WORLD LEADERS AND WAR CRIMINALS

    As modern day war criminals go, you could be forgiven for thinking that it would be difficult to beat the Netanyahu- Biden duo. The former has initiated a genocide in Gaza and the latter has been giving him all diplomatic and military covering fire to get the job over quickly. 6000 civilians dead in Gaza as I write this (including 2500 children and 1500 women), with more to come as the ground offensive of this doomed enclave unfolds. Ukraine is being repeated in Gaza, with the logic of justice being up-ended as per their fascist convenience- Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine for invading another sovereign nation and killing civilians, while in Palestine a rampaging Israel is the victim for doing the same. Sheer moral bankruptcy and criminality under international covenants is now rephrased as geopolitics. Israel has even called for the resignation of the UN Secretary-General for having had the temerity to say that the Hamas attacks did not happen in a vacuum. And it has now taken to taunting the UNRWA, the relief agency of the UN in Gaza: on the latter's pleas for allowing fuel into Gaza, this rogue state has suggested that it ask Hamas for the fuel! This is not just over-arching arrogance, it's the confidence of a criminal who has bought both the judge and the jury.

   How can an alleged terrorist organisation be equated or conflated with an entire nation, as the global North has done with Hamas and Palestine? And then obliterate that nation for the sins of those "terrorists", as Israel has been doing for the last three weeks? This is like the RAF carpet bombing Ireland because of the activities of the IRA, or India bombing Lahore for the actions of Pakistan's cross border terrorists. Netanyahu, Biden or their pet pit bulls in France and the UK may not comprehend this logic, but surely India should be able to see it, and at the very least demand that Israel respect this distinction. Previous Indian governments, from the time of Nehru to Vajpayee, had the humanism, sense of history and vision to realise this; they had learnt from our own history the abject consequences of partitioning of countries, and could therefore empathise with the Palestinians whose own ancestral lands had been forcibly partitioned in 1947. Not so with Naya Bharat where the benefits of Pegasus, hi-tech weapons and training by Mossad matter more than shared history, humanitarianism and justice. Islamophobia has now entered our foreign policy, it would appear; it was inevitable after the nine years of the present regime, for, as Hubert Humphrey had remarked: "Diplomacy is nothing but domestic policy with its hat on." Which is why Mr. Jaishankar has gone silent for now on this war, with even his usual waffling missing.

   The Netanyahu-Biden strategy is clear: it's time for the "final solution" in Palestine: occupy the Gaza strip, if not annex it. Readers would recollect that at the last General Assembly meeting in New York in September, Netanyahu had displayed the future map of Palestine as he saw it: it showed almost the entire region from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean (the present West Bank and the Gaza strip included) as part of Israel. The attack on Gaza is the first phase of converting this map to reality on the ground. Israel will occupy north Gaza after expelling all Palestinians living there (almost a million and a half) and either occupy it militarily, or convert it into a buffer zone with a proxy government.  Over time it will push more Israeli settlers in there, dispossessing the few Palestinians who remain there, as it does in the West Bank. It will change not only the geography but also the demography of the area forever, with the blessings of the North and the silence of countries like India. This is what Netanyahu had meant when he stated, at the beginning of this "war", that the Middle East would be changed forever.

  By any definition of terrorism, and under international law, Israel is a terrorist state. It has forcibly occupied 85% of Palestine and allowed, under military protection, 700,000 Jewish settlers to encroach on Palestinian land in the West Bank. It distributes arms to these settlers and has killed and jailed thousands of Palestinians without any judicial process: it is an occupation force and behaves as such, in the teeth of opposition by the UN and in flagrant violation of all international laws. It has converted the blockaded Gaza strip into what one commentator has described as the largest concentration camp in the world, and all this with full support of the USA, which runs its own concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay. Between 200 and 250 Palestinian civilians are routinely killed by Israel every year (more than 120 have been killed in the West Bank in just the last two weeks) and has imprisoned about 5000 of them, most of them without any judicial process. 

  As of today the UN has announced that it shall cease its relief operations in Gaza: Israel's two week old blockade has ensured that no food, fuel, medicines or even water can enter this enclave where 2.5 million have been trapped like rats ("human animals", according to an Israeli minister). 35 hospitals will be shut down, and the 140 babies in incubators and 130 patients in ICUs will almost certainly die. This is deliberate genocide, far more barbaric than taking hostages, even though the comparison is odious. And this is even before the ground offensive has begun! What more does it take to be a terrorist, pray?

   What India, which has ditched all moral and ethical values for rank opportunism and, in the apt words of (retired) Ambassador Talmiz Ahmed has "corporatised" its foreign policy for the benefit of a few cronies, does not smell is the fecal stench of racism emanating from the Israel-Palestine issue. When "white" Ukranian civilians are killed by Russia the West is outraged, but when "brown" Palestinians are massacred by Jews it sees this as just retribution. Even an Uncle Tom like Rishi Sunak is blind to this. Historically, the Muslims have never persecuted the Jews- it has always been white Christians who have persecuted, disenfranchised and murdered Jews, culminating, of course, in Hitler's final solution. There were hardly any Jews in Palestine in 1947, the vast majority were in Europe and should have been given their sovereign state there. But the Christians didn't want them as neighbours, apparently, and packed them off to an enclave in the Middle East under the Balfour declaration, one that belonged to the Arabs. So who is the racist and aggressor here? Self proclaimed Zionists like Biden and Uncle Toms like Sunak should think about this. So should the Hindu Samrats. History has a way of coming back to haunt one. It may not repeat itself, as someone said, but it rhymes.

   In these sorry times we could do worse than recollect the words of the poet, Mahmoud Darwish:

" The wars will end and the leaders will shake hands, and that old woman will remain waiting for her martyred son, and that girl will wait for her beloved husband, and the children will wait for their heroic father, I do not know who sold the homeland but I know who paid the price."

MONKEYING AROUND WITH THE CENSUS, CONSENSUS AND CON-SENSUS.

 The current flavour of the season is Census, not to be confused with Consensus, which is a con job on a census, as witnessed recently in the DD (Delhi Declaration) of the G-20. A census is basically a count, and the DD was a count of those nations who resolved to do nothing on any issue of global importance, as I have explained at some length in an earlier blog. Which is why the DD was a Con-census, regardless of what our  Vocal for Local favourite Sherpa may call it. And even as I write this a similar Con-sensus appears to be emerging about the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Global North. And India, as the self-appointed leader of the Global South, in the best traditions of Indian politics, has decided to defect to the North, as 20 million of its citizens have already done. But I digress.

The central government gave a miss to the decadal census which was due in 2021, possibly because it was too busy counting the banknotes which returned to the banks after demonetisation, or perhaps the banknotes which did NOT so return after the NPA (Non Performing Assets) birds had flown the coop. Whatever the reason, we will now never know whether there was a dip in the population post demonetisation (because every joker and his wife were standing in ATM queues instead of being tucked up in bed), or a bump in the population post the lockdown (because every joker and the neighbour's wife were in bed instead of toiling in the office). We will get to know only when Ms Kangana Ranaut gives us her views, which may take some time as she is currently preoccupied with dissecting the war in the middle-east.

But, just as nature abhors a vacuum, a census abhors a zero; as Confucius told the guy who invented Zero- thanks for nothing! And so our Opposition parties have decided that they will now conduct a caste census in their states, a kind of mini decadal census, to find out the number of BCs (Backward castes), OBCs (Other Backward castes), and EBCs (Extremely Backward castes). The SOBs will be counted after the elections. Bihar has already done it and released the results, Karnataka too has finished it but is sitting on the results which it will announce at "an appropriate time", Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh have also said they shall do it soon. This has been dubbed as Mandal-2, a sequel to the original blockbuster Mandal-1.

The entire exercise is like a salami-slicing of society till the original sausage is unrecognizable. The BJP is not elated about this, not because it prefers sausages whole, but because it holds the exclusive IPR and monopoly on dividing society. It does this through religion, but has been outflanked by the Opposition's use of caste to do something similar. We have now gone through the entire gamut of division and ghettoisation , having used everything possible to fragment the country- religion, regionalism, language, festivals, clothes, food, occupations. All that remains now is to do a sub-census of the Upper castes ( Brahmins, Rajputs, Jats, Marathas) who comprise about 20-25% of the population nationally, and tribals, and India will then resemble a piece of Emmentaler cheese, more holes than cheese. The only organism which thrives in this type of cheese is bacteria, which is an apt description for our politicians, you will agree.

But, unfortunately, my own state- Himachal- has been left out of this caste carnival. The state does not have a caste issue, primarily because it has only two dominant castes- government employees and apple orchardists- and between them they control the economy and the politics. Everyone is happy except Preity Zinta (who has left for the USA) and Kangana Ranaut (who is happiest when she is unhappy with something, which is most things). So, not to be left out, the Himachal government has now decided to conduct a census of monkeys in the state, as announced this week by its Forest department. Only "bona-fide" monkeys (those who were settled here before 1974) would be counted, not the "domiciled" ones (those residing in the state for 15 years) because the latter would already have been counted in places like Karol Bagh, Kotkapura, Surat and Asansol. The author of this piece officially belongs to the domiciled category, by the way, even though I have been swinging on trees in Himachal for the last 50 years and look alarmingly like an aged Rhesus monkey. But rules are rules and "show me the face and I'll show you the rule" doesn't work on this one, unfortunately.

Why a census of monkeys ?, you may well ask, and since I am not an RTI Commissioner I shall give you the answer. The govt. feels that the monkeys harass tourists, particularly in Shimla, and have converted the Jakhoo hill into a banana republic, literally. They also destroy crops and indulge in gorilla warfare with the villagers. The Forest department has been sterilising monkeys since 2004, with greater success than Sanjay Gandhi's efforts with their cousins: their population has reportedly declined  from 3.17 lakhs in 2004 to 1.36 lakhs in 2019.

But I have my reservations. For one, the monkeys are better behaved than the tourists and I feel it's the latter who should be sterilised instead. Two, apes best exemplify the Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest, and catching the remaining 1.36 lakh will be tougher than catching a cold in Hell or catching Amit Malviya telling the truth. By the time I retired from the Forest department the simians could recognize every official in the department, from the Forest Guards to the DFOs (Divisional Forest Officers), as well as their vehicle numbers, and disappeared the moment they spotted the long arm of the law, somewhat like our Women Development Minister vanishing whenever an atrocity is committed on a woman. Thirdly, according to the (gr)ape-vine, the monkeys are enthused by the frequent rallying cry of "Jai Bajrangbali" and the Hanuman of the TV series Ramayana being allotted a ticket for the elections in MP, and have decided to contest the next elections. Their reasoning is that they should enter the fray directly instead of being used as proxies and intermediaries, something I believe Mr. Adani is also seriously considering. That has the sitting MLAs worried: they can no langur take their seats for granted, hence the need for the final solution of sterilisation.

However, I'm an optimist. The original and rightful denizens of Jakhoo have survived the Gorkhas, the British, the BJP, the Congress, Uncle Chipps and the guy from Kotkapura. They will live to cock a snook at the last of the inappropriately named homo sapiens when the inevitable apocalypse happens- census, consensus or con-sensus notwithstanding.

DHAN KI BAAT

 I should have listened to Mintu, ten years my senior, way back in 1973. If I had, I wouldn't be living in a village near Mashobra, waiting with bated breath for my pension every month, hoping the Treasury Officer doesn't question my Life Certificate which states: "Brain dead but still breathing and smoking Wills Flakes." I'd be rubbing shoulders in Kensington Gardens or a Bangkok penthouse with the Nirav Modis and the Vijay Mallyas of the world, handing out lavish tips to ravaging beauties, all debited to the Bank of Punjab or Baroda, as the (suit)case may be. I'd better explain.

In the Delhi university of 1973 you couldn't take a girl for a "band omlette" to Khyber Pass unless you had a Jawa mobike between your knees, its exhaust sawed off in some reverse phallic ritual. Lumbering through my final year MA (no, Mr. Narendra Modi was not my class mate) I petitioned my nearest living ancestor for a loan for a bike. Now, my Dad sold oil (Burmah Shell) for a living and was harder to pin down than an oil slick. Like Mamta Bannerji I kept hoping for the funds but they never came. Fed up of waiting and seeing a life of enforced celibacy awaiting me, I decided to take matters into my own hands and sat for the SBI Probationary Officers' Exam. To everyone's great surprise I made it, but then developed second thoughts: I'd always wanted to sit for the IAS. Enter Mintu, to whom I went for advice. Now, Mintu was the hot shot in the extended Shukla tribe, a go-getter in a multinational company. " Take it!" he ordained. " Why ?" I sought to know.

" A bank job," said he of the unlimited expense account, " is worth dying for. The fortunate guys can play around with their own money, but only the blessed play with other people's money. That's what you'll be doing for the next 35 years, you know(give or take a few years of suspension and jail time). You can borrow as much money as you want. Remember, a borrower never dies- he just loses interest."

I didn't heed Mintu's Delphic advice and now have the next 15 years in village Puranikoti to regret it. I have an aversion to taking loans, believing implicitly in the old adage: Neither a loaner nor a loanee be. A mistake which I ascribe to a double promotion between Nursery and KG II, which made me miss the other adage which Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya and Lalit Modi, et al. learned by heart in KG I: " A buck in the hand is worth two in the Bank." I guess I better explain this paranoia also.                                                                           I have had this great suspicion of loans ever since my Dad visited me when I was posted as SDM Chamba in 1976. Now, my Dad used to make a smooth transition from oil to alcohol every evening, scotch on the rocks. I had no rocks since , with a salary of seven hundred rupees a month, I could barely afford to keep my wife in clothes (not a bad thing when you're just married, but you get the drift), and therefore had no fridge. My Dad immediately directed me to buy one, saying he would put up the money for it. It was an (All)wyn-win situation. He went back to Kanpur after a few stiff ones on the rocks, had some second thoughts of his own, and informed me that the Rs. 4000 he had advanced to me was not a grant, but a loan. It was my Ashok Gehlot moment. I borrowed money from the District Nazir to repay my Dad and decided never to take a loan again.

But life has a way to make you eat your words. Suddenly, retirement loomed over the horizon and I realised that soon I would no longer have a leaking "sarkari" roof over my head. At about the same time my younger son Saurabh discovered Madhusudan Das ("Indian universities are the slaughter houses of intelligence") and decided to study in London. So I polished up my begging bowl and went with it to my bank manager for two loans: house and education. I got the loans but not before the bank had squeezed out every drop of information about me: a data extortion even Facebook would be envious of- salary slip, GPF statement, land revenue papers, default guarantee from employer, architect's plan. If I recollect it also took from me my horoscope ( to ascertain that I would live long enough to repay the loans), blood reports(to check whether I had AIDS), my ACR dossier (was I likely to be dismissed from service before repayment of the loan ?), an IQ test report for Saurabh to satisfy itself that he was intelligent enough for further studies (that was a close one), and perhaps even a report on my sperm count (to be sure that the bank would get a bang out of its buck- it didn't, nothing lowers the testosterone more effectively than two EMIs a month ).                                                                                                                                                                                                  After that experience I have never applied for a loan, not even a credit card or a post-paid mobile account, because I can't bear the thought of OWING money to anyone. A big mistake, because the only way you can get uber rich in India is by borrowing big time, and not returning the moolah. In this blessed country if you owe a bank ten thousand rupees it's your problem, but if you owe it ten thousand crores then it's the bank's problem! Just look at the couple of dozen bankruptcy cases before the NCLTA: while all the banks and depositors are taking what is called "haircuts" (but are more like fiduciary castrations) in the thousands of crores of rupees, the defaulters continue to live the life of the Sultan of Brunei. So, if you want to live the big life, go and borrow money- in crores. As the Duchess advised the ageing Duke: " If you can't raise it, you ain't getting no piece !" Which, by the way, appears to be a slight adaptation of that Confucious gem: Man who quarrel with wife get no piece at night.                                                                                             Which is also why I live in a village, doing Yoga when the sun rises and meditating when it sets. In between I think of Nirav Modi standing on tip toe peering down designer cleavages, of Vijay Mallya and his life membership of the Mile-High Club, of Lalit Modi who still appears to have the government by the  (cricket) balls, of the captains of Indian industry at Davos in their  bespoke suits which have no pockets- they don't  need pockets, because their hands are always in someone else's pockets, you see. Maybe I should have listened to Mintu. 

REFLECTIONS ON THE GENIUS OF THE "PAKODA" ECONOMY

 Some of us may recall that revolutionary doctrine enunciated by one of India's leading economists, Mr. Amit Shah, a couple of years ago, viz. that selling "pakodas" on the road constitutes gainful employment. Or that other one on this subject by our second most eminent economist, Mr. Piush Goyal, that unemployment rates in India are high because more and more people are opting for self employment. These twin blasts shook our neo-liberal foundations like the earthquake in Delhi earlier this week, and caused quite a stir among the subordinate economists from Harvard, Yale, DSE, the IMF and the World Bank; those in the Observer Research Foundation, of course, merely applauded politely- they had never doubted the brilliance of these two gentlemen, not even when the former had announced that India would become a five trillion ton economy by 2024, or when the latter had mistaken Einstein for Newton (or was it the other way round? Not that it matters, relatively speaking).

But you know what, folks? Our two leading economists were right! No, I haven't joined the RSS, I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel now that the light in the tunnel itself has been switched off. What makes this country survive is not the Finance Ministry, or the Nutty Aayog, or the Chief Economic Advisor, or the corporate fat cats of the Davos variety. No sir, these worthies only create more billionaires and multi-millionaires; what sustains our teeming millions of common folk is- they said it- self employment, the "pakoda" economy, the "juggad" at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Though I prefer to call it "proletarian entrepreneurship" on an industrial scale, something they don't teach you at the IIMs and Ivy League snob-shops, perhaps because they are not even aware of it. But it feeds millions of households, enables Mrs Sitharaman to crow like a cock about our growth rate, and keeps the country growing- without a paisa being contributed by the government, or even one of the 40 million government employees having to move an inch. This is the real "atmanirbharta", not what you hear in Man ki Baat. It's genius is all around us in our daily lives, but we rarely stop to think of it or to acknowledge it.

This home-grown genius consists of spotting the tiniest of demand niches in our economy or society, and then scrambling to fill it- provide that product or service required- without handing out expensive consultancies to Mckinsey or Tata Consultancy Services or retired IAS officers. For example, on my many treks to remote areas, I have always marveled at the intrepid individuals who set up shop in the most inhospitable, climatically severe and sometimes dangerous locations. I am not talking here of areas like Khir Ganga or Kasol or Marhi (on the way to Rohtang pass), which have become mini-townships serving car borne tourists and require no entrepreneurship, just a few contacts in the Forest and TCP (Town and Country Planning) departments. 

The real entrepreneurship is to be found in near inaccessible areas. Like the young man from Baijnath I met in Chandratal lake (14000 feet, 20 kms from the roadhead): he had pitched a huge parachute as a tent on the shores of the lake, and for Rs. 100 per head provided accommodation, bedding and a hearty dinner (the rum was BYO, though mine host could arrange even that for an extra premium!). During the season his Hilton Heights catered to about 5-6 trekkers every day. Or Sharmaji's dhaba in a dense forest on the track to Khir Ganga in the Parbati valley, miles from anywhere: he told us that his biggest problem was dealing with black bears who were attracted by the smells of his chhole chawal and Maggi. Or the bravest of them all- a couple who had pitched a tent at Merh, just below the Thamsar pass at 16000 feet on the climb down to Bara Bhangal village; a more bleak, freezing and windswept location would be difficult to imagine. It served as an inn for exhausted trekkers (and locals) and no one minded sharing the tent with a few sheep or mules- in fact, they provided much needed warmth.

Only a marketing genius, with courage to match, would have chosen to ply a business in these remote regions, hundreds of kms from their homes. They are the stuff of Bata and Levis. They chose their spots with a perfect eye for the customer's needs, provided a badly needed product and service, acted as a clearing house for local news and weather, and have probably saved a few lives in the bargain too. They would pack up with the advent of winter, go back to their families in Baijnath, Kangra or Chamba, and return the next year in spring to resume. No bank loans, no PLI incentives, no subsidies, no complaints. Genuine entrepreneurship at its purest, outside what learned persons call the "formal" economy.

I see the same initiative, enterprising spirit, and appetite for risk in the urban habitat where I now live, in a massive, multi-storeyed housing society. Services which even an Elon Musk could not have predicted a dozen years ago have now become mainstream, something the privileged residents of these RWAs cannot do without now. Take pets, particularly dogs.

Pets are now a status symbol, a plaything for kids, a substitute for missing grandkids, and the pet care industry in India is valued at Rs. 4800 crore, growing at 16.50 % per annum. But that is only the formal part; the informal service sector I discovered only when I moved to the society. I'll give just two examples. There is a huge demand for "dog walkers" since the dog owners are either too busy, or too old, or too drunk or too high brow to take their doggies out on a leash. The job provides a good living: Rs. 4000/ a month for two walks a day, about 30 minutes each. A dog walker can easily do five pets a day- that's 20000/ a month the Income Tax johnnies know nothing about, more than what your average Management graduate or lawyer earns. Then there is the dog "groomer": for about Rs.1200/ to Rs. 1500/ the groomer will shampoo your pet, brush and trim his coat, cut his nails and brush his teeth for good measure. At the end of it the doggie looks better than the missus does after spending Rs. 4000/ at  Tony And Guy's or some other such gender neutral salon.  Not exactly a dog's life, you will agree!

I have another enterprising young chap in my society- he specialises in fixing anti-pigeon nets on balconies, a business niche like no other. Since statues are now all more than 100 meters high, and trees a rarity, pigeons have taken to roosting on balconies and depositing their "shagan" in them in respectable quantities. Enter Ajit Chauhan, who, at Rs. 15/ per square foot will give you a lifetime (the pigeon's life, not your's) warranty against the nuisance. The final charges for a 4 bedroom and 3 bedroom flat work out to about Rs. 12000/ and Rs. 10000/ respectively. And he does all the fixing himself, with just one kid as helper. He makes more money than an Apex scale IAS pensioner, and doesn't even have to submit a Life Certificate every July! 

My little village of Puranikoti, a safe 15 kms form the sanitary landfill known as Shimla, also has its jugadu entrepreuners. A Sikh gentleman comes on his motorcycle once a fortnight (he covers the entire panchayat) offering to sell/ repair/ service gas burners, regulators, pipes etc. It's a vital service for us at our doorstep, literally, since the nearest gas agency is 20 kms away and has never heard of the "Right to Repair" concept or law. A young lad from Haryana gets his womenfolk to make huge quantities of pickles back home, puts it all in his pick-up and motors up to Mashobra regularly to hawk his wares to us country bumpkins. I always buy my pickles from him, they cost Rs. 100/ per kilo (yes, you heard that right- a KILO) as against about Rs 700-800 for the branded varieties, and are fresher and much more delicious.

It is these unknown and unsung (at TIMES NOW or INDIA TODAY type conclaves) innovators who are the real Atlases holding up the Indian economy and creating informal livelihoods for its teeming, excluded, millions. Unlike the Adanis, Ambanis and Mahendras, they don't demand or expect concessions from the government, they don't create NPAs (Non Performing Assets), they don't fly to Davos in CO2 spewing jets, and they don't issue IPOs to milk the public. They do it all on their own. They represent our true genius. I'm waiting for some political party to make the "pakoda" its party symbol.

THE G-20 CONCLAVE-- CONVENTION, PAGEANT OR CHARADE ?

   The G-20 (or G-18+ Lotus) Circus has left town, or, in the more melodious words of The Seekers, the carnival is over. But where there was a tinge of regret in the Seekers' song, for us Delhi-wallahs the feeling is one of relief, not regret. India's capital city was shut down for almost a week, dogs and Indians banished from the roads notwithstanding our oft repeated dislike of colonial practices, and the invaluable experience acquired by the government from the long Covid lockdown put to good use. But now that the rain waters have been pumped out of Bharat Uttapam- sorry, Bharat Mandappam- Mr. Biden has discovered that there is more free speech in Vietnam than in India, Mr. Trudeau has delivered his sucker punch on his return to Ottawa, the Qutub Minar once again looks like the architectural marvel it is rather than the multi-coloured barber's pole our cultural czars made it out to be during this week, Amitav Kant has ascended higher (at least in his own estimation) than any sherpa on Everest, and all those thousands of flower pots have doubtless found their way to the residences of various bureaucrats as well deserved mementos of the biggest non-event in many years- now, then, is the time to ask the questions: What did this extravagant P.T.Barnum-like show achieve? Was it worth it? What did the common man in India, or indeed India itself, gain from it ?                              .

   Consider first the costs; the official figure for Delhi alone is Rs. 4100 crore (Indonesia, which ranks higher than us in per capita GDP or income, spent Rs. 364 crore at Bali in 2022), tens of crores more would have been spent in holding the 200 meetings of delegates in 60 cities across India to arrive at a consensus document in which everyone basically agreed that they disagreed but agreed to let Mr. Kant find the appropriate words to state that "We disagree but Kant say so since we have supped off gold plates and silver bowls for a week." And Mr. Kant, who hasn't looked back since he coined the phrase "God's Own Country" for a state ruled by a party which doesn't believe in God, turned out to be a good Wordsmith, if not a Wordsworth. We don't know whether he consulted Shashi Tharoor on this matter. 

   Residents of the NCR (National Capital Region of Delhi) were ordered to stay at home, businesses and offices were shut, flyers spent more time on the roads than they did in the air, traffic piled up for miles on Mr. Gadkari's international standard expressways, the borders were more or less sealed with M-seal (we all know what the M stands for). All at great inconvenience and cost. Delhi traders claimed they lost more than Rs. 300 crores of business, tens of thousands of daily wage and gig earners lost almost a week's wages, children were not able to go to school (though that might have been a blessing considering the toxic and irrelevant stuff that is taught in them nowadays).

   The so-called 49 "beautification" drives resulted in the demolition of hundreds of "unauthorised" shanties, huts and shops over 230 acres of land (figure supplied by the junior Housing Minister in Parliament in July) and the removal of hawkers and street vendors, depriving them of not only their homes but also their sole sources of livelihood. According to a report in Down To Earth 300,000 people were evicted; the Outlook issue of September 8th reported that even the official "rain baseras" (night shelters) for the destitute and homeless were razed to the ground. The administration's baleful eye for detail did not spare even the poor stray dogs on Delhi's roads- they were dragged off in the most brutal and cruel manner, pups separated from their mothers, stuffed into already cramped dog pounds, starved of food and water for days, and then dumped back on the streets- all in flagrant violation of the Birth Control rules of the Animal Welfare Board. One sincerely hopes there is a special place in Hell for these officials and corporators of the MCD, one from where there is no return ticket.

   And all this to what end? What did Mr. Modi and his sherpas achieve? One outcome document which is not worth the paper it is written on, considering all the good it will do to the people of the globe and India. It appears that the entire exercise and medieval extravaganza was directed at producing that meaningless "consensus" at doing nothing to address the world's most pressing problems- the war in Ukraine, the murder of democracy in Myanmar, China's increasing belligerence, increasing global poverty and inequality, the climate crisis, the looming dangers of Artificial Intelligence, the threats posed by monopolistic digital tech giants, the worrying retreat of democracy since the 1980s.

  Oh, to be sure, the right noises were made by one and all at the conferences- world leaders and diplomats have refined hypocrisy to a fine art, and can put pen to paper or knife in the back with equal dexterity- both skills were on full display in Delhi. The ground reality, however, is that the G-20 achieved nothing of any substance. Global emissions continue to rise every year, as does the temperature. The UN Secretary General has declared that the era of global warming is over, we have now entered the era of "global boiling". The planet will cross the 1.50* celsius barrier by 2035, much earlier than anticipated. Oceanographers have warned that the Gulf Stream will disappear by 2030, with unpredictable consequences for Europe. Barely 13% of the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) agreed upon in 2015 have been achieved, and on 50% of them there has been no movement at all. Climate justice is not even on the horizon, with more and more people being pushed into climate related poverty. A UN panel has just reported that by 2040, 300 million more women will be pushed below the poverty line. Russia continues to kill hundreds of Ukranians in their residences, schools, hospitals and markets while 20 heads of states and 19 invitees debate which euphemism  will best describe, yet conceal, this genocide. The murderous junta in Myanmar carries on cheerfully, buoyed by support from Russia and China, silence from the USA and the EU, and supply of arms by India. Europe continues to buy oil and gas from Russia through proxies, even while it imposes sanctions on it; India doesn't even bother to create a proxy. China sits on thousands of square kms of our land in Ladakh but we dare not mention it lest President Xi decides to take a look at Arunachal too, en passant.

   Our own hypocrisy, dissembling and false virtue matches that of any country. We have diverted 600000 hectares (6000 square kms) of prime forests for non-forestry use in the last fifteen years, felled 16 million trees between 2001-2018, amended the Wildlife Protection Act, the Forest Conservation Act, the Coastal Regulations, and passed the Biological Diversity(Amendment) Bill- all so that Big Capital could exploit our natural resources more cheaply and quickly- even while we talk of "sustainable development" ad nauseam. Our dense forests are declining every year according to FSI (Forest Survey of India) reports, the Himalayas are being systematically obliterated by hydel projects, four-lane highways and tunnels; our greedy tentacles have even reached the Andaman and Nicobar island archipelago, where the government has approved a project which will result in the deforestation of 140 sq.kms of the most primitive forests in the world, the felling of 800,000 trees and perhaps the extinction eventually of one of the oldest indigenous tribes on the planet. And yet we continue to claim that we will sequester 2 billion tonnes of CO2 and reclaim 5 million hectares of degraded forests by 2030 as our contribution to fighting climate change! 

   The two proudly declared cornerstones of the Indian achievement at the G-20- the GBA (Global Biofuel Alliance) and IMEC (India-Middle East-European Economic Corridor)- are also futuristic chimeras that, in all likelihood, may never materialise. The former takes on OPEC while the latter seeks to counter China's BRI; since both Saudi Arabia and China are members of G-20, the resistance to the two projects will be in-built to the G-20, not auguring well for their success. Secondly, India has launched similar grandiose programmes in the past, which have got nowhere. Mr. Modi had announced an ISA (International Solar Alliance) eight years back to burnish his non-existent environmental credentials. It has got nowhere fast, having spent only USD 10 million so far against the budgeted USD 200 million. Another India brainwave was the CDRI (Coalition for Disaster Reduction Infrastructure): it appears to have died an untimely death, with no progress reported so far. When was the last time you read or heard about either ISA or CDRI ?

   The world is sick of these meaningless conferences and multi-lateral organisations, we already have a surfeit of them- the United Nations, G-7, G-20, BRICS, Global Climate Conference, World Economic Forum, and what not. They serve no purpose and deliver no tangible outcomes other than a consensus to do nothing, which is the easiest thing in the world. They are vacuous talking shops, simply provide an opportunity for politicians and diplomats to posture on a public stage while their trophy wives visit charities and shop like crazy. The price for these jamborees is paid by the common citizens- in money, harassment, disruption, false promises and increased pollution (there were 1500 private jets at Davos this year, our own humble Delhi G-20 saw more private jets than could be parked in Delhi, and 50 of them had to be diverted to Jaipur and Lucknow. And these are the same mountebanks who talk of reducing carbon emissions!)

   Did I hear Mr. Kant claim that the Delhi Declaration was "the strongest statement ever issued by the G-20" ?

   Give us a break. To go back to The Seekers' song: while lamenting that the carnival is over they rue that "we may never meet again." To which I can only say- Hallelujah ! The world doesn't need any more strutting and ostentation and hyperbole, it is desperate for tangible outcomes rather than heavily disguised electoral pageants. 

NOTHING OFFICIAL ABOUT IT !

 

                                  

             Availaable on Amazon at   <https://www.amazon.in/dp/9394887385>

             Published by AuthorsUpFront/ Paranjoy, New Delhi.

This is my latest book which has just been released on the 11th of September, 2023. Its contents are, in a manner of speaking, my memoirs, but more my memories of a life well spent (I hope!), of a beautiful state which I now call home, and of a dubious career dedicated to the public (dis)interest ! I felt that these tales and reflections needed to be told, if only to give the lie to the common impression that bureaucrats lead dull and uneventful, or cosy and corrupt, lives.

The IAS just has to be the most interesting and varied service in the world. Its canvas is like no other’s- it can take you from the remotest village in Himachal, four days’ trekking from any road, to the United Nations building in New York, the centre of the political universe, as it were. Trust me, I’ve been to both! To a probationer in Mussoorie, looking at the 35 odd years ahead of him in the service of the nation, there is no more exciting prospect than being a District Magistrate, and no happier dream than becoming the Cabinet Secretary some day. At least, that’s how it looked to me on a bright, sunny day in July of 1975, as I alighted from the taxi and entered the gates of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration for the first time. For every IAS probationer is a potential Cabinet Secretary, and it is only much later that he will realise that we all rise to our own levels of incompetence!

And not for a minute have I been disappointed, even though I missed the Cabinet Secretary’s slot by a mile! Some dreams have come true, many have not, but there has never been even a hint of regret. Only memories- lots of them, most happy, some sad, but all precious and worth sharing, if only to prove that the IAS is more than files, meetings, lathi charges and reemployment.

Many retired officers write books on the IAS, but they are usually about the “official” side of their service, analyses of what’s wrong with the IAS and how to fix it. That is certainly not my objective in this book. For the IAS is not just another job- it’s a whole way of life, determining how you dress, who you meet, which clubs you can join, how you socialise, which schools your children go to, how you express yourself publicly, and so on. It is a collection of unique experiences which no other service can offer.

It is these experiences that are narrated in the pieces in this book, in anecdotal form, broad-brushed with humour, irony and even a dash of sarcasm at times. Originally published in my blog over a period of seven or eight years, I have compiled them in book form at the suggestion of friends and family in a semi-autobiographical mode, so that no one is left in any doubt about why I failed to become Chief Secretary or secure the mandatory re-employment!

To give the reader an idea of the book: the blogs recount some aspects of life in the Academy, my experiences as a probationer , reflections on my first D.C. , the misadventures involved in bringing my new bride to Mandi, the critical and highly competitive relationship between a D.C. and his S.P., interesting tales about some rest houses I’ve stayed in , and more in a similar irreverent vein.

There are a few pieces in the nature of requiems, remembering some close friends and colleagues (Mortalities and Memories,  The Small Town Boy), a few of the remarkable politicians I had the pleasure and good fortune to serve with (The Political Gentlemen and Remembering G.S.Bali). The varied cast of characters one meets in the IAS, and their wide spectrum, would do justice to any of the novels of Charles Dickens, or even a P.G.Wodehouse. You can judge for yourself in this book.

The I.A.S. has its own arcane language, rituals and culture, not unlike a Masonic Lodge or even the Mafia! These have been revealed in a risible way in pieces like The IAS and its Ten Commandments, Rules of the Game, A Brief Guide to Official Dinners, The Language of Governance, and so on. And of course, I have not missed out on the opportunity to sermonise a bit about some of the ills affecting our hallowed tribe- the generic weakness in the spinal column, the yearning for reemployment , the skirmishing involved in postings and transfers. The old habit of lecturing and hectoring is not easy to dispense with, even if no one is listening!

  There is nothing official about this book ! It is a compilation of memories but devoid of regrets, and that is how it should be when you’ve just crossed the average life expectancy age! It has been a wonderful journey so far, and it’s not over yet…….

 

CHAR DHAM OF THE GREAT HIMALAYAN NATIONAL PARK (III)-- THE JIVA NAL

 22nd September, 2023

           CHAR DHAM OF THE GREAT HIMALAYAN NATIONAL PARK [ III ]

                                                      THE JIVA NAL

 

    The  Jiva Nal is the least known of the four streams of the GHNP. It drains the extreme north-west corner of the Park, emanating from the mountains and glaciers that guard its northern frontiers, and after covering about 65 kms, meets the Sainj at Siund. The trek to its source and back takes seven days. Given the pristine purity of its catchment and the wealth of wildlife there, the Park management does not encourage treks there, and very few trekkers get to see the hidden wonders of the valley of the Jiva Nal.

   The journey, for those who are fortunate enough to obtain permission for it, begins in the Sainj valley from Neulli (the road-head), on to Shakti (first camp-site, 2100 m), a pleasant trek of 22 kms. all along and up the river.  Here one leaves the Sainj on its right bank and climbs for seven straight hours in a northerly direction to Satogani thatch ( 3700 m). It’s a hard slog because there is no discernible track, the lush undergrowth reaches one’s armpits, and the tree cover gradually changes from broad leaves to conifers and then to the kharsu oak and hill bamboo, known as “nirgal.” The world changes, however, once the ridge line is attained and the panorama of Satogani thatch lies spread out before one’s unbelieving eyes like a carpet of a million hues. It’s a four kilometer long meadow that would humble the tulip gardens of Srinagar: a carpet of geraniums, poppies, primulas, geums, the cobra plant and the imperial brahm kamal, the favourite flower of the goddess Parvati. Co-existing with them was the whole gamut of rare medicinal herbs: dhoop, karu, patish, hathpanja. In all my years of trekking I have never seen such fecundity of plant life; it’s a testimony to the rejuvenating powers of nature once the heavy hand of Man is removed.

                       [The savage grandeur of the Jiva Nal valley. Photo by author]

   The third day’s trek, also about seven hours but not so strenuous, brought us first to the Satogani pass (4300 m), which is the watershed between the Sainj and Jiva Nal valleys, and then steeply down to the Sartu camp-site at 3700 meters. Sartu is a flat meadow on a shelf above the left bank of the Jiva: to the north is the 18000 feet high Khandedar massif, beyond which is the Parbati valley. The eastern end is closed in by even higher, 20000 feet ranges, and behind them lies Spiti. It is in the snow plains and glaciers of these mountains that the Jiva Nal takes birth, winding its way down those smooth white slopes like a necklace on the alabaster bosom of a Nordic beauty. There are massive brown bears here, and ghoral, Himalayan tahr and snow leopard, but we did not see any.

                   [The infant Jiva Nal emerging from the mountains. Photo by author] 

   So captivating was the landscape that we spent two days here, though we did not press further upstream for lack of time. On the fifth morning we rose early to cross over to the right bank of the Jiva Nal before the snow melt made the stream impassable. The track now veers left, to the west, following the Jiva downstream, past the iridescent blue wonder that is the Sartu glacial pond. There are spectacular snow-bridges and waterfalls on the way. Emily, a French girl who was part of our party, fell while photographing a waterfall: we immediately named that cascade “ Emily Falls” and it is now so recorded in the GHNP maps! So now you know how natural features are named! After ten kms. one arrives at Duada (literally, “where two roads meet”). A major gorge meets the Jiva from the north at this point- the Duada khad- and there is an impossibly steep trekking trail up this khad which goes to Phanchi Gallu  (4664 meters). The GHNP ends at that point, beyond which is the Parbati valley. (I was keen to do this trek someday but could not find the time; but my good friend Sanjeeva Pandey has done it, and his knees are now paying the price for that!). In 2010 the HP govt. established a new national park called Kheer Ganga NP and the entire area beyond Phanchi Gallu is included in it, forming a seamless natural reserve right up to the Pin Parbat pass. This is one of the rare things the govt. got right!

                          [ Sartu glacial pond. Photo by Sanjeeva Pandey, IFS(R)]

     Duada is a clearing next to the river, hemmed in by thick forests. There is no habitation here, just a broken down, unused forest hut and a large grassy mound- this knoll has a grim but fascinating myth attached to it. According to  legend  there was a thriving village here a couple of centuries ago. The local Devta allowed the people to live here on the condition that they would not kill the animals or birds in the forests. After a few years the villagers broke this covenant and started slaughtering the wildlife. The furious deity emerged from the jungle one night, big as a deodar tree, pulled down all the houses and killed each and every human there. The mound is all that remains of the village, and no one has dared to settle there again. The locals will not stop here even for a cup of tea, so deep is the myth embedded in their cultural past.

   The legend may or may not be true but there can be no doubt that the devtas reign supreme in these remote regions. Organised religion has minimal influence here, thankfully, for the devtas are a force for conservation . Each village has a devsthan or sacred grove from where even a twig cannot be removed. The Duada devta has forbidden meat or eggs from entering his  domain, and we had to send back our store of these! (Fortunately, there was no bar on the demon rum, which would have been a deal breaker!) I have observed this conservationist streak in the near animalistic beliefs throughout the remoter areas of the state and can only humbly thank these nameless deities for their role in protecting the natural environment.

   One crosses to the left bank of the Jiva below Duada and now leaves the stream to ascend to Subli (3400 m.), the day’s campsite. This is the primeval habitat of the western tragopan and at dawn the next day we could hear their calls all around us but, sadly, did not make any sighting. The sixth day’s journey is not very exciting: an hour’s trekking brings one to the Kandi Gallu pass (3700 m.), at which point we descended again into the Sainj valley. By evening we reached habitation again- the little village of Bhagikashahri, where we spent the night in a school compound. The next day it is a four hour, 12 km. hike back and down to Neulli and the Sainj river: we had completed a full circle in seven days. The Jiva Nal itself meets the Sainj 10 kms. further downstream at Siund, but it is dead long before that. Its waters have now been trapped somewhere below Duada and diverted into underground tunnels to power the turbines of the Phase I of the Parbati Project(800 MW). This power house is in Siund, whose greenery has now become one solid mass of concrete, rewriting the geology of the area, with disastrous consequences, as we witnessed in July and August this year.

                               [ Concretised hillside at Sainj. Photo by author]

  The gods of commerce have arrived in this remote and pristine region to stay. But I much preferred the devta of Duada.