Author: Mahendra Ved

The freedom fighter’s vision of a global federation of the future is still relevant today

Seven decades after the British left, a young Indian donning a hat uncharacteristically continues to stride on South Asia’s mental landscape, ruffling up the political discourse and occasionally questioning the conscience of the former colonial masters.

Overshadowing his Sikh identity, Shaheed Bhagat Singh’s ‘Western’ image emerged when he was on the run from the British Indian police. His is among the most recognized face in the pantheon of freedom fighters.

He practised and preached patriotism, and not narrow nationalism as understood today; and socialism, not what goes in the name of social and economic reforms today.

Eighty-eight years after he was hanged, at all of 23 years, he would be perplexed today to be termed a ‘terrorist’ by some contemporary British historians, and at his legacy becoming a bone of contention among India’s warring political forces.

September 28^th was Bhagat Singh’s 112^th birth anniversary. Not many observed it. That Mahatma Gandhi’s landmark 150^th birth anniversary soon followed may have something to do with it. Whether the people have fully understood the content and spirit of what the two said and did is a different matter.

Bhagat Singh’s anniversary was preceded by a stealthy, overnight, unauthorized installation of his bust in the Delhi University. The problem was that it was one of the three, with Subhas Chandra Bose and Hindutva pioneer V D Savarkar. Credit for it was taken by the students’ affiliate of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The university authorities played footsy till Savarkar’s face was blackened by students of the opposition Congress. Removing all three busts became inevitable.

The three represent differing ideologies. Savarkar’s followers in power today have sought to appropriate along with Gandhi the others as part of their establishment’s efforts to re-write history, especially of the freedom struggle. This is despite the fact that these lives are well documented.

Bhagat Singh’s records show that for a 23 year-old, some spent in jail, and as one who spent a year in college, he was highly committed, well-read, well-informed, knew several languages and left behind a body of work.

The narrative so far remains one of his being wedded to socialist and revolutionary ideas. But who knows, the process of appropriating him may never end, given, as analysts say, the “tussle between Bhagat and Bhagat Singh.”

In a new edited 638-page volume, historian and academic Chaman Lal says the process of Bhagat Singh developing as a Marxist revolutionary began with the setting up of Naujawan Bharat Sabha and the later rechristening of HRA (Hindustan Republican Army) as Hindustan Socialist Republican Army/Association. Founded in 1924, the HRA galaxy included Chandrashekhar Azad, Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaquallah.   

Politically, he and his associates respected Mahatma Gandhi for the impact his ideas and actions created on the masses. But they did not believe that non-violence would yield the country freedom from the British.  

Bhagat Singh and his comrades shot dead British policeman John Saunders. But they also smuggled a bomb into the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi and exploded it to create a noisy impact, without hurting anyone. If the first act was to send a stern message to the British, the latter was to arouse mass awareness for the same.  Along with Sukhdev Thapar and Shivram Rajguru, he courted arrest, was tried on both counts and the three were eventually hanged.

The dual act separates him and his group from other revolutionaries who, in their own belief of no less significance, sacrificed their lives. He had evolved from his belief in the Ghadar Party’s adherence to violence to people-oriented activism based on socialist ideas.

Their hunger strike in jail added to mass awareness. From Gandhi to Jinnah to Nehru and Bose, all spoke in support. Some criticized them for their violent means to seek freedom. Chaman Lal says there was “not a word” from Hindutva adherents. 

A controversy developed over Gandhi’s attitude to the death sentence on the three. Could he have bargained their exoneration before signing the Gandhi-Irwin Pact?

Chaman Lal told The Times of India: “Even if Gandhi had made it a point not to have the Gandhi-Irwin Pact without the commutation of their death sentences, the revolutionaries would not have accepted any compromise at their end. They had a clear perception that they had to sacrifice their lives to arouse the Indian masses for the freedom struggle. Yet one can say that Gandhi did make efforts but not with the passion of Nehru and Bose. Gandhi did not assert his moral position that he is against death sentence, whatever may be the crime. In the revolutionaries’ case, Gandhi should not have compromised on his principled position of opposition to capital punishment.”

Bose said that Bhagat Singh had become “the symbol of the new awakening among the youths.” Nehru acknowledged that Singh’s popularity was “leading to a new national awakening,”

Prof. Vinay Lal, Professor of History at UCLA quotes Nehru who thought “he had seen everything; but he had not, since, for a time, the popularity of Bhagat Singh appeared to exceed the popularity of Gandhi. He found that amazing.”

Singh and his comrades had rattled the British rulers. The three were hanged before the stipulated time to avoid mass protests.

In present times, his mystic endures. He is discussed by scholars and historians irrespective of their political credo. Numerous books have been written. At least seven films have been made between 1931 and 2002. Bhagat Singh’s role enacted by Shammi Kapoor, Manoj Kumar, Ajay Devgan and Bobby Deol has furthered the popular discourse.

At the political level, there is an unmistakable irony about Bhagat Singh’s portrayal as a socialist when socialism and indeed, Marxism, are on the back-foot in much of the world, even as caste considerations divide India’s socialists and the Marxists are being electorally vanquished.

Across South Asia, the Bhagat Singh mystique remains deeply embedded among the educated and discerning. Late Madeeha Gauhar of Pakistan’s Ajoka Theatre Group told this writer of several stage performances. To avoid any divisiveness, she said, the preferred image of Bhagat Singh is one of the clean-shaven man with thin moustache and fedora. The same endures in India.

Two bodies in Pakistan, Bhagat Singh Foundation and Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation want a memorial in Banga, his birthplace in Lyallpur and a road named after him in Lahore, where he was hanged. One of them wants the British Queen to publicly apologize for the brutal treatment to him before he was hanged.          

From Bangladesh, Farooque Chowdhury recalls that the slogan that Bhagat Singh introduced during the freedom struggle turned into a war cry of the exploited people across the Subcontinent seeking their rights: Inqilab Zindabad – Long Live Revolution.”

In a 1924 essay, Bhagat Singh embraced the ancient Indian idea of “vasudhaiva kutumbakam” (the world as family) and visualized a global federation of the future. If only a dream, it is still relevant today in a world that is witnessing barriers built in the name of nationalism.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

There are films that set box office records and there are some that script history. Shakti Samanta’s masterpiece creation Aradhana did both

Anniversary recalls of films are reserved for classics. Many may argue, but Aradhana, released on 27^th this month, fifty years ago, was not one.

But it was much else. There are films that set box office records. There are some that script history. Aradhana did both. It made money, selling across India, in the erstwhile Soviet Union and elsewhere.

It refurbished romance as a popular theme and survived those that celebrated violence and the “angry young man”, invariably ending in tragedy.

Aradhana was essentially producer-director Shakti Samanta’s creation. Bengali literature provides numerous themes that can be made into films. Many have been first made into that language before being re-made in Hindi. But Aradhana was straight out of Hollywood, based on To Each His Own (1946).

Besides a gripping story, obvious inspiration was the Oscar-winning performance by Olivia de Havilland, the role that Sharmila Tagore enacted. Retaining the air force pilot bit but relocating it in scenic North Bengal, the Indianization by writer Sachin Bhoumick left little trace of the original.

This family drama spread over two generations was the launching pad for Rajesh Khanna’s twinkly-eyed superstardom. He had four flops before. With Aradhana began his journey of 17 consecutive hits at the box office between 1969 and 1974. 

I met him at a party during that period, dressed in gaudy silk kurta and tehemat, basking in success that few before him had enjoyed.

But his superstardom was short-lived. Undoubtedly charming and even successful, he lacked the physique and the mind to bear its burden.

Samanta had switched from his long-time favourite Shammi Kapoor who had given him two hits (Kashmir Ki Kali and An Evening in Paris) to this fresh-faced newcomer. Pairing him against Sharmila, his senior by a decade, was a gamble that paid off. 

Aradhana was a great musical. Samanta had replaced his long-time favourites Shankar Jaikishan. See any collection of old songs today – Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar or S D Burman – practically all Aradhana songs are there.

With S D Burman’s advent preference for male singers changed. The film cemented Kishore Kumar’s position as India’s most popular playback singer (Kora Kaagaz tha and Roop Tera Mastana) at the expense of Mohammed Rafi (Gunguna Rahe Hain). Kishored’s versatile but untrained voice, lost among those trained by Ustads of Hindustani Classical of that era, had remained on the periphery for 22 long years.

As in Guide (1965), both Rafi and Kishore had given outstanding songs to composer Sachin Dev Burman. But Kishore burst the popularity charts the second time over in Aradhana, never to look back. Common to both films, of course, were voices of Lata Mangeshkar and Burman’s own, in title songs.

Burman fell sick while composing for Aradhana. Son Rahul Dev Burman took up the baton. Kishore, too, shared the music credit. Once out of the father’s banyan tree shadow, RD’s musical genius came into its own.

Sharmila Tagore had by then done 22 films. Launched by Satyajit Ray (Apur Sansar in 1959), she had paired opposite Bengal’s superstar Uttam Kumar (Nayak in 19660. For Samanta, she had done Kashmir Ki Kali (1964), Sawan Ki Ghata (1966) and An Evening in Paris (1967). But her Aradhana performance was vastly different.    

Precisely three months after Aradhana’s release, when she married Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, the cricketer, it is said, the Nawab’s mother faced the dilemma of having to choose between a bikini-wearing bahu (first Indian actress to do so in An Evening in Paris) and a self-sacrificing unwed mother of Aradhana and of her earlier film, Satyakam (1966).

The sensitive unwed mother theme was not new. At least two films, B R Chopra’s Dhool Ka Phool (1959) and Dharmaputra (1961) with both roles enacted by Mala Sinha had preceded Aradhana. But in Sharmila’s two performances, neither the mother nor the child, aroused pity or disdain.      

After Aradhana, Rajesh-Sharmila became the hit pair of the 1970s. Samanta repeated them with similar success in Amar Prem (1972). It was located in Calcutta (now Kolkata) for which R D Burman lent that rare Bengal folk lilt. No fan of Rafi, RD took Kishore all the way. Today, it would be difficult to judge which of the two films is better, popular.   

Indeed, the first half of the 1970s belonged to Rajesh-Sharmila. Other directors starred them together in Safar (1970), Daag (1973), Maalik (1972), Chhoti Bahu, Raja Rani and Avishkaar – seven in all.

Sujit Kumar, who drives the jeep riding which Rajesh croons “mere sapnon ki rani” acquired huge fan following. After being the leading man’s sidekick, he leap-frogged to play lead roles in Bhojpuri films.

Shakti Samanta did many more films later, including Kati Patang (1971), pairing Rajesh with another senior, Asha Parekh. It had great music by RD. But arguably, that film is not so lasting in public memory as Aradhana and Amar Prem. 

Half-a-century hence, Samanta and his story-teller Bhowmick are gone. Rajesh Khanna passed away in 2012, to be posthumously awarded Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award.

He won four Filmfare Awards for performances and two special awards for lifetime achievements. Long past his superstardom, he remained popular, though, and was elected to Parliament (1992-1996). The generation he mesmerized has faded.

Sharmila, gracefully aged, looks the same — pretty and petite. Her children have taken to films and she had a long stint as the Chief of the Central Board of Film Certification.   

Both the Burmans are gone, none to replace them — none to replace Kishore Kumar either.

One of the few survivors, Farida Jalal, the bubbly muse of Suraj, the pilot-son who sang Baaghon mein bahar hai, trade-marked that kind of role for years. Even as she plays the mother today, she remains a happy combination of wit and wisdom.  

For Samanta, Aradhana won the Filmfare Award for Best Film. At the 17th Filmfare Awards, Sharmila won her first Filmfare Best Actress Award. The song “Roop Tera Mastana” fetched the Best Male Playback Singer for Kishore Kumar.

Originally released in Hindi-Urdu and dubbed in Bengali, Aradhana’s huge success led to two remakes, with Tagore’s role being enacted by Vanishri. The Tamil film Sivagamiyin Selvan and the Telugu film Kannavari Kalalu were both released in 1974.

Old records say that Aradhana made a large impact on Indians in general. Wearing kurta over trousers became fashionable, and so was Khanna’s hairstyle, with parting in the middle, ears covered.    

It inspired many to take up films as a vocation. One of them was the popular American actor Tom Alter, who had made India his home and Bollywood his artistic arena.

He confessed in an interview that impressed watching Rajesh Khanna in Aradhana, he had headed to Film and Television Institute of India to train as an actor.  

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

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Modi deserves credit for bringing out space science from its bureaucratic halo of the past and creating a mass following through an approving media

Science is one of those disciplines where even a failure can leave much to explore, learn and correct. This is the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s immediate task after the last-minute debacle of its moon mission Chandrayaan-2.

It might have failed in one of its objectives, but the mission itself is not a failure. The ISRO came tantalizingly close to creating history in the early hours of September 7 when the robotic lander Vikram followed the predetermined descent trajectory and came just within 350 meter of the lunar surface before contact was lost.

Vikram was located a day later. But mystery surrounds whether it landed ‘softly’ as its fall was slowed or crash-landed and its condition after the fall. The orbiter and other systems, however, continue with their assigned tasks.

If successes have their stories, so do failures on which future successes are hopefully built. This writer, although not equipped with science studies, had meant to dwell here on India’s numerous achievements in the field of science. Now, it must be a solemn narrative, admitting the obvious that there have been both failures amid successes.

ISRO deserves applause for its maiden effort at moon landing. Only three other nations, the United States, Russia and China have done it, after multiple efforts “soft landing” on the moon’s South Pole. Someone calculated the cost of Indian mission at a measly Rs 9.78 per capita — peanuts when compared to what others have spent.

To put it in perspective, there have been 38 attempts so far by other countries to land a rover on the moon and have succeeded only a little more than half the time. This April, Israel’s Beresheet lunar lander crashed to the lunar surface. Early January this year, China’s Chang’e-4 touched down on the lunar far side and deployed the Yutu-2 rover to explore the South Pole-Aitken basin.

A significant and positive change lies in the way the world has viewed the mission. Support and sympathy came from NASA and space agencies of advanced nations most of whom are cooperating/ collaborating. The foreign media in general applauded the effort. Gone are the days when the West viewed Indian efforts condescendingly, advising against putting money on expensive ventures and instead, feed and educate the poor.

Or, when there was unwillingness to give credit. When late APJ Abdul Kalam became the President of India, sections of Western media had sought to project the home-grown scientist as one who had ‘borrowed’ knowledge. Much was made of the brief visit to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) he had paid as a practicing scientist. An economically strong India is in different league today.  

At home, applause is due for this scientific mission capturing the imagination of a whole nation when the ruling political dispensation and its myriad ideological affiliates pursue a revisionist agenda that encourages obscurantism.

Whatever critics may say, Prime Minister Narendra Modi did well to go back to the grieving scientists who lost by a whisker and offer his shoulder, literally, to their emotional leader. The heart-felt consolation was also a morale booster for the scientists and calmed the millions who had anxiously watched the wee-hour aborted touch-down. 

Undoubtedly, Modi deserves credit for bringing out space science from its bureaucratic halo of the past and creating a mass following through an approving media. But his critics complain with some justification that even space is not the limit for his personal political branding.

It contradicts and mercifully, corrects the prevailing ethos to which he has contributed. It was Modi who initiated at the Indian Science Congress in 2014 the trend of mixing up science with religion, beliefs, tradition. To be fair, he has not got the science wrong since. But the trend he set has encouraged his many ministers and partymen and women to question, among other things, the Darwin Theory. Recent deaths of ailing ruling party stalwarts were blamed on “destructive magic” of opposition parties that are already in a political coma.

India survives, even thrives on such contradictions. They have always been there, even when Jawaharlal Nehru, the first premier after two centuries of slavery, laid the foundations of modern science and technology, including this space programme. He had then advocated that a tradition-bound people should develop “scientific temper.” He is a political untouchable today. Even this expression is shunned and history is sought to be selectively rewritten.         

All of India expressed solidarity with ISRO and its scientists. But disregarding Modi’s morale-booster to the scientists, some of his acolytes dragged in “Pakistan and its Indian supporters” (read the Modi’s political opponents) for “planning celebrations.” Select TV channels also chimed in with this cacophony. To think that their consumers and purveyors are educated middle class people.

They offer the mirror image to their adversarial neighbour. Over there, too, predictably, amidst the current tiff over the changes India has made in Kashmir, the narrative was one of India’s ‘hopes dashed” and its space agency experiencing “lunar moment of truth.”

Pakistan’s minister for science and technology Fawad Chaudhary tweeted his glee at the failure of the mission and advised India not to ‘waste’ money in trying to reach the moon. He was rightly pulled up by saner compatriots who said it was ‘childish’ to attack India when Pakistan’s own achievement in space science was largely borrowed and miles behind.

Leaving domestic and sub-continental shenanigans behind, one must return to Chandrayaan 2. The orbiter is safe in the intended orbit around the moon. And with the “precise launch and mission management”, its life span will extend to almost seven years. Carrying eight of the 13 payloads, the orbiter will spend the next nearly seven years making high-resolution maps of the lunar surface, mapping the minerals, understanding the moon’s evolution, and most importantly looking for water molecules in the polar regions. Some of the impact craters in the South Pole are permanently shadowed from sunlight and could be ideal candidate sites to harbour water.

With the U.S. wanting to send astronauts to the South Pole by 2024, NASA, in particular, will be keen on data from the Chandrayaan 2 orbiter. The ISRO’s Moon Impact Probe and NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper on board Chandrayaan 1 had already provided evidence of the presence of water in the thin atmosphere of the moon, on the surface and below. A NASA study last year found regions, within 20° of each pole in general and within 10° in particular, showed signs of water. The Chandrayaan 2 orbiter will now possibly reconfirm the presence of water on the moon.

For ISRO, there is vast scope beyond the moon. It wants to go to Venus, and send up a manned space mission. France is a partner. Time was when France launched Indian satellites in the Pacific. Then, India launched French and other satellites in the Indian Ocean region, The two have agreed to send up almost 12 satellites to enhance maritime domain awareness.

Didn’t poet Muhammad Iqbal say, exhorting the mankind’s never-ending quest: “Sitaraon se agey, jahan aur bhi hain”?  

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

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A formidable lobby is looking for a bailout to come out of the current slump in the auto industry. Amidst a general economic slowdown, the Centre would have to think hard before obliging

“What is good for General Motors is good for the United States,” US Secretary of Defence Charles Wilson, incidentally a former CEO of the automobile giant, once said. Can such hype work for India’s automobile industry?  

From boost in the mid-1980s thanks to the “Maruti revolution” to a boom as the century closed amidst economic reforms that brought in many domestic and foreign players and lasted over 25 years, to an unprecedented bust now, is its latest story.

Its formidable lobby with any government is desperately looking for a bailout. Amidst a general economic slowdown, the Narendra Modi Government would have to think hard before obliging.

Forget the ‘B’ alliterations – the passenger cars sales alone have plummeted by 36 percent and 350,000 jobs are lost. The fall could rise to 40 percent with a million jobs at stake in the coming months.

As recently as March this year, India was ranked the world’s fourth largest automobile market after China, the USA and Japan, surpassing Germany in terms of sales. New car models were being announced every month.

Any warning or words of caution were lost in the cacophony of the elections whose outcome was decided on ‘nationalism’ platform, despite the economic slowdown and rising unemployment.

Last month, however, the sale of vehicles across categories in the country slumped 18.71 percent to about 1.82 million units, down from about 2.24 million units in July 2018. This has been the steepest fall in nearly 19 years.

The combined vehicle dispatches across all categories, from factories to dealers, fell by about a fifth. Dispatches of passenger vehicles fell by almost a third with passenger cars declining by a steep 36 percent or by over a third compared to the same month 2018. Dispatches of motorcycles fell by almost a fifth and scooters by more than 12 percent, while dispatches of trucks, buses and light commercial vehicles were down by over 37 percent.

Auto industry contributes over seven percent of India’s GDP. Its honchos say this is the worst-ever crisis. The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) data shows that the sector also accounts for 14 percent of India’s total GST collections. Now, the government’s revenue is also hit.

The industry found some solace in the fact that historically, vehicle sales decline in the months preceding elections, and expressed the hope that demand following the elections would pick up. But like the overall economy, this did not happen.

Polls’ uncertainties drove people to postpone vehicle purchases. Ownership costs, an overall weak economy affecting demand and floods thanks to climate change in many parts of the country last year, as also this monsoon, combined to squeeze auto demand.

Government policies contributed to the confusion. It imposed deadline of mandatory transition to the Bharat Stage VI (BS VI) emission norms. It pushed another simultaneously to convert some vehicle categories to electric from the present internal combustion engine (ICE) technology that drives three of the four vehicles on the road. It proposes to ban all ICE-driven vehicles under 150cc in six years and all three-wheelers within four.

The automobile industry has mounted a quiet resistance to the technology-switch and now, it is the first major producer/employer to loudly protest the government’s economic policies. After a gap of over five years, one hears again the accusation of “policy paralysis.”

The entire auto industry is hit. To cope with slow demand, 15 auto makers including Honda, Maruti Suzuki, Nissan, Datsun, Mercedez and Indian ones like Tata and Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) have reduced seven percent workforce as they stagger production. Some have declared two weekly holidays.

This extends to ancillary units like Japanese motorcycle maker Yamaha Motor and auto components makers including France’s Valeo and Subros. They add up to 100,000 jobs lost, according to a Reuters report.

India’s jobless rate rose to 7.51 percent in July 2019 from 5.66 percent in July 2018, according to private data group CMIE whose data is more up-to-date than government figures and regarded in financial markets as more credible.

Seven percent of those in temporary jobs are sacked. Swank car sales outlets have closed down enforcing more job-cuts. There is also fall in insurance that is mandatory before a vehicle touches the road.

Auto-makers are concentrated in and around Mumbai, Pune, besides Gujarat, Modi’s home state. Chennai accounts for 35 to 40 percent of all car manufacture.  At Gurugram and Manesar, the Maruti Suzuki hub in Haryana, 40,000 to 50,000 workers have already been laid off.

If that is any consolation to India, layoffs in global auto industry have hit Mexico, China and the US as well. While all are hit by a general slowdown, Edelweiss Research says India’s auto slump is different from others, differs from the ones it suffered in the past and is driven by domestic factors. Much of rural India’s auto aspiration was driven by non-banking financial institutions. But they were hit by November 2016 demonetization of 83 percent of currency in circulation.

Changing social mores are contributing to the slump. While owning a car and one’s own house remain symbols of social status, the urban youth, at least, want to utilize their disposable incomes differently. They increasingly prefer a rented house and travel by app-based vehicles to escape repaying heavy loans on both and to avoid maintenance hassles. This partly explains the glut in unsold city houses and cars, two major producers/employers.

Sadly, the car/housing bust is unlikely to change the attitude of the politicians who failed to widen the roads enough and promote public transport. Among the car owners, the rich want to park vehicles free on public roads. On the other hand, the harried car owner rues traffic jams and delays at work, occasionally causing accidents or getting into road rage.      

Analysts say there are better ways of boosting and measuring the economy than car production. It is sad that many jobs are being lost in the automobile sector. But the way out is not to bail out the automobile sector but to create jobs in more socially useful sectors.

The crisis is expected to last two to three years. Perhaps, longer due to expected rise in costs  estimated at 13 to 30 percent due to safety, insurance and emission-related compliance. As for the fuel costs, with rising tensions in West Asia, it is anybody’s guess.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

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Indian political stage has lost three of its hearty and humble personalities in a single week, leaving behind a void that will be greatly missed

Politicians come and go. Those who hold office are more powerful as they can do favours, but are also more vulnerable. Assessing them becomes an if-and-but exercise.

Fragrance or odour they spread by their deeds and words matters. And when they go, memories they leave behind. Their political legacies, if any, are for the scholars and historians to study. Their families, mostly, are a different story.

Two diminutive women and a polio-stricken man strode India’s political scene for close to four decades. They passed away in the last three weeks. As a scribe who watched and reported them, I do think they spread frangrance amidst a lot of muck around, and have left something to remember them by. 

Sheila Dikshit, 81, Delhi’s longest-serving Chief Minister, went first on July 20. She can rightly be credited for making New Delhi a world capital worth visiting and a little more habitable.  

Next to go on July 28 was Sudini Jaipal Reddy, 77, a Congressman-who joined Janata Party and Janata Dal and then, returned to the old stable. He was acceptable to all as their spokesman, doing his job with equal dedication and conviction. Remarkably, media lapped up whatever he said in all his avatars.

And last week, on August 6, Sushma Swaraj, the youngest of them at 67, left.  India’s external affairs minister till only two months ago, she opted out of this year’s elections on health grounds. Despite speculation about her willingness, she found no place in Modi-2. If she had a premonition of what was coming, we will never know.

Qualities common to the three were grace and personal charm in whatever they did or say in public, a high level of credibility and the ability to carry others along.

Although belonging to different parties, they got on well among themselves in the country’s political roadshow. Actually, like politicians anywhere, the Indians, too, snipe at each other in public, but the better ones share mutual warmth.

After attacking the Congress-led government from her seat as Leader of the Opposition, Swaraj was among the first to rush to hospital when her political bête noir, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, took ill during the proceedings.

That Gandhi had defeated her in an election earlier did not matter. Also forgotten was her declaration when Gandhi was close to becoming the prime minister that she (Sushma) would shave her head off and live like an ascetic in protest. Coming from one woman about another, it was not received well. Yet, Swaraj, with her trademark ‘bindi’ and Hindu-Hindi persona, was BJP’s perennial antidote to Gandhi. That is politics.      

India has lost three sharp minds that went beyond their calling and well beyond the routine and the humdrum. If Sushma quoted Sanskrit scriptures and Urdu couplets spontaneously, Sheila was often seen at Sufi festivals.

Each of them was intensely humane and earned goodwill by helping whoever they could.

Do-gooder Dikshit was called “Aunty Number 1”. Like Reddy, Swaraj, too, was among the more accessible ministers. At the Foreign Office where much of the work was done from the prime minister’s office (PMO) and when she was unwell and unable to travel, she used the social media and provide succor to whoever could reach her. They included a girl who on losing memory had strayed into Pakistan, stranded spouses, someone needing urgent medical help — and they came from across the world.

Diplomats from 51 countries at the United Nations signed her condolence book. Indian diplomats who had worked with her were nostalgic. In Pakistan, there were sentimental outpourings for Sushma even as the neighbour was receiving the shock treatment over New Delhi’s Kashmir move that has since blown into a full-scale political and diplomatic war. Her last tweet was to ‘congratulate’ the prime minister.

Born in Haryana’s orthodox, anti-woman social order Sushma, then 25, was a socialist to boot and the state’s and the country’s youngest Cabinet minister. An effective Leader of Opposition, she was the first full-term external affairs minister. It was no mean achievement.

Political analysts say Modi had ‘downgraded’ Sushma because she belonged to the ‘rival’ L K Advani camp within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Yet, Modi had tears in his eyes while bidding final farewell.         

Reddy shed his feudal background to join students’ politics. He never let his physical handicap keep him down. “I can take care of myself,” he politely said when I tried to help him balance his crutches, papers and his coffee mug.

His life was a saga of an irrepressible creative spirit that transcended all obstacles to soar to great heights, says India’s Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu, a long-time associate, but from a different camp.

As young lawmakers, the two rocked the Andhra Pradesh Assembly. Their personal cooperation and political clash is the stuff of how political culture evolves in a democracy. Sadly, the public only gets to know the crude side of politics, which abounds aplenty.  

When Reddy was depressed, it is said, he would lock himself in, read books and take detailed notes. He would emerge fresh with more quotations from Rousseau, Dante, Immanuel Kant, Shakespeare, whoever.

An erudite scholar, among the many that Indian parliament has had, he was both fiery and persuasive. You hardly noticed his Telugu intonations when he spoke in English. Its limited knowledge could make you reach for dictionary, if you cared.

Long before Shashi Tharoor, India parliament’s current super-wordsmith, Reddy gave currency to ‘humungous’ to describe a scandal of the Rajiv Gandhi Government. In the opposition then, he debunked the “Mr Clean” campaign to project Rajiv as one that smacked of “an advertisement of a detergent.” It hit the political bull’s eye.

If Reddy was a man of words, Swaraj and Dikshit were women of action, often para-dropped by their parties when locked in adverse situations. Although from neighbouring Haryana, but undoubtedly BJP’s national leader, Swaraj became Delhi’s chief minister for just three months to quell an internal party rivalry. She lost, besides this rift, to sky-rocketing onion prices in demand during festive season.

She was succeeded by Dikshit. A Punjabi married into an Uttar Pradesh family with deep political roots, she became Delhi’s chief minister — and ruled for 15 years.

Political fortunes changed with her hosting the Commonwealth Games.  She arguably received much opprobrium during its preparations. The Games, though, went off well. But they triggered an anti-corruption campaign that sent Dikshit’s party downhill. She lost by a huge margin.

The Congress has not recovered since. It projected her as is “Brahmin face” in Uttar Pradesh polls, but then abandoned her. At a ripe age, she was Delhi Congress chief, contesting an election, and losing it. Her last act before suddenly being moved to hospital was to address a letter to her paralyzed party.

Think of a minister who can publicly say politicians are “wild animals” who need to be kept in check. None left after Reddy’s departure.

Perceptions matter in journalism while understanding and appreciating politics. The effort was worthwhile with these three stalwarts.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

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The political pendulum has now swung from one extreme to the other, from ‘appeasement’ to ‘appropriation’ of the community

It is not unusual, given the great churning India is going through, to welcome legislation, soon to be law, with a few caveats and some apprehensions.

With Rajya Sabha doing so last week, both Houses of Parliament have passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019,  that makes talaq-e-biddat a criminal offence. It provides for three years’ imprisonment to a Muslim husband who divorces his wife by pronouncing the word ‘talaq’ thrice, irrevocably, in one sitting.

ALSO READ: The Law Will Get Me The Respect I Deserve

After a prolonged, yet inconclusive, debate in parliament, by top judiciary and the academia, if one excludes sections of the Muslim clergy, the conservatives and sections of the political class (for reasons both legal and political), the move has received widespread approval.

With that India, having the world’s third largest Muslim population, is on par with several Islamic countries, including Sudan, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen and Iraq. Of those with similar social norms to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh had outlawed it in 1961. It remains in vogue in Sri Lanka.

Indian Muslims are governed by the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act of 1937, as interpreted by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB). This body comprising mainly Sunni ulema, has rigidly stuck to its turf and opposes any ‘interference’ in the ‘divine’ law.

But others like Professor Tahir Mahmood, an internationally recognized expert on sharia law, support a ban on triple talaq. Mahmood recently told Scroll, an Indian news website: “Ignorance, obstinacy, blind belief in religion and morbid religiosity are undoubtedly the factors responsible for triple talaq being allowed in India.”

ALSO READ: This Law Will Empower Muslim Women

Lawyer-politician Arif Mohammed Khan, who played a key role in drafting the legislation, says despite prohibition, this practice is rampant in Pakistan and many with overwhelming influence of the clergy that propagate it as the “word of God” among illiterate masses.

To end the practice effectively, he justifies a law that deters. However, debate persists on this point. Criticism centres heavily on criminalizing of a marriage that is essentially a civil act. The opposition was outvoted on this in parliament.

Then, there are practical issues: How does one adjudicate in a his-word-against-hers exchange between husband and wife? Who will look after the wife, abandoned and in all probability ostracized by the husband’s family through this illegal act? More importantly, the children, once the erring husband goes to jail? The problem is acute if the wife has no independent income and worse if she is not accepted in her parental home.  

Despite this law as a deterrent, the practice is unlikely to end soon. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who piloted the bill, said some 300 marriages dissolved under the spell of instant talaq while the debate was on. In 2017 alone, 574 instant divorces had occurred, just before the Supreme Court declared it illegal.

Seeking to implement this verdict, the government amended some provisions of its original legislation, making the offence cognizable only if the affected wife, or one related to her by blood or marriage, files a police complaint. A man arrested under this law may get bail, after the Magistrate grants a hearing to the wife. Thirdly, the offence is compoundable, that is, the parties may arrive at a compromise.

Questions persist. Why this new law when wife and children’s abandonment, failure to provide for them and dowry harassment can be tackled under the existing law? Once the apex court has declared instant talaq illegal, what is the need for criminalizing it?  The bill doesn’t convincingly answer these and many other questions.

The government has chosen to give teeth through a three-year jail term, ostensibly in keeping with a general approach that makes many other laws, even traffic violation, stringent with higher punishment.

Moving on to giving credit and the blame, a less-talked aspect of the debate is that the predecessor Congress-led government had studied status of India’s Muslims through a commission headed by late Justice Rajinder Sachar. A committee it formed to assess Muslim women’s status said in 2013 that the triple talaq “makes wives extremely vulnerable and insecure regarding their marital status”.

However, over half-a-century in power, the Congress followed the liberal/secular approach of leniency to ‘protect’ the minorities. In the case of Muslims, it adopted the British colonial practice of tackling the community through its generally orthodox clergy. This got institutionalized as AIMPLB in 1973.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its government accuse the Congress and the Left parties of ‘appeasing’ the Muslims and holding them as “vote bank.” Now it ingeniously takes the credit for this Muslim-specific law enacted in the name of “gender justice”. The political pendulum has now swung from one extreme to the other, from ‘appeasement’ to ‘appropriation’ of the community.

This fits in with the BJP’s majoritarian agenda and its two-pronged strategy of neutralizing the community’s vote while seeking support from among its women.

There is another less-talked aspect that needs attention. Given the rising education levels among Muslim women, especially in the cities, it is conceivable that they would vote for Prime Minister Modi for this act. Statistics of the last two decades show that more Muslim girls are entering schools and colleges and into the work force when compared to boys who are either not inclined to study or are required to turn family’s bread-earners early in life.

The community leaders are subdued. The AIMPLB has not reacted. Save some Muslim lawmakers, there is no significant opposition. Including a Congress in disarray, the Opposition was out-maneuvered and outvoted. The government managed the numbers even in the Rajya Sabha where it is in minority, first by engineering defections and then ensuring absenteeism.

India is on the cusp of social and political change. The challenges are all-round and more layered as the changes are being initiated by a Hindu right-wing majority party. Its triumphal mood is palpable.

Doubts and apprehensions arise as it seeks to ‘protect’ women of a community when its men are lynched by right-wing vigilantes if they happened to be cattle traders. Why single out one community when others, too, require reforms?

The social and political cost of not having a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is showing. Besides being mandated by Article 44 of the Constitution, the UCC is also part of the BJP’s agenda. It would unite India in true fashion where citizens irrespective of religion would follow the same laws for marriage, divorce, succession, etc.

Will Modi and his government bite the bullet while seeking to earn everyone’s saath and vishwas (support and trust)?

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

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The current set of democratically-elected leaders have little understanding of the deep contradictions of global order, or their own conflict-ridden societies

The circle is now complete. Major democracies — the ‘oldest’ (Britain), ‘greatest’ (the United States) and the ‘largest’ (India) – all have elected populist, aggressive government leaders. This sounds the death-knell to whatever is left of political liberalism.

They all want to make their respective nations ‘great’, which is fine. But they stand charged with using divisive methods at home and adopting protectionist and exclusivist measures abroad.

The ‘greatest’ is erecting walls, wooing North Korea while winking at Russia and China and threatening Iran, the bête noire in West Asia. The latest muse is Imran Khan who must keep the Afghan door ajar to facilitate an American flight faster than Vietnam.

The ‘largest’ is calculating a $5 trillion economy and become a ‘guru’ to the world. But on the ground, it protects its bovine population in a mix of death to those who kill or tan it, but profits for those who export it.

‘Outsiders’ and those not in sync with the majoritarian agenda are asked to leave. Someone ordained: “go to the moon” – and this is not inspired by Chandrayan 2, the moon mission.

As their number mounts, finding a common thread becomes difficult. But their varying agendas using race, religion, region, ethnicity, colour, besides trade and global concerns like the climate change, has become the new normal. It has pushed the world further to a restless and triumphant political right.

The democratic distinction that they give themselves but deny to others is blurred. Vladimir Putin recently said: “the liberal idea” had “outlived its purpose.” The growth of populist movements throwing up ‘nationalist’ leaders and political parties across the world suggests he is correct.

Long before Donald Trump, these movements brought to power Viktor Orban (Hungary), Erdogan (Turkey), Duterte (the Philippines) and Matteo Salvini (Italy); with populists sharing power in Poland, Austria, Slovenia, Finland and Estonia. In France and Germany populist parties are set to play an increasing role in coming years. Brazil’s Bolsanero is a latter day addition – and more are coming.

Xi Jinping and Abe Shinzo would fall in that category.  So would Benyamin Netanyahu and a common friend of them all, Narendra Modi.

The latest is Boris Johnson. His aggressive Brexit advocacy is part of the same isolationism.

“I’ll make Britain great again’, Johnson says, distinctly echoing Trump. For a former journalist and editor of prestigious journals, he is being unoriginal. But then, he feels close to Trump and despite Trump’s past fusillades against him, they (add Imran, too) are now a mutual admiration society.

Johnson, a biographer of Winston Churchill, sees himself in that leader. But times and contexts change. As Economist says, like Churchill, Johnson has also inherited Britain’s worst crisis since World War II. Brexit, Britain’s self-goal, could do or undo him, with deep repercussions either way.       

To be fair to Boris, strictly going by promises made last week, he has defied many things that Brexit crusade has been about. Many Britons have viewed it from racism and anti-immigration prisms. Brexit was about reductions in future. But Boris has said he will make legal half-a-million illegal or unregistered immigrants, introducing a number system with some compassion.

Boris, given his Turkish ancestry, perhaps, has done better than Trump who, although of German descent, wants ‘outsider’ to quit America. Sustaining Britain’s inclusive approach, he has a Pakistani Muslim to manage finance and a via-Africa Indian woman to pilot the immigration and counter-terrorism policies. Only time will tell how Britain holds out against the global illiberal avalanche.

There is hope, perhaps. As an Urdu expression goes, “umeed par duniya kaayam hai,” (hope sustains life).  Post World War II, whatever be their political belief, people could aspire for a better future. That hope is sinking with the advent of this century.

Unwelcome, migrants are ghetto-ed and ill-treated, if not killed. No trade union rights. No dissent. Not even disagreement. Even elections, with varying degrees of democratic processes, are only hurtling people in one direction. Humans live by hope. But there is no utopia to live for.     

Sadly, the current set of our leaders have little understanding of the deep contradictions of the global order, or their own conflict-ridden societies. They engage in politics of name-calling and sensationalism, Trump’s boast that he could kill 10m Afghans, but won’t, is a classic example.

If truth be told, this didn’t’ begin with Putin or Trump. From the 1980s onwards beginning with the Reagan-Thatcher combine, ruling classes all over the world presided over a period of psychological repression. A new normal was propagated through media, education and other means — that a world free of exploitation and injustice is impossibile. Inequalities are increasing, and are justified.

By the 1990s, younger generations had come to believe that There Is No Alternative (TINA). They were told that the idea that we share of collective interests is simply hogwash. It was explained in the name of individual liberty and advancement.  

Liberalism is probably more challenged in India today than anywhere else because the country is the most diverse. Self-proclaimed custodians of caste and religion enjoying tacit political support are dictating people who they must meet, converse with, befriend and marry, what they should eat, wear, watch or read, whether or not they can use mobile phones, and even where they can go and when.

Aided by a corporate-owned media driven by profits and eyeballs, a public culture of hurt sentiment, violation of honour, with social and political license given to react to it in any brutal manner possible has been created. This climate of fear affects artists, intellectuals and even ordinary persons in public conversations.

Most founders of the Indian Republic (Nehru above all) aspired to create a liberal society. They did not foresee the extent to which it would, over time, evolve in a decidedly illiberal direction. Today, Nehru is a swear-word.

Here again, if truth be told, this did not begin yesterday. The political forces claiming to lead, and thriving on, a liberal ethos – the Congress, the communists, the socialists and the likes – themselves adopted illiberal courses and have now yielded space to those they fought. They are only whining today, unable to unite and fight back.

Mercifully, societies are not monoliths. Whenever and wherever a new draconian normal takes root, there are always forces who speak out for the oppressed. But as ordinary people increasingly become integrated into a digital political sphere in which melodrama rules, states and corporations will become more adept at manipulating ‘public opinion’. Already, those opposing it are being termed seditious.

Is it, then, the end of liberalism the world over? This is, like asking at the spiritual level: is it the end of Kalyug, the ultimate downfall?

Academic-journalist Pratap Bhanu Sharma says the end of liberalism is announced very frequently globally. “It’s almost like a recurring theme that there is a fundamental infirmity that makes it periodically vulnerable.”

This eludes a clear answer – if there is one.  

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

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South Asia is the hub of women politicos born in the crucible of resistance to tyranny and injustice. Maryam Nawaz is the newest entry to the club

“This path is very difficult but as Maryam Nawaz what is important to me is that I am standing on the right side of history.”

Bold statement this from someone convicted for graft, rightly or otherwise, moving in and out of courts (120 appearances in six months) and rallying people when free in support of her imprisoned and ailing father Nawaz Sharif, the thrice-deposed Pakistan’s premier.

It also seems meant for an uncertain future since Prime Minister Imran Khan retains firm backing of the military-civil establishment. And he has just met US President Donald Trump, accompanied by the Army Chief, when Trump needs the two as much as they need him to quit Afghanistan.   

But leading a rally in Faisalabad last Sunday, she declared that the government that had “gone all-out to detain opposition leaders, arrest political workers and block rallies and suppress voices is taking its last breath.”

The establishment, Maryam alleges, got her father deposed in collusion with the judiciary and then ‘selected’ Imran through “electoral engineering.”  

Only another election, or a movement on the streets, could challenge Imran. Neither is in sight.  

Yet, Maryam has been able to shake Khan and his alleged mentors. On July 6, she made public video clips showing the judge who convicted Nawaz in one of the many graft cases ‘admitting’ that he (judge) was ‘blackmailed’ and had acted “under pressure” when there was no case against Nawaz.

The judge denied the confession, counter-charging that he was “threatened and offered bribe”. But he did not deny meeting the man, allegedly close to the Sharifs, whom he should not have while dealing with Nawaz as an accused.

The government is forced to remove the judge and probe him. Maryam now demands why her father is imprisoned when the judge and the judgment stand discredited. She has scored a brownie, pushing the government and the Supreme Court on the back-foot.

Besides Khan’s references to “Maryam bibi” at his Washington rally, this is a triumphant pause for her amid serious adversities. It marks the advent of a pretty mother of three, 46, who could have been a housewife or a socialite – except that she has a famous family name.

‘Sharif’ is her political identity. Her critics in the government address her officially as Maryam Safdar, wife of retired Captain Mohammed Safdar Awan. 

Adversity has produced many leaders, but South Asia is the hub of women politicos born in the crucible of resistance to tyranny and injustice. With few exceptions, they come from privileged classes, but that doesn’t always reduce their woes, one of them being born in patriarchal society.

Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto were assassinated. Sheikh Hasina was abroad when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and entire family were gunned down. Her principal rival Begum Khalda Zia’s husband, Ziaur Rahman, was also killed, like those of Sri Lanka’s Sirimavo Bandarnaike and Chandrika Kumaratunga. We can add Sonia Gandhi to the list.

Like those listed above, Maryam belongs to a family oligarchy, as oligarchies go in South Asia, where traditionally, at least one child joins parent’s profession.

She has surged past her brothers and cousins. This is unlike in the Muslim world. But this is Pakistan’s second exception.

She is often compared with Benazir. Belonging to a rival party, Maryam once said: “I have a lot of respect for the lady, but … the only thing which is common between us is gender.” She would rather carry her father’s legacy in her own distinct way.

In 2016, when Nawaz was the premier, a Chinese minister wrote: “We will be happy if you include your talented daughter Ms Maryam Nawaz in the visiting delegation.”

Given Pakistan’s burgeoning ties with China (the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor was taking off), this triggered speculation. She was compared with Benazir’s accompanying father Z A Bhutto to Shimla in 1972 to sign an accord with India.  

Benazir had uneasy relations with her brothers, both of whom died mysteriously. Maryam’s two brothers are not in politics. But she is mindful of her first cousin Hamza and always refers to him as “bhai” (brother). Family ties matter as Shahbaaz, the chacha, (uncle) heads the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz). Indeed, adversities have so far failed to split the family.

But it’s not hunky-dory – in politics it cannot be. In a recent interview with VOA Urdu Service, Maryam talked of Pakistanis’ “misogynistic mindset”. She has had to make ‘sacrifices’ to have her way in politics. “I had to struggle within PML-N to be accepted and make my place.”

“The criticism is more scathing [as such women] are judged more harshly. If a woman has formed ideals, principles, ideologies, convictions, values and wants to carve a niche for herself, it will always be viewed with a little suspicion. Such women are sometimes viewed as “negatively ambitious”.

Being a Sharif has not been easy. Controversies have dogged Maryam even as a student. Her admission to a medical college was questioned and so were her MA and Ph.D. degrees. It is not clear if the doctorate is earned or honorary.

Maryam joined politics by her father’s side in 2012 to rival Imran who was attracting the youth. It made sense since almost half of Pakistan’s 20 million is in 18-35 age. The slogan then was “Waqt Ki Awaz – Maryam Nawaz.”

It’s not going to be easy. While an older Imran did and still attracts the young, she must also contend with a younger Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. Other political families are also projecting their young. 

Like many women who married young (at 19), Maryam is now relatively free, to do full-time politics. Her children have grown up and Safdar has crafted a political career for himself.

Over the years, she has shed her tentative presence and halting talk with fiery speeches. The fire has enhanced since Nawaz resigned. She campaigned tirelessly for her ailing mother who won the election but later died.  

She is passionate about getting justice for father – and for herself since she too is convicted and on bail. Her new attire is kameez with Nawaz’s photo.

She vehemently denies that Nawaz plans to strike a deal with Imran, like he did with military dictator Pervez Musharraf. The entire family was exiled to Saudi Arabia. Maryam had agitated and was detained before being exiled.

Does she fear assassination like Benazir was? For now, Maryam’s concern is her father. “Will not allow him to become Morsi of Pakistan”, she said in June, referring to Egypt’s ex-premier Mohammed Morsi. Deposed by the military, he died during court trial.        

Critical of the army like her father she, however, balances her observations. She told VOA that she was “ready to take a bullet” for her father, but as a Pakistani, her purpose was “not to fight against the country’s institutions.”

Only time can tell if Maryam is “on the right side of the history.”

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

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