Month: April 2019

Jet Employees Stage Protest

Can Jet Airways Learn from Singapore Airlines?

By LokMarg

If Indian carriers do not learn from the troubles of Jet Airways, there will be more airline failures to come in the near future, writes Lee Kah Whye

After almost 27 years in business, it looks increasingly likely that airplanes painted with the Jet Airways livery have made their final touchdowns.

On April 17, Jet Airways suspended all domestic flights following its inability to obtain interim funding necessary to continue operations. Just five days before, it announced the “temporary” cessation of its international routes as a stop-gap measure to give itself some breathing space from creditors which are owed some $1.2 billion.

In its heyday, it flew to 22 international cities and over 50 local airports. It was once India’s most valuable airline, had the largest market share in India and admired by Indians for breaking the monopoly of state-owned Air India and bringing into the market better services, reliability, and nicer airplanes.

Although there are talks of a rescue being mounted, led by SBI (State Bank of India), the longer Jet Airways stays out of operation, the more difficult it is for it to be revived. In the meantime, staff – pilots, aircrew and ground staff who have not been paid for months have been leaving and joining other airlines. Competitors like SpiceJet and Indigo have also been using the landing slots in airports that have been vacated by Jet.

So, is there something that Jet Airways and the airline industry in India can learn from Singapore? Following are some generic suggestions. It is not meant to be an analysis of how Jet Airways got into trouble.

DECIDE ON YOUR BUSINESS MODEL AND STICK TO IT

When budget carriers started to emerge in the early 2000s, Jet Airways flirted with the new business model. Initially acquiring Air Sahara for $200 million and re-branding it JetLite and later on merging it with another of its brands Jet Konnect. JetLite was positioned somewhere between a low-cost carrier and a full-service carrier. Jet Konnect had similar branding as its parent company but a lower level of service. This brought much confusion into the market.

In the aviation business, there is no mezzanine level of service, no middle ground. You are either a premium airline or a cost leader.

In 2004, when Singapore regulators approved the operations of budget airlines out of Changi, Valuair was one of the few who jumped into the fray. Valuair jointly owned by a Singaporean businessman Dennis Choo and Qantas offered lower fares together with assigned seating and meals. After just slightly over a year it merged with Qantas’s Jetstar Asia.

Budget airlines by definition appeal to the budget-sensitive travellers and especially in the cost sensitive Indian market must be prepared for a fight to the bottom. This means embracing the all the features of budget carriers like flying point to point, using a single aircraft type, landing in airports that charge the least for landing rights, high aircraft utilisation and charging for everything like booking fees, meals, luggage, blankets and even hand baggage if possible.

INNOVATE

Innovation is not just about introducing fancy movie and entertainment experiences onboard,sophisticated and luxurious seats or offering blockchain powered digital wallets and a comprehensive frequent flyer programme. Singapore Airlines (SIA), being a premium airline, offers all of the above.

However, if a decision is made to operate as a discount carrier, then Ryanair, the leading budget airline in Europe is a good example of being innovative. Led by its charismatic founder and CEO Michael O’Leary, it always comes up new ways to shave dollars off air tickets. Whether for publicity purpose or whether they really meant it, there was talk about Ryanair introducing fees for the use of toilets in planes, charging overweight people more for their flights and even making passengers carry their own luggage to the plane. Ryanair has become synonymous with cheap tickets because they go out of their way to save costs, so travellers are somewhat assured they are getting the best deal when flying with them.

Recently, when Italian seat manufacturer Aviointeriors introduced ” standing seats”, at the Aircraft Interiors Expo 2019 (AIX) in Hamburg, Germany, travellers instantly connected this idea with Ryanair.

BUILD CODE SHARE ALLIANCES

For full-service carriers, connectivity is key. This is especially so for the more lucrative international routes. No airline can fly to every city. Domestic routes might provide the base passenger load, but it is the international ones that earn the most profits. It is thus important to build strong partnerships. SIA has more than 30 codeshare partners and many of them are not part of the Star Alliance group which it is a member of.

Jet Airways was not decisive enough in this regard. initially it thought about joining Star Alliance and for reasons which are not clear, then started working more closely with airlines belonging Sky Team. When Etihad took a 24 percent stake, it started to work more closely with Etihad and routed its flights through Abu Dhabi.

WATCH THE BOTTOM LINE

SIA may be famous for the Singapore Girl, pampering their passengers and promoting the romance and glamour or air travel, but the management keeps a close eye on costs and are not afraid to cut back when required.First of all, SIA also does not hesitate to terminate routes that are not profitable. Cebu, Chicago, Washington DC, Vienna, Istanbul, and Sao Palo among the almost 50 cities it has stopped flying to in recent years.

After the global financial crisis in 2008, there was a severe softening of demand for air travel and Singapore Airlines went through a brutal cost-cutting exercise, suspending recruitment, and letting go of staff including almost 80 pilots.

In April 2017, after it reported its first quarterly loss in five years for the fourth quarter which ended in March, SIA underwent a review of its operations and came out with a three-year transformation programme. The review included ways of managing costs more efficiently, new pricing policies, ways to improve aircraft usage and the consolidation of some departments. As a result, it was decided to merge its regional brand Silkair with the main airline. Much earlier, it had already merged Tigerair, it’s a no-frills carrier with another of its low-cost brand Scoot.

Within a year, it recorded its highest profit in seven years and regained the coveted Skytrax best airlines award from Qatar after last winning it nine years ago.

One of the financial structural problems Jet Airways faced was that it was heavily reliant on leased aircraft. While leasing allows a new airline to get off the ground quickly, as it expanded and grew its fleet, it made it’s operating expenses very high. The fact that Jet leases most of its aircraft made it vulnerable to the planes being taken away by leasing companies when it could not pay them and that is what happened. Globally, on average, airlines own half its fleet and leases the rest.

In India, demand for air travel has seen an unprecedented boom. Passenger growth in recent years has been in double digits year on year. By mid-2020s India is forecast to be the world’s third largest market for air travel. If, however, airlines do not learn from the troubles at Jet Airways, there will be more airline failures to come in the near future.

Ram Temple - Faith Accompli

Watch – Will Ram Temple Be Built?

By LokMarg

Most Hindu residents of Faizabad believe a temple for Ram in Ayodhya is a fait accompli, via court or legislation. Muslims are worried about livelihood and violence. LokMarg speaks to Faizabad people about this complex issue. Watch, share and comment. 

 

Religion In Indian Politics

When Secular Is Mocked As ‘Sick-ular’

By Mahendra Ved
BJP has launched an aggressive election campaign on Hindu ‘victimhood’ that requires to be repaired (sic) with attempts to enforce its supremacy over others

Cradle of at least three and home of many more, India is what it is because of the multiplicity of faiths. Religion and religiosity are integral to its culture that has had a continuity few others have.

Call it mutual ‘tolerance’ or ‘acceptance’, Indians professing different faiths live together despite past foreign military invasions followed by conversions, whether they were forced by the sword, coerced through temptations or voluntary. There is assimilation even as people are sought to be divided on religious lines.

What is ‘secular’ in modern-day parlance has evolved with Indian connotations and convenience, just as what is ‘communal’ has to explain what is not ‘secular’. And ‘secular’ itself has undergone transformation from being anti-faith and irreligious to treating all faiths with equal respect. 

For two millennia-plus, India has remained pluralist and yet, in terms of numbers, overwhelmingly (79.8 percent) Hindu. 

And yet, the current election is witnessing an aggressive discourse on Hindu ‘victimhood’ that requires to be repaired with attempts to enforce its supremacy over others. Hindutva, the ploy used to give political turn to the majority faith, gives new twists to the very understanding of the terms ‘tolerance’ and ‘acceptance’. Secular is spelt ‘sick-ular’.  

Three top members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) including an estranged member of the Gandhi ‘dynasty’ courted controversy last week for appearing to threaten people to vote for them.

A video showed women and child welfare minister Maneka Gandhi warning a Muslims’ gathering to vote for her or be shunned if she returns to power. “I am winning with the help of the people. But if my victory comes without the support of Muslims, then I will not feel good… “It will leave a bitter taste. And then when a Muslim comes for any work, then I will think let it be.”

The other new incident involved Sakshi Maharaj, a Hindu monk, who told a gathering in Kanpur that he would “curse” those who do not vote for him. “When a saint comes to beg and isn’t given what he asks for, he takes away all the happiness of the family and in turn gives curse to the family,” Maharaj said, adding he was quoting from sacred Hindu scriptures. He is facing 34 criminal charges, including alleged murder, robbery and cheating.

These offenders are from the ruling alliance. But in a growing list, politicians from other parties and alliances, like Navjot Singh Sidhu, Mayawati and Azam Khan, have also used religious ploys, sexist remarks, hate and intimidation to win support of the electorate even though soliciting votes on religious lines or threatening voters is prohibited.

The Election Commission, while struggling to maintain its authority and a semblance of fairness, has admitted before the country’s highest court that it is ‘toothless’ and ‘helpless’ before the offenders.

For the first time, the statutory body conducting the world’s largest democratic exercise has slapped token punishments of exclusion from public speaking, using its limited powers, to some of these offenders for violating the EC-set norms by appealing to religion or employing religion-related issues. But the punishment has been ridiculed by some who play to the public gallery and some others have repeated their offences.

Besides Sakshi Maharaj, ‘curse’ has become the new cussword. It is astounding that what one read in fairy tales and mythology is used today to damn opponents.

The most controversial curse has come from Pragya Singh Thakur, a lady monk connected with a Hindu extremist body, nominated by the BJP to contest. Unique and complicated, her case needs elaboration. She is on trial for offences ranging from conspiracy to murder and transporting explosives. For want of evidence, a special court recently exonerated her for the 2007 blast on Samjhauta Express, the train that links India and Pakistan. Seventy Pakistanis returning home and Indians visiting their relations in Pakistan died.

The court passed severe strictures against the investigators who first probed a Muslim group and then switched to “Hindu terror”, allegedly on political orders. In effect, none has been convicted and punished, even as India demands of Pakistan to try and punish those involved in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

Thakur said she had ‘cursed’ the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief, Hemant Karkare who she alleges tortured her. The police officer died fighting the Pakistani militants in Mumbai. Honoured posthumously, Karkare had also led the investigations against Thakur in other cases including one pertaining to blasts at a mosque. Thakur now declares that he died “within five weeks” of her ‘curse’. She later regretted her remark, but wants everyone who implicated her in terror attacks to apologise. 

Modi has defended her nomination, declaring that there is “nothing called Hindu terrorism.” Legalities apart, her nomination, while she is out on bail on health grounds, allows her to convert herself from a terror suspect and a victim of her investigators and the judiciary who were ostensibly doing their job, to a heroine upholding her faith.

Admittedly, Thakur is not convicted. She is among the many contesting this election, like others with criminal cases. But in nominating her, Modi and BJP that routinely hand out certificates of nationalism and tag anyone who disagrees with their dominant narrative as a traitor, are rooting for an accused in a terrorism case.

Individuals apart, how faith determines the fate of friends and adversaries is clear from BJP’s official Twitter account. It quotes party chief Amit Shah’s speech that explicitly declared that if re-elected, it would implement the Citizenship bill for the entire country and would act against all infiltrators who were not Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist.

The party’s stand on different communities is no secret. The important thing is the fear that this position elicits among potential voters.

Those obviously excluded are Muslims — invaders who stayed on to rule — and Christians, although those who came as traders and turned colonizers hardly exist in present-day India. The targets could be members of the 24 million community that accounts for 2.3 percent of the totally population.  But they are ‘outsiders’.

The most telling exclusion – one hopes it’s inadvertent — is that of Parsis, the Zoroastrian migrants from Iran who made India their home 14 centuries ago — in Gujarat, the home-state of Modi and Shah. 

The opposition has no answer to this campaign. By not countering the BJP on lynching and numerous other issues that pertain to the minorities and depressed sections of the society, the opposition parties by and large, but the Congress especially, have conceded to the BJP’s ideological narrative.

Sadly, Shah’s viewing the electorate as Ali-versus-Bajrangbali is finding tacit acceptance from rising urban middle classes. Unlikely to end with these elections, it is now a reality of our times, unlikely to go away.

One is sticking the neck out mid-way through the voting process, with its outcome barely three weeks away. Forget arguing over Modi’s development plank and his many achievements and failures, he could get a fresh mandate by dividing people on religious lines, instilling fear in them. But if he fails, it will be because a resilient society that has lived in plurality for long has its own silent, even if opaque, way of dealing with such attempts.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com


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Colombo's Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith

Easter Blasts Will Open New Fault Lines In Sri Lanka

By Seema Guha
Post-Easter terror strikes, Sinhala hotheads are bound to target minorities and a period of communal tension appears to be on the cards for Sri Lanka

Easter Sunday’s well-coordinated terror strikes, which ripped through three churches and high-end hotels in Sri Lanka, killing over 300 people, were a bolt from the blue for most of the world. The violence in the island nation was always ethnic, not religious. The Easter massacre bear a remarkable resemblance to copy-cat ISIS and Al Qaeda operations. After two days of counting the dead, ISIS finally claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Sri Lankan government has identified all the bombers as Sri Lankan citizens but authorities suspect foreign links. The sophistication of the serial blasts and the coordinates point to some level of international plot inspired by radical Islamic ideology and the world wide jihadi movement. Suicide bombers were used earlier by the LTTE while battling government forces in the past, but the targeting of Christians and the fact that five star hotels were attacked, clearly points to an attempt to kill westerners.

Whether the Sri Lankan investigators connect the dots or not, the fact remains that the local bombers would have been inspired by the international jihadi propaganda. There are numerous instances of lone wolf and group attacks across the Europe, Africa and Asia by those who wish to clone Al Qaeda and ISIS and hit out at Christians.

The Easter Sunday terror has come at a time when Sri Lanka was witnessing a period of peace and stability after decades of bloodletting during the ethnic conflict between Tamil rebels and security forces. This new threat could once again open old wounds in the island nation. The Tamil minority in the north and east are unhappy with all the tall promises made by Sirisena-Ranil Wickremasinghe government which remain unfulfilled. Tamils want closure to decades of abuse by bringing to book those responsible for largescale human rights violation during the military campaign that wiped out the LTTE leadership in 2009. It is suspected that elements that continue to support the LTTE may try to use the current mayhem to cooperate with local Islamic radicals in future. But it is more likely that with the government naming the local terror group Thowfeek Jamaath as the main perpetrators of the Easter Sunday strikes, a fresh fault line or communal discord between the majority Buddhists (over 70% of the population) and the minority Muslims. This outfit was also responsible for defacing Buddhist statues some time back.

Sinhala chauvinism which is at the heart of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict, was at its peak after the victory over the LTTE. Led by none other than President Mahinda Rajapaksa, triumphalism was all pervasive. A section of Sinhala-Buddhists, with newly acquired confidence, often got aggressive with minority groups. In the decade after the defeat of the LTTE, incidents of attacks on Muslims and Christians were reported intermittently.  

Such things were unheard of in the past. In 2013, a Buddhist mob attacked a mosque in Colombo injuring 12 worshippers. There was communal tension for a while but the government was able to contain the situation. Buddhist monks once tried to disrupt a church service earlier this year. More than two dozen such incidents were reported including attempts to stop the service this year itself. Last year, 86 cases of discrimination, threats and violence against Christians were reported by the National Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka.

In the past, when the focus was primarily on the ethnic divide between Sinhalese and Tamils, Muslims and Christians faced little problem. In fact the 9.7% of Muslim minority in the Buddhist island nation is well integrated with both the majority Sinhala and Tamil communities.  Muslims in Sri Lanka are mainly Tamil speaking. During decades of ethnic conflict, the Muslims largely kept equidistance from both sides, though some collaborated with the government. Others were caught in the conflict between the state and the LTTE.  In the late 70s and 80s, the Israelis who were close to the United National Party, were called in to assist the Lankan intelligence agencies and train Tamil-speaking Muslims to spy on the LTTE. At that time, India was worried about the spread of Israeli and American influence in its immediate neighbourhood, especially as there was talk about the US setting up a listening post in Eastern Sri Lanka.  

During that period, there were instances of LTTE attacks on new Muslim and Sinhala settlements in the Eastern province, where the government was hoping to dilute the Tamil majority status. Likewise the Christians, most of them Roman Catholics, who form 7.4% of the population, are also well integrated with both the Sinhalese and the Tamils.  Thus the attack on Christians is unlikely to be owing to any local circumstances despite minor incidents earlier mentioned.   

Clearly, like many Muslim youth across the world, the talk of the Caliphate by ISIS did ignite the imagination of Muslim boys in Sri Lanka. A few of them, around 33-35 travelled to Syria to fight with the ISIS warriors. The numbers were small compared to other countries; 6,000 went from Tunisia and 1,500 from France. With the collapse of the Caliphate and the ISIS on the backfoot through Syria and Iraq, many of the fighters are looking for safe and distant havens. South Asia is a good choice. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan and Pakistan are places to regroup.

While it is not known if any of the Sri Lankan Muslims involved in Sunday’s bloodbath were youngsters who may have returned from ISIS camps, there have been reports in recent years of some degree of radicalization of Muslim youngsters in Sri Lanka. Also, Saudi Arabia has been pouring in funds for mosques in the island state as the kingdom had been doing across South Asia. All this is helping to stamp the Islamic identity of Muslims of Sri Lanka. These factors will come into play in the next few months as Sri Lanka grapples with the current crisis.

It is difficult to predict how the situation finally pans out. The government has handled the situation well so far. It has clamped down on rumours and half-baked assumptions so as not to inflame passions or cause attacks on hapless Muslims. Yet, Sinhala hotheads are bound to strike back and therein lies the real worry of the government and the region. A period of communal tension appears to be on the cards for Sri Lanka. Will this Jihadi fight spill over to India and the rest of the South Asian neighbourhood is a question which would be worrying authorities in New Delhi. Maldives, a predominantly Sunni Muslim country, already has ISIS sympathizers and activists lurking in the shadows. Will these forces unite and shift their operations to India’s neighbourhood is a horrible prospect.

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6 States That Could Make Or Break Modi

By Sanjoy Narayan
The BJP tally in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan will decide how it fares in 2019 Lok Sabha elections

Plumb in the middle of India’s seven-phase mega national elections, the prevailing mood is one that is marked palpably by confusion. India’s elections have often proved to be notoriously unpredictable. The tsunami-like wave that Mr Narendra Modi rode on to win in 2014 had taken everyone—including the most seasoned Indian psephologists—completely by surprise. It isn’t different this time. No one appears to have a clue. Journalists scouring the length and breadth of the country report widely divergent readings of the mood of India’s 820-million strong voters. Some say Prime Minister Modi’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could return to power, albeit with less than the overwhelming majority it won last time (in 2014, the BJP won 282 of 543 seats; and along with its allies, its tally was 336). Others say the people’s verdict could result in an indecisive outcome with the united opposition, led by the Congress, eating into the BJP’s vote shares.

There are six states though that could decide the fate of the BJP: Uttar Pradesh, which has the highest number of parliamentary seats (80); Maharashtra (48), Bihar (40), Madhya Pradesh (29), Gujarat (26), and Rajasthan (25). That makes for a total of 248 seats; in 2014, the BJP won 194 of them. In other states with a large number of parliamentary constituencies, such as Bengal (42), and Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (which together have 42), and the three southern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka (which together account for 87 seats), the BJP’s footprint is still weak and it will have to depend on the electoral strength of its allies in order to add to the National Democratic Alliance coalition that it leads. Moreover, in some of these states, the regional parties (viz. the Trinamool Congress in Bengal; and the AIADMK and DMK in Tamil Nadu) hold sway with the national parties, BJP and Congress, having much less sway among voters.

So, much of how the BJP fares in the ongoing elections will depend on how many seats it gets to win in the six states that powered its victory in 2014. In three of them—UP, Maharashtra, and Bihar—where the BJP won handsomely in 2014, this time around it faces a stiff fight. In Uttar Pradesh, the two regional parties, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), usually daggers drawn, have forged a surprise alliance to fight against the BJP.

In Bihar, the Congress, which got battered in the 2014 national elections (it got a total of 44 seats), has tied up with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). In Maharashtra, where the BJP has an alliance with the regional Shiv Sena, the tie-up has been under strain. Notably, in UP, the alliance between the SP and BSP covers a swathe of castes and religious communities—the SP has the support of the Muslims and the Yadavs while the BSP, led by Mayawati, has the support of the Dalits and other backward castes. In Bihar, the Congress and RJD, contesting together, could prove to be a formidable challenger to the BJP.

ALSO READ: Do Regional Parties Hold Key To Next Govt?

In Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, in recent assembly elections, the Congress was able to win and form the state governments. That could be a critical factor in determining who the voters in those states would choose in the national elections, giving the Congress an edge in the choice. In 2014, the BJP won 71 of the 80 seats in UP; 22 of the 40 in Bihar; all of the 26 seats in Gujarat; 23 of the 48 in Maharashtra; 27 of the 29 in Madhya Pradesh; and all 25 in Rajasthan.

This time, things could be much tougher for it. The BJP and its allies would need 272 seats in the 543-strong Parliament in order to decisively win. But, although Mr Modi and his party are hoping to get extra numbers from Bengal, Odisha and some of the southern states to make up for the losses in the six crucial states, it is not something it can bank on. The regional parties in these states are formidably strong, with some such as the Trinamool Congress having deep, cadre-based support bases.

In the six states that powered its 2014 victory, the BJP has taken steps to garner support in the face of a stronger opposition. In UP, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, it has tried to woo the non-Yadav and other backward classes by according the status of a constitutional body to the National Commission for Other Backward Classes, which decides on job reservations for India’s most backward classes. It has also tried to alleviate the apprehensions of the poorer sections of India’s upper castes (who fear discrimination when it comes to jobs) by reserving 10% of jobs for upper-caste people coming under the “economically weaker section”.

But still the going will be tough for Mr Modi’s party. In UP, the BSP-SP alliance is strong and theoretically covers a large swathe of castes and communities. For instance, Muslims who have remained almost universally apprehensive of Mr Modi’s government will be unlikely to vote for the BJP or any of its allies.

ALSO READ: It It Advantage Modi?

In two of the six crucial states, however, the BJP could leverage Mr Modi’s own popularity. In a TV interview recently, Mr Modi boasted: “Modi hi Modi ko challenge kiya hai” (Modi is the only challenger to Modi). In states such as Maharashtra and Gujarat, his popularity could translate into regional waves of support when people cast their votes. But in the recent state assembly election in Gujarat, while the BJP won and formed the government, the Congress fared better in terms of the number of votes it managed to get. And, in Maharashtra, where its fate will be partly governed by the support extended by its partner, the Shiv Sena, the two have had regular spats in recent years, differing over many issues.

Many believe that in 2014, when the BJP won 194 seats in the six mentioned states, it had exhausted the maximum number that it could have hoped for from those. And that a repeat of that performance now looks unlikely.

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Misogyny In Indian Politics

The Inherent Misogyny In Indian Politics

By Anita Katyal
Most political parties have no system in place that will restrain their leaders from using coarse and sexist language to deride female opponents

The ongoing campaign for India’s Lok Sabha polls is plumbing new depths on a daily basis. As electioneering gathers momentum, reports of politicians using coarse and abusive language against their opponents have become a regular occurrence.

Though male politicians, especially high-profile leaders like Congress president Rahul Gandhi, are constantly targeted by rivals, it is the women politicians who are the worst off. Civility in public life is now a rare phenomenon as women politicians are finding out to their own peril, having to continuously contend with the worst possible sexist and misogynistic comments. From being called “prostitutes”, “skirt wali bai”  and “nach gaane wali” to comments on their physical appearance and how they dress, women in politics have to face all this and more.

The offenders come from across the political spectrum and the insulting language used by them has become such a regular feature that both their party bosses and the public at large view it as acceptable behavior, putting it down to election fever. The common excuse proffered for this behavior is that “people sometimes get carried away in the heat of the moment.” If at all there is any outrage and anger, it is confined largely to the social media.

Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, who is not new to controversies, touched a new low recently while campaigning against Jaya Prada, a former film actor who has been fielded by the Bharatiya Janata Party from the Rampur Lok Sabha constituency. Addressing a public meeting, Khan remarked, “It took you 17 years to understand her true face. But I realised in 17 days… that she wears khaki underwear.”  And, of course, an unrepentant Khan shrugged off these comments, merely saying these were not meant for Jaya Prada. Similarly, another Samajwadi Party leader Firoz Khan had not held back in degrading Jaya Prada. “Rampur ki shaamein rangeen ho jaayengi ab jab chunavi mahual chalega (Rampur’s evenings will turn colourful in this election season),” he had said at an election rally, clearly referring to her former career in films.

While Jaya Prada has always been at the receiving end, primarily because she comes from the world of cinema, other women politicians are not spared either. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the newly-appointed Congress general secretary, is currently the prime target of her political rivals. From comments about her clothes to her looks, nothing is off-limits. 

The gamut of comments ranges from being called a “choclatey face”, “Sarupnakha” (Ravan’s sister) and “Pappu ki Pappi”. BJP’s Bihar minister Vinod Narayan Jha had derisively remarked that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra may be beautiful but has no political achievement to her credit. His party colleague Harish Dwivedi did no better. He chose to comment on Priyanka’s clothes, stating at another election rally that “Priyanka Gandhi wears jeans and top in Delhi but wears a sari and sindoor when she tours rural areas. Senior BJP leader Kailash Vijavargiya went a step further when he remarked that Priyanka’s entry into politics was similar to fielding Kareena Kapoor or Salman Khan in elections. “The Congress does not have strong candidates, so it is bringing in these charming faces,” he sneered.

Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati is another “favorite” with the abusers. As a woman, the BSP chief has many “disadvantages” to her credit: She is heading a party, has been a chief minister, nurses Prime Ministerial ambitions but above all, she is a Dalit. A scheduled caste woman leader, who had the temerity to upset the social status quo, is anathema to male politicians, especially those belonging to the upper castes. As a result, her adversaries consistently demean and disparage her.

When Mayawati recently mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for calling himself a chowkidar while living in royal style,  BJP leader Surendra Singh responded by stating that the BSP chief coloured her hair and gets a  daily facial to “hide her age.” And when the BSP teamed up with the Samajwadi Party, another BJP leader did not blink before calling her a “transgender”. Three years ago, another BJP leader from Uttar Pradesh had accused Mayawati of selling tickets like a “prostitute,” a remark which was defended by his wife Swati Singh.

But BJP leaders are not the only offenders here. Misogyny cuts across political barriers. Sanjay Nirupam, former president of the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee, had, in the course of a television debate, jeered Union Smriti Irani, calling her “thumke lagane wali”.  Congress alliance partner Jaydeep Kawade, fared no better, stating that Irani wears a bindi and “that the size of a woman’s bindi keeps grows as she changes husbands.”

As charges and counter-charges fly thick and fast, it appears that there is going to be no early end to this coarsening debate. It is little wonder that women hesitate to enter politics as political parties have no systems in place to check such behaviour. On the other hand, the conduct of offending politicians is invariably shrugged off without inviting any form of punishment from their party bosses.

This comes at a time when political parties, in an effort to appear more gender-friendly and to get a slice of the women’s vote, have publicly declared that they would give more tickets to women and even implement a quota for women in party structures. However, their commitment can easily be gauged by the fact that the women’s reservation bill, providing quotas for women in Parliament and state assemblies, has been pending for nearly two decades while the pledge to give more representation in the party organisation and the selection of candidates invariably remains unfulfilled.

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Why BJP Seeks To Discredit Nehru, And Family

By Mahendra Ved

Nehru is BJP’s principal target because he not only ‘discovered’ India but also piloted what free India became for 16 long years

A cartoon doing media rounds amidst the Election 2019 campaign shows India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, a mischievous smile on his face, decamping with all ‘achievements’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

Arguably, this responds to Nehru’s sustained denigration by the Modi Government, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its affiliates. Subtle and defensive, it is unable to match the aggressive campaign to render India “Congress-free.”

Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, called ‘pappu’ (simpleton) and worse for long claims he nurses no grudge against Modi. He even hugged him in parliament. But his gesture that critics panned but some thought could be a game-changer, has drowned in hate-filled cacophony.

ALSO READ: Modi Is Delivering On One Promise

On the Rafale aircraft deal wherein the government has allegedly favoured a business house, Rahul says that Modi, who calls himself ‘chowkidar’ (watchdog), is actually a ‘thief’ — “chowkidar chor hai”.  His using this jibe, unwisely attributing it to the Supreme Court has, however, landed him in trouble. Like ‘chai’ (tea) in 2014, ‘Chor’ has become this election’s buzzword.

The opposition parties have found no reply to the Modi-led campaign that focuses heavily, but selectively, on national security issues. The focus is solely on Pakistan (Muslims at home, beware!). With helpful sections of media, China (military standoff in Sikkim, alleged dumping of consumer goods and shielding of Pakistani militant Masood Azahar) is tactfully kept out.

The campaign of calumny is extended to all critics of the government. They are being dubbed “anti-national,” prompting even marginalized BJP patriarch L K Advani to protest.

Take note — beneath this mutual name-calling, some of it personal and derogatory, some targeting religious minorities and Dalits and unsparing of women, is a thinly concealed ideological war. Howsoever diluted and putrid, it makes this Lok Sabha election, although 17th over seven decades, a watershed.

Socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia, among last of India’s thinking politicians, classified the country’s political cultures into Congress, communist/socialist and “Hindu nationalist” Jana Sangh (BJP’s earlier avatar). 

Of the three, the communists, having scored several self-goals are marginalized in the essentially right-of-centre discourse. Contradictions-prone socialists, both anti-Congress and anti-communist, are divided into caste-oriented regional parties, further divided on support and opposition to Modi/BJP. They are among the numerous regional parties scattered across the country hoping to be king-makers, should a clear parliamentary majority elude Modi.  

The fight for the national space, thus, is essentially between a weak but vying-to-surge Congress and BJP, now the country’s dominant political force ruling at the Centre and in 20 states. This sharpens the conflict as never before with baiting Nehru and his family is an important ingredient.

Campaign against Nehru is not new; nor against his daughter Indira and grandson Rajiv who later became the premiers; nor against Italian-born Sonia who snatched power from BJP in 2004.

It gained currency each time the Congress lost power. US-based writer Ved Mehta did a scathing study, and so did many others, including Nehru’s own one-time private secretary, M O Mathai. While Mehta is forgotten, Mathai’s scurrilous writings keep re-surfacing.  

Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998-2004), a BJP premier, but a liberal and a known Nehru admirer, had discouraged this. There was some grace in public discourse. Attacking Mahatma Gandhi and demonizing the Nehru-Gandhi family were confined to those believing in undoing India’s 1947 Partition. They gained little political currency.

It’s no holds barred now since the Congress performed abysmally in 2014 and the BJP consolidated it hold. The Mahatma’s assassin, too, has a temple.

ALSO READ: Statues Come And Go, Ideas Survive

Now, we gather through books and social media, that the Nehrus were “Muslims-converted to Hinduism”; that Indira married Firoze Gandhi, a Muslim, not a Zoroastrian and that after Sonia married Rajiv and their daughter Priyanka married Robert Vadra, the family has become ‘Christian’.

Significantly, this has gained currency, especially among the urban educated who, otherwise call themselves ‘modern’, but don’t pause to think why and how should religions matter.

Sadly, those who have failed to create history are now attempting to rewrite history wherein Nehru has a place that cannot be deleted. This has accompanied attempts to appropriate past leaders like Sardar Patel (with world’s tallest statue) and Madan Mohan Malaviya (conferred Bharat Ratna, highest civilian award).

Nehru is their principal target because he not only ‘discovered’ India through his iconic book, but also piloted what free India became, good or otherwise, for 16 long years. Countering the fact that Chandigarh city and Bhakra-Nangal dams were built under Nehru’s watch and his role in establishing institutions of science and higher education is integral to the BJP’s search for a raison d’etre.

Congress’ own performance over the past six decades has greatly contributed to this process. It has shed much of the Mahatma-Nehru ethos. For the many good she did, Indira stands identified with the draconian Emergency. Rajiv’s ill-advised play of the Hindu-Muslim/mandir-masjid game to counter BJP in the 1980s only helped the latter’s consolidation.

Today, his son Rahul eschews any secular pretense, politically, and is declared a sacred thread-wearing Shaivite. Nehru’s agnostic approach and Indira Gandhi’s secularism are passé.   

Like secularism, socialism — the ‘allies’ the Congress is fighting include the communists. The historic collaborate-despite-conflict relationship is over when, ironically, Congress election manifesto, a document of substance, qualifies it to be slotted as a progressive, left-of-centre force. In a double-irony, it also distinguishes it from the BJP, whose B team it is perceived to be playing.

Worse, the party’s democratic DNA has changed. It has become a family fiefdom. Its members at all levels can’t even conceive of a leader other than a Nehru-Gandhi at the top. This has been on for half a century now, since Indira split the party in 1969 and again in 1978, when party heads and state chief ministers began being appointed from New Delhi.

This ‘dynasty’ bit has refurbished with the entry of Priyanka. Congress’ most potent weapon, she could confront Modi in Varanasi. She has a striking public presence and reports are that she charms with her conversational style. Whether her resemblance to grandma Indira, who was assassinated 34 years ago, would appeal to people, particularly 85 million young, remains to be seen.

ALSO READ: Priyanka’s Entry Makes Elections Exciting

Modi uses ‘dynasty’ as a dirty word at will, only against the Congress, despite the fact that the BJP has 18 such families of its own. BJP’s own decision-making is over-centralized in just two – Modi himself and party chief Amit Shah.

He prides himself in being unattached and thus, incorruptible. It’s not that one thing proves the other. But he is targeting, rightly or otherwise, other singles on graft charges. Mayawati, Mamata Banerjee, Navin Patnaik are single Supremos, like late Jayalalithaa was. And he is selective about family-run parties of M K Stalin, Chandrababu Naidu and his rival Jaganmohan Reddy, Sharad Pawar, Lalu Prasad, Mulayam Singh/Akhilesh Yadav, the Abdullahs, besides Telengana’s Chandrashekhar Rao and Karnataka’s Kumaraswamy.     

To return to the Congress, its prospects remain iffy despite its electoral victories in three states last December. Ironically, they have made it difficult for the party to negotiate alliances. Its young president who bears the brunt for “sixty years of Congress rule” is himself an untried man never having held office in a government. He cannot rally the opposition behind him because the seniors out there are afraid that the party could re-emerge at their cost.  Seen as weak or indecisive, his state satraps have also scuttled pre-poll alliance(s) that could have effectively challenged the BJP. The opposition has a plethora of prime ministerial candidates. This is advantage BJP.

Besides what happens of Modi/BJP, the other key takeaway of the current elections will be the future of the Congress Party, India’s oldest. Of course, India is not, and cannot be a two-party state for a long time. These elecions will determine the role they could play in shaping the course of the nation’s destiny. It will decide which way, and how. India’s polity and society will go in the near future.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

EC Officials Watch Narendra Modi Biopic

By LokMarg

Acting on the directions of the Supreme Court, officials of the Election Commission on Wednesday watched a special screening of Vivek Oberoi-starrer biopic on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A total of seven officials of a committee set up for the purpose were present for the screening of the biopic titled ‘PM Narendra Modi’.

The apex court had directed the EC to watch the full biopic and take an informed decision on banning its pan India release by April 19.

The ECI officials who watched the screening included Deputy Commissioner Umesh Sinha, Deputy Commissioner Sandeep Saxena, one senior deputy Election Commissioner, three Director General level officers. Delhi’s Chief Electoral Officer Ranbir Singh was also present at the screening. 

A top court bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, comprising Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Sanjiv Khanna, asked the EC to watch the Narendra Modi biopic and submit its view to the court by April 22 in a sealed cover.

On April 12, the makers of the Vivek Oberoi-starrer had moved the apex court, challenging the stay of the film’s release. The producer of the film, Sandip Ssingh, had said that the poll panel banned the movie without watching it.

The film was scheduled to release on April 11, coinciding with the commencement of the Lok Sabha elections in the country. However, on April 10, the EC stayed the release of the biopic till national elections culminate, stating that the film disturbs the level-playing field.

On April 9, the apex court had dismissed a plea on the release of the film and said that the responsibility will lie on the shoulders of the EC to decide whether the film is in violation of the model code of conduct.

The movie is directed by Omung Kumar and includes Vivek Oberoi, Zarina Wahab, and Barkha Bisht Sengupta. (ANI)

Do Regional Parties Hold The Key?

By Anita Katyal
The performance and preference of regional parties will be watched closely as they could play a crucial role in deciding who forms the next government in the event of poll results throwing a hung house

While the various pre-poll surveys for the upcoming Lok Sabha election have predicted that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance has an edge over its opponents, they have also forecast that “others” or regional parties not aligned with either the saffron party or the Congress, can win anywhere between 100 to 138 seats.

The performance of these regional parties needs to be watched closely as they could well play a crucial role in deciding who forms the next government if neither the BJP-led alliance nor the coalition stitched up by the Congress is unable to cross the half-way mark in the 543-member Lok Sabha. The regional parties do not have a wide-enough presence to form a government on their own but they are certainly in a position to play kingmaker in case of a hung Lok Sabha.

The “non-aligned” regional parties can be broadly clubbed into two categories. The Biju Janata Dal, led by Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, headed by Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and YSR Congress Party’s Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh. All the three parties maintain they are equidistant from the two national parties but will have no qualms in going with the winner.

In fact, it is informally accepted by BJP leaders that these three parties will be amenable to a post-poll deal with them if their alliance falls short of the requisite numbers. From all accounts, the three parties are well-placed in their respective states and their leaders have not given any reason to believe that they will not be willing to do business with the BJP if it comes back to power.

The second category of regional parties includes Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, Akhilesh Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party and Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress. Their home states – Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh – collectively account for 147 Lok Sabha seats.

It is expected that these regional satraps will not align with the BJP and will instead drive a hard bargain with the Congress-led alliance after the elections. This will, of course, depend on the final tally and whether this grouping is in a position to form the government.

This was evident from Mamata Banerjee’s speech at an election rally in West Bengal’s Raiganj constituency on April 9 where she declared that the Congress will not be able to form a government on its own and that “the Rahul Gandhi-led party will have to seek help from others if it wants to form a government at the Centre”. The Trinamool chief is playing to win a maximum of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in her home state West Bengal so that she is in a position to call the shots after elections and, maybe, position herself as a Prime Ministerial candidate. To improve her acceptability outside West Bengal, Banerjee has directed that her party’s press conferences held in Delhi be conducted in Hindi. One such press meet was held on the eve of the first phase of elections on April 11.

All attention is currently focused on former bitter political rivals in UP, the BSP and the SP, who have now joined hands along with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal to take on the BJP in the electorally crucial state. They have deliberately kept the Congress out of this alliance as they would like to maximize their gains in the election to be able to negotiate from a position of strength after the polls.

It has become imperative for this grand alliance (maha-gathbandhan) to succeed on the ground not only because the survival of the regional parties is at stake but also to weaken the BJP in Uttar Pradesh where the party bagged 71 of the 80 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Though the BSP failed to win a single seat and the SP was reduced to four seats thanks to the Modi wave, the two parties have posted good results in the past.  

A good showing by these regional forces this time will improve their political fortunes in Uttar Pradesh and, at the same time, give them an opportunity to decide who forms the next government at the Centre. Like Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati is also looking to play a larger national role. Though her party’s vote share has been declining, the BSP has fielded candidates across states to bump up her tally by garnering a sizeable number of Dalit votes. Mayawati made her intention clear when she told her party cadre recently that she may have decided to keep away from the electoral fray but this will not impede her chances of becoming Prime Minister as she has the option of contesting a Lok Sabha election within a period of six months.

Chandrababu Naidu is pragmatic enough to realise that he is not in the race for the Prime Minister’s post but he certainly has ambitions of playing a kingmaker at the Centre. After he parted company with the BJP over his demand to secure special status for Andhra Pradesh, Naidu has made consistent efforts to bring together opposition parties on a common platform. He played a similar role in 1996 when a set of regional parties formed the government at the Centre by cobbling together a coalition. The hurriedly forged United Front forced the Congress to lend it outside support in order to keep the BJP out.

Naidu, who was the convener of the United Front, has now predicted that 1996 will be repeated this year. In other words, he is convinced that regional forces will be at centre stage while the Congress will be the pivot of this grouping. The game plan of the regional parties is self-evident. They want to be in the driver’s seat and want the Congress to align with them but on their terms.

Regional parties have realized their potential ever since coalition politics became a recurring feature of Indian polity in the late eighties. Having a presence at the Centre gives the regional leaders a place at the high table, helps them push the interests of their respective states and even influence national policy.

For instance, Mamata Banerjee walked out of the Manmohan Singh government in protest against its policy to open up the retail sector for foreign direct investment. Similarly, the Trinamool chief did not allow India to sign the Teesta river water sharing treaty with Bangladesh on the ground that it did not favour West Bengal. Regional autonomy and preserving the country’s federal structure are the buzz words in a coalition era. But, most important, a role at the Centre also ensures personal protection for the regional satraps and their party members as many of them are guilty of misdemeanors and need necessary legal safeguards.

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Jallianwala Bagh: Will An Apology 100 Yrs Late Help?

By Mahendra Ved
An apology that comes a hundred years after the bloodbath in Amritsar is mere tokenism. Britain has failed even in this belated act.

Of numerous incidents of violence perpetrated on the unarmed by the British while colonizing much of the world, the carnage at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar on April 13, 1919, is and shall remain unique.

Many say that firing 1,650 bullets on the unarmed civilians that day, Britain shot itself in the foot, eventually losing India, its “Jewel in the Crown”. And that, in turn, unleashed the global process of de-colonization.  

As that event marks completion of a century this Saturday, much water has flow down the Thames and many rivers across the world that went red with blood of the ‘natives’. But the present-day British are in no mood to apologize. British Prime Minister Theresa May did term the incident a “shameful scar” but stopped short of an apology.

The House of Lords that had exonerated Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, the “Butcher of Amritsar”, debated the tragedy this February; the House of Commons debated it on Tuesday (April 8). But worried about “potential financial implications”, Minister Mark Field, chose to be ‘conservative’ and expectedly, declined appeals by Members for an apology. 

Perhaps, an apology would have set a ‘bad’ precedence. Members of the “Mother Parliament” and governments of the day would be left with little else to do if they began apologizing to people around the world for much that happened during two centuries of colonization.

Allowing a related topic to creep in, the British, like other European ex-colonizers, will not return the artefacts they stole from Asia, Africa and Latin America. This is unlike what the United States, itself a colony once, is in the process of doing. So a million precious things that belong to other peoples’ heritage, shall remain where they are, or to be auctioned at Sotheby’s.

It’s a tad unfair, one might say, to expect only the Britons to atone for their sins when there were other, equally rapacious, colonizers.

It’s also unfair that the present generation be expected to atone for their ancestors’ sins. Besides expression of regrets by the Queen in 1997 and another by then Prime Minister David Cameroon in 2013, an FCO spokesman recalled Winston Churchill. As the Secretary of State for War when Jallianwala occurred, he had called it “a monstrous event.”

But records show Churchill’s attitude towards India and Indians only hardened thereafter. As Britain’s war-time prime minister during the World War II, he diverted food produced in India to the Allied forces, causing deaths of millions during the Great Bengal Famine.      

In the latest book on Jallianwala carnage, Kishwar Desai – (her husband Lord Meghnad Desai and Lord  Raj Loomba had moved the resolution in the House of Lords), reveals that Brigadier General Dyer alone was not responsible for the massacre and other atrocities. The blame must also fall on Lieutenant Governor Michael O’Dwyer, who blindly endorsed Dyer’s actions.

She writes of “a feigned state of war” declared by Miles Irving, Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar, which set the ground for General Dyer to take command of Amritsar on April 11, 1919, without a formal notification.

A study on Live History on Lifting The Veil says there was alarm at the show of Hindu-Muslim unity at the Ram Navami celebrations, four days earlier. The book reveals that “the army and the police came closer than ever with a dual purpose: to break the so-called rebellion and to smash Hindu-Muslim unity forever.”

This is yet another aspect of the British rule in India consequences of which are being felt even today.    

Desai says Dyer deliberately took only Indian soldiers, who “continued to fire on the defenceless gathering without any warning till they exhausted 1,650 rounds, killing and wounding nearly 2,000 people who had allegedly “defied Dyer’s authority” by assembling there. While many areas in Punjab had been placed under restriction, Jallianwala Bagh was not among them.

Salman Rushdie has dramatized the event in his Booker- winning 1981 novel, Midnight’s Children. In it, Dyer says after the massacre: “Good shooting. We have done jolly good work.”

Thanks to a lid on information, the Indian leaders’ reaction took a while to come and was muted. Rabindranath Tagore returned his British knighthood. Mahatma Gandhi condemned the system rather than any individual.

But Viceroy Chelmsford endorsed the action of the Punjab government without inquiry and said that it was “an error in judgement” on Dyer’s part, whose initial report of April 14 revealed “only 200-300 casualties.”

It was only four months after the massacre, on August 25, that Dyer wrote a detailed report of the events of April 13 and confirmed that he had fired without warning. This was the first time that the Government of India learnt about the actual circumstances. Subsequently, many of the official documents were suppressed, and official hearings were held in camera. Relevant documents were carted away to London when the British quit India.

Undoubtedly, Jallianwala Bagh was the turning point for India’s freedom movement. The world was to watch how Gandhi met British violence with non-violence. He had already launched Satyagraha at Champaran (1917) and Kheda (Kaira -1918). The one against the Rowlatt Act took place in Bombay (now Mumbai) on April 6, 1919, occurred just a week before Jalliawala Bagh happened.  

The carnage convinced Gandhi that the British needed to be countered with something they were unprepared for and, in the long run, could not endure.

But not everyone had Gandhi’s patience and vision. Udham Singh avenged Jallianwala by killing O’Dwyer on March 13, 1940, a good 21 years later. By that time, the Hindu-Muslim divide had been deep. Udham Singh is said to have given his name as Mohammed Singh Azad, which the London Police initially registered. Symbolically, it combined three different faiths.

There is no final count of how many people actually perished. Desai records that the authorities were totally insensitive to the sufferings of the hapless victims. Lt. Col. Smith, the government doctor, turned away the wounded, calling them “rabid dogs”, causing more deaths over the following days.

Jallianwala massacre has rankled people on both sides of the India-Pakistan border, despite the bitterness caused by India’s Partition and that of Punjab, and the perpetual state of mistrust between the two South Asian neighbours. This week, Pakistan’s Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry endorsed the demand that the British government apologise for the empire’s role in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and the famine of Bengal in the run-up to the 100th anniversary of the massacre.

Having defended Dyer initially, the British have sought to demonize him. Most literature published in the UK around the massacre focuses on him, as if the British Indian Government or that ruling from Westminster had no role to play. Certainly, there is not an iota of guilt.

Sadly, this attitude appeared to influence ‘Gandhi’, the 1981 cinematic opus by Sir Richard Attenborough that, nevertheless, is the best tribute that could be paid to the Mahatma. It won a record eight Oscars at the 55th annual Academy Awards and reminded the world of Gandhi and his teachings.

Here, this writer may be allowed, for the sake of better expression, first-person reference to the press preview of the film held in New Delhi. Sir Richard, fair to history, events and to characters, by and large, did seem to guard Britain’s ‘sovereign’ interests.

In the film, Dyer wears no insignia depicting the British Crown on his cap. However, black-and-white photographs of Edward Fox, the actor who played Dyer, distributed at the media preview showed the Crown. When I pointed this out to Sir Richard, he initially denied it. But after Major Atul Dev, a retired Indian soldier-turned journalist, also insisted that it was so, the legendary had the grace to apologize. I have retained that photograph.

Does it really matter if Britain, a declining power today, apologizes? India, its economy galloping at a faster rate than the British, has found better ways — like buying over Tetley and Jaguar and in a manner of speaking, pouring cold ‘Cobra’ into the Thames.

Some fair-minded Britons have said that the Jallianwala Bagh massacre apology should have come in 1919 itself, when the issue was discussed in the British Parliament. Was that not an “error of judgement”, a la Dyer, but a collective one?  

An apology that comes a hundred years hence is mere tokenism. Britain has failed even in this belated act.  

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

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