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 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 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.

GYMKHANA CLUB AND THE POWER OF MYTHS.

Delhi's chatterati, who always need something more than just fried peanuts with their gin and tonic, are abuzz these days with the latest canapes: the Modi government's hostile take- over of Gymkhana Club. It's not a done deal yet, but rest assured that our higher judiciary, with judgments like Ram Mandir, SIR, Umar Khalid, Aravallis, Hindenberg/SEBI, Pegasus, etc. under its belt, will finally approve non-passive euthanasia for  this last watering hole for the drones of South Delhi.

No one, of course, believes the reason cited by the govt. itself for the action, viz, that the 27 acres is needed for security/defence purposes: this is the default position of the govt. for all decisions which push the boundaries of legality and/ or good sense. Hence, there is much feverish speculation about the real motives for this surgical strike: the Club's administrative and financial mess, non-payment of dues to the government, turning the entire area into a semi-militarized zone so that a Bangladesh, Nepal or January 6th type of incident never happens, fear of the Cockroach Janata Party, a real estate operation which will ultimately benefit the Melodi loving leader's cronies. But all this assumes that this govt. acts rationally, which past decisions do not bear out. I have, therefore, a different take which matches the leopard's spots, as it were.

The BJP is a party which is founded on, and which survives on, myths- past, present and future. It originates from the myths of ancient India-our epics, Akhand Bharat, the existence of plastic surgery, aeroplanes, nuclear missiles thousands of years ago, etc. In the present it rules on the strength of other myths- Vishwaguru, fastest growing economy in the world, leader of the Global South, wolf warrior diplomacy, "ghar me ghus ke maarenge", developed country by 2047, Net Zero emissions by 2075, and so on. None of these myths are based on facts or have a rational basis, but constant reiteration has converted them into legal fiction and have kept the BJP in power for more than a decade.

Gymkhana Club is a victim of two such myths-  Lutyen's Delhi/ Khan Market gang (which work actively against the BJP), and Colonial Legacy (which diminishes our own glorious culture). Both are fake, or at least selectively applied to suit the government's narrative.

The BJP believes that the privileged residents of Lutyen's Delhi are inimical to the party and conspire against it, and that Gymkhana Club is its hub. Wrong. There is no such thing as Lutyen's Delhi and the Khan Market gang became the Khanna Market gang in 2014. The 2800 hectares known as Lutyen's Delhi is occupied by politicians, mostly of saffron hue, who subsist on subsidies many times that enjoyed by the members of Gymkhana: serving bureaucrats who cannot even take a toilet break without written approval from their political masters; and industrialists fully house-trained by the ED, CBI and Income Tax. They ARE the BJP!

The retired bureaucrats and defense forces officers who haunt the Gymkhana bar also did a "ghar wapsi" years ago. I am a member of various groups of retired officers, and I can confidently state that the vast majority of my brethren- 75-80%- support the BJP ideology, 10-15% may not but will not open their mouths for fear of jeopardizing their pensions. the rest are so soaked in gin-and-tonic they can't press their own doorbell, let alone an EVM button. Those who possess the courage and the conviction to criticise the government are few and far between, and getting fewer with each successive election.

Lutyen's Delhi (and the Gymkhana) are, therefore  de facto BJP territory, as both Sanjay Jha and Vir Sanghvi have also pointed out, and the BJP knows it. So why take over the Club? Pause that question for the nonce, dear reader, we shall come to it later.

The "Colonial mind-set" myth is used as an alibi for this govt's failures, to distract attention away from them, and to find a convenient whipping boy to rally the troops, or voters. Gymkhana is the whipping boy this time, to burnish the BJP's non-existent credentials as the champion of the poor, and to divert the voters' attention away from the goodies being gifted daily to the crony oligarchs. How can this bunch of effete elites and their colonial era club ( so goes the specious argument built on a false myth) be allowed to grab valuable govt. land and live a subsidised life when 800 million have to be fed on doles? Such a narrative, refined by Mr Amit Malvia, contains all the ingredients of the Colonial myth- alibi, distraction and scapegoat. That it is patently false (like the Khan Market gang myth) is beside the point- myths appeal to us precisely because they provide an escape from reality.

Gymkhana Club is a victim of these two myths. But it is just the beginning: this narrative, perhaps a counter to the Cockroach movement, will be rolled out across the country- the Maharashtra govt. has already served notices to 16 prominent clubs in Mumbai. For what an authoritarian or fascist govt. needs at all times is an "enemy" to rally the nation behind it. Voltaire had said "If  God did not exist it would be necessary to invent Him". Replace "God" with "Enemy" and you have the reason why colonial era Clubs are the new enemy, and why 6000 members of Gymkhana will now have to find another watering hole in this urban jungle. Never underestimate the power of myth making.

Am I sad ? I don't really know. I was not a member of Gymkhana- my application was rejected after a waiting period of ten years without assigning any reason. But I shall miss its nonpareil mutton cutlets- they don't make them like that anywhere in India. They probably WERE a colonial hand -down, but then not all legacies are bad, are they?

A BRIEF GUIDE TO OFFICIAL DINNERS.

 

 

The IAS, unlike its progenitor the ICS, will bequeath few memories other than those of Chief Secretaries being voted the most corrupt by their own colleagues or launching inquiries against their predecessors. But as the service now heads for an inevitable merger with either the Vivekananda Foundation or the Observer Research Group, it is heartening to note that it will leave behind at least one innovative institution—the Official Dinner ( or OD). There are two major practitioners of the OD: the Army and the IAS. The former has an advantage in the matter of finding funds (and reasons) for justifying ODs, because it can debit all expenses to Raising Days, Regimental Days and Shobha Des, but the IAS has to be more inventive because it is under the ever watchful gaze of some whistleblower or CAG just waiting to ambush them with a book titled THE ACCIDENTAL INVITEE or NOT JUST A DINER-THE DIARY OF  A NATION’S AUTONOMOUS GOURMET. It is for this reason that the IAS is given a higher pay-scale than the Armed Forces: explaining the loss of a dozen tandoori chickens from the pantry of Hotel Holiday Home requires far more management skills than accounting for a dozen missing jawans on the LOC.

Recruits to the IAS are initiated into the arcane ritual of the OD in the Academy at Mussoorie. Its presiding capo di tuti capi (or Director) hosts mock ODs frequently where the basics are spliced into the probationers’ DNA. I still remember two of them: one, “never open your mouth till the food is near it”, which perhaps explains why the IAS is so reluctant to open its collective mouth and speak out. The second rule stipulated that one should never speak ACROSS the table, but only to the persons on either side, even if the guy on the left happened to be a carbuncle from the IFS or the bloke on the right a blister from the IPS, and one was desperate to chat up the lady across the table with a view to marrying her because she had been allotted one’s home state ( UP, in most cases) while said one was exiled for life to Nagaland.                                                                                                                     We were also taught the difference between a butter knife and a fish knife (the former for marinating one’s political bosses and the latter for gutting colleagues), between a soup spoon and a dessert spoon ( the former for raking it in and the latter for being politically correct). The uses of the versatile “chamcha” is something we discovered for ourselves later, and adopted as the most valuable of all cutlery.                                                           The most draconian rule was that when the Director stopped eating and put down his knife and fork, everyone stopped eating too. Since the Director, as befitted a Godfather, was the first to be served and the 400th probationer served about twenty minutes later, by the time the former finished masticating and had begun the excavations with his toothpick, about 200 of us had not even sniffed the soup. This accounts for the fact that the IAS is always first in line at the feeding trough: it’s a hard lesson learnt well.

   Since the IAS controls 600+ districts, 100+ Ministries and a few thousand programmes, finding a reason for throwing an OD is never a problem. There are a few, however, that deserve special mention:

THE PSU (PUBLIC SECTOR UNDERTAKING) DINNER: held after every Board meeting, it is meant to console the officers for the huge losses they have notched up. Intended to occupy the commanding heights of our economy, our PSUs were dislodged from there even quicker than the Pak soldiers from the heights of Kargil. Now in the valley of death, their officers will not go, however, without a fight- sorry, bite- hence the dinners, slotted under “ Any other item” in the agenda.

THE EAP (EXTERNALLY AIDED PROJECT) DINNER: EAPs are a kind of international CSR where other countries give us moneys as aid, and then take them back through consultancies, technology transfer and equipment. We are usually left with only enough money to host a dinner every quarter, on which we spend every remaining dime lest they take that back too.

THE CENTRAL TEAM DINNER: when Secretaries in Govt. of India can no longer stand their wives’ cooking they usually take off to a state to “ review progress” on various schemes. The review consists of visits to temples, golf resorts, shopping on the Mall and a seven course dinner at night. The strong batch- mate network and an innovative menu ensures glowing reports for the state govt.

THE FAREWELL DINNER: modelled on the Last Supper, it is given for senior officers who are about to kick the waste-bin- i.e., retire. It even has a Judas in attendance- the guy who is hoping to succeed the retiree. There is, however, a notable departure from the Biblical allusion: whereas Christ went on to a glorious crucifixion and rose again on the third day, the IAS worthy rises again the very next day, reemployed in some Commission or Tribunal. The farewell dinner is usually organised by Judas himself to ensure that the retiring potentate is artfully estopped from coming back into the service. It is not surprising, therefore, that on occasion officers have to be brought screaming and shouting to their farewell dinners. In my case the Chief Secretary had to send a bulldozer to ensure my presence ( actually, the roads were snowed in, but I have a sneaking suspicion the CS was covering all contingencies!).

THE RAJ BHAVAN DINNER: no IAS officer ever wants to attend one of these ghastly death-watches, but an invitation from the Governor is actually an order. We go to such dinners half choked by “ bandh galla” coats originally tailored in the Academy when we were chinless wonders, now wrapped around Adam’s apples of the extra large variety which would have shocked both Eve and the serpent. These dinners are solemn, if not funereal, affairs; the victuals are really quite good though the only spirit in attendance is one of nationalism. Ministers bump into senior bureaucrats, the Governor bumps into the furniture and everybody escapes as soon as he can after the national anthem has been played for the third time.

   All ODs share two traits. One, there has to be a Chief Guest, who is generally the Chief Minister or the Chief Secretary: although having either dampens the evening, it is a tactical necessity to ensure that Finance doesn’t object to the bill when presented. The Chief Guest in Himachal, which I haunted like Banquo’s ghost for 35 years, just HAS to wear either a maroon ( BJP) or green ( Congress) Himachali cap, depending on which party is in power. The smarter ones have now started investing in Aam Aadmi caps, just in case.

   Second, and this is something Mr. Vinod Rai may like to look into when he has time from his six current assignments, is a peculiar feature in all OD bills: the number of chickens consumed ! The per capita average is two, which appears high even if we factor in the disappearance of all other shades of meats post Yogi Adityanath. Are IAS chaps such solid trenchermen, what with their selection grade ulcers and apex scale haemorrhoids ? Not really. The answer lies in the fact that since all liquor is impermissible at govt. dinners, and cannot be so billed, therefore this Hippocrene beverage is billed as chickens. A peg of single malt is worth a whole chicken, a scotch two legs, a shot of rum is equivalent to a wing, a glass of wine equals a breast (its for the ladies, see) and so on. Quite ingenious, and definitely deserving of the two additional increments the IAS gets over its peers. And this  also provides the answer to that much asked question: Why did the pair of chickens cross the road? Answer: they didn’t want to become a single malt !

   Now that I live on a pension and am unable to cross that road too often I generally make do with KFC chicken nuggets. 

AN APOLOGY MAY BE IN ORDER, YOUR LORDSHIP.

 Hon'ble Chief Justice,

May I, a humble member of the Blatta (Oriental)  genus of cockroaches, make so bold as to express my utter stupefaction at your recent statement in open court in which you termed unemployed youth, RTI activists, media personnel and social media activists as "cockroaches" and "parasites"?  Posterity will record these uncalled for and demeaning words as the nadir of judicial propriety and gravitas. Kindly allow me to explain why.

It appears, from what is available in the public domain, that you were at the time dealing with the issue of proliferation of lawyers with dubious degrees. Your desire to identify and weed out such elements from the legal profession is understandable, and even commendable, and should be supported by all. But your subsequent "leap of hubris", not faith, was totally unwarranted and a step too far even in these dismal times when the vocabulary of public discourse has plumbed new depths. The contemptuous characterisation of our youth and civil society is something we have come to expect from our politicians, but not from the senior-most judicial officer in the country, the custodian of the letter and spirit of the Constitution, whose every word is engraved in time, the beacon and conscience keeper of the nation.

Which is why, my Lord, it pains me to say that your  unfair and insensitive obiter dicta has dimmed the glow of the beacon and induced a perception that the keeper has not been true to his charge. It has at one fell swoop insulted and humiliated these sections of society, cast on them aspersions which are neither true nor justified and, even more dangerous, exposed a heart of darkness in the country's judicial anatomy which does not bode well for a liberal democracy. Your Lordhip's subsequent "clarification" does not dispel the apprehensions your comments have generated.

A  democracy remains healthy not only on the basis of institutions of the state, but on the shoulders of a vibrant civil society and non-state actors. These participants- activists, NGOs, social media, RTI applicants, fact checkers- are the benign bacteria in our body politic that maintain our immune systems, keep in check those organisms that would destroy us, and ensure that democracy and a liberal order survives. By castigating them in such derogatory language, My Lord, you have exposed a side of the higher judiciary we did not imagine existed. It has left us confused, apprehensive and fearful.

Are you aware, your Honour,  that there are 28 million educated unemployed youth in the country, and an additional 100 million who have stopped looking for jobs? (The WIRE, 23.5.2025). 67% of the unemployed youth today are graduates, as compared to 32% in 2004 ? ( Aziz Premji Univ. State of Working India Report, published in the Deccan Herald 1.5.2026). 80 million workers have left the cities owing to lack of job opportunities and gone back to their villages: the government classifies them as employed in agriculture! This worsening position is not due to the indolence of these unfortunate youngsters, but because of faulty govt. policies in education, industrialisation and economic "growth" which promote inequity, concentration of wealth and capital intensive projects, and have decimated the MSME sector. They deserve our empathy, not an elitist condemnation.

Finally, my lord, heed the power of language and choose carefully the patois you employ. For language is a double-edged sword, it can soothe or it can wound, it can demean or it can dignify, it can sustain or it can destroy, it can be a paean or it can be a dog-whistle. It is dangerous to employ words loosely. History is replete with instances where carefully chosen words have preceded, and laid the ground for, mass persecution, ethnic cleansing and even genocide. The killing of a million Tutsis in Rwanda was preceded by a campaign that classified them as "inyenzi" which, coincidentally, means cockroaches; in Hitler's Germany the Jews were called parasites  and rats; the Zionists later termed the Palestinians as "vermin" and "animals" ; nearer home minorities from Bangladesh are stigmatised  as "termites" and protesters as " andolanjeevis". All such branding is invariably followed by dehumanising of entire sections of society and their persecution on a large scale.

It is possible your unfortunate vocabulary may have the same effect in India, for your words feed into the executive's own narrative: the segments of society you have, perhaps unwittingly and unintendedly, vilified are precisely the ones the government of the day considers its enemies and obstacles to its authoritarianism. It may now be emboldened to move against them even more aggressively, confident that it now has your your institution's support. That would be a disaster, an opening of the floodgates that shall eventually consume all the pillars of democracy, including the one over which your Honour presides.

At the end of the day, your Lordship, this unnecessary disparagement of the youth, civil society activists and social media may lead to a loss of credibilty in the institution you head, in its ability (or even willingness) to confront an authoritarian executive, to protect the rights of the minorities, and to uphold the letter and spirit of a liberal and inclusive Constitution. A democracy cannot long survive such a loss. Which is why, sir, you may consider a more explicit retraction and withdrawal of the statement made by you, not just a clarification. An apology to the nation at large will go a long way in restoring the confidence of the citizenry in an institution which is, after all, the last bastion of rights and liberty. To err is human, to admit it is divine. 

With profound regards and my own humble apologies for intruding on your valuable time,

I remain, your Lordship,

A.C.Roach.

"TIGER ABHI ZINDA HAI !"-- BUT ELECTIONS ARE IN THE ICU.

  [It was reported by the Satya Hindi news channel, and reiterated by a Congress spokesperson, that after the declaration of the West Bengal results, the CEC Gyanesh Kumar told a group of reporters: "Tiger abhi zinda hai !"]

My faith in the Chief Deletion Commissioner, Mr Gyanesh Kumar (may his tribe decrease), has been fully restored and vindicated: he has lived up to the trust I reposed in him. I fully expected the Election Commission to win the elections in West Bengal, even though it is not a registered political party but only a kind of I-Pac for one of them. And it has won handsomely. Mr. Kumar can now look forward to greener pastures in the days to come, a Governorship, perhaps, or even (as is being whispered in some shady corridors) a Presidentship. The latter post will suit him admirably because a President can only act on the advice of the Council of Ministers, which is precisely what he has been doing for the last many years.

Which brings me to a larger point: why have elections at all, now that ONOE (One Nation One Election) has been converted to ONNE (One Nation No Elections)? After much deliberation and consultations with the divine forces a-la-Chandrachud, I have come to the conclusion that the country would be much better off without elections. There are both macro and micro reasons for my view.

At the macro level, elections are an impediment to the march of democracy: every now and then the government is distracted from its usual job of handing out contracts to cronies, devastating forests, lynching people, building temples, garlanding rapists, bringing down opposition-ruled state governments, etc. in order to get the endorsement of the voters. Why is it necessary to get the voter's consent when it already has the support of the Election Commission, the Supreme Court, the President and the AA twins? It is this unnecessary distraction which has made us amongst the worst performing countries in global indexes related to Equality, Pollution, Press Freedom, Democratic rankings, and so on. ONNE would solve all these problems at one fell stroke.

It would also bring to an end that unique feature of Indian politics- sovereign bribery. Now, bribery is an offence, except when the state does it, and with your money to boot! In our elections ideology, development, social justice etc. have now been replaced with doles, gold mangalsutras, gas cylinders, washing machines, bicycles, sarees and anything else that can rake in a couple of more votes. And it is bankrupting states: Himachal has already started cutting salaries by 30%, Vijay's TVK has promised subsidies and freebies worth more than Rupees one lakh crore per annum, Bengal will now have to borrow money from Bangladesh to keep the bhadralok happy. Our elections are more like auctions now; scrap them and we'll become the second largest economy in the world before you can say "Jai Shri Ram!"

At a micro- that is, personal-level the benefits of ONNE cannot be ignored, either. For one, your domestic staff will not abandon you: during the Bengal election I was orphaned for weeks. My driver went off to Calcutta to vote, the maid to Malda and the washerman to Bankura. They will return in due course, minus a few who may be shoved into Bangladesh, but for those weeks life was not worth living; no amount of democracy is worth it.

And then there's the evening news, of which I am an addict. I like my news hot and spicy- a couple of murders, a rape or two, the occasional encounter killing, a politician caught in a flagrant delicto act, a Judge's outhouse stuffed with moolah, a bulldozer mounted on a masjid. But during elections I get none of these- only Yogendra Yadav or Jawhar Sircar or SY Quraishi talking about EVMs, SIR or the Model Code of Conduct. On a bad day I'll have to be satisfied with Mr. Modi or Mr. Shah on the stump. Life loses all charm, but with ONNE one can get back to the daily dose of violence, sex and Kangana Ranaut's earth-shaking one-liners.

Elections play havoc with relationships. Familial and social intercourse has, for me, been teetering on a knife edge since we gained our independence in 2014: my vocabulary is limited so I tend to call a spade a spade, a fascist a fascist and a bhakt a bhakt. This has not endeared  me to most of my family, colleagues and friends for whom a Hindu Rashtra is the Holy Grail and Mr. Modi its delivery service. Elections, and the inevitable discussions about them, only add fat to the fire: whenever elections are announced my wife moves into the guest bedroom, morning walkers in my Housing society stop wishing me, I'm unable to make a foursome at golf, even my dog refuses to go for a walk with me! With ONNE there will be a sea-change-no opposition, no political discussions, no rallies, no elections. Dinners will become convivial once again, without Republic TV type of debates. Peace will descend again on our twice blessed  nation. Silence will prevail, the silence of the grave. Or, as Omar Khayyam wrote: Thou shalt be- Nothing-thou shalt not be less.

Ah, the comfort of being Nothing!

BETTER TO REIGN IN HELL THAN SERVE IN HEAVEN

 Since these are tricky times, let us begin this week with a trick question: what do the following events have in common with each other ? :

* The huge, and sometimes violent,  protests in NOIDA last month by factory workers and domestic help over increase in minimum wages.

* The refusal of a High Court judge to recuse herself from a case in which her children are employed by one of the parties, and she herself is reported to have attended functions organised by that party's affiliates.

* A "gherao" of judicial officers (appointed as adjudicators in appeals by deleted voters) by thousands of such disenfranchised voters in a district of West Bengal.

* The deletion of names of almost 3 million voters in West Bengal, who had voted in previous elections and possessed all the required documents, because of an opaque, algorithm driven "logical discrepancy" feature not provided in any law or used in any other state.

* The holding of polls without deciding the pending appeals of these 3 million unfortunates, and the callous indifference of the Supreme Court to their constitutional right to vote, saying that they could vote in the next election!

* The imposition of a casteist bail condition on Adivasi Dalits accused (but not convicted) by an Odisha court to the effect that they should clean police stations every morning for two months, demeaning their dignity and making a mockery of the law.

* The defection of seven Rajya Sabha MPs, led by one Raghav Chadha ,from the AAP to the BJP.

* A poor tribal in Keunjhar district of Odisha being compelled to carry the corpse of his dead sister to a bank in order to prove her death, just so that the meagre balance in her account could be transferred to him as the heir. The KYC converted from Know Your Customer to Know Your Corpse.

* The dismissal of cases of hate speech against leaders of a political party by a court on the grounds that their utterances did not amount to expressing hate or inciting violence. One of these speeches included the now infamous exhortation: Desh ke Gaddaron ko, goli maro salon ko. The other was a video of a Chief Minister pointing a rifle at a target with a picture of a Muslim man.

The incidents noted above differ in context, content, import and location, but they all contain one common element: the complete collapse of what makes a developed country- of governance, common law, societal values, empathy, the rule of law, trust in the government or its institutions, the idea of equity and even-handed justice. Taken together, they point to the breakdown of something cumulatively more precious- democracy itself. They vindicate the far-sighted and cautionary words of Dr. Ambedkar: that democracy in India was only a thin layer of top soil which could be blown away easily and should not be taken for granted.

A Devil's wind is blowing through the country these days, removing Ambedkar's top soil and exposing the outcrop of powerlust, greed, religious bigotry, casteism, violence that have always under-pinned our society. We had expected that progressive governments, democratically elected, would over time erode and disintegrate these negative features of our civilisational landscape, but the opposite has happened. Successive governments, more so the one we have had for the last twelve years, have only reinforced these flaws and fault lines; they have been made the driving force behind national (even international) policies, they are being embedded in laws and educational curriculum, they have become unapologetic instruments of state policy, they are the agenda on which elections are now being fought.                                                                                                    The defection of Raghav Chadha only confirms this terminal decline because it shows that a liberal upbringing and London education is no shield against the unscrupulousness of India's politics, and it  vindicates the mounting distrust of politicians in general. The executive has even managed to brutalise our society to a point where the top 10% care only for their own comforts and privileges, leaving the other 90% to survive as best as they can. We are among the most inequitable countries in the world, and proud of it. Democracy is the last thing which can emerge from this witch's cauldron.

We had naively expected that when the executive went on a rampage our judiciary at least would reign it in and preserve the rule of law. That hope has been belied and now lies trampled in the dust, as some of the above episodes demonstrate. We have today plumbed depths lower even than the ADM Jabalpur moment of Emergency days. Then at least there was a constitutionally legitimate state of Emergency in place, today we do not have even that fig leaf to cover the government's naked pursuit of absolute power. Then there was one ADM Jabalpur judgment, today we are being shredded by a thousand judicial cuts every day, whether it be on denying bail, allowing elections to be stolen from under magisterial noses, redefining hate to suit a particular ideology, spurning any notion of accountability, throwing overboard any restatement of judicial values.

A Constitution alone cannot make a democracy, or ensure that a democracy survives. For that to happen the top soil has to be tended carefully, its nutrients lovingly added and preserved, the negative infestations and weeds kept away; the gardeners have to be men of wisdom and empathy, people who love what they are doing, not mercenaries seeking the maximum payouts. Sadly, it is the mercenaries and carpet- baggers who own our patch of land today. What remains of the top soil will be blown away soon, leaving a rocky outcrop, a civilisational desert of no value to anyone but these rapacious seekers of power and their hirelings. They will rule over a wasteland, but then, as Satan mused: "It is better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven."