Sunday View: The Best Opinion Reads, Curated Just For You

Here is a compilation of the best op-eds across the Sunday newspapers this morning.

Across the Aisle: She Put the Poor on the Agenda

P Chidamabaram in his column for the Indian Express, ‘Across the Aisle’, laments a loss this Sunday: that of Mrs Indira Gandhi, but more deeply, that of the concerted forgetting of her by the state. He recalls how November 19 had “passed without observance” – a date that was the former Prime Minister’s 100th birth anniversary. Chidambaram’s primary goal in thinking of her a few days after the date he mentions, is the approach she harboured towards the poor in the country at a time he recalled that India had gotten out of two wars (‘62 and ‘65) that had drained it of its resources. It was after the unsatisfactory election results of 1967, therefore, that Mrs Gandhi correctly identified that the poor had all but deserted the ruling Congress – something she sought to correct:

Indira Gandhi sent a 10-point programme to the Congress Working Committee. Some of the points do not accord with the liberal market economy of the present day, but I believe that the programme was justified, at that time, both economically and politically. Some points are relevant even today — e.g. provision of minimum needs, rural works programme and land reforms. The poor, who were on the periphery of the consciousness of political parties, were brought on the agenda and placed at the centre of the agenda.

P Chidambaram in Indian Express

Fifth Column: 26/11 and Its Unlearned Lessons

Tavleen Singh’s ‘Fifth Column’ for the Sunday edition of the Indian Express this morning is a revisiting and recapitulation of the 26/11 anniversary of the Mumbai terror attack, as also an enumeration of everything the state did wrong and has been doing wrong since that fateful day. She begins by asserting how, in almost a decade, no one has come close to punishing Pakistan for the travesty – Hafiz Said having been released a week ago. It is an act that has piqued the columnist immensely as she urges the neighbouring state to only look at “this monster’s venomous speeches’ or to the ones Pervez Musharraf regularly gives from Dubai to ascertain how men like Hafiz were treated and trained like “assets” by the Pakistani army.

What should concern us as Indians is that in the nine years since 26/11 so little has been done to improve our defences against this rogue Islamic Republic. If another Indian city is attacked the way Mumbai was, will it be better prepared to defend itself? Will commandos trained in counter-terrorism arrive sooner than they did last time? For those of you who may have forgotten, may I remind you that it took more than 24 hours for them to get to Mumbai from their base in Manesar. In this time at least a hundred people were killed by Ajmal Kasab and his comrades. If a Mumbai policeman, Tukaram Omble, had not given his life to capture Kasab we would have no evidence (verifiable or otherwise) that Pakistan was behind the attack.

Tavleen Singh in Indian Express

Inside Track: Out of Touch

‘Out of touch’ appears to be the epithet Coomi Kapoor gives, in her Indian Express column, to 90-year-old MP LK Advani who, she says, “no longer keeps in regular contact with political developments in the state”. Even as she makes this assertion, she moves swiftly to the concerns of the Congress party who, she believes, will have a tough time fielding a suitable Chief Ministerial candidate. Kapoor quickly goes through a list of potential names, before dismissing each as unfeasible for various reasons. Her critique of the current political environment doesn’t end there, however. She also worries over how “our most educated and erudite politicians” have more trouble keeping it together when they speak on issues:

(Shashi) Tharoor alienated Rajputs by saying that Rajput maharajas who objected to the release of the movie Padmavati, as a matter of honour, forgot that their ancestors had displayed little honour in retreating before the British army and some had even struck a deal with the enemy. Tharoor hastily retracted. But a few days later, he tried to be funny about demonetisation by punning on Miss World Manushi Chhillar’s surname, comparing it to small change. This time Jats were up in arms at the derogatory comparison to one of their tribe, and woman activists were equally furious over the cheap dig at the Miss World.

Coomi Kapoor in Indian Express

Where is Our Chai?

No, he’s not great shakes at good literature, but he’s still relevant. This line would probably perfectly sum up Chetan Bhagat’s literary works so far. They would also adequately sum up his column for the Times of India this weekend, where he waxes eloquent on a “good cup of tea”. In fact, what Bhagat does is to bemoan the lack of good chai, by ludicrously juxtaposing it to the other “graver issues” that the country is facing yet isn’t doing anything about – the smog, for instance, or the fact that people are willing to vandalise in the name of a movie. Of course, Bhagat does hit home, even as his literary techniques to get to the point aren’t subtle or nuanced. But it is an exception we may be willing to make in the face of the bigger picture today.

How have we as a nation allowed ourselves to get here? If a song and dance film can launch nationwide protests and cause chief ministers to write letters, how do we tolerate bad tea every day? You, the people who work in modern offices or travel from airports, does your blood not boil when a bad cup of tea is shoved in front of you in a soggy paper cup? Do you not want to smash that machine that makes more noise than a diesel auto, only to throw out warm waste water? How can we as Indians look at each other in the eye when we have not been able to find a solution for something as simple and vital as, tea?

Chetan Bhagat in Times of India

Padmavati Victim of Monopoly on ‘Truth’

“India is still a remarkably free place for everyone”. This is how Swapan Dasgupta ends his Sunday column for the Pioneer, and he may as well have added a question mark to the end of that statement, because much of his column deals with pretty much everything that threatens that ‘freedom’. Dasgupta deep-dives into the Padmavati controversy that has been raging almost a full year, and expresses shock at the threats people have been making, who have been willing to take up arms. He attempts to look at the issue from the point of view of the film’s artistic quality, the CBFC’s control and our fractured relationship with history. The main problem, according to Dasgupta, is that there has been “little attempt to create anything resembling a national history”:

In the case of India, history is also intimately linked to mythology with no defined wall of separation. As things go, Indian film-makers are not very good at historical films. Accuracy and subtlety are invariably sacrificed at the altar of melodrama and populism. But far more than that, there are other facets of the popular perception of history that completely disfigure the past. There is, first, a strong inclination to view the past through the prism of the present. Secondly, there is often a tendency to right the wrongs of the past by tailoring the story of the past to reach a desired conclusion. Thirdly, bizarre conspiracy theories exercise a bizarre hold over the popular imagination. What seems incredulous or even funny to some is seen as the gospel truth by others. 

Swapan Dasgupta in The Pioneer

Gujarat Election is Rahul’s Litmus Test

Sanjay Kumar’s Sunday column for The Asian Age is essentially a compilation of everything that has been written, thought and observed, on Rahul Gandhi, Congress’ Vice President. He begins by outlining that the man who is tipped to take over as the new president of the party, will have his job cut out for him. While undercurrents of dissatisfaction within the party shouldn’t be too hard a thing for Rahul Gandhi to manage, Kumar believes no miracles will be seen – that Gandhi wouldn’t suddenly become a “vote catcher” for the Congress.

The Congress, which Rahul Gandhi is all set to lead is very different from what it was in the past. Let us not even look at how strong was the party’s support base was when leaders like Kripalani, Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Jawaharlal Nehru, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy or Indira Gandhi headed it. The leadership of each of these persons was unchallenged.The Congress had a decent support base even when Rajiv Gandhi or Sonia Gandhi became the party chief. When Rajiv Gandhi became the Congress president in 1984, the party had an overwhelming support among the people, a record 415 seats in the Lok Sabha and about 48 per cent share of the national votes.

Sanjay Kumar in The Asian Age

Dilli Ka Babu: Babus are Being Watched

Dilip Cherian in his Sunday column for The Asian Age appears to shed light on what he believes are the growing concerns of India’s ‘babus’, aka the bureaucracy. Cherian expostulates how a “perform or perish” attitude has been the hallmark of Modi’s governmental policy and how, as a result, several babus have been taken action against for non-performance – while several others, he believes, are quaking in fear.

According to sources, the government is likely to engage in a major shakeup of the top bureaucracy, in which the “dead wood” is likely to be weeded out. It’s quite clear to some that babus who have not fully accepted Mr Modi’s way of functioning will be replaced with new faces, those more in tune with the PM’s vision. The buzz is that babus working in financial and economics-related positions will be subjected to special scrutiny, given that the Modi sarkar is leaning heavily on the success of demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax for the 2019 elections. So far, it seems the PMO has concluded that the demonetisation and GST drives would have given much better results if they were executed more professionally. This implies that somewhere the PMO blames some babus for the negative perception about the schemes in the public’s mind.

Dilip Cherian in The Asian Age

Out of My Mind: Tyrants and Heroes

“Give Indira credit for the success of the BJP” – is pretty much the punchline of Meghnad Desai’s Sunday column for the Indian Express. The conclusion is reached in a well-nuanced fashion, however, as Desai charts the rise of Indira – first by seeming to compare her difficulties with power to Robert Mugabe who recently resigned as Zimbabwe’s President. He goes on to list the various arbitrary acts she chose to commit that went against the civil liberties of people – even mentioning, in the same vein, the addition of the words ‘secular’ and ‘socialist’ to the Preamble to the Constitution. He does, however, believe her one “constructive” act to have been imprisoning the Jan Sangh politicians.

Thanks to the Emergency, the Jan Sangh politicians had to suffer imprisonment. Until then, they had to bear the taunts that their party had not fought during the colonial days or gone to prison as Congress leaders had. Indira Gandhi now gave them that badge of honour. They too had gone to jail fighting for freedom from an oppressive ruler.The rest is history. The Jan Sangh became the BJP. It rose steadily from the 1980s onwards. The seeds sown in the Emergency sprouted and by 1989 the Congress lost its hegemonic status. India could now experiment with other centres of power. Through the muddle and strife of the next 25 years, the BJP came through as the alternative answer to the Congress. Give Indira credit for the success of the BJP.

Meghnad Desai in the Indian Express

Mirrors of India: Godhra a Hundred Years Ago and Now

In his column for The Telegraph this Sunday, Gopalkrishna Gandhi may be credited for shedding light on a not-too-oft repeated moment in history: the Gujarat Political Conference that took place on the very same date, exactly a hundred years ago, in 1917. The event which he describes as “sound(ing) like a fairy tale” took place in Godhra – the same place, Gopalkrishna Gandhi is sombre to remind us, that was the site for the train carnage in more recent times. It was a conference that was super-important in terms of discussing swaraj for the countrymen and women of the time – even as the Dalits and Backward Classes and women remained un-represented, as the columnist observes. However, he highlights the importance of having chosen that tiny town for such an important conference:

Godhra held within it all the promises and all the problems that confronted Indian society and all the opportunities and all the challenges as well. It had, aside from its diverse and un-cohesive Hindu population, an equally diverse and un-cohesive Muslim population and a sizeable, deeply depressed, oppressed, suppressed ‘untouchable’ community. And though a town, yet surrounded by the distresses of rural India, peasant India, again divided by its own traditions, totems and taboos but ‘united’ by misfortunes, natural ones like droughts and floods and man-made. All of them, in separate boxes, with separate prides, prejudices and poverties, stark poverties. Godhra was India in miniature.

Gopalkrishna Gandhi in The Telegraph

From The Quint:

The Crusader of ‘Truth’: Arundhati Roy and the Hyperbolic Howl
Arundhati Roy: The Activist of All Things Big and Small
Judge Loya’s Death: 13 Questions That Remain Unanswered
9 Years After 26/11: Could Another Terror Strike Be in the Offing?
Tide Turning Against BJP, Time For Rahul to Shape the Narrative