TIME TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS LONGEVITY FAD

 It's not working. These days everybody and his grandfather wants to live to be a hundred, even if it's in a hospital ICU. And if we continue to make babies at the current rate and impose an 18% GST on condoms (28% for flavoured condoms as they come under the category of fruits), by 2050 we would have eaten every animal, bird, fish, reptile and insect on the planet, except perhaps cockroaches which are hard to digest (as Mr. Modi is finding out).  And by 2100 we would have started eating each other, which is actually not such a bad thing. For the plain fact is that this planet simply cannot support its current population of eight billion, expected to swell to twelve billion by 2100. A recent study published in Environmental Research Letters reveals that the planet's natural resources can sustain only 2.5 billion sapiens, homos included.

Take India- currently 1.4 billion, expected to grow to 1.7 billion by 2070, most of this growth coming from bhakts. Our government, of course, assures us that our fertility rate has dropped to 2.1, less than the replacement rate, and that soon the acchhe din will be here. I don't believe a word of it, for all figures released by this regime are fudged. And we keep finding innovative ways of reducing our population, on paper at least. For example, the recent SIR has cut the population by 70 million- people who don't exist because they are deleted from the voter rolls. The government refuses to acknowledge their existence. That should reduce our fertility rate to 1.8 or so, and by the time Mr. Gyanesh Kumar completes his unholy exercise it should be down to 1.5 ! So you see why the only figure I approve of is that of Sunny Leone: it's a sight for sore eyes, has been consistent for many years, and what you see is, as they say, what you (don't ) get.

So how do we avoid becoming homo cannabalis ? Economists like Messers Ruchir Sharma and Sanyal tell us that every problem has a supply side and a demand side to it. In this case we can do little on the supply side because the babies will keep coming, as long as India remains the third largest consumer of porn in the world. So the solution to this over- population has to be found on the Demand side, and I've just found one: put a cap on longevity. No one should be allowed to live beyond 75 years, this is not the era of Methuselahs. Pass a law that everyone shall be euthanised once he/she/it reaches the age of 75, it is not enough to put them in the Margdarshak Mandal.

Consider the benefits of this drastic final solution, not just for the planet but for ourselves personally. Death will become an appointment, not an accident, and the uncertainty shall be removed for ever. We all secretly wish to die in bed of an embolism or heart attack, blissfully unaware that we are dead till we find ourselves at the pearly gates, confronted by St. Peter asking us for our Aaadhar card or Voter IDs. But we also know that that is a remote possibility, and that we are more likely to quit this mortal coil because an eagle drops a tortoise on our heads (like Aeschylus, the Greek playwright), or on a toilet seat (like Elvis Presley), or in one of Mr. Gadkari's tolled pot- holes. I personally find this uncertainty very unsettling, I would like to know how and when I'm supposed to go so that I can prepare for it. My solution ticks these boxes nicely.

It gets better: your kids won't throw you out of the house because now they know they will not have to wait indefinitely ( like Prince Charles for his kingship), it will be theirs in any case in a few years. Governance will improve because now politicians, judges, bureaucrats won't be seeking re-election or re-employment- knowing that they have only a few years left, they would now much rather do those things they always wanted to but had kept postponing- that trip to Las Vegas or Sonagachi, a dinner at a Michelin star restaurant, organise a Satyanarayan pooja for Mr. Modi's good health, visit the Ram Mandir before it is given on perpetual lease to Mr. Adani, take the shocked wife on a second honeymoon because you missed the first one as you had to go on election duty, or make desperate love to that woman you always desired but had been waiting for an opportune moment which never came.

Since you will no longer be a drooling, doddering, incontinent octogenarian (you'll be terminated at 75 remember?) you don't have to worry about cancer, intestinal blockage, thrombosis, dementia or prostate enlargement, etc. You can die with dignity, dressed in a three piece suit, not in faded pyjamas or in a towel. You'll save a fortune in medical bills. Your kids and heirs will also save a fortune, this time on lawyers' bills, because, being forewarned about your exit date, you can set your finances, wills, nominations etc in order and obviate any scrapping among your heirs later. They will love you for it, and will dote on you right up till the moment the crematorium door slams down on you with the finality of a Supreme Court order.

The government would be ecstatic: its pension bills would decline dramatically, it will no longer have to wrack its brains to find suitable berths for redundant party workers or retired judges, it will save trillions because, with a declining population, there will now be no need to provide for measures against global warming, climate change, ever increasing old age pensions and Ayushman Bharat bills. The world as a whole will save sextillions of dollars more once Trump is euthanised under the new law because there will be no more wars and the Strait of Hormuz will be open again. Sadly, however, Putin and Netanyahu will still be around for a few more years.

This leaves only one more box to tick: how exactly will these millions of old codgers be dispatched? Well, Elon Musk has provided the answer- the neuralink brain implant. Designed to be implanted in the brain to control one's cognitive and sensory functions via a computer, all it will now need is to be equipped with a "kill switch". This will be automatically triggered once a person reaches 75, stopping all bodily and brain functions in a nano second.

There is also a Plan B, in case the kill switch fails, as it is likely to do in the case of bhakts who in any case do not have any brain function. These Neanderthals shall be locked up in an auditorium and shall have to watch, without any break, 100 episodes of Man Ki Baat and Ministry of External Affairs press conferences. Extensive trials have shown that no one can survive more than 25-30 such episodes, though the process is not entirely painless.

The new law should , however, have one caveat- it will have prospective effect only, and not apply retrospectively. This, of course, has nothing to do with the fact that both Mr. Modi and I turned 75 last year.

THE RULES OF THE GAME HAVE CHANGED - WILL THE GAME CHANGE TOO ?

 Any game, or contract, is based on and pre-supposes mutually accepted rules which govern, and bind, the participants. Democracy is one such contract, the ultimate social contract, in which the citizens (the ruled) give up their individual powers to the elected government (the ruler) in return for the protection of their rights, freedoms and the pursuit of happiness in their own individual ways. In India so far, for the last 75 years, this contract has held together though it has come under strain at many times. The credit for this goes to enlightened leadership and constitutional institutions that have usually worked, notwithstanding some blips and glitches.

But over the last decade or so the authoritarian, unilateral, anti-federal, non-accountable governance style of the NDA government has put this contract under immense strain, and on the 20th of July it has come to near breaking point. The impetus behind it is the Modi government's panaroia about any kind of protest or opposition to its policies and diktats- it views them as challenges, and not as opportunities to introspect and/or self-correct. This happened with the Assam NRC, CAA, Covid, Manipur, Article 370 and Kashmir, SIR, the Ken_Betwa protests. But on the 20th of July, this paranoia reached new heights (or lows) when the full might of the state was unleashed on young students, and blood was spilt on the streets of Delhi, all over a protest against India's rancid and corrupt examinations system.

By this unjustifed violence the government has broken the contract with its citizens. Sovereign violence is to be used against enemies of the state, and not against its own children. A government which cannot differentiate between the two has finally exposed its fascist, illiberal, intolerant and dictatorial nature, and the Jantar Mantar protests have shown it in all its ugly nakedness. Despite the prostitution of the darbari media and TV channels, the internet and Youtube have brought this to the doors of every Indian, and support for the students is only growing.

The unkindest cut of all (to the spirit of democracy)has been inflicted by none other than the Chief Justice of India himself, Justice Suryakant. Perhaps this should have been expected, for it was his earlier intemperate remark about cockroaches that has led to this spiral of events in the first place. Responding to a PIL by a lawyer asking for an inquiry into the police excesses of 20th July, the CJI peremptorily dismissed it with the observation that he did not have the time to watch videos (of the police violence on protesters). This was a remark  callous and unbecoming of a person appointed to protect the constitutional rights of citizens. He was not being petitioned to watch a Kangana Ranaut movie, but to view the documented evidence of unlawful violence on unarmed teenagers, to seek answers from the government on questions that screamed out for answers: Who were the "brownshirts", masked and in civvies, who were allowed to beat up students with lathis and total impunity with the police watching? How did a truck laden with stones find its way to the high security Jantar Mantar area and who brought it? Why were peacefully marching students beaten up brutally without any provocation? Why did the policemen take off their name badges? What is the identity of the jawan who is seen ramming his baton between a young girl's legs even as she is walking away? What is the name of the DCP who walks up to one young girl and slaps her in the face for no reason at all? Where is the footage of protesters throwing stones and beating up policemen, as alleged by the government? Were illegal lethal weapons such as pellet guns, taser (electrically charged) batons and nail studded lathis used against the students? Who are the goons, in plainclothes, seen throwing stones and wrecking cars? Was there a deliberate attempt to discredit the protesters and provoke violence?

The refusal of the CJI to entertain this petition and seek answers to the questions above has thrown an obfuscatory veil over the events of 20th July not dissimilar to the white sheet used to cover the abduction of Sonam Wangchuk from Jantar Mantar by the same police. In contrast, however, credit must be given to the justices of the Delhi High Court who, on 22nd July, have admitted a similar petition and have issued notice to the government and the Delhi police (though it demanded an urgent hearing and not a four week notice).

This is a moment of inflection for the entire non-NDA opposition. They have to live up to it, which at the moment they do not appear to be doing. They cannot plough their own individual furrows, headed for nowhere, but must come together to offer counsel and guidance to these gallant students who are full of passion and sincerity but lack the experience of conducting long-drawn out protests. At the moment there is no sign of such a concerted action on the part of these parties, each of whom is trying to take credit and control of this movement. The Congress wants the agitation to come under its umbrella, the AAP feels this right is theirs as the legal heirs of the Anna movement, the SP and UBT Shiv Sena seem to have some reservations, the TMC is supportive but distant, the DMK will not sup with the Congress, even Sonam Wangchuk has called off his fast today, a not unexpected development since he had  started blowing hot and cold of late (in my view he has probably struck a deal with the government about his personal future in Ladakh. In any case, he has now become irrelevant to the movement).

The entire Opposition should realise (as these youngsters have) that the rules of the game have changed. The government will not abide by its part of the contract: it will not conduct fair elections, it has suborned all agencies of governance, it has defenestrated all constitutional institutions, it has rendered the entire judiciary submissive, it has bought over the media, it has made the use of sovereign violence its greatest persuader, it refuses to be held accountable. With these rules the Opposition has become superfluous, it can never win an election or preserve even a semblance of democracy in the country. It can no longer wage a struggle in Parliament, or the Election Commission or the Supreme Court- these institutions have been hollowed out and can no longer serve the purpose for which they were created. It can no longer fight a fair electoral contest- the game now has to change to one of resistance in the public arena- in Jantar Mantar, Parade Grounds, Azad Maidan, Freedom Park, Ramlila Maidan, Swami Sivavananda Salai, Dharna Chowk, Gandhi Maidan. The students are already there, and doing a fine job; it is the responsibility of the main opposition parties to join them there. Credit can be apportioned or shared when the monster has been vanquished.

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood leads on to fortune..." Rahul Gandhi has no doubt read this quote from Shakespeare, he now needs to embrace it. The students at Jantar Mantar have created this tide, it is now for him to rally the other Opposition parties, national and regional, to seize the moment. The game has changed, and playing by the BJP's new rules will get them nowhere. The Empire has already begin to strike back, using its bottomless bag of tricks: another 20 companies of CRPF have reportedly been flown in to Delhi, the Police Commissioner has been given powers under NSA to detain people for 12 months without trial, it has been stated that passports of detained protesters will be cancelled, a petition has been filed in the Delhi High Court seeking an NIA investigation into the funding of the CJP (Cockroach Janata Party) protests. More can be expected: curbs on YouTube channels on their reporting, profiling of protesters and visits to their parents, debarring them from admissions or sitting for examinations. It is not possible to resist the resources of a modern state for very long. Very soon the tide will begin to turn, and then the opportunity will have been lost - for ever.

THE LONG, BUMPY ROAD TO SWADESHI JURISPRUDENCE

It was  indeed a wise man who said that judges should shun the spotlight and let their judgments do the talking. But that was before the era of the sound byte, Youtube and 24x7 breaking news. And, of course, reemployment after retirement or the need to demonstrate loyalty. In India's legal firmament today judgments do not make news, mainly ( I suspect) because they have become one sided and therefore predictable. It is the obiter dicta which makes news nowadays, delivered from the lofty perch of finality, if not infallibility.

Chief Justice of India the Hon' Suryakant is currently not only the master of the roster, he is also the master of the obiter dicta. How can we forget, if not treasure, his denunciation of the three distinguished academicians who wrote that chapter on the judiciary for an NCERT textbook,  banning them from any government engagement? The later cockroach comment is now part of legal folklore. And just last month, in an address at Oxford University, he remarked that India should develop its own "swadeshi jurisprudence", something even our freedom fighters had not thought of.

I am not sure what the Hon'ble judge meant by this call to a legal atmnirbharta, or whether this self-inflicted ghetto-isation is the right course to follow. For, in civilised democracies at least, jurisprudence and laws are aligned to global principles, concepts, conventions, declarations, rights and charters, and till recently we more or less conformed to these universal principles. Over the last decade or so, however, we have started ploughing our own legal furrow, and the remark of the CJI has only served to draw attention to this unhealthy development.

For, it must be lamented, swadeshi jurisprudence has (unfortunately) already arrived in India, which is why, according to the WJP (World Justice Project) Rule of Law ranking for 2025, we are at 86 out of 143 countries, firmly in the bottom half ; we have been consistently slipping down  this index - in 2014 we were at 66. Frankly, I am not surprised, because the evidence is strewn all over the road to a swadeshi jurisprudence, like road kill. It is the price we have paid for the gradual loss of independence, integrity and quality of the judiciary, and its eagerness to accommodate the executive.

Jurisprudence in India today appears to be governed by four made-in-India/ swadeshi doctrines which should be a blot on any justice system: the doctrines of the fait accompli, sealed cover, ignore the science, reward the criminal.                                      Important, even constitutional, challenges to the executive's actions are kept on the back- burner for so long (Article 370, CAA, SIR, Shiv Sena split) that by the time they are decided it is impossible to turn back the clock and undo what the govt. of the day has already implemented on the ground. The sealed cover has become the standard fall-back option for denying full disclosure to civil society petitioners, or for not giving rebuttable reasons for a particular judgment (Rafale, Pegasus, Vantara, Hindenberg). Increasingly, this spectre of our swadeshi jurisprudence, like the executive, shows disdain and contempt for science, as in the case of stray dogs, Aravalli mountains, the Char Dham highway, the Great Nicobar project: more trust is reposed on govt. appointed committees and patently partisan Ministries than on scientists, domain experts and specialised organisations working in the relevant field. Finally, this hybrid form of justice ensures also that the criminal will be duly allowed to keep the proceeds of his crime ( Ram Mandir, Electoral bonds) even as his actions themselves are declared irregular! A judicial paraprosdokian if ever there was one.

Perhaps the biggest stain on our swadeshi system of justice is the default denial of bail to 3 out of 4 accused who are otherwise entitled to bail under law: 74% ( 3.9 million) of the prison population are undertrials, and the position keeps getting worse as more and more draconian laws are being promulgated every day. Eminent scholars, academicians, students, social activists, journalists are denied bail for as long as five years, even though they are not convicted, and in many cases their trials have not even commenced. A university professor with 90% disability is deemed to be a national security threat, kept in jail for years without a trial, finally acquitted and released by a High Court, but pushed back in within 24 hours at an urgent hearing on a Saturday by the apex court! And here is the supreme irony- while those who are not convicted are kept in jail, the convicted are released on parole whenever they want a breath of fresh air!                                            Millions of voters are denied their voting rights by a capricious CEC and his untested algorithms, their appeals are kept pending, but the swadeshi response to their entreaties is a callous- Never mind, you can vote in the next elections! An exercise, based on mysterious algorithms , which has disenfranchised millions of citizens, has been given the highest court's imprimatur of approval. Thanks to this endorsement the citizenship, welfare benefits and very social identity of tens of millions more are now being denied. Judicial orders are flouted by the executive on a routine and continuing basis- on Aadhaar, demolitions, bulldozers, hate speech, voter rolls, citizenship, to mention just a few areas- but there is no pushback or punitive action by the courts. 

The swadeshi jurisprudence model has ensured that our judicial system is broken and on the point of total collapse. There is a backlog of 54 million cases which will take 323 years to clear; of these 180000 cases are pending for more than 30 years. India has only 15 judges per million population against a developed country average of 150-200 (China's figure is 300). It gets worse- the judiciary has carved out so many privileges for itself, it is accountable to no one: a Collegium system ensures that only judges can appoint judges, and that too in the opaquest of manners; judicial corruption cannot be investigated unless the judiciary itself permits it (!); even though all govt appointees are required to declare their assets, it is reported that only 12% of judges have done so; it has been reported that, historically, appointments to the Supreme Court are limited to just 250 families in the entire country. This is a swadeshi blueprint for judicial anarchy and ochlocracy, not jurisprudence

No, sir, the last thing we need is a swadeshi version of what a justice system should be. The swadeshi model ensures that democracy (and justice) has become a privilege available only to those with influence. Your constitutional rights depend on who you are. Leave swadeshi to the politicians, the jurisprudence of rights, justice and equity needs a more solid and time-tested foundation. We need to adopt best global practices and principles and dig ourselves out of this swadeshi hole. And yes-let judgments do the talking, not obiter dicta.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE PRIME TIME NEWS ?

 I am a happy man these days, or at least as happy as anyone can be in this Ram rajya where even 1600 CTVs and 400 security guards could not prevent His abode from being looted by His own bhakts. To be clear, however: I am not happy because Mr. Pradhan has resigned as Education Minister (he has not), or because Mr. Modi has returned his AI generated award from Seychelles (he will not), or because Kangana Ranaut has taken a vow of silence for one year (she cannot)- all these are worthy objectives but the persona involved are genetically incapable of attaining them. So why am I in this happy frame of mind? I am happy, dear reader, because I can now again watch television at prime time, something I had given up doing because news is no longer worth a straw (more on that later). But now that we have a veritable banquet of sports laid out before us- Women's T20 World Cup, India's T20 tour of England, the FIFA world Cup, Wimbledon- my prime time is fully catered for, God's in his heaven, and Arnab Goswami, Navika Kumar and Padmaja Joshi et al  can go take a dump in the Ghazipur landfill or the Miti river, for all I care.

There was a time, about a decade ago, when news channels like NDTV, TIMES NOW and INDIA TODAY did a fairly good job of purveying domestic news, and one looked forward to the nightly prime time news. Now, however, these  channels have become pathetic caricatures of journalism, what they share with us is their paid "views", not news; their views are dictated by their corporate owners and the PMO, not the public's interest; their undisguised agenda is to praise the government and the ruling party and to run down the Opposition generally, and Rahul Gandhi in particular. The fawning and sycophancy on display every evening would, in fact, be sickening if it were also not so toxic and divisive, inciting bigotry and hatred in equal measure.

If one wishes to master the art of lazy journalism one should study the methods of our English news channels. They make no attempt to deploy reporters in the states to gather news at first hand-that costs money; it is cheaper to subscribe to feeder news agencies, most of whom are also hand maidens of the ruling dispensation. But even their inputs are rarely followed up or reported on- that will require editorial effort and journalistic ability which our star anchors and news editors lack. The easiest and least expensive option, therefore, is to dump the news and jump straightaway into a "Debate" or a "Panel Discussion" in the comfort of an air-conditioned studio in NOIDA.

The subjects for these discussions are carefully curated to ensure that no embarrassment is caused to the powers that be (which are also the powers that see, you see.) So Cockroach party is ignored, as are Rahul Gandhi's visit to, or warnings about, the Great Nicobar project, as are also events held by prominent civil society organisations to protest against govt. policies or practices, or anything that does not show the govt. or its supporting entities in good light. Equally abominable is the fact that, once these over-paid anchors get their fangs into a subject, they stick to them like leeches, refusing to let go until the last morsel of propaganda is extracted from them: the whole of April went into rubbing the TMC loss in Bengal into Mamata Banerjee's face and gloating over the defections from the TMC to the BJP, May was devoted to Hormuz and refighting Operation Sindoor, June was consumed by framing a narrative about the hypocrisy of the Opposition in condemning the Ram Mandir loot even though they never supported the construction of the temple(!), July is dedicated to Mr. Modi receiving more meaningless awards in Indonesia.                                                                                                                             It's as if no other news occurred which was worth mentioning during this period. There has hardly even been a mention of the three most consequential judgments in the last fortnight by the Supreme Court, a High Court and a district court: the right to walk and access footpaths as a fundamental right, that criticism of the government is not a crime, and a rare life conviction of fourteen "gau rakshaks" for  lynching a truck driver in 2022. Each of these judgments has the potential to empower the ordinary citizen and reverse the rot in the system, but for "news" channels they do not merit a mention, let alone an informed discussion.

The "debates" themselves are modelled on the pattern of a jury trial in Russia - the topic is carefully selected to suit the propaganda narrative of the day, the verdict is already decided and conveyed over a secure phone line to these studio mannequins, the panelists consist of assorted spokespersons of political parties, BJP supporters masquerading as "political analysts", some journalists to impart a facade of neutrality, and (in the case of Republic TV) a few sacrificial goats from Pakistan who can be impaled on Arnab Goswami's lance, perhaps for a few shekels.

But the clincher is the "star anchor", the referee who is firmly in the saffron corner, wearing a khaki "katccha" beneath that corporate outfit. In fact, the BJP spokesperson is not really needed, for all the heavy lifting for the ruling party and govt. is done by these anchors. They decide which questions to ask, who is allowed to speak and for how long, whose mike to cut off (on the Parliament model). Instead of being a moderator and leaving the exchange of views to the participants, these opionated anchors monopolise most of the available time, taking over the BJP spokesperson's role, doing all the rebutting, answering, scolding and heckling. The others don't stand a chance! In fact, given that these debates are more like half-encounters on the U.P. police pattern, I am left wondering why any sensible person even agrees to attend these disgusting episodes of journalistic homicide.

This, in a nutshell, is the state of prime time news in Naya Bharat, folks. Ponder over this while I return to Wimbledon, to watch the indefatigable Djokovic take on the inscrutable Sinner, assured that the match is not rigged and the referee is not bought out .

THE CRUELEST MONTH

T.S. Eliot had dubbed April as "the cruelest month" in one of his poems; I am sure he had his reasons for doing so, but it does reveal that he was not one of the 40 million odd Indian taxpayers. For, had he been one, he would have vehemently disagreed- in India, the cruelest month is July, and it has nothing to do with a delayed monsoon or a pensioner's annual ordeal of submitting a Life Certificate to prove that he is still alive and kicking. The cruelty of the month derives from the fact that it is the month when we have to render unto Caesar what is definitely not Caesar's- a large part of the wages of our toil have to be handed over to Ms Sitharaman as income tax, along with an ITR which is as decipherable as the Dead Sea Scrolls and needs an expensive CA to do the job. 

I have just shelled out one fourth of my annual income, comprising of pension, interest from fixed deposits, a dash of capital gains, and a drizzle of royalties and remuneration for my books and articles from grudging editors and publishers. The wolf is not at my door yet, but it is getting closer every year. And, for the life of me, I cannot see the justice in the government looting a large portion of my coffers every year, without doing anything for me in return. Whatever happened to the adage No quid pro, no quid? 

I can understand a tax on my pension, since the government is entitled to recover some part of what it paid me for doing nothing for thirty-five years. I can also see the logic in taxing the interest on deposits etc.- they are passive income, unearned moolah I have not laboured for. But why capital gains?  If property prices go up it's not because of the government, it's because of relentless population growth, rapid urbanisation because the villages continue to languish in poverty and lack of development, because of the dismal failure of the Smart Cities programme.  The government's only contribution is to ensure that the cities keep deteriorating but it will take its undeserved cut of any price increase. Take shares: they go up, inspite of a failing economy and declining FDI and FPI (the government's contribution!), because of insider trading, price rigging, cronyism, and a gullible retail investor. The inexplicable rise of the Sensex has nothing to do with economic logic and the government's contribution again is zero, if not negative. So why should Ms Sitharaman get a share of this gain?

Taxing what the editors and publishers pay me (after many reminders!) is a raid on my intellectual, if not personality, rights. Writers are doing a public service by keeping alive the habit of reading, an activity (or lack of it) which is on ventilator support. Nobody reads nowadays, lacking the attention span to read more than 140 words, preferring Tik Tok reels and emojis. A recent study by the Booker Awards Institute reveals that only 4% Indians read books (about the same number as pay income tax- is there a connection here?). Nobody other than Shashi Tharoor or Chetan Bhagat make any money by writing, the rest of us get by on crumbs from the Amazon toast. We also take a huge risk every time we put pen to paper, not knowing when we might be hauled off to a police station for sedition, criminal defamation or contempt of court. I learn banks are now offering special FDs termed as Bail Deposits: the interest on them starts at a low 4% but goes up by one percent for every year you stay out of jail; the full amount can be redeemed after eight years or whenever you are arrested, whichever is earlier. Even the interest income from these deposits shall be taxable, with an "Anti-National" surcharge. There are rumours that insurance companies, sensing a great market opportunity, will shortly launch insurance policies to provide financial cover for arrests under UAPA and deportation under the Citizenship Act. Now that the Passport has been shown its place they expect this market to grow at a CAG of 20%. 

There used to be a time (which I can barely recall now) when the best things in life were supposed to be free. No longer. They are now taxed at 28% GST. It is no coincidence that the words "taxidermist" and "taxman" have their first three letters in common. The only difference between them is that the taxidermist skins you after you are dead, while the taxman does so while one is still alive. And the final question: now that it has been officially declared that no Indian has a document which provides  "conclusive" proof of his citizenship, how come we still have to pay taxes as Indians? 

" ARE YOU FLETCHER ? "

 It has been my experience that every District Collectorate is usually haunted by its own resident lunatic, somewhat like ancient mansions possessing their resident spectres who do not look kindly on new arrivals. These benignly deranged persons are usually quite harmless, and in them the spirit of violence is replaced by the litigatious and bureaucratic urge, as is perhaps to be expected considering the nature of their demesne. They are generally persons who, during their days of sanity, were closely involved or connected with the functioning of some wing of the Collectorate- usually the Collector's court pertaining to land disputes- and can never forget the connection thereafter, even when they drift into the twilight zone. Even in their muddled mental state they are well informed about the Collectorate's hierarchies and functioning.

     I still recollect quite clearly my first few minutes in the Deputy Commissioner's office in a district bordering Punjab, my first posting as DC, at the age of 28 . I had barely lowered my UPSC vetted posterior into the hallowed upholstery when there was a shout from the orderly outside, the door was flung open violently and a veritable salamander of an old silver- haired woman rushed inside, eyes blazing and a thick bundle of papers under her skeletal arm. A vigorous two year training at Mussoorie had not prepared one for an encounter of this kind and I wondered whether I should call out the army or impose section 144 CrPC.

    Just then the old harridan addressed me in an imperial tone. " Are you Fletcher?" she asked. Now, the only Fletcher I had heard of was an ICS officer who had been Financial Commissioner of undivided Punjab in British times, a proper Koi Hai who had made quite an impression with the local yokels by doing stupid things like intensively touring the villages, settling disputes on the spot and generally keeping the revenue officials on a tight leash- something we IAS types frowned upon. He was-hopefully-long dead. I therefore surmised the reference was to this blister.

    " No," I ventured, " but can I help you?" The aged crone gave me a withering look.

   " You!" she exclaimed, "these papers are worth ten lakhs and I shall give them only to Fletcher! I wouldn't trust you to even sign the attendance register!" And with that she left in a huff. Notwithstanding my bruised magisterial pride I made inquiries and discovered that this old lady had been quite mad for over a decade. She had seen better times and once possessed 20 acres of irrigated land but had lost it all in litigations. Fletcher had apparently tried to help her out, so her poor addled mind constantly harked back to him, and she used to haunt the collectorate looking for him, especially whenever a new Collector joined the post.

   This particular district was/is the most litigatious in the whole of Himachal. A boy from Una is not considered worthy of manhood till he has filed at least two FIRs and submitted three complaints against a government officer. The local residents have a better knowledge of the law than most High Court judges, and when making a complaint also helpfully suggest the precise sections of the IPC/CRPC/Prevention of Corruption Act, etc. that should be applied. One such libelant was perpetually parked at the gate of my residence, noting down the details of all visitors and anything that was brought into the house (vegetables, groceries, sweets, et al). Every evening he would send the list to the Chief Minister's office at Shimla, seeking an inquiry. Apparently, some like-minded gnome at Shimla used to read them, because I was once asked to explain why I had accepted two kilos of mangoes from the MLA of Amb ! This particular MLA was one Mr. Hansraj Akhrot, peace be upon him, and he was the biggest miser I have ever met. I informed the govt. in my reply that getting a kilo of anything from Mr. Akhrot was equivalent to getting back the Kohinoor from the British queen, and I should be commended for inspiring him to part with anything. The gnome in Shimla must have agreed with me because I never heard from him again.

   My second Collectorate in Bilaspur also had its own mad-hatter-in-residence. He was allowed the run of the place and could walk into any room. An orderly could stop him only at great bodily risk. The first time I tried to stop him (being new to the place) he quietly left. He came back five minutes later and handed me my transfer orders, signed and sealed by himself ! Thereafter I gave up.

   Bhagat Ram (that was his name) had a passion for obtaining signatures. He somehow managed to lay his hands on all kinds of official forms (for telephones, gas connections, driving licences, ration cards, cement permits, etc.) and would diligently make the rounds everyday, getting them signed from a clerk to the Collector: he desired nothing else. A simple scrawl made him so happy that no one had the heart to refuse him. In return he took it upon himself to maintain discipline and law and order outside my office. He especially disliked politicians (can one blame him ?) and many were the MLAs who were not allowed to enter my office. He once even disallowed the Supdt.of Police, because the latter was not in uniform! He always had a crackling salute for me, however, every morning and evening. I sometimes miss it, even today.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE DRAGON-FLIES GONE ?

 Biodiversity is perhaps the most unacknowledged component of the natural environment, and the attention of policy makers rarely goes beyond trees and animals, if even that. But biodiversity is much more than just trees and animals. It is the building block of nature, without which there would be no nature, or an inhabitable planet. Biodiversity is the extraordinary variety of all living things on earth. It encompasses plants, animals, micro-organisms, fungi and even pathogens, the genetic information they carry, and the complex eco-systems they create. I've learnt this the hard way, and am only just beginning to understand it.

When I acquired my half acre of land in Puranikoti village in 2002, there were only two houses here; the landscape comprised rolling, grassy hillsides with a few apple trees and some deodars and blue pine. My own plot was carpeted with wild daisies, buttercups, lilies and primroses. The place was practically overrun with bees, butterflies, cicadas and dragon-flies, and there was a continuous buzzing sound on sunny days. The birds formed the next level on the foodchain, and were in turn subordinate to the feral cats and pine martins. Purani Koti was a biodiversity hotspot!

Not any more. Most of the land in the village has been built over, the trees felled, the buzzing of dragon-flies replaced with the rasping of jack hammers and saws. To compensate I have planted more than 200 trees on my land, of the fruit and jungle varieties. But it has been of no avail, for trees alone on just one plot cannot create biodiversity. For the lowest tier of natural growth in the area- the grasses,  bushes, ferns, wild flowers, creepers - have all gone, the soil has lost its capacity to store rain and snow or to retain moisture. With the disappearance of this living building bloc of nature, the insects that depended on it have also started vanishing. A few, very few butterflies and bees still delight us but I have not seen any dragon-flies this year: I fear their niche has disappeared and they are gone for ever. In a year or two the bees and butterflies will also abandon this biodiverse wasteland. Which, along with global warming, probably explains why we can no longer grow the fruits- apple, pears, apricot, cherries- that we used to: with the biodiversity gone, there are no insects left to pollinate their flowers or birds to spread the seeds. 

This loss of precious biodiversity is rarely factored into our planning and developmental processes. What is reluctantly considered (at most) is forest or green cover- i.e. number of trees to be felled. These are quantified and valued, the amount paid by the project proponent and twice that number planted as compensatory afforestation. The loss of biodiversity is completely ignored and never compensated for. Some figures from Himachal may better illustrate the point: Himachal's forest area is 37000 sq kms (37 lakh hectares), and  a 2024 study by the Bhopal Institute of Forest management  quantifies its biodiversity value at Rs. 33000 crore PER ANNUM. In other words, the biodiversity contribution value of every hectare of the forests is Rs. 89000/ per annum. Working out its NPV over a typical 25-30 year life cycle of any project, the state should be charging at least Rs. 30 lakhs for every hectare of forest diverted for non-forest use. But this is not done because no value is attached to biodiversity.

This may, however, be changing globally, even as we in India continue to fell millions of trees every year on grandiloquent schemes that will displace the livelihoods of thousands of forest dependent communities but enrich crony oligarchs by a few trillion dollars more. Peru, for example, has become the first country in the world to give legal protection to insects (in this case its famous stingless bees). Recognizing the ecological importance of these tiny pollinators of the Amazon forests which pollinate 80% of the Amazon's tropical fruits, just this month it has enacted a law that recognizes their right to exist, to a clean and intact habitat, to regenerate, and to receive legal representation if pollution, deforestation and projects threaten their survival. Anyone, company or individual, who threatens these rights can be sued and prosecuted.

Similarly, in Wales the river Wye has received legal protection of its "rights of nature" from its catchment to the sea. The new charter recognizes the river as a living ecosystem with intrinsic right to exist, i.e the right to flow, the right to its biodiversity, the right to be free from pollution, the right to regenerate and to a healthy catchment. Any citizen can now go to court to enforce these rights. New Zealand too has given legal status to the Whanganui river. Mount Taranaki has been given legal guardianship through an 8 member Guardian Council consisting of four govt. experts and four tribal representatives: no project, govt. or private can be sanctioned there without the approval of this Council. In the Canadian province of Quebec a town, Terrasse Vaudreuil, has passed a "Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Tree" which recognises that trees are living beings with rights, that life on earth depends on them, and that humans must act "in solidarity and fraternity" with them. This lays the legal groundwork for protecting them in future. In India, the Uttarakhand High Court in 2017 had recognized the Ganga as "a living entity" with legal rights but the ruling was inexplicably stayed by the Supreme Court, and the matter continues in limbo.

The Peru, New Zealand, Canadian and Wales laws are small beginnings in realising the importance of protecting ecosystems and biodiversity as a whole, not just trees and forests in isolation.  One hopes our governments, courts and the NGT take note of these developments, dispel their sense of omniscience, and rouse themselves from their  slumber, sloth and lack of understanding of ecological issues. Then-and only then- will the dragonflies perhaps return to Puranikoti and reclaim what is rightfully theirs.  

BOOK REVIEW - INDONESIA, THE BEAUTIFUL ARCHIPELAGO.

           INDONESIA- THE BEAUTIFUL ARCHIPELAGO

           BY   AFTAB  SETH

               PUBLISHED BY BIRCH BOOKS, 2026.

                            

There are two types of diplomats, as Mani Shankar Aiyar points out in the review appended to the book. The first are the wolf warriors, of the type so ably represented by Mr Sibi George of the recent press-conference-in- Denmark fame, who have no interest in their host country and are full time proselytisers of their own. The second are the sensitive, scholar type diplomats who are deeply interested in the country they are assigned to, who wish to understand its cultural, historical, political and administrative facets, so that they can project their own country's interests in a proper context and not in a vacuum. Aftab Seth, mercifully, belongs to this second, old school, and this book is the result of his efforts to understand Indonesia: he served there as Chef-de-Mission for two years in the mid 80's, and this book gives his perceptions from that time.

Indonesia- the beautiful archipelago- is the largest Muslim country in the world ( 87% of its population-240 million-are Muslim), and yet it is not an "Islamic" nation in the sense that Pakistan and Iran perhaps are. Though Islam entered the archipelago in the 13th century (on the back of trade, and not conquest, as in India) and had spread throughout Sumatra, Java and other islands by the 16th, it was never able to supplant the strongly entrenched tenets of Hindu, Buddhist and Javan mysticism elements that preceded it. As such, Islam here has become an "assimilative" and syncretic religion, and not a revolutionary one. Two other factors also encouraged this remarkable adaption of an essentially rigid religion: one, it  helped that 150 years of  Dutch colonial rule had created an elite that was "secular" and whose traditional privileges distanced them from the austerity and fraternal egalitarianism of Islam. Second, that the first two Presidents of the country- Soekarno and Suharto- who laid its foundations, both kept political Islam at arm's length. They did not consider it's divisiveness as a sound platform for the nation to build on, and instead opted for nationalism. The result was the Panchsila doctrine- one Supreme God, civilised humanity, the unity of Indonesia, democracy, social justice- which cuts across religion and cultures and is acceptable to all. It is not only a guiding compass for the nation but also a force that unites. Aftab says it has worked , for Indonesia rarely witnesses the kind of communal confrontations that we do in India.

The book provides informative thumb nail portraits of the bricks and mortar that make up the Indonesian edifice. The Bureaucracy (more Indianised than Islamic in its origins, dominated by the Javanese, drawn from secular and missionary schools, cosmopolitan and secular in outlook); the Armed forces (more aligned with the bureaucracy than with Parliament, the real repository of political power); Parliament (more representative of the country's ethnic, regional and religious diversity than the bureaucracy) ; Political parties (so structured as to rule out the revival of Islam in any disruptive form); the Legal System (which still shows the influence of colonial period racial and social inequalities, one where secular courts exist side by side with Islamic ones (albeit with limited jurisdiction), one in which there exists a tension between adat or customary law and Islamic law; Media and Press (flourishing but tightly controlled-not through proscribing or censorship but through hints, nudges and discreet phone calls). What I found particularly fascinating is the competitive jostling between the major religions- Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism- as also between the ethnic groups, persistent but  without any violent animosity. The government plays an important role in maintaining this equilibrium; one can't help but feel that there is a lesson here for our own Indian establishment and society. 

Of particular interest to the Indian reader would be the chapter on Education because it shows how Indonesia has been able to bridge the contentious chasm of competing religious pedagogy. The state's education policy, observes the author, seeks to foster a tolerant, plural and multi-polar society. Towards this end religious instruction is an integral part of its education system, but care is taken to ensure that Islamic education is balanced with secular faculties. As in India, there is a parallel structure of madrasas, but these teach secular subjects too in equal proportion. In fact, says Aftab, the madrasas are a force for the modernisation of Islamic education and the loosening of ritualistc teachings. This is borne out by the fact that the orthodox ulemas oppose the madrasas! Just as the Islamisation of the nation's society was a gradual process, so too will the modernisation of Islam be an incremental process, feels the author, and education will play a big role in this. Surely, our own ulemas and leaders of the Muslim community can learn from this example instead of resisting reform at every stage.

A few pages are devoted to describing the various political parties in the country, its  relations with other nations (including India), the author's interactions with prominent Indonesian leaders, the shared attributes of our two civilisations. This may not interest the average Indian reader, but these pages contain precious nuggets of reflections and observations for the ones who wish to better understand the complex genetic structure of Islam and how it has adapted itself to different domains: the brand of "Gandhian Islam" (Islam with a human face) espoused by President  Abdur Rahman Wahid, the concept of Indonesia as a "non-secular but non-theocratic state", the legitimacy or otherwise of relocating mosques as provided in the Quran and the Hadith, the competitive "neo-orthodox" and "neo-modernism" trends in Indonesian Islam. These teach us not to regard the religion as a monolithic one but one with many variations.

The latter part of the book takes us on a tour of the islands and regions that make up the country- Aceh, West Sumatra, Yogyakarta, Java and Bali, the last two bastions of Indic influence. Of them, Bali appears closest to Aftab's heart, perhaps because its rich artistic culture- dances, masks, wood carving, stone cutting and sculpture, paintings, museums and monuments- appeal to his own refined senses and tastes, or perhaps because his wife, Nilima, had trained in Balinese dancing! Incidentally, Aftab does not forget to remind us of the love Rabindranath Tagore had for Indonesia, his visits to Yogyakarta, Java and Bali, and his own efforts to promote Tagore's message of assimilation of cultures and humanism.

This book is a more than welcome effort to get us to know more about a country with which we have a lot in common, one which at its nearest point is only 90 kms  away from us (less than the distance between Delhi and Karnal!) but about which we know less than nothing. Quite clearly this book is a labour of love for Aftab Seth, among the last of a vanishing breed of scholar- diplomats.

GYMKHANA CLUB AND THE POWER OF MYTHS.

Delhi's chatterati, who always need something more than just fried peanuts with their gin and tonic, are abuzz these days with the latest canapes: the Modi government's hostile take- over of Gymkhana Club. It's not a done deal yet, but rest assured that our higher judiciary, with judgments like Ram Mandir, SIR, Umar Khalid, Aravallis, Hindenberg/SEBI, Pegasus, etc. under its belt, will finally approve non-passive euthanasia for  this last watering hole for the drones of South Delhi.

No one, of course, believes the reason cited by the govt. itself for the action, viz, that the 27 acres is needed for security/defence purposes: this is the default position of the govt. for all decisions which push the boundaries of legality and/ or good sense. Hence, there is much feverish speculation about the real motives for this surgical strike: the Club's administrative and financial mess, non-payment of dues to the government, turning the entire area into a semi-militarized zone so that a Bangladesh, Nepal or January 6th type of incident never happens, fear of the Cockroach Janata Party, a real estate operation which will ultimately benefit the Melodi loving leader's cronies. But all this assumes that this govt. acts rationally, which past decisions do not bear out. I have, therefore, a different take which matches the leopard's spots, as it were.

The BJP is a party which is founded on, and which survives on, myths- past, present and future. It originates from the myths of ancient India-our epics, Akhand Bharat, the existence of plastic surgery, aeroplanes, nuclear missiles thousands of years ago, etc. In the present it rules on the strength of other myths- Vishwaguru, fastest growing economy in the world, leader of the Global South, wolf warrior diplomacy, "ghar me ghus ke maarenge", developed country by 2047, Net Zero emissions by 2075, and so on. None of these myths are based on facts or have a rational basis, but constant reiteration has converted them into legal fiction and have kept the BJP in power for more than a decade.

Gymkhana Club is a victim of two such myths-  Lutyen's Delhi/ Khan Market gang (which work actively against the BJP), and Colonial Legacy (which diminishes our own glorious culture). Both are fake, or at least selectively applied to suit the government's narrative.

The BJP believes that the privileged residents of Lutyen's Delhi are inimical to the party and conspire against it, and that Gymkhana Club is its hub. Wrong. There is no such thing as Lutyen's Delhi and the Khan Market gang became the Khanna Market gang in 2014. The 2800 hectares known as Lutyen's Delhi is occupied by politicians, mostly of saffron hue, who subsist on subsidies many times that enjoyed by the members of Gymkhana: serving bureaucrats who cannot even take a toilet break without written approval from their political masters; and industrialists fully house-trained by the ED, CBI and Income Tax. They ARE the BJP!

The retired bureaucrats and defense forces officers who haunt the Gymkhana bar also did a "ghar wapsi" years ago. I am a member of various groups of retired officers, and I can confidently state that the vast majority of my brethren- 75-80%- support the BJP ideology, 10-15% may not but will not open their mouths for fear of jeopardizing their pensions. the rest are so soaked in gin-and-tonic they can't press their own doorbell, let alone an EVM button. Those who possess the courage and the conviction to criticise the government are few and far between, and getting fewer with each successive election.

Lutyen's Delhi (and the Gymkhana) are, therefore  de facto BJP territory, as both Sanjay Jha and Vir Sanghvi have also pointed out, and the BJP knows it. So why take over the Club? Pause that question for the nonce, dear reader, we shall come to it later.

The "Colonial mind-set" myth is used as an alibi for this govt's failures, to distract attention away from them, and to find a convenient whipping boy to rally the troops, or voters. Gymkhana is the whipping boy this time, to burnish the BJP's non-existent credentials as the champion of the poor, and to divert the voters' attention away from the goodies being gifted daily to the crony oligarchs. How can this bunch of effete elites and their colonial era club ( so goes the specious argument built on a false myth) be allowed to grab valuable govt. land and live a subsidised life when 800 million have to be fed on doles? Such a narrative, refined by Mr Amit Malvia, contains all the ingredients of the Colonial myth- alibi, distraction and scapegoat. That it is patently false (like the Khan Market gang myth) is beside the point- myths appeal to us precisely because they provide an escape from reality.

Gymkhana Club is a victim of these two myths. But it is just the beginning: this narrative, perhaps a counter to the Cockroach movement, will be rolled out across the country- the Maharashtra govt. has already served notices to 16 prominent clubs in Mumbai. For what an authoritarian or fascist govt. needs at all times is an "enemy" to rally the nation behind it. Voltaire had said "If  God did not exist it would be necessary to invent Him". Replace "God" with "Enemy" and you have the reason why colonial era Clubs are the new enemy, and why 6000 members of Gymkhana will now have to find another watering hole in this urban jungle. Never underestimate the power of myth making.

Am I sad ? I don't really know. I was not a member of Gymkhana- my application was rejected after a waiting period of ten years without assigning any reason. But I shall miss its nonpareil mutton cutlets- they don't make them like that anywhere in India. They probably WERE a colonial hand -down, but then not all legacies are bad, are they?

A BRIEF GUIDE TO OFFICIAL DINNERS.

 

 

The IAS, unlike its progenitor the ICS, will bequeath few memories other than those of Chief Secretaries being voted the most corrupt by their own colleagues or launching inquiries against their predecessors. But as the service now heads for an inevitable merger with either the Vivekananda Foundation or the Observer Research Group, it is heartening to note that it will leave behind at least one innovative institution—the Official Dinner ( or OD). There are two major practitioners of the OD: the Army and the IAS. The former has an advantage in the matter of finding funds (and reasons) for justifying ODs, because it can debit all expenses to Raising Days, Regimental Days and Shobha Des, but the IAS has to be more inventive because it is under the ever watchful gaze of some whistleblower or CAG just waiting to ambush them with a book titled THE ACCIDENTAL INVITEE or NOT JUST A DINER-THE DIARY OF  A NATION’S AUTONOMOUS GOURMET. It is for this reason that the IAS is given a higher pay-scale than the Armed Forces: explaining the loss of a dozen tandoori chickens from the pantry of Hotel Holiday Home requires far more management skills than accounting for a dozen missing jawans on the LOC.

Recruits to the IAS are initiated into the arcane ritual of the OD in the Academy at Mussoorie. Its presiding capo di tuti capi (or Director) hosts mock ODs frequently where the basics are spliced into the probationers’ DNA. I still remember two of them: one, “never open your mouth till the food is near it”, which perhaps explains why the IAS is so reluctant to open its collective mouth and speak out. The second rule stipulated that one should never speak ACROSS the table, but only to the persons on either side, even if the guy on the left happened to be a carbuncle from the IFS or the bloke on the right a blister from the IPS, and one was desperate to chat up the lady across the table with a view to marrying her because she had been allotted one’s home state ( UP, in most cases) while said one was exiled for life to Nagaland.                                                                                                                     We were also taught the difference between a butter knife and a fish knife (the former for marinating one’s political bosses and the latter for gutting colleagues), between a soup spoon and a dessert spoon ( the former for raking it in and the latter for being politically correct). The uses of the versatile “chamcha” is something we discovered for ourselves later, and adopted as the most valuable of all cutlery.                                                           The most draconian rule was that when the Director stopped eating and put down his knife and fork, everyone stopped eating too. Since the Director, as befitted a Godfather, was the first to be served and the 400th probationer served about twenty minutes later, by the time the former finished masticating and had begun the excavations with his toothpick, about 200 of us had not even sniffed the soup. This accounts for the fact that the IAS is always first in line at the feeding trough: it’s a hard lesson learnt well.

   Since the IAS controls 600+ districts, 100+ Ministries and a few thousand programmes, finding a reason for throwing an OD is never a problem. There are a few, however, that deserve special mention:

THE PSU (PUBLIC SECTOR UNDERTAKING) DINNER: held after every Board meeting, it is meant to console the officers for the huge losses they have notched up. Intended to occupy the commanding heights of our economy, our PSUs were dislodged from there even quicker than the Pak soldiers from the heights of Kargil. Now in the valley of death, their officers will not go, however, without a fight- sorry, bite- hence the dinners, slotted under “ Any other item” in the agenda.

THE EAP (EXTERNALLY AIDED PROJECT) DINNER: EAPs are a kind of international CSR where other countries give us moneys as aid, and then take them back through consultancies, technology transfer and equipment. We are usually left with only enough money to host a dinner every quarter, on which we spend every remaining dime lest they take that back too.

THE CENTRAL TEAM DINNER: when Secretaries in Govt. of India can no longer stand their wives’ cooking they usually take off to a state to “ review progress” on various schemes. The review consists of visits to temples, golf resorts, shopping on the Mall and a seven course dinner at night. The strong batch- mate network and an innovative menu ensures glowing reports for the state govt.

THE FAREWELL DINNER: modelled on the Last Supper, it is given for senior officers who are about to kick the waste-bin- i.e., retire. It even has a Judas in attendance- the guy who is hoping to succeed the retiree. There is, however, a notable departure from the Biblical allusion: whereas Christ went on to a glorious crucifixion and rose again on the third day, the IAS worthy rises again the very next day, reemployed in some Commission or Tribunal. The farewell dinner is usually organised by Judas himself to ensure that the retiring potentate is artfully estopped from coming back into the service. It is not surprising, therefore, that on occasion officers have to be brought screaming and shouting to their farewell dinners. In my case the Chief Secretary had to send a bulldozer to ensure my presence ( actually, the roads were snowed in, but I have a sneaking suspicion the CS was covering all contingencies!).

THE RAJ BHAVAN DINNER: no IAS officer ever wants to attend one of these ghastly death-watches, but an invitation from the Governor is actually an order. We go to such dinners half choked by “ bandh galla” coats originally tailored in the Academy when we were chinless wonders, now wrapped around Adam’s apples of the extra large variety which would have shocked both Eve and the serpent. These dinners are solemn, if not funereal, affairs; the victuals are really quite good though the only spirit in attendance is one of nationalism. Ministers bump into senior bureaucrats, the Governor bumps into the furniture and everybody escapes as soon as he can after the national anthem has been played for the third time.

   All ODs share two traits. One, there has to be a Chief Guest, who is generally the Chief Minister or the Chief Secretary: although having either dampens the evening, it is a tactical necessity to ensure that Finance doesn’t object to the bill when presented. The Chief Guest in Himachal, which I haunted like Banquo’s ghost for 35 years, just HAS to wear either a maroon ( BJP) or green ( Congress) Himachali cap, depending on which party is in power. The smarter ones have now started investing in Aam Aadmi caps, just in case.

   Second, and this is something Mr. Vinod Rai may like to look into when he has time from his six current assignments, is a peculiar feature in all OD bills: the number of chickens consumed ! The per capita average is two, which appears high even if we factor in the disappearance of all other shades of meats post Yogi Adityanath. Are IAS chaps such solid trenchermen, what with their selection grade ulcers and apex scale haemorrhoids ? Not really. The answer lies in the fact that since all liquor is impermissible at govt. dinners, and cannot be so billed, therefore this Hippocrene beverage is billed as chickens. A peg of single malt is worth a whole chicken, a scotch two legs, a shot of rum is equivalent to a wing, a glass of wine equals a breast (its for the ladies, see) and so on. Quite ingenious, and definitely deserving of the two additional increments the IAS gets over its peers. And this  also provides the answer to that much asked question: Why did the pair of chickens cross the road? Answer: they didn’t want to become a single malt !

   Now that I live on a pension and am unable to cross that road too often I generally make do with KFC chicken nuggets. 

AN APOLOGY MAY BE IN ORDER, YOUR LORDSHIP.

 Hon'ble Chief Justice,

May I, a humble member of the Blatta (Oriental)  genus of cockroaches, make so bold as to express my utter stupefaction at your recent statement in open court in which you termed unemployed youth, RTI activists, media personnel and social media activists as "cockroaches" and "parasites"?  Posterity will record these uncalled for and demeaning words as the nadir of judicial propriety and gravitas. Kindly allow me to explain why.

It appears, from what is available in the public domain, that you were at the time dealing with the issue of proliferation of lawyers with dubious degrees. Your desire to identify and weed out such elements from the legal profession is understandable, and even commendable, and should be supported by all. But your subsequent "leap of hubris", not faith, was totally unwarranted and a step too far even in these dismal times when the vocabulary of public discourse has plumbed new depths. The contemptuous characterisation of our youth and civil society is something we have come to expect from our politicians, but not from the senior-most judicial officer in the country, the custodian of the letter and spirit of the Constitution, whose every word is engraved in time, the beacon and conscience keeper of the nation.

Which is why, my Lord, it pains me to say that your  unfair and insensitive obiter dicta has dimmed the glow of the beacon and induced a perception that the keeper has not been true to his charge. It has at one fell swoop insulted and humiliated these sections of society, cast on them aspersions which are neither true nor justified and, even more dangerous, exposed a heart of darkness in the country's judicial anatomy which does not bode well for a liberal democracy. Your Lordhip's subsequent "clarification" does not dispel the apprehensions your comments have generated.

A  democracy remains healthy not only on the basis of institutions of the state, but on the shoulders of a vibrant civil society and non-state actors. These participants- activists, NGOs, social media, RTI applicants, fact checkers- are the benign bacteria in our body politic that maintain our immune systems, keep in check those organisms that would destroy us, and ensure that democracy and a liberal order survives. By castigating them in such derogatory language, My Lord, you have exposed a side of the higher judiciary we did not imagine existed. It has left us confused, apprehensive and fearful.

Are you aware, your Honour,  that there are 28 million educated unemployed youth in the country, and an additional 100 million who have stopped looking for jobs? (The WIRE, 23.5.2025). 67% of the unemployed youth today are graduates, as compared to 32% in 2004 ? ( Aziz Premji Univ. State of Working India Report, published in the Deccan Herald 1.5.2026). 80 million workers have left the cities owing to lack of job opportunities and gone back to their villages: the government classifies them as employed in agriculture! This worsening position is not due to the indolence of these unfortunate youngsters, but because of faulty govt. policies in education, industrialisation and economic "growth" which promote inequity, concentration of wealth and capital intensive projects, and have decimated the MSME sector. They deserve our empathy, not an elitist condemnation.

Finally, my lord, heed the power of language and choose carefully the patois you employ. For language is a double-edged sword, it can soothe or it can wound, it can demean or it can dignify, it can sustain or it can destroy, it can be a paean or it can be a dog-whistle. It is dangerous to employ words loosely. History is replete with instances where carefully chosen words have preceded, and laid the ground for, mass persecution, ethnic cleansing and even genocide. The killing of a million Tutsis in Rwanda was preceded by a campaign that classified them as "inyenzi" which, coincidentally, means cockroaches; in Hitler's Germany the Jews were called parasites  and rats; the Zionists later termed the Palestinians as "vermin" and "animals" ; nearer home minorities from Bangladesh are stigmatised  as "termites" and protesters as " andolanjeevis". All such branding is invariably followed by dehumanising of entire sections of society and their persecution on a large scale.

It is possible your unfortunate vocabulary may have the same effect in India, for your words feed into the executive's own narrative: the segments of society you have, perhaps unwittingly and unintendedly, vilified are precisely the ones the government of the day considers its enemies and obstacles to its authoritarianism. It may now be emboldened to move against them even more aggressively, confident that it now has your your institution's support. That would be a disaster, an opening of the floodgates that shall eventually consume all the pillars of democracy, including the one over which your Honour presides.

At the end of the day, your Lordship, this unnecessary disparagement of the youth, civil society activists and social media may lead to a loss of credibilty in the institution you head, in its ability (or even willingness) to confront an authoritarian executive, to protect the rights of the minorities, and to uphold the letter and spirit of a liberal and inclusive Constitution. A democracy cannot long survive such a loss. Which is why, sir, you may consider a more explicit retraction and withdrawal of the statement made by you, not just a clarification. An apology to the nation at large will go a long way in restoring the confidence of the citizenry in an institution which is, after all, the last bastion of rights and liberty. To err is human, to admit it is divine. 

With profound regards and my own humble apologies for intruding on your valuable time,

I remain, your Lordship,

A.C.Roach.

"TIGER ABHI ZINDA HAI !"-- BUT ELECTIONS ARE IN THE ICU.

  [It was reported by the Satya Hindi news channel, and reiterated by a Congress spokesperson, that after the declaration of the West Bengal results, the CEC Gyanesh Kumar told a group of reporters: "Tiger abhi zinda hai !"]

My faith in the Chief Deletion Commissioner, Mr Gyanesh Kumar (may his tribe decrease), has been fully restored and vindicated: he has lived up to the trust I reposed in him. I fully expected the Election Commission to win the elections in West Bengal, even though it is not a registered political party but only a kind of I-Pac for one of them. And it has won handsomely. Mr. Kumar can now look forward to greener pastures in the days to come, a Governorship, perhaps, or even (as is being whispered in some shady corridors) a Presidentship. The latter post will suit him admirably because a President can only act on the advice of the Council of Ministers, which is precisely what he has been doing for the last many years.

Which brings me to a larger point: why have elections at all, now that ONOE (One Nation One Election) has been converted to ONNE (One Nation No Elections)? After much deliberation and consultations with the divine forces a-la-Chandrachud, I have come to the conclusion that the country would be much better off without elections. There are both macro and micro reasons for my view.

At the macro level, elections are an impediment to the march of democracy: every now and then the government is distracted from its usual job of handing out contracts to cronies, devastating forests, lynching people, building temples, garlanding rapists, bringing down opposition-ruled state governments, etc. in order to get the endorsement of the voters. Why is it necessary to get the voter's consent when it already has the support of the Election Commission, the Supreme Court, the President and the AA twins? It is this unnecessary distraction which has made us amongst the worst performing countries in global indexes related to Equality, Pollution, Press Freedom, Democratic rankings, and so on. ONNE would solve all these problems at one fell stroke.

It would also bring to an end that unique feature of Indian politics- sovereign bribery. Now, bribery is an offence, except when the state does it, and with your money to boot! In our elections ideology, development, social justice etc. have now been replaced with doles, gold mangalsutras, gas cylinders, washing machines, bicycles, sarees and anything else that can rake in a couple of more votes. And it is bankrupting states: Himachal has already started cutting salaries by 30%, Vijay's TVK has promised subsidies and freebies worth more than Rupees one lakh crore per annum, Bengal will now have to borrow money from Bangladesh to keep the bhadralok happy. Our elections are more like auctions now; scrap them and we'll become the second largest economy in the world before you can say "Jai Shri Ram!"

At a micro- that is, personal-level the benefits of ONNE cannot be ignored, either. For one, your domestic staff will not abandon you: during the Bengal election I was orphaned for weeks. My driver went off to Calcutta to vote, the maid to Malda and the washerman to Bankura. They will return in due course, minus a few who may be shoved into Bangladesh, but for those weeks life was not worth living; no amount of democracy is worth it.

And then there's the evening news, of which I am an addict. I like my news hot and spicy- a couple of murders, a rape or two, the occasional encounter killing, a politician caught in a flagrant delicto act, a Judge's outhouse stuffed with moolah, a bulldozer mounted on a masjid. But during elections I get none of these- only Yogendra Yadav or Jawhar Sircar or SY Quraishi talking about EVMs, SIR or the Model Code of Conduct. On a bad day I'll have to be satisfied with Mr. Modi or Mr. Shah on the stump. Life loses all charm, but with ONNE one can get back to the daily dose of violence, sex and Kangana Ranaut's earth-shaking one-liners.

Elections play havoc with relationships. Familial and social intercourse has, for me, been teetering on a knife edge since we gained our independence in 2014: my vocabulary is limited so I tend to call a spade a spade, a fascist a fascist and a bhakt a bhakt. This has not endeared  me to most of my family, colleagues and friends for whom a Hindu Rashtra is the Holy Grail and Mr. Modi its delivery service. Elections, and the inevitable discussions about them, only add fat to the fire: whenever elections are announced my wife moves into the guest bedroom, morning walkers in my Housing society stop wishing me, I'm unable to make a foursome at golf, even my dog refuses to go for a walk with me! With ONNE there will be a sea-change-no opposition, no political discussions, no rallies, no elections. Dinners will become convivial once again, without Republic TV type of debates. Peace will descend again on our twice blessed  nation. Silence will prevail, the silence of the grave. Or, as Omar Khayyam wrote: Thou shalt be- Nothing-thou shalt not be less.

Ah, the comfort of being Nothing!

BETTER TO REIGN IN HELL THAN SERVE IN HEAVEN

 Since these are tricky times, let us begin this week with a trick question: what do the following events have in common with each other ? :

* The huge, and sometimes violent,  protests in NOIDA last month by factory workers and domestic help over increase in minimum wages.

* The refusal of a High Court judge to recuse herself from a case in which her children are employed by one of the parties, and she herself is reported to have attended functions organised by that party's affiliates.

* A "gherao" of judicial officers (appointed as adjudicators in appeals by deleted voters) by thousands of such disenfranchised voters in a district of West Bengal.

* The deletion of names of almost 3 million voters in West Bengal, who had voted in previous elections and possessed all the required documents, because of an opaque, algorithm driven "logical discrepancy" feature not provided in any law or used in any other state.

* The holding of polls without deciding the pending appeals of these 3 million unfortunates, and the callous indifference of the Supreme Court to their constitutional right to vote, saying that they could vote in the next election!

* The imposition of a casteist bail condition on Adivasi Dalits accused (but not convicted) by an Odisha court to the effect that they should clean police stations every morning for two months, demeaning their dignity and making a mockery of the law.

* The defection of seven Rajya Sabha MPs, led by one Raghav Chadha ,from the AAP to the BJP.

* A poor tribal in Keunjhar district of Odisha being compelled to carry the corpse of his dead sister to a bank in order to prove her death, just so that the meagre balance in her account could be transferred to him as the heir. The KYC converted from Know Your Customer to Know Your Corpse.

* The dismissal of cases of hate speech against leaders of a political party by a court on the grounds that their utterances did not amount to expressing hate or inciting violence. One of these speeches included the now infamous exhortation: Desh ke Gaddaron ko, goli maro salon ko. The other was a video of a Chief Minister pointing a rifle at a target with a picture of a Muslim man.

The incidents noted above differ in context, content, import and location, but they all contain one common element: the complete collapse of what makes a developed country- of governance, common law, societal values, empathy, the rule of law, trust in the government or its institutions, the idea of equity and even-handed justice. Taken together, they point to the breakdown of something cumulatively more precious- democracy itself. They vindicate the far-sighted and cautionary words of Dr. Ambedkar: that democracy in India was only a thin layer of top soil which could be blown away easily and should not be taken for granted.

A Devil's wind is blowing through the country these days, removing Ambedkar's top soil and exposing the outcrop of powerlust, greed, religious bigotry, casteism, violence that have always under-pinned our society. We had expected that progressive governments, democratically elected, would over time erode and disintegrate these negative features of our civilisational landscape, but the opposite has happened. Successive governments, more so the one we have had for the last twelve years, have only reinforced these flaws and fault lines; they have been made the driving force behind national (even international) policies, they are being embedded in laws and educational curriculum, they have become unapologetic instruments of state policy, they are the agenda on which elections are now being fought.                                                                                                    The defection of Raghav Chadha only confirms this terminal decline because it shows that a liberal upbringing and London education is no shield against the unscrupulousness of India's politics, and it  vindicates the mounting distrust of politicians in general. The executive has even managed to brutalise our society to a point where the top 10% care only for their own comforts and privileges, leaving the other 90% to survive as best as they can. We are among the most inequitable countries in the world, and proud of it. Democracy is the last thing which can emerge from this witch's cauldron.

We had naively expected that when the executive went on a rampage our judiciary at least would reign it in and preserve the rule of law. That hope has been belied and now lies trampled in the dust, as some of the above episodes demonstrate. We have today plumbed depths lower even than the ADM Jabalpur moment of Emergency days. Then at least there was a constitutionally legitimate state of Emergency in place, today we do not have even that fig leaf to cover the government's naked pursuit of absolute power. Then there was one ADM Jabalpur judgment, today we are being shredded by a thousand judicial cuts every day, whether it be on denying bail, allowing elections to be stolen from under magisterial noses, redefining hate to suit a particular ideology, spurning any notion of accountability, throwing overboard any restatement of judicial values.

A Constitution alone cannot make a democracy, or ensure that a democracy survives. For that to happen the top soil has to be tended carefully, its nutrients lovingly added and preserved, the negative infestations and weeds kept away; the gardeners have to be men of wisdom and empathy, people who love what they are doing, not mercenaries seeking the maximum payouts. Sadly, it is the mercenaries and carpet- baggers who own our patch of land today. What remains of the top soil will be blown away soon, leaving a rocky outcrop, a civilisational desert of no value to anyone but these rapacious seekers of power and their hirelings. They will rule over a wasteland, but then, as Satan mused: "It is better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven." 

THE " BATTLE OF CIVILISATIONS" IS ONE BETWEEN ALGEBRA AND HAMBURGERS

 Civilisations are created by poets, writers, painters, architects, but are destroyed by politicians and their armies. We would do well to remember this truth at a time when an existential civilisational war is taking place almost on our borders, in West Asia. Make no mistake, the illegal assaults on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran are not just about Greater Israel or oil or uranium enrichment: these are just the cover for a new Crusades against the non-Christian, non- Caucasian world, a new religio-colonial imperialism by the USA and Israel, given wink-wink support by most of Europe. Large numbers of Christians in these countries appear to have embraced the spirit of Zionism too.

The sheer temerity and audacity of this is hard to grasp. Here we have two countries, one barely 75 years in existence and the other whose cultural pillars are hamburgers and Kentucky fried chicken, presuming to destroy genuine civilisations thousands of years old. As the Iranian Foreign Minister reminded Trump: the Persians were inscribing the laws of human rights on the Cyrus pillar when the Europeans and Americans were still living in caves. The blood thirsty Zionists of today are probably not even aware that it was a Persian mathematician who invented Algebra in the 9the century AD, that the Jews exist today because Persian kings like Xerexes ( 6th century BC) and Cyrus (5th century BC) had ordered that the Jews should be allowed to live in peace in their kingdoms and should not be harmed in any way. That today's Jews should now to seek to slaughter the descendents of these Persians says all that is needed to be said about true civilisations and barbarians.

The evidence for this attempted civilisational supremacy is mounting by the day. This policy was officially declared by that Cuban immigrant who, like a snake which has lost its bearings, tries to devour its own tail; I speak of Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State. At the Munich Security Conference in February this year  he unashamedly laid out Trump's new Maga Carta, to the accompaniment of a standing ovation by other European leaders. He expressed nostalgia for the past, when Europe's "missionaries, pilgrims, soldiers, explorers poured out from its shores to settle new continents". He called for "a new age of western dominance", to reverse the decline of the West since 1945, in effect proclaiming the launch of a new era of neo-colonialism. USA, he stated, is "fixing" the problem, and in doing so will have no hesitation in rejecting the core elements of the existing international order.

This has been amply demonstrated by the fact that the USA has between 750-800 military bases in 80 countries to maintain its hegemony; by the bombing of 41 countries  in the last 80 years, and all but one of them (Serbia) are in either Asia or Africa. One expert estimates that these assaults, and the sanctions that have accompanied them, have killed at least 32 million people. Gaza, Lebanon and Iran are only the latest expressions of this attempted neo-colonialism. Trump has openly boasted that he has taken the Venezuelan oil, that he wants Iran's oil reserves and a share in the toll revenues from Hormuz. He has shown utter racial contempt for one of the oldest civilisations in the world by killing its leaders, calling them bastards who belong to the stone age. The Israeli Defence Minster has described Palestinians as "worse than animals" and called for their extermination.

The West Asia genocide by Israel and the USA has been fully, though more quietly,  supported by Western Europe and the G7, with the exception of a couple of countries like Spain and Ireland. Their continued trade with Israel  hovers at about US$ 50 billion annually, they have sanctioned Iran and Venezuela but will not dream of sanctioning Israel, they continue to arm the rogue terrorist state to the teeth, they have formed a coalition of 12 European states to open the Straits of Hormuz but will not do so to protect either Gaza or South Lebanon. Even worse, they will not allow their own citizens to protest against Israel: UK has arrested thousands of protesters and France has just introduced the YADAN law that criminalises any anti-Israel public protest with a five year jail term! The West's war of civilisations is being waged in full earnest.

This is the context in which we should view Iran's tenacious defence of its sovereignty and its peoples. Iran is fighting to DECOLONISE the Global South. It has effectively reversed and turned on its head the western narrative of the southern nations being the "barbarians" and "terrorists": the emerging global perception is that Israel and the USA are the biggest terrorist nations, that it is they who constitute the biggest threat to peace and the world order, that its leaders are declared war criminals. The barbarians have lost this war but by definition are too stupid to admit it.