HOLY COWS AND LOOSE CANNONS

    As befits a country with 33 crore Gods, India has a corresponding pantheon of Holy Cows- both hallowed concepts and hoary individuals- of the religious and secular varieties. Let us talk of the latter since the former is a minefield you enter at your own peril. The sacredness of these ideas and the contributions of these icons  could not be questioned, traduced or criticised in any manner for a very long time. Among them we have had Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Ambedkar, secularism, Mother Teresa, reservation, the President, the Election Commission and so on. Inevitably, however,as we progressed from one millenium to the other, from potato chips to computer chips, from Ganga Din to Acche Din, history has taken a heavy toll on these Holy Cows. Nehru is now the alleged source of all our Kashmir and China problems, Mahatma Gandhi has been branded an agent of western powers, Ambedkar and secularism are being discredited with Ministerial threats to delete the idea of secularism from the Constitution, Mother Teresa is condemned as one who used the facade of charity to trade for souls, reservation has become a subject which attracts loyalty and vitriol in equal measure, the President has been a cropper since the time of Giani Zail Singh, and the Election Commission has been buried six feet under by my batch-mate Mr. Achal Jyoti. These Holy Cows have now all been consigned to gaushalas. Till a fortnight ago only one Holy Cow remained- the Supreme Court- and it retained this elevated status by a judicious mix of visionary judgments, opacity, the code of Omerta and the threat of the Contempt of Court Act. No more.

    The press conference by the four judges of the Court on the 12th of January has removed all four crutches and exposed the institution as just another masticating mastodon, not yet extinct to be sure, but highly endangered. The signs of its humble mortality had been evident for some time- the nepotism tainted colour of appointments, refusal to allow the executive any say in judicial appointments, confused and contradictory judgments, reluctance to take any action against their own, brushing charges of lack of integrity under the carpet. But it continued with its Holy Cow status because no one was prepared to bell the cat, if you'll permit me to mix up two quadruped species. And then suddenly the Court was affected by the Mad Cow disease and in a suicidal pact belled itself via the four esteemed judges. It has now lost its sacred status, the holy cow has become a Jallikattu bull and anyone can now poke a stick at it. Supreme Court bashing is now our latest gladiator sport and any lawyer with a dubious degree can take a swipe at it. It has lost for ever its mystique, credibility and inviolable aura. In the days to come its orders will be questioned more and more on the streets rather than in the courts- the defiance of, and the furore over, its Padmavat judgement ( even by state governments) is just a trailer. We have just lost our last Holy Cow, and I don't know whether to be happy or sad. True, a Holy Cow in an age of science and reason is an anachronism. But equally, in a  country with rusting anchors and no moral leadership, where, as the poet said:

( We) kill without creating,

Hate without embracing,

Doubt without believing-

a Holy Cow is sometimes necessary. Legal fictions are essential for a stable and orderly social fabric, even if they are based on pure belief and not fact. As the philosopher ( I think it was Nietzsche ) said: If God did not exist we would have had to create one. Man can live only by believing, not by doubting. Sadly, we no longer have any Holy Cows left, only Holy Shit-  lots of it.

*                                             *                                               *                                          *

    I thought that I had become immune to stupefying and jaw-dropping statements from our BJP leaders after Mr. Modi's assertion that Lord Ganesha is the finest example of organ transplant from Vedic times, Mr. Piush Goel's claim at Davos last year that unemployment in India is a positive development because it indicates that entrepreneurship is picking up, the Rajasthan Education Minister's revelation that the Mughals were actually defeated at Haldighati, Yogi Adithyanath's declaration that the Taj Mahal does not reflect the culture of India, the discovery by an RSS seer that cowdung slapped on a smartphone stops radiation, Mr. Modi's claim that malnutrition in Gujarat was the result of girls dieting in order to get good figures, Mr. Sangeet Som's re-writing of history by revealing that Shah Jahan had built the Taj Mahal to imprison his father in it, Sakshi Maharaj's advice that the only way to protect Hinduism was by ensuring that every Hindu woman had at least four children. Maybe one day all these pearls would be compiled in a textbook for the benefit of all the piglets in the gradually emerging animal farm that was once a proud country. But wait- this stream of drivel has not yet dried up, as Mr. Satyapal Singh has just established.

   Mr. Singh is a junior Minister in the Human Resources Ministry and is an ex-IPS officer ( I specifically mention this latter bit because it gives a clue as to how the telomeres in his brain function). Last week he went on record to state that Darwin's theory of evolution was zilch because none of his (the Minister's) ancestors ever saw an ape turning into a man, and all text books should be corrected to delete any mention of this theory. Mr. Singh is a fascinating study of the Indian, particularly the BJP, politician: the moment they get elected they become instant experts on all subjects. Normally, their deep knowledge of things they have no clue about would provide us much needed amusement as we stand in various queues, but matters become a bit worrying when a Minister of Education seeks to fashion text books in his own ignorant image.

   Mr. Singh, sir, the ape did not turn into man in the manner of Clarke Kent turning into Superman in thirty seconds. Actually, it took millions of years- about six million years, to be precise- and progressed through various sub-species of hominids, including the Florensiensis and the Neanderthalensis, before arriving at your respected ancestors, Homosapiens ( incidentally, sir, before you take off on another ill-informed tirade, the Homo in Homosapiens has got nothing to do with homosexuality.) And no one in your family witnessed the "event" because they were all probably too busy leaping from branch to branch in search of breakfast since there were no subsidised Parliament canteens back then. And, presumably, Mr. Singh also believes that the dinosaurs never existed because his ancestors did not see them too. Actually, to be fair to the honourable Minister, his breath-taking view of palaeontology can be traced to his training as a police officer. For our men in khaki ( the RSS no longer wears khaki) seeing is believing and they must have an eye witness for everything- that is why most of their time is spent in " locating" eye witnesses rather than solving the crime. Hence Mr. Singh's insistence that if no one saw an ape turn into a man then Darwinism has to be trashed, especially as it would be difficult- even for our Indian police-  to find a witness to an event that occurred millions of years ago. But the Minister has a good opportunity to validate his theory in reverse- whether man can turn into an ape- since it appears to be happening all around us these days with great evolutionary vigour. 

HIMACHAL'S TOURISM DILEMMA

     [  This piece was published in THE TRIBUNE on 21. 01. 2018 under the title MASSIVE PROBLEMS WITH MASS TOURISM. ]

The world is gradually discovering that tourism can be a double-edged sword, in that though it brings in revenues and employment it has grave social, cultural and environmental impacts. This is becoming more and more evident in Himachal. 17.50 million tourists visited the state in 2015( 2.50 times its population!) and the number is growing at 7.50% per annum, thanks partly to the unsettled conditions in Kashmir. It generates Rs. 1200 crores, about 10% of the state’s GDP. It also creates 400,000 jobs.

But the downside can no longer be ignored. Tourism in Himachal is primarily mass tourism, not the quality variety. This is evident from a McKinsey report of 2015 which found that the average per tourist spend was only Rs.600.00, and that 96% of the tourists were in the income bracket of Rs.1 to Rs. 5 lakhs per annum. Secondly, almost 50% of the visitors were concentrated in just three destinations: Kullu ( 33.15 lakhs), Shimla(32.65) and Kangra(24). The combined effect of these numbers is devastating the natural environment and leading to massive, unplanned urbanisation which has turned all the state’s towns into virtual slums. The mushrooming of sub-standard hotels, resorts,dhabas is like a cancerous scab on the beautiful mountain landscape which has now spread even to the rural areas. Rivers are being choked by garbage and plastics, trees being felled in their thousands, roads are crowded with vehicles headed nowhere, water shortages are common in a state which has a thousand streams. The infrastructure of the state is collapsing under the sheer weight of numbers. Any honest and multi-sectoral cost benefit analysis would reveal that tourism in Himachal is a losing proposition and needs a rethink at the policy level.

The state govt. has to become proactive in shaping the type of tourism and nudging it towards greater quality, rather than being satisfied with the rising numbers every year which actually portend disaster. Equally important, it has to aggressively protect and preserve its natural features, for without them there would be no tourism at all. It should consider the following initiatives:

·        Stop registration of new hotels or other hospitality units in the towns which have already exceeded their carrying capacity long ago, such as Shimla( including Mashobra), Manali, Kullu, Dharamshala, Solan, Palampur, Dalhousie. This will not only discourage the insane construction activities in these degraded urban areas but will also help to disperse the crowds to other under-fed areas of the state.

·        Connectivity has to be improved:high-end tourists will not spend five hours travelling from Chandigarh to Shimla, and the flights to Dharamsala, Manali and Shimla are irregular and exorbitantly priced. The state should invest in helicopter services, with Shimla as the hub. A proposal was floated in 2008 but has got nowhere, primarily because Shimla lacks a civilian heli-pad. Efforts by the govt. to persuade Rashtrapati Bhavan to allow the use of the Kalyani heli-pad near Charabra were rebuffed by the President’s office on “ security” grounds, even though it is not used 364 days in a year! I believe another site has been identified near Dhalli, but the proposal continues to languish in some file.

·        Revive the ambitious Ski Village proposal- a 1200 crore FDI project which would have firmly brought Himachal onto the international map- which was shot down by the Dhumal govt under the vested pressure of hoteliers in the Manali area.

·        Promote, and concentrate on, nature and adventure tourism rather than simply the “chhola bhatura” kind of commerce that passes for tourism today. With 32 Wild Life Sanctuaries, 4 unique National Parks, more than 400 Forest Rest Houses the state has unmatched potential for trekking, rafting, bird watching, mountaineering and allied sports which unfortunately is not being exploited. A reluctant Forest Department has been gradually nudged into sharing these assets by the formation of an Eco-Tourism Society some years ago, but it has to do much more. It is imperative, however, to fix the carrying capacity of each unit and strictly regulate numbers. Eco-tourism and Home stays are the way forward.

·        The govt. should stop destroying the natural environment by building more and more roads into pristine areas just so that ever increasing numbers of cars filled with people who have no concept or genuine love of nature can despoil these areas and leave their fast food garbage behind. It should not make it easier for such elements to access our natural treasures. If required, install ropeways only. It is disheartening to note that even though the three ropeways to Rohtang, Bijli Mahadev and Triund were approved almost ten years back they are nowhere near completion. Think of more ropeways, like one from Dhalli to Kufri, or Dalhousie to Khajiar, both destinations swamped by vehicles in the season; the former is additionally buried under mule dung!

Himachal needs a total paradigm shift in the way it thinks tourism and it must learn from international experiences. Tourism has become one of the biggest threats to nature and local cultures world wide. On any given day there are 3 million tourists tramping all over the world and the figure will go up to 6 million by 2025; that is 1.8 billion tourists on the loose! If not regulated or channelized properly and in time, they will be like a swarm of locusts, destroying everything worth conserving. Local populations have started reacting with hostility to tourists- in Venice, Barcelona, Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan. I am positive the permanent residents of Shimla feel the same way. They need to speak up while there is still some standing room on the Shimla Ridge.

    

THE REAL SWADESHI INDIAN.

    It appears to me that Baba Ramdev, with his Patanjali and Divya Pharmacy brands, has done more to promote India's traditional knowledge and to make it a commercial success than the BJP govt's Make In India programme and the obscurantist efforts of its fringe elements. Good economics evidently is more sustainable than coercive politics. Whereas far-fetched claims of plastic surgery and organ transplant during the Vedic times and vapid platitudes about the Cow have evoked derision, Baba Ramdev's quiet promotion of the benefits of ancient herbal medicines, of the properties of medicinal plants and the value of cow products has made his venture a blockbuster that even Mukesh Ambani can be envious of. The revenues of Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. jumped from Rs. 446.00 crore in 2011-12 to Rs. 10561 crore in 2016-17, a twenty fold increase in five years. Forbes has computed that Acharya Balkrishna ( who hold 98.6% of the shares of the company on behalf of Baba Ramdev) is the 19th richest man in India and is worth US$ 7.3 billion! No wonder that HUL, Dabur etc. are scrambling to retain their market shares. If ever there was a truly Indian success story based on our own raw materials and know-how it is Patanjali.

   I personally do not find this surprising because, notwithstanding his simple, spiritual demeanour, Baba Ramdev is an astute and alert businessman. His impish, jocular facade conceals a brain as sharp as a razor. I discovered this personally in 2008 or thereabouts when I was holding charge of  the Forest Deptt.  Himachal's forests are a veritable store-house of medicinal plants and herbs and they are smuggled out in huge quantities. This, combined with the fact of their unscientific extraction, has put most of them in the endangered category. We felt that if the trade could be regulated through legal channels we might be able to ensure their sustainability. Enter Baba Ramdev, then a bit player, who was scouting around for raw materials. He contacted Mr. J.P.Nadda who was my Minister ( he is now, of course, the Health Minister at the center) who asked me to hold a meeting with the Baba. The meeting was held at the Bilaspur Circuit House, and I went there with my retinue of officers , armed with figures and cost prices. To my horror, Baba Ramdev ( who came without any managerial aides) was far better informed. He was juggling three smart phones all the time, constantly checking with his units about products, quantities, prices. He drove a hard bargain and took decisions instantly, putting us at a disadvantage what with our sarkari process of needing to get approvals from a whole host of agencies and departments which didn't even know the difference between a medicinal plant and a pharmaceutical factory. Within a couple of hours we concluded agreements on a number of items and the Baba, with a final churning of his six-pack abs, merrily went off towards Punjab to buy some "gaggals" for his lemon squash. I'm not aware of the current status of those agreements, but I hope the state has managed to build on them , now that the Baba's requirements must have gone up manifold.

   True, the Baba does have a habit of dabbling in politics and occasionally wanting to chop off a few heads. I wish he would eschew these tendencies: he has no need to become a part of the Hindutva brigade, given his wide acceptability as a champion of Ayurveda and Yoga. He probably feels he owes it to Mr. Modi for universalising the science of Yoga. But his constituency is now too big and extends across political borders for him to massage the BJPs ego. His efforts at mainstreaming Ayurveda are paying off, thanks also to the rapacious and unscrupulous profiteering by allopathic doctors and hospitals. Alternative medicine all over the world is gaining acceptance, and even the new Medical Commission Bill of the govt. proposes to include practitioners of Ayurveda, Homeopathic and Unani schools of medicine within the govt. health structure. This is a positive step, and Baba Ramdev has played no small role in making it happen.

   I cannot conclude this piece without a line or two on the Patanjali products. I'm completely sold on them and go nowhere else for a number of them: bathing soaps ( they last for months!), face cream ( not that there's much any cream can do for a face like mine), toothpaste, hair oil, kitchen masalas, floor cleaner( Gonyle, based on cow urine), honey, amla and aloe vera juice, jams, squashes pickles, etc. What appeals to me is their " Indianness", lack of chemical ingredients, the fact that Patanjali's profits are channelised into a trust for charitable purposes, the simple, almost ascetic life style of its founder and the fact that he is devoid of any corporate airs. My list of Patanjali products would have been longer but for the fact that the Treasury Officer Shimla never forgets to deduct a whopping TDS from my pension every month. I'm hoping he'll forget some month and I can then try out Patanjali's other products. I better go now- its time for the pranayam session.

BETRAYAL OF THE AAM AADMI

[   This article was published in the New Indian Express on 15.1.2018 under the title A HOPE LOST TO POLITICS AS USUAL ]

                                     

      The late Nirad C Choudhry’s definition of India as the continent of Circe, where humans are transmogrified into a lesser species, is particularly true of politics in India, and the latest evidence of this is the transformation of Arvind Kejriwal. Never before in the history of politics in India had a party, and that too a two year old fledgling ranged against an all conquering behemoth like the BJP, ever won 99.5% of seats in an election. Mr. Kejriwal and his AAP achieved this in the 2015 elections in Delhi, winning 67 of the 70 seats. He did this on the back of a desperate yearning for a change, not just in government but in the very nature and quality of politics in the country. The people brought in the BJP to replace the Congress in Parliament in 2014 because they wanted to change the government. But they brought in Kejriwal in Delhi in 2015 because they wanted to change the very essence, values and idiom of politics in the country, not just the government. The transformation sought was far more basic and elemental and Kejriwal was the Merlin who could do this.

    Cleaning out these Augean stables was no easy task, what with 70 years of accumulated political ordure. The long suffering citizens were not unaware of this and were prepared to make allowances for the inexperience and administrative immaturity of a greenhorn party, and they have been keeping the faith these last two years and more. They have consistently overlooked, if not forgiven, Kejriwal for his many mistakes: the dog fights with the Prime Minister and the Lieutenant Governor, the expulsion of Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, the distancing from other AAP stalwarts like Anjali Damania and Mayank Gandhi, the dubious ticket distribution in Punjab, the hobnobbing with Khalistanis, the open support to the Art of Living’s desecration of the Yamuna floodplains, the failure to improve Delhi’s transport problems, the appointment of as many as 21 MLAs as Parliamentary Secretaries in order to circumvent the constitutional provisions. The people perceived these mistakes as errors of judgement and continued to repose their faith in AAP and Kejriwal for one reason, and one reason only: his appeal to a higher political standard. Indian polity has always lacked a moral and ethical underpinning, an honest and principled core, the nucleus of compassion, humaneness and tolerance around which all civilised nations and societies are built. In him and in AAP many Indians saw a vague outline of a path leading back to our moral roots, and so they persevered; for all his faults, they reasoned, here was a politician who would never compromise on the one value that is a complete stranger to politics in India- probity, rectitude and integrity. Like Moses he would take us to the promised land, we were prepared to wait- after all, didn’t the Hebrews wander in the deserts for forty years, and didn’t the Pandavas spend years in exile, before they gained their goals?

    We have been betrayed. By Mr. Kejriwal himself. He has nominated to the Rajya Sabha two individuals- Sushil Gupta, a businessman and N.D. Gupta, a Chartered Accountant- who have absolutely nothing to recommend themselves for the historic role of the first ever AAP  MPs in the Upper House.This was a momentous opportunity for the AAP to nominate persons of eminence and gravitas, to depart from the general practice of awarding hangers on, sycophants, financiers, cronies, to demonstrate that it really was a party with a difference. The Guptas, however, are nobodies; rich, no doubt, but with no track record of any public service or contribution to the polity or society. Could Mr. Kejriwal not find even two individuals from among the hundreds who gave selflessly of themselves in the India Against Corruption movement or later to his own party? Is his party so devoid of quality and talent that he had to go shopping in the same bazaar other parties customise? These, and other, questions are being raised but Kejriwal, for a change, has gone silent. Like a Prime Minister he has frequently questioned for his silences, Kejriwal too is in mute mode: he has not uttered one word of explanation for his disgraceful decision, or clarified what his party stands to gain by these inexplicable choices. Perhaps there ARE no explanations, perhaps the only gainer is Mr. Kejriwal himself and not his party, perhaps he has given up the fight and is preparing to fold up his tent and steal away into the night with whatever he can. There is something rotten here and his staunchest supporters ( like me) cannot ignore the overpowering stench emanating from these nominations.

    The Aam Aadmi Party has just been murdered by its own founder. It has renounced the only values that were its USP, that made it different from other parties- its clean, uncompromising, idealistic, honest image. It is now just another party. I am reminded of the concluding sentences in George Orwell’s book Animal Farm: there came a stage when it was difficult to tell who were the pigs and who the humans, they had become one and the same. This will be the epitaph of the AAP. And what about us, the ordinary citizens, who were promised so much? We will continue to wait for a Godot who will never come or, if he comes at all, will only flatter to deceive. Like one Arvind Kejriwal.

A PROMISING BEGINNING IN HIMACHAL

    The new BJP government in Himachal is off to an encouraging start, it would appear. It certainly begins with a few significant advantages. With the eclipse of the two families who have controlled Himachal politics for more than two decades, Mr. Jai Ram Thakur can begin with a clean slate and jettison the accumulated baggage of their hangers on, vested interests and prejudices. The new Chief Minister- being from Mandi- occupies the middle ground between upper Shimla and Kangra both geographically and metaphorically, and hopefully his politics would do likewise. He has done well to dispense with the services of the bureaucratic camp followers- the Congress sub-cadre- of the previous regime. But that in itself is not new as all new govts. do so. Where he can show some mettle and break new ground is in ensuring that one sub-cadre is not replaced by another-the BJP sub-cadre. The latter has been waiting in the wings for the last five years and will now demand their place at the feeding trough. If Mr. Thakur obliges them by appointing another set of retired officers and defeated politicians to important positions he will be no different from his predecessor or the one before him. The reason is simple- these superannuated officers have no stakes in the govt., they are not accountable as they are beyond the purview of service and conduct rules, and if things go wrong it will be Mr. Thakur who will pay the electoral price, as Raja Sahib did- the officers will be laughing all the way to the bank and to Bali or Europe. The Chief Minister's only standard should be merit- political loyalty is not only blind, it is also a two edged sword.

    Mr. Thakur's announcement that he will not indulge in political victimisation is also welcome for this is a virus that sickens the entire body fabric of the state. Mr. Virbhadra Singh expended huge amounts of goodwill, state prestige, time, energy, and the state's resources in targeting the HP Cricket Association: it achieved nothing other than tarnishing the reputation and careers of a few officers. Every such misconceived action further ensures that the bureaucracy will withdraw into a shell and not take decisions- after all, you can berate an officer for inaction but you can't charge-sheet him or lodge an FIR against him. The civil service cannot work in an atmosphere of fear, intimidation and distrust. And at the end of the day any govt., even one with 44 seats out of 68, cannot deliver if the govt. servants decide to be safe rather than sorry. By all means, if laws have been violated go after them, but refrain from doing so to settle personal or party scores. Retain the good policies of the last govt., throw out the bad ones, but don't throw out the baby with the bath water just because it was conceived by your predecessor.

    The new Chief Minister should also be wary of Trojans carrying gifts. There will be many among us with inside information, mysterious file notings, gory details of contracts awarded or rejected- the gifts intended to gain access to the Chief Minister's confidence. Some of it can be useful, most of it is trash. Mr. Thakur will need wise, uncompromised and honest officers to sift through all this raw ore- for this task he should pick non sub- cadre officers, for only they will have no personal axe to grind. He has been long enough in the political sphere of the state to be able to identify such people- there are not many around, but surely enough to have the job done. By the way, the so called " victims" of the previous regime ( there will more of them than in the AIIMS OPD on any given day) cannot be trusted with this sensitive responsibility for they have their own scores to settle. They should be kept at arm's length.

   The new Chief Minister has shown statesmanship and respect for democratic principles very early in his term by announcing that the film PADMAVAT  shall  not be banned. By doing so he has shown his other BJP counterparts for the men ( and women) of straw that they actually are. In the process he has been faithful to the exceptional catholicism and eclectism of religious beliefs in our state. Himachal has so far been spared the poison of fundamentalism and regressive nativism which has inundated most of the rest of the country in the last three years. The credit for this goes partly to the previous govt. but mostly to the localised form of Hinduism practised in the state. The over-arching Hinduism here is moderated by the fact that in Himachal every village and valley has its own local Devta or Devi who command the primary obeisnace and loyalty. This has acted as a buffer and moderating influence against the more toxic elements now being introduced into the main body of the  religion, especially in the BJP ruled states. It is no coincidence that the proscription of PADMAVAT- announced or intended-has so far been limited to states where the BJP is in power- MP, Rajasthan, Goa, UP, Maharashtra, Haryana. There is no particularly vocal demand for a ban in Himachal, and the govt. has done well by dousing a fire even before it has been lit. By doing so it shall convince the people of the state that it has a mind of its own and will not be led by the nose by the RSS or the infamous fringe, something which is extremely reassuring.. There are no legal grounds for banning the film- the Supreme Court has refused to do so, and the CBFC has cleared it- and any such action shall be unconstitutional. Hiding behind the fig leaf of " law and order" does not behove an elected govt.- if a govt. cannot protect the Constitution or maintain law and order, it has no right to be in office and should go. Himachal has always been a peaceful oasis in an otherwise increasing communal country, and Mr. Thakur's biggest challenge in these difficult times will be to keep it so. By allowing PADMAVAT to be released in the state he will be making  a clear opening  statement which, hopefully, will set a positive tone for his tenure.

[ DISCLAIMER: The unsolicited advice above is something rare in Mr. Jaitley's India- it is completely free- no VAT, no GST, no cess. However, it does have 35 years of input credit, service on which the writer has paid all his taxes. It is, therefore, declared, white and untainted ! ]

LAST CHANCE TO SAVE SHIMLA.

                 [  This piece was published in the TRIBUNE Supplement on 6.1.2018 ]

                                          

    I first came to Shimla in 1982. We used to stay in Brokhurst, Chhota Shimla, and every evening my wife and I would take our two year old son in a pram for a stroll to Mall Road and back: it was a pedestrian’s town then. The spurs radiating from the main ridge- New Shimla, Knollswood, Mehli, Strawberry Hill, Kasumpti, Nau Bahar- were all covered with thick greenery. It took five minutes to drive from the Lift to the Secretariat. Ceiling fans were unheard of. There was no nine story High Court building to proclaim the majesty of the judiciary, no monolithic monstrosity called Armsdale to accommodate a rapidly expanding and deteriorating government. Those were the last years of Kipling’s Shimla, for now it is an abomination, thanks to populist politicians, an unconcerned bureaucracy, short-sighted citizens, predatory builders and platitude spouting NGOs.

    I now live in a village near Mashobra and NEVER venture into Shimla. Its roads are a smorgasbord of potholes, there is no place to park, traffic jams snake their way all the way to Taradevi, the hills are covered with plastic. A kid in a pram would not survive  two minutes. The greenery is mostly gone, replaced by thousands of houses on 70 degree slopes, their slabs as thin as “Lijjat” papads,  govt. buildings have spread all over the hills like the parthenium weed, every one who can afford it has to have ACs now, even the monkeys of Jakhu have anthropomorphised and adopted our degraded way of life.

    So I am not at all surprised that the state govt. has decided to appeal in the Supreme Court against the 16^th November order of the National Green Tribunal imposing strict restrictions on further constructions in the city. ALL governments in the last thirty years have given two hoots for the natural environment of the state. Its rivers have been “hydroed” nearly out of existence: in a few years only four kms of the Ravi ( between Bajol and Chamba) and twelve kms of the Sutlej ( between Khab and Bilaspur) would be visible, the rest diverted to headrace tunnels. More than 102 sq.kms of prime forest land has been diverted for hydel projects, mining and road construction, 800,000 trees slaughtered, mindless and unplanned urbanisation has made slums of all the state’s towns. Governments have been mute spectators, if not active colluders, to this despoliation. They have resisted each and every move by the judiciary to redress this devastation: the ban on plying of vehicles to the Rohtang pass, the stay on regularisation of illegal constructions ( Shimla alone has more than 20000 !), the removal of encroachments on forest lands. Instead, they have implemented perversely illogical schemes such as the four-laning of the Parwanoo- Shimla highway without bothering about its ruinous implications- when complete, this will treble the tourist traffic flowing into Shimla, to about 10000 cars every day. Assuming that each tourist will stay for three days, the city will need 30000 parking slots, not counting for the 30000 odd local vehicles. There is just no way so much space can ever be created along its few and narrow roads. Additionally, the number of hotels will also have to treble to accommodate the absolute increase in the number of tourists, with attendant issues of garbage, sewage, water supply etc. Where is the advance planning for this impending apocalypse ?- not that any amount of planning can avert this certain disaster.

    The 16^th November order of the NGT is the city’s last life line, if only we collectively have the wisdom to seize it. Its three major components need to be appreciated in their proper context:

[1] No construction or regularisation of buildings in the core/ heritage areas and the green belts. The core area is the original Shimla of British times and must be maintained in its original state. The 17 green belts cover 400 hectares and are the only surviving green cover of this city, giving it its micro climate and unique charm- I read somewhere that it is the largest urban forest in the world. A 2000 notification, which is constantly being challenged politically and legally, protects it and I am glad the NGT has now put its imprimatur on it. Without these natural buffers Shimla would only be just another piece of rock.

[2] No constructions on slopes of more than 35 degrees. Shimla lies in seismic zone V, and it should not have needed a judge sitting in Delhi to impress this upon the govt. Just one look at the multi-story buildings that have come up in the last 25 years or so, especially in Sanjauli, Dhalli, Panthaghati, Mehli and the Sanjauli by-pass, and one’s faith in God is reaffirmed- nothing else can explain how these structures remain standing in the face of all laws of physics. Built on 90 degree slopes, with wafer thin slabs and skeletal pillars, no set-offs or retaining walls, no proper drainage, they will collapse like  houses of cards in the event of even a mild tremor or quake. Thousands will die but I guess by then the politician will have got his votes and the bureaucracy its shekels.

[3] No felling of trees in the Catchment forest and the sub-catchment of streams and rivulets. To really understand how vital this is, just take a trip to the Catchment forest beyond Dhalli and carefully observe the water supply scheme built there by the British a hundred years ago. It’s an environmental and engineering marvel: the waters stored and released by the millions of trees here are collected in tanks and channelized to Shimla through underground pipes, all by gravity! This scheme still supplies a fair percentage of the requirements of the town, at practically no cost. The NGT is in a way asking us to replicate this simple and sustainable model: protect the green cover of the surrounding catchment areas- Ashwini Khad, Noughty Khad, the Glen, Anandale- and there would be no need for hare- brained schemes like piping in water from the Chandranahan lake 250 kms away or lifting it from the KOL Dam, all at great cost.

    The NGT has offered a lifeline to a terminally ill patient. The govt. should act upon it, not challenge it. It will not get another chance.

PRIME TIME AND CONDOM TIME

    Marketing managers have just had their jobs made easier by our self righteous Ministry of  (Mis)Information: it has decreed that henceforth there shall be only two advertising slots on TV- Prime time from  6.00AM. to 10.00PM and Condom Time from 10.00 PM till the oui hours of the morning. Ads for the humble condom can only be shown in the latter slot so that young minds should not be corrupted.! As usual, however, the govt., which considers that sex is not part of Indian culture and came here with either Alauddin Khilji or the East India Company, has missed a few tricks.

    There were approximately 20 million babies born in India last year, even though half the country's population was standing in ATM queues for three months ( how's that for good old Indian "jugad' ?- we never let an opportunity go to waste). Anyway, that's quite a lot of babies, even if it has a psephologist's standard margin of error of +/ - 3%. To me this figure of 20 million is significant for two reasons: one, all these births cannot be the result of Immaculate Conception because even the good Lord gave up this idea long ago in favour of the Missionary Up disposition, a genuflective posture which suits our profound religiosity; obviously, therefore, corporeal mergers are taking place at a rate that should satisfy even the Sensex, which appears to be drooping a bit these days. Secondly, has the I+B Ministry completely lost its marbles? The message this country needs to disseminate most urgently is not that we had cracked the atom in 7000 BC or invented the space shuttle the very next year but that condoms prevent unwanted pregnancies and the spread of HIV/AIDS. And this message needs to go out to precisely that demographic group the Ministry does not want the ads to reach- youngsters. Because how many babies are born in the next decade depends on them, not the mandarins of Soochna Bhavan who in any case probably have sex only on second saturdays and gazetted holidays( probably the reason why govt. servants oppose any reduction in these holidays).

    Big Brother obviously doesn't agree, and in the process has revealed its total disconnect with reality. It should know that the only guys who are wide awake after 10.00 PM are the same impressionable young minds it wants to mollycoddle. All the others-adults, the hewers of wood and the drawers of water- have by then gone to sleep, effectively sedated by the screams of prime time anchors and exhausted by standing in queues the whole day to link their Aadhar with their college degrees, car number plates, marriage certificates, e-mail IDs and, ultimately, their own death certificates. So when Sunny Leone pops up on the screen at 10.03 PM doing to a strawberry what Donald Trump is doing to America the only ones clutching the remotes will be our under 25 demographic dividends. These kids already know more about sex than Dr. Kinsey and Hugh Heffner put together; thanks to the internet they not only get to be born free but also get  porn free. Could it be possible that our I+B chaps don't know that said Ms Leone is the most googled person in India, or that 47% of internet users regularly visit porn sites? Who are they trying to "protect", for God's sake?

    The female form, including the plunging cleavage and the rising hem-line, has been used to sell products ever since it was first used to launch a thousand ships in Troy. Its on TV every minute selling pan masala, insurance policies, penthouses, cars, fashion products, based on the premise that galvanising the pheromones results in an opening of wallets. Sex is the silent persuader, the red flag that makes the stock exchange bull charge up the bourses. The condom is only just another such product, with a vital difference- it can save lives and curb the demographic explosion. It therefore needs to be promoted more widely than these other effete fropperies of modern life. And the govt. has to understand that just as cars, houses, insurance do so by leveraging our need for glamour,security and financial gain, condoms do so by titillating our sense of pleasure. In order to do so their ads have to be targeted at the younger lot, not at geriatric chess grandmasters- after all, the whole game is about mating, not check- mating.

    The restrictive dictat will have no effect in anycase. The caterers of condoms will now resort to that old ploy of surrogate advertising, as our liquor barons do. Durex will now promote super thin latex gloves ( "nothing comes between you") , ManForce will advertise fruit flavours that will "blow" your mind. and SKORE will come up with Braille books that will help you score. Nothing will change- the same sinuous limbs and husky voices will now urge you to put on the gloves, sip the flavoured drink and -well, score. But I like my advertising the old fashioned way- I want to be sure that what I see is what I get; as the Duchess told the octogenarian Duke: " If I can't see it, how do I know its still there?" And let's be honest for once: who would you rather have to sing you a lullaby- Arnab Goswami or Sunny Leone ?