Prasar Bharati Vs The Ministry of I&B

Prasar Bharati Vs The Ministry of I&B   

Jawhar Sircar

(Published in The Lokmat Times, 27.02.2018)

        

                 The recent public fight between A Surya Prakash, Chairman of Prasar Bharati and Smriti Irani, the minister for Information and Broadcasting reveals that even when both swear allegiance to the same BJP and its parent, the RSS, their interests and differences can be deadly. It rudely belies the fond hope of the ruling establishment that peace and harmony would reign once a ‘dissident’ CEO was smoked out before the end of his protected tenure. From the self goals made by both sides emerges an interesting case study of how the Indian state functions after the biggest historical electoral mandate brought Modi to the Centre. 

             The information ministry’s increasing stranglehold over a statutory body like Prasar Bharati shows its obsessive urge to control, not improve. It is also prime example of how bureaucrats in post-Liberalisation regimes compensate the loss of powers they enjoyed under the previous Permit Control raj. As long as there are ministries, that are manned and controlled by powerful mandarins, they are genetically propelled to exercise hegemonic strength, even if the PM goes on giving assurances of ‘minimal government’. Since the license-patronage has gone, it are the public sector undertakings, banks and ‘autonomous bodies’ that have to bear the brunt of the megalomania of ministers and babus. This comes in the form of erratic government directions, unabashed interference and incessant grilling of the officials of public bodies.  To be fair to ministries, their domination has been whetted by their appointees on all boards, and the Prasar Bharati board is packed with people whose loyalty to PMO is without question. After all, every little or big appointment is controlled by PMO that takes years to decide and no more can one expect a fearless crusading journalist like BG Verghese or a film maker like Muzaffar Ali to grace the Prasar Bharati board. It is well known that no minister has any say, except to function with such appointees he never wanted and this is where the roots of the present conflict lies. This same Board that is so ‘injured’ by the ministry today had, in fact, ganged up with the ministry in the past to kill positive proposals put forth by the executive, just because “the minister so desired”. A huge pile of written evidence exists that can substantiate how this.  

            But, since Prasar Bharati was set up by a Act of Parliament, how can Smiriti Irani continue her depredations on it? To begin with, the Prasar Bharati Act itself provides for political appointees on the board, but what is important is that Act also requires a 22-member Parliamentary Committe to be set up. It should be constituted under Sec 13, to supervise Prasar Bharati on behalf of Parliament and its members are to be from both houses of parliament, through proportional representation. No government has set up this committee as it does not want to give up powers to Parliament and allow Prasar Bharati an opportunity to explain, a bit like the BBC, its problems and projects directly to Parliament, bypassing the ministry. This militates against the prevailing narrative as every minister is coached by babus to insist that he alone is responsible to parliament. Thus, he can summon officials of Prasar Bharati, Doordarshan and Akashvani and question every act of theirs, until they succumb. It is almost certain that members of parliament are not even aware of this provision of a Parliamentary Committee which could cut bureaucratic interference substantially and avoid recurring wars with the information Ministry. Nor is anyone aware that sections 14 and 15 of the Act requires the ministry to set up a Broadcasting Council also, to ensure political impartiality. So fed up was an earlier Information minister, Manish Tiwari, that he made several public statements that his ministry should be wound up. 

              Budget and finance are two areas where all public-funded bodies that receive their grants from parliament through ‘their respective ministries’ are made to grovel before the ministries who act like thanedars. I have had a long stint as Secretary of the ministry of Culture and more than half my time was gone in fighting my own babus who were harassing the autonomous bodies quite periodically. It is not that Prasar Bharati or other autonomous bodies are composed of saints but the irresponsible power exercised by Assistants, Section Officers and Under Secretaries of the ministries is the most negative force that stymies any positive progress in India. They have no idea what the real India outside Delhi is, but they flourish because IAS and Central Service Officers are too busy in attending to the many desires and diktats of PMO, Niti Aayog and their own ministers to find time to control them. This applies to every Ministry and every autonomous or public body in India (except Atomic Energy and. Space) and the mechanics of hegemony have actually become more intolerable under rather present regime.

             Prasar Bharati was afflicted with deliberate ‘polio’ at birth as 48,000 government servants who were recruited by the ministry over decades for Akashvani and Doordarshan were ‘transferred’ to it, without consulting either the employees or the broadcasters. As Mrinal Pande, former chairperson and journalist mentioned, the cream of broadcasters left for greener pastures in private television and radio and there is no doubt that Prasar Bharati could have done better if it did not have to inherit so many rights-conscious and rule-obsessed babus. For 25 years, no promotions were permitted to them by the ministry, sadistically quoting rules, until Prasar Bharati revolted a few years ago and gave ‘ad hoc’ promotions to lots of employees: mainly to pep up their morale. Under the law, the salaries of this huge army has to be paid by the appointing authority, the Ministry of I & B, but Secretaries and Ministers complain loudly that Prasar Bharati salaries eat up 80 percent of its budget, omitting to mention that their predecessors created this problem. 

             In the present imbroglio, it is clear that Prasar Bharati’s back is to the wall. An imperious minister, who can teach babus several tricks in repressive techniques, has embarked on a rather whimsical scorched-earth policy until the chairman and the board are on their knees. This is taking some time, though even the senior-most officials have accepted the nuisance of being at the beck and call of the ministry. It is a reported that the main source of DD’s revenue, namely its revenue from its Freedish satellite slot-auctions has been stopped by the minister for reasons not clear. Other revenue measures like the open transparent auction of its prime and near-prime slots have also been choked. The cumulative result will be to pauperise the gasping organisation. In 21 years, the ministry has not found time to frame rules to operationalise the transfer of assets to Prasar Bharati under section 16 of the Act and god only knows how many hundreds of crores have been lost when vacant or unused lands were encroached in this man-made confusion. 

            While Prasar Bharati itself is an glaring example of how a body should not be run, rife with mediocrity, intrigues and petty corruption, in the present case, it is correct to resist the minister’s attempt to force it to hire high cost journalists, even if they are saffron. The ministry’s order to terminate all hired hands, many of who ensure that the organisation is still alive despite all attempts to kill it, is just mindless retaliation. But then, the Ministry has to dominate as without Prasar Bharati, I&B would only be engaged in lack-lustre film festivals and boring tasks like registering newspapers or tom-tomming the limited achievements of a government that sold so many rosy dreams. As for Smriti Irani, let us watch the next episode of this tragic-comic serial. 

 (Please Click Here to read the article on The Lokmat Times' Website)

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Valentine’s Day, Maha Shivratri and the Perennial Problem of Love in Patriarchal Orthodoxies

Valentine’s Day, Maha Shivratri and the Perennial Problem of Love in Patriarchal Orthodoxies

By Jawhar Sircar

(Published in The Wire on 14.2.2018)

The middle of February is when spring travels to Europe to tell the snows that it is time to start leaving and then rushes to India to a grand welcome. It is also the time when two festivals, the Christian Valentine’s Day and the Hindu Maha Shivaratri also arrive, but they take care not to meet each other, face to face.

But this year, they have decided to break this rule and will arrive together on the February 14. The morning is for Valentine and the night of February 13 and 14 is for Shiva. So, let us see what we can expect.

Hindus celebrate Shiva’s wedding anniversary for it is on this day that he is said to have married Parvati. On the other hand, the Christian Church has been rather embarrassed with this mid-February festival of love. For several centuries, the Church tried to suppress this basically pagan celebration called Lupercalia by ancient Romans, which permitted a lot of sexual liberties. The Church naturally condemned as downright immoral this open free mixing of the sexes and it denounced the goddess Juno Februata in whose name this ‘fever of love’ went on.

It did not succeed fully and so, according to scholars like Barbara Walker, “The Church replaced the goddess with a mythical male martyr, Saint Valentine.” He had conflicting origins and one of them said that he was a pure, handsome Roman youth who gave his life for his chaste sweetheart. One may notice how the central character changed from female to male, as all religions have an overriding patriarchal streak, and how relationships between lovers were sanitised to become more respectable.

That reminds us how the Nimbarka sect of Vaishnavas and several poets of northern India declared that Radha and Krishna were actually a married couple and how many noted religious leaders endorsed this stand. Love has been a perennial problem with patriarchal religious orthodoxies, especially if it dares to come before or outside legitimate marriage or beyond caste or class. Can we forget the tragedy that visited Shiva and Sati in Daksha’s yagna and the cost that they had to pay for ‘love marriage’?

The custom of Shivaratri became more pronounced mainly in the last two or three centuries after Brahmanism was restored in Bengal following the defeat of Muslim rulers by the British. The philosophy was that marriage is so serious and complex that it was best left to parents to consult gods, caste rules and horoscopes to locate husbands like Shiva for good girls who prayed and kept fasts.

At the same time, we see glimpses of how, throughout history and legend, societal respectability had to gulp and accept cheeky (bearaa) characters like Kama and Rati in India and Eros, Cupid or even Priapus in Europe. Kāmadeva, for instance, is linked not only to Shiva, but also to Brahma who created him, according to the Shiva Purana. He can be traced to the Rig Veda and the Atharva Vedaand while the Vishnu Purana says that he is a side of Narayana, the Bhagavata Purana claims that he is an aspect of Krishna. This just reveals that his existence and symbolism could not be denied by the high and legitimate schools of Hinduism. If we go just by the dates of these texts, that span a period of two and a half thousand years, we see that Kama or Madana was in considerable demand and did not disappear from the stage like Indra or Varuna.

It is interesting to note that, like the handsome Roman youth who was visualised as Valentine by the Christians, Kāmadeva is represented as a good looking young man with green skin who wields a bow made of sugarcane and has a string of honeybees following him. His arrows are decorated with five kinds of fragrant flowers like Mallika and Ashoka and he arrives with the symbols of spring like cuckoos, humming bees and the gentle breeze.

More fascinating is the fact that civilisations so distinct and distant from each other like the Hindu and the Graeco Roman had the same bow and arrow motif for the god of love, who was called Eros by the Greeks and Cupid by the Romans. In fact, Cupid appeared in ancient Europe as a phallus with wings, and it was much later that Renaissance art converted it with a new visual form: as a cherubic baby angel flying around with a sweet little bow and arrow. The heart pierced with the arrow of love remains the most widely understood symbol all over the world and card manufactures make millions of dollars from it on Valentine’s Day, which is basically a highly commercialised festival.

Coming back to India, we now encounter aggressive fanatics policing public places to control couples on Valentine’s Day, without realising the roots of their own religion. Renaming it as Kama-Rati Divas may make sense to this mentally weak tribe. It is my submission that while the powerful Vaishnava sect absorbed various aspects of troublesome love through Radha-Krishna and Holi in the heady spirit of spring, the rival Shaivas also tackled the issue of desire through a very virile Shiva, who also has his tales of frolics.

But without restraint and order, society cannot function and it is usually thought that Shiva’s punishing of Kāmadeva was like showing the ‘red card’ to uncontrolled players. We have heard the story of Madana-bhasma or Kama Dahana, that appears in the Matsya Purana, where Kāmadeva is burnt to ashes by Shiva for tempting him with lust while he was deep in meditation.

Hinduism is basically the management of contradictions and this is evident in this story as well, which also says that all Kamadeva was doing was performing a sacred duty by arousing lust in Shiva. After all, the gods had sent him on this sacred mission so that Shiva and Parvati could mate and produce a super hero, Kartikeya, who alone was destined to defeat the unvanquished Tarakashura, the terror of both the worlds. In a way, therefore, it was not Kama-Dahana, but Shivaratri with all its vratas that was supposed to bring in an order into the matter of desire, through a religiously regulated festival.

Further contradictions are evident in the next part of the story, where Shiva listened to the wailing pleas of Rati, Kama’s devastated wife, and resuscitated Madana, but in a disembodied form. Hence Kāmadeva is called Ananga or Atanu, i.e, one who has no body. The spirit of love embodied by Kama, however, fills the cosmos and humans remain afflicted with lust, on and off. Incidentally, the legend of Kama was exported with all other fascinating stories when Shaiva dharma went abroad, and the Hindus of Java-dwipa celebrate in their 12th-century poem Smara-dahana. Kama and his consort Rati are called Kamajaya and Kamarati in Kakawin poetry and later Wayang narratives, that Indonesians perform with their famous shadow puppet shows, with leather characters.

Before we end, let us observe how an original god of fertility in Greece was represented by a phallus, like Shiva. He was the brother of Eros and his name was Priapus, which is also a medical term for the male organ. He was supposed to have gone from the present day Turkey and was worshipped in the Roman Empire as well, where he became the patron of merchants. The worship of this phallic god continued among rural folk, even after Christianity removed all pagan gods or absorbed them as saints.

There were other phallic gods like Hermes in Greece and Mutunus Tutunus among Romans whose role was to ensure satisfaction within marriage. Even earlier, the Egyptians worshipped Isis and Min, while the Norwegians had their extra-manly deity, Freyr. The Balkan kingdoms celebrated their phallic Kukeri and distant Japan still has fertility shrines with this symbol.

Wallis Budge states very clearly that in Europe, “giant phalli were adored up to the 17th century as saints” and he produces a long list as well. Sir William Hamilton describes the rites of worship of phallic saint, Cosmo in the 18th century. When bomb ravaged English churches were being rebuilt after the Second World War, the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments discovered several phallic stones buried under the floor. Therefore, the shock that Europeans visitors to India expressed at even the civilised version of Shiva worship, especially on Shivaratri and in the month of Sravana, appears quite uncalled for.

As an ancient civilisation, Hinduism has shown remarkable tolerance towards all needs of humans, and it is tragic that this accommodative spirit is being perverted by some. Ancient India mastered the art of accepting all facts of life and embedded their spirit into festivals that celebrate them with maturity: quite openly, cleanly and without any self righteous shame.

 (Please Click Here to read articleon The Wire’s Website)

https://thewire.in/223762/valentines-day-maha-shivratri-perennial-love-patriarchy/

From Opposition to Ultra Nationalism: The Politics of The Anthem and Tricolour

From Opposition to Ultra Nationalism:

The Politics of The Anthem and Tricolour

Jawhar Sircar

Ananda Bazar Patrika, 26th January 2018

English Translation

          The recent press conference of four senior judges of the Supreme Court brought into the open, rather uncomfortably, certain defined positions within the highest court of the land: that were hitherto discussed only in whispers. The pronouncement made by Justice Dipak Misra’s bench on the 30^th of November 2016directing “all cinema halls in India (to) play the National Anthem before the feature film starts” appears, therefore, to represent one point of view. The honourable judge, who later became the became Chief Justice of India, declared then that “all present in the hall are obliged to stand up to show respect to the National Anthem” as it was an opportunity for citizens to express their “love for the motherland.” The other point of view was voiced by Justice Chandrachud of the Supreme Court eleven moths later when he declared it was unnecessary for a citizen to “wear his patriotism on his sleeves”. This order of 27^thOctober 2016 remarked that “the next thing will be that people should not wear t-shirts and shorts to movies because it will amount to disrespect to the National Anthem... where do we stop this moral policing?”He had, incidentally, shared Justice Mishra's Bench in November 2016 and this subsequent categorical judgement is, therefore, an interesting example of the dynamics of India’s judicial system and the evolving concept of ‘justice’.

           Anti socials masquerading as ultra nationalists soon utilised the mandatory order to play the national anthem to rough up those they suspected as not being sufficiently ‘patriotic’. To be frank, staring at a rather unaesthetic digital display of a fluttering synthetic flag not did generate sufficient voltage either. The behaviour pattern of the current dispensation also contrasts rather sharply with the sensitivity that government had displayed earlier in 1963, when cinema halls were first advised to play the national anthem. This was just after the shocking attack by China when a strong national sentiment had gripped India spontaneously, without the need for patriotic injections. From the archived files of the period, m it appears that the Public Relations Committee set up by the National Defence Council to improve the mood of a demoralised nation recommended that a standard recorded version of the national anthem be played in film auditoria, with the national flag if possible. But the 1963 order of the Home Ministry issued on 29^th June was only an advisory ratherthan a diktat. Its wordings were “State governments are requested to persuade the cinema houses” with the expectation that it would work. Besides, the anthem was only to be played at  the end of two shows, the matinee and evening, when audiences got up anyway, to leave: with no element of compulsion or vigilantism.

      As no standard short film of the moving national flag was readily available, the Films Division was directed to produce two versions, a colour film for the “main halls in the big cities” and a black and white one for all other halls in these cities. Cinema halls in the rest of India could play only an authorised gramaphone record. The profuse notes kept on files and the numerous letters exchanged between officials of the Home ministry, the Information & Broadcasting ministry, the All India Radio and the Gramaphone Company of Kolkata during these eight months of 1963 presents us with insights into the bureaucratic obsession for being correct, detailed and, of course, free from controversy. The files also preserve for posterity nuggets of history like how babus sitting in distant Delhi knew which 26 film theatres of Kolkata qualified as “main halls”. These included Metro, Elite, Globe, New Empire, Lighthouse, Minerva, Hind, Paradise, Priya, Basusree, Bijoli, Bharati, Indira, Purna, Sri and a few others. The second category of 71 ‘other halls’ of Kolkata included Aleya, Ajanta, Bharati, Chitra, Regent, Prachi, Uttara, Tiger, etc, but most names of both categories are just memories, except rare exceptions like Priya. People may soon forget the origins of Ujjalar Chanachur and Bijoli Grill. In 1963, the  Films Division promptly produced the desired films that were sold to the halls, at 50 rupees for the colour and 32 for the black and white. The gramaphone record that was marketed for cinema halls outside the metropolitan towns carried three sound tracks of 52 seconds each of the choral version of the national anthem where 60 artistes participated. As the reverse side of this record carried the same national anthem played by the military band, records tell us how bureaucrats spent sleepless nights wondering what calamity would befall if the cinema halls played that side by mistake.

              As we all know, during wars patriotism rises to a peak but the fact that the wave recedes when national crises are over does not mean that citizens become unpatriotic. Playing the national anthem in cinema halls followed such patterns and since India has fortunately been free of wars since 1971, the practice was discontinued. But as a sudden akal bodhan of patriotism is now sought, it may be appropriate to look up a bit of our history. It is matter of record that the  Rashtriya Swayamsevak Dal or the RSS that gave birth to the Jana Sangh and its successor, the Bharatiya Janata Party, did not participate in the nation’s freedom struggle quite deliberately. We cannot, therefore, be certain whether the current overdrive of pumped up patriotism is an act of atonement or an attempt to superimpose on historical memory with retrospective effect. In fact, in August 1947, the RSS's mouthpiece, Organiserdeclaredthat the Indian national tricolour will "never be respected and owned by the Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country."

           The logic is flawed as several holy Hindu symbols have three and even the post Vedic trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar are integral to Hindu belief and worship. Even the earlier issues of Organiserdated17^th and 22^ndJuly had also stated the RSS's opposition to many such national issues. In fact, the second Sarsangh-chalak or head of the RSS, MS Golwalkar bemoaned in his book, Bunch of Thoughts, that "our leaders have set up a new flag for the country. Why did they do so?... Ours is an ancient and great nation with a glorious past. Then, had we no flag of our own? Had we no national emblem at all these thousands of years? Undoubtedly we had. Then why this utter void, this utter vacuum in our minds?"Golwalkar did not, however, tell us what ancient flag or national emblem of India we had lost. The RSS has all along favoured the Bhagwa Dhwaj, thesaffron 'split flag'over the national tricolour, as it represents only Hinduism without any doubt.

              When exactly did the RSS remove its opposition to the national flag and why? History tells us that Sardar Patel, whose statue the ruling party now plans to set up as the tallest in the world, had slammed down on the RSS and banned it immediately after Mahatma Gandhi’s assignation on 30^th January 1948. He did not budge in the next one and a half years despite pleas from Golwakar. It was only on July 11, 1949 that he lifted the ban  after the RSS pledged to stay away from politics; not be secretive and abjured violence. More important, it had to profess "loyalty to the Constitution of India and the National Flag". It is strange, therefore, for the RSS and its political creation called the BJP to be dictating after 70 years to all Indians how and when they need to display their patriotism.

Festivity, Populism and Power

Festivity, Populism and Power

Jawhar Sircar

The Telegraph, 17th January 2018

(Unabridged version)

               Those who fret that community pujas in Calcutta are “getting highly politicised” must remember that they had been started in 1910 to support  a political ideology.The first community Durga puja at Balaram Basu Ghat Road in the Baghbazar area coincided with the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress. Bal Gangadhar Tilak had led the way much earlier by organising large scale Ganapati pujas in Maharashtra: to attract the masses to the new creed of nationalism. Calcutta adopted this model of utilising community festivities for political purposes. 

   The whole exercise has undergone a paradigm shift. The phenomenon of organising public celebrations has been extended to many more deities. Ganesh and even Hanuman have come in from outside to jostle with  subaltern deities like Sitala, Shasthi, Manasa and even Dharmaraj and Boro Thakur for attention. These pujas are more than just occasions for re-affirming piety or for indulging in carnivals. An academic examination reveals that such a puja phenomenon actually represent pulsating expressions of political power, which is strengthened by interlinked cultural participation. Religion offers legitimacy to the ruling parties in Kolkata as in Delhi but Bengal’s social festivals known as Pujas facilitate the penetration and domination of all the ‘spaces’ —  physical, visual, aural and celebratory — that communities cherish. 

        Community pujas are thus essential for the sustenance of the new political party that seized power from an apparently invincible apparatus which ruled Bengal for 34 years. This became possible because the ruling party has come up with an answer to the ‘cadre’ base that was patronised by the Left. The communist parties had left a big gap by staying away from Bengal's emotional Durga pujas, the current ruling party filled that void. This has helped it create an army of supporters, with local clubs serving as the hubs of such support. My study of a slum in south Kolkata shows that many more gods and goddesses have been inducted into the annual schedule of para pujas. The newer additions were essential to maintain the fluid balance of power within the structure: the much sought-after tasks of collecting revenue and deciding on how to spend it has been apportioned among rival groups within the ‘republic of the locality’. They, in turn, bonded with voters by providing them much desired entertainment. The class war that Marxists had thrived on had actually been inverted by the Trinamool Congress, by providing the vast lower middle strata with better or similar fare that the upper classes pay to enjoy, totally free of cost. 

     Several evenings of many pujas are thus dedicated to public performances by notable singers or actors. In fact, entertainment is spread over days in such a manner that people from other localities can attend them and partake of the glitz. The riding decibel levels during evenings or even during the rest of the day need to be accepted as the vigorous assertion of subaltern power over the less-numerous gentry residing in the same area or in adjacent localities. The fact that every municipal ward has its own slums ensures the success of this political model, though it would be an oversimplification to equate political bases totally with income-based ‘urban spaces’. The greater frequency of festivals is also essential to ensure the regular nourishment of the cadre as well as the operations that are carried out by the local councillors or other elected representatives and their cohorts. The presence of senior political leaders seals the bond and some VIPs are known to ‘inaugurate’ innumerable puja venues over several days: to reinforce the power nodes within the structure. Tapati Guha Thakurta’s In the Name of the Goddess: Durga Pujas of Contemporary Kolkata has done a commendable study of the chief festival. She also discusses its political takeover, but as explained, pujas have to be viewed as integral to the power apparatus that ousted the Left Front through this mass-based more subaltern model of politics. 

          But care is also taken by the powers in Bengal  to ensure that this is not viewed as the celebration of one religion only. The festivals of other communities are given considerable encouragement: to balance secular credentials. This is indeed refreshing to the minorities, because even though the previous regime had sworn by the same secularism it had stayed away from religious festivals, Hindu or Muslim. Incidentally, this regular participation in all Muslim celebrations has led tothe present regime being criticised by an opposing party for ‘pandering to particular vote banks’. 

         A vital component of the larger exercise of the present regime is the ‘joy factor’: emphasising continuously on celebration, colour, games, carnival and merriment. For instance, the bright strings of tiny coloured lights that brought cheer during the Pujas only, have been given permanent residence, so that the city bears the stamp of never ending festivities. This is then substantiated by public-oriented events, from the Indian Premier League and U-17World Cup football to musical jamborees and film festivals. All stops are pulled out to ensure that there is some extravaganza on, round the year. The frequent pujas we discussed are critical constituents of this overarching master-plan of happiness, especially for the more populous bottom half of the pyramid. This also provides perfectly valid reasons for the vast machinery of governmental publicity to splurge on the leader to such a point that none else is visible, even remotely. 

             But then, who pays for the festivities that are not part of the government’s events? Models differ, from self-financing through a daily toll collected from street markets, shopkeepers and hawkers to undisguised extortions. The rehearsals for the latter began long ago during the previous regime when trucks and cars were stopped on highways for ‘contributions’ to local pujas. The police looked the other way and this trait is now stronger as pujas and power are so intertwined. ‘Syndicates’ determine how much money is to be paid by each builder or enterprise.

             The mass appeal of large congregations during Durga pujas, of course, attract companies and advertisers as well, but our focus is on politics not economics. An interesting form of redistributive justice is worthy of note as the regular community feasts organised by the clubs,  which incidentally are among the greatest attractions of many of these pujas, is that several leaders or syndicates have to share a part of what they acquired with their core groups or communities. The phenomenon brooks further detailed study as the links have been institutionalised by the government through a scheme under whichlocal clubsare cash benefits of several lakhsof rupees each: to encourage sports and games. The last estimate is that more than 600 crore rupees have already been doledout to 12,000 clubs, and more keeps flowing while officials tear their hair. After all, audit objections are mounting each yearas most of these clubs hardly submit proper ‘utilisation certificates’. But then, it is high time that we realised the character of populism and post democracies in India: especially the construction and the dynamics of their power structures. Mass leaders, from unapproachable goddesses like Ammas and the lady with the big handbag to 56 inch demagogues and the lady in hawaii slippers, it is a virtual free for all of ingenious innovation of techniques to hold their flocks together. Nothing stands in the way: whether it be intimidation in the name of a historically tolerant religion or it is cash grants to loyalists who convert socio-religious pujas to strengthen their grassroots support. 

After all, politics is as much the art of seizing power as the craft of retaining it.

(Please Click Here to read the article on News Paper's website)

The importance of the Gujarat polls

The importance of the Gujarat polls

By Jawhar Sircar

(Published in ‘The Telegraph’ on 13.12.2017)

December 18 will surely be an interesting day. Millions in India and abroad would love to know how Gujarat actually voted after displaying the first signs of dissonance in over one-and-a-half decades. The Bharatiya Janata Party and its well-rewarded journalists have started taunting liberals and secular forces - they have been branded 'sickular', a phrase that itself is rather sick - to 'wait for the results'. The liberals, on the other hand, are busy praying, or circulating videos of empty chairs at Narendra Modi's election rallies as evidence that his days are numbered. But except dreamers, few really expect the well-oiled and allegedly State-supported machinery of winning elections to capitulate easily. The Opposition does not even have a name for the possible chief minister. But then, Gujarat means a lot more than just a jackpot on the first hit.

When the ruling party took the unprecedented step of postponing the winter session of Parliament for the first time in our memory so that the prime minister and his cabinet colleagues could fight just one state election with all their might, it hinted at panic. The leader, who has gloated after each victory and has never displayed the magnanimity that keeps the Westminster system ticking, is worried. This in itself is a major victory. When cracks appear on the invincibility that is flaunted by absolutist regimes that thrive within the democratic process, they signify that democracy is finally retaliating. The very fact that Gujarat 2017 has managed to galvanize so many demoralized liberals after three-and-a-half long years is an achievement by itself. They had lost interest in the elections post-2014. Even the last one in Uttar Pradesh had been left to the press and poll pundits to titillate us with fanciful analyses. But since Modi swept the polls in UP by convincing the poor that he had crushed the corrupt rich with his swashbuckling demonetization, some very significant developments have shaken India. The first is the bombshell by the Reserve Bank of India that demonetization had, in effect, failed after much theatricality and avoidable pain. Then the growth figures nosedived for the first time in years. This was followed by the terrible mess that the goods and services tax created in which everyone was affected. Besides, there was no sign of employment on a mass scale that the messiah had promised.

In September, the spell of mesmerizing demagoguery was broken and India found its lost voice back after three years. Suddenly, large territories in the social media that had been captured by trolls and delirious hero-worshippers were liberated. Even the loyal mainstream media started making interesting noises. Gujarat is critical as it is the first poll after these multiple disappointments have become public.

Surprisingly, Gujarat also succeeded in shaking off the Congress's inertia. It fought tooth and nail to ensure Ahmed Patel's Rajya Sabha seat. Then Rahul Gandhi jumped into the elections with unusual gusto. He appears to be getting his act together - finally - and has taken Gujarat seriously to legitimize his political elevation. The party's seriousness is evident in its new social engineering with Patidars and the backward classes, however obnoxious such electoral strategies may be.

None disputes the BJP's or anyone else's claim to power and democrats actually celebrate changes in regimes that take place through bona fide processes. Incidentally, Atal Bihari Vajpayee remains one of India's favourite prime ministers. He upheld some of the highest traditions of plurality and tolerance even at the cost of annoying his own partymen. And so did Jawaharlal Nehru during India's formative years. The once outlawed Left never tampered with the basic framework of the Constitution when it came to power.

But the electoral victory in 2014 brought in unprecedented threats to the constitutionally sanctioned principles of secularism and plurality for the first time in the history of independent India. Hatred is now sanctified by the mainstream and has become so respectable that one fears that even serious chemotherapy in the future may not be able to control its devastating spread. Since it is inconceivable that those who constitute the chief minority community in the country can ever be bludgeoned into submission, provoking them is bound to lead to counter-attacks. This is a strategy for inviting an endless subterranean civil war of the middle-eastern variety. Ceaseless strife suits killers and fanatics on both sides.

Lastly, Gujarat is important also because it is the crucible of the 'Hindus-only' model. Someday or the other, the battle would have to be fought there. After Babri Masjid and its aftermath had almost settled down and India began reconciling itself to the Dawood Ibrahims that had been created, Godhra broke a new dam of hatred. The scalding heat that long years of stoking generated - from L.K. Advani's provocative rath yatra to the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the 1992-93 riots - found its volcano in Godhra and its murderous trail. But to harness the whole into votes required the genius of one Machiavelli. To enter his den, rip apart his much-touted 'Gujarat model', which produces favourable numbers by facilitating the enrichment of big capital, and to get him to worry so much is a great victory in itself. This had been unimaginable in the last few years. Liberals and democrats can celebrate whatever gains the EVMs bestow for the struggle to restore India is just beginning.

(PleaseClick Here to read article on ‘The Telegraph’ website)

Bengal Tops In Trafficking & Domestic Violence

Bengal Tops In Trafficking & Domestic Violence

By Jawhar Sircar

                   (English version of article  published in Ananda Bazar Patrika, 9.12.2017 )

         The recent report of the National Crime Records Bureau that Kolkata is the safest among all major cites of India is indeed very welcome news. Technically, Coimbatore is the safest, but it is hardly a major city. But what is more noteworthy is that the rate of crime here is less than one eighth of Delhi’s, in spite of the fact that more money, manpower and resources are heaped on the nation’s capital. Kolkata's crime rate is one fourth of that of Bengaluru which is a much desired destination and when compared to Mumbai, this city is far better off. The next part of the report, however, takes away the satisfaction and congratulatory mood because it says the State of West Bengal is first in both cruelty by husbands and in trafficking of women. It also tops in acid attacks. This is really a sharp drop because in the fifties, sixties and seventies this same state was known for the highest respect it gave to women. We remember how women never though twice about  returning home walking from cinema halls after midnight without any escort. These current statistics and others from national level bodies reveal that the land of Durga and Kali has indeed changed a lot.

              We need to think seriously why this has happened. The first culprit was the dreaded Naxalite period and the political violence between the Congress and the Left parties that followed. These 7-8 years are a gash upon West Bengal whose internal scars can hardly ever heal. It put an end to many things, from vibrant night life in Park Street-Chowringhee to the late night fun in paras. The old relaxed, culture of Bengal that was symbolised by the slow but gentle tram was replaced by reckless mini buses and rude and rash private buses that personified the new age of pipe guns of the lumpen bourgeoise. Over the next three decades, the unbridled competitive radicalism of left trade unions (that were joined by others as well) led to endless gheraos as power was unleashed by the angry lower middle class. While these state-sponsored anti-capitalist agitations were glorified on ideological grounds and romanticised through IPTA plays, Gana-sangeet and progressive films by Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen, the state’s industrial base was destroyed beyond repair. In contrast, the sincerity with which Operation Barga and distribution of pattas was done by the same Left Front ensured considerable economic benefits in the rural areas. But this too reached a saturation by the late eighties and instead of coming up with the next lot of reforms through farm-based services and agro industries, with the same passion as for the Barga movement, the regime revelled in self satisfaction with verbose politicaljargons and mindless expansion of its mass base. The “have nots” were soon outnumbered by the “must haves” who shattered all cultural myths and moral values. Globalisation and “bourgeois vices” were blamed but Subhas Chakraborty’s “Hope 86” legitimised the end of “Jalsa Ghar”. Those who began their journey into muscle raj by forcing builders to procure bricks, sand and gravel from them blossomed later into the powerful syndicates that can wreak havoc with political support.

            Panchayat leaders under the Left regime degenerated into a new class of rich desperadoes who roamed the countryside on motorbikes or government jeeps and Ambassadors, terrorising and pulverising opponents, with novel tactics like “boycott”. Thus, the huge amounts of money that the state and central governments pumped into the villages, roads and irrigation bandhs gave birth to a “contracracy”, to use Benoy Choudhury’s phrase. The small benefits that accrued could hardly match the ever-growing population. We have to understand that West Bengal has finally caught up with Bihar as both have the highest density of population in India. This is around 1100 persons per square kilometre as compared to the all-India average of 382. Like Bihar, its agriculture sector and low industrial base just cannot absorb so many people and over the last twenty years, Bengali labourers and womenfolk have been migrating to far off states in north and western India for seasonal farm work or permanent jobs in the cities. In Delhi, where I spent the last eleven years, my hosts would invariably tell me that their maid servants, cooks or servants were from Bengal and introduce me to them. Menial jobs are what most Bengalis get in other towns where they compete against migrants from Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern U.P. and the ubiquitous Bangladeshis. So before we blow our chests and quiver with emotion about Bengal’s superiority, let us remember these cruel truths.

                It is easy for Gujarat or Andhra to give large chunks of land to new industries as their population density is far less than even the Indian average. Our population density is three times theirs and land is an emotional issue as it is much more fertile. Land acquisition is viewed emotionally as it snatches away the existing means of livelihood and gives uneconomic compensation. Besides, there is no assurance of  employment in the low-manpower, semi-automated industries that may come up, if at all. But without land, no big or medium industries are possible and without these, the state’s economy cannot grow big enough to gainfully employ the bottom of the pyramid. This is the “Catch 22” situation that the chief ministers have been trying to break in the last 15 years, but getting industries back is a Herculean task. The image of the aggressive Bengali labour who is over conscious about his rights and not about his duties is quite deeply imbedded in the minds of industrialists all over India. After all, these anti-owner attitudes were drilled into the masses for over three decades. The present CM stands a better chance, as unlike her predecessor, her party and the trade unions are under her control. But while the Left matured in its last phase and presented industrialists with one ‘union leader’ to satisfy, the present regime has too many quarrelling leaders in each area, which leads to open conflicts that makes life difficult for industry.

[OPTIONAL: A one industry-one union approach could help in bringing entrepreneurs back. My eleven years in the Commerce and Industries departments of the State and Central governments taught me that industrialists value delivery at the field level much more that meetings in 5-star hotels, whether in Hyderabad or in Kolkata.]

               With the breakdown of values, it is not a wonder why this state has the poorest record in trafficking of women and in maltreatment of wives.Does illiteracy lead to these evils? No, as West Bengal is placed above the all India average and is among the middle high performers in literacy and where school drop-outs are concerned. The Ministry of Women and Child Welfare itself reports that Bangladeshi and Nepali women are trafficked through West Bengal which adds to the figure, but that is no excuse. From March this year, the state has declared ‘zero tolerance’ and since the numbers involved run into just three thousand for a state where the female population is 4.5 crores, it can surely be tackled. Where child trafficking is concerned, the two major rackets that were busted this year in Jalpaiguri and North 24 Parganas reveal that if local authorities are vigilant, much of this crime can be curbed. Cruelty to wives needs more in depth study, and may be the increased consciousness here leads to more complaints than in those Indian states where tortured wives cannot even complain. But, it is time to wake up and realise that this Bengal is quite a different state, where society needs to cure, not endure.                                               

The British Brahmacharani

The British Brahmacharani

________

Jawhar Sircar’s review of Margot: Sister Nivedita of Vivekananda

By Reba Som

(Published in "Biblio : A Review of Books", Ocober-December, 2017 Issue)

{Reba Som, Margot: Sister Nivedita of Vivekananda, Penguin Random House, India, Gurgaon, India, 2007, 291 pages, Rs.599, ISBN 9780670088799}

               Reba Som has done it again. She came out with a book on Tagore (Rabindranath Tagore: The Singer and his Song, 2009) just before his 150^th birth anniversary and now when Sister Nivedita’s turn has come, she has produced a comprehensive biography on her. It is packed with facts and references, many of which are from the humongous volume of letters that Nivedita wrote, that reveal her innermost feelings. Som makes a valiant attempt to rescue the real Nivedita from the prim official image that Indian national history has constructed and to pull her out of the overwhelming shadow of Vivekananda, whose towering personality dominates the landscape, belittling however inadvertently, those so close to him. But the subtle subtitle Sister Nivedita of Vivekananda conveys only a part of her story for though she had left home and hearth to be with him and serve his people, she remained quite an independent person all her life. Vivekananda was clear, maybe not without his own traumas, that she should be alifelong celibate like him. Thus, within two months of her setting foot on Indian soil  in January 1898, he himself ordained Margaret Noble (endearingly called Margot) as Sister Nivedita, a brahmacharini, aHindu nun. So inspired was she by his talks in London in 1895-96 that she joined his restless mission to galvanise Indians, but it is clear from her several upheavals that her interface and expectations were far more complex. Reba Som does well to take us through the evolution of Nivedita’s relationship with the person she had called her ‘king’, then her ‘master’ and how he finally appeared as her ‘father’.

        This book will fill in a gap in the knowledge of modern Indians who hardly ever recall the path-breaking contribution that this visionary Irish woman made to the cause of India’s self respect and freedom: and lit a solitary lamp quite boldly during the nation’s darkest hour. Like Swamiji, she exhorted upon a thoroughly demoralised lot of Indians to be proud of their motherland and to stand up to the most repressive phase of British imperialism. Her involvement with Indian revolutionaries in their fight against the mighty but unjust British empire was so strong and genuine that Vivekananda’s own Ramkrishna Mission had to distance itself from her, soon after her master’s death. As Som’s penetrative narrative reveals, Nivedita remained the perennial outsider as not many Indians could accept her fiery zeal, while her own people viewed her as an embarrassment and considered her a rebellious trouble maker. The author goes through the tumultuous life of this British lady with the empathy of a woman and notices details that previous biographers may have missed. She reads between the lines from the numerous letters she relies upon “to reveal a flesh-and-blood Nivedita” and does not shy away from the oft repeated question as to whether it was Vivekananda or his cause that attracted her.

                 We get glimpses into the life of Swamiji and his mercurial style of functioning for he was a man in a hurry: he had, after all, prophesied that he would not live long. “From the moment of her landing, Margaret sensed that the personality of her Master was caught in fruitless torture and struggle, like a lion trapped in a net” (p.15). He warned her about her impetuous nature and her tenacity to argue too much, but this mellowed her not too much. His firmness and injunctions could be quite harsh, as Nivedita found to her dismay. “It goes to Nivedita's credit that she withstood Vivekananda’s harsh discipline, although she did have emotional breakdowns from time to time, when she was comforted” by her friends (p.23). 

 It was, however, the same Swamiji who spent endless hours explaining patiently to her what India stood for, her forgotten glories and how to extricate this great country and her people from the quicksands that were pulling them down so mercilessly. The author mentions about the terrible plague that attacked Calcutta in May 1898 and how Nivedita plunged headlong into the rescue of the city miserable masses. But she omits to mention that she had literally shamed many of the monks of the new Ramakrishna Mission, who had assumed that their lives were to be spent mainly in prayer, by getting them to follow her to the streets and slums in the service of humanity. This was, indeed, a turning point in the Mission’s history and it was the first ever recorded large scale cleanliness mission that predates Gandhi’s drive by decades and the current Swachch Bharat initiative by more than a century.

The author recounts in some detail of how Vivekananda went to Almora in the Kumaon Hills with a large band of followers including three white women and mentions how “during their stay…when the tussles went beyond control, making the suffering of Nivedita unbearable, the two older women….. often interceded with the Swami, bringing him to his senses”. (p.25). But the episodes and clashes are missing and we thus miss some of the most sensitive parts of the intricate relationship between the Master and his disciple. Som makes a passing reference later: “Nivedita confessed that even after ‘that awful time at Almora, when I thought he had put me out of his life contemptuously….I have grown more personal in my love”(p. 59) .The Almora phase has been examined by others and Som could have done a better job in interpreting from a woman's point of view the volcano of pent up feelings, not necessarily of love, that were bared during the heady ride up the scenic hills towards the Himalayas. Its eternal serenity only only exacerbated the emotional storms. 

                  An interesting facet of Vivekananda that comes out in the book is his incapacity to tolerate any of Nivedita friendships with other prominent men like Tagore or Okakura, the charismatic Japanese scholar, or even a ship’s captain. The author leaves us to surmise whether this was due to his sense of duty to protect an utterly frank and partly gullible foreign lady who had left all she had at his word or whether they reveal human feelings or failings. She recounts many a snide remark from Swamiji that prove that even Vivekananda could not be a perfectly detached monk. When Okakura left India and Nivedita's doting company in 1902, Swamiji’s wrote to a confidant “Was (India) not sublime enough for Mr Okakura? Or Japanese do not like sublimity at all? How is Margot? Is she still there? Or gone away with Mr Okakura?” (p. 100). This was just a month before his death Vivekananda never hid his feelings of dislike for Rabindranath Tagore’s “effeminate writings” that stood in his path to make Indians more manly and both great personalities avoided each other. Nivedita's independent nature cones out so clearly when despite Swamiji’s views she met Tagore repeatedly and enjoyed his company. The poet heartily reciprocated and wanted more time with her, but could never understand how she was so strongly an orthodox Hindu, why she hated the West so fiercely and what she saw in Vivekananda’s mission and philosophy.

                      Nivedita's Celtic spirit was at its best in the face of challenges and in combating injustice. She set up the first girls school of its type in the heart of conservative Calcutta that was against it. She went from door to door to the utter amazement of orthodox housewives, who had never imagined that a white lady, a white Hindu, could care so much for India and Indians. She galvanised Calcutta against Curzon’s Partition of Bengal and exposed the  haughty India-baiting Viceroy as a petty liar. She stood beside Acharya JC Bose in his darkest hour and chastised her countrymen for their pettiness, racialism and unfairness. She encouraged the Indian style of art and encouraged artists like Nandalal Bose, who would all become iconic figures, to rediscover their past glory through this medium. We thank Som for rekindling interest in Nivedita. It was long overdue. She narrates other details from the nine years that Nivedita lived after Vivekananda’s death in 1902 and sums up her lasting legacy rather well.

                      Reba Som is, however, a better chronicler than a story teller. She retains the historian’s obsession with dates and references but has not, mercifully, written one more academic tome that only scholars would understand. We admire her command over facts but wish at times that she were a trifle more gossipy, without compromising on truth. Her work strives to cover that middle ground between the demands of regimented historians and the hunger of the general reader for a lucid tale.