Annihilation of Caste

CONTENTS THE ARAVAN CVOLUME 6 ISSUE 3 March 2014 Founder: Vishwa Nath (1917-2002) Editor-in-Chief, publisher & printer: Paresh Nath The Lede 10 The Beat Goes On | SHAMIK BAG Musicians recall a groovy competition 12 Long-distance Relationship | MILLI LEGRAIN Brazilian soap operas continue their EX CERPT love affair with South Asia 28 The Doctor 14 Buried Treasure | SHUBHAM SHIVANG Villagers in Uttarakhand turn to a and the Saint lucrative fungus to supplement income Ambedkar, Gandhi and the Letters From battle against caste ARUNDHATI ROY 16 Jordan | NUR LAIQ The War Next Door A precarious calm prevails in Amman Reporting and Essays as the Syrian conflict rages on REPORTAGE Perspectives 46 The Spark How Sunil Pant ignited a queer rights movement 18 Common Ground in Nepal | KYLE KNIGHT Can the Aam Aadmi Party become a national force? HARTOSH SINGH BAL REPORTAGE 58 A Separation 20 Shell Game How the violence of Muzaffarnagar tore one village Naveen Patnaik keeps the national parties guessing apart | ANJALI MODY SAMPAD MAHAPATRA PHOTO ESSAY 22 Great Expectations 72 Far and Wide The trouble with our biographies of performing Panoramic scenes from eastern Europe artists | KEERTHIK SASIDHARAN JENS OLOF LASTHEIN 18 72 MARCH 2014 | THE CARAVAN | 03 CONTENTS 84 102 Books Arts and Reviews ESSAY FEATURE 84 Torn Leaves 102 Beat Boys The letters of the young Tagore Karachi’s new underground music scene draws reveal a poet in full possession of his voice inspiration from the city’s chaotic character ROSINKA CHAUDHURI AHMER NAQVI Fiction and Poetry 112 The Bookshelf FICTION 114 Showcase 90 The Visitors | AAMER HUSSEIN 118 Editor’s Pick POETRY 94 Five Poems | LEV OZEROV 90 94 04 | THE CARAVAN | MARCH 2014 LETTERS FROM Jordan World Bank report, was “buoyant”—as was the mood. For- eign aid for the refugees had, according to the UN, brought A PRECARIOUS CALM in $700 million. A European diplomat I met, when prodded for his analysis on Jordan, responded simply, “chi-ching.” PREVAILS IN AMMAN AS THE But, as the same World Bank report stressed, Jordan’s situation is precarious. The refugees cost the country SYRIAN CONFLICT RAGES ON one billion dollars in 2013 alone, outstripping the influx of aid. The land route from Amman to Beirut through Damascus—a major trade channel—is closed, and many of Jordan’s agricultural exports can no longer reach their The War markets in Lebanon, Turkey and Europe. Syrian refugees are competing with Jordan’s poor for unskilled jobs and driving down wages, even as additional demand from the Next Door new arrivals is elevating rents and consumer goods prices. National unemployment stands at 14 percent—38 percent BY NUR LAIQ among youth. Jordan’s debt-to-GDP ratio is significantly high, and its budget deficit is immense. Disparities are increasing, and the government has embarked on a series of austerity measures that have sparked unrest, most re- cently in November, when protests broke out over a rise he familiar rhythms of the Jordanian The city was booming, there was a capital, Amman—the rustling of Aleppo pines and pistachio trees, the insouciance fancy new airport emulating the shape of taxi drivers careening down the city’s of a desert palm, and, except when steep hills while simultaneously sipping interrupted by the snow, the restaurants coffee and smoking—were stilled in mid- December by a sweep of arctic white. It had been snowing were always full. Tfor hours—the heaviest snowfall in decades—bringing the city to a standstill. Outside my window, the Aleppo pines, in fuel prices. The outlook remains bleak even for afflu- which grow across the Eastern Mediterranean, had taken ent young Jordanians who have attended universities in on the majestic stature of totem poles in a tundra. The trees the UK and the US. At a pre-Christmas lunch I met Sarah were between 100 and 1,000 years old—enough to have Khatib, a lawyer and recent returnee from London who witnessed Ottoman rule between 1516 and 1918, the subse- described herself as a rare breed and talked of the small quent British mandate, and independence in 1946. Over the percentage of her friends in Amman who were young pro- centuries, they would have provided timber for aspiring na- fessionals. She remarked that those who returned did so tion-builders, and shade and sanctuary for trade caravans. either because they had political aspirations, or possessed Today, they are more likely to induce nostalgia among the the financial resources to start their own businesses. The many refugees Jordan has taken in from Palestine, Leba- Syrian refugees, of course, have neither. non, Iraq and, increasingly, Syria, which lies just two hours Because of the snow, I was unable to meet with Moham- by highway north of Amman. mad, a Syrian lawyer who had fled Aleppo in late 2012, but I had last been in Amman in 2010, on a trip that took me we exchanged a series of emails. Mohammad, who asked through Jordan and Syria on the eve of the Arab revolutions that I not use his full name, described his time in Jordan as and the Syrian civil war. In the four years since, more than a period of “waiting for salvation.” He had been unable to 100,000 people have lost their lives in Syria, and over 3 mil- find work and wanted to return to Syria, though he held lit- lion have become refugees. Jordan has accepted 600,000 tle hope of doing so soon. He left Aleppo after attending the of them—a full tenth the number of its own population of funeral of an anti-regime activist who had been tortured to 6 million. About 70 percent of the new arrivals are staying death at a detention centre run by the government under with host families and communities across the country, president Bashar al-Assad. Such funerals were also used as with the remainder in camps. The Jordanian government sites of protest, and attendees were often subsequently tar- has given the refugees the same access as its citizens to free geted by the regime’s security forces. Fearing arrest, Mo- healthcare and education, and to food and fuel subsidies. hammad decided to leave the city, where “at any moment a Amman, a city of 3 million people, has taken in 150,000 Syr- bomb could fall on your home or school or children, out of ians, who at first glance were conspicuous by their absence. a cannon or from an aircraft.” He and his family took a taxi The city was booming, there was a fancy new airport in west to the Lebanese border, where, having bribed their the shape of a desert palm, and, except when interrupted way through several roadblocks along the route, they could by the snow, the restaurants—Blue Fig, Sufra, Café Strada— finally “breathe a sigh of relief.” In Beirut, Mohammad said, were always full. Private consumption, according to a 2013 he found the prices “fictional” compared to his income, and 16 | THE CARAVAN | MARCH 2014 PERSPECTIVES Perspectives focus on battling well-known incumbents will boost its COMMON GROUND profile in constituencies where its candidates or their oppo- Can the Aam Aadmi Party become a national force? nents may not be so prominent. The party’s success in Delhi has also given hope to organisations with a large support HARTOSH SINGH BAL base, such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan, which have considered an electoral role in the past but have refrained hen the Delhi Assembly, amidst the from actually contesting elections. Both Medha Patkar, the expected uproar, voted 42 to 27 to block NBA’s founder, and Alok Aggarwal, the current NBA chief, the introduction of the Jan Lokpal Bill will contest on an AAP ticket. on 14 February, it signalled the end of the But even so, the most optimistic assessments of the par- WAam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal’s volatile seven ty’s chances rely on a possibility put forward by the po- weeks as chief minister. In a characteristic act of show- litical scientist Ashutosh Varshney in the Indian Express: manship, Kejriwal tried to project the failure as the result “Moving forward, the AAP’s quick spread to India’s urban of a united effort by the Congress and the BJP to scuttle parliamentary constituencies (94 in all) and semi-urban the AAP’s cherished anti-corruption legislation, and not of constituencies (122) simply cannot be ruled out … If the his government’s attempt to sidestep constitutional proce- AAP gets 30–40 seats in 2014, mostly from urban India, it dure by bringing the bill to the floor without the approval will be the third largest party in Parliament.” of the central government. In a speech to the assembly, he Almost every recent opinion poll has suggested that the declared, “From the scenes that I have witnessed today, it country’s urban vote is solidly behind Modi. But many com- is clear that we have to be in parliament.” Two hours later, mentators, looking at the optimistic scenario outlined by Kejriwal announced his resignation. Varshney, are now touting the AAP as an obstacle to the The episode came as little surprise. From the AAP’s in- BJP’s march to power. Confidence in the AAP’s urban po- ception, the party’s ambitions have been national, and tential has much to do with the party’s success in last De- the Delhi sojourn was only a halt on its way towards par- cember’s Delhi assembly elections, when it won more than liament. But even as the party aims for the kind of reach 29 percent of the vote.

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