125

THE A LYNCHING
MILLENNIAL AND
TAMIL EXODUS
July 2019

STANDOUT STATE
Stale ideologies, broken politics, dangerous cults —
Tamil Nadu awaits a new idea, a new story. How long will the wait last?
LETTERS

Excellent suggestions (Mandate 2019 And Its Challenges, June

2019). I would also add education in terms of history, Indic The magnitude of
informal labour, the
culture and heritage propagation. Do not try to follow Atal
conditions in which
Bihari Vajpayee’s path in a bid to please everybody.
they work and the lack
— Nat Sen
of a social safety net is
something that is grossly
misunderstood. India
and its politicians have
never appreciated the
concept of allowing a
watchful laissez faire.
India badly needs lots of
manufacturing and ser-
vices jobs to be created
at a frenetic pace. If this
means creation of zones
and industries where
there is a 10-year labour
law holiday if the number
of workers hired is 80 per
cent from freshers and 20
per cent from previously
THE TASKS AHEAD 2019). Sumati Mehrishi is weaving a narrative of a new In-
The article clearly lays out what must be done to build the dia. We need many more. Her words made me cry. Finally, employed people, it
sanatan dharma culture (Job Barely Half-Done, June 2019). someone who can explain the Indian soul. God bless.
The soul of India is dharmic or Hindu. The emphasis must — JJ Jackxon might give an incentive
be on education, correcting the mutilated history, and a
well-planned broadside on breaking India forces. For this, THE BLUNT VOICE for new capital to come
the Culture Ministry must involve people like Rajiv Malho Hindus have voted in their own government, but it is yet to
tra. revise history textbooks (Koenraad Elst And Hindutva, June in. (Where Haste Is Good,
— Manohar Sharma 2019). Hindus will need an army of research scholars to
counter this propaganda. June 2019).
Great wish list, but Modi cannot do it. The biggest weak-
ness of Modi is communication skills. He has great rhetori- — Jitendra Desai
cal and oratory skills, but communicating sensitive issues
straight is a big gap. THE REASON ILLUSION
— Goswami boy ‘’The power of the brain to reason” — you reason like I do, --Krishna Jonnakadla
that’s ‘’rational’’. You reason differently, you’re irrational?
MODI’S WOMEN POWER (A Pragmatic Passage, June 2019).
Exquisite tapestry (Devis of His Eminent Electorate, June — Krishen Kak
 IN THIS ISSUE

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TAMIL NADU’S ENDLESS WAIT THE 5 TRILLION SUMMIT ROOTED IN HUMAN DESIRE
Mehrishi, Swati Goel Sharma, Pratyasha Rath THE SOUTHERN STATE, A FERTILE GROUND FOR EXTRAORDINARY CHANGES, IS CONTINUOUSLY HELD BACK BY WHAT DOES INDIA’S ROUTE TO BECOMING A FIVE TRILLION DOLLAR ECONOMY KALPAVRKSHA , THE TREE OF FULFILLMENT OF THE PHYSICAL AND
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INDIA 641014.

2 J U L Y 2019 JULY 2 0 1 9 3

FEDERAL GROWTH
CHASE GROUP 1
India is the fastest growing major economy in the world. As it moves forward, all
T V MOHANDAS PAI AND engines — be they south, north, east or west — need to fire with equal intensity.
NISHA HOLLA
I
ndia’s economy has grown at
a breathtaking pace, from a
nominal gross domestic product
(GDP) of Rs 87 lakh crore in 2011-
12 to an estimated Rs 190 lakh crore in
2018-19. A compound annual growth
rate (CAGR) of 11.74 per cent in nomi-
nal terms and 7.05 per cent in real
terms is remarkable, making India
the fastest growing major economy in
the world.
During 2014-19, the National Demo-
cratic Alliance (NDA) government
grew the economy by Rs 78 lakh crore
at a CAGR of 10.88 per cent. While
the last quarter of 2018-19 recorded
lower growth, and the forecast for the
next two quarters is also lower, India
is expected to retain its status going
forward.
While overall growth is impres-
sive, a detailed look shows growth has
been uneven across states. GDP data
published by Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) of representative states (Table
1) indicates significant variance
between the northern and southern
states.
Southern and western states from
Tamil Nadu to Gujarat are thriving
with robust CAGR and impressive
per-capita gross state domestic prod-
uct (GSDP). In 2017-18, the population-
weighted average of per-capita GSDP
for the south was Rs 1.93 lakh, 2.5
times that of the north at Rs 0.77 lakh.
Even with improved CAGR of over
10 per cent in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar
and West Bengal, states in the north
are recording low per-capita GSDP.
It is clear that growth across India is
variant and continues to diverge.
For study purposes, we projected
the per-capita GSDP of states for 10
years using GDP and population
CAGR calculated from 2011-2018 data
4 J U L Y 2019
(Table 1). Of course, these projections
could change on several factors.
Projections indicate that if devel-
opment and population growth rates
of states are equivalent to the last six
years, the variance between states
could diverge even more.
Per-capita GSDP in southern states
will have consistently multiplied, con-
tributing massively to India’s growth
and GDP. It could be well over Rs 5.6
lakh — 2.75 times that of the north
average at Rs 2.06 lakh. This is up
from a factor of 2.5 in 2017-18, clearly
indicating a divergence in growth if
special measures to boost these state
economies are not taken soon.
Northern states have larger
populations and higher population
growth rates of 1.42 per cent on an
average, compared to 1.06 per cent
in the south (Table 2). This correla-
tion implies that a large swath of
India’s population has insufficient
income, low contribution to GDP and
high population growth rate while a
smaller group has very high income,
proportionally high contribution to
GDP and low population growth rates.
This population-weighted inequality
is unsustainable.
Further, a major difference
between the southern and northern
states are the youth populations.
Fertility data from National Family
Health Survey (NFHS)-4 shows the
population in the southern states is
ageing, whereas the youth bulge in
the north and east is still substantial.
As discussed in our previous Fi-
nancial Express article (Demographic
distress: Will India get older before
it gets richer?), the fertility rates in
southern states are all under 1.8 —
below replacement. Notable contribu-
tors to lower fertility are shown to
be better education infrastructure
and employment prospects in the
south, especially for women. South-
ern states have significantly larger
enrolment ratios in higher education,
as discussed in our Financial Express
article (Holding up half the sky).
The variance in gross enrollment
ratio or GER (Table 2) in higher edu-
cation between southern and north-
ern states on average is a significant
13.2 points in 2017-18. Among the
more prosperous south-west states,
Gujarat trails with a GER of 20.1,
while Tamil Nadu leads with GER of
48.6 in 2017-18. GER is lower in the
north; but in absolute numbers, there
is still a significant number of higher
education graduates due to the large
populations. AISHE (All India Survey
on Higher Education) data shows
that from the representative states
discussed above in the north, the 2013-
18 (Table 2) period produced a total of
1.92 crore graduates. Of this, 92 lakh
were women.
Unfortunately, these are in regions
where jobs for educated people are the
least — most of the specialised jobs
requiring graduates are in the south.
Without quality employment pros-
pects, educated youth in the north
either opt out of the workforce or take
up lower-level jobs.
The PLFS (periodic labour force
surveys) 2017-18 shows this is one
of the reasons for low workforce
participation among women — unem-
ployment among urban women with
secondary education or above is at that growth has been uneven across differences between states. In Modi One of the critical investments to
19.8 per cent, up from around 10 per India. The centralised planning strat- 2.0, a well-defined state-wise strategy accelerate the development of lagging
cent in the NSS-68th round 2011-12. egy, which the Planning Commission supported by data is required to bring states is to focus on implementing
States must prioritise providing has applied all these years before special attention to development in education infrastructure, for both
educated youth with quality employ- NITI-Aayog, has not worked. One states that are below the national school and higher education, and then
ment prospects in their home states. development strategy deployed across average, especially in north and east provide the educated youth quality
The above data and trends indicate India cannot address the inherent India. employment prospects in their own
JULY 2 0 1 9 5

FEDERAL GROWTH
As the Centre under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership brings focus to each state’s development, a
closer look at districts can direct policy and allocation decisions.
states.
In particular, instituting labour-
intensive industries with intensive
skills training in the populous states
will provide employment on a large
scale. Madhya Pradesh has already
started building labour-intensive
industries with positive results. Apart
from this, the need of the hour is to
build infrastructure, improve govern-
ance and deliver services faster in
these states.
Strategy must also focus on the
strengths of each state and implement
policy accordingly. For example, West
Bengal can leverage its coastline and
industrial legacy to develop into an
industrial and trade superpower.
Bihar, with abundant fertile land
and labour, can focus on becoming a
major producer of food and labour-in-
tensive industries as Madhya Pradesh
6 J U L Y 2019
has. With careful planning and imple-
mentation, each state in India can be
specially developed.
In the next five years, it is essen-
tial for Modi 2.0 to create specialised
programmes with centralised funding
to take care of the needs of the under-
developed states in the north and east,
so they quickly rise up to the current
all-India average in terms of human
capital.
Variation also exists within each
state. In Uttar Pradesh, the planned
city of Noida is one of India’s most
prosperous cities, whereas several
eastern districts like Chandrauli and
Fatehpur have been identified as
backward by NITI-Aayog.
Even within more affluent states
like Karnataka, there is considerable Mohandas Pai is Chairman, Aarin
variance between districts — the
Economic Survey of Karnataka
2018-19 shows that Bengaluru district
alone accounts for nearly two-thirds
of Karnataka’s GDP.
As the Centre under Prime Min-
ister Narendra Modi’s leadership
brings focus to each state’s develop-
ment, a closer look at districts can
direct policy and allocation decisions.
By accelerating development in
lagging states and districts, every
state can develop as a superpower in
its own right.
All of India’s population can then
participate in India’s rise as a global
superpower. The goal is to take each
and every Indian along on a fast-paced
journey towards becoming a $10 tril-
lion economy.
Capital Partners, and Nisha Holla is an
entrepreneur and independent researcher.
INDIA STORY
THE 5 TRILLION
DOLLAR TARGET
India’s march towards a $5 trillion economy needs to be boosted by value addi-
KARAN BHASIN tion and big investment. For that, corporate tax rates have to come down.
A
merican economist Robert
Lucas asked an important
question in 1980 regarding
India’s growth rates. He
simply asked what state action India
could take in order to grow like Indo-
nesia or Egypt as he stated that wel-
fare implications of such questions
ensure that once we start thinking
about them, it’s hard to think about
anything else.
Forty years forward, India did
accelerate its growth rate from the
3 per cent that it maintained since
Independence until the late 1970s
and some part of early 1980s. A major
reason behind this acceleration is un-
doubtedly the policy focus on econom-
ic growth. The focus towards growth
has only intensified over recent years
as government is looking to build a $5
trillion economy within the next five
years and a $10 trillion economy in
the next eight years thereafter.
In order to achieve these targets,
India must first significantly acceler-
ate its growth rate to double digits
and then maintain it for the next five
years. With a reduction in global
trade combined with a weak outlook
for global growth, accelerating growth
rates seems like a tough task. Luckily,
India still has a lot of low-hanging
fruits on the policy front that can
help in the sharp revival of economic
growth.
My previous three articles have
explored issues related to an overall
agenda of economic reforms, the un-
healthy obsession with fiscal deficits
and the genuine need for labour re-
forms to boost manufacturing growth.
This article explores the critical issue
of kick-starting India’s manufacturing
sector. India’s future growth should
come from the manufacturing sector
to enable a shift in surplus labour
from the agricultural to the manufac-
turing sector. This will be critical in
improving aggregate productivity of
the economy, in accelerating the rate
of growth and further broadening
prosperity within the country.
It is sheer coincidence that geopo-
litical situations have presented India
with a unique opportunity to trans-
form the economy into a manufactur-
ing hub. Due to the ongoing trade
tensions and ambiguity regarding
future trade flows and trade policy re-
gime, many firms are already looking
to shift their manufacturing plants
from China while others are looking
for alternative destinations for invest-
ments. This can be an opportunity to
shift global supply chains and make
India’s vast coastline both on the
eastern and the western fronts as a
critical enabler for the future global
supply chain network.
We must also accept and realise
that the present geopolitical situa-
tion is not conducive for the extent
of trade mobility that the world
witnessed over the last two decades
and this will constrain our ability
to manufacture for the world. While
trade mobility will improve from
its current levels over subsequent
years, we don’t know the extent of
mobility in future and the likely time
when trade tensions would subdue.
However, India’s massive population
and more importantly, its purchasing
power should more than compensate
any lack of trade flexibility in future.
The ‘Make in India’ programme has
been successful in certain areas such
as mobile manufacturing, where
India had only two units in 2014 but
at present it has over 200 such units.
It is now important to explore how to
further strengthen this programme
and make India the most preferred
choice to facilitate the shift in global
supply chains.
The biggest enabler for such a shift
is changes in domestic policies more
than anything else, and these policies
are important to shore up private in-
vestment in the manufacturing sector
irrespective of whether it comes from
domestic or foreign investors. One
such area is labour laws and we’ve
explored this issue already. Apart
from labour laws, what is genuinely
important is for the government to
realise that India’s effective corporate
tax continues to be high for at least
10 per cent of the firms, and these 10
per cent of firms, perhaps, are major
contributors to the value addition in
the Indian economy. While for the
micro, small and medium enterprises
(MSMEs), corporate taxes have gone
down, the MSMEs as a sector don’t
have adequate retained earnings to
invest in fresh projects. The latest
report by Organisation for Eco-
nomic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) categorically states that India
as of today has one of the highest
corporate taxes in the world, and that
India’s effective corporate tax has in-
creased from what it was in the early
2000s. The High-Level Advisory Group
(HLAG) on trade under the Ministry
of Commerce and Industry headed
by Dr Surjit Bhalla has already made
a very strong case for a 5 per cent
reduction in corporate income tax
rate given that at present Indian com-
panies are the fourth highest payer of
corporate tax.
A quick analysis on the corpo-
rate tax collection data reveals an
interesting finding. The correla-
tion between corporate tax rate and
JULY 2 0 1 9 7

As far as shifting of global supply chains is concerned, such a rate cut will send a signal to the world that
India means serious business.
corporate tax collection is negative
(author’s analysis based on corporate
tax collection data from CBDT and
tax rate data from KPMG). Do note,
correlation is the degree of linear
relationship between two variables
and one would expect that an increase
in tax rate should cause an increase
in tax revenue, (ie, a positive relation-
ship) but one would be wrong and not
aware of the Laffer’s curve hypothesis
— Google it if you must!
While correlation does not mean
causality, and critics may argue that
since corporate tax collection has
gone up due to an increase in eco-
nomic activity while tax rates have
gone down, so a negative correlation
should be expected. However, even
when we take the change in corporate
tax revenue (first difference ensures
that all time trend gets dissipated), we
get a very small correlation coeffi-
cient of 0.013. Therefore, it is possible
to reduce the corporate tax rate and
leave more money with firms, which
may result in increase in investments
that will only boost economic growth
in the short to medium term. It may
well be possible that any revenue
8 J U L Y 2019
foregone for a small decrease of 5 per
cent in corporate tax for big firms
would be lower than the actual tax
revenue realised on account of greater
economic activity and improved tax
compliance.
When it comes to export com-
petitiveness, the government in its
previous tenure did a lot to improve
the situation. It’s even more encour-
aging to note that this improvement
came due to investments in develop-
ment of physical infrastructure such
as road networks, ports, etc. Further,
surplus availability of electricity has
also helped in making Indian goods
more competitive as firms no longer
have to depend upon generators for
production. The low-hanging fruit in
this area is a reduction in corporate
income taxes and the data overwhelm-
ingly supports a tax cut sooner rather
than later.
As far as shifting of global supply
chains is concerned, such a rate cut
will send a signal to the world that
India means serious business. Firms
already want to be a part of the India
story and a rate cut would be the
perfect nudge in that direction. Addi-
tionally, India should try to get some
of the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs)
with its major trading partners in
place to boost foreign trade. The
HLAG has demonstrated through an
econometric modelling that a tit-for-
tat approach for tariffs levied by other
countries may be counterproductive,
while reducing own tariffs would be a
wiser step.
Therefore, the government should
actively consider a tariff reduction on
at least critical manufacturing inputs
and raw materials that are currently
imported by India.
The present geopolitical landscape
has set the stage for India’s take-off,
and if we are to simultaneously re-
duce import tariffs on critical inputs
combined with a corporate tax cut
and get our FTAs with major trading
partners in place, then we can truly
witness the start of India’s manufac-
turing revolution.
Karan Bhasin is a political economist by
academic training. His areas of interest are
political economy, macroeconomy, law and
economics, and institutional economics. He
tweets at @karanbhasin95.
VISION AND AMBITION
PANCHATANTRA/21
The mechanics and details of administration and economics are critical, so is a
PRITHWIS MUKERJEE vision for India in the long run. Here are five big ideas for India in that direction.
T
he hurly-burly of the elec-
tions is over and a new
government is in place in
Delhi. Ministers and their
officers must be drawing up lists of
the many urgent things that need to
be done in the next couple of months.
But there is a difference between
what is urgent and what is important,
and it is more often than not that
the urgent displaces the important
from our schedules. In this article,
we explore five important issues that
India needs to address, not just for
the immediate gratification of urgent
needs but to set the agenda for the
twenty-first century. From garbage
disposal through restructuring of our
education infrastructure that will in
turn transform India into an artificial
intelligence (AI) based space-faring
civilisation that is rooted in our vedic
past, let us explore five new narra-
tives of Panchatantra/21.
Charity begins at home. The
journey of a thousand miles begins
with a single step. Before we set out to
change the course of human civilisa-
tion, let us first clean up the garbage
from our doorstep. Literally. India
is drowning in garbage. Other than
metropolitan cities, no town or village
has any mechanism to dispose of
household garbage in any meaningful
way — except to dump it beyond sight.
Households dump it on the streets
and the municipality, if such a thing
exists, takes it and dumps at the edge
of the town. This creates huge and
unsustainable garbage dumps that are
not only an eyesore but also a health
and ecological hazard. The situation
is worse if the town has a lot of visi-
tors, tourists or pilgrims. The devasta-
tion is compounded by the number
of people creating garbage and the
indifference of the transient visitors
to the outcome of their actions.
Disposal of garbage is not rocket
science and communities across the
world have managed to solve the
problem to a large extent. In fact,
a systematic disposal of garbage is
the leitmotif of a civilisation and
the Sindhu-Saraswati civilisation
was, perhaps, the first to realise this
and implement it in their system
of drains. But in the twenty-first
century, we must do it better and dif-
ferently. Swachh Bharat and its focus
on building toilets must be widened to
encompass the creation of industrial
grade garbage disposal units in each
and every town and village in India.
Methods and systems to collect, segre-
gate, transport, recycle and dispose of
garbage exist in many countries and
India must adopt and adapt to what
is most appropriate for it and then
create a mechanism to replicate it in a
scalable manner across the land.
After garbage, the next area to be
cleaned up — and this time, meta-
phorically — is the education sector
where the infamous licence-control
raj is still alive and choking honest
intent. Regulatory bodies like the All
India Council for Technical Education
(AICTE) and the University Grants
Commission (UGC) have all the
authority to control educational insti-
tutes but not the responsibility of de-
livering anything useful. These have
throttled and choked well-meaning
individuals from creating educational
institutes of excellence. Instead, what
we have are either tax-payer funded
white elephants run by politically-
connected and government-appointed
directors or dubious private institu-
tions run by crony capitalists. A
majority of the former are handi-
capped by lack of three requirements
— funds, efficiency and imagination.
A majority of the latter aim to fool
students and deliver dubious value in
terms of employability.
What we need instead is a regula-
tor, modelled on the Registrar of Com-
panies. This should not dictate which
colleges are allowed to operate or
what or how colleges teach. Instead,
it must ensure transparency — in
intent, execution and delivery — by
mandating disclosure norms that are
based on principles that are similar to
GAAP — generally accepted account-
ing principles. More importantly,
these disclosures must be validated
through a statutory audit process.
What this means is that students and
their parents, who fund their educa-
tion, would have a reasonably clear
idea about the merits of an education-
al institute — as equity investors have
in the financials of companies that are
listed on the stock exchange — and
take an informed decision on where to
invest time and money to get a decent
education. In short, let the market
and not government babus decide the
fate of educational institutes. This is
explained in detail in an earlier arti-
cle, “Auditors, Not Regulators”.
Continuing with this basic philoso-
phy of minimum government, maxi-
mum governance and extrapolating
from the gig economy — Uber, Ola,
AirBnB, Oyo — that allows individu-
als to sell their services directly to the
customer, we could easily have good,
but independent teachers reaching
out to students through platforms like
YouTube. However, distance learn-
ing has its challenges. First, students
want the sanctity of an accredited
university degree that is a necessary
condition for jobs. Second, they want
JULY 2 0 1 9 9

Swachh Bharat and its focus on building toilets must be widened to encompass the creation of industrial
grade garbage disposal units in each and every town and village in India.
the security of a placement service
as the outcome of any education.
Finally, they want all of it to be either
free or at a very low cost. Meeting all
three conditions through a simple
e-learning platform is impossible.
However, a recognised and accredited
university, say Indira Gandhi Na-
tional Open University (IGNOU), can
create a platform where individual,
but non-employee teachers can teach,
or deliver educational services and be
paid based on a metric that is based
on student (‘customer’) engagement
and feedback. This metric should be
multidimensional and should consist
of (a) the number of actual student-
hour views that the videos have, (b)
the rating given by students. Such a
platform supported by a distributed
evaluation service, as in online exams
in designated premises, and a Naukri.
com style job-portal to facilitate
placements can be put together as an
alternative to the traditional campus-
oriented educational institute. This
is explained in detail in “Distance
Learning Reloaded”.
These two new age educational
initiatives — auditing rather than
regulating educational institutes and
10 J U L Y 2019
the ‘indie’ teacher-based distance
learning programme — form the sec-
ond narrative for Panchatantra/21.
Education continues as the third
of our five narratives but now the
focus moves from platform to content.
What is it that our students must
learn? To begin with, a large part of
the curriculum will be drawn from
the traditional BA, BSc, BCom and
even BTech, BBA, MA, MTech, MBA
courses. These are tried and tested
curricula that have stood the test of
time but, of course, each university
or college should have the freedom to
offer anything that they want without
centralised bodies like AICTE or
UGC trying to impose their point of
view. In a market economy, ‘custom-
ers’ — that means both students and
recruiters — will signal their require-
ments in a manner that the education
market must understand and respond
to. This would mean that there will
be more students — and hence more
colleges or independent, ‘indie’ teach-
ers — for courses and subjects that
are preferred by recruiters. However,
as Steve Jobs has put it, “customers
do not really know what they want”
and so it is up to policy-makers to de-
termine what would be important and
useful for India in the current century
and even the next.
Moving into the twenty-first
century, mankind — the carbon-based
biologicals — will have to share this
planet with what is virtually a new
species, the silicon-based artificial
intelligence powered systems as
explained in “Intelligent Machines:
Humans May Have To Contend With
A Superior ‘Species’ Soon; Are We
Prepared?”. This may sound like sci-
ence fiction but automated and more
importantly autonomous systems —
from self-driving vehicles, through
medical diagnostic tools right up
to public safety and even juridical
services — will take over and run
our society with little or virtually no
human interference. We may not like
it — just as colonised people never re-
ally liked their new masters — but we
will have to learn to live with them.
To begin with, we need to learn their
language. Indians learned English
when they were colonised — say after
the Battle of Plassey — and then they
made the best use of this skill to chart
their own destiny in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. So should be
One could learn history, (human) languages, sociology, medicine, fine arts, engineering or whatever, but
one must also know AI and computer programming.
the case with artificial intelligence in
the twenty-first.
Every child in every school and
college must learn the basics of artifi-
cial intelligence, of neural networks
and of course, computer program-
ming. Python, for example, would
be the new English, a skill that is so
eagerly sought after by parents who
are so keen to send their children to
English-medium schools. One could
learn history, (human) languages, so-
ciology, medicine, fine arts, engineer-
ing or whatever, but one must also
know AI and computer programming.
Just as a knowledge of English equips
a person to work his way through the
world irrespective of the location or
nature of work, so would a knowledge
of robotics and AI be essential not just
to live but to build new products and
services for the coming age. Just as if
you want to make money from a big
economy like China you learn Manda-
rin, so should there be no hesitation
or embarrassment in learning Python
and AI right from primary school all
the way to college.
Machines and robots are ‘learning’
about human languages, behaviours,
attitudes and choices at an unprec-
edented rate but if we, biological
sentients, have to keep up with them
we need to know their language
and behaviour as well. It is not just
that computer programming should
become ‘The Fourth Language’ in our
schools but AI and robotics should
be built into the warp and woof of
our school and college curriculum.
Products like Arduino and Raspberry
Pi should be used not just for science
projects but for every kind of project
that is mandated in the curriculum.
This is one area where a visionary
government and its policy-makers
must take the initiative to fund the
design of innovative curriculum, the
development of appropriate course
material and the appointment of com-
petent teachers.
But AI-robotics is the path, what is
the destination?
This takes us to the fourth nar-
rative of our Panchatantra/21 and
to the next level of human endeav-
our — space! Europe was too small
for the European civilisation and it
flowered only when the bold and the
brave among them, spread out, first
to colonise America and then across
Africa and Asia. Similarly, the world
is not enough for humanity as biologi-
cal and machine intelligence grow
by leaps and bounds. The composite
carbon-silicon civilisation must and
will physically expand first to the
moon and Mars, then to Titan, Ence-
ladus and Europa and eventually to
other solar systems in this galaxy.
In this grand adventure, it would
be tragic indeed if India were to be
relegated to the position of a passive
observer clapping and cheering from
the sidelines while the US, Europe
and China establish colonies in these
distant realms. As described in this
article, “A whole new space age”,
India must take a definitive stand
to become a space faring nation and
invest the power of money, of mind
and of machines to stake its claim
beyond the frontier. Mangalyaan and
Chandrayaan are two excellent initia-
tives and they must be viewed to be as
important as say goods and services
tax or Ayushman Bharat. This may
not translate into votes in the 2024
elections but that is where the cur-
rent government must demonstrate
its passion for the big idea. “Go West
young man” was once a part of the
lexicon — and the manifest destiny
— of the American civilisation that
grew and prospered. Similarly, every
young man and woman in tomorrow’s
India must be encouraged to dream
of going to space — along with robots
and other intelligent machines — to
set up homesteads, establish colonies
and create opportunities for economic
and social expansion.
Beyond the raw technology of
Indian Space Research Organisation
(ISRO), a national-level space commis-
JULY 2 0 1 9 11
 India must prepare itself to be the tip of the arrow and not a mere lance-bearer as humanity reaches out —
literally and metaphorically — to touch the stars.
sion must be established to address
the socio-economic issues of a space
faring nation. Such a commission will
encourage and equip schools and col-
leges with the tools and ideas that will
allow their students to think beyond
that next job in TCS or Hindustan Le-
ver and incentivise private enterprise
to invest in space-related ventures.
Space travel and colonisation should
be the fourth big idea that India must
focus on in the next decade.
But in parallel with the explora-
tion of outer space, India also needs
to look within. We must use the rear-
view mirror of history to look into the
Indic heritage that stretches back in
time longer than any other living civi-
lisation that exists today. Egypt and
Mesopotamia has been swallowed up
in the march of time and even China
that still preserves links to its past is
in the process of forgetting the same.
Only we in India can still trace our
civilisation back through Chan-
dragupt’s Mauryan era to the tenuous
links of the Harappan civilisation
and even beyond. The evidence is
tantalising. Remains of chariots from
the Mahabharat era have been found
in Sanauli, Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh.
The sunken city of Dwaraka, Guja-
rat, is still visible under the ocean.
12 J U L Y 2019
Harappan era relics have been found
along the dry bed of the Ghaggar river
through which the Saraswati once
flowed and this, as Michel Danino has
shown in his book The Lost River, con-
nects the Harappan civilisation with
the Dwapar Yug of the Mahabharat.
It is time that the government puts
together a formal mechanism that will
initiate primary research into these
areas, search for evidence, connect
the dots and present a comprehensive
picture that will transform our under-
standing of the past. Legends must be
codified as verifiable and documented
history. Without compromising on
academic rigour — without claiming
that ancient India had nuclear bombs
and spaceships, for example — hon-
est historiography must be applied
to elevate our myths from the fog of
antiquity and bring them into the
domain of history.
This has happened in the past.
The Asiatic Society of Bengal led by
William Jones had identified Chan-
dragupt Maurya, named in ancient
and mythical lists of Indian kings,
as Sandrakottus, a contemporary of
Alexander named in Greek records
of his invasion of India. This monu-
mental discovery had significantly
extended the antiquity of Indian his-
tory. India as a nation owes it to itself
to do this once again and reassert the
continuity of the Indic civilisation
right from the Vedic Age to the age of
space and intelligent robots. This is
the fifth and final narrative.
Man does not live by bread alone
and nations too must look beyond
the mere mechanics of administra-
tion and economics. Irrespective of
who runs the government, the Indian
economy will surely grow as issues
related to labour, land and capital
markets are sorted out and technol-
ogy is used to enhance efficiency of
governance. But there is a far larger
story that awaits India and it is time
for us to gear up for a whole new role
that India will play in the comity of
nations. India must prepare itself to
be the tip of the arrow and not a mere
lance-bearer as humanity reaches
out — literally and metaphorically —
to touch the stars. Panchatantra/21
would be our road map in this
quest.
Prithwis Mukerjee is an engineer by
education, a teacher by profession, a
programmer by passion and an imagineer
by intention. He has recently published
an Indic themed science fiction novel,
‘Chronotantra’.
 THE ENDLESS
WAIT
A fertile ground for extraordinary changes, Tamil Nadu is continuously held back by irrational
ideas and an obsession for personality cult. Who will bring the much needed creative disruption?
W
hat power surpasses fate? Its will persists
against human endeavours. (Kural 380)
By the quirk of fate, unarguably, the
least talented of the Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam (DMK) chiefs in its history has led his party
to its biggest win. The DMK alliance won 37 of the 38
Lok Sabha seats with a vote share of 32.8 per cent in
Tamil Nadu. M K Stalin managed to sway 10-12 per cent
of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s
(AIADMK’s) vote share, a feat that even the old master M
Karunanidhi could not achieve in his heydays. In 2004,
even when the DMK-led United Progressive Alliance
(UPA) blanked the opposition 39-0, DMK had a vote share
of 24.6 per cent.
Stalin has, thus, firmly established himself as the
most popular leader in the state. However, the victory
was Pyrrhic, given that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came to power with
a thumping win in the Lok Sabha polls. DMK did not
sweep the by-elections to 22 assembly seats (managing
only 13), which would have placed it at touching distance
from power in the state.
Edappadi Palaniswami, the incumbent AIADMK
Chief Minister, had his image dented when DMK washed
his party out in west Tamil Nadu, which is home to the
community that he and the top ministers in his cabinet
belong to. The AIADMK getting 18.5 per cent vote share
on the strength of its two-leaves symbol, is making
analysts wonder if it is the beginning of the end of the
party. But, AIADMK managed to win nine seats in the
by-elections to live to fight another two years. His gov-
ernment has retained majority in the assembly with the
help of a clever stitching of alliance with Pattali Makkal
Katchi (PMK), though PMK itself was obliterated in the
Lok Sabha polls.
In what was considered a benchmark-setting election
after the demise of former chief ministers J Jayalalithaa
14 J U L Y 2019
and Karunanidhi, many small players had thrown their
hats into the ring. Though they did not win any seats, T
T V Dhinkaran of Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam
secured approximately 5.3 per cent vote share while
Senthamizhan Seeman of Naam Tamilar Katchi  and
Kamal Haasan of Makkal Needhi Maiam ended up with 4
per cent each. It pricked the bubble of Dhinakaran, who
was expected to make a big dent garnering three times of
what he actually got. His political fate hangs in balance.
One has to wait and see if he connives with Stalin to
destabilise the state government.
Fringe Tamil nationalist Seeman improved his vote
share from 1 per cent to 4 per cent, making it his best
show since he entered politics more than a decade ago.
Actor Haasan, with his woolly-headed ideas sprinkled
with fair doses of communism, got almost the same
number. Whether he has the stomach for a long fight has
to be seen. PMK has been unable to expand creatively to
an entity that stands for all communities. Its vote share
hovers around 5 per cent to 6 per cent range (5.4 per cent
this time). Its only strategy seems to ride on the support
of a community that senior Ramadoss fought for starting
from the late 1980s.
While there was a BJP wave in most of India, Tamil
Nadu and Kerala bucked the trend. A relentless and ma-
licious propaganda dominated the campaign landscape
leading up to the polls. The conjuring of grievances,
effectively pinning every mishap to Prime Minister Nar-
endra Modi and cleverly capturing the pulse of the youth
through memes seemed the modus operandi. The Tamil
Nadu BJP president, Tamilisai Soundarrajan, bore the
brunt of the most venomous misogynistic attacks.
With the Tamil Nadu state unit unable to bargain for
more seats in the AIADMK alliance and ill-equipped to
grapple with the narrative, it ended up being decimated
in the state. Since they contested just five seats that
did not include any in Chennai, they ended up with a
dismal 3.7 per cent vote share, a drop from 5.6 per cent
to become the eighth largest party in terms of vote share
in the state. S Gurumurthy, editor of Tughlak, has spun
the story to imply that it was the AIADMK’s caste-based
approach and its internal weaknesses that drowned the
JULY 2 0 1 9 15
 COVER STORY
BJP along with it.
Another significant result was of
Congress getting nine seats in pre-poll
negotiations with DMK and winning eight,
sending their second biggest chunk to
Parliament along with Punjab. Its pro-
minority image was a winner in the Tamil
Nadu calculus. Its vote share increased to
12.8 per cent from 4.4 per cent it had got
earlier while contesting in all the 39 seats
in 2014. It is quite ironical that, politically
speaking, the Congress has become the
‘nationalist’ strand connecting Tamil Nadu
to the rest of India. The DMK wave also
catapulted four communists to Parliament
eclipsing the contribution from traditional
strongholds, West Bengal and Kerala.
These formations set the tone for the
political future in the state. The DMK
and Congress have found a fitting match
in each other. BJP’s pre-poll overtures to
DMK were unfruitful. It culminated in
Stalin not being invited to the inaugura-
tion ceremony of the NDA government at
the Centre. A possible BJP-DMK tie-up can
be ruled out in the near future. With AI-
ADMK’s future uncertain, and BJP getting
decimated in the state, their partnership is
treading on thin ice. Given that AIADMK
perceives that there is an anti-BJP mood in
the state, their leaders at some point will
ditch BJP openly. With a slew of corrup-
tion allegations floating against both the
DMK and AIADMK leaders, one has to wait
and see how the actions of the law enforce-
ment agencies play out politically.
Behind all the politics, the ideological
warfare in Tamil Nadu is more pronounced
than any other part of India. Tamil separa-
tism, anti-Hindu sentiment, caste violence,
communism, radical Islam and strident
Christianity are all seeing a rise in various
forms in the past few years. Seeing the
amount of brazen ugliness in rhetoric, one
realises the kind of forces Jayalalithaa has
put a lid on during her tenure. A leader-
ship vacuum in AIADMK and gentle prod-
ding of their patron saints in DMK, these
lumpen elements operate in gay abandon
amplifying their message through social
media. Stalin’s overt and covert political
shelter raises concern about his creden-
tials as a moral leader that could guide
Tamil Nadu 2.0.
The Colombo blasts should have been a
wake-up call for the citizens that believed
16 J U L Y 2019
the Islam of the south could never trans-
mogrify into something violent. Zahran
Hashim has travelled through the state to
network with jihadists in Kerala and in
other parts of India. The National Investi-
gation Agency recently raided and arrested
eight people of Islamic State module based
in Coimbatore. Tamil Nadu Thawheed
Jamath, the sister group of the organisa-
tion that bombed churches, is under watch.
The rich foreign-funded churches,
especially in the deep south, perpetuate
and deepen divisions in the society. Ezra
Sargunam, Mohan Lazarus and many other
preachers continue to disparage Hindu
religion and practices. Lazarus once said:
“No other state in India has as many struc-
tures for Satan as Tamil Nadu does. Why
does Satan have such a stronghold in TN?
No other state has as many temples and
Satanic structures.” Many church leaders
openly appealed for support to Congress
during the recent elections.
But the most apparent and deeply
problematic of all these destructive forces
is the Tamil separatism driven by multiple
organisations in the name of propping up
Tamil identity. Viduthalai Chiruthaigal
Katchi, Naam Tamizhar, Marumalarchi
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Makkal
Needhi Maiam and Dravidar Kazhagam
keep adding fuel to the eternal fire of sepa-
rate Tamil Nadu or Dravidian land. They
manufacture grievances out of thin air
and propagate effectively through outra-
geous statements, double-entendres, clever
puns, co-opting many in the media, Tamil
academia, debaters, authors and people
in the film industry. They dog whistle to
the worst anti-national impulses in the
cinema-crazy Tamil youth.
It is the immutable law of nature that
every attempt to polarise whips up coun-
tervailing forces. In the torrent of nega-
tive, inward-looking political discourse,
is there an alternative? Is there space for
‘spiritual politics’, as actor Rajinikanth
had announced? Can the land that built
the greatest temples, and produced the
most uplifting literature discover its deep
spiritual history at some point? Will people
of Tamil Nadu realise that the ‘Periyarist’
dogma has run its course and that they
have to shed the baggage for them to take
the next leap?
How societies course correct is a topic
BANUCHANDAR NAGARAJAN
Behind all the
politics, the
ideological warfare
in Tamil Nadu is
more pronounced
than any other
part of India. Tamil
separatism, anti-
Hindu sentiment,
caste violence,
communism, radical
Islam and strident
Christianity are
all seeing a rise in
various forms in the
past few years.
of a book. Collective self-analysis happens Palaniswami pulled the rabbit out of the
Tamil Nadu’s only during times of crisis. Or a power- hat to become Chief Minister and man-
political shakiness ful leader with his/her dint of personal- aged to survive for two years in a masterly
ity should shepherd the community to a display of political craftsmanship. So, any
colours business
promising future. But Tamil Nadu is trying exercise in prediction is perilous in the
perception. The to rediscover itself when no apparent crisis current circumstances.
image of Tamil or no towering leader is on the horizon. Tamil Nadu’s political shakiness
Nadu as one of most The lack of powerful leadership that acts colours business perception. The image of
dynamic states in the as the lightning rod of constructive ideas Tamil Nadu as one of most dynamic states
country, comparable in an open society is making it a cauldron in the country, comparable to say, Gujarat,
of ideas, a virtual milky ocean where both has taken a beating. Highly-publicised pro-
to say, Gujarat, has
nectar and poison are being churned out. tests on Chennai-Salem expressway, Ster-
taken a beating. Tamil Nadu is in search of the Neelakan- lite and hydrocarbon issues have showed
tha that drinks the halahala so that the the presence of powerful vested interests
‘samudra manthan’ may continue. that were intent on pushing the state to
More than two years ago, after Jay- economic darkness for their own political
alalithaa’s death, this author wrote in gains. The omnipresent corruption causing
Swarajya, calling Tamil Nadu a “meta- delay in clearing projects only points to
stable” state. I had argued that as long as an out-of-grip leadership. Construction
the then chief minister O Panneerselvam delays due to ban on quarrying has only
and Sasikala Natarajan were able to bal- added to the woes. The recent water woes
ance the power structure, they both could of Chennai have shown the government in
manage to survive. But in a matter of poor light.
weeks, the political soap opera unfolded. That should not hide the fact that Tamil
JULY 2 0 1 9 17
 COVER STORY
Nadu has the third highest per capita
income among large states, at around Rs
2 lakh. Tamil Nadu’s human development
index is second among large states. There
are more than 40,000 large industries and
over 900,000 small and medium enterprises.
Around 600 Japanese companies operate in
the state. There is no organised violence.
Crime against women is comparatively
less.
The culture of bureaucracy in Ta-
mil Nadu is top notch. Even during the
extreme instability in early 2017, it figured
among the best as far as implementation
of central government schemes is con-
cerned. Even after the reduced growth all
over India due to demonetisation, teething
issues with the goods and services tax, and
cyclones and droughts in the last few years,
Tamil Nadu managed to clock a compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.5 per cent
in the last seven years.
As with the politics and the ideological
battles, the economic challenge is to take
Tamil Nadu to the next level. With a gross
enrollment ratio of 48 per cent, almost
twice India’s figure and excellent base of
18 J U L Y 2019
IT companies, can it transform itself as a
leader of ‘Industry 4.0’?
Can the ‘Detroit of Asia’ make it big
in the defence manufacturing, taking
advantage of the defence corridor? Almost
every district is ripe with possibilities of
high-tech agribusiness. Can Tamil Nadu
replicate its success in poultry to become a
bigger food-processing hub?
Tamil Nadu is exciting and exasperat-
ing because it is always pregnant with
possibilities of something extraordinary,
but always held back by the irrational and
manufactured ideas that the emotional
people willingly lap up.
In Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett’s play
Waiting for Godot, the protagonists engage
in conversations about miscellaneous
things, while waiting for a person named
Godot to arrive, but, who never arrives.
Tamil Nadu’s current phase is one that is
not too dissimilar.
The personality-crazy state is waiting for
a messiah to guide it through the moral
and economic tangles, little realising that
the world will not hold its breath for it to
succeed.
COVER STORY
MISSION
OBFUSCATION
The scenario of misinformation concocted by Tamil Nadu’s mainstream media and opposition is
thriving in their hatred for Narendra Modi, and BJP and AIADMK have done nothing to counter it.
B
M R SUBRAMANI alakumar Somu, one of the
organisers of the jallikattu
(bullfight) protest in January
2017, demanding that the sport
be allowed to be held in Tamil Nadu, had
an interesting anecdote to narrate. He was
trolled and ridiculed on Facebook by a
man for taking up the cause of jallikattu.
Slowly, the man got in touch with Somu
and became his acquaintance. A little
before the protests broke out in Tamil
Nadu in early 2017, the person went miss-
ing. When questioned, he said he had gone
to attend a conference of the Tamil Nadu
Thowheed Jamath (TNTJ) that decried
Can the land that idol worship.
built the greatest That person, a Muslim youth, was in
constant touch with Somu during the
temples and
jallikattu protests, taking undue interest
produced the most in an issue that he was critical of. On 23
uplifting literature January 2017, the jallikattu protests finally
discover its deep ended after a group of protesters clashed
spiritual history at with police, who had to resort to lathi
some point? charge to disperse them.
A couple of weeks later, the Muslim
youth got in touch with Somu again to
reveal something that was shocking. The
youth told Somu that he was severely
caned by the police. He said that he was
among a group of people, during the stand-
off between the police and protesters, that
threatened to drown itself in the sea.
The youth said the police came from
behind and caned them all so severely that
it took him weeks to recover.
Banuchandar Nagarajan is When Somu asked the youth why he
a public policy adviser. An took part in the jallikattu protest, when
alumnus of Harvard University, he was so critical of it, he replied that he
he has worked in the World and others were ordered to take part in the
Bank, Pricewaterhouse- protests by the TNTJ.
Coopers, and the UN. This was the first instance when the
entire mainstream media (MSM) in Tamil
Nadu misled the people regarding Naren-
dra Modi and his government with the sup-
port of opposition parties, led by Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).
After tasting success with the jallikattu
protests and media coverage of jallikattu
demonstrations, the MSM and opposition
began to look for more opportunities to
tarnish the image of Modi and his gov-
ernment. Soon, they picked up a slew of
issues in which, the Modi government had
minimal or no role to play.
At a park in a central Chennai area, a
group of people were animatedly discuss-
ing the results of the Lok Sabha elections
in Tamil Nadu. An elderly person in the
group lamented that Tamil Nadu has failed
to recognise an honest person by snub-
bing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its
allies. A middle-aged person in the group
shot back: “What has Modi done for us?”
To which the elderly person referred to the
help extended by the Centre to construct
toilets, homes and gas connections. “I can
show you places in Tamil Nadu that have
benefitted from the schemes,” the elderly
person said.
“What about NEET, Cauvery and things
like Neduvasal?” a youth in the group
retorted. The elderly person didn’t want
to enter into any fight as he responded
saying: “I think you have got carried away
by the false propaganda of the opposition
and media. Let me forward some responses
to the issues you have raised.” The group
ended its conversation there, but it was
a clear revelation of what went wrong
for the BJP and its allies in the National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Tamil Nadu.
The opposition and media tasted blood
JULY 2 0 1 9 19
 COVER STORY
with the jallikattu protests and their
coverage. That gave them the courage to
continue their anti-Modi offensive, which
immediately extended to the opposition to
Neduvasal hydrocarbon project.
Similarly, the opposition and media
took chances to criticise other projects,
like neutrino in Pudukottai district, the
methane gas project in Thanjavur and a
couple more. In 2017, Modi and his govern-
ment became the sole target of the opposi-
tion and media on the controversy over
the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test
(NEET) for admission to medical colleges.
Unfortunately, one of the students who
sat for NEET failed, and committed sui-
cide. This was used by the opposition and
the media to paint the Modi government as
the one responsible for it.
Then came the Cauvery river water
issue. The DMK went all out ‘demanding
justice’ for Tamil Nadu even as early as
March-April 2018, when the state needs
water only from June for the kharif paddy.
When Modi came to Chennai to inaugurate
the Defence Expo on 4 April 2018, the DMK
and its allies launched a #gobackModi
campaign physically as well as on social
media.
20 J U L Y 2019
The opposition and media had a field
day in the wake of demonetisation and
implementation of the goods and services
tax (GST). Demonetisation was portrayed
as something that was targeted at the
poor. It was even dubbed as a move to help
friends of the central government. The GST
in turn was criticised as a move to harass
small and medium businessmen by the
Centre rather than be seen as a genuine tax
reform.
Less than a year before elections to the
Lok Sabha, the Modi government was put
on the mat for the death of 13 people in
police firing during protests to shut the
Sterlite copper plant at Thoothukudi. This
episode was one that the ruling All India
Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AI-
ADMK) mishandled, but the government at
the Centre had to bear the cross.
All the above issues were used by the
opposition with active help from the MSM
in Tamil Nadu to tarnish the image of Modi
and his government. The irony is, as a
Tamil adage goes, the blame is on someone
else when the sin has been committed by
another person.
No doubt, the people in Tamil Nadu got
carried away by the fake narration of facts.
After tasting success
And it will only be fair for us to examine
with the jallikattu The media played what really these issues were, something
protests and media up criticisms of the the media in Tamil Nadu failed to deal with
coverage of jallikattu NDA government or highlight.
demonstrations, the headed by Narendra
First, during the jallikattu protests, two
MSM and opposition Modi and AIADMK
key issues were swept under the carpet.
One, the ban on jallikattu came into force
looked for more government then
because of the use of bulls as performing
opportunities to headed by O animals was barred in 2011 by the then
tarnish the image of Panneerselvam for Union Minister for Environment Jairam
Modi government. the event not being Ramesh in the United Progressive Alliance
(UPA) government led by Congress. The
held. DMK, which backed the protests to allow
jallikattu, held during the harvest festival
of Pongal in January, was a key member of
the UPA government.
This is the fact but the media played up
criticisms of the NDA government headed
by Modi and AIADMK government then
headed by O Panneerselvam for the event
not being held. The MSM simply over-
looked the fact that the UPA was the root
cause of the sport not being allowed.
Second, once the protests ended, little
efforts were made to recognise how the
Modi government had gone out of the way
to revive the sport. Nor did anyone give
credit to Panneerselvam for his efforts in
taking up the issue with the Centre and
initiating a solution.
While the general public of Tamil Nadu
got swayed by the enormity of the protests,
the MSM, which was aware of the truth
chose to remain silent or even failed to
focus on those behind the protests. The op-
position is bound to play politics no doubt
but what stopped the media in Tamil Nadu
from looking into the elements that took
the jallikattu protests too far.
No one ever looked into why the TNTJ,
a bitter critic of jallikattu, took an interest
in the protests. There wasn’t even a brief
mention of this anywhere in the media.
Second, organisations like May 17 and
Naam Tamilar Katchi besides Social Demo-
cratic Party of India, the political wing of
the controversial People Front of India,
actively took part in the protests. No one
highlighted this or talked about the fact
that these organisations hijacked the pro-
tests even after an ordinance was passed
for holding jallikattu in Tamil Nadu.
In the case of Neduvasal, the fact is that
the project was finalised by the UPA gov-
JULY 2 0 1 9 21
 COVER STORY
ernment, and DMK president M K Stalin
said that his party’s government, during
its 2006-2011 term, had given permission to
conduct a study for the project. The media
and opposition only played up the Centre
finding a private entrepreneur to tap the
hydrocarbon. Again, no one in the media
tried to find out if there was any real con-
cern over the project being implemented at
Neduvasal.
That was the second instance when the
media and the opposition got away with
their anti-Modi campaign. By 17 June 2017,
it had become 2-0 in favour of the fake nar-
rators. Though efforts were made by BJP
and AIADMK to explain facts, they were
either ignored or fell on deaf ears, thanks
to the proactive false narrations by the
media. In this, one cannot also ignore how
the fake propaganda gained momentum
through social media messages on What-
sApp, Facebook and Twitter.
It is another issue altogether that the
BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit failed to come up
with a narrative to counter such fake news.
Again, on the NEET issue, the DMK and
Congress got away with the tables being
22 J U L Y 2019
turned against the Modi government. The
NEET was introduced in 2013 by the UPA
government in which the Congress and
DMK were the key players. On the other
hand, it was the Modi government which
exempted Tamil Nadu and a couple of other
states from NEET in 2016.
In 2017, when the Centre was set to
allow exemption again, a group of Central
Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)
students filed a petition in the Madras High
Court that prevented the Modi government
from giving the exemption. The petition
finally headed to the Supreme Court, which
ruled that NEET should be held in Tamil
Nadu also.
The counsel for the CBSE students in
NEET case was senior Congress leader P
Chidambaram’s wife Nalini Chidambaram.
Still, when Tamil Nadu medical college as-
pirants took NEET in 2017, it was the Modi
government which was blamed.
Even on the issue of suicide by the girl
student, the media failed in its duty to go
into the facts. The girl’s brother was under
a local DMK functionary’s influence. After
not writing her NEET well, the girl wanted
to join an engineering course but was pre-
The counsel for
In the controversy vented by her brother. Did the DMK have a
the CBSE students role to play in this? Why was she prevented
over sharing of
in NEET case was from joining an engineering course? No
Cauvery river water,
Nalini Chidambaram. one really bothered to find answers to
there were a few
Still, when TN these questions as the people seemed to
issues that the Tamil have believed that “Modi was responsible”
medical college
Nadu public ought to for this.
aspirants took NEET
have known. Neither In the controversy over sharing of
in 2017, it was the Cauvery river water, there were a few
the media nor the
Modi government issues that the Tamil Nadu public ought
state BJP unit tried to
which was blamed. to have known. Neither the media, nor the
put things in proper state BJP unit, tried to put things in proper
perspective. perspective. This, unfortunately, continues
till date.
The DMK, in particular, alleged that the
Modi government was delaying the setting
up of the Cauvery Water Management
Board in view of the elections to the Karna-
taka assembly in May 2018. No doubt, the
BJP had huge stakes in the elections but
the party couldn’t make it past the post,
leaving the Congress to form a coalition
with the Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S).
However, what the media hid and
others didn’t want to discuss was that the
Supreme Court ruling on Cauvery came
in March 2013 and the UPA government,
in which the DMK was a part, dragged its
feet on implementing the judgement. The
Modi government did seek more time from
the Supreme Court last year when it had a
deadline until 29 March, but the anti-Modi
protests were conveniently utilised to bury
what had happened in the past.
In December 1970, when sharing of
Cauvery river water turned out to be a
problem, the then Tamil Nadu chief minis-
ter M Karunanidhi wrote to the then prime
minister Indira Gandhi for holding talks.
Gandhi responded by writing that she
won’t summon anyone for talks on the Cau-
very until the elections got over in March
1971. Why was the late Karunanidhi’s meek
acceptance of it brushed aside and away
from Tamil public memory?
Second, during the river water shar-
ing talks in November 1974, Karunanidhi
conceded 100 thousand million cubic feet
of water from Tamil Nadu’s share. No one,
including those in BJP, pointed out how
Tamil Nadu’s interests had been sacrificed.
Yet again, DMK went scot-free without
being questioned why it held protests in
JULY 2 0 1 9 23
 COVER STORY
early April when Tamil Nadu actually
needed water in June for its paddy crop in
the Cauvery delta. April was clearly two
months ahead and there seemed to be some
kind of agenda behind the protests. Prob-
ably, the DMK had some understanding
with the Congress to put the BJP in a spot
and thus put the ruling party at the Centre
in a difficult position.
After last year’s assembly elections,
when Karnataka Chief Minister H D Ku-
maraswamy made no commitment towards
water sharing and when the DMK chose to
keep silent, its role never came under scru-
tiny. The same people who had shouted for
Cauvery water in April 2017 chose to re-
main silent when the DMK’s ally Congress
and JD(S) ignored Tamil Nadu’s needs.
The bitter truth about demonetisation
was that media played up incidents that
happened outside the state than what real-
ly happened within. There were instances
in which some politicians got their 500 and
1,000 rupee notes changed by using their
influence in banks. There were also reports
of how some politicians used state organi-
sations like transport or electricity boards
24 J U L Y 2019
to change their unaccounted-for money.
More credence was given to the statements
of opposition politicians flaying the move
rather than focus on the real implications
of demonetisation.
GST implementation, no doubt, was
faulty resulting in chaos. But the media
never looked into the advantages of the
system, particularly how the collections
have exceeded the government’s expecta-
tions. Tamil Nadu is one state where trad-
ers try to minimise the tax outgo. Again,
it is a state where people try to buy things
without a bill, fully realising that it results
in non-payment of tax though they get the
product cheap.
The opposition and media drove the
message that GST had resulted in higher
prices for products they buy when the real-
ity was contrary to it. Also, they failed to
point out how, especially restaurants and
eateries, increased their prices under the
guise of GST when they ought to have low-
ered the rates. It was one of the issues that
the media chose to ignore and totally so.
Coming on to the issue of the Sterlite
copper plant, even as the protests began
for its closure, it was clear that vested
After Jayalalithaa’s interests were behind it. The Tamil Nadu
death, the DMK media, in particular, chose to ignore this
The media generally thought it could aspect and gave wide coverage to politi-
tended to be a come to power
cians who backed the protesters.
On 22 May 2018, before police could open
little fair as long as soon as it expected
fire on protesters, a group went berserk
AIADMK supremo the AIADMK to attacking everything they came across.
J Jayalalithaa was disintegrate due to No one in the media tried to go into how a
alive, and more contradictions in the group of protesters got sharp weapons and
importantly, since party. other things to cause damage, including
she had filed more setting on fire the residential portion of
Sterlite plant.
than 200 cases of
The Modi government was blamed for
defamation against the death of 13 people in police firing. Isn’t
the media. the police under the control of the state
government? How many media outlets
tried to discuss or portray the issue truth-
fully?
How or why has the Tamil media got
away with these fake narrations? If you
look at these narratives in an unbiased
manner, it will be clear that this trend set
in only after the death of former chief min-
ister and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa
in December 2016. The media generally
tended to be a little fair as long as she was
alive, and more importantly, since she had
filed more than 200 cases of defamation
against the media.
With the demise of Jayalalithaa, the
state lost a leader who could control the
entire state, and in particular, get the best
out of the police force. Sadly, it was during
her period that the police department got
politicised and it remains so until this day.
The politicisation of the police force had
given a free run to organisations like May
17 or TNTJ, which jump at every available
opportunity to protest over any issue.
If one watches closely the developments
since Jayalalithaa’s death, it becomes clear
that the opposition, particularly the DMK,
and the media, are pouring out their frus-
tration, in their inability to destabilise the
AIADMK government led by Palaniswami,
on Modi and his government.
After Jayalalithaa’s death, the DMK
thought it could come to power soon as
it expected the AIADMK to disintegrate
due to contradictions in the party. Once
Jayalalithaa’s aide Sasikala Natarajan,
who nursed the ambition to become the
chief minister, was convicted for amass-
ing assets disproportionate to her known
sources of income, a part of the AIADMK’s
problems was solved.
Palaniswami, who became the Chief
JULY 2 0 1 9 25

Minister mainly because Sasikala and her
followers trusted him more than O Pan-
neerselvam, has been able to hold on to his
own and has, in fact, ascertained himself
better than anyone in the party. Pan-
neerselvam was seen as someone who can
break the AIADMK anytime.
Once Modi called Palaniswami and Pan-
neerselvam to the capital and made them
smoke peace pipe, it upset and angered
DMK and the media to no end. In order
to avenge the dashing of their hopes in
bringing down the AIADMK government,
they continuously targeted Modi and his
government.
Often, the DMK and other opposition
leaders charge the Centre and Modi of
helping the Palaniswami government to
survive. No one has bothered to find out or
even ask DMK president Stalin, who has
made this allegation a favourite pastime
of his, one question. Why hasn’t anyone in
the opposition moved a no-confidence mo-
tion since February 2017, when Palaniswa-
mi last won a vote of confidence?
The other reason for DMK’s anger
against Modi is that the party had reached
26 J U L Y 2019
out to him soon after Jayalalithaa’s death
to help it come to power in the state. But
Modi upset Stalin and his team more by
brokering peace in AIADMK.
To the DMK’s advantage, the media in
Tamil Nadu has been more than willing
to do its bidding. While the party owns
Kalaignar TV along with a couple of other
channels, it gets unstinted support from
the Sun TV group owned by the Marans,
who are the late Karunanidhi’s nephews. A
few other television channels like Puthiya
Thalaimurai, whose founder T R Pachai-
muthu got elected to Lok Sabha in alliance
with DMK, Thanthi TV and Sathiyam
TV, owned by Christian preacher Mohan
Lazarus, have also become part of the anti-
Modi brigade in Tamil Nadu.
An ecosystem to spread hatred against
Modi and his government has sustained
itself for over two years from January 2017.
It continues to thrive without any counter
from either the BJP or the AIADMK. Going
by the state of affairs in Tamil Nadu BJP
unit, it is likely that the ecosystem spread-
ing hatred against Modi and his govern-
ment could prevail in future too.
COVER STORY
REMOVE THE
ROCK
A hotbed of hollow linguistic pride, Tamil Nadu must witness a resistance movement to shatter the
social stagnation. It must rediscover its cultural literacy to become the land of dharma it was once.
T
ARAVINDAN NEELAKANDAN he cover of Amar Chitra Katha
about the legendary Kashmiri
king Lalitaditya Muktapida car-
ries a picture. The king and his
troops get stuck in the middle of a desert,
thanks to an enemy plot. With water sup-
plies exhausted, everyone is looking at an
imminent and painful death. At this point,
Lalitaditya looks at a rock, there in the de-
sert, and strikes at it. And lo! Water comes
out and everyone is saved and the expedi-
tion ends in a resounding victory.
The cover shows the picture of Lalita-
ditya striking at the rock to release the
underground stream that was running in
Going by the state of the seemingly barren desert. Whenever
affairs in Tamil Nadu the socio-political scenario in Tamil Nadu
BJP unit, it is likely is talked about, this cover picture is what
comes to the mind.
that the ecosystem
The famous art critic of Tamil Nadu,
spreading hatred Venkat Swaminathan (1933-2015), likened
against Modi and his the Tamil cultural milieu, after the as-
government could cendancy of Dravidian politics, to a desert.
prevail in future too. It was as if the creative and spiritual
fountain of Tamil Nadu had disappeared
and the cultural land had become barren.
A rock is hiding a mighty perennial stream
of culture and that rock has to be broken,
so that Tamil grandeur can be released in
all its splendour.
The onslaught of the Dravidian polity
was also aided by the foolishness of ortho-
doxy in Tamil Nadu. The real spiritual
essence of Hindu culture in Tamil Nadu is
a vibrant one. According to Jain scholar
Acharya Hemachandra, Chanakya was
a Brahmin from South India. It was he
who vowed to discard the degenerate,
incompetent, and corrupt Nanda dynasty
M R Subramani is Executive — by identifying the true Kshatriya spirit
Editor, Swarajya. beyond the confines of birth-based caste
system, and nurturing Chandragupt out
of the then socially-marginalised Maurya
clan.
He did it to protect entire India. Vi-
jayanagara would later arise as a barrier
to stop the foreign invaders and it would
be inspired and guided by Vidyaranya,
who in turn came from the lineage of the
great Shankaracharya, whose birth place
Kalady should be considered as a part of
Tamil realm, then. Swami Vivekananda
meditated on the rock amidst the ocean
in Kanyakumari for three days — like
Nachiketa being in the realm of death for
three days. It was here the rejuvenation of
India started with definite plans material-
ising in his mind. Sri Aurobindo came to
this land too.
Later, when Tamil Nadu was engulfed
by Dravidianist darkness and entire India
was under the darkness of Emergency, the
great leader K Kamaraj strove to forge an
alliance of non-Dravidian, non-communist,
non-Congress parties — particularly old
Congress, Swatantra and Jan Sangh. Un-
fortunately, he did not live long enough to
see it to fruition.
Let it be said clearly: what we see today
as National Democratic Alliance (NDA),
had its prototype and blessing in the vision
of two of the tallest leaders of Tamil Nadu,
C Rajagopalachari and Kamaraj, who
despite their differences, joined hands in
their final years to fight against Dravidian-
ism, communism and dynastic Congress.
NDA, that rules India today, owes it to
Tamil Nadu, where it was first envisioned
by these two great leaders.
That historical fact sadly accentuates
the present political and cultural situation
in Tamil Nadu.
JULY 2 0 1 9 27
 COVER STORY
Tamil Nadu today has become a hotbed
of hollow linguistic pride devoid of basic
cultural literacy of the Tamil language.
One can say the entire ancient Tamil cul-
ture predicated itself on the vedic yagna.
To the ancient Tamils, domestic life was a
yagna; farming was a yagna and even war
was a yagna.
When an ancient Tamil poetess sees the
three great Tamil kings who often used to
quarrel for supremacy, the imagery she
employs in her poem to depict the unity of
Tamil chieftains is the three ceremonial
fires nurtured in the home of Brahmins.
Yet, those who swear today by Sangam era
poetry and depict it as the golden utopia
uncontaminated by ‘Aryan’ and ‘Brahmini-
cal’ influences, would fuel their politics
with anti-Brahminism not dissimilar to
Nazi anti-Semitism.
So, the first thing to be done in Tamil
Nadu today, to fulfil the vision of Kamaraj
and Rajaji, is to generate cultural literacy.
Unfortunately, here the ‘breaking India’
forces are pro-active. School exhibitions
are conducted emphasising the separatist
Tamil identity. Politicians like Sentham-
izhan Seeman alias Simon are invited to
lectures where he blatantly propagates
wrong and pseudo-Tamil identity — di-
28 J U L Y 2019
vorced from historical and cultural reality.
All these movements go on to facilitate
the great proselytising project of transna-
tional religious organisations. A proper an-
tidote would be to emphasise the greatness
and diversity of Tamil language and its
pan-Indic umbilical connection. This could
be done in various ways making use of the
already existing traditional infrastructure
in the society. For example, every full
moon day, thousands and thousands of
pilgrims from all over Tamil Nadu, cutting
across caste and political affiliations, come
to circumambulate a sacred hill. Conduct-
ing innovative outreach programmes here
to make people realise their true linguistic
cultural heritage can immunise the society
against such divisive politics.
Had anyone noticed that Tamil Nadu
has one of the longest lists of martyrs for
‘uniting India’ forces? In my living memo-
ry, we remember the killing, assassination
of individuals in Tamil Nadu that started
in 1980s and continues to this day. Once
in Coimbatore, Hindu activists said that
the situation around 1998 (the year of the
notorious Coimbatore bomb blasts) became
so bad that if someone belonged to any
Hindu organisation, his wife was looked at
with sympathy for she would soon become
a widow, and bachelors of the organisation
Youngsters worked would not get brides.
The first thing to and got themselves Yet, youngsters worked and got
be done in Tamil martyred, and it themselves martyred, and it continues.
Nadu today, to This shows the love for dharma even the
continues. This
present generation has in Tamil Nadu.
fulfill the vision shows the love for
Once again, we lack an organisation and
of Kamaraj and dharma even the leadership in the state to make use of the
Rajaji, is to generate present generation high spirits of ordinary Tamils to protect
cultural literacy. has in Tamil Nadu. their culture and spirituality and their
Unfortunately, here way of life. Creating an uncompromising
the ‘breaking India’ and charismatic leadership in the state is
a must not just for politics but for securing
forces are pro-active.
justice for this long list of martyrs.
Tamil Nadu is often projected as the
land of social justice. And E V Ramasamy
(EVR) is projected as the be all and end
all of social justice movement in the state.
However, a deeper and holistic look into
the social history of the state reveals that
the real social revolution against the social
stagnation was mainly spearheaded by
those who were anchored in the vedantic
darshanas of Sri Ramanuja and Shanka-
racharaya.
The Sri Ramakrishna-Vivekananda
Advaitic tradition created a huge social
stir in Tamil Nadu among the educated. At
every level in the society, social reforms
like abolition of untouchability, aboli-
tion of child marriage, encouragement of
widow rehabilitation as well as remarriage
and women education and emancipation
were taken up by those who ascribed to
vedantic and Gandhian ideals. Mahatma
Gandhi himself was appealing because he
again anchored his vision in Hindu values.
Subramanya Bharathi and Namakkal poet
Venkatarama Ramalingam spoke against
social evils in their poetry.
Advaitic seer Swami Sahajananda, who
also established educational institutions
for boys and girls in Tamil Nadu, particu-
larly for Scheduled Caste (SC) students,
right in the heart of the temple town of Chi-
dambaram, was inspired by ‘Maha Bhakta
Vijayam’ — a compendium of medieval
north Indian and Maharashtra saints, in
his quest for social justice. Iyya Vaikundar
employed puranic framework to effect one
of the staunchest social and spiritual eman-
cipation movements in Tamil Nadu. It was
from Swami Chidbhavananda, an Advaitic
seer of Sri Ramakrishna-Vivekananda tra-
dition and a great educationist, from whom
Mahatma Gandhi received his first rebut-
tal of birth-based varna conceptualisation.
This rich Hindu contribution to Tamil
Nadu social emancipation movement has
been pushed under the carpet to project
JULY 2 0 1 9 29
 COVER STORY
EVR as the sole warrior of social justice
which too he was not. An anti-democratic
fascist-minded person with a mediocre
mindset to hate-peddle such stereotypes
capitalising on the evils of social stagna-
tion, EVR was neither a rationalist nor a
social reformer.
He was a demagogue in the line of Adolf
Hitler and other hate-mongers. It is time
Tamil Nadu people are shown what he ac-
tually was, beyond the delusional image of
a savant created out of him. In fact, young
Ambedkarite scholar Ma Venkatesan
brought out a book almost a decade back
on how EVR was a double-faced anti-SC
person based on facts and only facts. That
book, along with the highlighting of real
heroes and heroines of the social emanci-
pation movement in Tamil Nadu, should be
taken to the people.
Movies have now become the new bat-
tleground to capture and mould the minds
of future generation, and in terms of short
term gains, the first time voters. In Tamil
Nadu, movies have tremendous power —
though the days of matinee idols capturing
power are over. In a systematic manner,
the evangelical industry has captured
30 J U L Y 2019
the movie industry and is running its pet
theme through all the movies: Hinduism is
spiritual despotism and facilitates exploita-
tion of Tamil Nadu. So, every development
project is shown as the result of this evil
axis which had to be fought by youngsters.
What is the best way to fight the forces of
this dark evil than by churning out memes
of negativity on social media? The movie-
memes complex has become an effective
tool against ‘uniting India’ forces.
Tamil Nadu has a very important tradi-
tion to protect. Though the word ‘Sufi’ has
been much abused in north India by the
pseudo-secular polity, in Tamil Nadu there
is a syncretic culture that combines yogic
traditions and native Islam. For example,
Vethathiri Maharishi (1911-2006) who
revived yoga on a very vast scale in Tamil
Nadu and abroad was the disciple of Paran-
jothi Mahan (1900-1981), who was a Muslim
yogi and preached non-dual spirituality.
There are quite a few such Muslim born
non-dual spiritual seers, who have a wide
following cutting across religions in Tamil
Nadu. However, today, these spiritual
traditions are threatened by radical Islam-
ists supported by Marxists, Dravidianists
The evangelical and pseudo-secular Congress. By protect-
industry has Once the rock that ing these traditions and highlighting their
captured the movie blocks the eternal contribution to yoga and advaita, the
‘uniting India’ forces will do a great service
industry and is stream of dharma
to humanity.
running its pet is shattered into One needs to look at the way ‘unit-
theme through pieces, we will see ing India’ forces reacted to the earlier
movies: Hinduism is the barren land iteration of ‘breaking India’ forces when
spiritual despotism transformed into they launched the Dravidian movement.
and facilitates what it has been Famous directors like K S Gopalakrishnan
and Chinnappa Thevar churned out mov-
exploitation of Tamil throughout history
ies that took subtle to explicit dig at Dra-
Nadu. — the land of vidian parties. The movies were not just
dharma eternal. mythological, they also dealt with current
socio-political narratives. Let us take the
movies of Gopalakrishnan (1929-2015). In
Dasavataram (1976), he had a Dravidianist
actor playing the role of Hiranyakashipu,
where he is defeated in an argument with
child Prahalada, which, for the movie
viewers, blurred the line between the real-
ity and the screen.
It immunised them against pseudo-
rationality. The same film also subtly
criticised Emergency. Similarly, his 1971
Aravindan Neelakandan is movie criticised the colonial attack on
Contributing Editor, Swarajya. diverse goddess worship. His social movie
Nathayil Muthu (1973) spoke for inter-caste
marriage from the point of view of Hindu
unity. Perhaps, it was the first Tamil film
to have a song celebrating Dr B R Ambed-
kar. All these movies actually checked
the onslaught of movie-based Dravidian
movement.
When Dr M G Ramachandran became
famous, he had mellowed down the trench-
ant Dravidian attack on Hindu value
system and he himself embraced the Hindu
value system in the movies.
The same resistance movement has to
resurface in Tamil film industry, though
the same old mythological melodramatic
approach will have to be replaced by a
more innovative approach.
All these have to be done to remove the
rock. Once the rock that blocks the eternal
stream of dharma, which is running under
the Dravidian barren land, is shattered
into pieces, we will see the barren land
transformed into what it always has been
throughout history — the land of dharma
eternal.
JULY 2 0 1 9 31
 COVER STORY
THE TAMIL
MILLENNIAL
Raised on a diet of larger-than-life heroes, the ‘Millennial Tamil’ yearns for an ‘Anniyan’, who takes
on the corrupt rich and delivers instant justice to the poor. He even wishes he can be one himself.
T
here’s a popular Tamil movie,
Anniyan (Stranger), which was
released in 2005. Allow this writ-
er to indulge in a little neologism
at the outset — the ‘Millennial Tamil’ — a
generic term to define the post-2000 pop
culture-fed Tamil youth. Like all generics,
this is bound to have its exceptions.
Back to Anniyan. The movie, perhaps,
symbolises the Millennial Tamil psyche
more aptly than any other, in more ways
than one. In the film, the protagonist is a
weak, unmanly, stickler-for-rules Brahmin
lawyer (ah, the good old Brahmin weakling
stereotype) who gets enraged at the slight-
est hint of apathy. He works his anger up
to a lather and as a good consumer rights
lawyer should, drags sundry offenders to
court. But the offenders always get away
by hook or crook (the ‘system’ is always
evil). The timid Brahmin lawyer is but an
impotent twig — how can he fight a well-
oiled system where there are leeches at
every twist and turn?
In comes a grim-reaper based character
called ‘Anniyan’. He is another personal-
ity that springs forth from the protagonist
who suffers from multiple personality
disorder. All the apathy that the weak,
rules-following lawyer fails to address,
Anniyan addresses by dispensing punish-
ments prescribed in the Garuda Purana
to the corrupt and debauched. While some
offenders would be fried in oil, some others
would be devoured by leeches. Unlike the
impotent lawyer, Anniyan doesn’t have
patience for a crooked justice system; he is
justice incarnate.
This simplistic plot that tries hard to
come across as a sophisticated ‘psychologi-
cal thriller’ is a good metaphor for the Mil-
32 J U L Y 2019
lennial Tamil and the assorted complexes
that reside in him. The Millennial Tamil
sees decadence, negligence and corruption
devour everything around him while he
watches on helplessly. He is convinced that
almost everyone in positions of power is
part of a grand conspiracy that only seeks
to deepen this decadence.
Being brought up on a staple diet of
larger-than-life heroes who, in borderline
communist archetypal roles, always take
on the corrupt rich and deliver instant
justice to the poor, the Millennial Tamil
yearns for an Anniyan, in fact he wishes
he can be one himself. Now, social net-
works have given him a shot at it.
Dravidianist politics, through its purg-
ing from the public sphere of all that is sa-
cral, left behind a gaping hole, a sort of ni-
hilism that was waiting to find a purpose.
Where there is such a vacuum, cynics
cannot be far behind. A plethora of forces
like evangelists, Leftists, Dravidian-
ists and lately even Islamists joined
hands to fill this vacuum with a deadly
cocktail of borderline racist, anti-Hindu,
neo-Luddite, obsessively conspiratorial,
victim-victor complex.
They drive the Millennial Tamil, they
give him a purpose and these purposes
are fulfilling ones in themselves. At times,
the fight is to save jallikattu from the
evil ‘Aryan’ courts and People for Ethi-
cal Treatment of Animals (PETA), and at
other times, it is the noble quest of erasing
Hindi alphabets from national highway
milestones — all high-minded pursuits
that fight a good battle against the ‘Brah-
minical’ Indian government.
One such episode that gathered eyeballs
was the farmer protest at Jantar Mantar
SUHAS AMBALE
in the first half of 2017. The movies have
The Dravidianist taught the Millennial Tamil that farmers
are always right. This message was rein-
hollowing out of
forced when some actors from the Tamil
the pop culture of industry showed up at the protest site. So,
Tamil Nadu of sacral it is obvious that the Millennial Tamil sees
myths provided the the whole world starting from neighbour-
avenue for secular ing Karnataka to Delhi’s Narendra Modi
myth-making. This and even America’s Donald Trump as
conspirators against the Tamil farmer.
made movies the
Questions like whether agriculture is a
staple opiate of the state subject or something for Modi to look
masses. at, did not matter. Facebook memes could
not and cannot be bothered about mere
technicalities once Modi has been marked
as the target. Cynical manipulators had
already managed to turn the jallikattu
protest into an anti-Modi event towards its
end. They conveniently did not pass the
memo to the protesters that said that the
Modi government had issued a pro-jallikat-
tu ordinance earlier which was stayed by
the Supreme Court of India.
That poor farmers who were unable to
even make ends meet came all the way to
Delhi to ask for a loan waiver, which the
state government can provide did not hit
the conspiracy antennae of the otherwise
conspiratorial Millennial Tamil. It did not
occur to him as intriguing that Islamists
from the Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath
(TNTJ), who had nothing to do with jal-
likattu, had infiltrated the protests at Ma-
rina Beach. There were unverified reports
of at least one Islamist, who had nothing
to do with agriculture, being present even
at the farmer protest. But who cares? The
movies have told the Millennial Tamil
that eating a good biryani is the ultimate
triumph, Islamism be blessed.
Every development project begin-
ning from Kudankulam to the Neutrino
Observatory, from the GAIL pipeline to
the Hydrocarbon Extraction project, is an
imperialist endeavour of the ‘Brahminical’
Indian state that wants to encroach Tamil
lands, kill Tamil farmers and subdue Tamil
pride – the unsuspecting, neo-Luddite
Millennial Tamil is convinced of this. This
is an interestingly ironical phenomenon
where ‘breaking India’ forces have taken
to technology to disseminate neo-Luddite,
pseudo-scientific drivel that is readily
consumed by technologically enabled
but simple-minded pawns. It did not even
occur to them that the farmer protests at
Jantar Mantar magically ended just as the
Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD)
elections concluded. Surely, they could not
be connected.
A cursory look at the Pradhan Mantri
Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) numbers tells
us a story of stark indifference in the Tamil
Nadu state government’s attitude towards
insurance coverage for farming. For kharif
2016, a total of 3.9 crore farmers were
insured by PMFBY nationwide, with the
‘imperialist’ Indian government chipping
JULY 2 0 1 9 33
 COVER STORY
in with a subsidy in premiums. The grand
number of farmers of Tamil Nadu within
this 3.9 crore was 16,056. However, it must
be Modi’s fault that he did not go to farmer
homes and get them to fill insurance forms.
Facts are a Brahminical conspiracy.
From financial inclusion for credit
access to insurance coverage for even
extremely localised crop failures, from
e-NAMs (e-marketplaces for farmers) to
a renewed emphasis on irrigation and
water management, it can be said that
agriculture has been at the very centre of
the Narendra Modi-led government’s focus.
But the poor Millennial Tamil has been
repeatedly told that Modi is evil incarnate
and will sell off Tamil farmer lands to
Hindi businessmen. A lie, repeated often
enough, must be true.
The Tamil country saw some of the
peaks of Hindu civilisation and high cul-
ture. It still houses a large number of lay
folk with a deep sense of culture and devo-
tion, but their traditional structures are
panting for breath, systematically being
suffocated by an actively antipathic state
and a coalition of anti-Hindu forces.
Tamil pride is no more a by-product of
contemporary civilisational achievement.
It has become a public pastime where
atavistic flights of fancy are constantly in-
novated and Brahmins are to be denigrated
as a ritual towards cementing pride. And
this version of Tamil pride is so ambiguous
34 J U L Y 2019
in its definition that it could mean almost
anything — even the victory of the Chen-
nai Super Kings, a team led by a fervently
worshipped ‘Aryan’ captain, consisting of
more ‘Aryans’ and foreign players, with
only a few locals.
The Dravidianist hollowing out of the
pop culture of Tamil Nadu of sacral myths
provided the avenue for secular myth-mak-
ing. This made movies the staple opiate
of the masses with larger-than-life heroes
bringing instant justice and saving Tamil
pride. Within the space of one song, a poor
hero would be a rich man travelling in a
10-car cavalcade.
Demands that a ‘permanent solution’
should be found to the issues of farmers
who were protesting at the Jantar Mantar,
that river inter-linking must happen in-
stantly or that getting Karnataka to release
water would solve farming problems, were
but a manifestation of the craving for
instant justice and everlasting solutions
that hundreds of simplistic movies like An-
niyan have ignited in the naive populace.
But a shallow medium seldom creates a
great society.
It has infused mediocrity into every area
of public life where rhetoric is an end in
itself, slogans are intellectualism and Face-
book memes are research.
No wonder, then, that the Millennial
Tamil thinks kitsch is cool and complexity
is a conspiracy.
COVER STORY
CAN BJP SPEAK
BANGLA IN
TAMIL?
In the beginning of the decade, the BJP was in almost the same position in both Bengal and Tamil
Nadu. Can its success in the east offer any lessons for its unit in the southern state?
B
JAIDEEP MAZUMDAR engal is, geographically speak-
ing, far removed from Tamil
A shallow medium Nadu. But there are some stark
similarities between the two
seldom creates a
states, and the people of the two states.
great society. It has And this is what Bharatiya Janata Party
infused mediocrity (BJP), which has already made massive
into every area of inroads in Bengal, can leverage to its
public life where advantage in Tamil Nadu.
rhetoric is an end The similarities between Bengalis
and Tamils transcend the genetic links
in itself, slogans are
between them. Not all the similarities,
intellectualism and though, are laudable, and quite a few of
Facebook memes are them are responsible for the sad state
research. of affairs in both the states. But what is
significant is that the BJP, which finds
itself in the same position in the southern
state today, as it was in the eastern state
five years ago, has been quite successful in
changing the mindset of the Bengalis and
make them come out of the defeatist mould
that had held back Bengal’s progress all
these decades. This, though, is still a work
in progress.
But first, the laudable similarities and
links between Bengalis and Tamils. It is
an undeniable fact that both the Bengal
and Madras presidencies (under British
rule) were counted as most prosperous and
progressive. The Tamils and the Benga-
lis took advantage of Western education
introduced by the British and made great
strides. Both the states cradled literary,
Suhas Ambale is a technology cultural and scientific progress. Tamils
professional interested in and Bengalis became renowned for their
politics and policy. cultural, educational, literary and profes-
sional achievements.
What is also notable is that while
achieving all this progress in various
fields, Bengalis and Tamils remained
rooted in dharmic traditions. In fact, both
the provinces witnessed religious revival
movements led by great religious figures,
in their own time. And both the Tamils
and Bengalis had their own revered dei-
ties: Murugan in the case of Tamils and
Durga in the case of Bengalis. Swami Vive-
kananda is as much revered in Tamil Nadu
as he is in Bengal: his Tamil disciples
raised a lot of money to enable his travel to
Chicago in 1893 and the first rousing public
reception he received on his return from
America was in Madras.
One of the most enduring and close
links between Tamils and Bengalis is
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose is a
hero who is admired even today and many,
especially in southern Tamil Nadu, have
‘Bose’, ‘Chandra’ and ‘Subhas’ as their
names while portraits of Indian National
Army (INA) chief adorn the walls of
many homes in Tamil Nadu, as they do in
Bengal. Tamil literary icon Subramanya
Bharati is widely respected in Bengal and
just as he translated many of the works
of Rabindranath Tagore (who he greatly
admired) into Tamil, Bharati’s works have
also been widely translated into Bengali.
Bharati’s literary works are still well-re-
ceived at the annual Kolkata Book Fair.
Tamils and Bengalis are justifiably
proud of their cultural and literary herit-
JULY 2 0 1 9 35
 COVER STORY
age and have their revered icons — scien-
tists, doctors, engineers, lawyers and other
renowned personas — who won national
and global acclaim for their accomplish-
ments. The two communities also have a
glorious history and both the provinces are
dotted with ancient temples. Bengal’s his-
tory, though, has been clouded by Muslim
invasions and subjugation by Islamist
warlords since the medieval times. Bengal
and Tamil Nadu also boast of their unique
cuisines. Another factor common to both
the communities is the stellar role played
by many Bengalis and Tamils in India’s
freedom struggle. The leadership roles that
men and women from both the communi-
ties played in the freedom movement and
immediately after India’s Independence
were exemplary.
Both Bengal and Tamil Nadu developed
agnostic tendencies before Independence
and these tendencies even developed into
marked anti-Hindu movements cloaked in
the garb of rationalism, anti-Brahminism
and reformism. Thus, while Periyar E V
Ramasamy led the so-called ‘self-respect
movement’ in Tamil Nadu, many Bengali
‘reformists’, encouraged by Christian
missionaries and the British rulers,
started denigrating Hinduism. Soon after
Independence, Bengal got afflicted by the
scourge of communism. That eventually
led to the all-round decline of Bengal.
The alienation of both the Tamils and
36 J U L Y 2019
Bengalis from their dharmic roots, their
deracination so to say, in the name of pseu-
do-secularism and fake agnostic ‘progres-
siveness’ led to the decline of the polity in
both the states. Bengal witnessed a steady
industrial and economic decline from the
mid-1960s due to the spread of communism.
The Naxal movement resulted in the flight
of capital from the state and its subsequent
intellectual, cultural, academic and moral
decline. The rot that had set in, sometime
in the mid-1960s, worsened with the com-
munists coming to power in the state in
1977.
Over the next 34 years, Bengal sank
deeper and deeper into a morass of
poverty, mediocrity, hopelessness and
lawlessness. The Trinamool Congress rode
to power in 2011 on a tsunami of hope for
change and a break from the past, but hope
was all that was. In the past eight years,
industrial decline has continued unabated.
The state’s debt burden has doubled since
2011, political violence has peaked as have
crimes, extortions and corruption, and a
breakdown of law and order has been ac-
companied by greater cultural, intellectual
and academic degeneration.
The anti-industrial and anti-capital
sentiments that have taken root amongst
Tamils in recent years had perilously
afflicted Bengalis many decades ago. The
same axis of neo-Luddite, communist,
evangelical and Islamist forces, who are
fanning protests against development
The Trinamool rode The myth that projects in Tamil Nadu today have been do-
to power in 2011 Bengali Hindus’ ing so successfully in Bengal for nearly six
decades now. And another sinister tactic —
on a tsunami of ‘pujas’ are more
sub-nationalism — deployed by these four
hope for change cultural than forces (neo-Luddite, communists, evan-
and a break from religious festivals gelists and Islamists), is common to both
the past, but hope — the propagation Tamil Nadu and Bengal. This axis has been
was all that was. In of Durga Puja as using Bengali sub-nationalism, fuelled by
the past eight years, ‘Sharod Utsav’ — a sense of false pride amongst Bengalis of
their glorious past, a sense of victimhood
industrial decline has been part of the
(the alleged ‘step-motherly’ treatment by
has continued project to deracinate the Union government) and a feeling of
unabated. the Bengali Hindu. superiority over ‘north Indians’ in general
— to keep Bengalis in a state of continuous
agitation in order to divert their attention
from the sorry mess that Bengal has been
in for many decades now.
The same holds true for Tamil Nadu.
Tamil sub-nationalism has been used very
effectively as a political tool to keep pan-
Indian parties away from the state’s politi-
cal landscape all these decades. And that
has accorded a free play to regional parties
(Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, All India
Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam etc) as
well as sub-national forces. In Bengal, too,
the communists and now the Trinamool
have fanned Bengali sub-nationalism to
maintain their stranglehold on power in
the state and keep national players — Con-
gress and the BJP — out of political reckon-
ing in the state.
Another unfortunate similarity between
the two states is that the nexus of the four
forces has used theatre, literature, cinema
and the arts to spread falsehoods about,
and trigger apathy and antipathy amongst
Hindus towards their religion and reli-
gious practices. Bengali and Tamil litera-
ture, plays and cinema have continuously
denigrated Hinduism, its practices and leg-
ends associated with the dharma. In West
Bengal, playwrights, poets, writers and
litterateurs have been part of the project to
separate the Bengali Hindu from Hindus
in the rest of India. This has been done by
making Bengali Hindus feel they are dif-
ferent — ‘Devi Durga is ours, not Bhagwan
Ram’ — from Hindus belonging to other
communities and regions. The myth that
Bengali Hindus’ pujas are more cultural
than religious festivals — the propagation
of Durga Puja as ‘Sharod Utsav’ (autumn
festival) — has been part of the project to
deracinate the Bengali Hindu.
The only difference in the sinister game
plan of the axis (of four forces) in the two
states is that in Bengal, the ultimate aim
is to irreversibly change the demography
of Bengal and make it a Muslim-majority
state. The communists, and now the Tri-
namool, have encouraged massive influx
of Muslims from Bangladesh into Bengal
for political gains. They had been success-
ful in immunising the average Bengali
Hindu to the dangers posed by the demo-
graphic change through heavy doses of
JULY 2 0 1 9 37
 COVER STORY
pseudo-secularism, fake progressiveness,
communism and hollow liberalism. Thus,
the deracinated, ‘liberal’, ‘progressive’
and ‘secular’ Bengali Hindu in Bengal had
been conditioned into denying the fact
about large scale and illegal migration of
Muslims from Bangladesh and dismiss-
ing it as mere propaganda. The Bengali
Hindu in Bengal had also been conditioned
to become deaf and blind to the suffer-
ings and persecution of Bengali Hindus in
Bangladesh. The erasement of the ‘Calcutta
Killings’ of 1946 and the pogroms against
Hindus in East Bengal, East Pakistan
and now Bangladesh, from the collective
memories of Bengali Hindus, has been an
integral part of the project of four powers.
As is often said, it is impossible to fool
all the people all the time. The Bengali
Hindu in the rural and semi-urban areas,
who had become tired of Left rule and
ousted the communists from power in
2011, has now once again realised that the
Trinamool is a more virulent form of the
Left. They have been the hapless victims
of extortion, high-handedness and corrup-
tion indulged in rampantly by Trinamool
functionaries. They have felt the negative
impact of Mamata Banerjee’s minority-
appeasement policies that have made
Islamists more aggressive, especially in the
districts of Bengal bordering Bangladesh.
The BJP, which had barely a marginal
presence in Bengal five years ago, started
38 J U L Y 2019
by consolidating the Bengali Hindus and
tapping into their latent anger towards the
corruption, high-handedness and minority-
appeasement of the Trinamool. At the same
time, a dharmic project was launched to
make the Bengali Hindus realise that they
were an integral part of the Hindu com-
munity.
The anger and disgust towards the Tri-
namool, combined with a renewed sense of
religious identity and revival of the bond
with Hindus in the rest of the country (as
was evident from the massive and fervent
participation in Ram Navami and Hanu-
man Jayanti celebrations across Bengal)
resulted in the BJP bagging 18 of the 42 Lok
Sabha seats in Bengal in this year’s general
election.
Except for Muslim-majority constituen-
cies, almost all of North and Central Ben-
gal have turned saffron. It is only South
Bengal, where the BJP is yet to break into.
But here, too, the BJP bagged a good vote
share and was the runner-up in almost all
the seats that the Trinamool won. And by
all available indications till now, it is only
a matter of time before the saffron party
breaks into this Trinamool citadel.
The BJP’s success in Bengal can, thus,
be replicated, albeit with some tweak-
ing, in Tamil Nadu. The defeat and total
decimation of the ‘axis of four powers’ is
the only way in which both the states can
reclaim their lost glory.
MINORITYISM
SHAME AND
SHAM
The Constitution asks the Indian state to provide protection to minorities. That is unrelated to
initiating and funding minority-centric policies, which are discriminatory against the majority.
I
ARIHANT PAWARIYA ndia’s minority policy is anti-nation-
al. I do not use that word lightly. I say
it with full responsibility and aware-
ness of how word inflation, which
is in vogue at the moment, has caused ir-
reparable damage to the public discourse,
where such insults (like ‘fascist’, ‘majori-
tarian’, etc) are thrown around casually at
It is only South political opponents achieving nothing but
Bengal, where the making a mockery of the original mean-
BJP is yet to break ings these words are meant to convey. As
Lionel Shriver writes, “Language inflation
into. But here, too,
has the same effect as the monetary kind:
the BJP bagged a your words grow rapidly worthless”.
good vote share and Lest we forget, India’s Partition was a
was the runner-up in result of the Congress not bowing down
almost all the seats to Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s unjustified
that the Trinamool demands of securing special rights for
Muslims. These weren’t acceptable to
won.
leaders of India’s freedom movement and
they chose division of the country, rather
than accede to Muslim League’s blackmail.
But present-day politicians seem oblivi-
ous to such obvious, critical lessons of our
modern history and have thrown caution
to the winds by proceeding headlong on
the same path that leads nowhere, but back
to strengthening and entrenching the idea
of separatism.
That’s where India’s minority policy is
taking us — towards another division of
India. The ‘othering’ of minorities, chiefly
the religious ones, is one of the most unfor-
tunate developments in the policy making
of twenty-first century India. Benign con-
stitutional protections given to minorities
to protect them from arbitrary power of
the state have transmogrified into sectar-
ian monstrosity today. For many decades,
Jaideep Mazumdar is this relapse was slow but the first Sonia
Contributing Editor, Swarajya. Gandhi-led UPA (United Progressive Alli-
ance) government, which came into power
in 2004, really stepped on the accelerator
and opened up a Pandora’s box.
Expectedly, the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) opposed her government tooth and
nail. “There is poverty in the country.
There is backwardness in the country.
There is no doubt about it. All sections of
the people must be taken forward and their
welfare must be thought of but not in a
sectarian manner. My charge against this
Government is that all this is being aimed
merely at vote bank politics,” said L K
Advani, the party’s top leader at the time.
The then Gujarat chief minister
Narendra Modi termed the targeting of
Muslims for government schemes as “com-
munal budgeting”. “Such discrimination,
amongst the eligible beneficiaries, for flow
of funds based on minority status, will not
help the cause in taking people of India
together on the path of development,” he
said.
But in his first term as prime minis-
ter, Modi not only continued with these
communal schemes, but also introduced a
couple of his own. In his second term, he is
doubling down on these. Those defending
the U-turn are hiding behind fallacious
arguments.
The point of this article is different
though. It is to prove how bogus India’s
minority policy is.
First of all, it’s not a minority policy,
but a Muslim policy taking refuge behind a
politically-correct name. Take for instance
the scholarships worth thousands of crores
that are given exclusively to the six noti-
fied national minorities (Muslims, Chris-
tians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis).
These are not given on merit, but based on
JULY 2 0 1 9 39
 MINORITYISM
share of groups in total minority popula-
tion, which means that Muslims — the big-
gest minority — corner more than 80 per
cent of the amount meant for ‘minorities’.
This is textbook definition of a farce.
Effectively, there is reservation for
Muslims inside this communal scheme.
One can imagine the outrage if a govern-
ment were to launch a national scholarship
scheme and rather than basing it on needs
or merit basis, it reserved 80 per cent for
Hindus, 14 per cent for Muslims and so
on. The outrage will come from both the
left and the right — the former calling
it majoritarian and the latter terming it
sectarian. But when the government plays
the same game within the minority policy,
no one bats an eyelid.
Second, the minority policy, ironically
enough, does not primarily serve those
who are in real minority as far as their
population is concerned. As we saw from
the above example of scholarship distribu-
tion, smallest minorities like Jains, Sikhs,
Parsis or Buddhists, get the least share of
the pie.
Third, though the Constitution talks
about giving special protections to both lin-
guistic and religious minorities, the Indian
state simply focuses on serving only the
40 J U L Y 2019
religious minorities. This is because while
all the six national minorities are clearly
defined under the National Commission
for Minorities (NCM) Act of 1993, linguistic
minorities can be defined only at the state
level and not nationally for otherwise eve-
ryone, except Hindi speakers, will legally
become a linguistic minority.
Technically, everyone who is not a
Hindu is a beneficiary of these minority
schemes. Could it be any more communal?
Article 30 of our Constitution gives the
right to both religious and linguistic mi-
norities to establish and administer their
educational institutions but in the case
of the National Commission for Minority
Education Institutions (NCMEI), which
was established in 2004, only a member
from the six national minorities (non-
Hindus) can be a member of this body that
gives minority certificates to educational
institutions. Farcical enough?
Fourth, making the minority policy a
national one, rather than making it with
the state as a unit, has led to a situation
where Hindus, who are in minority in
eight states, are still treated as a majority
for the purpose of schemes originating
from this minority policy. For instance,
Sikhs, who are in majority in Punjab, will
get ‘minority’ scholarships, but the Hindus
The minority policy, The question of in actual minority won’t. Ditto for Jammu
ironically enough, insecurity among the and Kashmir and the Christian-majority
does not primarily smallest minorities states in the North-East.
One BJP leader petitioned the Supreme
serve those who — Sikhs, Parsis,
Court a couple of years ago to address
are in real minority Buddhists and Jains this anomaly, but it was dismissed stating
as far as their — doesn’t even that the petitioner should approach the
population is arise. Even with National Commission of Minorities (NCM).
concerned. Christians, Hindus This statutory body was set up in 1992 by
an act of Parliament and can only have peo-
have had cordial
ple belonging to the six national minorities
relationship, barring as its members. Just like NCMEI, it’s a
a few small clashes. communal body. Nonetheless, the current
BJP government can include minority
Hindus of the eight states or even linguistic
minorities in the NCM by a simple notifica-
tion (just like Jains were added in 2014 by
a simple executive order) or by amending
the act in Parliament.
Why solve the issue once and for all
when you can play politics over it? Another
dimension has been ignored in this nation-
al minority policy: in many states (Kerala,
Tamil Nadu, etc), national minorities such
as Muslims and Christians are better off
than the national majority Hindus. But it’s
the former which is a beneficiary and not
the latter. Is this what social justice looks
like?
Fifth, who is a minority isn’t defined
in the Constitution. The Supreme Court
of India ruled in the 11-judge bench T M
A Pai case that who is a minority can’t be
defined at the national level because the
Constitution talks about linguistic minori-
ties too, and since they can be determined
only state-wise, religious minorities should
also be defined at the state level. But the
Ministry of Minority Affairs and all central
government schemes cater primarily to the
six national religious minorities.
Sixth, advocates of India’s minority
policy say that minorities are economically
and socially backward and need govern-
ment support for their upliftment. And
since education is the best tool to overcome
these challenges, special initiatives for
their education are required. But let’s look
at the data.
According to the 2011 census, the lit-
eracy rate of Hindus is 63.61 per cent while
for Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains
— all notified minorities — the figures are
74.35 per cent, 67.51 per cent, 71.84 per cent
and 86.73 per cent respectively — all much
higher than the majority community’s
figures. How can, then, the Indian state
justify giving an educational scholarship
to say Jains with a literacy rate of 86.73
JULY 2 0 1 9 41
 MINORITYISM
per cent while denying the same to Hindus
who have a literacy rate of 67.51 per cent?
Even Muslim literacy rate is only margin-
ally lower than that of Hindus.
Similarly, let’s take a look at religion-
wise national monthly mean household
consumption and expenditure (68th round
NSSO data): Hindus (Rs 8,086), Muslims
(Rs 8,069), Christians (Rs 10,428), Buddhists
(Rs 8,212), Sikhs (Rs 13,022) and Jains (Rs
18,562). Here, the difference between Hin-
dus and Muslims is almost negligible while
other minority communities are far ahead
of both these. Seeing these figures, how can
anyone justify giving scholarships to poor
children of one community and denying it
to those of others?
Seventh, the proponents of minority
policy make it a point to group minori-
ties with Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes. Earlier, this dishonesty was limited
to public discourse mouthed by a section
of media, academia, leftists and, of course,
Muslim politicians but after the imple-
mentation of Sachar Committee recom-
mendations, this has become an official
Indian government stance. Former prime
minister Manmohan Singh received a lot
of flak when he said schemes meant for dis-
advantaged sections (including minorities)
42 J U L Y 2019
have the first right on national resources
(which was misreported as ‘Muslims
have the first right…’). The BJP used this
13-year-old statement during this general
election campaign too, to beat the Congress
with, while faithfully implementing the
minority-related schemes that Manmohan
Singh was referring to.
How dangerous is this bipartisan sup-
port to putting minorities in the same
bracket as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes? I needn’t explain the absurdity to
doing so from an educational and econom-
ic point of view for non-Muslim minori-
ties because they are, so far, ahead of the
Dalits. As far as Muslims are concerned,
grouping them with Dalits is preposterous,
even if their economic and education indi-
cators are at similar levels in some areas.
The idea behind giving special concessions
to Dalits is rooted in the belief (of this na-
tion) that they were kept poor and unedu-
cated by design. That’s why reservations
are based on social standing too rather
than pure economic criteria. Muslims, who
have ruled this country for centuries, and
who carved out a separate nation for them-
selves in 1947, can’t possibly be accorded
the same status.
Now, many bleeding heart leftists might
argue that only elite Muslims ruled and
There is no minority the rest were as impoverished as poor
policy here. The Hindus. Even if we forget all the jizya
levied against Hindus and other atrocities,
only policy is for
physical as well as economic, which were
regulation of heaped on them because of their religion
temples. These can by Muslim rulers, we must know that in
be taken over by the group rights regime that the leftists cham-
state and run by it pion, the whole group is treated as a single
as it wishes. They entity. Not every upper-caste Hindu or his
ancestors have tormented Dalits, some
are treated as state
may even have been their advocates, but
property. all suffer from reverse discrimination by
the state. Leftists, therefore, can’t selective-
ly introduce the policy of individualism for
Muslims. They will also have to be treated
as a group. Moreover, no arguments of
castes within Indian Islam or other mi-
norities can be entertained because they
proclaim to be egalitarian religions. You
can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Eighth, there is a new argument that
leftists have started presenting in their
defence of the minority policy: that these
groups are small in numbers and need ex-
tra protection. The question of insecurity
among the smallest minorities — Sikhs,
The idea behind Parsis, Buddhists and Jains — doesn’t
giving special even arise. Even with Christians, Hindus
concessions to have had cordial relationship barring a
Dalits is rooted in few small clashes, mostly because of the
former’s missionary zeal to harvest souls.
the belief (of this
This leaves only Muslims as the odd one
nation) that they out. Why do the biggest majority — num-
were kept poor bering over 18 crore — alone feel insecure?
and uneducated Why does only this community feel mar-
by design. That’s ginalised when much smaller communities
why reservations live peacefully? It is because of unresolved
(or maybe unresolvable) historical and
are based on social
socio-cultural issues with Hindus. Given
standing too rather that the community’s relationship with
than pure economic other religions around the world isn’t any
criteria. better, blaming Hindus is akin to barking
up the wrong tree.
Ninth, many contend that India needs a
minority policy because minorities are left
behind in the country because either the
majoritarian state discriminates against
them or the majority community has
marginalised them. Blaming the state or
the majority community for marginalising
Muslims economically or educationally
isn’t going to help either. The community
must look within. If there are two poor
households — one Muslim and one Hindu
in an area — it’s more likely that the
Muslim household will be in a greater state
of penury simply because of their average
family size. Fifty-one per cent of India’s
Muslim population lives in UP, Bihar,
Assam and Bengal while these four states
house only 32 per cent of India’s total popu-
lation. So, it’s not really a surprise that on
average, in data, the Muslim community
comes out as poorer.
What is surprising is that the Indian
state runs communal programmes that
enlist poor Muslims as beneficiaries, but
leave their poor Hindu neighbours out
in the cold. If illiteracy is higher among
Muslim women, it’s not because of any dis-
crimination, but due to the general outlook
of the community towards female educa-
tion. If work participation of Muslims is
lower, it’s because millions of children are
sent to madrassas rather than put through
proper schooling from where they can
acquire the necessary skills to get into a
good college and then land a good job. The
community can’t live in ghettos and expect
to be an inclusive part of the society. It’s
these barriers that are holding back the
community. It must reform itself.
Tenth, nothing exposes the discrimina-
tory nature of the minority policy more
than the way the Indian state regulates
educational institutions. If Amar, Akbar
and Anthony open schools in the same
neighbourhood, teaching exactly the same
subjects, having the same syllabus and
teaching from the same textbooks, they are
going to be treated differently by law. Only
Amar has to bear the burden of onerous
regulations while Akbar and Anthony are
free to manage their schools as they wish,
simply because they belong to the minority
community.
Our Constitution-makers gave special
protection to minorities for the purpose of
protecting their distinct language, culture
and script. Even if we assume that only
the minorities have this right and not the
majority, which is laughable enough, we
have come to a situation, where the only
criteria that decides the minority nature
of an institution is the religion of those
who are part of the management. Moreo-
ver, while Hindu education institutions,
whether aided or unaided by state, are
forced to reserve quota for poor and the
backward classes (including for minority
students), minority institutions, aided or
JULY 2 0 1 9 43
 MINORITYISM
unaided, both are exempt from such social
responsibility, even for their own commu-
nity members.
Eleventh, the situation is no different
for the administration of religious institu-
tions. There is no minority policy here.
The only policy is for regulation of temples.
These can be taken over by the state and
run by it as it wishes. They are treated as
state property. We have several instances
every year where money is taken from
Hindu temples and used for secular causes.
On the other hand, the Indian state
is designing schemes to give money for
the development of schools and hospitals
on waqf properties, which enjoy unparal-
leled autonomy. As someone on Twitter
quipped, “temple money is government
money. Government money is waqf mon-
ey.” Similarly, churches are free to own
and manage thousands of acres of land
without any scrutiny and finance educa-
tional institutions that enjoy unparalleled
autonomy, and they are able to do all this
with much convenience and at low cost too.
No wonder they are hailed for their charity
while Hindu institutions are denounced
44 J U L Y 2019
for the lack of it. The legal discrimina-
tory mechanism that facilitates Christian
charity and discourages the Hindu one is
conveniently forgotten.
Twelfth, a new category of proponents
of minority policy have come up from the
so-called right side of the political spec-
trum in recent days. Though I countered
many fallacious arguments in my previous
article, here I would like to deal with those
who genuinely feel (for whatever reason)
that these minority schemes would help
the nation. This section of people is most
likely to take offence to my calling their
stance anti-national. I am not even inter-
ested in judging them for their U-turn even
though this issue is the linchpin of the
Hindu nationalistic politics and, if I may
say so, is the cornerstone of our modern
Indian republic, it’s raison d’etre.
These supporters believe that spending
on Muslim girl education and improve-
ment in economic conditions will lead to
a fall in their birth rate. Hindu national-
ists correctly see rapidly rising Muslim
population as the biggest danger to their
culture and civilisation. But they are
wrong in their prognosis. In Kerala, as per
The biggest problem 2011 census, Muslim and Hindu women
literacy rate is 91.33 per cent and 91.08 per
with Modi’s
cent respectively — an almost negligible
supporters is they difference. However, between, 2001-2011,
The Indian state is claim that there is the growth of Muslims has been nearly six
designing schemes some secret strategy times than that of Hindus. This shows that
to give money for behind Modi’s there is some other motivation behind
the development of minorityism push. producing more children in the Muslim
community beyond illiteracy and economic
schools and hospitals Such claims can
factors.
on  waqf  properties, neither be proved Now, some BJP supporters defending
which enjoy nor disproved. the minority policy point out that Modi
unparalleled government’s ‘Madrassa Modernisation
Plan’ would help change that religious
autonomy.
motivation.
But not learning maths, science and other
subjects isn’t what is behind the fundamen-
talism that madrassa students are injected
with from childhood. It’s the religious
indoctrination, and no, the modernisation
programme doesn’t address this at all. No
one should be misled by terminology. ‘Mod-
ernisation’ here doesn’t mean anything
other than the government paying salaries
of some madrassa teachers for secular
subjects, making them register with the
government entity, and so on.
This will only entrench the madrassa
Arihant Pawariya is Senior system because now even the forward-
Editor, Swarajya. looking Muslims won’t have the dilemma
to choose between secular modern schools
and madrassas, as the latter will teach
both. This only exacerbates the problem.
The biggest problem with Modi’s sup-
porters is they claim that there is some
secret strategy behind Modi’s minorityism
push. Such claims can neither be proved
nor disproved. But if that’s really the case,
then the real secret strategists are Ra-
jinder Sachar and Sonia Gandhi, not Modi
because the latter is merely implementing
the former’s policies.
One can go on and on. There is a lot to
be said about why the Indian state gives
aid to students of a few religious groups
to clear government exams such as Union
Public Service Commission, Staff Selection
Commission, etc, or why it gives inter-
est subvention in loans to only minority
students to go abroad for higher studies, or
why it has concessional loan programmes
for minorities only, or why it runs special
job-oriented, skill-training schemes for
only them and not everyone else who are
in need.
But, I will stop at just 12 points, because
I think I have made my point. India’s
minority policy is the most dangerous long-
running fraud. And it is anti-national — ir-
respective of who practises it or champions
it.
JULY 2 0 1 9 45
 SOCIETY
A LYNCHING
AND AN
EXODUS
In UP’s Moradabad district, Gangaram’s minor daughter went missing. He filed a police complaint,
naming his neighbour Danish as suspect. Next day, Danish’s family lynched Gangaram to death.
A
bout three months ago, Ganga-
ram Singh Chauhan’s 13-year-
old daughter went missing
from their house in Aliyabad
village in western Uttar Pradesh’s Mo-
radabad district. The family soon learnt
that it was the man living right opposite to
their home — 25-year-old Mohammad Dan-
ish — who had taken her.
The family sought help from the prad-
han (head) of the neighbouring village,
Peepli Umarpur, and the girl was found
after a few days. It was revealed that she
was taken some 700 kilometres away to
Rajasthan.
The family, however, did not file a
police complaint against Danish out of fear
and to avoid social shame.
The family was scared to approach even
the pradhan of their own village. Ganga-
ram’s son, Deepak, says that they happen
to be one of the only two Hindu families
living among a 100-odd Muslim families,
and they felt that their village pradhan,
Abdul Rehman, would side with his co-
religionists.
About one-third of Aliyabad’s popula-
tion is Muslim.
The minor girl went missing again on
the night of 18 June. This time, the family
gave a written statement to the local Dilari
Police Station naming Danish as suspect.
The police, instead of arresting the ac-
cused, did nothing for an entire day. When
Danish’s family learnt of Gangaram’s let-
46 J U L Y 2019
ter, they barged into his house and lynched
the 55-year-old to death.
Savita saw her husband die in front of
her eyes. Her 18-year-old elder son Deepak,
and two younger children, aged 10 and five,
saw it too.
“They were six men and two women
in total. They were abusing us loudly and
broke open the door. First they hit on my
head, and then straight away went to him
[Gangaram]. He was resting on a cot in the
verandah,” Savita recalls. “They punched
hard on his chest, lifted him up and banged
him on the floor several times. The attack-
ers stopped only when he became uncon-
scious. It looked like he died on the spot,”
she says.
As per the family, the attackers
said how dare they act so brazenly while
living among Muslims. “Hamare beech
mein reh rahe ho aur hamein hi mooh-
zori dikha rahe ho? Hinduon, yahan se
bhago [You live among us and yet dare to
stand up against us? Leave our area, you
Hindus],” Deepak recalls the attackers as
saying. He says the attackers repeatedly
told Gangaram that “na tu rahega na ladki
dhoondega (neither you will survive nor
will you search for your daughter).” He
also recalls Danish’s father, Safayat Nabi
as saying that he will keep Gangaram’s
daughter in his house in front of Ganga-
ram’s eyes and the latter would not be able
to do anything.
Savita says the mob had come armed
SWATI GOEL SHARMA
with lathis, and she saw a butchers’ knife
“They punched hard in at least one hand. “They left after
on his chest, lifted threatening me that my children will
him up and banged meet the same fate,” she says. According
to Savita, one of the women — Danish’s
him on the floor
mother Ameena — sliced her own hand
several times. The with a blade and rushed out. “We later
attackers stopped learnt she went to the police station to file
only when he a complaint against us for attacking them,”
became unconscious. says Savita.
It looked like he died The daroga (police constable) at the
Dilari Police Station, Vijendra Singh Rathi,
on the spot,” says
corroborated this. He told this correspond-
the victim’s wife. ent that a woman from Danish’s family did
come to the police station that evening say-
ing she was attacked but as soon as she saw
members of Gangaram’s family, she fled.
Gangaram’s elder brother Harswaroop
lives with his family in the adjoining
village of Peepli Umarpur, a few hundred
metres away. He says that as soon as he
learnt of the attack, he rushed to the spot,
hired a car and took Gangaram to a local
health centre. The centre referred the
victim to Cosmos Hospital in Moradabad
where he was declared ‘dead on arrival’.
The family did not have the post-mortem
report when this correspondent visited
them on 26 June.
A first information report (FIR) filed on
the same night names six accused — Sa-
fayat Nabi, his three sons Mohsin, Chhotu
and Danish, and their two cousins, Akram
and Irrfan. All that the statement mentions
is that the six men barged into the house
around 8 pm, entered into a scuffle and
Gangaram died of his injuries. The FIR
does not have a word either on the girl’s
kidnapping or that the attack was carried
out in revenge for complaining about it.
The police have applied sections 302 (mur-
der), 147 (rioting) and 452 (house-trespass)
in the FIR. No charge of religious hate
was applied, nor the two women named as
accused.
The station house officer (SHO) of
Dilari Police Station, Deepak Kumar, has
now been suspended for lapses on several
counts. Senior Superintendent of Police of
Moradabad district, Amit Pathak, detailed
the reasons to this correspondent:
•The SHO did not take the victim family’s
complaint on the night the girl went miss-
ing.
•He did not file an FIR even on the morning
of 19 June.
•He did nothing to trace the girl the entire
day.
•Despite the kidnapping being a “Hindu-
Muslim issue”, he did not alert higher
officials.
JULY 2 0 1 9 47
 SOCIETY
•He did not deploy preventive police force
in the area.
Pathak also said that a further probe
is underway to find out if the Dilari police
mishandled the case of the girl’s kidnap-
ping two months ago. All the six men
named in the FIR have been arrested.
The girl, meanwhile, was recovered on
21 June — two days after the lynching —
with another neighbour Nadeem. The girl’s
cousin, Sandeep Thakur, told this corre-
spondent that when he met her on 22 June
in a shelter home, she told him that she
had eloped with Nadeem, who is a cousin
of Danish, so nobody suspects Danish. “She
said it was Danish’s plan,” Sandeep says.
“But now after her father’s murder, she
does not want to live with him anymore
and wants the strictest punishment for
him,” Sandeep adds.
Vijendra Singh Rathi, the daroga at
Dilari thana, said that a case of kidnap-
ping (section 363) and inducing a woman to
compel her into marriage (section 366) was
also later filed against four men, including
Danish. He said the medical report of the
girl is awaited.
Scared for their safety, Gangaram’s fam-
ily has locked their house in Aliyabad and
shifted to live with Harswaroop’s family.
48 J U L Y 2019
Harswaroop, 62, is also a daily-wager like
his younger brother was. His house is too
small to accommodate the two families and
thus some members have been lodged at a
neighbour’s house. The poor family is now
looking to sell off the Aliyabad house but
rue the fact that it’ll go for peanuts.
“We will not get any Hindu buyer now.
We will have to sell it to a Muslim who will
pay us a pittance, knowing our despera-
tion very well,” says Harswaroop. Brahm
Singh, pradhan of Peepli, says their village
is a “Hindu village” where the family can
feel safe. He adds that the “community”
will help them in whatever way it can.
Back in Aliyabad, where both Ganga-
ram’s and Danish’s houses are locked,
no neighbour wants to speak about the
lynching.
Mohammad Ibrar, who lives in the
house just adjoining Gangaram’s, excuses
himself by saying he was not present in the
house when the attack unfolded. He says he
does not know either of the two neighbours
well enough to comment on anything.
A woman and a man who run a grocery
store, a house away from Gangaram’s, say
they know nothing of the tension between
the two families. They also refuse to share
their names. Other families living around
respond in a similar way.
IN THE ORBIT
THE LUNAR
ODYSSEY
Chandrayaan-2 will cover the distance between the Earth and the moon in around two months,
land on the lunar surface and deploy a six-wheel rover. A look into the journey it will trace.
I
PRAKHAR GUPTA n 2008, India made its first big leap
into space as Chandrayaan-1, our first
lunar mission, set out for the moon.
A small cube about five feet on each
side, it orbited the moon and beamed back
evidence of water on the lunar surface and
tens of metres below it, and, in the process,
gave life to new geological curiosities. But
10 months into its two-year-long mission,
it fell silent, bringing the exploration to an
abrupt end.
Scared for their Ten years later, India is returning to
safety, Gangaram’s the moon to find answers to these curiosi-
ties, and many more, which continue to
family has locked
elude explanation. And this time, on the
their house in lunar surface.
Aliyabad and shifted Carrying a lander and a rover, Chan-
to live with his drayaan-2 will trace the same path to the
brother’s family. The moon and go beyond, where no human
family is now looking or machine has ever soft-landed — the
moon’s apparently water-rich but freezing-
to sell off the house
cold south pole. Captivating, indeed. But
but rue the fact that for those not impressed, here’s a little
it’ll go for peanuts. more: this region of the moon hides a
dense metallic mass estimated to be
4.8 quintillion pounds. Right, that’s
4,800,000,000,000,000,000 pounds — all zeros
included.
Chandrayaan-2’s journey to the moon
will begin atop the Indian Space Research
Organisation’s (ISRO’s) heaviest rocket,
Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle
(GSLV) Mark III. The lander, named
Vikram, and the rover, christened Prag-
yan, will be interfaced mechanically with
the orbiter and accommodated inside this
launch vehicle. The six-wheel rover will be
housed inside the lander.
When the launch is set into motion
Swati Goel Sharma is Senior sometime between 9 July and 16 July (15
Editor, Swarajya. July, most likely) the first to ignite will
be the two solid strap-on boosters on both
sides of the rocket. Breathing out orange
plume, the boosters give the rocket the
thrust required for lift-off and guide it
through its brief but majestic vertical
ascent. A few seconds later, the liquid-
fuelled core, or the second stage, powered
by a pair of Vikas engines, will fire, and
the strap-on boosters, having served their
purpose, will be dumped.
This will be followed by the jettisoning
of the protective payload fairing, or the
covering over the payload — in this case,
the orbiter and the lander. This covering
is designed to protect the payload during
the rocket’s ascent through the Earth’s
atmosphere and maintain the rocket’s
aerodynamic structure. When the rocket is
in space, the fairing is no longer needed.
After this, the liquid core stage will
shut down and get detached. Then, the
cryogenic upper stage, powered by CE-
20, India’s largest cryogenic engine, will
ignite, driving the module to a highly
elliptical Earth parking orbit.
At this stage, the onboard propul-
sion system will raise the module’s orbit
around the Earth through a number of
burns. How does this work, you may ask?
While orbiting the Earth in an ellipti-
cal orbit, the module will be at its highest
speed when it passes through the point in
that orbit closest to the planet. This point
is called the perigee. Exactly opposite to
this point in the orbit is the apogee, where
the module will be the furthest from the
Earth and at its slowest speed. The speed
varies across different points in the orbit
due to the variation in the Earth’s gravita-
tional pull.
The closer the module is to the Earth,
JULY 2 0 1 9 49
 IN THE ORBIT
the more the gravitational pull, and the
greater the speed. Every time the module
reaches the perigee, or the point of highest
speed, the onboard engine fires, increas-
ing its speed even more, pushing it into a
higher, more elongated orbit as a result.
With every burn of the onboard propul-
sion system, the module will keep spiral-
ling outwards in increasingly elongated
ellipses.
Eventually, the module’s speed will
reach escape velocity, required to escape
Earth’s gravity, and its orbit elongated
enough for it to set a course for moon.
Some accounts say that after six burns of
the engine, the module will be in a highly
elliptical orbit which will pass close to the
moon’s orbit around the Earth. To push the
much smaller Chandrayaan-1 into such an
orbit, called the Lunar Transfer Trajec-
tory (LTT), ISRO had to fire its engine five
times.
The Chandrayaan-2 module’s entry
into the LTT will be timed in a way that it
reaches close to the moon’s orbit when the
moon is there itself. At this point, the mod-
ule will get captured into the moon orbit
50 J U L Y 2019
through a precise manoeuvre by the on-
board propulsion system. This manoeuvre,
also called lunar orbit insertion, will re-
duce the module’s velocity significantly,
enabling the moon’s gravitational field to
pull it into a lunar orbit. Nearly one-and-
a-half months after it set out for the moon,
Chandrayaan-2 will be orbiting it.
This is largely how ISRO’s Mangalyaan,
or the Mars Orbiter Mission, and Israel-
based SpaceIL’s Beresheet lander, travelled
The rover will
operate for 14-
The Chandrayaan-2 15 earth days, or
module’s entry one lunar day, on
into the LTT will be the surface of the
timed in a way that moon in a semi-
it reaches close to autonomous manner
the moon’s orbit with ISRO exercising
when the moon is partial control from
there itself. A precise Earth.
manoeuvre by the
onboard propulsion
system.
Prakhar Gupta is Senior Sub
Editor, Swarajya.
from their orbits to Mars and the moon
respectively. But NASA’s Apollo-11, a
manned mission launched in 1969, was
guided to the LTT by a single six-minute-
long burn of the Saturn rocket’s third
stage, like a sling shot. The spacecraft took
just over three days to land on the lunar
surface. How it did so is a story for another
day.
Back to Chandrayaan-2.
So, the module has escaped Earth’s
gravity and entered the lunar orbit.
Now, the orbiter and lander module
will start revolving around the moon in an
elliptical orbit. A series of manoeuvres will
be used to progressively lower the altitude
of the module and place it in a 100 km
circular orbit around the moon. Visually,
these manoeuvres will be the opposite of
those performed around the Earth.
Now comes the trickiest part of the
mission. After the module arrives in the
100 km orbit, the lander will separate from
the orbiter, which will continue to revolve
around the moon.
A separate entity now, the lander will de-
boost with the firing of its four breaking
engines. This manoeuvre will bring it to a
periapsis of around 18 km. When the lander
reaches this point, that is at the height of 18
km, the onboard position detection camera
and hazard avoidance sensor study the
landing site for accuracy. Using the data
obtained, the lander will autonomously
determine the trajectory it will have to
take to get to its pre-determined landing
site, and steer itself to a location 100 metres
above the site.
Here, the lander will hover and allow
the hazard avoidance sensor to determine
the safest landing point. Then, it will be
guided to this point and at the height of 2
metres above this location, the thrust will
be cut off and the lander will go into a free
fall to the impact point with the landing
legs attached to it, absorbing the impact
shock.
Once on the ground, the lander will
deploy the six-wheel rover to the lunar
surface using a ramp.
The rover will operate for 14-15 earth
days, or one lunar day, on the surface of
the moon in a semi-autonomous manner
with ISRO exercising partial control from
Earth. Like NASA’s Mars rovers Spirit and
Opportunity, the Pragyan (which trans-
lates to ‘wisdom’ in Sanskrit) rover sports
six independently motorised wheels, but
unlike the former two, its corner wheels
do not steer. The orbiter, meanwhile, will
continue to revolve around the moon and
do so for a year.
JULY 2 0 1 9 51
 UTSAV
GROUNDED TO
HUMAN DESIRES
Often, the gods themselves reside in the trees and hear the wishes of the devotees. Kalpavrksha,
the tree of fulfillment of the physical and sensual, is one such, and celebrates the abundance of life.
T
here is a mythical tree that
fulfills all the wishes of those
who sit under it, and that is how
we know it. In the famous fable
of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, the fool
sitting under the Kalpavrksha, without
realising its worth, first started wishing
in an idyllic fashion. As he sees his wishes
materalising, he thinks, what if the beauti-
ful maiden (a boon granted by the tree),
was actually a demon who would eat him.
And lo!
So, the fable proves every wish-fulfilling
power — from technology or a mental fac-
ulty to even divine assistance — ultimately
is dependent on how prudently it is used.
The wish-fulfilling tree connects the celes-
tial and the terrestrial, the magical and the
ordinary, the sacred and the secular. The
fable thus stands for more than the mere
stupidity of a simpleton wishing foolishly
seated under the sacred tree.
The one who accidentally stumbles
upon this wish-fulfilling tree, the axis
mundi (the cosmic axis that runs through
the centre of the world, connecting the
celestial and the terrestrial) of the inner
universe, but abuses it for the mundane
power through sacred authority, ultimate-
ly brings destruction upon himself.
In Hindu ithihasas, puranas and liter-
ary works, we come across the Kalpavrk-
sha or the wish-fulfilling trees quite
frequently.
In Ramayana, Sugriva the vanara king,
tells the group heading for the north in
search of Sita of these trees in Uttarakuru.
These trees have flowers of gold. Ever in
bloom and spreading a heavenly fragrance,
these trees produce exquisite garments
and valuable radiant gems. They also pro-
52 J U L Y 2019
duce beautiful beds adorned with flowers, ARAVINDAN NEELAKANDAN
feasts of food and drinks and maidens who
serve them. Such trees, Sugriva says, exist
in Uttarakuru. In Mahabharata, in Bhish-
maparva, Vyasa also speaks of Uttarakuru
as home to trees which fulfil all desires. So,
the humans inhabiting the place are happy
and contented like the devas. Uttarakuru is
located in the northern direction adjacent
to Mount Meru.
Professor Vasudeva Agrawala, for-
mer head of the Department of Art and
Architecture at Banaras Hindu University,
identifies a sculptural depiction that is
strikingly similar to the description of the
wish-fulfilling trees described in Mahab-
harata and Ramayana in the western face
of the western pillar of the southern gates
of the Great Stupa of Sanchi. He says:
This representation is so close to the
literary tradition portrayed in the epics
that it appears to suggest a conscious treat-
ment by the artist of a theme which cal tree that seems to pervade the Indian the wishing tree, which gives us every-
literary tradition had made popular. The mind is the religious landscape? How deep do they go thing at the mere thought of it. In a very
The sculptors of Sanchi and Bharhut have Kalpavrksha or back in time? Agrawala hints at another real sense, the mind is the most powerful
carved time and again the lotus creepers as subtle connection and also the rich inter- creator, the perennial source of all our en-
the wishing tree,
producing ornaments (muktavaiduryachit- connections the imagery of the wish-fulfill- joyments, and the inexhaustible fountain
rani bhushanani). Kalidasa in the Kumar-
which gives us ing tree has, which, perhaps, dates back to from which pleasure (rasa) constantly
asambhava VIII 68, refers to necklaces everything at the the very beginning of Hindu culture itself. oozes out. Thought (sankalpa) is the nature
(harayasti) hanging from the top of the mere thought of it. The phrase ‘kamadugha’ is frequently and power of the mind which makes life
Kalpavrksha tree. In the Meghaduta, he In a very real sense, used in the vedas and is applied variously teem with innumerable blessings. The
mentions Kalpavrksha as the one complete the mind is the most to speech (vak), Sarasvati the goddess of artists made full use of a rich connection
source of all objects of adornment and learning, Aditi, the mother of gods, and like this and employed the Kalpavrksha as
powerful creator, the
toiletry used by the women in Alaka. For Prithivi the great mother personified one of the symbols which adorned art both
example, beautiful fabrics, intoxicating
perennial source of (maha-mata). The wishing tree also is in respect of beauty of form and depth of
love glances, flowers and tender leaves, a our enjoyments. called kamadugha as it grants all desires meaning.
variety of ornaments and lac dye for paint- and fulfills all wishes. So long as a man is According to the puranas, the Kalpavrk-
ing the feet are the Kalpavrksha products under its shade, whatever he conceives he sha came during the great churning of the
used for making female beauty make-up realises. Wealth, women and all kinds of Ocean of Milk. This is a primal event con-
(abala-mandana). enjoyments issue forth from its fructifying nected with the precession of equinoxes.
What are the real roots of such a mythi- boughs. The mind is the Kalpavrksha or According to archaeologist and linguist
JULY 2 0 1 9 53
 UTSAV
Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Hindus chose
to symbolise precession through “mytholo-
gizing the churn (in the Ocean of Milk) and
fire-drill (pramantha)” as “the appropriate
mythical analogue for precession”. Even
today, in India, the term ‘churning’ is also
used to describe meetings — particularly
brain-storming sessions. In the churning of
the Ocean of Milk again, we have a puranic
symbolism evolving out of an ancient as-
tronomical event. The churn was executed
by Mount Meru — the cosmic axis, and out
of it emanated, among other things, the
wish-fulfilling tree. This offers, perhaps, a
clue to the origin of the Kalpavrksha itself.
After all, cosmic axis is also the cosmic
tree.
The imagery of a tree — a cosmic tree —
is seen in all ancient cultures. In Mesopo-
tamian culture, there is the famous tree of
life. The mystic tree of life is also present
at the centre of Kabbalah, the Jewish
mystic tradition. For ancient religions, the
54 J U L Y 2019
cosmic tree and its terrestrial incarnations
form the central imagery — the very core
of reality at all levels of existence. The
recognition of this common core imagery
proclaims the unity of the spiritual experi-
ence of humanity even in one of its most
pervasive expressions. Finnish Assyri-
ologist Simo Parpola considers not only
the Sefirotic Tree of Life of Kabbalah, but
monotheism and even Greek philosophy to
have been considerably influenced by the
‘tree of life’ developed during the Assyrian
period of Mesopotamia.
However, it was in India that the cosmic
tree or the tree of life or the wish-fulfilling
tree — each morphing into the other,
effortlessly and spontaneously, found the
highest enrichment both as spiritual and
psychological metaphor and in the rich
representation of art. Anthropologist of
religion, Edwin Oliver James, in his ar-
cheological quest for the ‘tree of life’ states
that “it was however in India that the cos-
In the vedic ritual,
the yupa stumba mic tree was the most conspicuous feature
Muruga takes the in cosmological speculation and imagery”.
or the pole of the
form of kadamba Discounting the then necessary viewing of
sacrificial altar is
tree (anthocephalus history through the incoming Aryan and
considered as the the indigenous Indus Valley binary prism,
cadamba) when
cosmic tree. It is, in he states how the tree worship initially
the tribal chieftain
fact, addressed as centred around the worship of yakshas and
visits Valli, even as
vanaspathaye — the yakshis, on the authority of Dr Ananda
Muruga was courting Coomaraswamy, the noted Indic scholar
master tree of the
her. This is a puranic of Hindu history and art. In his exhaustive
forest.
way of representing study of Indian art, one of India’s foremost
the tree of samsara. social scientist, Professor Radhakamal
Mukherjee, also considers a Harappan
depiction of a human figure standing by
the branches of a peepal tree “to be the
prototype of the later tree-spirit Yaksha
or Yakshi, Gandharva or Vriksaka”. More
importantly, he adds that the peepal tree
(ficus religiosa) depiction in Harappan
seals as prefiguring the later developments:
“It is likely that the Indus people conceived
the pipal as the Tree of Life (anticipating
the celestial Tree of Wisdom of the post-
Vedic age) with the devata inside embody-
ing the power of fecundity”.
In the vedic ritual, the yupa stumba or
the pole of the sacrificial altar is consid-
ered as the cosmic tree. It is, in fact, ad-
dressed as vanaspathaye — the master tree
of the forest. In Rig Veda, we encounter
the cosmic tree in a place that is rich with
symbolic and spiritual significance — after
the king who had promised to give Varuna
his son, decides to provide a surrogate.
Sunashepa, a boy unwanted by his mother
and father, was given to the king to be the
surrogate sacrifice and he was bound to the
stake. Bestowed with spiritual vision by
Vishwamitra, the boy beseeches the deity
for protection. So, Varuna answers the boy
through a verse which speaks of the tree
that unites the inverted tree whose roots
JULY 2 0 1 9 55
 UTSAV
the tree of apparent existence. Mahabhara-
Thus, here we have a ta explains this cosmic tree:
tree, a mythological
tree — but it is The great tree of Brahman is timeless,
having come from the undefined (avyak-
derived from a
tam), it has buddhi as its trunk, the great
basic archetype of ego as its branches, the sense as its sprouts,
universal human the great elements as its sub-branches, and
spiritual aspiration; the sense-objects as its side-branches. It is
a tree of fulfillment always covered with foliage, and always
are above and with clues of the physical and bearing flowers. It produces flowers that
or keys concealed within are both dharma-adharma. It is the source
sensual in a magical
(Rig Veda 1.24.7). of life for all beings. This is the Brahman-
Dr Albertina Nugteren from Tilburg
way. wood and of this Brahman-tree. That is
University, who has studied the “rituals real. (Aswamedhikaparvan of Mahabhara-
around sacred trees in India”, sees in this ta: Nugteren)
verse the “process of turning within to find
one’s own roots placed in light … con- We meet this tree again in Bhagavat
nected with Varuna’s laying out the path Gita 15:1-4. However, this tree has to be
of the sun” and that it may be seen as “an cut with the weapon of true knowledge.
isolated anticipation of what was later to Dr Coomaraswamy explains this process
be developed as full-fledged yoga”. vividly:
One of the earliest depictions of the
sacred tree after the Harappan period “The felling of the Tree, or taking flight
belongs to the third century BCE. Dr from its summit, involves, in other words,
Ananda Coomaraswamy identifies the usual substitution of the via remotionis
it as the Kalpavrksha — now — in for the via affirmativa; the great transition
the Indian Museum, Kolkata. It involves a passing over from the Taught
looks physically identical to the (saiksa) to the Untaught Way (asaiksa
banyan tree. According to marga), the Spoken to the Unspoken Word.
Dr Coomaraswamy, The Brahma tree (brahma vrksa), the Brah-
it was part of the man in a likeness, as samsara vrksa, is
apex portion an indispensable means to the knowledge
of the dhva- of Brahman, but of no more use than any
jastambha of other means once the end of the road has
a temple of been reached; it is a Tree to be used and
Kubera. At the also to be felled, because whoever clings
root of the tree are to any means as if they were the end can
pots, bags of money, never hope to reach the end. The way of
a lotus and a conch affirmation and denial applies then to the
exuding coins. Here, cosmic theophany, just as it applies to
the wish-fulfilling scripture.”
tree is the tree
that fulfills In ancient Tamil Nadu, the kadamba
the worldly tree was worshipped — it is associated
desires. with both Muruga and Vishnu. In Skanda
The Purana, Muruga or Skanda, destroys the
cosmic Soor, the ego-demon, who becomes a tree.
tree is The tree is destroyed by Muruga’s spear
also — the weapon that denotes divine wisdom.
The demon in the form of a tree splits into
two halves — one becomes a peacock, the
mount of Muruga, and the other a rooster
that is present in his flag.
Muruga later goes in pursuit of Valli,
the adopted daughter of a tribal chieftain.
56 J U L Y 2019
Here, Valli symbolises the individual
soul which had lost itself in maya. Here,
Muruga takes the form of kadamba tree
(anthocephalus cadamba) when the tribal
chieftain visits Valli, even as Muruga was
courting her. This is a puranic way of rep-
resenting the tree of samsara, which has
to be transformed, so that the tree of life
becomes the tree divine.
This transformation of the material
desire into spirituality is a functional
archetype in Hinduism. Here, it can be
recalled how Agrawala connected the great
goddess and the Kalpavrksha through the
term ‘kamadugha’. Indeed, it was she who
revived the deity of desire — Kama —after
he was burnt by the gaze of Lord Shiva
immersed in yoga. It is one of her thousand
names that she became the life-saving heal-
er of burnt Kama, reviving him. Commen-
tators point out that this is the sublimation
of worldly desires and transformation of
that into the spiritual quest.
In Hindu culture, vedas and vedic ritu-
als represent the process of the material
universe. They bestow upon the doer all
the benefits he seeks. Vedas are themselves
called Kalpavrksha.
Abirarama Bhattar, an eighteenth
century Tamil mystic, in his very popular
and enigmatic Abirami Anthaathi, brings
out this connection of the goddess with the
vedic tree. He describes her as the trunk,
tender sprouting leaves and as the roots of
the shrutis — vedas and then goes onto de-
scribe her in the same verse as having the
flower arrows and the sugarcane bow — as
the stimulator of the primal desire that re-
sults in creation. The same poet-seer in yet
another verse depicts her as the one who
stands above the vedas placing her feet on
the head of the vedas. So, here, we have a
very clear representation of the goddess
as both the wish-fulfilling tree and the one
who transcends the form of the very tree as
a mere wish-fulfilling one.
So the tree, when sacred, becomes the
wish-fulfilling tree, as well as the cosmic
tree and ultimately, it is the divine tree.
The divine tree is the tree that comes to
us from Atharva Veda as Skambha — the
cosmic axis or the axis mundi. Atharva
Veda speaks of Skambha as having the
other deities abide by him as the branches
of tree are bound to the tree trunk. Indolo-
gist Stella Kramrisch, who belonged to the
JULY 2 0 1 9 57
 UTSAV
Coomraswamy-Tagore school of Indol-
ogy, points out that the vedic imagery is
employed in the inscriptions of the twelfth
century temple Pradymnesavara. The
temple is likened to the trunk of the tree
with all the cardinal regions as directions.
Kramrisch explains:
This world tree is the tree of life. Its
trunk passes through the centre of all life,
of every state of being; from it they ramify;
at the top of this tree is the sun, its fruit.
In this tree, all the birds make their nest
as man did when he syill (sic) near the age
of truth, the perfect age, the Satya or Krta
Yuga, when the tree witnesses his gradual
estrangements and still supports him as
tree of knowledge.
The temple itself is seen as the cosmic
tree. For the devotees, the temple also
becomes the place where their wishes are
fulfilled. Thus, one can say that the cosmic
tree also becomes a wish-fulfilling tree. If
the temple itself is the cosmic tree, then
the sthala-vrksha or the tree special to the
temple also becomes a wish-fulfilling tree.
Often, various species of the tree — in the
particular spatial confines of the temple
— become the terrestrial representation of
the wish-fulfilling tree.
58 J U L Y 2019
In south India, the wishes are written
down in small pieces of paper, which are
rolled and tied to the sthala-vrksha. Child-
less couples tie small wooden cradles to
the sthala-vrksha. Thus the temple vimana
forms the cosmic tree and the temple flag-
post represents the kundalini path — also
pictured as a tree. The sthala-vrksha is
the explicit Kalpavrksha. Often the gods
themselves reside in the trees and fulfil the
desires of the devotees.
In Suchindrum, a temple village at the
southernmost end of the Indian mainland,
the original shrine consisted of an old
dried tree in which Brahma, Vishnu and
Shiva were enshrined.
Thus, here we have a tree, a mythologi-
cal tree — but it is derived from a basic
archetype of universal human spiritual
aspiration; a tree of fulfillment of the physi-
cal and sensual in a magical way; the tree
of life and the cosmic axis. The fulfillment
of desires needs to go beyond — to self-actu-
alisation and end in self-realisation. Hindu
culture and spirituality does not negate
life, but celebrates the abundance of life.
But it asserts the human ability to go
beyond appearances and the pleasures
offered by appearances. It is then that
the wish-fulfilling tree itself becomes the
inverted tree.
UTSAV
THE JACK OF ALL
TRADES
It fulfills almost all needs in the human basket, has stuck around, literally, in all facets of culture for
3,000 years, and that makes the jackfruit tree the grand master of Indic biodiversity.
W
RATNA RAJAIAH hat does the veena, a palace
of the royal house of Travan-
core, a pagoda, papad and
Ramakrishna Paramahansa
have in common?
To answer that question, I first need to
brag a bit and though I am not one given
to boasting, there are a few things that
simply make me puff my chest out with
pride and swagger around a bit. And this is
one of them.
What I mean to say is that there are
biodiversity hotspots; 36 at last count
(anyone needing a definition of biodiver-
sity can leave the room). There are also
what are known as megadiverse countries,
so labelled, because such is their plant and
animal diversity that the 17 countries thus
classified account for at least two thirds of
the planet’s non-fish vertebrate species and
three quarters of all higher plant species in
the world.
India is one of that Magnificent 17.
And rightly so. The 47,000 (at last
count) plant species that are native to
India account for 7 per cent of the world’s,
which include some of the world’s most
spectacular tree species. How many? Well,
according to naturalist Charles McCann’s
seminal book — 100 Beautiful Trees of
India, at least 60 of them are endemic to
India like sal, sheesham, teak, two varie-
ties of sandalwood, four of champa, three
varieties of fig (including the peepal), three
of silk cotton, two of palm, mango, coconut,
jamun and neem.
The mighty banyan, whose mightiest
specimen, Kabirvad, towers on a small
island in the Narmada river near Bharuch.
Aravindan Neelakandan is Its canopy stretches to a breathtaking
Contributing Editor, Swarajya. perimeter of 2,000 feet. Why “Kabirvad”?
It is said the mystic poet-saint lived here
for many years, but the tree is much older
because about 1,600 years before Kabir,
Nearchus, a general of Alexander the
Great described a banyan tree which was
possibly the Kabirvad.
Which brings me to the tree that has
testimony of its antiquity in seeds found in
archaeological excavation sites in Bihar,
dating to the Neolithic period and in refer-
ences to several ancient texts including the
Valmiki’s Ramayana which speaks of its
presence in the Chitrakoot forest, (in cur-
rent day Madhya Pradesh), the Panchavati
forest (near current-day Nashik) where
Lord Rama spent his exile, and Pampa
lake (near current-day Hampi) where Lord
Rama met Shabari on his way to Lanka to
rescue Sita.
And which is also the answer to my
opening question.
The jackfruit tree.
So, apart from the fact that it has been
around for over 3,000 years, what’s special
about this tree?
For one, it’s a stately tree, sometimes
growing up to a height of 80 feet. For
another, it bears the world’s largest fruit,
some of them burgeoning to a weight of 55
kilograms. A single such jackfruit can feed
and sustain a family of 10. So, it is apt that
the first part of its botanical name — ar-
tocarpus heterophyllus — is derived from
the Greek words ‘artos’ meaning bread and
‘karpos’ meaning fruit.
The Sacred
In India, we have loved trees from ancient
times. The importance of plant diver-
sity and conservation and the concept of
revering forests as sacred sanctuaries
JULY 2 0 1 9 59
 UTSAV
(abhayaranya) are found in the Rig Veda,
the Artha Veda, the Charaka Samhita,
Kautaliya’s Arthashastra, Kalidasa’s
Vikramuurvashiiya, Surpala’s Vriskhaveda
and Krishi Prashara, authored by Rishi
Parashara, the author of the first purana,
the Vishnu Purana. So, no surprise then
that all over India, there are at least 100,000
(some experts say 150,000) sacred groves
that have existed for centuries. Protected
and cared for by local communities and
with very deep and equally ancient associa-
tions with folk tradition and mythology,
these patches of forest are sacred because
they are believed to be inhabited and
protected by deities, so much so that they
were called Deo rahati or Deva rai — Deva
or Deo — meaning god or deity.
The Theyyam deities reside in many of
the sacred groves of Kerala (which, inci-
dentally, has one of the highest numbers of
sacred groves in the country) and are the
inspiration for Kerala’s famous 1,500-year-
old dance form, also called Theyyam.
These deities have a close connection with
certain trees and it is believed that they
live in their branches. So, along with the
banyan, champaka and palash tree, the
tree favoured by the female deities is ... the
60 J U L Y 2019
jackfruit. I guess that is why in Kerala, the
wood is used for making idols especially in
devi temples.
The jackfruit tree is part of another
ancient tradition that reflects our deep rev-
erence for trees — the concept of “sthala
vriksham” or the sacred tree of temple
complexes in many parts of south India.
And the jackfruit is the sthala vriksham
in many temples, including two of the 108
ancient Vishnu temples mentioned the
Tamil hymns of the Alwar saints. One is at
Thirukkoodalur, Tamil Nadu. The other is
in at Thrikodithanam, Kerala, and it is so
old that it is affectionately called Ammachi
Plavu or the Mother Jackfruit Tree. It was
in the hollow of another such Ammachi
Plavu in the grounds of the Sri Krishna
Temple near Thiruvananthapuram that
the Travancore king Marthanda Varma
hid when he was fleeing from his enemies.
But the jackfruit tree doesn’t just stand
outside temples; it goes right in.
When the king of Manipur, Bhagyachan-
dra Maharaj (1763-98 AD) was in exile in
the neighbouring kingdom of Assam, his
legitimacy as the real king was questioned
and he was asked to undergo a test — to
single-handedly catch and tame a wild el-
The jackfruit tree ephant. The distraught king prayed to Lord
is part of another Its succulent, golden Krishna for help who appeared to him in a
dream, and instructed him how to do this.
ancient tradition flesh signals the
He also told the king that after his victory,
that reflects our presence of beta- he should have his image carved from the
deep reverence for carotene, one of wood of a certain jackfruit tree growing on
trees — the concept the most powerful a nearby hillock. The grateful royal bhakt
of “sthala vriksham” antioxidants and complied and the idol still stands in the
or the sacred tree of also the raw material beautiful twin-domed Sri Govindaji Tem-
ple next to the Royal Palace in Manipur.
temple complexes in which the body
And the sacred status of this tree is not
many parts of south converts into just in India. The Tay Phuong Pagoda in
India. vitamin A. Vietnam is famous for the 72 statues of the
Buddha and the Buddhist deities, Bodhisat-
tvas, Vajrapanis and Arhants made from
jackfruit tree wood.
This wood, when boiled, also yields a
beautiful golden dye that has been tradi-
tionally used for dyeing the robes of Bud-
dhist monks all across south and Southeast
Asia. During an ancient annual festival
called Kathina, in a ceremony started by
the Buddha himself, the laity offers new
cloth to the bhikkus or Buddhist monks.
This is then cut, sewn, thus dyed and dried
to become the monks’ robes.
In Thailand, the jackfruit is considered
an auspicious tree. So, the tree is often
planted at the back of the house and it is
believed that its presence increases one’s
good fortune.
The Palace Maker
Not only blessed by the gods, the jackfruit
tree wood is an age-old favourite of wood
artisans in many part of the jackfruit’s
natural habitat, especially in Kerala and
Bali, Indonesia. Perhaps, for two reasons.
One that it is disease and termite-proof.
The other is that when polished, it changes
colour with time, starting off as a yellow-
gold shade, then deepening to a rich
maroon, making it perfect for palaces and
mansions where both longevity and beauty
are important. So, this wood has been used
in not just the many of Kerala’s beautiful
tharavads, but also in the sixteenth cen-
tury wooden Padmanabhapuram Palace, a
UNESCO world heritage site. Built using
the ancient science of carpentry called
Taccu Shastra (taccan means carpenter
in Malayalam), jackfruit wood has been
extensively used for the exquisitely carved
decorations and pillars, especially in
the Thai Kottaram, the oldest part of the
palace. But the most spectacular specimen
JULY 2 0 1 9 61
 UTSAV
is in ekanthamandapam, or chamber of
solitude, where stands a massive single
pillar called kannithoonu carved out of a
single trunk of the jackfruit tree. It is said
to be so massive that its circumference is
almost half that of its height.
Finally, Jack The Fruit
Like so many of its tropical kin, the
jackfruit is a multitasking food. The
unripe version cooks into all manner of
deliciousness all the way from chips to
quasi kababs, which is why, I guess, right
now in the West, it is the wonder meatless
meat. The ripe version is ambrosial on its
own, but the diehard jackfruit aficionados
of coastal Dakshin Karnataka and Kerala
convert it into papads, dosas, appams,
kadabu, even a jackfruit version of aam
papad called kumaandra in Tulu. And so,
the very obliging jackfruit grows in many
varieties, each especially designed to suit
the particular culinary use.
But the jackfruit is not just pretty face,
its small-green-misshapen-hippo-with-
prickles appearance notwithstanding.
There is an old saying in Sri Lanka that
“with a jak and a coconut in your backyard
you will never starve”. And that’s not just
62 J U L Y 2019
because of its size — which always mat-
ters. It’s because this fruit is packed with
all kinds of nutritional goodies. Its suc-
culent, golden flesh signals the presence
of beta-carotene, one of the most powerful
antioxidants and also the raw material
which the body converts into vitamin A.
The jackfruit’s cache of vitamin A is so
high that in Bangladesh, it has been used
to combat vitamin A deficiency (inciden-
tally, it is also Bangladesh’s national fruit).
The jackfruit is also rich in dietary miner-
als like calcium, potassium, and iron and
an excellent source of complex carbohy-
drates and dietary fibre, making it a great
energy food. In fact, the jackfruit’s nutri-
tional profile — a balanced combination of
energy-giving carbohydrates, dietary fibre
and micronutrients and minerals — makes
it the perfect staple food… which it is in
many places, especially among the poor.
The seeds of most fruits are inedible.
But not our jack, whose large bean-shape
seeds are rich in vitamin B1 (thiamine) and
vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin A and C,
calcium, zinc, phosphorous, iron, copper,
potassium and magnesium. So, all over
coastal Dakhsin Karnataka, jackfruit seeds
have been traditionally boiled in salted
The tradition of
using jackfruit wood
Like so many of to make the veena
its tropical kin, started in ancient
the jackfruit is a times when the
multitasking food. wood used was
The unripe version from jackfruit trees
cooks into all manner that were sthala
of deliciousness all vrikshams because
the way from chips it was believed that
to quasi kababs, they had absorbed
which is why right the resonance of the
now in the West, it is temple bells.
the wonder meatless
meat.
Ratna Rajaiah is an author
and a columnist. She lives and
cooks in Mysore.
water and dried in the sun (and called
haantani in Tulu) to become emergency ra-
tions in that were whipped out on a rainy
day and turned into delicious curries and
bhaajis, or often munched just as they are,
making them the perfect nutritious snack.
I haven’t told you that its leaves are
used to steam a special kind of idli called
gunda that is made in Dakshin Karnataka
for Ganesh Chaturthi. That every part
of the jackfruit tree is used in Ayurveda,
Unani, Siddha and Chinese medicine. That
according to Mangalam Muthuswamy, a
well-known veena exponent, the tradition
of using jackfruit wood to make the veena
started in ancient times when the wood
used was from jackfruit trees that were
sthala vrikshams because it was believed
that they had absorbed the resonance of the
temple bells. That the mridangam, tavil,
kanjira, jamidika and Kerala’s famous
chenda drums are also made from this
wood because its deeply interlocked grain
resists cracking.
I could go on....
I must end — with Ramakrishna Para-
mahansa. Like so many good things in life,
the jackfruit makes it difficult to get to its
delicious insides because as soon as you
cut it, a thick, sticky white gooey secretion
oozes copiously from just underneath the
skin. Did I say sticky? It’s so sticky that it
is used to repair broken earthenware and
china and to caulk boats and is now being
developed as an alternative glue (inciden-
tally, this bane of every jackfruit lover is
used to heal sores and abscesses, even as
treatment for snakebite.) And the only way
to become unstuck is to liberally anoint
your hands with oil before you cut.
So, Ramakrishna said:
“Misfortune, grief, misery, sorrow, suf-
fering and the various diseases of the body
will disturb the balance of your mind; and
the more you will throw yourself into the
affairs of the world and trouble yourself
about worldly matters, the more your at-
tachment to the world increase. Rub your
hand with oil if you desire to break open
the jackfruit, else the milky exudation of
the fruit will stick to your hands. First rub
your soul with the oil of love and devotion
to the Lord, then you may come in contact
with the affairs of the world...”
Actually, that wasn’t the end.
How could I go without telling you that
of the 38 avatars of the Lord Ganesha, one
is Bala Ganapati who, in each of his four
hands holds that which represents the
earth’s abundance and fertility? They are
banana, mango, sugarcane and… of course,
jackfruit.
JULY 2 0 1 9 63
 BOOKS
WHERE THE
EAGLE DARED
On the 50th anniversary of the Apollo-11 moon landing, here are five books that bring out the real,
raw and honest stories of that pioneering and historic project.
I
n the 50 years since the world
watched live, transfixed and in
awe, the grainy footage of the first
moonwalkers, the story of man-
kind’s giant leap into space has been told
and retold, over and over again, in many
formats and from different perspectives.
It has been narrated through a small pool
of drabber pictures and trite sound bites,
and digitally-enhanced archival footage,
some of which was lost in the US National
Records until recently. Filmmaker Todd
Douglas Miller’s documentary Apollo-11,
dull in some moments and dazzling in oth-
ers, is the latest addition to this list. The
journey has also been recounted in books,
and there are many — at least 10 more are
coming out on the occasion of the 50th an-
niversary of the Apollo-11 landing.
To this space enthusiast, books on moon
landing appeal more than movies, for they
don’t restrict the reader to the confines of
the filmmaker’s interpretation of things,
and to the limits of his imagination, when
it comes to recreated scenes and the use of
archival film. After all, not every aspect of
the moon landing was captured on film and
in pictures, and not every facet of the mis-
sion can be recreated 50 years later.
Books leave readers alone on this front,
letting them imagine for themselves and
recreate the visuals in their brains. And
Michael Collins too could only imagine
how his fellow travellers, Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin, were exploring the lunar
surface when he went out of radio contact
with them and every other human being in
the universe for 48 minutes of each orbit as
Columbia, Apollo-11’s command-module,
orbited around the curve of the moon,
taking him to the far side of the cratered
64 J U L Y 2019
sphere. PRAKHAR GUPTA
As the pilot of Columbia, Collins
remained in the moon’s orbit and spent 22
hours alone, wondering if Armstrong and
Aldrin, who had descended to the lunar
surface onboard the lander, Eagle, would
make it off the lunar surface and back to
Earth with him. In his book Carrying The
Fire (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974),
Collins has vividly recorded this time —
described by legendary aviator Charles A
Lindbergh in a letter to him as the “alone-
ness unknown to man before” — compar-
ing his anxiety to that of a nervous bride.
“When the instance of lift-off does ar-
rive, I am like a nervous bride... If they
fail to rise from the surface or crash back
into it, I am not going to commit suicide; I
am coming home, forthwith, but I will be
a marked man for life, and I know it,” Col-
lins, frequently funny, recalls what he was
thinking at the time, calling it his “secret
terror”.
The landing was a gamble, as no
one knew for sure if the ascent engines of
the Eagle, which were to lift Armstrong
and Aldrin to the orbit for a rendezvous
with Columbia, would work. President
Richard Nixon had a speech ready to be
delivered if the Eagle failed to lift off from
the moon, leaving the first moonwalkers
stranded.
The book is arguably the best account
by an astronaut of his personal journey to
space. Unlike the books penned by Arm-
strong and Aldrin, which do not reveal
what it is like to be an astronaut, or to go
to the moon, Carrying The Fire captures
both joys and fears of Collins’ journey —
from his days as part of the Gemini space
mission, leading to his first flight to space,
JULY 2 0 1 9 65
 BOOKS
through the seemingly endless preparation
for the Apollo-11 flight, and upto the land-
ing on the moon. At the end of it, he is no
loner as strange and distant as he appears
in pictures of him wearing a spacesuit. It
is not for nothing that Henry S F Cooper,
who covered the space programme for the
New York Times in those days, wrote in his
review of the book in 1974: “It is something
new under the sun to find an astronaut
who isn’t afraid to express his feelings. No
other person who has flown in space has
captured the experience so vividly.”
Collin’s description of the view of the
moon from the window of the spacecraft
and the awe that it inspires is perhaps the
most absorbing of all such recollections.
“The vague reddish yellow of the sun’s
corona, the blanched white of earthshine,
and the pure black of the star-studded
surrounding sky, all combine to cast a
bluish glow over the moon. This cool,
magnificent sphere hangs there ominously,
a formidable presence without sound or
motion, issuing us no invitation to invade
its domain. Neil sums it up: ‘It’s a view
66 J U L Y 2019
worth the price of the trip.’ And somewhat
scary too, although no one says that,” Col-
lins describes in words the visual treat, an
experience which he says was hindered by
“an earful of terrestrial chatter”.
The source of this chatter was the mis-
sion control centre at Houston, from where
a room full of mission controllers ran
the hour-by-hour operations of Apollo-11.
Collins was asked to check the secondary
coolant of the spacecraft, something he was
against and had made his opinion known
in a series of meetings before the launch.
But the controllers, with the burden of
lives on the line on their shoulders, had
overruled his objection and he had to final-
ly complete the test. Having performed the
check, he got back to the mission control,
saying grumpily, “we don’t have to have
any meetings about whether we’re going to
do it or don’t do it any more”. “Ouch,” re-
sponded one of the flight directors, amused
by Collins’ reaction.
Not this incident, but in his New York
Times bestseller Failure Is Not An Option
(Simon and Schuster), veteran mission
controller Gene Kranz, the flight director
Kranz’s book is not an for Apollo-11’s descent to the moon, has
Collin’s description
recorded many such light moments, along
of the view of the attempt at explaining
with the tense and thrilling ones, leading
moon from the the technology behind right up to the Eagle’s landing. Published
window of the the moon landing, in 2000, it is an engaging blow-by-blow ac-
spacecraft and the but a shot at putting count of how mission controllers, working
awe that it inspires a human face on behind the scene, away from media glare,
the backseat drivers, overcame adversities, including some hair-
is perhaps the most
raising near disasters — computer alarms
absorbing of all such who have found little
going off and only seconds of fuel left.
recollections. mention in other The book reveals little-known inci-
iterations of the story. dents, and offers new insights into critical
decision. During the most-tense phase of
the mission, the landing, communication
becomes patchy and flow of data to the
mission controllers that is critical to make
decisions — if the Eagle should continue
its descent or abort the mission — is not
smooth.
“The communications problem has bit
us, and I am hard pressed to keep my frus-
tration from surfacing in my voice,” Kranz
writes, adding, “we have only two chances
to get to the Moon and I sure as hell don’t
want to blow off one”.
The mission moves ahead despite these
disruptions, and the controllers in Houston
ask the Eagle to continue its powered
descent. But soon, more trouble strikes
as alarms go off in the lunar module. “It
is like coming to a fork in the road where
you’re uncertain which direction to take,”
Kranz writes, capturing the mood in the
control room at the time. However, before
the mission was aborted in response, the
team realises these were the “same alarms
that brought us to the wrong conclusion,
an abort command” in the final train-
ing test. Fifty years later, it is difficult to
believe that the moon landing could have
been aborted at the last moment.
With aid from the controllers, Arm-
strong and Aldrin guide the Eagle to the
lunar surface. And when Armstrong says
“Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The
Eagle has landed”, Kranz loses control
over his emotions. “Frustrated at my lack
of emotional control, I slam my forearm
against the console,” he writes.
Unlike many others, Kranz’s book is not
an attempt at explaining the technology
JULY 2 0 1 9 67
 BOOKS
behind the moon landing, but a shot at put-
ting a human face on the backseat drivers,
who have found little mention in other
iterations of the story. Kranz retells this
story from the flight director’s perspective,
and given that other two flight directors
have not written detailed accounts, his is
likely to be the only one.
But insiders can’t tell all tales, espe-
cially the controversial ones. And what can
be more controversial than deciding who,
between Aldrin and Armstrong, would
take the first steps out onto the moon. We
now know Armstrong did, but in the initial
days of the mission, Aldrin believed that
he would be first, and he had reasons to
believe so. After all, George E Mueller,
National Aeronautics and Space Adminis-
tration’s (NASA’s) associate administrator
for manned space flight, had told many,
including some news outlets, that Aldrin
would make the first footprint, writes
David Whitehouse, a former BBC science
editor and correspondent, in Apollo 11: The
Inside Story (Icon Books), giving a dispas-
68 J U L Y 2019
sionate account of, among other controver-
sies, the fight for the first footprint on the
moon.
Based on verbatim accounts of the
Apollo-11’s crew, flight engineers, admin-
istrative officials at NASA, and even their
Soviet rivals, the book is a sober retelling
of the true drama that unfolded behind the
scene, the paranoia and intense competi-
tion, and the politics of it all, against the
backdrop of the Cold War.
When it began to emerge that Arm-
strong would be the first man to walk on
the moon, Aldrin wasn’t happy. According
to Whitehouse, he saw it as an insult to his
service — the US Air Force, as Armstrong
was a civilian. He made his displeasure
known.
“He came flapping into my office one
day like an angry stork, laden with charts
and graphs and statistics, arguing what he
considered to be obvious — that he, the lu-
nar module pilot, and not Neil Armstrong,
should be the first down the ladder on
Apollo 11. Since I shared an office with Neil
When it began James R Hansen has Armstrong, who was away training that same. Word soon got out that I was trying
to emerge that delved deep into day, I found Aldrin’s arguments both offen- to lobby support for my being the first...
Armstrong would the stories which sive and ridiculous,” Whitehouse quotes In truth, I didn’t really want to be the first
astronaut Gene Cernan, the last person to person to step on the moon. I knew the me-
be the first man to unfolded away from
walk on the moon till this day. dia would never let that person alone”.
walk on the moon, cameras, behind Some saw this as lobbying. But Aldrin Aldrin has a lot more to say about this
Aldrin wasn’t happy. the scene, and at disagrees. controversy, and how the momentousness
He saw it as an insult home — the heart- Writing in Magnificent Desolation (Har- of Apollo-11’s achievement threatened to
to his service — the breaking loss of his mony Books, 2009) with Ken Abraham 40 overshadow and ruin the rest of his life.
US Air Force, as infant daughter and years later, the astronaut throws light on Magnificent Desolation brings out the un-
this controversy, and his “often misunder- flinchingly real, raw and honest side of an
Armstrong was a the horrific Apollo-I
stood competitive nature”. Explaining why astronaut whose legacy was reduced to him
civilian. accident. he thought he would be the first man on the not being the first man on the moon, and is
moon, Aldrin writes, “in all the previous a candid tale of his struggle to emerge out
Gemini and Apollo missions, the space- of Armstrong’s shadow, the lifelong battle
walks were taken by the junior officer, with depression and alcoholism, and his
while the commander remained inside the infidelities and the damage it did to his
space capsule. And as of February, that first marriage.
was our plan”. Aldrin describes it as the “melancholy of
However, Aldrin says, he “recognised things done”, and London-based journal-
that historical significance may trump ist Sarfraz Manzoor interprets it as “the
NASA’s protocol in this case. I posed the tragedy of achieving everything you have
question to a few other fellow astronauts, set out to achieve”.
and their responses were very much the “When I left NASA and the air force,”
JULY 2 0 1 9 69

BOOKS
Aldrin writes, “I had no more structure in
my life. For the first time in more than 40
years, I had no one to tell me what to do,
no one sending me on a mission, giving
me challenging work... Rather than feeling
an exuberant sense of freedom ... I felt
isolated, alone and uncertain.”
Aldrin lent his name to Buzz Lightyear,
the Star Command character who intro-
duced me and a new generation in the
1990s to the world of space and its endless
possibilities, immortalising his legacy.
But he continued to feel a lack of purpose.
However, his fellow traveller, Arm-
strong, continued to find new callings.
After resigning from NASA in 1971,
he spent nearly a decade as a professor of
aerospace engineering at the University of
Cincinnati, in his home state of Ohio.
In First Man (Simon & Schuster, 2005),
historian James R Hansen follows the tra-
jectory of Armstrong’s life, from his days
as a navy pilot during the Korean War,
through the Gemini-8 mission, leading to
his first space flight, the Apollo-11 landing,
his service on the commission investi-
gating the 1986 Challenger space shuttle
disaster, and his life after it, with all its
70 J U L Y 2019
tragedies and triumphs.
Being the only authorised biography of
the first man on moon, the book is viewed
with suspicion. But as one reads the First
Man, it immediately becomes clear that
Hansen was free to write the interpretative
sections as he wished, drawing his conclu-
sions without the fear of Armstrong’s veto.
Apart from a finger-biting narration of
the tale of Apollo-11 landing, Hansen has
delved deep into the stories which unfolded
away from cameras, behind the scene,
and at home —the heart-breaking loss of
his infant daughter, the death of fellow
astronauts in the horrific Apollo-I accident,
and his own close call with death when he
had to eject from an out of control lunar
landing training vehicle.
The stories of how Armstrong came up
with the phrase “that’s one small step for
man, one giant leap for mankind” and the
missing ‘a’ in it, and how he almost missed
his flight to moon at its first stop when he
turned in his application to be an astronaut
a week late are perhaps the most amusing
of all tales Hansen has told.
Armstrong’s tardy application did find
its way to the right desk.
BOOKS
THE MEANING
OF MEANING
Dr Malcolm Keating brings Indian linguistic theories into focus by drawing on the works of Kashmiri
scholar Mukula Bhatt. It remains the only book-length exposition of the forgotten scholar’s life.
A
s the first millennium CE drew
KAMALPREET SINGH GILL
to a close, Kashmir underwent
a period of fertile intellectual
ferment of the sort that marks
out great intellectual epochs in human
history — the Renaissance or the classical
Hellenistic period, for instance. The result
of this ferment was a prodigious outpour-
ing of intellectual output, especially in the
fields of philosophy, poetics, linguistics
and theology. Under the patronage of suc-
cessive ruling dynasties, arts and culture
flourished in north India, producing some
of the most important works in the Indian
Aldrin lent his name philosophical canon.
to Buzz Lightyear, Among the most renowned such centres
the Star Command of learning was the court of king Avan-
character, who tivarman of the Utpala dynasty which
LANGUAGE, MEANING, ruled Kashmir from 855 to 883 CE. Being a
introduced a new
AND USE IN INDIAN patron of the arts, he attracted to his court
generation in the PHILOSOPHY: AN scholars from all over Kashmir and rest of
1990s to the world of INTRODUCTION India. The most notable among these was
space and its endless TO MUKULA’S Anandavardhana, who wrote a treatise
possibilities. But he ‘FUNDAMENTALS OF on the aesthetics of poetry called Dhvan-
continued to feel a THE COMMUNICATIVE yaloka or ‘A Light on Suggestion’. Ananda-
FUNCTION’ vardhana was, however, only one of a long
lack of purpose.
MALCOLM KEATING series of scholars that Kashmir produced
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC in the field of alankar-shastra or poetics.
320 PAGES Nearly a century after him, the famous
Rs 7,930 ascetic, poet and philosopher of Kashmir,
Abhinavgupta was to write a commentary
on Anandavardhana’s contribution to
poetics called Lochana (Eye on Suggestion)
that is widely read among scholars along
with his other works.
It is perhaps unsurprising that the pro-
digious intellectual output of this remark-
able era still remains incompletely charted
by modern historians and philosophers.
Prakhar Gupta is Senior Sub Relegated to obscurity today, among the
Editor, Swarajya. better known poet-philosophers of that
era, is the name of an exceptional, yet little
studied Kashmiri scholar — Mukula Bhatt.
A new book by Dr Malcolm Keating, As-
sistant Professor at the Yale-NUS college
in Singapore seeks to bring this forgotten
philosopher’s work back into academic
limelight, nearly 1,200 years after it was
first written.
Little is known about Mukula Bhatt
except he lived in Kashmir in the late
ninth or early tenth century and that he
wrote a seminal work on literary criti-
cism known as the Abhidha-vrtta-matrika
or ‘Fundamentals of the Communicative
Function’. His father was Bhatta Kallata,
himself a notable scholar, who is believed
to have authored the Spanda-karika-Vritti
or ‘Commentary on the Verses on Vibra-
tion’. While a seminal contribution to the
development of Indian philosophy in its
own right, the questions raised by Mukula
Bhatt are being discussed by contempo-
rary philosophers to this day, though the
modern debate progresses largely unaware
of his contribution.
‘Abhidha-Vrtta-Matrika’ Or Fundamentals
Of The Communicative Function
Mukula Bhatt’s work is essentially a cri-
tique of Anandavardhana’s better known
treatise Dhvanyaloka. Anandavardhana’s
thesis when first propounded offered a
revolutionary new approach to thinking
about language and its meanings. Tradi-
tionally, it was believed that speech has
two functions — a primary function that is
conveyed directly, and a secondary func-
tion which works indirectly by drawing on
the primary meaning. Dr Keating explains
this process in his book with the example
of a simple sentence:
JULY 2 0 1 9 71
 BOOKS
I had to go two streets over to find a
parking meter.
Here, parking meter is understood
primarily as a device that charges driv-
ers a fee in return for parking space. But
through this primary meaning, we also
understand a secondary meaning — that
the person in question is not just search-
ing for a parking meter but also for a space
to park.
However, this secondary meaning is
not apparent all the time. In this instance,
there was an apparent incongruity in the
meaning of the primary function that led
to the discovery of the secondary mean-
ing. Thus to assume that the speaker of the
sentence was simply looking for a parking
meter does not make sense, and hence our
mind nudges us towards uncovering an
additional secondary meaning.
What Anandavardhana propounded in
his Dhvanyaloka was that in addition to
the above two functions of speech, there is
another third function known as sugges-
tion, and that this suggestive function is
of the essence in poetry. Moreover, this
function of ‘suggestion’ does not need an
incongruity to operate, unlike, the second-
ary function cited above. For Anandavard-
hana and others this suggestive function
is what constitutes the rasa of a poetic
72 J U L Y 2019
composition.
Mukula Bhatt on the other hand,
dedicated his thesis to proving that the
suggestive function of speech does not
need to be thought of as distinct but can be
understood within the limits of the second-
ary function, especially what he called the
indicative (lakshanik) function of speech.
To make his point, Bhatt draws intel-
lectually on three sources from the Indian
philosophical tradition — mimamsa, San-
skrit grammar and alankara (poetic and
aesthetic theory)
The mimamsa school of Indian phi-
losophy, having developed form vedic
hermeneutics, was deeply involved in the
development of philology and philosophy
of language. As Keating reminds us, for
Indian philosophers, words and their
meanings were of great importance for not
only did the vedas and their interpretation
depend on semantics, but the utterances of
Buddha and Mahavira did too.
For grammar, Bhatt draws on Panini
and his classic text, Ashtadhyayi as well
as on Patanjali. In the field of alankara,
Bhatt referenced the work of Udbhata,
another Kashmiri scholar of poetics, who
is believed to have been present in the
court of king Jayapida of Kashmir in the
mid-eighth century. The abhidha-vrtta-
matrika is thus located at the intersec-
For Indian
tion of philosophy, grammar and poetics, Semantics gives us a clear meaning
philosophers,
words and their The pragmatics camp demonstrating the depth and breadth of that we associate with each word in that
Bhatt’s learning, and the complexity of his sentence. However, pragmatics tells us that
meanings were of on the other hand
intricate refutation of Anandavardhana’s there is a context to the word ‘wall’, namely
great importance stresses that an thesis. Rahul Dravid’s cricketing technique, and
for not only did emphasis on pure thus the reader knows that the word ‘wall’
the vedas and objectivity excludes Mukula Bhatt In Modern Philosophy is being used as a cricketing metaphor.
their interpretation the myriad ways To the lay reader, the debate between For the lay user of a language, such
depend on in which humans Anandavardhana and Bhatt, that played a distinction comes instinctively — we
out nearly 1,200 years ago in Kashmir do not have to stop and ponder over the
semantics, but process language,
might seem esoteric with ramifications various meanings of the word ‘wall’. In the
the utterances thus in a way, limited to the aesthetics of poetry. Howev- formal study of language and in commu-
of Buddha and dehumanising the er, the linguistic philosophers of medieval nication theory, however, this distinction
Mahavira did too. study of language. India were debating not just poetry, but between the literal meaning of words and
the very meaning of language — a field of their contextual meaning is critical. Sup-
study formalised today with specialists en- porters of the semantic camp stress that
gaged in the study of linguistics, semantics, taking semantics as the unit of analyses
and syntax, and with applications ranging ensures a scientific objectivity to the
as far wide as the fields of computer sci- study of language by removing ambigu-
ence and artificial intelligence. ity — things are what their literal meaning
A major issue in contemporary philoso- signifies, independent of context. Like a
phy is the semantics versus pragmatics physicist preferring to whittle down his
debate. Put simply, semantics is concerned level of analysis to the smallest individual
with the meaning of words, pragmatics atom and building a theory from up there,
with the meaning plus the context in which the semantic camp prefers to work without
it appears. To take a simple example, a the encumbrance of context.
sentence: The pragmatics camp on the other
hand stresses that an emphasis on pure
Rahul Dravid is the wall. objectivity excludes the myriad ways in
which humans process language, thus in a
JULY 2 0 1 9 73

way, dehumanising the study of language.
Linguistics, in their opinion, cannot mimic
the natural sciences.
In contemporary philosophy, French
philosopher Francois Recanati has at-
tempted to bridge this semantics-prag-
matics divide by finding a middle ground
between literalism (semantics) and contex-
tualism (pragmatics).
Keating points our attention to the fact
that Mukula Bhatt’s work almost 1,200
years ago predated the current philosophi-
cal debates on the semantics-pragmatics di-
vide. For instance, at the outset of abidha-
vrtaa-matrika, Bhatt presents an initial
division of speech function into primary
and indicative meaning — one a literal
meaning, and the second, context depend-
ent. From here, Bhatt goes on to propound
that this two-fold distinction is in fact
much more nuanced, involving a number
of intermediate steps that in effect lead to a
collapsing of the strict division, a stand not
very different from the one arrived at by
contemporary linguistic philosophy in the
light of Francois Recanati’s work.
Reviving Interest In Indian Classics
The philosophical churning of early medi-
eval era in India is reminiscent of classical
Greece, where one brilliant philosopher
74 J U L Y 2019
followed the other, lighting the torch of
ideas from one to the next, or even the Re-
naissance that was to flower in Europe half
a millennium later that laid the epistemic
foundation for much of the modern world.
Dr Malcolm Keating has done yeoman’s
work in bringing to life a near forgotten
scholarly work of this remarkable era. The
brilliance of Dr Keating’s work lies in the
fact that his book, at present the only book
length exposition of Bhatt’s life and work,
is accessible to the lay reader interested
in linguistics and philosophy, despite the
extremely complex subject matter it deals
with.
The book has an introduction by Profes-
sor Lawrence McCrea of Cornell Univer-
sity, himself an authority on Sanskrit
poetry, his most recent work being The
Teleology of Poetics in Medieval Kashmir.
At the same time, it is a reminder to us that
some of the best research on ancient and
medieval Indian classics is coming from
Western academia rather than from our
own institutions. Building on the excep-
tional work done by scholars like Dr Mal-
colm Keating and Dr Lawrence McCrea,
we need to turn our attention towards the
serious study of our intellectual heritage.
The rewards could well worth be applying
to our present.
Keating points our
attention to the
fact that Mukula
Bhatt’s work almost
1,200 years ago
predated the current
philosophical
debates on
the semantics-
pragmatics divide.
Kamalpreet Singh Gill is
a regular contributor to
Swarajya. His areas of interest
include history, politics, and
strategic affairs. He tweets at @
KPSinghtweets.
BOOKS
THE RIGHT
BELIEFS
Swapan Dasgupta weaves a skilful narrative that captures the political beliefs of India’s Right. This is
a must-read for those who are interested in the movement.
E
very ideological movement
MAYURESH DIDOLKAR
worth its name feels the need
to trace its roots and map the
ideological underpinnings in
the context of history. In this context, Dr
Swapan Dasgupta’s Awakening Bharat
Mata: The Political Beliefs of Indian Right
is a ground-breaking effort for its meticu-
lous mapping of the ideological roots of the
Indian Right, as well as, for providing con-
text to many of the issues at the forefront
of the discourse today.
In the opening section, the author uses
Narendra Modi’s spectacular electoral vic-
tory in 2014 as the starting point and then
follows the roots of motherland, religion
and community during the British Raj.
This section is closed with a brief discus-
sion on the changing political narrative in
post 2014 India. Nobody is more aware of
the inherent limitations of the Right-Left
binary in Indian context than Dasgupta,
AWAKENING BHARAT but instead of allowing the debate to be
MATA: THE POLITICAL weighed down by semantics, he skilfully
BELIEFS OF THE INDIAN weaves the narrative thread in such a way
RIGHT that the points of convergence as well as
SWAPAN DASGUPTA divergence between Indian and Western
PENGUIN VIKING Right are highlighted.
440 PAGES This is useful, since we are not stuck
Rs 420 with inventing the wheel at all times.
For instance, while discussing the right
wing’s lack of a doctrinaire maxim, he
quotes philosopher Roger Scruton — “The
inability of conservativism to announce
itself in maxims, formulae or aims wasn’t
evidence of any intellectual shortcom-
ing. It stemmed from an awareness of the
complexity of human things, and from an
attachment to the values which cannot
be understood with the abstract clarity of
utopian theory.”
That this lack of dogma provides the
right with its innate humanity is very
relevant in today’s context.
While the religious and spiritual under-
pinnings of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi
are well documented, very little is written
and discussed about the strength religion
offered to the masses during the inde-
pendence struggle. Dasgupta addresses
this shortcoming. As historian William
Gould wrote: “in the building of a mass
movement, religion helped to provide the
necessary framework, space, discipline
and mobilization and in the process the
political meaning of ‘Hinduism’ was rede-
fined as an idea.”
Partha Chatterjee, writing about peas-
ant agitations of Bengal after 1926, echoes:
“it is hardly surprising discovery that the
ideology which shaped and gave mean-
ing to the various collective acts of the
peasantry was fundamentally religious.”
Thinkers as diverse as Bankim Chan-
dra Chatterjee and Swami Vivekananda
believed in the centrality of religion for re-
invigorating India. In this light, perhaps C
Rajagopalachari summed it the best when
he said: “loosening of religious impulse is
the worst of the disservice rendered by the
Congress to the nation”.
In the third section of the first part, the
author discusses politics and the Hindu
narrative, especially in post-independence
India. Veer Savarkar insisted that Hindu
Mahasabha goes beyond being a religious
body and identifies itself with the national
life of ‘Hindudom’ in economic, social,
cultural and political aspects of its life. Dr
Syama Prasad Mookerjee believed that
middle class liberalism was compatible
with Hindu traditionalism. Thus cultural
JULY 2 0 1 9 75
 BOOKS
nationalism was the bedrock upon which
Hinduism began its post-independence
journey. The opposition was provided by
the highly anglicised metropolitan elite for
whom, to quote historian Mukul Kesavan,
secularism was a “style choice” and “a
marker of good taste and modernity”. That
secularism is alien to Indian way of think-
ing isn’t a right wing view alone either.
Sociologist T N Madan asserted that
“secularism is the dream of a minority
which wants to shape majority in its own
image.” Even Pritish Nandy, certainly no
friend of Bharatiya Janata Party or Indian
Right, had said that the idea of secularism
was borrowed from West.
In the section marked “Reading”, Das-
gupta has curated a collection of writings
from eminent thinkers on issues of nation
building, history and faultlines. While
names such as Sitaram Goel, Jadunath
Sarkar, R G Bhandarkar and Atal Bihari
Vajpayee scarcely need introduction, some
common threads that emerge from this col-
76 J U L Y 2019
lection of writings bear mentioning.
From speeches given by Justice
Mahadev Govind Ranade and R G
Bhandarkar, to writings of Sri Aurobindo
and Bhagini Nivedita, the self-reformist
bias of the Indian conservative movement
is clearly visible. This is an important
line to redraw as the post-independence
Marxist reading of history has projected
the Hindu Right as inherently regressive.
From widow remarriage to eradicating
caste prejudice, right-leaning thinkers
were advocating social reforms as far back
as the nineteenth century.
The section on history analyses the stra-
tegic as well as political genius of King
Shivaji. It also has essays on what it means
to integrate Indian culture in modern
education, and the immense disservice
done by the Left-leaning historians in
writing the history of India based on their
prejudices and political narratives rather
than facts.
The most painful and yet revealing sec-
tion is the one dealing with faultlines. In it, Right in its appropriate cultural context
In the context Nobody is more parliamentarian N C Chatterjee, opposing while Girilal Jain’s essay explains how the
the Hindu marriage bill in the house, lays failure of Nehruvian socialism is inextri-
of Indian Right aware of the
bare how the Nehruvian idea of false secu- cably linked with the Hindu recovery. The
finding themselves inherent limitations larism was used to discriminate against final essay by S Gurumurthy articulates an
on the map of of the Right-Left Hindus and Hindu customs. We also read important concept of Hindusim as a kinetic
human geography, binary in Indian how the president of Hindu Mahasabha expression of Hindu dharma. The concept
Awakening Bharat context than advocated welcoming Hindus back in their is explained with such precision that this
Mata is a significant Dasgupta, and religion, removal of untouchability as well reviewer feels it best to leave the readers to
as physical training for all Hindus. read it by themselves.
effort. It benefits he skilfully brings
During a fiery debate in Parliament Academician John Henrik Clarke
immensely from out the points of in 1970 against the backdrop of Bhiwandi once referred to history as “a compass
Dasgupta’s skills convergence as riots, we read prime minister Indira people use to find themselves on the map
both as a writer well as divergence Gandhi referring to Atal Bihari Vajpayee of human geography. It tells them where
and a curator of between them. as “old Hitler style”. Strangely, the fact they are, but most importantly, what they
thoughts. that Vajpayee went on to represent his must be.” In the context of Indian Right
party for nearly four decades without do- finding themselves on the map of human
ing anything remotely Hitler style, while geography, Awakening Bharat Mata is a
Indira Gandhi plunged the country into the significant effort. It benefits immensely
The writer is an investment dictatorial abyss of Emergency five years from Dasgupta’s skills both as a writer and
services professional and later, should help put the present day ‘rise a curator of thoughts.
novelist. His latest novel The of fascism’ rhetoric from the Left in per- This should be compulsory reading for
Dark Road was published by spective. In the same section, V S Naipaul’s anyone who identifies with or even inter-
Juggernaut Publications. interview puts the aspirational Indian ested in the movement.
JULY 2 0 1 9 77
OBITUARY
ORDER IN
UNIVERSE
Murray Gell-Mann, the physicist who introduced quarks as the building blocks of matter, died on
29 May, aged 89
A
ARAVINDAN NEELAKANDAN fter the 1950s, the world of sub-
atomic particles, which until
then consisted only of protons,
electrons and neutrons began
to change. The number of particles in it
increased and with the help of quantum
numbers, they could be grouped into
families.
For example, fermions, named after
physicist Enrico Fermi, are particles
which have half-integer spin. Electrons are
fermions. Bosons, named after Satyen-
dranath Bose, have integer spin. Photon or
light quantum is a boson.
Similarly, particles can also be divided
based on the fundamental forces or inter-
actions associated with them. The particles
which are involved in strong interaction
(which holds together atomic nuclei) are
called hadrons and particles involved in
weak interaction (which show up during
decay of particles) are called leptons. An
electron is a lepton. Hadrons are divided
into baryons and mesons.
In this, the baryons are a class of fermi-
ons. The mesons are bosons. Protons and
neutrons are baryons. By 1960s, the sub-
atomic particles discovered numbered 30.
Gell-Mann, who had got his PhD from
the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
ogy, when he was only 21, came up with an
elegant scheme to create order out of the
chaos of the sub-atomic particles — par-
ticularly the hadrons. He fancifully named
this as the ‘eightfold way’ after the Bud-
dhist principles of enlightenment.
In this elegant scheme, the multiplicity
of numerous sub-atomic particles changes
into a set of few ‘particles’, which Gell-
Mann named as ‘quark’ — the name taken
from a line of James Joyce’s Finnegans
Wake: Three quarks for Muster Mark.
Author George Johnson in his work on
Gell-Mann and his physics (Strange Beau-
ty, 1999) explores the question of whether
Gell-Mann discovered quarks or invented
them. This is how he concludes:
Was this world stuff or mind stuff? To
say that Gell-Mann “discovered” the quark
is not quite right. … His discoveries were
not of things but of patterns — mathemati-
cal symmetries that seemed to reflect,
in some ultimately mysterious way, the
manner in which subatomic particles
behaved. But then “invented the quark”
is not quite right either — implying some
kind of postmodern relativism in which
science is pure construction, just another
philosophy.
Gell-Mann himself refused to be
dragged into any philosophical debate but
his work inescapably had serious philo-
sophical ramifications.
Gell-Mann was also interested in
sustainable development, environment
and preservation of both biological as well
as cultural diversity. He clearly sensed
the tension between the universalism
of modern scientific revolution and the
cultural diversity. He was for a kind of
“an organic kind of modernization, with a
degree of cultural continuity and memory
of the past.”
Aravindan Neelakandan is Contributing Editor,
Swarajya.
JULY 2 0 1 9 79
80 J U L Y 2019