There are some things that must be said plainly. So, at the outset, I admit that I am ashamed that India continues to sit on the fence over Vladimir Putin’s insane invasion of Ukraine. The reasons given by government spokesmen and the BJP’s two-bit trolls are that we must be cautious until we get our students home. And, that it is not in India’s ‘national interest’ to irritate our forever friend Russia. Has our silence helped our students come home? If it had, Putin would have allowed those stranded on Russia’s borders to find safe passage. All that our ambiguity has achieved is to make India look like a country that has lost its moral compass. And is unclear about its national interest.
After hearing Putin’s outrageous reasons for invading Ukraine, and his threats of nuclear war, questions are being asked by serious people everywhere about his sanity. Not in India. Here seasoned diplomats and ‘experts’ on geopolitics ask no such questions and continue treating him as our forever best friend.
A rare exception has been conflict analyst, Radha Kumar, who pointed out that since Putin rose to power, Russia has not been a reliable friend. “Russia is not a reliable arms provider,” she wrote in an article in The Wire, “it has not been one since Putin came to power. Arms supplies are frequently long-delayed, and Putin has used the delays to up the prices, sometimes even double them.” As someone who has little knowledge about our arms purchases, what puzzles me is why we continue to be so dependent on Russia when there is much more sophisticated military equipment available from countries that are not unreliable autocracies.
My reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is based on humanity and not geopolitical expertise, and I have been horrified all week by images of modern cities being reduced to rubble by Russian bombs. On the day of this column’s deadline, I found horror turn to terror as I watched the blitzkrieg on Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Zaporoizhzhia is now in the hands of Russian troops. May it remain safe and undamaged.
How is it possible for India not to take sides in what could be the start of a new cold war? On one side of this war are western democracies, and as the world’s largest democracy, that is where we should stand. Instead, we find ourselves on a precarious fence that could see us topple onto the side that is led by a brutal, cold-blooded tyrant who clearly has no respect for the laws that govern international relations. Is India so weak that it cannot stand up against a man who will go down in history in the same basket as Stalin and Hitler? Is this really in India’s ‘national interest’? And, if it is, we have to ask how this is so.
Putin’s war has made thousands of Russians take to the streets in protest. They risk being arrested and locked up for years after being subjected to the farcical show trials that Alexei Navalny faced. And here we are being told by our own ‘experts’ in diplomacy and geopolitics that we must continue to remain silent because this is the ‘prudent’ course. This word was used by a ‘seasoned’ diplomat with whom I shared a panel discussion last week. When I took the opposite view, he referred in sneery tones to how his understanding of foreign policy must be shallow, implying clearly that mine was.
He need not have sneered. In this column last week, I admitted that I hesitated to take a stand because my understanding of the harsh realities of geopolitics is limited. What I do know is that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is wrong at every level. All of last week I have watched with increasing horror those images of women and children fleeing in terror as their homes and their cities were destroyed by Putin’s bombs and missiles. I have tried to understand why this has happened, and failed.
As someone who despises despots, I have never had either respect or admiration for Putin, but I tried to understand his speeches last week in which he talked of ‘de-nazification’ and ‘neo-Nazis’. Not only do these words make no sense in the context of Ukraine, but they seem to belong to another time. In any case, if Ukraine is being led by a President who is Jewish, they sound bizarre. If there has been a real hero in this horrible war, it has been Volodymyr Zelensky. It is his side that India should be on, and on the side of the Ukrainian people who have shown that they have the courage to die fighting for their country and for the values that make them resist Russian occupation. These values are democracy, freedom, and a respect for basic human dignity. These are India’s foundational values, and it is these values that are enshrined in our Constitution.
It should shame us all that we could end up being on the wrong side of history because of some twisted idea of ‘national interest’. In a war that could have autocracies pitted against democracies, it cannot possibly be in India’s national interest to be on the side of monsters like Putin. If there are ‘experts’ advising the Prime Minister differently, it is time they were sacked because they have harmed our national interest, not protected it.
In Fame Game, the Madhuri Dixit starrer that recently dropped on Netflix, one crucial thread revolves around her troubled, angst ridden teenagers. Attempted suicide was a recurring theme in the second season of Aarya on Hotstar, the engaging but juvenile take on a woman mafia don from Rajasthan. Aranyak, a police drama starring Raveena Tandon, features in great detail a young adult hellbent on self-harm. The purpose of cinema and fiction is to dig out the interior truths that lie submerged under superficialities. Currently, the emotional fragility of 21st century Indian youth haunts the cultural landscape; the many reconstructions of urban trauma on OTT platforms aren’t drawn purely from vivid imagination, but somewhere, reflect a depressing reality.
The metaphors in all these shows align with this moment; there seem to be an inordinately large number of young people consumed by overwhelming hopelessness. There is something especially heartbreaking about teen suicide because it feels entirely preventable. What could have been done? Were there second thoughts on the neck-breaking flight, 20 storeys down? These questions gain urgency in the light of the latest shocker, of the death from suicide of a 16-year-old student of a prestigious Faridabad school, who was allegedly distraught over being bullied about his sexuality. Adolescent minds always perceive embarrassments as catastrophic; the difference in the social media era is that taunts and jeers follow students around 24X7, escalating way beyond the classroom meanie. What is clear is that not enough is being done to counsel LGBTQ youth, and that an identity crisis coupled with rejection makes a deadly combination.
In a note, this teenager rued that school authorities never pulled up his tormentors, after which the headmistress was arrested. It speaks poorly of their procedures, but one has to wonder what apprehending her achieves. Other than to frighten teachers who now have to worry they might be prosecuted for an extreme step by a vulnerable student. When, in fact, kids spend under six hours a day in school for less than 200 days a year. Just how culpable can any principal be, in someone’s decision to end their life? As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child; schools, family, our cultural environment and the experiences one has along the way, all have a role to play in development. Ultimately, a minor’s mental health is a parental duty; children who feel loved and understood in their homes will not want to die.
That an act of bullying contributed to a suicide is a tragedy indeed, but it must be acknowledged it’s one that is impossible to anticipate. The idea that an intervention may have had a different outcome disregards the research, that the suicidal are convinced it’s easier to die than to live. People choose to display carefully constructed versions of themselves to the world, while the gaps between projection and reality remain vast. Throughout history, the world has been replete with functioning depressives going about their days as usual but secretly plotting their final hour. Wheat Fields with Crows, one of Vincent Van Gogh’s last and most powerful paintings, has been interpreted by some scholars as his suicide note. Featuring separate paths, one winding towards the horizon, the others leading to nowhere, terminating symbolically in a dead end, it is thought to represent Van Gogh’s despair.
Every generation has their challenges, but no doubt, being young right now is brutally hard. Academic pressure and competition are relentless, there is no security in jobs or relationships. Change is the central point of life’s illusions but the flow of time randomly stopped these two Covid years, causing more agony. While contemplating the social problem of suicide, the writer-philosopher Albert Camus came to a gloomy conclusion on the meaning of life – there isn’t any. But, crucially, there’s no meaning in death either. It’s the life we are already living that offers the best chance to enjoy our brief sojourn in this indifferent universe.
(The writer is director, Hutkay Films)
There is an American colloquialism that reads ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’.
I have always wondered what is ‘tough’. The word has different meanings in different contexts. ‘Tough’ can mean determination; ability to endure hardship; difficult (as in a tough game); or obstinate (as in a tough nut). Tough can also mean a bully or a rough and violent person.
Usually, a democratically elected leader, loath to step down after long years in power, becomes ‘tough’. Hitler was before I was born. Growing up, I was dismayed to see Jawaharlal Nehru’s close friends turn from liberators into ‘tough’ leaders: Kwame Nkrumah, Josip Broz Tito, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Sukarno. Each one led the liberation struggle in his country, was elected by a popular vote, was admired by the people, but finally became ‘tough’ and buried democracy and his own legacy.
Jawaharlal Nehru was the sole exception among the five signatories of Panchsheel. Every election under his Prime Ministership — 1952, 1957 and 1962 — was a truly democratic election. His election speeches were lessons in democracy. The vast majority of the gathering did not understand English but sensed that he was talking about democracy, secularism, the difficult task of building a nation, eradicating poverty, the role of government and so on. Nehru was a loved leader, he never became ‘tough’.
The present world is full of tough leaders. None of them, if a free and fair election were held today, would be elected. Prominent tough leaders are Mr Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Mr Recep Erdogan of Turkey, Mr Abdul al-Sisi of Egypt, Mr Viktor Orban of Hungary, Mr Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, Mr Kim Jong-un of North Korea, and dozens of others who are not known outside their country or their continent.
Mr Vladimir Putin is in a class of his own. So is Mr Xi Jinping. Both are ‘tough’ leaders who plan to rule as long as they live. As I write, the tough Russian leader is raining rockets and bombs on a helpless Ukraine. According to one count, there are 52 countries whose governments can be described as dictatorships.
In the election campaign in Uttar Pradesh, Mr Narendra Modi spoke approvingly of the need to elect ‘tough’ leaders. At a rally in Bahraich, Mr Modi said “when turmoil is prevailing in the world, India needs to be stronger and for difficult times, a tough leader is needed (The Economic Times, February 23, 2022)”. Incidentally, Bahraich is one of three districts in UP where, according to NITI Aayog, the poverty ratio is over 70 per cent.
Mr Modi clearly wanted the BJP’s leader in UP, Mr Adityanath, to be re-elected presumably because
Mr Adityanath is a ‘tough’ leader needed in these ‘difficult’ times. Mr Adityanath believes in enforcing law and order and brooks no opposition. ‘Encounters’ have official sanction. A criminal need not be brought before a court of law and punished, he can be shot down in an ‘encounter’. According to a report in The Indian Express (July 13, 2021), between March 2017 and June 2021, 139 criminals were killed in police encounters and 3,196 injured.
A favourite word of Mr Adityanath is ‘bulldozer’. On February 27, 2022, while addressing a rally at Karka Bazar in Sultanpur district, Mr Adityanath said, “we have developed this machine that builds express highways and also tackles the mafias and criminals. When I was coming here, I saw four bulldozers. I think there are five assemblies, we will send one to each, then everything will be fine” (India Today). In UP, to use bulldozers to raze buildings or vacate occupants (allegedly illegal), no court orders and no legal processes are necessary.
Mr Siddique Kappan, a journalist from Kerala covering the Hathras case of rape and murder, has been kept in jail since October 5, 2020. According to The Wire, since Mr Adityanath became chief minister, a total of 12 journalists have been killed, 48 physically assaulted and 66 booked for various charges or arrested. The tough chief minister persuaded his party not to give a ticket to a Muslim in any of the 403 constituencies, although Muslims constitute 20 per cent of the state’s population.
Under the tough leader, UP is poor, the people have become poorer and 40 per cent has been added in five years to the state’s debt, that stands at a humongous sum of Rs 6,62,891 crore.
I think gentle leaders are the best. They are wise, speak softly, listen to the people, respect institutions and the law, celebrate diversity, work for harmony among the people and leave office quietly. They make the people’s lives better. They provide jobs, better education and healthcare. They are against war and address the challenges of climate change. There have been — and are — such leaders in the world. The incomparable Nelson Mandela was one. Other examples are former Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Jacinda Adern of New Zealand, Prime Minister Mark Rutte of Netherlands and a few others.
I don’t know what kind of leader UP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa will elect. If I had a vote in any of those states, I would vote for a gentle and wise leader.
Sometime last year, my 39-year-old school friend came out to me. He didn’t need to though. I always knew. But I applauded the gesture nonetheless with a barely-suppressed eyeroll. Because the handbook of being a good queer tells you that coming out is more about yourself than the people around you. So we shared an awkward hug and promised each other that we will hang out more often (now that we are both back home due to the pandemic).
The jaded 40-year-old gay man in me dreaded that idea though. Nothing puts us off more than freshly-minted gay men who are enthusiastic about every queer coffee meet, every pride walk and every celebrity who comes out. Their eyes twinkle when they spot a rainbow flag. They want to scream from rooftops that they are gay. But we, the jaded ones, just want to curl up in our Nicobar-upholstered beds, in our monstera-dotted rooms and watch Schitt’s Creek on loop.
Yet, a few weeks ago, when he messaged me to ask if I was game for an afternoon show of Badhaai Do (with that puppy face emoji), I couldn’t say no. “We must support an LGBTQI film,” he said.
Sure.
Except, as a few queer Instagram pages I follow pointed out, none of the people associated with the film, at least at the forefront, identify as queer. That was a deterrent, I admit. Mainly because since I came out as a queer man decades ago, I have predictably become some sort of acknowledged, if peripheral, expert on queer issues at most social (and work) circles. The exception is hardcore queer circles like a pride meeting. There, I shut up and listen.
But really, I’m surprised at how often I find myself saying: well, that’s homophobic.
And I wanted to watch this film and say exactly that.
The trailer of the film depicted a lavender marriage or a marriage of convenience between two queer protagonists (played by Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar). From the looks of it, it seemed like the makers had chosen to use the lavender marriage as a trope to make a situational comedy. Almost a decade back, I wrote an article about gay men who choose to get married. And believe you me, there is nothing comical about the sense of helplessness that can afflict queer people who are given little or no choice. They firmly believe that a life spent maintaining a lie, a deception, is not necessarily a trivial life. It’s very difficult to understand for an outside observer, but when you are pushed to the fringes, even a semblance of domesticity, for a queer person living it, is a major achievement. It’s their middle finger to society.
And so I found myself at the standalone theatre in my locality which I have frequented for the past 30 years, with my friend who was brimming with just-came-out enthusiasm. It was almost as if I was reliving my coming out days again.
Badhaai Do, though, was a hard nut to crack. It’s almost as if director/writer Harshavardhan Kulkarni baited us hardened gays with the trailer. We walk into the theatres with our claws out, what we get instead is a surprisingly sensitive film depicting the specific heartbreaks of being queer in India. My friend was teared up a number of times during the course of the film. He said he liked how adeptly Rajkummar Rao’s character had programmed himself to lead a double life as a closeted gay man. The way he wears his perceived masculinity like a badge (don’t be fooled, most gay men love it when you tell them that you didn’t think they were gay). He cried at the embarrassment of being a catfishing victim that Bhumi Pednekar’s character has to endure.
I was, despite all my misgivings, moved to tears when Rao’s character talked about youth being the currency of negotiation in the queer dating world. Trust me, there is nothing more lonely than being a 40-year-old man in a gay dating app. I liked the fact that though Rao’s first love interest is a young, ‘straight-acting’ college student, he is drawn to a more flamboyant and comfortable-in-his-skin older man later. It somehow redeems his character in my eyes.
That’s not to say that the film was not without its flaws. It almost glosses over the darker sides of these experiences. Badhaai Do’s greatest flaw is that it doesn’t make any of the heartbreaks and setbacks seem insurmountable. Families are won over, toxic bosses are silenced and society, in general, is expected to behave. Our lived experiences say otherwise.
“But that’s a different film,” my friend says.
That’s indeed a different film.
The Russia-Ukraine war is possibly one of the most discussed in the domain of recent wars. Forget the Afghanistan war of six decades, the Somalian war of four decades, the war in the Middle East of three decades. Forget the part where American-backed Saudis are erasing Yemen from the map, the Palestinian extermination happening for the past 70 years, the invasions of Iraq and Syria, and the sanctions on Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Bolivia, as part of a mandate for international peace pronounced by leaders of the world.
We must assess the Russia-Ukraine conflict against this backdrop. First, a primer to Ukraine. It is contested whether Ukraine was crafted into a modern nation state by Lenin or Ukraine’s star historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky. Vladimir Putin assumes that the nation state of Ukraine was a creation of Lenin through the Bolsheviks. However, the Ukrainians object to such patronising reading of history. Nevertheless, one fact remains, that the confederation of Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.
The conflict has to do with remnants of the Cold War tussle for supremacy. Ukraine is being used by both the Western bloc and Russia to establish their influence. These war games are merely a snapshot of how the Northern Hemisphere thinks of its individual problems as world problems. The nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America earlier parted ways from this thirst of white people for a dominant position.
The Non-Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America charted a solidarity away from the white-imposed world order.
This time it is the breaking away of a former Soviet bloc nation that is hurting the Russian nationalists. Ukraine is the largest of the former Soviet countries.
It is also an independent sovereign nation with full membership of the United Nations. It has diverse population groups, among them those who swear by Russia. And they voted to make Jewish Volodymyr Zelensky the president of the country.
Russia’s anxiety stems from NATO breaking its assurance to not move eastwards in February 1990. Since then, it has added 10 nations that are either neighbours or at arm’s length from Russia, even as it has gone about setting up bases and missiles.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea and then other territories was a clarion call for Ukraine to decide its future. Russia wanted Ukraine to maintain neutrality in the face of NATO aggression.
The former colonial powers of western Europe and newly joined white nations which are the size and strength of Indian districts want to play the role of supervisor of international affairs. There is still nostalgia for the colonial-subject relationship. It is evident in the racist treatment meted out to those of black and brown nationalities seeking to flee conflict zones in Ukraine, by countries that are NATO allies.
One cannot deny that Ukraine ranks among the top iron, magnesium, and other mineral producers in the world. It sits on important energy resources, of immense value to any power that controls it.
There is an admitted paranoia about the nuclear threat. So if at all the war is about taking sides, our side should be towards reconciliation and a non-nuclear world.
By abstaining at the UN, India has done what it has always maintained as the cornerstone of its foreign policy. It is continuing its legacy of not falling into the trap of either zone. Russia might be popular not because of the oligarchic proclivities of Putin, but because it offers a strong counter to the imperialism of America.
The Dalit community of the world should also start contributing its bit to world debates and global happenings. They should act as equals. With a massive 300-million-plus population, it is incumbent upon them to actively seek politics of the global.
(Suraj Yengde, the author of Caste Matters, curates the fortnightly ‘Dalitality’ column)
The University Grants Commission (UGC) draft guidelines to convert existing higher education institutions into multidisciplinary ones is a step in the right direction. This is in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The challenge is to ensure the transition is done properly and changes are integrated into the entire value chain of education. Collaboration across disciplines, between institutions and with industry and key stakeholders is critical to address global and multifaceted challenges such as climate change and sustainability. A multidimension outlook is also necessary for dealing with complex domestic issues related to development.
The guidelines are an attempt to make this move possible. They identify the systemic interventions that are necessary to enable educational and research institutions to become multidisciplinary, such as mobility of credits, more robust online and long-distance education.
The transition will require institutions to reconsider faculty requirements as the needs become more diverse, and students have greater freedom in designing their courses. These guidelines will help set up systems that can be used to address uneven quality and educational outcomes across institutions. For now, the models of collaboration have been kept open and flexible.
It would be a good idea to set up a system of review by peers to assess the outcomes of the various interventions. The proposed clustering of colleges is important from the administrative and student perspective. Bringing together colleges will allow for sharing and leveraging of resources. India’s education system must be capable of providing the human resource required to make the required transitions. These guidelines help make that possible.<
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Corporate boardrooms are filling up with independent directors, with 10% more joining last year than in 2020. Vacancies and resignations are down by a quarter after GoI clarified that independent directors could avoid prosecution for corporate fraud if they established that they were unaware of it.
Separately, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has tightened rules to improve governance by weakening the influence on independent directors of promoters and managements. From January 2022, they are to be appointed or dismissed by a special resolution of shareholders requiring a 75% vote in favour. Earlier, this could be accomplished by an ordinary resolution, which requires a 50% vote.
Minority shareholders have gained a say in the appointment of independent directors, whose job it is to safeguard them from conflict of interest. The nomination and remuneration committee, tasked with choosing candidates for appointment as independent directors, has to explain the reasons for their choice. The committee itself must be made up of a two-thirds majority of independent directors, up from a simple majority earlier.
The audit committee must be similarly composed and the independent directors on this committee are empowered to clear related-party transactions. Alongside a bigger voice for independent directors, Sebi is also open to the idea of giving companies greater flexibility in fixing their fees, including as sweat equity, within overall limits prescribed by the Companies Act.
By improving internal controls, the new operating environment offers independent directors a greater role in shareholder scrutiny. Attracting talent through enhanced remuneration should also improve governance. The majority of independent directors polled in a recent survey are less concerned now about corporate fraud and see their role in minimising the risk. They are more worried about transparency and compliance. They also concede their need to be better trained for their job. All these are welcome developments for companies and markets.<
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In a little over a month, about a fifth of India’s population has voted to elect their lawmakers and next government, an exercise that ends with the seventh phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh on Monday. The votes will be counted on March 10, marking arguably the most important day in Indian politics till the 2024 general election, but the weeks-long campaign holds some takeaways.
One, public health is now a key cog in election planning. The relatively smooth poll season, in which the Election Commission progressively relaxed curbs on physical campaigning, stood in stark contrast to the Delta-ravaged round of state elections in 2021. The elections were announced in the shadow of the third wave of the pandemic, but the high rates of vaccination -- India has administered one dose of the vaccine to at least 95% of the population over the age of 15 and fully vaccinated around 80% — ensured that pandemic didn’t affect voting.
Second, the results of the election are definitely important to gauge alignments in Indian politics but will only have a limited tangible impact on national politics. It will show how much, if at all, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s rainbow Hindu coalition has been eroded by anti incumbency, localised factors and Opposition parties. The results will also be important to determine whether the Congress remains the dominant pole of national opposition politics -- if it does poorly in head-to-head contests with the BJP or fails to retain Punjab, expect clamour over federal fronts and new experiments to intensify. But with Prime Minister Narendra Modi remaining far and away the most popular national leader, and voters increasingly making distinct choices between national and state elections, the results may only give limited insights into the 2024 election.
Third, despite increased commentary around the marginally depressed turnout this election, there exists little empirical correlation between voter turnout and electoral fortunes of political parties. Voting percentages in India are steadily rising and the Election Commission’s efforts to include marginalised groups such as disabled people and trans communities have shown results, but India’s most-populous state continues to report a relatively low turnout. Experts have linked this to high migration, poverty and low literacy levels, and socioeconomic barriers in accessing voting documents and the right to exercise their franchise. To deepen democracy and ensure that this fundamental right can be exercised by all citizens, this needs to change.
The death of Australian spin legend Shane Warne aged 52 on Friday has left the sporting world in shock, cricket mourning arguably the greatest bowler the game has seen and his sports crazy nation, a player compared to Don Bradman.
Warne’s 708 wickets — only Sri Lankan spin great Muttiah Muralitharan with 800 has more — in 145 Tests places him on the highest rung of cricket. To the player with a blond mop of hair and a laidback beachgoer image that was embellished by his colourful life outside the game, goes the credit of reviving the difficult art of bowling leg spin.
He achieved absolute mastery in skill, melded artistry with aesthetics, and topped it with a rockstar personality. Leg-spin requires great control, and Warne mixed that with flight, drift, revolutions and varying degrees of turn to leave even the finest players of spin in daze.
His ability to guess a batsman’s approach and counter that stood out all through a career that started with little promise against India at Sydney in 1992 before taking wings. His potent partnership with fast bowler Glenn McGrath helped Australia rule the game in the 1990s and the 2000s.
Warne’s fitness and weight often came into discussion, but not with batsmen fooled by his deliveries. The “ball of the century” to Mike Gatting in the 1993 Ashes series may be debated the most, but the flight, drift and turn to bowl VVS Laxman in the 2004 Bengaluru Test is perhaps of bigger significance as he helped Australia win their first series in India since 1969 in that Final Frontier Version 2.
The Aussie wins the debate on the greatest spinner over Muralitharan, who did not win a Test series in India and whose career was blighted due to allegations of chucking. Warne bounced back after being part of the team that lost the 1998 and 2001 Test series in India, and he imposed himself in the 1999 World Cup, helping his team win the trophy.
Considered the greatest captain Australia never had—it was due to his off-field controversies—he showed his leadership in Rajasthan Royals’ IPL title in 2008. Cricket will also miss his insightful observations, and ability to call it as he saw it — never holding back to please the establishment.
Discuss any election in India and the conversation inevitably arrives at whether there’s a wave (lehar) or not — despite the fact that there’s no accepted definition for the term, that it is notoriously difficult to sense, and that ultimately, diminishes our ability to understand the nature of India’s evolving democracy. A narrow focus on only the winner, and the scale of the victory, hampers the study of elections in India.
Any indication of a wave favouring a political party is often apparent only after election results are declared. But political analysts tend to forget that the term is also context dependent, and constantly shifting in its import. The last three Uttar Pradesh (UP) assembly elections, for example, have produced single party majorities. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won the 2007 elections with approximately 30% vote share and 206 seats; the Samajwadi Party (SP) won the 2012 elections with about 29% vote share and 224 seats. Each of those elections was described as a wave. Yet, after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the 2017 elections with approximately 40% vote share and 312 seats, the definition of a wave has transformed, at least in UP’s context.
Should we define a “wave” in terms of vote or seat share of the winner? Or should we think of it in terms of the gap between the winner and the runner-up? It is likely that if the SP wins with even a slender majority, it will be described by some as a wave election, but at what vote- or seat share-level would this election look like a wave for the BJP? For example, though the BSP won only a simple majority in 2007, the backdrop was significant: No party had formed the state government on its own in two decades. Similarly, the BJP’s victory in 2017 shattered many records in the state. And yet, the gap between these two wave elections was 10 percentage points in votes and 100 seats. Therefore, in India’s first-past-the-post system, a swing of 2-3% votes can result in massive shifts in seats, making it almost impossible to pick these alignments without a large post-poll survey.
Election prediction is difficult in India, but picking up a wave is even tougher — beyond the grasp of even analysts who correctly predict the winner. Why?
First, our judgment about the perceived winner is often merely an informed guess, based on what fellow travellers are picking up from the ground. Everyone has their favourite mode of gathering information. Some dissect pre-poll surveys and try to find patterns in historical data. Many others travel to far-flung areas and speak to voters and politicians to reach a conclusion. Then there are those who decipher the body language of leaders, the tone of the campaign, and crowd presence in political rallies. While each of these techniques tells us something noteworthy, the triangulation of information is the most productive path. Unfortunately, such triangulation is rarely a part of our analysis and discussions.
Second, we often get swayed by colourful idioms such as “sasta rashan to gareebon ka haq hai [free ration is the right of the poor]” that certain voters use to indicate their choice. These are not representative voices, rather the voice of voters with strong sympathies for one political party or the other. They rationalise their political preferences using localised idioms. Thus, we not only get muddled information on what issues are dominating voters’ choices, but also let our previous understanding about voters’ caste or community identity indicate if there is a wave or undercurrent in favour of a party. For example, even if someone speaks to 100 voters at random, they are likely to meet, on average, 40 BJP supporters, and a few extra supporters in either direction would produce more noise than give a clear signal about the probable outcome. Very often, we are not cautious while extrapolating macro outcomes from such interactions.
Third, the mysterious, silent voter is always lurking in the background and pushes conclusions that are in line with our bias about the preferred outcome. The underlying premise behind the silent voter phenomenon is that a significant chunk of the electorate, especially the bottom half of the social pyramid (women, lower castes, and the poor) is reluctant to publicly admit their displeasure or admiration for a political party due to fear of physical threat or loss in beneficiary status. The phenomenon first surfaced in the late 1980s when parties started overtly mobilising lower castes, but political empowerment, social media and better law and order have ensured that the impact of the silent voter is, ironically, much more muted today. The empirical evidence on this phenomenon is relatively thin as well, though everyone, from politicians to election observers, keeps adding to this mystery.
A substantial section of the Indian electorate makes up its mind close to the polling day. Such voters are unlikely to discuss their choice, even in personal interactions, leave alone to election observers. But this reluctance to articulate often gets attributed to a self-conscious decision not revealing true preferences. It is likely that the distribution of support for various parties is largely in similar proportions as it is among more vocal supporters, and the net result of different types of “silent voters” in swaying results in one direction is negligible.
Why do terms such as “wave” or over-interpreting colourful idioms expressed by voters harm the election studies enterprise? It tends to stipulate every election as critical, rather than normal. In reality, very few vital elections realign the social basis of power for a substantial period. The 1989 general election, for example, presaged the decline of the Congress, the rise of BJP and the dominance of regional outfits — trends that were confirmed in subsequent polls that decade. Similarly, despite the common understanding of 2007, 2012, and 2017 being “wave” elections for UP politics, only the 2022 election results, wave or not, can confirm if the social realignment that happened between 2014 and 2019 has long-term potential.
Rahul Verma is fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi The views expressed are personal
The frenetic activity around the Uttar Pradesh (UP) elections has subsided. However, there are many instructive lessons I learnt during my travels in UP and Uttarakhand this election season.
The pandemic has broken the backbone of the Indian economy. Economists are divided on how and when the economy will recover. However, most people are getting back on track much quicker than expected. The government has given them sufficient quantities of free food grains. That has proved a major balm for people who now do not have to fear hunger.
I asked people in these states whether they thought they would continue to get free grain for all time to come. The answer to my question from most people was that they were aware that this was not an endless gift. Most of them know that the scheme could well end after the elections but they are not too worried about this. A Dalit woman in Mathura told me that if they kept getting everything for free, their children would become lazy — wise words from a self-respecting woman.
I began my travels thinking that the pandemic must have eroded the morale of our youth. All reports suggest a huge loss in job opportunities. The biggest setback has been suffered by small and medium industries. These, along with the unorganised and informal sectors, account for more than 90% of all job opportunities. But despite the dire predictions of economists, the youth in villages and small towns are not overly pessimistic. They feel that the country is progressing and that this will open new doors for them.
But, this is not to paint a rosy picture of things. The youth are worried about the fact that there are no openings for government jobs. A job in the Indian Army, police and paramilitary is a status symbol in rural India, but in large parts of these states and indeed other rural areas, the youth feel the government is doing little to facilitate access to jobs in the forces. In many political rallies and meetings, the youth have been vocal in demanding recruitment to jobs in these sectors.
The government has been stressing on the need for innovation and self-employment. Such efforts have to be accelerated, otherwise it will be difficult to stop large-scale migration of people from villages. Such internal migration puts undue pressure on the already shambolic infrastructure in our cities even as our villages are losing manpower.
I learnt that a large number of voters want their leaders to exercise restraint in their language. They felt that if political leaders directed their energies to helping people rather than abuse opponents, things would change for the better. In most places, people were dissatisfied with their elected representatives, whom they feel are not raising their concerns at the state and national level. They were, however, happy with the big leaders of the party of their choice.
A Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) told me that while he worked diligently to get votes, he did not get any recognition for this. Instead, the so-called big leaders got all the accolades. The ministers and chief ministers are chosen by the high command so they devote their time to keep the powers that be happy and carry out their agendas. He also said that the bureaucrats don’t listen to the MLAs as the latter have no role to play in their postings and transfers.
Can such representatives effectively address the concerns of the people? If the latest Association for Democratic Reforms report is anything to go by, in the current assembly elections in UP, as many as 4,442 people entered the electoral arena. Out of these, there are serious criminal cases against 1,142 candidates. The following figures will give us a clear picture. This time, the number of candidates with criminal charges from the Bharatiya Janata Party is 169; for the Samajwadi Party it is 224, for the Bahujan Samaj Party it is 153, for Congress 160 and for Rashtriya Lok Dal 18. Some are facing charges of murder, rape and kidnapping. With each election, this number of tainted candidates is increasing.
There is a saying that in a democracy, people get the leaders they deserve. Are we really deserving only of criminals? From these figures, it is easy to understand why there has been a sharp deterioration in the language and culture of politics.
In the last UP assembly, there were 322 (or 80% of the MLAs) who were crorepatis. Their average income was estimated at ₹5.92 crore. Against this, in 2017-18, the per capita income in UP was ₹48,520; it is now ₹74,480. The income of the ordinary citizen does not increase anywhere near as sharply as that of the elected representatives. This begs the question, are those elected working for the people or for their own selfish interests? The answer is clear from the figures.
Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan The views expressed are personal
In its annual report, State of Global Air Analysis 2020, the United States-based Health Effects Institute (HEI) said that 93% of India’s population is exposed to the air containing at least 35µg/m3 concentration of PM2.5 (particulate matter of the size of 2.5 microns). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the upper annual limit for PM2.5 is 5µg/m3, and the 24-hour ceiling is 15µg/m3. On average, Indians lose 1.51 years of their life to air pollution, added the HEI report, released last week.
Other than the impact on the health of citizens, air pollution also harms the country’s economy. According to the Health and economic impact of air pollution in the states of India: The Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, the lost output from premature deaths and morbidity attributable to air pollution accounted for economic losses of $28.8 billion and $8·billion, respectively, in India in 2019. This total loss of $36.8 billion was 1.36% of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The economic loss as a proportion of the state GDP varied 3.2 times between the states, ranging from 0.67% to 2.15%, and was highest in the low per capita GDP states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. Delhi had the highest per capita economic loss due to air pollution, followed by Haryana in 2019, with 5.4 times variation across all states.
The high burden of death and disease due to air pollution and its associated substantial adverse economic impact from loss of output could impede India’s aspiration to be a $5-trillion economy by 2024, the study said. A successful reduction of air pollution in India through state-specific strategies would lead to substantial benefits for both the health of the population and the economy, it added.
Indians have the constitutional right to clean air. In the directive principles of State policy, Article 48-A instructs the State to protect and improve the environment and safeguard the country’s forest and wildlife resources.
After the Stockholm Conference in 1972, some significant environmental laws were enacted in India: The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974; the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981; and the Environment Protection Act, 1986, to name a few. The 2006 National Environment Policy represents the first strategic initiative for environmental protection aimed at integrating environmental protection with economic and social development, and speaks of inter-generational and intra-generational equity.
Despite scientific data on the deteriorating condition of the environment, green issues have never been a concern for political parties during elections, and environmental and health issues have largely remained outside the framework of electoral politics.
For example, five states — Goa, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh (UP), Uttarakhand and Punjab — are voting for new state governments. All five face severe environmental problems, including air pollution, and are bound to face more in the coming years due to the climate crisis. Yet, there was hardly any discussion on their green challenges and what needs to be done to address them in the run-up to the elections. Some parties mentioned environmental issues in their manifestoes, but there was no robust campaigning around them. Some of the country’s most-polluted cities, such as Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr and Meerut, are in UP, but the dirty air received little attention during the campaign.
Why is this happening election after election? Is clean air a priority for voters at all or not? Is extensive media coverage of issues such as inflation, unemployment and national security sidelining other critical issues? Or is it the lack of awareness among voters that is allowing political parties to sideline green issues? While there are no straight answers to these difficult questions, it is imperative that environmentally conscious voters continue to put pressure on political parties to prioritise clean air and other health and environmental issues in their electoral manifestoes and campaigns. Otherwise, Indians will continue to suffer.
Rekha Saxena is professor, department of political science, University of Delhi
The views expressed are personal
Until the first Covid lockdown two years ago, my wife Prita refused to believe in the supernatural. The car, her primary means of transport, behaved perfectly well when she was in it, regardless of who was driving. So did the various gadgets in the house, the washing machine, the dishwasher, the vacuum cleaner, the TV set… In short, no device misbehaved in her presence.
The sole exception was my bike. The brakes faded inconsistently, the engine refused to start in wet weather, the metal bits rusted all over, and the rear tyre, though its treads were in good shape, slid when I braked hard going round bends. I blamed the misbehaviour on gremlins but she thought it was because I didn’t know how to ride.
Then came the lockdown, with little things making life difficult. The lady who dropped in every other day to help with the household chores dropped out of sight. She lived far away, and couldn’t get to work without the bus service, which had stopped. We got a substitute who lived only a hundred metres away, but she lasted only a few months, for she had to return to her home village when her husband found himself out of work.
At this point, we wondered whether to get a robot to sweep and mop the floors, but I advised against it. As a senior citizen with limited learning abilities, I have trouble dealing with anything new or high-tech. So we found yet another lady to help from time to time, but she lasted only a few weeks: she got a job somewhere in the Middle East. Left with no choice, we swallowed our distrust and ordered a Chinese-made robot designed to sweep, vacuum, and mop the floor.
Four days later, a large and colourful cardboard box arrived at our doorstep. From it emerged an object some six inches high and fifteen inches in diameter, white on the sides and most of the top, with a single switch at one edge and what seemed a Cyclopean eye at the side just under the switch. Add-ons included a sort of three-legged brush, a mop like a patch of velcro, and a box containing a small water tank and a little bin into which it swept the dust it collected from the floor. Prita had it all figured out in about ten minutes, with a little help from the telephone support service, and by the time the robot was fully charged a few hours later, had the requisite app installed on her cellphone, and was ready to get it to clean the house.
That was the beginning of our discovery of the robot’s eccentricities, which our cat seemed to understand better than we did, for she fled the house the moment the robot started. We found that there were places where its fifteen-inch body was blocked by furniture and other household objects. After its first run we found large swathes of dusty floor where it had been prevented from going. Over the next few hours, we rearranged the furniture – this involved shifting some furniture outside and putting a stool on top of a wardrobe – and got the robot started again, and discovered that it needed wi-fi wherever it operated. Our internet connection works intermittently, and is feeble in parts of the house. The robot, which ran out of charge, couldn’t find its way back to the charger and instead ran around in circles until the battery went flat. So we got a signal intensifier.
Over the weeks, we discovered many more of its other peculiarities. It likes to eat earphones, for instance. Mine went missing a couple of weeks after the robot arrived, and we later retrieved the earphones from the robot’s dustbin, minus the foam covers for the bits that go into the ear.
It likes to attack carpets, gets stuck on them, and lies buzzing like a loud and malevolent bumblebee until one of us rescues it. It pushes slippers and such objects under the beds, into dark places that senior citizens find impossible to reach. It rolls up doormats and pushes them where you’d never think of looking for them.
Every now and then – apparently at random intervals, for it sometimes goes an hour without charging and other times only a few minutes – it runs out of charge, announces that it’s going for a recharge, and wanders off in search of the charger.
Most disturbing of all, it determines the sequence in which it works. You never know where it’s going to start. It makes three passes in every room: one to mark the borders, a second to sweep, and a third to mop, but it does these in a sequence that seemed random at first but I’ve discovered is just plain malicious.
Settle down to meditate, for example, and it’ll drop whatever it’s doing and find its way to the next room, hobble itself, and make growling emergency-type noises until you’re thoroughly disturbed. Experiment with some exotic dish that needs constant attention and it’ll invade the kitchen and snap unceasingly at your toes. Try to nap in the bedroom and it’ll come wake you up, buzzing and thumping angrily at the cot’s legs.
We’ve named it Kuttichathan, Malayalam for hobgoblin. Prita, now a firm believer, fears to call it that, for it might do something particularly nasty if it hears her. Our lives are now built around Kuttichathan: how we organise our furniture, when we cook, what TV programmes we watch, when we go out… When we do go out, the first thing we do on returning is check on what damage Kuttichathan has done in our absence. And now that I’ve told you all this, if we’re found murdered in our beds, you know whodunit.
The crisis in Ukraine must be viewed at two levels. At one level, it is a brazen invasion by Russia of a sovereign country, in contravention of prevailing international law, and a rules-based international order. At another, it is a symptom of much deeper and complex geopolitical phenomena. It involves the unresolved agenda of the post-Cold War world, and the unfinished business of building a new security architecture of Europe. It is also reflective of the critical fault lines that are likely to emerge if countries are unwilling to accept the emergence of a multi-polar world.
The end of the Cold War, the falling of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, seemed to indicate the triumph of liberal democracies, and the emergence of a new world order whose unchallenged protector was the United States of America. The USA actually believed this, and assumed the role of a global policeman to enforce a political conformity that was congruent not only to its “values” but also to its national interests. In this enterprise it was aided and abetted by its traditional allies in Europe, original members of Nato, and by Japan.
This led to a great deal of unethical unilateralism in foreign policy. Iraq was invaded on the suspicion — later proven unfounded — that it had weapons of mass destruction; one million Iraqis lost their lives; Afghanistan was taken over; Syria was fair game; Libya was attacked; Serbia was relentlessly bombed, and a new country — Kosovo — was carved out. Countries were attacked and pulverised at will, in the name of preserving the security and endurance of a global world order that corresponded to what the US and Nato deemed was appropriate. The assumption behind this unilateralism was that Russia was too weakened by the demise of the Communist bloc and the collapse of the Soviet Union to be a global player. A second assumption was that China was still not a power sufficiently strong to challenge US predominance.
Both assumptions were wrong, and have led to disastrous and unforeseen consequences. In Europe, the US spearheaded the relentless expansion of Nato to the borders of Russia. Fourteen countries joined it after the end of the Cold War, including the Baltic states, Poland, Hungary and Romania. This was against the express assurance given to the Soviet Union, and to Russia as its successor state, that Nato will not pose a threat to it. Ukraine, in the very underbelly of Russia, was the last frontier that Russia could not allow Nato to cross. The warnings from Russia that it will not allow this to happen went unheeded. In 2014, the US was complicit in a coup in Ukraine for a regime change that brought to power a pro-West leader to the helm. The US happily conflated Nato with the appeal of democracy, and contrasted this with Russia’s authoritarian and undemocratic regime. But Nato is not some kind of benevolent democratic club. It is a military grouping designed to strike any country it considers to be its adversary. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the US was surprised that Russia was not willing to roll over and quietly accept being further encircled.
Grudgingly, the US is also realising that China is not a walkover. The Dragon power’s intimidatory tactics in the Indo-Pacific, its dogged refusal to accept the independence of Taiwan, its global economic clout, its imperialist aspirations through projects like the transnational road initiative, and its belligerence on the borders of India, clearly indicate a challenge to a global order of which the US assumes it is the only arbiter. If the invasion of Ukraine has resulted as a consequence of the US’s flawed assumptions about Russia, another crisis is very likely to erupt in the future as a result of Uncle Sam’s erroneous appraisal of China.
It is delusional to believe that powerful countries do not carve out spheres of influence as dictated by their national security interests. The US outlined the right to do so as far back as 1823 when the Monroe Doctrine was pronounced.
According to it, the US would consider it a threat to its security interests if any European power sought to achieve conquest or domination in the American continent. Since then, the US has never abdicated this proprietary right. In 1962, it prevented the Soviet Union from planting nuclear missiles in Cuba, against the sovereign request of the latter. Nato is an extension of the US’s attempts to expand its security sphere of influence. If the US has this right, how can it be denied to Russia? Even India, is vigilant about hostile powers transgressing into areas that are part of its security buffer. I have been Ambassador of India in Bhutan, and one of our principal concerns is that China should not establish an offensive military presence in Bhutan, a country with whom, fortunately, we have the best of relations.
None of the above justifies the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. But it is important to understand the complex reasons why this happened. In this process, both the accused and the accuser are guilty. Now, the immediate priority must be to end the war, impose a ceasefire, and allow dialogue to re-establish peace in Ukraine. Obviously, Russia did not anticipate the degree of resistance Ukraine would put up. This has expanded the scale of destruction and loss of lives. As threats of nuclear retaliation are being bandied about, and Western sanctions threaten an unprecedented global economic crisis so soon after the Covid pandemic, the time has come to prevent the situation from deteriorating further.
Russia must tone down its belligerence and end the war as soon as possible. Then, the US and Nato and Russia must get down to rebuilding a new post-Cold War architecture of security for Europe; and finally, the US and Nato, in particular, must understand the reality of a multi-polar world in which their hitherto diplomatic and military unilateralism cannot succeed.
Even as the Russians wage war on the battlefields of Ukraine, the old Cold War-type “psy-war” is being waged across the global as well as the Indian media. The battle of narratives is very much a part of modern warfare, with real time coverage of news. Winning this propaganda war is often as important as scoring victories on the battlefield. So, it should come as no surprise that in this era of real-time mass media coverage, through television and the social media, the actors on all sides have been busy putting out narratives to shape public opinion in their favour.
Quite understandably, the Western media, especially the American and the British, have been in the forefront of this psychological warfare. Given the negligible investment that the Indian media makes in posting foreign correspondents who can offer an Indian perspective on world affairs, most of the international news available in India is sourced from Western, predominantly English language, media. Even the few Indian correspondents stationed overseas are in English-speaking countries. Neither in Moscow nor in Kyiv nor in most of Europe are there any well-informed Indian journalists reporting to Indian audiences.
The bias in reporting on an important geopolitical development that has implications for India, like the ongoing East-West conflict is, therefore, obvious. It is now clear that much of what is coming out of the Western media and think tanks is carefully orchestrated opinion dissemination. The Russians, too, have been active, as one would expect, and so too have other actors in Europe and Asia, but the overwhelming influence of Western opinion on Indian thinking is palpable.
From viewing and reading the Indian media, it would appear that the Indian government has by and large stayed away from shaping the narrative on the larger dimensions of the current conflict, not even trying too hard to justify its vote at the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly. The entire attention of the Narendra Modi government and its media warriors and ministers has been on showing off the efforts under way to bring the stranded Indian students back home, with a focus on the ongoing elections in Uttar Pradesh.
While senior Cabinet ministers have been personally engaged in putting out propaganda on the rescue efforts, Prime Minister Narendra Modi went so far as to claim that the government’s ability to bring Indians stranded in Ukraine back home was testimony to India’s new global standing as a rising power! He had to be reminded that a “weak” India with a minority government in office, caught in the midst of an economic crisis at home and with few friends worldwide, had managed to stage a much bigger rescue operation in Kuwait way back in 1990. Mr Modi’s favourite film actor, Akshay Kumar, even starred in a movie on that heroic operation.
Contemporary Indian audiences who are only too familiar with the overt biases and antics of the domestic political and media circus may not be familiar with the manner in which the Big Powers of the old Cold War era waged their “psy-war” in India. It was commonplace in the 1960s and 1970s for political leaders to identify opinions in the media as being “inspired”, if not “funded”, by various foreign powers.
The late Pranab Mukherjee, who ended his political career as President of India, told Parliament in November 1978 that the government had in its possession a list of names of senior Indian journalists in the pay of the CIA, the US intelligence agency. He named names that were dutifully reported by the media. Ironically, years later, the CIA managed to get hold of documents from the KGB, the Soviet Union’s Cold War era intelligence agency, that named Congress Party leaders as being in the pay of Moscow. The Mitrokhin Archives, a collection of documents that were allegedly smuggled out of Russia by a KGB defector, Vasili Mitrokhin, even named Indira Gandhi as a beneficiary of Soviet funding. Both the CIA and KGB have played their games around the world and Hollywood has made a killing producing entertaining movies about their tactics and antics.
Thanks to India’s decision so far to remain neutral in this new East-West conflict, the old Cold War ghosts are back in play. From pure racist abuse to sophisticated “think tank” theories various psy-war armaments are being deployed seeking to shape Indian public opinion. It’s not just the CIA and the KGB’s new external intelligence avatar, the SVR, that would be active in India. One must expect the other players too to be involved in this battle of narratives. Britain’s MI6 has been around for ages, but so too have been the Chinese, European, West Asian and Pakistani spy agencies. This is only to be expected.
I had first-hand experience in handling this problem during the heated political debate in India on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s effort to get the India-US civil nuclear energy agreement approved by Parliament. Given its strategic significance, many countries around the world were keenly following this political debate and some made their own attempts to try and shape it to secure an outcome that would suit them. While the United States would have been expected to shape that debate in one direction, the Chinese would quite understandably have wanted to shape it in another. But they were not the only players. On being informed that a certain foreign diplomat was influencing Indian journalists critical of the nuclear deal, I took the Prime Minister’s permission to confront him and halt him in his tracks. To imagine today that there would not be others doing the same would be foolhardy.
The rising activism in India of foreign policy “think tanks” funded by foreign organisations or Indians with overseas interests, and the proliferation of people of Indian origin in foreign institutions has made the task of separating “Indian” opinion from foreign opinion that much more difficult. Many pretend to speak for India when they are, in fact, speaking for someone else. No democratic government can prevent the airing of such opinions, but it does owe a responsibility to the nation to ensure that the public is kept informed about what constitutes the country’s national interest in the current situation and why India says and does what it does.