FISH OR FOWL ?-- I.N.D.I.A ALLIANCE HAS TO DECIDE- QUICKLY!

                                        NEITHER   FISH  NOR  FOWL  WON'T  WORK

   It's not working, for either the INDIA alliance or the Congress. Current trends and mood postulate that 2024 is lost for them, and after that they are dead in any case. The problem is that INDIA stands for everything and therefore for nothing; one can't be all things for all voters and still hope to retain a distinct identity and appeal. The BJP has proven this time and again: rightly or wrongly, it stands for something which distinguishes it from the rest of the pack- aggressive nationalism, unapologetic majoritarianism, authoritarian governance, naked Hindutva, centralised unitarianism. What you see is what you get, there is no confusion in the minds of the voters as to what they can expect. The INDIA alliance, on the other hand, is a smorgasbord of half-baked and contrary, if not competing, dishes and leaders, a veritable dog's breakfast. What would you choose?

   INDIA has to narrow down its menu to just five or six predominant issues (not 300 point manifestos) and then develop a unanimity on them, offer the voter a table d hote instead of a buffet. In fact, take on the BJP's own winning menu of majoritarianism etc. and repeatedly question its deficiencies, unconstitutional underpinnings, anti-citizen implications, unaccountability, trappings of bhakti, their effects on unemployment, inflation and increasing inequality. Discard the losing strategy of name-calling, dependence on freebies, Adani and Ambani, failed foreign policy, competing Hinduism. Old whine in old (or even new) bottles just doesn't work in the new India  that Modi has fashioned.

   The alliance should realise it can't run with the secular hare and hunt with the religious hounds at the same time, this appears too much like rank opportunism and will cut no ice with the voter. Take a stand; after all 50% of even the Hindu voter is not comfortable with the BJP's violent and hate filled religious agenda, show them that a balance can be struck without any appeasement of any religion. Confront Hindutva, don't coopt it in some sanitised form. The Kamalnath type of Hanuman bhakti convinces no one, nor does the Mamta Bannerjee type of minority pandering. In this respect, it is creditable that the Karnataka govt. has announced that it is rolling back the ban on hijab imposed by the previous BJP govt. Promise more of the same, whether it is recalling the bulldozers or rescinding the "halal" ban.

   It doesn't matter whether the alliance is able to put up single candidates in 400 constituencies or not. The fact is that the Congress has historically always had a direct contest with the BJP in about 200 Parliamentary seats in the North; in 2019 it lost 95% of them. It is these seats which will determine the fate of 2024. If the Congress can win even 40% of them, about 80, it will seal the BJP's fate. The Congress-not just the Alliance- has to work on these seats, and let the regional parties take care of the others, which they can if the GOP stays off their turf. There is nothing to worry about in the South, it is already lost to the BJP.

   The voting universe is not one homogenous entity, it is divided into different components: women, youth, businessmen, farmers, teachers, govt. employees. Congress and INDIA will have to develop a distinct campaign/ product for each of them, and then sell them in a targeted manner, like the BJP does so successfully with its toxic capsules. Of particular importance is the hitherto ignored First Time Voter (FTV) who constitute anything between 10% and 14% of the electorate, big enough to swing any seat. This segment has many issues- unemployment, leaked exam papers, cuts in government recruitment on a massive scale, tinkering with syllabi, clamp downs on any form of protest- which need to be highlighted. Similarly, the inability of the Opposition to capture the farmer vote after all that the NDA govt. has done to them is a singular failure. Ditto with the women, small business/MSMEs which had suffered the most under this regime.

   Not only the wine in the bottle, even some of the labels on it have to be changed. Learn from the BJP's ruthlessness in benching old faces and bringing in new ones. Granted that the BJP can do so at will because it is Mr. Modi who brings in the votes by the bucketful, not individual candidates who nobody has even heard of. Neither the Alliance nor the Congress can afford this luxury because they don't have a Modi like Colossus, but they need to take selective chances in some states. The choice, and resounding victory, of Mr. Reddy in Telangana is the proof of the pudding. The timidity of the status quo mindset has to be replaced with an inventive and risk-taking one if the BJP juggernaut has to be defeated. 

   The EVM issue is a festering problem which the ECI will not acknowledge and the Supreme Court will not address; it is time to change tack on this. More affirmative action is needed; one course is for INDIA ruled states to announce that they will henceforth conduct panchayat and urban local body elections (over which the state Election Commissions, and not the ECI have jurisdiction) on the VVPAT model, i.e. the voter slip generated by the EVM will be given to the voter who will then deposit it in the drop box. Results shall be declared on the basis of physical counting of these VVPAT slips and not the count recorded in the EVM. This shall be in line with the resolution recently passed by the INDIA alliance (and the challenge in the Supreme Court by ADR and some civil society activists); it will show that the Opposition is prepared to walk the talk, believes in transparency, and respects the voter's right to know how his vote is cast, recorded and counted. This could generate public demand for a similar practice to be followed by other states and may even awaken the ECI from its slumber.

   Finally, of course, no amount of back room strategising or witty Twitter/ Facebook ripostes or angry press briefings can make up for boots on the ground. The BJP wins because of its grass roots cadres, while Congress continues to lose because it has too many "leaders" and not enough foot soldiers. It was expected that the Bharat Jodo Yatra would remove this deficiency, but that did not happen. This should be ensured with BJY II, which has just been announced. 2024 depends on the Congress, the other INDIA parties will hold their turf, of that I have no doubt. The GOP has to be the agent of change; if it cannot reinvent itself it needs to perish. That is the law of nature, and of politics also.

FAKE DEMOCRACIES AND REAL ONES

   Amidst the ongoing cacophony of news and Deep Fake news, claims and counter claims, dissemination and dissembling, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between fake and genuine democracies. What makes a country a real democracy? Is it a "progressive and liberal" Constitution? An "independent" judiciary? A "fearless" press and media? An "elected" government? An "independent" civil service? On paper, yes, but in reality these attributes are neither sufficient nor enough to ensure a democratic government or a free society. This is being demonstrated to us on a daily basis right here at home.

  For the sake of appearances, and press releases, India has all the attributes mentioned above but the reality is a different kettle of fish altogether. There is little point in listing out what has gone wrong with our Constitution, judiciary, press, civil services in recent years, for they are all well documented and  known to those who care about such matters. For instance, retired Justice of the Supreme Court Rohinton Fali Nariman has listed out the four developments this year which have disturbed him most, the Supreme Court has yet to give any judgment of any consequence where it has spoken against the government at the centre, the Election Commission has become some kind of Philosopher's stone which can turn the ruling party's dross into the gold of victories, Parliament has become a vestigial appendage like the coccyx in the human body which has long outlived its utility and has to be cast aside, the civil services (and the defense forces) have either become camp followers of the ruling dispensation, or have hunkered down in their well cushioned burrows like the marmots in the More plains of Ladakh, the media is giving some serious competition to the oldest profession in the world. All these have become what Pratap Bhanu Mehta has termed a "pseudo constitutional facade" of parliamentary democracy. For the fact is that we are an eroding democracy and an uncaring society, and this can be best understood by a comparison with some other, more genuine, democracies. Comparisons are odious, but they are sometimes necessary to recognize our hidden ugliness. Just a couple of examples should suffice to make the point.

  Take our government's and society's response to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Any criticism of Israel is not allowed: lectures are not permitted, protests are banned, police cases are filed against those who dare to put up posts on social media. The media will not show both sides of the story, celebrities and influencers are conspicuously silent, all in thrall of the government's support for the settler-colonial policy of  Israel and its allies in the developed world. But in the same developed world, and indeed within Israel itself, there are no restrictions on the expression of the wide- spread anger against Israel. Biden is being condemned in the US media daily for supporting the slaughter in Gaza, even his State Deptt. officials are staging a kind of mini revolt, expressing their dissent through the "dissent line" created for feedback. Public opinion is turning against him. In November, journalists with the BBC protested against their own management for being selective in its coverage of the war, dehumanising Palestinians and failing to show the Israeli atrocities. The Universities are pushing back against their pro-Israel funders who want to rein in the anti-Jewish sentiments on the campuses, and at least one President has resigned. Public protests are being staged in the UK, France, Germany, Australia, Canada demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. None of these governments can even consider suppressing these protests, and sooner or later, these will have their effect on the policies of these countries. This is how genuine democracies give voice to their citizens' concerns against their own governments turning rogue.

  The London Metropolitan police recently provided another example of how real democracies work. Various organisations had planned a massive march in support of Palestine on Armistice Day last month. The Home Secretary and the government of Uncle Tom (brazenly pro-Israel)wanted the police to deny permission for it, the Police Commissioner refused, on the grounds that there was no threat to law and order and he could not legally ban the march. Braverman went public on the issue, accusing the London Police of partisanship and selective favouritism. The Commissioner stood his ground, the march went ahead peacefully, the only arrests were of some right wing elements who attempted to disrupt it. And guess what? There was so much anger and outrage against Braverman that, a couple of days later, Sunak had to sack the Home Secretary. THIS is how democracies work, not like our own police who have become like private militias of any ruling party, whether at the Center or in the states.

  Our defense Chiefs are looking increasingly like men of straw, notwithstanding their impressively resplendent uniforms, with more stars than in the Milky Way. They have been silent even as the political executive has run rough shod over their decades old culture and ethos, changing their regimental traditions, ranks, uniforms, mode of recruitment, perhaps even interfering in operational and tactical matters. And now, we are told, some of these retired worthies may even be attending the inauguration of the Ram Mandir, a politico-religious event, further eroding the apolitical and religion-neutral ethos of our armed forces. Compare this with the stance adopted by General Milley, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who resisted every move by Trump to use the military to stay on in power. He made his reservations clear to the White House and almost resigned in June 2020, but then told his staff: " If they want to court-martial me or put me in prison, have at it....I will fight from the inside." 

  Real democracies, as opposed to fake ones. respect their citizens' sentiments, do not suppress them by the use of force, and have robust institutions and civil societies that stand up and be counted at critical moments. We are not yet a fake democracy, but we are getting there fast. Democracies do not die at the hands of governments alone: when public conscience and opinion dies, so do democracies.

"DUST TO DUST, ASHES TO ASHES" IS NO LONGER SUSTAINABLE

  " We therefore commit this body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust..." [ The Book of Common Prayer]

   "  You are dust and unto dust you shall return." [ Genesis] 

 These quotations from the Bible, which have soothed generations of grieving relatives, are of little comfort in the age of global warming, or, as the UN Secretary-General rephrased it recently, the age of global boiling. For it is becoming increasingly evident that our contribution to the planet's demise does not end when we shuffle off this mortal and warming coil, it continues even in the process of death.

  Burial and cremation are the traditional methods of disposing of our loved and not-so-loved ones, but the Earth can no longer afford them, given the rising numbers of our population and consequent deaths. 67 million people died in 2022 globally. Assuming that half of them were buried, and that each body requires 54 cubic feet of land space for a grave, that means we need 3,618,000,000 cubic feet of land area for their disposal. In just square feet, the requirement would be 1.20 billion square feet or 112 sq. kilometers, which is one tenth the area of Delhi or half the area of NOIDA. Every year, and increasing each year as the baby boomers start returning to the pavilion in ever increasing numbers.

  The planet just does not have this kind of space, especially in in its urban areas: we are running out of space for the living, let alone the dead. New York city has already banned burials south of Manhattan's 86th Street since 1981. The Japanese bury their dead in drawers in cabinets for lack of space. In India, constant demands by Christians and Muslims for more burial grounds have become a source of communal tensions. Burials in graves have other adverse environmental effects in the requirement for wood, steel, concrete and embalming fluid which does not degrade and leaches into the soil. contaminating ground water sources. A study by the magazine Pacific Standard shows that just Americans buy 73000 kms of hard wood board each year, along with 58000 metric tonnes of steel and 3.10 million liters of formaldehyde for burials.

  Environmentally speaking, cremation is not much better either, in case that thought had entered your mind, according to a very well researched article in the Citizen (31.5.2021) by Abhay Jain and Sandeep Pandey titled Green Last Rites. The authors tell us that cremation in India consumes 60 million trees each year, generates 5 million tonnes of ash which is washed into the rivers, spews 8 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. A 2016 Kanpur IIT study says that cremation alone contributes 4% of Delhi's carbon monoxide emissions. Electric/ CNG crematoria are only marginally better, since they only shift the site of the pollution to thermal plants and gas fields where the power to operate the former is generated. In any case, they have not been widely accepted owing to cost and religious reservations. 

  But globally this problem is now being recognized, and a shift to alternative body disposal methods are emerging. many of them are modeled on practices of some communities/ religions. For example, the Parsis had their Towers of Silence where bodies are laid, to be picked clean by vultures. The Tibetans had something similar. The Lingayats, Shiv devotees, bury their dead in natural graves in a sitting, meditative position. In Anandvan, set up by Baba Amte, all bodies are buried in simple graves with a sapling planted on top. A concept which is now gaining ground is that of "natural burials" in which no wood, concrete, steel or chemicals are used, just a shroud or body bag to wrap the dead, buried in a natural wilderness with no fuss or complex, expensive rituals.

  These areas are known as "conservation burial grounds", could be publicly or privately owned, and serve the twin purposes of zero pollution and conservation of wildernesses or green areas. An example of this is the Glendale Memorial Nature Preserve in Florida, USA. It is private land, 142 hectares of forest land of which 28 hectares are set aside for natural burials. The income from this is then used to afforest/ conserve the remaining 114 hectares, land which would otherwise have been sold to real estate developers. Many states in the USA have passed laws which allow for the establishment of conservation burial grounds, and the idea is gaining traction.

  Another innovative step is human composting, started by a venture called Recompose in Seattle, as reported by an article in The Economist issue of March 2023. This technique requires the body to be placed in a vessel, along with a mixture of woodchips, straw, and other vegetative matter. The chemical reaction within the closed vessel creates a mix of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and moisture which decomposes the body in situ. After about 12 weeks all that remains is a mound of soil which is handed back to the next of kin, who can use it in their garden to plant a sapling in memory of the departed. At least six states have so far legally permitted human composting. Recompense says it has a waiting list running into thousands!

  Such sustainable solutions are, as can be expected, being opposed tooth and nail by big business. The size of the funeral homes business in the USA alone is estimated to be US$19 billion per annum. The size of the "death care industry" in India is reported to be US$ 3.5 billion, up from just a billion dollars in 2008. This is a gross under estimation, of course, because most of this business lies in the unorganised sector whose figures are difficult to capture. There is big money involved here, as well as religious patronage and monopolies, hence the opposition to the idea.

  In India the funeral business is entangled in a lot of red tape, local laws, all kinds of needed certification, and the stranglehold of the purveyors of religion and its rites and rituals. But, in the year of COP28, the governments need to start addressing this issue of sustainable funeral methods. Governments don't need to spend scarce public resources for this, but allow the private sector and NGOs to enter the field. One innovation could be to permit this as a legitimate activity under the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) regulations. Allow corporates to purchase tracts of land for conservation burial grounds, for example, or to fund NGOs for human composting.

  Give the people, or at least those who care for the natural environment, the choice of deciding how they want to leave this world. To borrow a phrase from the Wild West novels of Max Brand and Zane Grey, many of us, when the ordained hour comes, would prefer "pushing up daisies" rather than disappearing in a plume of smoke. Why, some day we might even be plucked from the field by a beautiful damsel, in true Rubaiyat fashion ! Of course, one can also become a mushroom, but then you win some, you lose some. 

IS THE FIRST- TIME VOTER THE X FACTOR IN BJP'S VICTORIES ?

    It's not unusual to do a post-mortem after a massacre, and so the forensics have begun after the electoral carnage of the 3rd of December. The hindsight morticians, of all hues, have started their analysis of what went wrong with the opposition carcasses littering the battlefield in five states: EVMs, caste, Hindutva, "panauti" barbs, tribals, in-fighting, corruption, electoral bonds-it's an endless list which shall keep the pundits occupied till it's time for the next blood- letting in May next year. Not one to be discouraged by my lack of expertise in this field, however, I would like to add my two bits to the autopsy.

   Not much attention has been paid so far on the impact of the behaviour/ preferences of the first-time voter (FTV) on electoral outcomes since 2019. This is surprising given their increasing numbers. According to available figures there were 80 million (8 crore) FTVs in 2019, and the estimates for 2024 are 150 million, or 15 crores ( NEWS18 report dated 31.8.23, based on ECI estimates). That is an almost twofold increase between two elections. Even if we discount the 2024 estimates by 25%, even then FTVs will form a sizeable proportion of total voters.

   FTVs comprise between 10% and 15% of the total electorate, perhaps more than most castes or religious denominations. They constitute a separate and distinct cohort, with their own problems, aspirations, preferences and mental make-up. You would expect that all major political parties would be aware of this, and that they would cater to them specifically in their manifestos, as they do for all other electorally significant blocs. Especially as available data shows that FTVs have a significant influence and impact on election results.

   A 2014 analysis by IndiaSpend had concluded that this youthful segment had catapulted the BJP to power in the five states with the highest proportion of young voters. Below is a table indicating the five states which had added the most number of FTVs between 2014 and 2018, and the number of Lok Sabha seats in each:

STATE             FTV ADDED (IN LAKHS)   LOK SABHA SEATS

Bihar                    61.33                                        40

WBengal              55.02                                        42

Rajasthan             43.45                                        25

Maharashtra         41.70                                        48

U.P.                      39.74                                        80

TOTAL                241.26                                      235

It is significant to note that this accounts for about 43% of the total seats in the Lok Sabha.

   Consider now another set of statistics. In the just concluded elections to five states (where the BJP won three by sizeable margins), the vote share of the BJP has actually increased substantially over the 2018 figures: Rajasthan by 3.69%, Madhya Pradesh by 7.66%, and Chattisgarh by 13.37%; even in Telangana (which it lost) its vote share has gone up by 9%. This is a psephological puzzle because the general consensus is that Modi's brand equity is no longer as strong as it was in 2018-19, that the appeal of Hindutva has peaked, and that economic issues such as price rise and unemployment have begun to bite. What then is the generic explanation for the party's phenomenal rise in vote share in 2023?

   There is a distinct possibility that the answer could lie in the hitherto ignored First Time Voter. In an interesting article, The Seven Sins of New India by K. Jayakumar, published in The New Indian Express on the 25th of November this year, postulates that the young generation of today (read FTV), "with no exposure to an earlier ethos of public life, begins to believe that what it sees today is normal." And what this generation sees today is listed out by Jayakumar as the "seven sins of new India." These are: Inequality before the law, vindictive vehemence, intolerance to criticism, corruption, doublespeak, window dressing, and the baggage of secularism. These seven sins comprise the new normal and have changed the idiom of public life and polity completely.

   I find this a fascinating thesis, one which makes eminent sense. Just step back and consider- the FTV of today was only eight years old in 2014, he was thirteen in 2019. These are impressionable ages, the crucible when values, behaviour, beliefs and prejudices are formed. This generation has grown up in the Modi years and has seen nothing but the seven deadly sins in operation, carpet bombed by media and party propaganda to believe in this right wing ideology and that Modi is the Vishwaguru. They are creatures of this new toxic environment, and their value systems can only align with this new reality, having experienced no other one. I, for one, therefore would be very surprised if they did not vote for the BJP in elections, almost as a bloc. This thesis brings together all the anecdotal data and statistics mentioned above, and may go some way in explaining the BJP's continued appeal and the increase in its vote share. The FTV may not be the only explanation but it certainly merits a serious look. And the beauty of this phenomenon is that with each incremental year of this regime, their numbers will keep increasing by a few millions, providing the BJP an ever increasing constituency of programmed supporters. There can be no worse news for the Opposition.

   I may be wrong (I usually am in such matters), but can the Opposition continue to ignore the First Time Voter? He/she may be their ticket to ride.

CHAR DHAM OF THE GREAT HIMALAYAN NATIONAL PARK [4]- THE PARBATI RIVER

 

               CHAR DHAM OF THE GREAT HIMALAYAN NATIONAL PARK [4]

                        THE  PARBATI  RIVER—DAUGHTER OF MANTALAI

                    

  

                                 [The river Parbati, just above Kasol. Photo by author]

       The Parbati is the best known and biggest of the four GHNP rivers, meeting the Beas at Bhunter, just below Kullu. It is the only one that does not originate from a glacier- its womb is the huge, forbidding Mantalai lake at 14000 feet, at the foot of the Pin Parbat pass which divides the Spiti and Kullu valleys. The Parbati valley, one of the two best known valleys in the state (along with the Sangla valley in Kinnaur), is totally uninhabited for most of its length and is shrouded in mystery, myth and wonder; a number of trekkers have disappeared in its remote fastness, never to be heard of again. At the foot of the 120 km long valley are the small settlements of Kasol and Manikaran, hubs for both drug and religious tourism (Manikaran has the famous hot springs and Gurudwara), attracting thousands of tourists, including from Israel and Russia. These, however, are add-on aberrations introduced by man, the real Parbati valley upstream of these urbanised scars is quite different, a natural Eden of resplendent vegetation, wildlife, perennial streams  and high mountains.

              [ An unforgettable view of the Parbati valley vegetation. Photo by author]

The trek to Mantalai takes three to four days and begins at Gwacha, about 15 kms beyond Manikaran where the Tosh Nullah joins the river. The track winds upwards, past Pulga ( there is an Italian pizzeria here!), Nagthan (the last village), Rudranag (so named because of a waterfall shaped like a serpent below which the god Ganesh is believed to have meditated), Ishidwara, which actually had a restaurant run by an intrepid Sharmaji from Palampur when we went up there- I fondly hope he’s still there! Ten kms later is the famous Kheer Ganga (2900 m.), the USP of which is a pool fed by a hot water spring, once pristine and unsullied but now overrun with dhabas and serais. Fortunately, the debasing tentacle of tourism ends here, and beyond is the realm of the gujjar, gaddi and the brown bear. One can camp here for the first night or move up another five kms to Mandron on the left bank of the river. We camped at the latter spot and met a gujjar, Lal Hussain, who had made his semi-permanent camp here, along with his four wives, 25 buffaloes and a hidden hoard about which he would tell us nothing! He is the last of a disappearing breed of hardy pastoralists, threatened by reduced ranges for their cattle, the inroads of development and a new generation which craves the smart phone, TV and an urban lifestyle.

                           [Hot water pool at Kheer Ganga. Photo by author]

The first hair-raising experience is encountered on the second day at Nichidwar- crossing the river  on a wire basket suspended over the waters on a cable and pulled by ropes to the other side! Definitely not for the faint hearted. About six kms further on a deep gorge meets the Parbati on its right bank: this is Dibbi Bokri and attached to it is a fascinating tale of an Englishman who discovered emeralds in the gorge, killed off his gorkha labourers one night and disappeared with the jewels, never to be heard of again! In the late nineties the NHPC had proposed to build a huge dam below Dibbi Bokri to impound the waters of the Parbati and generate 800 MW of power- Phase I of the Parbati project. This would have been an environmental disaster of unimaginable proportions; fortunately, it was refused environmental clearance. There were apprehensions that at some later date the idea would be revived, but in 2010 the HP govt. has notified the entire area above Pulga right up to the base of the Pin Parbat as a National Park- the Kheer Ganga NP- so hopefully this lovely landscape has been saved for posterity.

By the evening of the second day, after having covered 25 kms, one reaches Pandupul ( 3700 m.), where the river has to be crossed once again to the right bank. But this time over one immense , monolithic boulder the size of a house which straddles the river which is a gushing torrent about ten meters wide at this point. Legend has it that the huge boulder was put there by Bhim when the Pandavas came here during their exile, hence the name of the place. We silently thanked that brave warrior, for having spared us another wire basket crossing!

                     [The massive boulder straddling the river at Pandupul. Photo by author]

The third day’s trek is a gentle, 16 km walk up the valley which at this point is about one km. wide, with the adolescent Parbati happily gurgling down its left side. One ambles through a thickly carpeted pasture, knee deep in multi- hued flowers, flanked on both sides by towering snow covered peaks from which tumble small streams, impatient to join the Parbati on its way down to the Beas, criss-crossing the pasture. After about 14 km the valley widens out quite a bit and the river now distributes itself into a score of water courses, almost like a delta. Negotiating them is no problem and after another kilometre or so one is confronted with  a huge rockfall, 100 meters high, which blocks the valley. This is the appropriately named Shahidwar; the Parbati has carved out a passage for itself on the right but we had to clamber over the mound of rocks. Cresting it, we came face to face with the magnificent Mantalai lake, the womb from which the Parbati takes birth.

                  [The infant Parbati exiting the Mantalai lake. Photo by author]

The landscape here, at 4100 meters, is awesome. The lake is huge, nestled in an elliptical basin about two kms long and half a km wide, in a south-east/north-west alignment. It is a pure glacial lake, completely enclosed by towering mountains from whose glaciers and snowfields innumerable streams and run-offs feed the lake. Little mounds of rocks, called "jognis", are scattered all around on its banks- these are sacred spots where the locals come to pray and plant colourful flags; we did so too: in these rugged regions it is better to have the gods on your side!                                       There is only one small opening on the north-west side, though which the infant Parbati gleefully escapes from its forbidding cradle in a frothing gush of water. The landscape is majestic and hypnotic but Mantalai is not a pretty lake like Khajjiar, or scenic like Chandratal, or gentle like Renuka. Mantalai is, instead, imperious in its grandeur, confident in its silence and arrogant in its ruggedness. It commands respect, not love. Beyond it, another two days of hard and dangerous trekking and 1500 meters higher up, is the Pin Parbat pass, and beyond that the Pin Valley National Park. This is the realm of the wind, ice and snow and the primeval forces of creation rule here. Man is an intruder here who the gods tolerate when they are well inclined, and who perishes if they are not so minded. He should pass through with reverence, his head bowed in humble respect. May it be so for eternity.

         [The sacred "jognis" on the shores of the Mantalai lake. Photo by author]

 

 

THE SIZE OF THE FIGHT IN THE DOG

   Animals have always featured prominently in Indian culture and mythology, and have added immensely to their richness and mystique. Garuda is the loyal friend of Vishnu, the peacock is the vehicle for Kartikeya, the lion is Durga mata's fearless steed, the elegant swan is the vehicle of Brahma and Saraswati, the snake adorns Shiva's neck and Nandi the bull is his constant companion, the white elephant is the companion of Indra, the god Ganesha is half human and half elephant, the demon killed by Durga came in the form of a buffalo. Even Man's best friend, the dog, is worshipped in parts of Sikkim and north Bengal, it is the mount of fearsome gods like Kalabhairva and we are told that four fierce dogs guard the abode of Yama, the Hindu god of Death.

   You could be forgiven for thinking that our scriptures have more animals than most of our National Parks and Wild Life Sanctuaries, but let's leave that little critique for another time. So why am I sputtering on about animals, like a loquacious cicada? Because, dear reader, animals continue to dominate the Indian landscape even today and play an important part in our polity and public life. They grab our attention like the WWF (World Wrestling Federation) wrestler grabs his opponent by his round and bouncing organ, which thereafter bounces no more, to paraphrase the refrain from Edgar Allen Poe's poem, The Raven. Let me explain.

   Our public life is full of animals, and I'm not referring to the type who get elected but to the genuine ones. How can one forget Gau mata, or the Jallikattu bull, or Azham Khan's missing buffaloes for whom Interpol had to issue a red corner notice, till it was discovered that they had actually joined the BJP to save their skin, literally? Or Rahul Gandhi's pet pooch, Piddi, who provided the alibi for Mr. Hemanta Biswa Sarma of Assam to join the BJP and become Chief Minister. In times bygone the English King Richard III had shouted "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" which the wily Biswa Sarma converted to: "A kingdom, a kingdom, a dog for a kingdom!" He got his kingdom and Rahul got the doghouse.

   Then again there was that incident about Delhi's AAP leader, Somnath Bharti, and his Labrador. His wife (Bharti's, not the dog's) alleged that he used to order the dog to bite her and lodged a police complaint. The poor Lab was taken to the police station and, in order to test him, was ordered to bite a constable. Being a canny canine of good taste, the doggie refused, the case against Bharti collapsed, but he has not been seen in the AAP kennel since then.

   Readers will also recollect that incident involving the IAS couple, the Khirwars, in Delhi last year. They had taken their dog for a walk in a stadium, which the govt. felt had reduced our medal tally in the Asian Games by at least half a dozen. Consequently, they were asked to take a longer walk, to Ladakh in one case and to the north-east in the other. I learn that now IAS officers have stopped taking an amble with their pooches, it is too dangerous. They now take their wives for a walk; no marks for guessing who's holding the leash on these jaunts. All because a fastidious canine insisted on peeing on astro turf rather than the genuine grass.

   Given the central role that dogs have been playing in Indian politics in Amritkaal of late, therefore, it is no surprise that the Mahua Moitra  brouhaha also has a dog as its prime mover, a Rottweiler named Henry, presumably after the English king who had a very innovative method for resolving his wives' headaches. Now, I don't know why she named him Henry - she probably had a good history tudor in school. Be that as it may, Henry is the undoubted kingpin in this whole affair; not only is his custody the causus belli in this case, he is also the insider who knows everything- whether Mr. Dehadrai is just an ex-lover or a jilted lover, who did the jilting, who visited Ms Moitra, who she spoke to on the phone, the type of gifts received by her, etc.

   The Ethics committee of Parliament, intent on peeping through the key-hole rather than looking at the larger picture, definitely missed a trick or two by not examining Henry under oath or getting his statement recorded under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code. I believe the police did ask him a few questions but, having spent time with a lawyer and a Parliamentarian. he was well aware of his rights, cited the Fifth Amendment and also quoted the law against self incrimination. Brain mapping and a narco test were suggested but Henry insisted that a similar test be carried out on Mr. Nishikant Dubey, the complainant M.P. This time it was the latter who refused, fearful of what the tests might reveal about the state of his brain. The last time such a test was carried out on a politician, it revealed no brain at all, just a bank passbook and a doctored print-out from an EVM (Electronic Voting Machine). 

   The last chapter in this drama has not yet been written, and we can expect the curtain to rise again when Parliament reconvenes in December. Meanwhile, the Royal Bengal tigress in West Bengal has also joined the battle and has divested Mr. Adani of the Rupees twenty five thousand crore port project allotted to him earlier. It's all hands on the deck now. The government has thrown all its might against the diminutive lady from Bengal but will soon find out who the real Rottweiler is. One can't help but recollect the words of Mark Twain: "It's not about the size of the dog in the fight but about the size of the fight in the dog."

STOOPING TO CONQUER OR FLATTERING TO DECEIVE ?

    If you've been a keen observer of public discourse in India, as I have been for some years now, you are probably immune to the bizarre and outlandish statements made by the worthies holding public office. Like the Scowling Sherpa's revelation that "there is too much democracy" in India, or a Minister in Davos claiming that high unemployment is indicative of increasing self employment, or the Supreme Leader's assertion that not one inch of Indian land has been occupied by the Chinese, or a Minister for Human Resources in NDA I debunking Darwin's theory by maintaining that none of his ancestors ever saw an ape turning into a homo sapiens. We are, of course, the swine who should be grateful for such pearls of wisdom, but two recent pearls, cultured in our very own fascist laboratory, have taken even my post-Diwali asthmatic breath away.

   Arguing for the government in the Supreme Court, the Attorney General  made two astounding averments: one, that the voter does not have any right to know how his vote has been recorded or counted, and two, that the public does not have the right to know who has contributed how much to which political party. The first statement was intended to counter the very legitimate demand for a more extensive VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Trail) verification of the votes cast in the EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines), the second was in response to the challenge to the Electoral bonds, which have effectively become the BJP's private ATM.

   We have never been in doubt that these statements are a faithful expression of the BJP's private views, but the sheer brazenness of declaring it openly- and that too in court!- is mind-blowing. It is beyond arrogance and hubris, it shows utter contempt for the public, the Constitution and (dare I say it?) even for the highest court in the land. Translated into language which we porkers can understand, the government is actually saying: we will have our way, we don't give a tinker's curse for what the citizenry thinks or what the court decides; we have the majority in Parliament (even if Mahua Moitra and her Lui Vuitton bags are not expelled) and can pass any ordinance or Bill we are inclined to. Misplaced confidence and hubris, did you say? You would be wrong, dear reader, because past events have proved that they are right. The judiciary has never been an obstacle to the ruling party's rampaging depredation of our social, constitutional, legal and institutional landscape. One cannot but help feeling that the govt's impudence is due in no small measure to the court's accommodating and obliging behaviour.

   The Supreme Court never fails to disappoint, and has done it again in two recent judgments: on the petition for legalising same sex marriages, and on Manish Sisodia (the Delhi Deputy Chief Minister)'s  application for bail. These petitions had been vehemently opposed by the government. Both were dismissed, quite against the run of play. Both judgments came as a surprise, not only because of the inherent contradictions in the judgments themselves, but also because in comments leading up to the judgments, the Court had appeared to favour the petitioners' cause.

   The order in the same sex marriage case is retrogressive and mired in a medieval mindset, which exposes the Court's disconnect with a rapidly changing social order. By refusing to legalise same sex marriages, or allowing same sex couples to adopt, or giving them civil rights as a couple, the Court may have warmed the cockles of the BJP/RSS heart but it has also given a thumbs up to obscurantist forces. By directing that the government set up a committee under the Cabinet Secretary to examine the matter to confer more rights on the LGBTS and queer communities, the Court is only displaying its naivete, or deliberately deluding itself: does it really expect an officer who is on extension in service and who has been party to every unilateral and illiberal  decision taken by the present regime, to propose any expansion of the rights of this section of society, something this government is vociferously opposed to?

   The logic in the Manish Sisodia case is even more difficult to comprehend. In the course of arguments leading up to the judgment the Court had time and again castigated the prosecution for lack of any evidence against the accused. It had even gone so far as to say that there was no money trail to link Sisodia with any bribe, and that the ED's (Enforcement Directorate) case would collapse in two minutes during trial. And yet, it denied him bail and sent him back to jail. Such a vacillating and equivocal attitude can only encourage the govt. to lock up more people for months, confident that the courts will not enlarge them on bail, evidence or no evidence. Clearly, this order is based more on presumption than on solid evidence.

   The Electoral Bonds case was taken up after five years, the delay allowing the BJP to mop up almost Rs.5500 crores, many times more than that received by all the other parties combined. The court has now concluded the hearings and reserved its order more than two weeks ago, again giving the BJP the opportunity to open the window for another tranche this week. This will enable it to secure all the donations it needs for the 2024 elections: whatever the court now decides will effectively be irrelevant for the coming general elections, and after that, who knows- we're all dead (or conveniently reemployed) in the long run, in any case.

   In the Maharashtra disqualification case between the two Shiv Sena factions the Speaker continues to ignore, if not defy, the SC's repeated orders for a quick decision. The Speaker has been given such a long rope that he is using it to strangle whatever vestiges of democracy remains in the state. The Article 370 case similarly hangs in the limbo, the orders reserved, and democracy continues to elude Jammu and Kashmir. Umar Khalid continiues to rot in jail, as do the Bhima Koregaon accused, with their trials nowhere in sight. The Bilkis Bano case has disappeared from the radar, if not the court's registry. Whatever happened to the Pegasus Committee report, or the SEBI's investigation in the charges against the Adani conglomerate?

  With every day's delay in deciding such crucial cases, or in delivering reserved orders, the status quo (which can only favour the government of the day) becomes a fait accompli, all the more difficult to reverse. It emboldens the government to continue with its bulldozer tactics, and to take the court for granted. Which is why the Attorney General can make the kind of statements he does and continue cocking a snook, as it were, at the courts. Earlier this month he even cautioned the Court (was it a veiled warning?) not to cross its limits, when the CJI (Chief Justice of India) fixed 31st December as the deadline for the Maharashtra Speaker to decide the MLAs' disqualification case!

   It may be that the Court wishes to avoid a confrontation with the executive, and therefore "urges" when it should direct, or "requests" when it should mandate, or "persuades" when it should command. But such a timid approach is not working; it takes two to avoid a clash, and this government is perpetually in an adversarial mode. Moreover, it also reduces the majesty of the law and dilutes the credibility of legal institutions in the eyes of the citizenry. No amount of table thumping rhetoric and platitudes from pulpits outside the court can define a judge- what defines him or her is her judgment inside a courtroom, and that has been sadly lacking for the last few years.

  What we need is for the Court to administer the law without fear or favour, to practice within the court what it preaches outside it at seminars, conventions and in key-note speeches. We need fewer sermons, obiter dicta and moral grandstanding from the judiciary and more concern for our foundational freedoms and rights, stern messaging to the government, and imposition of consequences for defying orders. "Stooping to conquer" may be an interesting phrase for an Oliver Goldsmith  play, but entirely inappropriate for our current political environment; the phrase "Flattering to deceive" may describe it better, don't you think? 

GENOCIDE HAS NO NUANCES

   In my blog last fortnight (World Leaders and War Criminals) I had opined that what Israel and the USA were doing in tandem in Gaza was a war crime. Since then the criminality has only intensified and two thousand more innocent Palestinians have been murdered, with the world-global north, south and middle- either remaining silent or muttering inanities of the Blinken type that are specious and intended to give more time to Netanyahu to achieve his objective of depopulating the strip. A non binding UN resolution moved by Jordan for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds has been passed by the General Assembly (for whatever it is worth), but to our eternal shame India has not voted in favour of a ceasefire. A reliable estimate states that Israel has already killed 1% of Gaza's population; in Indian terms that would amount to about 14 million deaths.

   Surely, both the irony of our posture and its perfidy cannot be lost on any serious or objective observer of our foreign policy. Here is the self-proclaimed leader of the global south-the Vishwaguru- which has just spent 4000 crores at the G-20 conclave to burnish these delusive credentials, but has now become just  a camp follower of the global north! It is a "leader" without any followers, a general without an army. That is the irony. The perfidy lies in an External Affairs Minister who has spent his entire career in the IFS (Indian Foreign Service) supporting the Palestinian cause (our time tested and age-old policy), but now has no stirrings of conscience in joining the pro-Israeli ranks. Either he has changed his mind (which is difficult to do at an age when most of your mind is in furlough in any case) or he has sold his soul for the loaves of office. I am inclined to plump for the latter explanation, given his strident expressions of loyalty to the right wing ideology and the Supreme Leader)for quite some time now. Which diminishes him as a human being: he has abandoned his principles and values and has now become a full fledged member of a callous, opportunistic, amoral and transactional universe. I wonder if he can sleep at night; he probably can, what with the experience acquired in the Ukraine war, doing precisely the same.               India now languishes in a no man's land- "terra nullius". We have abdicated any moral right to lead the global south, and in the global north we are now just another parvenu seeking only to stay in the good books of the USA, putting all our eggs in the geo-political basket and picking off crumbs from the high table. Our time of reckoning will come sometime, but it will not save the Palestinians from further slaughter. No one with an IQ above 50 (which excludes most of the bhakts, naturally) will buy our canard that we are maintaining "neutrality" in the Gaza conflict. Neutrality in a dispute between the world's fourth most powerful army, a nuclear power to boot, and a putative "nation" that comprises millions of displaced people with no government, economy or army and 80% of whom survive on humanitarian aid, is no neutrality; it is complicity with the former. As Martin Luther King had said: there can be no neutrality between right and wrong, or between good and evil. Neutrality in such a context means supporting the wrong and the evil. Which brings me to my next point.

  In response to my earlier piece I have received quite a few responses on the blog as well as by email. I won't bother with the bhakts and trolls since radical Hindutva, Nazism and Zionism all are poisonous fruits of the same genealogical tree and by definition can only exude venom. But there are a lot of otherwise well-read and reasonable people who appear to have succumbed to the "theory of nuances" in the ongoing pogrom and slaughter of Palestinians. This fake theory, and their argument, goes something like this: Israel's disproportionate assault on Gaza is not a simple black and white issue, it has nuances which must be understood. It is defending itself from a terrorist organisation which has beheaded babies and raped grandmothers, launches rockets against Israel, has taken 250 hostages, the Gazans fully support Hamas and must now pay the price for it. Most important, Jews have a right to the lands of the Palestinians since they were the original settlers, 900,000 Jews were evicted from Palestine in the early 20th century by the Arabs; some apologists even go as far back as the Old Testament and Canaanite period to justify Israels's claim to Palestinian lands. Most of this is misleading hogwash and an attempt to deflect the debate and to direct it to a road that leads away from recorded history and the war crimes being committed in Gaza.

  Today's global outrage should not be about who, the Jews or the Palestinians, are right about their respective claims to land- the anger should be about the slaughter of innocent non-combatants, women and children in Gaza in their thousands. There are no nuances here- not in the killing of 4500 children and 1500 women, not in the further 2000 buried under the blasted rubble, not in the bombing of hospitals, schools, refugee camps, not in the forced eviction of 800,000 Gazans from their homes in the north, not in the use of starvation as a weapon of war, not in the blockade of food, fuel and medicines to a people already horrendously deprived by 17 years of a blockade and 75 years of forcible displacement.

   There are no nuances in killing tens of thousands of innocents in order to assert a legal right to land which was never yours in the first place. (At the beginning of the modern era, which in the case of the middle-east can be said to begin with the conquest of Arab lands by the Ottoman Turks in the 16th century, there were barely 5000 Jews left in Palestine: they started arriving in large numbers only after 1947, starting the continuing dispossession of the Palestinians- a claim borne out by the United Nations time after time, and by the Oslo Accord).

   There are no nuances in determining the culpability of Israel in the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing. Even if Hamas is said to be a terrorist organisation (which it is not), this does not entitle Israel to behave like a terrorist itself, as it has been doing since 1947. A sovereign , democratic state has to abide by  international rules and covenants, during peace and war; it has to be held to a higher standard than a terrorist outfit. If it conducts itself like a terrorist entity, there is no subtlety needed to determine its guilt.                                                   In any case, independent evidence is now emerging that Netanyahu himself covertly supported and funded Hamas as a counter balance to the Palestinian Authority, it is his creation. The news about beheading of babies has been debunked by independent journalists. Even more damning evidence is beginning to indicate that most of the Jewish settlers killed on the 7th and 8th of October were killed by the Israel's IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) in retaliatory fire under its "Hannibal Directive" which requires the killing of the enemy at all costs, even if it involves the death of its own citizens. Some reports reveal that these Israelis were killed by tank shells and 5.7mm bullets which the Hamas does not possess. Nor does Hamas possess the kind of lethal missiles, one of which killed 500 people in a Gaza hospital in one midnight strike. Netanyahu is using the Hamas as a pretext for his subsequent savagery and to stay on in power; someone in India seems to be doing the same with our bankrupt "neutrality".

   Looking for nuances in this conflict, or claiming neutrality, is sheer Islamophobia and complicity in the neo-colonial game playing out before our eyes. The western colonialism of the 16th and 17th centuries is back, this time riding on the back of a Biblical justification, oil and gas, the Ben Gurion canal, racial hatred, and its Messiahs are a self-proclaimed Zionist in the White House who cannot climb three stairs without stumbling and a psychopath whose mind is "a black hole" which cannot be penetrated, according to his psychiatrist who had committed suicide. Truly has it been said: Homo homini lupus est. Man is wolf to man.

   

  

WHO NEEDS A SMART CITY ?

 I come from Kanpur in UP. In the immortal words of Bill Bryson: someone had to. Though why it had to be me I can't understand. But it could have been worse: I could have come from next door Unnao, in which case I'd be sharing the stage with Sakshi Maharaj and giving consular advice to our Muslim brethren on how to move to Pakistan, preferably in more than one piece. And though I no longer reside in Kanpur I used to go there once a year to visit my Dad and furtively check his will to ensure that my name had not been struck off the list of "labhartis", to use a word in fashion these days. But more on that later.

     Kanpur is one heck of a smart city: I'm not sure whether it made it to the official list of Smart Cities (which are all now smarting under mounds of garbage, pollution, strangulated roads and posters of Mr. Modi). But it doesn't really matter, for Kanpur was a genuinely smart city long before some mole in the PMO came up with the moniker : it doesn't need an official tag to classify it as a smart city, for it already has all the required attributes of one.

    For one, Kanpur and its four million citizens, don't need a government: since 1857, when Nana Fadnavis was given a rousing reception here by throwing 400 Britishers down a well in today's Nana Rao park, the city appears to have thrived without any sign of a government. God only knows what the dozens of Commissioners, DIGs, Judges and their minions do, for they certainly don't maintain civic facilities, roads, power, water supply, law and order, public transport etc. etc. The Kanpurias do all this themselves, in one happy chaotic system which exemplifies the ideal of Anarchism- the total withering away of the state. It was atmanirbhar long before Mr. Modi came up with this word.

   No one goes to the police for settling disputes: they just hire goons (the banks and NBFCs learnt this trick much later). Electricity is obtained by tapping into power lines, water by digging their own bore wells, transport by hopping onto one of the 40000 cycle rickshaws that ply without any permit, entertainment by attending political rallies and beating up each other. The Supreme court and the National Green Tribunal are a distant nuisance as the many industries joyously throw their muck into the Ganga to join the the thousands of crores which the govt. has already thrown into it. The difference, however, is stark: the muck is visible, the moneys spent are not.

    The good burghers of Kanpur love the IAS. Every family wants the son to join the IAS and the daughter to be married to an IAS officer. Most sons, however, end up as LDCs (lower division clerks) in the AG office if they are lucky, or as lawyers if they are not. The law is a respected profession here and I'm told there are more than 30000 lawyers in the district courts. Now, this may appear excessive, but consider this: in Kanpur it takes five lawyers to prepare an affidavit: one to look up the legal terminology, one to draft the document, and three to hold down the deponent so that he doesn't run away to any of the other 29995 lawyers.  There isn't adequate space for so many lawyers in the district courts and so the bar has devised an ingenious system for beating the odds: half of them are on strike at any given time.

   So much for the sons of soil buried beneath tons of toil. The daughters just HAVE to have an IAS groom, and for this their doting fathers will go to any length short of kidnapping an IAS officer (kidnapping has been tried but abandoned since it's extremely difficult to get rid of an IAS officer once he is ensured free board and lodging). In deference to the market economy and long before Ms Sitharaman came up with the idea, everything has been monetised, and there is a graded scale of dowry payment: 1X for appearing in the UPSC exam, 2X for clearing the prelims, 4X for passing the mains, 6X for getting selected, 8X for getting UP as the home state. One of my batch mates (who was in the 8X category) was approached by a prospective suitor who offered him a choice of three car models (there were only three back then) if he said "Aye": an Ambassador, a Fiat Padmini and a Standard Herald. Said batchmate took the Ambassador; he has since then upgraded the model (the wife, not the car).

   Kanpur has a very innovative approach to education, as I discovered when in 1970  I joined Christ Church College (yes, there were colleges even back then) for an MA in English. My first choice was Delhi Univ. but it would have nothing to do with any potential Naxalite from Calcutta. On my first day at CCC I discovered that in Kanpur English was taught in Hindi and the essence of the course was to be a good translator. But even here there was much to be desired. For example, the word  "misunderstanding" was usually translated as " ladki neeche khadi hai" ( The girl is standing below). My three years in St. Xavier's College, Calcutta, instinctively urged me that this was not correct, and so at the first chance I moved on to Hindu College, Delhi, where the understanding of English is better;  "misunderstanding" in Hindu College means a "broad minded girl"- not entirely correct perhaps, but certainly an improvement on a girl who merely stands under the stairs!

   Kanpur is well represented among the elite of India: Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi (of Moorkh Darshak fame) used to be our reluctant representative in Parliament, PAN PARAG Pan Masala is our answer to e-Commerce, Sunil Gavaskar is our municipal son-in-law since his wife Marshneil belongs to the city, Aseem Trivedi the cartoonist is our Freedom of Speech champion, we even have an ex President in residence, though no one can recollect whether he was President of India or of the BJP. We don't as yet have any distinguished alumni in Tihar jail, but we do have a prime candidate in Mr. Sri Prakash Jaiswal, the ex-Coal Minister and are hopeful that this minor deficiency will be rectified once the coal scam cases are decided by the CBI courts.

   For me Kanpur's biggest claim to fame, however, is its street food- at the risk of offending Vir Sanghvi I must declare that it is the best in the country. All of it has been copied by every other state but nowhere else can you get the original, authentic taste of its culinary standard bearers: the TUNDA KABAB and BOTI, the KACHORIS of Double Hathras, the MOTICHOOR LADDOOS of Banarsi Mishthan Bhandar, the PEDAS of Sita Ram, the MAKKHAN MALAI of Birhana Road, the gossamer light tendrils of whipped cream which can only be churned out by the falling dew of early morning ( given the vulgar name of Daulat-ki-chat in Delhi), the PURI-AALOO of Arjun Singh, the BADNAM KULFI and FALOODA of Parade, the TIKKI and DHANIA ALOO of Munna chaat walla who has been plying his spicy trade opposite the Reserve Bank Of India on Mall Road for more years than I care to remember. One can stay in the city for two weeks, eat three times a day and yet never eat the same dish twice. 

   Kanpur is a city sans any excess baggage of history or hoary cultural traditions or the compulsion to conform; it doesn't have the intellectual overburden of Allahabad, or the religious fripperies of Benaras, or the effete urbane refinement of Lucknow. What it has instead is a generic vigour, the ability to innovate and adapt, the art of cocking a snook at the mandarins of governments, and the momentum to carve out its own path. It is unstoppable. It demonstrates Newton's first law of motion- that an object, once set in motion, will continue to be in motion unless it is stopped by some external force. That external force does not as yet exist in the case of Kanpur. And that's precisely the reason why, long after Lucknow, Allahabad and Benaras have declined into genteel oblivion, Kanpur will continue to be a Smart city, whether or not it is included in an official list.

   Unfortunately, I haven't been to my cradle of nativity for some time now. It may be because my dad passed away in 2017 after accidentally hitting the DELETE button when my name cropped up in his will. Now, I keep wondering whether that was because he was near-sighted or far sighted.

WORLD LEADERS AND WAR CRIMINALS

    As modern day war criminals go, you could be forgiven for thinking that it would be difficult to beat the Netanyahu- Biden duo. The former has initiated a genocide in Gaza and the latter has been giving him all diplomatic and military covering fire to get the job over quickly. 6000 civilians dead in Gaza as I write this (including 2500 children and 1500 women), with more to come as the ground offensive of this doomed enclave unfolds. Ukraine is being repeated in Gaza, with the logic of justice being up-ended as per their fascist convenience- Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine for invading another sovereign nation and killing civilians, while in Palestine a rampaging Israel is the victim for doing the same. Sheer moral bankruptcy and criminality under international covenants is now rephrased as geopolitics. Israel has even called for the resignation of the UN Secretary-General for having had the temerity to say that the Hamas attacks did not happen in a vacuum. And it has now taken to taunting the UNRWA, the relief agency of the UN in Gaza: on the latter's pleas for allowing fuel into Gaza, this rogue state has suggested that it ask Hamas for the fuel! This is not just over-arching arrogance, it's the confidence of a criminal who has bought both the judge and the jury.

   How can an alleged terrorist organisation be equated or conflated with an entire nation, as the global North has done with Hamas and Palestine? And then obliterate that nation for the sins of those "terrorists", as Israel has been doing for the last three weeks? This is like the RAF carpet bombing Ireland because of the activities of the IRA, or India bombing Lahore for the actions of Pakistan's cross border terrorists. Netanyahu, Biden or their pet pit bulls in France and the UK may not comprehend this logic, but surely India should be able to see it, and at the very least demand that Israel respect this distinction. Previous Indian governments, from the time of Nehru to Vajpayee, had the humanism, sense of history and vision to realise this; they had learnt from our own history the abject consequences of partitioning of countries, and could therefore empathise with the Palestinians whose own ancestral lands had been forcibly partitioned in 1947. Not so with Naya Bharat where the benefits of Pegasus, hi-tech weapons and training by Mossad matter more than shared history, humanitarianism and justice. Islamophobia has now entered our foreign policy, it would appear; it was inevitable after the nine years of the present regime, for, as Hubert Humphrey had remarked: "Diplomacy is nothing but domestic policy with its hat on." Which is why Mr. Jaishankar has gone silent for now on this war, with even his usual waffling missing.

   The Netanyahu-Biden strategy is clear: it's time for the "final solution" in Palestine: occupy the Gaza strip, if not annex it. Readers would recollect that at the last General Assembly meeting in New York in September, Netanyahu had displayed the future map of Palestine as he saw it: it showed almost the entire region from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean (the present West Bank and the Gaza strip included) as part of Israel. The attack on Gaza is the first phase of converting this map to reality on the ground. Israel will occupy north Gaza after expelling all Palestinians living there (almost a million and a half) and either occupy it militarily, or convert it into a buffer zone with a proxy government.  Over time it will push more Israeli settlers in there, dispossessing the few Palestinians who remain there, as it does in the West Bank. It will change not only the geography but also the demography of the area forever, with the blessings of the North and the silence of countries like India. This is what Netanyahu had meant when he stated, at the beginning of this "war", that the Middle East would be changed forever.

  By any definition of terrorism, and under international law, Israel is a terrorist state. It has forcibly occupied 85% of Palestine and allowed, under military protection, 700,000 Jewish settlers to encroach on Palestinian land in the West Bank. It distributes arms to these settlers and has killed and jailed thousands of Palestinians without any judicial process: it is an occupation force and behaves as such, in the teeth of opposition by the UN and in flagrant violation of all international laws. It has converted the blockaded Gaza strip into what one commentator has described as the largest concentration camp in the world, and all this with full support of the USA, which runs its own concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay. Between 200 and 250 Palestinian civilians are routinely killed by Israel every year (more than 120 have been killed in the West Bank in just the last two weeks) and has imprisoned about 5000 of them, most of them without any judicial process. 

  As of today the UN has announced that it shall cease its relief operations in Gaza: Israel's two week old blockade has ensured that no food, fuel, medicines or even water can enter this enclave where 2.5 million have been trapped like rats ("human animals", according to an Israeli minister). 35 hospitals will be shut down, and the 140 babies in incubators and 130 patients in ICUs will almost certainly die. This is deliberate genocide, far more barbaric than taking hostages, even though the comparison is odious. And this is even before the ground offensive has begun! What more does it take to be a terrorist, pray?

   What India, which has ditched all moral and ethical values for rank opportunism and, in the apt words of (retired) Ambassador Talmiz Ahmed has "corporatised" its foreign policy for the benefit of a few cronies, does not smell is the fecal stench of racism emanating from the Israel-Palestine issue. When "white" Ukranian civilians are killed by Russia the West is outraged, but when "brown" Palestinians are massacred by Jews it sees this as just retribution. Even an Uncle Tom like Rishi Sunak is blind to this. Historically, the Muslims have never persecuted the Jews- it has always been white Christians who have persecuted, disenfranchised and murdered Jews, culminating, of course, in Hitler's final solution. There were hardly any Jews in Palestine in 1947, the vast majority were in Europe and should have been given their sovereign state there. But the Christians didn't want them as neighbours, apparently, and packed them off to an enclave in the Middle East under the Balfour declaration, one that belonged to the Arabs. So who is the racist and aggressor here? Self proclaimed Zionists like Biden and Uncle Toms like Sunak should think about this. So should the Hindu Samrats. History has a way of coming back to haunt one. It may not repeat itself, as someone said, but it rhymes.

   In these sorry times we could do worse than recollect the words of the poet, Mahmoud Darwish:

" The wars will end and the leaders will shake hands, and that old woman will remain waiting for her martyred son, and that girl will wait for her beloved husband, and the children will wait for their heroic father, I do not know who sold the homeland but I know who paid the price."

MONKEYING AROUND WITH THE CENSUS, CONSENSUS AND CON-SENSUS.

 The current flavour of the season is Census, not to be confused with Consensus, which is a con job on a census, as witnessed recently in the DD (Delhi Declaration) of the G-20. A census is basically a count, and the DD was a count of those nations who resolved to do nothing on any issue of global importance, as I have explained at some length in an earlier blog. Which is why the DD was a Con-census, regardless of what our  Vocal for Local favourite Sherpa may call it. And even as I write this a similar Con-sensus appears to be emerging about the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Global North. And India, as the self-appointed leader of the Global South, in the best traditions of Indian politics, has decided to defect to the North, as 20 million of its citizens have already done. But I digress.

The central govt. gave a miss to the decadal census which was due in 2021, possibly because it was too busy counting the banknotes which returned to the banks after demonetisation, or perhaps the banknotes which did NOT so return after the NPA birds had flown the coop. Whatever the reason, we will now never know whether there was a dip in the population post demonetisation (because every joker and his wife were standing in ATM queues instead of being tucked up in bed), or a bump in the population post the lockdown (because every joker and the neighbour's wife were in bed instead of toiling in the office). We will get to know only when Ms Kangana Ranaut gives us her views, which may take some time as she is currently preoccupied with dissecting the war in the middle-east.

But, just as nature abhors a vacuum, a census abhors a zero; as Confucius told the guy who invented Zero- thanks for nothing! And so our Opposition parties have decided that they will now conduct a caste census in their states, a kind of mini decadal census, to find out the number of BCs (Backward castes), OBCs (Other Backward castes), and EBCs (Extremely Backward castes). The SOBs will be counted after the elections. Bihar has already done it and released the results, Karnataka too has finished it but is sitting on the results which it will announce at "an appropriate time", Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh have also said they shall do it soon. This has been dubbed as Mandal-2, a sequel to the original blockbuster Mandal-1.

The entire exercise is like a salami-slicing of society till the original sausage is unrecognizable. The BJP is not elated about this, not because it prefers sausages whole, but because it holds the exclusive IPR and monopoly on dividing society. It does this through religion, but has been outflanked by the Opposition's use of caste to do something similar. We have now gone through the entire gamut of division and ghettoisation , having used everything possible to fragment the country- religion, regionalism, language, festivals, clothes, food, occupations. All that remains now is to do a sub-census of the Upper castes ( Brahmins, Rajputs, Jats, Marathas) who comprise about 20-25% of the population nationally, and tribals, and India will then resemble a piece of Emmentaler cheese, more holes than cheese. The only organism which thrives in this type of cheese is bacteria, which is an apt description for our politicians, you will agree.

But, unfortunately, my own state- Himachal- has been left out of this caste carnival. The state does not have a caste issue, primarily because it has only two dominant castes- government employees and apple orchardists- and between them they control the economy and the politics. Everyone is happy except Preity Zinta (who has left for the USA) and Kangana Ranaut (who is happiest when she is unhappy with something, which is most things). So, not to be left out, the Himachal govt. has now decided to conduct a census of monkeys in the state, as announced this week by its Forest department. Only "bona-fide" monkeys (those who were settled here before 1974) would be counted, not the "domiciled" ones (those residing in the state for 15 years) because the latter would already have been counted in places like Karol Bagh, Kotkapura, Surat and Asansol. The author of this piece officially belongs to the domiciled category, by the way, even though I have been swinging on trees in Himachal for the last 50 years and look alarmingly like an aged Rhesus monkey. But rules are rules and "show me the face and I'll show you the rule" doesn't work on this one, unfortunately.

Why a census of monkeys ?, you may well ask, and since I am not an RTI Commissioner I shall give you the answer. The govt. feels that the monkeys harass tourists, particularly in Shimla, and have converted the Jakhoo hill into a banana republic, literally. They also destroy crops and indulge in gorilla warfare with the villagers. The Forest department has been sterilising monkeys since 2004, with greater success than Sanjay Gandhi's efforts with their cousins: their population has reportedly declined  from 3.17 lakhs in 2004 to 1.36 lakhs in 2019.

But I have my reservations. For one, the monkeys are better behaved than the tourists and I feel it's the latter who should be sterilised instead. Two, apes best exemplify the Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest, and catching the remaining 1.36 lakh will be tougher than catching a cold in Hell or catching Amit Malviya telling the truth. By the time I retired from the Forest department the simians could recognize every official in the department, from the Forest Guards to the DFOs, as well as their vehicle numbers, and disappeared the moment they spotted the long arm of the law, somewhat like our Women Development Minister vanishing whenever an atrocity is committed on a woman. Thirdly, according to the (gr)ape-vine, the monkeys are enthused by the frequent rallying cry of "Jai Bajrangbali" and the Hanuman of the TV series Ramayana being allotted a ticket for the elections in MP, and have decided to contest the next elections. Their reasoning is that they should enter the fray directly instead of being used as proxies and intermediaries, something I believe Mr. Adani is also seriously considering. That has the sitting MLAs worried: they can no langur take their seats for granted, hence the need for the final solution of sterilisation.

However, I'm an optimist. The original and rightful denizens of Jakhoo have survived the Gorkhas, the British, the BJP, the Congress, Uncle Chipps and the guy from Kotkapura. They will live to cock a snook at the last of the inappropriately named homo sapiens when the inevitable apocalypse happens- census, consensus or con-sensus notwithstanding.

DHAN KI BAAT

 I should have listened to Mintu, ten years my senior, way back in 1973. If I had, I wouldn't be living in a village near Mashobra, waiting with bated breath for my pension every month, hoping the Treasury Officer doesn't question my Life Certificate which states: "Brain dead but still breathing and smoking Wills Flakes." I'd be rubbing shoulders in Kensington Gardens or a Bangkok penthouse with the Nirav Modis and the Vijay Mallyas of the world, handing out lavish tips to ravaging beauties, all debited to the Bank of Punjab or Baroda, as the (suit)case may be. I'd better explain.

In the Delhi university of 1973 you couldn't take a girl for a "band omlette" to Khyber Pass unless you had a Jawa mobike between your knees, its exhaust sawed off in some reverse phallic ritual. Lumbering through my final year MA (no, Mr. Narendra Modi was not my class mate) I petitioned my nearest living ancestor for a loan for a bike. Now, my Dad sold oil (Burmah Shell) for a living and was harder to pin down than an oil slick. Like Mamta Bannerji I kept hoping for the funds but they never came. Fed up of waiting and seeing a life of enforced celibacy awaiting me, I decided to take matters into my own hands and sat for the SBI Probationary Officers' Exam. To everyone's great surprise I made it, but then developed second thoughts: I'd always wanted to sit for the IAS. Enter Mintu, to whom I went for advice. Now, Mintu was the hot shot in the extended Shukla tribe, a go-getter in a multinational company. " Take it!" he ordained. " Why ?" I sought to know.

" A bank job," said he of the unlimited expense account, " is worth dying for. The fortunate guys can play around with their own money, but only the blessed play with other people's money. That's what you'll be doing for the next 35 years, you know(give or take a few years of suspension and jail time). You can borrow as much money as you want. Remember, a borrower never dies- he just loses interest."

I didn't heed Mintu's Delphic advice and now have the next 15 years in village Puranikoti to regret it. I have an aversion to taking loans, believing implicitly in the old adage: Neither a loaner nor a loanee be. A mistake which I ascribe to a double promotion between Nursery and KG II, which made me miss the other adage which Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya and Lalit Modi, et al. learned by heart in KG I: " A buck in the hand is worth two in the Bank." I guess I better explain this paranoia also.                                                                           I have had this great suspicion of loans ever since my Dad visited me when I was posted as SDM Chamba in 1976. Now, my Dad used to make a smooth transition from oil to alcohol every evening, scotch on the rocks. I had no rocks since , with a salary of seven hundred rupees a month, I could barely afford to keep my wife in clothes (not a bad thing when you're just married, but you get the drift), and therefore had no fridge. My Dad immediately directed me to buy one, saying he would put up the money for it. It was an (All)wyn-win situation. He went back to Kanpur after a few stiff ones on the rocks, had some second thoughts of his own, and informed me that the Rs. 4000 he had advanced to me was not a grant, but a loan. It was my Ashok Gehlot moment. I borrowed money from the District Nazir to repay my Dad and decided never to take a loan again.

But life has a way to make you eat your words. Suddenly, retirement loomed over the horizon and I realised that soon I would no longer have a leaking "sarkari" roof over my head. At about the same time my younger son Saurabh discovered Madhusudan Das ("Indian universities are the slaughter houses of intelligence") and decided to study in London. So I polished up my begging bowl and went with it to my bank manager for two loans: house and education. I got the loans but not before the bank had squeezed out every drop of information about me: a data extortion even Facebook would be envious of- salary slip, GPF statement, land revenue papers, default guarantee from employer, architect's plan. If I recollect it also took from me my horoscope ( to ascertain that I would live long enough to repay the loans), blood reports(to check whether I had AIDS), my ACR dossier (was I likely to be dismissed from service before repayment of the loan ?), an IQ test report for Saurabh to satisfy itself that he was intelligent enough for further studies (that was a close one), and perhaps even a report on my sperm count (to be sure that the bank would get a bang out of its buck- it didn't, nothing lowers the testosterone more effectively than two EMIs a month ).                                                                                                                                                                                                  After that experience I have never applied for a loan, not even a credit card or a post-paid mobile account, because I can't bear the thought of OWING money to anyone. A big mistake, because the only way you can get uber rich in India is by borrowing big time, and not returning the moolah. In this blessed country if you owe a bank ten thousand rupees it's your problem, but if you owe it ten thousand crores then it's the bank's problem! Just look at the couple of dozen bankruptcy cases before the NCLTA: while all the banks and depositors are taking what is called "haircuts" (but are more like fiduciary castrations) in the thousands of crores of rupees, the defaulters continue to live the life of the Sultan of Brunei. So, if you want to live the big life, go and borrow money- in crores. As the Duchess advised the ageing Duke: " If you can't raise it, you ain't getting no piece !" Which, by the way, appears to be a slight adaptation of that Confucious gem: Man who quarrel with wife get no piece at night.                                                                                             Which is also why I live in a village, doing Yoga when the sun rises and meditating when it sets. In between I think of Nirav Modi standing on tip toe peering down designer cleavages, of Vijay Mallya and his life membership of the Mile-High Club, of Lalit Modi who still appears to have the government by the  (cricket) balls, of the captains of Indian industry at Davos in their  bespoke suits which have no pockets- they don't  need pockets, because their hands are always in someone else's pockets, you see. Maybe I should have listened to Mintu. 

REFLECTIONS ON THE GENIUS OF THE "PAKODA" ECONOMY

 Some of us may recall that revolutionary doctrine enunciated by one of India's leading economists, Mr. Amit Shah, a couple of years ago, viz. that selling "pakodas" on the road constitutes gainful employment. Or that other one on this subject by our second most eminent economist, Mr. Piush Goyal, that unemployment rates in India are high because more and more people are opting for self employment. These twin blasts shook our neo-liberal foundations like the earthquake in Delhi earlier this week, and caused quite a stir among the subordinate economists from Harvard, Yale, DSE, the IMF and the World Bank; those in the Observer Research Foundation, of course, merely applauded politely- they had never doubted the brilliance of these two gentlemen, not even when the former had announced that India would become a five trillion ton economy by 2024, or when the latter had mistaken Einstein for Newton (or was it the other way round? Not that it matters, relatively speaking).

But you know what, folks? Our two leading economists were right! No, I haven't joined the RSS, I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel now that the light in the tunnel itself has been switched off. What makes this country survive is not the Finance Ministry, or the Nutty Aayog, or the Chief Economic Advisor, or the corporate fat cats of the Davos variety. No sir, these worthies only create more billionaires and multi-millionaires; what sustains our teeming millions of common folk is- they said it- self employment, the "pakoda" economy, the "juggad" at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Though I prefer to call it "proletarian entrepreneurship" on an industrial scale, something they don't teach you at the IIMs and Ivy League snob-shops, perhaps because they are not even aware of it. But it feeds millions of households, enables Mrs Sitharaman to crow like a cock about our growth rate, and keeps the country growing- without a paisa being contributed by the government, or even one of the 40 million government employees having to move an inch. This is the real "atmanirbharta", not what you hear in Man ki Baat. It's genius is all around us in our daily lives, but we rarely stop to think of it or to acknowledge it.

This home-grown genius consists of spotting the tiniest of demand niches in our economy or society, and then scrambling to fill it- provide that product or service required- without handing out expensive consultancies to Mckinsey or TCS or retired IAS officers. For example, on my many treks to remote areas, I have always marveled at the intrepid individuals who set up shop in the most inhospitable, climatically severe and sometimes dangerous locations. I am not talking here of areas like Khir Ganga or Kasol or Marhi (on the way to Rohtang pass), which have become mini-townships serving car borne tourists and require no entrepreneurship, just a few contacts in the Forest and TCP departments. 

The real entrepreneurship is to be found in near inaccessible areas. Like the young man from Baijnath I met in Chandratal lake (14000 feet, 20 kms from the roadhead): he had pitched a huge parachute as a tent on the shores of the lake, and for Rs. 100 per head provided accommodation, bedding and a hearty dinner (the rum was BYO, though mine host could arrange even that for an extra premium!). During the season his Hilton Heights catered to about 5-6 trekkers every day. Or Sharmaji's dhaba in a dense forest on the track to Khir Ganga in the Parbati valley, miles from anywhere: he told us that his biggest problem was dealing with black bears who were attracted by the smells of his chhole chawal and Maggi. Or the bravest of them all- a couple who had pitched a tent at Merh, just below the Thamsar pass at 16000 feet on the climb down to Bara Bhangal village; a more bleak, freezing and windswept location would be difficult to imagine. It served as an inn for exhausted trekkers (and locals) and no one minded sharing the tent with a few sheep or mules- in fact, they provided much needed warmth.

Only a marketing genius, with courage to match, would have chosen to ply a business in these remote regions, hundreds of kms from their homes. They are the stuff of Bata and Levis. They chose their spots with a perfect eye for the customer's needs, provided a badly needed product and service, acted as a clearing house for local news and weather, and have probably saved a few lives in the bargain too. They would pack up with the advent of winter, go back to their families in Baijnath, Kangra or Chamba, and return the next year in spring to resume. No bank loans, no PLI incentives, no subsidies, no complaints. Genuine entrepreneurship at its purest, outside what learned persons call the "formal" economy.

I see the same initiative, enterprising spirit, and appetite for risk in the urban habitat where I now live, in a massive, multi-storeyed housing society. Services which even an Elon Musk could not have predicted a dozen years ago have now become mainstream, something the privileged residents of these RWAs cannot do without now. Take pets, particularly dogs.

Pets are now a status symbol, a plaything for kids, a substitute for missing grandkids, and the pet care industry in India is valued at Rs. 4800 crore, growing at 16.50 % per annum. But that is only the formal part; the informal service sector I discovered only when I moved to the society. I'll give just two examples. There is a huge demand for "dog walkers" since the dog owners are either too busy, or too old, or too drunk or too high brow to take their doggies out on a leash. The job provides a good living: Rs. 4000/ a month for two walks a day, about 30 minutes each. A dog walker can easily do five pets a day- that's 20000/ a month the CBDT does not know about, more than what your average Management graduate or lawyer earns. Then there is the dog "groomer": for about Rs.1200/ to Rs. 1500/ the groomer will shampoo your pet, brush and trim his coat, cut his nails and brush his teeth for good measure. At the end of it the doggie looks better than the missus does after spending Rs. 4000/ at  Tony And Guy's or some other such gender neutral salon.  Not exactly a dog's life, you will agree!

I have another enterprising young chap in my society- he specialises in fixing anti-pigeon nets on balconies, a business niche like no other. Since statues are now all more than 100 meters high, and trees a rarity, pigeons have taken to roosting on balconies and depositing their "shagan" in them in respectable quantities. Enter Ajit Chauhan, who, at Rs. 15/ per square foot will give you a lifetime (the pigeon's life, not your's) warranty against the nuisance. The final charges for a 4 bedroom and 3 bedroom flat work out to about Rs. 12000/ and Rs. 10000/ respectively. And he does all the fixing himself, with just one kid as helper. He makes more money than an Apex scale IAS pensioner, and doesn't even have to submit a Life Certificate every July! 

My little village of Puranikoti, a safe 15 kms form the sanitary landfill known as Shimla, also has its jugadu entrepreuners. A Sikh gentleman comes on his motorcycle once a fortnight (he covers the entire panchayat) offering to sell/ repair/ service gas burners, regulators, pipes etc. It's a vital service for us at our doorstep, literally, since the nearest gas agency is 20 kms away and has never heard of the "Right to Repair" concept or law. A young lad from Haryana gets his womenfolk to make huge quantities of pickles back home, puts it all in his pick-up and motors up to Mashobra regularly to hawk his wares to us country bumpkins. I always buy my pickles from him, they cost Rs. 100/ per kilo ( yes, you heard that right- a KILO) as against about Rs 700-800 for the branded varieties, and are fresher and much more delicious.

It is these unknown and unsung (at TIMES NOW or INDIA TODAY type conclaves) innovators who are the real Atlases holding up the Indian economy and creating informal livelihoods for its teeming, excluded, millions. Unlike the Adanis, Ambanis and Mahendras, they don't demand or expect concessions from the government, they don't create NPAs, they don't fly to Davos in CO2 spewing jets, and they don't issue IPOs to milk the public. They do it all on their own. They represent our true genius. I'm waiting for some political party to make the "pakoda" its party symbol.