NRIs and Narendra Modi

Long-Distance Nationalism Helps Modi And RSS

Narendra Modi and RSS have a reliable and prosperous constituency among NRIs who have a translated, frozen and overly benign view of an India they left behind, writes Deepak Pant

 

The legal definition of an NRI is that of a ‘non-resident Indian’, though sometimes the person also attracts the sobriquet of a ‘not required Indian’. Physically located abroad, the NRI community – and the Indian diaspora – is spread all over the world; in some cases over generations with weak links to what was once their homeland. Many have frozen, nostalgic and mostly outdated memories of the India they left behind; India has, meanwhile, moved on. The dictum that distance makes the heart grow fonder may well be valid in the case of the NRI community: for example, Diwali is celebrated with more gusto and tradition in places such as Leicester in the UK than is the case in many parts of India. 

Caught between two cultural stools – their Indian cultural identity and the culture of the place of their location – most members of the NRI community turn more ritualistic than many Hindus in India. Most NRIs are not Indian citizens, so cannot vote in Indian elections, but that does not prevent them from joining the heat and dust of campaigning in large numbers. The BJP is clearly ahead of the Congress in terms of support in the NRI community; from the UK alone, over 2,000 volunteers have travelled to India at their own expenses to campaign for Narendra Modi and the BJP.

The RSS and its organizations have long worked among the NRI community in the UK and elsewhere, benefiting from large donations as well as spreading their version of ‘cultural nationalism’ to a grateful people caught between two stools. Britain has a considerable presence of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), which has been functioning since 1966. Its structure, principles and activities are similar to those of the RSS, whose head, Mohan Bhagwat, attended its ‘mahashibir’ in Luton in August 2016 to mark 50 years of its existence. It was the influential Gujarati lobby that influenced the David Cameron government before the 2014 elections to abandon the earlier policy of boycotting the Modi government in Gujarat over the 2002 riots.

As prime minister, Modi made a splash while addressing the diaspora at the Wembley Stadium in November 2015, while Cameron, who would often woo the Indian vote by appearing at large events addressed by Hindu religious leaders from India, among others, won much support from the Indian community during the 2010 and 2015 elections. The convergence and conflation of Indian with Hindu interests was evident before Modi’s November 2015 visit to London. At a ‘thanksgiving’ event at the Indian Gymkhana for the benefit of many organizations that had come together to welcome Modi, the influence of the Hindu-HSS-BJP lobby in the UK was evident. On the stage, against a backdrop of a large Modi image, were Dhiraj Shah (president of HHS), Baroness Sandip Varma (Conservative), Ranjan Mathai (Indian high commissioner at the time), Nat Puri (prominent industrialist), Virendra Sharma (Labour) and Stephen Pound (Labour). Other leading lights were also in attendance.

It may well be a case of ‘Begani shadi me Abdullah diwana’, since most of the NRIs cannot vote, but the largely pro-Modi/BJP community has also been courted by Modi during his foreign visits. The template of his visits to various capitals invariably includes an address to the local Indian community, which was not the case with previous visiting Indian prime ministers. At such meetings, Modi makes it a point to deliver feel-good speeches, insisting that the diaspora community has the same ‘khoon’ as that of any Indian. He gives the impression that he is setting things right in the country many had left due to various reasons. But all the while, his stated and unstated focus remains the majoritarian Hindu support base. For example, during the community address in Paris in June 2017, hundreds of members of the Bohra Muslim community resident in France but with roots in Gujarat waited patiently for him for hours, most of them holding small Indian flags. But Modi came, spoke and went away without as much as a cursory glance at them, leaving many of them disappointed.

For the ongoing Indian elections, the Overseas Friends of BJP has been in hyperactive mode. According to its officials, nearly 5,000 volunteers from the UK have travelled to India to join the BJP’s campaign, while others have been enlisted to make calls back home to support Modi as prime minister again. Others have organised bike rallies, flash mobs and pushed on social media videos taken at iconic places such as the Big Ben while extolling the achievements of the Modi government. Leveraging support for the BJP and RSS-backed groups in the 1.5 million-strong Indian diaspora, many of its members and supporters were active in campaigning for the BJP during the 2014 elections. A ‘Chai pe Charcha with Namo’ was also held in Harrow. The level of support for Modi and the BJP in the Indian diaspora far outweighs that for Rahul Gandhi and the Congress, even though the party’s units abroad have a history dating to the pre-independence days, when many Congress leaders studied in the UK.

Most NRIs have a translated, frozen and overly benign view of an India they left behind. They may not make much of a difference on the ground, but in the age of rapid communications, globalization and the internet, Modi and the ‘sangh parivar’ clearly have a reliable and prosperous constituency outside India on which they can fall back as and when required.

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Bengal Chief Minister

Can Didi Rise Above Bengal To Aim At PM?

While Mamata Banerjee has an impressive political CV that makes various opposition parties back her as the next prime minister, she tends to look at most issues through the prism of state politics

Whenever questions are asked about the Prime Ministerial candidate of the opposition parties which have come together to dethrone the Modi government in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee is mentioned as a prime contender for the top post along with Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati.

Undoubtedly, 64-year-old Mamata Banerjee has an impressive CV. She has won seven Lok Sabha elections, has served as a Central minister and is now into her second term as chief minister of West Bengal. She began her electoral career with an impressive debut in the 1984 Lok Sabha election when she defeated CPM stalwart Somnath Chatterjee in the Left bastion Jadhavpur.

This spectacular victory marked the beginning of Mamata Banerjee’s long, political struggle. A firebrand politician and a dogged street fighter, she persisted with her battle over the years, leading a series of mass protests against the Leftists. Her persistence eventually paid off when she succeeded in dislodging the 34-year-old well-entrenched Left Front government in 2011. In fact, MamataBanerjee was so determined and focused on taking on the Communists that she even walked out of the Congress in 1998 and launched her own party – the Trinamool Congress – when she realized that the grand old party was not serious about overthrowing the Left Front government.

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Though  the responsibility of  heading a state government requires that  Mamata Banerjee shed her image as a street fighter, the Trinamool chief’s fighting days are far from over. She has returned to her old avatar as the Bengal tigress but this time, she is not battling the Leftists but a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party which is making an aggressive bid to expand its footprint in West Bengal.

Her open confrontation with the Modi government came to a head earlier this February when she sat on a dharna in Kolkata along with her ministers and party cadres to protest the Centre’s move to send a team of officials from the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe the West Bengal police chief Rajeev Kumar in connection with an ongoing inquiry into a chit fund scam.

The BJP’s concerted effort to storm Mamata Banerjee’s citadel in West Bengal has also forced her to reach out to other opposition parties with the express purpose of putting up a united fight against the saffron party.  In trademark Mamata-style, the Trinamool chief got together a galaxy of opposition leaders on a common platform at a mega rally in Kolkata earlier in January. She also worked with other opposition leaders on a campaign against Modi’s decision to demonetize high-value currency notes in 2016. At the same time, Mamata Banerjee made friendly overtures to the Congress and expressed a willingness to work with arch-rival, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), in her mission to defeat the BJP.

This has naturally fuelled speculation that Mamata Banerjee wants to play a larger role at the national level. At present, the Trinamool chief is focused on winning a maximum of 42 Parliamentary seats in the ongoing general election so that she is in a position to drive a hard bargain after the poll results, in case the opposition parties outnumber the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Her ambition to emerge as the face of the opposition front flows from her understanding that Congress president Rahul Gandhi will not be accepted as the anti-BJP coalition’s Prime Ministerial candidate. Given the feedback from the field, the regional parties believe they will have sufficient numbers to force the Congress to support them in forming a government so as to keep the BJP out.

Consequently, Mamata Banerjee’s election campaign has acquired a national flavor. While Trinamool Congress party’s hoardings and posters in West Bengal point out that this election is about forming a government of the people in Delhi, the word is out on the street if the voters play it right, a Bengali could have a could have a shot at  becoming the country’s Prime Minister.

Mamata Banerjee, it is pointed out, is politically canny, has a firm grip on her party, has the necessary administrative experience both at the Centre and in the state and above all, she is personally incorruptible. As chief minister, the Trinamool Congress chief has been a hands-on administrator, keeping the bureaucracy on a tight leash and held per officers accountable for the implementation of government programmes.  She has relied heavily on populist and welfare schemes  to remain on top of her game and has proved to be more “Left than the Leftists” as far as policies go. Like her political rivals, she has ruthlessly used the government machinery to decimate her opponents and expand the Trinamool Congress, obliterating the line between the state and the party.

Mamata Banerjee can push her case for the Prime Minister’s job on the basis of  her numerical strength, experience and seniority but she is also known to be mercurial and unpredictable which could prove problematic if is she is given the responsibility of running the country. It is not clear how she will deal with coalition partners who come with their own set of demands and agendas.

The Trinamool Congress chief as Prime Minister can be expected to go ahead with pro-poor programmes like rural employment guarantee scheme and right to food but her commitment to economic reforms are not clear. On one hand, she has been wooing the private sector invest in West Bengal but, on another hand, it was her relentless campaign which forced the Tatas to abandon their plans to set up the Nano car manufacturing unit in the state. Though it is accepted in Delhi that economic reforms are now irreversible, it must be remembered that Mamata Banerjee had pulled out of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government in protest against the Centre’s policy to allow foreign direct investment in the retail sector.

But above all, Mamata Banerjee, like all regional parties, tends to look at issues through the prism of their state politics. Since their presence is confined to a state, regional leaders tend to lack a national perspective. Mamata Banerjee is no exception when it comes to giving precedence to regional concerns over national interest. The West Bengal chief minister had embarrassed former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when she refused to accompany him to Bangladesh and derailed the signing of a landmark treaty on the sharing of Teesta river waters by the two countries on the ground that West Bengal’s interests had not been adequately protected. It may be unfair to pronounce judgment on Mamata Banerjee’s conduct as Narendra Modi’s successor but the possibility of a regional leader at the helm brings back memories of Janata Dal (S) leader H.D.Deve Gowda’s short tenure as Prime Minister in 1996 when he was derisively described as the “PM of Karnataka.”

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India’s Fissiparous Politics, An Essay

Politicians have cyclically tried to lure the voter with a ‘supranational’ identity, not realising that the most enduring character of Indian civilisation is its diversity

Are India’s election results that difficult to predict as many pollsters say? After the 2014 general elections, many pundits have become cautious of declaring outcomes one way or the other. However, Indians, like people anywhere in democracies, do not vote just for roti, kapra, makaan (food, clothes and shelter). Other factors such as vision, identity, belonging and peer pressures also influence their choice. In India, it is the pendulum oscillating between a ‘supranational’ identity and a regional ‘national’ identity that seems to be a considerable factor other than economics.

India is a country of many nations, many religions, many ‘Peoples’ and even many cultures and regions. The first identity and belonging of the average Indian, apart from the metropolitan English speaking class, is their community or region.

Every couple of decades, the ‘rooted’ voter is seduced and drawn out by a bigger vision, a ‘supranational idea’, a collective dream or ‘national’ and even a collective threat. It is promoted or exploited by a maverick leader or slick party machine.

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Wars were the one factor that brought people in a huddle and start thinking ‘nationally’. It was a nationalism of negativity, of fear of being taken over again and losing ‘independence’. Wars were not necessarily of India’s choosing until Mrs Gandhi came along.

Mrs Gandhi understood that in the simple majoritarian Westminster type democracy, fissiparous votes could not be relied on to deliver working majorities simply on a platform of economics, particularly as regional parties could deliver economic improvement competitively. There had to be a ‘national’ issue or a crises to rally Indians around.

She precipitated a crises within Congress and found an internal ‘enemy’ to rally the troops. Then came the 1971 war which she started. A victory created a ‘national’ upsurge. But soon it waned.

She then targeted the Sikhs and played communal politics. The Sikhs fell into a trap. They were portrayed as the new threat to ‘Hindustan’ as a country although no real movement for Khalistan existed before 1984. The Sikhs were asking for greater regional economic and political autonomy for all Indian states. 1984 changed that and Congress had a few more years of playing the ‘national integrity under threat’. Votes were almost guaranteed.  A paranoia of nation under siege overrode regional identity.

The Sikh factor could not be played for long. Indira Gandhi paid with her life. Although Rajiv Gandhi gained from that after his mother’s assassination wearing saffron clothes among other props to create a national ‘unifying’ vision, he had no ‘national crises’ to speak of after that. Fissiparous politics came back and a coalition of regional parties got into power at the centre as a coalition only to break under their own centrifugality or lack of any ideology keeping them together.

Rajiv was assassinated. Congress cashed on the insecurity and sympathy.  Again the paranoia of ‘threat’ precipitated a national surge.

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Congress has relied on the metropolitan class sold on the idea that India needs to be non-religious, hence secular like Europe. It successfully portrayed Hindu Mahasabha parties as threat to national unity neutrality and minorities. Its second large vote bank was the Schedule Castes and the third the Muslims. Schedule Castes hate upper caste Hindus and Muslims fear Hindus of the Mahasabha. Congress played this deftly. However, Congress also subtly played the Hindu identity card.

Playing the ‘Hindu’ card after Mrs Gandhi’s death and after Rajiv’s death, Congress unleashed a new unifying force, a revivalist Hindu nationalism. The Mahasabha cashed in on this. Its message was that the Hindu was treated as second class citizen in his own country and was being betrayed by Congress to appease minorities and ‘lower castes’.

This gradually forged a new national identity, ‘Hindu India’ created on conspiracy theories of Hindu neglect and victimhood. Hindus sense of marginalisation was cleverly played by BJP on the national field with the Bania as its most ardent supporter. This is India’s Brexit wave.

The first BJP Government came to power without any coherent vision. Simply hating fellow countrymen, blaming them for invasions that took place 1,000 years ago and a policy of reversing historic conquests of the past is not a sustainable political theory.  The Ram Mandir issue in Ayodhya may have translated some sense of historic grievance into a vote bank but it does not give people a positive identity or fill their stomachs.

Fissiparous trends pulled back the vote in favour of Congress as the regional parties were too fragmented to come together. Congress has had a clever way of forging federal tendencies and minority insecurity into a national secular campaign fighting off what it deems ‘regional communalism’ and Hindu communalism. But its game plan is cracking up and it is increasingly having to forge coalitions with the real regional parties to form a ‘national government’ still under the plank of the ‘secular’ as anti-Hindu communal slogan. It is not thriving.

ALSO READ: Do Regional Parties Hold The Key

The regional parties of India lack a national political idea that holds their federalist nature in a national coalition for long. People feel comfortable to vote for them only if there is a larger ‘national’ party in the coalition that can lead.

After the first BJP government, politics nevertheless got back to its default mode of being fissiparous and threw up coalitions led by Congress the largest party.

War as a unifying notion is no longer possible. With a nuclear Pakistan, war is a high risk strategy. The neighbours know India’s British templated adversarial political system means the party in Government is tempted to wage a token war to look ‘tough’ and harvest the vote. As insurance they have entered into security arrangements with China or USA.

Along came Modi. He cast himself as the saviour to restore Hindu glory and recover from a thousand years bruise of having been conquered and ruled. He was going to put the Hindu on the world map. Above all he was going to show all Indians that in India it is Hindu first, Hindu most and Hindu top. Hindutva replaced secular. Even Rahul Gandhi has metamorphosed into a Hindutva clone, visiting temples in veneration dhoti.

Many Hindus in India began to wear their identity on their sleeves and express prejudices in the open. Hindus outside India became the new Khalistanis, except in this case Hindustanis, annoying NRIs who don’t chant Bharat Mata ki Jai. They are Modi’s greatest supporters, imagining a revival of the Mahabharat, the Bharat of the legends.

The problem with this grand vision is that it militates against the most enduring character of Indian civilisation, a deep respect and belief in diversity of life, cultures and lifestyles. Hindutva on the other hand is an outdated 1920s theory of ethnic nationalism built on a then common template of anti-western hegemony but cocooned from within western modernism. It veers towards counter liberal tendencies.

Hindutva in the public space has not been a glorious spectacle with lynching of poor Muslims going about their traditional business of dealing with cow carcasses etc. In the new paradigm of India’s national identity, the cow has become more sacred than human life. India is increasingly becoming the land of Hindu and bovine rights.

Anti-Muslim sentiment, a fundamentalist type Hindu revivalism putsch against other Hindus, and the failure to make ‘lower’ castes inclusive have not endeared the Hindu voter whose understanding of a resilient Indian dharma is an ideology of pluralism rather than hate and intimidation. BJP’s reconstructed ‘Hindu identity’ has not only marginalised some minorities with sense of not belonging but challenges the very powerful essence of an enduring civilisation that has survived numerous efforts in history to force a monolithic outlook. It is highly unlikely that RSS-BJP will succeed where Moghuls and British failed.

Consequently, BJP’s attraction has waned as a post-Congress visionary party. Its economic record does not overcome its ideological handicap. Large number of Indians are reverting back to fissiparous politics. The ‘national’ idea is not appealing enough to hold itself.

The BJP will win but not the big majority it gained in 2014. Its asset is a ‘national cadre’ that can still revive some political ‘Hindu nationalism’. But its greater asset now is the ideological vacuity of a disparate opposition who the voter thinks will engage in palace coups as soon as they get into power. As Modi has pointed out several times, the only glue holding the loose coalition is ‘vote Modi out’, hardly basis of a national or economic manifesto.

India’s political issues are complex. Three dimensions stand out and continue to influence the oscillation between a ‘national’ surge and then falling back towards a default fissiparous politics.

Politics is forever engaged between an attempt to create an India wide and even worldwide Hindu identity in relations to others. The problem with this is that it is based on a negative concept. Both the words Hindu and Hinduism are terms of exclusion coined by invaders. Hindu was created as a general term for non-Muslims by Islamic invaders while ‘Hinduism’ as a broad tent term to include all Indian belief systems that lacked a clear indigenous name such as Sikhi or Buddhism, was introduced by British invaders. There is no real indigenous political theory that can merge from these political terms, hence reliance on western political paradigms.

The second is that Indian political thinkers continue to confuse civilisation with nation. The ‘nation’ as a concept is a European development based on meta ethnic community dominant in a State and based on exclusion. The ‘nation’ as a concept is in crises as the European State is becoming multicultural and multi ethnic and there is no mechanism within theory of nation to cope with this. By emulating the European idea of nation, Indian politics falls into similar crises.

Since 1947, Indian political thinkers have been attempting to ‘construct’ the ‘nation’ even though it has no relevance in the Indian State. Politics sees a surge for one party or person every couple of decades as a ‘new national’ identity is attempted either from the basis of external threat (war) or internal threat (fear of disintegration or marginalisation). Neither is sustainable, hence falls apart.

The Third is that the real Bharat is essentially a State of several nations, communities and immense plurality that has resiliently survived a few thousand years. But Indian political thinkers and parties remain in denial of this. Once the seduction of the ‘supra nation’ vision deflates from its own contradiction, the default fissiparous politics takes over. But no one has come up with a grand idea for a   federal and fissiparous politics as a sustainable and constructive force.

The BJP-RSS idea of the mythical ‘nation’ has not found much unifying appeal beyond the cadre, the Indian Brexiter and the Hindu Khalistani abroad. People nevertheless are not enthusiastic about the opposition coalitions either. There is no convincing grand mythical ‘national’ idea dominating the election that can override the economic woes of people this time. Hence Modi is likely to win but not with the margin he got last time.

 

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Rural Distress In India

Lessons From China In Tackling Farm Distress

State governments must adopt a rental model for farm machinery and encourage crop diversification for improvement in soil health, productivity and profitability of farming

As is generally the case with articles published in National Geographic, Tracie Mcmillan’s piece on ‘How China Plans to Feed 1.4 Billion Growing Appetites’ based on extensive travel throws light on how the country is managing to overcome the shortcomings of restricted availability of land and a good portion of that not particularly fertile for farming, tiny holdings throwing a major challenge to mechanisation and restricted availability of water to lift crop productivity.

As China continues to become more prosperous with its growing ranks of urban population seeking Western-style diets, the demand on Beijing goes well beyond ensuring food security to industrialise the agricultural economy at rapid rates. The country figured most prominently in the recent shift of largest metro areas from Western Europe and North America to China. According to Global Metro Monitor 2018, China’s share of the 300 largest metropolitan economies of the world rose from 48 in 2012 to 103 in 2016. During this period, North America’s share is down from 88 to 57 and Western Europe’s from 68 to 43.

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Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong are home to people whose per capita income is much higher than their counterparts engaged in farming and allied activities in rural China. India’s northern neighbour is already close to 60 per cent urban and that has been a long march from 19.8 per cent of the Chinese population living in cities in 1980. According to the World Bank, by 2030, up to 70 per cent of the Chinese population or around 1 billion people will be living in cities. Urbanisation in India has started speeding up more recently and the Bank says that half the country’s population will be living in urban centres. Growing urbanisation as it requires reorganisation of agriculture giving greater weight to livestock and milk and dairy products in gross value added in the sector creates many new economic opportunities.

Farmers getting better value for fruits and vegetables, livestock and milk when the agricultural economy goes through the process of industrialisation has been seen in China for over two decades. The immediate fallout of that will be significant reduction in crop wastage, which in the case of India ranges from 30 to 40 per cent. The average farm size in China is smaller than in India. In fact the two countries, which between them have a population of 2.75 billion have farms whose average size is among the smallest in the world. But as the prospects of getting jobs giving incomes higher than tilling land in tiny plots will ever offer and the charm of city lights are underpinning steady migration to urban centres, the broader agricultural landscape contours will undergo great changes.

This has already happened in a much bigger way in China than in India. The National Geographic article says: “Every kind of agriculture is now happening all at once: tiny family farms, gleaming industrial meat factories and dairies, sustainably minded high-tech farms, even organic urban ones.” Urban Chinese with high disposable income are not only eating meat three times as much as in 1990, they have become big buyers of all kinds of processed food. Their health concerns heightened by recent scandals concerning selling of sub-standard domestically produced food products have reinforced their preferences for foreign branded stuff.

No wonder then, foreign food companies as they are making enormous exports to China are braving the country’s complex regulatory regime to build plants there. Their efforts are bringing relief to local consumers who remain suspicious of the quality of local processed food products. But doesn’t this development go against what President Xi Jinping said some years ago that “our rice bowl should be mainly loaded with Chinese food?”

Whatever XI might have said, China still swears by Deng Xiaoping’s famous ‘cat theory,’ which says: “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white; as long as it catches mice, it’s a good cat.” Deng who was the de facto leader of the country between 1978 and the early 1990s wanted the job (rapid economic development) done, without making distinction between planned and market economy.

India’s tryst with foreign food companies goes back to many decades. From Levers to GSK Consumer and from Heinz to Danone are finding growing ranks of loyal consumers here of the items they are making at local plants. At the same time, however, some local groups such as Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, the owners of Amul brand, Mother Dairy and Godrej Agrovet have fortified their position in the market based on product quality and brand promotion.

More and more local and foreign companies are making investment in the dairy sector, India being the world’s largest producer of milk at 155.5m tonnes. ITC, which is steadily building new businesses to reduce its dependence on tobacco and cigarettes has ambitious dairying plans.

Agriculture is going through gradual structural changes in India and China. While figures for China are not available, India’s Economic Survey 2017-18 says the share of crops in the farm sector gross value added (GVA) was down from 65 per cent in 2011-12 to 60 per cent in 2015-16. In the corresponding period, the share of livestock in agriculture GVA was on ascendency.

ALSO READ: Cane Farmers Stressed, Sugar Mills Helpless

India’s progress in realising values from crop diversification leaves much to be desired. The government at the federal level and in states must encourage farmers to assiduously pursue crop diversification that is to result in improvement in soil health, land productivity and profitability of farming. Water being in short supply in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, it is desirable to use land now under paddy to grow crops like oilseeds, pulses and coarse cereals. Scope remains for shifting of land now under tobacco to growing other crops.

ALSO READ: Crop Diversification Can Fight Rural Distress

What are the common shortcomings of farm economy of China and India? The 10th agriculture census says not only did the average Indian farmland size shrink more than 6 per cent to 1.08 hectares from 1.15 hectares between 2010-11 and 2015-16, but the share of small and marginal holdings ranging up to 2 hectares rise to 86.2 per cent from 84.97 per cent of total holdings. In China, factors such as continuous diversion of land to construction, natural disasters and damage to environment led to a fall in total arable land for a fourth year in a row in 2017 to 134.86 million hectares, down by 60,900 hectares from the year before. As if there is a competition between the two countries, well over 90 per cent of over 200m farms in China are less than 1 hectare in size.

Mechanisation, which is essential to cope with growing shortages of farm labourers and boost productivity, becomes a challenge when the holdings are so small. Consolidation of land holdings is easily said than achieved. Small farmers are not able to raise funds to buy all the machinery and implements needed for tiling of land to harvesting of crops. China has found a solution to the problem by opening centres wherefrom farmers can take all kinds of machines on hire. The last Economic Survey here speaks of innovating “custom service or a rental model by way of institutionalisation of high cost farm machinery.”

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Media And Modi

The Press And The Prime Minister, Over The Years

Even before Narendra Modi’s advent on the national scene, the media had lost relevance to public life with its conversion from the Fourth Estate to a private mint

There’s a bee in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bonnet. His critics pillory him for not addressing a single press conference since he took office in May 2014.  

The buzz is getting louder as the Elections-2019 campaign enters its second-half. His principal rival, Congress President Rahul Gandhi, recently dared him to hold a PC.

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Modi has responded with alacrity and vehemence to Rahul’s many insinuations. But his silence on this remains inexplicable. Critics call him, half-in-zest, the first premier who could enter the Guinness Book of Records for failing to hold a PC.    

His ‘non-political’ televised talk with Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar was not his “first press conference” as initially announced on April 26. Nor was it an interview despite the use of that format. Now, it has re-charged an issue on which the media and Modi observers had all but reconciled. 

India’s 16th premier in 73 years shuns the traditional media. He has done away with office of the Information Advisor. No impromptu media interactions and nothing that is not pre-scheduled.

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That he speaks only to those who fully agree and don’t ask uncomfortable questions is a given. He shows silent contempt for the rest – mainly the liberal lot who take their adversarial role too seriously. He has steadfastly stuck to “if you are not with me, completely, you are against me” stance. This is another given.

Yet, Modi remains hugely connected to his chosen audiences. He is world No. 3 on Twitter and No.1 on Facebook and Instagram. With his official page ‘liked’ by over 43.2 million people, Modi tops the list of 50 most-followed world leaders on Facebook.  It’s puzzling how and when he finds time and energy to be on the social media.  

ALSO READ: Modi Govt Wants To Target Online Media

He connects with people through “mann ki baat” on All India Radio each month for the last four years. His Hindi oratory, the turn of phrase and coining of new slogans help him communicate like no other premier before. His penchant of talking about himself helps.

His media appearances have largely been limited to his archetypal rallies, conferences and joint appearances with world leaders whom he hugs. But a hug at home is a no-no.

Despite social media posts, broadcasts and scripted TV interviews with selected TV channels, his communication remains limited. There is a wide difference between mass media and media of masses.  

He chooses the media; the media have no choice. Bulk of them has fallen in line. Reporters and editors do not matter. An ownership overhaul, direct or remote, has ensured his overwhelming presence. A friendly TV anchor calls his not giving press conferences a “new paradigm of communication.”  Critics are mostly marginalized to web sites.  

He honed his media skills long ago. An ever-smiling official at the New Delhi headquarters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Modi nurtured rapport with the BJP ‘beat’ media. Things changed when he became the Gujarat chief minister in end-2001. He courted controversy within weeks with sectarian violence under his watch. A thousand, mostly Muslims, were killed. The Supreme Court’s strictures on his government’s handling embarrassed the Vajpayee Government. Party hardliners saved him from being sacked.    

That was India’s first televised violence. Local media was divided, but the one from the national capital (hence labeled “national media”) was intensely critical from where the global media took the cue.

As chief minister, Modi was keen to shed the ‘communal’ baggage and mount the ‘development’ platform. He did so with fair success, projecting the “Gujarat model”, despite criticism that made him a pariah in the West.  

Once a Supreme Court-appointed probe cleared him, he doggedly shunned any questions and twice walked out of interviews when questioned about those riots. He never regretted his role and once compared riot victims as “puppies coming under a speeding vehicle.”

His silent war with the media continues. Yet, obvious, even if ironical, has happened since became the PM. The very media he shuns spend millions to report him. Media junkets, particularly the foreign ones that had become the norm since the 1970s, are passé. 

Why recall these details that are unsavory to all? The government-media relationship seems unlikely to change, no matter who wins the elections. The era of ‘Comment is Free, but facts are sacred’, as celebrated British journalist C P Scott once wrote, ended long ago.   

The media lost relevance to public life with its conversion from the Fourth Estate to private mint to print money for owners. This was long before Modi’s advent on the national scene. As one who can cause fear and distribute largess, he is certainly a big beneficiary.

Now, journalists who do not speak or write agreeably are called ‘presstitutes’. At least two of Modi’s ministers have publicly used that term. Social media troll has become everyday affair.

The media’s role and the respect journalists enjoyed in the past are arguable, but not denied. One of the largest in the democratic world, it has changed, for better or for worse.

Back to the press conference issue, since one can’t return, one can at least recall better times. Jawaharlal Nehru held press conferences annually and they were copiously published. Old timers recall the mix of humour and argument. Relationship was adversarial, but due to Nehru’s stature, also reverential.

Lal Bahadur Shastri galvanized the nation during difficult war-times during his brief tenure. The media role was highly supportive.

Indira Gandhi’s Vigyan Bhavan PCs, were long-drawn, moderated by H Y Sharda Prasad, her Information Advisor. Haughty when she chose to be, she rarely shunned the media.

Along with the Opposition, media critics were imprisoned during the Emergency, when “watchdogs became lapdogs”, as veteran L K Advani put it. Some Indira favourites wrote books lambasting her when she lost office. But after she returned to power in 1980, they survived to tell their stories.   

“Why should I tell you? Then, my task will fail,” was Morarji Desai’s ascerbic style. Media’s allergy to his advocacy against alcohol was known. Typical of politicians of his era, he once dismissed an inconvenient question by one Mr Thomas saying, “you are Doubting Thomas” and one Mr Chakravarty was told, “you are from Bengal, then you must be a communist.” His laughter, and laughter all around diluted severity of the snub.

Chaudhary Charan Singh expected traditional obeisance from the media. He was once upset when told that journalists rise only for the President. “At least, respect my age,” he chided. Newsmen obliged.  

Rajiv Gandhi spoke well when well briefed. His inexperience showed when he dismissed his Foreign Secretary at his Vigyan Bhavan PC. V P Singh was a media favourite, but his only PC as prime minister was a disaster when he came late, did not apologise and then ran into very hostile questions. Another media favourite, Chandra Shekhar’s tenure was just four months, but he remained among the most accessible politicians.                           

P V Narasimha Rao’s silence was mysterious. He would choose not to speak, but when he spoke little, softly and with determination, it was effective.

H D Deve Gowda’s only PC had a Western journalist asking a loaded question. “You have never seen a prime minister in dhoti?” he quipped with a mix of anger and amusement. The only ex-premier around, he shed tears at a PC recently.

His successor I K Gujral, known for his measured diplomatic pronouncements, was ready Punjabi jhappi.

Manmohan Singh, a good communicator as Economics teacher was heard with respect at conferences. His PCs, one in Egypt and another back home, however, had officials scrambling for damage control. Derided as “Maun Mohan Singh” by Modi, he took sweet revenge recently on the latter’s silence on economic failures.

Assuming Modi wins a fresh mandate, an avalanche of questions awaits him to deserve a PC. Will he? Won’t he?

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

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Jet Employees Stage Protest

Can Jet Airways Learn from Singapore Airlines?

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

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

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

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

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

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

DECIDE ON YOUR BUSINESS MODEL AND STICK TO IT

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

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

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

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

INNOVATE

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

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

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

BUILD CODE SHARE ALLIANCES

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

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

WATCH THE BOTTOM LINE

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

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

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

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

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

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

Religion In Indian Politics

When Secular Is Mocked As ‘Sick-ular’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com


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Colombo's Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith

Easter Blasts Will Open New Fault Lines In Sri Lanka

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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BJP HImmatnagar Rally

6 States That Could Make Or Break Modi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALSO READ: It It Advantage Modi?

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

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

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Misogyny In Indian Politics

The Inherent Misogyny In Indian Politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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