THE GANGS OF FATEHPUR

 

THE GANGS OF FATEHPUR.

   Ensconced in my tiny village near Mashobra in the Shimla hills in the summers, I feel like Raja Hari Singh Katoch of Kangra when he was besieged in the Kangra fort by Jahangir in 1620.  Worse, actually, because the stalwart Raja had to put up with the inconvenience for only fourteen months whereas I have had to endure it every year for the last 14 years. And it's not the Mughal army I have to contend with but the Khan Market and Lutyen's gangs of Delhi.

   Come April every year and members of these gangs, in their tens of thousands, clamber up the mountain landscape and take over our roads, markets, forests and every bed in every homestead. Like locusts they devour everything and leave behind in their wake tonnes of plastic, bottles, empty packets of chips, cigarettes and condoms. Like Jahangir, they lay claim to our lawns, apple trees and parking places; the women have been spared so far, but that's only because we hide them with the cattle. We huddle in our houses, waiting for the pestilence- called tourists in modern parlance- to pass.

   I have given the origins of this annual invasion a lot of thought, and have come to the conclusion that it occurs primarily because we no longer visit our grandparents, and instead prefer to go on vacation to the hills! Think about it. The internet, competitive consumerism and the breakdown of familial relationships drive us to constantly seek " new experiences" and new vistas. If the Junejas can do it, we reason, so can we. Even if it means being stuck for eight hours on the Rohtang pass, being ripped off by taxi drivers in Dharamshala or abused by the pony wallahs in Kufri. It was different when we were growing up in the fifties and sixties.

  My grandfather, a patriarch no one messed with, stayed in a village of Fatehpur district in UP called Husainganj (unless the good Yogi has now changed its name). He had built himself a huge haveli there from the proceeds of his book shops in Calcutta, and inscribed one golden rule in its stones: all his children and 17 grandkids had to visit him every summer: he even paid for the rail tickets. So I never even saw a mountain( or sea, or desert) till I was 25: the only mountain I had seen was the stupendous landfill in Ghazipur, which, like the Himalayas continues to grow each year. Every summer vacation my Dad would pack the family into a second class coach of the Kalka mail at Calcutta (or Hazaribagh or Asansol or wherever he happened to be posted at the time) for the 24 hour journey to Fatehpur- annual migrations one looks back on with fond nostalgia mixed with a regret that my own sons (part of the KM gang) have never seen this facet of the Old India. For today train travel is all about getting to the destination as quickly as possible, it's never about the pleasures of the journey itself. I recently travelled by Shatabdi to Kanpur and found that of the 62 passengers, 60 of them had buried their persona and noses into their smart phones. The 61st was a seven eight year old kid (who should have been smothered at birth) who was sliding the door open and shut, letting in the flies and letting out the cold air. I was the 62nd, observing it all and weeping like Alexander the Great for I had now seen it all.

   For us the journey was itself a delight. There were no AC coaches or electric traction back then. We would stick our heads out of the open windows, breathing in the soot and smoke from the massive Bullet engines, jump out at every station to buy comics from the AH Wheeler stalls (where have they all disappeared?), grab the local station food from the vendors- "jhalmoori" at Asansol, aloo tikkis at Dhanbad, samosas at Mughalsarai, puri-aloo at Benaras, the delicious pedas at Allahabad. All extremely unhygienic, swarming with e-colis no doubt, but Michelin star stuff which built up the immunity which in later years has enabled us to tackle the tasteless swill IRCTC serves on trains nowadays. But the "piece de resistance" for which we all used to wait, came at Fatehpur, which arrived at the opportune time for breakfast and where we deboarded with great excitement. Its generally deserted restaurant served the best buttered toast and omelette on the Grand Trunk line, on round tables covered with spotless linen and cutlery.  (The only railway restaurant that comes even close to its ambience and service is the Barog station on the Kalka- Shimla line). We left the restaurant only when they ran out of eggs, for the next two weeks in Husainganj were to be a vegetarian existence, without even onions and garlic.

   There was only a dirt track between Fatehpur and Husainganj, a distance of about ten kms; there were no buses, only the occasional horse carriage on a sharing basis. But my grandfather had the biggest haveli in the village and there was no way his grand brats would travel in a "tonga"; for us he sent his personal bullock cart, drawn by two of his finest oxen: a magnificent, snow white pair standing almost five feet high at the shoulders, bedecked with colourful ribbons and tinkling bells, their regal horns sheathed in copper. The bullock cart itself was a caparisoned wonder, with sun shades, carpeted with Mirzapuri rugs and stocked with sugarcane stalks, peanuts and nimboo-pani.  We flew down the dirt track like Ben-Hur in the last lap of his famous race , giving the term " cattle class" an entirely new meaning. It set the tone for the next month, a controlled chaos of joint family living, over which my grandfather proudly presided: a patriarch who held his large family together with stern dictats, superb logistic skills and well placed inducements.

   He is gone now, of course, and so is the world we grew up in: the haveli is in ruins, the bullock cart is now a symbol of penury, not of status, the omelette is now a leathery strip served with sarkari reluctance, the station food vendors replaced by catering franchisees hawking packaged rubbish, most trains do not even stop at Fatehpur. Why should they? Nobody goes there for everyone is now headed for the mountains, the seaside resorts or the casinos of Goa. In this world of OYO rooms, Make My Trip.com, Airbnb and cashbacks, visiting grandfathers is such a waste of time. But I do wish the millennial generation would start visiting the old critters again: it would make them happy, it would lift my siege and might even save the mountains from further depredation. I speak, of course, as a grandfather-in-waiting.

DISAPPEARING DEMOCRACY-- DISMANTLING OF A NATION

                                          

                            

This is my latest book, published by Author's Upfront/ Paranjoy on 24th Feb.2024. Available on AMAZON, in paperback and Kindle versions. An international edition is also available.

DISAPPEARING DEMOCRACY is, in a way, a continuation of my earlier book, THE WASTED YEARS (published in 2021), and takes off from where the latter had ended. It covers the period from June 2021 to November 2023, and is a collection of my articles, blogs and opinion pieces on various subjects of current interest.

The pieces in this book are my take on political, legal, economic and societal issues engaging the attention of the nation at the time. I write, not as a domain expert or as an investigative journalist, but as an averagely well informed (I hope!) citizen alarmed at the cataclysmic changes that have been taking place to the country's painstakingly carved structure, something we all had taken for granted but now find is all too fragile. To quote Lord Byron from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: 

"A thousand years scarce serve to form a state,                                                                                              An hour may lay it in the dust."

It is that hour I speak about.

Our nation state is being dismantled before our eyes, its nuts and bolts being taken apart-the judiciary, civil services, constitutional bodies, media, NGOs, armed forces, even our history and culture- to serve the interests of an exclusionary ideology. What is perhaps most disturbing, however, is the dismantling of our once tolerant, proudly diverse and joyously inclusive society. It has now become dangerously brutalised, indifferent to wrongs and excesses, it has lost its voice and conscience. All other components of a state can be repaired and fixed when an enlightened leadership replaces an old one, but there is no anti-venom for a poisoned society. It can only perish, taking with it thousands of years of civilisation. If there is one lesson that history teaches us, it is this.

This book is an attempt to record these developments, in real time and not in hindsight: the date of each of the 47 chapters in the book is indicated to provide it context for a better understanding of the circumstances surrounding it. But if there is one paramount message I wish to convey, it is that the future of a nation is too important to be left to politicians, bureaucrats, so-called experts, Big Capital and the media. The ordinary citizen- you and I- have to get involved and to take centre-stage and speak out. For when public conscience and opinion die, so does democracy.

  

THE NAME OF THE GAME

   Even as I write this piece, a lion-lioness pair in a national park in Tripura is going through a severe identity crisis: named Akbar and Sita respectively, they have now to be given new names as per an order of the state High Court. Apparently, a VHP outfit had objected to the names, though it is not clear whether their refined sensibilities had been offended by the naming of an animal after a goddess, or whether it was the pairing with a Mughal name which made them see red (or saffron, in this case). We also do not know whether they disapproved of the inter-faith relationship or the live-in arrangements. Taking no chances, however, the High Court has directed that they be renamed and that animals should not be named after prominent people or deities. The Chief Wildlife Warden of Tripura is now facing a crisis of his own-an existential one this time-for he has been suspended, presumably for setting too much store by Shakespeare's "A rose by any other name..."

  When I was growing up (in prehistoric times, I must admit, given my advancing years) naming a person or place was great fun, a family occasion, like an "antakshree" game, where the biological parents had little say. The final word was usually that of the family pundit or presiding matriarch- what they suggested was generally accepted by everyone, and all concerned thereafter repaired happily to the nearest "theka" to celebrate. Notwithstanding this casual-and usually politically incorrect by today's Woke standards-approach, however, the conferred name left nothing to the imagination and was a perfect description. In my ancestral village, if a guy had a limp he was named Langru, if he was one-eyed he was naturally called Kana, the younger brother was invariably Chotu, a sharp and intelligent child had to be Chakku, the youngest kid in the family could be no other than Nanhe, a cute little girl was always named Gudiya. See what I mean?-No probing questions were needed when you met the guy or gal for the first time, no Google search was necessary, the name was the bio-data. 

  It was the same with place names, which got their moniker from the person who founded it, or from the local deity or religious structure, or some natural feature, or a local tradition, or some historical titbit. For example, my present village in Himachal is called Purani Koti, which means Old Koti. It used to be, in pre-independence days, an unknown hamlet of a couple of houses and part of the Koti kingdom. That kingdom is long gone now, but there are plenty of other Kotis scattered all over the place, which have no connection with the erstwhile kingdom. So, in order to retain its historical roots and show the parvenus their place, the natives decided to name this hamlet as Purani Koti. No fuss, no controversy, history respected, and the world has moved on.

  No more, in Naya Bharat. The name has now been weaponised in support of a particular ideology: towns and cities are now being renamed faster than Mr. Modi changes his clothes. Of course, after Independence states, districts and towns have been frequently renamed- more than 100 cities have been renamed, 10 in the last five years alone. But whereas earlier the renaming was generally in the nature of phonetic transliteration (to align with local, indigenous pronunciation, i.e from Calcutta to Kolkatta, or from Simla to Shimla), or to replace the Romanized spelling with Indian English (eg. Jubblepore to Jabalpur, or Cawnpore to Kanpur), today this process has acquired a hyper nationalistic, Hindutva driven character. More often than not it is places with Muslim names which are being targeted, an exercise of revenge against past atrocities, real and imagined, the rewriting and redaction of history. The concerned governments are not bothered about the loss of cultural authenticity or the erasure of history this entails, for place names are one of the building blocks of history, and removing any of them leaves permanent holes in our past. But perhaps this is precisely what our present rulers want-simply delete those phases or events in our past which do not suit the current majoritarian narrative.

  This weaponisation of names has acquired an even more sinister character and purpose when it comes to names of individuals. Since names indicate religion and ethnicity they have increasingly become a tool for the targeting and persecution of minorities. RWAs will not admit residents with Muslim names and stout Hindus will not employ staff with Muslim names: in my Society every second maid or cook belongs to the minority community, but they all give Hindu names in order to secure a job. Orders are rejected if the delivery boy happens to have such a name, and in some reported instances the poor chaps have even been beaten up for this supposed crime. There are reports that in some states minority names are deleted from voters' lists on a large scale. There are occasional calls to boycott shops with Muslim names; in order to circumvent this, shops belonging to this community often adopt and display Hindu names, but this does not work: when payment is made through the QR code, the shopkeeper's name and identity gets revealed, leading to commotion, scuffles and subsequent boycotts.

  This last example shows how even something secular like a digital innovation can inadvertently result in making one's life difficult, even without the religious under-pinning. If there is a mis-match in your name in the Aadhaar card and your bank account, PAN card, ration card, EPIC (voter card)-even if it's just a spelling error- you can spend the rest of your life trying to get it fixed, and in the meantime you will get no rations, lose access to your bank account, be unable to file your ITRs and be fined as a consequence by the Income Tax department, will not be allowed to vote, cannot get a driving license. The error or mismatch in your name will mean that you will effectively cease to exist as a living entity, you will be part of the living dead. Your name may as well be Dracula.

  Never in the past have names been such a serious issue: they used to be simple markers of identity. Now they have become complex instruments of surveillance, persecution, harassment, digital black holes, stigmatas- in short, a bloody nuisance we can do without. We need to move to a less exploitable system of identification, like a PIN instead of a name. That would truly be secular paradise, what? No one will be able to, well, pin you down to a particular caste, religion or community, and peace and harmony shall prevail. And who wouldn't want to be known as 007 instead of Banchoddas Chanchad, Soumya Bum, Pornika Sircar or Valentine Mirchi ?  

LOTUS INTERRUPTUS ?

   It should come as no surprise that, under the influence of our latest soul-mate Israel, Raisina Hill has now become our version of Mount Sinai, from where regular proclamations are issued by the presiding Prophet. The latest- that BJP shall win more than 370 seats and NDA 400+  in the coming Parliamentary elections- is, however,  pregnant with connotations and implications. Is this eleventh Commandment a sign of confidence, a well prepared alibi, or a smokescreen for something worse?

  I cannot see any legitimate justification for any such confidence. At its present tally of 303 the BJP has plateaued out in the West and its Hindi heartland stronghold: it cannot improve its tally here. It's prospects are no better in the East and South than they were in 2019- in fact, they have deteriorated in Karnataka, Telangana and in the North-east with Congress wins in the first two and the fires in Manipur in the latter. If at all, the BJP is likely LOSE a substantial number of seats: according to the data crunching site  run by Ajay Prakash, WHAT DOES THIS DATA SAY, the BJP's total tally is likely to come down by 40 seats, at the very least.

  Certain recent developments have not favoured the BJP either. Its insidious efforts came a cropper in Jharkhand where the JMM retained its government, notwithstanding the machinations of the ED and Raj Bhavan. In Bihar Tejaswi Yadav appears to have emerged stronger after Nitish Kumar's defection. In Chandigarh the INDIA alliance has emerged victorious in the Mayoral elections and the PM's party stands fully exposed. The striking down of the Electoral bonds may not amount to much in real terms because the BJP has already pocketed Rupees 6500 crores thanks to the delay by the Supreme Court in deciding the case, but it is a big moral defeat for the government, exposing once again the unconstitutional means it adopts to win elections. That the party is smarting from this judgment is evident from the PM's mocking remarks that today, even if Sudama were to give some rice to Krishna, someone would file a PIL and the court would strike it down! Even the brazen retaliation of blocking the bank accounts of the Congress two days later was struck down by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal in short order.                                                                                                Seat sharing among the INDIA alliance partners is not the failure that the bought- out media would have us believe: it is proceeding apace and has been hammered out in U.P, Delhi and Maharashtra, and appears likely in Haryana and Goa. The decision to go their separate ways in Bengal and Punjab makes sense tactically as it will split the anti-incumbency votes. Don't let NDTV and INDIA TODAY convince you otherwise with their slanted coverage and Mood Of The Nation Polls- they reflect more the moods of Msrs Adani and Aroon Purie than that of the common public. 

  The revived farmers' agitation is bad news for the ruling party too, and will become even worse if violence ensues, as appears likely, given that the government has learnt no lessons from the 2021 agitation. It's reliance on brute force as a panacea for all protests cannot deliver for ever and the people are beginning to recognize it for the tyrannical regime it is. There is widespread sympathy for the farmers this time, except perhaps among the pampered elites of Delhi who do not even know the difference between MSP and MRP, and can't be bothered so long as their Zomato delivery arrives on time.

  The government's febrile actions over the last couple of months also do not demonstrate that it is acting from a position of confidence; on the contrary, they display a certain desperation and nervousness. The frantic campaign to engineer defections of all and sundry have degraded the BJP from a washing machine to a garbage bin: it is now collecting all kinds of trash from other parties, people it branded as  corrupt repeatedly, including the likes of  Ajit Pawar and Ashok Chavan. Very soon, having collected all the rubbish from other parties, it will become a patchwork quilt of opportunists and lose its strong ideological character. According to an analysis carried out by the digital platform, Knocking News, out of 303 MPs in the party only 134 are original BJP types, the rest are all imports from other parties. It is becoming a "Congress yukt" party in rapid order.

  The fear of losing is prompting other knee jerk reactions: the constant targeting of Rahul Gandhi's BJY-2 (which was not the case in BJY-1), the resumed personal attacks on him and his family, the renewed attempts at polarised violence in Haldwani, the frantic rush to introduce the Common Civil Codes in BJP ruled states, the raising of the specter of CAA and NRC by the Home Minister again, the reported de-activation of Aadhar cards as alleged by the West Bengal Chief Minister, the wholesale conferment of Bharat Ratnas in order to appropriate the memory of dead legends even as the party spurns all that they stood for. The list goes on, but it indicates one thing, as surely as the Mayoral elections in Chandigarh indicated brazen rigging of votes: that these are not the actions of a party confident of not only a victory, but of a two thirds majority! The BJP may be facing a reality check, finally, and in the process is committing one blunder after another. With each such fiasco it is denting its image even further. 

  It's election narrative this time sounds decidedly hollow and devoid of any substance; it offers nothing but the three M's- Mandir, Masjid and Muslim, a refrain which is beginning to sound jaded and repetitive. Real economic improvement has bypassed 90% of the country's population and this shows in just about every human development matrix. The so-called Modi's Guarantees are nothing but discredited Jumlas after cosmetic plastic surgery. So, one comes back to the question one posed at the beginning of this piece: What makes the BJP so confident of a landslide victory in spite of all these adverse indications ?

  The clues, perhaps, are to be found in the manner in which the ground is being prepared- the constant refrain of 400+ seats, the slanted pre-poll surveys endorsing these estimates, and the amplification of these predictions by an obliging media. So that when the 400+ IS declared after the polling, people would not question it because they had already been pre-conditioned to expect it! Could it be that the BJP has a joker up its sleeve? The EVMs perhaps? A national roll out of the Chandigarh Mayoral model, under the benevolent gaze of the Election Commission?

 I really don't know. But I am reminded of that intriguing quote from Arthur Conan Doyle: 

"When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Think about it. And worry.

THE UNDERBELLY OF THE FLYING MACHINE

   I'm finding that, as I get along in years, I'm becoming more and more of a contrarian, preferring to don the mantle of an "advocatus Diaboli" than an "advocatus Dei". And the reason is simple enough: one can no longer trust what one hears, or believe what one reads. The obvious is often misleading, as the Pope discovered when he was doing crosswords on a flight. He was presented with a missing first letter in the word "- U N T" and the clue was "relating to a woman". He blushingly filled in the missing letter, till a senior Cardinal whispered in his ear: " No, NO, your Holiness, the word is AUNT." See what I mean? (I cannot verify this story, it's just one of the Whatsapp gems floating around, and I mean no offence, but it does convey that men will be men, even if they have taken  unholy orders).

  Mankind has invented many things we, and the planet, would probably have been much better off if these had never seen the light of day: the atomic bomb, toilet paper, SUVs, politicians, the ballistic missile, the electric razor and so on-you can make your own list. To this list I propose to add flying and planes, for I can see no tangible real benefits which the flying machine has conferred on us, nor has it  made the world a better place (unlike other discoveries like penicillin, democracy, the printing press, the wheel, electricity etc.) And the sheer scale of this disaster is matched only by the speed at which it has occurred.

  Just a hundred and twenty years ago, in the words of Bill Bryson, the entire global civil aviation industry consisted of two mechanics and a wooden plane in a bicycle shed in Ohio. Today it comprises 39000 planes (not including light aircraft and helicopters) and 40000 airports. It emits 1.40 billion tonnes of CO2 a year, just about 2% of total global emissions. Almost 4.50 billion people fly every year, most just for the heck of it- for pleasure, to visit relatives they never liked in the first place, for honeymoons which will end in a divorce before they can cash in their frequent flyer miles, to spend precisely 10 seconds ogling at the Mona Lisa before they are pushed on by the 20 million other tourists who visit the Louvre every year, or taking a selfie on Mount Everest after being carried there by sherpas at a cost of US$ 50000. The projected figure of flyers for 2040 is 8 billion- can you even begin to visualise the environmental impact of this catastrophe?

  Let us view this in microcosm, to understand how this is benefitting the super-rich primarily. Elon Musk flies 250000 kms a year in his private jets (not because he needs to, but because he can afford to). He generates 1800 tonnes of CO2 (from just his flying, mind you) every year, which is, hold your breath, 250 times the per capita of China, 1000 times of India, and 90000 times that of Burundi!  Other celebrities like Taylor Swift and Oprah Winfrey are not far behind. The top ten global celebrities probably generate more green house gases than many countries like Somalia, Tonga and, yes, Burundi.

  There are other costs and inequities involved. The 40000 airports cover, at a rough estimate, about 400000 sq. miles of land, one third the size of India. (The largest airport in the world, Al Fahd in Saudi Arabia, covers 700 sq, kms; our own upcoming Jewar near Delhi will need 51 sq kms when complete). All this is land diverted from agriculture, which could have been used for growing food crops in a world where 40% of the people go to bed hungry. And consider also the millions who have been displaced to make way for these beds of concrete, the refugees of capitalism.

  How does this crap benefit either human kind or the planet?

  In fact, if you ask me (which I notice you haven't but that will not deter me), it has done the reverse, in addition to the humongous pollution it generates. Places and countries are being devastated by the millions who fly there like locusts- Bali, Venice, Barcelona, Dubrovnik, Mount Everest, Machi Pichu, our own Goa, Manali and Shimla (and, shortly, Lakshadweep), Mounts Fuji and Everest (which will soon have more poop than snow on its slopes), and so on. Dangerous viruses can now spread all over the world in just a few days thanks to flyers. Mallya, Modi, Choksi and others of their ilk would have been in Tihar now had it not been for British Airways or KLM or whichever airline they chose to skip out with billions on our moneys. We would have been seeing much more of Sunny Leone's hairpin curves here in India if she did not have the opportunity to fly off to Canada just when the nation sighed in unison "Yeh Dil Maange More." As it is, we have to be satisfied by observing Mr. Modi switching roles (and costumes) from vishwaguru to head priest to head honcho. Not exactly the same thing, you will agree, even if you are a bhakt.

  I stopped flying in 2006 and have not taken a flight since then and do not intend to do so if I can help it. The legendary Maharajah of our once national airline now looks more like Suresh the con-man, what with passengers being asked to pay separately for window/aisle seats, for water and snacks, for leg room: very soon they will also have to shell out for visits to the toilet. Flying in India is now an adventure sport: if someone does not beat you up in the cabin, or the air hostess does not spill scalding tea on your child, you are likely to be roused from your slumbers by someone urinating on you. Fine dining has been raised to a new level with worms or chicken in your vegetarian meal and a-la-carte meals being spread out on the tarmac for that runway experience. You can also expect to get screwed for free while ordering your dish, as an Indigo passenger on a Bangalore- Chennai flight on the 1st of February 2024 found out when he discovered a metal screw in his spinach-corn burger. The sauna is also complimentary, as you sweat for hours in a locked plane on the tarmac while the airline tries (not too hard) to locate the missing pilot, or when you are stranded in a malfunctioning airbridge for hours without even an apology, or forced to complete your journey on a toilet seat because the toilet door won'T open. A passenger never knows when he can expect to depart or to arrive, or whether his flight will clear the "smell test"- another Indigo flight from Delhi to Mumbai had to turn back on the 9th of this month because of an unspecified "foul smell" (is it time to make our planes ODF (Open Defecation Free) too? And, through all this, said airline is reported to have declared a profit of Rs. 7000 crore in the last quarter! Proof enough that there is more than one fool being born every minute.

  No, sir, I'm done with flying and prefer to travel by the humble train and on foot- it's good for both the planet, my wallet and my health. If God really wanted us to fly he would have given us wings, or at least some tail feathers. And don't let any economist- those practitioners of a dismal science- tell you that flying is good for the economy. For these chaps all that matters is the GDP; for them, it's good for the economy if you break your leg and have to go to an expensive hospital-it adds to national consumption/expenditure. A pandemic is good also because Pfizer can then make another 40 billion dollars from its vaccines. The war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza are good for the global economy because they generate tens of billions for the arms industry. Overpopulation is good because it adds to the labour force, never mind if we can feed the additional billions or not. Economists are rectal endoscopists- they always take a narrow view of the world from the wrong end.

  Make up your own minds, folks. Listen to the Devil's Advocate- his services are pro-bono.

RESIDENT WELFARE ASSOCIATIONS -- THE NEW VIGILANTES ON THE BLOCK.

  Notwithstanding the sustained efforts of our neo-colonial rulers to "decolonise" our mental spaces, some vestiges of it remain. Have you noticed how, the moment someone is given a uniform, or a baton, or a public office, he starts wielding his "authority" with indiscriminate abandon and capriciousness, as if to make up for having been at the receiving end himself for years ? (And I'm not talking here of petty government officials who are in a league of their own, but of your average non-sarkari Joe). Harken back to your own experience, dear reader, with the not-so-friendly neighbourhood cop, the parking attendant, the security guard, the toll plaza guy, the air-line staffer, the bank clerk, the ration shop dealer, the mobile service center chap, the vigilante "gau rakshak" goon, or any other person with a suppressed or low self esteem who suddenly finds himself empowered to lord it over his fellow citizens. The latest entrant to this sorry tribe is the RWA (Resident Welfare Association) or the AOA (Apartment Owners' Association).

  These elected bodies have been established by law to manage their colonies and housing developments, but of late have acquired an extra judicial, parastatal identity, issuing edicts and orders they have no business doing, like petty tyrants. They are totally unmindful of the laws of the land and violate them with impunity. Increasingly, RWAs have disallowed residence/ tenancy of bachelors, student groups, single women, pet owners, live-in couples, even female visitors. Residents who object or complain have their power or water cut off, entry restricted and are slapped with unjustified fines.                                                      The high (low?) point of this was reached last week when a New Delhi RWA ordered the daughter of Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar, ex-Congress Minister and MP, to vacate her flat in the colony and move out ! The provocation ? A social media post she had put up, criticising the Ram Mandir consecration on the 22nd January and going on a three day fast to protest against it. A purely private opinion and a personal gesture in a still putative free country, you would think? Wrong.

  The pot bellies of the RWA , donning the mantle of protectors of the Faith, decided that Ms. Aiyar was indulging in hate speech, insulting the Hindu religion and inciting disrespect towards it. She had to go, even though she is reportedly not a resident of that particular RWA, though her father is! This brazen and illegal assumption of an undelegated authority by these medieval burghers marks a paradigm shift and escalation in the role of the RWAs- one towards bare faced bigotry and sectarianism, which is not only disturbing, but is also dangerous in its implications.

  In a prevailing atmosphere of intolerance, majoritarianism and religious triumphalism, emboldened by regressive laws like the anti-conversion Acts, the Uniform Civil Code of Uttarakhand and the impending CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and NRC (National Register of Citizens), this assumption of extra-legal authority by the RWAs and AOAs is ominous. They are gradually becoming the self-appointed gate-keepers of morality, culture and political discourse- a role that the law does not confer on them. Unfortunately, the recent spurt in laws that stigmatize inter-faith marriages or live-in relationships or conversions come in handy for these RWAs to harass those who have adopted such relationships or identities. The time is not far off when these busybodies may determine what their members eat, how they dress, to which Gods they pray. If not checked they could well demand, in due course of time, the production of marriage certificates, prohibit live-in residents or couples in an inter-faith marriage, bar members of a particular religious denomination or hailing from a particular region from living in their societies, compel participation in specific religious functions, expel residents for being critical of government policies, insist on proof of citizenship, dictate how many children an apartment owner can have. Why, they may even insist that all their members vote for a particular party! It would be vigilantism of the worst type. Needless to say, they could legitimately expect the full support of the local police in certain states. 

  Citizens are already subject to all kinds of surveillance, privacy intrusions and indoctrination by the government; the RWAs could take it to a whole new level. This trend must be resisted before it goes out of hand. State governments must step in now, through their district administrations and Registrars of Cooperative Societies, to draw red lines for the RWAs and penalise those who cross them. A man's house was once his castle, it is now under siege.

SHIMLA--DOOMED BY A LEGAL "TECHNICALITY"

   When the epitaph of Shimla is written in the not too distant future, as is inevitable, it will be recorded that its death warrant was issued on the 11th of January, 2024, when the Supreme Court chose to go by legal technicalities and assurances of the state govt. rather than on merits of a case, ignoring in the process ground realities and the opinions of any number of experts and environmentalists. Some background first to put the matter in perspective.

                                        

 

    

                        [Collapsed buildings in Shimla. Photo courtesy the TRIBUNE, Chandigarh]

  In November 2017, acting on a PIL by a concerned citizen regarding the rapidly deteriorating environmental conditions in Shimla, the National Green Tribunal had imposed severe restrictions on future constructions in the city, including a ban on any new construction in the vital core and heritage zones and in the 17 Green Belts which are thick forested areas; it restricted buildings in the rest of the town to two and a half storeys. It did so on the evidence of rampant violations of the town's Interim Development Plan, destruction of the green cover, the seismic vulnerability of the city, unrestrained building activity on steep slopes, the risks to the citizens, and the government's repeatedly demonstrated inability/unwillingness to control these activities.

  The state government filed an appeal in the HP High Court but it did not get a stay of the NGT's order. Environmentalists and the older residents of Shimla heaved a sigh of relief, hoping that now at least this once lovely town had been given a chance to recover from the ham handed and short sighted "development: inflicted on it over decades. But these hopes were dashed when the government suddenly published a draft of a new Shimla Development Plan 41 (SDP41) in June, 2022 . This document, probably the most suicidal decree by any govt. in the last 40 years, overturned every direction of the NGT and practically threw it in the wastebin. Purportedly a blue print for Shimla for 2041, it provided, in brief:

* Tripling the population of Shimla to seven lakhs by 2040.

* Opening of the 17 Green Belts, comprising 400 hectares of the only remaining green cover in the town, for construction.

* Permitting construction in the Core and Heritage zones.

* Allowing buildings upto 5 storeys in the remaining zones, in place of the existing 2.5+1.

* A vision of going "vertical" in pursuit of its expansion plan.

* It failed to take into account, or deliberately ignored, the seismic vulnerability of the city, its depleting green cover, the lack of space or open areas, the geographical limitations on building more roads, the lack of parking space, and the effect of the increased traffic volume that any expansion would entail, the existing constraints in ensuring supply of basic needs like power, water and garbage disposal systems.

   The draft SDP 41 was immediately challenged by one Ms Minocha in the NGT as violating the NGT order of 2017, which struck it down. The state govt. predictably filed another appeal, this time in the Supreme Court  which first allowed the state to notify the SDP but not implement it for one month (does this make any sense to you?), and finally on Jan 11, 2024 set aside both the NGT orders and declared the Plan legally valid.

  It did so, not on merits (which the NGT had considered at length) but on a technicality and a brief, prima facie overview of the SDP, supported by platitudes that sound lofty but are not convincing. It did not go into a detailed examination of the points made by either the petitioners of the NGT. To justify its  decision the Court held as follows[ my layman's response to each point made by the Court is given in italics in the brackets following them):

* The NGT  had usurped legislative functions by blocking the SDP.                                                            * It had indulged in judicial overreach and ignored the doctrine of separation of powers.

 [ Both the above observations are ad-hominem arguments that evade the real issue and seek to hide behind the thicket of legalese. The NGT is a statutory body that is tasked with protecting the natural environment and enforcing the rights of the citizens to a healthy, unpolluted and safe life- in fact, these rights are an extension of the fundamental right to life, as the SC itself has stated on many occasions. Moreover, if the higher judiciary can indulge in suspiciously similar "overreach" in ensuring reemployment for its members post retirement in various Tribunals and Commissions,  in providing perks and facilities for them, and in creatively interpreting the Constitution to justify the striking down of the NJAC (National Judicial Appointments Commission), then surely it could have shown the same creativity on an issue that effects the lives of lakhs of people? (Not for a minute am I suggesting that the examples cited above were wrong-I generally agree with those orders- but what I AM stressing is that judicial interpretation should keep in mind the merits of a case and the public cause, which has not been done in this case.]

* Statutory plans, once formulated, should not be altered by judicial bodies unless there is a constitutional basis to question their constitutionality or legality.

[ The SDP 41 was clearly, and blatantly, in violation of the NGT order of 2017, which  had not been stayed by any higher court. Therefore, the Plan was certainly invalid legally, if not a contempt of the court itself. The intervention of the NGT was also justified by the broader interpretation of the right to life, as already mentioned in the para above.]

* It emphasised on the need to balance development with environmental protection.

 [ This is pure lip service platitude, nothing else, and exposes the real weakness of the Supreme Court judgment- its total failure, or unwillingness, to examine the merits of the case. The NGT , on the other hand, had done so in great detail and had even appointed an expert committee to review Shimla's environmental status. For the situation in Shimla (and indeed the rest of Himachal) is no longer one of maintaining a balance between development and the environment (as the SC seems to think) but one of correcting the existing imbalance which is dangerously skewed in favour of "development". Strong and immediate affirmative action is needed to restore this balance; the SDP 41 further skews and distorts this balance and it is unfortunate that the apex court could not see the woods for the trees, even though there are not many trees left in this sorry town]. 

*The SC added, as a sop to the concerned citizens of the town, that they could separately raise challenges to specific provisions of the SDP, particularly on environmental or ecological concerns.

[ But this is exactly what was done by the petitioners before the NGT, twice, which upheld these challenges! The SC order simply avoids taking the correct decision and only encourages further litigation!] 

  What is astonishing is that the SC simply ignored the mountain of evidence that proves that the SDP shall only make a bad situation worse for Shimla. Some of these are:

* A recent report of the SDMA (State Disaster Management Authority) that landslides in HP have gone up three times in just the last 3 years and are attributable to over construction and inadequate drainage.

* A Disaster Management Plan prepared by the Municipal Corporation, Shimla in 2012, and an EIA carried out by the Deptt. of Environment in 2013, both of which recommended against any further dilution or relaxation in the Town Planning Rules.

* The report of an Expert Committee appointed by the NGT in 2017, consisting of technical experts from NDMA, MOEF, NEERI, Wadia Institute, among others, which observed/recommended, inter-alia:

   - Shimla is in seismic zone IV, 85% of its area lies in landslide prone areas, most constructions were on unstable slopes of 45* to 75*, only 20% of the buildings met the standards of earthquake proof construction.

  - In the event of an earthquake 39% of the buildings would collapse, resulting in a minimum of 20000 deaths. It admitted this could be an underestimation.

  - Shimla had exceeded its carrying capacity long ago and needed to be decongested.

  - No construction should be allowed in the Green Belts, Core and Heritage areas and more areas should be brought under the No Construction restriction.

  - The existing 17 Green Belts should be expanded and more area brought under forest cover.

* To these recommendations one must add that Shimla has no capacity to absorb any more vehicular traffic- it has about 100,000 vehicles of its own and between 10000-20000 more enter it every day during the tourist season. ( During the last Christmas week 100,000 cars entered the town). Yet, it has parking for only about 6000 cars. Any expansion of the town would completely choke it.

*  There are 17000 illegal buildings in the town, an indication of the govt's inability to enforce its building plans, even if it were interested in doing so. The new SDP will result in the regularisation of almost all of them, and encourage even more violations.

* The town's majestic deodars are dying of vehicular pollution, construction dust, compaction of soil due to increasing anthropogenic activity, under cutting of their roots and the changing climate; they have stopped regenerating. Hundreds are felled every year under some excuse or the other, but primarily to make way for more buildings and roads. Without them Shimla will just be seven huge rocks.

If any more proof was needed, the rains of 2023 have provided it. The town was practically immobilised and cut off from the world for almost two weeks, all roads were blocked by landslides, power knocked off. Hundreds off trees were uprooted, dozens of building collapsed, at least 50 lives lost. Further confirmation of the potential for further havoc was provided by neighbouring Uttarakhand and Joshimath.

  Surely this indisputable mass of evidence should have persuaded the apex court to not stand on  "technicalities" but to realise the massive potential for disaster that the SDP41 contains within itself.  In my view, it was incumbent on the Court to have posed some queries to the state govt. for instance: Does it make sense to go "vertical" at 7000 feet elevation in the Himalayas, on topography which is prone to landslides and is a seismic zone? Will not construction in the Green Belts further denude the city of its already disappearing green cover? Do the hills of Shimla have the carrying capacity to sustain an increase in population of another  four lakhs ? Where is the space to accommodate another 100000 vehicles, considering there is no road space or parking area in the town? How will the additional garbage and rubbish be disposed off, given that the Municipal Corporation is unable to manage even the existing waste, which has choked the town's hills and natural waterways? Has the govt. even considered the impact of an earthquake on such a sprawling urban sprawl, and its readiness to respond to it?                                                                         The larger public interest demanded that the case needed further interrogation, and, while staying the SDP41, the Court could have remanded the matter to the High Court for a more detailed examination on merits. In my humble view, the SC had an opportunity to display some vision and prescribe a template for urban development in the mountains. Unfortunately, it has chosen to follow the path of least resistance. Its order is disappointing and a warrant of death for Shimla and many of its residents. This once-beautiful, historic town certainly deserved better.