IT training open magazine TruePDF 11 february 2019

GEORGE FERNANDES
A TRIBUTE
11 february 2019 / rS 50

GUNS AND ROADS
IN BASTAR

KANGANA RANAUT
STRIKES GOLD

w w w. o p e n t h e m a g a z i n e .c o m

Sanjiv Mehta

Akash Ambani

Ritesh Agarwal

STA R S A N D S T R I D E S

O P E N - R E P U B L I C T V AC H I E V E R S AWA R D S
A C e l eb ra t i o n o f t h e G re a t I n d i a n D re a m

E Sreedharan

Mary Kom



contents
11 february 2019

5

50

LOCOMOTIf

GuTS & baLLS

The last street fighter

SuperNovak

By S Prasannarajan

By Aditya Iyer
32

54

14
fOrM & refOrM

46

Prayagraj and Kumbh

reIGNING STarS aND
faLLING TreeS

Being both an insider and outsider
at the Jaipur Literature Festival

By Bibek Debroy

By Amrita Tripathi

16

58

LOST & fOuND HISTOrIeS

A river runs through it

Of CHeeKS aND SLaPS

By Ranjit Hoskote

20
OPeN eSSay

The conditions under which force
may be used against government
injustice and what India’s historical
experience tells us about resistance
By Siddharth Singh

24

Guardians of democracy
By Navin Chawla

60

54

DuTIfuL DIreCTOr

24
OPeN-rePubLIC Tv
aCHIeverS awarDS

60

A celebration of the
Great Indian Dream
By Nandini Nair

After a blockbuster run in Tamil
cinema, filmmaker Pa Ranjith is
all set for Bollywood
By Shahina KK

64
DeLHI CONfIDeNTIaL

32

Ivan Ayr’s story of two female cops in

the capital gets international acclaim

GuNS aND rOaDS

After nearly two decades of violence,
Bastar now has a semblance of
normalcy but this has more to do
with individual choices than
ideological leanings
By Siddharth Singh

38

By Divya Unny

66
NOT PeOPLe LIKe uS

42
freeDOM frOM
babuDOM

46

How BJP has become
a suitable enemy for the
Andhra Chief Minister

Leprosy continues to resist
being wiped out in India

because the battle against it
was called a victory too soon

By V Shoba

By Rahul Pandita

By Madhavankutty Pillai

11 february 2019

By Rajeev Masand

THe faILeD
eraDICaTION

A technology platform
introduced in Haryana is
transforming the government’s
interface with citizens.
Can it be replicated elsewhere
in India?

DeSPeraTeLy NaIDu

Moving on from the Khans

Cover by

Saurabh Singh

www.openthemagazine.com 3


open mail

Editor S Prasannarajan
managing Editor Pr ramesh
ExEcutivE EditorS aresh Shirali,

ullekh nP

Editor-at-largE Siddharth Singh
dEPuty EditorS madhavankutty Pillai
(mumbai Bureau chief),
rahul Pandita, amita Shah,
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crEativE dirEctor rohit chawla
art dirEctor Jyoti K Singh
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aSSiStant Editor vipul vivek
chiEf of graPhicS Saurabh Singh
SEnior dESignErS anup Banerjee,
veer Pal Singh
Photo Editor raul irani
dEPuty Photo Editor ashish Sharma
aSSociatE PuBliShEr

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national hEad-EvEntS and initiativES

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rashmi lata Swarup,
Siddhartha Basu chatterjee (West),
uma Srinivasan (South)
national hEad-diStriBution and SalES

ajay gupta

rEgional hEadS-circulation

d charles (South), melvin george
(West), Basab ghosh (East)
hEad-Production maneesh tyagi
SEnior managEr (PrE-PrESS)

Sharad tailang

managEr-marKEting

C

letter of the week

Roderick Matthews’ essay puts the Brexit-Partition
comparison in proper perspective (‘Absolutely English’,
February 4th, 2019). The mess that Britain finds itself in
is part of the rising global clash between the haves and
those who think they deserve—rightly or wrongly—
what the former have. Having fallen for ethnocentric
rhetoric, those unable to change tack to benefit from
an increasingly connected world want to crash the
boats that a rising tide of globalisation has lifted. Their
complaints might not be unjustified, but the working
classes need to realise how they are hurting themselves
by trying to pull the world back into ‘national’ cocoons.
The comfort of an enclave is only psychological, not
material. This has absolutely nothing to do with the
politics that led to the partition of India and Pakistan,
which later also gave birth to Bangladesh. Partition
was not a conflict between classes for influence, which
Brexit is. Despite superficial similarities, the two
events require different interpretations. The dream
of separation that Brexiteers are selling does not hinge
on any real cultural and political insecurities.
The European unity project is of a recent vintage,
lacking a historical background like the debate around
the two-nation theory on the Subcontinent that
eventually led to the cataclysmic break-up of 1947.
Zainab Namdar

Priya Singh

In the pre-General Election
frenzy, we have got fixated
on grand coalitions, quotas or
assured income for the poor,
prime ministerial candidates,
and so on. Why does no one
demand a ban on criminals
contesting elections when
every third MP has a police
case pending against him?
What sanctity do laws made
by such legislators have?
Shanmugam Mudaliar

chiEf dESignEr-marKEting

champak Bhattacharjee
cfo anil Bisht

chiEf ExEcutivE & PuBliShEr

neeraja chawla

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volume 11 issue 6
for the week 5 -11 february 2019
total no. of pages 68

4

bars and barbs
on a wing and priyanka

By bringing Priyanka Vadra
Gandhi formally into the
party, the Congress has
fallen back on its ‘first
family’ (‘Enter Priyanka’,
February 4th, 2019). This only
gives more ammunition to
the BJP in its rhetoric against
its dynastic mentality. To
become a serious contender
for power at the Centre,
the Congress needs more
than just charisma. That
groundswell of support can
be created by elevating its
young leaders, as was seen in
the recent assembly elections
in Rajasthan and Madhya
Pradesh where Sachin Pilot
and Jyotiraditya Scindia
played crucial roles. India is
a young country with about
65 per cent of its population
under the age of 35. The

Congress has missed yet

another opportunity to
change its stripes. Who will
save this party?

It is astonishing that despite
the Supreme Court order
to allow dance bars with
reasonable restrictions, the
A Bhuyan Maharashtra government is
coming up with ordinances
The Nehru-Gandhi family is to circumvent the order
banking on Priyanka to save (‘Dance Barred’, February
not only the party, but also
4th, 2019). Since when did
Rahul from a possible disaster governments become arbiters
in the General Election this
of individual choice?
Mahesh Kapasi
year. She has little political
experience beyond the party’s
singapore squabble
safe seats in UP. Apparent
‘qualities’ that she might have Sunanda K Datta-Ray’s essay
on the apparent and actual
inherited from her grandgoings-on in Singapore’s
mother, Indira Gandhi,
politics was revealing
will not be enough to see the
(‘Family Feud in Paradise’,
party through. Her formal

induction into the Congress is February 4th, 2019).
However we judge its
too little, too late. Sadly for
the party, the Nehru-Gandhi democratic credentials,
Singapore remains a model
dynasty does not appeal
of efficient administration.
anymore to Indian voters.
Mahesh Kumar

Velassery T Sebastian

11 february 2019


LOCOMOTIF

by S PRASANNARAJAN

The Last Street Fighter

L

ong before george fernandes, there was
another revolutionary who was schooled in
a seminary. Christ couldn’t save Joseph Stalin
from the terrors of the communist mind. He
built an empire, bigger than the Church of god,
more ambitious than Heaven on earth, and
dedicated it to the gospel of unfreedom. george

fernandes’ journey from a seminary did not end
at the helm of a godless imperium; he rejected the gods of the
book to fight the ones he thought were ranged against his
socialist ideals. He played out his revolutionary zeal in the mean
streets of the metropolis, and in the end, there were no ideals left
for him in a cheerless world. There was no empire to protect. He
struggled alone in a void.
The street shaped george fernandes, and the streets were
angrier in the 60s, when the beatles sang
and the youth defied barricades. The poet
Philip Larkin captured the zeitgeist:

For the dissident
unshackled, the
passage from the
romance of struggle
to the realism of power
is the painful part.
It is the beginning of
normalisation, and
then the inevitable
banalisation

11 february 2019

saurabh singh

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) –

Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.
fernandes found his cause in
the streets of bombay. A socialist
subversive with fire in his belly and
freedom in his words, he became the
champion of the working class. He was the
non-communist who added drama and
tension to communism’s original slogan
on the city street; he was trade unionist as
folk hero.
folk heroes concentrate the national
mind when they are adventurers least
constrained by the demands of power. They
gain their halo when the struggle is against
power, not for it. They are freedom fighters
forever. They can’t exist without an enemy

worthy of their anger. fernandes got his in Indira gandhi. And
so there he was, raging against the totalitarian temptations of
the supreme leader. The underground rebellion, the fugitive on
the run, the attack on railway tracks (the railways somehow
provided him with a metaphor for the state versus the
workforce), and the denouement of a hero in captivity—the
vintage fernandes did fit perfectly into the script of resistance.
The abiding image was of the rebel in chains facing up to his
tormentors, and dedicating the chains to a country under siege
in the high noon of the emergency. In the general election that
dethroned Indira in 1977, fernandes won from the constituency
of the prison. This revolutionary did not win an empire; he did

win the conscience of an India that survived.
for the dissident unshackled, the passage from the romance
of struggle to the realism of power is the painful part. It is the
beginning of normalisation, and then the inevitable
banalisation. As Industries Minister in India’s first non-Congress
government, fernandes was still angry. The rage didn’t die down.
He became an anti-globalist before globalisation became a free
Market mantra. His war on Coca-Cola, capitalism’s energy drink,
was a desperate socialist’s last attempt to remain a street fighter
even in power. The fight was sustained by the misplaced loftiness
of self-reliance. He still wanted enemies, and this time he found
them in fizzy imperialism. The socialist’s sense of Indianness was
more north Korean than Indian, more Juche than Swaraj.
Power always remained a picaresque for the Indian socialist.
As fernandes shifted allegiance with remarkable ease, idealism
wore off, recklessness ceased to thrill—and ideology was
made an item on the bargaining table.
When we last saw him in public, he was
a man defeated by power and its
accompanying pathologies, abandoned but
still consoled by some of his old comrades.
The horn-rimmed glasses were still there,
the kurta was as crumpled as ever, but the
erstwhile action hero of Indian politics was
left with no cause except his own relevance.
Perhaps he was another socialist who
lost the India that lived in Lohia’s mind.
The highest guru of anti-Congressism too
lost his argument for India—only traces of
idealism and recklessness remained.

for Lohia, it was english; for fernandes, it
was Coke. Cultural variations of the same
irrational rage. And both were made
redundant by time. Though caste was evil
for the guru, it kept India’s shape-shifting
socialists alive, whether in bihar or in Uttar
Pradesh. only their backstory retains the
romance of resistance.
once upon a time there was a george
fernandes, too, the fighter who eventually
lost the street.
www.openthemagazine.com 5


open diary
Swapan Dasgupta

I

n about a fortnight, just after
the truncated budget Session of
Parliament ends in mid-February,
formal campaigning for the General
Election will begin. of course, for all
practical purposes, the battle for 2019
began nearly a year ago. However, the
code of conduct, the announcement
of the election schedule and the process of candidate selection gives the
whole process of electing a government an extra urgency and a huge
sense of national excitement. Elections, the old India hand Professor

Morris-Jones used to say, are one of
those things “Indians do well”.
after tn Seshan, Indian elections
have lost much of their carnival-like
atmosphere. Certainly, the noise levels
have decreased exponentially.
one of the noisiest elections I ever
encountered was the 1991 General
Election that was, in northern India
at least, very much the Ram election.
that election witnessed the
participation of sadhus and sadhvis
who travelled from village to village
whipping up support for a temple
in ayodhya. Sadhvi Ritambhara’s
impassioned speeches attracted large
crowds, particularly of women who
rarely attended rallies earlier. but then
these were ostensibly organised by
religious bodies and there was never
any explicit mention of voting for the
bJP. there were also a large number
of songs and poems composed for the
temple agitation and loudspeakers all
over uttar Pradesh blared these out
in market towns. the opposing side
had their own cassettes and the result
was a noisy chaos that persisted till
the late hours of the night. these days,
there are severe restrictions, and in

West bengal, there is a blanket ban on
all loudspeakers till school exams are
completed this March-end.
6

I guess Prime Minister narendra
Modi will be the star draw this election
and his meetings are expected to be
very well attended, as they were in
2014. Modi has the habit of doing one
round of meetings before the formal
campaigning starts and he began this
process in December. by the time the
code of conduct is imposed, the Prime
Minister will have covered nearly
every state in the country, including
places where the bJP is not seriously
in the contest. He wants to create a
national mood that will lay the
ground for the final slog overs when
he becomes extremely combative.
this election, his efforts will be
complemented by those of amit Shah,
who is fast becoming an accomplished
campaigner. Yogi adityanath is also
much in demand, but his appeal is
mainly confined to committed
bJP voters.
the problem with the Congress
is that it is short of star campaigners.

Rahul Gandhi is very pugnacious
these days, but he still lacks Modi’s
drawing power. this is where the Congress believes Priyanka Vadra Gandhi
will fill the void. So far, we have seen
Priyanka relating very effectively to
small crowds at village meetings in
Rae bareli and amethi. Moreover,
her appeal has been based on a sister
soliciting votes for the mother and
the brother. In small village meetings,
the personal touch works well. but

once she moves out of the familiar
surroundings of the Gandhi pocket
boroughs, she will need to address
hard political issues. She will be a
beneficiary of people’s curiosity, but
will she be able to satisfy their political
appetite? Congress workers are sold
on her, but what about the electorate
that has never experienced a Gandhi at
the helm? also, if all the interest is
going to be centred on Priyanka, it
will—perhaps unintentionally—
detract some attention from Rahul.
on paper, a brother-sister duo sounds
appealing, but how it translates on the
ground is well worth considering.
but let us not forget regional
campaigners such as akhilesh Yadav,

Mayawati, Mamata banerjee and MK
Stalin. they will have their assured
audiences in their home states. What
will be the impact when they step
outside their comfort zones, if they
do? In 2009, Mayawati campaigned
intensively outside uttar Pradesh.
She even projected herself as the next
Prime Minister. However, the postmortem of the results suggested
that it was her spirited campaigning
that invited a backlash against a
third Front government and helped
the Congress garner a lot of votes,
particularly in urban areas, that
should have gone into the bJP kitty.
Every election throws up a series of
unintended consequences that have a
big bearing on the outcome. I wonder
what these will be in 2019. Will it be a
straightforward gaffe by one of the
big campaigners or their associates?
Remember how an innocuous
comment by Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh chief Mohan bhagwat altered
the complexion of the 2015 bihar
assembly election?
no election is ever won until it is
actually won. n
11 february 2019

openings
NOTEBOOK

The Death of a Relentless Rebel

D

uring the emergency, george Fernandes
(1930-2019) used to refer to indira gandhi as “that
woman”. it was in mid-1976 that her government
finally caught up with the rebellious trade unionist,
the poster boy of resistance to her authoritarianism. he was
nabbed in calcutta, rushed to Delhi, stripped naked, interrogated wrapped in a blanket, and then bundled off to hissar jail.
Both his brother Lawrence and Snehlata reddy, a fellow socialist traveller and accused in the Baroda Dynamite conspiracy
(as it came to be known), had already been put to torture and
questioning by the police in a bid to have them reveal Fernandes’ whereabouts. he had eluded their clutches in various
guises—as a fisherman, a mendicant, and as a turbaned Sikh.
At hissar jail, as coomi Kapoor wrote in The Emergency: A
Personal History, he saw indira gandhi’s photograph and told
the jailer, “you are following the orders of this woman, but i tell
you, tomorrow this woman will be in jail.” From there, he was
moved to tihar Jail in Delhi. it was a measure of his stature as
an anti-emergency activist that Socialist international took up
his case. the ‘Free JP’ movement in London organised a protest
to draw attention to the suspension of civil liberties in india,
and world leaders such as Willy Brandt and Olof Palme called
the indian Prime minister and warned that she would be held
accountable if anything untoward happened to him.

By the time Fernandes and his fellow conspirators were
produced in court, it was early October 1976. the chargesheet,
reportedly 3,000 pages long, accused
them of plotting to overthrow the
government. it referred to an alleged
attempt to blow up the dais on which
gandhi was to speak in Varanasi. they
were also charged with unlawful possession of dynamite sticks, subversive
literature and inciting people against
the state. the accused accepted trying
to free the country of indira gandhi’s
rule, but denied all other charges.
images of Fernandes in handcuffs
and chains, his fist raised in defiance,
struck a chord with those suffering excesses of the emergency, and
while he got bail, he was re-arrested
rightaway under the maintenance of

industrial Security Act. in February 1977, in a deposition before
the chief metropolitan magistrate of Delhi, Fernandes asserted,
“Dictatorship does violence to the spirit of man. it is neither
legal, constitutional or even moral. it leaves people with no
legal and constitutional means to fight it. And even then, to
fight it remains an inalienable right of all men, of all those
who believe in the sacredness, dignity and freedom of man….
gandhiji said, given a choice between cowardice and violence
to resist evil, he would not hesitate to choose, and he recommended that the people choose violence. While my belief in
non-violence is a conviction, inherited from one of the greatest
thinkers and humanists, Dr ram manohar Lohia, i also believe,
as gandhiji believed, and no doubt Lohia himself believed, that

injustice and evil should be fought wherever it raises its head.”
maintaining that all ‘evidence’ against him had been “cooked
up”, Fernandes said that the prosecution could not accuse him
of having caused even a single death.
Fernandes was a leader who stood by his word. he wanted
to boycott the 1977 general election for fear that it might
legitimise indira gandhi’s actions. it took much persuasion,
even a gherao by citizens and morarji Desai landing up at the
trial court with nomination papers for Fernandes for him to
agree to contest the polls from jail. he won the muzaffarpur
seat in Bihar with a margin of some 300,000 votes. Appointed
industries minister in the Janata Party government, he forced
foreign companies out of india. After the congress returned to
power, he launched a tirade against
corruption, the brunt of his attacks
borne by the rajiv gandhi government that succeeded indira’s. under
the VP Singh regime that came next,
he was railway minister, with the
initiation of the Konkan rail project to
his credit. Later, he became convenor
of the nDA. As Defence minister in the
later Vajpayee government, Fernandes
made a record 18 visits to the Army’s
Siachen outpost to boost the morale of
troops there.
today, Fernandes is remembered
as perhaps independent india’s only
political activist who could bring the
country’s financial capital to a halt in

Images of
Fernandes in
handcuffs and
chains, his fist raised
in defiance, struck
a chord with those
suffering excesses of
the Emergency

8

11 february 2019


until, of course, a 36-year-old chief of the taxi
union stood against Patil. All opposition parties
supported him. his first task was to take down
the aura of Patil’s invincibilty. Posters, banners
and taxi stickers spread the message that ‘Patil can
be defeated’. A cocky Patil told the media, “Only
god can defeat me.” Fernandes’ retort: ‘god does
not vote, you do. Only you can defeat Patil.’
By end-1973, Fernandes had become head
of the All india railway Federation, a union of
the world’s largest group of workers, and as a
Socialist, he joined the JP movement against the
congress. the 1974 railway strike that he led
made his sway among workers clear, and the
threat that he posed the indira regime was met
with a fierce crackdown. ‘One of the main aspects

of george Fernandes’ personality was his strong
opposition to the nehru-gandhi family. he believed that the nehru-gandhi family had harmed
the nation a lot and that is why he could shake
hands with anyone against that family. he chose
his way between two extremes. he couldn’t be a
communist, he couldn’t be in congress. BJP was
the alternative he chose around 1996,’ writes ram
Bahadur rai, a journalist who was among his
close associates. When some leaders asked him to
put the emergency years in the past, Fernandes is
said to have retorted that he could never forgive
or forget what happened to JP’s kidneys and to
his brother Lawrence, nor the death of his ally
Snehlata reddy. Asked if violence was a valid tool
to save democracy, he reportedly replied, “everything should be done to save democracy.”
While still in the Vajpayee cabinet, Fernandes’ failing health was apparent. Jaitley
writes, ‘ministers were scared of facing the wrath
GeorGe Fernandes
of his attack when he was in the Opposition. But
(1930-2019)
eventually his health took better of him. the
slowing down of his mind and various faculties
could be seen towards 2003-04. he still had full
protest, as he once did in the 60s. had history taken a different
comprehension but that aggression was lacking.’ Fernandes
turn, this ‘giant killer’ would have been a catholic priest in a
had a bad fall in the bathroom of his residence while washing
seminary in his hometown of mangalore. But he was put off by
clothes, and he had a brain surgery later, but he could never fully
the chasm between the precepts and practices of the church,

recover. his withdrawal from politics went alongside a descent
as he put it, and preferred to look for work in Bombay, even if it
into Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease as he aged. he began
meant sleeping on pavements and chowpatty beach during his
treatment at Baba ramdev’s ashram in 2010 even as a bitter
search. By the 1950s, he was heading the city’s taxi drivers’ union.
fight broke out in his family over his property. the Samata Party,
Arun Jaitley narrates this story of the 1967 South Bombay poll, as
which Fernandes founded in 1994 with nitish Kumar, was to
told by Fernandes himself. ‘that election would be an education
merge with JD(u) in 2003.
for any student of psychology or politics,’ writes Jaitley. ‘S.K. Patil
Few of india’s youth recall the force he was once. ‘the evil
was the unquestioned leader of mumbai, then Bombay. he was
that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their
a union minister and congress party’s treasurer. he had won
bones,’ wrote Shakespeare. not in the case of Fernandes. n
his South-Bombay seat several times by large margins. nobody
By pR Ramesh
believed that Patil could ever be defeated.’
11 february 2019

www.openthemagazine.com 9


openings

POrTraiT

Kangana ranaut

Queen regnant
A different kind of stardom

T

here is a clichÉ—content that king—that almost every
Bollywood personality spouts, but nobody really believes in. content is
of course not king. On the chessboard of a movie’s essential components, it
may be a rook or a knight, maybe even a pawn. But it certainly isn’t a king.
a hindi film’s success is dependent on a vast array of other things, from the
way a film is positioned and marketed when it is released, to the way the
film’s star projects him or herself.
Perhaps nobody understands this better than Kangana ranaut, the star
of Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi. Films do not work because great actors
star in them. it is because brands do. and ranaut has been working on her
brand, at least for half a decade ever since her break-out film Queen released;
that was arguably the first female coming-of-age story in Bollywood, where
a naive girl embarks on a journey of self-discovery after her fiancé calls off
their wedding. One can perhaps argue that by the end of the film, it isn’t
just the lead character, rani, who finds herself. even the actor playing her,
Kangana ranaut, does.
There are two ways you look at the phenomenon known as Kangana
ranaut. There is ranaut, the fearless feminist. The talented woman from a
small town who may have no industry godfathers but is unafraid of calling

saurabh singh

out the hypocrisy and nepotism in the industry.
People don’t want her in the industry, she tells us,

because she is an outspoken woman. Then there is
the other view. as Karan Johar once said, “You cannot be this victim every time and have a sad story
to tell about how you’ve been terrorised by the bad
world of the industry.” she has built a church on
stones nobody has really flung at her. some of her
recent collaborators claim she hijacks projects.
The truth is probably somewhere in between.
ranaut is an outsider who has made it in one of the
most competitive and protected industries on her
own. she is also smart enough to know that the
only way you can win here is by breaking rules.
she has converted what one would imagine could
serve as impediments in the film industry—her
accent, the fact that she has no film connections
and hails from a small indian town—into
advantages and weaponised them.
it is not her fearlessness that has brought her
here, or her talent. it is her smarts. and being smart
sometimes requires being duplicitous.
Bollywood is at an interesting point. The end of
three Khans appears to be near (they have begun
delivering turkeys). and there is a bunch of young
stars vying for super stardom. What few appreciate
is that ranaut is also gunning for it. she, of course,
has disadvantages. Big names in the industry will
probably stay away from her projects. hence, the
need to also direct her own films.
ranaut has a long list of people who think her
comeuppance is long due. and in recent years,
most of her films failed. This probably explains

why despite having a following among liberals—
feminists, for instance, and media columnists who
write in her favour—she made a strategic shift to
the right end of the political spectrum, cosying up
with godmen and politicians, and dissing liberals.
By all box office evidence, the shift appears to
have paid off. Manikarnika has reportedly made
over rs 50 crore in the first five days in india and
about rs 11 crore overseas. cumulatively, it is
gradually inching towards the rs 100 crore mark.
But the story of her stardom is not just about
numbers. hit films by some male superstars
sometimes make four times that amount. Unlike
the other films, which are made by the cream
of the industry, Manikarnika (despite the loud
protestations of its co-director Krish) is almost all
ranaut. it reaffirms the unique space she
occupies in the hindi film industry.
That’s what makes her success different. n
By Lhendup g Bhutia

10

11 february 2019


idEas

angLE

Reel Son of The Soil

The irony or non-irony of nawazuddin Siddiqui
playing Bal Thackeray
By madhavankutty piLLai

N

aWazdUddin siddiqUi
is a Muslim. he was born in Uttar
Pradesh and moved to delhi to study at
the national school of drama. he then
came to Mumbai in search of an acting
career and so nowhere in the definition
of ‘son of the soil’ catering to whom the
shiv sena was built on. That he should
play the character of Bal Thackeray
in the biopic that released last week is
something of a spectacular irony. The
beginning of Thackeray’s violent politics
was directed against ‘outsiders’ stealing
the jobs of Maharashtrians. Two decades
later, Thackeray read the mood of indian
politics and changed his outsider’s definition to ‘Muslim’, the fallout eventually
being the Mumbai riots of 1992-93.
siddiqui would have fit the category in
both versions of the ploy. That he should
be representing Thackeray could signify
either of two things: from beyond his
grave the shiv sena founder is further

taunting communities he targeted
through his life; or that he is being taunted by some mysterious law of karma .
The ordinary truth is that
Thackeray was like any other politician,
with somewhat fewer compunctions
about openly advocating violence. it drew
him footsoldiers in the form of jobless Maharashtrian youths. By the time siddiqui
had arrived in Mumbai, Thackeray had
long given up the son-of-the-soil demand
because every political condition has a
time limit. his nephew raj Thackeray
tested it in recent times without any success. even the vitriol spewed against Muslims disappeared after the 90s because the
11 february 2019

electorate had got bored with it. and then
he became too old to invent fresh demons.
siddiqui playing him aptly represented
the opportunism of his life.
The movie is a hagiography, which
is as expected given that it is shiv sena
leaders themselves who were producing
it. But it is also a lengthy confessional of
all manners of actions that in the indian
Penal code would be construed as crimes.
These are public knowledge but still interesting to hear from the reel Thackeray’s
mouth, a script endorsed by the party. so,
a scene of Thackeray saying that it is time
to do something about communists is followed by the murder of cPi Mla Krishna
desai (it happened in 1970). shiv sena
workers are seen gathering weapons from

the party office during the Mumbai riots.
all of this is put forth as reactions (desai’s
murder, for instance, follows an attack on
Thackeray by communists), but that the
sena should advertise it even now signals
the pride they feel about a past in which
there was absolute contempt for the law.
The film shows different leaders—
from Maharashtra chief Minister
Vasantrao naik to Prime Minister
indira Gandhi—protecting Thackeray
in the full knowledge of what he stood
for. his ability to switch a private army
on and off was valuable to them. he
used it to trade favours, all the while
building his party. Thackeray saw
that all politicians were like him but
without gumption. You could admire
him for using that awareness to change
Maharashtra’s politics singlehandedly,
but there is little to respect in that. n

FasTing

Political fasting, done well, is an
effective tool. look at the india
against corruption movement of
2011 and its resonance, and you’ll
agree. But when overdone, it loses
traction and becomes irrelevant.

anna hazare’s two lieutenants in
2011, arvind Kejriwal and Kiran
Bedi, understood that. Both used the
movement to propel themselves
into political careers. The movement’s patron-in-chief, however,
never managed that. hazare
continues to fast with an unusual
relish. But none of his recent fasts
has got much attention. he has just
started a new one at his village in
ralegan siddhi in Maharashtra,
demanding the appointment of
anti-corruption watchdogs at the
centre and in states, along with a
resolution of farmers’ issues. But
this too will probably fail. Media
coverage is the oxygen for political
fasts. Without it, he will simply be
ignored. as he is being, currently. n

WOrd’s WOrTh

‘From the gut comes
the strut, and where
hunger reigns,
strength abstains’
FranÇois rabelais
writer

www.openthemagazine.com 11

FRONTIER
TECHNOLOGIES FOR
GREATER GOOD

D

igitisation has touched every
aspect of human life. It is also
altering
how
organisations
look at business sectors, markets,
service their customers and ideate new
businesses. Traditionally, governments
have been slow to modernise, but today
they view digitisation as a panacea
that can save time and expenses,
while enhancing their extend and
effectiveness.
The three-fold transformation of
consumers, government and industry are
far reaching economic consequences.
The number of technologies coming
into the fore, be it internet of things
(IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics
and so on, are touching every sector,
reimagining how goods and services
are delivered, impacting lives they reach

and heralding what is now being termed
as Industry 4.0.
Hitachi, one of the leading Japanese
companies with a global footprint, has
been engaged in innovating new age
technologies. It has been using some
of the most advanced technologies
in a wide range of products/services,
ranging
from
information
and
telecommunication systems, digital
solutions and services, infrastructure
systems, industrial systems like water,
oil and gas supply and management, to
transportation and urban development
solutions. Together with localisation,
Hitachi aims to contribute to further
fueling India’s digital economy.
As the sixth largest and fastest
developing economy in the world, to
drive the advantages of a digital sphere
to the bottom of the pyramid, India faces
numerous difficulties, the most pertinent
being to make the economic growth

inclusive. Digitisation is radical, as it can
bring in the much needed inclusiveness
and a true social transformation for a

nation as vast and complex as India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
acknowledges India’s unique challenges
but is now focusing all the synergies
towards the opportunities a radical
digitisation can bring to create the
much needed inclusiveness and a true
social transformation. Many initiatives
were launched to take the digital
dream to a billion citizens– ‘Digital
India’, ‘Make in India’, ‘Skill India’
to name a few. This vision aims at
empowering the citizens through the
adaptation of e-Governance, a way
to infuse technology in governance to
drive the last mile delivery of services.
Hitachi in India has envisioned this
direction in collaboration with the
stakeholders, bringing its rich global
industrial heritage and juxtaposing it with
its strength in Information Technology (IT)
and Operational Technology (OT). It has
its ethos embedded in its businesses
that are aimed at touching the lives of
millions. It is only possible when you
innovate and Hitachi’s inherent Social
Innovation Business, weaves in a multidisciplinary approach to problems to
build innovative solutions that drive
businesses and governance to aid the
society at large. It has partnered with

the government of India in its initiatives
like ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’,
leveraging its superior technology
innovations and global expertise to
address India’s unique challenges.
Hitachi has been a leader in OT for
industries such as manufacturing,
power/energy and transportation for over
100 years. The company has also been
a leader in IT for over 50 years—bringing
IT applications, analytics, content,
cloud, and infrastructure solutions to
market that have transformed the way
enterprises do business. Combining its
broad expertise in OT with its proven IT,
Hitachi gives the customers a powerful,
collaborative partner in data.

Its extensive presence across
industries, enables it to provide a
‘single eye view of macro solutions’,
a core competency that the company
has earned over the years. It laid its
solid foundation in India over 80 years
back, as it supplied turbines for the
Bhakra Nangal project. Over the years,
Hitachi group has diversified and
expanded its presence with 28 group
companies in India, across sectors
like infrastructure, railways, energy,

construction machinery, healthcare,
IT, automotive systems, along with
payment systems.

Be it the problem of rapid
urbanisation or largescale concentration
of people in cities; building sustainable
transportation solutions or efficient
supply and management of water;
need for stronger security solutions or
advanced machinery to aid smarter
manufacturing to fuel India’s ‘Make
in India’ aspiration, Hitachi’s Social
Innovation business has driven solutions
for the Indian government, private
players, businesses and the citizens


AV E N U E S

themselves, incorporating its vision of
‘Collaborative Creation’. Hitachi Group is
coming together to work faster, smarter
and towards a sustainable tomorrow
for India, contributing consistently to an
ever evolving digital economy.
“Lumada” aims to be the core of
social innovation by being a medium for
Hitachi’s customers, helping them be a
part of this digital transformation.

Hitachi has been a part of
e-Governance initiatives with multiple
governments in the country. While some
of them have used its IT solutions, others
use its technology for various functions.
These large data heavy projects include
digitisation of land records; singlewindow handling of grievances and
maintenance of essential
services;
easing tax payments and other dues
to the government; along with internet
based citizen delivery of services.

Digital transformation is expected
to add an estimated $154 billion to
Indian GDP and increase the growth
rate by 1% annually, according to a
research by a technology company

and International Data Corporation.
The report further goes on to predict
a dramatic acceleration in the pace of
digital transformation across India and
Asia Pacific’s economies. In 2017, while
4 % of India’s GDP was derived from
digital products and services created
directly through the use of digital
technologies, such as mobility, cloud,
IoT and AI, within the next four years,
it is estimated that nearly 60% of India’s

GDP will have a strong connection to
the digital technologies such as AI and
that will accelerate digital transformation
led growth even further.
This is a major opportunity for
companies like Hitachi, who can
amalgamate their global expertise and
heritage with complex Indian problems
to innovate with products and services.
“India is inevitably heading for
a social revolution. A revolution
brought in by the transformation in
the way people access technology
and the advanced digital capabilities
possessed by companies. With this
social shift, the society has moved
beyond from an information to a
distinctive culture, built on awareness
and technology. The 7 Cs i.e.
Common, Connected, Convenient,
Congestion-Free, Charged, Clean,
Cutting-Edge, introduced by our Prime
Minister, works as fundamental for us
and drives us to create the necessary
novel solutions including efficient
infrastructure, transportation, energy,
water, and many others. Keeping
citizens at the centre, we must adapt to
the dynamic confluence culture that is
a natural result of convergence. Hitachi

will continue to partner and draw
upon its wealth of technologies and
expertise to provide a diversified range
of information technology solutions in
various industrial sectors, empowering
the citizens of India, transforming the
landscape of Indian economy and
aligning with India’s growth,” says
Bharat Kaushal, Managing Director of
Hitachi India.
India’s appetite and intent for
technology
evolution
has
been
applauded globally as well. The World
Economic Forum comes out with a
Global Competitiveness Report every
year. According to this year’s report,
“The global economy is not prepared
for the Fourth Industrial Revolution: 103
of the 140 economies measured in this

year’s index score 50 or lower out of 100
for innovation capability, meaning that
for many of these, innovation is a drag
on overall competitiveness.” However,
there is good news for India. The report
proves Indian government’s focus is on
e-Governance, alongside other reforms

like GST and schemes like Digital India,
Make in India and Skill India.
India ranks 58th in 2018’s Global
Competitiveness Index. This indicates
a rise of five places in the ranking from
its 2017 position and is the largest
gain among all G20 economies. India
is a leader among the South Asian
economies.

India’s greatest competitive
advantages include:
Its
market
size (3rd)

Innovation
(31) The quality of
its research
establishments
(8th)

Business
dynamism (58)
including the
number of disruptive
businesses
(11th)

This holistic transformation of a

country as vast as India has been made
possible with companies like Hitachi
partnering with multi-stake holders in
bringing together the state-of-the-art
technology solutions, combined with
the implementing agencies driving the
last mile delivery of services.

To learn more
visit - achi/in/ .


FORM & REFORM

By Bibek Debroy

Prayagraj and Kumbh
The sacred and the civic on the Ganga

I

n this column, i have spoken in the past about
infrastructure. i will apparently deviate now, but not
entirely. this time, it will be about Prayagraj and
Kumbh, and i will link that with infrastructure in the
next one.
‘Kumbha’ means a pot or pitcher. the gods (devas or suras)
and the demons (asuras) are cousins. their mothers are
sisters. the sage (rishi) Kashyapa married several of
Daksha’s daughters—Aditi, Diti, Danu, and so on. Aditi’s

offspring are devas, also known as adityas, because they are
descended from Aditi. Diti’s offspring are daityas, a class of
demons. Danu’s offspring are danavas, another class of
demons. For all practical purposes, the words daitya and
danava are synonymous. the word asura, antithesis of sura,
is another synonym for demon. strictly speaking, demons
are elder brothers, or cousins. Gods are younger. cousins or
not, the two categories fought continuously. the king of the
gods has a title of indra. in the present era of manvantara,
Purandara holds the title of indra. Every once in a while, the
demons defeated the gods, sometimes facilitated by boons
received from Brahma (the creator) or shiva (the destroyer),
and transgressions caused by Purandara indra’s arrogance
and haughtiness. A demon usurped the throne of indra
in heaven and driven to desperation, indra and the gods
sought succour with Vishnu (the preserver). these stories
are told in the two epics of the Ramayana and mahabharata,
known as itihasa, and in ancient texts known as the Puranas.
Even when they were not driven out of heaven, the gods
had a problem. the preceptor of the demons, shukracharya,
possessed knowledge of bringing the dead back to life
(mritasanjivani vidya). thanks to this, when suras and asuras
fought, dead asuras were revived, but dead suras remained
dead. in search of a solution, the gods rushed to Vishnu.
‘You need to churn the ocean,’ said Vishnu. ‘You can’t do it
alone. have a temporary truce with the demons. churn it
collectively. the ocean will throw up its treasures,
including the elixir or nectar of immortality, known
as amrita’.
the demons readily agreed. they wanted the treasures

14

too. they also desired amrita. churning of the ocean
(samudramanthana) was no mean task. mount mandara
was the churning rod. Vasuki, king of the serpents, was
the rope used for churning. Without a stable base, mount
mandara started to wobble. therefore, Vishnu assumed
his tortoise incarnation and supported the base. As the
churning continued, many treasures emerged—the goddess
lakshmi; Varuni, the personified goddess of liquor; apsaras
or celestial maidens; surabhi, the cow that satisfies all
objects of desire; ucchaishrava, the divine horse; Airavata,
the divine elephant; the jewel Kaustubha; the celestial tree
known as parijata; and so on. the demons claimed some of
these treasures, the gods the others. the churning also
generated a terrible poison, known as halahala or kalakuta.
this was so virulently venomous that it threatened to
destroy the worlds and everything in them. to save the
worlds, shiva consumed this poison. As a result, shiva’s
throat turned blue. Dhanvantari is the physician of the
gods, and the god of physicians. once the poison was out of
the way, Dhanvantari emerged from the ocean, holding the
pot of amrita in his hand.
the gods wanted amrita, so did the demons. they started
to fight. Kashyapa not only married Aditi, Diti and Danu, he
also married other daughters of Daksha. two of these were
Vinata and Kadru, sisters of Aditi, Diti and Danu. Vinata
was the mother of all birds and one of her sons was Garuda,
Vishnu’s mount. Kadru’s children were 1,000 serpents.
Vasuki was one of these. to make sure that the demons

didn’t get any amrita, Garuda ran away with the pot. or in
a side story, Kadru and Vinata had a bet. since Vinata lost
the bet through some deceit on Kadru’s part, she became
Kadru’s servant. Garuda didn’t like the idea of his mother
being a servant. Kadru agreed to release Vinata provided
Garuda brought the pot of amrita to the serpents. that’s the
reason Garuda flew away with amrita. to return to the main
story, the demons had to be dissuaded from drinking amrita.
Vishnu assumed the form of a beautiful woman, known as
mohini. so smitten were the demons by mohini that they
promptly forgot about amrita. While the demons were
11 february 2019


Illustration by Saurabh Singh

deceived, the gods sat down to have amrita. the demon
svarbhanu was rather clever. Disguising himself as a god,
he sat down to have amrita too. By the time this was noticed,
it was a bit too late, since svarbhanu had already had a bit
of amrita. surya (the sun-god) and chandra (the moon-god)
pointed out to Vishnu what svarbhanu had done. Vishnu’s
razor-sharp weapon is known as sudarshana chakra. using
this, he sliced off svarbhanu’s head. But since svarbhanu
had savoured amrita, he couldn’t be killed. the head became
Rahu and the headless torso became Ketu. Rahu wasn’t
going to forgive surya and chandra, the culprits who had
informed Vishnu about them. therefore, at the time of solar
and lunar eclipses, he respectively swallows up the sun and
the moon. A pot full of amrita, carried away by Garuda.

A pot full of amrita, carried away by Vishnu
in his form of mohini, before he handed
the pot over to Jayanta, indra’s son.
in this process of carrying, itihasa
or Purana doesn’t quite tell us
drops of amrita were spilt
anywhere. those are later
stories and they tell us
four drops fell in Prayaga,
haridvara, nashik
and ujjain.
Prayag is an old
and famous human
settlement, steeped in
history and tradition.
the sanskrit word ‘yaaga’
means oblation or
sacrifice. the prefix ‘pra’
can qualify the word
‘sacrifice’ in many ways. there
are references to Prayaga in the
Valmiki Ramayana, mahabharata
and several Puranas. in the Valmiki
Ramayana, in ‘Ayodhya Kanda’, on their way
to the forest, Rama, sita and lakshmana arrive in the sage
Bharadvaja’s hermitage. having entered an extremely large
forest, they went to the region where the Bhagirathi Ganga
flowed towards the Yamuna. Rama tells lakshmana, ‘We
have certainly reached the confluence of the Ganga and the
Yamuna.’ the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna, where

Bharadvaja’s hermitage was, is the place known as Prayaga.
today, people do visit Bharadvaja’s hermitage in Prayagraj.
But rivers change course and the Ganga has moved away
from the ashrama.
in the ‘Vana Parva’ section of the mahabharata, there is
a sub-parva known as ‘tirtha-yatra parva’. A tirtha is a sacred
place of pilgrimage one visits to acquire merit. thus, this
sub-parva is about visiting such sacred places of pilgrimage.
however, a tirtha isn’t just any place of pilgrimage. there is
a sense of descending down towards the water. therefore,
11 february 2019

to be classified as a tirtha, a spot must have water, as Prayaga
does. in ‘Vana Parva’ we are told that the tirtha Prayaga
(along with a few others) was a place where Brahma, the
creator, undertook a sacrifice. it was his sacrificial altar.
therefore, it is the best of tirthas and the Vedas and sacrifices
exist there in personified form. if one bathes in Prayaga, one
acquires the merits of undertaking rajasuya and ashvamedha
sacrifices. We are not concerned with dating when texts like
the Valmiki Ramayana and mahabharata were composed.
For our purposes, by the time these two epics were
composed, Prayaga was a celebrated tirtha, where one went
to bathe. the Puranas mentioned reinforce that impression.
in Padma Purana, ‘many are the tirthas that have been
spoken about. some yield objects of desire, others yield
emancipation. those that yield objects of
desire don’t necessarily yield
emancipation. those that yield
emancipation don’t necessarily

yield objects of desire. however,
there is a tirtha, the king of
tirthas, which is capable
of yielding both
simultaneously. this
happens to be Prayaga.’
Brahma, Vishnu and
shiva are the trinity of
creator, preserver and
destroyer, and all three
reside in Prayaga. Brahma
resides there in invisible
form; Vishnu, in his form
of Venimadhava; and shiva,
in the form of an akshaya vata,
a banyan tree that does not get
destroyed. since shiva resides in
Prayaga, Prayaga is not destroyed
at the time of universal destruction. if
the gods reside there, their consorts must also
be there. shiva’s consort is Ganga and Vishnu’s consort is
Yamuna. Brahma’s consort is sarasvati. Just as Brahma resides in Prayaga in invisible form, so does sarasvati. unlike
the clear Ganga and the darker Yamuna, the sarasvati cannot be seen in Prayaga. But she is there and Prayaga is
triveni sangama (confluence of three rivers). the next time
you hear ‘Prayag’, break it up into the constituent aksharas
(syllables). ‘Pra’ stands for Ganga, ‘yaa’ for Yamuna and ‘ga’
for sarasvati. Prayaga is a tirtha where one goes to have a
bath. it is a place of pilgrimage and that bath is even more
sacred on auspicious days. Examples of such auspicious
days are the day of the new moon (amavasya), the day of the

full moon, or days when the sun enters a specific sign of the
zodiac, or specific months. What happens to infrastructure
in a city when there is a sudden influx of pilgrims? i will
save that for the next column. n
www.openthemagazine.com 15


Lost & Found Histories

By Ranjit Hoskote

A River Runs through It
Coursing along India’s riparian culture

R

ivers have always fascinated me, with
the rippling and purling of their waters, and
the fractal venations that represent them on
satellite maps. Perhaps this fascination springs
from a biographical circumstance: i belong to an
ethnic group that takes its name from a lost river, which
once flowed in north-western india before the earth
swallowed it up. Over the centuries, my people have
migrated to parts of the subcontinent and the world distant
from their original home in Kashmir. Carried across time
and space through their diaspora, the saraswati has become
a metaphor of loss and survival: a trope abandoned by
geography but resurrected through language and music, the
memory of a civilisation and the echo of a landscape. and

while scientists and charlatans clash over the precise
location of my ancestral river—as they do in shirley
abraham and amit Madheshiya’s sensitively made 2018
documentary, Searching for Saraswati—i find myself
looking for its traces elsewhere.
i look for the river in the paintings of Kangra ateliers, in
which every wavelet and leaf has been stylised by a painterly
eye that regarded detail as the covenant of truth. i look for the
river in the vachanas of Basava, who sings of his beloved Kudalasangama-deva, lord of the Meeting rivers; and in the thumris
of siddheshwari Devi, their poignancy redolent of the ghats
of varanasi. i look for the river, again, in the films of ritwik
Ghatak, which record their protagonists’ journeys through the
melancholy yet sublime topographies of Subarnarekha (1965)
and Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (1973).
The river, today choked by dams and poisoned with
industrial effluents, was once central to india’s material life
and sacred culture. in common with other riparian
civilisations of antiquity, the civilisations of the indus, the
Narmada and the Ganga valleys developed a water cosmology,
a belief in the waters as the origin and sustaining principle of
life. in this account, the river is a matrix of abundance. its
alluvial deposits and its water, fed by spring, thaw or rain,
rendered the land fertile and made agriculture possible. yet the
cataclysmic threat posed by the flood-swollen river also
produced the mythology of the pralaya, the world-annihilating
deluge. The indic religious imagination first embodied the
16

subcontinent’s temperamental rivers as apsaras or water
goddesses. as early as in the rig veda, they appear as guardians

of the river-treasury, vital but dangerous and unpredictable.
The nadi-devatas or river-goddesses of later times evolved
from the vedic apsaras. More benign than their precursors,
theirs is an iconography of fertility. in the Kailasanatha temple
complex at ellora is a shrine dedicated to the three major river
divinities, Ganga, yamuna and saraswati. Four images of nadidevatas, each accompanied by a distinctive totemic vehicle,
appear in the temple of the Chaunsath-yogini, the sixty-four
yoginis, at Bhedaghat on the Narmada. here, we see Ganga with
her makara or horned crocodile, yamuna with her tortoise,
saraswati with her peacock, and Narmada herself, on a makara
pedestal. each river-goddess carries the archetypal vessel of
plenitude, the purna-kumbha. later, in sindh, that crucible of
syncretic culture, there would emerge the figure of Jhulelal,
lord of the waters. seated on a great fish, Jhulelal fused within
himself two prior figures: varuna, vedic God of the ocean and
judge-king who preserved the moral order, and Khwaja Khizr,
the Green One, the Guardian of the Fountain of life in islamic
myth. Both these figures are ultimately traceable back to the
mysterious Utnapishtim of the Epic of Gilgamesh, who ‘dwells
where the river meets the sea’ and offers guidance to the
eponymous hero of this Mesopotamian narrative.
The river was a road in itself, and a guide to land routes.
Northern india’s earliest historic cities were established, at the
beginning of the first millennium BCe, along the Ganga-yamuna system: indraprastha (modern Delhi), hastinapura and
Kosambi on the yamuna, varanasi on the Ganga. By Mauryan
times, a network of trade routes connected the north and
east of the subcontinent with the south and west. The main
trunk road began at Tamralipti, the celebrated port situated
near modern-day Kolkata, and passed through the ancient
city of Champa, Pataliputra (modern Patna) and varanasi to

Kaushambi. From there, a branch led to Bhrigukaccha (today’s
Bharuch) at the mouth of the Narmada, by way of Ujjayini
(present-day Ujjain).
Meanwhile, the principal westward land route ran along
the yamuna from Kaushambi to Mathura, and then via
indraprastha, sakala (modern sialkot), Takshashila and the
Kabul valley to Central asia. The southward route passed from
11 february 2019


Ujjayini to Pratishthana in the Deccan (modern Paithan in
Maharasthra), and so across the Deccan plateau to the lower
Krishna, and the great southern urban centres of Kanchi and
Madurai. The river pilots of the Ganga, the indus and the rivers
of the Deccan braved such perils as pirates, sandbanks and
submerged rocks to convey goods and passengers across the
subcontinent. Their cargo included spices, sandalwood, gold
and jewels from the south; silks and muslin from varanasi
and Bengal; musk, saffron and yak-tails from the himalayan
foothills. iron came from Jharkhand’s mines; copper from
the Deccan, rajasthan and the western himalayas. salt was

geography’. Many indian rivers act as re-tellings of myths, their
courses punctuated by sthala-puranas or place legends associated with shrines that suggest alternative versions of the events
nested within the capacious ramayana and Mahabharata
narratives. situated on the banks of rivers or the confluence of
rivers, such shrines mark a tirtha, the bridge from iha to para,
this world to the other, from samsara to moksha, the world of
appearances to a release from the cycle of rebirth. in this spirit,
the Jaina spiritual liberators are revered as tirthankaras, bridgebuilders who carry us across the river of life. and the Buddha,

too, presents himself as a ferryman who helps the self to make

A scene from Searching
for Saraswati (2018)

traded inland from the coast; sugar was produced in moister
and warmer zones, and ferried to cooler and drier ones; rice was
exported to the northwest.
Used as they were by merchants, scholars, artisans, monks,
warriors and pilgrims, south asia’s river routes ensured that
the subcontinent was shaped by journeying and migration, the
constant exchange of goods across a network of inter-relationships. To this history, we owe the absent husbands and lovers,
gone away on their travels, who feature in indian poetry and
song across the centuries, from the Prakrit Gaha-sattasai to the
thumri and kajri. it is this history, also, that negates Mahatma
Gandhi’s charming but unfounded notion of the unchanging,
self-contained village republics of india, which he borrowed
from the British administrator sir Charles Metcalfe’s Minute of
November 7th, 1830.
if river routes were catalysts in the world of material gain
and prosperity, they also supported that inter-penetration
of terrain, culture and belief systems, which we call a ‘sacred
11 february 2019

If rIver routes
were catalysts
In the world of
materIal gaIn
and prosperIty,
they also

supported an
InterpenetratIon
of terraIn,
culture and belIef
systems, whIch
we call a ‘sacred
geography’

the passage to the further shore of enlightenment.
The river, and the land between rivers, has been pivotal to
political life as well. The agrarian histories of the Gangayamuna doab in the north and the Krishna-Tungabhadra doab
in the south chronicle the waxing and waning of imperial destinies. a recurrent narrative in indic mythology is that of the
war over water. The rig vedic episode of the sky-God indra’s
killing of the cloud-dragon vritra has been interpreted as the
destruction of an indus barrage and the release of its dammed
waters. again, in the rig veda, we read of the victory of sudas,
chief of the Bharatas, over a confederacy that attempts to divert
the course of the Parushni, identified as a stretch of the modern
ravi, away from the Bharata territory. Our modern polity
inherits, and exacerbates, a legacy of persistent conflict over
rivers. even 4,000 years ago, those committed to preserving
local habitats shaped by long intimacy with riverine environments were struggling against those intent on destroying them
in the name of large-scale economic transition. n
www.openthemagazine.com 17


BUSINESS

By ARESH SHIRALI

A Hip-Flask Shot

N

ow that US President Donald trump, ever
more wobbly over walling off the land of liberty,
has reached for his holster to glare India’s whisky
tariff barriers down in the name of ‘reciprocal trade’
(“India gets 150 per cent,” goes his grouse, “we get nothing”), it’s
time to slap foreheads and roll eyes as usual, but also ask why
Delhi has been so slow in opening up the domestic market for
liquor to global competition. No discernible national interest
is served by shielding it, nor do american brands have much
hope of swamping an arena that has rivalry enough of its own.
what seems to have caught the eye of the white house is
the new world order of whisky volumes. Four of the planet’s
five top sellers are Indian. with annual sales estimated at over
290 million litres, officer’s Choice is the biggest by far. with
about 255 million litres quaffed down every year, McDowell’s
No 1 is ranked second. at around 170 million litres, Johnnie
walker Scotch vies with India’s Imperial Blue and Royal Stag
for third place. america’s favourite whisky, Jack Daniel’s, is no
longer among the big five, and its much-ballyhooed bourbon
Jim Beam is nowhere close.
to a man with a sling at his waist, though, everything
looks like a target; which might explain american fantasies
of Indians sozzled silly by Jack and Jim flowing freely into a
1.8-billion-litre market. Yes, it’s almost half the world’s total,
but the devil’s in the details: booze sales in India are infernally
price-sensitive. at roughly $5.5 for a 750-ml bottle, for example,

officer’s Choice retails here for a fifth of the money that Jack
Daniel’s does in New York. Even if granted duty-free access,
american brands would only find
themselves doing what they do
anyway: fight Scotch, that is, and
that too for just a sliver of India’s
whisky pie. Imports account for
less than 36 million litres a year, an
itsy-bitsy share that could double
or treble if local prices were to
halve, but that’s about it. Clearly,
Jack and Jim would be better off
aiming for a casual niche of upmarket consumption by casting
Scotch as the uptight choice of
Raj-hungover elders, even as
Indian Made Foreign Liquor
(IMFL) labels retain a vast bulk
of all that goes down throats.
at least that’s what rivalry
gurus would probably advise.
In Michael Porter’s formulation,
18

gaining a competitive edge calls for focusing on either a niche
or mass market while trying to hawk either the cheapest or
most sharply differentiated stuff. ambitious marketers tend
to opt for the latter, since selling an intoxicant as something
special could command the sort of consumer loyalty that spells
extra profits, though some also try to crush costs while at it
as part of a double-edged strategy.

theory, though, doesn’t always survive contact with reality,
especially not in a mass market as restive as India’s. as IMFL
executives attest, it defies all market models. Edges get blunt,
pros turn into cons, and cons into bestsellers. But model the
market, analysts still must. Consider, say, an old blend that
traces its origin to the oak casks of a Scottish clan once
liberally admired for the finesse of its fluency but pushed into
scraping the barrel under the onslaught of a spicy single-malt
rival, one spiced up by crocus threads and aimed at a sigh-ofthe-oppressed segment that has expanded furiously in recent
times. Such an arena would presumably be led by the brand
that’s clearer about the appeal of what it has to offer.
alas, intoxication rarely lends itself to clarity. oh no, not
with preferences in such a royal state of flux. and once each
brand confuses its game with the other’s, neither can work out
how to pitch itself. the old blend is tempted to highlight just
one malt, while the single-malt goes all out for barrel scrapers.
In a market as muddled as this, which of the two would an
investor bet on? one approach would be to assume that
addiction makes for consumer captivity, and the spicy option
will always have a more reliable advantage on this. another
way to look at it would be to ask
saurabh singh
if the allure of that heady spice
hasn’t begun to get eclipsed in
popular perception by the extra
cost endured—say, the extreme
harm done over time—in contrast
with the bland but relatively
harmless blend that has little
beyond the distilled wonders of

diverse inputs going for it.
It’s just a model, admittedly,
but it’s still worth some thought.
are people really getting costconscious in anything other than
myopic ways? Nobody knows.
and that’s why nothing can
be counted upon in an addled
market. Blame it on ‘the affluence
of incohol’, in the impish words
of The Economist. n
11 february 2019



open essay

By navin chawla

guardians
of democracy

I

Election commissioners are only answerable to the institution

propose to focus on the crucial issue of the wholesome functioning of the election commission that is in many ways
critical to future development. there are two main issues involved here. the first is to instill a sense of security in election
commissioners, which can only come through a constitutional amendment that makes the procedure for their removal the
same as that for the chief election commissioner, thereby giving the same protection to election commissioners as accorded
to judges of the supreme court. the second issue is to give legal sanctity to the tradition of the senior-most election

commissioner taking over as cec on the retirement of the incumbent, so as to eliminate discretion of the executive.
I have referred to the unfortunate imbroglio within the commission when the then cec, N Gopalaswami, suo motu
recommended my dismissal from the commission. the cec had held that he had the authority under the constitution to
recommend the removal of an election commissioner. this was a case of constitutional overreach, leading the Government
to reject his recommendation.
the furore that ensued led to a number of significant commentaries on the subject by arguably the country’s foremost legal and
constitutional luminaries. their voices should be regarded as objective expressions of concern on an issue that awaits urgent resolution.
Insofar as the commentaries are concerned, it is necessary to include the opinion dated 12 April 2006, of Ashok Desai, former
Attorney General of India and senior advocate, for it was his opinion that cec BB tandon officially sought and upon whose advice
he acted. It was on this opinion that the affidavit he filed in the supreme court was based.
on 16 february 2009, former cec ts Krishnamurthy commented on the then raging issue at a function in chennai with these
words: “the anomaly pertaining to appointment or removal of election commissioner should have been set right in 1991 itself,
when two more officers were appointed by the centre. But it was not so. the disparity among the officers can be removed if all of
them are treated alike.”
the purpose here is not to rekindle controversy but to present the facts in the hope that what I see as a glaring lacuna can be
conclusively addressed in a manner that would strengthen the commission and free its commissioners from the ‘whims and
caprices’ not merely of the cec of the day but also of the Government.
After I became the chief election commissioner—and constitutionally secure—I wrote to prime Minister Manmohan singh on
22 January 2010 on the need for the Government to initiate this reform to guard against such adventurism on the part of the cec
ever arising in the future. the sum and substance of my case to the prime Minister was for his government to provide election commissioners similar protection from removal as is presently accorded by the constitution only to the chief election commissioner.
I pointed out to the prime Minister that till 1989 there was only the chief election commissioner, who was constitutionally protected by Article 324. on 16 october 1989, the Government of rajiv Gandhi appointed two additional commissioners, namely Messrs
20

11 february 2019


Saurabh Singh

ss Dhanoa and VK seigell, for a term of five years or until
they reached the age of 65, as prescribed for the cec. Because

of a curious turn of events, their tenures would last barely
ten weeks. the 1989 General election to elect the ninth Lok
sabha saw the defeat of the rajiv Gandhi-led Government
to be replaced by that of Vp singh. the new Government
abolished the two posts by a simple notification on 1 January
1990, allegedly because the two commissioners had angered
the Haryana politician Devi Lal, who later became Deputy
prime Minister. this led one of the two affected commissioners, ss Dhanoa to challenge this decision in the supreme
court. Although the supreme court agreed that his removal
was arbitrary, the court, nevertheless, upheld the decision of the
Government, ruling that because the president (meaning prime
Minister) was the appointing authority, he held the power to
rescind the posts as well. this would hold special significance in
my own matter as it unfolded.
My own case played out somewhat differently. In the case of
Dhanoa and seigell, it was the Government that chose to abolish the posts. In my case, while the Government had no stated
intention of abolishing the posts, Gopalaswami interpreted
the constitution to mean that as cec he had the constitutional
right, suo motu, to recommend to the Government the removal
of a fellow commissioner without awaiting a reference from the
Government. this play of events was precipitated at a critical
phase of the 15th General election, practically on its eve, and just
a few months before the cec would himself demit office.
My letter to the prime Minister sought to deter any further
11 february 2019

MY LETTER TO THEN PRIME MINISTER
MANMOHAN SINGH SOUGHT TO DETER
ANY FURTHER ADVENTURISM FROM
WITHIN THE COMMISSION. IT WAS IN THE

SAME SPIRIT THAT I HAD SOUGHT TO
INTRODUCE SOME EQUALISING REFORMS
adventurism from within the commission. It was in the same
spirit that I had sought to introduce some equalising reforms.
one was that, henceforth, the cec and both the commissioners would jointly write the confidential reports of all officials
who served the commission both at its headquarters and in
the states. As any civil servant would recognise, this served to
bring about parity between all three, because all officials would
seek to serve the Commission as a whole and not be beholden
only to its chief. this was a significant step towards the concept
of primus inter pares spelt out in the seshan judgment of the
supreme court, that held that all three were equal, but the cec
would handle matters of administration so that there was no
confusion in day-to-day work.
the matter of providing constitutional protection from
removal is being heard in the supreme court. the commission
in its affidavit before the court reaffirmed its two-decade-old
stand that all the commissioners must be treated equally in the
matter of their removal. Disappointingly, and in sharp contrast,
www.openthemagazine.com 21


open essay

the Government’s stand is that there can be no justification
for bringing the conditions of removal of the election
commissioners, who are statutorily appointed, on par with
that of a permanent constitutional functionary such as the
cec. the Government in its affidavit has further stated that
the commission was functioning ‘smoothly’, and since the

petitioner had not placed any ‘material backing’ there is,
therefore, no ‘need for a change’.
eminent jurist and constitution expert fali Nariman told
the Hindu that the cec may have the power under Article 324
(5) of the constitution to recommend the removal of an
election commissioner but this power cannot be used
mechanically due to some difference of opinion with the other
commissioners simply because he is a superior authority. It can
be used only if there is a gross violation or if a person
has become bankrupt. He further stated that the cec’s
recommendation is not binding on the Government. the eminent lawyer was more upset at the timing of Gopalaswami’s
recommendation. “When we need a united commission for
holding the general elections, [the cec’s action] has divided the
commission and has done damage to the institution,” he said.

FALI NARIMAN HAS SAID THE CHIEF’S
POWER TO REMOVE ELECTION
COMMISSIONERS CAN BE USED ONLY
IF THERE IS A GROSS VIOLATION OR IF
A PERSON HAS BECOME BANKRUPT

former Attorney-General and senior advocate soli
sorabjee shared Nariman’s views: “the power of the cec to
recommend removal of an ec is implied given the structure of
the election commission. But the timing is unfortunate. It is
for the Government to take a decision to accept or not accept
the recommendation. If there are cogent reasons for the
Government to reject the recommendation, it can do so.”
former Law Minister shanti Bhushan echoed this: “Appointments and removals are in the Government’s domain and a
view by the cec is to be given only if his advice is asked for.” He

too questioned the timing: “the matter has been pending for
many months. If the cec wanted to give an opinion, why did he
wait for weeks before his retirement, which is due on April 20?”
In an article published in the Hindu on 9 february 2009,
Justice s Mohan—retired judge of the supreme court of
India—argued that:
‘the cec cannot exercise his power suo motu because
the members of the commission are of equal status. If suo
motu power is conferred on the cec, it will amount to an
assumption of superiority, which is not warranted and
will obliterate the equality. this aspect did not specifically
22

arise in the case of tN seshan. However, it is logical to conclude that if the election commission is to function as a
body, such suo motu recommendation by the cec would
nullify the function of the commission. the election
commissioners will be more interested in dancing to the
tune of chief election commissioner and try to be in his
good books. this cannot be the intent of the constitution under Article 324(5). such a situation will never be
conducive to an effective functioning of the commission.
the conclusion, therefore, is inescapable that the power
of recommendation cannot be exercised suo motu.’
senior journalist Harish Khare’s article ‘restoring order at
Nirvachan sadan statecraft’ probably sums up the issues at stake:
‘Almost all sober students of Indian politics and most
constitutional experts are unanimous regretting that
the controversy caused by Mr Gopalaswami has damaged the institutional prestige of the election commission. since tN seshan’s days, it has reclaimed— with
considerable help from the judiciary and the democratic
civil society—its autonomy against a wayward political
class; and it has indeed used that elbow room to

introduce an energetic notion of fairness in the electoral
process. No longer can a ruling party—at the centre or
in the states—have an unfair advantage over its rivals
and challengers. the election commission has become
a role model the world over for a vigorous, neutral and
detached umpire in a poll process that otherwise tends
to be defined by intimidation, violence and corruption.
It is precisely because of this success that the timing
of Mr Gopalaswami’s action bewilders even those who
may be inclined to see some merit or reason in his animosity towards Mr chawla. coming as it does so close to
the next general election, the Gopalaswami activism has
the potential of distracting from the authenticity of the
forthcoming poll process. Neither Mr Gopalaswami’s
friends nor Mr chawla’s detractors would want any
further erosion in the credibility of the institution that is
at the heart of the Indian democracy.
[…]
In fact, both the prime Minister and the Law Minister have a responsibility to reject Mr Gopalaswami’s
recommendation but in a manner and language that
would assure the nation that there is no dilution of the
canons of good governance. Indeed, the Gopalaswami
activism needs to be defeated, otherwise it would set a
disastrous precedent, encouraging political parties to try
to manipulate and browbeat the election commission
and its officials.’ n
Navin Chawla is a former
Chief Election Commissioner of India.
This is an edited excerpt from his book ,
every Vote counts: the story of India’s elections
(HarperCollins India, 376 pages, Rs 524)

11 february 2019



C

o

v

e

r

S

t

o

r

y

Achievers AwArds

Celebrating the

Great Indian Dream
with the finest minds from

business, culture, sports,
cinema and public services

T

By nandini nair

24

he author Joe Moran in First You Write a Sentence
notes, ‘the word curious derives from the Latin cura, which also
gives us cure and care. Curiosity is a cure for self-absorption, the
cure being to take care about the world and lay down roots in
it again.’ to engage in any work with focus and dedication is to
dig personal roots into the soil of our earth; it is a way to achieve
‘absorbedness’. Moran adds, ‘and to be truly absorbed in anything
is to be truly blessed.’
the open-republic tV achievers awards ceremony, held
on January 28th ‘to celebrate achievers from every walk of life’
at the taj Palacehotel, Delhi, was a testament to the power of
absorbedness and the importance of laying down roots. the
jury chairmen of the awards were rP-Sanjiv Goenka Group
Chairman Sanjiv Goenka and republic tV editor-in-Chief
and Managing Director arnab Goswami, and jury members
included Principal economic adviser in the Ministry of Finance Sanjeev Sanyal, McKinsey India Managing Director
Gautam Kumra, cricketer Gautam Gambhir and bestselling
author amish tripathi.
the men and women who were honoured at these awards
are those who care for the world by being fully committed to
their work, whether it is in music, sports, cinema or business.

they are absorbed in their respective fields because it is not the
drudgery of a job, but the calling of a vocation that occupies them.
It is only complete immersion in one’s work that can ensure personal fulfilment and public benefit. the award recipients are
those who have achieved success, and by contributing to a larger
11 february 2019


Akash Ambani (left) of Reliance Jio receives the Disruptor of the Year
award from RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group Chairman Sanjiv Goenka

Disruptor of the Year
reliAnce Jio

“When you hear the
Word ‘diSruptor’,
people think that
you Come in and
break Stuff. but to
be honeSt, at Jio, We
foCuS on What Can
bring SoCietal value.
and that iS our
miSSion”
Akash Ambani
director Reliance Jio