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RISING CRIMES
AGAINST DALIT WOMEN
WHY THEY ARE HAPPENING ACROSS INDIA AND THE
TOUGH ACTION NEEDED TO PREVENT THEM

Relatives mourn the death of

a 19-year-old Dalit woman in
Hathras, UP, who was allegedly
gang-raped and brutally assaulted
MAGAZINE KING
MAGAZINE KING
MAGAZINE KING
FROM THE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
I
t has been seven decades since Independence, yet India
has been unable to purge the curse of caste from its
society. It permeates our electoral politics, our social
lives, our jobs and even marriages. The ones who su�er
most are those at the bottom of the caste ladder. These
are the Dalits, who comprise 17 per cent of our population.
This means the same medieval beast of casteism stalks 200
million of our countrymen despite many laws
being passed to protect them and raise their
status. This was highlighted recently when on
September 14, four upper-caste men allegedly
gang-raped and brutally assaulted a 19-year-
old Dalit girl in a village in Uttar Pradesh. Her
tongue was cut and her spine broken. She died
after a fortnight of unbearable pain and a life
lived at the intersection of three burdens: of
caste, gender and economic status, a poor Dalit
woman. The Hathras rape and murder, as the
case is now being called, is not an isolated inci-
dent, nor are such horrors restricted to any par-
ticular state. An estimated 3,500 Dalit women
Our October 15, 1978 cover
were raped in 2019, which means 10 Dalit
women are raped in India every day. A third of
the cases are from Rajasthan and UP.
The National Crime Records Bureau’s
latest report records an alarming 159 per cent
increase in the number of reported rapes of
Dalit women in the country between 2009
and 2019—from 1,346 cases to 3,486 cases.
MAGAZINE KING
These numbers, as sociologists caution us, do Our August 8, 2016 cover
not reveal the true extent of the horror. The
reality is that men of the dominant castes see
Dalit women as fair game. It is not only sexual
violence, but an instrument of humiliation and
domination. A sense of impunity also drives
them because, most often, the police tend to be
manned by those belonging to the same caste
groups that dominate the ruling party of the
state and are inclined to turn a blind eye to the
atrocities against Dalits.
A closer look at what unfolded in Hathras
Our April 16, 2018 cover
is a test case for what Dalit women endure.
The UP police tossed aside the rule book on
how a rape complaint must be handled. They were reluctant
to register an FIR even though failing to do so is a punish-
able o�ence. Medical attention to the victim was delayed.
Forensic evidence was collected 11 days later, rather than
within four days as mandated by government guidelines.
When the young woman eventually succumbed to her inju-
ries on September 29, her body was not handed over to the
family but instead cremated by police in the middle of the
night, without their consent.
When law enforcement o�cials look away, harsh leg-
islations like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
(Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, meant to protect Dalits,
become toothless. At nearly 42 million, Dalits make up 21 per
cent of the population in UP, more than in any other state.
But they lack proportionate representation in the administra-
tion, particularly in the police force. This makes them vulnerable
to abuse, despite being a large section of the population.
Our cover story, ‘Rising Crimes Against Dalit Women’, put
together by Deputy Editor Kaushik Deka with inputs from
bureaus across the country, looks at India’s continuing legacy
of shame, the state’s inability to protect our weakest and most
vulnerable citizens. Sadly, as you can see from
our past covers, the story isn’t new. Our first cover
story on the issue was in 1978. This situation still
prevails despite recent modifications to the law,
like designating as crimes acts such as preventing
a Dalit from riding a horse at a wedding proces-
sion or tonsuring their heads to humiliate them,
and restoring the mandatory arrest under the SC/
ST Act. Political parties of all hues court Dalits for
electoral gain.
T he political landscape for Dalits has also
changed. While, on the one hand, the electoral
fortunes of Dalit leader Mayawati and her party, the
Bahujan Samaj Party, have declined; on the other,
younger and more militant leaders like Chan-
drashekhar Azad of the Bhim Army are filling the
vacuum left by the BSP. He is making Dalits more
aware of their rights and fighting for them. The
growing statutory concessions to the lower castes
only heighten the hostility of the upper castes.
However, the problem goes beyond conscience-
salving legislation that doesn’t get correctly
implemented. It is also about their economic
status. Based on the country’s consumption expen-
diture, more than 50 per cent of the SC population
belongs to the poorest two quintiles, as revealed
by the NSSO data from the Indian Labour and
Employment Report, 2014. The corresponding
figure is 20 per cent for upper-caste Hindus. The
latter own 41 per cent of the country’s total wealth
as against 7.6 per cent owned by SC Hindus, ac-
cording to a joint study conducted by the Savitribai
Phule Pune University, the Jawaharlal Nehru Uni-
versity and the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies,
Delhi, from 2015 to 2017.
Increasing urbanisation would greatly reduce the stigma
of caste as people are forced to live and work together. This
leads us to another gigantic problem: the pathetic state of the
infrastructure in our towns and cities. Seven decades ago, the
Dalit icon B.R. Ambedkar called the Indian village a ‘sink of
localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and com-
munalism’. Not much has changed since then, except that our
population has quadrupled. Dalits, and especially Dalit women,
are the worst su�erers of our unjust society.
(Aroon Purie)
O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �9
 INSIDE
UPFRONT LEISURE
BIHAR ELECTION: ONCE UPON
BJP’S PLAN B PG 12 A CRIME PG 59

www.indiatoday.in IAF’S FALLING Q&A WITH

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SALES AND OPERATIONS

RISING KING
CRIMES AGAINST
Deepak Bhatt, Senior General Manager (National Sales)
Vipin Bagga, General Manager (Operations)
Rajeev Gandhi, Deputy General Manager (North)
MAGAZINE
DALIT WOMEN
Syed Asif Saleem, Regional Sales Manager (West)
S Paramasivam, Deputy Regional Sales Manager (South)
Piyush Ranjan Das, Senior Sales Manager (East)

Why they are becoming endemic in India and the

tough action needed to prevent them

Volume XLV Number 42; For the week W EST BENGAL C OV I D

October 13-19, 2020, published on every Friday

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 UPFRONT
SUKHBIR’S SAD
PREDICAMENT
PG 16
BOOKS: AMERICA’S
CASTE SYSTEM
PG 19
BIPLOV BHUYAN/ GETTY IMAGES
MAGAZINE KING
BIH A R ELECTION
BJP’S PLAN B? By Amitabh Srivastava
T
he race for Bihar has suddenly opened up, just weeks
ahead of a three-phase assembly election, which
gets under way on October 28. The NDA alliance is
o�cially riven, with Chirag Paswan of the Lok Jan-
shakti Party (LJP) deciding to categorically back the
BJP even while declaring war against Chief Minister Nitish
Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) or JD(U).
The BJP is o�cially going into the election with Nit-
ish as the chief ministerial candidate and yet has not only
humoured Chirag’s belligerence vis-à-vis Nitish but also had
independent talks with the LJP president in the national
capital. There is no o�cial word on what transpired in the
talks, but it has been enough to sets tongues wagging. It
may even have given the opposition a fighting chance.
Just consider the dichotomy of a clear endorsement of
IAF’S FALLING
SQUADRON
NUMBERS PG 18
SUSHANT CASE:
‘IT WAS SUICIDE’
PG 20
TALKING SIDES
LJP chief Chirag
Paswan with party
leaders at his Delhi
residence, Oct. 4
Nitish’s leadership, only last month, from Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, saying “everything was possible with an
ally like Nitishji”, and Chirag’s appeal to the people of Bihar
to not “waste any votes on the JD(U)”, even while throwing
in his lot with the BJP.
While declaring his decision to go solo, Chirag has also
promised to put up candidates against the JD(U), but not
against the BJP, which seems like a well-thought-out strategy
to help the sa�ron party. “Do you think the Bihar voters are
fools? They are the most politically aware people in India. The
BJP cannot continue to sail in two boats. This will only hurt
the NDA,” says a senior JD(U) leader, requesting anonym-
ity. In maintaining an awkward silence on Chirag’s o�ensive
against Nitish and the JD(U), the BJP is possibly hoping to
pocket the 4.5 per cent Paswan vote in the state. The BJP

UPFRONT
seems to believe that there is some anti-
incumbency working against Nitish and
the JD(U), and that the LJP’s shenani-
gans may help it emerge as the single
largest party in Bihar.
Will the BJP allow Chirag to contest
against the JD(U) in Bihar and still re-
main a part of the Union cabinet? And
if it does, what message will it convey to
voters in Bihar? These are di�cult ques-
tions that no BJP leader from Bihar is
willing to address now. “If they contest
in alliance with us, yet try to get favours
from opponents like the LJP, we will
be forced to keep our options open too,”
said a senior JD(U) leader, preferring
anonymity, on October 5.
“It’s not a win-win for the BJP, as
may appear to an outsider. Backing an
overambitious politician and jeop-
ardising a winning combination is not
prudent. The BJP also has to remem-
ber that the Bihar election is the first
after the pandemic, and hence a sort of
referendum on PM Modi’s policies of
the past many months,” the leader said. MAGAZINE KING
W
hile Chirag has decided to go it
alone, he’s clear on his objective.
“Like at the Centre, the LJP
wants a BJP-led government in Bihar.
After the election, the LJP legislators
will work to strengthen the hands of
Prime Minister Modi,” said a party
statement. Chirag’s 2020 strategy is
clearly a leaf out of Paswan Sr’s play-
book. In 2005, Ram Vilas Paswan and
the LJP—despite being a member of the
Congress-led UPA cabinet--fought the
Bihar election alone (twice that year, af-
ter a hung verdict the first time) with the
sole objective of ending the 15-year rule
of the RJD. It didn’t win many seats,
but it split crucial votes, making it easier
for the NDA to form a government.
Nitish’s JD(U) and the BJP reaped the
harvest then.
Now in 2020, the LJP is targeting
Nitish’s JD(U). Since Chirag is openly
rooting for a BJP chief minister, the
LJP is hoping to bag pro-BJP votes in
constituencies where the latter is not
contesting. “Who will the pro-BJP
voter choose: the party that promises
14 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0
a BJP chief minister or the party that
will always have it play second fiddle in
government?” asks an LJP leader. Now,
that reading may be a tad simplistic,
but the possibility will certainly worry
the JD(U). While the LJP has a limited
base in Bihar, it may co-opt influential
local politicians, including BJP men, in
seats where the JD(U) is contesting.
That Chirag’s open belligerence
and the BJP’s tacit approval of it has
rankled with the JD(U) was evident at
the NDA press conference to announce
the seat-sharing details. Nitish arrived
only after the BJP put out a statement
saying the alliance was “unbreakable”
in Bihar. Deputy chief minister Su-
NOTHING OFFICIAL
ABOUT IT
� The LJP contesting sepa-
rately may create a triangular
contest in Bihar, which may
benefit the RJD-led alliance
� If Chirag takes out 10%
from the NDA tally and the RJD
increases its numbers by a bit,
it will throw open the election,
which seemed one-sided so far
� Having already lost Shiv Sena
and Akali Dal, the BJP may not
risk losing a crucial ally like the
JD(U). But if they don’t campaign
against Chirag’s party (keeping
in mind the LJP’s hold on 4.5%
of the vote), the JD(U) will also
start thinking about a Plan B
ANI
ANYTHING’S
POSSIBLE
PM Modi with Bihar
CM Nitish Kumar
shil Kumar Modi said it didn’t matter
“which party wins how many seats”; if
the NDA wins, Nitish will be the chief
minister. The two parties have agreed
to fight a near- equal number of seats—
the JD(U) 122 and the BJP 121. Of the
alliance partners, Jitan Ram Manjhi’s
Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular)
will get seven seats from the JD(U)
quota while the BJP will make some
room for Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel
Insaan Party (VIP).
For the RJD-led alliance in Bihar,
the developments have come as a stroke
of luck. Struggling after allies HAM(S),
VIP and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rash-
triya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) left,
Chirag’s rebellion has presented them
with an opportunity. Over the years, the
RJD’s core vote base of Muslims (16.5
per cent) and Yadavs (14 per cent)—
called the M-Y combination in the
state—has never deserted Lalu Prasad’s
party despite a series of electoral,
political and legal reverses. Even in its
poorest performance in the 2019 Lok
Sabha polls, the party still managed
15.7 per cent of the vote. Though this is a
significant support base, it matters only
in triangular or four-cornered contests,
as not many from the remaining social
groups in Bihar vote for the RJD. “Now,
with Chirag opening up a possibility of a
triangular contest, we do see an oppor-
tunity,” a senior RJD leader conceded.
In a few days from now, when
Bihar votes for its next government, the
Paswan gambit and the BJP’s silence
will be put to test. The two may emerge
as master strategists, or go down as
gamblers who lost the plot even with a
sure-fire hand. ■
 GL ASSHOUSE

NEW OTT POLICE

IN TOWN
T he long arm of the Union informa-
tion and broadcasting ministry
will now cover digital media, including
OTT platforms. While the Prakash
Javadekar-led ministry is the supervis-
ing authority for traditional media such
as print and television, digital media
had so far been under the ministry
of information technology. Concerns
about the violent and sexual content
on OTT platforms, such as Netflix
and Amazon Prime, have apparently
prompted the move. Sources, however,
say that the I&B oversight will not
extend to censorship. Javadekar’s min-
istry will only release a set of guidelines
for platforms to regulate themselves.
Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE

MAGAZINE KING
Dispirited babus
B ureaucrats who double up as
election observers usually
get VIP treatment from the district
administrations. Madhya Pradesh’s
bureaucrats, however, are dread-
ing the prospect of election duty in
Bihar. But it’s not the usual election
hiccups that are weighing on their
minds; sources say it’s the fact that
the state is dry. After all, what’s a
Naidu’s Moves good party with just nimbu paani?

T elugu Desam Party chief N.

Chandrababu Naidu spent BETTER SAFE
the past 16 months after his elec- THAN SARI
toral defeat attacking Chief Min-
ister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s
“flawed” welfare schemes. But T he ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi will spend
Rs 317 crore to gift 9.9 million saris to women
in the state ahead of Dussehra and Deepavali.
now he has changed tack. Naidu
Telangana governor and a gynaecologist, Tamil
recently launched a website
Isai Soundararajan, though, has a better
where citizens of Andhra Pradesh suggestion—free mammography screenings to
can share their experiences and detect breast cancer. Remains to be seen whether
ask for help on issues related to the state government pays heed to her—they’ve
Covid-19. With the virus raging, gifted saris worth over Rs 1,000 crore since
Plan B could be a hit. assuming power in 2014.
ANI

—Sandeep Unnithan with Kaushik Deka, Amarnath K. Menon and Rahul Noronha
O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY �1 5
UPFRONT
PU N JA B
WHY SUKHBIR
BROKE FREE
Anilesh S. Mahajan
O
n October 1, Shiromani
Akali Dal (SAD) presi-
dent Sukhbir Singh Badal
launched tractor rallies to
Chandigarh from the three
holiest seats of Sikhism in Punjab—
Takht Sri Keshgarh Sahib in Anandpur
Sahib, Akal Takht Sahib in Amritsar
and Takht Sri Damdama Sahib in Tal-
wandi Sabo—against the Centre’s new
farm laws, over which his party walked
out of the BJP-led National Demo-
cratic Alliance (NDA) on September
MAGAZINE KING
26. The less-than-expected attendance
at the rallies would have perhaps got
Badal thinking about the protracted
battle that lies ahead—of carving out
a distinct space for the SAD in Punjab
outside the NDA umbrella.
With the SAD-BJP alliance—
launched in 1996 and at one point
extolled by SAD patriarch Parkash
Singh Badal as a ‘nail and skin’ bond—
collapsing, this is a critical time for
Sukhbir to plan his party’s revival
among Sikh farmers and the party’s
eroding ‘panthic’ base, voters who
take their cues from the Sikh religious
establishment.
FARMERS’ CAUSE
The journey, though, is expected to
be far from smooth. To begin with,
while Badal is trying to rally the farm-
ers, their unions in Punjab would be
wary of his leadership. As the ruling
Congress points out, the SAD had
aggressively supported the farm ordi-
nances as recently as early September.
“You cannot run with the hare and
16 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0
hunt with the hounds,” says Manpreet
Badal, Sukhbir’s cousin and Punjab
finance minister. “Feeling the politi-
cal ground slipping, he (Sukhbir) has
changed sides.”
Badal says his wife Harsimrat
Kaur, who quit as Union minister for
food processing on September 17, had
brought up the contentious issues in the
farm ordinances in the Union cabinet
and was assured that suggestions from
farmer organisations would be incor-
porated. “It is only when the Union gov-
ernment decided to bulldoze us that we
decided to quit [the NDA],” Badal told
����� �����. He argued that the NDA
no longer offered a platform to debate
issues. “Since 2018, when Chandrababu
Naidu (Telugu Desam Party) quit, the
NDA has had no convenor,” Badal said.
Two litmus tests await the SAD
before the assembly poll in early 2022.
First, elections to nine city corporations
and 167 town municipal committees
scheduled by end-December. Second,
and the bigger challenge, elections to
the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak
Committee (SGPC), the body manag-
ing gurdwaras in Punjab, Himachal
FOR THE AKALI
DAL, LOSING THE
PANTHIC VOTE
WOULD LIKELY MEAN
LOSING THE SGPC
AFTER DECADES OF
DOMINANCE
Pradesh, Haryana and Chandigarh, in-
cluding the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
The SGPC polls, due since 2016, were
initially delayed because of court cases
and then apparently because of pres-
sure from the SAD. In the last polls held
in 2011, the SAD-Sant Samaj alliance
won 157 of the 170 seats.
On October 6, the Amit Shah-led
Union home ministry appointed Justice
(retd) S.S. Saron as the chief commis-
sioner for the SGPC elections—the first
step towards initiating the poll process.
The SAD is expected to face a challenge
in these polls from groups led by Sukh-
dev Singh Dhindsa, Rajya Sabha MP
and erstwhile second-in-command of
Badal’s party, former Akal Takht jathe-
dar Ranjit Singh and advocate H.S.
Phoolka. “Sukhbir Badal can ill-afford
reverses in the SGPC election. The
group that gets control of the SGPC is
likely to be recognised by panthic voters
as the real Akali Dal,” says Gurdarshan
Singh Dhillion, eminent Sikh historian.
THE PANTHIC VOTE
The SAD needs to regain its core pan-
thic vote base if it is to pose a credible
challenge to the Amarinder Singh-led
Congress government. Amarinder has
not only taken the lead in the ongo-
ing protests against the farm laws but
has also displayed his commitment to

issues core to the SAD. These include
blocking talks with the Centre and
Haryana on the Sutlej-Yamuna link
canal project, which Punjab is opposed
to; speeding up the probe into the 2015
MAGAZINE KING
police firing in Faridkot during a pro-
test against incidents of desecration of
the Guru Granth Sahib, which claimed
two lives; and the Citizenship (Amend-
ment) Act. “As the Badals try to cover
lost ground, the Congress is champion-
ing the cause of farmers,” says Jagtar
Sandhu, a veteran commentator on
Punjab politics. Badal is also being
challenged on these issues by the Aam
Aadmi Party (AAP), at least in the
SAD strongholds in southern Punjab.
On September 28, while Badal was
at a farmers’ protest in Gurdaspur, the
special investigation team probing the
2015 Faridkot firing named former di-
rector general of police (DGP) Sumedh
Singh Saini and suspended inspector
general of police (IGP) Paramraj Singh
Umranangal as accused in the FIR.
Even five years later, the issue remains
sensitive for panthic voters. Badal was
deputy chief minister of Punjab in 2015
and Saini was considered one of his
trusted officers. Saini, who is accused
of human rights abuses during anti-
insurgency operations in the state, was
also booked this May in a 29-year-old
case of alleged custodial death. Badal
SURVIVAL
AT STAKE
SAD chief
Sukhbir Badal
at a protest
in Jalandhar
against the
new farm laws
ANI
has been quick to distance himself from
Saini. “He (Saini) is not a member of my
party. If an official has done wrong, the
law will take its own course,” he said.
Losing the panthic vote would likely
mean losing the SGPC after decades
of dominance. “Of late, the perception
among panthic voters is that the Sukh-
bir Badal-led SAD has deviated from
the core values of the Akalis,” says Sarb-
jit Dhaliwal, a veteran commentator on
religious and political issues in Punjab.
Dhaliwal points out that the Akalis’
Anandpur Sahib resolution in 1973 had
called for devolution of powers to the
states. “In contrast, the SAD supported
the abrogation of Article 370 and the
downgrading of Jammu and Kashmir
to a Union territory,” he says. On the
CAA, though, the SAD has qualified its
support by demanding that its ambit be
widened to include Muslims. “Panthic
voters expect the SAD to voice the con-
cerns of minorities,” says Dhaliwal.
COURSE CORRECTION
Sukhbir Badal’s close associates say it
had become imperative for the SAD
to leave the NDA to stem a growing
perception that it was deviating from
the core Akali agenda. The party has
already suffered a split, with dissident
Dhindsa, who was expelled in Febru-
ary for challenging Badal’s leadership,
roping in rebels like Sewa Singh Sekh-
wan and other panthic leaders who
had defected to the AAP and the Con-
gress to form the SAD (Democratic).
If Dhindsa’s group corners the panthic
vote, it could seriously undermine the
SAD’s chances both in the SGPC and
the assembly polls.
C
ontesting the 2017 assembly
election as allies, the SAD and
BJP won 15 and three seats, re-
spectively, in the 117-member assembly.
The SAD benefitted from the transfer
of BJP’s urban trader and Hindu votes.
Hindus hold the key in 49 assembly
seats. After the recent split, the more
SAD drifts towards a hardcore panthic
agenda, the tougher it will be for it to
retain this base. Of the 13 Lok Sabha
seats, the SAD and BJP won two each
in 2019, which translates into a lead
in 34 assembly segments. Of these 34
seats, 23 were contested by SAD can-
didates during the alliance. Subhash
Sharma, BJP general secretary for
Punjab, says most of them were urban
and semi-urban pockets, where Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s pull worked.
Badal asserts that his party has
developed a cadre base in urban and
semi-urban constituencies, which will
be expanded. For now, he is throwing
his weight behind the farmers’ pro-
tests, hoping to emerge as the principal
opposition voice in the state. In rallies
across Punjab, he is attacking the PM
Modi-led Centre and the Amarinder
government in equal measure. With
the AAP in disarray in Punjab, the
SAD is looking to make inroads into
its strongholds in the rural areas.
Badal is also relying on symbolism
to indicate a return to the traditional
style of running the Akali Dal, such as
holding party meetings in gurdwara
halls instead of five-star hotels—away
from the corporate culture he had
introduced roughly a decade ago on
assuming charge of the SAD from his
father. He has taken a calculated risk
by walking out of the NDA. Will the
gambit pay off? The Badals remain
pivotal to Punjab politics, and their
manoeuvres will be watched with
interest in days to come. ■
O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �17
 UPFRONT
HOW TO GET
BATTLE-READY
Air Chief Marshal R.K.S.
Bhadauria at a press
conference on October 5
I N D I A N A I R F O RC E
THE 40 SQUADRON
MAGAZINE KING
MIRAGE
By Sandeep Unnithan
I
ndian Air Force (IAF) transport heli-
copters, gunships, transport aircraft
and fighters, including the newly
inducted Rafales, were speedily de-
ployed in Ladakh to support the Indian
Army in May this year, when New Delhi
realised the state of play—China’s game-
plan of a coercive military deployment
along the LAC (line of actual control).
Now, as IAF aircraft and bases remain
in a state of high alert along the entire
4,400 km disputed border with China,
the issue of declining fighter jet numbers
has once again taken centre stage for the
IAF, which celebrated its 88th raising
day on October 8.
The fact that a two-front war—the
prospect of having to simultaneously
face off against Pakistan and China—re-
mains a reality, and that the IAF’s fleet
18 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0
strength is not large enough to cover
both fronts together, remains a worry
for military planners. According to Air
Chief Marshal R.K.S. Bhadauria, the
IAF is unlikely to reach its government-
sanctioned force structure of 40 fighter
squadrons (with 18 jets each) by the end
of the current decade. “We won’t be able
to touch 40 even if we move at the fast-
est pace [possible],” he said, indicating
that the IAF will likely achieve 36-37
squadrons by 2030.
This is because the IAF will be re-
tiring aircraft faster than it can replace
them. The IAF currently has 31 fighter
squadrons. By the end of the decade, it
will have retired the last of its MiG-21
aircraft, at one point of time the main-
stay of its fighter fleet. It is acquiring 21
refurbished MiG-29s from Russia and
BETTING
ON INDIGENOUS
PRODUCTION
The IAF hopes to procure over 400
aircraft from Indian manufacturers
through this decade
LCA Mark 1A 83
HTT-40 (trainers) 106
LCA Mark 2 100+
AMCA 150
MRFA 114
(Multi role fighter aircraft)
12 Su-30MKIs from HAL (Hindustan
Aeronautics Limited).
The big deal is one for 83 Mark 1A
Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas jets,
a contract for which is to be signed be-
fore the current financial year ends. The
IAF will then focus on acquiring 114 Me-
dium Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA)—
this deal is expected to see an Indian
company manufacturing the jets locally,
in partnership with a foreign OEM (orig-
inal equipment manufacturer). Adding
to these will be variants of the LCA—the
Medium Weight Fighter (MWF) and
the 5th generation Advanced Medium
Combat Aircraft (AMCA). The force will
eventually acquire over 400 aircraft,
most of them acquired indigenously
(see Betting on Indigenous Production).
All of this will require over $50 billion
(Rs 3.6 lakh crore) over the next decade.
The IAF was allocated Rs 86,558
crore in the 2020-21 budget. Moderni-
sation accounts for over 45 per cent of
this budget, or about Rs 39,000 crore.
This covers not just fighter aircraft
but force multipliers like flight refuel-
lers, long range missile systems like the
S-400 and AWACS (airborne warning
and control systems) like the Phalcon. To
fund these large acquisitions, the IAF’s
budget will have to grow at far more
than the current 6 per cent per year. This
is why the air chief mentioned a not in-
considerable factor during his press con-
ference leading up to the IAF’s raising
day celebrations—‘budget constraints’. ■

AMERICA’S CASTE SYSTEM
T
ermed an “instant American clas-
sic” by The New York Times, Isabel
Wilkerson’s thorny book is not
the first to use “caste” to probe America’s
racial ills. A European word popularised
in India by the Portuguese, “caste” has
often featured in explanations of “race”,
including in American Dilemma, a re-
puted 1944 book by Gunnar Myrdal, the
Swedish author better known in India for
his 1968 study, Asian Drama.
Connoting a pyramid, hierarchy,
ranking and, above all, domination over
the bottom layer, “caste” elicits American
realities better, in Wilkerson’s view, than
“race”. In her words, “Race is the front-
man of caste.” While “caste is fixed and
rigid, race is fluid and superficial, subject
to periodic redefinition”.
African-Americans in the US, as
also Asian and Latino immigrants,
MAGAZINE
only Blacks. Also
Dalits are not India’s
varying from one another in hue and
bloodline, have received distinct places
in the American caste system. Wilkerson
recalls an unnamed Japanese novelist’s
century-old comment: “It was a single
apostrophe that stood between rejection
and citizenship for a Japanese Ohara
versus an Irish O’Hara.”
“New immigrants learn to distance
themselves from those in the basement,”
Wilkerson says—even when these new-
comers had obtained long-term American
entry on the back of tough Black struggles.
She adds: “As the middle castes pressed
for admittance to the rungs above them,
what was consistent was the absolute
exclusion of the ‘polluting’ lowest caste”—
the African-Americans, presently forming
13.4 per cent of the population. By 2042,
Whites in the US, currently at 60.1 per
cent, are expected to become a minority.
But the dominant caste would remain a
majority if groups from the US’s Asian
and Latino segments (currently adding up
to 5.9 and 18.5 per cent, respectively) can
identify with Whites. Their enthusiasm
for Trump suggests that many Indian-
BOOKS
By Rajmohan Gandhi
CASTE
The Lies That Divide Us
by Isabel Wilkerson
ALLEN LANE
` 999; 476 pages
KING
consigned to the
social and economic
basement are Muslims
and Adivasis
Americans want such an elevation.
Wilkerson gives us her explanation
of low-income Whites voting in 2016
for Trump and against Hillary Clinton.
Despite her pro-poor agenda, they were
choosing White dominance. This was in
line with the “racial creed” that Wilkerson
cites of the American South, going back to
1913: “Let the lowest white man count for
more than the highest negro.”
As Wilkerson sees it, “White suprem-
acy is spiritual nourishment” for many,
overriding material loss.
Using comparison for a sharper view
of the American scene, Wilkerson recalls
how in Nazi Germany “loving fathers,
headstrong nephews, beloved physicians,
dedicated watch-makers, rabbis and pia-
no tuners, all merged into a single mass of
undifferentiated bodies that were no lon-
ger seen as humans deserving of empathy
but as objects over whom [the masters]
could exert total control”. Wilkerson also
recalls that in 1944, when Germany’s de-
feat looked certain, a 16-year-old African
American girl in Ohio won a competition
on what to do to Hitler with this sentence:
“Put him in a black skin and let him live
the rest of his life in America.”
Caste mingles comparison, history, so-
ciology and a string of shattering stories,
including some from the author’s personal
life, to convey the situation of America’s
Blacks. It recounts how, in an earlier era,
slaves were “forced to sing and dance” at
auctions even as they were being sepa-
rated from parents or spouses or children.
A “speculator’s assistant” from pre-
Civil War times, required “to get human
merchandise into sellable condition”, is
quoted: “I have often set them to dancing
when their cheeks were wet with tears.”
More than appropriately, Wilkerson
likens the situation of India’s Dalits to that
of America’s Blacks. While not delving too
much into the former, she quotes Ambed-
kar several times on caste as a social real-
ity. Dalits are not India’s only Blacks. Also
consigned or confined to the social and
economic basement are Muslims and Adi-
vasis. India needs mind-shaking books
like Caste that unveil for India’s top layers
(including for the willfully blind) the reali-
ties being endured in the thick bottom.
More than a century ago, in 1918, in
a preface to Amritlal Padhiar’s Gujarati
poems depicting the cruelties inflicted
on Dalits, an enraged Gandhi wrote:
“If slave-owners can be said to be fit for
[swaraj], then perhaps we are” (Collected
Works 14:345).
Today, in 2020, Dalits and their base-
ment companions still remain mostly
unheard when they scream about rapes
and murders of loved ones. ■
Rajmohan Gandhi teaches at the Univer-
sity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �19
UPFRONT
MAGAZINE KING
CLARITY, BUT
NO CLOSURE
O
n September 29, the Cen-
tral Bureau of Investiga-
tion’s (CBI’s) enquiry into
the death of actor Sushant
Singh Rajput crossed a ma-
jor milestone. A seven-member panel of
doctors from the All India Institute of
Medical Sciences (AIIMS) submitted a
forensic report to the CBI, concurring
with the assessment of doctors from
2 0 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0
SUSH A NT SINGH R AJPUT CASE
By Kiran D. Tare and Suhani Singh
Mumbai’s RN Cooper Municipal Gen-
eral Hospital—that Rajput’s death was
a case of suicide, and not murder.
From June 14, when Rajput’s body
was discovered at his home in Ban-
dra, news reports and social media
have been saturated with conspiracy
theories, suggesting everything from
poisoning to strangulation to bullying
by Bollywood bigwigs as the cause of
ANSHUMAN POYREKAR/ GETTY IMAGES
Rajput’s ‘murder’. Though the initial in-
vestigation by the Mumbai Police found
no signs of foul play, the sordid specula-
tion—by media houses desperate for
TRPs, politicians looking to turn the
national conversation away from the
Covid crisis and the battered economy
and a reflexively disaffected filmstar
looking to settle scores in Bollywood—
led to quite an array of investigative

IN THE DRAGNET
Rhea Chakraborty at
the NCB office in Mumbai
two days before her arrest
agencies plunging into the fray. On July
31, the ED (Enforcement Directorate)
began an investigation based on an
FIR (First Information Report) filed
by Rajput’s father, K.K. Singh, in Patna
on July 25. On August 19, the Supreme
Court transferred the case to the CBI.
And on August 26, the Narcotics Con-
trol Bureau (NCB) jumped in to probe a
suspected drug-pushing connection.
O
n August 22, the CBI asked for
a review by AIIMS forensics of
the post-mortem conducted by
doctors at RN Cooper Hospital. With
the AIIMS forensic review reportedly
concluding that Rajput’s death was a
case of suicide—as no sedatives were
found in his viscera and since the in-
jury marks on his body were consistent
with hanging—one might have hoped
for an end to the ghoulish spectacle.
“Everyone [had doubts] when the CBI
MAGAZINE KING
started its investigation,” said Dr Sud-
hir K. Gupta, head of the department
of forensic medicine and toxicology
at AIIMS and the head of the panel
that submitted this report to the CBI.
“We have investigated and come to
this opinion. Now, there should be no
doubts.” However, that did not deter
those hoping to extract some mileage
from the controversy.
On October 5, a news channel tried
to cast doubts on the findings of the
AIIMS panel by broadcasting an audio
clip, recorded on August 22, in which
Dr Gupta had ‘expressed reservations’
about Rajput’s death being a suicide.
Gupta later clarified his remark—
telling India Today TV that: a) this
comment predated his review of the
post-mortem report and b) that he had
not been part of the team from AIIMS
that visited the scene of Rajput’s death
in the second week of September and
questioned the doctors at RN Cooper
Hospital. Even this clarification did
little to tamp down speculation.
Vikas Singh, the lawyer represent-
ing the Rajput family, took to Twitter
on October 4 to question the veracity
of the AIIMS report. ‘Highly per-
turbed with AIIMS report,’ he wrote.
‘[I am going] to request [the] CBI
director to constitute a fresh forensic
team. How could [the] AIIMS team
give a conclusive report in the absence
of the body, that too on such [a] shod-
dy post mortem done by Cooper hospi-
tal wherein [the] time of death is also
not mentioned?’ Satish Maneshinde,
representing Rajput’s former girl-
friend Rhea Chakraborty, a suspect
in this case, refused to comment on
the matter until the CBI had officially
filed its report. Nonetheless, he alleged
THE AIIMS
FORENSIC
REVIEW HAS
CONCLUDED THAT
RAJPUT’S DEATH
WAS A CASE OF
SUICIDE, SAYING
NO SEDATIVES
WERE FOUND IN
HIS VISCERA AND
THAT THE INJURY
MARKS WERE
CONSISTENT WITH
HANGING
that the Rajput family was looking to
influence the investigation through its
lawyer. “They are tampering with the
investigation by pressuring the AIIMS
team,” he alleged. “Attempts are being
made to get a pre-determined result in
the case.”
Despite the AIIMS report ruling
out murder, the CBI investigation con-
tinues. On October 5, a CBI spokes-
person said the agency would continue
its probe, including the ‘abetment to
suicide’ angle, one of the charges listed
in the FIR filed by Rajput’s father. “All
aspects are still open in the CBI probe,
and if any evidence comes to light,
the investigation will be steered [in]
that direction,” the spokesperson said.
Maneshinde tells ����� ����� that
charging Chakraborty for abetment to
suicide would be “absolutely false”, say-
ing that “she was not staying with Su-
shant from June 8 to 14”. Similarly, the
ED investigation into Rajput’s father’s
allegation that the Chakraborty family
siphoned crores out of Rajput’s bank ac-
count also continues, even though two
months and much interrogation later,
not a single charge has yet been filed.
The only agency that has filed
charges and made arrests is the NCB—
it ensured judicial custody of Rhea
Chakraborty and her brother Showik,
on charges of procuring and supplying
drugs to Rajput. Rhea was arrested
on September 8, and a month later, on
October 7, she was released on bail.
No drugs were found in her possession
during the investigation, and she has
denied consuming drugs herself. At
the time of going to press, her brother
Showik was still in custody.
Meanwhile, the AIIMS forensic
report has also been a morale boost for
Mumbai Police, which stood accused
by many of running a shoddy investiga-
tion into Rajput’s death. “Truth always
prevails,” says Mumbai police commis-
sioner Param Bir Singh, who faced calls
to resign after the CBI took over the
case. “We never had any doubts about
our investigation. It was a professional,
truthful investigation.” He also points
out that the Rajput family—including
Sushant’s father K.K. Singh and his
sisters Neetu, Priyanka and Meetu—
had said in their statements on June
16 that they believed Sushant’s death
to be a suicide, and that they did not
suspect anyone of being involved. He
also adds that the family later refused
to cooperate with the Mumbai Police
investigation, repeatedly declining
to submit additional statements. The
commissioner also said he would take
action under the Information Technol-
ogy Act to prosecute those who have
been circulating misleading messages
on social media—news reports suggest
that tens of thousands of fake social
media accounts were used to amplify
the ‘murder’ narrative and to discredit
the Mumbai Police. ■
O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �2 1
 THIRD ASSEMBLY OF
INTERNATIONAL SOLAR ALLIANCE
14-16 Oct, 2020
Virtual Platform
MAGAZINE KING

LET US TOGETHER MAKE THE SUN BRIGHTER

 H.E Mr Raj Kumar Singh H.E Ms Barbara Pompili
Minister of Power, New & Renewable Minister of Ecological Transition
Energy and President of ISA Assembly, Republic of India and Co-President of ISA Assembly, Republic of France

Key Achievements of ISA

� International Solar Alliance (ISA) is translated
from a political collaboration platform into a
MAGAZINE KING
world class organization, with its headquarters in
India. International Sta� to join soon.
��ISA has a strong base of 70 member countries,
represented on a global governance structure with;
India (President), France (Co-President), Togo (Vice
President- Africa Region), Tonga (Vice President-
Asia Paci�c Region), UK (Vice President- Europe
and Others Region) and Peru (Vice President-Latin
America and Caribbean Region). ISA has observer
status at UNFCCC and is pursuing permanent
observer status at the UN General Assembly.
� Launched ‘‘Ease of Doing Solar Report” - a
comprehensive analysis of risks and opportunities
to promote solar investments in member
countries. Preparing a roadmap to mobilize
1 trillion USD in solar investments by 2030.
� Preparing a vision and implemention plan for
‘‘One Sun One World One Grid’’ initiative to harness
the power of inter-connected grids for enabling
energy transition to a low-carbon world.
� Launched coalition for Sustainable Climate Action
- a platform for engaging Corporate Partners. The
corporate partners have contributed 10.68 million
USD towards the corpus fund of the ISA. Expected
to receive around 10.5 million USD worth of
contribution more from SJVN, EESL, AAI, GAIL,
ONGC, IOCL, BPCL, HPCL, NHPC, NLC & NALCO.
� Created a network of 50 International Partners,
including MDBs, UN agencies, global think-tanks
and foundations.
� Providing a comprehensive package of technical
and �nancial support to member countries by
following initiatives:
� � ���������������������������������������������
health care centers;
� � �����������������������������������������
demonstration projects 47 LDCs and
SIDS countries;
� � ����������������������������������
countries in Africa and prepared pre-
feasibility reports for 40 solar projects,
country pro�les and solar roadmaps for
60 countries;
� � ���������������������������������������
million USD from SAARC Development
Fund with UNDP and 2 million USD
from IBSA Fund.
� Providing support to enhance skills of professional
and technicians from member countries by
following initiatives:
� ��������������������������������
in collaboration with IIT Delhi.
International MBA program to
commence from next year;
� ���������������������������
� ���������������������������������������
program of MEA.
� Demand aggregation and global price discovery
tenders carried out for 272,000 pumps and 47
million Home Power Systems to reduce the cost of
technology and �nancing.
� Instituted three Global Solar Awards with �nancial
support from Indian States for recognizing
exemplary e�orts in promoting solar technologies
and projects on the ground.
� STARC network and INFOPEDIA for strengthening
capacity at national and regional levels.UNIDO-ISA
partnership agreement for strengthening national
solar institutes.
� First World Solar Technology Summit (WSTS) held
with10,500 virtual participants in attendance.
World Solar Investment Summit (WSIS) planned
for 2021.
� Three Assemblies successfully held; SUNWORLD
held in Peru in 2019 as a global signature event.
� World Solar Bank proposed.

www.isolaralliance.org @InternationalSolarAlliance @isolaralliance

 C OV E R S T O RY DA LI T S

PRICE OF
PREJUDICE
DALIT WOMEN BEAR THE BRUNT OF CASTE
AND GENDER VIOLENCE, ESPECIALLY
RAPE, IN INDIA. WHAT MAKES THEM
PARTICULARLY VULNERABLE?
By KAUSHIK DEKA
MAGAZINE KING
Photograph by MANEESH AGNIHOTRI

SHOCK AND SHAME A resident of Boolgadhi village at the

cremation site of the Dalit girl who was allegedly gang-raped and
tortured in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh; (inset) UP police personnel
conducting the funeral in the pre-dawn hours of September 30
MAGAZINE KING
 C OV E R S T O RY DA LI T S

THE
DETAILS—FLASHING ACROSS NEWSPAPER HEADLINES AND television screens and cir-
culated over social media—are by now all-too-familiar. Of a young Dalit girl, not yet 20,
dragged into the fields, allegedly gang-raped by four upper-caste men, tongue cut, spine
broken and left to die. Her mother hears her screams, finds the bleeding daughter, the fam-
ily rushes first to the police station, then to a hospital in Aligarh, and when her condition
takes a turn for the worse, she is shifted to the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi where, two
weeks after her ordeal began, she succumbs to her injuries. Her body is brought back to
Hathras and cremated by the police in the dead of the night. Without their consent, says
the family. To pre-empt the breakdown of law and order, say the police.

This horror unfolded in the Boolgadhi village of Ha-
MAGAZINE KING
thras district in Uttar Pradesh, but it could just as easily
have been any other part of the country—Rajasthan,
Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala or Telangana. On the day
the Hathras victim died, a Dalit woman in Rajasthan’s
Ajmer district claimed she had been gang-raped by three
men. Twenty-four hours later, a 22-year-old Dalit girl
was allegedly gang-raped and murdered by two Muslim
youths in UP’s Balrampur district. On October 2, a Dalit
teenage girl in Bihar’s Gaya district committed suicide
after four men allegedly gang-raped her. Only a week
later, the state saw a lower court convicting five Gurjar
men of gang-raping a 19-year-old Dalit girl in front of her
fiance in Rajasthan’s Alwar district last year. In August,
a 75-year-old Dalit woman was brutally gang-raped
in Ernakulam, Kerala. Mumbai was on boil in August
2019 after a 19-year-old Dalit woman, who was allegedly
gang-raped by four of her friends, succumbed to multiple
internal injuries in her home town Aurangabad.
The incidents vary only in gruesome detail, the script
remains the same. According to the annual report of the
National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), ‘Crimes in
India: 2019’, of the 32,033 cases of rape reported in 2019,
around 11 per cent of the victims were Dalits. This means
10 Dalit women are raped every day in India. Between
2009 and 2019, while the incidents of rapes across the
country saw a marginal drop of 5 per cent, cases of rapes
of Dalit women went up alarmingly—by nearly 159 per
cent—from 1,346 to 3,486, according to NCRB data (see
The Curse of Being a Dalit Woman).
The Dalit woman in India is thrice deprived—being a
woman, a Dalit and poor. Her body is the site for forward
castes to mete out punishment for what they perceive
as the growing assertion of Dalits, whether politically,
economically or in terms of education. Shame and a sense
of dishonour prevent her most times from reporting such
cases in the first place. When she does approach the law
enforcers, the police remain reluctant to file FIRs (first
information reports), either due to political pressure
to keep crime numbers down, or their own caste and
gender biases, given that they are drawn from the same
socio-cultural milieu. And in case she manages to move
the machinery, her chances of getting justice remain lim-
ited—the rate of conviction in cases of rape against Dalits
is just 32 per cent. The Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled
Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989—which made
offences against SCs and STs non-bailable and provided
for special courts for trials—remains weak in implemen-
tation, even if it is strong on intent. The overall conviction
rate remains poor at 33 per cent, and 94 per cent of the
cases under this stringent act are pending at different
stages of trial and investigation.
WHY ARE DALIT WOMEN VULNERABLE?
In the growing climate of political and economic uncer-
tainty, the savarna sections have begun to resent affirma-
tive action for the oppressed classes, whether in political
representation or reservations in education and jobs.
Following delimitation in 2008, 84 of the 543 seats
in the Lok Sabha are reserved for SCs. Similarly, every

2 6 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0

 THE CURSE OF BEING While India recorded a slight dip in
reported rapes between 2009 and 2019,

A DALIT WOMAN rapes of Dalit women during this period

jumped alarmingly by 159 per cent

I N S T
E S AG A & ST
CR I M R S C TOTA L
D E N
L I T S UN
I O N OF OF R A O.
DA V E N T
1 9 8 9 PES
(PR E A CT ,
T IE S ) (in ’00
C I 0)
AT RO 40
TO
R A TA
50 ’ 0 0 0 ) 35 PE L N
L (in 3,6 S O
O
A
T ES
T I M PC - 4 .6 % 00 W OF . OF
OM DA
R I 45 30 2,9 EN LIT
C E R 50
N D %
U
)
40 37 25 2 ,3
00
o n
i
ill
m 35 20
1,6
50
(in %

2009
52
2019
159 %

2014
5

30 1,0
2014
3.

2019
00
200
0
3.

2
20

0
5

0
2.

19

2
9
20

0 1
0

4
CHARGE-SHEET RATE IN CRIMES AGAINST
14
2.

2 0
20

1
DALITS HAS COME DOWN FROM 88.5% IN

9
1. 5

09

% increase 2009 TO 78.5% IN 2019; WITH 81.8%, UTTAR

between 2009 PRADESH MAINTAINS A BETTER RECORD
and 2019 THAN THE NATIONAL AVERAGE

STATES WITH
THE MOST CASES
MAGAZINE TRIAL
KING
STATES WITH THE
HIGHEST RATE OF
BY ERROR
OF RAPE OF RAPES OF DALIT While the conviction rate in all IPC
DALIT WOMEN WOMEN cases has steadily grown in the past
(Number of cases in 2019) (per 100,000 population) decade, the conviction rate in cases
of atrocities against Dalits and rape
of women has dipped since 2014, the
year the BJP-led central government
Rajasthan 554 Kerala 4.6 came to power
Uttar Pradesh 537 Rajasthan 4.5 CONVICTION RATE (per cent)
Madhya Pradesh 510 Madhya Pradesh 4.5 60

Maharashtra 377 Haryana 4.3 50

Haryana 221 Chhattisgarh 3.7 40

Odisha 199 Telangana 3.4
30
Telangana 187 Maharashtra 2.8
20
Karnataka 183 Odisha 2.8 2009 2014 2019

Kerala 140 Gujarat 2.6 in IPC cases in rape cases

in cases under SC & ST (Prevention of
Chhattisgarh 122 Karnataka 1.7 Atrocities) Act, 1989
in cases of rape of Dalit women

11 %
94 %
of rape of cases under the Scheduled Castes
victims in and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of
2019 were Atrocities) Act, 1989 are pending at
Dalits di�erent stages of trial/ investigation

Source: NCRB Graphics by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY

 1

C OV E R S T O RY DA LI T S

state has seats reserved for SCs in its assembly. Both the
assembly constituency and Lok Sabha constituency repre-
senting Hathras, for instance, are reserved for SCs, a fact
many of the forward castes are unhappy about.
Dalits also remain a crucial vote bank and political
parties try to outdo each other in patronising them. In UP,
for instance, the SCs were crucial in propelling the BJP to
power in both the 2014 and 2019 general elections, and
the 2017 assembly poll. More than a third, or 34 per cent,
voted for the BJP in 2019 as compared to around a fourth,
or 24 per cent, in 2014, according to a study by the Centre
for the Study of Developing Societies. The BJP, in turn, has
been returning the favour, symbolically as well as tangibly, 3
whether it is embracing Dalit icons and celebrating their
birth anniversaries or appointing Ram Nath Kovind, a
Dalit, as the country’s president.

A
PART FROM INCREASING their representation
in the party set-up, even if it has meant poaching
Dalit leaders from other parties, the BJP-led Union
government has also focused on the economic
empowerment of SCs. In September, the Narendra Modi
government launched the ‘A mbedkar Social Innovation
Incubation Mission’ to support 1,000 Dalit startups over
MAGAZINE KING
three years. The UP government has also constituted a
three-member committee to formulate a policy to promote
SC/ ST entrepreneurs. Dalits own 17 per cent of MSMEs
(micro, small and medium enterprises) in India; the share
in rural areas is 20 per cent as against 14 per cent in urban
India, according to the fourth MSME Census.
In recent times, when Dalits faced violent resistance for
their social assertions—being killed for growing a mous-
tache, marrying beyond their caste, riding a horse—the
Modi government responded by making crimes such as pre-
venting a Dalit from riding a horse at a wedding procession
or tonsuring his/ her head punishable. In 2018, when the
Supreme Court defanged the SC/ ST (Prevention of Atroci- “PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN DIVIDING
ties) Act by removing certain provisions, including that of
mandatory arrest, the NDA government amended the Act,
THE SOCIETY ON THE BASIS OF
restoring those provisions. CASTE, RELIGION AND REGION ARE
It does not matter that, despite all this, SCs actually
fare much worse than others on almost all indicators. More STILL DOING IT. THEY CAN’T SEE
than 50 per cent of the SC population belongs to the poorest
two quintiles—based on consumption expenditure—of
DEVELOPMENT, SO THEY’RE HATCHING
the country, revealed the NSSO (National Sample Survey NEW CONSPIRACIES. ONE MUST CALL
Office) data from the Indian Labour and Employment
Report, 2014. The corresponding figure is 20 per cent for OUT THOSE WHO ARE DOING POLITICS
upper-caste Hindus. The latter own 41 per cent of the coun-
try’s total wealth compared to the 7.6 per cent owned by SC
ON THE DEATH OF A PERSON”
Hindus, according to a study conducted jointly by Savitrib- — YOGI ADITYANATH
ai Phule Pune University, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Chief minister, Uttar Pradesh
the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi, from 2015
to 2017. The unemployment rate for those holding at least a

2 8 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0

 2

POLITICS OF RAPE
1 & 2. Congress
leaders Rahul and
Priyanka Gandhi and
Bhim Army chief
Chandrashekhar
Azad meet Hathras
victim’s family
3. UP CM Yogi
Adityanath speaks to
the aggrieved kin via
video conference
4. West Bengal CM
Mamata Banerjee
leads a protest march
against the Hathras
incident in Kolkata

MAGAZINE KING

Photographs by ANI

graduate degree is 19 per cent for SCs as against 11 per cent
for forward castes, according to the 2015 Labour Bureau
Employment-Unemployment Survey.
However, any concession to the lower castes only magni-
fies the hostility and resentment of the forward castes. And
sexual crimes against women become a powerful weapon
for subjugation. “Women,” says women’s rights advocate and
Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Ayesha Kidwai, “are
a target of sexual violence as a symbol of humiliation, domi-
nation and oppression. Sexism and caste discrimination are
powerful forms of power play.” And sexual violence against
Dalit women, says Sanghamitra Sheel Acharya, professor
at JNU and former director of the Indian Institute of Dalit
Studies, “is a tool to intimidate the weaker and underprivi-
leged Dalits on two axes—gender and caste. The rape of a
Dalit woman is a message to the Dalits, reinforcing their
position at the lowest rung of the social scale. It goes beyond
toxic masculinity because there are no cases of Dalit men
raping non-Dalit women.”
‘Dalit Women Speak Out’, a 2014 study of 500 Dalit
women in four Indian states on the forms of violence they
had faced, revealed that 54 per cent had been physically as-
saulted; 46 per cent had been sexually harassed; 43 per cent
had faced domestic violence; 23 per cent had been raped;
and 62 per cent had been verbally abused. Another study by
the Centre for Dalit Rights group on 100 incidents of sexual
violence against Dalit women and girls across 16 districts in
India between 2004 and 2013 found that 46 per cent of the
victims were aged below 18 and an overwhelming 85 per cent
were under 30. Professor Amitabh Kundu, a fellow at the
Research and Information System for Developing Countries,
a Delhi-based think tank, adds an economic factor to this
phenomenon of oppression, saying that lack of visible physi-
cal wealth, which can be destroyed or taken away, makes
women among the Dalits a prime target of violence. “Dalits
don’t have much in terms of wealth and property. So, sexual

O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �2 9

 C OV E R S T O RY DA LI T S
PAST HORRORS
HARYANA
violence against their women is the easiest way to heap
insult and humiliation on the community,” he says.
A disdain for lower castes, inherited over generations,
coupled with the entrenched misogyny in a patriarchal
MAGAZINE KING
society make men extremely intolerant to any resistance
or “insubordination” by women, say sociologists. Such
sociological conditioning, says Dr S.K. Khandelwal, a
psychiatrist at AIIMS, New Delhi, justifies oppressing or
ill-treating a person as the subject of oppression ceases to
be regarded as a human being and becomes someone ‘evil’
who deserves ‘punishment’. “All these culminate into a de-
sire to humiliate the ‘untouchable’. That’s the reason we see
instances of a woman being raped in front of her husband,
father, son or brother. The desire to humiliate does not end
with just sexual assault but in inflicting extreme pain and
harm by disfiguring genitalia and other brutal acts,” says
Sukhadeo Thorat, professor emeritus, JNU, and chairman
of the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies.
Social justification flowing from patriarchy and en-
trenched caste bias also encourages the potential perpe-
trators. From former UP chief minister Mulayam Singh
Yadav, who said boys ‘make mistakes’ to BJP leader Ran-
jeet Srivastava, seemed to insinuate that women like the
Hathras victim lure their attackers, people in power have
often tried to shrug off sexual crimes against women as
non-issues. In Hathras, organisations such as the Akhil
Bharatiya Kshatriya Mahasabha have come out in favour
of the accused, who belong to the Thakur caste.
CASTE NOT THE ONLY FACTOR
Many social observers, however, say that the rise in
sexual crimes and barbaric atrocities isn’t fuelled by caste
dynamics alone. There are several other catalysts behind
30 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0
AP GETTY IMAGES
KER AL A
these inhuman acts, and Dalit women, who have the least
amount of social and legal protection, are an easy target.
And while such sexual violence is nothing new, what
is disturbing is the rise in the brutality of such crimes. A
study this year by Equality Now and Swabhiman Society,
a not-for-profit working for women’s empowerment,
finds that Dalit women are subjected to more violent
forms of sexual crime, such as gang-rape or rape with
murder. “Earlier you’d come across cases of rape, but now
it has become gang-rape and video-taping and mutila-
tion,” says Manish Kumar, a Dalit rights activist working
with various civil society organisations in Rajasthan. On
August 19, 2020, a Dalit school girl in Bihar’s Jagdishpur
area was gang-raped and the culprits filmed the act.
“A multitude of factors are responsible for this rise in
barbaric crimes—from social tensions, such as economic
disparity and caste conflicts, to unregulated access to
sexual and violent content helped by the easy availability
of mobile phones and cheap internet. And when rape
is seen as a tool for avenging past animosity, the scale
of brutality goes up,” says Dr Veena A. Satyanarayana,
associate professor, department of clinical psychology,
National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences
(NIMHANS), Bengaluru. In the Hathras incident, too,
there have been murmurs of a feud over land between
the families of the victim and the accused for genera-
tions. “Every case of brutality has a different context and
caste provides the background in some cases. But there
are certain generic factors inciting such violence. The
accessibility of porn, increased time on the mobile phone
away from the eyes of the family and a focus on mate-
rialistic achievement while ignoring moral and social
values, have all caused an overall degradation in the
 1. Dalit women outside Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s house, protesting the gang-rape of four
Dalit girls, May 2014 2. Protesters shout slogans during a demonstration against the rape and murder
of a Dalit woman in Kochi, May 2016 3. AISA march for Dalit student Dika, in Hajipur, Bihar, 2017
4. Bhim Army supporters protest Alwar gang-rape, May 2019
AISA/FACEBOOK
BIHAR
“MULTIPLE FACTORS ARE BEHIND
THE RISE IN BARBARIC CRIMES.
WHEN RAPE IS SEEN AS AMAGAZINE
TOOL FOR KING
AVENGING PAST ANIMOSITY, THE
SCALE OF BRUTALITY GOES UP” CURSE OF ADMINISTRATIVE APATHY
— DR VEENA A. SATYANARAYANA
Associate Professor, Clinical Psychology,
NIMHANS, Bengaluru
society. This stress is reflecting in the brutal nature of these
crimes,” says Professor D.R. Sahu, who teaches sociology
at Lucknow University. With over 500 million smartphone
users, India made up the third-largest consumer base of a
leading pornographic website, according to data it released
in 2018. And this despite a ban on porn sites.
The stringent provisions added to the rape laws after
the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, was passed in
Parliament, following the mass outrage over the gruesome
2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape case in New Delhi, have also
triggered the increase in brutality with the intent to kill.
Rape now can invite the death penalty and has also become
a non-bailable offence. However, the increasing aware-
ness and sensitisation, supported by victim-friendly legal
provisions, such as zero FIR or punishment for refusal to
file FIR, has encouraged more victims to come forward
and approach the police. Besides, the victim’s testimony
faces fewer challenges in court under the new law. All this
has led to a rise in the trend of murdering rape victims. In
GETTY IMAGES
R A JASTHAN
2019, India saw 286 murder with rape or gang rape, with
Maharashtra (47) taking the lead , followed by Madhya
Pradesh (37) and Uttar Pradesh (34). “Most murders after
rape happen because of the fear of retribution either legally
or by other means,” says Usha Vishwakarma, chief manag-
ing trustee of Red Brigade, an NGO in UP working to
empower women and provide them with martial training.
Yet, implementation remains a crucial issue. For rape
survivors, the difficulty of getting an FIR filed can inflict a
mental trauma that is in many ways as harsh as the physical
assault. With shameful consistency, police forces and state
administrations have failed to provide victims the support
envisaged in the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013.
This is all the more true for Dalits. What has happened in
Hathras is not an aberration. Administrative apathy when it
comes to justice for Dalits is rampant in other states as well.
In the Alwar case last May, when the Dalit victim who
was raped by Gurjars in front of her fiance, went to the
police, officers delayed lodging the FIR, saying they were
busy with preparations for the Lok Sabha poll. It was only
after pressure from the media and protests from Opposi-
tion parties that the accused were arrested. In Madhya
Pradesh’s Narsinghpur district, a 32-year-old Dalit wom-
an, who was allegedly raped on September 28, committed
suicide on October 2 after the police refused to register her
case. An ASI (assistant sub-inspector) has been suspended
for failing to do his job, just as the UP government has
suspended an SP (superintendent of police), a DSP (deputy
superintendent of police), an inspector and two other
police personnel posted in Hathras. However, as Vikram
Singh, former DGP (director general of police) of UP, says,
O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �31
 C OV E R S T O RY DA LI T S
“Suspension is not a punishment. According to the law,
they should have been in jail. Without a [zero-tolerance]
approach, the situation will never change.”
W
HILE POLITICAL OPPONENTS say the Yogi
Adityanath government has failed to ensure the
security and dignity of Dalits, the fact is crimes
against Dalits have continued unabated under
all political dispensations in the state. UP saw a 25 per cent
increase in crimes against Dalits between 2015 and 2016—
the highest in the country—against a national average of 5
per cent in the same period, according to an NCRB report.
At this time, the Samajwadi Party was in power in the state.
At 28.6 per cent, Uttar Pradesh ranks sixth among the
states in terms of rate of crime against Dalits, according to
NCRB data for 2019. In terms of charge-sheets filed in cases
of crimes against Dalits, UP’s record of 81.8 per cent is a bit
higher than the national average of 78.5 per cent. Its convic-
tion rate in cases under the SC/ ST (Prevention of Atrocities)
Act is the second highest in the country. With 535 cases of
rapes of Dalit women in 2019, it ranks second among all
states in absolute numbers, but in terms of rapes of Dalit
women per 100,000 people, it ranks 11th, says ADG (ad-
ditional director general of police) (prosecution) Ashutosh
Pandey. “People who have been dividing the society on the
MAGAZINE KING
basis of caste, religion and region are still doing it,” says UP
chief minister Yogi Adityanath. “They can’t see develop-
ment, so they’re hatching new conspiracies. One must call
out those who are doing politics on the death of a person.”
The UP police have filed at least 19 FIRs against unknown
persons on charges of attempting to foment caste conflict.
THE WAY AHEAD
Whether seen from the prism of caste-based hostility or
toxic masculinity nurtured by patriarchy, the solution, most
social scientists say, lies in a two-pronged approach—mak-
ing available all systemic assistance to the victims and
sensitising society to rise above caste barriers and gender
biases. More importantly, the two must not be seen as
interchangeable. “Such atrocities cannot be stopped without
addressing caste and patriarchy at the same time,” says
Sujatha Surepally, head of the sociology department at the
Satavahana University in Karimnagar, Telangana. “If Dalit
women’s lives are to matter, gender sensitivity will be needed
in governance and among political parties and families.”
The first step towards a woman- and Dalit-friendly sys-
tem is making the police efficient and empathic, as the first
hindrance faced by most victims is in the registration of an
FIR. The police’s reluctance or delay in registering an FIR
leads to loss of critical time, often causing forensic evidence
to be destroyed. In the Nirbhaya gang-rape case, a clinching
evidence that led to the convictions was the match of the bite
marks on Nirbhaya’s body with those of the accused.
In the Hathras case, the Forensic Science Laboratory in
32 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0
THE GEOGRAPHY
OF DALITS
Share of Dalit population in states
where crimes against Dalits are rising
Rajasthan Uttar Bihar
Pradesh
17.8% 15.9%
20.7%
Gujarat
6.7%
Madhya
Pradesh
15.6%
Andhra
Kerala Pradesh
9.1% 16.4%*
Source: Census 2011
145,632
Rape cases were pending trial in
2019, with 46 per cent dragging on for
over three years. As on December 31,
2019, 633,370 cases were pending in
the 828 fast-track courts set up for
the trial of rape cases
Agra found no evidence of rape—not surprising, say experts,
as forensic evidence was collected 11 days after the alleged
crime. The woman recorded her first statement, alleging
gang-rape and naming the accused, on September 22. Gov-
ernment guidelines say forensic evidence should be collected
within 96 hours of a sexual crime. The police also cannot
overlook the fact that a woman’s dying declaration, naming
the culprits, is admissible evidence in court. “Rape is a legal
term, not a medical one. Even without medical evidence,
convictions can be sustained,” says Seema Mishra, a Delhi-
based lawyer and women’s rights activist. “Medical evidence
needs to be seen in the context of the facts in each case.”
In rural areas, there is often a time lag before evidence
reaches the forensic lab. Junior police officials, usually the
first to visit crime scenes, are not trained enough to handle
forensic evidence. Apart from six central labs, the 28 states
have one each, not enough for the entire police force. “There
 NOT JUST A NORTH
INDIAN MENACE
Nine states—Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh,
Bihar, Gujarat, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh,
Kerala, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh—
accounted for 84 per cent of all crimes
against Dalits in 2019, though they are home
to only 54 per cent of India’s SC population
STATES WITH THE
HIGHEST NUMBER Share of India’s
OF CRIMES total crimes
against Dalits (%)
AGAINST DALITS
Uttar Pradesh 11,829 26
Rajasthan 6,794 15
Bihar 6,544 14
STATES WITH THE
LOWEST CONVICTION
RATE IN CRIMES
AGAINST DALITS (%)
1.8 Gujarat
6.8 Andhra Pradesh
8.4 Kerala
MAGAZINE KING
have been instances of the police destroying evidence,
because they don’t know how to handle a crime scene or the
victim’s belongings. At times, this is deliberate, driven by
political pressure,” says Priyanka Dhar, assistant professor at
the Hidayatullah National Law University, Naya Raipur.
Political pressure stems from the desperation to keep
crime graphs low. “Chief ministers often expect the police
to bring down the crime record. There are two ways to do
it—combat crime or fudge numbers by not registering FIRs.
Unfortunately, many police forces opt for the second—and
easier—option,” says Prakash Singh, former DGP, UP.
A
N EXCEPTION TO THIS TREND has been Rajast-
han chief minister Ashok Gehlot, whose insistence on
registering FIRs has led to a surge in the state’s crime
graph, including rapes of Dalit women. Following the
Alwar gang-rape in May 2019, Gehlot announced that FIRs
could be directly registered with the SP if local police stations
weren’t cooperating. On July 1, 2019, the state government
made it mandatory to register every complaint on the Crime
and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS),
which connects over 15,000 police stations around the
country. The results are showing: at 8.7 per cent, Rajasthan
has the lowest pendency rate with police in cases of crimes
against women, the national average being 32.4 per cent.
But to deter crimes, cases need to end in conviction.
Post-2013, rape trials were to be concluded in two months.
Yet, in 2019, 145,632 rape cases
66.1 %
were pending trial, and 46 per cent
of them had been on for over three
years. The Centre has been set-
ting up fast-track special courts for
Uttar Pradesh’s expeditious disposal of rape cases,
rate of conviction but their record is far from encour-
in cases related
aging. As of December 31, 2019,
to crimes against
633,370 cases were pending in the
Dalits, second high-
828 fast-track courts. “The judiciary
est in the country
cannot be expected to wave a magic
after Uttarakhand,
wand and deal with half-botched
despite the state
accounting for and tampered investigations,” says
highest number of former Supreme Court judge A.K.
such crimes Sikri. “A police officer’s skill in han-
dling rape complaints is important
because it may impact the survivor’s
willingness to cooperate with the
criminal justice authorities.”
Social scientists say one way of
making the system sensitive is to
fill up SC/ ST reserved posts. Most
states have a poor record in this. A
2019 study, ‘India Justice Report’,
by the Tata Trust found 68 per cent
of police officer-level posts in the
reserved category vacant in UP.
Overcoming caste biases will also
need deeper social introspection.
Professor Thorat invokes Ambedkar
to say that respite from this scourge is possible only when the
economy and demography of lower castes are disconnected
from that of the higher castes. “Ambedkar argued that when
in minority in, say, a village, people belonging to Scheduled
Castes have to completely depend on higher castes for a
living. In such circumstances, there is little hope that they
would enjoy equal rights. So, he proposed separate settle-
ments or villages for Scheduled Caste people, with indepen-
dent sources of income,” says Thorat.
Advocate Anuja Trehan Kapur, who founded Nirbhaya
Ek Shakti, a not-for-profit that assists sexual assault survi-
vors, claims incidents of horrific sexual crimes are becoming
narrative-setting tools for the political class while the focus
on implementing the existing provisions is nil. “I sense a
pattern in the way certain cases are picked up for political
mileage. There is a need to probe the timing when the politi-
cal class highlights particular cases. Once the political goal is
achieved, they move on. In the noise, the real issue and talk of
solutions get drowned,” says Kapur. Following the Nirbhaya
gang-rape, the BJP had questioned Rahul Gandhi’s ‘silence’
on the case. In 2020, the Congress, led by Rahul and Pri-
yanka Gandhi, is trying to hold the Yogi Adityanath govern-
ment accountable for the Hathras incident. Political tactics
change, but the plight of the victims continues.
—With Sonali Acharjee, Rohit Parihar, Ashish Mishra,
Amarnath K. Menon, Amitabh Srivastava,
Kiran D. Tare and Rahul Noronha
O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �33
 FINGER ON THE PULSE
Mamata Banerjee addresses
the Trinamool Congress
Chhatra Parishad, her party’s
students’ wing, on its founda-
tion day (Aug. 28) in Kolkata

MAGAZINE KING

T H E S TAT E S WEST BENGAL

ANI

MAMATA
GOES TO WAR
The Trinamool Congress chief dusts o� her ‘Ma-Maati-Manush’
slogan to pitch the 2021 assembly election as a battle to save
‘motherland’ Bengal from ‘outsider’ BJP
By ROMITA DATTA
ON
October 3, the heart of Kolkata was be- election as a battle to save ‘Ma’—Ben-
sieged by thousands of Trinamool Con- gal, the motherland. “Bengal will give
gress (TMC) supporters decrying the people a taste of independence [again]
and free them from the clutches of the
alleged gang-rape and torture—and even-
BJP by defeating them in the assembly
tual death—of a Dalit woman in Hathras, election,” Mamata recently said, at the
in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, and the state peak of the NEET-JEE row. She has
machinery’s perceived apathetic handling been reminding the electorate how the
of the case. Leading the protest—her first in six months since the BJP is an “outsider” that poses grave
Covid outbreak—was West Bengal chief minister Mamata Baner- danger to Bengal’s liberal and vibrant
jee. Marching to the cries of “BJP Sorkar Aar Nei Dorkar (No More culture. Mocking Amit Shah’s ‘Ebar
of BJP government)”, Mamata came across as a fiery national oppo- Bangla (Now, Bengal)’ campaign, an-
sition leader determined to hold the ruling party accountable. The nounced in 2017 after the BJP’s suc-
BJP is the “biggest pandemic” and is torturing Dalits, she declared. cessive electoral successes in Uttar
Pradesh, Goa and Manipur, she has
Just two weeks ago, on September din’. If Mamata had aimed to counter declared that “Gujarat will not rule
20, when eight opposition MPs in the this with a report card of her nine-year Bengal; Bengal will rule Bengal”. Pras-
Rajya Sabha, including two of the TMC, rule, she must contend with the fact that anta Ray, political analyst and professor
were suspended for ‘unruly conduct’ her government’s perceived mishandling emeritus at Kolkata’s Presidency Uni-
during the passage of contentious farms of the Covid and Cyclone Amphan crises versity, explains: “By referring to ‘Guja-
bills, Mamata had announced a sus- would be vivid in public memory. rat rule’ repeatedly, Mamata Banerjee
tained agitation on the issue in Bengal, is cautioning about the dangers the BJP
home to an estimated 7 million farmers. THE BATTLE FOR ‘MA’ poses to Bengal’s culture and ethos.”
“There’s an immediate need to form an Mamata’s ‘Ma-Maati-Manush’ slogan, Mamata’s other gambit has been
alliance against the Centre, which has coined ahead of the 2009 general elec- to couple Bengal’s honour with that of
passed these controversial bills in Hit- tion, following the successful farmland her own government. She is quick to
ler’s style,” she said. In August, Mamata declare any attack on her administra-
had rallied behind students when the
Centre decided to hold the NEET (medi-
MAGAZINE KING
“Bengal will give
tion as an assault on Bengal’s “asmita”
or pride. When the inter-ministerial
cal) and JEE (engineering) entrance ex- people a taste of central team visited the state in April-
aminations amidst the pandemic. May to assess how the government
Be it the plight of Dalits, farmers
independence and was handling the pandemic, the TMC
and students now, the alleged discrimi- free them from the dubbed it as the Centre’s ploy to “ma-
nation in central assistance to Bengal clutches of the BJP lign Bengal” while overlooking spikes
after Cyclone Amphan in May, or the in cases in BJP-ruled Gujarat and Ut-
nationwide anti-CA A protests last
in this assembly tar Pradesh. In June, when Mamata
December, Mamata has been latching election” was not listed as a speaker at the PM’s
onto every opportunity to open a front — MAMATA BANERJEE video conference with CMs on Covid,
against the BJP, her principal opponent Chief Minister, West Bengal her government cried discrimination.
in the assembly election just months Mamata’s focus on ‘Ma’ in her ‘Ma-
away. With 213 seats in the 294-mem- Maati-Manush’ slogan for this elec-
ber assembly and a strong grassroots agitations against the Left Front gov- tion also segues into her pitch about
presence, the TMC arguably goes into ernment in Nandigram and Singur, not Bengal’s distinctive Hindu religious
the election as the favourite, but it’s only catapulted the TMC from a lone- tradition and practice of worshipping
more than mindful of the BJP’s ex- member presence in the Lok Sabha in Shakti, in the form of Durga, Kali and
panding footprint on its turf. The first 2004 to 19 in 2009 but also came to other deities. In May last year, soon
indications of it came in the 2019 Lok define the party’s politics. Mamata used after the TMC’s Lok Sabha election
Sabha election when the BJP cornered elements from the slogan to shape the setback, an infuriated Mamata had
18 of Bengal’s 42 seats—only four less TMC’s subsequent assembly poll cam- stepped out of her car in North 24
than the TMC—and a 40 per cent vote paigns. If the 2011 poll, which ended 34 Parganas to confront ‘Jai Shri Ram’-
share (against the TMC’s 43.3 per cent). years of Left rule and brought Mamata chanting men trying to accost the chief
If this has lent the BJP a psychologi- to power in Bengal, was her fight for minister’s convoy. On Mamata’s in-
cal edge, it is upping the stakes further by ‘Maati’—protecting farmers’ land from structions, the police took down their
conjuring a vision of ‘Shonar Bangla’— being appropriated for industry—2016 names and booked them. Defending
its grand promise of restoring Bengal to was about ‘Manush’, people’s welfare. her action, she had said: “Why should
its erstwhile glory, on the lines of ‘achhe Now, Mamata is projecting the 2021 we chant Jai Shri Ram? We will say

O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �3 5

T H E S TAT E S WEST BENGAL

WELFARE IN THE
Joi Ma Kali, Joi Ma Durga.”
TIME OF POLLS
Some of the major schemes rolled out by the Mamata Banerjee
The remark was read as her red government covering a wide spectrum of Bengal’s electorate
f lag against alleged attempts to saf-
fronise Bengal’s religion and culture.
“On the one hand, Mamata is invoking
mainstream goddesses like Durga and
Kali and, on the other, she’s focusing on
subaltern politics and animistic iden-
tity through the worship of local dei-
KANYASHREE KHADYA SATHI SWASTHYA SATHI
ties, such as Bon Bibi and Dakshin Ray
(in the Sundarbans) and Marang Buru Benefits: Rs 1,000 per Benefits: Benefits: Health
(among adivasis),” says Imankalyan La- year for higher education Subsidised rice at insurance cover of
hiri, professor of international relations of girls (13-21 years) Rs 2 a kilo Rs 1.5-5 lakh per year;
and Rs 25,000 grant Outlay: Rs 5,000 cr premium borne by the
at Jadavpur University, Kolkata.
after attaining 18 years annually state government
During the street protest against
the Hathras gang-rape, Mamata had Outlay: Rs 7,000 cr Beneficiaries: 90 Outlay: Rs 906 cr
said: “Today I am not a Hindu, I am a (2020-21) million (across the (2019-20)
Dalit.” Analysts see it as her overt out- Beneficiaries: 6.5 board) Beneficiaries: 100
reach to Bengal’s 28.5 per cent Sched- million girls million (entire population)
uled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe popula-
tion, which is drifting towards the BJP.
Mamata toned down her disdain for
anything to do with the Hindi heart-
land, a region she had come to associate
with the BJP, when election strategist
Prashant Kishor convinced her that JAI JOHAR KARMA SATHI SNEHER PARASH
she was only helping her political rival AND TAPOSILI PRAKALPA Benefits: Rs 1,000
by alienating an estimated 15 million
non-Bengali voters. On Hindi Diwas
MAGAZINE KING
BANDHU
Benefits: Rs 1,000
Benefits: Soft
loans of Rs 1-2 lakh
one-time grant and
train fare for migrants
(September 14) this year, Mamata an- monthly old-age for the unemployed who returned during
nounced the launch of a restructured pension for SCs/ STs the lockdown
Outlay: Rs 500
Hindi cell of the TMC and a revamped
Outlay: Rs 3,000 crore annually Outlay: Rs 85 cr
Hindi academy in the state. crore annually (spent so far in 2020)
Beneficiaries:
Beneficiaries: 100,000 Beneficiaries: 1
PLAYING THE HINDU CARD
2.5 million SC/ ST unemployed youth million migrant workers
By stoking provincial linguistic senti-
families
ments and Bengali pride, Mamata may
be trying to break the Hindu consoli-
dation attempted by the BJP. “The at-
tempt to arouse native linguistic pride, blighi Jamaat members who returned the Banglar Awas Yojana for some 8,000
like in Assam or in southern India, from New Delhi in March. In response, priests. The annual dole for 37,000 com-
might not be as effective in Bengal, but Mamata accused the BJP of spreading munity Durga puja clubs in the state was
it is certainly a conscious counter-strat- the “communal virus”. At the same time, also doubled to Rs 50,000.
egy by Mamata to weaken the Hindu she has been flaunting her Hindu cre- Mamata’s silence on the court ac-
consolidation [of votes],” says Lahiri. dentials, such as challenging PM Modi quittal of all accused in the Babri Mas-
Bengal has 99 Muslim-majority as- and Shah during the Lok Sabha election jid demolition case has raised eyebrows.
sembly seats, close to half of them lo- campaign to match her proficiency in Known to tweet at the drop of a hat,
cated in the Malda and Murshidabad reciting Sanskrit shlokas and her talk of she had TMC MP Sougata Ray issue
districts. The BJP has always sought to growing up in a Bengali Brahmin family an evasive statement: “It’s a court judg-
taint the Mamata government with the steeped in Hindu ritual. ment, so we cannot just say we oppose
slur of ‘minority appeasement’. Even re- If allowances for Muslim clerics in or support it.”
cently, central advisories have scolded 2013 had invited accusations of appease-
the Bengal government for not strictly ment, Mamata, this September, ex- POLITICS OF DOLE
enforcing the lockdown in Kolkata’s tended the favour to Hindu priests. The Governance may not be Mamata’s
Muslim-dominated areas and for not state government announced a monthly strongest point in this election. Ac-
coming clean on the Covid status of Ta- Rs 1,000 honorarium and a house under cusations of loot and discriminatory

3 6 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0

 allotment of rations have marred more short term,” says Prof. Ab-
the Amphan relief distribution. But hirup Sarkar of the social sciences
MATIR SRISHTI DOLE FOR analysts also point out that Mamata division at the Indian Statistical
Benefits: Aid for DURGA PUJA is a master of dole politics. They say Institute, Kolkata.
commercial use of Benefits: Rs the TMC’s landslide win in 2016 in
50,000 acres of 50,000 annual aid the face of allegations of corruption PARTY PRESSURES
fallow land for community was partly because Mamata had Faced with the prospect of more
Durga puja clubs sustained welfare schemes despite defections to the BJP after the first
Outlay: (Not
(doubled from the state’s precarious finances. wave in 2019, the TMC has been
available)

E
2019) and 50% planning its counter-strategy. In-
Beneficiaries:
waiver in power ven now, Mamata is terestingly, some old cases against
250,000 BPL families
bills rolling out doles to cre- BJP national vice-president Mukul
without any income
Outlay: Rs 185 ate a vote bank of ben- Roy, who left the TMC in 2017, have
in Bankura, West
crore (for 2020) eficiaries across com- sprung up. Last December, Roy was
Midnapore, Jhargram,
Purulia, Birbhum and Beneficiaries: munities, castes and named as a ‘provocateur’ in a new
West Burdwan, where 37,000 community economic backgrounds. A monthly charge-sheet filed in a decade-old
the TMC su�ered Durga pujas Rs 1,000 old-age pension scheme, case of three murders in Birbhum.
losses in LS election costing about Rs 3,000 crore, was “Over 40 false cases, including of
launched in March for 2.5 million murder, fraud and cheating, have
SC/ ST families; Rs 2 lakh worth of been slapped against Roy,” claims
soft loans (Rs 500 crore) were ex- BJP leader Jay Prakash Majumdar.
tended to 100,000 unemployed Similarly, Suvendu Adhikari, the
youths in August-September; while TMC minister who was rumoured to
the dole for Durga puja clubs will be contemplating defection, is being
cost the exchequer Rs 185 crore (see hounded with allegations of land-
PUJA/ FESTIVAL AID FOR HINDU Welfare in the Time of Polls). grabbing and extortion from his days
BONUS PRIESTS While Bengal’s monthly revenues as chief of the Haldia Development
Benefits: Rs 2,000
annual bonus and
MAGAZINE KING
Benefits: Rs 1,000
monthly honorarium
of about Rs 5,500 crore have dropped
by half during the pandemic, Ma-
Authority. “There is an attempt to
stop the exit of party heavyweights
retirement benefits and house under mata has instructed the state finance by digging up their old cases,” claims
Banglar Awas secretary not to block funds for wel- a TMC leader. “Others are being pla-
Outlay: (Not available)
Yojana fare schemes and also to ensure that cated with party posts and appoint-
Beneficiaries: the 1 million government employees ments to corporations and boards.”
264,000 ASHA Outlay: Rs 10 crore
annually and pensioners get their salaries on In Purulia district, the TMC has
workers, anganwadi
time. The government needs roughly 80 members but 104 post-holders—
workers, civic Beneficiaries:
Rs 6,500 crore to meet its monthly a chairman, 18 vice-presidents, 33
volunteers, hawkers 8,000 priests
expenses, including salaries, and an general secretaries, 49 secretaries
additional Rs 12,000 crore annually and three coordinators. Each of
to fund welfare programmes. the 23 blocks in the district has a
Despite the crunch, f lash an- president and a vice-president. “The
nouncements continue. On June 30, party is so top heavy that the base
after PM Modi extended the supply itself has slipped underneath,” jokes
of free grains under the PM Garib a TMC MLA from Bankura.
Kalyan Anna Yojana till November, Indeed, the stakes are very high
Mamata announced free rations for for Mamata in the upcoming elec-
“The attempt to arouse the poor till June 2021, well beyond tion. But the vanquisher of the once-
the assembly election. Her govern- undefeatable Left has shown in the
linguistic pride is ment says it has spent Rs 8,500 crore past that she possesses the acumen
Mamata’s conscious on Amphan and Covid relief while to rise to such challenges. Yet, this
move to weaken the dues worth Rs 52,000 crore, includ- time, the nervousness is apparent—
ing grants and GST compensation, in Mamata’s ardent appeals and tall
Hindu consolidation are pending from the Centre. promises. Like on July 21, when she
[of votes]” “Policymakers are known to act told the people of Bengal: “Elect me
— IMANKALYAN LAHIRI with short-term goals. And when again and I will give you free ration,
Prof. of International Relations, a government is finishing its term, education and healthcare for your
Jadavpur University these goals often become all the lifetime. This is my promise.” �

O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �3 7

 T H E B I G STO RY COVID
CHASING
THE CURE
DESPITE INITIAL PROMISES, EXPERTS SAY
WE NEED TO SLOW DOWN IN OUR HUNT FOR
A GUARANTEED COVID TREATMENT
BY SONALI ACHARJEE
MAGAZINE KING
T
he Covid ward at Delhi’s Lok
Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan
Hospital has seen a number
of recommended drugs en-
ter and exit their registers.
Back in March, doctors here
were handing out anti-HIV
medication to their patients before the
highly-debated hydroxychloroquine
(HCQ) entered the scene, which was fol-
lowed by a variety of steroids and anti-
biotics, and then, finally, convalescent
plasma. After six months of trial and
error, doctors say they are both hopeful
and sceptical. “The number of recover-
ies, as compared to deaths, is up and we
aren’t getting as many serious cases as we
were at the onset of the pandemic,” says
Dr Suresh Kumar, director, LNJP Hospi-
tal. “But we still do not have a guaranteed
Covid treatment. We try various combi-
3 8 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0
nations based on individual symptoms.”
With a total of 477 drugs being tested
for their e�cacy against Covid in India
alone, doctors feel it is now time to slow
down in the search for a miracle cure.
“Scientific trials take time and thorough-
ness. There are hundreds of small tri-
als being conducted, but we can’t keep
building false optimism for different
cures every month. As of now, there is
no guaranteed treatment and we need
to remember that. With most repur-
posed drugs showing potential today,
we know their side-e�ects, but we have
no evidence as to their impact against
Covid,” says Dr S.P. Kalantri, director
of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of
Medical Sciences (MGIMS), Mumbai.
At MGIMS, he says, many of the more
“popular drugs”, like remdesivir and fa-
vipiravir, whose e�cacy against Covid
hasn’t yet been proven, are not used at all.
But despite warnings from experts that
scientific quality should not be compro-
mised in favour of speed, the pressure on
the medical community to find a treat-
ment remains high.
With no guarantee of a Covid cure
coming anytime soon, World Health
Organization chief Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus on September 22 said that
our best bet for managing the pandemic
now resides in the various drugs being re-
purposed for Covid. According to Policy
Cures Research, a British think-tank,
governments and major philanthropists
from around the world—over 50 per cent
by the US, followed by Canada and then
the UK—have committed over a billion
dollars to develop drugs against Covid.
The largest share of drugs being con-
sidered are antivirals—over a hundred

MAGAZINE KING
trials are ongoing for this category with
nine having entered Phase IV. Immu-
nomodulators and anti-inflammatory
drugs make up the other categories of
major medications being looked into. As
a doctor from Delhi’s RML Hospital puts
it, “Everything is worth a shot if it can
potentially save a Covid patient.”
Indeed, in India, various drugs have
made their way into and then out of the
recommended clinical guidelines is-
sued periodically by the Union ministry
of health and family welfare. In early
March, when the first few cases of Covid
began to emerge, SMS Hospital in Jai-
pur successfully treated a patient with a
combination of lopinavir and ritonavir,
the antiretroviral drugs used in the treat-
ment of HIV. Three days later, the drug
combination had made it to the health
ministry’s treatment protocol. It recom-
mended lopinavir-ritonavir for high-risk
patients including those above the age of
60, the immuno-compromised, those
with diabetes, kidney failure and chronic
lung disease. HCQ was also announced
as a preventive medication initially
and then as treatment for severe cases
along with an antibiotic in March. By
the time the next version of these guide-
lines was released in mid-June, both
the HIV drugs were replaced by HCQ,
THE DECISION BY THE WORLD
HEALTH ORGANIZATION TO
DISCONTINUE TRIALS FOR HCQ
AS A POSSIBLE COVID CURE, SAW
THE DRUG RETURN TO ITS USE AS
A PREVENTIVE MEDICATION
ANI
HEALING MINDS
A health worker conducts
a yoga session for
patients at the Sardar
Patel Covid Care Centre
and Hospital in Delhi
which was then recommended for use in
moderate to severe cases on its own. An
anti-inflammatory steroid, methylpred-
nisolone, was added to the list. But the
WHO’s decision to entirely discontinue
trials for HCQ as a possible Covid cure
saw the anti-malaria drug return to its
use as a preventive medication in mild
and moderate but high-risk cases (in-
volving those with comorbidities) in the
third and latest version of the guidelines.
“HCQ was never proven to have much
benefit against Covid. There are some
small studies proving its e�ectiveness
as a preventive medication,” says Dr T.
Narayana, president of the Indian Phar-
maceutical Association. “I think India
has reached a stage now where more
combinations of medicines are being
used to control a few particularly key
and dangerous aspects of Covid—viral
O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �3 9
 T H E B I G STO RY COVID

LINE OF TREATMENT
Over the past six months, various drugs have made their way
into and out of the health ministry’s clinical guidelines based
on which drug seems most promising in that moment
Graphic by NILANJAN DAS

India’s Covid drug history

MARCH 17 JUNE 27
Drug: Lopinavir Drug: HCQ for mild to
and ritonavir moderate cases
Use: Antivirals Use: Anti-malarial drug
used for HIV now used on its own as a
treatment curative drug but not for
Status: No longer severe cases
part of treatment
Drug: Remdesivir
MARCH 23 Use: Authorised for
emergency use for
Drug: Hydroxy-
chloroquine (HCQ) MAGAZINE KING
moderate to severe
cases; for those on
Use: Anti-malarial oxygen but not on
medicine; ventilator
recommended as a
preventive drug
Drug: Tocilizumab
Status: Being used
for preventive care Use: A protein inhibitor
which helps halt cytokine
storms; recommended for
emergency use in
MARCH 31
moderate cases or for
Drug: HCQ + those on ventilators and
azithromycin whose condition isn’t
improving with steroids
Use: Anti-malarial
drug along with an
antibiotic for Drug: Favipiravir
treating severe
Use: An anti-flu
symptoms
medication recommended
Status: No longer for mild cases
in use

Drug: Methyl-
Drug: Dexamethasone
Use: Advised for Covid STEROID
prednisolone
Use: Anti-
moderate cases; to be
administered for three
cures with Drug: Hydrocort
Used in: Severe cases;
inflammatory drug days, preferably within 48 growing reduces inflammation
and risks of cytokine
hours of admission or, in
Status: Still used
along with other case oxygen requirement potential overproduction
anti-inflammatory or inflammatory markers Country of trial: UK
drugs are increased/ increasing

4 0 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0

 Covid trials by country Germany
France
UK
Medium-to large-scale trials
for allopathic drugs only 80 52 106

Spain
US

363 143 China

187
Brazil India

75 Italy 109
52
Iran

196

Five
advances
since the Constant
MAGAZINE
pandemicKING monitoring of
blood oxygen
Administering
began steroids and
level even in
mild cases
immuno-
suppresants to
reduce Regular post-
Administering inflammation of recovery check-
blood thinners organs ups and care to
and anti-
avoid any comp-
coagulants to
lications once
reduce blood Isolating mild
infection has
clots cases from
subsided
severe to
moderate patients
and asking them
to treat them-
selves at home

SOURCES:
Covid NMA
ANTI-INFLAMMATORY RECOMBINANT ANTIBIOTIC project;

Drug: Adalimumab HYPERIMMUNES Drug: Tericoplanin

Used in: Moderate to
severe cases; has shown
to reduce inflammation
among Covid patients
Country of trial: UK
Ministry of
Health and
Drug: GIGA-2050 Used in: All cases; Family
halts the replication Welfare; and
Used in: Moderate to severe of the Covid virus Covid19india.org
cases; combines the benefits of
recombinant antibodies with those Country of trial:
of plasma-derived antibodies India
Country of trial: US
O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �4 1
 T H E B I G STO RY COVID
replication, cytokine overproduction and
inflammation. The judicious use of ste-
roids has also made a di�erence. Howev-
er, steroids remain di�cult to administer
to patients with high or unstable blood
sugar and thus mortality risks in these
cases are still high. We need to address
high-risk Covid care next.”
THE PROMISE OF
REMDESIVIR
The latest version of the clinical guide-
lines for Covid has turned things around
for treatment. For mild to moderate cas-
es, which, according to experts, currently
account for close to 85 per cent of all Co-
vid cases, the guidelines recommend an-
ticoagulants to prevent blood clots, and
corticosteroids like dexamethasone, the
drug that reduced mortality by a third in
ventilated patients in the University of
Oxford’s trial. For severe cases, the same
set of drugs is recommended along with
two investigative medicines—remdesi-
vir and tocilizumab (which the US did
not find enough evidence to recommend
for or against). Of these, remdesivir has
become so popular in India that not only
MAGAZINE KING
are some states running out of doses, but
there is also an established black market
for it. “This can be traced directly to the
amount of publicity and visibility the
drug received on its launch in India,” says
Dr Narayanan. Remdesivir is globally
and nationally one of the most closely-
watched drugs and recently received
approval from an expert panel set up by
the Indian government for Stage 4 trials.
Three companies have received approval
for this—Hetero Labs, Cipla and Mylan.
These confirmatory trials will help prove
the drug’s e�cacy in moderate to severe
cases and fully establish its risk profile.
At present, government guidelines
bar the use of remdesivir among patients
who display signs of liver damage, have
severe renal impairment, are pregnant or
lactating, or are younger than 12 years.
Yet, the demand continues to surge for
it with instances of patients attempting
to self-medicate. “The drug has been
approved for use but it should not be
given to every walk-in patient. It must
be used judiciously,” says Rajesh Tope,
Maharashtra health minister. The state
4 2 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0
has had the highest number of recover-
ies in the country—over a million as on
September 29. Several states are now
planning to launch a campaign against
the black marketing of remdesivir and
other Covid drugs. Recently, six people
were arrested in Rajkot, Gujarat, for
hoarding the drug. Gilead, the company
holding the patent for it, has responded
by ramping up supplies and exploring
the possibility of patients in home isola-
tion administering the drug through a
nebuliser, thus freeing up injectable sup-
plies for the more critical, hospitalised
cases. “The drug has shown promise but
it works in tandem with a series of other
interventions and clinical management
steps taken in hospitals,” says Dr Sudhir
Bhandari, director, SMS Hospital. “A Co-
vid patient is now monitored and treated
with at least double the number of tests
and drugs than in the early days. The
clinical treatment of Covid today is the
IN INDIA, THE DEMAND FOR
REMDESIVIR IS SUCH THAT
STATES ARE RUNNING OUT OF
DOSES AND AN ESTABLISHED
BLACK MARKET FOR THE
DRUG HAS EMERGED
strongest version we have had till date.
But the public needs to follow medical
advice and not self-medicate at home.”
TOO MANY SMALL TRIALS
Trials in India have also been considering
other treatment options. A research into
23 Covid treatment drugs by IIT Delhi
found ‘teicoplanin’ to be 10 times more
e�ective than HCQ against the virus. It
is an FDA-approved glycopeptide antibi-
otic regularly used for treating bacterial
infections with low toxicity profile. Kev-
zara, an anti-inflammatory drug jointly
developed by pharmaceutical companies
Sanofi and Regeneron, has also shown
promise in limiting inflammation in
lungs in severe Covid cases. However,
experts feel that many of these trials are
small-scale in terms of sample sizes and
do not compare treatments with one an-
other or with a placebo group. They are
quicker and easier to do but the evidence
would not have the scientific rigour of
a well-designed, albeit longer, study.
Around 192 of the 477 trials being con-
ducted in India are observational stud-
ies, not multi-phase randomised clinical
trials. And at least 53 are for traditional
Indian remedies and homoeopathy.
“There are studies done with as few as 50
patients with no control group or a pla-
cebo group. Such research is small and, at
best, shows that there is potential for the
drug. It cannot guarantee e�cacy,” says
Dr Ashutosh Kumar, assistant professor,
pharmacology and toxicology, National
Institute of Pharmaceutical Education
and Research in Hyderabad. Examples
of small group trials include 30 partici-
pants for Biocon’s itolizumab Phase II
trial; 100 for Patanjali’s Coronil; and 150
for Glenmark’s favipiravir Phase III tri-
als. A Phase II and III trial in Europe
consists of no less than 5,000 or 20,000
participants, respectively. They are also
spread out over multiple sites—for ex-
ample, the UK Recovery Trials sampled
individuals from six sites, while WHO’s
Solidarity trials focused on 21 nations.
On August 5, a group of health pro-
fessionals and civil society activists wrote
to the health ministry, asking for more
transparency in clinical trials and drug
regulation in India. They mentioned that
the clinical trial registry should upload
the minutes of committee meetings on
the granting of permission to such tri-
als and noted that the registry currently
does not ask for investigators to publish
information about primary data sets, file
notings and the reasoning for approval
or rejection of drugs. Research data
from India has traditionally lacked close
scrutiny, say health experts. Till date, no
Indian research on Covid trials has made
it into an established peer-reviewed jour-
nal. “A lot of data is being communicated
through press releases and not published
work,” says Dr Narayanan. Given the 6.7
million cases in India (as on October 5),
the country has great potential to be a
lucrative sales market for pharmaceuti-
cal firms looking to find the elusive Co-
vid cure. But without su�cient data and
research, all hope for a cure or a vaccine
should be taken with a pinch of salt. ■
 SPECIAL REPORT

INDIA-CHINA FACE-OFF

CHINA’S
MARITIME
CHALLENGE
The world’s largest navy is aggressively expanding
its presence in the Indian Ocean region. Inside
India’s plan to take on the Chinese PLAN

BY SANDEEP UNNITHAN

I
MAGAZINE KING
It’s December 2025 and ‘Exercise Sea
Dragon’ has begun. The world’s largest navy
has bided its time for decades and is now
ready to project power beyond its shores.
Two PLAN (People’s Liberation Army-Navy)
aircraft carrier battle groups, the Shandong
and Fujian, with their entourage of nuclear-
powered attack submarines, cruisers and
destroyers, enter the Indian Ocean through
the Malacca Straits, shadowed by Indian
P-8I reconnaissance aircraft. ‘Sea Dragon’ is
meant to test PLAN’s responsiveness to mar-
itime operations against a distant adversary,
the o�cial release says. Four Shang class
submarines circle the east and west coast of
India—two on either coast conducting ‘bar-
rier patrols’—leaving no doubt as to who this
distant adversary is. In Delhi, the Maritime
Domain Awareness panels in the navy’s
maritime operations room paint a picture of
the PLAN mission—an envelopment of the
Indian subcontinent. No merchant ship or
warship headed in or out, can sail without
being targeted.
This hypothetical scenario could be
straight out of an Indian Navy tactical
exercise as the force contemplates the imm-
inent entry of the world’s largest navy into its
backyard, the Indian Ocean region (IOR).
In its annual report to the US Congress,
presented on September 1, the US defense
department mentioned how PLAN, with 350
warships and submarines, is now numeri-
cally the world’s largest battle force on water,
outstripping the US navy’s 296 warships.
The PLAN now claims a substantial (but
unclear) portion of the China’s $178.2 billion
military budget. Over the past decade, it has
added 117 major combatants, including sub-
marines and landing platform dock ships,
equivalent to an entire Indian navy. It has Seafarers
inducted two aircraft carriers and is building Chinese President
two more. Each combatant has brought in a Xi Jinping gets a guard of
quantum jump in capabilities with advanced honour before boarding the
anti-ship, anti-air and anti-submarine weap- destroyer Xining in Qingdao
ons and sensors. The PLA’s first Type 055 pier; the USS Nimitz with
Indian Navy ships INS
class destroyer, commissioned this January,
Sahyadri and INS Shivalik
is armed with 112 vertical missile launchers, during cooperative deploy-
more than twice the missile load of an Indian ment in the Indian Ocean,
destroyer. The PRC’s 2019 defence white July 20, 2020
paper described the PLAN as speeding up

4 4 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0


transition of its tasks from ‘defence
on the near seas’ to ‘protection
missions on the far seas’. Last De-
cember, it lengthened the pier on
its first overseas base in Djibouti to
accommodate aircraft carriers and
nuclear submarines. Its 36th anti-
piracy patrol, comprising three
warships (ongoing since 2008),
entered the Indian Ocean this year.
The PLAN’s IOR moves are
AP
MAGAZINE KING
ostensibly to allay China’s ‘Ma-
lacca Dilemma’—the fact that over
80 per cent of its energy supplies
are shipped through the narrow
Malacca Straits. But in a climate of
mistrust, borne out of Beijing’s bel-
ligerence, it is looked at otherwise.
China’s naval rise comes at
a time when the Indian Navy is
wrestling with budgetary issues
and a slow accretion in force levels.
PLA Navy
Indian Navy
Figures in brackets are
vessels in the plans
2 1
(2) Aircraft carrier (1)
19 Nuclear 2
submarines
46 Conventional 15
submarines
33 10
(17) Destroyers (4)
43 13
(11)
Frigates
7 Amphibious 1
(4) transport docks
20 Tank landing 8
ships
16 4
(1) Fleet tankers
Its share of the defence pie has shrunk from a
high of 18.3 per cent in 2013 to 15 per cent this
year. This fall, naval o�cials say, is the result
of acquisition plans for multi-role helicopters
and landing platform docks not fructifying.
The navy will issue a Request for Proposal for
building six Project 75I submarines which it
hopes to start acquiring by 2026 onwards to
replace an ageing fleet of a dozen submarines.
The navy’s first indigenously built aircraft
carrier, the 40,000-tonne INS Vikrant, will
head out for sea trials early next year and
will be inducted by October 2021. The navy
regards plans for a second aircraft carrier, the
60,000 tonne IAC-2 which it wants to induct
into service by 2035, as ‘non-negotiable’. A
budgetary freeze seems inevitable given the
present state of the economy, and the service
is looking at reprioritising its acquisitions,
replacing assets like minesweeping warships
in favour of unmanned platforms, cutting
back the number of additional P-8Is from 10
to six and going in for indigenous solutions.
It will soon have a single Maritime Theatre
Command and commander, combining the
Western, Eastern and Andaman and Nicobar
Command. This restructuring, part of the
government’s plan for four or five integrated
theatre commands instead of 17 single ser-
vice commands, will allow it to save resourc-
O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �45
 SPECIAL REPORT
INDIA-CHINA FACE-OFF
ANI
es and add platforms like Su-30 MKI jets with ship-killing
Brahmos missiles.
The force is tweaking its mission-based deployments
(MBD), a 2016 strategy of positioning warships round-the-
clock in six key maritime chokepoints of the Indian Ocean
region—the Gulf of Aden, North Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf,
northern and southern Indian Ocean and the Malacca
Straits. Key to this strategy are the induction of assets like
the eight MQ-9 Guardian drones and eight additional P8-I
MAGAZINE KING
Poseidon long-range maritime surveillance aircraft from
the US. The Guardian, for instance, can float 15 km above
chokepoints for 30 hours at a stretch.
“We maintain e�ective domain awareness in our primary
areas of interest and can deploy rapidly in case of any emer-
gent situation,” says Vice-Admiral G. Ashok Kumar, Vice-
Chief of Naval Sta�. “In order to facilitate maritime security,
we also maintain combat-ready platforms on mission-based
deployments, with additional forces in readiness.”
The Maritime Lever
On July 20 this year, the US sent the USS Nimitz carrier
strike group into the IOR for joint exercises with the Indian
navy. It was a very visible symbol of support, a month after
the bloody clashes between the Chinese PLA and Indian
Army left over 20 Indian and an unspecified number of
Chinese soldiers dead. This is the kind of coalitional leverage
that India is building up with larger maritime powers to
counter-balance a rising China.
Naval analysts say as Beijing makes creeping territo-
rial claims in the Himalayas, the time has come for New
Delhi to assert the Freedom of Navigation at Sea (FONAS)
through ‘global commons’ like the South China Sea which
China claims as its territorial waters. The government has
so far been silent on this or the prospect of conducting joint
FONAS patrols with the US navy. What it has worked on
over the past few years is Security and Growth for All in the
Region (SAGAR), the government’s 2015 vision for coopera-
tion with various countries in the IOR. The Indian navy
4 6 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0
Friends in need
Foreign minister
S. Jaishankar (left)
with Japan PM Yoshi-
hide Suga and other
Quad foreign ministers
in Tokyo, Oct. 6
aims to become what it calls ‘preferred security partners’ for
littoral states by conducting EEZ (exclusive economic zone)
patrols in their territorial waters.
A key aspect of increasing the reach of its aircraft and
warships through the IOR are the logistics support agree-
ments (LSA) with France, Singapore, the United States,
Australia and, more recently, Japan (LSAs allow countries
to use each other’s bases for refuelling). New Delhi has also
struck common cause with a close grouping alarmed by the
rise of China—the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a group-
ing of India, Australia, the United States and Japan. ‘The
Quad’, proposed in 2006 by former Japanese prime minister
Shinzo Abe, had been shelved but was revived last year in the
face of an assertive Beijing. An in-person October 6 meet-
ing of the ‘Quad’, called at India’s behest in August, saw the
foreign ministers of the countries involved get together in
Tokyo. The meeting was hugely symbolic as it comes at a time
when all four have seen ties with Beijing plummet. While US
secretary of state Mike Pompeo openly lashed out at China,
the three other countries including India were ambivalent
about naming the country responsible for drawing them
closer. There is no evidence the Quad can be militarised into
an Asian NATO with an ‘attack on one is an attack on all’
clause. In any event, it will be the maritime domain which is
likely to see the greatest cooperation.
“Maritime forces have the unique ability to provide
diplomatic leverage round-the-year, which armies and air
forces can provide only when things get very tense between
countries,” says Rear Admiral Sudarshan Shrikhande,
former assistant chief of naval sta� (foreign coopera-
tion and naval intelligence). The Malabar 2020 exercise
between India, Japan and the US due next month will be
closely watched for whether it includes the Australian navy.
New Delhi has in the past been wary of riling Beijing by
including them in the Malabar exercises. A senior govern-
ment o�cial says including Canberra would be a “political
decision”. One, which seems, will clearly be guided by what
Beijing does next. �
 C I N E M A F E A R I N B O L LY W O O D

A HORROR FILM
OF ITS OWN
The industry withdraws into a shell as allegations
of drug abuse and nepotism are levelled against it

BY SUHANI SINGH

PRATIK CHORGE/ GETTY IMAGES

MAGAZINE KING

Collateral damage
Deepika Padukone leaves
for the NCB-SIT guest
house post NCB enquiry
O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �47
 C I N E M A F E A R I N B O L LY W O O D

B
ollywood is currently going through a PR I’m afraid this witch hunt will continue,” tweeted writer-
crisis, one that it didn’t see coming. It began director Hansal Mehta, while defending filmmaker Karan
on June 14 when actor Sushant Singh Johar who has been at the receiving end of a majority of
Rajput died by suicide—a conclusion that the attacks. “The lack of unity and fear of persecution have
Mumbai Police arrived at long ago and one rendered us looking like cowards.” Filmmaker Anub-
that the All India Institute of Medical Sci- hav Sinha feels that there are some harsh lessons for the
ences recently confirmed. There was shock; industry from the episode. “Bollywood should collectively
condolences were expressed, as were regrets remember that no one stood up for them. NO ONE,” wrote
about being too occupied with one’s own Sinha on Twitter. Once idolised and celebrated, it is now
a�airs. But, along with grief, came a torpedo of accusa- cornered. And its largely “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy has
tions against the “movie mafia”, “nepo gang”, and a “drug only empowered its detractors to pin some as criminals.
nexus” within the film industry. Never has the industry “The other day, somebody called me a ‘nepo [nepo-
faced such large-scale contempt, as a tism] kid’,” says actor Saqib Saleem
result of which it is now shying away who, along with his sister and
from the very spotlight it is in the actor Huma Qureshi, left Delhi to
business of embracing. The few who People have noticed pursue a career in Mumbai without
tried to speak up in defence of the a godfather to guide them. “The
industry, which supports the liveli- the gender bias in the industry has been nothing but
hoods of more than just actors and NCB’s investigation fantastic to us. It is not just eight
producers, were shamed on social
media. Even Akshay Kumar, who
and the agency, keen to 10 actors. To generalise it is the
wrong way of dealing with it.” Actor
interviewed Narendra Modi before to redeem itself, has Arjun Mathur (Luck By Chance)
the Lok Sabha election last year, revealed that it will notes how the industry has “become
wasn’t spared. #BoycottLaxmiBomb a soft target at the hands of a few
(Kumar’s next release) was trending soon be questioning elements for personal and po-
after the actor put out a video saying
that while the audience’s anger is
MAGAZINE KINGthree male actors litical agenda”. “Actors are put on a
pedestal all the time, so it was only
justified after Rajput’s death and a matter of time before, at the first
drugs are an issue, to suggest that opportunity, they were pulled o�
the everyone in the industry is an addict is wrong. When it,” says Mathur, who was recently nominated in the best
����� ����� reached out to actors and directors for com- actor category in the International Emmy Awards for his
ment, some excused themselves from becoming a part of role in Made in Heaven. “If nobody raises their voice about
what they called “a mess”, many didn’t want to “add to the everything that’s going on, we will be trampled all over.”
noise”, but there were those who defended the industry—
some o� the record—as one that gives opportunities to all. TARGETS ACQUIRED
The film industry is currently an unwilling participant Some within Bollywood believe that the NCB bringing up
on a nightmarish reality show wherein celebrities are a WhatsApp chat that Padukone had with her manager
deemed guilty on sheer speculation. And while weeding Karishma Prakash in 2017, in which they discussed hash,
out the drug menace that pervades the industry is a noble is a result of the actor showing solidarity with the students
endeavour, the timing of this high-pitched drama—un- of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University days after it was
folding during a pandemic with the number of Covid cases attacked by a right-wing mob in January. That the actress
at an all-time high, when millions have lost jobs their jobs, chose to take a public stand close to the release of her
and while the country deals with a tense border situation maiden production, Chhapaak, invited criticism, but also
with China—is being conveniently ignored. The questions suggested that she was well aware of the fact that actions
one should be asking are, who benefits from this politics speak louder than words. The day Padukone was ques-
of distraction and are celebrities wary that they may be tioned by the NCB, #IStandwithDeepika was trending on
next on the list of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the Twitter. But then so was #BollywoodDrugMafia.
agency determined to “uproot the drug citadel in Mumbai, After the NCB arrested Rhea Chakraborty on drug
especially in Bollywood”? charges connected to Rajput’s death (she was granted bail
Many industry insiders feel that this is all part of a sys- on October 7), it also interrogated actor Rakul Preet Singh
tematic e�ort to tarnish Bollywood’s image as one where and Rajput’s co-stars Sara Ali Khan (Kedarnath) and
“99 per cent...consume drugs like water”, an allegation lev- Shraddha Kapoor (Chhichhore). The NCB currently has
ied by actor Kangana Ranaut. “Unless we put up a united executive producer Kshitij Prasad, who was roped in for
front against this deliberate vilification and speak up, a project with Dharmatic Entertainment, the digital arm

4 8 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0


A Gendered Approach
The five celebrities questioned by the
NCB happen to be all women. Here’s
why they are on the agency’s radar
Rhea Chakraborty
Arrested on charges of “being an ac-
tive member of a drug syndicate” and
arranging drugs for Sushant Singh
Rajput. Granted bail on October 7
Deepika Padukone
The NCB found a 2017 WhatsApp
chat between her and her manager
discussing ‘maal’, on the phone of
Jaya Saha, Rajput’s talent manager
Sara Ali Khan
Made her debut with Rajput. A
boatman living near Rajput’s Pavna
farmhouse said she was spotted at
parties where drugs were consumed
Shraddha Kapoor
MAGAZINE KING
Worked with Rajput in Chhichhore.
In an Instagram tribute to the late
actor, Kapoor wrote she had visited
his Pavna farmhouse
Rakul Preet Singh
The NCB said that Chakraborty cited
her name along with designer Sim-
one Khambatta, but Chakraborty
later retracted her statement
of Johar’s Dharma Productions, in judicial custody. Satish
Maneshinde, Prasad’s lawyer, who is also representing
Chakraborty, has accused the NCB of harassing his client
and of forcing him to “incriminate Johar” as well as Ranbir
Kapoor, Arjun Rampal and Dino Morea.
For some, the selective shaming of women only rein-
forced the message that Chakraborty wore on her T-shirt
on the day of her arrest: ‘Roses are Red, Violets are Blue,
Let’s Smash the Patriarchy, Me and You’. It prompted
actor Shashank Arora (Titli, Made in Heaven) to remark
on Twitter, “Economy gutted. Diplomacy in gutter. Tens
of thousands dying from disease, unemployment and
starvation. HOLD ON A MIN IS THAT A POT SMOK-
ING WOMAN?” The NCB, though, seems to have noted
accusations of gender bias and is keen to redeem itself. It
has told sources in India Today TV that next on its list are
three actors, including a male superstar. This suggests
that the industry is unlikely to get a break anytime soon
from being the favourite punching bag of the authorities
and their social media cheerleaders.
FEAR IN THE AIR
Bollywood’s apolitical stance has perturbed many. The
silence of seasoned stars suggests that there is fear in the
industry. A public relations o�cial, who manages both
actors and production houses, says that many are “angry
and bitter” and want to share their opinion on social media
but are discouraged by the toxic atmosphere. “If you notice,
all those people who would usually speak their mind have
stopped for a while,” says the o�cial, who wished to not be
named. “We have come to a place where no matter what
you say, even if it is logical and correct, there are no takers
unless you are talking the language of the herd mentality.”
There’s also a lot to lose if one does speak up. Snapdeal
dropped Aamir Khan as its brand ambassador after he
spoke of the “rising intolerance” in India in 2015. Plus,
celebrities stand to lose favour among audiences who can
boycott films, as was the case with the Mahesh Bhatt-di-
rected Sadak 2, which was panned much before its release
for Bhatt’s proximity to Chakraborty. An industry profes-
sional points out that members are reluctant to represent
the industry’s perspective on news channels busy conduct-
ing media trials in the rat race for ratings. “It is usually
innocent unless proven guilty. Somehow, we have become
guilty unless proven innocent,” says the source.
Sinha finds echoes of McCarthyism in what is happen-
ing in Bollywood. In that notorious era of the 1950s, the
House of Un-American Activities went on a witch hunt
against alleged Communist sympathisers in Hollywood.
The hearings saw many from the artist community black-
listed. In a column for a daily, Sanjaya Baru, whose book
The Accidental Prime Minister was adapted into a Hindi
film, wrote that attacking Bollywood “does not serve the
national purpose…. In destroying its credibility by hurting
the standing and credibility of the individuals who make
these institutions tick, we harm the national interest”.
The film industry, which was already reeling from the
pandemic and the lockdown, with theatre incurring losses
running into at least Rs 10,000 crore, finds itself losing
the trust of its audiences. On October 2, Johar attempted
to regain some of the public goodwill by tweeting that
the film fraternity, inspired by Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, will make films celebrating the “values, valour and
culture of India” under an initiative called ‘Change Within’.
Convincing people that Bollywood is the hero that will root
for the good and not the villain will require a concerted
e�ort on the industry’s part. One man saving the world is
stu� of superhero fantasy fiction. The reality is di�erent. ■
O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �49
THE JURY

ANU AGA
Former
member, Rajya
Sabha

MANISH
SABHARWAL
Chairman,
TeamLease
Services

DR SRINATH
REDDY
President, Public
Health Founda-
tion of India

DR DEVI P.
SHETTY HONOURING THE WARRIORS
Chairman and Ex- India Today Group Chairman and
ecutive Director, Editor-in-chief Aroon Purie
Narayana Health

MAGAZINE KING
DR NARESH HE A LT H G IRI AWA RD S
TREHAN

COVID’S
Chairman and
Managing Direc-
tor, Medanta

DR GAGANDEEP
KANG FRONTLINE
WARRIORS
Vaccine expert

DR SWATI

E
PIRAMAL
Honouring those xtraordinary situations call for extraor-
Vice Chairperson, dinary responses. And no one has risen
Piramal Group who have been to the challenge of Covid as admirably
at the forefront as our healthcare workers. It was only fit-
of the country's ting, therefore, that the sixth edition of the
fight against ����� ����� Safaigiri awards are dedicated
AROON PURIE the Covid-19 to these frontline warriors. As a tribute, the
Chairman and commendations this time were called the
Editor-in-chief,
pandemic ‘Healthgiri Awards’ to honour the individu-
India Today Group als and institutes that led the way in the fight
BY KIRAN D. TARE
against the pandemic. In an online event
held on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s

5 0 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0

 THE WINNERS
Best state combating
Covid-19: Kerala
Best government hospital
combating Covid-19:
AIIMS, New Delhi
Best private hospital
combating Covid-19:
JOINT WINNERS — Medanta
hospital, Gurugram, and
Max Smart Super Speciality
hospital, Saket, New Delhi
Best charity hospital
combating Covid-19:
CMC, Vellore
Best corporate
contribution for social
impact during Covid-19:
Reliance Foundation
RAUSHAN PURBAY
Best NGO that extended
timely help to migrants
during Covid-19:
Rashtriya Sewa Bharati
Best NGO o�ering
healthcare services
during Covid-19:
Caritas India
Best innovation for
Covid-19 related
activity: Mylab Discovery
Solutions
Best logistics service
provider during
Covid-19: Department
of Post, Ministry of
Communications
Celebrity who has

done exemplary work

Best testing facility for during Covid-19:
Covid-19: National Institute Sonu Sood, actor
of Virology, Pune

MAGAZINE KING
birth anniversary, 11 institutes and indi-
viduals received awards in 10 categories.
Acknowledging their stellar role,
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a
written message, said that serving peo-
ple during such a crisis is worthy of spe-
cial recognition. “The exemplary work
of our healthcare workforce as frontline
warriors in such a scenario assumes
even more significance, because the
deepest values of humanity that they
embody inspire everyone else to rise
above the situation.” He also empha-
sised that wearing masks, observing
social distancing, maintaining cleanli-
ness, washing hands and spreading the
message of safety to others while leading
by example remained our most impor-
tant tools to score over the virus.
Union minister of health and family
welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan reiterated
that in his keynote address. He warned
that carelessness in following the Covid-
19 advisory would make the task more
difficult. Face masks, he said, remained
the best protection against the virus.
Lauding the work of health workers, he
"Face masks are our big-
gest protectors, but we
must also remember to
maintain do gaj ki doori (a
distance of two yards) to
keep the coro-
navirus at bay"
Dr Harsh Vardhan,
Union health minister
said, “We are now [reopening the coun-
try], but we have been seeing a signifi-
cant number of people who are careless
in following government guidelines.
Face masks are our biggest protection,
but we must also remember to maintain
do gaj ki doori (a distance of two yards),
to wash hands and maintain sanitisa-
tion to keep the coronavirus at bay.”
In his welcome address, ����� �����
Group Chairman and Editor-in-Chief
Aroon Purie recognised the contribu-
tion of each sector in the battle against
Covid-19. Hospitals, private and public,
he said, rose to the challenge within
days of the initiation of a coordinated
national response. National institu-
tions prepared and revised protocols for
diagnostics and testing. State-owned
entities, conscious of the ever-changing
ground realities, swiftly ferried medi-
cines, ventilators and other equipment
across the country. Enterprising com-
panies developed indigenous testing
kits and medical equipment at a frac-
tion of the cost of imported ones. Non-
governmental organisations contributed
in many ways, from providing rations
to those in need to making masks and
sanitisers. “None of these remarkable
people and institutions knew that they
would be recognised for their work
while they were doing it,” he said.
On their part, the winners of the
awards expressed their gratitude for
the recognition conferred on them and
vowed to continue their work for the
benefit of society. �

O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �51

 THE WINNERS

A TASTE OF
WELFARE Kerala
state minister for
ULBs A.C. Moideen at
a community kitchen

MAGAZINE KING
state also has a high density of popu-
BEST STATE COMBATING COVID-19 lation with 859 persons per square
kilometre.
W INNER: Kerala
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and
W H Y I T WO N: � Set up 216 Covid hospitals and conducted 1.6 million his government are now worried about
Covid tests till September 1 � Had longer initial 28-day quarantine, built the new wave of infections spreading
isolation shelters for migrants, set up Covid care centres for tourists in the state. “Since the first case was
and people in transit � ‘Break the Chain’ awareness campaign. Formed reported in the state, we were far ahead
190,000 WhatsApp groups to educate on Covid care � Provided more in controlling the spread of the disease,
than 8.6 million free meals � Announced Rs 20,000 cr special package but now that situation is beginning to
change,” he said. “On an average, the
number of patients is doubling every
20 days. Cases per million in Kerala are

HIGHLY ALERT 5,143 compared to the national aver-

age of 5,852. However, the case fatality
rate is much better than the national

W
ith an overall score of 94.2 out
of 100, Kerala emerged as the
best state in Covid manage-
ment. So far, the state has one of the
lowest fatality rates in India—0.38 per
cent compared to the national average
of 1.58 per cent. As on October 1, the
state had reported 204,241 cases with
131,052 (64.16 per cent) recoveries and
771 deaths. Firm action, people’s partici-
pation and excellent healthcare delivery
have been the main weapons in Kerala’s
armoury against Covid-19.
Kerala was where Covid first landed
in the country on January 30. With
around 1.9 million Keralites working
abroad, thousands of students study-
ing in foreign universities, more than
a million foreign tourists visiting the
state every year and a floating popula-
tion of 900,000 migrant workers, the
state was in the high-risk category. The
average. But it will increase with the
rise in the number of patients. Our
first priority is to check the spread of
infection with firm action.” The state
government plans to assign gazetted
officers to every local self-government
body, giving them special powers to
execute Covid-related responsibilities.
Violations of Covid protocol will also
attract heavy fines. ■
—Jeemon Jacob

52 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0


BEST GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL
COMBATING COVID-19
W INNER: AIIMS, New Delhi
Taking Charge
W
ithin a few days
of the outbreak,
AIIMS set up
22 dedicated wards, five
ICUs, 90 ventilators and
1,426 isolation wards for
Covid patients. “From
March itself, we took a
leading and holistic role
in the pandemic,” says
Dr Randeep Guleria,
AIIMS director. “We set
up a massive procure-
ment, training, testing
and treatment chain to
cover all aspects of Covid
management.”
To juggle the roles of a
Covid care centre and the
country’s largest public
hospital, AIIMS rapidly
commissioned buildings
in NCI (National Cancer
Institute), Jhajjar, to
accommodate over 600
patients and nearly 1,700
beds overall for Covid-
19. It then transferred all
patients from its trauma
centre in Delhi, many on
ventilators, to the main
hospital to convert it into
a Covid-19 facility.
AIIMS was also
THANK YOU IAF planes fly over
HEAL AND SERVE Covid stage-2 care centre in CMC
REUBEN GERALD
W H Y I T WO N
� Worked not only toward
Covid treatment but also
testing, training, vac- BEST CHARITY HOSPITAL
cine and drug trials and COMBATING COVID-19
research � Provided
mentorship to 163 other
W INNER: CMC, VELLORE
hospitals on Covid test-
ing, complications and
All Hands on Deck
clinical management via
video conferences
F
instrumental in expand- or Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, a
ing Covid testing in the 3,000-bed tertiary care teaching and charitable hos-
capital. “Real-time PCR pital, providing Covid care involved many challenges.
facilities were running Infection control and triaging protocols were put in place
round the clock to ensure in January 2020 and teams created in March worked tire-
MAGAZINE KING
individuals received
results within 12 hours,”
lessly to prepare for the worst and to allay staff and patient
anxieties. CMC began by allocating 150 beds in March and
says Guleria. The hospital currently has 924, includ-
is also using its CB-NAAT ing 96 ICU beds, for Covid
W H Y I T WO N: � A
machines to run Covid Covid Command Centre
patients. “A dedicated
diagnoses. Its virology lab kept patients informed, faculty who led the infec-
is providing training and performed contact tracing tion control, engineering
quality assurance to more etc � Special opera- and triaging initiatives,
than 30 labs across Delhi. tion theatre was built for backed by a proactive
Being the country’s emergency procedures on administration, helped us
leading research hospital, Covid patients � A 168- weather this storm,” says
AIIMS began funding bed centre was set up for medical superintendent
Covid research from April mild category patients Dr K. Prasad Mathews. A
itself and has funded Covid Command Centre
over 50 such projects till (CCC) with 70 staff from
date. ■ various departments was set up early on. “The staff had to
—Sonali Acharjee be trained overnight: training 10,000 staff, each category
with their own training needs, was an extremely difficult
task,” says Mathews. Challenges continued as CMC faced
a severe economic crunch with dropping patient numbers
AIIMS to express gratitude
and falling incomes. Several staff donated their salaries
while others pledged to take lower pay for six months to
help tide over the crisis. CMC provided 24-hour emer-
gency medical and surgical care throughout the lockdown
period when most hospitals around were shut. Early prep-
aration, anticipation of shortages of masks and supplies,
designing safe, low-cost alternatives of PPE, everything
CHANDRADEEP KUMAR
helped in the battle against Covid. ■
—Amarnath K. Menon
O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �5 3
 THE WINNERS

BEST PRIVATE HOSPITAL

COMBATING COVID-19
J O IN T W INNER: MEDANTA HOSPITAL,
Gurugram

HIGH ON ON CALL Dr Trehan

TRUST
(in white shirt) takes
a team meeting
PARVEEN KUMAR/HINDUSTAN TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES

W
ith the Covid pan-
demic and the sudden
decline in demand for
in-patient and out-patient
care—even surgeries shrunk
in numbers—Medanta scaled
up its technology-based ser-
vices. Telemedicine consul-
tations saw a 700 per cent
growth since before the
pre-Covid era and down-
loads of their app crossed
the 100,000 mark. Ensuring
that Covid treatment wards
are completely separate
from non-Covid ones helped
build patient trust and con-
fidence as lockdown restric-
tions began to be lifted. The
hospital hasn’t laid off a single
employee and mass training
campaigns were organised for
staff through training mod-
ules and awareness sessions.
All the staff who were
infected by Covid-19 were
treated by the hospital which
helped boost trust. “Our
goal was to provide reliable
Covid care to patients but
MAGAZINE KING
equally to help keep our staff
protected and their morale
upbeat,” says Dr Naresh
Trehan, founder of Medanta.
“A hospital runs on its staff,
and Covid was a high-stress
time for all, especially as
news of healthcare workers
W H Y I T WO N
� Dedicated 8 isolation
wards and 3 ICUs for
Covid treatment � Succ-
essfully treated 2,014
Covid patients with a rec-
overy rate of 91 per cent
as on August 24; con-
ducted 18,301 tests too
by that date � Held Covid
awareness campaigns
being infected in the coun-
try began to come in.” As of
August 24, the hospital had
lost only 121 Covid patients
and had a recovery rate of 91
per cent. Medanta also took
time to care for non-Covid
essential patients—subject to
the restrictions, it continued
to allow a few essential elec-
tive admissions.
Medanta also played a
larger role in the pandemic.
“There were a lot of miscon-
ceptions about Covid and
precautions were needed to
prevent transmission,” says
Dr Trehan. The hospital held
over 1,500 digital webinars
on Covid awareness, initiated
counselling for RWAs and
healthcare workers, and put
together social media aware-
ness campaigns for respon-
sible mask usage. ■
—Sonali Acharjee

BEST PRIVATE HOSPITAL

First on Many Counts
T
J O IN T W INNER: MAX SMART owards the end of April, Max Healthcare became the first hospital in
SUPER SPECIALITY HOSPI- the country to successfully treat a Covid patient with plasma thera-
TAL, SAKET, New Delhi py. The hospital’s commitment has ensured that it has lost less than
a hundred patients since the pandemic began. As of August 24, it had
a 97 per cent recovery rate—the highest in the NCR. By then, the hos-
pital had 12 dedicated isolation wards
W H Y I T WO N: � At 97 for Covid patients, 4 dedicated ICUs and
per cent, it has the highest 32 ventilators. Max implemented strict
recovery rate for Covid guidelines which ensured that at no point
patients in NCR. Less than did non-Covid doctors or patients come
100 patients had died till into contact with Covid cases. The hospi-
August 24 � It was one of tal even set up flu clinics to treat and iso-
the first in the country to late all those who had symptoms but were
adopt plasma therapy and not confirmed Covid positive. The hospi-
the use of the drug Remde-
tal also offers home isolation packages. ■
sivir for Covid treatment
YASIR IQBAL

—Sonali Acharjee

5 4 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 DOUBLE DUTY Two members of Max’s crack Covid team

DISTRESS BUSTER
BEST CORPORATE CONTRIBUTION FOR
SOCIAL IMPACT DURING COVID-19
W INNER: RELIANCE FOUNDATION
T
he Reliance Foundation set
up India’s first dedicated
Covid-19 facility in Mumbai,
at the SevenHills Hospital, in col-
laboration with the Brihanmumbai
Municipal Corporation. The 100-
bed hospital was scaled up to 250
beds within two weeks. The foun-
dation provided mobile medical
units at the doorstep of patients,
raised Covid awareness in rural
areas and built an isolation centre
in Lodhivali, Maharashtra.
At the time of assessment by
W H Y I T WO N: � The founda-
tion’s Mission Anna Seva meals
scheme benefitted over 2.5 million
people in 19 states and one UT
� Around 23,000 farmers received
help in transacting 21,000 tonnes of
produce worth around Rs 60 crore
� Over 330,000 masks were dis-
tributed to health workers � Over
5.5 lakh litres of free fuel was sup-
plied to 14,000 government-notified
emergency service vehicles on
Covid duty in 20 states
SAFETY FIRST Reliance Foundation sta� distributes
face masks in Shahdol, Madhya Pradesh
MISSION POSSIBLE
Dr Priya Abraham
the jury, the foundation had spent
Rs 790 crore on combating Covid-
19, including a donation of Rs 500
crore to the PM CARES Fund. The
foundation mentored self-help
groups and village institutions to
produce masks for community and
frontline workers and farmer pro-
ducer organisations to alleviate
farmers’ distress during the lock-
down. Reliance Nutrition Garden
developed a low-cost, organic gar-
den model, built community resil-
ience and ensured better nutrition
for families at a nominal cost. The
other focus was to create livelihoods
MAGAZINE KING
for migrants within their villages.
Over 5,000 families got help in
accessing social entitlements, such
as job cards and rations under the
public distribution system. Around
7,800 migrant workers were linked
to employment opportunities
under MGNREGA and 1,500 were
re-skilled to take up agri-based
activities, such as horticulture, veg-
etable cultivation and fisheries. ■
—M.G. Arun
MANDAR DEODHAR
BEST TESTING FACILITY
FOR COVID-19
W INNER: NATIONAL INSTITUTE
OF VIROLOGY, Pune
W H Y I T WO N: � Provided troubleshooting
and quality control support to government and
private Covid testing labs � Developed the indig-
enous human IgG ELISA test kit (‘Covid Kavach
ELISA’) � Put out the first electron microscopy
image of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and succeeded
in isolating the virus
The Virus Watchdog
S
ince confirming in end-January that the
novel coronavirus had arrived in India,
the National Institute of Virology has
been on a mission to enhance testing capac-
ity, provide training and develop new test kits.
Through its efforts, the country now has 107
virus research and diagnostic labs, 935 govern-
ment hospital labs and 1,500 private labs for
Covid. NIV Pune director Dr Priya Abraham
started forming teams of scientists from mid-
January for the battle ahead while the National
Influenza Centre, located inside NIV, began
dummy runs of lab corona primers. In the ini-
tial days, the NIV bore the entire cost of ship-
ment of samples, deploying staff at airports
even at midnight to bring them to the insti-
tute. “We worked at high speed to complete
testing as patients needed to be isolated,” says
Dr Abraham. NIV handles an average 3,000
samples daily and has tested about a third of
the total samples in India. “NIV has been able
to battle the virus because of good team work.
I personally meditate [to ease the pressure],
but many people must have prayed for our suc-
cess,” says Dr Abraham. ■
—Kiran D. Tare
O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �55
 THE WINNERS

BEST NGO THAT EXTENDED TIMELY

HELP TO MIGRANTS DURING COVID-19
W INNER: RASHTRIYA SEWA BHARATI

HELPING HAND
T
urning adversity into
opportunity, the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS’s)
social service body, the Rashtriya
Sewa Bharati (RSB), has made great
strides in serving those in need dur-
ing these past few months. It opened
around 11,000 food distribution
centres across the country, as well as
of places across the country: 7.4 mil-
lion ration kits, 466,000 ready food
packets and 9 million masks were
distributed, with temporary accom-
modation being provided to over
200,000 people without shelter.
Ayurvedic remedies were distributed
to over 6 million people, with more
than 6,200 bottles of blood collected

483 medical centres that have helped
over 146,000 people. As many as
580,000 RSB workers contributed
with their effort in tens of thousands
K ASIF/MAIL TODAY
for blood banks across India.
The RSB also extended its efforts
to help nomadic tribes, with over
267,000 people supplied with food

MAGAZINE KING
A HELPING HAND
Father Paul Moonjely (in white) BEST NGO OFFERING HEALTHCARE
SERVICES DURING COVID-19
W INNER: CARITAS INDIA

Community E�ort
C
aritas has played a major role in One of its most commendable efforts
providing help during the pandem- was the distribution of food and water to
ic. Father Paul Moonjely, executive migrant workers returning to their home
director, says Caritas organised aware- states on foot. “Food was distributed to
CHANDRADEEP KUMAR

W H Y I T WO N: � Distributed over
200,000 masks, 187,000 safety kits
and 102,000 ration kits, helping over
900,000 � Coordinated e�orts across
28 states and three Union territories
� Gathered data and disseminated in-
formation and resources across India
ness drives, research meetings, webinars
and workshops, aside from distributing
food, information and other resources.
It engaged with government depart-
ments at multiple levels, as well as with
panchayats, market vendors and bank
officials for a nationally-coordinated
response. “Our local partners and par-
ishes across the country made available
their institutions, hospitals, volunteers
and experts to reach out to those who
needed help,” says Father Moonjely.
“There were even cases where staff con-
tributed a portion of their salaries.”
relief camps and quarantine centres.
Many migrants were also helped with fill-
ing up forms for PDS cards,” says Father
Moonjely. Caritas also helped with dis-
seminating information about quaran-
tine protocols, train and bus schedules
and ticket availability to migrants.
Caritas is now planning to ramp up its
efforts. “The migrant crisis, food short-
ages and the psychological effect on chil-
dren and parents are all consequences of
the pandemic—the areas in which we can
help are being continuously identified.” ■
—Ridhi Kale

5 6 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0


HELL OR HIGH WATER
An RSB volunteer
distributes food at Yamuna
Khadar near Chilla, Mayur
Vihar, New Delhi
W H Y I T WO N: � Distributed nearly
4.4 million food packets and 1.4 million
safety kits to over 5 million migrants
� Provided temporary accommo-
dation to almost 200,000 people
� Disseminated information on safety
precautions like social distancing
rations. RSB’s national president,
Pannalal Bhansaliji, says, “These
figures are only up to June 5—our
work has continued even after the
lockdown was lifted, though we
stopped collecting data. This has
been the largest-scale effort that the
RSB has conducted in its 17-year
history.”
It was the current RSS gen-
eral secretary, Bhaiyyaji Joshi, who
helped set up the RSB in 2003,
when the RSS felt the need to estab-
lish a dedicated organisation for its
social service efforts. (The organisa-
tion had already been conducting
social service programmes under the
aegis of several allied organisations.)
Today, the RSB is spread across
the country. It runs 120,000 educa-
tion projects, including 8,000 Vidya
Bharati schools, 13,000 health
projects, 15,500 social integration
projects and 8,000 self-reliance
projects. A large number of these
projects are run in areas where
government assistance is unavail-
able—for instance, in difficult to
reach mountainous areas and rural
districts. Parag Abhyankar, the
national seva pramukh (social ser-
vice head) of the RSS, who guides
the RSB, says, “We have gained
much experience from our work in
the Covid period. It has added to
our social service vision.” ■
—Uday Mahurkar

MAGAZINE KING
PASSING THE TEST O
n March 18, virologist Minal Dakhave Bhosale, Mylab's
research and development chief, submitted two key
proposals—one to the National Institute of Virology
(NIV), Pune, and the other to the Central Drugs Standard
Control Organisation (CDSCO)—for approval on a new
RT-PCR Covid diagnosis kit. India was conducting only
1,000 tests daily at the time—a far cry from the 1.5 million
being conducted daily as of
September 25—and lack of
W H Y I T WO N test kits was a major reason
� Developed India’s first
why. The Mylab kit became
RT-PCR test kit � The
the first domestically-man-
Mylab kit has benefitted
ufactured Covid diagnosis
over 1.2 million people
kit that not only reduced the
� Continues to innovate—
its Compact XL machine
margin for error significantly,
QUICK automates RT-PCR testing but also ensured India could
WORK which reduces manpower scale up testing.
JIGNESH MISTRY

Hasmukh “When we launched the

Rawal, manag- cost and margin for error
ing director,
kit in March end, most kits in
Mylab the market were expensive.
Ours was one-fourth the price cited by ICMR then,” says
BEST INNOVATION FOR COVID-19 Hasmukh Rawal, MD, Mylab. With the Mylab kit, chances
of false negatives are reduced drastically. “It uses custom-
RELATED ACTIVITY designed primers and probes which can detect several genes
from the virus. It also has special home genes that can detect
W INNER: MYLAB DISCOVERY
cases if the sample is slightly contaminated” he adds. ■
SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD.
—Sonali Acharjee

O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 �INDIA TODAY �57

 THE WINNERS

CELEBRITY WHO HAS DONE

EXEMPLARY WORK DURING COVID-19
SOLDIERING ON India
Post employees at Delhi's
Gol Market post o�ce W INNER: SONU SOOD
CHANDRADEEP KUMAR

BEST LOGISTICS SERVICE

PROVIDER DURING COVID-19 REEL VILLAIN,
W INNER: DEPARTMENT OF POSTS,
MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS
REAL HERO
W
hile most of his peers used WHY HE WON: � Provided
W H Y I T WO N: � Worked daily to ensure
the lockdown to take a sab- meals to migrants stranded in
delivery of essential services, particularly of
batical and stayed indoors, Mumbai and financial aid to fami-
medical supplies � Ensured customers are
Sonu Sood stepped up and emerged lies of those injured or deceased
able to do bank transactions � Distributed over
600,000 ration kits to the needy
a hero, a role that Bollywood hasn’t � Helped around 75,000 migrants
often entrusted him with. The return home � Arranged char-
actor’s charitable work during the tered flights to bring home Indian

THE POSTAL ARMY

pandemic has been so effective that students � Equipped frontline
he has become a helpline of sorts. workers with PPE kits
It all began with him helping

N
ever in his three decades of service at the the daily wage workers who, strand-
department of posts has Rajbir Singh ed in cities with no work, negligible Bihar, Odisha, Assam, Jharkand
MAGAZINE KING
felt the kind of pressure he has during
the Covid pandemic, but he has also never felt
savings and desperate to return to
their hometowns, began making
and Uttarakhand. He also started
‘Pravasi Rojgaar’, a virtual platform
more proud. A postman at one of Delhi’s busiest their way home, covering hundreds which aims to provide employment
post offices, in Connaught Place, Singh and his of kilometres on foot. April saw him opportunities to 20 million people
colleagues from across India kept the country start a food and ration drive, ‘Shakti over the next five years. Sood even
going during the pandemic. Annadanam’, under which 45,000 started a toll-free number after his
During the lockdown, the postal depart- people stranded on roads and high- social media was inundated with
ment’s robust network of 156,000 post offices, ways in Mumbai were fed. He also pleas for help.
of which 141,000 are in rural areas, delivered opened the doors to his hotel Shakti Ask the Dabangg actor what
not only medical kits, ventilators and critical Sagar in Mumbai to healthcare and keeps him going and he says: “It
post, but also doorstep delivery of pensions frontline workers battling Covid. is the prayers and wishes that I get
and social sector benefits, says Pradipta Kumar In May, Sood and his friend Neeti from the people in need. I have miles
Bisoi, secretary at the department of posts. Goel kicked off the ‘Ghar Bhejo’ to go but the journey is on. The only
The India Post service conducted 38 million initiative, arranging buses, trains way to survive in this world is to give
India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) transactions and even flights to send more than back to the society. I promise to do
worth Rs 9,166 crore; of which 11.7 million were 75,000 migrants to their homes this till my last breath.” ■
Aadhaar-enabled payment transactions worth in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, —Suhani Singh
Rs 2,196 crore, in the lockdown period, while
over 200,000 postmen and gramin dak sevaks
did doorstep delivery of cash.
The postal department used the railway
freight network to reach nearby cities and then
the mail motor service vehicles to ferry essential
goods. Hundreds in the department’s workforce
succumbed to Covid. “We have made special
arrangements of ex gratia compensation of
Rs 10 lakh and jobs on compassionate grounds
to the nearest kin,” says Bisoi. ■
—Anilesh S. Mahajan
A LIFELINE
FOTOCORP

Sonu Sood ensuring

a safe departure
5 8 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0 for migrant workers
in Wadala, Mumbai
 RUN RAHUL JAIDEEP AHLAWAT’S
JADHAV RUN SLOW AND STEADY
PG 61 CLIMB PG 63

CHETAN BHAGAT’S Q&A WITH

CONVENIENT NAWAZUDDIN
WHODUNNIT PG 64 SIDDIQUI PG 66

MAGAZINE KING

ONCE UPON
A CRIME
Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE

As brutal crimes and lurid reporting

dominate the headlines, ‘true crime’
podcasts are the latest medium to
feed our appetite for the dark side
 LEISURE

S
imulating primal fears, ‘exposure therapy’, an
education in survival—all sorts of theories have
been pro�ered for why true crime as a genre will car to ons
Unlike te ctives,
never cease to have a loyal following. To the ’90s a tted de
an d h
s ne v er had
generation that grew up on India’s Most Wanted India ha rt ideas of
to impo villainy for
and Crime Patrol, and obsessively memed Wild g r u es ome
IME
E C R
Wild Country, this isn’t news. In the ’80s too, its TRU ries
sto
despite the extreme popularity of Karamchand
Jasoos on Doordarshan, true crime had already amassed
a following through Police File Se. Unlike cartoons and
hatted detectives, we have never had to import ideas of
gruesome villainy for risqué story-telling. The late la-
mented Crime and Detective magazine capitalised on this
abundance of crime and an appetite for the lurid during
its run. While Anup Soni of Crime Patrol keeps exhorting
every one of us potential victims to be “Satark, savdhan
and taiyyar (Alert, attention and ready)”, Indian true
crime podcasts are the latest turn in the desperate search
for content for a stir-crazy, pandemic-stricken country.
On the lookout for murder most evil, these pod-
casts are unearthing stories from everywhere. The Desi
Perspective takes up famous cases from India and the
world, punctuated by many disbelieving exclamations
at the vileness of mankind, and banter between the two
friends who host it. Khooni: The Crimes of India takes to
straightforward but e�ective narration and is currently
MAGAZINE KING
one of the most popular true crime podcasts on Spotify.
Desi Crime, another independent podcast, narrates cases
from across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Red FM
has been on the true crime podcast block since late 2019
(their Indian Murder Mystery is currently on Apple Pod-
casts), but the smaller fish are digging out better stories.
Indian Crime Story, also on Spotify, in particular, picks
up stories from small towns across India and even takes
up the assassinations of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.
It isn’t as detailed as we would like it to be, but it scores
well on the story diversity front.
Some of the most notorious crimes from the national
vault of horror feature on several shows—Raman Raghav,
the head-bashing Mumbai serial killer from the ’60s;
Umesh Reddy, ex-CRPF cop who caught people’s atten-
tion not so much for his murderous streak and sexual
assaults as his propensity to cross-dress; Ranga-Billa,
infamous for the chilling 1978 murder of the Chopra kids
in Delhi; and Amardeep Sada, who is India’s claim to du-
bious fame as the world’s youngest serial killer. It is clear
that the research for these podcasts is largely Google-
(from top) Crime
based, and they often disagree on minor details depend- podcasts range
ing on which source they have chosen. Satish Verma, who from Agla Station
ran Crime and Detective, and its sister publication in Investigation (comedy)
to the pulp fiction of
Hindi, Madhur Kathayein (still running), is dismissive Thriller Factory and
of this mode of ‘R&D’. The real story, according to him, is true crime shows like
Death Lies & Cyanide
with the locals who know everything and then some and
or Khooni: The Crimes
crime beat journalists at the district level who have access of India
to information like no one else.

6 0 �INDIA TODAY O C T OBE R 19, 2 02 0

 R U N
B O O KS

A V R U N
H
But true crime podcasting in India is still in its

D
infancy and the field is wide open for experiments.

Internationally, crime podcasts have been around
forever, trying everything from voice-acted event
recreations to comedy and true crime that is not even
about murder. Criminal on WUNC did an excellent
episode on the deliberate poisoning of a tree in Texas
by a man avenging himself on the city administra-
tion. Today in True Crime on Parcast, on the other
hand, sticks close to familiar tropes and churns out a
daily podcast corresponding to a histori-
cal event in crime on the same date as the
episode anywhere between 2,500 years
ago and today. As they find funders and
audiences, true crime podcasts in India
can only get better.
Spotify’s head of communication-
India, Vasundhara Mudgil, says that
inspirational podcasts have seen the largest
demand in India for some time, but the
platform is looking to expand into new
content. Last month, they launched Death,
Lies & Cyanide with some fanfare. It tells
the story of one woman in Kerala who got
away with murders for almost 14 years. The
podcast, which has released six episodes so
J A
p or te
im e r e
e r cr rn e d m
A form te r tu
gang s
ithin just three
W weeks of taking
up running, Rahul
Jadhav could
cover a distance of over 18 kilo-
metres easily. Over the past
few years, the 44-year-old has
participated in over 20 mara-
thons and running events. And
while long-distance running is
what he is hooked on to today,
till a few years ago, Jadhav was
dealing with an addiction of a
di�erent kind. “My mornings
used to start with a drink, then
I would moved on to drugs, fol-
lowed by tranquilisers. That’s
when I would hit the high I was
fe of a
th e li
nic le s
r ch ro nn e r
on r u
ar ath
was feeling scared? So, I made
peace with the fact that there
was a bullet with my name on
it out there, and after that there
was no fear,” says Jadhav.
The youngest of three
siblings, Jadhav was born in
Dombivli, Mumbai. And though
he started out as a petty crimi-
nal, he soon graduated to
extortions to fill the co�ers
of overseas gang lords. The
substance-infused haze filled
Jadhav with the feeling that he
was invincible, until, inevita-
bly, his luck ran out and he was
caught.
After spending three years

MAGAZINE KING
far, will follow her story through four more
episodes. Unlike independent podcasts,
chasing,” says Jadhav. “I would
shit and puke blood, but each
in prison, Jadhav, while working
in a rehabilitation programme,
day was the same. Then, of discovered running. “It took me
this show had the resources for field visits
course, there was always the a few races to realise that run-
and veteran journalist Sashi Kumar as fear of getting caught, or worse, ning was for my own satisfac-
host, which undoubtedly opens doors to shot and killed.” tion. Then I started focusing on
access information that small podcasts can In Gangster on the Run, training, diet, sleep and recov-
rarely hope for. Mudgil also promises more Puja Changoiwala unravels the ery. It helped me get rid of a lot of
India-specific true crime originals later this year. Jio eventful life of Jadhav, who took negativity in my head,” he says.
Saavn, on the other hand, appears to have cooled o� to organised crime in the late “My running begins where most
on the genre after the 2014 Trial by Error podcast on 1990s, hit the highs and lows others’ ends. The bar is set high
the Noida double murder case hosted by journalist of a rollercoaster existence, and I don’t stop till I attain it.” In
before treading the path of January 2019, Jadhav complet-
Nishita Jha. Audible Suno, which launched only late
reform. “I was aware that death ed the DeAddiction Ultra Run,
last year, has not ventured into an original true crime
was chasing me all the time. But covering a distance of 1,475
so far, although they have dabbled with the genre of how could I threaten someone km, from the Gateway of India
crime fiction with Anurag Kashyap’s Thriller Factory, and extort them for money if I in Mumbai to the India Gate in
which is doing fairly well, even though Agla Station Delhi, in a fortnight.
Investigation, a comic podcast on Mumbai Police’s As a former crime report-
absurd crime investigations flopped earlier this year. er, Changoiwala provides an
While podcasts are rising to the occasion, there intriguing insight into the glo-
has been a lull in Indian true crime content in other rified fiefdom of gunmen and
mediums for a while now. OTT platforms have sup- their fleeting dreams. While
plied us with a robust fare from abroad, but high- the account follows a typical
timeline of a gangster—easy
profile Indian productions cleave towards fiction—
money, love, betrayal, the fall
think Sacred Games, Pataal Lok and Breathe: Into
and subsequent reformation—
the Shadows. This, we contend, is highly amiss. True it could have shed a little more
crime in India in unmatched by the wildest imagina- light on Jadhav’s transformation
tion of the fiction writer, and there is a case for being through running. ■
vocal for locally manufactured crime stories. ■ —Shail Desai
—Farah Yameen GANGSTER ON THE RUN
The True Story of a
Reformed Criminal
by Puja Changoiwala
HARPERCOLLINS
`399; 296 pages
 also presents the Oscars. The honour makes
Bittu eligible for the Academy award for best
short (live action). After playing at Telluride
and Palm Springs film festivals, the film will
be available on the BFI Player until October
16 as a selection of the London Film Festival.
Dube, an MFA from New York Univer-
sity Tisch School of the Arts, has woven in
a little bit of herself in Bittu. “I had a weird
relationship with authority,” says Dube, 30,
who was born in Delhi and went to Wel-
ham Girls’ School in Dehradun. “When you
are a little di�erent and hard to deal with,
they just won’t deal with you.” Dube was
intent on revisiting the place of her forma-
tive years, though the film is shot in a less
romanticised part of the hills. “I wanted it
to feel like a forgotten side of the foothills of
the Himalayas where you are always in dire
straits,” she adds.
G IR LS
u be ; and
A LL EY a D evD Bittu While the film was shot in India, the
V rish m ll fro m
p ) Ka a s ti writing and post production was done in the
(to m ari in
u
Rani K US where Dube has been living since 2014.
“I want to be between both places,” she says
from Los Angeles, where she is writing her

T
FILMS first feature and editing a few projects.
he young protagonist of Karishma Indian cinema also weighs very much

MAKING
Dev Dube’s short, Bittu, is a non- on her mind. Citing Hansal Mehta, Zoya
conformist. Getting into trouble Akhtar and Chaitanya Tamhane as some of
MAGAZINE KING
comes easy to this eight-year-old
girl and is ultimately what saves
her favourite filmmakers, Dube admits to
being able to quote dialogues from Bollwy-
her from a tragedy. Shot in the ood films. Having made two of her shorts

TROUBLE
remote village of Koti, near Dehra-
dun, the film thrives on Dube’s a�ecting
storytelling, her sister Shreya Dev Dube’s
beautiful camerawork and the bonhomie
between the two young, non-actor leads—
The young lead of Bittu Rani, 9, and Renu, 6. Bittu recently won
dares to stand out in a world the Student Academy Award for Best
that tells girls to fall in line Narrative presented by the Academy of
and not make any trouble Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which
in India, she notes the joys of working here.
“There is a lot more word of mouth than a
paper trail and a lot more room for mistakes
and the magic that happens [from it],” she
says. This explains why her first feature will
also be set here. “It is based on my family
who by now are sick of me writing about
them,” she says. ■
—Suhani Singh

ilmmaker Hansal Mehta it, only for it to be rejected time and again.

F thrives on true stories. Two

of his most acclaimed films,
“Possibly because I was in a low phase pro-
fessionally,” says Mehta. “But I have never
W EB SER IES

Shahid and Aligarh, are

hard-hitting character studies of real men
on the fringes. For his digital debut, he cast
his eyes on Harshad Mehta, the master-
mind of the Rs 5,000 crore stock market
scam which was brought to light in 1992
by the dogged journalism of Sucheta Dalal.
The exposé brought about a change in the
way stock market is regulated in India.
Hansal Mehta had read the book,
The Scam, authored by Dalal along with
Debashis Basu, and even pitched a film on
been more glad of a film not being made.
The story found the right time to be made.” THE WOLF
OF DALAL
Scam 1992, the 10-episode series, coming
under the lesser-seen genre of financial
crime thriller began streaming on SonyLiv
on October 9. It’s not the only project in-
spired by the fraudster this year. Abhishek
STREET
Bachchan will be seen in The Big Bull, a Dealing with longform writing
film said to be based on Harshad Mehta. for the first time, Scam 1992
“I can’t think of a more relevant story has been Hansal Mehta’s
for the times we are living in,” says Mehta biggest challenge yet
who devoted three years to the project. “It
LEISURE

SLOW AND
ike any good citizen, perspective on both cinema and life.”

L Jaideep Ahlawat wears a

mask when he’s out and
Ahlawat belongs to what some refer to
as the ‘golden batch’ of 2008, which in-

STEADY
Jaideep Ahlawat’s measured
approach to his characters has
paid rich dividends
MAGAZINE KING
about, but his fans still
recognise him. And not only do they
recognise him but also greet him as
Hathiram, the moral spine of the Ama-
zon Prime show Paatal Lok which has
won appreciation for capturing the
zeitgeist of current India. “Somebody
screamed Hathiram at me the other
day and startled me,” says Ahlawat.
The actor is not only getting com-
fortable with the attention, but is now
also being o�ered leading parts which,
he says, suggest that filmmakers fi-
nally trust him to spearhead a project.
“There will only be a handful [of actors]
who wouldn’t want to be a hero,” he
says. But, at the same time,
he is not averse to playing
the anti-hero or dabbling
JAID s being
in genres he’s not associ-
W
ated with. “Apne tarah AHLA ading parts—
re d le
ki action or comedy bhi o�e
ho p es
kar lenge [I would like to
he
ke rs n ow t
filmma spearhead
do action and comedy in him to
ap
my style too]. If someone
writes a romantic story, I can
bring a romantic shade too,” he
says. In his latest film Khaali Peeli,
streaming on ZeePlex, Ahlawat plays
a baddie in pursuit of a fugitive couple
(Ishaan Khatter and Ananya Panday).
Born to teachers in Haryana, Ahla-
wat grew up reading Hindi literature,
including stories by Premchand. With
two years of college theatre experi-
ence under his belt, he headed to the
Film and Television Institute of India
in Pune to study acting. “I had mostly
been exposed to commercial cin-
ema till then and had no idea of world
cinema,” he says. “It gave me a new
cluded graduates like Rajkummar Rao
(Shahid), Vijay Varma (Gully Boy) and
Pitobash Tripathy (Shor in the City).
Much like his peers, he arrived in
Mumbai with no godfather, but Ahla-
wat stops short of calling his journey
a “struggle”. “I have been lucky. I didn’t
know whom to meet but I let destiny
take its course. I was also prudent
about my spending and it never came
to a point where I thought I might have
to leave Mumbai. Work kept coming my
way. It is how I have proven myself,”
he says. Roles of antagonists in films
like Commando and Vishwaroopam I
and II put him on the radar, but it was in
Meghna Gulzar’s Raazi (2018) that
Ahlawat truly made an impres-
E P sion as a ruthless R&AW of-
E
A T i ficer in charge of training
Alia Bhatt’s novice under-
tha t
it’s a sign cover agent.
ru st
Like most 2020 re-
je ct leases, Khaali Peeli wasn’t
ro
envisioned for the mobile/
laptop screen, but Ahlawat
values the positives of the OTT
format even though the charm of the
big screen is irreplaceable for him.
With familiar tropes of the late 1980s-
90s cinema and formulaic storytelling,
the chase thriller, he says, also has a
contemporary touch. “There is dia-
loguebaazi but I have played [my char-
acter] with sahaj bhaava [naturally],”
he says. It’s a strategy that is paying
rich dividends. “Akele aaye the, akele
hi chal rahe hain [I came alone and am
still walking alone]. I am here for the
long haul.” ■
—Suhani Singh

talks of what the system, if not mended, can make people do.”
Shot before the lockdown and with all its post-production
done during it, Mehta calls the show “perhaps the single-larg-
est challenge” that he has faced in his career given that this
was the first time he was dealing with longform writing.
Pratik Gandhi, best known for hit Gujarat films Bey
Yaar and Wrong Side Raju, put on 16 kilos to play the
infamous stock trader. “Hansal’s brief was ‘whatever you
do should look like a part of your body and not forced’,” says
Gandhi. Shreya Dhanwanthary (The Family Man) leapt at
the opportunity to work with Mehta and more so to finally
do a project that her father, employed in finance himself,
would watch and enjoy. “He was like ‘A re you serious?’ You
get to play Sucheta Dalal?” ■
—Suhani Singh
Pratik Gandhi as Harshad
Mehta in Scam 1992
LEISURE

O ne Arranged Murder follows Keshav Rajpu-

rohit and Saurabh Maheshwari, friends who
featured in his previous book, The Girl in Room
105. Having attempted that cross between romance and
murder, Bhagat returns with a more committed attempt
at genre crime fiction. Once best friends and flatmates,
the two aren’t on speaking terms when proceedings
open, and Saurabh is set to marry Prerna Malhotra, a
woman he met on an arranged marriage site.
No time is lost in setting the wheels of the plot in
ONE ARRANGED MURDER motion; by page 13, Prerna is found dead. On the night of
by Chetan Bhagat
WESTLAND Karva Chauth, she tumbles o� the terrace under suspi-
`225; 312 pages cious circumstances in a home packed with people,
secrets and motives. We have the set-up for a classic
locked room mystery.

A
The story is told through the first-person voice of
Keshav, except when Saurabh takes over for one chapter
early on, as he discovers the body. This is a blatant con-
trivance to remove the lover—naturally the prime suspect

Convenient in such investigations—from the list of suspects.

Deciding to set aside their ti�, the two get down to
investigating the death. Conveniently enough, they are

Whodunnit
MAGAZINE KING
Chetan Bhagat’s latest novel
exceeds expectations. Particularly
if you embark on it with none
allowed access to the police investigation as a favour in
return for their having helped to solve an earlier case.
Moreover, their proximity to the family—at one point they
even inveigle themselves as house guests—places them in
a sweet spot for snooping.
Bhagat’s second stab at a detective novel is consider-
ably better than his first. He goes through the beats of the
genre ably enough: casting suspicion on di�erent pos-
sible murderers, dropping hints at sordid family secrets
and throwing in a dubious cop
for good measure. The pacing
is e�cient, though the denoue- Chetan
ment eventually falters. Bhagat’s
Through the course of the second stab at
novel, favourite Bhagat themes a detective
resurface: the boisterous Pun- novel is much
jabi family, wedding prepara- better than his
tions, the love story track (told first and he goes
in flashbacks) and the vagaries through the beats
of male friendship. There are of the genre
gratuitous scenes of consump- ably enough
tion and corpulence and the
bodies of the living are as much
a focus as those of the dead.
A tidy serving of cliches and a
few implausible flexes round things o�.
Good crime fiction is about more than the crime: it
serves as a window into a society. This novel’s intentions
though, are less ambitious. Just to be clear, Bhagat even
takes a shot at “Indian literary novel(s)”, “the one white
guys in Britain judge and give prizes to”. ■
—Bhavya Dore
The Religion of Love
In her debut novel, Karuna Ezara Parikh asks some pertinent
questions about faith and the politics of identity
THE HEART ASKS
PLEASURE FIRST
by Karuna Ezara Parikh
PICADOR INDIA
`699; 324 pages
I
t seems fitting to
listen to Michael Ny-
man’s eponymous and
haunting piano score
as one reads Ka-
runa Ezara Parikh’s
debut novel The Heart Asks
Pleasure First. The theme
of star-crossed lovers is one
that is beloved of the Indian
subcontinent but gains new
life in Cardi�, Wales, in
2001 where this story un-
folds. For the popular social
media influencer, model and
former TV presenter, this
book was a labour of love
that took 13 years in the tell-
ing. “When I began writing
this at 21, my experience of
love had been so limited,
and I had no understand-
ing of geopolitics. Over the
past 13 years, the biggest
change though is a global
shift towards authoritarian-
ism, which made telling the
MAGAZINE KING
story more imperative and
urgent,” says Parikh.
The doomed love
between two Indian and
Pakistani students, Daya and
Aaftab, becomes the canvas
on which Parikh paints the
questions that absorb the
novel: the indictment of bor-
ders, the tyranny of religion
and the power of language,
concepts that are universal
but also uniquely South
Asian. Their love blossoms in
the wake of the 9/ 11 attacks,
making religious identity the
central narrative arc. The
novel is marked by the wave
of Islamophobia that follows
and its e�ects on the im-
migrant Muslim community
in Britain. Parikh sketches
the micro-tensions within
the community and traces
the changing dynamics
between faith and extrem-
ism that insidiously a�ect
Photograph by UPAHAR BISWAS. Clothes Eka by RINA SINGH
Aaftab’s life. As he navigates
his love for the graceful Daya
amid the opprobrium of his
family and community, his
brooding personality finds a
foil in Wasim, his roommate,
who is more provincial and
religious but a true “yaar”.
The novel is as much
about language as it is
about love. Metaphors
segue into the text with ease.
Faiz rubs shoulders with
Farida Khanum; poetry
and wordplay render the
prose fluid and melodi-
ous. When asked about her
inventive use of language,
Parikh says: “Essentially, I
NA
KARU IKH’S
R A PAR
EZA a s m uch
novel is
g e as
ou t la ngua p hors
ab e ta
o ut love. M text
ab nto th e
segue i ease
with
BOOKS
wanted to examine language
in terms of ‘belonging’. I also
wanted to explore the links
between di�erent languages,
for example, Hindi and
Urdu, or the way English is
a di�erent language in the
mouths of the colonisers
and those of the colonised.”
Her characters walk in a
haze of grace that would
be unconvincing were they
not balanced by the text’s
self-criticality and the hint of
doom that pervades it. Even
the charmed life of Daya’s
cosmopolitan parents Gyan
and Asha is not exempt. We
see the warning signs.
Parikh uses the principle
of Chekhov’s gun to good
e�ect. A letter in Gyan’s
pocket—its contents are
revealed later—alerts us to
an impending rupture. But
the book pushes a larger
point, of the incorporeality
of love and the buoyancy of
healing. The story main-
tains its pace and remains
poignant and riveting till
the end. Wasim emerges as a
character that is both flawed
and human. Untouched by
luck or romantic love, his
presence lends the novel a
soft gravitas. Parikh’s writ-
ing also contains an element
of the fantastical, a revelling
in the possibilities of fiction
that gives us a dirge layered
with pain and ecstasy, and a
memorable reminder of how
life is made of deep, endur-
ing human connections,
asking painfully pertinent
it is
questions of politics, identity
and the nature of love. ■
—Piya Srinivasan
 Q A

Striking a Balance
Nawazuddin Siddiqui, whose latest three films have been released online in the past
three months, on his 20 years in cinema and how the film industry is not just about stars

Q. Has this been your longest spell

without shooting?
I always wanted a period when I wouldn’t have
much to do. Sadly, it came in the form of a pandem-
ic. I did some farming in my village Budhana (Uttar
Pradesh) during the lockdown and watched some
250 films, including those starring my favourite
actors—Denzel Washington, Daniel Day Lewis and
Anthony Hopkins. I hope there is a change in my
approach towards my craft.

Q. You completed 20 years in

cinema last year. How do you
see your journey so far?
I am glad that I am working and I want to
continue working. Sometimes the films
work, sometimes they don’t. It is not under
MAGAZINE KING
my control. I am enjoying the process of
exploring di�erent characters, it’s the chal-
lenges that fascinate and engage me.

Q. Is there a conscious e�ort to

forego supporting parts to concentrate
on leading roles?
That’s not my intention. Sometimes one does
commercial films so that there is a balance
and one is able to reach out to the audience.
I love to do films like Manto and Photograph,
but I will also do films which don’t require
you to exercise your brain cells much.

Q. The film industry has faced a

volley of attacks lately...
It is unfortunate. The industry is not just
comprised of stars. There are lakhs who work
in it and those whose livelihoods depend on it.
If you attack it, the business will crumble. This
industry has given opportunities to many. Some
have seen their dreams materialise. Yesterday’s
outsider can become today’s insider here.

—with Suhani Singh

Photograph by BANDEEP SINGH

66 �Volume XLV Number 42; For the week October 13-19, 2020, published on every Friday Total number of pages 68 (including cover pages)