www.openthemagazine.com 50 16 16 NOVEMBER /2020 OPEN VOLUME 12 ISSUE 45 16 NOVEMBER 2020 CONTENTS 16 NOVEMBER 2020 6 8 14 16 18 20 22 LOCOMOTIF OPEN DIARY THE INSIDER INDIAN ACCENTS OPINION WHISPERER OPEN ESSAY The mind and By Swapan Dasgupta By PR Ramesh A road map for the ruler Beware Yogi 2029 By Jayanta Ghosal The morning after mandate of By Bibek Debroy By Minhaz Merchant By Vinay Lal America 2020 By S Prasannarajan 28 THE BIDEN MOMENTUM LINGERING TRUMPISM A dispatch from the Disunited States of America By Tunku Varadarajan 34 THE DAY OF THE QUIET AMERICAN Joe Biden, an error-prone politician but a universally well-liked man, scarcely put a foot wrong during the campaign. Trump and the pandemic made that relatively easy. Biden seems to have unseated him with a sense of decency By James Astill 28 40 AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY Have they lost faith and trust in the elected class? By Keerthik Sasidharan 46 THE REDUNDANCY OF ANTI-AMERICANISM There’s a little bit of America all around and in us 54 By Madhavankutty Pillai 50 COUNTING THE SPOTS How many leopards does India have? Till we can answer that there is no good estimate of how many have been killed By Nikita Doval 54 62 65 66 BABUR’S SOUL AT HOME IN THE WORLD HOLLYWOOD REPORTER NOT PEOPLE LIKE US The Mughal emperor produced one of Ali Fazal is showing us how Julianne Moore on playing Dixit can fix it the most fascinating autobiographies to be a global star feminist Gloria Steinem By Rajeev Masand ever written to record how he established By Kaveree Bamzai By Noel de Souza an extraordinary dynasty By William Dalrymple Cover photo Getty Images 16 NOVEMBER 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 3 OPEN MAIL [email protected] EDITOR S Prasannarajan LETTER OF THE WEEK MANAGING EDITOR PR Ramesh C EXECUTIVE EDITOR Ullekh NP EDITOR-AT-LARGE Siddharth Singh DEPUTY EDITORS Madhavankutty Pillai I am truly shocked and saddened that the story (Mumbai Bureau Chief), on the redevelopment of Chandni Chowk in Rahul Pandita, Amita Shah, V Shoba (Bangalore), Nandini Nair Old Delhi completely fails to recognise or even CREATIVE DIRECTOR Rohit Chawla mention the main architect of the project , ART DIRECTOR Jyoti K Singh SENIOR EDITORS Sudeep Paul, the late Pradeep Sachdeva, who passed away a few Lhendup Gyatso Bhutia (Mumbai), months ago, and his firm Pradeep Sachdeva Design Moinak Mitra, Nikita Doval AssOCIATE EDITOR Vijay K Soni (Web) Associates which is still continuing work on the ASSISTANT EDITOR Vipul Vivek project (‘A Walk Down Memory Lane’, November 9th, CHIEF OF GRAPHICS Saurabh Singh 2020). Pradeep was one of the finest architects of public SENIOR DESIGNERS Anup Banerjee, Veer Pal Singh spaces Delhi has been blessed with, having designed PHOTO EDITOR Raul Irani Dilli Haat with me and the Garden of Five Senses, DEPUTY PHOTO EDITOR Ashish Sharma both of which satisfied the Delhi government so NATIONAL HEAD-EVENTS AND INITIATIVES much they appointed him for Chandni Chowk as TWO-WAY RELATIONSHIP Arpita Sachin Ahuja India’s relationship with the AVP (ADVERTISING) well. No one was more affable, honest and gentle Rashmi Lata Swarup than him; a man who expressed quietly his deep US is soon going to get a new GENERAL MANAGERS (ADVERTISING) Uma Srinivasan (South) pain at the hostile interventionist actions of AGK dimension (‘America’s Choice, Menon and his group particularly since he had India’s Interest’, November NATIONAL HEAD-DISTRIBUTION AND SALES Ajay Gupta considered them friends. These ‘negationists’ who 9th, 2020). It is going to become REGIONAL HEADS-CIRCULATION D Charles (South), Melvin George repeatedly try to ensure nothing new or pathbreaking a genuine two-way alliance. (West), Basab Ghosh (East) or an improvement of public spaces takes place Both nations need much HEAD-PRODUCTION Maneesh Tyagi shield themselves with such phrases as ‘heritage deeper cooperation in the SENIOR MANAGER (PRE-PRESS) Sharad Tailang conservation’. Instead of creating something to show wake of Chinese aggression, MANAGER-MARKETING for themselves, a particular group of historians and challenge and expansionism. Priya Singh CHIEF DESIGNER-MARKETING architects opine and pontificate in their attempts to In this region, only India has Champak Bhattacharjee preserve decaying systems of other centuries. They the capacity to fight . But it is CFO & HEAD-IT Anil Bisht urge creating showpieces rather than usable, living, held back by lack of capital CHIEF EXECUTIVE & PUBLISHER breathing spaces for daily use in today’s times for a and technology. In these areas, Neeraja Chawla population that has multiplied many times over. India needs the US’ backing. All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner Why didn’t they complain when an electrical goods It also needs the superpower’s is prohibited. market displaced Begum Samru’s palace or when presence in the region to Editor: S Prasannarajan. Printed and published by Neeraja Chawla on behalf the whole street became a huge mess? Now that balance the difference in of the owner, Open Media Network Pvt Ltd. Printed at Thomson Press India Ltd, the project is nearing completion and is worthy of power with China. In return, 18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana). attention and praise, it is these same people who are America can use India as Published at 4, DDA Commercial claiming credit and jumping on the bandwagon an intermediary to expand Complex, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110017. without caring to utter Pradeep Sachdeva’s name. It its influence and business Ph: (011) 48500500; Fax: (011) 48500599 also does not behove Shahjahanabad Redevelopment throughout this region. Both To subscribe, WhatsApp ‘openmag’ to 9999800012 or log on to Corporation’s Nitin Panigrahi to omit mentioning countries have the same www.openthemagazine.com or call our Toll Free Number the late architect with whom he worked closely. purpose: to check China. For 1800 102 7510 Calling it a faux imitation of Dilli Haat was another India, the US is a Hobson’s or email at: [email protected] shocker, since the latter was a market newly created choice. Russia’s dalliance with For alliances, email [email protected] over a storm water drain, whereas Chandni Chowk China has left India with no For advertising, email was already a bustling market that had long gone other option. The current [email protected] For any other queries/observations, out of hand. I do hope so much print space is not straining of ties between the email [email protected] unknowingly accorded to carpetbaggers who are US and China has come as an today claiming credit and kudos that have not been unexpected windfall for India. Disclaimer ‘Open Avenues’ are advertiser-driven marketing earned. If any lesson has to be learnt, it is for the Irrespective of who ends up initiatives and Open assumes no responsibility for content and the consequences of using Central Vista planners to work with a clear vision, occupying the White House products or services advertised in the magazine good use of space, better aesthetics and efficient in this election, the US will Volume 12 Issue 45 planning, so that they don’t leave room for need India more than ever For the week 10-16 November 2020 needless interventions and criticism. now given the geopolitical Total No. of pages 68 Jaya Jaitly challenge it faces. Chanchal Nandy 4 16 NOVEMBER 2020 LOCOMOTIF By S PRASANNARAJAN THE MIND AND MANDATE OF AMERICA 2020 merica just had its longest nights Remember: Joe Biden said he would be “an ally of the in politics. An electoral thriller, light” after the darkness of Trumpism. And that was defying psephology and conventional perhaps the only Obamaesque piece of poetry the steady A punditry, lingered there—a prolonged deputy of America’s first Black president let into his prose. denouement with no closure in sight. Has America seen the light? President Donald Trump, as was expected, played King Trump may have become America’s fifth president in a of Darkness to horrifying perfection, crying “fraud” and century who was denied a second term—what was once “disenfranchisement” and threatening litigation when- a pre-pandemic certainty—but the end of his presidency ever the numbers went against his private algorithm. The won’t be the end of Trumpism. As president, he was far challenger, and successor, Joe Biden, remained largely from being the unifier. It was a great divide that made him quiet, as was expected of American politics’ most patient president in the first place. In four years he had made the man. Patience pays. division starker. He presided over an America of irrecon- Then there were the metaphorical nights of the last cilables, and its sociology escaped the certainties of ideolo- four years. In the literature of nocturnal America, Trump gies—Left or Right, it didn’t matter. He leaves behind an floated in singular prominence, casually assassinating America that is not just divided. It’s angrier, nervous, truth and diligently nurturing the base. This America as resentful, vengeful, unforgiving, and self-consciously the 21st century’s most terrifying—and distasteful—piece American in a raw, nativist way. of reality television was panned by both liberals and liberal America may not have elected a unifier. It may not have conservatives. And this America was, by the consensus of elected even a counter-argument. It seems to have elected a the disgusted and the outraged, racist, corrupt, pandemic- patriarch of public-square decency. And as has been argued insensitive, narcissistic, and, at a closer look, fake. In the in this space last week, it seems to have settled for metaphorical nights of America’s presidential history, a non-Trump, someone who is defined by what he is not.