Welcome to Seshadri Kumar's Web Home

Saturday, 16 February 2019

Why War With Pakistan Is Not The Answer to Pulwama

Abstract

In the wake of the terrible attack on CRPF personnel by a suicide car bomber affiliated to the Pakistan-based terrorist organization, Jaish-e-Muhammad, in Pulwama in Kashmir on 14 February, 2019, many people are raising the spectre of war against Pakistan as the correct response. However, this is motivated more by politics and emotions than hard realities. I discuss the reasons why war at any scale, whether a full-scale war or a “surgical strike,” is simply not a viable option.

This is the time for all Indians to be extremely vigilant. Think carefully about whatever you read or see.

Why?

What you, I, and most of the country feel about the Pulwama attack:

It is a terrible, tragic day that has resulted in 41 of our servicemen losing their lives.

What Modi and the BJP think about the Pulwama attack:

It is a golden opportunity that has fallen into their lap, considering how Modi has his back to the wall because of his failures in every aspect of governance — the economy, jobs, foreign affairs, corruption — nothing is going well for Modi, and people are losing their faith in him. So they will not hesitate to milk this tragedy for every drop of political advantage by pressing people’s buttons and appealing to their patriotic outrage. And your life and mine are the last things on their mind as they relentlessly exploit this. This is not unique to the Modi government — every government, anywhere in the world, has used this tactic when their backs are against the wall (think of Clinton’s attack on Bosnia and the Hollywood movie “Wag the Dog”.)

This incident offers them a great way to divert the people’s attention from the failures of Modi’s government. The display of the coffins on TV yesterday was very disturbing and will further inflame passions, which is probably what this government wants. So too talk by the PM about how “people’s blood is boiling.” Notice that no one is now talking about Rafale or demonetization. Instead, the Hindus of Jammu went into a violent frenzy yesterday and attacked Kashmiris who were living in Jammu. This can easily become a Hindu-Muslim fireball that will consume the country — unless we are extremely vigilant.

Understand that a war — even a limited one — even “surgical strikes” — are extremely destructive. They result in the death of innocents; they destroy our economy and set back economic growth. You or I will not lose our lives — our brave soldiers will die, and their families will grieve. We have no business asking them to die for us when we are not ready to die for the country ourselves. For the government, especially the PM, it offers a chance to posture as a “strong leader,” but the consequences for the country from any war can only be negative.

Let there be no illusions. We cannot win a war with Pakistan as long as China, the superpower in our area, is firmly backing them. Painful as it is, we cannot defeat them, and we cannot do anything to retaliate at a military level. And Pakistan has strong financial backing from the wealthy kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Realize also that we do not have the advantage of surprise now. The Pakistani armed forces will be on high alert, and they will be expecting an attack from us. No war can be won without the element of surprise.

We even have very limited leverage over them in a commercial sense because we do not trade very much with them. Our removal of MFN status of Pakistan, which Mr. Jaitley announced yesterday, will have negligible impact. We can stop their musicians and actors from working in India, and we can stop cricket matches. None of this will matter much. China is there to provide everything the Pakistanis need.

I know this is frustrating for us all, but the only thing we can do is prevent another incident like this by being alert — by focusing on our true enemies outside India than froth at the mouth about some imaginary “tukde tukde gang.” After 4.5 years, at least now the Modi Sarkar can focus on real national security than go after actors, writers, and intellectuals, and brand them as anti-nationals — people whose only crime was to criticize the government and the PM. Today we know who the real anti-nationals are — they sit outside our borders and plot our downfall. If we are alert to intelligence inputs; if we take the local population into confidence and try to build a positive relationship with them instead of constantly threatening them, then we will get useful ground-level intelligence that will prevent a recurrence of Pulwama.

War is never the answer.

Do not fall into the attempts of those who try to suck us into a vortex of hatred and a dangerous conflagration for political gains.

Be also aware of the propaganda being spread that in this hour of crisis, we should not disagree with or criticize the government. This is, of course, what the government would like. But should we agree to any decision? I have just explained why war of any kind would be catastrophic. We would lose lives; property worth tens of thousands of crores will be destroyed in cross-border bombing raids (and never discount the possibility that the other side might use a nuke when they are facing defeat); and the economic damage due to disruption of the economy will be huge.

So no, I do not agree with “whatever the government decides” - which some of my friends have said, and which Mr. Rahul Gandhi, the Congress President, has also said. In particular, I would disagree if the government’s decision is war of any kind. And that is what any patriot should do. It is not patriotic to root for a destructive war that will set us back in our growth.

We are a growing country with great ambitions for the future. We want to be a superpower someday. A war sets us back in this trajectory.

Pakistan is a failed state with no real ambitions. A war would make little difference to their terminal decline. They have nothing to lose in a war — in fact, their leaders would welcome it as a relief from having to answer their citizens on why their country is a failed state.

Some people are comparing our situation to that of America when it took out Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad, or of Israel as it deals with Palestinian or Hezbollah terrorists with strong-arm tactics. But we do not have the same situation. America does not share a border with Pakistan, and Pakistan is dependent on American cash. Israel has overwhelming military superiority over the Palestinians. Our situation with Pakistan is very different. We are essentially at parity in every respect — in conventional as well as nuclear weapons. A war will only mean bloodshed and economic loss.

Let us not fall into this trap. Let us not agree to everything.

It is not patriotic to agree with bad decisions. It is patriotic to support what is right for the country.

Thursday, 13 December 2018

Is A “Modi-Mukt Bharat” in the Offing?

Abstract

The disastrous results of the assembly elections for the BJP in Rajasthan, Chhatisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh have several lessons for us:

Rahul Gandhi has arrived.
The Modi wave is dead in the water.
There is an alternative to Modi and the BJP: Rahul Gandhi and the Congress.
It is time for the Congress to stand on its own — again.
Demonetization — and GST — ruined rural and poor India — and the BJP is finally starting to pay the price for those blunders.
EVM fraud is not a factor unless the elections are very close, and we should stop worrying about it.
The people of India do not mind bigotry, but they do mind if you pinch their pockets.
Religious polarization cannot win you elections if you have messed up the economy.
The servile media in India has hurt rather than helped Modi.
The BJP will either lose in 2019 or be forced to be part of a coalition due to major losses in seats in the general elections.
Such a major defeat will probably cause the ouster of Modi from power to make the BJP acceptable to its coalition allies.

A late Diwali, or perhaps an early Christmas for the Congress

Five states went to the polls last month: three heavyweights from the Hindi belt, the core constituency of the BJP: Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, and Rajasthan; along with Telangana and Mizoram.

On December 11, 2018, the results were announced. The Congress lost Mizoram, the last of its North-east states where it once was unbeatable. The TRS won Telangana handily, but this was more or less expected.

But the real story of these elections is the massive drubbing that the BJP received at the hands of the people in all three Hindi belt states. The scale of the drubbing was most evident in Chhatisgarh, where the BJP could only eke out 15 seats to the Congress’ 68. But the defeats in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were equally massive, when you consider how many seats they had in those assemblies before this election.

Let us look at Rajasthan first, because the disaster there is more obvious. The BJP got only 73 seats to the Congress’ 99, which is one short of an absolute majority. But the bigger headline is how much the shift is. The BJP lost 89 seats; the Congress gained 78 seats. That’s a seismic shift.

Madhya Pradesh had everyone on tenterhooks because the race was so close. The final tally was 114-109, and while that sounds really close, it is the swings that tell the story here. The BJP dropped 56 seats from its earlier tally of 165, and the Congress gained the same number of seats. That’s a huge loss for the BJP (about a third of its previous seats), and the Congress more than doubled its seat tally. So no, this is not a minor victory. It is a huge victory for the Congress and a drubbing for the BJP.

So essentially, the Congress won big in all three states, and the BJP lost big in all three states. There are really no two ways about it. Mizoram, of course, was a significant loss for the Congress, but they will take a trade of victory in the Hindi heartland over victory in Mizoram any day. As any political pundit will tell you, the road to Delhi runs through the Hindi heartland.

Rahul Gandhi Has Arrived

This election was Rahul Gandhi’s victory. After failing to achieve a single significant victory for 14 years on his own, this was his second big test (after Karnataka), and Rahul delivered big. Congress spokespersons have argued that for most of the time since 2004, when Rahul entered politics, he was not in complete charge of the party. He had to work within the rules created by others, so he cannot be completely blamed for those failures. But this is a disingenuous explanation, because as the son of the Congress President, Rahul could have demanded any change he wanted and probably gotten it — within reason. A more realistic explanation is that it has taken all this time for Rahul Gandhi to become a good politician. In all his interactions in the last year with the media, Rahul has appeared extremely comfortable in his own skin as a politician — a far cry from the time when he tore up that ordinance of his own party in what appeared to be a contrived display. One might reasonably ask the reason for the delay in his development as a politician, given that he is from a prominent political family — other political heirs master the art of politics at much younger ages — for example, Akhilesh Yadav or Milind Deora. That said, people don’t care so much about your past as what you are today — and that is what we should be concerned about, too. It would appear that Rahul reached this maturity just at the time that he took over the Presidency of the Congress Party — which probably suggests that he understands himself very well — one sees a new maturity in Rahul Gandhi from the time he took over as Congress President — and so it might be pertinent to only look at this new phase of his political career rather than rehash the times when he was an immature politician.

Rahul’s first big test as Congress President was the Karnataka election, and while he did not win that election, his post-election management was very mature and praiseworthy. Rahul managed to stitch together an alliance with the JD (S), a party with whom the Congress had forever been at odds. He was even magnanimous enough to give away the Chief Ministership to Mr. Kumaraswamy of the JD (S) in the interest of opposition unity and to keep the BJP away, even though the Congress was the numerically stronger party in the alliance. In spite of many doomsday predictions prophesying the end of the Karnataka alliance, it has held — in large measure due to timely interventions by Rahul Gandhi himself.

In the just-concluded assembly elections in Rajasthan, MP, Chhatisgarh, and Telangana, Rahul was clearly the face of the party. He campaigned everywhere and worked extremely hard. One day he was campaigning with Chandrababu Naidu in Hyderabad; another day he was savaging Modi in Madhya Pradesh; and a third day he was tearing Modi apart in Rajasthan.

Some commentators have been rather uncharitable to Rahul Gandhi, saying that the BJP’s losses and the Congress’ victories were not his doing — that people were angry with the BJP, and that this was only an anti-BJP vote, not a pro-Congress vote, and so the credit did not belong to Rahul Gandhi.

One could say the same thing about Modi’s victory in 2014 – that it was not a Modi victory but a Congress defeat because the Congress stood accused of widespread corruption. That would not be fair, and not giving credit to Rahul today would be equally unfair. Yes, there were serious allegations of corruption against the Congress in 2014. But it was Modi who kept raising the issues, in rally after rally, and offered himself as a more honest alternative. Similarly, today, Rahul kept raising the failures of the Modi government in rally after rally, and reaped the fruits of those labours. Yes, the people were disenchanted with Modi, but it was Rahul who did the hard work of keeping that disaffectation alive.

The only currency of politics is winnability. Rahul had a negative bank balance until now, but now his bank is flush with a healthy balance. Winning elections brings respectability with it. In the past few years, regional parties have been extremely disrespectful to the Congress — the Samajwadi Party (SP) under Akhilesh Yadav and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) under Mayawati have both been seen to treat Rahul Gandhi with a cavalier attitude and treat the Congress as a junior partner. This is definitely going to change, and leaders of all parties will look at Rahul Gandhi with a newfound respect.

And anyone who still refers to Rahul Gandhi as “Pappu” clearly has no sense of objectivity. There may have been a time when such a moniker might have been warranted, but today’s Rahul Gandhi is no “pappu.” Those who still choose to call him that only reveal their own ignorance, prejudice, and lack of objectivity.

The Modi Wave is Dead in the Water

This election provided proof, in case anyone still needed it, that the Modi charisma has run its course. The Modi wave of 2014 has finally come to a crashing halt, much as the German tanks came to a crashing stop outside Stalingrad in 1942. Much as Stalingrad marked the end of nonstop German victory in WWII, these elections will be remembered by historians as the elections that finally stopped the Modi wave and denuded Modi of his charm.

The Modi wave and Modi’s charisma in 2013-14 were weapons against which there was no defense. Without that “kavacha” (armour) of his charisma (as with Karna’s kavacha in the Mahabharata), Modi is a mere mortal politician who has to win an election on the basis of achievements, not hype. And, unfortunately for him, and largely due to his own foolishness, Modi has few achievements to sell to the people. This therefore bodes really poorly for Modi’s prospects in 2019.

Defenders of the BJP claim that the election was decided by local issues, but for most of the people of the country, and even the states (very few people go to attend political rallies; most only watch TV, read the newspaper, or check WhatsApp and Facebook), the only leader of the BJP they ever saw was Modi. Not Raman Singh. Not Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Not Vasundhara Raje. Only Modi, as he went around calling Sonia Gandhi a “Congress ki Vidhwa” and other such unsavoury things to mask his lack of any genuine achievements. Or his almost-daily invocation of Jawaharlal Nehru, a politician who had died 54 years ago, instead of focusing on his own government’s achievements. People, even poor and uneducated people, are not stupid, and could easily see through Modi’s game. They could see he was playing a game of cover-up and distraction.

These elections have achieved two things: making Modi look very vulnerable, and making Rahul Gandhi look like a very credible and competent leader.

Which means one thing for 2019: There is no TINA (There Is No Alternative) factor any longer. Modi certainly looks dispensable, and Rahul looks quite plausible as a PM candidate.

But the consequences go further than just this. The defeats of December 11 have dented the “Superman” image of Mr. Modi, and have irretrievably damaged the “master strategist” image of Mr. Amit Shah. The fact that, despite 10 highly-televised and widely reported appearances each in MP and Rajasthan, Mr. Modi’s personal charisma could not save the BJP in those states, that too just months away from the general election, will definitely ring alarm bells in the minds of many BJP party members and supporters. Indian politicians and businessmen are nothing if not opportunists, and it would be very reasonable to expect an exodus of people and money from the BJP due to the changing political winds in the country. The recent departure of economist Surjit Bhalla from the PMEAC, of Upendra Khushwaha of the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party in Bihar from his alliance with the BJP, and of Aijaz Ilmi from the BJP are merely the tip of the iceberg. Many more will follow, just as so many Congress party members left their party when the party’s fortunes were sinking in 2014.

Enough Worrying About Mayawati

There were many analysts who said that the Congress was doomed in Chhatisgarh because of Ajit Jogi’s defection and because the Congress could not stitch together an alliance with Mayawati. The Congress’ own response to this criticism before the election was that the BSP was demanding too many seats. The results have justified the Congress’ stand. They won a convincing majority in Chhatisgarh – 68 seats out of 84, to the BJP’s 15. Ajit Jogi’s party did win 5 seats, but that was hardly enough to even bother the Congress. And Mayawati won a measly 2 seats. So in Chhatisgarh, the state most analysts were worried about, Rahul Gandhi’s decision not to ally with Mayawati was absolutely the right one.

Many analysts have looked at the vote share of the election in Madhya Pradesh and said that had the Congress’ and the BSP’s vote shares combined, the alliance would have probably won 140 of the total seats. While this is undoubtedly true, there are huge benefits of perception to the Congress and to Rahul Gandhi of having won an election on their own. And that is exactly what the party and Rahul Gandhi have achieved. The victory in MP was narrow, but coupled with the victories in Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh, it has shown Rahul Gandhi as a leader who can win elections on his own.

When Akhilesh or Mayawati refer to Rahul Gandhi in the future as “Rahulji,” they will, unlike in the past where they were only paying lip service, actually mean the “ji.” And they will make more reasonable demands in negotiations for seats in alliances, with greater respect for their prospective partner. This will benefit all anti-BJP parties in the 2019 election.

The Ghost of Demonetization (and GST)

These elections have finally settled a long-standing debate I have been having with a friend on the other side of the fence — did demonetization hurt rural India? While every indicator pointed to the fact that it did — I myself wrote an article in Frontline about how rural India was totally unprepared for the withdrawal of cash; and of course eminent economists from all over the world have slammed the move as a disastrous move that would wreck the economy. But my friend always had one comeback to all this analysis: if all that you are saying and all these eminent people are saying is true, why has Modi not paid a political price for this “economic disaster” at the hustings?

My response was that it takes time, that Modi came to power with an aura around him, and it takes time for that aura to fade. So people made excuses for Modi, said that he was at least trying to root out corruption, etc., and that sometimes even well-intentioned moves fail. So I said it was a matter of time before the aura fades and people realize they have been had. And so it has happened.

Probably the turning point in the public perception of Modi was when the RBI reported that over 99% of the cash in circulation had come back, which meant that the original premise of demonetization was completely wrong. There were no stashes of black money hidden under mattresses that had been recovered by the government. Essentially, what the revelation told people was that all the suffering and even deaths (more than 100) they had experienced had been for naught. This revelation came only recently, and must have led to massive anger in rural India against Modi. This, along with other disclosures that showed that terrorism was not the slightest hit by demonetization and proof that counterfeit notes of the new 2000 rupee notes had already appeared within weeks of their introduction told people that the entire demonetization exercise, with its constantly-changing justifications, was a pack of lies. It also led credence to the theory that demonetization had been introduced for the express purpose of winning the UP elections by making the election war chest of the opposition worthless, while giving advance notice to the state BJP unit. Whether that allegation had truth in it or not may never be known, but the absolute lack of any benefit from the demonetization exercise certainly made people wonder.

Demonetization hit the poor and the rural people the hardest, because the urban middle class, who often voice their support of Modi, are the ones who can use net banking, credit card, and PayTM transactions instead of cash transactions. The rural folks do not have ATMs, they do not have netbanking, and even if they did, the merchants they transact with do not have these facilities. The urban upper middle class who voice support for Modi are the least likely to vote in any election (usually they take the day off to go on vacation to a nearby place), whereas the rural and urban poor always vote.

If demonetization was a disaster for the rural folk and the urban poor, GST hit the business class hard. This is the class that has traditionally been the strongest supporter of the BJP. GST caused huge losses for the business community because of delays in repayment of tax already paid through the chain. GST also hit the poor in what became a double whammy after demonetization. The reason was that many poor craftsmen often made products that were bought by merchants up the value chain. Because of GST, the merchants higher up in the value chain get an input credit for products bought from someone else only if the person below them in the chain is registered under GST. But poor artisans and craftsmen do not have GST numbers. As a result, merchants stopped buying products from them, driving them to penury.

Stop Worrying About EVM Fraud

One of the oft-cited concerns by friends in the last couple of years has been the fear that, with most of the country under the control of the BJP, the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) can easily be tampered with, and the BJP could win elections by fraud. These elections have shown that such a fear is unjustified. The BJP is currently in power in the centre and was in power in all three Hindi heartland states, and still could not engineer victories in these three states using EVM fraud.

Yes, electoral fraud always occurs, and people have shown that EVMs can be tampered with. But these matter only in close elections. It is possible that some tampering did take place in MP; it is possible that is what prevented the Congress Party from crossing the halfway mark on its own. But the effects of such tampering is always marginal. If a party has lost the mandate of the people, no amount of tampering will help it win. It isn’t that the other parties are sleeping. They are constantly watchful and have teams of people monitoring the movement of every EVM box. So it isn’t that easy to commit fraud. Some people say that the EVMs could have embedded chips that rig the election for one party. If that had been the case, the BJP should have won all the elections just held hands down.

All parties need to be vigilant about election fraud. But I think that, at the end of the day, it is the issues that matter more than anything else. Fraud can only push one party over the finish line in a close contest. But when public anger is on the boil, nothing can save you.

The Outlook for 2019 Based On These Elections

The results of these elections do not bode well for Modi and the BJP in 2019. In 2014, most of the people of India did not know who Narendra Modi was. He ran a brilliant PR campaign, creating a myth of a nonexistent “Gujarat model” that conned a lot of people (yours truly included.) This is 2019, and now people know through direct experience what Modi can and cannot do.

The full realization of the devastation that demonetization brought in its wake has only hit the people of India now, and it will take some time for their anger to subside. Incidentally, this is a case in point where having a pliant and subservient media can actually hurt you rather than help you. Had the media been honest about the disastrous effects of demonetization in 2017, Modi would have faced a lot of flak then; he would have apologized, but the controversy would have died down by now, and he might even have been forgiven. But the full damage due to demonetization has been given to the Indian public only a couple months ago, and so the anger against Modi will still be fresh at the time of the general elections which are just a few months away.

Modi’s reign has been marked by two distinct characteristics: massive incompetence and unprecedented religious intolerance of minorities. What these elections have demonstrated is that the people of India are willing to tolerate bigots but not fools. In other words, “lynchistan” is acceptable to Indians, but incompetence is not. People were perfectly willing to look the other way when an Akhlaque or a Pehlu Khan or an Afrazul was brutally slaughtered – and still vote for the BJP. But they were not willing to look the other way when Modi’s ignorance, stupidity, and incompetence caused them economic losses. If you pinch people’s pockets, they will not forgive you.

As James Carville so memorably said during the Clinton campaign of 1992, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Some have suggested that in the absence of any clear achievements on the economic front, the Modi sarkar might resort to religious polarization in order to win elections. But if anything, these elections have stood that logic on its head. There was as much religious polarization as the BJP could have wished for in Rajasthan. After all, it was in Alwar in Rajasthan that Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer, was brutally slaughtered in public, for no reason except that he was a Muslim. Similarly, it was in Rajgarh in Rajsamund district of Rajasthan where Shambhulal Regar brutally tortured and killed Afrazul, a Muslim, recorded the whole thing on video, narrated a voiceover justifying his actions, and posted the video on YouTube; and yet, when he was arrested, angry citizens marched in the streets of cities in Rajasthan protesting his arrest. A group calling itself the UP Navnirman Sena recently said it would offer a Lok Sabha ticket to the murderer who is currently in jail.

Yet all this religious polarization was not enough to overcome the public anger at the Modi sarkar’s and at Vasundhara Raje’s economic failures. So if that is the route Amit Shah intends to pursue, it does not seem destined for success.

Whether public anger against Modi will be enough to unseat the BJP from power, or whether it will only greatly reduce the BJP’s numbers in the Lok Sabha and force them into a multi-party coalition to retain power, is still an open question. But these elections clearly point to a huge dip in the BJP’s fortunes next May.

And if that does happen, even if the BJP is nominally in power, the country may become a “Modi-mukt Bharat.” (“Modi-free India.”) For, a loss of that magnitude will definitely have consequences. Those who get the bouquets after successes must also be ready for the brickbats after defeats. Any coalition the BJP is part of will likely demand Modi’s ouster as the price for their participation in a coalition government with the BJP.

Monday, 3 December 2018

Why The BJP Has Already Won The War

Abstract

The rise of Narendra Modi and the events of the last five years have fundamentally changed the nature of our body politic. We have irreversibly changed from a nation in which secularism was the norm and religious fundamentalism a fringe idea to a nation where religious fundamentalism is the norm and secularism and pluralism are fringe ideas.

The latest in the statue/temple one-upmanship contest currently underway in India is that Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee is going to build 100 sun temples in West Bengal for the Bihari votebank. This, of course, is after the 181 m Patel Statue, which has already been built; the 221 m Ram statue in Ayodhya, which has been announced; the 212 m statue of Shivaji Maharaj in Maharashtra, which is in the planning stages; a statue of Buddha in Bihar that has just been inaugurated; and a statue of Mother Cauvery that the Congress government in Karnataka recently announced.

Do you realize what has been happening?

No? Let me tell you.

Two things.

One, the entire sociocultural environment in India has been changed by Modi and the BJP. It is no longer acceptable for any mainstream political party to say they are not religious.

Every political party has seen the writing on the wall. As I have often said, politicians only reflect the will of the people in a democracy. The reason Modi stormed to power in 2014 is that Hindutva is now part and parcel of Hindu society today. 20 years ago, it was unacceptable, untouchable; fringe at best. Today it is indispensable, mainstream. It is social liberalism and secularism that have become fringe.

That's why you have a Rahul Gandhi pretending to be a Janeudhari Shivbhakt Brahmin. That's why Shashi Tharoor came up with a wishy-washy excuse of an argument to justify banishing menstruating women from Sabarimala.

The reality is that whether the BJP wins or loses in 2019, it has already won. Not the party, but its philosophy. That's because, as I will show below, the BJP's philosophy represents the views of the majority of the Hindus today.

Nobody understands the mood of the people better than professional politicians. So it behooves us to pay close attention to what they are saying and doing.

Simply put, all political parties in India have realized that secularism will not sell. They have realized that they must move to the social right, to openly embrace Hindutva.

Now that the process has started, a red line has been crossed. The entire country is inexorably moving towards the right. If the BJP wins in 2019, that process will be very fast; but even if they lose, they will be a formidable opposition and exert huge pressure on the government of the day to ensure that the government delivers on the Hindutva agenda.

That's because the BJP has fundamentally changed the debate because of its powerful showing at the polls in 2014 and in subsequent assembly elections (as well as in the assembly elections in 2013). The debate is no longer whether you belong to the Hindu right or whether you are “secular.”

No, the debate today is how far along on the Hindutva axis you are. And clearly, today a party does not feel the need to apologize for taking a stand favouring one particular religion. In effect, the BJP has achieved what Advani started saying, 30 years ago, in 1988: “Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain.” (“Say proudly that we are Hindus.”) That's why Rahul Gandhi isn't the least bit abashed about going on a temple yatra. Wearing your religion on your sleeve is no longer something to be ashamed of; if you are a politician in India today, it is mandatory. The fact that someone like Rahul Gandhi is today saying with pride that he is a Hindu is an affirmation that the BJP has already won the war, irrespective of whether it wins or loses battles such as elections. The Sangh Parivar has won the war for the soul of India … whether India should be a secular country or a Hindu country. The actual legal position is now irrelevant. Even if India is not officially called a Hindu country, it clearly is and will be for the foreseeable future an upper-caste Hindu-dominated country in which other communities exist at the pleasure of the majority community. I doubt that even Savarkar could have foreseen the extent of the Hindu right's victory today.

So whoever is in power, you can be sure that there will be a “grand Ram temple” at the Ram Janmabhoomi/ Babri Masjid site within the next 5 (BJP) or 10 (Congress) years at the most. Politicians will stop worrying about the hurt sentiments of Muslim voters - they cannot afford to care. The majority has spoken, and it has spoken with one voice; and no political party that is serious about its survival can afford to ignore its voice. The only difference is that the BJP will do it rapidly and in your face, whereas the Congress will do it gently. But, in effect, there will be no difference as far as the average Muslim is concerned. It might just be that, if the BJP were to be in power, a few Muslims will be killed once in a while to show the minority community who is boss, and this will be greeted with loud boasts by elected representatives of the BJP to that effect; if the Congress were to be in power, their leaders will not actively attack the Muslim community, but if someone were to attack and kill a Muslim, there will be little action to stop such things from happening or to put the perpetrators behind bars, even if a few sympathetic noises are made. The biggest losers will be religious minorities and the concept of pluralism. But they will not be the only losers. Even those belonging to the majority will lose, because now there will be no room for multiple interpretations of their own religion — there will be room for only one version of Hinduism — the version that the powers-that-be deem fit to allow. Every other interpretation will be deemed insulting and derogatory to Hinduism and hence outlawed. And by doing this, we will be sliding headlong down the same slippery slope that every religious fundamentalist state anywhere in the world has slid, whether it be Catholic, Sunni, Shia, or any other religious sect that is in the majority. (Our own neighbor to the west reminds us of the serious consequences of such a slide.)

That's because the Hindu public, by and large, have been sold on the Hindu grievance industry peddled since the time of Advani and Vajpayee in the 1980s — the idea that independent India since 1947 had been “bending backwards” to please the Muslims (even as surveys of the Muslim community such as the Sachar committee report tell a completely different story — that of a terribly impoverished and disenfranchised Indian Muslim community) — and as a result a large percentage of the Hindu population believe that a “correction” is overdue.

If the Congress does come to power instead of the BJP, it will have come to power only after half aping the BJP, as the Madhya Pradesh (MP) election campaign of the Congress showed. There is very little difference between the Congress and BJP positions in MP — both of them want to promote gomutra, cow shelters, and the like. As time goes on, the line separating the Congress and BJP positions will become more and more blurred.

The end result will be an India in which all religions are (nominally) equal, but Hinduism will be more equal than others. Criticism of Hinduism, Hindu icons and gods/goddesses will be met with fierce reprisals by fundamentalist vigilante groups, and the government of the day, whether Congress or BJP, will turn a blind eye to the violence. Any work of art that mocks or criticizes Hinduism or its scriptures, and even the discriminatory caste system of Hinduism, will be promptly banned by the government under the guise of not wishing to “inflame passions” — while criticisms of non-Hindu religions will be encouraged as “healthy scepticism.”

Be ready for that day. It is not far away.

The second point to note is that Hindutva, and more generally religious and cultural pride, is clearly more important for most people than their basic needs. Just think of what terrible economic shape a state like Uttar Pradesh is. Children die like flies in its public hospitals, young people have no jobs to look forward to, and corruption is rampant. One would think that the announcement of a statue that will cost thousands of crores of rupees in this context would evoke widespread anger from its people — but we have hardly heard a peep. Similarly, one would have expected a widespread outcry against a wasteful, Rs. 3600 crore Shivaji statue in Maharashtra, but apart from a few social activists and concerned citizens, people have generally accepted this wasteful monument. Similarly, relatively few people protested about the nearly Rs. 3000 crore Patel statue in Gujarat. It is almost as if people have given up on seeing any real improvement in their lives and are hanging on to pride as the only thing to look forward to.

Friday, 26 October 2018

Why Macaulay Deserves a Posthumous Bharat Ratna

Abstract

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, has been a much-reviled man in India for his famous “Minute on Education” speech in the British Parliament, which induced the then-Governor General of India, Lord William Bentinck, to stop state funding of Sanskrit and Persian, which were the official languages of India, and replace them with English.

This article explains why Macaulay’s sweeping reform in 1835 has been a great blessing for India and the Indian people, especially in today’s age of globalization where English is king, and makes the case as to why Lord Macaulay’s seminal contributions to India might even deserve India’s highest honor, the Bharat Ratna, if that honor can be conferred on a person who died so long before Indian independence.

A Special Birthday

Today, October 25, is a very special day.

It is the birth anniversary of an extraordinary gentleman who was born 218 years ago this day, and whose policies as an administrator in India had a tremendous positive impact on India 160 years after he instituted them, and still have a profound salutary effect on the economy, employment, and prosperity of Indians today: THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.

Who was Macaulay?

A few words about this remarkable man may be in order on a day like today. Macaulay was a child prodigy, and was awarded the Chancellor’s Gold Medal while a student at Cambridge. Apart from mastering most of the classics in Latin and Greek, Macaulay taught himself German, Dutch, Spanish, and French.

Macaulay was considered a great scholar, essayist, and poet. In 1842, he published his “Lays of Ancient Rome,” a set of poems about heroic episodes in Roman history. But probably his most famous literary work was his series of five tomes on the “History of England from the Accession of James the Second,” which is considered a literary masterpiece, and which he started in the 1840s, and the last volume of which was published after his death in 1859.

But Macaulay’s most important contributions came when he served on the Supreme Council of India between 1834 and 1838. In 1835, Macaulay presented to the English Parliament his famous “Minute on Education,” his proposals on the reform of the educational system in India.

Macaulay’s Minute on Education

Macaulay strongly argued for changing the medium of education in India from Sanskrit and Persian to English. He urged the then-Governor General of India, Lord William Bentinck (the man who had been responsible for abolishing the savage practice of Sati, or the burning of widows on their husbands’ funeral pyres, and for ending the thuggee menace), to reform Indian education so as to impart “useful learning” - by which he meant western education, with its emphasis on scientific thought and reason.

Macaulay correctly argued that Hindus who learn Sanskrit mostly learn absolutely worthless things such as rituals, chants, fantastic stories about Gods and demons, and the like, while learning little of practical value such as mathematics and science. In one of the most brutal (and somewhat unfair) assessments of Indian culture, Macaulay said,

I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.

Macaulay went on to disparage the poetry and literature of India, both those derived from Sanskrit as well as those derived from Arabic and Persian, and then proceeded to opine that the historical knowledge in these languages could not hold a candle to western scholarship in history.

And finally, in what was to have the greatest impact on India, Macaulay proceeded to say:

I feel... that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, – a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.

Macaulay’s views were accepted by Lord Bentinck, and in response Bentinck passed the English Education Act of 1835.

Macaulay’s final achievement in India was the creation of the Indian Penal Code, which is still followed in India, and has been the basis of the penal code systems in several countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe.

Modern Reactions to Macaulay, and a Re-Appraisal

Many Hindus today feel very bad about Macaulay’s sharp criticism of their culture and for replacing Sanskrit with English as the medium of education. People who follow a westernised lifestyle are often derisively called “Macaulay’s children.”

However, a lot of what Macaulay said about India and its educational system in 1835 was substantially correct, even if he did put it in a rather blunt way.

An educated person in India knew nothing about the tremendous advances in science that had been made in the west and that were responsible for the industrial revolution that helped England become a global superpower and helped Europe in general reach much higher levels of prosperity than countries elsewhere in the world.

While Macaulay was obviously ignorant of the greatness of Indian literature and poetry (as a person who did not know Sanskrit he could never have known the beauty of Kalidasa’s poetry, for instance), his recommendation has been extremely valuable to India from a utilitarian perspective.

Today, a city like Bangalore is full of foreign companies with their design, R&D, and software backend offices. This trend has been copied across India with other cities like Pune, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, etc. All this has only been possible because educated Indians can speak reasonably good English.

Knowledge of English is recognized by all Indians as the ticket to a better life. Today, it isn’t just the educated Indian: the flower seller, the maid who does dishes in the home, and the sweeper also try to educate their children in English. Even politicians who publicly urge people to study in their Indian mother tongues, such as the Thackerays or Fadnavises of Maharashtra, or the Yadavs of Uttar Pradesh, make sure that their own children get nothing but the best English-medium education. Studying in Hindi or Marathi is a recommendation they will make for others to follow; not for their own family members to follow.

The Chinese Push Towards English

One look at our giant neighbor to the east, China, will tell us what a boon English has been to India. China is a superpower and a technological powerhouse. It is technologically so advanced that in a matter of a decade it might well surpass the USA in technical excellence. Yet, it is India that is an IT powerhouse. Why is that? Because India has oodles of English-speaking software engineers who can easily converse with their American and European clients and solve problems for them. This is the reason why US companies like establishing R&D centers in India – you get qualified talent with whom you can communicate easily. And all this is a consequence of that historic and momentous decision in 1835 to make English the medium of education in India.

China is well aware of this shortcoming and is working hard to bridge this gap. In 2006, the number of Chinese students learning English as a second language (ESL) was about 2.5 million. By 2013, that number had grown to 300 million. The value of ESL training in China was estimated to be $4.5 billion in 2016, and this was expected to grow at a rate of 12-15% in the coming years. A journal publication in English Today, in 2012, by Wei and Su, put the number of Chinese who had learned English at 390 million. One of the big disadvantages China faces relative to India is that it was never a western colony, and so there are not many opportunities for Chinese learners of English to use the English they learn in these training courses. Storefront signs and street signs are mostly in Chinese in China, unlike India where road names and store names are frequently printed in both English and the local state language.

Macaulay’s decision has led to greater prosperity for millions of Indians today. His reasons for his decision are not important today. We may not agree with his assessment of India and its culture; but his decision has helped millions of Indians live a better life.

Macaulay’s decision has also helped the percolation of science down to those with no knowledge of English. As he put in his “Minute,” “To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.” Terms of science from English have now penetrated every Indian language, and have, in turn, made those languages more scientific, relatively speaking, and more conscious of technology than they were prior to their contact with English.

Why English is Important for Science and Technology

It is important to understand why English is so important to the scientific and technological development of a country today. Modern technology, by and large, is a western accomplishment, and so most of the ideas of technology and progress are in western languages – German, French, Russian – but overwhelmingly, in English. One survey found that of the total number of scholarly journals, nearly half (45.24%) were in English, followed by German with 11.01%, Mandarin with 6.51%, Spanish with 5.66%, French with 4.94%, Japanese with 3.46%, Italian with 2.99%, Polish and Portuguese with 1.7%, Dutch with 1.48%, and Russian with 1.3%.

Another source (an article in Research Trends) says that 80% of the journals indexed in the indexing service, Scopus, are written in English. As the Research Trends article shows, even in a country with a storied tradition of science and scientific publishing in the local language like Germany, the current ratio of scientific articles published in English to articles published in German is something like 10:1. In the Netherlands, it exceeds 40:1, and in Italy the ratio of English to Italian in scientific articles is 30:1. Even when researchers publish a paper in French or German, the authors have to provide an abstract in English as well so that researchers around the world can understand it.

One can scream until one is blue in the face that somebody said Sanskrit might make a great computer language (see, for example, this link), but the fact is that nobody is writing code in Sanskrit today, and even people who do not speak English but speak other western languages such as French or German still have to program in English. You have “for loops” and “if statements” in programming, not “pour boucles” and “si déclarations” (French) or “für schleifen” and “falls behauptung” (German). (Apologies if my translations are off the mark - this is just to make a point.)

The Move Towards English in Other Countries: Rwanda and Korea

The Olympic movement has only two official languages: English and French. And the latter is simply a colonial hangover, from the time when France had a huge overseas empire. And while there are still many Francophone countries in the world, English has clearly overtaken French in extent of usage. And even in some traditional Francophone countries, such as Rwanda, English has replaced French as the language of choice. And the craze for English can go to extreme lengths, as this article in the Guardian reports:

The situation in east Asia is no less dramatic. China currently has more speakers of English as a second language than any other country. Some prominent English teachers have become celebrities, conducting mass lessons in stadiums seating thousands. In South Korea, meanwhile, according to the socio-linguist Joseph Sung-Yul Park, English is a “national religion.” Korean employers expect proficiency in English, even in positions where it offers no obvious advantage.

The quest to master English in Korea is often called the yeongeo yeolpung or “English frenzy.” Although mostly confined to a mania for instruction and immersion, occasionally this “frenzy” spills over into medical intervention. As Sung-Yul Park relates: “An increasing number of parents in South Korea have their children undergo a form of surgery that snips off a thin band of tissue under the tongue … Most parents pay for this surgery because they believe it will make their children speak English better; the surgery supposedly enables the child to pronounce the English retroflex consonant with ease, a sound that is considered to be particularly difficult for Koreans.”

There is no evidence to suggest that this surgery in any way improves English pronunciation. The willingness to engage in this useless surgical procedure strikes me, though, as a potent metaphor for English’s peculiar status in the modern world. It is no longer simply a tool suited to a particular task or set of tasks, as it was in the days of the Royal Navy or the International Commission for Air Navigation. It is now seen as the access code to the global elite. If you want your children to get ahead, then they better have English in their toolkit.

English as a Link Language, and the Demand for English Education in India

In India, English also performs the invaluable task of uniting the nation. Attempts have been made, and are still being made, to impose a north Indian language, Hindi, on the whole country, but they have been vigorously resisted by many, especially those in the state of Tamil Nadu, as an imposition of the language on those who have no desire to learn it. If you visited Tamil Nadu and knew only Hindi, you would have a rough time indeed, because the people there might speak English (albeit broken English), but many of them will not speak Hindi even if they know what you mean. Residents of other parts of India, such as West Bengal, also find Hindi imposition to be very offensive.

Although attitudes towards Hindi might vary across India, the general public all over India is very eager to learn English. Everyone in India views English as the ticket to a more prosperous life. You cannot get a job in a call centre helping overseas clients unless you know English. Ironically, in a country where politicians are trying to impose the language of the Hindi belt on the rest of the country, the common people of the Hindi belt are busy learning English.

A report by the British Council in 2012 mentioned from data sources that the size of the ELT (English Language Training) market in India was $2.76 billion in 2012, and was expected to grow to $4.7 billion in 2015. Notably, the report mentioned that English education among the K-12 segment (primary and secondary schooling) sector was growing at a CAGR of 31%.

The most backward communities in India, the Dalits (formerly called the untouchables or the backward or depressed castes), also view English as a ticket out of the oppression they have suffered for millenia. They view English as the tool that will empower them out of backwardness and ignorance, especially as their idol, the great Dalit intellectual who wrote the Indian Constitution, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, had mastered the language and studied for doctoral degrees in the USA and the UK.

Concluding Thoughts on Macaulay and English in India

182 years ago, Thomas Babington Macaulay took the decisive step of introducing English education to Indians and stop state funding of Sanskrit and Persian education to Indians. The consequences of that one sweeping move have been tremendous. While Indian languages might have suffered a loss of patronage and seen a decline in literary activity relative to what existed in the past, the introduction of English brought with it exposure to modern scientific ideas and became the bedrock of a modern nation-state when India finally became independent in 1947. In today's age of globalization, English has proved to be a powerful asset for a country like India, giving employment to millions of Indians. The IT sector alone today contributes 7.7% of India’s GDP, and it is fair to say that this would have been impossible without the widespread adoption of English in India.

English has not only been extremely useful for the economic upliftment of India; it has also proved to be an invaluable link language in India. Considering the prominent tensions about using any other Indian language (especially Hindi) as a link language, we need to expand what Macaulay regretfully stated in his vision for India in 1835: “I feel... that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern …” While that huge task (“educate the body of the people”) may have been impossible in 1835, it is certainly possible today, with the resources India currently possesses, to make English the national language. After all, if South Sudan, which hardly has any English speakers, but 50 different indigenous languages with Arabic dominating, could vote to make English their official language for reasons of national unity, there is no reason why India cannot. As this report explains,

“With English,” the news director of South Sudan Radio, Rehan Abdelnebi, told me haltingly, “we can become one nation. We can iron out our tribal differences and communicate with the rest of the world.”

One can only hope that one day, “With English,” Indians can iron out our differences of religion, caste, and language, and become one nation. And if that fortunate day ever dawns, our debt to Macaulay will be immeasurably greater than it already is.

Macaulay’s decisive step in 1835 has resulted in unimaginable positive benefits for India as a whole. And so, if at all it were possible to honour someone so far back in time, it might be a good idea to award the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, posthumously to Shri Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Wednesday, 22 August 2018

A Poem for Modi Supporters

Abstract

A poem on the current state of things in India, inspired by the Reverend Martin Niemoller's famous poem, “First they came …” composed in Nazi Germany.

First they came for the Muslims …
And you supported them …
Because you are not a Muslim,
Because you think Muslims should be “taught a lesson” …
Because you believe India has “bent backwards” to accommodate Muslims.

Then they came for the Christians …
And you supported them …
Because you are a good Hindu,
And you do not like conversions.

Then they came for the Dalits …
And you supported them …
Because you are a good Hindu,
And Hinduism says upper castes are better,
And the Dalits should be “put in their place.”

Then they came for the women …
Who wear jeans and go to clubs,
Who link their hands with their boyfriends’ hands,
As they go out to parks and beaches and pubs.
And you supported them (even if you are a woman yourself) …
Because you like “traditional Hindu values,”
And women need to be “put in their place” —
cooking, cleaning, making babies and rearing children.

Then they came for the rationalists —
The Dabholkars, the Pansares, the Kalburgis, the Lankeshs …
And you supported them …
Because you are a good Hindu, not a rationalist
And you believe these people
Were destroying the cultural fabric of Hinduism.
You may not have wanted to kill them …
(After all, you are civilized and educated)
But hey, some excesses happen
When a larger movement is afoot.
Puppies get crushed under the wheel of a car …
And you feel sad about that — but what to do?
After all, these are only rabble-rousing rationalists.
And they are, after all, part of the same gang
That wants equality for Dalits, Muslims, Christians, and women,
That supports inter-religious and inter-caste marriages,
That wants you to open your temples to Dalits and women!
Hinduism is under threat!
And you are a good Hindu.

Then they came for the Leftists and the JNU types …
They beat up a Kanhaiya Kumar,
They stoned a Shehla Rashid,
and shot at an Umer Khalid …
And you supported them …
Because Uncle Modi told you that India was not great because of leftist influence
And Uncle Ahuja told you they use 3000 condoms a day
And Uncle Arnab told you they were anti-national,
Although in 2.5 years, not a shred of evidence
of that has been presented.
Because you are not a leftist,
And it is okay for people to beat and kill those who are different from you —
As long as you are not affected.
And Rashid and Khalid are Muslims, anyway …
And you are a good Hindu.

A few days ago, they beat up
Professor Sanjay Kumar of Motihari
And tried to burn him alive
Because he posted something critical
Of the late former PM Vajpayee.
And you supported them …
Because you are a huge admirer of Vajpayee
And who are these people who dare to insult him?
“They asked for it,” you tell yourself,
And if a “liberal” friend asks you about it …
You tell him to
“stop worrying about irrelevant things like this
and enjoy your life with people who matter to you.”

But think about this …
Sanjay Kumar is not Muslim
Sanjay Kumar is not Dalit
Sanjay Kumar is not Christian
Sanjay Kumar is not a JNU leftist
Sanjay Kumar is not a rationalist
Sanjay Kumar is not a jeans-wearing, temple-entry demanding woman.
All he did was voice a political opinion
And he nearly got killed — and may still die in the ICU.

Think about the progression …
Muslim, Dalit, Christian, Leftist, Rationalist, Leftist, Woman …
And now a Hindu man who is none of the above.

How long will it be before they come for you?
Maybe “they” will disapprove
Of something your son said
Or something your daughter did.
What if your daughter wore the “wrong” kind of dress?
What if your son fell in love —
With a person of the “wrong” caste?
Or, worse, the “wrong” religion?
What if she listened to the “wrong” kind of music?
What if he read the “wrong” kind of book?
What if she had the “wrong” kinds of friends?
You may not disapprove, but that may not matter
When they bludgeon or burn your son or daughter to death
For violating the sanctity of their religion.

If and when that horrible day comes …
We will not be around to speak up for you …
We will have either been beaten up ourselves
Or silenced by terror.

For we are not heroes,
Just folks with a conscience
Who have the courage to speak
When there is still freedom of speech.
When that freedom is taken away
By marauding gangs —
whom you have always supported —
I am sorry, but there is nothing we can do for you.

We hope you enjoy the New India you are creating …
Where every one of the above acts is supported …
By tacit approval from the top
And a violent chorus from the bottom.

But something tells me
History is repeating itself.
As Santayana famously said,
“Those who cannot remember the past
Are condemned to repeat it.”
History is rife with examples of peoples
Who willingly chose dictators to govern them
Only to lament their decisions.
The day you will lament, though,
You will lament alone.
And it will be too late.

Saturday, 12 May 2018

The Story of Rama - A Summary

Abstract

This is a quick primer for anyone who wants to understand the Hindu god Rama.

Early Life, Marriage, and Exile

The Ramayana is the story of Rama, a prince of the mythological kingdom of Ayodhya in North India (after which a town is still named today). It is said to have been written by the poet Valmiki.

Rama is the eldest of the four main royal sons of the King of Ayodhya, Dasaratha, through his three chief queens, Kaushalya, Kaikeyi, and Sumitra. Rama, along with his three brothers, Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughna gets trained in arms and statecraft, as royal princes do. At a young age, he gets advanced arms training under the king-turned-sage Vishwamitra, and during this apprenticeship kills the dreaded demon, Tataka.

Rama marries Sita, the daughter of the king Janaka of Mithila, by winning her in a contest set up by her father, whereby only those strong enough to lift and string a heavy, divine bow would be qualified to marry his daughter. Rama is the only one among the assembled princes who succeeds in stringing and even breaking the bow by his strength, and brings Sita home to Ayodhya.

Rama is anointed the crown prince by his father Dasaratha. But his step-mother Kaikeyi wants her own son Bharata to be king. So she calls an old debt in, whereby the king had promised her that he would grant any two wishes she ever wanted any time in the future. So Kaikeyi asks that Bharata become king, and that Rama be exiled to 14 years in the forest. The king is heartbroken but has to honour his word. He orders Rama to be exiled. Rama has to obey the order or rebel, and he chooses to obey. The king dies in grief soon after.

Sita's Abduction by Ravana

Rama’s loyal brother Lakshmana, and his wife Sita join him in wandering from forest to forest. Towards the end of their stay in the Dandaka forest, they meet the asura (demon) princess, Shoorpanakha, who falls in lust with Rama. Rama refuses her attentions as he is married. Shoorpanakha realizes that Sita is the reason Rama refuses her, and tries to attack her, upon which Lakshmana cuts off her nose as humiliation.

Shoorpanakha complains to her brothers, the asuras Khara and Dooshana, who attack Rama and Lakshmana in revenge and are killed. A humiliated Shoorpanakha goes to her brother Ravana, the mighty king of Lanka, asking him to avenge her humiliation. She tells him about Sita’s beauty to motivate him. Ravana’s initial reaction is to confront Rama directly, but Shoorpanakha convinces him that a better way would be to abduct Sita and let Rama die in grief.

Ravana agrees and recruits the services of his uncle Mareecha, who changes his form to that of a golden deer and prances about near Rama’s forest residence. The beautiful deer catches the eye of Sita, who asks Rama to kill the deer for her so that she can sit on the dead deer's beautiful skin.

The deer leads Rama on a long chase. Mareecha, being a demon, can run much faster than normal deer, and leads Rama far away from his hermitage. During this time, Ravana is waiting for a chance to abduct Sita, but Lakshmana has been left to guard Sita. When Rama catches up with Mareecha and finally kills him, the deer changes its form back to that of the asura. In his dying breath, Mareecha screams in Rama’s voice, “O Lakshmana, O Sita” - in a voice loud enough to be heard by Sita and Lakshmana.

Sita is worried and asks Lakshmana to go to Rama’s aid. Lakshmana tells Sita that he does not believe this was Rama’s cry, as there is no one in the world capable of injuring Rama. Upon this, Sita accuses Lakshmana of lusting for her, and tells him she will never become his wife even if Rama dies. Unable to bear Sita’s accusations, Lakshmana goes to help Rama.

Ravana takes advantage of Rama and Lakshmana’s absence, and abducts Sita and takes her to Lanka. On the way, he is confronted by the vulture king Jataayu, whom he mortally wounds in battle.

Rama's Search for Sita

Rama and Lakshmana return to the hermitage and find Sita missing. After much searching, they find the dying Jataayu and learn that Ravana had kidnapped Sita. But they do not know where Ravana is. After an encounter with the demon Kabandha, they learn that the person who could help them reach Ravana is the tribal prince Sugreeva (the tribals are also referred to in the story as “vaanaras,” or monkeys – which doesn’t make sense, because monkeys cannot talk; and so I have interpreted “vaanar” as tribal) who lives in the Rishyamukha forest with his faithful friend Hanuman.

When they meet Sugreeva, he tells them of his story. He and his elder brother Vaali were very close, until a misunderstanding caused Vaali to suspect that Sugreeva was trying to steal his kingdom of Kishkindha from him. So he exiled Sugreeva and even made Sugreeva’s wife his own. Sugreeva makes a deal with Rama: if Rama will kill Vaali and make Sugreeva king of Kishkindha, he will help Rama find Sita with all his tribal warriors. Rama accepts.

Rama realizes that Vaali is a formidable enemy whom he simply cannot defeat in face-to-face combat. So he asks Sugreeva to challenge Vaali to a face-to-face fight, and when they are fighting, Rama, hidden among the trees, shoots an arrow that kills Vaali. Sugreeva, true to his word, mobilizes his tribal army and they march towards Lanka. They reach the southern shore (i.e., modern Rameshwaram) and then build a bridge over the sea to Lanka.

Rama Defeats Ravana and Rescues Sita

Before they march towards Lanka, Hanuman jumps over the sea to Lanka and asks Ravana to hand over Sita to Rama. Ravana refuses, and orders Hanuman’s tail (recall that Hanuman was a vaanar/monkey) to be set on fire. With his fiery tail, Hanuman sets all of Lanka ablaze before returning to Rameswaram.

Rama’s objective of defeating Ravana becomes a lot easier when Ravana’s younger brother Vibheeshana sees an opportunity for himself in dethroning his powerful brother. He switches allegiances to Rama’s side and helps Rama win against Ravana by revealing all of Ravana’s secrets and those of his strong son, Meghnad (also known as Indrajit because he once defeated the king of the Gods, Indra, in combat). Without knowing these secrets, Rama would have been unable to kill Ravana. In return, Rama crowns him as king of Lanka after killing Ravana.

After killing Ravana and all of his warriors, Rama liberates Sita from her imprisonment. He tells Sita coldly that he did not engage in this great war out of love for her but because her abduction was a personal dishonour to him which he needed to avenge. He also tells her that he cannot accept her as a wife because she had spent all this time in Ravana’s kingdom, so her fidelity is suspect; and that now that he has liberated her, she is free to go anywhere she chooses.

Unable to bear these words, Sita prepares a fire and jumps into it. But the god of the fire, Agni, brings her out of the fire unscathed and hands her to Rama, vouching for her fidelity, and Rama accepts her as his wife again.

Return to Ayodhya and Sita's Exile

Rama comes back to Ayodhya with a hero’s welcome after 14 years and becomes the king. Sometime later, his spies overhear a washerman berating his wife for having spent the night at another man’s home, saying, “Rama may accept a woman who has spent the night at another man’s home, but I am not Rama.”

Rama is shocked that the people of his kingdom have a low opinion of him, and to set matters right, he immediately orders his brother Lakshmana to take his pregnant wife Sita the next morning to the forest, without even having a discussion with her on the matter. Sita learns of her banishment from Ayodhya only after Lakshmana leaves her in the forest with nowhere to go. Weak and pregnant, Sita faints in the forest after her abandonment by Lakshmana and Rama.

By a stroke of luck, Sita is found by attendants of the sage Valmiki who take her to his hermitage, where she recovers and later gives birth to her twin sons Lava and Kusha.

The Story of Lava and Kusha, and Sita's End

The two sons grow up to become fine warriors, educated by Valmiki. During their teenage years, Rama decides to conduct a sacrifice called the Ashwamedha sacrifice (a horse sacrifice) which signifies overlordship of the known world. Wherever the royal horse wanders is considered part of Rama’s kingdom. Anyone obstructing the path of the horse or capturing it would have to face the might of Rama’s army. When the horse comes through the jungle, the two boys capture it. The army of Ayodhya comes after them but is no match for them. Finally Rama himself comes to fight the twins, and is then told that the twins are his children.

Rama is delighted to know this, and accepts the twins as his children, but is unwilling to accept Sita as his wife. A mentally-exhausted Sita commits suicide.

"Maryada-Purushottam" Rama and the Story of Shambuka

Sometime later, Rama receives complaints that a Shudra (the lowest among the four castes of Hinduism) is performing prayer and penance in the forest. This being disallowed in Hindu scripture, he is told many bad things are happening in the kingdom. Rama sets out in search of the Shudra, Shambuka, who is performing penance and worship to the Gods as an ascetic. Once Rama confirms his identity, he immediately executes him without even as much as a warning. The Gods and the brahmin sages shower flowers and and sing songs in praise of Rama for upholding the social order.

Finally, after a long reign upholding the social order of the day, for which he is known as “maryada-purushottam,” or “one who follows social rules to the letter, better than anyone else” Rama and his brothers die, and the kingdom passes on to Lava and Kusha.

This is the end of the Ramayana.

For his various deeds, Rama is revered in Hinduism as the “ideal man.” He is one of the principal deities of Hinduism, and many temples have been constructed in honour of him.

Tuesday, 13 February 2018

The Simultaneous Elections Debate: An Attempt to Fix the Ruling Party’s Achilles Heel?

The BJP has been pushing the idea of simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabhas for some time. Just a couple of days ago, I saw a big debate on this topic on NDTV.

There is one point worth raising that most people are not talking or writing about.

The argument that is made in favour of simultaneous elections are that when elections are spread out over 5 years in their natural course, the government is constantly in campaign mode and hence little work of the people gets done. It is also said that elections cost money, and wouldn’t we all want to save some money by synchronizing all elections?

The example of the US is given when it comes to “synchronized elections.” In the US, there is a Presidential election every 4 years, and there are midterm elections 2 years after the Presidential elections. Elections to the House and Senate are synchronized with the Presidential or midterm elections.

But many have pointed out that this system cannot work in India because we don’t have a two-party system, and because of this, and the widespread occurrence of defections, a party that comes to power in an election might not be able to hold power for 5 years. If they lose a motion of no-confidence in the state assembly due to defections, fresh elections may have to be held if no party has a majority. This kind of thing never happens in the US. All state legislators and governors serve their full term (except in the case of death.) So it is impossible to have synchronous elections in India.

Given all this, what is the real motive behind this concerted push to synchronize state and central elections?

The PM … is too busy running around the country to run the country.

The practical effect of all this running around is haphazard, poorly-thought-out policies like Demonetization and GST.

The fact is that the BJP is a one-man party. They have no leaders of repute except the PM, and this is by design. Any prominent leaders, whether at the national or at the state levels, have been systematically marginalized, and the only ones in control are those who have no independent base, are unelectable (like the honourable finance minister, Mr. Jaitley, who lost his Lok Sabha election in Amritsar and had to be nominated to the Rajya Sabha to continue in Mr. Modi’s cabinet) and could not win an election for anyone else. The state Chief Ministers are a bunch of nobodies – be it a Devendra Phadnavis in Maharashtra, a Manohar Lal Khattar in Haryana, a Vijay Rupani in Gujarat, a Trivendra Singh Rawat in Uttarakhand, or a Jairam Thakur in Himachal Pradesh – none of these could win elections in their own states without the fortifying presence of Narendra Modi. With a few exceptions like Shivraj Singh Chouhan in MP, Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan, and Manohar Parrikar in Goa, the BJP needs Mr. Modi’s popularity to win elections.

And this is why Mr. Modi is in constant campaign mode. This is a one-man party, and it is so by design. Anyone who was popular enough to present a challenge to Mr. Modi was thrown out of active politics and sent to a defunct “Margadarshak Mandal.” The result is a party of yes-men and women and a party with only one viable leader.

And, of course, if the PM is constantly in campaign mode, he clearly cannot do the work for which he has been chosen – he is too busy running around the country to run the country. Those who think Yogi Adityanath won because of this own strength should remember that Modi addressed 24 rallies in UP in 2017. He also addressed 31 rallies in Bihar in 2015 (when the BJP lost) and 34 in Gujarat in the 2017 assembly elections (when they won).

Should the country’s entire system be changed (with all the attendant difficulties and costs) just to ensure the survival of one party and its leader? Should the entire political system change to solve the weakness of one political party?

The practical effect of all this running around is haphazard, poorly-thought-out policies like Demonetization and GST. Even for a Superman like Mr. Modi, there are only 24 hours in a day, and governance takes a backseat to winning elections.

This kind of involvement in state elections by the chief executive is unprecedented. Yes, past Prime Ministers have addressed rallies in poll-bound states, but they have usually been only a handful because they have been busy with the job of running the country. Even when the Congress was in the opposition in 2015, Mr. Modi addressed nearly twice the number of rallies (31) that Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi addressed, combined (16).

If the country does try to move to simultaneous elections, the move will fail after a couple of cycles and elections will go back to being random. Two cycles, of course, is probably sufficient for the remainder of Mr. Modi’s political life (he is already 67) – which is all the BJP is interested in – milk Mr. Modi’s popularity as much as possible.

The question that needs to be asked is: Should the country’s entire system be changed (with all the attendant difficulties and costs) just to ensure the survival of one party and its leader? Should the entire political system change to solve the weakness of one political party?

Saturday, 16 February 2019

Thursday, 13 December 2018

Monday, 3 December 2018

Friday, 26 October 2018

Wednesday, 22 August 2018

Saturday, 12 May 2018

Tuesday, 13 February 2018

My Blog List