tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-302797602024-03-14T18:16:15.864+05:30ParsaReportPolitics. Films. Books. Interviews. ReviewsParsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.comBlogger753125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-64169798374596480282023-10-17T11:54:00.000+05:302023-10-17T11:54:22.216+05:30<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>Indus
Valley Civilisation riddle turns time and again on a Tamil connect</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>JOURNEY of
A CIVILIZATION<o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>Indus to
Vaigai<o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>By R.
Balakrishnan<o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>Published
by Roja Muthiah Research Library; Pages: 524; Price: Rs 2400</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">More than
the Aryan invasion of, and migration into, India, sometime in the latter half
of second millennium Before the Common Era (BCE), it is the riddle of the Indus
Valley Civilisation (IVC) with its un-deciphered pictorial seals and its
mysterious collapse at the beginning of the second millennium BCE that remains
the big problem of ancient Indian history. What we have are the nearly
well-preserved remains of the cities of Mohenjodaro and Harappa, now in
Pakistan, and Rakhigarhi in Haryana and Dholavira in Gujarat. And the seals
which have been discovered in Mohenjodaro and Harappa, and the intriguing
figurine of the dancer are tell-tale signs of a civilization that seems to have
flourished from between 3250 BCE and 1750 BCE. The IVC cities have collapsed or
they had been abandoned suddenly – and there are many speculations about the
how and why, ranging from Aryan invasions, which does not seem to hold good any
more. The drying up of rivers and the withering of habitat, an ecological
apocalypse is a promising hypothesis but it has not been proved conclusively –
and the reasons remain elusive. The IYC riddle could have been solved if the
pictorial seals had been deciphered. It has not been done satisfactorily so
far. Not that no attempts were made to crack the secret code as it were. Tamil
scholar and archaeologist Iravatham Mahadevan, who has done work on early Tamil
Brahmi inscriptions, had tried to tabulate the IVC alphabet from the seals and
how they correlate with old Tamil. A similar attempt has been made by Finnish
Indologist Asko Parpola. There was also an attempt by marine archaeologist
U.R.Rao, who had discovered the submerged remains of Dwaraka off the Gujarat
coast. But none of them have yet made a breakthrough.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It was as
clear as daylight that IVC was pre-Aryan and pre-Vedic, and that it was also
non-Vedic. But the teasing aspect of IVC was that it seemed to contain signs of
latter-day Hinduism like the Shiva-like meditating figure or the Great Bath and
a temple structure at an elevated spot. There have been very unconvincing, even
contrived, attempts to show that there is a continuity between IVC and Vedic
Aryans through the Saraswati civilization. The argument remains unconvincing
because it does not deal with the hard evidence of the undeciphered seals and
remains of the cities spreading from Sind to Gujarat through Rajasthan. But
there have been suggestions from scholars like linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterjee
and historians like Father Heras when Mohenjodaro and Harappa were excavated that
the IVC could have a Tamil connect. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">R.Balakrishnan,
the author of this absorbing tome, in many ways follows in the footsteps of
Mahadevan, from journalism to civil services to literary and archaeological
research in pursuit of the Dravidian ‘affiliation’ of IVC. Balakrishnan details
the many parallel patterns of place names found in Sangam literature, the
ancient literary corpus that emerged between 300 BCE and 300 Common Era (CE).
Chronologically, the Sangam literature comes much after the Vedic-Sanskrit
literature, but Balakrishnan argues that it could not have emerged overnight
and it must have had a history of many centuries because it emerges in a
sophisticated form with its own literary traditions and grammar in Tolkappiyam,
which is part of the Sangam literary corpus. More importantly, Balakrishnan
establishes two points. That Sangam literatures reflect references to north
India and the Himalayas, and this could have only arisen from a collective
memory, and he quotes from the works of poets of that time to make his point.
Then he follows the pottery trail to show that the Red Black Ware (RBW) is the
remnant of the IVC, which is to be found in west and central India, which is
different from the Painted Grey Ware (PGW) of the Vedic period and the Northern
Black Polished Ware (NBPW). It is the meticulous detailing of historical
patterns in pottery on the north-south axis as well as the west-south axis that
he shows the Harappan elements surviving into the ancient southern period. The
other argument is the resemblance of place-names in central India and in deep
south in Tamil Nadu and in north-west India, especially the IVC geography. The
statistical recurrence of similar-ending place names makes it difficult to
dismiss it as mere coincidence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This gives
rise to the big argument underlying the different lines of research that the
people of IVC did not disappear, that they migrated through west and central
India into the deep south. One of the defining features of Sangam poetry is
that it describes cities and urban settings. We do not find this in early
Sanskrit literature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Secondly, it deals
with secular themes of love, flourishing cities and the lives of people and
there is no reference to gods and goddesses. He quotes from Pattinappalai has
references to the ancient Tamil port city of Kaverippumpattinam of the Chola
period harking back to memories of an ancient city: “People from many nations
with various/languages living together sweetly is like/the festivals of an
ancient city…” Then there is a reference to the ancient Tamil port of Korkai in
Sangam poetry: “…fine Korkai/town with abandon toddy, where those who/dive for
mature, splendid pearls and bright/conch, reside in large streets.” The
urbanscapes described eloquently in Sangam poetry is a clear indication that
the urban civilization of IVC had reestablished itself in Tamil land, and its
ancient poetry bears testimony to the urban roots of its imagination.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In spite of
the minutely stacked evidence, Balakrishnan does not adopt a dogmatic tone. He
says with scholarly tentativeness but in firm tones that IVC is Tamil in its
many aspects and that more archaeological work has to be done to establish the
fact. There is no other way to solve the mystery of IVC than through the Tamil
solution. And it has also been shown through Father Heras that the Brahui language
in modern Balochistan is Dravidian in structure but the Brahui-speakers are
different from the original IVC folk, mostly those people who moved in after
the decline of the Indus cities. But the existence of the Dravidian Brahui
remains a teaser as well. Of course, there is irrational resistance in north
India to the idea that IVC is a non-Aryan civilization, and there is no other
culture in the sub-continent that matches the urban aspects of IVC except that
of the ancient Tamils.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-12192605831878127932022-06-30T21:30:00.003+05:302022-06-30T21:30:48.109+05:30They never promised a rose garden<p> The loud lament that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is
tearing the social fabric, marginalizing Muslims, humiliating them at every
turn, that the party is violating constitutional morality and making law the
handmaiden of rude power seems quite out of place. The BJP never promised to play
by the rulebook of the liberals. It has come to power with the intention of
throwing it out of the window and replacing it with crass political Hinduism.
So, the hard questions that those of us who are outraged by the fascist ways of
the BJP – Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Uttar
Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath are mere foot-soldiers and they are
not speaking anything of their own
volition but what they have been taught – have to ask the hard question as to
why the BJP has won the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and in 2019, why the party
has won the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in 2017 and in 2022. It is the
same question that the Americans had to ask themselves as to why Donald Trump
won the 2016 presidential election in the United States when everyone knew that
he was going to break every rule and propriety and decency are words that do
not exist in his dictionary.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The BJP opposed secularism, opposed the presence of Muslims,
opposed Islamic heritage and it did not want to accept that Muslims ruled this
country – whether they be Turks or Afghans, or Iranians – and influenced
customs and conventions in this country over a period of 500 years, from about
1206 of the Common Era to 1707 CE when Aurangzeb died. You cannot wipe out
half-a-millennium of history, and that is exactly what the BJP wants to do. Of
course, the BJP folk are not educated enough to realise that the Catholic
fanatics in Spain in the middle of the 15<sup>th</sup> century led by Ferdinand
and Isabelle, followed by the shameful Spanish Inquisition did is what the
RSS/BJP want to do in India. They undid the Islamic influence which lasted from
about the middle of the eighth century CE to the 15<sup>th</sup> century CE. At
the other end of Europe, the Turks stormed Constantinople, renamed it Istanbul,
and Byzantine Christianity vanished. But there was no equivalent of the
Inquisition in Byzantium. Change, violent change, has marked civilizational
transitions, and this was not too far back in history. Roman Catholics were
persecuted in Protestant countries in modern Europe even as Renaissance marked
a new beginning for Western civilization and ended the Christendom of the
Middle Ages, and Protestants were harried in Catholic France and elsewhere. So,
the destructive path adopted by the BJP is not anything new. We should not give
them credit where it is not due.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The stubborn silence of Prime Minister Modi is a clear sign
that the BJP wants to ride out the storm created by former party spokesperson
Nupur Sharma with her offensive remark against Prophet Muhammad. Uttar Pradesh
Chief Minister Adityanath has shown what his response is: punish the protestors
pelting stones and damaging public property: they will be fired at, their homes
will be bulldozed and crippling fines will be imposed upon them. Prime Minister
Modi does not intend to speak to Muslims, either the Muslims at large through
any of his speeches, or call their leaders, or appeal for peace and communal
harmony. The BJP is very clear in its mind. It wants to wage a war against the
Muslims in India through every means of governmental power. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The protests from some of the Arab states have not in any
way shamed the government. The government did not make a general statement
excepting the statement issued by the Indian embassy, where the term “fringe
elements” was used to describe the BJP spokespersons. And there was suppressed
dissatisfaction about the term and talk about how it should have been used. The
BJP’s gesture of suspending Nupur Sharma and Naveen Kumar Jindal was no more than
an eyewash. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It would be wrong to draw the conclusion that Prime Minister
Modi’s government has been cornered, has been embarrassed, has been shamed.
None of this has happened. The BJP, Mr Modi, and the followers of the BJP in
the country, the Hindus, are in a defiant mood. They do not care much for world
opinion, and they feel that neither the Muslim countries nor the Westerners can
admonish India on rules of tolerance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The India of BJP feels that it is perfectly acceptable to be intolerant
and uncouth, following in the footsteps of many Muslim and Western countries.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, when will India
come out of this self-induced delirium? Economic shock can be one of the things
that can break the spell of religious fanaticism. It is happening in Saudi
Arabia. The country, despite its oil wealth, finds itself unable to remain in
the Wahabi cocoon. Turkey, like India, is going through the majoritarian
militancy phase. But the economy could prove to be wake-up call for President
Tayyip Recep Erdogan’s Turkey. Egypt realized sooner than later that the rule
of Muslim Brotherhood through its political proxies is a nightmare, and the
people have settled for a military ruler. So, India will find it way back to
secularism the hard way. It is not just the Muslims in the country who will pay
the price. Hindus will pay too because they will find that hatred is not an
engine of economic growth.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that India
will be the fastest growing economy in a world where big economies like the United
States, China and the European Union are not doing too well. The Modi
government is only too willing to clutch at straws and continue to strut which
is what this government had done these eight years. The Modi government and the
BJP cannot be expected <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to follow
political decencies. Mr Modi’s electoral success is based on destroying political
decencies. For him democracy means demagoguery and state propaganda. It is only
when people say no to intolerance that the BJP will be checked. <o:p></o:p></p>Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-71578647926982374402022-06-30T21:28:00.001+05:302022-07-03T10:02:40.966+05:30Justice Alito’s argument against judge-made law in Roe v. Wade<p> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Trump Supreme Court ruled that it is for the
legislatures to regulate abortion </b><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States_-_Roberts_Court_2020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="533" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States_-_Roberts_Court_2020.jpg" width="800" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the heart of the overturning of the 1973 Roe v Wade
United States Supreme Court ruling 49 years later in the Dobbs v Jackson
Women’s Health Organisation on Thursday is the narrow question of the authority
of judge-made law as against the legislation of elected representatives. The
norm and convention that legislature makes the law and the courts interpret the
law is well-known. And in constitutional systems like that of the United States
and India, there is provision for judicial review where the court is given the
right to say whether a law made by the legislature is constitutional or not. In
the case of abortion, Roe v Wade stood as a judge-made law. The US Congress –
House of Representatives and the Senate – should have passed the required
legislation supporting abortion, but it was not done. Of course, a Supreme
Court judgment stands as law till elected representatives have legislated. So,
in effect the Supreme Court through its verdict on Thursday has replaced one
judgment with another, and the new verdict stands as law. But it remains a
judge-made law. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The legislature can still make a law supporting access to
abortion procedure. We have seen this in the gun-control law. The Supreme Court
on Thursday had overturned the 1913 New York law placing restrictions on
carrying a handgun, citing the Second Amendment. It was an expansionist
interpretation of the Second Amendment. On the same day, the US Senate had
passed a bill placing mild restrictions on buying guns, and it remains to be
passed by the House of Representatives. So, it is now possible for the US
Congress and the state legislatures to pass laws supporting abortion. As a
matter of fact, Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion held: “The
Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; <i>Roe</i> and <i>Casey</i>
are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people
and their elected representatives.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Supreme Court the does not close the door on abortion.
It leaves it to the legislatures. Legislatures with Republican/conservative
majorities can now make laws which places restrictions on abortion procedures. And
given the present Supreme Court’s thinking, if anyone is to approach the court
challenging the abortion laws,the court is likely to quash them. With America’s
dominant evangelical Christian spirit more dominant than ever in the 21<sup>st</sup>
century, it will be impossible to get a pro-abortion passed in any legislature.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Interestingly, one of arguments put forward by Justice Alito
is that in Roe, the court has laid down the conditions for abortions in the
manner of a legislative committee by dividing the pregnancy period into
trimesters. Alito questioned the reasoning of Roe. In the section called “(2)
The quality of the reasoning. Without any grounding in the constitutional text,
history, or precedent, Roe imposed on the entire country a detailed set of
rules for pregnancy divided into trimesters much like those that one might
expect to find in a statute or regulation.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then he goes on to argue, “When the Court summarized the basis for
scheme it imposed on the country, it asserted that its rules were “consistent
with” among other things, “the relative weights of the respective interests
involved” and “the demands of the profound problems of the present day.” These
are precisely the sort of considerations that legislative bodies often take
into account when they draw lines that accommodate competing interests. The
scheme Roe produced like legislation, and the Court provided the sort of
explanation that might be expected from a legislative body.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It looks like that the tacit burden of Alito’s verdict is that
in Roe the court took on the role of legislation which rightly belongs to a
legislature of elected representatives. But then Alito should have dared to
argue that there is no room for judge-made law, and the law-making function
belongs entirely to the legislature. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The major weakness of the Alito argument that there is no
precedent in the entire American history for abortion sounds an absurd argument
because the people, the legislatures and the courts are faced with a situation
that has no precedent. To strike down<i> Roe</i> on the basis that there was no
precedent for abortion in the statute books is a typical instance of reductio
ad absurdum.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In its verdict ruling the people have the right to carry
handguns in public, the court cited the Second Amendment which was ratified in
1791. The Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to
the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,
shall not be infringed.” The Second Amendment nowhere implies that carrying a handgun
in public for self-defense, but that is exactly the expansive interpretation
that this Supreme Court used to give its verdict, and yet the same court
accused the <i>Roe</i> judgment for giving an expansive interpretation of the
Fourteenth Amendment where the relevant portion reads: “…No State shall make or
enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of
the United States…” is half-baked reasoning.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The judge-made law remains a contentious issue and it goes
beyond the overturning of <i>Roe</i>. In the famous Texas v. Johnson verdict of
1989, the Supreme Court had ruled that burning of the national flag is part of
the symbolic expression of right to free speech, and the conservatives in the
House of Representatives and the Senate have been trying to push through
legislation which will undo the Supreme Court ruling but they have not
succeeded so far. The US Congress had much better success when it passed a
partial gun control law in both the Houses after the Supreme Court ruled,
overturning a 1913 New York law that carrying a handgun in public for
self-defense is part of the Second Amendment right, which is fundamental. The
legislation does not undo the Supreme Court ruling but it does place
conditionalities. The Supreme Court had said that there cannot be any
conditionalities for the basic right of carrying arms. It is to be seen whether
the gun lobby would challenge the new legislation. The tussle between the
legislature and the judiciary remains, and in the interim when the legislature
makes the law and it is overturned by the court, what the court says holds as
law until the legislature undoes it through fresh legislation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-15428942882043663522022-03-08T10:12:00.000+05:302022-03-08T10:12:53.614+05:30The crisis of religious identity<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0xf3utYEFKCniM7cOplV5vxca8YAn-B401YIydzI_ZH6yd-h_VH7TTu6GcbhGsIC60E_XjbkR1k0vtYV_IObCcPD0_WA_eq5aSv0F-RPhKDxquA7mo48qaVMHKs5gUipD-dte1CfwWnLb1F4MLcy71bMo_h3nm1A9Ue0dgDKnyEsP-l4DtQ=s5184" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="5184" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0xf3utYEFKCniM7cOplV5vxca8YAn-B401YIydzI_ZH6yd-h_VH7TTu6GcbhGsIC60E_XjbkR1k0vtYV_IObCcPD0_WA_eq5aSv0F-RPhKDxquA7mo48qaVMHKs5gUipD-dte1CfwWnLb1F4MLcy71bMo_h3nm1A9Ue0dgDKnyEsP-l4DtQ=s320" width="320" /></a></div> Women protesters at anti-CAA-19 rally at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi<br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We are all familiar with the problem of identity crisis.
That is, when people are not sure who they are and are involved in the exercise
of finding out who they are. It is a typical modernist problem when people are
not sure who they really are. It is a social question, sometimes a political
question, and at a deeper level, a philosophical and an existential question.
But in India, both at the societal level and in politics, we are faced with the
problem of certainty and not that of uncertainty. We seem to be only too sure
of who we are. We identify with our caste, with our religion and with our
language and region, and sometimes with our nationality. And we demand to be
known by the caste, religion, language and region we want to be identified
with. The girls in Udupi who asserted their right to wear a scarf are doing so
not for reasons of fashion and convenience, but to state their religion and
faith. And in a democratic society, it is inevitable that whatever identity we
choose we have a right to be. The Udupi girls with scarves want everyone to
know they are Muslims. We shall not speculate as to why they feel it is
important for them to declare their faith in public.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We see this assertion of identity as a problem because we
have been taught to believe that caste, religion, language, and region are
secondary to the larger national identity, that is being Indian. In the fight
against the British, it was important to prove that we are not divided by
caste, community, language, and region, and that, in spite of castes,
religions, languages and regions, we are Indians, and we stand united as
Indians. This nation-building programme was seen as a noble one. In India, we
did not experience the brutal rivalry of one nation against another, and the
wars that were fought and the people who were killed in their thousands for the
nation. Europe, after the two world wars, looked to a larger identity than that
of nationality. But national identities remain important, if not fatal. The
English refused to give up their national pride in being English and chose to
walk out of the European Union (EU) despite the economic disadvantages it
brought with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In India, on the other
hand, we wanted to transcend our caste, community, language, and regional
identities to identify with the larger national identity. To identify oneself
as an Indian seemed a noble and sublime exercise.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) through its success in
two national elections in 2014 and 2019 have asserted the idea of nationalism
and identified it with Hinduism. They have propagated political Hinduism. They
use the religious symbolism to project the national identity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People at large had not given up their other
identities as members of a caste, religion, language, and regional group. The
BJP’s attempt to subordinate all other identities with that of the nation and
identifying the nation with the religion of the majority has brought in a set
of problems of its own. If Hinduism was to be a privileged identity through an
act of collapsing the different ideas and identities of religion and
nationhood, it has led to the assertion of religious identity of other faiths.
If the Muslims in India were not to assert the Muslim identity, he or she would
be submerged under an avalanche of Hinduism merged with Indian nationalism. And
he or she who is not a Hindu is pushed into a subordinate status. The BJP and
the exponents of nationalism, try to persuade that Hindu nationalism has
nothing to do with Hinduism while using the symbols of Hindu religion. They say
you can be a practicing Muslim or a practicing Christian and still be proud of
Hindu nationalism because it is cultural and not religious.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is nothing bizarre about the idea of Hindu India. It
has historical precedent in the “civic religion” of the Greeks and Romans, the
Christianity of the European Middle Ages, which then transformed into
nation-states with Christianity, of either the Roman Catholics or the
Protestants as the presiding deity. It is only after the religious strife that
lasted from the end of the 15<sup>th</sup> century to the end of the 18<sup>th</sup>
century, that Europeans wanted to evolve the national identity as separate from
religious identity and sought to build a civic identity. But the national
identity was not a problem when everyone was a Christian, but it became a
problem when people of other faiths became part of the polity. Most Western
polities today are willing to expand the idea of the nation and accommodate
everyone of different persuasions. It remains an evolving process. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In India, the leaders of the freedom struggle wanted to make
everyone an Indian. The BJP wants to make everyone a Hindu Indian. Muslims and
Christians are saying that they want to be Indians, but they want to be Muslim
Indians and Christian Indians in the same way that Hindus wants to be Hindu
Indians. Can we live with so many kinds of Indians with different religious
affiliations? Yes. It is possible. Rome, when it was a republic and then an
empire, admitted everyone as a citizen, a practice that the French have
inherited. So, who ever lived under a French government became a French
citizen. It is inclusivity of a noble kind. But a Hindu India cannot hold
because it cannot accommodate people of other faiths. Hindu India thus becomes
a divisive force. But Hindu India, as reflected in the electoral victories of
the BJP rose out of the ashes of secular India because secular India could not
accommodate religious identities. And people who prized religious identity were
chafing under the secular regime. BJP has fought a battle for Hindu India, and
it is not going to tolerate Indians who want to hold on to their Muslim and
Christian identities. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">. <o:p></o:p></p>Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-57163367141725889082020-06-20T00:32:00.000+05:302020-06-20T00:32:26.904+05:30Covid-19: Governments’ unwillingness to take people into confidence creates anxiety
<p>The question cannot be evaded as to whether lockdown was a
success or failure. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s assertion that the
lockdown is a failure because the number of those testing positive has
increased at the end of the formal lockdown on June 1 is certainly not a fair
assessment. The lockdown was never meant to keep the numbers down though the
government, including the joint secretary in the Union Ministry of Health and
Family Welfare Lav Agarwal had strenuously argued that India will not need to
experience the peak because the lockdown is meant to contain the numbers. It
was a false argument, in terms of fact as well as of logic. The lockdown was
meant to slow down the pace at which Covid-19 spread and enable the
administration in the meanwhile to ramp up the medical facilities to cope with
the increase in numbers. </p>
<p>The question then is whether the central and the state
governments have expanded the medical facilities not just in terms of hospital
beds, intensive care units (ICUs), oxygen masks and ventilators. The evidence
points to the fact that the governments have been taking ad hoc measures,
meeting the exigencies of the day instead of looking to the time in near future
when the numbers of the Covid-19 patients was likely to grow exponentially as
it has done since the beginning of May and now into June. And by all counts,
the numbers are likely to increase in the months to come, stretching to the end
of the year. There has been a knee-jerk response from the administration at all
levels, and it is unsurprising that this is so. </p>
<p>The ad hoc-ism is reflected in the one-hour-twenty-minute
meeting held on June 14 by Union Home Minister Amit Shah with Delhi Chief
Minister Amit Shah, Delhi Lt. Governor Anil Baijal and the three municipal
corporations of Delhi to tackle the issue of the increasing number of Covid-19
positive cases. This was something that should have been done immediately, or
even much before, the clampdown of the lockdown by Prime Minister Narendra Modi
on March 25. And even now, the decisions arrived at the emergency meeting on
Sunday smacks of ad hocism. They want to double and treble the number of tests
and convert 500 rail coaches into Covid-19 care centres. There is still no
clarity as to the number of people who would require hospital care. </p>
<p>No one in the government is willing to deal with the issue
of the number of Covid-19 cases in a realistic manner because there is no
transparency about the means used to estimate the numbers. Delhi deputy chief
minister Manish Sisodia put the figure of the Covid-19 cases at 5.5 lakh by the
end of July without revealing as to who did the exercise of estimating the
numbers and what was the rationale behind the figure. Then we have the estimate
of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-constituted Operations
Research Group that the lockdown has delayed the peaking of the pandemic, and
that the peak is likely to be reached in mid-November. But the ICMR is not
willing to own the findings. </p>
<p>There should have been rigorous exercise of estimating the
future trajectory of Covid-19, but it seems that ICMR is acting in spurts and
there is no sustained analysis of Covid-19 as it has unfolded from January 30
when the first case appeared in Kerala to the middle of June when the number of
those infected at 3.32 lakh on June 14 while the study had put the figure of
5,29,872 for May 6. While statistical estimates and modelling are necessary
exercises, there was also the need to assess the real time graph of the
increase in the number of infections. The most crucial fact is the number of
tests that have been carried so far. According to the ICMR website, the number
is 60,84, 286 as on the morning of June 15. There is a connection between the
number of tests and that of infections. If 3.54 lakh infected cases have come
to light after testing nearly 58 lakh samples – the number of tests is based on
samples and not on persons, and some people have been tested more than twice,
first when they tested either positive or negative and again when they either
tested negative or positive – it becomes a slightly tricky task of estimating
the number of infected persons. But this is an issue that can be resolved by
arriving at approximate number of tests to get the total figure of infections
at any point of time. The ICMR’s sero-survey of 26,400 people in the first
phase in the first month after the lockdown showed that 0.73 persons showed
antibodies that pointed to exposure to the Covid-19 infection. Experts are
hesitating to say whether the presence of antibodies is a sure sign that
Covid-19 had passed through remains undecided. </p>
<p>It should be recognized straightaway that the doctors and
the medical researchers are unsure about Covid-19, its intensity, its spread
and its impact. The scientists are grappling with many unknowns. It can perhaps
be argued that the governments at this point are following the tentative
guidelines that the medical experts community is coming up with from time to
time, and that the ad hoc nature of governmental response follows from the
uncertainties of the state of knowledge that we have about Covid-19. It is
however assumed that governments must act in these matters with the worst-case
scenario in this context, and it could very well be the case that the worst may
not come about. If that be indeed the case, we must prepare for the worst and
hope for the best, however cliched it may sound. And to avoid confusion and the
resulting anxiety in the public mind, governments and the medical experts must
share the information, with the caveat that it is open to revisions and
corrections. You cannot manage a pandemic, which is a national medical
emergency, without taking the people into confidence. The governments and the
political leaders are instead trying the old tricks of holding back what they
consider to be sensitive and alarmist information to control possible public
panic. It is a short-sighted Machiavellian ruse. It does not work. Sharing
information is an imperative of a democratic society.</p>
<p> </p>
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-15793758926614690682020-05-25T19:31:00.003+05:302020-05-25T20:01:45.744+05:30Numbing numbers of government munificence
<p><br /></p>
<p><br /></p>
<p>What has the government done so far to deal with the
financial woes unleashed by the Covid-19 crisis which has brought economic
activity to naught since the first lockdown was announced for March 22 and a
first 21-day lockdown from March 25, which was extended up to May 3 in a second
lockdown, and up to May 17 for a third time? The Ministry of Finance in
characteristic Modi government fashion has issued a statistical statement about
the money and material spent on the people on May 6. The statement said that
8.19 crore PM-KISAN beneficiaries received a first instalment of Rs 16,494
crore, which works out to Rs 2000 per head. </p>
<p>It also said that 20.05 crore women Jan Dhan Yojana account
holders received Rs 10,025 crore, which works out to Rs 500 per head. And of
these, 8.72 crore women account holders claimed the amount through customer
induced transaction, which accounts for 44 per cent of the total account
holders. It also said that 2.20 crore building and construction workers were
given Rs 3492.57 crore, which works out to Rs 1587 per head. And 2.82 crore old
age persons, widows and disabled persons received Rs 1405 crore, which is Rs
498 per person.</p>
<p>Apart from these cash disbursements, the ministry stated
that 36 states and Union Territories have lifted 67.65 lakh metric tonnes (LMT)
of food grains, of which 30.16 LMT have been distributed among 60.33 crore
beneficiaries in April. And 6.9 lakh metric tonnes of food grains have been
distributed among 12.39 crore people in May by 22 states and UTs, it says. And
2.49 LMT of pulses “have also been dispatched to various states/UTs” and they
have been distributed to 5.21 crore ‘household beneficiaries’ out of 19.4 crore
‘such beneficiaries.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Under the Pradhan
Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, 5.09 crore cylinders have been booked, and 4.82 crore
free cylinders have already been delivered, according to the statement.</p>
<p>It stated that 9.6 lakh members of Employees Provident Fund
Organisation (EPFO) withdrew online the non-refundable advance of Rs 2985
crore, and that 24 per cent of EPF contribution amounting to Rs 698 crore was
transferred to 44.97 lakh employees. And that health insurance scheme for 22.12
lakh health workers in government hospitals and health care centres has been
operationalized by New India Assurance.</p>
<p>Noting that the increased rate of MGNREGA has been notified
on April 1, 2020 and that 5.97 crore person’s mandays work has been generated
this financial year, the government press release says that Rs 21,032 crore has
been released to the states “to liquidate pending dues of both wage and
material”.</p>
<p>The government must have felt the need to put these numbers
in public domain to parry the question as to what it has been doing in the face
of the misery of the poor people in the wake of the Covid-19 induced lockdown
since March 25 to prove that the government have not been insensitive and that
they have been acting quietly and effectively to lend a helping hand to those
who are suffering the most. But the belief that the statistics released in the
press statement bear eloquent testimony to what is being done by the government
for the people might prove to be unsatisfactory. People who have been
experiencing the sharp sting of misery for days and weeks are not likely to be
mesmerized by numbers, however impressive they may appear to be. The numbers
are however the crutches that the government wants to use to stand up before
the people. </p>
<p>But this <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is in
contrast to the reticence of the government to take note of the fact that
hundreds of thousands of migrant labour are in sheer misery -- which is no
fault of government while the November 2016 demonetisation fallout was nothing
but its folly -- and its unwillingness to express concern over it. It is this
bureaucratic resistance to take note of the hardship of people that is
alienating the government among the people though the opinion charts reveal
that Prime Minister Modi’s popularity is over 90 per cent, the highest for any
national leader anywhere in the world. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
is not much of contradiction here. Mr Modi’s popularity is because of the
people’s perception at large that the prime minister is an honest man and that
he is doing his best. But that may not suffice. </p>
<p>It is evident that the central government has so far not released
any money either through the states or through any other means, and that it has
been mostly operating a barter economy of sorts, providing food grains and gas
cylinders and a token cash component. The market runs on the wheels of cash,
while the state-controlled supply system only ensures that basic items like
food are made available in kind. While the government supplies are necessary,
these government interventions do not help in reviving an economy. There is
also the natural tendency for the government to keep tight control of economic
activities through delayed payments. Late Arun Jaitley as well as incumbent
finance minister Sitharaman have always claimed that budgetary allocation for
the MGNREGA are higher than before, the plain fact is that it has not exactly
ignited rural economy. MGNREGA remains an ameliorative measure and the Modi
government is only too happy to play the role of benign patron by paying for
public works.</p>
<p>The government, both at the centre and in BJP-ruled states
like Uttar Pradesh want to reorder, as it were, the deployment of labour, which
had been returning from industrial and business hubs like Delhi, Mumbai,
Hyderabad, Surat, by creating employment opportunities in the state itself. Of
course, this remains a far-fetched idea because new investors and new
enterprises would not absorb all the available work force. The prime minister
too is turning in his mind the rusted idea of ‘self-reliance’ and localization
of manufacturing. This is not a helpful way of moving the economy into a
meaningful growth orbit. State-run and state-directed economies are usually
duds and the Modi government seems to display the fatal desire to run the
economy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-71303542762712602222020-05-16T19:53:00.000+05:302020-05-16T19:53:38.247+05:30Is India in the race for the coronavirus vaccine?
<p> </p>
<p><br /></p>
<p>There is not much to show that India is in hot pursuit of the
vaccine for Covid-19 or Sars-Co-2 as the world reels under the pandemic, where four
million and more have tested positive, and about three hundred thousand have
died. Prime Minister Narendra Modi however senses an opportunity for India to
establish its credentials on the global front, and he is keen that India should
be part of the race. In his televised address to the country announcing the
extension of the lockdown from April 16 to May 3, the prime minister towards
the end of the speech exhorted young scientists in India to work for the corona
virus vaccine to win against the pandemic and win glory for the country. But it
looks like that this could be nothing more than another of the prime minister’s
rhetorical flourishes.</p>
<p>Indian scientific institutions and pharmaceutical companies
do not seem to have it in them to go for the kill as it were. In other words,
there is no buzz, no excitement in the Indian medical research circles or among
the Indian pharmaceuticals. And there is no money either. A clumsy bureaucratic
response of the government has been to promise funding for Covild-19 solutions
which are ready to be deployed through the Department of Biotechnology (DBT)
and the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC). Funding is
needed to do the required research to arrive at solutions. There is quite a bit
of risk involved in research and development because success is not assured.
But without taking the risk, no movement forward can ever be made. </p>
<p><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a meeting with the
prime minister on May 5, the Covid-19 task force had said according to the
official press release that there were about 30 vaccine candidates. On May 9,
the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in a press release in the name of
its director, Balram Bhargav, says that ICMR’s National Institute of Virology
(NIV) in Pune will partner Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Limited
(BBIL) to produce an indigenous vaccine based on 11 samples of Covid-19, and It
did not say who took the decision and how it was made. There was no reference
to the committee that the ICMR had set up on April 6 – one of the six – to look
into the vaccine aspect of Covid-19, while the others were tasked with dealing
with the management and treatment of the people affected by the virus. BBIL on
its part had announced in early April that it was working with the University
of Wisconsin-Madison and Madison-based GenFlu on anti-Covid 19 vaccine, which
is a variant of the flu vaccine. There is no clarity on the coronavirus vaccine
research and projects in India. The science bureaucracy seems to be calling the
shots which is not the way to achieve scientific breakthroughs.</p>
<p>There are no research institutions in India like the Jenner
Institute at the Oxford University in Britain, which has forced itself into the
frontline to work towards a vaccine on a war-footing because it had already
done work on a coronavirus vaccine for the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome
(MERS), nor are there any Indian pharmaceutical companies like the Boston-based
Moderna which has set in motion the making of a vaccine in collaboration with
the country’s National Institutes for Allergy and Infection with its mRNA1273,
ready to go into Phase2 trial. Pharma giant Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech have
joined hands to make a vaccine. In China, CanSino Biologics, Beijing Institute
of Biological Products are moving on with their candidate vaccines.</p>
<p>The enthusiasm and aggression required to be in the
frontline of scientific research is absent in India for many reasons. One of
them is the mindset inculcated among the Indian scientists of making research
cost-effective by doing in India what has been done in the West at a lower
cost. Hence Prime Minister Modi’s boast that the Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) mission to Mars was achieved at a fraction of the cost in
the United States. It is often forgotten that adaptation and improvisation are
a notch or two, even much more, lower than original work. </p>
<p> </p>
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-335793096390776032020-02-21T22:54:00.003+05:302020-02-21T22:54:33.341+05:30Shaheen Bagh – protest with a difference<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Muslims stand up for equality principle enshrined in the
Constitution</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5zqaXXtTlb7tFBZVQ9sSZw56BcZYQfG-53kmTfIN5jTuE6BunuZG1ZmC3jgP98lQj-GXYdqMvUmODiTse1b7wa3iTUvAcE29dOBt6xzZYrTJwSo7P-yWQHm7IeLkSkZtqw9Fy/s1600/IMG_4459.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5zqaXXtTlb7tFBZVQ9sSZw56BcZYQfG-53kmTfIN5jTuE6BunuZG1ZmC3jgP98lQj-GXYdqMvUmODiTse1b7wa3iTUvAcE29dOBt6xzZYrTJwSo7P-yWQHm7IeLkSkZtqw9Fy/s320/IMG_4459.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Muslims in India, the largest religious minority, have
responded in an innovative and creative fashion to the right-wing Bharatiya
Janata Party government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Citizenship Amendment
Act (CAA) 2019 which guaranteed citizenship to ‘persecuted religious
minorities’ from the Muslim majority neighbouring countries of Afghanistan,
Bangladesh and Pakistan. They are protesting its tacit discrimination against
Muslims from these countries, and its underlying bias against Muslims in the
country. India’s Home Minister Amit and Prime Minister Modi have vehemently
denied that the CAA discriminated against Muslims either in India or in the
neighbourhood. But their assurances sounded weak and insincere because of the
barely concealed hostility towards Muslims among the foot-soldiers of the right-wing
nationalist ruling party. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
Shaheen Bagh is a lower middle class neighbourhood, where
many of the women of all ages wear the veil or ‘burqa’. They are not the
politically articulate angry protestors. They cannot argue their case like
political activists. All that they say when they are asked about what should be
done, they turn their faces away and say the CAA must go. And asked if they
think that the government will listen to them, they almost shrug their
shoulders and say that they hope that the government will listen when so many
people are asking for it. They feel that something is terribly wrong and that
it should be righted. They do not understand the nuances of the arguments about
equality in terms of the Constitution. But they feel that it is time to argue
the Muslim case but not any more in the narrow terms of “Muslim rights”. They
feel that that they are fighting against the subtle or not-so-subtle hint of
discrimination writ large in the CAA. They sit under the tent in the small
square next to the narrow lane of shops of Shaheen Bagh through the day. The
men stay out of the tent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The faces have
an expression of tragedy like the plaintive chorus in classical Greek tragedy.
But there is a flicker of hope and gaiety in the faces of the younger women.
They seem to be waiting for<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a glimpse of
sunshine on a bleak cloudy day.<br />
<br />
Many of them are not willing to give their names when
speaking to journalists. There is a lingering fear in their voices. I ask a
young woman in a burqa who lives in the neighbourhood and who was sitting in
the tent whether the police harass them. “The police do not harass much. They
come and share their view and we tell them ours.” A university-going young
woman says, “If we are wrong, they should come and explain to us.” <br />
<br />
There are other people lingering at the protest tent. Three
young people, in their late 20s, have come from Baroda, in the western Indian
state of Gujarat, the home state of Mr Modi served he served as chief minister
from 2001 to 2013 before he became prime minister in 2014. They say that there
were no protests in Gujarat because the provincial government does not allow
protests. The atmosphere is stifling, they say. The police are hovering around
the university in Baroda to keep any protests from erupting, especially around
the famous fine arts department. One of them is an employee of a government
enterprise, another is an artist. The third is a social activist. There are a
large group of Sikh men, another religious minority group, sitting at the rear
end of the protest tent. They have been manning the community kitchen for the
protestors who swell the place in the late evenings and in the night. There are
a few individuals who have come from Bihar in eastern India.<br />
<br />
There is a blood donation ambulance at the back of the
protest tent. It is that of the Om Blood Bank which serves thalassemic children
in NOIDA. Dr Azhar says that they have set up a day-long blood camp at the site
and 50 people have donated. No one knows whether they are Hindu or Muslim or of
any other religion. And it will be used for those who need it irrespective of
their children. A statement is being made indirectly about non-discrimination
to protest the CAA.<br />
<br />
The protest at Shaheen Bagh presents an interesting contrast
to the anti-corruption protests that erupted in Delhi in 2011 led by activist Anna Hazare and supported by people like Arvind Kejriwal, who is now
the chief minister of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Delhi. At that
time a lot of young people, some of them in Bermudas and bandanas, working in
private companies, turned up at the protests, expressing their anger at the
growing corruption in the governmental system. Many of them came from well-off
middle-class backgrounds, who appeared apolitical but who were fired by the
anti-corruption protests. The anti-corruption protests in Delhi were held in
the heart of the capital, at Jantar Mantar near the Parliament and at Ram Lila
Maidan. But the anti-CAA protests in Delhi are confined to the Muslim-majority
neighbourhoods in Jamia Millia Islamia, a nationalist university that came up
during the freedom struggle, and in Shaheen Bagh. Yet many people are wending
their way to the protest tent at Shaheen Bagh from all over the city and from
other parts of the country, Muslims and others.<br />
<br />
The CAA has triggered an unexpectedly fierce resistance from
the Muslims who feel that they have been pushed to the wall and they need to
step out and speak up. The customary protest of Muslims under its orthodox and
reactionary political leaders has been the cry that Muslims are in danger, along with
the incendiary call that Islam is in danger, which was an indirect way of
pushing ordinary Muslims into violence and a riot situation. This time round
the protest came from Muslim women and it came with the call for upholding the
principle of equality enshrined in the Indian Constitution.<br />
<br />
It has also been
the case that the earlier Muslim protests were based on those of fundamental
rights of the Constitution which guaranteed religious minorities the right to
practice and profess their religion, to preserve their culture and language and
institutions. The protests were always about invoking the Constitution to
protect Muslim rights. This time round the Muslim women are not protesting for
the rights of Muslims. They are protesting the CAA because it violates the
principle of equality. The equality guaranteed in the Constitution says that no
one will be discriminated based on caste, creed, religion and sex.<br />
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Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-8197880783222893072019-12-17T22:50:00.000+05:302019-12-17T22:50:17.950+05:30Citizenship Amendment Act 2019, a provocative gesture of the BJP<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The devil is in the details. Indeed. Bu those who are
supporting and those who are opposing the Citizen Amendment Act 2019, passed by
both Houses of Parliament, do not want to go there. They want to dwell in the
cloud cuckoo land of rhetoric. The argument of Home Minister Amit Shah, and of
the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its mentor the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) and other like-minded reactionaries is that India is the land of Hindus
by default and that this does not mean that India does not belong to the
Muslims living here. It is a tricky argument at best. But it suits the
ideologues in the BJP and the RSS. <br />
<br />
If ideology alone were to be the criterion, then the BJP
government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi should send back all the illegal
Bangladeshi Muslim migrants and it must resettle the illegal Bangladeshi Hindu
immigrants outside Assam because the Assamese do not want them. And it remains
to be seen whether the Modi government will set in place procedures that a
Hindu from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan must prove that there was
persecution before he or she is granted asylum and citizenship. Mr Shah and the
Modi government are eloquently silent on the nitty-gritty of the matter. <br />
<br />
It turns out that the number of illegal Bangladeshi Muslims
is less than 10 lakh, and it is yet to be determined whether they have come in
after the cut off date of 1971. Even if the National Register of Citizens (NRC)
exercise completed in Assam under the direction of the Supreme Court is
scrapped in favour of Shah-proposed nationwide NRC, the process remains
painfully cumbersome. The government is to follow the due process of hearing
appeals through tribunals from the affected people and decide each case on
merit. The Modi government cannot send those who still are considered illegal
immigrants back to Bangladesh because India must reach a bilateral agreement
with Dhaka to do so. The precedent lies in the Sirimavo-Shastri pact of 1964,
where half of the plantation Indians were repatriated and the other half stayed
on. So, it is going to be a complicated long-drawn out affair. <br />
<br />
The Modi government will then have to keep those identified
as illegal immigrants in detention camps and it will have to follow the rules
of the United Nations in treating the refugees during that time. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, the BJP has literally tied itself up in
knots. The rhetoric of protecting Hindus who are persecuted in neighbouring
Muslim countries remains hogwash, a mere red rag to the secularists and other
liberals. The Hindus from the Pakistan side are too few and mostly from Sind and
the Sikhs in Pakistan fewer, and they are mostly from Punjab. No Christian from
Pakistan would want to choose a BJP-ruled India because the BJP’s anti-minority
stance is disarmingly candid. The Hindutva ideologues do not believe in the
Hindu idea and ideal of ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ or the ‘world is a family’. <br />
<br />
The eruption of angry protests in Assam go to show that the
Assamese oppose the Citizenship Amendment Bill because they do not want to be
burdened with Hindu migrants from Bangladesh. The government must relocate them
elsewhere as had been done through the Danadakaranya project of 1958. The BJP
leaders believed, and wrongly so, that the Assam agitation was against
Bangladeshi Muslims and not against Bangladeshi as well as Bengali Hindus. The
Modi government continues with this blinkered outlook. <br />
<br />
The CAA remains a rhetorical gesture of the Hindutva party, and
it is blown to smithereens at the first brush with reality. It does not pose
much danger to the secularism enshrined in the Preamble of the Constitution or
to the secular polity in the country. It cannot harm the Muslims in the country
in any which way, but it does pose a rhetorical question to the idea that India
belongs to all the people who live in it, and not just to the Hindus, the
majority community. The CAB’s hint that the Hindus in the rest of the
subcontinent have the first right to citizenship in India is a weak assertion. The
BJP wants to state its Hindutva agenda through law, but it is a law that cannot
change the social reality of India where Muslims form the largest minority
community. And legally, it does not exclude the migration of Muslims from the
Muslim countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. A BJP government can
create hurdles but unless it brings in a blatant law that Muslims from these
three Muslim countries do not have the right to migrate to India or to apply
for citizenship, it is incapable of either changing the Indian law and reality
of a multi-religious country. <br />
<br />
To see CAA as a slight to Muslims would be to yield ground
to the BJP’s Hindutva rhetoric. Its aim is to provoke the Muslims and other
secularists. It serves the purpose of a besieged Modi government from diverting
attention of the people from the economic problems and challenges facing the
country. The last five years have shown that Prime Minister Modi has no clear
vision for the country. That is why he picks on things like abolishing Article
370 for Jammu and Kashmir and demoting the state to that of two Union Territories.
All that Mr Modi and Mr Shah want to do is to win the 2024 Lok Sabha election,
and the strategy is belligerent assertion of Hindu majoritarianism which is
nothing but hot air in political and economic terms. Mr Modi’s vision of New
India is extremely flawed because he seems incapable of overcoming the
temptation of using the Hindutva ideology to win political skirmishes.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-91354681643120666922019-12-17T22:31:00.002+05:302019-12-17T22:31:47.534+05:30The Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019: Beyond rhetoric<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
The Citizen Amendment Act has predictably raised more of the
proverbial dust and shed little light on the issues involved. There was much
legal and political cunning in its drafting, where it passes muster on more
counts than one. And it is this advantage in terms of brownie points that
helps, rather barely, to conceal its more than questionable ideological intent.
The political and legal technicalities are easy to grasp. There is nothing in
the Bill that is prejudicial to Muslims living in India. If the religious
minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh are conferred
citizenship<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it does not take away from
the rights of Muslims in India. And there is a cut-off date mentioned here:
December 31, 2014. Of course, there is the potential of changing the cut-off
date in the future through further amendment. <br />
<br />
The CAB is not expected to be an idealistic statement where
the persecuted from all over the world are given refuge in democratic, secular
India. Home Minister Amit Shah said that Muslims from these three
Muslim-majority countries can apply for Indian citizenship, and their request
will be considered on grounds of merit. In fact, a BJP government can reject
all applications from a Muslim in any of these three countries, but it has
saved its face with Mr Shah saying that there was nothing in law to say that
Muslims from these countries cannot come into India or apply for citizenship.
India’s treatment of Rohingyas has made it clear that a BJP government, and
most probably governments of other parties as well, could reject a case like
that of the Rohingyas. In 1971, the 10 lakh refugees who poured into India from
Bangladesh went back in the next two years. The Bengali refugees who were
resettled in Dandakaranya were from an earlier period – 1947.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
The rhetorical riposte of Mr Shah that Congress had accepted
partition is both true and untrue. After Jinnah’s Direct Action Day of August
16, 1946, the Congress leaders felt that it was impossible to deal with Jinnah
and the Muslim League. The Congress gave a last chance to League to join the
Interim Government, and seats were kept vacant in the Constituent Assembly. But
it did not work, and it would not have worked given the political circumstances
of the day. There was also the fact that Congress refused to accept the
League’s position that it represented the Muslims in the country, and that
Congress could not have any Muslim candidate in the government. So, Mr Shah was
being more than economical with the truth when he said that Congress was
responsible for partition on religious basis.<br />
<br />
The Nehru-Liaquat Pact of April 8, 1950 states in no
uncertain terms that minorities in each of the countries should look up to
their own governments. And it was only in West Bengal, East Bengal and Assam
and Tripura that minority commissions were set up to oversee the conditions of
the minorities and protect them from any kind of harassment and protection from
violence immediately after independence. It was also agreed to facilitate the
migration of those who want to go across with assurances of protection of their
property, and arrangement for allotting evacuee property in case of permanent
migration. It is beyond the understanding of the leadership of a right-wing
party like the BJP to grasp the unwieldy details of resettling the refugees of
1947.<br />
<br />
There is a sensitive issue which the BJP as well as the
secularists refuse to talk about. It is about the marriage links between the
Muslim families in India and their relatives who had migrated to Pakistan in
1947 and later. A similar marital link exists between the Muslims in Kashmir
and in Pakistan. Indian governments, including that of prime minister Vajpayee,
dealt with the issue with understanding. Many of the men and women, and it was
more the women, who would overstay their visa in India and whenever
India-Pakistan relations would go into the discord mode, there was a threat
that these families would be separated from the daughters-in-law and their
children. And many of them who married into Indian Muslim families may face
obstacles if they were to apply for Indian citizenship. The issue is that of
being with their families and there is no political angle involved in it. Most
of the time, the issue was handled with a human touch. But the Modi government
indicates that it wants no connect at the family and social levels with
Pakistan and it is to be dealt with as an enemy state and many of the fanatical
elements, including educated, middle class Hindus, support the belligerent
stand. <br />
<br />
It is difficult for the BJP and its supporters to understand
what the partition meant. The case of Hindus and Sikhs was simple and tragic.
They came away and cut off their roots. The Muslims who went from here, and who
became the ‘mohajirs’ or migrants, were in an unenviable position. Their family
links could not be cut asunder because the political boundaries were re-drawn.
The assumption among the majority of the people on both sides in 1947 was that
there were now two nation-states but it did not mean all others links – families,
trade, culture – were to be cut off and the two states should be insulated from
each other. The same challenge remains even after the formation of Bangladesh
in 1972.<br />
<br />
The old platitude that you do not choose your neighburs and
you must live with them holds good. The BJP’s hard stance is not of much use in
the long term. The marriage links between the mohajirs in Pakistan and their
families in India are going to taper off. The question is no more that of
Hindus and Muslims this side and that side. You are forced to deal with each
other in a civilized way. The CAB must be delinked from the general relations
between the neighbours. <br />
<br />
There are not any more many Hindus in Afghanistan and
Pakistan who would want to come to India. In Pakistan, Hindus enjoy minority
status and the constitutional protection that comes from it. The picture drawn
that Hindus who live there are under threat is not true. Pakistan government
takes care of them. As to the Islamic militants, it is a different story. They
pose a threat to majority Muslims as well. <br />
<br />
If the BJP is sincere, and it is not for justifiably
political reasons, it should give the number of Hindus from these three
countries who are in the country and who are seeking citizenship. The numbers
would deflate the rhetoric of the BJP. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-43244867973184284302019-09-19T19:49:00.001+05:302019-09-19T19:52:49.811+05:30Foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale says that India will not focus exclusively on terrorism, and that there are other issues like climate change during Prime Minister Modi's trip to Houston and New York, September 21-27<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The BJP-led NDA governments had felt a compulsion to talk about terrorism and the role of Pakistan in using terrorism as an instrument of state policy. In his second term in office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it appears, wants to broaden BJP's and NDA's foreign policy framework to include the challenge of climate change and the changes required in the United Nations to reflect the new reality of a multi-polar global order.<br />
<br />
Foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale stated in clear terms that 'There will be no exclusive focus on terrorism' in response to a question after he briefed the media on the prime minister's trip to Houston and New York later this week. Though the prime minister will meet United States President Donald Trump at the large meeting of 50,000 Indians-in-America on September 22 as Trump will be present there along with key Democrat leaders, and there will be a bilateral meeting between him and Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session. There is however a Leaders' Dialogue on Terrorism in which the prime minister will participate in New York.<br />
<br />
The crowded schedule of the prime minister includes a roundtable with the chief executives of energy sector and an interactive session with the Congress leaders from both the parties, Democrats and Republicans at Houston.<br />
<br />
On September 23, he will address a summit on climate change issues and a conference organized by the UN Secretary General on universal health coverage, where he will showcase India's Ayushman programme, which is the largest of its kind in the world.<br />
<br />
On September 24, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and to mark Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary, the prime minister will speak at the seminar, "Leadership Matters: Importance of Gandhi in the Contemporary World". Mr Modi will launch the Gandhi Solar Park with India giving a grant of $1 million at the State University of New York (SUNY), and the release of UN postage stamp in honour of Gandhi.<br />
<br />
On September 25, Mr Modi will give a keynote address at the plenary session of Bloomberg conference and he would later address an investment roundtable of 40 major American companies which would include Morgan Stanley and others.<br />
<br />
He will address the UN General Assembly on September 27 in High Level Debate, the first after 2014 when he addressed the first time.<br />
<br />
The foreign secretary said that the prime minister believes in shaping global agenda and that multilateralism is at the centre of international relations, and India wants a multilateral system which reflects the present time. He said there is also emphasis on South-South partnership.<br />
<br />
One of the initiatives in which India will be a partner is the Coalition of Disaster resilient Network, where international aid will help countries to rebuild after a natural disaster. The foreign secretary said that India had proven expertise and capability in this.<br />
<br />
The prime minister will be co-chairing plurilateral meetings of India-Pacific Island States and India-Caribbean states. There are 14 Caribbean states.<br />
<br />
Mr Modi will have 20 bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, including one with Mr Trump, with India's neighbours.<br />
<br />
External Affairs Minister S.Jaishankar will be in New York during the prime minister's sjourn, and after Mr Modi returns to India forenoon of September 27, he will travel to Washington for bilateral meetings.<br />
<br />
Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan will also be in New York, and he will be meeting with representatives of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM), the Commonwealth and the BRICS (BRazil, Russia, China and South Africa).<br />
<br />
This is the first time in five years when Mr Modi's trip to the US has involved the external affairs minister as well as the minister of state for external affairs.<br />
<br />
The foreign secretary explained that these wide-ranging meetings become necessary because Indian ministers are unable to travel all the countries, and the UN General Assembly meeting offers an opportunity to meet them at one place.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-68826110733420475752019-09-10T14:18:00.000+05:302019-09-10T14:18:46.202+05:30The K question: elusive and illusive<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b></b><br />
<br />
<b>Article 370 did not keep J&K out of the Union of India</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Prime Minister Narendra Modi-President Donald Trump
tete-a-tete at Biarritz on Monday (August 26) on the sidelines of the G7 summit
about Kashmir is symptomatic. After broaching the subject and trying to stay
with it, the American president ended up saying that it is indeed a matter
between India and Pakistan, and they will sort it out. Mr Modi affirmed that
the two neighbours who were one country before 1947 will sort out Kashmir among
themselves. The Kashmir question – Jammu and Ladakh are not part of the problem
– refuses to go away even after Parliament passed legislation abrogating
Article 370 which conferred ‘temporary’ special status and doing away Article
35A, which was inserted into the Constitution through a Presidential Order in
1954 under Article 370 on August 5.<br />
<br />
<br />
Mr Modi bantered away the issue with Mr Trump. The question
never got out of hand, it did not become an embarrassment as Pakistan would
have wanted it to be, but it was there all the same, an irritant, a minor
irritant if you feel so, because it turns up, in however an innocuous manner at
some place or other. It is a fact that the Kashmir question is not of any
interest to other countries, not to the United States, not to European Union or
to Arab and Muslim countries. But it lingers because it remains to be sorted
out between India and Pakistan.<br />
<br />
<br />
India has taken the ambiguous stand that Kashmir cannot be
the main talking point with Pakistan, and other issues like ease of travel and
trade are more important. Pakistan has always insisted that Kashmir is the main
issue and other matters are secondary. India’s ruse of comprehensive dialogue
was a way of relegating the Kashmir issue to the bottom of the agenda. Pakistan
is aware of this and that is why bilateral talks have not made much progress
over the years. So, the K question persists between the two countries.<br />
<br />
<br />
The Modi government believes that after the abrogation of
Article 370, Pakistan cannot any more raise any question about Kashmir because
after being stripped off its special status, the Kashmir question has been
taken off the table as it were. It is a weak argument. Kashmir had become part
of India ever since its accession in October 1947, and Article 370 did not keep
Kashmir out of the Union of India. The talk of plebiscite, which was part of
the UN Security Council resolution ceased to be relevant as the years passed
and Pakistan showed no interest in getting it done. Pakistan had to withdraw
its troops completely and the Indian forces had to be reduced to a minimum for
plebiscite to take place. Pakistan did not dare to withdraw its troops because
it quite certain that Kashmir would not vote in its favour.<br />
<br />
<br />
Pakistan’s greatest blunder in Kashmir was to have sent the
raiders and irregular troops which alienated the people of Kashmir. The fact
was staring in Pakistan’s face: Muslim Kashmir was not willing to join Muslim
Pakistan. This was the position in the crucial years before and after 1947. It
will not be off the mark to say that even if Hari Singh had wanted to join
Pakistan, Sheikh Abdullah and his National Conference would have brought Kashmir
into India. It would have been a Sikkim-like situation.<br />
<br />
<br />
The Indian case has moral, political and legal legitimacy.
The moral legitimacy arises from the fact that India showed no interest in
Muslim majority Kashmir, thanks to Sardar Patel’s clear-eyed political vision,
and the Indian troops only went there at the request of Hari Singh because of
Pakistan’s invasion. The political legitimacy derived from the fact that in
1947, Sheikh Abdullah represented the vox populi. And the legal legitimacy was
sealed through the Instrument of Accession. Article 370 did not give Kashmir
the option of walking out of the Union of India. The National Conference (NC)
and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in their agitprop mode made the mistake
of turning Article 370 as the slender thread connecting Kashmir to the country.
With or without Article 370, Kashmir remains a part of India. It would be wrong
to argue that the removal of Article 370 strengthens the Indian position in
Kashmir. Removal of Article 370 is an administrative move and not an act
legitimizing Kashmir’s accession to India.<br />
<br />
<br />
The Kashmir problem persists because of the part that
remains in Pakistan’s territory. Kashmiri leaders believe that the Kashmir
problem remains until the status of the other part is not resolved, and that is
why India and Pakistan should talk about it. There is also the implication that
Kashmiris on either side implead themselves as the third party.<br />
<br />
<br />
The state of Jammu and Kashmir is divided like the divided
subcontinent. Neither leaders in Pakistan nor in Kashmir can any more posit
undivided Kashmir as an issue and seek a solution to it. Kashmir remains an
anomaly in the sense that the whole state should have gone to either of the
dominions of India or Pakistan, but Pakistan’s para-military intervention broke
the mould. Pakistan has created the Kashmir problem. India have nothing to do
with it. Pakistan is the occupying force in that part of Kashmir from 1947
onward. It is the aggressor and it never had moral legitimacy in the Kashmir
question. The part of Kashmir under Pakistan is now part of Pakistan. The
untidy status quo remains because conventional war cannot settle it either in
favour of India or Pakistan. The nuclear option is no option. And the world is
not interested in the Kashmir question any longer. It has lost its
geo-political leverage which it had until 9/11.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-75400606864267790992019-07-07T17:17:00.000+05:302019-07-07T17:20:16.848+05:30Rahul purges Congress of Nehru-Gandhis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><b>The resignation was no mock act, and he opened the door for
change</b></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Rahul Gandhi’s resignation letter released through his
Twitter account put the final seal on his resignation episode. Everyone in the
Congress and outside predicted it to be a <i>tamasha</i>, and that Congress would not
let him go, and that he was only waiting to be cajoled and supplicated to take
back his resignation. There was little doubt that the Congress wanted him and
there was no insincerity in it. The party believes that it cannot survive
without a Nehru-Gandhi at the helm, and there was not an iota of hypocrisy in
this belief. For the last 50 years – ever since Indira Gandhi split the party
in 1969 – the party folk – the cadres and the leaders – considered the
Nehru-Gandhis as natural leaders of the party. That is the reason, when Rajiv
Gandhi was chosen prime minister immediately after Indira Gandhi’s
assassination on October 31, 1984 there was no hesitation in the party to
ratify the act and he did not have to resign when he lost the Lok Sabha
election in 1989. Similarly, when Sonia Gandhi moved in to take over the reins
of the party in 1998, seven years after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in May,
1991, the Congress felt that it has regained its normal state. So, it was not
surprising that she continued to be president of the party for 19 years. It was
assumed that in victory and defeat, the Nehru-Gandhis will continue to be the
leaders of the party, and the others in the organization are only too willing
to work under them. The victories in the Lok Sabha elections of 2004 and 2009 and
defeats in 1999 and in 2014 election raised no questions about who would be the
party president. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Rahul Gandhi broke this norm when he did not just offer to
resign but he resigned and told the party that it should look for a new leader.
The cynics and sceptics thought that it was pretense and nothing more, and that
the party would not let him go and he would not let go of the control of the
party. But they were in for a shock, and they would hunt for reasons and
arguments to say that the whole turn of events is unreal and that it is untrue
because it does not play itself out according to the script of the last half
century. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It is most likely that there
will be a torrent of praise for him and he would morph into a secular saint in
the eyes of the party faithful even as Sonia Gandhi attained a beatific status
when he refused to be prime minister and nominated Dr Manmohan Singh for the
post. Sonia Gandhi’s gesture was a politically shrewd move as well as being a
saintly act in the public sphere. Gandhi’s resignation and his determination to
stick to it has both a political and moral dimension to it. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">His decision to quit as president will now force the party
to hunt for a president, however nominal. The family sycophants in the party –
and in times of crisis the grand old party of India becomes one huge contingent
of sycophants – would now look for a president who is a family loyalist because
the argument would run that whoever comes in as president will only hold the
party together on behalf of the Nehru-Gandhis. This will indeed provide enough
ammunition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his sycophants in the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) who have become the troll army against Rahul Gandhi to mock
the resignation as sheer hypocrisy. But Gandhi has done what he could. He
stepped down, and he ruled that <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>no one
from his family would step into his shoes. The second part of his decision was
a necessary corollary to the first part because if he were to step down, and if
Sonia Gandhi was to be prevailed upon to resume charge or Priyanka Vadra asked
to take over, Rahul Gandhi’s decision would have been self-contradictory. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Both logically and morally, Gandhi was not right in
insisting that no member of his family can be chosen as party president. Gandhi
cannot assume control over what his mother and sister may or may not do. It is to be
assumed that there was consultation in the family and both mother and sister
must have given assent to him speaking for the family. The natural fallout
without his caveat would have been for both Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra to
go through the similar melodrama of refusing to be president of the party. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The question would not cease to be asked: why did Rahul
Gandhi do what he did? Is he a realist who knows that he is not up to his job
and therefore did the wise thing of putting in his papers, or is he plotting a
return at a later date, so that the wounds of the 2014 and 2019 election losses
would heal and the overwhelming sense of shame and despair caused by the defeat
would fade away? Or is he opting out of political life in toto and this
resignation is but a prelude to it? While it makes sense for him to go out of
politics, why is he imposing the same condition on his mother and sister? Does
he feel that the only way that Congress can stand on its own feet is if the
crutch of of Nehru-Gandhis is denied to the organisation? Neither his critics
nor his followers would admit to the fact that he is freeing the Congress from
the burden of Nehru-Gandhis and, conversely, he is also freeing the family from
the burden of leading the Congress. There would be much speculation about the
political motives behind Gandhi’s decision to quit, and the world will judge
him critically rather than generously. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">But the catch is this: Rahul Gandhi said that he would
continue to work in the party and continue to be a Member of Parliament (MP).
This would mean that he has created only a window of opportunity for the others
in the Congress to do what they can for the party, and he has also kept open
the option of returning to lead the party. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span></div>
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-87336418947250423752019-06-30T11:19:00.000+05:302019-06-30T11:23:34.513+05:30Anubhav Sinha's Article 15 touches upon the caste cesspool of rural India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It is not surprising that most reviewers of 'Article 15' were impressed by Ayushmann Khurrana taking up the role of the IPS officer caught in the alien hinterland on his first posting, the young man from St.Stephen's in Delhi and his communication with his girlfriend, played by Isha Talwar, from the same metro which keeps him sort of tethered. The reviewers also mentioned in passing how the movie was based on the real-life event of the rape and murder of two girls in Badayun. The poor reviewers cannot be criticized too much. They are dealing with an alien subject. Mumbai-based mainstream Hindi cinema is not comfortable in dealing with political themes. The cosmopolitan Hindi mainstream cinema with its pan-Indian audience has never been in a position to deal with politics which is a 'local' phenomenon. Raj Kumar Gupta-directed Ajay Devgn starrer "Raid' has been an exception. The other overtly political movie was Ramesh Sharma's 'New Delhi Times' made in 1986. The new bunch of directors, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Vishal Bhardwaj, Anurag Kashyap have only set out to explore the nuances of the Hindi heartland's cultural landscape and its linguistic nuances more than the politics. Abhinav Sinha is attempting to take the political issues head on. He did it in 'Mulk', and he has done it now in 'Article 15'. The viewers of mainstream Hindi films are slightly overwhelmed by these 'political' movies as they are not exposed to them sufficiently as are the audiences of Tamil, Telugu, Bangla films, where politics crisscross the storylines and characters.<br />
Bur he handles the political rather deftly. He is not into taking the side of the underdog in the regular way, showing the victims as heroic rebels. As a matter of fact, he lets victims remain victims. In 'Article 15' the Dalits remain silhouettes. They stand on the sidelines and it is the others who go around them investigating the murder case of the two Dalit girls and the disappearance of the third that holds the plot. The cameo role of the Dalit revolutionary and his death in an encounter killing, shown without comment, and his girlfriend are very nearly bystanders in the film.<br />
Sinha however does something incisive. He shows how individuals of all castes in the rural setup are directly or indirectly involved in the killing of the Dalit girls. There are no stereotypical upper caste villains. The whole society, of all castes and classes, is implicated in the murder. This is indeed the triumph of the movie. As a matter of fact, the IPS office played by Khurrana becomes a cameo himself.</div>
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-12443699583711496082019-06-22T17:17:00.003+05:302019-06-22T17:17:36.904+05:30 BJP's moral hazard of Election 2019<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b>The questions concerning campaign spending
and the role of RSS need answers</b></span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Two questions connected with the Narendra
Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) victory in the Lok Sabha elections on May
23 have not been examined sufficiently. One is the money that the BJP had spent
in this election – it ranges from about Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 27,000 crore –
and the second is the number of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) volunteers
who had worked diligently, reaching the maximum number of homes of at least the
nearly 40 per cent of the people who had cast their vote in favour of Mr Modi
and the BJP.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Whatever the exact amount that the party
may have spent from the huge donations it had received, the BJP had spent an
astronomical sum to fight this election. It can be argued that to reach out to
about 90 crore voters, of whom about 60 crore had voted, and about 24 crore had
voted for the BJP, requires a huge amount, and there is no reason to be queasy
about the large money spent. It is money that has been spent rationally, and in
retrospect it is money well spent. There is no reason to suspect the sources of
the donations as well. India has got enough money and more. Black money does
not come into the picture.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What is of concern however is that whether
the money power – transparent and legitimate – makes it an uneven playing
field. Political parties which want to fight the Lok Sabha election cannot hope
to do so if they are not able to rustle up the money. Of course, there are not
too many parties fighting all the 541 seats of the Lok Sabha, barring the
Congress. The others are all regional parties and they do not need the large
moneys that a national party like the BJP or the Congress would need to raise
for fighting the election across the country.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In effect it restricts the field of
national parties because of the money needed. It is like big corporations which
have a footprint across the country and therefore their budgets are of a
different magnitude compared to small businesses. Political parties with
national ambitions will have to build their money power as much as manpower. Indian
elections then are going the way of American elections, especially the presidential
ones, where the size of the money chest matters even for a candidate to
continue standing.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The irrational response to this development
would be to decry money power altogether and plead for the unrealistic solution
of the state funding of elections. The more reasonable thing to do would be to
consider whether the money spent is proportional to the votes garnered and
seats won in the Lok Sabha. Common sense suggests that whatever the money
ammunition that a political party may bring, people are not going to be
influenced by the money power. When people want to vote out a party, the money
that a party spends on the campaign is of little avail.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The BJP however faces the moral hazard
because it is likely to spend increased amounts of money to run an effective
campaign. Unlike in America, the lawmakers in India cutting across party lines
are not likely to talk about restrictions on campaign finance. Each party would
argue that the other party is getting more donations. The big businesses which
make huge contributions to all the political parties are not going to complain.
It would be naïve to believe that businesses donating to political parties are looking
for a quid pro quo. It could be something upfront and brazen, or it could be
something hidden. Not all of it need be nefarious.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There is a connection between BJP's war
chest and the participation of the RSS volunteers. The RSS workers are like the
Franciscan monks who believe in poverty and obedience. They preach, they
persuade, and to use an unkind word they brainwash. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The participation of the RSS workers in the
service of BJP raises a separate set of questions. Is the RSS then abandoning its
ostensible position of being a cultural organisation, which maintains more than
an arm's length with political activities. The RSS top brass maintain that the
organisation is engaged in long term social reconstruction, and politics is
nothing but a short-term operation and transaction. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The BJP as well as the RSS should perhaps
come out in the open, and for decency's sake admit that they are
fellow-travellers, and that the RSS has a role in the electioneering of the
BJP. The two organisations should openly declare how the RSS assists the BJP, and
how the BJP when in power implements or tries to implement the cultural agenda
of the RSS.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is if course part of the democratic
logic that the party that wins an election is duty-bound to implement its
agenda, which then can be argued is for the good of the country. What is
necessary in the case of the RSS and the BJP is for them to declare openly that
the BJP will implement the RSS agenda in the field of education if not in the
field of foreign policy. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There is nothing anomalous or invidious
about the whole project if it is done openly. It also follows that the BJP and
RSS will have to declare in their election manifesto what they intend to do
instead of hiding behind a cloak. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The people have a right to know the role of
the RSS in a BJP administration. The fact that the communists have played the
same dirty game that the RSS and BJP are now playing would sound logical but
does not hold good in terms of public morality. However nebulous and tenuous,
there is something called public morality where the players are expected to
keep all their cards on the table. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The leftists did not do it, and the
rightists can always cite the leftist precedent and want to get away with it.</span></span></div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></div>
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-47185650066225896242019-05-03T22:57:00.000+05:302019-05-03T22:58:57.298+05:30Democracy and its discontents<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><b>Narendra Modi, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Kanhaiya Kumar present
a coarse populist side</b></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglTBy6ZFk2yHXPxnPXGjtRk3A7FeDG8qPmmTJI2xNRRYM_Rp-sf-hi9O0_WGWtI129ea8bB_Nz79k9H37_xcOz3CAyY2BPT4DVnC2NPE2RWsFCGGhjuQXQk5jd663JMfAz_9QW/s1600/IMG_8923.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglTBy6ZFk2yHXPxnPXGjtRk3A7FeDG8qPmmTJI2xNRRYM_Rp-sf-hi9O0_WGWtI129ea8bB_Nz79k9H37_xcOz3CAyY2BPT4DVnC2NPE2RWsFCGGhjuQXQk5jd663JMfAz_9QW/s320/IMG_8923.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The loudness and coarseness of the Lok Sabha election
campaign, as part of democratic denouement, however distasteful, is unexceptionable.
That Prime Minister Narendra Modi outflanks the rest of the opposition leaders
in loudness and coarseness is not a fall from grace, either of Indian democracy
or of Mr Modi. There is an inherent vulgarity in the speech of the demos, the
common people, where subtleties and niceties get drowned. Democracy throws up
dictators, and in 20<sup>th</sup> century many of the dictators have been and
are democratically elected ones. The popular leader is always a dictator in
disguise, and it is only the good sense of the popular leader that keeps
dictatorship sheathed. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Democracy gives rise to sophisticated leaders as well as the
unsophisticated ones. Jawaharlal Nehru was a sophisticated leader but he was
not the norm. Mr Modi is the unsophisticated democrat, a kind of a Jacksonian –
Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, who was perceived
as barging into the genteel salons of power in Washington from the backwaters
of Tennessee with his bare knuckles approach – democrat. It is not necessary to
either admire or to give assent to Mr Modi’s underclass belligerence, but his
ways cannot be described as undemocratic. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The precedents for Mr Modi’s cultivated rusticity go back to
the politics of the socialist firebrand of the 1950s and 1960s, Ram Manohar
Lohia. He was a sophisticated man himself, but he threw aside the
sophistication and put on the rustic’s mask to identify himself with the common
people of the country. Many well-meaning and well-healed folk admired the
emergence of leaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad Yadav as heralds
of unsophistication, and they were hailed as symbols of authentic Indian
democracy. Mr Modi belongs to this Lohia-inspired constellation, comprising the
Yadav leaders. It was V.P.Singh, the Raja of Manda who facilitated the
transition to grassroots politics in India by his decision to implement the
Mandal Commission recommendations as an act of defiance when his rickety
National Front government was tottering in mid-1990 and the man who had unwittingly
dethroned a Nehru-Gandhi prime minister and there has not been one from the
family ever since.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The well-meaning well-heeled English-speaking elite rejoiced
in the Falstaffian antics of Lalu Prasad Yadav, without examining the virtues of
theatric unsophistication. There is not much of a difference between Mr Yadav
and Mr Modi in terms of their political vulgarity. They came from two ends
of the socialist spectrum, Mr Modi from the rightist end and Mr Yadav from the
Leftist end. It is indeed the case that Mr Yadav’s vulgarity was benign while
the rightist vulgarity of Mr Modi stokes violent negativity among his listeners
and followers. The latest entry into the vulgar club is the former JNU Students
Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, whose wit and eloquence has captivated the
hearts of those who once cheered Mr Yadav. Mr Yadav, Mr Modi and Mr Kumar have
embraced democratic vulgarity. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Mr Modi and his praetorian guard in the party and in the
outgoing government can be accused of bringing down the quality of public
debate by turning it into a no-holds barred us-and-them battle where everything
is done to trip Congress president Rahul Gandhi from contesting the election
while standing solidly with Hindutva zealot Pragya Thakur in the Bhopal Lok
Sabha constituency.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">It is this vulgarity – there is nothing pejorative about
vulgarity; the original Latin sense of the <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>term denotes the ordinary people and the
translation of the Bible into Latin by St. Jerome is known as The Vulgate<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>-- <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>of
democracy that repelled Plato, and to an extent Aristotle. Unfortunately, we
cannot quote the author of the Arthashastra or some other ancient Indian
authority because democracy and its underlying principle of the equal rights of
all in the political sphere was not prevalent in old India. It is the privilege
of ancient Greece that it bravely experimented with democracy, and aristocrats
like Plato did not hesitate in expressing their repulsion for its vulgar ways. It
is often overlooked that it is Athenian democracy that tried Socrates for
corrupting the minds of the city’s youth by criticizing the Homeric gods. In
his personal political testament, so beautifully outlined in the Seventh
Letter, Plato explains his inability to be part of the political scene of his
day because of erratic tyrants who would not listen to him on the one side and
the factionalism that dominated Athenian politics on the other, and he could
not bring himself to play the intellectually unacceptable game of partisan
politics. Aristotle was solidly middle class and felt that democracy – he
called it polity -- <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>is good because the
clash of views among the many is better than the tyrannical sway of the views
of the few. But he too did not like what he called the deviant form – he called
it democracy -- which spelled the tyranny of the masses.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The haute bourgeoisie’s discomfort and dislike for Mr Modi’s
vulgar politics is comparable to the horror felt by the aristocratic class in
England after the Second Reform Act of 1867 which extended the voting right to
the lower middle classes. There is no likelihood of Indian democracy getting
back to the imagined salon decencies of the past. The coarseness and loudness
is here to stay with or without Mr Modi and his friends around. In a distant
future, when India becomes an advanced economy and prosperity levels improve,
there could be a gentler dialogue among the politicians of diverse hues. Even
in the United States, the democratic dialogue has slumped to a deplorable low
with President Donald Trump unleashing belligerence in his 2016 campaign not
seen since post-Civil War Yankee days. The middle class must accept the good as well
as the bad that is inherent in democracy. It cannot always be ideal and decent.
It turns loud and coarse. In other words, vulgar. </span></div>
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Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-53652657054551677912019-05-01T14:59:00.000+05:302019-05-01T14:59:01.034+05:30Future of Chandrababu Naidu’s dream city hinges on the poll outcome<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYSfilPZHbNR9mK_qJOxZxml8VRrAWUPPRd5Ld6FPwEOPah46KQY5-LHG1bR8GIXj9SCXG3z462jL228t0P5viBI3iHYm9BLAMc9WPXQ5WmhpTX98W0KWBRc-J6hXmkTH13Onq/s1600/IMG_9249.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYSfilPZHbNR9mK_qJOxZxml8VRrAWUPPRd5Ld6FPwEOPah46KQY5-LHG1bR8GIXj9SCXG3z462jL228t0P5viBI3iHYm9BLAMc9WPXQ5WmhpTX98W0KWBRc-J6hXmkTH13Onq/s320/IMG_9249.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><b>Amaravati, an ungainly construction site now, is caught in
the coils of the political struggle for power between Telugu Desam Party and
the YSR Congress Party</b></span></div>
<b></b><br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">A strange argument being offered by some of the people in
Andhra Pradesh after the April 18 polling for the assembly and Sabha elections
in the state is that perhaps outgoing chief minister and Telugu Desam Party
chairman N. Chandrababu Naidu needs to be brought back to power for the new
state capital, Amaravati, to be completed. There is a sense of uncertainty
whether Naidu’s main rival, Jaganmohan Reddy, president of the Yuva Sramika
Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), has the experience and dedication to see through
the completion of the new city, which is being built in the fertile farmlands
on the flood plains of River Krishna, between the cities of Vijayawada and
Guntur. The farmers have been given generous terms for surrendering the land
for the dream urban project, and they have also been allotted plots in the
upcoming city apart from the generous price paid for the farmland that has been
got from them.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">It is interesting that the future of the city-in-the-making
has been linked to the electoral fate of the chief minister and serious
discussion centres round whether Reddy, Naidu’s main rival, will be able to
fulfil the task of completing the capital. There is apprehension that Reddy may
want to shift the capital to Kadapa, his home district in the sub-region of
Rayalaseema. On the face of it, it seems that it may be difficult to shift the
site of the capital because Rayalaseema does not have a perennial water source
like River Krishna. Though the river has been made to flow through the
drought-prone region as Telugu Ganga, a dream irrigation project that took wing
during TDP-founder and charismatic matinee idol-turned- politicians N.T.Rama
Rao’s first chief ministerial term in 1983. It was also meant to provide water
for Chennai.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Taxi-driver Srikanth, 40, with two children, makes himself
out to be a neutral observer of the rival claims of Naidu and Reddy. Citing
Telugu television news channel debates, he says that Naidu who is nearing 70
will not be able to run around as much as he did, and therefore Reddy, who is
younger, should get a chance to run the show. He also points out that there is
no second rung of leaders in TDP, and speculates that film actor-turned-politicians
Pawan Kalyan, who is fighting the election under the banner of his own party,
Jana Sena, could possibly be the next big leader in the state if his party
manages to win about 15-17 seats in this assembly election. As the difference
in the number of seats between the TDP and YSRCP is going to be narrow, then
Kalyan could emerge as the ‘king-maker’. Kalyan had set up the party in 2014,
and he was part of the TDP-BJP alliance in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections
that year.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He has now pitted himself
against his former alliance partners as well as against Reddy’s YSRCP. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghLGbYZFGItCK90-iZ8nSrGGUsmxWpxmsOnnoaAD808-Yi1ugjFEINAEVSG0YX1XoWGLwTur-2Zaal2JA7-JlXYp0rMmXxiDFh7CV52vUbilvRXG_0vla8ofGZ8w9rE_DY4gNt/s1600/IMG_9276.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghLGbYZFGItCK90-iZ8nSrGGUsmxWpxmsOnnoaAD808-Yi1ugjFEINAEVSG0YX1XoWGLwTur-2Zaal2JA7-JlXYp0rMmXxiDFh7CV52vUbilvRXG_0vla8ofGZ8w9rE_DY4gNt/s320/IMG_9276.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Srikanth is acutely aware that there has been no growth in
the state in the last five years, and that when the new capital is completed,
then the opportunities would arise. He explains that right now Vijayawada,
which is his birthplace as well as the base of his operations, is much too
small to generate jobs and to enable expansion of business. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Auto-rickshaw driver Mastan Rao, who is from Gudur, 276 kms
from Vijayawada, and settled in Vijayawada for 30 years, says the only
thing<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>that has happened after the
formation of the new state of Andhra Pradesh, has been the phenomenal increase
in house rentals in Vijayawada because there is no housing as yet in Amaravati,
and that there has been no increase in wages/salaries/earnings. He points out
that he is forces to spend about Rs 3000 per child per month for fees and other
things, which is a huge burden. Agrees Srikanth, and he says that he is able to
cope with the burden of the high costs of school education because his wife is
employed too. Mastan Rao is in favour of Naidu getting a second term to put the
state on an even keel.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Amaravati is right now a huge construction site as it should
be. As I go around the Secretariat campus with its six five low-roof,
American-type buildings with airc-conditioned facilities, and clicking pictures
of the well-laid out pathway, the central park with its fountain, and the
installation of a two-bullocks-drawn cart laden with grain bags and a woman and
her daughter sitting atop with the man standing in front, it has the appearance
of a private sector corporate campus. One of the security men tells me that
this is a temporary facility of the secretariat, and the permanent structure is
coming up about 10 km away. I ask him how long will it take the permanent
buildings of the secretariat to come up? He smiles and says that the
foundations have been just dug, and that there is no money to continue with the
construction. It is only after the elections, that work will resume and that
too after the money has been arranged for it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I find my way to the High Court building, which is the only
other building which is functioning. The Supreme Court has earlier bifurcated
the High Court of Telangana-Andhra Pradesh. There is a tent across the road
from the building, where the cars of the honourable judges of the court are
parked, and behind them lawyers and their clients sit in plastic chairs because
there is as yet no place inside the building. Prasada Rao SVS, a High Court
advocate, says that the court is functioning at 60 per cent of its capacity. We
are also told that this again is a temporary building, and the High Court will
have a permanent structure along with others in the heart of the capital which
will come up over the next few years. And he wryly points out, “It is usually
the case that a court building comes up when a town is ready. Now, a town will
come up around the court building.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">There are spaciously wide roads leading to and away from the
court even as other buildings are under construction. The capital-to-be is a
huge construction site which is as it should be. But the future of Amaravati
hinges on the outcome of the Lok Sabha and state legislative assembly
elections. Whether it is Naidu or Reddy in the state, or whether it is Modi or
whoever else at the Centre, Amaravati’s future is closely tied to the fortunes
of the political leaders. The city to be completed needs infusion of huge
investments, public and private, for it to emerge as the smart, modern city, a
la Singapore, that Naidu wants it to be. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Another 20 kms away lies the old town of Amaravati, where
once the famous Buddhist chaitya or prayer hall existed, and whose famous
frieze showing scenes from the Buddha’s life is now in the British Museum, and
the Buddhist structure now houses a Shiva temple. The added glory of the old
Amaravati and the future glow of the unbuilt city lie uneasily next to each
other. </span></div>
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Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-24541218966985795962018-05-22T12:48:00.001+05:302018-05-22T12:48:16.913+05:30Sense of the mandate<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b>Congress and the BJP can never hope to dominate Karnataka</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Forming the government after an election is a necessary part
of the democratic process, but it is not sufficient. What is called the
mandate, or what the people want or prefer, cannot be pushed under the carpet
because it comes back like a bad penny at the next election. Karnataka’s
fractured verdict, and it is one because even the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),
with its 104 seats has fallen short of the minimum majority, the simple
majority. But the BJP leaders, like those in the Congress and the Janata Dal
(Secular), have chosen to be silent about it. Had they managed to rustle up
those eight or nine seats which they needed to form the government, they would
have continued their silence on what the mandate meant. There is little doubt
that the combined figures of Congress and the JD (S) helps cross the magic line
of the minimum majority, and despite their 58.6 percentage of the vote share as
opposed to the BJP’s 36 per cent, they do not have the mandate. One can pretend
that in the context of the exigency of forming the government, it is futile to
look at the niceties of the mandate, which is clearly negative in the case of
JD (S). And given the electoral system of first-past-the-post, the Congress is
straining credibility when its leaders argue that they have the popular
mandate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Whatever the politicians and the pundits may think, the
people are not going to let the parties forget this issue of the mandate. When
elections are held the next time round, it is quite likely that those who
presumed that they have been mandated to rule will be punished. The BJP will
make up the deficit in the next round. The JD (S) will not be able to better
its position because it has managed to form the government, and the Congress’
numbers will not improve either. There is a parallel to this in the national
politics, from 1996 to 1999. The BJP was the single largest party in three of
the Lok Sabha elections, though its vote percentage was at best modest. In
1996, the BJP had 161 seats (20.29 per cent of popular vote) to Congress’ 140
seats (28.80 per cent) and Janata Dal’s 46 seats (8.08 per cent). It was
inevitable that then BJP’s prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee failed in his
attempt to form the government, and we witnessed the second largest party, the
Congress with 140 seats supporting the JD with its leader H.D.Deve Gowda as the
prime minister. The anomaly could not be sustained. In 1998, BJP fared better
with 182 seats (22.59 per cent) to the Congress’ 141 seats (25.82 per cent) and
the Janata Dal was reduced to 6 seats (3.24 per cent). The BJP led the National
Democratic Alliance to form the government. After the Congress brought down the
Vajpayee government in 1999 by a single vote, the BJP returned with the same
number of seats as before, 182 and with a barely improved vote percentage – 23.75.
Congress was reduced to 114 seats but with an improved percentage – 28.30. The
Janata Dal had split into JD (Secular) which was reduced to 1 seat (0.91 per
cent) and the JD (United) to 21 seats (3.10 per cent). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A close look at the Karnataka assembly election results over
the decades shows a certain pattern, with the Congress retaining a strong
foothold even when it lost elections. For example, in the 1983 assembly
elections, the party had 82 seats (40.89 per cent) to Janata Party’s 95 (38.21
per cent). And in the 1985 election, the Janata Party’s unmistakable triumph
under Ramakrishna Hegde for a second time with 139 seats (47.62 per cent), the
Congress had 65 seats (41.03 per cent). And in 1989, Congress came back with
179 seats (44.2 per cent), with Janata Party reduced to two seats (11.68 per
cent) and Janata Dal winning 24 seats (28.86 per cent). But in the 1994
assembly election, Congress crashed to 34 seats (27.36 per cent) and Janata Dal
won a handsome 1115 seats (34.02 per cent).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The BJP’s story in Karnataka is interesting and instructive.
In 1983, the party had won 18 seats (16.21 per cent), was reduced to two seats
(7.59 per cent) in 1985, got four seats (7.70 per cent) in 1989. It improved
its position tremendously in 1994 when it won 40 seats (17.05 per cent), and in
1999 it won 44 seats (30.99 per cent). It won 79 seats (31.68 per cent) in 2004
and 110 seats (33.93 per cent) in 2008, before it went down to 40 seats (20.07
per cent) in 2013. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">All the three parties – the Congress, BJP and the JD (S) –
are now permanent players in the state politics. It would be wrong to believe
that if BJP is able to form a government in the state, then it turns into a
permanently saffron state as it had happened in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and
Chhattisgarh. Despite the rhetorical bombast of BJP president Amit Shah and
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress is a force to reckon with the state
politics. And it is true of the BJP and the JD (S) as well. The JD (S) will be
a permanent third in the political league of state unless it is able to recover
its pre-split Janata Dal vote of 1994. Karnataka cannot be reduced to a bipolar
polity though both Congress and the BJP would prefer it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, how do we make sense of the mandate in this context? The
BJP has failed the test because the other parties together have larger number
of seats, and their combined vote percentage is a statistical frill and nothing
more. The presence of the third party makes it difficult for the other two
major parties to play the bully. In many ways, the Karnataka scenario
replicates itself across the country, where the presence of third parties keeps
the arrogance of the Congress and BJP on the leash.</span></div>
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Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-15601315954931731442018-05-16T11:34:00.001+05:302018-05-16T11:34:03.463+05:30IT sector hovers in mid-air<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Information Technology (IT) export earnings are what keep India going. It is India’s face abroad and the country is proud of the vibrant
IT sector. The 2016-17 Reserve Bank’s annual survey on computer software and
information technology enabled services exports gives a general picture how the
sector, which is what makes the India a big player in the world, is faring in
terms of the services it offers and the dollars it fetches in turn. There are
of course illusions among politicians and spin-doctors that IT exports make
India a major global economic power, which is not really the case. The survey
reveals that India is among the top Information and Communication Technology
(ICT) exporters, that it is ahead of China, Ireland and France, close to
Germany, and far behind United Kingdom and the United States. India is exactly
in the middle of the IT exporters pecking order. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In 2016-17, India’s software exports brought in a net
invisible surplus of $97.1 billion (71 per cent), and it helped in reducing the
current account deficit of $112.4 billion to $15.3 billion. But where do these
earnings come from? They come by way of computer services (69.2 per cent) and
Information Technology-enabled services (30.8 per cent). The computer services segment
accounts for 66 per cent of the earnings and software product development has a
share of 3.2 per cent. In the ITes segment, 23.7 per cent is accounted by the
business process outsourcing (BPO) and engineering services contribute 7.1 per
cent of the share. There has been encouraging improvement in terms of software
product development and engineering services, but earnings from those segments
are still small. The Indian IT sector stands at the lower end of the value
chain, and though its dollar earnings provide ballast to the crucial foreign
exchange cushioning, it would be an exaggeration to call India an IT
superpower. India is the IT service hub of the world, but it is not the leader
in the sector in terms of spearheading technology with its brainpower. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In terms of the industry, BPO services corner the share of
76.8 per cent and engineering services 23.2 per cent within the sector. Within
the larger BPO services, the share of customer interaction services is 5 per
cent, which is half of what it was in 2012-13 (10.9 per cent), financing and
accounting, auditing, book-keeping and tax consultancy services is 10.3 per
cent. Segments like medical transcription (0.8 per cent), HR administration
(0.6 per cent), content development, managing and publishing (0.8 per cent)
reveal diversification but not significantly so. Similarly, on the engineering
services side, product design engineering (electronics and mechanical) has a
share of 7.7 per cent </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Experts are aware where India stands in the IT league table,
and there are attempts to improve the position by increasing the share in
software product development and in engineering services. A change can also be
seen in the profile of the companies dominating the sector. In 2012-13, the
public limited companies dominated the scene with a 64.6 share of the sector’s
space, with the private limited companies occupying 35.3 per cent of the share.
That is the big companies with a larger shareholder base were the lead players,
though the small companies existed. In 2016-17, the private limited companies
increased their share to 49. 2 per cent, while the public limited companies’
space shrunk to 50.3 per cent. This marks a major change in the profile of the
sector. It means that there are more players, and the smaller players have
almost an equal share of the IT business along with the big ones. It also means
that those employed in the sector get lesser pay and the jobs are also insecure
because the private limited companies operate on tight and stringent budgets. The
low wage bill of the private limited companies keeps the Indian IT sector
competitive. It is estimated that the total work workforce directly employed in
the IT sector stood at 40 lakhs or 4 million, while those indirectly employed
stood at 1.3 crore or 10.3 million in 2017. The IT sector should be expanding
and growing in terms of technology upscaling, but India is not the leader in
this field.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">IT sector will generate disproportionate foreign exchange
earnings compared to its capacity to create jobs. India’s growth story cannot
depend on IT alone. Policy-makers recognize it and they have been flailing
their hands desperately to boost manufacturing and agriculture. Due to
unavoidable reasons, India is unable to find a way out of the logjam in the
primary and secondary sectors. The Indian economy looks like a skyscraper
standing on stilts. Not an assuring sight. </span></div>
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Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-13024880953544210802018-05-11T12:22:00.001+05:302018-05-11T12:24:48.425+05:30Knotty issues in history of Marx<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: white; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">A slightly</span></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><i>A slightly modified version has been published in The Times of India (May 11, 2018)</i></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "calibri";">He was not the global icon he became after the Bolshevik
Revolution</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The eulogies for Karl Marx on his bicentenary (1818-2018)
and elegies for communism will be the order of the day. They are deserving.
There would have been no Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR)(1917-91) of
Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin and successors, there would have been no
People’s Republic of China of Mao Zedong, no Vietnam of Ho Chi Minh and Cuba of
Fidel Castro without Marx and Engels’ clarion call for a revolution in the
Communist Manifesto of 1848. The mid-19<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> century Manifesto was the
mantra of revolutions in the 20<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> century. (At the time of writing
of the manifesto, Marx was a few months short of his 30<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> birthday
and Engels was 27. The manifesto did not have any impact on the revolutions
that had erupted all over Europe that year, all of which had failed. Historian
Lewis Namier had described them as the “revolution of the intellectuals”.) It
was not surprising that Marx and his intellectual collaborator Friedrich Engels
became demigods across the Third World. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The irony cannot be overlooked that Marx and Engels did not
attain cult status in England where Marx lived in exile for 30 of his 65 years
in England and spent a large part of that time in the Reading Room of the
British Library poring over the reports of the factory inspectors and the
Factory Acts that were enacted by the British parliament in the 1830s. (The
first Factory Act 1833 prohibited the employment of children below the age of
nine in factories, those between the ages of 9-13 were to work for nine hours,
and those between 13 and 18 for 12 hours, and a two-hour daily compulsory
schooling. The Factory Act of 1844 extended the rules that applied to children
to women.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The ideas of Marx and Engels did not have much sway in the
politics of western Europe or in the United States of America, the core
capitalist countries. It was politicians and theorists – yes, there was such a
combination in 19<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> century Europe – like Louis Blanc and Auguste
Blanqui in France, Ferdinand Lassalle in Germany who played a significant role
in pushing forward the socialist agenda. The socialist legislation carried out
by Bismarck, an example of state socialism – in the 1880s – was due to
Lassalle’s influence over the conservative leader. The trade unions too emerged
in the second half of the 19<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> century as a response to the
emergence of an expanded industrial economy and the large industrial working
class that was a necessary part of it. Marx and Engels were stern critics of
all varieties of socialism and trade unionism.</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Marx had a devout following and he seemed to have been
irritated by it, and he was forced to say that he was not a Marxist. Engels was
the chief among the followers of Marx. There were enough in Marx’s camp in the
factional feud that took place at the First International, which was the first
meeting of the International Working Men’s Association dominated by French and
British trade unionists. The clash was between the followers of Joseph-Pierre
Proudhon, of Auguste Blanqui, of Mikhail Bakunin and of Marx. There was a split
in the First International in 1872 at its conference at The Hague. The First
International was moved to New York, apparently nudged by Marx, to escape the
influence of the followers of Bakunin, but it was disbanded in 1876 at its
conference at Philadelphia. The anarchists held sway over the First
International in Europe till 1881 when it ceased to exist. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Though Engels could be called the first commentator or
exegete of Marx, it seems that it became institutionalised in the Soviet Union.
The official version emerged. But there were Marxists before the Soviet era,
like George Sorel in the 1890s, Paul Laforgue, Marx’s son-in-law and a co-founder
of the French workers’ party, Wilhelm Liebknecht, one of the founders of Social
Democratic Party in Germany, and Georgi Plekhanov of the Russian Social
Democratic Party. And of course, V.I.Lenin, the Russian émigré. We have Rosa
Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht of the German communist party in the immediate
aftermath of the First World War who were avowed Marxists. There were also the
much-reviled revisionists, Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky, German
theoreticians who broke with Marxist orthodoxy very early.</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">It is after the Second World War that followers of Marx felt
that the master was misinterpreted by the Soviets and tried to retrieve him.
And in the 1970s it led to French theoretician Louis Althusser positing a
younger, romantic Marx as opposed to a mature, scientific Marx, something that
was mooted by Bernstein even when Marx was alive. Bernstein called it the
immature and mature phases. There was also an attempt to re-invent Marx as a
sociologist during the same period.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Despite fluctuations in the intellectual fortunes of Marx,
quite a few on the Left everywhere seem to persist in the belief that his
critique of capitalism is invaluable and powerful. It looks more powerful than
invaluable in retrospect. The reading of the first volume of Das Kapital, even
in English translation (originally written in German as was the Manifesto)),
remains an interesting experience as you come across a quotation from
Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens, where the protagonist denounces gold in a
soliloquy. What is lacking in clarity in Marx is made up through passion.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It seems to be the case that it is his
passionate argumentation more than logical rigour that keeps his text alive. He
however believed that he was dispassionately dissecting capitalism. His
economics became antiquated even as he published his first volume in 1867, and
his philosophy remained in the shadow of Hegel. Many of the ardent Marxists, in
and outside academia, are now invoking Hegel as a means of understanding Marx
better. Marx is struck in the historicist groove and scientific socialism
cannot extricate him out of it. </span></div>
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Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-17370674630827932292018-04-08T08:00:00.001+05:302018-04-08T08:00:31.664+05:30Blackmail (2018) a bad movie made with good intentions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1aVYZp8sSCpKDJrqmN6FemIZZ7UZ_jxgsz4RpJ8a1Edc0OvYPRjJl0465oWD-n9aYfc6OzcoUaubn0QjNGeHFt7tP9KV-KC5pidmnk0dQ_ccwbKCGqjAxdttfKCw8kgW-RdIc/s1600/dc-Cover-tmkmflor1ivnldurponfmtv9m6-20180222112848.Medi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="800" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1aVYZp8sSCpKDJrqmN6FemIZZ7UZ_jxgsz4RpJ8a1Edc0OvYPRjJl0465oWD-n9aYfc6OzcoUaubn0QjNGeHFt7tP9KV-KC5pidmnk0dQ_ccwbKCGqjAxdttfKCw8kgW-RdIc/s320/dc-Cover-tmkmflor1ivnldurponfmtv9m6-20180222112848.Medi.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Perhaps, bad movies are good because you try to unravel the mystery of why the movie was bad. You are trying to find out reasons. And a bad movie sometimes reminds you of other bad movies you have seen. So when I saw Abhinay Deo-directed <b>Blackmail</b> at Rivoli in a crowded upper stall -- the lower stalls were empty --it reminded immediately of two other bad movies --<b> Juari</b> of 1968 starring Shashi Kapoor, Tanuja, Madhavi, Nanda and directed by Suraj Prakash, who had also made the successful <b>Jab, Jab Phool Khile</b> starring Shashi Kapoor and Nanda in 1965 and Joel and Ethan Coen's <b>Burn After Reading</b> (2008). Of course, there are some mindless admirers of Coen brothers' movies and they would be offended immensely if I were to class <b>Burn After Reading</b> along with <b>Blackmail</b> as a mindless movie. The reason I lump these movies together is because there seems to be a lot happening in them and each scene makes sense in itself though it does not connect with the other scenes. Each scene promises that the film could turn out to be a good one but the other scene which passes muster in itself again raises hope and so all the hopes raised by each of the scenes is left hanging in the air. It could be argued that this kind of a splintered movie experience offers an aesthetic pleasure of its own. It really does not however much one tries to do it.<br />
Abhinay Deo, son of veteran character actor Ramesh Deo, has been praised by the cognoscenti for his <b>Delhi Belly</b> (2011), which I did not see and which I think I would not have liked if I had seen it, promises a dark, intense and complicated movie in Blackmail and fails to deliver on the promise. Something like that other much talked-about Iranian movie, Asghar Farhadi's <b>The Salesman</b> (2016).which was bad. Blackmail disappoints because it had competent players in Irrfan Khan, Divya Dutta and Kirti Kulhari but their roles are reduced to those of caricatures, lacking in dignity and meaning. Deo's tries to turn <b>Blackmail</b> into a black farce and it does not work. He seems to have been carried away by the cleverness of the plot and loses the plot of good film-making, which needs a good story, that is with a story that has a credible sequence, and characters which provoke curiosity as well as respect. The characters in a movie cannot be treated as pawns or props to be moved around at the director's whim and pleasure even as the director is absorbed in the maze of the plot. It is a good thing that Abhinay Deo took the risk of making <b>Blackmail</b> into a bad movie because he was experimenting with idea and plot.</div>
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-87810852367730197432018-03-11T22:12:00.001+05:302018-03-15T21:05:15.520+05:30L'Enfance du Mal (2010), or Sweet Evil, a twisted, convoluted tale of misandry told with admirable brevity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn8ztPXbbW11EgdlrLwzcstJsLSIgxcke0EQ1lFTikD08WcRjssJPp-f1WoMiNZGTzLVt-g2Fy6TqqzRMTgN4iR20PJkk_vHplmgnZjOcLI6oGJwa2GtQEo1AP3fubXOLpkLZW/s1600/sweet-evil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="1023" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn8ztPXbbW11EgdlrLwzcstJsLSIgxcke0EQ1lFTikD08WcRjssJPp-f1WoMiNZGTzLVt-g2Fy6TqqzRMTgN4iR20PJkk_vHplmgnZjOcLI6oGJwa2GtQEo1AP3fubXOLpkLZW/s320/sweet-evil.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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This is a French film, and therefore the unexpected is to be expected. There is the delinquent under-aged teenager, who cleverly traps a wanderer, a fellow-teenage conspirator and boyfriend and an overaged judge. She has a sad story to tell, especially to the judge and his wife, which changes in details. The judge believes in law and rules, and he is aware that all that one can do while delivering a judgment is to be as fair as possible. His wife is the daughter of a clockmaker and she fixes clocks and she is a member of an association which fights for the rights of women. There is the usual sense of European loneliness beneath the orderly life in the judge's house and the teenage intruder causes enough ripples right from the beginning. The girl's mother is in prison. The girls wants to get her out.<br />
Director Olivier Coussemacq handles the narration with great dexterity. It is supple and there are moments of psychological violence which are kept on leash.<br />
Anais Demoustier plays the role of the young girl, Celine, Pascal Greggory is the judge and Ludmila Mikael, the judge's wife. It is the tense interactions among the three that holds this 120-minute plus movie. There is also an underlying theme of misandry but a triumphant one at that. At each stage, the girl outguns the men through sheer cunning and subterfuge. This is indeed the interesting part of the movie. But it is never out in the open. One can infer it only after seeing the movie and ponder over it.<br />
It is a crime thriller in one sense, but there is the complexity of the social situation, the war of the classes and the sexes.<br />
This movie was shown at the Bombay International Film Festival in 2010, and it has done the festival circuit, including Karlovy Vary. </div>
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-85582119451066572742018-03-11T11:06:00.001+05:302018-03-11T11:06:19.606+05:30Majoritarianism and illiberalism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjonnXhMqaDaUUg2j2iJHi8sip7hWi52-7NOlXRy8GN9klpjGd3VMLSxVUU-UNGa9c9H8PCIm2zuK4cgX3XgsR0Ej60fVU9jrWfpjXRSuua-t_WUibKE2lfErjWiTXGRVYbm1lG/s1600/hqdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjonnXhMqaDaUUg2j2iJHi8sip7hWi52-7NOlXRy8GN9klpjGd3VMLSxVUU-UNGa9c9H8PCIm2zuK4cgX3XgsR0Ej60fVU9jrWfpjXRSuua-t_WUibKE2lfErjWiTXGRVYbm1lG/s320/hqdefault.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b>RSS, BJP, caste panchayats and AIMPLB
exemplify politics based on group identity</b></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaking of125
crore people of India poses a challenge to any political scientist who wants to
deconstruct the nationalist rhetoric, as does Mr Modi’s slogan of ‘Sab Ka Saath
Sab Ka Vikaas’. The Prime Minister has been careful not to mention the name of
any caste, including Dalits. He praises Dr. B.R.Ambedkar, the icon of Dalits
but never utters the word, ‘Dalit’. He does not refer to Muslims and Christians
in his public utterances though in his election speeches he would not hesitate
to hit out against the Muslims without mentioning their name as he did during
the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections when he referred to land being made
available to burial grounds and not for crematoria. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It might appear rather naïve to ask the
question: When he talks of 125 crore people, is he or is he not including the
17 crore to 18 crore Muslims and the crore or two Christians? It appears that
the phrase “125 crore people” for Mr Modi and the ideological mentor of the
BJP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), stands for the Indian nation, and
by implication different identities are homogenised in the rubric of “the
nation”. </span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Pressing forward with the logic, if Muslims
and Christians are part of the nation, then will they have equal rights with
everyone else or are they to be treated as a class apart? RSS Sarsanghchalak
Mohan Bhagwat’s argument that Muslims – he avoids mentioning the Christians –
are Hindus though their religious faith may be Islam is enough to raise the
hackles of Muslims, secularists and liberals. But visceral reaction to
Bhagwat’s dialectic is to walk into the RSS trap of a nationalism that is
confined to Hinduism as religion. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The words ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hinduism’ are
meaningless. Hinduism is a word that does not make sense to Hindus except to the
few who are members of the RSS. The various Hindu sects – and we can leave out
the castes for the moment – are not at all comfortable with this pseudo-term
called Hinduism. Social reformers from south India like 12<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> century
Ramanuja, a Vaishnavite from Tamil country, and 11<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> century Basava,
a Veera Shaivite from the Kannada-speaking region, and their followers in the
subsequent centuries, would not consider themselves as belonging to the same
group called Hindus. People who have been labelled Hindus do not consider
themselves Hindus. The differences between the sects are rooted in
philosophical and theological concepts. They may all be drawing from a common
pre-Vedic, Vedic and post-Vedic pool of gods and goddesses but they do not
subscribe to the common identity. It is true that modern Hindus have begun to
worship all gods and all spiritual gurus without discrimination because they
are totally overwhelmed by this compulsion to conform to the imposed label of
the Hindu. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But even today god-fearing Shaivites and
goddess-regarding Shaktas from eastern India have no interest in a Ram temple
in Ayodhya. Of course, they all love the Ramayana story as told by Valmiki and
those who followed him, but when it comes to the question of godhead, Shaivites
and Shaktas politely withdraw. Rama, the incarnation of Vishnu, does not
inspire them. Of course, in the complex and confusing theogony of the so-called
Hindus, Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma, Kali and many others interact and there are
sufficient piquant situations when they are juxtaposed. Usually, each of the
gods and goddesses remains the master or mistress of their respective
universes. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Syncretists, and there have been many
through the centuries, may argue that Vishnu is Shiva is Brahma is Kali ad
infinitum, and that there is an undifferentiated godhead called Brahman does
not wash with old believers. All modern temples in cities and villages and
among Indian habitations abroad have niches for all gods, mainly Rama, Sita,
Lakshmana, followed by Ganesha, followed by Shiva and Parvati. And most of the
20<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> century temple-goers have no sense of theology, and bow before
all the idols. It does not deepen their religiosity in any way but then they
are not bothered.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, the BJP and the RSS are grappling with
this protean Hinduism, which cannot be contained, which cannot be identified
with a god or goddess. How are they to unite the Hindus? It looks like they
have given up the attempt because they know that once they are sucked into the
religious sphere they will sink in the quick-sands of the multi-headed, multi-armed
Hindu faith. Hindutva without the Hindu religion is a safe proposition. And
Hindutva for them is a geographical tag, which in modern political terms
becomes nationalism. It is for this reason that Mr Modi refers to 125 crore
people, and Mr Bhagwat slips through the cracks by resorting to Hindu as a
geographical term, which in fact it really is ever since the times of Achaemenid
Persians in the fifth century Before the Common Era (BCE). </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Central Asian tribes, the Yueh-Chi,
which came into India at the end of the first millennium BCE and established
the Kushana empire, and the other Central Asian tribes, the Sakas and the
Hunas, who destroyed the Gupta empire in the fifth century of the Common Era,
who later became the Jats and Rajputs of northern India and became followers of
Buddhism, Shaivism and Shaktism, too did not think of themselves as Hindus as
understood by the Islamised Turks. The Islamised Turks did not understand the bewildering
complexity of the religious practices of the people of the country and they
used the portmanteau term, Hindu.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Following Modi and Bhagwat, what we have
then is majoritarian nationalism, which is part of the logic of democracy in
its crude form. The delicate and subtle liberal democracy is a phenomenon of
recent origin, where individual is the basis of society and individual rights
are sacrosanct. Most people may enjoy the freedoms that come with liberal
democracy and its privileging of individual rights, but they do not hesitate to
return to group identities, whether it is of caste or of religion. So, the Jats
want privileges for Jats but they would not concede privileges to the
individual Jat. Muslims want protection as Muslims but they will not allow
freedoms to individual Muslims. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When larger groups ride roughshod over the
rights of the smaller groups, it is called majoritarianism, and when groups
override the individual it is called illiberalism. What we find in the India
ruled by the BJP and mentored by the RSS at one end, and dominant caste
panchayats and All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIPMLB) occupying the other
end, is a deadly combination of majoritarianism and illiberalism.</span></span></div>
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Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-78840934374776910032018-01-30T23:14:00.000+05:302018-01-30T23:14:12.098+05:30Economic Survey 2017-18 avoids telling lies, and does not tell the truth<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Chief Economic
Adviser Arvind Subramaniam emerges as a market economist who knows the devil in
the details</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The first paragraph of the first chapter – State of the
Economy: An Analytical Overview and Outlook for Policy – shows the dilemma of
the author/authors of the Economic Survey. They are compelled to highlight what
the government considers to be its great achievements, but at the same time
facts demand that the problems and roadblocks had to be stated as well. One
might call it intellectual honesty, but a more critical analysis would have
offered a clearer picture. The first paragraph: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The past year has
been marked by some major reforms. The transformational Goods and Services Tax
(GST) was launched in July 2017. With a policy of such scale, scope and
complexity, the transition unsurprisingly encountered challenges of policy, law
and information technology systems, which especially affected the informal
sector. Expeditious responses followed to rationalize and reduce rates and
simplify compliance burdens</b>.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There was a lack of
understanding and preparation on the part of the government. It wanted to take
the plunge in a spirit of bravado, and it created stresses and strains to
everyone except itself. And constitutionally speaking, the GST Council, comprising
the finance ministers of the states and the Union Territories (UTs) with the
Union Finance Minister at its head and consensus as its mode of
decision-making, turns out to be an administrative monstrosity, and it goes
against the very principle of federalism. Prime Minister Narender Modi and
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley use the euphemism of ‘cooperative federalism” to
describe the short-circuiting of federalism. What the GST does is to take the
away the powers of each state to tax according to its own economic viability.
The government’s tendency to concentrate powers of administration is given a
futuristic hint in Chapter IV with the title, “Reconciling Fiscal Federalism
and Accountability: Is there a Low Equilibrium Trap”, where the financial
viability of the rural local government (RLG) and the urban local government
(ULG) is questioned, and especially the RLG, who depend on devolved tax revenues,
and the question is asked whether state governments are doing enough on
devolving the revenues, the demand which the states make on the centre. The
Modi-led BJP government is looking for efficient ways of collecting the tax at
one point and assuring that the revenues will be devolved each according to his
need. This is fascism in governance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There is further hint of what cooperative federalism could
lead to with the caveat: “Cooperative federalism is of course not a substitute
for states’ own efforts at furthering economic and social development.” The
suggestion is that the “cooperative federalism technology” could be used by the
GST Council to create a common agricultural market, amalgamate inefficient
electricity markets, solve inter-state water disputes and also tackle air
pollution. The monstrosity of cooperative federalism as frozen as in the GST
Council unfolds. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The next interesting part comes in the third paragraph:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Macroeconomic
developments in this year have been marked by swings. In the first year, India’s
economic temporarily “decoupled” decelerating as the rest of the world <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>accelerated – even as it remained the second
best performer amongst major countries, with strong macroecomomic fundamentals.
The reason lay in the series of actions and developments that buffeted the
economy: demonetization, teething difficulties in the new GST, high and rising
real interest rates, an intensifying overhang from the increasing TBS [Twin
Balance Sheet] challenge, and sharp falls in certain food prices that impacted
agricultural incomes</b>.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the second half there were “robust signs of revival”
because “shocks began to fade” and “corrective actions” taken and “the
synchronous global economic recovery boosted exports.” But that is not end of
the story of premature and unthinking decisions taken and corrected. “Fiscal
deficits, current account, and inflation were all higher than expected” and
part of the blame was laid at the door of rising international oil prices ‘’India’s
historic macroeconomic vulnerability.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We now know as to why the growth rate for 2017-18 was pegged
at a modest, sub-optimum 6.75 per cent, and very much less than the 7.3 per
cent estimated by the International Fund (IMF). The projection of 7 to 7.5 per
cent growth rate for 2018-19 is not sanguine. The situation has been aptly, if cleverly,
described as “dualities of revival and risk”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The other issue that comes for praise followed by a
cautionary statutory warning is about shift from subsidies to “public provision
of essential private goods and services at low prices, especially to the poor.”
But this can be termed a success only if toilet building leads to toilet use,
bank accounts lead to financial inclusion – the opening of bank accounts in
itself is not sufficient –, cooking gas connection leads to gas offtake and
village electrification leads to household connections. That is a tall order
indeed. The government can claim that it has started the process and it will
not be its fault if all of this does not lead to fruition. The truth that
cannot be hidden is that transformation cannot be achieved through government
fiat. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And there are some stark confessions about the limitations
of government policy interventions. It is pointed out “that while there are
significant social and economic benefits to attacking corruption and weak
governance, addressing those pathologies entails challenges. In the vase of the
GST and demonetization, informal cash-intensive sectors were impacted.” </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And about the much-touted advantages of auctioning of
natural resources, the Survey points out the embedded ambiguity: “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In the case of spectrum coal and
renewables, auctions may have led to a winners’ curse, whereby firms overbid
for assets, leading to adverse consequences in each of the sectors; but they
created transparency and avoided rent-seeking with enormous benefits, actual
and perceptional</b>.” The use of the word “perceptional” is very interesting.
The “perceptional” benefit could be more than the “actual”. </span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Survey tackles the moot question of how much a state can
do things at a time when Prime Minister Modi believes that he will wrought
magic in the country through governmental intervention. The Survey notes: “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But Indian is in a grey zone of uncertainty
on the role of states and markets. Limitations on state capacity (centre and
states) affect the delivery of essential services such as health and education.
At the same time, the introduction of technology and the JAM (Jan Dhan—Aadhaar--Mobile),
now enhanced by the Unified Payments Interface (UIP) holds the potential for significant
improvements in such capacity</b>.” The words to be noted are “potential”, “significant
improvement”.</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And as to manufacturing in India, the problem it has not
made the grade of international competitiveness which is reflected in the “declining
manufacturing-export-GDP ratio and manufacturing trade balance”. This combined
with “real effective exchange rate appreciating about 21 per cent since January
2014” has only added to the woes of manufacturers. The government is in a fix
and it is not its fault. There are too many problems, and the achievements pale
before the problems!</span></div>
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Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30279760.post-57526143697589089252018-01-05T00:24:00.001+05:302018-01-05T00:25:33.064+05:30Arun Jaitley's sober assessment of the economy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In reply to a short duration discussion on the state of the economy in the Rajya Sabha on Thrusday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley avoided political barbs and admitted that the economy faced challenges, indirectly conceded that implementation of GST has led to fall in revenues. He said after the shortfalls in the short-term, there would be long-term gains. He pointed out that the NPAs built up because of reckless lending by the public sector banks and lack of risk management. He said that the government was bound to save the banks from the burden of NPAs through recapitalisation, and it could not allow the banks to sink under the NPA burden because the money of the public was involved. <br />
He pointed out the sanguine growth rates that India clocked between 2003 and 2011 was because of healthy growth in the world economy, and that when the world economic growth fell in the last part of UPa2's tenure, then it too faced problems on the growth front. He said that in the last three years, India had experienced two years of drought and that the world economy was in doldrums. He said that it is against this background of low growth in the world economy, that India's seven per cent growth stands out.<br />
He said that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi India's credibility was restored and it was an important factor for the stable growth prospects in the near future. He said that the GST process began in Vajpayee's time, and it continued in the UPA tenure, and it was taken to its implementation phase by the NDA. He tried to emphasise the continuity in policy. He said that the government was continuing with the Aadhaar which was started by the UPA. He said that when Nandan Nilekani, the Unique Identity Authority of India, made a presentation to Prime Ministe Modi, he was convinced of its advantages, and he had asked the ministries to implement it and he also wanted it to be given statutory support. He said this government also continued with the Food Security Act, which was passed by the previous government.<br />
He said that subsidies were being targeted so that the people who need them get it, and assured that there was no reduction in the money spent on the social welfare schemes.</div>
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14778294810668750141noreply@blogger.com0