FirstPost Issue-01

S A T U R D AY, J A N 2 6 - F E B 1 , 2 0 1 9 | N E T W O R K 1 8 M E D I A & I N V E S T M E N T S L I M I T E D

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VOLUME 01

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ISSUE 10

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NEW DELHI

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PAGES 20

India’s first voter hopes for change

New age of terror in the Valley

102-YEAR-OLD SHYAM SARAN NEGI, WHO HAS SWITCHED HIS LOYALTY FROM CONGRESS TO BJP, SAYS INDIANS DON’T REALISE IMPORTANCE OF VOTING

TEENAGERS ARE INCREASINGLY BEING RECRUITED BY JIHADIST OUTFITS IN J&K TO LITTLE RESISTANCE FROM FAMILIES, SEPARATISTS OR THE GOVERNMENT

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FIRSTPOST NATIONAL TRUST SURVEY

For Modi, A Faith Accompli India’s biggest and most exhaustive survey shows that voters have more faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi than all other leaders put together. Will this trust, despite recent election reverses, see him through General Election 2019?

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PRICE `8

“The R-Day Parade is about achievement as much as it is about comprehensive national power” SYED ATA HASNAIN

RETIRED ARMY GENERAL

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Pursuit of Pleasure THE ANANGA RANGA AND ITS IDEAS OF GENDER, SEXUAL PLEASURE AND MORALITY 16

First Words

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ewspapers, we’ve been told, are dead—detritus of the industrial age which have been buried under the great tide of digital information hurtling through cyberspace; drowned out by the screaming on our television sets; made irrelevant by declining attention-spans and diminishing interest in reading. Yet, eight years after Firstpost came to life as a digital-only news portal, we’re also arriving at your doorstep as ink on paper.

This is a bet against conventional wisdom that tells a story all of its own.

In times that are fractured, in a polity transforming at light speed, there’s more need than ever for quality journalism. Decoding the complex, dramatically-changing world around us is perhaps more important than ever before to all our lives.

But, sadly, we’re being drowned in noise.

Firstpost is a new kind of newspaper designed to address this.

Instead of a mundane recounting of events already well-known to readers through digital media, every single article aspires to exceptionality: to offer a unique perspective, to excavate new information, in other words, to bring to life a new story.

Each weekend, Firstpost will bring a carefully-curated collection of original reportage, opinion and analysis written by a team of distinguished journalists and opinion-writers.

Their writing will tease out the trends driving the clutter of events around us; to offer perspectives that challenge conventional wisdom and sloppy thinking; to sift what is genuinely important from the chaff.

Firstpost’s digital life informs our DNA: we are unapologetically contemporary. You’ll find voice and verve, not reams of turgid text.

The newspaper hasn’t been conceived of, moreover, as an alternative to digital. Instead, discerning audiences will be able to experience Firstpost’s journalism on their phones, computers, television sets—and ink-on-paper. Each element of Firstpost’s pages has been carefully designed to deliver a premium reading experience—to allow our readers to disconnect, for a while, from the digital world, and engage in leisurely, lean-back reading.

For us, it isn’t important to be first with the news—we don’t do journalism in a hurry. Instead, we aim to help you step out of hysterical journeys into hyper-reality that so much of our media experience drags us into: to sit right in the centre, and watch the world spin around.

To subscribe to Firstpost in Delhi and Mumbai at a special invitation price, give a missed call to +91 8744-024-024. Please visit www. firstpost.com to explore our rich bouquet of digital-only subscriptions and special offers. --- Editor

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FIRSTPOST.

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

State of the Nation HAPPY HEARTLAND

Data Talks

WAY DOWN

BJP has a job on hand in the south, where it’s weak The party has little recall in the southern states except Karnataka. Even Narendra Modi’s trust levels are the lowest in Kerala, Tamilnadu, Telengana and Andhra Pradesh.

Will have to stitch up alliances quickly.

Rafale blows landing

BJP most trusted in north in spite of recent losses

34,470

respondents

RAHUL GANDHI’S ATTACK ON RAFALE DEAL IS FINDING TRACTION. 43% SEE MERIT IN THE ALLEGATIONS.

FIRSTPOST’S THE NATIONAL TRUST SURVEY IS THE BIGGEST IN ITS GENRE

Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh have just voted out BJP governments. But post poll survey shows big chunk of voters might return to the BJP in 2019 national election as shown in Graph B below.

FIRSTPOST-IPSOS ELECTION 2019 SURVEY

Banking on Trust to Turn the Tide A large survey of 34,470 people on trust spanning 320 LS constituencies, 291 urban wards and 690 villages in 285 districts across 23 states

Narendra Modi is the most trusted leader by far. BJP will try to make this a presidential election. Congress’ advantage lies in making it a state-level contest

T

BV RAO AND RAHUL VERMA

rust, Stephen MR Covey has written, is “the one thing that changes everything”.

The word, it is safe to say, is high on the minds of the hundreds of millions of Indians who will vote for a new Parliament later this year.

Who do we trust to guide our country through the economic and social upheavals we are facing? Who do we trust to guarantee law and order? Who do we trust to ensure our children receive an education and will get jobs?

At the polling booth, trust is the opening balance of every candidate before the first vote is cast. The bigger this opening balance, the better the chances of victory.

Firstpost’s The National Trust Survey breaks new ground by seeking to understand which leaders Indians trust—and why.

In an election as To read the complete bitter and fractrust poll slides and the tious as the upmethodology adopted for coming one, the the Firstpost National depth of the reTrust Survey open a QR lationship of the code scanner app on your voters with the smartphone and point the principal playcamera at the above code ers is key to unor go to www.firstpost.com derstanding their behaviour.

This survey is very different from opinion polls seeking to provide us a snapshot of the public mood. Mood can be fickle, but trust is lasting.

After the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) historic victory in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in March 2017, many political observers suggested that the return of the Narendra Modi-led government looked inevitable. The emerging consensus now is that the BJP is unlikely to repeat its brute majority performance of 2014.

Can the BJP and Narendra Modi turn the rising tide against themselves? The Survey conducted by IPSOS over three calendar months — November, December and January (for the second wave in four election states after the results) — points both to the possibilities as well as the

the method

constraints under which the BJP and Modi will have to frame their re-election bid. While on many indicators the results from the survey point to a very familiar pattern, there are some interesting insights.

First, the fait accompli: On India’s national political scene Narendra Modi is in a league of his own. The gap between how much respondents trust Modi and Rahul Gandhi is telling. Modi at 53% trust support is nearly two times more than Rahul at 27%. Mamata Banerjee (4%), Mayawati (3%) and Congress party’s latest star Priyanka Gandhi (0.9%) are but a blip on the national radar.

Similarly, respondents’ trust in the principal opposition party remains very low. Surprisingly, the Congress’ victory in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh brings no good news regarding the improvement in the trust levels associated with either Rahul Gandhi or the main opposition party. There is indeed a slight decline in Modi’s popularity in the states where the second wave of the survey was conducted post-election, but a similar decline was also visible in Rahul Gandhi’s popularity.

Second, the BJP is trusted by a substantial number of respondents to tackle several issues ranging from law and order, addressing inequality, providing employment opportunities, dealing with corruption, and improving health, educational and general infrastructural facilities. The Congress lags the BJP on all these indicators. As the comparison of Wave I and Wave II data from four states suggests, though the trust level with the BJP declines slightly, there seems to be no improvement in the trust levels associated with the Congress.

ARITHMETIC AND CHEMISTRY

Third, despite the high level of trust for Modi as a leader and his governance record, this popularity is both socially and geographically limited.

Regionally, the prime minister remains very popular, and respondents rate his government very highly, in the Hindi heartland and in western India. The same is not the case in southern and eastern India. Rahul Gandhi is more popular than Modi in the southern states. Trust in Modi is higher among the upper segments of Indian society, i.e., Hindu upper castes, urban dwellers, more educated and middle classes.

How should Modi approach his re-election bid? The survey data unequivocally suggests that Modi has national traction and thus the BJP will

have a better chance if it manages to make this election a choice between Modi and Rahul Gandhi. While many of the controversial policies (such as demonetisation) do have reasonable support, the BJP seems to be losing the political capital generated in the first half of its term.

The BJP needs to ensure that the contest remains ‘national’ in character as state-by-state arithmetic does not look favourable. But that is not necessarily good news for the principal opposition party either. The data indicates that in the three Hindi heartland states where the Congress won the election, there is a convergence in trust levels associated with the BJP and Congress but the change is driven by a decline in the BJP’s position, not Congress’ rise (see Graph D). So, unlike the BJP, the Congress’ advantage lies in making this election a state-level contest.

Recent Opposition moves suggest that they have begun executing their plan to force the BJP to fight multiple parties in multiple states. The insertion of Priyanka Gandhi into the electoral mix days after Mayawati and Akhilesh decided to keep the Congress out of the their alliance suggests a coordinated plan to bleed the BJP by cutting into its vote bank. Modi revels in a One Vs All situation and the Opposition wants to deny him his electoral elixir.

Rahul Gandhi, the survey suggests, has made some inroads in his bid to knock down brand Modi. His Rafale allegations seem to be sticking but only to the extent of causing suspicion. This further suggests that the Congress has successfully challenged the BJP in controlling the political narrative and in setting the agenda.

The Congress must continue setting the terms of debate on employment opportunities, agrarian distress, among others, without falling prey to attacking the prime minister with personal jibes. It may win the party brownie points among the sympathisers, but given the PM’s popularity, it has the potential to backfire. Thus, Rahul Gandhi must avoid the election becoming a choice between himself and Modi.

In conclusion, the data from Firstpost’s The National Trust Survey suggests that while the contest of 2019 is wide open, the players have limited strategies available to them. That is why, perhaps more than in any past Indian election, 2019 will be a question of trust.

BV Rao is Editor, Firstpost. Rahul Verma, Consulting Editor with Firstpost, is a political scientist and Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR).

MODI GETS HIGH 56% PERFORMANCE RATING

A WHICH LEADER DO WE TRUST?

The data is unequivocal: Modi remains the man most Indians think should be the next PM

Gets very high rating in the heartland, slightly below national average in Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, WB, Goa and very low rating across the southern states, except Karnataka

36%

21.4%

GOOD

AVERAGE

PREFERRED PRIME MINISTER

Overall more than 50% voters wanted to see Narendra Modi as PM in 2019, whereas, voters from AP, Kerala and TN wanted to see Rahul Gandhi as PM in 2019

19.9%

18.7%

OUTSTANDING

POOR

4%

52.8%

DON’T KNOW

B

26.9% 4.2% 2.8%

WHY MODI IS TRUSTED

PM Modi’s high approval ratings mirror support for his initiatives and schemes, many of which have resonated with the voters NARENDRA MODI

RAHUL GANDHI

MAMATA MAYAWATI BANERJEE

APPROVE OF MODI’S INITIATIVES

All key schemes get a big thumbs up. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is the most popular and GST, even at bottom of the table, scores a high 63%

NARENDRA MODI’S LEADERSHIP QUALITIES

Voters believe Modi has more leadership attributes than Rahul who scores less than half of Modi on all parameters

Figures in %

Figures in %

SWACHH BHARAT ABHIYAN

BETTER AT ENHANCING INDIA’S IMAGE ABROAD

58.2

CAPACITY FOR TAKING BIG RISKS

57.4

CAPACITY FOR BRINGING IN BIG CHANGES

56.8

MORE HOLISTIC, UNDERSTANDING OF INDIA’S DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES

56.2

BETTER IN EXECUTING THEIR PLANS FOR INDIA’S DEVELOPMENT

56

CAPACITY TO DREAM BIG, AND CHASE THEIR DREAM BEST

55.9

THE LEADER WHOM I CAN RELY ON TO TAKE CARE OF THE COUNTRY

55.8

HONESTY AND PERSONAL INTEGRITY

53.8

74.2%

69%

68.7%

68.5%

68.6%

67.8%

66.8%

64.8%

64.5%

62.8%

CRACKDOWN ON BLACK MONEY

PRADHAN MANTRI UJJWALA YOJANA (PMUY)

DEMONETIZATION

MAKE IN INDIA

DIGITAL INDIA

PRADHAN MANTRI JAN DHAN YOJANA

SURGICAL STRIKES AGAINST PAKISTAN

AYUSHMAN BHARAT YOJANA

IMPLEMENTATION OF GST

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

FIRSTPOST.

3

State of the Nation TROUBLE BREWING

In Assam, Congress is trusted more than the BJP Congress party enjoys surprising trust levels in Assam. Respondents trust Congress to handle key issues better than the BJP which is in power.

The Citizen Amendment Bill, just passed in the Lok Sabha, might queer the pitch even more for the party.

“ You (Modi) are sending letters with your photograph to every household, making tall claims to take credit for the scheme ”

Nowhere in the race yet

MAMATA BANERJEE

West Bengal chief minister

 Modicare gets high approval ratings of 65%. Explains why Mamata shut down the scheme in the state.

Rahul Gandhi said sister Priyanka would head a future Congress govt in UP. Just as well. She’s low on national sweepstakes with only 0.9% trust. The survey happened before her official anointment

WHAT CAN GO WRONG FOR MODI

D

It’s not all good news for the PM. The gap between Modi and his opponents has begun to close after the BJP’s defeat in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh—and could close further

ISSUES & CONCERNS: VOTERS BACK THE RULING PARTY

BEFORE ASSEMBLY ELECTION RESULTS Figures in %

INC

73%

Trust the Supreme Court of India

56

31

LAW & ORDER

74%

BJP

27

PRICE RISE

Trust the office of the Prime Minister of India

AFTER ASSEMBLY ELECTION RESULTS

49

30

EMPLOYMENT

52

CORRUPTION

31

47

INFRASTRUCTURE

31

48

INCLUSIVE GROWTH

31

COMMUNAL HARMONY

31

50 49

RAHUL GANDHI’S ACCEPTABILITY WITHIN OPPOSITION

DON’T KNOW/ CAN’T SAY

43.2%

LAW & ORDER

BJP

33 39 39 44

EMPLOYMENT

33 39

CORRUPTION

35 38

INFRASTRUCTURE

34 39

INCLUSIVE GROWTH

33 40

COMMUNAL HARMONY

33 39

74.3%

Close to 3/4th say Ayodhya Ram temple will become an issue in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election

33.6%

YES

PRICE RISE

INC

BURNING ISSUES: AYODHYA RAM TEMPLE

Rahul is a little more acceptable as leader of a possible opposition alliance after the Congress victory in three heartland states

23.2%

Figures in %

NO

YES

25.7% NO

75%

25%

YES

NO

Will support if the government brings in an ordinance in favour of building a Ram Temple in Ayodhya

WINS IN THREE STATE ELECTIONS HAVE BOOSTED TRUST IN RAHUL AND CONGRESS BUT NO BIG HIT FOR MODI

INC has replaced the BJP in three states – MP, Rajasthan & Chattisgarh. Will the party’s victory impact the 2019 general election (post-assembly election results, 2018)

57.7%

NO CHANGE IN NARENDRA MODI’S POPULARITY

THE PRIME MINISTER HAS GREATER TRUST THAN THE UNTESTED RAHUL GANDHI

45.2%

21.6%

TRUST A GREAT DEAL

TRUST A GREAT DEAL

22.3%

27.4%

TRUST A LITTLE

TRUST A LITTLE

GOOD NEWS FOR BJP FROM BAD SHOWING IN THREE STATES

Though it got voted out of power in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh, 2019 might be different Floating Votes

WHY THEY FAVOUR THE NDA

C WHICH PARTIES DO WE TRUST?

The BJP remains the most trusted steward, with loyalists committed even if Modi doesn’t lead the party into the elections

ISSUES & CONCERNS

Voters believe the BJP is more capable of solving issues that face the country Figures in %

PRICE RISE

INC

18

No-Changers

LAW & ORDER

EMPLOYMENT MADHYA PRADESH

CHHATTISGARH

RAJASTHAN

65%

88%

65%

To stay with same party in 2019, rest may change their vote

In MP 62% of floating voters inclined to vote BJP in 2019, in Chattisgarh 50% and 68% in Rajasthan

BJP

19 19

44 38 39

19

38

INFRASTRUCTURE

19

38

INCLUSIVE GROWTH

19

CORRUPTION

COMMUNAL HARMONY

19

37 37

People are strongly disposed towards the BJP-led alliance because of economic development of country

42% 58%

Say I will vote in favour of Mahagatbandhan

Say I will Vote in favour of BJP-led alliance/NDA

RAHUL GANDHI IS EMERGING AS SERIOUS AND MATURE LEADER

49.7%

NO CHANGE IN PERCEPTION ABOUT BJP

49.4%

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTRY

37.5

BECAUSE MODI IS PM CANDIDATE

34

ENHANCES INDIA’S IMAGE ABROAD

30.9

PERFORMANCE OF NDA GOVERNMENT

30.8

IDEOLOGY OF PARTY

30

46.3%

THE NARENDRA MODI MAGIC IS FADING

46%

MY PERCEPTION ABOUT BJP HAS REDUCED

E

INDIANS ARE A TRUSTING NATION, NOT CYNICS

Even though Indians often see themselves as a cynical nation, sceptical of politicians, salespeople and our neighbours alike, the data paints a different story. Trust in key institutions is high After their gods and their family, Indians trust the institution of the Prime Minister’s office the most—even more than the Supreme Court TRUST A GREAT DEAL

Even though we trust the institution of the Prime Minister, our faith in his Cabinet, and in the opposition, is somewhat lower

TRUST A LITTLE

74.4%

63.1%

58.4%

72.4%

71.7%

67.6%

PRIME MINISTER OF THE COUNTRY

PUBLIC AUTHORITIES

COUNCIL OF MINISTERS

53.3%

PRINCIPAL OPPOSITION PARTY

CARES FOR WEAKER SECTIONS

27.2

INCORRUPTIBLE

25.6

IMAGE OF LOCAL CANDIDATE

24.7

ALWAYS BEEN A VOTER OF BJP/NDA

19.2

47.8%

INC EMERGING AS STRONGER COMPETITION TO BJP

Why respondents say they will vote for BJP-led alliance

41.7

56.2%

MY PERCEPTION ABOUT BJP HAVE IMPROVED

NO ALTERNATIVE

SUPREME COURT

PARLIAMENT

MEDIA

Trust in family, friends and neighbours is high: these are the people we still turn to in times of distress, after all, not state-run or private-sector institutions

77.1%

RELIGIOUS PLACES

76.7%

EDUCATION SYSTEM

83.1% FAMILY

76.4% FRIENDS

4

FIRSTPOST.

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

State of the Nation

UPset on the cards

THE BJP is up against a formidable challenge in the form of the SP-BSP pact in Uttar Pradesh. It will need all of Modi’s trust, and more, to do battle with a united opposition

U AJAY SINGH

ttar Pradesh has proven in the past that the perceived incompatibility of a political combination such as that between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is more myth than reality.

And it has also proven beyond doubt that elections are guided more by social chemistry than aggregation of numbers.

Unlike the post-Emergency phase in 1979 or the VP Singh era of 1989, which saw the emergence of a grand coalition against the ruling party at national level, the nature of the coalition against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2019 is quite fragile at the moment. Apparently, the success of the anti-BJP coalition of SP-BSP in UP and Rashtriya Janata Dal-led groupings of smaller caste parties is expected to be the fulcrum around which the politics against Narendra Modi will evolve.

Recall the election of 1993, a year after the Babri Masjid demolition, and analyse the result that surprised the country. In the wake of the demolition of the mosque in Ayodhya, the BJP’s victory was taken as a given. And there THE NATURE of the were enough reasons coalition against the for excessive exuberBJP in 2019 is quite ance in the Hindutva fragile at the moment camp. The state had witnessed a spate of THE SUCCESS of the riots that polarised anti-BJP coalition the electorate on comof SP-BSP in UP and munal lines. In those RJD-led groupings of times, the BJP was essmaller caste parties sentially a temple-centric party far removed is expected to be the from the ‘Vikas (develfulcrum around which opment)’ mantra. the politics against Conventional unModi will evolve derstanding dictated that in a polarised scenario, the BJP would win hands down on the basis of Hindu consolidation. But that was challenged quite effectively by Mulayam Singh Yadav, who tactically aligned with thenBSP supremo Kanshi Ram. Mayawati was then a marginal player and Kanshi Ram’s understudy. Mulayam was also reduced to a fringe player in the 1991 Assembly elections after his government ordered firing on kar sevaks in Ayodhya a year earlier. But Mulayam had his ear to the ground when he aligned with the BSP. For the first time in the country’s political history, a socially compatible coalition of Other Backward Classes, Dalits and Muslims took the shape of a political formation.

There were doubts if it would work electorally.

The 1993 election eventually saw the SP-BSP coalition edge past the BJP in a direct fight. Though the coalition collapsed, it effectively checked the Hindutva juggernaut in the country’s most populous state.

But that is one side of the story. Statistics show that the picture was not so depressing for the BJP. The SP-BSP coalition’s vote share was around 29 per cent while the BJP won around 33.4 per cent of votes. Yet the BJP bagged only 176 seats, one seat less than the coalition’s tally.

There is no doubt that with Mulayam and Kanshi Ram leading the coalition, the traditional support bases of these leaders coalesced electorally although it was much

first take

lower than the BJP’s vote share. In a sense the SP-BSP coalition owed its victory more to the first-past-the-post system.

Herein lies the effect of social chemistry which more often than not puzzles political pundits. Despite a lower share of votes, the SP-BSP coalition was able to mobilise its voters in concentrated pockets, and outflank the BJP. This political history is significant now that Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav have decided to bury the hatchet and chart their future political course together. If one applies conventional political logic and aggregates social bases of both the parties, the BJP apparently looks far behind in the race in 2019. But to unravel complex politics in such a simplistic manner would be a mistake.

In the trust survey, the undeniable impression (49 per cent overall) is that the grand coalition (Mahagathbandhan) will make life difficult for the BJP. But it does not seem to be a seamless grand coalition either in UP or in Bihar. With the Congress throwing in an element of surprise by bringing Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in as a general secretary and campaign head in eastern UP, the party has added a powerful glamour quotient to an uncertain political situation.

It appears quite obvious that the Congress has been working to a plan to undercut the BJP’s support base—not to win but to ensure Modi’s defeat.

Though the Congress may appear to be fighting separately, the party in essence seems to be strengthening the forces working against the BJP. In UP and Bihar, the grand coalition against the BJP would take tactical steps of political deception to weaken the BJP. And they seem to be acting perfectly in tandem.

Our survey also points out that in the Hindi heartland, the possibility of the Mahagathbandhan pitted against Modi has hung a question mark over the continuity of the NDA regime: of those surveyed, 47.7 per cent in UP, 57.2 per cent in Bihar, 50.2 per cent in Chhattisgarh, 65.4 per cent in Madhya Pradesh and 35.7 per cent in Uttarakhand maintained that the BJP’s future did not look as rosy as it did six months ago.

But there is another aspect of this argument. The BJP’s growth in these regions, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, is exponential and has co-opted marginal social groups across the state.

Unlike in the past, the party has gradually transformed itself into a well-oiled, cadre-based mass organisation which is quite akin to the Congress of the post-Independence phase but sans the Muslim vote.

In the 2017 Assembly election, the party successfully roped in various caste groups within the Hindutva fold to turn them into a powerful electoral force.

Unlike in the past, the BJP is neither a single-issue party nor does it get identified with upper castes. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi still reigning as the most trustworthy politician in the country, his capability to turn the election to his advantage can hardly be underestimated.

Apparently, the BJP can draw solace from the electoral statistics of 1993, when the party scored more votes than the combined SP-BSP. But the undeniable political reality is that the BJP is up against a formidable challenge in the form of the SP-BSP in UP, and RJD-led smaller parties in Bihar in tactical alliance with the Congress. Despite the apparent incompatibility of the political groupings against the BJP, the coalition is entirely capable of proving more than a match for the well-oiled organisational machinery of the BJP.

The BJP’s growth in states like UP, Bihar and MP has been exponential, it has co-opted marginal social groups in UP

Priyanka’s entry helps avoid Hobson’s choice RAHUL’S INABILITY to impress voters and inspire trust in his leadership could hobble his party

In spite of Congress victories in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, less than 25% of the electorate wants Rahul as PM

P

voted for the Congress may thus return to the BJP because of their apparent lack of enthusiriyanka Gandhi’s entry into asm to see Rahul lead India (Graph B on page 3).

Rahul’s low rating isn’t the only headache for active politics has helped the Congress. The survey shows his strategy the Congress avoid the emof attacking the PM on issues like demonetisabarrassment of presenting tion, corruption and the Goods and Services her elder sibling Rahul as a Tax is not working on the ground. Indians still Hobson’s choice to voters— approve of the PM’s initiatives—even demonmeaning a ‘take it or leave it’ choice which actually preetisation has the backing of 66.7 per cent of sents no real options at all. respondents— and give him credit for India’s The findings of the Firstpost National Trust economic development.

The survey revalidates the axiom that domiSurvey suggest Rahul is much less compelling nated the 2014 chatter: that Modi is invincible an option when pitted against Prime Minister as long as Rahul is the only alternative. It’s a Narendra Modi. But the Congress president narrative that suits the BJP. Unfortunately for can take heart that he is head and shoulders above the other options posed to voters—Maythe other opposition parties, they can’t even awati, Mamata Banerjee and HD Deve Gowda. step into the vacuum. The numbers show the One–on-one, the Congress would love to porCongress president, to borrow the title of a tray Rahul as an athlete stretching every sinew, Chetan Bhagat book, is at least a half-choice. busting his heart and lungs in trying to surge Others in the opposition camp don’t count for much. Mamata Banerjee, the next leader in the ahead even as supporters cheer him on and queue, is far behind Rahul, at just 4 per cent. excited fans predict a victory in the 2019 race.

But unfortunately, Rahul may be on a treadmill Arvind Kejriwal, who once dreamt of being going nowhere.

Modi’s nemesis, has faded into oblivion.

But the Opposition also knows the only thing In 2013, when Rahul emerged as a potennecessary for the triumph of the BJP is for the tial contender for the post of prime minister, Congress to do nothing. In 2014, the BJP won his ratings were abysmally low compared to 100 out of the 106 seats where it was in a diModi’s. Six years later, even with the media rect fight with the Congress. This high strike buzz around him, the recent victories in Asrate helped it cross the majority mark on sembly polls, his relentless attacks on Modi, and the perception that its own. If the BJP repeats this perforhe has matured as a leader, his mance in 2019, it would land very acceptability rating as India’s close to the majority mark even if leader remains at 26.9 per the SP-BSP alliance wins a huge cent, just half that of Modi. chunk of seats in Uttar Pradesh.

Just last month, the ConSo, Rahul’s inability to impress is Rahul Gandhi’s gress defeated the Bharatiya voters and inspire trust in his acceptability as Janata Party (BJP) in Rajastleadership is calamitous not just PM, just half for the Congress but also for other han, Madhya Pradesh and that of Modi Chhattisgarh. But in these states, prime ministerial aspirants. where the Congress polled around In this backdrop, Priyanka’s entry 40 per cent of the vote, less than 25 into active politics has the potential to save per cent of the electorate wants Rahul as PM. In the Congress and help the Opposition with the Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu Rahul’s expedient but simple option of stepping up as acceptability is higher than Modi’s. But in two an alternative. A sister coming to the rescue of of these states, the Congress is barely an option, an embattled brother—a contemporary twist to relegating his popularity into just a theoretical the traditional Indian custom of Raksha Bandhan—may help Modi raise the decibel level on concept that’s unlikely to translate into votes.

The survey data shows that while the Conthe naamdar vs kaamdar narrative. But with gress’s credibility is rising, trust in Rahul reher presence, Priyanka offers the traditional mains low relative to Modi. This raises the posCongress voter averse to seeing her brother as sibility that the recent revival of the Congress PM, at least, the courtesy of a choice—the freein the Hindi heartland could be undone by the dom to choose another horse to back instead consistently lower rating of its leader. In the of taking or leaving the one nearest the door Lok Sabha polls, a large number of those who in Hobson’s proverbial stable.

SANDIPAN SHARMA

27%

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FIRSTPOST.

SAT/AUGUST 04/2018

Flashback

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FIRSTPOST.

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

Hinterland

India’s First Voter

THE BRITISH may have gone, but Independence is a continuous idea, and your vote is an important part of it, says free India’s first voter Shyam Saran Negi

t wasn’t yet five in the morning when Shyam Saran Negi unlocked the doors of the school in the tiny Himachal Pradesh village of Kalpa, blanketed in snows blowing off the majestic Kinner Kailash range. As a gaggle of villagers gathered outside, he carefully laid out the cargo that had been hauled over the Himalayas on muleback. Then, it was the moment of decision: Negi dropped slips of paper into two of the eight steel boxes in front of him, and became the first person to vote in free India.

Ever since that first encounter with an election—held in October 1951 in the Kinnaur region and 1952 everywhere else—Negi has never missed a chance to vote. He’s looking forward to vote again this summer, in the company of his granddaughter, college student Manisha.

Now 102 years old, Negi’s story mirrors the making of modern India: through disappointment, changing EVER SINCE becoming circumstances and the first voter in 1951, bitterness, the ‘man of the moment’ has Shyam Saran Negi has held on to the values never missed a chance of the Republic and to vote of democracy.

first take

AFTER VOTING for Congress all these years, Negi has turned into a Modi supporter

KHADI AS WEAPON

NEGI can usually be found on the roof of his THE ONLY politician two-storey stone and before Modi who wood ancestral home inspires Negi is in Kalpa drinking black tea sweetened with jagShastri gery. He protects himself from the bitter cold with a brown wool coat that is more than seven decades old—a flag that signifies his own small role in the gigantic struggle for Independence and what he believes to be its unfinished task.

“Mahatma Gandhi told us how our country could eliminate hunger through khadi,” Negi says. “He told us that we could meet our own needs and also sell some cloth; then, nobody would die of hunger.”

Gandhi’s message reached Kalpa in the late 1930s in the form of his call for all Indians to stop buying foreign cloth and instead turn to the spindle and loom to weave their own.

Negi had just finished a seven-year stint as a forest guard and begun work in what was then just one of three schools in the entire region. Negi insisted that that his students join him in spinning for an hour everyday—a practice that continued till 1975, when he retired.

For Negi, the Raj years are not an abstraction: his ideas of how imperialism incapacitated India’s rural economy are based on lived reality. Negi vividly recalls being lined up to salute visiting British imperial officials who would arrive to supervise the Rampur royal family’s extraction of revenues from Kinnaur’s wool trade. The work was hard and the pay poor.

The social fabric of the mountains divided neatly, he recalls, into a small sliver of rich feudal families and a peasantry “of the kind who didn’t know where their next meal would come from despite backbreaking work”. “The angrez (British) controlled all the avenues for revenue collection—the forests, the public works—and whatever remained was the Raja’s. The British wanted

money and they took it,” the centenarian remembers with bitterness.

From the plains came stories of Bhagat Singh, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose—the last of them Negi’s hero. “Bose was a unique heavyweight capable of taking on the British. He started the Indian National Army chupkey-chupkey, secretly,” says Negi. The stories he heard made him yearn to be a freedom fighter too but there was no way to become one in Kalpa. Instead, Negi turned to khadi to take on the British.

“When you just spin and weave 12 months a year, you’re bound to end up saving, at least, a little,” he argues.

Independence, for him, was fundamentally about this kind of individual accountability and freedom. “We spun for an hour every day but they did not market khadi properly so it died out. Now, everyone buys things from markets and there’s no self-sufficiency,” he says.

the British inflicted. They let the rajas and maharajas be. Even the Congress did not disturb them.” For him, the choice is simple: A “good man” in Parliament or the Assembly will improve the country while a “bad man” will be just as harmful.

In Negi’s view, goodness and toughness are indivisible qualities, both of which he seeks FROM CONGRESS TO BJP in the leaders of a party he votes for. “The BACK in 1951, polling stations had separate Congress has too many internal squabbles, ballot boxes for each candidate; all voters which is also why I moved away from it,” had to do was drop their slips into the box he says. His drift away from the Congress marked with the candidate’s symbol. Like took place sometime around the seventies everyone else in the Mandi-Mahasu or eighties—Negi cannot remember exconstituency, Negi had two balactly—but it was the twin promises lot papers. The constituency of clean governance and strong was, because of its size, alleadership that moved him lowed to elect two candifirmly into the BJP camp in dates. Amrit Kaur, the Oxthe 2014 elections. ford University-educated And there’s a bit of Modi in year-old Negi says princess who abandoned Negi’s shift. The question of people don’t realise her privilege for the rigwho could be Prime Minister the value of their after the 2019 elections is of ours of Gandhi’s ashram, votes great importance to Negi. He won 47,152 of the 175,377 finds Modi charismatic and Rahul votes cast; her Congress parGandhi, the Congress leader and a posty colleague Gopi Ram came in sible Prime Minister, not so appealing. Negi second with 41,433.

Today, Negi is a voluble supporter of Prime is also charmed by Modi’s ability to forge Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya a connection with voters, an attribute he Janata Party (BJP). Funds meant for local defeels the Prime Minister’s less-experienced velopment and infrastructure such as roads Congress rival lacks. and electrification used to be stolen by cor“People had even rejected Indira [Ganrupt leaders, he says, but the Prime Minister dhi],” Negi says recalling the sixth Lok Sabha has put an end to corruption. “Earlier, we elections in 1977, when then-Prime Minisvoted for the Congress because they won us ter Indira Gandhi took her party from 518 freedom. They were also the only party we to 153 seats in the wake of the Emergency had. But all their mistakes now have been she had imposed in June 1975.

People in the plains, Negi knows, recently exposed before the public,” he says. “Peovoted for the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, ple just don’t understand the value of their Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, yet there is no vote,” Negi feels. “I have seen the suffering

102

Earlier, we voted for Congress because they won us freedom.

But all their mistakes have been exposed before the public SHYAM SARAN NEGI

INDEPENDENT INDIA’S FIRST VOTER

SHYAM SARAN NEGI

history 1917

Born on July 1 in then Mahasu princely estate’s Chini village in a large Buddhist family.

1938

Married to Hira Mani, who died a year ago.

KINNAUR AT A GLANCE

I

PRAGYA SINGH

1891

Chini tehsil created as part of the ruling Bushahar princely estate, later named Kinnaur.

1940

Starts work as forest officer for seven years.

1950

Starts work as school teacher near his native Chini village.

1951

Listed as India’s first voter in 1951 general elections. On October 25, tribal districts voted six months before the rest of the country.

1975

Retires from teaching.

2010

Honoured as first voter by the Election Commission of India.

2014

Ogilvy & Mather films video testimony of Negi exhorting people to vote.

2016

Negi is selected for acting debut in Sanam Re.

2019

India’s oldest voter plans to cast his vote in upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

He wants to vote for a party that will tackle poverty and corruption.

family

10 children 4 grandsons

2 great

4 granddaughters

grandchildren

chance he will stray from the BJP. “Some people are always dissatisfied,” he says dismissing arguments that Modi hasn’t delivered on his promises. The only post-independence politician before Modi who inspires Negi’s admiration is Lal Bahadur Shastri, the second Prime Minister. Negi remembers, fondly, his speeches during the 1962 India-China War, which inspired him to push one of his sons to join the Army. “My son turned out an idler who spent five years in Dehradun preparing for military exams but wasn’t selected,” he complains. “He became a bank manager while I wanted him to shoulder the country’s burden. Had he joined the Army, we would have earned name and fame.”

APPLE ‘REVOLUTION’

IN SPITE of the corruption, which so angers Negi, Kalpa did transform rapidly in the decades after Independence turning from an obscure provincial outpost into the heart of a prosperous, apple-growing region. Kinnaur became a district in the early 1960s, and state governments encouraged apple plantation in an effort to stimulate the economy. The idea worked: Negi’s family is one of Kalpa’s 226 landlords with significant holdings. Their apple crop earns them `4-`5 lakh every year.

From Negi’s point of view, though, the change hasn’t all been positive. “Apple-growers use chemical fertilisers and that kills off our traditional buckwheat crop,” he says.

Kalpa’s steeply terraced farms are incapable of supporting fodder. Farm animals are few—his family has just one cow. That means

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

FIRSTPOST.

Hinterland ROAD TO DEMOCRACY

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Indira Gandhi’s Congress, which vacuumed the electoral capital of the Congress by polling 44 per cent votes and 350+ seats. This decade marked the dismemberment of Pakistan, emergence of Indira Gandhi, increased influence of Soviet policies and Emergency imposition.

The 1977 elections were a watershed moment in Indian electoral history. Emergency fused the entire Opposition into one giant snowball called Janata Party and the avalanche ensured the worst possible defeat of the Congress.

1980s: The collapsed Janata Party experiment brought Indira Gandhi back to power in 1980 with vote share and seat share almost identical to 1971. Insurgencies in Punjab, Kashmir, the Northeast and Sri Lanka gave a violent turn to politics. After the assassination of Indira, the Congress swept the 1984 elections with 48 per cent votes and 400+ seats in Parliament. The BJP made a tepid debut of two seats ndian democracy is a rare feat achieved in the despite polling the second-highest vote share (7.4 per cent).

The Rajiv era began with an assassination v wand face of internal historical baggage and complex geopolitical dynamics. India’s Constitution makers ended abruptly with a scandal. What began with Conwent fearlessly into a terrain that other democra- gress sweeps in 1980 and 1984 ended with the second cies took years to explore. Today, some questions are non-Congress government at the Centre under VP Sinbeing raised on the integrity of the poll process under gh in 1989. The Janata Party experiment was repeated electronic voting machines (EVMs). It is important to (minus the BJP though) as Janata Dal, and Congress for take a trip down memory lane to remind ourselves of the second time went below 200 seats. The BJP finally our rocky road to democracy. got its due prominence, winning 85 seats.

1950s: India, a fledgling democracy, was dominated 1990s: Consolidation of nationalist and Right-wing by the Congress, the party of Independence. Interest- parties began. The PV Narasimha Rao government, with ingly, ballot papers with name and party symbols were Manmohan Singh as finance minister, liberalised India not used. Separate boxes were allotted for each candi- under IMF diktat. The 1991 polls saw the tragic assassidate, where the voter dropped his or her vote. Even nation of Rajiv during the election campaign. The after so many Independence heroes being in Congress became the single-largest party but the Congress, it got only about 45 per cent had to run a minority government.

The emergence of BJP as the single-largvotes in 1952 and 47 per cent in the 1957 est party in terms of seats in 1996 and elections. ascension to power in 1998 after forming If India had a Proportional Representation (PR) system rather than the a 13-day government two years earlier votes garnered First Past the Post (FPTP) system, we heralded the era of coalitions. Pokhran by the Congress in would have had coalition governments and Kargil solidified the party’s credenthe first general right from the start. The INC alliance was tials. The 1999 elections witnessed the unlikely to go with the Communist Party first BJP-led NDA government with full maelections of India, which was the second-largest party. jority. It also became the first ever non-ConThere was the Swatantra Party, which had the gress government to complete a five-year term. largest set of freedom fighters after the Congress.

2000s: The 2004 shock defeat of the BJP and its The political contest was also largely an internal one: India Shining campaign saw the advent of Congress-led Nehru’s Fabian socialism versus free-market economics coalitions. The UPA won again in 2009 on the back of as propelled by the Swatantra Party. redistributive policies and high growth rate. This decade 1960s: A split verdict arose for the first time. Sepa- saw the country deal with multiple terror attacks and rate parties were chosen to represent at the state and wildly swing between two poles of politics.

2010s: However, the Congress rule between 2004 and national level. The China War and deaths of Nehru and Shastri brought Indira Gandhi to the fore. Alternative 2014 also ushered in trademark corruption that comes parties such as the JD, BJS, Communists and southern along with TINA (There Is No Alternative) factor as well regional parties emerged and proved electorally viable. as coalition pressures. This unrest along with the rise The Congress vote share was static at 45 per cent in 1962 of Narendra Modi as a Hindutva mascot gave India its and the status quo precipitated the 1967 experiment of first single-party majority government after 1984. The Congress was reduced to its lowest-ever tally of 44 seats “anti-Congress” Opposition alignment.

1970s: The 1971 elections witnessed the first ever split in 2014 while the BJP marked its highest at 282 seats. in the Congress party with the old guards forming the Congress (O) under Morarji Desai. This split failed to dent The writer is a leading psephologist and founder of CVoter

Yashwant Deshmukh

The big Indian poll vault since Independence

I

45%

1960

District Kinnaur created with Chini as headquarters.

1962

After India’s border dispute with China, greater development attention reaches Kinnaur. Chini is renamed Kalpa.

manure has to be bought from Reckong Peo, the district headquarters, which is a halfhour drive downhill.

Negi recognises that before apples were grown in Kalpa, farmers had to do much more back-breaking work. “In the past, people woke up at 6 and returned late every evening. For small girls or old people, there was nothing but work, work and work.” But that, Negi says, wasn’t that bad. “The apple has made people lazy,” he snorts. Behind this sneer, lies a deeper discontent fuelled by a changing social structure.

The joint family system, built around fraternal polyandry, has all but disintegrated.

“Earlier, Kalpa had a common marriage system with one wife for many brothers living together. One brother looked after the animals, one the fields and one had a job. All incomes combined benefited the whole family,” he says. “These days, one has as many problems as there are sons—who have all become independent.”

Negi admits polyandry wasn’t always fair to women but blames politics for replacing it with something worse. “When the country became independent, they raised the slogan Sukhi Parivar—happy family—which meant husband, wife and two children—that’s it.

This is how we were told to live; so, everybody became separate. Now, our farm holdings are shrinking and the population is growing too fast,” he says. “I think,” Negi says, “that if brothers cannot stay together, how will the country stay united?”

Even his family has been subjected to deep change. In past decades, the family

1980

District headquarters shifted from Kalpa to Reckong Peo.

Despite the Congress win in recent state polls, there is no chance Negi will stray from the BJP

1989

Kalpa is opened up for free movement of outsiders for the first time.

voted en bloc—but times have changed. In recent elections, each member was free to follow their political conscience. Chander Prakash—the son and his wife Prema, who care for Negi—aren’t enthused by politics; at least, not that they let on. Prema’s expectations from politics and politicians are low as well. “I vote because everyone has a vote and should use it,” she says. Then she shrugs.

Manisha used to be an enthusiastic BJP supporter. Now, though, she isn’t so sure.

“Elected governments must provide jobs and security,” she says. Manisha is concerned that it is going to hard to find work after she graduates. The divided opinions in the family on India’s political future, though, reflect how things have always been—and, perhaps, should be.

Even back in 1951, there were eight candidates fighting to get elected. Tej Singh, from the Left-leaning Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party, socialist candidate Anokhi Ram,and the Bharatiya Jan Sangh’s Hari Datt, picked up tens of thousands of votes in Mandi-Mahasu making clear there was no one voice that represented a free India.

“After Independence,” Negi says, “our leaders declared that nobody is big or small in India, nor Hindu, Muslim and Sikh—that all will be equal. This idea was what Independence was all about, but it wasn’t implemented”. “The angrez left behind this illness,” he adds.

Negi sits on the roof of his home in Kalpa and still hopes that his next vote might help find a cure to the ills plaguing the country for years.

FIRSTPOST.

8

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

Versus

Republic Day Parade would be out of step without the military

M

arching troops, rows of tanks, missiles, ornate tableaux, stunt riders, aerial displays, and formations of horses and camels manoeuvring down Delhi’s expansive Rajpath — every January 26 witnesses a 90-minute flamboyant display of India’s military might and cultural diversity. A perusal of social media will reveal the degree of enthusiasm and admiration citizens have for the armed forces.

At places all over the country where I speak about military leadership and its application to other professions, I am extensively asked by people, old and young, about military life, challenges in difficult terrain, our weaponry and equipment, different regiments, arms and services, and what they do. It always ends with a salute by them and a mention about how they feel safe because India’s warriors are ever-ready to protect them.

The presence of the armed forces is symbolic of India’s military power, conveyed with elegance The message in perpetuity from the armed forces is the symbolic, “Hum hain na (We are there),” conveying their full acceptance to live by the oath they take: always in readiness to make even the ultimate sacrifice for the safety and security of the Indian people. Remove the armed forces from the Republic Day parade and you will have a public dismayed by the decision.

One could even assume it a political risk, I dare say.

India is a peaceful country.

It covets no one’s territory but equally wishes to create awareness that none can covet its territory and compromise the principles by which its people have chosen to live. Deterrence and dissuasion are essential components of national security which are achieved through projection of capability. The presence of armed forces is symbolic of India’s military power conveyed with elegance and shorn of brazenness. It is the precision marching achieved through months of training, coordinated martial music, colourful uniforms and regimental accoutrements, and skillfully driven and well-maintained vehicles, which

MILTARY MIGHT @ THE 2019 PARADE

attract huge applause from the heart. The roll-past of T-90 tanks, Agni and BrahMos missiles, the Bofors guns, and the fly-past by the Indian Air Force infuse pride.

Young and old associate themselves with all servicemen on display, marveling at their discipline, dedication, skill, passion and hard work.

While military equipment can be displayed through static exhibitions in different towns and cities, in schools and colleges, and other government institutions, there is nothing remotely equivalent to the élan which emerges from men in uniform in control of the weapons and equipment they use in war. Removing the military, and for that matter, the police from the parade, would make the event a socio-cultural one, exemplifying the progress of the nation.

No doubt, it would be a noble idea for a peace-loving nation, and with much savings to the state. Those with money on their minds and questioning the allegedly large movement of men and material to Delhi each year may remember that thousands of servicemen move every day as part of duty, as does their equipment. The gains in national pride, public confidence and response, as also projection is not quantifiable, but it goes well beyond anything public finance can buy or achieve.

The parade is about achievement as much it is about comprehensive national power. It cannot be just a display of military might. It is conceived as an event exemplifying India’s uniqueness, its richness of culture and the immense progress it has made. The current combination of the military, cultural display through dances from various regions, departmental tableaux, schoolchildren from different parts of India and the NCC, all included in the march down Rajpath with the looming visage of Raisina Hill and its grandiose buildings in the background and India Gate with Amar Jawan Jyoti in front, have a surreal effect that gives this spectacle a grandeur which India’s public must never be robbed of.

Remove the military and police contingents and you would axe the one element that in a single glimpse symbolises India’s greatest strength — unity in diversity. With the National War Memorial under completion nearby, the public experience of witnessing the armed forces on display and then visiting the new institutions to be educated about India’s military heritage would be another unique addition to the experience of the fortunate few who witness the spectacle in person.

SANJAY SRIVASTAVA

T

 ASHISH ASTHANA

SYED ATA HASNAIN

A parade of militarism, with no place for soldier or citizen

A Republic Day sans the military? facts first INDIA IS A PEACEFUL country that wishes to create

awareness that no one can covet its territories and compromise the principles by which its people live

BESIDES MILITARY MIGHT, the parade is conceived as

an event exemplifying India’s uniqueness

MILITARISM IS A part of post-colonial psychology that seeks to rid itself of the ‘feminisation’ it perceives to have suffered at the hands of the colonial masters

The writer is a retired lieutenant general of the Indian Army

FIRE POWER K9 Vajra & USmade M777 A2 ultra-light howitzers, first artillery guns since Bofors to be inducted in the army

1

WOMAN POWER Lady officer Lt Bhavana Kasturi to lead an all-male Army Service Corps contingent

2 AIR POWER Akash, an allweather automated air defence system that is designed to neutralise multiple aerial targets

3

WOMEN ALL THE WAY Assam Rifles’ marching contingent will be an allwoman affair

4 NAVAL GENDER BENDER Lt Commander Ambika Sudhakaran to lead Navy’s marching contingent

5

he Republic Day commemorates India’s decisive shift from a colonial arrangement of governance to a post-colonial one. The date on which the Constitution came into effect is also the one that hallows the memory of a struggle that produced independent people. It holds out the promise of a society that is just and creative in the task of producing a prosperous future.

How then should we view the Republic Day being represented largely as a show of military might? Is our national culture and the aims of the Constitution best represented through symbols of militarism?

In the years following independence, India continued with many colonial practices, including reproducing the imagination of the state as militarily powerful.

Imperialism rests fundamentally on the capacity to enforce its writ through violence. The post-colonial elite, having been talked down to by the colonial masters as incapable of self-rule, seek to undo that representation.

Militarism, including its symbolic aspects, is a significant part of the post-colonial psychology that seeks to rid itself of the ‘feminisation’ it perceives to have suffered at the hands of the colonial masters.

In India, the Republic Day Parade is also enmeshed in the history of India-Pakistan relations and the deep humiliation suffered at the hands of the Chinese army in 1962.

The colonial shame was compounded through post-colonial forms of threat and disgrace.

Symbolic militarism, including that on display at the Republic Day Parade, is a salve to past injuries and a proclamation of contemporary prowess. Unlike other countries where wars play a significant role in the national imagination, Indian commemorations only nominally celebrate the ‘common’ people. In Australia, experiences of war are not remembered through a display of military might. ANZAC Day ceremonies — that remember Australian and New Zealand casualties during the World War I — focus on the ordinary soldier.

In recent years, militarism has got deeply embedded as an existential fact of Indian life and we have become attracted to displays of military braggadocio as an aspect of national character.

This is a significant feature of the appeal of the armament aesthetics of the parade. Advertisements for products as disparate as butter, tiles, cars and men’s deodorant have — through aestheticising violence and caricaturing valour — packaged militarism as an everyday part of life. War is no longer an aberration that

6 SECULAR FABRIC Madras Regiment, Rajputana Rifles, Sikh Regiment & Gorkha Regiment to showcase forces’ unity in diversity

War is no longer an aberration with blood and gore, but a normalised viewing experience The Republic Day spectacle produces the opposite effect of what it is intended to: rather than cheering entrepreneurial energies, native ingenuity and democratic freedoms, it celebrates a top-down version of national identity. If in military terms it revels in sanctifying the missile over the soldier, in civilian terms it foregrounds the elite over the ordinary citizen.

Rituals are contexts that direct us to certain ways of thinking about the social worlds we occupy. So it is with the Republic Day Parade. Unfortunately, it directs us to be passive citizens to be dictated to by the state, one that does not approve of a citizenry that might ask, “Why should we celebrate military might?”

Concern and admiration for the forces would be better exhibited by improving the conditions in which the soldier works. The aspirations of the Constitution cannot be captured by anachronistic ideas derived from hyper-patriotism and ill-served by the current form of the Republic Day Parade.

The writer is a sociologist at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi

ELABORATE AFFAIR Six mechanised columns & 22 tableaux will be on show

VETERAN TRIBUTE A tableau depicting sacrifices of Field Marshals KM Cariappa & Sam Manekshaw, Air Marshal Arjan Singh

7

involves blood and mutilated bodies, but a normalised viewing experience. Keen to shake off the ‘third-world’ tag, a ‘new’ India seeks to announce its arrival on the global stage through symbols of military might.

Is military might — one that has little to do with how wars are experienced by those forced to take part in them — the most appropriate symbolism for a national day? How is either the public or its democratic aspirations represented in one of the most significant days of the national calendar? Does it commemorate the sacrifices of defence personnel and their families or is it merely a cynical political exercise?

The current form of the parade reinforces the notion that the nation-state is perpetually under threat both from within (“terrorists”) and beyond its borders (the “foreign hand”). It also reinforces the idea that to question the actions of governments as they delineate internal and external threats is to question the idea of the nation-state itself.

8 INDIGENOUS STRENGTH Platforms for DRDOmade medium range surface-to-air missile & Arjun-armoured recovery-repair vehicle

9

10 IN MAHATMA’S NAME All 22 tableaux to depict the life & ideals of Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th birth anniversary

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

FIRSTPOST.

Inside Out

9

It’s time to stop the great Indian EVM hoaxathon

REMOTELY IMPOSSIBLE Hacking even one voting machine requires access to the unit, hardware and a killer algorithm. Mass wireless hacking is pure fantasy SUBHASHISH DUTTA

W

e were all riveted to our television screens this week as a masked ‘cyber expert’ proclaimed that the 2014 Lok Sabha election was stolen by the Bharatiya Janata Party by hacking electronic voting machines en masse. The evidence for his claims is conspicuously thin: we have no idea of the credentials of the supposed cyber expert or verifications of his hyper-real claims, including mass killings and assassinations.

But that hasn’t stopped plenty of people who should know better from buying the story that EVMs can be manipulated using low-frequency waves, which conspiracy theorists refer to as “military grade technology”.

This is because claims of EVM manipulation have become part of our everyday news cycle — science be damned.

The Election Commission of India has on several occasions explained the workings of the machines and even conducted hackathons inviting the sceptics to prove their claims. No one has been able to hack an EVM in these hackathons but that has done little to put an end to the conspiracy theories.

Such manipulation is simply not possible. The technology used in EVMs and the processes put in place by the ECI do not allow such hacking.

I speak from experience. I was a polling booth agent for the Aam Aadmi Party during the 2014 election. I have had extensive discussions with engineers who work on embedded software and device drivers. I also have 20 years’ experience in the technology sector.

First, the technology aspect. An EVM consists of a control unit and a ballot unit. The ballot unit is the one that voters use to pick their preferred candidate, or reject all of them (Nota), and the control unit is where the vote is recorded.

Each booth at a polling station has a combination of the two units that are connected through a wire. The control unit has a piece of software listening on a port to receive a vote from the ballot unit.

Just because the control unit receives a vote over the wire from a ballot unit doesn’t in any way mean that it can receive a vote — or malicious code that can manipulate votes — wirelessly from another source.

For it to be able to do so, the control unit has to be explicitly designed and manufactured to be compatible with wireless mechanisms and protocols.

That involves both a hardware component — called a Network Interface Card in average desktops, laptops, servers, etc — as a well as a software component that can listen for wireless messages.

The ECI has repeatedly said EVMs aren’t manufactured for wireless com-

munication. Any potential “hacker” should have at least gone to the ECI hackathon and just opened up the machine to check for that.

Also, the code, which assigns a vote to a candidate, totals votes for each of the contestants and adds up the votes registered on a machine, is burnt into the chip. The device is “one time programmable”, which means this burning of code into the chip can only be done once per EVM. It is not the model where software is downloaded separately and installed and later upgraded.

Second, the poll process, which I have seen for myself. Each polling centre has multiple booths.

For instance, a school can be a polling centre and a room in the school can be a booth. Four election officials are present in each booth. In addition, an agent for each candidate is also allowed — I was the agent posted for AAP’s Bangalore Central candidate.

An hour before voting begins, the polling officer conducts a mock poll involving all the agents to ensure that the keys have been correctly mapped to candidates. The control unit is then reset and polling begins.

Once polling ends, the officer generates a receipt from the control unit that mentions the total number of votes polled in that booth.

The receipt is signed by each agent and the EVM sealed with a receipt in-

FIRST COVER: THE ART AND SCIENCE OF ILLUSTRATING THE FIRST EDITION 1

FIRSTPOST.

DESIGNERS’ BANE

SAT/AUGUST 04/2018

Flashback

W E E K LY : S A T / J A N U A R Y 2 6 / 2 0 1 9 | N E T W O R K 1 8 M E D I A & I N V E S T M E N T S L I M I T E D

Residential evil of Yogi’s hometown

RBI versus Centre is about 2019

MODI GOVT WANTS CENTRAL BANK TO RELAX LENDING TO BOOST GROWTH, WHICH IS SHOWING SIGNS

ENCEPHALITIS CASES IN GORAKHPUR UNABATED DESPITE GOVT’S TALL CLAIMS OF VACCINATION

MODI GOVT WANTS CENTRAL BANK TO RELAX LENDING TO BOOST GROWTH, WHICH IS SHOWING SIGNS

12

10

W E E K LY: S A T / J A N U A R Y 2 6 / 2 0 1 8 | N E T W O R K 1 8 M E D I A & I N V E S T M E N T S L I M I T E D

VOLUME 01 | ISSUE 10 | NEW DELHI | PAGES 20 | PRICE `8

RBI versus Centre is about 2019

12

For Modi, a Faith Accompli

6

The reason why I wrote my story was because I felt that this was the moment of ‘now or never’ VINTA NANDA

TV PRODUCERWRITER

6

Sidhu Pads up to Unseat his Captain THE FORMER CRICKETER’S AGGRESSIVE SHOT PLAY ON THE POLITICAL PITCH TO PROJECT HIMSELF AS A SUCCESSOR TO CM AMARINDER SINGH HAS RAISED THE HACKLES OF PARTY MEMBERS

VOLUME 01 | ISSUE 10 | DELHI | PAGES 20 | PRICE `8

Leaderless Baloch Revolt dying slowly

SECESSIONIST MOVEMENT IN PAKISTAN GOES ADRIFT DUE TO LACK OF A POPULAR FACE AND CHINESE PRESSURE

10

Who calls the shots?

Anti-Muslim propaganda has gained legitimacy during BJP rule.

TUFAIL AHMAD

SENIOR FELLOW, MIDDLE EAST MEDIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, D.C

WHY KATRINA’S TWO-GIG ROLES MATTER MORE THAN HER DIRECTORS

7

Phugat high on politics BJP DELHI MEMBER AND MRS UNIVERSE 2015 WEST ASIA SAYS IN POLITICS IT IS EASY TO LET POWER GO TO YOUR HEAD BUT ONE HAS TO BE PROFESSIONAL

4

BLAMING NAIDU, ANDHRA FOR TELANGANA PROBLEMS WON’T IMPRESS VOTERS AS TDP IS NOT THE MAIN RIVAL OF KCR & TRS BLAMING NAIDU, ANDHRA FOR TELANGANA PROBLEMS WON’T IMPRESS VOTERS AS TDP IS NOT THE

8

Rebel With a Cause

The stark saffron-patch cover came up first. The J&K Lone headline was tossed around Ranger has no hope for a bit and then summarily rejected. An editor first Power of Pink heartily plumped for it, but Punch then changed his mind as the talk around the saffron cover and the headline went into the rough and tumble of politics. The designers, now disconsolate, looked at another of their covers, one inspired by The Economist, being balled up and junked.

The morphed Mona Lisa now came up for discussion, forcing the editors to say their mann ki baat. Da Vinci would have squirmed listening to them talk. No one expects the editors to be Medicis, but art, ersatz and esoteric, rarely wins their stamp of approval. And the Indianised Mona Lisas looked too indie and inapt to them. Everyone loves an Oscar and even if it is a public-prized, studio-bankrolled blockbuster they don’t care as long as people pound the pavements and come happily to the box office. But the Da Vinci-influenced production was too highbrow---one editor even said highfalutin--and was finally trashed.

Finally, what remained was also not a studio-starrer. It was more Forster-motivated James Ivory-ish.

Staid yet stylish. Credentialed yet comprehensible. It was a village canvas by the English artist LS Lowry that our young illustrator Shatakshi Mehra had suitably Bharat-fied. A remarkable portrait of English provincialism and its working class, it proved just the right muse for our hip designers.

They took its varied elements and made them Indian with some erasures and emendations. A landscape that finally reflected India and took on characteristics that jibed with the pan-India Trust Survey, the centrepiece of the launch edition. “I encounter millions of bodies in my life; of these millions I may desire some hundreds; but of these hundreds, I love only one,” said Roland Barthes.

Our editors didn’t encounter millions; but they encountered a few, and this, ladies and gentlemen, is what they loved. Hope you do too.

Divinity Recast(e)

Modi Shining

Across the length and breadth of India, the Prime Minister remains overwhelmingly popular, but will recent election reverses in three heartland states dent his party’s image?

CASTE GROUPS HAVE REJECTED UTTAR PRADESH CM YOGI ADITYANATH’S DESCRIPTION OF HANUMAN AS DALIT

5

FORMER SECESSIONIST AND BJP’S MOST VOCAL ALLY IN KASHMIR SAYS NOTHING MUCH WILL COME OF IMRAN KHAN AND NARENDRA MODI DIALOGUE

9

WOMEN-CENTRIC THEMES ARE THE NEW BIG THING FOR SMALL-BUDGET FILMMAKERS

DALIT LEADER CHANDRASHEKHAR AZAD’S REBELLIOUS STREAK HAS ATTRACTED SUPPORTERS

CINEMA

THE BIG PICTURE

14

9

REMEMBRANCE OR RAGE

EYEING A RECORD 24TH GRAND SLAM, SERENA WILLIAMS PROVES TO A MATCHLESS ATHLETE

inside

Wrong target xkjcvjx

Across the length and breadth of India, the Prime Minister remains overwhelmingly popular, but will recent election reverses in three heartland states dent his party’s image? 2

Match Point 18

14

inside

DIFFERENT BALLGAME

Role of Indian soldiers in WW I triggers debate

Batting for 3 different balls of cricket

While 74,000 Indians died serving the Raj overseas, does valorising their sacrifices insult memories of those who did resist the empire and exonerate those who sent soldiers to fight?

Cricketing giants prefer balls of different makes due to lack of standardisation of balls globally and difficulty in adjusting to them in different conditions

7

Some of the many covers that were, sadly, destined for the dustbin

18

SUBSCRIBE TO ENJOY THE LAST WORD IN NEWS, GIVE A MISSED CALL AT 8744-024-024

RAKESH BEDI

What we need is to use, said Susan Sontag, what we have. But if we have plenty then what do we use. We sit at the table; we knock our heads; we caffeinate and carp; we dissect and digress; we, finally, turn the conference room into a hot hell of cacophony.

That, in nutshell, is what happened when the elevated editorial echelon came together under a reconstructed room to decide the cover for the launch of this edition. Everyone had spent months putting together a design that is entirely new in the Indian newspaper industry.

In a room plastered with Cartier-Bresson’s photos, the editors zoomed and zapped, putting everything on the table under their inquisitive, intellectual lenses. Their appetite was large, and the innovative menu that was laid, askew and overlapping, in a row, surprisingly, was larger.

Some covers, after some random remarks, just disappeared in the dustbin. The designers, their eyes initially gleaming with pride, started looking downcast, focusing more on the waste bin than their work. Finally, the remains of their long weeks of pumped-up preparation lay aslant on the table, a total of three, coffee-stained and faintly yellowed with hands consuming potato crisps with deadline-free abandon. The discussion, more dyspeptic than direct, meandered. With editors holding on steadfastly to their preferences, the discussion threatened to derail the production schedule. They zeroed in on the three covers.

POLINOMICS

ARTS

India tanks up to keep running if stocks go dry

Dark World of Mughal Daughters

Two new caves of strategic petroleum reserves will maintain supplies for 12 days during emergency and raise crude oil storage capacity of equivalent of 87 days of demand by 2020

Mughal women singularly bore the weight of chastity and lineage. Their bodies were sites on which were inscribed socially-sanctioned images of the ‘perfect woman’

12

16

 MIR SUHAIL

The next time the ECI organises a hackathon, it should ask these ‘master hackers’ to display their master algorithm

side it. Each agent is also given a written receipt, mentioning the number of votes polled.

On the counting day, candidates’ agents use these receipts to cross-check that the votes displayed by the EVMs are the same as those on their receipts and also that the main signed receipt is in the machine.

This ensures that no manual tampering can be done between the polling and counting days.

Let us for a moment assume a scenario of a possible hacking via wireless transmission.

Even if one were to assume that malicious code can be remotely injected into an EVMthrough wireless transmission, just thinking of what the code has to do starts to boggle the mind.

The code can’t just assign all votes or extra votes to a given candidate since the total is signed off after polling ends.

This means the code has to be intelligent enough to dynamically rebalance the total number of votes in each EVM. The injected code has to be aware of which candidate to assign more votes

to and also the proportion in which the remaining votes have to be distributed so that suspicions are not raised.

The code should also know where exactly in the EVM is candidate information stored and also where the votes are stored.

As if doing it at an individual EVM level is not difficult enough, this manipulation has to be orchestrated across all machines in a constituency.

The total votes polled would have to remain unchanged even as the preferred candidate gets more votes. But, the mandate should not be flagrantly at odds with the mood of the people.

This should hold true for all other contestants as well, including Nota.

Perhaps, the next time the ECI organises a hackathon, it should just bring some unprogrammed EVMs, ask these ‘master hackers’ to burn their code into the chip and demonstrate their master algorithm for such mass manipulations.

That would be a challenge worthy of the saviours of Indian democracy.

The writer is a software developer and architect.

10

FIRSTPOST.

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

Crossroads

Kashmir’s New Age of Terror

BOYS STILL in their teens are increasingly being recruited by jihadist outfits to little resistance from families, separatists or the government as a new gun culture gains ground in the troubled Valley

F

RAYAN NAQASH

ourteen-year-old Mudasir Parray’s charred body lay in the rubble of a burnt building along with that of his 17-year-old friend Saqib Sheikh. At Parray’s home in Hajin, the mood was strangely celebratory.

“Our son has achieved such success,” his grandmother told reporters. The women in the family were “very happy” that he “gave his life in the way of Allah”, she said as the body was brought home on December 9.

A few hours earlier, football buddies Parray and Sheikh, who were recruited by the Lashkar-e-Taiba four months ago, and their Pakistani accomplice had died in a gunfight with security forces in Mujgund on Srinagar’s outskirts, 23 km from Hajin. Parray is one of the youngest jihadists to have been killed in recent times, but Kashmiri boys signing up to wage war on India is not new. What is worrying is that as their ranks swell, there is no pushback from society — families, in most cases — separatists or even the government to stop children from picking up arms.

The security establishment has failed to even keep a count of the boys recruited by jihadist outfits in violation of international humanitarian law. All that police officials will say is that the numbers are “very less”.

As opposed to the 1990s when the average age of a jihadist was around 25, the new recruits, police say, are much younger. Some are not even out of their teens.

Every time jihadists have felt the heat, children have been pushed into the battleground. Several top commanders are among the 237 jihadists killed this year.

Support on the ground is the lifeblood of any armed movement, hence the need to control the narrative. Children are a powerful symbol and are being used by separatists to lend credibility to their fight, police say.

ONLINE PRESENCE (above) The daughter of a Kashmiri militant with an assault rifle. The picture of LeT member Arshid Khan (right) of Ganowpora, Shopian, along with his family was also widely circulated online

1

‘WORLD IS AN ILLUSION’

In a picture that went viral days before the gunfight, Parray, dressed in a pair of jeans and a dark sweatshirt, wears a smile as he holds up a sheathed dagger and an assault rifle.

He undertook jihad for “his akhirat”, Parray told his grandmother during a visit to Hajin, once a stronghold of pro-government militia that is now Lashkar turf. Akhirat, or the afterlife, is one of the main Islamic beliefs that after death one is granted heaven or hell based on their worldly deeds. “If my mother is fortunate, she will see that I will die fighting,” she quoted the Class IX student as saying.

Afterlife is a recurring theme.

“What is this world anyway, an illusion,” 15-year-old Fardeen Khanday referred to a verse from the Quran, turning down the pleas of his mother, Wazira, to return home.

The meeting took place two weeks after the teenager disappeared on September 15, 2017, from his home in Hyuna village in south Kashmir’s Tral. The family, until then, had no inkling that the boy had joined Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad.

“I have prayed for this (to be killed fighting). My prayers have been answered,” Wazira recalled her son’s word sitting in their two-storey home on a recent winter afterterrorists killed in noon. On December 31, 2017, 17 days after Poonch in 2001 he turned 16, Khanday and two other jihadwere children ists stormed a paramilitary training centre in south Kashmir not far from Tral.

Wazira heard the gunshots but didn’t think it could be her son. Kashmiri jihadists aren’t known for their fighting capabilities, much less fidayeen attacks, which are high-risk assaults carried out by attackers who are prepared to die. It wasn’t until she saw his body that Wazira realised her son had died a jihadist.

Khanday completed his Quran lessons at the local seminary run by Aquib Ahmad Lone, better known as Aquib Molvi, who joined militancy in 2013 and was killed four years later. reaches you, I will be far away, a guest in god’s paradise,” Khanday would attend the funerals of jihadists to get a he said. He had heeded the call of the “Quran and embarked “last glimpse” but the family — with many in the securiinto the battlefield of jihad”. ty forces; his father is a policeman — didn’t see anything amiss, said Wazira.

In matters of faith, Khanday, otherwise a quiet person, YOUNG GUNS was vocal. He prayed at the mosque and would not allow Minors being recruited to wage jihad is not anyone to miss a day of fasting during Ramzan. “I (still) unheard of. In 2001, 20 ‘terrorists’ killed don’t know what was in his heart,” Wazira said. by the army in Khari Dhoke in Poonch disA video message released after the gunfight, which left trict were children taken for slave labour the three attackers and five soldiers dead, is her only inby jihadists, Frontline magazine reportsight into her son’s mind. “I was surprised with the ‘ilm’ ed in September 2003. Even the state has (religious knowledge) he had,” she said. used the young to take on the jihadists by Wearing a pheran and a keffiyeh, Khanday had three arming them as part of the now-defunct assault rifles and grenades spread out as he looked straight village defence committees. But for most part, the young into the camera. “If Allah is kind, by the time this message have remained on the fringes in Kashmir. Security officials,

20

2

GUN CULTURE Videos and pictures of children with toy guns or staging a gunfight with fake weapons are often circulated through social media in the Valley

however, worry that may be about to change.

Jihadist organisations, a police officer posted in south Kashmir, says are increasingly taking in younger Kashmiris.

They serve two key purposes: they act as obedient “sidekicks” to the seniors and are easy to mould.

On October 17 this year, 15-year-old Faizan Majeed, recruited by Kashmiri-dominated jihadists Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen, was arrested as he was on the way to join a group of jihadists of the Al-Badr, a Pakistan-based outfit seeking to revive itself in the Valley.

Ubaid Malla from Shopian district and Farhan Wani from Kulgam were 17 when they were recruited. Both died in separate gunfights this year.

Three months after the Hizbul Mujahideen recruited him, 15-year-old Tral resident Faizan Bhat was killed in a gunfight in March 2017. Majid Mir and Shakir Ahmad were minors

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

FIRSTPOST.

Crossroads

11

COMMENT

 GETTYIMAGE

Dr Tariq Rahman

HAUNTED VALLEY

(above and left) Kashmiris inspect damaged houses where militants were holed up during a gun battle with security forces in the Mujgund area of Srinagar on December 9, 2018

Emergence of social media has played a vital role in the rise of young jihadists. Videos of boys posing with assault rifles are regular fare

dummy rifles carved out of wood are regular fare. Clips of children espousing the separatist cause are shared regularly by social media channels that disseminate content for jihadist outfits.

Police see a design behind these but can do little. That could change if the draft juvenile bill that allows prosecution of people using or recruiting children for violence is passed. Such groups or individuals “shall be liable for rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years and shall also be liable to a fine of five lakh rupees”, the proposed law says.

YOUNG GUN Shakir Ahmad Gag joo was one of three suspected LeT members killed in an encounter in Kakapora sub-district of Pulwama district in South Kashmir on June 22, 2017

4

THE LOST GENERATION

when they took up arms. Killed in separate gunfights, the boys from Pulwama were suspected to have killed three people, including a politician.

Another boy from Pulwama, Arif Dar, was recruited when he was 14, says his family. According to police, he was 16 or 17. He is among the first jihadists to switch loyalty to the al-Qaeda affiliate Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind. Adil Sheikh, 17, and Sartaj Lone, 16, both from Anantnag, were killed in 2015.

3

VIRTUAL WAR

The emergence of social media has played a vital role in the rise of the young jihadist. Burhan Wani, perhaps, was the single biggest factor in ‘legitimising’ and romanticising underage recruits. He was 15 when he joined the Hizb in 2010 and was a ‘divisional commander’ four years later. Adept at social media, Wani was the first among the new generation of jihadists to give a call for a caliphate not only in Kashmir but globally. His killing on July 8, 2016, triggered bloody street protests. Children were at the forefront of enforcing shutdowns, manning roadblocks in towns and mobilising crowds for rallies in villages.

Videos of boys barely into their teens posing with assault rifles, children shouting slogans and enacting gunfights with

Recruiting youngsters as militants serves two purposes: they act as obedient ‘sidekicks’ to seniors and are easy to mould

A law, however, will not be enough to keep Kashmiri children home. Most of them were not born when the violence was at its peak in the late 1990s but they have witnessed massive civilian unrest between 2008 and 2010 and were alienated by the Indian state that called them “agitational terrorists”.

The signs were ominous, warned an assistant professor based in south Kashmir. The role of children, mainly as stone-pelting aides to jihadists caught in gunfights, and their exposure to violence was creating a “new acceptance” of the gun culture. The violence, he said, was a process led by the Jamaat-e-Islami but fuelled by the Indian state. “For the army, killing kids is a successful operation but it is actually the victory of those getting killed,” he said.

Every civilian or jihadist killed renewed the anger and alienation. “When they die, they win,” the professor said.

“The jihadi, untrained, doesn’t want to live, he wants to die a martyr. That earns him and his family respect and stature in society.”

While many believe the incitement to violence comes from seminaries, some police officers blame the mosque.

“Our understanding of the darasgah is flawed,” said a police officer, who went to a seminary as a child. “Darasgahs are to improve diction, not solely impart morals. Most of that happens at the mosque where in every third khutba, you will find mention of the verse — the world is an illusion.”

Khutba generally refers to the sermon delivered before the noon prayer on Fridays.

The social sanction for recruiting minors also stemmed from Islam, the officer said. “According to Islamic principles, when a child is 12, he is ready to follow all the obligations, as such he is considered an adult. But when parents seek clemency for such children (facing legal action), they claim legally they are minors,” he said.

The insistence on the world is an illusion verse is so great that the Quranic commandment to maintain a balance between materialism and religion was lost on those indoctrinated. “All sects agree on this half verse,” he said. “The weaponisation of this verse is how a Khanday forgets his mother.”

In South Asia, jihad is a mix of three ideologies

F

rom living rooms to newspaper columns to security gatherings, jihad is a much debated topic. A moral struggle, a war for a just and peaceful society or an Islamic world order? Jihad is all of it and more, according to the three broad interpretations — traditional or classical, modernist and radical Islamist — prevalent in South Asia. Based on their interpretations of the Quran and exegetical literature, traditional/classical Sunni notions of jihad are different from those of the modernists (apologists, progressives) as well as radical Islamists.

The traditional interpretations are by those who follow classical models such as Shah Abdul Qadir and the exegetes of Deoband. Some of the classical interpretations are still taught in the madrassas and have their influence on the Sunni ulema of South Asia.

The modernists interpret the foundational texts of Islam (the Quran and the Hadith) to support liberal humanist values. For them, jihad is defensive and, in the presence of international treaties of peace, aggressive warfare is not justified. Armed aggression against one’s own Muslim rulers or those who do not stop the practice of Islam is not allowed.

They also rule out suicide attacks, the use of non-state actors in guerrilla warfare and attacks on non-combatants.

The third category is of Islamist radicals or militants who interpret the Quran and the Hadith to justify armed struggle against perceived Western domination and to create an Islamic society and state. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who co-founded Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Jaish-e-Mohammed founder Masood Azhar are among those who adhere to this interpretation.

Their main contention is that the Muslim world is already subjected to warfare by the West and, in the case of Kashmir, by India.

As Muslim leaders are unwilling to take up the cause of the subjugated masses, non-state actors must do so. They believe that, as weapons of the weak, guerrilla warfare, including suicide attacks, are permissible. In short, the Islamists differ from the classical exegetes who say jihad can only be ordered by a Muslim ruler. As Muslim rulers are subservient to Western powers, jihad can be initiated and continued by non-state actors, the Islamists argue. While in classical theory suicide attacks and killing of non-combatants is not allowed, the Islamists allow these as the tactics of the weak in an unequal conflict.

The interpretations of the Quran and Hadith are broadly based on semantic expansion/manipulation, abrogation (Naskh), reasons or circumstances of revelation, specification, privileging principle over particulars, ideological imperatives, emphases and selection.

Take, for instance, the verse 9:5. The radicals say the “sword verse” is from a chapter which is the last in the order of revelation, so it abrogates the peaceful verses mentioned earlier. Others say the verse is “general” in nature and still relevant. The modernists say it is specific to the Arab polytheists who began aggression against the nascent Muslim community and since they no longer exist, it is not to be acted upon.

The Islamists take fitnah, as mentioned in the 2:193 and 8:39 verses, as the rule of non-Muslims over God’s world or the presence of moral evil in such forms of governance.

This makes it incumbent upon Muslims to take up warfare to cleanse the world and institute a just government.

The modernists say fitnah refers to the difficulty in practising Islam that resulted in the expulsion of Muslims from their homes and aggression against them. Now that this is no longer happening, fighting is no longer valid.

All trends in the interpretations of jihad can be linked to the state of Muslim military power. When it was dominant, jihad was expansionist and triumphalist; when it was subservient to colonial dominance, jihad was interpreted as the right of self-defence; and now, in the post-colonial context, jihad is interpreted as the right to resist Western hegemony through unconventional, guerrilla tactics.

While Islamists point to verses which say non-Muslims cannot be friends of Muslims, the modernists assert just relations should be the norm of daily existence

The writer is a Pakistani academic and has authored the book Interpretations of Jihad in South Asia: an Intellectual History (De Gruyter, Berlin)

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

Polinomics

35,788.8

GRASS / GRAZING

35,460.5

-20,154.3 SNOW & GLACIER

2,649.2

-328.3 GRASS / GRAZING

2,945.1 FOREST

WET LANDS / WATER BODIES

GRASS / GRAZING

1,14,596.6

5,845.1

FOREST 11,396.1 PLANTATION 11,720.4

BUILTUP

1,86,560.9 -9% 1,70,277.7 Change

1,35,768.4

4,29,621.0

EVERGREEN/ SEMI-EVERGREEN

SCRUB FOREST

18,08,210.8

AGRICULTURE

DECIDUOUS

AGRICULTURE

18,04,839.5

4,16,187.6

5,671.8

AGRICULTURE

3,96,402.7

2011-12

BARREN/ UNCULTURABLE/ WASTELANDS

2005-06

FOREST

7,36,859.1

BARREN/UNCULTURABLE/ WASTELANDS

FOREST

7,33,914.0

7,36,859.1

WET LANDS / WATER

7,33,914

OVERALL CHANGE IN LAND USE (sq km)

WET LANDS / WATER

2,945.1 SQ KM

2011-12

HOW WE USE OUR LAND

3,371.3

2005-06

3,90,730.9

OVERALL CHANGE IN FOREST LAND USE

1,38,417.6

SHADES OF GREEN

Overall forest cover has risen marginally between 2005-06 and 2011-12, but hidden in the foliage is a disturbing fact: a nine per cent decline in evergreen and semi-evergreen forests. Is this how rapid urbanisation is changing the land pie?

BARREN/ UNCULTURABLE/ WASTELANDS

12

FIRSTPOST.

1,19,946.9

SWAMP / 5,172.9 MANGROVES 5,293.1

BUILT-UP

SNOW & GLACIER

BUILT-UP

1,02,113.6 84,107.9

1,07,958.7

SNOW & GLACIER

63,953.6

Note: 1. Totals may not match due to rounding off. * Farmland = Crop Land + Current Shifting Cultivation + Plantation Source: Ministry of Statistics

A Twist in the e-Tail The Modi government’s move to ban online retail giants like Amazon and Flipkart from sourcing more than 25 per cent of their inventory from a single vendor and striking exclusive deals is all about 70 million votes

or retailers across India, December is the month it snows rebate-led sales. Most traders destock—clearing up inventory piles—during the yearend as part of a New Year’s bonanza that usually features 10-30 per cent discounts. The yearend gone by and the January that came right after have seemed like every other as salesmen rode the winter shopping mood, pitching deals on mobile phones, wristwatches, TVs, washing machines, air conditioners, refrigerators, jeans, apparel and shoes even as the calendar on the wall changed.

And the great Indian new year haggle continues.

Almost every shopper is greeted with a blackboard scribbled with chalky boasts of price markdowns.

But don’t let that image mislead you. The sales spiel really masks deep anxiety among traders about their future in the retail districts nationwide.

They’re anxious because the rules of the game are changing, and their businesses are on the line.

In the last week of December, the government came out with a new set of rules for ecommerce companies in order to break what it believes are growing partisan relationships that online giants such as Amazon and Flipkart have struck with select vendors through exclusive contracts.

Among other things, the new rules—which kick in from February 1—do not allow online retailers to offer cashback schemes to lure customers.

Exclusive deals to promote brands through flash or festive season sales will also come under scrutiny. According to the new rules, a vendor will not be permitted to sell more than 25 per cent of its products on an online platform of a single e-marketplace firm, effectively eliminating the possibility of exclusive pacts.

For instance, a company such as Xiaomi won’t be able to sell its Mi phones exclusively on Flipkart. This has been a popular practice over the last few years that most mobile phone companies have been adopting to push their new launches.

Flipkart, for instance, has exclusive partnerships with top smartphone brands. This is like a queue of vehicles at a highway toll booth and some getting preference to jump the line and zoom ahead just because the road-builder has a special arrangement with the vehicle’s owner.

But this is not just about smartphones.

Such deals have been dealing deadly blows to apparel and home furnishing traders from Bhilwara (Rajasthan) to Bhubaneshwar (Odisha).

Smartphones and electronic products contribute about 50 per cent to overall ecommerce sales in India followed by fashion and apparel (about 30 per cent) and home furnishings (about 9 per cent).

It’s also about the future. Customers are only beginning to warm up to the convenience and the attraction of rebates and cashbacks on online grocery shopping. This, local retailers fear, could

INCREASING SHARE OF ECOMMERCE

 GETTYIMAGE

F

GAURAV CHOUDHURY

MARKET SIZE GR CA % 9

.0 20

$200 Billion

$64 Billion

$38.5 Billion 2017

2020

2026

THE ECOMMERCE market in India is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.09 per cent from $ 39 billion in the end of 2017 to $200 billion by 2026.

SECTOR-WISE COMPOSITION 8% Baby, beauty and personal care

3% Books 3% Others

9%

Home and furnishing

48%

Electronics

29%

Apparels

THERE ARE 1-1.2 million transactions per day in ecommerce retailing.

potentially stab the heart of India’s retail ecosystem—the neighbourhood kirana stores. “It always easier when the milk and daily household provisions are dropped at home early in the morning.

I don’t have to call up the local grocer or make a dash to the shop in the morning to buy fresh stuff,” said Sangeeta Bhattacharyya, a Noida resident.

The pinch is hurting local traders, many of who are now beginning to offer discounts to bring back

footfalls. Time was when neighbourhood kirana stores were like the one-stop shop, which would organise almost every household provision at a phone call. Most kirana stores still have their set of loyal customers who place orders by the bulk at the beginning of the month, but there is a sense of nervousness about the what future beholds.

“We cannot offer the level of discounts that online grocery stores are offering. They have direct deals with the brands and the manufacturers.

We are now forced to offer discounts by cutting our own margins,” said Mukesh Kumar, who owns a general provisions store in Patparganj area of east Delhi.

Local traders are buffeted by three constraints: high rental costs, lack of scalability because their area remains limited to a particular neighbourhood and the absence of abundant financial muscle to offer heavy discounts to match ecommerce giants who have deep pockets.

Online delivery stores such as Milkbasket and Bigbasket have national operations. The sheer scale makes the average unit cost of delivery far lower than an offline trader. For instance, a neighbourhood kirana store’s employee will likely cycle down to deliver a litre of milk to a customer, but an online counterpart will aggregate the delivery time of several such customers in a concentrated area, enabling it to spread the carriage cost among several patrons.

“More than discounts, it is the convenience of getting fresh things delivered at home much before the local grocer has opened shop that makes life much easier”, said Bhattacharyya.

The latest policy tweak is an attempt at establishing vendor neutrality, an objective that has political as well as economic outlines. Every retail store shut, so the argument goes, means jobs lost, eroding earnings of families.

For the government and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been conventionally seen to enjoy wholesome support of the trading community, to the extent that it is often described as a party of ‘banias’, the issue concerns more than jobs or stores getting shut.

It is also about votes—and 70 million of them.

The new rules’ announcement, and timing of implementation are crucial. The decision came barely two weeks after the Assembly elections, where the BJP lost the three politically important heartland states—Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan—to the Congress.

Insiders say that the policy change was based on feedback from the BJP’s ground-level workers

Major chunk of seven crore traders will not vote for them [BJP] because any extension or change in the policy will run against the genuine interest of small traders PRAVEEN KHANDELWAL

Secretary general, CAIT

5%

WILL BE THE GROWTH IN ONLINE RETAIL FROM 2017 TO 2020

along with a deep analysis of the election results, particularly Rajasthan, where the trading community accounts for a large vote bloc.

At a statewide level, voting patterns threw up interesting trends. NOTA (None of the Above) polled 4,67,781 votes accounting for 1.3 per cent of the total. If NOTA were a party, it would have stood sixth in the number of votes cast in its favour, much ahead of established political outfits such as CPM, Nationalist Congress Party and Samajwadi Party among others.

There were 14 Assembly constituencies in Rajasthan, including in some predominantly trading hubs across Bhilwara and Jaipur, where the victory margin were less than the votes polled for NOTA. The reading appears to be that the large number of NOTA votes were actually that of traders, most of who are believed to be traditional BJP supporters, who wanted a message to be conveyed that they needed the government to recognise the problem that was imperiling livelihoods.

The view from the market was clear. The transnational online retail giants were rewriting the rules of the game leaving out tens of hundreds of vendors while hawking products of only a few directly to consumers at a price that a local garment or home furnishing producer cannot even imagine to match.

“Home furnishings is an area where the impact has been felt the most. Footfalls in our stores have fallen sharply in the last few years with most customers preferring to shop online. If I had a tie-up with Amazon or Flipkart, I too could have been part of this universe,” said the owner of a home furnishing store in Lajpat Nagar who sources a products from Bhilwara and Jaipur. He did not wish to be identified.

Over the past several months, traders have been complaining that they were being pushed out of business. The new rules appear to be the Narendra Modi government’s way of demonstrating its intent to walk the talk in their support.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), led by Praveen Khandelwal, a BJP leader who contested from Chandni Chowk in the Delhi Assembly elections in the past, has led a no-holdsbarred campaign against the foreign-funded ecommerce players. CAIT has, in fact, demanded that commerce players should be asked to furnish certificates about their compliance with foreign direct investment norms every fiscal.

Flipkart and Amazon are now lobbying to get the deadline for the new rules extended beyond February 1 giving them enough time to refit the operational contours. While Amazon has asked for time till June, Walmart-controlled Flipkart has sought six more months arguing that the new regulation requires extensive overhauling of their business models.

Local traders, clearly, see this lobbying as an attempt to hoodwink the government into further worsening the prospects of offline retailers.

Khandelwal did not mince any words. Any easing on the deadline or the new rules would mean that a loss of 70 million votes for the BJP. “Major chunk of seven crore (70 million) traders will not vote for them [the BJP] because any extension or any change in the policy will run against the genuine interest of small traders,” Khandelwal said.

The Swadeshi Jagran Manch, an affiliate of the BJP’s ideological fount Rashtriya Sawyamsevak Sangh, has been pressing for a clampdown has on the “predatory behaviour” of ecommerce giants. A marketplace is meant to get buyers and sellers together. The latest policy is predicated on the view that online marketplace were only bringing some sellers to the square.

“We will be compelled to launch an agitation if the government doesn’t listen to us,” Khandelwal further said.

The $40-billion online commerce industry is still a fraction of India’s $700-billion offline retail sector. It may still take a few years for the pie to decisively tilt online. The die, however, seems to be cast. At stake are 70 million votes.

And a billion consumers.

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

FIRSTPOST.

Eye of the Storm

“It is an appropriation of a tribal practice. The tribal cults have been absorbed into a Brahmanical framework”

The murder of a black magician

JAIRAM PODUVAL

PROFESSOR, MAHARAJA SAYAJIRAO UNIVERSITY

“Some of his prayers worked and people started coming” SASI PK

KRISHNANKUTTY’S NEIGHBOUR

THE KILLING exposes a deep vein of blind faith and violence that runs through India’s most forward-looking state, which prides itself in its high-90s literacy rate and gender ratio

I

by his Master.

Three years into his apprenticeship, Aneesh t was pouring that morning but the storm convinced himself that killing his Master would clouds went unnoticed by the villagers make him heir to the powers Krishnankutty had who gathered in the backyard of a small harnessed from “300 goddesses”— as well as his house to watch the Kerala Police’s fowealthy customers. rensics squad dig up the soft, wet earth.

Libeesh, a friend of Aneesh who ran a local Teenaged Arjun’s body was the first to motorcycle-repair workshop, was willing to join emerge, then came his older sister, Arsha, the plot. Police say he was promised the gold Krand mother, Susheela. The family patriishnankutty had hidden in the house.

The killings, on July 29, 2018, were savage—but arch, Krishnankutty, was at the bottom, his legs incomplete. When the two men returned the next bent to accommodate his frame in the ditch he night, they found Arjun alive, propped up against had dug to compost goat droppings. a wall. “Aneesh pulled out a hammer from the In the six months since the murders at Kambakakkanam village in Idukki, police have pieced house and smashed Arjun’s head, killing him,” together the bizarre story that culminated in the says KP Jose, deputy superintendent of police, bloodshed: a sorcerer’s brew of fear and greed.

Thodupuzha.

Later that night, Aneesh pierced his thumb with Just as people were coming to terms with the a pin and let the blood drip into a bowl. The ritual murders, Kerala was to see another round of ugwas meant to ensure the police would not catch liness and violence in the name of faith after the him. “By the eighth day, we caught him,” says Jose.

Supreme Court allowed women of all ages into the revered Sabarimala temple. Many have quesIronically, Krishnankutty had failed to foresee tioned the anger over the entry of women into a his own violent end. temple in a state considered among India’s most § Police investigating Krishnankutty’s customers forward-looking. were surprised at the spread of his business. His There are more such aberrations.

National Crime Records Bureau data shows that customers included everyone — students, houseKerala has one of the lowest murder rates in the wives, businessmen and politicians. The faithful country but the highest rate of came from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and political murders —eight times Andhra Pradesh, drawn by his formidable repthat of Uttar Pradesh and five utation. “How will we live now?” cried Geetha, times that of Bihar, two states a client, when she was told about the murders. with notorious crime records.

Krishnankutty had predicted how and when her KERALA HAS one of the The coastal state has been the estranged husband would come back to her. lowest murder rates largest contributor of jihadists He got that one right. in the country but the to Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

Unlettered, Krishnankutty was one of nine sibhighest rate of political lings. About a decade ago, he left cattle rearing and Maoists and extreme Hindu murders put all his energies into practising black magic. nationalists are growing in The village was sceptical of the sorcerer in its numbers. midst. But the black magician of KambakakkanBeneath the glossy, God’sam soon became something of a rock star. “By Own-Country marketing imSABARIMALA is the age, there’s a deep vein of blind fluke, some of his prayers worked well and peostate’s latest faith faith that perhaps also explains ple started coming to him,” Sasi PK, one of his flashpoint the Kambakakkanam murders neighbours, says. and the anger over the Supreme Krishnankutty’s murder has not dented faith in Court’s Sabarimala order. the gods he worshipped or their agents on earth.

About 100km away in the neighbouring Thrissur § THE MURDERS of district, dozens of black-magic temples thrive in No one in Kambakakkanam Krishnankutty and his Peringottukara village, a study in India’s bizarre admits to being close to the family again underscore collision between faith and consumerism.

52-year-old Krishnankutty. how blind faith and The Devasthanam is one such temple. The Some even warned their chilviolence run closely in dren to keep away from 17-yearyoungest of the three brothers who own the shrine the southern state old Arjun, who had intellecturuns a cinema hall next door, where latest Malayal disability, and college-going alam films are screened.

Arsha, five years his senior.

Pure entrepreneurialism meets shamanism efWithin the walls of the neatly painted house, neighfortlessly at the Devasthanam. Those who want bours told Firstpost, Krishnankutty would gaze at a solutions from Chatan, the diminutive demon god bowlofuncookedricetotellfortunes.Hewouldforetell worshipped there, must register their name in great perils and, for anywhere between `2,000 the temple office to be called before the priest.

The price of a personal prayer is `20,000, a hen and `200,000, ways to ward them off. and a bottle of booze—brand no bar.

There is reason to believe that Krishnankutty For centuries, Idukki’s tribes practised the shafeared violence. In each corner of the house, he manic rituals from which Chatan temple practichad weapons: a sword hung in the corner of the es are drawn. “It is an appropriation of a tribal main room and behind the bed was a hammer.

Perhaps the only person Krishnankutty trusted practice,” explains Jairam Poduval, a professor was his 30-year-old apprentice, Aneesh. Living of arts, history and aesthetics at Maharaja in a one-room annexe to the KrishnankutSayajirao University in Vadodara. “The ty home, Aneesh was sometimes given tribal cults have been absorbed into charge of sacrificing chickens—one a Brahmanical framework.” of the many rituals performed for Poduval says the reason for Chatan’s popularity is that wishthe clients. es can be fulfilled by paying cash.

But, unknown to Krishnankuto `20,000: The Chatan’s favours are open to all, tty, Aneesh was in the grip of his price Krishnankutty own dark gods. Another black-arts irrespective of caste, gender or charged for providpractitioner, investigators say, told religion, as long as they can pay. ing solutions Aneesh that his ascent to becoming Udayakumar Pushkar, a rationa full-blown priest was being held back alist from Thrissur, says simple deSONAL MATHARU

quick read

` 2k

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TEMPLE RITUAL Kerala abounds in ancient practices that seem to sit alongside the state’s modern visage with little friction

mand-and-supply led to mushrooming of the Peringottukara temples. “Anyone who worked at a temple and understood how Chatan prayers are done could start their own,” he notes.

In a society beset with pressures of modernisation — unemployment, strain of inter-caste and inter-religious ties and a growing burden of psychiatric illnesses —the temples step in where civic institutions lack. “Lots of people go to these temples in search of solutions to problems like depression,” Poduval says.

“Anyone who worked at a temple and understood Chatan prayers could start their own” UDAYAKUMAR PUSHKAR

RATIONALIST

14

FIRSTPOST.

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

Global Theatre

 GETTYIMAGES

TRIBAL UPRISING Bugti guerrillas take shelter from a Pakistani mortar attack in Dera Bugti, Balochistan, on January 24, 2006 . The Bugti and Marri tribes began a revolt against the Pakistan government in December 2005

Baloch movement stilled by lack of leadership, strategy FRANCESCA MARINO

Lack of a popular face, an elite that has failed to provide leadership and Chinese pressure have defanged the Baloch secessionist movement

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he attack was spectacular — and a dismal failure. On November 23, three Balochistan Liberation Army terrorists, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and explosives, parked along E-Street in Karachi and walked down the upmarket neighbourhood. One threw a grenade at the police picket outside the Chinese consulate. The attackers — Abdur Razzaq, Azal Khan and Raees Baloch — were cut down within minutes, before they could use the munitions and supplies they carried in anticipation of a drawn-out siege.

Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. A suicide vest worn by one of the men failed to detonate. The team had failed to identify weak points in the consulate’s defences. The people they succeeded in killing were two police officers and two civilians standing outside the consulate to apply for visas.

Intended to signal that the Baloch insurgency could still bite, the attack served instead as a demonstration that the teeth were blunted — perhaps even rotten. A few days later, even the mastermind of the attack, Aslam Achoo, was killed in a suicide attack, believed to have been organised by the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s premier security agency.

Three years ago, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech extended an unprecedented declaration of support for secessionist movements in Pakistan. “I want to heartily thank the people of Balochistan, people of Gilgit, people of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir for having an expression of thankfulness,” he said from the ramparts of the Red Fort. The reference to “thankfulness” was an allusion to Indian aid for their cause. His speech lauded their “citizens”— another pointed phrase — for “the way they have acknowledged me, the goodwill they have shown towards me”.

New Delhi is rumoured to have escalated its aid to Baloch separatists since Modi took office. Indeed, Islamabad claims.

The important lesson drawn from the BLA’s recent botched moves is that armed action can achieve very little if it is not part of a coherent, well-crafted political strategy.

Key to the Baloch strategy is inflicting pain on Beijing’s dramatic push into Balochistan, where it is building a stra-

tegic port at Gwadar, a host of mining projects and a network of roads linking Pakistan to China. That, Baloch strategists believe, will compel Islamabad to pay attention. Last August, the BLA blew up a bus transporting staff of the Saindak Copper Gold Project in Dalbandin, near the Iran-Pakistan border, injuring three Chinese engineers.

DEPLETING RANKS, GENERATIONAL SHIFT

Though the attack silenced those asserting the BLA was cold in its grave, the fact remains it is the last man standing in a seven-decade-old struggle against Pakistan government. Though its exact strength is not known, analysts believe the BLA now numbers several hundred fighters based out of the rugged Afghanistan-Balochistan borderlands. The group is the only one to survive out of the many that once operated in the region — the Balochistan Republican Army, the

The killing marked the birth of a new kind of revolt; a turning point in the history of the Baloch insurgency. The older insurgent groups, led by tribal leaders, were joined by a new youth cohort, often from backgrounds with no status in the traditional tribal system. A new generation of educated youth from established families appeared. Socially active and concerned with human rights, they were enraged at the exploitation of local resources and the ferocious repression to which the region has been subjected to.

These youths grew up in the time of ‘The Terror’— General Musharraf’s savage campaign against Baloch insurgents — and their entire lives had been lived in the shadow of warfare. The new insurgents were no longer only from the families of the great tribal chiefs.

Some were middle class and had gone to school, some even to university. The sons of the old tribal leaders, as well as the region’s hereditary ruler, the Khan

With every ethnic group and tribe at each other’s throat, the only winner has been the Pakistan army that says Balochs are terrorists

FOOTSOLDIERS Guerrillas with Akbar Bugti, chief of the Bugti

tribe, at a camp in Balochistan on January 22, 2006 United Baloch Army, the Lashkar-i-Balochistan and the Balochistan Liberation United Front.

Islamabad claims that the BLA is led

by Hyrbyair Marri, the son of the late politician and insurgent leader Khair Bakhsh Marri, who has lived in London for many years now. Marri denies any connection to the BLA. The ongoing wave of insurgency was born at the beginning of the past decade and spiralled after the death of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a prominent tribal politician-turned-insurgent who was killed by President Pervez Musharraf’s troops in 2006.

of Khalat, were forced to escape and live abroad in exile.

REVOLUTION IS DEAD

For Baloch politics, these developments were seismic.

Once respected hierarchies, customs, norms and values that bound the fabric of political life, were no longer valid, at least not for everybody.

Leaders of the insurgency’s other great strain, Marxism, were also marginalised. The ideology itself died across the world and many of its leading exponents passed on. Put simply, the fathers of the Baloch revolution are dead — and

there are no ideologies or ideologists to succeed them.

In the place of the old order, an ethnic-chauvinist, even xenophobic, armed revolt began to emerge. The new revolt is directed not only at the military but also at the so-called ‘settlers’ from other regions, mainly ethnic-Punjabis. It is also a revolt against the Chinese presence that has expanded with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which many in Balochistan see as a colonial project.

The efforts of the new generation of tribal leaders based in Switzerland and the United Kingdom — Hyrbyair Marri and Mehran Marri, Brahumdagh Bugti and the Khan of Kalat Mir Suleman Ahmedzai — are focussed on raising awareness about the human rights situation in Balochistan, where extrajudicial killings and illegal detentions are rampant.

“At the moment,” a prominent Baloch activist says, “we can divide the people who want a Free Balochistan in two parts: one are the activists and groups who are organising peaceful rallies and talking internationally about the Baloch plight. The second is a small part, these are little groups which believe that the pain they faced because of Pakistan’s atrocities could only be healed by violent means.” Pakistan has responded to this campaign by trying to define the Baloch movement as a group of terrorists ready to target not only military but also innocent people.

For some Baloch activists, the attacks against the so-called “settlers” and other ethnic groups are not the work of Baloch nationalists at all but an example of the old Roman “divide and rule”: setting the people of the region against one another.

It is not easy to judge the legitimacy of these claims but the fact is Balochistan has descended into a Hobbesian state of nature — with every ethnic group and tribe at each other’s throat. The only winner has been the Pakistan army.

In exile, the Baloch élite has proved singularly ineffective at framing a common strategy and liaising among themselves as well as the leaders on the ground. The lack of a single leader, recognised at least by a wide majority as the official Baloch representative, negatively impacts any kind of action at world stage and on the ground.

For Pakistan, it has become easier to maintain that there is no civil war in Balochistan, that the rebels are merely a handful of troublemakers.

The Baloch leadership’s problems have been compounded by sustained pressure on European governments by Beijing to deny them space to mobilise.

In 2017, Brahumdagh Bugti and his lieutenants Sher Muhammad Bugti and Azizullah Bugti were reported to have sought Indian citizenship.

Brahumdagh Buti fled to Afghanistan and lived there from 2006 to 2010 with Indian assistance before leaving for Switzerland with his family.

India, though, has wisely chosen not to endorse Bugti’s citizenship bid, understanding that it will delegitimise the Baloch struggle in the eyes of ordinary Pakistanis.Nobody can predict what will happen in the coming years or even months. In Balochistan, there have been too many players in the game: the State, the tribal leaders, the ‘enforcers’ employed by intelligence services, the armed forces and the Chinese.

Then, there are the jihadist Taliban brought into the region by the army as proxies, ethnic Pashtuns who are revolting against Islamabad and various local terrorist groups regarded as strategic assets by Pakistan. Balochistan is of fundamental strategic and geo-political importance not only to Islamabad and to the Chinese CPEC project but to the many other players in the region.

Baloch leaders should keep in mind that for all the players dealing with a single referent, even an ugly one like Islamabad, is easier than dealing with a handful of tribal leaders or political parties.

The author is a journalist and South Asia expert who has written Apocalypse Pakistan along with B Natale

The face of revolt HYRBYAIR MARRI

AKBAR BUGTI

MEHRAN MARRI

Marri, the son of late politician and insurgent leader Khan Bakhsh Marri, is believed to be the leader of the Balochistan Liberation Army.

However, he denies any connection to the outfit.

Marri has lived in London for many years now.

Bugti, a tribal politician-turned-insurgent, was killed when Pervez Musharraf was the Pakistani President in 2006. The ongoing wave of Baloch insurgency spiralled after his death. He headed the Bugti tribe of Baloch people.

Hyrbyair’s brother Mehran—who also stays in London —and other leaders like Brahumdagh Bugti, who resides in Switzerland, are raising awareness at international level about the human rights situation in Balochistan.

Odd World SALES SHOCK

Chinese firm’s all-women staff miss target, made to crawl

Representational image

Think India needs to learn from China? Images surfaced this month of workers in the Chinese city of Zaozhuang being forced to crawl on all fours as punishment for failing to meet productivity targets. The employees, all women, are reported to be working for a cosmetics firm.

Last year, employees at a home improvement firm in Zunyi, Guizhou province, were forced to drink urine and eat insects after failing to reach their targets.

FASHION STATEMENT

Dressed for the occasion: Meet war-torn Syria’s ‘yellow man’

Yellow suit, yellow neckties, yellow shirts, yellow underwear, socks, slippers and glasses: one man in the middle of one of the world’s most brutal wars has chosen to make a dramatic last stand. Even as tens of thousands of refugees have fled Syria, and thousands more have been killed, 68-year-old Abu Zakkour has chosen to keep wearing the unique attire he first donned in 1983. “For me, yellow represents love,” Zakkour said.

GLASS HALF FULL

Pastor’s version of the Father, the Son, and the Holy ‘Spirit’

For years, Thomas Eschenbacher, a pastor in the German town of Hammelburg, has been struggling with the question of how to draw people in a mainly-atheist society to god. He thinks he’s finally found a solution: whiskey.

Hammelburg noted that starting a conversation on tricky theological issues became that much easier over a drink. The result: a “whisky retreat” for men. The available spots are sold out.

VIRTUOSITY

She is Japan’s hottest new model but she’s just not real

Luscious lips, flawless skin, perfect pink hair: Imma — Japan’s hottest new fashion model — has gathered thousands of followers on Instagram since her images went viral over the New Year.

Imma doesn’t exist. She is, in fact, just zeros-and-ones, computer-generated by Tokyo-based Modelling Café. Imma isn’t the first: Lil Miquela, who advertised for Prada, and Shudu, who promoted Fenty lipsticks have that distinction. But Imma has taken the realism to a new—for some, disturbing—level.

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

FIRSTPOST.

First Person

15

RUBY PHUGAT YADAV

THE ‘GOLDEN’ GIRL IN BJP

Politics is ‘nasha’ and Ruby Phugat is high on it pinned as Ruby Yadav’s BJP Office on Google maps, which is also how she directs first-time visitors.

THE CROWN AFFAIR

EXCLUSIVE

Thirty-eight-year-old Phugat, who has several beauty titles to her credit and is now a member of the executive committee of the BJP’s Delhi wing, says it is easy to let power go to your head in politics but one has to be professional

I

NIKITA DOVAL

It’s the golden-blonde hair that first catches your eye, in fact, it has become something of a calling card for 38-year-old Ruby Phugat Yadav. “People sometimes refer to me as ‘woh sunhere baalon waali madam (the madam with golden hair)’. Once I tried hazel but everyone disliked it so much that I had to change it in two days.”

Phugat is a member of the executive committee of the Delhi state BJP but has many other claims to fame. Chief among these are her beauty titles — Mrs India Queen 2013 and Mrs Universe — West Asia 2015. In her long list of achievements is also an award for ‘world peace’ from the ‘International Human Rights and Peace Union’.

If you live in Delhi or the neighbouring areas, together known as the National Capital Region (NCR), chances are you would have come across Phugat’s billboards, especially near IGI airport.

Showing her draped in bright sarees with a BJP sash, the golden hair ever prominent, the billboards don’t say what she does but do generate curiosity. A new breed of politician for the people’s republic.

As far as politics goes, Phugat is a novice. Her journey started only in 2014 when she contested the Lok Sabha election as an independent candidate from South Delhi. She finished last but managed five per cent — a little over 56,000 — of the vote.

“I have never done anything on a small scale.

People spend years building up a career that leads to a Lok Sabha election but I covered 20-year gap in just one leap,” she says from her well-appointed office in Rajokri, an urban village that straddles Delhi and Gurgaon. Interestingly,the office is

It is not easy to pigeonhole Phugat in any category of political aspirants in the country. She is a Jat woman, married into another community (her husband is a Yadav) with a rather pronounced taste in clothes and jewellery.

She acknowledges the deep-rooted patriarchy in both her communities but after jettisoning her ambitions — Phugat wanted to be a beauty contestant in her 20s — she wants to seize the day now.

It all began when she was crowned Mrs India Queen 2013. The space for beauty pageants for married women in India seems to be crowded, with several contests, each with a grand title like Mrs India Earth, Queen of Substance, or simply Mrs India.“The crown made me feel that I had everything I wanted, so naturally then I wanted more.” She doesn’t have a coherent explanation for why politics, except for the burning desire to do “something big”.

Rajokri is one of the 135 urban villages in the NCR, flanked by farmhouses and barely two kilometres from the busy National Highway 8. The expansion of IGI airport and emergence of Gurgaon as a technology hub turned humble farmers into millionaires as land prices soared.

Most urban villages in NCR started out as Jatand Gujjar-dominated zones, followed by Yadavs in the pecking order. Rajokri is no different, with Phugat’s husband’s family — Yadavs — holding sway here. In fact she kickstarted her Lok Sabha campaign with a panchayat in Rajokri.

Phugat is well aware of how Indian politics tends to slot women candidates in the beti-bahu (daughter and daughter-in-law) category, and plays on it.

“Main Jaaton ki beti hun, Ahiron ki bahu hoon, (I am a Jat daughter but married into the Ahir community). I understand not just their concerns as a community but also the challenges of daily life.

I spend my own money in clusters like Sangam Vihar and Neb Sarai. I meet people every day, carry their complaints to the office. In politics, it is easy to let power go to your head but one has to be professional.”

The term ‘urban village’ was first used in the Delhi Masterplan of 1962. It referred to villages outside the walled city, scattered all across the region we know today as Delhi. As agricultural land shrank, some villages were shifted while others remained on the frontlines of the battle against a fast-encroaching city. Delays in notification and lack of understanding of construction rules under the Delhi Masterplan 2021 have left these villages with unplanned and unrestricted growth of both residential and commercial establishments. Rent from these establishments is the primary source of income for most families; there is no pressing need for the men to go out and seek jobs.

BREAKING THE MOULD

For deeply patriarchal and traditional communities where masculinity was often defined through physical labour in the field, the loss of agricultural land combined with indolence due to availability of easy cash has led to a deep crisis that

impacts the lives of women.

In a 2013 paper called ‘First Our Fields, Now Our Women: Gender Politics in Delhi’s Urban Villages in Transition’, sociologist Radhika Govinda takes the example of Delhi’s Shahpur Jat village, examines women’s efforts to push the boundaries.

While boys often drop out of school, girls exhibit desire, ambition and dreams often at odds with their community’s notions of womanhood.

Govinda interviewed young women who harboured dreams of going out and working while their brothers spent their days drinking and roaming around on motorcycles.

But this desire to push the envelope can have disastrous consequences if it crosses the boundaries of caste and self-determination as Monika Dagar discovered in 2010. A resident of Nistoli village near Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, Dagar was killed for marrying a man from another caste.

The two met online. “Be it in cities or in the villages, self-determination among women in the Jat community is a rare occurrence. People often praise the performance of Haryanvi girls in sports like wrestling but does anyone ever ask about our representation in other fields or even the private sector?” says activist Sangita Dahiya.

It is interesting to place Phugat’s ambitions in this context as, she herself admits, that her family is rooted in the “traditional Jat culture” though they are from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh.

Phugat’s ambitions seem to be supported and bolstered by her husband Vinay Yadav. A quiet, soft-spoken man who is always by his wife’s side, Yadav runs Apex Fleet Management Pvt Ltd, a company that “imports spare parts for luxury cars”. He comes from a family of “government servants” and admits that his first reaction to Phugat’s decision to contest elections was that she “had gone nuts”.

Phugat’s core team comprises her husband’s family but there are others who are opposed to her. “Not a rupee has been spent on the upkeep of our village. On the other hand, we have had to deal with sealing and loss of livelihood. Ruby is my nephew’s wife and she has political ambitions but that has not translated into any development here,” says Ranjeet Yadav, a Congress member.

Voting in urban villages, like those in rural areas, is often along caste lines but with an influx of migrants, priorities are changing. Today basic amenities like sanitation, sewage and drainage are core issues. The road leading to Phugat’s office in Rajokri is narrow and traffic jams are frequent.

There are open drains and piles of garbage even as one has to cross swanky showrooms and fancy resorts on the national highway to get here, the classic urban village syndrome.

“Our needs are very simple — bijli, sadak, paani (electricity, roads and water). Over the past two years the issue of sealing has become a big one as shops have shut and young men find themselves unemployed,” says Prem Singh Sehrawat, a resident and former pradhan of Rangpuri, an urban village close to Rajokri. Sherawat doesn’t buy Ruby’s claims of being invested in the area.

“She is neither a councillor, nor an MLA or an MP. Where is the power to do anything?” he says.

Opinion is divided on Ruby, who in the four years

“I have never done anything on a small scale. People spend years building up a career that leads to a Lok Sabha election but I covered a 20-year gap in just one leap”

“Young people like to take photographs with me that then become their DPs. I am very particular about how I look” RUBY PHUGAT YADAV

of her induction in the BJP has managed to make her presence felt in the South Delhi constituency.

Trilok Mehlawat of Kishangarh, a self-confessed Congress supporter, says Phugat works very hard but admits a part of the charm in the numerous beauty titles she holds.

It is difficult to pin down Phugat’s ideological leanings, though her office has all the trappings of a BJP politician. A cow statue occupies a prominent space on the left side of her office table.

There is the mandatory photograph with Prime Minister Narendra Modi from 2015, the only time she’s met him, she says with a trace of wistfulness. Phugat says she has always voted for the party as her paternal grandfather was a member of the Sangh but attempts to get her to open up on issues like nationalism and lynchings leads to a quick change of subject.

THE GOLD IS HERE TO STAY

Politics is an expensive game, especially when you are trying to establish yourself and it’s no different for Phugat. “Everything in politics is about money and Ruby is out there every day, spending her own money. What she lacks in power, she is trying to build through goodwill and that does not come cheap,” says Mehlawat.

By Phugat’s own admission she spends anywhere between `1.5 and 2 lakhs every month cultivating the clusters of South Delhi. Her Facebook and Twitter accounts are updated almost hourly with her visits to different places in South Delhi. The occasions range from inaugurating the office of a women’s group to meeting a visiting seer.

Not everyone is happy with Phugat’s presence in the party or the profile she cultivates but she persists. “Rajneeti bahut tough hai, himmat chahiye isme survive karne ke liye but mujhe dar nahi lagta (Politics is very tough. You need courage to survive but I am not afraid).”

She doesn’t shy away from saying that women get exploited all too easily in politics and one of her biggest fears is to be maligned. She was reportedly told to “tone down the lipstick and rethink the hair colour”, when she joined the party but is adamant she won’t change. “I am not just a politician. I hold titles. I also get invited to places in my capacity as a beauty queen. Young people like to take photographs with me that then become their DPs (display pics). I am very particular about how I look.”

A Delhi BJP member, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the general perception about Phugat in the party was that of a very ambitious woman, determined to get some place in a hurry. She is seen as someone who capitalises on her ‘titles’ to get media coverage and grab eyeballs but doesn’t really pose a threat to sitting MP Ramesh Bidhuri.

A few years ago, Phugat got an astrological reading from the Nadi School which believes that the past, present and future lives have already been foreseen and written. All Phugat is willing to disclose from that reading is that she was promised big things though the first step does seem to be the 2019 Lok Sabha election. But that alone is not the reason why she persists. “Politics is nasha.

Until 300-400 people say namaste to you and acknowledge you, you feel bereft. It’s a drug.”

16

FIRSTPOST.

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

Disruption POWERED BY

tech updates GENE EDITING

Scientists develop flu-resistant chickens to halt next pandemic

LIFE & TECHNOLOGY

In order to stop the next deadly human pandemic, British scientists are developing gene-edited chickens that are totally resistant to flu. According to Wendy Barclay — a professor of virology at Imperial College London, who is co-leading the project — the first of the transgenic chicks will be hatched later this year at the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. The birds’ DNA has been altered using a new gene editing technology known as CRISPR. In this case, the ‘edits’ remove parts of a protein on which the flu virus normally depends to multiply, making the chickens totally flu resistant.

SLAYING FAKE NEWS

WhatsApp goes global with limit on forwarded messages What was introduced in India in July 2018 — to restrain rumours and fake news — will now be extended to the rest of the world. Messaging application WhatsApp will now globally limit message forwards to five chats at a time.

In a statement, WhatsApp said the move will help keep the Facebook-owned entity “focused on private messaging with close contacts.”

“WhatsApp carefully evaluated this test and listened to user feedback over a six-month period. The forward limit significantly reduced forwarded messages around the world,” a company statement read.

VIRTUAL APPEAL

 IMAGING SHATAKSHI

Fancy a roach-milk shake?

Facebook brings in new feature to create online petitions

NEXT SUPERFOOD? Cockroach protein could bring about a revolution by joining the fight against nutritional deficiencies and disorders

SANCHARI BANERJEE

T

hink milk, and you could soon be thinking of a brand-new ‘superfood’ — cockroach milk.

What, exactly, is cockroach milk? It is a highly nutritious protein with non-lactose sugars and fats as its other components.

This protein serves as complete food for little cockroach embryos growing inside their mother. A key feature of this milk protein is its ability to crystallize inside the embryos.

Ninety per cent of proteins in an organism exist in liquid state, which helps in cell activity. Crystallization of proteins inside any organism is usually associated with disease conditions — evolution exerts negative natural selection pressure on proteins for crystallization.

A small group of proteins like the cockroach milk protein are, however, favoured by evolution for crystallizing inside an organism. This occurs since the proteins carry out biological functions in an organism only in their crystalline form.

This cockroach protein could well be the stuff of nutritional revolution. Making it widely available

could strengthen the fight against nutritional deficiencies and disorders. In additional to its high calorific value, roach milk’s property to crystallize on its own gives it a longer shelf life. Athletes, for instance, will be able to derive more energy over a longer period of time due to the crystalline nature of these proteins.

The protein can have equally useful benefits as part of a fortified food or even as food for astronauts.

THE EVOLUTION OF NUTRITION

Cockroaches have survived — and evolved — for the past 320 million years, making them one of the most successful stories in evolution.

They present a very strong example of the inter-relationship of evolution, adaptive survival strategies and successful continuity of the species.

One of the methods by which cockroaches achieve this is by adopting different reproductive strategies.

Some cockroach species lay eggs while pregnant females in other species carry the eggs for physical support until they hatch. In both cases, the egg yolk is the sole form of nourishment for the embryos.

In a third type, the eggs are deposited in birth sacs of pregnant females, similar to the uterus in humans. In this species, the cockroach mother provides both physical support and nourishment to

1 CELLPHONE PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS

embryos. Also known as viviparity, this is a highly-evolved condition in cockroaches. And only one species of cockroach — the Pacific beetle cockroach — is known to reproduce through viviparity, a feature that increases the chances of survival of the offspring due to increased availability of nutrition and reduced chances of predation.

The Pacific beetle cockroach is found in Fiji and Hawaii. Pregnant mothers provide nutrition to their babies by feeding them with milk proteins. This milk serves as their complete food.

After fertilisation, embryos depend on the egg yolk for their initial nutrition. This enables them to form muscles around their mouth,and allows them to swallow food. The embryos then use these muscles to drink the milk secreted by pregnant females into the birth sac.

This process starts during pregnancy and goes on until the birth of the young ones. As the amount of milk increases inside the gut — or the gastrointestinal tract — of the embryos, the excess amount starts crystallizing naturally for storage as protein. As the milk is used up, the protein crystals slowly dissolve to be available as liquid for nutrition.

SUPERFOOD OF THE FUTURE?

Researchers have isolated naturally

DOCUMENT DISCREETLY It’s tricky to blend into the background when you use a D-SLR. With your smartphone you won’t look out of place. If you’re into street or documentary photography, you can capture great shots by using your phone.

2

RESEARCH HAS indicated that cockroach milk has about three to four times more protein than cow, buffalo or even goat milk

320 MILLION YEARS OF EVOLUTION HAVE GIVEN COCKROACHES ADAPTIVE SURVIVAL STRATEGIES AND SUCCESSFUL CONTINUITY OF THE SPECIES

RIGHT ACCESSORIES There is a range of accessories for your smartphones. If you’re into macro photography, invest in a mobile macro lens, For landscape lovers, a wide angle lens will work.

LED light panels can come handy for portrait shoots.

3

occurring milk protein crystals from the gut of the developing cockroach embryos and analysed them.

These microscopic crystals are studied by mass spectrometry and X-ray crystallography.

The unique physiological property of the milk proteins is their high calorific value. For instance, a single milk protein crystal has an energy value of 3.7 x 105 Joules, which is three to four times that of cow, buffalo or goat milk. Due to this high-energy food provided by the mother, the babies take about one-third of the time that other cockroach species take to reach sexual maturity.

Further, secretion of the milk protein during pregnancy results in about nine times greater protein content in the viviparous species compared with the other species.

These results indicate that the quality and quantity of food greatly affect the viability of the embryos, and the subsequent birth of the baby cockroaches.

If cockroach milk can actually be made into a next-generation food, the future could easily see two-minute noodles being replaced by two-minute energy-packed superfoods. Think roachshakes!

Sanchari Banerjee is post-doctoral researcher with interest in protein crystallography.

RIGHT LIGHT Light is the key to bringing your image to life. Consider its direction and strength, and what it brings to the story. The glow of golden light, a cold-blue morning or harsh midday shadows, each affect the mood of the story.

4

EDITING SNAPS Use Snapseed app (iOS and Android) for quick edits, and Affinity Photo on the iPad Pro for more detailed work.

Both have a facility to develop raw files, where you can adjust exposure and white balance among other things.

Facebook is launching a News Feed petition feature called Community Actions, which will basically let users request local authorities, national officials and government agencies take action-on-requests from their local community, provided there is enough traction or support for these demands. The idea is to allow people to register demands on the platform, which other people can see, share and “support” (which will, apparently, be a dedicated button).

NANO-MEDICINE

Scientists develop microbots to carry drugs in the body

A tiny sliver of elastic material swims along inside a narrow tube, coiling and changing shape in response to the thickness of fluid and the contours of the tube around it, as it moves towards its goal. The miniature robot — the bacteria-inspired brainchild of a team of scientists in Switzerland, seeking new methods to deliver drugs to diseased tissue — is designed to wend its way through blood vessels and other systems in the body. The robots are made from hydrogel nanocomposites that contain magnetic particles, and their movement can be guided with a magnetic controller.

5

SHARE INSTANTLY Share your images to reach a large audience through photo sharing apps and sites.

Instagram is one of the biggest, and the most popular of platforms. Also check out Flickr, DeviantArt, and 500px to get started.

Arts SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

17

Events Calender MUSIC

CULTURE

WORKSHOP

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Sula Fest Arth

& CULTURE

Ananga-Ranga: The ancient roots of #MeToo rage SYED MUBIN ZEHRA

THE PURSUIT of pleasure, in the Ananga Ranga, involves the subjugation of women for the pleasure of men

“A

woman who was burning with love and could find none to satisfy her inordinate desires, threw off her clothes and swore she would wander the world naked till she met with her match. In this condition, she entered the levee-hall of the Rajah upon whom Koka Pandit was attending. When asked if she were not ashamed of herself, the woman looked insolently at the crowd of courtiers around her and scornfully declared that there was not a man in the room.

“The King and his company were sore abashed. But the sage joining his hands, applied with due humility for royal permission to tame the shrew.”

“He then led her home and worked so persuasively that whole night fainting from fatigue and from repeated orgasms she cried for quarter. Thereupon the virile Pandit inserted gold pins into her arms and legs, and, leading her before his Rajah, made her confess her defeat and solemnly veil herself in the presence”.

The Ananga Ranga — Stage of Love — was written by Kalyana Malla, sometime in the 1400s or 1500s. The poet wrote the work in honour of Lad Khan, the son of Ahmed Khan Lodi. Translated into English in 1885 by the traveller and scholar Richard Francis Burton — and burned, it is believed, by his wife Isabel Burton in the weeks after his death — it is often compared with the Kama Sutra.

Frank, guilt-free sex is one great legacy of Indian tradition: sensual pleasure, addressed with poetry, wisdom and humour, is seen as an ecstatic expression of life’s possibilities. But this is also a tradition that imprisons.

The Ananga Ranga, and similar works, are not simply sex manuals.

They represent particular ideologies about gender. The pursuit of pleasure, in the Ananga Ranga, in-

volves the subjugation of women for the pleasure of men — a story that haunts us today, as the #MeToo movement unfolds.

First published in the 1400s, and into Arabic and Hindustani as the Lazzat al-Nisa — ‘The Pleasures of Women’— the Ananga Ranga travelled well over the centuries, appearing in Persian and even Turkish. Its stated intent is to protect the institution of monogamy.

“Great and powerful monarchs have ruined themselves and their realms by their desire to enjoy the wives of others,” it warns. “Let none, therefore, attempt adultery even in their thoughts.”

Kalyana Malla, the author of the Ananga Ranga, is an obscure figure, though the text describes him “as a great sage”.

The work itself, though, was written for Lad Khan, the king’s son. King Ahmad, the Ananga Ranga tells us, “was the ornament of the Lodi House. He was a sea, having for waters the tears shed by the widows of his slaughtered foes, and he rose to just renown and widespread fame. May his son Lada Khan, versed in the Kama Shastra or Scripture of Love, and having his feet rubbed with the diadems of other kings, be ever victorious!”

Sex involves, among other things, performance — the Ananga Ranga, and other works in this genre, are manuals to demonstrate masculine virility and feminine objectification. She has no right to either seek or express her pleasure; that would render her, like

Works like the Ananga Ranga are manuals that tell us women have no right to either seek or express pleasure

Knitting

Lessons in Morality TIPS ON ‘subduing’ women and tricks to win over a man, the Ananga Ranga has them all, and more

ADULTERY

the woman at the Ananga Ranga, a shrew to be tamed.

The representation of the human sexual organs in some Mughal-era painting is instructive. There is one of particular interest, representing the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah, where he displays a phallus of a wholly improbable size.

The painting, obviously, is not just about representing pleasure, its true subject is male power.

In the Ananga Ranga, the signifier of masculinity, for instance, is quite different. “The man whose linga is very long, will be wretchedly poor. The man whose linga is very thick, will ever be in distress. The man whose linga is thin and lean, will be very lucky; and the man whose linga is short, will be a Rajah.”

Leaving aside minor details like the penis-size which signifies power, these tropes remain with us. It is not just pornography which limits the role of women to facilitators and providers of male pleasure.

The recent controversy around a Bollywood scene where actress Swara Bhaskar is shown to be masturbating is a case in point. There is no similar outrage at expressly sexual sequences or songs, as long as the women perform for the pleasure of men.

Thus, our mindsets have not moved on from the time of the Ananga Ranga.

We still are deeply embedded in the medieval thought of Ananga Ranga wherein it’s the wife whose duty is to satisfy her husband sexually. Never ever, is there a straight question asked or posed to female sexual satisfaction and her sexual pleasure.

Great and powerful monarchs have ruined themselves and their realms by their desire to enjoy the wives of others… Let none, therefore, attempt adultery even in their thoughts.

THE TRAITS OF A WOULD-BE WIFE She should be free from vices and endowed with all good qualities; possess a fair face and fine person; have brothers and kinsfolk, and be a great proficient in the Kama-Shastra, or Science of Love. Such a girl is truly fitted for marriage; and let a sensible man hasten to take her, by performing the ceremonies which are commanded in the Holy Law.

HOW TO WIN OVER A MAN Take a human skull from the cemetery or burning ground on the eighth day of the moonlit fortnight of the seventh month Ashvini (September-October), expose it to fire, and collect the soot upon a plate held over it; let this be drawn over the inner surface of the eye-lids, instead of the usual antimony, and the effect will be to fascinate every one.

Syed Mubin Zehra is the author of Sexual and Gender Representations in Mughal India

An Icon Eclipsed

I

f you are struggling to maintain a meaningful conversation with someone from an older generation who has grown up in post-Independence India, chances are the mere mention of the magic word Chandamama would do the trick. It transports those who consumed a staple diet of the monthly children’s magazine to a world where information and entertainment were bundled in a comic book format. But now, with software company Geodesic Ltd under the I-T and ED scanner over siphoning of funds, its subsidiary, the famed Chennai-based publication, is in last gasps. Chandamama was published in 13 languages, including English, and had a readership of about 200,000. The first edition was released in July 1947 by founder editor B Nagi Reddy. In 2007, it was acquired by Geodesic.

In July 2008, the publication launched its online portal — which was allowed to expire and drop by the owners after the crisis emerged. --- FIRSTPOST.

 RAJ KAMAL

FIRSTPOST.

18

FIRSTPOST.

movie review

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

Cinema

JANUARY 26, 2006

Rang De Basanti

& ENTERTAINMENT

wthaet ek this

year

THE BLOCKBUSTER RELEASED WORLDWIDE ON REPUBLIC DAY 2006. RAKEYSH OMPRAKASH MEHRA’S PATRIOTIC DRAMA GOT A BAFTA NOMINATION

MANIKARNIKA VIEWERS’ RATING CRITIC’S RATING

97.9 crore

“Kuchh badalna hai toh khud ko badlo”

IN RUPEES, IS THE LIFETIME GROSS OF RANG DE BASANTI AT THE GLOBAL BOX-OFFICE

The line that defines the critically-acclaimed film starring Aamir Khan with Siddharth, Kunal Kapoor, Sharman Joshi and Alice Patten

Source: Box Office India

Lights, Camera, Votebank!

MAINSTREAM CINEMA finds a new formula in the run-up to Lok Sabha polls 2019, as films about politics and politicians keep the box-office busy

Reel Push for Real Agenda PROPAGANDA FILMS are not new in the international cinema circuit

GERMANY

H VINAYAK CHAKRAVORTY

“How’s the josh?” Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted a packed auditorium of Bollywood celebrities while inaugurating the National Museum of Indian Cinema in Mumbai last week. By now, Bollywood fans recognise those words as a popular dialogue Vicky Kaushal mouths in Uri, essaying a gallant Major who leads Indian troops during the 2016 surgical strike on Pakistan.

The `45-crore Uri is patriotic melodrama, and fast inching towards a `200-crore global haul.

If Uri has raked it in reconstructing a high point of India’s military history, Modi’s using a popular dialogue from that film (which recreates him as an architect of the operation) to greet B-Town’ swish set has impressed most of his target votebank. In India, few efforts endear a leader to the masses as a Bollywood connect.

The content of Uri, as well as the prime minister’s use of the film’s dialogue at a high-profile do, represents a new era of political propaganda. Only recently, The Accidental Prime Minister claimed to espose how Sonia and Rahul Gandhi routinely scuttled the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh’s efforts during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) rule. “Mahabharat mein do families thi. India mein toh ek hi hai (the Mahabharat was a tale of two families. India just has one),” drawls Akshaye Khanna as San-

POP POLITICS

 IMAGING UPNESH

jaya Baru. The camera cuts to a close-up of German-origin actress Suzanne Bernert’s Sonia Gandhi even as the dialogue fades, underlining which family Baru, media adviser to Singh, is referring to.

In Petta, superstar Rajinikanth reloads vintage action hero flourish but accommodates a new breed of villains — goons from Uttar Pradesh who talk of gau raksha and force young lovers into marriage because they were celebrating Valentine’s Day. “Yeh dharti, yeh mitti kissi ke baap ki jaagir nahin hai (this land is no one’s private property),” Rajini roars, snubbing right-wing diktats in a threadbare script about a Hindu-Muslim romance. Ahead of his entry into politics, Rajini insisted Petta is not meant to push an electoral agenda. You do note this is the second time in a year that Thalaivar has condemned hardline Hindutva, after Kaala.

A political backdrop and politicians (mostly depicted as villains) are not new to mainstream cinema, but the intent of the new crop in the genre is. Never before have commercial films pushed political propaganda as in the run-up to the 2019 general elections.

It seems to be working. If Uri is a superhit, The Accidental Prime

Minister, riding a small budget, is seeing reasonable returns (`28.54 crore after 14 days, and counting).

Petta continues its bumper run (`150 crore-plus after 14 days).

The film might be a success because of Rajini, but its political message is not lost on viewers.

If cinema of political propaganda makes most of the charged political atmosphere all around, the advantages are obvious: The real star is the subject and not the actor, and there is a ready fan base. Propaganda cinema conveniently sets up lucrative prospects without having to invest in expensive superstars.

A section of Bollywood has found its star in Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Two biopics of the prime minister are being readied ahead of the polls, one starring Vivek Oberoi and the other Paresh Rawal. While Rawal is a member of Parliament for the BJP

from Ahmedabad East, the party’s push will be crucial for Oberoi’s home production.

Regional satraps are at it, too.

Thackeray, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray, opened this week. The film, written by the Sena’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut, justifies the late right wing leader’s aggressive credo of asserting Marathi identity.

“Yahan pehla haq Marathi logon ka hai (the Marathi people have first right here),” thunders Siddiqui’s Thackeray, as the poster of a Hindi film is taken down from a Mumbai single-screen’s facade to accommodate a Marathi release.

Elsewhere, NTR: Kathanayakudu, a biopic of NT Rama Rao starring and produced by his son Nandamuri Balakrishna, deifies the late Telugu matinee idol-political titan to boost the Telugu Desam Party’s prospects.

The real star is the subject and not the actor, and there is a ready fan base. Cinema of propaganda sets up lucrative prospects without investing in superstars

In a nation besotted with idol worship, intelligent cinema that questions the hallowed and the mighty can be a risk. Gulzar’s Aandhi, said to be influenced by the lives of Indira Gandhi and Tarkeshwari Sinha, and Sudhir Mishra’s Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi, a political drama around the Emergency, are ample proof. Both films struggled to find release. Sanjay Gandhi is said to have confiscated all prints of Kissaa Kursee Kaa, Amrit Nahata’s satire on the Indira Gandhi regime. There have been the stray Inquilaab, Raajneeti or Satta, but these films used politics as a backdrop to merely create formula fare.

The latest crop is not trying to be intelligent either. In sync with mainstream diktats, the slant is towards setting up tales of hero worship. The outcome, mostly, is hagiography. It’s obvious. If push comes from the same party as the subject, the film will avoid all shades of grey, as Thackeray or NTR: Kathanayakudu did. If the idea is to tarnish an opponent, the protagonist can always be caricatured. The Accidental Prime Minister is a case in point.

Anupam Kher, who plays ex-PM Manmohan Singh in the film, downplays the idea. “When people vote, they do not decide anything based on a film. It would be silly to say this film will change election results this year,” he argued.

Kher’s contention may not necessarily hold true in a semi-literate mass market hugely influenced by cinema, you realise, as the actor ambles and mumbles awkwardly in a bid to project Singh’s style of walking and talking.

The effort, inadvertently comic, leaves you wondering how an actor of Kher’s calibre manages to botch it up. It makes for bad cinema but it also works at reducing the former UPA regime to a joke ahead of the elections.

There are other projects.

Nithya Menen plays J. Jayalalithaa in The Iron Lady, an upcoming Tamil biopic. BJP sympathiser Vivek Agnihotri’s The Tashkent Files probes conspiracy theories around Lal Bahadur Shastri’s mysterious death during his 1966 visit to the then Soviet Union.

Agnihotri’s film must make the Congress wary. After what the party felt was objectionable portrayal of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi in The Accidental Prime Minister, could Shastri’s death be ammunition for the BJP to take aim at Jawaharlal Nehru?

Few dictators utilised cinema effectively for propaganda as Hitler. Lead by propaganda connoisseur Leni Riefenstahl, Nazi Germany made films as Triumph Of The Will (1935) and The Eternal Jew (1940).

HOLLYWOOD

DW Griffith glorified racism in the 1915 hit The Birth Of A Nation.

Since then, World War films, biopics, post 9/11 fare as Black Hawk Down, action flicks as Top Gun, and superhero hits as Iron Man have toasted Americanism.

RUSSIA

Lenin realised the power of cinema to drive propaganda in rural USSR. Russian cinema of the 1920s and ’30s were disparaging while imagining Western capitalism.

Prominent films include Krivoi Rog (1928), Earth (1930), and The Vow.

NORTH KOREA

Films monitored by Pyongyang University of Cinematic and Dramatic Arts depict North Korea in triumphant shades and denounce Western imperialism.

Observers feel the films depict the nation in an unreal manner.

FIRSTPOST.

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

Sports

19

Wait gets Longer SERENA WILLIAMS FAILS TO EQUAL MARGARET COURT’S GRAND SLAM RECORD

“ literally did “I everything I could on those match points...

I can’t say I choked.” choked.

AND FITNESS

action pack

We have it all,

LAST GOODBYE

SOCCER STAR SALAS DIES IN PLANE CRASH DAY AFTER NANTES FAREWELL

JUST TAP IT

LONDON: Argentine and Nantes striker Emiliano Sala, signed up by Cardiff for a record amount, was missing, presumed dead, after a private light plane carrying went off the radar over the English Channel. “The weather’s quite cold, the water is very cold out there... I am not expecting anyone to be alive,” Channel Islands Air Search chief officer John Fitzgerald said. “We just don’t know how it disappeared. It just completely vanished.” Cardiff recently announced it had signed Sala for a reported £15 million through 2022. His last Instagram post was a picture on Monday with Nantes players, with a message ‘the last goodbye.’

‘KOFFEE’ CASE

BAN ON HARDIK PANDYA, KL RAHUL LIFTED WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT

NEW DELHI: Hardik Pandya is all set to join the Team India ODI squad in New Zealand, and KL Rahul is likely to play for India ‘A’ squad against England Lions, after the Committee of Administrators decided to lift an interim suspension order imposed on them. Pandya and Rahul were suspended for inappropriate comments made on the television chat show Koffee With Karan earlier this month. An inquiry will take place into the issue, for which an ombudsman will be appointed by the Supreme Court.

MARY KOM is a six-time World Amateur Boxing champion and has won medals in each of the seven editions of the world championships.

IN FULL GLARE

WHEN THE SETTING SUN DISRUPTED AN INDIA-NEW ZEALAND CRICKET MATCH

LEANDER PAES

T

NAPIER: The setting sun briefly disrupted play in the first one-day international between India and New Zealand. Cricket laws do provide for such an eventuality, though in the present case the players had not appealed and it was the umpires who took the lead. Poor visibility disrupting play is not unusual. But the strangest case is probably one a couple of decades ago, when a Test match in England’s Old Trafford was disrupted by players’ vision getting affected by the sun –reflected off the roof of a greenhouse near the ground!

BOLT FROM THE BLUE

USAIN’S SOCCER DREAMS FIZZLE OUT, BUSINESS BECKONS EX-SPRINTER

CANBERRA: Sprint legend Usain Bolt has given up hopes of becoming a professional footballer. Bolt, who had a two-month trial stint with Australia’s Central Coast Mariners last year and scored two goals, could not come to a contract agreement. “It was a good experience... fun while it lasted,” the 32-year-old Jamaican said. “The sports life is over, so I’m now moving into different businesses... trying to be a businessman now.” He had tried to play for teams in Germany, Norway and South Africa, without success.

SOCCER BIZ

BECKHAM FOLLOWS FORMER TEAM-MATES, BUYS A STAKE IN SALFORD CITY

LONDON: Former England football captain David Beckham has picked up a 10 per cent stake in Salford City, joining his Manchester United ‘Class of 92’ team-mates. Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and Neville brothers Gary and Phil now own 60% of the National League side. Singapore businessman Peter Lim holds the remaining 40%. “I grew up there in many ways so to be able to finally join the lads and the club is a great feeling,” Beckham said.

THE EPITOME of human sporting excellence will be achieved through the marriage of our nation’s strengths with the scientific training methods of the West

his great nation of ours has taught the world many things. From philosophy to spirituality, we have given mankind pathways to connect with inner self, lead a far more meaningful life. Our cuisine is unparalleled in its diversity and richness of taste.

Our geographical spread and varied terrain allows for a bone-chilling winter and scorching heat, all at the same time. For a country as ancient and culturally evolved as ours, isn’t it perplexing that we are far too often found wanting in sporting excellence?

The lack of significant and consistent success on the global stage has spun many myths about India.

In my first column for Firstpost, I shall look to dispel these as I find them just convenient excuses trotted out by those who don’t understand this country and certainly don’t understand what it takes to make champions.

The one I find most galling is the notion that we just don’t have the kind of genes that, say, the Europeans do. Those who believe this just don’t know the history of India. This land has seen countless invasions. It has been the staging ground for many an empire that rose and turned to dust. All these invaders made this bountiful land their home, few chose to go back. Their genes still flow through the lifeblood of this nation. India has one of the richest gene pools in the world, it’s a different matter that we don’t have the right systems to identify the kind that make for success in sport.

The other much bandied about myth is that we don’t have the killer instinct to finish off matches. We seem to have forgotten the martial tradition of this land. We actually had specific communities devoted to just being great warriors, being protectors of the weak.

I usually laugh when people allude to the misconception that South Indians are mellower than people

GEETA PHOGAT Phogat smashed convention and paved the way for Indian women in Apart from sporting success, her life has been rendered in Aamir Khan-starrer Dangal

PV SINDHU The current world number 3, Sindhu is the first Indian woman to win an Olympic silver — at Rio in 2016

SUSHIL KUMAR The wrestler is the only Indian to win two individual Olympic medals, a bronze at Beijing in 2008 and silver at London in 2012

from up North. Remember the Cholas? They conquered as far as Java and Sumatra with a naval fleet that established their hegemony over large parts of South Asia. Then, let’s not forget the ancient martial arts tradition of Kalaripayattu that still carries on in Kerala. § The silly idea that Indian diet doesn’t lend itself to world sporting dominance also needs to be busted. Taken as a whole, Indian cuisine uses herbs and spices that the West is still to figure out. Their medicinal attributes and the layers of taste they impart not only make our food extremely tasty but also exceptionally nutritious. I find it funny when trainers from abroad come here and ask players to eat pasta for carbs! I believe our Himalayan and Kerala red rice, black rice from the beautiful hills of the Northeast and our spread of millets may be far more apt and fitting. The wealth of our food and fecund nature of our land allows for the formulation of just about any nutrition plan for any kind of sport. All we need is the necessary research that picks and

RAJYAVARDHAN SINGH RATHORE The retired colonel, a minister in the Narendra Modi government, won 25 medals in doubletrap shooting, including a silver at the 2004 Olympics chooses from the varied plates that feed homes spread across the land.

India’s special geographic position and the varied nature of climate actually make it one of the best countries for training across the year. The necessary infrastructure won’t cost a bomb, all we need is the vision to tap our diversity.

Then, even as new fads of training emerge and fade with each decade, we have had Yoga for eons. It stays one of the most proven and refined systems of exercise fine-tuned over centuries. Not only does it lead to physical wellbeing but the regime has managed to tap the very power of breath to enhance a being through pranayam.

The argument that I am shaping is that India is in no way deficient when it comes to having the right ingredients for shaping world champions. I believe that the epitome of human sporting excellence will actually be achieved through the marriage of our nation’s strengths with the scientific training methods of the West. However, we must not ape them in toto. We must adapt and personalise their methods to

our needs and climate. Where we lack, as of now, is the know-how at the grassroots. By the time our athletes reach the global stage, they haven’t always been groomed scientifically enough to take on the best.

I have a wealth of sports science knowledge gleaned from decades of competing at the highest level in a global sport. I feel this must be shared so that my countrymen can learn from it. As I look to wind down my sporting career, my focus is shifting to grooming the next generation of world-beaters from India. In the coming months, I will talk about what separates champions from the chaff; the intricacies of building and maintaining world-class fitness; about longevity of physical prowess and the little bits that add up to ensure the 1% edge that makes for a world-beater instead of an also-ran.

Till then chew on this: India is in no way deficient, all we need are the right people and the right systems.

Leander Paes is India’s most successful tennis player with 18 grand slam doubles and mixed doubles titles

20

Lastword FIRSTPOST.

SATURDAY, JAN 26 - FEB 1, 2019

BALOCH INSURGENCY GOES ADRIFT 14

SIGNING OFF FOR THE WEEK

WHO WILL WIN?

Forecast

Costa Book Award to be announced on Jan 29 The Costa Book Award will be announced on January 29. The 27-year-old Sally Rooney’s Normal People, winner of the Novel category, is the frontrunner for the prize. Rooney is up against the winners of the First Novel, Poetry, Children’s Book and Biography categories.

PM to unveil Dandi March memorial PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI WILL INAUGURATE THE NATIONAL SALT SATYAGRAHA MEMORIAL AT DANDI — COMMEMORATING MAHATMA GANDHI’S HISTORIC DANDI MARCH OF 1930 AGAINST THE SALT TAX — ON JANUARY 30.

BIG DEALS

Transfer window for English football clubs closes on January 31 Loans and new buys enter the final week as the winter shopping window closes for English football clubs on January 31. Premier League and Football League teams buy, sell and loan players during the month-long spree during which some serious money is thrown around.

The savage in the mirror? It’s We the People PRAVEEN SWAMI

THIS REPUBLIC Day, as we celebrate the promise of democratic India, this one fact is inescapable: violence is our national language

“On your right”, wrote the philosopher Umberto Eco, after a visit to the Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Vista, “you see Dracula raising the lid of a tomb, and on the left your own face reflected next to Dracula’s, while at times there is the glimmering figure of Jack the Ripper or of Jesus, duplicated by an astute play of corners, curves, and perspective, until it is hard to decide which side is reality and which illusion.”

“A shadowy character is outlined against the background of an old cemetery — then you discover that this character is you”.

Then, hidden away in our newspapers, there are these stories: the Hyderabad drunk who beheaded four puppies, and flayed a fifth to death, in August; the two Ghaziabad men who raped and killed a bitch, mother of a litter of five, in December; the Delhi security guard who tied eight puppies into a sack, and

threw them off the third floor.

In Kolkata, this month, we had the nursing student, who may one day watch over our children in a hospital ward, bludgeoning 16 puppies to death.

Each of these stories takes us into a world of savagery as strange as Eco’s house of horrors. Each one of them is true. And each one ought be a prism to reflect upon ourselves.

This Republic Day, as we celebrate the promise of democratic India, this one fact is inescapable: violence is our national language. The young people who, across the Hindi-language heartland, find agency and meaning in lynching humans they suspect of killing cows, are merely one symptom. There are Kashmiri parents who cheer teenagers killing for Islam; caste groups who applaud the murder of young people guilty of nothing but being in love; men who spill their frustrations on the bodies of women; women who educate their children with clenched fists.

Government data show seven out of 10 children subjected to violence by adults; 50 per cent sexually abused.

Perhaps this ought not surprise us: the Republic of India was not forged only from non-violence.

“England” Karl Marx noted in his now-unfashionable but perceptive 1853 essay on colonial India, “has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. This loss of his old world, with no gain of a new one, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindoo [sic]”.

From authority structures within families to the status of women: imperialism, and capitalist modernisation shattered the basic build-blocks of India’s civic life.

India is seeing the emergence of a giant cohort of dependent elderly, at precisely the same time record numbers of undereducated young people are struggling to find work.

Demographer JP Singh has noted that even where the joint family exists, it does so “in a nominal or skeleton form”.

Elsewhere in the world, societies in crisis have behaved exactly as Indians do. In May, 1916, a crowd gathered in Waco, Texas, some of it made up children on their school lunch-break. They cheered as 17 year-old, mentally-disabled Jesse Washington was castrated and his fingers cut off, before he was burned to death. Local photographers sold postcards of the event: “This is the Barbecue we had last night,” one reads, in faded brown ink.

Antonio Gramsci, the Italian political theorist, noted that fascism arose in a society “where mothers educate their infant children by hitting them on the head with clogs”.

He noted: “Each year several dozen workers fell in the streets; and peasants were sent to pick grapes in some places with muzzles on, for fear they might taste the fruit.”

It is hard not to look into this mirror, though, and see ourselves.

Like so many other polities in the making, India is an anaemic state: it has too few police officers for its population, too few courts to administer timely justice; too few doctors and nurse and schools For the practice of politics, the anaemia of the state has had practical consequences. Power has contracted out to community-level tyrants.

These tyrannies co-exist in a state of permanent warfare, each waging battles of attrition without end, to shore up group boundaries; to signal to the state their power; to unite followers through the ritual shedding of blood.

People committed to India’s constitutional promise need, however, to do more than lament this world. The experiences of states from capitalist South Korea to communist Cuba tell us that a robust government, capable of providing education, security and health, is key to a successful transition to modernity.

Printed and published by Ankit Singh on behalf of Network18 Media & Investments Limited. Printed at HT media Press, Plot No. 8, Industrial Area, Greater Noida, Dist-Gautam Budh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh and published at 428, Fourth Floor, Westend Mall, Near District Centre, Janak Puri, Main Najafgarh Road, New Delhi – 110058. Editor BV Rao, RNI NO. DELENG/2018/76684.