BOOK REVIEW-- INDIA'S LONG WALK HOME

 

INDIA'S LONG WALK HOME

Edited by Ishan Chauhan & Zenaida Cubbinz

Published by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta. 2021.

Rs. 595.00

  About once in every generation an event occurs which is so tectonic in its scope and intensity that it cries out to be chronicled for posterity. Not merely recorded or reported by news media and television channels, for that is merely transient journalism conveying statistics, allegations and denials. It does not convey the pathos and sufferings of millions, the shattering of dreams and lives; it concerns itself with the body and not the soul. Journalism is an inadequate testament for such events. These tragedies have to be narrated from the heart, not the brain; with feeling, not just analysis; with a sense of regret, not just urgency; with outrage, not just objective acceptance.

  INDIA'S LONG WALK BACK HOME is a much needed, valiant attempt to do just that. The book is a sensitively curated anthology of poems, essays and articles about the largest and most draconian lockdown in the world enforced by the government in India in March 2020, following the outbreak of Covid 19. Its focus is the biggest migration of peoples since the partition of 1947. Divided into three sections- Fiction, Non-Fiction and Poetry- it has contributions by Ruskin Bond, Arundhati Roy, Mridula Garg, George K Verghese, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta,, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Suprabha Seshan, Ashok Vajpeyi, among others.

  The book addresses two broad issues- the degradation of the environment and the impact of Covid on the people of the country, in particular the vulnerable sections. It does so with scholarship, personal experience, feeling and satire.

  Zenaida Cubbinz's End of the Road mirrors a typical, heart-rending migrant experience: the story of a young couple, with two children, walking back to their village hundreds of miles away. They leave their dignity along with their employment back in the metropolis which does not want them any more. On their long walk back home they are stripped of whatever little remains- food, water, money, shelter, and finally, even the will to continue. They hang themselves on a tree, mere desiderata from the modern, muscular India our rulers aspire to, pictured ( in her patented style) by Arundhati Roy in And The President Took The Salute.

Kasturi Mazumder's Butterfly is the story of another migrant family, through the eyes of a young boy, a luckier one because two of them live to tell the tale. But it asks the question which no economist or Prime Minister wants to answer: " Does money really decide who gets to have  shades over their heads in such heat ? Does it decide how much water one gets to drink or the amount of food they have in their share ?" It does, but luckily the boy doesn't know it yet.

  Alok Rai's How India Is Outsourcing The Pandemic To Its Poor is a scathing denunciation of the rampant inequalities- social, economic, health, demographics- in India, and how the govt's Covid policies only reflect this. The poor and marginalised have had to bear the brunt of not only the virus but also of these incoherent policies which are " a virus-inflicted replication of our socio-economic apartheid." Covid has provided a brutal govt. and an unjust society the ultimate outsourcing opportunity: " farm out the dying as well" to the poor.

  Ritu Dewan offers a new perspective in Gender Blind Pandemic Response where she rues the fact that the pandemic and the govt's response have only reinforced patriarchal structures at several levels. The status of the migrant- a much used but little understood term- is examined in depth in Nandita Haksar's The Migrant As A Citizen from all angles- demographic, legal, social, human rights. The essay reinforces Alok Rai's point about inequality in that whereas the govt. has some policies in place for our 30 million " international" migrants, there is no such policy for the 120 million internal migrants.

In Parallels From The Past: Why We Should Hang Our Heads In Shame, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, in his usual, unsparing style, compares aspects of this pandemic with the great Bengal famine of 1943, and the similar duplicitous responses of the two govts.- concealing the number of actual deaths, refusal to provide genuine relief to the affected, skewing assistance in favour of the better-off sections of society, ruthlessly suppressing journalists who tried to reveal the truth. He does not hesitate to castigate the judiciary for failing to provide any protection to newspersons and migrant poor.

  The reader's growing despair and anger are somewhat relieved by the refreshing Experiences From Metropolitan India And The Himalayas by MVD Reddy and Asheem Shrivastava. This piece explores the lockdown ecology- the positive impact of the lockdown on the natural environment, something all of us have experienced for ourselves: the diminishing of garbage on mountain slopes, the increased availability of water, the reconnecting with nature, the return to the traditional and sustainable ways of living, the sudden appearance of a dancing peacock on a Gurgaon balcony, not seen in the last 30 years! We have, of course, more or less reverted to our wasteful ways of living now, but the pandemic did show us that " the way backward may be the way forward."

  The small posy of eight poems in the book provide an elegiac touch to the many lives snuffed out or broken by a raging virus and a clueless govt. Sometimes it takes poetry, with its imagery and cadence, to express the eternal sufferings of the children of a lesser God. It is poignantly conveyed in Barry O'Brein's The Virus- Yours, Mine and Ours, which distinguishes between the rich man's virus ( Covid) and the poor man's virus, Poverty. The latter unfortunate ( he can be an Untouchable, a Dalit, a Migrant- Barry doesn't tell us which, nor is there any need to do so ) laments:

" Truth be told, my virus is very different from yours,

   You weren't born with yours.

   It's not in your DNA and doesn't get passed down

   generation to generation.......

   But I was born with mine,

   It's genetic. "     and

   " Yours is the New Normal,

   Mine the old one- nothing new, everything Normal."

  A book review can never do full justice to all contributors, and that is my prime regret in this case. For this compendium also contains essays on how existing economic crises were exacerbated by the pandemic, the ten questions raised by the pandemic on the prevailing organising principles of humankind, the effect on our education system, and others. This is an ideal read for a quick 360* view of what the pandemic has done to this nation, and what corrections have to be made for the future. Most of all it is a reminder, as Suprabha Seshan tells us in her ruminations Locking Down Leviathan, of Arnold Toynbee's words: Civilisations are never murdered, they instead take their own lives.   

HAS RAHUL GANDHI CROSSED THE RUBICON ?

   At a public rally in Jaipur last week Rahul Gandhi made a distinction between HINDU and HINDUTVAVADI. The former, he explained, was the real believer in the values of Hinduism- tolerant, inclusive, peaceful and the pursuer of satya [ truth ] The latter were those who weaponised the faith to instill hatred, intolerance and violence in the pursuit of satta [ power]: the reference to the BJP/ RSS was unmistakeable. It was as if he had pulled the pin on a grenade- TV channels and social media exploded into paroxysms of outrage and/ or support, depending on where one stood on this new Radcliffe line in our sorry history. Political pundits, from the neighbourhood chai-wallah to the lofty editor, all opined that this was a suicidal mistake on Gandhi's part as it would consolidate Hindu votes behind the BJP: Uttar Pradesh, it was predicted, was now all but lost for the Congress. Even his own party, barring Salman Khurshid, maintained a discreet silence.

  Most people are perhaps not aware that Rahul Gandhi is not the first to differentiate between the two ideas. Savarkar had articulated it first in 1923 in his book HINUTVA- WHO IS A HINDU ? He had stated that Hinduism is but a fraction and small part of the larger Hindutva ideology which goes beyond religion. Hindutva, according to him, comprised of rashtra (nation ), jati ( common race ), and sanskriti  (common culture). It was a nationalistic, rather than a religious, concept, one that excluded rather than included. In other words, precisely what the BJP is attempting to ram through. This little slice of history validates what Rahul Gandhi has claimed.

  It took courage to make such a statement in the current, religiously surcharged atmosphere. By making it publicly, Rahul Gandhi has finally crossed the Rubicon in our troubled political waters. From a purely philosophical and cultural perspective, it was time someone of note belled this cat, or, to mix metaphors, called out this elephant in the room. For the fact is, the Hinduism now preached by the BJP is unrecognizable from the religion of Kabir, Prem Chand and Vivekanand; it has become a political doctrine rather than an easy-going way of life; its places of worship being converted into frontiers of war even when there is no visible enemy to defend them against. Faux enemies are being created and history is being exhumed and rewritten to provide legitimacy to a monstrous lie. The refusal to confront it was only making this stronger by the day. Even without the politics, purely on cultural grounds, someone had to make this point. For the biggest threat to Hinduism today is Hindutva, the militarised vision of Savarkar.

  Rahul Gandhi has also shown an acute sense of electoral strategy by carving out this distinction. Hindutva is the nucleus of the BJP/ RSS ideology, its core strength and battering ram in all elections. The Opposition can never defeat the BJP unless it is prepared to take it on face to face, eye ball to eye ball. One may win battles on one's own ground, but if you want to win the war you will have to take on the enemy in his own territory. Politics is not just about governance and delivery, it is also about the clash of competing ideas and ideology. The BJP's resurrected doctrine of Hindutva is a powerful driving force. The Opposition has to challenge it with a counter ideology, and Rahul Gandhi may just have found one.

  Even at the best of times the BJP has never got more than 40 % of the Hindu votes. By not taking the war into the Hindutva minefield the Opposition risks losing the remaining 60% over time, as the BJP increases its stranglehold and people resign themselves to a TINA (There Is No Alternative) logic. Rahul Gandhi appears to have realised this, and that it is time to reach out to that other 60% in the name of the very idea that Modi has invoked- religion- specifically the Hindu way of life and culture. For not only is this greatest of all religions being distorted and brutalised, it is being used to subvert and destroy the very basis of our nation, its Constitution. There have been examples aplenty of this in the last seven years, but let us take just the latest one.

  The Kashi- Vishwanath inauguration extravaganza last week has crossed the Laxman rekha of any secular country and Constitution. Not only was a govt. function converted into a political, Hindutva rally, but the Prime Minister himself assumed the role of a head priest. He had done this earlier also- at Ayodhya, Kedarnath, Badrinath, all paid for by the exchequer of a secular state. Mr. Modi, confident that he will not be challenged and is invincible in the " kavaz " ( carapace or armour ) of Hindutva is gradually metastasising into some kind of Inca or Maya emperor, the fount of all temporal and spiritual power. At great cost to the nation and its well being.

  The bills have started coming in: the pathetic human development indices, the highest inflation in the last 30 years, unemployment and LPR (Labour Participation Rates ) at record negative levels, social disharmony. one of the worst countries in the world in the inequality index, selling off of public assets built painstakingly over decades, the closure of more than 400,000 SMEs, another 120 million pushed below the poverty line, 12000 farmers committing suicide every year. The bills will continue mounting, for the BJP's toxic obsession with the politics of Hindutva is pushing the country to the brink of destruction in every sense of the term. For the BJP's model of governance cannot be separated from its idea of Hindutva. You cannot challenge one and not the other.

  It is no longer enough for the Opposition to fight Messers Modi, Shah or Yogi Adityanath; it has to fight the very idea of Hindutva, the fearful creature that has been hibernating for the last 70 years and has now found an environment conducive enough for it to emerge into the open. It can no longer be ignored, avoided or wished away- it has to be engaged. That is what Rahul Gandhi has done. It is a risk, but then one is reminded of the wise words of the philosopher, Kierkegaard:

  " To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily, but not to dare is to lose oneself. "

( And, may I add, one's country )

   

   

THE GENTLEMAN DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH

   Mr. Ranjan Gogoi, who earlier graced the Supreme Court and now adds gravitas to the Rajya Sabha ( when it functions, that is, or when he attends it- both of which are seldom) has come out with his statement for the defence in a book titled JUSTICE FOR THE JUDGE. For the last few days he has also been promoting it aggressively, leveraging his past status to stare down anchors who get under his thick skin. Arguably the most controversial Chief Justice this country has had to endure in 70 years, he has mastered the art of forcing the toothpaste into the tube, the toothpaste being the facts and the tube being his preconceived conclusion. The whole process creates a mess, of course, but nothing that can't be washed away with a little ganga jal and a post retirement sinecure. The book and the subsequent TV promos only confirm this assessment.

  The title of the book exposes his game, which is to play the victim card: that he has been treated unfairly in the court of public opinion for his various acts of commission and omission. Forget the brazen manner in which he has been  injected  into the Rajya Sabha, a surgical strike on democracy without the benefit of any anesthesia. But the more he protests, both in the book and in the interviews, the more untenable his position becomes.

  He is more adept at passing the buck than a croupier at a Vegas casino. That famous press conference of four judges is laid at the door of Justice Chelameswar: Gogoi claims that the former never told him that it was going to be a press conference- merely a cup of tea with a few journalists! The distinction escapes me. The clean chit to him in the sexual harassment case, we are told, was the doing of the Committee headed by Justice Bobde, the author had nothing to do with it, never mind that all members of the Committee were junior to him, never mind that he had already termed the accusations as " wild and scandalous" in open court and described them as a conspiracy against him. It is again Mr. Bobde, not he, who is responsible for the strange reinstatement of the complainant in the sexual harassment case. On being asked by Srinivasan Jain of NDTV to explain the contradiction in reinstating an employee whose complaint was found to be false, wild and scandalous, Gogoi ascribes it to Bobde's deep sense of compassion! Does he really expect the reader to swallow this bilge ?                                                                                                                                        Mr. Gogoi's absence from the Rajya Sabha sittings too is the doing of Covid, the failure to observe protocols in Parliament, never mind that hundreds of other members were faithfully discharging their duty by attending the sessions.                                                                                                                            The Supreme Court's abject failure to take up the Kashmir habeas corpus petitions and the challenge to the abrogation of Article 370 is also blamed on others. Gogoi says he had passed them on to other benches since he was busy with- what else?- the Ram Mandir case, and it was their responsibility. Never mind that all this was happening under his charge, that he is the Master of the Roster, that he is the administrative head of the Court.                                                                                                                                                                 He will not accept responsibility for that piece of " righteous miscarriage of justice ", the Ram Mandir judgment, insisting that it was a unanimous pronouncement by a bench of judges. He shirks questions on the Rafale " clean chit" to the government by saying that ex judges should not comment about their judgments. A disingenuous piece of dissembling, if ever there was one, considering that the sole intention of his book is to defend his various judgments and give himself a clean chit too.! He offers no explanation for almost single handedly driving the disastrous Assam NRC (National Register of Citizens) exercise, without first deciding on the constitutionality of Section 6 of the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act). If anything, he should have recused himself from the case; being an Assamese himself, his hearing this case was a clear instance of conflict of interest.

  Mr Gogoi blusters and blunders his way through awkward questions for which he has no answers, digging his hole a bit deeper every time with his frequent displays of righteous indignation. About surrendering to the government on the issue of appointment of Justice Kureshi to the MP High Court, he says he did so to avoid a confrontation between two constitutional authorities. He forgets that it is the fundamental duty of the Apex Court to confront the executive when it over-reaches; there is no other rationale for its existence.

 Gogoi claims, with a straight face, that it was the opportunity to render " public service" which made him accept the government's nomination to the Rajya Sabha. Forget for a moment the dubious quality of public service rendered by him as Chief Justice- we will leave that for posterity to judge. But here is the important part: since his nomination he has attended only 6 of 66 sessions- a mind blowing 10% participation rate. This places him level with other " public service" votaries such as Sachin Tendulkar and Rekha- not the appropriate role models as MPs, you will agree. To make matters worse, Gogoi then goes on to say (with another twist of the shovel) that he attends Parliament " when he feels like it." But we'll leave that little joke for the Privileges Committee of Parliament to chuckle over.

 For me the defining image of his tenure is the photograph in the book of Mr Gogoi and his brother judges " celebrating the landmark verdict " ( the Ram mandir judgment ) at a five star hotel, wine and all. One cannot grudge them a fine dinner after their hard work. But " celebrating "? Along with , perhaps the Sangh parivar, the BJP and assorted bhakts ? This scene reminds me of nothing more than a cut from THE GODFATHER, down to the fine detail of Don Corleone eschewing a glass of wine, much like Mr Gogoi himself.

  The former Chief Justice has much to answer for, in relation to both his judgments and his conduct. But he has only made things worse for himself with this book and the subsequent interviews. There is no introspection, soul searching, humility or regret in the book, and only aggression, hostility and rodomontade in the interviews. If the objective of this book was to redeem his tattered reputation, it has not succeeded by a long shot. Just as a good wine needs no brush, similarly a conscientious judge needs no book to defend himself. His judgments speak louder than any autobiography or press interviews. And Mr. Gogoi's judgments tell a different story. It would perhaps have been better if he had put this book in a sealed cover, one of his own juridical concoctions. For, as Christopher Hitchins famously said: " Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay." 

  

THE OMICRON VARIANT AND THE OMIGOD ! RESPONSE

   Life quite often plays out, first as a farce, and then as a tragedy. In India we are quite accustomed to these cycles, but the latest one is playing out even as I write this.

   Take the brouhaha about the latest Covid mutant, Omicron, which all governments have interpreted as Omigod. It's been around for a month now, has spread to two dozen or so countries, and has been making television anchors so breathless that we may soon see them hooked on to ventilators in the studios. All reports so far ( including by the South African doctor who identified it first) indicate that it is much milder than the Delta variant, it has caused no deaths and hardly any hospitalisation. Yes, it spreads rapidly ( so does the common flu ) but its severity is far less.

  Surprisingly, however, all governments have gone into panic mode, have started imposing lockdowns again, ordered international travel restrictions ( the Maharashtra govt. had even imposed curbs on internal travel till the Centre ordered it to roll them back). Many are in favour of introducing booster vaccine doses. Mr. Kejriwal, always first off the block with inane ideas, has been demanding a ban on ALL international flights. An environment of panic is being built up again.

  To me, all this appears like a cosy arrangement between governments and Big Pharma ( especially the vaccine manufacturers), something which was widely suspected even earlier. The pandemic is a milch cow for both and cannot be put to pasture so soon.

  Governments, which are becoming increasingly autocratic the world over, find Covid a handy excuse for curbing people's rights and extending their own powers. Our own country is a stellar example. The pandemic has been used to defenestrate Parliament, deny access to information for journalists, prohibit public gatherings and protests, ram through unpopular laws, even jail those who disagree with the powers that be. Covid appears to have reduced the govt's accountability even as it has allowed it to assume more executive powers, to the detriment of the idea of a free nation and society. Remember how more than 4000 obtuse and confused orders were issued in just the first year of the pandemic ?                                                            Big Pharma has also benefitted tremendously in financial terms. It has been reported that vaccine manufacturers are making bumper profits: according to a report in Business Insider ( Nov 2, 2021) Pfizer, whose total revenues in 2020 were US$ 42 billion, expects to make almost the same- US$36 billion- in 2021 from just its Covid vaccine ! And these are pre Omicron estimates. Mr. Poonawalla  (who surely deserved a Padma Shri ahead of Kangana Ranaut, don't you think, even though she has more spikes than the virus ?) has even moved to London where perhaps his profits can be better spent without having to "contribute" to the Electoral Bonds and various senas. Hospitals, testing centres and even airports are making big bucks on the side too: Mr. Adanis's Mumbai airport is charging Rs. 3900 for every RT-PCR test from hapless arriving international passengers, even though it costs about Rs. 300-500 at private health centres outside.

  The fact is that vaccine manufacturers have hundreds of millions of doses in stock ( Mr. Poonawalla said so much in an interview on TV the other day), have added capacity to produce hundreds of millions more, and see huge profits for eternity as long as the Covid scare can be maintained. They have therefore joined hands with governments to perpetuate the fear. No wonder rioting has broken out in the more open societies of Europe and the anti- vaccine sentiment seems to be growing in places like the USA. People smell a rat, and not without reason. 

  What is the point in banning international travel ? Notwithstanding the stringent bans of last year, Covid has spread to every country in the world, and is probably even hibernating in the Arctic ice to strike us again when the permafrost melts in another decade or so. Such restrictions only cause untold misery to families, students and wreck global business. Please note that Omicron has reached dozens of countries, presumably through flyers, even though each one of them was vaccinated, tested repeatedly and quarantined ! Govts impose social distancing at airports and then seat the passengers shoulder to shoulder in an airtight cylinder for hours. And after all these " precautions" you can walk out of the airport and go straight to a big, fat Indian wedding and do the " bhangra" with 200 other people.

   Herding hundreds of passengers in holding areas in terminals just does not make sense. These are people who could board only after being vaccinated and after testing negative in the last 48 hours. If they have been infected in that period it is not likely to show up at the arrival airport as the virus takes three to four days for a positive reading. So why the tests on arrival, the unhealthy over crowding and consequent risk of spreading the infection ? It would make more sense to put them in home quarantine and ask for a mandatory test four to five days after arrival. Is anybody thinking this through in a rational manner ?

  Why is this vaccine-induced tumult and clamour  being made only for this ailment ? Covid has claimed 5.5 million lives in the last 18 months. The Spanish Flu of 1918 caused more deaths than that in India alone. According to WHO figures for 2019 heart disease caused 8.9 million deaths, 6 million died of strokes, air pollution led to the deaths of 7 million, respiratory diseases 6.4 million. I don't see any govt. or media going ballistic over these numbers, or mandating regulations and restrictions that are generally elitist in nature.

   And NO ONE is addressing the root cause of the origin of this virus ( and many similar ones to follow)- the wholesale depredation of natural landscapes and eco-systems that allow such organisms to enter the human chain. Because corporates and governments stand to lose a lot of money if they did that. It's so much easier to drum up fear and panic on a global scale, push the vaccines and expand the frontiers of authoritarianism and power.

  We need to be sensible about this whole thing, listen to the saner, moderate voices, observe precautions and hygiene, and not mortgage our future existence to the Doctors Faucis or Faustuses of the world. In the ultimate analysis we have to live with this virus, just as we have learnt to live with other diseases and infections, or with other viruses like politicians, TV anchors, bhakts and Sambit Patra. Covid is just a gentle reminder that we should stop playing God with this planet. As the poet said:

" Kudrat ka kahar bhi zaroori tha, sahib,

   Warna har koi khud ko Khuda samajhne laga tha."

  

" TAPASYA " AS GOVERNANCE

    As one keeps piling on the years ( I am now at three score and eleven ) one also imbibes some wisdom along with the evening pegs. And these days there is no better fount of wisdom than our seraphic Prime Minister who persists with casting his pearls before the swine even as they have their snouts buried deep in the muck of a crumbling civilisation. Let me explain.

  For close on seventy years now I have carried the burden of many failures on my V- shaped ( like the economic recovery ) shoulders. I failed to pass the Mathematics paper in my Senior Cambridge exams. I failed to secure admission to St. Stephens College, and in later years to the Gymkhana Club ( maybe there's a connection between the two ? ). I failed to convince two Chief Ministers that I was not as stupid as I looked and would make a passable Chief Secretary. I have failed to convince my mother-in-law that she did not make a mistake in plighting her daughter's troth to me in a moment of weakness. I have failed in persuading some of my publishers to release my royalty payments to me. I have even failed to convince my dog that I am the man in the house- being gender neutral, he has conferred that title on my wife. The express-way of my life, in short, is dotted with more failures than there are dhabas on the Delhi- Chandigarh highway. A feeling of guilt has cast even more shadows in the evening of my life, as it were.

  And then, suddenly, the shadows were dispersed last week, in the manner of another portion of the Yamuna disappearing everytime Mr Kejriwal pledges to revive it. That feeling of guilt vanished, just like Anna Hazare vanishing after the 2014 elections. Then wisdom dawned on me, as it must surely on Kangana Runout someday in the distant future, that the failures were not my fault at all ! It was not I which had been found wanting, but my " tapasya ." The whole nation has this epiphany on the authority of no less a person than our celestial Prime Minister himself- the fault is not in our stars, dear reader, but in our tapasya. For if the failure of the epochal farm laws can be ascribed to a computer error in his tapasya, surely my minor failures cannot be laid on my character or competence ? Mr. Modi must surely know what he is talking about, having spent his formative years in the Himalayan forests and his abortive years in a Kedarnath cave.

   Now, "tapasya" or meditation is intended to uplift the individual soul, but Mr. Modi appears to have elevated it to an instrument of governance- with disastrous results. Now we know why demonetization , GST and the second Covid wave have played out the way they have: instead of sitting down with a few economists and virologists our Prime Minister was conversing with his soul. He forgot the caution underlined by the Buddha: " There is no meditation without wisdom." Incidentally, there is also no tapasya without sacrifice, but Mr. Modi believes that the sacrifice has to come from the people, while he himself basks in the glow of Arnab Goswami's rhapsodies.

   There is now a real danger that  tapasya may soon be made an essential part of the govt's curriculum, like Yoga. Why, we may soon have an International Tapasya Day decreed by the UN. It may soon become our second most important export, after fugitive billionaires. This is not good news for the poor public. As it is , it's impossible to find a sarkari babu at his table because he has either gone to do Yoga, or watch Man Ki Baat, or organise the Yogi's next rally, or get one of his many cards ( Aadhar, PAN, CGHS, Metrocard, SIM ) updated or recharged. Now tapasya will be added to this onerous list of official engagements. The long suffering citizens, naturally, will have no other option but to perform tapasya themselves, as they did at Shaheen Bagh, the borders of Delhi, Jantar Mantar and outside just about every second police station in Uttar Pradesh. Tapasya will shortly become a national movement, what Mr. Doval would probably term the fourth pillar of democracy, the other three being Man Ki Baat, Ram rajya and the Electoral Bonds.

   Digital India is, of course, welcome but digital tapasya ? Meditation is by definition a lonely activity, not one which is preceded by walks on red carpets, a well lighted background, sartorial affectation, all accompanied by television crews filming every quivering spark of enlightenment descending from the heavens, and dervish anchors singing hosannas to the new deity on the block, or cave, as the case may be. Perhaps someone in Niti Ayog should have reminded our Supreme Leader of what Confucius did NOT say: " You've mastered the selfie, now master thyself."

   The problem, it appears, is the intention behind our Prime Minister's tapasyas. The Buddha said that tapasya is done FROM love, not FOR love. Certainly not for votes. Which is why he should eschew this new management tool and get back to the conventional and time-tested forms of governance- consultation, the interests of the country and not one's party, carrying the Opposition along, being honest with the people, listening to those who disagree. For in the ultimate analysis you are what you do, not what you say you'll do. Something the country is now belatedly finding out, at great cost. 

LESSONS FOR THE JUDICIARY FROM THE FARM LAWS REPEAL FIASCO

    Prime Minister Modi once again demonstrated his shock and awe style of leadership by announcing the repeal of the three Farm Laws on the 19th of this month. Ever since then, many articles have been published about the lessons to be drawn from this year-long tug of war and its predictable denouement. Lessons to be learnt by the government, the media, the Opposition parties, the trolls, the farmers, perhaps even by Greta Thunberg and Rihanna and most certainly by Kangana Runout. But I notice that one important participant in this tourney has been left out of the pedagogy- the higher judiciary. That is a grave omission, for it too has a lot to learn from this misadventure.

   It appears to me that in this entire episode the judiciary has been following Mr. Narsimha Rao's famous doctrine of  "No decision is also a decision."  At least four petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court both against, and in favour of, the farm laws; their constitutional validity has been challenged. Even after one year the Court has not taken them up for substantive hearing and has simply stayed them: it has kept the Damocles sword hanging over the farmers, in the hands of an executive which cannot be trusted even to abide by a judicial order and has in the past overturned some by ordinances. The farm laws have joined a long list of important legislations which have been challenged but are kept in some form of judicial mortuary for years, on ice and developing rigor mortis- CAA (Citizen Amendment Act), Electoral Bonds, Article 370, Kashmir Reorganisation Act, Sedition laws. And with every day of delay in taking a decision on them, the democratic structure of this country becomes even weaker.

  One of the reasons for the SKM's (Samyukta Kisan Morcha)'s obduracy was precisely for this reason:  they did not expect an early decision by the court, and therefore felt that continued protests/ agitations/ blockades was the only option for them. I know there will be legal luminaries who will tell me that the Court has to follow a roster, a first-come-first served protocol for cases, and that there are 65000 other cases pending. My reply to them is that the apex court is not a McDonald franchise, in its care lies the very existence of the nation, and it needs to distinguish between cases of constitutional importance and of individual import. The former have to be given priority over the latter: the concerns of 400 million farming families surely must rank above Arnab Goswami's bail in the roster.

  Day-to-day hearings in the farm laws case ( as in the Ram Mandir case, the reader will recollect) would have saved this nation a lot of grief, bad blood, economic loss, social ruptures and maybe even the lives of a few hundred farmers. A decision- either way- would have probably brought an early end to the protests one way or the other. Both the govt. and the SKM would have had to follow the decision, the govt. because it is constitutionally bound to so, and the farmers because they would have lost public support and legitimacy if they did not. The Supreme Court still commands respect and is seen as the final arbiter of all disputes. Narsimha Rao's doctrine might make sense for the executive but not for the judiciary. 

  The only part of the farmer's movement which received the SC's attention were the petitions seeking to declare the blockades around Delhi as illegal- the symptoms, not the causes! And even here there was much confusion: one bench called the protests a fundamental right, another one described them as akin to strangling the city. Notices were issued to all and sundry, hearings held, the Court's displeasure for the farmers' action made clear. Herein lies the second lesson for our higher judiciary: distinguish between the socio-political dimension and the purely legal one, and engage yourself with the latter and not the former. 

  It is no part of the judiciary's mandate to pull the executive's chestnuts out of a fire of its own making. The agitation was the result of the govt's authoritarian and unilateral style of functioning, it's egoistic belief that only it knows best, and that its brute majority in Parliament entitles it to give a go-by to all democratic practices of consultation, debate and Parliamentary practices. It made the witches' soup, it should have been allowed to stew in it. But the Modi govt. has made it a practice to create an untenable situation on the ground, and then to try and extricate itself by using the judiciary through proxy petitions to stifle any opposition or protest. The courts should see through this pernicious stratagem of trying to find a judicial solution to what is essentially a socio-political issue, and give it a wide berth.

   The third lesson to be drawn from all this is the eternal truth: the difference between what is legal and what is legitimate: the two are not always synonymous. Hard as it may be for members of the judiciary to acknowledge this, the fact is that in a democracy the sovereign power vests, not in a Parliament, not in a powerful Prime Minister, not even in a Supreme Court, but in the people. A law may be legal but it will lack legitimacy if it is not acceptable to the people. We will perhaps never know if the three farm laws were legal or not because the challenges to them shall abate now with their repeal, but their utter lack of legitimacy has now been confirmed with Mr. Modi's admission that his " tapasya" has failed. The courts can only determine legality, not legitimacy. Which is why they should not get involved in determining the legitimacy of protests, or whether a hundred protesters or two hundred should be allowed at Jantar Mantar, or whether blocking a road amounts to holding a city hostage. Those are not legal issues; even if they are they may raise a question of conflicting rights. These are matters for the executive to address and resolve, and if it cannot do so then it has no right to govern. If the judiciary too gets enmeshed in them it faces the risk of getting dragged down with the executive when the people have spoken.

   No truer word was spoken than when the Chief Justice of India recently observed that the government should not have an adversarial attitude to human rights.. Equally, however, the judiciary should not have an adversarial relationship with the citizens. Just as it itself judges the legality of a law, it should allow the people to determine its legitimacy. And in a country where the Parliament and all other checks on the govt. have collapsed, protests are the only avenue for the citizens to rule on that. This should be recognized and respected.

FOOT IN MOUTH OR STRAWS IN THE WIND ?

   Over these last seven years we have become used to our saffron eminences and their intellectually challenged acolytes spouting all kinds of asinine nonsense: Einstein discovered gravity, Darwin was wrong because no one witnessed an ape turning into homo sapiens, Chandragupta defeated Alexander, India invented plastic surgery and in-vitro fertilisation procedures, Haldighati was a victory for Maharana Pratap, cow urine cures Covid, India achieved independence in 2014 and not in 1947. If these statements did not educate us they at least added a little levity to our despondent existence. But two recent statements, equally bizarre, may give us cause for concern. They come close on the heels of Justice (R) Arun Mishra, Chairman of the NHRC ( National Human Rights Commission) who is unable to control his admiration for the Prime Minister even at international fora,  organising a debate on the subject " Are human rights a stumbling block in fighting evils like terrorism and naxalism ?" In legal parlance this was the ultimate " leading question". We thought that things couldn't possibly get worse, but we were quickly proved wrong.

  Mr. Ajit Doval, the National Security Advisor and India's third most powerful person, told IPS probationers at a passing out function that the new frontier of war was civil society, it was the " fourth generation" of warfare, that it can be suborned, manipulated, subverted and divided to " hurt the interests of a nation", and that the police are " there to see that the land is fully protected." He went on to further expound on his doctrine of democracy ( I am paraphrasing here): that the electoral process is not paramount, what is important are the laws made by lawmakers and the police must enforce them ruthlessly.

  The other declaration, even more alarming, was by the Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat who opined that it was a " good thing " that the public of Jammu and Kashmir was now ready to lynch terrorists. He did not see the necessity of making a distinction between suspected, hybrid and genuine terrorists. Presumably, the good citizens of J+K would make this judgment themselves just before they strung up these individuals on the nearest lamp-post. He also seemed to forget that there are laws in place to deal with terrorists, and that lynching is not yet an approved form of justice.

  These statements fall into a different category from the Kangana Ranaut and Satyendra Singh ones, and have to be taken more seriously, because they have been made by the two senior most officers of our most important uniformed forces- the police and the army. These two gentlemen are  acknowledged to be very close to the ruling dispensation and never speak out of turn. They are also good weather vanes. That is why the two statements need to be taken seriously and condemned unequivocally.

  The import of Mr. Doval's exhortation goes far beyond a few dozen IPS probationers: it is an attack on civil society, a warning to the govt's critics and an incitement to the police to target dissidents and liberals. I do not know whether his choice of words was deliberate or just unfortunately random, but to term civil society as a frontier of war is shocking, it equates citizens with an "enemy". And to elevate any peaceful confrontation between a government and its citizens to a " fourth generation warfare" is an astounding militarisation of dissidence. It is also a very innovative doctrine: most military strategists will tell you that the new generation of warfare consists of cyber, asymmetrical or algorithmic war. For Mr. Doval to add " civil society" to this list would be inviting ridicule. But somehow I don't think he was being facetious or stupid; he appears to have chosen his words carefully, and his messaging is deliberate.

  For me, this is confirmed by Gen Rawat's statement, which, shorn of its uniformed origin, is nothing but an incitement to vigilantism and mob violence. That the senior most defence officer in the country can say this publicly is condemnable but no longer surprising, for new furrows of illegality are being carved out everyday in this country these days.

  Both prescriptions are in direct contradiction with , and a violation of,  our Constitution and the law of the land. They criminalise freedom of speech, the right to disagree with the govt., the right to protest peacefully. As Aruna Roy points out in a recent article, Mr. Doval is short circuiting the democratic, social and developmental safeguards assured us by the Constitution, and is maliciously painting civil society as a force which is undermining development and nationalism. Moreover, it is clear that he is referring to the " other " civil society which protests the govt's excesses, and not the one represented by the Kapil Mishras, Kangana Ranauts and Swami Narsinghanands, all supporters and purveyors of hate and intolerance.

  In fact, one would have expected these two senior functionaries of the govt. to have done just the opposite of what they did. Given the manner in which most police forces in the states- not excluding opposition ruled states- have run amock of late, using UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) and sedition laws with gay abandon, arresting anyone who writes against the govt. on trumped up charges, defying court orders, being selective in their policing, the correct counsel to the IPS probationers should have been one which enjoined on them to work within the limits of the Constitution, abide by the judgments of the courts, respect the rights of citizens and the values of our democratic traditions and history, treat everyone equitably. General Rawat could have redeemed his rapidly shrinking reputation by denouncing vigilantism, reminding his audience that the sovereign right to violence belongs only to the state, and that too only after a due process of law is followed.

  By branding civil society as internal enemies of the state, however, the two have now given a license to the police and other coercive agencies to be even more ruthless and brutal in their treatment of those members of society who incur the govt's wrath and displeasure, including journalists, human rights activists, students, writers, liberal intellectuals, workers, farmers, artists. This is no longer just a dog whistle, it is sounding the bugles for a new war on the most fundamental of  democratic values- the right to disagree. Disagreement is the bulwark of democracy- to crush it is to crush democracy itself. 

  It is difficult to explain why Messers Doval and Rawat have decided to open another front at this time, considering their dismal performance on all other fronts- Kashmir, the Naga Peace Accord, Afghanistan, Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, Nepal, CAA, Pegasus, to name just a few. Moreover, the BJP ruled undisputed over social media till just about a couple of years ago, successfully drowning out the voice of civil society. So why now ? My guess is that, as repeated failures of the government in all areas of governance pile up, a significant back lash is building up among the public. The hold and influence of the sold out mainstream media is also diminishing, with independant portals and Youtube channels garnering huge viewership running into millions. The results of the recent by-elections seem to bear this out. Crucial elections in five states are due in just a few months. It is therefore time for desperate measures to instil more fear among members of the civil society, to fire up the vigilantes, and to convey the desired signals to the police. This will be the new template in the coming days. The barometer is falling and the wind is picking up.

  It's an ill wind that blows no good.

THE NUMBERS GAME

   I belong to a generation weaned on the liberal arts, and for whom the three Rs meant Reading, Writing and Rithmetic, not Ramrajya, Rashtrawad or Rohingyas. Very early on in my life I decided that the sciences were not for me, and reaffirmed this by consistently failing in Maths from Class VI to Class XI. ( This was, of course, before our education tsars took the breath-taking decision that mathematics is not required for engineering !) But I do not deprecate mathematics and consider it an important marker for assessing the progress of human civilisation. And so, numbers fascinate me, for they are capable of diverse interpretations, depending on where you are sitting, snoozing or hallucinating. Here are a few which have been of particular interest to me in the very recent past.

  2070. This is the year when India will reach Net Zero carbon emissions, per the visionary announcement made by Mr. Modi in Glasgow last week. This is about 20 years later than what the rest of the world has committed to, and the entire global media, when not reporting on Mr. Biden's flatulence episodes, is trying to figure out the significance of this year/ number: what is the hidden reason/ impulse behind 2070 ? Many explanations have been offered.

  Economists have said that this is validation of John Maynard Keynes' famous obiter dicta: " In the long run we are all dead." Because, the way temperatures continue to rise, we will have breached the 2.5* Celsius  red line long before 2070, and the whole of South Asia will have become a continental tandoor by then. The Congress appears to be supporting this, saying that Modi has chosen this date because he cannot meet his targets but has ensured that there will be no one left alive to criticise him 50 years from now, except perhaps Digvijay Singh and Sidharth Vardarajan.

  A contrarian group, headed by Mr. J.P.Nadda, has the exact opposite view: they believe that this confirms Mr. Modi's popularity, shows his confidence that he will be around in 2070 also to showcase the ONE INDIA, ONE ZERO slogan. As evidence they point to Mr. Prashant Nostradamus Kishore's latest prediction that Mr. Modi and the BJP are going to be around for a long, long time and no vaccine is going to help.

  Another school of thought has it that our Prime Minister is more worried about the Muslim population growth reaching Net Zero: he perhaps expects that to happen in 2070, considers it a bigger danger to the world, and has therefore collated the two zeros into one common danger. It's his usual subtle way of telling the world that there are other serious problems confronting us than just climate change. In fact, there are rumours going around that Niti Ayog is considering changing the slogan to ONE INDIA, TWO ZEROS. This has, of course, led to some disquiet in the Yogi Adityanath camp which believes that the second Zero may be a disparaging reference to the monk.

   My own guess, based on my newly acquired knowledge of vedic mathematics, is that they are all wrong. The actual reason for Mr. Modi choosing 2070 does not lie so deep, and is actually quite simple. Mr. Modi's favourite number is 9- you no doubt remember that exhortation on the 5th of April last year to light diyas and beat conch shells  for exactly nine minutes at nine o' clock in the night ? There you have it: 2070 is the only decade-ending year this century that totals 9. Of course, it didn't work with Covid because it takes more than vedic numerology to beat that virus, but it might just work with carbon emissions, what ?

  The other number which interests me these days is 101. This is , of course, the standard " shagun", or gift, for auspicious occasions one is unlucky enough to be invited to and cannot avoid. But it also has other historical connotations. Did you know, dear reader, that it took exactly 101 British merchants in the 16th century to found the first corporate colonial power in the world ? The East India Company was incorporated in London on the 22nd September, 1599, by 101 burghers with a paid up subscription of the handsome amount of 30,133 British pounds, 6 shillings and 8 pence. This is all it took to set in motion events which, less than 200 years later, resulted in the Company establishing its rule over India, which at the time contributed 25% of the world's GDP. How's that for a start-up folks, our very first Unicorn ?

  Which is why we should be worried about the other 101's we are now confronted with. According to a recent Pentagon report the Chinese have established a village in Arunachal Pradesh on territory claimed by us. The village contains- you guessed it- 101 houses. Somehow I have a feeling that this is not a   "shagun" being offered to us; it's more like an an IPO to set in motion another acquisition spree on the East India Company lines- a hostile take over, in corporate parlance. The Indian govt. appears to be waiting for a White Knight to come to our rescue, but he's busy having " bathroom accidents" in the Vatican.

   And how can we ignore that other 101- our ranking on the Global Hunger Index ? This may be roughly equivalent to the number of calories your average Indian child consumes in a day, but is Delhi worried? No, sir, for that would be a sign of weakness. Our robust response has been, instead, to turn off the tap on NREGA and let the unpaid wages accumulate to Rs. 7000 crores, thus ensuring that even more millions will now go to bed hungry, without even that one meal which NREGA made possible. Just so that there is no confusion about its intent, the govt. has also announced that the Garib Kalyan Yojana, which provided free food grains to more than 80 crore people, will be discontinued from 30th November. Quite clearly, for our rulers, man does not live by bread alone.

   There are other numbers too: for example, 99, which according to a BJP spokesperson was the period for which India was given independence on lease by the British; 1200000, which is the number of "diyas" lighted in Ayodhya on Diwali by the UP govt. to demonstrate that oil is well with the prices of mustard oil; and 2014, which is our new year of Independence according to the eminent historian Kangana Motormouth. But I'll keep them for another time, I have no wish to addle your brains any further with more mathematics. I have it on good authority that five out of four people don't like maths. As the triangles commented about the circle, it's so pointless, na ?

REMEMBERING G.S BALI-- THE OFFICERS' MINISTER : A PERSONAL EULOGY

   

                                            

I have always believed that politicians, in many important ways, are better human beings than bureaucrats. They can be far more empathetic, sensitive and genuinely helpful than us "bandh gala" types, throttled by our training, self centeredness and inflated sense of importance. G.S. Bali, who passed away in the early hours of 30th October in a Delhi hospital at the age of only 67, exemplified my thesis to perfection, as no other politician I have known in my 35 years of service.

  One knew Mr. Bali, of course, as a young fire-brand Congress politician from Kangra, long before I had a chance to work with him directly in the dawning years of this millennium. I was posted as Transport Secretary with Bali as my Minister. He also held charge of Tourism. When I visited him for the first courtesy call he jokingly informed me that the Chief Minister (the late Virbhadra Singh) had sent me to his Department to keep a check on him ! (The CM and Bali did not always see eye to eye on many issues). In a few months, convinced that I was not doing a Pegasus on him, he manoeuverd things to have me allotted the Tourism charge also. Thus began a unique relationship that prematurely ended in a lonely AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences), Delhi, ward on a cold autumn morning.

  Mr. Bali was by no means your conventional Minister. He was a supercharged bundle of energy, a man on a mission, brimming with ideas, always on the move- in Delhi in the morning, in Nagrota by the evening, and in his Shimla office the next morning, having inspected a dozen buses en route! He did not depend on his officers with the usual passive attitude of most Ministers who wait in their offices for the files to come to them. He did his own legwork, checking buses and "nakas" late in the night himself, stopping at the favourite dhabas of the HRTC buses to see if his passengers were being ripped off, going to the depots and bus stands himself to meet the union leaders to hear their grievances. He even had his personal mobile number painted on all HRTC buses so that any aggrieved passenger could call him up at any time of the day or night. And they did, with gusto! Bali took all the calls himself, and many a Divisional Manager or Regional Manager, rousted from their beds by the Minister from a sound sleep, have as a result been banished by their wives from their bedrooms for ever. By his hands- on approach, Bali endeared himself to the travelling public and workers equally. My main job, as I saw it, was to apply the brakes on his warp speed style of functioning !

  A widely travelled man, he welcomed new ideas and innovative projects and lent them his full support. Some of the more successful ones from our tenure include conceptualising the ropeways to Rohtang pass, Bijli Mahadev and Triund; introduction of Volvo buses on long distance routes; the Jakhu ropeway; modern bus stands such as the ISBTs (Interstate Bus Stands) Shimla and Kangra on PPP (Public Private Partnership) mode; the Tourism Department's Home Stay scheme (a phenomenal success- there are now about 3000 registered home stays and an equal number of unregistered ones in the state). But sadly, the one mega project which could have been his lasting legacy for Himachal was sabotaged by petty politics and never saw the light of day.

  I refer to the Ski Village project, a US$ 400 million venture (at the time the biggest Foreign Direct Investment in the Tourism sector in India) proposed by a company owned by the grandson of the legendary Henry Ford.. The project, located above Palchan near Manali, envisaged a ski lift going up to 10000 feet, an international class, 5 star hotel and cottages, a traditional handicraft village, a heli- pad and upgradation of the Bhuntar airport at the company's expense. If implemented the project would, at one stroke, have lifted Manali from the over-priced slum it has become to international stature.

Both Mr. Bali and I were sold on the project and we put in long hours processing it: ensuring environmental safe guards, obtaining approvals, coordinating with other departments, devising clauses to secure the interest of the local populations. I even trekked up the line and length of the ski-lift for three days to ensure an alignment involving minimum forest land and trees. Even Mr. Virbhadra Singh, the Chief Minister, was excited about the idea and supported it whole-heartedly.. And rightly so, for it would have put Himachal on the international tourist map and would have benefitted the state immensely in terms of employment, taxes and branding.

  But it was not to be, for in 2008 elections were held and the government changed. The new BJP government headed by Mr. Dhumal decided, in the time honoured traditions of Indian political culture, that the Congress could not be allowed to take the credit for such a project, nor could it be allowed to stand as a Congress contribution to the state. Opposition to the Ski village was whipped up, a committee of loyal officers was tasked to find reasons for cancelling the MOU, and the project was buried. It will take another man with the vision of Bali to resuscitate such a project, and there are not many of them around these days.

  Bali was a social networker par excellence- he knew everybody, but everybody, from the Secretaries to Govt. of India to the owners of Sukhdev and Pahalwan  Dhabas in Murthal , from film stars in Mumbai to industrialists in Chennai. And he took pains to nurture these relationships. A hard taskmaster as a Minister, he nonetheless gave officers the respect due to them, no Minster past or present had more friends in the bureaucracy. He never forgot a birthday or a marriage anniversary, and at times of distress always appeared from nowhere to offer his help.

  Seven months after my retirement my younger son met with a horrendous accident in Chennai. He was on ventilator support in a hospital ICU for one month. Neerja and I had to rush to Chennai, a place where we knew no one: we didn't even know where we would stay. At times like these the famed IAS network becomes like a gaping fishing net, and develops a hole through which a sperm whale could swim through: it was of no help to me. I rang up Mr. Bali: he was in Chennai on the next flight, got in touch with his contacts and ensured that suitable arrangements were made for our stay and transportation: he stayed in touch constantly thereafter. In 2007, when I myself was in IGMC Shimla in critical condition with a spinal injury, he prevailed upon the Chief Minister to spare the state helicopter to evacuate me to Delhi. It was not needed finally, but he spared no effort to requisition it. Bali was not a transactional man- once you earned his trust and he took a liking to you, he was your friend for life, always giving far more than he took.

  He was hospitable and generous to a fault. After every trip abroad he would distribute bottles of scotch and perfumes to all his officers as if they were going out of production. During the winter session of the Vidhan Sabha in Dharamsala, he appointed himself the co-host for the bureaucracy since his own house was located just a few kilometers away in Kangra. He always threw an elaborate party for us officers at his place, with the finest single malts, cognacs and tandoori dishes. Many have been the nights Neerja and I have spent at his place, listening to his rip-roaring accounts of politicians and officers, known and unknown, for he was a treasure trove of gossip and spared no one!

  I now understand why he was always in such a hurry, a dynamo working overtime: perhaps he sensed that he didn't have much time left. His sudden departure is like the creation of a black hole- a star collapsing into itself. Where he once glowed, is now emptiness. Mr. Bali lived every minute of his life to the full, abundantly if not always wisely. He still had much to do and to give, but it seems to me that, like in everything he did, he was in a hurry to go. Nothing describes his life better than these lines by the poet Edna St. Vincent:

" My candle burns at both ends;

  It will not last the night.

  But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-

  It gives a lovely light !"

 And much warmth. Goodbye, Minister. 

  

SPEAK UP ! - THEY'RE COMING FOR YOU ANYWAY.

    Anyone with even an iota of intelligence and an understanding of our dysfunctional legal eco-system knows that there is something deeply problematic and rotten with the Aryan Khan case. The NCB ( Narcotics Control Bureau)'s conduct is deeply suspect, even without the personal allegations now levelled against its Zonal Director Sameer Wankhade. The entire case, with its political and criminal "witnesses", blank "panchnamas", allegations of extortions and bribes by the NCB's own witnesses, deliberate leaks of irrelevant two year old Whatsapp chats, desperate attempts to fabricate a " conspiracy" where none exists, conjectures of an international cartel without any evidence, repeated refusal of lower courts to grant bail, has exposed the agency's own rot, along with that of the Union Home Ministry, the judiciary and the press. Its hounding of a 23 year old boy who had neither consumed, nor was in possession of, any drugs makes no legal sense. The seized drugs amount to about 1.50 grammes per accused, and yet the NCB is more interested in pursuing this case than the 3000 kgs seized at the Mundra port ! It is now clear that Shah Rukh Khan and his family have been targeted, probably framed; what is not yet clear are the reasons for this.

It could be, as Pratap Bhanu Mehta points out in a recent article, that Bollywood's largely secular character is not to the taste of the present regime, which has decided to make it fall in line by targeting its most iconic face. It could be that the emerging Hindu rashtra cannot countenance the fact that the three leading superstars of Indian cinema are all Muslims, and has therefore decided to take them down, one by one. It could be that Shah Rukh Khan is not sufficiently supportive of this government- unlike the Karan Johars, Ajay Devguns, Akshey Kumars and the omniscient Kangana Ranaut- and had to be delivered a message. It could be that the real target is the Maharashtra govt. and Aryan Khan is only the bait-click. It could be simple extortion, as the Maharashtra Minister Mr. Nawab Malick has claimed. It could even be an opening gambit for the U.P. elections, just as the Sushant Singh Rajput death was shamelessly used for the Bihar elections last year.

   There are many lessons to be imbibed from this case, but the primary one is for Shah Rukh Khan and others like him who think that there is safety in remaining silent. This is a myth, it was a myth in the Third Reich and it is a myth in the New India. As a father of longer standing than the superstar, I can feel for him for the vicarious torture he is being subjected to, through his young son. But I am also compelled to point out to him that he has no right to expect any sympathy or public support for what he is going through, because he was found wanting when others were in the position he now finds himself in.

   Shah Rukh Khan has chosen to remain silent these past few years in the face of this govt's ever increasing excesses, hesitant to take a stand, refusing to be counted, hoping that his amoral camouflage of an abject " neutrality" would make him invisible and allow him to continue to mint his millions undisturbed. He said nothing when his religion was being attacked, on the streets and through legislation; when people like Kafeel Khan were being locked up for providing oxygen to suffocating children; when students from his own alma mater were being lathi-charged for protesting against the CAA (Citizen Amendment Act) and NRC (National Register of Citizens); when his colleagues and peers were being harassed on the same baseless charges his son is now facing; when films of other stars were being banned and prevented from being screened. Other stars of much lesser stature- Deepika Padukone, Swara Bhaskar, Javed Akhtar, Naseeruddin Shah, even Aamir Khan, among others- spoke out, not once but repeatedly, and most paid the price in one way or the other. But they continue to speak out. Not, however, Shah Rukh Khan- not one word of sympathy, not one gesture of support for the victims, not one whisper of condemnation of the lumpen elements or an autocratic government on a majoritarian high.

   But this has not saved him, or put him on our own Schindler's list. He is as much grist to the mill of a repressive govt. as was Akhlaq or that little girl in Kathua or Father Stan Swamy. His international contacts could not save him, nor his billions, nor his adoring fans, nor the imposing gates of Mannat. He might as well have spoken up when he could- then at least he would have been deserving of our support for occupying the moral high ground.

  The same lesson holds for our corporates and captains of industry. The voices here are even fewer- a Rajiv Bajaj here, a Parle there, an Anand Mahindra reluctantly tweeting in the background maybe. The others are content to smother the sound of the jackboots so long as they can keep salting away their billions in the British Virgin Islands or St. Kitts or Bermuda. But they are living in a fool's paradise too: when it suits the BJP's political purpose, or when they become inconvenient to the party, they too shall be subjected to New India's version of the Inquisition, as the Tatas found out some time back when they were castigated publicly by the Union Commerce Minister for opposing the E- Commerce rules. The charge? Lack of patriotism and nationalism, naturally !

  No corporate is safe if the ruling party can extract political mileage by targeting them, regardless of how much they might contribute to the Electoral Bonds or the PM CARES fund. As proof of this we need only refer to the attacks on Tanishq for its inter faith ad, the CEAT ad by Aamir Khan on fire crackers, the Jashn-e-Rivaz ad by FabIndia, the ransacking of the sets of Prakash Jha's movie " Ashram". Even as I write this piece the long knives are out again against Cadbury's latest Divali ad featuring- who else ? - Shah Rukh Khan. The attacks follow a familiar script: social media trolling and hatred, visits and threats by assorted vigilante groups, a studied silence by the government. And the concerned companies buckle over like ninepins even before you can say " Jai Shri Ram", pull their ads, worried about their Diwali bottom lines, and go back to various " Conclaves" to sing the familiar hosannas to the presiding deities of our electoral autocracy.

   But you can't buy peace from a position of cowardice, that way lies utter capitulation and surrender. Our superstars, industrialists and influencers should realise, after the recent events, that silence is no guarantee of immunity from persecution, that a leopard may change its grin but not its spots, that you cannot ride a tiger for ever- sooner or later you will end up as dinner. Time is fast running out. Speak up, or be silent for ever.

   

MANDI AIRPORT IS HIMACHAL'S OWN CENTRAL VISTA DISASTER

   In my more lucid moments ( which are now becoming few and far between) I seriously wonder why Himachal has a department of Environment or a Science and Technology Council at all. Neither shows the least interest in either protecting the environment or in exposing the scientific fallacies in the hare-brained schemes regularly manufactured by the state's unideated policy makers.

  The state has been exceptionally favoured by the Gods with the most beautiful, rich and diverse landscape, flora and fauna; abundant waters in its thousands of rivers and streams, and a climate money cannot buy. And yet, various governments since 1972 have been raping this god-given treasure in the name of a spurious " development", while their eyes have been firmly fixed on the cash registers. They have been deaf to the protestations of the people whose livelihoods, and even lives, have been destroyed in the process.

  For almost 50 years now the simple citizens of Himachal have been the ones paying the price of a " development" that mainly benefits the city dwellers in the plains and the few influential fat cats of Big Capital in the state itself. Tens of thousands of hectares of forests have been destroyed, landscapes disfigured, streams polluted, wild life decimated by hydro-power projects, unregulated construction, senseless road building, reckless mining and unplanned urbanisation. Major landslides and " flash floods" are now an everyday occurrence, buildings have started collapsing all over the state, road fatalities are increasing, garbage is piling up on the mountains and in the valleys, the traffic is a nightmare. To add to all this litany of woes, climate change induced EWE's ( Extreme Weather Events) are posing a new threat and challenge to the govt's planning processes.

  One would think that the state govt. would wake up now at least and realise the impending environmental and livelihood catastrophes, post Covid, that are staring us in the face. Right ? Wrong. The govt. is still in Mohammad Bin Tughlaq mode, busy challenging the NGT's very sensible 2017 order which restricts buildings in Shimla to two and a half storeys and prohibits construction in its core and green areas. And it is in this context that it has come up with its most stupendiotic idea yet- an international airport in Mandi district.

  The proposal, approved by the Civil Aviation Ministry in 2019, is to build an international airport in Balh valley of Mandi district. This is the most fertile, multi-cropped, irrigated agricultural land in Himachal. 237 hectares of land will be acquired for the project's first phase, which includes 202 ha private land and 12 ha of Demarcated Protected Forest containing rich biodiversity. 2500 farming families ( 12000 population) in 8 villages will be displaced, their livelihoods taken away. 70% of them are Dalits, OBCs, Muslims and landless people who had been allotted land by the govt. 30 to 40 years ago under the Land Reforms schemes. They will now regress into their earlier landless status once again.

  The effected farmers and villagers have been protesting against the project for the last 15 years under the banner of the BBKSS ( Balh Bachao Kissan Sangharsh Samiti), and they have been joined by environmentalists and experts, who have questioned the airport on social, economic and environmental grounds. But the govt. is not listening, perhaps because the project falls in the Chief Minister's own district and the Indian politician's instinct to leave behind a footprint for posterity, no matter how disastrous, has prevailed. He insists it will promote tourism, which is just not true. 

  It appears that neither any Cost- Benefit analysis nor any EIA nor any Social Audit has been carried out for this project. Nor will they ever be conducted in an honest manner because this airport cannot be justified on any parameter. Let us consider some of them:

[1] An airport at Balh is neither needed nor will it ever be commercially viable. The performance of airports in Himachal has been dismal. There are already 3 airports in the state within a distance of 50 kms from Balh- Jubbarhatti ( Shimla), Bhuntar ( Kullu) and Gaggal ( Dharamshala)- and none of them are functioning at even 50% of their capacity. According to figures I have gleaned from the COPU report of 2020-21 the average daily arrivals in Bhuntar is about 85 passengers, Shimla 13 and Gaggal 250. This totals to less than 1.25 lakhs per annum, which is less than 1% of tourist arrivals in the state!

   There are understandable reasons for the poor performance of the existing airports- the mountainous terrain does not permit long runways, therefore only small aircraft can operate, which are more costly on a per seat basis. This is aggravated by the load penalty factor because of the altitude at which the airports are located: for both these reasons the tickets prices are very high, discouraging even the better off tourist. Flights are irregular because of unpredictable weather conditions and frequently cancelled. There is no reason to assume the Balh will be exempt from these disadvantages, in fact it will be worse off: the existing airports are located in the proximity of Himachal's three most popular tourist centres which account for more than 85% of total arrivals. Balh is in no man's land, and any tourist flying in there will have to drive for three hours to reach Manali, and four hours to hit either Shimla or Dharamshala- not an attractive prospect, given the state's road and traffic conditions. Forget the fabled international tourist, even the canny domestic traveller will give Balh a wide berth.

[2] Agriculture provides an assured livelihood and the Balh farmers earn an average of Rs.5 to 6 lakhs per annum.  One of the vital lessons of the pandemic has been that salaried jobs and even self employment ventures are ephemeral and can disappear in a moment. Tourism in particular has become a very uncertain sector and will take many years to recover. Livelihoods based on land and farming, even if relatively low paying, are far more secure and stable.. But the Himachal govt. does not appear to have learnt this lesson, and is determined to throw 2500 farming families on the roads. Himachal has one of the worst unemployment rates in the country- 28.20%, and one would have expected it to protect livelihoods, not destroy them.  Running a few taxis and some dhabas with the compensation money cannot be adequate recompense for displacement and deprivation of generations old livelihoods. Furthermore, the state's track record in rehabilitating oustees is quite dismal. The Balh development refugees will join the hundreds of refugees from the Bhakra and Pong dams who have yet to be rehabilitated even after decades.

[3] This blind push for an airport which is not required also ignores the aspect of Food Security, recently highlighted by our deplorable ranking in the Global Hunger Index. Add to this the fact that Himachal is not self-sufficient in foodgrains. And yet this govt. has no qualms about foregoing the production of approx. 6800 quintals of wheat/ 5400 quintals of rice and tonnes of seasonal vegetables by diverting 202 hectares of prime agricultural land for an airport no one needs.

[4] The Balh valley is fed by three streams and is a veritable green lung of the district. The farmlands, with their bordering forests, provide a rich habitat for all kinds of wildlife and biodiversity. The large scale concretisation necessary for an airport, the attendant traffic, noise and pollution will transform this sylvan place into a pollution hot-spot. The valley is already flood prone, the airport construction will exacerbate this vulnerability.

  The proper course of action for the Himachal administration would be to take steps to improve the capacity utilisation of the three existing airports, instead of building another one at a cost of thousands of crores ( just the land acquisition will entail an expenditure of Rs. 2800 crores.) The central govt. may be able to find the money for its Central Vista project but the cash strapped state govt. is certainly in no position to do so. And, as a tourism force multiplier, what the state needs is not more airports but more heli-pads- a network of helipads in all districts, providing internal connectivity as well as connectivity with major tourist originating points such as Chandigarh, Pathankot, Jalandhar. And a well thought-out plan to encourage and incentivise operators to utilise these facilities. Heli ports are cheaper to build, need hardly any land, do not displace populations, have very short gestation periods, provide quick and point to point connectivity. What is needed is serious prioritisation and practical planning, not epiphanic flights of fancy.

  Size no longer matters in the post-Covid and post Climate Change world. Nowadays small is beautiful; it is also sustainable.  

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT.

  The last seven days have been a bit of a mixed week for me, somewhat like what the Delhi voter got in 2020 when he voted for Kejriwal : neither fish nor fowl but a chameleon. And for once this dog's breakfast has nothing to do with our presiding trinity- the alliterative ascetic, the corpulent chronologist or the malevolent monk. They have, of course, been up to their devious tricks as heretofore but we shall set them aside for the nonce in order to retain some semblance of our sanity ( a rare commodity in this New India, you will agree).

  This particular hebdomad began with a news item sent by a friend who has an eye for the curious ( the other one is for unaccompanied ladies ). If you thought that the only problem with Indians is that they have been growing progressively more stupid since 2014, think again. According to research carried out by JNU and published in PLoS One, analysis of NFHS ( II to IV )data reveals that Indians have been growing shorter since 2012- the average height of the Indian male has declined by 0.86- 1.10 cms and of the female by 0.12 cms ! This is not only curious but also alarming, because average global heights have been increasing.             Experts opine that this is due to malnourishment, which is further borne out by the fact that we have now slipped to 101st place out of 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index, below Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. I guess this was inevitable since everyone these days has to subsist on a staple diet of bigotism, minority bashing and lies, which is not known to promote the growth of either body or brain tissue. It may also be due to " too much democracy" and no doubt the Niti Ayog will soon look into the matter, just as soon as it has sold Rashtrapati Bhavan to the highest bidder. The building has a Double A rating and it is only proper that it goes to the " double engine" A+A duo who are driving India's growth. After all, growth of billionaires is far more desirable than the growth of your average Joe's height, isn't it?

  But as usual I have a different take on this. Per me, Indians are losing height because Mr. Modi is cutting everyone down to size, along with the economy and the GDP. Come to think of it, have you seen any Opposition leader who is more than 5' 8" in height ? The newer ones, the post- Modi breed- Kanhaiya Kumar, Mahua Moitra, Tejeshwi, Jagan Mohan Reddy, Aditya Thackeray- are even shorter. Of course, Mr. Modi is not exactly a bean pole, but then he makes up for it with a 56" chest and a beard of indeterminate length which waxes and wanes with the moon and his electoral prospects. Perhaps what we are witnessing under this government is a form of reverse-evolution: Indians regressing back to the Neanderthal Man era ( whose average height was below 5'). Neanderthalensis too was a man of few words and all disputes were settled with the liberal use of a club. Seems familiar ? Form and substance appear to be finally  coming together, in final confirmation of the promised " Acche Din !" 

   And now for the good news. How often have you torn your hair out trying to decipher whether your doctor has prescribed Allegra or Viagra for your drooping spirits , or whether he wants you to go to a cinema or have an anema to get rid of that tense feeling ? Doctors seem to derive a sadistic pleasure from writing prescriptions which nobody except a pharmacist can read, and sometimes even he cannot. I do suspect that this is deliberate, because when they write out their consultation bill every zero in it is clearly legible. Things have become so bad that I never trust a prescription where the doctor's signature is legible. My brother, who is a senior consultant and surgeon in Mumbai, confesses that he cannot read his own prescriptions! He has now delegated the task of inscribing them to his secretary who doesn't know the difference between a laxative and a relaxative; by the time the patients find out it's usually too late.

  Well, folks, all that's about to change: a High Court has fined three doctors Rs. 5000/ each for writing illegible prescriptions and reports. It was a medico-legal case and the doctors' bad handwriting was held to be an obstruction of justice since even the court could not figure out what they had written! Just imagine if a post mortem report reads  " death caused by a  sharp wife" when what is intended to be stated is " death caused by a sharp knife " ? Indeed, the court has rendered yeoman's service to future generations. Neerja says she can now sleep easy, knowing that what I suffer from is dyspepsia and not dementia. Though I'll probably get the latter by 2024, but that won't really matter because by then this regime would have lobotomised us all into a nation of halfwits anyway. Blessed are the demented for they will never know what hit them.

IS THE JUDICIARY'S ARAB SPRING OVER ?

   I don't know about you folks, but I found the obiter dicta by a two judge bench of the Supreme Court last week very disturbing. Hearing a petition by a farmers' organisation ( not connected to the protests) for permission to congregate at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, the bench asked the question: Do the farmers have the right to protest against the three farm laws when the judicial challenge to them is under the court's consideration and the matter is sub-judice? Further, the hon'ble judges perhaps gave a glimpse of their inner thinking when they also observed that the farmers have " strangled" Delhi for months and now have the temerity to want to come to Jantar Mantar. They have now proposed to deliberate on these issues.

  Where was the need for these comments when the matter is already settled, by the same court, none other, by a number of judgments ? The latest was in December 2020 when  CJI Bobde, in a decision of considerable import, pleasantly surprised us all by ruling that protest is a fundamental right, that public protests are permissible and legal provided they don't involve violence or disturb the public order, that the court would not therefore intervene in the matter. No circumstance has changed since then to warrant second thoughts, except that the government itself has been trying its best to instigate and wreak violence, first at Karnal and now at Lakhimpur Kheri. 

  Over the last couple of months some hope had been aroused that the Supreme Court had finally resolved to confront a rampaging executive, to stand up more assertively to protect the constitutional rights of the citizens, to become more pro-active. There were heartening straws in the wind, bold pronouncements, firm orders. Some of us even dared to hope that a kind of judicial Arab spring was in the air. But the questions now asked by the court on the very rationale of the farmers' protests appear to indicate a shift in the wind, that perhaps our hopes were too premature.

  For a lay person to understand the issues involved, a lawyer friend of mine has donned the mantle of  a Devil's Advocate and sought to justify the Court's latest queries by posing four questions to me. These are questions which must also be plaguing the mind of the average citizen ( not lawyers, they have all the answers!) and therefore it would be useful to consider them. I reproduce them below, along with my response to them:

[1] If farmers have moved the Supreme Court, what is the point of continuing with the protests? The matter is sub-judice, how then can the protests continue? 

    The answer to this is pretty simple, but since there is no politically correct way to say it, here goes: the protests are continuing because the farmers ( like large swathes of the citizenry) have lost faith in the Supreme Court. The credibility of the court has never been lower than it has been over the last few Chief Justices. This is primarily because of the perception that it is reluctant to confront the government, that all major decisions have of late gone in favour of the govt., and where that is not possible the matters are simply kept in limbo.

  Secondly, to the best of my knowledge, the protesting groups of farmers under the umbrella of the SKM (Samyukta Kisan Morcha), have not gone to the Supreme Court. Six petitions challenging the three farm laws have been filed by the Bharatiya Kisan Union, one DMK Member of parliament, one RJD MP, the Chhatisgarkh Kisan Congress, and a couple of others, but not by the SKM. The SKM has always maintained that the farm laws have not just legal implications but also economic, social and political dimensions and therefore the opposition to them cannot be limited to the court rooms. One doesn't play poker with a rigged pack of cards.

  Thirdly, in a democracy the courts are only one of the options available to citizens to challenge the government. A legal or constitutional challenge to an unpopular law is only the first step, and a threshold one at that. Even if a law is legally sound, it still has to pass the test of acceptability by the people- legality and legitimacy are two separate concepts and requirements. The Supreme Court can decide on the first one, not the second- that is a political and social issue, between the government and the people, and it would be unwise and unconstitutional for any court to interfere in the process by banning protests. Popular legitimacy is as important as constitutional validity for any law.

[II] Farmers have a choice to either approach the court or to hit the road. They cannot do both.

   This in fact is the essence of the question posed by the two judge bench referred to earlier. But they are wrong, as Justice Madan Lokur ( Retired) has reiterated in a recent interview to THE WIRE: the pendency of a petition in court does not negate the option to protest. The court itself has held, in numerous judgments, that the right to protest is a fundamental right in a democracy. It synthesizes within itself key guarantees provided in our Constitution: Article 19(1)(a)- freedom of speech and expression, Article 19(1)(b)- right to assemble peacefully, Article 21- right to protection of life and liberty. These rights run pari passu with Article 32- the right to constitutional remedy, and the two are not mutually exclusive, they co-exist, they can be invoked separately or together, in sequence or simultaneously.

  In my view, the doctrine which the bench appears to be postulating is dangerous for democracy, as an editorial in the TRIBUNE on 7th October has pointed out. In a democracy the streets are as important as the courts as arenas for opposing a government, more especially so when Parliament has been emasculated, as in the India of today. Any attempt to put a gag order on street protests by using the doctrine of "sub-judice" would be anti democratic and unconstitutional. All it would take to " strangulate" (the court's favourite word) any opposition to government policies would be one fixed/ contrived petition in the court for or against the policy. And this is not speculation: it is already happening with this govt., including on the farm laws. The Supreme Court should not make the mistake of believing that it is the only guardian of democracy- the people on the streets make better sentinels, and anything which ties their hands or gags them is to be condemned by all right thinking people.

[III] The farming laws have been stayed by the SC, so why continue with the protests ?

   Because this govt. cannot be trusted, either to keep its word or to respect even judicial orders. Remember the Rafale case where it lied to the court about the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) having presented its audit report to Parliament ? Or the Aadhaar judgment prohibiting the linking of Aadhaar to non welfare schemes, which is being violated on a daily basis with impunity ? Or the more recent Pegasus issue, where the govt. refused to file an affidavit even when asked by the court to do so? Moreover, a stay or injunction is an interim and temporary order and can be lifted at any time, it does not provide a permanent solution.

  Secondly, suppose the SC finally decides that the laws are legal and constitutional; the stay would then be automatically vacated and the laws would become effective. The farmers would then be left in the lurch, having observed the stay and foregone their right to protest. It would be well nigh impossible to rekindle the momentum the protests have acquired. And finally, public protests are a means of spreading the message throughout the country, in the absence of the kind of financial resources and lapdog media which the govt. has at its command to broadcast ITS propaganda and misinformation. Suspending the protests would adversely effect the farmers' ability to muster support for a legitimate cause and movement; it would also enable the govt. to quietly implement the three laws in an insidious manner, as it has been doing with Aadhaar and even with CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act). The status quo would favour only the govt. at the cost of the farmers.

[ IV]  The Supreme Court can fast track hearings so why not wait for the decision ?

   Once again, it's the lack of credibility of the court, based on its recent track record. The constitutional challenges to the farm laws have been pending for almost a year now, with no end in sight. Even the report of the Expert Committee set up by the court has been submitted to it a few months back but  has not been made public for some inexplicable reason, let alone taken up for consideration. This appears to have become a pattern now whenever some contentious matter concerning the executive is involved. Other important cases have also been pending with the court for years- Electoral Bonds, abrogation of Article 370, The Kashmir Reorganisation Act, CAA and NRC, UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act)- and even applications for urgent hearing have not speeded up their disposal. Once again, the status quo suits the government. One cannot blame the farmers for their lack of faith in the judiciary's ability or will to decide on the farm laws quickly, and therefore to continue with their protests.

  In an earlier blog (https://avayshukla.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-farmers-protest-does-not-require.html ) I had argued that the Supreme Court should concern itself with only the legal challenges to the three farm laws, and should keep away from the subject of the protests themselves. The latter are not within its domain, nor does it have the expertise or training to adjudicate on them. The protests are a politico-socio-economic movement to be resolved either in Parliament or in the country's public spaces, not in court-rooms. I stand by this position with even greater conviction today. It is not the job of the judiciary to pull the executive's chestnuts out of the fire. Any attempt to restrict or ban the protests by farmers can only weaken our " partial democracy" further, and create an even wider trust deficit between the people and the judiciary.

  One swallow does not make a summer, but it can at least be a harbinger of the spring we are all waiting for.