DEEPIKA PADUKONE

O E w
www.theweek.in
h k
JANUARY
Y 19,
9 2020

FREE
ACID
C ATTACK
C VICTIMS
C ARE FUNNY, SPIRITED, AND COC
COCKY AT TIMES 444-PAGE
SU
G
SUPPLEMENT
T

JOURNALISM
O WITH A HUMAN TOUCH
O C www.theweek.in
h k n Th W kM g
TheWeekMag Th W kL e
TheWeekLive
5500


WHAT
YOUR GUT IS
TELLINGG YOU
OU
JANUARY 19,, 2020

JNU VIOLENCE
O C
STUDENTS WON’T
BACK DOWN

WORLD
EXCLUSIVE
THE WEEK
www.t.me/magzsenglish VISITS THE
WORLD’S MOST
DANGEROUS REGION
DAYS BEFORE
SOLEIMANI’S
ASSASSINATION

INSIDE
SYRIA
Shocking sights at
Al-Hasakah prison, where
hundreds of Islamic State
fighters lead insane lives
PLUS
ENCOUNTER WITH
AN INDIAN ISIS WIDOW
AT AL-HOL CAMP

Sterek Judhi, a Kurdish fighter

in northeastern Syria
www.t.me/magzsenglish

JANUARY 6 marked the Feast of the Epiphany
aka denaha perunaal, the ritual end of the
Christmas season. In traditional homes,
Christmas decorations—the star, especially—
would have been taken down on that day.
In western tradition, the day honours the
three Magi and the star that guided them to
the cowshed in Bethlehem. While the Magi
www.t.me/magzsenglish
themselves are variously called the three kings
or the three wise men, a constant in the story is
that they came from lands to the east of Israel.
Every nativity set—from those by Kurt S. Adler
to Lego—shows them in turbans and robes. So,
many a Christmas story-teller will hint that the
Magi journeyed westwards from India.
In grandmothers’ tales in Kerala, you will
hear multiple variants of the Magi story,
including one that says that they were great
astrologers who cast a horoscope and then
followed the celestial marker to the baby’s
birthplace. Others will tell you that the Magi
were not temporal kings, but learned men.
Their wealth was their knowledge. And as the
east has always venerated knowledge, it is a
narrative that we gladly embrace.
Anyway, the Magi would have had a tough
time if they were travelling today. If they were
setting out from India, they would have had to
pass through a tumultuous theatre—Pakistan,
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Iran, Iraq and into Syria or Saudi Arabia and
then into Israel and Palestine. Or, they could
have just taken the night flight to Tel Aviv.
COK-TLV is slightly over eight hours; tickets
at around 050,000.
I am writing this letter to tell you about a trip
that THE WEEK took to the region recently,
a trip that harks back to an older and more
trying time. Special Correspondent Lakshmi
Subramanian and Deputy Photo Editor Bhanu
Prakash Chandra had been trying for some time
now to get into what used to be Islamic State
territory in Syria, to visit the camps housing
captured IS soldiers and widows. For a long time
the project went nowhere and then when it did,
it did so rapidly. It was a project with too many
moving pieces, most of them out of our control.
In addition to the physical risk that is to be
expected while travelling in the area, the duo’s
health, too, was put to the test. I commend their
courage and perseverance to see the project
through to the very end. The story of the journey
itself, and the accounts of their visit to the
camps, form this week’s cover story package.
By the accounts of inmates and
administrators, THE WEEK’s journalists are
the first Indian media professionals to visit the
camps. In keeping with our slogan of Journalism
with a Human Touch, what appealed to me
most was the interaction with the Indian widow
in the Al-Hol camp. She followed her husband
on vacation, and how her life changed course!
Her story and much more make this package a
gripping read.
Let me conclude with some facts that link this
conflict-seared region to India. Not many people
know that Christianity reached India before it
reached Europe. India, by some accounts, is
home to the oldest Christian community outside
Palestine; the community uses the Syrian rite of
worship. It is also a fact that very little remains
of that once vibrant community in that region.
India’s Syrian Christians celebrate denaha
perunaal with the El Payya hymn. God is light,
it says. How can God be anything other than a
manifestation of light?
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 3
 VOL. 38 NO. 3 THE WEEK JANUARY 19 2020

FOR THE WEEK JANUARY 13 - JANUARY 19

30 34 67
AAYUSH GOEL

PTI
AP

CONTROVERSY WORLD @LEISURE

Students of Jawaharlal Nehru University Qassem Soleimani’s assassination Chhapaak is not a women-centric film,
are in no mood to back down after has changed the ground situation but a girl’s story that will resonate with
being attacked by goons on campus in the Middle East millions: Deepika Padukone

38 COVER STORY
WAR, COLUMNS

CRIES
14 POWER POINT

www.t.me/magzsenglish Sachidananda Murthy

19 MANI-FESTO
Mani Shankar Aiyar

22 PMO BEAT
R. Prasannan

33 BITTER CHOCOLATE
Swara Bhasker
BHANU PRAKASH CHANDRA

66 IVORY TOWER
FAITH SHAKEN Sanjaya Baru
A man who witnessed the IS
attack on the Sheikh Al Haz Navi 74 LAST WORD
mosque in northeast Syria sits
outside the damaged mosque
Barkha Dutt

Even though Islamic State has been defeated in Syria, security
challenges persist in the country that is yet to recover from the war.
THE WEEK visited a facility with IS prisoners, and a camp for wives,
widows and children of IS fighters
● A taxing trip to prison camps in Syria, where inmates battle
poor conditions
● Photo feature: Syria, once the cradle of civilisations, now
ravaged by war
COVER PHOTO BHANU PRAKASH CHANDRA
COVER DESIGN BINESH SREEDHARAN
Printed at Malayala Manorama Press, Kottayam, Print House India Pvt
Ltd, Mumbai, M P Printers, Noida, and Rajhans Enterprises, Bengaluru,
and published from Manorama Buildings, Panampilly Nagar, Kochi-682
036, by Jacob Mathew, on behalf of the Malayala Manorama Co.Ltd.,
Kottayam-686 001.
Editor Philip Mathew
• Focus/Infocus features are paid marketing/PR initiatives

4 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020 K

 LETTERS

You have failed to highlight Some say Narendra

KANDAHAR HIJACK
the fact that the provisions Modi lost in Maharashtra
HOW TERRORISTS DROVE A HARD BARGAIN
JOURNALISM WITH A HUMAN TOUCH www.theweek.in TheWeekMag TheWeekLive $ 50 TATA vs MISTRY
NEW BATTLE LINE
of the CAA do not apply to but the BJP got the maxi-
Indian citizens, irrespec- mum seats there. In Har-
JANUARY 5, 2020

MEGHNA GULZAR
ON WHY CHHAPAAK IS
HER MOST REAL FILM
tive of their caste, creed yana, too, it is the same
and religion. story. Only in Jharkhand
The protests against the the BJP tripped, mainly
INDIA CAA appear to be more because the tribal votes
ON THE
STREETS
BJP in a fix as opposition
political than ideological. got consolidated against
B. Suresh Kumar, it.
rides a wave of fears about National
Register of Citizens

On email. The Opposition and

Today the Muslim com-
munity in India feels
marginalised, and you
The Week RNI No.36122/1982, Registered No. KL/EKM/756/2018-20, Licence No. KL/CR/EKM/WPP-20/2018-20. Licensed to Post Without Prepayment. Published on Friday 27th December 2019 cannot blame them for
that. Both NRC and CAA
Don’t question Parliament are extremely dangerous
The Citizenship Amendment Act was passed by to the secular character of
Parliament, and it remains the law of the land until it our great country.
is amended or repealed. Those practising communal The public anger and
vote bank politics will naturally object, and it is their protests against the act
right. But, the vast majority of Indians will stand by show people are not happy
what the BJP promised in its manifesto, on the basis with it. The government
of which it was voted back to power (‘The citizenship should urgently take back
wreck’, January 5). this dangerous act.
a section of the media
thought that the BJP will
never get the mandate it
got in the 2019 Lok Sabha
elections.
Rangarajan T.S.,
On email.
The NRC data undertaken
in Assam was the starting
point to the passing of the
discriminatory CAA in
Parliament, which grants
citizenship to six minority
communities in neigh-

www.t.me/magzsenglish
You cannot challenge the right of Parliament to pass
any law that it deems fit in public interest. If some
people consider the CAA to be communal, it is their
problem.
Also, the Supreme Court
should take note of the
government imposing sec-
tion 144 at will, wherever it
bouring countries who
are allegedly persecuted
in those countries.
There is a glaring
Ashok U. Manikoth, wants. That is not fair. mismatch between what
On email. Tigin Thomas, the home minister stated
On email. in Parliament and what is
stated by prime minster
It is a matter of utmost have been relevant and Once the CAA was passed outside Parliament.
regret that ever since significant had your in Parliament, on the cue M.Y. Shariff,
the passage of the CAA, esteemed magazine pub- protests started in some Chennai.
mainstream media have lished the contents of the colleges and students were
been vigorously vying with CAA, along with opinions overwhelmed by the sheer If the rollback of the NRC
each other in targeting the of legal luminaries. That numbers of outsiders and takes place as optimis-
Central government. would have enlightened left-wingers who joined tically anticipated, it
Your cover story would your readers. them. would be the victory of

SUBSCRIPTIONS/CUSTOMER CARE CIRCULATION Hyderabad: BUREAU ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE EDITORIAL

For all subscription related inquiries Bengaluru: 040-23314168/23324692 Bengaluru: Manorama Buildings, P.B. No. 26, Manorama Buildings,
please write, email or fax to 080-22247735/22247736 Kolkata: 033- 24198233 080-22867345, 22867050 Kottayam 686001, Kerala, India. P.B. No. 4278, Panampilly Nagar,
Senior Manager, Circulation, Bhopal: 0755-2557937 Kottayam: 0481-2563646 Kolkata: 033-24556995, Tel: 0481-2563646 Kochi 682036, Kerala, India.
Manorama Buildings, Lucknow: 0522-2341576 24198344, ext.216 REGIONAL CO-ORDINATING
Chandigarh: 0172-2724699 Chennai: 044-66918500 editor@theweek.in
PB No. 4278, Panampilly Nagar, Mumbai: 022-24901331, OFFICE
Kochi - 682036. Kerala Chennai: 39495969 Delhi: 011-23354920 Tej Building, 1st Floor, Bahadur http://www.theweek.in
Email: subscribe@theweek.in 044-66918530/31 Hyderabad: Shah Zafar Marg,
Patna: 0612-2233809 040-23314168, 23324692
Toll free no.: 18001035981 Coimbatore: Jaipur: New Delhi 110 002. +91 484-4447888
0422-2241911/2245470 Mumbai: 022-22074604, Tel: 011-23354920, 23354921,
Cochin: 0484-4447507 0141-2368360/4005808 22004358
Delhi: 23359541, 23355801, 23356537 +91 484-2315745
For advertising: +91 98953 95097 Thiruvananthapuram: Bhopal: 0755-2431001
Email: magazineads@mm.co.in 011-23379718, 23379719 0471-2328198 Fax: 43541354
Lucknow: 0522-2701725

TheWeekMag @TheWeekLive TheWeekMag 85 89 99 48 69

JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 5

 LETTERS
the general will over the
majority will or, rather the
majoritarian will.
That the secular ethos
of the country cannot be
taken for a ride is well vin-
dicated by the spontaneous
upsurge reminiscent of the
freedom struggle.
That your cover story
gave enough room for the
cohabitation of opposing
views is a fine example of
journalistic fairplay.
Raveendranath A.,
On email.
While the government’s
narrative portrays CAA as a
harmless legislation, there
are unstated meanings
which need interpretation.
Let us take an example. You
have a two-storied house,
and your city is experienc-
ing torrential rains, which
www.t.me/magzsenglish
is leading to the street in
front of your house getting
flooded. Your family and
you move up to the second
floor of your house. From
there you see four persons
wading through the water
and appealing to you to
give them shelter.
You have the following
options:
■ You demonstrate basic
human values and ask all
four persons to come into
your house.
■ You do not wish to let
strangers to jeopardise the
safety of your family and
you politely refuse shelter
to all four.
■ You ask them their reli-
gion. And you allow people
from only certain religions
to enter your house.
I doubt if any sane
human being will select
the third option. The
6 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
value of human life is not
determined by the God
one prays to. The CAA, by
excluding persecuted citi-
zens of three neighbouring
countries who are Muslims,
conveys a hidden but clear
message that the lives of
Muslims are less valuable
than others.
Shabbir Merchant,
On email.
Tyranny of
the majority
R. Prasannan quotes J.S.
Mill, who said when the
majority will is imposed on
society or on its minorities
it is not democracy but tyr-
anny of the majority (‘PMO
Beat’, January 5). I am so
happy to see Prasannan
raise such points and be
concerned about his fellow
citizens. Citizenship reg-
isters have always caused
problems, yet our rulers
want to enforce it on us.
Kiran Joseph S.J.,
On email.
Good issue
This refers to your cover
story ‘Time travel’ (Decem-
ber 29). A revisit of the two
decades gone by was truly
nostalgic. Those pre-inter-
net and pre-mobile days
brought back memories of
a time when we were not
spoilt for choice.
The segments you
covered were well chosen,
catering to varied tastes of
your readers. Looking at
the rear mirror, an all round
progress was too obvious.
The restlessness of today
does not make the future
promising.
Vijai Pant,
On email.
Editor
Chief Associate Editor & Director
Editor-in-Charge
Senior News Editor
News Editor
Deputy News Editors
Resident Editor, Delhi
Chief of Bureau, Delhi
Chief of Bureau, Mumbai
Deputy Chief of Bureau, Delhi
Chief Subeditors
Senior Subeditors
Subeditors
SENIOR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS
Delhi: Rekha Dixit, Mandira Nayar,
Namrata Biji Ahuja, Soni Mishra,
K. Sunil Thomas
Srinagar: Tariq Ahmad Bhat
Lucknow: Puja Awasthi
Kolkata: Rabi Banerjee
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS
Delhi: Pratul Sharma, Namita Kohli,
Pradip R. Sagar
Bengaluru: Prathima Nandakumar
Thiruvananthapuram: Cithara Paul
Mumbai: Nachiket Kelkar
Chennai Lakshmi Subramanian
Bhopal: Sravani Sarkar
Ahmedabad: Nandini Gunavantrai Oza
Photo Editor: Sanjoy Ghosh
Deputy Photo Editors
Bhanu Prakash Chandra, Salil Bera
Chief Photographers
Delhi: Arvind Jain, Sanjay Ahlawat
Mumbai: Janak Bhat,
Amey Suhas Mansabdar
Photographer
Delhi: Aayush Goel
Chief Picture Coordinator
Bimal Nath C.
Research: Jomy M. Joseph
Photo Archivist: Deepak Joy T.
THEWEEK.IN
New Media Coordinator
Deputy New Media Coordinator
Senior Subeditors
Subeditors
Senior Researcher
Multimedia
Executive Director
Vice President, Marketing,
Advertising Sales
Vice President, Circulation
Senior General Manager, Sales
MUMBAI
Resident Chief General Manager
CHENNAI
Regional Chief General Manager
BENGALURU
Regional Chief General Manager
NEW DELHI
Chief Marketing Officer (North) &
Head, Special Projects
Philip Mathew
Riyad Mathew
V.S. Jayaschandran
Stanley Thomas
Lukose Mathew
Mathew T. George, Maijo Abraham,
Ajish P. Joy
K.S. Sachidananda Murthy
R. Prasannan
Dnyanesh V. Jathar
Neeru Bhatia
Susamma Kurian,
Navin J. Antony
Anirudha Karindalam,
Anirudh Madhavan
Diya Mathew, Karthik Ravindranath,
Reuben Joe Joseph, Nirmal Jovial
PRINCIPAL CORRESPONDENTS
Hyderabad: Rahul Devulapalli
Kochi: Anjuly Mathai
SENIOR CORRESPONDENTS
Bengaluru: Mini P. Thomas,
Abhinav Singh
Delhi: Sneha Bhura
Mumbai: Priyanka Bhadani,
Pooja Biraia Jaiswal
CHIEF REPORTER
UAE: Raju Mathew, Dubai
Art Editor: Jayakrishnan M.T.
Assistant Art Editor: Binesh Sreedharan
Senior Infographic
Designer: Sreemanikandan S.
Illustrator: B. Bhaskaran
Layout Artist: B. Manojkumar
Designers: Deni Lal, Job P.K.
Graphic Designer: Syam Krishnan
Artists: Rajesh A.S., Sumesh C.N.,
Sujesh K., Ajeesh Kumar M., Jairaj T.G.
Senior Researcher: Rani G.S.
Neeraj Krishnan
Sarath Ramesh Kuniyl
Hazeeda Vijayakumar, Sumitra Nair,
Vaisakh E. Hari, Ancy K. Sunny,
Jose K. George, Justin Paul George
Vinod V.K., Anita Babu, Varun Ramesh
Balan
Saju C. Daniel
Rahul J. Mohan, Vipin Das P.
George Jacob
Varghese Chandy
M. Rajagopalan Nair
Hari M. Varrier
Shree Kumar Menon
K.C. Suresh
Ranjit Kurien
R. Rajmohan
www.t.me/magzsenglish
www.t.me/magzsenglish
www.t.me/magzsenglish
www.t.me/magzsenglish

10 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020

 APERITIF
THE BIG PICTURE

ACT OF DISSENT
Activist Irom Chanu
Sharmila, who fought
against the Armed
Forces (Special Powers)
www.t.me/magzsenglish
Act in Manipur, with
her husband, Desmond
Coutinho, and their
twins at a protest
against the Citizenship
(Amendment) Act in
Bengaluru.

PHOTO BY BHANU PRAKASH CHANDRA

JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 11

 APERITIF

POINT BLANK MILESTONES

We put a lot of trust in the Shiv
Sena and fought the election
in Maharastra with it. That
proved to be a mistake. Had
we gone it alone, today, the
AMEY MANSABDAR
HISTORY MADE
Awkwafina became the first actor of
Asian descent to win a Golden Globe
Award for a lead role in a comedy or
musical. The actor—whose real name
is Nora Lum—won the award for her
role in Lulu Wang’s The Farewell.

BJP, would have formed the

government in the state.
Narayan Rane,
BJP leader

When you play the sport there is a lot of

distraction and noise around you. You
LONG CAREER
need to create an environment around
Atlanta Hawks’ Vince Carter created
yourself so that none of this bothers you.
No idea, vision or sermons will come history on January 4 by becoming the
inside that shield unless you allow them. first NBA player to play across four
Rohit Sharma, decades. Carter played his first game
cricketer in 1999 with Toronto Raptors. He has
played for eight teams in the NBA.
Put CAA aside, officially. Major com-

www.t.me/magzsenglish
munication gaps. Announce NRC won’t
come, as execution issues, anxiety creat-
ed and the chances of abuse means we
are not ready for it. Focus on upcoming
budget. It is not worth it. Can’t let a
country burn to save ego.
Chetan Bhagat,
author, on Twitter
PTI

With great difficulty he became CM for

the fourth time.... Even now some people
come and ask why I am silent when 15-
20 people are ready to come out of the
BJP and why I don’t make an attempt to
poach them…. I will not get involved in
a wicked act of removing a responsible
government like Yediyurappa did.
H.D. Kumaraswamy,
JD(S) leader, on the BJP government in
Karnataka led by B.S. Yediyurappa
Someone comes up with
something and that sticks
with you forever. Whatever
my waist size is, I am forever
being called fat. It is quite
unpleasant really.
Sonakshi Sinha,
actor
EYES ON SPACE
Astronomers at the National Centre
for Radio Astrophysics, Pune, have
discovered a giant ring of hydrogen
gas around a galaxy named AGC
203001, located about 260 million
light-years away from earth. The ring
has a diameter about four times that
of Milky Way.

WORD PLAY
If you are into a demanding job, or you are an entrepreneur, there is a good chance that you
would have feelings of FONC. Coined on the podcast That’s So Retrograde, FONC is the
acronym of “fear of not chilling”. It is a feeling that you may miss the opportunity to stay
home and relax because of the work pressure. Setting your own terms of relaxation and
avoiding overextending yourself could help in dealing with FONC.

12 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020

www.t.me/magzsenglish
 POWER POINT
SACHIDANANDA MURTHY
Delhi dominates
A
perception about the top leadership of the
BJP is that compared with the tough-man-
nered Narendra Modi and Amit Shah,
Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari is less hawkish
and more accommodative. Gadkari, who comes
from a business background, is more of a go-get-
ter, who has avoided harsh language towards the
Congress and other opponents.
But a circular from the transport ministry to all
state governments shows that Gadkari, too, can
be considered a part of the kettle of hawks in the
saffron party. Gadkari, who had pushed for tough
changes in motor vehicle laws to impose very high
fines on offenders, was upset that some states
had refused to implement the
new fines. BJP-ruled Gujarat
was the first such state. Chief
Minister Vijay Rupani unilat-
erally announced a drastic
www.t.me/magzsenglish
reduction of Parliament-fixed
fines to assuage angry motor-
ists, as compounded fines were
sometimes more than the price
of the vehicles.
Gadkari firmly believes that
India has to adopt the foreign
model of heavy fines for reck-
less driving to stop the rising
tide of fatal road accidents.
Even as he pushed for superhighways on which
motorists could zoom at higher speeds, the min-
ister wanted zero tolerance towards reckless and
criminal driving. When he pushed for changes in
the law, he was happy that there was a consensus
among state governments that it was high time
for the era of light punishment to end. Thus, there
was a 10 to 20 fold increase in fines in the law
approved by Parliament.
But, as police and transport officials began
imposing the high fines three months ago, chief
ministers began panicking at the reaction of driv-
ers in their states. Rupani and others thought the
fines had been devised by activists who did not
care for the financial burden placed on vehicle
ILLUSTRATION JOB P.K.
14 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
owners and drivers. While some states reduced
the fines, others told the enforcement officials
not to be zealous in prosecuting errant drivers for
multiple offences. The defiance came when the
NDA government at the Centre was riding high on
the big majority it received in the 2019 Lok Sabha
elections. Gadkari was firm that the states had
no business in diluting the new fine regime and
advised the states to comply with the law.
He was not satisfied with just sending the
advisory. Now, he is armed with the legal opinion
of the hawkish Attorney General K.K. Venugopal,
who was asked to decide whether state govern-
ments had the power to defy a law passed by
Parliament. Venugopal, after
studying the constitutional im-
plications, has advised that the
states had no powers to defy the
Central law unless the deviation
was done by a law passed by
the state legislature, which was
approved by the president on
the advice of the Union cabinet.
Venugopal also said that the
states which reduce fines with-
out such legal empowerment
can face action under Article
356 of the Constitution, which
provides for dismissal of a state
government for violating the Central law.
The invocation of the dreaded Article 356,
which has been used by the Centre to dismiss
many state governments since the 1950s, would
be a red flag for opposition-ruled states. Already,
the Kerala assembly has passed a resolution
against the implementation of the controversial
amendment to the Citizenship Act, and sev-
eral states have announced they would not be
implementing the National Population Register.
The tough legal opinion of the attorney general
is an assertion that the supremacy of the Central
government dominates the federal system, but
becomes another flashpoint between the BJP and
its political opponents ruling some of the states.
sachi@theweek.in

A Jewel in the Crown of Mumbai’s Healthcare
I naugurated on February 22, 2004, the Dr L.H.
Hiranandani Hospital is located in the picturesque
Hiranandani Gardens at Powai. Armed with the mission
www.t.me/magzsenglish
of ‘Being the preferred choice for healing and good health’,
the hospital set about its task of engaging in rendering
quality of care. And with very good reason, the hospital
aspired to mirror the long and illustrious career of a titan
in the field of medicine in general and ENT in particular –
Padmabhushan Dr L H Hiranandani
From getting the ISO certification in 2006 the hospital took
the giant step in 2007 to get the NABH accreditation from
the Quality Council of India. This was a first not only in the
city of Mumbai but also in the western region of India! Thus
not a single act of our hospital coming into being remained
mundane. The hospital marched on to get its Laboratory
the National accreditation for all its services (NABL) in 2008
and then marched on to even have the Blood Bank get the
NABH accreditation in 2011. The hospital has aspired for
excellent Nursing and this led us to also the Nurses to be
recognized by the Quality Council with Nursing Excellence
in March 2016. We thus gave meaning to standardization
in healthcare as the hospital has refined process that are
followed.
While quality has been the cornerstone of this dynamic
outfit, professionally too we were well recognized. Arguably
ours was the first hospital to popularise and propagate
primary angioplasty in myocardial infarction (PAMI) and we
not only saved lives but have also ensured those afflicted do
not have myocardial damage! The hospital was the first in the
country to utilise the bio absorbable stent. The department
handles complicated procedures as total chronic occlusion
(CTO)
The hospital marched ahead in the field of Orthopaedics.
We were the pioneers in computer navigation surgery
in the city. We devised protocols for patient safety that
INFOCUS
have gained International recognition and is published in
leading orthopaedic journals. This has resulted in a dramatic
decrease in post-operative complications. Also using the
computer navigation in most cases has given fine results as
cases performed in 2004 are being followed up in the hospital
and they are without any symptom. The department went into
using platelet rich plasma for chronic ligament and joint pain
with outstanding results
Delivering the happiness quotient has been the ‘True North’
for the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Not only
was the department able to deliver this happiness, but soon
turned into a centre of excellence that could offer treatment
for the woman from ‘womb to tomb’. Today the department
has a diversified into many specialised clinics. They are –
pre pregnancy counseling, Infertility (Male and Female) or
Human reproduction
This would not have been possible with a strong intensive
care unit back up. The hospital has the concept of a ‘Super
ICU’. The unit is capable of monitoring any and every
parameter required to treat a seriously ill patient.
Process are validated for effectiveness and revalidated if
any new modality is introduced for better patient outcome.
The hospital thus has incorporated the clinical pathways for
better patient outcome, reduced hospital stay and also very
minimal use of antibiotics.
Even before the inaugural stone was laid on the foundations
of Dr L.H. Hiranandani Hospital, in the first flush of the new
millennium, everyone associated with it could see that it
was a more sublime affair than mere brick and mortar. One
chooses the nobler and brighter options over practical and
gainful ones, choices that are worthy of the name it is founded
on. And when it is a tribute to an iconic father by his almost
equally accomplished sons, it even transcends the question
of honour. It becomes an act of love.
Please visit -www.hiranandanihospital.org
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 15
 FOCUS

Affordable Healthcare for All

BY VINITA NAYAR

www.t.me/magzsenglish
Dr Manivannan Selvaraj,
Founder and Managing Director, Kauvery Group of Hospitals

“We were born and brought up in Trichy. Everyone knew us –

friends, relatives, people who worked with my parents… So there
was a personal touch involved in treating patients. Healthcare is
a business where personal touch matters. We are good at it and
“
can replicate it.

D r S Manivannan, Founder and Managing

Director, Kauvery Hospital, believes firmly in
ethical practices and providing affordable,
top-class treatment to patients.
Kauvery Hospital was started in 1999 as a 30-bed
have seven branches across five southern towns – a
testament to the success of the Kauvery brand. Their
mission statement sums up their policy: To make great
healthcare affordable. And their Vison is: To become
the most respected and trusted healthcare provider.
hospital in Trichy. Today, twenty years later, they Dr S Manivannan, Founder and Managing Director,

16 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020


is passionate as he talks about the hospital and its
outstanding growth trajectory. The hospital was the
brainchild of him and his brother, both doctors hailing
from a non-business background. Their parents were
government servants with no wherewithal to support
them in their fledgling attempt. But the brothers were
determined. Dr Manivannan says, “We were first-
generation doctors born and brought up in Trichy
in a middleclass family.” While Dr Manivanan is an
anaesthetist (though he doesn’t practise anymore),
his wife is a gynaecologist, his brother an orthopaedic
surgeon, and his cousin a paediatrician.
Their initial plan was to start a 50-bed hospital but they
didn’t have the requisite funds. “At that time, there was
no tertiary care hospital in Trichy. We thought we’d offer
that,” says Dr Manivannan. So they began with a 30-bed
hospital, and from there, they only grew from strength to
strength. He says, “By 2003, we had a 200-bed hospital
and by 2009 we had 110 per cent occupancy in the
hospital.” Today, they have an average of 800 to 900 in-
patients across the group and at least 5,000 outpatients
per day.
“We are probably the only hospital coming from a tier 2
city to a tier 1 city that succeeded,” he says. He believes,
www.t.me/magzsenglish
“It is our values and our fundamental mission of making
healthcare affordable that has helped us succeed. This
is core to us.”
Talking about the primary reasons for why the public
has embraced their hospitals, he outlines three main
factors – personal touch, cost-effectiveness and ethical
treatment. And they have taken meticulous care to
ensure that these parameters are in place and delivered
to every patient consistently.
Talking about the personal touch aspect, its roots go
back to when they started the first hospital in Trichy. Dr
Manivannan says, “We were born and brought up in
Trichy. Everyone knew us—friends, relatives, people
who worked with my parents… So there was a personal
touch involved in treating patients.” And that ethos has
continued to date. “Healthcare is a business where
personal touch matters,” he points out. “That is the main
thing patients want. We are good at it and can replicate
it.”
With affordable healthcare being at the core of their
mission, cost-effectiveness plays a very significant role
in their operations. He explains, “Trichy is more of a lower
middleclass agriculture-based economy and 80 per cent
of our patients come from villages. So we had to make
our care affordable.” Attention to detail and meticulous
planning have helped in making this possible. They’ve
gone into each and every aspect to see where costs can
be cut, including their purchase practices where they are
able to negotiate prices through a transparent process.
FOCUS
“This has helped us maintain our bottom-line in spite of
spreading out,” says Dr Manivannan.
Technology, too,w has helped the institution to
streamline procedures. “I’m very passionate about
technology,” declares Dr Manivannan. “We monitor
close to 150 key performance indicators automatically,
including operational, financial, clinical and supply
chain. This helps us to keep track of key areas in our
day-to-day operations. In the last two years, we started
developing clinical triggers where the system will flag if
certain patients are not getting appropriate treatment
according to accepted clinical protocols.” Apart from
their treatment protocols they also track inventory and
medicines. If there is a deviation, the system automatically
throws them up. “This has reduced clinical errors and
costs for the patients,” he states. “This is something very
unique to us. I read about it ten years back in a US journal
and wanted to implement it in our hospitals. This is going
to play a significant role in the coming years to control
costs and errors.”
At a time when there is so much mistrust against
hospitals and doctors, patients who visit Kauvery Hospital
have total trust in the doctors and the institution. This
is because ethical treatment is one the most important
foundations on which the hospital’s ethos is built. Dr
Manivannan says, “We are a doctor-driven hospital.
Even today, all our units are headed by doctors. What we
did was to ensure we recruited doctors who are ethical,
who don’t recommend unwanted procedures. Many
of our doctors, especially in the tier 2 towns, are from
a lower middleclass background. They are aspirational
and work hard to align to our principles.”
To enhance their treatment of patients, they’ve
introduced ‘clinical leadership’. Dr Manivannan smiles
and says, “We were taught to treat patients during
our MBBS, but not how to run a practice, manage
departments, etc. Now we focus on giving leadership
training for doctors.” They were doing it on an informal
basis earlier. “We’re going to do a six-month module with
IIM Trichy. Now it will be done in a structured way. As a
result, firstly we will be able to retain our doctors for a
longer period and, secondly, clinical leaders will take a
role in running the hospitals.”
On a final note, Dr Manivannan emphasises,
“Transparency is very important for us. Corporate
governance is what we focus on. And patient
communication; every inpatient is seen twice a day by
their doctor.”
Treatment based on ethics, top-notch doctors and
affordable care with a forward-looking vison have
contributed to Kauvery Hospital’s phenomenal growth
and success, and to the implicit faith patients have in the
institution.
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 17
 APERITIF
PARTY SNACKS
www.t.me/magzsenglish
ILLUSTRATIONS JAIRAJ T.G.
HISTORY, HIS STORY
The CPI and the CPI(M) in
Kerala are at it again. CPI
leaders took offence after
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan
chose not to mention former
CPI chief minister C. Achutha
Menon’s name at the golden
jubilee celebrations of the
state’s historic Land Reforms
Act. It was during Menon’s
tenure that the reforms were
legalised. Vijayan mentioned
other leaders involved, except
Menon. CPI state secretary
Kanam Rajendran hit out at the
chief minister, saying: “Those
who are unaware of history
should read and study it. Giving
due credit to deserving people
in history is dignity.”
18 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
DRAWING
THE LINE
Borders can be tricky. At the
launch of the India State of Forest
Report 2019, Prakash Javadekar,
minister of environment, forest
and climate change, announced
that India had had an increase
in its forest cover in the last two
years. Even as he elaborated on
the technical aspects of the forest
survey, including the finer points
of satellite imagery, a member
of the audience asked why the
government had included the
forest cover of Pakistan-occupied
Kashmir in the survey. Javadekar
smiled and said, “That is because
satellites do not understand
borders.”
DIRTY LAUNDRY
After a video clip of Indore MLA
Akash Vijayvargiya thrashing
a municipal officer with a bat
went viral a few months ago,
a new video featuring him is
doing the rounds on social
media. At the launch of his
book Dev Se Mahadev, Akash
told the audience that former
Himachal Pradesh governor
V.S. Kokje, who was at the event,
had gotten Akash’s younger
brother’s underwear washed,
ironed and returned after it was
left behind at the governor’s
official residence by mistake. He
narrated the incident to illustrate
Kokje’s simplicity, but it was
certainly a bizarre anecdote to
share in public.
 MANI-FESTO
MANI SHANKAR AIYAR
Shah’s selective compassion
T
he quality of compassion, like “the quality
of mercy”, as Portia told Shylock, “is not
strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from
heaven... It blesseth him that gives and him that
takes”. Accordingly, I whole-heartedly endorse the
horror that Home Minister Amit Shah and the only
Sikh minister in this government, Hardeep Singh
Puri, have expressed at the murder of a young
Pakistani Sikh out for wedding shopping in the
busy bazaars of Peshawar on the very eve of his
nuptials.
The assassins apparently got away but are
being sought by the police. While the police think
the murder may have its roots in a family feud,
one cannot but agree that there is validity to the
alternative interpreta-
tion being put on the
incident by Shah-Puri
that this reveals the
www.t.me/magzsenglish
parlous state of reli-
gious minorities in that
country. Moreover, this
comes in the immediate
aftermath of the trouble
at Kartarpur Sahib
and the mob attack on
Nankana Sahib, both in
Pakistan. There is a need
to remind the Pakistan
government to do its
duty to the minorities—both in the individual case
of the young Sikh killed, and their indispensability
to protect religious shrines of the minorities from
desecration.
But, perhaps, our strong protests at these totally
unjustifiable assaults on Pakistan’s religious mi-
norities would have gained much in credibility if
the Shah-Puri cohort had reacted equally fervently
when scores of our own minorities were brutally
lynched under the watch of this government. An
innocent losing his life, whether to a bullet in a
crowd or to mob violence, has to have equal value
placed on it, whether that loss of life takes place
in our country or another. Worse, when over a
IMAGING DENI LAL Aiyar is a former Union minister and social commentator.
thousand Indian Muslims (at least) are massacred
while the state government looks the other way, as
happened in Gujarat, in 2002, or of innocent Sikhs
in 1984, there is as much reason to be angered as
when one Sikh in a foreign land is assassinated.
Indeed, Sikhs have been the target of lunatic at-
tacks in the United States, Canada, Australia and the
United Kingdom, among several other countries.
Does our government deplore the failure of their
host governments to ensure the personal security of
these Sikhs (and other murdered Indians, resident
or NRI, of different faiths) in lands with whom we
have friendly relations? If so, surely the provisions
of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act should extend
as much to minority refugees “fleeing religious
persecution” from these
supposedly Christian
countries as to the three
indicted Islamic states—
Pakistan, Bangladesh and
Afghanistan.
So also with religious
shrines sacred to the
minorities. At least Nan-
kana Sahib and Kartarpur
Sahib have not been razed
to the ground, while the
rubble of what was once
the Babri Masjid is at the
same time being carted
off by pious Sunnis to a site where these remains
will be treated with honour. If we insist that the
incarceration of the Muslim population of the Kash-
mir valley is an “internal matter”, then we need not
expect any sympathy from the world when Pakistan
says their treatment of minorities in their country
is their “internal matter”. Which also explains the
scepticism with which the BJP’s claim that CAA is
not “discriminatory” is being treated abroad.
“As you sow, so shall you reap”. Would someone
please send Shah a Gujarati translation of that
biblical injunction in return for his kind offer to
send the Congress president an Italian translation
of the CAA?
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 19
 CURRENT EVENTS
MAHARASHTRA
Berth pangs
With the most powerful portfolios going to
the NCP, there is palpable discontent among
many Shiv Sena and Congress legislators
BY DNYANESH JATHAR
AN INTERESTING WHATSAPP
message is doing the rounds of the
Mantralaya in Mumbai these days.
Loosely translated from Marathi, it
reads, “Following is the list of work
done by the government after being
sworn in: a) Distribution of bunga-
lows to ministers; b) Distribution of
cabins to ministers; c) Allocation of
portfolios; d) Pacifying unhappy leg-
islators… You may not believe it, but
www.t.me/magzsenglish
all this is being done for the welfare
of farmers.”
The coalition government of the
Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress
Party and the Congress might blame
the BJP’s social media warriors for
the message, but the time Chief
Minister Uddhav Thackeray took
for cabinet expansion and portfolio
allocation was so long—he and six
other ministers were sworn in on
November 28, Maharashtra got its
full cabinet on December 30 and the
portfolios were finally allotted on
January 5—that people were won-
dering whether they really needed a
government for the state to function.
Coming to the allocation of port-
folios, the NCP emerged the clear
winner, pocketing key departments
such as home, finance, irrigation,
rural development, cooperation,
social justice and housing. The Shiv
Sena may have its chief minister, but
in terms of key portfolios it has only
urban development, agriculture, a
portion of the public works depart-
20 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
ment that deals with big infrastruc-
ture projects, and environment and
tourism for Aaditya Thackeray. The
Congress got revenue, PWD, energy
and some other low-profile depart-
ments.
The NCP’s ministers would ef-
fectively control more than half of
the state’s budget. And, with party
leaders such as Ajit Pawar, Jayant
Patil, Chhagan Bhujbal, Dilip Walse-
Patil and Anil Deshmukh cornering
crucial portfolios, it remains to be
seen how much of a lasting impact
Thackeray can make.
According to Shiv Sena insiders,
the whole exercise tested Thackeray’s
patience. The Sena was reportedly
The Nationalist
Congress
Party’s
ministers
would
effectively
control more
than half of
Maharashtra’s
budget.
AMEY MANSABDAR
ready with its list of ministers from
the very beginning, but its allies were
not. The Congress, especially, took
a long time as the state unit had to
get the central leadership’s approv-
al. Portfolio distribution took even
longer as the NCP was keen on the
home ministry and the Congress
wanted agriculture or urban devel-
opment. The Sena, which earlier held
home, gave it to the NCP, but was
firm on retaining urban development
and agriculture.
A day before the distribution of
portfolios, Shiv Sena Minister of State
Abdul Sattar threatened to resign.
According to sources, Sattar had
sent his resignation to senior party
leader Anil Desai; he was unhappy
at not being made a full minister.
Sattar, originally a Congressman, had
joined the Sena before the assembly
elections in October. He had earlier
been a cabinet minister in the Con-
gress-NCP government.

www.t.me/magzsenglish
He was also miffed about the Con-
gress getting the Aurangabad zilla
parishad president’s post. He wanted
the district—he represents the Sillod
constituency in Aurangabad—to
remain under the Sena’s control.
The Sena had made a pact with
Congress; the latter would get the
president’s post while the former
would have the vice president’s
position. But, with Sattar resign-
ing, his supporters in Aurangabad
rebelled. On January 4, the outgoing
president, a Sena leader, defied the
party and stood for election. The BJP
and Congress polled equal number
of votes. Lots were drawn and the
Congress candidate won. The BJP,
however, won the vice president’s
post. Aurangabad strongman and
former Sena MP Chandrakant Khaire
blamed Sattar for the loss. “Don’t let
that traitor enter Matoshree (Ud-
dhav’s residence),” said Khaire.
The party, however, dispatched
CABINET CRISIS
(From left) Ashok Chavan, Uddhav
Thackeray, Sharad Pawar and
Mallikarjun Kharge
former minister Arjun Khotkar to
pacify Sattar. After two rounds of
talks, Khotkar told the media that
Sattar had not resigned and would
meet Thackeray on January 5.
Sattar is not alone. A number of
other Sena legislators are upset at
being overlooked. These include
Ramdas Kadam and Diwakar Raote,
who were powerful ministers in the
previous BJP-Sena government, and
MLAs Pratap Sarnaik and Bhaskar
Jadhav. The legislators apparently felt
that there was no need to give three
ministerial berths to independents.
Of the three, two are known Sharad
Pawar loyalists. Jadhav is especially
bitter as he had left the NCP to return
to the Sena (he had quit in 2005). He
was a minister in the Congress-NCP
government and had been promised
a ministerial berth when he rejoined
the Sena.
Though Thackeray tried to down-
play the Sattar episode, a party
insider admitted that the discontent
among Sena MLAs was a matter of
concern. “We are aware that 20 to 22
of our legislators are not happy,” said
the insider. “The BJP is out to exploit
it. Our efforts to pacify them are on;
we will manage to convince them.”
Meanwhile, the Congress, too,
has its hands full. Its MLA Kai-
lash Gorantyal has threatened to
resign and seek reelection. Former
chief minister Prithviraj Chavan,
who took the initiative to form the
Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi govern-
ment, has been sulking as he was
left out of the cabinet. Mumbadevi
MLA Amin Patel was disappointed
that the high command preferred
Aslam Shaikh, who is his junior by
two terms.
“Many legislators are now feeling
that it would have been better to give
outside support to the government,”
said a Congress legislator. “That way
the Congress would have retained
the remote control of the govern-
ment. We could then have forced the
NCP and the Sena to toe our line on
every issue.”
Party insiders said that some lead-
ers like former chief minister Ashok
Chavan were so desperate that they
would have been happy with any
cabinet berth, even without any sig-
nificant portfolio. Chavan had to be
satisfied with a divided public works
department. The biggest portfolio
that the Congress got—revenue—
went to Balasaheb Thorat.
Sources said that one Congress
legislator had to strike a deal to be
made minister as he was in talks
with the BJP before the elections and
the party’s central leadership knew
about it. He is said to have made
a PowerPoint presentation for the
BJP leadership, explaining how his
induction would help the party. But
now, he is thanking his stars that his
plans to join the BJP fell apart. The
deal is that he would contribute gen-
erously to the party coffers as long as
he is minister.
THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020 21
 PMO BEAT
R. PRASANNAN
First among unequals
W
ar is too important a matter to be left to
the military, said prime minister Georges
Clemenceau, who led France to victory
in World War I.
A handy quote that can buttress the case for civil
supremacy over the military, but the line has been
quoted out of shape by babus for keeping the brass
hats out of government. By Jove! These mandarins
who cannot tell a mortar from a machine-gun have
been advising ministers on all matters military!
Now Narendra Modi has restored the brass hats
some shine. He has got them a chief of defence
staff who will play four roles—give single-point
military advice to the government, administer (not
command) the nuclear forces,
coordinate among the services
and prioritise their plans, and
ensure jointness in their plan-
ning, training and operation. No
www.t.me/magzsenglish
troops for him to command.
He will hold a four-star rank
as the three chiefs do, and chair
their meetings as first among
equals. He will wear his par-
ent service uniform, but his
buttons, belt buckle and peak
cap will bear the triservice crest
which depicts the Army’s sword,
the Navy’s anchor and the Air
Force’s eagle. The shoulder patch will be maroon,
and it will sport the Asoka lion and a triservice crest
instead of the star and sword-and-baton badge.
He will be driven in a car bearing four stars and a
maroon triservice flag. He will work in South Block,
live in 3 Kamaraj Marg, which very likely will be
christened Defence House, and leave in three years
with a good pension.
Jolly good, but it looks like more thought has
gone into matters of pay, perks, patches and para-
phernalia than into how he will work.
The government says he will enjoy a first-among-
equals status among the chiefs, almost at par with
the cabinet secretary and above the defence secre-
tary, who is below the three chiefs.
CDS General Bipin Rawat/PHOTO AP
22 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
Till now the defence ministry had four depart-
ments, each one lorded over by a secretary—the
defence department under the defence secretary,
defence production under another secretary,
ex-servicemen’s welfare under a third secretary,
and R&D under the DRDO chief. Now, a fifth de-
partment, called military affairs, has been decreed
for the CDS to lord over.
Therein lies the anomaly. Among the secretaries,
the defence secretary had been notionally a notch
above the others, and he had been giving holistic
advice, whatever its worth, to the ministry on all
defence matters. He will continue to do that, and
the CDS will confine himself to matters military.
But then, if military comes under
defence, wouldn’t the military
adviser come under the defence
adviser?
Capital acquisition (read big
arms buys) will continue to be
under defence, but revenue
acquisition (small pieces includ-
ing ammunition) under military
affairs. Which means, the defence
secretary will buy the cannons;
the big chief will buy the shells.
Ha!
Wasn’t there a simple way out?
Couldn’t they have made the
chief of integrated staff, a three-star officer who has
been in place for the last two decades, the head of
military affairs?
Perhaps the babus, who make the rules, didn’t
want it that way.
Tailpiece: When the Anglo-Sikh war broke out in
1845, governor-general Henry Hardinge, still an
enlisted soldier, couldn’t resist the temptation of
being in the field. But commander-in-chief Sir
Hugh Gough said having him around would create
problems of command since Hardinge was his
senior in army rank and in the government.
Hardinge happily waived his right to the supreme
command, and served as second-in-command un-
der Gough. Needless to say, the duo won the war.
prasannan@theweek.in
 FOCUS

www.t.me/magzsenglish

Karnataka: The best

destination to study law
Karnataka has many firsts to its credit in the legal world,
and an ever-growing demand for fresh graduates

E very time you download an app today on your mobile,

you have to agree to “terms and conditions”; very often
we do not realise this comes under the purview of law.
We blindly press the “I agree” tab and move on. Every time
you sign a job contract, there are legal implications. You buy
insurance; the legal loopholes are there too. There can be no
better time than now to step into the legal world. Just look
around you. Almost every day there are landmark judgements

JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 23

 FOCUS
being passed in a country that is going through much change
and upheaval. There is no escaping the fact that some sort of
legal churn is happening every day in our country–right now
the CAA and NCR legislations have the country in turmoil.
Law has always been an exciting and challenging career
option; in India it’s also a matter of great prestige to have a
lawyer in the family. It is still largely viewed as a “passport” to
a financially thriving career and future.
New-age careers in law
Traditionally, students of law find themselves fit into roles
as part of the legislature, executive, and the judiciary, But,
with the world of business, industry, and finance changing
constantly, and information technology creating an entirely
new paradigm shift in how things work, the kind of career
pathways, roles, and industries opening up for students of
law are innumerable – specialists in Intellectual Property
Rights, Information Technology, data protection are as
much in demand as corporate legal consultants, traditional
litigation or practicing lawyers, judicial services, civil
services, human rights, arbitration and dispute resolution,
banking, legal process outsourcing (LPO), legal researcher,
legal analyst ...one can go on and on. Global spends,
specially by multinational companies, on legal services
(be it in-house or on a consultancy basis) has increased
dramatically in the last few years, consequently impacting
recruitment trends.
Karnataka’s distinction
www.t.me/magzsenglish
There are over 1,000 institutions in India teaching law and
over 100 of them are in the state of Karnataka, which ranks
among the top six states in the country in terms of number
of educational institutions imparting legal education. The
colleges are spread over six regions–Bengaluru, Mysuru,
Shivamogga, Mangaluru, Dharwad, and Gulbarga.
Bengaluru, the State capital is home to almost 45 per cent
24 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
of the state’s share of law colleges; it also helps that the
Karnataka State High Court is situated in Bengaluru, with a
High Court Bench each in Dharwad and Gulbarga regions.
Karnataka has produced several legal luminaries such
as Justice K.S Hegde (the first Judge from Karnataka to be
appointed to the Supreme Court), N. Santosh Hegde (former
Solicitor General of India), Justice M.N. Venkatachalaiah (the
25th Chief Justice of India who also served as Chairman
of the National Human Rights commission), B.V. Acharya
(six-time advocate general of Karnataka and special
public prosecutor (SPP) in the disproportionate assets
case against late Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa)
and several others.
Bengaluru in Karnataka, in fact, in home to one of the
most prestigious and pioneering institutions–the National
Law School of India University (NLSIU)–ranked the top
school of law in the entire country. It is India’s very first
National Law University set up on the lines of the Harvard
Law School.
The Karnataka State Law University (KSLU) established
in 2009 by the Government of Karnataka in Hubli provides
legal education that is socially relevant and accessible to
everyone. The KSLU is the single largest federal university
in the country, having 92 colleges under its umbrella.
One of the first law education institutions in the State of
Karnataka was established way back in the 1930s.
The University Law College, Bangalore University,
is widely recognised as one of the country’s best
government-run law schools. It was one of the first
professional law colleges in the country which introduced
the five-year integrated B.A., LL.B. program for the
first time in the 1980s–a course system that came to be
universally accepted and replicated all over the country
as a standard for legal education.
The School of Law–Christ University, M.S.Ramaiah
College of Law, KLE Society’s Law College, Bangalore

Innovative Legal Education
That Can Make a Difference
E
stablished under the REVA University Act, 2012, REVA
University is bound to provide the best education in
almost every field. The School of Legal Studies has
been established at REVA University with the aim to provide
the best legal education for aspiring lawyers. The School is
committed to offering students with necessary support and
resources to achieve their academics as well as career goals.
The School of Legal Studies, REVA University aims to cre-
ate next-generation lawyers who are capable enough to han-
dle complex legal issues arise in various fields. With this goal
in mind, the School has ensured that it has top class faculty
who come with years of experience and are specialised in
various aspects of the study of law. Seminars and discus-
sions are organised for students in which well-experienced
professors, legal experts and practising advocates share
their knowledge as visiting faculty members. Thus, REVA
School of Legal Studies ensures that students are exposed
and are given ample openings to study various legal systems
around the world.
Programmes offered
The School offers Undergraduate, Postgraduate and PhD-
programmes with specialisations in different fields, which
include BA, LLB (Honours), BBA, LLB (Honours), LLM in
Business and Corporate Law, and PhD in Legal Studies. Bar
www.t.me/magzsenglish
Council of India (BCI) has approved all these law programmes
conducted by REVA University. With seminar halls, Moot
Court, Legal Aid Clinic, dedicated library, and state-of-the-
art classrooms, the students have ample opportunities for
experiential and hands-on learning that enhances both theo-
retical and practical knowledge.
Realising the importance of the industry and coupled with
the fact that ultimately these young lawyers have to be great
practitioners, the curriculum is drawn in such a manner that is
well within the framework of the BCI guidelines and also has
a topping of industry exposure. All programmes are created
to prepare students to play a leading role in the competitive
industry so that they can excel in their endeavours. All these
programmes focus on specialised and allied fields such as
environmental law, taxation law, cyber law, banking and in-
surance law, intellectual property law, and international trade
law to prepare students to face the challenges of the present
and future society confidently and become successful in the
FOCUS
legal profession.
The major objective of the School is to educate students
to become knowledgeable, innovative, thoughtful, practical,
ethical and well prepared to solve social and legal problems
that promote justice. The School is also planning to integrate
programmes of instruction that connect skills and knowledge
to explain diverse viewpoints of law. It is intended to produce
law graduates who enhance our national and international
reputation. The core values followed by the School are to
give respect to others’ rights, maintain honesty and integrity,
encourage innovative pedagogy, promote justice, and build
strong connections with the legal community.
Inspiration behind the success
The inspiration behind the success of the School is Dr P.
Shyama Raju, Founder and Chancellor of REVA University.
He says: “REVA School of Legal Studies focus on innovative
pedagogy and curriculum that pay attention to socially rele-
vant issues. We promote justice-oriented legal education by
adopting value-based education. In future, REVA University
will set up Centres of Excellence to promote legal education
that produce responsible lawyers”.
Expert opinion
According to Dr. Bharathi S, Director- School of Legal Stud-
ies, “Multitude of career options are available in this field such
as Advocate, Judge, Magistrate, Corporate Legal Advisor,
Law Officer, Public Prosecutor, Indian Legal Services and
many more. To be successful in this career, it is mandatory to
have a strong foundation in academics to develop self-confi-
dence and leadership qualities. Studying law programmes at
REVA University will enable the students to make a difference
in society who can create awareness amongst people about
their duties, responsibilities and duties with their strong
knowledge. A law graduate can enjoy a prestigious career
that offers great respect from society.”
The School of Legal Studies stands tall amongst other
law schools with its highly qualified and experienced fac-
ulty members, and infrastructural facilities. Internship pro-
grammes, industrial visits and legal aid camps are conducted
to enhance the practical skills of the student so that they can
excel in their career.
Future prospects
REVA University has planned several strategies to help the
students of the School of Legal Studies to excel in their career.
REVA is planning to establish Centre for Judicial Academy
and Centre for Excellence ‘IPR and Women Empowerment’
to enrich the knowledge of students. The School also con-
ducts National Law Conference so that students will learn the
intricacies of taking up a law career from legal experts.
REVA University is a leading university in the field of educa-
tion that inspires the students not only by bringing a change
in their lives but also by transforming society with its ethical
values. The School of Legal Studies of REVA University is
a prominent law school that strives hard to promote ethical
values in the society by producing law graduates with moral
principles.
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 25
 FOCUS
Institute of Legal Studies, BMS College of Law,
Seshadripuram Law College are some of the institutions of
repute in legal education in Bengaluru.
Nurture critical thinking
“I would vouch for Karnataka any day as the best place to
study law. The best Law School of the country–NLSIU is
situated here and that’s quite an indicator,” says Pushpa S.V,
an attorney with a top IT MNC in Bengaluru. An alumnus of
ULC-B, she’s in the ninth year of her legal career. “Bengaluru
is one of the more stable and cosmopolitan places, most
www.t.me/magzsenglish
26 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
conducive to living, more affordable than Mumbai or Delhi.”
She makes the distinction in the legal education world very
clear to newcomers – there is law “school” (those belonging
to the National Law University) and the law colleges. The
curriculum in the law schools are more driven, there is a
structured approach to education, internships are very clear
cut and good campus placements guaranteed, she opines.
Law college is for the self-motivated student.
Roopa P. Doraswamy, an alumnus of NLSIU, and founder
of Lawshram, a collaborative platform for lawyers, also
vouches for the law school system. She offers some advice
and insight to aspiring students: “NLSIU, if you are able to
crack it, is ideal. Otherwise look at the curriculum of the
college you are considering. Check for integration of liberal
arts subjects in the first three years that will nurture critical
thinking. Choose courses based upon who is teaching
them. I can’t stress enough on how important it is to inculcate
critical thinking in application of the law as early as possible
in your legal education. Legal education is a tool. How you
use the tool after you graduate, is up to you.”
Both lawyers stress the importance of the alumni network
in the legal world. While newer ecosystems of mentoring
younger lawyers are emerging, a lot of people go into the
next generation of family practise, they observe.
Courses and choices
Courses in law are now fast adapting to equip the newly
emerging lawyers of the country with different skillsets
www.t.me/magzsenglish
 FOCUS
tailored to emerging needs of today’s world. The main
regulatory body of law education is Bar Council of India.
One can pursue various law courses–the three year-LL.B
(Bachelor of legislative law) after completing graduation, the
five-year integrated B.A LL.B (after completing Class 12), LL.M
(Master of legislative law) and doctoral courses. There are also
courses in BBA-LLB (Bachelor of Business Administration
combined with LLB), B.Com LLB, a B.A LLB (Honours) course.
For those wanting to pursue post graduate studies in law,
there are courses in Karnataka offered in PhD Law, PhD in
Public Policy, M.Phil Law, L.L.M Business Law (the Masters
programme), L.L.M Human Rights, LLD (Doctorate of Law)
and other specialisations. Some of the fields that students can
www.t.me/magzsenglish CMR UNIVERSITY – SCHOOL OF LEGAL STUDIES
CMRU | Empowered by UGC to award degrees | Member of Association of Indian Universities | Recognised by the Bar Council of India
No. 5, Bhuvanagiri, OMBR Layout, Bangalore – 560043 Ph.: +91 80 25453077 | E-mail: info.ls@cmr.ac.in
Dr. K.C. Sabitha Ramamurthy
Chancellor, CMR University -Bangalore
Shaping young legal professionals
for over a decade
C
MR University’s School of Legal Studies, a pioneering institute in
the realm of legal education, has been dedicated to the cause of
promoting legal education and research, and facilitating young
individuals into the legal profession since 2003. The School of Legal
Studies now aspires to be one of the best institutions in the field of legal
education. Over the past few years, the School has achieved a distin-
guished position among the top law colleges in India as indicated by
leading national magazines like India Today, The Week and Outlook.
The CMRU School of Legal Studies offers a variety of programmes
at the undergraduate, post graduate and doctoral levels, besides
offering post graduate diplomas and several certification pro-
grammes. At the undergraduate level ,the school offers B.A., LL.B.
(Hons), B.B.A., LL.B. (Hons), B.Com., LL.B. (Hons) and LL.B pro-
grammes. The School also offers LL.M. in Constitutional Law and
in Commercial Law besides offering two Postgraduate Diploma
Programmes in Air & Space Law and Intellectual Property Law.
Our core team of professional full-time teachers includes an ec-
28 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
choose from are criminal law, civil law, family law, corporate
law, patent law, taxation law, labour law, international law,
constitutional law, and so on. The pedagogy usually consists
of theory classes, guest lectures by legal luminaries and
practising lawyers, seminars and workshops, internships,
mandatory trial-court visits, legal-aid programs, research
activities, projects, model parliament and moot court sessions.
Almost all institutions have campus recruitment processes in
place.
The Common Law Admission Test–the CLAT is the largest
admission exam for the national institutions while several
Universities and Colleges have their own entrance or qualifying
examination.
Roma. B, a first year student of B.A. LLB in a prestigious
college in Bengaluru says the city was her first choice as the
scope for internships and chances of getting into law firms after
graduation were much better. “In terms of the research I did
to choose my institution–I first read up online, went through
Google reviews, spoke to relatives and friends who were either
teaching or studying in law colleges, and spoke to several
alumni and seniors of various institutions. I wanted to study
in a place where the professors were from the National Law
University and were young, and therefore easy to interact with,”
she says. “Where the college stands in the job market, what
reputation it has, were also priorities, as also how flexible their
internship plans were,” she adds.
Prof. (Dr.) T.R. Subramanya M.Phil & Ph.D (JNU)
Dean, School of Legal Studies, CMR University-Bangalore
Former Research Fellow and Coordinator, Centre for Regulatory
Studies, Governance and Pubic Policy, WBNUJS, Former Vice
Chancellor, Karnataka State Law University, Former Dean and
Chairman, Law Department, Bangalore University, Former Legal
Counsellor, Kingdom of Bahrain
lectic mixture of both the young and the experienced working to-
gether to create a cohesive unit dedicated to ensuring the delivery
of quality legal education in a wholesome learning environment.
The school organises various seminars, workshops and value
addition programmes designed to facilitate an overall develop-
ment of the student, including the CMR International Law Con-
ference and the CMR National Law Seminar. The school also
organises a biennial National-level Moot Court and an Asian Par-
liamentary Debate Competition. The CMR memorial guest lecture
series has in the past, been highly successful in inviting distin-
guished legal luminaries.
The School of Legal Studies seeks to emphasise on the inte-
gration of enterprising initiatives and creative programmes in the
curricular activity, transcending conventional academic orienta-
tion so as to inculcate within its students a vibrant and more real
outlook towards their life and career.
www.t.me/magzsenglish
 CONTROVERSY
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY

Spare
the rod
Violence cannot muffle dissent,
which is the DNA of JNU
BY SNEHA BHURA

FROM HER WHEELCHAIR, she saw a hail of bricks,

legs being pounded by rods, glass panes being smashed
into smithereens. Ruby Singh, a ground-floor resident of
the Sabarmati hostel in the Jawaharlal Nehru University,
was a witness to the violence a group of masked persons
unleashed on the night of January 5. “On all three floors
of the boys’ wing, the goons went from room to room,
threatening students with blows if they couldn’t prove
their political affiliation,” said Ruby, a final-year PhD
student at the Centre for Russian and Central Asian

www.t.me/magzsenglish
Studies. “My classmate was let off only after he grabbed
a book on nationalism and swore his allegiance to ABVP
(Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad).”
That night, the girls in the hostel shielded Ruby from
the rampaging mob armed with sledgehammers and
AAYUSH GOEL

metal rods. Her neighbours have since told her to lock

her doors at night. Her parents in Lucknow are also anx-
ious. “I have heard that some unidentified men are still
roaming the campus,” said Ruby. “Let them come again,
we will also beat them up. We girls here have bricks and
stones for self-defence.” WINDOW PAIN weeks over a hike in hostel fees.
Just then, a passing guard asked her to come eat dal Students at the But what happened on January 5
chawal. Ruby was hungry. Her last meal was her lunch Sabarmati hostel exposed the larger forces of militari-
mess in JNU,
the previous day, on January 5. “The mess was ran- which attackers
sation at play in Indian politics today.
sacked and the goons took away the provisions. Even ransacked on Anyone with a passing awareness
the security guard was hospitalised,” said the guard. The January 5 of JNU’s vibrant history of dissent
back of his blue jacket was emblazoned with the word will know that the campus is the
Cyclops—a new security force the JNU administration very antithesis of homogeneity and
hired four months ago, consisting mostly of former hierarchy. It believes in intellectual
Army personnel. The guard’s colleague added with a sparring and the battle of ideas. It
grin, “I thought I heard the guard wasn’t even on duty stands for the critical youth. In a
yesterday, and now he is in hospital?” March 2018 paper titled Diversity,
The immediate trigger for the violence on January 5 Democracy, and Dissent: A Study on
can be traced to a series of scuffles between the left- Student Politics at JNU, the authors
backed JNU Students’ Union and the RSS-controlled surveyed 70,000 pamphlets issued by
ABVP over registration for the new winter semester. political outfits throughout the histo-
The university has been on the boil for more than eight ry of JNU. The authors noted that the

30 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020


www.t.me/magzsenglish
“The heterogeneity
at Jawaharlal
Nehru University
has generated a
lot of sensitivity
and democratic
sensibility in the
campus.”
Avijit Pathak, professor,
School of Social Sciences, JNU
word “against” was the most used word,
appearing 55,298 times, stressing the
point that JNU’s state of mind has always
been “anti-establishment”. Why then was
a regular protest disrupted with such
vengeance that Sunday evening?
At stake is the very idea of a public
university. “You think students are
merely fighting raised hostel fees? If you
dig deeper, you will know it is a fight
for an affordable, good quality public
education and to retain the tradition
of heterogeneity,” said Professor Avijit
Pathak, who teaches at the School of
Social Sciences in JNU, and has lived on
campus for 30 years. “The battle is for
restoring the idea of a public university
where a dalit boy from Maharashtra,
a tribal boy from the hinterlands of
Chhattisgarh and the metropolitan
young from Kolkata or Delhi feel
equally at home. This heterogenei-
ty has generated a lot of sensitivity
and democratic sensibility in the
campus.”
Pathak said he had not seen such
a vicious muzzling of dissent on
campus even during the Emergency.
He points to the global rise of ma-
joritarian politics. “In recent times,
the aggression, the celebration of it,
the metaphor of the surgical strike in
every sphere of life has invaded our
consciousness. You look at the rape
case in Hyderabad and the police
encounter after that; the way some
celebrities endorsed it; the violence
at Jamia and AMU (Aligarh Muslim
University) campuses. As a collec-
tive, we have internalised the logic
of brute force and violence. We have
a political regime which reconciles
both neoliberal market-driven dis-
course and a version of a hyper-mas-
culine militant religious nationalism.
That is the genesis of the problem in
a larger context.”
A historical precedent resonates
in Pathak’s mind: At the University
of Frankfurt in the 1930s, a group of
scholars specialising in Marxist stud-
ies at the Institute for Social Research
were exiled when Adolf Hitler came
to power. They could not return from
the US till his rule was over.
But the student community in JNU
is no mood to leave or get intimidat-
ed. Chitra, a third-year PhD student
in the sociology department, said she
cannot forget the image of the fawda
(spade) from January 5. Chitra had
also spotted Komal Sharma, alleged
to be one of the female assailants on
Sunday, at the intersection near the
SBI signboard on the campus. Chitra
had followed her when she sniffed
something fishy, but lost her in a
melee. The following day, she saw
a screenshot of Komal’s Facebook
profile going viral, linking her with
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 31
 CONTROVERSY
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS
JNU Teachers’ Association members form
a human chain to protest the attack on
www.t.me/magzsenglish
students at the university
the ABVP. “I am ready to file a police
complaint if no one is going to take
any action,” said Chitra.
Venkat Choubey, the ABVP
candidate for joint secretary at the
students’ union elections in 2018,
said he was scared for his life and
was hiding outside the campus. He
said he did not know any Komal
Sharma and put the blame squarely
on JNUSU members and “elements
from Jamia”. “Go and see the Peri-
yar hostel,” he said. “It’s completely
empty. The JNUSU people beat up
students in that hostel on Sunday be-
cause they know it is a bastion of the
ABVP. Jihadis from Jamia had come
that day. They are uneducated. They
will kill people. I am afraid, and I am
not staying on campus.”
He insisted that he was not an
Islamophobe, but he had seen
students from Jamia with kattas
(country-made pistols) outside the
JNU main gate.
32 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
He said the university had
changed. “Now nobody wants to read
and talk,” he huffed on the phone.
“The left’s own comrades don’t know
the Communist Manifesto. They
don’t know the difference between
Marxism and socialism. Some senior
activist sits with them over tea; that is
their lesson in Marxism.”
Vice Chancellor Jagadesh Kumar,
the most anti-dialogue VC in JNU’s
history, has now extended an olive
branch of ‘let bygones be bygones’. A
fringe outfit, the Hindu Raksha Dal,
has taken responsibility for beating
up “anti-nationals”. The Delhi Police
will submit a fact-finding report to
the home ministry after investiga-
tion. But JNUSU is adamant in its
demand. JNUSU vice president Saket
Moon said, “Peace and normalcy will
only return to the campus with the
resignation of the current VC.” On
January 8, JNUSU president Aishe
Ghosh filed an attempt to murder
complaint with the police.
Said Amit Singh, a JNU alumnus
and assistant professor at Ambedkar
University in Delhi: “In our wildest
AAYUSH GOEL
imagination, we could not have
imagined this kind of a violence.”
The police had struck his friend, a
JNU student, on her leg with lathis
when she tried to make videos of
the carnage at the Sabarmati hostel
right after the mob had dispersed on
January 5. The police even smashed
her phone. “Earlier, if two students
fought, irrespective of ideology, both
were penalised as the campus had a
policy of zero tolerance to violence,”
said Amit. “Earlier, there was some
kind of a moral hold on all people.
Today, ABVP activists are getting stu-
pidly stubborn because of the sup-
port they have. They have a wrong
impression of being empowered.
They are not bothered about higher
education. The moral hold they had
on each other is gone.”
Amit, however, does not think
JNU’s illustrious tradition of resist-
ance is threatened. “This is not a per-
manent dent,” he said. “Democratic
forces are much stronger. JNU is very
resilient. The strongest emperors and
dictators have not been able to out-
last the unity of students’ struggle.”
 BITTER CHOCOLATE
SWARA BHASKER
When JNU was saved—not by cops
O
n January 5, I had packed up early from a
shoot in Mumbai. I was looking forward to
an early dinner and planned to be in bed by
8:30pm as I had to be back on set at 5:30 the next
morning. Habitually, I checked my Twitter and found
the timeline littered with tweets by JNU students
about an armed attack on campus. I was bewildered.
I saw some messages on WhatsApp, too. There was
a two-minute video. As it began playing, I, a former
student, recognised the location—it looked like the
entrance of the girls’ wing of one of the older hostels
in JNU. A few female voices were yelling in the video.
Then, two figures emerged. Clad in jeans and shirts
and with their faces covered, a boy and a girl stood
armed with blunt weapons and an-
onymity. They moved out of frame
and, from the depths of darkness,
scores of masked boys emerged. As
the video began to register shrieks of
www.t.me/magzsenglish
girls and the sound of glass break-
ing, the screen went blank. I sat
back stunned. This was a campus I
have known and cherished deeply.
Despite the nonstop vilification by
‘Godi media’ and the BJP IT cell in
the last three years, JNU has always
meant home, family and safety to
me. It took some moments to realise
that safety had dissolved. Then with a sickening blow
it struck me—where were my parents?
My father said he was home. I called my mother.
She was stuck in the car at a barricade, erected by a
group of students warning others about the ongoing
violence 400m away. I told her to drive out of the
campus. Instead, she walked to the north/main gate
of JNU. I texted some students I knew on campus—
they asked for people to reach the north gate where
the Delhi Police was waiting patiently, letting the
masked goons run havoc within the campus and
thrash people. Where was the vice chancellor and
JNU’s private security? Conveniently missing! Despite
complaints and video evidence of the violence, the
police refused to enter the campus without “court
orders”. Apparently, a right-wing mob was with the
ILLUSTRATION JOB P.K. The writer is an award-winning Bollywood actor and sometime writer and social commentator.
police, chanting, “Desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maaron
saalon ko (shoot those who betrayed the nation)” and
“Leftiston ki qabr khudegi, Savarkar ki dharti pe (the
graves of leftists will be dug on Savarkar’s land)”.
In a state of utter panic, I made a video, asking
citizens of Delhi to gather in large numbers outside
the JNU gates to pressure the police to act. I spoke of
my parents, and broke down without intending to. I
shared it on social media. Electronic media picked
it up. The media was outside campus by then. Soon
enough, a thousand people arrived at the gate. They
began chanting pro-JNU slogans. It was national
news. I imagine it must have set phones ringing in the
power corridors of Delhi. Eventually, the police (pre-
sumably on orders from the relevant
person in the home ministry) entered
the campus and did a flag march.
The ravaging mob, meanwhile,
dispersed and hid in the bushes of
the sprawling campus. At the main
gate, the police also coaxed the mob
of about 80 ‘goli maaron’ enthusiasts
to go home. They dispersed, sullenly
dragging their lathis, but not before
attacking an ambulance carrying
injured students and roughing up a
few journalists. The police watched
on, even escorting them away. The
pro-JNU protesters began sloganeering outside the
gate; inside, teachers and students joined in. Eventu-
ally, students forced open the gates, and the citizens
trooped in, feeling victorious. The dark night was
over. Or, was it just beginning? Would the vandals
return? Or, were they quietly among us already? A
certain feeling of assurance had departed from the
campus forever.
My mother got home at 2am. JNU had been
saved—not by the law enforcement agencies, but by
the citizens of Delhi and by the media. JNU had been
saved by the internet. Suddenly, it made sense why
India has had the most number of internet shut-
downs in recent times. Information is awakening the
citizen’s conscience. The question is: why does it not
have the same effect on the government?
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 33
 WORLD
US-IRAN CONFLICT
Caught in
the muddle
India faces an unprecedented diplomatic
challenge as it tries to balance its ties with
the US and Iran following the assassination
of Qassem Soleimani
BY MANDIRA NAYAR
FOR DIPLOMATS ACROSS the
world, the year 2020 has begun on an
ominous note. The assassination of
General Qassem Soleimani, the com-
mander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revo-
lutionary Guard Corps, by the US has
the potential to push the Middle East
www.t.me/magzsenglish
into yet another long-drawn conflict.
Iran’s swift response—hitting US
bases in Iraq with ballistic missiles—
shows that it is unlikely to back off in
the face of American aggression. But
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif
hinted at deescalation as he called
the missile strikes an act of self-de-
fence. “We do not seek escalation or
war, but will defend ourselves against
any aggression,” tweeted Zarif.
The US, too, seems to be eyeing
deescalation. In his formal response
to the Iranian missile strikes, US
President Donald Trump said he
wanted to work with Iran in promot-
ing peace in the Middle East. But he
was sharply critical of Iran’s nuclear
programme and threatened further
sanctions against the country’s lead-
ership. The immediate threat of an
all-out war, however, seems to have
dissipated following Trump’s speech.
But for countries like India, which
share close ties with both Iran and
the US, the coming days are likely to
throw up further challenges and test
34 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
their diplomatic skills. The official
statement issued by the ministry
of external affairs on Soleimani’s
assassination shows how carefully
India needs to tread. There was no
reference to Soleimani by name in
the statement. Instead, India chose
to refer to him as “a senior Iranian
leader’’. The statement also avoided
the word assassination, and called
for “restraint’’. “Peace, stability and
security in this region is of utmost
importance to India. It is vital that
the situation does not escalate
further,’’ said the statement. India
sent a joint secretary to the Iranian
embassy to sign the condolence book
kept for Soleimani, in an attempt to
stress its neutrality.
India has been keeping a close
watch on the rising tensions in the
The ongoing crisis
has revealed
the limits of
India’s diplomatic
leverage, despite
the goodwill it
enjoys in both
Washington and
Tehran.
WARM VIBES
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar
with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad
Zarif in Tehran on December 22
Middle East and has been trying to
engage the key players. In a delib-
erate balancing act, External Affairs
Minister S. Jaishanakar went to
Tehran for the joint economic com-
mission talks with Iran soon after the
2+2 dialogue held in Washington in
December.
For India, the concerns in the
Middle East are manifold. The region
is India’s largest supplier of oil. As
many as 85 million Indian expats
live and work there. “The US and
Iran have started putting their naval
vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Our
ships carrying oil pass through this
region,’’ says Anu Sharma, associate
fellow at the Centre for Air Power
Studies, New Delhi.
While India has chosen to bring
down oil imports from Iran to almost
zero under American pressure, there

www.t.me/magzsenglish
are other areas where India and Iran
are partners. Any hostility in the re-
gion, for instance, puts the fate of the
Chabahar port in jeopardy. The work
on the port, which is India’s gateway
to Afghanistan and Central Asia, has
been progressing at a glacial pace,
despite the active involvement of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi. At
the recent meeting of the India-Iran
joint economic commission held
in Tehran, the two sides promised
to expand connectivity. But, India
has been unable to generate much
enthusiasm from private companies
to invest in Iran, especially after the
stringent sanctions imposed by the
US. And, without private investment,
the Chabahar project is unlikely to
succeed.
The ongoing crisis has also re-
vealed the limits of India’s diplomatic
AFP
leverage, despite the goodwill it
enjoys in both Washington and
Tehran. Jaishankar did not figure in
the call list of US Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo after Soleimani’s
assassination, but Pakistan army
chief General Qamar Bajwa did,
demonstrating Pakistan’s growing
importance in the changing sce-
nario. Pompeo also reached out
to Afghanistan President Ashraf
Ghani, German Foreign Minister
Heiko Maas and French Foreign
Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. It
took a phone call from Jaishankar
to voice India’s apprehensions.
He called up Pompeo on January
5 to highlight India’s stakes and
concerns in the region. He also
reached out to Zarif and reiter-
ated that India remained deeply
worried about growing tensions
in the region.
“We cannot play a mediating role
between the US and Iran, because
we have tilted more towards the US,’’
says Sharma. The dynamics of the
relationship changed under prime
minister Manmohan Singh, espe-
cially after India and the US signed
the civilian nuclear deal in 2005.
In 2009, India voted against Iran at
the International Atomic Energy
Agency, criticising its nuclear pro-
gramme. When Jaishankar retired as
foreign secretary, he said the Chaba-
har project was not moving forward
because Iran kept on changing the
goalposts. India and Iran have not
been able to sign a deal on devel-
oping an Iranian gas field despite
negotiating with each other for more
than a decade. Modi did try to add
some warmth to the relationship,
but with India actively wooing Israel
and Saudi Arabia—Iran’s sworn
enemies—the leverage India enjoys
with Iran is limited.
“Iran is somewhat annoyed
about the oil imports,’’ says former
diplomat Ashok Sajjanhar. “There is
no other country, other than Rus-
sia, which does not need its oil. But
China, which has its own problems
with the US, and countries like Ja-
pan and South Korea had to fall in
line with what the US wanted under
the threat of CAATSA (Countering
America’s Adversaries Through
Sanctions Act).’’
Even more worrying for India
is the fact that a conflict between
the US and Iran could spill over
beyond the Gulf. “Afghanistan is
very worried,’’ said former Indian
ambassador to Afghanistan Rakesh
Sood. “Soleimani had been dealing
with Afghanistan from the 1990s.”
His death will have an impact on
the non-Pashtun population, which
is considered close to Iran. Any
deterioration in the Afghan security
situation is yet another strategic
challenge that New Delhi will be
desperate to avoid at the moment.
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 35
 WORLD
US-IRAN CONFLICT

Iran
is not
ready
for a
war
If Iran had not
www.t.me/magzsenglish
responded to
the US attack, it
would have further
emboldened the
Americans
BY REZA KHAASTEH
AFP

T
he Iranian surprise attack
on the US bases in Iraq on
January 8 was meant to
avenge the death of General
Qassem Soleimani before his burial.
His funeral, which was attended by
millions in his home town at Ker-
man, had to be postponed because of
a stampede.
Till January 7, though Iran had
promised revenge, it was widely
believed that an attack was not immi-
nent. Iran chose not to kill anyone—
though there were allegations that
80 people were killed in the attack—
which is a message of deescalation.
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s tweet
reflected this sentiment.
There have been celebrations on
the streets because Iran had some-
how stood up to the US might. Iran’s
strike was inevitable, and it may fur-
ther escalate the situation. But it was
America’s assassination of Soleimani
that pushed the region in this direc-
tion. President Barack Obama, too,
had this option, as Soleimani had
always been a target of the US. But
Obama knew that it would escalate
the situation to an unprecedented
level. Countries in the region now
hope that the situation does not
deteriorate and both parties exercise
self-restraint. In Iran, however, peo-
ple did not want restraint. If Iran had
not responded, it would have further
emboldened the Americans.
Soleimani’s assassination has
changed the situation on the ground.
In the past few months, Iranian so-
ciety was divided. The street protests
in November showed that many

36 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020


www.t.me/magzsenglish
people were against the government
because of the current economic
condition, the hardships and the lack
of freedom. But Soleimani’s funeral
procession showed that even those
who were angry with the government
and the establishment are now in
mourning. Soleimani is a martyr. He
was not just a senior commander;
he was, in my view, the second most
powerful person in the country after
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
President Donald Trump does not
understand how important Soleim-
DEPARTED HERO
Soleimani’s funeral procession
ani was to Iran. Iranians are proud
of him, and he led the anti-Islamic
State fight in the region. He was
also popular in Syria, Yemen and
Iraq. The funeral procession was not
orchestrated by the government. It
could not have been possible to bring
millions of people to the street by
forcing them or luring them with the
promise of food or money.
The funeral in Kerman demon-
strated how important he was. The
crowd was so huge that the officials
could not control it. The population
Soleimani’s
funeral procession
showed that even
those who were
angry with the
government and
the establishment
are now in
mourning.
of Kerman is 50,000. But two to three
million people, according to esti-
mates, attended the funeral. Despite
the postponement of his burial,
people braved the cold and gathered
steadily even as darkness fell.
Many mourners had demanded
that the government take revenge.
They wanted the harshest revenge
possible. It was a sentiment that the
government had to respond to. The
supreme leader, according to sourc-
es, had made it clear to the govern-
ment that the revenge must be taken
by Iranian forces. He did not want
any attack through proxies in Iraq or
Lebanon. The attack on the missile
bases leaves no doubt that Iranian
forces were responsible for it.
Till January 7, top security offi-
cials in Iran were believed to have
shortlisted 13 targets. The attack
was carefully thought-out. Iran has
indicated its willingness to deesca-
late. An all-out war is impossible now
for Iran because its economy cannot
support it. The oil sanctions have
paralysed the economy. Iran is not
ready for a war.
Khaasteh is a
Tehran-based journalist.
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 37
 The naked &
COVER STORY
INSIDE SYRIA

www.t.me/magzsenglish

IN FOR THE LONG HAUL

Inmates carting rations in the
Al-Hol camp in northeast Syria

38 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020

& the dead
www.t.me/magzsenglish

IN SYRIA, GUNS AND BOMBS HAVE LARGELY FALLEN SILENT

AFTER THE DEFEAT OF ISLAMIC STATE. BUT, AMID THE EERIE
CALM THAT PREVAILS, THE WAR-TORN NATION STANDS EXPOSED
TO STRANGE NEW PERILS AND CHALLENGES
BY LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN/Qamishli, Al-Hasakah and Al-Hol, Syria
PHOTOS BY BHANU PRAKASH CHANDRA
www.t.me/magzsenglish
www.t.me/magzsenglish
 COVER STORY
A
INSIDE SYRIA
mani Fathima was 28 when she took
the vacation that ruined her life.
In late 2014, she and her husband,
Hussaifa, and their three-year-old
son Kisar, left her in-laws’ home in
Mumbai for Bahrain. It was to be
the start of an exciting tour of the
Middle East—a break from their dull,
middle-class life in Kurla West. At
www.t.me/magzsenglish
least, that is what her husband had
told her.
Their host in Bahrain was a friend
of Hussaifa, a man Fathima referred
to as ‘bhai’. The family spent three
months in the country, before they
packed their bags for Turkey.
In Istanbul, they checked into a
hotel room. Fathima remembers be-
ing over the moon. She was pregnant
with their second child, and spent
most of her time in the hotel room.
Hussaifa would go out often to meet
his friends.
After spending five days in
Istanbul, they headed south to the
Turkey-Syria border. It was 2015, and
things had taken a dark turn in the
region. An extremist group called
Islamic State had captured swathes
of territory in Syria and neighbouring
Iraq, and declared itself a caliphate.
Its reach extended from Mosul in
Iraq in the east, to the outskirts of
Aleppo in Syria, 600km to the west.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Iraq-
born IS chief, had called upon all
40 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
Muslims to join his caliphate.
Hussaifa wanted to answer that
call. He took Fathima and Kisar to
the northern periphery of IS-held
territory—a small town called Tell
Abyad, close to the Turkey-Syria
border. “I did not know where my
husband was taking me,” Fathima
told THE WEEK. “I did not have
any option but to follow him. I
still believe that he, too, did not
know what lay next for us. We were
following bhai’s instructions over
the phone.”
Tell Abyad, which was part of
Syria’s Raqqa province, had fallen
in 2014. IS had plundered the town
and driven away its diverse popu-
lation of Syrians, Kurds, Arabs and
Assyrians.
Hussaifa, however, was hopeful
of finding a job, and he promised
Fathima a peaceful life—just like
the one they had in Mumbai. Their
daughter Yahya was soon born.
Hussaifa’s plans fell through in
May 2015, when Syrian and Kurd
forces launched an offensive to
free Tell Abyad. As the battle raged,
the family was forced to move
deep into IS territory. Fathima
was pregnant again, and Hussaifa
took her 100km south to Raqqa, a
historic Syrian city and the de facto
capital of the caliphate. He took up
a job there, and their third child,
Aisha, was born.
Two years later, mayhem broke
out again. Under siege from a
coalition of international forces,
IS had withdrawn from many of
its strongholds in Syria and Iraq.
By 2017, its territory had shrunk-
en significantly. Mosul had been
freed and Raqqa was the only
major city under IS occupation.
In October that year, the coalition
forces began their final attack on
Raqqa.
According to Fathima, Hussaifa
YEARNING FOR HOME
died when a shell hit him in 2018.
Amani Fathima, an IS
“My husband was not a fighter. He
widow from India
did not go to the battlefield to fight
www.t.me/magzsenglish
 COVER STORY
INSIDE SYRIA
for IS. But I do not know what his job
was,” she said.
As IS began losing Raqqa, Fathima
and women like her fled to Baghouz,
a Syrian town near the Iraq border,
around 250km southeast of Raqqa.
In March 2019, Baghouz became the
last IS stronghold to fall. “I surren-
dered to the Kurdish forces,” she said.
“There were many young women
from India [in Baghouz] when I sur-
rendered. But I do not know where
they are now.”
Fathima, now 33, and her three
children are now at a sprawling
refugee camp at Al-Hol in eastern
Syria. The camp houses more than
one lakh people from nearly 50 coun-
tries, including widows and children
www.t.me/magzsenglish
42 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
of IS fighters. The facility is more
like a prison; families live in seem-
ingly endless rows of tiny tents that
have muddy floors covered by thick
sheets.
Life in Al-Hol becomes hell during
the rains. Water seeps through the
tents and sewers overflow, turning
the camp into a den of diseases.
There are four hospitals inside the
compound, run by around 30 aid
groups, but demand always outstrips
supply. “Please take me back home,”
said Fathima. “Life is very difficult
here. It is cold, and the children often
fall sick.”
Deputy Photo Editor Bhanu
Prakash Chandra and I visited Al-Hol
on a soggy December afternoon.
Fathima and her daughters sat with
us in the camp office. Kisar, who had
turned eight, was guarding the tent.
We sat in one of the two makeshift
rooms that were fenced off from
the main office space. The rooms
had thick walls and PVC doors. One
room was exclusively used by officers
of the Syrian Democratic Forces,
a coalition of Kurdish, Syrian and
Arab militias that run the camp. The
other room served as a lounge for
visiting diplomats, journalists and
researchers. There were brown sofas
all around, and a small glass-topped
table holding an ashtray.
We had entered the camp at noon
after rigorous security checks. A
young Kurdish officer called Aveen
 had received us in the office and
served us hot black tea. She talked
about the difficulties in running
the camp, before asking us who we
wanted to meet. “I want to look for
Indians,” I said.
She then arranged for armed
guards to escort us to the annex, a
section where 12,000 wives, wid-
ows and children of IS fighters are
held. Before she took leave, she told
me: “Wrap your shawl around your
head. The women inside are highly
religious, and they might attack you if
you do not.”
The annex was a place of tension
and commotion. There were women
shouting at the guards in strange
tongues, babies crying nonstop, and
mothers calling out for help. The
nervous guards kept a tight grip on
their rifles, fearing that they would
be attacked any time. It was in this
www.t.me/magzsenglish
LIFE IN ALHOL
BECOMES
HELL DURING
THE RAINS.
WATER SEEPS
THROUGH
THE TENTS
AND SEWERS
OVERFLOW,
TURNING THE
CAMP INTO
A DEN OF
DISEASES.
cauldron of resentment that we
found Fathima.
Clad in a burqa, she was
holding her daughters with both
hands. When she was told that we
were journalists from India, she
cried and begged us to help her
return home. “Mein aapko kya
bulaoon—didi ya behan? Mujhe
yehaan se leke jayiye (What should
I call you, sister? Please take me
with you when you leave),” she
said.
The camp authorities allowed
Fathima to spend 15 minutes
with us in the visitors’ room. She
came with a friend—a woman
from Seychelles who knew Hindi.
As Fathima recounted her tragic
tale, the woman interrupted her
several times, asking her not to
reveal certain details. I asked the
Seychellois woman, who was
also clad in a burqa and had her
daughter on her lap, how she
knew Hindi. “I learnt it by watch-
ing Bollywood movies, before I
came to Syria,” she said.
I asked Fathima about her
relatives. She said she hailed from
Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh; Hus-
saifa was her cousin. “It was only
after reaching here that I knew we
were in a different land,” she said.
“I managed to reach my family
over phone and inform them
that I do not know where I am, or
where I would be taken.”
Fathima began to talk about life
in Azamgarh, and then stopped
abruptly. “I have a brother. He was
talking to me earlier. No, I don’t
want to reveal who he is,” she said.
Her only prayer, she said, was
to return home. Diplomats and
activists from other countries had
been visiting Al-Hol regularly to
look for their nationals. We were
her great hope, said Fathima, as
this was the first time that Indians
had come calling. “I don’t talk to
anyone here, except one or two
families,” she said. “The others
 COVER STORY
INSIDE SYRIA

are dangerous extremists. I could

get killed if I oppose them. So I stay
away from them and take care of my
children.”
She hugged me before she took
leave. “I want to leave this horrible
place,” she told us. “Please help me.”

Land of oil and terror

The map of Syria resembles a stocky
bird taking flight—its head and beak
pointing northeast, to the tri-junc-
tion of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. The
bird’s head is marked out by the river
Euphrates, which enters Syria from
Turkey a hundred kilometres west of
Tell Abyad and drains out southeast
to Iraq and the Persian Gulf.
The Euphrates is a natural barrier
that divides northeastern Syria from
the rest of the country. Its basin is so
fertile that it was where humans first
started agriculture, more than 9,000
years ago, and where civilisation first
took flight.
Like any bird, pre-war Syria, too,

www.t.me/magzsenglish
depended on its head and beak for
sustenance. It was from the northeast
that the country drew much of its oil
and agricultural wealth. In 2008, long
before the IS rampage began, Syria
used to produce more than 4,00,000
barrels of oil a day, mainly from the
wells in the northeast. By 2018, the
output had plunged to just 24,000
barrels.
Even though IS has been defeated,
Syria cannot hope for an immediate
turnaround in its fortunes, because
the northeast has become an auton-
omous region under the control of
the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Dem-
ocratic Forces. The SDF, which has
its quarrels with the Bashar al-Assad
government in Damascus, calls the
region Rojava. It exists as a federated
union of nearly a dozen autonomous
subregions. Rojava’s most populous
city, Qamishli, serves as its de facto
capital.
Qamishli does not have a ful-
ly functional airport. So, to enter
Rojava, we touched down at Erbil
in Kurdish-held Iraq, and travelled
200km northwest to the Semalka
border crossing, manned by the SDF.
A pontoon bridge across the River
Tigris took us from Iraq to Rojava.
Qamishli lay another 100km away.
The road to the city was narrow
and ridden with potholes, and it
stretched across a barren landscape
dotted with huge, rusted, crane-like
structures. These were pumpjacks,
which help draw oil from onshore
wells. The pumpjacks were going up
and down nonstop, as red pillars of
fire and huge black clouds rose above
the horizon. The refineries were
being fed, apparently.
As we neared Qamishli, we saw
oil tankers lining the road. Further
ahead, at a village called Gire Kire,
a series of tanks and open pits
stretched along a dirt-filled road.
These tanks and pits serve as stopgap
refineries. Crude is burnt in open
pits, producing limited yields of
poor-quality petroleum products that
are piped into tanks for filtering.
The technique is primitive, and it
causes huge environmental damage.
It had left the earth in Gire Kire inky
black. Streams of leaked oil and lay-
ers of slippery sludge made it difficult
for workers to even walk.
As we watched, a short man with
a red-and-white scarf tied around
his grimy face came to us. Yakub

44 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020

www.t.me/magzsenglish
PAY DIRT
A worker refining
crude oil at Gire
Kire village; (below)
a cafe in Qamishli
 COVER STORY
INSIDE SYRIA
Ali, 38, said he used to be a wheat
farmer. The war left him working in
the refineries. “I lost my farmland
in the IS attack three years ago,” he
said. “But life has to go on. I have five
children. What else can I do to feed
the family?”
IS began taking control of the oil
fields in Rojava in 2012. Oil produc-
tion and smuggling became its major
source of revenue after it seized
the wells in Deir ez-Zor province in
southern Rojava. In October 2015,
production and smuggling hit a peak
of 40,000 barrels a day, helping IS
earn around $40 million a month.
The SDF took back control of the
wells in 2017. Since then, Rojava has
www.t.me/magzsenglish
46 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
been deriving its political leverage
from oil. “We control at least 70 per
cent of the oil resources in Syria,” said
an SDF officer. “It is our main source
of revenue.”
Rojava is now largely a safe zone,
but geopolitics deny it lasting peace.
Last October, Turkey launched a
cross-border offensive against the
SDF to create a 32km-deep buffer
zone along the Syrian side of the bor-
der. Turkey is trying to use this buffer
zone to resettle Syrian refugees who
had crossed into the country in
recent years.
Turkey’s actions are prompted by
the US withdrawal from Syria. Turkey
views Kurdish fighters as terror-
ists, even though they had helped
US troops in Syria kill Baghdadi
in October. The Kurds view the US
withdrawal as a betrayal, one that
could force them to cut a deal with
the Syrian government, with Russia
acting as the go-between. Rojava
believes it holds a trump card in this
great game—the oil fields.
As things stand, the situation
remains volatile. Qamishli is very
close to the border, so it is part of
the unstable buffer zone that Turkey
has created. The city had come
under heavy fire during the Turkish
offensive in October, but things have
calmed down now. Qamishli is now
largely considered safe, despite stray
 incidents of violence.
From Qamishli, we travelled south
to Al-Hasakah. The shortest route to
this major city is an 85km-long desert
highway that remains vulnerable
to attacks by IS sleeper cells. So we
took the roundabout route, travelling
125km through the M4 Motorway,
which is perhaps the most important
highway in Rojava now. (Before the
Turkish offensive last October, the
M4 connected Qamishli to the east-
ern tip of Rojava—a Kurd-dominated
town called Kobani. Realising that
controlling the M4 meant cutting
the Kurd forces into two, Turkey
quickly moved into eastern Rojava.
Kurdish fighters were forced to push
PICTURE OF MISERY
Prisoners awaiting trial
at the Al-Hasakah prison
www.t.me/magzsenglish
back, helping Turkey establish the
buffer zone. Today, because it runs
roughly parallel to the internation-
al border, the M4 serves as the de
facto boundary of the buffer zone
on the Syrian side.)
The wheat fields that once
flanked the M4 are now barren.
We took the exit to Al-Hasakah,
which leads to the towering stone
walls of the city’s huge, high-se-
curity prison. There was an eerie
silence as the prison gates opened.
And it remained unbroken as we
walked a pebbled pathway inside
the compound that held more
than 7,000 IS fighters awaiting
trial.
The prison director was waiting
for us outside another huge iron
gate. Clad in combat fatigues, and
with a trench coat slung over one
shoulder, he shook hands with us,
but did not reveal his name.
The armed guards who took
over from him asked us to be cau-
tious while talking to prisoners. Do
not let slip any news or informa-
tion, they said. “You are forbidden
from talking about the Turkish
attack in the northeast,” said one
guard. “Or about the Americans
withdrawing from here, or about
Baghdadi’s death.”
With that warning, we were
allowed to walk in.
Terror in quarantine
The prison cells in Al-Hasakah
have thick steel doors painted
green. The doors have apertures
big enough for prisoners to stick
their heads out, but they mostly
remain covered by metal plates. As
an armed guard opened one aper-
ture, a hollow-eyed man poked his
head through. He said his name
was Isha Hamad Hussain, and that
he was Syrian.
I told him that I was a journalist
from India. “Do you know Kerala?
Are you from Kerala?” asked Isha.
He had pale skin and dark circles
around his eyes; he said he had not
seen sunlight for months. “I was not
a fighter,” he said. “But they brought
me here, after they arrested everyone
in Baghouz.”
As Isha drew his head back,
I looked into the cell. At least a
hundred men in orange jumpsuits
were crammed into the room. Most
of them were as hollow-eyed and
skinny as Isha was, and many of
them had shaven heads and broken
limbs. A few ate from plastic cups
and plates, while some others lay on
the floor motionless. A black plastic
sheet covered a small enclosure at
the far end of the cell—providing
privacy for the inmates, but there is
no escape from the stench in the air.
The opening in the door sudden-
ly slammed shut from the inside. I
moved to the next door. Two men
peered out as the guard slipped the
latch. Rashid, a 21-year-old former
fighter, believes that IS continues to
survive. “What if Baghdadi dies?” I
asked Rashid. “IS will continue to
exist,” he replied.
The other inmate, a 17-year-old,
asked me about the news. The light
inside the cell suddenly went out and
both the prisoners withdrew into the
darkness.
I told the guard that I wanted
to look for prisoners from India.
He produced a thin, frail man in
a dirty jumpsuit, with a bandage
tied around his forehead—Shahan
Chaudry, 32.
A native of Punjab in Pakistan,
Chaudry had been studying gaming
design in London and working part-
time at a post office when the war
in Syria broke out. He went to Syria
in 2014. “The Syrians were being
bombed, and no country was coming
to their aid,” he said. “I was just 27
and I decided to come and help. I
came in through Turkey and then
reached Idlib [in Syria]. I worked for
an aid organisation—distributing
food, clothes and medicine in the
upper provinces.”
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 47
 COVER STORY
INSIDE SYRIA
As IS began to gather strength,
Chaudry got attracted to its extremist
ideology. A group of injured IS fight-
ers who had come to Idlib for treat-
ment took him to IS territory. “The
road was open at that time,” he said.
“And so I came into the caliphate
with them. I first went to Novan in
Aleppo province.”
He underwent the standard train-
ing for outsiders—military exercises
and a course in shariah, the Islamic
law based on the Quran. “They send
you to work,” said Chaudry. “I was
www.t.me/magzsenglish
48 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
sent to a checkpoint. I underwent
a month-long military course and
learnt to operate automatic rifles.”
His initial days were mostly peace-
ful, so he arranged for his wife and
daughter to come to Aleppo. “She
was very happy in the caliphate,” he
said. “No one would make fun of her
for wearing the hijab. We were happy
that we could perform prayers five
times a day.”
Chaudry and his wife had four
more children while they were in IS
territory; one child was killed in the
final stage of the Kurdish offensive.
The family surrendered in Baghouz;
he was taken to Al-Hasakah, while
his wife and children were sent to
Al-Hol.
He has no regrets about the
choices he made; the overwhelming
feeling, he said, was of fatigue. “Most
people here are like me; they are
tired,” said Chaudry. “I have never
been in one place for the past five
years. I kept moving and moving.
Had I known that I would end up in a
place like this, I would not have sur-
 rendered in Baghouz. I would have
waited for a rocket to hit me between
my eyes.”
But Chaudry fears for his wife and
four children. “Are you going to Al-
Hol?” he asked. “My children were
very weak when we surrendered. Can
you help me reach them?”
I said I would try, and asked about
the details. But he clammed up soon
after he began talking about his fam-
ily and parents in Pakistan. “Don’t go
into specifics,” he said.
That his story was riddled with lies
www.t.me/magzsenglish
LIVES IN LIMBO
Women and children
waiting outside a
medical centre in
the Al-Hol camp
and half-truths was clear, just like his
abiding love for the IS way of life. “I
don’t want [Baghdadi’s] IS to exist,”
he said. “I want Islam to exist. [I am
for the] Islamic State that existed in
the days of Prophet Muhammad. We
understand that Islamic State from a
theoretical point of view—a state that
existed way before IS, during the days
of Prophet Muhammad. Those were
the righteous people.”
As he talked about the error of
Baghdadi’s ways, he abruptly paused.
“Do you have a chocolate? Can you
get me a chocolate? It has been nine
months since I have had a chocolate,”
he said.
I arranged for a bunch of chocolate
bars. “Are all these chocolates for
me? I can eat them as we talk?” he BAGHDADI HAS
asked in disbelief. He ate them as he
talked about why Baghdadi’s IS fell.
A LOT OF BLOOD
According to Chaudry, Baghdadi ON HIS HANDS.
started off well by establishing a
functioning state with its own public THERE WAS A LOT
utilities, welfare systems and health
OF OPPRESSION
care services. “Anything that is a
non-democracy or is alien to the
western culture, people see it as ab-
normal. They look at it as a threat,” he
HAPPENING,
AND A LOT OF
said. “IS’s foreign policy was to retake
those lands that once belonged to INJUSTICE, TOO.
Muslims, and to bring them under Shahan Chaudry,
Muslim rule. So, when you see IS an inmate of the
from a western perspective, you see Al-Hasakah prison
it as a threat—which is why the world
called it a terrorist organisation. But,
in terms of governance, IS was a fully
functioning state, just like India,
England or any other country.” a major financial centre, and had re-
Chaudry was not entirely wrong. portedly installed managers at many
At its peak, IS controlled a third of bank branches there [to levy tax on
Syria and nearly half of Iraq—an area customer cash withdrawals]”. IS ran
roughly the size of Uttar Pradesh— more than 20 banks in Syria alone,
and ruled over more than one crore said the report.
people. Its fledgling economy was So what went wrong, I asked
powered by oil revenues, donations Chaudry. “The Iraqis took over,”
from abroad, illicit taxation, slave he said. Apparently, Baghdadi was
trade, sale of antiquities, ransom and partial to his countrymen. “There
extortion. In 2015, the Financial Ac- were Iraqis in every top position in
tion Task Force reported that “IS had IS,” said Chaudry. “They were related
focused on bank looting activities in to each other. This was the beginning
Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city and of the fall.”
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 49
 COVER STORY
INSIDE SYRIA

“Baghdadi has a lot of blood on his

hands,” he said. “There was a lot of
oppression happening, and a lot of
injustice, too. For example, the ra-
tions would go to only those people
close to him and not to the children.
The children were malnourished. I
cannot get into specifics, but I know
he made a lot of mistakes.”
With IS gone, it may be the Kurds
who may end up paying for Baghda-
di’s mistakes. Most of the prisoners
languishing in Al-Hasakah are still
indoctrinated, posing a grave threat
to the Kurdish militia that runs the
prison. Their strength was reduced
after fighters had to move to the bor-
der to stop the Turkish offensive. The
Kurds now worry that the inmates
[THE BRIGADE may trigger a mutiny and escape.
MEMBERS IN Also, hundreds of prisoners—mainly
those who came to Syria from the
AL-HOL] ARE west—have been stripped of citizen-
ship by governments abroad.
EXTREMISTS. It means men like Chaudry cannot WOMAN OF STEEL
return to normal lives, nor can the
THEY TELL ME Beritan Qamishlo, a

www.t.me/magzsenglish
THAT I SHOULD
FOLLOW THE
Kurdish hope to expatriate them.

Killer ladies and

QURAN AND
SHARIAH.
Geeta Raj,
an inmate of the Al-Hol camp
According to him, the IS bureau-
cracy slowly turned corrupt because
of nepotism. The Iraqis began sus-
pecting foreigners who had migrated
to the caliphate, accusing them of
working as informers for govern-
ments abroad. “They ended up
killing a lot of foreigners like me,” he
said. “A few of my friends were killed,
without any inquiry or evidence.”
Chaudry was unaware that Bagh-
dadi had been killed, or that IS was
no longer a geographical entity.
lady-killers
When THE WEEK met Sterek Judhi,
she was dressed to kill.
The 19-year-old Kurdish fighter
was in a khaki jumpsuit, with a ban-
dolier and a Kalashnikov. She looked
pale and frail, and did not look the
part of someone who had fought on
the front lines against IS, killing at
least six men and injuring scores of
others.
“For an IS militant, the worst thing
that could happen is to get himself
killed in the battlefield by a woman,”
she said. “They believe they would
directly go to hell if that happens. I
am a very happy woman; I have sent
a few men to hell.”
Sterek, whose name means ‘star’ in
Kurdish, is a rising star of the all-fe-
male branch of the Kurdish militia.
The branch comprises around 10,000
fighters aged between 18 and 25, and
young fighter of the
all-female branch of the
Kurdish militia
they had fought alongside the male
units of the SDF to defeat IS and
secure Rojava.
Sterek hails from Derik, a small
town in southern Rojava. She
joined the Kurdish military school
as a 13-year-old, ignoring strong
opposition from her family. At the
school, she spent five years under-
going basic training and studying
political theory. “We are given full-
fledged military training only after
we turn 18,” she said.
A crucial part of the training is
psychological. At Kurdish com-
munity centres in Syria, women
are taught how to defend them-
selves, recover from battleground
blows and be independent. “These
centres help us understand that
we need not accept everything in a

50 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020

www.t.me/magzsenglish
patriarchal society,” she said.
The Kurds are the largest ethnic
minority in Syria, making up nearly
10 per cent of the population. There
are nearly 3.5 crore Kurds worldwide,
most of them living in the histori-
cal Kurdistan region that is split up
between Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey.
The Kurdish are a largely conserva-
tive community, but the women are
more progressive than those in other
ethnic groups. “I want to be inde-
pendent,” said Sterek. “I am happy
being here in Qamishli. I make close
to $200 a month, which is more than
enough.”
Around 90 kilometres south of
Qamishli lies the Al-Hol camp, where
we met women who were the an-
tithesis of Sterek. Aveen, the women
Kurdish officer who received us in
Al-Hol, had warned us that the wom-
en prisoners in the camp were highly
dangerous. Just how dangerous they
were, we knew only after walking
through the annex, the area reserved
for IS widows and wives.
The annex is a mini caliphate.
Ultra-conservative inmates have
formed four brigades to enforce
shariah. Those who violate the
Islamic law are given swift and often
violent punishments. “Women are
barred from coming out of their tents
without a hijab,” said Geeta Raj, a
31-year-old from Anuradhapura in
Sri Lanka. “[The brigade members]
are extremists. They tell me that I
should pray five times a day, and
follow the Quran and shariah.”
Geeta was a passport officer at the
Sri Lankan embassy in Lebanon.
Her husband was a Turkish nation-
al who migrated to Syria and was
later killed. She has three sons, who
are now living with her in-laws in
Turkey.
Though she is not overtly religious,
she is forced to toe the extremist
line. Those who do not are often
murdered. A few months before our
visit, a 14-year-old girl from Azerbai-
jan rebelled by doing away with the
hijab. She was found dead with her
neck broken in three places. Autopsy
revealed that she was beaten and
strangled to death, but the girl’s
mother told aid workers that she
slipped and broke her neck.
In October, another woman died
after being stabbed 16 times. Abdul-
lah Ahmed, a Syrian teenager, was
also stabbed to death after being ac-
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 51
 COVER STORY
INSIDE SYRIA
cused of collaborating with Kurdish
authorities.
Apparently, Russian prisoners are
the most extreme. They dominate
the four brigades, each of which have
a specific function. The Khansaa
brigade is the morality police that
enforces the dress code and religious
practices, while the Asayish raids
the tents in search of weapons and
contraband. The third group, Zaid
el benat, indoctrinates the inmates
and runs the shariah courts. Punish-
ments, including death sentences,
www.t.me/magzsenglish
FUTURE TENSE
A child inmate of
the Al-Hol camp
52 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
are carried out by the fourth group,
called the Verdugas or the execution-
ers.
Desperate inmates have tried to
escape this mini caliphate by tunnel-
ling their way out of the camp. Al-Hol
has rocky soil and the inmates are
not allowed to access any equip-
ment, but prison authorities recently
discovered that the women had dug
several tunnels using the tents as
cover. “Some of them managed to es-
cape, but they were later recaptured,”
said a guard.
At least 10 escape attempts happen
every month. Traffickers charge as
much as $15,000 to bribe the guards
and help inmates escape. “I tried to
escape thrice,” said Adeela Shafiq
Yusuf from Pakistan. “Once I tried
to jump the fence and run away. But
the guards caught me and brought
me back. I have got in touch with
my family through the NGO Red
Crescent. Life is hell inside the camp;
I want to be far away from here.”
The camp’s population is booming.
More than 600 children were born in
 the past one year, even though only
five of every hundred inmates are
male. Girls and boys who grow up in
the camp are married off when they
enter their teens. To stop the prac-
tice, prison authorities have started
shifting boys who turn 14 to a sepa-
rate juvenile home. “Our strength has
gone down after the Turkish attack,”
said Aveen. “Guarding the camp is
becoming a huge task with the avail-
able force.”
Walking through the annex, it was
hard not to feel a sense of compas-
www.t.me/magzsenglish
sion for the inmates. The tents were
shabby, the marketplaces were
squalid and children were playing RUSSIAN
in the sludge. But the sympathy
vanished when we saw the ultra-con-
PRISONERS IN
servative women raising their fore- AL-HOL ARE
fingers at us. The raised forefinger
is a well-known sign of victory and
THE MOST
power, but the IS faithful use it to give EXTREME. THEY
a more sinister message. It says they
uphold their ideology, which is built DOMINATE THE
on the belief that modernity and all FOUR BRIGADES,
forms of plurality must be destroyed,
and that they will work towards ful- EACH OF WHICH
HAVE A SPECIFIC
FUNCTION.
filling their mission.
These radical matriarchs of Al-Hol
are ensuring that the IS ideology lives
on. Their children are so indoctrinat-
ed that, whenever outsiders come
visiting, they mob them demanding
money or gifts, threatening to kill
them if they do not oblige. Earlier,
near one of the prison hospitals, we
had seen a Russian mother flying
into a rage as she waited for medi-
cine for her sick baby. She calmed
down after a while, but her elder
son continued threatening a prison
guard. “I will kill you,” he said, re-
peatedly.
Murky and toxic, Al-Hol is a ticking
bomb. As I left the camp, I felt sorry
for Fathima, the Indian widow who
wanted a better life for her children.
But it was another prisoner, whose
name I did not know, who had made
a lasting impression on me. While at
the annex, she had thrown stones at
me to make me go away. “We don’t
want anyone to come here to tell
the world outside about us,” she had
said, raising her forefinger. “I follow
the Quran, and Allah is our God.
Islamic State will live on.”
Names of certain Kurdish person-
nel have been changed to protect
identities.
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 53
 COVER STORY
INSIDE SYRIA

To hell and back

A trip to the prison camps for Islamic State terrorists in
northeastern Syria will leave you traumatised, physically and emotionally
TEXT & PHOTOS BY BHANU PRAKASH CHANDRA

D
ark clouds had
obscured Erbil, the
capital city of Iraqi
Kurdistan, when our
aircraft started its
descent. By the time we touched
down, it was raining heavily. As we
walked towards passport control,
my colleague Lakshmi Subramanian
and I were anxious, although we had
been preparing for this assignment
for nearly six months. We were on
our way to the upper Mesopotami-
an region called the Autonomous
Administration of North and East
Syria, known popularly as Rojava. A
de facto self-governed state which
lies between the Euphrates and the
Tigris in northeastern Syria, Rojava is
controlled by the Syrian Democratic
Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish
and Arab militias fighting the Syrian
civil war. The SDF, led primarily by
the powerful Kurdish People’s Pro-
tection Group (YPG), has been at the
forefront of the fierce battle against
Islamic State. It is also involved in an
existential fight against Turkey and
the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.
We had crossed our first obstacle—
clearing immigration in India—rath-
er smoothly. When the immigration
officer asked us about our destina-
tion, we did not mention Iraq or Syria
as we did not want to cause an alarm.
Instead, we told him that we were

www.t.me/magzsenglish

54 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020

 going to Kurdistan. After scrutinising
our e-visas, he allowed us to proceed,
but only after pointing out in an
educative tone that Kurdistan was an
autonomous region in Iraq.
We had no such luck in Erbil, as
Indians need a sponsor to be allowed
entry into Kurdistan. As we had been
in a hurry to get our visas, we had
forgotten to gather more informa-
tion about our sponsor before we
had started our journey. We sat for a
while with other Indians, hoping that
our sponsor would arrive soon. A few
hours later, we were the only ones
left in the airport, which, by then,
was largely empty. The immigration
officer, who could sense our anguish,
signalled that he was helpless. Laksh-
mi asked him whether we could use
his phone to contact our sponsor. He
took the number and dialled it. Soon,
we could hear him yelling in Kurdish.
After slamming the phone down, he
told us in his broken English that the
guy who had arranged our e-visa was
www.t.me/magzsenglish
HOPE FLOATS
Children of peasants sell
radish outside their farm
located on the road from
Al-Hasakah to Al-Hol
a taxi driver named Salman. He had
paid a “sponsor’ to sign for our visas.
Salman was waiting for us outside,
but he did not know that the sponsor
had to be present to sign us in. It was
a Friday, and the sponsor had gone
to his village with his family to enjoy
the holiday. The immigration officer
said it would take him at least two
hours to come to the airport.
Finally, five hours after we landed,
our sponsor made it to the airport
and completed our entry process.
Outside, we met Salman, who had
brought with him his “English-speak-
ing” daughter to make communica-
tion easier. All she knew was to say
“hello” and “welcome”.
When Salman came to our hotel
the next morning to take us to the
Faysh Khabur border, it was still
raining. As we were about to board
the taxi, we were shocked to see that
it was already full. But we had no
option but to squeeze in because
we had to reach the border before it
closed at 2pm. Seeing our unhappy
faces, Salman poured us two glasses
of dark and thick kahwa from his
flask. The journey was quiet, with our
fellow passengers curling up to ward
off the cold and unwelcome conver-
sations.
The arid landscape, soaked in
pouring rain, made us feel that we
were on a different planet. The Arabi-
an music playing in the background,
however, reminded us that we were
still on earth, and in the Middle East.
Reflecting on the troubles we had
endured so far and on the challenges
that lay ahead, I felt despondent.
I took a sip of the kahwa, hoping
to cheer myself up, but it tasted no
better than the bitter situation that
we were in.
The border post at Faysh Khabur is
controlled by the Kurdistan regional
government. Here, the Tigris acts as
natural border between Syria and
Iraq. On the Syrian side, the border
post is called the Semalka crossing.
As we entered the registration centre
WE CROSSED
A PONTOON
BRIDGE ON THE
TIGRIS AND WE
BOTH FELT SO
EXCITED TO BE
THE FIRST INDIAN
JOURNALISTS TO
SET FOOT IN WAR-
RAVAGED ROJAVA.
for foreigners, a young lady wel-
comed us warmly, telling us that we
were the first Indian journalists to
visit Rojava. The pleasant welcome
was in complete contrast to all the
miserable encounters we had experi-
enced in our journey till then.
As we waited for the paperwork to
be over, we saw many westerners—
mostly journalists, security contrac-
tors and aid workers—returning from
Syria. They reassured us that it was
safe on the other side of the border.
After finishing the formalities and
clearing security check, we boarded
a bus to cross the border, along with
several refugees who were on their
way back.
We crossed a pontoon bridge on
the Tigris and we both felt so excited
to be the first Indian journalists to
set foot in war-ravaged Rojava. It
took us another hour to complete
the paperwork on the Syrian side.
Ferhan, our fixer (guide) in Rojava,
took charge from there. He tucked
our work permits safely inside his
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 55
 COVER STORY
INSIDE SYRIA

jacket. He was also carrying a pistol

inside the jacket. “Your safety is my
responsibility,” said Ferhan, in good
English. He took us in a car along a
dirt-filled track across a seemingly
endless desert close to the Turkish
border. Ferhan told us stories of
visiting journalists and about the
situation in Rojava and other parts
of Syria. As we drove on, we saw
the horse head of an oil pumpjack
moving up and down slowly, lifting
crude oil from the ground. My head
was nodding similarly, listening to
Ferhan’s narration.
It was 3:30 in the afternoon when
we reached Rojava’s capital Qa-
mishli. We were told that Qamishli
was relatively safe, but in this part TESTING TIMES
of the world, danger always lurks in The caretaker of the
the shadows. A car bomb had gone Sheikh Al Haz Navi
off weeks ago next to our hotel. mosque in northeastern
Many lives were lost in the Turkish Syria’s Jal Maruf village
shelling last year. enjoys a smoke. The
The early winter sunset and the mosque was destroyed by
rain clouds had spoiled my mood Islamic State terrorists

www.t.me/magzsenglish
by creating the worst possible light
setting for a photographer. The next
three days were a nightmare as the
temperature dropped further. We
were feeling tired as we missed our
regular food. I was eating bread and
meat, which tasted bland. Lakshmi,
a vegetarian, survived mostly on
a sweet dish called mamouniya, a
semolina pudding.
Our persistence paid off as we got
a rare chance to visit Al-Hasakah
prison, which houses male IS de-
tainees from Iraq, Syria and many
other countries. The place looked
like hell on earth, with around 7,000
prisoners locked up in small cells
for months. With not enough toilets
for so many people, the cells reeked
of human excreta. I tried taking
pictures of some of the prisoners by
putting my camera inside the small
window of a cell, but it suddenly
turned pitch-dark. Some of the pris-
oners, who did not want to be pho-
tographed in such a pitiable state,
had switched off the lights. Despite
the fall of the caliphate, many
of the prisoners still remained
THE PLACE proud and defiant. They had no
idea that their leader Abu Bakr
LOOKED LIKE al-Baghdadi was no more. Pris-
HELL ON EARTH, on officers asked us not to share
such details with them.
WITH AROUND At Al-Hasakah, most of the
buildings we saw were disfig-
7,000 PRISONERS ured by shrapnel marks. Min-
arets of mosques and school
LOCKED UP IN walls bore ugliness left by ex-
SMALL CELLS FOR plosions. Despite the losses, the
SDF has managed to clear the
MONTHS. WITH area of Islamic State fighters. I
could see the fighting spirit of
NOT ENOUGH the Kurds in their eyes. We saw
TOILETS, THE young girls of the all-women
YPJ (Women’s Protection Units)
CELLS REEKED OF holding automatic machine
guns instead of school books,
HUMAN EXCRETA. keen to be a part of the Kurdish
struggle for freedom.
Al-Hol camp, the tented city

56 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020


www.t.me/magzsenglish
MISSION MESOPOTAMIA
THE WEEK Special Correspond-
ent Lakshmi Subramanian and
Deputy Photo Editor Bhanu
Prakash Chandra with Ferhan
(centre), the fixer-cum-guide
who facilitated their Syrian trip
which houses almost 12,000 IS
women and children, is guarded
by the YPJ fighters. Continuous
rain had turned the camp, built
on an undulating strip of barren
land, into a damp hell. The roads
around the camp were so slushy
that it was nearly impossible to
walk.
The inmates of the camp looked
like residents of a ghost town.
They warned me against taking
their pictures when I turned my
camera towards them. A BBC
video journalist had told me that
his camera was snatched away by
a few women when he tried to film
them. As I was preparing to shoot,
I was hit by a stone. I turned
around and found a few children
throwing stones at me. I was not
sure whether they were angry or
were trying to attract my attention.
The scene inside the camp was
even more depressing than what
we saw in the men’s prison. We
saw children playing in the mud,
and a few were crying because of
the biting cold. Some women were
trying to fix the tents damaged in
the rain. Everything, however, was
not as plain as it seemed. With
their faces hidden by veils, it was
hard to imagine what was going
through their minds. Perhaps, a
plan to avenge the defeat of Islam-
ic State. The visit to Al-Hasakah
and Al-Hol was one of the most
harrowing experiences in my life.
It took a heavy toll on both of us,
mentally and physically. Upon
our return to India, we were down
with fever for more than two
weeks.
The sun was shining brightly
the day we said goodbye to Syria.
But it did not brighten our sombre
moods. As we crossed the Tigris
back into Iraqi Kurdistan, we
could think of nothing except how
differences in the name of religion
have turned the cradle of civilisa-
tions into hell on earth.
JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 57
 COVER STORY
PHOTO-FEATURE

AMONG
THE
RUINS
www.t.me/magzsenglish
Syria, once the cradle of
civilisations, is now a
giant graveyard. Years of
war have destroyed most of
its ancient sites, killed lakhs
of people, and displaced half
of its population. Citadels,
monasteries, mosques and
markets that withstood
invasions for centuries have
been reduced to heaps of
rubble. Syrians not only
have lost their past, but are
looking at a grim future
PHOTOGRAPHS BY BHANU PRAKASH CHANDRA

58 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020

www.t.me/magzsenglish

A crammed cell in the prison in

Al-Hasakah. Many former Islamic
State men kept here suffer from
physical and mental health issues

JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 59

 COVER STORY
PHOTO-FEATURE

www.t.me/magzsenglish

.
.
.60 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
www.t.me/magzsenglish
Leyla Telo, a Yazidi, was
captured, enslaved and sold
eight times by Islamic state

US troops on a highway in Al-

Hasakah. There are at least 600
American soldiers still in Syria

A Yazidi camp at Sharya,

near Duhok town in
northern Syria

JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 61

 COVER STORY
PHOTO-FEATURE

www.t.me/magzsenglish

62 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020

 Women fighters of the
Kurdish militia guarding their
training centre near Qamishli

www.t.me/magzsenglish

JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 63

 COVER STORY
PHOTO-FEATURE

www.t.me/magzsenglish

A worker in a small-
scale oil refinery
near Gire Kire village

A woman in Al-Hol
camp trying to
cover her face with
a vegetable basket

64 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020

www.t.me/magzsenglish

A boy at Al-Hol camp. The

children in the overcrowded
camp suffer from infections

Women in Al-Hol camp collect-

ing diesel ration. Inmates of the
camp get food and essentials as
part of humanitarian assistance

JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 65

 IVORY TOWER
SANJAYA BARU
Nehru’s dilemma, now Modi’s
O
ne good consequence of the defeat of the
Congress in the general elections of 2014
has been the number of good books that
have been written by Congressmen like Shashi
Tharoor and Jairam Ramesh. Following up on
his highly readable biography of Indira Gandhi’s
principal aide P.N. Haksar, published in 2018,
Jairam has now published a 700-page biography
of V.K. Krishna Menon, India’s defence minister
at the time of the Chinese incursion of 1962.
Historians and political scientists will bene-
fit hugely from Jairam’s painstakingly detailed
account of Menon’s role in India’s freedom
struggle, his international articulation of Indian
interests before and after independence, and his
influence on policy at home and
abroad through the first two dec-
ades after independence. To me,
the most interesting part of this
www.t.me/magzsenglish
voluminous book was the detail-
ing of the relationship between
Menon and Nehru.
The office of the prime minister
is the loneliest political office in
India. Many prime ministers have
been very lonely individuals even
in their personal lives—widow-
ers, widows and bachelors—and
Nehru was made lonelier by his
upbringing. Menon was among
the very few in Nehru’s council of ministers that
came from a social milieu that Nehru felt most
comfortable in. It would have been no mere
happenstance that both shared a unique social
intimacy with the Mountbattens.
Menon and Nehru were two peas in a pod, but
Nehru’s personality was shaped both by his long
and deep involvement in the freedom struggle at
home and his intimate association with Mahat-
ma Gandhi. Menon fought for India’s freedom in
the halls and on the streets of England, and then
in the elegant world of diplomacy. He touched
Indian soil only after convincing Nehru that he
should induct him in his council of ministers.
Baru is an economist and a writer. He was adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh.
ILLUSTRATION JOB P.K.
66 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
Jairam shows how their tenure as cabinet col-
leagues created tensions. Nehru had learnt how
to function in New Delhi’s political milieu. Menon
seemed to think that switching from Savile Row
suits to dhoti-kurta was about the only transition
needed. Nehru spoke in Hindustani. Menon
hardly knew his own mother tongue.
Of the many dimensions to the Menon-Nehru
partnership that Jairam brings out, the one that
may resonate today is how Nehru was made to
pay a price for his friendship. Many around Nehru
wondered why the prime minister was so ac-
commodative, so tolerant, so indulgent of a man
who was so unlike Nehru. The officialdom, the
diplomats and even most political colleagues of
Nehru loved the man. Few felt
so endearingly towards Menon.
So, when opportunity presented
itself—in the form of India’s
inability to defend itself against
Chinese aggression—everyone
around the prime minister
wanted the defence minister
sacked.
An interesting anecdote
from among the many is the
one about Admiral R.D. Katari
informing Nehru as early as
in 1959 that he, too, wished to
quit as Navy chief, after General
K.S. Thimayya had sent in his papers to the prime
minister. Nehru wondered why the three service
chiefs had “ganged up” against the defence minis-
ter. Katari agreed with Nehru that Menon had his
good qualities and had contributed to the nation,
but then asked, “Why as defence minister, sir?”
Katari felt relieved when Nehru laughed out.
A prime minister is often faced with such a di-
lemma. To what extent can one stick with a friend
if the friendship is beginning to hurt his stand-
ing? Looking at events in India over the past few
weeks, one wonders if the prime minister today
asks himself whether his friendship with a fellow
Gujarati is beginning to hurt his own standing.
 FASHION • ART • LIFE • THEATRE • LUXURY • FOOD • CINEMA • PEOPLE

TOP
OF HER
GAME With a slew of hit
films and so much
anticipation about
her next one,
www.t.me/magzsenglish
Chhapaak, it seems
Deepika Padukone
has nowhere to go but
up
BY PRIYANKA BHADANI

nce, while studying at a convent

school in Bengaluru, Deepika
Padukone dressed up as the
principal on Teacher’s Day
and imitated her so well that
the whole school was in splits. A
few days later, one of her teachers
recounted the incident to Deepika’s par-
ents—Ujjala and badminton legend Prakash
Padukone. “Everyone was so impressed,” the
teacher told her mother.
Ujjala feels that Deepika always had the
ability to act. “She is just getting better with
every movie,” she says. “Her choice of scripts
 @LEISURE
CINEMA

CHHAPAAK (2020)
and films is improving day by day.” The film is based on
She is not just saying that because the life of acid attack
she is Deepika’s mother. According survivor Laxmi Agarwal
to the actor, her mother is her biggest
critic, who is “brutally honest” about
her performances.
Deepika is waiting to hear what
her mother thinks about Chhapaak,
which is based on the life of acid at-
tack survivor Laxmi Agarwal. “It has
been an eye-opener,” says the actor
about her role. Playing an acid attack
survivor day in and day out did take
quite an emotional toll on her. But at
this stage of her career, after 12 years
in the industry, she is looking for
such meaningful roles.
For Deepika, getting better cre-
atively has been a gradual process,
feels director Indrajit Lankesh, who
launched her in his Kannada film,
Aishwarya (2006), after he saw her
modelling at a fashion show that
he was judging. He remembers two
things about her—how captivated he learning curve has been slow and film choices. Some of the masala
was by her looks and confidence, and steady. Because she comes from a movies she did those days—like
how nervous she was during Aish- sporting background, most of her Karthik Calling Karthik, Housefull,

www.t.me/magzsenglish
warya’s shoot. “But for a newcomer,
she was a complete professional,” he
says. “Even before signing on, she
had a manager. She engaged in every
conversation about the film.”
By the time Aishwarya became
a super hit, the actor had already
signed on for Farah Khan’s film, Om
Shanti Om (2007), starring Shah
Rukh Khan. While Deepika stood
out in the hit film for her beauty, her
acting was not so well appreciated.
But she kept working on her acting
skills and whatever else was required
to make it in the industry. Lankesh
recalls how, because of her Kannada
accent, she could not dub for herself
in her initial films like Om Shanti
Om and Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008).
“But she never sat back and enjoyed
the success of those films,” he says.
“She attended workshops to improve
her Hindi diction.... Now, in films
like Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela
(2013) and Padmaavat (2018), you
see her as a performer.”
Deepika herself says that her
youth was spent on the badminton
court. She never watched any world
cinema while growing up. The only
films she watched were Hindi clas-
sics and mainstream entertainers like
the Dharma and Yash Raj Films. She
candidly admits that she is at a loss
when people start discussing world
cinema. “I usually do not have much
to contribute to those conversations,”
she says, adding that it is only now
that she is familiarising herself with
global cinema.
Imtiaz Ali, who directed her in
Love Aaj Kal (2009) and Tamasha
(2015), says that Deepika has always
maintained a dynamic balance
between being confident and taking
risks. She always believed she could
do what needed to be done but was
willing to be guided, he says. Initially,
however, she was less confident
and was more or less happy playing
second fiddle.
In the first part of her career, that
lack of confidence or hesitation to
steal the limelight determined her
and Lafangey Parindey—in which her
role was limited to playing the hero’s
romantic interest, were mostly flops.
“As an actor, craft is important,
which you find as you go along.
But what is also important are the
actor’s decisions,” says Dinesh Vijan,
producer of films like Love Aaj Kal
(2009), Cocktail (2012) and Finding
Fanny (2014). He believes Deepika’s
career demanded a right choice at
that time, and Cocktail—a film direct-
ed by Homi Adajania and produced
by him—became just that. “She was
itching to do a performance-oriented
role,” he says. “And back then, almost
eight years ago, there were few such
roles for women.”
Adajania feels that her character
was unlike any she had played until
then. “Her career had plateaued then
and she saw [the role’s] potential to
redefine her,” he says. “It was a little
hard for her to unlearn everything
she had learnt till then, but when she
realised that she could achieve this
by totally [giving herself up] to the

68 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020

 PADMAAVAT (2018)
Deepika plays aHEARTS
TOUCHING Rajput
queen
eOmnihil ium restrun-
dam nia aut antempo
COCKTAIL (2012) repeles earis dene
The film was a turning conse et
point in her career

someone like Konkona Sen Sharma, yes. First, because it was an unusual
but when Sircar started writing the role for which she would have to use a
script, he found himself circling back prosthetic to disfigure her face. Second,

www.t.me/magzsenglish
character and blindly trusting me,
there was no turning back.” According
to Vijan, that was a turning point in
her career, after which, her choices
improved.
By the time Piku and Tamasha
happened in 2015—in which she
played restrained and subtle char-
acters—Deepika had not just grown
professionally with films like Cocktail,
Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ram-Leela, Ba-
jirao Mastani (2015), Chennai Express
(2013) and Finding Fanny, but she
had also made some brave choices in
her personal life. In the early 2010s,
she called out then-boyfriend Ranbir
Kapoor for cheating on her. Later, she
opened up about her struggle with de-
pression over the past few years.
The subtlety of Piku was a far cry
from her glamorous, over-the-top
roles till then. Its director Shoojit Sir-
car considers it a ‘middle’ movie—in
between a masala and an art house
film. Of course, the expected choice
for a character like that would be
to Deepika. With her star status, how-
ever, it was difficult to approach her.
He decided to do so anyway because
he needed someone with the persona
and the courage to scold Amitabh
Bachchan, who played her father.
Sircar recalls Deepika frequently
checking with him on whether she
was being too harsh with Bachchan.
“I had to tell her that I wanted more,”
he says.
Ali, too, had re-united with Deep-
ika for Tamasha around that time. “I
realised that now she was confident
in the limelight,” he says. “If she was
the only person that the camera [was
focusing on], she was okay with that.
She would take more risks because
she was more confident than earlier,
[although] she needed to know that
she could trust a certain instruction.
But she would also do some things
blindly because she was having fun
doing it.”
Last year, when Meghna Gulzar
approached the actor for Chhapaak,
she had not expected Deepika to say
because she had mentioned in inter-
views that she wanted to do a light film
after Padmaavat. But she agreed to do
it within minutes of hearing the story,
not even bothering with the full script.
“It was literally a no-brainer,” says
Deepika about her decision to do it.
“The story was something I was drawn
to at many levels. [First], it would throw
light on acid violence in our country,
about which we do not talk as much as
other crimes. But the more important
reason was the spirit of these girls, how
they have chosen to overcome such an
incident and what they have chosen to
make of their lives.”
Although Deepika was always a
perfectionist, she has taken it to an-
other level since moving to Mumbai,
says Ujjala. Her multitasking ability,
too, is incredible. “Even while she was
busy promoting Chhapaak, both as an
actor and co-producer, Deepika is in
touch with her father [to plan] the silver
anniversary celebration of his [sports]
academy in Bengaluru,” she says. Now,
Ujjala’s only concern is her daughter’s

JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 69

 @LEISURE
CINEMA
physical and mental health because
of how demanding her work is. “I am
constantly telling her to slow down
a bit, to take care of herself and to
make sure to have time to relax,” she
says.
It seems like Deepika took her
mom’s concerns seriously. After
Padmaavat (2018), she did not sign
on any new film. She got married to
actor and long-time partner Ranveer
Singh later that year, and used the
two-year gap as a time for “creative
fertility”. “It is extremely important as
an actor to keep nurturing yourself
and the different aspects of your
life,” says the actor. “Sure, I might not
physically have been on a film set,
but spending this time meeting writ-
ers and directors, watching films and
reading has been the most creatively
nourishing for me.” In this period,
she also took up chairmanship of the
MAMI film festival, which, she says,
has broadened her mind and made
her realise how much more cinema
there is out there than she was aware
www.t.me/magzsenglish
of. “I am willing to learn in this jour-
ney,” she says. “I have always been
open to that.”
Marriage has not led to drastic
changes. “One of the most beautiful
things is when we come home to each
other and get to spend time together.
I do not think much has changed,
which is a good thing,” Deepika says
with a laugh. For her mother, it is great
having Ranveer in the family. “It has
been a blessing,” she says. “He is so
protective and takes such good care
of her that, after her marriage, I have
become much less worried about
her.” Ujjala says that her daughter has
wanted to go beyond acting for the
past two years. “We are glad that she
has set up her own production com-
pany (Ka Productions) and started
off with a film like Chhapaak,” she
says. “Deepika is never content with
saying that ‘I am good as an actor’.
She is always dreaming about what
she can take up next. [Where she is
concerned], every day is a surprise for
my husband and me.”
70 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
Interview/Deepika Padukone
actor
Acid attack survivors are
funny, spirited, and cocky
at times
BY PRIYANKA BHADANI
Meghna Gulzar said that the
hardest part for you about
Chhapaak was knowing that you
would lead a normal life after
the prosthetic was removed, but
the survivors would not. How
did you deal with that?
I was dealing with that emotion
on a daily basis during my 9am
to 9pm shift. For me, the painful
part was knowing that I could go
back to my life and revisit theirs
when it was convenient for me or
when I was required to. That is not
the case with them, which is the
reason for the kind of emotional
toll this film has taken on me.
What was your first meeting with
Laxmi Agarwal like?
It was an eye-opener for me. I had
interacted with her briefly at some
events a few years ago, but this
time, I spent many hours with her.
As a society, we assume they (acid
attack survivors) are a certain
way. But what was refreshing was
the fact that she was a complete
contrast with [what we might
have expected]. One would think
that they would feel sorry for
themselves, or [would be] angry
and resentful, but that is not what
I saw. I saw forgiveness, strength
to move on, hope, contentment
and joy.... They are funny, spirited,
and cocky at times.
In an interview, you spoke about
how a director did not cast you
in his film because you were too
good-looking for the part.
(Laughs) Yes, I have had directors
tell me that. Some have said I was
too tall for a part. A few have said
that they do not have the money
I charge for a film, because it has
gone to my male co-star. Yes, I have
been through all that.
For Chhapaak, you had to give up
your beauty. That is a huge step.
A director once told me that he
is not going to watch this movie
because he believed I would look
ugly in it. My question to him is, ‘Are
you then saying that Laxmi is ugly?’
Hopefully this movie will broaden
our minds regarding how we are
conditioned to think about beauty.
You are also doing a film on the
Mahabharat from Draupadi’s
perspective. Would you say your
focus has now shifted to women-
centric films?
I would not say women-centric as
much as I would say meaningful.
Chhapaak is not a women-centric
film, but rather one about a girl who
has been on a certain journey and
whose story and spirit will resonate
with millions of people. I am also
not doing Chhapaak because it is
directed by a woman. Similarly,
playing Draupadi for me is exciting
because it presents an interesting
alternate perspective to the
 needed a counsellor during the
shooting of Chhapaak. It has
been some time since you were
diagnosed with depression. Do
you now recognise your trigger
points?
Yes, I do. My friend and I were
chatting the other day about how
silly we are at times because we
know exactly what the trigger points
are, but we still keep challenging
it because you feel ki ab nahi hoga
(now it will not happen). And then
boom, it comes back, and you are
like, ‘Oh, god! Stupid girl! Why?’
With Chhapaak, for example, I
could not identify a trigger point,
it was the role itself that was the
trigger point.

How do you want to progress as a

producer?
I want to do films that are
meaningful and impactful. That
does not necessarily mean that
every film has to be a socially
relevant film. It could be a simple

www.t.me/magzsenglish and beautiful film like Piku, which

told the story of a father-daughter
relationship in an entertaining
manner. Eventually, I want to be a
part of films that I can be proud of
PTI

and that impact people in different

ways—it could be a film that gives
LOVE BIRDS
them joy, or makes them reflect, or
Ranveer and Deepika at an awards
function last year it could be something as extreme as
Chhapaak.

Mahabharat. Again, it is not because
she is a woman but because she
has the most exciting point of view
among all the characters.
I do not know [if the transition]
is a conscious decision. I think it is
more a function of the person I am
evolving into, or the person that I
have become, or the person that I
am.
How much of a role do your
parents, sister and Ranveer play in
your film choices? Do you discuss
roles with them?
So, I have seen Chhapaak and he
(Ranveer) was asking me what I
thought about it. But I did not say
anything. I want them to discover
my films on their own. The most
I tell my parents, or even my
husband for that matter, is that I
have signed on this movie. Maybe
I will give them one line, like
whether it is a romantic or a horror
film. With Ranveer, maybe I will
say one line more about it. But that
is about it. I really want them to
have a fresh perspective [when they
watch it].
You have revealed that you
After xXx: Return of Xander Cage
(2017), do you want to do another
Hollywood project?
For me, it is not so much about
going to Hollywood as it is about
being a part of films that resonate
globally. In a way, Chhapaak is
also a hugely international movie
because of the subject. And the fact
that acid violence is not something
that happens only in India, but it is
also rampant [in countries like] the
UK. The thrill is not so much about
working in Hollywood as it is about
being a part of films with exciting
content.
 @LEISURE
PEOPLE

PAPA CJ, comedian

Jokes
apart
P
apa CJ, the award-winning
AP
comedian whom Forbes
described as “the global
Politically incorrect face of Indian stand-up”, has
appeared on NBC, BBC, MTV and
Comedian Ricky Gervais, who hosted the Golden Globes on Comedy Central. The Oxford man-
January 5, was at his cocky best. He was bleeped twice by NBC for agement graduate kick-started the
using expletives. He took potshots at everything from the Holly- New Year on a positive note with his
wood Foreign Press being “very, very racist” to winners making memoir, Naked.
political speeches. “You are in no position to lecture the public
about anything,” he said. “You know nothing of the real world.” Q/ Is it fun to be a stand-up
comedian?
About the actors who play superheroes, he said: “Their job is not
A/ I love the uncertainty of live
acting anymore. It is going to the gym twice a day and taking
stand-up. I love interacting with my
steroids.” Underneath their smiles, many of those actors must audiences and not knowing what
have been flexing their puffed-up muscles. they will say to me when we con-

www.t.me/magzsenglish verse. I love the challenge of getting

something unexpected [out of them]
and instantly turning it into some-
thing funny.

Upping
her game
Rugby player Sweety Kumari sure is
keeping her eye on the ball. She was
named the ‘international young player
of the year’ by popular women’s rugby
website Scrumqueens. She had
earlier been declared the conti-
nent’s fastest player by Asia Rugby.
Kumari, whose mother worked as
an anganwadi worker in Bihar,
is nicknamed the ‘scoring
machine’ by her team-
mates.

CONTRIBUTOR:
SNEHA BHURA
COMPILED BY:
ANJULY MATHAI

72 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020

 Three cheers
Q/ Unlike stand-up, writing is a HarperCollins announced that it will be coming
lonely and often boring job. How did out with three books of writer Amitav Ghosh
you cope with its drudgery? over the next three years. The first, Jungle-na-
A/ Contrary to popular opinion, ma, will release later this year and is based on a
I think one of the greatest mental fable from the Sundarbans. The next two will be
health challenges of stand-up come- non-fiction—a collection of essays and a book
dians is loneliness. Sure, we perform collating his research for his previous work, the
in front of many. However, almost Ibis trilogy. “I am immensely passionate about these
everything else we do, we do alone. The
books and I hope that my readers will enjoy reading
upside of being a comedian, however, is
them as much as I have liked working on them,” said Ghosh.
that we are able to mine all our pain into
humour. That can be cathartic not only
for us but also for our audience. When
they see us laugh at our misfortunes they
PHO
are able to find it within themselves to TO
C OU
RT
do the same. ES
Y:
IN
I wrote the book the only way I know— ST
AG
like I would write a stand-up comedy

RA
M
routine. I wrote anecdotes on post-it
notes and then divided them into chap-
ters. Then I put them in an order that
made sense. Then I wrote each of the
chapters and added depth and emotion
to them. Finally, I fought tooth and nail
with my editor to make as few edits to
the manuscript as possible.

www.t.me/magzsenglish
Q/ Your show, Naked (2016), laid bare
your life. Is sharing it with readers a
different experience?
A/ I do have experience with sharing my
life and being vulnerable publicly. With
my stage show, I opened up
in ways that I never thought
I would have the courage

Tropical
to. Yet, while doing that, my
audience was in the room with
me, where I could see them. If needed,
I could adapt my performance, albeit in
a tiny way. I had some degree of control fun
over how they processed what I present-
ed. With the book, I did not have that
Maldives seems to have worked its
luxury. Also this is not a work of fiction
marine magic on Sara Ali Khan. The
or a business book. It is an autobiogra-
phy. Which is an even more daunting actor has been flooding Instagram with
venture for a first-time author. Because smoking hot pictures of her holiday
not only will readers be judging the with mother Amrita Singh and brother
quality of my work, but they will also be Ibrahim. Considering the views the
judging the quality of my life! And I have photographs are getting, it looks like her
tried to be as honest and vulnerable as I followers are having a gala time as well.
can in a medium that I have little experi- There was even a video of her free-float-
ence with. However, early feedback from ing in the ocean in a white bikini,
readers has been quite heart-warming, looking like she did not have a care in
so my nerves are a lot more settled now. the world. The Maldives effect?
—By Mini P. Thomas
PTI

JANUARY 19, 2020 • THE WEEK 73

 LAST WORD
BARKHA DUTT
Blame the prime-time poison
B
y now we have all seen the videos of the
mob assault at Jawaharlal Nehru University
and the police complicity in enabling them.
Much has been said and written about the masked
vandals and the impunity with which they were
allowed to saunter on the campus, holding their
axes and iron rods.
Less has been said about the mayhem that un-
folded outside the main gate of JNU as journalists
and a handful of opposition politicians gathered
that fateful Sunday night. As Yogendra Yadav was
jostled and pushed around, and several young
women spoke of being groped by the crowd, one
needs to pay close attention to the slogans that
went up. “Deshdrohi vaapis jao (anti-nationals go
back)” were words hurled
at some journalists. Even
worse, as the street lights
were switched off, slogans
www.t.me/magzsenglish
like “desh ke gaddaro ko,
goli marron saalon ko
(These are traitors, shoot
them)” could be heard in
the darkness of the night.
The same slogans have
been raised at rallies in
support of the govern-
ment’s divisive citizenship legislation.
But the coarseness of the public discourse
and the brazen incitement to violence cannot be
placed at the door of the political establishment or
the government alone.
The most shameful offender in this case is the
television news media—the vast majority of it.
Over the last few years, we have seen fulminating,
hate-spewing television hosts, appointing them-
selves as the arbiters of nationalism. These men
and women, many of who have never done a day
of reporting outside the comfort of their studios,
have mainstreamed the use of poisonous phrases
like “tukde tukde gang”, “anti-national” and “urban
naxals”. Today these reductionist and meaningless
phrases have been co-opted by several top leaders
of the BJP. But politicians will always seek to intim-
ILLUSTRATION JOB P.K.
74 THE WEEK • JANUARY 19, 2020
idate those who do not agree with them. What is
the defence of the journalists?
The hashtag warriors of prime time could be
laughed at and even ignored if they were not so
toxic. The calls to violence outside the main gate
of JNU, and the fact that those seen against the
dominant narrative had their heads thrashed with
rods and axes inside the campus, is a grim wake
up call. Words have consequences. Violent, big-
oted, hate-filled thoughts usually induce violent,
bigoted, hate-filled actions.
The irony is that the reporters of many of the
channels that have mainstreamed this language
were also mocked and abused in the Sunday
evening scrum. Their seniors and bosses must
carry that moral responsi-
bility.
In many ways, the last
few hours have been the
Indian television media’s
darkest. There has been
an abject unwillingness
to question power and
authority. There has been
absolute surrender even
when unasked for. But
perhaps kowtowing to
authority is less despicable than legitimising bul-
lying and hate politics.
These channels have ensured that anyone with
an alternative view is branded a traitor.
The debasement of our public debates, their
aggression, hostility and the “other-ing” of anyone
who disagrees with you is at least partly a conse-
quence of the odious descent of TV news media.
Earlier the worst you could say about it—and
I have been a practitioner—was that it is banal.
Now it can be borderline evil.
Which is why it is uplifting to see so many pro-
testers waving the tricolour, singing the anthem,
carrying portraits of Gandhi and Bhagat Singh
into their marches.
They are reclaiming nationalism—not just from
politicians, but also from television news.
editor@theweek.in
www.t.me/magzsenglish
76 The Week RNI No. 36122/1982, Registered No. KL/EKM/756/2018-20, Licence No. KL/CR/EKM/WPP-20/2018-20. Licensed to Post Without Prepayment. Published on Friday 10th January 2020

www.t.me/magzsenglish
 JANUARY 19, 2020

www.theweek.in

www.t.me/magzsenglish
 2 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020

www.t.me/magzsenglish

HEALTH
 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 3

CONTENTS
RARE DISEASE......................18
Managing Ehlers-Danlos
syndrome, which weakens the
connective tissues

BOOK REVIEW........................21
Dear People... is a genuine
attempt to tell the strain and
strength in doctor-patient
relationships

BEHAVIOUR...........................36
American author Malcolm
Gladwell discusses the problem
with "defaulting to truth"

www.t.me/magzsenglish REGULARS
LETTERS 4

MEDTALK 6

BABY STEPS 7
COVER STORY 22 QUICK SCAN 8

LISTENING TO THE GUT YOGA MADE EASY 42

More researchers in India are trying to decode the

Indian gut microbiome—the most diverse in the world—
COVER PHOTO
to develop potential cures for diseases Shutterstock
- Poop transplants are helping tackle gut disorders COVER DESIGN
Binesh Sreedharan
- India can provide a wealth of information on the gut
microbiome: Dr Pinaki Panigrahi, professor, paediatrics, LAYOUT
Georgetown Medical Center B. Manojkumar, Rajesh A.S.,
Job P.K., Sumesh C.N.,
- Graphics: Interesting documentaries on gut health Sujesh K., Deni Lal, Syam Krishnan

The Week Supplement: Printed at Malayala Manorama Press, Kottayam, and published from Manorama Buildings,
Panampilly Nagar, Kochi-682 036, by Jacob Mathew, on behalf of the Malayala Manorama Co. Ltd., Kottayam-686 001.
Editor: Philip Mathew. Focus/In focus features are marketing initiatives

HEALTH
 4 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020

LETTERS
The cover picture of Bhasha,
with the headline ‘The Doctor
DECEMBER 15, 2019

www.theweek.in

Goes to Miss World’ was in

poor taste. The Health goes to
so many homes. Some of your
young readers are aspiring
doctors. I am not sure how they
will view such a photograph of
a doctor.
J.P. REDDY,
On email.

Keep it going
Your cover story on Bhasha
Mukherjee was inspiring. I
admire people who balance
between different activities.
This helps deal with bore-
dom and pressure. Doctors
Strange
findings
The Health carries certain
articles that negate the beliefs
of the common man. For
instance, there was a full-page
Focus—‘Fight cancer with
herbs’ (December 15), and,
after a few pages, there was a
Quick Scan item which said Sad state
herbal remedies are risky It is worrying that air pol-

www.t.me/magzsenglish
usually don’t indulge in other
activities, and are confined to
their books and cases. Bhasha
surprised me (‘Best of both
worlds’, December 15).
It is not necessary that we
should excel only in our
chosen profession. There is so
much more to do and learn
in life.
T.P. KHALID,
On email.
I understand that Bhasha, as
a child, was not that keen to
be a doctor. And that her first
choice was to be an astronaut.
The balancing act comes with
its share of sacrifices. Bhasha
seems more happy being a
model. One is not sure how
successful she will be as a doc-
tor. Only time will tell.
TAPESH NAGPAL,
On email.
while pointing out that herbal
products such as garlic, ginger,
and turmeric could be doing
more harm than good as they
can interfere with treatment
and affect wound healing.
There is a feeling among the
public that garlic is good for the
general upkeep of one's health.
But one thing is certain: herbal
treatments are rather slow in
offering healing.
G.S. RAO,
Bengaluru.
Not good
There is something seriously
wrong with the BJP in Madhya
Pradesh. I don’t understand
the reasons behind its leaders
objecting to eggs in anganwadi
meals for children (‘Protein-
packed preschools’, December
15). Eggs can combat malnutri-
lution in cities like Delhi
is affecting kids (‘Fear in
the air’, December 15).
Everyone should keep an
air purifier at home, to
be safe and healthy. All
schools should declare a
holiday on days when the
air quality worsens. In
countries like China, on-
line classes are offered to
students by schools when
air quality worsens. This
is something that Indian
schools can emulate.
It was scary to read that
children as young as
six months were put on
nebulisers because of bad
air quality. Why should
our children be made to
suffer like this?
DEVENDER TOKAS,
On email.

HEALTH
 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 5

LIFE IN SUFFOCATION
In countries like China,
online classes are offered
to students by schools
when air quality wors-
ens. This is something
that Indian schools can
emulate

AP

tion in a big way. An egg cannot be considered non-vegetarian food.

Eggs also have a lower chance of contamination compared to milk.
TIGIN THOMAS,

www.t.me/magzsenglish
On email.

Eggs are an excellent source of iron, and is the perfect food for
children. It is sad that some people are against children having eggs.
I was astonished to read the comments of a BJP leader in your story,
who said that feeding eggs to children might turn them into can-
nibals as adults.
VYAS VENUGOPAL,
On email.

FOOD FOR TOT

Children eat
eggs at an an
anganwadi in
Indore

HEALTH
 6 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020
med
talk
BY OSHIN GRACE DANIELL
The new route
B
ack in 1882, when German microbiolo-
gist Robert Koch discovered the micro-
bial causes of tuberculosis, researchers
thought that the disease could be defeated with
vaccines and drugs. But in the mid-1980s, a tu-
berculosis epidemic rampaged across the world,
killing millions. Soon it got the tag of a global
pandemic. As per the WHO Global Tuberculo-
sis Report 2019, India has the highest number
of patients suffering from tuberculosis in the
world. Though the Ministry of Health and Fam-
ily Welfare’s National Strategic
Plan (NSP) for tuberculosis
elimination is aimed at wip-
www.t.me/magzsenglish
ing off the epidemic by 2025,
researchers say that five years
is a short period to accomplish
this. The question of whether it
is possible for a vaccine to give
complete protection against
the TB or prevent its development has perplexed
researchers for over 20 years now.
Currently, the only licensed vaccine against TB
is a live but crippled strain of a pathogen (Myco-
bacterium bovis) which is similar to the bacte-
rium that causes TB (Mycobacterium tuberculo-
sis). The strain, bacilli Calmette-Guérin (BCG),
which is given at birth or early in life, has been
around for about 100 years. It is definitely effec-
tive when it comes to preventing certain types of
TB in children but in the case of adolescents and
adults, the pathogen often resists the immune
responses elicited by vaccination. Surprisingly,
most people who die from TB were administered
BCG as a child. But the problem is not with the
strain used in the vaccination, rather the way it
is administered. According to a recent study by
Robert Seder and his team at the National Insti-
tute of Allergy and Infectious diseases in Mary-
HEALTH
land, a near-complete protection from TB infec-
tion can be had using the century-old vaccine by
changing its route of administration. Usually, the
vaccine is intradermal—injected into the skin.
But it turns out to be super effective when it is
delivered directly to a vein.
The studies done on monkeys showed that de-
livering the vaccine via veins rather than the skin
can dramatically increase its potency. Robert
had earlier discovered that delivering a malaria
vaccine directly into the bloodstream, through
a vein, was much more ef-
fective that delivery through
skin or muscle. This raised
the question whether a similar
route of delivery of BCG vac-
cine would work for TB. The
study was done on monkeys
wherein one group (10 mon-
keys) was vaccinated with
BCG by injecting the vaccine under the skin (the
usual route) and the other was administered the
vaccine intravenously. Months later, the mon-
keys were exposed to M. tuberculosis. Only two
out of the ten monkeys that received the vaccine
into the skin were protected from the infection
whereas nine out of ten monkeys that had the
vaccine intravenously were protected. Monkeys
given the vaccine via veins also showed much
higher levels of T-cells in the lungs—a key part of
the immune system’s protection against TB. The
T-cells which can recognise and kill the bacteria,
increased 100-fold in the lungs. The lungs of the
monkeys in the second group were free of any
form of infection. The success of BCG IV will
bring hope to millions across the globe who are
battling TB. Although the tests in humans can
be around 18 months off, the vision for 2025—
elimination of TB—could still be a possibility.
 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 7

BABY Lakshmy
STEPS Ramanathan

Fatty diet, fatty milk?

WHEN MY CHILD was born, my husband did not swoon like
the faint-hearted man I had always suspected him to be. But he
nearly did when he saw the amount of ghee (half a tumbler) I had
to consume every meal thereafter. Is this even healthy, he squeaked
to a formidable lineup of older women in my family. Ghee was Lakshmy Ramanathan is the
author of For Bumpier Times:
essential for the new mother to regain her strength and turn her
An Indian Mother’s Guide to 101
milk fatty, they insisted. In many homes, ghee is credited with Pregnancy & Childcare Practices. This
imparting multiple goodness, but the question is if it is required in is the third Baby Steps series featur-
large quantities to produce fatty milk. ing myths and beliefs surrounding
About 80 per cent lipids (fat) found in breast milk are long chain lactation.
fatty acids that cannot be synthesised inside the breast. They have
to be imported from the blood stream by drawing it from the
mother’s diet or from her body stores.
Now if it is drawn from her stores, then obviously her body will
take a beating if not immediately, then later. So, fat needs to be
included in a new mother’s diet, especially if she has chosen to
nurse. This can be done wisely though.
A lactating or pregnant woman needs to consume 50g of fat
a day. Considering that some amount gets used in roasting and
frying, she will need to include about four teaspoons a day. Un-

www.t.me/magzsenglish
necessary inclusion leads to weight gain, which interferes with
lactation.
Good fats such as omega-3 fatty acids, especially DHA, are cru-
cial for a child’s brain and eye development. So, it is a good idea
to include them. Omega-3, found in flaxseeds, walnuts and many
fish, is also good for the baby’s skin and in keeping postpartum
blues away in the mother. It also helps deliver fat soluble vitamins
(A,D,E,K) from the mother to the baby.
Apart from diet, fat present in mother’s milk is also dependent
on the stage of lactation. Colostrum, for example, has less fat than
mature milk, which comes in between 10-14 days after delivery.
Fat available to the baby from mother’s milk is also dependent
on how empty the breast is. The emptier the breast (that is the
more frequently the baby feeds), the more fat is available at the
start of a feeding session.
This can be better understood by taking a look at how dal sedi-
ments behave in a saucepan full of rasam. While a clear broth will
float at the top of the vessel, the sediments will have settled to the
bottom. If a person wants to get to the dal, she will have to clear
the broth first. If there is little rasam to begin with (if the sauce-
pan is only half full like a half full breast), then it will be faster
to get to the dal as there will be lesser amount of broth to clear.
A careful diet and frequent nursing will help assimilate fat in
the mother’s milk and reach it successfully to the baby.

Next issue: What is breast crawl?

HEALTH
 8 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020

QUICK SCAN

DYEING

ISSUE WOMEN WHO use permanent hair dyes and

chemical hair straighteners have an increased
risk of developing breast cancer, and the risk
increases with more frequent use.
For the study published in the International
Journal of Cancer, researchers analysed data
from 46,709 women, aged 35 to 74 years.
Among them, 55 per cent reported using

www.t.me/magzsenglish
permanent dyes in the year prior to enroll-
ing in the study. During a median follow-up
of eight years, 2,794 participants developed
breast cancer.
Women who regularly used permanent hair
dyes were 9 per cent more likely to develop
breast cancer than women who did not use
hair dyes. The study did not find an increased
risk of breast cancer with the use of semi-
permanent or temporary dyes.
Women who used chemical hair straighten-
ers had an 18 per cent higher risk of breast
cancer compared to those who did not use
these products.

HEALTH
 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 9

www.t.me/magzsenglish

HEALTH
 10 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020

QUICK SCAN

DID YOU
KNOW
Eating chilli peppers
at least four times a
week was associated
with a 23 per cent
lower risk of all-
cause mortality
and a 34 per cent
lower risk of dying
of cardiovascular
diseases compared
to never or rarely
eating them.
Journal of the American

BRUSH FOR HEART

College of Cardiology

www.t.me/magzsenglish
PEOPLE WHO brush their teeth regularly have a lower risk of
heart issues such as atrial fibrillation and heart failure, accord-
ing to a South Korean study published in the European Journal of
Preventive Cardiology.
The study included 1,61,286 participants, aged 40 to 79, with-
out a history of atrial fibrillation or heart failure. The participants
had a routine medical examination at the start of the study and
provided information about their lifestyle, oral health, and oral
hygiene habits.
During an average follow-up of 10.5 years, 4,911 participants
developed atrial fibrillation and 7,971 developed heart failure.
Those who brushed their teeth three or more times a day had
a 10 per cent lower risk of atrial fibrillation and a 12 per cent
lower risk of heart failure.
Getting regular professional dental cleanings was also linked
to a 7 per cent lower risk of heart failure. But missing 22 or more
teeth was linked to a 32 per cent higher risk of heart failure.
The reduced risk was independent of factors such as age, sex,
socioeconomic status, regular exercise, alcohol consumption,
body mass index, and hypertension.

HEALTH

FOR YOUR BABY’S SAFETY
INDUCING LABOUR at 41 weeks is associated with a
lower risk of new-born death compared with waiting until
42 weeks, according to a Swedish study published in The
BMJ.
Health risks to the mother and baby starts to increase
as the pregnancy continues beyond 40 weeks. About 14
per cent of stillbirths worldwide are associated with pro-
longed pregnancy. The researchers wanted to compare
the risks and health outcomes of induction after 41 weeks
with 42 gestational weeks.
For the study, 2,760 pregnant women—average age
31—with uncomplicated, low-risk single pregnancy were
randomly assigned to receive induction at either 41 full
weeks (1,381 women) or at 42 full weeks (1,379 women).
There was no significant difference between the two
groups in terms of most health measures including pneu-
monia, sepsis, low oxygen levels, breathing problems,
birth weight, convulsions and admission to an intensive
care unit for the baby and complications such as caesar-
ean delivery, vaginal birth with instruments, prolonged
www.t.me/magzsenglish
THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 11
labour, epidural anaesthesia, wound infec-
tion and haemorrhage for the mother.
However, a significant difference was found
when considering infant mortality. While
there were no deaths in the group that was
induced after 41 full gestational weeks, there
were five stillbirths and one neonatal death
among the women who waited until week 42.
HEALTHY WINDOW
EATING WITHIN a 10-hour window and fast-
ing for 14 hours can help people with meta-
bolic syndrome reduce weight, abdominal fat,
blood pressure and cholesterol.
Metabolic syndrome refers to a cluster of
conditions, such as obesity, excess abdomi-
nal fat, high blood pressure, high blood sugar
and abnormal cholesterol or triglycerides,
which can increase the risk of heart disease,
stroke and type 2 diabetes.
For the study published in Cell Metabolism,
19 participants diagnosed with metabolic
syndrome were asked to restrict their eating
to within a window of 10 hours or less a day
over a period of 12 weeks. The participants
logged when and what they ate on an app
created by the lab. Among them, 84 per cent
were on some type of medication for one or
more conditions, such as high cholesterol or
high blood pressure.
Even though the participants could eat
what they wanted, they consumed about 8.6
per cent fewer calories, probably due to the
limited eating window.
At the end of 12 weeks, the participants
lost weight, reduced abdominal fat, lowered
blood pressure and cholesterol and had more
stable blood sugar and insulin levels. They
also reported better sleep and more energy,
and many of the participants were able to
have their medications lowered or stopped.
HEALTH
 12 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020

QUICK SCAN

Heavy smoking can affect

facial attractiveness,
DID YOU increase wrinkling and
KNOW accelerate facial ageing.
PLOS Genetics

www.t.me/magzsenglish
NO ESCAPE FROM RISK
EVEN LIGHT to moderate alcohol
consumption can increase the risk
of cancer. For the study published in
the journal Cancer, researchers com-
pared clinical data on 63,232 cancer
patients with 63,232 matched controls.
The participants provided information
about their average daily consumption
of alcohol and the duration of drinking.
One standardised drink was consid-
ered equivalent to 500ml of beer, 180ml
of wine, or 60ml of whiskey.
The overall cancer risk was lowest at
zero alcohol consumption. There was
an almost linear association between
cancer risk and alcohol consumption.
Those who drank two or fewer drinks
per day had an elevated cancer risk
regardless of how long they had con-
sumed alcohol.
After controlling for smoking, hyper-
tension, diabetes, obesity and other fac-
tors, consuming one drink per day for
10 years or two drinks per day for five
years was associated with a five percent
increased risk of cancer.
The relative risk of having any cancer
increased by 54 per cent for those who
consumed two drinks a day for 40 years,
compared to teetotallers.

HEALTH

www.t.me/magzsenglish
DANGER OF SLEEPING TOO MUCH
SLEEPING NINE hours or more a night and tak-
ing long afternoon naps can increase your risk of
stroke, according to a Chinese study published
in the journal Neurology.
The researchers followed 31,750 healthy
people—average age 62—for six years. Among
them, 24 per cent reported sleeping for at least
nine hours each night and 8 per cent reported
taking naps for longer than 90 minutes.
During the follow up, 1,557 participants
reported suffering a stroke. Those who slept for
nine or more hours per night had a 23 per cent
greater risk of stroke than those who regularly
THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 13
slept seven to eight hours each night.
Taking afternoon naps for more than 90 minutes
a day was associated with a 25 per cent increased
risk of stroke compared with napping for 30 min-
utes or less.
People who slept more than nine hours and
napped more than 90 minutes per day had an 85
per cent higher risk of stroke.
People who reported poor sleep quality had a 29
per cent increased risk of stroke than those who
reported good sleep quality. Those who slept more
than nine hours per night and had poor sleep
quality had an 82 per cent increased risk of stroke.
HEALTH
 14 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020
QUICK SCAN
LOSE WEIGHT, PREVENT CANCER
BEING OVERWEIGHT or obese is a known
risk factor for breast cancer. According to the
American Cancer Society, postmenopausal
women who are overweight or obese have up
to two times higher risk of breast cancer.
A new study published in the Journal of the
National Cancer Institute suggests that losing
weight can reduce a woman’s risk of develop-
ing breast cancer. The more weight a woman
loses, the lower her risk of breast cancer.
www.t.me/magzsenglish
HEALTH
To find out if losing weight in middle or
later adulthood can reduce breast cancer risk,
the researchers analysed data from 1,80,885
women aged 50 and older, who were cancer-
free at the start of the study.
Their weight was assessed three times over
a decade; 6,930 women developed breast can-
cer during follow-up.
Women with sustained weight loss had
a lower risk of breast cancer. Compared to

women whose weight remained
stable, those who lost 2kg to 4.5kg
had an 18 per cent lower risk of
breast cancer. The risk was 25 per
cent lower for women who lost
4.5kg to 9kg, and 32 per cent lower
for women who lost 9kg or more.
Even women who lost 9kg or
more, but gained some of it back,
had a lower risk of breast cancer
compared with those whose weight
remained stable.
www.t.me/magzsenglish
THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 15
BIRTH SEASON AND
HEART HEALTH
ACCORDING TO A study published in the BMJ, women
born during spring and summer months, especially
March-July, are more likely to die from cardiovascular
diseases.
The study included 1,16, 911 women aged 30 to 55.
During 38 years of follow-up, 43,248 participants died;
8,360 deaths were from cardiovascular causes.
While no significant association was seen between
birth month, birth season, and overall mortality, women
born in the spring and summer were more likely to die
of heart disease than those born in autumn and winter.
People born in April had the highest cardiovascular
mortality, while those born in December had the lowest.
Those born in December had an 18 per cent lower risk
of cardiovascular disease mortality compared to those
born in April.
While the exact reason for these differences are not
clear, the researchers think seasonal fluctuations in diet,
air pollution levels, and availability of sunlight before birth
and in early life could be contributing factors.
DID YOU
KNOW
Grandparents who care
for grandchildren scored
lower on loneliness and
social isolation, and had
a larger social network
than those who did not
care for grandchildren.
BMJ Open
HEALTH
 16 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020

QUICK SCAN

PRESCRIBED LESS, MORE EFFECTIVE

ANTI-HYPERTENSIVE drugs inhibitors, the most widely prescribed first-

www.t.me/magzsenglish
line blood pressure medication, is less effective and has more side effects
than thiazide diuretics, another class of medication that is prescribed less
often.
As per the American College of Cardiology and American Heart
Association guidelines, patients with high blood pressure can be started on
any drug from five different classes of medications: ACE inhibitors; thiazide
diuretics; angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs); dihydropyridine calcium
channel blockers and non-dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers.
To find out the safety and effectives of these medications, the researchers
tracked data on nearly five million patients from four countries—Germany,
Japan, South Korea and the United States.
All the patients had been started on treatment for high blood pressure
with a single drug: 48 per cent of the patients were started on an ACE inhibi-
tor compared with 17 per cent of patients who were first prescribed thiazide
diuretics.
Compared to those who had been prescribed ACE inhibitors, patients
who were started on thiazide diuretics had 15 per cent fewer heart attacks,
strokes and hospitalisations for heart failure, as well as fewer side effects.
According to the researchers, about 3,100 major cardiovascular events
among the patients who first took ACE inhibitors could have been prevented
if they had been started on thiazide diuretics.
Non-dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers were also less effective
than all the other four first-line classes of blood pressure drugs.

CONTRIBUTOR: SHYLA JOVITHA ABRAHAM

HEALTH

MUSICIANS, BEWARE OF TINNITUS
MUSICIANS ARE constantly exposed to loud noise
which puts them at a higher risk of developing tin-
nitus.
People with tinnitus hear ringing, buzzing, hiss-
ing or whistling sounds when there are no external
sounds.
For the study published in the journal Trends in
Hearing, researchers used data from 23,000 people
to compare tinnitus rates and hearing problems in
people working in noisy jobs such as construction,
agriculture and music to people working in quiet
jobs such as finance.
People working in all genres of music industry
www.t.me/magzsenglish
THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 17
(even classical music), including musicians, music
directors and production staff, are nearly twice as
likely to develop tinnitus as those working in quieter
industries.
The length of safe noise exposure is reduced by
half for every three decibels increase in noise inten-
sity—that would be four hours of daily exposure for
88 decibels of noise, two hours for 91 decibels, and
so forth.
“Most amplified concerts exceed 100 decibels,
meaning that musicians should not be exposed to
that level of noise for more than 15 minutes without
proper hearing protection,” said the study author.
HEALTH
 18 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020
RARE DISEASE
Connect,
disconnect
Ehlers-Danlos syndrome weakens the connective
tissues, making the joints loose and the skin stretchy
and vulnerable to bruises. Though incurable, its
symptoms can be treated and managed
BY POOJA BIRAIA JAISWAL
O
n November 1,
www.t.me/magzsenglish
2019, Lena Dun-
ham, American
actor, writer and
producer whose hit show Girls
won her a legion of fans, took
to Instagram to announce that
she had Ehlers-Danlos syn-
drome (EDS)—a group of dis-
orders affecting the joints and
skin. “I could lie and say it was
an early Halloween look….
But the truth is just: this is
what life is like when I am
struggling most with a chronic
illness. An Ehlers-Danlos syn-
drome flare means that I need
support from more than just
my friends… so thank you,
sweet cane,” she posted in re-
sponse to a paparazzi photo
that captured her walking with
a cane. Before Dunham, two
more public figures had shared
on social media about living
HEALTH
with EDS. In October 2019,
Australian singer-songwriter
Sia Furler, who often wears a
dramatic wig to obscure her
face and protect her privacy,
tweeted, “I am suffering with
chronic pain, a neurological
disease, Ehlers Danlos and I
just wanted to say to those
of you suffering from pain,
whether physical or emotional,
I love you, keep going. Life is
f**king hard. Pain is demoral-
izing, and you're not alone.”
In June 2019, The Good Place
actor and body positivity cam-
paigner Jameela Jamil posted
on Instagram about her expe-
rience with EDS. “Every time I
cut, I scar,” she wrote.
EDS weakens the connective
tissues of the body, making the
joints loose and the skin thin,
stretchy and vulnerable to
bruises. Depending on the level
of severity, it can also weaken
blood vessels and organs. Al-
though there is no cure for it
as yet, experts believe that the
symptoms can often be treated
and managed well.
“This is an inherited connec-
tive tissue disorder, which is
either passed on from genera-
tion to generation or caused by
the abnormal mutation of a
gene,” says Dr Paresh Pai, vas-
cular surgeon, Bhatia Hospital,
Mumbai. “Connective tissue
is found everywhere in the
body, including in the nervous
system as it is the one which
connects every other tissue and
organ of the body.” The most
common form of connective
tissue, he says, is collagen and
any weakness in the collagen
results in hypermobile (ex-
tremely flexible) joints, which
means there is a high tendency

of damage to joints. “This can
www.t.me/magzsenglish
happen in any organ of the
body,” says Pai. “Take, for ex-
ample, the heart. When there
is no support of the connective
tissue, there is a tendency of the
artery to damage and rupture.
Likewise the uterus, too, can
rupture towards the third tri-
mester as the baby grows and
the skin stretches.” To further
explain it, he cites the example
of his 18-year-old patient. “He
was playing volleyball and
that was enough to cause the
rupture of his brachial artery,
which is the major blood ves-
sel of the upper arm,” says Pai.
“He was immediately hospital-
ised for the reparation of the
artery. The patient will always
be prone to it. It can recur.
These patients must be extra
careful to keep themselves safe
at all times.”
According to the National
Organization for Rare Disor-
ders, which further classifies
the disease into thirteen sub-di-
visions, symptoms of EDS may
become apparent in childhood.
However, depending upon the
form and severity, the age of di-
agnosis varies widely. Report-
ed estimates of the incidence of
all EDS types range from 1 per
2,500 to 1 per 5,000 births.
Mumbai resident Radhika
Sharma, a mother of two chil-
dren aged 10 and 15, has been
living with EDS for five years
now. Every morning, she must
take her daily dose of Pantacid
40 to beat acidity or she feels
“dizzy, nauseous and giddy”.
THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 19
WALKING THE TALK
Actor Lena Dunham shared
the below photograph on
Instagram to announce that
she had EDS
In addition, she experiences
extreme hair fall, dry eyes and
a dry mouth. Her knees give
her trouble, hips ache every
now and then, and she suffers
from vertigo, severe constipa-
tion and intestinal issues. “EDS
symptoms in my case are more
internal than external,” she
says. “I do not look like a pa-
tient. In fact, until my second
delivery, I had no medical is-
sues at all. And then they all
came together.” Sharma used
to be an active girl in school
and college. “I did have loose
joints and I did dislocate my
right hand a few times while
playing, but it did not seem to
be a cause for concern at the
HEALTH
 20 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020
RARE DISEASE
time,” says the homemaker
who got married at 25 and de-
www.t.me/magzsenglish
livered her second child at 31.
She suffers from severely low
blood pressure (her normal
range is 70/95, far lower than
the normal level—90/120).
Sharma is now on medication
(Gabapentin 400) for tackling
the incessant twitching on the
left side of her face. It works as
a muscle relaxer. “My neurolo-
gist told me that this is com-
mon among those suffering
from EDS as our nervous sys-
tem is weak,” she says.
Sharma suffers from EDS
Type 3 or Hypermobile EDS,
which means that in a yoga
class she would stand out for
above par flexibility. But it also
means that she is prone to joint
pains, dislocations and sprains.
She doesn't have stretchy skin,
but her skin itches very badly
when, for instance, she is car-
HEALTH
EASY STRETCH
Hypermobile (extremely flexible)
joints are a symptom of EDS
rying a plastic bag. Giving up
on wheat, dairy and sugar on
her doctor's advice has helped
her immensely. “My intestinal
and bowel issues came down
considerably,” says Sharma.
“Life is not easy when one has
to contend with so many re-
strictions and be cautious at all
times. But since there is no real
cure for it, managing it is the
only way to go.”
While EDS affected Sharma
internally, in Jamil’s case she
has “such severe eczema all
over that my legs are covered
in huge patches of pigment loss
from scratching. I have a ton of
stretch marks.”
For Bengaluru-based Shan-
ti Satish, it is a joy to see her
13-year-old daughter Malvika
walk the short distance from
her school gate to her class in
the company of her friends, like
any other child her age. There
was a time when she needed
to be escorted at all times and
Satish would always be by her
side ensuring that she was safe
and comfortable. “She suffered
from acute back pain, her es-
sential vitamin levels were re-
ally low, and her playtime was
reduced considerably given
that even a little twist here and
there would end up as a frac-
ture. Till date, she has had four-
teen fractures,” says Satish. The
family got to know about EDS
when Malvika was all of four.
“We have come a long way
now,” says Satish, who quit her
flourishing corporate career to
take care of her daughter and
now runs an NGO advocating
schools to be sensitive towards
differently abled children.
“Malvika is now quite under-
standing and also knows how
to take care of herself. She is
a bright and cheerful student
and an inspiration to many.
Yet, every single day I have this
anxiety that something might
just happen to her.” Malvika is
now working on a book about
her experiences with EDS.
Dr Chethana Dharmap-
alaiah, consultant, rheuma-
tology, Aster CMI hospital,
Bengaluru, says that the treat-
ment for EDS is essentially sup-
portive in nature. “It is mainly
physiotherapy to strengthen
their joints and muscles so that
the tendons become stronger,
and frequent dislocations are
prevented. Also, occupation-
al therapists offer braces to
support the joints. But these
patients show a lot of inner
strength and positivity and,
in the end, faith helps them to
overcome the pain.”
As Dunham, who dons her
glamour nighty one moment
for a visit to the doctor and
then an hour later is back in
“a meeting look”, puts it, “For
years, I resisted doing anything
that would make my physi-
cal situation easier. But it is so
much less weird to actually be
able to participate than to stay
in bed all day. We still rock our
dreams and goals and passions
(and fashions) and we live
many lives in one day.” ◆
 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 21

BOOK REVIEW

Dimensions of dedication
BY NIRMAL JOVIAL

F or most people, God is iner-

rant and infallible. Once,
doctors were also considered
akin to God, and that provided
them protection. Times have
changed. On one side, the bag-
gage of “divinity” on doctors
has reduced. But on the other,
doctors are now routinely fac-
ing assault and hospitals are
getting vandalised.
Dear People, with Love and
Care, Your Doctors, edited by Dr
Debraj Shome and Dr Aparna
Govil Bhasker, is a genuine
attempt to tell the strain and
strength in doctor-patient
relationship, from the perspec-
Dear People, with Love and
Care, Your Doctors
Edited by: Debraj Shome &
Aparna Govil Bhasker
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Price: 0499
Pages: 294
Medical Association suggests
that around 75 per cent of doc-
tors in India have faced some
form of violence. The book gives
special attention to the issue. It
rible mistake that worsened the makes an interesting observa-
condition of a patient. For that, tion that in an event of a discord
he was publicly berated by his between doctors and patients,

www.t.me/magzsenglish
tive of doctors. Through its
34 articles, the book reminds
readers that “doctors are also
humans”. With simple lan-
guage, Dear People... covers
various facets of a doctor's
life—both professional and per-
sonal. Each article is rich with
emotive anecdotes.
The book does not shy
away from the dark secrets of
the Indian medical field. For
instance, in the article The
Night I Nearly Killed My Patient,
Dr Aniruddha Malpani—an
IVF specialist and founder of
HELP, the world's largest free
patient eduction library—points
out that most medical colleges
in India are run by inexperi-
enced and unsupervised junior
residents. Malpani describes
an incident where he, as a
junior resident, made a ter-
senior surgeon and professors,
and was treated like pariah as
that event could have affected
the hospital's reputation. Long
working hours, taxing medi-
cal training and the pressure
of saving lives are pushing
many junior doctors to the
brink. According to a study pub-
lished in the Indian Journal of
Psychiatry, 30 per cent of Indian
resident doctors suffer from
depression and 17 per cent have
contemplated suicide.
There are observations that
most doctors often suffer from
“God complex”, and so making
an error is extremely shameful
for them. The book suggests
that medical errors will continue
if doctors do not come forward,
talk about their errors and learn
from them.
A 2015 survey by the Indian
the root cause will be money,
most of the time.
The book features futuris-
tic fiction, too. Written by Dr
Marcus Ranney, Health Story
2033 imagines the nuances of
doctor-patient relationship in a
technologically advanced world.
Another interesting article that
explores the interpersonal rela-
tions of doctors is The Mr behind
the Ms by C.B. Bhasker. A man-
agement consultant, Bhasker
talks about what it means to
have a doctor as one's life part-
ner. With a pinch of humour,
Bhasker writes how his percep-
tion of doctors has changed, and
also how he improved his medi-
cal vocabulary over the years.
Overall, Dear People... is a com-
prehensive book which offers
relatable anecdotes to doctors
and new insights to laymen. ◆

HEALTH
 22 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020

COVER STORY

www.t.me/magzsenglish

ILLUSTRATION: BINESH SREEDHARAN

HEALTH

THAT
GUT
FEELING
World over, researchers have been studying the bacteria that
reside in our gut, trying to spot the friendly ones to fight
ailments. Closer home, more and more research is taking
place to decode the Indian gut microbiome
BY NAMITA KOHLI
t worked like a vaccine of sorts—a sug-
ary solution with a probiotic bacterial
strain for newborn babies to prevent
www.t.me/magzsenglish
sepsis. This was in Odisha, back in 2008.
US-based paediatrician Dr Pinaki Pani-
grahi, who had already been working
on sepsis and necrotising enterocolitis
(inflammation of small intestine and colon)
in neonates for two decades by then, knew
enough about good bacteria in the gut and
their therapeutic properties.
Now, Panigrahi and his team had their task
cut out—finding good bacteria for the transfer
of the good stuff. After collecting and evaluat-
ing several hundred samples of potentially
beneficial bacterial strains, both off the market
and from babies, the healing bugs were found
in the unlikeliest of places— in the babies’ dirty
diapers. The bacterial strains were then isolat-
ed from the stool, mixed with non-absorbable
sugar to enhance efficacy and fed to the babies
along with breast milk. The solution worked
like a charm—besides preventing sepsis, the
babies also reported a drop in several other in-
fections, including respiratory tract infections.
For decades, bacteria have been shunned,
feared and abhorred for causing everything
from tooth decay to epidemics that have wiped
out entire generations and, at times, altered the
THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 23
course of history. World over though, scientists
such as Panigrahi have found redemption for
certain species of bacteria by reporting the
crucial role they play inside our bodies in their
clinical trials. Research has shown that friendly
bacteria that colonise our gut interact with our
gut immune mucosa, thereby playing a huge
role in making us fat or thin, happy or sad,
diseased or healthy.
Microbes, we now know, are all over us.
Even breast milk, says Panigrahi, once thought
to be a sterile medium, has bacteria. Together,
these microbes such as bacteria, fungi, viruses
outnumber human cells—the human body is
made up of 10 trillion cells and 100 trillion mi-
crobes. A majority of the microbial population
(about 90 per cent, say experts) though resides
in our gut; up to 2kg of our body weight is
composed of the gut microbial population that
holds the key to human immunity.
These microbes, primarily bacteria, break
down the food we eat, release the by-products
into our system, produce vitamins, and set-off
complex processes in our body that help us
stay healthy, or make us diseased. They can
also explain why certain drugs such as antibi-
otics will not work on us. Experts are trying to
understand how these processes can be aided,
abetted, or turned around in a bid to find cures
HEALTH
 24 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020

COVER STORY
and prevent several diseases including depres-
sion, Parkinson’s, autism, diabetes and obesity.
In India, too, similar efforts are underway, be-
ginning with studying the inhabitants of Indian
gut universe—possibly the most diverse in the
world. Dr Bhabatosh Das, a microbiologist with
Translational Health Science and Technology
Institute, Faridabad, has some crucial insights
into the Indian gut. Das, 41, is the lead author of
a first-of-its-kind study on the Indian gut micro-
biome, which looked at the gut flora of healthy
adults in rural and urban settings. Das, who
returned from France—where he had worked on
the subject of gut microbiome—in 2012, figured
that not much had been done on the gut of
Indian people and decided to take it up.
After smaller studies on the gut flora of under-
nourished children, Das and his team started
work on the big one—their study was big both
in terms of the range of samples and the tech-
nique used for studying the bacterial genomes—
that was published last year. The researchers
collected and analysed samples (faecal matter,
richest source of gut bacteria) from three distinct

www.t.me/magzsenglish
sites—Leh in Ladakh, and urban and rural
people in Ballabhgarh in Haryana.
The results were striking. “We found that the
Indian gut flora is more diverse than, say, that
of the Americans or even the Europeans. Indian
gut has close to 500 species of bacteria, while the
Americans have about 400 species,” says Das.
Overall, the study showed the diverse species
of bacteria that populate the gut of Indians,
reflected the diverse dietary habits, and provided
some clues for developing potential cures for a
few diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome
through faecal transplants or specific probiotics.
It also reinforced the fact that urban lifestyles
were upsetting the crucial and delicate balance
of healthy bacteria and microbes in the gut. The
urban gut flora samples were less diverse in their
bacterial population than the rural ones.
“We also found that the gut flora of vegetar-
ians was more diverse when compared to that
of the meat-eating populations,” says Das. In
their study, researchers found that dietary habits
directly affected the composition of the gut
bacteria, from cooking oil to sweet tea, to dairy
and meat, the bacterial population changed
with specific habits. For instance, the bacteria
Collinsella was found to be higher in those who
consumed ghee, Sporobacter in those that used
mustard oil, and Roseburia in those that used
sunflower oil.
The study also showed that the Indian gut
flora is dominated by Firmicutes, the class of
bacteria that ferments carbohydrates and helps
extract energy from food to be used by the body
or stored in fat cells. “This is higher than in
developed countries, primarily because Indians
eat a high-fibre diet,” he says.
A healthy gut would have bacteria from four
phyla—Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacte-
ria and Proteobacteria, explains Das. You would
think then that Firmicutes or specific bacterial
species such as Collinsella or Prevotella are our
friends. The more the better, right? Wrong. Fir-
micutes have been found in a higher proportion
in the gut of obese persons. “In those suffering
from undernourishment, Firmicutes are too
less,” he says.
Prevotella, which is found to be in a relatively

HEALTH

A MAJORITY OF THE
MICROBIAL POPULATION
RESIDES IN OUR GUT; UP
TO 2KG OF OUR BODY
WEIGHT IS COMPOSED
OF THE GUT MICRO-
BIAL POPULATION THAT
HOLDS THE KEY TO OUR
IMMUNITY.
higher degree in the Indian gut because of our
high-fibre diet, has also been observed in a high-
er degree in the gut of diabetics, especially those
www.t.me/magzsenglish
with type 1 diabetes, says Dr Yogesh Shouche,
director, National Centre for Cell Science, Pune.
The exact mechanism at work between the two
though is still being studied, he says.
Instead of individual bacteria, it is the “optimal
balance” of bacteria that defines a healthy gut,
Das explains, lending credence to the grand-
mother’s advice of eating a diverse diet, based on
season, location and even the time of the day.
The relationship between diet and gut mi-
crobiome though is complicated. “There are
studies that have shown that animal-based and
plant-based diet promote different microbiomes.
However, in India, if we go by the frequency
of meat consumption, even the so-called non
vegetarians could be defined as vegetarians. It
is only specific communities that consume meat
on a regular basis,” says Shouche. Genetics,
environment and geography also play key roles
in shaping the gut environment.
Shouche’s own study points to how the gut
flora can be affected even by the way we are
born—a vaginal birth shows less diversity of mi-
crobial species in the infant’s gut, as compared
to those born via a C-section.
The link between gut bacteria and diseases of
THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 25
the brain such as Parkinson’s, depression, autism
and dementia is also being studied. Earlier this
year, The New York Times reported on research
being do in the University of Chicago on how gut
microbes were perhaps releasing a chemical that
might be altering how immune cells work in the
brain.
In November 2019, China gave conditional ap-
proval to a drug for Alzheimer’s, which contains
a compound known as oligomannate that is
derived from marine brown algae. The compound
works by “rebalancing” microbes in the gut,
including bacteria and viruses. Closer home, Dr
Baby Chakrapani P.S. of the Cochin University
of Science and Technology is preparing to start
work on his latest research project—studying the
link between the bacteria in the Indian gut and
Parkinson’s disease.
The central question Chakrapani will be investi-
gating is this: if the gut is like the “second brain”
with all its neural connections, then wouldn’t a
change in gut flora help prevent or at least detect
brain diseases at an early stage for Indians? “There
are 100 billion neurons in the gut. Not so much
in the stomach, but in the large intestine where
major exchanges take place,” says Chakrapani,
who got interested in the project while observing
a similar project being done at the University of
Chicago. Chakrapani, along with Dr Shyam K.
Nair, additional professor, neurology, Sree Chitra
Tirunal Institute of Medical Sciences and Tech-
nology (SCTIMST), Thiruvananthapuram, has
received a 01 crore grant from the Indian Council
of Medical Research. The duo will investigate
this question by taking several samples—faeces,
blood, saliva and urine—from patients who will
be recruited from the SCTIMST. “What we are
assuming is that there are two to three pathways
through which the transfer of metabolites from
the gut to the brain can happen. Of these, the
vagus nerve, the direct connection between the gut
and the brain is one,” he says.
The vagus nerve is the longest and most complex
of the 12 pairs of cranial nerves that emanate
from the brain. It transmits information to or
from the brain's surface to tissues and organs else-
where in the body. The vagus nerve sends infor-
mation from the gut to the brain, which is linked
to dealing with stress, anxiety, and fear—hence the
phrase 'gut feeling'. These signals help a person to
HEALTH
 26 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020
COVER STORY
WE FOUND THAT THE GUT
FLORA OF VEGETARIANS
WAS MORE DIVERSE WHEN
COMPARED TO THAT OF
THE MEAT-EATING
POPULATIONS.
Dr Bhabatosh Das, microbiologist
with Translational Health Science and
Technology Institute, Faridabad
www.t.me/magzsenglish
recover from stressful and scary situations.
“The transfer could also be happening
through body fluids. The exact mechanism of
how certain protein aggregates (found in the
gut of those with Parkinson’s) reach the brain
is what we will be trying to understand over
the next few years,” says Chakrapani.
Shouche, who is awaiting a nod from the
Department of Biotechnology for an ap-
proximately 040 crore project on studying
the Indian gut microbiome of 3,500 persons
over two years, says as of now there is no
comprehensive study to map the microbiome
of different populations across the country.
Studying the Indian gut itself is no mean task.
“The most important challenge is diversity,”
he says. “There is tremendous variation in
genetic makeup, diet and geography. That
makes it difficult to have a good representa-
tive sample to generate any meaningful data.”
The challenge, however, is a blessing in
disguise, too, says Panigrahi, professor, depart-
ment of paediatrics, division of neonatal-peri-
natal medicine and director, International Mi-
HEALTH
crobiome Research, Georgetown University
Medical Center. “India, as one sub-continent,
has 36 good-sized countries. Each one is dif-
ferent in its food habit, exposures, and from a
socio-behavioural and environmental aspect
as well. So, one could consider India to be a
global platform to identify different types of
microbiota, how they develop, and what they
do,” says Panigrahi, who is credited with the
ground-breaking study, published in Nature in
2017, on preventing sepsis through a synbiotic
solution in 4,500 neonates in Odisha.
Other challenges for studying the Indian gut
microbiome are the key issues of technique
and funding. It is only in the last five years or
so that advances in genome sequencing tech-
niques have made it cheaper to study the gut
microbiota. Das says one of the first studies he
did on the Indian gut microbiome with merely
20 subjects cost 01 crore. “Now a similar
study with a bigger sample size can be done in
only 010 lakh,” he says.
The technique of sequencing genomes of
bacteria has itself been crucial to the study
www.t.me/magzsenglish
 28 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020
COVER STORY
IT IS THE “OPTIMAL
BALANCE” OF BACTERIA
THAT DEFINES A HEALTHY
GUT, LENDING CREDENCE
TO THE GRANDMOTHER’S
ADVICE OF EATING A of gut
DIVERSE DIET. microbiome
www.t.me/magzsenglish
around the
world. Dr G.
Balakrish Nair, who
was earlier with the
Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology,
Thiruvananthapuram, says that classical
microbiology and its practitioners went only
by lab cultures. “Microbiologists believed that
what could be seen in a petri dish, cultured in
a laboratory, was the only thing that could be
studied,” he says.
Gut microbes, however, could not be cultured
in a laboratory, and therefore were difficult to
identify and study. Genome sequencing tech-
niques offered a way out by enabling the micro-
biologists to study the entire genome structures
of microbes. “That came as a huge shift in the
way microbiologists worked, and the technique
has brought nothing short of a renaissance in
the way things were studied,” says Nair.
Elaborate studies on the Indian gut micro-
biome hold tremendous value. For instance,
Das’s study has revealed that those from Leh
could potentially be ideal donors for faecal
transplants, owing to the balance of microbes
in their gut. “In faecal transplants, you can-
HEALTH
not isolate specific bacteria and so the entire
microbiome of the donor is passed on to the
recipient. Those in Leh did not have a high
population of proteobacteria, which are
known to have inflammatory properties, in
their gut, and so they could prove to be ideal
donors,” says Das.
More work on Indian gut microbiome
would also lead to manufacture of probiot-
ics with India-specific strains. “We are now
working on genetically modifying the bacteria
isolated from the Indian samples from our
study, and analysing whether they can be used
for therapeutic purposes,” says Das.
The more we know about specific strains of
bacteria in our gut, the better probiotics—a
controversial subject—can be developed. “As
of now, there are no probiotics with India-spe-
cific strains available in the market. The ones
that are available are from the populations
of developed countries, and will not work for
us,” says Shouche.
Studying the gut microbiome has never been
an urgent and more pertinent exercise to be
undertaken by researchers, say experts. “It
is the science of the future,” says Nair. “And
India, with its diverse gut flora, ought not to
be left behind.” ●
 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 29

Journalist and researcher Kale Brock goes on a quest to

discover whether the “optimal microbiome” exists. He
travels from Australia to Namibia to live with The San, an
THE GUT ancient hunter-gatherer people. Brock monitors his own
MOVIE (2018) microbiome and how it changes in the new surroundings,
and takes microbiome samples of The San to gauge the
DURATION: differences in microbiota present across cultures. It also
55 MINUTES has commentary by experts such as gastroenterologist
Thomas Borody, molecular geneticist Margie Smith and
immunology researcher Mimi Tang.

WATCH
AND
LEARN
Check out these
documentaries on

www.t.me/magzsenglish gut health

THE GUT: OUR GUT REACTION

SECOND BRAIN (2014)
(2013) DURATION
DURATION: (TWO PARTS):
55 MINUTES 28:09 AND
28:39 MINUTES

A look at the gut's intelligence—a new avenue of
research that is fascinating scientists the world
over—through major discoveries that completely
changed our approach to an organ that was previously
considered dull and passive. How our gut functions
independently and does much more than digestion. The
bacteria that even impacts our personalities and how
some brain diseases, like Parkinson's, can stem from
the degeneration of neurons in the intestine. How we
can treat stomach pain with hypnosis—curing our
stomachs by “talking to them”.
Nature ensures the presence of beneficial
bacteria in us right from birth. That is during
vaginal childbirth; it is now believed that caesare-
ans result in the child not getting the necessary
bacteria from its mother. Researchers say this has
increased incidents of asthma, allergies and other
chronic conditions. Could our gut flora be used to
determine the chance of an illness? Gut Reaction
looks at this exciting area of research. It says the
key to disease prevention may lie in how we
nourish our gut bacteria.

HEALTH
 30 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020

COVER STORY

Poo power
Poop transplants are helping patients
with gut disorders lead a better life

BY NAMITA KOHLI

oop is the future. It may arouse disgust,

P but poop transplants are being consid-

ered a curative wonder, beginning with
ulcerative colitis, for which the treatment has
shown positive results.
“We have it in plenty. Indians are the second
highest poopers in the world, producing about
400g per person per day,” says Dr Avnish Seth,
director, gastroenterology and hepatobiliary
sciences, Fortis Healthcare, who says he per-

www.t.me/magzsenglish
formed the first stool transplant for ulcerative
colitis in India in 2014. Since then, Seth says
he has done the procedure with 50 other
patients, and is conducting a clinical trial for
stool transplant with patients with irritable
bowel syndrome.
The procedure itself is not too complicated,
and involves transferring the stool—the rich-
est source of gut microbiome—from a healthy
person to the colon of a patient to restructure
the gut environment. Stool samples are taken
from a donor with a healthy gut environ-
ment, which houses a rich, diverse microbial
composition.
The stool is then churned in the mixer with
saline water, run through a soup strainer and
transferred to the diseased patient through
a colonoscopy. “The best part is that except
the colonoscopy, the rest of the stuff can be
done at home,” says Seth, admitting that the
“yuck” factor might be a put-off for the pa-
tients initially. “But once they understand the
procedure and experience the benefits, it can
be life-altering for some of them.”
Agrees Manas Shukla, 50, the first patient
to get the treatment. “The ulcers in my colon
meant that I would bleed each time I went to
relieve myself, which was so often. The bleed-
ing would happen otherwise as well. I was
fatigued, could not travel for work, and had
lost a lot of weight, too,” recalls Shukla.
The Delhi-based businessman concedes
that preparing the solution for transplant can
be a challenge, but nothing that “cannot be
overcome”. “The maximum time that the so-
lution can stay is six hours, within which the
solution has to be transferred to the patient
through a colonoscopy,” he says.
The real challenge though is finding a
healthy donor, and then matching the micro-
bial requirements of the donor and the recipi-
ent—the microbial composition has to fit like
a jigsaw puzzle. “For one, we need to carefully
evaluate that the bacteria that are causing the
ailment in a patient are not in excess in the
[microbiome] of the donor,” says Dr Sharat
Varma, senior consultant, paediatric hepatol-
ogy, liver transplant and gastroenterology,
Max Super Specialty Hospital, Saket.
In 2018, Varma conducted a first of its kind

HEALTH

THE REAL CHALLENGE
THOUGH IS FINDING A
HEALTHY DONOR, AND
THEN MATCHING THE
MICROBIAL
REQUIREMENTS OF
THE DONOR.
www.t.me/magzsenglish
stool transplant in
Asia for a six-year-old
boy from Odisha who had a gut disorder
(short bowel with recurrent D-lactic acidosis).
The disorder was caused because of an excess
of the bacteria Lactobacillus, which was
producing a toxin that made the boy sick. He
had frequent stools, hampered growth, would
slip into a “coma like situation” and was
extremely dependant on antibiotics to control
the bacterial proliferation.
“In his case, we considered his parents for
donating stool. Before a donor is selected, we
have to evaluate their gut microbiome. In this
case, we had to be careful that the Lactobacilli
population was not too high [in the donor's
microbiome] or it would have defeated the
purpose of the transplant,” he says. Overall,
doctors will evaluate the entire microbial
composition so that the delicate balance of
microorganisms in the gut is restored, and
no disease-causing bacteria are transferred.
A “star donor”, says Seth, will have all these
qualities.
THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 31
NOVEL TREATMENT
Dr Avnish Seth says
he performed the
first stool transplant
for ulcerative colitis
in India in 2014 on
Manas Shukla (with
spectacles). His
brother-in-law (far
left) is the donor
The transplant may be simple and inex-
pensive, but the “match-making” is an
expensive exercise, says Varma, with each
genome sequencing test for gut microbi-
ome costing 015,000 to 025,000. Besides,
as Seth points out, at times, not one donor
is good enough—a mix of two or three
donors may also be required to build the
right, effective solution.
And then, there is the efficacy of the proce-
dure. Seth says in his trials, about 60 per cent
patients have seen positive results, with no
side-effects. Good bacteria, of course, do not
last forever and the transplant procedure has to
be repeated, too. “Besides the transplant, they
have to have their medications as well. But, in
the case of ulcerative colitis, for instance, they
can be taken off the heavier medication such as
steroids, which have a lot of side-effects,” says
Seth.
Shukla, however, is only on one anti-inflam-
matory drug; he needs to undergo a transplant
every six months. “From having heavy steroids
and having tried every kind of treatment, to
now just one drug, things have improved dras-
tically for me. I have been lucky,” he says.
Shukla has been lucky on another count,
too. Having an extremely cooperative donor
in his brother-in-law. “For the last two years,
he has been living in New Zealand. Every six
months, he comes down for the donation. And
now, I prepare the solution myself. It just takes
half an hour,” he says. “There is no need to get
disgusted. You don’t have to have it orally; it is
put in your colon.” ●
HEALTH
 32 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020
COVER STORY
INTERVIEW/Dr Pinaki Panigrahi, professor, department of paediat-
rics, division of neonatal-perinatal medicine, and director, International
Microbiome Research, Georgetown University Medical Center
Next frontier is to
identify and use good
bacteria to treat
specific diseases
BY NAMITA KOHLI
How did you hit upon the idea of using the
synbiotic solution to prevent sepsis in neo-
nates?
I have been working on neonatal sepsis and
www.t.me/magzsenglish
necrotising enterocolitis for more than two de-
cades in the US. One thing we saw very early on
was that diversity and Gram-positive bacteria
(like probiotics) could be protective. One re-
search led to another, including our large-scale
surveillance of infection in India, and we gath-
ered enough scientific evidence that friendly
bacteria may be used in prevention of sepsis.
Since some of our previous studies in India
had shown very poor colonisation of probiotic
strains in neonates, we added the prebiotics (in
combination called synbiotics) to help promote
the growth of the administered probiotics; and
it worked.
What was the most remarkable result of your
study? Was it the reduction in the rate of lower
respiratory tract infection? How would this
synbiotic benefit them in adulthood?
Reduction in respiratory tract infections was
definitely unexpected. But, the overall reduction
of all infection-related morbidity was remark-
able. The synbiotic that helped babies in their
first two months of their life may not continue
to help them in adulthood (unless there is some
epigenetic changes). But, scientists have already
HEALTH
started working on discerning the mechanism
of such impacts. I am confident new research
in children, adults and the elderly will identify
new probiotic strains of value in respiratory
and other diseases.
What was the biggest challenge in this study?
To do a US National Institutes of Health/Food
and Drug Administration quality study in
India, and that too in the community setting
where most babies die. That is why it took us
10 years and close to $7 million of competitive
NIH funding to come to the finish line. A lot of
energy and time were spent to conduct surveil-
lance of infection (to find out the type and
timing of infection), preliminary hospital-based
studies, and to prepare the field sites, labs and
hospitals and train more than a dozen clinicians
and researchers from India.
In your work, you say that synbiotics could be
used as a cheap and highly effective solution
in developing countries to prevent sepsis. How
has this idea been received by said countries,
particularly by India?
Yes, the cost of probiotics is minuscule com-
pared to antibiotics. Several country leaderships
are talking to me on this. I have been invited
to speak on this in some developing countries
where the need is acute. In 2018, I gave a

www.t.me/magzsenglish
plenary talk on this at the 36th annual meet-
ing of European Society for Paediatric Infec-
tious Diseases as a '21st Century Milestone in
Infectious Diseases'. I have also spoken at the
US NIH/FDA and other meetings in the west.
From a public health perspective, such preven-
tative therapies could revolutionise how infant
infections are handled in developing countries,
because that is where 95 per cent of the deaths
due to such infections take place.
(Although some use probiotics in a solution
form in the west, mostly it is used as powder.
Otherwise, it is very difficult to keep the bacte-
ria alive. We also used powder reconstituted in
a couple of millilitres of dextrose-saline solu-
tion when fed.)
Gut flora of Indians is under-explored. How do
you see this changing? Are you planning to col-
laborate with any research group in India?
In general, a lot needs to be done in the field of
medical research in India, not just gut micro-
THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 33
GROUND REPORT:
Panigrahi monitor-
ing a clinical trial
in Odisha
biome. But India, by default, can provide a
wealth of information on the gut microbiome.
India as one sub-continent has 36 good-sized
countries. Each one is different in its food
habit and exposures, from socio-behavioural
and environmental aspects as well. So, one
could consider India to be a global platform
to identify different types of microbiota, how
they develop and what they do. I collaborate
with AIPH University in Odisha, AIIMS,
Delhi, Indira Gandhi Medical College and Re-
search Institute in Puducherry and have been
talking to the senior leadership and scientists
at IMTECH Chandigarh and several others.
What are your current projects?
I am busy trying to examine the same prepa-
ration in other countries, especially in the
sub-saharan African settings where the burden
of neonatal sepsis and death is also very high.
These efforts are all dependent on funding,
especially from overseas.
HEALTH
 34 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020

COVER STORY
I understand you had to stop the study mid-
way because the results of the study showed
such efficacy that it was “unethical” to deny
it to the control group. Could you share the
experience from that time?
When we follow internationally accepted
principles of clinical research and trials, it is
unethical to continue a trial when you know
it is already working because half of your
participants get only placebo, no therapeu-
tic intervention. But, once completed and
published, it is up to the policy makers to
decide if they want to adopt the new frontiers
or not. As a scientist, I have done my job. The
ethical burden now lies on the policy makers
who either use or not use the probiotics to
help their babies. Also, to some extent on you,
the media that helps disseminate the informa-
tion, because not every citizen reads medical
literature.

What does latest research say about probiot-

ics and their efficacy? The market is flooded
with over-the-counter probiotics that prom-

www.t.me/magzsenglish
ise to not just restore gut health, but also
treat respiratory allergies.
When I started working seriously on probiot-
ics more than 15 years ago, some called it
'snake oil'—it works in every disease, and
probably in no disease. So, how can an in-
formed physician make a decision? They were
right. Evidence in its favour was scanty. Now,
there has been an explosion of trials and in-
formation. But, again compared to how much
work has been done in the field of antibiotics
or other drugs, it is still at a rudimentary stage.
Scientists are just starting to realise that one
size fits all will not work and they have to
identify specific species and strains for specific
ailment in specific populations. Many probiot-
ics available over the counter may have no or
minimal effect (if the strains are not chosen
based on scientific evidence) and many strains
are not even alive in the preparation, because
they are not made stable after manufacture
and die in the hot climate.
Ayurveda works on the principle that gut
is crucial to good health. Do you feel it is
time to revive our ancient heritage, and in
what way?
When our paper on the effect of synbiotics
was published in Nature, many major news-
papers around the world covered the story.
Shailaja Chandra (former secretary of health
and family welfare), in response to a tweet by
Dr Ravi Mehrotra, then director of National
Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research,
commented that such type of work should be
done in India. I am hopeful that the ministry
of AYUSH and the Indian government will
be serious about such research. The type of
information and clues we have in ayurveda
are priceless. It is only very recently that al-
lopathic medicine is recognising the fact that
not all human beings are the same and will
not respond to a medicine in a similar manner.
This is called personalised medicine and is
very much practised in cancer therapy now.
Ayurveda does not look for a single cause or

HEALTH
 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 35

saw that those eating fermented food were

living longer in eastern Europe. That was a
pointer for us to do more, and not just be
happy with curd. Many countries eat fer-
mented food or milk products. But, there are
countries like Ghana where no one consumes
curd, and other than babies, milk is not a part
of the common diet for a child or adult. But,
they are not terribly unhealthy. What do they
eat? How do they develop a healthy gut mi-
crobiome? What part of their diet contributes
to a protective versus a diseased gut flora?
Answers to all these types of questions are
there in our ayurveda. Why should a leaf or
flower be plucked on a moonlit or new moon
night (not during the day), and should be
taken with certain type of food to experi-
ence its healing properties?
I sincerely hope that a few young
Indians will get vested in ayurveda
ONE COULD CONSIDER and bring India to the center stage
INDIA TO BE A GLOBAL of medicine.
PLATFORM TO IDENTIFY Would you say that the work on
DIFFERENT TYPES OF
www.t.me/magzsenglish
gut microbiome would be the
next frontier of research when it
MICROBIOTA, HOW THEY comes to treating or preventing
DEVELOP AND WHAT diseases?
THEY DO. It is difficult to say if gut micro-
biome will be the next frontier, but
a pathogen, rather focuses definitely one of the frontiers. The reason
on the host, the person and to support this lies on the fact that the gut
looks at his/her ailment in a holistic is the largest immune organ (size of a tennis
manner and tries to fix the root cause. That is court when all villi—a fingerlike projection of
where our ancestors had seen that by changing the lining of the small intestine—are opened
the gut flora in specific manners many diseases up) in the body, and the number of bacteria
could be treated or prevented. We can go back residing there is ten times the total number of
to the same principles, examine one disease cells in a human body. We have to examine
at a time and one intervention of ayurveda them to harness their power and use them
with complete understanding of why that was to our advantage. We live in a very polluted,
recommended. With all the new molecular artificial environment today. Plus, we take
and omics tools, many changes in the body antibiotics as chocolates, killing all good
can be examined quickly, which was not pos- bacteria in our body. And, all the processed
sible earlier. If done in a systematic manner, food and food additives. The rate at which we
ayurveda can provide invaluable insights into damage our gut flora or have already dam-
our physiology and pathogenesis of different aged, it cannot heal on its own. We need to
diseases linked to individual physiologies. identify good, powerful ones and use them to
But, reviving pickles or eating more curd is restore a healthy gut microbiota and against
not the solution. Yes, they are good. More than specific disease conditions. That will be the
a century go, Nobel laureate Ilya Mechnikov next frontier! ●

HEALTH
 36 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020

BEHAVIOUR

The other people

Malcolm Gladwell's new book will change the way you
see and approach strangers

BY SATHNAM SANGHERA

I
n the years before Bernie Madoff was jailed for operat-
ing the largest Ponzi scheme in world history, numerous
individuals had suspicions about him. Renaissance Tech-
nologies, a Long Island-based hedge fund that found itself
with a stake in one of his funds, thought something was amiss.
It concluded after an investigation that “none of it seems to add
up”, but rather than selling its stake, just halved it, an executive
later telling investigators, “I never, as the manager, entertained
the thought that it was truly fraudulent.”
Peter Lamore, an investigator at the Securities and Exchange
Commission, tackled Madoff in person about why, in defi-
ance of all logic, his returns did not go up and down as stock

www.t.me/magzsenglish
markets went up and down, and was told he had an infallible
“gut feel” for when to get out just before a downturn. Lamore
later recalled, “I thought his gut feel was, you know, strange,
suspicious.” He took his concerns to his boss, who also had
doubts but did not find that Madoff’s claim was “necessar-
ily… ridiculous”.
Why were so many evidently smart people incapable of ac-
cepting the truth? In his book, Talking to Strangers: What We
Should Know About the People We Don’t Know, Malcolm
Gladwell, America’s most famous intellectual—whose postula-
tions have changed the way we think and whose observations
have altered behaviour—presents a hypothesis: human beings
have a default tendency to believe other human beings.
It goes against what seems to be happening in politics and so-
cial networking, but Gladwell uses research from social scien-
tists to illustrate that our natural operating assumption is that
people are honest. It is why, he argues, a spy went undetected at
the highest levels of the Pentagon for years, why Chamberlain
GETTY IMAGES

believed Hitler when the German chancellor insisted he was not

going to invade Poland, and why we tend to believe cheating
spouses when they deny they are having an affair.
It is fascinating. Although, the various lessons of the book
(“The harder we work at getting strangers to reveal themselves,
the more elusive they become” or “The right way to talk to
strangers is with caution and humility”), which like its prede-
cessors (The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw

HEALTH
 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 37

"I would always choose interviewing

everyone around someone and not
them. Biographers who are writing
about a dead subject can be far more
insightful than biographers who are
writing about a live subject."
—Malcolm Gladwell

and David and Goliath) is packed with

dazzling facts and cultural insights, also
makes for an incredibly self-conscious
meeting at the Covent Garden Hotel in
London.
“You know, if I gave you the choice
between interviewing someone and no
one else, and being able to interview ev-
eryone around someone and not them,
which would you choose?” asks the

www.t.me/magzsenglish
55-year-old author. “I would always
choose interviewing everyone around
someone and not them. Biographers
who are writing about a dead subject
can be far more insightful, I think, than
biographers who are writing about a
live subject. Chamberlain would have
been better off never meeting Hitler
at all. He should have stayed home
and read Mein Kampf. I was actually
stunned by the fact that on the Allied
side, the only head of state who had met
Hitler was the Canadian prime minister,
who, by the way, fell in love with him.”
For what it is worth, Gladwell is very
much like the man people have sug-
gested. I have been told he is introverted,
and he really is. People have also sug-
gested he is pathologically relaxed,
and he is, laughing away the Malcolm
Gladwell Book Generator that some
wag has launched online to mock his

HEALTH
 38 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020

BEHAVIOUR

work, and embracing criticism.

He credits his mother, Joyce
Gladwell, a Jamaican psycho-
therapist, for shaping him as a
writer, but his late father, Gra-
ham Gladwell, a mathematics
professor from Kent, seems to
have had more of an influence
over his personality. Graham,
who died in 2017, is a strong
presence in this recent book,
featuring in its dedication, as
well as being cited in a chapter
about transparency—the idea
that facial expressions mean dif-
ferent things to different people
in different contexts and in dif-
ferent parts of the world. In this
chapter, he narrates the inci-
dent of Graham responding to
a knife-wielding intruder in his
holiday home by simply point-
EVERETT HISTORICAL

ing at the assailant and saying,

“Get out NOW.” (Incredibly,
TAKING THE BAIT

www.t.me/magzsenglish
the intruder, who had a knife at
Joyce Gladwell’s throat, did.)
“He responded emotionally
but there wasn’t a physiologi-
cal correlate,” said Gladwell.
“There are two reasons. One,
that he was a reserved English-
man, so he is just not going to
have the same palette of emo-
tions as an Italian. If you knew
my father, you would have seen
him in other stressful situations,
and you would have come to
understand that the ‘frightened’
face, for whatever reason, was
simply not part of his repertoire.
In crisis, he turned deadly calm.
And the second thing is—this is
a funny thing that I am mildly
obsessed with—he had a very,
low resting heart rate. People
do not really talk about this.
Our heart rate is a kind of sig-
nature of our emotional arousal.
I often ask people, ‘What is your
resting heart rate?’ It is a really
reliable clue to people who have
non-stereotypical emotional re-
sponses. Runners are like this
as a group. They are not going
to raise their voice. They just do
not do it.”
So is Gladwell always as calm
as his father was? As well as the
genetic inheritance, Gladwell is
a runner, being named among
Canada’s fastest teens at
1,500m while at high school,
running a 4:54 mile at the age of
51, and at 55 his whippet-thin
runner’s physique is the most
noticeable thing about him, next
to his hair. “Yeah, I am not emo-
tionally volatile,” he said. When
was the last time he cried? “Oh,
I cry quite frequently: what I do
Neville Chamberlain, prime minister
of Britain, reporting there would be
"peace in our time", after meeting
Hitler at the 1938 Munich Conference
not get is angry. I do not raise
my voice. I do not get demon-
strative.”
The other person Gladwell
uses an example of the problem
with transparency in the book is
Amanda Knox, and her initial,
false conviction for the murder
of Meredith Kercher. “If you
believe that the way a stranger
looks and acts is a reliable clue
to the way they feel… then you
are going to make mistakes,” he
writes. “Amanda Knox was one
of those mistakes.”
And the use of examples from
current affairs, to demonstrate
the many challenges of under-
standing strangers, marks the
book out from its predeces-

HEALTH
 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 39

sors. One, is the effect alcohol The key case study, however, how when he grew his hair he
has on behaviour. He uses the which is used to both preface was suddenly being pulled over
example of Brock Turner, the and conclude the book, and is all the time. “I was profiled in
former Stanford University used to demonstrate most in- such a mild way, I am almost
swimmer who was sentenced tensely “what happens when a feel sheepish about lumping
to six months in jail in 2016 society does not know how to what happened to me with…
for sexually assaulting an un- talk to strangers”, is the example you know,” he said.
conscious woman, to argue of Sandra Bland, the 28-year-old Does he feel unsafe, as a per-
that alcohol is not “an agent of African-American woman who son of colour, dealing with the
disinhibition” but “an agent of was found hanged in a Texas police in America nowadays? “I
myopia” in which “short-term jail in 2015, three days after have several advantages. One is
considerations loom large, and being arrested during a traffic that I am pale brown. I am not
more cognitively demanding, stop. “I was deeply affected by black. It is funny. I have younger
longer-term considerations fade that wave of cases that hap- Jamaican cousins—they are in
away”. Another is about how pened in 2014, 2015 and 2016 their twenties and are much
the shame and horror of sexual in America involving police offi- darker than I am.... To be male
abuse can produce denial. He cers and African-Americans, but and young and black is a power-
talks about how the victims of the Sandra Bland case affected ful combination.”
retired college football coach Does he feel that Donald
Jerry Sandusky, who Trump has made
was eventually con- things worse? “Well,
victed of rape and “If you believe that the way the thing that our par-
child sexual abuse, a stranger looks and acts is ents told us when we
“acted as if nothing were growing up turns
a reliable clue to the way
www.t.me/magzsenglish
had ever happened. out to be true. Which
They did not confide
in their friends. They
they feel… then you are is that the tone of be-
haviour in any society
did not write an- going to make mistakes. is set at the top. When
guished accounts in the guy running the
their journals. They
Amanda Knox was one of country behaves in
dropped by, years those mistakes.” a profoundly uncivil
later, to show off their manner, it gives licence
babies to the man —Gladwell, in his book to other people to be-
who raped them.” have in the same way.”
A change, Gladwell says, that me the most, maybe because I could tell you how Gladwell
was prompted by the experi- we have the tape and so were dissects the Sandra Bland case.
ence of making podcasts, which able to hear the encounter,” he How he shows that the police
include Revisionist History, said. “The thing with Sandra officer was of the generation
which offers counter narratives Bland is there is nothing sinis- of police officers who has been
to popular events or ideas. Lis- ter going on: she is just driving taught, as a result of popular
ten to the episode entitled 'The home from a job interview. She crime theory, to not default to
Prime Minister and the Prof' is pulled over for the lamest of truth: to pursue doubts in every
and you will never view Win- reasons; she just wants to smoke possible situation even when
ston Churchill in the same way a cigarette in her car. And it was there aren’t any, and hence esca-
again. “A podcast is so immedi- the sheer banality of it: it is the lated tensions. How he demon-
ate,” said Gladwell. “They are middle of the day; no crime has strates that the officer wrongly
emotional, and the form invites been committed; the cop is not a believed in transparency—that
you to tackle difficult subjects. problem cop.” people’s demeanour is a reli-
It gave me a jolt of courage in Is some of the anger his own? able guide to their emotions and
writing the book.” He has written before about character—and as a result “mis-

HEALTH
 40 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020
BEHAVIOUR
AFP
matched” Bland, thinking she
was a criminal when she was
www.t.me/magzsenglish
actually just upset, having re-
cently tried to commit suicide
after the loss of a baby and hav-
ing had ten previous encounters
with police over the course of
her adult life, including five traf-
fic stops, which had left her with
$8,000 in outstanding fines. But
you should read the book. Not
only will it change the way you
see and approach strangers, the
precision with which he analy-
ses this incident is one of the
most powerful and damning in-
dictments you will read of race
relations in American society.
I asked him if he lives by his
theories and the rules he has
helped publicise. So many now
have gone mainstream, from the
Law of the Few (which states
that a select few individuals
make ideas and fads popular
through their social networks),
to the broken windows theory
(which posits that if you concen-
HEALTH
"The tone of behaviour in any
society is set at the top. When the
guy running the country behaves
in a profoundly uncivil manner, it
gives licence to other people to
behave in the same way."
—Gladwell, on Donald Trump
trate on the small things, such
as cleaning up graffiti and re-
pairing broken windows, it will
create an environment in which
people are less likely to commit
serious crimes), to thin-slicing (a
psychological process in which
people read personalities with-
in moments of seeing people).
Meanwhile, Gladwell’s case
for “academic redshirting”, the
increasingly popular practice
of delaying kids’ entrance into
kindergarten, has, it has been ar-
gued, helped lead to between 4
per cent and 9 per cent of nurs-
ery schoolchildren being “red-
shirted” in America annually.
“A lot of what I write about
does not apply to me,” came the
reply. “I write a lot about law
enforcement; I am not in law
enforcement and rarely the sub-
ject of law enforcement. I write
a lot about education; I do not
have children.” I mention an
interview he conducted with a
colleague of mine in 2014 where
he said, “I am definitely going
to have kids one day.” Will he?

“Um, I still hope to, yes.” He
has a girlfriend? “I have a girl-
friend.” There is an awkward
pause before he continues, “I
mean, in Outliers I wrote about
the relative age effect, but in
fact, in school, the opposite
happened to me: I was pushed
ahead and I was the youngest in
my class.”
I tell him I was surprised to
read that he did not do particu-
larly well at college: Gladwell’s
grades were not high enough for
graduate school. “Yeah. I had
mixed results,” he said. “I took
courses because I was interested
in the topic, but there are certain
things, like philosophy, that I
turned out to be disastrous at.”
After being rejected by a series
of advertising agencies, he ac-
cepted a journalism position at
The American Spectator and
www.t.me/magzsenglish
spent more than a decade in
business journalism. “Writing
about business? I really enjoyed
it,” he said. “I find the most
open-minded audience you will
encounter is not in the univer-
sity, it is in a group of business-
people.”
The fees must help. I read he
charges $45,000 (£37,000) a
speech. “I have a practice of not
commenting on my rates.” Has
money changed his life? “Well, I
do not worry about it any more,
so if you imagine what your life
would be like if you stopped
worrying about money, that is
what my life is like. I am at the
lowest rung where you help the
family or you give money to
charity. But there is this thing
that happens to people when
they get financially comfort-
able. They use it as an excuse
to remove money from their
thoughts, or they do the oppo-
site: the enhanced amount of
money enhances the amount of
time they spend thinking about
it. I am the former, not the lat-
ter.”
Does he have any indulgences?
“I have more than one car. I am
very, very serious about cars. I
have a 2018 Volkswagen Golf
R, a 2002 BMW M5 and a
Porsche Boxster.” I used to write
about cars too, and, spook-
Talking to Strangers: What
We Should Know About the
People We Don’t Know
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Allen Lane
Price: 0799
Pages: 400
ily, two of these cars are exactly
what I would buy if I had space
for them. Not only is Gladwell
incapable of uttering an uninter-
esting sentence, and is more than
probably worth his speaking fee,
he also has excellent taste.
Before we part, I discover he
is attempting to buy an old
Mercedes 280 from 1982, and
he thinks he might have been
scammed. “I found an old one
which I kind of liked and I paid
money up front to this guy who
THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 41
had one, and this was eight
months ago,” he said. “I still do
not have the car. I am excessively
trusting. I do not spend time
worrying about the bona fides of
people I deal with, so I [might]
have been taken in.... It is a bet-
ter way to be.”
Which brings us back to Ber-
nie Madoff and perhaps the
most important lesson from
Gladwell’s book. There was,
as it happens, one person who
did not “default to truth” with
the fraudster: an independent
fraud investigator called Harry
Markopolos, who tried to get
the authorities to investigate
Madoff on numerous occa-
sions. Gladwell describes him
as a man with a tendency to tell
“awkward jokes”, who grew up
watching his immigrant uncles
chase customers who had stolen
from their business, an obsessive
of “the sort to wipe down his
keyboard with disinfectant after
he opens his computer”. A man
who, when he had an oppor-
tunity to meet a prosecutor to
discuss Madoff, chose instead to
leave information anonymous-
ly, turning up at a social event
wearing a bulky overcoat and
clutching a sheaf of documents
wrapped inside two plain brown
envelopes because he was so
paranoid.
“If everyone on Wall Street
behaved like Harry Markopo-
los, there would be no fraud
on Wall Street,” concludes
Gladwell. “But the air would
be so thick with suspicion and
paranoia that there would also
be no Wall Street.” Or, to put it
another way, if being duped is
the price we occasionally pay
for trusting strangers, it is a
price worth paying. ◆
HEALTH
 42 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020

YOGA
MADE
EASY By Dr S.N. Omkar
yogaomkar@yahoo.com

THAT MAGICAL EFFECT 2

Flexibility and strength of the lower back are important for an
active life. Here is a posture that helps achieve them. The
posture also revives the organs in the abdomen and pelvis—
they get a good massaging effect against the air-filled ball.
This exercise also helps the gluteal muscles and thighs.

Note: Since the ball is inherently unstable, one must take care.

METHOD:
• Take a stability ball of 30cm diameter
• Sit upright on your heels and keep the ball in front

www.t.me/magzsenglish
• Slowly bend, positioning the ball below the lower-belly
• Rest the knees
• Rest the head and elbows, keeping the wrists in line with the 3
forehead
• Raise legs slightly; rest the chest and chin on the mat
• Press the palms and elbows, raise legs with lower-belly against
the ball
• Lift legs as much as possible
• Stretch the feet and straighten legs
• Stay for about 10-20 seconds
• Do not hold your breath
• Slowly flex the knees and rest legs
• Gently get up
• Repeat and relax
4
1

MODEL: YUKTHA RAJGOPAL

HEALTH
 THE WEEK · JANUARY 19, 2020 43

www.t.me/magzsenglish

HEALTH
44 The Week RNI No. 36122/1982, Registered No. KL/EKM/756/2018-20, Licence No. KL/CR/EKM/WPP-20/2018-20. Licensed to Post Without Prepayment. Published on Friday 10th January 2020

www.t.me/magzsenglish