The issue here is not whether the molestation complaint against Raj was correct, for that is something the ICC to adjudicate on. The objection is to the hasty and knee jerk over reaction of the police: making a complaint to the rightful authority can in no way be construed as instigating a person to kill himself or aiding in that act.

   In a more recent case, on 1^st August 2019, a 25 year old marketing executive in Gurugram killed herself because her boyfriend refused to marry her. She did not leave behind any suicide note or accuse him, but her parents did. A case of abetment to suicide has been lodged against him, without any evidence whatsoever. This in spite of the fact that it was this boy friend who had called the police station the same day to warn them that the woman might commit suicide after an argument with him!

   Such instances of disregard of even Supreme Court and High Court rulings appear to be on the rise, and it does not bode well for our criminal justice system. But the onus to correct this does not lie on the police alone, the trial courts too have to accept their fair share of the blame. For it is the lack of scrutiny by them of the charge sheets/ complaints that allows such cases to be admitted for trial; they fail to act as counter checks on the police. Sometimes they even entertain such frivolous and baseless( in law) complaints directly, as in the instance of a West Bengal judge issuing an arrest warrant against Shashi Tharoor  for having stated, 18 months ago, that India was becoming a Hindu Pakistan. The warrant has been stayed by the High Court on the ground,inter-alia,that it is without jurisdiction.                                                                    The police/ prosecution agencies may claim ignorance of the law but surely the courts cannot be allowed this privilege. It is indeed time for the higher courts to carry out the threat held out by the apex court- hold such police officers and even trial judges to account for contempt. That at least would be legal.

KASHMIR NEEDS ITS OWN, DISTINCT MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT.

                   

   These days everyone with an IQ above 30 ( Arnab Goswami just about makes the cut) considers himself an authority on Articles 370 and 35A. After their revocation we all wait with bated breath ( Mr. Jaitley was even admitted to hospital with breathing problems) for its political and legal consequences to play out. We are told that this is going to be a five day test match with pellet interruptions, not a T-20, so we shouldn't hold our breath. It's a good time to go back to Pranayam. I've decided to light a cigarette instead because I know how things will turn out, you see. The Supreme Court ( where a challenge has already been filed) will at best recommend another mediation by Shri Shri Ravi Shankar, given its current orthopedic status. Politically the BJP will win at least 400 seats in Parliament at the next elections in 2024, after having carved up some more irritating states like  turkeys during Thanksgiving. So these are not issues that merit any further discussion, and I do not propose to do so either. I am on another issue altogether- the promised development of the vivisected Kashmir valley and Ladakh.

   The Prime Minister himself announced the other day that achhe din were about to dawn for Kashmir and that it would no longer be the wasteland it currently is- pervasive  poverty, no social services, no health or education, rampant unemployment, corruption, and so on. With the kind of industrial, power and tourism initiatives the central govt. has in mind Kashmir would soon become a land of milk and honey: it would become a model of development for other states. Fine words, and I hope the Kashmiris in the valley, sans internet, TV or telephony, heard them. No doubt they wept with joy and relief.

   But there is a seminal problem with this line of argument and this vision- actually, two problems. First, Kashmir is nowhere near being the netherworld or failed state it is being made out to be; in fact, all the social, economic and human development indicators ( as per the govt's own figures) are better than most states and also compare very favourably with the national figures. Its position is far, far better than the state from where the Prime Minister has been elected. Here are some figures:

                                           PRIME INDICATORS OF DEVELOPMENT

           SECTOR                           JAMMU AND KASHMIR       UTTAR PRADESH

           Potable/tap water                         64%                                           27%                   [ % of pop.]

           Toilets                                          51.2%                                        36%

           Power consumption                     1199                                          593                   [ units/h'hold]

           Phones                                          91                                             74                     [per 100 pop.]

           Life expectancy                            73.5 yrs                                    64.8 yrs.

           GDP per capita                             Rs.1.02 lakhs                            Rs.57,024        [2016-17 figs]

                                                                 [ The all-India figure was Rs.1.17 lakhs]

           Poverty ratio                                 10.35%                                     23.95%            [2011 census]

                                                                 [ The all-India figure was 21.92%]

           Hospital beds                                1/ 1066 pop.                              1/2904 pop.

           Unemployment                             5.3%                                          6.4%

           Total Fertility Rate(TFR)              1.7%                                          3.1%

           Birth rate                                        15.7                                           26.2               [per 1000 pop]

           Infant mortality rate                        23                                             33

           Sex ratio                                         917                                             912               [All-India 896]

           Literacy rate                                   67.2                                           67.6

It is quite clear that Kashmir is not the basket case it is being made out to be, notwithstanding the unremitting decades of violence it has witnessed: it is far more developed than many states and years ahead of BJP's flagship UP.  Of course, any further development is always welcome but the narrative that its " underdevelopment" is the cause of all its problems is patently fallacious.

   Secondly, one cannot but be apprehensive of the TYPE of development which Kashmir has been promised, without any regard for its distinctive mountain topography and ecology. It has been indicated that all types of heavy and manufacturing industries will be set up there, hydel projects, massive road construction, even building new cities. Heavy lifters like Reliance Industries are already lining up, licking their chops at the prospect of appropriating the massive, untouched natural resources of the state. Massive tourism projects have been envisaged for Ladakh. This will be a disaster for the state. We only need to look at what has happened to the likes of Himachal and Uttarakhand, which followed the same get-rich-quick route, and ended up with their environments devastated by excessive construction, unmanageable traffic chaos, mindless road building, conversion of once idyllic towns to urban slums, more garbage than trees on its mountains, rivers choked and rendered lifeless by hydel projects, waterways polluted by all manner of industries and mining projects. These states have lost more and gained little from this industrialisation, either in revenues or employment. Their two traditional activities- tourism and horticulture- continue to be their mainstay.

   Which is precisely the lesson to be learnt now for Kashmir. It has done very well from its traditional sectors: tourism, adventure sports, horticulture, handicrafts, dry fruits, pastoral trades. These are all environment friendly and completely in tune with its ecology and terrain. It is imperative to preserve these and to follow a development path which retains Kashmir's ecological and cultural sensitivity. Rather than the pure capitalist model, Delhi should look at the Bhutan model which blends GDP, GNP ( Gross National Happiness) and GHG ( Green House Gas) values. Bhutan's spectacular success in implementing an equity-centric policy rather than a growth-centric one, a socio-environmentally oriented development philosophy, maintaining a balance between tradition and modernity, has paid the country rich dividends. It has a 71% forest cover, is the only carbon neutral country in the world, its GDP has been growing at an average of 7.5% over the last decade, it has a poverty ratio of just 2%, its per capita GDP at US$ 2897 ( 2016 figures) is higher than ours. Bhutan has given the lie to the western concept of development which postulates that development is not possible without environmental degradation, social inequity and loss of traditional ways of life in the short and middle terms. It has now become a case study for far more "advanced" countries.

   If at all "development" has to be thrust upon Kashmir ( and the centre seems hell bent upon doing so) it should follow the Bhutan model. The economic "transformation" of the state( now of course a union territory) should not become an excuse for ruthless exploitation of natural assets, or land grabbing, or demographic change, which is what the Kashmiris fear. At a recent conclave of Himalayan states in Mussoorie all of them stressed that they should have a separate model of development given their distinct topography, climate, culture and natural environment. Kashmir gives our policy makers a unique opportunity to adopt such a template. It will also reassure the Kashmiris. We have decided in our wisdom, or lack of it, that Kashmir needs a new beginning. The least we can do now is to ensure that it is a sustainable and equitable one, and that we do not replace one set of carpetbaggers with another.
  The irony, if not tragedy, is that it did not require carving up the state into two, or converting it into a union territory, to achieve the "development" of Kashmir!

FROM THE DISTRICT DIARIES--- SPY VERSUS SPY.

   Reading is not a rewarding pastime these days. There are far too many idiots on the loose expressing ante-diluvion views or singing hosannas to the presiding deity. Occasionally, however, one stumbles on a nugget: I did recently, in the form of a new word- "parabiotic". It means two living objects sharing a common circulatory system, like conjoined twins, for example. And it immediately brought to mind a memory from my district days- the relationship between a Deputy Commissioner (DC) and the Superintendent of Police (SP).

   The DC(also known as District Magistrate or Collector) and the SP have a distinct parabiotic, interdependent  relationship, they have to work in tandem, otherwise the district is likely to fall apart, as is happening in Unnao (UP) these days. It's a very critical kinship and not always easy to sustain, for many reasons. Firstly, there is the traditional rivalry between the IAS and the IPS based on the fact that the former took two extra papers in the UPSC exams, but the latter is better at horse riding! Secondly, the SP is usually older in age and year of allotment, if not also in sin, than the DC and therefore finds it difficult to accept the DC as the team leader, if not the boss. During my two stints as DC I had to contend with five SPs, all senior to me by one to seven years. It requires a delicate balancing act to keep this relationship going successfully-think wife instead of SP and you'll grasp what the problem is.

   Each is always trying to out- Herod the other, blame the other when things go wrong, and impress the Chief Minister. The nearest analogy I can draw is the Spy vs Spy duo in those comics we used to read in better days when there was no Whatsapp or Man ki Baat. I got my first taste of this parabiotic dividend when I was barely three months old in my first district. The SP was a gnarled, promotee veteran of 45, battle scarred and as straight as a wine opener. I was 27 years old, fresh from Hindu College and cocky as hell; I figured that if I could survive eating in the Hindu College mess, snatch my share of chapatis from those hulking Jats, I could take care of myself anywhere. Imagine my shock, therefore, when one morning the Chief Minister's office asked me to explain why I had accepted a gift of mangoes at my residence from a stranger! The mangoes (all two kilos of them),  had in fact. been given to me by the local MLA and were from his own orchard, albeit the orchard was on encroached forest land as is generally the case in Himachal. I would probably have been dismissed from service  in today's 360 degree surveillance state, but at the time my simple explanation sufficed. The issue, however, was different: who was keeping watch on me and ratting to the CM? It turned out that the SP had planted a beggar at my gate to record all visitors and report to him every evening! The mendicant was promptly picked up by the Tehsildar and dispatched to Chintpurni temple to earn an honest living; the SP lost his eyes and ears and I have since then lost my taste for mangoes.

  The SP then engineered (I suspect) a strike by lawyers over the allotment of rooms in the Collectorate. The revenue cases started piling up but I stood my ground. The SP was sending daily reports to the CM that another  Champaran type Indigo revolution was in the offing. He then offered to mediate, I accepted and  a deal was struck with the Bar. He came out smelling of roses; I smelt like one of Mr. Modi's ostensibly  defecation-free villages. Lesson learnt- trust the SP like you would Mr. Amit Malviya with facts.

   My second district was even more interesting and educative. The immediate challenge I had to confront on joining was election to the post of President of the District Officers' Club. All districts have these clubs, and although they are a far cry from IIC (India International Centre) and Gymkhana they are the only available watering holes, and all manner of departmental species converge there. It is an accepted that the DC, being the Capo di tuti capi (or head of the local Mafia), shall be its President. But I had a problem. My predecessor was a gentle, placid type who had had no interest in the Club; his only passion in life was to collect old newspapers. He took one truckload of them from the DC's residence when he departed, no doubt as a cushion against inflation.  During his tenure the SP (considerably senior to me) had staged a Maldives kind of coup and more or less taken over the running of the Club. He had now thrown his peaked cap into the ring against me!

  Now, an election to the post of President of the Officers' Club is very similar to that of the Congress President- there is only one name on the ballot (the DC's) and it goes uncontested. On this occasion, however, I had to follow Mr. Amit Shah's drill, so thrillingly on display last week in the Rajya Sabha. Emissaries were dispatched to officers of an independent mind to gently remind them  who would write their ACRs (Annual Confidential Reports), monitor their target achievements and sanction their leave. The SP smelt the wind, withdrew his name from the ticket, and I became President: democracy had won again!

   Switch to the early 80's and Shimla district which was then ruled by a DC-SP duo of exceptional political skills. They realised very early that Shimla- the state capital- was a different kind of pond. Unlike other districts, where the SP/ DC are numero unos in their respective areas, Shimla had plenty of bigger sharks prowling its murky depths- Ministers, Chairmen, Secretaries, DGPs and Heads of Departments, all vying for a big slice of power and influence. Our duo realised that to survive they had to work together to grab the CM's attention and favour. So they teamed up in a perfect parabiotic conjunction to keep all others out; so unremitting, devious and ingenious were their moves that they soon acquired the moniker of Ranga- Billa. The CM was never out of their sight: Ranga would tuck him up in bed at night and Billa would bring him the bed tea next morning. The CM did nothing without consulting them, met no one without the duo screening every visitor, went nowhere without one of them in tow. Ranga- Billa's  rule was complete and lasted till they retired, in true Mughal fashion.

   There is much both the IAS and IPS could learn from this duo, about how to sink your differences when confronted with a common enemy. Unfortunately, both are now long gone, otherwise they could have given some much-needed advice to the Opposition, particularly the Congress. It is still not too late, however, to introduce the Ranga- Billa theory of administration in the IAS Academy at Mussoorie as part of the civil service reforms being contemplated by the govt ! Over to the Cabinet Secretary.

A FIVE TRILLION DOLLAR ECONOMY IS NO PANACEA FOR OUR ILLS.

                         

   I drove back from my cottage in Mashobra( Shimla) to Delhi last week. It took me eleven hours- four and a half hours to Timber Trail and six and a half from there to our over rated capital city. In 1980 ( which was 40 years ago in case you too, like me, are numerically challenged) I used to make the journey in eight hours in my beat-up, second hand Fiat which used to heat up every hundred kilometers, requiring its radiator to be topped up regularly like some of my friends in the Gymkhana bar. AND I didn't have to shell out Rs. 350/ in toll fees. In these intervening years, thousands of crores have been spent on a new expressway, on four laning the mountain stretch, on fly overs and under passes. Thousands of acres of fertile land have been acquired, mountain sides excavated, millions of tonnes of soil and debris thrown into stream beds, choking them, thousands displaced from their occupations and businesses, hundreds of lives lost in accidents on these super highways. To what end if it takes me 40% more time to cover the same distance as compared to forty years ago? Its the same, if not worse, in the cities- traffic in Mumbai and Kolkatta moves at the same space as the horse drawn carriages a hundred years ago. In the early seventies I could drive from the north campus of DU ( there was no south campus then) on my Jawa mobike to my uncles's place in Greater Kailash in 25 minutes; today it takes at least an hour. We are nonetheless informed by economists and politicians of all ilks that this is progress.

   It's the same in all other areas of human/ economic activity. Our GDP has grown a zillion times since Independence, but we have more people below the poverty line than we had then, in absolute numbers ( forget the percentage argument, that is simply something economists use to cover the ugly truth). Life expectancy may have reached 70 years but deaths from diabetes, cancer, heart attacks have increased exponentially. Lakhs of crores of rupees have been invested in medical colleges and health care institutions but  more people are dying of diseases ( remember the recent Gorakhpur and Muzzafarpur encephalitis deaths of children?) than ever before. Aldous Huxley put his finger on it many years ago when he presciently observed: 'Medical science has made such tremendous progress that there is hardly a healthy human life left."

  Food production has gone up a hundred times and yet 38% of children below the age of five are stunted/ wasted from malnutrition. GDP has been growing at a remarkable 7%-8% for the last 15 years but unemployment is at a 45 year high. 13000 farmers commit suicide every year even though they are given free power and water, subsidies worth Rs. 75000 crores every year, and periodic loan waivers. Inflation is at an all time low and yet consumption, industrial production and household savings are showing a persistent decline. The country has 900 large dams/ reservoirs but 60%of agriculture is still dependent on the monsoons. We have some of the most draconian laws in the world and yet rapes, lynchings, mob violence, assault on children continue to rise: according to WHO India has the highest number of child abuse cases in the world. We have pledged to achieve a green cover of 30% of geographical area by 2030, to bring an additional one million hectares under trees, but we continue deforestation on a colossal scale- 1.6 million hectares denuded in the last ten years, 16 million trees felled. Our culture worships women but we kill millions of infant girls every year- the national sex ratio is 896 girls for every 1000 boys: in the " progressive" state of Haryana the figure is 833. We proudly boast of India's trump card- the "demographic dividend"- but our education system is in shambles: students in class V cannot read class II texts and 67% of engineers are unemployable, according to a recent industry report. This is not a dividend, it is a primed grenade waiting to explode.

   These are only some of the paradoxes and failures of our pure GDP focused growth. There is something fundamentally wrong with the political/ economic path we have been following all these years. In following the same shibboleths of western economies we have dug ourselves into a hole and devastated our natural environment, all to no effect. Our national character, with the kind of role models we have in politics, industry, media and various professions, is unrecognizable from what it was when we proudly acquired independence in a different era. We have become a deeply divided, inequitable, heartless and lawless society and it shows in our ranking in the World Happiness Index- at 140 out of 155 countries. And the brutal, capital centric and materialistic policies of the present government are only making things worse. We are very much in danger of progressing from Lance Pritchett's description of us as a " flailing state" to a "failed state" in terms of values, principles and character.

   We need to move away from our unhealthy GDP obsession: it has to be balanced with wider considerations: of humaneness, equity, compassion, concern for the environment, responsiveness. Instead of being just a five trillion dollar economy, how about striving to become a Zero Infant Mortality Economy, or an Equal Sex-Ratio Society, or a Universal Health Care Economy, or a Zero Net Carbon Emission Economy or a Nobody Goes to Bed Hungry Economy? How about aspiring to go up on the Happiness or Environment Performance Index with the same zeal we show for the Ease of Doing Business Index?

   If the distortions and perversions that have us in a stranglehold are not corrected-soon- it will not matter if we become a 5 trillion dollar economy or not for, as Milton Friedman famously remarked:  "So what if it meets all criteria of economic success except one: you cannot live there!"

    

SHIMLA-ITES MUST OWN RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE MESS THEY ARE IN.

          SHIMLA-ITES MUST OWN RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE MESS THEY ARE IN.

   Last year it was a water crisis, this year it is the traffic chaos and accidents. Post the bus accident in Khalini area of Shimla on the 1st of this month which claimed the lives of two young girls and the bus driver, it would be amusing- were it not so tragic- to observe the knee jerk reactions of the citizens of Shimla: Ministers rushing to the hospital, residents vandalising parked cars, the High Court issuing notices on children safety, inquiries being ordered and so on. Deja vu again, for we have seen it all a dozen times before and more than 1300 people continue to die in Himachal every year in road accidents. Everyone blames the state government, and rightly so, for ALL governments have been criminally negligent and culpable in making Shimla the mess it is today.

   But the bitter truth is that the residents and citizens of the city are equally to blame and they cannot adopt a holier than thou posture, or pose as hapless victims of government apathy. Over the years they have been vocal and active participants in the degeneration and uglification of this once lovely city and have stoutly opposed any effort to preserve its natural assets or improve its functioning and infrastructure. They consequently live in a mess of their own making and have lost the right to complain.

  Take, for example, the issue of rampant, illegal constructions, of which a recent survey recorded more than 20000. Instead of pressing the government to demolish them the citizens have repeatedly forced the govt. to regularise them: so far there have been five such regularisation ( retention) schemes; the sixth one, passed by the previous Congress govt., has been struck down by the High Court but the present govt. has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court ( it is telling that the present govt. is a BJP one- when it comes to rank populism politicians are like peas in a pod!). Such rampant vote pandering only encourages more violations.The National Green Tribunal's orders banning further constructions in the city are openly flouted, the limit of two and a half storeys does not even merit a fig leaf, and people are building what they want, where they want for the next regularisation policy is only an election away. Hundreds of illegal home stays ( the latest tax evading racket) add to the chaos, congestion and parking woes.

  Shimla is being asphyxiated by the sheer volume of traffic on its roads which can neither be expanded nor widened because of the topography. A population of about two lakhs boasts of 1.25 lakh registered vehicles, a density higher even than that of Delhi. Add to this another 5000 tourist vehicles and 600 buses entering the city every day. Everyone happily goes about buying cars, with no thought given to where they will be parked. Rules require  every building to have parking areas/ floors but these are only shown in the building plans: once approved they are converted to regular floors. Houses are constructed on 60-70 degree gradients, without proper access, and the cars simply left on the roads. The govt. is of course culpable for even approving such building plans, but surely the citizens too have to bear responsibility here: they cannot break the laws deliberately and then blame the govt. alone for the inconvenience and accidents. All reports indicate that the Khalini accident happened because the road was reduced to half its width because of illegally parked vehicles. Half- hearted attempts to declare some arterial roads as one way are resisted, everyone wants a permit for their vehicles to ply on restricted roads, attempts to cap the number of taxis or to install meters on them are met with protests, nobody wants to walk, as in the old days.

                                             

                                                  ( SPOT  THE TREE IN  SHIMLA.)

   The slopes and forests are littered with plastic and waste; Shimla's nallahs, which once flowed the year round and charged innumerable springs and cascades, are now smothered in garbage. A recent clean-up initiative by the district administration and some  NGOs resulted in about twenty tonnes of waste being excavated from these water courses. Not all this garbage can be ascribed to tourists: the residents are equally responsible. All attempts at door-to-door collection or segregation have failed. It is, after all, much easier and less expensive to just chuck the bloody thing down the hillside. The monkey menace in the town is directly attributable to this open dumping of rubbish, but the good burghers will not admit to this; instead they demand that the monkeys be either shot as vermin or exported for medical purposes! Water harvesting has been made mandatory but it is neither adopted by the building owners nor implemented by the government.

   It's the same with Shimla's rapidly disappearing green cover. Blessed with perhaps the world's largest urban forest, the city is losing it all to construction and road building. Its only remaining forests lie in the 17 green belts ( comprising 400 hectares) which were notified in the early 2000's, and where no construction of any kind is permissible- without these forested areas the town would look like the seventh rock from the sun. And yet many citizens continue to resist these restrictions in the green belt, eyeing their commercial potential. They are supported by a vision-less and spineless govt. which has tried everything to open up the area for construction activity. Fortunately, the High Court and the National Green Tribunal have ruled in favour of keeping these areas closed.

   Finally, it appears that civil society does not exist in Shimla. One cannot, of course, expect any  expression of concern at this deterioration from the bureaucracy, cocooned in their privileges and conduct rules, but one would have expected some push back from its prominent citizens, the many retired officers and veterans, NGOs like INTACH. But sadly, the former are more interested in their bridge at ADC and golf at Annandale and Naldehra, and the latter at being on the right side of the government lest the invitations to govt. functions dry up. Which is a tragedy in itself. Democracies and civil society are sustained by its citizens and not by just the government of the day. If the citizens do not demonstrate civic values and ethics, if they do not observe laws and rules, if they do not hold a government to account, then they have only themselves to blame when things begin to go wrong. As you sow so shall you reap. A Biblical adage the citizens of Shimla would do well to remember before it is too late.

THE PANGS OF FATEHPUR.

   Ensconced in my tiny village near Mashobra in the Shimla hills, these days I feel like Raja Hari Singh Katoch of Kangra when he was besieged in the Kangra fort by Jahangir in 1620.  Worse, actually, because the stalwart Raja had to put up with the inconvenience for only fourteen months whereas I have had to endure it every year for the last 14 years. And it's not the Mughal army I have to contend with but the Khan Market and Lutyen's gangs of Delhi.

   Come April every year and members of these gangs, in their tens of thousands, clamber up the mountain landscape and take over our roads, markets, forests and every bed in every homestead. Like locusts they devour everything and leave behind in their wake tonnes of plastic, bottles, empty packets of chips, cigarettes and condoms. Like Jahangir, they lay claim to our lawns, apple trees and parking places; the women have been spared so far, but that's only because we hide them with the cattle. We huddle in our houses, waiting for the pestilence- called tourists in modern parlance- to pass.

   I have given the origins of this annual invasion a lot of thought, and have come to the conclusion that it occurs primarily because we no longer visit our grandparents, and instead prefer to go on vacation to the hills! Think about it. The internet, competitive consumerism and the breakdown of familial relationships drive us to constantly seek " new experiences" and new vistas. Even if it means being stuck for eight hours on the Rohtang pass, being ripped off by taxi drivers in Dharamshala or abused by the pony wallahs in Kufri. It was different when we were growing up in the fifties and sixties.

  My grandfather, a patriarch no one messed with, stayed in a village of Fatehpur district in UP called Husainganj ( unless the good Yogi has now changed its name). He had built himself a huge haveli there and inscribed one golden rule in its stones: all his children and 17 grandkids had to visit him every summer: he even paid for the rail tickets. So I never even saw a mountain( or sea, or desert) till I was 25: every summer vacation my Dad would pack the family into a second class coach of the Kalka mail at Calcutta ( or Hazaribagh or Asansol or wherever he happened to be posted at the time) for the 24 hour journey to Fatehpur- annual migrations one looks back on with fond nostalgia mixed with a regret that my own sons ( part of the KM gang) have never seen this facet of the Old India. For today train travel is all about getting to the destination as quickly as possible, it's never about the pleasures of the journey itself. I recently travelled by Shatabdi to Kanpur and found that of the 62 passengers, 60 of them had buried their persona and noses into their smart phones. The 61st was a seven eight year old kid ( who should have been smothered at birth) who was sliding the door open and shut, letting in the flies and letting out the cold air. I was the 62nd, observing it all and weeping like Alexander the Great for I had now seen it all.

   For us the journey was itself a delight. There were no AC coaches or electric traction back then. We would stick our heads out of the open windows, breathing in the soot and smoke from the Bullet engines, jump out at every station to buy comics from the AH Wheeler stalls ( where have they all disappeared?), grab the local station food from the vendors- "jhalmoori" at Asansol, aloo tikkis at Dhanbad, samosas at Mughalsarai, puri-aloo at Benaras, the delicious pedas at Allahabad. All extremely unhygienic, swarming with e-colis no doubt, but Michelin star stuff which built up the immunity which in later years has enabled us to tackle the tasteless swill IRCTC serves on trains nowadays. But the "piece de resistance" for which we all used to wait, came at Fatehpur, which arrived at the opportune time for breakfast. Its generally deserted restaurant served the best buttered toast and omelette on the Grand Trunk line, on round tables covered with spotless linen and cutlery.  (The only railway restaurant that comes even close to its ambience and service is the Barog station on the Kalka- Shimla line). We left the restaurant only when they ran out of eggs, for the next two weeks in Husainganj was to be a vegetarian existence, without even onions and garlic.

   There was only a dirt track between Fatehpur and Husainganj, a distance of about ten kms; there were no buses, only the occasional horse carriage on a sharing basis. But my grandfather had the biggest haveli in the village and there was no way his grand brats would travel in a "tonga", for us he sent his personal bullock cart, drawn by two of his finest oxen: a magnificent, snow white pair standing almost five feet high at the shoulders, bedecked with colourful ribbons and tinkling bells, their regal horns sheathed in copper. The bullock cart itself was a caparisoned wonder, with sun shades, carpeted with Mirzapuri rugs and stocked with sugarcane stalks, peanuts and nimboo-pani.  We flew down the dirt track like Ben-Hur in the last lap of his famous race , giving the term " cattle class" an entirely new meaning. It set the tone for the next month, a controlled chaos of joint family living, over which my grandfather proudly presided: a patriarch who held his large family together with stern dictats, superb logistic skills and well placed inducements.

   He is gone now, of course, and so is the world we grew up in: the haveli is in ruins, the bullock cart is now a symbol of penury, not of status, the omelette is now a leathery strip served with sarkari reluctance, the station food vendors replaced by catering franchisees hawking packaged rubbish, most trains do not even stop at Fatehpur. Why should they? Nobody goes there for everyone is now headed for the mountains, the seaside resorts or the casinos of Goa. In this world of OYO rooms, Make My Trip.com, Airbnb and cashbacks, visiting grandfathers is such a waste of time. But I do wish the millennial generation would start visiting the old critters again: it would make them happy, it would lift my siege and might even save the mountains from further depredation. I speak, of course, as a grandfather-in-waiting.