THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE MAY HAVE SHIFTED OVER INDIA

    The Bermuda Triangle is an area over the north-western part of the Atlantic ocean where there have been persistent reports of ships and planes simply disappearing without a trace. The phenomenon has baffled oceanographers and scientists for decades and no plausible explanation has been offered so far by science. Answers range from a magnetic black hole, vagaries of the Gulf Stream current, sudden storms, aliens and "oceanic flatulence" caused by methane gases rising from the sea bed.

   There are reasons now to believe that the Bermuda Triangle may have shifted its location and is now lying over the Indian sub-continent; it may soon be christened the Baroda Triangle. The reason for this is the fact that  similar disappearances have now started taking place in the Indian land mass,  not of ships and planes, however, but of ideas, history and facts.

   It started with the disappearance of a university degree of a certain individual: nobody knows if it even exists. Strenuous efforts have made to recover it, but all evidence of it has been atomised, and we can only speculate where it lies, like the MH 370 plane. It is also dangerous to look for it. Next were public funds, tens of thousands of crores of public money simply disappeared (and continue to disappear); it is believed that they may have been teleported to other parts of the Atlantic like Cayman Islands and Saint Kitts, but no one can be sure because no one has actually seen this moolah. The people who had taken this money have also disappeared and cannot be located. More moneys have simply vanished in funds like the Electoral bonds or the PM CARES fund, or what are called NPAs, and no one has a clue about what happened to them. All information about them has also gone into a black hole called RTI (Right to Information) Act from which light stopped emerging a few years back. It's the same with another collapsed star, the ECI (Election Commission of India), which has also stopped emitting any light and prefers to cloak itself in total darkness, like a dwarf star.

  Criminals and mass murderers also seem to be disappearing into thin air, along with the concept of justice which in any case was tenuous at the best of times. The Hashimpura massacre of 79 Muslims in Meerut district in 1987 by the police is a case in point. After 36 years and 900 hearings all 39 accused have been acquitted earlier this month. In another mysterious disappearance of criminals all 68 accused in the murder of 11 Muslims in Naroda Patiya, Gujarat, in February of 2002 were acquitted by a judge on the 20th of this month. So who killed them- aliens? Flatulence? Magnetism? We'll never know, because the Baroda triangle doesn't give up its secrets easily.

   More than 12,00,000 HNI (High Networth Individualas) have disappeared from India in the last few years, taking their wealth with them, without any explanation by the government. 650000 hectares of forest land have dematerialised in the last five years. Thousands of voters regularly vanish from voters' lists, presumably because they might have voted against the powers that be. Whatever little information used to emerge from the stygian portals of power about the environmental impacts of big projects has also now disappeared: the central government last week ordered that the web portal PARIVESH which used to post such information shall no longer do so. Reason? This is confidential data and can now be accessed only through RTI applications, which, as we know by now, are thrown into dustbins as fast as they are filed.

   The latest to disappear into the ether are huge slices of Indian history and science. The Mughals have suddenly vanished from the face of the earth, as have documented facts relating to the antipathy of the right wing to Mahatma Gandhi, the banning of the RSS, the 2002 carnage in Gujarat, the Industrial Revolution, the Emergency, the Naxalite movement, popular struggles and movements, references to the caste system and untouchables. Science has not been spared by these mysterious forces either- Darwin's theory of Evolution has been sucked into oblivion, as have issues of the environment, including global warming. Will Newton and Einstein be the next to go, or will it be Orwell and Huxley, or Shakespeare and Steinbeck, or Omar Khayam and Khalil Gibran ?

   It's the same with the many promises the BJP had made to come to power in 2014- 20 million new jobs every year, Rupees 15,00,000 in every bank account, a US$ 5 trillion economy by 2024, doubling of farmers' income by 2022, cooperative federalism, a Congress "mukt" Bharat. These too have all evaporated into thin air, and even though millions of voters are scurrying around looking for them, all they have found so far is a big "jumla". Of the real thing, there is no sign.

   The Orient has always been a mysterious place, after all.

POSTSCRIPT: The BJP may be a lot of bad things, but it is not stupid. He who controls the present controls the past, and he who controls the past controls the future. This at least is one part of "entire political science" Mr. Modi has learnt well, whether or not he has a degree.

   

THE ATIQ AHMED MURDER SHOWS WE CANNOT BEAR THE PAIN OF BEING A MAN

   There are rare occasions in a country's history when one event, one freeze-frame moment in time, encapsulates and captures its "weltanschauung" and prevailing state of affairs. Two recent examples in recent times are the protests by women in Iran against the mullahs' hijab diktat, and the citizens' movement in Israel for the rolling back of Netanyahu's judicial "reforms". Both depict a citizenry which values its rights and is willing to stand up for it. India's moment came last week with the two minute video of the murder of Atiq Ahmed, but, unlike the inspiring events in Israel or Iran, this can only generate despair and a grim foreboding in all sane persons, who appear to be in an overwhelming minority these days.                .

  This is not about Atiq or his brother Ashraf, known and convicted criminals who probably deserved to die- but at the hands of the law, not in the custody of those whom the law enjoined should have protected them, not by three front men probably working at the behest of more powerful and sinister forces whose names too shall be dedacted like most inconvenient facts are these days. This is about what the murders, and the subsequent reactions, tell us about India in 2023- its criminal justice system, media, police, politics and, most disturbing of all, its increasingly brutalised society.

  Atiq Ahmed may have died on the 15th of this month, but his death warrant was signed and sealed on the 28th of February when the Supreme Court dismissed his plea for the Court's protection, reposing full faith in the ability of the UP police- the same police which has killed 183 persons and injured hundreds more in "encounters" since 2017, uses bulldozers and not the courts to mete out instant justice, which had "encountered" Vikas Dube in very similar circumstances just a couple of years back. The Court's faith in the state would be touching were it not for the fact that it is slowly becoming irrelevant to the legal system in this country, but doesn't seem to realise it.

  The Apex court is losing control of the justice system to the executive because it is hesitant to stand up to the executive in seminal matters. It is in danger of losing its primary job of being the custodian of the country's Constitution, which is being increasingly interpreted or by-passed or ignored, by the government and its agencies. It has failed to decide on cases which are vital for the survival of democracy and the rule of law- Article 370, reorganisation of Kashmir, Citizen Amendment Act, the challenges to the use of EVMs and the mandatory counting of VVPATs, the Electoral Bonds. It has not punished any official for violating its rulings, or politician for proven hate speech, or the police for delaying investigations into cases against ruling party workers and even legislators. It is unable to even ensure that its own recommendations for judgeship are respected by the government, or that Ministers who threaten retired judges are brought to book. Maharashtra continues to be in a limbo as hearings in the Court grind on interminably. Where is the urgency to decide these issues, even as another nail is hammered into the coffin of democracy each passing day by a government hell bent on a Hindu Rashtra? It is this reluctance to confront a rampaging government which emboldens the executive to take the law into its own hands and permit the Atiq Ahmed kind of "justice" with impunity. The endemic delays in deciding important cases ensures that illegalities become fait accompli with the efflux of time and are then difficult to reverse. The day is not far off when the Supreme Court and High Courts may become as redundant as the NHRC or the RTI Commission or the Lokayukts, if they do not start asserting their constitutional powers. Following on the heels of "Congress mukt Bharat" we may soon have a "Kanoon mukt Bharat".

  It has been reported that the three killers of Atiq Ahmed and his brother had come posing as media persons. I find this an entirely appropriate symbolism, because the media in today's India is murdering the spirit of democracy and the rule of law every day. Not only does it amplify the government's propaganda shamelessly, it also spreads hatred and fake news, something which the Supreme Court has noted (but not firmly acted upon). It no longer raises issues that matter to the people, asks questions of the executive or holds the government accountable, something which sections of it did even during the Emergency. It has, for example, completely blanked out reportage on Satyapal Malik's explosive interview with Karan Thapar on Pulwama, and focuses exclusively on Atiq Ahmed's criminality (which no one contests) rather than on the lapses and potential conspiracy which led to his murder and how it reflects on the Chief Minister's claims on law and order in his state. It had earlier similarly ignored Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra and the Adani exposure. By throwing a mantle of silence and self-censoring news over the government's doings it is betraying its mandate and duty to the citizens, and is hugely complicit in the autocratisation of the nation.

  Finally, the response to the Prayagraj murders show how brutalised, bigoted and blood- thirsty our society has become. It is almost as if we have embraced a death wish, and like lemmings are hurtling towards a cliff. No sane democracy would have demonstrated the putrid reaction Indian society did to these murders: Ministers hailing the deliverance of "divine justice", Whatsapp groups and Twitterati exulting at the death of a "Mafia don", celebrations across RWAs and India's vaunted and vacuous middle-class strata. There were no such exuberant celebrations when Vikas Dube was killed a couple of years back. And thereby hangs the real explanation for our brutalisation.

  Dube belonged to the majority community while Atiq was a Muslim. The tragedy of Indian society today is that we view everything through the prism of religion- history, education, laws and justice, historical personalities, language, the arts and, increasingly, even the Constitution. Anything associated with the "other" religion or community is, by definition, evil and has to be cast out, erased, redacted, condemned by any means, fair or foul. There can be no legal restrictions on this newly acquired and God-given right of the majority community. And in order to exercise this "right to hate" we are more than willing to support a government that looks benevolently at this selective violence and bigotry, even if it means we live without jobs, food, healthcare, meaningful education or freedom. We have become like beasts who will give up everything of value to satisfy their basest appetites. Why?

  Perhaps Samuel Johnson had the answer when he said: "He who makes himself a beast gets rid of the pain of being a man." I think what Johnson is saying here is that it is not easy being a man, in the image of God. For that we have to be tolerant, empathetic, supportive of the weak, compassionate, imbued with a basic morality, free of hatred and prejudices, shun violence, respect others, display courage of convictions. Being a man involves some sacrifices and some pain. It's so much easier to throw off these shackles, revert to the slime we crawled out of millions of years ago, and become a beast. The French have a very apt phrase for this unholy craving- "nostalgie de la boue" or a yearning for the mud. Therefore, we may  well ask, in the words of WB Yeats:

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,                                                                                      Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I suspect we may not have to wait long for an answer.  

    

AIR TRAVEL-- HOW NOT TO REDUCE GLOBAL WARMING, IN TWO EASY STEPS

    Pardon me if I'm sounding like a latter day Cassandra wrapped in a wet towel, but my heart does not leap up in joy, unlike the poet's, on learning that both Air-India and Indigo have ordered 500 additional planes each for their fleet. Nor did said heart do a backflip when the Civil Aviation Minister announced, at a rally presided over by the Prime Minister last week, that the number of airports would be doubled in the next ten years. Even if we discount some of this as hyperbole attributable to his Chief Ministerial ambitions in MP, even then that's a lot of new airports- about 200, I believe.

   It's a recipe for environmental disaster. The United Nations Secretary-General has just released the latest IPCC report, which has warned us that the global warming threshold of 1.5* Celsius will be crossed in 1935 because emissions, instead of declining to 1990 levels as targeted, are actually going UP every year. The reason we are headed for this environmental apocalypse, in spite of technological innovations ( renewables, EVs, plant based meat, plastic substitutes etc.) is simple: we are just not willing to change our life styles to a more sustainable model. For the vast majority of mankind it is business as usual; we continue as before in what we eat, how we travel, how we over exploit finite natural resources like water and trees, how we build, how we consume power. For an increasingly purblind homo sapiens comfort and convenience are more important than the future of the planet. Flying is one dimension of this stupidity.

   The number of air travelers will double to 8.2 billion by 2036; 75% of them travel for pleasure and don't need to go by plane. Aviation spews about 1.50 billion tonnes of GHGs into the atmosphere every year and is the most polluting form of travel. Below is the table for emissions by various modes of travel per passenger kilometer:

Plane   154 gms

            [For one business class passenger it is 462 gms, and 616 gms for a first class one]

Car       171 gms for one passenger/car

             43 gms if 4 passengers

Bus      104 gms

Rail      41 gms

   Add to this dismal scenario the environmental and social costs of building airports- thousands of hectares of usually prime land concretised for each airport,  thousands of families displaced and pushed into penury,  millions of trees felled,  hundreds of megawatts of additional power needed to operate the airports. To take just one example closest to where I live, the new Jewar airport coming up in Noida: when all four phases are complete, a total of 4752 hectares of land would be acquired; 19961 families (37025 individuals) would be displaced in just the first two of four phases. All this so that 4 million passengers can take off and land here every year- that's about 20000 flights. This is in addition to the 60 million well heeled chaps doing the same at the Indira Gandhi airport every year.

   An even more harebrained example is from my own state of Himachal where an obdurate government is hell-bent on building a so-called "international" airport in Mandi which no one wants. It will destroy 237 hectares of irrigated, multi-cropped farmland and forests, uproot a population of 12000, mainly Dalits and OBCs, seriously dent the state's food growing capacity, and in no way help the tourism sector (which is the specious justification for it). The state's three existing airports are dismal failures, functioning well below 50% of their designed capacity, and yet the govt. is ready to splurge Rs. 5000 crores on the project, even though it does not have the money to pay Dearness Allowance to its employees.

   And we want to reduce global warming?

   Aviation is one of the biggest force multipliers of inequity- economic, environmental, social- especially in a backward country like ours. It is an elitist sector because it serves not even 1% of the population whereas the costs are borne by farmers, landless labourers, villagers and the other 99% of the population. It is also not an essential service within a country because alternatives are available which are far less damaging to the environment. I refer here especially to the railways.

   I have never been able to understand why people fly on short-haul routes (3 to 4 hours) instead of taking a train or going by car. Take for example a route I am familiar with, Delhi-Chandigarh. It takes four hours by train and five by road. In contrast, a flyer will take the same time, if not more, house to house if one factors in the drive to and from the city to the airport at both ends, the need to report at least 90 minutes before departure, the actual flying time, and the time taken to deplane and collect one's baggage; it is also costlier by a multiple of at least three. So why do people fly on short-haul ? Elitism? Snobbishness? Pure habit? You tell me, because I can't figure it out.

   This is where the govt. comes in, or should come in, if it was not so mesmerised by big ticket projects and the prospect of bountiful payola from contractors. It should discourage, as a policy, short-haul flights and simultaneously expand on a war footing the rail network and services. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it should give up its love affair with expressways (at the risk of disappointing Mr. Gadkari) and spend the same money on new high speed rail tracks and rakes so that it could operate more trains. It is in this context that one has to commend the emphasis imparted to the new series of Vande Bharat trains, of which there are now 14. They match the planes for comfort, catering, snob value and total journey time and are far cheaper. The environmental benefits are even more telling: one Vande Bharat can carry the same number of passengers as 11 short-haul flights. If we extrapolate from the table in para 3 above, this means that every 300 km run of a Vande Bharat saves 75 tonnes of CO2 and other emissions as compared to corresponding number of flights for the same number of passengers.

   While we are busy redacting the Moghuls and making blood money off Ukraine, other countries are beginning to realise the immense contribution of aviation to global warming, and are beginning to take steps to regulate its expansion. The U.K. has finally given up plans to build a third runway at Heathrow, in deference to the protests of its citizens. ( Incidentally, the Jewar airport will have five runways !). The Dutch govt. has decided to reduce flights to and from the Schiphol airport by 50000 per annum- from 500,000 to 450,000. ( The matter is in the courts but the govt. is determined to push it through).

  Sweden has spawned a citizens' movement in 2019 called "We Stay on the Ground" which asks people to pledge not to fly. Tens of thousands of pledges have been obtained so far and a new word has been coined to convey flight shaming- "flygskam". People are responding positively- the number of flyers came down by 3.7% in the first year itself and train travel has increased by 30%. So far eight countries have joined this movement- U.K, USA, Canada, Denmark, Belgium, France and Germany. It is no coincidence that these countries feature at the top in the list of happiest countries in the world. They value their natural environment and health, add a price to it and are prepared to pay the price.

   Unlike us, the Indian elite, who think that Mr. Modi and Baba Ramdev have instant solutions to all the problems of the planet, and we can continue with our ecocidal life styles for ever. We do not for even a moment think of the massive inequity and injustice inherent in this life style. Consider this: every time you take a business class flight from Delhi to Mumbai to attend an Ambani wedding (or whatever) you are adding as much GHG emissions to the atmosphere in two hours as the average Indian does in 6 months ! 

   Will Niti Ayog do the maths and stop harping on that old chestnut of "historical injustice" by the West to justify policies that encourage more emissions ? We missed the industrial revolution bus long ago, and should stop cutting off our nose to spite someone else's face. Mr. Modi and his team should take time off from tiger safaris and consider some hard decisions. Like banning private jets altogether, impose a moratorium on new short-haul flights, stop building new airports unless they are needed for strategic reasons, impose a hefty carbon tax on air tickets, ask airlines to stop their frequent flyer programmes as they only incentivise more air travel, stop dishing out those dozens of free air-tickets to MPs and MLAs, make it mandatory for govt. employees to travel by train instead of by air. That would be a start. The meek may or may not inherit the world but the rich certainly don't own it. 

   

"A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME......." REALLY ?

    William Shakespeare (aka William Sexpeare in Waste Bengal) had got most things right, especially when it came to portraying the seven deadly sins, as per their revised version in India's Amritkaal. Whether it was "honour killing" in Othello or "love jihad" (by Romeo, naturally, trying to entice a Capulet to become a Montague) in Romeo and Juliet, or outstanding EMIs (Equated Monthly Installments) in Merchant of Venice, he plumbed the depths of human emotions like a porpoise. But in one instance at least he had a mixed bag; it was when he waxed eloquent about the importance or otherwise of names. Remember Juliet's words?  "What's in a name? That which we call a rose                                                                                                By any other name would smell just as sweet..."                                                                             Methinks the wily old bard was trying to say that names are not important, that if Romeo was called, say, Ronaldo he would be just as handsome and score just as well (with the ladies, of course). True, but then Sexpeare had not (unlike Orwell or Huxley) anticipated the Hindu rashtra of 450 years later where names determine history and geography, where it is the lotus, and not the rose, which is the flower of choice and where a name can determine whether you smell of roses or dead fish. Or whether you are  alive or dead, in fact.                                                                                                                                                                 Names in India are important. Take, for example, that one name which you utter today only at your peril- M***. It's a deified appellation nowadays, which you cannot take in vain, or even in jest; the punishment for doing so is two years in prison. In fact, you cannot even refer to this name's progenitor without being hauled to a far away police station, as a Congress spokesperson found out recently. We are told that there are about 800,000 similarly named worthies (may their tribe increase below replacement rate), give or take a couple on enforced sojourn in other countries, but only one of them actually matters. The name is well on its way to replacing other names like Nehru, Gandhi, Patel and Ambedkar, on the principle that, if you cannot match their accomplishments then you should ensure that their names should be interred along with their bones. Somewhat like the cuckoo's nesting strategy.

   There are two ways of making history: the first is to do something by which posterity will remember you. If one can't do that, then adopt the second way- rewrite history by changing the names inscribed in history. It's far easier to do, requires no effort but the scratch of a pen on paper, and lo!- that past accomplishment of someone else becomes yours for ever! This can apply to stadiums, thoroughfares, buildings, monuments, universities, temples, even cities. We seem to be doing this on a war footing these days, though the Supreme Court appears to have applied the brakes on this noble endeavour in a recent case, observing that the country cannot be held a prisoner to the past.

   But there's more than one way to skin a cat, and the government has now decided that if it can't replace or rewrite something, then it will simply expunge, erase or redact it. A pilot project for this was first launched in the Rafale case with the blessings of the then CJI (Chief Justice of India), where the pesky pricing details in the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) report were redacted. This was then repeated in Parliament by expunging most of Rahul Gandhi's speech so that posterity would never know who was in bed with Mr. Adani when his fortune was reaching orgasmic heights. Then came the Gujarat High Court (where else?) order effectively redacting the Prime Minister's graduation degree, leaving us wondering whether his extraordinary talents were acquired in a university or a railway station. And now, of course, the NCERT (national Council for Educational Research and Training) has taken upon itself to rewrite entire Indian history, erasing such irritating passages as the RSS's antipathy to Mahatma Gandhi, the result of the battle at Haldighati, the 2002 killings in Gujarat, even any reference to the Moghuls. This last bit is particularly intriguing, for if the Moghuls do not feature in our history then one will be left wondering : who did the Rajputs and the Marathas fight against ? And who built the Taj Mahal, or the Red Fort, or the Agra Fort or the Jama Masjid? And wherefrom came the biryani our politicians regularly gorge on? Perhaps these confusing questions will be answered soon, along with other mysteries like who is occupying 1000 sq. kms of our area in Ladakh, or which country accounts for US$ 120 billion of our imports? Just asking, since the name China also cannot be mentioned.                                                                                                                                             And while we are on the subject of names, perhaps we can be excused for asking our wolf-warrior External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaishankar, what is his definition of the word "war" since he refuses to use it in the Ukraine context for fear of jeopardizing those cheap Russian oil supplies?  He has stuck to his stand (if such a posture can be called a stand) that what is transpiring in Ukraine is not a war but a "crisis." Another instance of name-o-phobia. For to me it appears that when two nations have been fighting each other for more than a year, when lakhs of people have been killed on both sides, when thousands of tons of munitions are fired every day, when one country is systematically destroying the other nation's civilian infrastructure, when 5 million people have been turned into refugees- surely, that has to be a war, right? Or is he suggesting that we rename all the wars in the sorry history of this planet as "crises"? Eg: Indo-China crisis of 1962 (that will involve naming China, which is a no-no by itself !), the First World Crisis (1914-18), the Second World Crisis (1939-45), the Vietnam Crisis ? Our Minister must be a pretty bloodthirsty sort of chap if he wants some more ingredients in a conflict before he condescends to term it a war. Or maybe he thinks the world will be a much happier place if the word "war" is redacted altogether?                          Unfortunately for us, however, two can play at this name game. Just this week China has renamed eleven villages in Arunachal Pradesh, giving them Chinese names to bolster its claim that the state is part of China. As someone said, if NCERT can re-write past history the PLA can re-write current history. Ah! The perils of Vishwaguru teaching the wrong lessons to the world. Perhaps it's time, as the Walrus would have said, for NCERT to take another look at Shakespeare: replace the rose with the lotus, and hope that it continues to smell as sweet........

   

EXPUNCTION, EXPULSION, EVICTION- WHO'S AFRAID OF RAHUL GANDHI ?

    The BJP is as subtle as a kick in the backside. It has lost no time in proving to the world that every word Rahul Gandhi said in Cambridge about the decline of Indian democracy was true, and then some. It has since then not allowed him to speak in Parliament, had him convicted in what is clearly a command performance, disqualified him and expelled him from Parliament with an alacrity reserved only for Opposition legislators. In the process, it has also obtained two collateral benefits on the side- ensured the passing of the Finance Bill without any discussion in 12 minutes flat (perhaps a record in our history), and stone- walled anyone discussion on Mr. Modi's friend.

   It is difficult to second guess  psychoneurotics, so one doesn't really know the strategy behind the party's extreme moves, but I don't for a moment buy the theory that the BJP is in panic mode. The BJP never panics, it just becomes more devious and ruthless: it just raises the stakes in what the bond traders in Wall Street call Liar's Poker. The action against Rahul Gandhi is just part of its strategy to take out all opposition leaders, one by one, and ensure an Opposition mukt Bharat even BEFORE the 2024 general elections. Any party can win an election, but how many can do that even before the votes are cast ?Mayawati, Mamata Bannerjee, Akhilesh, YSR and Navin Patnaik have been silenced into various stages of pharyngitis; Kejriwal, Tejaswi, Soren are already in the coils of the anaconda. Nitish Kumar remains an electoral enigma and can, like a grass-hopper, jump either way. Rahul Gandhi was the only national leader of stature who, like Oliver Twist, would not abide by this script and so Mr. Bumble had to wield the stick.

   For once, however, the BJP may have miscalculated, led astray by its arrogance born of absolute power and sense of invincibility. The BJP under Mr. Modi is no longer just a political party, it is now a soldiery, a militia, an army constantly waging war, during and between elections. Governance, or the lack of it, is a side-show. But even in war there are some time-tested rules; one of them was stated by Napoleon Bonaparte: "You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war." Mr. Modi obviously thinks he can not only out-Herod Herod but also teach Napoleon a thing or two, so he has continued with his shock and awe tactics. Perhaps for too long.

   He may have finally over-reached himself in his quest for the thousand year  Hindu reich, believing in what Robert Browning did NOT say: "a man's reich must exceed his grasp or what's a havan for?" The latest instance of the hounding of Rahul Gandhi appears to have finally convinced the coy PMs-in-waiting in the Opposition that the moment of reckoning has arrived: they now either hang together or they hang separately, in various jails in BJP ruled states, not their luxurious farm houses. They appear to have finally realised that to become Prime Minister the sine-qua-non is to stay out of jail, and the only way to ensure that is to take the keys of the kingdom away from the jailor. So they are coming together now, albeit reluctantly, like the pack ice on the Arctic seas when winter approaches. It remains to be seen whether the ice will form into an all embracing ice sheet or break up into individual floes, all going their separate ways to certain oblivion. I am not holding my breath in the interim.

   The BJP's second blunder is is in retaining their delusion that Rahul Gandhi is still a "Pappu." He never was one, but they had manufactured this canard with the help of a prostituted media and had managed to sell it to the people. The Bharat Jodo Yatra has shattered that misconception to smithereens; the speech in Parliament on Modani and the calibrated concerns about India's democracy expressed in the UK have further demolished that lie. Not only is the old Pappu gone, I think vast sections of even erstwhile BJP supporters (not bhaktiveers, mind you) are now grudgingly conceding that Rahul Gandhi has the moral underpinning to be a leader, the tenacity to fight for his vision, and the courage of his convictions. He is the only Opposition leader who has been consistently attacking the govt. for its Tughlaqi decisions, corruption, lies, tyranny and neglect of national security: he has not been blowing hot and cold like the others whose politics are dictated more by the shadows of the ED and CBI than any ideology or principles. He stands head and shoulders above any other Opposition leader, and the ice floes are beginning to gravitate towards him. Even the sold-out media and polling agencies are beginning to concede that his popularity graph is rising.

   Modi-Shah appear to have misread this changing public perception and are still going by their old toolkit. Having more or less demolished most of the other regional satraps, or at least intimidated them into silence, they have now let loose their heavy artillery on the one remaining Opposition redoubt- Rahul Gandhi himself: sink him and 2024 is theirs. It's a bit like, once you take out the escorting destroyers you can then target the aircraft carrier itself at leisure. But the BJP has made one mistake- the carrier is no longer where it once was, it has moved on, it's a moving target and the BJP guns can't find the range any longer.

   Pappu has moved on in the last six months and, rather than being a force that divided the opposition in the past, he now has tremendous potential for uniting them. The BJP's overkill of convicting and expelling him from Parliament has made this process easier. It has compelled the media to focus on him, and in the last two weeks he has received more prime time coverage than even the Prime Minister, notwithstanding Aroon Poorie's cringe-worthy genuflections to the Supreme Leader at his annual Conclave recently. Even more, this united show of Opposition unity may even induce the judiciary to straighten its spine a bit and to begin to take on an executive which has been riding rough shod over it ever since 2014. For the judiciary has a vital role to play if democracy is to survive beyond 2024. It is, paradoxically, both part of the problem and the solution.

   BUT- and this is the most important part- the Congress must eschew the notion that it can now take on the BJP on its own. It cannot. It needs the others, just as they need him. The humility of the Bharat Jodo Yatra must now translate into the realpolitic of the elections: the sharing of turf with others, the admission of weakness in certain states, the willingness to  take a back seat in those states. The Congress is a national party, yes, but it is also a regional party in vast swathes of the country, and must accept this. It must concede, for example, that Samajwadi party has to be the lead player in U.P, TMC in Bengal, JDU-RJD in Bihar, KCR in Telangana, and so on, and do a seat sharing in these states on THEIR terms. 

   The others need to realise that the Congress is the largest regional party in the country, and must reciprocate the sentiments where the Congress is the stronger force. By my reckoning it is the primary opposition to the BJP in nine states- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Assam, Gujarat and Karnataka, which provide 190 seats to the Lok Sabha. It should keep its powder dry for these states, and if it does well in them (last time it lost 95% of these seats to the BJP) it will automatically emerge as the natural leader of any post election coalition. It should not bank on any "sympathy" vote: even if it gets some, this is not likely to resurrect its fortunes on the scale it did Mrs. Indira Gandhi's in 1980. At that time the Congress was still a formidable force with 154 seats and 35% of the national vote; today it is down to 52 with just about 20% of the vote. The Congress can certainly improve its tally now but the regional parties are the key.

  The BJP has already thrown the kitchen sink at Rahul Gandhi, what more can it do to "neutralise" him ? Expedite the defamation case against him in Bihar? Put the National Herald case on a fast track? Put him in jail? Its bag of dirty tricks is running on empty and its tool kit now looks a bit obsolete, repetitive and jaded. One can sense a certain apprehension and desperation in the BJP's ranks. In fact, Mr. Modi has a monumental dilemma on his hands: he has to decide whether Rahul Gandhi is more dangerous in jail or on the streets. He would not have forgotten Mrs. Indira Gandhi's comeback in similar circumstances. To be sure, history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

WAKE UP- THE WOKE REVOLUTION IS HERE !

    I have no hesitation in confessing that I'm a very confused man these days. It has nothing to do with Mr. Amit Shah's suggestion of a "middle path" for the BJP and the Opposition to engage in a dialogue, which is perplexing enough. For Mr. Shah's middle path is not the one propounded by the Buddha, it is more akin to the one Confucius warned us about: Man who walk in middle of path get run over. Which is what happened to others who chose to take Mr. Shah's advice- Sukhbir Badal of the SAD, Udhav Thackeray of the Shiv Sena and Mehbooba Mufti of the PDP. Confusing suggestion, you will agree, but not what is the source of my current ataxia.

   My mental disarray stems from this new Woke culture being thrust upon us by a society gone berserk. Its latest manifestation is a handbook of guidelines issued by Oxfam, stipulating for its employees a whole new terminology in order to respect social, racial and gender "sensitivities." Take just one example. For the last 72 years I have held the belief that I was born as a male child (even though the good wife may had a few doubts about that occasionally); the last time I looked, the evidence also pointed in that direction. But Oxfam has now put a huge question mark on that: it says that it would be more correct to say that I am AMAB (Assigned Male at Birth); my sister is AFAB ( Assigned Female at Birth). The reason: no one should presume someone's sex, for he/ she/ they may change their mind at any later stage, and prefer to be a transgender ! I wonder what my mom and dad would have thought of that. Actually, I'm also out of line in referring to them as mother and father- Oxfam says I should refer to them only as "parent/s" since we have no business assigning gender roles to any one- the mother may decide to be the father and vice versa! Is it any wonder that kids go around these days with a vacant look on their faces? My elder son is not getting married just yet because he is still trying to figure out which  gender he belongs to, though he was AMAB.

   I'm afraid the Book of Genesis may have to be re-written very soon if this goes on much longer. In those non-Woke days God created just two sexes or genders, male and female, and asked them to go forth and multiply, which they have since done with remarkable success, considering that we are now topping seven or eight billion soulless souls. (There may be a slight reduction in the figures now that the BJP's emphasis is more on divide than multiply). But the good Lord himself had got it all wrong, we are now told, because there are 15 genders forms, not two ! Other than the old fashioned male and female, the others include cisgender, transgender, calcigender, non-binary, etc. among others. It's little wonder that my son can't decide who to get married to- its a problem of plenty, if you ask me. In my time one married either a boy or a girl; now one needs AI or ChatGPT to figure it out!

   This Woke movement started sometime around 2010 and was meant to create an awareness and response to social inequalities, racism, sexism, slavery, white supremacy, discrimination and other social injustices. This was certainly a laudable objective; two of its manifestations have been the Black Lives Matter and the ME TOO crusades. In recognition of this the Oxford English Dictionary even added  WOKE to its inventory of words in 2017. But one can't help but feel that in trying to change the Queen's English to the Drag Queen's English these reformers may be stepping beyond their remit and intruding into the realm of the ridiculous.

   What, for instance, is the point of splitting hairs and refining concepts till all that remains is a meaningless desiderata of neulogisms ? Take, for example, what used to be called "lack of self-confidence". It's not so simple, folks: the condition is now linked to your "sexual identity" (whatever that means) and has been given all kinds of names- gender dysphoria, transphobia, transmisia, and so on. Conversely, if you happen to feel good some morning, it's not because the BJP lost in Himachal or you have finally found Sunny Leone's phone number, it's because you have gender euphoria ! Is it necessary to link everything to, or explain everything in terms of, sex or gender ?

   It's a language thing, you know. What worries me is not the robust response to the inequities and prejudices that the Woke generation is mounting: that is welcome and perhaps more than overdue. But as a student of literature (entire English literature, in current parlance) I am completely flummoxed by how the English language is being changed to suit the Woke lexicon. Language will always reflect the prevalent values and principles of society, but it should not become hypocritical, biased or evasive of the truth, as the inimitable George Carlin had explained in one of his videos about "politically correct" language. Here are a few examples from the Woke lexicon, make of them what you will:

Heteronormativity (presumed to be straight unless proved to be otherwise- in an adaptation, presumably, of the legal principle of presumed to be innocent unless proved otherwise!). Other words are just as confounding: nonsumer (a minimalist consumer), greenwash (cheating on environmental brownie points), white feminism (calling out people who espouse feminism but stay mum on issues that effect less privileged women), slut shame, toxic masculinity, Madonna/ whore complex, Queer baiting, pansexual, gaslighting (emotional abuse- abuser undermining victim's perceptions and abilities by constant peddling of untruths). 

   Conversely, some words are a no-no because they convey prejudiced ideologies or misogynistic mindsets: headquarters (colonialism), prostitute (looking down on a legitimate profession), sanitary products (implying unclean), expectant mother (should be gender neutral, as in -people who become pregnant), ethnic minority (fails to convey the complexity of ethnicity), and so on.

   Are we re-writing the English language in the light of our own, current prejudices ? In this reformist zeal, are we not imposing a new gender ideology in place of the old one (at least the older one was easier to understand!)? Does anything change substantially by merely replacing one word or phrase with another? Can semantics themselves eradicate long held prejudices? While these questions occur to me I am also conscious of the fact that perhaps I'm now too old to appreciate the dynamics of cultural evolution that are at play here, or that my dad forgot to tell me that I was ABDAB (Assumed Brain Dead at Birth). It took the UPSC to confirm this when I was selected for the IAS in 1975. Maybe all this Wokism is just the new political correctness in changing times. In which case I can't help but recollect the words of Harry Truman, the 33rd President of the United States of America: Political correctness holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end ! Is this, then, a case of the ends justifying the mean(ing)s?

PUBLIC GOODS AND PRIVATE EMPIRES

    

   In my house in a village above Shimla I am treated to an orchestral performance every evening when it rains. The musicians are a myriad of cicadas who have taken up residence in the lush greenery all around. It is a very choreographed show: first the lead cicada starts clicking his tymbals, a rasping sound, which is then taken up by a select few, then a few dozens, and soon there is a continuous buzzing hum like a thousand castanets clicking in unison. It drowns out all other ambient sounds and is quite hypnotic.

   But here's the amazing thing- these days I can hear the same sound right here in Delhi, emanating from our Parliament, where the rampaging Ashokan lions have had to take a back seat to the members of the ruling party doing their own cicada act. They generally burst into angry song whenever Rahul Gandhi says something; the lead tenor or baritone are either Mrs. Smriti Irani or Mr. Piush Goel, depending on who is the sillier soul of the moment. And then the others take up the tune and click-buzz the same refrain- "apologise, apologise, apologise." It drowns out all debate in Parliament. The reference, I learn, is to some talks the Gandhi scion delivered in London last week on the state of democratic values in India.

   If only the BJP orchestra would stop and ponder over what Mr. Gandhi said, they would realise that no wiser words have been spoken by any Indian leader in a long time, with or without a teleprompter. Notwithstanding that I am almost brain dead after 35 years of service in the government, I can recognize insight and perception when I see it. And see it I did, in a phrase used by Rahul Gandhi at a talk in London recently, whose import has largely been missed by most commentators. Speaking about the gradual erosion of democracy in India under Mr. Modi, he emphasised that "Indian democracy is a global public good," and that it must be protected in the interest of the world at large. I have not heard more astute or meaningful words in a long time, for it puts the state of our nation, and its proud democratic history, in a context where it cannot, and should not, be ignored by the mercenary western powers.

   Consider the import of this sentence, break it up into its constituent words. A public good is a commodity or service which is both essential and benefits everyone, it is non-rivalrous and non-excludable, and it is the responsibility of the state to provide it. The concept of "public goods" is an economic one, and by lifting it and placing it in a political space, Rahul Gandhi has broken new ground and given all world leaders ( excluding our own tribe, of course) something to think of. He is forcing them to think outside of their own silos (or ghettos) and to consider the possibility that the whole is indeed the sum of its parts, that there cannot be a whole without its parts.

   Especially a part as big as India- it occupies almost 3% of the planet's land area, but even more important, it comprises 17.50% of the globe's population, is its fifth largest economy, is one of just nine nuclear powers, has the world's second largest army (after China) and is the third largest importer of military hardware. (In pure corporate terms this would give it total control of any company  except, of course, Mr. Adani's !) It should be self-evident, therefore, that the health of such an important stake holder is bound to impinge on the health of the whole world order itself, and that other countries cannot turn a blind eye to it; perhaps they can, but only at their own peril.

   According to the World Forum on Democracies 58% of the world's population lives in liberal/ electoral democracies, and if India were to exit this group (as it is well on its way to doing) this figure would plummet to 41%. That would be terrible news for the free world, where democracy is already on the retreat. The 2022 report of Freedom House states that, with India's downgrading to a Partly Free democracy, only 20% of the world's population now lives in Free democracies. The year 2021 marked the 15th consecutive year of decline in democracy, with 73 countries having regressed on this parameter.

  It does not really require an institute in Sweden or the USA to tell us all this about India: any objective minded person living here would be able to predict that we are well on our way to joining the dishonourable club of 54 NOT FREE countries. Every relevant index is screaming the truth from the rooftops- Press Freedom Index, Human Freedom Index, Democracy Index, Human Development Index, Hunger Index, Inequality Index, Internet shutdown index, etc. The erosion of the rule of law, the undermining of institutions, the daily attacks on the higher judiciary, the misuse of police, the atrocities on minorities, the hounding of liberals and activists, the deliberate suborning of elected state governments, the defenestration of Parliament- all these are the visible signs of the dismantling of the substantive democratic structure of India. If things continue in the current mode, it will take just one more general election to topple our 75 year old democratic edifice, perhaps for ever.

   Rahul Gandhi was spot on in stressing that the responsible and freedom loving elements of the global community should not be silent or opportunistic spectators to the authoritarian take-over of India. For our nation has been an exemplar of freedom throughout its independent history-as a beacon of anti-colonialism, leader of the non-aligned and as an honest broker during the cold war. If India goes under then the whole of Asia is lost to the free world, the vital counter balance to China is removed, smaller Asian democracies will find it harder to survive, the nuclear fuse would be lit at the tri-junction of China, Pakistan and India, a new genocidal epoch would become a distinct possibility. The world would not only become less equitable, it would be a more dangerous place. Democracies in the west/ developed world would find it harder to survive as such. 

   Indian democracy is indeed a priceless global public good, and leaders of the free world (or what remains of it) should ensure that it is not appropriated by any latter day Caesar. For, as Shakespeare said: Arms and Laws do not flourish together.