THE CHARDHAM OF THE GREAT HIMALAYAN NATIONAL PARK- I THE TIRTHAN

 

        THE  “ CHAR DHAM” OF THE GREAT HIMALAYAN NATIONAL PARK- I

 

If there is one jewel in the crown of Himachal, it has to be the the Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP) in Kullu, spread over 750 sq.kms. of forested valleys, gushing mountain streams and snow covered mountains: it is also a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is a superlative repository of Himalayan flora and fauna, a trekker's Valhalla, one of the last undisturbed areas of the state. It is drained by four magical streams, all originating from glaciers or glacial lakes-starting from the east, the Tirthan, Sainj, Jiwanal and Parbati. Trekking to the mystical sources of these rivers is a once in a life time experience, and for the true nature-lover akin to a spiritual experience, the “char dham” of a naturalistic religion, as it were! I have been fortunate to have completed this circuit and would like to share a brief account of it with those readers who may want to learn more, or even plan to go to the GHNP. This is the first of four blogs.

                                          [ THE  TIRTHAN ]

The Tirthan is a typical mountain stream and one of the very few left in the state where the trout still run, thanks to the fact that most of its length is protected as it runs through the Park, and a later govt. decision also banned the construction of hydel projects on its mid and lower stretches. It originates from the Tirath snowfields at 4500 meters on the eastern fringes of the Park, and after flowing through pristine forests for about 100 kms joins the Beas just below Aut on the NH 21 (Mandi-Kullu highway). It requires four days of strenuous trekking and climbing to reach the source of the river, the Tirath glacier. The nearest road-head is Gushaini in the Banjar valley on the left bank. One enters the Park boundary at Ropa (8kms) but the first day’s camp site is at Rolla, another 4 kms away. It has huts, toilets and running water but from hereon one has to carry one’s own tents, sleeping bags and provisions for cooking. The original track to the Tirath glacier was all along the right bank of the river but a flood in 2005 washed away large tracts of the route, and now one has to climb high above the river immediately after Rolla, with night  halts at Nada thatch (3300 meters) and Majhauni thatch (3600 meters).

                    [ An ice bridge on the Tirthan above Majauni thatch. Photo by the author.]

A thatch is a clearing or glade surrounded by forests where shepherds camp: originally covered with a prolific growth of the rare high altitude medicinal plants and herbs, they are nowadays grazed over by sheep whose droppings further ensure that nothing grows there except weeds and coarse grasses. This used to be the case with Nada and Majhauni also, but ever since the govt. banned the entry of sheep in the Park, these thatches have now made a remarkable come-back: when I camped there in 2010 they were completely carpeted with a rich profusion of patish, salam panja and ratanjot , the rarest of alpine herbs. Nada thatch is a particularly mesmerising place, completely surrounded by a thick growth of cedar, spruce, kharsu oak, maple and dwarf rhododendron, with an abundance of bird life- in the early dawn we were privileged to be favoured with a veritable avian orchestra by the tragopans, monals, warblers, nut crackers and minivets !

                              [Moon over Nada thatch. Photo by author.]

The third day’s trek- from Nada to Majhauni- takes one down to the river and then up again into the forests. Along the way we noticed plenty of leopard scat, signs of bear and a troop of langurs in a grove of taxus baccatta trees. But the climactic moment came when, just below a watercourse, we suddenly came upon a Himalayan black bear! She was sunning herself on a rock and, perhaps because of the sound of the water, did not hear our approach. We had all of three or four minutes to enjoy this amazing moment before she became aware of our presence: in an instant she sprang up, bounded across the stream, scaled a ten meter wall of rock effortlessly and vanished into the thick forest. She appeared to be pregnant and we wished her and her cub all the best- may they rule this part of paradise for ever!

                    [ Black bear posing for us at Nada thatch! Photo by author.]

Majhauni thatch is on the right bank of the Tirthan, just above the river and very windy and cold- the Tirath glaciers are barely 8 kms. from here and the valley funnels the chilling winds straight down into the camp site. Fortunately there are three huge caves in which one can take shelter. We were now at 3600 meters, and parts of the river were covered with a thick deposit of ice- “ice bridges”, sturdy enough to walk on, but carefully, because the swift and freezing waters still flowed below them. They are useful while they last, because they provide the wild life an easy means of crossing the river. In the early morning a “kakkar”- musk deer- crossed the river on an ice bridge from the other bank, strolled through our camp site and disappeared into the undergrowth before we could photograph it !

            [ Blue sheep on the Tirath glacier, centre of the frame. Photo by author.]

It’s a four hour trek to the Tirath glacier from the campsite, sometimes on the ice bridges and sometimes high on the right bank of the river. After six kms or so the valley broadens out into a verdant pasture 500 meters wide, completely carpeted with alpine flowers of the most amazing hues. Straight ahead, to the south and south-east are towering, snow- covered peaks and ranges, behind which lie the massive Srikhand massif and Sarahan ranges. The flanks are covered with huge glaciers: their melt- off runs down in slender black ribbons of water, converging into two primary streams which join each other on the valley floor to form the infant Tirthan. To its right, however, is a circular pool about 20 feet across, bubbling with some gas or air coming from its depths. The locals believe that this is the real source of the Tirthan and it is customary to do a “pooja” here and take a dip in the stream, notwithstanding the freezing temperatures! Our real reward, however, came a little later when the sun broke through the clouds and lit up the white mountain slopes. Lo and behold! Straight ahead we could now see two huge herds of “bharal” or blue sheep, about 60 in all, slowly going up the flanks! It was an unforgettable sight: the blue sheep are rarely sighted, such is their mountain habitat and reclusive nature. This was a double “darshan” for us- the source of the river as well as its prime custodians. We could not have asked for more, and as we wended our long way back to Majhauni we were content in the knowledge that the wildlife of GHNP was doing quite well, thank you!

 

OF INQUIRIES, RESIGNATIONS AND DEFECTORS--IT'S THE SAME OLD STORY

  Mr. Modi is the original fisherman when it comes to hawking red, now saffron, herrings. Which is why the CBI inquiry into the Balasore train accident smells so fishy. Could the government not have waited for at least the findings of the investigation by the Commissioner Railway Safety before ordering the inquiry? Suppose this report finds that it was a signal failure, or an interlocking defect, or a human error? The CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) rarely manages to catch even a common burglar, how then can it wrap its head around some of the most sophisticated and technical electronics involved in this derailment? It is only if the Railway inquiry concludes that it suspects sabotage that the police is justified in stepping in. There has been no such indication yet.                   .

  But the government appears to have made up its mind to play the national security card quite early. (It is the only card it has left in its deck after the Hindutva and Vishwaguru cards were trumped in the Karnataka elections, so a Balasore will serve as well as a Balakot, thank you!). The clues were there for the observant: when Mr. Modi visited the site, he said the guilty would not be spared and would be dealt with harshly- how did he know that there was any deliberate guilt or mens-rea involved ? Then again, on the day after the accident the Railway Minister told the press that the root cause of the accident and the people involved had been identified- this, even before the inquiry had commenced! 

  There is, moreover, another angle involved in this decision. By ordering the CBI inquiry the BJP has ensured that the matter is out of the hands of the state, or Railway police, and it can influence the investigations and findings any which way it wants. It's a trick it has played quite often in the past, with fairly good (for it) results. It will not want to be embarrassed so close to the crucial state elections. And it still has the NIA (National Investigation Agency) card up its sleeve in case the CBI does not deliver the goods. So, folks, expect a terrorist or Pakistan hand to emerge from this mess very soon.

  What is actually needed, but will never happen, is a judicial inquiry. An accident of this magnitude, involving three trains and resulting in 288 deaths (at last count) and more than a thousand injured, cannot be a stand-alone incident, it is the culmination of various causes and failures, and it is important to identify each one of them so that such a catastrophe does not happen again. The country is entitled to know whether the following has contributed in any way to the accident: drastic reduction in the budget for safety, including signaling systems and track maintenance (the budget for track renewals alone was slashed by Rs.3222 crores in 2022-23 as compared to the previous fiscal); shortage of staff at all levels, which according to media reports is as high as 20% of the sanctioned strength; outsourcing of crucial functions to private entities; excessive concentration on elite trains like the Vande Bharat even when funds are denied for routine operations and maintenance; overloading of tracks by running trains without regard to the safe carrying capacity of the entire system or convenience of lower class passengers (an RTI [Right to Information] query has revealed that between April and October 2022, the cumulative delays of passenger trains amounted to more than 24 years!). Earlier, some focus could be kept on these issues when the Railway budget was presented in Parliament, but now that this government has merged the Railway budget with the general budget it is difficult to penetrate through this deliberate wall of opacity. Neither a CBI inquiry, nor one by the Commissioner for Railway Safety, can be expected to look into these issues, only a judicial inquiry with a broad Terms of Reference is capable of doing so. The demand for such an inquiry is not politicisation of the issue, it is at best an inadequate reparation for those who have died, and for their devastated families. 

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  Mr Vishnaw, the Railway Minister, will be sacked anon. But not for the reasons you suspect. Let me give you a clue by narrating an incident concerning Winston Churchill when he was Prime Minister of  U.K. One smoggy London morning a senior Tory M.P. described the PM as an idiot at a press conference. He was promptly issued a disciplinary notice by the party and the matter came up for mention in Parliament the next day. Why was the government trying to curb free speech by punishing the Member, the Opposition demanded? Churchill got up and explained that the MP was being proceeded against, not for expressing his opinion about him, but for revealing a state secret!

  Get it? Mr. Vaishnaw will have to go, not for moral responsibility reasons, but for trying to upstage Mr. Modi in the TV visual stakes. We all remember those carefully choreographed shots of the Minister crawling out from under a wrecked carriage (getting to the bottom of the matter?) or sitting exhausted on a parapet with the hoi polloi after a hard day's night, in the same soiled slacks and tee shirt, or atop a carriage inspecting the overhead cables. How could he? This is Supreme Leader territory, intruding on the spotlight is a capital offence. So the Railway Minister must go, not because three trains crashed into each other, but because a dozen cameras were focused on the wrong guy. Even though he did not change his clothes between shots.

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  It now appears inevitable that Mr. Sachin Pilot will be severing relations with the Congress next week, according to all media reports. Frankly, I am relieved because this soap opera has been going on now for longer than the "Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" serial, and one is sick and tired of it. He belongs to a breed of entitled politicians who believe that they are bigger than the party and deserve a better compensation package, never mind if their company is deep in the red and is fighting for sheer survival. If their actions shove the nation a little closer to the dogs, so be it: it will not affect their life styles in any way- in fact it might make them even better, what with some handouts from the burgeoning Electoral Bonds in the BJP coffers. The Congress should let Mr. Pilot go- cut its losses now and re-strategise, rather than face a last minute crisis just before the state elections this year. A Judas will never reform. Look at Mr. Pilot's illustrious predecessors in betrayal- Amarinder Singh, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ghulam Nabhi Azad; two of them are already non-entities and just unpleasant memories, the third will become one too after the elections. Mr. Pilot's departure may result in the Congress losing a few seats, but that would have happened anyway with the privileged scion putting up rebel candidates to counter the official ones. Now at least Mr. Kharge and Gehlot can fight the elections without having to constantly worry about the knife between the shoulder blades. The secret of handling excess baggage is to throw it out quickly. As the Bard said: Stand not upon the order of your going, sir, but go!

INDIA'S NEW COLONISERS AND THE NEW EAST INDIA COMPANY

  It's been a bad week for me, educative but disheartening, and I need to get it off my less than 56 inch chest. It began with a tweet by a retired DGP of the Kerala police, a Billy-the Kid type whose Twitter handle says he comes out "with all guns firing" in the defense of Hindus. He can't, of course, be bothered to explain why a community with an 82% majority population needs any protection (except from its own self-appointed leaders). Be that as it may, he goes on to tell our protesting wrestlers (whom he describes as "garbage"), that they can be shot with impunity and that he looks forward to seeing them on the post-mortem table. How this gentleman ever came to head a police force tells us a lot about how the law is enforced in India, but more important, it tells us even more about the state of the Indian society today. I'll come to that later.

  My second screamer of the week arrived via a close friend and retired colleague (from another service) who expressed the view that our lady wrestlers deserved all they got at the hands of the Delhi police. Refusing to express any empathy for them, he offered the explanation that actually their protest was a well planned strategy to enter politics in the 2024 elections. You see, he told me, they are all nearing 30 years, wrestling is a very competitive sport, and they have to now look for alternative vocations. Now, I was aware that this gentlemen was a Modi and BJP acolyte, but I had no idea that he had become so dehumanised by his political preferences that he would go to the extent of ridiculing victims of sexual depravation and wishing violence on them.

  The week of despair was nicely rounded off at a lunch I attended in Shimla at a friend's hotel. The folks at my table were all pillars of society- landed gentry, businessmen, a retired army officer and their wives. Tucking into their prawn cocktails and onion consomme, they were unanimous in their conviction that the Indian economy had never done better, that corporate bottom lines looked better than Jennifer Lopez's bottom, er, lines, and that those who criticized Modi should be hanged from the nearest deodar tree- if one could find a deodar tree in Shimla, that is. They dismissed inflation, unemployment, unequal income distribution, and poverty ratios as leftist propaganda meant to denigrate Mr. Modi.

  Do you see a pattern in these three anecdotal instances of the Naya Bharat? I do, and what they tell me is that India is being let down by its elite, its educated, well-off, urbanites, the 10% of the population who have cornered 75% of its wealth and control all the levers of power- the bureaucracy, the defense forces, its economy, its institutions of education, culture and sports, it media. They comprise the new East India Company , and their only concern is to preserve (and enhance) their own wealth, protect their own gated community life styles, retain their political relevance and their grip on power and policy making. They cannot be bothered with the remaining 90% of India which lives outside their privileged cantonments. This had evinced itself during the Covid years, which we mistakenly thought was an aberration, but has now become the very essence of our societal character.

  Which is why I see the current phase as one of post-Independence colonisation- but this time by our own indigenous, home grown politicians, capitalists, bureaucracy and social elite mentioned above. All the features of colonisation exist in abundance- a govt. which is arrogantly deaf to the public's demands, interests and even protests, a police as brutal as the pre-Independence force, laws which are bent to suit the ruling interest and personalities, the pillaging of natural resources to benefit a few individuals, the displacement of tribals and indigenous people on a huge scale (the project in the Andamans being the latest example of such rapaciousness), the jailing of dissidents on the flimsiest of pretexts. The Covid period provided perhaps the surest proof of this: while 75 million people were pushed into poverty, the number of billionaires rose from 102 to 142, and their wealth doubled to 720 billion dollars. The Gini co-efficient ( an internationally accepted indicator of inequality) rose from 74.7 in 2000 to 80.3 in 2021. We rank 123 out of 160 countries in the Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index. And here is the final proof of our second colonisation: just like the British took the wealth extracted from India back to their country, so do the present colonisers- it is estimated that anything between US$ 500 billion  to US$ 4 trillion has been stashed away abroad by these Indians! 

  Presiding over this phase in our history of exploitation by the elite is Mr. Modi, who, incidentally, was crowned Bharat Samrat at the very moment we were having the lunch mentioned above and the sports persons were being brutalised by the Delhi police two hundred meters away. Because Mr. Modi too cannot be bothered by the minor nuisances of female Olympians being beaten up by his police, tribals being murdered in a distant state, farmers protesting for months on the streets, minors being raped in Kathua and Hathras by ideological bed-fellows. This govt. serves only the interests of the Directors and share holders of the new East India Company, whether it is by the ruthless denudation of precious natural capital/ resources, or a hypocritical foreign policy that ensures cheap Russian oil for buddies to reap whirlwind profits, or bank loans for those cronies who are not into oil. And, just in case the lucre is not enough to ensure everlasting loyalty, there is the additional super glue of religion, or more accurately, the rehashed brand of Hindutva.

  Which is why the format of the inauguration of the new Parliament building on the 28th of May was a perfect symbol for the new elite: the extravagance of Rs. 1200 crores on a new corporate headquarters of the ruling party, the blatant ritualistic domination of one religion, the pomp and show of a defacto transfer of power from a collective to one individual, the protection afforded to one individual while his victims were being brutalised outside. All pretences of democracy, of participation by the people in government beyond the ritual of casting their votes, of the rule of law or constitutional propriety, have been dropped. We shall now be ruled (not governed) by a coterie and its enthusiastic cheer-leaders, that 10% elite comprising the likes of you and me and ours. Seventy five years of political and social progress has just been flushed down the Yamuna like so much e-coli. 

  One cannot but be reminded of an earlier era, 1804 to be exact, when a French Emperor crowned himself, taking the crown from the Pope (Pius the Seventh) and placing it on his own head. The message was that he did not owe his victory and ascension to anybody, to any Constitution or convention; he had earned it by his own efforts and therefore did not have to share power with anybody. The Pope stood by quietly. Sounds familiar ? History does repeat itself, but whether as tragedy or farce, only time will tell.

  

SIZE DOES MATTER !

   I don't get invited to many dinners these days, primarily because 80% of the chaps I know are convinced that Mr. Modi is the best thing that has happened to mankind since the discovery of penicillin. They are what somebody has termed "educated clapper boys" of the Supreme Inaugurator. I stopped clapping shortly after committing the original sin of voting for Him in 2014, and have ever since regretted not having read that wonderful short story THE MONKEY'S PAW by W.W. Jacobs before casting my vote. Do read it, folks, for it is a warning against wishing for something without being aware of its consequences. I'm paying for this gap in my education nowadays by dining alone with my Indie pooch while the good wife too, like Mr. Parakala Prabhakar's wife, is also away at some mandali singing paeans to He Who Cannot Be Named.

  On the rare occasion that I do manage to sidle past someone's front door the first thing I look out for is my host's TV, and then his bookcase, and compare their sizes. Let me explain. My Dad, who was a man of few words and neither accepted, nor proffered, any advice, once made an exception to this general rule and gave me this sage counsel: never argue with a person whose TV is bigger than his bookshelf. He went on to then floor me by giving me a second piece of advice! A country's progress (he said) is not determined by by the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of its general population but by the TFR of its idiots (TFRI)-its progress is in inverse proportion to its TFRI.

  Papa passed away in 2017, without seeing his words being vindicated every single day in New India. The televisionjeevi have taken over the country and no longer even bother with a bookcase in their sitting room, having replaced it with a replica of the new Ram mandir or a model of a bulldozer. The TFRI has exploded, its spermatozoa occupying high positions in government, universities, media, defence forces, bureaucracy, the world of celluloid and the arts, even the RWAs (Resident Welfare Associations) and Whatsapp groups.

  Just pause and consider what we are up against. Even as Manipur is burning, soldiers dying in Kashmir and Olympians being denied justice at Janta Mantar for the last month, our Prime Minister is forum shopping for accolades in the south Pacific, to the accompaniment of quawali type clapping by anchors on prime time TV. On the evening of 21st May NDTV devoted one entire segment to a discussion on the Papua New Guinea Prime Minister touching our PM's feet ! They even had a panel of political analysts and diplomats to convince the viewer that this was the final endorsement of our Vishwaguru status. Never mind that PNG's population is less than that of Kolkata or that  Sambit Patra doesn't know where it is located. A joke by President Biden (asking for Mr. Modi's autograph) was converted into a major policy initiative by the USA, even as the European Union is contemplating action against India for undermining sanctions against Russia, and we have been accused for the fourth year in a row of suppressing religious freedom by the same USA. Anchors in the throes of sacerdotal passion swoon when informing us that the Australian PM says that Mr. Modi is "the Boss", but fail to mention that the BBC's The Modi Question is being screened in the Australian Parliament the very next day. How does one even begin to argue with such people?

  We are by now accustomed to our Ministers spouting nonsense like Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park spouts steam, but even by these Mariana Trench standards the Tripura Chief Minister has hit a new low when last week he claimed that Hindus had invented the Internet 9000 years ago and that it was then known as Indra Neta. He, of course, did not bother to explain who supplied the electricity to power the Indra Neta; presumably that information shall be supplied by Mr. Piush Goyal, our Commerce Minister and an acknowledged authority on gravity, the theory of relativity and the trade deficit. Not to be outdone in the loyalty sweepstakes, the Chairman of ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) has just announced that scientific concepts relating to time, metallurgy, the structure of the universe, aviation etc. were first found in the Vedas. They found their way to the west much later, via the Arabs. So why doesn't he publish them and assure a Nobel Prize for himself, instead of the Padma Shri which is now in the bag?

  But let's not be too harsh on our Ministers, they are just a sign of the times we live in. Our bureaucracy is no less inventive. No doubt inspired by our aspirational Net Zero goal, Madhya Pradesh has decided that it would achieve this all by itself: the government has banned the use of "tandoors" in all major cities because they generate a lot of CO2. Now we know why it's going to take us 50 years to reach the Net Zero target. This astounding decision is almost in the same league as the RBI Governor explaining that the Rs. 2000 note is being demonetized because it has completed its life cycle. Surely that is even more true of all other denomination notes, which have been around for much longer- is he going to withdraw them too and take us back to the age of barter? (There is a strong rumour that in future all notes shall come with an expiry date embossed on them, so that the RBI does not have to do a press conference every seven years). And does Mr. Das realise that he is revealing his non-economics background when he says that the notes have to be returned by 30th September 2023, while at the same time  maintaining that they will continue to be legal tender after that date? Come on, sir, make up your mind; as the hooker told the guy: "You can't have it both ways, dearie."

  The TFRI among the RWA and Whatsapp groups, however, is the real cause of concern for me. Their members (or most of them) reside in a cuckoo land where God handed out bile instead of brains. After years of committing all manner of sins they have suddenly discovered God and find that HE can only be a Hindu. After growing up on Mughlai food, listening to gazals and quawallis, conversing in a language that has as many Urdu words as Hindustani, swooning over Dilip Kumar, Madhubala and Waheeda Rehman, saying "Wah!Wah!" to the poems of Ghalib and Gulzar, visiting the Taj Mahal with their entire brood, they have now concluded that these are evil influences, they threaten our Hindu sanskars and girls, and the whole lot must be banished from this cuckoo land.

  The Supreme Leader is the new God and he can do no wrong, he is pure as the driven snow notwithstanding Adani, Rafale, the windfall private profits of cheap Russian oil; the Gandhis, Nehru and Mamata Banerjee are responsible for all the ills of this country, in that order; the Congress won in Karnataka only because of appeasement of Muslims; the women wrestlers at Jantar Mantar are being funded by the Opposition; Uttar Pradesh is a model of law and order even though according to the NCRB data for 2022 it has the highest crime rate per capita (7.4) of all Indian states; we have taught China a lesson, even though it is sitting on thousands of sq.kms of our land in Ladakh; Kashmir is a land of peace and prosperity even though it is one of the most militarised regions in the world; India is a world champion in the fight against climate change even though we are the 8th most polluted country in the world and 39 out of the 50 most polluted cities are in India (Quality of Air Report 2022), and we have just cleared a proposal to fell 800,000 trees over 160 sq. kms of virgin rain forest in the Andamans so that the usual suspect cronies can make a few more billions.

  This list of delusions goes on and on but our big TV types believe this is the gospel truth. Their minds are as open to reasoning as a government office on a weekend, and any persistence on my part always carries the risk of collateral violence. So I don't argue any more, I quickly size up the comparative sizes of the TV and the bookcase and beat a hasty retreat to the safety of my flat and the pooch who has more intelligence than all the members of my RWA put together. I've pinned my hopes now on the algorithms of AI and Deep Learning. I learn on good authority that soon we shall have a TV which will automatically change channels or switch off the moment the likes of Arnab Goswami, Rahul Shivshankar, Navika Kumar or Sambit Patra appear on the screen. So cheer up, folks,  artificial intelligence may yet save us from natural stupidity and usher in the real Acche Din. 

THE REVERSE CONTINENTAL DRIFT.

   Now that the Karnataka elections are done and dusted (at least until Mr. Amit Shah launches the 2023 version of Operation Kamala), the media and social media are going bananas debating the impact of Bharat Jodo Yatra on it, the contributions of EVMs and ATMs to the final vote tally, whether Kumaraswamy will now shift permanently to Singapore, and if resort owners should be given a one time tax waiver to compensate for the loss of income as no horse trading was needed to form the government. But there are a couple of other issues of import that bother me.

  About 50 million years ago, the Indian plate, drifting across the Tethys sea from south of Australia, crashed into the Eurasian plate to create the present day Indian sub-continent. Mr. Modi and his merry band, as ignorant of geology as they are of history, may have triggered a second continental drift-but this in time in reverse, with the peninsular part of the sub-continent (comprising the five southern states) drifting away from the mainland.

Karnataka has decisively shut the southern gate for the BJP. Whatever slim chances it had of making in-roads into Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in 2024 have disappeared like the triumphant smile on Mr. Modi's visage. Consequently, we now effectively have two Indias, with little in common, and certainly no trust, between them. One can almost call it a second partition- of the mind, that is- and this may yet turn out to be the BJP's lasting legacy for the country.

  The gap between the southern states and the rest of India has been growing over the years (since before 2014) and is now taking the shape of an unbridgeable chasm. In all indicators which determine the health of a nation or society- economic, demographic, developmental, governance- the southern states are beginning to look like they are on a different continent from the rest of India. Take that most basic of indicators, Per Capita Income, of the five southern states and compare it with the five "Hindu heartland" states of the north. The table below gives the position for 2020-21, at current prices:

STATE                 PER CAPITA INCOME (in Rs.)   RANK

Karnataka            236451                                             5

Telengaga            231103                                             7

Tamil Nadu         212174                                             9

Kerala                 205067                                             11

Andhra P            192360                                             16

Rajasthan           115933                                              25

Madhya P           104894                                             28

Jharkhand           71071                                               31

U.P.                    61666                                                32

Bihar                  43605                                               33

India Av.             74567

(It can be noticed that all the southern states are far above the national average, whereas 3 of the northern states are well below it).

   The same pattern repeats itself for other indicators like literacy rates, Total Fertility Rates, infant mortality, poverty ratios, unemployment etc. I could give the comparative figures but it would take up too much space: those interested could google them on government web sites. But here is another significant statistic: 30% of the national GDP is contributed by the southern states, even though they constitute only 18.2% of the country's population. And yet, when it comes to central FC (Finance Commission) devolutions, they receive far less than the Hindi heartland states, thanks to TORs (Terms of Reference) that reward inefficient tax collections, bad governance, poverty ratios and population increase. As per the 15th F.C. recommendations the Union Budget 2023-24 provides Rs. 1,83,237 crores to U.P., more than the amount provided to all the five southern states put together ( Rs.1,61,386 crores). The five northern states mentioned in the table above have cumulatively received Rs.4,66,488 crores, almost three times their southern counterparts.

  The south sees this as discrimination which, to be fair, has been happening since before 2014 but has been made worse now by changing the TORs of the F.C. But what has further exacerbated this simmering discontent is the politics of the BJP since coming to power. It continues to push Hindi down southern throats by fiddling with educational syllabi, renaming campaigns where only Hindi is the preferred choice (the latest being the proposed amendment to change the Forest Conservation Act to Van Sanrakshan evam Samvardhan Adhiniyam), the systematic confrontation of Governors with elected governments, the latest instance being the Tamil Nadu Governor's suggestion that the name of the state should be changed! There is little consideration for feelings, emotions, sensitivities or even history south of the Vindhyas.

  But what may now be bringing the kettle to a boil is the BJP's attempt to impose its anti-Muslim, hyper nationalistic, Hindutva ideology on the southern states. It fails to realise, with its ignorance of history, that the South wants no part of this bigotry and religious hatred of minorities. For one, its Hinduism is as deep rooted as that of its northern cousins with an equally long, if not longer, history and traditions. Two, the Hinduism of the south does not suffer from the paranoia and insecurity of the north because the Mughals came to the south very late in their reign, when the fervour for demolishing temples had waned considerably and had been replaced by a more mature politics of trade and cooperation. Three, the south was far removed, geographically, from the horrors of Partition, and therefore its two major communities have no reason to fear or hate each other. Four, it has lived in harmony with the other sizeable minority, the Christians, for centuries, ever since Saint Francis Xavier landed on the shores of Goa in May,1542.

  Notwithstanding the above, the BJP has been trying for years to stir the religious cauldron in the south, and had made Karnataka its southern laboratory in the run-up to these elections. With the help of a hijacked government it tried everything- hijab, halal, Tipu Sultan, removal of quota for Muslims, Bajrangbali- but failed miserably. In the process, however, it has widened the north-south divide and made the latter even more suspicious of not only the BJP but all political parties north of the Vindhyas.

  A perception and feeling is growing in the southern states that the north is acting as a drag on their development and progress, cornering all national resources for their own benefit. Even worse, there is now also a fear, ever since the BJP assumed power in Delhi, that they are being politically marginalised. The apparition that haunts them is the impending delimitation of Parliamentary constituencies on the basis of revised population figures, which is due in 2026. So far the exercise has been kept in suspended animation since 1971. It is a contentious issue since the southern states are likely to lose out: they have done much better than the cow belt states in controlling population growth, and will therefore lose many seats once current population figures or projections are taken into account for allocating seats in Parliament.

  If the 2011 census is made the basis for the delimitation then four northern states ( U.P., Bihar, MP and Rajasthan) shall gain 22 seats while the four southern states (AP, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telengana) are set to lose 17 seats. (Their position gets progressively worse with each succeeding census). What this means for them is that delimitation will only push them further into the political margins, if population figures do not continue to remain frozen. Doing that, however, may require a constitutional amendment, and the south has every reason to suspect that the BJP would not be inclined to bring in such an amendment. Its main support base is the cow-belt states, it is irrelevant in the south, and it would be happy to gain seats in the northern states to consolidate its power. And it may already be working in that direction with its usual foresight and thoroughness: the new Parliament building is reported to have space for 884 members of the Lok Sabha, against the current strength of 543- something which the southern states have not missed noticing.

  To put it in pure geological terms, the peninsular plates are currently under a lot of tension and tectonic pressure. A victory for the BJP in 2024 could result in their beginning to shift, a continental drift we could do without and should all be worried about. This, perhaps, is one context in which we should be looking at the BJP's loss in Karnataka.

              

OF ABUSES AND ABUSERS

    These days my reading consists mainly of books with titles like TEN SECRETS OF LIVING TO BE A HUNDRED or SEVEN THINGS YOU MUST DO BEFORE YOU DIE. There was a time, however, when one read more exciting stuff, most of which have now faded into the mists of forgetfulness. But I do remember one book in which a lady tells her lover: "You don't make love TO a woman, you make love AT her." Pause, dear reader, and consider the import of these words, and the difference a single preposition can make to a sentiment. TO implies conversation, affection, concern, a sharing of experience. AT, on the other hand, denotes a one-way communication, a selfishness, a lack of concern for the other. But, you may well ask: why mention this now?

  Because I am reminded of this every time I hear our venerable Prime Minister speak, whether it is at a choreographed public rally or in the sanitised environs of a Man ki Baat, or in the incense-burning portals of a TV studio where he is treated like the presiding deity and the high priest, both. His exhortations are always about what HE thinks, what He feels, what HE wants, what HE considers is good for the nation, and so on. The public- that is, you and me and ours-never ever features in his sermons, for  we don't even exist for him, his total involvement is with the lights, cameras and tele-prompters (when they work, that is).

  But some good can come of even this rodomontade: the Prime Minister's lament at a rally in Karnataka last week that he has been abused precisely 91 times by other parties has cleared up one big mystery for me, one that had been dogging my waking hours and haunting the sleeping ones. I now finally know the reason why the government has no data on Covid deaths, migrant deaths during the great exodus from cities, farmers' deaths during their agitation, how much area the Chinese are occupying in Ladakh, contributors to the electoral bonds and PM CARES, how many MSMEs had to shut down post demonetisation and GST, and other important matters. Until the Prime Minister spoke AT the conscripted crowds in Bangalore, I had thought that the govt. was simply trying to conceal this information. But now I know better.

  The real reason is that the entire PMO was occupied in collating data on the abuses hurled at the PM . And that's not an easy job, you know; one has to keep tabs on every abuse on print and digital media, social media and public rallies, the New York Times and Washington Post, by Kunal Kamra and Satya Pal Malik. Then one has to consult the Oxford dictionary, Shehjad Poonawalla and Sambit Patra (both acknowledged authorities in this genre of communication) to grade the gravity of the invective, trace the progenitor of the said abuse and dispatch the Income Tax or ED (Enforcement Directorate) guys to disabuse him of the idea of thinking that he can make it a habit. And finally, the tele-prompter has to be fed the inputs correctly for the next Prime Ministerial rally- we cannot have the TP suggesting "bugger" when what was intended  was "burglar", can we? Though both can be termed as abuses.

  It's a big operation, this, and so there must be either a working group or a Joint Secretary in the PMO working exclusively on this important assignment. If the former, then my vast experience in government tells me that it would probably be called Abusers (Hard) Working Group. Such avantgarde units are not easy to name, as we discovered in Shimla in the 80's. At that time the monkeys (the real, Rhesus variety, not the ones affiliated to a certain organisation) had practically taken over the HP  Secretariat: they had a free run of the place, disposed of more files than all the Secretaries put together, and had even started attending Cabinet meetings. This last bit was a speculation, of course, but based on the clear simian imprints on some of the Cabinet decisions taken at that time.

  Finally, when the monkeys attempted to unfurl the national flag on the Secretariat roof, it was decided to set up a committee of senior Secretaries to examine the matter and give recommendations to put an end to the menace. The committee was notified by the Section Officer (GAD), but it was some time before we noticed that it was called Committee of Monkeys, instead of Committee on Monkeys. The same preposition problem, you will notice. All the members resigned, of course, lest this honour make its way into their curriculum vitae and blight their future chances of promotion. The Section Officer was suspended, of course, for his Monkey Baat.

  But it's possible that the PMO doesn't have a committee devoted to abuses but a Joint Secretary to handle it. If so, he would probably be designated Joint Secretary (Abuses), and that brings to mind another designative double entendre concerning President Abraham Lincoln.

  One day a Kentucky farmer, accompanied by his wife and teenage son, called on Lincoln. On being admitted to the President's presence he pompously introduced himself thus: "Good morning, Mister President. I am Mister Bates, this here is my wife Missis Bates, and my son Master Bates."

" Now, does he?", asked Lincoln, "have you shown him to a doctor? It's not a good habit, you know".

See the complexities in finding suitable appellations and designations? For if the Joint Secretary (Abuses) I shudder to imagine what the Secretary does.

HAS THE CIVIL SERVICE CITADEL BEEN BREACHED ? .

    

   I was privy last week to an extended Whatsapp chat between a serving senior IAS officer (let's call him K) and a venerable retired colleague about the extra-legal execution of the gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed. K, who otherwise plays the victim card more often than the Prime Minister does, was vehement in his support of the lynching, maintaining that when the system fails people are justified in taking the law into their own hands. His unequivocal view is that since the IAS and IPS have failed, it is "only Yogi's gang and their guns" which can ensure security for the common man. These are the views of an officer whose job it is to uphold the law, who has sworn an oath to protect the Constitution. Today he is advocating cold blooded murder, and no amount of reasoning by the retired veteran would make him change his mind. In fact, he flaunted his opinion by putting it up on a Whatsapp group and then defending it abrasively.

   The second disconcerting example is provided by a recent article by another senior serving IAS officer, this time the Director of the premier Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, the alma mater of  All India Service officers. This gentleman (who predictably belongs to the Gujarat cadre of the IAS) offers the view that the IAS did not have a national ethos (whatever that means) till 2014, that governments before Modi were unable to rid the service of its "colonial mindset" or "craft a civil service rooted in the national ethos", that "this task of defining an Indian ethos for the civil service began in the 75th year of India's independence, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address where he spelt out the country's vision......"

   There is much more of this sacerdotal nonsense in the article, but essentially, once we extract the meaning from this oily sludge, what this Kangana Ranaut- Amitabh Kant clone is saying is that the IAS continued to be a colonial service till 2022, its members having no connect with the people, that it was only after  Modi's arrival that it acquired relevance and a patriotic ethos. One would have dismissed this garbage as just some more of the persiflage we read everyday nowadays, except for the fact that this acolyte heads the institute which trains all our senior civil servants, drafts the syllabus for their training, imparts to them the first impressions of what their service will be like, defines the parameters of their future responsibilities and expectations. With the continued patronage of the Godfather, his capacity for undermining the originally neutral, independent, secular and apolitical nature of the All India Services is unlimited.

   The danger which is now staring the bureaucracy in the face cannot be underestimated. It is much more foundational than merely transferring inconvenient officers and rewarding the loyal ones, which has been the template so far since 1950. The effort now is to indoctrinate and mould the officers right from their training days in the image of their maker so that they will become mere party apparatchiks. (This, quite clearly, was the subtle hint to them from the PM himself recently when he exhorted them to keep a vigil on the spending of funds by political parties (read: Opposition parties), something which is not part of their job). 

   What alarms me is not just the perverted psychology and utterances of these two gentlemen. It is this: these two officers have been recruited, trained and have served in an era of relative liberal democracy, when constitutional values were generally respected, even though they might not always have been upheld in the ideal manner they should have been. And yet, it has taken just a few years of this regime for them to have capitulated to, and embrace, the new majoritarian, intolerant and authoritarian narrative that is the lingua franca of governance today. What hope then is there for those who are joining the civil services today, trained, guided and mentored by the likes of K and the Director referred to ? Will these new entrants be able to retain the vision of a Sardar Patel when he insisted on retaining the All-India services as an apolitical, federal, independent agency free to speak its mind, or will they become mere foot soldiers of a hegemonic ruling party which has made no secret of its desire to change the Constitution to conform to its own ideology? Will these "compliant managers" (an apt term coined by Mr. M.G.Devashayam in an article in THE WIRE) go on to join the Agniveers of the defence forces as the new storm troopers of the BJP/RSS combine?

   My fear is that Patel's vision is receding into history and may soon be redacted altogether. I interact fairly extensively with colleagues, both serving and retired, individually and through a number of Whatsapp groups. And their conduct and indifference worries me: the vast majority prefer to remain mute, content to get their pensions and salaries on time, devoting themselves to asinine forwards, as if the changes taking place around them are of no consequence. Many more are closet bhakts, clearly sympathetic to the new narrative of a fake Amritkaal but lacking the courage to openly say so. But an increasingly growing number of them are vocal supporters of the brutalisation of society and government, the vigilante justice, the exclusionary intolerance, the predatory use of police and regulatoty agencies to stamp out any dissent, the curbing of basic freedoms that are the norm today. Try as I might, I can find no sensible reason to explain this deterioration in character, except to wonder whether Ambedkar was right after all in stating that democracy in India is only a top soil, a thin covering that can be easily washed away. Perhaps the monster that is gradually emerging through this top soil- a hatred for minorities and a death wish for authoritarianism- was always latent in our character, covered by a shallow layer given us by our founding fathers but now washed away by a Devil's wind.

   It's the civil services that have held this country together for 75 years, for all their faults and mistakes, through wars, riots, droughts, famines, changes of government, disasters, endemic corruption and worse. Stumbling at times and blundering at others, they have nonetheless preserved our nation as a functioning democracy. But now these same services are getting unraveled through the latent prejudices, short-sightedness and sycophancy of its own members, serving and retired. I wonder if it will help to remind them of the words of the great Sardar on why he insisted on retaining the steel frame of the IAS:

"There is no alternative to this administrative system...The Union will go, you will not have a united India if you do not have a good All India Service which has the independence to speak out its mind, which has the sense of security that you will standby your work....If you do not adopt this course, then do not follow the present Constitution..... Remove them and I see nothing but a picture of chaos all over the country."

  Sadly, the New India has no place for a Sardar Patel, only for "Karmayogis" following in the footsteps of a Pied Piper. The Sardar himself has been reduced to a mute statue.