The woman in red and other stories

With all that we have going on right here in India, a protest in Gezi Park, in Istanbul, seems remote, unconnected — until you begin to read more deeply and start mapping parallels between the happenings in Turkey and what is unfolding in India. I’ve been meaning to write a longish essay drawing on those parallels and underlining the lessons Gezi Park has for us here, but that will need to wait till I am done with the workshops I have to conduct later this week.

(For a quick primer, here is the Wiki entry and a timeline. If you want to go deeper, two books make a good starting point: Under the Shadow by Kaya Genç and Twitter and Teargas by Zeynep Tufekci.)

Gezi Park is on my mind today because of unfolding events over the past 24 hours. Yesterday, in Istanbul, the court sprang a surprise when — despite all indications during the prolonged hearing of the case — it acquitted businessman and philanthropist Osman Kavala and eight others.

In 2015, an Istanbul court had struck a blow for the rights of the citizen when it acquitted dozens of people who had been arrested for their participation in the 2013 protests in Turkey. The court ruled that the people were merely exercising their right of freedom of assembly.

Kavala was arrested in October 2017 (15 others, including a journalist and an actor, were arrested around the same time) for his involvement in the same events. While the government’s lawyers obfuscated and initially refused to elaborate on the charges, media outlets close to the Recep Tayyip Erdogan government ran stories accusing him of being “a business tycoon with a shady background”; of “having contacts” with a group of terrorists; of being behind the Gezi Park protests and “transferring significant amounts of funds to certain places.” Does any of this have a familiar ring?

A formal criminal indictment was filed only in March 2019, two years after Kavala’s arrest and incarceration in a maximum security prison, It accused Kavala and the other the defendants of being the “masterminds” behind the Gezi Park protests, of “attempting to overthrow the government through violence”, of being agents of philanthropist George Soros — long story short, a kitchen sink of charges long on rhetoric and short on indictable offences backed by hard evidence. Does that have a familiar ring to it?

Yesterday, the court sprang a surprise when, in a judgement that went against the grain of the lengthy proceedings (during which defence attorneys were routinely hindered, including right at the end when they weren’t given the time they sought to respond to the prosecution’s closing statement), it ordered the release of Kavala and eight other co-accused.

The echoes of the applause greeting the verdict had barely died down, however, when Kavala was re-arrested on charges of involvement in a failed 2016 coup. He had spent over two years in jail on charges that couldn’t stand up in court despite the best efforts of the government; he spent a few minutes breathing free air before he was returned to the Silivri maximum security prison on the outskirts of Istanbul. Does that sound familiar?

The Erdogan government in Turkey is the closest modern parallel to events unfolding in India, and for that reason is worth following closely for the many lessons to be learned. One starting point (besides the two books mentioned earlier) is this podcast, where Amit Varma and Pranay Kotasthane discuss the phenomenon of protests in modern-day networked societies and the ways various authoritarian governments are adapting to deal with them. Below, a short reading list of stories from Gezi Park:

Tufecki, whose book I’d mentioned earlier, wrote this urgent, breathless blogpost from the thick of the protests, a post in which the incoherence arising from writing in the moment with limited connectivity is balanced by the knife-sharp immediacy of her observations.

What is most noticeable is that just as in India, there is a proximate cause for the Gezi Park protests (the threat of demolition of the park, a rare space in central Istanbul with trees and space for people to walk about), but that single cause has since grown to encompass a laundry list of grievances against the brutal Erdogan regime. Also worth noting is the self-policing by the protestors, who are aware of the risk of third-party violence tainting their peaceful struggle:

In fact, even the slightest scuffle is in the park calmed down immediately.  I observed this first-hand when a visiting youngster, about 14 or 15, tried to pick a fight with an older man claiming that he had looked at his girlfriend the wrong way. Dozens of people immediately intervened, calmed the youngster, took him away, helped his girlfriend, asked her if she was okay, and generally made sure it was all calm again. “Not here, no fighting, not here” is heard as soon as any tensions arise. People are very proactive. This is not a let-and-let-live space in those regards (though it is in many others).

Turkish author Elif Shafak writes of the smiles, the laughter, the pervasive sense of joy that marks the protests in defiance of teargas:

The most retweeted messages are those with jests and puns and wordplay—and graffiti. On a wall in hasty letters: “The rich kids have better gas masks, we are jealous.” Nearby in an alley is writing that says: “Revolutionary Gays Everywhere.” One graffiti complains: “I could not find a slogan yet” while another one says cheerfully, “Welcome to the first traditional gas festival.”

….

The protests have coined a term. In a live TV interview the prime minister called the demonstrators “çapulcu,” which means “looter” or “marauder” in Turkish. The social media was quick to pick up the word and redefine it as “someone who fights for his/her individual rights.” In the blink of an eye a neologism was formed, half Turkish, half English. The Turkish noun was transformed into an English verb. Now Wikipedia has a new entry: “Chapulling.”

The next day, all over the Internet there were messages using the new word: “I will be chapulling today,” or “Everyday we are chapulling,” or “Tomorrow I shall chapul again.”

Author Elif Batuman atmospheric, ‘been there’ piece for the New Yorker is rich in detail and insight about Istanbul’s penchant for protesting, even if most of those protests turn out to be futile. And then there is this bit about the joy the protestors display, despite the risks, the threats and even the actuality of violent counter-measures:

On my street, spirits seem to be high. Someone is playing “Bella, Ciao” on a boom-box, and I can hear cheering and clapping. But every now and then the spring breeze carries a high, whistling, screaming sound, and the faint smell of pepper gas.

While on teargas, pepper spray et al, this piece from the Guardian about how it became big business is worth reading. For background on Erdogan, and Turkey’s descent into unbridled authoritarianism, there is this 2012 piece by Dexter Filkins for the New Yorker.

Author Claire Berlinski, who was there, wrote this richly detailed account that will remind you of scenes we have been seeing and hearing about from protest sites across India:

And it was glorious — a huge innocent carnival, filled with improbable (I would have hitherto thought impossible) scenes of nationalist Turks mingling amiably with nationalist Kurds, the latter dancing to some strange ghastly species of techno-Halay, the former pumping their fists in the air and chanting their eternal allegiance to something very nationalist, I’m sure. Balloons lit with candles sailed over the sky; hawkers sold every species of Gezi souvenir, and the only smell of pepper in the air came from the grilled meatballs served in hunks of fresh bread and sprinkled with chilli powder….

And then there is Ceyda Sungur, an academic attached to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Istanbul. Her day job made her more aware than most of the long-term costs of the planned razing of 100s of trees in Gezi Park; she walked out of the university and, unwittingly, into the history and iconography of contemporary protests when this happened. (Also read this account from The Guardian). Here she is (Image courtesy imgur.com):

When I first saw this image, by some odd association of ideas I remembered Marianne, the 13-year-old who at around 7 AM on October 5, 1789 went to the market place at the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, picked up a drum and began thumping out a marching beat, thus setting in motion a chain of events that we now know as the October March, a seminal moment in the history of the French Revolution. (While on this, the pivotal role of women in protests throughout history is the subject for an essay for another day).

Here is what Sungur has become to Gezi Park, and to the history of protests:

One final thought about Istanbul, about Gezi Park — the protests began on May 28, 2013. There has been no resolution yet; the protests continue with undiluted vigour. Keep that in mind when you ask yourself how long the anti-CAA protests can — must — go on. The short answer is, for as long as it takes.

Shifting to our own shores, here are a few stories you should read:

Shruti Rajagopalan‘s take-no-prisoners column for Livemint calls out the Supreme Court for its utter disregard for habeas corpus, in light of a recent speech by Justice DY Chandrachud (full text) affirming the individual’s right to dissent. The nut graf:

He (Chandrachud) invoked the word “liberty” 16 times and “freedom” 14 times. Last week, after six months of detention, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, two former chief ministers of Jammu and Kashmir, were charged under its Public Safety Act (PSA), a law that allows detention without trial for up to two years. Worse still, hundreds of others are waiting for their day in court for the ruling on their detention. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, who expressed enlightened ideas on liberty in his lecture, belongs to a court (with 32 other learned justices) that has not set aside the time to hear habeas corpus cases of hundreds of Indians detained in Kashmir. This apparent contradiction requires further examination.

A Reuters report underlines the risk of the increasing use, by Indian police forces, of facial recognition software to identify and potentially harass those taking part in protests. Back in December, Indian Express had broken the story of how the technology, court-sanctioned for use to help police identify missing children, was now being used to create a database of alleged “rabble-rousers and miscreants”. Express had earlier last year run an explainer on the AFRS system that provides background and context.

While on the police, hundreds of cases have been filed in dozens of cities across the country against anti-CAA protestors. They all have one thing in common — not a single one of the charges has thus far stood up to judicial scrutiny. Here’s the latest example, from Karnataka where the high court has granted bail to 22 people booked in connection with the December 19, 2009 protests in Mangalore and observed, inter alia, that the police investigation “appears to be mala fide and partisan”. The money quote from the bail order, in a case where the police charged protestors with using stones and weapons to attack them:

The photographs produced by learned SPP-I depict that hardly any member of the crowd were armed with weapons except one of them holding a bottle. In none of these photographs, police station or policemen are seen in the vicinity. On the other hand, photographs produced by the petitioners disclose that the policemen themselves were pelting stones on the crowd“, states the Order

In passing, while we celebrate these instances of protestors being released on bail, keep in mind that getting bail is not vindication — the protestors, who as the judge observes here were sinned against, not sinning, still have to go through the whole process of court appearances, which is exactly the reason the police resort to such tactics.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who had earlier said the NPR exercise would not be permitted in his state, appears to have changed his mind, and his tune: He now says that there is no harm in NPR. Widespread state-level opposition to the Centre’s rollout of the NPR is the only realistic way Amit Shah’s plans can be stymied; if Maharashtra goes back on its initial objection, it weakens a growing coalition of states willing and ready to face down the central government over the issue.

Related, the UIDAI has — on the basis of an anonymous complaint — asked an auto driver (and reportedly, over a hundred others in one neighbourhood) in Hyderabad to prove his citizenship. This is one of the very real fears the CAA/NPR/NRC has instilled in people — that anyone with a grudge can file an anonymous complaint, which the authorities can then use to harass you. For what it is worth, the UIDAI has via news agency ANI issued a clarification which, in the patented fashion of all such clarifications, puts the onus on the media for having “misrepresented” the facts. Sir Humphrey Appleby said it best: “No, Prime Minister, a clarification is not to make oneself clear. It is to put oneself in the clear.”

In Kashmir, police have resorted to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act to register cases against people using proxy servers to access social media. The move is intended to deter locals from telling the world about what is happening within the sealed off bubble that the state has become, and follows on the heels of a video of ailing Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani making it past the state’s firewalls and onto social media. FIRs have been filed against those who “defied government orders and misused social media platforms,” the police said in a statement without, however, explaining why uploading a factual video is “misuse” whereas the government can claim, in Parliament and on international forums, that normalcy has been restored in the Valley.

Quartz, meanwhile, reports that the government’s internet ban has sparked an exodus of students and businesspersons, particularly start-ups, from the Valley. Also from Kashmir comes the news that panchayat polls, originally scheduled to take place in March, have been postponed. “Home Department, Government of Jammu and Kashmir…has advised the Election Authority to consider deferring of the conduct of polls based on credible inputs from the law enforcement agencies,” the notice read. J&K comes under the central government — which, just a week ago, played tourist guide to yet another group of random European Union officials as part of its ongoing propaganda exercise intended to show that all was well in the Valley. And here we are, citing “security concerns” to explain the government’s inability to hold panchayat elections.

Regular readers will recall that I’ve been saying the much-hyped trade deal (it was supposed to happen during ‘Howdy Modi’, but didn’t) was unlikely to materialise during the upcoming visit of Donald Trump to India. Here is the confirmation.

It will likely happen only after the 2020 Presidential elections in November, we are told. What we are not told is that you don’t know who will become the next President, and what his attitude, and that of his party, will be — so can we just agree that the trade deal will not happen in the foreseeable future? As recently as last night IST, Trump had this to say:

“Well, we can have a trade deal with India, but I’m really saving the big deal for later on,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a trip to California. “I don’t know if it will be done before the [US presidential] election. We’re not treated very well by India, but I happen to like Prime Minister Narendra Modi a lot.”

Modi happens to like Trump a lot, too (why, is not so clear), as evidenced by the daily stories of preparations to roll out the red carpet. As for instance:

Ahead of President Trump’s visit, who will arrive in India on February 24 and is expected to visit the Taj Mahal in Agra, the Uttar Pradesh Irrigation Department has released 500 cusecs of water into the Yamuna to improve the condition of the river. The water has been released from the Ganganahar in Bulandshahr to improve the “environmental condition” of the river. Yamuna flows adjacent to the boundary wall of the Taj Mahal.

A “cusec” is a measure of flow (one cubic foot per second). “Released 500 cusecs” means nothing as a measure of volume unless there is a time attached to it — “500 cusecs for one hour”, for instance, would mean 18 lakh cubic feet of water.

But never mind that example of the media lazily regurgitating a bureaucrat’s press note without application of mind, the point is, the government is doing everything it can to create a Potemkin facade ahead of the Trump visit. It’s worth remembering that as recently as the Delhi election campaign UP chief minister Bisht, whose government ordered the release of water to “improve the Yamuna’s condition”, was blaming Kejriwal for the sorry state of the Yamuna. Also from UP, this latest example of a state that has totally, completely failed its citizens:

This government has often, and with justification, been accused of lack of attention to detail. Think demonetisation when, among other things, it turned out that the government had not anticipated the need to recalibrate ATM machines when rolling out new notes of a different size. Or GST, whose provisions are still being “tweaked”. But when it comes to the Trump visit, no detail is too small to escape the government’s notice. How’s this?

Ahmedabad is prepping up to host the POTUS and to ensure that the city is clean, the municipal corporation has now sealed three paan shops at the airport circle. Notices have been pasted outside the shops mentioning that if the shop-owners try to remove the seal, legal action will be taken. The initiative has been taken to make sure that all the roads and walls around the Ahmedabad airport remain spick and span.

Elsewhere in UP, Congress leader and poet Imran Pratapgarhi has been fined Rs 1.04 crore fine for participating in anti-CAA protests. Apparently that is his share of the Rs 13.42 lakh it costs to deploy RAF and PAC personnel at the protest site. Note that this is a magistrate, no less, fining someone for exercising his right to dissent — a fundamental right, as Justice Chandrachud said just the other day. Here is your reminder that it costs the country Rs 1.62 crore per day to provide security cover for Narendra Modi.

Seven sailors have been arrested for passing on information to Pakistan.

And finally, for today, read this Vice investigation into the first known use of deepfakes in an Indian election. And be afraid. Be very afraid, because it is suddenly that much easier to manufacture “proof” against whoever the government wants to destroy (Imagine this tech existing say in 2016, when the government and captive media combined to create the totally false allegation that “Bharat tere tukde honge” slogans were raised by Kanhaiya Kumar and others during the JNU protests of that year. It was easily disproved then; today, the “supporting evidence” will be far more persuasive thanks to tech, and the resulting effort to disprove the allegation that much more difficult.

Bad news

Everyone: There’s so much anger and helplessness flooding my thoughts, I worry that soon there won’t be any room for other emotions, like dread.

The New Yorker’s Colin Nissan is savagely sarcastic about the zeitgeist. Read — it will feel like you or I could have written this, about the world we find ourselves in. A world where, says the Economist on its latest cover, Narendra Modi’s sectarianism is eroding India’s secular democracy.

The Economist’s India cover stories down the years is a stark illustration of how the country we know has changed under Modi. Churumuri rounds them up:

The concerns over centralisation of power in the first year turned to scepticism over the reforms route in 2017. The question mark before the general elections of 2019, has ended in a complete negation of the path India has embarked on, in 2020. (2/2) #CAA_NRC_NPR pic.twitter.com/yeT5mR5HPc

— churumuri (@churumuri) January 24, 2020

Still, this latest cover sounds exaggeratedly alarmist, until you consider Kailash Vijayvargiya, national general secretary of the BJP. Who says he suspected that some workers engaged in constructing a new room at his home were Bangladeshis, because of their “strange eating habits” — to wit, they ate poha. From the story:

I have not filed any police complaint yet. I only mentioned this incident to warn people.”

Speaking at the seminar, Vijayvargiya also claimed that a Bangladeshi terrorist was keeping a watch on him for the last one-and-a-half years.

“Whenever I go out, six armed security personnel follow me. What is happening in this country? Will outside people enter and spread so much terror?” he asked.

Just another of the BJP’s motormouth brigade sounding off, right? And making accusations that, on the face of it, are so absurd they are downright laughable? (I mean, a national BJP leader has a Bangladeshi terrorist following him around for a year and a half — he knows it, but neither his security, nor the police, nor the GoI’s extended intelligence machinery, can do anything about it?)

In passing, if poha now ranks with beef on the BJP’s list of suspect foods, wonder what Vijayvarghiya makes of Narendra Modi, who is on record as saying poha is one of the things he likes to cook?

We dismiss such idiots at our own peril, though. For this is classic gaslighting — he is speaking not to those who can think for themselves, but to that other constituency, of hardcore bigots, who merely want a peg to hang their internal prejudices on. This gaslighting, and the consequent normalisation of prejudice, has dangerous real world consequences. Thus:

A day after shanties belonging to hundreds of labourers were illegally razed by a BBMP official, fear has gripped migrant workers in east Bengaluru, with as many as 600 leaving the city even as authorities justified the action citing lack of time and money for verifying documents.

The administration — in Yedyurappa-run Bangalore — has no time or money to check whether there is any truth to an allegation, so they just demolish a few hundred homes and put a thousand or so people on the street. People, mind, with all proper documentation, including some who are native Kannadigas. Remember, this began with a BJP MLA posting a video of a shantytown and alleging that the residents were illegal Bangladeshi migrants. Elsewhere:

Thousands of migrant workers, mostly employed in coffee estates across Kodagu, were taken to three centres in the district on Thursday as police carried out an identity verification exercise. The centres in Madikeri, Virajpet and Kushalnagar towns were teeming with crowds as police conducted both offline and online identity verification.

The action, say the police, was because of “the security threats these people pose”. What threats? Based on which investigation? Where is due process?

An Amit Shah talks of the “termites” from Bangladesh. A Vijayvarghiya talks of his suspicion that some people eating poha are illegal Bangladeshis. Stupid comments on the face of it, but it accomplishes the purpose: “Bangladeshi” is the cover that confers legitimacy on their actions; Muslim is the enemy they are going after.

The law, which is meant to be a bulwark against such acts, is of no use. In BJP-ruled states where the leaders have passed on their prejudices to the hand-picked senior police officers and given them a loose rein, it is a case of act first, think up reasons later. As for instance in Uttar Pradesh, where…

As more and more cases against protesters charged with attempt to murder and rioting during anti-CAA protests in December began failing legal scrutiny and courts started granting bail, police in Muzaffarnagar invoked a stringent provision of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 — almost a month after it booked 107 people — and claimed that protesters used children “for illegal activity”.

Which is to say, when the initial charges — of “rioting” — fail to hold up, the police come up with something else. And when that fails to hold up (as it will), they will come up with something else again… No sooner than lawyers successfully fight one charge, than another pops up.

This zeal is selective. For instance, in the daily rush of events we seem to have forgotten that today, January 24, is the 19th day since masked thugs armed with iron rods, hammers, bottles of acid, entered the JNU campus, with the connivance of the VC and with the benign tolerance of the police, and caused mayhem. Several of the perpetrators have been identified, via video and cellphone messages — and yet, there has not been one single arrest, no FIR against any of them. On the other hand JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh and several of her colleagues face charges of criminal vandalism for an attack on the university’s server rooms on January 1 — an attack, as an RTI inquiry revealed, never happened.

This is the playbook in its entirety. Use public platforms and captive media to demonise, to other. Then act — no matter how untenable the action is, because the objective is not to apprehend and punish actual wrongdoing, but to make life unliveable for those the government deems its enemy. And when words are not enough, try more direct methods. As, for instance:

According to the Kathirur police Prabesh allegedly hurled steel bombs towards the police picket in front of Kathirur Manoj Smrithi Kendram, an RSS office.

“He threw bombs during the wee hours of January 16 morning. Following the arrest he has confessed that his aim was RSS office. Kannur, being politically sensitive region, any attack on political party offices will be regarded as an act by the opponent,” Kathirur SI Nijeesh said.

Unpack that slowly. An RSS “worker” threw a bomb at his own party office, regardless of the fact that he might have ended up killing his own people, so that blame could be put on the enemy — the political opposition, the “radicals”, whoever. This happened in Kannur, ground zero for RSS-sponsored terrorism. Where, among many incidents, there was this: Lethal bombs recovered from an RSS-controlled temple where they had been hidden. Remember this?:

“They are putting their life in danger to make these things (bombs) for self-defence. That’s how little faith they have in the law and order system in place,” he said.

The man saying RSS workers are making bombs for self defence, risking their lives in the process, is RSS leader (RSS, not one of those convenient “fringe groups”) Valsan Thillankeri — who was at the forefront of the 2019 violence at Sabarimala, where, again, bombs were hurled at the homes of political leaders.

It’s getting to where Colin Nissan’s sarcasm in the New Yorker piece doesn’t feel like sarcasm any more; it is actually a thing.

Everybody: You know those moments between crying about one thing and crying about the next thing, when you finally have time to catch your breath and just cry about nothing?

• Shruti Rajagopalan, one of my favourite columnists on all things to do with economics, turns her attention to the Constitution and, with a tick-tock narrative, shows us how we got here. Read — it is the background you need to understand the present.
• CNN has a detailed report sourcing Amnesty International on the troll armies and related propaganda tools that have made Twitter hell for women politicians and activists. Related, the Independent (London) has a similar story.
• Since Kerala came up earlier in this post (and since I linked to my posts yesterday), here is a Caravan backgrounder that tells you how, and why, Kerala became ground zero for the RSS.
• You read about Davinder Singh. You read about Samarpal, the BSF jawan caught carrying a lethal bomb into a CRPF camp. Now read this story, of how army personnel in Kashmir are commandeering the cars of citizens at night. Why would the army, which has vehicles to spare, need to surreptitiously commandeer private cars at night? What are they doing, that they cannot do in their own official vehicles? The questions just keep mounting, and each unanswered question adds to the dread that the situation in the Valley is much less than even the more pessimistic of us feared.

I’ll be back here later today in case this post needs updating. In the meantime, I will leave you with this comprehensive — and highly evocative — collation of the protest music that is emerging out of the ongoing revolution. I’ve been listening to some of these on loop. And also with this image, that got fixed in my mind when I saw it while surfing Twitter last evening:

Shaheen Bagh. pic.twitter.com/mO3qn13nAI

— Tavleen Singh (@tavleen_singh) January 23, 2020

Reading List 19/01/2020

• Uttar Pradesh, about which a longer blogpost needs writing, continues to shock with its arrogant unconcern for either law, or human rights, or even public opinion. One of the many lies — that protestors had fired on cops, leading to retaliatory firing that led to deaths — has been steadily unravelling. Meanwhile a women’s protest at the Clock Tower in Lucknow — which began a couple of days ago with just a handful of women, and which has grown in size ever since — was raided last evening, and the police carried away food and blankets. “Do not spread rumours,” a police statement today says,. “The blankets were seized after due process”. What “due process” allows people to confiscate blankets and food from people peacefully protesting is left to your imagination. Reports also say that water cannons were used on the women protestors. But as always happens in times of crisis, it is the Sikh community that brings a shaft of light to the darkness. This time, by turning up with blankets and food to replace what the police had robbed.
• Uttar Pradesh, again, showing how intolerance is done. Danseuse Manjari Chaturvedi, who has taken her innovative Sufi-Kathak dance form all over the world, was halted in mid-performance at a UP government function in Lucknow. She was told ‘qawwali nahi chalegi yahan‘.
• A majority Christian village in Karnataka decided to put up a statue to Jesus. The RSS led a rally opposing it. It turns out that the local Hindus not only have no problem with the proposed statue, they are willing to oppose the RSS if they again bring outsiders to protest.
• A member of the Niti Aayog wants to know why Kashmiris are fussed about the denial of internet facilities. There is no e-commerce there anyway, he says; Kashmiris do nothing but watch porn. The man is, among other things, a scientist, ex-DRDO.
• Mukul Kesavan writes of the icons ranging from Ambedkar to Savitribai Phule who have been resurrected by the anti-CAA protestors. But no Gandhi, he points out. “Gandhi’s relative unimportance in the CAA-NRC protests has several reasons. For one, he has been so completely appropriated by the Indian State since his death that he has been reduced to a piety.”
• Raj Shekhar Sen traces contemporary events to what he calls a “crisis of masculinity” that fuels the Hindutva agenda.
• JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh says what is happening in the country is nothing short of an attempt by Modi to colonise his own country.
• Josy Joseph, who from the time he was a colleague at Rediff has made a speciality of the internal security beat, has the most nuanced, readable piece yet on Davinder Singh, the J&K cop arrested while ferrying wanted militants towards Delhi. Militancy, Josy writes, is a multi-faceted business; Davinder is merely a symptom, a manifestation, of a much larger malaise. Alongside the piece, watch this video where Davinder reportedly told the arresting officers not to interfere because it would spoil a plan. The whole thing smells to high heaven — which, come to think of it, explains why the NIA has taken over the investigation, as the surest means of putting a lid on it.
• On February 27, 2018, my colleague Arati Kumar-Rao and I were at the Wagah Border to receive Paul Salopek, the two-time Pulitzer-winner who was due to enter India on this leg of his Out of Eden Walk. What struck us most forcibly was the incessant traffic of lorries and trucks, speaking to the flourishing cross-border trade between the two countries. While Arati went in to the checkpoint to receive Paul, I whiled away the time at a tea-shop where Sunny, the owner, regaled me with stories of this trade. The tea-shop was just a working base for him; his real occupation was trading in dried fruits which, he said, came from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The goods would be dropped off at the Pakistan side of the checkpost; his people would then pass them through Customs, and his lorries would load up on the India side, and transport the goods to wholesale merchants in Amritsar and elsewhere. Remember, this flourishing trade was happening at the same time border tensions had peaked. Not any more, though — Suhasini Haidar reports that thousands of families have been hit by the trade freeze at the Wagah-Attari border. It’s just another dot that, when connected up, presents a picture of the large-scale economic distress roiling the country. In that connection, and in tandem with my post earlier this morning about Kashmir, read also this piece by Salman Anees Sos on the economic catastrophe that has hit the state.
• Author Chetan Bhagat, who at times has been pilloried for statements in support of the current regime, has a nicely weighted piece in Times of India about why the whole CAA/NRC/NPR exercise should be shelved immediately.
• Remember Muhammed bin Tughlaq, whose mis-governance masterstrokes has earned him notoriety in history? The man is a genius compared to Modi’s government — which, recently, panicked as onion prices shot up and public anger rose, bought 35,000 tons of onions from Turkey and Egypt, found that the market has no demand for the bland variants from those countries, and is now trying to sell them off at less than half the purchase price.
• In context of the recent kerfuffle over Jeff Bezos, Amazon, and the GoI’s apparent issues with “predatory pricing”, read this piece by columnist and podcaster Amit Varma where he argues that the problem is actually with a predatory state.

The sound of silence

I woke up this morning and, while still beneath the covers, reached for my phone. I checked mail, messages, WhatsApp, and Signal to see if anything had come in while I was asleep that would impact my day: someone I needed to meet, someplace I needed to be at. I then rapidly scrolled through my Twitter timeline to see if anything major had broken during the night.

I made myself a cup of coffee, came to my workdesk, fired up my laptop, and opened the ‘Morning News’ bookmarks folder, within which I collect the sites I need to check to get a broad overview of what’s happening in the world.

It’s my daily routine, and on the rare days when my internet provider stuffs up, or I am traveling in some remote area where the connection is splotchy, not being able to do any or all of this leaves me uncomfortable; I am aware of a nagging sense of unease.

Think for a moment about Kashmir, where all of those things I take for granted — the ability to check messages, to keep myself updated on happenings in my country and around the world, to check my bank balance and plan my finances, to work, to read for profit and for pleasure — have all been shut down since August 5 last year.

Executive Editor of Kashmir Times Anuradha Bhasin had approached the Supreme Court challenging the shut-down and seeking immediate lifting of the restrictions on communications. That was on August 10. It took the Supreme Court six months to hear the case — and when it did, it declared that the shut-down was “unconstitutional”. (The judgment is here for those interested).

So what would you expect the Supreme Court, the ultimate defender of the Constitution, to do in the case of an act it deems unconstitutional? Order that restrictions be lifted? What the court in effect did was tell the government, what you did was wrong, so you review it and do what you think is right.

Leaving it to the government to review its own unconstitutional act was never going to end well, was it? It didn’t.

I’m no lawyer (and if there is one thing I’ve learned in three-plus decades as a journalist, it is to not write about things I am not qualified to understand). But we now — if we are outside Kashmir, that is — have access to lawyers who are on social media; that access has meant that media houses are able to tap into them for informed commentary.

There is an abundance of such commentary on the net, accessible via a simple Google search. Here are just four that I think is worth reading to get a broad understanding:

• In this piece, constitutional lawyer Gautam Bhatia places the SC judgment of January 10 in context of the court’s actions (and inactions) in a previous case of suspension of basic human rights: the Emergency.
• Here, Bhatia points out that while the SC judgment does little in the way of providing immediate and total relief, it does lay the groundwork for future legal challenges against the Modi government’s indiscriminate use of the internet shutdown as a weapon to stifle dissent.
• Manu Sebastian in Live Law questions the SC’s failure to address the “emergency” nature of the case it was hearing, and argues that this failure is hugely problematic.
• Apar Gupta argues that when it came to choosing between human rights and the government of the day, the SC leaned towards the latter. It is, he says, a ‘statist interpretation’ of the law.
• Dushyant Dave notes the cautious optimism the SC judgment has led to, and says it is a sign that the rest of India has reconciled itself to the ‘othering’, the ‘orphaning’ of Kashmir. (A point I will come back to later, because that is what led me to write this post in the first place)

There is plenty more in the form of commentary, but the above stories suffice to provide a broad overview of the legal minuses — and a few slender silver linings — of the judgment. But what of the aftermath?

The GoI has partially restored broadband and 2G services in J&K. And you can access 153 websites that the government has “whitelisted”. There are other provisions, restrictions, but focus on just these for now and ask yourself — how does this comply with the SC judgment?

But that is precisely the point: the government’s gameplan is to do as little as possible in seeming compliance, then wait for a legal challenge to emerge. (And given the tardiness of the SC in hearing the original complaint, it is a fair assumption that between them, the GoI and the SC can continue to run out the clock).

There is another clause the GoI has inserted into this partial restoration of the internet: ISPs have been ordered to build firewalls to ensure that the people of Kashmir have no access to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms.

“There are fears that locals will log on to these social media platforms and upload videos recorded in the past five months, posing threat to the current calm in Kashmir,” a senior police officer told The Hindu. “Besides, Pakistan may also use the social media to coordinate with militants.”

“Fears”.

The GoI “fears” that the people of Kashmir might go on social media to upload videographic evidence of what happened in the state during the six-month blackout. So what is it precisely that the GoI fears? That stories such as this — dismissed thus far as coming from “vested interests” — will now come out into the open? That the full extent of the damage — both economic and social — will begin to come out? That the human rights abuses will now get a public airing?

While going through an Evernote folder last night, I came across this story I had saved, of the lengths to which Kashmiris have had to go to access basic communications facilities. And I just went back and checked the list of the 153 websites the government has permitted Kashmiris to access.

If I was in Kashmir now, I’d be totally hamstrung. I can’t access WhatsApp, or Twitter, or any other social media sites — which is the first thing I do every morning. And not a single one of a little over four dozen websites I check each morning for the news appears in that list.

In a piece this morning in The Wire, Siddharth Varadarajan makes the larger point:

Make no mistakes: This firewall is an augury of what the future holds for us all if the Modi-Shah approach to fundamental rights is allowed to prevail. For the first time since the Emergency, the government is arrogating to itself the right to tell citizens what they can and cannot read. Indeed, Modi has gone step beyond Indira Gandhi. She ‘only’ had her censors black out select news items and opinions. Our Dear Leader, on the other hand, has decided that digital news of any kind is to be blacked out from Kashmir.

How are we still silent? How did we remain silent about this gross, continuing injustice all these six months? Why was this egregious and continuing violation of our basic rights not important enough for us to take to the streets en masse? How did we slip into this mindset of thinking of Kashmir as being somehow not a part of India, of thinking that its concerns do not concern us? How did we become okay with what Dushyant, in the piece linked to earlier in this post, called the “orphaning” of Kashmir?

When I began blogging again recently, after a prolonged interval, I had started my first post with a quote from MLK Jr’s seminal “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. I’ll leave you with that same quote, because the thought MLK expressed is, I think, central to our today’s and tomorrows.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Some news, some views

HERE is what is known to a fair degree of certainty: For over a year now, the RSS has been using its deep network to carry out periodic surveys designed to gauge the mood of the electorate.

In this time, various thoughts were floated, and tested: Simultaneous assembly and LS polls to make the election truly presidential and thus play to Modi’s strengths; bringing the election dates forward if the conditions were found favorable, etc.

The rest is rumor. Persistent rumor, coming in from various quarters unconnected to and in some cases unknown to each other, but rumor nonetheless. And rumor said that one of the first such surveys, conducted early last year, gave the BJP around 120 seats if the election were held then, and the NDA around 160 in total. (Keep in mind that the contours of the alliance were not known then). Subsequent surveys, all of which kept the Delhi media circles buzzing (and which several journalists hinted at, but never wrote about, because obviously…) didn’t move the needle significantly in the direction of the ruling party.

The last such survey was conducted in early/mid-March and again, the results were believed to be far from encouraging. Again, multiple journalists and media houses had the results, courtesy leaks from within the RSS (sections of which are, to put it mildly, upset with the autocratic behavior of Modi and Shah); some hints were thrown around on social media but again, no one published it till Nagpur Today, a daily that comes from the RSS’ backyard, the other day.

Here is the published survey. It gives the NDA – not the BJP, the NDA – a mere 182 seats.

In common with several other journalists, I’ve been hearing of these surveys and occasionally getting toplines via whispers on phone – but absent seeing the actual survey, there is no credible way of verifying any of this. Even this published one, though the outcome roughly maps to what I’d heard, is not authenticated – and for obvious reasons, mainstream media has steered well clear of either publication, or even references to this on social media.

So why deal in unauthenticated rumor? Because, this: I’ve been following the various political moves the BJP has been making, including the notion of holding simultaneous polls which at one point the party pushed for very hard. And I’ve been connecting those up with the evolution of the BJP’s campaign through its various tropes: Sabka saath…, Namumkin bhi…, Sahi niyat… and all the variants that have at various times been floated and withdrawn. And a few things make sense – most particularly the virulently communal, hardline turn the campaign has taken in recent weeks, which maps on a timeline to when pollsters (not merely those of the RSS/BJP internal surveys) began noticing that the Pulwama/Balakot bump – which, even at its peak, was not seen as moving the needle significantly – had begun to fade.

Net net, one thing has become very clear: The BJP is getting zero traction on the stump for its various “development schemes” and its attempts to sell itself as the party of progress. Its other electoral pillar, anti-corruption, has been taking a beating, not just because of the opacity surrounding Rafale but also the various scams – or, at least, allegations — that have been surfacing every other day. They now have nothing left but to stoke the same fires, prey on the same manufactured fears and, like a tired, aging, increasingly querulous Don Quixote, tilting with an old, broken lance against the same enemies from five years ago. Most recent case in point: Modi, yesterday in Maharashtra, on how it was Sharad Pawar and not the BJP-led state government that was responsible for the woes of the farmers in the state.

Take the survey with a pinch, or even a bagful, of salt – but equally, keep an eye on the increasing shrillness of the campaign, and see what you make of it.

One more thought on surveys and election coverage – try doing your own. On a piece of paper, list the states from biggest (in terms of seats on offer) to smallest. Alongside that, list the number of seats the NDA won in 2014. And next to that, put down your most optimistic assessment, based on the state of play, of how many seats you think the alliance can win in each state this time around. Tally it up, and see what the results tell you. And on that note, a few stories that caught my eye:

UTTAR PRADESH Chief Minister Adityanath (while on this, I personally refuse to use the honorific ‘Yogi’ to describe a rabble-rousing thug who today roams free only because he used the powers of his office to wipe out dozens of cases of mayhem and murder filed against him) previewed his campaign tropes the other day when he contrasted the Congress, which “fed biriyani to terrorists”, with the Modi government, which gives terrorists a “muh tod jawab”. Inter alia, he referred to the Indian armed forces as “Modiji ki sena,” in violation of EC norms that prohibit the use of the armed forces during electioneering.  

On the latter point, the Election Commission has “asked for a report”. And then what? A week or so after the damage is done, the EC will likely come up with a waffling statement that no rule was broken. Such violations have been common ever since the Model Code of Conduct came into force – and the deliberate strategy behind this stems from the realization that nothing much can be done anyway. How do you unring a bell?

In this connection, remember what happened with the ‘chowkidar’ tea cups? The Air India boarding passes with the images of Modi and Shah? It’s such a transparent trick: Do anything you can to push the propaganda a notch higher; if someone makes a fuss, quickly undo what has been done, move on to the next ploy, and the next.

As to the “biriyani for terrorists” charge against the Congress, this again is a classic BJP ploy – just keep repeating a lie; as long as you spew enough of them, the fact-checking machinery will never catch up with you. Also essential to this strategy, the knowledge that public memory is short. Remember the “biriyani for terrorists” story and its origins in the Kasab case? Here you go. (Also an AltNews breakdown here.)

NASA is pissed with India’s recent testing of the capability to shoot down low flying satellites — which Modi has been referring to as “chowkidari in space”.

The Indian satellite was destroyed at a relatively low altitude of 300km (180 miles), well below the ISS and most satellites in orbit.

But 24 of the pieces were going above the apogee of the ISS, said Bridenstine. “That is a terrible, terrible thing to create an event that sends debris at an apogee that goes above the International Space Station,” he said, adding: “That kind of activity is not compatible with the future of human spaceflight.”

“It’s unacceptable and Nasa needs to be very clear about what its impact to us is.”

But hey, that is NASA and we all know the US is jealous of our progress, so we can discount this. Only, there is this statement from 2012 (emphasis added):

A little fine tuning may be required but we will do that electronically. We will not do a physical test because of the risk of space debris affecting other satellites.

Which is to say, it was a known risk. The man quoted above, from this 2012 article, is VK Saraswat, then chief of the Defence Research and Development Organisation and scientific advisor to the defence ministry of India.

The man who knew the risks that NASA is worried about now, the man who led the program, is the same man who after India carried out the test said that the tests could have been conducted earlier, but the UPA did not give permission, and then went into a rhapsody about Modi and his decisiveness. That Saraswat, now a member in good standing of the BJP/RSS family who has been rewarded with the post of Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University and a seat on NITI Ayog, was lying is clear from his own words of 2012. Then there is this:

Serving and retired officials working with the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) have criticised former DRDO chief Vijay Kumar Saraswat, who is now the member of the NITI Aayog, for making DRDO a topic of political slugfest.

And this:

Refuting reports that the Manmohan Singh government refused to allow the Defence and Research Development Organisation (DRDO) to conduct a test of its anti-satellite capabilities, former national security adviser Shivshankar Menon told The Wire, “This is the first I have ever heard of it. Saraswat never asked me for permission for an ASAT test.”

The thing is, it is not a he-said/the-other-guy-said issue — it is easy to prove, or disprove, Saraswat’s allegation against the Congress. Presentations at such high levels are not made off the cuff, nor are they made by a single individual. Thus, if such a presentation had in fact been made, DRDO would have sent a team; there would be official records of the meeting; both could be accessed and revealed by the government. Evidently, no such official meeting was conducted, nor was any presentation made. We know this how? Because after being challenged on his lie, Saraswat has changed his tune. He now says he made an “informal presentation”.

So that is where we are now: We tested a capability we knew we had; we did that knowing the risk involved and the fact that such an act was highly irresponsible; those chickens have now come home to roost. And all this so Modi would have something fresh to talk about — because he has nothing constructive to talk about.

A word in passing about NITI Ayog, which seems to exist simply in order to talk up Modi’s achievements, and to deflect all criticism related to the economy, jobs, etc. In one of his recent policy announcements, Rahul Gandhi had said that if the opposition comes to power, NITI will be abolished, and replaced with a less clunky, more streamlined advisory mechanism. In that connection, this:

The fifth floor of NITI Aayog is making waves in bureaucratic circles. Amitabh Kant, the CEO of the think tank, along with his key aides, checked into the fifth floor—whose renovation cost Rs 9.26 crore—early this year. 

Said to be a workplace for “New India”, which has no parallel even in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Rs 34 lakh was spent on greening the office space alone, with exotic indoor plants dotting the place. But Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar and the four members— V K Saraswat, Ramesh Chand, Bibek Debroy and V K Paul—are still holed up in their modest offices on the first floor.

NITI Aayog, in response to a Right to Information (RTI) query filed by this newspaper, admitted a sum of Rs 8.4 crore was allocated for renovation, refurbishment and re-development of the building’s fifth floor. “Besides, a sum of `34 lakh was approved for horticulture; Rs 52 lakh has been incurred on networking and telephone cabling,” the RTI reply stated.

Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.

TALKING about things to talk about: So we did a surgical strike after Uri to ensure that Pakistan knew the cost of cross-border terrorism; then we did Balakot after Pulwama so Pakistan would learn there is a cost to transgression, right? So now all is well in Kashmir, yes?

• A Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) trooper was injured after militants hurled a grenade on CRPF bunker near SBI Branch in Pulwama town in Pulwama District on March 30, reports Daily Excelsior. Militants attacked a bunker of paramilitary CRPF 182 Battalion guarding the SBI branch Pulwama. “In the blast, one CRPF man suffered injuries. The injured have been evacuated to hospital for treatment where his condition is said to be stable.”
• Pakistan Army violated ceasefire and pounded civilian areas with long range mortar shells and artillery fire in several sectors along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch District… Two houses were damaged at Mankote in which a civilian, identified as Mohammad Mushtaq a resident of Mankote was seriously injured.
• A group of militants fled from the security cordon after a brief exchange of fire in Tangpawa village of Kokernag area in Anantnag District
• The Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) claimed responsibility for the blast that took place at Banihal near the Jawahar Tunnel on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway (NH) in Ramban District…. SATP had earlier reported that a car hit a bus carrying Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel, and exploded at Banihal near the Jawahar Tunnel on the Jammu-Srinagar NH in Ramban District… According to the reports, militants attempted to repeat February 14-like Pulwama terror attack in Banihal, but failed as LPG cylinder Improvised Explosive Device (IED) along with explosive material, inside a Hyundai Santro car was blasted off by a militant, who was driving the car, few yards short of CRPF convoy and the troops had narrow escape as the car caught fire and was gutted.

All this, and more, happened on just one day: March 30. And this from yesterday:

A Border Security Force (BSF) officer and a 5-year-old girl were killed after Pakistan resorted to heavy shelling in the forward areas of Manote and Krishna Ghati sectors in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district.https://t.co/kb4kWn7PRE

— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) April 1, 2019

And it is not as if nothing happened between March 30 and April 1. Here is a resource that helps you track the goings on in the Valley. You can go by year, and by month. Take a walk around, see for yourself how grim things are, and ask yourself this: Do you hear a single peep out of Modi, his government, his NSA, his Kashmir-in-charge Ram Madhav, or anyone else in authority about any of this? Any tears being shed, crocodile or otherwise? Anyone have any comment on what is becoming increasingly evident — that in the post Pulwama Balakot operation personally monitored by Modi, who if you recall neither ate nor slept, we shot down one of our own helicopters, leading to the deaths of seven military personnel? But yeah, we have a strong government in charge, one that does not feed biriyani to terrorists.

• Remember the kids who were playing cricket on Holi, and how that led to a gang of armed men attacking not just the kids, but also breaking into the home of a Muslim family and beating everyone up? The police have now filed an FIR against the victims on a charge of attempted murder. There is a video of the incident, but hey, who cares? The truth, today, is what thugs and their allies in a thoroughly compromised, communalised police force say it is.
• Apropos the points made earlier about the BJP’s increasing communal rhetoric on the campaign trail, do read this archival piece by Pratap Bhanu Mehta, one of our sharper political commentators.
• Have you heard of the World Book of Records? You should — it is an organisation of dubious provenance that exists solely to provide the BJP with “world records” to talk about. Here, read.
• Amit Shah famously used “jumla” to describe Modi’s ‘Rs 15 lakh in every account’ poll promise from 2014. Here is his latest: We said we will jail all corrupt people. Robert Vadra is a corrupt person. We did not say we will jail Robert Vadra. Make sense of this, if you can.
• And finally, a Snigdha Poonam/Samarth Bansal piece for The Atlantic on how misinformation is playing havoc with India’s electoral process.

Update: Manifestos are important — it is through these, rather than stump speeches of politicians, that we get some idea of what the various political parties hope to do if they attain power. The Congress has just released its manifesto. Here are the main points, for your information:

To ensure a life of dignity to all Indians, Congress will introduce the Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY) under which Rs. 72,000/year will be transferred to the poorest 20 per cent house- holds in India. It will be transferred to the woman in the household, as far as possible.

To the youth of India, Congress pledges to make jobs our no.1 priority, both in the public and private sector. We will ensure 34 lakh jobs in the public sector by;

1. Filling all 4 lakh central government vacancies before March 2020.
2. Persuading the state governments to fill their 20 lakh vacancies.
3. Creating an estimated 10 lakh new Seva Mitra positions in every gram panchayat and urban local body.

We will also provide a fillip to private sector jobs by;

1. Rewarding businesses for job creation and employing more women,
2. Requiring businesses with over 100 employees to implement an apprentice programme.

Farmers and farm labour: For farmers, Congress promises to put them on the path from “Karz Maafi”, to “Karz Mukti”. This will be done through remunerative prices, lower input costs, and assured access to institutional credit. We will present a separate “Kisan Budget” every year. We will also establish a permanent National Commission on Agricultural Development and Planning.

Universal healthcare: Congress promises to enact the Right to Healthcare Act and guarantee every citizen free diagnostics, out-patient care, free medicines and hospitalisation, through a network of public hospitals and enlisted private hospitals. We will double expenditure on healthcare to 3 per cent of GDP by 2023-24.

GST 2.0: Congress will radically simplify the GST regime with a single moderate rate of tax, zero rating of exports, and exemption for essential goods and services. We also promise panchayats and municipalities a share of GST revenues.

Armed Forces and Paramilitary Forces: Congress will reverse the trend of declining defence spending under the NDA govern- ment, and increase it to meet the requirements of the Armed Forces. We will expedite all modernisation programmes of the Armed Forces in a transparent manner. We will improve social security, education and health facilities for our Paramilitary Forces and families.

Quality education for every child: Congress promises that school education from Class I to Class XII in public schools shall be compulsory and free. We will especially focus on learning outcomes. Schools will have ad- equate infrastructure and qualified teachers. To achieve this, we will double the allocation for Education to 6 per cent of GDP by 2023-24.

Gender Justice: Congress promises to pass in the first session of the 17th Lok Sabha the Women’s Reser- vation Bill reserving 33 percent of seats for women in the Lok Sabha and the State Legisla- tive Assemblies. Congress will also reserve 33 percent of all posts/vacancies in the Central Government for women.

Adivasis: We will implement, in letter and spirit, the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and secure for the Scheduled Tribes the rights guaranteed under the Act. No forest dweller will be unjustly evicted. We will establish a National Commission for Non-Timber Forest Produce. To im- prove the livelihood and income of Adivasis, we will offer Minimum Support Prices for NTFP.

Right to Homestead: We will pass the Right to Homestead Act to provide a piece of land for every rural house- hold that does not own a home or own land on which a house may be built.

End to Hate Crimes: In the last 5 years under the NDA Government, hate crimes and atrocities against vulner- able sections of the people have increased manifold. Congress promises to end the sense of impunity, stamp out mob violence and lynching, and prevent atrocities and hate crimes against the SC, ST, women and minorities. Congress will hold accountable the police and district administration for proven negligence in the case of riots, mob violence and hate crimes.

Celebrating freedom: Congress promises to uphold the values enshrined in the Constitution of India and pro- tect their freedoms, including the freedom to dissent. Congress will pass a law on privacy; restrict the use of Aadhaar to the original purposes of the Aadhaar Act; protect the rights of every citizen especially students, journalists, academics, artists, civil society activists and NGOs. Congress will review all laws and repeal those that are outdated, unjust or unreasonably restrict the freedom of the people.

Protecting our institutions: Congress promises to revitalise the institutions that were brazenly undermined in the last 5 years such as RBI, ECI, CIC, CBI, etc. Congress will restore their dignity, authority and autonomy while making them accountable to Parliament. In order to ensure free and fair elections, we will abolish the opaque electoral bonds introduced by the NDA government and set up a National Election Fund that will be allocated at the time of elections to rec- ognised political parties.

Cities and Urban Governance: Congress promises a comprehensive policy on urbanisation to address issues concerning our towns and cities, including city governance, livelihoods, housing, habitat, pollution, climate change, urban transport and disaster management. For the urban poor, we promise the Right to Housing and protection from arbitrary eviction, and a Slum Upgradation and Transformation Scheme. We will introduce a new model of governance for towns and cities through directly elected mayors. We will transform cities into engines of economic growth.

Environment and Climate Change: Congress promises an action agenda that will place India at the forefront of the battle against global warming and environmental protection. We recognise that air pollution is a national public health emergency and will significantly strengthen the National Clean Air Programme. Forests, wildlife, water bodies, rivers, clean air and coastal zones are precious natural resources that belong to the people and we will protect them. We will set up an independent, empowered and transparent Environment Protection Authority, redefine the role of the Forest Departments and increase our forest cover.

Once the BJP releases its manifesto, I’ll do a compare and contrast, and also look back at the manifestos the two parties released in 2014 to see what has changed and how thinking has evolved, if in fact it has.

I will be traveling this afternoon with a cramped schedule, so this blog is on a break until Saturday, when I am back at base. Be well, all.

Dotting the ‘i’

#1. The censor board, after consulting with its specially constituted panel, has decided to clear Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film — after the makers carry out 26 cuts. Oh, and change the name of the film from Padmavati to Padmavat.

Does it occur to you that as a nation, our collective “sensibility” is extremely fragile, and also extremely malleable? That these “sensibilities” are easily offended and as easily appeased? What is an ‘i’, more or less, among friends anyway?

Don’t imagine for a moment, though, that this is the last you are going to hear of a tiresome movie by a tiresomely pretentious film-maker — once the release date is set, now-dormant sensibilities in Rajasthan and elsewhere will be duly aroused again, and much ruckus will duly follow.