The Debt to Narasimha Rao by TP Sreenivasan
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OPEN 13 JULY 2020 / 50 www.openthemagazine.com VOLUME 12 ISSUE 27 12 ISSUE VOLUME 13 JULY 2020 13 JULY CONTENTS 13 JULY 2020 5 6 8 12 14 16 18 LOCOMOTIF OPEN DIARY notebook INDIAN ACCENTS TOUCHSTONE WHISPERER OPEN ESSAY Radicalisation By Swapan Dasgupta The debt to Revisiting the Pandavas The fraying of America By Jayanta Ghosal Anyone for the of the liberal Narasimha Rao By Bibek Debroy By Keerthik Sasidharan Chinese Ganesha? By S Prasannarajan By TP Sreenivasan By Sunanda K Datta-Ray 24 38 THE TRIUMPH THE POLITICS OF HEALING The extension of free food for another five AND TRIAL months promises to help not just poor OF KARAN JOHAR labourers but industry and agriculture as well Karan Johar finds By Siddharth Singh himself cast as the fall guy in the drama around Sushant Singh Rajput’s death 42 By Kaveree Bamzai BIKES AND VITAMINS Our changed lives at the peak of the pandemic By Rahul Pandita 32 32 OLD HABITS DIE HARD Demands of the modern state made nepotism a liability to be contained but even now its 46 practice in the private sphere ARE INDIAN SLAUGHTERHOUSES SAFE? is a fuzzy ethical question The rising number of Covid-19 cases in the By Madhavankutty Pillai meat industry worldwide raises concerns about potential pandemics By Nanditha Krishna 50 54 50 FROM THE FRONTLINE OF GRIEF For the families of men killed in action over the years, the bloody border clash between India and China has reignited painful memories By Nikita Doval 54 WHAT’S IN A GAME? A subculture around PUBG Mobile has been 58 gaining momentum during the lockdown By Lhendup G Bhutia 58 62 64 66 THE LADY WITH A KNIFE THE DRAWING ROOM WRITER A NATIONALIST BEFORE NATIONALISM NOT PEOPLE LIKE US The unleashing of female vengeance in Diksha Basu’s new novel is irreverent The political evolution of Dadabhai Naoroji Kareena’s stepping stone onscreen feminist rewritings of myths and glamorous. She says there is more By Siddharth Singh By Rajeev Masand By Aditya Mani Jha to literature than tortured stories By Urvashi Bahuguna Cover design by Saurabh Singh 13 JULY 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 3 OPEN MAIL [email protected] EDITOR S Prasannarajan LETTER OF THE WEEK OPEN MANAGING EDITOR PR Ramesh C www.openthemagazine.com EXECUTIVE EDITOR Ullekh NP The real challenge of Western wokeness infesting EDITOR-AT-LARGE Siddharth Singh DEPUTY EDITORS Madhavankutty Pillai Indian public discourse lies in retraining our 6 JULY 2020 / 50 (Mumbai Bureau Chief), brainwashed youth (‘A Brief History of Wokeism’, June Rahul Pandita, Amita Shah, V Shoba (Bangalore), Nandini Nair 22nd, 2020). Indian universities are dominated by hard CREATIVE DIRECTOR Rohit Chawla left cultural Marxists. Even right-wing governments at 26 12 ISSUE VOLUME ART DIRECTOR Jyoti K Singh SENIOR EDITORS Sudeep Paul, the Centre and states have failed to weaken their hold Lhendup Gyatso Bhutia (Mumbai), on young minds. While it is certainly not desirable Moinak Mitra, Nikita Doval AssOCIATE EDITORS Vijay K Soni (Web), that our universities be dominated by monochrome Shahina KK opinion, so to speak, and parochialise our campuses ASSISTANT EDITOR Vipul Vivek CHIEF OF GRAPHICS Saurabh Singh and classrooms, the rigid and totalitarian impact of 6 JULY 2020 6 JULY SENIOR DESIGNERS Anup Banerjee, virtue-signalling woke academics, often seen in the Veer Pal Singh form of campus politics and violence, makes the sorry PHOTO EDITOR Raul Irani DEPUTY PHOTO EDITOR Ashish Sharma state of affairs amply evident. This is a dangerous trend. Already, any alternative to the Marxist and liberal visionary is being recast. NATIONAL HEAD-EVENTS AND INITIATIVES Arpita Sachin Ahuja narratives has been effectively snuffed out in the so- Ashok Goswami AVP (ADVERTISING) Rashmi Lata Swarup called best universities in the West. Their schools are GENERAL MANAGERS (ADVERTISING) the only remaining battleground where Wars and killings will only Uma Srinivasan (South) alternative worldviews can still put up a fight. set back Asia’s two biggest NATIONAL HEAD-DISTRIBUTION AND SALES Otherwise, the Western academia has seen a silencing developing countries on Ajay Gupta REGIONAL HEADS-CIRCULATION of all dissent by denying ideological challengers a their path to prosperity. To D Charles (South), Melvin George (West), Basab Ghosh (East) platform for debate. It remains to be seen if these resolve disputes on borders, HEAD-PRODUCTION Maneesh Tyagi disturbing and thought-controlling ways of leftist countries should replace SENIOR MANAGER (PRE-PRESS) academics can be countered in India and replaced with humans there with satellites Sharad Tailang MANAGER-MARKETING a more balanced atmosphere of discussion and debate. for monitoing. This will Priya Singh Taking control of administration is not enough. avoid bloodspilling; after all, CHIEF DESIGNER-MARKETING Sunil Tung Champak Bhattacharjee soldiers are only humans. Let the UN too keep an eye CFO & HEAD-IT Anil Bisht on the borders through its CHIEF EXECUTIVE & PUBLISHER Neeraja Chawla own satellites. All rights reserved throughout the CHINA CHALLENGE moment, it may blow up PVM Rao world. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited. That the world of diplomacy into a full-blown trade Editor: S Prasannarajan. Printed and is cut-throat was revealed relations crisis. TOKENISM published by Neeraja Chawla on behalf of the owner, Open Media Network Pvt yet again by China (‘Is India Nikhil Krishnan Mere rebranding is not Ltd. Printed at Thomson Press India Ltd, 18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Still Paying for Nehru’s enough (‘Unfair and Less Faridabad-121007, (Haryana). Published at 4, DDA Commercial China-Submissive Policy?’ The greatness of a leader Lovely’, July 6th, 2020). As Complex, Panchsheel Park, by MJ Akbar and ‘China is judged only after their long as a whitening product New Delhi-110017. Ph: (011) 48500500; Fax: (011) 48500599 Throws Down a Challenge to time. Jawaharlal Nehru’s sells, racist beauty will To subscribe, WhatsApp ‘openmag’ to India’ by Brahma Chellaney, three Himalayan blunders survive. Changing the name 9999800012 or log on to www.openthemagazine.com July 6th, 2020). They did not are finally being genuinely of a fairness cream is classic or call our Toll Free Number 1800 102 7510 even flinch in going from understood and appraised. old wine in new bottle. or email at: handshakes to hand-to-hand One, when he pulled back In their long advertising [email protected] For alliances, email combat at the Line of Actual Indian forces from Kashmir history, grooming brands [email protected] For advertising, email Control. The deployment on the advice of Sheikh have done considerable [email protected] on the border by both the Abdulla—that region would social harm by reinforcing For any other queries/observations, email [email protected] countries may trigger a have been one and ours stereotypes. If these brands larger regional—global?— today. Two, when he rejected wish to rectify their errors Disclaimer conflict. The Galwan Valley Nepal’s overtures to join and win back the trust of ‘Open Avenues’ are advertiser-driven marketing initiatives and Open assumes no responsibility attack on Indian troops India in the 1950s. And three, modern-age customers, a for content and the consequences of using products or services advertised in the magazine was gruesome. We have when he accepted China’s step no less than dropping been taken aback by the claim over Tibet. The last off the entire range of Volume 12 Issue 27 crude method of attack. one was probably the most fairness products should For the week 7-13 July 2020 Total No. of pages 68 Though the ban on Chinese egregious of all his mistakes. be acceptable. apps looks laughable at the No wonder, his image of a Gaurav Pant 4 13 JULY 2020 LOCOMOTIF By S PRASANNARAJAN RADICALISATION OF THE LIBERAL IBERAL IS THE desired adjective to any democracy again, the world is a wretched place where, goes the liberal text, where constitutional rights and obligations are still the vocal majority has stolen not just all the benefits of freedom maintained. Liberalism is what a free world and but history too. The perpetuation of this text requires an enemy, an unfettered citizen are indebted to for their good as enemies have always come handy to the isms of the past. fortune. The liberal ideal, in spite of its variations The new enemy is one who disputes the useful segregations of Lacross continents, is what a world swinging between excessive identity politics. anger and inflated triumphalism yearns for. In the new liberal sociology, identity is biography. The It was not so long ago that we assumed a liberal victory individual whose freedom hindered by the state was always was inevitable as artificial systems fell apart. The collapse of at the centre of liberal politics. The current social vivisection communism may not have resulted in what liberal idealists had of the individual marks a new social order in which anyone predicted. But the spontaneity of streets that contributed to the subscribing to the inviolability of a cultural inheritance is a repudiation of the Lie was a validation of the liberal spirit; and it glorifier of an unjust past. Someone who carries the residues of was the benefactors of the spirit, once in power, who had let the historical oppression in his or her genes. Yesterday ought to be a ideal down. lingering grievance. Still, in the end, liberalism, the most shared sentiment of Liberals today dominate the marketplace of grievance. They power after World War II, remained undefeated by the ideology are not necessarily the reapers of resentment. They manufacture that promised the New Man in a Just World. And it took the resentments to reclaim an imagined past. Theirs is not a struggle insurgency of populists to shatter the ideal again, culminating for power.