AIADMK's Sasikala Reconciliation Problem

Home , Nana Patole, Parineeti Chopra, Pratap Keshari Deb, Swapan Dasgupta

22 FEBRUARY 2021 / `50 www.openthemagazine.com

contents 22 february 2021

5 6 12 14 16 18 LOCOMOTIF OPEN DIARY INDIAN ACCENTS TOUCHSTONE WHISPERER OPEN ESSAY Hashtag democracy By Swapan Dasgupta In Shiva’s shelter The limits of knowledge By Jayanta Ghosal Punjab and protest By S Prasannarajan By Bibek Debroy By Keerthik Sasidharan By Nonica Datta

24 24 THE LAST MUTINY February 18th marks the 75th anniversary of the Indian naval mutiny. Although this episode is ranked among the many that make up the saga of Indian independence, it was one subverted by politics By Pramod Kapoor

38 OPENING THE FLOODGATES Yet another disaster in geologically fragile Uttarakhand pits livelihoods against ecology By Nikita Doval

38 44

44 THE ARTERIAL TIME BOMB Are the 30s and 40s the new 60s for heart disease in India? By Rahul Pandita and Lhendup G Bhutia

48 48 A TEMPLE LOST AND FOUND The discovery of a set of ancient ruins in Bhubaneswar and the damage done to it raise questions about how development work is undertaken around heritage sites By Amita Shah

54 58

54 58 62 64 65 66 THE AFTERLIVES UNDONE THE DARKEST HOUSE PAGE TURNER ‘FOR ME LUXURIOUS STARGAZER OF STITCHES In a new memoir, Priyanka Abigail Dean talks about her Nightwalking IS HAVING A GREAT By Kaveree Bamzai Celebrating the Chopra Jonas opens up bestselling debut Girl A By Mini Kapoor NEW PAIR OF BOOTS’ relationship between about life in Bollywood By Nandini Nair Michelle Pfeiffer on her Adip Dutta and late artist and outside it new film French Exit Meera Mukherjee By Kaveree Bamzai By Noel de Souza By Rosalyn D’Mello Cover by Saurabh Singh 22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 3 open mail [email protected]

Editor S Prasannarajan letter of the week managing Editor PR Ramesh C executive Editor Ullekh NP India’s economy is firmly in the middle of a V-shaped editor-at-large Siddharth Singh deputy editors Madhavankutty Pillai recovery and will recover to record 11 per cent growth (Mumbai Bureau Chief), in 2021-2022 after an estimated 7.7 per cent contraction Rahul Pandita, Amita Shah, V Shoba (Bangalore), Nandini Nair this year (‘The New Deal’ by Haseeb Drabu & Anil creative director Rohit Chawla Padmanabhan, February 15th, 2021). The projected art director Jyoti K Singh Senior Editors Sudeep Paul, growth estimate has been termed ‘lockdown Lhendup Gyatso Bhutia (Mumbai), dividend’; by following a stringent response to the Moinak Mitra, Nikita Doval Associate Editor Vijay K Soni (Web) Covid pandemic, we believed in taking ‘short-term assistant editor Vipul Vivek pain for long-term gain’. The latest Economic Survey chief of graphics Saurabh Singh notes that the global economy has been set back SENIOR DESIGNERs Anup Banerjee, Veer Pal Singh in time by the pandemic-induced crisis but the Photo editor Raul Irani Indian economy has inherent strengths that could deputy Photo editor Ashish Sharma allow it to bounce back strongly. Though we had a National Head-Events and Initiatives conservative financial support during the initial such as waiver of road tax Arpita Sachin Ahuja AVP (ADVERTISING) phase of the pandemic, the Survey has nonetheless and cheaper insurance Rashmi Lata Swarup made a clear and strong pitch for the Government in the first year. But it is GENERAL MANAGERs (ADVERTISING) Uma Srinivasan (South) to loosen its purse strings to spur the economy with equally important to have a countercyclical fiscal push. India’s economic a comprehensive scrappage National Head-Distribution and Sales Ajay Gupta approach is almost like the Indian cricket team’s policy so that commercial regional heads-circulation D Charles (South), Melvin George recent ‘caution with precaution’ approach Down vehicle owners have total (West), Basab Ghosh (East) Under. Our economy has judiciously gone from transparency and clarity. Head-production Maneesh Tyagi survival to revival. Bal Govind senior manager (pre-press) Sharad Tailang CK Ramaniam MANAGER-MARKETING the opposition Priya Singh Chief Designer-marketing It was amusing to read how Champak Bhattacharjee Minhaz Merchant needs cfo & HEAD-IT Anil Bisht division of labour Look at what privatisation did the opposition’s actions to Chief ExecuTive & Publisher As they say, the government to IT and pharma. validate Narendra Modi’s Neeraja Chawla has no business to be in Bholey Bhardwaj instead of the merits of All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner business (‘The New Deal’ the latter (‘The Rage’, is prohibited. by Haseeb Drabu & Anil scrappage helps February 15th, 2021). This Editor: S Prasannarajan. Printed and published by Neeraja Chawla on behalf Padmanabhan, February The scrapped vehicle market is a dangerously simplistic of the owner, Open Media Network Pvt Ltd. Printed at Thomson Press India Ltd, 15th, 2021). Let the private is pegged at around Rs 40,000 and falsely comforting 18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana). sector run businesses while crore (‘No Roads for Old Cars’, explanation of all that is Published at 4, DDA Commercial the Government frames February 15th, 2021). Besides happening. All opposition Complex, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110017. policies conducive to running creating job opportunities, to Modi cannot be Ph: (011) 48500500; Fax: (011) 48500599 businesses. Finance Minister it would also spur growth dismissed as coming from To subscribe, WhatsApp ‘openmag’ to 9999800012 or log on to Nirmala Sitharaman has in the commercial vehicle just a clique of political www.openthemagazine.com or call our Toll Free Number shown insight with her and car industry as vehicle opponents, disenfranchised 1800 102 7510 future-oriented worldview on replacement will become power brokers and or email at: [email protected] how to run India’s businesses. the need of the hour. With ‘venomous’ journalists. For alliances, email [email protected] Her divestment target of vehicles being one of the More importantly, unlike For advertising, email Rs 1.75 lakh crore in 2021-2022 main contributors to air bureaucratic and governance [email protected] For any other queries/observations, is ambitious. 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Volume 13 Issue 7 ensure they remain healthy. to disincentivise older the fact that Modi is the For the week 16-22 February 2021 India needs to unlock its vehicles on the roads and Disrupter. Unlike others, he Total No. of pages 68 potential by giving more incentivise buyers to does not follow a script. freedom to the private sector. comply with new norms Ashok Goswami

4 22 february 2021 LOCOMOTIF

by S PRASANNARAJAN Hashtag Democracy

emocracy. Free Speech. Social Media. They the bad and the worst exist in perfect harmony. Governments make the new political whirl and we wonder: want only the good. Which means the new media will have to be As the gaze of the panopticon sharpens, are we gagged and downsized. They call it regulation. shrinking into manipulated data, or into some Second, our moral outrage. It’s competitive outrage by the behavioural specimen in a remote laboratory, or, Left and the Right. In the US, for example, it’s the Left that’s Dworse, cyber zombies? There’s too much going on currently out getting agitated over cyber conspiracies—QAnon and more— there, making yesterday’s conversation—and moral choices— of the unhinged Right. The previous president was their real fire redundant by today’s reality. Take these. An American president thrower, his every tweet a call to arms. After his exit, the danger has has been exiled by Twitter, with no hope of a homecoming not diminished for the Left. His acolytes and their mouthpieces somewhere in the future. So is the fate of others who have are a threat to the new order in which dissent is a conservative echoed him. Facebook, too, has its own blacklist, which includes calumny and the dissenter is the one worthy of online shaming and the same ‘insurrectionist president’, though it has said that inevitable execution. Elsewhere, it’s the Right that plays victim to banishment may not be permanent. And we have been told the Left’s online propaganda. What unites the victims, no matter that some elections are won—or subverted— from which side of the ideological divide, is power. by Russian-speaking cyber troglodytes. Even It is as if the struggle for and the maintenance of as social media sites vacuum out corrosive power can brook no inconvenient social media agents—no matter mighty or trashy— interventions. A disruption of the righteous order governments of all ideological hues demand has to be avoided. Some of the current apostles actions against their social media tormentors. of social media cleansing include those who Big Tech is watching you with the same intensity cheered it as the only channel of freedom and with which governments are watching your dissemination of news when streets erupted in tweets and posts. Democracy and free speech places such as Tehran and Cairo. Power turns every are not ensured by constitutional provisions romantic into a pragmatist. and political civility alone. Arbiters of our What I find more relevant is the third factor: behavioural impulses and mediums of our instant thoughts the parallel democracy of social media. The opacity of its control are playing God. We inhabit, in real time, parallel worlds with centre; its own code of righteousness; and its impersonal power different sets of mind-control mechanisms. to manage our most personal affairs—the hashtag universe has Should we be scared? As scared as politicians? Should we not shed its mysteries. If we are living in what Shoshana Zuboff, be as morally outraged as the new idealists who want a lofty author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, calls “information cyberspace? And should we be worried by the powers of social civilization”, the new media is curating the information for us, media in manipulating our choices? First, the political scare. for they know us better than ourselves. And they know who It’s mostly bogus. Nothing more than the paranoia of regimes or what is good for the parallel democracy in which nothing which seek to control the public square. It’s the extension of is what it seems to us. Everything is what it is meant to be by an old paranoia; the difference is in the atmospherics. Then the anonymity of an algorithm. Now they have begun to be imagination was the enemy of the revolution, which required ideological too, which is scary. It’s better to be on the Twitter side a uniform conscious code, and absolute submission in a world of politics, lest you risk cyber gulag. The real panopticon is in without questions. Maybe samizdat was the Twitter equivalent your palm, and it’s called a smartphone. then. The paranoia continued even when religion replaced Is regulation the answer? No. Maybe what can save the ideology: books were still pitted against the Book. God’s envoys current conversation, unbearably Manichean in tone, is were—still are—on the lookout for the profanities of the unaided reform within—a Big Tech glasnost. Let some sunlight mortals. It took nothing more than a novel or a cartoon to put fall on the most valued mystique of our times. It’s not the the Republic of the Sacred in jeopardy. Today, social media is the dictatorship of the datum but the lofty bunkum of politics enemy of the order, the subversive to the new paranoid. Social coming from the social media caves that should worry us. media has democratised the conversation. It is where the good, We’re fine otherwise. n

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 5 open diary Swapan Dasgupta

ontroversies and elections terms neutrality and detachment Care inseparable. This is more are absent. Mamata has got a head so in West Bengal which is witness- start with nearly all the major Bangla ing what many in the media see as dailies and TV channels backing her the mother of all elections—a fierce enthusiastically. Whether an over- do-or-die confrontation between the dose of state government advertise- doughty Mamata Banerjee and the ments has anything to do with this Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) steam- belief that Mamata is the goddess is roller that has, in the past eight years, a matter of conjecture. But certainly, flattened formidable opponents. there are grounds for believing that Most elections are fought on politi- the lip service to the glorious heritage cal issues, such as the record of the of Bengal and fulminations against incumbent and the promises made election, TMC is attempting a bigger the alienness of Jai Sri Ram constitute by the challenger. These are no doubt consolidation of Muslim votes while aspects of the larger advertising the paramount issues in this eastern BJP is banking on a bigger consolida- package of the state government. state where, since 1977 at least, there tion of Hindu votes. However, in a In any event, all is fair in love, has been no convergence of political first-past-the-post system, there is war and politics. What is perhaps affiliations between the Centre and also an obvious benefit in dividing not acceptable is the dissemination the state. To add to this quirkiness, this the votes of the opponents. BJP is of a claim that not only do non- election is witnessing a parallel dra- hoping that a chunk of Muslim votes Bengali speakers have no claim on the ma—a culture war that is centred on will be eaten away by a local Muslim heritage of West Bengal, but that only the question of which party is a better challenger that is planning to team those Bengalis supportive of TMC Bengali and whether the heritage of up with Congress and the Left Front. have an exclusive claim on the glory West Bengal can be better safeguarded For her part, Mamata is equally intent of Bengali culture. by a regional party or a national force. on preventing a Hindu consolidation Two small—and patently ridicu- This parallel battle has given the West that is bound to make life very diffi- lous—controversies highlight the Bengal election an added zing. cult for TMC. To prevent a Hindu bloc phenomenon. First, there was a storm To believe that the issue of Bengal’s from emerging, TMC has initiated in a teacup over whether or not Home heritage and identity has occupied the culture wars aimed at creating a Minister Amit Shah had desecrated centrestage because Bengalis are by divide between Bengali Hindus and the culture of Bengal and destroyed nature different is only partially true. Hindi-speaking Hindus who make the legacy of Rabindranath Tagore Like most issues in any election, the up a significant chunk of the state’s by sitting on what was claimed to be culture wars have also been triggered electors. A major division in Hindu Gurudev’s chair. It was a nonsensical by strong electoral calculations. votes is bound to scuttle BJP’s chances claim that was quite successfully de- In the 2019 parliamentary elec- of taking control of Kolkata. molished by Shah in Parliament with tions, Mamata’s Trinamool Congress The electoral calculations behind photographs to show the absurdity of (TMC) suffered a big jolt when BJP the culture wars can be understood the claims. Second, a TMC politician, surprised the country by winning dispassionately. Unfortunately, its backed by important members of the 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats. The success or failure depends on whether ‘secularist’ intelligentsia, made the data suggested that the BJP success emotion and passion can prevail claim that a portrait of Netaji owed almost entirely to its success in over rational calculations. How the Subhas Chandra Bose by the artist securing anything between 58 and 60 culture wars translate on the ground Paresh Maity hung in Rashtrapati per cent of the Hindu vote. Mamata is all important. Bhavan, was actually that of the actor was successful in securing nearly 80 What I have found interesting is Prosenjit who had played the role of per cent support of the Muslim voters the contrived way in which parties Netaji in a movie. This too turned who constitute some 27 per cent of have chosen to attack each other— out to be a preposterous claim. the state’s electorate. aided and significantly abetted by a I look forward to the next In the forthcoming state Assembly local media in whose vocabulary the fake battle. n

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NOTEBOOK AIADMK’s Sasikala Reconciliation Problem

nbukku naan adimai… (I am a slave ruling AIADMK, which will face the Assembly polls under dual to your affection.)” Upon her dramatic re- leadership for the first time in its history. The party had displayed turn to Chennai on February 9th after a four- tell-tale signs of unease ahead of her journey back home. Senior year incarceration on corruption charges, ministers of AIADMK told the director general of police that “VK Sasikala,A whose convoy took 23 hours to cover the 350-km Sasikala and Dhinakaran were trying to incite violence. The distance from Bengaluru, channelled a film song from 1977 party issued a warning against the use of AIADMK party flags that MG Ramachandran had often used in campaigns. This by Sasikala and her loyalists, and expelled local functionaries in was her first public address—to hordes of supporters gathered Trichy and Tirunelveli who had put up posters in her support for en route—since her exile, and she added in a steely voice: ‘anti-party activities’. Additionally, the government, in a sudden “But I will not yield to any repressive action.” Sasikala was announcement, said it would confiscate six properties owned by no slouch, even if bereft of power, position and active engage- VN Sudhakaran and J Ilavarasi, relatives of Sasikala, in Chen- ment with politics. Dressed in green, the former interim nai. “We needed to send a strong message to our cadres and to general secretary of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra the people that there is no space for Sasikala and Dhinakaran in Kazhagam (AIADMK) and long-time aide of former Chief AIADMK,” says D Jayakumar, state minister for fisheries. A day Minister J Jayalalithaa dipped her hand in the headwaters of ago, he had dubbed them “DMK’s B-team”. Speaking to Open, he the party’s history, not only invoking an MGR song but also denied that they posed any threat to the party—and indeed, there stopping by his memorial in Chennai early on February 9th is little reason to think otherwise. In the bypolls to 22 Assembly to garland his golden statue, even as Jayalalithaa’s memorial constituencies held in 2019, AMMK failed to break the vote bank remained closed, perhaps to prevent ‘Chinnamma’ from scor- of AIADMK, which won nine seats to reach a majority of 123 ing another symbolic photo-op. Accompanied by her nephew seats in the 234-member Assembly. It did, however, play spoiler and political brother-in-arms, the Amma Makkal Munnetra in a handful of constituencies, including two former AIADMK Kazhagam (AMMK) General Secretary TTV Dhinakaran, as bastions in Theni district—Andipatti, which famously returned she made her way to her niece MGR to the chief minister’s seat J Krishna Priya’s house in while he was in his hospital bed in T Nagar—a centrally located 1984, and Periakulam, the home- neighbourhood in Chennai where town of Deputy Chief Minister and her family owns a number of Dressed in green, Sasikala AIADMK Coordinator O Panneer- properties, some of them serving dipped her hand in the selvam. Although Dhinakaran as addresses for shell companies— headwaters of the party’s appears to be extending an olive Sasikala was a picture of contra- branch now by suggesting that dictions. There was sympathy, no history, not only invoking an the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam doubt, for a woman who had stood MGR song but also stopping (DMK) is the common enemy for all by Jayalalithaa in her darkest hour, followers of Jayalalithaa, and that he and it was tinged with concern for by his memorial in Chennai has never considered the chief min- her health, for she had only just early on February 9th to ister and the deputy chief minister recovered from respiratory distress garland his golden statue, as enemies, the AIADMK is unlikely due to Covid. Dropout politician to accept Sasikala’s induction into and film star Rajinikanth was even as Jayalalithaa’s the party. “There is neither arith- among those who had called Dhi- memorial remained closed, metic nor chemistry that can make nakaran to wish her good health. perhaps to prevent AMMK and AIADMK come togeth- Simultaneously, there was er,” says political analyst Raveendran intrigue and speculation about ‘Chinnamma’ from scoring Doraiswamy. “AIADMK no longer what her return entailed for the another symbolic photo-op needs Sasikala or AMMK, which

8 22 february 2021 e s g ett y imag VK Sasikala arrives in Chennai, February 9 only enjoys around 5 per cent vote share. And Sasikala cannot bonded labour day coincided with Sasikala’s return to Chennai. work under OPS or EPS. She desires absolute control of the party, Then there are the photographs of Edappadi K Palaniswami and even if she herself cannot contest the elections till 2027.” Fielding Panneerselvam bowing before Sasikala that have resurfaced questions from reporters during the roadshow to bring Sasikala on billboards and social media, and DMK leader Udhayanidhi home, Dhinakaran said he will once again contest the RK Nagar Stalin’s outrageous comments on their obsequiousness are still Assembly seat, which he won in a bypoll in December 2017, fresh in public memory. To avoid becoming targets of oppro- besides another constituency from Theni district. brium, both leaders must script captivating narratives of their With the death of Jayalalithaa, the electoral unity of the own. And they are trying to do just that. In a move set to benefit three communities that make up the Mukkalathor, a power- over 16.43 lakh farmers in Tamil Nadu, the state government ful vote bank that shares a common origin story, is no longer recently announced that it would waive crop loans outstand- certain. The Maravars, whom Panneerselvam and his son, ing in cooperative banks to the tune of Rs 12,110 crore. While P Raveendranath Kumar, Member of Parliament from Theni, Palaniswami’s campaign rides on such doles and claims of good represent, may not vote with the Kallars, the most populous governance, Panneerselvam’s strength remains his unwaver- of the three, over whom Sasikala and Dhinakaran hold sway. ing loyalty to Jayalalithaa and the consequent legitimacy of his A section of the AIADMK leadership, in fact, steers clear of claim to her legacy. The Bharata story, the survival of the Amma criticising Sasikala for fear of offending their vote bank in the myth and the intransmissibility of it, are what he has going for Thanjavur belt. AIADMK Deputy Coordinator KP Munusamy him. Shaking hands with Sasikala, or indeed, bowing before her, has gone so far as to say that the party would consider taking is no longer an option. In the popular imagination, it is Sasikala back Dhinakaran if he tendered an unconditional apology. who dragooned Jayalalithaa into electoral defeat in 1996, and “The fact that VP Jayapradeep, son of O Panneerselvam, wished into an early grave in 2016. Jayalalithaa herself would have not Sasikala a full recovery, means something,” says Thanga seconded these allegations. In an interview to The Hindu in 1996, Tamilselvan, a former Andipatti MLA and Dhinakaran loyal- quoted by Vaasanthi in The Lone Empress, her biography of Jaya- ist who quit AMMK, where he was propaganda secretary, to lalithaa, the former chief minister vehemently denies bestow- join DMK in 2019. “AMMK was formed with the intention of ing extra constitutional powers on Sasikala. “Calling her a de redeeming AIADMK from the hands of the two leaders who facto chief minister is just nonsense. She is simply not interested hold its reins. But it had little impact on the ground. Even in in politics and I had no intention of bringing her into politics. Theni, where AMMK claims to have a following, there are few People must understand that a politician needs someone to look ground-level workers. I joined DMK because of two reasons: after his or her home… It is only because Sasikala stepped in to one, it’s a casteless party; and two, I believe MK Stalin is the only take care of my household that I was able to devote my entire one who can bring the people together the way Jayalalithaa and full attention to politics,” she tells the newspaper correspon- did,” Tamilselvan says. “In our campaign, we have been talking dent. A quarter century later, the householder has stepped out, about Sasikala’s misdeeds as well as about the corruption in the once again, and how. n government. We are not afraid to take on anyone.” In a minor gaffe, Panneerselvam’s tweet on freedom from By v shoba

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 9 openings

PORTRAIT Ghulam Nabi Azad for three days to finally find hundreds of corpses floating near the sea. Or when, just two days after he had been sworn in as chief minister of Jammu A Free Man and Kashmir, young children whose parents had just been killed by militants to send him a message, The veteran from Kashmir leaves the House clutched him by his legs and wailed. Those were two out of just five times, he said, when he cried here was no acrimony that day in Parliament, a rare departure aloud. (The other three being the sudden deaths of T in itself. Ghulam Nabi Azad spoke and leaders across the political his leaders Indira, Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi.) divide listened quietly, sometimes with a smile. Just the previous day, a Azad was never a mass leader. He was the classic visibly emotional Prime Minister Narendra Modi had praised Azad. It Congress durbar politician. His power came from was a reminder that for all their hostility towards each other, even rival his closeness to the power centre in the party. He parliamentarians are at the end of the day colleagues. It also showed was, of course, useful to the party in more ways that there can be a politics without rancour. In Azad’s dignified voice on than one. He was a skilled trouble-shooter and an his own farewell, it found its full expression. organisational person, skillsets that were essential Azad—the outgoing leader of opposition who, it appears, will not be given Congress’ large organisational base and the returning to Parliament again—has remained an influential player, both emergence of coalition politics in India. As he put behind the scenes and on the stage, in much of India’s contemporary it during his farewell speech, through his nearly history. His speech touched all these aspects of public life. He spoke five decade-long stint in politics, he found himself about the deaths and assassinations of Indira Gandhi and her two sons; diving in one spot and emerging at another, an of working in difficult places like Kashmir; terror attacks; and the idea of allusion to the various roles he performed, from what it means to be a Muslim in India, their favourable state compared being member of the two Houses of Parliament, to the strife in Islamic nations, and yet, as he put it, the necessity for sometimes in power and sometimes outside of the majority community to take two steps towards it. The speech also it, to being appointed chief minister and being revealed the toll public life must take on its leaders. Like the time he despatched to distant places to bolster election landed in Odisha during the super-cyclone of 1999, just hours after his campaigns and stitch alliances. own father had been diagnosed with cancer, wading through waters Azad arrived on the national scene as a fresh- faced politician in the mid-1970s, around the time of the emergence of Sanjay Gandhi, and rose rapidly through the ranks. He was a powerful Youth Congress leader and a Lok Sabha MP by 31; and a minister in Indira Gandhi’s Union Council of Ministers by 33. He went on to hold several important positions in the party and the Central Government because, in spite of whatever churn the party was going through, he continued to stay close to its true power centre, be that Sanjay Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi—he was an important minister even under PV Narasimha Rao—and later, Sonia Gandhi. In a strange twist of circumstance, it is Azad and a few others who have been demanding more internal democracy within the party. For this, they have been viewed with suspicion, something which no doubt has hurt him. And yet, it was in the late 1990s—when the last big opportunity arose for the Congress to free itself from the Gandhi family after Rajiv Gandhi’s death and the completion of the Rao Government’s term—that Azad and some others pleaded with a then reportedly reluctant Sonia Gandhi to take over the party. At the end of the day, leaders like Azad had ensured that the party remained with the family. n

By Lhendup G Bhutia

10 22 february 2021 ANGLE ideas The Perils of Moral Arbitration On the Indian government threatening to arrest Twitter’s employees

By madhavankutty pillai ges

hat top executives of government decides how free its ge tt y i m a TTwitter in India might be arrested public should be, and with a sufficient because the social networking site majority can impose its will, Twitter Prejudice did not comply with Government was always going to struggle. As a The controversy that has broken orders on censoring accounts, as the result, it wades through hypocrisy, out involving former cricketer Times of India reported this week, where it can ban the president of the Wasim Jaffer and the Cricket is not salutary for the idea of free US but despots and dictators Association of Uttarakhand— speech. Twitter is the most power- elsewhere enjoy free access. after Jaffer quit his post as head ful platform in the world today for As soon as Twitter decided to be a coach of the Uttarakhand team— politics. To bend to Government moral and political arbiter, there was goes beyond disagreement. diktats on who should be on their site no reason for governments or political This is not the first time an is as good as handing the reins over to parties to think of it as an impartial administrator has interfered politicians. Because while the power body. Even if it might profess to be so, with selection policies and a grab starts in the ostensible interest but, as the US Republicans keep accus- coach resigned in protest. The of national security, what national ing, its employees are left liberals who secretary of the board and the team manager claim Jaffer was security is becomes entirely a defini- slide in their ideology to keep people biased towards Muslim players tion that the Government decides. It of one political dispensation muffled in the squad, and that on a few could push anyone or any institution or out. That makes it a participant in occasions, a Muslim cleric led out from social networking plat- politics and therefore fair game, from Friday prayers for some of the forms citing it. the point of view of politicians. The Muslim players of the team. Jaffer The Government has decided to Indian Government is now testing had to call a press conference to treat Twitter as a highway that it can how much it can arm-twist Twitter. defend himself, pointing out that clear protesters off from, or a troubled But it is hard to see what alternative had he been biased, he would state where it can just switch off inter- Twitter has. It cannot let its have selected more than the three net altogether—measures that would employees be jailed. If it bends before Muslim players in the squad and come under the term draconian in Government diktats, then it will have not dropped some of them from most mature democracies. In to kneel, and soon crouch. And then it the playing eleven. n Twitter’s resistance against the Gov- will have to do so in every country in ernment, one should be wishing, in the world with any government that the interest of democracy, for it to not orders it. be turned into an obedient vassal. The only way it can manage the Word’s Worth However, this is a predicament that situation, should the Government Twitter invited on itself by its zeal to be intransigent over its demands, is ‘At any given moment, not just be a platform, but one that to get out of India altogether. That public opinion is a actively decided what content should would mean sacrificing one of its chaos of superstition, be allowed on it. In a country like the potentially biggest commercial US where private enterprise has a markets over principle. It will be misinformation tradition of being protected against an interesting test of how much and prejudice’ the state, they could get away of its virtue signalling was posturing Gore Vidal with it. But in any place where the from a safe space. n american writer

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 11 indian accents

By Bibek Debroy

In Shiva’s Shelter A devotee gets both worldly pleasure and emancipation

was recounting a story from the Shiva Purana, kaivalya (emancipation). If a person listens to this account, about the wicked couple, Chanchula and Binduga, and but is unsuccessful in performing dhyana on Shankara, he left the story dangling and incomplete. The story is accomplishes that dhyana in a subsequent birth and goes to a Iabout how bhakti towards Shiva ensures emancipation. supreme destination with Shambhu. There are many sinners In this column, I will complete the story about the who have heard this account and have performed dhyana on emancipation of the wicked wife, Chanchula. Binduga Uma’s husband. Having tormented themselves, they have will have to wait for the next column. At the end of the last obtained success. Hearing this account is the most beneficial column, Chanchula had gone to Gokarna and had heard a bija for men. (Bija means seed and is a mystic akshara or learned Brāhmana tell stories from the Shiva Purana. syllable from a mantra, known as bija mantra.) If one follows The Brāhmana said, ‘Hearing accounts from the Shiva this path in the proper way, the bonds of worldly existence Purana leads to non-attachment. It is good fortune that are destroyed. Hearing the account, fixing Shambhu in through Shiva’s great favours, your understanding has been the mind and in the seat of the heart and purification of awakened at the right time. O wife of a Brāhmana! Do not the consciousness are enough. That devotion towards be afraid. Go and seek refuge with Shiva. Through Shiva’s Mahesha and his two sons (Ganesha and Kartikeya) certainly favours, all your sins will instantly be destroyed. I will tell leads to divine favours. Therefore, there is no doubt about you something else that is full of Shiva’s deeds. That will emancipation. In its absence, a person’s intelligence is bound lead you to a destination that brings every kind of happiness. to maya. He should be known as an animal. There is no doubt Such intelligence only develops from listening to virtuous that he can never be freed from the bondage of samsara. O accounts. You are full of repentance. Thus purified, you are wife of a Brāhmana! Therefore, withdraw your mind from no longer attached towards material objects. The greatest material objects. With your mind full of devotion, listen atonement for sinners is repentance for the sins they have to Shambhu’s account. This is supremely purifying. Listen committed. All virtuous people have described this as the to this virtuous account about Shankara, the paramatman. means for cleansing all sins. As instructed by virtuous people, With your consciousness thus purified, you will obtain if a person performs prayashchitta [atonement for sins] emancipation. Meditate on Shiva’s lotus feet and your mind purified by repentance, all sins are purified. If a man makes will become sparkling. I am telling you the truth. You will up his mind to perform prayashchitta, he longer has any obtain emancipation in a single birth. This is the truth.’ fear. There is no doubt that repentance generally conveys a Suta (who is telling the story to the sages, Shaunaka being person towards a desirable destination. Hearing the account the most important of these) continued, ‘Having spoken to of the Shiva Purana leads one to a purification of the mind her in this way, the excellent Brāhmana turned his mind that cannot be obtained through anything else. This is like towards obtaining Shiva’s favours. He was silent and with a mirror being cleaned, so that it becomes sparkling. There a purified atman, became engaged in performing dhyana on is no doubt that this account purifies the mind like that. Shiva. Binduga’s wife, Chanchula, was pleased in her mind. Shiva and Amba remain in the minds of men who have Addressed in this way by the Brāhmana, her eyes filled with purified themselves. With atmans thus purified, they attain tears. With a delighted mind, she fell down at the feet of that a supreme destination with Shiva and Amba. Therefore, Indra among Brāhmanas. She joined her hands in salutation for every type of individual, it is held that this account is and said, ‘I have obtained my objective.’ Rising up, she joined the best mode. It is for this reason that Mahadeva himself her hands in salutation and spoke, the words faltering. devised this account. This account leads to the mind being With her mind full on non-attachment, she addressed the immersed in dhyana on Girija’s husband, Parvati. Jñana Brāhmana who was Shiva’s great devotee, ‘O Brāhmana! O is generated from dhyana and thereafter, there is certain Shiva’s great devotee! O lord! You are blessed. You are the

12 22 february 2021 one who has seen the supreme destination. You are engaged form and her limbs were divine. She was resplendent, with in ensuring the welfare of others. You are described as an celestial ornaments. She wore the half-moon on her crest extremely virtuous person. Please save me. O virtuous one! and her complexion was fair [an allusion to Parvati being I am descending into an ocean that is hell. I wish to hear Gouri]. Having gone there, she saw the three-eyed Mahadeva. you speak about Shiva Purana. In my mind, there is non- He is the eternal one and he was being served by Vishnu, attachment about all material objects. Now, there is great Brahma and other devas. Full of devotion, Ganesha, Bhringi, devotion in my mind about listening to this Purana.’ Saying Nandishvara, Virabhadra and others worshipped him. His this, she joined her hands in salutation and obtained his radiance was like that of one crore suns. His throat was blue. favours. Desiring to hear about the Purana, she remained He had five faces and three eyes. The moon was on his crest. there, serving him. In that spot, the extremely intelligent Gouri, with a dazzle like that of lightning, was resplendent on Brāhmana, who was supreme among Shiva’s devotees, his left side. He was as fair as camphor. Gouri’s lord wore every made the woman listen to the virtuous account about the kind of ornament. His body was smeared with white ashes. Purana. In that great kshetra, she Extremely resplendent, he was heard the excellent account about attired in a white garment. Seeing Shiva Purana from the excellent Shankara, the woman, Chanchula, Brāhmana. The account enhances was filled with delight. Filled devotion, jñana and non-attachment with supreme joy, she repeatedly and bestows emancipation. prostrated herself before him Hearing this virtuous and supreme respectfully. Delighted, she joined account, she accomplished an her hands in salutation. She was excellent objective. Favoured by humble, content and full of love. the compassion shown by a good Her body hair stood up in delight guru, she swiftly obtained purity and tears of joy flowed from her of consciousness. Through Shiva’s eyes. Full of compassion, Parvati and favours, she performed dhyana Shankara allowed her to approach. on Shambhu’s form. In this way, Because of her good fortune, she was seeking refuge with a good guru, able to see them. Parvati lovingly her mind turned towards Shiva. She made her a divine companion. repeatedly meditated on Shambu’s Chanchula, Binduga’s beloved, thus form, who is sacchidananda [the obtained celestial happiness. That supreme brahman or paramatman, eternal world is dazzling and full truth (alternatively existence), of supreme bliss. She obtained a consciousness and bliss]. She always permanent residence there and her bathed in the water of the tirtha. mind was filled with joy.’ She had matted hair and attired Hearing the account of Anyone is bound to ask— herself in bark. She smeared her What happened to Binduga? Did the Shiva Pur ana leads limbs with ashes and wore a garland Chanchula forget her husband? of rudraksha beads. She performed one to a purification of Shaunaka said, ‘O Suta! O japa on Shiva’s name and controlled the mind that cannot immensely fortunate one! Since excessive speech and food. Following be obtained through your mind is immersed in Shiva, the path indicated by the guru, anything else. This is like you are blessed. Having heard she satisfied Shiva. O Shaunaka! a mirror being cleaned, so this wonderful account, our In this way, Chanchula performed that it becomes sparkling devotion has increased. Having excellent dhyana on Shambhu gone there and having obtained and a long period of time elapsed. an excellent destination, what She did this, full of the three kinds did Chanchula do? Please tell us of devotion [hearing, chanting the name and meditating]. that. O immensely wise one! In particular, what about her When the designated period was over, Chanchula voluntarily husband?’ The answer will follow in the next column. gave up her body. Sent by Tripurari [destroyer of Tripura, Two words are often used together: bhukti and mukti. Shiva], a vimana swiftly arrived. It was adorned in many Mukti is emancipation from the bonds of samsara, the bonds kinds of ways and was full of his many divine ganas [Shiva’s of birth, death and rebirth. Bhukti can only be translated as attendants]. Accompanied by Mahesha’s excellent attendants, obtaining and enjoying objects of pleasure. Bhukti is about she ascended it. Sparkling and with all the dirt removed, she this world, mukti about the next world. Devotion towards was instantly conveyed to Shiva’s city. She assumed a divine Shiva ensures both. n

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 13 touchstone

By Keerthik Sasidharan

The Limits of Knowledge Learning to recognise the constraints we live under

couple of years ago, during an interview in other cases we may very well have drifted so far out that we with CNBC, Silicon Valley venture capitalist now rely on wrong maps in the wrong seas to find the right an- Chamath Palihapitiya was asked about swers. These examples speak to the boundary conditions about A constraints on projects to improve social what can be known, albeit slowly and what may be entirely outcomes. Implicit in the question was an accusatory snark unknowable in the future. These limitations are often framed by the television anchor, who probably is rich but not quite as a consequence of technical knowhow and complexities of sys- in the same league as the billionaire, that sought to suggest, tems where causes and effects are far too nebulous and intricate ‘Why don’t you spend more money?’ To which Palihapitiya to summarise. Computer scientists rely on demarcations like answered that the real constraint was not capital allocation ‘P and NP-hard’ to classify problems based on time required to but human resource and technical knowhow. How does solve. Implicit in all of these is the idea that knowledge is, at least, an engineer solve problems of transmission loss or battery theoretically possible. If only we knew how to transcend bound- storage? Can we find better ways to deduce protein-folding aries of time, human resources and analytical methods. structures rather than rely on hacking our way using Historically, however, the most familiar boundary was in the brute force trial-and-error algorithms? There may indeed form of ‘forbidden knowledge’. This barrier typically took two be answers to these problems but to find them, one needs forms: restrictions derived from context and based on content. time and individuals to spend their lives looking for it. The We see the former, most provocatively, in the killing of Sham- problem of improving social welfare, Palihapitiya suggests, buka in the Ramayana who ostensibly transgressed caste rules is also intimately tied to the problem of form—how to that dictated access to the Vedas. In his case, and in that society, it incentivise technically skilled people to keep an eye on the wasn’t knowledge itself that was deemed dangerous but rather search for solutions. who could access it. As societies introspect and access rules are Last month, the New York Times carried a story about a revised, such prohibitions often seem archaic and a cruel waste. German programmer who had unwittingly stored the private The other form of forbidden knowledge traditionally was depen- keys of his 7,002 Bitcoin holdings (approximately worth $300 dent on the content itself. We see this in the mythologies where million) inside a hard drive whose password he could no Greek gods denied humanity access to fire till Prometheus longer remember. In an effort to pry open the ‘IronKey’ storage tricked Zeus and stole it. The consequence for Prometheus, device, which allows a user to try 10 passwords before it freezes much like Shambuka, was painful death. In both cases, knowl- and permanently encrypts the contents, he had tried eight edge was deemed as the key to maintaining forms of hierarchy. passwords and failed. Like some Hollywood thriller from the There is a third kind of ‘forbidden knowledge’—one that early 2000s (‘Ocean’s Bitcoin’?), there were two trials left before is more intuitively familiar to us. This refers to our arriving at which that fortune would permanently become inaccessible. questions the answers to which are unknowable and efforts The programmer, now resigned to his fate, we are told, has de- to speak further press us against a kind of metaphysical wall cided to wait for a distant future ‘in case cryptographers come of inarticulateness, a form of death of cognition itself. In the up with new ways of cracking complex passwords’. He was Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, a series of debates between betting on radical breakthroughs in the future. Yajnavalkya and many others (Ashvala; Aartabhaga; Chakraya- These two examples highlighting the problem of discover- na; Kaushitakeya; the female scholar Gargi; and, most interesting solutions are variations on the same theme: the opacity of ingly, a man called Sakalya) under the auspices of King Janaka’s knowledge. Like ships afloat on the high seas of information court sets up nicely the idea of limits of knowledge. Only here, and ignorance, the solutions to these problems resemble a pro- the outer boundary of the answer is often a form of cul-de-sac. verbial lighthouse that demarcates the shores. While in some To Gargi, Yajnavalkya famously says, ‘You are asking too many cases we can see faint outlines of the light’s aureole amid the fog, questions about a deity whom one should not ask too many

14 22 february 2021 Illustration by Saurabh Singh question that his ‘head will burst into seven pieces at once’. It was a form of expressing the consequences of trying to resolve seemingly irresolvable problems. These ideas of forbidden knowledge appear anathema to our modern way of thinking about society and progress. In fact, by most reckonings, no form of knowledge is today forbidden. We may be disallowed to write or print various things in accordance with our laws, but knowledge or expression of the same or exploration of its contents are not outside the remit of a particularly brave or foolhardy individual. As societies, we may have restricted-use technologies and export control lists for certain products, but these decisions to deny access often have much to do with realpolitik and other secular concerns rather than some intrinsic taboo contained in that knowledge. Ameri- can literary scholar Roger Shattuck observed that while ‘we have laws and customs to limit behavior’, we no longer have cultural or personal sense of restrictions that apply to ‘symbolic products of mind—words, images, movies, recordings, television shows’. We live in an age when anybody can read or write pretty much anything (as long as they are willing to bear the consequences in the form of legal penalties or jail or, on other occasions, violence). Cultural conservatives in the West have abandoned their old war cry—‘Is nothing sacred?’—and, in turn, have themselves gone to opportunistically rely on medi- cal breakthroughs that come from knowledge gained from the very practices they previously decried, such as stemcell research. Any restriction, if imposed at all, acquires a form of juridical or security concern and political need rather than of a While many growth evangelists have sense of sustained engagement on the question of what kind of knowledge imperils us. The result is an ideology that valorises repeatedly told us that new knowledge knowledge acquisition of all kinds. will help us break away from habits like In his book Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities, environment destruction and other seemingly Czech-Canadian scientist Václav Smil surveys the history of the inimical cycles, Václav Smil warns warily that, concept of growth—from simple improvements in transport in the Persian Empire to metastasising cancerous cells—only ‘Knowledge is not always the cure.’ He argues to highlight towards the end of the magnificent volume that that we simply don’t know well enough how modern civilisation continues to rely on a linear relationship complex feedback loops work in interlinked between inputs and outputs when it comes to extracting and deploying energy sources. While many growth evangelists have systems like our environment and climate repeatedly told us that new knowledge will help us break away from habits like environment destruction and other seemingly inimical cycles, Smil warns warily that, ‘Knowledge is not always the cure.’ Like many since American novelist Wendell questions,’ and then—whether it was said as a matter of fact or Berry in the 1960s, he argues that we simply don’t know well with a vehement sneer, we cannot tell—he famously adds: ‘Or enough how complex feedback loops work in interlinked sys- your head will shatter apart!’ She, then, falls silent. In the debate tems like our environment and climate. But our near messianic with Sakalya, Yajnavalkya poses a question which the former is faith in technical knowledge as panacea, rather than one among unable to answer and ‘his head did, indeed, shatter apart’. And many means to flourish in this world, has led us to cultivate an in case that wasn’t enough, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad tells attitude that awaits a radical breakthrough in the future to save us—somewhat mystifyingly—that ‘robbers moreover, stole us even as the present pushes us into greater despair. We have his bones, mistaking them for something else’. This metaphor forgotten that real knowledge lies in learning to recognise the of ‘head splitting’ is not an Upanishadic innovation or evidence constraints we live under, critical thought involves asking why of Yajnavalkya’s boorishness; rather, even the Buddha reminds a specific constraint has survived, and wisdom lies in working to a young man called Ambattha, who wasn’t answering his remove constraints as long as new ones aren’t imposed. n

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 15 Whisperer Jayanta Ghosal

Walking the Campaign he dates for the West Bengal TAssembly election will be announced soon. For the Trinamool Congress (TMC), its leader Mamata Banerjee is the main draw and star campaigner. She is visiting all districts extensively. But despite her hectic schedule, what she never skips is her daily walk. She does an hour on the treadmill. Each district guesthouse has been fitted with a gymnasium, including the treadmill. This is in addition to her walks in the course of her campaigning. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi once praised her in a meeting for her disciplined physical exercise regimen.

Civil Politics harmendra Pradhan, Union minister for petroleum and natural gas as well as steel, comes across as a politician Dfrom a more civil era. As the West Bengal election campaign heats up and all BJP leaders are attacking TMC, Pradhan said recently that the West Bengal government has always been cooperative with his department on various projects. Some in the party wondered how he could say this at such a time but the buzz is Pradhan told state leaders that while he criticises the opposition politically, as a BJP leader and a minister, he must also acknowledge if his ministry receives support from them.

Fashion Meets Election First to Speak n Union Budget day, Narendra Modi JP MP Locket Chatterjee is a Tollywood actress who Ocame to Parliament in a white shawl and Bleft movies for full-time politics. When Modi came to some political observers connected it to the Kolkata recently, for Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s birth West Bengal election, given the prevalence anniversary celebrations, he said that he looked forward of shawls there. His beard is also long to her attending the Parliament session in Delhi. It was and white, and many are drawing only later that Chatterjee realised the hidden message: parallels with Rabindranath Tagore’s look. she was going to be the first speaker from her party in Is this a case of fashion meeting the Budget session. It is probabaly a tactical move, made electoral politics? with an eye to the Bengal election.

16 22 february 2021

Illustrations by Saurabh Singh

Caste Demands Not My Remit arnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa’s big strength ieutenant Governor Kis his caste base. He remains the main political face LManoj Sinha usually of the dominant Lingayat community, a huge voter bloc travels the districts of that is committed to him. But he is facing a problem Jammu & Kashmir to because the Panchamasalis, a sub-sect of the Lingayats, get a feel of the ground are demanding 15 per cent reservation in government jobs situation. In winter, how- under the backward classes quota. Their leaders recently ever, he is mostly at the Raj met Yediyurappa who professed his helplessness and said Bhavan in Jammu, besides that only the Centre could take the decision. He threw coming to Delhi often the ball at the BJP Members of Parliament (MPs) from to update the prime Karnataka. The chief minister publicly said that there are minster directly about 25 of them and they should be pressuring the Centre the Union territory. on the matter. Recently, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was said to have sent feelers to Sinha to start a dialogue with the Indian Back in the Limelight Government. But Sinha said that his remit is Kashmir, not fter Congress got together with Shiv Sena and the Indo-Pak relationship. ANationalist Congress Party (NCP) to form the government in Maharashtra, former Congress Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan found himself in the wilderness. He was said to be depressed because other Congress leaders were conspiring against him. But Wrong Timing his fortunes seem to be on an upswing. Reportedly, at he floods in Uttarakhand have led to a difficult party chief Sonia Gandhi’s insistence, he will be the Tsituation for BJP which rules the state. As soon as new speaker in the Maharashtra Assembly. The current the scale of the disaster, after the breaking of a glacier, speaker, Nana Patole, resigned recently to become state became known, the prime minister talked to the chief party chief. Chavan will step into his shoes. minister and asked all officials to cooperate. But senior BJP leader Uma Bharti is striking a different note. She says that as water resources minister, she is opposed to the idea of hydel projects in the Uttarakhand hills and had even given written notes to Expansion stop those. Then too, BJP was in power at the Centre and in the state, but no one had heeded her. The BJP Tales top brass is not happy with her public utterance and ihar Chief Minister thinks this was not the time for it. BNitish Kumar was reportedly upset for some time with ally BJP. A cabinet reshuffle and Celebrity Probe expansion had become he Maharashtra government is at overdue and the media was loggerheads on many issues with also asking why it was not T the Centre. The most recent is the state taking place. Nitish told them that he was still waiting for police’s investigation into tweets from the list from BJP and that he celebrities like Sachin Tendulkar and would do it as soon as he got Lata Mangeshkar regarding the farmers’ it. Finally, progress seems protests. The charge is that the timing and to have been made with the content of all those tweets were strikingly expansion plans, including similar. The Centre thinks the probe is the surprise induction of meant only to put pressure on celebrities Shahnawaz Hussain in to think twice before supporting the Union Nitish’s ministry. Government on the matter.

18 January 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 17 open essay

By Nonica Datta

punjab and protest A forgotten legacy

he farmers’ protests have brought to the fore many unresolved contradictions that shape our democracy. It may be difficult to bring together all the different strands, but certain trends stand out. Punjab has emerged as the epicentre of the movement against the three farm laws made by the Government, since the majority of the farmers spearheading the protests are from that state. It may be relevant now to revisit key aspects of the lost story of agrarian Punjab and its entry into modern politics. This would provide a different perspective on the current situation. The story of Punjab’s extraordinary transition during the 20th century is worth recalling. Punjab was turned into a bulwark of the British Empire through army recruitments and agrarian reforms. The growing rural indebtedness due to the commercialisation of agriculture, including the increasing power of moneylenders, led to a series of judicial and legal interventions that secured the loyalty of Punjabi peasants. The result was the introduction of the Land Alienation Act of 1900 which prevented the transfer of land to urban classes and protected the rights of the ‘statutory agricultural tribes’.T Subsequently, Punjab politics came to be structured around a tactical alliance of dominant agrarian interests with the colonial authority. Their mutually beneficial relationship with the colonial state demonstrates the co-sharing of political power which lasted till 1947. Thus, a new agrarian leadership emerged in Punjab which built its political base and constituency through legislative councils. The Unionist Party, as the single most constitutional party, invested in the colonial political structure and introduced a series of agrarian measures that safeguarded rural interests against urban commercial castes. The party was led by stalwarts such as Chhotu Ram, Fazli Husain, Sikander Hayat and Sunder Singh Majithia. It forged a cross-communal alliance which sanctioned rural reforms emerging out of political processes of negotiation, dialogue, collaboration for the welfare of protecting the shared economic interests of, what Husain described as, “backward classes”. “The principle that I stand by,” he declared, “is the principle of helping the backward community irrespective of their religion, be they Muslim, Hindu or Sikh.” The Unionist Party introduced a remarkable experiment of a robust political arrangement that constantly sought a resolution between the state and agricultural communities and reposed faith in law and imperial authority. Vilified by Congress and Akali Dal, the Unionist agrarian legislation in the 1930s exemplifies the progressive agenda of modern agrarian politics. These Bills, called ‘golden Bills’, protected the Punjab peasant, who was perceived as a ‘bechara kisan’ (hapless peasant) in the perspicuous words of Ram, as he was always at the mercy of the moneylender and the urban trader. The results of the Unionist Party’s agrarian reforms were momentous. The rural sector was consolidated vis-à-vis urban commercial capital and its agents, such as moneylenders and middlemen. The constrained and oppressed farmer, in the language of the Unionists, was liberated from the shackles of insidious commercial forces. The highly articulate Unionist leadership set out to eradicate rural indebtedness via colonial legal intervention. Some of their measures were: the Relief of Indebtedness Act of 1934, which favoured the debtors and

18 22 february 2021 Bhagat Singh Chhotu Ram

An expansive space needs to be created to open a conversation between the Centre and the farmers. It’s not a choice between Chhotu Ram and Bhagat Singh. The legacies of their political languages have sustained peasants’ causes in several different ways. The point is to find a political arena to open a fresh debate to arrive at a fruitful consensus in favour of the wider farm and agricultural sector

curtailed the creditors’ powers, and authorised the government to state. This type of resistance began with Ajit Singh and his ur- set up debt conciliation boards.The indebted peasant was further ban accomplice Lajpat Rai protesting against the Land Colonisa- emboldened following the passing of the Debtors’ Protection tion Bill in 1907, bringing the peasant unrest into the ambit of Act in 1936. Introduced by Ram, it provided security to ‘agri- nationalist politics. The colonial state perceived this upsurge as cultural classes’ and exerted tremendous political control over a farmers’ conservative protest against the attempts to moder- urban capital. Other reforms included the Punjab Restitution of nise them. Punjab thereafter entered into a frame of revolution- Mortgaged Lands Act of 1938, which restored agricultural lands ary anti-colonial politics. This radicalism was further boosted to the poor peasants; the Punjab Registration of Moneylenders via the Ghadar Party with its diasporic links with revolutionar- Act, 1938, which loosened the grip of moneylenders on the grain ies around the world, and later the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh mas- markets. Consequently, mandis came to be registered through the sacre gave birth to a sustained violent anti-colonial resistance. Mandi Regulation Committees that protected the farmers and Subsequently, Punjab witnessed an open confrontation of helped them gain control over agricultural produce. The Punjab the Punjabi leadership with the colonial state. Bhagat Singh’s Agricultural Markets Products Bill of 1939, popularly known as revolutionary fervour emboldened the Punjabi youth together the Mandi Act, further sought to curb the control of brokers, shop- with the Nau Jawan Bharat Sabha that gained popularity in keepers, traders and middlemen over the forces of the market. towns and especially among the merchant classes in the 1930s. As the Unionist experiment protected ‘agrarian classes’ Soon Udham Singh appeared as a hero and a martyr, inspiring through legislation, Punjab simultaneously became a theatre the Punjabi masses to embark on the path of a radically violent of a series of popular movements launched against the colonial clash with the government. A glorious narrative of Punjab’s

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 19 open essay

revolutionary energy and initiative thus came to be written. of different clashing perspectives arising out of reformist, legisla- This inspiring chapter coexisted with the negotiating stance tive and revolutionary, extremist impulses, and a meaningful of the Unionist Party, a party that ruled Punjab for nearly three interaction between them? Democracy thrives on principles decades and had a strong popular base. Though the regional of political expression and intermediation and flourishes in a agrarian ideology of the Unionists could never accommodate climate that encapsulates both accommodative and confronta- the revolutionary aspect of Punjabi politics, the faultiness of- tional politics. The Unionist Party’s ideals may have been forgot- fered different alternatives to resolve the intricate agrarian ques- ten. But its enduring tradition of cross-communal rural alliance tion. So Bhagat Singh, an icon of the extremist anti-colonial re- may have a message for the farmers’ cause and their representa- sistance, remained a popular hero of Punjab’s radical struggles, tion in the present political climate. Of course, you cannot clap but could never become a symbol of the Unionists and their with one hand. An expansive space needs to be created to open a secular alliance of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh agriculturists. Ironi- conversation between the Central Government and the farmers’ cally, with the Partition of India in 1947, the Unionist Party died interests. It’s not a choice between Chhotu Ram and Bhagat a sad death. The agrarian interests were now largely subjected Singh anymore. The legacies of their political languages have to an aggressive form of identity politics and mobilisations sustained peasants’ causes in several different ways. The point is through different peasant organisations. Above all, the politics to find a political arena to open a fresh debate to arrive at a fruitful of the Muslim League, Congress and the Akalis fractured the consensus in favour of the wider farm and agricultural sector. farmers’ interests which could no longer be accommodated Three major faultlines emerge from the contemporary up- through a common secular agrarian programme. surge. The first is that negotiation in the sense of a genuine desire Post-Independence Punjab politics inherited the political on the part of both sides to arrive at a solution does not seem to be framework bequeathed by the imperial system of patronage and on the agenda of the stakeholders so far. Unfortunately, there are protection to the rural order, but without the mediation of the no state-centric parties, like the Unionist Party, that can represent Unionist tradition. Indeed, throughout the 1960s and well into the present crisis, the conflict between the farmers and the successive Central Governments mirrors a confrontation of central- ist forces with regional aspirations and rural interests. But let us not forget that Punjab, India’s ‘grain bowl’, has not had any major agrarian reforms in the rural sector since 1947. The one limited exception is the 2016 Punjab Settlement of Agriculture Indebted- ness Bill, which partially drew upon the Unionist legacy. Given such neglect, the Punjabi farmer has felt rejected by successive governments. There is no Unionist frame, of mediating between the Centre and the state, to negotiate for peasants’ economic interests through agrarian legislation and reform. Thus, not surprisingly, Punjabi farmers are drawing on the radical language of resistance and protest, and not that of the Unionists’ principles of peaceful constitutional and legal intervention to secure the objective of agrarian reforms. Indeed, as the Punjabi farmer leads the current agitation, isn’t it appropriate to learn from the Punjab story, which certainly reveals that resolutions can happen only through the co-existence

popular movements against the colonial state began with Ajit Singh and his urban accomplice Lajpat Rai protesting against the Land Colonisation Bill in 1907, bringing the peasant unrest into the ambit of nationalist politics

20 22 february 2021 getty images

Jats are the most vigorous force in contemporary electoral politics and their claims of representation in the political structure draw on their supremo Chhotu Ram’s language of empowerment and rural advancement

Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait at a farmers’ gathering in Bhiwani, Haryana, February 7 the agrarian sector and argue its case on the basis of well-chalked Chhotu Ram’s language of empowerment and rural advance- out rural claims and demands with the Central Government. ment. Paradoxically, the present upsurge oversteps the rural-urban Thus, both Centre-state relations and the Centre’s relations with divide, a profound legacy of Punjab’s agrarian politics rooted in the the farming groups remain fraught, as they have since 1947 in the Land Alienation Act, which was hailed as ‘the Magna Carta of their case of Punjab. Punjab’s post-Partition history testifies to a gradual [agricultural classes’] political and economic life’. This indeed is a erasure of a conversation between the Centre and farmers. far cry from the peasant protests of the earlier decades. The iconog- Following up on this, the second faultline reveals that there raphy of the movement focuses on multiple symbols of heroism, is no inter-state and Central Government dialogue on the martyrdom and community identity along with the articulation current impasse. Agitational politics, though inspiring, cannot of their inevitable marginalisation as a consequence of the new wholly answer questions of the repeal of agrarian reforms. farm laws. The varied manifestations of protest inaugurate a new The rejection or acceptance of laws, good or bad, has to come era of popular politics that invoke different languages of dissent. through constitutional politics, which indeed has not been The Government’s decision to defer the implementation of historically averse to the language of revolutionary protest. the laws by 18 months brings another critical dimension to the Whether these are compatible or not in the present scenario is fore. This may offer possibilities to the farm leaders to steer the a question whose answer can only be given by the future. movement into a new form of political discourse. Now the ques- The third faultline points to different layers of protest, tion is: given the legacy of Punjab’s enduring political traditions, violent and non-violent. Punjab is a classic example of these what could be a possible way forward? Does the answer lie in the twin features. Yet, the continuing mass movement of Punjabi revolutionary stance of Punjab’s legacy laced with a varied reper- farmers marks a shift, having moved beyond being state- toire of traditional political and cultural symbols, icons, images? centric, with farmers from Uttar Pradesh and Haryana joining Or will the farm leaders draw lessons from the consensual politics their ranks. It has therefore widened its canvas. Therein lies the and secular alliance of the Unionist Party, which unfortunately rub: the January 26th violence harks back to yet another aspect was eclipsed in the aftermath of Independence? Movements do of the legacy of Punjab’s resistance to colonial authority. But it not die. Nor do traditions. We can only draw lessons from them also marks a significant departure from it. and appreciate the prospect of engaging with alternative frame- The fourth faultline reveals the extent to which farmers’ inter- works. And also reveal their uncomfortable truths. est coalesces with 20th century identity politics. Sikhs and Jats However, today’s political processes of democracy and have emerged as major protagonists in the protest, as the move- divergent party interests may produce unanticipated and even ment gains a mass base and harnesses the support of politically unexpected answers. n organised peasant communities of north India. Jats are the most vigorous force in contemporary electoral politics and their claims Nonica Datta teaches history at of representation in the political structure draw on their supremo Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

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Available as an e-magazine for tablets, mobiles and desktops. * For terms and conditions, visit http://www.openthemagazine.com C VER Story The Last Mutiny

February 18th marks the 75th anniversary of the Indian naval mutiny. Although this episode is ranked among the many that make up the saga of Indian independence, it was one subverted by politics. Even as ordinary Indians came out in thousands onto the streets in solidarity, Congress leaders actively mediated only so that the naval ratings who had struck work and rebelled would give themselves up without any of their demands being met. They saw in any success of the mutiny a threat to their political future as rulers of independent India. The mutiny lasted four days but a handful of sailors had by then brought the might of the British Empire to its knees. Or, at least, in a post-World War II era, showed them the tenuous hold they had over their colonies. It perhaps precipitated the British departure from India because they could no longer depend on their armed forces to be loyal. The men who mutinied got only punishment for their participation but their reward was in changing the final tempo of the freedom movement

24 22 february 2021 The Last Mutiny By Pramod Kapoor

HMIS Hindustan, a cruiser that mutinying naval ratings abandoned in Karachi on February 20, 1946

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com Photo25 alamy C VER Story

times content was the middle of February 1946, and Bom- bay’s residents going about their normal business had no idea of the storm that was brewing in their midst. It would engulf them in a mutiny, riots, cannon and gunfire, tanks on the streets, a deadly body count and a confrontation with Brit- ish authorities that would shake the foundations of the Empire. It would also cause deep divisions in the Indian political leadership, then busy plan- Itning for a smooth transition of power. The first sign of the impending uprising came, appropriately enough, at the HMIS Talwar, a signal school for naval ratings in Colaba. A strategically important naval establishment for British forces in India, Talwar became the platform for the launch of the mutiny. There were close to 20,000 young Indian naval ratings who had been subjected to the most de- grading and inhuman service conditions, and their anger and frustration had reached boiling point, fuelled further by the nationalist movement and stories of resistance by the Indian National Army (INA). The movement would involve Indian Royal Indian ratings posted in ship and shore establish- Navy mutineers in the Fort area ments in the Bombay area as well as ports as of Bombay, far off as Karachi and Aden. For four days and February 19, 1946 nights, the young ratings took on the might of British naval authorities and almost succeeded, but for the lack of support from For four days and nights, the young ratings took on the might of British naval authorities and almost succeeded, but for the lack of support from their national leaders. There were many firsts recorded over those four tension-filled days 26 For four days and nights, the young ratings took on the might of British naval authorities and almost succeeded, but for the lack of support from their national leaders. There were many firsts recorded over those four tension-filled days C VER Story

their national leaders. There were many firsts recorded over those There was only one leader who stood four tension-filled days. For the first time, the blood of men in uniform and civilians was spilled in a common cause. The death up for what she believed in— toll in the clashes was the highest recorded until then, almost all restricted to the city of Bombay. After four brave but bloody days, Aruna Asaf Ali, the sole dissenter the ratings, as advised by Congress leaders like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, surrendered. Bombay and the naval ships and establish- against the conspiracy of silence by ments slowly limped back to normalcy. A significant chapter in the history of the Indian freedom struggle had come to a sad end. the country’s prominent leaders The fire of revolt at Talwar was ignited by the Commanding Officer Arthur Frederick King, a foul-mouthed racist, a man with a ‘big body but small brain’, who faced the wrath of the ratings for the offensive manner in which he treated them. In retaliation, a group of ratings had deflated the tyres of his car and painted a ‘Quit India’ slogan on its bonnet. Incensed, he confronted the men under his command, shouting: “You sons of coolies, sons of bitches.” The ratings, most aged between 15 and 24 years, decided that enough was enough. On February 17th, they refused dinner and, early the next day, struck work. When the morning bugle was sounded, not a single rating turned up. The mutiny, uprising, revolt, whatever name historians would give it, had begun. The next four days saw hunger strikes, ominous threats from both sides, hijacking of naval vessels, capture of 22 ships around the Bombay harbour by the ratings who lowered and removed the British Ensign from each ship and shore establishment and replaced it with flags of the Congress, Muslim League and the Communist Party. So serious was the uprising that the four-inch guns fitted on these ships were pointed at the Gateway of India, the Yacht Club and the Taj Mahal Hotel, with threats to blow them up if any harm was to come to the striking ratings. The British cut water and electricity supply to the barracks, warned the strikers of dire consequences, and even threatened destruction of the Royal Indian Navy. Seven hours of gun battles ensued, along with low- level flights of bomber aircraft over the harbour and frantic calls to warships outside Bombay to crush the mutiny. To express sympathy with the ratings, and instigated and en- couraged by the call given by the Communist Party, thousands of residents of Bombay poured out onto the streets in protest, demanding justice for the young sailors. Some extreme elements Aruna Asaf Ali and looted European establishments, post offices, banks, and dam- Jawaharlal Nehru aged motor vehicles and railway stations. British Tommies and police were ordered to shoot at sight. In two days of public protests, close to 400 were killed and almost 1,500 injured. The flurry of events and movements, once the news of the mutiny broke, revealed the panic and consternation within the top brass at Gen- eral Headquarters in Delhi. By evening of the first day, February 18th, General Sir Claude Auchinleck, the commander-in-chief of the Indian Army, was informed. He relayed the news to Viceroy Lord Wavell. The aircraft carrying Flag Officer Commanding Royal Indian Navy (FOCRIN) Admiral JH Godfrey to Udaipur had barely touched down when he was met at the airport with an urgent, confidential message about the mutiny. He immediately flew to Delhi and a day later took a special flight to Bombay. With extreme trepidation, the news was conveyed to Westminster times content

28 22 february 2021 alamy wanted to rock the boat of freedom. Amidst all this, there was only one leader who displayed the gumption to stand up for what she believed in—Aruna Asaf Ali (née Ganguly), the firebrand socialist and the sole dissenter against the conspiracy of silence by the country’s prominent leaders. A leading figure in Congress, she was famously remembered for her underground activities during the Quit India movement in 1942. Most notably, for hoisting the Congress flag at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay on August 9th. A friend of Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia and other socialists, she was ideologically closer to Jawaharlal Nehru than to Sardar Patel. Married to Asaf Ali, a prominent member of the Central Legislative Assembly, for her, attaining independence took precedence over the method. A day after the QuitI ndia movement was announced by Congress, many major leaders were arrested. Aruna went underground and did not come out Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel at an AICC session in 1946 of hiding until the end of 1945. When she did, she engaged with the naval ratings and activists from the Ex-Services association and others who were involved in the planning for the ratings go- after studying the situation closely for an entire day. Panic was ing on strike. She was a friend and mentor of Kusum and PN Nair, visible everywhere. in whose Marine Drive flat meetings related to the uprising were While the root cause of the naval mutiny lay in the inhuman held and planned. She knew exactly when the strike would begin. living conditions, injustice and torture these ratings were forced In fact, it had been announced by the striking ratings that she to endure along with appalling food, the inspiration came not would address them at HMIS Talwar on the day the strike began. from India-based political leaders but the INA led by Subhas Though the reasons were never made clear, she did not show up Chandra Bose. The INA was held in great esteem, a force that in- that day. Her no-show had left the ratings hugely disappointed. spired patriotism greater than that by the Indians serving in the However, she had already made her stand clear, saying the army under the British. Gandhi himself admitted, albeit grudg- demands of the ratings were “entirely legitimate” and asked ingly: ‘The hypnotism of the INA has cast its spell upon us. Netaji’s political parties like Congress to “extend their moral support”. name is one to conjure with. His patriotism is second to none...’ Other Congress heavyweights clearly did not share her views. (‘How to Canalize Hatred’, Harijan, February 23rd, 1946). For prominent Congress leaders, it was the timing of the mutiny Gandhi publicly opposed the strike in keeping with his com- that had upset their political calculations. Several of them, like mitment to a non-violent struggle, but the developments posed Nehru, Gandhi and Patel had been focused on a smooth transfer a peculiar challenge for the three main political parties who took of power. Freedom, they believed, should not have to be wrested divergent positions in relation to the uprising. The communists, from the British by a bloody confrontation. Strong action by expectedly, were open and aggressive in their support, inciting British defence forces would inevitably delay the process. In his students, trade unions and ordinary citizens to revolt, calling book, Revisiting Talwar, Dilip Kumar Das writes: ‘The Congress on the ratings to avoid surrender. Senior Congress leaders, in leaders had been in touch with the British authorities in Delhi touch with British authorities and privy to insider information and Bombay since the beginning of the strike. While they had on British reaction, advised patience and a peaceful resolution, conveyed their disapproval of the strike, in public their stance even making leaders of the naval strike promises they were in till 21st was neutral and one of non intervention. The Governor no position to fulfil. Many were also eyeing Cabinet berths in a of Bombay was kept abreast of various steps Congress was taking post-independence government. Young socialists of the Congress, to neutralise the situation.’ impatient with the tardy pace of the freedom struggle, were ready The dilemma for most political leaders was that national to shun non-violence but lacked the political clout to override sentiment was rapidly rising in favour of the ratings who had party stalwarts. The Muslim League, meanwhile, had a single rebelled, and they realised it would not benefit them politi- agenda—to nurture their Muslim constituency and the creation cally to go against the tide. On one level, they were in solidarity of Pakistan. In this political flux, only one thing was clear: No one with the spirit of the movement. While the strike was ongoing,

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Maulana Azad, then Congress president, issued a statement evening of February 19th without commenting further on the saying: ‘India is not in a mood to tolerate any action that may even naval uprising. have the semblance of the suppression of the national spirit in Once the confrontation between the British establishment any quarters,’ while adding: ‘The unexpected RIN strike has led to and the Indian sailors intensified, Indian political leaders soft- a sequel which has assumed distressing proportion...I am in con- pedalled the issue. It was clear that Congress leaders, while tact with the authorities and I am seeking a prompt and practical condemning the violence, also did not want to be seen as being termination of the strike.’ disassociated from the movement. On February 19th, Sardar Mahatma Gandhi, by sheer coincidence, had arrived in Bom- Patel issued a statement. He had been in consultation with the bay from Wardha by the Calcutta Mail on February 18th, the day governor of Bombay, John Colville, and with Asaf Ali in Delhi the mutiny began. Sardar Patel received him. The Times of India who had been in close touch with Auchinleck. He advised the Bombay edition reported: ‘A huge gathering was present in the naval ratings to be patient and peaceful and urged citizens to compound of Rungta House where Mr Gandhi said his prayer. maintain strict discipline. The Congress, he said, was working Though Gandhiji may not have been fully apprised of the naval towards a “peaceful settlement”. disturbance that day in HMIS Talwar he did refer to recent dis- The same day, DS Vaidya, secretary of the Bombay Committee turbance and violence in Calcutta and Bombay.’ He asked the of the Communist Party, issued a leaflet which said: ‘Yesterday people not to ‘divert from the path of peace. What was the good 5,000 men in the Indian Navy went on strike. Among them are of throwing stones at the British? …Freedom can only be achieved Hindus, Muslims, Christians, men from all provinces…speak- through truth and non-violence...’ Gandhi had a packed sched- ing all languages. They all stand united…We appeal to the lead- ule on February 18th and 19th when he met many prominent ers of all political parties in Bombay to support these demands.’ local Congressmen. Sardar Patel was with him practically the Gangadhar Adhikari, too, issued a call to the citizens of Bombay, entire time he was in Bombay. The two could not have failed to students and transport and mill workers on February 21st, sup- discuss the developing disturbance. Gandhi left for Poona on the porting the uprising and a complete hartal on February 22nd. The party newspaper he edited, the People’s Age, was critical of Patel, Nehru and Gandhi in an editorial: ‘He [Patel] shed tears over Troops roll into Bombay, February 1946 those who died and condemn [sic] “hooliganism”. But he had, however, no single word to say in condemnation of the British military “hooliganism” who had fired indiscriminately and killed hundreds of innocent lives.’ The editorial added: ‘Gandhi ji said that the Hindu Muslim unity achieved in joint violence at the barricades must lead to mutual violence...in saying so he dep- recates the glorious Hindu-Muslim unity in resisting the police and the military repression…the fact is that Congress leaders are not thinking in terms of joint struggles and not even in terms of struggle.’ On Nehru, he commented: ‘To say that a slave people shall never take to arms because its guns are not as big as those of the handful of oppressors, would not be a counsel of wisdom but of cowardice.’ Sensing that the situation was heating up, Aruna travelled to Poona the next day, February 20th, and met Gandhi. It was a longish meeting lasting almost two hours. Meanwhile, Congress continued to blame the communists for fanning the flames while saying they were “urging naval authorities to redress just grievances of the naval ratings” and pressing for an early resolution of the crisis. By now, the Muslim League had made its position clear. Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, general secretary of the All-India Muslim League, had a long discussion with Auchinleck who assured him that there would be no victimisation of the Muslim men involved in the strike. The Nawabzada asked Muslims to “follow the advice of Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah and help restore normal conditions.” He went on to state: “[Mr Jinnah] has already assured the RIN men that he will do his best to see that their legitimate grievances are redressed...Quaid-e Azam has made an appeal to the Muslims in particular not to create any trouble and not to play into the hands of those who want to exploit the situation for Photos times content

30 22 february 2021 Protestors being lathicharged in Bombay, February 1946

Photos times content For the first time, the blood of men in uniform and civilians was spilled in a common cause. The death toll was the highest recorded until then, almost all restricted to Bombay

A road in Girgaum in Bombay after riots, February 22, 1946

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 31 C VER Story

their own ends.” Jinnah did not really equate the RIN uprising the beginning of the collapse of the uprising. with the struggle for freedom. On the same day, Aruna also issued a statement offering her With tension escalating, Aruna Asaf Ali sent a telegram to services as a peacemaker. In a special message to the ratings, she Nehru on February 21st. It said: ‘Naval strike, tense, situation said: “The strike of the Indian naval ratings is now four days old… serious, climaxing to close…Request your immediate presence Vice Admiral Godfrey broadcast seems to threaten further blood- in Bombay.’ The telegram angered Sardar Patel, who wrote to shed…This should remove any later pleading by the Admiral that Gandhi expressing shock that she had persuaded Nehru to come force was used as there was a danger to public peace.” On February to Bombay to meet the sailors as only he could lead them and avert 22nd, all major newspapers gave prominent coverage to an ap- the tragedy. He wrote: ‘This she [Aruna] did as she could not find peal by the Communist Party as well as the Naval Central Strike my support. Jawahar wired me asking if his presence was neces- Committee (NCSC) to carry on the struggle. In response to this, sary…I advised him not to come. Yet he is reaching here…Well! Sardar Patel issued a statement asking naval ratings to lay down Let him. But the fact that he comes here on account of Aruna’s their arms and surrender. Congress President Maulana Azad also telegram is sorrowful indeed!’ Nehru had taken the first train to pressed for calling off the strike. However, in an interview to a Bombay but was persuaded by Patel not to meet the striking rat- newspaper after the surrender, he admitted: “It is quite obvious ings. He returned to Allahabad the same day. This possibly started from the facts we have been reported that Indian ratings of the RIN went on strike as the result of what they considered was gra- tuitous insult to national self-respect.” The political divide over the naval ratings’ In a press conference called on February 22nd, Aruna Asaf Ali said: “Only the unconditional withdrawal of military patrols and uprising was proving advantageous to the immediate lifting of bans on civil liberties fulfil the formality of surrender and bring normal conditions in the city of Bombay.” the British. For them, there was Referring to the seven-hour gun battle at Castle Barracks, she added: “It was a welcome sign that Indian people had plucked little difference between the non-violent up enough courage to face bullets from machine guns...there was a time when our people shuddered at lathi blows but those days Gandhian approach and the movement were of the past.” Later that day, members of the strike committee, led by MS to create a mutiny Khan, met Sardar Patel who asked them to surrender uncondi- tionally. It was widely believed that the British authorities had assured Patel that if he persuaded the ratings to surrender uncon- ditionally, he could assure them that there would be no victimisa- General Sir Claude tion. When Khan asked him to give this in writing, Patel lost his Auchinleck(left) temper. Dilip Kumar Das writes in Revisiting Talwar: ‘The worthy and General Sir Sardar flew into rage and thumping the table said “when you Archibald Wavell in September 1941 don’t trust my words, how can you trust my writing...I assure you on behalf of Congress that not a single one of you will be victim- ized”.’ Finally, on February 23rd, Khan, head of the NCSC, made the announcement: ‘In the present unfortunate circumstances… the advice of the Congress to the RIN Ratings is to lay down arms... After discussion withS adar Patel who had assured them that Con- gress would see that there was absolutely no victimization and confident that the Congress and Muslim League would stand by their word, they surrendered “to the people of India”.’ In a press release aimed at their countrymen, the NCSC said: ‘...Our strike has been a historic event in the life of our nation. For the first time the blood of men in the services and in the streets flowed together in a common cause.’ The statement ended with ‘Long Live Our Great People. Jai Hind’. It was an anticlimactic end to the first serious armed threat to British rule, but was also a ‘mutiny of the innocent’ as termed by BC Dutt, the prime mover of the uprising. The political divisions were still evident, with Aruna Asaf Ali publicly disagreeing with Gandhi, saying she was unable to understand him calling upon the ratings to resign if their condition was humiliating: “If they did that, they will have to give up

32 22 february 2021 I W M Courtesy

Trainee engineers at HMIS Talwar in 1941

The first sign of the impending uprising came, appropriately enough, at the HMIS Talwar, a signal school for naval ratings in Colaba. A strategically important naval establishment, Talwar became the platform for the launch of the mutiny their only means of livelihood. Moreover, they were fighting for civilians, he issued an appeal to stop the “thoughtless orgy of vio- principles...it simply does not lie in the mouth of Congressmen lence”, adding: “Let it not be said that India of the Congress spoke who were themselves going to the legislatures to ask the ratings to the world of winning Swaraj through non-violent actions and to give up their jobs...Gandhi ji further says that the rulers have belied her word in action and that too at the critical period of her declared their intention to quit in favour of Indian rule. This state- life.” He added: “I have followed the events now with painful inter- ment is not borne out of facts. The way of renunciation is the way est...in as much as a single person is compelled to shout “Jai Hind” of the sanyasi and not of the Bren gun and the bullet. I do not think or any popular slogan; a nail is driven into the coffin of Swaraj therefore that Gandhi ji is justified in his belief. The people are no in terms of the millions of India…Looting and burning of tram more interested in ethics of violence and non-violence. They just cars, insulting and injuring Europeans is not non-violence of the want to resist repression. They are no more cowards...they have Congress type much less mine...what I see happening now is not adopted a certain amount of recklessness in their resistance. They thoughtful. Why should they [naval ratings on strike] continue are dying but do not complain...” to serve if service is humiliating for them or India?” For his part, it was clear that the country’s tallest leader, In reference to the ratings, Gandhi said, “In resorting to mutiny Mahatma Gandhi, would not compromise on his crusade of they were badly advised. If it was for grievances, fancied or real, non-violence. On February 23rd, after getting news of firing by they should have waited for the guidance and intervention of British troops in Bombay and the resultant killings of almost 400 political leaders of their choice...if they mutinied for freedom of

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 33 C VER Story

India, they were doubly wrong…They were thoughtless and igno- would rather unite Hindus and Muslims at the barricade than rant if they believed that by their might they would deliver India on the constitutional front…Fighters do not always live at the from foreign domination.” On February 26th, he issued another barricades. They are too wise to commit suicide. The barricade life statement advising that India should bank upon the arrival of has always to be followed by the constitutional. I appeal to Aruna the Cabinet Mission in March. “Nothing will be lost by waiting... and her friends to make wise use of the power their bravery and it betrays want of foresight to disbelieve British declaration and sacrifice has given them.” precipitate a quarrel...is the official deputation coming to deceive The day after the surrender, onF ebruary 24th, Aruna felt the a great Nation? It is neither manly nor womanly to think so.” need to clear the air about her involvement and disagreement Gandhi’s views also brought into the public gaze his differ- with other Congress stalwarts. She issued a public statement ences with Aruna Asaf Ali when he said: “People were very much which said: “There has been considerable speculation about my interested in knowing the way which would give freedom to the part in origin of RIN strike...On 17 February ratings of the RIN masses. Aruna and her comrades have to ask themselves whether apprised me of the tension in the navy and their grievances… the non-violent way had or had not raised India from her slum- They called upon me to intervene on their behalf and to address ber of ages and created in them a yearning...I congratulate her on a meeting... I also gave an account to Sardar Patel. The situation her courageous refutation of my statement on the happening in was very grave as the navy held out a threat of bombardment Bombay. Except for the fact that she represents not only herself within twelve hours. I was therefore compelled to wire Pandit but also a large number of underground workers, I would not Nehru to come and save the situation.” have noticed her refutation, if only because she is a daughter By this time, the political divide that had been created over the of mine—not less so because not born to me or because she is a naval ratings’ uprising was proving advantageous to the British rebel...I admired her bravery, her resourcefulness and burning in terms of their crackdown on the strike and its leaders. Com- love for the country. But my admiration stopped there…Aruna mander-in-Chief Auchinleck issued a statement where he spoke

While the root cause of the mutiny lay in the inhuman living conditions, injustice and torture, the inspiration came not from India- based political leaders but the INA led by Subhas Chandra Bose. The INA was held in great esteem, a force that inspired patriotism greater than that by Indians serving in the army under the British

34 22 february 2021 out against politics in the armed forces, clearly referring to the uprising: “It mat- It was an anticlimactic end to ters not what form collective disobedi- ence takes—whether negative—such the first serious armed threat as refusal to work or refusal to eat—or positive such as demonstrations, mark to British rule, but was also an act of violence. The milder forms of insubordination are infectious and can a ‘mutiny of the innocent’ as easily lead to violence.” For the British there was little difference between the termed by BC Dutt, the prime non-violent Gandhian approach and the movement to create a mutiny of sorts. mover of the uprising

hatever the method and motive of politi- went red in the face and retorted, “Thank you for teaching me my cal reaction to the naval strike, in terms of public job.”’ They had to quickly change the discussion to the origins of opinion and sympathy, the communists had scored the mutiny. over the Muslim League and Congress. Realising Nehru would expand on his views during the public meeting W this, Congress gave a call for a public meeting on at Chowpatty, which was presided over by Patel. The subject of February 26th at 6PM on the sands of Chowpatty beach. Nehru the public meeting was to be ‘The Tragedy from which the City had cancelled his election tour of Bihar and the United Provinces has just emerged.’ A mammoth rally of over two lakh people, and arrived in Bombay on February 25th. A huge crowd was wait- Patel started the proceedings by taking a swipe at the communists ing for him at the Victoria Terminus. Instead, on the advice of and asking the gathering not to be misled by “those who attempt Sardar Patel, who had sent a special messenger to meet him en to exploit the anti-imperialist feelings and political awakening of route, he alighted at Byculla station. Authoritative accounts of the the masses and direct them into wrong channels. I ask the people time say that Patel spoke in strong words to Nehru and advised of India not to listen to those who calling themselves Congress- him against the folly of helping the rioters. Nehru persuaded him- men are determined to create anarchy and disorder...if you think self to be converted to Patel’s point of view. According to Kanji the Congress leadership is wrong it is up to you to replace the Dwarkadas, in his book Ten Years of Freedom, ‘From Byculla he [Ne- Congress leadership.” He condemned the steps taken by the rat- hru] drove straight to Sardar Patel’s residence in Marine Drive… ings calling it “nothing but hooliganism”. He reiterated, “Ship of He was briefed on the tense situation in Bombay by Sardar. Before freedom was coming close to the shore of India, people should addressing the public meeting, Pandit Nehru met members of not go out and sink it.” the media. At the press conference, he admitted that there was Nehru was more forthcoming when he declared at the meet- great sympathy for the naval ratings in the city but condemned ing: “If politics meant the love of freedom, I am 100 per cent the violence instigated by Communists. Referring to exchange of with politics in the army. Our armed forces have every right gunfire in Castle Barracks, he said a great deal of excitement had to revolt against the foreign ruler...The conflict that has been been caused by the firing of guns which made people think that going on is to find a way out to serve their country in a fitting a pitched battle was being fought in Bombay Harbour. “When manner rather than remain as mere tools of a foreign govern- there is excitement it is very easy to put spark to that excitement.”’ ment to repress their own countrymen or work as an army of He also had meetings with groups of naval ratings (who had re- occupation for India. They are lost between their duty to their belled), naval officers and politicians. One such delegation, as country and their soldierly discipline…So far the armed forces mentioned in Admiral Satyindra Singh’s book Under Two Ensigns, have been freely used as instruments of repression by our for- met Pandit Nehru at his sister Krishna Hutheesing’s residence. eign rulers...The present RIN strike was one of a series of dem- The group consisted of Commander SG Karmakar (later Rear onstrations of vehement protest against the humiliation and Admiral) who had taken over as commanding officer of Talwar discrimination between the whites and Indians.” He concluded: the evening before the mutiny, his businessman friend Venkatrao “The “Janata” and the soldier have come together and realised Ogale, politicians Rao Saheb Patwardhan and his brother Janar- that they both have one common aim—the freeing of their dan Patwardhan, Appa Pant and Lieutenant SN Kohli (later chief county from foreign yoke.” He also publicly admitted that Sardar of the independent Indian Navy). In the book, Kohli is quoted as Patel and Maulana Azad had given a guarantee that there would saying: ‘When we went in, Panditji said: “What can I do for you?” not be any victimisation. He said neither Patel nor Maulana Azad I was taken aback because I thought he had sent for us... I piped was now in a position to keep that guarantee in the present state up: “At no point has the Congress given the Armed forces clear of slavery. This was the first admission of Congress going back guidelines or a clear directive how to conduct themselves in the on its word barely five days after the ratings had been persuaded present politically disturbed condition of the country.’’ Panditji to surrender by giving those exact guarantees.

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 35 C VER Story

we want to go.” I can then only say that you have lingered so long A statue at the memorial to the naval mutiny in Colaba that you are bringing our edifice down in ruins...I make an appeal to you to go while there is still an army, a navy and an air force in this country intact. And sooner you go the better for this country… If these boys indulged in unwise actions, Vice Admiral Godfrey also indulged in action that smack of extreme irresponsibility...I hope sir, now that the lesson has been learnt, it will result in the redress of the legitimate grievances of these men and a recognition of their patriotism and of the self respect that they have preserved for this country.” Equally intense debates had taken place in the British parliament, but with both Conservatives and ruling La- bour on the same side, a rare sight generally visible in times of war. As for the ratings, they were trapped between two sets of rulers, each with their own ambitions. One gradually preparing to leave India and to do so in a peaceful manner without the blot of a mutiny to stain their departure, and the other sensing imminent power and anxious to avoid any signs of lack of discipline in the armed forces they would preside over. What hurt the ratings most was the sense of abandonment by the political leaders, including Gandhi. As one rating put it: ‘We were trained for combat with guns. It was not possible for us to fight through a charkha.’ They felt deeply disappointed and betrayed: ‘Despite all the assurances of Sardar Patel and Pandit Nehru we were subjected to all sorts of atrocities…We suffered quietly in the hope...But our hopes have been belied, our faith shattered…Our only fault was that we loved our motherland and exhibited to the rest of the country that we too were with them in their struggle for freedom. If patriotism The ratings were trapped between two is a crime, we surely are guilty.’ Biswanath Bose, in his book RIN Mutiny: 1946, revealed that he wrote a letter to Nehru, then prime sets of rulers, each with their own minister, which said: ‘My name was included as a leader and I was sub- ambitions. One gradually preparing to sequently punished with dismissal and imprisonment…Since my re- leave India and the other anxious to lease I have been trying to contact you unsuccessfully for reappoint- avoid any signs of lack of discipline in ment in the Naval services…If there is any law for those who have been the armed forces they would preside over dismissed for taking part in the free- Pramod Kapoor is dom movement of the country that a publisher and they cannot enter into their respec- the author of Gandhi: In Delhi, political leaders led by Asaf Ali and Sarat Chandra tive services then I must ask you to An Illustrated Bose, called for a special sitting of the Central Assembly. During explain why yourself being a leader Biography. This the debate, Minoo Masani of Congress, declared: “The grievances of Congress, a political party, should article draws on which have been simmering for a long time have now blown up have the post of a Prime Minister!’ his forthcoming book 1946: Naval as a result of the offensive behaviour of Commander King and The tragic epilogue to the Uprising that arrest of two of the naval ratings comrades…Our conception of mutiny of 1946 was that the rat- Shook the Empire discipline is different because the contrast is between Indian and ings who had participated in (Roli Books) British conceptions. That is because we do not accept the moral the revolt would be sent home

Pramod KaP oor basis of your authority [pointing to War Secretary Philip Mason]. with a third-class one-way ticket •1946• Naval UPrisiNg Your law is not law to us because it has not got the sanction of the and their salary dues docked for ThaT Shook The e mpire people of this country behind it; and when your military or civil even the slightest damage to their law is broken, every one of us instinctively reacts with sympathy uniforms or kit. They were sent for the rebel. In other words, real cause of this mutiny is the exis- home with the warning: Do not tence of British rule in this country...Sir, my friend will say: “Oh, enter Bombay again. n ROLI BOOKS

36 22 february 2021 open media network Dispatch

Opening the floodgates Yet another disaster in geologically fragile Uttarakhand pits livelihoods against ecology By Nikita Doval

t seemed like mist but when Shankar Singh came closer you could see the trees and the boulders. It didn’t Rana squinted and peered into the distance, seem likely that we would survive,” he tells Open. It lasted for a he realised that it was moving too rapidly. few seconds but Rana was very afraid that this was just the be- I More puzzlingly, it was a bright sunny day. ginning. “We were untouched by the 2013 floods but I knew the The roaring reached his ears a mere split scope for damage downstream was immense.” On the morning second after his survival instinct kicked of February 7th, a few different factors, such as heavy snowfall a in and the 42-year-old sarpanch of Raini village in Uttarakhand few days ago, a rock fall on a glacier and subsequent warm days, had taken to his heels. “We all ran towards the forest, as the flood led to a flash flood in the Chamoli district of the hill state that at

38 22 february 2021 The barrage in Tapovan after a portion of the Nanda Devi glacier broke off, February 9

Photo ap the last count has left 32 dead, 174 missing and led to the destruc- even for them the image of the Kedarnath temple standing tall tion of the Rishiganga power project and damage at the Tapovan while everything around it was either drowned in a sea of debris power plant. Of the 174 missing, 34 are believed to be stuck in the or flattened completely remains an evocative one. Nearly 6,000 1.6-km-long tunnel at the Tapovan-Vishnugad hydel project. At a people died and several thousand are still missing, not to men- first glance, Rana’s fears were not unfounded. It could well have tion the livestock, including horses, washed away in the disaster been a disaster on the scale of 2013. that took place at the peak of the tourism season. The Indian Air There are those for whom the 2013 flashfloods of Uttarakhand Force (IAF), which worked tirelessly to evacuate the thousands are a vague footnote in the history of India’s natural disasters but who were stranded, lost a chopper in which 20 people (five from

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 39 Dispatch

IAF, six from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and nine from the down at a very high speed,” explained Kalachand Sain, director of National Disaster Response Force) lost their lives. Due to incessant Dehradun’s Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology. A team from rainfall in June 2013, the Chorbari lake, a glacial lake at the snout the institute left a day after the floods to ascertain their cause and of the Chorbari glacier, saw its water level increase by almost its report is awaited. Initial reports claimed that the February 7th 7 metres. A subsequent avalanche (common at that height) led to flood was caused by a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF). How- the dam bursting with the entire lake emptying out in a matter of ever, in spite of the fact that glacial lakes, formed when glaciers minutes. The flood which resulted is one of the greatest natural retreat due to rising temperatures, are increasing in Uttarakhand, calamities but its impact was exacerbated by human activities. there aren’t too many instances of GLOF. Scientists have said inci- Much like what happened on February 7th. dents like these are common in the higher ranges. When the ice “We believe a rockfall occurred on accumulated snowfall de- or snow melts, it carries debris which can include boulders and posited on the glacier. All of this happened in a steep slope region rocks with it downstream. In remote areas, these do not cause which led to an avalanche. As the weather turned warmer, the much damage but the fury of nature becomes calamitous when snow-rock mix thawed and this mix of debris and boulder came it comes in contact with human carelessness.

Hydroelectric projects are ‘green’ only to the extent they avoid fossil fuels. A 2020 study investigated the impact of hydropower projects in Himachal Pradesh and found that construction work for the projects ended up modifying land use, damaging forest biodiversity and destabilising Himalayan ecosystems

Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel rescuing power plant workers trapped inside a tunnel in Tapovan, February 9

40 22 february 2021 Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Rawat visitS the damaged Tapovan hydroelectric project, February 8 pti ap only to the extent they avoid fossil fuels. A 2020 study investigated Ever since the formation of Uttarakhand more than two Hydroelectric projects are ‘green’ decades ago, hydropower has been touted as one of the biggest the impact of hydropower projects in Himachal Pradesh and found that construction work for the projects sources of revenue for the state. At the time of the 2013 floods, ended up modifying land use, damaging forest biodiversity and destabilising Himalayan ecosystems nearly 70 hydroelectric power projects were envisaged, mostly high up in the mountain regions. A committee headed by Ravi Chopra, director of People’s Science Institute in Dehradun, had unequivocally stated after the 2013 floods that hydropower projects should not be built in the valleys of Uttarakhand. This has as much to do with the fragile ecological geology of the state as with current hydropower projects, such as Rishiganga and Tapo- van. Electricity is generated in these projects by diverting rivers to pass through tunnels and turbines. Hydroelectric projects are ‘green’ only to the extent they avoid fossil fuels. A 2020 study in the journal Land Use Policy investigated the impact of hydropower projects in Himachal Pradesh and found that construction work for the projects ended up modifying land use, damaging forest biodiversity and destabilising Himalayan ecosystems. “There is a huge amount of deforestation involved when these projects are set up which leads to the top soil becoming loose. This leads to the slope becoming unstable and contributes to increase in landslides,” says activist Mallika Bhanot. One of the bigger concerns is that of muck disposal. The sites designated cannot handle the volume of muck and silt generated by hydropower projects. Quite a few projects simply dump these into the river. “This leads to the riverbed volume rising. If there is an avalanche in the upper reaches or a cloudburst or heavy rains during monsoons, this excessive water is coming on to an already raised riverbed,” says Bhanot. During the 2013 floods, large parts of Srinagar, a town in Pauri Garhwal, were submerged and the 2013 committee report cites those affected in Srinagar as saying that the improper disposal of muck generated by the hydroelectric project was largely responsible for raising the riverbed and flooding the lower reaches of the town. The Rishiganga project has also been afflicted by the issue of muck disposal. The 2013 report pulled no punches when it came to highlighting how the dams exacerbated the damage of what was already a deadly flood to begin with. When floodwaters break a barrage in a dam, the destructive potential of the water flowing downstream increases. For example, in 2013, Khiro Ganga, a small stream which meets the Alaknanda 1 km

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 41 Dispatch

The damaged Dhauliganga hydropower project in Raini village in Chamoli district,February 7

ap upstream of the Vishnu Prayag hydroelectric project, brought of view. For instance, it is due for a big earthquake. We can map down a lot of debris which led to the destruction of the highway. the strain but we can’t pinpoint the exact location where it will be More rocks and boulders were added to the roiling water which released. Then there is the issue of relief vis-à-vis the mountains. finally smashed the power project. The valleys are narrow, the slopes are unstable and heavy rainfalls The 2013 Chopra committee had in its report recommended leads to landslides. And now with global warming, we have the the scrapping of at least 24 hydropower projects. There have been threat of glacial lakes increasing in size,” says Wadia Institute’s efforts made over the years to revive at least six of these with even Sain, explaining why Uttarakhand remains particularly vulner- committees being formed that have sought to figure out a middle able to natural calamities. The Himalayas are a young mountain path. Now the calamity of February 7th might put an end to those range which continues to grow. efforts. But for the 2013 report, those six projects would be opera- Adding to all of this is the pressure posed by religious tourism. tional in the valley where the 2021 floods took place and increased As home to some of Hinduism’s most venerated shrines as well the scale of devastation manifold. The villagers of Raini had filed as the origin point of the Ganga, Uttarakhand has long relied on a public interest litigation against the Rishiganga project in 2019 religious tourism for economic growth. This has led to rampant on environmental grounds following which the Uttarakhand illegal construction on not just riversides through the state but High Court had asked the state government to form a team to even on riverbeds. In 2013, three-four storied ‘hotels’ were seen look into the concerns of the villagers and ordered a stay on blast- crumbling like a pack of cards into a rapidly swelling river across ing in the project area. “Hydropower projects don’t directly cause cities such as Rudraprayag and Haridwar. The state is now seeing the damage but they do compound the problem. In 2013 we did the construction of one of its most ambitious infrastructure proj- see larger dams act as a cushion causing the water to lose its ve- ects, the Char Dham project, which has come under criticism for locity and sediment density but we have to marry ecology and its alleged environmental cost on the state. research. As scientists we feel like failures when such incidents Unregulated construction which leads to the stripping of for- occur because while they are naturally occurring, they needn’t ests, thereby directly contributing to the destabilising of slopes, have been calamitous,” says geologist Pradeep Srivastava. Most remains an ongoing concern. The threat of climate change now hydropower projects in Uttarakhand are also planned at very only makes the problem worse. More and more scientists are short distances from each other which means that the river is speaking up about the need for a centre for glaciology as lakes in- flowing from one regulated channel to another, leaving it very crease in size. Glacial lakes are a concern not just in Uttarakhand little space to regenerate and revive. but across the Himalayan region. “Locals are often caught between the carrot of employment and “We don’t know how much of an impact environmental im- the stick of environmental degradation. We had reached a stage pact assesment reports have before a project is given the green- with this project where we were far more concerned with what light. Even today we haven’t learnt lessons from 2013. Why aren’t was happening around us, to the valley than about daily wages. snowfall levels monitored extensively? Hard decisions need to We were lucky that we weren’t impacted at all by what happened be taken if lives have to be saved,” says activist and water expert in 2013 but in the mountains you learn to be very fearful of nature. Himanshu Thakkar. Today bridges have been washed away which have left villages in “We are refusing to learn the lessons that nature is teaching the higher reaches completely cut off,” says Raini sarpanch Rana. us. The fact is that there is a very powerful lobby of players and The proliferation of hydroelectric power projects alone basically the lessons we learnt from 2013 are all gone. The only wouldn’t have been the cause of much concern if it wasn’t for the solution we have as of now is that unless there is personal ac- additional factors of the state’s fragile geology and the influx of countability of both the sanctioning and executive officer [for tourists. According to a 2016 report submitted by then Minister of the projects], this will keep happening,” Chopra says. n State for Science and Technology & Earth Sciences YS Chowdary, Uttarakhand has the highest number of unstable zones among Also read ‘An Age Gone Blind’ by Aseem Shrivastava at north Himalayan states. “The state is vulnerable from many points Openthemagazine.com

42 22 february 2021 While Inside Look Outside For FREE With access visit www.openthemagazine.com The Arterial Time Bomb Are the 30s and 40s the new 60s for heart disease in India?

By Rahul Pandita and Lhendup G Bhutia

44 Illustration by Saurabh Singh 22 february 2021 Health

n January, after come so close to death, the patient re- a patient below 30 came complaining Indian cricket star Sourav turned home. of chest pain, doctors would never con- Ganguly suffered a heart Cardiologists across India say they sider an electrocardiogram (ECG) test attack and had to undergo are increasingly encountering cases of which can detect heart abnormalities. a procedure to remove younger people with coronary heart dis- “But now your body may be that of a blockage in coronary arter- ease. “Forget 50s and 40s, I have done so 25-year-old, but your heart looks much ies, two runners in their many procedures on young people who older,” he says. late 40s, like Ganguly, met are in their 30s, sometimes even late “One of the big factors is stress. We at a café in Gurugram city. 20s. The list is endless,” says Dr Surinder get lots of people in their 30s getting “I cannot believe that some- Bazaz, senior director of cardiac surgery heart disease because this is the time one as fit as Ganguly has at Gurugram’s Medanta Hospital. when many people are trying to estab- had not one but three block- According to the Indian Heart Asso- lish themselves in their professions and ages in his heart,” said one. ciation (IHA), India accounts for nearly businesses. And the stress levels because His friend nodded gravely 60 per cent of the world’s heart disease of the cutthroat competition in these and said that he wondered burden. In India, it is now striking peo- industries are insane. No wonder we get if they should go for a check-up. ple at a younger age—almost 33 per cent patients in the age group of 30s and 40s,” A week later, the man had been put earlier, according to IHA statistics—than says Dr Kunwar. on statins (cholesterol-lowering drugs), other demographics. Fifty per cent of Experts point out that the rapid socio- Ias a CT angiogram (an imaging test that heart attacks in Indian men occur under economic change India has gone through looks at the arteries supplying blood to 50 years of age, while 25 per cent occur to over the last few decades has played a the heart) had detected calcification in those under 40. significant role. “We suddenly began to his arteries; it could have become severe “If I am seeing a patient in his 40s, I consume more calories and refined food over time, increasing the danger of a know his disease is going to be severe,” that has a lot of carbohydrates,” says heart attack like Ganguly suffered. But a says Dr Bazaz. “The younger the person, Dr Sujay Shad, senior cardiac surgeon at timely check-up helped a cardiologist put the more problematic his disease is.” Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. Since him on medication, significantly reduc- ing his risk. The runner was lucky. In Mumbai, around the same time, a 42-year-old man India accounts for nearly 60 per cent of had been playing cricket with some close friends and relatives when he suddenly the world’s heart disease burden. it is developed an intense pain in his chest. He now striking people at a younger age. Fifty collapsed in the car on his way to the hospital. By the time he reached the emer- per cent of heart attacks in Indian men gency ward, the doctors attending on occur under 50 years of age, while 25 per him found no sign of life in him, though only eight minutes had passed since he cent occur to those under 40 had complained about discomfort in his chest. “He had been practically dead for about two or three minutes,” recalls Dr Praveen Kulkarni, a senior cardi- There is a string of factors responsible carbs do not satiate us like the unrefined ologist who works at the city’s Global for the heart disease epidemic among food older generations used to eat, we are Hospital. Indians. As more and more people be- always foraging for food. “The problem The patient had suffered a massive come affluent, their lifestyle has under- is sugar content. Every time the body heart attack. After about 20 minutes of gone a change. This essentially means senses sugar, it sends insulin to control CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), they are eating more food, becoming it. The sugar comes down, but the insulin the rhythm in his heart returned. An sedentary, and they lead more stressful results in the inflammation of the body, angioplasty was done soon after. In the lives. Coupled with increasing levels of including the arteries, precipitating the next few days, the man began to recover. pollution in Indian cities, it becomes a heart disease” says Dr Shad. By the fourth day, he was off the venti- recipe for disaster. “We are also the diabetes capital of the lator. Fortuitously, he had also suffered Dr Brajesh Kunwar, the director of world. And with diabetes, one can often no brain injury (which can occur when interventional cardiology in Mumbai’s end up with heart disease, not to forget the heart stops pumping blood into the Fortis Hiranandani Hospital recalls hypertension,” says Dr Kulkarni. He brain). And just last week, after having how, till about a decade or more ago, if points to studies that say one in three

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 45 Health

adults in urban India has hypertension This age bracket of people in their mid- and many of them never end up monitor- 30s and early 40s now commonly get “One of the big ing their blood pressure and glucose levels, wheeled into hospitals in Indian cities factors is stress. We leading to heart disease. “If left undetected, with a cardiac issue. get lots of people in this then results in a heart attack,” he says. “After a bit of digging, I found that there their 30s with heart In September last year, when Mum- was some (high) cholesterol issue (in the bai’s municipal body (the Brihanmum- patient). He’d also been recently diagnosed disease because bai Municipal Corporation) released its with hypertension and advised medicines this is when they are figures for the number of deaths that had which he had not been taking regularly,” trying to establish occurred in the city between March 1st says Dr Kulkarni about the man he saved. themselves. The and July 31st, it surprised many. A total “So while he looked healthy, these small of 49,040 people had died as opposed to telltale signs were there.” stress levels are 35,982 for the same period in the preced- Another such patient Dr Kulkarni insane” ing year. Covid-19 had spread rapidly treated in the past was Saurabh Ma- Dr Brajesh Kunwar through this period, virtually bringing phuskar, a 21-year-old college student. A director of interventional the city’s healthcare system to its knees. resident of the central Mumbai suburb of cardiology, Fortis Hiranandani But over 13,000 more people had died Parel, he came to the hospital complain- Hospital, Mumbai in this period in 2020, of which Covid ing of breathlessness, only to learn that accounted for only 6,395 deaths. Also, three of his arteries were blocked. this significant increase in number was Had there been a blockage in just one despite the fact that because of the lock- or even two of his arteries, perhaps an down, deaths occurring from road acci- angioplasty procedure would have suf- dents and communicable diseases had ficed. But with blockages in three ma- been negligible. jor blood vessels of the heart, or what is known as critical triple vessel disease, the doctors had no option but to cut him octors believe that a ma- open for a CABG (coronary artery bypass jority of these deaths occurred be- grafting) procedure. cause people chose to stay away The doctors found that there was a from hospitals. Of these, they say, history of high cholesterol in the family. a large chunk would have been of Although this factor probably played a Dpeople dying from heart disease. big role in Maphuskar’s poor heart con- In Mumbai, the 42-year-old man who dition, what had exacerbated the issue almost died while playing cricket could was his incredibly poor lifestyle. “He not believe that he had such a crisis. How was someone who consumed a lot of had a man in his early 40s, who appeared junk food. It was just so shocking to see fit and led an active lifestyle, even playing someone so young with such an issue,” sports like cricket regularly, developed a says Dr Kulkarni. severe heart condition that led to such a But on some occasions, there are no massive heart attack? explanatory reasons. Dr Kulkarni talks Doctors however aren’t surprised. of patients who have no family history “We are also the diabetes capital of the world. And with Many who take statins complain about diabetes, one can side-effects, such as muscle pain. But a often end up with heart study by Imperial College London suggests disease, not to forget hypertension. If left that most symptoms could be due to ‘nocebo undetected, this results effect’—where people get symptoms in a heart attack” because they expect negative side-effects Dr Praveen Kulkarni senior cardiologist, Global Hospital, Mumbai 46 of heart disease leading perfectly healthy him are of people below 40. “We must keep “We must keep lives and are physically active, and yet get a lookout for cholesterol, obesity, sugar a lookout for heart attacks. “One female patient of mine levels, blood pressure, especially among cholesterol, obesity, is just 31 years old. She takes care of her those who have a family history,” he says. sugar levels, health, is lean and fit. And yet she got a Doctors like Krishnamurthy are now heart attack. Perhaps someday, down the recommending that campaigns against blood pressure, line, science will progress enough for us to fast food and smoking be run from school especially among learn of some element that might explain days itself. “We have to change the way those who all this,” he says. our children look at things like chocolate Towards the end of last year, Mohit or ice-cream as reward,” says Dr Shad. have a family (name changed upon request), a 27-year- “The brain senses the reward and wants history” old IT professional based in Navi Mum- to constantly binge on it.” bai, began to feel some discomfort in his Dr Deepak chest. Having had consumed a meal or- Krishnamurthy interventional cardiologist, Sakra dered from a restaurant earlier in the day, hat about prevention? World Hospital, Bengaluru Mohit put the discomfort down to a mild Doctors recommend that we form of acidity. By the next morning, he lead an active lifestyle, take was suffering from breathlessness and up exercise encourage chil- had to be rushed to the hospital. dren to engage in physical The young man hadn’t had a mild Wactivity as well. “Do not take things like acid attack the night before. He had got high cholesterol and borderline diabetes a heart attack. and hypertension lightly,” says Dr Krish- The reasons were the same. A sed- namurthy. Particular care must be taken entary lifestyle made worse with the by people who have a combination of fac- demands of a stressful job. “The work tors like diabetes, obesity, hypertension, a from home scenario had made it only history of smoking and a family history more difficult for him,” says Dr Kunwar of heart disease. For those in the high-risk who performed an angioplasty for Mohit. category, doctors recommend keeping a “He would be in his chair all day, hardly watch on these things and go for detec- moving about, even in the house. In the tion tests like CT angiogram. office set-up, at least you walk around a There has been quite a debate on the bit to chat with your colleagues, or have use of statins as well. Many have accused to move a bit to commute to work.” the health industry of pushing these for In the two months since his discharge, profit. “They are not for everyone. But Mohit has tried to change his lifestyle. He if your risk is high, because of a combi- exercises regularly, has cut out poor food nation of factors, the doctor will most habits and even stopped smoking. likely recommend them,” says Dr Shad. “When he first came to the hospital, Many who take statins complain about I was quite shocked since he was only in the side-effects, such as muscle pain. But his 20s,” Dr Kunwar says. “But then on Dr Shad points to a recent study by Impe- second thought, maybe not.” rial College London which suggests that In Kashmir, doctors recently ex- most symptoms from taking statins could “Statins are not for pressed concern over the sharply rising be due to ‘nocebo effect’—where people everyone. But if cases of heart attacks among relatively get symptoms because they expect to ex- your risk is high, younger people. “It demands immedi- perience negative side-effects. “I know of because of a ate attention so that many lives at risk four doctors who were unable to tolerate can be saved by timely awareness pro- statins earlier, but can take them very well combination of grammes, preventive and diagnostic in- after they got stents in angioplasty proce- factors, the terventions,” noted a spokesperson for dure to open up their arteries,” he says. doctor will most the Doctor’s Association. But a better option is to avoid all risk likely recommend Dr Deepak Krishnamurthy, a senior factors. “You cannot do anything about interventional cardiologist at Bengalaru’s genetics. But it would be foolish if you them” Sakra World Hospital, says at least 25-30 have a family history and you also choose Dr Sujay Shad per cent of heart attack cases coming to to smoke,” says Dr Bazaz. n senior cardiac surgeon, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Delhi www.openthemagazine.com 47 Heritage A Temple Lost and Found The discovery last month of a set of ancient ruins in Bhubaneswar and the damage done to it raise questions about how development work is undertaken around heritage sites By Amita Shah

n the last week of Janu- underground will things become clear ary, an Archaeological Survey regarding the time and shape of the struc- of India (ASI) team studied tures, parts of which are missing. some stone structures—stones By the time the ASI stepped in, several interlocked with stones, carv- structures had already been destroyed, ings and mouldings—buried sparking off a furore over the way the 10I feet below the earth in the old city of demolition was conducted by the Bhu- Bhubaneswar. The first thing that came baneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) to their mind was that these could be the and the Odisha Bridge Construction Cor- remains of an ancient temple, partly de- poration (OBCC) in the periphery of pro- stroyed. It was just the tip of the iceberg. tected monuments. Under the Ancient The Bhubaneswar circle of the ASI Monuments and Archaeological Sites and immediately stirred into action and got Remains (AMASR) Act, 2010, the prohib- the digging work for the Naveen Patnaik ited area comprises up to 100 metres in all government’s Ekamra Plan to develop directions from a protected monument the area around the 11th century Lingaraj while a regulated area comprises up to 200 temple, a protected area, stopped. As the metres around such monuments. The is- ASI, which is responsible for preservation sue has created ripples in Delhi, where of old monuments delved further, it found Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, a signs of more temples in the heritage site. BJP leader from Odisha, sought Central in- About 10 days after it stumbled upon the tervention to look into the matter and “act first temple, it found the shape of a yoni quickly in order to salvage and preserve pith, the base on which the linga yoni sits. what remains of this priceless ancient Od- It is, however, yet to find the Shiva linga, the ishan architecture.” Though Pradhan, in masculine counterpart of the yoni, one of his letter to Culture and Tourism Minister the oldest spiritual icons connoting the fe- Prahlad Singh Patel, has not directly taken male sexual organ or womb. The findings, on the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government near Sari Deul temple, where the presid- in the state, the issue has cast a shadow on ing deity is Parvati, indicate the centre or five-time Chief MinisterN aveen Patnaik’s sanctum sanctorum of a Shiva temple. The temple town development plans. Sari temple is believed to have been built In December 2019, Patnaik announced during the Eastern Ganga dynasty period, the Ekamra Kshetra heritage project which reigned in Kalinga from the 5th to to beautify the area, in a bid to get Bhu- An excavation the early 15th century and defended their baneswar on the list of UNESCO’s World near Suka Sari kingdom from the attacks of Muslim rul- Heritage Sites. temple complex, ers. According to an ASI official involved in The architectural and historical heri- January 28 the excavation, only when they go deeper tage of Ekamra Kshetra, the old temple

48 22 February 2021 A Temple Lost and Found

22 February 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 49 Heritage

town of Bhubaneswar, covers nearly 2,000 tised the sentiments of Odia people. I am tage (INTACH), a charitable organisation years from the 3rd century BCE to the 15th grateful to Prahlad Patelji for sending which has been in the forefront of protests century CE. an ASI expert team to Bhubaneswar to against destruction of heritage structures Several Hindu temples and complexes carry out a detailed study of the Ekamra in the country. INTACH has raised ques- are on the World Heritage list, but none as Kshetra area. The Modi Government is tions about the role of the Bhubaneswar a living Hindu city. The Jaisalmer Fort, one committed to the preservation of our cul- circle of ASI, which has its office just 350 of the few living forts in the world, was de- tural heritage, which is a matter of great metres away from the site. clared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in pride for us,” says Pradhan. “What was the ASI doing? This is the 2013. As per the Ekamra Plan, for which In a report to the Centre, the Bhu- sixth temple to be destroyed. It could have Rs 700 crore was reportedly marked, all baneswar circle of the ASI said the mould- been reconstructed. It was a time capsule. construction, except temples, between ings on the stone on edges of the exposed There were no heritage experts involved in Lingaraj temple and Bindusagar lake will platform suggest it could be part of an an- the development work. When things blew be dismantled, restoring the layout of 350 cient temple of ‘typical Kalingan style’, an up, the ASI sent a team. But, by then 70 per years ago, making it easier for pilgrims to architecture in which only certain types of cent of the demolition for the Ekamra Plan visit the other temples as well. stones were used. The stones could be re- had already been carried out,” says Anil In the letter to Patel, Pradhan, petroleum mains of the ‘pista (platform)’. It said it was Dhir, historian and member of the INTACH and natural gas minister, had requested his ‘pertinent to mention that during the dig- team which did a preliminary site survey, personal intervention in directing the ASI ging work, heavy machines like JCB, tractor following reports that archaeological arte- to send a team to Bhubaneswar for carrying etc. are being utilized causing massive dam- facts and other heritage items around the out a detailed study and thorough scientific age to the structures underneath’ in an area Suka Sari temple were being destroyed excavation of the Ekamra Kshetra area for rich from an archaeological point of view. It during demolition for the Ekamra project. unearthing heritage structures which may claimed that due to the ASI’s intervention, In its report to the Centre, INTACH al- be buried under encroachments. “From an to some extent, the ancient remains were leged violation of the AMASR Act, saying obeisant devotion to Mahaprabhu Jagan- saved from further vandalism. no standard laid down guidelines have nath to a personal commitment for uphold- That has not absolved it of the damage been followed by the project implemen- ing the cultural pride of Lord Jagannath’s already caused, according to the Indian tation authorities and excavating teams cult, the Prime Minister has always priori- National Trust for Art and Cultural Heri- as a result of which substantial damage

Though Dharmendra Pradhan, in his letter to Culture and Tourism Minister Prahlad Singh Patel, has not directly taken on the BJD government in the state, the issue has cast a shadow on Naveen Patnaik’s temple town development plans

Odisha Chief Minister naveen patnaik Union Minister dharmendra pradhan

getty images

50 22 February 2021 The ASI has got the digging work for Patnaik’s Ekamra Plan to develop the area around the Lingaraj temple, a protected area, stopped alamy

has been done to this and the adjoin- tor general to execute the work being carried of Panchayatana/Astayatana temples in ing ancient shrines: ‘The use of heavy out in close vicinity of protected monu- the Kalinga arts ranges from the rule of the equipment like bulldozers, excavators, ments, but there was no proposal before Shailodbhava to the Eastern Ganga period JCBs, Hyva trucks, etcetera, in a sensitive it. The ASI team found the structure while (6th century CE to 14th century CE). Just zone, filled with ancient temples, was carrying out scientific cleaning of a piece of 50 metres away from the Suka Sari temple against all norms. We saw many carved land near the Suka Sari temple complex. Of stands the Chitrakarini temple, which too stone pieces/blocks having fine stone the 80 monuments in the state under the exhibits Panchayatana architecture, but works scattered all around the temple ASI, 28 are in Old Bhubaneswar, which was was built during the 13th century CE in premises. Some of them were identified also called ‘Mandira Malini (city of temples)’, Eastern Ganga period. with decorative features depicting scroll and of them, eight are around the Lingaraj The controversy over the execution of works, lattice pattern works, Nayikas, Gaja- temple. The beautification plan envisages the Lingaraj temple development plan was vidalas, Salabhanjikas, Chaitya medallions clearing encroachment in the area. still raging when the National Monuments and many more others. Even a yoni pith, Authority under the Central Government which is a revered icon in Hindu religion, came up with ‘heritage by-laws’ for the has been damaged and kept in one corner.’ JD dubs the issue as “political dis- Jagannath temple, restricting construction Among the INTACH’s recommenda- Bcourse” at a time when the state gov- that does not conform with heritage zone tions is stopping further excavation any- ernment had taken up a project to restore regulations. This was, however, withdrawn where in the proposed beautification the heritage. “It did not happen overnight. after delegations of BJD, led by Pinaki Misra, zone until an expert heritage committee Were the INTACH and ASI sleeping all these and BJP, led by Pradhan, met Patel separately. is formed with qualified persons which years? Both are trying to pin the blame on Patnaik, who visited the Jagannath temple should include heritage experts, histori- the government to hide their own incompe- after the by-laws were issued, opposed them ans, structural engineers, conservation tence. Do these bodies have a political agen- saying, “Nobody can stop the good works of architects and local stakeholders. da?” asks BJD leader Pratap Keshari Deb. Lord Jagannath.” Like in Bhubaneswar, the The issue has stirred a hornet’s nest over The INTACH report contested dating state government has undertaken a devel- heritage protection. Ironically, a plan to re- the Suka Sari temple to the 10th century opment plan for Puri. The temple authori- store the Ekamra Kshetra to its old design CE, during the rule of the Somavamshis, ties also expressed concern over the by-laws, has ended up bruising some of its heritage, going by the excavated pista portion of a saying restricting development of facilities triggering a row that could delay the Patnaik ruined temple: ‘The ASI Bhubaneswar on land voluntarily contributed by devotees government’s temple project. circle is confused about the antiquity on will hurt their sentiments. According to a state ASI official, in the the Suka Sari temple and its periphery tem- Patel said the by-laws were issued with- process of digging some structures under ples...They have predated it to the making out the knowledge of the chairman of the the Ekamra Plan around the Lingaraj tem- of the Lingaraj temple.’ It said while the ru- National Monuments Authority and any ple, there has been an upheaval—other than ins unearthed give the impression that the further work on this will be done after con- the state and Centre-protected structures, a Suka Sari might have been a temple hav- sultation with all stakeholders, putting few others have been demolished, thereby ing a Panchayatana style with four subsid- the matter to rest. But the last word is yet to violating the AMASR Act. The state ASI had iary shrines, it should be understood that be said on the temple remains of Ekamra been asking the state government since all Panchayatana temples don’t belong to Kshetra as the blame game goes on and an 2019 to seek the approval of the ASI’s direc- the Somavamshi era. The building period old city awaits its fate. n

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undone In a new memoir, Priyanka Chopra Jonas reveals all about her personal and professional life 58 getty images 22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 53 art

The Afterlives of Stitches Celebrating the relationship between Adip Dutta and late artist Meera Mukherjee By Rosalyn D’Mello

(left) Topographic Specimens; Topographic Spread I (Ramani Chatterjee Lane) by adip dutta

Everybody knows that Meera Mukherjee was such a remarkable person. There’s so much I remember instantly when I start talking about her” Adip Dutta artist

54 22 february 2021 As I was gleaning the rich metaphorical difficulty imagining his face aglow as connotations inherent in the titular he reminisces, always seeming slightly ‘Nestled’, an ongoing staged conversa- frustrated by his inarticulacy. One can tion between Adip Dutta’s meticulous perceive how his memories of Mukher- sculptures and ink drawings and Meera jee are seamless. “Everybody knows Mukherjee’s visionary exploration of that she was such a remarkable person. Kantha, I felt confronted by its audacity. There’s so much I remember instantly Experimenter, the host gallery, was offer- when I start talking about her.” ing viewers a context within which to When he does begin he usually strug- re-locate the artistic practice of Dutta— gles to coherently frame the intellectual one of its star artists. The dialogic nature and artistic intimacy that marked their of the show seemed not only obvious, relationship. I find myself frequently so but its logic was also beyond reproach. invested in the anecdotal onslaught, I For anybody who knows the 1970-born struggle to anchor the narrative. Dutta Dutta—a member of the Faculty of Vis- met with Mukherjee on an almost daily ual Arts at Rabindra Bharati University, basis for over 17 years. He vividly remem- Kolkata—is undoubtedly aware of how bers her beautiful two-room flat with its influenced he remains by Mukherjee, gleaming red floor in a colonial building who was born in 1923 and died in 1998. with cast iron railings. He has repeatedly This ‘influence’ is unconven- told me how he was in his formative tional and non-institutional. The most years, and that he was among very few animated proof of it is anecdotal. I people with whom she interacted so can testify to my own engagements regularly. She generally reserved only with Dutta over a four-year period of one day a week—Saturday—for social conversations through my visits to his engagements. When he was around Kolkata-based studio. There isn’t a single 14 or 15, Dutta began to frequent the transcript in which he hasn’t mentioned workshop of the same traditional idol Mukherjee either as a point of reference maker Mukherjee would visit. “She or departure. I have often even envied would come from time to time and we the tenderness with which he speaks exchanged glances,” he tells me. about her life, frequently reminding Eventually, they exchanged views, me of how ‘remarkable’ she was, and too. Some of the members of the how foundational their friendship had craftsman’s team assisted Mukherjee been to the evolution of his artistic self in casting her sculptures at her own and identity, to the extent that I have workshop in Elaichi in Narendrapur. wondered if she had come to be an Later, a mutual friend took Dutta to extension of him; as if he was privileged Mukherjee’s studio. “I don’t know if she with being able to access not only his realised... now when I look back I think own artistic subjectivity, but hers, too. in these terms... I had also gone with my “What happens with people who you’ve idiosyncrasies. As a child there was a self lost is you create some kind of window which was neither accepted by others in that person’s absence... from time to in one way, and a self which was also not time you open it to communicate... it’s ready to accept the self... What I’m trying an imaginary conversation,” Dutta tells to say is that there was a state of confu- me over a phone call. Even though we sion, of rejection... I’d gone to her at that are currently separated by continents point,” Dutta tells me. “Later, from the and aren’t using video, I have little little stories I heard from her, about her,

Everybody knows that Meera Mukherjee was such a remarkable person. There’s so much I remember instantly when I start talking about her” Adip Dutta artist

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 55 art

from her eldest sister, from Nirmal Babu, The scope and extent of this under- in a monograph on Mukherjee pub- then the nephew, with whom I con- taking must have indelibly impacted lished by Mapin. nected later... I felt that there was a sense her practice, as did her informal training In Nestled, we are presented with of torture that she, too, experienced. It as an apprentice for traditional Dhokra the legacy of Mukherjee’s prescient col- was not easy for a middle-class Bengali sculptors of Bastar in Chhattisgarh. laborations with Kantha embroiderers woman in the ’40s to come out of her From them she had learned first-hand and their children. As a way of offering family. She was driven out of the house, how to manipulate the lost wax tech- a possible income for young women she claimed... It was such a beautiful nique of bronze casting. Dutta points out in Elaichigram and Nolgarhat, the site place for me to visit, and I would spend that what many sometimes invalidate of her workshop where she cast her hours, from 4.30PM onwards, and I’d be as decorative elements in her sculptures sculptures, Mukherjee began to serve as back in the evening when I should have are actually her innovations with using a mediator, encouraging the children to been doing my homework and I’d get rolled wax to create surface textures that make drawings, which their mothers scolded at home.” are tangibly manifest in the final bronze then converted into Kanthas, mostly outcome, offering the suggestion of single-layered and made for decorative tactility and organic form. purposes, without functionality as the ukherjee formally This observation by Dutta about premise. Mukherjee commissioned Mstudied art in leading institu- Mukherjee’s practice finds firm footing the piece, paid the women, sold the tions in Kolkata, New Delhi and in Nestled. It serves as the technical works, and offered the earnings to Munich. However, the core of her metaphor that grounds both their the women, who eventually formed a practice seems to have been formed practice. Dutta had witnessed first-hand cooperative with a bank account. In a extra-institutionally. In her diary she has Mukherjee’s way she initiated an recounted learning to make dolls from deliberations informal non-insti- her grandmother, and inheriting from with the surfaces adip Dutta tutional educational her mother a flair for Alpana, a Bengali of her sculptures, points out framework that version of floor patterning. After return- her dedication to that what many was matrilineally ing from Munich, she set out on a quest making visible sometimes perpetuated. Many to study indigenous crafts and wrote a the constituting invalidate as of these Kantha moving and laboured thesis on metal elements; like decorative works currently casting in India, thanks to a grant from weld marks, or elements in exist as a significant the Archaeological Survey of India. The wax rolls. He meera part of important 470-plus-page dissertation, the culmi- interprets them mukhjerjee’s private collections. nation of her travels in the mid-1960s, as sutures, of sculptures Dutta had received reveals her deep immersion in record- sorts, part of the are actually a few from Mukher- ing the caste and tribal lineages of the same language her innovations jee, which are part metal craftspeople, how they came to be she had been of the display at the initiated into the trade through family evolving through ongoing show. This legacies, accompanied by a profound her sculp- entire project initi- investigation into their techniques, tural engagement with the medium of ated by Mukherjee and sustained over complete with illustrations. In her Kantha, grounded in the same spirit of years was part of his dissertation, titled introduction she enumerates some of community-centric art-making that ‘From Child Art to Stitched Painting— the challenges she encountered, like distinguished her artistic practice from A Creative Journey,’ which attests to the lack of transportation. ‘Large distances many of her contemporaries. Nandini service Dutta performed in bringing had to be covered on foot in hilly jungle Ghosh elaborates on this sensibility this non-institution-based learning contries (sic) not served by any form of that Mukherjee internalised from her methodology within the purview of public transportation. Mud flats during life-long collaborations with indigenous institutional memory. the monsoons and sandy wastes has to Indian craftspeople. ‘In Meera Mukher- Some of the pieces were made into be crossed on bullock carts: time wasted jee’s opinion, an artist primarily aspires carpets by Abu Taher, a carpet weaver in reaching a place, which promised for recognition and status as an ‘artist; from North Bengal, one excellent in- useful and interesting information, cut an artisan aspires to link life and art into stance of which is also on display. into daylight hours, and where there one inseparable entity; this distinction This tendency to make visible was no place whatsoever for a night was an essential and integral part of structures and connections that often halt, interviews had to be snappy, obser- Meera Mukherjee’s vision, and form the remain outside the purview of art vation brief.’ basis of her conviction,’ she has written historical discourse and that form the

56 22 february 2021 Untitled (Kantha) by Meera Mukherjee

basis of artisanal subjectivity is one of elaborate and painstaking brush strokes. Dutta’s scrupulous mark-making, many proclivities Dutta inherited from The centrepiece is Vestige, his bronze through the patinas he arrives at in his Mukherjee. Nestled celebrates the spirit study of a fallen tree, a work that was be- Topographical Specimens and his bronze of this heritage. Mukherjee’s interven- ing processed during my studio visit in works that are odes to the compositional tions with Kantha through her media- February 2020, when Dutta, along with elegance of collapsible street shops in tions with the women who created his sculptor-assistants were encasing Kolkata, and his private investigation them and the children who made the the dis-membered plaster cast’s interior into tracing erosions and making visible art that formed the foreground made of with red wax. I observed the hollow the tension of bound things in Marks. it a playful, imaginative, and collec- interior of Dutta’s study of an uprooted The show delights in the literal and tive enterprise, while tapping into its tree being layered with hot wax as it was metaphorical equivalence between the proudly decorative core and evolving readied for the final casting to be made intuitive, resourceful gathering integral an economic system that helped in bronze. It felt like a visual meta- to nest-making and the practised empower the makers. phor for the osmotic nature of Dutta’s frugality, inherited intelligences, and Dutta’s own work is never eclipsed relationship with Mukherjee. Nestled nurturing potential of craft traditions. by Mukherjee’s excerpted contribu- makes public some of the vestiges of As a feminist viewer, it feels satisfyingly tions. In fact, Nestled is so tenderly put their conversations, and reveals the audacious to see a male artist embrace together, using clever modes of display, many afterlives of Mukherjee’s artisanal a legacy so avowedly non-canonical, so like the open-ended wooden shelf-like legacy. It feels like a triumphant celebra- lovingly indebted to artisanal grace. n structure, that it allows room for the tion of the brazenly non-canonical. The visual conversation to transpire and iconic nature of the ‘nest’ as safe space Nestled by Adip Dutta & Meera percolate. The Kantha stitches resonate and playground is evolved through Mukherjee runs till March 31st, 2021 at in Dutta’s ink drawings through his the evocative Kantha stitches, through Experimenter, Hindustan Road, Kolkata

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 57 books

Undone

Priyanka Chopra Jonas

getty images In a new ne of the most powerful speaking her mind, even as she has kept Indians in entertainment her head down and done the hard work memoir, Priyanka has ripped into Bollywood, that has got her a career in Bollywood exposing it as a big boys’ and now Hollywood as well, where Chopra Jonas club, run mostly by family- she has been pounding the pavements, opens up about owned studios; talking taking meetings and doing auditions, about its inherent racism to finally reach a position where she is favouritism in where she was constantly now seen as a dramatic actress. With o described as “kaali” (black); a much appreciated part in Ramin Bollywood, and speaking for the first time about Bahrani’s The White Tiger in 2021, she is heartbreak, the films she was let go from because a now doing exactly what she promised in co-actor, director or producer wanted to the book—building a larger table rather depression, but gift the role to someone else. In her than constructing a higher fence. candid memoir Unfinished (Viking; 240 Having made her mark with equally about pages; Rs 699), Priyanka Chopra Jonas American network ABC’s Quantico, the joy of making talks about how relatively early in her where she dug her heels in to get a part career the lead actor of a movie she was that was not a stereotype of Indians movies across about to start shooting came to visit onscreen, she is making work happen. her on the set of a film she was then She has a first-look deal with Amazon. continents and working on. “Listen, Priyanka,” he said She is balancing work in streaming finding her Prince casually, “you may not be able to do this series—she is doing the Russo Brothers’ movie because I’ve promised the role Citadel with Bodyguard’s Richard Charming in the to someone else.” The someone else, Madden—with a part in a big, noisy she soon found out, was his girlfriend. possible blockbuster (Matrix) and unlikeliest She talks about this happening again another in a smaller romantic movie, of places a few years later and how she was able Text for You, opposite Outlander’s to handle this bullying because of breakout star Sam Heughan. By Kaveree Bamzai her experience as a 15-year-old in an It’s time for “colour-conscious” American school where she had faced casting she says—choosing that racial slurs. term over colour-blind casting. It is In simple, elegant and empathetic important to create opportunities prose, Chopra Jonas writes about how for ethnicities that haven’t had these it took her over two years to recover chances before. The demand for from the depression brought on by diversity has been loud, she says, and her father’s death from cancer. She it is required because we have the talks about her habit of giving too ability to stream across 160 countries. much of herself to relationships with She adds,“So you can make a movie men who didn’t deserve that love. with an Iranian director, an all-Indian And she reveals the sexism she had cast shot in India and written by an to face in her early years including Indian but it has taken the pushing a director insisting that her panties of a few very powerful South Asians be seen in a song, otherwise “why within America who have demanded would people come to watch the change whether it is Mindy Kaling, “I was running so movie?” She talks about yet another Aziz Ansari, Hasan Minhaj, Riz Ahmed fast I didn’t have producer/director (who not long ago or even me. There’s a demand to shake memories. But I had was named in a sexual harassment it up, be outside the box and of course peace and quiet allegation in India), known as much we’re consuming entertainment from for his extravagant movies as for his all over the world. I was watching an when I was home for notorious philandering, telling her Iranian show the other day, my mom six months to to get a boob job, fix her jaw and add a watches Korean dramas.” introspect, the book little cushioning to her butt. He even She has always been driven. It was just flowed out of me” suggested a doctor in Los Angeles. 2004. I remember getting a call from Priyanka Chopra Jonas actor Chopra Jonas has always believed in a young Priyanka asking me quite

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 59 books

determinedly what photograph I was It just sort of flowed out of me.” she writes charmingly about how her going to use for the cover of a special It took her a couple of years to garner relationship with Nick Jonas evolved, issue on Bollywood. She had just starred the courage but now when she re-reads despite her initial scepticism about the in Aitraaz, which was a remarkably the manuscript, she is proud of her 10-year gap. uninhibited performance devoid of the achievements and experiences. “I kind But she is at her most vulnerable usual coyness associated with Hindi of wear my scars like my medals, they’ve when she speaks of the depression film actresses. “I don’t want the image to made me who I am. I am a small town she fell into while shooting Quantico. be cheap,” she said. “It can be sensual but girl from very unassuming beginnings. “I was still grieving my father and not vulgar.” If I can be sitting here, self-made, then still nursing a broken heart from a anyone can.” previous relationship. I was mostly Indeed, her story is not merely about alone. I would eat by myself, watch hopra jonas has always herself. It is about her extraordinary TV by myself and stay up well into been sure of what she wants and parents who always treated her with the early morning hours even though C while she puts a lot of her life on dignity and respect—starting with that meant I got little sleep. I put on social media, she is the first to admit putting up her nameplate as a child almost 20 pounds. On social media, that it is at a superficial level. For the first below theirs: ‘Major Ashok Chopra people made unkind comments about time ever, she has let her guard down MBBS MD’, ‘Captain Madhu Chopra my weight, in texts, friends took me to and scratched beneath the surface to MBBS DORL’, ‘Miss Priyanka Mimi task for backing out of the few plans tell her own story—of rejections and for drinks or dinner that I had forced failures, personal and professional—in myself to make.” Not exactly the life we her own words. expect our glam gals to live. “I kind of wear my Like everything she does, she has She is equally honest about her done it to the best of her ability. She says scars like my medals, breakups, though voyeurs will she is terrified about the world reading they’ve made me who I be disappointed that she doesn’t it but also as a woman now on the other am. I am a small name names. She writes about her side of 35, she’s reached a place in her life town girl from relationships through most of her where she is self-assured. It’s taken 20 very unassuming twenties and early thirties: ‘I’d get years of being in the business to find this beginnings. If I can be involved with a wonderful man and we’d space of contentment. sitting here, self-made, have a lovely time, usually for a period Her journey started with the new then anyone can” of years. By the end of the relationship, millennium, winning the Miss World Priyanka Chopra Jonas though, I’d have lost myself somehow. title as a 17-year-old. In Mumbai films, I’d be exhausted, discouraged and she had to make the slow and painful disappointed and I didn’t know how I’d transition from glamour doll to gotten to such an unhappy place.’ dramatic actress. She managed that with And she has all our hearts when she movies such as Fashion (2008), which Chopra Upper KG’. Her parents gave up writes about how after a dating hiatus she won her a National Award for Best their careers in Bareilly, even giving up wrote a little note about her ideal man Actress, and Barfi!(2012), Dil Dhadakne the hospital they had founded together, and put it in her wallet, and that when Do (2015) and Bajirao Mastani (2015). to help her establish her career in Nick Jonas turned up in her life, he was She says there’s always been a lot Mumbai. It is the story of every middle- just what she’d been waiting for, without of scepticism about her next step but class family in India which invests knowing. What’s more, she and Jonas “when you try something new there’s everything it has in its children, time now even have their own mansion in Los always bound to be resistance”. She’s and energy, money and dreams. Angeles, planted on a hillside with a view pivoted her consciousness to notice She is open about the corrective of the city below. It’s a house where she only the positive chatter about her. The surgeries she had to undertake when hopes to grow herself and her family. last six months have possibly been the the bridge of her nose collapsed and Chopra Jonas tells me one of the slowest Chopra Jonas has ever travelled. she was summarily dropped from reasons she wrote this book is for those She says,“I was running so fast I didn’t two big movies. She talks about the who don’t know her well and for whom have any memories. I didn’t have tough love she got from one of her first she is mere dinner-table conversation anything when I sat down to write this choreographers thanks to which she or an Instagram post. “I hope they get book so I wrote a floor plan, milestones signed up for Kathak lessons. She writes familiar with me as a girl, a human that I remembered, my school and my frankly about the slump she faced in the being and as a person,” she says. boarding school. I had peace and quiet. I industry after five years, forcing her to They will. What’s more, they will like was home for six months to introspect. take a risk and sign up for Fashion. And her for her courage and her candour. n

60 22 february 2021 The beauty of the written word; a story well told. The luxury of immersing myself in myriad lives; journeying to faraway lands. I am obsessed. And the Reviews in Open help me discover the best. A quiet corner. An interesting book. Life’s good!

Sanjay Malik, Dubai

Tell us why you read Open www.openthemagazine.com openthemagazine books

The Darkest House The thriller Girl A chronicles the aftermath of horrors and the resilience of teenagers. Abigail Dean talks to Nandini Nair about her bestselling debut

n September 2019, Abigail Dean, a lawyer who had Gone Girl because the novel opens with the reveal that the girl come to India as part of the Google for India team, was on has escaped and the mother has died in prison. her way from Delhi to Agra when she got a call from her The novel is not about crime itself, but its aftermath. It tells I agent in London. She had to wait three hours before she the story of the Gracie family, through the eyes of Lex. Her could get a signal to check her mail and ring her agent back. As siblings, Ethan, Delilah, Gabriel, Noah and Evie, and she were she stood in her hotel balcony overlooking the Taj Mahal, her abused by her parents at their home. While Lex went to school agent gave her the news that her debut novel Girl A was in a nine- in the early days, her father, influenced by cultish ideas, starts way auction and that it had sold for a ‘major’ six-figure sum. Ac- restricting their freedoms. Lex recounts, ‘Father developed cording to the Guardian, North American rights went for seven strange fixations. They came like fevers, although some of figures, and more than 20 other countries have acquired the them never left him… He reread Corinthians and decided that book, with Sony getting the screen rights. For any debut writer we should better glorify God with our bodies, and we spent our this was a dream scenario. Dean, now 32, still recalls it as the evenings marching up and down the stairs, trying not to laugh. “best moment ever”. Speaking on a video call from London, she He was bored.’ The books and clocks are removed from the says, “It was so beautiful in every way,” she adds with a chuckle, house. The windows are boarded up, baths and food are denied “and I then didn’t sleep for the whole weekend, so in the pictures and then the binding and shackling starts. of me at the Taj Mahal I look like a dead person!” Dean researched the Turpin case, where the parents David Towards the end of 2018, Dean was sunk in a bad and Louise abused 13 of their children over years. In place and in a professional funk. The incessant travel 2018, one of the children escaped and contacted the and stress of her job as a lawyer had left her tired. police who rescued the siblings. She also read about ‘It was the kind of tiredness that a week’s holiday the 15-year-old Jasmine Block who was kidnapped doesn’t shift, a tiredness that made everything sharp and abused for a month, till she escaped by swim- and close and impossible,’ she writes on her website. ming across a lake. But while writing Girl A, Dean She had always wanted to write, but had found was not interested in the cruelties meted out in neither the time nor bandwidth to do so as a practis- these cases. She was vested in the long-lasting psy- ing lawyer. With her partner’s encouragement she chological impacts, and the resilience of teenagers. quit her job, found a new one and took three months While writing the novel, Dean realised that off between them. From July to September 2018, she today’s teenagers face vastly different issues com- spent her days writing at a library. Once she returned pared to teenagers just a decade ago. She found that to work, she had to steal out time to finish and polish while society often underestimates the strength her manuscript. She wrote on her phone, while trav- of teens, fiction does not. Moving her cat Woody elling by the tube, or 10 hours at a stretch on a Sunday. Writing (named from the film franchise Toy Story) from her desk, Dean while having a fulltime job made her realise she could multitask. says, “What I always love in the fiction that I’ve read about teenag- She says, “It was about being flexible in a way that I hadn’t previ- ers is just never to underestimate that time of somebody’s life.” ously thought that I could be. I had previously had very precious As a society she says we tend to undermine teenage problems (es- ideas about writing. I did have to have silence. I had to have hours. pecially teenage girls), they are deemed “hysterical” or ridiculed I realised that actually that was not the case. That was just some- whether it comes to the music they listen to or the fanfiction that thing I kind of told myself potentially as a reason not to write.” At they write. She says, “I just find it so bizarre that that is the ap- the end of nine months spent working and writing and revising, proach that we would take to young women, to sort of not value she had a complete manuscript. the things that they are interested in, and not give them their Parallels are already being drawn between Girl A (HarperCol- worth.” In her novel, she corrects this cultural wrong, by endow- lins; 328 pages; Rs 399) and Gone Girl (2012) by Gillian Flynn and ing Lex with strength and intelligence. Even in the face of horrors, The Girl on the Train (2015) by Paula Hawkins. Other than the ob- Lex is always thinking of survival, both her own and her siblings. vious similarity to the titles, all three are psychological thrillers Each sibling will enter adulthood with their own bruises that ruled over the bestseller lists and were hailed as the thrillers and scabs. The siblings are adopted by different families. Lex of the year. But Girl A does not have quite the same suspense as finds a loving Mum and Dad, parents who accept her for who

62 22 february 2021 siblings are in different ways. Each has kind of coped and failed to cope. And although it is this very very difficult subject matter. I think that that’s what kind of gives the book its life.” The relationship among siblings and the gamut of emotions it spans, from security to disinterest, love to ignorance, forms the spine of the book. Lex is particularly protective over her younger sister Evie and has a rather fraught relationship with her brother Ethan. As readers we glimpse their childhood through Lex’s memories and then we see them as adults when Lex goes to visit each of them as she needs to decide the future of the house that still stands. While they’ve all lived in the House of Horrors, their experiences, their memories and interpretations of it vary. As Delilah tells Lex, “We each believe what we want to believe. Don’t we? You more than anyone.” For Dean, Girl A started with the sisters. As the only child of English professor parents, she had always looked at siblings with a “mix of envy and curiosity”. She was drawn to stories with big families in literature and television, whether it was the March family in Little Women or the Sopranos. She says, “I’ve always been interested in all the dynamics between siblings Saurabh Singh Saurabh by Illustration and how if you share your childhood with someone, how does that translate into adulthood? Often people I’ve always been interested seem to remember things slightly differently, there are in all the dynamics between different, defining memories and defining moments. And I was fascinated by that relationship because it siblings and how if you was something that I wasn’t party to and creating it share your childhood with was one of the great joys of writing Girl A.” As a child, Dean read everything she could, from someone, how does that Roald Dahl to Stephen King. In Girl A, Lex also finds suc- translate into adulthood” cour in books. When her father decrees that the house must be emptied of books she ferrets away a volume of abigail dean author Greek myths. It was a book Dean had as a child as well. She says, “I did want Lex to have the benefit of the different worlds that books can take one to. It’s something that she can escape to even in the most difficult moments she is, but who also feel that she can recover from the past by in the House of Horrors. In the last year of lockdown, I too have never revisiting it or those who belong to it. She is also a success- certainly used books as a gateway to other worlds.” ful lawyer, capable of filling her days with work and sex. Ga- As a lawyer who is now a bestselling author, Dean finds that briel has been institutionalised. Ethan writes articles and gives she has identified a perfect niche for herself. She enjoys both the lectures about his experiences, and Delilah has turned to god. law and writing and finds that both complement each other. Dean is interested in how the traumas of childhood ink adult- While she studied literature at Cambridge University she did not hood. She says, “Everyone is affected to some degree by how they pursue writing at that time as she felt she needed to get a “sen- grew up and the circumstances in which they grew up. Whether sible job” and writing was merely a “pipe dream”. She says that it’s somebody falling into Stockholm Syndrome, whether it’s the writing and law are similar because “all day you are dealing with rages that Gabriel has, that was quite difficult to write. But at the words and sentences, and the impact of them”. She adds with a same time writing in Lex’s voice, did inject this kind of hope into laugh, “You know, a comma can end you up in court, right?” the book. She does see events with this very wry, dry, sensitive Dean is already working on her second novel which deals sense of humour. That narrative really helps ensure that it’s not with conspiracy theories. While Girl A was written without the a book that is solely about suffering. It is also a book about how burden of expectations and as a passion project, the second one tough and intelligent and resilient Lex is. I also guess each of her already has publishers’ eyes trained on it. n

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 63 page turner Nightwalking Yesterday’s writers as guides to today’s pedestrians

n the early months of less hurried. ‘The nightwalker’s ambition is to lose and find the pandemic, the air was himself in the labyrinth of the city,’ writes Beaumont. It is to I thick with hope that this allow oneself to find different ways to observe one’s fellow transformative year would yield a human beings, to find a measure of kinship. ‘In the course of reckoning of how to ensure urban those nights, I finished my education in a fair amateur experi- renewal—to address the inequi- ence of houselessness,’ says Dickens in his essay Night Walks. ties that the new coronavirus had ‘My principal object being to get through the night, the shone a light on, and to amelio- pursuit of it brought me into sympathetic relations with rate the distress it was further people who have no other object every night in the year.’ By Mini Kapoor piling on the more vulnerable Or: ‘Are not the sane and the insane equal at night as the among the working population. sane lie a dreaming?’ As part of this, could solitary Nightwalking is also an act of resistance, writes Beaumont, walks be a good way to take stock of city life? as he takes up American science fiction writer Ray Bradbury’s In The Walker: On Losing and Finding Yourself in the short story ‘The Pedestrian’. The pedestrian is eventually Modern City, Matthew Beaumont, a London-based professor hauled off to a psychiatric centre by a police car that remains of English, recommends the ‘pedestrian practices of, roughly, unconvinced that a person can be wandering around on foot the second half of the nineteenth and first half of the twenti- at night just for the sake of walking instead of being at home eth centuries’. He does so through the writings and like his fellow city-folks watching television. experiences of writers Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia The origins of this distrust of the nightwalker, Woolf, Charles Dickens and many, many more. explains Beaumont, was the ‘nightwalker statute’ The case for walking as an individual and social dating back to the late 17th century, that mandated good need not be made afresh, but Beaumont’s that ‘all Night Walkers’ be asked to give a reason ambition is to explain how for these writers ‘the pe- for being out and about. The story, in fact, drew on destrian’s experience’ is ‘of diagnostic value in their Bradbury’s own experience of being stopped in ongoing attempt to understand the ways in which Los Angeles ‘for walking at night, for being a capitalist modernity both alienates and oppresses pedestrian’. And Beaumont quotes a biographer people and, conversely, offers them unprecedented of Bradbury as saying he ‘had come to see the opportunities for escaping or pedestrian as a threshold or transcending that alienation or indicator species among urban oppression in creative, experi- dwellers—if the rights of the mental forms’. They each serve as pedestrian were threatened, a model of ‘what it means to be a this would represent an early modernist of the street’. indicator that basic freedoms There is, among the various would soon be at risk.’ models, the nightwalker. For In turn, today’s pedestrians Dickens, nightwalking was a too must, among other things, way of dealing with loss after his understand how they put their at- father’s death in 1851. Unable to tentiveness at risk by the distrac- sleep, he’d get up soon after going tion of our age, the smartphone. to bed, and go out, returning Writes Beaumont: ‘…it insulates home ‘tired at sunrise’. the individual pedestrian from Dickens was evidently a great the sensorium of the city, impov- walker, keeping up a quick clip erishing their everyday experi- and ‘covering twenty miles at a ence of its physical and social time’, but in his night walks Beau- life by funnelling their attention mont gets a sense of wandering, through the screen.’ In other which by its very nature must be words, look up and just wander. n Illustration by Saurabh Singh

64 22 february 2021 Hollywood reporter Noel de Souza

‘For Me Luxurious Is Having a Great New Pair of Boots’

n French Exit, I’m pretty simple with my needs. Michelle Pfeiffer plays an Iaging Manhattan socialite Did you ever struggle for money? (Frances Price) living on what’s I haven’t been in a situation barely left of her inheritance. where I was broke but I have She moves to a small apartment been in a position where I had to in Paris with her son (Malcolm really watch my finances when I Price played by Lucas Hedges) first moved to Los Angeles when and a cat. Pfeiffer has just been I started out in the industry nominated for a Golden Globe and I mean it’s really tempting for best actress in a musical because you get this big cheque or comedy. when you do a project but then you could go for a year or more As a mother, do you share any without working so you have similarities with your character? to really learn to pace yourself There aren’t many similarities which is not always easy for to my parenting. Maybe now young people. the older that they are I’m really enjoying a friendship At this stage of success in your and a connection on an adult life, do you feel that you have to level and I think that Frances give back to society? has always been like that with I’ve always felt that it’s Malcolm. I’m not sure she was Michelle Pfeiffer important to get up in the ever that nurturing hover- morning and have purpose in crafting mother I probably was whatever you do and that you’re more like. pampering yourself is concerned? contributing and giving back to the I’m realising how little I really need in world. And I certainly feel that, and I As far as finances are concerned, do life, and how little I really want. And consider that with the choices that I you feel you are a good negotiator? how easy it is to get caught up in the make, I’m sending out positive energy And what item would you spend trappings of thinking you need things into the world and adding to that and most money on? or thinking you want more stuff. not taking away from it. So I do realise I think you can get a pretty decent I think at the end of the day we are how much of an impact film has in the bottle of wine for, I don’t know, $50 or realising that it’s just more stuff. And world, it’s a very powerful medium $30. I think you can get, but I haven’t we are really realising what matters is and so I’m always mindful of that. had delicious wine that costs a lot that we haven’t been able to have those more than that. I’m kind of shrewd. I relationships and those connections How do you keep negativity away? think I’m a good negotiator. The thing with people. And I think ultimately Most of the bad vibes are mine about negotiation is you have to be that’s going to be a very good thing because I’m really hard on myself and willing to walk away. If you’re willing that comes out of the recent past. And I overthink everything, that’s just to walk away, then it puts you in a there’s this sense of really looking out been my nature. I hate to admit it, but pretty good position so I’m not sure I for each other and people looking out I think my nature is a half-empty-glass would spend that much on a bottle for you. I’ve never really had what kind of person. At the same time, I of wine. most people have, the stereotypical do feel like I’m hopeful and so it’s a idea of what luxury is. For me what’s bit complicated, I think I’m my own Has your lifestyle changed as luxurious is having a great new pair of worst enemy. So, I have to watch out far as spending money on boots, (laughs) that makes my day. So, for myself. n

22 february 2021 www.openthemagazine.com 65 STARGAZER Kaveree Bamzai

Farah Khan Dev Patel Vaani Kapoor

➲ The Curious Case of Vaani Kapoor can and usually do resist this blatant male bonding. Here was a woman Two issues overwhelmed the Mumbai display of male privilege—equally who had turned the female gaze on film industry during the Covid entitled male actors who usually a group of men, chronicling their lockdown. One was the ‘insiders exercise veto power over their female coming of age. The artist in search versus outsiders’ debate, which has leads—choose to remain quiet and of his father; the uptight, upright stymied the careers of many talented prefer to earn brownie points with one good son in search of himself; youngsters. The other was drug use. of Bollywood’s most powerful men. and the money-chasing machine in But equally unfair is the practice of 2020 put old-style Bollywood, with its search of a woman to rescue him. Now selecting certain outsiders, especially shadowy deals and its manipulative we hear, after the triumph of Gully Boy those not particularly talented, to starmakers, on the backfoot. Yet (2019), which she hopes become stars. Take the curious case nothing seems to have changed, has permanently shut up those who of Vaani Kapoor. The young woman whether it is the obsession with star have called her the princess of posh from Delhi made her debut in 2013 children or shutting down of talented pain, she is working on a movie in Shuddh Desi Romance, as the outsiders who don’t network with the about three women friends. She second lead with Parineeti Chopra right people. hopes to start that after shooting the and the late Sushant Singh Rajput. second season of the hit Amazon She was fairly pleasant in that. Three ➲ Farah the Dependable show, Made in Heaven. The cast she years later, she was the worst thing She’s one of the brightest women in is looking at for the movie? in the unbearable Befikre, Aditya the Mumbai film industry and also Priyanka Chopra, Katrina Kaif and Chopra’s third film as director. And one of the most generous with her Alia Bhatt. Swoon. she added no value to War, Siddharth time. No surprises then that Anand’s 2019 bromance with Hrithik Farah Khan is one of the many ➲ Did You Know? Roshan and Tiger Shroff. But Yash celebrities who will turn up in the Dev Patel’s casting as David Raj Films, of which Chopra is boss, Hindi version of Netflix’s French hit Copperfield in Armando Iannucci’s has persisted with her, adding her to Call My Agent! produced by Applause comedic retelling of Charles Dickens’ Ranbir Kapoor’s period dacoit drama Entertainment, which made the beloved novel was inspired. Shamshera. Not just that, Yash Raj critically acclaimed Scam 1992 in 2020. An example of what Priyanka Chopra talent Ayushmann Khurrana acts The talent agency in the six-episode calls “colour-conscious” casting opposite her in Abhishek Kapoor’s first season is run by Rajat Kapoor and which allows opportunities for Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui and Chopra's has Aahana Kumra, Prateik Babbar ethnicities that have not been friend Akshay Kumar cast her, along as well as Ayush Mehra. Farah has portrayed onscreen. But did with Lara Dutta and Huma Qureshi, already played herself in Netflix’s you know when he first got a text from in the Vashu Bhagnani-produced spy scripted reality show Masaba Masaba, his agent about the movie, thriller Bell Bottom. Clearly, having Adi as a perpetually starved director Patel thought he was playing the Chopra as mentor can make up for the with a penchant for casting herself. magician David Copperfield. He gaping hole where talent ought to be. The other celebrities who will have hadn’t read or heard of the novel. This is precisely what is wrong with walk-on parts are Jackie Shroff, Richa Well, he certainly knows all Bollywood. It still doesn’t understand Chadha and Ali Fazal, Nandita Das and about it now. Patel has been that the era of power without Tigmanshu Dhulia. nominated for ‘Best Performance by an accountability is over. Audiences have Actor in a Motion Picture— rejected or ignored Kapoor multiple ➲ Female Bonding Musical or Comedy’ at the 2021 times, yet she is being given plum Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011) made Golden Globes for The Personal History parts. The sad part is that those who Zoya Akhtar the reigning queen of of David Copperfield. n

66 22 february 2021