Dear Pratap Bhanu Mehta, You Disappointed Us!

http://swarajyamag.com/politics/dear-pratap-bhanu-mehta-you-disappointed-us

The latest article by Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express on the demonetisation row describes the move as a ‘watershed event’ and a ‘new kind of politics that will redefine the relationship between citizen and state’. Agreeing partly on what Mehta says is a watershed moment for India and disagreeing on this move as being an ‘event’, I propose a humble critique to what he wrote in his latest article.

I choose to do this because his criticism seems to be a classic representation of what the detractors have been saying in different voices – some shrill, some caustic, some personalised and some delusional – all bound to each other in content but may be differing in form. What Mehta has attempted is a value judgment of a public movement that has started off with India Against Corruption in 2012 against corruption at multiple levels – government, media, intellectual space, politics and society.

He rightly analyses the step as a ‘gamble’ which I would prefer calling a risk – a sign of a truly entrepreneurial governance model. The article goes on to critique the step because of its ‘sheer audacity’ and because ‘it threatens to institutionalise a new kind of politics’. The rest of the article essentially builds up on this theory of emergence of a new political order and critiques it on the ground that it is puritanical.

I have multifold problems with this kind of critique, especially because it came from Pratap Bhanu Mehta. Unlike most other intellectuals in the country, Mehta represents a voice of sanity who has been known for his nuanced writings and analyses of questions of public interest.  But of late, his intellectual voice has been replaced by an agenda-driven voice, which is quite merciless in its assessment of issues from a point of view, which is definitely not grounded. It would have been still ok, if he cared not to cloak his writings with that sense of puritanical and pretentious wisdom on what the public feels.

In this piece for instance, among the din of opinionated and by and large, non-grounded journalism with respect to demonetisation, one expected Mehta to take a historical recount of things, compare what was written or said or talked about demonetisation historically, make an account of the pros and cons of this economic storm and compel the public to believe in arguments based on analyses. But what did he do?

He invoked a 15th-16th century literary motif in Europe – the Morality Play tradition – to talk about the economic scourge of corruption. It was not just odd but reeked of a genuine intellectual distance Mehta maintained to consolidate his hold within a certain coterie of Anglophile intellectual elites, who would have certainly had the English literary tradition under their finger tips, making himself oblivious and inaccessible to the general mass of readers, who often found in him an intellectual succor.

He did that purposely because the problems of morality and puritanical wisdom that Mehta critiques is a recount that can happen only in a certain class of Indian society. An average Indian is still run and directed by common threads of a moral tradition. We still respect elders and hence you saw instances being shared on social media, where youngsters came forward, stood in long serpentine queues and helped the elderly get cash. We still respect trust and social camaraderie and hence you saw in North East, how various societies easily and without any fuss, transitioned from being cash driven to barter or paper-driven. We still believe in the good versus evil worldview and hence not just celebrate Ravan Dahan each year and keep fast on every Eid, but also see poor women in my village happy that finally there is someone, who will come down on the feudal sarpanchs, notorious for his extravagant lifestyle on black money.

And this is an average Indian that Mehta does not want to talk to. Why just Mehta? There are the likes of Arundhati Roy, in the same vein, who answered me when I asked her why she does not support the India Against Corruption movement and she said because it is a middle class conception. She went on to explain how there are a lot of people at play always when such large scale movements happen. As an impressionable 23-year-old I was confused if such intellectuals really stand for defending democracy or a certain idea of democracy being nursed in selfish coteries of self-aggrandisement that helps maintain their relevance and their self-serving demands, which are hailed as frugal and moral because they are not in public view. What explains this attitude of shying away from public support of issues, which public endorses when all they have uttered and spoken of is about issues of public interest. Why such hatred for public wisdom?

When Mehta says that ‘the audacity of the move is breathtaking’ and that ‘this ability to translate a policy measure into a national project is unprecedented’, he exposes the vulnerability of the intellectual elite, who seem to have been shaken with their turf being taken away from them. It has been assumed for far too long that audacity must flow only from the pens of the rebels. It has been assumed that audacity must make heroism and heroic an ideal that none could achieve, because if it is achieved, the value of appreciation becomes invested in a life-size character replacing the value of their imagination. This hurried writing off of the move as an imminent danger is but a reflection of that threat.

If the problem, as Mehta says, is the mass moral appeal of this initiative, readers like me are confused. Were we to write off Batukeshwar Dutt, whose birth anniversary we ought to be celebrating today, because he along with Bhagat Singh, dropped a bomb in the middle of the courtroom to protest against the colonial rule and was audacious and bold enough? Were we to write off Raja Rammohan Roy because he also made a moral appeal against sati? Were we to write off Dr B R Ambedkar in the case of demonetisation, who openly advocated for change in currency every 10 years on moral and economic grounds?

On the particular issue of demonetisation, there are lapses. Implementation of any policy measure in a country of a billion-plus population is a humongous logistical exercise. But, perhaps, this is where the intellectual class must have stepped in. They must have offered practical solutions, guided a government built on moral support to help it carry forward an agenda, which they themselves call ‘pathbreaking’. They must have called the civil society and academia to step in for shramdan. They must have openly denounced the government for any ill doing but would have at least shown moral support for a movement, which has undoubtedly garnered public approval on all counts. They must have appealed to the media to stop misinformation campaigns and agenda-driven journalism, where either there is a GPS-enabled money bunch that will solve all issues, or there are people dying in the country because of long queues!⁠⁠⁠⁠

http://swarajyamag.com/politics/dear-pratap-bhanu-mehta-you-disappointed-us

Never the twain shall meet

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/know/of-india-and-us-democracies-never-the-twain-shall-meet/article8947286.ece

In my month-long Legislative Fellowship with the US Department of State, I interned with the House of Representatives and the Senate at Columbus, Ohio. The delegation to the US had members from India and Pakistan, briefly joined by a delegation from Kosovo. As a political entrepreneur, it was interesting for me to learn that despite the gap in citizens’ expectations from their states and the states’ response to these demands, the democracies are similar in how they engage with various questions of citizen representation.

A nation-state in its very inception is about asserting an identity; and identity is never uniform for people, systems, organisations or institutions. Therefore, nations that choose to be democratic willingly sign up for interrogating questions of competing identities within their territory.

In the US and India, competing claims of nationalities, and the building of sub-nationalities within the nation, introduce an interesting comparison between the two nations.

Akram Elias, an expert in international business and cultural-political networking, briefed us on the American system and said, “The US is not a nation in the way ‘nation’ is conceived when we speak of India. The US has 50 states and each state is a nation in itself, if you see how independently they work with respect to the federal government.”

This kind of autonomy for individual states is unheard of in India.

The US model of democracy is fundamentally rooted in individualism, as opposed to Indian collectivism. While India is a union of states, the US is a federation of states. In the US, each citizen, like each state, places his/her expectations above anything else in order to fulfil the expectations of the ‘Great American Dream’. In India, Indian-ness precedes any other declaration to a great extent. Socially and culturally, emotions, feelings and priorities of the self are preceded by the collective will of society. This philosophical premise may be the reason why the Presidential model in the US and the Parliamentary model in India have been successful in impacting politics and policies in their respective democracies.

Policymaking in large democracies is mediated, as against some democracies with smaller population sizes: a referendum ensures citizens’ engagement in the policy cycle. The conduits between citizens and state work differently in the US and India. While in the US, lobbyists create, deliberate and advocate policy concerns and pitch political communication on behalf of people and institutions (commercial and/or non-profit), in India lobbying is looked down as capitalist, corrupt and dirty.

This is not to say that lobbying does not happen in India. On the contrary, the subtle culture of ‘contacts’ and ‘jugaad’ in our country has given a cultural credence to the non-recognised but wide practice of lobbying in the most misleading of ways. Since networks and relationship-building define the contours of lobbying, professional ethics and personal interests often clash; the common good is sometimes obscured.

However, it is also interesting to learn how this form of issue-based advocacy (the garb of which shrouds lobbying) is flawed even in the US. As Ryan Lehman, the policy advisor of the Republican caucus, expressed, “Despite having run a successful model of legal lobbying, the US has institutionalised corruption in the political and policy set-up through very subtle and entrenched ways — often away from the prying eyes of the public and the media.”

It was insightful to learn, therefore, from my Kosovo counterparts, that transparency and access to open public records is the priority concern on the basis of which Kosovo is trying to legitimise and authenticate its struggle for sovereignty and democracy. While interacting with Catherine Turcer, policy analyst with Common Cause, on the challenges of making open records a norm in democracy, we learnt that, gradually, citizens are not only showing an increasing intolerance to prim narratives but are also becoming more demanding in laying bare a nation’s claim to being accountable.

After this rich socio-cultural, political and legislative masterclass, I have come back hopeful on two counts:

The ‘unity in diversity’ model of the Indian identity has safely averted the risk of a bitter cultural clash. On the eve of the Presidential elections in the US, the way in which the identity question is being negotiated with, one wonders if the ‘melting pot of cultures’ model of the US has really worked. Because, the casualty of homogeneity over heterogeneity is visible when one finds not an American but an African-American, Indian-American, Canadian-American, Ukrainian-American, Russian-American and so on, advocating their larger chunks in the ‘Great American Dream’. I am hopeful that we, in India, have perhaps cracked the model of defining equality and secularism beyond religion, as peaceful coexistence over ‘tolerance’.

The Parliamentary form of democracy in India has given us an intellectual privilege of prolonged and, therefore, sustained ideological exchange.

Because ideology has been institutionalised in the party system and commercialisation of the political space is a new and fluid phenomenon for us, we have the historical advantage of not letting politics become market products and voters become consumers.

The casual test of a working democracy is the peaceful switch of power between hands seven consecutive times.

I believe, in India, we have perfected this theoretical premise of democracy.

(Shubhrastha is a political entrepreneur and independent columnist based in New Delhi)

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/know/of-india-and-us-democracies-never-the-twain-shall-meet/article8947286.ece

Assam – A Microcosm of India

http://www.indiafoundation.in/2016/07/14/assam-a-microcosm-of-india/

Gateway to the seven sisters of India and an integral part of the northeast imagination of India, Assam also shares international boundaries with Bangladesh and Bhutan. Connected with the Indian mainland through a chicken-neck corridor, immediately linked with West Bengal, Assam is home to more than 50 tribes and communities. Distinguished from each other by conspicuously stark cultures, traditions, sartorial choices, cuisines, languages, consciousness and, therefore, identities, Assam is marked by cultural, national, poetic and political complexities of a unique order; which is why many scholars have described the state as the microcosm of India.

Geopolitically and culturally, Assam has to be studied as three distinct and separate, yet connected entities. The Upper Assam and Lower Assam in the Brahamputra valley and the Barak valley are identified with unique set of issues commensurate with distinctive geographical components and demographic concerns. The intricate relationships between the multiethnic, polyglottic, and different socio-cultural commitments of the tribes like the Mishing, the Bodos, the Deoris, the Rabhas, the Tiwas, the Ahoms, the Khamtis, the Sonowal Kacharis, the Phakials, the Dimasa Kacharis, the Karbis, the Koch Rajbangshis, the Barmans, the Hmars, the Kukis, the Rengma Nagas, the Zeme Nagas, the Hajongs, the Garos, the Khasis, the Jaintias, the Mechs, the Motoks and the Morans among the many other demographic groups like the Bengalis, the Marwaris, the tea plantation laborers, indigenous Muslims, Christians etc. have given a complex comity to the idea of identity for and in Assam.

On the one hand, there is a constant need to engage with the question ‘who is an Axomiya (Assamese)’ – punctuated by which the state has seen various articulations reverberating throughout the length and breadth of Assam. One the other hand, there is a thread of a quite strong regional, or in the words of scholars, ‘subnational’, sentiment running deep into the veins and sinews of Assam. Additionally, as if to legitimize and contain what Kramer and Nicolescu call the ‘historical-contemporary’ and ‘conflictive-cooperative’ relations between communities in Assam, the Indian constitution stands out as a distinct consciousness of the political reality in Assam. It is necessary, therefore, that in order to contextualize Assam as a subtext of the Indian national consciousness, one negotiates with the twin realities of conflict and identity in the state.

Conflict and Identity in Assam

The Battle of Saraighat in 1671 and the Battle of Itakhuli in 1682 alongside the other battles beginning 1615, fought between the Mughals and the Ahoms were decisive battles that are etched in the historical and national consciousness of Assam. The historical legend of Lachit Borphukan, for instance, defines the heritage of Assamese pride and identity. The legend carries on to this day and is used in explaining many of the contemporary political idioms and historical phenomena against the backdrop of indigenous pride overcoming external aggression.

The Peace Treaty of Yandaboo signed between the British General Sir Archibald Campbell and the Governor of Legaing from the Burmese side, Maha Min Hla Kyaw Htin, in 1826, ended the First Anglo-Burmese War – the most expensive war in the British Indian history and initiated the British rule in Assam. Thereby, not even two years passed, when in 1828, the first revolt against this external aggression by the British was initiated by the duo Dhananjay Borgohain and Gunadhar Konwar. Thereafter, many local leaders like Maniram Dewan, Piyoli Baruah, Anandaram Dhekial Phukan, Hem Chandra Baruah, Gunabhiram Baruah, Kanak Lata Baruah, Kushal Konwar, Kamala Miri, Bhogeshwari Phukanani among many others carried on their constant struggle for freedom, contributing a significant sacrifice in the national movement, till India achieved independence in 1947. The pride and glory of Assam’s contribution in building the Indian nation state carried on the rich legacy of the state.

In contrast, during the Sino-India war, in 1962, following the fall of Bomdila, Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, as if in a gesture of fatigue and helplessness, announced, “my heart goes out to the people of Assam.” The hurt and pain it caused the people of Assam pulsates even to this day and festers the wound the episode inflicted upon the Assamese pride.

As if in continuation of the solidarity with the people of Assam against the feeling of dejection, hurt and pain by this dereliction and negligence in preserving and protecting what is the homeland of many an Assamese population, the Assam Agitation between 1979 and 1985, till this date, stands as a representation of the reason behind the inimical discontent Assam feels with respect to the rest of the country.

United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) in its ideological justification, interprets the Treaty of Yandabo as an understanding between the British India and Burma that dissolved the independence of Assam. The militant and radical stream of this consciousness integral to the ULFA seeks to restore that ‘lost independence.’

If one were to put these historical frames as a backdrop for the larger picture Assam paints for the rest of the world, one might find the deconstruction of the identity of Assam interesting. Drawing from what Jacques Lacan articulates in his psychoanalytic reference to a ‘mirror stage’, borrowing heavily from Sigmund Freud, one may infer that the identity of the Assamese self has been built as a result of the conflict between its visual appearance, as it came down to the imagination via mythical legends and articulations, and one’s emotional experience, as the temporal realities and episodes of history unfolded. This conflictual relationship of the dual relationship with the ‘imagined community’, in the words of Benedict Anderson, and the circumstantial realization is what punctuates Assam’s selfhood. As if to summarize the situation of identity with respect to Assam, one can use the words of Richard D Parker who says, “The need to assert an identity is mediated by a history of conflict and aspersion.”

Ethnic Aspirations and National Politics

Pierre Bourdieu defines reality as the site where a permanent struggle to define reality takes place. He says that struggles for nationhood are ‘struggles over classification’ and articulates that political realpolitik with long term articulation of politics, therefore, must include in its notion “the struggle over representations.” This theoretical premise might help to observe Assam’s aspirational subnational consciousness in the overall context of Indian nationalism.

Benedict Anderson argues that nation states have been insufficiently imagined giving most nations a restive situation. The colonists – British, Portuguese, French – all left their colonies at the mercy of the still forming definition of nation state and nationalism. More than 545 smaller entities with unique imaginations, aspirations and goals were tactfully, politically, negotiably and/or through direct action stitched together to build a politically unified nation as it stands today.

In his book ‘India Against Itself – Assam and the Politics of Nationality’, Sanjib Baruah says, “…subnational movements, and the exacerbation of these conflicts has often been the result of political mismanagement by those acting with the authority of the state.”

In the process of consolidating the national identity and form, the many subnational questions were either buried or ignored for the time being. The many subnational undercurrents fueled by subliminal faiths, questions, concerns, aspirations, unease, temporary arrangements and suppressed articulations merely muted themselves till the time the discontent was strategically prudent and communicatively consistent. The articulations of the ULFA and the NDBF are cases in point.

However, it is prudent to see that all the regional parties or factions or groups or political constitutions in Assam, today, are but a more realistic portrayal of what the national super text provides to its subnations. In that respect, whatever the ‘Imagined Community’ of these countercurrents, the subnational political mobilization in Assam is inspired, animated and mediated by the Indian constitution, laws, public philosophy and political processes. The fact also is that the pattern of politicization and mobilization that meets some of the criteria of nationalism is not committed to the idea of a separate statehood. In fact, these subnationalisms stand in a dialogical relationship with pan-Indian politics.

The state elections in Assam this time, in April 2016, saw more than 82 per cent turn out of voters. In fact, over the last few decades, the voter turn out in Assam has been, by far, the best record in the country. If one were to seriously consider the subnational narratives of self determination, as articulated by the so called ethnic wings and factions, the consensus seem to emerge on identifying the nation over any other concern.

It is interesting to read Ernest Gellner here who opines that nationalism and subnationalisms are “the crystallization of new units…admittedly using as their raw material the cultural, historical, and other inheritances from the pre-nationalist past.” Almost similar is Antonio Gramsci’s articulation that the politics of subnationalism is absorbed in the theoretical space of civil rather than political society.

Therefore, one can believe in Robert Fossaert, when he says that civil society is not a set of institutions but as a “society in its relation with the state…in so far as it is in confrontation with the State”, a society which resists and counteracts the “simultaneous totalization unleashed by the State”, to the extent where we agree to simultaneously understand that the theoretical comprehension and exegesis of these subnational texts are dependent on and dedicated to the overarching concept of a national super text.

Margins to Mainstreaming Assam

The current government in India draws from the ideological premise of ‘India First’ and symbolically recognizes the Indian Constitution as the ‘religious text of the nation’. Assam is the prime focus area within the government’s stated and emphasized ‘Act East Policy’ because of its geo-political significance and strategic location. However, it is also true that going by the statistical and developmental analyses of the state, the past few decades have not been quite assuring.

Out of the 69 years post independence, Congress ruled Assam for more than 50 years. For the first time, Congress was ousted from Dispur when the AGP formed the government in 1985. Subsequently, AGP also ruled the state for another term from 1996 to 2001. Therefore, from 1980s onwards, politics in Assam revolved primarily around these two parties. The Communists and the vestiges of the Janata Party remained only marginal players in Assamese politics.

For the first time in 1991, BJP rose in Assam with a slim representation of 10 seats mostly in the Barak Valley – the victory attributed to ‘Ram Mandir wave’ by some political analysts. In 2001 and 2006, the BJP spread gradually in Upper Assam and the north bank of the Brahmaputra. In 2011, BJP was ousted from the Barak Valley but spread to lower and central Assam. In 2014, seven out of the 14 Loksabha seats were picked up the BJP, riding on the Modi wave.

It is interesting to observe this trajectory because in the political statements that the people of Assam have been pronouncing since 1991, the Axomiya sentiment in Assam, though, reverberates on the surface but the larger pan-India issues like poverty, unemployment and development have gradually gained primacy. It is within this super text that Assam politics has redefined and reconstructed itself.

The gradual but definite move from regional issues to national aspirations is a movement towards relying on a larger developmental agenda and coopting governance concerns for better livelihoods. With this movement of an Axamiya articulation of mere cultural mores to a more universal negotiation with common problems like poverty, malnutrition, equality, uneven development, Assam has made a definite stride towards achieving the national targets.

According to Sanjib Baruah, “Today we need a different kind of morality to accommodate a historical understanding of the nation state system and the logic of new nationalisms in some areas of the world and of subnational politics in many more or less stable ‘nation states’.” The politics of Assam, like most other politics of identity, lie in the real or imagined homelands of the articulators.

Pan-Indian political community – an Indic community – is in fact a poetic construction of a homeland – a sole repository of collective memories and dreams of all Indians. Primal, homelike, or a sacred space that transforms people into a collective with shared origins and kinship, this Indic articulation of a united, organic whole is what perhaps Hegel theorized on. Through the lens of Hegel’s idea of ‘totality’, which preserves within it each of the various stages and ideas that it has overcome or subsumed, one can look at the Indic nation state as a more organic phenomenon of coopting subnational divisions into the national Indic consciousness.

Therefore, what is unique is that while thesubnational movement in Assam, like the rest of India, was inspired by the Western concept of nationalism, it was in practice, efforts to construct a state that was, by and large, the opposite of “ethnically and linguistically homogenous entities” – cohering and making sense of the larger ideas of development, health, education among many others.

The leitmotif of identity politics has always been empowerment. In a post liberalized, postmodern Indian consciousness, Assam, like many other Indian states, is grappling with issues of conflict. Hinging on the super text of an ideology that is committed to the sole concerns of swift and all round development, the empowered national rhetoric of unity in diversity is very succinctly reflected in Assam at the cultural cusp of Shankar-Azan’s teachings.

http://www.indiafoundation.in/2016/07/14/assam-a-microcosm-of-india/

Mahesh Sharma's proposal to grade artists will lead to transparency

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/mahesh-sharma-narendra-modi-jnanpith-award-sahitya-akademi-award-rti/story/1/11836.html

In a display of shoddy and yellow journalism, many new and some old media houses termed a suggestion by the ministry of culture "absurd".

The suggestion has been to grade artists and writers on the basis of which they will be sent to various events and festivals, and as part of delegations to represent the nation.

The online outrage is rather expected and patterned. The government is being nitpicked by a section of eternally biased and lazy media community.

Though my efforts to find the "policy" on the ministry's website failed and so did my endeavours to find out the policy brief from telephonic conversations with the ministry officials (I was tossed from one table to the other), I want to argue on the merits of the alleged "policy" on certain fundamental points.

1. In a country of a billion-plus population, awards, scholarships, prizes and sponsorships are cherished goals or tools to hone one's art. How do you decide on who deserves these accolades than by choosing a matrix?

More so, how should a government, now under constant surveillance by citizen-empowering tools like the RTI, maintain a repository of various documents at each stage of decision-making on such a crucial question, than by resorting to some form of grading or assessment?

Is it wrong to refer to best industry practices within traditions of the Nobel Prize, Booker Prize, Jnanpith Award, Sahitya Akademi Award in order to streamline an annual "job" of identifying best fits by the government from a billion-plus talent pool?

2. Till date, the question on greatness of artists, writers, opinion makers, journalists, singers, dancers and sculptors has been nurtured in India under a system of nepotistic patronage.

The by and large Left-dominated lectures in art and humanities schools and departments of prestigious universities - claiming to produce the most liberal minds of the country - try hard to bust the myth of greatness as a concept.

But nothing concrete has emerged out of these classrooms of rebellion in terms of systemic and systematic change within the "ideological State apparatus" of academic curricula.

Systematic study, or critique, or challenge to the greatness of artists, writers, or poets of the centuries past has never led to change in syllabi or introduction to new talent or voices in the canon - literary or political.

In a way that justifies their revolutionary lectures. For instance, one may want to question here why the syllabus of Delhi University's English department only emphasises on north Indian greatness in Indian literature.

Why has the department still not broken away from the tradition that defines the grand canon of Indian writing? It is time that we ask ourselves, in the defence of liberalism: do we need a matrix to define greatness or even to bust the myth of greatness?

3. In the long dialogue in academic-intellectual discourse on greatness and ordinariness of art, many theories have been written, discussed and canonised within the systematic study of art and literary criticism.

Plato, Aristotle, Valmiki, Al Jahiz, Abdullah ibn al-Mu'tazz, Lodovico Castelvetro, Horace, Longinus, Shakespeare, Sidney, Donne, Matthew Arnold, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Anandvardhan, Ram Chandra Shukla, Ram Vilas Sharma and many other theorists across the colonial, post-colonial, foreign and indigenous spectrum have left sheaves of literary and art criticism to be cherished over time. What must stop us from allowing the essence of these theories to stipulate, theorise and follow a set of criteria in order to judge good art?

4. In the post-capitalism mixed economy like ours, where art is as much a commodity for some artists as an impassioned discipline for others, how must a government choose relevant, representative art and literary pieces that are better than the existing lot? How should it choose the determinants of artistic honour and decide on who gets those coveted awards which are worthy to be returned later?

5. In a country of billion-plus population - buzzing with ideas, sounds, music and art of all kinds - where everyone is proving his/her relevance in an overtly competitive world, why must artists and writers be away from an artistic call to improve their form, cadence and performance? Why must there be no criteria to judge them?

6. The Indian art industry is dominated by a status-quoist, West-dominated, leftist expression of monolithic rant sans logic and rationale but is an interspersed poetry of pure propaganda.

How does a government, as a custodian of free expression, ensure a balance in the narrative than by arriving at an inward-looking critique of its own cultural environment but by striving to reach a certain consensus on good art?

The art and literature stalwarts, in the spirit of democracy, must get down on their study tables, re-learn their art criticism theories and come up with unique proposals to be sent to the ministry.

These proposals will surely help the government - accused unfairly of propagating unilateral and monolithic ideas - craft a robust and democratic system of assessing the right talent in a specialised field like art and literature.

Since there is an intention of grading in the otherwise opaque, patronising and unilateral system of artistic excellence, not only will the artists and writers come under the ambit of RTI, their achievements too will be a part of public scrutiny.

The absence of alacrity to accept this movement towards transparency and betterment is telling, worrying and baffling.

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/mahesh-sharma-narendra-modi-jnanpith-award-sahitya-akademi-award-rti/story/1/11836.html

Why is Congress against Nehru and Ambedkar's dream of Uniform Civil Code?

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/bjp-government-uniform-civil-code-congress-article-44-article-25/story/1/11525.html

During 1948-51 and 1951-54, Jawaharlal Nehru and BR Ambedkar tried relentlessly to push for a Uniform Civil Code in the country.

Ironically, today, the Congress party in no unequivocal terms has shunned the Nehruvian and Ambedkarite vision. The Congress party has staunchly resisted this vision, which attempted to move the nation together towards an equal, equitable, just and secular society.

Needless to say, a temporary and futuristic debate on the Article 44, which made Uniform Civil Code a directive principle then, was never discussed by the Congress party even while it enjoyed power at the Centre for the longest time.

In 2014, Narendra Modi made a poll promise. On behalf of the BJP, he vowed to implement the Uniform Civil Code. Taking a committed step towards realising this vision, the Modi government has requested the Law Commission of India to lend its views on the deeply controversial issue.

Not only has the government chosen to bell the cat, but also showcased its deepest and sincere commitments towards the Constitution of the India, rooted in the social vision of Ambedkar.

Under the Uniform Civil Code, all personal religious laws in the country covering matters like marriage, divorce, property rights, inheritance and maintenance will be brought under a secular umbrella in a unified way.

The code will be binding on each and every citizen of the country, irrespective of the religious community he/she belongs to.

It leaves the rituals and day-to-day practices of faith and rites outside the purview of its sight, but ensures that civil matters affecting Constitutional rights pertaining to equality, freedom, choice, protection against exploitation and claims of ownership are duly considered.

Goa, a BJP-governed state, consisting of 25 per cent Christian population has adopted the Goa Civil Code or the Goa Family Law binding. Notwithstanding the need for change involving certain regressive clauses, Goa has shown a way towards creating a more egalitarian society. 

The uniform code has been possible and sustainable without any threat to the identity of "minorities".

The secularism in the idea that is Uniform Civil Code must be acknowledged and understood in totality before jumping to the politically motivated and managed debates around the issue. The Westphalian idea of secularism separates the Church from the State.

This separation was made to ensure that there is freedom to follow one's religion (they called it "faith") and that the State does not institutionalise corruption within religion - religion being a very personal connection (therefore, the usage of the word "faith" earlier) between God and man, something intrinsic to individual liberty.

The Indian version of secularism, in essence, adopts the intention of the Westphalian concept while tailor-making the nuances to be able to fit diversity, unity and equality together.

This is important considering India, unlike the West, is a very plural and very diverse society in terms of the practice of various faiths. Therefore, the Uniform Civil Code is necessary to protect and conserve this unique diversity against exploitation - political, social and civil.

Instead of the state discussing religious matters within and through the judiciary, a Uniform Civil Code will divest the state from faith-related concerns and limit its control to civil matters involving issues of rights, inheritance, protection and equality.

This will not just reduce the time and resource consumed on so many pending cases of seemingly religious concerns, but also ensure that the state draws a rather clear line on where it must stop wielding control.

It will protect the rights of the minorities. In a highly patriarchal society like India, diversity and variety has created those marginalised communities who are deliberately brushed aside for dominant political control.

Women, children, disabled and disadvantaged have been sidelined while discussing the rights of religious minorities. This majoritarianism within the debate has excluded citizens from attaining their Fundamental Rights enshrined in the Constitution.

The Uniform Civil Code busts these myths about minorities enmeshed within identity politics and recognises the real minorities whose rights and claims need protection.

It is unfortunate that positive and affirmative polarisation on the issue of Uniform Civil Code is a far cry for politicians in the Congress party.

Not only have they consistently made state intervention binding on religious misdemeanours by flaring religious fundamentalism and fanning a false sense of identity politics, but also ensured that the secular ideal evades the national consciousness.

It is unfortunate that the BJP government at the Centre is being targeted for the "timing" of the debate, considering UP elections.

Since elections are a perennial festival in India and since religious minorities are uniformly distributed all across the national geography, it is myopic and illogical to give an electoral colour to the debate.

At whatever time in history this debate comes up, there is going to be some poll lurking in municipality, panchayat, state or national level.

Does it mean we never debate on this crucial subject to placate a false propaganda by the Oppostion?

The BJP government should, in fact, be lauded for its sincere commitment to convert the promise it made to the citizens of this nation into a reality.

The Congress should play the responsible Opposition and remember that invoking Nehru and Ambedkar to polarise "liberal" and "Dalit" votes is not politics but politicking.

A real tribute to Nehru and Ambedkar would involve positive polarisation on issues of secular concerns like equality, freedom, protection against exploitation and right to ownership.

Is India ready to achieve its historical ideals? Only time will tell.

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/bjp-government-uniform-civil-code-congress-article-44-article-25/story/1/11525.html

Bihar fake topper Ruby Rai is not the culprit, but the victim

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/bihar-fake-topper-ruby-rai-nitish-kumar-bseb-government-jobsbicycle-campaign/story/1/11455.html

In another major embarrassment to the honourable chief minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, Ruby Rai - a girl from the state and formerly its Class 12 "topper" - has emerged as an icon of the state government's failure. This time it is on another crucial front - education.

During the campaign for Nitish ji last year, among many other things, I spearheaded the "Bicycle Campaign" led by a group of women cyclists in Patna.

These women were mostly the beneficiaries of Nitishji's scheme and used the same bicycles that he gifted them to do door-to-door campaign for him.

I had seen a generation of my own neighbourhood friends in village not go to school because it was far off and thus was not safe for women to travel.

I only wished they could continue because with time, I lost most of them - to marriages. They were married off and had kids in a year or two. With little to talk in common, we drifted.

So, when Nitishji started the Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojana in Bihar, I was supremely happy. Bicycle for millions of Bihari girls became a symbol of pride, freedom and an instrument to succeed in life.

Riding on it, confidently whizzing past the aaris (gaps between fields), girls had started going to school. I smiled each time I saw girls on the bicycle thinking they were symbolic of a generation set free.

But today, when I see Ruby Rai reduced to a joke on mainstream and social media, I feel pained. I feel sorry for a "system" that could not keep up.

I feel embarrassed at our collective failure, which even in its expression of addressing the concern, reflects a lynch mentality.

I cannot see Ruby at fault when she said yesterday, "I merely wanted to pass, not to top."

I do not see her as the culprit for she is a victim. And I cannot see her character being lynched so brazenly for she must already be so embarrassed and so singled out that I fear Ruby will lose her mind.

I share the same sociocultural reality as her. I am a Bihari woman who has lived a major part of my life in rural Bihar. So, I know how much agency she would have had earlier in deciding her fate. I also know what she must have been going through now after being reduced to a "fake" in the eyes of the world she comes from.

When one of my distant buas sang beautiful Sanskrit shlokas in front of my newly-wed mother, my mother requested her father to send her to school for formal education.

Also read - With such rotten education, Bihar toppers' ignorance expected

My grandfather refused flatly and said, "Ekra padh likh ke commissioner bane la to he na. Baad me chulha hi foonktai. Bas chitthi patri bhar seekh jaaye, bahut hai. (She does not need to be a commissioner. Ultimately she has to cook and clean. She should have basic literacy to be able to read and write letters)."

This story did not end with that generation. My own friends from village did not study much. Not because they could not but because they were not allowed to.

In the age of a changed marriage market scenario now, mere housework was not guarantee of a "suitable" marital alliance. Now grooms demanded education certificates or "degrees".

However, acquiring degrees and gaining real education do not fit the order of the day in a highly casteist and patriarchal society of Bihar.

Besides, girl education is meant to serve either of the twin purposes in my state - get any kind of government job and/or marry another government employee. There is no reason why a procured degree cannot fulfil this purpose.

In perfect collusion with the local administration, degrees have been churned at fixed rates with proper seal and signatures from education officials in the state.

In this context, are we being fair to Ruby?

Is it fair to single her out and point solitary fingers at her? Is it justified that those who are operating this "system" enjoy the daily dose of sarcasm and laughter at her expense?

Does Nitishji know how many Shiksha Mitras in Bihar who teach these students have genuine degrees? Does his education department know which universities in Bihar do not furnish illegal degrees?

Does Bihar administration not know the authenticity of the degree, before appointing employees in its system at lower levels?

The answers are all in affirmative. And sadly, that is where the problem is.

Bihar suffers from an epidemic of cheating to get on with education. Knowledge has gradually slipped away from the priority list of our system.

From a state which has one of the highest rates of teachers' absenteeism cases, what is the incentive of the students to come to school? How is Ruby responsible for knowing what to write on Tulsidas then?

Even if Ruby is punished and penalised, what do we achieve? Does her punishment prove a point about a brilliant system in Bihar? Does it absolve us of a collective sin?

Does it break the nexus between the system and the subject? And most importantly, does it assure that girls will be allowed to go out and study?

It is ironic that in the noise and din to "nab the culprit" in haste, symbolic lives have been butchered while the system stays on unrepentant.

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/bihar-fake-topper-ruby-rai-nitish-kumar-bseb-government-jobsbicycle-campaign/story/1/11455.html

Nitish ji, why does Bihar Police name rape victims and not stop crime?

http://www.catchnews.com/national-news/nitish-kumar-ji-why-is-bihar-police-naming-rape-victims-instead-of-stopping-crime-1467105103.html

 On 24 June, I wrote an open letter to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressing my anguish over the growing number of crimes against women in the state. I am from Bihar and had worked a communication consultant for Kumar during the last Assembly elections and I'm deeply disturbed by his inaction.

Three days later, Bihar Police chose to respond to my letter via a Facebook post.

Sadly their first response was to disclose the name of the rape victim, which was picked up by the local media. What followed was a hasty and shoddy attempt at damage control, wherein Bihar police deleted the post, and published an edited response.

Before I present a point-by-point rebuttal to their insensitive post, let me thank the Bihar government for taking cognizance of the letter. Let me also point out in the same breath that the insensitive response - both in content and form - cements my view thatjungle raaj has returned to my state.

I think the Nitish Kumar government's official response to rape cases in Bihar are:

1. Insensitive: By resorting to a public announcement - they turned a heinous crime into a routine administrative process. By mentioning monetary compensation in the name of relief, the state has shown it has scant regard for this emotionally, physically and mentally damaging subject.

My letter, though a political instrument, was an emotional outburst, written on behalf of hundreds of JD (U) women workers and is reflective of the collective angst of Bihari women. Instead of taking aggressive affirmative action to boost security for women, they have limited themselves to bureaucratic drudgery. Is Bihar government under the illusion that the solution to rape is monetary compensation or that merely registering cases of rape are enough? Is this what the Bihar model has been reduced to?

2.Incorrect, irrelevant data: The police letter quotes NCRB data from 2015 to show that Bihar has become comparatively 'safer' for women.

Considering there is dearth of basic security and safety, and that the number of cases of rape and molestation have shot up since the Nitish government came into power in 2015, that claim is ironic. My letter picked up alarming anecdotes from the month of June 2016 alone. In this context, how is this 2015 data relevant?

Forget about common women of the state or my friends or family, when JD(U) female workers call me and tell me, 'aap awaaz uthaiye, hum saamne se bol bhi nahi sakte' (speak on our behalf, because we can't), I feel helpless, enraged. I feel as wronged as they do. I feel as humiliated as they do. Will Nitish ji explain which data captures this fear, this angst and this helplessness among his own cadre?

3. Diverting attention: Not only is Bihar government chest thumping on a year old inaccurate data, they're resorting to cheap political gimmickry by comparing numbers from other states' NCRB data. Are women in Bihar supposed to feel safe just because other states have worse track record? This sort of comparison shows nothing but intellectual bankruptcy by the Nitish Kumar government.

4. Blind-siding the real issue: A gender-sensitive government and leader wouldn't dare claim "reported versus non-reported" cases to justify inaction like the Nitish Kumar government did when they pleaded ignorance of a particular case because it was not 'reported.'

Isn't it a known fact that not all cases of exploitation are promptly reported? Are they saying there are no instances of unreported crime in the state? In a country such as ours, there are socio-political taboos responsible for non-reporting of cases of crimes against women. Shouldn't Nitish sarkaar take responsibility for this grossly unrealistic interpretation that just because a case went unreported, crime doesn't exist in the state?

Does Bihar government really feel that a gangraped woman is in a frame of mind to deal with the trauma of 'reporting' the abduction of her daughters after her brutal rape? Did the government take any suo moto cognizance of that heart rending case? If it did, can it publicly announce the progress, therein? If it did not, would it explain why?

The official response in another rape case quotes medical reports claiming that the private parts of a survivor had not been mutilated. Let me remind Nitish ji that this is a mere 'perspective' from the government medical fraternity. As a woman, I counter that only the survivor can and should testify if her private parts have been mutilated or not. If not herself, a female member of her family should officially claim and/or approve and/or disapprove of the government's position.

We all know that official medical responses are highly manipulative and manageable. A brief conversation with any government medical professional in Patna will explain how politics often supercedes genuine medical opinion and influences the final reports.

By blaming the media for misreporting and falsely claiming that cases are 'made up', the government has further created a dent in the public-leadership connect. As a female journalist from Bihar, I thank my colleagues for reporting whatever information the stringer network churns. But as a reporter myself, I feel physically threatened. By gagging the fourth estate of our democracy through official proclamations , the government has issued an undeclared emergency.

The 'system' has used the state machinery for a long time to build a societal wall for a survivor to feel humiliated, threatened and even discouraged from discussing crimes of exploitation. In this case too, I fear that this official statement from the police may have broken the confidence and will power of the survivor to report the crime. Since the case has attracted nation-wide outrage in the media, the women of Bihar deserve justice. The arguments made by Bihar police on Nitish ji's behalf reek of misogyny, a hastily put-together 'research', political motivation and an administrative lethargy to report truth as it stands.

My letter to Nitish ji traced a very personal journey of not just me as an individual, but of the women in the state. It was a letter of spontaneous emotional outburst which came from my own personal journey from fear to strength to brutal betrayal - a journey gone wrong. To quote from my first letter, 'women in the state including myself feel that Nitish ji used 50% of Bihar's population - its women - simply as vote banks. Today, looking at the state of affairs, we feel cheated and betrayed. Due to the inaction of the government and its alliance with RJD, our worst fears have been proved right.

As a citizen of Bihar, I appeal to Nitish Kumar, the state government and the administrative machinery to not further politicise this issue, or deepen this feeling of emotional disconnect which the women of state feel for their once-favorite political leader.

We have shifted our allegiance and have been forced to embrace fear over something as abhorrent as rape.

http://www.catchnews.com/national-news/nitish-kumar-ji-why-is-bihar-police-naming-rape-victims-instead-of-stopping-crime-1467105103.html