A NEW YEAR RESOLUTION-- DO NOT LET THE BOOKSTORE DIE.

   The times they are a-changing- no one makes New Year resolutions any more, except perhaps Mr. Amit Shah and Mr. Adani. The former naturally resolves to fell a couple more Opposition governments in the states, and the latter to double his income yet again in twelve months. They are becoming so predictable I wish they would resolve something new, like Mr. Shah abjuring the use of the word "termites" or Mr. Adani saying "No" to another airport.

  My cup generally overfloweth on New Year's eve, usually with single malt and soda, but the only  resolution I allow myself is to get back to my flat before I pass out. I do not follow the herd in making New Year resolutions because my short-term memory is rather weak, though the long-term one is fine. I can remember, for example, when in 2012 Mr. Modi demanded a legislation for MSP for agricultural crops, but cannot remember why now he is refusing to bring such a law. In my more lucid moments ( which are becoming rarer) I can clearly recollect that I was married on 24th of  January 1977 but manage to forget the date every year- it's worse than forgetting an EMI payment, for I get saddled with principal, interest, penal interest, fine and a three day quarantine with the doggie. Given the state of my telomeres, therefore, it is better not to make any resolutions.

  But this year is an exception and I have made two New Year resolutions which I intend to share with the reader, whether he likes it or not. My first resolution is that I shall not buy any books through e-commerce companies like Amazon, Flipkart etc., I shall buy them from brick and mortar bookshops. Not that I have anything against the former, it's just that I would like to help preserve a little bit of the civilised world I grew up in. Digital is fine, but we can't allow it to take over our lives.

  Bookshops just cannot compete with the deep pockets, discounts and reach of on-line platforms (not to mention Kindle and similar apps), and are going out of business at an alarming rate. Ten years ago there were five bookshops in Greater Kailash M Block market, today there are none- all replaced by jewellery stores. It's the same with South Extension, Khan Market, Connaught Place; there's not a single bookshop within a two kilometer radius of where I live in East Delhi. An article in Scroll.in sometime back reported that about 100 bookstores in Delhi have closed down but this is most likely an underestimation.

  Ironically, this is happening precisely at a time when there has been a boom in the number of books published, authors and readers also. The benefit of this, however, is going to the on-line platforms. Apart from the convenience of home delivery, they offer deep discounts which the bookshop with its fixed expenses cannot possibly match. These digital platforms typically get a 40%-50% margin on the published price of a book and can afford to share most of this with the buyer as a discount; they can even opt for predatory pricing below even their buying price- the JIO model of pricing- to drive the competition out of business. Their AI algorithms modify the prices every day to keep the competition at bay. Once they have exterminated these Brick and Mortar shops, of course, prices will be jacked up and you will even be charged a hefty sum for delivery. 

 But this unfair competition is not the only reason why bookstores must be encouraged and protected. The reason is best expressed by Satabdi Mishra, the owner of a travelling Indie bookshop, in an article on Nov. 25, 2020:

" Bookshops are one of the few spaces that uphold democratic values, social justice and freedom of thought and speech. Bookshops are our best hope of keeping truth alive, to help us speak up, more loudly, with more courage, each time our voices are silenced by oppressors. Bookshops are spaces that bring us together, help us empower ourselves with knowledge...."

  Bookshops, like libraries, are oases of civilisation in the lumpen world of Twitter and Facebook; they are the stuff of a lively democracy; they connect us with like minded people, with our cultural past, the world of distant lands, the romance of history. They inculcate and stimulate a love for books by the very act of browsing over titles, picking them up lovingly and riffling through their pages. You cannot do this by scrolling on a lifeless website or URL. You have to touch, feel and smell a book to appreciate the attraction of the written word. I find nothing more comforting than the musty smell of a bookshop.

 I had an early exposure to them. My grandfather and uncles owned three bookshops in Calcutta (it was not known as Kolkata then): two in New Market and one in the lobby of the Grand Hotel on Chowringhee, collectively known as SHUKLA+ CO. All the tea planters of Assam and north Bengal bought their reading material from our shops. During my school holidays I spent all my days in them, helping my uncles in selling the books: I received four annas for every book I sold. I didn't make much money for I was more interested in discovering new books and authors, and devouring them before the vacations came to an end. In college in Calcutta and New Delhi, Sundays were spent in the second hand bookshops on College Street and Free School Street, behind Red Fort, Chor Bazaar and Daryaganj- all of them now removed for reasons of traffic management or security (the catch-all phrases for philistine ignorance, whether the govt. is dealing with bookshops or farmers!). My engagement with bookshops has been a love affair that will go with me to the grave along with, I hope, a bound copy of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam.

                            [The author on a  book signing visit to Full Circle, Khan Market, New Delhi ]

  Buying (or selling) a book should not be a vulgar mercenary transaction, as it is when you press a key on your computer to buy one. In my times we did it differently, a vanished art which I re-discovered last month. I was taken on a "signing" tour of Delhi's best known bookstores by Penguin Random House, as part of the marketing strategy for my last book, POLYTICKS, DEMOCKRAZY AND MUMBO-JUMBO. After many years I met again the bookshop owners and their customers. A book is not supposed to be just picked off a shelf like a packet of cigarettes, a certain etiquette has to be followed- after half an hour of browsing through the various sections, you ask the owner for a certain title or author, mein host produces half a dozen of them, suggests some books of his own, shows you the latest issues. It's time now for a cup of coffee or a cigarette, over which the two of you discuss who actually wrote Shakespeare's plays or whether Hemingway was a better journalist or  writer. No one is in a hurry and in the fullness of time a book is bought, a bond cemented. I witnessed all this again after many years, and my heart did what Wordsworth's usually did on seeing a daffodil. Surely we cannot allow this dimension of our culture to die at the hands of Amazon and AI algorithms which know NOTHING about books: my book, which is pure political satire and humour, has been categorised by Amazon under " Social Sciences!" 

                                             [

                                         [ Author at Bahri Sons in Khan Market, New Delhi. ] 

  If we do not change our pernicious habits the  time is not far away when the last bookstore will down its shutters for ever, perhaps to be followed by public libraries which too have been dealt a mortal blow by the pandemic. Delhi has about 150 of them and many of the non-government ones are on the verge of closure. They need to be assisted by the government for they provide a public service, especially to people/ students from the lower economic sections who cannot to afford to buy books. As regards the bookshops, I noted that many have attempted to supplement their revenues by selling cosmetics, toiletries, coffee and snacks. But some other interventions can be considered by the government too. For example, 12 countries in the EU, including Germany, have legislated a "Fixed Pricing Policy" which prevents on-line portals and platforms from selling books below the printed price; empirical evidence shows that this has in fact helped B+M bookshops to better compete with their on-line rivals. I am not holding my breath for this one, however, for nothing would suit the present political dispensation better than the closure of all means of transmitting real knowledge.

  Libraries and bookshops are public goods/services for they are repositories of knowledge, of that which distinguishes homo sapiens from all other living creatures- the intellect and the mind (not the brain, for that is just a collection of synapses and tissue, which AI has already bettered). To survive the digital age they need the support of the state as well as of each one of us, individually. And so I went to Faquir Chand's in Khan Market and bought two books: Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari and Ten Lessons For A Post Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria; I even got a 10% discount! Neerja swears she could see the halo around my head as I exited the shop.

   I've forgotten what my second resolution was.

WHEN A DIPLOMAT SPEAKS.

    Before I joined the govt I thought “debriefing “ was something you indulged in with a lady on a lonely beach, a-la James Bond in DR. NO.  It was much later that I discovered that this unhappily phrased word is a standard bureaucratic technique, whereby the incoming babu pumps the outgoing one for as much  inside information as possible without giving away anything in return (not that the departing babu is eager to impart any meaningful information either- after all, information is power these days). It requires great skill, particularly in the Ministry Of External Affairs, where esoteric words like “non-paper” and  “demarche” and "note verbale" create an impenetrable wall of meaningless drivel for the uninitiated outsider.                                                               The Word was invented to convey meaning, but in the world of diplomacy it is used to conceal any meaning whatsoever. I once asked a senior American diplomat what exactly was meant by the phrase "free and wide ranging discussions" between heads of state. He answered with a smile: "Oh that; it means that there was blood and gore all over the floor!" As Will Durant observed: To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy. For, as I discovered for myself, the real secret about diplomats is that they are trained to say something when there is nothing to say, and to say nothing when there is something to say. Extracting   any  meaningful information out of a diplomat is like trying to squeeze a peg of single malt out of Mr. Nitish Kumar. (In fact, given that any information is anathema to the present government, Mr. Modi should seriously consider appointing diplomats as Information Commissioners).

 In the year of our misguided Lord VP Singh,1990, I was posted as Special Assistant to Mr. IK Gujral who was then the External Affairs Minister. I approached the assignment with some trepidation and a lot of caution because one had heard about the gobbledygook that passes for language in the world of diplomacy. I was told that a successful diplomat is conversant with many languages, the most important being double-talk, and that he thinks twice before saying nothing. Even their wives rarely know whether they are coming or going.

  I soon entered a rarefied universe of bilateral relations, detente, consular access and summits. It was a world where vacations were taken in Biarritz or Macao, not Goa or Manali; where diplomatic immunity is of greater consequence than Covid immunity; where it needs many hours of intense brainstorming to decide whether our Foreign Minister should smile at his Pakistani counterpart or frown at him.                                          Meticulous as he was, Mr. Gujral instructed me to obtain an exhaustive briefing from every Divisional Joint Secretary so that when their files started arriving in the Minister's office they would make more sense than the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are as nursery rhymes compared to the cabbalistic code which passes for notings in MEA files. Now, Joint Secretaries in the MEA are designated like latter day potentates- JS (Americas), JS (Western Europe), JS  (Africa) and so on, as if they had carved out the globe amongst themselves, in the manner of the British, the Dutch and the Spanish in the good old colonial era.  (Actually, they have, and woe betide any mandarin from any other Ministry who dares to trespass on their turf without the potentate’s say so !).                                    Working my way through Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Africa I finally arrived in the room of South Asia, a slightly portly Bengali gentleman, clearly weighed down by the problems of his intractable empire. It was a post lunch session, and I got the distinct impression that he had secreted a  "rossogolla” in his mouth. "What," I asked him astutely, "is our geo- political strategy in our neighbourhood ?"

  "Our long term plan," South Asia announced, "is to make the Indian Ocean a zone of piss."

  That, I felt, was certainly a lot of piss. Moreover, since this was a couple of decades before Messers Ajit Pawar and Gadkari  made piss the fulcrum of all rural development programmes, I was non-plussed. "You can't be serious," I protested, "surely Sri Lanka and the Maldives wouldn't allow this !"

  "They approve of our plan- after all they too are pissful nations"

 "What about China?" I countered, drawing on my limited knowledge of geography.

 He was ready for that left hook. "Ah! With China we have a different problem- it’s about a shit. They won't give us a shit!"

  I wanted to remind him that China had indeed given us a lot of shit in 1962, some of which still stuck, but I let that pass. "Why would we want China to give us a shit ?" I ventured, "don't we already have enough of our own?"

  South Asia finally pulled the flush on this inquisitive IAS Special Assistant. Triumphantly, he squared the circle and , cheeks still bulging with that infernal sweetmeat, proclaimed: "There can be no piss in South Asia until China gives us a shit in the Security Council."

  I quietly left. This was one conversation I did not share with Mr. Gujral. And now we know why both peace in the Indian ocean and a seat in the UN Security Council has been eluding us all this time, and why no Indian Prime Minister has ever received the Nobel Piss Prize. All because of a rossogolla in a Joint Secretary’s mouth, perhaps ?

                           

THE NEW TOOL-KIT FOR YOUR CAR

 

  I bought my first car in 1982, a second-hand FIAT, for Rs. 32000/. It was easy buying a car then: there were no NPAs then and you didn't have to do multiple KYCs or reveal all the secrets of your life in order to get a loan, which is pretty much the SOP today. Assessing the car itself was even easier: one simply checked to see that it had an engine in front and a stepney tyre at the rear, and drove off with a hugely impressed wife. The same exercise today is a nightmare, with one having to check for a range of gadgets which in our times could be found only in the cockpit of a Boeing 747- GPS, Park Assist, Reverse Assist, Dashboard cameras, surround sound speakers, monitor screens, gauges which tell you when you need to refuel, when you need to change gears and when your next toilet break is due, and so on.

  The actual driving was easier too, and much more fun. Petrol cost about Rs. 8 per litre, one didn't have to stop at extortive toll plazas every 20 kms, one could make a U-turn at any point if one had missed the favourite dhaba, cops didn't stop you for PUCs, HSRPs and not wearing masks. It used to take me eight hours from Shimla to Delhi; it still takes me that long in a car which costs 30 times my Fiat, running on petrol which costs 12 times more, on roads which have 12 lanes instead of the earlier 2. In Delhi one could park anywhere, even in Khan Market or CP- today a parking slot in Greater Kailash will probably cost more than a two bedroom flat in East Delhi. And things are getting more difficult with each brain wave of Mr. Gadkari, which are more like brain strokes for the likes of us. He has prepared an impressive tool-kit of reforms for us, far more lethal than Greta Thunberg's.

  Every "reform" of this govt. (and here Mr. Kejriwal also has to share the blame) has some distinct features: it is ill thought out and badly implemented, what one famous economist calls "jhatka" rather than "halal" reforms; there is no stake holder consultation; no effort is made to build up the required infrastructure before rushing through with the disruptive process; the public is never given an option- it has to comply, or else!; the "reformee" is invariably required to shell out more of his hard earned money, some crony or the other makes pots of money at the citizens' expense; no one is held accountable for the mistakes and glitches.

  Take for instance the HSRP (High Security Registration Plates) scheme which is more akin to a gold plated scheme for some. I have been waiting for three months now, after having paid in advance, for my new plate and sticker to be installed. Appointments are not kept, helplines don't ring, emails are not acknowledged, and after every aborted appointment I have to shell out another Rs. 100/ for a fresh date. Every single person I know has a similar experience. And to top it all, I can't take my car out for fear of a Rs. 5000/ fine.

  Was the scheme at all necessary? Where is the evidence that it will bring down car thefts, the ostensible reason for introducing it? Every slum kid knows that stolen cars are not sold as a single unit (where the number plates may be relevant)- they are cannibalised within 48 hours and the untraceable parts sold off separately. In any case fake HSRP plates are already available for the asking, at less than the official price! Even a certified idiot (and there are plenty in the govt.) could have told Mr. Kejriwal that affixing 40 lakh registration plates (in Delhi alone) was a mammoth task for which the needed infrastructure should have been created first- plate manufacturers, dealers, affixation teams, proper software- before issuing deadlines and imposing fines. A large number-maybe 40 or 50-vendors should have been empanelled for the job, instead of favouring just a couple who will take years to finish the job- by which time, according to Mr. Gadkari again, our cars will have crossed the 20 year age limit and will have to be trashed! In the meantime another 40 million vehicles would have been added on the roads.

  So who gains? Well, if you haven't figured it out yet, do the maths, folks. At Rs. 1300/ for a plate/ sticker combo, for the forty lakh cars in Delhi itself, that comes to Rs. 520 crore. Assuming a profit margin of 25% (it's probably much more) that's Rs.130 crore to be shared by just a couple of fat cats, an atmanirbhharta that will last them a few generations. No wonder an activist lawyer has filed a PIL in the Delhi High Court alleging a massive scam in the whole deal. But, as usual, that case will probably be heard after the last HSRP has been installed, though I wouldn't bet on that either. And that's only Delhi. For the country as a whole, there were 253 million vehicles in 2017- that's a lip smacking pie of 30000 crore rupees. Now, I wonder: how many MLAs could one purchase with that?

  Take the FASTag scheme, still a work in progress (like most of this govt's plans, even seven years down the line). One cannot fault the basic idea, but why make it mandatory? Why not leave at least two lanes for cash payers? Regulars on the toll roads would themselves opt for it, but the once-a-year types ( like me, going to Shimla from Delhi) would prefer to pay at the toll booth, rather than lock up their moneys and go through the hassle of obtaining/charging their FASTags. Because there's plenty of money involved here too, folks, for some lucky types and the banks. For each tag one has to pay an initial Rs. 200/ and thereafter maintain a minimum balance of Rs. 150/ in your FASTag wallet at all times. So far 21 crore tags have been issued, so that makes for Rs 4200 crore spent on the purchase and Rs. 3200 crore locked up for ever as the minimum balance. There is an additional security deposit of Rs. 200, so that's another Rs. 4200 crore with the banks which in due course will be converted to NPAs. It still takes between 15 and 25 minutes to cross a toll plaza: not all motorists have the grand vision or Alexander like impatience of Mr. Gadkari. This scheme too has now been challenged in the Bombay High Court.

  I am not even going into the  highway robbery of toll roads, which appear to be the only type of roads now being built by NHAI. The road tax we pay when purchasing a new vehicle should be the means of financing new roads, not an additional toll-tax. There appears to be a Shylock kind of gouging greed involved in charging toll tax, which delivers Rs. 36000 crore to the govt's kitty every year. And this tax is the perfect example of attainment of immortality; it is supposed to end after a few years, when the franchisee has recovered his costs of construction and reasonable profit, but it goes on and on. Some years ago the Delhi High Court had to order that toll fee would no longer be charged on the DND highway. Now the Mumbai HC has issued a similar notice to government for the Mumbai- Pune express way.

  Mr. Gadkari, however, has an inventive mind, and he has more goodies lined up in his tool kit. He has just announced that, in a few years, even FASTags will become superfluous as every vehicle will have a GPS which will track it constantly, and every time it crosses a toll plaza the fee will automatically be deducted from your digital wallet. Of course, it also helps that the government can also keep constant surveillance on your movements at the same time. The toll fee is only small change, the real payback will be in tracking all those anti-national seditionists to their dens.

  And just when you have installed all these gizmos in your car, and locked up more of your money in various dedicated wallets, it will be time to trash your car. No coherent policy for this has been announced so far, but you can bet your frozen DA instalments that one of the "hamare do" (it may have become "hamare char" by then) will be driving this gravy train when it is flagged off. Mr. Gadkari may pretend that we are a high income country but the fact is that we are a low middle income one. Your average Joe cannot afford to buy a new car every 20 years; no sensible country condemns cars on the basis of their age, but does so on the basis of their fitness.                                                                                                                                   The touted objective of the government is to improve the environment, but in fact the reverse is true.There are 6.8 million light vehicles older than 20 years, the vast majority fitness compliant; scrapping them overnight will create millions of tonnes of non-biodegradable waste. Where is the policy for their recycling, and where is the infrastructure to handle this mammoth challenge? Middle class people who have saved their last penny to buy an aspirational car and kept it in good condition are suddenly being told that they can no longer drive them. Would it not make more sense to tighten pollution norms rather than impose an unbearable burden on the common man and further ruin the environment ? No, sir, it's not concern for the environment that is driving this policy but concern for the the favoured one percent of our capitalist HNIs: the scrapping will lead to the sale of at least two million additional LCVs every year- the auto industry is already licking its chops and queuing up at the SBI counters to buy some more electoral bonds.

  And where does this madness, this pretence of being a five trillion economy when we are actually a two trillion one and sliding back, stop? A friend who is in government has pointed out with irrefutable logic that, by the same reasoning, all houses and buildings which are more than 50 years old should be demolished because their engineering is out dated, the materials not eco- friendly, they are not energy efficient, they have poor sanitation, they pose a risk, and so on. I'm not joking- this may happen post 2024 because, in the eyes of this government RK Laxman's common man is not just endangered, he is extinct.

  So prepare for the new tool kit for your car. If you already have the standard tool kit in your boot, get rid of it fast. The tools in it can land you in jail for they can all be used against the state: the screwdriver to turn and twist young minds, the wrench to throw a spanner in the govt's works, the jack to "raise" anti-national slogans, the wire to light the fuse of dissent. There are tool kits and tool kits, and Greta Thunberg's is not a patch on Mr. Gadkari's when it comes to raising hell with your life.

 

VACCINATION KE SIDE EFFECTS.

 

   My wife and I took our vaccinations on the third of this month. I was a bit apprehensive of the jab because I'd read somewhere that nine out of ten vaccines are in vein, but Neerja didn't bat an eyelid- she said that she had been dealing with pricks all her life. She gave me a meaningful stare as she said it but, as is my wont, I let that pass me by like the idle wind. I didn't get any AEFI (Adverse Event Following Innoculation)- side effects, for those who went to St. Stephens- though I do feel that my recovery would have been faster if the Vaccination certificate had contained a photo of either Sunny Leone or Kangana Ranaut instead of you-know who. After all, this gentleman is not really known for his healing touch, is he?

  I'm not one of those nay sayers who are always carping about our vaccination programme. It's much better than, for example, the North Korean one where they give every Covid guy just one shot- a bullet to the brain and he's cured for life. But I do wish the govt. would sort out the confusion about the immunity which the first dose confers. Sitting next to me were two cops from Mumbai- they said they were encounter specialists and were taking the shot so they would get "impunity" for their actions. They clarified that the Shiv Sena had already given them that but they must be prepared for the new mutant strain, a BJP- NCP variety, which could arrive any time.

  I've been feeling like a new man after my shot and feel that I am fully prepared for all the slings and arrows that outrageous fortune can hurl at me, and therefore have developed a benign outlook on life. When the Ram Mandir guys came to collect a donation I even gave them five rupees and asked them to keep the change. I feel quite cheerful nowadays, notwithstanding the hike in LPG prices; as I told the delivery boy: "After all, it's a gas, lighter than air- it has to go up!" Nor am I losing any sleep over India being declared a "partly free democracy"- after all, we are still a democracy, aren't we? Though I do wonder what's the difference between a partly free democracy, an "elected autocracy" and acche din. I suspect I'll find out after the second shot.

  I do believe I'm not the only guy who has noticed a change in his outlook on life, post the jab. Newspapers have reported the case about this gentleman in Bengal, a die-hard BJP hater, who has been totally converted after his vaccination. He has now put up photos of Mr. Modi in his prayer room, worships him twice a day, and beats up TMC supporters the rest of the time. (I'm not joking, you can google the story). A team of medical specialists who examined him have opined that he  had a nerve blockage, the vaccine has cleared that and now he has regained his common sense!

  This has provided the perfect opportunity for the Congress to yell "We told you so! It's not a Co-vaxin, its a BJP vaccine!" But the BJP is overjoyed and has ramped up the vaccination programme in the five states going to polls in an effort to unblock a few more million nerves and nerds. This may also explain why the Bengal elections are being held in eight phases- the more the time, the more the vaccinations! But this is a double edged sword, or syringe, for it can unblock the good sense of BJP supporters too (assuming they possess this faculty) and turn them into worshippers of the Opposition parties. But for the Congress, I'm afraid, CoviShield shall be of no help, they need a new vaccine, a ModiShield. I believe that monkey trials are going on for this new vaccine, but the monkeys keep defecting to the BJP in hordes and it's unlikely that the trials will be completed before 2024, by which time there shall be nobody left in the Congress to take the shot, except maybe Mr. Digvijay Singh, and no vaccine can unblock his good sense anyway. No shot in the arm for the Congress, I'm afraid. What it needs is a strategically placed kick in the backside to get it moving.

  The BJP has come up with a new slogan for Bengal after all their top leaders took the shots last week, an AEFI which has left me puzzled: ASOLE PORIBORTON. Now, Poriborton means "change or transformation" but "Asole" sounds a lot like what I have been occasionally called, a part of the body not referred to in polite conversation (the spelling is off but we'll let that pass). The question which intrigues me, however, is this: what exactly do the PM and Mr. Nadda have in mind when they talk of transforming asoles?

  Are they talking of cosmetic surgery? One has heard of procedures to change the nose, the lips, the breasts, even the derierre, bur asoles? For a hundred million people? That would take many five year plans, much brainstorming between ICMR, IMA, Karan Johar and Baba Ramdev, and the good folks of Bengal may still vote for the TMC at the, well, end of it.

  Perhaps the intended poriborton is of Bengal and not Bengalis. Human appendages have been used before to describe geographical features- for example, the "fingers" on Pangong Tso, or Crete being described as the "toe" of Italy. In which case does the BJP consider that West Bengal is the "asole" of India and needs a makeover ? This may be an etymological master-stroke, but once again, the good bhadralok may not appreciate the biological simile, and may wonder why they have been singled out before UP and Bihar for this honorific. I conveyed this to a batch mate of mine in Kolkatta and he was not impressed at at all; he warned me: "Ooant make phaan of aas. Theesh is very feeshy and we weel get to the bottam of theesh."

  I guess we'll have to wait and watch till Mr. Amit Shah takes his shot and see what kind of AEFI he has. I was under the impression that, given all the hullaballoo about injections, 2021 would be the year of the PRICK but it is turning out be the year of the ASOLE. Not much of a choice, is it?

 

 

  

WOUNDED VANITIES AND THE FOOT SOLDIERS OF JUSTICE.

 

  The latter half of February this year has been an interesting time for our crumbling judicial architecture and a mauled Constitution. It is a truism in the military that wars are won by the foot soldiers, not by the generals. This is not to belittle the contributions of the top brass but to emphasise the obvious: that it is the soldiers on the ground who are the first responders in any battle, that it is they who have to either hold their ground or to take the battle to the enemy. All the planning at military headquarters is of no avail if the warrior in the trenches cannot deliver.

  I use this simile for our judiciary today after much reflection, in the aftermath of a brace of judgments delivered in Delhi this last month by two district court judges. For it was becoming increasingly clear over the last few years that the judiciary was losing the war launched against the constitution by the executive- in fact, it was a reluctant adversary, at best  "willing to wound, but afraid to strike." It was becoming more apparent with each passing FIR and arrest that the Supreme Court and the High Courts  (with some honourable exceptions like the Allahabad HC and, spasmodically, the Delhi HC) had downed shutters and shut shop: issues like the challenges to the Electoral bonds, CAA, Article 370, NRC, laws on "love jihad", reorganisation of Kashmir, habeas corpus, the farm laws, UAPA , bail applications, etc. were taken off the shelves and stored in the basement, gathering dust, cobwebs and jaded obiter dicta. The generals, it appeared, were reluctant to go to war. The credo  "Bail is the rule and jail the exception" became a distant memory, with hundreds incarcerated with malice by the police and non-application of mind by the judiciary.

  But the judiciary's foot soldiers- or at least some of them- showed that they were made of sterner stuff and were not afraid of the good fight. This is how I see the judgments passed by two district judges in Delhi recently, against the run of play and in the face of the most ruthless executive this country has ever seen. They decided to engage with the adversary even while their superiors were busy giving gratuitous advice to rapists to marry their victims, or laying down innovative new law on "skin contact" being a necessary ingredient of sexual molestation, or heaping unctuous praise on the Prime Minister. It's always a pretty and heartening sight when a couple of Davids take on a Goliath.

 Additional Sessions judge Amitabh Rawat launched the long delayed counter attack on 4th January 2021 by releasing three NE Delhi riots accused ( Gulfam, Aatir and Osama) on bail; the bail pleasantly surprised most court watchers, but what revived hope was his unexpected castigation of the Delhi police: he condemned their " perfunctory investigation" and stated that the charge sheet was " filed in a very lackadaisical manner." His order only confirmed what had been Delhi's worst kept secret for the last one year.  As if to drive home the point, judge Rawat then released two more accused ( Shanu and Zarif) on 19th January for similar reasons. 

  More was to follow. On 16th February Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana granted bail to Devilal Burdak and Swaroop Ram, accused of sedition for a post on the farmers' protest on Facebook. In a first for any judicial officer in recent times, he came down heavily on the Delhi police: " Sedition cannot be invoked to quieten the disquiet under the pretence of muzzling the miscreants." Was the worm finally beginning to turn, all right thinking people wondered?

  Then the Disha Ravi case happened, and the Home Ministry/ Delhi police staked their all on it. A quasi judicial kidnapping in Bengaluru, a dubious remand in Delhi and it was clear that the sovereignty of India depended on keeping the 21 year old climate activist in jail. The "tool-kit" would be the final nail in the coffin of the farmers' movement. An example had to be made of her to send a signal to all those foreign conspirators: it was Bhima Koregaon II and the script seemed all too familiar. The higher courts maintained the servile silence that we have all now become accustomed to.

  But, in an 18 page order that knocked the bottom out of the police's case, judge Rana released Disha on bail on the 23rd of February. The foot soldiers were again doing their job. It is not the fact of bail, however, which is momentous and ground- breaking, but the exposition of certain doctrines on sedition, conspiracy, freedom of speech, rights of the citizen by the judge. None of the superior courts have had the courage to assert them in recent times, let alone act on them generally. Here are some of those assertions:

* Mere engagement with persons of dubious credentials is not indictable unless there is evidence to prove that it was for " a common purpose to cause violence." The purpose of the engagement is relevant for deciding culpability. This decidedly rejects the police's " guilt by association" formula which has come in handy in numerous cases in the absence of any solid evidence.

* " Citizens are conscience keepers of the nation" and cannot be put behind bars simply because they disagree with state policies.

* "Conspiracy cannot be proved by mere inferences", evidence is necessary.

* " Offence of sedition cannot be invoked to minister to the wounded vanities of governments."

* Disagreeing with govt. policies is included within the ambit of free speech enshrined in Article 19 of the Constitution. There is no territorial boundary limiting Article 19 and it includes the right to have a global audience in the age of the internet.

* Making a Whatsapp group is no offence in itself, nor is deletion of messages if they do not disclose violation of any law.

To fully comprehend the magnitude and scope of judge Rana's rulings, we must remember that his is a trial court and not a constitutional one. And yet his findings, specially on sedition and Article 19, are almost constitutional interpretations. He appears to have broken new ground by his doctrine of a  "global audience" and by extending the territorial ambit of Article 19 beyond the boundaries of India. It effectively takes away the MEA's already tattered fig-leaf of " other countries should not comment on the internal matters" of India. Judge Rana may have gone beyond his remit as an Addl Sessions Judge, he may have treaded on areas where their lordships fear to tread, but SOMEONE HAD TO DO IT given the perilous state of justice in this country. Every citizen of this country who still has faith in its Constitution has reason to be grateful to this brace of intrepid judges. 

  These judgments are bound to shake up the higher judiciary, even if the executive continues to play its own games. They can no longer ignore, or be silent, about these legal values. To my mind, the principles laid down by judge Rana are unexceptionable in any democracy and open society. Even though India has now been downgraded to a "partly free" democracy, these will now become articles of faith on the basis of which other similar cases of sedition and conspiracy will be decided. Even the mighty Supreme Courts and the High courts shall have to follow them, unless they strike them down, which they can only do at their own peril. It is one of the ironies of these troubled times that a lower court has to show the higher courts the path they should be trodding. The other trial courts will now be encouraged to follow these rulings too, as some kind of lode star showing them the way in the darkness.  

 A candle has been lit in the dark, and it seems to be having the desired effect. Within a couple of weeks of the Rawat/ Rana judgments the prison doors have suddenly started opening for a number of "accused" locked up without trial: Varvara Rao, Nodeep Kaur, Shiv Kumar, Imran and Babu; the sedition case against Farooq Abdullah has been dismissed by the Supreme Court following the Disha Ravi order, following the reasoning, significantly, given in Judge Rana's order- that dissent and disagreement with the govt. does not amount to sedition. And Amazon Prime Movies CEO Aparna Purohit has also been granted protection from arrest by the SC, overturning an atrocious order of the Allahabad High Court. A single candle may not lighten up a room but it can certainly dispel the gloom.

THE FINE ART OF LOSING FRIENDS.

  There are two certain ways to lose a friend: one, have an affair with his wife;  two, start a discussion on politics. The first can occasionally be a tempting prospect, for as the wise guy said: all good things in life are either illegal, immoral, too expensive or married to someone else. Having an affair just got easier too, with the Supreme Court (SC) ruling that adultery is not a crime. But a word of caution for my friends in the army who may be breaking out the champagne bottles - the Ministry of Defence has filed a review petition in the SC asking that it should continue to be illegal for army types.

  Apparently (the government feels) that the Army operates in peculiar conditions and the guys at the borders cannot really keep their sights on the Chinese and the Pakis if they are looking over their shoulders all the time to see who's inviting their spouses for a drink in the oui hours of the night. I agree. The SC does appear to be making things difficult for our Army Commanders- first it amends Article 377 of the Indian Penal Code, and now it decriminalises adultery, which is certainly a fair, gender neutral balance of sexual proclivities; but we can't convert our LAC and LOC into Sodom and Gomorrah, respectively, for God's sake! We're supposed to be screwing the  Chinese PLA, remember?

  Nearer home, I'm happy to confess that I've never lost a friend by "stealing the affections" of his wife, though I may have stolen a look or two at times when Neerja was looking the other way. And now it's too late, at 70 years any woman beyond ten feet looks like an abstract Henri Matisse  painting, and I've forgotten those lines from Shelley and Keats that made for good bait in one's Delhi University days. These days it's bhajans and the Hanuman Chalisa for me. The focus is on living longer, not living it up.

  So that leaves politics. I've been blogging now for a few years, partly as a reaction to the extremely limited scope for displaying my literary talents while in government. In those halcyon days my efforts were generally limited to inscribing  "For orders, please" or "Approved as proposed" on files. A longer sentence such as  "Hon'ble Minister may pass suitable orders in the light of noting above" was highly unusual and was considered a magnum opus by bureaucratic standards, causing much envy among colleagues.

 So now, like the lady of pleasure released after a two week quarantine, I'm letting it all out. During service one didn't meddle in politics, primarily because it was difficult to predict the winner of the next elections, and backing the wrong horse ensured a lifetime cleaning out the horse shit in the sarkari Augean stables. Post retirement, however, things have changed. As Pericles said in 430 BC: just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you!

  And so, battered by one surgical strike after another- Aadhar, demonetisation, KYC (Know Your Client), Fast Tag, HSRP ( High Security Registration Plates), CAA (Citizen Amendment Act), NRC (National Register of Citizens), Farm laws, Lockdown- the worm turned and I started inflicting my thoughts on an unwary public and friends. I tried making sense of the political chaos around us, what with 2000 political parties headed by saints, dynasts, carpet baggers, crooks and rapists out on bail, godmen, megalomaniacs, and so on. I quickly figured out why India had so many parties: you see, no one political party can fool all the people all the time, that's why we have so many of them. Actually, it was Bob Hope who said that, but it was a good starting point.

  I make no secret of the fact that Mr. Modi would not be my candidate for the Nobel prize, or any other prize. I firmly believe that the BJP is responsible for all the ills of this country, except malaria, polio, and tuberculosis which, as we all know, were the result of Mr. Nehru's incompetence and a foreign conspiracy in the last century to malign us. Rihanna and Greta Thunberg may have had a hand in that too, but as the Delhi police are still investigating this bit, we may need another century or so to finally know. In my view the BJP is like a time machine which is taking us back to the primeval sludge from which we emerged with great difficulty. Which is why I have very few friends left, or relatives who are willing to admit that we share the same DNA. Statistics show that Mr. Modi enjoys the support of 40% of the voting population, but he has the support of 80% of the guys I know. And they are not happy about having nursed a viper in the family bosom all this time. Batch mates, when I phone them, prefer to listen to Amitabh Bacchan' s covid caller tune rather than talk to me; childhood friends from school have burnt all class photos where my mug scars the immediate landscape; the wife has moved into the guest bedroom; my younger son refuses to share the wi-fi password with me; my sister has decided against giving me the Glenfiddich bottle she had bought for me for Raakhi till I stop intoning  "Modi hai to bumpkin hai." There have even been times when I have caught my son's dog looking at my ankles in a thoughtful way: I am sure he is waiting for inspiration from the next "Man ki Baat" before launching a surgical strike on them- " When he goes low, I go lower!" as one of our diplomats famously didn't say in the UN.

  My views, as expected, have evoked radical responses which, unfortunately, Twitter has failed to censor. One Group Captain cast doubts on my paternity and even sent a complaint to the Prime Minister's Office (I will not divulge his name as such a man deserves to remain anonimo, as they say in Spain for a pain in the nether regions). But I will give him the benefit of doubt: it is possible that his mother dropped him on his head when he was a baby or his parachute failed to deploy on one of his jumps and he landed on his head, resulting in partial  damage to what passes for his brain. Others have questioned how I made it to the IAS, which is not new for me since this is the exact question the Director of our Academy asked me in 1975, and has been repeated by many Chief Secretaries since then. Kangana Ranaut has not yet tweeted on the issue, but that's probably because she is too busy dissing Rihanna and Greta Thunberg and comparing herself to Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise to read my blogs. She will find the time some day, however, and so I've cancelled my trip to Manali this summer- never depilate a lioness in her own den.

  Many curious readers have inquired about my contribution to the public good while in service, which is highly unfair, because the IAS was never intended to deliver that. One particularly rude chappie advised me to "Get some balls, Mr. Shukla!" I of course ignored him since I have plenty of golf balls, thank you, as also a few marbles. A few well travelled types have helpfully suggested that I move to Pakistan. There are even some who have sympathised with my family for having had to put up with me all these years- this one did strike a chord with my immediate descendants but as I still pay some of their EMIs nothing further has been said about it at the dinner table.

  The unkindest cut, however, was delivered by a gentleman whose name sounds like it came out of a superbike exhaust- Mr. Vroom. He wrote that my writings lacked sense, that he was not impressed with my style or vocabulary, and that "this much English even Chetan Bhagat can write!" That last bit really hurt, folks.

  Blogging, therefore, is a lonely profession (as you would have noticed from the above). Perhaps then I should switch to the micro-blogging sites? After all, how much trouble can one get into with just 140 words? But should I twitch on Twitter or coo on Koo? To consider this methinks I shall now betake myself to a cave near Kedarnath (if it has not been washed away by another glacier) and meditate on where I have been going wrong. It didn't enlighten Mr. Modi but it might just do something for me.

 

HIMALAYAN BLUNDERS, TRAGIC IRONIES, RETREATING GLACIERS.

 

   Never underestimate the power of human stupidity, says Yuval Noah Harari in his book " 21 Lessons For The 21st Century". If anyone doubts this truism he has only to see what we have been doing to the Himalaya for the last three decades, particularly in Himachal and Uttarakhand, in the name of development. This stupidity also involves ignoring the pleas of local residents/ villagers, the advice of experts, and the science of global warming, seismology, forestry and glaciology. It is a stupidity based on faulty economic models that deliberately ignore the disruption of local livelihoods, fail to account for the value of the natural environment or the ecological services it provides, the costs of destruction of life and property ( Rs. 50000 crore and at least 5000 lives in Kedarnath 2013, 221 dead in the Malpa landslide in 1998, 768 dead in the Uttarkashi earthquake in 1991; we are still counting the losses and the dead in the Rishiganga flood this month). Nobody has even begun to estimate the losses to the environment, which in any case cannot be compensated or replaced by legal tender.

 We should also not fail to notice the many ironies implicit in the latest tragedy and environmental disaster in Utttarakhand. Just one day before the flood the NITI Aayog called for an " economically responsible approach by the judiciary" to projects, and a study on " the unintended economic consequences of judicial decisions that have hindered or stalled big ticket projects on environmental grounds." Seriously? What is actually needed ( as Rishiganga proves) is just the reverse- a study on  "the unintended environmental consequences of judicial decisions- or the lack of them- that have promoted big ticket projects on faulty economic grounds."

  The second irony is that, contrary to the NITI Aayog's whining, the judiciary has done precious little to protect the natural environment from the govt's "big ticket" depredations: the utterly irresponsible Char Dham Highway marches on, even as the SC takes its own time to decide on the width of the road; in Mumbai's Aarey forests hundreds of trees were cut at night because the courts did not deem it fit to issue a stay order; it has been almost five years since Mr. Ravi Chopra of the People's Science Institute Dehra Doon, appointed as an expert committee by the Supreme Court, submitted his report recommending cancellation of 23 out of 24 proposed hydel projects on the Ganga and its tributaries but the Court has yet to take a final decision on the matter even while it has stayed them; a report submitted by me to the Himachal High Court in 2010  recommending a moratorium on all hydel projects in the state until the listed vital issues of environmental protection were addressed, remain more or less unimplemented. Roads and railways through Protected Areas, de-notification of wild life sanctuaries, violation of Coastal Zone rules, mining in no-go areas and pristine forests ( Western Ghats, Dehang Patkai in Assam, Hardeo Arand in Chhatisgarh, Saranda and Chaibasa in Jharkhand) - all continue more or less on the whims of governments( central and states ) with very little check by the judiciary. And still NITI Aayog behaves like Oliver Twist!

  A third irony : just a week after the Uttarakhand tragedy on the 15th of this month, the Supreme Court cleared the diversion of 614 hectares of forest land in Himachal for the execution of 138 big projects, including hydel power plants. Why are we unable to read the writing on the wall, or in this case, the Himalaya? 

The fourth irony: Reni village in the Rishiganga valley, where the maximum damage and deaths took place on the 7th of this month, was the heart of the Chipko movement in the 1970s to save the forests and environment of this unfortunate state! A tragic, self-fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one.

  Here's another one : in 2019 one Kundan Singh of the same village Reni had filed a PIL in the Uttarakhand High Court against the Rishiganga project alleging unsound environmental practices, operations which endangered the river and the wildlife, deprivation of traditional villagers' rights by the project. The Court had issued notice to the center and the state for a response within 3 weeks, but the case still languishes in judicial limbo. A timely decision, or even a stay order, might have prevented this catastrophe. What their lordships now decide is irrelevant- Nature has delivered the judgment they could not, vindicating Kundan Singh, but at a terrible cost.

  There is more than enough empirical evidence, scientific studies and expert committee reports to establish the detrimental effects of hydel projects in mountainous, particularly the para-glacial, terrains. They cause damage in two ways: one, the blasting, tunneling and road construction result in landslides, permanent loosening and fracturing of the strata, deforestation, drying up of aquifers and water sources; two, the monstrous quantities of muck produced by these activities ultimately find their way to the rivers, raising their beds and squeezing them, reducing their capacity to carry water and debris, causing massive floods downstream when extreme events occur. This is what happened at Rishiganga.   

  The magnitude of the destruction which the central and state governments contemplate inflicting on the Himalaya in these two states is staggering. According to a 2019 report of the Natural Heritage Division of INTACH there are 1000 dams blocking the flow of the Ganga ! In Uttarakhand 76 hydel projects are already commissioned or under construction on the Ganga and its tributaries  and 70 more are planned. Himachal has planned to exploit 24000 MW of its identified potential of 27436 MW. In pursuit of this it has decided to spare not even the high altitude ( 3000 meters +), snow bound Chenab valley where it has sanctioned 49 projects with a capacity of 4032 MW, never mind the irreparable ruination  of this most fragile of para glacial landscapes. One such project- the 300 MW Jispa project with a dam height of 200 meters at an altitude of 3245 meters which will submerge 12 villages- is at a distance of just 10 kms from the Gepang Gath glacier, the state's largest.

                        

                          [ Mountainside denuded for power-house site in Sainj valley in Kullu district]

  The Ganga, as well as Himachal's rivers, all originate from glaciers. These are retreating at an increasing rate, creating glacial lakes which are multiplying and increasing in size due to global warming. An ISRO report ( findings of which were published on 22.1.2019 by the Hindustan Times)  revealed the startling pace of melting/ retreat of the Gangotri glacier and its three main tributaries- the rate of Gangotri was 12.10 m., and the Chaturangi, Satopanth and Thalu were retreating by 22.84, 22.88 and 30.66 meters per annum, respectively.                                                                                                                                                 It is no different in Himachal, as the increasing number of glacial lakes there prove. There are 958 glacial lakes in the state, each of an area in excess of 500 sq.m, and most of them are moraine dammed, which are fragile. A State Council Of Science and Technology report reveals that in just two years ( 2013-2015) the number of glacial lakes went up by 103; in the Sutlej basin alone, 352 more lakes were formed in the 20 years between 1993 and 2013. Many years ago the then MLA of Lahaul-Spiti had told me that when he was a student, the Bada Shigri glacier used to extend to the banks of the Chandra river; today it is not even visible from there. Surely the Himachal government has not forgotten the cataclysmic floods in the Sutlej at the beginning of this century when a glacial lake had burst in Tibet?

  Other than the environmental damage and the hardships imposed on local populations, does it even make economic sense to continue to build hydel projects in mountainous regions? Firstly, the regular disasters caused by these projects cost thousands of crores in restoration/ compensation/ rehabilitation, negating much of their financial benefits. Secondly, are these projects even viable in the long run, the 30-50 year life cycle of such projects? At the rate the glaciers are retreating there will probably not be enough water for them in a couple of decades: with the failure to meet the global warming targets of the Paris Accord, half of them would have disappeared by 2050. And finally, the cost of solar power is now less than half the cost of hydel power, so why persist with destroying the mountains and endangering the future of hundreds of millions who depend on them?

  Surely, the power of human stupidity cannot be boundless.