Category: Opinion

Systematic Genocide Of Uighurs In Progress

By Amit Sengupta

Last month in early July, the BBC reported that the Americans, in a significant move, have “seized a shipment of human hair products from China” that it says was made by forced labour from children or prisoners. “Production of these goods constitutes a very serious human rights violation,” said US customs official Brenda Smith. China, as it routinely does and rather nonchalantly, with a straight face, vigorously denied the charges. The ‘forced labour’ charge was malicious and totally fabricated, it claimed.

The American authorities did not clarify if the hair products, or products made from hair, literally, came from children or women, or prisoners, especially those imprisoned in the huge province of Xinjiang in China. Indeed, did they come from this far-west province, now dubbed as a vast concentration camp, perhaps bigger in size than what the Nazis ever imagined before the Second World War and during the Holocaust, where more than one million local Muslim Uighurs are reportedly trapped as prisoners and bonded labourers, including children and women.

According to the report, the products were detained by the US Customs and Border Protection at the Port of New York and New Jersey. The products were part of a 13-tonne shipment of hair products worth more than $800,000. “The goods came from a company in Xinjiang, which, the agency said, indicated potential human right abuses of forced child labour and imprisonment.”

If anything, the seizure was scary and reminded the world of yet another grotesque and heart-rending chapter of history: the manner in which the Nazis used the body parts of Jewish prisoners in the death and labour camps, especially that of women and children, including their skin, hair, etc, to make products. Their teeth, especially those with gold embedded in it, were melted to extract gold.

So what is happening in Xinjiang, and with its indigenous population, even as China enforces a total information blockade in the region with reporters not allowed to venture in, and vast prisons and ‘concentration camps’ the size of several football fields being used for ideological indoctrination, mass brutalization, sexual slavery, bonded labour and total subjugation with a military clampdown? Are Uighurs the victims of mass incarceration with total denial of fundamental rights which the world is refusing to see despite the stark evidence pointing to it again and again?

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Recently, a video had surfaced which looked like a bigger and more draconian version of what used to be the Guantanamo Bay during the times of George Bush in the US after the September 11 attacks in America by the Al Qaeda. Rows of uniformed prisoners sitting with their heads bowed, their heads shaved, being herded by armed military men.

The picture taken by drones was shown in almost all top television channels in the West and in some cases the Chinese ambassadors and other officials were asked to respond. In most cases, the Chinese had no answer at all, not even a clear denial, saying, really, what’s new about these video pictures, they could be just routine movement of prisoners in routine prisons, what’s so surprising about it?

However, the drone videos clearly pointed out that the location was Xinjiang and the people were Uighurs. Indeed, in a dark Orwellian twist, these prisons and concentration camps are called ‘re-education camps’, even ‘loving, kindness camps’ or even vocational training camps where all are happy and healthy. Typically, it is reported that the prisoners are forced to sing and shout aloud in chorus praising Xi Jin Ping, the Chinese president for life.

Xinjiang was incorporated in China in 1949. Unlike the occupation of Tibet, the diabolical paradigm shift in the demographics of population and social and economic life came much later. Tibet has over the years seen the influx of Han Chinese population from the mainland, shifting the local population in this vast, scattered and beautiful mountain landscape to an inferior position, with most top positions held by the Han Chinese appointed by the Chinese Communist Party and the regime in Beijing, and with local Tibetans having been totally compromised and coopted.

This reporter has witnessed several ‘exemplary villages’ in Tibet, as he covered the region before the Summer Olympics in China in 2008. Every house in the village celebrated ‘happy’ Tibetan families and farmers, with a calendar showcasing the smiling leaders of the Chinese government: Deng Xiao Ping, Hu Jintao etc. All of them unanimously praised the Chinese government in the various Tibetan-Buddhist monasteries controlled by Beijing and the Prefecture of Tibet, as well in these exemplary villages which showed no signs of poverty with beautiful rivers and water bodies, flourishing agricultural fields, sturdy houses, and with private property, including land, now allowed.

The only irony was the hidden joke: that under some of these government calendars with smiling faces of top Chinese leaders of the past and present, there might occasionally lurk another small calendar: that of a smiling Dalai Lama.

However, Tibet, where, even before the Olympics, scores of monks did ‘self-immolation’ in protest, and where several other protesting monks – branded criminals – literally disappeared, has not gone through the same kind of mass persecution which the Uighurs are going through right now in Xinjiang. Tibet did not have concentration camps, though State repression was universal and there were no freedoms. Perhaps this is because Tibet has always been under the international scanner with celebrities, world leaders and human rights groups openly backing the Dalai Lama.

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However, the huge administrative province of Xinjiang, with its Islamic, Turkic and Central Asian roots, and bordering, among others, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Pakistan, has chosen to violently rebel many times in the region and even in Beijing. There have been clashes with the Han Chinese, the police and military, and a car exploded at Tiananmen Square in Beijing too in the past. China clamped down with an iron hand branding them terrorists.

The locals speak a variant of Turkish and are believers in strong Islamic traditions. Ethnically and culturally they believe they have inherited their history from Central Asia. Kashgar here was a famous town during the Silk Road era, with local craft and agriculture their mainstay at one time. Now, everything is controlled by the Han Chinese and the Chinese military administration.

As of now, almost 40 per cent of the population is Han Chinese. Mass surveillance including facial records of individuals is now an accepted reality. Islamic traditions have been banned and instead indoctrination based on so-called ‘Chinese Communist Characteristics’ are drilled inside children and adults. Most ‘brainwashed’ children are separated from their family and friends who do not know their whereabouts. Recently, some local students returned from Hong Kong to find that their parents, family and friends have disappeared. In secret files discovered and exposed by The New York Times, several such cases were reported.

The students were told, as the leaked internal Chinese government documents of 400 pages plus revealed, that if they choose not to follow the dominant code, even in answering the questions put up to them, the detention period of their loved ones can be prolonged or shortened accordingly. They were told that their family is in a ‘training school’ set up by the government and that they were not criminals, but they will not be allowed to leave these training schools. Occasionally, some of the disappeared people appear on state television, looking emaciated and tortured, praising their life and the contribution of the Chinese government. This especially happens if their relatives and friends choose to campaign for them ‘outside China’ especially in the West.

There have been other horror stories, one most horrifying being that local women, whose husbands are in prison, or have disappeared, are being forced to sleep in the same bedroom with unknown Han Chinese men – so as reportedly ‘to acclimatize and protect them with mainstream Chinese culture and family values’. Not only that, in yet another move reminiscent of the Nazi era, birth control measures are being pushed forcibly down the throat of Uighur women. Soon, observers believe, that they might be forced into marriage with Han Chinese men, or compelled into some form of sex slavery or trafficking.

Wrote the Newrepublic.com in a recent article: “The horrors Beijing has rolled out in Xinjiang are almost too nauseating to name. Buoyed by a series of thousands of so-called ‘re-education camps’, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities have effectively transformed the entire region into what The New York Times describes as a ‘virtual prison’ with everything from race-based facial recognition tools to the  tracking of DNA samples and iris scans stalking Uighurs wherever they go. To take just one measure of comparison, Xinjiang now has a higher level of police density than even East Germany— which itself had magnitudes more police informants per capita than even Nazi Germany — at the end of the Cold War. “Nowhere in the world, not even in North Korea, is the population monitored as strictly as it is in Xinjiang,” wrote the German magazine, Der Spiegel. ”

“China’s camps have yet to become reprises of Dachau or Sachsenhausen, and the region has not fully collapsed into outright genocide. But that’s not for lack of trying. While Chinese authorities continue to strip-mine the region of any of its pre-CCP past—of mosques, of Islamic graveyards, of cultural trappings and non-Han ethnic identity—the CCP has launched a simultaneous campaign of eugenics against the Uighur population.” By forcing sterilization and abortions alike on hundreds of thousands of Uighur women, China hopes to kill off the next generation of Uighurs before they’re even born.

India And UN, The Coveted Prize

By Jasdev Singh Rai

Foremost in the speeches of Indian leadership and diplomats as India occupies the chair of the UN Security Council for a month as non-permanent member will be demands to convert its status to a permanent veto holding power in future. It will be Modi’s crowning glory if he achieves it in his term. India has been campaigning since 1990s for UN super five to become super five plus in the Security Council

India has made its case for a seat as permanent member of UN on the strength of being a regional superpower, a world economic power, the ‘biggest’ democracy, second highest number of citizens (16% of world population), long civilization, tolerance, diversity, compliance with UN treaties, commitment to multilateralism, newborn interest on climate change and growing influence in the world. By any one’s reckoning it is a deserving claim if the only long due change in UN was expansion.

That the United Nations needs to change is obvious. It is neither representative nor does it deliver what it set out to do. It was formed by western countries after the Second World War to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’. The institution is divested to prevent wars between countries. Power and War have both overtaken the era of nation State monopoly. The UN is out of depth in the new world of Transnational Corporations (Amazon, Facebook, Shell etc), Global Wars (Al Qaeda, ISIS) and internal conflicts.

Launched officially on 24th October 1945, the UN institutional structure was developed to maintain western hegemony and award the victors of the Second World War with permanent control. The USA, United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union and China gave themselves veto power in the Security Council, the organ of UN that essentially lords over everything United Nations. Africa, Middle East and South Asia were completely ignored so was the Latin world such as South America.

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The rest of the world has the General Assembly which can decide by simple or two third majority on a number of matters including punitive changes to UN. But altering the Security Council needs the veto holding members to finally say yea or nay. That is where India’s main hurdle lies.

The pro-West Republic of China, now exiled to the island of Taiwan, had the veto. But it was overthrown by Communists in 1949 making mainland China the People’s Republic of China. Within a short time and even before it became a world power, China successfully moved the rest of the world against American wishes, to replace Taipei (Taiwan) at the top table in 1971.

The 1970’s was a decade of opportunity for India to have pushed for expansion of Security Council. But Mrs Gandhi had already waged a war on Pakistan in 1971 making it difficult for Islamic world to support it then. She then busied herself becoming a dictator in India in 1976 losing the trust of western powers. Moreover India was too close to the Soviet despite pretending to be ‘non Aligned.

In the 1980s and 90s India had waged war on Sikhs and Sri Lanka with disastrous outcome. It lost two Prime Ministers. It didn’t quite give the impression of a responsible country that could hold the peace within India let alone save the planet from scourge of future war.

By the time India dusted itself, gained the trust of both the west and Russia, China became a superpower and now stands in its way saying ‘mei men er’ (no way).

Furthermore India’s game plan is somewhat unimaginative. India ticks all the boxes that make it a ‘most favourable’ salesperson for western ideological hegemony in upholding status quo world order. The West and even Russia (at least verbally) would like to see it in an expanded UN Security Council. China however is subtly seeking to overhaul the current fundamental western liberal foundations of the United Nations to one based on a pluralistic political thought.

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Similar currents are underway in other parts of the world. In Sub Saharan Africa there is a growing search for an indigenous civilizational philosophy that is distinct from influences of Islam or Christianity.

The Islamic world is still going through a painful period of evolving a sustainable political system that is representative of the people but distinct from western secularism. Iran has shown that there is a viable Islamic democratic polity possible.

India on the other hand has locked itself with the west. Simply reassigning secular Westphalian ethno-nationalism to a mythic non-existent Hindu ethnicity does not make a civilisation distinct.

India’s lack of constructive originality is evident in its historic failure to lead the post-colonial world by example out of the havoc colonialism created with ill thought out territorial boundaries and disregarding of historic national communities.

The post-colonial world is riddled with territorial disputes. India is at the front with territorial conflicts with Pakistan and disputes with its other neighbours including China.

Colonial boundaries fragmented communities. ‘Peoples’ like the Somalis and Masai were split by arbitrary map lines drawn during colonialism. Others were forcibly grafted onto States without consultation. The Sikhs, Tamils, Kashmiris and Nagas among many feel their nationalism has been suppressed by post-colonial States in which they find themselves.

The Europeans can and cannot be blamed for this. They came as exploitative conquerors and colonialists not as ethical saviours or messiahs. It needed a mature and creative leadership from one of the post-colonial States to propose a resettlement of boundaries through dialogue and address hopes of historic nations within with an original political system. That would have been a model for other post-colonial States to have followed.

Instead India acted as was predicted by some British politicians such as Churchill. Instead of drawing wisdom from its civilization, it adopted the Westphalian nation state model, obsessed with every inch of territory given to it by the British and forcing every minority indigenous historic nation within to forego its aspirations and accept the majority vision of a supra nation.

In contrast, the five permanent members of the Security Council all have something original to offer. Britain gave the world the parliamentary democratic system. The USA gave separation of Church and State along with rule of law. France gave the world human rights theory.

Russia (Soviet Union) offered a communist alternative to western liberal democracy. China brings a completely different civilization now increasingly being constructed around its current political interpretation of Confucian thought.

It is not clear what India would bring to the table. With minor variations, India has competitors in Brazil, Germany, Japan and a few others. If it is to stake its claim as a regional economic power then, North Africa and Sub Saharan Africa, Middle East and South America are also contenders. The UN would need 10 permanent members if not more.

However expanding the UN isn’t going to make the world any more peaceful, resolve the issues that are now out of UN’s depth or lead to a future free from scourge of war. India could have won immense respect and world leadership had it led the post-colonial period with solutions to the inevitable problems of territorial tensions and internal disputes inherited from European rule.

India’s choices are limited. It can appease China by sacrificing land to China and Pakistan. India can join up with the west to push China into submission and accept Indian seat at UN. Or it can bring some originality to world peace.

But as a risk averse and conservative institution, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is not known for imaginative leaps in international theory. India has been competing for recognition in yester world of 1970s. The future of UN is being changed by China, for better or for worse slowly eroding hegemony of western political paradigm. The UN will metamorphose but not into what MEA has prepared for.

Why Is Europe Quiet On Baloch Journalist’s Death?

By LokMarg

The story is known, and has been written and advertised for at least a month before disappearing from the radars of the press. The story is known and starts with a body dumped into a river. The body of a Baloch journalist, Sajid Hussain.

Is not uncommon, unfortunately, to find mutilated dead bodies, in various stage of decomposition and beyond recognition dotting the roads of Balochistan: it is part of the nefarious ‘kill and dump’ policy of Pakistani intelligence agencies highlighted many times by human rights organisations both national and international. But this time, there was a twist in the usual plot.

Sajid was dumped into a river, but the river was in Uppsala, Sweden. The place where he had fled is country and asked for political asylum. “His body was found on 23 April in the Fyris river outside Uppsala,” Jonas Eronen, a police spokesman, said. Adding that a crime could not be completely ruled out, but that Hussain’s death could equally have been an accident or suicide. And, after more than three months, the Swedish authorities did not give any answer yet.

The family has been allowed to see the body only after two months, and have been denied permission to bury Sajid in Balochistan by the Interior Ministry until ISI did not give permission: yesterday. The clearance has just been given but, with the clearance, another strange thing happens.

An Urdu newspaper, in Pakistan, carried a story on Sajid quoting the police report on his death. According to the article, the investigative reports states that Sajid has not been killed but his death was an accident. Point is, nobody has this police report and the person the article is quoting as a source, Taj Baloch who was Sajid’s flatmate, has no idea of what the article is talking about.

The family, until today, has not been given any investigative report and the Swedish police are not even releasing the post mortem report. Not to the family, not to the lawyers, after more than three months. According to sources close to the family: “There must be something political and diplomatic going on between Sweden and Pakistan”.

And there must be for sure, because is just unbelievable, especially for a European citizen, that Sweden is behaving, in this particular case, practically like Pakistan.

And, if the article tells the truth and they saw the report, is even worst: giving reports to Pakistani press and intelligence agencies (don’t forget in Pakistan press is controlled by the agencies) before the family is informed is not only against the law but against any decency.

The Swedish police should answer many questions, and quickly: Why the investigations about Sajid’s death started only the March 28 if he disappeared the two of the same month; why during all this time they did not give any news to the family about the developments of the case; why after a round of inquiries there was only a deafening silence; how a body can stay for almost two months in a river which, by definition, flows; why the post mortem report is not out after more than three months; and why somebody who had survived ISI and Frontier Corps ‘attention’ would go and drop himself in a river in Sweden.

The article is perfectly in line with the ISI behaviour, and they are most probably trying to cook up a story in order to wash their hands of Sajid’s death.

But, since Sajid had been granted political asylum, Swedish authorities must have been familiar with Pakistan’s behaviour toward its own citizens.

In the country and now even abroad. A number of human rights organisations have been openly calling out Pakistani ISI for Sajid’s murder.

But, apparently, no attempt of investigation has been done following this track. No country and no official international body is even trying to charge Pakistan for enforced disappearences and kill and dump, even though they violate international treaties and laws.

Filing Sajid’s disappearance and murder as an ‘accident or suicide’ case is very tempting, because it will allow Swedish Government, and other European governments after it, to deny what is happening under their own eyes. Sajid is dead, but his death should not be taken lightly. European governments are responsible for the safety of their citizens.

Democratic governments are responsible for the freedom of those fleeing dictatorial, military regimes. Silence and connivance with those regimes in the name of diplomatic relationships are as criminal as the deeds of the perpetrators.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are strictly those of the author) (ANI)

Bulldozing Van Gujjars Out Of Their Habitat

By Amit Sengupta

While the famous Jim Corbett National Park is legendary for its tigers, its wildlife, bio diversity and flora and fauna, the Rajaji National Park near Dehradun and Rishikesh is still young and growing into a lush green wildlife sanctuary and tiger reserve despite a highway and a train line crossing its buffer zone and reasonably big towns in its vicinity. Established in 1983, comprising the rocky terrain of the ancient Shivalik hills, just about on the foot hills of the Himalayas, this 820 km landscape of dense forests has two beautiful rivers flowing: the Ganga and the Song. The Ganga, like a mountain river, in a mysterious move, actually disappears and goes underground near Chilla, only to appear yet again at a distance. The area is marked by a huge canal and several water bodies.

The national park is also home to around 30-plus tigers with many cubs. It also has a wide variety of wildlife and animals, including the elephant which has occasionally attacked people on the highways, the sloth bear, deer species, king cobra, birds, insects, among others. It also has had for decades, stretching before the Independence era, an indigenous community which has lived deep inside the forest in peaceful co-existence with the wildlife: the robust and hardworking Van Gujjars – Gujjars who belong to the forests.

Over the years, there has not been a single instance of a man-animal conflict in this region. This indigenous community used to build huge and strong huts in the thick of the forests, so powerfully built that the incessant rain during monsoon or a storm would never be able to hurt these architectural marvels. These homes of the communities would usually be near a stream or water body, and they would mostly rear cattle, and trade in milk and milk products. Of late, their children have started going to the neighbourhood schools, their women have started to venture out, and the forest community has also established links with the urban market.

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In recent times, their life changed drastically, as has been a phenomenon all over Indian forests and their indigenous communities. As is well-known, be it the tribal interiors in Chhattisgarh’s Abhujmad or the forests of Uttarakhand, the forest department has been notoriously marked since the British times as an oppressive, reckless and brutal force, out to terrorise and exploit the peaceful forest communities. Post-independence, indeed, nothing changed, despite greater environmental consciousness and the gradual recognition of the forest people’s role in sustaining the ecological balance, and generally nourishing the ecological landscape as part of their sacred duty and everyday life.

After the area was declared a tiger reserve and a national park, it became a kind of dictatorship of the forest department, alleged local activists. They would further brutalise and bulldoze the indigenous communities, who just did not know what hit them.

First, they were promised Rs 10 lakh to move away from their traditional habitats in the core area into the buffer zone near the roads, and to urban areas like Pathri, a rocky and dry area, where the Tehri dam oustees were also pushed at one time and which mountain and forest people hated for its barren landscape. Some of them did not get compensation despite moving from the core areas. In many cases, this reporter would find, they were forced to settle near a dry water body, or, where their cattle could not graze, or where they had to literally walk for miles for water. For a peaceful community whose life was so closely intertwined with nature, this was a violent jolt with which they just could not reconcile.

Then arrived the optimistic and forward-looking Forest Rights Act, enacted by the UPA government in December 2006 under the auspices of the National Advisory Committee led by Sonia Gandhi and with eminent social activists in the committee like Aruna Roy, Jean Dreze, Farah Naqvi and Harsh Mander, among others. One of the most crucial objective of this path-breaking legislation enacted by the Indian Parliament is to end the “historic injustices” faced by indigenous communities since colonial times. It was meant to resolve and reconcile the prevailing conflicts in forest regions, mainly between Forest Department and communities through effective implementation of the Act at the grassroots.

This was indeed an epistemological rupture in the life of all forest communities, including adivasis in remote and inaccessible areas. It was a big boost to their morale, self-esteem and self-confidence, and a positive sign for social activists and voluntary groups who were working in the area of indigenous collectives and ecological protection, including in the national parks. Hence, for the first time, the people in the forests, started exercising their rights. This did not go down well with the powerful and unilateral forest departments in most forest regions across India.

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At the Rajaji National Park, the domination continued in different forms but with not a similar intensity as politically conscious pastoral and tribal communities started demanding their rights, the right to life and livelihood and compensation if they were forced to move from their homes and habitats.

As per a latest complaint lodged by the Citizens for Justice and Peace and the All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP), using the pandemic and lockdown, the forest department and police has yet again launched illegal assaults and evictions of certain Van Gujjar families. According to the complaint on June 16 and 17 this year, police and forest officials arrived at the Asharodi forest in the Ramgarh range of the park. Their intention was clear: to destroy a shelter belonging to Noorjahan, daughter of Ghulam Mustafa aka Mustafa Chopra, (75).

Apparently, the community elders were assaulted, dragged and beaten up badly. Women were not spared. Their homes were destroyed.  The attack has been captured on camera by the children of the Van Gujjar community. A false complaint has been lodged against the members of Mustafa’s family. Indeed, he was taken into custody on June 18. Noorjahan has alleged that she was hit on her private parts.

Incidentally, the backdrop is that Mustafa has been relentlessly campaigning for forest rights within the bureaucracy and the administration in Uttarakhand, has mobilized his community, and has also petitioned the courts. It has been a long, two-decade struggle for the old man.

According to activists, the officials violated the stated provisions of the Indian Forest (Uttaranchal Amendment) Act, 2001. A notice has to be apparently given to the occupants before eviction. The complaint states that no such notice was given to Noorjahan or her father Mustafa and the assault was an unauthorized act. The matter has also reached the district administration and the NHRC.

Said veteran activist Ashok Chaudhury, leader of the (AIUFWP), currently based in Saharanpur near the park, “Traditionally, the indigenous forest communities used to remain very ‘obedient’ under the domain of the forest department. But, with the enactment of FRA, like all forest dwellers, Van Gujjars, also felt that they are have become truly independent and so they also started asserting for their rights. Forest officials, because of their feudal culture, could not appreciate this new assertion. So they started creating obstructions in the implementation process of the FRA especially on the vulnerable communities.”

As of now, the stalemate continues even as the local media and human rights groups have taken up the issue. Clearly, post FRA, things are not going to be the same anymore. People who have been subservient and oppressed are asserting their fundamental rights now. Indeed, not only the Rajaji National Park, this has become a phenomena all over forests across the Indian landscape.

India-China Faceoff: Shatranj Versus Weiqi

By LokMarg

By Krishan Varma

Chinese actions along with eastern Ladakh and the East and South China Seas continue to reflect moves played in the traditional game of ‘weiqi‘, the 2,500-year-old abstract strategy board game, in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent, to eventually capture it all.

This is evident in the lack of compliance with the agreed disengagement and de-escalation process along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). China’s intention is to incrementally occupy territory and push the perceived LAC further west. A similar strategy is being played out in its usurpation of territory in the East and South China Seas.

In response to these aggressive moves on multiple fronts, it is a relief to see the Quad’s growing solidarity in reacting to China’s misplaced hubris. All the Quad’s constituent countries, along with the UK and France have acted with alacrity in a coordinated challenge to counter China’s expansionist moves in the military and economic field.

The US despatched the formidable Nimitz aircraft carrier fleet to the Indian Ocean through the strategic Malacca Strait to participate in a naval exercise with four Indian warships. I had the privilege to have landed and taken off from the Nimitz sailing for a sea drill off Hong Kong in the early 90s and have witnessed its prowess. The Andaman and Nicobar tri-services command jurisdiction has seen heightened activity.

India has evidently extended the operational front from the land border to the maritime domain where it enjoys an advantage. A gauntlet to the Chinese, this exemplifies a swift move in a game of shatranj (Indian chess), an effective counter gambit. Australian and Japanese warships along with Indonesian naval vessels have also increased activity near the Malacca Strait adding teeth to the build-up of a countervailing force in the area.

With USS Ronald Reagan in the East China Sea along with another battle group near the Taiwan Strait, these powerful forces can effectively respond to any further premature Chinese adventurism in the region.

On the economic front, in a move reminiscent of the Cold War when the Soviet economy was gradually squeezed over time, the US has ratcheted up powerful punitive actions against China. Sanctions against Chinese companies and nationals involved in repression in Xinjiang and Hong Kong continue. Recently, the US Commerce department added 11 companies to a trade blacklist, bringing nearly 50 Chinese entities on the list and restricting them further from access to US technology as well as other goods. The Japanese have moved 87 of their companies out of China. The consequent loss in revenue to Chinese companies can deal a telling blow to an economy already suffering from a downturn and burgeoning unemployment. More punitive action is in the pipeline. While such a complex strategy can take a long time to fructify, given the deep global integration and strength of the Chinese economy, it must nevertheless be recognised as an earnest beginning.

Meanwhile, India has displayed a firm resolve to curb the import of non-essential Chinese goods. It has blocked and restricted investments and predatory runs on vital entities in the financial and start-up ecosystem. Rapid indigenisation of telecommunication infrastructure including home-grown 5G technology will prevent further loss of valuable data to the Chinese that has merrily exploited the huge flow of metadata from a single heterogeneous source that refines their AI and machine learning capabilities. If India can sustain the gradual decoupling from the Chinese digital inroads, with support from the Quad plus, the Chinese stand to lose billions of dollars in the long run. Similarly, a renewal of the pharmaceutical industry will cause substantial loss to Chinese exports.

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The big question is: will China relent from its multi-front territorial aggression against its peaceful neighbours?

Given Xi’s apparent arrogance, any pullback from confrontation can potentially upset his China Dream and threaten his personal ambition to be a leader for life. Hence, a protracted challenge can be anticipated.

Consequently, Indian strategic decision-makers will have to factor in a few possibilities to devise a counterplan: it will have to be prepared to sustain military pressure all along the eastern Ladakh border region through the winter. It will need to consider the Chinese opening up some pressure points in the central and eastern sector. It has to be prepared to defend against increased cyberattacks against critical networks and sensitive installations.

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China could add more pinpricks in Nepal and Bhutan border areas, step up clandestine support to Indian insurgent groups in the northeast region, and attempt, through its surrogates, to foment disturbances on simmering internal political, social and communal issues. It can move into overdrive to woo Bangladesh through major economic inducements. It could collude with Pakistan to foment trouble in J&K, and coordinate defence of its assets and investment in the Gilgit-Baltistan and POK regions.

India’s defence planners should seriously consider counter moves into vulnerable non-delineated areas in the Ladakh region and then negotiate return from a position of strength, launch deniable covert operations against transgressing Chinese troops and infrastructure in its claimed territory and threaten to interdict their stretched supply lines.

Till India develops effective and demonstrable comprehensive national strength, India must also seek to drop outdated principles of non-alignment and strategic autonomy (refer to my article in the Sunday Guardian dated June 27, 2020) and selectively multi-align itself with like-minded democracies like the emerging D-10 and Vietnam. Agreeably this is not easy to achieve, but it is essential to accomplish.

The key message is this: we have to counter the Chinese strategies embodied in weiqi i.e. and play the more popular, and widely played game of chess (shatranj). It is the time to resolutely proceed to checkmate the opposing King. (ANI)

(The author is former Special Secretary to the Government of India, Cabinet Secretariat)

Tragic Times For Afghan Sikhs

By Mahendra Ved

Last Sunday’s arrival in New Delhi of 11 Sikhs from Afghanistan marks the beginning of the end of a centuries-old historic process of Hindus and Sikhs moving to and from this India’s extended neighbourhood.

It may be a matter of time – perhaps a few months – before all of them, estimated at between 600 and 1,000, a microscopic minority in an overwhelmingly Islamic nation, may leave Afghanistan for good and seek new lives in India that one of them on arrival gratefully called “our motherland.”

This small but epochal event sadly reduces to a mere debate what is steeped in history. Can an Afghan be a Hindu or a Sikh? History says yes, asserts Inderjeet Singh in his book Afghan Hindus and Sikhs: History of A Thousand Years published in April last year.

There is no reliable information on when Hinduism began in Afghanistan that once had Hindu rulers, and when Buddhism thrived. But historians suggest that the territory south of the Hindu Kush was culturally connected with the Indus Valley Civilization (5500–2000 BC) in ancient times.

As for the Sikh, records show that its founder Guru Nanak Dev had visited Kabul in the early 16th century and laid the faith’s foundation.

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Islam arrived in Afghanistan only in the seventh century. “The Hindu Shahi rulers of Kabulistan were replaced only by the end of the 10th century by the Ghaznavides, who maintained Hindu forces,” Inderjeet Singh asserts in his book.

Contemporary records show that Maharaja Ranjit Singh also ruled parts of Afghanistan. About 250,000 Hindus and Sikhs had thriving trade and lived in relative peace and harmony and travelled to and from British India. Father of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh used to trade with Afghanistan, carrying consignments of asafoetida (heeng).

11 Sikhs arrived in New Delhi from Afghanistan on Sunday, July 26, 2020.

Recorded or otherwise, this account must make a grim present-day note of the end of the presence of religious minorities – at least the Hindus and the Sikhs – in Afghanistan. A small minority in an overwhelmingly Islamic nation, they survived the violent civil war conditions that have prevailed since last King Zahir Shah was deposed in 1973. Last 47 years have seen a decade of communist rule backed by the erstwhile Soviet Union, a “jihad” supported by the Western nations, faction-ridden and violent rule by the Mujahideen five years of Taliban and since the US-led “global war against terrorism” that followed 9/11, eighteen years of the present government backed by the United States.

The US is keen to quit its longest war, whether or not President Trump gets re-elected. Its iffy pact with the Taliban is not working and the way is opened for the Taliban, with their sordid record of suppressing women and minorities, backed by Pakistan that has its own sordid record, returning to power. That makes the status of Afghan religious minorities more uncertain than ever. That makes India’s move, with American blessings, timely.

The Afghan minorities have already felt the heat. Twenty-five Sikhs were killed at a Gurdwara in Paktia province in March this year. They were targeted by an Afghan group owing allegiance to the Islamic State (IS). Indeed, the IS’ spread has been the reason for the US, Russia, Iran and China coming on the same page, leaving Pakistan as a key factor and India, an ‘outsider’, yet again. History is repeating itself.

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The 11 Afghan Sikhs have been granted short-term Indian visas. They include Nidan Singh Sachdeva, who was abducted from Paktia’s gurudwara in June. The rest are families of those who were killed in the Kabul Gurudwara terror attack earlier this year. Twenty-five Afghan Sikhs and one Indian Sikh were killed on the March 25 terror attack in Kabul by a heavily armed ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K) suicide bomber. The group includes Salmeet Kaur who was reportedly kidnapped in Kabul but later came back.

An emotional reunion upon arrival of Sikh delegation from Afghanistan on July 26

This Sikh group hopes that India would give them long-term visas and eventually grant citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed last year. It gives citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities from three countries –Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan with a cut-off date of 31st December 2014.

While that may happen, for the Afghan Sikhs and Hindus, the decision to come to India poses an agonizing dilemma. In Afghanistan, they have livelihoods — shops and businesses passed down through generations — but spend their days dreading the next attack. Making a new start in India would most likely mean living in poverty, they said, particularly during an economic slump exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Lala Sher Singh, 63, who was attacked in March, told The New York Times that the community had shrunk so much that his thoughts were occupied “day and night” by a fear that “the next assault might not leave enough people who can perform the final rituals for the dead.”

“I may get killed here because of these threats to Hindus and Sikhs, but in India I will die from poverty. I have spent my whole life in Afghanistan. In this neighbourhood close to the temple, if I run out of money and stand in front of a shop and ask for two eggs and some bread, they will give it to me for free. But who will help me in India?”

The New York Times reported that there was no official reaction from the Afghan government to India’s offer. “A senior Afghan official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the news media, said that ‘violence affected all Afghans’,” and that an offer of safety only to Hindus and Sikhs put religious diversity in Afghanistan in doubt.

The Afghan official, ostensibly making no excuse about the poor security available to the religious minorities in his country, attributed the Indian government’s move to being “aimed at a domestic audience in India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tried to move the country away from its secular, multicultural foundations and give it a more overtly Hindu identity, while projecting itself as a champion of persecuted Hindu minorities elsewhere.” The beleaguered Afghan authorities fighting for their own survival amidst civil war of their own, would likely stay silent and not mind the minorities leaving.

Truth be told, the Tibetan refugees took years to settle in India and thousands of Hindus from Pakistan have yet to get their citizenship documents, leave alone facilities and opportunities to settle, earn livelihood and send their children to school. By contrast, those who come in illegally, do manage to get their ration cards, citizenship certificates and even voter’s cards from the grey market on payment. Despite the sentiments of those who support this “ghar wapasi”, this is the harsh reality.

Even if necessary, this is a thankless, unending task. “Mother India” must pay a price for embracing back its sons and daughters troubled in their chosen homes.

Higher Job Quotas For Locals Can Adversely Hit Society & Economy

By Sanjoy Narayan

The first reaction to the government of Haryana’s recent stipulation of reserving jobs in the private sector for people domiciled in the state has predictably come from employers. Private sector companies fear that the new rule—encapsulated in an ordinance—will, by hindering their recruitment efforts, hamper their ability to get workers with appropriately high skills. To be sure, the Haryana government’s decision was influenced by pre-election promises by one of the BJP-led coalition’s partners, Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala’s Jannayak Janta Party (JPP).

The Haryana ordinance stipulates that 75% of all new recruitment by companies based in or operating in the state have to be people who are domiciled in the state. The rule will apply to jobs that pay a salary of Rs 50,000 per month or less. Industries operating in the state have already made a plea to the government to reconsider the move but by all reckoning that is unlikely to happen.

Moves such as Haryana’s aren’t new in India. Last year, a Maharashtra minister from the Shiv Sena party demanded that 100% of jobs in private companies in his state ought to be reserved for local youth. A year ago, Andhra Pradesh passed a law to reserve 75% of jobs for youths belonging to the state. States such as Assam, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh have been contemplating similar laws. And in southern Indian states, which have witnessed substantial migration of workers from northern India, similar sentiments have begun showing up.

WATCH: ‘Local Quota Law A Black Day For Haryana Inc’

The call for protection or reservation of local youths’ jobs is obviously a populist move, and political parties are often motivated by the electoral objectives of garnering votes. But it is also a sign of nativism, a policy of protecting the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants. It also reeks of jingoism and xenophobia, and while employers are understandably upset by such protectionist policies, the inherent harm that such policies can do run deeper.

India’s Constitution guarantees individuals the right to freedom of movement within India and the right to seek employment anywhere within the country’s territory. Its various articles also specify that there can be no discrimination on the basis of where one is domiciled or born when it comes to employment. In that regard, the recent moves in various states to reserve private sector jobs for locals may seem unconstitutional and something that eventually the judiciary may have to take up.

Nativist movements are not new in India. In the past decades, local parties such as the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra; the DMK in Tamil Nadu; the Akali Dal in Punjab; and several other smaller regional parties have expressed sentiments against inter-state immigration. Even in Bengal, a relatively obscure party, Amra Bangali, has for long demanded, among a long list of other things, 100% reservation of jobs for Bengali youth.

Curiously, inter-state immigration is not of a huge scale in India. One study based on census data shows that on an average not more than 10% of workers in a district are from another state. In some states, the proportion is much lower. Also, seasonal migration has been common in many states. During harvest time or other labour-intensive seasons, northern states such as Punjab and Haryana depend heavily on workers who migrate from the eastern states of India. Many of the stranded migrant workers whose plight was highlighted when the Indian government announced a lockdown across the country after the outbreak of the Covid pandemic were agricultural and construction workers who routinely migrate out of their states to seek casual or seasonal employment.

Diversity in India is unlike in most other countries. Its population of 1.3 billion is hardly homogenous. Besides being diverse in terms of language, food, and culture, there are sharply contrasting economic disparities between states. But every Indian citizen has a right to decide where he or she would like to live; work; or settle down. Curbs such as Haryana’s new law would seriously hinder that right. But they would also impair economic development and equitable growth.

WATCH: Manesar Labourers Mourn Loss Of Jobs

The short-term political gains of a move such as Haryana’s reservation policy are obvious. Appeasement of local youth could help in ensuring the government’s re-election once its term is completed. And, of course, if jobs are reserved for them, the future of local unemployed youth could brighten. But consider this. Haryana is among one of the India’s states that attracts substantial private sector investment—mainly because it has cities such as Gurgaon that have quickly become hubs for technology, automotive, and financial services companies. If employers are restricted by a reservation norm some of them could consider shifting out of the state.

Also, for people living in economically weaker states where employment opportunities are limited such restrictions could have adverse economic impact. Moreover, if more and more states follow in the footsteps of Haryana and Andhra Pradesh, what would it make of India’s much touted claim of having harmony in diversity? Would it lead to greater intolerance between communities and regions? Would it foster more inter-state jingoism? And, could it, conceivably, threaten the democratic structure that is at the heart of the country?

There is also the matter of the Constitution and the freedom it ensures for Indian citizens. The spawning of policies that are inherently anti-immigrant in nature could seriously impinge on that freedom. It is perhaps time for the courts to examine these issues before they grow into a full-blown crisis.

Covid-19 Unlocks Human Creativity

By Amit Sengupta

The human will is insatiable, irrepressible and difficult to defeat. Even in a lockdown, infinite quarantine with no definite deadline or dateline, as in contemporary India, unfortunately, surrounded and overwhelmed by dying, disease and tragedy, full of suppressed angst and anger at the mindless repression on young people, students and academics, and an 80-plus great revolutionary poet, now inflicted with Covid-19, imprisoned in jail for months in this heat and pandemic, ‘people’ just can’t allow themselves to be defeated. This has been most reflected in the social media and also outside, as people in India and elsewhere strive to find a life outside the compulsory depression and ritualism of daily despair.

Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian of London, Katherine Viner, in a seminal lecture six years ago, described the role of the journalist in an overwhelming scenario of the flowering of the social media. She said: “What if we were to embrace the ecosystem of the web and combined established journalistic techniques with new ways of finding, telling and communicating stories? Opened ourselves up? Put the people formerly known as the audience at the heart of everything? Combined the elite and the street… and the tweet?”

Well, not everyone is tweeting in India, and not everyone is a ‘citizen journalist’, and considering Indian population, only the participants in the social media are microscopic, despite the kitschy Tik Tok, a grassroots app involving millions in the most invisible bylane of our vast countryside, now banned for ‘nationalist reasons’ despite their Rs 30 crore donation to the inscrutable ‘PM Cares’.  And, yet, during this repressive and depressive lockdown, a new flourishing culture of sound, visuals, text, art and craft, meaning and meaninglessness, knowledge systems, film, literature, science and social sciences, and critical commentary on politics, ecology and society has flourished.

This is the new aesthetic of the new normal of the post-truth society, a new folk and oral tradition, and it makes sense, and could possibly signal the future of the cultural life of an online quarantined generation post Covid-19 – because this pandemic, at least in India with its crumbling health structure, is bound to stay for a long, long time.

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So what should the people – thinkers, artists, students, academics, ordinary citizens, even housewives, and now house-husbands – do? They shall innovate and they will make the best out of it. Here’s how, and this article only gives a few illustrations.

Vishwajyoti Ghosh is the author of a path-breaking political graphic novel located in the turbulent India of the 1970s, in the backdrop of the authoritarian imposition of the Emergency. His out-of-the box book, among others, ‘Delhi Calm’, a visual journey of post cards, is a brilliant narrative. So what is this young and restless soul doing, having quit his job with a top publishing house recently, amidst mass unemployment?

Ghosh started a no-profit, no-money, fully entertaining, and driven with black humour podcast with Spotify, called ‘Kissa Stories’, with a catchy slogan: ‘Thora local, pura vocal’ (A bit local, a lot of vocal). It is the rediscovery of sound, old radio, forgotten neon signs of signature tunes, including from Bollywood, nostalgia of the 1970, a bit political, a lot social, homely, replete with neighbourhood stories, clichés rediscovered as sweet and bitter landmarks, and  the pure joy of living in those times in mofussil localities in Delhi. Especially for a small-town guy who comes from the Hindi heartland and wants to become a writer in the big city. So typically clichéd and so lovely, truly.

Chasing  good luck, finding bad luck, and many shared travellers of similar journeys, ‘Vishwa’ tells us in impeccable Hindi, the little stories of his youth with an uncanny and spoofy political and social backdrop, so that history is neither rewritten nor buried in ‘pseudo nationalism’. For instance, his Mamu comes from Soviet Russia and brings a toy airplane for him. So he is the star of the neighbourhood, and his Mamu becomes his missing dad. In a tea shop cum library run by, who else but a Bengali revolutionary, on eternal ‘udhaar’, they discover a new and creative language. When the Emergency comes, so, how do they hide the books: Marx, Lenin, and Bhagat Singh?

On their dangerous night journey in a curfewed city, to hide the books, the rendezvous becomes a Ramsay Brothers’ horror clip as cops catch them. So a genius among them flashes out an ‘old joint from the grassroots level’ story, and the cops are convinced that these young boys are apolitical and harmless, simply going for a spin to Pahargunj to score ‘stuff’.

In the ‘Encounter’, the latest podcast, a clueless middle-aged vice president of a corporate company is just not able to square up with  upstart, drop-out, young eclectic geniuses who are now into millions with their the mad start-ups. Indeed, listeners of this short revelation of nostalgia as fast-forward realism are now going to contribute to the next episodes. They seem to be promising with their tempting titles: ‘Gurgaon ka Romeo, Shimla ki Kulfi, Purani Dilli ke Purane Kisse, Lucknow ki Barish, Kalkata ki Mausi, Manali ki Raate’, among others.

Said Vishwajyoti Ghosh to Lokmarg: “Kissa Stories’ is made up of the stories we live, the kissas we make up beyond our lives, that are even better than original, everyday. ‘Kissa Stories’ has emerged as a form of micro-stories, of incidents, epiphanies and anecdotes. Emerging mostly from conversations, or memories of conversations, the idea is to bring together a varied collection of stories through people across the spectrum who are separated by six stories of separation. The podcast is working with only original content both from the audience and its podcaster.” 

This podcast, with all the archival sounds and atmospherics of radio, is available on all major platforms like Apple, Google, Spotify. Free!

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Young theatre person, Parshathy Nath of Thrissur in Kerala, active performer across borders, felt that it was time to do something. So with other friends she started a play-reading session online. It’s a starting point for these talented people with unsurpassed energy. And they seem to be crossing the threshold. Said Parshathy to Lokmarg: “The lockdown and the uncertainty that followed put me into a confused state of mind like anyone else. More because I am a performer and I was working with a theatre group in Bangalore when lockdown was declared. Initially, it was a shock. There was also anxiety. But, gradually, we had to ease into the new reality. In this regard, all I could resort to was to the virtual space. Although, I still feel theatre is about that live presence of the actor in flesh and blood before you, I had to reach out to fellow artistes for some creative respite. Along with a few artistes in Kerala, we got together on Google Hangouts to read a play. Just practicing enunciation, observing beat changes and emoting, felt like catharsis for me. I didn’t mind that we were reduced to square sizes on our laptops and mobile screens. All that mattered was we kept the camaraderie of theatre going. Just seeing my co-actor’s faces was a relief. I would thank technology for bringing me a little closer to my tribe to vent out our woes, sing songs together and rehearse our lines, even when the possibility of going on stage felt so far away.”

Jazz, folk, blues, Spanish guitar, classical, Indian and western, short films, amateur films with a hand camera, poetry and recitations, stories and games of children, grandmothers’ tales, webinars, monologues and discussions on current affairs, including hard topics like fake encounters and Galwan Valley, long distance classical music and opera, old paintings and old film posters, pictures of yesteryears like the premier of Guru Dutt’s Kagaz ke Phool, biographies of great actors, filmmakers, singers and musicians, and their songs and film clips,  including  how to cope with depression and mental health issues,  and, of course, political resistance, peacefully and non-violently, inspired by archival icons: Che Guevara, Gandhi, Frida Kahlo, Charlie Chaplin, Lenin.

Every step in social media etc these days is a step into archival and contemporary innovations, some brilliant some totally banal, but that is life, isn’t it? 

The icing on the cake has been a Cat Stevens’ new song, sung with the old man oozing grace and lyricism. Also Martin Scorsese giving lectures on filmmaking, starting with ‘Battleshop Potemkin’ of Sergie Eisenstein and ‘Taxi Driver’ with Robert De Niro, as a teaser. That’s cool and tempting too, but the hitch is that it costs a packet.

LAC Standoff: De-escalation, Disengagement Or Status Quo Ante

By Dr. Krishnendra Meena

The border standoff between India and China in Ladakh continues amidst calls from the international community to tone down the rhetoric and resolve the issue bilaterally. India and China, on their part have continued deliberations at both diplomatic and military levels. The nuances of negotiations, though, not available through the media to the general public indicate that the talks initially, were centred around de-escalation of the situation wherein violence had occurred on the night of 15th June in Galwan Valley and there were number of casualties on both sides. Gradually, the discussion moved towards the process of disengagement as both the parties had amassed a huge number of troops in the region.

The roots of the current standoff, however, go back to the months of April and May this year when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China moved to the many patrolling points on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and built structures (permanent and temporary). The build-up of the Chinese troops along the LAC which is disputed at many places and substitutes for the international border, till one is finalized, was unprecedented and reminded of the Chinese tactics of occupation in the South China Sea. Boundary-making process is a very sophisticated technical exercise which involves primarily four stages of Definition, Delimitation, Demarcation and Administration.

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In the case of the LAC, even the first stage which involves defining the boundary on the map is not clear at many points and locations. The matter becomes more complicated with the Chinese ignoring continual Indian demands to share the maps with the Chinese perception of the LAC. Though the mechanisms to resolve the boundary disputes are in place since the year 2005, the Chinese have refused to share the maps in all the deliberations. This raises a lot of questions and problems and has been one of the major challenges for the Indian side. The Chinese perception which they have often invoked in the media through their spokesperson have never been displayed through maps.

Nevertheless, even during this difficult phase, the discussions between the two sides have continued: at the External Affairs Minister level and at the level of the National Security Advisors of both the countries. This is followed by the talks by Corps Commanders of India and China at the ground situation in Ladakh. Chinese focus, however, remains on the disengagement and de-escalation and they have made it a very protracted process with constant insistence on the perceptions of the LAC. It is noteworthy that progress has been made on the ground over the course of the last month and forces have been gradually moving back to their respective territories and away from the LAC.

Indian Analysts, on the other hand have argued that total disengagement will be a long haul, especially at the Pangong Tso and the Depsang Plains. These two spots are extremely critical from India’s military and strategic perspective and that is precisely the reason that the Chinese want to maintain a stranglehold over them. The Depsang Plains lie in close proximity to India’s Air Force Base at Daulat Beg Oldie which is advantageous to India in adverse conditions.

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At the Pangong Tso, the LAC is disputed and according to reports, Chinese have encroached more than 8 kms. inside the Indian version of the LAC which runs at Finger 8 (fingers are mountain features jutting out into the lake from the North Bank) and the Indian Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) used to patrol till this point. The Chinese have occupied area till Finger 4 and have built concrete structures effectively covering more than 60 square kms. of the area and therefore will be difficult to evacuate through negotiations. On the other hand, one of the parties can afford a conflict.

Indian stance, therefore, should be to press the negotiations towards the restoration of the status quo ante, or the situation which existed prior to the month of May 2020. Media reports in India indicate that during the last round of talks between the Corps Commanders on 14th-15th July, demand for status quo ante has been made by the Indian side to Chinese counterparts. Chinese media reports indicate little and only say that progress has been made on the disengagement of forces.

On the other hand, the pattern along this part of the LAC, due to altitude, difficult terrain and inclement weather conditions is that of withdrawal of forces from heights during the winter months and moving back to the permanent bases in the area. Given the situation this year this may not happen at Pangong Tso and Depsang Plains and the Indian side should be ready to face the vagaries of weather, terrain and altitude.

The experience of the Indian Army at the Siachen Glacier can be drawn to withstand the Chinese in the area. One way or the other, the strategic geography of the area of these crucial points will play an important role in the future of this picturesque militarized space.

Unparalleled Reign Of Mughal-e-Azam

By Mahendra Ved

Mughal-e-Azam, released six decades ago on August 5, 1960, remains a landmark for the Indian cinema. It can also be a mark to measure much that happened then and is happening now.

Twelfth years into the independence, despite problems galore, a poverty-stricken India had proved the Winston Churchills wrong by staying united and ticking. The world was taking note of its global affairs (Korea, Non-Aligned Movement, UN peacekeeping and more) and achievements in art and culture (Ravi Shankar, Raj Kapoor, Satyajit Ray and more). Even critics like Nirad Chowdhury and V S Naipaul couldn’t ignore India. Jawaharlal Nehru was leading a secular democracy, howsoever flawed.   

Six decades hence, the world’s largest democracy and movie-making nation (majority bad ones) does have a global reach. It is economically stronger with a bigger place in a more complex, competitive, world. But its image as a pluralist, inclusive nation that the world has known and come to expect has taken a beating. It is becoming the anti-thesis of what Mughal-e-Azam was and is all about.

The story of Jalaluddin Mohammed Akbar (1556-1605 AD) the third Mughal Emperor, his Hindu Queen Jodhabai and their only son Salim, later to become Emperor Jehangir, was and is celebrated for depicting mutual respect and tolerance among the Muslim rulers and their Hindu subjects. History calls Akbar ‘Great’ because rather than fight them, he had consciously struck alliances with the Rajput rulers. The film makes no claims to historical accuracy, though. But the anniversary comes when its ethos is being challenged and history itself is sought to be re-written.

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Rachel Dwyer, author of the book “Filming the Gods: Religion and Indian Cinema”, says Mughal-e-Azam highlights religious tolerance between Hindus and Muslims. Her examples include scenes depicting the presence of Queen Jodhabai, a woman and a Hindu, in Akbar’s court. Anarkali, the courtesan Salim loves and to get whom he rebels against the father, sings a Hindu devotional song.  

Celebrating Janmashtami, Akbar is shown pulling a string to rock a swing with Krishna’s idol. Film critic Mukul Kesavan writes that he was unable to recall a single other film about Hindu-Muslim love in which the woman is a Hindu.

One sequence needs citing. Durjan Singh, Salim’s Hindu military aide, is seriously wounded while rescuing Anarkali from prison. On his death, the Hindu priests and doctors let Anarkali pay last respects to her saviour. She spreads on him her dupatta, the ultimate symbol of modesty for a traditional Muslim woman.

The film’s other theme is justice. A vanquished Salim is arraigned before the court and offered a pardon provided he abandons Anarkali. He defies and is sent to gallows. Akbar keeps word given to Anarkali’s mother, the maid who had brought him the news of Salim’s birth. He circumvents his own order to bury Anarkali alive, lets her escape into exile and suffers the odium.

The film was released amidst great fanfare and expectations.  A 12 year-old, I remember seeing the milling crowds before a huge cut-out of Akbar and Salim in full battle gear outside the newly-built Maratha Mandir theatre in Mumbai.  

Ranked as India’s ‘greatest’ by film historians, the film held the record of being, both, the most expensive and also the biggest grosser at the box office for 15 years. India has not seen anything so grand and opulent, before and since. Indeed, everything about it was excessive, surpassing all film-making norms.

It would arguably hold the record of taking the longest to complete if counted from being conceived by a young Karim Asif in 1944 to being shelved during the Partition turmoil, a complete change of the star cast and even a financier, and taking almost nine years to complete. 

Shapoorji Pallonji, a newbie to film financing, agreed to produce and finance solely because of his interest in Akbar. He, too, had doubts when the budget of each department of the film exceeded. He never financed another film.

Dilip Kumar, perhaps the only survivor of the mega project, when he could talk (in his late 90s, he cannot any more), said in a 2010 interview that the long period became of no consequence to those involved as each person was deeply committed.

He played a largely subdued Salim to theatrical Prithviraj Kapoor (Akbar) and Durga Khote (Jodhabai). Dilip had reservations about acting in a period film, but was assured a free hand. “Asif trusted me enough to leave the delineation of Salim completely to me,” Dilip said in his 2010 that interview.  By contrast, Madhubala who was keen on the role, pipped Suraiya to it.

The soundtrack was inspired by Indian classical and folk music and composed by Naushad. Of 20 songs, some had to be left out. Included was a rendering by the legendary Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. He reportedly charged ₹25,000 when Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar took ₹300 per song.

ALSO READ: Forever Fragrance Of Kaagaz Ke Phool

The theme based on a 1922 play by Imtiaz Ali Taj attracted many, from a ‘silent’ one to a ‘talkie’ by Ardeshir Irani. When Asif’s project was seen as abandoned, one of his writers, also a director, Kamal Amrohi, planned to make a film on the same subject. Asif convinced him to shelve it. The same play prompted Nandlal Jaswantlal’s Anarkali, starring Bina Rai and Pradeep Kumar. With memorable songs, it became the highest grossing Bollywood film of 1953.

Made in black-and-white, Mughal-e-Azam had a seven minute song-and-dance sequence, “pyar kiya toh darna kya”, shot in colour. The set conceived as sheesh mahal (glass palace) was fitted with numerous small mirrors made of Belgian glass. It took two years to build and cost more than ₹1.5 million (valued at about US$314,000 in 1960), more than the cost of an entire film in colour those days.

The mirrors’ excessive glare made filming difficult. Wikipedia records that foreign consultants, including British director David Lean, advised Asif to drop the idea.  But Asif spent days to have wax applied to each mirror to reduce the glare.

Lachhu Maharaj was on board for choreography and Gopi Krishna performed. Among the myriad problems was one of a seriously ailing Madhubala not being able to deliver on intricate Kathak moves when it came to girki (spinning one’s body). A male dancer, Laxmi Narayan, performed that portion. He wore a mask matching her face made by Mumbai craftsman B R Khedekar.  

Besides Amrohi, three of the best film writers of the day, Amanullah Aman, Wajahat Mirza and Ehsan Rizvi were on board. None knows how they collaborated. Their “mastery over Urdu’s poetic idiom and expression is present in every line, giving the film, with its rich plots and intricate characters, the overtones of a Shakespearean drama,” Times of India wrote on the film’s 50th anniversary.

The battle scenes used 2,000 camels, 400 horses, and 8,000 troops, mainly from the Indian Army’s Jaipur Cavalry, 56th Regiment. Bollywood could not better those scenes for several years despite technological advances. 

Many fell sick filming it in Rajasthan’s desert. Armour and weapons were borrowed from the Jaipur royalty. But even the burly Prithviraj found them too heavy. Aluminum replicas were got made.

Each sequence was filmed three times as the film was being produced in Hindi/Urdu with plans for Tamil, and English versions. Dubbed in Tamil and released in 1961 entitled Akbar, it flopped commercially. Asif abandoned the English version for which he had engaged Romesh Thapar and British actors.  

Years later in 2004, Mughal-e-Azam became the first black-and-white Hindi film to be digitally coloured, and the first in any language to be given a theatrical re-release. The colour version was also a commercial success.

Speculation abounds on its cost. It has ranged from cost ₹10.5 million (about US$2.25 million at the time) to ₹15 million (about $3 million). That made Mughal-e-Azam the most expensive Indian film of the period.

There is more to and about the film than the space here can accommodate. As a piece of cinema-art, it is impossible to recreate those conditions. Investors, national and global, are too conservative and calculating to afford and risk such a venture.

There is no Asif, the talented and passionate, but highly erratic man, to rally the best writers, composers, cinematographers and actors. Are audiences ready? 

Mughal-e-Azam came in an era when Hollywood too was making films that were grand spectacles. It doesn’t any more. The way Asif made it, warts and all, could itself be the subject for a mega film. But then, India long ago stopped making a film like Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) that, by sheer coincidence, was on the life of a film-maker.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com