Open magazine TruePDF 11 february 2019

Zainab Namdar Editor S Prasannarajan managing Editor Pr ramesh ExEcutivE EditorS aresh Shirali, ullekh nP Editor-at-largE Siddharth Singh dEPuty EditorS madhavankutty Pillai mumbai Bu

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11 february 2019 / rS 50

GEORGE FERNANDES

STARS AND STRIDES

OPEN-REPUBLIC TV ACHIEVERS AWARDS

A Celebration of the Great Indian Dream

After a blockbuster run in Tamil cinema, filmmaker Pa Ranjith is all set for Bollywood

By Shahina KK

NOT PeOPLe LIKe uS

Moving on from the Khans

By Rajeev Masand

66

LOST & fOuND HISTOrIeS

A river runs through it

SuperNovak

By Aditya Iyer

54reIGNING STarS aND faLLING TreeS

Being both an insider and outsider

at the Jaipur Literature Festival

By Amrita Tripathi

58

Of CHeeKS aND SLaPS

The conditions under which force may be used against government injustice and what India’s historical experience tells us about resistance

By Siddharth Singh

Cover by

Saurabh Singh

32

GuNS aND rOaDS

After nearly two decades of violence,

Bastar now has a semblance of

normalcy but this has more to do

with individual choices than

ideological leanings

freeDOM frOM babuDOM

A technology platform introduced in Haryana is transforming the government’s interface with citizens

Can it be replicated elsewhere

in India?

By Rahul Pandita

46THe faILeD eraDICaTION

Leprosy continues to resist being wiped out in India because the battle against it was called a victory too soon

By Madhavankutty Pillai

38

DeSPeraTeLy NaIDu

How BJP has become

a suitable enemy for the

Andhra Chief Minister

fOrM & refOrM

Prayagraj and Kumbh

11 february 2019

4

on a wing and priyanka

By bringing Priyanka Vadra Gandhi formally into the party, the Congress has fallen back on its ‘first family’ (‘Enter Priyanka’, February 4th, 2019) This only gives more ammunition to the BJP in its rhetoric against its dynastic mentality To become a serious contender for power at the Centre, the Congress needs more than just charisma That groundswell of support can

be created by elevating its young leaders, as was seen in the recent assembly elections

in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh where Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia played crucial roles India is

a young country with about

65 per cent of its population under the age of 35 The

editor@openmedianetwork.in

Congress has missed yet another opportunity to change its stripes Who will save this party?

A Bhuyan

The Nehru-Gandhi family is banking on Priyanka to save not only the party, but also Rahul from a possible disaster

in the General Election this year She has little political experience beyond the party’s safe seats in UP Apparent

‘qualities’ that she might have inherited from her grand-mother, Indira Gandhi, will not be enough to see the party through Her formal induction into the Congress is too little, too late Sadly for the party, the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty does not appeal anymore to Indian voters

by such legislators have?

Shanmugam Mudaliar

bars and barbs

It is astonishing that despite the Supreme Court order

to allow dance bars with reasonable restrictions, the Maharashtra government is coming up with ordinances

to circumvent the order (‘Dance Barred’, February 4th, 2019) Since when did governments become arbiters

of individual choice?

Mahesh Kapasi

singapore squabble

Sunanda K Datta-Ray’s essay

on the apparent and actual goings-on in Singapore’s politics was revealing (‘Family Feud in Paradise’, February 4th, 2019)

However we judge its democratic credentials, Singapore remains a model

of efficient administration

Velassery T Sebastian

C letter of the week

Roderick Matthews’ essay puts the Brexit-Partition comparison in proper perspective (‘Absolutely English’, February 4th, 2019) The mess that Britain finds itself in

is part of the rising global clash between the haves and those who think they deserve—rightly or wrongly—

what the former have Having fallen for ethnocentric rhetoric, those unable to change tack to benefit from

an increasingly connected world want to crash the boats that a rising tide of globalisation has lifted Their complaints might not be unjustified, but the working classes need to realise how they are hurting themselves

by trying to pull the world back into ‘national’ cocoons

The comfort of an enclave is only psychological, not material This has absolutely nothing to do with the politics that led to the partition of India and Pakistan, which later also gave birth to Bangladesh Partition was not a conflict between classes for influence, which Brexit is Despite superficial similarities, the two events require different interpretations The dream

of separation that Brexiteers are selling does not hinge

on any real cultural and political insecurities

The European unity project is of a recent vintage, lacking a historical background like the debate around the two-nation theory on the Subcontinent that eventually led to the cataclysmic break-up of 1947

Zainab Namdar

Editor S Prasannarajan

managing Editor Pr ramesh

ExEcutivE EditorS aresh Shirali,

ullekh nP

Editor-at-largE Siddharth Singh

dEPuty EditorS madhavankutty Pillai

(mumbai Bureau chief) ,

rahul Pandita, amita Shah,

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11 february 2019

ong before george fernandes, there was

another revolutionary who was schooled in

a seminary Christ couldn’t save Joseph Stalin

from the terrors of the communist mind He

built an empire, bigger than the Church of god,

more ambitious than Heaven on earth, and

dedicated it to the gospel of unfreedom george

fernandes’ journey from a seminary did not end

at the helm of a godless imperium; he rejected the gods of the

book to fight the ones he thought were ranged against his

socialist ideals He played out his revolutionary zeal in the mean

streets of the metropolis, and in the end, there were no ideals left

for him in a cheerless world There was no empire to protect He

struggled alone in a void

The street shaped george fernandes, and the streets were

angrier in the 60s, when the beatles sang

and the youth defied barricades The poet

Philip Larkin captured the zeitgeist:

Sexual intercourse began

In nineteen sixty-three

(which was rather late for me) –

Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban

And the Beatles’ first LP.

fernandes found his cause in

the streets of bombay A socialist

subversive with fire in his belly and

freedom in his words, he became the

champion of the working class He was the

non-communist who added drama and

tension to communism’s original slogan

on the city street; he was trade unionist as

folk hero

folk heroes concentrate the national

mind when they are adventurers least

constrained by the demands of power They

gain their halo when the struggle is against

power, not for it They are freedom fighters

forever They can’t exist without an enemy

worthy of their anger fernandes got his in Indira gandhi And

so there he was, raging against the totalitarian temptations of the supreme leader The underground rebellion, the fugitive on the run, the attack on railway tracks (the railways somehow provided him with a metaphor for the state versus the workforce), and the denouement of a hero in captivity—the vintage fernandes did fit perfectly into the script of resistance The abiding image was of the rebel in chains facing up to his tormentors, and dedicating the chains to a country under siege

in the high noon of the emergency In the general election that dethroned Indira in 1977, fernandes won from the constituency

of the prison This revolutionary did not win an empire; he did win the conscience of an India that survived

for the dissident unshackled, the passage from the romance

of struggle to the realism of power is the painful part It is the beginning of normalisation, and then the inevitable banalisation As Industries Minister in India’s first non-Congress government, fernandes was still angry The rage didn’t die down

He became an anti-globalist before globalisation became a free Market mantra His war on Coca-Cola, capitalism’s energy drink, was a desperate socialist’s last attempt to remain a street fighter even in power The fight was sustained by the misplaced loftiness

of self-reliance He still wanted enemies, and this time he found them in fizzy imperialism The socialist’s sense of Indianness was more north Korean than Indian, more Juche than Swaraj.Power always remained a picaresque for the Indian socialist

As fernandes shifted allegiance with remarkable ease, idealism wore off, recklessness ceased to thrill—and ideology was

made an item on the bargaining table When we last saw him in public, he was

a man defeated by power and its accompanying pathologies, abandoned but still consoled by some of his old comrades The horn-rimmed glasses were still there, the kurta was as crumpled as ever, but the erstwhile action hero of Indian politics was left with no cause except his own relevance.Perhaps he was another socialist who lost the India that lived in Lohia’s mind The highest guru of anti-Congressism too lost his argument for India—only traces of idealism and recklessness remained for Lohia, it was english; for fernandes, it was Coke Cultural variations of the same irrational rage And both were made redundant by time Though caste was evil for the guru, it kept India’s shape-shifting socialists alive, whether in bihar or in Uttar Pradesh only their backstory retains the romance of resistance

once upon a time there was a george fernandes, too, the fighter who eventually lost the street

to the realism of power

is the painful part

It is the beginning of normalisation, and then the inevitable banalisation

6 11 february 2019

In about a fortnight, just after

the truncated budget Session of

Parliament ends in mid-February,

formal campaigning for the General

Election will begin of course, for all

practical purposes, the battle for 2019

began nearly a year ago However, the

code of conduct, the announcement

of the election schedule and the

pro-cess of candidate selection gives the

whole process of electing a

govern-ment an extra urgency and a huge

sense of national excitement

Elec-tions, the old India hand Professor

Morris-Jones used to say, are one of

those things “Indians do well”

after tn Seshan, Indian elections

have lost much of their carnival-like

atmosphere Certainly, the noise levels

have decreased exponentially

one of the noisiest elections I ever

encountered was the 1991 General

Election that was, in northern India

at least, very much the Ram election

that election witnessed the

participation of sadhus and sadhvis

who travelled from village to village

whipping up support for a temple

in ayodhya Sadhvi Ritambhara’s

impassioned speeches attracted large

crowds, particularly of women who

rarely attended rallies earlier but then

these were ostensibly organised by

religious bodies and there was never

any explicit mention of voting for the

bJP there were also a large number

of songs and poems composed for the

temple agitation and loudspeakers all

over uttar Pradesh blared these out

in market towns the opposing side

had their own cassettes and the result

was a noisy chaos that persisted till

the late hours of the night these days,

there are severe restrictions, and in

West bengal, there is a blanket ban on

all loudspeakers till school exams are

completed this March-end

I guess Prime Minister narendra Modi will be the star draw this election and his meetings are expected to be very well attended, as they were in

2014 Modi has the habit of doing one round of meetings before the formal campaigning starts and he began this process in December by the time the code of conduct is imposed, the Prime Minister will have covered nearly every state in the country, including places where the bJP is not seriously

in the contest He wants to create a national mood that will lay the ground for the final slog overs when

he becomes extremely combative

this election, his efforts will be complemented by those of amit Shah, who is fast becoming an accomplished campaigner Yogi adityanath is also much in demand, but his appeal is mainly confined to committed bJP voters

the problem with the Congress

is that it is short of star campaigners

Rahul Gandhi is very pugnacious these days, but he still lacks Modi’s drawing power this is where the Con-gress believes Priyanka Vadra Gandhi will fill the void So far, we have seen Priyanka relating very effectively to small crowds at village meetings in Rae bareli and amethi Moreover, her appeal has been based on a sister soliciting votes for the mother and the brother In small village meetings, the personal touch works well but

once she moves out of the familiar surroundings of the Gandhi pocket boroughs, she will need to address hard political issues She will be a beneficiary of people’s curiosity, but will she be able to satisfy their political appetite? Congress workers are sold

on her, but what about the electorate that has never experienced a Gandhi at the helm? also, if all the interest is going to be centred on Priyanka, it will—perhaps unintentionally— detract some attention from Rahul

on paper, a brother-sister duo sounds appealing, but how it translates on the ground is well worth considering but let us not forget regional campaigners such as akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati, Mamata banerjee and MK Stalin they will have their assured audiences in their home states What will be the impact when they step outside their comfort zones, if they do? In 2009, Mayawati campaigned intensively outside uttar Pradesh She even projected herself as the next Prime Minister However, the post-mortem of the results suggested that it was her spirited campaigning that invited a backlash against a third Front government and helped the Congress garner a lot of votes, particularly in urban areas, that should have gone into the bJP kitty Every election throws up a series of unintended consequences that have a big bearing on the outcome I wonder what these will be in 2019 Will it be a straightforward gaffe by one of the big campaigners or their associates? Remember how an innocuous comment by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan bhagwat altered the complexion of the 2015 bihar assembly election?

no election is ever won until it is actually won n

Swapan Dasgupta

open diary

11 february 2019

8

During the emergency, george Fernandes

(1930-2019) used to refer to indira gandhi as “that

woman” it was in mid-1976 that her government

finally caught up with the rebellious trade unionist,

the poster boy of resistance to her authoritarianism he was

nabbed in calcutta, rushed to Delhi, stripped naked,

interro-gated wrapped in a blanket, and then bundled off to hissar jail

Both his brother Lawrence and Snehlata reddy, a fellow

social-ist traveller and accused in the Baroda Dynamite conspiracy

(as it came to be known), had already been put to torture and

questioning by the police in a bid to have them reveal

Fer-nandes’ whereabouts he had eluded their clutches in various

guises—as a fisherman, a mendicant, and as a turbaned Sikh

At hissar jail, as coomi Kapoor wrote in The Emergency: A

Personal History, he saw indira gandhi’s photograph and told

the jailer, “you are following the orders of this woman, but i tell

you, tomorrow this woman will be in jail.” From there, he was

moved to tihar Jail in Delhi it was a measure of his stature as

an anti-emergency activist that Socialist international took up

his case the ‘Free JP’ movement in London organised a protest

to draw attention to the suspension of civil liberties in india,

and world leaders such as Willy Brandt and Olof Palme called

the indian Prime minister and warned that she would be held

accountable if anything untoward happened to him

By the time Fernandes and his fellow conspirators were

produced in court, it was early October 1976 the chargesheet,

reportedly 3,000 pages long, accused

them of plotting to overthrow the

government it referred to an alleged

attempt to blow up the dais on which

gandhi was to speak in Varanasi they

were also charged with unlawful

pos-session of dynamite sticks, subversive

literature and inciting people against

the state the accused accepted trying

to free the country of indira gandhi’s

rule, but denied all other charges

images of Fernandes in handcuffs

and chains, his fist raised in defiance,

struck a chord with those

suffer-ing excesses of the emergency, and

while he got bail, he was re-arrested

rightaway under the maintenance of

industrial Security Act in February 1977, in a deposition before the chief metropolitan magistrate of Delhi, Fernandes asserted,

“Dictatorship does violence to the spirit of man it is neither legal, constitutional or even moral it leaves people with no legal and constitutional means to fight it And even then, to fight it remains an inalienable right of all men, of all those who believe in the sacredness, dignity and freedom of man… gandhiji said, given a choice between cowardice and violence

to resist evil, he would not hesitate to choose, and he mended that the people choose violence While my belief in non-violence is a conviction, inherited from one of the greatest thinkers and humanists, Dr ram manohar Lohia, i also believe,

recom-as gandhiji believed, and no doubt Lohia himself believed, that injustice and evil should be fought wherever it raises its head.” maintaining that all ‘evidence’ against him had been “cooked up”, Fernandes said that the prosecution could not accuse him

of having caused even a single death

Fernandes was a leader who stood by his word he wanted

to boycott the 1977 general election for fear that it might legitimise indira gandhi’s actions it took much persuasion,

even a gherao by citizens and morarji Desai landing up at the

trial court with nomination papers for Fernandes for him to agree to contest the polls from jail he won the muzaffarpur seat in Bihar with a margin of some 300,000 votes Appointed industries minister in the Janata Party government, he forced foreign companies out of india After the congress returned to

power, he launched a tirade against corruption, the brunt of his attacks borne by the rajiv gandhi govern-ment that succeeded indira’s under the VP Singh regime that came next,

he was railway minister, with the initiation of the Konkan rail project to his credit Later, he became convenor

of the nDA As Defence minister in the later Vajpayee government, Fernandes made a record 18 visits to the Army’s Siachen outpost to boost the morale of troops there

today, Fernandes is remembered

as perhaps independent india’s only political activist who could bring the country’s financial capital to a halt in

The Death of a Relentless Rebel

NOTEBOOK

Images of Fernandes in handcuffs and chains, his fist raised

in defiance, struck

a chord with those suffering excesses of the Emergency

11 february 2019 www.openthemagazine.com 9

protest, as he once did in the 60s had history taken a different

turn, this ‘giant killer’ would have been a catholic priest in a

seminary in his hometown of mangalore But he was put off by

the chasm between the precepts and practices of the church,

as he put it, and preferred to look for work in Bombay, even if it

meant sleeping on pavements and chowpatty beach during his

search By the 1950s, he was heading the city’s taxi drivers’ union

Arun Jaitley narrates this story of the 1967 South Bombay poll, as

told by Fernandes himself ‘that election would be an education

for any student of psychology or politics,’ writes Jaitley ‘S.K Patil

was the unquestioned leader of mumbai, then Bombay he was

a union minister and congress party’s treasurer he had won

his South-Bombay seat several times by large margins nobody

believed that Patil could ever be defeated.’

until, of course, a 36-year-old chief of the taxi union stood against Patil All opposition parties supported him his first task was to take down the aura of Patil’s invincibilty Posters, banners

and taxi stickers spread the message that ‘Patil can

be defeated’ A cocky Patil told the media, “Only

god can defeat me.” Fernandes’ retort: ‘god does not vote, you do Only you can defeat Patil.’

By end-1973, Fernandes had become head

of the All india railway Federation, a union of the world’s largest group of workers, and as a Socialist, he joined the JP movement against the congress the 1974 railway strike that he led made his sway among workers clear, and the threat that he posed the indira regime was met with a fierce crackdown ‘One of the main aspects

of george Fernandes’ personality was his strong opposition to the nehru-gandhi family he be-lieved that the nehru-gandhi family had harmed the nation a lot and that is why he could shake hands with anyone against that family he chose his way between two extremes he couldn’t be a communist, he couldn’t be in congress BJP was the alternative he chose around 1996,’ writes ram Bahadur rai, a journalist who was among his close associates When some leaders asked him to put the emergency years in the past, Fernandes is said to have retorted that he could never forgive

or forget what happened to JP’s kidneys and to his brother Lawrence, nor the death of his ally Snehlata reddy Asked if violence was a valid tool

to save democracy, he reportedly replied, thing should be done to save democracy.”While still in the Vajpayee cabinet, Fer-nandes’ failing health was apparent Jaitley writes, ‘ministers were scared of facing the wrath

“every-of his attack when he was in the Opposition But eventually his health took better of him the slowing down of his mind and various faculties could be seen towards 2003-04 he still had full comprehension but that aggression was lacking.’ Fernandes had a bad fall in the bathroom of his residence while washing clothes, and he had a brain surgery later, but he could never fully recover his withdrawal from politics went alongside a descent into Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease as he aged he began treatment at Baba ramdev’s ashram in 2010 even as a bitter fight broke out in his family over his property the Samata Party, which Fernandes founded in 1994 with nitish Kumar, was to merge with JD(u) in 2003

Few of india’s youth recall the force he was once ‘the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones,’ wrote Shakespeare not in the case of Fernandes n

By pR Ramesh

GeorGe Fernandes

(1930-2019)

11 february 2019

10

openings

There is a clichÉ—content that king—that almost every

Bollywood personality spouts, but nobody really believes in content is

of course not king On the chessboard of a movie’s essential components, it

may be a rook or a knight, maybe even a pawn But it certainly isn’t a king

a hindi film’s success is dependent on a vast array of other things, from the

way a film is positioned and marketed when it is released, to the way the

film’s star projects him or herself

Perhaps nobody understands this better than Kangana ranaut, the star

of Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi Films do not work because great actors

star in them it is because brands do and ranaut has been working on her

brand, at least for half a decade ever since her break-out film Queen released;

that was arguably the first female coming-of-age story in Bollywood, where

a naive girl embarks on a journey of self-discovery after her fiancé calls off

their wedding One can perhaps argue that by the end of the film, it isn’t

just the lead character, rani, who finds herself even the actor playing her,

Kangana ranaut, does

There are two ways you look at the phenomenon known as Kangana

ranaut There is ranaut, the fearless feminist The talented woman from a

small town who may have no industry godfathers but is unafraid of calling

out the hypocrisy and nepotism in the industry People don’t want her in the industry, she tells us, because she is an outspoken woman Then there is the other view as Karan Johar once said, “You can-not be this victim every time and have a sad story

to tell about how you’ve been terrorised by the bad world of the industry.” she has built a church on stones nobody has really flung at her some of her recent collaborators claim she hijacks projects.The truth is probably somewhere in between ranaut is an outsider who has made it in one of the most competitive and protected industries on her own she is also smart enough to know that the only way you can win here is by breaking rules she has converted what one would imagine could serve as impediments in the film industry—her accent, the fact that she has no film connections and hails from a small indian town—into advantages and weaponised them

it is not her fearlessness that has brought her here, or her talent it is her smarts and being smart sometimes requires being duplicitous

Bollywood is at an interesting point The end of three Khans appears to be near (they have begun delivering turkeys) and there is a bunch of young stars vying for super stardom What few appreciate

is that ranaut is also gunning for it she, of course, has disadvantages Big names in the industry will probably stay away from her projects hence, the need to also direct her own films

ranaut has a long list of people who think her comeuppance is long due and in recent years, most of her films failed This probably explains why despite having a following among liberals—feminists, for instance, and media columnists who write in her favour—she made a strategic shift to the right end of the political spectrum, cosying up with godmen and politicians, and dissing liberals

By all box office evidence, the shift appears to

have paid off Manikarnika has reportedly made

over rs 50 crore in the first five days in india and about rs 11 crore overseas cumulatively, it is gradually inching towards the rs 100 crore mark But the story of her stardom is not just about numbers hit films by some male superstars sometimes make four times that amount Unlike the other films, which are made by the cream

of the industry, Manikarnika (despite the loud

protestations of its co-director Krish) is almost all ranaut it reaffirms the unique space she occupies in the hindi film industry

That’s what makes her success different n

11 february 2019 www.openthemagazine.com 11

angLE

Reel Son of The Soil

NaWazdUddin siddiqUi

is a Muslim he was born in Uttar

Pradesh and moved to delhi to study at

the national school of drama he then

came to Mumbai in search of an acting

career and so nowhere in the definition

of ‘son of the soil’ catering to whom the

shiv sena was built on That he should

play the character of Bal Thackeray

in the biopic that released last week is

something of a spectacular irony The

beginning of Thackeray’s violent politics

was directed against ‘outsiders’ stealing

the jobs of Maharashtrians Two decades

later, Thackeray read the mood of indian

politics and changed his outsider’s

defi-nition to ‘Muslim’, the fallout eventually

being the Mumbai riots of 1992-93

siddiqui would have fit the category in

both versions of the ploy That he should

be representing Thackeray could signify

either of two things: from beyond his

grave the shiv sena founder is further

taunting communities he targeted

through his life; or that he is being

taunt-ed by some mysterious law of karma

The ordinary truth is that

Thackeray was like any other politician,

with somewhat fewer compunctions

about openly advocating violence it drew

him footsoldiers in the form of jobless

Ma-harashtrian youths By the time siddiqui

had arrived in Mumbai, Thackeray had

long given up the son-of-the-soil demand

because every political condition has a

time limit his nephew raj Thackeray

tested it in recent times without any

suc-cess even the vitriol spewed against

Mus-lims disappeared after the 90s because the

electorate had got bored with it and then

he became too old to invent fresh demons

siddiqui playing him aptly represented the opportunism of his life

The movie is a hagiography, which

is as expected given that it is shiv sena leaders themselves who were producing

it But it is also a lengthy confessional of all manners of actions that in the indian Penal code would be construed as crimes

These are public knowledge but still esting to hear from the reel Thackeray’s mouth, a script endorsed by the party so,

inter-a scene of Thinter-ackerinter-ay sinter-aying thinter-at it is time

to do something about communists is lowed by the murder of cPi Mla Krishna desai (it happened in 1970) shiv sena workers are seen gathering weapons from the party office during the Mumbai riots

fol-all of this is put forth as reactions (desai’s murder, for instance, follows an attack on Thackeray by communists), but that the sena should advertise it even now signals the pride they feel about a past in which there was absolute contempt for the law

The film shows different leaders—

from Maharashtra chief Minister Vasantrao naik to Prime Minister indira Gandhi—protecting Thackeray

in the full knowledge of what he stood for his ability to switch a private army

on and off was valuable to them he used it to trade favours, all the while building his party Thackeray saw that all politicians were like him but without gumption You could admire him for using that awareness to change Maharashtra’s politics singlehandedly, but there is little to respect in that n

‘From the gut comes

the strut, and where hunger reigns,

strength abstains’

FranÇois rabelais

writer

WOrd’s WOrTh

The irony or non-irony of nawazuddin Siddiqui

playing Bal Thackeray

By madhavankutty piLLai

FasTing

Political fasting, done well, is an effective tool look at the india against corruption movement of

2011 and its resonance, and you’ll agree But when overdone, it loses traction and becomes irrelevant anna hazare’s two lieutenants in

2011, arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi, understood that Both used the movement to propel themselves into political careers The move-ment’s patron-in-chief, however, never managed that hazare continues to fast with an unusual relish But none of his recent fasts has got much attention he has just started a new one at his village in ralegan siddhi in Maharashtra, demanding the appointment of anti-corruption watchdogs at the centre and in states, along with a resolution of farmers’ issues But this too will probably fail Media coverage is the oxygen for political fasts Without it, he will simply be ignored as he is being, currently n

idEas

Digitisation has touched every

aspect of human life It is also

altering how organisations

look at business sectors, markets,

service their customers and ideate new

businesses Traditionally, governments

have been slow to modernise, but today

they view digitisation as a panacea

that can save time and expenses,

while enhancing their extend and

effectiveness

The three-fold transformation of

consumers, government and industry are

far reaching economic consequences

The number of technologies coming

into the fore, be it internet of things

(IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics

and so on, are touching every sector,

reimagining how goods and services

are delivered, impacting lives they reach

and heralding what is now being termed

as Industry 4.0

Hitachi, one of the leading Japanese

companies with a global footprint, has

been engaged in innovating new age

technologies It has been using some

of the most advanced technologies

in a wide range of products/services,

ranging from information and

telecommunication systems, digital

solutions and services, infrastructure

systems, industrial systems like water,

oil and gas supply and management, to

transportation and urban development

solutions Together with localisation,

Hitachi aims to contribute to further

fueling India’s digital economy

As the sixth largest and fastest

developing economy in the world, to

drive the advantages of a digital sphere

to the bottom of the pyramid, India faces

numerous difficulties, the most pertinent

being to make the economic growth

inclusive Digitisation is radical, as it can bring in the much needed inclusiveness and a true social transformation for a nation as vast and complex as India

Prime Minister Narendra Modi acknowledges India’s unique challenges but is now focusing all the synergies towards the opportunities a radical digitisation can bring to create the much needed inclusiveness and a true social transformation Many initiatives were launched to take the digital dream to a billion citizens– ‘Digital India’, ‘Make in India’, ‘Skill India’

to name a few This vision aims at empowering the citizens through the adaptation of e-Governance, a way

to infuse technology in governance to drive the last mile delivery of services.

Hitachi in India has envisioned this direction in collaboration with the stakeholders, bringing its rich global industrial heritage and juxtaposing it with its strength in Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) It has its ethos embedded in its businesses that are aimed at touching the lives of millions It is only possible when you innovate and Hitachi’s inherent Social Innovation Business, weaves in a multi-disciplinary approach to problems to build innovative solutions that drive businesses and governance to aid the society at large It has partnered with the government of India in its initiatives like ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’, leveraging its superior technology innovations and global expertise to address India’s unique challenges

Hitachi has been a leader in OT for industries such as manufacturing, power/energy and transportation for over

100 years The company has also been

a leader in IT for over 50 years—bringing

IT applications, analytics, content, cloud, and infrastructure solutions to market that have transformed the way enterprises do business Combining its broad expertise in OT with its proven IT, Hitachi gives the customers a powerful, collaborative partner in data

Its extensive presence across industries, enables it to provide a

‘single eye view of macro solutions’,

a core competency that the company has earned over the years It laid its solid foundation in India over 80 years back, as it supplied turbines for the Bhakra Nangal project Over the years, Hitachi group has diversified and expanded its presence with 28 group companies in India, across sectors like infrastructure, railways, energy, construction machinery, healthcare,

IT, automotive systems, along with payment systems

Be it the problem of rapid urbanisation or largescale concentration

of people in cities; building sustainable transportation solutions or efficient supply and management of water; need for stronger security solutions or advanced machinery to aid smarter manufacturing to fuel India’s ‘Make

in India’ aspiration, Hitachi’s Social Innovation business has driven solutions for the Indian government, private players, businesses and the citizens

FRONTIER

TECHNOLOGIES FOR

GREATER GOOD

themselves, incorporating its vision of

‘Collaborative Creation’ Hitachi Group is

coming together to work faster, smarter

and towards a sustainable tomorrow

for India, contributing consistently to an

ever evolving digital economy

“Lumada” aims to be the core of

social innovation by being a medium for

Hitachi’s customers, helping them be a

part of this digital transformation

Hitachi has been a part of

e-Governance initiatives with multiple

governments in the country While some

of them have used its IT solutions, others

use its technology for various functions

These large data heavy projects include

digitisation of land records;

single-window handling of grievances and

maintenance of essential services;

easing tax payments and other dues

to the government; along with internet

based citizen delivery of services

Digital transformation is expected

to add an estimated $154 billion to

Indian GDP and increase the growth

rate by 1% annually, according to a

research by a technology company

and International Data Corporation

The report further goes on to predict

a dramatic acceleration in the pace of digital transformation across India and Asia Pacific’s economies In 2017, while

4 % of India’s GDP was derived from digital products and services created directly through the use of digital technologies, such as mobility, cloud, IoT and AI, within the next four years,

it is estimated that nearly 60% of India’s GDP will have a strong connection to the digital technologies such as AI and that will accelerate digital transformation led growth even further

This is a major opportunity for companies like Hitachi, who can amalgamate their global expertise and heritage with complex Indian problems

to innovate with products and services

“India is inevitably heading for

a social revolution A revolution brought in by the transformation in the way people access technology and the advanced digital capabilities possessed by companies With this social shift, the society has moved beyond from an information to a distinctive culture, built on awareness and technology The 7 Cs i.e

Common, Connected, Convenient, Congestion-Free, Charged, Clean, Cutting-Edge, introduced by our Prime Minister, works as fundamental for us and drives us to create the necessary novel solutions including efficient infrastructure, transportation, energy, water, and many others Keeping citizens at the centre, we must adapt to the dynamic confluence culture that is

a natural result of convergence Hitachi will continue to partner and draw upon its wealth of technologies and expertise to provide a diversified range

of information technology solutions in various industrial sectors, empowering the citizens of India, transforming the landscape of Indian economy and aligning with India’s growth,” says Bharat Kaushal, Managing Director of Hitachi India

India’s appetite and intent for technology evolution has been applauded globally as well The World Economic Forum comes out with a Global Competitiveness Report every year According to this year’s report,

“The global economy is not prepared for the Fourth Industrial Revolution: 103

of the 140 economies measured in this

year’s index score 50 or lower out of 100 for innovation capability, meaning that for many of these, innovation is a drag

on overall competitiveness.” However, there is good news for India The report proves Indian government’s focus is on e-Governance, alongside other reforms like GST and schemes like Digital India, Make in India and Skill India

India ranks 58th in 2018’s Global Competitiveness Index This indicates

a rise of five places in the ranking from its 2017 position and is the largest gain among all G20 economies India

is a leader among the South Asian economies

This holistic transformation of a country as vast as India has been made possible with companies like Hitachi partnering with multi-stake holders in bringing together the state-of-the-art technology solutions, combined with the implementing agencies driving the last mile delivery of services

AV E N U E S

Itsmarket size (3rd) Innovation

(31) The quality of its research establishments (8th)

India’s greatest competitive advantages include:

Business dynamism (58)including the number of disruptive businesses (11th)

To learn more visit - http://social-innovation.hitachi/in/

11 february 2019

14

In this column, i have spoken in the past about

infrastructure i will apparently deviate now, but not

entirely this time, it will be about Prayagraj and

Kumbh, and i will link that with infrastructure in the

next one

‘Kumbha’ means a pot or pitcher the gods (devas or suras)

and the demons (asuras) are cousins their mothers are

sisters the sage (rishi) Kashyapa married several of

Daksha’s daughters—Aditi, Diti, Danu, and so on Aditi’s

offspring are devas, also known as adityas, because they are

descended from Aditi Diti’s offspring are daityas, a class of

demons Danu’s offspring are danavas, another class of

demons For all practical purposes, the words daitya and

danava are synonymous the word asura, antithesis of sura,

is another synonym for demon strictly speaking, demons

are elder brothers, or cousins Gods are younger cousins or

not, the two categories fought continuously the king of the

gods has a title of indra in the present era of manvantara,

Purandara holds the title of indra Every once in a while, the

demons defeated the gods, sometimes facilitated by boons

received from Brahma (the creator) or shiva (the destroyer),

and transgressions caused by Purandara indra’s arrogance

and haughtiness A demon usurped the throne of indra

in heaven and driven to desperation, indra and the gods

sought succour with Vishnu (the preserver) these stories

are told in the two epics of the Ramayana and mahabharata,

known as itihasa, and in ancient texts known as the Puranas

Even when they were not driven out of heaven, the gods

had a problem the preceptor of the demons, shukracharya,

possessed knowledge of bringing the dead back to life

(mritasanjivani vidya) thanks to this, when suras and asuras

fought, dead asuras were revived, but dead suras remained

dead in search of a solution, the gods rushed to Vishnu

‘You need to churn the ocean,’ said Vishnu ‘You can’t do it

alone have a temporary truce with the demons churn it

collectively the ocean will throw up its treasures,

including the elixir or nectar of immortality, known

as amrita’

the demons readily agreed they wanted the treasures

too they also desired amrita churning of the ocean (samudramanthana) was no mean task mount mandara

was the churning rod Vasuki, king of the serpents, was the rope used for churning Without a stable base, mount mandara started to wobble therefore, Vishnu assumed his tortoise incarnation and supported the base As the churning continued, many treasures emerged—the goddess

lakshmi; Varuni, the personified goddess of liquor; apsaras

or celestial maidens; surabhi, the cow that satisfies all objects of desire; ucchaishrava, the divine horse; Airavata, the divine elephant; the jewel Kaustubha; the celestial tree

known as parijata; and so on the demons claimed some of

these treasures, the gods the others the churning also

generated a terrible poison, known as halahala or kalakuta

this was so virulently venomous that it threatened to destroy the worlds and everything in them to save the worlds, shiva consumed this poison As a result, shiva’s throat turned blue Dhanvantari is the physician of the gods, and the god of physicians once the poison was out of the way, Dhanvantari emerged from the ocean, holding the

pot of amrita in his hand.

the gods wanted amrita, so did the demons they started

to fight Kashyapa not only married Aditi, Diti and Danu, he also married other daughters of Daksha two of these were Vinata and Kadru, sisters of Aditi, Diti and Danu Vinata was the mother of all birds and one of her sons was Garuda, Vishnu’s mount Kadru’s children were 1,000 serpents Vasuki was one of these to make sure that the demons

didn’t get any amrita, Garuda ran away with the pot or in

a side story, Kadru and Vinata had a bet since Vinata lost the bet through some deceit on Kadru’s part, she became Kadru’s servant Garuda didn’t like the idea of his mother being a servant Kadru agreed to release Vinata provided

Garuda brought the pot of amrita to the serpents that’s the reason Garuda flew away with amrita to return to the main story, the demons had to be dissuaded from drinking amrita

Vishnu assumed the form of a beautiful woman, known as mohini so smitten were the demons by mohini that they

promptly forgot about amrita While the demons were

Prayagraj and Kumbh

The sacred and the civic on the Ganga

By Bibek Debroy

FORM & REFORM

11 february 2019 www.openthemagazine.com 15

deceived, the gods sat down to have amrita the demon

svarbhanu was rather clever Disguising himself as a god,

he sat down to have amrita too By the time this was noticed,

it was a bit too late, since svarbhanu had already had a bit

of amrita surya (the sun-god) and chandra (the moon-god)

pointed out to Vishnu what svarbhanu had done Vishnu’s

razor-sharp weapon is known as sudarshana chakra using

this, he sliced off svarbhanu’s head But since svarbhanu

had savoured amrita, he couldn’t be killed the head became

Rahu and the headless torso became Ketu Rahu wasn’t

going to forgive surya and chandra, the culprits who had

informed Vishnu about them therefore, at the time of solar

and lunar eclipses, he respectively swallows up the sun and

the moon A pot full of amrita, carried away by Garuda

A pot full of amrita, carried away by Vishnu

in his form of mohini, before he handed

the pot over to Jayanta, indra’s son

in this process of carrying, itihasa

or Purana doesn’t quite tell us

drops of amrita were spilt

anywhere those are later

stories and they tell us

four drops fell in Prayaga,

history and tradition

the sanskrit word ‘yaaga’

means oblation or

sacrifice the prefix ‘pra’

can qualify the word

‘sacrifice’ in many ways there

are references to Prayaga in the

Valmiki Ramayana, mahabharata

and several Puranas in the Valmiki

Ramayana, in ‘Ayodhya Kanda’, on their way

to the forest, Rama, sita and lakshmana arrive in the sage

Bharadvaja’s hermitage having entered an extremely large

forest, they went to the region where the Bhagirathi Ganga

flowed towards the Yamuna Rama tells lakshmana, ‘We

have certainly reached the confluence of the Ganga and the

Yamuna.’ the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna, where

Bharadvaja’s hermitage was, is the place known as Prayaga

today, people do visit Bharadvaja’s hermitage in Prayagraj

But rivers change course and the Ganga has moved away

from the ashrama.

in the ‘Vana Parva’ section of the mahabharata, there is

a sub-parva known as ‘tirtha-yatra parva’ A tirtha is a sacred

place of pilgrimage one visits to acquire merit thus, this

sub-parva is about visiting such sacred places of pilgrimage

however, a tirtha isn’t just any place of pilgrimage there is

a sense of descending down towards the water therefore,

to be classified as a tirtha, a spot must have water, as Prayaga does in ‘Vana Parva’ we are told that the tirtha Prayaga

(along with a few others) was a place where Brahma, the creator, undertook a sacrifice it was his sacrificial altar

therefore, it is the best of tirthas and the Vedas and sacrifices

exist there in personified form if one bathes in Prayaga, one

acquires the merits of undertaking rajasuya and ashvamedha

sacrifices We are not concerned with dating when texts like the Valmiki Ramayana and mahabharata were composed For our purposes, by the time these two epics were

composed, Prayaga was a celebrated tirtha, where one went

to bathe the Puranas mentioned reinforce that impression

in Padma Purana, ‘many are the tirthas that have been

spoken about some yield objects of desire, others yield

emancipation those that yield objects of desire don’t necessarily yield emancipation those that yield emancipation don’t necessarily yield objects of desire however,

there is a tirtha, the king of

tirthas, which is capable

of yielding both simultaneously this happens to be Prayaga.’Brahma, Vishnu and shiva are the trinity of creator, preserver and destroyer, and all three reside in Prayaga Brahma resides there in invisible form; Vishnu, in his form

of Venimadhava; and shiva,

in the form of an akshaya vata,

a banyan tree that does not get destroyed since shiva resides in Prayaga, Prayaga is not destroyed

at the time of universal destruction if the gods reside there, their consorts must also

be there shiva’s consort is Ganga and Vishnu’s consort is Yamuna Brahma’s consort is sarasvati Just as Brahma re-sides in Prayaga in invisible form, so does sarasvati unlike the clear Ganga and the darker Yamuna, the sarasvati can-not be seen in Prayaga But she is there and Prayaga is

triveni sangama (confluence of three rivers) the next time

you hear ‘Prayag’, break it up into the constituent aksharas

(syllables) ‘Pra’ stands for Ganga, ‘yaa’ for Yamuna and ‘ga’

for sarasvati Prayaga is a tirtha where one goes to have a

bath it is a place of pilgrimage and that bath is even more sacred on auspicious days Examples of such auspicious

days are the day of the new moon (amavasya), the day of the

full moon, or days when the sun enters a specific sign of the zodiac, or specific months What happens to infrastructure

in a city when there is a sudden influx of pilgrims? i will save that for the next column n

11 february 2019

16

Rivers have always fascinated me, with

the rippling and purling of their waters, and

the fractal venations that represent them on

satellite maps Perhaps this fascination springs

from a biographical circumstance: i belong to an

ethnic group that takes its name from a lost river, which

once flowed in north-western india before the earth

swallowed it up Over the centuries, my people have

migrated to parts of the subcontinent and the world distant

from their original home in Kashmir Carried across time

and space through their diaspora, the saraswati has become

a metaphor of loss and survival: a trope abandoned by

geography but resurrected through language and music, the

memory of a civilisation and the echo of a landscape and

while scientists and charlatans clash over the precise

location of my ancestral river—as they do in shirley

abraham and amit Madheshiya’s sensitively made 2018

documentary, Searching for Saraswati—i find myself

looking for its traces elsewhere

i look for the river in the paintings of Kangra ateliers, in

which every wavelet and leaf has been stylised by a painterly

eye that regarded detail as the covenant of truth i look for the

river in the vachanas of Basava, who sings of his beloved

Kudala-sangama-deva, lord of the Meeting rivers; and in the thumris

of siddheshwari Devi, their poignancy redolent of the ghats

of varanasi i look for the river, again, in the films of ritwik

Ghatak, which record their protagonists’ journeys through the

melancholy yet sublime topographies of Subarnarekha (1965)

and Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (1973).

The river, today choked by dams and poisoned with

industrial effluents, was once central to india’s material life

and sacred culture in common with other riparian

civilisations of antiquity, the civilisations of the indus, the

Narmada and the Ganga valleys developed a water cosmology,

a belief in the waters as the origin and sustaining principle of

life in this account, the river is a matrix of abundance its

alluvial deposits and its water, fed by spring, thaw or rain,

rendered the land fertile and made agriculture possible yet the

cataclysmic threat posed by the flood-swollen river also

produced the mythology of the pralaya, the world-annihilating

deluge The indic religious imagination first embodied the

subcontinent’s temperamental rivers as apsaras or water

goddesses as early as in the rig veda, they appear as guardians

of the river-treasury, vital but dangerous and unpredictable

The nadi-devatas or river-goddesses of later times evolved from the vedic apsaras More benign than their precursors,

theirs is an iconography of fertility in the Kailasanatha temple complex at ellora is a shrine dedicated to the three major river

divinities, Ganga, yamuna and saraswati Four images of

nadi-devatas, each accompanied by a distinctive totemic vehicle,

appear in the temple of the Chaunsath-yogini, the sixty-four

yoginis, at Bhedaghat on the Narmada here, we see Ganga with

her makara or horned crocodile, yamuna with her tortoise, saraswati with her peacock, and Narmada herself, on a makara

pedestal each river-goddess carries the archetypal vessel of

plenitude, the purna-kumbha later, in sindh, that crucible of

syncretic culture, there would emerge the figure of Jhulelal, lord of the waters seated on a great fish, Jhulelal fused within himself two prior figures: varuna, vedic God of the ocean and judge-king who preserved the moral order, and Khwaja Khizr, the Green One, the Guardian of the Fountain of life in islamic myth Both these figures are ultimately traceable back to the

mysterious Utnapishtim of the Epic of Gilgamesh, who ‘dwells

where the river meets the sea’ and offers guidance to the eponymous hero of this Mesopotamian narrative

The river was a road in itself, and a guide to land routes Northern india’s earliest historic cities were established, at the beginning of the first millennium BCe, along the Ganga-ya-muna system: indraprastha (modern Delhi), hastinapura and Kosambi on the yamuna, varanasi on the Ganga By Mauryan times, a network of trade routes connected the north and east of the subcontinent with the south and west The main trunk road began at Tamralipti, the celebrated port situated near modern-day Kolkata, and passed through the ancient city of Champa, Pataliputra (modern Patna) and varanasi to Kaushambi From there, a branch led to Bhrigukaccha (today’s Bharuch) at the mouth of the Narmada, by way of Ujjayini (present-day Ujjain)

Meanwhile, the principal westward land route ran along the yamuna from Kaushambi to Mathura, and then via indraprastha, sakala (modern sialkot), Takshashila and the Kabul valley to Central asia The southward route passed from

Lost & Found Histories

A River Runs through It

Coursing along India’s riparian culture

By Ranjit Hoskote

11 february 2019 www.openthemagazine.com 17

Ujjayini to Pratishthana in the Deccan (modern Paithan in

Maharasthra), and so across the Deccan plateau to the lower

Krishna, and the great southern urban centres of Kanchi and

Madurai The river pilots of the Ganga, the indus and the rivers

of the Deccan braved such perils as pirates, sandbanks and

submerged rocks to convey goods and passengers across the

subcontinent Their cargo included spices, sandalwood, gold

and jewels from the south; silks and muslin from varanasi

and Bengal; musk, saffron and yak-tails from the himalayan

foothills iron came from Jharkhand’s mines; copper from

the Deccan, rajasthan and the western himalayas salt was

traded inland from the coast; sugar was produced in moister

and warmer zones, and ferried to cooler and drier ones; rice was

exported to the northwest

Used as they were by merchants, scholars, artisans, monks,

warriors and pilgrims, south asia’s river routes ensured that

the subcontinent was shaped by journeying and migration, the

constant exchange of goods across a network of

inter-relation-ships To this history, we owe the absent husbands and lovers,

gone away on their travels, who feature in indian poetry and

song across the centuries, from the Prakrit Gaha-sattasai to the

thumri and kajri it is this history, also, that negates Mahatma

Gandhi’s charming but unfounded notion of the unchanging,

self-contained village republics of india, which he borrowed

from the British administrator sir Charles Metcalfe’s Minute of

November 7th, 1830

if river routes were catalysts in the world of material gain

and prosperity, they also supported that inter-penetration

of terrain, culture and belief systems, which we call a ‘sacred

geography’ Many indian rivers act as re-tellings of myths, their

courses punctuated by sthala-puranas or place legends

associ-ated with shrines that suggest alternative versions of the events nested within the capacious ramayana and Mahabharata narratives situated on the banks of rivers or the confluence of

rivers, such shrines mark a tirtha, the bridge from iha to para,

this world to the other, from samsara to moksha, the world of appearances to a release from the cycle of rebirth in this spirit,

the Jaina spiritual liberators are revered as tirthankaras,

bridge-builders who carry us across the river of life and the Buddha, too, presents himself as a ferryman who helps the self to make

the passage to the further shore of enlightenment

The river, and the land between rivers, has been pivotal to political life as well The agrarian histories of the Ganga-

yamuna doab in the north and the Krishna-Tungabhadra doab

in the south chronicle the waxing and waning of imperial tinies a recurrent narrative in indic mythology is that of the war over water The rig vedic episode of the sky-God indra’s killing of the cloud-dragon vritra has been interpreted as the destruction of an indus barrage and the release of its dammed waters again, in the rig veda, we read of the victory of sudas, chief of the Bharatas, over a confederacy that attempts to divert the course of the Parushni, identified as a stretch of the modern ravi, away from the Bharata territory Our modern polity inherits, and exacerbates, a legacy of persistent conflict over rivers even 4,000 years ago, those committed to preserving local habitats shaped by long intimacy with riverine environ-ments were struggling against those intent on destroying them

des-in the name of large-scale economic transition n

If rIver routes were catalysts

In the world of materIal gaIn and prosperIty, they also supported an InterpenetratIon

of terraIn, culture and belIef systems, whIch

we call a ‘sacred geography’

A scene from Searching

for Saraswati (2018)

18 11 february 2019

Now that US President Donald trump, ever

more wobbly over walling off the land of liberty,

has reached for his holster to glare India’s whisky

tariff barriers down in the name of ‘reciprocal trade’

(“India gets 150 per cent,” goes his grouse, “we get nothing”), it’s

time to slap foreheads and roll eyes as usual, but also ask why

Delhi has been so slow in opening up the domestic market for

liquor to global competition No discernible national interest

is served by shielding it, nor do american brands have much

hope of swamping an arena that has rivalry enough of its own

what seems to have caught the eye of the white house is

the new world order of whisky volumes Four of the planet’s

five top sellers are Indian with annual sales estimated at over

290 million litres, officer’s Choice is the biggest by far with

about 255 million litres quaffed down every year, McDowell’s

No 1 is ranked second at around 170 million litres, Johnnie

walker Scotch vies with India’s Imperial Blue and Royal Stag

for third place america’s favourite whisky, Jack Daniel’s, is no

longer among the big five, and its much-ballyhooed bourbon

Jim Beam is nowhere close

to a man with a sling at his waist, though, everything

looks like a target; which might explain american fantasies

of Indians sozzled silly by Jack and Jim flowing freely into a

1.8-billion-litre market Yes, it’s almost half the world’s total,

but the devil’s in the details: booze sales in India are infernally

price-sensitive at roughly $5.5 for a 750-ml bottle, for example,

officer’s Choice retails here for a fifth of the money that Jack

Daniel’s does in New York Even if granted duty-free access,

american brands would only find

themselves doing what they do

anyway: fight Scotch, that is, and

that too for just a sliver of India’s

whisky pie Imports account for

less than 36 million litres a year, an

itsy-bitsy share that could double

or treble if local prices were to

halve, but that’s about it Clearly,

Jack and Jim would be better off

aiming for a casual niche of

up-market consumption by casting

Scotch as the uptight choice of

Raj-hungover elders, even as

Indian Made Foreign Liquor

(IMFL) labels retain a vast bulk

of all that goes down throats

at least that’s what rivalry

gurus would probably advise

In Michael Porter’s formulation,

gaining a competitive edge calls for focusing on either a niche

or mass market while trying to hawk either the cheapest or most sharply differentiated stuff ambitious marketers tend

to opt for the latter, since selling an intoxicant as something special could command the sort of consumer loyalty that spells extra profits, though some also try to crush costs while at it

as part of a double-edged strategy

theory, though, doesn’t always survive contact with reality, especially not in a mass market as restive as India’s as IMFL executives attest, it defies all market models Edges get blunt, pros turn into cons, and cons into bestsellers But model the market, analysts still must Consider, say, an old blend that traces its origin to the oak casks of a Scottish clan once liberally admired for the finesse of its fluency but pushed into scraping the barrel under the onslaught of a spicy single-malt rival, one spiced up by crocus threads and aimed at a sigh-of-the-oppressed segment that has expanded furiously in recent times Such an arena would presumably be led by the brand that’s clearer about the appeal of what it has to offer

alas, intoxication rarely lends itself to clarity oh no, not with preferences in such a royal state of flux and once each brand confuses its game with the other’s, neither can work out how to pitch itself the old blend is tempted to highlight just one malt, while the single-malt goes all out for barrel scrapers

In a market as muddled as this, which of the two would an investor bet on? one approach would be to assume that addiction makes for consumer captivity, and the spicy option will always have a more reliable advantage on this another

way to look at it would be to ask

if the allure of that heady spice hasn’t begun to get eclipsed in popular perception by the extra cost endured—say, the extreme harm done over time—in contrast with the bland but relatively harmless blend that has little beyond the distilled wonders of diverse inputs going for it.It’s just a model, admittedly, but it’s still worth some thought are people really getting cost-conscious in anything other than myopic ways? Nobody knows and that’s why nothing can

be counted upon in an addled market Blame it on ‘the affluence

of incohol’, in the impish words

11 february 2019

20

propose to focus on the crucial issue of the wholesome functioning of the election commission that is in many ways critical to future development there are two main issues involved here the first is to instill a sense of security in election commissioners, which can only come through a constitutional amendment that makes the procedure for their removal the same as that for the chief election commissioner, thereby giving the same protection to election commissioners as accorded

to judges of the supreme court the second issue is to give legal sanctity to the tradition of the senior-most election

commissioner taking over as cec on the retirement of the incumbent, so as to eliminate discretion of the executive

I have referred to the unfortunate imbroglio within the commission when the then cec, N Gopalaswami, suo motu

recommended my dismissal from the commission the cec had held that he had the authority under the constitution to recommend the removal of an election commissioner this was a case of constitutional overreach, leading the Government

to reject his recommendation

the furore that ensued led to a number of significant commentaries on the subject by arguably the country’s foremost legal and constitutional luminaries their voices should be regarded as objective expressions of concern on an issue that awaits urgent resolution.Insofar as the commentaries are concerned, it is necessary to include the opinion dated 12 April 2006, of Ashok Desai, former Attorney General of India and senior advocate, for it was his opinion that cec BB tandon officially sought and upon whose advice

he acted It was on this opinion that the affidavit he filed in the supreme court was based

on 16 february 2009, former cec ts Krishnamurthy commented on the then raging issue at a function in chennai with these words: “the anomaly pertaining to appointment or removal of election commissioner should have been set right in 1991 itself, when two more officers were appointed by the centre But it was not so the disparity among the officers can be removed if all of them are treated alike.”

the purpose here is not to rekindle controversy but to present the facts in the hope that what I see as a glaring lacuna can be conclusively addressed in a manner that would strengthen the commission and free its commissioners from the ‘whims and caprices’ not merely of the cec of the day but also of the Government

After I became the chief election commissioner—and constitutionally secure—I wrote to prime Minister Manmohan singh on

22 January 2010 on the need for the Government to initiate this reform to guard against such adventurism on the part of the cec ever arising in the future the sum and substance of my case to the prime Minister was for his government to provide election com-missioners similar protection from removal as is presently accorded by the constitution only to the chief election commissioner

I pointed out to the prime Minister that till 1989 there was only the chief election commissioner, who was constitutionally tected by Article 324 on 16 october 1989, the Government of rajiv Gandhi appointed two additional commissioners, namely Messrs

pro-Election commissioners are only answerable to the institution

11 february 2019 www.openthemagazine.com 21

ss Dhanoa and VK seigell, for a term of five years or until

they reached the age of 65, as prescribed for the cec Because

of a curious turn of events, their tenures would last barely

ten weeks the 1989 General election to elect the ninth Lok

sabha saw the defeat of the rajiv Gandhi-led Government

to be replaced by that of Vp singh the new Government

abolished the two posts by a simple notification on 1 January

1990, allegedly because the two commissioners had angered

the Haryana politician Devi Lal, who later became Deputy

prime Minister this led one of the two affected

commis-sioners, ss Dhanoa to challenge this decision in the supreme

court Although the supreme court agreed that his removal

was arbitrary, the court, nevertheless, upheld the decision of the

Government, ruling that because the president (meaning prime

Minister) was the appointing authority, he held the power to

rescind the posts as well this would hold special significance in

my own matter as it unfolded

My own case played out somewhat differently In the case of

Dhanoa and seigell, it was the Government that chose to

abol-ish the posts In my case, while the Government had no stated

intention of abolishing the posts, Gopalaswami interpreted

the constitution to mean that as cec he had the constitutional

right, suo motu, to recommend to the Government the removal

of a fellow commissioner without awaiting a reference from the

Government this play of events was precipitated at a critical

phase of the 15th General election, practically on its eve, and just

a few months before the cec would himself demit office

My letter to the prime Minister sought to deter any further

adventurism from within the commission It was in the same

spirit that I had sought to introduce some equalising reforms one was that, henceforth, the cec and both the commission-

ers would jointly write the confidential reports of all officials

who served the commission both at its headquarters and in the states As any civil servant would recognise, this served to bring about parity between all three, because all officials would

seek to serve the Commission as a whole and not be beholden

only to its chief this was a significant step towards the concept

of primus inter pares spelt out in the seshan judgment of the

supreme court, that held that all three were equal, but the cec would handle matters of administration so that there was no confusion in day-to-day work

the matter of providing constitutional protection from removal is being heard in the supreme court the commission

in its affidavit before the court reaffirmed its two-decade-old stand that all the commissioners must be treated equally in the matter of their removal Disappointingly, and in sharp contrast,

MY LETTER TO THEN PRIME MINISTER MANMOHAN SINGH SOUGHT TO DETER ANY FURTHER ADVENTURISM FROM

WITHIN THE COMMISSION IT WAS IN THE

SAME SPIRIT THAT I HAD SOUGHT TO INTRODUCE SOME EQUALISING REFORMS

11 february 2019

22

the Government’s stand is that there can be no justification

for bringing the conditions of removal of the election

commissioners, who are statutorily appointed, on par with

that of a permanent constitutional functionary such as the

cec the Government in its affidavit has further stated that

the commission was functioning ‘smoothly’, and since the

petitioner had not placed any ‘material backing’ there is,

therefore, no ‘need for a change’

eminent jurist and constitution expert fali Nariman told

the Hindu that the cec may have the power under Article 324

(5) of the constitution to recommend the removal of an

election commissioner but this power cannot be used

mechanically due to some difference of opinion with the other

commissioners simply because he is a superior authority It can

be used only if there is a gross violation or if a person

has become bankrupt He further stated that the cec’s

recommendation is not binding on the Government the

emi-nent lawyer was more upset at the timing of Gopalaswami’s

recommendation “When we need a united commission for

holding the general elections, [the cec’s action] has divided the

commission and has done damage to the institution,” he said

former Attorney-General and senior advocate soli

sorabjee shared Nariman’s views: “the power of the cec to

recommend removal of an ec is implied given the structure of

the election commission But the timing is unfortunate It is

for the Government to take a decision to accept or not accept

the recommendation If there are cogent reasons for the

Government to reject the recommendation, it can do so.”

former Law Minister shanti Bhushan echoed this:

“Appoint-ments and removals are in the Government’s domain and a

view by the cec is to be given only if his advice is asked for.” He

too questioned the timing: “the matter has been pending for

many months If the cec wanted to give an opinion, why did he

wait for weeks before his retirement, which is due on April 20?”

In an article published in the Hindu on 9 february 2009,

Justice s Mohan—retired judge of the supreme court of

India—argued that:

‘the cec cannot exercise his power suo motu because

the members of the commission are of equal status If suo

motu power is conferred on the cec, it will amount to an

assumption of superiority, which is not warranted and

will obliterate the equality this aspect did not specifically

arise in the case of tN seshan However, it is logical to clude that if the election commission is to function as a body, such suo motu recommendation by the cec would nullify the function of the commission the election commissioners will be more interested in dancing to the tune of chief election commissioner and try to be in his good books this cannot be the intent of the constitu-tion under Article 324(5) such a situation will never be conducive to an effective functioning of the commission the conclusion, therefore, is inescapable that the power

con-of recommendation cannot be exercised suo motu.’

senior journalist Harish Khare’s article ‘restoring order at Nirvachan sadan statecraft’ probably sums up the issues at stake:

‘Almost all sober students of Indian politics and most constitutional experts are unanimous regretting that the controversy caused by Mr Gopalaswami has dam-aged the institutional prestige of the election commis-sion since tN seshan’s days, it has reclaimed— with considerable help from the judiciary and the democratic civil society—its autonomy against a wayward political class; and it has indeed used that elbow room to introduce an energetic notion of fairness in the electoral process No longer can a ruling party—at the centre or

in the states—have an unfair advantage over its rivals and challengers the election commission has become

a role model the world over for a vigorous, neutral and detached umpire in a poll process that otherwise tends

to be defined by intimidation, violence and corruption

It is precisely because of this success that the timing

of Mr Gopalaswami’s action bewilders even those who may be inclined to see some merit or reason in his ani-mosity towards Mr chawla coming as it does so close to the next general election, the Gopalaswami activism has the potential of distracting from the authenticity of the forthcoming poll process Neither Mr Gopalaswami’s friends nor Mr chawla’s detractors would want any further erosion in the credibility of the institution that is

at the heart of the Indian democracy

[…]

In fact, both the prime Minister and the Law ister have a responsibility to reject Mr Gopalaswami’s recommendation but in a manner and language that would assure the nation that there is no dilution of the canons of good governance Indeed, the Gopalaswami activism needs to be defeated, otherwise it would set a disastrous precedent, encouraging political parties to try

Min-to manipulate and browbeat the election commission

and its officials.’ n

Navin Chawla is a former Chief Election Commissioner of India.

This is an edited excerpt from his book ,

every Vote counts: the story of India’s elections

(HarperCollins India, 376 pages, Rs 524)

open essay

FALI NARIMAN HAS SAID THE CHIEF’S

POWER TO REMOVE ELECTION

COMMISSIONERS CAN BE USED ONLY

IF THERE IS A GROSS VIOLATION OR IF

A PERSON HAS BECOME BANKRUPT

11 february 2019

24

T he author Joe Moran in First You Write a Sentence

notes, ‘the word curious derives from the Latin cura, which also gives us cure and care Curiosity is a cure for self-absorption, the

cure being to take care about the world and lay down roots in

it again.’ to engage in any work with focus and dedication is to dig personal roots into the soil of our earth; it is a way to achieve

‘absorbedness’ Moran adds, ‘and to be truly absorbed in anything

is to be truly blessed.’

the open-republic tV achievers awards ceremony, held

on January 28th ‘to celebrate achievers from every walk of life’

at the taj Palacehotel, Delhi, was a testament to the power of absorbedness and the importance of laying down roots the jury chairmen of the awards were rP-Sanjiv Goenka Group Chairman Sanjiv Goenka and republic tV editor-in-Chief and Managing Director arnab Goswami, and jury members included Principal economic adviser in the Ministry of Fi-nance Sanjeev Sanyal, McKinsey India Managing Director Gautam Kumra, cricketer Gautam Gambhir and bestselling author amish tripathi

the men and women who were honoured at these awards are those who care for the world by being fully committed to their work, whether it is in music, sports, cinema or business they are absorbed in their respective fields because it is not the drudgery of a job, but the calling of a vocation that occupies them

It is only complete immersion in one’s work that can ensure sonal fulfilment and public benefit the award recipients are those who have achieved success, and by contributing to a larger

Achievers AwArds

with the finest minds from

business, culture, sports,

By nandini nair

Akash Ambani (left) of Reliance Jio receives the Disruptor of the Year award from RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group Chairman Sanjiv Goenka

Disruptor of the Year

reliAnce Jio

“When you hear the

Word ‘diSruptor’,

people think that

you Come in and

break Stuff but to

be honeSt, at Jio, We

foCuS on What Can

bring SoCietal value

and that iS our

miSSion”

Akash Ambani

director Reliance Jio

11 february 2019

26

C o v e r S t o r y

Lifetime Achievement awardee E Sreedharan (left) with Republic TV Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director Arnab Goswami

Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan (left), the winner in the Arts & Literature category, with Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister of Law and Justice and Electronics and

Hindustani classical musician

“i only Want to

remind you that

Whatever i’ve

aChieved, either the

Completion of the

konkan railWay or

the delhi metro,

thiS iS not the

aChievement of one

partiCular individual

thiS iS teamWork”

E Sreedharan

Former Managing Director

Delhi Metro Rail Corp

11 february 2019 www.openthemagazine.com 27

cause, have made the country proud

they have forged new paths for

them-selves, told us new stories, and created

possible futures for India

Delivering the keynote address, ravi

Shankar Prasad, the union minister who

holds the Law and Justice and electronics

and Information technology portfolios,

championed this drive for change and

bet-terment “there are two ways of looking at

India,” he said, “one, you can say the same

thing that has been said over the last so

many years, ‘Iss mulk mein kuchh nahin ho

sakta (nothing can happen in this

coun-try)’, and bore yourself and bore others

I think—with the greatest respect to

all—they abound in Lutyens’ Delhi the

second is: there are problems, there are

challenges, but you must have the

com-mitment to overcome them because we

are committed to the larger destiny of

India India must become a great power

of the world not only economically, not

only militarily, but most importantly,

intellectually, spiritually and culturally.”

In a country like India, change comes

in various shapes and sizes It could be the

improvement that can be wrought in a

dozen schools in Bahraich, uttar Pradesh;

it can be a product that reconfigures how

millions of Indians communicate on a

daily basis; or it can be a fresh definition

of popular cinema the open-republic

tV achievers awards celebrate those who

have created change in big, small, and

above all, meaningful ways

Both large and significant has been the

success of reliance Jio, which won the

Dis-ruptor of the Year award, collected by the

28-year-old akash ambani, a director of

the telecom company who has played a

key role in its rapid expansion across the

country Goenka described reliance Jio as

a company “that has created history, and

has reformatted, reinvented and rescaled

telecommunication in India”

Speaking of the importance of

team-work in his acceptance speech, ambani

said, “When you hear the word

‘disrup-tor’, people think that you come in and

break stuff, at least in my mind they do

that But to be honest, at Jio, we focus on

what can bring societal value and that is

our mission everything we do will always

have the consumer in the front of it as we

go forward—we will be three in ber this year—we hope that we can bring you more and more services and more and more opportunities… this award is actually dedicated to my father [Mukesh ambani] because without his vision and motivation to our group, we would be nowhere today.” he also expressed his gratitude for “the hundred thousand em-ployees of Jio who passionately work day

Septem-in and day out to make our mission

pos-sible.” akash ambani revealed that the last time he checked, Jio had reached 285 million customers and was still growing.hindustan unilever Ltd (huL), a large corporation which has been offering high-quality household, personal-care and food products at affordable prices for decades, won the Seasoned Business award for its sustained record of excellence upon re-ceiving the award, huL Chairman and Managing Director Sanjiv Mehta said,

“as a country, we are a bit shy of

applaud-Seasoned Business hindUstAn Unilever

“from a hinduStan unilever perSpeCtive, i’ve alWayS Said that the root of our Capital might

be anglo-dutCh, but our ethoS iS indian, our heart beatS for india”

Sanjiv Mehta Chairman and Managing Director Hindustan Unilever

11 february 2019

28

ing success and I think what [Open and

Republic TV] have done today could act as

a catalyst for people to raise their tions, kindle their ambitions From a hin-dustan unilever perspective, I’ve always said that the root of our capital might be anglo-Dutch, but our ethos is Indian, our heart beats for India, and it comes from a very simple philosophy: what is good for our country is good for huL So I would like to dedicate this to millions of our countrymen who have reposed trust, faith and confidence in our brands.”

aspira-on the trust quotient, few can match the achievement of oyo rooms, which won in the new age Business category, beating other online startups such as Swiggy, Zomato, ola, BookMyShow, Byju’s, Paytm and PolicyBazaar Its 25-year-old founder ritesh agarwal, who came to Delhi from odisha on a train as a bright-eyed 19-year-old, has often spoken about how dreaming big is the most vital step

to achieving big he started oyo in 2013

today, it is said to be the world’s growing hotel chain, with accommoda-tion available in over 230 cities of India

fastest-he said, “I do believe we will be one of tfastest-he first Indian companies that will operate the world’s largest hotel company, sig-nificantly larger than Marriott, by 2023.”

hailed as a ‘young turk’ for his neurial vigour and business acumen, agarwal also spoke about a change he notices afoot in India “Mission oriented-ness is an absolutely new thing I am see-ing across India,” he said, “Whether it is media, or organisations such as what we are building, companies are no longer

entrepre-being built just for the sake of profits or income they are being built for a mis-sion.” the idea that led to oyo was sim-ply, “Why can’t low cost be good quality

in hospitality?” as he put it

Few people better embody such sionary zeal than Delhi’s ‘Metro Man’

mis-e Srmis-emis-edharan, who was awardmis-ed thmis-e Lifmis-e-time achievement award to a standing ovation the other contenders for this award spanned amitabh Bachchan to

Life-MS Swaminathan, but few would dispute Sreedharan’s victory the 86-year-old civil engineer is best known for revitalising public transport in India and introducing urban commuters to the Metro a picture

of humility, Sreedharan said in his tance speech, “I only want to remind you that whatever I’ve achieved—either the completion of the Konkan railway or the Delhi Metro, or for starting a metro revolution in the country as such—this

accep-is not the achievement of one particular individual, this is teamwork, and I very humbly receive this award on behalf of the team,” adding, “no doubt what I’ve been able to do is not merely teamwork,

it is also divine grace.”

Greatness and glory cannot be achieved by individuals working in silos the importance of teamwork and part-nerships, the need for people to believe

in a larger common good was reiterated

by various winners

Indian footballer Sunil Chhetri, who shared the Sports award with boxer Mary Kom, dedicated the trophy to his team and spoke with passion and eloquence about how his success is not that of an

Young AchieverhimA dAs

The 19-year-old athlete holds the national

400 metres record

Cinema AndhAdhUn

Tabu (left) and Ayushmann Khurrana in a

scene from the award-winning film

New Age Business

longer being built JuSt

for the Sake of profitS

or inCome they’re being

built for a miSSion”

Ritesh Agarwal

Founder Oyo Rooms

C o v e r S t o r y

11 february 2019 www.openthemagazine.com 29

SPECIAL JURY MENTION (SPORTS) THE INDIAN BLIND CRICKET TEAM

Footballer Sunil Chhetri (left) and boxer Mary Kom, joint winners

in the Sports category

“Without my family, there Would be

no Sunil Chhetri, there Would be no

goalS, no trophieS WhatSoever”

Sunil Chhetri footballer

“thiS aWard haS given me a reSponSibility to do Something again in upComing CompetitionS”

Mary Kom boxer

Captain Ajay Kumar Reddy (second from left) with his teammates

11 february 2019

30

individual; rather, it should be

attrib-uted to an entire squad, both on and off

the field; he’s the player he is because of

those who rally around him, his coaches,

his physicians, teammates and, of course,

his family he drew laughter and applause

from the audience for his candid and

heartfelt confessions he revealed that his

entire household works for the benefit of

the player Sunil Chhetri his parents,

sis-ter and wife all adapt their life to his needs:

whether it is eating boiled broccoli every

day, or not going out to party at night, or

not listening to music when he practises

“each and every day, they do exactly what

is conducive to help me and my career,”

Chhetri said, “I feel ashamed right now

because here is a mother-of-three,

Mary-di, who does a wonderful job, and I am

thinking, ‘What does this guy do, sleep,

eat, play, and come back?’ that is all my

life is each and everything is taken care

of by these guys My father still pays my

electricity bills I am ashamed to say this, but that is a fact everything in my life is taken care of by these wonderful people

Without them, there would be no Sunil Chhetri, there would be no goals, no tro-phies whatsoever.” acknowledging their contribution, he asked the audience to ap-plaud them as well

A SPeCIaL MoMent In the

cere-mony was when sprinter hima Das’

father came to collect the Young achiever award on her behalf while she was away training in turkey today, the ‘Dhing express’ from assam who holds the current national 400-metres record is a celebrity in her own right, but her father’s acceptance speech reminded everyone just how far she has travelled Speaking with quiet emotion, he said, “I am a farm-

er from a small village hima from her childhood has played, she used to wander;

|I never stopped her I always encouraged

her to go forward I told her, ‘I’d be behind you.’ What hima has done makes us all proud She has got a gold medal for India [at the IaaF World u20 Championships] Please give us your blessings so that she goes to the olympics.” ronjit Das’ evocative words and hima’s own story are proof of how great distances can be covered with a steely will a biopic awaits hima because of her unusual trajectory and the strength of her conviction the awards also looked beyond busi-ness and sports to celebrate those in the fields of arts hindustani classical musi-cian ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan won

in this category his disciples include Shaan, hariharan and Sonu nigam the frail Padma Vibhushan recipient

and singer of ghazals from the rampur

Sahaswan Gharana had to be escorted onto the stage by his son While hand-ing over the prize to him, ravi Shankar Prasad recounted his long association

C o v e r S t o r y

(L-R): Sanjiv and Shashwat Goenka of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group

with Ravi Shankar Prasad Sunil Chhetri (centre) and his wife Sonam Bhattacharya (left)

The Jury members The Jury chairmen

Gautam Gambhir

Cricketer

Arnab Goswami

Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director, Republic TV

sanjeev sanyal

Principal Economic Adviser, Ministry

of Finance

Amish tripathi

Author

a rare film that does not one of 2018’s most widely acclaimed hindi movies,

Andhadhun was awarded in the Cinema

category ajit andhare, chief operating officer at Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, the studio that produced the winning film, reminded the gathering of how big risks can beget sweet rewards “We are looking to actually find new ways

to tell new stories to make this new-age cinema that doesn’t look backwards, but looks at new directions, new places, new stories, new inspirations,” he said, “and

to find so much love for a quirky dark off-centre film, and for it to become the talk of the country when mainstream films are actually finding it a bit tough to find relevance, I think is a clear sign of changing India It gives us confidence as makers and producers that new stories are here to stay.”

the open-republic tV achievers awards offer a glimpse of the potential of that new India n

The Open-Republic TV Achievers Awards will be telecast on republic tV on February 16th and 23rd at 8 pm, and on February 17th and 24th at 6 pm

A musical performance at the event A view of the audience

“What We’ve been trying to do iS SynergiSe relationS betWeen the Community and government SChoolS”

District Magistrate Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh

Public Services

mAlA srivAstAvA

11 february 2019

32

L ate last year when India was caught in the

excitement of assembly elections in Chhattisgarh,

Madhya Pradesh and rajasthan, a routine killing of

sorts took place in a remote hillside village in Bastar

district of Chhattisgarh For a state that is inured to

extreme violence, the death of a villager—however important

the person may be locally—hardly merits attention the news

was not even reported in local papers or on social media But the

killing of the headman of Kandanar village, located in the remote

Koleng area of the district that adjoins Odisha, is symptomatic of

the deadly cat-and-mouse game for control between Maoists and

government authorities

“It was evening and we had lit a fire in our courtyard and denly these people (Maoists) surrounded our home they had already surrounded the village they then pulled away my father and grabbed me as well,” says shankar, the son of the murdered headman Jattu “they told my father, ‘you are helping build a road and are also helping in forest work you will bring the govern-ment here’,” he says the headman was dragged out of his home and killed “I too would have been killed, but I managed to free myself and run away,” shankar adds

sud-Helping the government build a road is a cardinal sin in the Maoist code of crimes It is another matter that in Kandanar, vil-lagers have a simple reason to want one: it connects them to other parts of the district and allows access to services that are available

in the neighbouring Koleng In any case, the area gets cut off ing rains, resulting in total Maoist dominance But such is the

dur-GUNS aNd RO

After nearly two decades of violence, Bastar now has a semblance of normalcy but this has more to do with individual choices than ideological leanings

By SiddhArth Singh

diSpatch

to build a 70-km stretch of road linking the hamlet of Dornapal to Jagargonda—an area that was once accessible to the government only by helicopter as the road was too dangerous to travel on—is

a story of almost epic proportions a ‘road’, a pathway of mud that loses any consistency during rains, has been laid out but is far from complete In this area, as in Koleng and elsewhere, it is perilous for any person—contractor, villager, policeman—to be associated with road building at about the same time as the kill-

ing in Kandanar, the Maoists killed another villager in Punpalli,

a village classified as ‘Maoist dominated’ just about 5 km off the road Unlike the Kandanar incident, the method, manner and the goal of this murder was different two weeks before it was done, villagers were literally disarmed: their mobile phones were taken away When the police were informed of it, the villagers were alerted that something untoward could be expected

Understanding any conflict situation is tough scholars and participants—security personnel, extremists and activists—spend a lot of time trying to figure out what happened and why the Maoist conflict in east and Central India is no different But there is one dominant explanatory theme popular among Indian scholars and activists from civil society Put simply, it is this: the In-dian Government first abandoned adivasis to their fate, and then its agents began to exploit them, meting out untold injustices to

d ROadS

After nearly two decades of violence, Bastar now has a semblance of normalcy but this has more to do with individual choices than ideological leanings

A motorable track under construction in Koleng, Chhattisgarh

Photographs by SiddhaRth SiNGh

a people who have lived in these forests for centuries before any

government in Delhi took form It is a plausible argument for

certain purposes, but it lacks any mechanistic detail about how

and why the events of the last few decades occurred in the Bastar

division of Chhattisgarh For example, this line of reasoning has

no plausible answer to questions like why do people join Maoists?

Why do they abandon them? And why have the Maoists been

unable to spread their wings to the central and northern plains

of the state? To answer these questions requires a careful look at

individual motivations, choices and constraints in the lives of

this region’s people Overarching narratives about exploitation

and injustice cannot account for these

The story is different if one leaves aside the ideological

narrative

The seven bands of Maoists who departed from Andhra

Pradesh in 1980 for what was then a remote part of Madhya

Pradesh did not set out to start a revolution there Instead, their

task was to ‘develop’ the Dandakaranya region—as the area

comprising Bastar and Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra is

known—as a rear base for their actual theatre of revolution:

Andhra Pradesh At first, something positive did come out of the

Maoist incursion in the Bastar region The exploitation and

ha-rassment of Adivasis at the hands of the forest bureaucracy and

petty officials was curbed But once that was done, what was to

be done next? After all, there’s no stopping until the end point, a

revolution, is at hand If that were not enough, there was a twist in

the tale Andhra Pradesh witnessed a ruthless decimation of

Mao-ist ranks It was a strange situation The rear area was pretty much

a safe zone, but the main theatre of action had ceased to exist In

the annals of revolutionary politics, this was a unique situation

That is when the Maoists adopted a strategy that would

set Bastar ablaze in the years 2005-06 After some years of

non-intervention in the internal matters of Adivasis, the Maoists

declared a ‘class struggle’ in a region that had remained virtually

unchanged for millennia All of a sudden, villagers were declared

to be either ‘feudal elements’ or part of ‘the proletariat’, a crude

application of categories to an Adivasi society that had no notion

of class distinctions

The strategy may be scoffed at for being alien to the region’s

so-cial set-up, but in terms of modern economics it made sense Once

you sort people into two, you impart a political identity to them,

however artificial it may be That is the first step in establishing

control Identity is now widely accepted to have an economic

basis The mechanisms are complex, but the effect is simple: one

gains more ‘utility’ in dealing with like-identified people From

educational attainments to poverty to gender discrimination, identities matter

There was a further effect: since 1980, there have been tions of youngsters who have seen no government in the interiors

genera-of Bastar except the ‘jantana sarkar’, or the rule genera-of Maoist squads

This was made possible in the first place by policies put in place after Independence that mandated a very light administrative set-up in these far-flung areas The vacuum gave Maoists the room they needed When it finally dawned on governments in Raipur, Bhopal and Delhi that isolation was not helping preserve Adivasi culture but was creating a headache, the Maoists would not let the government move an inch Now they wanted isolation for their own strategic reasons

It was on this dual strategy of forging new identities in Adivasi villages and keeping all government authority out that Maoists gained near complete dominance of southern Chhattisgarh for nearly a quarter century By the early 21st century, others had discovered a counter-strategy that employed a logic that was a copycat version of what Maoists had perfected

Kutru is like any other village in this part the country Salfi and other palm trees dot the landscape The village is not far from the southern bank of Indravati river and is one of the gateways to the Abhujmarh—a vast un-surveyed forest that spans southern Chhattisgarh and parts of Maharashtra But beyond the idyll,

Maoists declared a ‘class struggle’ that labelled villagers

either as ‘feudal eleMents’ or part of ‘the proletariat’, a crude

application of identity divisions to an adivasi society

Villagers in Kandanar who lost their headman to a Maoist hit squad for helping the government build a road

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