DECEMBER 13, 2024 폷 LEADING THE DEBATE SINCE 1984 폷 WWW.FRONTLINE.THEHINDU.

COM 폷 125

Fresh bout of Secular socialists and

violence erupts in Hindu nationalists... Israel’s
Manipur all-weather friends
CONFLICT 왘 PAGE 33 HISTORY 왘 PAGE 69

POISON OR
PANACEA?
The chorus demanding decriminalisation of cannabis grows louder,
with Himachal Pradesh passing a resolution to legalise
its cultivation for medicinal use
 3

Volume 41 – Number 24 – November 30–December 13, 2024 – ISSN 0970-1710 – www.frontline.thehindu.com – 116 pages

PROHIBITION
61/ Bihar: Message in
a bottle

WORLD AFFAIRS
66/ Sri Lanka:
Parliamentary election

HISTORY
69/ Friends of Israel in India

SCIENCE
75/ Why women are quitting
STEM academia

PHOTO ESSAY
80/ Inked veils

TRIBUTE
85/ The abstract cinema of
Kumar Shahani

BOOKS
93/ Essay: On what makes
Sally Rooney tick
97/ In review
COVER STORY CONFLICT
33/ Mayhem in Manipur

It’s high time POLITICS

38/ Nagaland:
왔
08/ The Fortnight
10/ Despite its religious and cultural significance, and a Stalement in talks 78/ Science Notebook
tradition dating back to ancient times, cannabis continues to
JURISPRUDENCE WHITE SPACE
be vilified. In step with many other nations, perhaps we
41/ Bulldozer justice 110/ In praise of tsundoku
should revisit the taboos around the plant, recast its role as
an intoxicant, healer, sacred offering, and many more, and RESERVATION COLUMN
present it as one of our cultural gifts to the world. 44/ Private sector quota 31/ Saba Naqvi
47/ Interview: Ramdas 58/ Guest Column:
Athawale Sanjay Hegde
48/ Karnataka: 64/ C.P. Chandrasekhar
RELATED STORIES
The data divide
16/ An organic solution 91/ Prathyush Parasuraman
CONTROVERSY
20/ A new leaf
51/ Sowing discontent
24/ Himachal takes the plunge 06/ Letters
ELECTIONS 109/ On our bookshelf
28/ ‘Ban on cannabis is harming millions, it must be lifted’
55/ Uttar Pradesh: 112/ Staying in
Yogi’s mid-term test
113/ Stepping out
114/ Back Page

Cover image: REUTERS

DECEMBER 13, 2024

4
Inside

Karan Madhok is a writer,

editor, and journalist. His book
LEADING THE DEBATE SINCE 1984
Ananda: An Exploration of
Editor Vaishna Roy
Cannabis in India was published
Managing Editor Vasanth Srinivasan
by Aleph Book Company this
BUREAUS
Chennai
year. He is the author of the novel
Sr Associate Editor R.K. Radhakrishnan A Beautiful Decay (Aleph Book
Ilangovan Rajasekaran
Bengaluru Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed Company, 2022), and editor of
Delhi T.K. Rajalakshmi (Chief of Bureau) The Chakkar: An Indian Arts
Anand Mishra (Political Editor)
Soni Mishra, Ashutosh Sharma Review. His work has appeared in
Hyderabad Ayesha Minhaz Fifty Two, Scroll.in, The Caravan,
Kolkata Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay
Mumbai Amey Tirodkar Epiphany, Sycamore Review,
DESK Samuel Abraham, Ramesh Chakrapani, Gargoyle, and the anthology A
Annie Thomas, Sashikala Asirvatham, Sarbari Case of Indian Marvels.
Sinha, Anusua Mukherjee, Abhirami Sriram,
Siddarth Muralidharan
DIGITAL
Consulting Editor Brinda Vasudevan Sanjay Hegde is a constant
Digital Editor Jinoy Jose P.
Divya Gandhi, Abhinav Chakraborty,
student of law, life, and
Saatvika Radhakrishna, Samson Ronald K. literature, a one-time
Kavya Pradeep M., Mridula Vijayarangakumar
student of D.Y.
DESIGNERS B. Srinivasan, R. Inbaraj
Chandrachud, a history
Published by Nirmala Lakshman, enthusiast, a reluctant
Kasturi Buildings, 859 & 860, Anna Salai,
Chennai 600-002 and Printed by SDT Rao at writer, and a Senior
Kala Jyothi Process Private Limited, Advocate designated by the
Plot No. CFC-1&2, Survey No. 18, E- City, SEZ
& General Industrial Park, Raviryal & Srinagar Supreme Court of India. He
(Village), Maheswaram(M), R.R.Dist, frequently writes on legal
Telangana - 501359 on behalf of THG
PUBLISHING PVT LTD., Chennai-600 002. personnel and issues. He
..... also serves as an expert
Editor: Vaishna Roy (Responsible for
selection of news under the PRP Act) commentator on these
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[email protected]
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FRONTLINE
 5
Editor’s Note

T
he results in the two change of heart but because its
States—Jharkhand and Maharashtra allies have protested.
Maharashtra—that held Nothing, in fact, moves in Modi’s
Assembly elections over India unless it has electoral outcomes.
the past two weeks will There is a reason, as the economist
be known by the time Ashoka Mody wrote in his excellent
you hold this issue in your hands, essay in our previous issue, why
although too late for our magazine to government hospitals and primary
analyse the vote. But whoever wins, one schools continue to languish even
thing has been irrevocably lost—the idea though the blaze of the Gujarat model of
of grace. I have spent the past week development has supposedly lit up
feeling a deep sense of anguish at the every corner of India. It is because
depths to which we have sunk as a policy favours only visible, photo-op
nation. A horrific video, apparently projects like flyovers, bullet trains, and
created by the BJP’s Jharkhand State bridges, which sell elite development
unit, was forwarded to me. After the first ideas and win elections. Hate, similarly,
few minutes, I found myself unable to is a high-visibility electoral project
watch, so vile was its message. I am told today.
that the video was subsequently

T
removed from circulation, but it was too he BJP’s supporters, those
little, and it came way, way too late. who still believe they have not
One is certain that the video is still voted to divide India along sharp
doing the gleeful rounds of a crazed communal lines but are merely
section of our compatriots who seem interested in “correcting” the past, will
unable to think beyond hatred. And insist that venomous videos like the one
whose basest emotions are continuously mentioned above are products of the
stirred by the many-tentacled monster fringe. This is either very naïve or very
that is the BJP’s IT cell. clever. Because the mushroom cloud of
The foulest ingredients in the pot are cinema, songs, books, and videos
added at a level that is one step removed peddling the foulest communal messages
from the Prime Minister, leaving him at are not happening in a hermetically
liberty to claim that his mission, in fact, sealed “fringe” space. They are thriving
is to unify India while he rages against in a carefully cultivated soil of impunity
what he calls the “divisive agenda” of the and approbation that has been prepared
opposition parties. The truth is so far for them.
removed from his claim that it would The return of Trump in the US has
evoke mirth in a sane country. But this been read by many as the triumph of
expedient strategy of placing himself every disgusting message he trotted out,
above the fray, in a frame invested with but it would be foolish for the right wing
halo and sceptre, has given Narendra globally to bask in his reflected glory. As
Modi a huge margin of plausible we are seeing in Manipur, it is often
deniability. And the ability to descend, easier to light a raging fire than it is to
messiah-like, and replace his Uttar put it out. In the end, it will consume us
Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath’s ugly all. The truth is that it is impossible to
“batenge toh katenge” campaign slogan impose a solitary, fascistically imagined
(we will be slaughtered if we are singularity upon our hopelessly diverse
divided)—which deliberately uses the modern reality. We will be destroyed in
word “katenge” to invoke the slur word the trying.
with which Muslims are consistently
targeted in Modi’s India—with the milder
“ek hain toh safe hain”. The former
slogan, which has already taken root, is
changed not because the party has had a

DECEMBER 13, 2024

6
Letters LETTERS 7

Waqf (Amendment) HATS off to the Frontline team for its courage and Concerted efforts are necessary not only from NOTE each State for this model would help in
dedication in exposing the Hindutva agenda of State and Central governments but also Letters, whether by ameliorating poverty in due course.
Bill 2024 the current regime in India. The Editor’s Note of corporate giants through their CSR initiatives. surface mail or email, R.V. Baskaran
must carry the full
THE Waqf (Amendment) Bill aims to bring about the November 29 issue was truly laudable. Keep The idea to align the developmental needs of Chennai
postal address and the
reforms and address maladministration, up the great work, Frontline! the Shibpur botanical garden with the UN’s 2030 full name, or the name
mismanagement, and corruption in Waqf Boards C. Vijayan Agenda for Sustainable Development sounds with initials. POVERTY is the scourge that has
nationwide. At the same time, the deletion of Guruvayur, Kerala promising. Unless remedial measures are blighted mankind for centuries, and political
vital sections of the Waqf Act are an attempt to undertaken immediately, this 273-acre national parties have always exploited it for their own
clip the wings of Waqf Boards and dilute the repository will become another victim of climate survival and benefit. Every five years, the
powers of the Waqf Tribunals. This is not in Congress and its allies catastrophe. masses are beguiled into believing that
good faith and will have a negative effect on the THE article on the Congress’ inability to sustain T.N. Venugopalan politicians are messiahs who will lift them out of
administration of the waqfs across the country. alliances in different States, which in turn Kochi, Kerala poverty in one fell swoop. Only social reform,
The new Bill also seeks to remove the undermines opposition unity, was a candid education, and social awakening can root this
analysis (“Another day of reckoning”, November Eliminating poverty scourge out from our midst for all time to come.
29). The Congress’ approach appears to stem IT is high time India’s bureaucrats and politicians Ravi Mathur
from a misplaced overconfidence that it can brainstormed on the basic reasons for our Noida, Uttar Pradesh
secure wins on its own following its improved collective failure to eliminate poverty, drew up a
performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. list of the most backward districts in terms of
This is in sharp contrast to the BJP’s well-oiled availability of food, education, and healthcare
election machinery, led by the party president needs, and formulated special schemes
himself, which has already sealed alliances with exclusively for this segment (“Poverty as
several regional parties. morality play”, November 29).
The grand old party needs a major On a trial basis, the ongoing 100 days of
organisational overhaul if it is to remain wage employment under MGNREGA can be
politically relevant. It also needs to look beyond increased to 200 days in such areas, creating
the charisma of the Nehru-Gandhi family and more opportunities for wage earning and
strengthen its grassroots in addition to building, ensuring the delivery of rations under the public
maintaining and strengthening alliances with distribution system. The implementation of this
concept of “waqf-by-use”, which is sure to upset partners on mutual trust and give-and-take. scheme needs to be closely monitored and
the apple cart. Several properties that have B. Suresh Kumar lacunae plugged for immediate improvement.
traditionally been used by Muslims for decades, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu The identification of one backward district in
such as mosques, dargahs, and graveyards, that
lack documentary evidence to prove their waqf
status risk being suddenly intruded into and
Shibpur botanical
taken over by the state. The inclusion of garden crisis
non-Muslims in the State Waqf Boards betrays THE timely article sounds a dire alarm to
the partisan approach of the government. safeguard a historically significant green lung of
M.Y. Shariff Kolkata (“Paradise in Peril”, November 29). US elections
Chennai THERE is no doubt that US President-elect
Donald Trump will introduce new priorities and
THANKS to Frontline for the Editor’s Note which strategies, particularly concerning both short-
crisply summarised the implications of the Waqf and long-term payoffs, while running the
(Amendment) Bill. The cover story package government (“An election sans excitement”,
brought out the nuances of the current situation November 15).
effectively. It is not so much about this Bill as While Trump’s approach to global diplomacy
about the lives of Muslims across India. They is otherwise marked by sweeping promises that
need to be brought up on social, economical, lack detailed strategy, he is likely to broker
and educational parameters. The stories also peace and seek to end the war between Russia
point out that scientific temper, one of the and Ukraine, and between Israel and Iran,
foremost qualities of the 21st century, is the especially since his foreign policy is rooted in
need of the hour. his “America first” doctrine.
Amarthiya K. K.R Srinivasan
Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu Secunderabad, Telangana

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

8
The Fortnight
 The US Department of Justice issued a five-count criminal indictment of
Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group, his nephew Sagar, and six other
business associates. The charges included promising more than $250 million in bribes to
 No end
government officials in India to secure lucrative contracts designed to benefit their businesses,
defrauding investors by raising capital using false statements, obstructing the government’s
in sight
investigation, and so on. The Adani Group, in its statement, termed the allegations as baseless Delhi’s pollution problem continues to
and said the defendants are “presumed innocent until proven guilty”. hang over it like a thick blanket. With
the reading of the air quality index
swinging between “severe” and

84.49
was the value of the Indian rupee against the US
“severe-plus” categories, schools and
colleges were forced to shift to online
classes and the government announced
dollar in early trading on November 22, marking an work from home for 50 per cent of its
all-time low. The sharp declines in shares of Adani employees. Meanwhile, the Supreme
Group’s listed companies after its chairman faced Court, which has been monitoring the
bribery and fraud charges in the US pressured situation, including the implementation
Indian equity markets. Experts forecasted a of GRAP (Graded Response Action Plan)
continuation of weakness of the rupee owing to the IV measures, has expressed
renewed selling by foreign institutional investors. dissatisfaction over enforcement of the
ban on the entry of trucks into Delhi. In
the picture is India Gate, on November
 On November 20, the US blocked a 19. ANUSHREE FADNAVIS/REUTERS
resolution at the UN Security Council, for the
fourth time, demanding an “immediate,
unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza.
The 14 other members of the council voted in
favour of the resolution. The following day, the
International Criminal Court issued arrest
warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and his former Defence Chief Yoav
Gallant as well as a Hamas leader, Ibrahim
Al-Masri, for alleged war crimes.

“The titles, the numbers, are there,

so people probably know that, but
 New level unlocked the way I would like to be
India successfully remembered is as a good person
launched the test flight of from a small village in Mallorca.”
its first long-range
hypersonic missile with The tennis star Rafael Nadal announced his
a range of 1,500 km on retirement from the sport after his last match
November 16. The against the Netherlands in a Davis Cup quarter-
indigenously final on November 19. The
developed missile was 38-year-old is a 22-time
launched by the Defence Grand Slam winner
Research and Development with a record 14
Organisation from Dr A.P.J. French Open titles to
Abdul Kalam Island. The his name, which
hypersonic weapons can fly at the earned him the
speed of at least Mach 5, which is five title the “King
times the speed of sound. of Clay”.

FRONTLINE
 왔 COVER STORY 왘 IT’S HIGH TIME 11
Marijuana leaves.
GETTY IMAGES

T
his year marked the 50th anniversary of the Hin-
di film Aap Ki Kasam, J. Om Prakash’s directorial
debut starring Rajesh Khanna, Mumtaz, and
Sanjeev Kumar in an unconventional romantic
drama. The film was a major success, aided no
doubt by its memorable soundtrack, which fea-
tured songs by the iconic composer R.D. Bur-
man and lyrics by the legendary Anand Bakshi.
Aap Ki Kasam’s biggest hit—and one of the
most popular songs of its time—was “Jai Jai Shiv
Shankar”, an upbeat, frolicsome romantic track
sung by Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar, 왔 In the name of love? Or in the name of god?
which blended romantic love and spiritual devo- Rajesh Khanna Either way, it does not take much imagination to
tion in a mesmerising mix. and Mumtaz revel guess that the goblet was most likely filled with
About halfway through the film, Kamal in the heady “Jai bhang. Bhang is a paste obtained from grinding
(Khanna) and Sunita (Mumtaz) visit a temple, Jai Shiv Shankar” the leaves and stems of cannabis, an indigenous
where Kamal prays for the birth of a baby girl. As song from the film plant that grows abundantly across the Indian
they exit, a man wearing a saffron robe and a ja- “Aap Ki Kasam”. land mass. In many places, bhang is usually en-
Cover Story pamala (prayer beads) greets them with “Jai Shiv YOUTUBE SCREEN GRAB joyed after dissolving it in a refreshing beverage,
Shankar”. With a cackle he informs the couple like lassi or thandai, or it is added to sweets such
that it is Sivaratri, the festival dedicated to Lord as laddu and halwa.

IT’S HIGH
Siva, and offers them each a cup of a drink that In 2020, former Narcotics Commissioner Ro-
he only calls “Shivji ka prasad”, an offering to be mesh Bhattacharjee estimated that cannabis, al-
drunk in Lord Siva’s name. so known as hemp, is cultivated in nearly 60 per
Kamal and Sunita down their cups, and as cent of the country’s districts. Despite its ready
they leave the temple, they find themselves availability, however, many parts of the plant re-
laughing and cackling like the man with the japa- main illegal for consumption, trade, and cultiva-

TIME
mala. But nothing is funny: the couple are clear- tion, including the “fruiting tops” that are con-
ly intoxicated by the prasad. A troupe of back- sumed (often by smoking) in the forms of ganja
ground dancers runs across the hillside, and (marijuana or weed) or charas (hashish).
soon Kamal and Sunita join them to break into It would be a little over a decade after Aap Ki
song, which goes: “Jai Jai Shiv Shankar / Kaanta Kasam that the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic
lage na kankar / Ki pyaala tere naam ka piya [Vic- Substances (NDPS) Act would formally recognise
tory to Siva / Let neither thorn nor rock befall us cannabis (among other narcotics such as heroin,
/ For I drink this goblet in your name].” cocaine, and LSD) and brand it as illicit. But
Despite its religious and cultural significance, and a tradition dating back to bhang, which includes the plant’s “legal” com-
ponents, falls outside the purview of the Act,
ancient times, cannabis continues to be vilified. In step with many other nations, and States have since been allowed to make their
perhaps we should revisit the taboos around the plant, recast its role as an Cannabis is the second most consumed own rulings on it under national guidance.
Cannabis is the second most consumed “con-
intoxicant, healer, sacred offering, and many more, and present it “controlled” substance in the country. A 2019 trolled” substance in the country, after alcohol.
survey said 2.8 per cent of citizens had used
as one of our cultural gifts to the world. A 2019 survey published by the Ministry of So-
cannabis in the previous 12 months,
mostly as bhang. 
Karan Madhok
DECEMBER 13, 2024
12 COVER STORY

cial Justice and Empowerment concluded that bliss. Thousands of years after this tale, Saivites,
about 2.8 per cent of all citizens reported having For every and many others, still evoke the Supreme Lord
used cannabis in the previous 12 months, the before inhaling a puff of cannabis from their chil-
majority of whom had consumed it in the form
on-screen lum (pipe), saying: “Bam Bhole!” or “Har Har
of bhang. moment Mahadev!”
Cannabis is rich in tetrahydrocannabinol, or memorialised In his “Note on the Religion of Hemp”, as part
THC, which is the plant’s principal psychoactive in trippy Holi of the report of the 1893-94 Indian Hemp Drugs
compound. In its chemical structure, THC is si- and Sivaratri Commission, James M. Campbell, Collector of
milar to anandamide (ANA), a fatty acid neuro- Land Revenue and Customs and Opium, Bom-
transmitter found in the human brain, which is
celebrations, bay, wrote: “The Hindu poet of Shiva; the Great
part of our endocannabinoid system. there is a Spirit that living in bhang passes into the drinker,
Named after the Sanskrit word ananda, darker side sings of bhang as the clearer of ignorance, the
meaning joy or bliss, anandamide regulates ma- of the story. giver of knowledge. No gem or jewel can touch
ny physiological and cognitive processes in the No one in value bhang taken truly and reverently. He
body, including appetite, mood, pain sensation, who drinks bhang drinks Shiva.... The mere
and memory. It also provides us with the “high” is safe from sight of bhang cleanses from as much sin as a
of good feeling: the ecstasy of a long run, the the court thousand horse-sacrifice or a thousand
bliss of sex. of public pilgrimages.”
A little serving of bhang, then, can provide a judgement
shortcut to that bliss, as the THC binds with our he linkage with bhang extends far
system in the guise of ANA. For a more accurate
representation, a little more time should have
passed after Kamal and Sunita’s first sip of the
and the
ruthless
hand of
T beyond Siva and Sivaratri. On Holi,
along with the usual celebration of
spring, colours, worship, family, song, and
prasad—half an hour or an hour—before their the law. dance, it is common for a bhang-laced prepara-
perception of the world shifted markedly. Their tion to be consumed by Holi revellers across so-
senses would be heightened, dilated. They cial strata: rich and poor, men and women,
would see a full palette of the greens on the hill- young and old.
side, lose themselves in the tiniest iterations of In some temples dedicated to Siva and Vishnu
passing time between seconds, and hear each (and their avatars), devotees are known to pre-
declaration of “Shiv Shankar” echo in the cham- sent bhang as an offering. Siva bhakts in Ram-
bers of their mind. devra in Rajasthan assemble every year to take
part in a bhang-drinking competition. During
hang holds special significance with the Sikh festival of Hola Mohalla, some members

B the mythology of Siva, the Supreme

Lord of the Hindu trinity, who is the
protector and transformer. In the grand story of
of the warrior Nihang sect consume a bhang-in-
spired tipple called Shaheedi Degh, which is a
traditional drink made of almonds, black pep-
“samudra manthan” (churning of the cosmic per, sugar, water, rose petals, cardamoms, and
ocean), the warring devas and asuras discover Barsana’s cannabis.
“amrita”, a mythological elixir of immortality. unique In the unique Holi festivities in Barsana in Ut-
But this discovery also leads to the emission of tradition of tar Pradesh, devotees don the guises of Krishna
“halahala”, a lethal poison. Siva heroically swal- Lathmar Holi and Radha for a celebration of colours, dancing,
lows the “halahala” to save the gods, but the poi- celebrates the love and bhang.
son is so potent that it turns his neck blue, thus between Radha and The consumption of bhang, ganja, and charas
earning him the moniker Neelkantha, or the Krishna and is inexorably linked to the Kumbh Mela too. The
blue-throated one. Legend has it that to cool his involves women Kumbh is held every 12 years, rotating between
throat burning with the venom, Siva turned to playfully hitting four pilgrimage cities, and last attracted over 90
bhang for some respite. He has since been asso- men with sticks, lakh visitors to Haridwar in 2021. Among the ma-
ciated with the blissful and sometimes medita- while the men ny devotees of Siva, Vishnu, and other deities,
tive “highs” of the substance. defend themselves. cannabis use is common at this grand festival.
In another legend, while wandering in a field In Aap Ki Kasam, the playful romance bet-
alone, Siva falls asleep under the hot sun and ween Kamal and Sunita is not quite unlike the in-

INFOGRAPHIC: R INBARAJ
awakes under a cannabis plant. He consumes
some cannabis and finds an instant shortcut to 
FRONTLINE
14 COVER STORY COVER STORY 왘 IT’S HIGH TIME 15

nocent frolicking often associated with represen- zara se”, another R.D. Burman creation. In 왘 Policemen destroying a cannabis crop
tations of Radha and Krishna. As the song Some 50 1997’s Koyla, Madhuri Dixit appears in the song in Awantipora in south Kashmir, in April 2023.
progresses, the characters express appropriate “Bhang ke nashe mein kho gaye hum” (I am lost Every year, the authorities destroy cannabis
responses to the bhang experience. “Kandhe pe
nations in the intoxication of bhang) while dancing on a cultivated on thousands of acres across the
sar rakh ke tum mujhko sone do,” sings Sunita, to have hillside around a dozen children. country. NISSAR AHMAD
which Kamal responds, “Masti mein joh chahe ho legalised In the first half of Ayan Mukerji’s Yeh Jawaani
jaaye hone do.” She says she wants to go to sleep, medicinal Hai Deewani (2013), the characters depicted by ter Jasbir, or Janice, played by the 19-year-
and he replies that they should do whatever they cannabis, Deepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor, and others old Zeenat Aman. Zeenat Aman’s break-
wish in the enjoyable flow of the moment. They take a life-affirming hiking trip to Parvati Valley, through role of a wayward, weed-smok-
are stoned—that popular expression for a feeling
while others a lush region in the Himalaya range of Himachal ing, broken-hearted hippie won her the
of being a little disconnected from reality, a little and some Pradesh known as the country’s apple belt, Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award
lost in sensory bliss. US States which is also the source of some of the world’s that year, a performance that was memo-
“Jai Jai Shiv Shankar” continues to enjoy un- have most famous charas. rialised by “Dum maro dum”. Here, Jan-
abated popularity decades after its release as a decrimi- For much of this trip, Padukone’s character, ice sings and gently sways (backing vocals
song that finds itself in the comfortable con- Naina, is portrayed as a stereotypically conserva- by Asha Bhosle and lyrics by Anand
fluence of both spirituality and romance. In nalised tive and shy young woman. But she finds ro- Bakshi) in the middle of a crowded, mul-
2019, the song was remixed and updated for a the use of mance in her travels and is allowed to let go fully ticultural epicurean gathering, where
new generation for the film War. Sung by Vishal cannabis for of her inhibitions in the Holi-themed track “Ba- men and women smoke and pass chil-
Dadlani and Benny Dayal, the remix was repack- recreational lam pichkari”. She is now sexualised: glasses off, lums among each other, play music,
aged as a Holi song, featuring the actors Tiger hair down, hips gyrating, carefree in the intoxi- smoke, drink, kiss, party. It is hedonism
purposes
Shroff and Hrithik Roshan in the throes of a high- cating blend of love and bhang. at its very best.
ly acrobatic dance-off. to various Sung by Shalmali Kholgade, the first verse R.D. Burman’s composition here—dis-
This time, “Jai Jai Shiv Shankar” was followed degrees. goes: co, soul, rock ‘n’ roll—is rooted deep in
by “Aaj mood hai bhayankar” (The mood is Itna maza kyun aa raha hai? the psychedelic themes of its time. Each
dangerous today). With a “zaraa zaraa nasha” Tune hawa mein bhang milaya? “dum” uttered is an evocation to a
(little bit of intoxication), the men implore each Dugna nasha kyun ho raha hai? breath, the strength to live, or to a “dum”
other and the rest of the shindig to “jitni bhi hai Aankhon se meetha tune khilaya? from the chillum—a deep puff inwards of
sharam dil se nikal de” (free the hearts of all (Why am I having so much fun? the charas smoke—a common phrase ut-
shame). If there was any subtlety left, it was soon Have you mixed bhang in the air? tered by cannabis smokers. Bakshi’s lyr-
shed with the lines: Why am I twice as intoxicated? ics make no secret of the ties between the
Ho do do round laga ke Did you feed me sweets with your eyes?) THC high and the high of devotion, as the
Sau sau pound uda ke There is a clear connecting thread that ties chorus goes:
Ho vilayati bhang chadha ke cannabis with both religious festivity and free- Dum maro dum
Nachenge hero ban kar dom of mind, an unlocking of one’s inhibitions Mit jaaye gham
(Let’s have a few more rounds Hippie culture was that could be as much a spiritual experience as it Bolo subah shaam
Let’s waste a few hundred pounds popularised by is a romantic one. Hare Krishna Hare Ram.
Let’s drink some foreign bhang events in 1967 such (Take a puff
We’ll dance like heroes) rguably, the country’s most famous Erase your sorrows

A
as the Human Be-In
Why waste money on foreign bhang when In- in Golden Gate cannabis anthem is “Dum maro dum”, Say it day and night
dia has many millennia of expertise of local Park, San another R.D. Burman composition from Praise to Krishna, praise to Ram)
preparation? But I digress. Francisco, and the Dev Anand’s 1971 directorial debut, Hare Rama Unlike the happier response to bhang
Monterey Hare Krishna. The film is a sort of anti-drug mo- as experienced by Kamal and Sunita in
oli is often a good excuse to let the rality tale produced during the height of the “Jai Jai Shiv Shankar”, the world of “Dum

H
International
inhibitions go, to allow for fun and frol- Pop Festival Western counterculture hippie movement that maro dum” is far more nihilistic, high-
ic that may otherwise be frowned where Pandit Ravi emerged in the 1960s in the form of anti-war cru- lighted particularly by the song’s haunt-
upon in conservative communities. In the song Shankar’s sades, free love, psychedelic music and media, ing rhetorical questions:
“Rang barse” from Yash Chopra’s Silsila (1981), a electrifying and rising interest in Eastern spirituality and Duniya ne humko diya kya?
traditional bhajan is reimagined as an upbeat performance philosophies. The use of psychedelic and psy- Duniya se hamne liya kya?
folk song, after a little shot of bhang by Amitabh boosted interest in chotropic drugs tucked in neatly within this cul- Hum sabki parvah karein kyon?
Bachchan’s character. Hindustani music. tural niche, as part of a larger rebellion against Sabne hamara kiya kya?
In the 1985 superhero film Shiva Ka Insaaf, authority. (What did the world ever give to us?
Jackie Shroff is Bhola (alter ego Siva, of course) in In the movie, Dev Anand stars as Prashant, a
the cannabis-blended song “Bhang jamaye rang man who goes to Kathmandu in search of his sis- 
FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024
16 COVER STORY 17

What did we ever take from the world?

Why should we worry about anyone?
What has anyone ever done for us?)
In an Instagram post in September, Zeenat
An organic poppy husk, and marijuana. But
governments are propagating their
Aman shared the fascinating backstory of the
song: the “hippy extras” featured in the song solution sales due to the big money involved,”
he added.
were invited by Dev Anand “to pack their chil- The Ludhiana-based psychiatrist
lums with hashish in beautiful Nepal” along with There is a growing demand in Anirudh Kala, author of Most of What
the bonus of payment, food, and the opportun- You Know About Addiction Is Wrong,
ity to be in a Bollywood film. She added: “Dev
Punjab to decriminalise said that the belief that easier access
Saab wanted authenticity in this sequence. My plant-based intoxicants to intoxicants leads to wider
character, the drug-addled Janice, had to really consumption is misguided. “Although
look stoned. And the easiest way to achieve this
to address the worsening 왘 Punjab Police with 40.81 kg of heroin seized during a joint operation with
alcohol is readily available, only 15
the Border Security Force near Amritsar, on August 21, 2021. NARINDER NANU/AFP
was to partake in the hippy offerings! So, there I drug crisis and farm distress. per cent of the people consume it,”
was, still in my teens, gamely taking long pulls he said.
from their chillum take after take. plant-based substances such as cultivation, possession, sale, Both Gandhi and Kala are

C
“By the time we wrapped the day’s work I ongress leader Dharamvira Gandhi, a opium, poppy, and marijuana, which consumption, use, and inter-State advocates of amendments to the
was high as a kite! I was in no state to return to second-term Lok Sabha member were used for recreational and transport of all plant-based NDPS Act to incorporate
the hotel in that happy, dizzy and slightly gorm- from Patiala and medical medicinal purposes, created a psychotropic substances, including “concessions” for the use of natural
less haze. So, some of the team members packed professional, has renewed the push market for medical intoxicants opium, cannabis, and hemp. Certain intoxicants. They pointed to the
me into a car and took me on a drive to a beauti- for the decriminalisation of organic intoxicants followed by synthetic and chemical State governments such as Uttar examples of Portugal, Switzerland,
ful vantage point. There in the cold mountain such as opium, “bukki” (sawdust produced intoxicants. The NDPS Act has played Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Germany, and at least 25 US States
air, I contemplated the Himalayas and slowly, from poppy), and marijuana. According to havoc with Punjab. It led to mafias Uttarakhand have exercised their that have decriminalised cannabis,
peacefully came down from my high.” Gandhi, Punjab, which is grappling with a drug working in connivance with some jurisdiction under Section 10 of the adding that decriminalisation has
The “hippy offerings”, it can be safely as- abuse crisis, is witnessing increasing public politicians and government officials.” NDPS Act and allowed the cultivation actually resulted in a dramatic drop
sumed, were most likely charas, a blissful “dum” support for legalising softer, natural He added: “Natural intoxicants are of hemp. in overdose deaths and drug-related
of hashish similarly enjoyed by Siva bhakts psychotropic substances as a way to address not life threatening and did not lead The NDPS Act was enacted as per crimes in Portugal.
around the country. drug abuse and simultaneously revive the to social crimes. They do not harm the United Nations Convention When the Aam Aadmi Party came
agricultural economy. the life of farmers or labourers. Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs to power in Punjab in 2022, it

Z
eenat Aman’s memories from half a During his first term, Gandhi had proposed Rather, they augment the capacity for and Psychotropic Substances. But promised to make the State drug-free
century ago point to a less complicated the enactment of a law in this regard. Speaking hard work.” now, worldwide, experts believe that in three months. However, the party
time in our pop culture, where god and to Frontline, he said: “The Bill is now expected Gandhi is not alone in his such laws have lost their relevance. now acknowledges the problem’s
love cuddled up in the same intoxicating cock- to be introduced in Parliament as a Private demand. The Congress leader Navjot In June 2024, Tlaleng Mofokeng, complexity and how it is not possible
tail. But despite this welcoming embrace of Member’s Bill in the upcoming winter session. Singh Sidhu has supported the the UN Special Rapporteur on the to provide quick solutions to solve it.
bhang, components of the same cannabis plant The ban on traditional substances paved the demand several times, as have the Right to Health, asked countries to Former Chief Minister Captain
are illegal for recreational use in the country. way for injectables, leading to the spread of veteran politicians Sukhdev Singh shift attention to harm reduction in Amarinder Singh had also come to
And for every iconic moment on screen memo- AIDS, hepatitis, and other diseases.” Dhindsa and Tarsem Jodhan. drug policies. power on the promise of ending
rialised in trippy Holi and Sivaratri celebrations, Uttarakhand People running de-addiction centres too In October, the Punjab According to Gandhi, the treaty’s Punjab’s drug menace in four weeks.
there is a darker side of the story, where no one and have suggested that those trying to give up government set up a committee to objectives were to eradicate the drug “People rarely die from
in the country—from farmers to film stars—is safe Himachal addiction to heroin or cocaine should be given study the growth of wild cannabis in trade and reduce the number of drug consuming natural substances,” Kala
from the court of public judgement and the ruth- Pradesh organic substances in regulated quantities. In Chandigarh and Punjab. Cannabis users. “However, the outcomes have said. He compared the situation to
less hand of the law. Punjabi popular culture, the rapper Gopi grows naturally in large stretches of been strikingly contrary, largely due colonial laws banning homosexuality
On October 3, 2021, the Narcotics Control Bu-
have Longia and other well-known singers have the State owing to favourable climate to the implementation of draconian in India. “It was not even a crime in
reau (NCB) announced the arrest of Aryan Khan, proposed condemned chemical nasha (intoxicants) and and soil conditions. “With scientific laws. Rather than curbing the India before colonial rule. The British
the 23-year-old son of Shah Rukh Khan, one of and enacted voiced support for organic substances. Longia and technological intervention, the problem, these measures have given decriminalised homosexuality in
Bollywood’s biggest stars. Aryan was among liberalised even dedicated a song to marijuana. government can capitalise on this rise to a new and more complex 1965 in their own country, but we
those who were part of a high-profile rave party laws for the As per National Crime Records Bureau data, vast untapped potential. The hemp issue: narco-terrorism, particularly in could do so only in 2018 after a
aboard a cruise ship off the coast of Mumbai Punjab had the highest number of drug plant can be used for the production conflict zones.” Supreme Court ruling. Similarly, we
nabbed by NCB officers who had boarded the
controlled overdose deaths in 2022. Some experts said of fabric. It can be used for paper He also pointed out that drug will decriminalise plant-based
ship and discovered drugs, including charas. No farming that drug abuse became a plague in Punjab production, health, and wellness,” cartels and drug users have intoxicants, but it will take time.”
drugs were recovered on Aryan, yet he was of hemp. after the implementation of the Narcotic Drugs Gandhi said, adding that improved proliferated all over the world.
and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985. plant varieties need to be introduced. “Alcohol and cigarettes are far more Ashutosh Sharma
 Gandhi said: “The ban on traditional The NDPS Act prohibits the injurious to health than poppy,

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

18 COVER STORY

picked up and slapped with charges under the was above their jurisdiction. Aryan Khan’s arrest
NDPS Act. Denied bail, he spent several weeks in was the only the star-studded tip of the iceberg
judicial custody. The NCB’s case rested upon the of a larger, pan-Indian war against the illicit can-
drugs recovered from Aryan’s friend Arbaaz nabis trade, where the most penalised offenders
Merchant: a total of 6 grams of charas, probably have often been small-time users, farmers, or
worth just a few chillums worth of “dums” middlemen.
puffed at a filmset, hardly worth more than a
few thousand rupees. But owing to the high pro- n Mumbai, which has the highest num-
file of the accused, the case was sensationalised
by the news media. I ber of NDPS cases, most of the individuals
arrested are consumers of cannabis. A
2020 study in Mumbai by the Vidhi Centre for
ryan and the others were portrayed Legal Policy concluded that “nearly every per-

A as symbols of a depraved society, float-

ing dangerously away from the so-called
conservative culture or sanskar of the country,
son arrested and convicted for cannabis con-
sumption in the city was a daily wage worker
and a slum/street dweller”. It added: “These
and as “nepo babies” who would finally taste drug offenders are sentenced to minor impri-
justice suffered by the common man. sonment and/or fines ranging from Rs.100 to
Aryan Khan was finally granted bail by the Rs.8,000. This demonstrates how the law,
end of October that year. The following year, the 왔 though meant to be applied uniformly across so-
NCB dropped charges against him and against Preparing cial and economic strata, disproportionately tar-
the five other suspects, pointing to a “lack of suf- a bhang drink gets the poor and further marginalises the alrea-
ficient evidence” in the original probe. to celebrate Holi, dy vulnerable.”
But the damage to the Khans’ reputation was in Hyderabad According to reports from various drug law
already done, and the authorities were able to in 2013. enforcement agencies, over 4.7 lakh individuals
flaunt that no amount of social or financial clout MOHAMMED YOUSUF were arrested under the NDPS Act from 2018 to
2023. One can safely assume that most of those
penalised for cannabis likely dealt with the plant
in its ganja or charas form.
Bhang, of course, is an exception: no doubt,
being Lord Siva’s favourite allows it some special
advantages. There are other sources in ancient
Indian scripture that exalt bhang’s resourceful
properties. The most popular of these is credit-
ed to the Atharva Veda, likely compiled around
1200-1000 BCE and which forms the basis of
much of the Ayurvedic system of medicine.
It states: “To the five kingdoms of the plants
which Soma rules as Lord we speak/Darbha,
hemp (bhang), barley, mighty power: may these
deliver us from woe” (translated by Ralph T.H.
Griffith).
The text refers to the mythical healing (and
perhaps intoxicating) drink soma, which is
another definition of “amrita”, the elixir of
immortality.
It is no surprise that ancient Indians aligned
so closely with the cannabis plant: it was one of
the earliest crops to be cultivated by humans
with the advent of agriculture some 12,000 years
ago.
Historians have found that the Aryans intro-


FRONTLINE
20 COVER STORY COVER STORY 왘 IT’S HIGH TIME 21

duced its consumption to the Indian subconti-

nent between 2000 and 1000 BCE. In much
A new leaf and Cannabidiol for epilepsy.
A scientist associated with the
of Hindu mythology, forms of the cannabis
plant (bhang and others) are also referred to
Natural Products and Medicinal as vijaya, meaning victory or triumph.
Research by CSIR-IIIM Chemistry Division of the institute told

A
in Jammu is uncovering Frontline that the institute, as per a cross Indian history, cannabis for-
tripartite agreement with the mulations have been recommended
the therapeutic potential Department of Biotechnology and the by Ayurvedic practices for their med-
of cannabis. Indian Council of Medical Research, icinal properties, including in the 8th century
had completed its exploratory Sanskrit medical text Sushruta Samhita, for
research on cannabis. conditions such as fever, diarrhoea, men-

C
annabis grows in vast “For further preclinical regulatory strual pain, anaemia, epilepsy, and nerve
swathes of Jammu and studies on cancer pain and epilepsy disease.
Kashmir naturally, as in 왘 Cannabis being grown in treatments, it is vital to establish GMP In 1839, the Irish physician William Brooke
many other parts of controlled conditions in CSIR-IIIM, [good manufacturing practices] for O’Shaughnessy presented an influential pap-
country, thanks to favourable Jammu. HIRRA AZMAT both preclinical and clinical research, er titled “On the preparations of Indian Hemp
climatic conditions. Earlier this year, as this is a prerequisite for the or Gunjah (Cannabis Indica)”. After years of
a study by scientists at the Council of government as the country’s first development of new therapeutic clinical trials in the Bengal area, O’Shaughnes-
Scientific and Industrial such project, it kept hitting drugs,” the scientist said, requesting sy claimed that in hemp, his profession had
Research-Indian Institute of bureaucratic and technical anonymity. “gained an anti-convulsive remedy of the
Integrative Medicine (CSIR-IIIM) in bottlenecks. The aim of the “A formal application for such a highest value”.
Jammu highlighted cannabis’ scientific-commercial project is to licence to manufacture and transport By the end of the century, the British go-
potential to play a crucial role in the generate revenue, research, and cannabis materials exclusively for vernment’s Indian Hemp Drugs Commis-
country’s battle against the growing jobs. In 2015, the research work was scientific purposes was submitted to sion—in a wide-ranging study that included
threat of antibiotic resistance. Its revived at the institute with a focus the Excise Department of the Jammu O’Shaughnessy’s work as well as religious use
research uncovered that on producing and exporting quality and Kashmir government some time of cannabis among Hindu users—concluded
phytocannabinoids, a group of medicinal drugs. Subsequently, it ago, but it is still awaiting approval.” that “the moderate use of hemp drugs is prac-
compounds derived from the was permitted to conduct laboratory With a new government in place, tically attended by no evil results at all”.
cannabis plant, possess previously research on the plant material. the scientists associated with the In the 20th century, however, led primarily
unrecognised antibiotic properties. During a visit to the institute in project are hopeful that the pending by the derision of lawmakers in the US, mari-
The findings have opened the July 2023, Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister clearance will be given. juana was villainised and presented as a taboo
door to the exploration of cannabis’ of State (Independent Charge) for In 2023, CSIR-IIIM and a Canadian substance, and its “no evil” reputation was
therapeutic potential, particularly Science and Technology and for firm named IndusScan signed an shed to prop it up instead as an anti-social
when the world is grappling with the Earth Sciences, told reporters that agreement on cannabis research in drug. American propaganda films such as
growing challenge of drug-resistant new cultivation practices for the presence of Dr Jitendra Singh. Reefer Madness (1936) further maligned this
bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other increasing the produce of cannabis Speaking on the occasion, Dr Singh plant.
parasites. would help local farmers. said that the collaboration would lead The US’ “Marihuana Tax Act” of 1937 offi-
In fact, a study published by The Underscoring the fact that the to the production of those medicines cially classified marijuana/cannabis as a Sche-
Lancet this year found that between project was important from the that are currently being imported. dule 1 drug, beginning a period of federal pro-
3 lakh and 10.4 lakh people died in perspective of “atmanirbhar Bharat” CSIR-IIIM is the pioneer in cannabis hibition that continues to this day. More
India in 2019 as a result of bacterial (self-reliant India), he said that after research and obtained the first licence nations followed the US lead in banning or
antimicrobial resistance, a condition getting all approvals, CSIR-IIIM for scientific cultivation in the country, controlling the crop, including India, where
where pathogenic bacteria no longer Jammu would be able to “produce the Union Ministry of Science and the NDPS Act was formally passed in Parlia-
respond to antibiotics. The report export quality drugs meant for Technology said in a note in 2023. It ment in 1985.
also estimated that by 2050, patients suffering from neuropathies, added: “Following this, Uttarakhand, In the past few decades, ironically, it has
antibiotic-resistant infections could cancer, and epilepsy”. Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Madhya been the US that has led in cannabis research,
lead to more than 39 crore deaths He also said that cannabis could Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh have decriminalisation, and legalisation. Scientists,
globally, either directly or indirectly. be a great source of approved drugs started making the policy and rules doctors, and activists in the US and elsewhere
CSIR-IIIM Jammu set up its such as Marinol/Nabilone and for use of cannabis for scientific have discovered the many medicinal proper-
cannabis project with much fanfare, Cesamet for treating nausea and purposes.” ties of cannabis, for everything from chronic
but it has faced some challenges. vomiting; Sativex for neuropathic
While lauded by the Central pain and spasticity; and Epidiolex Ashutosh Sharma 
FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024
22 COVER STORY COVER STORY 왘 IT’S HIGH TIME 23

pain, epilepsy, neurogenerative disorders seen as an offering to the gods, or a dark, sensa-
(like Alzheimer’s disease) to nausea, manag- tional crime. In recent years, some States like Ut-
ing the side effects of cancer-related chemoth- tarakhand and Himachal Pradesh have pro-
erapies, and much more. posed and enacted liberalised laws for the
Around 50 nations around the world have controlled farming of hemp, taking the initial
legalised medicinal cannabis, while others steps towards legalising the use of this indige-
like Uruguay, Canada, Germany, and some nous crop for profit. However, these are still mi-
States in the US have decriminalised the use nuscule efforts, and many activists and advo-
of cannabis for recreational purposes to va- cates around the country are hoping for more
rious degrees. Meanwhile, reports said that such laws, and decriminalisation so that the
the industrial hemp segment worldwide is ex- plant may be used for industrial, scientific, med-
pected to reach a projected revenue of icinal, and some recreational purposes.
$16,754.8 million (close to Rs.1.4 lakh crore) by This approach would enable enforcement
2030. agencies like the NCB and the Border Security
It is the THC component of cannabis that is Force, and State excise departments to concen-
often prescribed for severe medical condi- trate their efforts on tackling larger challenges,
tions or used for the recreational purposes of such as dismantling synthetic drug smuggling
getting high. However, a less intoxicating com- networks and addressing violent crimes.
pound in the plant called cannabidiol (CBD)
has found more widespread acceptance as an rrespective of how it is perceived and
essential component for medical purposes.
CBD does not cause the high of cannabis
by itself but has proven to be a useful com-
left for the distinction between the legalities of
the various chemical products possible from
왔
The film star
I its legal status, cannabis is so ubiquitous in
the country that it simply cannot be ig-
nored. For thousands of years, the plant has
pound for medicines that tackle anxiety, in- cannabis. Rajput’s alleged cannabis use—in CBD Shah Rukh thrived naturally across much of the subconti-
somnia, chronic pain, and more. CBD is per- form or as ganja/charas—were labelled as the Khan’s son Aryan nent, deeply intertwined with human commun-
mitted in India, and in recent years, there has cause of his problems and not, perhaps, as an as- Khan being taken ities and traditions. It has been used in various
been a major spike in medical startups invest- sistive balm to his pains. to Arthur Road jail forms: as an Ayurvedic medicinal tonic, hemp
ing in this space, with products that include However, despite the largely negative cover- from the Narcotics for clothing and livestock care, a source of nutri-
massage ointments, lip balms, energy drinks, age of the incident and its aftermath, the next Control Bureau tious seeds, an offering in religious rituals,
seed oils, and even anti-anxiety medicine for few months “clocked the highest sales for the in- (NCB) office after bhang for festive thandai, or as a flower smoked
pets. With growing awareness of CBD as a sep- dustry in some manner because a lot of people he was arrested in for recreational purposes.
arate entity from THC, some market research started talking about CBD”, according to Del- connection with Also, it has been the inspiration for a lush gar-
reports have predicted that the industry in In- zaad Deolaliwala, chairperson of the Pan India the seizure of den of music and cinema. A number of films
dia would grow close to Rs.2,500 crore over Medical Cannabis and Hemp Association. banned drugs have attempted to tackle the “marijuana ques-
the next five years. The NCB charged Rajput’s girlfriend, the ac- from a cruise ship, tion” over the past few decades, usually to in-
tor Rhea Chakraborty, for receiving and deliver- in Mumbai on consistent results. Cannabis appears in a kalei-
n fact, the biggest spike in the inter- ing marijuana to him, and later arrested her on doscope of adventurous roles: as intoxicant,

I
October 8, 2021.
est in CBD actually arose from a tragedy. the charge of abetment of suicide. What fol- The NCB later healer, sacred offering, and more. Just like many
In June 2020, 34-year-old rising Bolly- lowed was a trial by media as most national cleared his name, other nations in the world, what we need, per-
wood film star Sushant Singh Rajput was news channels sensationalised the story to unbe- saying no drugs haps, is a reconsideration of the taboos associat-
found dead by suicide at his home in Mumbai. lievable levels. had been found on ed with the plant, to reconcile its many contrad-
Various reports went on to show that Rajput him. KUNAL PATIL/PTI ictions and to understand the plant as one of
showed signs of clinical depression and bipo- hat does one make of these con- India’s indigenous cultural gifts to the world.
lar disorder in the months leading up to his
death. Authorities discovered that a few indi-
viduals in Rajput’s orbit—including his talent
W tradictions? India has always been a
nation of grand paradoxes, where
erotic sculptures are carved into temple walls
“Jai Jai Shiv Shankar” concludes with a happy
crescendo; for Kamal and Sunita, the high even-
tually tapers off, leaving them behind in a world
manager and his girlfriend—helped him get while young couples are harassed for holding slowly shuffling towards its structure again.
access to CBD oil to deal with his condition. A hands in a park; where vegetarianism and the “Kuch bhi ho, lekin maza aa gaya meri jaan,” Ka-
maelstrom followed, as his girlfriend and oth- love of the bovine are loudly preached even as mal sings at the end. (Come what may, but we
ers in the entertainment industry were the majority of the population are meat-eaters had great fun, my love.) 왎
hounded by an overzealous media and by Raj- and the nation is one of the world’s largest ex-
put’s fans for allegedly abetting his suicide. porters of beef; where the garb of spirituality Karan Madhok is author of Ananda: An Exploration of
In the feverish witch hunt, little room was can make all the difference between cannabis Cannabis in India and the novel A Beautiful Decay.

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

24
Cover Story COVER STORY 왘 HIMACHAL TAKES THE PLUNGE 25

ical fertilizers or pesticides. The State could en- would provide a single-window system to regu-

Himachal takes
courage research for the production of hemp for late the processes involved in the non-narcotic “If cannabis
medicinal and scientific advancements. Besides, production of cannabis, like seed banks, seed
is confined
legalising and regulating hemp production dispersal, procurement of produce, and setting
could provide economic opportunities and re- up of industrial and pharma units. to the
pharma

the plunge
duce the influence of drug dealers. The committee also made recommendations
The committee recommended that the State for research and development, geotagging, and sector,
NDPS rules be amended to permit and regulate deployment of extra staff in the excise then it is
the cultivation of any cannabis plant in a con- department.
okay, but
trolled environment. Additionally, it also recom-
if it is open

H
Will controlled cultivation of cannabis for desh, they deliberated with the Central mended the production, manufacture, inter- owever, the proposal has its share
Bureau of Narcotics (CBN) on the legal as- State import and export, possession, sale, pur- of complexities, as the committee not- to everyone,
medicinal and pharmaceutical purposes be pects and visited a medicine manufactur- chase, and consumption or use of cannabis ed. In its visit to Uttarakhand, the first problems
viable or will it become a Frankenstein’s ing unit at Malanpur that has obtained a li- purely for medicinal and scientific purposes un- State to allow large-scale industrial cultivation of will
cence from the Ministry of Ayush to use der the powers conferred on States under Sec- hemp, excise officers apprised the committee
monster? It is a difficult question to answer, cannabis in the production of the drug. tion 10 of the NDPS Act. members of the challenges.
crop up.”
but the Himachal Pradesh government has In Jammu and Kashmir, they visited the Likewise, it suggested that orders be passed Under Section 14 of the NDPS Act, the Utta-
Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine in to allow the cultivation of any cannabis plant for rakhand government had issued an order for the Vijay Singh
taken the first step. T.K. RAJALAKSHMI Srinagar, where they gained an insight in- industrial purposes only for obtaining fibre or cultivation of industrial hemp with a tetrahydro- Thakur
to “captive cultivation” of cannabis at the seed or for horticultural purposes as provided cannabinol (THC) content of 0.3 per cent or less. Former Vice
institute’s farms at Gulmarg and Jammu. under Section 14 of the NDPS Act. The Depart- But as it turned out, fixing this proportion was Chancellor, Y.S.
In Himachal Pradesh, the committee ment of State Taxes and Excise could take care not easy and it proved to be a bottleneck in the

I
Parmer University
n the first week of September, the Himachal Pradesh As- sought public opinion from panchayati raj of licensing and enforcement. implementation of the hemp policy.
of Horticulture and
sembly adopted the report of a government-constituted representatives in Chamba, Kangra, Kullu, It also recommended that standard operating Not only was it difficult to procure seeds with
committee and passed a resolution legalising cannabis Mandi, Sirmaur, and Solan districts. Ac- procedures be adopted for the cultivation and 0.3 per cent THC content, cross-pollination also Forestry
cultivation. The government believes that this will be an cording to the committee, there was manufacture of finished products and mooted
economic game changer for the State, and curiously, both “overwhelming support” for the cultiva- the constitution of a State-level authority that 
the ruling Congress and the BJP-led opposition are on the tion of cannabis in the State, with checks
same page on the issue. and balances.
It was in April 2023 that the State government constituted a com- The State’s topographical and climatic
mittee for the legalisation of cannabis cultivation, under the chair- factors suit cannabis cultivation. The
manship of Jagat Singh Negi, Minister for Revenue, Horticulture and plant currently grows in the wild and is
Tribal Development, to examine legalising the cultivation of canna- destroyed by government agencies owing
bis/hemp (excluding charas) for medicinal, scientific, and industrial to its potential use as a narcotic.
purposes under Sections 10 and 14 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psycho-

T
tropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, along with Rule 29 of the Hima- he Negi committee said that
chal Pradesh, NDPS Rules. the State government could ex-
According to the Negi committee report, a copy of which is with ploit the plant’s untapped poten- 왘 Himachal
Frontline, the committee studied the practices of controlled cultiva- tial to the benefit of farmers by regulating Pradesh Chief
tion of cannabis for non-narcotic purposes in Madhya Pradesh, Utta- the cultivation of cannabis for non-narcot- Minister
rakhand, and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. ic purposes. The committee was of the Sukhvinder Singh
The panel members visited the Centre for Aromatic Plants in Deh- view that industrial hemp had a wide va- Sukhu addresses
radun and gathered first-hand information on cannabis cultivation; riety of uses. Its stalk, seed, and leaves the Assembly
they met officers in the excise department as well. In Madhya Pra- could be converted into material for con- during the
struction, textiles, paper, food, furniture, monsoon session,
cosmetics, healthcare products, biofuels, in Shimla on
and so on. The panel estimated that the September 4. The
State could generate a revenue of Rs.400- Assembly adopted
The Negi committee said that legalising and 500 crore in the initial years alone. a resolution
The panel also argued that industrial legalising
regulating hemp production could provide hemp farming could dramatically mini- cannabis
economic opportunities and reduce the influence mise the carbon footprint as the plant cultivation during
of drug dealers in the State. could be cultivated with little or no chem- the session. ANI

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

26 COVER STORY COVER STORY 왘 HIMACHAL TAKES THE PLUNGE 27

posed a challenge in maintaining the desired 왘 At an Studies and Analysis, Sharma said: “Regulating
TCH level. industrial hemp In 2022, cannabis cultivation is not easy. If THC is in-
Given these challenges, the committee re- cultivation farm in volved, the possibility of its diversion into nar-
the State
commended that the Himachal Pradesh govern- Bageshwar in cotics use is high. If the government develops
ment assist cultivators in the procurement of Uttarakhand.
government and provides the seed, then the THC content
seeds or dispense with the requirement of main- A team from rolled out can be regulated. If not, it will be chaotic. If it
taining 0.3 per cent THC content. Himachal Pradesh a drug gets diverted, the loss to revenue will be
In Madhya Pradesh, Narcotics Control Bureau toured prevention additional.”
(NCB) and excise officials said that monitoring Uttarakhand He added: “In the mountainous regions, the
policy for
was important so that cannabis was not diverted to gain insights quality is best over 6,000 feet. Monitoring at
for narcotic use. Cannabis cultivation is permit- into legal cannabis the rehabili- those heights itself is a challenge. There are oth-
ted in the State, and hemp rules have been cultivation.BY tation of er questions too. Is this policy only for industry?
amended to allow the use of cannabis for medi- SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT addicts What is the arrangement with farmers? How will
cinal purposes. A company named Sai Phyto- and for the the regulation happen? Will the government give
ceuticals has been granted a licence for the ma- land or forests on lease or have control over the
nufacture of medicines using cannabis.
creation of seed?”
In Jammu, under a private-public partnership alternative He suspected the involvement of vested inter-
arrangement of the Council for Scientific and In- livelihoods ests in the push for legalising the cultivation of
dustrial Research and the Indian Institute of In- It cannot be denied that a serious drug abuse reigners entered the picture. People started us- for those cannabis.
tegrative Medicine, in collaboration with a Cana- crisis exists in the State. In February 2022, the ing cannabis as charas. We caught many local engaged He cited the case of one Galeno Orazi, an Ita-
dian firm, cannabis cultivation is being carried then State government under the BJP rolled out cartels and destroyed the acreage under canna- lian smuggler who had been hiding in the for-
out as a pilot project in one farm. a State-level Integrated Drug Prevention Policy bis. The seed was an imported variety; it was not
in illicit ests, beyond Malana, for over 30 years. “I traced
that included provisions for the rehabilitation of an Indian strain. It was not used for fibre extrac- cannabis him and got him arrested but no case could be
ut not everyone agrees with the re- drug addicts and for the creation of alternative li- tion but for hashish for international sale. It was cultivation. filed against him. He was extradited,” he said.

B commendations. Vijay Singh Thakur,

former Vice Chancellor of the Solan-
based Y.S. Parmar University of Horticulture and
velihoods for those engaged in the illicit cultiva-
tion of cannabis.
O.P. Sharma, a former NCB officer, was in-
important to eradicate cannabis from private
lands.”
There were two issues then: the rehabilitation
Sharma also said that in Sirmaur, Shimla,
Mandi, Kullu, and some parts of Kangra and
Chamba districts, farmers grew cannabis for
Forestry, expressed mild surprise at the unani- volved in the framing of that policy. The policy of farmers engaged in hashish production and hashish purposes. But this was purely poverty-
mous Assembly resolution permitting the legal acknowledged the severity of the problem and the eradication of strains that were being grown and livelihood-driven. The problem, he said,
cultivation of cannabis. He said he was con- that the government had been ignoring the mul- in forest areas. was unemployment and the lack of alternatives.
cerned about the growing prevalence of recrea- tidimensional nature of the issue. The policy “The message that has now gone to the public
tional drugs in the State. “Himachal is already promised to tackle the illicit cultivation of canna- with the passage of the State Assembly resolu- n interministerial committee was
facing issues of ganja and chitta [a synthetically
produced drug] consumption. Every day, we get
reports of young men dying from this. The go-
bis and opium poppy in forested and non-forest
areas. The Department of State Taxes and Excise
was designated as the nodal agency for the des-
tion is that there will be no restriction on charas,
and that is bad,” said Sharma, who was also the
former convenor of the first-ever Himachal Pra-
A formed at the Centre, but the commit-
tee never received enough information.
Sharma said: “No State gives truthful data. Meet-
vernment’s plan must be to boost farmers’ in- truction of illicit crops, and a task force was con- desh Nasha Nivaran Board dedicated to eradica- ings are hurried through. States suppress facts,
come,” he told Frontline. stituted for the purpose. tion of drug addiction. He estimated that around including drug prevalence data. Every State
He added: “If the revenue-strapped govern- 36 per cent of the youth had moved towards syn- should have a need-based policy. The NDPS is,
he policy recognised that special- thetic and semi-synthetic drugs. This was ac-

T
ment earns Rs.10,000 crore, it would mean the after all, a broad Act. Only Himachal came up
policy has worked. If cannabis is confined to the ised enforcement agencies of the companied by increased social acceptance of with a policy. But that was not taken forward.
pharmaceutical sector, then it is okay, but if it is Centre and the State government did cannabis. The Himachal Pradesh Nasha Nivaran Board
open to everyone to sow it and get a charas-gan- not have adequate manpower and resources to There are no detailed surveys, studies, or re- never took off.”
ja permit, problems will crop up.” take on peddlers. A commitment for a dedicated search on drug abuse, cultivation, and traffick- He added: “The NDPS Act also has a consulta-
Apart from medicinal and recreational use, State drug fund to control drug abuse was made ing. tive ministry. The enforcing agency ultimately is
there are other uses of cannabis too. It is used in but never followed through on. The policy, by Sharma said that he conducted a survey of the State Taxes and Excise Department but they
food such as stuffed parathas during the harsh and large, has remained mostly on paper, Shar- 1,170 patients at 27 de-addiction centres during don’t file any cases. They should do surveys and,
winters and considered a delicacy. ma told Frontline. the COVID pandemic and found that drug abuse in coordination with the Health Department,
Thakur said: “There must be a charter about Sharma also recalled that a lot of land under was rampant. According to him, 22 per cent frame appropriate policies. The police and the
who can grow it. The government should receive cannabis was destroyed in the 1990s under the were charas addicts, 32-33 per cent alcoholics, excise department compete with each other.”
scientific inputs about which areas are best suit- provisions of the NDPS Act. Besides, several in- and 34.41 per cent of those in the 15-25 age group As of now, the resolution legalising cannabis
ed for cannabis. If everyone starts growing, it ter-State and international drug cartels had been were on chitta/opioids; 3.4 per cent were addict- cultivation has been passed. But clearly, it is not
will be disastrous. Cannabis is in the category of busted in the State. ed to prescription drugs. enough. Things should get clearer once the blue-
weed; it is not in any agricultural manual.” Sharma said: “The problem started when fo- Now a member of the Institute of Narcotics print for its regulated cultivation is made public. 왎

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

28
Cover Story COVER STORY 왘 ‘BAN ON CANNABIS HARMING MILLIONS, IT MUST BE LIFTED’ 29

‘Ban on cannabis is
(THC) and cannabidiol (CBD)—work on our Its pain-relieving properties are unparalleled.
body's cellular receptors? Imagine you
THC and CBD are just two of the 100-plus Could you talk us through the drug laws
cannabinoids and over 450 medicinal
want to formulated globally through history that
grow a plant

harming millions,
compounds found in the cannabis flower that finally criminalised cannabis in India in
we call ganja in India. Our body has many that is 1985?
receptors for various hormones or signals essentially It all started in the US in the 1920s when the
produced by our organs, including the brain. indigenous authorities wanted to wage a communal war

it must be lifted’
Our mental state and physical activity depend against their own people. They found a
upon the secretion of these hormones, which
medicine substance that was often used by the African
are received by receptors throughout the body. and you American community and the Mexicans and
There is a compound produced by the brain have your made attempts to criminalise cannabis for the
when we are happy and stress-free. It is called house torn first time. The plant came to be called

F
Interview with Viki Vaurora of Great or a decade now, the “anandamide”, derived from the Sanskrit word apart and marijuana, and [the authorities] invested
Bengaluru-based Great ananda, or bliss. The activation of its receptors heavily in convincing the public that this was a
Legalisation Movement India. DIVYA GANDHI Legalisation Movement India creates harmony in many biological processes
you get dangerous plant brought in by Mexicans to ruin
(GLM India) has been aiding the body. charged in a the lives of young Americans. They waged a
championing the cause of Surprisingly, scientists discovered that the non-bailable war on [cannabis] like never before and
farmers cultivating cannabis only other compound that naturally works in offence. ensured it was heavily penalised by government
and campaigning for legalising the drug that it activating the same receptor is THC, found in agencies, and they forced every other country
claims can pave the way for replacing the ganja flower. This was a groundbreaking to do the same.
thousands of ecologically damaging products discovery showing us the uses of the cannabis India did not pass any law against cannabis
with sustainable hemp-based alternatives. The flower for human health. Politicians and big until the 1980s. Under Prime Minister Rajiv
non-profit organisation has filed a petition in businesses have failed to acknowledge this and Gandhi, the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic
the Delhi High Court in this regard. In an portray THC as a useless compound that only Substances Act of 1985 was passed, which
interview with Frontline, Viki Vaurora, GLM gives the user a euphoric high. allowed the government to ban the cultivation,
India’s founder, who has been keenly studying There is scientific suppression and use, and trade of cannabis in India. A heavy
the scientific literature on cannabis research for pharmaceutical dominance that is clearly at penalty was imposed. The Great Legalisation
years, shared his thoughts on the ongoing play here. Movement India became the first voice seeking
discourse. Excerpts: a repeal of the prohibition. I want the plant to
Cannabis has been grown and used for be free like it was before. Now people are being
What does the latest medical research on millennia in India, with the scriptures arrested and sent to jail for years for no good
the therapeutic effects of cannabis reveal? describing it as a “source of happiness”. reason.
There are several peer-reviewed papers that Could you give us a few references that It is sad how laws mindlessly copied from
conclude that cannabis is a great muscle reflect the cultural significance of this plant international conventions in the name of the
relaxant and anti-inflammatory agent. These in our history? “war on drugs” have succeeded in sabotaging a
properties help with all the symptoms of Cannabis has been referred to as vijaya, jaya, culture and branding cannabis a dangerous
multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune ganja, anandamuli, bhanga,and kencha, in drug. Everyone must first question why the
disorder, for instance. The immunosuppressant various texts, cultures, and languages of India. government is so worried about a safe drug like
properties of Cannabis indica help manage It has been used in Ayurveda for thousands of cannabis but has spent over 60 years licensing
autoimmune disorders by reducing the body's years. It has been called a sacred plant in the and thereby promoting a very dangerous drug
overactive immune response. A number of Vedas. It has been a part of many sects of such as alcohol—a disruptive, unhealthy,
people who have used cannabis for various Shaivism: of Aghoris, Nagas, and Santhas. It is consciousness-limiting, violence-inducing
왘 Viki Vaurora. health issues, including those with MS, have also commonly used in a milk-based drink substance.
posted their success stories on social media during the Holi festival in parts of India, as well
after figuring out a way to do so amidst as to beat the desert heat in Rajasthan’s Uttarakhand and some other States have
the online censorship on the banned summers. My reading on the subject for over 15 resolved to legalise cannabis cultivation for
drug. years has barely scratched the surface of medicinal and industrial purposes.
indigenous knowledge on cannabis in However, the legal status of the cultivation
Could you explain how the medicinal contexts. But I have personally and use of various parts of the plant is
two main psychotomimetic experienced the therapeutic effects of this plant unclear. Could you explain the legal and
agents in cannabis—delta- that Ayurveda talks about. It is, when used
9-tetrahydrocannabinol correctly, of great benefit to the body and mind. 
FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024
30 COVER STORY

regulatory status for the reader?

Cannabis cannot be abused. It cannot harm the
mind or the body or society. On the contrary,
its flowers are medicinal. Its seeds are the most
balanced nutritional powerhouse. Its fibres are
the strongest and can replace polyester and
other synthetic fabrics that harm the
environment.
In Uttarakhand, they want the plant to
produce no THC—limit it to less than 0.3 per
cent. But we do not even have such a variety in
cannabis. It is not the purpose of cannabis. And
a farmer who seeks a licence in Uttarakhand
does not have the ability to source hemp seeds
with only 0.3 per cent THC. There cannot be a
good policy around medical cannabis or
industrial cannabis-hemp in India until the
왘 Used in Ayurveda for thousands of years,
petition we have filed in the Delhi High Court
cannabis is called a sacred plant in the Vedas.
succeeds to bring about much-needed
change.

Startups offering medicinal cannabis Do you believe that the penalties imposed
have been proliferating in India. What today are too harsh and outdated?
are your views? Yes. Absolutely. Imagine you want to grow a
It is shameful that the government is plant that is essentially indigenous medicine
arresting countless people in the name and you are at risk of being branded a drug
of cannabis control while allowing rich, addict, mandated to attend therapy in
privileged kids to sell cannabis-based government-run de-addiction centres, have
wellness products in the name of your house torn apart, be charged in a
startup ventures. After all, these non-bailable offence whose trial can run for
products still contain THC, prohibited years, and maybe even be jailed for up to 10
in the 1985 Act. If they [the years. The law prohibiting cannabis is highly
government] want to allow this trade illogical, unscientific, arbitrary, and unjust. That
to continue, they should either free is why it is important that we win the case we
all the people who are in prison or have filed in the Delhi High Court, Great
arrest most of the [people Legalisation Movement India v. Union of India.
associated with] companies
that have sold products that There is, however, a genuine and rampant
contain THC. problem of drug abuse in India. How can
These packaged products the government prevent drug abuse?
have extremely poor medical By building a positive association with drugs,
efficacy as well. Doctors are but the real question is which drugs? A simple
enticed to issue prescriptions understanding of the effects of various drugs
and steer patients into will provide the answer. Basically, what needs
becoming customers of to be understood for effective prevention is
these brands, and neither which drugs are natural and which ones are
[the doctors or the startups] man-made and synthetic? The scientific
have any experience with community has been shouting from the
cannabis therapy. What rooftops that cannabis is safe. And yet
could have been a free and policymakers are controlled by pharmaceutical
effective substance is now industries whose wealth is going to be crushed
expensive and inefficient at by the potential of a full-scale legalisation of
curing any disease. cannabis. 왎

FRONTLINE
FRONTLINE
 Column 31

[ FROM THE SIDELINES ]

SABA NAQVI is a Delhi-based journalist and author of
four books, who writes on politics and identity issues.

The business of politics

With the unholy nexus between politics and big business working only to further
a few vested interests, elections are no longer about democracy
but about the rich managing to grab more power. SABA NAQVI

E
lon Musk, the world’s richest government like Musk, but as long as the Narendra Modi go-
man, will be a part of the go- vernment is in power, he is the elephant in every political
vernment of US President- room.
elect Donald Trump, himself a In Pune, the gateway to western Maharashtra, the political
real estate magnate. Musk’s stories shift from realtor wars to those of wealthy clans taking
business interests may not al- each other on in the hinterland, or of feuds within political dy-
ways be in the best interests of the US, but he nasties. Ultimately, politics appears to be about preserving
can certainly root for them now from within holdings, be it land, cooperatives, sugar mills, or sundry other
the government. There are serious ethical con- institutions. Getting the people’s mandate is a means to that
cerns when politics becomes synonymous end, and investing in elections can bring healthy returns in
with big capital. But in several democracies case of successful outcomes. A win gives the additional clout
across the world, including India, business ty- needed to influence policy and make allocations that, in turn,
coons join politics to protect themselves from can help certain businesses, realtors, shopkeepers, and so on.
corruption and tax cases and to push policies The cycle of political quid pro quos, insider dealing, and out-
that promote their interests. It is morally and right corruption, therefore, goes on unabashed and hand in
ethically wrong but it happens. This can be hand with electoral politics. The people, one vote at a time,
most vividly seen in Maharashtra. are just a means to that end.
A brief trip to Mumbai made during the Because there is so much money floating around in Maha-
Maharashtra election campaign gave one a rashtra (even in some parts where people live in utter pover-
bird’s eye view of how in “Maximum City” ty), the State is the most vivid reminder of how India’s democ-
conversations about “people’s’’ candidates are racy is hostage to the interests of big money and wealth and is
intermeshed with details about the real estate only notionally about fighting for the rights of the people. The
they own and their links to builders. The city’s game involving money, the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED)
insiders recount colourful tales of how busi- charges (against political opponents), mega corruption, and
nessman-politico X could have been shot at en masse defection has played out on a stupendous scale over
because of rivalry with a builders’ conglomer- the past few years. Parties have split, proving that ideology is
ate and how candidates Y and Z have the “so- irrelevant and anyone can be bought. Genuine structural wel-
lid” backing of the real estate lobby. The big- farism has been replaced by opportunistic cash handouts
gest builder of all is potentially the Adani through schemes miraculously launched on the eve of elec-
Group, which is eyeing the prime land of Dha- tions. If one considers the ethics, it appears like cash for votes,
ravi, Asia’s largest slum, located near some of but no one takes note of lapses in probity, ethics, or morality
the world’s most expensive real estate. The anymore.
mind boggles at the bonanza such a deal can Data analysed by the Association for Democratic Reforms
yield. Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani (ADR) reveal that the average assets of an MLA contesting elec-
Group, may not be directly absorbed into the tions in Maharashtra in 2024 are higher than the average as-

DECEMBER 13, 2024

32 COLUMN

sets of MLAs in other Assembly contests this

year, notably Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand,
and Haryana. Haryana actually comes close,
presumably because of its industrial pockets
and real estate values due to its location
around the National Capital Region. But there
is no comparison, as Maharashtra is larger
with subregions and even more dramatic so-
cial gradations. Still, it is interesting that ADR
data show that the three richest candidates
contesting the Assembly election in Maharash-
tra are from the BJP: Parag Shah from Ghatko-
par East in Mumbai, whose assets are listed at
a stupendous Rs.3,383 crore; Prashant Ram-
sheth Thakur, standing from Panvel in Raigad, 왘 Shiv Sena (UBT) supporters hold a rally against the Adani
whose assets are listed at Rs.475 crore; and Group’s Dharavi Redevelopment Project in Mumbai. DEEPAK SALVI/ANI
Mangal Prabhat Lodha from Malabar Hill in
Mumbai with Rs.447 crore. It might seem sur- nations from shopkeepers. The late Mumbai politician Pra-
prising that such wealthy individuals contest mod Mahajan, the big fundraiser for the BJP in the Atal Bihari
Assembly elections, but it also begs the ques- Vajpayee era, once told me that small donors were replaced by
tion of why the super rich are drawn to electo- big corporations once the party came to power in 1998 with
ral politics. Vajpayee as the leader of a coalition government.
In the Modi era, corporate funding of the party zoomed
many times over. The BJP quickly became the nation’s richest

O
ne may also ask
if right-wing formations the world party; the accounts submitted by all other parties together did
over, unencumbered by ideas of not add up to its wealth (according to income tax data submit-
equity and justice, are the natural habitat of ted to the Election Commission). The BJP today is not only the
billionaires and their political interests. In In- wealthiest party but has also ensured that other parties are
dia, we have seen the neat alignment of the starved of donations by subjecting them to ED inquiries. The
corporate-backed Hindutva project since the ADR analysis also shows that much of the money the BJP re-
ascendance of Modi in the capital in 2014. In ceives now comes from corporate donors while similar contri-
that election itself, the BJP outspent the Con- butions to the Congress have crashed. Simultaneously, the
gress-led United Progressive Alliance, which Modi era has seen the number of dollar billionaires going up.
had been in power for a decade, with a cam- We are in an era where some of the rich are getting richer.
paign that was India’s most expensive until What does this
then. The BJP has been supported by the RSS, cabal of businessmen and politicians mean for the poor?
whose social origins lie in the Brahmin and Ba- From Maharashtra to Jharkhand, inequalities are rampant,
nia communities. Before its rise to power, the farm distress is visible, and the economy as it is structured to-
Hindu Right was primarily funded through do- day cannot generate jobs. So, the state throws cash stipends,
most famously at women—the Ladki Bahin Yojana in Maha-
rashtra and the Maiya Samman Yojana in Jharkhand—and the
politicians who hope to replace those in government promise
Ultimately, politics appears to be more of the same. Since the state cannot create jobs or man-
about preserving holdings, be it age inflation, it gives a pre-election handout instead. In Maha-
rashtra, in the land of Ambedkar and Jyotirao Phule, there is
land, cooperatives, sugar mills,
no larger vision at play but a cynical managerial arithmetic of
and so on. Getting the people’s caste, community, and cash.
mandate is a means to that end, In Politics, the work of political philosophy by Aristotle, the
and investing in elections can Greek genius had suggested that in a democracy if you have a
bring healthy returns in case of small number of very rich people and a large number of very
poor people, the poor will use their democratic rights to take
successful outcomes.
away property from the rich. Nothing of the sort has hap-
pened in India. 왎

FRONTLINE
 Conflict

Mayhem in
Manipur

왔
Vehicles burning during demonstrations after three bodies,
suspected to be of six missing people from Jiribam district, were
found near the Manipur-Assam border on November 16. PTI

L
The State has been pulled deeper into alrameng Hmar, 51, was un-
sure of what awaited her at
the violence that began 19 months ago, M’s residence. All her night-
with new animosities and divisions mares since May 3, 2023,
when ethnic violence began
emerging. The inaction and alleged to engulf Manipur, had sud-
collusion of the State government are denly become a reality. Zairawn, her village,

only fanning the flames. GREESHMA KUTHAR 

DECEMBER 13, 2024

34 CONFLICT CONFLICT 왘 MAYHEM IN MANIPUR 35

located 7 km from Jiribam market, had come tline that other than minor incidents, the situa-
under attack from armed men, who she re- In August, tion prevailed until the UNLF (Pambei) set up its
ferred to as the Arambai Tenggol (Meitei militia) base in the district, almost immediately after it
and the UNLF (the insurgent group the United
the State signed a peace agreement with the government
National Liberation Front). “Though we’ve admini- on November 29, 2023. Jiribam had been a
been living in fear, we never believed we would stration stronghold of the UNLF before counterinsurgen-
be attacked,” Lalrameng said, still grappling summoned cy operations in the 2000s flushed them out of
with the confusion about the attack on the the Hmar India. With the return of the UNLF (Pambei) fac-
night of November 7. tion, its role in orchestrating many killings in Ma-
When the Arambai Tenggol and the UNLF
tribe, leaving nipur has been reported; even the National In-
(Pambei) attacked Zairawn, everyone except 31- out other vestigation Agency (NIA) has taken note of it.
year-old M managed to escape. Her husband, Kuki-Zo Yet, none of its members has been arrested,
Sang, had come face to face with the armed tribes, and which critics say point to the State administra-
men. “They were armed and in black, had bullet tion’s role in covertly protecting them. Accord-
asked them
vests on, and a multicoloured flag on their ing to reports, the insurgents revived their form-
sleeves. They warned us to leave immediately,” to sign er hideouts in Jiribam and carried out
Sang recounted. The couple rounded up Sang’s a peace indiscriminate firing over the months.
ailing parents and their three children and agreement In the second week of May this year, a Kuki
stepped out of their home, just when gunfire with the man went missing. His body was found in a ditch
rained on them. A bullet struck M, immediately The gruesome killing set off a chain of events, tions and began to patrol the areas. 왔 a week later. Two weeks later, on June 6, a Meitei
Meitei.
restricting her mobility. Directing his parents to with more than 20 people dying in the days that As the months passed by, the State saw a pro- The aftermath man was found dead. Within hours of his killing,
leave, Sang struggled to help his wife to her feet, followed and Jiribam sinking into the annals of liferation of weapons and sporadic incidents of of the violent the Assam Rifles is reported to have spotted the
amid her requests to get the children to safety. public memory as yet another district that had crossfire by armed groups on both sides. Civi- protests in Imphal Arambai Tenggol and the UNLF (Pambei) burn-
He decided to get his children to safety first, but succumbed to the violence in the State. lians rarely got caught in it except for attacks on November 16 ing down Kuki-Zo properties in Jiribam town. As
by then it was too late for him to return for his such as the one in Koutruk and Thangbuh in against the killing all the residents fled, one Kuki-Zo man was ab-
wife. ineteen months into the violence in September in what were clear attempts to kill ducted and is still missing. A group of the Aram-

N
of six people in
Although a few villagers tried to rescue her, Manipur, every episode leaves the State (see “Lethal crossfire”, Frontline, October 18, Jiribam. PTI bai Tenggol even fired at the Assam Rifles per-
the number of armed men had swelled, Lalra- more scarred, with new enmities and di- 2024). On such occasions and when armed men sonnel who were guarding the Kuki-Zo village of
meng said. They heard her pleas in English, as visions emerging that can no longer be defined from either group got killed, tensions escalated Rani Veng. The next day, armed Hmar insur-
she could not speak Meiteilon, the language that merely by the buffer zones created to separate in the buffer zones, with both sides rushing for gents set fire to a Meitei village, displacing all its
the armed men were conversing in. The men left the Meitei and the Kuki-Zo. With inaction and combat. This would go on for a couple of days residents.
the village two hours later, burning down close collusion by the State government, the fate of until the Central forces intervened.
to 20 houses and taking scooters and other va- the people of Manipur remains uncertain. Every wave of violence has followed the same iolence continued in June, but des-
luables with them.
Lalrameng found what was left of M’s body
buried beneath blankets, burnt and cut up
What remains constant, though, is the break-
down of almost every constitutional safeguard
for citizens, along with the continuing failure on
pattern. There have also been instances where
civilians from either side have ventured into the
enemy territory and eventually gone missing or
V pite reports on the role of the UNLF
(Pambei) and the Arambai Tenggol in
steering the mob violence, the State government
beyond recognition. Parts of her body were the part of media agencies to etch Manipur in are found dead. On a few occasions some have took no action. This reporter saw armed men
strewn across the verandah of the house. An FIR the national psyche as a State desperately in returned alive. belonging to both groups roaming freely in the
was eventually registered by Sang, alleging that need of sensible intervention. However, Jiribam was relatively peaceful Meitei area of Jiribam. The Arambai Tenggol’s of-
M was “raped and burnt alive” by “fully armed What happened in Jiribam is crucial in under- thanks to a non-aggression agreement reached fice is situated inside a government institution.
Meitei militants—Arambai Tenggol and MPA”. standing the role of the State administration in upon after May 2023 by all communities living Meanwhile, the Assam Police shot dead three
The Manipur People’s Army (MPA) is the armed pulling the district over a year into the whirlpool there. This was possible only because of Jiri- unarmed Hmar men across the border. The As-
wing of the UNLF (Pambei). of violence. During the mayhem in 2023, Jiri- bam’s demographic peculiarity wherein Benga- sam government alleged that these men were
The post-mortem report noted the cause of Also read bam, as a district, responded differently from lis formed the majority community, not the Mei- militants who tried to attack the police, even
M’s death as third-degree ante-mortem burns the rest of Manipur. Elsewhere, Kuki-Zo and Mei- tei or the Kuki. though videos state the contrary.
that covered 99 per cent of her body. It also stat- tei populations fled in opposite directions, with In Jiribam town, the Meitei constitute the ma- As instances of firing increased, in August,
ed that her skull, parts of her facial structure, the Meitei displaced from all Kuki-Zo districts jority community, while in rural Jiribam, the the State administration, curiously, summoned
and limbs were found separate from the body, and the Kuki-Zo from Meitei districts. predominant group is the Hmar tribe, belonging the Hmar tribe, leaving out other Kuki-Zo tribes,
burnt. “I just feel numb. I knew when I saw her From the last week of May until September, to the Kuki-Zo community. Thus, as the rest of and asked them to sign a peace agreement with
body that nobody would care. When it comes to many Kuki-Zo villages in the periphery areas Manipur raged, Jiribam remained calm, with pe- the Meitei. The then Superintendent of Police,
us, justice is dead,” Lalrameng said, disillu- How the state were burnt down by mobs and armed men from ople coexisting as before, albeit with Pradeep Singh, told this reporter that the Meitei
sioned at the procedures that followed deaths turns away from various Meitei insurgent groups. Security forces apprehension.
like this in the country. Manipur’s realities created buffer zones to divide the warring fac- Security forces posted in Jiribam told Fron- 
FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024
36 CONFLICT CONFLICT 왘 MAYHEM IN MANIPUR 37

do not have any enmity towards the Hmars. secution is yet to be initiated. Joelthang said the immediate action against the insurgents.
“But they won’t sit across the Kuki-Zo and talk While the State administration was apathetic to their Facing yet another demand for his resigna-
peace,” he said. plight. Many in the village initially thought even tion, Biren Singh issued a video statement pro-
Despite protests from Hmars, Chief Minister
displaced registering an FIR in the case of M’s killing was a mising that “everything necessary is being done
N. Biren Singh made a public relations exercise Meitei futile exercise. to hunt down the Kuki terrorists who killed the
of this agreement signed behind closed doors received This partisan behaviour and a breakdown of six innocent Meiteis and they will be brought to
and announced that peace was being restored in state support the criminal justice system have driven many to justice”.
Jiribam under his initiative. This announcement in relief take matters into their own hands in pursuit of Significantly, neither the ordeal of M, whose
by Biren coincided with the nth call for him to what they call justice. killing began this leg of violence, nor the arrest
resign.
camps in Over the next couple of days, according to in- of her perpetrators found any mention in this
And it could not have been further from the Jiribam formation pieced together from the accounts of message. A bureaucrat who formerly served in
truth. In the following months, instances of fir- town, the a few Hmar individuals, Hmar insurgents, who Manipur told Frontline that such partisan beha-
ing, kidnappings, violence, and extortion only displaced by then had increased in number, carried out viour was there much before the violence began
increased in Jiribam, and people from both sides Kuki-Zo were patrols across rural Jiribam, which culminated in in the State. “This is how this CM functions.”
fled their homes either to relief camps or across an attack on the Meitei settlements surrounding The Union Home Ministry has issued state-
to Assam. left to the Borobekra police station. The armed men ments saying that more columns of the Central
While the displaced Meitei received state sup- fend for had planned to burn down all Meitei settle- Armed Police Forces are being sent to Manipur,
port in relief camps in Jiribam town, the dis- themselves ments, but many Meiteis had already taken shel- while three crucial cases pertaining to the vio-
placed Kuki-Zo were left to fend for themselves in relief ter within the precincts of the police station, lence at Jiribam have been transferred to the
in relief camps in Assam. Many of these camps venturing out only during the day. NIA. This when many crimes committed in 2023
camps in
have been shut down owing to lack of resources. are yet to see prosecution.
The Hmars had bought into the illusion creat- Assam. Many n November 11, the Hmar men left in Movement of more troops does not mean
ed by the State administration that they would
not be subject to any harm. Lalrameng’s shock
reflects the initial response of the entire
of these
camps have
been shut
O four “share-autos” for Jakhurdhor, a
few hundred metres from the Borobek-
ara police station. According to eyewitness ac-
much when the absence of political will is evi-
dent, often leading to tiffs between different
forces. The CRPF and the Border Security Force
community. counts, on reaching the area at around 2:30 pm, have to act according to the instructions of the
down owing
“We just didn’t think this would happen. We they asked the Meiteis present there to leave. As which was 15 minutes after they were notified of 왔 local Superintendent of Police, whereas the As-
didn’t even have armed men in our village doing to lack of the Meiteis fled, the Hmars started burning the altercation, half the men were already dead. A protest against sam Rifles acts on its own accord. There have
regular duty as volunteers, we believed that the resources. down the properties, in the presence of some The Assam Rifles, which has a post 500 metres the recent killing been multiple instances where both have been
CRPF [Central Reserve Police Force], which has CRPF personnel. The Hmars seemed to have away, said it did not witness any crossfire. of three women at loggerheads with each other, thus making
a camp in the middle of our village, was enough told the CRPF personnel that they would leave Subash Singh, a resident of Jakhurdhor who and three children their presence counterproductive. In Jiribam,
to protect us,” Joelthang Hmar, the chief of Zai- after burning down all the properties. was living in a relief camp inside the police sta- in Manipur's the Assam Rifles has stated this as the main rea-
rawn, told Frontline. After 15 minutes, the CRPF personnel appa- tion campus, said all of the Meiteis present in Jiribam, in Kolkata son for not being able to keep the district from
Those who fled their homes on November 7 rently asked the Hmar men to lower their wea- and around the area ran in different directions on November 18. sinking further into violence. With the Armed
said that the CRPF did not come to their rescue pons and leave. A statement by the Hmar Inpui and into the jungle out of fear of getting killed. PTI Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) reimposed
in spite of the fact that its camp was nearby. Dur- reads: “As the men were huddling together, a He believes that the six of them (three women, in six regions, including Jiribam, it remains to be
ing peace talks, Hmar residents, including those bullet proof vehicle of the CRPF came and sud- two children, and one infant) were abducted in seen what the Assam Rifles can accomplish.
from Zairawn, who had fled to Assam in June denly opened fire that killed the Hmar Village one of the autos that the Hmars had used earlier Within two days of the six killings, a Meitei mob
were told to return, with the reassurance from Volunteers. The CRPF personnel also captured in the day. set many properties and churches of the Kuki-Zo
the Manipur Police that they would be protect- three injured volunteers and spaded them to A week-long search for the hostages turned on fire. This is after the AFSPA was reimposed.
ed. death.” futile. Later, the bodies of all six, one after the With the continuing failure of the state, it
Senior leaders of the Hmar Inpui, the apex The photographs of the bodies taken during other, were found floating on the Jiri river. The seems the word justice has been replaced with
tribal body, explained that the shock of the at- post-mortem, which are available with Frontline, dead have been identified as Yurambam Rani, revenge by armed men in Manipur, with women
tack and the brutal manner in which M was reveal deep gashes, suggesting that the 10 men 66; Laishram Heitombi, 25; her two young chil- and children being the worst victims of violence.
killed reminded them of their experience at the killed were not just fired at but were also at- dren, L. Chingkheinganba, 2, and L. Lanngam- Critics lay the blame for every killing on the
hands of the UNLF in the 1990s and 2000s. In Ja- tacked with other weapons. ba, 10 months old; Telem Thoibi, 30; and T. Tha- Centre, which has refused to intervene in the
nuary 2006, more than 400 Hmar men were The CRPF has denied the Hmar Inpui’s allega- janganbi, 8. months gone by. 왎
beaten up and 15 girls were raped by insurgents tions, but eyewitnesses told Frontline that the at- With the news of the abduction and cold-
belonging to the UNLF and the Kangleipak Com- tack by the Hmars was directed at the Meitei pro- blooded killings of Meiteis at Jiribam, Imphal Greeshma Kuthar is an independent journalist and lawyer
munist Party in Pherzawl, the adjoining district. perties located close to the CRPF post, not the erupted in protests. Mobs targeted properties of from Tamil Nadu. Her primary focus is on investigating the
David Theik, a Hmar, was burnt to death in post or the police station. Other than the CRPF legislators, including that of the Chief Minister. evolving methods of the far right, their use of cultural
August 2023. Even though photographs and vi- and the Manipur Police, the Assam Rifles told Offices of the RSS and the BJP were also vandal- nationalism regionally, and their attempts to assimilate caste
deos surfaced on social media of his killers, pro- Frontline that by the time they got to the area, ised, while civil society organisations demanded identities into the RSS fold.

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

 Politics
POLITICS 왘 STALEMATE OVER NAGA PEACE TALKS 39

settlement of the decades-long armed conflict. sovereign power with the Union of India would
Both sides hailed the Framework Agreement take a natural course and claims that it was
Two years
as “historic”. In an official release after the sign- agreed that the Indian Passport Act would be
ing of the pact, the government stated: “The sus- after the amended to include a separate page mentioning
tained dialogue between the two sides, conduct- signing the identities of Nagas. It has taken the stand that
ed in a spirit of equality, respect and trust, of the all unresolved matters will be negotiated
deepened their mutual understanding and con- Framework through political representation of the new legis-
fidence, and enabled the two sides to reach an lature and constitutional bodies that would
equitable agreement. The Government of India
Agreement, emerge as a result of the final settlement.
recognized the unique history, culture and posi- the GoI The GoI has made it clear that there will be
tion of the Nagas and their sentiments and aspi- initiated only a single peace accord with all Naga factions.
rations. The NSCN understood and appreciated a parallel There is no immediate possibility of a final Naga
왘 August 3, 2015 Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Home Minister Rajnath Singh, NSCN(I-M) general secretary Thuingaleng the Indian political system and governance.” dialogue accord being signed without consensus between
Muivah, and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, at the signing of the peace accord in New Delhi. PTI Neither the GoI nor the NSCN(I-M) divulged the NSCN (IM) and the NNPG on the contentious
the content of the Framework Agreement. This
with the issues of a separate flag and constitution for Na-
left the Naga people clueless about the contours NNPG, a galim.

Stalemate over of the final settlement and how the “unique his-
tory and position of the Nagas” would be articu-
lated in the final accord, what changes it would
bring to the state of Nagaland and Naga-inhabit-
conglomera-
tion of seven
other Naga
A speech delivered by NSCN(I-M) chairman Q.
Tucco on August 3 at the rebel group’s council
headquarters atop Hebron hills, 40 km off Naga-
land’s commercial hub Dimapur, indicated that

Naga peace talks ed areas of the neighbouring States, and the

rebel group. it was hardening its position on the flag and con-
power and governance-sharing model. stitution. “On the question of Naga national flag
Muivah maintains that the two significant and constitution, it is a matter of universal cus-
agreements signed by the NSCN(I-M)—the Am- tom that flag and constitution are constituent
sterdam Joint Communiqué with the Atal Bihari parts of sovereignty. There should be no ambi-
The NSCN(I-M) seeks “third party itiative and “imposes” a political agreement Vajpayee government in 2002 and the Frame- guity about it. Hence, competencies are being
without the “sovereign national flag” and work Agreement with the Modi government in worked out on the principle of the Framework
intervention” to resolve the impasse “constitution”. By Nagalim, the NSCN(I-M) ref- 2015—officially recognised and acknowledged Agreement,” he said while commemorating the
over the Framework Agreement ers to all contiguous Naga-inhabited areas of “Nagalim sovereignty”. According to him, the signing of the Framework Agreement on the day
Nagaland, Manipur, Assam, and Arunachal agreements also recognised that the Indo-Naga nine years ago.
it signed with the government of India Pradesh. issue was a political conflict between two sove- Tucco maintained that the agreement held
in 2015. SUSHANTA TALUKDAR in Guwahati The political development is not sudden reign entities, and therefore the Indo-Naga con- immense political value as it was done with an
but a culmination of the ambiguity that flict was not an internal matter of India. He aim to correct or rectify past mistakes. “Unfortu-
gripped the Naga talks five years ago, in 2019, claims that through the Framework Agreement, nately, the GoI’s stand is getting more unsteady
when dialogue came to a halt over the two the two sides had agreed upon “sharing sove- with the passage of time, desperate to interpret

T
he fragile Naga peace process has plunged contentious issues of a separate flag and con- reign power” in a “new relationship”. The GoI the Framework Agreement according to their in-
into uncertainty with the Naga rebel group stitution for Nagalim. Talks resumed in 2022 has not issued any official statement until now. terest and convenience. This has become the
National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak- when the GoI appointed A.K. Mishra, former crux of the issue and the reason for the inordi-

T
Muivah), or NSCN(I-M), seeking a “third par- Special Director of the Intelligence Bureau, as wo years after the signing of the Fra- nate delay in the implementation of FA as agreed
ty intervention” to end the stalemate over its interlocutor. R.N. Ravi, the previous inter- mework Agreement, the GoI initiated a upon,” he said.
the Framework Agreement it had signed locutor and former Nagaland Governor, was parallel dialogue with the Naga National In his speech as the Ato Kilonser on the occa-
with the Government of India (GoI) in 2015. In a statement is- appointed as the Governor of Tamil Nadu in Political Group (NNPG), a conglomeration of se- sion of the celebration of the 78th Naga Indepen-
sued on November 7, Thuingaleng Muivah, the Chief Political 2021. The several rounds of dialogue between ven other Naga rebel groups, after the two sides dence Day at Hebron on August 14, Muivah
Negotiator and NSCN(I-M) general secretary, alleged that the Mishra and NSCN(I-M) negotiators yielded no signed an “Agreed Position” in 2017. The NNPG’s claimed that Prime Minister Modi, who had su-
GoI had “deliberately betrayed” the letter and spirit of the Fra- breakthrough. consistent stand has been that the States derive According to the pervised the details of the signing of the Frame-
mework Agreement by refusing to recognise and acknowledge The Naga peace talks began on August 1, space to exercise sovereign powers from the NNPG, the “Agreed work Agreement, “has turned cool as the years
the “Nagalim sovereign national flag” and “Nagalim sovereign 1997. The Framework Agreement—signed by Constitution of India through the Central List, Position” , signed on keep going away”. “What makes him go slow in
national constitution”. Muivah is also the Ato Kilonser (Prime Muivah and Ravi and copies of which were ex- the State List, and the Concurrent List. Accord- November 17, 2017, implementing FA, his own brainchild? Certainly,
Minister) of the self-styled government of the People’s Repu- changed in New Delhi on August 3, 2015, in the ing to the Working Committee of the NNPG, the has the status of an he is in default playing with the protracted Naga
blic of Nagalim, the parallel government run by the rebel presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, political dialogue concluded on October 21, “intergovernmental issue,” Muivah said.
group. the then Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, 2019, and only the final accord remained to be agreement”. Muivah also asserted that major mineral re-
The NSCN(I-M) has also threatened to resume “the violent National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, and top signed.
armed resistance against India” if the GoI rejects such an in- NSCN(I-M) leaders—triggered hopes of a quick The NNPG says that the question of sharing 

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

 40

tution in 1962 and the subsequent creation of

Nagaland as a State on December 1, 1963, itself
were the outcome of a 16-point agreement bet-
ween the Naga People’s Convention and the GoI
on July 29, 1960. The rebel group, however, re-
jects the 16-point agreement, saying that any
agreed solution should apply to Nagalim and not
confined to the geographic territory of the cur-
rent State of Nagaland.
sources, including petroleum spread out in diffe- 왔 Other than R.N. Ravi’s claim in an exclusive
rent parts of Nagalim, “belongs to us and nobo- A poster with interview with Tinakali Sumi of Nagaland Post
dy can exploit at the cost of undermining the a Naga flag at the on February 28, 2020, that the Framework
sovereign ownership”. entrance of a Agreement had no mention of “shared sove-
In 2023, Assam and Nagaland agreed in prin- shop in Kohima, reignty” or “Nagas as separate entity”, the GoI
ciple for a memorandum of settlement for joint a 2019 picture. has made no official statement on the NSCN(I-
oil exploration in the disputed areas along the in- The NSCN M)’s position on the contentious issues of the
terstate boundary and about sharing the royalty. demands a flag and constitution.
However, the NSCN(I-M), the NNPG, and various separate flag and Meanwhile, a consultative meeting on the Na-
Naga organisations opposed any such move un- constitution for ga political issue, convened by the Nagaland go-
til the Naga political issue was resolved. Nagalim, referring vernment in Kohima on September 12, ex-
to all contiguous pressed concern over the stalemate in the Naga
he issue of oil exploration also talks and urged the rebel groups to reach an un-

T
Naga-inhabited
brought to the fore the complexities areas of derstanding among themselves and try to for-
and limitations of power-sharing under Nagaland, mulate a single document and approach the GoI.
Article 371A of the Constitution. On July 26, Manipur, Assam, The consultative meet also urged the GoI to ele-
2010, in exercise of its powers under subclause and Arunachal vate the talks to the level of a senior Union Cabi-
(a) of the Article, the Nagaland Assembly unani- Pradesh. net Minister by appointing a new interlocutor.
mously passed a resolution rendering inter alia YIRMIYAN ARTHUR/AP The 213th report of the Parliamentary Stand-
all Acts of Parliament governing petroleum and ing Committee on Home Affairs, presented in
natural gas inapplicable to the State of Nagaland. Parliament in 2018, states that Ravi had briefed
Subsequently, on September 22, 2012, the Naga- the committee that the position of the NSCN(I-M)
land Assembly passed another resolution for from the very beginning had been that “Nagas
There is no
framing “the Nagaland Petroleum and Natural were exceptional, Nagas were not Indians, Nagas
Gas Regulations, 2012”. immediate were sovereign and any settlement could be
Subclause (a) of Article 371A(1) says: “Notwith- possibility reached only on the basis of the fact that this is a
standing anything in this Constitution, no Act of of a final settlement between two sovereigns. While the
Parliament shall apply to the State of Nagaland Naga government kept them engaged, they had conti-
unless the Legislative Assembly of Nagaland by a nued their position that they will be with India
accord
resolution so decides, in respect of: on the basis of a negotiated agreement and
(i) religious or social practices of the Nagas, being would not be ‘within India’.”
(ii) Naga customary law and procedure, signed The report further states that “in 2015, the go-
(iii) administration of civil and criminal justice without vernment reached an understanding with the
involving decisions according to Naga customary consensus NSCN(I-M), which agreed for a settlement within
law, Indian federation, with a special status. The In-
(iv) ownership and transfer of land and its re-
between terlocutor informed the Committee that this was
sources.” the a departure from their earlier position of ‘with
In 2013, the Manmohan Singh government NSCN(I-M) India, not within India’ and the Government
declared the Nagaland Assembly resolution as and the called it ‘Framework Agreement’ and signed it.”
“unconstitutional and invalid”. NNPG on The NSCN(I-M)’s hardened position belies
The NSCN(I-M) has maintained that Article such claims. The veil of secrecy shrouding the
371 poses a road block to the implementation of
various contentious issues have added to the intractabil-
the Framework Agreement and the final settle- contentious ity of the six-decades-long armed conflict, mak-
ment. The insertion of Article 371A in the Consti- issues. ing the Naga peace talks murkier than before. 왎

FRONTLINE
 Jurisprudence 41

End of road for

bulldozer justice?
By calling the bluff of authorities who sought tioners’ claim—relying on a chain of
events—that the demolition of homes was
refuge under the “coincidence theory” to an immediate punitive action against the
justify the demolition of properties of accused people implicated in crimes.
The petitioners found it difficult to be-
persons as a form of extrajudicial punishment, lieve that only a single construction be-
the Supreme Court has demonstrated longing to an accused was unauthorised
construction, whereas all the other struc-
its commitment to protecting the right tures in the vicinity were legal and author-
to shelter. V. VENKATESAN ised as per local laws.
In paragraph 82 of its judgment, deli-
vered on November 14, Justice Gavai, who
authored it, in keeping with the court’s es-

I
n several PIL petitions involving charges of discrimination tablished traditions, expressed his agree-
by the government and allegations that it acted with im- ment with Mehta’s “coincidence” theory
punity, it is not unusual for the respondent authorities to in some cases, but found it necessary to
claim they will adopt a non-adversarial role vis-a-vis the expose its hollowness.
petitioner, while still denying the allegations. Courts, Justice Gavai held: “When a particu-
which are people-centric, are likely to lift the veil and exa- lar structure is chosen all of a sudden for
mine whether the official claims have any substance and, if they do demolition and the rest of the similarly
not, articulate appropriate judicial reasoning to find the probable hid- situated structures in the same vicinity
den motives of the government. are not even being touched, mala fide
The hearing of In Re: Directions in the matter of demolition of struc- may loom large. In such cases, where
tures by the Supreme Court is a case in point. In this case, the writ pe- the authorities indulge into arbitrary
titioners alleged that the state machinery had demolished residential pick and choose of the structures and it
and commercial properties without following the due process of law, is established that soon before initiation
on the grounds that the owners were involved in criminal offences. of such an action an occupant of the
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Union govern- structure was found to be involved in a
ment and the States concerned, submitted that most of the proper- criminal case, a presumption could be
ties demolished were found to be in breach of local municipal or pan- drawn that the real motive for such de-
chayat laws. He suggested that in some cases it might be sheer molition proceedings was not the illegal
coincidence that the properties in breach of local municipal laws also structure but an action of penalising the
happened to belong to accused people. He reiterated that it was the accused without even trying him before
stand of the various States that such properties could be demolished the court of law.”
only in accordance with procedures prescribed by law. The Justice Gavai-Viswanathan bench
The two-judge bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justices held that even if the demolition is justified
B.R. Gavai and K.V. Viswanathan, however, found merit in the peti- for breaching municipal or panchayat
laws, the principle of rule of law needs to
be considered. Demolition, they held, is
an extreme step that is disproportionate
The bench held that no demolition should be in such cases for two reasons: a) certain
unauthorised constructions could be
carried out without a prior show-cause notice compoundable; b) there may be certain
returnable within a minimum of 15 days from the
date of the notice being served. 

DECEMBER 13, 2024

constructions where only part of it is required to vict is the lone occupant or owner of the house 왘 The Udaipur
be removed. being demolished, it is a sufficient reason for district
The bench reminded the Union and the State demolition. administration
governments concerned the right to shelter is In paragraph 88, the bench reiterates the demolishes the
one of the facets of Article 21 of the Constitu- principle that a person is presumed innocent house of a boy
tion. If people are to be dishoused, the authori- until proven guilty. If demolition is permitted of who allegedly
ties taking this step must satisfy themselves that a house where a number of members of a family/ stabbed his
such an extreme measure such as demolition is families live and only one person living in it is an classmate at
the only available option. accused or convicted in a crime, it will amount school, on August
For an average citizen, the construction of a to inflicting collective punishment on the entire 17. DINESH GUPTA/ANI
house is often the culmination of years of hard family, the bench reasoned.
work, dreams, and aspirations; a house is not
just a property but embodies the collective ollective punishment cannot be
hopes of a family or individuals for stability, se-
curity, and a future, the bench added. As hous-
ing gives a sense of dignity and belonging, the
C justified. Also, India’s penal laws do not
prescribe demolition of a house even if
the convict happens to be the sole owner or resi-
For an
average
authority must be satisfied that demolition is the dent of that property. The constitutional scheme citizen, the
only option available, it held. and criminal jurisprudence do not permit the construc
The bench then examined the hidden mo- demolition of a house of an accused or a convict -tion of a
tives of the authorities in demolishing so-called even if he or she happens to be the sole occu-
illegal properties. If only one of the residents of
house is
pant or owner of that house.
such a structure is an accused or convicted in a The bench needs to be complimented for its often the
crime, could the authorities be permitted to de- clear directions in exercising its power under Ar- culmination
molish the entire structure, thereby leaving peo- ticle 142 of the Constitution to provide complete of years of
ple who are not related to the crime shelterless, justice. The bench made it clear that the affected hard work,
the bench asked. party needs to be given some time to challenge a
In a sense, the bench’s framing of this ques- demolition order.
dreams,
tion is a bit problematic. Surely, the bench “It is not a happy sight to see women, chil- and
does not agree that even if the accused or con- dren and aged persons dragged to the streets aspirations.

FRONTLINE
 JURISPRUDENCE 왘 END OF THE ROAD FOR BULLDOZER JUSTICE? 43

overnight. Heavens would not fall on the author- email and should also be displayed on the dig-
ities if they hold their hands for some period,” As housing ital portal, the bench held.
the bench observed. The bench made it clear that violation of any
The bench held that no demolition should be
gives a of these directions would lead to the initiation of
carried out without a prior show-cause notice re- sense of contempt proceedings in addition to prosecu-
turnable within a minimum of 15 days from the dignity and tion. If the demolition is found to violate these
date of the notice being served. The bench di- belonging, directions, the authorities will be held responsi-
rected every municipal/local authority to assign ble for the restitution of the demolished proper-
the
a designated digital portal, within three months ty at their personal cost in addition to payment
starting from November 14, in which details re- authority for damage.
garding the serving of the notice, the reply, the must be Considering that officials act on informal or-
show-cause notice, and the order passed would satisfied ders of their political masters, should not the
be available. that court hold the latter liable for illegal demoli-
The bench also directed the designated auth- tions? After all, the bench noted that such demo-
demolition
ority for demolition to give the affected person litions carried out by state authorities subverted
an opportunity of hearing and to record the mi- is the only the authority of courts to adjudicate and deter-
nutes of the hearing. The final order of the de- option mine the guilt of an accused and punish them
molition, the bench held, should contain the available, and denigrated the separation of powers. If so, it
contentions of the affected person and the rea- the court does not make sense to hold officials alone guilty
sons the designated authority disagrees with and liable for punitive action.
these contentions.
held.
More importantly, the final order should justi- mnesty International released two
fy why demolition is the only option available
and whether other possible remedies, such as
compounding or demolishing only part of the
A reports in February this year docu-
menting the arbitrary and punitive de-
molitions in at least five States in a hate cam-
property, had been exhausted, the bench noted. 왔 paign against the minority community for
The bench also held that the final order Members of protesting against discriminatory laws and prac-
should not be implemented for a period of 15 Social Activists tices. Apart from questioning demolitions as a
days from the day it is issued and uploaded on Forum staging form of extrajudicial punishment, the reports al-
the digital portal in order to give the affected a demonstration so sought adequate compensation for all those
person an opportunity to appeal to any appel- to condemn affected and holding those responsible for these
late authority or the court. the demolition violations to account.
The bench directed that a video recording of of homes and Between April and June 2022, Amnesty In-
the demolition and a list of police officials and businesses ternational researchers found that authorities
civil personnel who participated in the demoli- belonging in the four BJP-ruled States of Assam, Gujarat,
tion process be made. This report should be to Muslims. Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh and in
forwarded to the Munipal Commissioner by JOTHI RAMALINGAM Delhi carried out demolitions as a punishment
following episodes of communal violence or
protests against discrimination against Mus-
lims. The study found that at least 617 people
were rendered homeless or deprived of their
livelihoods as a result of 63 of 128 documented
demolitions.
In 2023, instances of illegal demolitions were
reported also from Jammu and Kashmir, Harya-
na, Gujarat, and Uttarakhand. The pan-India di-
rections of the Supreme Court in this case
should hopefully put an end to such demoli-
tions. 왎

V. Venkatesan is an independent legal journalist based in

New Delhi. Formerly Senior Associate Editor with Frontline,
he now reports and comments on legal issues.

DECEMBER 13, 2024

44
Reservation RESERVATION 왘 PRIVATE QUOTA, SHARED ANGST 45

Meanwhile, the Committee on the Welfare of

Private quota,
왔
Diminishing jobs Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has list-
in the public ed reservation in the private sector in its annual
sector is one of the agenda for discussion.

shared angst primary reasons

behind the
clamour for
reservation in the
According to Ashok Bharti, chairman of the
National Confederation of Dalit Organisations
(NACDOR), the momentum for the demand is all
set to grow in the coming months. Dalit organi-
private sector. In sations plan to hold a regional meeting in Karna-
Fifteen years ago, as an alternative to this image from taka on December 3, followed by a national-level
mandatory quota in private sector jobs, 2013, job seekers conclave in Delhi from February 6 to 8, 2025,
attend a private where they will ask the government to enact a
industry associations prepared a sector job fair in reservation law to ensure affirmative action by
voluntary code of conduct for member Madurai, Tamil private industry.
Nadu, in large “The private sector needs to be accommoda-
companies centring on education, numbers. S. JAMES tive, inclusive, and transparent. They should
employability, and entrepreneurship. But come clean on how much of what they had pro-
mised in terms of affirmative action has been ful-
with no monitoring and accountability, the (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST), expressed his SC/STs candidates at all levels in their filled and what is their plan going ahead. Most
initiative seems to have floundered, giving support for the demand of reservation in the organisations. importantly, we want the government to move
private sector. “Today, an important issue has In a document titled “Affirmative Action—Em- ahead on this issue,” said Bharti.
the longstanding demand for private come up. If there is reservation in government powering Society for a Brighter Tomorrow” “It is clear that the voluntary code of conduct
sector quota for SC/STs and OBCs a fresh jobs, why not in private jobs? An atmosphere (2009), the CII said: “Indian industry had as- is not working. There has to be a monitoring of
has to be created for this,” he said. sured Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh that it what the associations are doing. They need to
impetus. SONI MISHRA Both the BJP, the ruling party in 2003, and would draw up a robust affirmative action plan meet the Prime Minister regularly in this regard.
the Congress, the principal opposition party, and it is Indian industry’s contention that a be- It happened during the UPA years. In the last 10
promised reservation before the 2004 elec- ginning has been made to address a challenge years, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
tion, which saw the Congress-led United Pro- which is very novel for industry and which ad- tenure, such meetings have taken place very

I
n the run-up to the Maharashtra Assembly election gressive Alliance (UPA) come to power under dresses a blot on the Indian society which goes rarely,” said Prof. Sukhdeo Thorat, an economist
on November 20, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Manmohan Singh. The UPA government start- back several millennia. It would be counter-pro- and educationist who has extensively re-
Gandhi announced while addressing a press confe- ed a dialogue with industries to explore the ductive, in this context, for political expediency searched the economic discrimination suffered
rence in Mumbai on November 18: “In the Lok Sab- idea of introducing reservations. A few to revive the demand for job reservations in the by SC/STs in India.
Ashok
ha, I said the Congress party and INDIA alliance will months after becoming Prime Minister, Man- private sector. For one, such a measure will not Bharti said that the industries have not come
conduct caste census to ensure equitable participa- mohan Singh said emphatically: “Nobody can amount to many jobs on the ground.” Bharti, out with facts and figures on what has been
tion. Caste census is the biggest issue before us, and we will get avoid it [reservation] as it is going to be a na- The industry associations (CII, FICCI, and AS- chairman of achieved by them in terms of affirmative action.
it done; it is our central pillar. We will also remove the 50 per tional policy. Nobody can prevent an idea SOCHAM) prepared a voluntary code of conduct the National A website called The Fair Job.com was launched
cent cap on reservation.” whose time has come.” for member companies centring on education, Confed- in 2012 as a collaborative venture between NAC-
Gandhi’s comment is the latest in a series of hectic exchang- In 2006, the government set up a coordina- employability, and entrepreneurship to achieve DOR and the CII to boost employment and skill
eration
es between the ruling BJP and the opposition parties on the tion committee on affirmative action for SC/ inclusion. Nearly 15 years later, in the absence of training of SC/ST applicants. “The website was
subject of caste census and the removal of the 50 per cent cap STs in the private sector. The committee had adequate monitoring or accounting of the action of Dalit shut down because of lack of enthusiasm on the
on quotas—which forms the backdrop to a recent revival of the representatives from business groups such as taken by industry, the initiative seems to have Organi- part of the private sector,” Bharti said.
demand for reservation of jobs in the private sector. The de- the Federation of Indian Chambers of Com- lost its momentum. sations, Diminishing jobs in the public sector is one of
mand goes back to 2004, when jobs were shrinking in the pu- merce and Industry (FICCI), the Associated thinks the the primary reasons behind the clamour for re-

I
blic sector and the private sector was emerging as the major Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India n July 2024, Chandrashekhar Azad, presi- servation in the private sector. The Economic
employment provider. More than a decade had passed since (ASSOCHAM), and the Confederation of In- dent of the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi
momentum Survey for 2024-25, while laying great emphasis
the P.V. Narasimha Rao government’s liberalisation of the eco- dian Industry (CII). Ram) and MP from Nagina, Uttar Pradesh, for the on the need to generate 60 lakh jobs over the
nomy in 1991: following the opening-up, successive govern- Industry representatives conveyed to the introduced a private member Bill in the Lok Sab- demand for next five years, puts the onus of job creation on
ments had actively pursued disinvestment of public sector en- government that reservation was not a solu- ha for reservation in the private sector for SC/ reservation the private sector. “Finally, jobs are created in
terprises. Not surprisingly, reservation was one of the chief tion, that they were not in favour of a law mak- STs and Other Backward Classes (OBCs). The Bill is set to the private sector.... In their fascination for AI
planks on which the 2004 Lok Sabha election was fought. ing it mandatory for them to implement a re- demanded that the government incentivise priv- and fear of erosion of competitiveness, business-
In December 2003, just months before the Lok Sabha elec- servation policy, and that it would be ate sector enterprises to implement the quota
grow in es have to bear in mind their responsibility for
tion, the then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, while ad- preferable if the private sector took voluntary while creating rules to ensure effective imple- the coming
dressing a gathering of MPs belonging to the Scheduled Castes action towards enhancing the recruitment of mentation of the proposed affirmative action. months. 
FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024
 46

when it initiated economic reforms in the 1990s.

In its manifesto for the 2024 Lok Sabha elec-
tion, the Congress said that it would establish a
Diversity Commission to measure, monitor, and
promote diversity in public and private employ-
ment and education. While the manifesto spoke
of enacting a law to bring in reservation in priv-
ate educational institutions, it was silent on the
issue of quota in private sector jobs.
Interestingly, the BJP is also being circum-
employment generation and the consequent im- 왔 spect on the issue. A senior BJP leader belonging
pact on social stability,” the survey said. MP Chandra- to the backward classes, who did not want to be
As per the Annual Report on Pay and Allo- shekhar Azad named, said: “As of now, there is no discussion
wances brought out by the Department of Ex- recently on the subject within the party.”
penditure in the Ministry of Finance, there has introduced a However, the Left parties and the outfits that
been a steady decline in civilian jobs within the private member draw their support from the marginalised sec-
Central government over the years. The 2001 re- bill in the Lok tions and the OBCs have been vocal in their sup-
port puts the number of Central government Sabha for port for reservation. Javed Ali Khan, Rajya Sabha
employees across different groups at 34.2 lakh, reservation in the MP from the Samajwadi Party, which is an ally of
while the number of sanctioned posts was 36.06 private sector the Congress, said: “The socialists have always
lakh. The corresponding figures in the 2023 re- for SC/STs and demanded reservations in the private sector. It
port were 30.04 lakh and 39.6 lakh, respectively. OBCs. Here, he cannot be voluntary action on the part of the in-
The figures also point to the growing number of holds up a copy of dustries. It has to be legally binding.”
vacancies, which in 2023 was 9.5 lakh. the Constitution The BJP’s regional allies have also been sup-
For Thorat, what justifies reservation is not while taking the portive of the idea. Minister of State for Health
the decreasing number of jobs in the public sec- oath in the 18th and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel recently
tor but what he describes as the inherent and Lok Sabha on spoke in favour of reservation. Patel, who be-
historical discrimination when it comes to the June 25, 2024. ANI longs to the Apna Dal (Soneylal), a party with an
recruitment of SC/ST candidates in the private OBC support base in Uttar Pradesh, told repor-
sector. A study titled “The Legacy of Social Ex- ters in August 2024: “Reservation is not followed
clusion: A Correspondence Study of Job Discrim- in appointments done in fourth-class [Class 4]
ination in India” conducted by Thorat and Paul posts via outsourcing in the private sector. The
The
Attewell involved sending identical applications people of deprived sections used to get fourth-
for the same job using Dalit, dominant-caste Hin- findings of a class jobs. When recruitment on these posts is
du, and Muslim names. The findings, published 2007 study, done through outsourcing, no reservation law is
in 2007, document a pattern of decision-making document followed.”
by private sector employers that repeatedly ad- a pattern The Dalit scholar Chandra Bhan Prasad has a
vantages applicants from Hindu dominant-caste different take on the issue. He feels that by fo-
of decision-
backgrounds and disadvantages marginalised- cussing on the demand for quota, a situation is
caste and Muslim job applicants with the same making being created where the private sector is viewed
qualifications. by private as an adversary of SC/ST communities. “India
sector Inc [the private sector] should make deliberate
n the political sphere, the issue conti- attempts to embrace Dalits at the managerial le-

I nues to be centred around disinvestment

and outsourcing of jobs to the private sec-
tor. “The Modi government has been relentlessly
employers
that
repeatedly
vel. The idea should not be pushed down the
throat of the private sector. It should not become
a ‘private sector vs Dalits’ issue. Those persisting
pushing for privatisation, and public sector units advantages with the demand for quota for Dalits and tribals
are being dismantled, which is a deliberate stra- applicants in the private sector should also raise the issue of
tegy to erode the gains that were made through from Hindu why there is no Dalit principal in Delhi Universi-
the reservation policy,” said Rajesh Lilothia, ty or why the reserved posts for professors in
chairman of the Congress’ Scheduled Castes De-
dominant Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru Universi-
partment. The BJP, in turn, accuses the Congress caste back- ty are vacant,” Prasad said. 왎
of not putting in place a safety net for SC/STs grounds.

FRONTLINE
 RESERVATION 왘 PRIVATE QUOTA, SHARED ANGST 47

‘Merit does not depend on caste’

Interview with Ramdas Athawale, Minister of State introducing a quota system in
recruitments in the private sector.
for Social Justice and Empowerment. How can they be brought on
board on this issue?
The industry is our partner in

H
ow do you view the Disinvestment of public sector growth. I am confident they will be
demand for extending companies has been a policy on the same page as us on the need
reservation to the private followed by successive governments to take affirmative action in the
sector? over the last three decades. However, private sector to ensure that the gains
It has been a long-standing demand since the policy was first made through reservation for SC/STs
of the people belonging to the implemented when the Congress was are sustained. A proposal that has
marginalised sections. Atal Bihari in power in the 1990s, the party been discussed earlier, too, is about
Vajpayee had spoken strongly in should have gone into its making it legally binding for the
favour of implementing reservation ramifications with regard to private sector to reserve jobs for the
for SC/STs in the private sector in the employment and reservation, and marginalised sections. The
early 2000s. Our party [Republican taken some decisions on how SC/STs government can consider the option.
Party of India (A)] has been benefiting from the reservation policy Although it is an unrelated matter,
demanding reservation in the private could be protected. At that time, the the NDA government, by doing away
sector for many years. It is needed Congress did not do anything. with Article 370, introduced
because many public sector Rahul Gandhi is talking about the reservation for certain marginalised
enterprises have been privatised. rights of SC/STs and OBCs, about communities in Jammu and Kashmir.
Even within government caste census and social justice. He
departments, we come across should be asked why his party, when An argument made by the private
instances of jobs being outsourced to it ushered in privatisation of public sector is that since it operates in a
the private sector. In such a situation, sector enterprises, did not take any highly competitive environment
the government should heed the decision to safeguard the rights of with focus on productivity,
demand for extending reservation to marginalised sections. introducing reservation in
the private sector. recruitment is not a feasible idea.
India Inc. has in the past It is a faulty argument.
Have you taken up this issue resisted the idea of Our candidates have
within the government? proved their
I have raised this issue many times in capabilities in the
the Rajya Sabha. I have discussed it government
with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 왘 Ramdas sector. The
A parliamentary committee is set to Athawale at a industries can
discuss the issue. All Ministers and press conference learn something
MPs belonging to the Scheduled in Nagpur on from the
Castes and Tribes should meet the November 16. experience of
Prime Minister together to convey MAHESH TICKLEY/ ANI reservation in the
our views on the issue. public sector. Merit
does not depend on
A claim made by those demanding caste.
reservation is that the
privatisation of public sector Soni Mishra
companies has picked up
speed under the National
Democratic Alliance (NDA)
government.
 48
Reservation RESERVATION 왘 THE DATA DIVIDE 49

왘 The Socio-Economic and Education ble” Dalit sub-castes, outside the Madiga and Ho- ical parties in Karnataka were merely fooling Da-
Survey being conducted at Siddapura in leya agglomerations, constitute 4.65 per cent of Successive lits by including internal reservation in their ma-
Bengaluru in April 2015. K. BHAGYA PRAKASH the SC population. (A further 6.23 per cent of the nifestos as this could never be implemented,”
SC population did not mention its sub-caste.)
Karnataka Shivasundar, a senior journalist and activist,
governm- said.

T
Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe he Justice Sadashiva Commission ents have

T
communities to give preferential reserva- established that the “touchable” SCs assured he August 1 Supreme Court judgment,
tion to the most backward sub-castes had garnered a disproportionately high Madiga however, paved the way for a quota
within these broad categories. share of government jobs and that Madigas were within quota. Shivasundar said he was
Recognising the apex court’s ruling relatively under-represented in government jobs
community still “sceptical” of the Karnataka government’s
that subclassification must be justified by vis-a-vis even the Holeyas. Its report estimated leaders of decision because “even though Siddaramaiah
“quantifiable and demonstrable data by that the community deserved 32,200 additional implement- was among the first leaders to publicly declare
the States which cannot act on its whims”, government jobs within the SC quota (on the ba- ing internal that he would implement internal reservation af-
the Karnataka government appointed a sis of 2012 figures). It proposed a 6 per cent quo- reservation, ter the SC judgment, he remained silent after the
one-man commission headed by Justice ta for internal reservation for Madigas, 5 per cent Congress high command said that it would ap-
H.N. Nagamohan Das on November 13. for Holeyas, 3 per cent for “touchable” Dalits,
but this has point a commission to study the issue”. Accord-
The commission is tasked with collecting and 1 per cent for the rest of Dalits. (The BJP go- not ing to Shivasundar, the government relented
empirical data that will be used by a Cabi- vernment in 2022 increased the reservation quo- happened. “only because of the massive street-level agita-
net subcommittee to fix the matrix of in- ta for SCs from 15 per cent to 17 per cent.) tions all over Karnataka following the SC deci-
ternal reservation in three months. The Successive Karnataka governments since sion by Madiga organisations and the ensuing
government also declared that “all up- then, led by the BJP, the Congress, or the Con- byelections on November 13”.
coming government recruitments for at gress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition, have assured There is still no clarity as to how the Nagamo-
least three months will be frozen till the Madiga community leaders of implementing in- han Das Commission will gather empirical data
submission of the report of the one-man ternal reservation, but this has not happened. within three months to assess the socio-econom-
commission”. This was mainly because of two reasons. The ic status of various Dalit subcastes. One potential

THE DATA The Siddaramaiah government’s deci-

sion marks the culmination of a demand
by the Madigas, a Dalit sub-caste, for near-
first is the fear of a political backlash. Any deci-
sion to implement internal reservation in Karna-
taka, especially in the ratio proposed by Justice
resource could be the Justice Sadashiva Commis-
sion’s figures, but Social Welfare Minister H.C.
Mahadevappa said that its recommendations

DIVIDE
ly 50 years. Inspired by a similar move- Sadashiva, would alienate the Holeyas and could not be as used as the previous BJP govern-
ment in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, “touchable” Dalit castes from the ruling party. ment had rejected them in 2022.
the community members have been argu- In an opportunistic and hasty decision taken The political analyst D. Umapathi disagreed
ing that they are socio-economically back- at the end of its tenure in 2023, the Basavaraj with this explanation, calling the appointment of
ward compared with other Dalits in Kar- Bommai-led BJP government approved internal a new commission a delaying tactic. “It reveals
The Karnataka government has been quick nataka. The Justice A.J. Sadashiva reservation on the basis of a report by the then the pressure within the Congress of Dalit leaders
Commission on internal reservation, Law Minister, J.C. Madhu Swamy. However, this belonging to the Holeya and touchable Dalit
to approve the implementation of internal which was constituted in 2004, had high- could not be implemented because of legal chal- castes who are against internal reservation. In
reservation within the Scheduled Caste quota lighted the Madigas’ relative backward- lenges. Significantly, the announcement itself the past, incumbent governments have over-
ness in its report submitted in 2012. led to protests by members of the Lambani com- The survey was turned the decisions of previous governments
following the Supreme Court judgment, According to the report, Dalits in Kar- munity, which feared that its share in govern- commissioned by and accepted various commissions’ recommen-
but uncertainty remains over data collection nataka are classified into 101 sub-castes, ment jobs would decline. Siddaramaiah in dations. So what prevents the Congress from ac-
which have been historically grouped into There has also been considerable opposition 2015 during his first cepting the recommendation of the Sadashiva
and the political repercussions of the two agglomerations: the right hand, or within the Congress party to implementing any tenure as Chief Commission? The three-month deadline is mea-
exercise. VIKHAR AHMED SAYEED the Holeya (24 sub-castes accounting for form of quota within quota. A former MLC of the Minister (2013 to ningless as we know how a commission’s tenure
32.01 per cent of the SC population); and Congress, speaking on condition of anonymity, 2018). Reportedly, is extended, but the silver lining in this decision
the left hand, or the Madiga (29 castes ac- said that senior Dalit leaders in the party, such as while 1,351 castes is the freeze on recruitment.” The Sadashiva
counting for 33.47 per cent). G. Parameshwara and Mallikarjun Kharge (both and subcastes were Commission proposal too will need a rejig be-

I
n a decision that is bound to have far-reaching social impli- Madigas have historically worked with Holeyas), were against internal reservation. listed before the cause of the increase in SC reservation in Karna-
cations in Karnataka, the State Cabinet, in late October, ap- leather, which is considered a polluting The second reason why no ruling party could survey began, the taka to 17 per cent from 15 per cent in 2022.
proved implementation of internal reservation within the occupation, while Holeyas have primarily implement the internal reservation quota was exercise has Another source for empirical data could be
Scheduled Caste quota in the State, which currently stands been agricultural labourers. “Touchable” constitutional legality. Only a constitutional revealed the the Socio-Economic and Educational Survey
at 17 per cent. The decision follows the landmark Supreme Dalit castes such as Lambani, Bhovi, Kora- amendment can empower Assemblies to imple- existence of over conducted in the State in 2015, which recorded
Court judgment on August 1, delivered by a seven-judge ma, and Koracha account for 23.64 per ment reservation within the Dalit quota, which 1,820
Constitution Bench, empowering State governments to subclassify cent of the population. Other “untoucha- Justice Sadashiva had stated in his report. “Polit- castes/subcastes. 
FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024
 50

왘
A march
by members of
various Scheduled
Caste
communities in
Hubballi in August
celebrating the
Supreme Court
decision
authorising States
to provide internal
reservation to the
SCs.
BY SPECIAL
ARRANGEMENT

the respondents’ caste (and hence known as the Since none of the reports is available, it is un-
“caste census”). The caste census has become a clear whether their data have been scientifically
politically volatile issue in Karnataka, with the gathered. Perhaps the best solution is that Jus-
dominant castes (the Lingayats and Vokkaligas) tice Nagamohan Das conduct a fresh socio-eco-
opposing the tabling of the report in the As- nomic caste census of Dalits in Karnataka.”
sembly. The ostensible reason for this is that the Echoing this thought, Shivasundar said:
caste census was “not done scientifically”, but “There are vested interests even within the Sche-
the real reason could be that leaked figures re- duled Castes. Those who are privileged do not
veal that the numbers of Lingayats and Vokkali- want to share the resources. In this scenario, the
gas are much lower than what they claim. best solution is to make public the Sadashiva The
Dasanuru Koosanna, a researcher at the Insti- Commission report and the H. Kantharaj report confusion
tute of Social and Economic Change in Bengalu- [caste census] so that a public discussion can be
over which
ru, said the problem could be resolved if the held on their contents.” (Kantharaj was chairper-
Central government made public the data of the son of the Karnataka State Commission for Back- data set is
Socio-Economic and Educational Survey it con- ward Classes when the caste census was con- usable also
ducted in 2011. ducted in 2015.) stems from
Former Social Welfare Minister H. Anjaneya But there is another problem that com- the fact that
of the Congress, who is a Madiga, said that Madi- pounds the move to gather empirical data. It re-
none of the
gas deserved a 7 per cent share in the 17 per cent lates to the terminology used to refer to certain
Dalit quota in Karnataka. He has based his argu- castes. For instance, members of certain castes reports, be it
ment on the documents that he has provided to such as Adi Dravida, Adi Karnataka, and Adi the Justice
Justice Nagamohan Das. Andhra, which Koosanna explained were lin- Sadashiva
guistic categories among Dalits in Karnataka, are Commission
he confusion over which dataset is unclear whether they belong to the Madiga or

T usable also stems from the fact that

none of the reports, be it the Justice Sa-
dashiva Commission report or the Karnataka
Holeya grouping. Explaining this, Mohan Raj
said: “I belong to the Adi Karnataka caste which
is deemed a Holeya caste in Bengaluru, but
report or the
Karnataka
caste
caste census, has been released in the public do- when I go to Kolar or Tumakuru, I am identified census, has
main. As R. Mohanraj, State convenor of the Da- as a Madiga. There are also Dalit converts to been
lit Sangharsh Samiti, said: “If these reports are Buddhism, like my children, who only identify
released, we will get to know the methodology as ‘Neo-Buddhist’, which means they are Dalits.
released in
used to ascertain the numbers of various Dalit But what sub-caste do they belong to? There is the public
sub-castes and their socio-economic status. no clarity.” 왎 domain.

FRONTLINE
 Controversy

SOWING
DISCONTENT
Farmers in Haryana are vexed over persistent However, the fact is that farmers in Ha-
ryana, including women, were seen queu-
fertilizer shortages and resent the hefty fines ing up for hours for bags of diammonium
that are being imposed on them for stubble phosphate (DAP) outside shops selling the
fertilizer through Aadhaar-linked point of
burning. A government in denial is just sale (PoS) machines. DAP is an essential
compounding the problem. T.K. RAJALAKSHMI fertilizer required at the beginning of the
sowing season for Rabi (October-Decem-
ber) crops. According to reports from va-
rious districts, farmers spent days togeth-

D
efying pollsters, exit polls, and predictions, the er at grain markets awaiting fertilizer
BJP scored a hat trick in Haryana, albeit with a supplies but returned empty-handed.
narrow lead in the recent Assembly election. It Matters came to a head on November
formed a government on its own sans any ally, 9, when Ram Bhagat, a 34-year-old margi-
and Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini assumed nal farmer from Bhikewala village, died by
office for a second consecutive term with rela- suicide after repeated attempts to get DAP
tive ease. But the euphoria did not last long. failed. His death triggered huge protests.
In the first Assembly session convened after the new govern- Inderjit Singh, vice president of the All
ment took over, the opposition, led by the Congress and the electo- India Kisan Sabha, said women were seen
rally diminished Indian National Lok Dal, attacked the government queuing up from 4 am onwards to get
on the issue of fertilizer shortages in the sowing season. The govern- DAP. The uncertainty and the pressure of
ment denied it and accused the opposition of spreading rumours.
Significantly, the BJP at the Centre too has denied a fertilizer crisis. 

왘 A farmer fertilizing his wheat field in a

village in Haryana, a file picture. GETTY IMAGES
52 CONTROVERSY CONTROVERSY 왘 SOWING DISCONTENT 53

sowing led to minor skirmishes among farmers on this portal show a high proportion of tenant country. This, he said, was stated on the floor of paddy or wheat straw after harvest. Generally, it
forcing the sale of fertilizer even at police sta- “In October farmers. I am not sure whether there are this Parliament as well in 2021 and 2022. Under the is done after the harvest of the Kharif crop in Oc-
tions. many tenant farmers in Haryana. Are these ficti- On November 1, 2021, the Union Minister for tober in preparation for the sowing for Rabi that
2019, the method of
“During this crisis, the Chief Minister has re- tious claims of tenancy in order to claim bene- Chemicals and Fertilizers refuted the claim of occurs in November.
peatedly denied there is any shortage. The very availability fits?” he asked, adding that the introduction of shortages and stated that the government was distributing “The biggest pollutants are construction ac-
day he said that, Naveen Jindal, BJP MP from Ku- of DAP was the Aadhaar-linked PoS machines for fertilizer constantly monitoring the production, imports, fertilizer tivities, vehicles, firecrackers, and industry. But
rukshetra, said there was a terrible scarcity of 25.5 lakh sale since 2017 had affected farmers badly. and movement of fertilizers to ensure that farm- through farmers are targeted for congesting the lungs of
DAP in his constituency. Interestingly, this in- tonnes. In Synthetic fertilizers, said Rawal, are impor- ers received adequate quantities. In July 2022, electronic city dwellers. Burning of stubble alone does not
cludes Ladwa, the Chief Minister’s own Assemb- tant for India’s food security and agricultural he reiterated in Parliament that fertilizer availa- lead to so much pollution. Besides, what option
October point of sale
ly constituency,” Inderjit Singh told Frontline. growth. Over the past three decades, he said, bility was at comfortable levels for the Kharif does the farmer have or is offered? Can the stub-
The economist Vikas Rawal, who has worked 2024, it domestic production had fallen short of fertilizer season. In November, he stated that there was machines, ble be used as cattle feed? Burning stubble af-
extensively on issues relating to agriculture, not- was 11.45 demand, and India had become increasingly im- more than enough to meet the needs of the Rabi a limited fects the farmer too. But sowing has to take place
ed that he found it strange that despite the per- tonnes, port dependent during this period. The share of season. amount at the appropriate time. The issue is raised every
sistent shortage of fertilizer, there has not been which was imports in the total supply of fertilizer ranged Rawal, however, said that the shortfall was of fertilizer October, and then they forget all about it till the
any impact on agricultural output at the national from 60 per cent for DAP to 100 per cent for mu- consistent in 2020, 2021, and 2022 compared next season,” said Inderjit Singh.
level. This, he said, raises suspicion that the out-
55 per cent riate of potash (MoP). with 2019. In 2023 as well, the availability of DAP was In fact, the Agriculture Ministry had, on De-
put figures might have been fudged. less than in According to Rawal, even the raw material for had not reached the levels of 2019. There were allocated cember 9, 2021, assured farmers protesting at
According to Rawal, there was a 38 per cent October the domestic production of phosphatic fertiliz- similar shortages of potash, MoP, and urea, per unit of the Delhi borders in writing that they would be
shortage of DAP between the assessed require- 2019. This ers was imported, mostly in the form of phos- which led to black marketing. land owned exempt from any criminal liability for stubble
ment and the availability of fertilizer in October. is the scale phoric acid. A high dependence on imports had An issue he highlighted was how under the burning. Within a month of assuming office, ho-
by farmers.
Supply shortages can be explained by reduced rendered agricultural production and food se- method of distributing fertilizer through elec- wever, the Haryana government doubled the ex-
imports because of high global prices. However,
of the curity vulnerable to the vagaries of international tronic PoS machines, a limited amount of fertiliz- isting fine.
the shortage in fertilizer persisted despite the shortage markets and geopolitical situations, he said. er was allocated per unit of land owned by farm- On top of it, in the first week of November,
fact that the international prices of DAP had not we have.” Then there were global monopolies. Around ers. This forced them to turn to the black market the Centre issued a new set of rules under the
gone up. 84 per cent of MoP came from 7 companies, and to meet the shortfall. Commission for Air Quality Management in Na-
“In October 2019, the availability of DAP was the top 10 fertilizer companies in the world ac- Significantly, the Haryana government has tional Capital Region and Adjoining Areas. The
Vikas Rawal
25.5 lakh tonnes. In October 2024, it was 11.45 counted for 38 per cent of the global production. not denied the existence of a black market. In new CAQM Rules (Imposition, Collection and
Economist 왔
tonnes, which was 55 per cent less than in Oc- response to a question in the Assembly this year, Utilization of Environmental Compensation for
tober 2019. This is the scale of shortage that we he Indian demand for fertilizers, he Haryana Agriculture Minister Shyam Singh Rana Stubble burning Stubble Burning) have fixed different slabs of
have,” he told Frontline.
He said despite the BJP getting elected to Ha-
ryana once again, nothing had been done to deal
T said, was the highest at the time of Kha-
rif (May-July) and Rabi sowing. During
the Kharif season of 2020, when shortages were
gave details of raids and other supply stabilisa-
tion methods in the context of black-marketing
of fertilizer. But he stuck to the government’s po-
at Karnal in
Haryana. The new
CAQM Rules have
fixed different
fines on the basis of the acreage: Rs.5,000 for
those owning less than 2 acres, Rs.10,000 for 2
to 5 acres, Rs.30,000 for 5 acres or above. In ad-
with procurement, marketing, credit supply, or first felt around August, the Centre held a meet- sition that there was no shortage of DAP. dition, crops from farms blacklisted in the re-
fertilizer supply. “The Meri Fasal, Mera Byora ing with State Agriculture Ministers and asserted slabs of fines for cords would not be procured.
portal to digitise crop records is a gimmick. Data that there was no shortage of fertilizer in the n addition to fertilizer shortage and tar- stubble burning on “What is the connection between stubble

I dy paddy procurement, the farming com-

munity has been vexed by the penalties for
stubble burning, or the burning of the residual
the basis of the
acreage. BHAWIKA
CHHABRA/REUTERS
burning and crop procurement? The farmer has


54 CONTROVERSY

a right to sell his produce in the market. It is vin- sary of the farmers’ siege at Delhi, which will be
dictive. Now drones are used to identify fires due The observed with support from central trade un-
to stubble burning. FIRs are registered, and Agriculture ions and agricultural workers’ unions. “The
farmers are expected to turn up at the police sta- movement will intensify. It is being said that
tion. There is a lot of resentment in both Harya-
Ministry farmers were not successful in punishing the BJP
na and Punjab,” said Singh. had, on electorally in the Haryana elections and that the
He said rather than penalise farmers for stub- December 9, farmers’ movement has lost relevance. This is an
ble burning, the government should take action 2021, incorrect assessment. It was precisely because of
on issues such as gate passes issued at mandis on farmers’ movements in Maharashtra, Punjab,
assured
fake vehicle numbers and other issues concern- Haryana, Rajasthan, and western Uttar Pradesh
ing farmers. Recently, in Karnal, the district ad- farmers that the BJP was reduced to 240 seats in the Lok
ministration uncovered a scam involving mas- protesting Sabha,” said Singh.
sive deletions of gate passes issued for farmers in at the Delhi It is believed that there were efforts to weaken
the grain markets in the district. borders that the farmers’ movement in the run-up to the As-
To compound matters, the State government sembly election. Some farmer outfits unilaterally
they would
issued orders in mid-October to all deputy com- declared a “Delhi chalo” programme early this
missioners, district nodal officers, and agricul- be exempt year. This did not have the assent of the Samyuk-
ture directors to make “red entries” in the farm from any ta Kisan Morcha (SKM), the broad front that had
records and lodge FIRs against those caught criminal led the siege at the borders of Delhi in 2020-21.
burning stubble, according to the CAQM’s direc- liability for Distinguishing themselves from the SKM, these
tions. outfits claimed that they were non-political, and
The “red mark” entry in the farm records res-
stubble in several public meetings during elections, they
tricts farmers from selling their crop at the man- burning. said they were not campaigning for any party.
dis through the e-kharid portal for the next two A farmer leader, speaking on condition of
seasons. All deputy (agriculture) directors are to anonymity, said that such statements may have
comply with making such entries with respect to contributed to a certain extent in influencing the
stubble-burning offenders. outcome of the Haryana election. At the mo-
November 26 will mark the fourth anniver- ment, the farming community is vexed over the
issue of persistent fertilizer shortages and angry
왔 over the imposition of hefty fines for stubble
Harvesting paddy in Panipat, Haryana. burning. Given the track record of the govern-
The demand for fertilizers was the highest ment in dealing with issues of such magnitude, a
at the time of Kharif and Rabi sowing. resolution of either issue will require a lot of pol-
PRAKASH SINGH/BLOOMBERG itical will and commitment. 왎
 Elections

Yogi’s
왔
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at a roadshow
in support of BJP candidate Sanjeev Sharma in
Ghaziabad on November 16. ANI

a permanent shift in the State’s politics.

mid-term test The political analyst Sharat Pradhan, who

has followed Uttar Pradesh politics closely and
co-authored the book Yogi Adityanath: Reli-
gion, Politics and Power, The Untold Story, told
The result of byelection for nine Frontline that no byelection has ever drawn as
much attention from the ruling dispensation
Assembly constituencies in Uttar as these have.
Pradesh could have a major bearing on “Thanks to Adityanath, these bypolls have
become a matter of prestige for both the BJP
the political future of Chief Minister and the opposition, which is represented lar-
Yogi Adityanath. ANAND MISHRA gely by the SP. The reason is not far to seek:
BJP bigwigs in Delhi are believed to have
linked Adityanath’s future to the bypoll out-
come. The Modi-Shah duo is known to have

T
he just-concluded byelections in nine As- held him responsible for the party’s poor
sembly seats in Uttar Pradesh attracted un- show in the Lok Sabha election, which relegat-
usual media attention. This could perhaps ed the BJP to the No. 2 position in the coun-
be attributed to the fact that many see them try’s most populous State. Amit Shah is be-
as a referendum on the future of Chief Mi- lieved to have always perceived Adityanath as
nister Adityanath, whom many in the BJP the biggest obstacle in the way of realising his
consider the most popular leader after Prime Minister Naren- dream of emerging as Modi’s ‘rightful’ succes-
dra Modi. The outcome will also determine whether the 2024 sor, and BJP leaders in Delhi seemed quite in-
Lok Sabha result, which saw the Samajwadi Party (SP) rising
as a force to reckon with once again in Uttar Pradesh, marked 
DECEMBER 13, 2024
56 ELECTIONS

clined to move him out of Lucknow. But Aditya- of not only Adityanath but also that of his party.
nath managed to save his skin by seeking the Adityanath Adityanath addressed 13 election rallies and
good offices of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. It is held 2 roadshows—an unusual effort for just 9
widely believed that the final deal was that he
addressed Assembly seats in a State with 403, especially
would be given another chance to prove himself 13 election since no byelection was announced for the Milki-
in the byelections,” rallies and pur Assembly segment of Ayodhya. This seat fell
Pradhan said. It is no wonder Adityanath held two vacant after the SP MLA Awadhesh Prasad won
moved heaven and earth to project himself as roadshows, the Ayodhya Lok Sabha seat, delivering a signif-
the “biggest Hindu Hriday Samrat”, he re- icant jolt to the BJP.
marked. Pradhan also pointed out that in the
an unusual It was also not as if the outcome would im-
2022 Assembly election, the BJP won only3 of effort for pact the government’s majority in the Assembly,
the 10 seats where byelections became neces- just nine where the BJP had 255 members. The Congress
sary (they were held in 9 of them), and its allies Assembly has just 2 seats and the SP is a distant second
won 2. The SP, on the other hand, won5. seats in with 105. Yet, the byelection outcome is expect-
ed to have a ripple effect on the State’s politics.
dityanath was indeed the most visi-
a State The Congress chose not to field candidates

A ble Chief Minister during the campaign

for the byelections. No matter what his
equations are with the party bosses in New Del-
with 403. against the SP after seat-sharing talks fell
through, making it a direct BJP versus SP con-
test. Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) field-
왘 Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav with party candidate Naseem Solanki during a roadshow in Sisamau on November 18. The
seat fell vacant after the candidate’s husband and former MLA, Irfan Solanki, was convicted in a criminal case earlier this year. PTI
hi, the BJP clearly cannot afford to ignore him. ed candidates in all 9 seats. Asaduddin Owaisi’s
He campaigned extensively in a number of Na- All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen tried its
tional Democratic Alliance (NDA)-ruled States, luck in 3 seats, including Ghaziabad, which inci- the “Ayodhya effect”, it organised “Ayodhya Dee- within the party and create a parallel OBC lea-
particularly where the chips were down for the dentally saw the maximum number of candi- potsava” on October 30, lighting 25 lakh diyas The outcome dership within the State unit. This time, the BJP
saffron alliance, and his usual polarising tactics dates: 14. along the Saryu river. also depended on party veterans and their kin to
were on full display. In Maharashtra, where he The SP-Congress alliance walked away with
of the win. Former MP Rajveer Diler’s son Surendra
addressed 11 public meetings, his dog-whistling 43 seats in the recent Lok Sabha election (the SP he seats where byelections were held byelections Diler contested from Khair and former MLA
slogan “Batenge toh Katenge” (slaughtered if di-
vided), which was aimed at consolidating Hindu
votes, raised outrage not only among the opposi-
got 37; the Congress 6). The saffron party got 33,
marking a dramatic decline from 2014 (71 seats)
and 2019 (62). Modi’s third term was robbed of
T were Ghaziabad in the National Capital
Region, Sisamau in Kanpur, Meerapur
in Muzaffarnagar, Phulpur in Prayagraj, Karhal
will indicate
whether the
BJP will
Deepak Patel (whose mother was an MP) from
Phulpur. In Katehari, the BJP fielded three-term
MLA and former BSP leader Dharmraj Nishad.
tion parties but even within the BJP. In Jhark- 왔 the glow of the brute majority that marked his in Mainpuri, Khair in Aligarh, Katehari in Am-
hand, too, where he addressed 13 rallies, he previous terms, making the government depen- bedkar Nagar, Majhawan in Mirzapur, and Kun-
change its he outcome of the Assembly byelec-

T
A security official
stirred up controversy with his provocative and checks a voter at dent on support from the Telugu Desam Party darki in Moradabad. Eight of these seats fell va- course tions will indicate whether the BJP will
communal statements. a polling booth in and the Janata Dal (United). Soon, a blame game cant as the sitting legislators got elected as MPs. ahead of the change its course ahead of the 2027 As-
The spotlight, however, is on Uttar Pradesh, Sisamau, Kanpur followed, with some pointing fingers at the par- In 2022, the SP won four of these—Karhal, Ka- 2027 sembly election in the State, when it will seek a
which sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha, with the district, on ty’s central leadership, which had apparently tehari, Kundarki, and Sisamu—the BJP won Gha- Assembly third straight term. It will also determine wheth-
outcome expected to impact the political future November 20. PTI chosen the candidates. ziabad, Phulpur, and Khair, and its ally the NISH- er the party will stick to Adityanath as its chief
“Adityanath’s hands were tied,” went the re- AD Party won Majhawan. Jayant Chaudhary’s
election in ministerial face.
frain, as there were whispers of an intense tug of Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), which won Meerapur, the State. It The political commentator and author Rash-
war between the Chief Minister and Union is now with the NDA. So the NDA has to win at will also eed Kidwai told Frontline that the byelections
Home Minister Amit Shah, who had allegedly least five of the nine seats if it wants to claim that determine were “a litmus test for Chief Minister Adityanath
thrown his weight behind some rebel State lead- is has retained all its seats. and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav”. “If the BJP fails to
whether the
ers. Although the party leadership dismissed all A byelection for the Sisamau Assembly seat get six seats in the bypolls, the clamour for Adi-
this as rumour-mongering, Adityanath reported- became a necessity after Irfan Solanki, the SP party will tyanath’s removal, currently spearheaded by
ly faced an internal rebellion for months after MLA, was convicted in a criminal case. stick to Keshav Prasad Maurya, will continue. Behind
the Lok Sabha results were out. But he got a free The BJP fielded candidates in eight seats, leav- Adityanath the scenes, Adityanath also faces stiff opposition
hand in picking candidates for the byelections ing one for its ally the RLD. Adityanath has often as its chief from a section of the BJP at the national level that
and in the campaigning. faced criticism for allegedly ignoring Other Back- views him as Modi’s possible successor in 2029
ministerial
In August, Adityanath deployed 30 Ministers ward Classes (OBCs) and Dalits, but this time he or earlier. According to this school of thought, if
and 15 senior party leaders as “caretakers” of the tried to counter the SP’s PDA pitch: pichchda face. Adityanath retains Uttar Pradesh in 2027 and
election-bound seats and assigned clusterwise (OBCs), Dalit (SCs), and alpsankhyak (minority). gets a third term as chief minister in the coun-
responsibilities to them. The party organised The BJP fielded four OBC and one Dalit candi- try’s most populous and politically significant
“gram chaupals” as a last-mile connection with date in the byelections, a move that also proba- State, his claim as Modi’s successor would be-
voters. Still betting on Hindu consolidation and bly marked an attempt to silence dissenters come substantially stronger,” Kidwai said. 왎

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

58
Guest Column

SANJAY HEGDE is a Senior Advocate

designated by the Supreme Court of India.

A Sachin who could

have been a Phogat
If India were to relive the rath yatra and the riots that accompanied Ayodhya,
D.Y. Chandrachud’s comment on the Varanasi case would rank
with Rajiv Gandhi’s opening of the locks to the Babri mosque.

W
hether I shall turn balpur case, Justices Y.V. Chandrachud and P.N. Bhagwati
out to be the hero of ruled that the right to life itself could be suspended during an
my own life, or Emergency. Justice Hans Raj Khanna, who wrote the sole dis-
whether that station sent, found himself superseded for the Chief Justice’s job but
will be held by any- was immortalised in legal history.
body else, these pag- After the Emergency, Justice Y.V. Chandrachud went on to
es must show,” is how Charles Dickens begins serve for over seven years as Chief Justice, but he never could
his semi-autobiographical novel David Copper- live down the infamy of having buckled under pressure. So-
field. metime after his retirement, he even made a public speech
Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud, who re- apologising for the ADM judgment. Dhananjaya was probably
cently retired as the Chief Justice of India (CJI), aware that his father’s legacy was perceived as a mixed bag
could not entertain any such doubt and would wherein industry and erudition paled against a record of not
want to play the hero not only of his own life but standing up when it mattered.
in the lives of several others as well. Dhananjaya It is against this backdrop that one must look at the hero of
was not even 2 years old when his father, Yesh- this article growing up in Delhi as a schoolboy from St. Colum-
want, was appointed as a young judge of the ba’s, a college student in St. Stephen’s, a law undergraduate at
Bombay High Court at the instance of Justice Delhi University, and a postgraduate at Harvard on an Inlaks
P.B. Gajendragadkar. Gajendragadkar knew the scholarship followed by a doctorate from the same university.
family well from the times of Yeshwant’s father, He could have easily morphed into a global citizen as many of
the advocate Vishnu Chandrachud. his compatriots did, but he returned to India.
D.Y. Chandrachud would have been barely 13 After a short period of practice in New Delhi alongside his
when the family moved to New Delhi, conse- father-in-law, Y.S. Chitale, who was a renowned Senior Advo-
quent to Y.V. Chandrachud’s elevation to the Su- cate, he returned to Mumbai (then Bombay) in the late 1980s
preme Court in 1972. Barely a year later, in April to practise at the High Court. He also taught postgraduate law
1973, Y.V. Chandrachud sided with the govern- students in an LLM course at Bombay University, where the
ment on the 6:7 verdict in the landmark Kesava- author was among his pupils. His lectures were a blend of
nanda Bharati case. Some scholars believe that scholarship and industry, making constitutional interpreta-
his vote on the majority side was switched upon tion both intellectually rigorous and accessible. With his insid-
the advice of his mentor Justice Gajendragadkar. er perspective and academic flair polished at one of the best
Worse was to come in 1976 when in the ADM Ja- law schools, he quickly earned a reputation for excellence. It

FRONTLINE
왘 Some Maharashtrian lawyers nicknamed D.Y. Chandrachud as “Godbole” (sweet talker). In picture, Chandrachud
at the 21st Biennial State Level Conference of Judicial Officers in Bengaluru, on March 23. SHAILENDRA BHOJAK/PTI

was clear he was destined for greatness. Soon, open mind and showed willingness to be persuaded against his
he was designated as a Senior Advocate and initial instinct. He did not suffer fools gladly but generally did
thereafter appointed as Additional Solicitor not shut them down with a temper tantrum. It was not surpris-
General before becoming a judge at the Bom- ing that some Maharashtrian lawyers nicknamed him “God-
bay High Court. Throughout this stint, the ac- bole” (sweet talker).
cumulated goodwill and influence of his fath- His judgment in the Vodafone retrospective taxation case
er’s long career played a key role in the timely brought him a lot of attention in the commercial world. At an in-
career breaks that came his way. terview for an Inlaks scholarship, a woman candidate who did
He never shied away from the extreme hard not recognise the boyish-looking interviewer criticised the judg-
work that is demanded of judges, and his aca- ment on several points of law. To his credit, Chandrachud took
demic aptitude allowed him to dissect issues up the woman’s case for scholarship because those were the ve-
and elucidate them in a manner that had not ry points that had troubled him as a judge while delivering the
hitherto been seen in judgments. Chapterised judgment.
headings, fully indexed footnotes, chronologi-
cally traced citations—all made for judicial n 2013 he was sent as Chief Justice of the Allahabad High
writing of a very high order. In court, he was
calm, courteous, and never made the counsel
feel intimidated by his erudition. He kept an
I Court, the largest in the country (in terms of sanctioned
strength of judges) and a traditional gateway for a judge
marked for elevation to the Supreme Court. As he presided over
its 150th anniversary in 2016, he took great care to demarcate
the wall of separation between the executive and the judiciary.
His stint there gave him an inside view into the caste dynamics
of the Indo-Gangetic plain.
His dissenting views in the May 13, 2016, saw him being sworn in as a judge of the Su-
Aadhaar and Bhima Koregaon preme Court as part of that elite class of judges who know on the
day of taking oath that barring a mishap, they will one day be
cases, his concurrences in the
sworn in as the Chief Justice of India. His dissenting views in the
Sabarimala, Puttaswamy, and Aadhaar and Bhima Koregaon cases, his concurrences in the Sa-
Navtej Singh Johar cases—all barimala, Puttaswamy, and Navtej Singh Johar cases—all spoke
spoke of a constitutional vision of a constitutional vision centred on individual autonomy and
centred on individual autonomy dignity. His judgment, now overruled in B.K. Pavitra, also saw
him push back against the whittling down of constitutional re-
and dignity.

DECEMBER 13, 2024
60 GUEST COLUMN

servations. He opened many doors to women

in the armed forces, and the sight of women of-
ficers accompanying nuclear-capable missiles
down Rajpath on Republic Day would not have
been possible without his activist intervention. 왘 The infamous episode when Prime Minister Modi performed
He also opened the Supreme Court and the Ganesh puja in Chandrachud’s home, on September 11. PTI
judiciary to greater public involvement by al-
lowing access to webcasting of judicial pro-
ceedings. It is not uncommon now to run into rance of the majority. In other words, the Constitution is not a
ordinary Indians who have taken to watching fetter on majoritarian impulses but a mere reflection of its best
interesting court proceedings throughout the face.
country. During hearings on the hollowing out The unanimous Ayodhya judgment that he anonymously
of Article 370, live feed from the Supreme authored is a careful balancing act as it justified an unjustified
Court site was rebroadcast on local Kashmiri takeover of a minority place of worship for the establishment
channels and went a long way towards ex- of a temple for the majority. The judgment refutes the claim
plaining constitutional nuances to a wider au- that a temple was brought down to build a mosque in medie-
dience. val India. It awards decrees to both religions as having esta-
In management of personnel, he was not as blished their rights of worship at the spot, yet it imposes ma-
successful. While he has populated the High joritarian peace by pushing away the mosque to an alternative
Courts with some good choices, he has not al- site. Chandrachud and the other members of the bench may
ways fought for and ensured the appointment have well claimed that the judgment had pushed the genie of
of the best. His inability to enforce the recom- communal majoritarianism back into its bottle.
mendations of the collegium meant that the However, the public messaging of triumphant majoritarian-
government got a pocket-veto on implementa- ism saw the genie resurface with fresh claims on sites in Vara-
tion. The institution suffered a diminution of nasi and Mathura. Three of the members of the Ayodhya
its authority, which seems unlikely to be re- bench found convenient post-retirement sinecures. It was
versed. He also had a very keen sense of who Chandrachud who, instead of shutting down fresh claims,
was his man and who was not. In his two-year stoked the fires in the Varanasi case by suggesting from the
tenure as CJI, he managed to designate over a bench an argument that was not even made by the counsel for
hundred advocates as Senior Advocates, thus the parties. He said that while the character of a religious site
democratising the senior Bar and diluting its on August 15, 1947, had to be preserved, courts could not be
exclusivity. precluded from an inquiry into what the exact character was.
His reticence in confronting and confining Thus, the constitutional bargain on Ayodhya that Parliament
executive power to its correct constitutional li- made and the Constitution Bench endorsed was undone by
mits was best exemplified by the video specta- what can only charitably be called an unguarded comment. If
cle of him and the Prime Minister doing a Ga- India were to relive the rath yatra and the riots that accompa-
nesh puja together at the Chief Justice’s house nied Ayodhya, Chandrachud’s comment would rank with Ra-
during court hours. It sent forth a powerful jiv Gandhi’s opening of the locks to the Babri mosque.
message: In the current regime, no institution-
al citadel remained unbreached and that a de- s he walks into the judicial sunset, he retires as a yu-
facto Hindu Rashtra did not need a committed
judiciary. A merely complicit one would
suffice.
A gapurush (man of the age) embodying all the vices
and virtues of the age. He has shown us that Indian
judges are capable of much research, erudition, and industry.
When the puja is seen in conjunction with However, he has not shown us that they can stand up when it
Chandrachud’s handling of the Ayodhya and matters. Like the legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, he
Varanasi cases, the pattern that emerges is of was technically proficient, nurtured from a very young age
complicity in a constitutional philosophy and dominant in his day. Like Tendulkar, his record as captain
aligned to a majoritarian religious reading of is at best mixed and unworthy of the early promise that was
its provisions. In this legalverse, the constitu- displayed. If he had been Chief Justice during the leadership of
tional compact among citizens and govern- a Narasimha Rao or a Manmohan Singh, he might have stood
ment is not a balancing of competing collec- out as an all-time great. But current times required a bloody-
tive interests but an enumeration of weak mindedness that he simply did not possess. He was a Sachin
individual rights, indulged in only at the suffe- Tendulkar when the times demanded a Vinesh Phogat. 왎

FRONTLINE
 Prohibition

MESSAGE
IN A BOTTLE
With women emerging as a significant voting bloc, parties find the
idea of prohibition an irresistible election promise. However, the experience
of Bihar comes as a cautionary tale. Here, the State government is
losing revenue, illicit liquor is flourishing, and the courts are flooded
with alcohol-related cases. ANAND MISHRA

W
hen Chief Minister The court noted that the police as well as officials of the ex-
Nitish Kumar cise, tax, and transport departments were colluding with boot-
banned the sale of leggers and pointed out that the poor were becoming both vic-
alcohol in Bihar in tims of hooch tragedies and offenders under the law for
2016, it sparked consumption of liquor.
mixed reactions. However, women in Bihar have generally supported the
Recently, the Patna High Court castigated ban, citing a reduction in domestic violence, though
State government officials, suggesting that they criticise the authorities for the spread of illicit li-
they were making money from the rampant il- quor trade and the indiscriminate arrests of people
licit liquor trade enabled by them. who consume alcohol.
The High Court made the strong remarks When the political strategist Prashant Kishor
while overturning the demotion of an inspec- launched his Jan Suraaj Party on October 2 in Pat-
tor accused of negligence in enforcing the
prohibition law. 
The 24-page order, issued on October 19
and made public on November 13, stated that 왘 A Bihar Mahila Brigade protest in Patna in
the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016, 2017, demanding prohibition across India, on the
which was intended to raise living standards occasion of the 100th anniversary of Mahatma
and public health (but failed), finds itself “on Gandhi’s Champaran Satyagraha. PTI
the wrong side of the history”.
62 PROHIBITION 63

na, a key promise he made was to lift the liqu- 왘 Seized was not paid for years after the passage of the
or ban. Addressing a public meeting he said: bottles of liquor 2016 law.
“Currently, Bihar incurs a loss of Rs.20,000 being destroyed The government also revoked the provision
crore each year due to the liquor ban. For Bi- in Patna. to confiscate the home of an offender and al-
har to achieve a world-class education system, RANJEET KUMAR lowed the release of vehicles impounded for
an investment of Rs.5 lakh crore is required transporting liquor after the payment of only
over the next 10 years. Once the liquor ban is 10 per cent of its insurance cover. Earlier that
lifted, that money will be dedicated solely to figure was 50 per cent.
establishing a new education system in Bihar.” In 2021, the then Chief Justice of India (CJI),
N.V. Ramana, dubbed the Bihar liquor law an

T
he Ranchi-based social activist Sud- example of “lack of oversight”. “There are
hir Pal, who supports prohibition, ex- three lakh cases pending in the courts. People
pressed disappointment about its im- are waiting for justice for a long time, and now
plementation. “Prohibition of alcohol in Bihar the excessive cases related to liquor violations
was a commendable step, with studies like put additional burden on courts... the applica-
those from The Lancet highlighting its positive tions pertaining to bails in liquor prohibition
impact, particularly in reducing domestic vio- are admitted in large numbers in the High
lence,” he told Frontline. “However, while the Court,” the CJI had said during a discussion on
policy itself was sound, its implementation challenges before the Indian judicial system.
faced significant challenges. The reliance on But the final word on prohibition is not out
the existing bureaucratic structure, coupled yet.
with entrenched patriarchal mindsets and a Ajay Gudavarthy, Associate Professor at the
lack of community involvement, created unin- Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru
tended consequences. This led to what can be University, noted that the rising significance of
described as an ‘aapda mein awasar’ [oppor- women as voters makes prohibition an electo-
tunity in crisis],” he said, referring to the rise ral tool worth considering. “Demand for pro-
of the illicit liquor trade. hibition has grown stronger alongside the
Pal suggested that a more effective ap- emergence of women as an independent con-
proach would have been to empower the Ma- stituency in electoral politics,” he told Fron-
hila Sabhas (women’s groups) within the gram tline. “However, land and liquor remain the
sabhas to dismantle the illicit liquor trade, Andhra Pradesh imposed prohibition in the already prepared the ground to secure wo- two largest sources of revenue for State go-
rather than entrusting high-level bureaucrats, face of massive protests by women. But the men’s votes with schemes like free bicycles for Social vernments. Gujarat has successfully imple-
wielding legal authority, with the task. ban was short-lived. It was revoked within two girl students. mented prohibition, and there is no reason
“Since the ‘Gram Kutchhery’ or ‘Gram years as the State government faced major re- In February 2020, Nitish Kumar also made
activist why other States cannot follow suit if it’s a
Amended law Sudhir Pal
Nyayalaya’, a legally mandated institution, venue losses. a strong pitch for a nationwide ban on alcohol popular demand by womenfolk who link liqu-
comprises elected representatives of the vil- After the Bihar government enacted the law and sought to take the message to Maharash- suggested or consumption to domestic violence and
lage, prohibition could have been more easily Rs.2,000- in April 2016 prohibiting the manufacture, tra, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand, but noth- that Mahila debt.”
enforced through this community-driven
structure,” Pal said. With 50 per cent of these
5,000 trade, storage, transportation, sale, and con-
sumption of liquor in the State, Chief Minister
ing came of it. In fact, the neighbouring State
of Jharkhand became a transit point for illegal
Sabhas, not One thing is clear: the issue of prohibition
in Bihar is bound to raise political tempera-
representatives being women, the initiative
Penalty for first-time
Nitish Kumar stated that it had “tremendous liquor to enter Bihar.
bureaucrats, tures now as the Assembly election is due
drinkers, instead
would likely have been supported by them, support from the people, particularly women should within a year and political parties have started
of imprisonment

O
had it been implemented in letter and spirit, and children”. The Bihar government went ver the next few years, criticism have been taking clear positions on the issue.
he said. “Instead, the flawed execution result- from a ban on countrymade liquor to a full li- over hooch deaths and the large empowered People still remember the huge traction
ed in corruption, allowing some individuals to 5 years quor ban within five days. Nitish Kumar cited number of arrests prompted the Nit- to dismantle former Chief Minister Lalu Prasad got when he
exploit the situation for illegal gain. A com- Imprisonment for Article 47 of the Constitution to support the ish Kumar government to tweak a number of removed toddy tax in 1991. Even in 2016, Lalu
munity-driven approach, where local groups drinking, reduced move, according to which it is the mandate of provisions of the Prohibition Act. Key amend-
the illicit Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal prevailed upon
monitor and curb alcohol consumption, des- from 10 years the State to raise living standards and improve ments included the release of first-time drink- liquor trade Nitish Kumar (when they were allies in the Bi-
troy illegal liquor stocks, and penalise offen- public health. ers on the spot against a fine of Rs.2,000- in the State. har government) to continue to allow the sale
ders, would have provided a more sustainable, Rs.4 lakh Political analysts commented that the mea- Rs.5,000, replacing the earlier mandatory of toddy. After a hooch tragedy in the State, La-
people-centric solution.” Restored: sure was aimed at strengthening the caste- punishment of imprisonment; reducing the lu Prasad had suggested that toddy be con-
Apart from Bihar, the only other States Compensation to neutral constituency of women, which played punishment for drinking from 10 years to 5 sumed instead of spurious liquor.
where alcohol is prohibited are Gujarat, Mizo- be paid to kin a substantial role in Nitish Kumar’s victory in years; and restoring the Rs.4 lakh compensa- The 2025 Assembly election could see a lot
ram, and Nagaland. In the 1990s, undivided of hooch victims the October 2015 Bihar election. He had also tion to the next of kin of hooch victims, which of debate around the issue. 왎

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

64
Column | Economic Perspectives 65

Diversion as
Responsibilities, and Respective Capa- But there is a larger diversionary
bilities”. The less developed countries agenda being pursued with the assis-
in the G77 and other like-minded tance of the IMF, the World Bank, and
states have indicated that the resourc- other multilateral development

diplomacy es that must flow from the Global

North to the Global South must be
around $1.3 trillion a year until 2030.
That is the figure negotiators at Baku
banks. This involves pushing the idea
that the financial resources required
to tackle the climate challenge are
enormous, and with the private sector
At COP29, the developed countries abrogated their must commit to deliver—largely as pu- controlling a significant share of the
blic flows in the form of grants or con- world’s financial surpluses, only priv-
responsibility to deliver a satisfactory New Collective cessional finance. ate initiative can effectively imple-
Quantified Goal by raking up extraneous issues. The The fact that COP29 was identified ment the programmes needed to
as the finance COP meant that leaders achieve the Sustainable Development
failure to evolve a consensus on allocating financial and officials congregating at Baku Goals and address climate change.
왘 A demonstration at the COP29 UN Climate Summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, on
November 16. RAFIQ MAQBOOL/AP
resources to tackle the climate challenge also were aware of the ask for long. In fact,

T
preparations had begun once the de- he corollary of that posi-
signalled a breakdown of multilateralism. cision was made to move on from the tion is that the role of govern- expected to raise the needed resourc- to further the agenda of corporate
disappointing experience with the ments is no more to try and es domestically. accumulation.
promise of $100 billion a year by 2020 move surpluses from private to public Thus, the burden of financing miti- Fortunately, the moment is condu-
made at Copenhagen in 2009 to the hands (through new forms of interna- gation and adaptation efforts must lar- cive for aggressive public action.

I
n the global climate negotiations that NCQG, with a substantial step up in tional tax cooperation, for example) gely be shouldered by governments in Enough surpluses have been garnered
C.P. Chandrasekhar
continued at the 29th edition of the flows. Given this background, the fai- but to use the available public resourc- the developed countries. The social and accumulated by globalised big
Conference of Parties (COP29) in Ba- lure to evolve a consensus on the issue es as means to unlock private invest- benefits from addressing these pro- capital in the past 25 years. So multi-
ku, Azerbaijan, between November 11 by the end of the first week at Baku, ments and expenditures. The call is to blems are not just immense, but also lateralism has a role to play in mobilis-
and 22, there was agreement on one resulting in an impasse on the matter, go beyond the recognition that the global: the developed would also de- ing resources globally, and not just in
issue. If the international community is a sign of the breakdown of multilat- tasks of ensuring the needed carbon rive those benefits not just the less de- implementing the agenda.
has to take forward a multilateral agenda to keep eralism. And no one else is to blame transition, and building resilience the veloped, global majority countries, as Unfortunately, it is at this time of
global warming below 2oC, and even better at other than the developed countries world over, are primarily governmen- UN Secretary-General António Gu- challenges and opportunities that the
the 1.5oC ceiling, finance to the tune of trillions of that want to abrogate their responsi- tal or “public” responsibilities, and terres has reiterated. The private re- developed countries citing their own
dollars will be needed in the years to 2030 and bility to deliver a satisfactory NCQG. that cooperation among governments turns are too low and, in some cases, “domestic problems” are withdraw-
onwards to 2050. Those resources must be ur- Rather, the messages sent out lead- (or multilateralism) is the best means the risks too high for the private sec- ing from a much-needed global fi-
gently mobilised since the world is off track in its ing up to and at Baku seek to divert at- to implement those tasks. Pragmatism tor to take on the responsibilities un- nancing push. Climate finance nego-
effort to stay within the global warming targets. tention from the principal task. The demands, it is argued, that these tasks less they do so as mere implementers tiations bear witness. Instead, they
It has completely gone off the rails when it developed countries are raking up and therefore multilateralism, or the contracted by government to do a job are making a case to outsource to the
comes to mobilising the needed resources. one or other extraneous issue to stall conjoint responsibilities of global go- in return for a fee. private sector what is clearly a respon-
Hence, COP29 was slated as the “finance COP” agreement on an NCQG and an asso- vernments, must be “outsourced”. But even that kind of apportion- sibility only governments can bear. 왎
(aligning climate finance contributions with esti- ciated timeline and means of imple- The limited prospects of success in ing of responsibilities between the
mated global needs), wherein clear commit- mentation. The first of these has been that effort are obvious. Since climate state and the private sector is unlike- C.P. Chandrasekhar taught for more than three
ments to the realisation of a New Collective the effort to widen responsibility for mitigation and adaptation expendi- ly to work, because the incentives of decades at the Centre for Economic Studies
Quantified Goal (NCQG) would be made. financing from those who have swal- tures are in most areas unlikely to the two sets of actors are incompati- and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New
A large part of climate spending would have lowed up most of the available carbon yield any or significant monetary re- ble. Governments want to realise so- Delhi. He is currently Senior Research Fellow at
to occur in developing countries, which cannot budget and to call for the “richer” less turns while delivering large social be- cial benefits for the public good; the the Political Economy Research Institute,
mobilise resources of that magnitude on their developed countries like China, India, nefits, interest-bearing borrowing private sector wants to realise profits University of Massachusetts, Amherst, US.
own without collapsing in crises. So, common and Brazil to share the burden of fi- cannot be a viable form of financing.
sense suggests that developed countries, which nancing mitigation, adaptation, and Hence the need for these to be public
are responsible for much of the cumulative car- compensation for loss and damage. flows in the form of grants or conces-
bon emissions that have contributed to the on- These countries, especially China, sional loans which are in large mea-
going global warming, must provide a large part have taken on additional responsibili- sure grant-equivalent. It is also true
of the needed finance. It helps they can do that ties themselves. Asking them to do that the climate finance requirements Enough surpluses have been garnered and accumulated
with little pain given the capital and wealth ac- more is a separate agenda. Linking are so large that less developed coun-
cumulated over the years of excess emissions. that to the responsibilities of principal tries, many of which are debt-
by globalised big capital in the past 25 years. So
This perception was reflected in the Paris Agree- polluters, the so-called “advanced na- stressed or have defaulted on their multilateralism has a role to play in mobilising resources
ment’s principle of “Common but Differentiated tions”, is nothing but diversionary. external debt payments, cannot be globally, and not just in implementing the agenda.

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

66
World Affairs

SO FAR
SO GOOD
With its thumping win in the
parliamentary election, the JVP-led
National People’s Power has pulled a
rabbit out of the hat not once but twice.
However, the newly sworn-in
(SJB), which won 40 seats. A very distant third net was sworn in on November 18, with Presi- 왔 indication that there was a wave in favour of
Dissanayake government will need more is the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), the dent Anura Kumara Dissanayake retaining the Despite the the JVP, an established political formation, be-
than its share of goodwill to fix some of party that represents the Tamils of the North key ministries of defence, finance, planning, massive mandate cause it had never formed a government since
and the East, with 8 seats. and digital economy. This lean Cabinet is a and the temptation the Sri Lankan independence.
the deep-rooted problems plaguing the “We did not just clean parliament, we bull- clean break from the past. Soon after winning to accommodate It helps that almost all the members of the
island nation. R.K.RADHAKRISHNAN dozed it,” Trade Minister Wasantha Samaras- the presidential election in September, the key performers, the Cabinet, including the President, are from
inghe said, soon after the results were an- NPP had appointed only its members to the NPP has managed humble backgrounds. Dissanayake was born
nounced. While congratulating the NPP and Cabinet—three in all—and the President dis- to keep the Cabinet in a village, Thambuttegama. His father was a
the President, former Minister Patali Champi- solved the parliament to call early elections. size in check. marginal farmer and his mother, a housewife,

E
ach day begins with renewed hope in Sri Lan- ka Ranawaka made it a point to highlight that On November 21, Dissanayake appointed President Anura and they lived in a rented house. He attended
ka as the National People’s Power (NPP) coali- the election “marks a decisive shift as the era 29 Deputy Ministers. The Cabinet, which has Kumara a local village school and became a student ac-
tion government gets to work following the re- of old politics that ignored the public’s call for professionals, activists, and career politicians, Dissanayake tivist after 1987, and came to the limelight
sounding two-thirds majority it secured in the meritocracy and clean governance comes to a is aimed at “marking a transformative chapter (centre, seated) when he forcefully opposed the Indo-Sri Lan-
November 14 parliamentary election. close”. for the nation”, the President’s Media Division with his newly ka Agreement. Dissanayake speaks only in Sin-
However, the NPP has been subdued in ce- Ranawaka was pointing to the fact that both said. Of the 159 MPs that the NPP has, as many sworn-in Cabinet hala, but his campaign was effective even in
lebrating its victory, just as it was after the coalition won the the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the as 145 are first-time MPs. Ministers outside north Sri Lanka, where Tamil is spoken, be-
presidential election on September 21. The coalition also United National Party (UNP), long-standing After the Cabinet was formed, a former acti- the President’s cause he had a translator. He speaks with the
avoided all pomp and elaborate ceremonies ahead of the par- players in the island nation, have been obliter- vist who participated in the Aragalaya (the office in Colombo. ease of a preacher, picking up from where he
liament session on November 21. The NPP clarified that this ated. The SLFP has no seats in parliament, and June 2022 protest that led to the ouster of Go- AP left off and not wandering from his line of ar-
was no time for ostentation or celebrations as the country was the UNP has one. The political party formed by tabaya Rajapaksa) and who was among those gument.
still trying to mitigate the effects of the economic crisis. All former President Mahinda Rajapaksa after gut- rejected by the people, told the media: “Now

T
these have been widely welcomed by the people. ting the SLFP—the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramu- you [NPP] have no choice but to walk the talk. he coalition picked a woman aca-
The ascendency of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna ( JVP) na, which secured a majority of 145 seats in the You have a two-thirds majority.” No member demic with a doctorate in social an-
and the NPP, the coalition led by it, to power marks a clear 2020 parliamentary election—was reduced to 3 of the People’s Struggle Movement, which thropology, Harini Amarasuriya, as
shift in direction for Sri Lanka. The JVP has never been in pow- seats (including 1 national list seat) in the 225- conducted the June 2022 protests, was elected Prime Minister soon after the presidential
er before but has often spoken about the common man’s member parliament this time. The UNP’s off- in the parliamentary election. This is a clear election. She was one of the three MPs in the
rights and had claimed that the party was led by communist shoots are the SJB and the New Democratic parliament, and the NPP did not want to in-
ideals. This is the first time a single combination has achieved Front (NDF). The SJB retains its place as the duct anyone from outside. Soon after the par-
a brute majority under the proportional representation sys- main opposition party while the NDF, support- liamentary election in November, Amarasuri-
tem. ed by former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, ya, who won with the second highest number
In fact, after the election, the JVP-led coalition has gone has managed only a single digit. The Cabinet, which has professionals, activists, of preferential votes in Sri Lankan history, was
from 3 seats in the last parliament to an unprecedented super Despite the massive mandate and the temp- reappointed as Prime Minister. She is also the
majority in the 10th parliament. The NPP won 159 seats in all, tation to accommodate key performers, the
and career politicians, is aimed at “marking first woman with no family members in polit-
including the seats allocated to it by way of proportional re- NPP has managed to keep the Cabinet size in a transformative chapter for the nation”,
presentation. Its nearest rival is the Samagi Jana Balawegaya check. The new 22-member Sri Lankan Cabi- the President’s Media Division said. 
FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024
68 WORLD AFFAIRS

ics to become the Prime Minister. in the face of sustained economic crisis will be
A day after the Cabinet formation, Dissa- very different than campaigning. Nonetheless,
There is
nayake met a delegation from the IMF and the new government certainly has an oppor-
held discussions on the path to economic re- hope in the tunity to take the country beyond the tragedy
covery. “I stressed the need for a balanced ap- Tamil areas of its governance since independence, and
proach that addresses citizen hardships and as well, given that should be welcome,” he added.
restores public trust. Our focus: tackling child the fact that It has to be noted that for the first time in
poverty and malnutrition, supporting the dif- the island nation’s history, the Tamils in the
ferently abled, and fighting corruption with
there were
Northern Province district of Jaffna have voted
stringent reforms,” the President noted in a no racial for the JVP, a Sinhala-Buddhist party. Tamils ig-
statement later. undertones nored the bickering Tamil political parties, sig-
Given the way things have unfolded, the mi- in most nalling a fundamental change in the way polit-
norities have much to look forward to. For ex- of the ics is conducted in Sri Lanka. The NPP won in
ample, the election of an Indian origin Tamil, Vanni and Jaffna, both hard-line Tamil areas. It
Ambika Samuel, from Badulla, is being hailed
speeches now has an opportunity to prove that it can
as a major achievement for the plantation Ta- and adopt a different approach with minorities.
mils. In fact, in the hill country where most of messages
the Tamil plantation workers reside, the NPP during the n Jaffna, the NPP, won three seats with
made significant gains. In Nuwara Eliya, the
NPP won five of the eight seats while the SJB
won two and the UNP, one. But there is no
campaign
period.
I others: the ITAK, the All Ceylon Tamil
Congress, and an independent group.
Although there are over 5.93 lakh registered
Muslim representation in the Cabinet, and this voters in Jaffna, only about 3.25 lakh turned up
has drawn a lot of criticism. “The JVP has al- at the booth. Nearly 10 per cent of the votes
ways had a Sinhala nationalist spine, and the (over 32,000) were rejected because the vot-
new improved NPP remains the same,” Sarah ing is a complicated process. In all, over 5 per
Kabir, a voter, said on social media platform X. cent of the votes were rejected across the is-
There is hope in the Tamil areas as well, gi- land. Former Foreign Minister M.U.M. Ali Sa-
ven the fact that there were no racial under- bry had this word of advice for the new go-
tones in most of the speeches and messages 왔 vernment: “Let this be the moment when Sri
during the campaign period. Ahead of the last It helps that Lanka turns the page and fulfils its promise as
presidential election, in 2019, an enormous almost all the a nation united in purpose, enriched by diver-
amount of money was spent on pushing the members of the sity, and inspired by its shared vision.... May
narrative that the minorities, both the Muslims Cabinet, including the new government and President Anura
and Tamils in Sri Lanka, were the reason for the President, are Kumara Dissanayake draw upon the courage,
all the problems in the country. from humble wisdom, and foresight required to lead us to-
“The optimistic view is that a broad cross backgrounds. ward true reconciliation, peace and progress.”
section of Sri Lankan voters have realised that A newspaper stall Kaniyan Pungundran, editor of Jaffna Mon-
ethnonationalist politics have not been in their in Kandy on itor, a publication which concentrates on Ta-
interest, even if the rhetoric was seductive,” November 16. mil issues,, in his note, underlined the fact that
said David McKinnon, a former diplomat, who ISHARA S. KODIKARA/ Sri Lanka had “undergone a seismic political
served in Sri Lanka. “The reality of governing AFP transformation”. He added: “The parliamen-
tary election of 2024 will be immortalised as
the epoch when the populace obliterated the
deeply entrenched ramparts of ethnicity, reli-
gion, caste, and class.”
There has always been a huge distance
between words and action when it comes to
issues concerning minorities in Sri Lanka.
This time, the NPP has made the right noises
about them. This means the people of the
North and the East will be watching every
step of the new government to see if it deliv-
ers on its promises. 왎

FRONTLINE
 왘 The Indian socialist leader
Jayaprakash Narayan meets
Israeli Prime Minister David
Ben-Gurion in Tel Aviv in 1958.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

History

BLOOD
BROTHERS
India’s socialists and Hindu nationalists have been friends of Israel right from May
1948, openly supporting its expansionist policies and pressuring governments
to establish diplomatic relations with the Zionist state. QURBAN ALI

M
uch before the establishment of Israel in In his article on Jews in Harijan on Novem-
May 1948, the Indian National Congress ber 26, 1938, Gandhi wrote: “All my sympath-
had opposed it. Mahatma Gandhi fa- ies are with the Jews, but sympathies cannot
mously said that he sympathised with turn a blind eye to the demands of justice. The
the Jews but opposed the creation of Is- cry for a national homeland for the Jews has
rael. He believed that the Arabs were the no appeal for me. Palestine is the property of
“rightful owners” of Palestine and that the Jews should return
to their original countries. 
DECEMBER 13, 2024
70 HISTORY 71

the Arabs just as Britain is the property of the 왔

British and France of the French. It is wrong to Rammanohar Lohia,
impose Jews on the Arabs. If you think in this with fellow members
way, then you will not find the talk of ‘Arab-Is- of the Samyukta
rael Federation’ or the acceptance of the exis- Socialist Party Mani
tence of the State of Israel to be justified. Hit- Ram Bagri, Madhu
ler’s attitude towards the Jews has been of Limaye, and S. M.
great cruelty and barbarism, but I do not see Joshi, a file picture.
the justification for the Arabs to be displaced WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
from their homes to settle them. Please pay
fresh attention to this problem.”
However, the Congress Socialist Party, an
avowedly “secular” socialist bloc within the In-
dian National Congress that Congress mem-
bers founded in 1934, went against Gandhi’s
declared policy on the Palestine issue to sup-
port Israel after his assassination in 1948. The
Socialist Party ran campaigns to establish
friendly and diplomatic relations with Israel
right from the time of its formation in May
1948, and helped the Zionist state through the
Socialist International.

he delegation of Indian socialist

T leaders hosted by the Zionist regime

in Israel include Jayaprakash Narayan
( JP), J.B. Kripalani, Rammanohar Lohia, Asoka
Mehta, N.G. Gore, H.V. Kamath, Prem Bhasin,
Nath Pai, Karpoori Thakur, George Fernandes,
Madhu Dandavate, Surendra Mohan, Rajwant
Singh, Pradeep Bose, Anusuya Limaye, and work of peace and reconstruction will benefit and appealed to the world for cooperation ment in support of Israel was published pro-
Kamala Sinha. These leaders not only support- the whole of Asia, including the Arabs. The In- and friendship with Israel. He was particularly minently in major newspapers and the June
ed Israel’s expansionist policies but also pres- dian government should not delay in recognis- impressed with the kibbutz, Israel’s voluntary 1967 issues of Jan and Mankind, both maga-
sured the Indian government to establish di- ing Israel.” (“An Asian Policy”, Fragments of A agrarian community programme. zines edited by Lohia. Most leaders of the PSP,
plomatic and friendly relations with Israel. World Mind by Rammanohar Lohia, Maitraya- the Socialist Party (Lohia group) and, later, the
When Lohia first visited Israel in 1950, he ni, 1953) soka Mehta, general secretary of Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP), barring a few
was full of praise for the country: “If anywhere
in the world I have seen the spirit of fighting to
the last man, it is in Israel. When I told an en-
This was also when the Socialist Interna-
tional published a pamphlet praising the
achievements of Israeli socialism. The fore-
A the PSP, spoke on the topic “Tasks of
Social Democracy in Asia” at a confe-
rence of the Socialist International Council
exceptions such as Raj Narayan and Madhu Li-
maye, not only sympathised with Israel but al-
so ran strong movements in its favour.
thusiastic young man in Israel that there was word, written by Kripalani, chairman of the held in Haifa, Israel, from April 27-29, 1960.
no possibility of two million Jews standing Praja Socialist Party (PSP), denounced all Mehta also attended the meetings of the So- 
against 80 million Arab enemies and that so- those who had boycotted Israel, including In- cialist International held in Rome and Vienna
meday the Arabs would have as many wea- dia. The leaders of the PSP were vocal in their on behalf of the PSP and visited Western Eu-
pons as the Jews, he frightened me with his demands for India-Israel cooperation and the rope and the US to further garner support for
calm reply. He said there was no place for establishment of close relations with Israel. In Israel. (Janata, Volume 18, 1961) “It is wrong to impose Jews on the Arabs. Hitler’s
them to go. It is surprising that in this country July and August 1953, several Asian socialists In 1963, the PSP criticised the Indian go-
where every girl can operate a machine gun, visited Britain to drum up support for Israel vernment for not “recognising” Israel’s sove-
attitude towards the Jews has been of great cruelty
every young man I met has read Mahatma and attended the congress of the Socialist In- reignty. In June 1967, when Israel fought the and barbarism, but I do not see the justification
Gandhi’s autobiography. Israel is an Asian ternational in Stockholm. Among them was Six Day War with Egypt, Syria, and Jordan and for the Arabs to be displaced from their homes
country. It has so many human resources and Bhasin, joint secretary of the PSP. illegally occupied a large part of Palestine, Ge- to settle them.”
talents that no other country would have. It is In September 1958, JP, who had abandoned orge Fernandes formed an organisation called
experimenting with a new way of life, especial- socialism to lead the Sarvodaya movement, vi- “Friends of Israel” aimed at drumming up pu-
ly in agriculture. Israel’s partnership in the sited Israel. He, too, praised the Israeli people blic support for the Zionist regime. His state- Mahatma Gandhi

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

72 HISTORY 73

The politician and writer Sibte Mohammad 왔

Naqvi, a resident of Akbarpur-Faizabad and a Asoka Mehta speaks
close friend of Lohia’s, wrote a strongly word- at the Socialist
ed letter to him in Hindi on July 3, 1967, ex- International Council
pressing his displeasure: “Yesterday or the day held in Haifa, Israel,
before I saw a statement by George Fernandes in April 1960. AP
in favour of Israel in the newspapers and I was
very sad. And today when I read Jan, that sad-
ness increased further and I regret that in this
context, the ideology that you have propound-
ed in the Parliament, I consider not only
wrong but also unjust.”

n his reply to Sibte Mohammad’s letter

I Lohia wrote: “To some extent you have

rightly written that every reform has two
forms, one possible and the other complete...
but Mahatma Gandhi perhaps made a little
mistake and played an opportunistic role in
the matters of Hindus and Muslims. When the
Turkish Muslims were ending the Khilafat, the
Muslims and Hindus of India were also singing
‘Boli Amma Mohammad Ali se / Jaan beta Khila-
fat pe de do [Thus spake the mother of Ali / My
son, lay down your life for the sake of Khilafat]’
under the leadership of Gandhiji. I don’t know
how good it is to gather a crowd in these
ways.... You have quoted Gandhiji about Is-
rael. If you keep raising old issues like this,
then people will start saying that the mosque
near Gyanvapi (Varanasi) should be repaired The Forward Bloc leader H.V. Kamath, who both moral and political grounds and con- ciated with the Socialist International at the
and brought back to its old form and a temple later merged a faction of his party with the So- demned India’s vote against Israel in the UN. global level. After establishing bilateral rela-
should be built because after all there was a cialist Party and became a founding member Praising Jewish nationalism, the RSS leader tions with other Asian countries, including In-
temple there. of the PSP along with JP, Kripalani, and Lohia, M.S. Golwalkar said: “Palestine is the natural dia, Israel attended the first Asian Socialist
“Many things of history have to be digest- raised the issue of cooperation with Israel in territory of the Jewish people, which is essen- Conference (ASC) held in Rangoon in January
ed... in the same way Israel, if you think about the Constituent Assembly debates several tial for their aspirations of nationhood.” 1953. Several Indian socialists had a prominent “Socialists in
it, Israel cannot be destroyed without killing times between March 1949 and December role in organising this conference. (India and Israel have
15-20 lakh Jews. Many communities have said 1949. On each occasion, Prime Minister Jawa- .V. Kamath claimed that India’s the Middle East by Prithvi Ram Mudiam, Brit-
that we will fight till the last drop of blood, but
there has not been such a community in histo-
ry till now and probably never will be. But if
harlal Nehru clarified that cooperation with Is-
rael was not possible due to the policy in place
since Gandhi’s time, which was to cooperate
H policy towards Arabs was not due to
any love for the Arabs but was polit-
ically motivated and this exposed India’s du-
ish Academic Press, 1994)
In November 1959, the PSP hosted the se-
cond edition of the ASC at the its silver jubilee
come to power
only a few
years ago. But
there is any community that can reach that le- with Palestine. plicity. Raising this issue in the Lok Sabha on conference in Bombay. Mapai sent a large de- they have been
vel, then it is this Israeli.” (Lok Sabha main Lo- Albert Einstein wrote a four-page letter to April 17, 1964, he said that India ought to have legation led by former Prime Minister and Fo- carrying
hia, Volume 15, pages 234-242) Nehru in June 1947 to persuade India to sup- more sympathy for Israel than for the Arab-Is- reign Minister Moshe Sharett. After Sharett
forward the
port the establishment of Israel, a request that raeli conflict. It is also worth mentioning that spoke in praise of the PSP, the next speaker, JP,
Nehru politely ignored. Moreover, India voted apart from the RSS and the Jana Sangh, parties returned the compliment, saying: “Socialists work of
against the United Nations Palestine Partition like the PSP, the SSP, and the Swatantra Party in Israel have come to power only a few years constructive
Plan of 1947 and Israel’s entry into the UN. were among those who openly supported Is- ago. But they have been carrying forward the socialism for
Albert Einstein wrote a four-page letter to On the other hand, in 1949, various suppor- rael. Workers of the Jana Sangh were even gi- work of constructive socialism for decades. decades.”
ters of Hindu nationalism supported the crea- ven political training in Israel. Their Kibbutz... are an example of how the so-
Jawaharlal Nehru in June 1947 to persuade India tion of Israel and expressed their solidarity Through the 1950s, Mapai, Israel’s ruling cialist movement has really done constructive
to support the establishment of Israel, a request with it. The Hindu Mahasabha leader V.D. Sa- political party, maintained close relations with Rammanohar Lohia
that Nehru politely ignored. varkar supported the creation of Israel on the PSP. Members of both parties were asso-  Indian socialist leader

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

74 HISTORY

country’s interests with Israel should remain

as they are at present.”

fter this episode, the PSP and the

A SSP intensified their advocacy for nor-

mal relations with Israel. The PSP
even mentioned the need for India to build
friendly ties with Israel in its election manifes-
to in October 1966. (Janata Volume 21, No. 39,
October 16, 1966; West Asia and India’s Foreign
Policy by Verinder Grover, 1992: page 503)
After the merger of the PSP and the SSP in
1972 and the formation of the Socialist Party
with Fernandes as president, a high-ranking
delegation of Israeli labour leaders, including
the Deputy General Secretary and Israel’s Con-
sul-General in Bombay, met the socialist lead-
ers in the Hind Mazdoor Panchayat office in
Bombay on October 20.
work there.” (Janata, November 22, 1959) 왔 When Fernandes was Defence Minister in
In February 1966, Israeli President Zalman George Fernandes Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s National Democratic Al-
Shazar made a brief stopover at Calcutta en addressing a press liance government from 1998-2004, this poli-
route to a state visit to Kathmandu. The Indian conference in New cy of cooperation with Israel continued; sev-
government did not extend him the usual offi- Delhi on June 26, eral agreements for purchasing weapons from
cial protocol since it was a private visit. The is- 1998. Several Israel were signed. At the same time, his rela-
sue erupted into a controversy in Parliament. agreements for tionship with the Socialist International, too,
Led by H.V. Kamath, who called an attention purchasing weapons endured. Even today, some of Fernandes’ dis-
motion in the Lok Sabha on March 24, 1966, from Israel were ciples travel abroad to promote Israel’s inter-
the MPs of the PSP and the SSP vociferously signed when ests through the International Union of Social-
protested the lack of a courtesy reception to Fernandes was ist Youth, the youth wing of the Socialist
Shazar. Defence Minister in International, although the Socialist Interna-
Lohia demanded: “When India has given the NDA government. tional itself has stayed away from making pu-
de jure recognition to Israel, what is the stand THE HINDU ARCHIVES blic statements in support of Israel.
of the Indian government from a legal point of Both JP and Lohia were considered the
view? Can the President of a respected coun- blue-eyed boys of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru
try be prevented from meeting the citizens of during the Indian national movement. Inter-
other countries?” Deputy Foreign Minister Di- estingly, it was Lohia who drafted the Indian
nesh Singh responded: “We did not stop any National Congress’ foreign policy in 1936 when
welcome. I have already said that we do not he served as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs
have diplomatic relations with Israel, but we during Nehru’s presidency. While it is perplex-
have given it legal recognition. Diplomatic rela- ing why JP and Lohia, along with their col-
tions with countries are made according to the leagues, extended support to Israel shortly af-
interests of the country. We believe that our ter Gandhi’s assassination, their stance may be
attributed to a deliberate opposition to Nehru
and the Congress, coupled with their affinity
to right-wing parties such as the Bharatiya Jana
Sangh and the Swatantra Party. Either way,
In June 1967, when Israel fought the Six Day War and their support of Israel remained steadfast. 왎
illegally occupied a large part of Palestine,
Qurban Ali is a senior journalist who is currently
George Fernandes formed an organisation called documenting the history of the socialist movement
“Friends of Israel” aimed at drumming up public in India.
support for the Zionist regime.

FRONTLINE
 Science

왔
GETTY IMAGES

LOSING
STEM
While India boasts of a 40 per cent enrolment of women
in STEM fields, they make up only 16 per cent of faculty positions.
What is pushing them out? DIVYA GANDHI

U
ma’s (name changed) academic track re- She was never told why. But she speculates
cord was what any scientist would dream about the reason. “I was the first woman at the
of: she completed her PhD in molecular institute to take maternity leave. And while I
biology and continued her career after was not told explicitly by the administration
marriage, becoming an assistant profes- that this was the reason, I got to learn of this
sor at a central university in north-east- through the grapevine,” she told Frontline. She
ern India. Here, she set up a laboratory from scratch. followed her husband, a civil service officer,
When her baby was born, her supportive colleagues and on his postings: first to Ladakh, “where there
neighbours took turns to take care of him. Then came the were no opportunities in my field”, then to
glitch: Uma was on contract and when the time came to Lucknow, where she worked as a research as-
make her post permanent, her name was left out. This was
despite her important contributions to the institute. 
DECEMBER 13, 2024
76 SCIENCE

sistant for two years, and later to Goa, where

she applied to teach at a high school. “But I
was told I was over-qualified.” The pandemic
dealt the final blow to her career. “I immersed
myself in raising my son, his homework and
athletics training.” But Uma has not lost hope.
“Maybe, by the time my son is grown up, there
will be opportunities to re-enter scientific re-
search,” she said.
Uma has found a mentor in Madhura Kul-
karni, a molecular geneticist and senior scien-
tist who set up the Tumor Microenvironment
Lab at the Centre for Translational Cancer Re-
search, Pune. Madhura has been encouraging 왔 Over the past decade, the number of women
Uma, her friend, to return to research. Madh- Women in STEM completing PhDs had jumped by 107 per cent,
ura would know the extraordinarily fraught in India have he added. Belying this success story, however,
career paths women scientists must negotiate. reported facing are troubling statistics that indicate that le-
With a postdoctorate from Harvard Medical everyday sexism gions of qualified women scientists are under-
School and a work stint in Singapore, Madhura and discrimination represented in the scientific workforce, a gen-
bagged a Department of Biotechnology “re- by colleagues and der gap that widens as they move up the
entry” fellowship (gender-neutral) to return to superiors. academic hierarchy. A paper published in Na-
India, where she now focusses on breast can- GETTY IMAGES ture earlier this year found that women made
cer. “But I had to convince my mother every up a mere 16.7 per cent of the STEM faculty in
step of the way,” Madhura told Frontline. India. And in the country’s top eight insti-
“There was pressure not to pursue computer tutes—the Indian Institute of Science, the Tata
science, my first choice. Then the pressure to Institute for Fundamental Research, and six
leave the workforce after my baby was born.” IITs—women’s representation was even lower,
Her career trajectory could have “moved fas- at 10 per cent. Certain fields are more “socially
ter” without these social expectations, she ad- acceptable” for women in science, the authors
ded. “Had it not been in my nature to fight found: biology, for instance, considered a “soft
back from a young age and push through, I science”, had a higher proportion of women
probably would not have made it so far.” faculty, at 22.5 per cent, while engineering had
the lowest share, at 8.3 per cent.
he talks of women scientists she has The authors Shruti Muralidhar and Vaish-

S met who have had to make dramatic

compromises in their careers: for in-
stance, a PhD from Mumbai who worked with
navi Ananthanarayanan surveyed 98 universi-
ties and institutes across the country and
looked at seven different fields: biology, math-
HIV patients, known for her pathbreaking ematics, earth sciences, physics, computer
“Most
work on genotypes—which she never pu- science, chemistry, and engineering. Among
blished—now works as a nutritionist; a Cana- women female faculty, they observed a decline in re-
da-educated plant scientist who now works in scientists… presentation as their seniority grew: 46.3 per
the horticulture field. “But at least these wo- are usually cent were in the early stages of their career,
men have figured out means to use their time fearful of 27.5 per cent were mid-career, and just 26.2
and intellect,” she said. per cent had reached the senior career bench-
Meanwhile, Madhura continues to find a
being vocal mark. The authors found other areas of their
way towards a leadership position “where my and visible under-representation. As many as 26 per cent
voice will count and I can reach and empower in calling out of 124 science conferences documented bet-
a larger community”. systemic ween August 2021 and March 2023 had zero
Earlier this year, the Chairman of the Un- inequities,” women speakers. Of these, an astonishing 83
iversity Grants Commission announced that per cent of chemistry conferences had no wo-
India had set a world record with a 40 per cent
says a men speakers at all.
enrolment of women in STEM fields (science, Nature When the authors reached out to women
technology, engineering, and mathematics). paper. scientists, they found they “face multiple in-

FRONTLINE
 SCIENCE 왘 LOSING STEM 77

surmountable barriers during their career added: “It’s too early to take risks as I’m yet to
progression that result in them quitting STEM As many break into the system. This would destroy my
academia for other careers and ventures”. A career.”
major point of this attrition happens during
as 26 per While women continue to fight their way
the transition from postdoctorate to a faculty cent of into the workspace, there needs to be an insti-
member position, which coincides with the 124 science tutional “shake-up”, Jayaraj told Frontline.
social pressure to start a family, they add. conferences “Everyday sexism and discrimination by col-
Karishma Kaushik, a physician and clinical documented leagues and superiors are still routinely ex-
microbiologist, corroborated this. Marriage cused, and sexual harassment prevention pro-
and motherhood “coincide with when women
between tocols are not understood and enforced. If
begin seeking their first real jobs after student 2021 and these factors don’t directly push women off
life, such as faculty or scientist positions. Ma- 2023 had the ladder, they discourage women from at-
ternity leave also means time away from work zero women tempting to climb it.”
or the need to reintegrate into the workforce speakers. Jayaraj, importantly, points out that policies
(while managing multiple home and child-re- that attempt to benefit women scientists must
lated responsibilities).” And when they do ap-
Of these, an move beyond those “who are already socially
ply for a job, “they are likely to be perceived as astonishing privileged” to “those who belong to multiple
employees who will be applying for long leave, 83 per cent marginalisations”. After all, “having a panel
such as maternity or childcare leave”. of chemistry with 50-50 upper-caste men and upper-caste
women is as bad as having a 100 per cent all-
conferences
arishma pointed to the “chicken male panel”, she said. “Also, intersectional as-

K and egg problem” for women scien-

tists: the lack of role models. “Fewer
women making it up the ladder means fewer
had no
women
speakers
pects of gender issues in science have to be ad-
dressed right now, not later.”
As early as 2010, Rohini Godbole—the not-
women to follow, fewer women to lead other at all. ed physicist and champion for women in
women, and so fewer women will make it up science, who passed away this October—co-
the ladder.” authored a report titled “Trained Scientific
Worryingly, says the Nature paper: “Most Women Power: How Much Are We Losing and
women scientists… are usually fearful of being Why?”. Some 568 women and 226 men with a
vocal and visible in calling out systemic inequi- PhD in science, engineering, and medicine (in-
ties. Especially in Indian STEM academia, such cluding those unemployed) were surveyed.
an outspoken attitude costs women in terms of Most women in research said that “family
grants, collaborations, goodwill, and career-ad- responsibilities” forced them to drop out of
vancing steps such as promotions.” The paper science. Then came disenabling organisation-
also points to senior women faculty leaving al factors: lack of flexibility in timings; discrim-
academia due to “toxic workplace climates”. inatory work practices; lack of enough women
Lab Hopping: A Journey to Find India’s Wo- colleagues, mentors, and role models; and
men in Science, co-authored by Nandita Jaya- harassment.
raj, a science communicator, documents the However, the report concluded that poli-
journeys of hundreds of women scientists cies to retain women in research need nuance:
around the country, negotiating the “old boys’ “the myth of ‘one size fits all’ accepted by
club” that is the world of science in India. In science policymakers” needs questioning. But
one chapter, “A Hush-Hush Culture”, most of the first step to retaining women in science is
the scientists they quote tellingly wanted to data: beginning with the number of Indian wo-
stay anonymous. One mid-career woman men PhDs in science. “An important move in
scientist told the authors: “Gender bias is this direction will be to build on the existing
worse in India, and not even subtle, not with database created by the IAS [The Indian Aca-
some dinosaurs controlling the top positions. demy of Sciences]… targeting [its] completion
We have to be soft enough to qualify as a ‘good within one year’s time.”
woman’ but hard enough to fight for our It is 2024. And we still have no such data-
space.” She spoke to the authors about every- base—a basic first step that could help scien-
day sexism: “At a meeting, I was consistently tists like Uma, who waits at home hoping to re-
called beta [son] by a senior scientist.” But she turn to her microscope one day. 왎

DECEMBER 13, 2024

78
Science Notebook SCIENCE NOTEBOOK 79

Good news smaller than ozone holes seen in the

early 2000s,” said Paul Newman,
limbal ring, is the source for limbal stem
cells, which have the ability to regenerate
about leader of NASA’s ozone research
team. The improvement is
the entire corneal epithelium, the thin layer
covering the cornea. But damage to the
Antarctic’s due to a combination of
continuing reductions in
limbus, which can be due to autoimmune
diseases, trauma, genetic disorders, or
ozone harmful CFCs, along with
an unexpected infusion
cancer, can lead to deficiency in these stem
cells. This medical condition is known as
hole of ozone carried by air limbus stem cell deficiency (LSCD), and it
currents from north of causes scarring of corneal tissues, which
EVEN as the goal of the Antarctic, the eventually leads to blindness.
limiting global NASA release said. Typically, LSCD is treated using corneal
warming to below 1.5° Researchers rely on cells derived from stem cells obtained from
C by the turn of the a combination of the patient’s healthy eye, a surgical
century does not seem systems to monitor the procedure with uncertain results. When
achievable, there is ozone layer, including both eyes are affected, the option is similar
some news to cheer instruments on NASA’s transplants from eyes donated by the dead.
about. Aura satellite, the NOAA-20 However, frequently these are rejected by
During the peak of ozone and NOAA-21 satellites, and the patient’s immune system.
depletion season this the Suomi National Now, in a first-of-its-kind trial, Kohji
year—from September 7 to Polar-orbiting Partnership Nishida, an ophthalmologist at Osaka
October 13—the ozone hole was satellite, jointly operated by NASA University, and his colleagues turned to
ranked the seventh smallest since and the NOAA. induced pluripotent stem cell
recovery began in 1992, when the NOAA scientists also release (iPSC)-derived corneal epithelial cell sheets
Montreal Protocol, a landmark instrumented weather balloons from the as the source to generate corneal cells that
international agreement to phase out South Pole Baseline Atmospheric could be used as transplants.
ozone-depleting chemicals, the 왔 Observatory to observe ozone The technique of creating embryonic
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), began to take A map showing concentrations directly overhead in a stem cells like iPSCs from somatic cells was
effect. The ozone-rich layer high in the the size and measurement called Dobson units. The invented and perfected by the Nobel
atmosphere acts as a planetary sunscreen shape of the lowest value ever recorded over the South laureate Shinya Yamanaka over a decade
that helps shield the earth from harmful UV ozone hole over Pole was 92 Dobson units in October 2006. ago (see Frontline May 18, 2012, and June 01,
radiation from the sun. the South Pole on The 2024 concentration reached its lowest 2012). Since his pioneering efforts, several
Sources of CFCs include coolants in September 28, the value of 109 Dobson units on October 5. trials have been ongoing the world over in 왔
refrigerators and air conditioners and day of its annual “That is well below the 225 Dobson units using iPSCs to treat intractable anatomical Slit-lamp microscopic photographs of all four
aerosols in hairspray, antiperspirant, and maximum extent, that was typical of the ozone cover above the disorders. One of the first trials that treated eyes before and 52 weeks after
spray paint. Harmful chemicals are also as calculated by Antarctic in 1979,” said NOAA research Yamanaka himself did involved treating iPSC-derived corneal epithelial cell sheet
released while manufacturing insulating the NASA Ozone chemist Bryan Johnson. “So, there’s still a age-related macular degeneration, a transplantation. THE LANCET/TAKESHI SOMA ET AL.
foams and components for industrial fire Watch team. long way to go before atmospheric ozone is medical condition that results in loss of
suppression systems. Ozone “hole” is back to the levels before the advent of vision in the centre of the visual field (the
But the CFCs already in the air will take the area in which widespread CFC pollution.” macula) because of damage to the retina. immunosuppressant drugs, and notably,
many decades to break down. As existing ozone In the Osaka University trial, four soon after the transplants, a significant
CFC levels gradually decline, the ozone in concentrations participants, two women and two men improvement was seen in the vision of all
the upper atmosphere will rebound globally, drop below the aged between 39 and 72 with severely four recipients and a decrease in the
and ozone holes will shrink. Scientists with historical Vision restored impaired corneas due to LSCD in both eyes, corneal area affected by LSCD. While the
NASA and the US’ National Oceanic and threshold of 220 were enrolled between June 2019 and improvements persisted in all, one
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) project Dobson units. in four in Japan November 2020 and observed for 52 weeks recipient showed slight reversals in the first
claim that the ozone layer could fully recover NASA EARTH after the transplants. Over a further 52-week period.
by 2066. OBSERVATORY/ after stem cell 52-week period, the participants were The researchers plan to begin clinical
The monthly average ozone-depleted monitored for adverse events. None of trials in March to assess the treatment’s
implants
LAUREN DAUPHIN

region in the Antarctic this year was about them experienced serious side effects. The efficacy. Their work was reported in a
20 million km2. The hole reached its greatest THE corneal limbus is the border between grafts did not show any signs of rejection by recent issue of The Lancet.
one-day extent on September 28 at 22.4 the cornea and the sclera (the white of the the hosts’ immune system even in the two
million km2. “The 2024 Antarctic hole is eye). The dark ring around the iris, the who were not administered Compiled by R. Ramachandran

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

 81

Photo Essay

Inked
Veils
Among the women of the Kutia
Kandha, a Primitive Vulnerable
Tribal Group in Odisha, the practice
of tattooing faces began as a
defensive measure to prevent their
capture by other tribes. Although
it later became a part of their identity
and culture, it has now nearly faded
away with the Internet introducing
younger generations to new
standards of beauty.

Text and photographs by Udit Kulshreshtha

“Why do the ladies have tattoos on their faces,

Pitku?” “In older times, stronger tribes would
attack and take our women,” Pitku said.

T
he Kutia Kandha are a
major section of the
Particularly Vulnerable
Tribal Group (PVTG)
Kandha that speak the Kui
and kuvi Dravidian
languages. They identify themselves as
Kuienju and reside in the hills of southern
Odisha. They are one of the most ancient


DECEMBER 13, 2024
82 PHOTO ESSAY PHOTO ESSAY 왘 INKED VEILS 83

indigenous PVTG that have retained their

characteristic sociocultural features.
The name Kutia Kandha is derived from
and refers to the practice of their house floor
being about 2 feet below the level of the
village road. This low-lying floor of the house
is known as “Kutti”. This gave this indigenous
tribal group the identity of being
Kutti-dwellers, or Kutia Kandha.
During a recce in Odisha, I chanced upon
the Kandha tribal village while scouting for
indigenous women to photograph for a
jewellery campaign. Their faces tattooed with
geometrical designs pulled me in.
The tradition of facial tattooing, while born
out of the need to appear unappealing to


FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024
84 PHOTO ESSAY

Around age 12-16, the girls of the

Kutia Kandha tribe get tattooed.
Most of the time, it is a family
member or friend who
undertakes the task of drawing.

enemies such as the stronger rival tribes

and the British (pre-Independence), in time
became an aspect of cultural and individual
identity for the women of the Kutia Kandha
indigenous people. Virtue is valued among
the Kutia Kandhas, and it is considered a sin
in this simplistic and shy society if a women
gets pregnant before marriage.
Around age 12-16, the girls get tattooed.
Most of the time, it is a family member or
friend who undertakes the task. Local herbs
and plants from the neighbouring forests
are collected to make the permanent inks,
and specific wood and thorns are chiselled
as tools for the tattooing. In later years,
indelible black ink made from the char on
the bottom of cooking utensils was used.
The face would often swell up and the
injuries would bleed a lot. Sometimes the
girls would get infections on their faces, but
the reapplication of the black colour again
over a few days, which would make the
tattoos permanent, was inevitable.
Over the past three decades, this
tradition, deeply rooted in identity and
culture, has been abandoned. The rise of
television, mobile technology, and the
Internet culture has introduced new beauty
standards, connecting this once-isolated
indigenous tribe to neighbouring societies
and external influences. Even the earthen
utensils that were once used to prepare and
store the inks have been replaced with brass
and steel ones. Along with these customs,
the indigenous knowledge and expertise
about the forests is also nearly lost, as it
rests in the hands of the few. 왎

Udit Kulshrestha is the author of Darwaze, a photobook

on his early years as a photographer. Based out of Agra
and New Delhi, he is also the co-founder of Chitr
Sanstha, a non-profit foundation for photography.

FRONTLINE
 왘 Kumar
Shahani is
described as a
self-consciously
avant-garde
filmmaker.
S. ANANDAN

Tribute

THE SINGULAR
PURSUIT OF
MULTILINGUALITY
86 TRIBUTE TRIBUTE 왘 THE SINGULAR PURSUIT OF MULTILINGUALITY 87

Crafted like a series of paintings connected at a level of abstraction the film), the windows, the walls and corri-
dors, and the switchboards, with the camera Kumar’s articulation, for example, of the
that is difficult to grasp, Kumar Shahani’s films are not for everyone. finally focussing on the black patches on the
walls and taking the viewer to the window and
multilinguality of the movements of different parts
But the subtle visuals and non-spoken auditory language of his work of the body and the total body as a unique creation
door covered with bamboo blinds (Dewan Sa-
leave lasting impressions on the discerning viewer. RAMA KANT AGNIHOTRI hib’s room as we learn later). All these images of nature remains unparalleled in cinematic history.
have specific, nuanced associations with the
narrative and the interplay of the feudal with
the industrial, and indeed with the life of Ta-

I
am no film critic. I have had the pri- and puffing, handloom shafts moving in a ran, the central character. Taran’s bua is intro- tap nor the water; one only hears the sound of
vilege of being Kumar Shahani’s rhythm (in a greater part of the film, the sourc- duced, sitting on the bed in a white sari, the water. The sources of the birds’ songs are also
friend for over 20 years and have es of sound will remain separated from the camera focussed on her back as one gets a hidden. Taran’s straight-spined walk, her bua,
seen almost all his well-known sound itself ), yet the sounds in different pitch fleeting glimpse of Taran, who in a shot few se- the tap, the corridors, the walls, the room with
films. I also had the privilege of and intonation keep returning. The camera conds apart, wakes up, moves towards the the bamboo blinds will all return again and
talking to him about his films. He moves carefully around the decayed feudal window, and then outside to the tap to wash again.
was deeply interested in the nuances of lan- 왔 building as Vani Jayaram sings aa jaa rii nindi- her face. Note that this shot could have been
guage, its sounds and words, its phrases, and yaa. One notices the clothesline (where, in a taken from any angle to show Taran, the tap, here is a formalism here, not just of

T
On the set of
its syntax. He was sensitive to the use of sibi- Kasba with crucial sequence, Taran’s bua [aunt] will be and the water, but it is shot with the camera fo- symbols and structures,, and not just
lants and regretted the disappearance of the K.K. Mahajan. seen spreading out clothes for drying later in cussed on Taran’s back. One neither sees the of colour, sounds, and movement but
subjunctive from human languages. He re- almost the kind one associates with geometry.
garded language as constitutive of his commit- When I use the term multilinguality in the con-
ment to his unique cinematic idiom. Multiver- text of Kumar’s films, I do not simply mean
sal in its articulation, his cinema is equally fluidity among human languages and paralin-
sensitive to the visual and the auditory, to the guistic features, which is indeed central. It has
human body, dance, drama, spectacle, paint- three parameters: the innate universal cogni-
ing, architecture, sculpture, nature, poetry, tive and aesthetic space we are born with; its
and music. Since his demise on February 24, articulation in a diversity of forms, including
2024, I have watched most of his films again, language, music, dance, painting, architec-
sometimes several portions frame by frame. ture, sculpture, spectacle, and the erotic; and
As December 7, his birthday, approaches, I re- thirdly a fluidity among these that is some-
flect on his work. times carefully crafted and sometimes just left
It is not easy to watch Kumar’s films. They open to the viewer’s interpretation. What
are not entertainment, action, or romance binds these together is Kumar’s concern for
movies. Most people apologetically remark: the human condition, where violence and op-
“It is good. But very slow. I do not really under- pression betray his anxieties.
stand the film. There is no story, no action. It Not just Maya Darpan but Tarang (1984),
just does not move.” His films move frame by Khayal Gatha (1989), Kasba (1990), Bhavanta-
frame like a series of paintings connected at a rana (1991), Char Adhyay (1997), and Bamboo
level of abstraction that is not easy to grasp; Flute (2000), among others, also show the for-
one must watch a Kumar film with the pa- mal magic he could create through abstract
tience, dedication, and commitment it de- negotiation of the four dimensions mentioned
mands. Each shot is carefully crafted, and the above.
motifs keep returning during the course of the To the best of my knowledge, Kumar’s artic-
film, becoming an essential part of its move- ulation, for example, of the multilinguality of
ment and narrative. the movements of different parts of the body
In his much-talked about debut, Maya Dar- and the total body as a unique creation of na-
pan (1972), as the credits roll up, the camera ture remains unparalleled in cinematic histo-
carefully introduces us to the lacklustre disco- ry. Very often in his films, the camera focusses
loured walls of the feudal mansion where a on just the arms and hands or legs and feet of
substantial part of the film is located with an an actor. He delivers speech, sometimes subtle
incredible mixing of sound in the background; and quiet, sometimes loud and clear, through
it is impossible to figure out what the sounds
are or their source: maybe trains screeching 
FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024
88 TRIBUTE TRIBUTE 왘 THE SINGULAR PURSUIT OF MULTILINGUALITY 89

tense but unarticulated longing. She

walks statue-like through the corridors of
the decaying feudal mansion—straight,
speechless, the camera often focussed on
her back. Her suffocation and repression
in the patriarchal world are articulated
through both her silence and the music,
sounds, and poetry in the background.
The intense poetry in the background tells
us that she walks lonely across the sun
and soil. She makes several attempts to
talk to her father about her loneliness, but
she is scared and aborts the dialogue each
time (the bamboo blinds return in a telling
fashion). Finally, she enters the room and
with great hesitation and effort manages
to seat herself on the edge of the sofa.
The short dialogue is at cross purposes.
Her father says: “You don’t like it here, Ta- cal and earthly, colour and whiteness, and
ran.” For Taran’s response, the camera fo- dance, music, and sculpture is seen in
cusses on her hands and feet, her fears most of Kumar’s films.
and restlessness expressed through her Trains, trams, tracks, buses, and carts
wringing hands and nails, and the drag- appear in many of Kumar’s films; they are
ging of her feet under her saree, an action integral to the characters and the narra-
she repeats throughout the film. Dewan tive. Taran often walks along the railway
sahib tells her not to worry about him and tracks, walking across the sun and soil.
go to her brother, saying it will make her Through the engineer’s literacy classes
the movement of different body parts, as well 왔 hamstring and thigh and calf muscles. It is the feel better. and the walking along the tracks, the film
as with colours and music. Bhavantarana, Most of Kumar movement of these muscles that conveys to announces the beginnings of what the ar-
which is a tribute to the finest exponent of the viewer the rhythm of the hammer and chi- he turns to her bua, who is hang- rival of literacy, industry, and a road net-

S
Shahani’s films
Odissi, Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, opens were based on sel. This short sequence brings to life Kumar’s ing up clothes to dry. The aunt work is likely to do. There is not much that
with the sounds of rock being cut, and one great works of synaesthetic control on the visual and the aud- starts a long monologue; she also can be called “dialogue” in the traditional
soon watches the dedication to the Guru fol- literature, by ible; shapes and shadows, colour and space, tells Taran to go wherever she wants, rea- sense; it is the expressionless and speech-
lowed by a frame showing A.K. Ramanujan’s Rabindranath stillness and movement. This visual language lising her frustration and the indifference less movements that speak through the
translation of the Kannada poet Mahadeviyak- Tagore, Anton is carried on through the muscles of the arms; and arrogance of the Dewan sahib. She frames.
ka’s lines: Chekhov, and finally, one sees the back moving against the tells Taran: “What are you doing here any- Stylised walking does most of the talk-
Breath for fragrance, Nirmal Verma. rock back and forth before, through a shot that way, day and night, night and day?” Taran ing. There are no facial expressions, even
who needs flowers? A still from pans across lush nature, one sees a sculpture- is quiet throughout this monologue. The during conversations in the courtyard,
The camera zeroes in on yellow rocks and a Khayal Gatha. like shape (focussed on the ear) on a tree- aunt is the one talking, but the camera is there is no sustained discussion, just com-
moving shadow on them before one sees a trunk, and finally a short Odissi performance focussed on Taran, her response captured ments passed on the old and present sit-
bent knee, the focus on the back muscles of with music and poetry. Kumar’s genius brings through her bangled arms, which she uation. Taran’s helplessness and her
the thigh and tibia. The hammer and chisel are together sculpture, music, poetry, and dance, keeps pulling up and down, lost in deep struggle with nothingness is seen in her
still not visible; the story of stone-cutting is and the oral and the written through the multi- thought; the sounds of her bangles click- dusting the chairs again and again in the
told through the contraction and release of the linguality of the human body, its parts, and na- ing becoming the background of bua’s film. It is never explicitly stated but the
ture. Kumar was intensely in love with the hu- monologue. Once again, one notices the contradictions between decaying feudal-
man body and mind, and equally worried subtle multilinguality of the limbs. Taran ism, sustained patriarchy, and industriali-
about the precarious human condition. seems to have taken a decision to free her- sation are played out through the mind
Taran is the only one who has a name in self, as she pulls her bangles up and and body of Taran. She finally reaches out
This celebration of silence and speech, stillness Maya Darpan. The others we see are her fath- down. Dressed in deep purple, she runs to the engineer, but their yearning and ful-
er—the Dewan sahib (always in white, authori- towards the railway track as if to embrace filment is again captured mostly through a
and movement, the lyrical and earthly, colour tarian), her bua (always in white, loving), her liberty, her body saying what no words focus on their feet and slippers.
and whiteness, and dance, music and sculpture brother in Assam (never seen in the film), and could. This celebration of silence and
is seen in most of Kumar’s films. the young engineer for whom Taran has an in- speech, stillness and movement, the lyri- 
FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024
 90

was to make a 35 mm epic-musical of ap-

proximately 90 minutes, with the focus
on the making of the Constitution, its pre-
mises, and the highly civilised and scho-
larly discussions that took place in the
Constituent Assembly debates to ensure
that the individual and institutions func-
tion in harmony with each other to main-
tain India’s cultural and linguistic
diversity.

his film was to enable the peo-

T ple and landscapes of India to

speak for themselves—without
being trapped inside polarising ideologi-
cal dogmas—using the cinematic medium,
which brings together oral and visual ele-
ments of democratic discourse. The pro-
posal was submitted to the European Un-
ion in 2003 through the Vidya Bhawan
Society, Udaipur, Rajasthan. When, after
several months, Vidya Bhawan was asked
for its account number, we thought we
had got the funding. Why the project
왘 Bhavantarana is a tribute to the finest exponent slipped between the cup and the lip, we
of Odissi, Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. have no idea.
We turned to it again in 2022, when Ha-
riharan Krishnan and Vasantha Surya also
The Chhau dance coda in the film re- joined us. More than ever before, Kumar
mains the most memorable statement of said, a film on the values enshrined in the
multilinguality in cinematic history. Constitution is urgently needed.
Maya Darpan was a lyric in which Ku- We helplessly watched the oppression
mar had to “counterpoint the demands of of social movements not only in India but
the metrical structure to the fluidity of across the world. We watched several acti-
life”. The syntax of colours had a trans- vists, including Stan Swamy, Sudha Bha-
cultural grammar for Kumar. The red and radwaj, Varavara Rao, Anand Teltumbde,
the green symbolised fertility while the Gautam Navlakha, Rona Wilson, Arun Fer-
orange and the blue encapsulated fire and reira, Hany Babu, and Shoma Sen, get ar-
water. rested. When Gauri Lankesh was shot
Kumar’s characters are often framed dead on September 5, 2017, we looked at
against doors and windows, with trains each other with empty, blank eyes.
passing by behind or in front of them. Across the globe too, the dignity of the
There is a synchronisation of the dimen- individual was in a precarious state as
sions of aesthetics, multilinguality, and so- both freedom of speech and freedom of
cial concerns in most of Kumar’s films. assembly were being increasingly denied.
The formal and the fluid merge effortless- But the film did not get made. Kumar left
ly. The world would soon see it again in us in February this year, and with his pass-
Priye Charushile (2019), a film Kumar ing, all hopes of having a Kumar film on
could not himself see in its entirety. the Constitution disappeared. 왎
Around 2002, Kumar began to plan a
film on the Constitution of India in asso- Rama Kant Agnihotri retired from Delhi University
ciation with his partner Rimli and me. and is currently Professor Emeritus with the Vidya
That film was spelt out in detail. The aim Bhawan Society, Udaipur.

FRONTLINE
 Column | Counter Culture 91

The neutrality
just its unwillingness to let Indians see
No Other Land but also in the National
Film Development Corporation’s de-
cision to host an Israel Film Festival in

blindfold Mumbai. An online signature cam-

paign, with over a thousand signa-
tures, including of Naseeruddin Shah,
Ratna Pathak Shah, and Anand Pat-
We need a new language to speak of new despairs. wardhan, led to the cancellation of
the festival. Some have asked, was
Films like No Other Land need to be screened, felt, this act of public mobilisation one of
raged at, to see what emerges apart from that rage. censorship, too?
Censorship comes from power, but
at the root of this power is fear. That
the thing being censored, if let loose,

A
film that is censored is a film will threaten power. The power could
Prathyush Parasuraman
that is celebrated—because be over a sexual-social economy, it
the state today is such that to could be sociopolitical—the state is al-
be a thorn in its side is to ways afraid; the public is always made
bloom. When No Other Land, to be afraid. Therein lies the diffe-
the documentary by Palesti- rence. To boycott is not to censor be-
nian activist Basel Adra and the Israeli journalist cause to censor is to be afraid.
Yuval Abraham, was denied permission to be

A
screened at both the MAMI Mumbai Film Festiv- nd why would the state not
al and the Dharamshala International Film Fes- be afraid of a film like No Oth-
tival (DIFF)—despite initially being announced as er Land. It is impossible to
part of the line-up—the government’s refusal to emerge from it not wanting to erase
give the required censor exemption only drew the colonial institution that is Israel.
us closer to it. At DIFF, a fragment of the film, of Set in Masafer Yatta, a hamlet in West
an Israeli bulldozer crushing a Palestinian Bank, we see how members of the Is-
home, was played as part of the opening trailer rael Defense Forces (IDF) and armed
before every film, a ringing reminder of what we Israeli settlers walk into this land with
would not be seeing. bulldozers, court documents, guns,
The film has already caused a stir at the Berli- and that colonial arrogance to crum-
nale, where it premiered earlier this year. Ger- ple houses, send families to caves that
many’s Minister of State for Culture insisted that they have made habitable with an
she only clapped for the Israeli, and not the Pal- electric connection to fuel their televi-
estinian, filmmaker, both of whom won one of sion. In 2022, over a thousand occu-
the major awards at the festival’s closing cere- pants of the villages in Masafer Yatta
mony. The film became a fault line in German were ordered to leave because the Is-
public discourse that is still trying and failing to raeli military wanted the area to con-
extricate anti-Semitism from anti-Zionism; they duct their training in.
do not yet know how to think of the anti-Israel The Palestinians’ mornings are
posture as anything but genocidal as they are spent tending to the intuition in the
unable to see the Jewish figure as anything but a stomach that their lives will be bull-
victim of history. dozed. Their nights are spent tending
In his acceptance speech, Abraham called to an itch in the heart that they will be
the Israeli occupation “apartheid” and spoke arrested for protesting this bulldoz-
movingly of how, despite living only 30 minutes ing. The film thrums with anxiety, ex-
apart, his Palestinian friend and he do not enjoy istential anxiety in the larger and
the same rights—to vote, to move, to protest. smaller sense. Men are shot point-
India’s increasing tilt towards Israel, especial-
ly in the realm of culture, was apparent in not 

DECEMBER 13, 2024

92 COLUMN

blank, rendered paralysed, with their

movements, both geographic and
physical, shrunk. When Adra’s father,
also an activist, is arrested, he won-
ders if he needs to stop his activism
and succumb.
When Adra speaks to Abraham
about his impatience to solve the cri-
sis, he utters one of the most poignant
lines in the film: “Get used to failing;
you’re a loser.” But such is the film,
such is their life, that even the near
impossibility of success does not deter
the body from protesting, from ex-
pressing anguish. To protest is not ne-
cessarily to provoke change but to
keep expressing oneself until one day
the possibility of provoked change be-
comes imaginable.
Later, when Adra runs behind IDF
soldiers with his camera, he screams,
“I’m filming you,” like a battle cry. The
archive here is not just a place to doc-
ument the abuse but also a refuge
from a world where victory is im- 왔 troversial piece on suicide bombers,
plausible, perhaps impossible. What The Palestinian director Basel Adra “Deadly Embrace”, in London Review
do you do when you know loss is inev- (left) and the Israeli director Yuval of Books: “When life is constant degra-
itable? As Abraham says: “I started Abraham during a photo session in Paris dation, death is the only source of
filming when we started to end.” on October 29. No Other Land was pride.”
There is no pretence of balance be- released in French cinemas on We need a new language to speak
cause the film knows, and hopes we November 13. STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP of new despairs. Old ideas of neutral-
know, too, that the very desire for ba- ity, justice, the illusion of life as sacred
lance is a desire for lopsided justice. and inviolable have to fold within
With what audacity do we demand is a video of young men immolating themselves the indignity of life itself.
equality in death when people have themselves in protest, turning their For that to happen, films like No Other
lived fundamentally unequal lives? bodies into burnt corpses. In one of Land need to be screened, felt, raged
The very ask for balanced reportage the videos, the man stands still as the at, in order to see what emerges apart
and perspective is a demand for tar- flame eats his flesh. from the rage—what new theory of jus-
nishing the unequal terms on which This became a common sight after tice evolves as all the existing ones get
the war is being fought. Neutrality is the 22-year-old Tibetan monk Nga- frayed. 왎
no longer a virtue but a blindfold. No wang Norphel set himself on fire in
Other Land belongs to this genre of June 2012, following which over 150 Prathyush Parasuraman is a writer and critic
skewed grace. Tibetans have immolated themselves. who writes across publications, both print and
As Jacqueline Rose writes in her con- online.
his is not the first, nor the

T last, time that a group of peo-

ple will hope implausibly
while throwing a hammer at a coldly
balanced scale. At the Tibet Museum,
the opening note declares, “We do
not claim to be neutral,” because it
There is no pretence of balance because No Other Land
has to challenge China’s distorted and knows, and hopes we know, too, that the very desire for
widespread narrative of Tibet. There balance is a desire for lopsided justice.

FRONTLINE
 Books | Essay 93

CONVERSATIONS
ON THE COUCH
As Sally Rooney’s latest novel, Intermezzo, dazzles readers, we analyse her
corpus to find out what makes her tick. ABHINAV CHAKRABORTY

I
n one of the early chapters of Sally Rooney’s new novel, In-
termezzo, the protagonist, Ivan, a 22-year-old chess player, Stardom has not made Rooney
invites Margaret, a 36-year-old programme director at the
arts centre hosting an amateur chess tournament-cum-
institutionalised: she was in
workshop, to the house where he has been put up by the the news recently for speaking
organisers. As Margaret weighs in her instant attraction to out against the ongoing Israeli
the awkward but charming young man against what she considers a aggression in Palestine when
glaring age gap between them, the reader enters her stream of con- most celebrities have chosen
to stay silent on the issue.
왘 Sally Rooney at the Hulu segment of the 2020 Winter
TCA Press Tour at The Langham Huntington, Pasadena, California,
on January 17, 2020. AMY SUSSMAN/AFP
sciousness to learn: “…[M]utual attrac-
tion—which even makes sense from an
evolutionary perspective—is simply the
strangest reason to do anything, overrid-
ing all the contrary principles and making
them fall away into nothing.” This sen-
tence neatly sums up the overwhelming
motivation of Rooney’s characters not on-
ly in Intermezzo but arguably in every
book she has written to date.

A
t 33, the Irish writer, described as
the “first great millennial nove-
list” and the “Salinger of the
Snapchat generation”, has already
achieved the kind of fame—involving both
commercial success and critical acclaim—
that most novelists only dream of. But
stardom has not made her institutional-
ised: Rooney was in the news recently for
speaking out against the ongoing Israeli
aggression in Palestine when most cele-
brities have chosen to stay silent on the
issue.
Her stance has added to her aura of be-


DECEMBER 13, 2024
94 BOOKS | ESSAY 95

ing one of the foremost intellectuals of the read all of Rooney’s books. This is certainly Rooney’s characters, indeed, are a melan-
contemporary world. As a women shaping the Millennials true of Normal People (2018), easily Roo- “You never feel queasy or disgusted by the cholic lot (her books have been called “sad girl
views of her age, she invites comparisons with and Gen Z ney’s most popular novel to date. It is a story lit”). However, her third novel, Beautiful
media personalities such as the actor-screenw- of love across the class divide, which is tem-
characters. The complexity of human emotion is World, Where Are You (2021), is optimistic in
riters Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Lena Dunham,
swear by her, porarily forgotten as the two central charac- illustrated so well, you just understand the tone. Arguably Rooney’s most experimental
and Greta Gerwig. This, of course, has much giving her the ters, Marianne and Connell, succumb to characters better.” work, it has considerable portions in the form
to do with the fact that her first two novels, credit of “mutual attraction”. But class does not go of email exchanges, which come off as indul-
Conversations with Friends and Normal People, reading their away, of course. And so, Normal People be- Sonikka Loganathan gent, even a tad unrealistic (since the emails
were turned into TV series, expanding her fan comes an examination of the question, is are quite long), at times. But the general tenor
minds most Hong Kong–based news producer
base among those who have not even read the love a metaphysical force that dissolves is hopeful.
books. Millennials and Gen Z swear by her, giv- astutely, like mundane divisions or are its powers in this Sample this sentence from Beautiful World,
ing her the credit of reading their minds most a qualified regard entirely overrated? which is surprisingly straightforward in what it
astutely, like a qualified therapist. Does the therapist. wants to say: “But if you think there’s any
fame have some basis or is Rooney a passing ooney identifies as a Marxist, and Vogue pointed out how all Rooney’s female chance that I could make you happy, I wish
obsession, like so many other things in the so-
cial media–obsessed generation? What is the
quality in Rooney that makes her appeal to a
R Normal People is her most class-
conscious work. The protagonists’
socio-economic backgrounds remain cen-
protagonists are conveniently slim, and so
do not have to add weight-watching to their
many worries. Srinidhi Madurai K., a 19-
you would let me try. Because it’s the only
thing I really want to do with my life.”
Beautiful World is also the most self-reflex-
diverse group of people across the world with tral to their relationship, shaping it over the year-old student based in Chennai who has ive of Rooney’s novels. Through the character
different languages and cultures? We try to years even as they seemingly defy the res- read Rooney’s Conversations with Friends of Alice, Rooney seems to look inward and
find the answer here by talking to readers who trictions. In an interview to The New York and Normal People, conceded that the cha- criticise the “bourgeois” nature of the publish-
have taken a deep dive into the Rooneyverse. Times, Rooney attributed her class sensibili- racters’ thinness might add to the “problem ing industry when she says: “If novelists wrote
Rooney’s debut novel, Conversations with ty to the fact that she belongs to a genera- of lack of body diversity in media” while honestly about their own lives, no one would
Friends (2017), can be broadly categorised as a tion “that came of age during the financial suggesting that the skinniness points to per- read novels—and quite rightly! Maybe then we
Bildungsroman. Presented from the perspec- crisis”. This is noteworthy, especially since sistent mental health issues that the charac- would finally have to confront how wrong,
tive of 20-something Frances, it records her Rooney’s generation is often accused of feel- ters suffer from. how deeply philosophically wrong, the cur-
journey to maturity through the pushes and ing entitled and far removed from real trou- rent system of literary production really is—
pulls of her friendship with her ex-lover Bobbi, bles, economic and otherwise. how it takes writers away from normal life,
her romantic entanglement with the much-ol- Such accusations are not easily brushed shuts the door behind them, and tells them
der Nick, and her uneasy professional-cum- off, though. For instance, a recent article in again and again how special they are and how
personal equation with Melissa, who is also important their opinions must be.”
Nick’s wife. What could have been just another Here, one cannot help but suppose that
story driven by infidelity expands in meaning Rooney is speaking for herself in the light of
through the ever-changing dynamics of inter- the fact that she has repeatedly announced
personal relationships. The novel poses ques- her discomfort with epithets such as the “great
tions about communication (or lack of it) in in- millennial novelist” on the grounds that they
timate relationships, which yet cannot rid commodify her. Interestingly, Beautiful World
themselves of class equations. What Rooney turned out to be the least successful among
said about her novels in a recent interview is il- her novels.
luminating: “What I’m really interested in is
trying to write about characters who are in re- ooney’s latest, Intermezzo, re-
lationships that are very important to them
but which are characterised by a state of dis-
equilibrium in some way.”
R leased in September 2024 to sky-high
expectations. I took it up with bated
breath, ready to be surprised but content to be
Perhaps what impresses readers the most is in familiar territory again. Here was Rooney
the characters’ determination not to be daunt- saying things as only she can—with a simplicity
ed by the “disequilibrium”. The choices they that might seem banal but is actually pro-
make in the process are often flawed, but the found: “And what if life is just a collection of
author does not judge them. “You never feel essentially unrelated experiences? Why does
queasy or disgusted by the characters. The one thing have to follow meaningfully from
complexity of human emotion is illustrated so 왘 another?”
well, you just understand the characters bet- A still from the Normal People series featuring Having told stories from the female per-
ter,” said Sonikka Loganathan, a 26-year-old Paul Mescal as Connell and Daisy Edgar-Jones
news producer bsaed in Hong Kong, who has as Marianne. BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT 
FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024
 왔 ween the two perspectives. She does it in
Rooney has evolved as a writer Alison Oliver as style, making Intermezzo her most mature and
Frances and Joe incisive book yet.
over time, further polishing her
Alwyn as Nick in
ability to put into words those ooney’s pro-Palestine stance and

R
the TV adaptation
difficult feelings and emotions of Conversations her active support for the Boycott,
that cannot be easily defined. with Friends. BY Divestment and Sanctions move-
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT ment (a non-violent campaign promoting eco-
nomic sanctions against Israel) have brought
her more followers. So have her socialist lean-
spective so far, in Intermezzo, Rooney enters ings, which extend to her critique of capital-
the male psyche, telling the story of two broth- ism in the context of the climate crisis (she
ers, Peter and Ivan, as they cope with life in ruminates on the topic in both Beautiful World
the aftermath of their father’s death. Peter, a and Intermezzo). In a recent interview with
32-year-old lawyer, is conflicted between his The Paris Review, Rooney said that the capital-
fondness for Naomi, a college student who is ist system is beyond repair (“We cannot keep
constantly broke, and his lasting love for Syl- plundering the earth”) and expressed concern
via, his college sweetheart and present best over the world “heading for a catastrophe that
friend. Ivan, a decade younger than Peter, is driven by our consumerist lifestyle”.
finds his life changing in innumerable ways In my opinion, what draws people to Roo-
when he meets the charming Margaret, who is ney’ writing is her expertise in chronicling the
in her mid-30s. human condition with objectivity. She has
So, here are a few customary tropes: affairs evolved as a writer over time, further polish-
across the age divide, lots of introspection, ing her ability to put into words those difficult
and a valiant effort to come to terms with grief. feelings and emotions that cannot be easily de-
What is new here is the use of the stream of fined. Her characters are hearteningly like us,
consciousness technique to delve into the searching for meaning by searching for love
minds of characters. Another novelty is the at- while being all too aware of its pitfalls. To
tempt at storytelling from the perspectives of slightly rephrase a paragraph from Beautiful
two characters belonging to different genera- World: “So of course in the midst of everyth-
tions. The demographic shift had happened in ing, the state of the world being what it is, hu-
Beautiful World, which, too, had characters in manity on the cusp of extinction, here I am
their early 30s. What stands out in Intermezzo writing another [novel] about sex and friend-
is Rooney’s balancing act in switching bet- ship. What else is there to live for?” 왎

FRONTLINE
 Books | Review 97

A deep dive into

‘new history’
A must-read for those who want a better understanding of India’s “near east”
beyond the communal and racist narratives that now dominate public
understanding of this strategically important region. NIRUPAMA SUBRAMANIAN

S
heikh Hasina’s dramatic ouster near east: one within, two outside, each polit-
as Prime Minister of Bangladesh India’s Near ically separated from the other by internation-
on August 5 this year after East al boundaries yet densely linked and sundered
weeks of student protests by identity, the flows of people and goods, and
evoked at the time comparisons a shared colonial past. The book’s thesis is that
with Sri Lanka, where Gotabaya India’s challenge of cementing its own boun-
Rajapaksa had to flee the country in July 2022 daries in its north-eastern region was intricate-
after a public uprising, and with the hasty exit ly tied to the dynamics of military rule in East
of Ashraf Ghani from his presidential palace in Pakistan and Burma (now Myanmar).
Kabul when the Taliban took over Afghanistan As it tried to rein in communal and fissipa-
in August 2021. The comparisons are not in- rous tendencies in its own north-eastern re-
correct, but Hasina’s downfall is perhaps bet- gion, India tried a potpourri of contradictory
ter understood from the perspective of Ban- approaches: courting the generals in Burma
gladesh’s unique five-decade history, and the and the “pro-India” secular liberal democrats
preceding decades of struggle for liberation A New History in Bangladesh and bombing and bringing in
from Pakistan, rather than as part of a regional By Avinash Paliwal the undemocratic Armed Forces (Special Pow-
continuum of political churn. Penguin Books ers) Act in its own north-eastern region. In the
Hasina’s rise and fall have uncanny paral- Pages: 480 author’s words, his work is a “blurring of epis-
lels with that of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Price: Rs.799 temic lines between the domestic and exter-
Rahman, over the four short years that he nal”, how one works on and influences the
served as the leader of Bangladesh after its lib- other, mostly in contradictory ways.
eration. A small coterie, internal battles going

A
back to the liberation struggle, the extraordin- ntinomy is a word that recurs
ary political agency of students, the army that through this volume. Thus, India is
was part Pakistan’s toxic legacy and part liber- still trying to figure out what works
ation militia, the descent into authoritarian- best in its near east, which is why the book’s
ism—all these mirror the elements of Hasina’s arc stretches from before Independence to the
five terms in office and her eventual downfall. point of the Manipur breakdown from May
Given the proximity of events, the Bangla- 2023 (and still ongoing), and Union Home Mi-
desh story may seem to be the centrepiece of nister Amit Shah’s infamous description of
Avinash Paliwal’s India’s Near East: A New His- Bangladeshi migrants as “termites”, dredged
tory, but the book is actually about the com- up with much glee now in post-Hasina Dhaka.
plex set of forces and actors that shaped an en- Paliwal details how Muhammad Ayub Khan’s
tire region east of West Bengal, to which the coup in Pakistan and Ne Win’s takeover in Bur-
author ascribes the term “near east”. The ma were early setbacks to India’s and Jawahar-
“new history” is a deep dive into India’s dom-
estic and foreign policies in three parts of this 
DECEMBER 13, 2024
98 BOOKS | REVIEW

lal Nehru’s attempts at a postcolonial “consti- disputes with Burma and Pakistan, China was
tutional solidarity” in the newly free region India knew sending India a message, namely that there
based on shared concern about communism. would be costs [to]of hosting the Dalai Lama,”
What they continued to have in common
there were Paliwal writes.
though was a distrust of China. Staring at a different
downturn in relations with Peking, and a re- strands y the second half of the 1960s,
bellion in the Naga areas of north-east India,
Nehru did not push the democracy button.
Asked by a journalist how he planned to stop
in Bangla-
desh’s
liberation
B “with the prospect of constitutional
solidarities and Nehru himself both
relics of the past, India was less wary of using
the “contagion” of military coups spreading to force”. Pakistan and China’s backing of the Na-
India, Nehru’s response was a mildly ex- movement. ga leader A.Z. Phizo, the outbreak of the Nax-
pressed hope that the “contagion [of democra- Still, it chose albari movement in West Bengal, and the Mizo
cy] from India would spread to these countries to put all its nationalist movement triggered India’s first
instead of the other way round”. search for solutions to the challenges of the
eggs in the
In 1959, Ayub met the Indian High Commis- near east. The Naxalbari uprising and a similar
sioner in Islamabad to discuss the Chinese Awami movement in East Pakistan, both with Chinese
threat to India and Pakistan to propose that League backing, were among the reasons that India
they resolve their own issues to undertake basket. considered in its decision to support a nascent
“joint defence” against China. Nehru refused The plan movement for independence in East Pakistan,
believing it was a ruse to force India to dilute the book reveals.
its position on Kashmir. Soon after, China and
backfired. India’s decision to support a “hard core” of
Pakistan concluded a boundary deal. In the secular, liberal, and democratic East Pakista-
east, Burma patched up with China by giving nis was contradictory to its desire that they al-
up its claim at the China-Burma-India trijunc- so remain steadfastly “pro-India”. India knew
tion. “By simultaneously resolving boundary there were different strands in Bangladesh’s
liberation movement. Still, it chose to put all
its eggs in the Awami League basket. The plan
backfired. It made both India and Mujib un-
popular, a theme that would play out again 53
years later in Hasina’s ouster. “It’s no surprise
that Mujib’s populism quickly morphed into
왔 anti-Indianism,” the author notes.
March 12, 1972: The Paliwal shows that Nehru’s decision to re-
Indian Army’s farewell main “neutral” on East Pakistan after Mujib’s
parade after the arrest in 1962, when he crossed back from his
liberation of first exploratory foray into Agartala as the
Bangladesh and final leader of the Bangladesh Liberation Front,
withdrawal of troops, “scarred” the Bangabandhu. Although India
at the Dacca stadium.
Prime Minister of
Bangladesh Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman took
the salute.
THE HINDU ARCHIVES
 99

annotations a page; this is true across the

book, which slows down the pace considera-
bly but puts the storytelling on solid footing.

he book is also a rare and valuable

T study by an Indian on Burma’s histo-

ry as it criss-crossed with India’s state-
building. New Delhi’s engagement with the
junta in the first decade of the new century
corrected the previous decade’s miscalcula-
tion over the Tatmadaw’s staying power, and
what was a love fest with the democracy icon
Aung San Suu Kyi changed into a calibrated re-
lationship with the junta. Then ongoing, the
warmed to him later that decade, he remained 왔 Naga peace process contributed to this en-
wary of its intentions and, in 1971, preferred Suu Kyi, the then gagement. Junta boss General Than Shwe
going underground in East Pakistan rather State Counsellor helped secure a ceasefire with the Khaplang
than cross the border like his other colleagues, of Myanmar, and faction of the National Socialist Council of Na-
leaving the first provisional government of Lee Hsien Loong, galand, which was based in Myanmar. This
Bangladesh, headquartered on the India-Ban- the then had proved elusive earlier despite a truce with
gladesh border, to be headed by Tajuddin Ah- Prime Minister the group’s Isak-Muivah leadership. Keeping
mad. As Mujib’s insecurity grew, Tajuddin’s of Singapore, the junta on its side was also crucial to India at
friendliness with New Delhi would make him greet the then a time when relations with Bangladesh, under
suspect in the eyes of his leader. His assassina- Prime Minister its then leader Khaleda Zia, had deteriorated
tion, within three months of the massacre of Manmohan Singh to a point beyond repair. Paliwal quotes the
Mujib and his family on August 15, 1975, was in- and his wife at then Foreign Secretary (later National Security
tended to preclude any Indian plan for a post- a function at Adviser) Shivshankar Menon as stating that
Mujib pro-India government in Dhaka. Rashtarapati bringing Myanmar out of China’s fold was also
In later years, India “almost” intervened Bhavan. a reason for the engagement with the Tatma-
militarily in Bangladesh in February 2009, Pa- V.V. KRISHNAN daw, welcomed by the junta at a time when it
liwal asserts. Soldiers of the Bangladesh Rifles had been excommunicated by the West.
mutinied and were killing officers and their fa- But as the decade changed, several deve-
milies. A threatened Hasina dialled New Delhi, lopments, including Western pressure led by
unable to trust her own army. He quotes the President Barack Obama in the US, the devas-
then Bangladesh Foreign Secretary saying that tation wreaked by a cyclone (which Paliwal
India warned General Moeen Uddin Ahmed does not mention), and the inadequacy of the
against using force to end the mutiny as it junta’s response to it, converged to force the
might exacerbate the situation. As it turned junta to begin a process of political reform
out, in the months before Hasina’s ouster in with Suu Kyi and her National League for De-
2024, one of the complaints against her was mocracy (NLD).
that she had given in to the mutineers and Once again, “antinomies” were at play. “In-
granted them amnesty. Notably, in the weeks dia’s decision to overlook Myanmar’s civil-mil-
after Hasina’s ouster in August, Ahmed sought itary relations for strategic reasons, propensity
to clear his name, stating that while he was to congratulate itself for nudging the junta to-
prepared with tanks to subdue the mutineers, wards reform, and the conviction that Myan-
Hasina had taken charge of the situation. He mar could weaned away from China proved il-
made no mention of an Indian role. lusory,” the author points out. India’s border
The detailed study of India’s decision to in- raid in 2014 was a public relations disaster in
tervene in East Pakistan, the denouement of Myanmar. The author was told by a NLD Mi-
Mujib, and the fading of the 1971 promise of nister that the “Myanmar military lost face”
peace for India on its double-edged eastern and called it “interference in the country’s so-
flank is the nerd version of a thriller. Paliwal
unpacks the plot with an eye-watering 10 to 15 
DECEMBER 13, 2024
100 BOOKS | REVIEW

vereignty”. Meanwhile, ahead of the 2015 elec- posed to Manmohan Singh’s “Look East”).
tion in which Suu Kyi would contest for the Paliwal’s command over the geography and
first time since 1988, her message to the Indian his access to sources are evident. This deeply re-
Ambassador at the time, Gautam Mukhopad- searched book, despite the daunting complexi-
hyaya, was that “we are going to win, so don’t ty of the narrative as it weaves in and out of the
make the mistake” of siding with the junta. All three regions and the nearly 100 pages of
this at a time of a new-found solidarity bet- “notes”, is a must-read for anyone who wants a
ween Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar (and better understanding of India’s “near east”
Sri Lanka too) and Hindutva, which tempered beyond the communal and racist narratives that
India’s responses to the Rohingya crisis. The now dominate public understanding of this
“termites” epithet and the 2019 amendments strategically important region. 왎
to India’s Citizenship Act showed how unset-
tled India’s relations with its neighbours in the Nirupama Subramanian is an independent journalist who
east continue to remain, giving a whole new has worked earlier at The Hindu and at The Indian
meaning to Modi’s “Act East” slogan (as op- Express.

Leader under the lens

Anand Teltumbde proposes a critical rethinking of B.R. Ambedkar’s thoughts
as a way of resisting his appropriation by the conservative Right. Questioning
Ambedkar’s iconisation, he wonders whether “Ambedkarism only served
as an alibi for every kind of political drift”. AJAY GUDAVARTHY

T
here have been quite a few best understood in the historical context in
biographies of B.R. Ambed- which a philosopher works. For instance,
kar in the past, especially in Hobbesian notions of the “state of nature”
the last couple of years. (that is, a human condition predating political
What then is the rationale association that was supposedly characterised
for writing yet another? by a state of perpetual conflict: “war of every
Anand Teltumbde refers to his book as a “re- man against every man”) were born out of the
flective biography”. Iconoclast: A Reflective conditions of perennial civil wars in England.
Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar at- Historical contexts bring abstract propositions
tempts to revisit and analyse Ambedkar’s life to life. How do we assess the political influence
and ideas in the light of the rise of Hindutva of philosophers whose impact stretches
and the failure of anti-caste struggles to coun- beyond their times? How do we assess their
ter both “Brahminism and capitalism”. Un- culpability? Is there an intellectual afterlife for
iquely, it does not shy away from critiquing which they can be held accountable, unlike in
Ambedkar and tracing some of the current the case of thinkers who have us believe that a
limitations of anti-caste struggles and the ico- text takes a life of its own and for all philosoph-
nisation of Ambedkar to limitations in his own ical purposes “the author is dead”.
reflections. Teltumbde does not wish to give this kind
The political philosopher Quentin Skinner of a benefit of doubt to Ambedkar. In an un-
argues that philosophical propositions are usually bold and rather dialectical approach,

FRONTLINE
 BOOKS | REVIEW 왘 LEADER UNDER THE LENS 101

kar was forged into a core tenet of Ambedka-

rism by the vested interests and made to
fragment the Dalit movement to its irrelevance
while sapping the communists of their poten-
tial support base,” argues Teltumbde. This
separation was responsible for the rise of the
identitarian politics that now divides Dalits in-
to sub-castes.

eltumbde locates the “problem of

T displacement” of class in Ambedkar’s

thinking in a wider neglect and, on
occasions, an imperfect and even prejudicial
understanding of other marginalised groups.
He writes: “Ambedkar’s exclusive focus on the
untouchables was problematic for its narrow-
ness, ignoring other instances of injustice.”
This approach has thrown Dalit politics into a
perennial and vicious cycle of reification of an
identity that needs to be transcended. This rei-
fication reflects an inability to forge solidarity
with other marginalised groups. It stymies at-
he proposes a critical rethink of Ambedkar’s 왔 tempts to overcome stigma and assert dignity;
thoughts as a way of resisting his appropria- Anand this inability to fight stigma gets linked to prag-
tion by the conservative Right. Ambedkar can Teltumbde, who matic politics, ad hoc choices, and the even-
be restored to his proper historical place not had been arrested tual fragmentation that was readily available
by turning him into an icon but by questioning in the Bhima for Hindutva to convert into polarised intra-
his iconisation, which is a product of the un- Koregaon case, subaltern conflicts that I refer to in my own
dermining of the radical possibilities of Am- leaving the Pune writings as “secular sectarianism”.
bedkar’s thought. Further, even as we explore District and Teltumbde points to Ambedkar’s some-
those radical possibilities, we find a proper Sessions Court what strange views on many other marginal-
place for the “de-radicalisation” of anti-caste premises in ised communities. He thought of Adivasis as
struggles where “Ambedkarism only served as February 2019. His “not yet ready” to enjoy the fruits of civilisa-
an alibi for every kind of political drift”. biography of tion and of Muslims and Christians as “dena-
Recalling Ambedkar’s stringent critique of Ambedkar was in tionalised”. This, in fact, was one of the rea-
Hinduism as a menace to liberty, equality, and the final stages of sons why he chose not to convert to Islam
fraternity, Teltumbde does not shy away from editing when he though he was convinced of its egalitarian pro-
saying: “...but the depth of degeneration of was incarcerated in nouncements.
Dalits had reached such lows that they are connection with the Paradoxically for someone who resigned as
completely blinded by their identitarian blink- case. PTI Law Minister over Parliament’s inability to
ers even to these stark facts and fall prey to the pass the Hindu Code Bill (proposing reforms
intrigues of the Hindutva forces.” in social aspects of Hinduism), Amdedkar
Teltumbde traces back some of the rot to commented on the increasing number of wo-
Ambedkar’s own controversial propositions. men parliamentarians that the Congress pro-
He says the alternative lies in bringing Dalit moted, remarking if these women spent their
and Left politics together. He believes that Am- time in Parliament who would manage their
bedkar’s view of Dalit and communist strug- children. Ambedkar changed some of his
gles as mutually exclusive has been a factor in views and positions on the basis of the exigen-
the way anti-caste struggles have fallen prey to cies of mobilisational politics.
vested interests within and without. It is this “pragmatism” of “doing what
Ambedkar’s embrace of Buddhism is seen works” that has now seeped into anti-caste
as the “ultimate bulwark against commu-
nism”. “This anti-communist slant in Ambed- 
DECEMBER 13, 2024
102 BOOKS | REVIEW

struggles. Did Ambedkar willy-nilly provide a identity in tracing historical continuity. Cur-
ready justification to pragmatic turns in order Iconoclast rent populist mobilisation, across the globe, is
to protect exclusivist interests or did these A Reflective striking a chord along these registers. Perhaps,
changes reflect the historical complexities of Biography of a cautious approach to some of these insights
mobilising the most marginalised community? Dr Babasaheb (that are equally dialectical) in Ambedkar
Ambedkar
Even Gandhi was known for his twists and could be more helpful than a quick dismissal.
turns and inconsistencies. Such observations may not be symptoms of in-
Teltumbde traces some of Ambedkar’s lim- consistencies or plain misreading but a wedg-
itations in mobilising larger constituencies in- ing open, and acknowledgement, of social
corporating other marginalised groups to his- complexities. In order to acknowledge caste-
torical exigencies: “The contradiction based atrocities, is it necessary to deny the cul-
between the expansion of the constituency tural sense of belonging? Ambedkar’s shift to
through class politics and the consequent di- Buddhism emerged from this latent under-
minishing attention to the core constituency standing of the need for spirituality that com-
always weighed heavy on his mind…. how munists and class-based mobilisations have
much was it due to his caste concerns and thoroughly undermined.
how much was it due to his own tirade against By Anand
the communists, is difficult to say.” He cites in- Teltumbde he book is a must-read to revisit and
stances where Ambedkar failed to hold on to
the support of even non-Mahar Dalits. He cites
Sitaram Shivtarkar, co-organiser and a
Viking, 2024
Pages: 675
Price: Rs.973
T debate some of these intriguing is-
sues. Very few scholars would have
had this kind of clarity of purpose and courage
Chambhar, as saying: “Ambedkar does not of conviction to recontextualise Ambedkar in
and will not represent any community other the current context. It is a bulky book of 675
than the Mahar community.” In contrast, pages, written with a great degree of detail
Gandhi claimed to represent all Hindus and as- (though the editing is shoddy at places). It trac-
serted that Dalits were part of Hindu society. es Ambedkar’s life in seven phases with a final
chapter on the posthumous phase from 1957
eltumbde’s central concern in to 2023. The last chapter takes us through dif-

T most of his writings has been how

class unity can be achieved in a caste-
based society. While this concern is well taken
ferent versions of the anti-caste politics from
the Black Panthers to the rise of the Bahujan
Samaj Party.
and even necessary, does it also not demand The potential to transform the character of
further exploration of the cultural basis of anti-caste struggles through such introspec-
class beyond political economy? Today, the tion can perhaps explain why Teltumbde was
agenda of annihilation of caste is being gra- Teltumbde arrested in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parish-
dually replaced by what I refer to as “cultural- points to ad case. In fact, he was incarcerated while he
isation” of caste—caste as “a way of life” and Ambedkar’s was in the course of finalising this book. He
not merely something about hierarchical ex- somewhat was targeted not for being a Dalit but a Dalit
clusions. Castes are asserting their identities who carries the conviction to speak on behalf
strange
through cultural registers rather than disown- of all other marginalised groups. When it
ing caste-based practices as historically im- views on comes to justice, identities should be trans-
posed. I was surprised to find that Ambedkar other gressive and not a burden. They should be-
was open to this reading when he argued that marginalised come expansive and not sectarian. Being ex-
peninsular India had a fundamental cultural groups. He pansive will invariably mean calling out
unity, “which makes a problem of caste diffi- injustices internal to one’s own identity. This
thought of
cult to be explained”. book will handsomely contribute to the forma-
Teltumbde dismisses this insight of Ambed- Adivasis as tion of such alternative visions, not only
kar as a mistaken reading of a superficial unity “not yet through intellect but in demonstrating the per-
created over centuries of internalisation of ready” to sonal commitment that is necessary for such
caste hierarchies. Even if that is true, a deep enjoy the historically transformative projects. 왎
sense of cultural belonging is necessary even
for subversive politics. Humans are deeply
fruits of Ajay Gudavarthy is Associate Professor, Centre for
temporal creatures that take pride and find civilisation. Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

FRONTLINE
 Books | Review 103

A tale of hope and fortitude

Iru not only captures the spirit of Irawati Karve, an upstanding
anthropologist who risked both her career and education by standing up to
scientific racism, but also shines the light on her personal, vulnerable
side—full of contradictions, like all of us. PANCHALI RAY

S
ome decades ago, I watched a possible the emergence of a successful scholar
kathakata (a play that is a narra- Iru who was also deeply aware of her femininity
tive by a single female charac- The Remarkable and her humanity. I was particularly touched
ter) titled Nathavati, Anathavat Life of Irawati by Karve’s experience of training for her doc-
by the playwright Saoli Mitra Karve toral degree under the German racial anthro-
and was deeply moved by the pology expert Eugen Fischer at the Kaiser Wil-
feminist retelling of Draupadi’s story. Mitra’s helm Institute for Anthropology, Human
inspiration was Irawati Karve’s Yuganta: The Heredity and Eugenics (KWI-A). Fischer was
End of an Epoch (1967), and within a few days, on a mission to prove that racial inferiority
I was the proud owner of a copy. That was my was biologically determined. Going on to
introduction to the famous anthropologist, serve the Nazi regime under Hitler, Fischer re-
who, I believe, figures more in the syllabi of cruited Karve to support his hypothesis of
the comparative literature department of my “Aryan superiority”. Karve, risking both her
(then) university rather than in that of the so- career and education, stood up to this scientif-
ciology department. That is the legacy of In- ic racism and stated in her thesis that the
dia’s first woman anthropologist—an intellec- shape of skulls had nothing to do with racial at-
tual, a sociologist, a feminist, a scholar, and By Urmilla tributes. Surprisingly, she did not fail, and un-
someone deeply committed to her field, an- Deshpande & surprisingly, she was awarded a Doneux (Latin
thropology. While reading Iru: The Remarka- Thiago Pinto for sufficient), which Fischer attributed to her
ble Life of Irawati Karve, I was repeatedly re- Barbosa foreignness and lack of German-speaking
minded of Yuganta, where Draupadi is Speaking Tiger skills. This tale of academic integrity, free spi-
portrayed as a woman and an intellectual and Pages: 292 rit, and ethical scholarship—which goes
not just a humiliated wife in a polyandrous Price: Rs.699 against the grain of unstated norms that re-
marriage, when she questions the masculine ward those who conform and exile those who
conception of justice, righteousness, and male question—is a refreshing read, particularly gi-
entitlement by asking Yudhishtir the basis on ven our current times. As knowledge is being
which he pawns her. It is the same feminist manipulated to serve political gains, institu-
spirit, the refusal to be censored, gagged, or tions crumble, and liberal academics across
muzzled, that pulsates at the heart of this re- the country self-censor to further petty ambi-
markable book. tions, the life of this Indian woman and her de-
Tracing Karve’s life from childhood to her fiance of eugenic science in 1920s Germany re-
academic career, the book shows us what it minds us of all that we have lost and what we
meant to be a woman academic in mid-20th can still hope to recover.
century India—her experience earning her de-

K
gree in a foreign country; her relations with arve’s work drew on rich Indolog-
her family; the long absences from home and ical sources and Sanskrit literature to
extensive fieldwork in remote archaeological understand caste and kinship. This
sites with only men for company; the trans- often led to disciplinary criticism, where she
gression, subversion, as well as negotiation of
caste and gender norms—all that which made 
DECEMBER 13, 2024
 104

However, she left behind a legacy that is not

easily erased. Apart from her scholarship, Ira-
wati Karve remains singular in India for the
niche she carved out in a deeply masculine
field. No doubt her caste identity and her mar-
riage into a political and socially influential fa-
mily played a role, but what is remarkable is
how she used those advantages to break the
barriers of gender. Karve is, of course, not free
from controversy. Although critical of racial
eugenics, her work continued to draw on
Fischer’s method of anthropometric measure-
was perceived more as an ethnologist interest- 왔 ments to understand the social stratification of
ed in culture than a sociologist and anthropol- Irawati Karve and caste and tribe, which left deep imprints on
ogist. Irawati Karve’s greatest contribution is D.D. Karve, her the discipline itself and therefore continues to
her book Kinship Organization of India (1953), husband. TWITTER: struggle with accusations of scientific racism.
which draws as much from literary evidence VIKRAM W KARVE @W_KARVE
as from empirical fieldwork. In this context, he biography Iru is authored by Ur-
the biography Iru succinctly discusses the si-
lencing of Karve by the French scholar Louis
Dumont, who, at the time, was one of the
T milla Deshpande, granddaughter of
Irawati Karve, whose sense of Karve’s
life also comes from the various family anec-
most influential scholars on caste in India. dotes around her grandmother, and Thiago
Reading about Karve’s struggles as an Indian Pinto Barbosa, whose research on racial and
woman against misogyny and racism leads eugenics scholarship in Berlin led him to the
one to wonder if anything has changed. The Indian social scientist who stood her ground
struggles of women in academia, particularly against the rising trend of fascism in early 20th
those from marginalised communities—even century Germany. The strength of the book
today—continue to be informed by deep mis- lies in the collaboration between the two auth-
ogyny, racism, and casteism, which often des- ors, whose investment in Karve is deeply per-
troyed careers. The systematic silencing of wo- sonal and professional, respectively. The biog-
men of colour/Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi raphy seamlessly weaves the professional and
communities in global academia, which is in the personal, telling us that the two are never
the custody of white/Brahmin/dominant-caste distinct. The account of her relationship with
men, is, of course, an age-old problem. Du- her children, particularly her daughter Gauri,
mont’s dismissal of Karve’s work was an act of The life paints Karve in a less-than-perfect light. One
intellectual gatekeeping that insisted that In- of this can tease out the tension of the strained rela-
dian sociologists and anthropologists were too remarkable tionship between mother and daughter which
close to the subject to develop a “scientific” reveals Karve as truly human, full of contradic-
Indian
understanding. This silencing was not new to tions, pulled back by traditions as much as
Karve, a non-European woman, who was woman and propelled forward by modernity.
“brushed aside” as a doctoral scholar in Ger- her defiance Of course, like any biography, Iru, too, re-
many and then again during her visits to fo- of eugenic flects the constraints of the genre. Although a
reign universities later in her career. The biog- science delightful read that takes us from Pune to Ber-
raphy weaves a haunting and powerful lin and gives us sharp insights into the strug-
narrative of her loneliness and her continuous
in 1920s gles of women in male-dominated fields such
commitment to acquire and disseminate Germany as academia in postcolonial India, it must be
knowledge despite all odds. reminds us read with a critical eye. Iru is an interpretation
Karve never made it to the pantheon of ce- of all that we rather than the absolute truth of the many
lebrated intellectuals and academics of India, have lost and lives of Irawati Karve. 왎
which is dominated by male scientists and in-
tellectuals, as both misogyny and regional ex-
what we can Panchali Ray is Associate Professor in Anthropology and
clusion kept her out of the hallowed halls of still hope Gender Studies and Associate Dean (Academics)
fame lining the pathway to academic posterity. to recover. at Krea University.

FRONTLINE
 Books | Review 105

Window to Torikhola
Weena Pun’s debut novel unrolls an intricately observed tapestry
of life in rural Nepal, conveying its sights, sounds, and unvaried rhythm.
VARSHA TIWARY

“‘Girls,’ Govinda sir said. ‘No matter how hard Kanchhi’s father, Kal, took Maiju’s hand in
you try, they slip through the cracks.’” Kanchhi marriage and left for Assam, dumping the
homestead and his old parents on the new

O
ne dark November morn- wife. He came back years later, only for the last
ing in 1995, Maiju surrepti- rites of his parents. Ironically, Kanchhi is con-
tiously escorts her 16-year- ceived at the same time that Kal confesses his
old daughter down the inability to take Maiju with him as he has a se-
slippery, rain-drenched cond family in Assam. The illiterate Maiju, who
slopes of Torikhola in Ne- expects nothing better of a man, births and
pal to help her catch a bus to her aunt’s house brings up Kanchhi single-handedly. Saili didi
in Pokhara. Maiju never hears from her and other village women, whose husbands al-
daughter again. Kanchhi never reaches her so work elsewhere, constitute the extended
aunt’s place. community of support as well as control.
What happened to Kanchhi? Did she run By Weena Pun Kanchhi, highly intelligent and rebellious,
away? Did she join the Maoists? Had she been Hachette India grows up cooking up stories, yearning for her
alive would she not have thought of Maiju? Got Pages: 352 absent father, questioning rules, fighting, and
in touch at least once? She was so full of life, Price: Rs.699 dreaming big dreams. Good in studies, she
only 16. “The age apsaras are when they are wants to go to college in Pokhara, likes listen-
sent to lure wise old sanyasis out of their med- ing to music, reading crime magazines, and
itation.” Pulling the reader in with the ques- talking to boys. Maiju’s hardscrabble life has gi-
tion of Kanchhi’s disappearance, Weena Pun’s ven Kanchhi an instinct to make space for her-
debut novel unrolls an intricately observed self, to do anything to escape the suffocating
tapestry of life in rural Nepal. predictabilities of Torikhola. When the local
Ten years later, Torikhola has piped water, policeman, Jhalnath, pays her attention, she
a morning jeep service to transport passen- does not mind it. But she does not think mar-
gers, and a full-blown civil war, with Maoists riage is of any use to a woman. Can a dirt poor,
imposing their diktat on the village. Through fatherless Nepalese girl in a remote hamlet,
all this, Maiju’s solitary life of wait continues as dream a dream outside matrimony? Is some-
before. She labours in the millet fields, await- one with such a heart-stoppingly fragile toe-
ing news about her missing daughter. Told in hold on a world owned by men and governed
an omniscient, third-person voice, the chap- by their rules even allowed to?
ters toggle between Maiju’s life in 2005 and

R
the pre-1995 story of Kanchhi. eading the lyrically rendered
story of Maiju brought to mind a cool
October day from 10 years back,
when I had been stuck somewhere on the
road out of Pokhara in a chakka jam called by
Maoists that lasted for over six hours. The
Weena Pun recreates in intimately observed, Trishuli river gurgled in the ravine below and
elegant prose that sense of locked life and
perpetual waiting. 
DECEMBER 13, 2024
106 BOOKS | REVIEW

across the road nestled a hamlet connected to yearning for the stories of these women who
this side only by a narrow rope bridge—the vil- welcomed tourists from all over the world,
lage was all picturesque huts, terraced fields, while they themselves remain locked in cycles
and the forbidding wall of the Himalaya. The of endless work and perpetual wait.
village women—wrinkled, weather-beaten ol-
der faces, younger faces with shy smiles and eena Pun recreates in intimately
vermillioned foreheads, rosy-cheeked tod-
dlers tied to their backs—traipsed across the
swaying bridge. Every time I asked a question,
W observed, elegant prose that
sense of a locked life and perpe-
tual waiting. Sumptuous details evoke the
they pushed quail eggs, rice beans, roasted beauty and harshness and inaccessibility of
pork belly, and glistening green okra at us. I 왔 the mountainous landscape: the rows of ter-
got more laughs than answers. Kanchhi grows up raced fields flanked by trees; fields yellow with
But I could figure out one thing. The men cooking up stories, millet and beans; the slopes thick with sal
were all away, working in the sahar (city). The yearning for her (teak), chilaune (needlewood), simal (silk cot-
women did everything in the village, from rais- absent father, ton), amaro (gooseberry) trees; the sounds,
ing kids, cattle, poultry, pigs to tilling, hoeing, questioning rules, songs, and rhythms of rural life; the ditties lit-
planting, and harvesting. I came back with the fighting, and tle girls chant, the games they play; the way
rich taste of pork belly and pumpkin flower dreaming big dreams. women harvest and thresh grains; the ordeal
curry lingering in my mouth, alongside a great GETTY IMAGES/ ISTOCK of every uphill climb; and the absence of con-
 BOOKS | REVIEW 왎 WINDOW TO TORIKHOLA 107

nectivity, and of news and knowledge about with very little access to their minds. In the in-
the way the world runs. timacy of the novel, this distance between the
The dialogue is rich in local idioms. Liberal- main characters and the reader vexes.
ly using Nepalese words, Pun retains the local The novel’s triumph is in the compassion
flavour and tucks a glossary at the end. Some with which it lays bare the peculiar shades of
may find it distracting, but I am not complain- patriarchy, poverty and backwardness in the
ing. The rich descriptions of the landscape Himalaya, otherwise so rich in natural wealth.
and people, however, contrast curiously with Kanchhi opens a fictional window to rural Ne-
the sparseness with which Maiju’s and Kanch- pal, and the view is as breathtaking as it is
hi’s inner lives are rendered, especially in a chastening. 왎
book about a grief so intense that it cannot be
acknowledged. We infer Maiju’s pain at her Varsha Tiwary is a Delhi-based writer and translator. She
daughter’s disappearance, or Kanchhi’s motiv- recently published 1990, Aramganj, a translation of the
ations, mostly through dialogues and action, bestselling Hindi novel Rambhakt Rangbaz.

Life lessons
The third translated novel by the International Booker Prize–winning author
cuts across gender, nationalities, and cultures to tell a tale spun around
universal human experiences. KUSHALRANI GULAB

T
he first thing I did after turn- foregrounding women’s experience, is more
ing the last page of Silken Silken Gazelles than a feminist novel.
Gazelles, the third book by Silken Gazelles centres on three women,
the Omani author Jokha Al- Ghazaala, Asiya, and Harir. It opens with Gha-
harthi to be translated into zaala and Asiya, who grew up together in a
English, was buy a copy of small village called Sharaat Bat. The two were
Celestial Bodies, her first book to be translated more than friends. They were “milk sisters”,
into English. (Her second translated book, Bit- the newborn Ghazaala having been suckled by
ter Orange Tree, is apparently unavailable.) Saada, Asiya’s mother, at the same time she
This should tell you better than my mere as- was nursing 10-month-old Asiya. By the time
sertion that Silken Gazelles, translated from the Ghazaala’s mother was able to take her child
Arabic by Marilyn Booth, is worth reading. back, Ghazaala was emotionally attached to
And that brings me to the second thing I did af- By Jokha Alharthi,
Saada and Asiya, spending all her days with
ter putting down my copy. Alharthi, who won them from the moment she woke up until bed-
translated by
the International Booker Prize Prize in 2019 time, delighted in being led into adventures by
Marilyn Booth
for Celestial Bodies, is known for writing novels the strong and brave Asiya.
Simon & Schuster
with strong women characters. This is true of The girls were 8 years old when Asiya’s fa-
India
Silken Gazelles, too, but the novel cannot be mily fell apart with her 3-year-old sister
Pages: 258
categorised simply as women’s fiction. It cuts drowning in the irrigation canals around Sha-
Price: Rs.699
across gender, nationalities, and cultures to raat Bat. This child, born after a series of mis-
settle on the universal human feeling of a nag- carriages, had not so much been wanted as
ging emptiness even in the midst of a full and
active life. That way, Silken Gazelles, in spite of 
DECEMBER 13, 2024
108 BOOKS | REVIEW

wants of him. It was the same with her ex-hus-

band, a violin player in the royal orchestra.
The violin player wanted only his music and
the lifestyle of a musician, not involvement
with the mundane details of everyday life.
Soon Ghazaala will find a new obsession—her
boss at the office, a married man with two chil-
dren—and her sense of self will be in danger.
Meanwhile Harir, married, with a little boy
of her own, spends a lot of time in Bangkok,
where her mother has had surgery for cancer
and her father occasionally drops by. Dis-
traught by her father’s lack of interest in her
mother and bored when she is not tending to
the patient, Harir daydreams about her child-
hood in the house by the sea, recalling the sto-
ries she was told about her grandfather in the
pearl-diving business and remembering the
people who inhabited the house, as well as the
horse whom she adored.
She also remembers a strange girl in col-
craved. Maddened with grief and guilt, Saada 왔 lege, a girl covered from head to foot, gloves
died, and Asiya, who went through a complete GETTY IMAGES/ ISTOCK and all, who never spoke to anyone, never
change in her personality, left the village with reacted to anything, was near-invisible to eve-
her father. Soon Ghazaala’s family left the vil- ryone. Curious about this girl, Harir had once
lage too. And the two girls never met again. followed her to her room in the college cam-
pus. Inside the room was a mirror fully co-
uch later, Ghazaala makes a new vered with brown paper, on which was pasted

M friend, Harir. By now she is the di-

vorced mother of twin boys and
works as an accountant. She has never forgot-
a photograph of a little girl who could not have
been older than three. Later, this silent girl
would hold an overwrought Harir’s hand as
ten Asiya but has no idea how and where to they walked around the college. But then she
start looking for her. But once, as she listened vanished. Her name was Asiya.
to a radio programme in which religious lead- At this point, you are convinced you know
ers provided advice to callers, she heard a wo- what comes next and you look forward to it.
man ask: “If a person commits a grave sin as a Who does not like a happy ending? But as you
child, does God wait and punish them when read on, you realise that whether or not Gha-
they’re an adult?” That voice was the one she zaala and Harir learn that they have Asiya in
grew up with, Ghazaala is convinced. It was common is not what this book is trying to re-
Asiya’s voice. veal. Why Asiya is the way she is now is also ir-
Ghazaala is in an online relationship with relevant.
an Iraqi man, but he cannot provide what she Silken Gazelles uses familiar tropes of wo-
men’s fiction to throw the world of the book
wide open so that readers will find themselves
contemplating their own lives again in the light
of the knowledge that life must be lived, no
Silken Gazelles uses familiar matter what—but how it is to be lived is entire-
tropes of women’s fiction to ly up to them. This is a powerful understand-
throw the world of the book ing, and it comes in the quietest of ways, in
this powerful book about choice that should
wide open so that readers will not go unread. 왎
find themselves contemplating
their own lives. Kushalrani Gulab is a Mumbai-based freelance editor.

FRONTLINE
 Bookshelf 109

Fiction
She’s Always Hungry A Touch Revolution
of Salt Within
Eliza Clark
Anita Agnihotri, T.K. Anandi
Faber & Faber
translated by Tulika Books
All the Colors of the Dark Arunava Sinha Rs.850
Chris Whitaker Penguin India The Nampudiri
Crown Rs.399 reform movement
When the Rann of of Kerala is unique
The Fate of Mary Rose for its focus on the
Kutch was declared a reserved forest, the
Caroline Blackwood gender question. T.K. Anandi looks at how
Agariyas (traditional salt harvesters) were
Virago Modern Classic this resistance by women against
left high and dry. This is the story of how the
Agariyas, like Gandhi before them, took up Brahminical patriarchy in the early 20th
All My Precious Madness
the fight for salt against the government, century paved the way for other progressive
Mark Bowles
this time in independent India. democratic movements in the State.
Galley Beggar Press

Non-fiction
Renegotiating Patriarchy:
Gender, Agency and the
Bangladesh Paradox Across the Postcolonial
River Bollywood and
Naila Kabeer
Bhaichand Patel Muslim
LSE Press Identity
Speaking Tiger
Nadira Khatun
The Nazi Study of India and Rs.499
OUP
Indian Anti-Colonialism: Two young women Rs.1,295
Knowledge Providers and from Old Delhi—
Propagandists in the ‘Third Examining
one Muslim, the
Reich’ Bollywood through
other a Hindu—are the best of friends.
Baijayanti Roy a postcolonial feminist lens, Nadira Khatun
When they both start working in a factory in
Oxford University Press records how Hindi film narratives about
Noida, across the Yamuna, their worlds
Muslims have changed with a changing
expand and their lives are transformed, a
Forests of Refuge: India over the past seven decades.
little at first and then radically.
Decolonizing Environmental
Governance in the
Amazonian Guiana Shield
Dr Yolanda Ariadne Collins
University of California
Press
Song This Too Is
of the Day India
Something in the Woods
Preet Modi Edited by Githa
Loves You
Westland Hariharan
Jarod K. Anderson
Rs.250 Context
Timber Press
In these stories, Rs.599
young people First published in
navigate the the Indian Cultural
complexities of love, loss, and life in a Forum, these freewheeling conversations
changing world. When all is in flux, what between Githa Hariharan and a cross
remains are the fleeting moments: stolen section of academics, activists, and artists
glances, unsaid words, songs that become range from caste and contested texts to the
earworms. silences that surround dissent.

DECEMBER 13, 2024

110
White Space WHITE SPACE 왘 IN PRAISE OF TSUNDOKU 111

IN PRAISE OF
inform, not because it is an item to be ba- discovered it at about the same time that I
lanced in a profit and loss account: so many You buy a came to know Japanese it-words like ikigai
bought, so many read, and so on. (that which gives purpose to one’s existence)
Some books demand instant gratification.
book because and wabi-sabi (being at ease with imperfec-

TSUNDOKU
Others do not. So I do not get around to them you are drawn tion). The great thing about tsundoku is that it
for a few weeks. Or years. Or maybe, ever. to its does not have any negative vibe. It is a guilt-
Then there are those that I may read just a bit irresistible free word, one that expresses a Zen-like accep-
and put aside, letting them lie in suspended tance of the fact that some of us end up buying
potential, not
animation, as it were—like cryogenised astro- more books than we will ever read.
nauts who will be brought back to life in the because it is In his book, The Black Swan (2007), the Le-
Every reader and collector of books will probably testify to the paradox that the future. an item to be banese-American author Nassim Taleb
more you read, the bigger your heap of unread books grows. SHUMA RAHA Of course, some of my books never find balanced in a wrote: “The library should contain as much
their way back from oblivion. For example, I profit and loss of what you do not know as your financial
know that I shall probably finish reading the means… allow you to put there. You will ac-
account—so
delightfully edifying SPQR: A History of Ancient cumulate more knowledge and more books

A
relative who had a fairly large collection of books and their levels of read-ness. Rome by Mary Beard at some point. But am I many bought, as you grow older, and the growing number
books once told me that he read all his So why do I continue to buy books when I likely to have another crack at William L. Shir- so many read, of unread books on the shelves will look at
books simultaneously and hence could not have so many alredy languishing in my ever- er’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which and so on. you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know,
spare a particular book that I wanted to bor- burgeoning TBR stack? (There are unread I picked up decades ago and which has since the larger the rows of unread books. Let us
row. This was many years ago, and I remem- books on my Kindle as well.) Well, first of all, it lain mostly unread? To be honest, no. call this collection of unread books an
ber thinking that he was a selfish scrooge is not easy to kick the book-buying habit. And, The Japanese have a lovely word for the act antilibrary.’’
who had made up a ridiculous excuse to avoid lending me the second, you buy a book because you are of buying books and letting them pile up with-

I
book. drawn to its irresistible potential to engage and out reading them. It is called tsundoku, and I am not a fan of Taleb’s coinage for one’s
But now that I am older and wiser, I wonder if he had been hoard of unread books. “Antilibrary” re-
speaking some version of the truth. Was he, as I have grown to minds me too much of words like “anti-
be, a collector of books, many of which he had read partially social” or “antipathy”, or even “anti-Christ”.
or not at all? And at any given moment, was he planning to Moreover, it seems to suggest that our unread
read one or the other of the several unread books he pos- 왔 darlings are at an antagonistic remove from
sessed? Why, then I understand him perfectly—because I GETTY IMAGES/ ISTOCK the other books in our library. But Taleb has a
share all those attributes with him. Although, I dare say that I point when he says that the more you read,
have not yet achieved the sangfroid to tell a would-be borrow- the more you see the heap of your unread
er of a book from my modest library that I read all my books at books growing bigger. Every reader and collec-
once! Nor have I been able to banish a tiny stab of embarrass- tor of books will probably testify to this
ment when a visitor, coming to my flat for the first time, takes paradox.
a look at my overflowing shelves and exclaims: “Wow, so ma- Which brings us to the question of space.
ny books! Have you read all of them?’’ Since the physical space at one’s disposal is fi-
nite and the act of accumulating books seem-

T
hat question—sometimes delivered artlessly, but ingly infinite, I do try to prune my collection
more often than not with a hint of snide disbelief— from time to time. You would think that is
makes me clear my throat and say apologetically that, when I axe some of my unread books, just as I
err... I have read most of them, barring a few here and there. It bundle out clothes that I have not worn for
also makes me thankful that my interlocutor has not seen the several years.
tower of to-be-read (TBR) books on my nightstand, nor the But you know what? I have never given
messy pile of unread volumes on my study table. That would away a single unread volume. To me these
definitely have elicited more probing questions about my books are precious precisely because they are
unknown. Because they hold within them the
possibility of unimagined knowledge and un-
countable delights that I will perhaps encoun-
ter some day.
It is like John Keats said: “Heard melodies
You know what? I have never given away a are sweet / But those unheard are sweeter.” 왎
single unread volume. To me these books are
precious precisely because they are unknown. Shuma Raha is a journalist and author.

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

112
Fortnight Guide FORTNIGHT GUIDE 113

Staying Stepping
Knightley looking like a toughest fights, and how Things Like These harks back
gun-totting Kate Middleton, he turned these into new to a time when movies spoke
this series is promising. successes. through images, leaving a
English, 6 episodes Audible lasting impression on the

in Netflix

An Almost Christmas Story

Sleep Sound with Richard
Armitage
out mind. Playing in theatres since
November 15.
1h 38m, English
왔 (Short film) The actor Richard Armitage is 왔 PG-13
Stop motion animation, known for his soothing voice.
adventure He uses it to the best effect Bhairathi Ranagal platforms showcasing Naga
The Christmas season here, helping listeners fall Action, crime drama music and dance.
approaches with a glut of asleep. Take a deep breath This Kannada neo-noir thriller Nagaland
feel-good movies, and this and imagine travelling with starring Shiva Rajkumar,
short film is one of the Armitage to the North Sea alongside Rahul Bose, Bangalore Literature
warmest. It tells the story of coasts, to a cave in the Lake Rukmini Vasanth, and Devaraj Festival
Moon, a curious young owl District, or to a glacial lagoon is a follow-up to the superhit The 13th edition of the festival
who finds herself trapped in a in Patagonia. It is a prospect film Mufti (2017). The titular will be held on December 14
Christmas tree destined for too exciting to fall asleep on, character is an ex-lawyer who and December 15 in
the Rockefeller Plaza in New truth be told. goes to the other side of law Bengaluru. It celebrates the
York. The animation is Audible after being failed by the creative spirit of the Garden
inspired by true events: a tiny system. There is a lot on City, whose blooming trees
owl was rescued from New illegal mining and land scams, and sudden rains are known
York City's Rockefeller Center all meant to bring out, by to inspire authors. This edition
Christmas tree in 2020. Video games contrast, the innate honesty features speakers like Amit
왔 Another famous owl from New
왔 of the crime-boss hero. Chaudhuri, Anil Menon,
Netflix has already Unsung Empires: The Small Things like Films
Films and Series York—Flaco, the Eurasian The film arguably lacks the Appupen, Durjoy Datta, Manu
confirmed that Black Cholas II, Legacy of These had its world
eagle-owl who escaped his depth of Mufti but has been S. Pillai, Ira Mukhoty, Harini
Doves will return for a Rajendra Chola premiere at the 74th
Black Doves (Series) enclosure at Central Park Small Things Like These hailed by Shiva Rajkumar Nagendra, and many more.
second season. Chennai-based Ayelet Studio Berlin International
Spy thriller Zoo—was not so lucky. Within Historical drama fans worldwide. Bengaluru
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT Film Festival in Cillian Murphy, of
Season 1 of the much-awaited a year of his escape, Flaco 2h 30m, Kannada
February 2024. Oppenheimer fame, has
British thriller series starring died on colliding with a U/A
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Keira Knightley, Ben Manhattan building. established himself as a
Whishaw, and Sarah English, 21m strong actor with the rare
Art
Lancashire, premieres Disney+ ability to become the
character he portrays on
Festivals A Forest of Many Suns:
globally on Netflix on
Glimpses from K.G.
December 5. Set against the screen. The movie, based on
Hornbill Festival 2024 Subramanyan’s Oeuvre of
backdrop of London at the quiet and powerful novel
Christmas, Black Doves
Podcasts of the same name by Claire
The exotic festival celebrating Seventy Years
Naga culture and landscape The artist K.G. Subramanyan’s
follows Helen Webb (Keira Keegan, is tailor-made for an
Never Give Up: How I is developing this video game returns on December 1, to birth centenary year has been
Knightley)—wife, mother, and actor of his prowess: Murphy
Turned My Biggest to make the world familiar with continue until December 10. celebrated nationwide. This
professional spy—who has plays Bill Furlong, a coal
Challenge into Success the history of the Chola The festival, held each year in extensive show at Arthshila
been passing on her politician worker in Ireland in 1985. His
As the US gears up for Donald dynasty. Rajendra Chola, who the heritage village of Kisama, Delhi, on till January 5, 2025,
husband’s secrets to the life is made up of constant
Trump’s presidency once reigned from 1014 and 1044 Nagaland, is said to have is an outstanding homage
mysterious organisation she hard work, enlivened by
again, here is a podcast to CE, conquered parts of brought about radical to the multifaceted artist. It is
works for. When her lover, moments of togetherness with
help us understand the man present-day Indonesia and Sri changes to the tourism sector meticulously curated by
Jason (Andrew Koji), is his family. He shows his worth
behind the maniacal persona. Lanka, and led an expedition of Nagaland. This year marks R. Siva Kumar, in collaboration
assassinated, she is made to as a human in the way he
Trump talks of his biggest to north India. The game is the 25th anniversary of the with Seagull and contributions
team up with her old friend, helps a pregnant teenager
challenges, expected to hit the market festival, and Kisama has been from leading art galleries and
Sam (Ben Whishaw), to ostracised by a church that
lowest sometime in the middle of revamped for the grand event. private collectors.
investigate who killed Jason exercises considerable
moments, and 2025. It is available to wishlist There will be stalls selling Delhi
and why. Deadly worldwide control over the lives of the
now. local handicrafts, textiles, and
conspiracies tumble out in local people. In the age of CGI
X/S, PlayStation 5, etc. flavourful dishes as well as
the process. With Keira battering the senses, Small

FRONTLINE DECEMBER 13, 2024

114
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