Not State, Just Real Estate
The BJP looks at the Kashmir Valley as just a piece of real estate and doesn’t really factor in the history, culture, religion and struggles of seven million Kashmiris, argues P Chidambaram in his column in The Indian Express.
Chidambaram goes on to say that the government had not consulted the political leaders or the Hurriyat Conference, nor did it seek the opinion of the people through interlocutors – instead it has justified its action as a fulfilment of the BJP’s manifesto promise. In his opinion, the ‘repeal’ of Article 370 will be regarded as a breach of a constitutional guarantee and an attempt to divide the people of J&K on religious lines.
“The right to express views had been vested in the Constituent Assembly that had drafted the J&K Constitution. Miraculously, in one stroke, that Constituent Assembly became the Legislative Assembly of J&K and then became Parliament! So, Parliament was passing the Resolution after obtaining the views of Parliament. I suppose there is a metaphysical principle here that is beyond the comprehension of mortals.”
How to Silence Women
Whether it is a rape survivor in Unnao standing up to her perpetrator or sisters in Kerala supporting the survivor nun who was raped by the Bishop; every time women speak up, they are silenced by men who are backed by institutional support, writes Namita Bhandare in a piece in Hindustan Times.
She points out that one of the main reasons for this backlash is our systemic cultural upbringing which teaches girls to stay quiet about sexual molestation, as ‘family honour’ vests in daughters.
“Survivors of sexual assault already know that speaking up invites public scrutiny. Is she part of a political conspiracy (the Unnao defence)? Was her reaction after the alleged assault appropriately stricken (the Tarun Tejpal argument)? As Tejpal awaits a Supreme Court verdict on his plea to dismiss rape charges against him, the Unnao story is a cautionary tale of the abuse of institutional power with a depressingly familiar timeline from the refusal by Uttar Pradesh police to file a First Information Report and the death of the woman’s father in police custody to the framing of charges against her family for “falsely” claiming she was a minor at the time when she says she was raped by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Kuldeep Singh Sengar and his henchmen back in 2017.”
BJP as Party of the 21st Century
Modi 1.0 was all about economics – building toilets, digitisation, demonetisation – while Modi 2.0 is all about politics, to reconstruct a new India post the Nehru-Gandhi era. That’s the view taken by Meghnad Desai in The Indian Express, where he posits that that Modi, along with Home Minister Amit Shah as his indispensable partner, have demonstrated their willingness to cut the Gordian knot of problems like Kashmir problem rather than try to unravel them.
Desai believes Article 370 created an anomaly in the federal structure, and that this made the move by Modi and Shah necessary. He lauds the careful planning and execution of the move – in contrast to demonetisation – including how things were kept secret. He ends by noting that the country and old guard parties like the Congress will need to watch out for Modi 3.0.
“The bifurcation is a crucial piece of legislation. Ladakh is a vast territory, totally different from the Kashmir Valley and Jammu. It is sparsely populated but a huge source for solar energy. It will be the first Buddhist-majority Union Territory (UT), a first for India. J&K becomes UT as well but only temporarily. The Ladakh people have welcomed the bifurcation. The Modi-Shah team obtained a two-thirds majority in the Rajya Sabha and a better than 5:1 majority in the Lok Sabha, which would suffice for a constitutional amendment.”
The Perpetual El NIño
It is necessary to start calculating the impact of the monsoon on the economy using an index of food production and cost of energy as opposed to just agriculture’s share of GDP, writes Jatin Singh in The Telegraph.
Increasing temperatures and frequent changes in the monsoon precipitation have caused unprecedented losses of capital and produce that has resulted in food-price inflation and tragic farmer suicides. Singh believes that the need of the hour is increased awareness, training programs for resource management and sustainable solutions like rainwater harvesting, rather than just crisis management.
“The changes to the monsoon patterns are just one of the impacts, albeit far-reaching, of climate change, and India’s by no means equipped to deal with them. Drought management continues to be inadequately addressed in the country, due to the lack of proper planning and the paucity of efficient coordination between different functioning units. Rapid development continues to eradicate the places where monsoon rains collected. The gap between technological progress and technological impact needs to be bridged because, the average Indian farmer still depends on the monsoon for his harvest and has no proper training required for the scientific management of soil, seeds and energy resources.”
Kashmir: The Weakening of Indian Federalism
Does the rendering of Article 370 as ineffective, and the demotion of Jammu and Kashmir as well as Ladakh to the status of Union Territories, indicate a trend towards less federalism and a stronger central government?
Mark Tully explains in his column in Hindustan Times that although it is inevitable that the Centre’s power will grow, states need sufficient autonomy to preserve their individual identity.
“The PM has vigorously promoted his own development programmes. These programmes weaken the state government’s ability to decide their own priorities. Importantly, from a political point of view, voters give credit for the policies to the PM rather than the chief minister. Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, who heads a coalition government with the Bharatiya Janata Party, was among the several chief ministers attending a meeting with the Niti Aayog who complained that central government schemes were bleeding states dry, because of the financial contribution they had to make to them.”
The Importance of Being Toni Morrison
In a column in Hindustan Times, Marika Gabriel traces the life and work of Toni Morrison, whose work represented everything she stood for — perseverance, determination, resilience, and most importantly, freedom. She was not just a writer but marked the beginning of a movement in literature, striving to create a more inclusive America.
“One book at a time, Morrison changed the way we see, think, and feel about injustice and discrimination. Toni Morrison died on August 5, aged 88. She is gone, but the world is a better place because she lived. Through her work, both fiction and non-fiction, Morrison will transcend the test of time. She will live on through Sethe, Pecola, Nel, and all the characters she created in her pursuit of a better tomorrow. Even beyond that, she will live on as Toni Morrison — a legacy like no other. She believed that there is no greater gift than passing on to others what she created.”
The Very Idea of the NRC Is Wrong
Prabhat Patnaik believes the plan to divide people with NRC must be resisted and a more humane solution must be found to resolve the problem of immigration into Assam. In a piece in The Telegraph, he states that deporting lakhs of people whose names didn’t make it to the list, would be “an act of unparalleled barbarism reminiscent of the Nazis.”
Patnaik suggests something akin to the Marshall Plan from the Centre to Assam to deal with the problems created by immigration – which he acknowledges are real – while arguing the need to stand up for principles.
“The problem of immigration into India cannot be separated from the Partition of the country. When people belonging to one land get divided into two countries, it is natural to expect that there would be cross-border explorations of economic opportunities, and hence migration, which the fact of Partition renders illegal. If such migration is to be stopped, then the problem of porousness of the border has to be addressed. Likewise, if there is a problem with regard to immigrants taking away land from the indigenous population, as reportedly has been the case in Assam, then that calls at best for appropriate legislation restricting land transfers to ‘outsiders’.”
Did Article 370 Preserve Kashmiriyat?
Justifying the government’s move, Tavleen Singh writes in The Indian Express that Article 370 hardly gave Kashmir any more autonomy than other states.
She points out that it was wrong to impose political change by locking people up and denying all means of communication, but argues that the means could justify the ends if they allow an end to the problems created in Kashmir as a result of the rise of secessionism and jihadism.
“It is not at all surprising that Pakistan is so incensed that Imran Khan virtually warned of nuclear war becoming a real possibility. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations appeared on Christiane Amanpour’s show to declare that it was the ‘human rights’ of the Kashmiri people that Pakistan was most concerned about. Ms Amanpour would have done well to ask her about the ‘human rights’ of the people of Balochistan, but did not. She would have done well to ask about the jihadist groups that have turned Kashmir into a killing field, but did not.”
Does the Human Mind Have a Unique Affinity to English?
English is probably the only language in which even when words are totally wrongly spelt, you can still make sense of their meaning if the first and last letters are correct. In the Hindustan Times, Karan Thapar discusses the language’s verbal acrobatics with some fascinating examples and wonders if the human mind has a unique affinity to English.
“What is the meaning of a word?”, Ludwig Wittgenstein once asked Karl Popper. He must have had English in mind because in that wondrous language, not only can words mean the opposite of what you thought they did, but the same word can be used to mean several different things. This is what makes English so delightful, but also so damnably difficult.”
More From The Quint:
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)