Inside Track: Riding High, But Rider
Always a good idea to start your Sunday with some political gossip, and who better to bring it to you than veteran journalist, Coomi Kapoor. In this week's column for The Indian Express, Kapoor talks about Rajnath Singh's sudden visibility in the government that makes him prone to becoming a scapegoat, rifts between Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and alliance partner, NCP Chief Sharad Pawar, over the former's decision to outsource administration to the bureaucracy, the indomitable position of IAS officer VK Pandian in the Odisha government and finally, the "advisory" issued by Delhi's India International Centre to keep out members above 60, when that is the average for most of its members!
At the start of Modi 2.0, Amit Shah as Home Minister projected a larger than life image. But in February this year, Shah seemed to have gone on a temporary hiatus and Singh did most of the talking on behalf of the government, whether on the lockdown, the migrant problem, the India-China confrontation or India-Nepal relations. Political observers were surprised that Singh was even included in the Group of Ministers on the Covid-19 crisis. By virtue of his seniority, Singh automatically chaired the key committee, though epidemic management falls under the Home Ministry. Singh may be politically far more relevant today than before, but the danger of being pushed upwards is that he can also be a convenient scapegoat.Coomi Kapoor in The Indian Express
How To Survive Cut-Throat Bollywood? The Best Advice Came From Rahman
The death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, a seemingly successful and "happy" young man, has put not just Bollywood, but all of India into a tizzy, raising questions on mental health and the toxic culture many say Bollywood perpetuates. In this column for The Times Of India, Chetan Bhagat shares some tips on how to survive Bollywood or any other hyper-competitive industry, with a little snippet of advice from the one and only, AR Rahman.
No matter how strong you are mentally, if you go all-in into the Bollywood pond, you are at massive risk. This also applies to all non-Bollywood workaholics working in hyper-competitive industries out there. Learn to diversify your life. You may love your work, but make sure you are not just about your work alone. Your health, family, hobbies, old friends may lack the glamour and beauty of Bollywood. However, they can be extremely comforting and create a lot more happiness in your life. The best advice I ever got on how to navigate Bollywood came from the reticent A R Rahman, who I have had the honour of meeting once in my life. When I told him Bollywood was scaring me, he said “Bollywood is like a beautiful pond. However, it has crocodiles in it. Hence, it’s OK to stand in a corner and take a bath. Do not fully swim in it. One foot in, one foot out, always.”Chetan Bhagat in The Times Of India
Covid-19 Will Deepen Divisions In Society
In his column for The Hindustan Times Karan Thapar talks about how there are two Indias that are trying to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The first India is that of the privileged that channel their fear of the disease by staying indoors and protected from poor who are ironically considered to be "carriers" for a disease brought by the rich from foreign lands. The other India is the one that is out on the streets with face-mask and shields hoping that the virus won't attack them. The lived differences between these two Indias is set to cause deeper divisions in society, Thapar says.
It’s that fear that explains calls by resident welfare associations not to permit domestic staff. At the very least this is ironic. The well-off, who travel abroad, brought the virus to India but, now that it’s spread, they view the poor and disadvantaged compatriots as threats to their safety. So, for them, it’s become two Indias — the supposedly special one at home, where no one is permitted, and the wider one outdoors, where everyone is feared and the poor are avoided.Karan Thapar in The Hindustan Times
The Diplomatic Dance For The Horseshoe Table
A big international win for India recently was the country's election to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) where it will serve a two-year term from January 2021. This is India's eighth time as a part of the Security Council. In this piece for The Hindustan Times, former ambassador Manjeev S Puri talks about the various discussions and banter that took place during the vote for the UNSC. If you're interested in diplomacy, you'd be surprised to know that sometimes a country's vote for another country depends on which car the former's President is driving.
We had previously been on UNSC in 1991-1992 and were seeking to return after a gap of 19 years and a bruising defeat at the hands of Japan in 1996. India’s effort was to marshal the maximum number of votes. The widely publicised story after the election was of the Pakistani ambassador, Abdullah Hussain Haroon, having shown around his ballot apparently marked in favour of India. There were others who took photos on their phones and showed them to us, signalling their support. We missed five votes. Obviously, some were political. But strange things also happen. One African country received a vote on the Asian slate. Unbelievable, but the Ambassador wrote his own country’s name on the ballot, thinking that he had signed his support for India.Manjeev S Puri in The Hindustan Times
Questions, Questions, Questions
As the death of 20 Indian soldiers at the hands of the Chinese in the Galwan Valley on 15 June still grips the nation in anger, Tavleen Singh, in her column for The Indian Express, says that while grieving for the soldiers is a show of patriotism, so is asking accountability and questions of the government. And as has been oft-stated, doing the latter doesn't make one "anti-national".
For my part, I want to concentrate on the manner in which this ugly episode was handled politically. This needs analysis because in more ways than one, the manner in which the political fallout has been handled has been disastrous. When opposition leaders and the media started to question what happened on the border, the first responders came not from the government but from the BJP. They appeared on primetime TV shows to denounce as traitors anyone who dared ask questions about what happened on the border. This is a time for nationalism, they hollered, not a time for ‘anti-nationalism’. This is an old playbook that has been used so often since Narendra Modi’s second term began that it has become tattered and useless. Nationalism as defined in this playbook means not questioning anything that the government does. To question Modi personally amounts to treason, because in the view of those who wrote this playbook, the nation and the Prime Minister are synonymous. Instead of fielding arrogant BJP spokesmen it would have been wiser to field those who are actually responsible for the defence of this country. Where was the Chief of Defence Staff? Where was the Army Chief? Where was the National Security Advisor? We should hear from them because from them we might get what really happened instead of silly lectures on ‘nationalism’.Tavleen Singh in The Indian Express
Why Modi Must Not Repeat Nehru’s Mistakes On China
Since the death of the Indian soldiers in Galwan, national news is replete with "experts" and their jingoistic screams on how India must teach the Chinese a lesson by boycotting their products, and also, by "giving it back to them" militarily. In his weekly column for The Times Of India Swaminathan Aiyar says that this economic and military retaliation was exactly how Nehru approached the Chinese, and when it didn't work for him, it is unlikely to work now for Modi, when the Chinese military and economy are ten times stronger.
Modi’s economic policy of Atma-Nirbhar can be translated as self-sufficiency or self-reliance. This ambiguity may be deliberate. The word Atma-Nirbhar enables Modi to pacify affiliates like Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) and Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) that love self-sufficiency. But Modi also equates Atma-Nirbhar with becoming a star in global value chains. At Davos, he lectured Trump on the need to keep world trade open. Hopefully this dual interpretation of Atma-Nirbhar is political manoeuvre, not confused economic thinking. Self-sufficiency means import substitution and reducing global trade and investment. This was the policy of Nehru and Indira Gandhi and ended in economic disaster. From 1947 to 1980, GDP growth was a pathetic 3.5%. The poverty ratio did not fall while the population virtually doubled, and so the absolute number of poor virtually doubled.Swaminathan Aiyar in The Times Of India
India vs China: No Easy Solutions
What is the history behind the India-China conflict? Why was "Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai" always a shaky concept? In his column for The Indian Express, Meghnad Desai delineates the different histories of both nations and the seeds of disagreement between the two. What is the most conceivable solution to this stand-off? Well, none as of now, except that India must defend both its territory and its people.
China’s defeat by the British in the Opium wars forced them to concede areas in their port cities to Western Powers as concessions which they resented. China had to cede Hong Kong to the British. Tibet went autonomous. Since China threw over the Manchu rulers and had its own government in 1911, it has wanted to regain its lost territory. Chiang Kai-shek refused to recognise the Indo-Tibet Treaty. When Nehru convened the Asian Relations Conference in 1946, the Chinese delegation refused to sit if the Tibet delegation was recognised. There was no difference between Chiang and Mao. This is a long battle, normally dormant but occasionally flaring up. There is no solution which will satisfy both sides as each nation thinks the disputed territory belongs to it.Meghnad Desai in The Indian Express
The China Factor In Indian Politics
In his/her column for The Hindustan Times, Chanakya talks about how, for the first time in two generations, China has come to be seen as a tangible security issue in India. And because the BJP used the country's security issues with Pakistan for electoral gains, it is unlikely that its pleas to not politicise the issue of China will be paid much heed to.
Colonel Santosh Babu and the 19 other men killed in the line of duty will stay on in public memory for three reasons. First, this was the first time since 1975 that Indian blood was shed defending the border against China. Two, the nature of the killing was brutal — PLA, in what India has called a “pre-meditated” attack, violated norms of war. And India and China are not even officially at war. And finally, their killing has highlighted the place of Ladakh in general, and Galwan Valley in particular, as essential to India’s territorial imagination. This, then, can make 15 June — or Ladakh 2020 — the moment when, for two generations of Indians, the security threat from China has become tangible and real. It can make it the moment when discussions about the “competitive-cooperative” relationship with China and how to navigate great power politics will move beyond the rarefied seminar circuits of elite analysts and assume a strong place in public consciousness. And it can make it the moment when China becomes an issue in Indian domestic politics, strongly tied to public opinion, partisan positions, and the idea of nationalism.Chanakya in The Hindustan Times
Why Our Chowmein Is Chini Kum, And Desi Zyada
I don't know about you, but a question that has been bothering me since the India-China face-off is whether or not it is now "anti-national" to enjoy a plate a Gobi Manchurian! Or for those of us in Kolkata, the Tangra-style Chilli Chicken. In her guest piece for The Times Of India, Anoothi Vishal says that it shouldn't be, because well, Indian Chinese food is as Indian as anything gets!
Despite what a minister said recently about boycotting Chinese food, you don’t have to be a gobhi Manchurian, Chinjabi or karipatta chowmein fan to know that what you are eating is definitely Indian, and virtually unrecognisable in China. Even at modern restaurants tomtoming “authenticity”, the chef, ingredients and food are all likely to be very desi. “There are hardly any expat chefs in Indian restaurants that serve Chinese or pan-Asian cuisines. Even, internationally, it is Filipino chefs who cook American-Chinese. In India, we have many cooks from the northeast,” points out chef Vikramjit Roy, who specialises in Asian cuisines. He adds that dishes like chongquin chicken (a Sichuan-style dish, with red chillies and sichuan pepper corn) that you may find in top Indian restaurants are just approximations of Chinese food. “Your mouth will burn if you eat the dish in Chongquin,” he says.Anoothi Vishal in The Times Of India
More From The Quint:
- Will China ‘Help’ Modi Curb Political Damage? And At What Price?
- Tributes Pour in as Galwan Valley Martyrs Are Laid to Rest
- Amid Coronavirus, Delhi’s Rohingya Refugees Struggle to Survive
- Delhi University Admissions 2020: Dean Answers Students’ Queries
- Judoka Jasleen Stuck in Georgia For 3 Months With No Govt Support
- Why a Jharkhand Girls School Has Already Started Its New Session
(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.)