How China Brings India and America Closer the Uses of Adversity
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www.openthemagazine.com 50 27 JULY /2020 OPEN VOLUME 12 ISSUE 29 27 JULY 2020 CONTENTS 27 JULY 2020 5 6 12 14 16 18 LOCOMOTIF OPEN DIARY INDIAN ACCENTS TOUCHSTONE WHISPERER OPEN ESSAY The missing rebel By Swapan Dasgupta The ideal king The rot in rhetoric By Jayanta Ghosal The uses of adversity By S Prasannarajan By Bibek Debroy By Keerthik Sasidharan By Mohan Malik 22 SELF-RELIANCE IN A BRAVE NEW WORLD By Siddharth Singh 28 HOMEMADE From Reliance Jio’s Made-in-India 5G 22 plan to the recent boom in desi apps and PPE manufacturing, Indian industry gets ready for a swadeshi turn By Lhendup G Bhutia 34 THE INWARD GAZE 38 The evolution of self-reliance from Gandhi’s village ideal to Modi’s national vision By Madhavankutty Pillai 38 THE JAIPUR JOLT Sachin Pilot becomes the face of rebellion in a party on the brink By PR Ramesh 50 44 FOR GOD’S SAKE By restoring the management of Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple to the Travancore royal family, the Supreme Court raises the larger question of the state’s control over temples 44 By J Sai Deepak 56 50 THE OTHER STORY FROM KASHMIR A new spirit of entrepreneurship sprouts across the Valley By Kaveree Bamzai 56 60 64 66 MURDER ON THEIR MINDS NOBODY’S NOVELIST THE HOPEFUL HISTORIAN NOT PEOPLE LIKE US Portrayals of psychiatrists on Ottessa Moshfegh’s new book establishes Rutger C Bregman’s new book Alarm bells recent web shows use psychology her prowess at excavating the minds of questions our shared assumptions By Rajeev Masand to titillate or trivialise characters on the margins of society about humanity By Shreevatsa Nevatia By Nandini Nair By Bhavya Dore Cover by Saurabh Singh 27 JULY 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 3 OPEN MAIL [email protected] EDITOR S Prasannarajan LETTER OF THE WEEK OPEN MANAGING EDITOR PR Ramesh C www.openthemagazine.com EXECUTIVE EDITOR Ullekh NP Prime Minister Narendra Modi has firmly reset the EDITOR-AT-LARGE Siddharth Singh DEPUTY EDITORS Madhavankutty Pillai terms of engagement and redefined our equations 20 JULY 2020 / 50 (Mumbai Bureau Chief), with China (‘Riding Out the Storm’, July 20th, 2020). Rahul Pandita, Amita Shah, V Shoba (Bangalore), Nandini Nair He rightly said, “The weak can never bring peace. The CREATIVE DIRECTOR Rohit Chawla weak cannot initiate peace. Bravery is the precondition 28 12 ISSUE VOLUME ART DIRECTOR Jyoti K Singh SENIOR EDITORS Sudeep Paul, for peace.” That, in short, sums up the strong Lhendup Gyatso Bhutia (Mumbai), martial spirit and culture of India’s security forces. Moinak Mitra, Nikita Doval AssOCIATE EDITORS Vijay K Soni (Web), That also sums up Modi’s political message to China Shahina KK from Nimu. His speech was a redoubtable geopolitical ASSISTANT EDITOR Vipul Vivek CHIEF OF GRAPHICS Saurabh Singh player’s response to the aggression shown by Chinese 20 JULY 2020 20 JULY SENIOR DESIGNERS Anup Banerjee, premier Xi Jinping’s regime in the region. Modi’s mes- Veer Pal Singh sage spelt decisiveness in the face of any territorial ag- PHOTO EDITOR Raul Irani DEPUTY PHOTO EDITOR Ashish Sharma gression. The pursuit of good relations between India and China is conditional upon agreements on all fronts and financial support in NATIONAL HEAD-EVENTS AND INITIATIVES Arpita Sachin Ahuja and no tiptoeing around the highly sensitive territorial time. It is time to make AVP (ADVERTISING) Rashmi Lata Swarup issue. After the tension created by the fateful encounter education affordable and GENERAL MANAGERS (ADVERTISING) in the Galwan Valley region, there is no mistaking that inexpensive for all sections Uma Srinivasan (South) disengagement on the ground and de-escalation are a of society via the internet. NATIONAL HEAD-DISTRIBUTION AND SALES reality now. For all the trouble, India remains Online education saves Ajay Gupta REGIONAL HEADS-CIRCULATION alert and wary of Chinese adventures in the area. India costs of infrastructure, D Charles (South), Melvin George (West), Basab Ghosh (East) has never crossed the LAC, by way of either aggres- maintenance, operation HEAD-PRODUCTION Maneesh Tyagi sive patrolling or grabbing territory as the Chinese and transport. Doubts SENIOR MANAGER (PRE-PRESS) have tried since May. When it comes to safeguarding clarification may be done Sharad Tailang MANAGER-MARKETING borders, every country has to do the job alone, however easily via IT tools. Priya Singh superior the enemy’s strength or economic power. P Vasudeva Rao CHIEF DESIGNER-MARKETING D Sampathkumar Champak Bhattacharjee The solution to the CFO & HEAD-IT Anil Bisht disruption the coronavirus CHIEF EXECUTIVE & PUBLISHER Neeraja Chawla has caused in education All rights reserved throughout the INDIAN RESOLVE Army also caused Chinese is going 100 per cent world. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited. Wars bring in their wake casualties though China online. Covid-19 cases are Editor: S Prasannarajan. Printed and heroic stories (‘Riding Out may not like the world to exponentially increasing. published by Neeraja Chawla on behalf of the owner, Open Media Network Pvt the Storm’, July 20th, 2020). hear about that. Education and employment Ltd. Printed at Thomson Press India Ltd, 18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, China’s transgressions, Ashok Goswami via the internet can Faridabad-121007, (Haryana). Published at 4, DDA Commercial which have given rise to the help maintain physical Complex, Panchsheel Park, possibility of a war, seem DIGITAL NEW WORLD distancing without bringing New Delhi-110017. Ph: (011) 48500500; Fax: (011) 48500599 to have pushed India to the Many CBSE Class 12 our daily life to a complete To subscribe, WhatsApp ‘openmag’ to point where there is little students have passed their halt. 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The world after Modi went there to boost the including a girl, Divyanshi the coronavirus is going to be Disclaimer morale of the Army and send Jain, and a Dalit, Tushar drastically different. There is ‘Open Avenues’ are advertiser-driven marketing initiatives and Open assumes no responsibility a strong message to China. Singh, topping with 100 no point waiting any longer for content and the consequences of using products or services advertised in the magazine China may not find it easy per cent. This shows all for things to go back this time. The Indian Army students and humans have to ‘normal’. Call it Volume 12 Issue 29 is more determined and inner talent. Focus should For the week 21-27 July 2020 resignation or adaptation— Total No. of pages 68 resolute to defend itself be on building strength that’s the fact. on the border. The Indian and providing technical PN Sreelekha 4 27 JULY 2020 LOCOMOTIF By S PRASANNARAJAN THE MISSING REBEL OLITICAL ATROPHIES ARE caused by different of them to be the dissident the party badly needed. Like the reasons. The obvious one is the old truism: the ‘unleader,’ he too was launched by ancestry, but, today, he is growing distance between the party and the people. not defined by it. As administrator and organiser, there was The party is still steeped in its calcified inheritance, clarity in his words, and a purpose in his actions, a rare virtue unaware of the pace with which its once devoted in his party. Still, he is not the rebel that he is made out to be. Pvoters have walked past. This happens when the party becomes A tradition is redeemed only when the rebel can’t afford to be a weather-beaten monument to a lost tradition, and a reminder cautious—and the cautious are not called rebels anyway. The of an idea’s incompatibility with the times. This reason brings rebel is not a conspirator, like a member of the old Syndicate; out the prevalence of another: the leader who could not make he is more likely to be a Young Turk, like Chandra Shekhar sense of his (or her) irrelevance, or even redundancy. A leader when he played out the romance of radicalism. The story we without a vocabulary to have a rewarding conversation with the miss today is as familiar as the rebel we miss from Jaipur: the people, and someone who has opted out of history, and stepped ‘unleader’ is matched by the ‘unrebel.’ into a make-believe. The reason that matters most, perhaps, is Maybe it’s all explained by a genetic malady within the the alternative—what was once a counter-argument becoming Congress: the party’s existential indebtedness to the Family the only argument winning the day. When countries shed their has conditioned the responses of the restless young and the sacred pretences, it makes no sense in holding on to them instead contented old. The inherited sense of bondage has made them of being receptive to the change. The leader is now the last all wilful sufferers and achievers in the sheltering shadow guardian of the relic that he or she is left with. Political atrophies of the Family. There was always someone with the most are inevitable only when the leader is ejected from reality.