It Is Not About Aadhaar, It Is About Trust
Ravi Venkatesan in his column in Times Of India breaks down the polarized debate around Aadhaar saying ruling it out isn’t the right option but improving the climate of trust and limiting the risks is. If our government wants to escape from the low-trust trap, it should not add more regulations but learn a lesson from other prosperous nations and liberalize, increase rights, reduce restrictions and expand social benefits.
This is why growing the economy and creating more employment is imperative. Strengthening key institutions, particularly the judiciary, is crucial. An ineffective judicial system is a major contributor to India being a low-trust society. But ultimately more of us must understand that India’s development challenge may be sociological even more than economic and become the change we wish to see in the world. Our progress towards a modern, democratic and prosperous society will stall unless we address the foundational issue of trust.
Rajasthan Sets the Stage for Polls 2019
In his column in Hindustan Times, Chanakya talks of the upcoming Rajasthan elections pointing out that with the by-poll verdict serving as a wake-up call, the challenge for Vasundhara Raje is to win back voters as she fights off claimants for her chair within the party. As for the Congress, if they manage to do as well in Rajasthan as they did in Gujarat, they could go into 2019 feeling confident.
One theory has it that the BJP suffered a defeat because of Raje’s imperious style of governance and angry Rajputs who wanted to teach the party a lesson (the Rajputs believed the BJP had not done enough to ban Padmavaat, a movie which they believed showed one of their historical/mythical figures, Rani Padmini of Chittor, in poor light). Another has it that it was a mixture of anti-incumbency and some smart candidate choices by the Congress. The agrarian crisis, the most important factor behind the BJP’s poor showing in Gujarat, doesn’t seem to have played a part, although, much like in Gujarat, farmers in Rajasthan, and in Madhya Pradesh, which too goes to the polls later this year, are unhappy.
Scary Encounters with a Sena
Twinkle Khanna in her column in Times Of India presents a laugh riot with her dig at the Daravani Sena and their obsession with bans and protests. The conversation she has spun on Padmaavat, Gurgaon school bus attack, Shashi Tharoor being detained at the Jaipur airport and the word mix-up is absolutely hilarious.
‘Madam what to say. I was going to Birla auditorium when our youth leader called to ask, “How was movie Pinku ji, should we keep protesting?” My son was driving madam, and at the same time a yellow bus came in front so I shouted, ‘Dekh bus!’ and then my battery died.‘After I reached home and charged phone, I got to know youth leader had already withdrawn the ban! Really, when that time I said Hindiwala bas they heard Englishwala bus and now the opposite — this is too much!’
If BJP Lets the Fringe Run Amok, It Risks Losing the Software Types
Chetan Bhagat in his column The Underage Optimist in Times Of India divides BJP’s voter base into three - First, the Extreme Right who are Karni Sena types, second, the Light Right, the salaried class who need jobs, GDP growth and modern values of freedom, third, the Middle Right, the biggest chunk of the BJP support base, who harbour a sense of Hindu entitlement but are not violent and just want economic growth. The recent Karni Sena rampage scaring a bus full of school kids in the name of Padmaavat showed BJP cutting the group slack that was affecting the others. Managing the three bases and not letting each others’ interests conflict is key for smooth functioning.
From a moral and legal standpoint, it should have been quelled much earlier. Politically, the party came dangerously close to a major blunder. Had the mob violence led to lives being lost or people getting hurt, things could have gone out of control. The BJP should have acted faster. It needs to know which ‘fringe’ act is just empty noise, and which one can become a national-level blowup. It did act finally. The censors cleared the film. The courts supported it too. However, looking back, it could have been handled better.The BJP’s three bases are still somewhat intact. However, the LR are nervous. The party needs to check the fringe on a war footing. It not only makes India unsafe, but also shakes the BJP’s own foundation. It should remember its base is no longer just the Karni Sena. It is also the software programmers.
Insider-Out
In her column in The Hindu, Santwana Bhattacharya takes a look at the top ‘talked about’ leaders of India and gauges their popularity with the common people. She talks of Yogi Adityanath’s temple-building agenda, BJP’s plans to tap into the Saurashtran population, Rajnath Singh robbed of the right to be the last word on FDI in the name of ‘ease of doing business’, ignoring Venkaiah Naidu and the growing power of Mamata Bannerjee’s TMC.
The massive margin with which her TMC won the recent bypolls has got Mamata Bannerjee thinking big. Mission 42, for starters. It suits the Bengal CM just fine to have the BJP as the runners-up; the saffrons will keep the reds (the Left) in check, but not win a single seat. (Babul Supriya, the only Bengali minister in Modi’s cabinet, may have to look at contesting from another state!) As for the Congress, Didi asserts it can never claim the Delhi gaddi without holding her hands. So it’s not just Prakash Karat who’s coming in the way of a Left-Congress deal!
Rahul Baba, Wear Prada Next Time and Don’t Be Apologetic
Shobhaa De in her column Politically Incorrect in Times Of India gives unsolicited advice to Rahul Gandhi to read the pulse of the nation better, be accompanied by a team which is smarter than taking kiddish potshots at BJP leaders, get some teeth into those tweets and learn a thing or two from his legendary grandmother. She adds that the 2019 elections could swing his way if he moves his cards smart.
Instead, they instructed you to ask dumb questions like, “Have you ever seen the Prime Minister hug poor people?” Babykins, we all know he reserves his hugs and handshakes for world leaders. Why state the obvious? And you are still banging on about the suit-boot sarkar, when these guys studiedly wear sandals and kurta-pajamas. Have you gone into the price of those luscious, priceless shawls flung around the shoulders of our finance minister, for example? That’s quite a collection! We understand. He needs to keep himself extra warm these days, after that thanda budget! The cost of a single one of those shawls could feed an entire village for a week. Got it? And this shrewdly timed/positioned budget is supposed to be for those very same farmers. The ones who are not hugged by the PM, do not possess shawls and continue to shiver in the cold.
A Moment for Indian Liberalism
In his column in The Hindu, Rajeev Bhargava talks of how the concept of liberalism has changed drastically in today’s times, making every individual across gender, caste and religion to yearn for it. Thanks to self-proclaimed custodians of caste and religion breathing down our necks dictating what to do and not to do, fear of violating collective honour, corporations and governments having complete access to every detail about us and lack of assurance that law will be enforced evenhandedly.
If the current climate of oppression or violent threats continues, a revolt against the current set-up will invariably arise. Young, self-reflective men and women , Dalits, lower Other Backward Classes, poor Muslims, people from smaller towns and rural areas will seize the moment, demanding greater opportunity to exercise individual choice and freedom of expression. Is a new liberalism, different from the one articulated by traditional, metropolitan English-speaking elites, shaped profoundly by Indian cultural conditions, just round the corner?
There Are Some Things You Don’t Change — Beating the Retreat Is One
Karan Thapar speaks as a fan of Beating Retreat, a military event part of the Republic Day festivities, in his column in Hindustan Times. He says the recent retreat was disappointing as the much loved ‘military’ aspect was missing as sitar and jazz took over making the event seem nothing like the 60s, 70s and 80s when the tradition would uplift the audience with its music.
I suppose I should be grateful for two mercies: ‘Abide with me’ and ‘Sare Jahan Se Acha’. I half expected they would have been dropped the former because it’s a Christian hymn, the latter because its composer is considered one of the founders of Pakistan. This year, at least, both survived. My point is simple: a nation that doesn’t value its traditions but, instead, plays with them cannot honour its past and could undermine the national sentiments it values. There are some things you don’t change. You keep them, year after year, as they’ve always been. Beating Retreat is one.
Where Varaha Saves the Earth
Rana Safvi in her column in The Hindu walks us through the evolution of Hindu temple architecture — from a leafy bower to a reed hut, a cella of wood to small stone chambers called garbha-griha. She talks of the Udayagiri caves in Madhya Pradesh, which contain some of the oldest Hindu temples and iconography and how their architecture styles were a revolution in art and sculpture making.
The Gupta period was one of political stability. The Gupta rulers are well known as patrons of art and architecture. Art not only flourished but reached a peak during their rule. It was during the Gupta period that we see for the first time the use of dressed stone masonry, which marked a huge step in the technique of construction. Percy Brown, in Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Period),writes that its introduction “placed a new power in the hands of the workman” and from it emerged the earliest known conception of the Hindu “house of god”.
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