THE RULES OF THE GAME HAVE CHANGED - WILL THE GAME CHANGE TOO ?

 Any game, or contract, is based on and pre-supposes mutually accepted rules which govern, and bind, the participants. Democracy is one such contract, the ultimate social contract, in which the citizens (the ruled) give up their individual powers to the elected government (the ruler) in return for the protection of their rights, freedoms and the pursuit of happiness in their own individual ways. In India so far, for the last 75 years, this contract has held together though it has come under strain at many times. The credit for this goes to enlightened leadership and constitutional institutions that have usually worked, notwithstanding some blips and glitches.

But over the last decade or so the authoritarian, unilateral, anti-federal, non-accountable governance style of the NDA government has put this contract under immense strain, and on the 20th of July it has come to near breaking point. The impetus behind it is the Modi government's panaroia about any kind of protest or opposition to its policies and diktats- it views them as challenges, and not as opportunities to introspect and/or self-correct. This happened with the Assam NRC, CAA, Covid, Manipur, Article 370 and Kashmir, SIR, the Ken_Betwa protests. But on the 20th of July, this paranoia reached new heights (or lows) when the full might of the state was unleashed on young students, and blood was spilt on the streets of Delhi, all over a protest against India's rancid and corrupt examinations system.

By this unjustifed violence the government has broken the contract with its citizens. Sovereign violence is to be used against enemies of the state, and not against its own children. A government which cannot differentiate between the two has finally exposed its fascist, illiberal, intolerant and dictatorial nature, and the Jantar Mantar protests have shown it in all its ugly nakedness. Despite the prostitution of the darbari media and TV channels, the internet and Youtube have brought this to the doors of every Indian, and support for the students is only growing.

The unkindest cut of all (to the spirit of democracy)has been inflicted by none other than the Chief Justice of India himself, Justice Suryakant. Perhaps this should have been expected, for it was his earlier intemperate remark about cockroaches that has led to this spiral of events in the first place. Responding to a PIL by a lawyer asking for an inquiry into the police excesses of 20th July, the CJI peremptorily dismissed it with the observation that he did not have the time to watch videos (of the police violence on protesters). This was a remark  callous and unbecoming of a person appointed to protect the constitutional rights of citizens. He was not being petitioned to watch a Kangana Ranaut movie, but to view the documented evidence of unlawful violence on unarmed teenagers, to seek answers from the government on questions that screamed out for answers: Who were the "brownshirts", masked and in civvies, who were allowed to beat up students with lathis and total impunity with the police watching? How did a truck laden with stones find its way to the high security Jantar Mantar area and who brought it? Why were peacefully marching students beaten up brutally without any provocation? Why did the policemen take off their name badges? What is the identity of the jawan who is seen ramming his baton between a young girl's legs even as she is walking away? What is the name of the DCP who walks up to one young girl and slaps her in the face for no reason at all? Where is the footage of protesters throwing stones and beating up policemen, as alleged by the government? Were illegal lethal weapons such as pellet guns, taser (electrically charged) batons and nail studded lathis used against the students? Who are the goons, in plainclothes, seen throwing stones and wrecking cars? Was there a deliberate attempt to discredit the protesters and provoke violence?

The refusal of the CJI to entertain this petition and seek answers to the questions above has thrown an obfuscatory veil over the events of 20th July not dissimilar to the white sheet used to cover the abduction of Sonam Wangchuk from Jantar Mantar by the same police. In contrast, however, credit must be given to the justices of the Delhi High Court who, on 22nd July, have admitted a similar petition and have issued notice to the government and the Delhi police (though it demanded an urgent hearing and not a four week notice).

This is a moment of inflection for the entire non-NDA opposition. They have to live up to it, which at the moment they do not appear to be doing. They cannot plough their own individual furrows, headed for nowhere, but must come together to offer counsel and guidance to these gallant students who are full of passion and sincerity but lack the experience of conducting long-drawn out protests. At the moment there is no sign of such a concerted action on the part of these parties, each of whom is trying to take credit and control of this movement. The Congress wants the agitation to come under its umbrella, the AAP feels this right is theirs as the legal heirs of the Anna movement, the Left and UBT Shiv Sena seem to have some reservations, the TMC is supportive but distant, the DMK will not sup with the Congress, even Sonam Wangchuk has called off his fast today, a not unexpected development since he had  started blowing hot and cold of late (in my view he has probably struck a deal with the government about his personal future in Ladakh. In any case, he has now become irrelevant to the movement).

The entire Opposition should realise (as these youngsters have) that the rules of the game have changed. The government will not abide by its part of the contract: it will not conduct fair elections, it has suborned all agencies of governance, it has defenestrated all constitutional institutions, it has rendered the entire judiciary submissive, it has bought over the media, it has made the use of sovereign violence its greatest persuader, it refuses to be held accountable. With these rules the Opposition has become superfluous, it can never win an election or preserve even a semblance of democracy in the country. It can no longer wage a struggle in Parliament, or the Election Commission or the Supreme Court- these institutions have been hollowed out and can no longer serve the purpose for which they were created. It can no longer fight a fair electoral contest- the game now has to change to one of resistance in the public arena- in Jantar Mantar, Parade Grounds, Azad Maidan, Freedom Park, Ramlila Maidan, Swami Sivavananda Salai, Dharna Chowk, Gandhi Maidan. The students are already there, and doing a fine job; it is the responsibility of the main opposition parties to join them there. Credit can be apportioned or shared when the monster has been vanquished.

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood leads on to fortune..." Rahul Gandhi has no doubt read this quote from Shakespeare, he now needs to embrace it. The students at Jantar Mantar have created this tide, it is now for him to rally the other Opposition parties, national and regional, to seize the moment. The game has changed, and playing by the BJP's new rules will get them nowhere. The Empire has already begin to strike back, using its bottomless bag of tricks: another 20 companies of CRPF have reportedly been flown in to Delhi, the Police Commissioner has been given powers under NSA to detain people for 12 months without trial, it has been stated that passports of detained protesters will be cancelled, a petition has been filed in the Delhi High Court seeking an NIA investigation into the funding of the CJP (Cockroach Janata Party) protests. More can be expected: curbs on YouTube channels on their reporting, profiling of protesters and visits to their parents, debarring them from admissions or sitting for examinations. It is not possible to resist the resources of a modern state for very long. Very soon the tide will begin to turn, and then the opportunity will have been lost - for ever.

THE LONG, BUMPY ROAD TO SWADESHI JURISPRUDENCE

It was  indeed a wise man who said that judges should shun the spotlight and let their judgments do the talking. But that was before the era of the sound byte, Youtube and 24x7 breaking news. And, of course, reemployment after retirement or the need to demonstrate loyalty. In India's legal firmament today judgments do not make news, mainly ( I suspect) because they have become one sided and therefore predictable. It is the obiter dicta which makes news nowadays, delivered from the lofty perch of finality, if not infallibility.

Chief Justice of India the Hon' Suryakant is currently not only the master of the roster, he is also the master of the obiter dicta. How can we forget, if not treasure, his denunciation of the three distinguished academicians who wrote that chapter on the judiciary for an NCERT textbook,  banning them from any government engagement? The later cockroach comment is now part of legal folklore. And just last month, in an address at Oxford University, he remarked that India should develop its own "swadeshi jurisprudence", something even our freedom fighters had not thought of.

I am not sure what the Hon'ble judge meant by this call to a legal atmnirbharta, or whether this self-inflicted ghetto-isation is the right course to follow. For, in civilised democracies at least, jurisprudence and laws are aligned to global principles, concepts, conventions, declarations, rights and charters, and till recently we more or less conformed to these universal principles. Over the last decade or so, however, we have started ploughing our own legal furrow, and the remark of the CJI has only served to draw attention to this unhealthy development.

For, it must be lamented, swadeshi jurisprudence has (unfortunately) already arrived in India, which is why, according to the WJP (World Justice Project) Rule of Law ranking for 2025, we are at 86 out of 143 countries, firmly in the bottom half ; we have been consistently slipping down  this index - in 2014 we were at 66. Frankly, I am not surprised, because the evidence is strewn all over the road to a swadeshi jurisprudence, like road kill. It is the price we have paid for the gradual loss of independence, integrity and quality of the judiciary, and its eagerness to accommodate the executive.

Jurisprudence in India today appears to be governed by four made-in-India/ swadeshi doctrines which should be a blot on any justice system: the doctrines of the fait accompli, sealed cover, ignore the science, reward the criminal.                                      Important, even constitutional, challenges to the executive's actions are kept on the back- burner for so long (Article 370, CAA, SIR, Shiv Sena split) that by the time they are decided it is impossible to turn back the clock and undo what the govt. of the day has already implemented on the ground. The sealed cover has become the standard fall-back option for denying full disclosure to civil society petitioners, or for not giving rebuttable reasons for a particular judgment (Rafale, Pegasus, Vantara, Hindenberg). Increasingly, this spectre of our swadeshi jurisprudence, like the executive, shows disdain and contempt for science, as in the case of stray dogs, Aravalli mountains, the Char Dham highway, the Great Nicobar project: more trust is reposed on govt. appointed committees and patently partisan Ministries than on scientists, domain experts and specialised organisations working in the relevant field. Finally, this hybrid form of justice ensures also that the criminal will be duly allowed to keep the proceeds of his crime ( Ram Mandir, Electoral bonds) even as his actions themselves are declared irregular! A judicial paraprosdokian if ever there was one.

Perhaps the biggest stain on our swadeshi system of justice is the default denial of bail to 3 out of 4 accused who are otherwise entitled to bail under law: 74% ( 3.9 million) of the prison population are undertrials, and the position keeps getting worse as more and more draconian laws are being promulgated every day. Eminent scholars, academicians, students, social activists, journalists are denied bail for as long as five years, even though they are not convicted, and in many cases their trials have not even commenced. A university professor with 90% disability is deemed to be a national security threat, kept in jail for years without a trial, finally acquitted and released by a High Court, but pushed back in within 24 hours at an urgent hearing on a Saturday by the apex court! And here is the supreme irony- while those who are not convicted are kept in jail, the convicted are released on parole whenever they want a breath of fresh air!                                            Millions of voters are denied their voting rights by a capricious CEC and his untested algorithms, their appeals are kept pending, but the swadeshi response to their entreaties is a callous- Never mind, you can vote in the next elections! An exercise, based on mysterious algorithms , which has disenfranchised millions of citizens, has been given the highest court's imprimatur of approval. Thanks to this endorsement the citizenship, welfare benefits and very social identity of tens of millions more are now being denied. Judicial orders are flouted by the executive on a routine and continuing basis- on Aadhaar, demolitions, bulldozers, hate speech, voter rolls, citizenship, to mention just a few areas- but there is no pushback or punitive action by the courts. 

The swadeshi jurisprudence model has ensured that our judicial system is broken and on the point of total collapse. There is a backlog of 54 million cases which will take 323 years to clear; of these 180000 cases are pending for more than 30 years. India has only 15 judges per million population against a developed country average of 150-200 (China's figure is 300). It gets worse- the judiciary has carved out so many privileges for itself, it is accountable to no one: a Collegium system ensures that only judges can appoint judges, and that too in the opaquest of manners; judicial corruption cannot be investigated unless the judiciary itself permits it (!); even though all govt appointees are required to declare their assets, it is reported that only 12% of judges have done so; it has been reported that, historically, appointments to the Supreme Court are limited to just 250 families in the entire country. This is a swadeshi blueprint for judicial anarchy and ochlocracy, not jurisprudence

No, sir, the last thing we need is a swadeshi version of what a justice system should be. The swadeshi model ensures that democracy (and justice) has become a privilege available only to those with influence. Your constitutional rights depend on who you are. Leave swadeshi to the politicians, the jurisprudence of rights, justice and equity needs a more solid and time-tested foundation. We need to adopt best global practices and principles and dig ourselves out of this swadeshi hole. And yes-let judgments do the talking, not obiter dicta.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE PRIME TIME NEWS ?

 I am a happy man these days, or at least as happy as anyone can be in this Ram rajya where even 1600 CTVs and 400 security guards could not prevent His abode from being looted by His own bhakts. To be clear, however: I am not happy because Mr. Pradhan has resigned as Education Minister (he has not), or because Mr. Modi has returned his AI generated award from Seychelles (he will not), or because Kangana Ranaut has taken a vow of silence for one year (she cannot)- all these are worthy objectives but the persona involved are genetically incapable of attaining them. So why am I in this happy frame of mind? I am happy, dear reader, because I can now again watch television at prime time, something I had given up doing because news is no longer worth a straw (more on that later). But now that we have a veritable banquet of sports laid out before us- Women's T20 World Cup, India's T20 tour of England, the FIFA world Cup, Wimbledon- my prime time is fully catered for, God's in his heaven, and Arnab Goswami, Navika Kumar and Padmaja Joshi et al  can go take a dump in the Ghazipur landfill or the Miti river, for all I care.

There was a time, about a decade ago, when news channels like NDTV, TIMES NOW and INDIA TODAY did a fairly good job of purveying domestic news, and one looked forward to the nightly prime time news. Now, however, these  channels have become pathetic caricatures of journalism, what they share with us is their paid "views", not news; their views are dictated by their corporate owners and the PMO, not the public's interest; their undisguised agenda is to praise the government and the ruling party and to run down the Opposition generally, and Rahul Gandhi in particular. The fawning and sycophancy on display every evening would, in fact, be sickening if it were also not so toxic and divisive, inciting bigotry and hatred in equal measure.

If one wishes to master the art of lazy journalism one should study the methods of our English news channels. They make no attempt to deploy reporters in the states to gather news at first hand-that costs money; it is cheaper to subscribe to feeder news agencies, most of whom are also hand maidens of the ruling dispensation. But even their inputs are rarely followed up or reported on- that will require editorial effort and journalistic ability which our star anchors and news editors lack. The easiest and least expensive option, therefore, is to dump the news and jump straightaway into a "Debate" or a "Panel Discussion" in the comfort of an air-conditioned studio in NOIDA.

The subjects for these discussions are carefully curated to ensure that no embarrassment is caused to the powers that be (which are also the powers that see, you see.) So Cockroach party is ignored, as are Rahul Gandhi's visit to, or warnings about, the Great Nicobar project, as are also events held by prominent civil society organisations to protest against govt. policies or practices, or anything that does not show the govt. or its supporting entities in good light. Equally abominable is the fact that, once these over-paid anchors get their fangs into a subject, they stick to them like leeches, refusing to let go until the last morsel of propaganda is extracted from them: the whole of April went into rubbing the TMC loss in Bengal into Mamata Banerjee's face and gloating over the defections from the TMC to the BJP, May was devoted to Hormuz and refighting Operation Sindoor, June was consumed by framing a narrative about the hypocrisy of the Opposition in condemning the Ram Mandir loot even though they never supported the construction of the temple(!), July is dedicated to Mr. Modi receiving more meaningless awards in Indonesia.                                                                                                                             It's as if no other news occurred which was worth mentioning during this period. There has hardly even been a mention of the three most consequential judgments in the last fortnight by the Supreme Court, a High Court and a district court: the right to walk and access footpaths as a fundamental right, that criticism of the government is not a crime, and a rare life conviction of fourteen "gau rakshaks" for  lynching a truck driver in 2022. Each of these judgments has the potential to empower the ordinary citizen and reverse the rot in the system, but for "news" channels they do not merit a mention, let alone an informed discussion.

The "debates" themselves are modelled on the pattern of a jury trial in Russia - the topic is carefully selected to suit the propaganda narrative of the day, the verdict is already decided and conveyed over a secure phone line to these studio mannequins, the panelists consist of assorted spokespersons of political parties, BJP supporters masquerading as "political analysts", some journalists to impart a facade of neutrality, and (in the case of Republic TV) a few sacrificial goats from Pakistan who can be impaled on Arnab Goswami's lance, perhaps for a few shekels.

But the clincher is the "star anchor", the referee who is firmly in the saffron corner, wearing a khaki "katccha" beneath that corporate outfit. In fact, the BJP spokesperson is not really needed, for all the heavy lifting for the ruling party and govt. is done by these anchors. They decide which questions to ask, who is allowed to speak and for how long, whose mike to cut off (on the Parliament model). Instead of being a moderator and leaving the exchange of views to the participants, these opionated anchors monopolise most of the available time, taking over the BJP spokesperson's role, doing all the rebutting, answering, scolding and heckling. The others don't stand a chance! In fact, given that these debates are more like half-encounters on the U.P. police pattern, I am left wondering why any sensible person even agrees to attend these disgusting episodes of journalistic homicide.

This, in a nutshell, is the state of prime time news in Naya Bharat, folks. Ponder over this while I return to Wimbledon, to watch the indefatigable Djokovic take on the inscrutable Sinner, assured that the match is not rigged and the referee is not bought out .

THE CRUELEST MONTH

T.S. Eliot had dubbed April as "the cruelest month" in one of his poems; I am sure he had his reasons for doing so, but it does reveal that he was not one of the 40 million odd Indian taxpayers. For, had he been one, he would have vehemently disagreed- in India, the cruelest month is July, and it has nothing to do with a delayed monsoon or a pensioner's annual ordeal of submitting a Life Certificate to prove that he is still alive and kicking. The cruelty of the month derives from the fact that it is the month when we have to render unto Caesar what is definitely not Caesar's- a large part of the wages of our toil have to be handed over to Ms Sitharaman as income tax, along with an ITR which is as decipherable as the Dead Sea Scrolls and needs an expensive CA to do the job. 

I have just shelled out one fourth of my annual income, comprising of pension, interest from fixed deposits, a dash of capital gains, and a drizzle of royalties and remuneration for my books and articles from grudging editors and publishers. The wolf is not at my door yet, but it is getting closer every year. And, for the life of me, I cannot see the justice in the government looting a large portion of my coffers every year, without doing anything for me in return. Whatever happened to the adage No quid pro, no quid? 

I can understand a tax on my pension, since the government is entitled to recover some part of what it paid me for doing nothing for thirty-five years. I can also see the logic in taxing the interest on deposits etc.- they are passive income, unearned moolah I have not laboured for. But why capital gains?  If property prices go up it's not because of the government, it's because of relentless population growth, rapid urbanisation because the villages continue to languish in poverty and lack of development, because of the dismal failure of the Smart Cities programme.  The government's only contribution is to ensure that the cities keep deteriorating but it will take its undeserved cut of any price increase. Take shares: they go up, inspite of a failing economy and declining FDI and FPI (the government's contribution!), because of insider trading, price rigging, cronyism, and a gullible retail investor. The inexplicable rise of the Sensex has nothing to do with economic logic and the government's contribution again is zero, if not negative. So why should Ms Sitharaman get a share of this gain?

Taxing what the editors and publishers pay me (after many reminders!) is a raid on my intellectual, if not personality, rights. Writers are doing a public service by keeping alive the habit of reading, an activity (or lack of it) which is on ventilator support. Nobody reads nowadays, lacking the attention span to read more than 140 words, preferring Tik Tok reels and emojis. A recent study by the Booker Awards Institute reveals that only 4% Indians read books (about the same number as pay income tax- is there a connection here?). Nobody other than Shashi Tharoor or Chetan Bhagat make any money by writing, the rest of us get by on crumbs from the Amazon toast. We also take a huge risk every time we put pen to paper, not knowing when we might be hauled off to a police station for sedition, criminal defamation or contempt of court. I learn banks are now offering special FDs termed as Bail Deposits: the interest on them starts at a low 4% but goes up by one percent for every year you stay out of jail; the full amount can be redeemed after eight years or whenever you are arrested, whichever is earlier. Even the interest income from these deposits shall be taxable, with an "Anti-National" surcharge. There are rumours that insurance companies, sensing a great market opportunity, will shortly launch insurance policies to provide financial cover for arrests under UAPA and deportation under the Citizenship Act. Now that the Passport has been shown its place they expect this market to grow at a CAG of 20%. 

There used to be a time (which I can barely recall now) when the best things in life were supposed to be free. No longer. They are now taxed at 28% GST. It is no coincidence that the words "taxidermist" and "taxman" have their first three letters in common. The only difference between them is that the taxidermist skins you after you are dead, while the taxman does so while one is still alive. And the final question: now that it has been officially declared that no Indian has a document which provides  "conclusive" proof of his citizenship, how come we still have to pay taxes as Indians? 

" ARE YOU FLETCHER ? "

 It has been my experience that every District Collectorate is usually haunted by its own resident lunatic, somewhat like ancient mansions possessing their resident spectres who do not look kindly on new arrivals. These benignly deranged persons are usually quite harmless, and in them the spirit of violence is replaced by the litigatious and bureaucratic urge, as is perhaps to be expected considering the nature of their demesne. They are generally persons who, during their days of sanity, were closely involved or connected with the functioning of some wing of the Collectorate- usually the Collector's court pertaining to land disputes- and can never forget the connection thereafter, even when they drift into the twilight zone. Even in their muddled mental state they are well informed about the Collectorate's hierarchies and functioning.

     I still recollect quite clearly my first few minutes in the Deputy Commissioner's office in a district bordering Punjab, my first posting as DC, at the age of 28 . I had barely lowered my UPSC vetted posterior into the hallowed upholstery when there was a shout from the orderly outside, the door was flung open violently and a veritable salamander of an old silver- haired woman rushed inside, eyes blazing and a thick bundle of papers under her skeletal arm. A vigorous two year training at Mussoorie had not prepared one for an encounter of this kind and I wondered whether I should call out the army or impose section 144 CrPC.

    Just then the old harridan addressed me in an imperial tone. " Are you Fletcher?" she asked. Now, the only Fletcher I had heard of was an ICS officer who had been Financial Commissioner of undivided Punjab in British times, a proper Koi Hai who had made quite an impression with the local yokels by doing stupid things like intensively touring the villages, settling disputes on the spot and generally keeping the revenue officials on a tight leash- something we IAS types frowned upon. He was-hopefully-long dead. I therefore surmised the reference was to this blister.

    " No," I ventured, " but can I help you?" The aged crone gave me a withering look.

   " You!" she exclaimed, "these papers are worth ten lakhs and I shall give them only to Fletcher! I wouldn't trust you to even sign the attendance register!" And with that she left in a huff. Notwithstanding my bruised magisterial pride I made inquiries and discovered that this old lady had been quite mad for over a decade. She had seen better times and once possessed 20 acres of irrigated land but had lost it all in litigations. Fletcher had apparently tried to help her out, so her poor addled mind constantly harked back to him, and she used to haunt the collectorate looking for him, especially whenever a new Collector joined the post.

   This particular district was/is the most litigatious in the whole of Himachal. A boy from Una is not considered worthy of manhood till he has filed at least two FIRs and submitted three complaints against a government officer. The local residents have a better knowledge of the law than most High Court judges, and when making a complaint also helpfully suggest the precise sections of the IPC/CRPC/Prevention of Corruption Act, etc. that should be applied. One such libelant was perpetually parked at the gate of my residence, noting down the details of all visitors and anything that was brought into the house (vegetables, groceries, sweets, et al). Every evening he would send the list to the Chief Minister's office at Shimla, seeking an inquiry. Apparently, some like-minded gnome at Shimla used to read them, because I was once asked to explain why I had accepted two kilos of mangoes from the MLA of Amb ! This particular MLA was one Mr. Hansraj Akhrot, peace be upon him, and he was the biggest miser I have ever met. I informed the govt. in my reply that getting a kilo of anything from Mr. Akhrot was equivalent to getting back the Kohinoor from the British queen, and I should be commended for inspiring him to part with anything. The gnome in Shimla must have agreed with me because I never heard from him again.

   My second Collectorate in Bilaspur also had its own mad-hatter-in-residence. He was allowed the run of the place and could walk into any room. An orderly could stop him only at great bodily risk. The first time I tried to stop him (being new to the place) he quietly left. He came back five minutes later and handed me my transfer orders, signed and sealed by himself ! Thereafter I gave up.

   Bhagat Ram (that was his name) had a passion for obtaining signatures. He somehow managed to lay his hands on all kinds of official forms (for telephones, gas connections, driving licences, ration cards, cement permits, etc.) and would diligently make the rounds everyday, getting them signed from a clerk to the Collector: he desired nothing else. A simple scrawl made him so happy that no one had the heart to refuse him. In return he took it upon himself to maintain discipline and law and order outside my office. He especially disliked politicians (can one blame him ?) and many were the MLAs who were not allowed to enter my office. He once even disallowed the Supdt.of Police, because the latter was not in uniform! He always had a crackling salute for me, however, every morning and evening. I sometimes miss it, even today.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE DRAGON-FLIES GONE ?

 Biodiversity is perhaps the most unacknowledged component of the natural environment, and the attention of policy makers rarely goes beyond trees and animals, if even that. But biodiversity is much more than just trees and animals. It is the building block of nature, without which there would be no nature, or an inhabitable planet. Biodiversity is the extraordinary variety of all living things on earth. It encompasses plants, animals, micro-organisms, fungi and even pathogens, the genetic information they carry, and the complex eco-systems they create. I've learnt this the hard way, and am only just beginning to understand it.

When I acquired my half acre of land in Puranikoti village in 2002, there were only two houses here; the landscape comprised rolling, grassy hillsides with a few apple trees and some deodars and blue pine. My own plot was carpeted with wild daisies, buttercups, lilies and primroses. The place was practically overrun with bees, butterflies, cicadas and dragon-flies, and there was a continuous buzzing sound on sunny days. The birds formed the next level on the foodchain, and were in turn subordinate to the feral cats and pine martins. Purani Koti was a biodiversity hotspot!

Not any more. Most of the land in the village has been built over, the trees felled, the buzzing of dragon-flies replaced with the rasping of jack hammers and saws. To compensate I have planted more than 200 trees on my land, of the fruit and jungle varieties. But it has been of no avail, for trees alone on just one plot cannot create biodiversity. For the lowest tier of natural growth in the area- the grasses,  bushes, ferns, wild flowers, creepers - have all gone, the soil has lost its capacity to store rain and snow or to retain moisture. With the disappearance of this living building bloc of nature, the insects that depended on it have also started vanishing. A few, very few butterflies and bees still delight us but I have not seen any dragon-flies this year: I fear their niche has disappeared and they are gone for ever. In a year or two the bees and butterflies will also abandon this biodiverse wasteland. Which, along with global warming, probably explains why we can no longer grow the fruits- apple, pears, apricot, cherries- that we used to: with the biodiversity gone, there are no insects left to pollinate their flowers or birds to spread the seeds. 

This loss of precious biodiversity is rarely factored into our planning and developmental processes. What is reluctantly considered (at most) is forest or green cover- i.e. number of trees to be felled. These are quantified and valued, the amount paid by the project proponent and twice that number planted as compensatory afforestation. The loss of biodiversity is completely ignored and never compensated for. Some figures from Himachal may better illustrate the point: Himachal's forest area is 37000 sq kms (37 lakh hectares), and  a 2024 study by the Bhopal Institute of Forest management  quantifies its biodiversity value at Rs. 33000 crore PER ANNUM. In other words, the biodiversity contribution value of every hectare of the forests is Rs. 89000/ per annum. Working out its NPV over a typical 25-30 year life cycle of any project, the state should be charging at least Rs. 30 lakhs for every hectare of forest diverted for non-forest use. But this is not done because no value is attached to biodiversity.

This may, however, be changing globally, even as we in India continue to fell millions of trees every year on grandiloquent schemes that will displace the livelihoods of thousands of forest dependent communities but enrich crony oligarchs by a few trillion dollars more. Peru, for example, has become the first country in the world to give legal protection to insects (in this case its famous stingless bees). Recognizing the ecological importance of these tiny pollinators of the Amazon forests which pollinate 80% of the Amazon's tropical fruits, just this month it has enacted a law that recognizes their right to exist, to a clean and intact habitat, to regenerate, and to receive legal representation if pollution, deforestation and projects threaten their survival. Anyone, company or individual, who threatens these rights can be sued and prosecuted.

Similarly, in Wales the river Wye has received legal protection of its "rights of nature" from its catchment to the sea. The new charter recognizes the river as a living ecosystem with intrinsic right to exist, i.e the right to flow, the right to its biodiversity, the right to be free from pollution, the right to regenerate and to a healthy catchment. Any citizen can now go to court to enforce these rights. New Zealand too has given legal status to the Whanganui river. Mount Taranaki has been given legal guardianship through an 8 member Guardian Council consisting of four govt. experts and four tribal representatives: no project, govt. or private can be sanctioned there without the approval of this Council. In the Canadian province of Quebec a town, Terrasse Vaudreuil, has passed a "Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Tree" which recognises that trees are living beings with rights, that life on earth depends on them, and that humans must act "in solidarity and fraternity" with them. This lays the legal groundwork for protecting them in future. In India, the Uttarakhand High Court in 2017 had recognized the Ganga as "a living entity" with legal rights but the ruling was inexplicably stayed by the Supreme Court, and the matter continues in limbo.

The Peru, New Zealand, Canadian and Wales laws are small beginnings in realising the importance of protecting ecosystems and biodiversity as a whole, not just trees and forests in isolation.  One hopes our governments, courts and the NGT take note of these developments, dispel their sense of omniscience, and rouse themselves from their  slumber, sloth and lack of understanding of ecological issues. Then-and only then- will the dragonflies perhaps return to Puranikoti and reclaim what is rightfully theirs.  

BOOK REVIEW - INDONESIA, THE BEAUTIFUL ARCHIPELAGO.

           INDONESIA- THE BEAUTIFUL ARCHIPELAGO

           BY   AFTAB  SETH

               PUBLISHED BY BIRCH BOOKS, 2026.

                            

There are two types of diplomats, as Mani Shankar Aiyar points out in the review appended to the book. The first are the wolf warriors, of the type so ably represented by Mr Sibi George of the recent press-conference-in- Denmark fame, who have no interest in their host country and are full time proselytisers of their own. The second are the sensitive, scholar type diplomats who are deeply interested in the country they are assigned to, who wish to understand its cultural, historical, political and administrative facets, so that they can project their own country's interests in a proper context and not in a vacuum. Aftab Seth, mercifully, belongs to this second, old school, and this book is the result of his efforts to understand Indonesia: he served there as Chef-de-Mission for two years in the mid 80's, and this book gives his perceptions from that time.

Indonesia- the beautiful archipelago- is the largest Muslim country in the world ( 87% of its population-240 million-are Muslim), and yet it is not an "Islamic" nation in the sense that Pakistan and Iran perhaps are. Though Islam entered the archipelago in the 13th century (on the back of trade, and not conquest, as in India) and had spread throughout Sumatra, Java and other islands by the 16th, it was never able to supplant the strongly entrenched tenets of Hindu, Buddhist and Javan mysticism elements that preceded it. As such, Islam here has become an "assimilative" and syncretic religion, and not a revolutionary one. Two other factors also encouraged this remarkable adaption of an essentially rigid religion: one, it  helped that 150 years of  Dutch colonial rule had created an elite that was "secular" and whose traditional privileges distanced them from the austerity and fraternal egalitarianism of Islam. Second, that the first two Presidents of the country- Soekarno and Suharto- who laid its foundations, both kept political Islam at arm's length. They did not consider it's divisiveness as a sound platform for the nation to build on, and instead opted for nationalism. The result was the Panchsila doctrine- one Supreme God, civilised humanity, the unity of Indonesia, democracy, social justice- which cuts across religion and cultures and is acceptable to all. It is not only a guiding compass for the nation but also a force that unites. Aftab says it has worked , for Indonesia rarely witnesses the kind of communal confrontations that we do in India.

The book provides informative thumb nail portraits of the bricks and mortar that make up the Indonesian edifice. The Bureaucracy (more Indianised than Islamic in its origins, dominated by the Javanese, drawn from secular and missionary schools, cosmopolitan and secular in outlook); the Armed forces (more aligned with the bureaucracy than with Parliament, the real repository of political power); Parliament (more representative of the country's ethnic, regional and religious diversity than the bureaucracy) ; Political parties (so structured as to rule out the revival of Islam in any disruptive form); the Legal System (which still shows the influence of colonial period racial and social inequalities, one where secular courts exist side by side with Islamic ones (albeit with limited jurisdiction), one in which there exists a tension between adat or customary law and Islamic law; Media and Press (flourishing but tightly controlled-not through proscribing or censorship but through hints, nudges and discreet phone calls). What I found particularly fascinating is the competitive jostling between the major religions- Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism- as also between the ethnic groups, persistent but  without any violent animosity. The government plays an important role in maintaining this equilibrium; one can't help but feel that there is a lesson here for our own Indian establishment and society. 

Of particular interest to the Indian reader would be the chapter on Education because it shows how Indonesia has been able to bridge the contentious chasm of competing religious pedagogy. The state's education policy, observes the author, seeks to foster a tolerant, plural and multi-polar society. Towards this end religious instruction is an integral part of its education system, but care is taken to ensure that Islamic education is balanced with secular faculties. As in India, there is a parallel structure of madrasas, but these teach secular subjects too in equal proportion. In fact, says Aftab, the madrasas are a force for the modernisation of Islamic education and the loosening of ritualistc teachings. This is borne out by the fact that the orthodox ulemas oppose the madrasas! Just as the Islamisation of the nation's society was a gradual process, so too will the modernisation of Islam be an incremental process, feels the author, and education will play a big role in this. Surely, our own ulemas and leaders of the Muslim community can learn from this example instead of resisting reform at every stage.

A few pages are devoted to describing the various political parties in the country, its  relations with other nations (including India), the author's interactions with prominent Indonesian leaders, the shared attributes of our two civilisations. This may not interest the average Indian reader, but these pages contain precious nuggets of reflections and observations for the ones who wish to better understand the complex genetic structure of Islam and how it has adapted itself to different domains: the brand of "Gandhian Islam" (Islam with a human face) espoused by President  Abdur Rahman Wahid, the concept of Indonesia as a "non-secular but non-theocratic state", the legitimacy or otherwise of relocating mosques as provided in the Quran and the Hadith, the competitive "neo-orthodox" and "neo-modernism" trends in Indonesian Islam. These teach us not to regard the religion as a monolithic one but one with many variations.

The latter part of the book takes us on a tour of the islands and regions that make up the country- Aceh, West Sumatra, Yogyakarta, Java and Bali, the last two bastions of Indic influence. Of them, Bali appears closest to Aftab's heart, perhaps because its rich artistic culture- dances, masks, wood carving, stone cutting and sculpture, paintings, museums and monuments- appeal to his own refined senses and tastes, or perhaps because his wife, Nilima, had trained in Balinese dancing! Incidentally, Aftab does not forget to remind us of the love Rabindranath Tagore had for Indonesia, his visits to Yogyakarta, Java and Bali, and his own efforts to promote Tagore's message of assimilation of cultures and humanism.

This book is a more than welcome effort to get us to know more about a country with which we have a lot in common, one which at its nearest point is only 90 kms  away from us (less than the distance between Delhi and Karnal!) but about which we know less than nothing. Quite clearly this book is a labour of love for Aftab Seth, among the last of a vanishing breed of scholar- diplomats.