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Volume LVIII, No. 43

EDITOR Ruben Banerjee
MANAGING EDITOR Sunil Menon
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Satish Padmanabhan
CHIEF OF BUREAU Pranay Sharma
POLITICAL EDITOR Bhavna Vij-Aurora
BUSINESS EDITOR Arindam Mukherjee
SENIOR EDITOR Giridhar Jha
CHIEF ART DIRECTOR Deepak Sharma
WRITERS Lola Nayar, Qaiser Mohammad Ali
(Senior Associate Editors), G.C. Shekhar,
Dola Mitra (Associate Editors), Prachi Pinglay-
Plumber, Ushinor Majumdar, Ajay Sukumaran
(Assistant Editors), Naseer Ganai (Senior
Special Correspondent), Preetha Nair, Neel
Shah (Special Correspondents), Salik Ahmad,
Siddhartha Mishra (Senior Correspondents),
Arshia Dhar (Correspondent)
COPY DESK Rituparna Kakoty (Senior Associate
Editor), Anupam Bordoloi, Saikat Niyogi,
Satyadeep (Associate Editors), Martand Badoni
(Assistant Editor), Rohan Manoj (Sub Editor)
PHOTOGRAPHERS S. Rakshit (Chief Photo
Coordinator), Jitender Gupta (Photo Editor),
Tribhuvan Tiwari (Deputy Photo Editor),
Sandipan Chatterjee, Apoorva Salkade
(Sr Photographers), Suresh Kumar Pandey
(Staff Photographer) J.S. Adhikari (Sr Photo
Researcher), U. Suresh Kumar (Digital Library)
DESIGN Saji C.S. (Chief Designer), Sajith Kumar
(Chief Illustrator), Leela (Senior Designer),
Devi Prasad, Padam Gupta (Sr DTP Operators)
DIGITAL Neha Mahajan (Assistant Editor),
Soumitra Mishra (Digital Consultant), Jayanta
Oinam (Special Correspondent), Lachmi Deb
Roy, Thufail P.T., Ipsita Pati (Senior Correspon-
dents), Satata Karmakar (Correspondent),
Adil Rashid (Trainee Journalist), Suraj
Wadhwa (Chief Graphic Designer),
Rupesh Malviya (Video Editor)
EDITORIAL MANAGER & CHIEF LIBRARIAN THE WAVE OF THE HAND Congress chief Rahul Gandhi at a rally
Alka Gupta
BUSINESS OFFICE
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Indranil Roy
PUBLISHER Sandip Kumar Ghosh
16 The Migration Backlash
SR VICE PRESIDENT Meenakshi Akash Migrant labour is considered the backbone of many states’ economic progress, but local
VICE PRESIDENTS Abraham Uthup,
Bindu Dhawan, Sam Ben Samuel, Shrutika sentiments and biases continue to haunt this itinerant workforce
Dewan Padma Balasubramani (Branch Head)
SR GENERAL MANAGER Kabir Khattar (Corp)
GENERAL MANAGERS Debabani Tagore,
Sasidharan Kollery, Shashank Dixit,
22 Frightened Hush
Siddhartha Chatterjee, Shailender Vohra
ASSISTANT GENERAL MANAGER
#MeToo has yet to reach patriarchal, small-town India where sexual harassment
Diwan Singh Bisht
CHIEF MANAGER Shekhar Kumar Pandey
of women is rampant and few dare to speak out
MANAGERS Shekhar Suvarana, Sudha Sharma
CIRCULATION & SUBSCRIPTION Raj Kumar
Mitra, Anindya Banerjee, G. Ramesh (South),
Vinod Kumar (North), Arun Kumar Jha (East)
30 Whither Congress?
DIGITAL Amit Mishra The stakes are high for the grand old party of Indian politics in the five approaching
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4 LETTERS 8 DEEP THROAT 61 BOOKS 64 GLITTERATI 66 DIARY
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29 October 2018 OUTLOOK 3

letters
Hear That Voice

SURENDRANAGAR Charu shah: ade. In the USA, the #MeToo
This refers to Speakout (Oct 5). Apart movement has kept growing. Now it
from such platforms, where are has been reported that since April
women allowed the space to speak 2017, more than 250 powerful people—
their minds out? People are ok as long celebrities, politicians, CEOs and oth
as the ladies can keep mum, but as ers—have been facing sexual
soon as they open their mouth, every harassment, assault or other miscon
one starts panicking. duct allegations. In India too, many
gods have been found to have feet of
GOA M.N. Bhartiya: The theme of clay, not just Nana, but many more in
women empowerment for the Outlook films, the media and the entertainment
Speakout this year was quite inspiring. industry. This is definitely our
The contribution of highly accomplished #MeToo movement!
and courageous women like Atishi, the
AAP leader who has done exemplary MARUTHANCODE G. David
work for the Delhi school education sys Milton: The masculine gender seems to
tem is not as well known as it deserves to give its members so much overriding
be. I wish all these women felicitated at power that male actors are alleged to
Outlook’s event all the success in their have sexually assaulted women dir
endeavours. It is very important to tell ectors, producers and writers. But, a
society about such role models. October 15, 2018
misdemeanour is not the same as fel
ony; similarly, lewd comments, obscene
Don’t D.I.Y.? Woman vs Predator gestures or inappropriate touching are
ON E-MAIL Nitin Majumdar: NOIDA Bal Govind: This refers to not the same as rape. They cannot be
Apropos of D.I.Y. Chandrachud (Oct 15), Predators! (Oct 15). As we all know, lumped together. One is not quite sure
on matters of great bearing on the peo Bollywood works in various big whether all #MeToo allegations can be
ple, the nation also expects that the camps—and until and unless the big taken at face value. We cannot say with
higher judiciary should respect the con shots stand up for this cause, nothing any finality that no woman would make
stitutional morality enshrined in the much will change at the grassroots an allegation of sexual abuse to settle an
separation of powers and scrupulously level, and we will soon forget Tanushree old score. It is naive to imagine that sex
desist from treading on the toes of the Dutta’s allegations. Having said that, it ual favours are never offered to curry
executive and the legislature. Except in would be foolish to jump the gun like favour with influential men. Still, the
rare cases, PILs should not be admitted this without hearing Nana Patekar and #MeToo movement deserves our full
in any such matter, and the court should Vivek Agnihotri’s side of the story. And support as it is against sexual harass
advise the petitioner to approach the why did it take her eight years to make ment and not against the joy of male
ministry concerned for redressal, or the accusation? female companionship.
approach an MP/MLA/MLC to move a
private member’s bill in Parliament or DEHRADUN Rakesh Agarwal: ON E-MAIL T. Santhanam: This ref
the state legislature. The torrent of PILs Misogyny and patriarchy are deeply ers to Predators! (October 15). Women
needs to be tamed into a trickle for opti embedded in Indian society—and the of our country have started going ham
mum use of quality judicial time. film industry with its casting couches, mer and tongs on men’s questionable
and powerful directors and producers behaviours. The onslaught has been
ON E-MAIL P. Suryanarayana: taking girls for granted, is even more rather sudden, catching the men off
Koka Subba Rao did not “retire” as misogynistic. In such a scenario, most guard. Men have always taken for
Chief Justice of India as mentioned in women choose to remain silent; when granted that flirting with women is
your story. He resigned much before someone like Tanushree Dutta dares their birthright. Looks like quite a few
his retirement date, in order to contest to speak, all hell is loosed on her, ask VIPs of all hues and colours have been
the Presidential election. ing why she remained silent for a dec taken by surprise that their casualness
one-liner
BANGALORE Sneha Narayan
Speakout’s all good if accompanied by earnest attempts to ‘listen out’ by the menfolk.
4 OUTLOOK 29 October 2018
INBOXED
Subscription, Copy That!
ON E-MAIL Manoj Sachdeva: Last night I met
could cause them so much embarrass Vinod Mehta in a dream. A drink in hand, he looked
ment and disgrace. It was high time a bit sad. Surprised, I asked him why he looked so
men got out of their slumber and began sad. He said: “I gave almost half my life to make
acting gracefully. Outlook group a great publishing house. The maga
zines we published found a special space in the
Editor of Hearts crowded news, travel and financial space in India.
PUNE Sudhir Naik: This refers to the But after I died, the subscription department is
diary by Sumita Paul, wife of the late hellbent to spoil the reputation. Now, an edition
Outlook editorinchief Vinod Mehta that hits the news stands on Friday is sent to its loyal subscribers on or after
(Distaff Diary, Oct 15). After a very Tuesday. Sometimes it reaches them the next Friday. They don’t even care for
long time, I was happy and nostalgic complaints made through calls or mails. Nobody is bothered about this poor
reading some stuff written straight distribution network. They are taking the loyal subscribers for granted.” I was
from the heart. As an old subscriber of surprised that he knew every thing. I have been writing mails and calling the
your magazine, I, a 69yearold, still subscription department for months, but nothing helps. They always repeat the
miss Vinod Mehta’s forthright writing. same line: “It won’t happen again. We’ve changed the courier agency.” A sub
He used to remind me of another great scriber of Outlook magazines for more than 20 years, I didn’t know how to con
editor, Khushwant Singh. I hope sole Mr Mehta. And before I could say a word, he said: “See how long this lasts.
Sumita Paul pens more such pieces, I’m afraid everything I had put into it may end up going waste.” He left and I
which appeal to people like me. woke up in a haze, wondering whether it was indeed a dream?
PALAKKAD Col (Retd.) C.V.

Venugopalan: Vinod Mehta has always preposterous statement calling it an howl at each other, I remember, many
been a quintessential prig. When every obscenity. He also didn’t care for the a time , the anchor had to “wake up”
cricketing legend—Sachin, Dravid, move to glam up the league by getting Vinod Mehta who would always be
Clive Lyod and Ricky Ponting—was in cheerleaders. In TV talk shows, dreaming and dozing. I love the
rooting for the IPL, Vinod made a where participants routinely bark and “Punjabi boy from Lucknow”.

IN & AROUND
THE SUBCONTINENTAL MENU
GARDEN-VARIETY vice to proffer—so he turned to

INFLUENCERS the online video platform. He’s
Y OUTUBE often comes to

our succour when we’re
at a loss, seeking knowledge
grown pomegranate success-
fully for five years now, telling
reporters, “I have never seen a
that’s not so much jealously loss so far.” He now has 300 of
guarded as stubbornly absent, the plants, which require little
from ‘how to wrap a dhoti’ to water, are not seasonal and are
techniques for pomegranate “ideal for growing in Dharma-
farming. When N. Azhagum- puri”, on an 80-cent plot. This
ani, a farmer in Tamil Nadu’s year, Azhagumani, now one of
Dharmapuri district, decided to two pomegranate farmers in the
cultivate the shrub, the horti- district, earned Rs 5 lakh from
culture department had no ad- an investment of just Rs 50,000.
BUTTERFLY EFFECT
A butterfly flaps its wings on the

far side of the world, a cyclone
rears up out of the Bay of Ben- D
COCONUT CENSUS
RONES hover forebodingly
above the Sri Lankan coun-
gal to ravage parts of Odisha and tryside, snapping photographs
Andhra Pradesh—and fresh swarms that will be relayed back to
of butterflies emerge from their shadowy spymasters. The
chrysalides in the storm’s wake. Call government is launching an
it morbid, if you will, but it seems to initiative to use drones to take
high-resolution pictures that
can be used to estimate the
number of coconut trees in the LESSONS IN HAPPYNESS
T
country, as well as carry out
land surveys. Plantation indus-
HE Afghans have set their
tries minister Navin Dassanay- sights on Delhi. They’ve deci-
ake said that this marked the ded to take a leaf out of the Delhi
first step towards promoting government’s education policy and
the use of advanced technology adopt its ‘happiness curriculum’
in coconut cultivation. The next for their own schools. The 45-min-
step may involve drones spray- ute happiness classes, prepared by
ing fertiliser and chemicals on a team of 40 teachers and volun-
plantations. Meanwhile, there’s teers before being introduced in
also an app—of course there’s July for government school pupils
be a common trend in the after- an app—to register coconut between nursery and class VIII, are
plantation land holdings, soon
math of disasters everywhere: many unexamined and involve activities
to be available on Google Play.
newborn girls in the region have such as meditation, value educa-
been named Titli (‘butterfly’) after tion and mental exercises. Afghan-
the cyclone. Reportedly, one baby istan’s acting education minister,
born in a hospital in Odisha’s Gan- Mohammad Mirwais Balkhi—who
jam district, which saw significant had visited a government school
devastation, was named thus unan- and attended a happiness class
imously by her family, the doctors along with Delhi education mini-
and the hospital administration. ster Manish Sisodia—said, “Some-
Meanwhile, on October 10, Rudra times a young child (in Afghani-
Prassana Rath, a social activist and stan) has the tension level of an
columnist based in Bhubaneswar, aged person because of the war.
posted on Facebook: “Titli arrived This can bring peace to the minds
at my home. A baby girl, my second of our children so that they can
daughter, is born today at 9.00 am.” learn in a peaceful environment.”
Illustrations by SAJITH KUMAR

MONASTIC MEET AND GREET
Y OU’D never hear of a

Pope and an Antipope
doing such a thing, but
Lama and the majority of
Tibetans—and rival Trinley
Thaye Dorje, 35, discussed Tyburn In Lahore
the two claimants to the how they could cooperate to
leadership of the 900-year-
old Karma Kagyu (black
“heal the divisions”.
M UCH of the western world may well be moving away
from the death penalty and arguing in favour of
commuting capital punishment into life imprisonment. But
hat) lineage of Tibetan
in Pakistan, not only is hanging permissible by law, the
Buddhism have reportedly
demand is now to turn it into a public display.
held a series of meetings in
The Lahore High Court has issued a notice to the Punjab
rural France “to get to know
home secretary to appear before the bench to hear an
each other”. Tibetan sources
appeal on the public hanging of Imran Ali, the alleged
said Ogyen Trinley Dorjey,
murderer of seven-year old Zainab, in Kasur, a city in the
33—recognised as leader, or
southern part of the province. Zainab’s father Amin Ansari
17th Karmapa, by the Dalai
had petitioned the court for a public hanging of his daugh-
ter’s murderer and rapist.
Under section 22 of Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997
there is a provision for public hanging of a convict so that it
CARTOGRAPHIC CONQUEST acts as a deterrent in society. Imran Ali has lost all appeals
M YANMAR has annexed the island of St before the courts of the country and also denied a presiden-
tial pardon. Therefore, hanging
Martin’s in northeastern Bay of Bengal, him to death is now certain under
Imran Ali will
hitherto Bangladeshi territory. But there were the country’s legal provision. But
certainly hang
no amphibious landings, no naval gunfire the question is whether it will be
done publicly. for killing
support—only a cartographic coup de main. The rape and murder of Zainab seven-year-old
The island was marked as part of Myanmar in January this year had sparked Zainab. The
on recent maps on government websites. A outrage and protests across the question is if
country after the minor’s body he will be
protest from Bangladesh resulted in some was found dumped in a garbage
hanged
information being removed, but the map still heap in Kasur. A campaign, #Jus-
publicly, as the
shows the same colour. The island, which ticeforZainab became a rallying cry
as a large number of Pakistanis victim’s father
became part of East Pakistan in 1947, is close expressed their growing disquiet wants now.
to the sea border between Bangladesh and about violence against children.
Myanmar and was disputed between the two. Zainab’s was the 12th such case that occured within a 10
kilometer radius in the city over a 12-month period.
The intense pressure from the public on the government
forced its investigating agencies to act rapidly; by the end of
January they declared Ali as the prime suspect. Though he
continued to claim his innocence and challenged the fairness
OPEN TIGER TRAP IN LANKA of his trial, all the courts in Pakistan upheld his conviction.
I T may not, to say the situation in the Northern In June, the Supreme Court had ruled that since Ali had
least, be a good time to Province, and claimed admitted committing similar offences on eight other minor
speak in praise of the people there thought victims, “he did not deserve any sympathy in the matter of
Liberation Tigers of they had been better off his sentence”—the death penalty.
On Friday, an anti-terrorism court had issued death
Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in under the LTTE, and that
warrants for the convict’s execution in Kot Lakhpat jail.
Sri Lanka. Especially if there were no social
The court directed the jail superintendent to execute the
you’re a government crimes during the
warrants and submit a compliance report.
minister. In June, insurgent group’s reign.
But the Lahore court’s directive to the Punjab home
Vijeyakala Maheswaran, She had to resign from
secretary to appear before it to hear the petition of the
45, a state minister for her ministerial post in
victim’s father has now indicated that his hanging may well
child affairs and an MP July after her remarks
take place in public. This certainly will open a new chapter in
of the ruling United triggered a storm in
Pakistan and raise questions about its sense of justice.
National Party, criticised Parliament— she has now
the law and order been arrested.

deep throat
Cartoon by MANJUL
TO MERGE & ACQUIRE TALKATIVE GOVERNOR IT’S ALL DOWNHILL

There is never a dull moment Narinder Nath Vohra, who was With the BJP bracing to lose
in the political theatre of Tamil the first civilian governor of some Lok Sabha seats from
Nadu. The BJP is now pushing Jammu and Kashmir in 18 years heartland states such as Rajas
since Jagmohan, was known for
for the creation of a united than, Madhya Pradesh, Guja
his silence and for keeping the
AIADMK by getting the EPS media at arm’s length. In contrast,
rat, UP and Chhattisgarh, it
OPS group and the TTV group his successor governor Satya had hoped to make inroads
to agree to a merger ahead of Pal Malik, the new incumbent in into the coastal states of
the 2019 general elections. Srinagar’s Raj Bhavan, is creating Odisha, West Bengal, Tamil
Under the merger formula, the quite a buzz. On the front pages Nadu and Andhra Pradesh to
speaker will revoke the dis of the newspapers every day, compensate for the loss. How
qualification of 18 MLAs, three Malik is quick to come out with a ever, reports from various
of whom will be inducted into statement on every issue and is sources indicate that the party
easily accessible to the media. To
the EPS ministry. The party has not really made any gains.
reach out to people, he has been
leadership will continue with talking about the importance of
Odisha is the only state where
the EPSOPS group, while an elected government. This app the BJP is likely to improve its
TTV will have to remain No. 2. roach, however, is not liked by his seat share to about six out of
The only sticking point app bureaucracy, which has for long 21, from the current solitary
ears to be what happens to avoided any scrutiny by the press. seat held by Jual Oram. BJP
Sasikala. While Amit Shah and And some of his statements—such sources claim that the party
Arun Jaitley have okayed the as “my government is not against will not project anyone as the
merger proposal, PM Modi is militants, but militancy” and “we CM face in the assembly polls,
are ready to talk to militants”—
yet to approve it. The BJP cal and speculation is rife that
have hit the BJP, which is believed
culates that a united AIADMK to have asked him to keep a low Dharmendra Pradhan, once
would make a stronger ally profile but to no avail. This is the being groomed for the job, may
even if Rajinikanth does not price you pay for appointing a be asked to contest the Lok
come forward. political person as governor. Sabha, and not assembly, polls.

G LO BAL POS ITION ING
Asian
Century
Flirting
What will New Delhi do with
China’s call to check the US?
PIB
by Pranay Sharma on emerging economies. The Inter- INCHING CLOSER Chinese President
national Monetary Fund recently cut its Xi Jinping and PM Modi at Wuhan
A
crucial part of the geopolitical global economic growth forecast for
aspiration of the ‘Asian Century’ 2018-2019 by over 3.7 per cent. ally and at the global stage. The current
is a China-India relationship China claims that in the face of situation has made other international
that is considered to be capable American unilateralism and its bullying investors cautious of venturing into new
enough of changing the eco- tactics, the two neighbours have more markets. On top of that, the rupee has hit
nomic order of the world. But reasons to join hands to ensure a “more an all-time low vis-à-vis the US dollar and
talks of such an alliance appear on the just and reasonable international order.” the situation has been compounded fur-
horizon only during a crisis, particular- But India has serious doubts if the US’s ther by the steep hike in oil.
ly when it is initiated by the US. More departure from the scene or its marginal- On October 15, the Indian prime minis-
often than not, the optimistic possibili- isation can prove to be beneficial for India. ter warned oil producing nations of not
ties of the developing nations becom- Will it be better for India if China, which making the mistake by killing “the goose
ing a force to reckon with as mutually is already the world’s second largest that laid the golden egg”. After all, devel-
nurturing economic allies have fizzled economy, replaces the US? oping economies like India are big buyers
out either once the crisis is resolved or In the past decade or so, Sino-Indian of oil. The unfettered hike in oil and other
other compelling developments at play trade has shown phenomenal growth. petroleum products could force India to
in the global theatre take over. But Delhi has also seen how China has look at other energy options. These global
Where should India position itself at a managed to manipulate the existing sys- developments have put pressure on the
time when growing China-US trade con- tem since becoming a member of the Narendra Modi government, with elec-
frontations threaten to impair the world World Trade Organization to its benefit. tions less than a year away.
economy? “Under the current circum- By denying easy access to its markets to At the global stage, the US is trying hard
stances, China and India need to deepen other countries it has managed to pile up to regain its position of unquestioned
their cooperation to fight trade protec- huge trade deficits with almost all its supremacy. China is the obvious rival the
tionism,” suggested Chinese embassy trading partners. Beijing’s non-tariff US wants tamed. This was made clear by
spokesperson in India, Ji Rong, last week. barriers on pharmaceuticals, IT products US vice president Mike Spence’s recent
Arguing in favour of a stable environment and rice and meat exports from India speech at the Hudson Institute. He criti-
in Asia that will foster growth, Ji added, have created a huge trade deficit of over cised China for “bullying” investors,
“Practicing unilateral trade protectionism $63 billion in their bilateral trade. ‘buying’ countries with cheap loans and
in the name of ‘national security’ and ‘fair Indian officials admit that China has “tearing down the crosses.”
trade’ will not only affect China’s eco- become more amenable now in opening India and China have come just come
nomic development but also undermine up its market to Indian products than out of a long strained relationship, which
the external environment before. But they are not saw a cathartic end in last year’s Doklam
of India and hinder India’s sure whether this was out crisis. After this came the Wuhan meeting
booming economy.” of pure opportunism—a between Xi Jinping and Modi in March,
China’s fervent appeal to
China’s appeal tactic to get Delhi on its which appeared to bring about some
India to join ranks with it to India to join side in its current trade positivity in Sino-Indian bilateral ties.
against the US is not a ranks with it conflict with the US—or Still, India is in a position where it is
usual line. This is a chal- against the US whether this was indeed a being wooed by both the US and China.
lenging situation for the is not a usual course correction. Hence, it may still be beneficial to main-
planners in South Block to On the other hand, it is tain the independent foreign policy and
gauge. For one, the ongo- line. It has to also true that the US’s poli- expand the geo-strategic space to main-
ing China-US trade con- be gauged cies under Trump are tain peace and stability in the country’s
flict has shown its impact carefully. hurting India, both bilater- immediate neighbourhood and beyond. O

POLL PANGS
by Naseer Ganai in Bandipora
and Baramulla
T
HE road to Bandipora is pacific,
devoid of traffic on the morning
of October 10. Shops along the
way north from Srinagar are
shut, while people can be seen
congregating in small groups to
talk to each other. Hardly promising
portents for the second phase of
Jammu and Kashmir’s urban civic
election, held after a gap of 13 years
and boycotted by major regional par
ties such as the National Conference
(NC) and the People’s Democratic
Party (PDP). A cacophony of rep
orters descends on the village of And
erkot in the Sumbal area of Bandip
ora district in north Kashmir—the
only polling station in the vicinity
When the Void

where they might catch a glimpse of
that rara avis, the voter. In the neigh
bouring Hajin area, none of the 13
wards is even contested.
Won the Vote

On approach, one sees that Anderkot
is indeed a fortress, ringed with three-
tier security: army on the outside, CRPF
in the middle and BSF on the inside.
Concertina wire on all sides of the
polling booth tops off this concentric
defence, and voters may pass the port-
As municipal polls are held after a gap of 13 years,
cullis only after a frisking. But the big depressed turnout in Kashmir speaks of alienation
sticks have come with little carrots: the
BSF personnel at the booth are giving frontier district of Kupwara and two either in Jammu or in Srinagar.
out biscuits to some children, who are polling booths in Baramulla town’s This disinterest on the voters’ part is
favourably impressed. Sangri area had decent turnouts. a new phenomenon, but perhaps it can
As they enter the polling booth, the Generally, these elections saw people be said to rhyme with the past. Political
beaming faces of Bandipora deputy cast votes in frontier areas like Uri, analyst Ahmad Ali Fayaz says the
commissioner Shahid Choudhary and where the army controls almost every current government has discredited
senior superintendent of police Sheikh aspect of life, and in places like Anderkot electoral democracy in the state after
Zulfikhar announce that they’re plea- and Sangri where local candidates were two decades of credibility. “Who will
sed with their work, having created an in the fray. But these are pinpricks of defend this sham in the name of elec-
electoral oasis amid a desert. A BSF light in a sunless sea; overall turnout in tions in Kashmir,” he asks, adding that
jawan recounts the horrors of this arid the Kashmir region was a mere 8.3 per the exercise has a parallel in the “farci-
land: when he was posted in the cent in the first phase, 3.4 in the second, cal” polls held in the state from 1947 to
Papachan area during the first phase, on 3.5 in the third and 4.2 in the fourth and the 1970s. The only similar instance in
October 8, nobody had turned out to final phase held on October 16. Of the the recent past may be the Srinagar
vote—until the BSF forced 60 villagers Valley’s 598 wards, nearly half went byelection of 2017, when Farooq
to do so. “But people here (Anderkot) uncontested. Mobile internet was shut Abdullah won the Lok Sabha seat with a
are friendly, and they are voting hap- down during the elections, there were turnout of seven per cent.
pily,” says the jawan, Ramesh Yadav. no campaigns, and people didn’t know In 2008, after the summer protests
Such promising pockets weren’t quite the names of the candidates; most of over the transfer of land to the Shri
absent from the first phase either: the these incognito hopefuls were holed up Amarnathji Shrine Board, and the
The BJP won at least 60 seats unopposed Regional parties boycotted the election Jammu and Ladakh saw high turnout,
and gained control of at least seven due to concerns about Article 35A, which bringing the total figure to 35.1 per cent,
municipal committees in the Valley. protects the state’s special status. or 5.97 lakh out of 17 lakh eligible voters.

SECRET BALLOT Hidden faces have been pushed to an extreme posi-
at a polling booth in Srinagar tion. As this election was about local
issues, village and urban problems, the
himself won uncontested. His father, lack of participation reveals complete
Kuka Parray—once the face of counter- alienation in the turbulent Valley.
insurgency in the state—became an
S
MLA and was killed by Hizbul EPARATIST calls to boycott most
Mujahideen militants in a 2003 ambush. other elections since 1996 were
Imtiyaz, who merged his father’s louder than they were this time—
Jammu and Kashmir Awami League but they never had much impact.
into the Congress in 2010, goes on to Seeing the people’s participation during
allege that the Centre didn’t listen to the 2008 assembly polls, senior separa-
the NC and the PDP, which wanted tist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani criti-
some assurance on the status of Article cised People’s Conference leader Sajjad
35A of the Constitution before ending Gani Lone, who was on the separatist
their boycott of the polls. side at the time, for fielding proxies.
On the other hand, Yasir Reshi, a PDP Lone hit back by describing Geelani as
rebel legislator in the upper house of the biggest hurdle in Kashmir’s path to
the J&K assembly, says the state’s two Azadi (‘liberty’). He eventually went on
mainstream parties—the NC and the to renounce separatist politics and join
PDP—had blackmailed the Centre for a the mainstream. According to separa-
GETTY IMAGES long time, but now, “Delhi has shown tist leaders, the Centre launched its
them what they can do without them.” electoral experiment in 1996—follow-
subsequent economic blockade of He does, however, concede that the ing six years of President’s rule in res-
the Valley in which 60 youths were disinterest demonstrated by the dep- ponse to the onset of the armed
killed and thousands wounded, sepa- ressed turnout shows that the people insurgency—in order to deflate
ratists expected the people to boycott ‘Azadi sentiment’ in the Valley.
the assembly polls in November and During the 1996 elections,
December—but the people proved them the candidates were ens-
wrong, and came out to vote in droves. conced in the security
The 2011 panchayat elections, held in forces’ camps, while the
the wake of the previous year’s unrest security forces marched voters
that saw 112 youths killed—and, again, in various places to the polling
thousands wounded—tell much booths. But even then, turnout was
the same story, while the 2014 far better than in this election.
assembly elections saw a turnout “This time there was total disin-
of 70 per cent in the Valley. terest. Whether we like it or not,
So, what has happened in the the traditional players do gener-
past four years to depress turn- ate that local flavour. Someone I
out and force parties like the BJP know, who has always voted—
to import candidates from Jammu? UNDERWHELMING NUMBERS even in the early ‘90s—just because
“People were victimised by the BJP First phase he felt it was his right and privilege,
government. The hard policy tow- 8.2% polling recorded in the Kashmir region did not do so today as he did not
ards Kashmir pushed people to the 92 of the 149 wards saw no polling even know who the candidates
wall, and the end result is that no 69 wards had candidates elected unopposed were,” says a senior police officer.
one is interested in the polls,” says Second phase He adds that a new generation of
Usman Majid, Congress MLA for 3.3% polling recorded in the Kashmir region “friends of Delhi,” who think they
Bandipora. Usman, a former coun- 117 wards out of 160 saw no polling can replace the traditional main-
terinsurgent-turned-mainstream- 56 wards had no candidates stream parties, has certainly
politician, claims that the previous 61 wards had candidates elected unopposed emerged—although the governm-
PDP-BJP government’s “lopsided” ent is not so naive as to think that
Third phase
development policies also led to they will be able to translate this
disinterest among the people. 3.5% polling recorded in the Kashmir region into something big.
Imtiyaz Parray, Congress candi- 121 wards out of 151 saw no polling The 1987 assembly election,
date in ward eight of Bandipora’s 49 wards had candidates elected unopposed widely considered to have been
Hajin area in this election, says the Fourth phase rigged by the NC government, is
government failed to provide a 4.2% polling recorded in the Kashmir region seen as the root cause of the armed
peaceful atmosphere for voters, 96 wards out of 132 saw no polling insurgency in Kashmir. Decades
leading to uncontested elections 52 wards had candidates elected unopposed down the line, what will come of an
and the absence of candidates; he election rigged by voter apathy? O

G R OUND ZERO
EARS
by Sandeep Sahu in Bhubaneswar of their houses were blown away. They
were either crushed under the debris
W WIDE
HEN Titli conducted its after the cave caved in or swept away by
chevauchée through Odi the landslide that followed. Some of the
sha, it left no dead bodies in bodies were found as far as 5 km from
SHUT
its wake—zero casualties. the place where they had taken shelter.
That was the state govern While confirming the 15 deaths, Sethi
ment’s line, and it stuck to denied the villagers’ charge, saying that
this claim until as late as October 12. the block chairman and an executive
Asked about reports from the ground The Odisha government was engineer had gone to the village and
suggesting a number of deaths in the
areas affected by the cyclone, espe
in denial about Titli deaths persuaded 68 families to move to a safer
place. Those who died, he claimed, bel
cially the worsthit Ganjam and Gaj onged to the seven families who refused
apati districts, food supply and con Over two dozen people, most of them to budge. But that would mean those
sumer affairs minister Surjya Narayan from Gajapati and Ganjam, are still rep families were given the option of stay
Patro, who represents Digapahandi in orted as missing five days after the cy ing—unlike the thousands of fishermen
Ganjam in the assembly, taunted a TV clone, and the chances of their survival living along the sea near Gopalpur dur
reporter, saying; “Your channel may are negligible. Thus, the toll could well ing cyclone Phailin five years ago. That
have such reports. But as per my inf cross 40 in the days ahead. The govern was when the Odisha government rec
ormation, no one has died.” ment had said it had evacuated over four eived accolades from across the world,
By the morning of October 16, however, lakh people living in ‘vulnerable’ areas— including a citation for its ‘commendable’
the government was forced to admit that but by that it apparently meant only the efforts by a UN agency, for its good work
there had been 26 deaths across the state, coast, where most of its attention was in restricting the toll to a minimum.
18 of them in Gajapati alone. Briefing focused, and not the hilly, inaccessible The government’s response was less
mediapersons, special relief commis areas of the two worsthit districts. adroit this time, partly due to factors
sioner Bishnupada Sethi said, “15 of the Residents of Baraghar village, which that were out of its hands, such as the
18 who died in Gajapati belonged to suffered the greatest number of casual inaccurate projections by the India
Baraghar village, two to Labanyagarh ties, say they had no prior information Meteorological Department, which had
and one to Anaga. Three people have about the arrival of Titli. “No one from predicted Phailin with pinpoint accu
been confirmed dead in the administration told us racy. After ratcheting up the projections
Ganjam district, while about the cyclone. Nor did for Titli to 165 kmph, it brought this
Kandhamal, Nayagarh, we get to know about it down to 126 kmph when the cyclone had
Cuttack, Angul, Keonjhar On October 16, from the media, since it’s a its landfall near Palasa in neighbouring
districts have reported 26 deaths remote place and there Andhra Pradesh. But failure to verify and
one death each. The next across the are no newspapers, TV or act on the casualty reports is a different
of kin of those who have state were other sources of news for issue, and with the death toll set to rise
died will be given com confirmed, 18 us,” one of them told a further, the Naveen Patnaik government
pensation at the rate of Rs local channel. The people may have undone all its good work over
4 lakh each. Altogether, 57 of them in who were killed had taken the years in preparing for disasters fol
lakh in 16 districts have Gajapati shelter in a cave in a lowing the Super Cyclone on October 29,
been affected by ‘Titli.” district alone. nearby hill after the roofs 1999, which devastated the state. O
Fishermen near Gopalpur

evacuate on October 11
AP

One of Omega’s
most iconic
timepieces,
the original
Seamaster
Professional
Diver 300M
celebrates
its 25th
anniversary this
year. To mark
SeamaSter
the occasion,
the brand
T
has unveiled
a complete
he Seamaster–it’s all in the name, right? Over facelift of this
the years, the Seamaster Professional Diver legendary watch
300M watch has been one of OMEGA’s most that can take
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technology, the original timepiece signaled you from a red
Omega’s triumphant return to the world of carpet occasion
diving watches and also ignited the brand’s
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only Agent 007, James Bond. Now 25 years waves without
later, the brand has unveiled a complete facelift of this legendary watch, missing a beat.
with 14 unique models, including six in stainless steel and eight in a
mix of steel and 18k gold.
What’s neW?
Sized at a larger 42 mm, each new Diver 300M has been given a Master
Chronometer Calibre 8800, instantly taking the collection into a
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detail of the outward design has also been rethought, including the
iconic diving bezel, which is now made from ceramic with the diving
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and durability).
The dials are also made from polished ceramic and are available
in black, blue or sun-brushed PVD chrome colour. Most notably,
OMEGA has reintroduced the wavy pattern (now laser-engraved) that
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All indexes have been raised and filled with Super-LumiNova and,
to keep track of the days, the date window has been moved to 6 o’clock.
Even the skeleton hands (rhodium-plated, 18K gold, or
blued) have been subtly re-shaped, which fans of the model
will surely notice.
Turning the watch over reveals a wave-patterned edge
on the caseback, as well as sapphire crystal, through which
From black
you can see the METAS-approved movement. Finally, each Tie To deep blue
model is presented on a traditional iconic metal bracelet or Given the brand’s success with Bond-related watch-
an integrated black or blue rubber strap. es and the historical connection between the 007
The metal bracelets feature a new ergonomic design and character and the Seamaster, Daniel Craig was the
have been closely integrated to the case. obvious choice as the face of the new Diver 300M
campaign. A friend of OMEGA and a true gentleman,
the divers’ choice Daniel Craig was more than happy to follow OMEGA’s
You don’t have to be an actual diver to wear the 300M, but for unique advertising approach. The campaign, which
those who do strap on the tanks, OMEGA’s new Seamaster blends black-tie sophistication with a sense of fun,
captures the essence of Omega’s new Seamaster Div-
is well and truly equipped for life beneath the waves. For er 300M, which can take you from a formal occasion
a diver, measuring time spent underwater is crucial (for to the depths of the ocean without missing a beat.
obvious reasons). On the new Seamaster 300M, the all- Convinced that the ‘macho yet dapper’ pose was
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With a luminescent dot at 12 o’clock, the iconic diving bezel was designed, with Daniel dressed in a fine dinner
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approach was the perfect way to promote the attri-
butes of the new timepiece.
The photoshoot took place in and around a giant
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where a good-natured Daniel Craig suited up and
plunged in. The final images, all 007-sophisticated
but with a sense of fun, captured the essence of
OMEGA’s new Seamaster Diver 300M, which blends
serious divers’ tech with a dressy elegant style.
WhaT’s unique?
One of the Diver 300M’s most important details has
always been its helium escape valve. For the new
models, the valve has been given a conical shape
and has been patented with an ingenious new
technology. Essentially, the update now means that
if the Helium Escape Valve is accidentally opened
underwater, the watch is guaranteed to still remain
water-resistant (up to 5 bar).
is now made from ceramic with the diving scale in

CeragoldTM or white enamel. Professional divers know
that helium molecules expand during decompression
and can pop the crystal face and caseback;
so,it’s important to set those molecules
free.
When it comes to keeping the Diver
firmly attached to the wrist, the metal
bracelets feature OMEGA’s patented
extendable foldover rack-and-pusher with
a helpful diver extension, to make extra
roomfor the thickness of a diving suit.
Magnetic forces in electronic devices
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the sea can throw a timepiece out of sync.
What’s more, diving equipment often
includes magnetic devices. That’s why
each new Diver 300M has been given a
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the movement and its watch have passed
the 8 stringent Master Chronometer tests
set by METAS that include examinations
under strong magnetic fields of 15,000
gauss.
by Giridhar Jha kind plant, the global diamond firm employment opportunities good eno
had promised to invest Rs 600 crore ugh for migrants to stay back have come
I
T was a swim against the perennial and hire 1,500 workers to meet its tar- unstuck. Faced with mounting losses,
high tide. When Shrenuj & Co Ltd get of processing 3 lakh diamond pie- the diamond firm has shut shop; its
set up a diamond cutting and polish- ces a month. Hailing the commission- workers are left to fend for themselves.
ing unit in Patna, bringing back 150 ing of the unit as a historic occasion A reverse migration of sorts, however,
skilled workers from Gujarat to heralding a brave new age of investm- did begin earlier this month from Gujarat,
their home state in 2013, it raised a ent, chief minister Nitish Kumar exu- but for grossly unsavoury reasons. Thou
glimmer of hope among the teeming lted that Biharis could finally return sands of terrified, often battered, migrant
Bihari migrants settled elsewhere in home for work from places like Surat. workers from Bihar, Jharkhand, West
the country. Launching a first-of-its- Five years on, dreams of creating Bengal, UP and other north and central

A stream of workers line up for their
train back at Ahmedabad station
where in the country for his livelihood. If

people from Bihar and Poorvanchal stop
going to Gujarat and Punjab, farms and
factories there will suffer.”
Noting that the worst of the violence
had passed, the BJP leader asserted
that Amarjit Singh, a 32yearold Bihari
living in Surat, had died in a road acci
dent, and not in mob violence, as rumo
urs had suggested, and as Amarjit’s kin
continue to believe.
But Gujarat, where migrants have been
living in constant fear since the attacks
started, and which forced many to leave
in disarray, is not the only state to treat
‘outsiders’ thus. In the past ten years, mig
rants have endured similar treatment in
other states, especially in Maharashtra,
where alleged Shiv Sena and Maharashtra
Navnirman Sena members continually
targeted them on one pretext or the other.
And yet, in states with excess labour like
Bihar and Jharkhand, lakhs are com
pelled to leave for other states every year,
despite the hardship and the casual, hu
miliating jeers they invariably face, just to
earn a basic livelihood. From Kashmir
and Rajasthan to the south of the
Vindhyas, there’s hardly a state that does
TRAVAIL GUIDE not gluttonously consume the toil of the
Bihari peasantmigrant. Although mig
Imagine There
rants from Poorvanchal and Bihar have
been transported by the British as inden
tured labour to work in the sugarcane
plantations of the Caribbeans in the 19th
Is No Migrant
century, internal migration rose sharply
since the ’80s, when recurring floods rav
aged the local agriculturebased economy
and forced many out of their villages.
All these years, reports of their exp
loitation also continued to trickle in.
Anti-migrant biases aren’t limited to Gujarat. Such Following the Gujarat troubles, Rupani
poor folk are targeted as ‘outsiders’ everywhere. sought to reassure workers by saying that
Gujarat was a “miniIndia where every
Photograph: GETTY IMAGES one is secure and respected”. On a visit to
Lucknow on October 15, he said that it
Indian states headed back home pell mell flared up, it indicated a disturbing pat was the hard work of people from UP and
to escape the violence triggered by the tern—migrants, as rank outsiders, were Bihar that helped develop Gujarat. Then,
rape of a 14monthold toddler, allegedly easy targets at their chosen workplace. he rounded off with a winning metaphor:
by a migrant from Bihar, in Sabarkantha Alarmed at the steady stream pouring “Today, nonGujaratis are living in Gujarat
district on September 28. As a hate cam out of Gujarat in panic, Bihar deputy and have become part of the culture just
paign against them was ratcheted up on chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi has like sugar dissolves in milk.”
social media and beyond, migrants had to appealed to Bihari workers not to leave Social scientists, however, beg to differ.
bear the brunt of mob violence in several Gujarat. “They should stay back as the Except in rare circumstances, they say,
districts. The virulence of the attacks Gujarat government has assured ade migrants hardly ever become part of local
caught the Vijay Rupani government off quate security,” Sushil says in Patna. “An culture and are invariably viewed with
guard. Even as a political blame game Indian citizen has the right to go any suspicion as “the other”. Pushpendra,

T R AVAIL GUID E
project coordinator of the Patnabased long history of regional disparity in rant labourers in Gujarat is yet to be fully
Centre for Development Practice and India and its development models assessed. “The number of returnees is
Research under Tata Institute of Social have not bridged this gap over the still not ascertained,” Labour minister
Sciences (TISS), says cases like those in years. Prosperous regions remain Moloy Ghatak tells Outlook in Calcutta.
Gujarat happened because a particular prosperous while underdeveloped “This is also the Durga Puja holiday season,
image of a migrant as an outsider gets ones fail to catch up,” he adds. so many would return for the festivities
constructed everywhere. “A migrant is Then there is antimigration racism anyway. It is too premature to decisively
considered to be someone who does not fuelled by economic anxiety of the type assign a reason to their return.”
belong to the place,” he tells Outlook. that is seen around the world, from Eur Ghatak, however, says that the state is
“Whether Maharashtra or Gujarat, the ope to the US. “Unemployment is also a prepared if a crisis emerges in the
process of naturalisation does not usually major issue everywhere,” says Pushpen coming days. “During demonetisation
happen anywhere.” dra, citing it as a reason behind the viole too, thousands who had lost their jobs
Pushpendra, whose centre has done nce. “In Gujarat, it was not merely a returned to Bengal, but CM Mamata
indepth research on migration, says reflection of anger over the rape. It was Banerjee prevented an economic crisis
that murder, rape and theft take place because locals felt outsiders were taking by providing monetary assistance to
everywhere, but society reserves its away opportunities and resources.” A them,” he says. “Currently, 18,000 are
harshest reactions for crimes commit continual spur to migration also arises receiving benefits under that scheme.”
ted by migrants. “If the same crime is from the need for workers for a series of Ghatak’s assurances notwithstanding,
committed by somebody from the nat lowskilled jobs that locals are usually an uneasy calm prevails in many dis
ive community, it is dealt with in a dif loath to take up. tricts as more people return. At Kus
ferent way; in case of a migrant, even As of now, some state governments are hberia village in Howrah district, the
political mobilisation becomes easier.” clueless as to how many workers have arrival of 40yearold Pintu Hait’s body
Migration from poor states will returned home from Gujarat. West Ben from Surat, where he worked as a gold
continue despite the attacks in Gujarat, gal’s labour ministry says that that the polisher, caused alarm, sparking a
says Pushpendra. “There has been a fallout of the attacks on the state’s mig rumour that he was killed in an anti
2 million-plus 4.42 million 20.3 million

The number of north Indians who work The total number of workers who migrate The number of people—more than the
in Kerala, according to Chinmay Tumbe’s out of Bihar yearly, says a 2009-10 Indian population of Australia—who travel on
book India Moving: A History of Migration Institute of Public Administration report Indian trains every day, mostly for work

Photographs: SANDIPAN CHATTERJEE
many of the workers from his village who
had gone to Gujarat subsequently moved
to other parts of the country, especially to
Delhi and Mumbai.
Even in faraway Kerala, migrants—
mostly from Bengal, Bihar and UP, and
ROAD BACK whose numbers have swelled in recent
(Far left) Sanjoy years—are viewed with suspicion by a
Karmakar of majority of the locals. “In the past two
West Bengal three decades, there has also been a ten
hasn’t gone back dency to probe migrants first if a crime
to Surat due to occurs in the state,” says George Puliku
lack of work; thiyil, director of Jananeethi, an NGO
(Left) Jewellery- that provides free legal aid and consul
maker Shah tancy. “This discriminatory tendency is
Jahan Mollah very much in our genes and however
confesses to much we deny it, we tend to view outsid
being terrified ers with suspicion. So it’s routine that the
during the 2002 investigation of any crime goes in that
Gujarat riots direction first,” says Pulikuthiyil.
Likewise, in some of the most sensa
tional cases in the state, it’s the migrants
who have been arrested. For instance, in
a recent ATM heist of Rs 35 lakh, the
CCTV footage of the seven suspects rel
eased by the police seems to point to
wards the involvement of migrants.
migrant attack. Even though his family do have a relatively comfortable life,” he These sensationalised cases create a
and friends sought to scotch the rumour, says. “I do want to go back.” perception about migrants despite the
saying he had died of a heartattack, At the moment, though, such comfort police claiming that the number of crim
many questioned the “uncanny coinci cannot be taken for granted. Many in inals among them is relatively minuscule
dence” of the timing of his demise. Kushberia and neighbouring Khalna vil compared to local Malayalis.
Sanjoy Karmakar, a fellow villager who lage, from where many young men have There are an estimated 25 to 30 lakh
also worked in the jewellery industry, migrated to Gujarat and other states, migrants in Kerala, but their numbers
and who had brought back Hait’s body seem apprehensive and think that people have dropped since demonetisation, says
from Gujarat, says that on October 7 he returning from there are not telling the N. Ajith Kumar, director, Centre for
received a call that Hait was sick. “So I whole truth. “We don’t know what to SocioEconomic and Environmental
rushed there and took him to hospital. believe. Those working in other states Studies, Kochi.
Hours later, doctors declared him dead.” paint a rosy picture on their return. They During the recent, devastating floods,
don’t want us to think that they are not hundreds of migrants had fled Kerala
K
ARMAKAR, who has been working doing well,” says a local schoolteacher. but those caught in the surging waters
in Surat for 18 years, visits his village This is reflected in the way 58yearold had a barrage of complaints about the
once every year. In fact, like a major Shah Jahan Mollah explains his return to discriminatory attitude of the locals.
ity of other migrant workers in the his village in Howrah’s Uluberia after “In some of the camps, the local popula
gem and jewellery sector from the state, riots broke out in Gujarat in 2002. The tion, it is alleged, did not want migrants
he ensures that they are home for former jewellerymaker denies that he to stay with them,” says Ajith Kumar.
Lakshmi Puja. “It is the most important fled the widespread communal violence. But it has to be stressed that such bias is
religious festival for jewellery makers,” “As I was getting older, my eyesight was not confined to a particular state. Coming
says a Surat resident. failing,” he says disarmingly. But on fur from diverse places where the agrarian
This year, as it emerges, Hait’s sudden ther prodding he reveals that the commu economy gets ravaged by perennial floods
death was not the only reason for Kar nal clashes did unnerve him. He says that or droughts, industries are nonexistent
makar’s return. He admits that their and employment opportunities are few,
employers in Gujarat had suddenly told migration is probably the only option for
workers that there was no work at this In Kerala, thousands of millions. Handling persistent prejudice
juncture. “So we returned and did not go migrants from Bengal, and slurs and being easy targets during
back to Surat after Hait’s funeral,” Bihar and UP are any social disturbance is part of their
Karmakar says. Migrants like him con struggle for existence. O
fess to feeling a sense of uncertainty invariably the first to with inputs from
after the recent attacks. “We are other be suspected whenever Dola Mitra in Calcutta
wise treated quite well in Gujarat and we a crime takes place. and Minu Ittyipe in Kochi

North: Jatinder Singh : + 91 98115 40202
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MAD ( Mobile & Internet Advertising)
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#METOO MATTERS
THE SOUND
OF SILENCE
by Lachmi Deb Roy Sexual harassment is rampant in small-town India;
and Salik Ahmad in Rohtak
Photographs: Jitender Gupta women hardly speak out, fearing brutal backlash
S
ONIKA Mallik, 19, remembers why will anyone give away such an Sonika’s ordeal will be among count-
the agonising moments clearly, expensive garment even before giving less similar tales of sexual harassment
as if they happened yesterday. me a job,” she says. She had her answer in small-town India, which still awaits
She had approached the owner the moment she asked about her job its #MeToo movement that will give
of a garment shop in Rohtak for description; what was she supposed to women in places, say Rohtak, the cour-
a job. After some small talk, the do. “Bas hamein khush rakho,” ( just age and voice to speak out against their
man offered her a gift: “Kuchch bhi keep me happy) the middle-aged man harassers. For women in Haryana, the
sari pehno, kuch bhi scent lagao (you said, reaching out to touch her inap- #MeToo campaign raging on social
pick any sari you wish and put any propriately. Sonika recalls running media in metropolises is a beacon of
perfume)”. When she looked at the out of the shop, scared and humili- hope in a state steeped in stifling patri-
price tags, her eyes almost popped out. ated. A few months later, she is bat- archal moorings. It’s a state where
“Some of those saris were Rs 30,000 tling depression as she has not been female foeticide is rampant and girls
to 40,000 each. And I was wondering able to find a job. are killed in the name of “family hon-

NIGHT CRAWLERS Young girls
on a scooty navigate their way
through a busy road in Rohtak.
off attempts of sexual harassment at the

workplace. “None of my jobs lasted
more than 15 days as I refused to give in
to the men in factories,” she says. She
abandoned her husband and returned
to her parents in Panipat, about 75km
from Rohtak. But she was in for a shock
as her parents blamed her for the prob-
lems. “They asked how are the other
women working without any problem?”
she says. Women have to compromise,
more so in the private sector because
there is no job security in the unorgan-
ised sectors. “The day you raise your
voice against an injustice or anybody
touching you inappropriately, you know
it is going to be your last day at work.”
Ramkali survived to tell her tale, raising
her children with odd jobs till they grew
up. She is now a social worker in Rohtak
and helps women in distress.
Sonika, fair and petite with sharp fea-
tures is, however, not sure how long she
can continue without a job. “I was mar-
ried thrice and to men who were much
older. One of my fathers-in-law tried to
molest me and sent men to my room. I
ran away every time. But now, looking
for a job is like heading for another hell,”
says Sonika from Ghandra village near
Rohtak. Her voice quivers as her anger
bursts forth—“women are not treated
like human beings in our society, they
are treated more like commodities
without rights or privileges”.
At first glance, Rohtak looks like any of
the growing cities in India. A concrete
jungle with all the trappings of urbanity—
sleek cars on roads and dazzling malls
our”. It’s a state and where the sex ratio Ramkali, 54—married off when she crowded with evening shoppers. It pre-
is so skewed that men have to look for was just 13—had to look for a job as her sents the progressive image of working
brides in other states. It’s a state where husband was an alcoholic and had five women returning home and young girls
police data shows high—and growing— children to feed. “I had no option but riding scooties. But such images mask
incidence of crime against women; and work,” she says, recalling the beginning the deep-rooted misogyny and patriar-
where khap panchayats continue to of her ordeals many years ago. But she chy running through the state, especially
pass diktats barring girls from wearing was soon to find out that working in across its khap-dictated rural belts.
jeans and carrying mobile phones. factories also meant constantly fending A report tabled in the state assembly
Despite recent efforts by the Union recently reprises the distressing rise in
and state governments, women con- crime against women. Since 2014-15,
tinue to face horrific abuse in their Images of working Haryana recorded a 47 per cent increase
homes and at the workplace. For every women returning home, in the number of rapes and 26 per cent
champion women Haryana has pro- girls riding scooties rise in the number of molestation cases.
duced, such as Geeta Phogat and Kidnappings rose by a staggering 100
Bobeeta Phogat, it has an equal share of hide the deep-rooted per cent during the same period.
horror stories like that of Sonika’s. And patriarchy running The report doesn’t mention the har-
Ramkali Jangra. And many others. through Haryana. assment that young girls experience

#M ETOO MAT T ERS
just about everywhere, even on the HER STORY Sonika Mallik, 19, says a shop-owner told her she
campus of Maharshi Dayanand only has to keep him “happy” to get a job in his showroom.
University. Students say its scary after
darkness as hooligans in cars move in,
stalking and shouting lewd remarks at the girl child, educate her, but don’t buy cases of harassment against girls, saying
the girls. “When we complain about her a phone).” they bring “disrepute” to the college.
them to a security officer, he says, ‘Why The story of the male sense of self-en- She spoke about a case of harassment
does this always happen with you?’ At titlement on campus does not end there. and abuse against a male lecturer in
times, he says, ‘What do we do, gouge A research scholar from the faculty of life another college for girls. Though the
their eyes out? Go, go to your hostel’, sciences, who spoke on the condition of men in the inquiry committee took
without even caring to stub his beedi anonymity, says some of the most senior sides with the accused, the case was
while talking to me,” says law student professors, including those in adminis- strong. The accused lost his job but
Kiran, who gave only her first name. trative positions, are known to sexually managed to find employment in a pri-
The students spoke in the favour of exploit female students, especially those vate college, she says. “Only a small
naming and shaming the harassers but from poor families. The scholar says a percentage of men in Haryana under-
were not sure if a #MeToo will start woman faculty’s research paper was stand the simple concept of gentle and
soon in the state. They are afraid that rejected by a department head, also on respectful behaviour towards women.”
the men could react violently. the review board of the journal, because The ordeal of Renu Singh (name
Monika, a postgraduate student of she allegedly refused his request for changed), an undergrad student of
English literature, accuses some boys sexual favours. The scholar, however, pharmacology, started when she wrote
from the university of having a warped did not name any of the accused and down a few equations on the question
mindset aligned to the khap diktats. refused to confirm if anyone figured on paper during an exam. “My final year
They believe mobile phones make girls a list of sexual predators on campuses, paper was cancelled by the invigilator…
“characterless”, an argument often pan- prepared and circulated last year by law he alleged that I was cheating.” She was
dered by khaps. And they have twisted student Raya Sarkar. asked to meet the examination superin-
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s signa- Santosh Mudgil, former principal of a tendent who said she will pass only if
ture slogan to thus: “Beti Bachao, Beti girls’ college in Rohtak, says she has she “satisfies” him. She told her father
Padhao, Beti Ko Phone Mat Dilao (Save seen other principals try to hush up about it and complained to the depart-

8
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#M ETOO MAT T ERS
of speaking out. “Sexual abuse and

suppression of women is rampant in
Haryana. But sadly, not many have the
courage to stand up against it. And even
if they do, the cases go on for years
and ultimately for fear of losing their
jobs and because of family pressure the
cases are suppressed.”
Women Outlook spoke to reveals
gender-based segregation of labour at
workplaces in Haryana. This, they say,
is done to establish that men are more
capable and women need to be con-
trolled. One of them says it is a common
practice, especially in factories and
construction sites, to hire good-looking
women and exploit her.
H
OWEVER, activists feel that it’s
SCARY NIGHTS Monica (left) and Kiran say that after sunset not long before the ripples of the
hooligans sexually harass girls on the MD University campus. #MeToo movement are felt in
Haryana and elsewhere. “I think
it has been very effective. Now women
ment head. An FIR was lodged against otherwise I am going to squeeze you are coming out and speaking about the
the invigilator and the superintendent. hard). There are even times when one harassments which are opening new di-
But both were quickly out on bail. will say, ‘Do I need to f*%& you to teach mensions for intervention at the work-
Unsurprisingly, the harassment per- you how to do a facial’,” she says. When place” says Jagmati Sangwan, a rights
meates all sectors of work wherever the she complains to the employer, he activist. She recalls a recent meeting
women are employed. Sabita Mallick, merely shrugs and asks her to treat “our of the University Teaching Community
vice president of the All India State clients as god”. Women working in where students fearlessly spoke about
Government Employees’ Federation, beauty parlours and spas are often harassment. “The positive part of this
says contractual workers suffer har- propositioned for sex. In many places, movement is that further victimisation
assment the most as their livelihoods owners goad the employees to go along will be avoided. And it has been proved
depend on the whims of government so that he can earn extra bucks. again and again that women are better
clerks and officers. “Take for instance, Vina Mallik, a counselor with the performers, it will be difficult to keep
the health workers. The officers and Himmat Mahila Samooh, says cases women off the workforce,” she says.
clerks ask them to sit with them, est- of sexual abuse in small towns go Sonika, for one, is hopeful that the day
ablish relations. If the women refuse, unreported as the women are scared is not far when she will be able to seek a
they won’t mark their attendance, file job only with her skills, not her looks.
an adverse report against them, or issue “In another place where I had just
unnecessary notices to them,” says started working, the employer used to
Malick. The vicious cycle continues. If lie down and order me to give him a
the women, students or workers, speak massage. They feel that women don’t
out the harassment to family members, have any dignity and can be treated in
the parents or husbands ask them to whichever way they wish to,” she says,
leave their work. If they complain, the her eyes welling up.
whole system jumps to hush the victim Ramkali chokes as she reveals years of
into silence and retreat. The victims are abuse and harassment. Once, when she
left with little option but to endure. used to sell women’s accessories from a
The biggest problem is that most of pushcart, moving door to door, she used
the women workers in Haryana are to shout out her sales pitch, “Kuchch
contractual labourers. In agriculture, samaan chahiye kya aapko (Do you want
teaching, construction, health. anything?) A man sitting on the veran-
Ritika Singh (not her real name), who Women working in dah replied, “Hum ko sab kuch chahiye (I
works at a unisex beauty parlour, says beauty parlours and want everything). And he started laugh-
male customers are uncouth and use spas are propositioned ing, a repulsive laughter that reeked of
foul and abusive language. “There are sexual innuendoes.
times when I am doing a head massage for sex by men and The laugh still rings in her ears and
and a client would say, “Thik se kar frequently abused in reminds her of what it means to be a
varna nichod dungi tujhe (do it properly, filthy language. woman in a man’s world. O

ODISHA PREPARES ITSELF WITH AN ART TRAIL,
AN INDUSTRIAL CONCLAVE AND A CULTURAL
EXTRAVAGANZA FOR THE MEN’S HOCKEY WORLD
CUP BHUBANESWAR 2018
There are now less than 50 days to go until this year’s Odisha
Hockey Men’s World Cup Bhubaneswar in India.
H
ost city Bhubaneswar is gearing up with a number were flagged off and the foundation stone was laid for 60 smart
of activities to engage incoming fans ahead of the modular stainless steel toilets.
14th edition of the tournament, which opens on 28th The authorities have also decided to put few unique paintings
November. on display for the audience to draw their attention towards
Odisha Tourism as host partner of the Odisha Hockey Men’s Odisha’s rich culture and great enthusiasm for hockey.
World Cup Bhubaneswar 2018 unveiled an exclusive campaign The paintings, a genre of fine art, on hockey created by 25
for the Hockey Men’s World Cup titled ‘Odisha by Morning, artists during a six-day camp held at Panthanivas from Oct 1-6,
Hockey by Evening’. will be displayed during Odisha Hockey Men’s World Cup at
The campaign was unveiled during the Women’s Hockey Kalinga Stadium to take the sports lovers by surprise.
World Cup in London on the iconic London buses. It is being To further boost tourism potential of the state, the Handicrafts
promoted nationally via OOH and social media. The campaign department is planning to promote crafts integral to the state like
was promoted at the various roadshows and tourism events both Ikat weaving, Dhokra, and Lacquer Work during the sporting
nationally and globally ( Malaysia, Bangkok). Exclusive Hockey extravaganza.
Men’s World Cup packages for the incoming visitors have also
Ikat handloom stoles designed and woven by weavers from
been floated around. Odisha Tourism also signed a MoU with
Western Odisha would be given to the guests to welcome them.
Oyo Rooms to increase the inventory of rooms on its platform and
The stoles are being custom made for the participating countries.
endeavour to take on board the hotels and home stays in Odisha
Hockey inspired products made using the Lost Wax Casting
to accommodate enhanced demand during the tournament.
technique will also be part of the gifting items list.
Odisha Tourism signed a content partnership with TripAdvisor
to boost inflow of tourists ahead of the Hockey Men’s World Cup Famous Lacquer ware boxes from Nabarangpur will also be
Bhubaneswar 2018 presented to the dignitaries. They will be used for packaging due
to their organic and sustainable nature.
Odisha Tourism is further supporting The Bhubaneswar Art
Trail (BAT), a unique art initiative in the country, aiming at
creating a creative space around the Old Town (which is often
described as the ‘a treasure trove of time since 6th century CE’),
and introducing art to the public in such a mystic setting and
maverick air.
In many ways, BAT 2018, the debut edition, is going to
democratise art in a manner rarely seen in India on this scale.
Odisha, the repository of unparalleled heritage is also the capital
of soft power in the country. There is uncommon juxtaposition
and synergeticco-existence between history and the present, the
harmony of antiquity and contemporary. Odisha, Bhubaneswar,
and especially the Old Town area are all elements of a large
breathing canvas, waiting to be embraced, but diffident, and shy.
BAT 2018 is opening up a public atelier – a large public stretch of
workshop or studio of artists, where masters, assistants, students,
apprentices and all of us can work together to produce pieces of
fine art. The canvas can be anything – a school building, a public
wall, pavements, parapets, tufts, houses, youth club buildings, and
just about anything. Art knows no ceiling or fencing.
The host city Bhubaneswar will also be completely Wi-Fi
enabled before the start of the world cup. The fibre optic network
would be spread across the city along with setting up around
1800 Wi-Fi access points. With a view to promote cleanliness
and hygiene in the Capital City ahead of Odisha Men’s Hockey
World Cup in November, mechanical street sweeping machines
newsmAker
by K.P. Nayar the dam broke a few days ago about What is not so wellknown is that
Akbar’s alleged sexual transgressions, Akbar’s life and career may have taken
I
first met M.J. Akbar on November my early recollections were those of a completely different trajectory if
1, 1971. Of the six trainee English women running after Akbar, not the Indira Gandhi had not declared
journalists who had been recruit- other way round. Emergency, imposed press censorship
ed by The Times of India group that Mallika Joseph was a dusky beauty and suspended civil liberties in 1975.
year, Akbar was the one who was who was one year senior to us on The Nari Hira, who was making waves in
self-assured. I was 19 and did not Times training programme. She was Bombay’s publishing business in the
know what the word “story” stood for the cynosure of all eyes on the third 1970s, spotted young Akbar’s talent well
in newspaper parlance when the floor of the Bori Bunder building, before Aveek Sarkar, the editorial su
Training Officer, Patanjali Sethi, where the editorial staff of the two premo of the Ananda Bazar Patrika
started my initiation into the un- English dailies published by Bennett, group. Few people now remember Hira,
known world of news collection. Coleman and Company worked. If who launched sensational titles such as
Most the new recruits were no differ Mallika was in a room, even on an open Stardust and Society. His publications
ent. Akbar was only a year older but he plan floor as large as one where we changed the very character of entertain
had already appeared in print at the worked, it was impossible not to notice ment and society journalism in India.
age of 16, most notably in JS, India’s her. She was a product of quintessen Hira recruited Akbar to conceptual
first and perhaps only genuine maga tial Malayali Christian charm honed ise and launch what was then the most
zine for young people. Originally by an upbringing in Bombay. ambitious and elaborate media ven
launched as Junior Statesman, the Akbar fell in love with Mallika and ture in India since independence.
management of the staid Calcutta began wooing her. Mallika was hard to Peninsula was to be headquartered in
daily was soon forced by its youth get. In the early days of their courtship, New York with publishing centres all
readership to abbreviate the maga wherever she went with Akbar, she did over the world where there was a pop
The AkbAr who becAme

...but still didn’t have answers to this one. An ex-colleague on the editor-politician fel
zine’s name to JS. For the bubbling not go alone, but with Ambika Sethi, ulation of Indians: from America to
youth of Bombay in the 1970s, anyone her batch mate during The Times Australia. India Today was not yet born.
who had written for JS, was “cool.” training: even to places as public as The profusion of ethnic newspapers,
By word of mouth in South Bombay, football matches in Colaba. Three which now circulate among overseas
which was then the fountainhead of years after their courtship began, Indians was not even thought of.
the city’s joie de vivre, Akbar was alre Akbar and Mallika got married. It is a Peninsula was to be India’s global
ady collecting a fan following. A few marriage which has endured. Mallika mouthpiece—a bit like the
days into our training, an exceptionally is the fulcrum of the Akbar family International Herald Tribune—and
beautiful woman—who shall remain which includes a son, a daughter and was way ahead of its time.
unnamed—joined our group. She was grandchildren. The magazine’s launch issue was to
the wife of a naval officer and was The story of how Akbar left The have Indira Gandhi on the cover: a
studying journalism at a city college. Illustrated Weekly of India, then edited hardhitting story authored by Akbar.
Interning at a newspaper for a few by Khushwant Singh, to take charge of Naturally, it did not show the increas
weeks was—and still is—part of the Onlooker in his early twenties, founded ingly authoritarian Prime Minister in
mass communications curriculum. the Sunday and then The Telegraph any favourable light. Shortly before
Her desire to ‘learn’ from Akbar was has been written about ad nauseam. the magazine’s launch, Emergency
evident from the very second day of was declared. The then Indian
her internship along with us. Ambassador in Washington got wind
Soon afterwards, one of Bombay’s When the allegations of Hira’s plans and sent Akbar a veiled
best known socialites of today began surfaced, my early warning that he could go to jail. The
dropping in at the “Old Lady of Bori recollections were feisty Editor was unperturbed, but the
Bunder”—as The Times of India build publishers and financial backers of the
ing is still referred to in intellectual those of women project developed cold feet. The pro
discourse—to pick up Akbar for what running after Akbar, not ject was junked at considerable mone
were ostensibly regular dates. When the other way round. tary loss. A lot of what Akbar later
28 OutlOOk 29 october 2018

created through his multiple media
ventures is borrowed from this exper
iment which was aborted.
It was not until several decades after
I first met Akbar that I realised that he
was born in Telinipara, a godforsaken
place in West Bengal with nothing
more than a few dwellings. We were
both too caught up in the present for
him to discuss a time of which his
memory would have been that of a
child. Telinipara had seen good times
under the British who patronised a
jute mill named after…who else but
Queen Victoria.
In early 2006, on one of my periodic
visits from Washington to Calcutta, the
late Ashok Mitra, once Jyoti Basu’s
Finance Minister, was reading a
prepublication copy of Blood Brothers,
a threegeneration saga authored by
Akbar of his family in Telinipara, ending
with himself. Mitra spoke glowingly of
bIrbAl
led by the #MeToo storm.
the portrayal in this book of Bengal

under British rule and of the wrench of
Partition. These events are intertwined
with Akbar’s impressionable early
years in this poor village.
Akbar’s grandfather, Prayaag, aim
lessly landed in Telinipara as a teen
ager to escape the Bihar famine in the
last quarter of the 19th century. There,
he was adopted by a Muslim family,
converted to Islam and rechristened
as Rahmatullah. The family did not
have an easy life. At one point, the
family was forced into East Pakistan,
but they returned to India.
Rahmatullah’s son, Akbar Ali, chose to
invest everything he had in his son
Mubasher Jawed “MJ” Akbar’s educa
tion. Calcutta Boys’ School, Presidency
College and a B.A. (Hons.) in English
language and literature. Without
doubt, it paid off. O
(K P Nayar is a journalist who has
known M.J. Akbar since 1971.
The views expressed are personal.)
pti
Do
cover sTory
or ‘Winnability’ is not a trait attached

to the Congress too often these days.
On this winter’s assembly poll results
hinge the chances of a new spring.
Die
by Bhavna Vij-Aurora and Preetha Nair
T
he Indian National Congress was born four years
before Nehru was born. A life history that long—edg
ing close to 135 years, almost double of independent
India’s—is bound to have been studded with mom
ents of grave existential doubt. And yet, each
inflection point, to the surprise of believer and critic
alike, has yielded a second life. At least till now. A set of five
assembly elections may seem a trifling affair when seen
against this grand canvas of death and rebirth. But the
script is thinning out. The party has just 44 MPs in the Lok
Sabha, a stilluntested president is at the helm, and there’s
a rampaging BJP to contend with. Its ruling motto—to
eradicate the Congress, like it was some premodern
disease—always looks close to fruition these days. Way
before the epic showdown of summer 2019, therefore, the
semifinal of 2018 may signal a kind of sudden death.
No signs of survival panic are visible, however, anywhere on

pti
the precincts of 24, Akbar Road. The Congress headquarters, the frequency is about 510 new names a minute. The other
ensconced in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi, is buzzing with act screen maps all booths in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and
ivity. The manicured lawns are overrun by ticketseekers Chhattisgarh—in shades of red, purple and blue to signify
from the pollbound states, and sundry hangerson. Senior where the party needs to work more and where it is rela
leaders seated in the inner chambers insist they haven’t seen tively comfortably placed.
such enthusiasm among party workers in a long time. The This live data offers, in an inverse way, a statement on the
optimism is welling up from the ground, they say—a sense deep antiincumbency built over three long terms in
that the party’s fortunes are on an upswing. Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh against chief ministers
Some of the confidence is also emanating from a small Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Raman Singh. But amassing a
portacabin, almost hidden in a corner of the sprawling new army and winning a battle are two different things. It’s
premises—the data analytics people. Headed by former for the Congress leadership to leverage this relative asc
investment banker Praveen Chakravarty, the small team is endancy, and it’s the last chance to do so before the big one
abuzz, happily studying the live data flashing on its screens. in 2019. A win in the three heartland states—where the
This is Project Shakti, which aims to link each and every party is directly pitted against the BJP—will deliver invalu
boothlevel worker to Congress president Rahul Gandhi. able benefits. The Congress will then be poised to bargain
One screen updates the list of groundlevel workers as they with potential allies from a position of strength, and make
enrol—with each new recruit, the name and phone number a play for the sweepstakes. A loss would be crushing.
pop up. (Each one receives a prerecorded welcome call Despite the ostensible skew in advantage, or perhaps bec
from RaGa.) The total number on one side is ticking busily: ause of it, the winter elections are definitely more crucial
29 october 2018 OutlOOk 31

Do
or c over sTory
Die for the Congress than for the BJP. If the party fails to cre
ate a counterwave despite the antiincumbency in these
pti
three states—built on factors like agrarian distress, unem

ployment, anger among the youth and Dalits against the
BJP—it will find it difficult to motivate its cadres for the Big
Battle next year. It will also further damage Rahul’s creden
tials to lead an antiNarendra Modi front, something the
Congress has been carefully calibrating.
As of now, a prospective Rahul leadership doesn’t seem to
inspire much confidence in potential allies like the BSP
and the SP, who have refused to do business with him in
these assembly polls. The Sharad Pawarled NCP, a
Congress ally in Maharashtra, too has decided to go solo,
contesting 200 seats in Madhya Pradesh. Congress ideo
logues insist this only signifies the political capriciousness
of Mayawati, not Rahul’s degree of acceptability. Still, the
chessboard is in too much flux.
Madhya Pradesh incharge Kamal Nath tried his best to
forge an alliance with the BSP, but found its demands unr
easonable—it wanted 50 out of 231 seats, a high ratio in
what’s touted as a ‘twoparty’ state. Some of these 50 seats
were not even in her stronghold and ceding them would
have helped the BJP instead, says a Congress leader. BSP
leader Sudhindra Bhadoria rubbishes this. “Last election,
Congress contested 100 seats in UP. How many did it win?
How can they question our winnability?” he asks, saying
it’s the feudal mindset of certain leaders that’s defeating
attempts to form a secular force.
After seatsharing talks reached a deadend, Mayawati too uNTIed BSP supremo Mayawati with Sonia Gandhi
came down heavily on the Congress, terming it as “casteist
and arrogant”. Even SP leader Akhilesh Yadav, gentler in his poor government,” reveals a Congress leader. The constant
words, said the Congress had made them wait too long, and fusillade may be beginning to find some resonance. “People
urged the grand old party to show magnanimity. Political may not know Rafale, but they know who Ambani is. There
commentator Neerja Chowdhury believes all this is postur are a few things people connect—Ambani, Adani,
ing and positiontaking for a better bargain in 2019—other chorchowkidar, suitboot ki sarkar—and that’s beginning
wise unjustified by the BSP’s dipping voteshare in Madhya to stick on the PM. You will see Rahul persisting with this
Pradesh (it dropped from 8.97 per cent in 2008 to 6.29 per narrative,” the leader adds.
cent in 2013). “She is trying to send a message that you heed How much of this will translate into votes? The Congress
me or else I am capable of walking out. The stakes are going under Rahul is known to fritter away its advantage by not
to be much higher in Lok Sabha.” having a cogent plan and perspective. The BJP under a wily
Even the Congress is trying for a better Shah is capable of pulling out a rabbit from
leverage visavis 2019: its decision to go the hat at the last minute, as was seen in the
solo is seen as part of that attempt. In the postDeMo assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.
event of a victory or two in these states, the Among the three states, the Congress
Congress clearly doesn’t want the BSP or appears comfortably placed in Rajasthan,
other allies to eat away at its potential elec cashing in on the growing unpopularity and
toral base. “Being a panIndia party, perceived arrogance of chief minister
Congress can take a pole position in an anti Vasundhararaje Scindia. The youthful
BJP alliance,” says a Congress leader. Sachin Pilot, given charge of the state in
Congressmen also believe Rahul has “Sometimes 2014, and general secretary Ashok Gehlot
turned a corner and is ready to take on the a partneship appear to have closed ranks and working
formidable ModiShah combine. “The fact together—although caste antagonisms may
that he is taking on the PM directly is evi works, it doesn’t still play a dodgy role on the ground. (Pilot
dence enough. He has started directing his sometimes. It is a Gujjar, a caste embroiled in competitive
attack personally at him, calling him didn’t work quota politics.)
‘chorchowkidar’ and ‘bhrasht’ (corrupt) in with BSP.” In Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh,
the context of Rafale. This strategy is to however, the Congress has not exactly
chip away at Modi’s personal image that has JyotIradItya driven home the antiincumbency advan
largely remained unaffected since 2014, and ScIndIa tage. In MP, this is so despite the Chouhan
to build a perception of a prorich, anti congress government being plagued by multiple cri

Randeep SInGH Sam pITRoda
SuRjewala The tech guru is credited
Congress’s media cell head with RG’s image make-
Surjewala is responsible for over. Brain behind RG’s
all communication from overseas engagements,
RG’s office and the party. Harvard speech et al.
k. Raju pRaVeen
Known as ‘RG’s Ahmed CHakRaVaRTy
Patel’, this former IAS This political economist
officer has a key role in heads the party’s data
formulating the party’s analytics and helps with
Dalit outreach. its grassroots outreach.
aSHok GeHloT nIkHIl alVa (pIC)

Twice Rajasthan’s
chief minister, Gehlot,
team raHUl & Sandeep SInGH
Alva is known as the
67, is the party’s
The people the Congress “gatekeeper” of RG’s
general secretary. He chief banks on... twitter handle. Singh,
is close to both Sonia formerly with AISA,
Gandhi and RG. helps with Hindi tweets.
SuSHmITa deV kauSHal VIdyaRTHee (pic)

As Mahila Congress chief, the Lok & alankaR SawaI
Sabha MP from Assam is tasked with Former urban planner Kaushal has
infusing energy into the party’s been in RG’s office since 2008 and
women’s wing. She is a strong critic looks after his appointments. Sawai,
of several government policies. a former banker, looks after research.
ses—farm distress, dominant and middle caste anger, going with the BSP and SP. A postpoll alliance is possible,
Vyapam, largescale unemployment. “The state unit is defi but there’s also a third front emerging. If the SP, BSP and Left
nitely more energised, but the chemistry between come together, they can get up to 30 seats in places like
Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kamal Nath is still not working Shekhawati, Hanumangarh and Ganganagar. Even if they get
out,” concedes a party leader. 15 seats, it’s an effective position,” he adds. The ratio of seats
And in Chhattisgarh, where Raman Singh has failed to lost unnecessarily may be worse in Madhya Pradesh, he says—
control Maoism, the Congress is hobbled by a lack of state the BSP has a good footprint in the state, with a 15 per cent
leadership. In Telangana, its alliance with the TDP and the Dalit population. In a bipolar contest, an alliance could have
Left may not suffice to take on the TRS, which has tended given the crucial incremental vote push to the Congress.
to incline towards the BJP. Though less key than the heart Jyotiraditya, for one, is confident the Congress will form
land states, a successive defeat for the Congress in next government in Madhya Pradesh even without an alli
Telangana would confirm the party’s ance. He tells Outlook that support for the
fastvanishing footprint from a former bas Congress runs deep in the state. “Sometimes
tion—and a state it created. a partnership fructifies, sometimes it doesn’t.
Congress leaders also admit they have It was our effort to make sure it works with
given up hope of retaining Mizoram, its last the BSP, but it didn’t. It doesn’t mean it won’t
bastion in the Northeast. It has already lost work in the Lok Sabha polls. We will try and
Meghalaya, Manipur, Assam, Tripura and ensure it works,” adds Scindia.
Arunachal Pradesh since 2014, and BJP/RSS Other Congress leaders too harbour hopes
workers are leaving no stone unturned in of a mahagathbandhan for 2019. They
their bid to colour the whole region saffron. “How can the choose to play down Mayawati’s criticism
“They have resources we can’t match at pres congress and, instead, highlight her remarks on
ent,” concedes a regional Congress leader. Rahul and Sonia Gandhi as “honest politi
question our cians” as a positive sign. “We’ve had an alli
The Alliance Factor winnability? How ance with SP and BSP in the past. These
Going solo comes with its own downers too. many seats did it statements are part of political rhetoric.
Political analyst Dr Rajiv Gupta, former pro win in UP?” When it comes to the nuts and bolts of an
fessor, Rajasthan University, says the alliance, I don’t think it matters,” says sen
Congress is in a winning position, but the lack SUdHIndra ior leader Manish Tewari.
of an alliance will affect its margin of victory. BHadorIa With Rahul reiterating the importance of
“The party stands to lose 510 seats by not BSP statespecific alliances, the Congress is
29 october 2018 OutlOOk 33

Do
or c over sTory
Die ‘there is a strong sense of betra
Political economist praveen Chakravarty, chantment, joblessness and Dalit atroci-
who heads the Congress’s data analytics ties is the highest. In Rajasthan, agrarian
team, tells Outlook that data shows the distress and rising prices come out as the
party is primed to win the three heartland pressing issues. In Chhattisgarh, tribal
states this November-December polls. angst and social conflicts are the most
important. If you force me to point out
what is your assessment, based on your from data one common voter sentiment
findings, about the major states that are across the country, it is one of betrayal…
going to the polls? dhokha. It is clear that voters feel let-
We have done extensive polling and data down by the Modi government and there
work in the three large states that are is a strong sense of betrayal.
going to the polls, Rajasthan, Madhya Is the Congress leadership extrapolating
Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Since the available data to formulate its elec-
Telangana was announced late, I don’t
have sufficient data. While disillusion-
ment against the government in “disillusionment
Rajasthan is evident, what is perhaps against the government
more surprising and striking from a data
perspective is that the anti-incumbency is evident in rajasthan,
sentiment in MP is twice that in mP. chhattisgarh has
Rajasthan. Anger and disillusionment is
always been a close
the highest in MP. Chhattisgarh has
always been a close contest and some- contest...”
thing that people often miss is that the
Congress actually improved its vote-share
in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in toral strategy and campaign on the visits other places of worship. Yes, we
Chhattisgarh from the 2013 assembly ground? For example, if the dalits or have studied the impact. While religion
elections. So, the trend is clear that the upper castes are angry with the Bjp, does should be every Indian’s private affair,
Congress continues to gain momentum the Congress have a strategy to encash it there is some empirical evidence to show
there. I would be surprised if the Congress and reach out to them? that voters do like their leaders to display
doesn’t win these three states. Yes, certainly. Starting with Congress religious sentiments in public.
what can be the game-changing issues for president Rahul Gandhi to all the top lead- How is the party using the Shakti project in
the Congress in the coming assembly and ers of each of these states have been reaching out to the last man on the ground?
lok Sabha polls? Farmers’ distress? GST engaging with me and my department on do you think it will result in increasing the
and demonetisation? Fuel prices? a regular basis for decisions and strate- vote-share? Hypothetically, if the party had
unemployment? dalit anger? youth disen- gies. Everything from alliances to candi- deployed this tech earlier, would it have
chantment? upper-caste voters’ angst? dates to issues to focus seats and booths, made a difference in the closely-contested
It is wrong to generalise issues across our department using data and objective assembly elections in Gujarat?
states. India doesn’t have a national elec- methods provides inputs to the leadership. Shakti is about helping the Congress fight
tion, contrary to popular media narratives. I am not at all saying that data is the only elections at the booth level. We have iden-
India has 29 different states having elec- input for making decisions. tified every single booth, its trends, voters
tions simultaneously, which we call the Have you done a study on whether Rahul and issues and categorised those that we
Lok Sabha elections. My past research has Gandhi’s temple visits are having a posi- need to focus on. We also have our ground
consistently borne this out and even the tive impact? force to carry our message to voters in
2014 elections were not national. It is wrong to suggest that temple visits booths. This is what Shakti has helped
So, different issues resonate in different by the Congress president are something achieve. While we will certainly have all
states. In MP, the issue of youth disen- new or unique. He visits temples as he the airstrikes ready for the upcoming elec-
making a clear distinction between state and national while before people internalise the whole process,” admits
elections, citing their different dynamics. “The mahagath Congress leader Salman Khurshid.
bandhan is a concept drafted by journalists. As far as Then there is the question of leadership and charisma.
Congress and other opposition parties are concerned, we Modi still remains BJP’s X factor and still has it in him to
will have a statewise alliance depending on the strength, tide over antiincumbency. A Congress veteran concedes
resilience and seat conversion of each party,” says grudgingly: “You give a rally with one lakh people to RG
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala. Still, there is a (Rahul Gandhi), he will pour cold water over it with an
question about the degree to which the Congress has adj insipid, noninspiring speech. You give 10,000 people to
usted to coalition politics—its capacity to view alliances in Modi; and he sets them on fire with his oratory.” That gap
strategic terms rather than as compulsions. “We are very still stares at the grand old party, and this winter will bring
new to the business of alliances on this scale. It will be a news of where it stands. O

yal by the modi government’
some app of their leader so as to monitor reaching out to other parties?
their daily lives. That is not our approach. There is a narrative largely in the English
do you think mayawati’s refusal to get media that is being dished out about how
into an alliance with the Congress will the Congress is not able to form alli-
have an impact on results in Rajasthan ances. Evidence points to the exact oppo-
and mp? site. The Congress is perhaps the most
Mayawatiji is a tall leader of Dalits and stable alliance partner of choice for most
certainly has support in some pockets of regional parties in India. Let us look at
MP. There were genuine attempts to the evidence. Maharashtra, Bengal, Bihar,
strike an alliance with the BSP in MP by Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala acc-
our leaders. Unfortunately it did not work ount for 215 seats in the Lok Sabha
out. My data shows that Dalit anger (40%). The Congress has had a stable alli-
against the BJP is at its peak now. It is ance in every single one of these states
with a regional party for over a decade
now. And even now, the Congress is
“I don’t indulge in forming new alliances with parties such
missed call ‘jumlas’ to as the TDP.
do you think the major political parties
claim we are the world’s are reluctant to do business with the
largest party or force Congress? If BSp and Sp are unable to
people to download an reach a pre-poll adjustment with the
Congress, how do you think it will impact
app of their leader.” elections in the cow belt?
jitender gupta
This narrative is completely false and
without evidence. The problem is the
tions through public rallies, mainstream increasingly evident that Dalit voters media gets carried away with one incident
and social media campaigns, with Shakti, want to oust the BJP at any cost. Voters and portrays it as some national trend. I
we now have the ground strikes ready too. know it is the Congress that is capable of have presented the evidence to you to
Yes, a concerted focus at the booth level defeating the BJP; which then tells me show how the Congress is perhaps the
would have helped the party tip the scales that Dalit voters are likely to vote for the most alliance-friendly party.
in Gujarat. As evidence, I can show how a party that has the best chance of over- also, the Bjp is focussing its attention on
mere 16 booths out of nearly 50,000 in throwing the BJP in MP. the south of the Vindhyas.
Gujarat cost us the state in 2016. Congress is allying with the Tdp and pos- In the six states and Union territory of
The Bjp has been using similar tech to sibly the left in Telangana. will it impact southern India, the BJP won 15% of both
reach out to its karyakartas on the ground election results in the state? votes and seats in the 2014 elections. It
for quite some time? do you think you can Arithmetically, there is a great overlap won 21 of 128 seats, 17 of which came
use it as effectively? between the TDP and the Congress in from Karnataka. Now, there have been
I don’t know what technology the BJP Telangana. Of course, electoral alliances assembly elections in four of these
uses. I know there is a lot of bluster. Our are not just about arithmetic. But in areas states and Union territory since 2014. The
approach to this is a data-science appro- where the TDP is strong in Telangana are BJP vote-share has fallen to 12% in these
ach. Our goal is to go right down to the exactly the areas where the Congress is states. It will fall even further since it is
booth level to see where the party is not the strongest such as Hyderabad dis- no longer in alliance with TDP in Andhra
strong and where the party needs to bol- trict. So, a combination of the Congress, Pradesh and Telangana. Even in
ster its presence. I don’t indulge in some TDP and the Left is arithmetically a Karnataka, the BJP’s vote-share fell from
show of bravado through some missed call potent combination. 42% in 2014 to 36% in the 2018 assembly
‘jumlas’ to claim we are the world’s larg- which are the alliance partners the polls. So, there is no road for the BJP in
est party or to force people to download Congress can rely on? Is the Congress the south. O
Do
or c over story
Die
the panchtantra
Five states going to the polls in November and December hold the key for
all the parties to the big one—the 2019 general elections
roADShow BJP
president Amit
Shah and MP CM
Shivraj Singh
Chouhan at a rally
Photographs: Pti
the Nationalist Congress Party brought by the central government
Madhya (NCP) have announced they would recently. While SAPAKS has raised
Pradesh be fielding candidates. Some of them challenges for the BJP, the Congress
intend to contest all the 230 seats. is upset with the BSP’s decision to
the NCP says it will join the fray in contest all the seats in MP and JAYS’s
by K.S. Shaini in Bhopal 200 constituencies, while JAYS, plan to contest in the adivasi-domi-
headed by Dr heeralal Alawa and nated seats. Yet Congress leader
W ith a clutch of small and re-

gional political outfits throw-
entering the arena with the slogan
‘Abki baar, adivasi sarkar’ (this time,
Bhupendra Gupta says, “All the small
groups put together can’t garner
ing their hat in the electoral ring, an adivasi government), will stick to enough seats to pose a threat to our
the upcoming assembly polls in 80 seats where adivasi voters have a party. We will be able to win this time
Madhya Pradesh may not be a two- decisive say. the assembly has 47 without any alliance as the anti-in-
horse race—as elections have always seats reserved for the Sts, while ad- cumbency votes will go to the
been in the state. these parties may ivasi votes impact the results signif- Congress.” And a senior BJP leader
muddy the waters for the two key icantly in 40 other constituencies. asserts that JAYS will gobble up the
players—the BJP and the Congress. Presently, 32 St seats are held by Congress’s adivasi votes, benefiting
to date, the Samajwadi Party (SP), the BJP, 14 by the Congress and one the ruling party.
the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the by an independent. the huge turn- In the state’s 62 years of existence,
Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP), outs at JAYS rallies have forced the no party other than the Congress and
the Jai Adivasi Yuva Shakti (JAYS), Congress and the BJP to look up the BJP (or its earlier avatar, the Jana
the Samanya Pichhda Evum and take notice. Sangh) has ever formed the govern-
Alpasankhyak Varg Adhikari The SAPAKS, which has support of ment. Currently, the two parties hold
Karmachari Sanstha (SAPAKS) the elite castes, gained momentum 223 of the 230 assembly seats, and all
party, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), after the ordinance on SC/ST the 29 Lok Sabha and 11 Rajya Sabha
the Janata Dal (United) (JDU) and (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was seats in the state. The BSP and the

SP’s efforts to make inroads into MP state, blaming Digvijaya Singh for the
have met with little success, with their failure of the alliance talks. However,
influence confined to the Vindhya the state Congress chief Kamal Nath
Pradesh and Chambal-Gwalior re- claimed that Mayawati was demand-
gions skirting Uttar Pradesh. Nor is ing an ‘unrealistic’ 50 seats, including
the Left a force to reckon with. some that the Congress had won in
Incidentally, MP and Rajasthan are madhya PradeSh 2013. Interestingly, of the four assem-
among the few states without any re- bly seats the BSP had won in MP last
gional political outfits of its own. The time, only one was reserved for the
combined strength of the BJP and the SCs. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, who has
Congress in the assembly has been announced that his party would be
consistently growing over the past contesting all the 230 seats, and that
three decades, leaving less and less Congress rebels were welcome to its
space for other parties. In 2013, only BJP 165 BSP 4 fold, is exploring the possibility of
seven seats went to others—four to INC 58 Independents 3 forging a joint front with the GGP.
the BSP and three to Independents. Party position as on 2013 While it would be difficult for any of
The vote share of ‘others’ has also in 2008, and fell to 6.28 in 2013. The these parties to clock a respectable
been shrinking. The cumulative vote SP and the GGP could never cross tally, they do have the potential of up-
share of the BJP and the Congress has even 2 per cent voteshare. setting the apple cart of the BJP and
never been less than 70 per cent since This time, there was talk of a ‘ma- the Congress. Which of the two they
1990, and touched 81.24 per cent (BJP hagathbandhan’ (grand alliance) of will hurt more is tricky to guess, but
44.97, Congress 36.37) in 2013. the Congress, the BSP, the SP and the the Congress can no longer hope to
The BSP had started making inroads GGP. However, at the last moment, benefit by the TINA factor as it would
in 1990, and its voteshare grew from BSP supremo Mayawati announced have to share the anti-incumbency
3.54 per cent in 1990 to 8.97 per cent that her party would go it alone in the votes with them. O
scents in the air too, suggesting the

mood might just be changing.
rajasthan Historical precedence throws its
weight behind the Congress as the peo-
ple of Rajasthan have elected Congress
by Salik Ahmed in Jaipur and BJP governments in alternation
for the past 25 years. A year ago, the
atCommittee
the Pradesh Congress
office in Jaipur’s
BJP could have hoped to upset this
trend with Modi’s popularity and the
Sindhi Camp area, a police inspec- Congress’s diminishing profile. But that
tor is greeting the party workers seems to have changed. Rahul Gandhi’s
with smiles and folded hands. “in rally in Bikaner earlier this month drew
the past four-and-a-half years, not a huge crowd. Besides speaking out
even a constable came here for a over the Rafale deal, Rahul has also
courtesy visit,” remarks a senior accused the BJP of shielding its Unnao
Congress leader. the shifting alle- MLA, Kuldip Singh Sengar, in a rape
giances of few policemen might not case. Sachin Pilot, who was appointed
be a good barometer of the elector- ANothEr tErM? rajasthan CM the Pradesh Election Committee chair-
ate’s mood, but there are other Vasundhararaje Scindia man two weeks ago, delivered a series
Do
or c over story
Die of wins in the recent bypolls.

Two recent surveys, ABP-CVoter and
Congress and fight the 2019 Lok Sabha
elections. Senior Singh was denied the
Cfore, have predicted a Congress win BJP ticket from Barmer-Jaisalmer
with a comfortable majority in constituency in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Rajasthan. The BJP too seeems to have Not appointing Gajendra Singh
realisesdthat the ground is slipping Shekhawat as state BJP chief, the gov-
from under its feet. There are a multi- raJaSthaN ernment’s handling of Padmavat con-
tude of factors, ranging from anti- troversy, and the encounter issue of
incumbency to populace’s dislike for Rajput gangster Anandpal are some of
Vasundhara Raje’s smugness, working the other issues that has the martial
against the party. Party chief and mas- community frothing at the mouth. The
ter campaigner Amit Shah has visited Brahmins, another strong vote bank,
the state five times since the beginning are also upset with the party because of
of September, invoking surgical strike BJP 163 BSP 3 NPP 4 the six-time MLA Ghanshyam Tiwari’s
and the issue of Bangladeshi immi- INC 21 NUZP 2 alleged affront by and exit from the
grants to canvass support. Raje has Independents 7 party. A Brahmin social figure re-
Party position as on 2013
concluded her Rajasthan Gaurav Yatra marked that Muslim appeasement
covering more than 150 constituencies be tilted against the BJP. The Rajputs, a killed the Congress and Dalit appease-
out of 200 in the state. In addition, she loyal votebase of the party, are appar- ment might just do the same to BJP.
announced free smartphones for ently miffed with the party over a range The elections in the state, coupled
roughly one crore people in the state a of issues and feel slighted by a party with those in Madhya Pradesh and
month before the model code of con- ‘that was nurtured by their blood’. Chhattisgarh, will not just be a real
duct for elections came into force. Manvendra Singh, son of veteran BJP test of BJP’s electoral genius but also
In a state that is evidently caste con- leader Jaswant Singh, has quit the party set the stage for the Lok Sabha elec-
scious, the caste equations also seem to and expressed his intentions to join the tions next year. O
Chhattisgarh
by Ushinor Majumdar
t hE BSP’s alliance with the CPi

and the Chhattisgarh Janata
Congress of former CM Ajit Jogi in
Chhattisgarh has created the ground
for the first three-way battle in the
state’s history of assembly polls.
recent elections in the state have
seen contests restricted largely to
the BJP and the Congress.
On October 15, the BSP announced
this coalition with the Chhattisgarh Pti
Janata Congress and the CPI, which two to tANGo Former CM Ajit Jogi with BSP supremo Mayawati
had secured 5.15 per cent of the vote-
share in the 13 seats where it fielded political analyst Sushil Trivedi, a political career despite a helicopter ac-
candidates. Jogi became the first chief former chief electoral officer of cident restricting him to a wheelchair.
minister after the state’s formation in Chhattisgarh. “Jogi has some influ- In the 2013 state assembly polls, the
2000. The BJP’s Raman Singh has ence across the state, and specifically Congress had secured 40.3 per cent of
held the post since 2003. among the Schedule Caste constitu- the voteshare and 39 seats, which was
The new alliance plans to campaign encies, as Mayawati too would have, not far from the BJP’s 41.18 per cent
hard in the Bastar region where the but winning seats is difficult.” and 49 seats. Around six months later,
CPI’s Manish Kunjam is also well- Whether the people vote for the the BJP scooped up 10 of the 11 Lok
known and has won twice from one of alliance or not, Jogi is going to make Sabha seats during the 2014 Lok
its Vidhan Sabha seats. quite a bit of noise. He is a wily politic- Sabha elections, but the Congress,
“The main players in Chhattisgarh ian who has navigated himself out of with only one seat, managed to get a
are the BJP and the Congress,” says many a controversy and continued a 38.4 percent voteshare, 10 per cent

more than the previous election. top leaders of the party at the time
“The Congress’s share in votes has were Ajit Jogi and his son, Amit Jogi.
increased over the last few years and In 2016, they too walked away from
the mood here is the same as else- the Congress, which had expelled Jogi
where because of agrarian issues, lack for six years, and formed the
of jobs, and the effects of demonetisa- Chhattisgarh Janata Congress.
tion and GST. However, there is no ChhattISgarh It is to be seen how a headless
leadership in its state unit to take Congress fares in this uncertainty and
advantage of the anti-incumbency the party’s national leaders may have
mood, and so I feel people will vote to carry the weight. In the Gujarat
based on candidates. The lack of lead- state assembly elections, the Congress
ership in Goa has also cost the came close to upsetting the BJP’s in-
Congress some MLAs,” says Trivedi. cumbency of several terms. At the
As we go to press, the Congress is yet BJP 49 BSP 1 time, Rahul Gandhi was campaigning
to announce candidates in the state, INC 39 Independent 1 almost alone in the western state.
though elections are less than four Going by news reports, the mood in
weeks away. It had hoped to strike a polls, had wiped out most of the top Chhattisgarh favours anti-incum-
deal with the BSP, which didn’t hap- Congress leadership in the state. bency but whether it will translate
pen. A Maoist attack in 2013, six The Congress hasn’t grown any fresh into votes is a matter of speculation
months before the state assembly talent in the state since then. The only till the results are declared. O
P. anil kumar
telangana
by M.S. Shanker in Hyderabad
t hE tenor of the political ballad

has been changing by the day
ever since telangana rashtra Samiti
(trS) president K. Chandrashekar
rao (KCr) advanced the telangana
assembly polls to cash in on his gov-
ernment’s recently announced wel-
fare schemes. this week, it hit a high
pitch with cultural activist G. Vittal
rao ‘Gaddar’ meeting rahul Gandhi holDiNG oN... KCr will address more than 100 meetings after Dussehra
and his mother Sonia. with him was
his son Surya Kiran, who formally Can Gaddar emerge as a key chal- dismissed Gaddar’s entry as “irrele-
joined the Congress. After the talks, lenger to KCR and TRS? At the mom- vant and a non-starter”. “We are nei-
Gaddar, a strident critic of the ent, it seems unlikely. Many feel ther upset nor worried over the
Congress so far, said he would “cam- Gaddar has become irrelevant since so-called understanding reached by
paign for all political forces to end ‘left-wing extremism’ has more or less Gaddar with Sonia and Rahul,” says
neo-feudalism and stop fundamental- been wiped out from the new Palle Rajeshwar Reddy, a close aide of
ist forces from coming to power”. Telangana state. The TRS leadership KCR. “TRS is confident to retain
Do
or c over story
Die power with an absolute majority as we

have delivered what we have promised
rigation projects. “Where is that 75
lakh-acre land which your govern-
to people,” he says. ment brought under cultivation?” she
KCR is set to address more than 100 retorts in a video which has gone viral
meetings covering almost all constitu- on social media. S. Jaipal Reddy, vet-
encies after the Dussehra celebrations. eran Congress leader and former
But the Congress-led Opposition, telaNgaNa Union Minister, who many see as the
under the banner of Praja Maha possible chief ministerial candidate if
Kutami (People’s Alliance), consisting the Congress wrests power, has come
of its erstwhile bête-noire Telugu out with fresh corruption allegations
Desam Party (TDP), the Telangana against KCR and his family members.
Jana Samithi (TJS) and CPI, are ex- According to him, the KCR govern-
tremely optimistic of giving a tough ment has handed over irrigation pro-
fight to the TRS in the coming polls. trS 90 aImIm 7 tdP 3 jects worth Rs 60,000 crore to his
“People are vexed with KCR’s gim- INC 13 BJP 5 CPI(m) 1 coterie. “I dare KCR to deny the figure
micks,” says Prof Kodandaram, the Party position as on 2014
if he is clean and honest,” the senior
TJS founder. “The so-called welfare projects are designed only to plunder Congress leader thundered at a rally
schemes were not meant for all the the public exchequer,” he adds. recently. The campaign by both TRS
people of Telangana, but only for his Firebrand Congress leader D K and the Opposition has already been
family. His development claims are a Aruna too has challenged KCR for a vituperative; it will only get shriller in
big hoax. The multi-crore irrigation public debate over his tall claims on ir- the coming days. O
MizoraM
by Abdul Gani in Guwahati
i Nof2013, the BJP won 0.4 per cent

the vote share in the Mizoram
assembly elections. Five years later,
it’s hoping to be part of the govern-
ment in the Northeast state. But
then, the BJP has made “audacity”
its middle name ever since its spec-
tacular victory at the Centre in
2014. it has also mastered the art of
snatching power from right under
the nose of its opponents. For the
record, Mizoram is the only state in SAFFroN SUrGE Mizoram BJP workers at a campaign office in Aizawl
the region with a Congress
government. Hluna tells Outlook. Party president
And the regional Mizo National Amit Shah visited the state on
Front (MNF) appears to be the best October 17 and addressed an esti-
bet for the BJP’s quest in Mizoram mated 10,000 workers.
which goes to the polls on November Even though the BJP was open for a
28. The MNF is part of the BJP-led pre-poll alliance with MNF, it didn’t
forum of non-Congress parties, the work out. Some senior leaders leaving
North East Democratic Alliance mIZoram the Congress recently and anti-incu-
(NEDA). The party’s state president mbency will also add to BJP’s gain,
JV Hluna admitted that it might not feels Hluna. The BJP is contesting all
be possible to beat the Congress 40 seats. The MNF appears to be play-
alone but with the help of regional ing hard ball but has not yet shut the
parties, Mizoram can get the desired door on the BJP. “No doubt, we are
change. “We are upbeat and sure of partners at NEDA which targets to
bringing a change in the state,” INC 34 mNF 5 mPC 1 see a Congress-free Northeast but

jump cut Badri NarayaN
The UP Template
the writer is director, GB Pant Social Science institute, allahabad
i
F there is one state that provides a template to study the diminish-
ing returns of the Congress in contemporary Indian politics, Uttar
Pradesh stands out. The country’s largest state in terms of popula-
tion and the number of parliamentarians—80 in the Lok Sabha—was a
Congress domain until December 1989, with Narayan Dutt Tiwari
being its last chief minister. This was the grand old party’s undisputed
stronghold, barring pinprick stints by Charan Singh’s Bharatiya
Kranti Dal and the Janata Party to break the hegemony.
That was then—1989 could be the Orwellian 1984 for the Congress.
In the following decades, the party lost its footing progressively in the
GUNG ho Chief minister lal state as Dalits, Muslims and Brahmins—its core supporters—veered
thanhawla is confident of the towards Mulayam Singh Yadav’s
Congress returning to power Samajwadi Party, Kanshi Ram and
Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, The idea of a grand
that doesn’t necessarily stop us from and the Bharatiya Janata Party
contesting alone. Our base here is (though not necessarily in that alliance is giving
pretty strong and we can pull it off order). As things stand today, the relevance To The
alone. Our candidates are quite popu- Congress can at best be described
lar among the people,” an MNF leader as a spent force in UP and irrele-
irrelevanT congress,
says. The MNF had twice led the state vant for its politics. especially in Up.
but managed only five seats in 2013. But a kind of relevance is emerg-
The ruling Congress, however, sees ing from its irrelevance. All because
no threat from either the BJP or of the brute strength the BJP has been gathering and displaying since
MNF. “The last economic survey in- 2014 with election victories across the country. The Samajwadis and
dicates that the Congress has done the BSP need a Bihar-style mahagathbandhan, or grand alliance, in
exceptionally well…whatever prom- the 2019 general elections to stop the BJP from repeating its previous
ises were made during the last elec- poll feat of winning 72 seats in UP. The Congress, with its shrinking
tion manifesto, we have fulfilled all of but small and loyal voter base, could play a significant role to soar up
them,” says Luizinho Faleiro, the collective fortunes of the anti-BJP camp as well as win a dignified
Congress general secretary in charge number of seats for itself.
of Mizoram. “Our economic indica- The ideal situation for the Opposition would be an SP-BSP-
tors, social indicators and human Congress-Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance. But given the fickleness
indicators have not only the best in of politics, a second option could be a Congress-RLD tie-up, making
the Northeast but one of the best in the parliamentary elections a multi-corner contest in UP. Either way
the country.” Chief minister Lal the Congress is likely to acquire some value as a minor player with a
Thanhawla and the sttae BJP presi- major role in the state. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi may not get a
dent also says that despite two senior major share of seats to contest in UP as part of a mahagathbandhan,
leaders switching over to MNF, the but the party will have a significant say at the national level with the
people of Mizoram were still behind regional satraps by its side. O
his party. O
Powered by
Take the
First Small
Steps
To Great
Wealth
An open secret for creating
substantial wealth is to get
started right from your first
job. Here’s an action plan.
Udayan Ray Why start in your

first job?
L
ike Rome which wasn’t built So, how does one give oneself the
in a day, creating wealth also maximum time to create wealth?
requires time. You need to The answer clearly is to start on the
take simple steps regularly wealth creation path from the first
and over a long period of time. job itself. But this is easier said than
For those of you who have been done. This is primarily due to the fact
following the articles in the previous TaRUn ChUgh that the expenses typically tend to
editions of MoneySense, you would MD & CEO Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance catch up with the regular pay during
know by now why starting early with “The smart way to build this stage of life.
your investments is so important “The first job is the first wave of
a corpus to fulfil many
for the amount of wealth you finally financial independence, which most
create. “During wealth creation, time
life goals is to identify the likely sees it getting translated to
is your best friend. Earlier you start, financial or life goal, know mounting expenses. However, no
more wealth you create,” says Anjali the timelines of achieving it matter what you earn vis-à-vis the
Malhotra, Chief Customer, Marketing and then invest towards it expenses, it is a prudent exercise
& Digital Officer, Aviva India. on a monthly basis.” to ensure that there is a little saving
42 OutlOOk 29 October 2018

or investment component in it too. Identify financial goals
Ideally, on a monthly basis,” says Tarun The other thing that needs to go
Chugh, MD & CEO, Bajaj Allianz Life hand-in-hand in this automated
Insurance. Clearly, the key challenge investment process is identification
during one’s first job is to manage of financial goals which provides
finances in such a way that some a target for the regular investment
savings is created. Experts suggest
that young professionals and others in Kickstarting effort for those in their first job.
“Identify the financial or life goal
their first job follow a budget.
Wealth Creation towards which you’d like to create
the wealth - a dream vacation
Create a budget In Your First Job or fancy gadget or perhaps an
“Plan your expenses first by setting expensive gift for your parents.
a budget. Otherwise you will Estimate monthly expenses Once this is firmed up, know the
overspend without any control of This includes items such timelines to achieving it and then
your income,” says veteran financial as rent, groceries, mobile invest towards it on a monthly
services, among others
advisor K.Ramesh Bhat, CEO, basis,” says Chugh. “This inculcates
Aniram. “I see a lot of youngsters Make a budget a financial discipline almost
who earn around Rs 30,000-50,000 This will help you automatically. Having a life goal
per month as their first salary. Apart record, track and rein in towards which you want to create
from giving a small amount to their your expenses wealth helps you keep the focus,
family, especially bachelors, they ensuring that you invest towards it
spend a lot on junk food, movies,
Save and invest first and brings in a forced discipline,’ he
This will secure your
compulsive online shopping and regular investments from adds. Aviva India’s Anjali Malhotra
pubs. So, budgeting expenses do your expenses agrees: “Creating buckets and
play a vital role,” he adds. pockets for expenses and savings
Clearly, budgeting involves Automate your helps create a discipline for saving
indentifying various monthly investments regularly and financial plans.”
Ideally, this is done from
expenses and getting an idea of the For the financial planning and
your bank savings account
surplus that can be created. Experts through facilities like life goal planning, you could take
urge that the surplus be invested systematic investment plans the help of financial advisors and
first, before any money from the (SIP) from mutual funds experts. Or, you could take the
pay is used to meet expenses. “First help of online tools. Says Chugh:
invest the surplus after getting the Identify goals, remaining “One should also utilise the
time and required amounts
salary. Then you can spend without The regular investments several online financial tools to
any guilt,” says prominent financial can be directed to short-, understand the financial amount
planner Suresh Sadagopan, Founder, medium- and long required towards your life goals,
Ladder7 Financial Advisories. term needs the timelines to achieve it, as well
While this seems like a logical as even the ways of getting them
thing to do but this often takes some Invest in equity done. Many even help you analyse
investments for long
doing for the young who are often term needs your expense pattern vis-à-vis
without any financial discipline. The For long term needs your income, and provide tips to
answer lies in automating regular requiring large amounts, streamline them if required.”
investments. “Set up a monthly invest in equities since they
investment via systematic investment typically provide high long Create liquidity
term growth
plan (SIP) in a mutual fund. This Even as youngsters follow the
will get debited from the bank Accumulate savings in case advice already provided for
account automatically without any of irregular income managing current expenses and
intervention. In this case, it is just In case of irregular income, regular investments, they will
a one-time set up which needs to collect periodic surpluses in need to keep in mind imminent
liquid fund investments and
be done. If one does not have the requirements and provide for
then systematically invest
time to do even that, one can get through systematic transfer emergencies. This can be done
a financial services intermediary to plan (STP) of mutual funds with the help of shorter term
help,” adds Sadagopan. investments such as short
29 October 2018 OutlOOk 43

It is worthwhile to point out that options such as equity linked
you can even invest in case you savings schemes (ELSS) offered
don’t have regular income. “If you by mutual funds and ULIPs offer
do not have regular surplus every annual tax deduction of upto
month, you can invest as and when `1.5 lakh under Section 80C.
the surplus comes, in a liquid or Since people working in their
ultra short-term debt fund and then first jobs typically need to do
invest in an equity fund through STP tax planning through tax saving
K. Ramesh Bhat (systematic transfer plan),” says Bhat. investments, eligible tax saving
CEO, Aniram and equity oriented investments
Make equity investments can kill two birds with one stone.
“If you don’t have a regular The choice of the investments What’s more, these investments
income, invest as and for each life goal can be based can be earmarked for important
when the surplus comes, on various factors such as time to long term life goals. Later, with a
by investing in a liquid the life goal, your risk appetite, tax rise in income one can increase
or ultra short-term fund. benefits and so on. However, one the regular investment amounts
way of maximising the gains of and add more investments in the
Then, invest in an equity
starting to invest early from the first investment portfolios for each
fund through a systematic job, is to opt for equity investments goal. Of course, even as the
transfer plan (STP).” for long term needs. One way of investment choices are made
doing this is by investing in equity- one needs to weigh the options
related investments such as equity carefully and opt for an option
term debt funds, liquid funds funds, equity-oriented hybrid funds that will truly meet one’s needs.
and short term fixed deposits. and unit linked insurance plans For making informed investment
Once the money from these (ULIPs) with equity investments. decision one needs the help and
liquid investments is used they Over the long-term i.e. 8-10 years guidance of qualified and credible
need to be replenished. The or more, such investments typically financial advisors.
reason why this is so important provide high returns that help you Starting the wealth creation
is that it ensures that in case of save ample amounts and create journey at the start of one’s career
emergencies, or important short substantial wealth. provides an opportunity to create a
term needs like buying a gadget, solid foundation for one’s financial
you don’t dip into your long term Tax saving investments future. It helps put in place processes
investments or disrupt the regimen Equity-oriented investments are and allows freedom to make choices
of regular investments. also useful for the purposes of which makes creation of substantial
tax planning. Many investment wealth a relatively simple affair over
No investment is time. Subsequently, the key is to
too small stick to the routine and do more
This brings us back to the issue of of the same. Perhaps, that’s where
regular investments. A common the irony of wealth creation lies,
concern for those in their first jobs doesn’t it? Achieving the coveted
and wanting to invest is that their goal of creating substantial wealth
savings is too less. This need not to meet one’s cherished dreams
be a worry since you can invest in involves doing simple and boring
SIPs of mutual funds for regular things regularly, and for years. At the
investment amounts for as low as same time, there’s little doubt that
`500. Regular investment of even anjali malhotRa kickstarting the wealth
small amounts creates financial Chief Customer, Marketing & Digital creation journey in a person’s
discipline that is so crucial in Officer, Aviva India first job provides the headstart he
meeting major financial goals. “Creating buckets and or she needs.
“The amount can be small, but it
will bring about a habit; and also
pockets for expenses and The author is a personal
ensure you are able to achieve savings helps create a finance expert and a founder
many of your life goals along the discipline for saving regularly of FundooMoney Media, an
way,” says Chugh. and financial plans.” e-learning company

Get The Safety Of
Suresh Sadagopan, Founder,
Ladder7 Financial Advisories answers:
““Emergencies have the potential to
Your Rainy Day Fund

derail the wealth creation process. It
is important to create an emergency
corpus to avoid damage to a person’s
To ensure that the progress of your wealth creation finances.” Adds Lovaii Navlakhi,
Managing Director & CEO, International
never gets derailed by emergency expenses, Money Matters: “Creating an emergency
maintain an emergency fund. Here’s how fund is important as you don’t don’t
want to get caught in a storm in a fancy
sail boat, and then realise that there’s
Udayan Ray a hole in the side of the boat.” But
how does one go about creating an
emergency fund? Here is a lowdown.
“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost;
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost;
For the want of a horse the battle was lost; Identify emergencies
For the failure of battle the kingdom was lost; Since you are likely to have insurance
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.” plans to protect yourself from various
James Baldwin risks such as those to your life, health,
American writer in “Fifty Famous People”
SUReSh Sadagopan car, home and income, identify
other emergency requirements. For
Founder, Ladder7 Financial Advisories
instance, in early career, it could be a
I
n wealth creation, every detail “Emergencies have the sudden job loss while later it could be
and effort matters. One such potential to derail the medical emergencies.
aspect is creating an emergency wealth creation process.
fund which many people ignore.
It is important to create Keep aside 3-6 months of
Emergency fund is your “rainy day monthly expenses
fund” that prepares you for any an emergency corpus For an adequate sized emergency fund,
emergency. But why do you need an to avoid damage to a experts suggest keeping 3-6 months
emergency fund? person’s finances.” of family expenses covering items

such as rent, loan EMIs and insurance
premiums. Of course, you need to
assess whether your personal situation
Emergency Fund Primer
requires a larger emergency fund. This Estimate emergency cash
is especially true in conditions like fickle requirements
job security or family members with Find out the likely cash
major medical conditions.
requirement during emergencies
Park money in liquid not covered by insurance plans.
investments
The money in an emergency fund
Keep aside 3-6 months of
needs to be easily accessible in liquid monthly expenses
As a thumb rule, target keeping 3-6 `
investments. This means a mix of
investments like liquid funds and short months of monthly expenses in the
term fixed deposits (FDs). While liquidity, emergency fund including expenses such
not returns, should be your focus, at as groceries, rent and insurance premium
the same time, ensure that you opt for
rewarding liquid investments and not Park money in liquid investments
parking all the money in low paying Choose a mix of easy to liquidate
bank savings account. investments such as liquid funds, Replenish the fund after use
A rewarding liquid investment can short term bank fixed deposits and After dipping into the emergency fund,
make a significant difference if you savings account make fresh contributions to get it back
have a large-sized emergency fund. to adequate levels.
Returns from such an option can Gradually build your
cover important items such as utility Periodically review adequacy of
emergency fund
bills. Thus, if your emergency fund
Build the emergency fund by making emergency fund
is primarily aimed at addressing the
regular investments such as bank Over time, requirements of
risk of a job loss, you can keep most
of the money in a liquid fund with a recurring deposits (RD) and systematic emergency fund can change. For
small amount being parked in a bank investment plan (SIP) of liquid funds. instance, there could be possibilities
savings account. Supplement the contribution on of imminent medical emergencies for
receiving lump sums such as bonus ageing family members. Adjust the
Gradually build your and incentives emergency fund amount.
emergency fund
With the many demands on your
regular pay, you are unlikely to find it
easy to quickly build an emergency emergency fund needs periodically.
fund. Use systematic investment “Every investment has to be reviewed
plan (SIP) in a liquid fund or ultra periodically and they are determined as
short term debt fund along with per the life stage. It’s no different for an
bank recurring deposit (RD) to build emergency fund,” says Tarun Chugh,
it up. You can supplement the MD & CEO, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance.
contribution with windfalls such as This is because circumstances in your
bonus and incentives. “You can build family could change.
an emergency fund in any short-term Lovaii navLakhi To sum up, creating wealth requires
Managing Director & CEO,
fund that doesn’t have a lock in,” says International Money Matters consistent efforts over long period of
K. Ramesh Bhat, CEO, Aniram. time. The last thing, you need is an
“Creating an emergency emergency derailing your progress.
Replenish it and review fund is important as you That’s why it is so critical that the journey
needs periodically don’t want to get caught of wealth creation also begins with the
If you need to use the emergency creation of an emergency fund.
in a storm in a fancy sail
fund, you need to immediately start
efforts to replenish it. Remember,
boat, and then realise The author is a personal finance expert
the risks continue to hover over your that there’s a hole in the and a founder of FundooMoney Media,
finances. You also need to review your side of the boat.” an e-learning company
29 October 2018 OutlOOk 47

Simple Steps to a Smart Home Budget
To create wealth, every family needs to track its expenses with a budget
and consistently stick to it. Here are some smart tips
and more importantly, setting giving in to one’s emotional impulses

aside something for the rainy day and periodic monitoring of expenses.
(emergencies/contingencies/financial There are many budget tracking apps
goals) by saving and investing. available online which can be linked to
Essential expenses would typically your bank and credit card accounts to
comprise of your Housing rent, collate transaction data. If you are wary
Utility bills (electricity, telephone of sharing account information and use
etc), children’s school fees, medical cash frequently, then you can opt to
Shyamali BaSu expenses, essential groceries, punch in details manually. Keeping a tab
transportation expenses etc. These on your expenses helps you take note of
are the non negotiable expenses that expenses which do not align with your
H
ave you come across the you have to provide for every month, budgeted expenses and make amends,
word ‘budget’ ever? In all irrespective of your income or other if required.
likelihood, you have. More expenses. Once these necessities are If you are repeatedly struggling to
often than not, the only taken care of, you can figure out how stay within your budget, then it would
time some of us comes across this much you have for other indulgent be advisable to stick to cash for daily
oft dreaded word “budget” is when expenses like dining out, movies purchases, instead of credit cards. The
the Government announces Union and vacations. convenience offered by credit cards
Budget to estimate its receipts and Further, not all months are the same. means that one forgets the true value of
expenditure for the upcoming year. There will be months where you will money and ends up splurging beyond
However, budgeting is not some have to save for special occasions, one’s means. Weekly withdrawal of
rocket science which can be done birthdays, festivals etc. Set aside a requisite cash and limiting your daily
only for astronomical sums of money certain portion of your income for expenses to the withdrawn amount
by bureaucrats in the Finance Ministry. these expenses throughout the year so can avert budgetary slippages. You can
Simply put, budgeting is creating a plan that you are not caught off guard when continue to pay fixed bills like electricity,
to spend your money wisely. Creating these expenses sneak up on you. telephone etc using credit cards as such
a plan enables you to spend prudently As a thumb rule, your total expenses expenses are non-discretionary
and avoid being cash starved when you should not exceed 70% of your When it comes to personal finance,
have to meet essential needs. monthly income. At least 30% of your how you choose to spend your money
In some cases, the primary reason income should be devoted to your is as important as earning it in the first
for financial stress is lack of income. financial priorities which include paying place. Budgeting wisely and staying true
However, in most cases, the problem is off your debt, building an emergency to your budget can be the difference
overspending. Budgeting helps to nip corpus, saving for child’s higher between financial freedom and financial
this problem in the bud. The essence education, investing for retirement etc. stress. As the famous quote by Former
of budgeting does not lie in merely If you can reduce your expenses to US President Calvin Coolidge goes
tracking every rupee that we spend. below 70% say 50%, then it leaves you “There is no dignity quite so impressive,
In fact, one can be good at merely more room for paying off your debt and no independence quite so important
tracking one’s expenses and still end earlier, investing more etc. Ensuring as living within your means”.
up overspending. Expense tracking that your budgetary targets are neither
is post facto and follows budgeting. unrealistic nor over lenient is critical. The author is Senior Vice President &
Most people often equate budgeting Overly restrictive budgets without a Head - Products & Marketing, HDFC
with expense tracking and miss the reasonable buffer can make budgeting Asset Management Company. The
point. Budgeting begins with estimating a frustrating exercise without any opinions expressed in this article
your expenses and classifying them fruitful outcome. are those of the author alone and
into essential expenses and indulgent Having a budget is half the job done not of HDFC AMC, and should not
expenses. Once this is done, it is merely and you will feel much more in charge be regarded as investment advice.
an act of balancing your income with of your financial situation. However, Investors should obtain their own
your expenses (essential ones), being it’s ONLY Half the job done!! Sticking independent advice before taking a
frugal with your indulgent expenses to the budget requires discipline, not decision to invest in any securities.”

Education
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
DIGITIZATION, INNOVATION AND DISRUPTION
GL Bajaj Institute of Management & Research, Greater Noida, organized 3rd
International Conference on “Digitization, Innovation and Disruption: Keys to
Achieving Global Competitiveness (ICDID)” on September 15, 2018
A
mark of excellence in the present research oriented milieu, GL transcendence in research initiatives has been an area consistently
Bajaj Institute of Management & Research, Greater Noida under focused upon at GLBIMR (www.glbimr.org). The inaugural session
the transformational leadership of Mr. Pankaj Agarwal, Vice witnessed the unveiling of the Conference Proceedings of International
Chairman, GL Bajaj Educational Institutions and prudent academic Conference on Digitization, Innovation & Disruption 2018 with the
acumen of Dr. Urvashi Makkar, Director General, GLBIMR organized publication of 104 vetted abstracts and the Conference Book
the 3rd International Conference on “Digitization, Innovation and - “Digitization, Innovation & Disruption: Keys to Achieving Global
Disruption: Keys to Achieving Global Competitiveness (ICDID)” on Competitiveness”.
September 15, 2018. In continuation with the International Conference The conference was endorsed by intellectuals of global repute
on “Innovations in Technology: A Road Map for Achieving Global including delegates from over 20 countries, including Ethiopia, Sudan,
Competitiveness” (ICIT- 2016) and the 2nd International Conference Italy, U.S.A, Philippines etc with more than 400 participating delegates,
on “Achieving Sustainable Strategic Advantage” (ICASSA-2017), the and 106 research papers were presented. Carrying forth the legacy
pertinence of the theme struck a perfect resonance as India, with its of the culmination of academic excellence, corporate orientation and
scale and skills, has been poised to lead the world in the journey of path-breaking research initiatives in Management Education, ICDID
digitization with a comprehensive strategy which is both innovative 2018 was a great success and grand academic extravaganza.
and disruptive in nature.
Following the exuberant inaugural ceremony, marked with the
auspicious invocation of Goddess Saraswati, Mr. Pankaj Agarwal, while
delivering his welcome address shared that GLBIMR has been a proud
initiator of this erudite platform contributing to research initiatives
which have complemented the dynamism of Management Education.
Dr. Urvashi Makkar, Director General, GLBIMR & Conference Chair
of ICDID 2018, delivered the inaugural address, highlighting that
as an addendum to academic excellence and corporate readiness,
ICAI
ICAI signs the Mutual Recognition Agreement with CPA Ireland
T
he Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has signed While signing the MRA, CA. Naveen N.D. Gupta, President, ICAI
the Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) with CPA Ireland on Oc- mentioned that “The MRA between ICAI and CPA Ireland would help to
tober 5, 2018 in Ireland. Signing of the Agreement between ICAI foster strong working relations between the two accounting institutes
& CPA Ireland would facilitate mutually recognizing the Qualification of and will lead to greater mobility of professionals at either end.”
each other’s and admit the Members in good standing by prescribing Mr. Cormac Mohan, President, CPA Ireland expressed that “The MRA
a bridging mechanism between the two Institutes. Under the terms between ICAI and CPA Ireland would be beneficial for the members of
of MRA, an ICAI member in good standing of ICAI can become the both Institutes and they can enjoy the benefits that each organisation
member of CPA Ireland on completing and passing 2 online tests in offers.”
Irish Taxation and Irish Law & Strategy.
Mr. Eamonn Siggins, CEO, CPA Ireland and CA. S.B. Zaware, Central
The Union Cabinet chaired by Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Council Member, ICAI were also present during the MRA signing
Modi on July 18, 2018 had approved the signing of MRA between the ceremony and expressed their pleasure at the signing of the agree-
ICAI and CPA Ireland. The Agreement provides for recognition of their ment between the two bodies that would herald new dimensions for
respective Members’ prior qualifications and providing membership professionals at either end.
services to each other’s Members in their “home” locations; and
jointly undertake a range of activities and initiatives.
PHOTO ESSAY
League
Of Ms
Muscles
Female bodybuilding
is no ‘flesh’ in the pan
Text by Lachmi Deb Roy
Photographs: Jitender Gupta
F
LOWER power, 1970s—the fight
raged for women’s rights and for
freedom from the chokehold of male
chauvinism. The churning hap-
pened in all preserves considered
male, including the musculature
pursuit of bodybuilding. Women began
pursuing the art of shaping the body with
deadlifts and squats. Another male
dominion was conquered. Women with
ripped muscles, grease-tanned wide
shoulders, bulging biceps, flaring lats, and
shredded thighs tapering down from a
small waist competed in major body-
building events. It took some time, but
Indian women too got into the act.
But the chiseled female silhouette never
found widespread acceptance from a patri-
archal society steeped in the idea that
women with too much muscles are unat-
tractive and gross. Some called them an-
drogynous, man-face, and someone simply
asked if one could tell they were a woman.
All negative adjectives. “I got three words
for female bodybuilders, ew, yuck & don’t!”
screams a tweet, reprising the stereotype.
Yet, female bodybuilding is flourishing in
India and abroad. Mother-of-three Mamota,
teenager Europa, schoolteacher Jinnie and
many of their ilk are the beacons… O

MAMOTA DEVI YUMNUM. She is 39,
a mother of three and the wife of a body-
builder-husband. They are from Manipur
and born in a society not known to accord
any social stigma to women in sports, even
bodybuilding. Mamota was a petite woman
with flawless skin when she landed in
Delhi 17 years ago and started working
for cosmetic major Avon. She became a
full-time bodybuilder after “my husband’s
failure in a championship in 2011”. Back-
to-back bronze in Bangkok (2012) and
Vietnam (2013) put her on the world stage.
LEFT: Mamota won gold at the 52nd Asian
championships on October 7 in Pune.

MAJIZIA BHANU. This 24-year-old from
Orkatteri, a village in Kerala’s Kozhikode
district, flexes here muscles in a burkini.
Her choice of sport, which demands showing
her physique, has not had any conflict with
her religious propriety. “My identity is my
hijab. Being a girl or a Muslim doesn’t matter.
I want women to take up all challenges,” says
the dental surgery student who transitioned
from powerlifting to bodybuilding encour-
aged by her husband.
YASHMEEN CHAUHAN MANAK. This

39-year-old mother of a lovely daughter
wears many hats—a Mrs India beauty
pageant winner in 2015; owns and runs
a gym in Gurgaon, defying “Ladki hokar
gym trainer?” remarks; an avid biker who
swears by her Royal Enfield; and a danc-
er-choreographer. She took to bodybuild-
ing at age 17 to break social taboos and a
difficult childhood: bullying in school for
being overweight because of an ailment.
She has won several bodybuilding titles.

GEETA SAINI, 30, Gurgaon. Her parents
were the first to object when she started
professional bodybuilding two years ago.
“For me bodybuilding started as a way of
getting fit. I was always overweight. I was
21 and my heart sank when I saw my
weight on the weighing scale. It was
108kg.” She quit her job, that of a 3-D
animation artist, to go professional.
JINNIE GOGIA CHUGH. She is 37,

married, and mother of a 12-year-old
daughter. This Delhi woman was an
English schoolteacher for 12 years before
becoming a professional bodybuilder and
a health columnist. She has competed in
international contests and won laurels
too. “Everybody in my family is
supportive, including my in-laws.”

GETTY IMAGES
EUROPA BHOWMIK. She is 19, from Calcutta

and barely crosses 5 feet standing on her toes.
She was “chubby” around the time she reached
puberty and was bullied in school for being
“short and unattractive”. So she tried dieting and
became anorexic. That was before her parents
asked her to hit the gym. And the gym is where
“the youngest competitive female bodybuilder in
India” regained her confidence. As for her name,
it’s from Samco Europa, the merchant vessel her
father was captaining when she was born.

REELS OF CHANGE
Cinema As
Healing Balm
A film on caste oppression and honour
killings has touched Tamil hearts
by G.C. Shekhar in Chennai caste names ring out. Instead, the context of
Tirunelveli district, known for caste clashes
K
ARUPPI, the black hunting dog, is between Thevars and Dalits, sets the tone for a
merely a symbol. From its free-spirit- conflict passed down generations. Whether the
ed roaming of the countryside to mental trauma he undergoes in his college, the
being tied down to the railway tracks physical abuse at the hands of the heroine’s
to be crushed by the roaring wheels of relatives or the public humiliation of his father,
a train, Karuppi exemplifies how the film is an unforgiving reminder of repres-
those held captive by the manacles of caste sion in the name of caste.
are oppressed by the more powerful in soci- “The film is not aimed at naming and shaming
ety. The treatment meted out to his dog in any particular community,” says Selvaraj, an
the opening scene is literally extended over alumnus of the Tirunelveli Law College, which
the next two hours to the hero—a law stu- serves as the setting for the story. “It only
dent from a village inhabited by Dalits. For describes the injustice meted out to the
its intense yet non-inimical portrayal of this oppressed castes and the opportunities denied
constant struggle for basic social decency, to them. Even if they make it through the grind
the movie Pariyerum Perumal (The God to enter a law college, they remain strangers to
Who Rides a Horse), named after the main an education system that favours those with
protagonist, will go down as a watershed knowledge of English.”
moment in Tamil cinema. The hero’s struggle with English does not
Directed by debutant Mari Selvaraj, a Dalit merely bring on the laughs; it also serves as a
“Instead of filmmaker, the movie has proved to be a com- gentle reminder that reservation might help
shaming any mercial success even while earning critical the underprivileged to gain admission, but
acclaim for treating a sensitive subject with does not empower them without a basic knowl-
community, great finesse. Its chosen method is not to raise edge of English. Selvaraj strongly advocates
the film only the hackles of the elite castes, but to make that education is the only route to salvation.
describes the them pause and ponder—especially about the He does this via Perumal’s college principal, a
injustice recent spate of honour killings. The film shows cobbler’s son who narrates his own story of
meted out to a mason bumping off Dalit men and, at times, how studying with passion helped him over-
even elite-caste girls for inter-caste relation- come social and economic handicaps.
oppressed ships. All in the name of caste pride. The film succeeds for two other reasons.
castes,” says Through the entire journey of the hero, bril- Firstly, the narration is direct without being
Selvaraj. liantly portrayed by Kadhir, not once do the heavy on symbolism as films with a social

will keep coming to college. We will study.”
Selvaraj chooses anguish over anger as the
language of his intimidated characters. Not
everyone relishes this line of least resistance.
Tamil Nadu-based anti-caste political party
Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi’s leader Thol.
Thirumavalavan feels the Dalit view, especially
the community’s fightback, could have been dep-
icted more tellingly. “It is a great movie, a definite
landmark in Tamil cinema. But Dalit activists
feel it did not record their protests. The caste
fanatics are shown to be having the upper hand,
with little to show by way of retaliation from
those whom they oppress,” he argues.
S
ELVARAJ retorts that the film is not about
violence and counter-violence, but an invi-
tation for dialogue between the oppressor
and the oppressed. “As the hero explains to
the remorseful father of the heroine in the last
scene, only if we talk and discuss will we know
what the future holds,” he says. He also points
out that only a small minority of the elite castes
resort to such extreme behaviour, while the
majority watch the atrocities in bemused sil-
ence. The film aims to address this silent major-
ity, urging them to question the aggressors in
their own community.
The movie is also an attempt to make the rest
of the world understand the dreams and aspira-
tions of a section whose voices have never been
heard. “Mainline cinema rarely talks about
such issues, and this probably is a rare attempt,”
says Pa. Ranjith, who has emerged as a voice of
assertive Dalits in Tamil society. “When
Selvaraj explained how the story is going to be
narrated, I was impressed by its scope and of-
fered to produce it.” As producer, Ranjith is also
a happy man as the film has reported good col-
lections all the way from metros to small towns.
Selvaraj says parts of the film are autobiograph-
ical, especially the mental trauma the hero und-
ergoes during his college days, but otherwise it
has been stitched together by the experiences of
many youngsters like him. The ingrained caste
divide mostly plays out in schools and colleges.
message often tend to be. “Even the symbols are CHASED BY CASTE “My closest classmate happened to be from an
easy to grasp. For example, when Perumal Stills from elite caste. I have kept that character to show
chooses to sit in the front row instead of the last Pariyerum Perumal that not everyone has hatred in their hearts.”
bench and an elite-caste boy challenges him,” For Tamil society, ripped apart by the rage of
points out music director Santosh Narayanan, honour killings, Pariyerum Perumal recom-
whose earthy songs and background score add mends reaching out rather than retaliation as
depth and dimension. Secondly, the dialogues the balm to heal caste wounds. In fact, when the
raise questions about caste inequity rather than heroine’s father reluctantly asks Perumal if he
provoke anger. “Just because you and my daugh- too reciprocates his daughter’s love, the hero
ter study in the same class, you cannot be equal replies, “Before I could find out, you people have
to her,” the heroine’s father tells Perumal. crushed me.” And the audience cheers loudly.
His reply comes towards the end of the movie, That Selvaraj has managed to engage the average
when he asks, “Why cannot we do what we want? film-goer in a dialogue about caste is proof that
Your threats will not stop me from studying. I cinema can also provide a healing touch. O

HEADY BREW
ALE AND ARTY

Craft beer is tickling the taste buds of a country starved of variety for long
by Ajay Sukumaran in Bangalore beer is hot in India—or cool, of course, depending

on whether you’re making it or drinking it.
A
BOUT four years ago, Suraj Shenai met At last count, there were 18 new beer labels in the
his first India Pale Ale—a Goose Island Indian market or heading here, says Rahul Singh,
brew aboard a United Airlines flight on who keeps a tab on new entrants from his perch at
his maiden trip to the US. “The flavour,” Beer Cafe, one of the biggest beer chains in India.
he says, “just blew me.” And an idea fer- They include all varieties from the mass-produced
mented like a hoppy coincidence. Soon flavours of Bira 91, which has squeezed its way into
after, Shenai, 34, was in Goa—an unlikely port an industry dominated by global giants in just over
of call for craft beer then—to distil his stuff. three years, to the avant-garde saison and milk-
“Craft beer Goa, beer experts say, sat out the first round of shake IPAs—terms the average beer drinker isn’t
is the new the brew-pub frenzy across India’s big cities for even familiar with. There’s something for every-
nearly a decade. But it is ringing in the second flush one, purist or beginner. Singh too has a brand of
wine. Pair of these strange brews. Last month, Shenai’s Goa his own in the works, called Indie 18.
with food, Brewing Company dispatched to the local super- So how did India’s beer market become this
pair with markets bottles of its oat-cream India Pale Ale frothy, at least in its major cities? Clearly, craft
cheeses...it’s (IPA) called Eight Finger Eddie—it’s named after beer has tickled the taste buds in a country that
happening Goa’s best-known hippie who, in the late 1960s, had been starved of variety for long. So, there’s a
made Anjuna beach his home; an ode, so to speak, rush to bottle brews that taste different. “Craft
with beer to free-spiritedness. “We are opinionated and beer is the new wine. Think about it: what do wine
too,” says N. speak our mind,” says Shenai. “You could expect people tell you? Pair with food, pair with cheeses...
Manepally. an interesting phase for beer in India.” Indeed, this is what is happening with beer too,” says

Photograph: TRIBHUVAN TIWARI
MUG MENU
2.4 BILLION LITRES

Size of the Indian beer industry in 2017, which
was worth Rs 48,000 crore (Euromonitor)
7 PER CENT
Average annual growth of volumes over the
past five years
30 PER CENT
Rise in per capita consumption of beer in India
during the past five years
2 LITRES
Current annual per capita consumption in
India; in other Asian countries, it’s about
21 litres
85 PER CENT
Percentage of beer sold in India that is catego-
rised as strong (6-8 per cent alcohol); this
would probably stay that way for much longer,
owing to alcohol taxing policies
RS 1,000 CR TO RS 4,000 CR
Projected growth in craft beer as a category
during 2016-20
(Source: Company annual reports, interviews)
Narayan Manepally as he tastes an orange-coloured He remembers telling his partner that their “break-
brew served in a bell-shaped hurricane glass at a even point” was Rs 44 lakh. In the fourth month,
tap room in downtown Bangalore. The ale called the revenue was double that figure and the pace, he
Kamacitra—a wordplay on the Citra hops used for says, hasn’t slackened. Now, he’s on phase three of
bittering, with a hint of mango and other fruit fla- his beer journey—as the taste caught on and more
vours—is one of the four varieties of fresh brews hoteliers warmed up to the idea of stocking craft
that his brewery supplies in kegs under the label beer. Last year, he set up a 30-hectolitre (a hectoli-
Geist to about 58 restaurants and tap rooms in tre is 100 litres) brewery outside Bangalore to
Bangalore besides a few in Mangalore and Mysore. supply them kegs of Geist. His business proposition
“It’s not what you’ve been used to for the past 30 to restaurants is simple: you don’t need to set up a
years and it’s not your dad’s beer,” he says. “The palate microbrewery to serve craft beer.
Manepally, however, isn’t rushing to bottle these evolved and A couple of buildings away from where he’s chat-
beers yet—it’s tricky to keep the beer fresh—but the ting with Outlook is Arbor Brewing Company, one
plan is on the horizon. He was a techie working
people began of Bangalore’s early brew-pubs. It’s now the first
with Intel in Portland, Oregon, when he took up demanding craft brewer in India to sell their beer in cans—
brewing as a hobby in the mid-1990s. Sometime in craft beer, available only in Goa at the moment, where Arbor
2009, a few years after he returned to Bangalore, he so we had to has built a new brewery that will also supply kegs
launched Geist—getting the beers produced in broaden our to local restaurants. Over time, it wants the cans to
Belgium and then shipped in bottles to be sold in reach store shelves in Maharashtra and Karnataka.
India. He had to stop in 2013 as importing costs reach,” says “As the palate evolved and people started demand-
mounted. By then microbreweries were catching Gaurav Sikka ing craft beer, we had to broaden our reach,” says
up, and he too put his money into two brew-pubs. of Arbor. Gaurav Sikka, who runs Arbor. “Microbrewing is

H EA DY BREW
here to stay, and it’s serious business.” “The lion’s share of growth
However, it’s also minuscule compared to India’s will come out of the newer
beer industry, estimated at 2.4 billion litres in 2017
by market research firm Euromonitor. The bulk of
beers as the newer consumer
the beer sold in India is made at large breweries is having those.”
that would dwarf these new 30-hectolitre craft Rahul Singh
beer facilities. Broadly, here’s the trend playing out Beer Cafe
at various different levels: a brew-pub cannot sell
outside its premises or bottle its beer, so some of
them are now setting up their own breweries to priced beer that tastes different.
either keg or bottle small batches. Then, there are Even market leader United Breweries plans to
new beer labels that get their brews contract-man- introduce its range of craft and variety beers early
ufactured and bottled on a larger scale, just like the next year. “Though the size of this market is very
big players do. Bira 91, for instance, was initially small at present, compared to the overall size of the
made in Belgium, but is now being bottled locally. beer market, it is growing at a rapid pace,” says
Wheat, gently hopped (so, less bitter), is the taste Shekhar Ramamurthy, managing director, UBL.
that’s catching on here, brewers say. “This segment comprises opinion leaders of society
Here’s how the Indian beer market looks: United and is, therefore, important.” Over the years, UBL
Breweries Ltd (UBL), which sells Kingfisher and has been importing many premium labels it owns
Heineken, controls half the market, while the other globally—Desperados, Sol, Edelweiss, Dos Equis
half is sliced up by three other top beer-makers— and Affligem. So have many independent import-
Anheuser-Busch InBev (which now also owns ers—for instance, the Mediterranean beer label
SABMiller India), Carlsberg and Molson Coors. In TOP Estrella Damm, which has been in India for about
the ring with these giants are the raft of start-ups BEER four years, is looking to broaden its reach. Now, the
led by Bira 91, eyeing large volumes with their new COS IN buzz is that Inedit—a super premium created by
flavours winning them a fan following overnight in INDIA Ferran Adrià, among the world’s best known chefs—
the big cities. “Bira has taken the wheat beer...very UBL (makers will soon start retailing in Delhi.
fruity, flavoured beer space in India, and just kind of Kingfisher “Indian consumers are increasingly opting for
of created a demand,” says Shenai. claim 52 beer with a smooth, light taste, finding it easy to
per cent drink when socialising. Light-tasting beers are also
I
F you walked into a liquor store in Bangalore or marketshare) becoming popular among those drinking for the
Delhi, you’d see refrigerators stacked with doz- Anheuser- first time,” notes a recent Euromonitor’s report. “It
Busch InBev
ens of brands—with snazzy logos and attitude— hasn’t reached the point of dark ales and stouts yet.
(makers of
in pint bottles, some locally made and others Budweiser,
IPA is like really far-fetched,” reckons Singh, who
homegrown-but-brewed-abroad. India is still Corona and more is eyeing a piece of the action with Indie 18 next
a strong beer market so the eight per cent than 200 brands) quarter. It will be contract-brewed. “In fact, we
ales muscle out the rest on the shelf. Even Carlsberg (Danish are not even calling our beer craft because craft
then, there’s plenty of choice. There’s solid multinational) is an abused word,” he says.
competition in the sub Rs 100 (per 330 ml) Molson Coors (US-Canadian Beer Cafe, with 50 outlets across 16 cities, will
category of lagers; Bira 91 and Simba cost a company) exceed Rs 100 crore in revenue this year—a good
bit more and an imported Thirsty Simona time to launch its own brand of beer to sell
retails at about Rs 275 (all prices in in-house. Singh explains his plan with a fashion
Bangalore), about the same as a global Stella NEW CHALLENGER analogy, a hangover from his previous stint in
Artois that’s been in India for years. Bira 91 the apparel business. “It’s a private label basi-
“The lion’s share of growth will come out of (claims 5 per cent cally, like it was done by Jabong or Myntra. At
marketshare in Delhi,
these newer beers as the newer consumer is the moment, at Beer Cafe we are selling every-
Mumbai and Bangalore)
having those,” says Rahul Singh of Beer Cafe. body’s beer...we are an aggregator of beer basi-
Naturally, one can argue, because volumes cally. We have reached that point where we can
are relatively small. Nobody is expecting the NEW LABELS manage minimum order quantities,” he says.
market to change overnight—the big players on shelves or in the But nearly every day, says Singh, he also gets
are still leagues ahead on reach and pricing. works: sounded out by youngsters who want to start a
“It’s like saying, can I fight with Maruti?” White Rhino, Simba, beer brand. “No exaggeration. People meet me
Singh says. Also, India’s low per capita con- Witlinger, White Owl, Arbor, saying, ‘what Bira has done, I can do too’.”
sumption isn’t likely to change dramatically, Thirsty, Six Fields, Goa But beer is tough business—the brew is perish-
Brewing Co, Kati Patang,
either because beer is still expensive owing able so there’s a distribution challenge that’s
Happy Head, Hopper,
to duties and levies or has limited access— Witty Bro, Bierdo only made more complex with various state
there are roughly 75,000 outlets of all kinds regulations. Even brew-pubs are allowed only in
in the country. But these new beers have a handful of states. “It’s a slow burner, but at the
opened up some urban pockets, especially end of the day it’s all worth it,” says Shenai. “We
the young consumer who can afford a higher are happy that the beer is good.” O

books Shankar Ghosh
Scent of a Story: A Newspaperman’s Journey | HarperCollins ON THE SHELF
| 224 pages | Rs 399
His Paper Chase

A first-person biography tells of the career of a
pioneer Indian editor, but avoids significance Radha Viswanath
Ashtamahishi |
Rupa
by Anjana Basu like Edwin Howard, F.W. Wilson and The ‘eight wives of Krishna’, as this
Desmond Young to be at the helm of book is subtitled, haven’t received
S
HANKAR Ghosh has chosen The Pioneer, which had shifted quar- due attention, says Viswanath, and
a rather interesting tech- ters from Allahabad to Lucknow. A launches into the life divine with
gusto. The result is a fast-moving
nique for his father’s biogra- year after he became editor, India
and absorbing novelistic narrative,
phy—he has written it as a attained independence.
wide-eyed before the Lord, and
first-person memoir in his Surendranath’s story, however, reads imbuing his queens (Rukmini,
father’s words, as he writes more like a novel than a biography and Jambavati, Kalindi, Mitravinda
in the preface. His father was news- this is due to the style of memoir et al) with agency and intellect.
paperman Surendra Nath Ghosh, Ghosh has decided to use. The result is
who was the first Indian editor of that the narrative rambles over day-to-
The Pioneer, hailed as the sec- day issues and factors like The Pioneer’s
ond-oldest English paper in India. cash crunches that may have been
It also boasted Kipling as among its more important to S.N. Ghosh at the
correspondents, even though, as time. Memoirs, after all, focus on all
Ghosh writes, Kipling was only manner of subjective things that make
Vineet Bajpai
Kashi: Secret of the
there looking for stories for his up the stuff of life. Black Temple |
novels. Ironically, given his hand in Scent of a Story covers intimate issues TreeShade Books
the Bengal famine of 1943, Winston like the relationship between Ghosh
Churchill, too, was one of its war and his Anglo-Indian secretary, Rose, Another dizzying back-and-forth
correspondents. and his wife, the petite Biva, or the very between antiquity (‘The marshes
of Aryavarta, 1698 BCE’) and
However, Scent of a Story begins fancy editor’s flat that he and his family
modern times (Banaras 2017),
with a hair-raising pilgrimage to moved into once Ghosh reached the couched in frighteningly garish
Hardwar by Ghosh’s grandmother, top. Rose saving Ghosh from police titles (‘Night of the Blue Fire’; ‘A
who gave him blow-by-blow details of lathis does make for entertaining Totalitarian Government’), would
the fall-out and the deaths along the reading, but perhaps one expects more hopefully make readers swoon in
way. Surendra Nath Ghosh’s story from a biography of a newspaperman fascinated dread. For the stuff is of
begins slightly later, a seven-year-old of this calibre—especially at a time ‘sinister brotherhoods’, barbarians
growing up in Allahabad and learning when the media is referred to pejora- and blood-stained ‘pralay’.
that the world of the British was not a tively as “presstitutes”, with little
world to be accepted lightly. devotion to fearless objectivity.
Ghosh grew up in a turbulent envi- S.N. Ghosh, to all accounts, was one
ronment where, as a cub reporter, he of those larger-than-life editors who
had to fight for interviews against made headlines after Independence.
free-lancers. He must also have felt However, that quality tends to be lost
some difficulty in having to work for in the narrative technique—encoun- Shreyas Bhave
the British, against whom India was ters will godmen are given more Storm From Taxila |
struggling for freedom. Eventually, he importance than meetings with Platinum Press
followed a long line of English editors Govind Ballabh Pant. Pant, in fact, is
reduced to a deprecatory sentence, Book II of the Asoka Trilogy sees
saying that he was responsible for a subcontinental game of thrones
Encounters with godmen many scoops and that his head shook unfold—with a similar third-person
from too many lathi blows. point-of-view chapter structure to
get more importance than boot. The emperor Bindusara lies
Ghosh’s intent cannot be faulted—he
meetings with Govind dead, and his sons Asoka and
portrays the man he knew with sin- Sushem are pitted against each
Ballabh Pant who, it’s said cerity and affection, focussing on the other in a fratricidal contest for
here, was behind many words he remembered. What he has the Mauryan throne. Meanwhile,
written is a light, easy, enjoyable read; subplots concerned with religion
scoops, and whose head but somewhere, the magnitude of his and enterprise help bring the
shook from lathi blows. subject slips between the lines. O historical setting to life.

books Ramachandra Guha
Gandhi 1914-1948: The Years That Changed The World | Penguin Allen Lane | 1,152 pages | Rs 999
Lengthening Shadow
Accessible, humane, unsparingly critical—this is a clear-headed acc
by P.A. Krishnan Guha’s is a narrative biography, chron- has opposed untouchability in such
ologically told as far as practicable. strong language as I.” Gandhi was tar-
T
HE Indian freedom movement Amazingly, for a book of its girth, it geted by fanatical Hindus for two rea-
did not take place on a smooth doesn’t digress much, hewing close to sons. One was that he spoke for
plain. Its terrain was rough, full its subject. Hindu-Muslim unity. The other was
of ups and downs and twists In the first hundred pages, Gandhi that he consistently spoke for Dalits
and turns. Many of those who searches for solutions to some of the (Harijans in his words). We know
travelled in that terrain were of unique problems of India. The Gandhi Gandhi gave his life for Hindu-Muslim
an uncommon calibre. Still, a great of the last few pages is still searching for unity. Many of us do not know that he
number of them stumbled and fell by solutions to almost the same problems. almost gave his life for Dalits. A bomb
the wayside. A few managed to sur- In the intervening years, he himself was thrown at him in Pune on June 25,
vive and reach the destination. And changed into a different person and 1934, while he was on a tour preaching
Gandhi led them all. His is easily transformed millions of Indians into the eradication of untouchability. He
among the most extra-ordinary sto- better human beings. Many more rem- escaped unhurt, but five persons were
ries ever told and he easily the most ained unchanged, but that was not his injured. Gandhi said, “I am not acting
widely known modern Indian any- fault. It is rarely given to one to depart for martyrdom, but if it comes in my
where in the world. I had been asked from this world at the most glorious way...I shall have earned it, and it will be
about him by ordinary people in moment of one’s life—Gandhi died possible for the historian of the future
countries as far away as Costa Rica. when he was the exemplar of an aston- to say that the vow I had taken before
They were amazed, as Einstein right- Harijans that I would, if need be, die in
ly predicted, that such a man could the attempt to remove untouchability
really exist. Nearer home, there are a Gandhi’s problematic was literally fulfilled.”
few who revile him and attribute to This is the first book on Gandhi which
him diabolic qualities which, if he relation with modernity is tells in some length the almost untold
had been told that he had had them, barely covered, Khan Abdul story of Mahadev Desai, the self-effacing
would have induced a smile from him. Gaffar Khan makes only a and brilliant secretary of Gandhi who
Just a few days ago, I saw a poster car- died in 1942, just a few days after he was
rying a huge picture of a Southern
late entry and the hugely imprisoned along with Gandhi. It was he
politician (with an inset of Modi) and significant 1931 Karachi who protected Gandhi, advised him,
rather triumphantly calling him the Resolution is not mentioned. gently fought with him and even made
Godse of South India. him change his views. It was only Gandhi
It did not elucidate which modern who would have attracted such a person-
Gandhi he was zeroing on. Seventy ishing iridescence of love and compas- ality. It was only a person of Mahadev’s
years after his martyrdom, Gandhi is sion when the world around him was calibre and integrity who would have
many things to many people. Still, there dissolving in a miasma of hate. Guha endured Gandhi for so long, which ulti-
is a quintessential Gandhi, as seen by covers these heady years with aplomb. mately killed him at a relatively young
his adulating, friendly, critical and con- He also deals with the human Gandhi. age of fifty. Gandhi remembered Desai
temptuous contemporaries and as may He is unsparing in his criticism about almost every day until his own death.
be distilled from his life and writings. It Gandhi’s wooden-headedness in deal- The other personality who comes out
is this Gandhi that Guha presents in his ing with his children, especially his beautifully in the book is Rajkumari
book in an easy and a graceful style. The eldest son. He speaks about his infatua- Amrit Kaur, the Sikh princess. It was she
book runs into over eleven hundred tion with Tagore’s niece and, thankfully, who was instrumental in bringing Dr
pages, but its flow would mesmerise is very brief on his infamous experi- Ambedkar to Nehru’s first cabinet. When
even persons who hate huge tomes, like ments on Brahmacharya. madness was unfolding in Punjab, she
me. It is said of some masterpieces of Guha’s coverage of the Poona Pact is wrote to Gandhi: “The tragedy is that
painting that whoever is assessing them fair and there is some substance in his most of us inwardly rejoice when our
is being assessed in turn. This is true of assertion that Ambedkar had a far community gets its back on the other...I
Gandhi too. In my assessment, Guha greater impact on Gandhi than he was am filled with fear as to where we are
will be counted among the great biogra- sometimes willing to acknowledge. But drifting.” It was Gandhi and mostly
phers of the world. Gandhi was right when he says, “Nobody Gandhi who convinced all those who

Of The Lifelong Quester
ount of the years that made the Mahatma, with a few curious absences
TRIBHUVAN TIWARI
DESK-BOUND Ramachandra Guha has written an excellent narrative biography, not digressing much from his subject
were sane at that time that it was wrong ing out of prison in 1944, exchanged a passed unanimously.
to rejoice at the suffering of others, just series of letters with P.C. Joshi, the Gandhi said this in 1928: “It would be
because they belonged to a different Communist leader, which were discu- on the question of Hindu-Muslim unity
community. Ultimately, it was his mar- ssed at some length when they were that my Ahimsa would be put to its
tyrdom that arrested the drift. compiled into a book. Guha is silent on severest test, and that question pre-
them. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan does sented the widest field for my experi-
G
UHA also makes a short work of the not appear in the narrative after page ments in Ahimsa. The conviction is still
canard that Gandhi did not do his 550. I am also disappointed that he does there. Every moment of my life I realise
best to prevent Bhagat Singh and not mention the 1931 Karachi Res- that God is putting me on my trial.” He
his comrades from being sent to olution of the Congress, which dema- could not have been more explicit than
the gallows. He points out that Gandhi nded, among other things, a living this. He tried many such experiments.
wrote a letter to the Viceroy on March wage for industrial workers, suppres- All through his life he was groping for
23, 1931, pleading with him to postpone sion of slavery, protection of working answers and died without really getting
the execution, but they were executed women, prohibition of child labour, them. I am not sure about God, but a few
on March 24. progressive income tax on agricultural haughty humans tried him and found
I have a few problems with the book. incomes and legacies, adult suffrage, him wanting. For the humble others, it
Gandhi had very different views on sci- freedom of worship, trade union rights is his search that engages them even
ence, technology, industrialisation, and equal rights for all citizens. It was now and makes them realise that he was
medicine and many things that were Gandhi who piloted the resolution one of the most glorious personalities
then considered modern. Guha scarcely through the Subjects Committee, if I ever to grace the earth. Guha has
covers that ground. Gandhi, after com- am not wrong, and ensured that it was brought this Gandhi to them. O

glitterati
PTI
A Band Apart Dance

Haute, they have always believed,
is a seven-hued thing, and the
cause of the LGBTQ has always
been dear to the fashion frater-
nity. A parliament of forty design-
ers conjured up the ‘Rainbow’
show to celebrate the recent
junking of Article 377. Red mas-
cara and blue-glittered coiffure
caught the eye; so did a message
of love across a bare back.
Smile For Strength

Is this the wave that launched
a thousand #MeToo howls? PTI
Tanushree Dutta may have
We’re All Apartment Dwellers
brought about a maelstrom
that have empowered women, Fashionista and, we suppose, full-time daughter
but don’t let her cheery dispo- of famous parents, Shweta Bachchan Nanda is
sition deceive you—this brave now author of Paradise Towers, a novel about
soul in under immense strain. the various lives in an apartment block. Mom
Try taking on congealed patriar- and dad were at hand for the release of course.
chy; you would be too. As for the story, shades of Georges Perec and
Carlo Emilio Gadda? Nah, this is an original.
GETTY IMAGES
Pepper, a resident robot from Middlesex University, became the first robot to appear before a
parliamentary select committee in the UK. Pepper answered questions asked by MPs on various
THIS TOO subjects, including the AI Careses project, which aims to reduce pressure on healthcare services.
HAPPENED

Yeah, The Gold Guitar
Even the dust-enveloped bowl of Gurgaon—
that encased him in a preternatural halo—
didn’t deter Bryan Adams from entertaining
thousands of fans who had grown up with his
bass-heavy, light-gravelly voice in the ’90s.
Not one to try to preserve his youth artifi-
cially, the 58-year-old star looked his age—a
gladdening change from our simpering pop-
boys who’ll never learn to rock.
Girl On A Twister
There’s nothing that summons up innocent
eroticism than a well-executed negligee. And
had it not been for her cliched hand-on-hair
posture, Rhea Chakraborty would have
fetched acclaim. Now our hopes for her lie
solely on her turn in Mahesh Bhatt’s Jalebi.
But what’s that burning bright next to her leg
on the sofa? Hope it doesn’t scald her!
PTI
Happy Returns To A Young Turk

We will give Hardik Pandya a certificate for his devo-
tion to cricket—for he certainly dresses up better for a
match for India. One would have thought his birthday
would occasion better dress sense, but sigh! If you felt
sorry when he was stretchered out, this clinch with act-
ress Krystle D’Souza might change your mind.
“In the jungle there is only one king. I am the king because he cannot drop
McGregor. But I drop him easily. Let’s go,” —new UFC champion KHABIB
NURMAGOMEDOV in an Instagram video challenging retired boxer Floyd Mayweather.

THESSALONIKI diary
There, Mt Olympus! Yet all this motion is deceptive. City
My Tibetan friend was impressed with the businesses had been haemorrhaging even
photo I had posted. You can see Mt Olympus before the 2010 financial crisis struck. The
from your city? How lucky, she added wist- entire textile industry had moved to Bulgaria,
fully, to be so near your cultural touchstone. leaving a part of downtown derelict. Some of
Alas, I had to remind her we no longer wor- the abandoned warehouses got a new lease of
ship the ancient gods—and they’ve punished life for a time, taken over by folk-rock bands
us. No longer enmeshed in the landscape, and theatre groups. Now, short-term tourist
we’ve become creatures of concrete and leases and real estate sales to foreigners in
petrol fumes, of hashtags and ring tones. Two
JOANNE NEZI search of golden EU visas are again crowding
buildings on the 5-km-long new waterfront (The author is an Athens-based out artists, young families, and just about
of Thessaloniki enact this silent tug-of-war writer and translator) anyone of low-to-middle income.
between history and environment. One, by
a local architect, references colours and materials used in Grecian Burn
Byzantine times and faces the city, turning its back to the sea. The crisis is officially over. But what has it left behind, apart
And the second one? The Japanese architect simply looked from a massive brain drain and cynicism? Not fairer taxation
around him—and turned his building toward the Aegean and or better public administration. Not a national conversation
the distant mountains. about what kind of development we want.
Whenever I’m out with friends in the old town on the
Three-Way Ethnic Currency Exchange hillside, enjoying the view from the Byzantine walls, eating
But who is local here anyway? As Delhi exchanged its Urdu meze, talking about everything and nothing, I’m tempted
speakers for Punjabis in the 1940s, so Thessaloniki lost its to think things are not so bad. Then I remember those of us
Muslims and its Slavs to the Balkan Wars and the disastrous who’ve had to emigrate to Germany, Sweden, China. Or the
aftermath of World War I. In their place came Christian journalist who, unable to afford a flat, moved back to her
refugees from Asia Minor, the Black Sea and Thrace, leaving village. Or the family on the 6th floor: the father who’s lost his
behind cities that had been Greek since ancient times, victims business and his health, the mother, forced to work in London,
of a compulsory exchange of populations. Later still, the children anxious about their future. The cafes may be full, but
Holocaust deprived Thessaloniki of its Jews—who had been too many people are still struggling, and no end is in sight.
its largest single ethnic group since the 1400s. Their ornate
villas are now museums, their synagogues mostly silent, their The Coriander Walk
cemetery ploughed over and occupied by university buildings. But for my melancholy thoughts, at least there’s a remedy at
hand. I leave the house, dodging delivery mopeds, overflow-
An Orchestra of Bazaar Rumours ing café tables and double-parked cars, and walk downhill
Layers and layers of history abut each other in this towards the sea: past the jumble of the antique market;
3,000-year-old city. Even the landscape has moved: the site past the tourists gawking at the Roman arches and baths;
of the ancient market, now a half-kilometre from the sea, past the statue of Eleftherios Venizelos—the nationalist
reveals how far land has advanced! Fashions too change, leader’s plinth covered with graffiti, his extended arm with
but traditional shops selling seeds and herbs, dress-making pigeons; past the partly disembowelled Egnatia road, the
materials or olive oil canisters are still going strong, marble-laid Roman roads and Byzantine homesteads
despite the creeping proliferation of wine bars hidden beneath, now revealed by the endless
and upscale pizza joints. Here in the old metro works; into the French-designed
commercial centre, the various stories 19th century Aristotle street, where
and tribes of the city all meet: marble Pakistanis sell contraband cigarettes
signs in Arabic script, a Catholic two blocks from the police station,
church tucked discreetly among the stray dogs settle on the manicured
narrow streets, hipsters downing lawn to enjoy the bones they grab
craft beers in the pubs of the old from the nearby meat market, and
stock exchange, matrons shopping Georgian ladies sell tarragon and
for buttons in the Ottoman-era coriander on tiny tables just off the
covered market, music students arcade; past street musicians; and
milling about the conservatory finally, into the expanse of Aristotle
building that started life as a 19th Square (the statue of its namesake
century bank, pensioners buying discreetly watching over us), all the
lottery tickets, lawyers catching a way to the waterfront—and I stand
coffee on the way to court, late-morning there for a while, admiring the sun as it
demonstrations, late-night confessions. sets near Mt Olympus.
SAJITH KUMAR

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MIGRANTS PHOTO ESSAY

NOWHERE PEOPLE Ms MUSCLES

www.outlookindia.com October 29, 2018 Rs 60

Volume LVIII, No. 43

POINT AND SHARE

29 October 2018 OUTLOOK 3

Hear That Voice

BANGALORE Sneha Narayan

PALAKKAD Col (Retd.) C.V.

29 October 2018 OUTLOOK 5

GARDEN-VARIETY vice to proffer—so he turned to

Y OUTUBE often comes to

A butterfly flaps its wings on the

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TO MERGE & ACQUIRE TALKATIVE GOVERNOR IT’S ALL DOWNHILL

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When the Void

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Fishermen near Gopalpur

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is now made from ceramic with the diving scale in

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where in the country for his livelihood. If

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2 million-plus 4.42 million 20.3 million

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off attempts of sexual harassment at the

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The Categories: Best Guest Experience,

of speaking out. “Sexual abuse and

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The AkbAr who becAme

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the portrayal in this book of Bengal

or ‘Winnability’ is not a trait attached

30 OutlOOk 29 october 2018

29 october 2018 OutlOOk 31

three states—built on factors like agrarian distress, unem­

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aSHok GeHloT nIkHIl alVa (pIC)

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scents in the air too, suggesting the

Die of wins in the recent bypolls.

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38 OutlOOk 29 october 2018

by M.S. Shanker in Hyderabad

t hE tenor of the political ballad

three states—built on factors like agrarian distress, unem