The Jagannath Rath Yatra Is a Reminder of How Inclusive Hinduism Can Be

The Jagannath Rath Yatra Is a Reminder of How Inclusive Hinduism Can Be

By Jawhar Sircar

(22.07.2018, The Wire)

This year, the July 14-22 period has been dedicated to Jagannath and to his annual Ratha Yatra, which has been described somewhat inadequately as the ‘Chariot Festival’. The rites associated with the journey of Jagannath and his two companions from the great temple and their return nine days later has been recalled.

But can we look beyond the trappings and festivities of this annual ritual of the Hindus, and grasp the essence of an eternal Indian tradition of accommodation? Once we succeed in extricating ourselves from the ‘hold’ of these very attractive tourist and television packages around both the deity and his festival, and, of course, observe matters other the the overwhelming religiosity of the masses, we may be able to see more clearly the real plural nature of Hinduism. This accommodative aspect of Hinduism needs to reassert itself, without the further loss of time, and overrule the strange intolerant brand that is currently marketed by some terribly locked minds – primarily and shamelessly for votes.

To begin with, let us note how the roughly chiseled stump of wood called Jagannath keeps flaunting a historic right to differ — by remaining proudly aniconic in the midst of a Brahmanically-approved pantheon of anthropometric deities. No hands, no feet — the deity reminds us that the religion of our forefathers was not a closed club, but that it was forever open to all forms of gods, cults, beliefs, rites and even remarkable oddities. It is remarkable how millions jostle each year just to get a touch of the holy cables that tug the impossibly-heavy ‘wooden buildings on wheels’ of Jagannath and his two companions. This act of piety was deliberately misinterpreted by the white colonists as ‘mass suicide’ by pagan Hindus who threw themselves under their murderous heathen god, the unstoppable Juggernaut. It is sad but true that such grotesque imageries, conjured by the ill-informed, usually reach people faster and go deeper into unsuspecting believers — whether in the past or at present — and they continue to stoke the desired repulsion and dread.

In a way, the mythology of Jagannath that unified the lowest and the highest strata in medieval Odisha, centuries before the Bhakti movement began in northern India, represents the spirit of Hinduism. We can surely trace the core of this cult and the deity to the Savara or Saura tribes of Odisha that worshiped wooden stumps with no human features — the sthambeshwar or khambeshwari. More so, after Heidelberg University’s impartial research led to the same conclusion, though there are some who claim that it was the Khonds, not the Savaras, who were actually the original worshippers. But even today, we come across a special class of non-Brahman priests of Jagannath in Puri, called Daita and Soaro, who claim to be the descendants of the original Savara ritual practitioners who were absorbed into the expanded version of the ancient cult.

The moot point is that by accepting the deified wooden stump of tribal Odisha and elevating it to the regal pantheon of ‘high Hinduism’, sometime around the 12th century – as Jagannath or the lord of the universe – India’s classic tradition of assimilation scored a historic victory over those who sought to confront the ‘other’ and to crush ‘adversaries’. Like other major Hindu rites, festivals and pilgrimages, Puri’s Ratha Yatra also reveals both the adroit skills and the subtle mechanics of how divergent demands on the idea of India were harmonised. But then, we must also remember that there always exists a conservative core in all religions, even Hinduism, that bemoans the easy access to the almighty that its democracy confers on the masses and even in Puri, some social groups still suffer restrictions. Even so, this open, mass-based religion stands in stark contrast to the obscurantist casteism that reared its head, in the name of ‘pure’ Hinduism, recently in western UP or in Bhima Koregaon.

Unlike most other famous religious sites that claim that their deities are ageless antiquities, just too ancient or pracheen to be dated, Puri never made such exaggerated assertions. After all, everyone knows that the stumps of neem trees that represent Jagganath and his two companions are changed every 10-20 years. In fact, they celebrate it through a rather ornate ritual called Nabakalebara – literally, leaving the old body and the consecration of a new one. It begins with an elaborate search for the ‘holy tree’ that is conducted by a large team consisting of different types of priests. In olden days, it was led by two inspectors and some 30 police officers and even now, police and other government officials consider it an honour to be of some service to Jagannath. Once the right tree is located and a yagna is performed, the tree  is felled and carted to the temple. Traditional hereditary sculptors work in secret for 21 days and nights and the old idols are buried in secret again.

Hindus deities come in both human form and in non-human representations like the Shiva linga. Jagannath stands somewhere halfway between this anthropomorphic and aniconic forms. Though tribal worshipers did not insist on it, later Hindu traditions carved two outstretched arms so as to lend some human touch. The huge eyes that stand out in the three divinities are, of course, painted on the logs.

One of the reasons for the immense popularity of the cult is its democratic nature and the historic practice of taking the deities out of their sanctum sanctorum, and directly to the masses. The Puri temple is one of rarest among the major Hindu temples that takes the original deities out of the sanctum-sanctorum, as other temples usually bring out in public processions only iconic representations of their deities called Utsava-murtis.

As is well known, the three idols are mounted on extravagantly decorated chariots and taken out in the bright fortnight of Ashadh. They travel some two kilometres away to the Gundicha temple, stopping on the way at their ‘aunt’ for Jagannath’s favourite Poda Pithaa. It is interesting to note how religious rituals like these re-enact historic agreements between different socio-economic groups and these halts and the return journey a week later appear fascinating to researchers. Jagannath’s open public procession strengthens mass participation, irrespective of caste and class, and this is right from the medieval period – marking it rather unusual in a hierarchical religion like Hinduism.

Incidentally, the three rathas are constructed afresh every year from the wood of some special trees that are brought all the way from Dasapalla, a former kingdom. Historically, the heavy logs were set afloat on the Mahanadi river and collected at Puri – to be crafted by hereditary carpenters. Every part of the exercise is planned and executed in such an elaborate manner that it defies the normal ad hoc nature of Indians. It is clear that the apportionment of rights, duties and privileges in such religious festivals represent critical aspects of the great and complex treaty among so many sets of people and profession – a social treaty called Hinduism

Incidentally, though numerous tribal worships were absorbed all over India throughout history, we hardly ever come across any direct record, as Brahmanism obliterates the trail of evidence and is careful enough not be caught with the ‘smoking gun’. In Jagannath, however, we have a rare but irrefutable record or proof of what anthropologist Nirmal Kumar Bose described as ‘the Hindu method of tribal absorption’. This is how ethnic and linguistic groups actually rose above their own inherited beliefs, deities and worships and ‘accommodated’ the other, by accepting what they treasured the most – their gods. After all, without these ‘local treaties’ and ‘acceptances’, divergent groups could hardly share the common water and till the same earth – or live in harmony under the same sky.

This inexorable process of getting together oceans of humanity was basically the task of a religion that was stamped as Hinduism much, much later. The crux is that this religion essentially offered a common platform to different and often conflicting sets of values and beliefs. There is no doubt that the cult of Jagannath combined practices, beliefs and contributions from Buddhism, Jainism, tribal religion, Tantric worship,  residues from Saiva and Sakthi cults, within the paramountcy of Vaishnavism.

The tale of Jagannath has always attracted a lot of attention, as his metamorphosis and gradual assimilation of several religious traditions has been far better documented than other major cults and pilgrimages. Amorphous myth and hard history do meet at frequent intervals as inscriptions and recorded narratives substantiate quite a lot of the claimed timeline – which accords considerable comfort to the scientific researcher, who is otherwise so ill at ease in other worships. Several fascinating origin tales abound – like the Skanda Purana that mentions one King Indrayumna of Avanti who dreamt of the great deity called Nila Madhava or the blue Krishna who was worshipped at the Nilachal or blue mountain. Many of us who are distressed with the dominant trend of obliterating  borders between fact and fiction in India can surely do more than just bemoan the unscientific temper and tone down our acquired abhorrence for messing around with nebulous religious subjects – because after all, it is we who left the domain wide open to fanciful speculators like P.N. Oak and to those who made a fantastic living from selling untruths.

We need to take a relook at the unofficial academic taboo observed mainly by anthropologists and historians against delving seriously into those subjects that matter the most to Indians – epics, puranas, myths, gods, heroes, heroines and other characters. Too long have disciplines like philosophy, literature and ‘oriental studies’ dealt with them and too long have we heard the raptures of those who are more religiously-inclined as they discover and rediscover gems from their ‘real’ or ‘hidden’ meanings – as they reinforce the unreal with so much passion. We need value-free researchers to connect the many hazy dots that lie all over the landscape – to link and refute or accept the assertions of myths with their plausible historical interpretations – as we do in the case of Puri.

We can surely now transcend the Western view that Hindu festivals like Puri’s Ratha Yatra were too heathen to be considered, for these are positions that are used by the present Hindu Right to inflame passions. We may recall, for instance, that William Bruton, the first Englishman to visit Puri in 1633 declared it as “the mirror of wickedness and idolatry”. Thus began the European tirade against the deity and even in 1900, we come across W.J. Wilkins condemning the Ratha Yatra as a “disgusting and demoralising exhibition”. At the same time, we must commend the serious studies by Heidelberg University’s Sud Asian Institut in the 1970s and 1980s under its ‘Orissa Research Project’. It involved field  studies conducted by several German scholars that examined the cult – quite scientifically but with empathy – that came up with very interesting evidence and interpretation of this syncretic tradition. The point is that these historical and anthropological models of research could very well be done by Indians, or else we would be forever captive to ‘pride and prejudice’.

An enlightened chief minister like Harekrishna Mahtab did open a debate by declaring in 1948 that the Jagannath cult had really originated from Buddhism. There was a hue and cry but light followed heat. Historian and Odisha specialist Rajendralal Mitra had said the same thing much earlier, as did British scholars and historians like W.W. Hunter, Alexander Cunningham and Monier Monier-Williams. Faxien, the Chinese pilgrim, had mentioned in the early fifth century that Odisha and the Puri region were strong bastions of Buddhism and that there was a famous festival in Dantapur where a relic – a tooth of Lord Buddha – was carried in a great public procession every year. There are not only strong Buddhist links but Jain influences as well, and historian Kedar Nath Mahapatra declared that the Jaina Tri-Ratna tradition had influenced the worship of three deities in Puri – Jagannath, Balabhadrananda or Balram and Subhadra. But there were historians on the other side who had equally powerful arguments against giving too much credit to Buddhism and Jainism. The issue was finally settled, stating that the cult was not fully Buddhist in its origins, but that it was surely subjected to profound Buddhist influence. The three deities, they claimed, actually embodied the Triguna of the Gita – sattva, rajas and tamas.

Puri features as one of the four legendary dhams or centres of Hinduism that are believed to have been set up by Adi Shankaracharya. It also has an iconic mutt or monastery constructed in the 12th century by the Vaishnavite saint, Acharya Ramanuja. The temple chronicles of Puri, the Madala-panji, say that Raja Ananga Bhima of the eastern Gangas constructed the existing temple in the first half of the 13th century. But the Dasgopas inscription mentions that it was Choda-ganga who set it up two centuries before. The German scholars, on the other hand, mention that Yayati the First started building the temple 100 years before this. The early inscriptions refer to the deity as Purushottam, and he must have taken at least a couple of centuries to get fully absorbed into Hinduism and bring his two companions into the temple. The Purushotham-Kshetra Mahatmya has interesting stories of Vidyapati meeting the chief of the Savaras for a glimpse of the original deity, Neelamadhava.

Though we are not sure about the exact historical dates, there is no doubt that the Jagannath cult was responsible in uniting the Odia people of all classes and castes under one common worship, at least from the 13th century. This hardly happened anywhere else in India, as caste and class still dominate and it explains why Odisha offered united resistance to successive invasions by the Turks and Pathans, for almost 400 years after the 12th century. Neighbouring Bengal has a different history altogether – as the 12th century Sena dynasty of Kannada Brahmins suddenly tried to turn a rather flexible society towards orthodox casteism and other forms of religious rigidity. This was resented and for about two-thirds of the Bengali-speaking people who reside currently in West Bengal, Bangladesh, Tripura and Assam, their forefathers forsook this closed, hierarchical version of Hinduism for a more accommodative Sufi-led Islam.

In the 16th century, we see how Sri Chaitanya left Bengal for good and moved to Puri as he believed that Jagannath was the real fountain of all inspiration. Not too many modern Indians remember that for several centuries, priests and propagators from Puri visited numerous families in their homes all over India to sing praises of Jagannath and to exhort people to make a pilgrimage to Puri. Ratha Yatras were copied in many states, and in south Bengal, the one at Mahesh is said to be six centuries old. Local variations abound, and the ratha of Mahisadal in West Bengal is welcomed with gunshots. But behind religion stands economics – it is essential in all religions everywhere. Ratha Yatras usually come with colourful fairs – the Ratha Melas – where piety and commerce combine with a lot of fun, frolic and food.

At the end, we must remember that it is neither wood nor stone that determine the phenomenal popularity of any worship, but it is its universal appeal and exceptional traits that really stand the test of several millennia and thrive. It is accommodation that characterises Hinduism and we need to repeat this repeatedly to fanatics who are trying to hold it captive and are exhorting Hindus to be intolerant. Authentic Hinduism can, after all, never seek to bludgeon others into submission – to some imagined ‘Indian culture’ – nor does it legitimise xenophobia. Puri’s Jagannath proves, for instance, that Hinduism excels in the wondrous management of contradictions and is a vibrant example of how the religion reaffirms through ritual the essential plurality and accommodative character of Hinduism.

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

Leave Teaching to Academics: Subjugation and Excellence Don’t Go Together

Leave Teaching to Academics:

  Subjugation and Excellence Don’t Go Together

 .

   Jawhar Sircar,

Ananda Bazar Patrika,

17^th July 2018

         Jadavpur University is now surely a metaphor for both excellence and unrest that once characterised Presidency, more as a college than as a university, though it is sad to see how its present rulers are so ill at ease with the first and have steamrollered the other. History tells us that academic excellence and perpetual discontent have strange links, both licit and illicit, and also that the teaching community bristles at commands — real or imagined. The arts faculty of Jadavpur has already outgrown Presidency, but then, as we shall see, its ghost — in more senses than one — still hovers over the lily pools of Jadavpur. One hears stories of how Jadavpur’s top mandarins — poor souls who are squeezed between an insistent state power and obdurate teachers and students on revolt — are reportedly pulled up at periodic intervals, for not being able to emulate the Presidency model. But then, costly cosmetics and genuflecting are strange to the cash-strapped, angry world of Indian academia, rare exceptions not-withstanding. It is not clear why submission to external instructions is so critical, as the real problem of admissions to colleges in this State lies not in Jadavpur university — it was grafted there, almost by design. What plagues numerous other colleges is that students’ unions are openly extorting money for seats — as never before. This ‘net practice’ may warm up these junior syndicate leaders for bigger roles in public life, but such man-made problems only aggravate the crisis.

         Higher education in the state simply refuses to move out of the mediocrity created by decades of Left rule and by subsequent populism. What is visibly common between both regimes is their mindless preference for professed loyalty over known merit and strangely, a large section of teachers who literally wormed themselves into power continue to rule, by switching jerseys. It is sad to note that only five state universities from this state that still prizes intellect over wealth could make it to the ‘Top 100’ of the Human Resources .Development Ministry’s national ranking. Jadavpur leads, by ranking 6^th in India, while Calcutta university managed to stand 14^th. The other three state universities — Bidhan Chandra Krishi Vishwavidyalay, Kayani university and Burdwan university are pegged between the 75^th and 96^th ranks, which is not so terribly encouraging. Presidency university, however, figures no where — proving once again the inverse relationship between regime-friendliness and excellence in teaching. We are repeatedly focussing on Presidency because it is Jadavpur university that gained the most from its relentless decline — right from the 1970s. Several outstanding teachers from Presidency chose to settle in Jadavpur to escape intellectual frustration and the suffocation under colonial era rules. They enriched departments like English, while others like ‘Comparative Literature’ excelled more from the genius of their legendary teachers and less from College Street emigres. But both owe a lot to their faculty’s freedom to dream, experiment and innovate. Other arts departments also strove to outshine their rivals in other institutions — as constructive jealousy can, indeed, do wonders — but one has to confess that not all reached dizzying heights.

        The relevant point here is that one of the really successful practices that ensured the excellence of Jadavpur university (and many other premium educational institutions) was the system of conducting ‘admission tests’ — to test the aptitude and worthiness of applicants. It is still not clear what great advantage would accrue to the state if students were selected only on the basis of marks obtained in their school-leaving board examinations. Jadavpur university required painful hunger strikes and ugly gheraos to retrieve its academic autonomy — that had almost been surrendered by a section of academics who obviously valued compliance over confrontation. One can not, however, condone students who repeatedly subjected their ageing vice chancellor and teachers to long, inhuman periods of confinement. After all, hunger strikes require strength of will power and unusual physical stamina — and they do exert moral pressure on ‘adversaries’ — while gheraos simply misuse the sanctuary that religion and academia had to earn from the omnipotent state, literally with blood and through terrible struggles.

..

          A longish tenure as the higher eduction secretary of the state gave one rare endoscopic views into the functioning of academia and the capacity to perceive how it differs so much from regimented organisations. And, one could well perceive its undisguised scorn for state power. One also observed, at close quarters, how teachers who were beholden to political power for their questionable placements or promotions — both in central and state institutions — brandished power. Everything from transfers and postings to professorships and permissions to go abroad were used, adroitly and clumsily, to create power centres and discourage merit. It is a not as if  academics are all other-worldly missionaries — as many are quite avaricious and can grovel for goodies — but the point is that they know their business better than bureaucrats and ministers. And this applies even when the elite within academia  has to really strain to squeeze classes and carve the mandatory ‘contact hours’ with students — between their many or excessive foreign assignments.

         Besides, we must remember that since mutual jealousies run high in this rather closed world, the ‘crab factor’ ensures that no single force can either rise beyond tolerable limits or wreck the institution — unless she or he is an amoral megalomaniac who has struck a deal with Mephistopheles, and can get away with it. It is, therefore, best to leave academia alone, so that its several self governing mechanisms that emerged from historical experiences and past mistakes, can work. These, I submit, are far better than external fiats and let us admit — one shirt just does not fit all. 

‘Lateral’ Entry Won’t Fix Basic Govt Glitches

‘Lateral’ Entry Won’t Fix Basic Govt Glitches

   

                                              Jawhar Sircar

                        Asian Age & Deccan Chronicle

                                      19 June 2018

            Prime Minister Narendra Modi has mastered the art of utilising insecurity as an instrument of his state policy and needs to demonstrate this at frequent intervals. Or else, when he has better things to do -- and rather quickly, as time is running out — he has decided to rattle the complacent and over-secure babudom of New Delhi. That may explain his intention to recruit 10 new “professionals” — the definition of “professionals” has been kept delightfully vague — for lateral entry as joint secretaries in the Central government. The media decided almost immediately that the Indian Administrative Service was threatened because few in it really distinguish between different species of bureaucrats and could not care less if the incumbent came from the IAS or from the Indian Posts and Telegraph Accounts and Finance Service. To most people, they appear equally obnoxious or are avoidable — unless a scoop or a soundbite becomes imperative. Besides, not many people know that the earlier predominance of IAS officers at the level of joint secretaries — the real cutting edge of Bharat Sarkar — has long gone, partly because other services have to be accommodated and partly because the states are unwilling to let their best secretaries go to the Centre. Leading the latter brigade for over a decade was Mr Modi himself, when he was chief minister of Gujarat.

           Serving officers survive New Delhi’s corridors of power on the age-old aphorism “every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost”. But the Opposition cried foul and not without reason, for they simply do not trust an over-controlling Prime Minister who has never disguised his scorn for them. They suspect this to be yet another attempt to “saffronise” the administration through the backdoor entry, to bypass the Constitution and the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). This fear is not unreal as the advertisement issued by the department of personnel and training does not mention the UPSC anywhere, and under Article 320 of the Constitution, recruitment to senior posts in notified services — Central or all-India — has necessarily to be done in consultation with the UPSC. The PM may have vetted his idea with legal experts but by being miserly with details, or just imperious, the government could always claim that it never had any intention to circumvent the constitutional provisions.

         The UPSC has three standard and time-tested methods of recruitment — namely, by conducting examinations for selecting directly from the open market; or by promoting to higher posts those who are already in service after rigorous screening; and finally, by transferring incumbents from one post to the other within the government setup. The current proposal to induct 10 “professionals” would fall in the first category, and it would be most appropriate if the UPSC is entrusted with a mandate to select applicants on a fast-track mode. This is quite possible and feasible and in its seven decades of working experience, the commission has gone through a lot of such exercises. It may conduct special examinations to be fair to all applicants or it could just interview them, which is a bit subjective and thus open to criticism. Or it could do both — but the entire process does call for a bit of time and may spill over beyond May 2019, when a freshly-elected government would have to be installed. As a quintessentially stodgy and stable body, the UPSC detests being rushed around and there are instances when posts can take several years to get filled, for various reasons. A government in a hurry — that did not utilise the earlier four years which it had to test such flashes of inspiration — may not be terribly enthused by the slow and steady modus of the UPSC. No one really knows, and a lot may depend on how the wind blows.

             Coming to more relevant issues, just 10 new entrants can hardly shake up or devastate the level of joint secretaries in the Central government. The total number is around 470, though this keeps changing as posts are “upgraded” or “kept in abeyance” at times. But then, it could also be the thin edge of the wedge. It is clear that Prime Minister Modi is simply taking advantage of the undisguised and widespread frustration at the failure of the IAS and the rest of the bureaucracy to be more receptive, less obstructive and to deliver at the speed that the 21st century demands. But colonial procedures and the clogging need to tackled at Gangotri, not at Ganga Sagar. If we assume that the highly competitive UPSC examinations still select the best possible candidates each year, we need to examine what happens thereafter. All those who qualify can surely not become pompous, insensitive, slothy or corrupt overnight, unless the system demands it and traumatises them into such undesirable conduct. Every government since Independence — including this most hyped one — has simply permitted the political class to ride roughshod over the system and only unabashedly user-friendly babus could ever make it anywhere. The vast majority was simply numbed into compliance as each incoming government had “massive programmes” to deliver that they had promised their voters and no one really has ever had the time to discuss problems relating to the engine.

          Each incoming government had its own blue-eyed boys who came from the same caste, community, district or “ideology” and the really skilful could swiftly adapt to each new minister. The show thus went on. There is, for instance, no reason why Mr Modi could not introduce the system of “pensioning off” large numbers at each stage of promotion, as is done in the armed forces. One had expected the mass-scale slaughter of corrupt officers after his 2014 mandate, but nothing spectacular happened. Constrictive rules could have been slashed mercilessly in four years, but this was not seen as a priority task. More energy was spent on gimmickry and in playing around with alphabets like kindergarten kids to find new acronyms for recycled schemes. The professional specialisation of IAS officers was never encouraged as Mr Modi’s own tightly-controlled DoPT forced highly-qualified engineers, management graduates and other university toppers (who constitute the bulk of the IAS) to move from atomic energy to gobar gas. Besides, this government will be remembered not only for the chilling fear that it has spread amongst terribly insecure babus (for no productive reason), but also as one where imaginative and innovative officers were hardly rewarded — but the sycophants prospered, as never before.

 (Please Click Here to read the article on The Asian Age Website)

Need for a national conversation

Need for a national conversation

By Jawhar Sircar

(The Telegraph, 13 June,2018)

Now that Pranab Mukherjee's controversial visit to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh headquarters at Nagpur is over, we may do well to focus on the best takeaways from this risky gambit. He underlined again the unique position he commands in Indian politics. No one else could ever have swung it and all criticism only magnified the event. Statesmen rise above politicians by skilfully converting events of their choice into landmarks in political history - to magnify the message they seek to convey.

Whatever may have been his reasons, his two outstanding acts are that he dared to cross the Rubicon of political untouchability and that he reminded the lion in its den that "a dialogue is necessary not only to balance competing interests but also to reconcile them". He repeated that "[o]nly through a dialogue can we develop the understanding to solve complex problems [of divergent strands] without unhealthy strife within our polity".

Let us analyse the plea for a 'dialogue'. The last four years have surely been the bitterest in post-Independent India - the most strenuous one for liberals, democrats and pluralists as they watched the jackboots of the aggressively intolerant trample all over cherished values and institutions. Recent electoral swings against the regime have given some hope, but it would be myopic to ignore the depth to which cancerous cells have penetrated the body polity and to assume that future electoral victories, if any, will blow them away. A long period of chemotherapy of the polity is unavoidable and this calls for both periscopic vision and realistic planning.

Let us look at others equally tormented. Columbia University's Mark Lilla pleads for an urgent "national conversation" on "identities" in a fractured polity. In his book, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics, Lilla insists that "identity issues are something that's been simmering below the surface for a very long time and this flash out from the Right, very suddenly, just brings home.... (its) incendiary nature..." Now that liberals have seen the devastating results of their dismissal of 'identity' - the Hindu identity, in our case - it may be time to revisit the apartheid against right-wing Hindu fundamentalism. Else the deep divide in Indian society and politics in the Narendra Modi era may lead to a situation too terrible to imagine.

Can we start by trying to understand if there is any truth in the charge that liberals are actually the privileged, Western educated, creamy layer that has dominated power, academia, media and the arts far too long? That Left liberals have monopolized the discourse and the goodies of State support? That they hardly ever co-opted the votaries of Hindutva and the Right into their discourse or even permitted them to share the same table? Left liberals, by running down anything remotely linked to Hinduism or the 'genius' of ancient India, have actually pushed the Hindu Right towards greater absurdities. For instance, D.D. Kosambi was marginalized by his fellow Marxists for 'going native' and dabbling in subjects like Indian religion and folk beliefs - even though he employed copybook methodologies of scientific socialism. Ram Manohar Lohia was similarly dismissed as a Hindi-belt rabble-rouser in spite of his impeccable PhD from Germany. His insistence that, in the Indian context, caste matters more than class ultimately catapulted his supporters to power in many states and at the Centre, but he is still shunned by both academics and journalists.

Anything to do with worship is derided by Left liberals as a hangover of obscurantism - without the realization that many Indians 'breathe religion' all the time. Critically dissecting the Ramayana and the Mahabharata may demonstrate secular credentials, but it does block out discussion on how these epics have knitted together 'the idea of India'. Those who believe these tales are 'genuinely historical' are not, ipso facto, irrational or 'communal' - they are often more 'secular' in their approach than their counterparts in other religions. The tragedy is that most liberals stay away from the religious life of India for fear of excommunication by the intellectual elite or of being out of sync with Western academia. But the West has already had several painful encounters with religion through the centuries to reach its current state where religion is decoupled from daily existence. India remains steeped in religion; when liberals ignore it, they are, in effect, ignoring reality. And this applies to all religions: not just Hinduism.

There is still time to slow down the relentless drift towards a Kurukshetra where two irreconcilable 'Indias' fight it out to the bitter end. Liberals like Shashi Tharoor and Pavan K. Varma have taken the plunge through their books, Why I am a Hindu andAdi Shankaracharya: Hinduism's Greatest Thinker, encouraging debate and trying to recover Hinduism from uneducated trolls. India is, after all, created out of a wondrous equilibrium that resulted from untiring dialogue between originally hostile forces and ideas. It is, indeed, a metaphor for the 'management of contradictions' that has worked through argument, accommodation and assimilation.

(Please Click Here to read the article on The Telegraph's website)

What exactly is Ramzan?

What exactly is Ramzan?

By Jawhar Sircar

(National Herald, 12 June,2018)

We are passing through a traumatic period when the very ‘idea of India’ is being challenged by forces that are ignorant of the contribution of different communities to the architecture of Indian existence. One of the reasons for this crisis could be that we were complacent or had taken for granted that the essential faith in multi-culturalitymust have sunk in after 65 years of existence as an independent nation. We had basically not taken pains to understand each other’s beliefs, religious practices and life-sustaining values — in short, each other’s essentially different ways of thinking. As a result, determined mischief-makers could play upon these ‘differences’ and deliberately spread misunderstanding and poison among the masses. To give an example, let us see how much non-Muslims know about major Islamic observances and festivals — except that secular India gave us ‘holidays’ on these days and those who had friends among them wished them. How many realise why Muslims go through a long month of fasting from before dawn to after sunset. We do appreciate that is really creditable — their energies call this devotion to be an evidence of their fanaticism — but few take the extra effort to learn why they do it. As this month of  Ramzan or Ramadan can fall in almost any season, the period of fast without touching water often becomes rather long. We all know that Muslims end this month of fasting when the first slice of the Eid moon is sighted as our holiday depends on it, but beyond this, most of us know little else about this very major festival of India's largest 'minority'.   

            So, let us try to understand more about this practice of fast that Prophet Muhammad instituted in the ninth month of the lunar calendar: to commemorate the first revelation of the Quran to him. The forty days of fasting before Easter that the Christians call the 'Lent' may have inspired it though this mandate is nowhere as obligatory. Some Arabs practiced this mandatory fast even before Islam arrived, like the Mandeans of northern Iraq who were reported by Abu Zanad in the mid eighth century. As is known, Prophet Muhammad often turned around quite a few pre-Islamic festivals of the period of Jahillyah or 'ignorance' into observances that bore the stamp of ethics and new meaning. There is no doubt that the Prophet made it compulsory among Muslims. Jews observe fast on Yom Kippur and other religions like Hinduism also enjoin certain days for religious fasts. Hinduism prescribes a period of restricted diet like Navaratri, but most leave it to the individual to decide. The binding observance on such a large scale as Muslims do all over the world is really beyond comparison.

            The Arabs call it Ramadan which is from their root word for scorching heat or dryness. In other words, it was meant to take physical suffering head on deliberately — in order to strengthen one's resolve and inner conviction. This month most of the world's 160 crore Muslims practice strict Sawm and after a pre-dawn meal called Suhoor and their first prayer Fajr, they do not touch even a drop of water or any food until the sun sets. It is one of the five pillars of Islam and the real test is to keep working through the day at the same pace as the well fed do and not to permit any slow-down despite hours of dehydration. Islam exempts only the sick or those who are really old or travelling, as well as women who are pregnant from this rigorous fasting but it also counsels them to make up for their omission at the first available opportunity. How long is the fast? India like Arab countries could have it for 15 to 16 hours, while in New Zealand it could be for less that 10. But as we go up to Europe or North America, daylight hours extend to 20 hours, while the sun never sets near the North Pole. To obviate extreme rigour, Muslims may simply stick to the sunset hours of Mecca. Several mosques all over the world arrange for the entire Quran to be recited over thirty nights in prayers called Tarawih. What is less known to outsiders is that Muslims are also expected to exercise utmost restraint in every form of behaviour and abstain from sexual relations during their fast. All forms of good conduct are amply rewarded by the Almighty during this holy period and this injunction against aggression or spite is as important as fasting. In this context, it is tragic to see some fanatics waging a relentless and inhumanly destructive war on their co-religionists in the Middle East during this holy month.

Just as Yoga is not just contorting the body, Roza is not only a test of physical endurance: it is meant to infuse moral and religious virtues and bind the community more strongly. Everyone knows that many find the fast too rigorous, but the spirit of the family and community sustains them — even as many look constantly at their watches for the end of the day’s fast. But it gives them strength of will-power and discipline and proudly distinguishes Muslims from others. Among its virtues the most remarkable is that of compulsory charity, Zakaat, which is another pillar of Islam that mandates that the poor must be given a portion of one's earning as Sadaqah. During Ramzan, this is increased as religious merit also becomes more. Despite uncompromising Roza, common Muslims actually celebrate the month and lights and lanterns are strung in mosques and public places, a tradition that was started in Egypt. Indonesians and Malaysians light obor torches and twinkling pelita lamps during this period. In Java, people bathe in hot springs before starting to fast whereas in some parts of Indonesia a dragon-like creature is taken out on parade in honour of the winged steed of the Prophet, called Buraq al Nabi. Giant drums and firecrackers are used to wake up people before the sun appears.

            At the time of sunset, the fast is broken usually with dates and a sweet drink, followed by Maghrib, which is the fourth of the five namaz that pious Muslim observe every day. An essential feature of Islam are meals called Iftar that are taken after the whole day’s fast which is meant to bring the entire community together. It is a different matter altogether that those who did not observe the fast often joined the Muslims in this religious meal and the ritual has developed political overtones. This year Rashtrapati Bhavan has decided not to carry on this custom, which leads to different interpretations. In any case, Iftar has given rise to a whole genre of culinary excellence and food markets that are shut during the day bustle in the evenings with tantalising aromas and abundant choices. Arabs, for instance, move from juices, salads and appetisers to lamb and other spicy meat dishes, along with rice pulaos that they call pilaf. They conclude with a rich dessert of soft sweet aromatic luqaimat dumplings, baklava cakes of nuts and honey and a sweet pastry of noodles and cheese called kunafeh. The orthodox bemoan the fact that whatever health benefits one acquires through the long fasts disappear for those who overeat at Iftar, but humans are made thus. While the rich can afford their chef-styled Iftars and pre-dawn Sehri meals, peasants make do with rice-cakes and other equally simply fare.

               It is needless to say that most Muslims look forward to the end of the month with Eid ul Fitr that is popular as Bayrami in Turkey, Russia and in many European countries. It is also called the Sweet Festival by many and the "smaller" Eid, like the small Sallah of Nigeria, whose aggressive Boko Haram Muslim desperadoes had thundered into world news. The sighting of the thin slice of the new moon is fairly well known to non-Muslims as well, because a public holiday revolves around it. Once the fast ends, it is compulsory for Muslims to congregate in large public spaces, often called Idgahs, for this special community  prayer. It is then time to visit the elders of families and seek their blessings. Children enjoy it more as they receive not only new clothes but cash or gifts as Eidi — much like other innocent children do, during Christmas or Diwali. People move on to meet their relations and friends, but such is the power of the day that they greet and hug even complete strangers. It is custom for richer Muslims in many part of the world to place large quantities of foodstuff at the doorsteps of the needy, while some keep money and delicacies. Sumptuous community meals follow on open rugs and it is time for chocolate, nuts, cookies like Kahkaa, bakery goodies, sweets of every conceivable type. Afghanistan does it with sweet cakes and jalebis, while Indonesians celebrate with a sticky rice preparation cooked in bamboo called Lemang. The lachcha and sweet seyyunia and dozens of delicious condiments made of milk, nuts, dates and vermicelli. One reason for sweets is to restore energy that fasting may have sapped, because at the end of the day, all time-tested festivals have their own critical reasons.

            Eid sermons are an essential element of the entire religious observance and the entire community seeks to congregate in a spirit of fraternity and equality — from which others can learn so much. And, despite provocations, they invariably seek the mercy of the Almighty and pray for peace unto all mankind. It is essential for us to understand that Islam has local and national variations and the India or the sub-continental version of Islam is distinctly different. The extreme position of some ‘orthodox elements’ to ‘purify’ Islam in this sub-continent is not only impractical but also contrary to our way of life — that believes in give and take, accommodation and adjustment. The India we sincerely believe in is one that happily synergies the best that every community professes and offers — with common cultural elements interwoven from all religions — that are ‘Indian’ first and everything after that. It is time we understood each other better, because that is the only remedy against those who constantly attack India’s pluralityand are hell bent ondestroying it — by constantly spreading partial and misleading information. Our need is to save a India, while theirs is to sow hatred among communities — to divide and destroy the India of Ashoka, Akbar and Mahatma Gandhi. 

(Please Click Here to read the article on National Herald's website) 

Are Bengalis Turning Vegetarian?

Are Bengalis Turning Vegetarian?

By Jawhar Sircar

 (The Wire, 9 June,2018 and also in Ananda Bazar Patirka on 3 June 2018) 

A severe existentialist crisis is presently tormenting the fish-loving and (later) meat-gorging Bengalis — and many are seriously looking at the vegetarian option. A tragedy of epic proportions has visited everyone, rich and poor, Hindu or Muslim, just when the Registrar General of Census declared that Bengalis are the most non-vegetarian people in India. In all, 98.55% of them eat meat and fish, while at the other end, only 25% of Rajasthanis touch non-vegetarian food. There are, of course, three other states that are uncomfortably close to Bengal, i.e, Andhra Pradesh Odisha and Kerala, where non-vegetarians account for 97-98% of the population — but as toppers and psephologists say, even half a per cent means a lot.

Two months ago, Bengalis started rushing to the toilets to puke when they heard of a racket of how meat from carcasses of dogs, cats, cows, buffalos and pigs dumped at municipal garbage yards in and around Kolkata was being mixed with fresh meat and sold. No one is coming forth to tell the utterly devastated Bengali with any clarity how long some (God knows who) have been eating this horrid flesh and which are the spots that used this contaminated meat. Since every genuine Bengali is either a poet or a protester, and the gifted ones are both, this “dark night without end” has spawned some of the most crackly wit imaginable. One such rhyme, for instance, warns drivers to be careful because, if perchance, they run over cats or dogs, well, then they would have to eat their flesh. WhatsApp and other social media are now so stuffed with this genre of black humour that they have almost driven out systematic canards villainising minorities or extolling ultra-patriotism that were/are pumped in so professionally in the last few years.

Let us understand why non-vegetarianism is the only religion that matters in Bengal. The terribly intellectual Bengali Brahmans claim that, almost a thousand years ago, the Brahmavaivartya and the Brihad-dharma Puranas made special dispensations for the Bengalis to eat non-veg. It is an open secret that even at the holiest of Hindu pilgrimages in the Himalayas, strictly vegetarian of course, traders make astronomical profits by slyly selling boiled eggs to muffler-covered, monkey-capped Bengali pilgrims or tourists. They must have some tiny non-vegetarian food — every day.

A Mukherjee or Chatterjee or Banerjee (many with dubious ‘energy’) will explain that it is this ‘feesss” (fish) that has made them so sharp and that is why they led the Indian Renaissance. Frankly, the main reason for this obsession with fish is because it was, historically, the main source of protein in Bengal since its moist climate was not suited to growing dal, that supplies protein to most Indians. Besides, fishes were abundant in its numerous rivers, ponds, tanks and lakes. The same logic of availability deciding diet applies equally to Kashmiri Pandits and Saraswat Brahmans. We shall soon see how the obsession with fish was transferred by Bengalis to meat, in recent times, and therein lies the tragedy.

This scandal has hit the sale of meat and devastated lakhs of people whose life depends on this business. Faith in public food has been shattered and only the brave now dare to order chicken rolls at roadside stalls — by forcefully suppressing any vision of cats or dogs that may flash. Tragically, very few can even look at their beloved cooked mutton without sheer horror — for it could very well be of any other long-dead animal, big or small. The prices of fish have naturally risen and so have eggs, and, what is more worrisome is that vegetarianism is finally shattering Bengal’s holy non-vegetarian tradition.

The same Bengali who had frustrated Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s valiant attempts some five hundred years ago to coax him to abjure fish and meat is now being defeated by mere scamsters. But Chaitanya’s Vaishnava movement did bring Bengal closer to the Indian mainstream and also placed dal quite firmly into the Bengali diet as a substitute for fish protein. Even so, Bengalis decided equally stubbornly that they could love both Krishna and fish with equal ardour — the only Vaishnavas to do so. A crestfallen Chaitanya Dev decided to move to Puri for ever. But the present crisis is so serious that even if all the criminals are now caught, many Bengalis may still never be able to touch meat again, at least not outside their own homes.

Fish is, however, different from meat and let us see when exactly did the fish-obsessed Bengali turn to meat, so passionately. To begin with, enterprising Sanskrit pundits and commentators of medieval Bengal like Jimutvahana, Bhabadeb Bhatta and Sarbananda — whose interpretation of the sacred texts are law — prepared the ground. They were flexible enough to accommodate both fish and meat, lest the native stock of Bengal leave the flock. From their books and from other textual records, like the Puranas written in Bengal, as also from the popular medieval folk ballads called the Mangal Kavyas, we get a fair idea of the type of meat that the masses ate. These included ducks, goats (male, female), deer, pigeons, rabbits, turtles, small birds, iguanas and even porcupines. Yuck! Today, even the die-hard meat eater cannot touch the meat of iguanas and porcupines any more. But, this is what the common man could eat — if ever they could afford or even catch them — which was not too common. We are not clear whether all of these birds and animals were eaten by the upper social groups of Hindus as well.

At this point, it is more important to remember that three types of flesh were decisively taboo for the Hindus of Bengal. The cow was obviously the first of them and ‘beef’ became the deepest cultural trench that separated Hindus and Muslims in Bengal, as in the rest of India. Large numbers of indigenous folk who were on the fringes of Sanskritic civilisation, however, continued to eat beef when available, but they did so quietly, without fanfare. Interestingly, Bengali zamindars scored extra brownie points when they sacrificed buffaloes before their goddesses Durga and Kali — as the huge animal could then be left to their musclemen from the marginal castes, to feast on.

The other two banned meats were pork and chicken, as both were from unclean scavengers who ate dirty waste materials in villages. Muslims shared the horror of the pig but they consumed chicken. Here again, marginalised Hindu castes did partake of pork, if they could get it. Chicken was, however, branded as a prohibited ‘Muslim food’ for most Bengali Hindus — till quite recently. We may recall that Turkish Muslims captured the throne of Bengal full two years before they seized Delhi and thus the Bengali Hindus had the longest spell under Islamic rulers. The upper castes took extra precautions not to get “polluted” by the ruling Muslims and so food items like chicken, onions, garlic and some others were categorised as ‘Muslim food’. They were just not touched by caste Hindus — for centuries.

But then, we must also remember that two of out of every three Bengali speakers in the world, which includes those in Bangladesh and Assam, turned to Islam. Scholars like Sanjeet Chowdhury who have studied the subject insist that it is a fallacy so believe that “Muslims ate beef all the time”. Very few Bengalis – Hindus or Muslims–could afford meat and even if they could, it required a lot of people to consume a big lamb and many more if a cow or a buffalo was to be had. Thus, in pre-modern, pre-urban Bengal (and India?), mutton or beef could be consumed rarely, only on really big religious or social events. Besides, there were no refrigerators and individual families could hardly procure or preserve small amounts of meat. Retail sales came in mainly after urbanisation, as Chowdhury has pointed out.

But then, what were the ‘meat-safes’ doing in Bengali homes — that older generations still remember so fondly? These were small almirahs that had wire meshes or nets on all four sides for ventilation, that the middle class picked up from the Portuguese firingis and the Anglo-Indians. The latter may actually have stored cooked meat in them for a day or two, but most Bengali bhadraloks used this naturally air-cooled ‘meat-safes’ to preserve small amounts of cooked food or sweets or dahi, for short periods. These items were safe from rats and insects as their four legs stood in small pots of water. The important point to note is that the economics of meat coupled with the problem of perishability and the later break-up of the joint family, all led invariably to a preference for smaller animals or birds — if at all they could be caught or bought. This reminds one of ducks, as its meat and eggs were really popular in Bengal — before disappearing almost altogether from their home, along with ‘meat safes’, some time in the 1960s and ‘70s.

We are, of course, not discussing the ‘England-returned Bengali sahebs’ who were consuming chicken at least a hundred years before the traditional middle and other classes did. Rabindranath Tagore lampooned this class and its ‘airs’ with an oft-repeated poem, the verses of which run like this.

How long shall ye remain, O India,

Confine thy meal to dal, rice and water?

There’s so little to eat and drink here, so

Let’s enjoy our Whiskey-Soda n Murgi-Mutton,

Begone, you pigtailed priest, go,

Come, o my bearded friend, good Mian.

But why was this poor Mussalman Mian more in demand? The answer will also point out the period when the upper crust of Bengali Hindus broke their age-old taboo against Muslim meat-based dishes and onions, garlic, masala. The Portuguese had introduced chillis and potato in the 16th century while the British brought in tomato, beet, carrots, cauliflower, etc, in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Let us not forget that in the 1820s and 1830s, Derozio had taught his students from orthodox upper caste Hindu gentry in Hindu (later, Presidency) College to consider beef as a symbol of ‘liberation’. Many students from the topmost castes and class followed him and revelled in shattering religious orthodoxy and superstition — to the undisguised horror of the Bhadralok class, especially the Brahmans.

But the real meat revolution took place in Bengal three decades later when the zamindar class and the wealthier trading groups developed a fancy for the banned ‘Muslim foods’. This was sparked by the arrival of the Awadhi brigade that landed in Kolkata in 1858 — as the retinue of Nawab Wajed Ali Shah, the defeated ruler of Lucknow. The latter could hardly afford to retain his army of bawarchis and khansamas who had travelled with him and his courtiers and courtesans had to look elsewhere for selling tastes and pleasure. The rich and bored Bengali aristocracy was soon their main target. This class had prospered by collaborating with the British ever since the Battle of Plassey of 1757. Many more became more wealthy after Cornwallis’ Permanent Settlement of 1793, when these new zamindars ‘bought up’ the authority to collect land rents on behalf of the British. They made huge profits, by hook or by crook, and had money — but nowhere to spend. More relevant is the fact that they were quite tired of their bland ‘Brahmanical food’ that stopped them from tasting the exciting, colourful, aromatic and delicious dishes of the firangis and Mussalmans. After all, the Nawabs of Awadh had perfected the epicurean tastes brought in by the Mughals and this long journey covered so many recipes in its four centuries — from Samarkand, Bukhara, Kabul, Delhi, Agra, Lahore, Faizabad, and finally Lucknow.

How long could the Hindu upper classes remain immune to the heady scented waters, the ghungroos and dances performed under glittering chandeliers and the accompanying music and songs in the highest traditions of Hindustani classical gharanas? The zamindar class soon adopted the fine muslins and chikan dresses; the ittar perfumes, the sweet, scented paan, the jalsas and, of course, pigeon racing and kite flying contests. Bengali women and other traditional classes were uncomfortable with this transformation and took several decades to accept it, in parts. Slowly, however, hot and oily Mughlai flavours started influencing the simple rice and fish diet and the mutton from fat lambs and sheep replaced the insipid meat of small he-goats of Bengal. These dishes came cooked with lots of spices but had to be consumed outside the home. It took quite some time for even the wealthy to set up ‘Mughlai food kitchens’ in their own homes — that were kept at a safe distance from scornful Brahman cooks who despised the bawarchi and khansama.

Finally, in the 20th century, Bengali women took over these kitchens and adopted their own half-way dishes like koshaa mangsho. Within a couple of decades, even simple middle class families started enjoying spicy mutton on Sundays. It may surprise many to learn that in many weddings or feasts, the fare was kept strictly vegetarian till the middle of the 20th century or only fish was served. This is also the time, when English fish fries fought valiant battles with mutton chops and cutlets, and the heady aroma of ‘Mughlai paranthas’ wafted around the cafes and restaurants that had come up everywhere. Of course, all of these new ‘foreign’ dishes emerged with strong Bengali flavours, that, like their accents, could hardly be disguised.

But the prohibited bird was the last to enter the homes of the growing middle class quite recently — finally, in the 1970s-1980s or even later. It started with the fad for the omelette made from chicken eggs, that came with an irresistible aroma. The more traditional eggs of ducks and turtles were also prized, but they lost out eventually. It is not a coincidence that during this period, there was a sudden proliferation of more hygienic poultries in Bengal that ensured that ‘clean’ broiler meat was available at affordable rates. But getting the chicken home was still a problem as centuries of tradition and prejudice needed to be overcome.

It would, indeed, be a worthwhile exercise for social scientists to compile the numerous ingenious excuses that were cooked up by Bengali Hindus during these decades to bring this bird into his kitchen. There are so many stories how doctors prescribed chicken broth or meat for someone in the family for recovering his or her health. Presto! The younger generations refused to let this opportunity go and poultry chicken started ruling the Bengali table. In any case, the food scarcity of the late 1960s had plagued Bengal and had devastated all food traditions. American wheat imported under the ‘PL-480 scheme’ forced protesting Bengalis to reduce the hills of rice they devoured and consume chapatisinstead. Moreover, since Bengal never produced more than a fraction of the mustard it required to sustain its insistence on only mustard oil for cooking, this wall also breached during the years of food scarcity. Groundnut oil flooded the state and all sacred traditions about cereals and cooking mediums crumbled with ration shops determining the diet — for almost every strata. The new Bengali was now compelled to experiment beyond his non-negotiable rice and fish — though the older generations screamed and stubbornly resisted this sacrilege.

Non-traditional foods came in and by the eighties, the earlier-exotic ‘Chinese’ food found its proletarian counterpart through countless roadside ‘chowmein’ shops that gave office goers and students a quick, hot meal at reasonable rates. This is when ‘chilli chicken’ also played a big role in bringing the bird on to the plates of more traditional and poorer folk. Strange: but the earlier traditional snacks just wilted away — as salaries and bonuses went up. In these same decades, middle class homes and kitchens of nuclear families were invaded by pressure cookers, gas ovens and fridges, that came along with mixers-grinders and packets of powdered spices. The whole character of Bengali cooking and eating was changed, much beyond wildest predictions.

Coming straight to our present times, it was thus only a matter of time that chicken and mutton would jostle with fish to satisfy the carnivores of the state. During the 1970s, ‘roll-stands’ came up in large numbers on crowed pavements and at street crossings — because unemployed young men decided to desert the Naxalite revolution and eke a living from food stalls. The hunger for meat escalated as Bengali versions of ‘Mughlai food’ were sold in every nook and corner and people did not have to go all the way to old Muslim localities for these mutton-chicken dishes. No one, especially the passionate revolutionaries, ever bothered about the class of meat they ate, but the vast bulk of Bengali Hindus still view beef with dread or disgust, just as no God-fearing Muslim ever touches pork. Then, in the last 10-12 years, another practice invaded every locality — that of selling hot biriyani straight from handis placed on footpaths, that came with chunks of mutton or chicken.

The relevant point is that this led to an explosion in demand for chicken and mutton, but though people joked occasionally about whether the meat was from a ‘big animal or a small one’, no one imagined even in their widest dreams that dead animals would actually be mixed in. Bengal has become more adventurous with food and lifestyle tastes, especially as it is no more witnessing a battle between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ — but a no-holds war between the ‘haves’ and ‘must haves’. Values and morals just do not bother this new ‘lumpen bourgeoise’ that has seized power in Bengal — as in much of Bharat. What is worrying people more is why this racket is not being exposed in its full dimensions and the guilty not exposed. A few names have come out but no one knows which shops or hotels accepted this foul meat — so that at least many could breathe a sigh of relief. Obviously, such a racket could never have flourished without the involvement of municipal officials and even elected representatives, in some way. Who are they? One could actually say, a la Arnab (Goswami), Bengal needs to know! Because this is not just a crime — it is a kick at the big bellies of the most carnivorous people of this country — who love eating, arguing and travelling more than anything else, even work. Many are suspecting a deep-rooted conspiracy by the vegetarians — who were always jealous. But surely, Lord Chaitanya must be very, very amused.

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

(Please Click Here to read the article on ABP's Website)

Yet Another Subversion

Yet Another Subversion

     By Jawhar Sircar

 (Published in Lokmat Times, 31 May,2018)

          What amazes every liberal in India and abroad are Narendra Modi’s unending and brazen attempts to centralise all power and decision making in a federal, democratic setup. To achieve this, he has been systematically weakening or subverting every national institution that has flowered and flourished in Independent India. Their autonomous and professional functioning apparently stand in his path towards an unabashed one-man rule. After destabilising the judiciary and breaking the backbone of the executive, his eyes have now moved to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and his present endeavour is to upset their selection so that, he has the final say —through his chosen smokescreens. Despite the fact that Article 320 of the Constitution empowers only the UPSC to screen and select persons for filling up the posts in different services under the government, Modi has flown a hawk among law-abiding birds. He “suggests” to his own ministries that they consider his proposal to decide on going over the recommendations of  the UPSC by deciding who would go to which service and to which state.

       Let us try to understand how the present system works. For the last 70 years, the UPSC has established a time-tested system to conduct examinations in two stages — Preliminary and Final — to select several lakhs of applicants, by evaluating their capacity to face very tough questions. This is quite different from university examinations where the stress is on acquisition of academic depth. What the UPSC looks for is not skill at memorising text books but in facing pressure and responding to them with coolness. There are other psychological tests as well that are injected into the examination pattern and the interview to which the selected candidates are called , so as to give a fair assessment to the board as to who would be more suited for the rigours that lie ahead. India has a track record of honestly selecting its civil servants, but what happens to them after that is a different matter. It is a fact that many tend to become more bureaucratic than service-oriented and both corruption as well as ineptitude are fairly high. But no has accused the UPSC for wrong selection. It is the system into which these young people are thrown and the manner in which they are brutalised by the political class and their own unscrupulous seniors that is largely responsible.

         The UPSC goes through its rigorous process annually and short-lists a number candidates for all the All India Services and the Central cadres on a strict rank-cum-option basis. There are only 3 All India Services — the IAS, the IPS and the Indian Forest Service. Their officers are recruited centrally through the UPSC and are trained by the Central government which injects an all-Indian ethos. What is more important is that it is the UPSC that recommends to the Central government who is to go for which State — again through a very transparent system of balancing the candidate’s rank and choices. These three All India services are meant to serve both the Central and State governments to which they are allotted — for the rest of their lives. Hence, fairness in selection is a must as, every year, persons from the deep southern states are posted to far north or the northeast and vice versa. This ensures that even if, perchance, a state government becomes very parochial and even desires to secede from India (as has happened on half a dozen occasions already), the All India service officers would still work only for the Union of India. And, in addition to this, the UPSC ensures that the quotas reserved for candidates from the OBC, SC and ST categories are strictly followed in all service appointments.

               Other than these three All India Services, the UPSC’s common civil services examination also recommends candidates for 17 Central Services, like the Indian Foreign Service, the various Accounts Services, the Revenue Service, the Indian Railways and so on. What distinguishes these services is that while the All India service officers would serve both their State-cadres and the Central government, at different phases — subject to selection on merit — the Central Services work only under the Central government. As in the case of the IAS and IPS, the UPSC decides on who will go to which Service on the basis of the ‘options’ given by the candidates, along with their ranking and the vacancies available under the different categories in each Service. This is a very complex process and the UPSC has excelled in it, through trial and error. No one is saying that the system is totally flawless but it is certainly as good as anyone can expect. What matters most is that political jockeying hardly matters, as the UPSC is protected by the Constitution and no angry political boss can bully the Commission or its Members. No one is also saying that those who are selected for the coveted services, the  IAS or the Indian Foreign Service are proven ‘superior’ to others. The UPSC’s ranking only means that these candidates scored better results in the written examinations and in the interview.

            Over the last 70 years, the UPSC system has been accepted as fair and transparent, even if a handful of court cases are filed. Most are dismissed by the courts which have upheld the transparency of the UPSC. Prime Minister Modi’s new proposal is that all decision-making should not be left to the UPSC. He says that who will go to which  Service and to which State in the three All India Services would, in effect, be decided by him. How? His proposal is that, in addition to the rankings in the UPSC, it is the probationer’s performance at the Training Academy in the Foundation Course (F.C.) that would also count in deciding his Service allotment. All services have to attend this 3 month F.C. and this highly subjective system of ‘performance rating’ at the Foundation Course is meant to upset what the UPSC had screened and decided. In effect, the UPSC’s merit list would be torpedoed  by a report decided by PM’s own Department of Personnel & Training — through its own Training Academy. How this 3-month ‘Foundation Course’ can decide who is more fit for serving in Maharashtra or in Mizoram is just not clear. Besides, though it is  a common course for the 3 All India and 17 Central Services, the fact is that the numbers are too large to be trained in one campus as before, namely, the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration at Mussoorie. A big section under this so-called common training in Hyderabad and another section does it in Gurgaon. So, how does this disjointed course decide the fate of thousands of trainees for their whole life?The Foundation Course is the only time when officers meet their colleagues form other services or state-cadres and establish life long relationships. This will be destroyed, as many will spend the entire period to ingratiate themselves with the trainers so that they do not lose out and in horse trading in the corridors of power to get the Service or State cadre of their choice.

(Please Click here to read article on Lokmat Time's website)