DELHI ELECTIONS--THE POISON HAS RUN ITS COURSE.

                               DELHI  ELECTIONS-- THE POISON HAS RUN ITS COURSE.

   A poison can only be combated one way- by the infected body producing its own antibodies to counter the venom. The struggle is painful and not easy and at times appears futile, but there comes a tipping point: the venom peaks, the fever breaks, and the body expels the poison. I would like to believe that this is what has happened to India, the tipping point being the Delhi elections which the AAP has won handsomely.

  This is no run- of- the- mill victory; not since the BJP has come to power at the center in 2014 has an opposition party returned to power, bucking anti- incumbency and with a two thirds majority, in back to back elections. Kejriwal had to contend with an absolutely unprecedented level of hatred, official violence, personal abuse, misuse of police machinery, communalism and naked lies that were unleashed by the BJP. Never was so much fire power brought to bear on 1400 sq. kms of territory: the entire union cabinet, 200 MPs, 7 Chief Ministers, 46 rallies by the Home Minister himself, even the Prime Minister. The largest political party in the world, backed by an unlimited war chest of electoral bonds, against a relative minnow only seven years old has been humbled. This is a bigger victory than in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Jharkhand for many reasons.

  AAP fought this election alone, whereas even the BJP had to fight with three partners, as had the Congress too in the other states it won. The margin of victory is staggering, for the second time running. This was the first election post the Article 370 and CAA/ NRC "master strokes" of the BJP and was supposed to have been an endorsement of these draconian measures. The hubris of the BJP was matched by the somnolence of the Congress which, by not having an understanding with the AAP, practically gifted almost half its vote share to the BJP, nothwithstanding which the AAP retained its own vote share to win. The AAP had to fight a lonely battle, vindicating Tagore's exhortation of   "ekla cholo re". It would be educative to focus on a few points of interest that indicate that the anaconda's coils may be loosening.

   The results unequivocally confirm that the BJP's hate speeches, abuse, shameless polarisation and incitement to violence did not work. AAP's vote share of 54% establishes that Hindus in large numbers voted for the party. The clearest( and most shocking for the BJP) indicator was the voting pattern in Okhla, where Shaheen Bagh- that alleged hub of terrorism and "mini-Pakistan"- is located. Okhla has a population of 300,000 of which 40% are minorities. A total of 136000 votes were cast of which Amanatullah Khan of AAP got 109017 votes and his BJP rival Braham Singh received 20520. Even if we assume that 80% of the Muslims voted ( a staggeringly high and unlikely figure), and that all of them voted for Amanatullah Khan, their votes do not add up to more than about 90000 votes. Which means that about 20000 Hindus also voted for him- the same number as for Braham Singh. This is the most favorable calculation for the BJP- in all probability the number of Hindus who voted for Khan is probably double this number. The same pattern is visible across all the seven or eight Muslim dominated seats. Quite clearly, the attempted polarisation did not work, and the Home Minister admitted as much on 13th Feb when he rued the use of extreme and hate filled language by the BJP campaigners. He should, of course, include himself in that black list.

   Of equal concern for the BJP, and hope for India, is that the BJP's vote share was significantly lower than AAP's across all 7 Parliamentary constituencies- it did not prevail among any cross section of society, whether by cast, profession, region, religion, income or sex, showing that the disenchantment with its arrogance and vitriol is widespread. It should worry in particular that even in New Delhi and Central Delhi it failed to win even one seat; New Delhi, especially, because 80% of its voters are govt. servants and their families- if they too are estranged it does not say much for Mr. Modi and his cabinet. Not only are they losing the states, they are also losing the civil servants.

   The (still supine) media is obligingly peddling the BJP line that the party lost because of Kejriwal's "freebies", a lackluster local party cadre, failure to project a CM face; and that the trouncing is not a reflection on either the BJP's insensitive policies or on the Modi-Shah duo. Nothing could be further from the truth. While the first three reasons are valid, there can be no doubt that this is a loss personally for, and on account of, Messers Modi and Shah. Their intransigence, arrogance, lack of any compassion, contempt for the rule of law, refusal to engage in any discussion, abuse of the state's powers- as reflected in the CAA, NRC, NPR, Kashmir- have substantially eroded the people's trust in them. This was evident in the Jharkhand results and has now been ratified in Delhi. The people are increasingly uneasy and worried about the ever increasing doses of poison being injected into our system. This politics of majoritarianism and confrontation has gone too far and for too long, and the average Indian- of all religions and denominations- is beginning to push back against it. They want a synthesizer, not a divider, and Kejriwal's genius lies in having realised this. He has sought to bridge the binaries which have dominated all politics till now, more so since 2014. He will, therefore, encourage business while budgeting big for welfare of the poor, call himself a " son of Delhi" while making life easier for the migrants in the slums, oppose CAA and NRC while supporting the withdrawal of Article 370, refuse to go to Shaheen Bagh even as his Deputy Chief Minister says his party stands with the protesters, recite the Hanuman Chalisa but not the remix of Jai Shri Ram, proudly proclaim his personal religion while refusing to impose it on others and make it state policy.

   The BJP/ RSS fighting machine needs an enemy and a target to exist- Kejriwal refuses to be either. He is a will o' the wisp who cannot be pinned down, he will not allow himself to be stereotyped or poured into a mould of the BJP's making- anti national, anti Hindu, liberal, urban Naxal, pro-Pakistani and so on. Without these labels, the BJP finds it hard to target him, let alone vanquish him. Kejriwal may just have found the perfect antidote to the BJP in this traditionally syncretic nation- be a leader for all seasons and reasons, not just for the winter of discontent. There is much in this formula for other parties to emulate, if only they could jettison their personal egos and ambitions.  

RADICALISATION IS NOT A ONE WAY STREET.

                               

   " Radicalisation"- the action or process of causing someone to adopt radical( extreme) positions on political or social issues. ( Cambridge dictionary.)

   The conventional or popular belief  in India ( as also globally) is that radicalisation is associated with only one religious community, the adherents of Islam. How wrong this perception is can be seen in our country over the last few years where an uncharacteristic but toxic fundamentalism appears to have seized the euphemistically termed "majority community", especially in the north and west of the country. Driven by an ideology which has acquired political and executive legitimacy, this "reverse" radicalisation has now become almost state policy and has seeped deep into our social fabric. But whereas earlier it was an insidious infection slowly permeating the organs of this republic, over the last two months, post Article 370 and CAA/NRC, it has now erupted into a full blown pestilence which its carrier-hosts no longer bother to disguise but flaunt as a badge of honour. The radicalisation of the majority community is now seen as essential to protect the motherland from the "traitors".

  This has been a work in progress since 2015, the idea being to persuade the majority that they are under threat from an "other" whose loyalty is not to India. The constant barrage of vilification, hate, fake news and reinterpretation of history has been largely successful, as repeated electoral successes of the BJP prove. For radicalisation to succeed it is essential to create an enemy, and the community of 200 million with the same religion as Pakistan fits the bill perfectly- it has been defacto made an extension of that country, and has therefore become the prime enemy. But with this enemy has been merged anyone who stands up for their rights or criticises the government- liberals, intellectuals, urban naxals, "sickulars": the enemy thus fully conforms to the hydra headed monster to be found in all Hindu mythology- for example, Ravana- which of course has to be slain before Ram Rajya can arrive. The script is complete.

  I am quite amazed at how radicalised my co-religionists have become- well educated, financially secure, widely travelled, privileged families have swallowed the poison being dished out by the BJP and amplified by a craven media; they are willing to believe every lie loaded on Whatsapp and Twitter by the party's IT cell, suspending their disbelief and eager to teach "them" a lesson for all the imagined historical wrongs perpetrated by their ancestors. The govt. takes the lead in this catechism by creating dubious legislation and the patriots follow it up by lynching, desecration and riots. And the BJP periodically hoovers up the votes.

  Even by the low standards of our politicians, however, the ruling party's campaigning style for the February Delhi elections reveals a radicalisation that has plumbed the depths. The protests at Shaheen Bagh and elsewhere have been made the metaphor for anti-nationalism and betrayal. A Minister openly calls for shooting of the "traitors", a MP warns that "they" will enter your homes and rape your womenfolk, another terms the election as a Pakistan vs India match, a Chief Minister thunders that his govt. will not give "them" biryani ( as Kejriwal does) but give them bullets. He has to be taken seriously because his police has just killed 21 such enemies. The Prime Minister, no less, fans the fanaticism by alleging that Shaheen Bagh is not a protest but an "experiment"- the innuendo leaving no room to doubt what this experiment is about. And no one bats an eyelid- not the Election Commission, not the Supreme Court, not my Hindu neighbours in my Housing Society, not my colleagues in the IAS, not even most of my own family.

   It is one thing for politicians to become radicalised, but when organs and agencies of the government and state also adopt such ideologies, then the danger becomes very real. And this appears to be happening with the police forces in some states, particularly the crucial Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. We have learnt to live with the lack of professionalism, ignorance and heavy handedness of the police, but their behaviour in these two states over the last two months goes beyond incompetence and sycophancy into the realm of radicalisation. The savagery with which the students of Jamia Millia ( a minority institution) were beaten up to the accompaniment of racial and religious invectives, revilement and challenges, even a mosque trashed, leaves no doubt that the motivation was to teach these "enemies" a lesson. The brutal conduct of the police in UP where 21 people were shot ( all Muslims, as per media reports) has been even more unambiguous and clear. The homes of members of the minority community were raided in town after town, their cars and belongings vandalised, hundred arrested ( now being released by the courts for want of any evidence), dozens arrested and roughed up, notices served for compensation for " damage" to public properties without due process of the law. One SP of a district was even recorded telling Muslims to go to Pakistan, advice for which he was even praised by Ministers. The Chief Minister himself threatened revenge: the police was only too happy to follow this cue.

  No one disputes that the police are required at times to use force to control a situation. But such use of force must always be proportionate to the danger posed, must not be excessive and should not be motivated by a desire to exact vengeance or to "teach them a lesson". It should cease to be employed when the danger posed is over. Nor should the object of the action be regarded as an enemy just because he or she professes a different religion. The display of force should be "non violent" as explained in a recent article by an officer who was the Delhi police Commissioner at the time of the Mandal agitation in the early nineties. But the bestiality and viciousness displayed by the Delhi and UP police to counter the CAA/ NRC protests mirror an emerging  radicalisation in their thinking not seen before. And it is spreading to other states: in Karnataka a nine year old girl student of a school is charged with sedition, and her teacher and mother arrested, for taking part in a play on the CAA ! Debates and seminars on the subject are disallowed, an Arts India exhibition raided by police in Delhi because someone there was wearing a dress resembling dresses worn in Shaheen Bagh, another JNU scholar arrested for sedition for calling for a blockade of roads in Assam. Never before has the sedition law been wielded so indiscriminately by a rampaging police in BJP ruled states, all in flagrant defiance of the law laid down by the Supreme Court time and again.

   The problem, however, is not that the police or politicians are showing increasing symptoms of radicalisation. The real threat, and challenge, is that one in three Indians support this pervasive paranoia, going by the BJP's vote share. It is evident in the anti-CAA rallies, the three shooting incidents outside Shaheen Bagh, calls for boycott of shops and restaurants owned by Muslims, the eviction of a lady tenant from her Lajpatnagar flat because she dared to protest at an Amit Shah rally, the trolling of Deepika Padukone and withdrawal of endorsement contracts because she stood up for the JNU students.. And the support for this bigoted narrative runs across economic and social stratifications, making it that much more difficult to counter. It's bad enough for a minority community to be radicalised, for that disrupts a society. It is infinitely worse, however, for a majority community to be radicalised, for that can completely change a country's constitutional values, character, ethos and transform it into an unintended mutant. We face this very real danger and possibility today.

   

FUDGED FIGURES, SOLEMN PROMISES, DISAPPEARING TREES.

    Caught up in the maelstrom  of divisive politics, India is silently but surely sliding into an environmental abyss under Mr. Modi's watch. The latest EPI ( Environmental Performance Index) report released on the sidelines of the WEF conclave at Davos puts us at third from the bottom- at 177 out of 180 countries, a decline of 36 places since 2016 ( when we were at 141). We do even worse in the index of air quality, at 178 out of 180. The country is turning toxic in just about every indicator- its waters, air, pollution, health- but of particular concern is what the governments- centre and states- are doing do its green cover and forests.

   According to a new study by the WRI ( World Resources Institute) the country lost 1.6 million hectares of tree cover, and 16 million trees, between 2001 and 2018, of which 9.4 million trees were felled in just the last four years. In terms of climate change implications the effect of this large scale deforestation is disastrous: since each mature tree can absorb 22kg of carbon dioxide in a year, in four years we have added almost 900 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year to our air ( which could otherwise have been sequestered by these 9.4 million trees). But nobody in the government appears to be concerned, beyond regurgitating cooked up figures to show that our green cover is going up, not down, as all independent agencies stress. The UN has expressed reservations about our methodology for computing forest cover by including commercial plantations, orchards and taking a 2 meter height of trees instead of the internationally accepted figure of 5 meters. ( Inspite of our fudging, the area under Moderately Dense Forests, which make up the bulk of the carbon sink, has declined by 10000 sq. kms between 2013 and 2019 ( Forest Survey of India figures). But this is a standard operating procedure for this govt., whether on the economy, tiger count, crimes, suicides or anything that may reflect adversely on its performance.

   The long term implications of what it is doing to the country's forest cover, however, is extremely worrying. The UPA, for all its other faults, was alive to the imperative of protecting the natural environment and had put in place a robust mechanism to ensure this, including "no-go" areas for mining, the Forests Right Act, regulations for coastal zones, eco-zone buffers for Protected Areas, a National Green Tribunal ( only the third in the world),etc. But the present BJP regime has devoted the last five years to dismantling this safety net to the point where the Ministry of Environment and Forest is but a pet poodle on a tight leash, tasked with ensuring "ease of business" rather than saving the environment. Two recent proposals will further decimate the environment.

  Under the garb of strengthening compensatory afforestation it has proposed to allow "production forests" or commercial plantations in degraded forest areas, under the PPP route. This is nothing but an insidious attempt to favour private entities and to manipulate the forest cover figures. It is an attempt to monetise forests and a failure to recognise that forests provide not only timber but also bio-diversity, water, livelihood for tribals, which will be at grave risk from the monoculture nature of commercial plantations. It will also fragment continuous blocks of forests, disturbing wildlife and their corridors, and allow the ingress of "outsiders" with the resultant fall out of poaching, theft of NTFP, etc.

   Instead of coming out with a revised forest policy to replace the current 1988 policy which cannot cope with today's challenges, the govt. is instead initiating ad-hoc measures to  allow further commercial intrusion into pristine native forests. A prime example is the Saranda- Chaibasa forests in Jharkhand's Singbhum district- India's largest contiguous Sal tract spread over 82000 hectares or 820 square miles. Not only does it function as a huge carbon sink, it has abundant bio-diversity, wildlife and is a source for livelihood for marginalised tribals.  Discounting  these concerns, the govt. has now sought a reassessment and review of its mining plan, earlier prepared by ICFRE which had classified it as a no-go area for mining. This will open the doors to commercial exploitation of other swathes of forests for mining, power and other projects.

  Saranda-Chaibasa is not an isolated case: 500 projects in forests and Protected Areas have been cleared by the National Wildlife Board between 2014 and 2018, which is one reason why the country has lost 120000 hectares of primary forest in the last five years. Other examples of similar desecration are:

[1] Diversion of 1038 hectares of forest land in Sambalpur and Jharsuguda districts of Odisha for an NLC/ Adani coal mining project. This involves felling of 1.30 lakh trees ( of which 40000 have already been felled) and displacement of 1894 tribal families. The villagers allege that the mandatory Gram Sabha consent has been forged.

[2] In the Western Ghats of Karnataka 2 million trees are at risk from 20 power projects. These include a 2000MW power project in the Sharavathy valley sanctuary, one of the last remaining habitats of the lion tailed macaque, an IUCN notified endangered species. 500 acres of verdant tropical forests are being diverted for the purpose. Another 150 acres is being denuded in the Anshi National Park in the Eco-sensitive Zone of the Ghats, and 177 hectares adjacent to the Kali tiger reserve, for a power line.

[3] 106000 trees will be felled, and 14 natural lakes filled in, for the Jewar airport in NOIDA in the Delhi NCR area, already perhaps the most polluted tract in the world.

[4] The Hasdeo Anand forests in Chattisgarh stretch for 170000 hectares and are perhaps the last remaining contiguous forest patches in central India. They provide environmental services and values which are incalculable in mere monetary terms. 30 coal blocks have been identified within it but till now it was a "no-go" area for mining. The BJP govt., however, true to form has now granted environmental clearance for open cast mining to commence on one of the blocks, Parsa, and has approved diversion of 841 hectares in the very heart of the forest. It will not be long before the other blocks are also taken up. This is the beginning of the end of these forests. Incidentally, guess which company will operate the mine? Rajasthan Collieries, Ltd.- a unit of Adani Enterprises Ltd.

   Why are our governments and policy makers so blind to the world around us, and to the unfolding climate induced apocalypse waiting in the wings? As I've said before, the debate is no longer about striking a balance between development and the natural environment; that balance has already been skewed in favour of the former- the issue which we should now recognize is about restoring that balance. The world took a pledge at the recently concluded WEF at Davos to plant one trillion trees, and here we are, busily chopping down the ones that remain. Has Mr. Modi accomplished his environmental goals by claiming the Champion of the Earth award in 2018 at the UN? How on the same earth will he fulfill his grand announcement of reclaiming an additional 5 million hectares of degraded forest area by 2030? Or of sequestering an additional two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by the same date?

   Climate change and environmental disaster cannot be averted by fudging figures, winning awards or making tall promises. Unfortunately, till now we have had evidence of little else. What will it take to start saving our trees?