When Doordarshan’s Ram reached Ayodhya

When Doordarshan’s Ram reached Ayodhya

Jawhar Sircar

(5^th April, 2020. Times of India)

It is more than just interesting that Narendra Modi’s government has decided to telecast the two great epics of India once again after three long decades, just when it was assured a mammoth captive locked in audience. Let us delve a little deeper into the connection between these two record-breaking serials of Doordarshan and the rise of communal politics in India. This will also help those who are still struggling to understand how the Modi comet appeared in 2014 and completely blazed out all traces of 67 long years of secularism practised by the Indian republic, sometimes quite sincerely and rather patchily in others. At the same time, this little historical excursion would tell us not to apportion so much credit to a single person or his cohorts, even if their narcissism so demands.

Let us zoom without further ado to the exact year, 1989, when the latest model of Ram emerged victorious from the television screen before the freshly charged Hindu masses. 1989 is also when the infant Bharathiya Janata Party (BJP) began its first public country-wide demonstration of communal fury and aggressive Hindu politics started rocking the box office of Indian politics. We see that from this date, it took undisguised Hindu extremism, represented by Narendra Modi, exactly 25 years to capture power. It may also be worthwhile to introspect why the left liberals lost the battle so hopelessly, when they had a full quarter of a century to devise an effective response. And, what is more intriguing is that reasonably secular governments had held sway during almost the entire period. The Congress party ruled or led the ruling coalition for over 16 of these 25 years and a not-so-virulent Vajpayee for 6 years, a squeamish but secular VP Singh for a full year. In other words, the present deadly uncontrollable virus of communalism actually grew and prospered during secular rule, through recurrent riots, the post-Babri barbarity and Gujarat-type pogroms, which our colonial administration had tutored us to treat as ‘law and order’ problems.

But to reach 1989, we need to go over the incubation period that started in 1986, when Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress that had shattered electoral records to win the Lok Sabha elections of November 1984, had already begun to display panic once the Bofors gun deal controversy appeared. This is when Rajiv passed the retrograde Muslim Women (Protection on Divorce) Act, to appease Muslim hard liners. His Act nullified the orders of the High Court and Supreme Court in the Shah Bano case declaring that divorced Muslim women must be maintained by their ex-husbands. The ‘secular’ Congress’s reversion of this order is among the many irritants that rankle Hindus, which the BJP soon capitalised. In late 1986, Rajiv Gandhi’s minister in charge of information and broadcasting, Ajit Kumar Panja, approved the commissioning of a religious serial, Ramayan, on state-controlled television, Doordarshan. Why the age-old policy of the secular state not to glorify one religion was violated remains a mystery that I could not unravel even as the CEO of Prasar Bharati that supervises Doordarshan. Not everything is noted in the files. The Ramayan serial started telecasting from January 1987 and went on till July 1988 and we all know how wildly popular it was among the people. In playing to the gallery, the television version of this epic and the next one, Mahabharat, that followed it from October 1988 to July 1990, did not or could not reflect India’s argumentative and intensely tolerant culture. As we know, popular television serials harp more on emotions and reduce everything to ‘lowest common cultural denominators’.

What is more remarkable is the behavioural transformation of the common, non-communal Hindu, once the magic of this new wonder called colour TV actually brought Ram, Sita, Lakshman and Hanuman to real life. The television metamorphosed distant bookish characters, whose tales were confined earlier to monotonous recitals by pundits and old people, into vibrant, real-life, close-to-touch ‘deities’. My submission is that Doordarshan inadvertently helped the Sangh parivar ride the new wave of popular religious enthusiasm, as we may note from the dates we shall see soon.

Though the impact of the televised epics on the growth of Hindu politics has engaged the attention of foreign academics like Christophe Jaffrelot, Barbara Stoler Miller, James Hegarty, David Ludden, Victoria Farmer and Philip Lutgendorf, Indian scholars have hardly studied this nexus. One could locate just two exceptions who hinted at or examined the relation between this decision of the secular Congress and the outburst of communalism in India. New York based Arvind Rajagopal’s Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public in India (2001) is, indeed, welcome and comes close to the magisterial overview of Richard Hoggart’s Mass Media in a Mass Society: Myth and Reality (2004). Fewer Indian academics, mostly left liberal, took the trouble to attempt any detailed empirical analysis to prove, or disprove, the links between the Ramayana serial and the Rama-Janambhoomi demand. The Mahabharat serial has somehow managed to draw a little more attention and we have an Indian researcher like Ananda Mitra publishing his Television & Popular. Culture in India – Study of Mahabharat, as early as in 1993. James Hegarty of Cardiff is, however, more explicit in observing how Doordarshan’s Mahabharat offered “televised darshan of deities” and describes the atmosphere generated as “politically chilling”. As a Sanskrit scholar specialising in this epic, Hegarty feels that the TV serial offered “no room for ‘the other’ at all…. and it explicitly excludes all those who do not subscribe to its historical vision” (“The Plurality of the Sanskrit Mahabharata and of the Mahabharata Story” in DN Jha, 2013: 179).

As soon as the Ramayan serial had created a new, unprecedented bond between the god and common Hindus, as never before, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) swopped down on the small, dusty down of Ayodhya. It rode the Ramayan wave to remind all that this corporal symbol of Ram’s birth needed to be ‘rescued’ from the clutches of ‘Muslim invaders’. The Sangh strategy was to arouse all Hindus by painting them as victims, not only under Muslim and British rule, but also under the ‘pro-Muslim Congress’. But let us fast forward to the events of 1989, the landmark year, when a new nine-year old party, the BJP started utilising Ram right from January. By November, Bhagawan Ram’s instant-delivery blessings showered them with an incredible number of 85 Lok Sabha seats in that month’s elections were held — up from a paltry number of 2 seats in 1984.

The VHP opened the innings by announcing its determination to set up a Ram Mandir at the disputed site in Ayodhya, come what may. It declared that it would hold its sacred shilanyas ceremony at the venue in November that very year. The All India Babri Masjid Action Committee, in turn, started forming ‘defence squads’. But the Hindu programme was better timed as the Prayag Kumbh Mela was the perfect occasion to harvest roaring support from the millions gathered, literally soaked in religion. Even the Sant Sammelan, held alongside in February, obviously pledged complete assistance. The year-long campaign turned belligerent and secular forces were completely on their back foot, as they failed to gauge how much the masses had been mesmerised by the Ramayan serial. Having kept an antiseptic distance from Hindu epics and purans, left liberals just could not fathom how a mythical character could re-define politics and kindle so much Hindu fervour. Doordarshan, incidentally, kept running the Mahabharat serial throughout 1989 and well into 1990, infusing thereby weekly shots of holy adrenalin into Hindus. The Sangh parivar’s unique and imaginative campaign of requesting every Hindu or each group to subscribe to just one brick for the temple, worked wonders, despite the scorn it received from liberal secular forces.

Excitement and tension ran high throughout the year and the two major events of November 1989 were obviously inter-twined. The Sangh parivar organised its long-awaited Ram Shila Pujan to demonstrate its serious commitment to building the Ram Mandir, and the BJP sailed through the Lok Sabha elections that very month — bagging a whooping number of 85 seats. The party thus emerged as the indispensable ally of Prime Minister VP Singh whose minority government (December 1989 to November 1990) depended on this large chunk of BJP seats. We will not get into greater details of how Singh was arm-twisted by the BJP for this support and how he retaliated by splitting the Hindu votes, by shrewdly accepting the Mandal Commission Report in August of 1990. He split the Hindu vote by reserving 27 percent of seats in education and jobs for ‘Other Backward Castes’ (OBCs).

The cornered BJP responded by riding once again the Ram-Ayodhya wave. Its President, Lal Krishna Advani, criss-crossed the country in September-October of 1990 on his war chariot, the Ram Ratha Yatra. This whipped up the desired passions and mass hysteria, leading to several police firings, communal riots and left hundreds dead. But, the BJP had finally managed to shake, quite threateningly, the monopoly of the secular-democratic narrative that had ruled for the first four decades after Independence.

Even foreign commentators realised what was coming next but the new government under Narasimha Rao, that was almost bankrupt in more than one sense, just looked the other way. In the USA, noted classicist, Barbara Stoler Miller, devoted much of her presidential address to the Association of Asian Studies in 1991, more than a year before the Babri incident, on how the serials of the two epics on Doordarshan came “with religious intensity, linked with politicized communal feelings, that has made the Ayodhya situation so compelling. The way militant Hindus have structured the narrative of Ayodhya’s sacred history and bent the epic universe to their definition of Indian national identity is a striking example of how vulnerable the past is to the passions of the moment”(Miller, 1991: 790). There is little point in recalling the destruction of the masjid on 6th December 1992, which led to large scale riots and counter riots and terrorism, like the serial explosions in Mumbai. These broke down Hindu Muslim relations in secular India, beyond repair, but Rao’s ‘secular’ Congress government shamelessly abdicated its responsibilities, while the learned publications by secular intellectuals proved to be as effective as pea-shooters. The masses had surely moved away.

We have just raced through these facts to explain that the Sangh parivar has been on the task of generating Hindu fervour since then and that communalism did not suddenly burst on the scene from 2014. We may analyse some other time how the interregnum of a quarter of a century between 1989 and 2014, was hardly be utilised by secular parties that had held power for most of the time. The bitter truth is neither they nor the left intelligentsia, that was outsourced the task of scripting what was to be taught in educational institutions, could construct any appropriate response. In fact, the deliberate distancing of the left liberal forces from religion left the field wide open to the Hindu right, and it thrived on the secular syllabi of schools and colleges that portrayed Muslims as brutal invaders. We will close this discussion here, as our present purpose is to focus on a widely ignored area, the Doordarshan connection. We observe how the small screen poured out unending streams of piety and also how these were quickly and effectively converted into venom — for a Narendra Modi to emerge.

(Please Click Here to read the article on Times of India’sWebsite)

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/when-doordarshans-ram-reached-ayodhya/

We Need to Dig Trenches Before Phase Two of State Terror Is Unleashed

We Need to Dig Trenches Before Phase Two of State Terror Is Unleashed

Jawhar Sircar
(6^th March, 2020, The Wire)

Last year in December, when agitations against the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act had just begun, in an article published in The Wire, I had stated:

“No one can predict how long the public anger will be sustained and how the Modi-Shah duo will retort, and with what ferocity and vindictiveness. One prays that communal conflicts do not break out in this charged atmosphere or are even manufactured to split the movement.”

Now that this riot has been successfully operationalised and lives lost, but no split between Hindu and Muslim protester could be engineered, we need to analyse what we are really up against. Over the last several weeks of sleepless nights, the issue has metamorphosed from independent protests against the Bill to the law to a much wider nation-wide, multi-religious struggle against authoritarianism and communalism.

Three hated abbreviations – CAA, NRC, NPR – finally brought out the hitherto-cautious but harassed Muslims onto the streets, sick as they were of five years of endless torment. He found immediate and wholehearted support from secular India that suddenly sprang out of the dark that it had been pushed into by aggressive majoritarianism. They waved the national tricolour everywhere with patriotic fervour, to swish away fond hopes of those very same mischievous elements who had opposed the adoption of this flag to taint with suspicion the nationalism of all Muslims.

What is more fascinating is that ordinary Muslim women, housewives with babies in arms and angry young educated girls, who had never before stood up to state power, took an unprecedented lead. The younger elements took special care to flaunt a hijab over their heads and shoulders to demonstrate that they could very well be modern, revolutionary and Muslim simultaneously, without any contradiction — defeating the game to wean them away with relief from ‘triple talaq’.

Lakhs of first-time protesters, both young and old, joined the demonstrations. They demonstrated that they had, indeed, conquered the fear of fear and that itself worried the regime the most. Indian history will not easily forget the Sikhs and Hindus who joined the protesters as a mark of solidarity, setting up food camps and providing blankets to fight the biting cold of a harsh winter.

From Shaheen Bagh to Park Circus and a dozen other spots all over the country, the air is thick with endless tales of camaraderie, as countless Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Buddhists rejected the special status offered to them by the CAA, to stand beside victimised Muslims.

But having said so, we also need to seriously interpret the events of the last 10-12 weeks and realise that the Delhi riots constitute the first major response of a regime that scorns democratic discourse and its patience is running out. The violent masked storm-troopers sent to smash and beat up dissenters at Jawaharlal Nehru University was only a short trailer of this regime’s new PPP or Private Public Partnership model, under which messy violence is outsourced to experienced goons.

The state guarantees them immunity from police action and the present JNU case is a testament to this. The regime also expects judges to be compliant or face an overnight transfer. To feed the belligerence of a section of trigger-happy policemen, the PPP state then targets them to selective sites like Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University and other trouble spots in Guwahati, Mangalore, Lucknow or Chennai.

It is imperative to realise that Modi is not Indira 2.0. While dictatorial Indira Gandhi surely crushed all opposition and, like Modi, always smelt conspiracies everywhere, she did not inject poison into the body polity that outlived her. Modi’s legacy may take decades of painful chemotherapy to contain, even after his dispensation becomes just a bad memory. He is the first to accord respectability to communalism, and though future India may cap the holes from where racial reptiles emerged, they will still be slithering in rage, under the ground.

The second difference is that Narendra Modi certainly does not share Nehru’s or Vajpayee’s commitment to democracy and no one can predict how he will behave in the face of a debacle. Even autocratic Indira took the electoral rout of 1977 in her stride, but after two unbroken decades in power, at the state and central level, Modi and his extreme proximity to the army are both worrisome. Never before has the Indian public been taught to celebrate and worship the armed forces and the ‘nation’, just because this regime desperately needs to cover up its complete disappearance from the freedom struggle.

The recent riots are actually the regime’s limited-over response to the nation-wide agitation against the attempt to tamper with citizenship laws. It is also home minister Amit Shah’s manner of expressing displeasure at the voters of Delhi for rejecting the BJP in the recent polls, by giving India a dress rehearsal of how vulnerable Hindus are in the face of Muslim belligerence, that led to the death of two police officers.

This narrative obviously ignores basic facts, that are known even to international media outlets, that it was mainly Muslims who were slaughtered. So, the foreign media is told to shut up. Those who have handled riots know how critical the role of gathering intelligence is as soon as the first wisp is in the air, and how swift pre-emptive arrests can prevent a conflagration.

These were not only absent, but BJP strongman Kapil Mishra was allowed to pounce on the agitators at Jaffrabad and Chand Bagh on Sunday, February 23 — which directly led to the riots. All the rioting was, interestingly, concentrated in a small part of North East Delhi, locally called trans-Jamuna or Jamuna-paar.

This thin slice that lies to the east of the Jamuna river, contains less than 10% of Delhi’s voters and assembly seats and it is here that the BJP recently won 6 of its 8 seats, with one more seat close to it. All the riot-affected areas like Khajuri Khas, Maujpur, Karwal Nagar, Seelampur, Bhajanpura are in this BJP stronghold. It is here that the police acted like mute spectators when victims, mainly Muslims, were killed or grievously injured, and their homes, shops and vehicles set on fire. The rest of Delhi that voted against the BJP was not, or could not be, set on fire — not even Shaheen Bagh and Jamia Nagar.

The point is that Kapil Mishra’s incendiary speeches and tweets violated half a dozen punishable sections of the Indian Penal Code, not only now but even months ago, when he led mobs shouting “Gaddaaro ko goli maro” (kill the traitors). He is given a free pass for such remarks because he represents the core beliefs of the BJP and the RSS. He may well be using a wildly-successful, punishment-free formula of ‘riot and bloodshed’ to catapult himself from state to the national level.

Incidentally, had conscientious judges of the Delhi high court not actually viewed the recordings of Kapil Mishra’s provocative speeches, and had two refreshingly-bold judges of the Supreme Court not pulled up the Delhi Police, the riots would have continued unabated. The most glaring transformation that one notices in the highest courts is that justice and relief appear to be very judge-centric and emanate from a few, while many deliver homilies, without actually fast-forwarding the restoration of human rights. Tragic.

To cut to the chase, we are in for a long haul and need to dig our trenches before selective arrests begin and phase two of state terror is unleashed. But, any going back on the citizenship issue will surely lead to further depredations on badly-cornered Muslims and the vast majority of Hindus who still believe in tolerance and plurality — even if many voted for Modi for what they perceived to be his leadership qualities and the multi-multi-crore big-capital financed convincing campaign.

The fact that Hindu and Sikh protesters have wholeheartedly adopted the very provocative slogan ‘Azadi‘, the poem ‘Hum Dekhenge‘ of the Pakistani anti-establishment poet, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and even Varun Grover’s ‘Hum Kagaz Nahin Dikhayenge‘ has reassured Muslims of support and also thumbed the nose of the Hindi-Hindu hardliners in the battle for the Indo-Gangetic heartland of India. Even so, the present non-political, crowd-financed agitations have their limitations and we cannot gloss over these issues.

Yet what overrides such mature worries is that it is not just a protest, but has started resembling what Jean Jacques Rousseau described as the ‘General Will’ when people unite selflessly at certain historic intervals for the greater common good, rising far above concerns of the self. The three-month agitation is thus plural India’s long-awaited reply to communal terror and to the blitzkrieg of legislative bulldozing, thanks to a self-seeking, fragmented and rudderless opposition.

It is rumoured that in some states, the police are using non-police weapons while firing at protesters so that casualties cannot be traced back to them. It is also realised that the sheer sadistic brutality with which UP and Karnataka crushed democratic agitations may well be repeated. But these do not deter them and may actually encourage others to join the movement. This unfazed inner strength of Gandhi’s satyagrahis had amazed the world, as the demonic use of state power did not frighten them.

History may be re-enacted by these agitators during Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary, when the Modi government only pays lip service to him and many Hindu fanatics openly worship his killer, Godse. The long lathis that police used to crush dissent and smash evidence-recording CCTV cameras are not dreaded any more. Fear is not a deterrent for those who have given their hearts and soul for what they believe.

We appear to be witnessing a historic phase when ‘society’ transcends the individual. This is when the community becomes the centre of all social activities, not the hearth, when, life, laughter, meals, joy and sorrow are all shared in common. We see it somewhat at a few dedicated places of worship and in genuine community service, but a protest camp is much more serious.

What gives us hope is the sheer vibrancy of the culture of protest that has burst out and the deep involvement of the participants. These spawn a spontaneous creativity that is exemplified by defiant poems, challenging songs and teasing slogans that resound everywhere. Equally visible is provocative graffiti and imaginative public art.

What it all hopefully means is that the individual protester has subsumed himself into the ‘greater cause’ and is now willing to fight it out till the end, irrespective of consequences.

(Please Click Here to read the article on The Wire’s Website)

https://thewire.in/politics/delhi-riots-caa-nrc

Preserving Kolkata's Architectural Heritage

Preserving Kolkata's Architectural Heritage

 Jawhar Sircar

      Unosotterer Panchash, Celebrating Fifty Years,

    Presidency College 1969-72 Batch Alumni, 20 Jan 2020, Kolkata

“Forgive them, for they knew not what they were doing; But some did, and did not care!” These impassioned words were inscribed on a poster that was mounted and was fixed on the wall over my desk. It inspired me for several years until the compulsions of my job took me away from that house. The poster was printed by the Ananda Bazar group and it depicted an old sepia tint photograph of demolition labourers tearing down the Senate Hall of Calcutta University, in 1960. The workers seemed to hammer away, quite mercilessly, at the intricately carved Grecian pillars but the imposing triangular pediment on top appeared regal and quite unconcerned even as death started at it. Concern for the past glory of this metropolis pervades the city’s culture and yet, few shed a tear when a part of this glorious past is ripped apart. Little did Kolkata know then that it was not tearing down a building: it was actually ripping apart a very bone from its own ribs, that protected its pulsating heart. This grand edifice can hardly ever be replicated, but few protested. This sums up the tragedy of the “second city of the Empire” that once housed some of the finest edifices of the colonial period. Having failed to protect many, except the colossal public buildings, which we shall not discuss here, we take refuge in sentimental nostalgia.

 It is needless to remind ourselves that Kolkata once famous for its large number of palatial buildings, which earned it the sobriquet: “the City of Palaces”. At present, however, except the Marble Palace, Jorasanko Thakurbari and a handful of other such well-maintained ones, the rest are all gone or are in a pitiable state of disrepair. In a manner of speaking, this is poetic justice, as the wealth that flowed into the city from the early part of 19^th century and continued unabated for the next one and a half centuries was from unabashed exploitation. Kolkata’s colonial age architecture flourished as the indigenous ruling classes, and the British overlords acquired so much of economic surpluses that they could allocate quite a bit of it to building magnificent edifices — to demonstrate, of course, their own glory, pomp and splendour. We are not in the business of being overwhelmed by ostentation, but heritage and aesthetics mandate a certain regard for architectural uniqueness before they disappear and wipe off evidence of how man and nature conversed in different climates and circumstances. The purpose of this piece is to plead for retaining whatever we can because once they go, we shall lose a valuable heritage of our city — with no hope of recreating extinct cultural species. Let us try to understand the value of Kolkata’s built heritage from this analytical point of view, but since the area is unmanageably large, we will restrict the discussion to only two important classes of architecture that Kolkata boasts of. We shall try to locate the distinguishing features or unique characteristics that distinguish these forms of Kolkata’s architecture from their cousins elsewhere. These two categories we shall explore are the grand Colonial-era residential mansions of the rich of north Kolkata and the quaint Art Deco buildings of south Kolkata — both of which bear the stamp of Kolkata and the spirit of Bengal.

What we need to focus on while studying Kolkata’s architectural heritage are the various improvisations adopted, to combine foreign and local elements and construction norms. Stylistically speaking, the moneyed elite of colonial Kolkata copied several neo-classical and other European architectural features like neo-Renaissance, Romanesque and Palladian and then merged them all with indigenous requirements and features. Thus most such palatial buildings are really difficult to place into standard architectural categories. Not that all of them were, however, either very artistic or architecturally perfect, but then, they did bear the very own expressions of old Kolkata. We can decipher, for instance, a great demand for crowding as much showy stucco ornamentation and Baroque designs on the plaster work of buildings as was possible. Stately classical columns would often be capped with excessively carved capitals, replete with floral and leafy designs. The grand triangular pediments that crowned the rows of columns in front was kept high and imposing, so as to look down, rather imperiously, on people entering the hallowed portals. But one also comes across intervening architectural forms as well, like a decorated balcony in a later Italian style, that appears to jut out of the first floor of the building that rises just behind the tall pillars. Lavish use was also made of Italian marble and Belgian glass.

    The very local need for privacy of family members enjoined that Kolkata’s bonedi baris would have two very different wings, namely, the road-facing main building (sadar mahal) that had necessarily to be quite distinct from the female quarters (andar mahal), which were hidden from public view. It was, therefore, essential to have a quadrangular courtyard so that the two quarters could be separate, and yet be joined by narrower buildings on two sides of the quadrangle, with covered pathways on each floor that went alongside the living rooms. These running long and open balconies, popularly known as verandahs, connected the four blocks around the rectangular inner courtyard (dalans) and they served a very useful purpose. They ensured that light and ventilation were available in all the rooms, unlike the present-day dwellings where some rooms hardly ever receive the sun’s rays or any breeze. We must remember that the climate of Bengal was and is still most unsuited to grandiose European architecture and even to the later cooped-up blocks of west-inspired buildings. Cross ventilation and protection from the elements were two prime necessities, long before the electric fans changed it all from the early decades of the twentieth century. The third major requirement was, of course, sunlight, but in controlled quantities.

 It is in this spirit that we need to view old Kolkata’s architecture, to locate how local problems and issues were addressed and certain adaptions made. The louvred windows or kharkharis, had slanting ‘blinds’ that were fixed to an upright wooden rod on the window’s sash (the little ‘door’ of a window) and these blinds could be manipulated with the upright rod — to control allow the light from outside to enter and the air or breeze to flow in. This is very Kolkatan, indeed, even though other tropical climes have also adapted it, the scale of its use in Bengal is quite overwhelming. Then, we come across large wooden screens covering the top half or more of the porch, bay or verandah in palatial buildings. These massive wooden boards, with fixed slanting Venetian blinds, were firmly joined to columns, shafts or cast iron pillars and they protected the inmates from the harsh glare or scorching heat of the sun. They also withstood gusty thunderstorms and lashing rains that are so characteristic of Bengal. Without them, the verandahs and the living rooms that were just beyond them would have been flooded with rain water or even filled with dust that come with unruly storms.   

 We may recall that the doors or windows (if any) of our traditional huts, cottages or even double-storied mud houses in our villages were indeed kept very small, so as to protect residents against the elements. The thick mud walls and high thatched roofs of these  indigenous buildings helped control the heat or the cold that prevailed outside. In any case, most men, children and older ladies preferred to sleep in the open courtyard, at least where commoners were concerned. This harmony with nature and adaptability are very integral parts of our heritage, though they hardly exist within the city of Kolkata, where masonry structures dominate. The moot point is that our traditional walls made with porous materials interacted continuously with the weather — cooling the interiors during summer and insulating us from the cold during winter. European plaster and cement, on the other hand, were meant for harsher climes and basically to repel the elements, that included icy cold winds, sleet and snow. Most western houses were sealed in places so as to retain warmth inside them and cut down many heating costs. When these elements were grafted into our buildings without imagination, the rooms in houses could become unimaginably stuffy or hot.

‘Heritage preservation’ does not, therefore, mean just gawking at past splendour, but appreciating the finer architectural elements that mark several aristocratic houses of the 18^th and 19^th century Kolkata. Many of these features are improvisations of the city and some are quite unlike their variants in other cities. Let us look at the khilan thakur dalan or pillared porch that arose from the rectangular courtyard located in the sadar mahal part the house. It was (and still is) quite prominent in several houses, like that of, say, of the fabulously rich comprador, Raja Nabakrishna Deb. His dalan was meant to house the family deity and also to accommodate the image of Durga during her worship in autumn. As we know, Deb started the ritual of inviting British civil and military officials to impress them with his Durga Puja, but we can be sure that white men came to this ‘heathen celebration’ not only to humour their factotum, but also to witness the Indian dancing girls, who were the star attraction. Wine and meat dishes flowed in abundance, as worship became secondary in Deb’s show of pomp and power. Much of this was against Hindu rituals, but his wealth had secured Deb the position of being the undisputed leader of the upper caste Hindu tradition in Kolkata.

These raised dalan platforms, that housed the deities, had thick load-bearing pillars in front of the rooms and were usually just one-storey high. Quite often, rooms that rose above the thakur dalan went up to two or three storeys and could be put to good use. Beautiful multi-floriated arches adorned and joined the upper part of these thick columns— serving as open doorways to view the deities. The number of such openings were usually three (teen khilan dalan) or five (panch khilan dalan). The plasters on the walls of these thick, short pillars were often highly ornamented and the floriated arches that joined them were copied by Kolkata’s aristocracy from late medieval terracotta temples of Bengal. The latter, in turn, had incorporated them, strangely enough, from Islamic architecture. The main raised sacred porch of the thakur dalan could have a ‘stage’-like space in front, but we find that a gentle flight of stairs led down to the central courtyard. These wonderful thakur dalans are still well preserved in most old houses, as no one would like to upset the family deity. Besides the Sovabajar Rajbari of the Deb family and its many branches, we come across excellent thakur dalans that have been preserved quite well till now in the mansions of the Tagores of Jorashanko (without images or deities), the Mitras of Darjipara, Jagatram Dutta of Nimtala, Dwarpanarayan Tagore in Pathuriaghaa, the Roys of Jorashanko and the Jhamapukur Rajbati. These excellent, typically-Bengali khilan thakur dalans of the grand buildings of north Kolkata are actually an architectural gift of Kolkata to the heritage of India, but sadly, few understand its significance.

  There is yet another architectural splendour of Kolkata that was once the envy of Sydney in Australia, which was incidentally linked to Kolkata by regular shipping lines. We also had other forms of exchanges, including the swapping of many colonial rulers that explains why so many roads and parks of Sydney and other cities of Australia (and New Zealand) are replete with names like Wellington, Wellesley, Auckland, Eden and Victoria. The architectural expression that I refer to is the exquisite cast iron sculpture that adorned the facades of many such buildings. They appeared on balconies, as balustrades (commonly known as railings), and were also prominent as gates and perimeter fences. Careful observers are amazed to see the fineness of the work and the most delicate designs that man could ever weave with iron. Quite often, large parts of such cast iron dreams are found to have been taken away and sold by weight and replaced by unimaginative factory-produced wrought iron. My friends and I have photographed quite a few of these and presented these visuals at talks overseas — to many a gasp of wonder. As the artisans of the foundries of Howrah were genetically more skilled, our cast iron grills are superior to many other such specimens in different parts of the world. But while Sydney still prizes its cast iron balustrades on its balconies and one can undertake heritage walks for to admire their sheer beauty, we have managed to destroy most of them. I think it is time to read the proud publications of Sydney on this subject, like Lacework in Iron —just to get inspired.  We may then focus not only on stucco, on plaster and on architectural styles but also on railings, balustrades, windows and of course wonderful doorways and marble flooring. And, by the way, a middle class adaption called red oxide flooring is another proud heritage of Kolkata’s architecture that we hardly notice.

But history moves relentlessly and many of the stately palaces have been pulled down, one by one, from the 1950s. While some were demolished for public convenience like the widening of roads and the first such example that comes to our mind is the Choudhury’s palace of Saheb, Bibi, Ghulam — that had to make way for Central Avenue. Others were handed over to promoters, often by squabbling siblings and cousins, for constructing multi-storied flats, But each time a building with neo-classical features or rococo or even ostentatious baroque was ripped apart, we lost an irreplaceable specimen of colonial Bengal’s superb craftsmanship. What perhaps compensates a bit is profusion of western art deco architecture in central Kolkata in the 1930s — that gradually spread further south. World class architects, Ballardie, Thomson, and Mathews, introduced this new style that had taken America and Europe by storm. The sheer minimalist beauty that art deco and western modernist aesthetics exuded charmed several generations in the twentieth century. People had, in fact, become quite weary of being dominated by heavily ornamented neo-classical buildings and by other grand forms of imposing architecture of the preceding two centuries. The distinguishing features of the art deco style are simple, clean shapes, often with a ‘streamlined’ look, that bore very geometric bands of plaster on the outer surface, running either horizontally or vertically, and a marked preference for curved verandahs.

  Art deco architecture could flourish because new materials and technologies came into the market at the end of the 19^th century and later. The arrival of reinforced concrete and light steel, for example, permitted the stylistic development and flexible appearance of art deco, as load-bearing pillars became less essential. Once constrictions like these were tackled, architects could experiment with more fluid forms and geometric designs — like sharp rectangles and squares that vied with equally pleasing curvatures. It was mainly after the First World War that art deco architecture, led by revolutionary masters like Le Corbusier led the movement in Paris, where its  Theatre des Champs-Elysées appeared to herald the Art Deco movement, New York’s art deco skyscrapers — like the Chrysler building, the Rockefeller Centre and the Empire State Building — dazzled the world.

   Kolkata got its first taste of art deco in the 1940s and 1950s, through the fascinating architecture of English movie halls like Metro, New Empire, Globe, Lighthouse, Roxy — and was simply overwhelmed. But since we are not discussing public buildings here, let us move to Elgin Road, Ballygunge and Alipore where the newer wealthy class, especially those from outside of Bengal, built their early art deco mansions. Architects like Arjun Ray constructed landmark buildings like the jahaj bari (house shaped like a ship) and art deco became more democratic as the middle class started copying the stylish circular covered verandahs and broad staircases of the bigger mansions. This salaried class consisted of educated people, who were often more qualified and better-read than the old rich of north Kolkata. They were the very core around which the post-Rabindranath, post-Saratchandra generations of litterateurs, artists, musicians and professors would expand and flourish. Many set up dwellings in the new urban areas that were opened up by the Calcutta Improvement Trust or by private developers like the Hindustan Cooperative of Nalini Ranjan Sarkar. The latter, incidentally, sold plots to qualified middle class home-seekers on Hindustan Park and Hindustan Road in the Rashbehari-Gariahat area. And, this is the area that has the maximum concentration of smaller three-storied or four-storied art deco residential buildings, sprawled all over Purna Das Road, Keyatala, Southern Avenue, and the many eponymous roads in the localities around the Dhakuria Lakes. 

 While the western world used art deco for gigantic public buildings, Kolkata adopted it eventually for smaller private residences. The west actually gave up this fashion after the Second World War, but Kolkata’s residential buildings were built in right earnest only after the War, in the 1950s and 1960s. These scaled down versions and modest art deco buildings of south Kolkata were called ‘Metro-style’ houses, and they are in sharp contrast to the ostentation of the palatial buildings of north Kolkata. These smaller buildings stand out even today with their own quiet dignity — often combining so effortlessly contrasting geometries, like sharply defined rectangular corners on one side with semi circular balconies and gently curved architecture on the other side. The part that covers the central staircase usually has glass panes all the way up to the top, running along the middle of the building. This vertical area is often decorated with raised lines or bands in geometric patterns, from top to bottom. Some even have a small flag stand on top, but no one knows why it is there. This art deco style has not yet acquired celebrity heritage status, as few really observe its sheer beauty. Besides, most heritage lovers are so fixated on the neo classical and other grander architecture of Kolkata, that they cannot get out of the groove. It is time we recognised smaller art deco residences as Kolkata’s unique contribution.

   We may consider it right for heritage lovers and connoisseurs of architecture to make whatever comment they want on others’ property, or for the preservation lobby to bemoan the destruction and rebuilding that come invariably with the passage of time. But we also need to understand that the owners need money to sustain uneconomically large buildings, and if the city’s built heritage is to be preserved, then someone has to bear the burden. This economic logic is accepted and it explains why so many art deco buildings around the Rashbehari Avenue area have been reutilised Nd converted into upmarket boutiques, shops and quaint restaurants — without damaging their basic character. But when we consider the bigger problem of maintaining the huge mansions of north Kolkata, presuming of course that much of them are under the owner’s occupation, we need to consider large amount of funds. Let us, therefore, see how is it that other self-respecting countries or cities have managed to cling on to what they will never able to replace. One of the methods to save and preserve heritage is to provide state or municipal funding, but I do not think we should even discuss this subject in India. After 41 years in administration, I hardly know any municipal body in India that has not taken an active part in the destruction of the history and heritage of the very cities that were entrusted to them. 

One idea that I have been advocating for over two decades is the institution of a ‘Lottery Fund’. Most people hardly know that large parts of early Kolkata were built through public funds garnered by lotteries conducted by the East India Company’s government. In fact, in 1817, the Company set up an official ‘Lottery Committee’ to raise money from citizens to plan and execute public projects. Some of the best examples of public roads in old Kolkata that were built with funds raised from public lotteries are Wellesley Street (Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road), Wellington Street (Nirmal Chunder Street), College Street and Cornwallis Street (Bidhan Sarani) as well as Strand Road. Another building that was financed completely from such funds was the grand Town Hall of Kolkata. A new Kolkata Heritage Lottery Fund on the model of the successful United Kingdom Heritage Lottery Fund is quite feasible — to help owners of heritage buildings in Kolkata repair and re-utilise them. And, after all, citizens can buy these lottery tickets for a public cause, with no sense of guilt and still some hope to win jackpots. The UK Fund earns millions of pounds and these ultimately go to subsidise the maintenance of heritage buildings and historical areas. The Bank of China and HSBC take an active part in providing heritage funds for their cities in China. There are many such ideas which our government just needs to examine and decide. An Oversight Committee consisting of urban planning experts and architects, with no conflict of interest, can surely take over from that point, along with heritage conscious citizens — to maintain their own town’s heritage. At the same time public bodies need to observe the highest level of transparency, while they engage themselves in the task of saving every small part of the priceless and irreplaceable history of their communities, cities, state and the nation.

 Kolkata must also remember that while Delhi has four World Heritage Sites declared by the UNESCO and Mumbai, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Hyderabad all have such prestigious buildings of international fame, the grand old capital of British India, Kolkata, is yet to earn this award for even a single site. Since Kolkata does not have any notable architecture of the pre-colonial era, we could propose the Victoria Memorial or the Howrah Bridge or even Fort William to the UNESCO, Paris, for World Heritage stature — but this requires a lot of professional documentation. UNESCO’s rules mandate a large number of compliances and multiple dimensions — in order to maintain the purity of the original structure. These entail heritage consciousness and a fierce pride in the past that the citizens of most developed nations possess. We will require decades to instil this spirit among our citizens in this country and in this city, before we can even dream of taking up serious tasks of this nature. With every passing year, however, we lose some irreplaceable part of our architectural heritage.

   But we can always make a start — so let us begin, now.

The New Citizenship Law Has Ignited a Battle for India's Soul

The New Citizenship Law Has Ignited a Battle for India's Soul

By Jawhar Sircar

(The Wire, 30^th December, 2019)

The sudden, unplanned outburst in many parts of India on the issue of citizenship is, no doubt, the first major agitation against Narendra Modi. For 5.5 years, the world’s largest democracy silently watched authoritarianism and communalism tighten their stranglehold, but now it appears to have found its voice back.

People who were distressed at the serial collapse of every public institution and bulwark of liberty and fair play, and had despaired at the death-wish of the Congress, the decimation of the Left and the listlessness of unimpressive opposition parties, have suddenly woken up, thanks to this spontaneous fury. Many media houses that were tirelessly manufacturing consent for the regime were compelled to take note.

Analysts feel that the recent agitation is not sufficiently broad-based, as it is led by students and the youth; that it is confined only to some urban centres and to the middle class, and is largely fired by one community. These accusations could have been true on December 15, when the movement started in Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University, but the disproportionate brutality of the police action united thousands of non-Muslims all over India and broadened the base of the agitation.

We may also recall that the two mass uprisings that shook India in 1974-75, the Nav Nirman movement in Gujarat and Jayaprakash Narayan’s Sampoorna Kranti in Bihar, were also localised and led by the young, before really old men like Morarji Desai and JP took over. Frankly, it required the party-less, leaderless youth to muster both courage and recklessness to halt the invincible Ashwamedha horse whose yagna was celebrated by Modi-Shah, as soon as their batteries were recharged in May 2019.

The first five months of Modi 2.0 witnessed more depredations on India’s democracy and secularism, especially on the latter, than ever before. This year’s two sessions of parliament made a mockery of democratic discourse, as the regime’s brute majority in the Lok Sabha and floor management in the Rajya Sabha ensured that the bombardment that started with the triple talaq Bill never stopped.

Amendments were hustled through parliament to curb civil liberties and further strengthen the National Investigation Agency, to empower detention without ascribing reasons under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and to emasculate the Right to Information Act. Other hastily-hustled laws introduced dangerous clauses in medical education and central universities, and legitimised Big Brother’s Aadhaar card.

But palpable shock waves rocked the nation in early August, and went far beyond, when Article 370 of the constitution was read down with undisguised relish by the Central government. Given the sui generis nature of Kashmir’s accession to India and the special guarantees given then, this article conferred some token autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir, but this was amputated without anaesthesia. Unprecedented numbers of armed forces were flown to ensure that any dissent by Kashmiris was totally overawed, even as their state was slashed into ‘union territories’ and deliberately degraded.

Mainstream India was too stunned to respond and the endless series of vindictive tax raids on opponents and peremptory arrests by the Central Bureau of Investigation appeared to have sent shivers regarding the ruthless, malicious style of governance.

Even before the nation could recover from the massive crushing of civil liberties in Kashmir came another trauma on August 31, when the National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam was published. It took 50,000 government officials ten long years to prepare this register, and it cost the people of India some Rs 1,200 crore, even if we remain silent on the corruption and sheer harassment that accompanied this programme.

In the last few years, the Supreme Court had taken upon itself the task of regular monitoring this very difficult exercise to weed out infiltrators, but when 19 lakh people, most of them Hindu Bengalis, were excluded from the Register, everyone was upset. Those who had targeted ‘Bangladeshi Muslims’ were disappointed at the small number caught in the net, while those who were left out were shattered – especially as ‘detention centres’, inspired surely by Nazi concentration camps, were being built for them.

Flare-ups took place in Assam but before we reach the next phase of unrest, let us recall how the Supreme Court had fast-tracked hearings and submissions to resolve the vexatious issue of Ayodhya before a chief justice retired, which is rather odd. The same court had put on hold critical decisions on the constitutionality of the blitzkrieg in Kashmir and severe human rights issues. The court’s verdict of November 9, which effectively handed over the disputed plot to Hindus, was based on non-watertight evidence, but it may have ensured that majoritarian violence did not break out, as it had in 1992-93 and in 2002. Or, maybe the perpetrators of the mentioned riots had sheathed their swords as, after all, they got what they wanted – ‘Mandir wahin banayege (We will build the temple at that spot).’

Naturally, disconcerting whispers also arose and many criticised what they considered to be a capitulation before majoritarianism. A lot of angst would, however, surely have been taken care of if only the honourable court had issued a deadline, as it had done to ensure land for the temple and mosque, for the time-bound finalisation of criminal cases, that are dragging for a quarter century, and punish those who openly vandalised Babri Masjid. After all, the apex court had severely condemned it, and what better could we  expect if action had accompanied words?

But let us move on to the tipping point, which came finally in mid-December when the regime gloated about successfully passing the amendment to the Citizenship Act of 1955. Though it spoke sentimentally of wiping the tears of persecuted minorities who were seeking refuge in Mother India, the undisguised target was the legitimisation of discrimination against Muslims. Strategically, Hindu and other non-Muslim refugees from three Muslim countries were chosen for this favour and four other neighbours were left out.

It was, however, the promise-cum-threat issued repeatedly by home minister Amit Shah that the Assam-type gruelling NRC survey would be extended to other parts of India, that led to the sudden explosion of popular wrath. At this stage, we also need to understand that the causes for protests in Assam, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and the rest of India are quite distinct from each other. The Assamese, who are paranoid about being outnumbered by Bengalis, are up in arms against the BJP and its CAA for trying to ‘regularise’ Hindu Bengali immigrants who were left out by the NRC. They feared that many more Bangladeshi Hindu refugees will be given citizenship and upset Assad’s precarious demographic balance.

On the other hand, Tamils are agitating mainly against the omission of Lankan Tamil refugees in this Christmas gift, though some are also against religious discrimination. The ruling party in Bengal, that has organised massive all-community protests, aims to further consolidate its base among the minority community. It also highlights the terror that NRC evokes – of bureaucratic harassment, corruption and heartlessness – to win over the majority.

The semiotics in the battle are interesting. The national flag has, for instance, been snatched back by the agitators from the ultra-nationalists, who had appropriated it quite brazenly. Historically, this Sangh parivar had virulently opposed the Indian tricolour at the time of our independence and had continued to insult it until Sardar Patel compelled them to accept the nation’s flag. Muslims, who were being repeatedly grilled and heckled for the last five years about their loyalty to India, are now proudly waving national flags as their response, as part of the citizenship agitation.

Students in Delhi and elsewhere are also innovating several Gandhian techniques like, say, offering flowers to policemen and trying to reach their hearts. National and patriotic songs are now the weapons of the weak as they stand up to the grossly inhuman viscousness let loose by the regime in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Assam, where their hegemony prevails.

But then, this reminds us of similar outbursts of patriotism that we had seen in the protests in Delhi after the Jyoti Singh gangrape and murder, in 2012-13. We can hardly forget how countless young men and women had responded to Anna Hazare’s call against corruption and had brought the capital city and other parts of India to a halt. They had given fresh life to forgotten Gandhi caps, but the lasting result of their agitation and sacrifice is that a crafty Arvind Kejriwal has been catapulted to power and a publicity-crazy Kiran Bedi sits in the overrated chair of a Lieutenant Governor.

But attacking a doddering liberal-secular government in India then is different from taking on the present breed of ruthless megalomaniacs, who stop at nothing. No one can predict how long the public anger will be sustained and how the Modi-Shah duo will retort, and with what ferocity and vindictiveness. One prays that communal conflicts do not break out in this charged atmosphere or are even manufactured to split the movement. Some say that a war-like attack in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir could also distract attention from civil protests, as belligerence always pumps patriotic adrenaline.

The protest that was lit by students of two central universities and may have been taken up first by Muslims, as they were/are the targets of Hindu extremists, has certainly metamorphosed into a general revolt. It is now a movement of the young, not only against unfair religious discrimination, but also against authoritarianism and against cutting of funding and interfering in education. Economic failures and increased joblessness are also stoking dissent, finally.

The fact is, however, that our liberal secular forces have remained content with signing righteous petitions, writing strong articles and holding debates on television or within safe surroundings. Liberals in neighbouring Bangladesh, on the other hand, had to combat brutal authoritarianism and religious fanaticism much and more directly. From 1989, they organised massive Mangal Shobha-jatra rallies as anti-Ershad protests by secular forces and continue to bring out these mammoth demonstrations every year on April 14, as evidence of their war on Islamic obscurantism.

In February 2013, several thousand intellectuals, teachers and street-shy middle class professionals gathered spontaneously at Shahbagh in Dhaka and demonstrated for days on end, compelling their government to hang Islamic fundamentalists, who were guilty of murder and rape. The Religious Right was taken aback by the scale of protest and the determination of secular democratic forces, that withstood physical attacks – thanks to the bold youth brigade that had joined the secular chorus.

Whatever be the results of the present CAA-NRC movement, the first gashes and scars that have been inflicted will not be easy to hide. Modi’s hypnotic charm, created through his glib, sweet-talking series of lies and fanned largely by well-paid corporate marketing and media professionals and amoral strategists, is finally broken. Those who were aghast to see India’s youth following him like the pied piper and heaping their votes in his favour are finally relieved.

The moot point we need to remember is that different sets of Indians had voted for different Modis – as India’s multi-purpose saviour or Kalki Avatar; as Mister Clean who would bring black money from Swiss banks; as the poor tea-server who symbolised humility; as the determined anti-dynast who lived a frugal existence; as the great patriot who would elevate India’s position to the highest level; as the warrior who would smash terrorism; as the economic Midas who would usher in revolutionary liberalisation; as Santa Claus who would distribute millions of jobs; as the heroic, aggressive leader of the Hindu ‘nation’ and as the dreaded nemesis of ‘pampered Muslims’ who would show them their place.

Every time this multi-rooted banyan around Modi is shaken by protest, as now, different self-contradictory elements get jolted out and disaggregate themselves from this contrived conglomerate of power – that money, cadres, oratory and chutzpah aggregated. As repression increases and brave-hearts face the brunt, different and differing heterogeneous groups are compelled to come together in their united struggle against authoritarianism and communalism. That is the lasting contribution of each such mass movement towards the strengthening our democratic tradition.

Ugly majoritarian fanatics who were conferred legitimacy by Modi and his ilk will, however, continue to bark and troll – even among the most educated or prosperous circles. At the end of the day, we must realise that even after seven decades, India is still a process, not a product. More important is the harsh fact that this India has space for only one idea to prevail, hopefully the plural one.

(Please Click Here to readthe article on The Wire’s Website)