It was with renewed hope that Palakkad district celebrated Vishu on April 15, shaking off the worries that had plagued its people for the last two years following the COVID-19 pandemic, dampening spirits and taking the joy out of the Malayalam New Year’s day festival. As restrictions gave way to festivities, music and the aroma of food filled the air. Then came the news of a murder and everything came to a standstill as it were, stopping people in their tracks. This was followed by another murder, a gruesome tit for tat.
A Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) worker, A. Subair, 44, was hacked to death allegedly by a gang of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) men while he was heading home after attending ‘jummah’ prayers at Elappully village. He was murdered in front of his father Aboobacker.
While Subair’s body was being taken home after post-mortem at the Palakkad General Hospital on Saturday, a gang of alleged SDPI men barged into the auto shop of a 45-year-old RSS worker A. Sreenivasan at Melamuri, some 20 km away from Elappully, and murdered him brutally. The back-to-back murders in less than 24 hours left the two families devastated as both lost their primary breadwinners. As communal tension prevailed, Palakkad sunk into gloom. “I still can’t believe my eyes. What have I done to see my son being slaughtered in front of my eyes,” sobbed Subair’s father Aboobacker as his widowed daughter-in-law Zeenath lay in her bed inside their house at Elappully. Zeenath, wearing her white prayer dress, remained inside the house as her children, Shuhaib, Sahad and Sajad -- all of them in school -- came out to greet those who had arrived to console them. Subair, popular in the neighbourhood, ran a small restaurant adjoining his house. It remained closed as the burial took place at the Elappully Juma Masjid graveyard on Saturday.
Sitting inside Subair’s tiny restaurant, his mother Nafeesa is reciting the Koran. The entry to the murdered man’s house is through the restaurant he managed.From the house, she could watch the spot on the Pollachi-Palakkad highway where her son was felled and butchered. It was only 200 metres away from the house.
At Melamuri in Palakkad town, Sreenivasan’s widow Gopika is inconsolable. A teacher of Karnakiyamman Higher Secondary School at Moothanthara, Gopika and Sreenivasan adored their daughter Navaneeta, a student of Class 7. She is still in shock.
A former physical trainer of the RSS, Sreenivasan, people say, was friendly and helpful. He played an active role in different organisations such as Karnaki Seva Sangham, Pranavam Art and Culture Forum, Seva Bharati, and Vegetable Traders Forum. “We never imagined such a tragedy would strike my family,” says Mohanan, Sreenivasan’s father-in-law.
Though Sreenivasan had planned to go to Palani along with his friends on Saturday, he cancelled the trip at the last minute as he expected several friends and relatives to arrive for a temple festival at Pallippuram village. “We never knew he would leave us in such a manner. When I called him at 11.30 a.m., he talked to me so cheerfully. In about three hours, we saw him dead,” says Saravanan, a friend.
New battleground
In this region of central Kerala, the copycat murders have revived painful memories of the past. The two killings mirrored the SDPI-RSS murders that took place in Alappuzha in December last year. When SDPI State secretary K.S. Shan was hacked to death by a gang at Mannanchery, Alappuzha, on December 18, BJP OBC Morcha State secretary Ranjit Sreenivas was murdered by another gang in a retaliatory strike at his house at Vellakinar, Alappuzha, the next day.
The murders at Elappully and Melamuri are a reminder of communal clashes at Palakkad town back in the 1970s and in the 1990s. “But for those two undesirable incidents, Palakkad was by and large calm, although there has been communal polarisation in the last few years,” says Akbar Ali, a leading lawyer. As per the 2011 Census, Palakkad has a population of 28.09 lakh, of which 66.76% are Hindus, 28.93% are Muslims and Christians constitute 4.07%.
The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) used to be influential within the Muslim community in Palakkad. When it lost ground, other parties like the SDPI took that space, he points out.
Prior to this, the northern district of Kannur was the battleground to settle scores as reprise killings took centrestage. Slowly, new battlegrounds have been identified with Palakkad joining the list.
The SDPI, the political face of the Popular Front of India (PFI), which in Kerala was formerly known as the National Development Front (NDF), has gained support in the last decade. Elappully, located 15 km from Palakkad town, had witnessed several face-offs between the RSS and the SDPI in this period. The murder of Subair on Vishu was in apparent retaliation for the killing of RSS worker A. Sanjit by an SDPI gang on November 15, 2021. And Sanjit’s murder was to avenge the brutal RSS attack on SDPI worker Sakeer Hussain at Mayamkulam near Palakkad on July 26, 2021. Although Sakeer survived the attack, the seeds of hatred and vengeance have struck deep roots within the SDPI and the RSS.
Unlike the political murders that the State has witnessed, involving the RSS/BJP and the CPI(M) in most cases, the SDPI-RSS killings that have took place in the last five months in Palakkad and Alappuzha have different undertones. They are increasingly being perceived, often deliberately projected by some groups, as communal rather than political. “This is where the real danger lies,” warns social critic M.N. Karassery.
Both the RSS and the SDPI, an offshoot of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India and the National Development Front, are regarded as communal organisations. To drive home the point, Karassery points to the timing of Subair’s murder. Subair was killed after the second ‘jummah’ prayer of Ramzan, the holiest month for Muslims. It was the day of Vishu as well. “One can naturally presume that the timing of the execution of this heinous crime was carefully chosen with a plan to send a larger communal message,” he says.
Cold-blooded planning
The five RSS-SDPI murders that have taken place in Palakkad and Alappuzha in the last five months have many similarities. The modus operandi is similar. In three cases (that of Shan, Sanjit and Subair), the victims were knocked down using cars while they were on motorbikes and then hacked to death. All of them suffered dozens of deep wounds all over. While Sanjit was murdered in front of his wife, Subair was killed in front of his father. Ranjith was hacked to death at his house and Sreenivasan at his shop.
Subair’s killers had used Sanjit’s car to knock him down from his bike, and they left the car at the scene to advertise the vindictiveness of the action. A senior police officer views political and societal polarisation as the primary motive for the Palakkad killings. Vendetta remains a relatively distant reason.
“Targeted slayings have provided a foil to extreme fringe elements on either side of the religious spectrum to depict the opposite community as an incrementally existential threat” is how the police read the murders. The mafia-style hit-and-run operations carried out by the assailants at Alappuzha and Palakkad are strikingly similar.
The police investigation into the Alappuzha killings has revealed that the conspirators used spotters to guide the assailants to their “randomly selected” target. Other backup teams facilitated the getaway of the killer squads via pre-planned escape routes. An investigator says that these revenge murders point to a well-entrenched criminal ecosystem of safe houses, seasoned assassins, escape vehicles, robust legal aid and strong alibis.
Such killer gangs employed by some extreme outfits also profit from crime, given the political cover they often enjoy. The investigator says that trained assailants need not necessarily figure in the suspect organisation’s list of members. They are often a motley crew of motivated and predominantly low-profile youth responding to local situations at the behest of their controllers for some quick money; some are members of mainstream parties, “hiding from the law in plain sight.”
The tendency to celebrate the victims of these revenge murders as ‘martyrs’ is all too evident. In the latest round of killings, the SDPI men were heard raising slogans like “Ya Shaheed, Subair” when they took Subair’s body back home from Palakkad General Hospital. The spirit of a shaheed or martyr was loud throughout the funeral service. And it was no less loud at Sreenivasan’s funeral either. Belligerent cries of “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” rose as the RSS worker’s body was taken for the last rites.
“This trend should be arrested. The parties should take a stand to glorify neither the killer nor the victim. The killers should be viewed as criminals. The victims, too, should not be glorified as they are targeted almost invariably for their past deeds,” says Karassery.
Warning signals
Few religious organisations in Kerala look upon the SDPI-RSS murder victims as heroes or martyrs. The Kerala Muslim Jamat (KMJ), the orthodox Sunni group led by Kanthapuram A.P. Aboobacker Musliar, says that the SDPI has been promoting its own ideals and it does not represent the Muslim community. “It’s taking recourse to the religion to promote its objectives. It doesn’t have any monopoly over the community,” says KMJ State secretary Wandoor Abdurahman Faizy.
Poet and social critic Alankode Leelakrishnan frowns on the “barbaric and uncivilised manner” being followed by the SDPI and the RSS in settling scores between them. “We are living in a modern world. The way people are being mercilessly butchered with machetes and knives cause revulsion,” he says. “If we can’t check this dangerous trend, our next generation will not be able to share the same love, trust and camaraderie that Kerala society has been enjoying for long,” he cautions.
The government, particularly the Home Department handled by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, has come under criticism for failing to prevent the revenge killing that occurred within 24 hours of the murder of Subair. “The police should have anticipated an SDPI attack on Sangh Parivar workers and prevented it. Instead of providing security, the police focused on conducting raids in the houses of BJP and RSS leaders,” says BJP State general secretary C. Krishnakumar.
The comments of Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) in charge of law and order, Vijay Sakhare, and Minister for Power K. Krishnankutty suggesting that the police cannot prevent planned murders drew sharp reactions.
The attempt to politically cash in on the murders is already under way, with Union Home Minister Amit Shah now set to attend a public rally in Thiruvananthapuram on April 29 against rising radicalism. Announcing Shah’s arrival, BJP State president K. Surendran, accuses the Kerala government of green-lighting the Islamists to reshape Kerala into a Kashmir. The Chief Minister, he alleges, has sacrificed public peace and secularism at the altar of political expediency by playing second fiddle to fundamentalist outfits.
The CPI(M) reaction was that killers cannot be complaining about law and order. “You are committing murders and then saying that the law and order in the State has broken down. This is ridiculous,” quips CPI(M) State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.
“The SDPI-RSS gambit to fan religious sectarianism for electoral gain resulted in the Alappuzha and Palakkad killings,” he maintains.
A fight for survival
With their vote share plummeting in the 2021 Assembly elections despite an inflammatory campaign moored to the Sabarimala temple entry issue, the Sangh Parivar had chosen to rally the Hindus under the saffron flag by portraying the Muslims as the ‘other’, he says. While the RSS-BJP combine thrived on stoking anti-Muslim hatred by every means possible, the SDPI sought to exploit the prevailing uncertainty to gain traction in the Muslim community by portraying itself as the sole bulwark against violent majoritarian Hindu communalism, he argues. “Both extremist outfits share a political interest in turning Kerala into a battleground of religions,” he says.
Not to be left out, the Congress has joined the debate with Opposition leader V.D. Satheesan placing the primary responsibility for religious polarisation on the government. The Left Democratic Front (LDF) is running with the hare and hunting with the hounds simultaneously, he says.
It was in alliance with the SDPI and the BJP in several local bodies. The CPI(M)’s sole agenda is to author the Congress’ ruin, he says.
The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee President K. Sudhakaran claims that when the CPI(M) envisioned a Third Front sans the Congress at its recent party congress in Kannur, it forgot the fact that the Congress is the only national force capable of countering the country’s majoritarian turn orchestrated by the Sangh Parivar.
Amidst the scramble for political brownie points, Prof. Karassery sees a worrying attempt by both the SDPI and the RSS to try and ‘decriminalise’ the murderous assaults carried out by their cadres.
“They are sending out a message to their cadres that there’s nothing criminal about retaliatory strikes. It’s a serious offence. We understand the RSS and the SDPI not from their books, but from their behaviour. Time and again they have proven that they engage in communal and criminal activities, including murder,” he says. It’s also futile to distinguish between majority and minority communalism, as both are dangerous and feed each other, he maintains.
Karassery’s words of caution are lost on BJP cadres. Party officials say that Shah’s visit will galvanise the cadres. As the ideological parent of the BJP, the RSS is pushing hard with the objective of opening more shakhas in all districts of the State by 2025, when it celebrates its centenary.
It has 1,000-odd shakhas in Palakkad district alone.
(With inputs from G. Anand in Thiruvananthapuram)
Inaugurating the Pradhan Mantri Sangrahalaya on the grounds of Teen Murti House in New Delhi on April 14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that the new museum would help youth value the expansion of constitutional government since Independence. However, on this occasion, he did not offer an update on ongoing efforts to convert the North and South Block buildings which flank Rashtrapati Bhavan and currently house the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministries of Home Affairs, Defence, Finance, and External Affairs into India’s largest museum.
Projected narrative
The last communiqué was issued five months ago. It stated that the new museum on Raisina Hill will open by 2026 and will “vividly demonstrate different aspects of India or Bharat that always existed in a cultural and spiritual sense even if historical exigencies have prevented the attainment of nationhood”. Gauging from museum projects that the current administration has financed, it is plausible that this narrative will be primarily conveyed through augmented reality experiences, computerised kinetic sculptures, holograms, and smartphone applications. The current National Museum on Janpath will be dismantled and most of its collections shifted to a storage facility. It is important that the new museum is not haunted by the spectres of a colonial past and is able to meet a basic obligation — the promotion of democratic principles.
Large art museums emerged in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries alongside the rise of nations, colonial empires, and industrialisation. Consider the case of the Louvre Museum in Paris. Among the world’s largest and most-visited museums today, it was founded during the French Revolution as rebels forced open vast collections of painting and statuary held privately until then by France’s absolute monarchs to Parisians. For the next 150 years, the Louvre inspired a new national consciousness by using its palatial halls to showcase the aesthetic, social, and scientific achievements of the French people. Its exhibitions compared these with the ‘slow progress’ of other civilisations. In time, this model spread to other emergent countries to empower their publics. After decolonisation, museums along western lines were built in newly independent countries to bolster their national narratives.
Thus, the current regime’s plan to showcase a bold new India by developing a sprawling museum on Raisina Hill, perhaps largely bereft of historical artifacts, is a paradoxical return to an older era where the primary purpose of a museum was to nurture patriotism and showcase triumph. In the tumultuous times that we live in, is it possible to imagine that the new museum will acknowledge India’s continuing diversity including its many conflicts, view cultural heritage as a process requiring museum goers to actively engage with a past that is both inspiring and despairing, and serve as a space to promote democracy?
Usher in transparency
One strategy that the new museum may adopt to aspire toward these goals is to display the entire collection of the National Museum. Or, at least as much of the collection as can be safely displayed — ensuring that irreplicable antiquities are not subjected to excess heat, cold drafts, humidity, and harsh light. This is a challenging task. If it is executed carefully, then it can allow the institution to begin dismantling hierarchies that have privileged certain objects as masterpieces and relegated others as lesser works and copies. Such a strategy can also establish that the meanings of artworks are not fixed but change at different moments of their lives, including the contexts in which they are exhibited. It may also promote accountability and make the difficult work of administering a premier cultural institution transparent to a broad public. Alongside, the new museum may emulate Charles Correa’s commitment to create accessible contrapuntal spaces in public buildings. Auditoria, courtyards, concert halls, and cafes can foster quietude and spark conversation.
Alternatively, by forming alliances with other institutions and showcasing the connected history of India and the world, the new museum may aspire to help visitors become better informed citizens. One gallery might exhibit seals to highlight contacts among and between ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. Rhytons and statuary explaining entanglements between Achaemenid Persepolis and Mauryan Pataliputra can be placed in a second gallery. A third gallery can house coins and portraits to exhibit how the Kushans who ruled over Mathura in the early centuries CE maintained ties with their nomadic clansmen in the Central Asian steppe. A fourth group of rooms can bring together textiles and wood carvings to narrate histories of traders moving between east Africa and Gujarat. A fifth gallery might showcase microarchitectural ensembles and leather puppets to reconstruct flows across the Bay of Bengal, and along pathways extending in an arc from the Deccan to the Arakan. A sixth suite of rooms might focus on albums of calligraphy and miniature painting to unravel forces that cleaved peoples of the Mughal, Safavid and Ottoman Empires. And so on.
Laboratory for the future
A third strategy would be to think of the new museum as a laboratory for the future, that is, as a sustainable and multi-purpose building dedicated to quarrying new histories and fostering fresh deliberations. In it, one suite of galleries featuring diverse everyday artifacts — sickles, pitchers, and phulkaris — may provoke a reflection of how a mosaic of villages and their farmlands were acquired by colonial authorities to build Lutyens’ Delhi. Another set of galleries exhibiting artifacts pointing to how minorities have attempted to negotiate their positionsvis-à-vis majoritarian regimes may stimulate artists, researchers, and young people to gather, question assumptions, and develop new works.
These are only a few tactics. Certainly, they need to be refined or even rejected. However, it is clear that the question of how the North and South Block buildings will be quickly remodelled into the country’s largest museum that aspires to tell the story of India is too significant to assign to a few individuals.
Essential ponderings
Contemporary artists in collaboration with forward-looking museums in the country are already debating this question. Jitish Kallat’s minuscule painted-clay models of street violence safely housed in British-era vitrines in the Mumbai’s Bhau Daji Lad Museum draw attention to historical narratives sanctified in public institutions and those that remain untold. Watercolours, oils, and mixed media works in Atul Dodiya’s 7000 Museums series exhibited in the same museum, give form to what a host of cultural institutions across India could look like and types of artifacts they may house. Following Kallat and Dodiya, let us contemplate and articulate what the past means to us and ask what of the past is worth saving and why. In the classroom, on the street, on the stage and screen. Such ponderings will also help us imagine how we might eventually gather responsibly at the new art museum on Raisina Hill to continue to craft a culture of democracy.
Nachiket Chanchani is an Associate Professor of South Asian Art and Visual Culture at the University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, U.S.
After a gap of 15 months, the India-Sri Lanka Joint Working Group (JWG) on fisheries held its much-awaited deliberations (in virtual format) on March 25. But between the two meetings of the JWG, a number of events — some of them unfortunate — have occurred in the Palk Bay region that encompasses India’s Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka’s Northern Province. For instance, seven fishermen — five from Tamil Nadu and two from Sri Lanka — have died in “mid-sea clashes”. Just as sections of fishermen from the Palk Bay bordering districts of Tamil Nadu continue to transgress the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL), cases of many of them getting arrested and their boats being impounded by the Sri Lankan authorities continue. What has precipitated matters is that in early February, the impounded boats, around 140 in number, were auctioned despite a bilateral understanding on the matter.
Trawling as an issue
Apart from poaching in the territorial waters of Sri Lanka, the use of mechanised bottom trawlers is another issue that has become a bone of contention between the fishermen of the two countries; the dispute is not just between the two states. This method of fishing, which was once promoted by the authorities in India, is now seen as being extremely adverse to the marine ecology, and has been acknowledged so by India. The actions of the Tamil Nadu fishermen adversely affect their counterparts in the Northern Province who are also struggling to come to terms with life after the civil war. The ongoing economic crisis in the island nation has only worsened their plight.
At the same time, the fishermen of Tamil Nadu experience a genuine problem — the lack of fishing areas consequent to the demarcation of the IMBL in June 1974. If they confine themselves to Indian waters, they find the area available for fishing full of rocks and coral reefs besides being shallow. The distance between Dhanushkodi (Tamil Nadu) and the IMBL is nine nautical miles (NM) while the maximum distance — Devipattinam and the IMBL — is 34 NM. Under the Tamil Nadu Marine Fishing Regulation Act 1983, mechanised fishing boats can fish only beyond 3 NM from the coast. This explains the trend of the fishermen having to cross the IMBL frequently. Another factor is that the people of the two countries in general and fisherfolk in particular have common threads of language, culture and religion, all of which can be used purposefully to resolve any dispute.
It is because of this factor as well as the plight of the fishermen of the Northern Province that the two governments have been repeatedly saying that the whole problem has to be looked at from humanitarian and livelihood angles.
Fisher-level talks
With the problem having been discussed by the JWG, and earlier during the visit of India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to Sri Lanka, in March as well, it is time steps are taken to take the process forward. The present situation, which is otherwise very stressful for Sri Lanka in view of the economic crisis, can be utilised to bring the fishermen of the two countries to the negotiating table. This is because the Indian government’s two-month ban on fishing on the east coast of the country began on April 15. It is up to Sri Lanka now to ensure that the talks take place as the Indian side is keen on resuming fisherfolk-level deliberations. As several substantive issues were discussed threadbare in the previous rounds of such meetings — the last one was in New Delhi in November 2016 — only some fine-tuning of the respective positions had to be done.
While Indian fishermen can present a road map for their transition to deep sea fishing or alternative methods of fishing, the Sri Lankan side has to take a pragmatic view that the transition cannot happen abruptly. To elicit a favourable response from the fishermen of the Northern Province, the Tamil Nadu fishermen have to commit themselves to a short and swift transition for which the governments in India ( Central and State) have to come forward to perform the role of guarantors. Also, whenever there is a genuine complaint about Tamil Nadu fishermen having damaged the properties of the Northern Province’s fishermen, the Indian government can compensate this through the proper channels of Sri Lanka.
Deep sea fishing
In the meantime, India will have to modify its scheme on deep sea fishing to accommodate the concerns of its fishermen, especially those from Ramanathapuram district, so that they take to deep sea fishing without any reservation. The revised scheme has to absorb satisfactorily not only the unit cost of long liners but also the running cost. Also, there is a compelling need for the Central and State governments to implement in Tamil Nadu the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana in a proactive manner. The scheme, which was flagged off two years ago, covers alternative livelihood measures too including seaweed cultivation, open sea cage cultivation, and sea/ocean ranching.
During Mr. Jaishankar’s visit, India had signed a memorandum of understanding with Sri Lanka for the development of fisheries harbours. This can be modified to include a scheme for deep sea fishing to the fishermen of the North. It is a welcome development that the JWG has agreed to have joint research on fisheries, which should be commissioned at the earliest. Such a study should cover the extent of the adverse impact of bottom trawling in the Palk Bay region.
Simultaneously, the two countries should explore the possibility of establishing a permanent multi-stakeholder institutional mechanism to regulate fishing activity in the region. At the same time, Sri Lanka should take a lenient view of the situation and refrain from adopting a rigid and narrow legal view of matters concerning the release of 16 fishermen or impounded fishing boats (around 90 in number). Any delay in this will only increase the bitterness between the two countries at a time when the economic crisis of Sri Lanka is generating empathy in India. What everyone needs to remember is that the fisheries dispute is not an insurmountable problem. A number of options are available to make the Palk Bay not only free of troubles but also a model for collaborative endeavours in fishing.
ramakrishnan.t@thehindu.co.in
The arrest of Gujarat independent legislator, Jignesh Mevani, by the Assam police is an egregious instance of the misuse of law to target a vocal critic of the Union government. There are several aspects about his arrest that ought to cause shock and revulsion to those who believe in law and democracy. Mr. Mevani’s tweets, subsequently withheld by Twitter, described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “Godse worshipper”, but also contained an appeal to him to call for peace in some areas of Gujarat that witnessed communal violence. It is clear that apart from being harsh criticism of the PM, there is nothing in it that can be seen as affecting public tranquillity or causing divisions in society. Not only have the police invoked the entire gamut of offences related to inflammatory speech, breach of peace and outraging of religious feelings, but provisions related to conspiracy and hacking of computers have also been added for good measure. While some of the criminal provisions in the FIR are questionable, it is astounding that the police in distant Kokrajhar, Assam, chose to act on a complaint by a political functionary against a legislator in Gujarat and travel all the way to take him into custody and jail him in Assam. Except for the fact that the allegedly offending remark was made online and is accessible on the Internet, there is nothing to confer jurisdiction on the Assam police.
The use of Section 295A of the IPC, which only applies to acts that outrage the religious feelings of a section, is particularly questionable because there is nothing in Mr. Mevani’s remarks that can be seen even remotely insulting towards any religious belief or practice. Further, it is quite notable that the police or ruling party functionaries in BJP-ruled Gujarat did not pursue the case there. It is almost as if his opinion contained a higher potential for breach of peace or disturbance to public tranquillity in Assam than in his home State. It is not clear on what basis the police in Kokrajhar accepted the complainant’s claim that the tweet could destroy the social fabric “in this part of the country”. There cannot be a better example of the misuse of the principle that anyone can set the criminal law in motion. There is something perverse about the manner in which the inter-State operation of criminal law allows any citizen to be held by the police from another State with such ease, even when the alleged offences attract short prison terms that do not warrant arrest. It is disconcerting that a judicial magistrate denied bail to Mr. Mevani and granted police custody in a matter that only involves interpretation of some words. Judicial officers ought to show greater independence by raising questions about territorial jurisdiction instead of accepting the prosecution claims in such cases without demur.
The Maldives government’s decision to ban the ‘India Out’ protests shows how the campaign, which started as an online protest by critics of the Ibrahim Solih administration, has grown into a polarising political issue in the Indian Ocean island nation with which India has deep ties. The campaign, which remained a fringe protest in the initial years, gained currency late last year after former President Abdulla Yameen took it over. Mr. Yameen, who served two years in jail after losing power in 2018, wanted a strong political narrative to make a comeback, particularly as the country heads to its presidential election in 2023. Critics termed the Solih administration “a puppet of New Delhi”, accusing it of allowing an Indian military presence, thereby compromising the country’s sovereignty — an allegation the government has repeatedly denied. Mr. Yameen has organised several political rallies, openly attacking the government’s ties with India. When Mr. Yameen was in power, he was largely seen as a friend of China. His government’s ultimatum to India to withdraw two of its helicopters from two atolls had triggered tensions. But relations between the two countries improved remarkably after Mr. Solih’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) came to power in 2018.
President Solih adopted an ‘India first’ foreign policy. In the past four years, India has emerged as the Maldives’s main security and economic partner, committing $1.4 billion towards its ‘socio-economic development needs’. In February 2021, it signed the Uthuru Thila Falhu (UTH) harbour development deal with Male to develop the National Defence Force Coast Guard Harbour. The Yameen camp stepped up its attack on the government after this deal. India has historically played an important role in the Maldives as a friendly big neighbour. But China’s rise in the Indian Ocean region has raised the strategic profile of this small, import-dependent island-nation of 5,50,000 people, where both countries vied for influence. Now, while Mr. Yameen is trying to regain his lost support by shoring up Maldivian nationalism and anti-India sentiments, the MDP is trying to counter it with another nationalist narrative. It argues that ties with India, the closest big neighbour of the Maldives, is important for the country’s security, including food security. While these two narratives would clash in the coming election, India, being the centre of the political wrangling, would find itself in a difficult situation. Victory is not guaranteed for the MDP, which faces anti-incumbency problems and differences between Mr. Solih and the powerful former President Mohamed Nasheed. If it loses, India risks losing the influence it has built over the last few years. The challenge before India is to build closer ties with all political factions of the Maldives while helping the country meet its economic and security requirements.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced a number of minor tax concessions amounting to Rs 15.73 crore in the Lok Sabha. Moving the Finance BUI, which gives effect to his taxation proposals contained in the 1932-83 budget, Mukherjee announced reliefs in direct taxes totaling Rs 11.23 crore and a number of concessions in indirect taxes which are aimed at reducing the burden on small manufacturers. The total taxation effort made by the Finance Minister while presenting his budget amounted to Rs 589.33 crore. Prominent among the concessions is the increase in exemption limit for those who avail of leave encashment and extension of excise duty concession scheme to small assemblers of cassette tapes, parts of pens and ball-point pens.
A court of Inquiry into the theft of some rockets belonging to the Air Force from a goods wagon and their subsequent appearance at the Bokaro steel plant and other places has been ordered by the Air Headquarters. Defence Minister R Venkataraman told the Lok Sabha. Members were, however, dissatisfied with Venkataraman’s statement that the rockets might have found their way to Bokaro because they were dumped in limestone wagons by the looters. It appears that those who looted the wagon containing the rockets were in search of valuables.
China announced that a proposed new constitution would re-establish the post of state chairman or president, abolished during the Maoist cultural revolution. The official New China News Agency said the draft of the new constitution was put to a meeting of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress .
In modern diplomacy, optics may not always reflect the substance of the negotiations between leaders. But the public bonhomie that marked talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his British counterpart, Boris Johnson, is in tune with the expansive ambition that marks bilateral engagement and the rapid progress on a range of issues including trade, defence, advanced technologies, clean energy, climate change, and regional collaboration. Modi noted the special personal contribution of Johnson to the modernisation of bilateral relations. Johnson called the Indian PM a “khaas dost” or a dear friend.
Persistent prickliness marked the post colonial ties between the two governments until recently. But in the 75th year of independence, the unprecedented comfort level between the top leaders underlines the growing convergence of interests between Delhi and London and a serious political commitment to translate the shared interests into concrete outcomes. In the run-up to Johnson’s twice postponed visit, the international chatter was all about the differences on the war in Ukraine sinking the British PM’s visit. While the two leaders briefed each other on their respective views on the crisis, Indian officials say there was no pressure from Britain. In the joint press conference, Johnson did not refer to Ukraine; nor did he criticise India in his separate presser. While Modi did not condemn the Russian invasion, he reiterated India’s call for an immediate ceasefire and underlined its emphasis on respect for the principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty of nations.
The two leaders had more on their plate than Ukraine. At the top of the agenda is the effort to conclude an agreement on Enhanced Trade Partnership (ETP). Johnson wants to get the deal done by Diwali and Modi promised that India will demonstrate the same speed and urgency that it did in concluding recent free trade agreements with the UAE and Australia in recent months. Complementing the political push for a historic trade liberalisation agreement is the decision by the two leaders to deepen bilateral defence and security cooperation. While India welcomed Britain’s Indo-Pacific tilt, Britain has announced the decision to ease the transfer of defence equipment and technology for India. The two sides are also determined to begin joint research, development and production of advanced weapons and related technologies. Modi and Johnson also issued a statement on strengthening their partnership in the cyber domain to deliver results on governance, deterrence, resilience and capacity building. Beyond defence, security and advanced technologies, they announced plans to boost cooperation on mitigating climate change and promoting clean energy.
Tying all these initiatives across a broad spectrum is the determination to strengthen the “living bridge” between the two nations — marked not only by a large Indian diaspora in Britain but also the immense possibilities for collaboration between various sectors of the two civil societies. These possibilities never disappeared in the immediate decades after India’s independence from Britain 75 years ago; but they could not be harnessed because of major political differences between the two nations. But in the unfolding era of strategic convergence, the massive bridge between India and Britain is coming alive.
Not every spy is James Bond, and espionage hardly ever involves sipping martinis in glamorous settings. More often, it is slow, painstaking work, full of the drudgery common to most professions, in the hope that some useful information might present itself and provide insight and leverage. Kang Dong Wan, a South Korean researcher, is no spy. But, given the dedication with which he has collected and studied the garbage that washes up on the shores from North Korea, he probably should be.
Kang has found — as so many private eyes searching for clues do — that what people throw away can, with the right interpretation, yield a treasure trove of information. From discarded packets of fast food, to candy wrappers, the rubbish from the North has provided him with a sketch of changes taking place in the notoriously isolationist dictatorship. For example, the increasing amount of fast-food waste indicates that Kim Jong-un has been forced to cater to the desire for market-based consumerism. That the packaging of the unhealthy delectables often mimics South Korean counterparts provides hope that, despite a hard border and ideological differences, in their tastes, people remain the same.
Kang was forced to comb the shoreline for garbage as a result of the pandemic: He lost access to goods and people from North Korea in Chinese border towns due to strict lockdowns. He was often stranded on a beach if a ferry didn’t arrive and forced to spend the night in inclement weather. Local residents often complained to the police about a strange man eagerly collecting and sifting through trash. The results of his investigations, though, are no secret and he aims to understand his neighbours, sundered from the common community by a history of violence and suspicion. Now that’s a goal worth spending time in the dirt for.
Over the past few weeks, several states — Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh — have been witnessing power outages. While governments, both at the central and state level, are taking steps to address the problem, this is not an unusual situation. Last year too, several states had raised concerns over inadequate coal supplies to thermal power plants. This indicates a systemic inability to predict demand accurately and manage supply-side constraints.
The current crisis can be traced to both demand and supply factors. Power demand is rising as the economic recovery from the lows of the pandemic gathers momentum. Demand is only likely to rise further as the country heads into peak summer season, deepening the existing mismatch. On the supply side, the low level of coal stocks at thermal power plants is a matter of concern. As per a recent report by Nomura, during mid April, power plants held only about nine days’ worth of coal stocks, significantly below the average stocks held by them over the past few years. In fact, a large section of thermal power plants across the country are currently at “critically” low level of stocks. This, as analysts have pointed out, is due to a combination of factors — notably, the lower availability of railway rakes to transport the coal to the thermal power plants, and high prices adversely impacting coal imports. As reported in this paper, with a sharp spurt in international coal prices, Indian thermal plants, which rely on imports, have cut back — of the 16.6 GW of thermal power generation capacity based on imported coal, 6.7 GW or around 40 per cent is currently not operational.
Considering that coal supplies tend to get disrupted during the monsoon season, unless these supply-side issues are tackled urgently — there are reports of some states, namely, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, planning to import 10.5 million tonnes of coal over the coming few months to address the deficit — the mismatch is likely to worsen. This will exacerbate the power shock across the country, forcing states to either buy power at significantly higher rates or face outages. However, initiatives by the Centre and the states aimed at tackling these constraints will only address the immediate stress. The larger issues of the weakness in the distribution segment, may well linger on.
Lamka, Churachandpur today is predominantly a town inhabited by the indigenous Zo kindred tribes. It is multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and has a cosmopolitan worldview. Inter-ethnic clashes on June 27, 1997, had led to the breakdown of trust among communities and encouraged patronisation of ethnic affiliations. These tensions can be traced to the time of the merger of the princely state of Manipur with the Indian Union or even before to the colonial era. The Khul Union, formed in 1947, which comprises all the hill people in Manipur except the Nagas, to protect their interests and political future, was disrupted due to the assertion of linguistic dominance by the numerically larger ethnic groups. More recently, the anti-tribal bill movement in Manipur in August, 2015 widened the ethnic divide and disrupted communal harmony, especially in Churachandpur. The anti-tribal bill passed by the Manipur legislative assembly was opposed by the hill people of Manipur and a Joint Action Committee against the Anti-Tribal Bills (JACAATB) was formed to articulate the opposition. The subsequent protests led to attacks on the houses of MLAs from the hill areas and nine persons, including a 10-year-old boy, were killed in police firing. However, the ethnic divide came into play and the outcome was the withdrawal of some tribes from the JACAATB.
The ethnic and political divides impact everyday life, sometimes in a subtle manner and at other times in an explicit fashion. It triggers conflict and fuels violence. During elections, ethnic, institutional, money, gun, and muscle power become prevalent. In a region that has historically emphasised ethnicity, elections are not seen as an opportunity for electing lawmakers but imagined as a form of ethnic and geopolitical dominance and assertion. One’s candidature in an election is perceived as a representation of one’s community socio-culturally and politically. The outcome is that only a minuscule amount of space is provided to minority tribes like the Simtes, Gangte, Vaipheis, Mizos, Zous, and others to articulate their rights in a democratic manner.
Thangkhangin Ngaihte, the president of Lok Janshakti Party in Manipur and a member of the Simte community, has lost eight elections to the assembly and Parliament. He says, “Ethnic organisations govern our land, and our votes are cast on ethnic grounds. For a minority tribe like the Simtes, come a thousand years, the chances of getting their representative elected are still futile. Considering ethnicity as the ground for vote casting, a qualified candidate’s chances to get elected are nullified.”
This convoluted state of ethnic politics is further complicated by money, guns, and muscle power. It was alleged that Rs 16 crore was paid to Manipur militant groups ahead of elections to influence voters in the assembly election held in February. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh alleged that elections in Churachandpur and Kangpokpi districts in the first phase on February 28 were undemocratic because payments had been made. Demands were made for a repoll in 30 polling stations across Churachandpur and Kangpokpi districts.
The entry of James Khuma Hauzel, an independent candidate in 58 AC Churachandpur, into the electoral fray became interesting because he refused to follow the dominant pattern of political discourse. He sought to break the symbolic, social, and cultural norms ascribed to political elites during his campaign. He attacked corruption, gun power, kinship, and institutional politics from a position that combined the Zo worldview and Christian ethics and morality. On the day of the election, Khuma and his wife, Ing Borang, visited several polling stations, exposing the redundancy of the security provided to the candidates.
Churachandpur 58 AC recorded the lowest voter turnout in the state with 71.53 per cent. However, this is still the highest voter turnout for the district after several decades of public disinterest in politics. The turnouts in 2012 and 2017 were 64.13 per cent and 62.56 per cent respectively. Khuma secured only 2,244 votes while the leading candidate, LM Khaute of JD(U), secured 18,321 votes. However, Khuma’s campaign against corruption, money and muscle power, kinship, and institutional politics had a resonance among young people, who desperately yearn for a change in the political discourse. This is how a supporter put it: “Khuma paved the way for new ways of seeing politics.
Winning or losing doesn’t matter.” On March 26, 2022, a month after the Manipur assembly election, the town held a “Pakhuma Night” at Lamka public ground with a large young crowd in attendance to take forward the issues Khuma highlighted in the campaign. Addressing the crowd, Mang Taithul, a journalist from the Zou community who hosted the event, said: “Tonight, a Gangte artist sings, a Zou hosts the event. If only all the tribes in our town came together like this, why wouldn’t Lamka be a convivial place?… There is no reason for Thadou, Paite, or Zou (tribes) to segregate… The Church, tribe and ethnicity have failed to bring Lamka together. Only Pakhum and music can bring us together…”
Although Khuma lost, the election has become a catalyst to unite people of different political persuasions in Churachandpur, a region that has been riven by divisive ethnic politics. Hopefully, these non-ethnic mobilisations driven by the belief in the power of democracy to transform the society and end corruption in public life will not dissipate.
This column first appeared in the print edition on April 23, 2022 under the title ‘Change in Churachandpur’. Tonsing is a doctoral candidate at the School of Information, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and Hangsing an independent researcher
Over the past four years, 137 countries have engaged intensively with the OECD to find a solution to the tax challenges arising from digitalisation. Like any international agreement, finding a middle ground has been difficult and a series of compromises have been made. It was agreed initially that the unique features of the digital economy — firms can operate seamlessly across borders and users and their data contribute to their profits — made it harder to tax such an economy. It was not clear how profits were to be pinned down to any jurisdiction. This became a political issue because the largest technology firms are tax residents of developed countries and redefining digital presence as the basis of taxation would potentially allow large markets like India more right to tax.
The OECD’s work reflected the divergence in expectations among countries about the ideal solution. Developing countries wanted that profits from digital operations should be fractionally apportioned to markets while developed countries believe that a fraction of residual profit, mainly arising from marketing functions, should be taxed in markets. Such divergence compelled countries to implement unilateral measures. India was the first country to implement a gross equalisation levy on turnover. This is not covered by tax treaties. So, while the income tax act does not apply to the levy, credit is available for the tax paid by the company in its home country. Similarly, several other countries have announced or implemented a digital services tax (DST).
In 2021, India expanded the scope of the equalisation levy. This pressured the US and OECD to respond. The US initiated the US Trade Representative investigations which found DST to be discriminatory, and then announced retaliatory tariffs. While the tariffs were to be levied on less significant items of the US-India trade, the DSTs encouraged the US to actively participate in finding a consensus-based solution. As talks progressed, the OECD announced that the issue of allocation of taxing rights would be actively considered and adopted a two-pillar approach.
The first pillar was to define the rules for taxing digital companies. After a change in the administration, the US agreed to back the proposal. However, Pillar One was to go beyond digital companies and apply to large companies with annual revenue over € 20 billion. To ensure certainty to taxpayers, the solution will require excessive global coordination. For this, an entirely different process of dispute resolution panels is being created. Whether this will undermine sovereignty, remains to be seen.
Therefore, it is important to consider if the consensus approach is worth pursuing. The collections of the equalisation levy are now close to Rs 4,000 crore. One way to assess the relative gain is to compare the revenue from equalisation levy with the receipts under Pillar One. My estimate is that India may gain only Rs 1,000 crore in the best case scenario. In fact, the EL may apply to companies that are not covered by the OECD proposal, leaving one to wonder whether it will truly address the tax challenges from digitalisation. In such a case, India’s stance on OECD’s approach must be calibrated. Current tax collections indicate that the EL can level the playing field between digital and brick and mortar firms through behavioural change or higher taxes. Corporations that argue in favour of simplicity must also consider the potential benefits from an EL like tax that sets aside the complications of attributing profits to complex functions.
As per an estimate of the US Treasury, 72 per cent of the companies covered by EL in India are US companies. Therefore, unless countries negotiate with the US, tax challenges will persist. There is no unanimous support for the Pillar One proposal in the US as well. A reason for this may be that the US could lose about 0.1 per cent of its tax revenues. To compensate for that, the global minimum tax is being proposed as a package deal. In effect, the OECD approach creates a fiction of reallocation, where the profits reallocated through Pillar One could in fact be compensated for by taxing back global profits taxed below 15 per cent. As per Pillar One proposal, DSTs will be removed once the OECD approach is ratified in 2023. It is imperative therefore that countries assess the price of compromise.
This column first appeared in the print edition on April 23, 2022 under the title ‘The digital tax challenge’. The writer is assistant professor, NIPFP
Even though all of us know that violence in any form — be it in war, intimidation of people, communal discord, police brutality, rape — is essentially horrific, we remain largely indifferent to it as long as we are not affected directly. At times, even when it does directly impact us, we either choose to respond equally violently or helplessly undergo its gruesomeness without taking any steps to stop its recurrence. This is the normal pattern of human behaviour or, perhaps, all animal behaviour. This is because we, like other animals, function within the framework of self-interests. Unlike other animals, humans are endowed with the ability not only to perceive violence as such but to also raise issues about it because of our capacity to use language. Many individuals have, in fact, interrogated violence and tried to figure out how to control its occurrence in human societies. Yet, violence continues to remain a recurrent phenomenon.
As long as humans function from the point of view of self-interest, violence is inevitable. If we think about violence within a framework of economic well-being and human self-interest, it will never get challenged. Normally, we only try to subdue and postpone its recurrence through other violent methods such as the use of police/military force — we try to counter violence with violence. We may also analyse such occurrences and write sociological treatises about such events, their cause and effects but we keep believing in its inevitability.
Since life feeds on life, some form of violence is necessary. But when we are talking about violence, we are talking about avoidable violence. What is required is to put an end to all forms of violence that are not necessary. To my mind, the only person who has given us an overall solution to the problem of violence is Gandhi. In its broadest sense, Gandhi’s solution is the idea of learning to function within a framework of Satya, Ahimsa, Sarvodaya (concern for the well-being of all) and aparigraha (non-possession). Gandhi’s political philosophy is embodied in his Hind Swaraj. But when we look at this broad framework carefully, we notice that Gandhi’s solution demands among other things, a stateless society. In fact, the absence of centralised authority is a minimum requirement. Gandhi perceived, and perhaps correctly so, the state as the embodiment of all avoidable violence. But can a stateless human world ever be achieved? Gandhi thought that getting rid of the idea of a state was necessary to live in a violence-free world; a position that is diametrically opposed to all the theories of social contract propounded by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Rawls et al. From Gandhi’s point of view, the inevitability of the state that we take for granted is a product of our orientation towards a metaphysics-led way of life and thought process. Gandhi, like the Buddha, Socrates and Socrates’ admirer Zeno, advocated an ethics-led way of life in place of the conventional metaphysics-led one. When viewed from within the prism of an ethics-led way of life, the state with all its institutions would appear, to use Gandhi’s expression, “Satanic”.
A metaphysics-led way of life always enshrines a notion of some Ultimate Truth, whether it is religiously, scientifically or philosophically conceived. The Buddha, Socrates and Gandhi argued that man’s disposition to hold on to this belief in an Ultimate Truth is the result of his existential insecurity and the existential angst that ensues from it. Instead of rejecting the idea of an ultimate truth, Gandhi, like the Buddha and Socrates before him, invited us to ground such an idea in ethics. That is, he is requesting us to make ethics our primary concern. Once ethics takes over our orientation, we would become less selfish and our concerns would become other-centred instead of self-centred. With this shift of concern from the self to the other, through the cultivation of Satya, Ahimsa, Sarvodaya and aparigraha, Gandhi thought that our existential angst would disappear. Once that happens, Gandhi thought, we would be in a position to see the desirability of stateless communities in the world. He described such a world variously as Rama Raj/Khuda Raj/ the kingdom of God on Earth. However, more often, he used the term “Swaraj” to name such a political scenario.
Let me explain. Even though Gandhi was not a religious person in any ordinary sense of that term, his vocabulary was Vaishnavite. He used the Vaishnava vocabulary (his parental vocabulary) deliberately in order to avoid the European Enlightenment vocabulary, which he thought was used to justify the British Raj’s criminal activities. When he was talking to a predominantly Hindu audience he used “Ram Raj” to designate his version of a stateless society called “Swaraj”. If his audience was mostly Muslim he used the phrase “Khuda Raj” and for a Christian audience it was “ the kingdom of God on Earth” to designate “Swaraj” or the stateless society that Gandhi envisioned. Two of Gandhi’s booklets — Hind Swaraj and the Constructive Programme — give some details of how one can non-violently try to actualise a stateless society.
Gandhian modernity replaces the European concepts of freedom, liberty and fraternity with truthfulness (Satya) non-violence (Ahimsa), a concern for the well-being of all (Sarvodaya) and justice (niti). It rejects the ideas of a nation-state, capitalism and parliamentary democracy. In Gandhian modernity, direct democracy replaces the parliamentary system. The use of heavy technology is taboo but there is no objection to theoretical science. Instead of heavy technology, it advocates the use of appropriate technology and sustainable development. Development, in a larger context, means the development of freedoms, such as the freedom to eat enough food, drink pure water, breathe pure air, cure curable diseases, freedom from patriarchy, etc. Another name for Gandhian modernity is enlightened anarchism.
The European concept of modernity is a criminal idea; in the past, it justified the European nations’ enslavement of the world and the destruction of civilisations. “Exploitation”, in fact, is the other name of European modernity/enlightenment. Even today, under the guise of modernity, the resources of the world continue to be exploited by a few wealthy countries thereby enabling them to remain inordinately rich at the cost of the others. This unsustainable resource extraction threatens the very existence of life on this planet. If animal life has to continue on earth for a longer period, Gandhian modernity is, I believe, what we should wholeheartedly embrace.
This column first appeared in the print edition on April 23, 2022 under the title ‘Interrogating violence’. The writer taught philosophy at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi
India has a long history of communal violence. Just how similar or different are the recent episodes? And what kind of dangers do they pose to the polity and society?
Let me begin with religious processions. It should first be noted that such processions have historically been some of the largest triggers for communal riots. In the dataset I co-created with Steven Wilkinson (Yale University) on communal violence for the period 1950-95, the reported cause of roughly every fourth riot was a religious procession.
Participation in religious processions is not about collective prayer and piety, spiritual restoration, mourning of loss, mending broken lives, extending compassion and seeking forgiveness. Such processions can be, and have been, intensely political, often morphing from the religious to the communal. Communalism in South Asia has always been distinguished from religiosity. It has signified a highly political and often violent use of religion. Religiosity may be about deeper meanings of life, but communalism is about a coercive assertion of power or a bloody search for retribution, often historically construed and presented. If in the Middle Ages some Muslim rulers were repressive or violent towards the Hindus, the modern Hindu communalist would like to take revenge by targeting even poor Muslims, who had nothing to do with the Muslim rulers or aristocrats of the pre-modern era.
Thus, it is not the coexistence of religious processions and riots that is surprising today. The novelty lies elsewhere and is two-fold. First, in our dataset, Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti are not the principal religious processions touching off riots. Barely three per cent of riots are linked to Ram Navami and only one riot — in Chaibasa, Bihar, in 1970 — has Hanuman Jayanti as its precipitant. Ganesh, Moharram, Dussehra and Durga processions have the highest incidence. Along with Holi, they lead by a huge margin.
The larger implication ought to be obvious. Processions that were rarely connected to riots are now being used for creating them. Mahatma Gandhi’s devotion to Ram was encapsulated in the saying “nirbal ke bal Ram” (“a helper of the weak”). Gandhi also thought of Ram as “maryada purushottam” (“an epitome of ethical conduct)”. For the communalists, Ram is not about helping the weak or ethical behaviour. For them, Ram is about exacting revenge and inflicting humiliation.
The second difference is both more important and infinitely more dangerous. In the past, processions might have caused riots, but the state rarely gave up the principle of neutrality in dealing with them. In many riots, there were doubts about whether the state behaved in an equidistant manner, but neutrality vis-à-vis religious communities was not openly abandoned as a mode of state conduct and intervention. The anti-Sikh riots of Delhi in 1984 and the anti-Muslim riots of Gujarat in 2002 were the two clearest exceptions to this larger principle.
Conceptually speaking, when a state either explicitly favours a community or looks away when a particular community is hounded, intimidated and attacked, it is no longer a riot, but a pogrom. Unleashing bulldozers on any given community without proper process is not simply illegal, it also qualifies as the beginning of a pogrom if the community is ethnically, religiously or racially defined. Had the court not intervened, the devastation of Muslims in Jahangirpuri would have been incomparably greater.
Indeed, the rapidly eroding religious neutrality of the government in several states —UP, MP, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Haryana — is one of the most alarming political developments. Luckily, the entire nation is not the site of communal bigotry. Eleven states are still ruled by non-BJP parties or coalitions, so variation in state behaviour exists. But the BJP states and the BJP-ruled federal Centre are dropping all pretenses of state neutrality vis-à-vis religion. Not only the everyday conduct of state apparatus, but a rising body of laws and executive decrees — on hijab, azaan, “love jihad” — are making much of the nation openly hostile and discriminatory towards Muslims.
Consider some other instances of such behaviour. In recent months, we have witnessed the spectacle of calls to murder in Dharam Sansads (religious assemblies). Some Hindu religious leaders have openly urged the Hindu community to acquire weapons and kill Muslims. Such speech is criminally liable. India’s Constitution prohibits speech that endangers “public order”. But, instead of applying the law correctly, the state has basically looked the other way, and when arrests have been made, the weak prosecutorial cases have been unable to withstand judicial scrutiny.
While I was doing full-time research on Hindu-Muslim relations in the 1990s, it was invariably hard to find clear evidence of who led the riots. The riot instigators or organisers would almost always be hidden in the shadows of ambiguity. Inferences could be drawn, but no clear-cut evidence would normally be available. The riot leaders now openly proclaim “desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maro saalon ko (kill the bloody traitors)”. Such leaders are either not punished, or are merely given a slap on the wrist. Worse, dramatically reflecting the temper of the times, some of them are even celebrated as heroes and rewarded with high office.
These trends are coming dangerously together in the notable growth of vigilante violence, especially in BJP-ruled states. Muslim fruit sellers can be openly harassed and their carts overturned. Muslim traders selling sweets and flowers near Hindu temples can be prevented from doing business. Muslim girls can be stopped from going to school if they cover their heads, but Sikh boys can wear turbans and Hindu boys can wear a tilak.
New research on vigilantism makes it clear that vigilantism, especially lynchings, cannot flourish unless the state provides impunity to vigilante groups. By enacting anti-Muslim laws and issuing anti-Muslim decrees, BJP-ruled polities today are providing the impunity that vigilantism needs for its success. The effect is to terrorise Muslims, who are simply doing their regular business, traveling in buses and trains, attending schools, going to government offices for permissions and clearances.
An enduring belief of Hindu nationalism has been that Muslims only listen to the language of force, not to the language of persuasion. To them, force means combining state power above with street power below. Research shows that this kind of belief can easily lead to conditions for a large-scale anti-Muslim pogrom. If that happens, the consequences will be unpredictable.
This column first appeared in the print edition on April 23, 2022 under the title ‘The difference this time’. The writer is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences at Brown University
Vaccine regulator CDSCO’s subject expert committee recommending emergency use authorisation for administering Corbevax to 5-11 year-olds marks an important step towards vaccinating the younger demographic among schoolgoers. A rise in Covid cases in Delhi coincided with easing of various Covid restrictions like masking. While hospitalisations remain low, sporadic infections have made schools and parents jittery, which should give further impetus to quickly inoculate all schoolgoers. The 5-11 age group has an estimated 16 crore children. Besides Corbevax, Covaxin and Covovax are the other vaccine candidates seeking EUA for inoculating this age group.
However, it’s no longer the vaccine bouquet but flagging vaccine demand that’s becoming a key problem. Vaccination for the 12-14 and 15-17 age groups has slowed. Precaution doses are finding very slow offtake among adults. Against 3.15 crore in the 45-59 age group eligible for precaution doses as of now, just 2.13 lakh (0.6%) have taken the jab. But of the 3.25 crore in the 60+ age group eligible for precaution doses with a 9-month gap, 42% of those eligible have been jabbed.
The comparatively better offtake among senior citizens, who are entitled to free vaccines, supports the decision of Bihar and Delhi governments to offer precaution doses for free at government vaccination centres to all adults. Bihar has sanctioned Rs 1,314 crore for the precaution dose effort, setting a model for other states to replicate. But administering boosters may cost GoI less than 0.5% of its budgeted outlay, and so it should ideally be lending a helping hand. Meanwhile, another 3 crore senior citizens would be eligible for precaution doses immediately if the gap between second and third dose is reduced from nine to six months. Just as masks are rightly being made compulsory again, returning to aggressive vaccination targets will help us live safely with Covid.
MP high court’s Indore bench rightly denied bail to a rape accused in a live-in relationship with the victim. In denying bail, the judge correctly recognised that sex without consent constitutes rape in a live-in relationship, a recognition married women are denied via an exemption in Section 375, IPC 1860. Delhi HC is hearing a plea for the exemption’s removal. The problematic part lies in the judge’s other observations: Live-in relationships “promote promiscuity and lascivious behaviour”, which lead to sex crimes; a live-in status is a “trap”. This attitude bears thorough scrutiny.
The Supreme Court in a 2015 inheritance case ruled that an unmarried couple living together for a long time be considered married. Back in 2011, a clutch of companies allowed employees to include live-in partners for health insurance. Similarly, judgments have sensibly rejected rape allegations that cited “pretext of marriage”, including in live-in relationships. A clash is inevitable over a woman’s right-to-consent in a live-in relationship and the latter’s legal status. Recall a 2015 Delhi HC judgment where the court refused to keep live-in relationships outside the purview of rape under IPC, because that would give live-ins the status of “matrimony”, which legislature had chosen “not to do”.
However, the most peculiar upshot is that women alleging rape can seek justice only if they are live-in partners, not wives. Live-ins clearly offer more protection in this case, the judge’s worry about “traps” notwithstanding.
This Sunday, I want to raise a question that, if you try to answer it, will help you understand one of the saddest and most disturbing transformations happening in our country: What does it feel like to be a Muslim in today’s India? Let me refine that. I’m not talking of the rich, influential, or well-educated; I’m specifically referring to poor and, often, illiterate Muslims, who have little by way of support other than what they can provide for themselves. They’re the vast majority. So, what does it feel like to be one of them?
In the last few months, they’ve heard calls for their genocide and ethnic cleansing. Accused of rioting, their homes have been demolished, often before their presence leave aside, guilt was established and, at times, without prior notice. Even widows, who are beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, have thus suffered. Their minor children have been detained for hearing Pakistani songs, while men who claim to be Hindu priests have publicly threatened to rape their women.
This is by no means a comprehensive list. It’s a collection of things that occurred to me when I started to write. Proper research would throw up many more. The question is, what would it feel like if this happened to you?
The truly bizarre part is despite this despicable treatment, many of us consider Muslims “appeased”. If only we knew the facts. In almost every sphere, Muslim representation is way below the proportion of the population. As far back as 2006, the Sachar Committee established that Muslims are worse off in economic and social terms than Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
This is what that amounts to. I’m relying on Aakar Patel’s book Our Hindu Rashtra. Muslims are nearly 15% of the population but only 4.9% of state and central government employees, 4.6% of the paramilitary services, 3.2% of the Indian Administrative Service, Indian Foreign Service and Indian Police Service, and, perhaps, as low as 1% of the Army.
In proportionate terms, they should have 74 seats in the Lok Sabha. They have 27. India does not have a Muslim chief minister in its 28 states. In 15, there is no Muslim minister; in 10 there’s just one, usually in-charge of minority affairs.
Neither in 2014 nor in 2019 did the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have a Muslim Lok Sabha Member of Parliament. Patel says it hasn’t fielded a Muslim candidate in any Lok Sabha or Vidhan Sabha election in Gujarat since 1998. That’s 24 years without a Muslim candidate, although 9% of the population is of that faith.
I could carry on, but I won’t. I’ve made my point. I hardly need to add that the Research and Analysis Wing does not have nor has ever employed a Muslim. In these circumstances, it would be very surprising if it had.
However, these facts don’t convey what it feels like to be the subject of deliberate, continuous, and, often, escalating hate. We don’t know because it’s never happened to us. I can’t even imagine politicians calling me a termite, classifying me as “Babar ki aulad”, and repeatedly telling me to go to Pakistan. Yet that’s what our Muslim brothers and sisters face almost every day.
Last week, 13 Opposition leaders wrote to the Prime Minister asking him “to speak against the words and actions of those who propagate bigotry”. I don’t know if he will. For an inexplicably long time, he’s been silent. But what about the rest of us? Do we not have a duty to speak? Isn’t our silence, for whatever reason, permitting the worst voices to be heard and get away with it?
These days, when wisdom is often reduced to WhatsApp memes, there’s one that applies to all of us: “Evil happens when good people stand by and do nothing about it”. If you want that put in highfalutin terms, let me paraphrase John Donne: “No man is an island … the bell that tolls today for Muslims will one day toll for thee.”
Karan Thapar is the author of Devil’s Advocate: The Untold Story The views expressed are personal
Neighbourhood First” has been a cardinal component of India’s foreign policy. Unless India manages its periphery well in the subcontinent, its pursuit of a more significant role in the Asian region and the world will remain suboptimal. Recurrent political or economic crises in neighbouring countries draw India back into the subcontinent and constrain its ability to deal with larger regional and global issues. Moreover, our adversaries, such as China, seek to keep India tethered in the subcontinent.
The Indian subcontinent is a single geopolitical unit with strong economic complementarities among its constituent parts. It is also a shared cultural space with deep and abiding affinities among the people of the countries located in the subcontinent because of a long and shared history. Yet, despite this overarching unity, the subcontinent is divided into several independent and sovereign States, each with its challenges and aspirations.
Being the largest and most powerful country in this space, India’s security perimeter cannot be confined to its national borders. The challenge for Indian foreign and security policy lies in making certain that its neighbourhood remains peaceful, stable, and benign, and no hostile presence can entrench itself anywhere in the subcontinent and threaten India’s security. Since this is no longer the age of imperialist intent — as the Russians in Ukraine are discovering — the challenge for Indian foreign policy lies in creating effective and enduring incentives for our neighbours to remain sensitive to India’s security interests, use India’s more powerful economy to become an engine of growth for them and, if possible, regard India as a net security provider for the region.
It is a given that anxious about being dominated by a more powerful India, our smaller neighbours will seek to balance India’s influence through closer relations with external powers. In the past, this may have been the United States. Today it is China. One should not become overly concerned and prickly about this. One can no longer treat the subcontinent as India’s backyard. The answers lie in doing what any good businessman does — tot up our assets and liabilities in each of our neighbouring countries, and go about leveraging our assets and minimising our liabilities. We should work on our strengths rather than seek to catch up with what a rival power like China may be doing.
What are our strengths?
One, proximity is a significant asset, enabling low-cost and timely flow of goods, services, and people across borders. But this requires efficient cross-border connectivity both in terms of infrastructure and procedures to allow the smooth and seamless transit of goods and peoples.
Two, the asymmetry of economic and technological power which India enjoys is an asset, not a liability, in transforming the economy of the entire sub-region. It is a vast and expanding market, and even if it were opened up fully to whatever our neighbours can produce and sell, this would constitute only a small fraction of our market. This will mean a great deal for our neighbours, but with little reciprocal cost to India. This reality has not quite registered with our decision-makers. Sometimes local business lobbies hinder progress in this regard.
India is the biggest transit country for the subcontinent and has land borders with Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh and maritime borders with Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Given its much more developed land and maritime transport system, India should develop its role as the partner of choice for transit trade and transportation. This will also create strong inter-dependencies with our neighbours. These inter-dependencies, more than anything else, will make our neighbours more sensitive to our security concerns. As a result, their interests will become enmeshed with our own.
There are significant shifts taking place in our neighbourhood. There is a leadership change in Pakistan, which offers the prospect of reviving the India-Pakistan engagement. Our objectives should be modest. These include the resumption of bilateral dialogue in a format similar to the earlier comprehensive dialogue template. We could agree to Pakistan convening the much-delayed South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) summit, which our objections have held up. I believe that it is in India’s interest to promote regional economic integration, and Saarc is the only available platform for that purpose. We should not look at the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Bimstec) as an alternative, but pursue it on its own merits.
Both Sri Lanka and Nepal are facing severe economic setbacks, partly due to disruptions in the wake of Covid-19 and the loss of tourist earnings. India has extended a helping hand to both. The $400-million currency swap facility extended to Sri Lanka has been renewed. During the recent visit to India by the Nepali prime minister, a number of economic assistance programmes have been revived and some new ones have been announced. These will ease Nepal’s economic troubles significantly.
India’s relations with the Maldives and Bhutan continue to be in positive territory, but must not be taken for granted. They need to be nurtured on a continuing basis. There is some worry about Bangladesh because domestic political rhetoric in India about illegal Bangladeshi migrants and their alleged involvement in communal riots may once again have a negative resonance in that country and cast a shadow on our relations. It is essential to ensure that the compulsions of domestic politics do not affect India’s foreign policy adversely.
India has a fresh opportunity to energise its “Neighbourhood First” policy. It must grab it with both hands.
Shyam Saran is a former foreign secretary and a senior fellow, Centre for Policy Research The views expressed are personal
I was born in 1942, a year after Salim Ali’s superbly illustrated Book of Indian Birds was published. My father, DR Gadgil, knew Ali and was an enthusiastic bird watcher. Even before I could read, I learnt to recognise the wide variety of birds around us from Ali’s book. I was 14 when I first met him, and was captivated by Ali’s knowledge, wit and charm. I adopted him as my guru and became a field ecologist. He was 46 years older, but we remained in constant touch for the next 30 years. I participated in many of his field trips and had the privilege of jointly writing a paper with him on communal roosting.
Ali supported me staunchly whenever I fell afoul of the foresters, as was inevitable, because they did not want me to witness their mismanagement and harassment of local people. Yet, Ali was alienated from the common people and believed that this ignorant, improvident mass of people was destroying our natural resources. He never imagined that they would ever control the resources so that they would have a stake in their proper management. I was always uneasy that my guru harboured such prejudices.
Baba’s life-long passion was the cooperative movement. So, I became committed to empowering people and took the lead in proposing the establishment of biodiversity management committees as a critical provision of India’s Biological Diversity Act, 2002, and participated in the campaign to pass the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. The vital Community Forest Rights (CFR) provisions of FRA assign to gram sabhas (village councils) ownership and management rights over non-timber forest resources. Mendha (Lekha) and Marada in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra became the first gram sabhas in India to be assigned CFR in 2009.
The management rights entail the responsibility to prepare a plan that needs quantification that the locals, hampered by the disgraceful state of our educational system, cannot handle. So, my computer scientist friend Vijay Edlabadkar and I volunteered to help Mendha prepare a management plan and a cadre of local barefoot ecologists.
To build such capacity, the Maharashtra government sponsored a five-month training programme for nominees of CFR-holding gram sabhas in 2018. Edlabadkar and I were associated with this programme at Mendha in which the trainees with their treasury of experiential knowledge, enthusiastically undertook fieldwork. They became experts at handling smart phones and recording geographical information, using GPS and Google Images.
They became aware of scientific names of minor forest produce-yielding species, an essential input for the CFR plans. During training, they posted photographs of local plants and animals on their WhatsApp groups. Unfortunately, many taxonomists refused to help them. One day, one of the group members, Saduram Madavi, began posting scientific names for many of the photos, using Google Photos and Google Lens. So, suddenly the Adivasi youth were freed of the stranglehold of a privileged minority over specialised knowledge and could prepare their CFR management plans and biodiversity registers.
Madavi, who failed the Class 10 examination because of poor schooling, also discovered a rare orchid, identifying it as Geodorum laxiflorum. Along with some botanists, Madavi published a paper in Journal of Threatened Taxa, thereby becoming a card-carrying member of the scientific community. My guru, Salim Ali, belonged to a prestigious family but failed to obtain a degree because he disliked mathematics. Yet he is recognised as India’s foremost ornithologist. Madavi from a highly disadvantaged background, also promises to develop into a first-rate botanist. So, my shishya is providing a counter to my guru’s prejudices. There is every hope that in the emerging knowledge age, we will progress rapidly towards an equitable society in which all people have access to knowledge.
Madhav Gadgil is one of India’s most widely-regarded ecologists. He is a former professor of the Indian Institute of Science, where he founded the Centre for Ecological Sciences
The views expressed are personal
India is often told it needs to spend more on education. Unfortunately, there is little discussion on what kind of education it should invest in. Of late, however, there has been a lot of talk about that itself, especially on how to offset the learning gaps that have emerged due to the coronavirus pandemic-induced school closures in the last two years among students. The students, teachers, and parents need to face the fact that India is suffering from widespread learning losses, and that loss must be recovered. This, experts say, requires a new curriculum, which blends the learning lost and the new knowledge children must acquire.
You may think this will be a Herculean, if not impossible, task to achieve. However, Anurag Behar, CEO of the Azim Premji Foundation and vice-chancellor of the Azim Premji University, says this is very much doable. In an interview with Karan Thapar, Behar said that Karnataka has designed syllabi in which “the content has been reduced without compromising learning outputs.” Unfortunately, most people in India don’t know about this positive development in Karnataka since all the educational news they hear in the media are reports about hijabs and the controversy they have created.
As Class 11 students strive to make up for lost time due to the coronavirus pandemic, they also have to prepare for a new entrance exam if they want to enter one of India’s 45 centrally funded universities. While the Covid-19 pandemic raged, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has not been idle. It has come up with a Common University Entrance Test (CUET), a new mandatory exam every candidate will take to enter university. CUET will replace board exams, which tended to suffer from a common complaint of inflated grades.
CUET has just been born, and there could well be trouble when more details are known, particularly its syllabi. Once its full scope is revealed to the public, educationalists will judge whether CUET is a genuinely new exam or it suffers from the same fault almost all Indian exams suffer from. Is it going to be an exam that encourages remembering answers, or will it require lateral thinking? Recently, the front page of a newspaper was plastered with rows of small photographs of successful candidates from coaching institutes. Of course, no one is told how many have failed the exam. The coaching industry is a direct product of the memory exams applicants for government services have to sit for.
Back with UGC, it has come up with another proposal that students in their last two school years and at university should be allowed to study two subjects at the same time. The idea seems to be to encourage science students to study arts too. Again the idea is to broaden the minds of scientists who are considered weak on lateral thinking. I remember a friend who passed his first medical exams in two years and spent his third year studying theology. He got a third in theology.
India’s brightest and best children aiming for a centrally funded university are worried about recovering lost knowledge, facing a new exam, and thinking about whether they should study two syllabi. But they must also worry about a related issue: There may be no teachers to teach their subject of choice. Recently, it was discovered that in the centrally funded universities, there is a shortage of 6,481 teachers, with Delhi University topping the list at 859. There is much to discuss and much to be done in India’s higher education system.
The views expressed are personal