Revolutionary Road

After the dastardly killing of journalist Gauri Lankesh on September 5, 2017, her first birth anniversary was observed in a big way at Bengaluru Town Hall on January 29, 2018. Popular youth speakers Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Shehla Rashid Shora, Jignesh Mevani, who were close to Gauri Lankesh, spoke to a capacity crowd. Veteran freedom fighter H.S. Doreswamy was the well-known local face, while Carnatic musician T.M. Krishna, who is very vocal about his egalitarian views,  played a few of his famous protest numbers. 

The mood was very anti-establishment with every speaker berating BJP and its policies ranging from demonetization of high-value currency notes to crackdown on various universities. Doreswamy’s open call to vote out BJP drew thunderous applause.

When the function got over, I hung around the Town Hall veranda waiting for a friend as the crowd spilled over to the streets. The main speakers had a tough time negotiating among fans and selfie-seekers. When Kanhaiya, Umar, Shehla and Jignesh reached the veranda, I overheard someone saying, “They need to be careful. After all they are the real opposition.”

These youngsters were far more vocal in questioning the government and its controversial policies than the dispirited opposition parties. Kanhaiya, Umar, and Shehla had earned their spurs after the JNU agitation in 2016, while Jignesh became the face of the protest movement following the flogging of four Dalit youths in Una, Gujarat. 

Kanhaiya belonged to All India Students Federation, the student wing of CPI, and later unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha election from Begusarai in Bihar. Umar too came from a hardcore Communist background and is a professed atheist. Shehla belonged to All India Students Association, affiliated to CPI (ML). Jignesh was a lawyer and Dalit activist based out of Gujarat. He himself hails from the Dalit community. 

On the other hand the Opposition parties were seen as being inhibited in taking to the streets. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was still battling with the pappu image and even those who were opposed to BJP were not taking him seriously. The regional party leaders were seen as too weak with limited appeal and fixated to caste-specific and region-specific agendas. 

Under the Modi regime, the mainstream media had undergone an acute dumbing down with self-censorship taking precedence over speaking truth to power in most media houses. Outspoken Journalists and TV anchors were weeded out and only the pliable ones remained. They were so fully engrossed in singing praises of the government that they gave hardly any space to opposition parties, and lost no opportunity to belittle them.  

Different Trajectories

Now over six years after the Bengaluru Town Hall meet, the career trajectories of these youth leaders have moved in different directions. Kanhaiya moved to the Congress party after being associated with CPI for a few years. Jignesh too gravitated to the Congress party after being elected as an independent MLA from Vadgam in Gujarat. 

Umar continued to soldier on with atheism and ties with left-leaning organisations. He got arrested during the Delhi riots in 2020 as an alleged conspirator and was booked under the draconian UAPA. He has now spent over 1000 days in prison without a trial. The way his case is progressing, with numerous adjournments, is a classic case of ‘process as punishment’ – something that will make Franz Kafka blush.

His case hearing was adjourned on January 23 despite the court making it clear during the previous hearing that no further adjournments would be given. Earlier he was also denied parole during the deadly Covid-19 pandemic as he was a UAPA detainee. Khalid also contracted the virus in jail but survived.

However, all through his struggles, the deafening silence of his erstwhile comrade-in-arm Kanhaiya Kumar appeared very glaring. It is not clear whether there was any personal rift or pressure from the Congress party bigwigs. 

However, Kanhaiya has now become the face of the Congress party, holding press conferences along with senior leaders like Jairam Ramesh, and often regales journalists with his rhetorical flourish.

On the other hand, the Congress party has done little to tap Jignesh’s talents and he remains a nondescript MLA in Gujarat. The party could have projected him as its Dalit face and used his services during elections in various states.

Abject Capitulation

However, the most mystifying trajectory among this lot is that of Shehla Rashid’s. During the above-mentioned Gauri Lankesh birth anniversary function, civil rights activist Teesta Setalvad, who was the MC during the function, had praised Shehla effusively. Teesta said Shehla is a Kashmiri, a JNU student, a Muslim, and a woman – in short, she ticks all the boxes that put her in the crosshairs of BJP’s troll army.

Shehla made an impassioned speech about how she was close to Gauri and what a blow her untimely demise was. She attacked the BJP government for throttling dissent and urged the audience to vote out the BJP in the assembly election that was to take place a few months later.

On social media, she was a stormy petrel. She was very vocal on Twitter with frequent jousts with the right-wingers over issues ranging from stifling of dissent to misogyny. 

When the union government abrogated Article 370 that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 and downgraded the state into two Union Territories, she was among a group of 23 petitioners who had filed a case in the Supreme Court in 2022 challenging the government ruling.

However, a year later Shehla sought to withdraw her name from the list of petitioners and it was granted by the apex court.

After that capitulation, she kept a low profile for a while and was conspicuous by her absence on social media platforms. Twitterati was abuzz speculating about her sudden disappearance.

Then she began appearing on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms with posts laudatory of the Narendra Modi government. The icing on the cake was an interview she gave to Smita Prakash of ANI where she hailed Narendra Modi and Amit Shah as being ‘selfless leaders’. She also spoke about her ‘flirtation’ with revolutionary politics and being in an ‘echo chamber’, during her days as a JNU student and how she has outgrown it. 

What caused this turnaround is a million-dollar mystery and hundreds of theories abound. She is not the first person to distance herself from a left-leaning outfit, many have done so in the past owing to various reasons. But the way she is dissing her erstwhile ideology has angered many of her former comrades.

She is now singing praises of the Narendra Modi government with the fervent zeal of a born-again religious convert.

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Dumb and Dumber

 

While reading late journalist/editor Vinod Mehta’s memoir Editor Unplugged, published in 2014 and a sequel to his earlier memoir Lucknow Boy,  one is astonished to see the cockiness of TV news channels in the pre-Modi days. Mehta, whose entire four-decade-old career spanned through the print medium starting from the ancient linotype era, had a love-hate relationship with the TV news channels. 

He used to be a reluctant guest at some of the panel discussions on TV, but savoured the ‘face recognition’ it offered among the general public. He, however, claims that he will never trade his position as a print publication editor for that of a TV anchor.

Mehta chides Indian TV news anchors for lacking nuance while dealing with the complexities of politics, unlike their British and American counterparts, but grudgingly acknowledges that TV new channels have changed the citizen-politician relationship and made the latter more accessible to the aam aadmi. He also lauds TV channels for throwing light on the day-to-day hassles and cruelty experienced by the unempowered class.

A case in point was the brutal gangrape of a Delhi woman in 2012, now known as the Nirbhaya case. The saturation coverage by TV news channels ensured that the issue never got relegated to a statistic and the perpetrators got punished. The victim’s family hailed from a lower middle-class background. Various TV news channels, especially the vernacular ones, have also highlighted the woes faced by the urban poor in metro cities and the pathetic conditions of slums.

TV news reporters back then were very aggressive and never hesitated from shoving the mic in front of those in power and posing tough questions. During the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai and the numerous corruption allegations that the then UPA government faced, the TV journalists raised pertinent questions that had put the Manmohan Singh government on the mat and it had to pay a heavy price during the 2014 general elections.

But after the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government came to power in 2014, the mindset of TV news reporters and media houses has undergone a sea change. There has been a total meltdown of the combativeness among the TV anchors with most of them toeing the government line. 

They can be now broadly classified into two categories – lap dogs and guard dogs. The former see no wrong in the government and sing praises day in and day out, and totally blank out any criticism or dissent. They willingly and unabashedly work as the propaganda arm of the government.

The second types also carry out the above functions, but in addition, they strain every nerve to discredit and nip in the bud whatever little dissent is left in the country. Former NDTV India anchor Ravish Kumar, one of those honourable exceptions who chose not to join the lap-dog-guard-dog herd, had coined the term Godi Media (media sitting in the lap of establishment) and it soon gained wide credence.

The conduct of mainstream leading television stations during the recent farmers’ agitation and earlier unrests will surely make Mehta turn in his grave. They were busy looking for a sliver of opportunity to discredit the protestors, look for a foreign conspiracy angle, and dub the protesters as anti-national. They never dared shove the mic in front of any ruling party neta to ask some hard questions.

This slavish docility is not confined to TV news channels. Many newspaper columnists have become circumspect and resort to wishy-washy stands on various issues. The same guys had no fear of taking on the Prime Minister and the government during Manmohan Singh’s tenure and before. 

Self-censorship is now a byword for most publications and it is there at all levels - right from the reporter to editor to proprietor. Hence spinning the narrative in the favour of the ruling party is the new credo. Otherwise, government ads stop coming or, even worse, they enter the bad books of state-run investigative agencies. 

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For Whom The Bell Trolls

Fresh from a thumping win in the 2014 general elections and on his maiden visit to the US after becoming Prime Minister, Narendra Modi suffered a Freudian slip while regaling the fawning NRI audience at Madison Square. He referred to fellow Gujarati Mahatma Gandhi as 'Mohanlal' Karamchand Gandhi. Hailing from an organisation not favourably disposed towards Mahatma's brand of politics, it was quite understandable, even though 'Mohandas' is neither difficult to recall nor a tongue twister.

His 'Mohanlal' gaffe didn’t create much of a flutter elsewhere, but it did ring a bell and drew light hearted titters in the deep south of the Vindhyas, where an actor by that name enjoys super star status and even has a fans' association. Mohanlal carries his plus size frame with rare agility and  elan. And his dialogue delivery, especially the punch lines, are always lustily lapped up by his first-day-first-show fans.

Now two years down the line Modi's path once again crossed with Mohanlal and it is anything but light hearted.  This time it was one of those one-liners, of nearly two-decades vintage, that has morphed into a hashtag #pomonemodi and set off a Twitter-tsunami.

It looked more like a poetic justice. Because it is the Hindutva keypad warriors who were notorious for running down their opponents by posting nasty comments and trolling was considered their forte. But now Modi was getting a taste of his own medicine.

During his whistle stop tour of poll-bound Kerala, he remarked that the condition of Adivasis in Kerala was akin to that of people in Somalia. This badly ruffled the Malayali ego, which takes pride in its enviable Human Development Index, which is on par with Scandinavian countries.

However, it needs to be pointed out that the HDI among Adivasis in Kerala is not as impressive as its general population and leaves a lot to be desired. The governmental apathy and agricultural distress at the state's tribal belts have taken a heavy toll on their well being. But even then they are much better off than Adivasis in other states.

Modi's remark sparked off an unprecedented mobilisation of Malayalees on Twitter. Even those who had settled down elsewhere in the country or abroad decades ago, used to berate Mallu accent and were dismissive about the state in general, they too got galvanised to join the Twitter hashtag bandwagon and fire 140-character salvos at Modi.

The type of humour ranged from light hearted sarcasm, often accompanied by memes; some disputed Modi's claim using graphics, but some even got into the avoidable territory of racism, making fun of dark skin of Africans.

The popularity of this hashtag led to a counter hashtag #pomonechandi but with limited success, and a wag exhorted them to try something more original "like #solargirigiri or some such thing" to highlight the infamous solar scam for which the current Oommen Chandy government is drawing lot of flak.

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Pollscape Lexicon

The high decibel nine-phase General elections is finally drawing to a close and over the period many political leaders and activists through their foot in mouth antics have enriched the political lexicon. In addition, the lengthening shadow of social media over our lives and the political hashtag jousts have only added another dimension to it.

ABCD: The baby steps taken by children as a prelude to rote learning is not all that simple and bland. In adept hands it could be loaded with vitriol.

Chanta lagaa..: In our notoriously unsafe-for-women public spaces some high-profile women Lok Sabha candidates had to sometimes take matters in their hands to avoid getting groped.

Empowerment: Though this ennobling term was used by Rahul Gandhi as a substitute for loss of words, the fact remains our society actually needs large doses of it.

Honeymoon: Coming from the mouth of a professed brahmachari and yoga guru who makes his followers rub nails to kill time and reduce anxiety over hair loss, it had a ugly fallout of rubbing the Dalit community wrong way.

RSVP: You might have heard about the term, but never bothered to know what it stood for, barring those who had French as their second language in college. But now this four-letter acronym is drawing acrimonious responses.

Selfie: This platform for narcissism was put to use by all and sundry to brag their 'inked' fingers. Suddenly it became cool to vote, whatever it takes. Wonder whether the citizenry will show the same zeal in acting against trespasses of elected representatives and incumbent government.

Slapgate: When any aam aadmi decides to have a go at the political leaders, especially those who had shunned SPG/NSG paraphernalia.

Wave: At present the definition is as varied as breakers on any sea coast and dependent on his or her political conviction. But May 16 will choose only one of them.

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My Tryst With EVM

Finally, after nearly a decade and half long hiatus I went ahead to exercise my franchise. Don’t remember when I actually last voted. Those were pre-EVM days and the shaky 90s - the days of Chandrashekhar, Deve Gowda and I K Gujral, when central governments were unsteady and elections used to happen even before the indelible ink on the fingers could fade away.

Later frequent relocation and sheer apathy to register myself as a voter in those cities kept me away from polling booths. However this time the numerous campaign to register as voters goaded me to get 'inked' for election. After many trips to the election office I managed to get a voter id card.

While on my way to the polling station I happened to come across some party helpdesks with lots of eager faces to assist me locate my serial number and booth number. Some of the desks even had laptops, quite a far cry from the 90s when they were not even heard of. But nowadays they seemed very discreet in displaying their party affiliations, thanks to more proactive election commission.

After finding my name and getting a slip mentioning the serial number and booth number, the guy said, "Sir please vote for BJP and Modi." Till then I had no idea as to which party's helpdesk it was. Moreover he didn't even bother to mention who the local BJP party candidate was. All got swept under NaMo frenzy!

For me this election was my first tryst with EVM, so it gave me a similar kind of thrill I had while using an ATM for the first time more than a decade ago. While approaching the polling station I saw a queue of about 25 persons but on reaching there it became apparent that it was not meant for me and the booth I was supposed to vote had no queue. The polling officials seemed relieved on seeing me.

Upon producing my voter's ID and signing a list the indelible ink was put on my left thumb. The polling official was too generous regarding ink and it soon cascaded all the way to the tip of my thumb. In short, it was no way photogenic enough to be flaunted as 'ink finger selfie' on Facebook. In fact I thought if I post the picture, I may invite 'get well soon' messages, as it looked more like a blood clot on a finger that got caught on the wrong end of a door!

Then I was asked to move to the enclosure where the EVM was placed. The list seemed quite long enough, had no idea there were so many candidates in fray, only two or three names seemed familiar. After spotting the candidate name I wanted to vote for I pressed the button next to it. It gave off a beep and later the polling official told me it was over.

Relieved of having done an onerous duty without delays and goof ups I went home and eagerly tracked the turnout in my city Bangalore with that of others. Sad to say that though it was an improvement from its 2009 tally, it may have disappointed the numerous NGOs and other organisations who worked tirelessly to boost voter turnout.

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India' Population Conundrum

Right from school days, Civics text books drill into our heads that the country's runaway population is our major problem. And the demographers, in order to show its magnitude, resort to dramatic comparisons - the most popular one being that every year we are adding the population of Australia to our overcrowded land. So whatever little progress is made gets neutralised by it. Forget metros, even small towns are bursting at the seams due to population pressure.

In seventies we had the famous 'hum do hamare do' campaign and while travelling through highways in north India, the water tanks in some nondescript villages had the graffiti 'parivaar bhi seemit, paani bhi seemit' (loosely translated it meant 'small family, less water consumption').

But somehow the country's family planning drive met with only limited success in some parts (that too mainly in urban areas), while in vast swathes (especially the infamous BIMARU hinterland) it did little to arrest the burgeoning population. The reasons ranged from policy loopholes to downright lack of political will and then of course the well entrenched patriarchal mores surrounding girl child. As a negative fallout it encouraged female foeticide and spawned a cottage industry involving doctors and diagnostic labs to carry out sex determination tests. The end result has been an  alarmingly skewed sex ratios in many states.

The coercive sterilisation tactics used during the infamous Emergency made family planning a dirty word and the political class became cagey about promoting it.

Now we have hurtled ourselves within a striking distance to overtake even the most populous nation - China, that has a land mass three times our size. The recent 'population map' of India (albeit with truncated Kashmir), going viral on Twitter, shows the magnitude of problem in a more alarming light. The population of every state seems to be on par with some of the most populous countries in the world.

Thus the country's most populous state Uttar Pradesh has a population higher than Pakistan and is on par with Brazil, which is ranked fifth in world population ranking. By the way Brazil's population is spread over a land mass that is greater than whole of India. As for Uttar Pradesh its land mass shrank a decade ago after Uttarakhand was hived off.

The next most populous state Maharashtra is on par with Mexico, ranked eleventh in world; followed by Bihar which is on par with Philippines, ranked 12 and West Bengal on par with Vietnam, ranked 13. Comrades in Bengal will be happy to know that they have one more thing in common with Vietnam.

Andhra Pradesh has a population equal to Egypt, ranked 15. Madhya Pradesh has a population equivalent to Turkey, ranked 18, while Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan are equal to Thailand, ranked 20.

Next in line comes Gujarat and Karnataka and their population equivalent of that of Italy, ranked 23. This is a comparison that Narendra Modi and his ardent followers may not be happy about.  For Gujarat strongman anything Italian reminds him of his political rivals.

Interestingly Kerala (one of few success stories in population control) has a population equal to Canada, ranked 37 in world, but the North American country has a land mass nearly three times that of India! Good news for Kabutarbaaz (human traffickers) and those moving heaven and earth to get 'kaneda' visas.

Now the population debate has been turned on its head. The term 'population explosion' is passe, now demographic dividend is the new mantra. The policy makers are now trying to make a virtue out of their failure to curb population growth. Recent census data shows that those in the 15-24 age group form more than 60 per cent of the population. They argue that if provided with right skills, they could prove to be a very productive asset. However history has shown that when it comes to planning, execution and political will, our leaders inspire little confidence. Hence there is little to look forward to the so called dividend, it will most probably prove to be a liability.

Image source: Twitter

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Emerging Financial Ghettos

While TV channels were riveted by Khobragade circus, India's richest man took a momentous decision of shuttering his non-vegetarian food business, ostensibly owing to objection from vegetarian share holders. The move evoked three cheers from Internet Hindu keyboard warriors and PETA types who hailed it as an 'ethical' step. Did I hear K G Basin, Swiss Bank accounts, 2G, Aston Martin ... ? Oh come on after all which businessman does not have run-ins with tax and law enforcement agencies. So why deny Mukeshbhai his due.

The move smacked of an exclusivism similar to the one displayed by upmarket housing societies of South Mumbai barring tenants or buyers who happen to be non-vegetarians (read Muslims). Though talking of exclusive housing societies in Mumbai, it must be mentioned that there are similar enclaves of Parsees, Muslims and Christians and this trend has more or less continued ever since it got a booster dose after the Babri Masjid demolition riots.

Businessmen are known to trim sails according to political winds, and since Narendra Modi seems to be the frontrunner for the next elections, they are working overtime to build bridges with the party in waiting. Hence the above move should be seen in that backdrop. Otherwise why would they shutter down meat business now, after running it for five years. And to be fair to Ambanis they are not alone. Most business houses and the Sensex-driven class sees the current UPA government as lame duck with no quaking to do.

Coming back to investing, this kind of 'ethical' activism has been prevalent in the Indian bourses for nearly a decade. Already in the BSE there are Halal and Dharmic stocks. The former shuns businesses that charge interest, deal with alcohol, pork, liquor and gambling, while the latter professes to help Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs to invest in stocks that are in sync with their religious beliefs. The don'ts in Dharmic list comprises tobacco, aerospace and defence, brewers, casinos, gaming, and pharmaceuticals that indulge in animal testing and genetic modifications. Soon we may even have Khap stocks index listing companies that promote sex determination equipment and proscribing companies involved in making ladies jeans and ingredients for chowmein!

The question arises as to how does one monitor whether these companies are not straying from the moral high road of religion. Moreover what about other ethical tenets such as desisting from employing child labour, fleecing workers and customers or land grab from poor tribals. Sorry, they cause as much excitement to Sensex movers and shakers as Khobragade's maid to Indian media.

As more such financials ghettos emerge in the Indian investment scape, the analysts can safely bet on a 'secular' growth for these stocks.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat