Outlook magazine

FACEBOOK WILL INDIA SAY ‘NO’ TO FREE BASICS?

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BHARAT ISN’T SHINING

AMIT SHAH TESTING TIME

February 8, 2016 | Rs 40

Rural India sends out worrying signals as Arun Jaitley lines up for a makeor-break Budget amid signs of a global economic downturn GROUND REPORT FROM SEVEN STATES

RNI NO. 7044/1961

LEADERS

Volume LVI, No. 5 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Krishna Prasad EXECUTIVE EDITORS Bishwadeep Moitra, Dilip Bobb ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR Sunit Arora DEPUTY MANAGING EDIT3R Sunil Menon DEPUTY EDITORS Uttam Sengupta, Satish Padmanabhan SENIOR EDITOR Pranay Sharma INVESTIGATIONS EDITOR Meetu Jain SENIOR ASSWOCIATE EDITORS S.B. Easwaran, Manisha Saroop, Arindarn Mukheriee, Lola Nayar PHOTO-EDITOR Narendra Bisht SR ASST EDITORS Bula Devi, Mihir Srivastava ASST EDITORS Dola Mitra (Calcutta), Madhavi Tata (Hyderabad), Prachi Pinglay-Plumber, Prarthana gahilote (Mumbai) SENIOR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS Pragya Singh,Ajay Sukumaran (Bangalore) JUNIOR ASSISTANT EDITOR Saikat Niyogi PRINCIPAL CORRESPONDENT Ushinor Majumdar SENIOR CORRESPONDENT KS. Shaini (Bhopal), Priyadershani Sen CONTRIBUTORS Chandler St a Dogra (Chandigarh), Minu Ittyipe (Kerala), R.K. Misra (Gujarat), Sharat Pradhan (Uttar Pradesh), Showkat A. Motta (Kashmir), Yashwant Dhote (Chhattisgarh) TRAINEE JOURNALISTS Arushi Bedi, Siddhartha Mishra, Dipsikha Thakur PHOTOGRAPHERS Jitender GLIDta (Deputy Photo Editor) Tribhuvan Tiwari (Chief Photographer), Sanjay Rawat, Sandipan Chatterjee (Calcutta) Apoorva Salkade, Amit Haratkar (Mumbai (Sr Photographers), S. Rakshit (Chief Photo Coordinator), J.S. Adhikari (Sr Photo Researcher) DESIGN Deepak Shama (0f Art Director), Ashish Bagchi (Deputy Art Director), Leela (Senior Designer), Saahil (Illustrator), Devi Prasad, Padam Gupta (Sr DTP Operators) CHIEF EDITORIAL MANAGER Sasidharan Koliery LIBRARY Atka Gupta (Chief Librartan), Raj Kumar (Senior Library Assistant) DIGITAL LIB. U. Suresh Kumar Sajith Kumar WEBSITE TEAM Raman Awasthi (Project Manager), Suraj Wadhwa (Chief Graphic Designer), Praveen Upreti (Web Designer), Freya Dasgupta (Sr Sub Editor), Rama Dwivedi, Garima Singh (Sub Editors), Priyal Ray (Trainee Sub-Editor)

BUSINESS OFFICE PRESIDENT Indranil Roy ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Shishir Saxena ADVISOR Ramesh S. VICE PRESIDENTS Johnson D’Silva, Vidya Menon SR GENERAL MANAGERS Kabir Khattar (Corp), Mohan Singh Bisht, Uma Srinivasan (Chennai) DEPUTY GENERAL MANAGER Vineet Baijal NATIONAL HEAD (Circulation) Anindya Banerjee, Archana Browne (Special Projects) HEAD BRAND & MARKETING Shrutika Dewan ASSISTANT GENERAL MANAGERS Abhijit Das, Anthony Joseph, G. Ramesh (South), Shashank Dixit, Sudhir Shukla (North) Vinod Kumar (North) CHIEF MANAGER Anuj Gopal Mathur SENIOR MANAGERS Ashish Narang, Diwan Singh Bisht, Nikhil Tanawade, Saurabh Sobti, Shekhar Kumar Pander MANAGERS Neetu Kanjolia, Sudha Sharma, Vinod Joshi, Vishnu Kumar Parashar, Vishal Anand ZONAL SALES MANAGER Arun Kumar ha (East)

HEAD OFFICE AB-10, S.J. Enclave, New Delhi - 110 029 Tel: 011-33505500; Fax: 26191420 Customer care helpline: 011-33505562, 33505500 e-mail: outlook@outlookindia.com For editorial queries: edit@outlookindia.com For subscription helpline: yourhelptine@outlookindia.com For other queries: queries@outlookindia.com OTHER OFFICES MUMBAI Tel: 022-33545000; Fax: 33545100 CALCUTTA Tel: 33545400; Fax: 24650145 CHENNAI Te1: 42615224142615225; Fax: 42615095 BANGALORE Tel: 45236100; FAX: 45236105 Printed and published by Indranil Roy on behalf of Outlook Publishing (India) Pvt. Ltd. Editor: Krishna Prasad. Printed at Rajhans Enterprises, 134, 4th Main Road, Industrial Town, Rajajinagar, Bangalore - 560044 and published from AB10, S.J. Enclave, New Delhi•110 029 Published for the week of February 02-08, 2016 Released on January 30, 2016 Total no. of pages 76, Including Covers

8 FEBRUARY 2016

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Well done, Mr President

H

ISTORICALLY. the Republic Day address by the President of India has been a sedate ritual; earnest and correct, sure, but also predictable and maha-boring.

By choosing to speak out on the value of dissent, Pranab Mukherjee has not just bucked the trend but captured the zeitgeist. “Let us continue to complain, to demand, to rebel,” our rashtrapati said, war-ning against the “forces of violence” and “unreason” and speaking of the virtues of dialogue. In many ways, these SAAHIL words of wisdom are in line with the President’s outstanding interventions when the intolerance debate dominated the discourse through 2015 but was met with silence bordering on guilt by our very predictable BJP government. In using his pulpit to share his thoughts again, a week after dream died, the First Citizen has underlined a blazingly obvious fact: that the freedom of expres-sion is inherent in the nation’s DNA and those who fiddle with it do so at their own peril. When the definition of dissent is being subverted to mean “anti-national” by wrapping everything up gaudy in tricolour—from our courts to TV screens to university campuses—the President re-minds us that if we lose the ability to speak truth to power without fear of losing life or limb, our democracy stands diminished. For a newly emboldened class of Indians that has led itself to believe that a bit of sacrifice, by unquestioningly ac-cepting everything we are served, is a small price to pay if we have to get things done, if we have to become ‘one nation’, this is a valuable -lesson in citizenship. It took many deft hands to weave the complex tapestry that is the Republic of India and only the very arrogant or morbidly foolish would allow freedom to become a contestable commodity. As George Orwell wisely observed, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” Especially what they do not want to hear.

In Praise of Indigo AIRLINE companies are often slammed for using unfair pricing practices and forming fare cartels to try and fill as many seats as possible on their aircraft. Well, here’s one that did the opposite.

Ahead of a flight from Hyd-erabad to Raipur.

India’s biggest airline summarily offloaded as many as 70 passengers for “unruly behaviour”. The passengers were all part of a wedding party and they allegedly created panic by refusing to heed safety instruc-tions. It takes plenty of courage for a domestic airline to order 70 passengers to get off a flight knowing there would be counterallegations from the passengers which could impact the corporate image. Indians are generally the worst flyers; they are the first to jump up and grab their overhead luggage, well before the air-craft comes to a stop. During the journey itself they are known to be rude and overbearing with the airline staff. It’s time someone showed them where to get off, literally, and Indigo desen-es a pat on the, well...tail.

OUTLOOK 3

CONTENT

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03 LEADERS 06 LETTERS 16 SEVEN DAYS 18 NATION AFFAIRS 54 SPOTLIGHT 60 EAT, PRAY, LIVE 64 MIXED 68 BOOKS & REVIEWS 72 TRENDING 74 DAIRY

32 Bharat isn’t Shining Rural India sends out mixed signals as Arun Jaitley lines up for a make-or -break budget

12 A Forest for a Steal

20 Neither Free Nor Basic

24 The second Coming

In Keonijar, adivasi villages find themselves having handed over their forests for mining

Will India keep takin a firm stance against Facebook;s aparent generiosity?

What will Amit Shah’s extended reign within the BJP look like?

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8 FEBRUARY 2016

LETTERS

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A Busting Bangalore BANGALORE

BANGALORE

K.CHIDANAND KUMAR: Having

KAVITHA BHAT: How can a

“simple, middle-class locality” be credited for the burst of start-ups?

This Way to Start Up Alley (Jan 25) gets it wrong: Silicon Valley happened because an organic ecosystem of colleges, universities, investors and infrastrucutre was around. Koramangala has none of it. Its rise is a happy accident of history. Then again, what is even the quality of these Bangalore start-ups? There is little innovation; nothing that will alter anybody’s lives.

literally wintessed the growth of Koramangala from an idyllic suburb to a very busy IT hub, I can vouch that this area in Bangalore is the pride of India.

It’s a microcosm of the whole country where one can find people from everywhere working.

TORONTO VARUN SHEKHAR: What a lovely, heartening story!

KORAMANGALA, BANGALORE

EDISON, US

LUCKNOW

PATTAMBI

SURESH KAMATH: I remember

M.C.JOSHI: Nandan Nilekani is right when he says the classic Indian

V.N.K. MURTHI: Behind every start-up, there is a better backup.

That is what’s enabling youngsters today to take the risks that bear fruit. And Bangalore is the the hub of startups.

when I was working with Infosys in Koramangala. We had to wear neckties as clients visited the office. The chaiwallah would wear one, with an untucked shirt.

unwillingness to take risks is changing. Eighty-eight per cent of those who have established around 4,200 start-ups in this country so far are 40 years of age or less. These start-ups have created thousands of jobs, and if estimates are met, by 2020 India will have 11,500 start-ups and the 2.5 lakh jobs created by them would ease unemployment in some sectors at least.

OCEAN’S THIRTEEN

CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

DOUBLE-EDGED DIRGE

DELHI

SHIMLA

BANGALORE

POOJA LOKESH: Cool ‘brand ers’ like Amitabh Kant (The Bullet Points of an 44 K47,Jan 25), who are at the m of affairs in government, should conccn-trate more on projects at the ground Jr level.

Only then will their branding exercise have something to back it.

J.AKSHAY: The death of Mufti

PROMOD SHRIVASTAVA: Cabinet reshuffles (WeathervaneDays, Jan

2 5) are affairs PMs generally like to delay as much as possible . The reason is simple enough: no one wants to invite the avoidiable headache of dissidence by altering the caste/regional considerations that go into creating a cabinet.

JASBIR SINGH: Defeat is in the air, for where will Modi get thetalent from? Meanwhile. I have a few, suggestions for Modi’s cabinet: Punjab and Up are going to the polls, so they need multiple berths; Badal Jr can be appointed minister for road transport; Majithia can be put in charge of chemicals and fertilisers; Badal Senior can be put in charge of finance, for if he manages the finances the way he has managed his own, India will become super-rich in no time; and, I might add, a very intelligentguy from Gorakhpur can be made the BJP spokesman.

6 OUTLOOK

Mohammed Sayeed and the atten-dant political manoeuvrings has caused some suspense. This is especially so because—and it’s no secret—the PDP cadres suffer the alliance with the BJP. rather than celebrate it.

DELHI

M.HASHIM KISWAI:Modi’s visit exposes his

need to be in the headlines overrides all other concerns.

8 FEBRUARY 2016

LETTERS

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SHANGHAI AT THE ZENITH

A PRIME CUT OF TROUBLE

PALAKKD

MUMBAI

COL C.V. VENUGOPALAN: Mum-

K.P. RAJAN: The Travancore Devaswom Board chief wonders why women are so keen on a difficult pilgrimage to visit a temple deep inside a jungle (Seven Days, January 25). I think it is more than a bit patronising to express such a ‘concern’ when women are risking their lives in conflict areas, climbing mountains and doing all kinds of pioneering, adventurous things. The Supreme Court’s description of the practice of prohibiting female devotees from entering the temple as unconstitutional is perhaps the only grace in this whole farce in the name of tradition. to express such a ‘concern’ when women are risking their lives in conflict areas, climbing mountains.

bai can never be the Shanghai of India because Mumbai remains as bad it has always been. Let’s not forget that China has now surpassed Japan as the world’s highest spender on research anc development and is rapidly moving into higher-end production: high-speed rail, solar panels and telecom equipment. Such products from the bulk of China’s manufacturing exports sourced

by Chinese firms themselves.

Economy of Shanghai delta steadily resembles that of South Korea and Taiwan. The growing demand for Chinese commodities in the global market also helps to develop Shanghai into the swankiest and most convenient port city.

SHANGHAI, CHINA

IDIOT BOX SHILLONG BISHWAPRIYA: Surely, we’re better off reading than numbing our

brains by watching videos. As for Netflix (Streamers’ Avenue), our moral guardians will probably have the contents gutted out to the point where you might as well go back to the dubious BitTorrent.

INBOXED COMPETING NARRATIVES

DELHI GOPAL SANKARANARAYANAN (SCRETARY T0 THE LODHA COMMITTEE)

This concerns A Remote Control Called LKM (Jan 25) by Ushinor Majumdar, in which you have said: “The probe later moved to a three-member committee headed by former CJI R.M. Lodha. Curiously, while nobody met with any CSK officials or asked to meet Srinivasan earlier, the secretary t ( the Lodha committee seemed to want to meet with one of Lalit Modi’s public relations consult-ants. The commission suspended both CSK and RR for two years. Lifetime bans were imposed on CSK CEO Meiyappan and RR owner Raj Kundra. Srinivasan was asked if he could not see the conflict of interest himself.” The statement concerning me is completely false. I have never wanted to meet, or made any attempt to meet, Mr Modi or his representatives. Also, it is wholly false that “nobody met with CSK officials”. A team of five lawyers of CSK headed by senior advocate Vaidyanathan, along with India Cements representatives, met with the committee on not one but two separate occasions in Delhi. Your staffer has not bothered to check or verify these facts. You have not reached out to me to confirm these assertions, leaving me unfortunately certain that you are as guilty of being “remote-controlled” as you have alleged others to be.

USHINOR MAJUMDAR REPLIES: Our report was not intended to undermine either Mr Gopal Sankaranarayanan or the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee, whose work this reporter has also highlighted quite recently. Mr Gopal Sankaranarayanan reached out to Mr Faisal Shariff—a public relations consultant for Lalit Modi at the time—on Saturday, April 4, 2015, by way of an e-mail, in which he thanked Faisal Shariff for his help and said he looked forward to interacting with him again and “if possible, having you up before the committee on 9th April”. Shariff forwarded the e-mail to Lalit Modi within half-an-hour asking if he should meet the committee. Outlook reviewed a copy of the said e-mail and the reporter also attempted to reach out to Mr Gopal Sankaranarayanan over telephone, to which there had been no response. Had we had the response, we would have learnt that the committee had indeed met with CSK representatives.

8 OUTLOOK

8 FEBRUARY 2016

SEVEN DAYS

7

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STORIES OF THIS WEEK

01

02 BIHAR

KERELA

POONA REDUX

PARALLEL TRACK

NO SHOW

Masks, face paints, cartoons, music, gra­ffiti, poetry and speeches continued on the Hyderabad Central University campus to protest the suicide of Rohith Vemula. After Rohith’s mother said she would not immerse his ashes till vice-chancellor Appa Rao Podile was sacked, the V-C, who issued a clean chit to Union ministers.

CM Nitish Kumar shifted headlines with two announcements: offering women 35 per cent reservation in govt jobs and announcing a development mission, a registered society poll strategist Prashant Kishor. Will he be as successful as Sam Pitroda? Or will the 1,500-strong parallel encounter the might of the bureaucracy?

While Karnataka showcased coffee- growing Kodagu on Republic Day and Tamil Nadu its Toda tribe, the other three southern states were mis­sing. Kerala’s proposal to highlight Ayyappa and Sabarimala seems to have been turned down in view of the current controversies while Telan­gana, snubbed twice in succession, deci­ded against participation.

05

06

LOST MEMORIES

GENDER BENDER

For a man who was Gujarat CM for 13 years, could Narendra Modi not spare time to condole Mrina­lini Sarabhai‘s death? He certainly did not tweet; the PIB and PMO Twitter handles too were quiet. Daughter Mallika was scathing. Local BJP leaders claimed he sent a letter to Mrinalini’s son.

Shall we blame it all then on the postman?

Move over, Sabarimala; Shani Shingnapur is here. The temple in Ahmednagar bounced into the national consciousness as women activists, under the banner of the Bhumata Ranragini Brigade, took on the temple trust’s decision to enforce a five-cen­tury-old ban on women from climbing up to the “chauthara” that houses the temple deity. The police finally prevailed but a point had been made.

ANDHRA PRADESH

04

ARUNACHAL PRADESH

TROUBLE IN THE EAST

The imposition of President’s rule in the Congress-ruled state following sustained political instabillity tests the 1994 Sup­ reme Court ruling that the only place for determining whether a CM has lost or retained the majority is the floor of the House.

The apex court has agreed to place a Congress petition before a constitution bench hearing a bunch of petitions.

07

TAMIL NADU

DON’T NEED NO EDUCATION

12 OUTLOOK

GUJRAT

03

MAHARASHTRA

India’s best-kept secret is the state of its education, adroitly sustained by flaky advertisement and fake rankings.Three 19-year-old young girls—T. Monisha, A. Saranya and V. Priyanka—studying naturopathy at the SVS Yoga Medical College in Villupuram on the Chennai-Salem Road had to jump into a well to wake the nation up from its false sense of complacency about the future.

In their suicide note, the girls blamed the college for fleecing money in the form of fees, forcing them to do menial work, and for not allowing them to study. The college was sealed after the incident, and three people arrested, and the deaths underlined the unregulated nature of private education, with scant monitoring by either the central or state governments.

8 FEBRUARY 2016

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7 01 AHMEDABAD

02 CHENNAI

03 MUMBAI

04 CINCINNATI

05 NEW DELHI

06 LONDON

07 CALCUTTA

8 FEBRUARY 2016

STORIES WE ARE NOT COVERING THIS WEEK A picture of Narendra Modi sweeping the floor, and a Pandit Nehru letter on Netaji Bose, being revealed to be fake and photoshopped Auto dealers flocking the city to pick up 12,000-plus luxury cars like Audi and BMW damaged in the floods, for as little as Rs 3 lakh Himalayan Forest Thrush (Zoothera salimali) is only the fourth bird species to be discovered in India since 1949 The world’s fastest land animal, Sarah the cheetah, who ran 100 metres in 5.95 seconds, passing away at age 15 Former Network 18 promoter Raghav Bahl making a comeback to television, this time with CNBC’s arch-rival Bloomberg UK’s censors having to sit through a 607-minute crowdfunded protest film on paint drying to catch anything “objectionable” West Bengal jaggery ‘nolen gur’ being made available in a non-messy tube form by the Mamata Banerjee government

7

THINGS WE LEARNT LAST WEEK

01

There have been 281 visits by Union ministers to poll-bound Assam since the Narendra Modi government came to power 20 months ago

02

Google paid Apple $1 billion (approximately Rs 6,800 crore) to keep the search engine as the default setting on iPhones and iPads

03

47 per cent of Muslims in India are below 20 years of age, the highest among all religious communities

04

Largely vegetarian, Gujarat’s meat production has increased 300 per cent in the last 10 years

05

The number 2 to the power of 74,207,281 minus one, with 22 million digits, is the largest known prime number

06

Despite a ban on alcohol, Iran consumes 60 mn litres of spirits each year

07

British Parliament called Donald Trump a wazzock, a medieval-era spade for royals to take a dump in

OUTLOOK 13

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

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HEARD Lala Lajpat Rai, an icon from the early stages of the freedom struggle, is in the race for a Bharat Ratna as the BJP tries to regain lost ground for the Punjab assembly elections due next year.

MINIMUM GOVERNMENT?

ILLUSTRATION BY SAAHIL

NEW DELHI While the Prime Minister’s Office has resolutely stonewalled RTI activists’ attempts to glean information on what Narendra Modi eats, wears and does, and at what expense, a list floating around in Lutyens’ Delhi suggests that the PMO has never been so bloated as today. The list is said to name as many as 550 people posted at Modi’s PMO as against 250-odd in Manmohan Singh’s time. Among them are khansamas who ser­ved the pradhan sevak when he was Gujarat CM, and some who are not even eligible for government jobs as they have not completed their schooling. One more example of the PM’s centralised working style?

WELL-OILED SNUB

TWICE BITTEN

ACCESS CONTROL

NEW DELHI

MADHYA PRADESH

NEW DELHI

Never mess around with your boss’s friends; a lesson petroleum minister Dharmen­dra Pra­dhan may have learnt. Three corporate heavyweights who went to meet him were asked to contribute to the party funds in poll-bound Assam. When told they had contrib­u­ted to the central party fund and Amit Shah knew about it, Pradhan ensured they knew he was mif­fed. Next time the suits came visiting, he made them wait for an hour. They headed out without meeting him, taking their complaint to Shah, who in turn brought it to the PM’s notice. Reshuffle now is a word Pradhan fears.

After the Rohith Vemula episode, Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Cho­uhan has gone soft on two Dalit IAS officers, who were crying pers­ecution. The duo had taken part in a dha­rna against the BJP regime and attended a programme organi­sed by the Congress, in which they launched an acerbic attack on Chouhan. Foll­owing this, there was talk of disciplinary action against the two. But a senior cabinet mini­ster invited one of the officers home for a closed-door meeting and said the CM would meet them and “all their problems would be sorted out”. The mellowing of the government, though, made the lady offi­cer up her ante. If all the char­ges against her weren’t dropped, she said, she’d set herself on fire.

Notwithstanding official denials, the post of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library director was indeed offered to a comme­ntator who is also on the board of a corporate house. The backpedalling happened because the appointee sensibly demanded that the post carry the rank of a secretary to the government. Even former UPA appointees to cultural bodies agree that with ‘director’-level officers control­ling scores of bodies, it is impossible to get work done unless the heads of cultural bodies have direct access to the secretary and can have one-on-one discussions on issues.

OVERHEARD Amitabh Kant topped the interviews among 56 contenders to be CCI chief but the PMO wanted him “in the government”, which is how he landed the assignment as NITI Aayog CEO. 14 OUTLOOK

Contributed by UTTAM SENGUPTA, PRARTHANA GAHILOTE, K.S. SHAINI and PRITAM SENGUPTA

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

The Keonjhar Take Over

HOW THE ODISHA MINING CORP, A STATE PSU, IS PERPETRATING A RS 79,000-CRORE GYP IN ITS HUNT FOR IRON IN THE FORESTS

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KEONJHAR ORISSA

BY CHITRANGADA CHOUDHURY | ORISSA

G

Naik, a member of the forest rights committee of Urumunda village, is completely Fiummoxed. He has just seen a signature in English, purported to be his, purportedly of his village. “I sign like this—in Oriya,” he says, demonstrating. “I’ve never studied English in my life.How would I sign in English?”

The ‘resolution’ records the consent of the adivasi villagers to hand over 853 hectares of forestland to the Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC), a publicsector undertaking of the Orissa government which holds mining lease in the region and carries out mining activities. The Urumunda resolution is one of seven identical gram sabha resolutions that the state government and the OMC submitted to the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC) in January last year, as part of an application for forest clearance for expanding activities. The OMC, which calls itself “India’s largest public sector mining company”, wants to turn 1,590 hectares around Urumunda and six other villages in Keonjhar district, including 1,409 hectares of forest land (that’s about 45 Lodhi Gardens), into a 300 milliontonne ‘Gandhamardan-B Iron Ore Mine’, which it proposes to run for 33 years. Its documents put the annual sale value of ore from the mine at Rs 2,416 crore. The cum ulative value of ore from the forest would then be over Rs 79,000 crore.

Gandhamardan, after which the mine is being named, is a biodiverse mountain range. The Gandhamardan area in Keonjhar district, over 250 km north of the state capital Bhubaneshwar, offers a striking landscape of Munda and Bhuiyan villages, deciduous forests, mountainside farms of corn, millet and sesame irrigated by natural streams. according to villagers and documents. A third of India’s hematite iron ore reserves lie here.

From 2005-12, Keonjhar and the adjoining

16 OUTLOOK

Sundergarh district witnessed a scramble to dig up the forests and mountains for ore, fuelled especially by lucrative exports to China. The attendant widespread breaking of law and abuse of local adivasi communities created, as the Justice M.B. Shah commisssion into illegal mining, which inv estigated these areas from 2011-13, put it, “super-normal profits”. The commission had darkly concluded that “there’s no rule of law, but law is what the mighty mining lessees decide, with the connivance of the concerned department”. In 2013, faced with growing questions, the Naveen Patnaik government issued companies—a fourth of Orissa’s annual GDP. To date, miners have paid up not a rupee.

It is 2016 now, and to the adivasis it seems they mattered little then, and they matter little now.

In Urumunda, besides Naik, whose name features thrice on the resolution, several villagers point out signatures and repeated names. Baidyanath Sahoo finds his name thrice and says mockingly, They have sold me three times over.” According to the submission for forest clearance, the gram sabhas of Urumunda and six other villages in the Gandhamardan area of the district —Uppar Jagara, Donla, Ambadahara, Nitigotha, Uppar Kainsari and Ichinda—convened in November and December 2011. But in village after village, when shown copies of these resolutions, people say they’d neither held such meetings nor passed such resolutions.

In Nitigotha, panchayat samiti member Shakuntala Dehury let out a volley of abuses on reading a copy of the resolution claimed to be that of her village. The Nitigotha residents held a meeting and said they are not using the forests for cultivation, house-building or any livelihood activities, and have no individual or community claims to it.

ON DUTY IN NITIGHODA VILLAGE, LOCAL ADVI

8 FEBRUARY 2016

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IVASIS AVE DRAWN UP A ROSTER TO GAURD THE FOREST BY TURNS AND PREVENT TREE-FELLING AND TIMBER SMUGGLING

8 FEBRUARY 2016

OUTLOOK 17

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

As the petite Shakuntala reads out the resolution, the text amuses, then enrages, the villagers gathered around her. “Please bring the haraamzaada officer before me who has written this absurd and false resolution,” she says angrily. Nitigotha and Ambadahara, like other villages in the area, and an estimated 15,000 villages across Orissa, have a long tradition of community protection of forests, which Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar might consider studying firsthand. Villagers here have drawn up a roster, which puts five of them on duty each day of the week to patrol their village’s section of forest and ensure no trees are felled, no timber smuggled out. “We are protecting the forest. The forest nourishes us,” says Kaviraj Dehury, among those on duty. “How would we ever sit in a gram sabha and say we have no claim to the forest, and that we request the government to give it to OMC?” In Uppar Jagara, there are murmurs of “forgery, forgery”, as villagers mill around a copy of the resolution that the OMC and the state government claim was adopted by their village. Gobinda Munda is shocked to see his name feature twice, both times with different and fake signatures. “This is how I actually sign,” he says, and demonstrates how he does. Khageshwar Purti chips in, “Mining by the OMC has spoilt our farms, sapped our streams. We have made many complaints to the district authorities, but who listens to us? If we held a gram sabha to discuss their proposal, would we ever come up with such an absurd resolution?”

As the crowd reads the list of names on the resolution, they discover that over half of the names appended to the resolution are of people not from their village. In Ambadahara, former sarpanch Gopal Munda shakes his head on seeing his name on four resolutions, one for each of the four villages that once fell under him. Each resolution states that the meeting happened under his “presidency”. “Who is lying in my name like this? Take me to a court in Bhubaneshwar or Delhi, and I will hold my head high and say I have called no such meetings in our villages,” says the burly man. And people around him say, “Because of these forests and mountains, we have our water, our

18 OUTLOOK

crops. They are taking our wealth and becoming big people, while we languish.”

In Donla, Masuri Behra says wearily, “Why do they kick us in the stomach like this?

We already have so little.” Villagers here ask, “When did such a meeting with so many people ever take place? Wouldn’t know if it had?”

The english translations of these Oriya resolutions are also identical to the last word—a fact that seems to have led to no questions in the mind of the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the MoEFCC when it discussed the proposal in its September 2015 meeting. On condition of anonymity, an FAC member said, “There is so much pressure in this regime to give clearance. Earlier, there was some scope to look at these things and ask questions. But now there is no time for this—nor are we expected to.”

But the larger question is: why swindle villagers like this? Because, under the Forest Rights Act (FRA)—described as a landmark law for India’s estimated 150 million forest-dwellers—the consent of over 50 per cent of a village’s adult population is mandatory for “diverting” (bureaucratese for cutting down) their

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customary forest land for “non-forest” uses, in this case, for taking over 1,409 hectares and mining it for 300 million tonnes of ore. Enacted in 2006, FRA was a belated legislation providing recognition to the millions of Indians who have traditionally lived near forests but have had no legal right to their homes, lands and livelihoods. The law aimed to rectify the “historical inj ustice” of colonial-era legislation that turned forestdwelling communities into encroachers on their own lands.

Under FRA, industrial takeover can take place only after the rights of the villagers over the forests they have traditionally used has been recognised.

The ‘recognition’ is achieved officially by awarding individual forest land titles for families and a community title in the name of the village. This is vital, for it gives the locals a say in the decision-making process whenever the government or other agencies propose diversion— which usually amounts to destruction—of forests they have traditionally used. Without such recognition, locals remain excluded from any share in the lucrative monetisation of their resource.

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The resolutions agreeing to hand over forest land of all seven villages are identical. Villagers can’t recall the meeting or their signing the resolution.

A January 2016 amendment to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act strengthens the FRA law, by making the denial of forest rights a punishable offence.

But in these seven Keonjhar villages, several people who have fied for forest rights titles have not got them. The few who have were awarded titles for patches of land (25 to 80 decimals), receiving rights for far less than what they had claimed. Further, the district administration has not awarded any title in two of the villages, Donla and Uppar Kainsari. An official involved with the fieldwork and processing of FRA claims said, requesting anonymity, “My seniors have told me that the forest area in Donla village is to go to the OMC for mining. So we should just ignore the villagers’ claims.” Within their customary boundaries and using minor forest produce such as firewood. Keonjhar’s then district collector Bishnu Sahu did not record the reasons why community claims had not been awarded here, even though the FRA lawrequires this. Instead, a January 19, 2013 certificate from him, prepared in support of handing over the forest to the OMC, states that all FRA rights have been settled in the seven villages.

When contacted, S.C. Mahapatra, the forest and whose department submitted the clearance appl ication to the MoEFCC, said, “I don’t know anything about this” and hung up. He wouldn’t take subsequent calls.

In early November 2015, when they came to know of the fraudulent resolutions submitted in their name, two of the seven villages, Nitigotha and Ambadahara, sent letters to the environment and tribal affairs ministries, pointing out the illegalities. They also wrote to the Orissa governor, who has a special responsibility under the Constitution of safeguarding the rights of communities in adivasi areas. Over two months on, none of these authorities has responded to them. It gets worse. MoEFCC’s FAC visited Keonjhar for a site inspection of the proposed mine. Their terms of reference included looking at the implementation of FRA in the OMC’s proposed mine area. On December 29, this reporter met the team’s head, met the team’s head, Anil Kumar, an

8 FEBRUARY 2016

SUJIT DEHURY IS ALSO SAID TO HAVE ‘SIGNED’ THE RESOLUTION—WHEN HE WAS IN STD IV! (PHOTOGRAPH BY CHITRANGADA CHOUDHURY)

additional director-head, Anil Kumar, an additional director-general in the MoEFCC, at the Keonjhar hotel where the team was staying. He insisted on speaking in the presence of OMC officials, with whom he was having breakfast. Kumar ref used to answer any questions about the visit, or how the team intended to examine the implementation of FRA, saying, “The FAC’s work is confidential.” When pressed about how the committee intended to inv estigate villages’ complaints about the alleged forgeries, and if the members would visit the villages, Kumar said this reporter should inform him about the violations in an e-mail. Days earlier, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, listing his governments achievements to a newspaper, had said, “Environmental clearances are being granted as a rule.” And on December 30, after three days in the district, the FAC team leftKeonjhar, without having visited any of the seven villages or speaking to any of the villagers. The ‘site inspection’—as far as the FAC was concerned—was complete.

IT’S A STEAL In 1970, the Gandhamardan Block-B mining lease was awarded to Odisha Mining Coporation The OMC proposes to mine this area for 302 million tonnes of ore over the next 33 years. It estimates the annual sale value of the ore to be Rs 2,416 crore.

The Union ministry of environment and forests is considering the proposal.

In 2013 the Shah Commission pointed out various illegalities in OMC’s activities there, including the mining over 1.2 million tonnes of ore from 2000 to 2006 without required forest clearance. Two forest offence cases are on in the Keonjhar district court.

In January 2015, the state government, on behalf of the OMC, applied for forest clearance (1,590 ha) to expand ann­­ual production to a whopping 9.2 million tonnes. This includes over 1,400 hectares of forest across seven adivasi villages.

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Cover Story

On The Line Between Hero And Fall Guy AS MODI’S CONSIGLIERE, AMIT SHAH BEARS THE WOUNDS OF DELHI, BIHAR.MORE FAILURE WOULD BE DISASTER. CRITICS INSIDE ARE KEEPING THE SCORE.

BY PRARTHNA GAHILOTE

B

in 1952, as Pearl Bailey was scorching Billboard with his chartbuster Takes Two To Tango, who would have imagined that at a rem­ove of six decades (and a few cultures) from that event, India’s Nare­ ndra Modi, only two years old then, would make that dictum the mantra of his political life. Call it an insurance policy, or even a hedge fund.

From his innings in Gujarat to the 20 months he has been prime minister, Modi has made sure that trusted lieutenant Amit Anilchandra Shah stays by his side. More of that was on display on January 24 when Shah was re-elected unopposed as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president for three years. That is till 2019, when Modi will seek a second term for himself as prime minister.

Modi indeed guaranteed a second inn­ings for Shah, overriding objections from the Sangh and the party. For over four months, he rallied with the RSS for Shah’s reappointment—not so much because Shah’s performance as BJP chief has been flawless, but because, if Modi has to lead in 2019, Shah must be there to watch his back. But Shah’s second term will not be as easy as the first, it seems: some BJP-watchers are convinced his utility as a fall guy must also have been considered during his appointment.

With the BJP looking more and more like the Congress, senior RSS leaders say “it needs reinvention—just like the government”. They say the euphoria of 2014 has died and they sense waning popularity and disillusionment. “What else can explain the defeats in Delhi and Bihar?” they ask. “This is not what we had been promised and this year and 2017 will be a test by fire both for the PM and Amit Shah.” These harsh words come from one of the BJP’s ideological fountainheads and perhaps the staunchest supporter of the ModiShah combine from among the veterans. Shah’s aura of invincibility rem­ains dented, and he needs to deliver in Assam, West Bengal and Kerala.

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DELHI

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A TESTING 2ND INNINGS Centralisation of power in the party has left it without a team for the real work on the ground.

Doing fairly well—leave along winning—elections in Assam, Bengal, Kerala and TN will be tough.

be a cakewalk. Though the BJP has raised its pitch in Assam and West Bengal, the truth is, it will take more than just catchy slogans to win in these states, where it has hardly any presence. It will need effective back-up teams in the party and at North Block to implement Modi’s grand plans.

Amit Shah has been elected BJP chief for a second term.

But this time, he must tread gingerly.

Senior leaders complain the BJP has lost “a team” in the last few years, especially since the “Gujarat model of extreme centralisation of power” arrived in Delhi. That’s the reason, they say, simple issues like appointing state unit presidents has become troublesome in states like Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. In the central party office in Delhi, senior leaders complain about the “Congressisation of the BJP with a high-command structure now well in place”. A senior BJP leader from Delhi says, “Our party was one of consensus. But now every decision is left to the party high command. Did the BJP ever have a high command culture, like the Congress?” It does now, though perhaps in proxy.

“Modi and Shah are making sure they don’t groom any more talent. It suits the party president and the PM in the long run. Even performing ministers like Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and Nirmala Sitharaman have to play second fiddle to the PM, always,” says a source.

That’s perhaps why BJP’s national vice-president Vinay Sahas­ra­buddhe hinted last month that there was a talent deficit in the government—only to later say that he had been misquoted. RSS leaders, meanwhile, have repeatedly blamed “lack of talent in the BJP pool” for delays in appointments to crucial posts in institutions like the Niti Aayog.

Insiders call it a “vacuum within”.

A BJP insider in Delhi confesses, “Given the current circumstances, it seems the Congress did a better job at running the government. Even if there were two power centres, at least both policymaking by the NAC and implementation by the Manmohan Singh-led government was happening. Back then work was being done. Now, even that basic work has stopped. All we hear is slogans and ideas. Implementation is grossly missing.” Another leader adds: “There is a general lack of vision and direction in the government.

Only rallying cries and catchphrases can’t help reap results.”

There’s too much going wrong for Modi and his government’s image. The resurfacing of the Ram temple issue, the intolerance debate and increasing discomfort among minorities.

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Cover Story

Add to that the glaring economic slowdown, a sore point food items like pulses, oil and onions is a huge letdown. The PM’s abysmal failure lies in the stagnation on the job front at all levels of industry—a stark contrast to the promise of job creation he had made during the election campaign. What’s worse, finance minister Arun Jaitley’s pitch for Start-Up India in Davos as a job creator is a tacit admission that the government has limitations in providing jobs domestically.

All this after Modi, as far back as November 2013, made creation of one crore jobs if the BJP came to power his strongest poll pitch.

Leaders from the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, the BJP’s organisation for farmers, point to the Devendra Fadnavis government’s official affidavit to the Bombay High Court, enumerating farmer suicides in the state in 2015 at 1,000, as a case for government apathy. They quietly add that the suicide figures are way higher—a staggering 3,000plus by any estimate. Not just that, over 300 districts out of a total of 600 are under the spell of drought, with little or no aid from the government.

“To call this government frustrating is not enough,” says a former ideologue. “There is an atmosphere of despondency. From water privatisation to seeds to forest to tribal rights—everything has been und­ermined and traded off. What is left? The government is pandering to the business interests of the west and the corporates. Its only priority is infrastructure projects because that’s where western countries and deep-pocket corporates can use opened-up Indian markets.”

The problem with the Modi government, however, is that even corporates are reporting “no profit” and social-sector spending is minimal. Says a senior RSS leader, “There is nothing that you see on the ground. We only hear slogans during elections and then everything comes to a standstill. This kind of atmosphere will spell doom for the party and the PM.” So why does the RSS, as guiding guru, not intervene if things are so grim? He explains: “It may suit the government to present a picture of being arm-twisted by the RSS. But the truth is the RSS has very little influence on the PM or the government. No one is listening to us.”

Perhaps that holds some water.

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ON GAURD, GUJRAT CM ANANDIBEN

The tribal issues-oriented Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (VKA) be forced to wage their own battles with the government over its policies? Sources confirm that the RSS is miffed with the government’s refusal to further its agenda in education, tribal welfare and health. They say there’s little the Sangh can do about it. “Is there an option available?

At the moment, Narendra Modi is the only option—within and without. What can be done?” they ask. That, of course, leaves the RSS to play the part of mere interventionist.

One that can make threatening noises, but lacks the power to influence change.

That said, the Sangh is doing what it can.

Sources confirm that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat recently summoned both Shah and Modi separately to discuss all matters that have gone wrong. A stern warning has also been sent across: shape up if the BJP wishes to make a dent in the four states going to ass­embly elections this year. In the meeting, held behind closed doors in Delhi, the RSS, insiders confirm, has listed out what all is wrong with the government.

The doctor, then, must be called in. Many in the party are busy giving credence to the claim that Shah’s second term was blessed by the RSS only on the promise that finance minister Jaitley be shunted out. While that remains to be seen, with an impending cabinet reshuffle, a game of Chinese checkers is bound to be played out.

The wise men from Nagpur believe that the dream merchants from Gujarat, Modi and Shah, have fallen short on delivery. The hype then must give way to a rejig of Modi’s own stable.

To start with, the government must deliver an astounding budget in the next few weeks to win public support and sympathy. Sources confirm that the PM is also set to order a change of image for self and partymen. News reports of Modi undertaking less trips abroad are part of the same exercise. Meanwhile, the government, insiders say, is likely to be turn more handson and ministers are being told to acquire more of the common touch in tune with his aspirations: the government at all costs must seem effective and Modi’s ministers efficient. After all, about 20 months ago, when the prime minister took the oath of office, he urged people to judge him by his report card of five years of development work. It is now time for Modi to prove if he rea­lly overpitched himself to the Indian public or if he is actually the Rambo and the king of good times they believed him to be.

Clearly, Modi is not a man cornered by rabid right-wingers in his organisation. Modi is neither a victim of a failed back-up team nor a leader with an incompetent advisory cell.

Finally, Narendra Damodardas Modi must prove he is who he has made himself out to be: the harbinger of achhe din!

8 FEBRUARY 2016

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The Dhokla Souffle Rises

WITH MODI AWAY, DISPARATE FORCES—WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE BJP—GAIN TRACTION

BY R.K. MISHRA

IN TOUCH, KESHUBHAI WITH JOSHI

Uttarayan is kite-flying time in Gujarat. This January 14 was no different, except for the surch­arged atmosphere caused by the added turbulence within the ruling BJP in the state. Ranged on opposing sides were two of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closest lieutenants—party president Amit Shah and Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel.

Hanging in the balance was the post of state BJP chief, with present occupant R.C. Faldu already on extension.

The announcement of the state president was slated for January 16 but postponed. The observer assigned by national­-level leaders, Arjun Ram Meghwal, has had to postpone his visit to Gujarat twice. The fact is that key decisions pertaining to Gujarat are still taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the name of the new president will also be decided by him.

Like a true Gujarati, Shah had flown into Ahmedabad to enjoy the festival amidst widespread speculation in the social media—with newspapers joining the freefor-all—that he was taking over as chief minister, replacing Anandiben Patel. Posters also appeared calling for Sanjay Joshi’s return to active politics.

8 FEBRUARY 2016

He also had a meeting with Anandiben Patel at the wedding reception. His subsequent moves also gave off the sense of canvassing.

For, the next day, he was to call ex-CM Keshubhai Patel at his residence and lunch with Governor O.P. Kohli at Raj Bhavan.

Earlier, in a candid chat with mediapersons at the marriage venue, Joshi had stated that he was open to any responsibility the party deemed fit for him.

It is common knowledge that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has been unhappy with the sidelining of Joshi—who was ejected from Gujarat after a video ‘sex’ scandal—and wants his services to be utilised at a time when the party has been losing one state after ano­ther. BJP leaders, in awe of Modi in Gujarat, are scared of voicing their views on Joshi on record but admit in private that his sidelining has been a loss to the party.

Internal dissensions apart, the BJP’s cup of woes is full and overflowing in Gujarat. The outlines of an anti-BJP front are acquiring shape in the state. The Patels are already on the warpath and the arrest and detention of the community’s youth leaders—mainly Hardik Patel—on charges of sedition is only provoking the community further.

Patel leaders are now reaching out to Dalits, while on the other hand, the SC, ST, OBC Ekta Manch is also organising itself. Alpesh Thakore, the convenor of the Thakore Sena, held a rally in Ahmedabad on Republic Day, ostensibly to build awareness against alcoholism. But it was widely interpreted as a show of strength. Juxtapose this with the fact that the JD(U), led by tribal leader Chhotu­bhai Vasava, has emerged as the third political force in the adivasi pocket, particularly in Bharuch, Narmada and Chota Udepur districts. JD(U) had only a thin pres­ ence in Bharuch district in 2010, but in the recently concluded local self-government elections won five tehsil panch­ayats. By winning nine seats in the Bharuch district panchayat, and six in Narmada district panchayat, the party now has considerable leverage in these two districts. The JD(U) has emerged as the kingmaker in these districts.

It is now working hard to enlarge its sway in the tribal belt. The JD(U) teamed up with the Congress in Bihar. And to top it now, the AAP has begun a search for allies, keeping in mind the 2017 assembly elections. Modi’s citadel Gujarat is being encircled for a siege.

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Cover Story

A Megacorp’s Basic Instinct

BOLSTERED BY ACADEMIA AND CIVIL SOCIETY, TRAI STANDS ITS GROUND AGAINST FB’S FREE BASICS PUBLICITY BLITZ

KARNATAKA

BANGALORE

BY ARINDAM MUKHERJEE

H

ours before the January 31 deadline for telecom regulator TRAI to give its opinion on Facebook’s controversial and expensive Free Basics pitch—which seeks India’s access to certain websites the consensus seems to be building up against the soc­ial media giant. “If there is cannibalising of the internet through services like Free Basics, the internet will be split; it will parcel out and slice the internet. Its future is at stake,” says a senior government official on condition of anonymity.

In a climate where the tech-savvy Modi government is seen to be close to the online trinity of Facebook, Google and Twitter, TRAI’s defiant stance in favour of net neut­rality stands out. There’s a lot at stake. India’s position becomes crucial unanswered in the world have clearly defined laws on net neutrality or have taken a stand on it. For Facebook, there’s a lot more at stake. India is its second-largest user base after the US (it is banned in China), so it is leaving no stone unturned. The massive Rs 300-crore electronic and print media campaign is an indication of that.

TRAI sources say they are ready for any adverse onslaught and they are under no pressure from the PMO. The view gaining ground in government is that FB is trying to create a walled garden where it controls what people see and surf and what they can access online. While this will be offered to consumers for free—the technical term is differential pricing—the websites part of Free Basics will have to pay for being on the platform.

Outlook’s queries to FB remained unanswered at the time of going to press.

At an ‘open house’ meeting to discuss TRAI’s consultation paper on differential pricing last week, regulator Ram Sevak Sharma stood firm against the barrage of pro-Free Basics opinions that flowed from FB. TRAI’s message was clear: FB’s tactics of moulding public opinion by stealth will not be acceptable in India. In the past few weeks, there have been bitter exchan­ges between TRAI and FB over the latter’s responses to a consultation paper on differential pricing.

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Says former Aadhar man Nandan Nilekani, “Free Basics is certainly against net neutrality. How can a solution be neutral, if it disproportionately benefits a particular web­site or business on the internet? Today, 400 million Indians are online.

They came online because of the value the internet offers. What does Free Basics mean for PM Modi’s Digital India campa­ign? Being a walled garden, thousands of start-ups with­out adequate budgets to pay for such dedicated service will be forced to stay out of it. Similar questions are being raised about government services that are increa­singly coming online. The concern is that all government traffic will have to pass through FB servers. The senior government official quoted above agrees, “In such a scenario, the government will have to approach FB to make its websites accessible on the free service which is neither desirable nor safe.”

“The government is sitting on Rs 40,000 crore worth of USO funds.

It can use that to provide a free basic data package to the people.”

PARMINDER JEET SINGH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, IT FOR CHANGE

There is a fear that a lot of government and public data will be put through Free Basics once government services start coming online. If Free Basics is for the poor who are also beneficiaries of government services, FB too can access this data. Says Prabir Purkayastha, chairman, Knowledge Commons, “FB says public service will be available through Free Bas­ics but can public service be given through a private initiative? Public data is valuable and can’t be handed over to a private company.”

Few again are convinced by FB’s claim that Free Basics aims to make the internet accessible to the poor, with the many services offered through it. “The claim that the poor will get access to the internet is false,” warns Sunil Abraham, executive director, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. “Free Basics gives access to less than 100 of the one billion plus websites on the world wide web. Those in the walled garden will be treated quite differently.”

What gives TRAI a shot in the arm is that, for the first time, academia has put its weight behind Free Basics opponents. In a signed statement, several IIT and IISc Bangalore

8 FEBRUARY 2016

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“How can a solution be neutral if it benefits a particular website or business on the internet disproportionately?”

NANDAN NILEKANI, FORMER AADHAR MAN

government has to do is to stop telcos from collaborating with it for free internet because Indian telcos, not FB, mediate access to the internet.”

The demand for the government and TRAI to come clean on net neutrality has reached fever pitch. Experts like Nilekani feel that net neutrality, which does not allow zero rating and differential pricing based on telcos looking at the contents of the subscriber’s data packets, should be enshrined in law through an act of Par­liament, the way countries like the US have done. TRAI has also proposed two models where the internet is provided free initially and charged at a later stage and another where content providers and websites reim­burse the cost of browsing directly to consumers. Both these proposals have not found favour with experts who say that these are unworkable and only the government should disburse free internet.

In any case, all this is a matter of detail— important, no doubt. The key question is, what happens to Free Basics if TRAI rules in favour of net neutrality and goes against FB? “This is going to be a long-drawn-out battle as FB will certainly challenge this in court,” says the government official. After spending Rs 300 crore on publicity, there is no way it will roll over and die.

NET NEUTRALITY PROS FREE SOFTWARE MOVEMENT ACTIVIST PROTEST IN BANGALORE

professors have said that Free Basics won’t serve the purpose FB is proposing and is not good for the country. “The problem is the inter­net being provided (via Free Basics) is a shrunken and sanitised version of the real thing. Free Basics is not a good proposal for the long-term development of a healthy and democratic internet the experts Outlook spoke to say that the government, and not FB, should be responsible for providing free internet to the people says Parminder Jeet Singh, executive director, IT for Change. “The government is sitting on Rs 40,000 crore of USO funds. Basic government services and emergency services should essentially be free.” Nilekani is also in fav­our of the gover­ nment providing free internet to people. “The internet is a powerful poverty alleviation tool.... Government can do a direct benefit transfer for data, a more mar­ket-neutral way of achieving the goal of getting everyone on the internet,” he told Outlook.

Legally, though, there may be issues in stopping FB from introducing its Free Bas­ics platform in India. Says Singh, “Techni­cally, the Indian government may not be able to stop FB from introducing Free Basics in India as it is just a platform. What the 8 FEBRUARY 2016

“Can public service be given through a pvt initiative? Public data is valuable and can’t be handed over to a private company.”

PRABIR PURKAYASTHA, CHAIRMAN, KNOWLEDGE COMMONS

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Cover Story

Leewards of Davos and Delhi

DELHI

THE WORLD MAY BE LOOKING AT INDIA. BUT TWO YEARS OF DROUGHT ARE TAKING THEIR TOLL ON VILLAGE ECONOMIES, PRECIPITATING LARGE-SCALE MIGRATION.

BY LOLA NAYAR

I

n Davos, the world’s ‘thinkers’ are talking about India being the ‘beacon of hope’ in an uncertain global economic situation. The headlines every morning from China are ind­eed depressing. Emerging market peers like Brazil and Russia are shadows of their former selves; experts joke that only the ‘I’ in BRICS is standing. Within India, however, companies and commentators are focused on the viability of the country’s quest for 7 per cent growth, given that most economic indicators are looking grim. All eyes are on Union finance minister Arun Jaitley who will unveil a make-or-break budget about a month from now. There are hopes that he will unshackle animal spirits in the economy and set the stage for private investments to flow with confidence.

Many in Davos waved aside fears about India by pointing to its booming start-up culture, the demographic dividend and, above all, the country’s domestic consumer market. Never mind that the domestic consumer has been sending a distress signal for some time now. The only thing is she’s not in your cities. Unlike the floods in Chennai, the drought story in nearly half of the country’s 676 districts is yet to hit the headlines. Many in New Delhi have not yet grasped the enormity of the rural crisis and how this could affect the India story.

Rural India is where over half the country’s population resides. This massive faceless population needs to have jobs, wages or a healthy farm economy in order to buy food and basics—and then motorcycles, fridges, TVs, mobile phones,

etc. By all accounts, large parts of rural India are bleeding. “There’s a lot of rural distress since the two failed monsoons, a lot of discontent. You can see the rise in farmer suicides. Rural people simply don’t have money to buy equipment,” says Mallika Srinivasan, chairman and CEO, TAFE (Tractors and Farm Equipment Ltd). Tractor sales are down 20 per cent in the first six months of 2015-16.

To get a measure of exactly how bad things are, Outlook reporters visited seven states.

We chose districts that are not traditionally drought-prone. Without exception, there was a massive spike in rural poverty.

Companies are reporting lower sales from rural India. There is agricultural distress mainly owing to bad weather—which betokens lower yield or no yield. Also, a slowdown in sectors like construction and manufacturing units banking on exports has led to a drop in rural wages. Falling prices of commodities both in India and globally has compounded matters. While low food prices are the only silver lining for millions of consumers, this is bad news for traders, exporters of agri-products.

Worryingly, the impact of two consecutive years of insufficient rainfall is being felt beyond the rural and semi-rural areas. Rural migration is on the rise, thanks to the slack

“When there is lower economic activity, people in rural areas tend to spend less, the lower inflation is one positive.”

in construction work. Small factories in rural and semi-rural areas are also shedding workers due to slower dem­and. “In India we are witnessing the largest migration from rural to urban areas because of rural stress.

It is a steady but silent migration as we are not hearing anything about it,” says Ajay Vir Jakhar, chairman, Bharat Krishak Samaj.

This is backed by anecdotal evidence about an increasing number of rural poor being seen in our larger cities.

After being in denial, the government seems to have finally woken up to the rural nightmare. The Supreme Court too seems to share this concern about widespread rural stress and, in some drought-prone areas, cases of deep distress. Acting on a PIL, the apex court has directed the central government to present it with the true state of affairs in the drought-hit regi­ons.

After hectic, two-day consultations with state representatives, Prime Minister Nar­ endra Modi was briefed on the situat­ion in late-night presentations. The gover­n­ment’s new focus on rural India is evident from the urgent launch of what’s being dubbed as its flagship crop insurance scheme.

Concerned about falling sales, the corpor­ ate sector too has nudged the government into action focusing on rural employment.

From calling NREGA the “living monum­ ent” of the Congress-led UPA government’s failures, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has turned a full circle. Since August, the government focus on NREGA has revi­ved.

Efforts are on to provide states with adequate funds and ensure better asset creation while helping farmers through greater focus on agriculture and allied projects.

DR SHASHANK BHIDE, DIRECTOR, MIDS 26 OUTLOOK

8 FEBRUARY 2016

ENDLESS WAIT- A GARMENT SHOP OWNER AWAITS CUSTOMERS IN AURANGABAD

THE WORD In the last 70 yrs, the share of agriculture & alied sectors in GDP dropped from 61% to 19%.

8 FEBRUARY 2016

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NATIONAL AFFAIRS

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“Three crops have been destroyed or not delivered desired yield. The cumulative effect is that farmers don’t have paying capacity.”

“NREGA acted as determinant of the base rate for labour. Not as widespread now, perhaps income benchmarks are coming down too.”

“Private companies have not invested in developing rural markets or generating demand. So how can they expect to reap the benefit?”

PROF SUDHIR PANWAR, MEMBER, UP PLANNING COMMISSION

RAMA BIJAPURKAR, MARKET STRATEGIST

PRADEEP KASHYAP, FOUNDER, MART

Theory Of Relativity

DROUGHT AND NREGA TELL EVEN ON BETTER-OFF HASSAN

BY AJAY SUKUMARAN

“T

he purchasing power has definitely come down,” says Umesh Kusugal, deputy commissioner of Hassan district. The alarming thing is that Hassan is relatively better off, even prosperous, compared to many of Karnataka’s districts because it gets some rain, being a ‘semi-Malnad’ region and the river Hema­vathy courses through its undulating sou­thern plains before joining the Cauvery. It’s also a tourism hub, home to the 12th century Hoysala archi­tectural marvels at Belur and Halebid, and an entry point to coffee country of Chikmagalur. But two consecutive years of drought seem to have taken a toll.

Only a quarter of the normal agricultural yield (potato, maize and ginger are the large crops here, besides the coffee and coconut plantations) was available this year and inco­mes have suffered, says Kusugal, adding that Rs 51 crore has already been released towards drought relief. There was rain bet­ween July and August but it fizzled out just when the crops were maturing. As elsewhere in Karnataka, banks have been asked not to press farmers for dues because of the grim situation. “Last year was the worst year in terms of drought. Farmers were pledging their gold for loans to grow their potato and ginger,” says Keshave Gowda, a school teacher in Naganahalli village, around 30 km south of Hassan city.

To make matters worse, a recurring potato blight had wiped out crops in many parts of the district. “Normally, you would get 8-10 quintals an acre. If you manage five quintals now, that is considered great,” says Keshave. Five years ago, one could make a tidy profit growing potato. “You could easily make a profit of Rs 25,000 per acre then. Now, people are incurring losses of Rs 25,000,” says Range Gowda. Last season, the only ones who made any kind of money were a few vegetable farmers who managed to sell their produce when the prices were favourable.

Worse, NREGA hasn’t been working that well. “There has never been a more useful scheme than NREGA,” says farmer N.B. Range Gowda, ruing the fact that the programme has slackened of late.

He reckons it’s partly because the daily wage of Rs 204 isn’t att­ ractive these days. Farm hands earn Rs 300-350 a day and

26 OUTLOOK

KARNATAKA HASSAN

DROUGHT-HIT- TWO CONSECUTIVE DRY SPELLS HAVE FELLED FARMERS

many youngsters prefer to seek work in town, mostly at garment factories. Gowda should know: in 2008, he was a member of the village panchayat which approved the repair job of a weir that had a breach, spending Rs 6 lakh, nearly half of which went towards wages. Naganahalli’s tank was among the early NREGA success stories in Karnataka.

However, in Hassan city, which has a population of around 1.8 lakh, the retailers aren’t complaining. That’s probably bec­ause rural folk don’t form the bulk of their business. The city has a sizable salaried class, and there has also been income from real estate transactions in recent years. In Channa­rayapatna, a town with a population of 40,440 located 37 km away, a two-wheeler dealer smiles when asked if dem­and has been hit. He reels out examples of how new showrooms have been opening up in neighbouring small towns. “Yelli, duddu illa antha heli (tell me, who doesn’t have money)?” But then he does agree that people aren’t spending as impulsively as they would have a year ago.

8 FEBRUARY 2016

www.outlookindia.com

Non- Resident Villagers HAVING TASTED PROSPERITY, THE SLOWDOWN IS BITTER

AURANGABAD MAHARASTRA

BY PRACHI PINGLAY-PLUMBER

“S

ix years ago, emboldened by several industrial projects in the works and a real estate boom, a group of businessmen decided to use their extra cash to purchase a record 150 Mer­cedes cars.

This got Aurangabad—known more for the Ajanta-Ellora caves than for its industrial gro­wth—national attention (yes, even Outlook paid a visit). But then the slide began. The capital city of Mar­athwada, which is also listed in the Modi government’s Smart Cities plan, is now seeing its fourth year of drought. A disturbing number of 1,000-plus suicides has been recorded in the last year.

NO GOOD BUY- A SHOPKEEPER SITS IDLE IN HIS SHOP AT AURANGABAD

“It was expected that it would draw attention to us and more investments would come in,” says Mansingh Pawar, who too bought a Merc in that historic deal. “Many newspapers started Aurangabad editions and there was a lot of talk for some time.

But nothing came of it. There was a lot of hope when the new government came in. Modi was expected to repeat Gujarat’s success at a nati­onal level. But that hasn’t happened.” In his Mahindra showroom, he says, sales have dipped bec­ause of widespread crop failure.

“People focus on roti, kapda, makan, eve­rything else takes a backseat in times of downturn. Agricultural production and prices are down, as is real estate, and you can see empty markets,” says Ajay Shah, owner of Shah Sons, a consumer durables showroom. He is also the president of a parent body of 72 associations of different trading org­anisations, which cover everything from food to luxuries. “We have to understand that a sudden boom is always shortlived,” adds Adesh Chabda, who runs a wedding card business in Aurangabad.

Aurangabad has industries such as steel, beverages, pharmaceuticals in the middle of vast agricultural land that now largely grows cash crops like sugarcane, cotton and soyabean instead of traditional jowar and toor. But despite several announcements about Make in India and Smart Cities and the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor for which land has been acquired just outside Aurangabad city, infrastructure is a huge challenge. The Chikhalthana MIDC, where many companies have shut shop and made way for a huge mall and residential complex, is an example of industrialisation lacking long-term vision.

“Many companies have shut down here but we are trying to turn the Walunj and Shendra MIDCs into examples of ideal development,” says Prabhakar Mate, a local leader with Kamgar Sena of the Shiv Sena. “Nowhere in the country is there such a huge mass of land available for business as in DMIC Aurangabad.

Now we are waiting for people to come.” He admits that so far the growth in Shendra hasn’t been up to their expectations.

In the past two years, the region has seen alarming depletion of the water table due to poor rainfall, unchecked digging of borewells and rampant plantation of water-guzzlers like sugarcane. Activists warn about a suicide epidemic. “Most of the suicides are committed by those in the 25-35-year age group.

Urbanisation and forced migration will be the biggest challenges for Aurangabad. Instead of NRIs, we need to now talk about Non Resident Villagers,” says activist Sanjeev Unhale. “They don’t get jobs at your industrial units, all they do is start dhabas outside those companies.” In the absence of viable production at these units, even those dhabas may not get them their daily bread.

“Certainly the slowdown is reflected in the weak demand.

NREGA pick-up shows that the government recognises that there is a problem.”

“The only talk is about growth in services, which is where the poor get absorbed apparently.

But migration converts rural poverty to urban poverty.”

“There is huge agrarian distress in the country. It is something that needs urgent attention. NREGA is antirecession.”

RAM KAUNDINYA, AGRICULTURE EXPERT

PROF S. JANAKARAJAN, SOAS

MIHIR SHAH, FORMER PLANNING COMMISSION MEMBER

8 FEBRUARY 2016

OUTLOOK 27

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

www.outlookindia.com

CUSHIONING THE iMAPACT

REBOOTING NREGA

REAL RURAL REFORMS

Speaking to Outlook after the marathon session with officials, Union agriculture and farmer welfare minister Radha Mohan Singh pointed out that the over 14 per cent shortfall in monsoon in 2015 following a year of poor monsoon was bound to affect agriculture, which continues to sustain large parts of the rural population. “The situation now is not as bad as it could have been, as contingency plans were deployed in most drought-hit states. Eight states were provided Rs 12,000 crore from the National Disaster Relief fund, two more are still to be provided relief,” Singh said. While the final data is still awaited, the minister said data till January 22 shows the acreage under cereal cultivation has come down by three per cent this year. What has helped is the contingency deployment of 93 varieties of high-yielding drought-resistant seeds to the states to help farmers, claims the minister.

Besides employment, the NDA has stepped up focus on PDS, a major force for alleviation in distressed villages. Union food minister Ram Vilas Paswan stresses there is no cause for alarm as there is sufficient stock in government godowns.

We have sufficient buffer stocks to meet our obligations under the food security programme,” he says.

By March/April, the government hopes to roll out the rights-based programme for poor across all the states, with 97 per cent work of digitisation of ration cards for better monitoring complete. Even as the government promises greater efficiency in PDS operations, onground reports say that in most areas, including drought-hit regions, its performance continues to lag.

Reports from different states give a mixed picture of NREGA outcomes. Back from the cold, the rights scheme is being banked upon to reduce rural distress and also provide alternative income to stem migration and boost the rural economy. “There may be some pick-up in NREGA employment, particularly in UP. But in drought areas people need employment on a huge scale— that’s not happening,” economist Jean Dreze tells Outlook. “The government needs to relax NREGA norms in these areas, along with expanding PDS entitlements.”

There are mixed opinions here. Some feel improvements in NREGA are helping to reduce rural stress—such that the proportion of distress migration is on the decline, albeit slowly, where the programme is yielding results. Many states, including Madhya Pradesh, had been found to be tardy in implementation, including clearing payment dues. Says Manoj Rai of PRIA, “This government, unlike the past government, has built up pressure on states. There is better utilisation of funds. The projects have been expanded to provide more flexibility at the local level. The results will start showing next year.”

With many states, including West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, going to elections over the next one year, NDA leaders are leaving no stone unturned in their quest to improve NREGA performance. Former Planning Commission member Mihir Shah for one is happy that many of the reform measures he had suggested during the UPA tenure that never got implemented are finally being implemented to improve NREGA outcome and help build rural infrastructure.

P. Chengal Reddy of the Federation of Farmers’ Associations does not give the government any credit for farmers venturing to adopt new high-yielding hybrid varieties of crops and achieving higher productivity in both paddy, wheat and other crops. This has ensured that overall production has not drastically slumped though there has been some drop from the peaks of 2013-14. The continuing problem of labour, high input costs and nil noticeable improvement in irrigation facilities has led to many farmers switching over to horticulture and animal husbandry.

Last year, horticulture production surpassed 282 million tonnes, which is more than the foodgrain production in the country. “Agriculture has not been profitable for the last many years,” says Reddy. “I would like to know from Prime Minister Modi and his imported team of financial and economic experts as to why they are not able to make a breakthrough.”

Clearly, the rural economy needs some focus.

Truth be told, there have been no reforms in the farm sector. Economist Dr Rajiv Kumar is critical of the fact that farmers are not able to get the right prices even in cases where the government has fixed the minimum support price. “There is something to be said about the trading community’s vic­ious hold on the rural economy such that administrative measures are meaningless and the farmer suffers inordinately, which is the case now,” he says.

The economist then goes on to question the government’s growth predictions.

“If the govt did a cost-benefit analysis, it would find it better to keep farmers happy in villages than look after unhappy migrants in cities.”

“There may be some pick-up in NREGA. In drought-hit areas, people need employment at a huge scale—that’s not happening.”

“Agriculture and rural wage growth has gone down from four to six per cent to around one to two per cent in real terms.”

AJAY VIR JAKHAR, BHARAT KRISHAK SAMAJ

JEAN DREZE, ECONOMIST

PROF S. MAHENDRA DEV, IGIDR

26 OUTLOOK

8 FEBRUARY 2016

www.outlookindia.com

Non-Resident Villagers HAVING TASTED PROSPERITY, THE SLOWDOWN IS BITTER

AURANGABAD MAHARASTRA

BY PRACHI PINGLAY PLUMBER

“S

Six years ago, emboldened by several industrial projects in the works and a real estate boom, a group of businessmen decided to use their extra cash to purchase a record 150 Mer­cedes cars. This got Aurangabad—known more for the Ajanta-Ellora caves than for its industrial gro­wth—national attention (yes, even Outlook paid a visit). But then the slide began. The capital city of Mar­ athwada, which is also listed in the Modi government’s Smart Cities plan, is now seeing its fourth year of drought. A disturbing number of 1,000-plus suicides has been recorded in the last year.

“It was expected that it would draw attention to us and more investments would come in,” says Mansingh Pawar, who too bought a Merc in that historic deal. “Many newspapers started Aurangabad editions and there was a lot of talk for some time.

But nothing came of it. There was a lot of hope when the new government came in. Modi was expected to repeat Gujarat’s success at a nati­onal level. But that hasn’t happened.” In his Mahindra showroom, he says, sales have dipped bec­ause of widespread crop failure.

“People focus on roti, kapda, makan, eve­rything else takes a backseat in times of downturn. Agricultural production and prices are down, as is real estate, and you can see empty markets,” says Ajay Shah, owner of Shah Sons, a consumer durables showroom. He is also the president of a parent body of 72 associations of different trading org­anisations, which cover everything from food to luxuries. “We have to understand that a sudden boom is always shortlived,” adds Adesh Chabda, who runs a wedding card business in Aurangabad.

Aurangabad has industries such as steel, beverages, pharmaceuticals in the middle of vast agricultural land that now largely grows cash crops like sugarcane, cotton and soyabean instead of traditional jowar and toor. But despite several announcements about Make in India and Smart Cities and the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor for which land has been acquired just outside Aurangabad city, infrastructure is a huge challenge. The Chikhalthana MIDC, where many companies have shut shop and made way for a huge mall and residential complex,

‘‘

DROUGHT-HIT- TWO CONSECUTIVE DRY SPELLS HAVE FELLED FARMERS

is an example of industrialisation lacking long-term vision.

“Many companies have shut down here but we are trying to turn the Walunj and Shendra MIDCs into examples of ideal development,” says Prabhakar Mate, a local leader with Kamgar Sena of the Shiv Sena. “Nowhere in the country is there such a huge mass of land available for business as in DMIC Aurangabad.

Now we are waiting for people to come.” He admits that so far the growth in Shendra hasn’t been up to their expectations.

In the past two years, the region has seen alarming depletion of the water table due to poor rainfall, unchecked digging of borewells and rampant plantation of water-guzzlers like sugarcane. Activists warn about a suicide epidemic. “Most of the suicides are committed by those in the 25-35-year age group.

Urbanisation and forced migration will be the biggest challenges for Aurangabad. Instead of NRIs, we need to now talk about Non Resident Villagers,” says activist Sanjeev Unhale. “They don’t get jobs at your industrial units, all they do is start dhabas outside those companies.” In the absence of viable production at these units, even those dhabas may not get them their daily bread.

THE WORD Horticulture production surpassed 282 mn tonnes last year, more than foodgrains.

The share of rural markets in corporate sales has gone up to 50% from 30% in 2000.

As per 2011 census, pucca houses have grown from 33% to 66% in 10 yrs.

8 FEBRUARY 2016

OUTLOOK 27

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

www.outlookindia.com

Cover Story

The Scream of Lotus Buds SINCE THE NDA CAME TO POWER AT THE CENTRE, THE BJP’S STUDENT WING HAS BEEN ASSERTING ITS UNRULY PRESENCE

BY R.K. MISHRA

I

n the last month and a half, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has been responsible, dir­ectly or indirectly, for the suicide of research scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad, for the abandonment of a symposium on ‘Democracy, Media and Freedom of Exression’ in Allahabad and for the termination of services of IIT-BHU guest faculty and Magasaysay awardee Sandeep Pandey in Varanasi. The student body of the RSS-BJP has been on an overdrive since the NDA government took charge in May 2014. It has taken on critics of the Modi government, often calling them antinational, as, on one pretext or the other, it intervened to stop plays, films, seminars, festivals and lectures (see table) that challenged its views. Violence or threat of violence has been used with increasing frequency, but the police has generally looked the other way.

In Allahabad, journalist and former editor of The Hindu Siddharth Varadarajan was declared ‘anti­-national’ and a ‘Naxalite’ by the ABVP, which warned of violence if he was allowed into the campus.

The university’s security staff pleaded inability to ensure his safety and the Allahabad police prohibited the symposium from being held on the campus, forcing Varadarajan to address a much smaller group outside. When he finally went to meet the vice-chancellor, he was gheraoed and held hostage till police arrived and led him out.

Curiously, at the same time Varadarajan was to speak, the ABVP had invited religious ‘guru’ Shantanu Maharaj for a discourse at the students union hall. When Outlook sought a comment from ABVP national president Nagesh Thakur, he said, “Yes, you may write that I have no information (about the incident).”

Set up in 1949, the ABVP has grown steadily over the years—with plenty of help from people in authority. Activist Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All-India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), recalls that when she joined the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), a leftist bastion, she was surprised to find a welcome card from the ABVP along with the call letter inside the official envelope. “The ABVP, unlike most other student bodies,” she says, “functions with the backing of the authorities.”

That it is much more than a student body is indicated by the resources it has access to. Flush with funds, the ABVP is arguably the richest student body in the country. Its clout extends to interfering with and influencing decisions at the highest levels in government and at universities. A case in point is Union minister Bandaru Dattat­ reya’s letter on the Hyderabad Central Uni­v­ersity affair, and the

26 OUTLOOK

PUNCHING ITS WAY IN

five reminders sent by the HRD ministry to it on ‘VIP request’ that precipitated the suicide of Dalit student Rohith Vemula. And while IIT-BHU cited no reasons for the termination of Sandeep Pandey’s contract, it was informally communicated to him that the authorities and the ABVP did not take kindly to his discussions on beef and that they felt he was a closet Naxalite. Pandey has lodged an FIR in Varanasi that he was threatened by people associated with the RSS and the ABVP. Yet Thakur dismisses all reports of violence attributed to his organisation. “We’re engaged only in constructive activities,” he says blandly. He says the ABVP is the only students’ body in which teachers and students work together: indeed, the presidents of all ABVP units are mandated to be teachers. Thakur himself has a doctorate in physics from Himachal Pradesh University and boasts of over 80 research papers. He claims the ABVP supports caste-based reservations and that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was quoted out of context on the quota issue. (The interview had in fact appeared in the RSS mouthpieces Panchajanya and Organiser.)

Of late, the ABVP has targeted ‘left-leaning intellectuals’ and ‘Naxalites’ as a threat to national security, flexing muscle when necessary. St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, was forced to withdraw an invitation to singer Sheetal Sathe of the Kabir Kala Manch, a Dalit cultural group with leftist leanings. ABVP members assaulted students discussing ‘love jehad’ at Lucknow University. A video of the assault went viral, but no action was taken against singing provocative lines such as ‘Desh hai pukarta, pukarti hai Bharati/ khoon se tilak karo, goliyon se aarti. In Patna, ABVP supporters disrupted a discussion on the arrest of handicapped Delhi University professor who is charged with being a Maoist.

8 FEBRUARY 2016

www.outlookindia.com

Sikar Dec ’15: SFI district secretary Subhash Jakhar, protesting fee hike at S.K. College, beaten up, hospitalised. Required 25 stitches.

Delhi Nov ’15: Stops screening of TISS documentary Caste on the Menu Dadri (UP) Oct ’15: Tells media Akhlaq was lynched not because he consumed beef but because one of his sons had an affair with a Hindu girl Delhi Aug ’15: Stops screening of the documentary Muzaffarnagar

Baaqi Hai

Sanjauli (HP) Aug ’15: Principal of Government College J.S. Negi assaulted. ABVP claims NSUI activists were involved.

Guwahati Aug ’15: Statue of St Don Bosco vandalised, thrown into river Chennai May ’15: Believed to be behind anonymous letter to HRD

ministry that led to derecognition of Ambedkar-Periyar Study Circle at IIT Madras

Lodging FIRs against the ABVP has not worked. ABVP members who assaulted Prof H.S. Sabharwal in Ujjain (2006), leading to his death, were acquitted in 2009 for want of evidence. And when the All-India Students’ Association (AISA) complained last year that its members were assaulted in Delhi when they were peacefully protesting the government’s education policy, no act­ion was taken. The principal of Kirorimal College, whose office was ransacked this month, did not bother to report it to the police. And when ABVP disrupted preparations for a convention of BAMCEF, an org­anisation of SC, ST, OBC and minority emp­loyees, at Maharshi Dayanand Uni­versity, Rohtak, police took no action.

Strangely, the ABVP doesn’t seem to worry too much about the escalating fees in private colleges, inadequate hostel facilities, ill-equipped labs and badly stocked libraries. Instead, it loses no opportunity to raise issues related to terrorism, illegal immigration from Bangladesh, national security, Chinese intrusion, ‘love jehad’, live-in relationships, Indian family values etc. It justified the September lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq—who was wrongfully accused of cow slaughter. It informally claimed Akhlaq died because one of his sons was allegedly having an affair with a Hindu girl.

Sabharwal, the vice-chancellor of Vikram University, Ujjain, was thrashed for having appealed to students and teachers to raise money for flood-hit people in Kashmir. In 2011, it succeeded in forcing Delhi University to drop noted poet-scholar A.K. Ramanujan’s essay 300 Ramayanas from the BA syllabus. And late last year, it hit the streets in Jammu to protest a notification introducing Urdu as a compulsory paper in the test for appointment of naib tehsildars, among its more justifiable actions.“It is a dangerous organisation, because it divides

8 FEBRUARY 2016

students when broader unity is required to oppose rampant commercialisation of education,” says Vikram Singh, joint secretary of the Students Federation of India (SFI). He says that on paper, the ABVP supports movements like ‘Occupy UGC’, against the government’s policies, but does nothing to force the government’s hand in favour of students.

AISA vice-president Farhan Ahmad echoes the sentiment, alleging that the ABVP is thriving on “money and muscle power”. But while the prime minister, BJP chief Amit Shah and HRD minister Smriti Irani pose for photographs with ABVP leaders and hold discussions with them, none of them has spared a word to rein it in or condemn its irresponsible behaviour, as in Allahabad.

The ABVP is no longer just a bunch of campus bullies. It is morphing into something far more organic and sinister. “It is a dangerous organisation, because it divides students when broader unity is required to oppose rampant commercialisation of education,” says Vikram Singh, joint secretary of the Students Federation of India (SFI).

He says that on paper, the ABVP supports movements like ‘Occupy UGC’, against the government’s policies, but does nothing to force the government’s hand in favour of students.

AISA vice-president Farhan Ahmad echoes the sentiment, alleging that the ABVP is thriving on “money and muscle power”. But while the prime minister, BJP chief Amit Shah and HRD minister Smriti Irani pose for photographs with ABVP leaders and hold discussions with them, none of them has spared a word to rein it in or condemn its irresponsible behaviour, as in Allahabad.

The ABVP is no longer just a bunch of campus bullies. It is morphing into something far more organic and sinister.

OUTLOOK 27

SPOTLIGHT

www.outlookindia.com

A Clowning Glory

PONDICHERRY

A FEW DOCTORS ARE BRINGING AN ALTERNATIVE HEALING METHOD TO TOWN

BY STUTI AGARWAL

A

midst the flurry of white- coated doctors and purposefully striding nurses on a busy morning at the Arav­ind Eye Hospital in Pondicherry, two red noses stand out. But it’s not a peculiar medical affliction that has brought Fif Fernandes and Hamish Boyd—them with the colourful nasal appendages—to hospital this morning. They too are here as healers and the red noses are part of the uniform, their own clinical props, much like the stethoscopes that dangle around doctors’ necks. Soon, Fernandes aand Boyd will begin their rounds and do their juggling acts to the accompaniment of delighted squeals from young and old

30 OUTLOOK

patients. On occasion, a doctor will even endure a jocular spank from them—if that’s what a patient wants!

The curious goings-on at Aravind Eye Hospital are all part of a pioneering programme under which trained “medical clowns” or “therapeutic clowns” assist in a holistic medical treatment process by channelling that old piece of wisdom about laughter being the best medicine. The practice, which has become popular in Canada, Italy, Israel and parts of the US, is still in its infa­ncy in India, but slowly gaining traction. “Hamish and I are professionally trained person of Indian origin who worked as a therapeutic clown (and a theatre

8 FEBRUARY 2016

www.outlookindia.com

professi­onal) in Canada before returning to India. Both come from The other aunt was a Franciscan Missionary of Mary. Fern­andes used medical families and have been trained in Israel, which has emerged as to accompany the Sisters to leprosy homes and those for the destitute, a centre for training; they now run the Komali MeDi Clown Academy and perform puppetry and clowning for the inmates. “I did not know in Auroville. then that I would take this up as a profession,” she says.

Over in Delhi, clowning artist Ashwath Bhatt, trained at the London But it’s still hard to be untouched by the trauma and the distress that Academy of Music and Dramatic Art , has been working to let hospitals they see around them. “A lot of medical clowns get overwhelmed by in India open their doors to him. “It has been medically proven that it,” says Bhatt. “You have to be detached.” But the sense of exhilaration laughter helps in the healing process,” he says. been used as medical they feel when they are able to touch a troubled patient with their healing assistants right from the days of good old Hippocrates. antics is unm­atched. Boyd and Fernandes—whose ‘clown’ names Studies in Israel have shown infertile couples exposed to medical are Dr Papa­dum and Papadee—say they have no set routine; they clowning for six months being able to conceive, even sooner than improvise and they always seek permission. “With a two-year-old, for other couples on IVF program­mes, which were rather more stressinstance, it could start with a peek-a-boo; for an older child, we might inducing. From some accounts, clowns have been used as medical walk into a door to help him or her loosen up,” says Fernandes. She healing assistants right from the days of good old Hippocrates. recalls asking a 94-year-old man if he would like to dance; he promptly Bhatt has used his clowning skills to therapeutic effect at the cancer got up and waltzed with her, which loosened his long-term memory. support services CanKids and CanSupport. He recalls how one day the Bhatt points out that it is not always about making people laugh, but mother of a 10-year-old boy with cancer was agonising that he had not about making people in a trauma situation feel better. Eventually, eaten in two days. “We started clowning around and playing with a says Bhatt, it comes down to the kind of “connect” that the clown banana and soy milk pac­ket; and as he watched, he suddenly reached develops with the patient. He recalls two striking instances when such out and helped himself to two bananas. Everyone was stun­ned.” For a fortuitous connection happened. In one instance, a woman in an oldwas stun­ned.” For Bhatt, it was an epiphany: age home, seeing him for the first time, he had found his vocation. There is a fine instantly opened up, saying, “Come, I know ON THE NOSE line between medical clowning—which you!” Volunteers said that was the first time helps distract a patient—­ and therapeutic in a long while that she had ever laughed. clowning, which ties in with holistic healing Another time, when his team was playing and wellness. The concept is so new that with kids with cancer, one of the children Diya Banerjee has tried to the medical fraternity is yet to recognise its started clapping and playing—the first time create a better awareness of potential, says filmmaker Diya Banerjee, in days that he had moved his limbs. What the efficacy of clown therapy whose film The Hope Doctors records the was more striking, the child was blind. successful transformative role that clowning “Again, it was just the co­nnect,” says Bhatt. has had in medical spaces in the West. Her But such anecdotal evidence of the Her documentary The Hope story also highlights the few hospitals in therapeutic effect of medical clowning Doctors was ­released in 2014 India where therapeutic clowning is being hasn’t been enough to persuade senior deplyed. At the paediatric cancer ward at doctors in India to open up their minds— to a wave of ­critical acclaim AIIMS, for instance, oncologist Dr Rachna and their hospital doors—to this emerging Seth uses distraction therapy during the healthcare practice. Bhatt says he’s been to harrowing but unavoidable chemotherapy some leading hospital groups, and met top She calls her own clown procedures and has a TV installed in the offici­als and has often been told that “these personas Jhumpa, Saucy common lobby where kids can watch thi­ngs happen in America, not here.” But McCuddle and Shanti Salaama cartoons and have their attention diverted the hospitals that did invite him want him from the pain of injections. In many cases, back. Fernandes and Boyd too have had the clowns themselves have had troubled positive feedback from Chennai hospitals. pasts. Bhatt, a Kashmiri Pandit, fled a burning Srinagar in 1993, and says They are already busy with their routine in Auroville and Chennai, and that in many ways he has not moved on from the trauma in Kashmir. are looking for the prog­rammes to be recognised by the government.

When his mother was in hospital undergoing painful radiotherapy for Fernandes conducts a module in clowning for social work students cancer, a friend from Aus­tralia who came visiting started clowning for at the Stella Maris College. She trains freshers at the Aravind Eye her. “My mother began laughing like a kid,” recalls Bhatt. Fernandes Hospital in Pondicherry to apply humour and distraction therapy says she was inspired to take up therapeutic clowning by two of her in their own lives and in everyday patient-care routine. “My job is to aunts. “I’d visit my aunt in hospital every day, and entertain her”. create hope,” she says.

THE WORD We started clowning around and playing with a banana and soy milk pac­ket; and as he watched, he suddenly reached out and helped himself to two bananas. Everyone was stun­ned.

8 FEBRUARY 2016

OUTLOOK 31

EAT, PRAY, LIVE

All About Ashoka ABHINANDAN, HOTEL ASHOKA 47,PANTHEON ROAD, EGMORE, CHENNAI PH: 044 28553377

BY GEETA DOCTOR CHENNAI

TAMIL NADU

Sambhar, the signature sout indian dish, in one teling, has its origins in a chace change of ingridients. Sambhoji, great cook when the Marathas ruled Tanjore, was cooking his ‘anti’ when, lacking kokum, he added tamarind pulp.

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Ashoka Hotel, which opened in 1974, was Chennai’s favourite destination for the matrimonially inclined. The name itself made half of it possible. With its forest of trees, the pond at the entrance filled with carp recalled the sylvan retreat of Rama yana’s heroine. To begin with, Abhinandan, as it is now called, was just known as the dining room. What they did best was to serve food that would rival the better-known Udipi restaurants by serving a pan-Indian menu. It had to appeal to the foreign-returned groom in search of a life partner. “Cutlet!” That was the first word that a reasonably well-educated young man uttered when meeting his prospective bride. If she approved, she replied, “Ketchup!” Both sets of parents sat at a nearby table and watched. Weddings took place in the nearby garden grotto and were followed by the sumptuous leaf sappads, as the feasts used to be known.

During Tiffin (3.30-10.30 pm), nostalgic regulars still tuck into their veg cutlets (Rs 65) or go for the Mangalore Bondas (Rs 63) or venture into a new territory and try biscuit bondas and all things Manchurian. Then, of course, there are the trendy nouveau Ashoka types who go in for the pizzas and chaats, but we shall wisely ignore them. For the rest of the world, Abhinandan is still the best place for a veg thali meal. Do we recommend the basic Madras meal? It comprises hot pooris, rice (two kinds), ghee, two types of dry vegetables, two types of gravy items, maybe with a curd base, a smidgeon of salad, followed by sambar, rasam, curd with pickles, appalam (1 number only), ice-cream and beeda or paan for Rs 138. Or do we mention the fiery Andhra meals with Gonkura chutneys and pickles (Rs 155); or the Special Bombay thali with soup, kadi masala channa, gulab jamun and papad (Rs 195)? Notice how they’ve retained the old names of the cities? That’s part of Ashoka’s charm. Even the retainers are vintage. Just watching them pour hot ghee on the rice and urge the guest to have a little more is a treat.

And Also

INTRODUCING A MEMBER OF THE GOURD FAMILY AND THE ORIGINS OF SAMBAR

Known as vegetable pears, chayote is a subtropical member of the gourd family, along with melons, cucumbers and squash. The pear-shaped, gourd-like fruit is used as a vegetable; the tuber of the plant eaten like potatoes and other root vegetables, the leaves and shoots often consumed in salads and stir fries, especially in Asia. Like other members of its family, chayote has a sprawling habit and grows only over large expanses. It tastes similar to zucchini and is commonly used in Creole cuisine, especially around New Orleans in winter, as a festive dish with seafood stuffing. The fruit is usually served with mild seasoning. It is rich in amino acid and vitamin C, and has diuretic and antiinfiammatory properties. A tea made from the leaves has been used in the treatment of arteriosclerosis and hypertension, and to dissolve kidney stones. In Tamil Nadu, it is known as seemai kathrikai and is widely us ed in sambars, kootu, poriyal, thuvayal, chutney and mor-kulambu.

32 OUTLOOK

8 FEBRUARY 2016

EAT, PRAY, LIVE

No Place for a Past

A FILM SOCIETY RAY CO-FOUNDED WILL SEE DEATH BY A LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY

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WEST BENGAL CALCUTTA

BY DOLA MITRA | CALCUTTA

34 OUTLOOK

when the owners of the premises, the Life Insurance Corporation of India, ser ved it an eviction notice. Their justification? The club had defaulted on rent payment.

CFS had taken the present premises on rent a few years after it came into existence, and after several revisions over the years (at an approximate rate of 35 per cent), they pay Rs 1,500 a month right now. There is an arrear of close to Rs 3 lakh, according to LIC. They have also increased the rent to Rs 4,500. CFS admits that there might have been lapses in payment but says it can’t pay the rent LIC is now asking for as it’s a cultural centre, not a profitmaking organisation. The society has 300

Image-SANDIPAN CHATTERJEE

T

he rickety wooden door, fra ying at the edges, is painted a pale yellow, the very colour of faded memory. Above it hangs an unassuming, unpolished wooden nameplate, almost like a forgotten souve nir, barely visible in the dim light of the narrow corridor of a crumbling Calcutta mansion. Peer closely and you make out the legend inscribed on it: Calcutta Film Soci ety. The very same CFS, indeed, the famed Film fraternity, which Satyajit Ray and his close friend and renowned Film critic.

Seventy years later, past its prime in that Golden Age of Bengali cinema, the country’s oldest Film club lies in a serious state of disrepair, clinging desperately to the last signs of life. On most days, you’ll Find the door locked. On the rare occasions it opens, usually a Saturday when a Film screening is due, you walk into a 250 square foot room, the setting sun casting a chiaroscuro as it streams in through the large glass windows.

One side is lined with ceiling-high glass door bookcases crammed with old photographs, magazines and pamphlets dating back to the days of Ray, the other has posters from world cinema. A third wall has a covered shelf on which stands a projector. The blank wall opposite is the screen.

Once upon a time, this was the hub of regular private Film screenings ending in debate and discussion. Today, there is only silence. Once it opened the world of cinema to audiences; today, with the onslaught of multiplexes and digitised video discs, it looks like an anachronism. Last month, another nail was driven into its coffin

members who pay a membership fee of Rs 100 per year. “All we are asking for is some preferential treatment,” says CFS working president Pradipta Sen, “considering this society is a heritage one, providing cultural service to the public and should be viewed in light of what it stands for and not equated with an ordinary rent payer charged at the market rate.”

Samik Bandyopadhyay, author, publi sher and CFS member, agrees. “The role of CFS or other Film clubs was not limited to being mere film theatres for private screenings though it indeed had been the first of its kind to do sWWo in the country,” he says. Film clubs have also provided platforms for discourse on cinema, shared experience and exchange of ideas. It is this that has enabled it to retain a certain relevance even as digitisation advances at breakneck speed. With DVDs, available for individual home viewing, seeing Films in small gatherings at clubs has, in some eyes, become largely outdated.

Bandyopadhay, who was in college when he First joined the Film society in 1955, the same year that Ray made Pather Panchali, recalls the initial days of CFS as a time of “great intellectual interest in international

ROOM WITH A VIEW PREMISES OF THE CFS AT CHITTRANJAN AVENNUE

8 FEBRUARY 2016

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cinema”. Its fascinating history dates back to the time when newly independent India, eager to feast on something else besides the Hollywood staple it had been fed, was keen on exploring other— mainly European—cinema. The world wars had destroyed Europe’s studios, and an alternative kind of cin ema—‘arthouse’, low budget—was emer ging. Ita lian director Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thief, for instance, was shot entirely on the streets. “Ray was very inspired by Bicycle Thief. He thought, ‘If this Film can be made on this kind of a budget, why can’t I do it too?” says Bandyopadhyay.

LIC’s move now has dismayed society members, which include the illustrious descendants of the founding fathers, Ray’s son, Filmmaker Sandip Ray, and Dasgupta’s daughter, actress-Filmmaker Aparna Sen. “It is a pity it has come to this,” says Ray. “That room has a lot of history. It is a heritage room. We have all signed a letter urging the concerned authorities to rethink the matter and are keeping our Fingers crossed.” Sen, who has been at the forefront of a movement to revive CFS since 2011, calls LIC’s decision “very sad”. It was at her Calcutta home, when she was a little girl of about 10, that the First screenings of CFS were held before the Chittaranjan Avenue premises.

“The Films were shown on an 8 mm screen on the verandah of our house,” she tells Outlook,” she says. “I rem ember watching so many Films.

Battleship Potem kin (Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 Russ ian classic), Ivan the Terrible, The Passion of Joan of Arc.... We were introdu ced to world cinema through CFS. Though we were children, we were not stopped from watching even adult movies.”

Director Mrinal Sen, who was one of the cofounders of the society, too has lent his name to the campaign against LIC’s move. The 94-year- old is ailing, but says he is so disturbed by the turn of events that he had to act. His is the First signature on the letter addressed to the LIC director. When Outlook contacted Sen, he confirmed that the matter has caused him “immense distress” and agreed that there is a need for more effort to preserve Calcutta’s cinematic heritage. Have they thought of any other venue to set up the Film club in case they are evicted? “That is not possible. We have a huge collection of books, magazines and other periodicals, most of which have great significance because they were Ray’s,” says Pradipta Sen. “We have at least a thousand books in the archives and other documents. Some of these are old and have become brittle with age.

8 FEBRUARY 2016

SEPIA MEMORY MRINAL SEN WITH CFS MEMBERS AT’ CLCUTTA 71’ INAUGURAL SHOW

The 94-year-old Mrinal Sen, a Cfsco-founder, has lent his name to its cause, his being the first sign on a letter to the LIC director.

They will get destroyed if we try to move them.”

Samik Bandyopadhyay, author, publi sher and CFS member, agrees. “The role of CFS or other Film clubs was not limited to being mere film theatres for private screenings though it indeed had been the first of its kind to do sWWo in the country,” he says.

Film clubs have also provided platforms for discourse on cinema, shared experience and exchange of ideas. It is this that has enabled it to retain a certain relevance even as digitisation advances at breakneck speed. With DVDs, available for individual home viewing, seeing Films in small gatherings at clubs has, in some eyes, become largely outdated.

Bandyopadhay, who was in college when he First joined the Film society in 1955, the same year that Ray made Pather Panchali, recalls the initial days of CFS as a time of “great intellectual interest in international cinema”. Its fascinating history dates back to the time when newly independent India, eager to feast on something else besides the Hollywood staple it had been fed, was keen on exploring other—mainly European— cinema. The world wars had destroyed Europe’s studios, and an alternative kind of cin ema—‘arthouse’, low budget—was emer ging. Ita lian director Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thief, for instance, was shot entirely on the streets. “Ray was very inspired by Bicycle Thief.

For other CFS members, the space is sacrosanct because it was set up by Ray. In any other country, they say, such heritage buildings and institutions would be preserved and promoted by the government, not be allowed to rot because of non-payment of rent.

Other corporates and educational institutions are ready to host the CFS and preserve its archives, but the members say it will not be the same. “We can rent any other space, but it will not be the same,” says Pradipta Sen. There could still be a way out. He says that after Mrinal Sen’s letter reached the LIC director in Mumbai, they have been less hostile.

Won’t it be strange, after all, were a life ins urance company sound the death knell for a society which gave birth to Bengal’s all-important ‘living picture’ culture?

OUTLOOK 35

BOOKS AND REVIEWS

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The Orange Deserts of Goa

A LOVE LETTER WRITTEN IN BLOOD TO A LAND RAVAGED BY MINING COMPANIES

GOA

BY PRERNA SINGH BINDRA

I

have been to the Other Goa—a small step, and a lifetime, away from the ‘Go Goa’ fantasy of sun-kissed beaches, green vistas, casinos, fiea markets, raves and trances. This Other Goa has been raped and ravaged by mining andthoughtless, relentless construction to feed the tourism and real estate business...and it bleeds.

I am reminded of it as I pore through Eat Dust: Mining and Greed in Goa, by Hartman de Souza, writer, teacher, actor and artist. It’s a history of and status report on mining, largely covering 2006-11, which de Souza calls the ‘Age of Greed’, and the impact it has had on this tiny coastal state.

But that’s too dry a definition of a book that is written in blood, much like an anguished letter of unrequited love. It talks of a beloved, beautiful land, ravaged and lost to rampant, illplanned and illegal extraction of iron ore, and it ends almost in hope, eloquently evoked by describing the gurgling and gushing of a stream through forests that were slowly reviving after the Supreme Court ordered a halt to mining in 2012. But the ban was lifted in September last year, ironically making this a timely book.

In 2008-09, Goa produced 38 million tonnes of iron ore, mostly of which was exported to China and Japan. This was extracted by opencast mining, whereby mountains are blasted and the earth is ripped up. For the environment, no method could be worse. Some 30 million tonnes of mining detritus fiowed annually into Goa’s rivers: the Mandovi, Goa’s lifeline, is estimated to have carried 2 lakh tonnes of sediment every year. Illegalities abounded—in extraction, export, transport, waste disposal—and the Goa Foundation, an activist group, had contested them in court. The Supreme Court ban came in response to the Shah commission report (2011), which noted that illegal mining had caused a Rs 35,000 crore to the exchequer in the last 12 years.

In 2010, visiting Goa for a story when mining was at its peak and the battle for the environment at fever pitch, I visited Bicholim, Rivona, Maina, Quepem, Netravali, the Khushavati river—all mining hotspots where forests were razed and even designated sanctuaries pillaged by mining companies. Mining was ruining Goa’s forests,

EAT DUST: MINING AND GREED IN GOA | HARPER LITMUS | PAGES: 277 | RS. 350

rivers, soil and indeed the very fabric of life, forcing people to leave their villages, their fields rendered infecund. De Souza’s chronicle is personal. His journey starts on a hill near his sister’s home in Maina, a small village at the foothills of the Western Ghats. So thick was the forest, the hill was an impossible climb. When he finally managed the trek in the 1990s, he says, he ended up alm ost stepping on a snake. There were frogs, crabs, spiders, deer, porcupines, gaur, leopard and the occasional tiger. Then the hill just A forested hill on vanished—hacked, raked down and reduced to which lived a lot of orange dust. The disappearance left him fuzzywildlife was razed by headed, and he writes, he wondered how to come miners. Thus a jourto terms with the deliberate peacetime destruction of the agricultural practices and everyday life of ney begins, about a a people. So begins a travelogue, on the trail of a land systematically missing hill, taking him across Goa’s “burnished laid waste. orange deserts” where once stood verdant forests, fecund fields. His hard investigative journalism, backed by hard data, spares none—mining giants, politicians, the bureaucracy and a corrupted media, exposing the nexus between them. The book is also a family memoir.

Perhaps the most poignant and inspiring part of the book is about de Souza’s feisty sister Cheryl, who took on the powers that were after her ore-rich farm, finally chaining herself and her equally spunky 83-year-old mother to a mine entrance and courting arrest. Some might call the book an emotional acc ount. It surely is, and how can it not be? And that’s what makes it a riveting read. Besides telling of the rape of Goa, it raises larger questions about our much-vaunted ‘development’ model.

THE WORD De Souza has a varied bacground, having worked in education, theatre and journalism.

Till recently, he was artistic director of the Space Theatre Ensemble, Goa. 36 OUTLOOK

8 FEBRUARY 2016

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A Shadow and Its Image NOT AN EULOGY OF SEN AND REFRAINS FROM ELABORATING ON THE MANY CONTROVERSIES IN WHICH SHE WAS INVOLVED

BY AMITAVA NAG

Suchitra Sen is incomparable in the context of Bengali cinema and, to an extent, the larger Indian cinema. She commanded a respect in her lifetime which few actres­ses of the era could dream of, got characters written for her, had the box-office at her feet. Yet she could leave all of these and go on an exile in 1978 after Pronay Pasha and didn’t appear in public ever after (apart from probably two occasions) till her death two years ago. This reclusiveness equated her with Greta Garbo—the iconic American star of the 1920-30s.

It is quite a wait for the English reader for a book on the legendary actress. There was a coffee-tabler before this by the same author and one on Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen by Maitr­eyee B. Chowdhury. There are quite a few in Bengali, most of them trivialising her self-imposed reclusion and hinting at gossip. The book by Chatterji, hence, is a relief since it shuns petty sensationalism.

In the 1950s, Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen acted in over 20 films, almost all of them runaway hits. They had a chemistry yet unparalleled in Bengali cinema. Chatterji gives insights to their popularity on screen and the dignity they maintained in their relationship when gossip-mongers preyed on them. The book starts off with details about the magic of Uttam and Suchitra Sen—the reasons why they rem­ained ahead of any other contemporary duo.

Chatterji picks up a few films like Agnipariksha, Harano Sur, Rajlakshmi o Sreekanto, Saptapadi and Nabarag to exp­lain where Sen made her characterisations appear different as the duo rep­r­e­­sented different modes of melodrama. “Suchitra Sen, like Nargis and Madhubala, was, for a major part of her career, an unwitting victim of her beauty, her grace and her essential femininity that played down her potential capabilities as an actress,” writes Chatterji.

Shunning petty trivialisation, the book sets Suchitra Sen against actors of her time. One omission, however, is Supriya Devi.

SUCHITRA SEN: THE LEGEND AND THE ENIGMABY SHOMA A. CHATTERJI HARPERCOLLINS INDIA | PAGES: 238 | RS. 350

grace and her essential femininity that played down her potential capabilities as an actress,” writes Chatterji.

The book goes into details to set out Sen against her contemporaries and those who preceded her, like Kanan Devi. One glaring miss is that there is no reference to Supriya Devi, who was a bit younger to Sen but acted probably in more films with Uttam Kumar than any other heroine and who also happened to be the live-in partner of the mahanayak.

After Saptapadi (1961), the duo decided to do less films together and travelled different trajectories to scale heights in their acting career. For Suchitra, Saat Paake Bandha and Datta are the notable ones without Uttam Kumar. The chapter that demands special attention is the one titled

BIBLIOFILE

‘Working Women, Bengali Cinema and Suchitra Sen’.

Without being pedagogic or theoretical, Chatterji charts out the roles that Senplayed as a strong working woman, in films like Sabar Uparey, Indrani, Deep Jele Jai, Hospital, Uttar Phalguni and Aandhi. She says it was not accidental that Sen was offered roles with a heart and a strength of character that befitted her glowing external beauty.

From elaborating on the many controversies in which she was involved. There are not many books on any of the biggest stars of Indian screen which are analytical and yet offer a happy reading experience. Chatterji has successfully done this—her probing at the star’s image, her characterisations and her reel persona as an artist.

The shopping Marlon James did in India...

At the car park next to Diggi Palace, the venue of Jaipur Literature Festival, there is Marlon James. The author of A Brief History of Seven Killings, which won the Booker last year, is arresting, cool in a blue designer slingbag flung across his tee, his hundred plaits glistening. He had a tricky start to the JLF. Before him, his now famous FB post, ‘Nice first impression, India’, a rant about how he was treated at Delhi airport, had arrived. He tried to quickly win friends and laugh it off, saying, “Listen, I come from Jamaica. I can’t judge a country by its airport.” But his sessions at the JLF are now over and he is going shopping—to a mall. A mall? In Jaipur, where there is such fantastic ethnic stuff? There is not much time, we are planning to quickly go over to Fabindia and pick up some stuff, says his publicist. A little later he is back. So did he find anything? “Yes, I picked up some kurtas,” he says.

8 FEBRUARY 2016

OUTLOOK 37

Crosseyed Heart QUITE MAGICALLY MARRIES GOOD OLD ROCK WITH SOUL, FOLK, BLUES AND EVEN REGGAE.

BY SUNIT ARORA

MUSIC ENGLISH | ****

BOOKS AND REVIEWS

A

a time when so many music legends, from David Bowie to Glenn Frey, have left us in quick succession for what must be a pretty big party up in the sky, one has to admire Keith Richards’s staying power. The Rolling Stones guitarist and Mick Jagger’s right-hand man is the original wild boy of rock.

He has battled and urvived heroin and cocaine addictions; has been in a semiconscious state for two years after hitting his head while jumping from a branch; and even snorted his father’s ashes. (Numerous alcohol-sodden stories of wild sex and brushes with the law are brilliantly documented in his autobiography, Life.)

Given that armies of baby-boomers are willing to pay over $1,000 a pop to see the best rock-and-roll band ever, one would assume Richards (who insists he now smokes only one joint every morning) would prefer coasting into his 70s. But instead after 23 years, he serves up a solo album that quite magically marries good old rock with soul, folk, blues and even reggae. If one sounds surprised, well, yes one had forgotten just how good Richards is (not only as a guitarist; how can one forget he co-wrote songs like Satisfaction and Jumping Jack Flash?).

That’s why he chooses to throw us a doosra in the very first song, Crosseyed Heart.

After some old-fashioned croaking and guitar tweaking, he says, “All right, that’s all I’ve got,” in just under two minutes, before soaring into the beautiful Heartstopper (But when she holds me something starts anew/She forgives me and I forgive her too). The ageing rocker then takes a walk around, follows his muse, and happily, it works brilliantly. There’s only one cover—the peppy 1970s lovers’ anthem Love Overdue—and a playful duet with Norah Jones, Illusions.

The remainder is something the Rolling Stones would have been proud of. My favourite track by far is Suspicious, where Richards’ guitar weeps in sympathy. In another beauty, when Richard croaks, almost triumphantly, “you’ve got nothing on me”, it’s almost like we can see him, grinning away, cigarette in mouth, and waving “up yours” to the world at large.

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BIBLIOFILE TIGER TIME

“Sorry, I am what?” asks T.M. Krishna. “You are a tiger,” says the Carnatic maestro’s fan. “Oh, I don’t know if that’s how I would like to be described,” guffaws Krishna. But in his session with ace photographer and ‘bookmaker’ Dayanita Singh, ‘The Inner Life of Cultures’, Krishna is indeed charged.

He demolis­hes the superiority of one metaphorical ‘caste’ of exc­lusivist classical singers. Later, at another interaction with youngsters at the Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur, he is again at pains to explain how music must break these hierarchies. “I can’t tell a folk singer that his Bhairavi is corrupted while mine is pure.”

CHARLIE FILM MALAYALAM | ***

QUITE MAGICALLY MARRIES GOOD OLD ROCK WITH SOUL, FOLK, BLUES AND EVEN REGGAE.

BY SUNIT ARORA

Starring: Dulquer Salmaan, Parvathy Menon Director: Martin Prakkat Overwhelmed by the ennui of her job, her life and a tiresome marriage proposal to a rich oaf, Tessa (Parvathy Menon) just flees from it all. She rents out a dilapidated room at the top of the stairs in Fort Kochi. When she steps into her room, it takes on a life of its own. It transports her into a mesmerising land filled with art works abandoned by the mysterious previous lodger (Dulquer Salmaan). Tessa, broom and brush in hand in a bid to clean up the room, stumbles upon a brilliantly sketched graphic novel. And the story comes alive: the room, the former roomer and a thief who comes a-robbing. Tessa, spellbound, learns that the roomer accompanies the thief on his nightly adventure. They clamber up a roof and look down through an opening and what they see shocks them. The novel ends abruptly there with the rest of the pages left blank.

This intri­gues Tessa no end and she sets out on a magical journey to find the characters of the novel and the former roomer, a secretive man who slips in and out of people’s lives. Is this for real? Is he a djinn? The film has a surreal quality charged with elements of mystery and fantasy.

Charlie sure has the potential of crossing borders and becoming a pan-Indian phenomenon: a veritable Charlie industry.

8 FEBRUARY 2016

OUTLOOK 39

TRENDING

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10 QUESTONS

GEENA DAVIS

ACTRESS, WRITER, MODEL AND ATHLETE, DAVIS HAS JUGGLEWD A LOT. SHE WILL BE IN INDIA FOR THE FICCI FLO FILM FESTIVAL IN PARTNERSHIP WITH HER INSTITUTE ON GENDER IN MEDIA.

BY SIDHARTH MISHRA

40 OUTLOOK

Your first break was acting via modelling?

I was never a lsupermoder„ but I tried. Then I learned some athletic skills. And then the Olympics happened. The Olympics got all this cov-erage and 1 was thinking, “archery is beautiful”. My assistant found me the Olympic coach— like I said, I take everything too far. I learned to play baseball and I was like, “Hey wait a second, I’m kind of good at this.” After that, I learned a bunch of athletic skills for movies.

Have you seep, rease in the fem a male ratio in A TV/film recently?

There is a point where they’re trying to spot a trend and we keep fall-ing for this notion that now there’s Bridesmaids, now there’s Hunger Games ...It hasn’t started a trend.

You had thought it would have changed?

Twice. After Thelma & Louise, and even after A League of Their Own .

Ever had an instance when you were subject to sexism?

A director once spoke about how much he enjoyed hug-ging me: “Its the only chance I get to feel you up.” I’ve definitely seen sexism on the set, though not that much directed at me.

Is gender still an issue?

Yes! Even if people say, ‘1 m just hiring the best person’, they hire only male directors.

What was a takeaway from Thelma and Louise for you?

The reaction of women was profound. I realised how few opportunities we give women to feel excited and empow-ered via the medium.

And what it like playing sident in er in Chief?

Every interviewer ould say, do you think 11 euer see a female ur life-would ask, what century do you live in?

Any projects we should be looking forward to?

For my Institute, I’m thrilled to be with FICCI FLO. I’m also excited about the second Bentonville Film Festival.

Now, any upcoming films?

For my Institute, I’m thrilled that we’re partnered with FICCI FLO on our first global symposium in India. I’m very excited about the second year of our Bentonville Film Festival. And I just finished shooting the film version of Margery Prime with Jon Hamm, Tim Robbins and Lois Smith.

8 FEBRUARY 2016

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GLITERATI GILT(Y) AS EVER Rekha dazzled the crowds at the Yash Chopra Memorial Awards in Mumbai last week in her—by now trademark— gold kanjeevaram saree. No one can accuse this doyenne of being too subtle although she is still guilty of making us all swoon over her impeccable style .

FEMME FATALITY Are Sharmila Tagore and Mehr Tarar exchanging notes on damage control at the Kolkata Lit Meet?

Neither is a stranger to notoriety, although Mehr seems seems to have recovered pretty well from the storm around Sunanda Pushkar’s suicide.

THE MOST ROYAL OF RACES

A BALL IN THE WRONG COURT

The Mahalaxmi Racecourse saw both a princess and a queen on Sunday. But while Princess Zahra Aga Khan merely sparkled in her pearls and added to the festivity, the ‘showstopper’ was Queen Myrtlewood, a filly who won the third classic of the Mumbai Season.

Ronaldinho may have seemed indestructible to all the teams that faced him but a collective sigh of relief went around when he narrowly escaped injury from a traffic signal post nearly crashing into his car in Kozhikode earlier this week.

BOSSED AROUND The rumour goes that Colors TV kept Mandana Karimi’s beau and family away from her to up the drama. Clearly Bigg Boss is once again taking ‘being entertainting’ a bit too far.

BORING FOOTBALL? The Manchester United team has been coming in for flak due to ‘boring football’ this season but club and England captain Wayne Rooney has thrown in some fireworks by diligently following the celebrity guidelines set down by the Kardashians and having a third child. He goes by the name of Kit Joseph Rooney.

8 FEBRUARY 2016

OUTLOOK 41

DIARY

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DELHI

Mana­ging the headlines may be standard operating pro­cedure for Modi Sarkar but it still hasn’t found a way to stop tongues from wagging after dark.

KRISHNA PRASAD, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, OUTLOOK E-mail your diarist: krishnaprasad@outlookindia.com

THE SIEGE WITHIN Even at the best of times, the national capital is a breeding ground for conspiracy theories. Who pushed Arunji to drag Arvindji to court? Is ‘chh­ota’ bhai getting a leg-up to cut down ‘bada’ bhai? Will PC ‘saar’ succeed in sneaking in a Pun­j­­abi ‘babu’ into the PMO? Tendentious twaddle, which would have otherwise populated Subramanian Swamy’s Twitter timeline, now lubricates swish dinner parties.

Mana­ging the headlines may be standard operating pro­cedure for Modi Sarkar but it still hasn’t found a way to stop tongues from wagging after dark.

Even so, a piece of gossip worthy of consideration is whether a section within the BJP and the RSS is trying to stymie the advertised arrival of ‘achche din’. We are not talking sabotage-level stuff here, but something is clearly amiss when the actors start deviating from a tight script under the gaze of a strict director. The fate of the GST bill offers some indication of what is afoot.

Days after the PM called the Congress for a ‘chai pe charcha’ to break the logjam, the National Herald case broke the bonhomie.

42 OUTLOOK

Now, with the budget session around, President’s rule in Congress-run Arunachal Pradesh takes the ­impasse to another orbit.

Mohammed Akhlaq then, Rohith Vemula now. In other words, is somebody out to wreck the dream of a single market across the country? Either that, or everyone on Raisina Hill is reading ‘How to Make Foes and Influence People’ and Modi is a firm believer in homoeopathy—making things seriously worse before making them better.

STAR CARP Of all the Republic Day honours this year, the one that riled me the most was the Padma Vibhushan for Rajnikanth. I mean, seriously? The second highest civilian honour for what? For flinging cigarettes into his mouth and lighting them up as they landed? For his rat-a-tat dialogue delivery? For box-office returns? For being a ‘superstar’? For being an icon in Japan?

There is no question that the one-time bus conductor has been one of India’s more rooted ­entertainers, wearing fame and fortune lightly. Sans his makeup, he is simple, humble, even spiritual, and he

would be the first to admit that he is no patch on Kamal Haasan or Sivaji Ganesan (both Padma Bhushans). In any case, Rajni himself landed the Padma Bhushan when the Vajpayee government was in power 14 years ago, so what explains the promotion?

If it is just an issue of the BJP identifying a jewel the Cong­ress wouldn’t, how couldn’t it spot him last year?

Perhaps the answer is more simple: adv­ance booking for the assembly polls in Tamil Nadu; a thank-you note for not taking the plunge and keeping everyone guessing. A Raj­ni­kanth at Rashtrapati Bhavan will get the awards show a full house, and perhaps irritate Jayala­litha a bit, but in accepting it, is the joke on Rajni?

TARGET TENDULKAR There was a time when half the Indian cricket team comprised players from Bombay or Bangalore. Now, with the surnames reading Dhawan, Kohli, Mishra, Pandey, Raina, Sha­rma, Singh, Saran and so on, the line-up has more of a Karol Bagh feel to it, although a couple of them are far from Delhi. The old cliche about ‘tagda’ north Indians being tougher nuts to crack than ‘Madrasis’ didn’t stand a chance of being tested as the 1-4 scoreline in the ODIs showed, but who cares?

Has any modern great batted better than Virat Kohli on away soil at his age (27)?

Your reporter thinks not. Obviously, we are comparing batsmen from different eras who were up against qualitatively better bowlers.

But still, it is difficult to remember Lara or Sachin, Mahela or Mark Waugh having batted with such assurance and brilliance as Kohli from ball one, in match after match.

Of course, we could be speaking too early, but at this rate, Kohli will beat Tendulkar’s records, sooner not later.

Everything Kohli does on the field oozes style, except when he is at the top of his mark. When Michael Slater said on air, “I cannot believe it. How can such a goodlooking batsman have such a bad bowling action?” he was merely reading my mind, in Lajpat Nagar, Part 3.

LAST WEEK I read that when Marilyn Monroe posed nude for a shoot, she was asked by the press if it was true she had nothing on.

Her reply: “Oh no, I had the radio on.”

8 FEBRUARY 2016