Caution: Mind the Gap
Former Union Minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram, writes in The Indian Express, that the results of the five state Assembly elections announced on 3 December showed how 'bi-polar, competitive politics' is alive in India.
"The Congress’ vote share in the four states is 40 per cent (approximately the same as in 2018) which augurs well for electoral democracy. However, the BJP gained in vote share in all four states and won most of the seats in the four capital cities and urban areas. The other good news is that the difference in vote shares is narrow, except in Madhya Pradesh. The gap in Chhattisgarh of 4.04 per cent was due to the shift of tribal votes. Of the 29 seats reserved for ST, BJP won 17 and Congress 11. The gap in Rajasthan of 2.16 per cent was narrower," Chidambaram writes.
The gaps are not unbridgeable but it will require an understanding of the changed nature of elections. Elections are no longer speech vs speech, rally vs rally, policy vs policy or manifesto vs manifesto. Those are necessary but not sufficient. Elections are won or lost based on last-mile campaigning, booth management and bringing the dormant voter to the polling booth. These require huge investments of time, energy, and human and financial resources in each constituency which, by the results, the BJP did successfully.P Chidambaram in The Indian Express
A Different Time
R Rajagopal, editor-at-large at The Telegraph, in his column contrasts the ways in which the United States of America and India responded when suspicions of snooping on the pillars of democracy surfaced — in the latter half of the 20th century in America and in the early half of the 21st century in India.
In the US, the Washington Post and its journalists uncovered what is now popularly called the 'Watergate Scandal'. "Like a tenacious bulldog, the newspaper refused to let go of the bone it had sunk its teeth into even when storied competitors smirked. Woodward and Bernstein kept at it for nearly 800 days, hunkering down and digging. Editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katharine Graham stood by their reporters — and stood up to the most vicious occupant of the White House till then, who threatened the Post with “damnable, damnable” problems," Rajagopal writes.
The sheer sweep of the Pegasus scandal that broke in July 2021 was astounding: the spyware was allegedly used on Opposition leaders, Supreme Court judges, journalists, investigators and statutory officials. Fewer than 30 months later, on October 30 this year, the Apple alerts went out to Opposition politicians and journalists. Among the politicians so alerted were some of the senior-most public figures, including the Congress president, Mallikarjun Kharge. Well-known journalists in the country, such as The Wire news portal co-founder, Siddharth Varadarajan, were on the list. A probable first casualty of the alleged covert operation is the Trinamul Congress MP, Mahua Moitra.R Rajagopal in The Telegraph
"Yet, quiet flows the Ganga. Not a political leaf has so far as much as stirred, let alone fallen, in India — unlike in America where the Watergate scandal snowballed in two years from a three-column report to a banner headline that screamed “Nixon Resigns”," he continues.
Time To End Reservations
In her column in The Indian Express, senior journalist and columnist Tavleen Singh writes about reservations and the INDIA bloc's pitch for a caste census.
"It is time for all reservations to go. In government jobs, universities, schools, in the army and in our paramilitary forces, all reservations must be scrapped. Enough has been enough for a while now, but because our political leaders find it hard to say this, it does not get said," writes Singh.
"As a tool for bringing social equality for scheduled castes and tribes, reservations have failed. But there is no question that they helped provide a measure of space in politics and education. A voucher system in educational institutions can be created to continue giving a boost to those who have been horribly repressed and shunned because of their supposedly untouchable caste. This should not be available to those who belong to the OBC (other backward caste) category. They do not need it. Anyone who knows rural India slightly knows that these ‘backward’ castes are not backward at all. In the Hindi heartland, they sit at the top. The Prime Minister himself admits proudly to being OBC."Tavleen Singh in The Indian Express
New Star Castes For Politics
In his column in the Times of India (TOI+), sociologist Dipankar Gupta, writes about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech on 3 December after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged victorious in three out of five states which went to polls earlier this year.
Gupta focuses on how the PM "suggested a new four-fold order.
"Instead of Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra, which are separate and hostile entities, he posited a four-fold schema of the underprivileged
– namely, women, farmers, youth and the poor. Unlike the old varna, these categories can easily merge and party together."
"Congress depended far too much on past prejudices and hoped the Bihar caste census would act like a vote magnet to draw in the poor. What they overlooked was that caste is really jatis numbering between 3,000 and 25,000. Maddeningly, these units are also mutually hostile given varnas’ separatist ideology. If jatis find it difficult to form stable coalitions, it is because they draw symbolic energy from varnas’ notions of superiority and hierarchy that magnify internal class differences. No wonder, Mayawati’s celebrated alliances with both BJP and Congress were short-lived as was the KHAM faction which had Kshatriya, Harijans, Adivasis and Muslims in its ranks."Dipankar Gupta in the Times of India
Why India Cannot Do Without The Congress
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor writes about the results of the five state Assembly elections in The New Indian Express. "The post-mortems continue to be written after last weekend’s election results, mostly dismissing the Congress party’s prospects in the forthcoming general elections and announcing that it is finished in the Hindi belt," he says.
"Its historically poorest performance in 2014, followed by a comparable failure in 2019 and now the recent losses in four states—in all of which it expected, and was expected to, fare much better—has convinced commentators that the Grand Old Party is facing its biggest crisis ever. ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ was one of Modi’s election slogans during the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign. Is he about to realise that goal in 2024? I am tempted to say: not so fast, friends."Shashi Tharoor in The New Indian Express
In Botched Murder Plot, a Few Tough Questions
In his column in the Hindustan Times, senior journalist Karan Thapar discusses, in eight points, the questions raised over Indian government staffer's alleged conspired to kill Khalistani leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on the US soil. "Unless you believe the recently unsealed American Superseding Indictment is a work of fiction, we need to be concerned about what it reveals," Thapar writes.
"First, the attempt to assassinate a US citizen on US soil was initiated by someone referred to as CC-1. He’s an “identified Indian government agency employee who has variously described himself as a “senior field officer” with responsibilities in “security management” and “intelligence”. He also previously served in the Central Reserve Police Force. More importantly, “CC-1 was employed at all times relevant to this indictment by the Indian government, resides in India and directed the assassination plot from India”. Does this suggest the Indian government is behind CC-1 or could CC-1 be a rogue actor?"Karan Thapar in the Hindustan Times
Marginal Figure
Anup Sinha, former professor of Economics at IIM-Calcutta, writes in The Telegraph about how the role of a teacher in a socialised classroom is being rapidly eclipsed by technology.
"Gone are the days when a young student could contemplate a one-job career with stability and certainty of income. Uncertainty and change have become all-pervasive. Now, a new challenge for a student is to acquire the life skills to navigate this sea of uncertainty. Knowledge is also changing rapidly. Students are being warned that in their careers they would have to acquire the art of rapidly unlearning things they had learnt earlier," he says.
"The only remaining purpose of the classroom is to get the legitimacy granted to the learning by the teacher. The established evaluation process helps the students get the diploma or degree that marks their licence to seek employment. That is why students have begun to shun the classroom in the best of colleges and universities. This is a worldwide phenomenon. Engaging students in the classroom is a massive challenge that teachers are increasingly afraid to take on. The crux of the tension is that teachers feel impotent if they have to certify a student’s knowledge without having a tangible role in the process. The students do not need the classroom; their laptops, the cafeteria, their hostel dorms are sufficient spaces where they can acquire the skills they wish to learn. The classroom space is now the last, fragile connection between the teacher and those being taught."Anup Sinha in The Telegraph
From Archies to ‘The Archies’: Why Must We Wokewash Classics?
In The Indian Express, Jaipur-based lawyer and writer Vagda Galhotra writes about Hindi film director Zoya Akhtar's latest Netflix film The Archies and questions "the need to 'wokewash' problematic storylines to keep the classics alive."
Galhotra writes, "I am aware that I am not the first person to have noted this. There has been plenty of academic ink spilt over decades on how Archie Comics has been problematic in its portrayal of women with evident sexualisation of the female body and the nasty reduced representation of female friendships As I started reading more about it, I learnt of the subtler injustices that academics have noted over decades."
"For example, did you know that largely all the female characters share the same body and face with very minor adjustments? Their hair (blonde for Betty and black for Veronica) is the only distinguishing factor. Only the characters who are shown to be unattractive have any individuality in drawings. In contrast, all the male characters have very distinct facial features. Isn’t it interesting, and somewhat poetic that the women are just as easily interchangeable in drawings as their characters are for Archie in the plotline?"Vagda Galhotra in The Indian Express
Leadership Vacuum Hits INDIA’s Poll Prospects
Mark Tully, in his column in the Hindustan Times, writes about what the results of the recently concluded state Assembly elections mean for the INDIA bloc and its leadership questions.
"A member of Parliament faced at present with the probability of fighting the general elections due within six months under the INDIA bloc’s flag said to me, on Thursday night: 'He hasn’t had the guts to appear in Parliament after the defeat. He’s said nothing about the results. What sort of a politician is he?' The 'He' was Rahul Gandhi," writes Tully.
"The 'defeat' was the Congress’s failure to win even one of the northern states in the recent assembly elections. One of my criticisms of Rahul has been that he doesn’t look like a politician. My MP friend added, 'He doesn’t behave like one either. Why did he go straight to Britain after putting all that effort into his padayatra that he took to build up an image of being a leader?'"Mark Tully in the Hindustan Times
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