WHATSAPP DOESN'T KILL, POLITICS OF HATE DOES.

             This piece was published on the op-ed page of the New Indian Express on 24.07.2018 under the title: "Whatsapp doesn't kill, hate does."

   It is now more or less official: 35 killings or mob lynchings have taken place in the year since May 2017. The trigger has been either alleged cattle smuggling or child lifting, the victims generally of minority communities or “outsiders”. They have been conveniently branded as “ What’s App killings” and the government has issued a stern warning to What’s App to clean up its act. The can- and the blame- has been conveniently kicked down the road to 2019. But here are some inconvenient questions: What’s App has some 1.50 billion subscribers globally, of which 200 million or 15% are in India; why is it that all the killings are happening in India only ? Second, the messaging App has been in this country since 2009: why is it that the mob murders have started only now, in the last couple of years? What has changed so drastically in this period as to justify, finally, Nirad Choudhry’s diagnosis that this is the continent of Circe, which turns men into monsters ?

  It is the changing and deteriorating nature of politics which is primarily responsible for the spurt in vigilantism, not the messaging App. The old culprits remain- shoddy policing, a defunct justice system, social fault lines, an imperfect technological platform that assures anonymity- but these are now a supplementary emboldening factor, not the primary causative impetus. The latter is provided by the newly created eco system of hate and fear whose holy grail is the vote, which has to be grabbed no matter the cost to an individual or the society. The credo of Satan prevails: it is far better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.

  There is no shying away from it, and it must be said: politicians- overwhelmingly those from the ruling party at the centre, but also from other parties- are sowing the seeds of vigilante violence by their acts and deeds and creating the fertile soil in which they can grow their deadly crops, hoping to harvest them at election time. People will believe what they are conditioned to believe, and if it is drilled into them day in and day out that certain communities are not to be trusted, that cow killers are on the loose, that liberals and intellectuals are anti- national, that all Kashmiris are secessionists, that Universities are the breeding ground of traitors, that conversions and “ love jihad” are decimating the Hindu numbers, and worse, they will believe it all. What’s App is only the messenger, the message itself comes from elsewhere in the corridors of power, amplified by some channels which have specialised in converting news into “ fake views”. And very soon hate becomes a badge of honour, bravery and pride. The malady has gone way beyond fake news now, it has metastasised into vigilantism, a natural progression, according to Voltaire: “ Those who can make you believe absurdities can also make you commit atrocities.”

   The government will of course not accept this thesis, but consider: what other message did a Union Minister send when he honoured one of the accused killers of Akhlaq and draped the national flag over his body ( he had died in prison)? What message did the BJP MP from Jharkhand send when he announced that he would pay the legal expenses of those accused in the mob killing of four people on suspicion of cattle lifting? What was Civil Aviation Minister, Mr. Jayant Sinha- he of the superficial and deceptive veneer of Harvard and McKinsey- conveying earlier this month when he garlanded and felicitated the eight accused in another mob lynching case? Or when Mr. Giriraj Singh, unfortunately another Minister who is a serial offender in such matters, visited a bunch of riot accused in jail in Bihar to offer them his help? Such incendiary and inappropriate behaviour would have led to their sacking in any country where political decency exists, but here there has not been one word of disapproval, let alone admonition, from any party or government leader.

   This is not just about hate speech, it’s about a hate ecology that is replacing our tolerant anarchy with inspired mob violence. Many years ago Dr. Ambedkar had noted that “ democracy in India is only a top-dressing of the Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic.” Even this fragile top soil is now being blown away by a devil’s wind. When the sub conscious of the individual is seeded with caste and communal hatred Freud’s theory comes into play- in a mob this altered sub conscious gets unlocked and unfettered violence results. It helps when the powers that be approve of this vigilantism, and a rotten justice system promises that no one will actually get punished after the dust has dissipated.

   So let us not pin the entire blame on What’s App. Yes, it can do much more to remove anonymity and delete accounts. But it is not responsible for the viciousness that permeates our public and political discourse, the imploding of moral values in our society; it cannot be blamed for the messaging that comes from our political leaders and their sycophantic channels that magnify the hatred and antagonism every day on prime time. That is something our shrinking civil society will have to deal with. The problem is not technological as Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad seems to think, it’s behavioural and intellectual. After all, if you deliberately issue a license to kill, why blame the gun ?                                                                                                  

THE CRUELEST MONTH.

    I respectfully disagree with T.S.Eliot's statement that " April is the cruelest month." July is always the worst time of the year for me. It's the month when one has to reluctantly abandon the sylvan beauty and quiet of the mountains and return to the toxic soup of Delhi where the humidity is so thick that even our Parliamentarians can stand upright for a change, supported entirely by the dense air. I have a feeling that Delhi's IAS lobby may soon have to depend on the humidity too to remain erect in their face-off with Kejriwal, now that the BJP is likely to withdraw support to them in the wake of recent and expected SC judgments. It is also that dreaded month consecrated to the Income Tax goblins when one fries one's brains deciding how much of that paltry income to hide from the tax man. My CA tells me that it is cheaper to pay the tax: ever since the Sixth Pay Commission decided to hike salaries exponentially by linking wages with incompetence, the cost of that other route ( "patli galli") has also gone up and is now unaffordable. July is also the month when I annually revise my will, primarily to keep my progeny on their Myntra adorned toes, but also because I never know when I may fall into an open manhole ( why do they call them that ? Shouldn't it be " person hole" in these gender neutral days ?) or drown under Minto bridge. It is also the time when I have to submit my " Life Certificate" to the Treasury Officer Shimla to convince him that I am still alive and entitled to my pension. Every year I have to run from pillar to post to find a gazetted officer to sign on the dotted line, which is beginning to look more and more like an arrhythmic ECG line with each passing year. So far no one has pointed out the obvious fact that I may be brain dead, perhaps on the presumption that any one who has served in the govt. for more than ten years is presumed to be brain dead, and so that can't be held against a pensioner.

  There's another reason why I'm sick to my stomach every July: it's the time of year when the press informs us, with a flourish of trumpets, about how much Mr. Mukesh Ambani's net worth is in pure Mammon terms. The Hindustan Times informed us on the 18th of this month that his worth is now US$ 43.3 billion ( Rupees 2,94,000 crores), having increased by US$ 3.4 billion( Rupees 23120 crores) in just the last seven months. This tells me a number of things. One, that Make In India is working fine for some people at least. Two, that the govt. may consider modifying this slogan into  "Make hay while the Sangh shines." Three, that Mr. Jaitley ( who apparently still calls the shots, if not the odds, in the Finance Ministry), may also consider nationalising Mr. Ambani- at one shot 30% of the NPAs of the banks can be written off with his wealth. Four, that if Ambani comes can Adani be far behind?

  But why, you may well ask, does this make me sick ? Now, I'm no card carrying Communist or socialite socialist of the IIC variety, but I can't help but look at some other figures- that 200 million in India are still below the poverty line, that 80% of our population have to make do with less than US$10 per day, that almost 40% of our children are either stunted or mal-nourished, that 51 million youth in the age group 18-25 years are unemployed, that more than ten thousand farmers commit suicide every year, that India is at the 66th rank ( out of 78 countries) in the UN Inclusive Index. And I can't help but feel that one reason for this dismal state of affairs is that people like Mr. Ambani are hoovering up all the wealth- they pocketed 73% of all the wealth created in 2016. The "they" are all Ambanis in the making- according to the Global Wealth Report, 101 billionaires, 200,000 millionaires and 137,100 HNWIs ( High Net Worth Individuals).

  These numbers fade into insignificance when compared to the USA ( 540 billionaires and 15.7 million millionaires) or China ( 594 billionaires and 1.3 million millionaires) but it must be kept in mind that these are countries far richer and more inclusive than India. Our per capita income ( on PPP basis) is US$ 5350 while those of the USA and China are 58030 and 15500 respectively. They are also far more inclusive in their economic growth trajectory and the gap in the standard of living between the average and the rich is nowhere as pronounced as in India. The rich may be getting richer, but so are the poor-unlike in India.

  Its not that the uber rich in India ( maybe barring a few) are getting richer because of any exceptional talent or acumen, or sparks of brilliance of the Jeff Bezoz, Bill Gates or Elon Musk variety. They prosper because of a vicious cycle: money accesses political power which generates more money. This was very succintly expressed by Angus Deaton, the 2015 winner of the Nobel prize for Economics: " the rich capture more than their share of political power, so that the state stops serving the majority of the people." A perfect illustration of this was presented to the nation last week by the Ministry of HRD when it notified the ( proposed) Ambani Institute as one of ten educational Institutions of Eminence. This would not have raised any liberal eye brows, except that even by our accepted standards of cronyism this took the cake- the Ambani Institute does not even exist! It is at the moment just a gleam in Mr. Mukesh Ambani's eye- no land, no infrastructure, no faculty, no students, zilch. And yet it was put on the same pedestal as an IIT and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore- bodies which have existed for years and have much academic and research work to establish their credentials. This is precisely what Mr. Deaton was referring to. Just the IOE tag would have enabled the Institute to make thousands of crores in higher fees, sponsorships, donations.

  Our billionaires and millionaires have battened on political power which has given them unlimited access to the country's natural resources and public funds. Take Reliance Industries itself: according to a Bloomberg report quoted in the Hindustan Times of 19th July, RIL has total borrowings of Rs. 220,000 crore, and this is expected to increase further. Guess whose money this is ? It is the nation's common resources which they are exploiting ruthlessly to garner riches for themselves- the recent Vedanta protests ( and killing of 11 people in police firing) in Tamil Nadu is an apt example of how this wealth is generated with the complicity of the administrations everywhere, regardless of which party is in power. Money is the new Esperanto or universal language. I find these atolls of opulence amidst an ocean of want somewhat obscene, and it is perfectly symbolized by the Ambani residence in Mumbai, Antilia, a 27 storey hulk surrounded by slums, an upraised finger admonishing the lakhs residing in them for their poverty. So okay, he IS very rich but does he have to rub it in our face ? Capitalism has run amock. As the wit remarked: Communism is the exploitation of man by man; Capitalism is the exact opposite.

  Welcome to the country which prides itself on the ease of doing business, even as millions of kids go to bed hungry each night. Come to where the flavour is, said the Marlboro man, come to Marlboro county. He died last year of cancer.

I don't like July. And forgive me if I'm not turning cartwheels at Mr. Ambani becoming the 15th richest man in the world.

MISSING THE WOODS FOR THE TREES.

   I am one of those who supports the " overreach" of the higher judiciary. When the executive under performs consistently, someone has to overreach, and since the citizens have been hammered into submission and most of the media co-opted, that leaves only the courts. But I do wish they would not abrogate all wisdom to themselves and would consult some experts once in a while. My specific allusion is to the Supreme Court's order last week banning the use of ALL forest rest houses for eco-tourism activities. This regressive judgement betrays a complete lack of understanding of realities on the ground. The original issue before the court was the pressure of visitors in Corbett- more than 200,000 every year. There were other ways to address this problem- restriction on numbers, closing off certain areas in a rotation cycle, keeping the core zones inviolate, prohibiting the entry of vehicles. The solution required a scalpel, not a sledge hammer, which is what has been wielded here.To the best of my knowledge this order was passed on the recommendations of the Central Empowered Committee and the MOEF. The former is composed mainly of forest officers and bureaucrats who in any case are keen to hang on to their turf, even as they have little idea of what to do with it except to  mark their territory in the time honoured canine manner. The less said about the Ministry the better: it will not share the FRHs with others even while it transfers thousands of hectares of forests for industries and allows tens of thousands of trees to be felled. It would perhaps have helped if the Court had also listened to the practitioners and experts in the field of eco-tourism, such as the Eco-Tourism Society of India. Locking up forests and denying access to tourists ( which is what prohibiting tourists from staying in FRHs will do) is not the way to conserve forests or wildlife habitats, as experience across the world has shown. Eco-tourism is the most sustainable model of tourism for the future as it has minimum deleterious impacts on natural resources, and to divorce it from nature or forests is the surest way to kill it.  Let's try and break  down some of its prime objectives.

  Eco-tourism is a low budget activity and its purpose is four-fold. One, spread tourism beyond overburdened urban conglomerations to relieve the unsustainable pressures on them. Two, create awareness among the public, and educate them about the value and beauty of nature. Three, support rural economies and create employment in those areas. Four, make use of the huge infrastructure of the forest departments which is otherwise crumbling, and generate funds for their maintenance. States like HP and Sikkim are pioneers in this field, have framed sound eco-tourism policies and have been successfully implementing them for many years. It is disheartening to see the Supreme Court upsetting the apple cart for no sound reason. Did it give these states an opportunity to present their side of the case?

   Himachal has more than 500 FRHs ( Forest Rest Houses), some of them of heritage value like the ones at Khanag in Kullu or Sangla in Kinnaur. Even more picturesque ones are in areas not connected by any road. They are huge attractions for the young, aware, nature lovers, including foreign tourists.They are all totally under-utilised, under- funded and are going to seed- the department doesn't even have funds to maintain them adequately. Forest officers ( for whom they were primarily meant) rarely visit the off-road or remote FRHs. Now that every second forest officer is either a PCCF or an Addl. PCCF their touring ( if any) is limited to the road-head. The lower level field staff are mostly posted in their home stations and have no desire to spend nights away from their warm beds at home. So much for the concern of the forest officers for their rest houses! This was one of the main reasons why Himachal, as far back as in 2002, decided to utilise these FRHs by linking them to nature and eco-tourism. Some have been tendered out to private entities ( with severe stipulations) since the govt. obviously lacks resources and manpower, while others are being run by the forest department itself. I have myself been to some of the remotest valleys and forest areas and have found that this model of tourism is working very successfully, and is drawing tourists to nature in ever increasing numbers, especially the younger generation. Local economies are benefiting hugely. Just the Sairopa complex in the Tirthan valley has a turnover of Rs. 80.00 lakhs per year and provides employment to dozens of local youth. It will now have to close down.

   The Supreme Court order will put a halt to this positive initiative. It will also create a vacuum for accommodation in these pristine areas and all manner of illegal structures will come up ( as in Kasol, Manikaran and Triund, to name just a few) at exorbitant prices, polluting and disfiguring these wonderful natural environments. Everyone, except these land sharks, will be a loser. Himachal, the first state in the country perhaps to have framed an Eco- Tourism policy in 2002 will be impacted adversely by this judgement. It had on the drawing board ambitious plans to tender out 113 sites under the PPP mode, and the HP Forest Corporation another 47 sites. I cannot help but feel that the Court should be giving greater  priority to saving the trees in Delhi, or staying the construction of the insanely conceived Char Dham Highway in Uttarakhand which will lead to chopping down of 45000 trees . If at all it must concern itself with the question of using Forest Department assets for eco-tourism, it should limit itself to laying down guidelines rather than banning it altogether. Forget about throwing out the baby with the bathwater, in these critical, water stressed times even the bathwater has to be recycled! I do hope the Himachal, Sikkim and Uttarakhand governments will come together and challenge this order in a review petition. 

A TIME TO SPEAK OUT, A TIME TO BE SILENT.

   It is ironical, but a sign of our dysfunctional and dystopian times, that those in public life who should be speaking are silent while those who should be silent are speaking out ( of turn). Leading the former pack is none other than our own alpha Sphinx, the Prime Minister. Although a voluble twitter denizen, he rarely addresses any issue of substance or provides any moral leadership in troubled times. He has not held a single press conference in four years and is usually heard only at election rallies, or delivering the ubiquitous " Man Ki Baat" where he talks about yoga, exam warriors, and other such arcane topics which are perhaps better left for Sadhguru. But he is not alone in his studied reticence. Mr. Kejriwal will not talk about what happened that midnight when Delhi's Chief Secretary was ostensibly roughed up, nor will he utter one gracious word of apology, one word that could have defused the confrontation in Delhi at one stroke. The Chief Election Commissioner will not tell us how the VVPAT votes tally with the votes actually cast in the last few elections: were he to do so, it would dispel a lot of the doubts that bedevil people like you and me, and perhaps even make redundant the many court cases on this subject.The UIDAI boss will not tell us how many Aadhar leaks have actually taken place and why they continue to happen regularly, even though the data is famously  "protected by ten feet thick walls". The RBI Governor will not come clean on the demonetisation figures, and it has been left to RTI activists to dig out the dirt- like the RS. 800 crores of demonetised notes deposited in the Ahemedabad Co-operative Bank ( of which Mr. Amit Shah is a director) in just five days. The Finance Minister will not tell us what happened to investigations in the Panama papers or how much moneys have been repatriated from Swiss banks, even though the deposits there have gone up by 50% in the last one year. Everyone maintains either silence or complete deniability. The public's right to Know has now become the right to NO.

   But guess who IS talking?- those who have no business to do so. Like our army Chief, General Rawat, whose soldiers continue to die while he waxes eloquent on human rights, the politics of Kashmir, the psychology of the Kashmiri youth and even on US sanctions! Then there is the IAS Association of Delhi, which recently held a number of press conferences to defend its stand vis-a-vis the standoff with AAP. Now,  IAS Associations are  known neither for their spines nor for their ability to organise anything more than a farewell dinner. The Press conference, therefore, had all the makings of a command performance, the command of course emanating from either the Delhi Raj Bhavan or the PMO. It is another step in the creeping politicisation of the civil services. Civil servants do not hold press conferences against an elected government or a Chief Minister, no matter what their grievances are. This is not only against the ethos of the service but also stupid: you fight on your territory where you have an advantage, not on someone else's turf. Press conferences and public oratory are the politicians' strongholds , and we expose ourselves when we venture out in this unfamiliar terrain . The Delhi IAS officers, by their silent non co-operation or " limited" co-operation these last few weeks were managing to get their point across and even had the AAP govt. worried. By their ill advised public posturing, however, they have now handed the initiative back to Kejriwal: having called off their boycott on the promise of a meeting with the CM, they are now waiting for him to convene the meeting. He, of course, is in no hurry. And now the Supreme Court has knocked the ground from beneath their feet: its judgement of the 4th of July makes Kejriwal, not the Lieutenant Governor, their boss. These chaps had decided to ride the BJP tiger in full public glare: dismounting now in the murky shadows will be a tricky affair. Continuing to ride the tiger, on the other hand, will invite contempt of court. A tactical silence may have served them better.

   The IAS has always thrived on the fringes of politics, but the judiciary? Whatever prompted the four Supreme Court judges to hold their press conference some months earlier? Yes, there are massive problems( of autonomy, government interference, nepotism, opacity etc.) in the Court, but the honourable judges should have tried to resolve them in- house. Failing in that, they should have resigned en masse and precipitated a crisis. In India significant changes only come about when there is a crisis, for stasis and somnolence is our normal condition. Instead, the Supreme Court is now worse off than before: the Chief Justice has got away by cocking a snook at his brother judges, Justice Chelameshwar has retired to obscurity, cases are being allotted as heretofore, Justice Gogoi will almost certainly lose the chance to become CJI in September, the govt's stranglehold on the judiciary has now become a half-Nelson , the media has lost all interest in the matter and has moved on to the next piece of carrion. The moral of the story?- if one chooses to tread a difficult path. do it out of the courage of your own convictions, not those of others. For the "others" cannot be relied upon.

   Sometimes it is best to work in silence, using the tools you are familiar with rather than picking up the tools of your enemy: fight on your own turf, not on that of your adversary. Second, a mistake both the Delhi IAS Association and the four judges committed was that they relied too much on the media, or on their peers, or opposition parties to take up their cases. They should have realised, wise men that they all are, that the media today is totally sold out, regurgitating the putrid offal the govt. feeds them; their own colleagues are more focused on their own postings and sinecures; and the public doesn't give a damn. Political parties, on the other hand, have no abiding moral or ethical values, and should never be relied upon for support: they use us as prophylactics and then discard us. Speak only when you are confident of being heard, otherwise work silently.

   Something, incidentally, that Mrs. Sushma Swaraj, the well meaning twitter queen, is now finding out the hard way. For the last two weeks she has been trolled mercilessly for intervening on behalf of the Muslim-Hindu couple in Lucknow who had been denied a passport because of their interfaith marriage. And the abusive trolls are her party's own hard core, right wing supporters! Only Mr. Nitin Gadkari has come out in her support; all her colleagues and peers- including, naturally, the Prime Minister and the party President- have maintained a significant silence. No one wants to rock the ideology boat or annoy the lumpens who have taken over the steering of it. The wheel is coming full circle slowly, like an auto immune disease: pumped up with the antibiotics of hate, communalism and arrogance the antibodies in the body fabric of the BJP have turned upon its own few remaining healthy organs: they will devour everything that is even faintly different and does not conform to their own DNA. Like Mrs. Sushma Swaraj. But she cannot complain. She said nothing when they were attacking others, she kept the faith with these " bhakts", she kept silent when she should have spoken out. The hunter has now become the hunted.

   There is a time to be silent, and there is a time to speak out.