Your Free Gift Iographers Are Akin to Developed Into a Deep Appreciation of Trapeze Artists
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
www.openthemagazine.com 50 7 DECEMBER /2020 OPEN VOLUME 12 ISSUE 48 7 DECEMBER 2020 CONTENTS 7 DECEMBER 2020 5 6 8 10 14 LOCOMOTIF INDRAPRASTHA MUMBAI NOTEBOOK IN MEMORIAM HISTORY OF THE PRESENT Black noise By Virendra Kapoor By Anil Dharker Ahmed Patel (1949-2020) The message from Seemanchal By S Prasannarajan By PR Ramesh By MJ Akbar 16 18 20 22 TOUCHSTONE SOFT POWER WHISPERER OPEN ESSAY History without humility The rebuke and after By Jayanta Ghosal Ode to an Orientalist By Keerthik Sasidharan Makarand R Paranjape By William Dalrymple 26 THE UNFINISHED AGENDA 26 OF MASOOD AZHAR Twenty years after his release from an Indian jail, the fountainhead of radical Islamism continues to send messengers of death to India By Rahul Pandita 34 THE LIMITS OF AUTONOMY POLITICS The district council elections may be the first step in disempowering Kashmir’s oligarchy By Siddharth Singh 38 BOTTLED UP IN BIHAR 22 Nitish Kumar and the weaponisation of prohibition By PR Ramesh 44 DOSES OF HOPE The progress made on Covid vaccines in ten months looks like a mad dash for protection against the virus, but the development of vaccines remains a marathon 38 By Pavan Srinath 48 48 BACK TO CLASS As schools reopen, India is grappling with the dilemma of just how to do it and whether it is even ethical By Lhendup G Bhutia 52 52 56 60 63 66 THE SARTORIAL MODERNIST THE QUESTIONING SELF STIRRED BY A SCAM THE IRON GRIP NOT PEOPLE LIKE US A glimpse into Bhanu Athaiya’s Autobiography has long Hansal Mehta on how he The enduring fascination with Managing multiple shoots aesthetic grasp of the female been Barack Obama’s way of created a show about the rise Margaret Thatcher for authors, By Rajeev Masand body and fashions explaining his way in the world and fall of Harshad Mehta filmmakers and musicians By Rosalyn D’Mello By Mini Kapoor By Divya Unny By Aditya Mani Jha Cover by Rohit Chawla 7 DECEMBER 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 The BJP juggernaut is rolling fast and furious (‘Why EDITOR-AT-LARGE Siddharth Singh DEPUTY EDITORS Madhavankutty Pillai BJP Wins’ by Vinay Sitapati, November 30th, 2020). (Mumbai Bureau Chief), Winning the recent Bihar Assembly elections with Rahul Pandita, Amita Shah, V Shoba (Bangalore), Nandini Nair allies, including Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), has been CREATIVE DIRECTOR Rohit Chawla yet another achievement. For a party that has ART DIRECTOR Jyoti K Singh SENIOR EDITORS Sudeep Paul, relentlessly injected politics with religious tropes, its Lhendup Gyatso Bhutia (Mumbai), campaign blitzkrieg of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Bharat Mata Moinak Mitra, Nikita Doval AssOCIATE EDITOR Vijay K Soni (Web) Ki Jai’ have yielded some rich dividends, managing ASSISTANT EDITOR Vipul Vivek to saffronise much of India. This bears even more CHIEF OF GRAPHICS Saurabh Singh significance as it has happened in a society modelled SENIOR DESIGNERS Anup Banerjee, Veer Pal Singh on Gandhi’s ‘sarvadharma sadbhava’ (equal treatment PHOTO EDITOR Raul Irani of all faiths), with the Constitution mandating DEPUTY PHOTO EDITOR Ashish Sharma additionally that the state may intervene in religion NATIONAL HEAD-EVENTS AND INITIATIVES in certain cases of fissures. Ascendant Hindutva, elections in this subcontinent Arpita Sachin Ahuja are won on the basis of AVP (ADVERTISING) however, has clearly trounced all that old school Rashmi Lata Swarup secularism stands for. This colossal victory of BJP manpower, moneypower GENERAL MANAGERS (ADVERTISING) Uma Srinivasan (South) couldn’t have been possible without inner-party and muscle power, not on discipline and unity. Victory bestows the winner with the basis of real issues. The NATIONAL HEAD-DISTRIBUTION AND SALES Ajay Gupta a serious responsibility. The party that wins owes it to Reserve Bank of India’s REGIONAL HEADS-CIRCULATION D Charles (South), Melvin George the nation to be the voice of India. The ‘hum saath saath announcement that in (West), Basab Ghosh (East) hain’ (we’re in this together) dictum the party swears the second quarter the HEAD-PRODUCTION Maneesh Tyagi by is much like that of a Hindu undivided family that economy would shrink, SENIOR MANAGER (PRE-PRESS) Sharad Tailang stays together despite its divisions. again establishes that India MANAGER-MARKETING Sangeeta Kampani is officially and technically Priya Singh CHIEF DESIGNER-MARKETING in a recession. India is among Champak Bhattacharjee the top nations by number of CFO & HEAD-IT Anil Bisht Covid-19 infected people and CHIEF EXECUTIVE & PUBLISHER BJP ’S CHARIOT they concede more space the number of people dead. Neeraja Chawla There are no easy answers and whenever they talk of The lockdown has failed to All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner to why BJP wins (‘Why BJP privileging minorities, they curb the pandemic even as the is prohibited. Wins’ by Vinay Sitapati, further alienate themselves nation is clocking over 30,000 Editor: S Prasannarajan. Printed and published by Neeraja Chawla on behalf November 30th, 2020). Why from Hindus. BJP is now new cases every day. A vaccine of the owner, Open Media Network Pvt Ltd. Printed at Thomson Press India Ltd, BJP lost for so many years is trying to break fresh ground is still not in sight. 18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana). key to finding their winning in Telangana, West Bengal Biju Cherian Published at 4, DDA Commercial formula, if any. BJP taking and Tamil Nadu. It has Complex, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110017. centrestage has everything successfully wooed centrist SPORT AND CAUSE Ph: (011) 48500500; Fax: (011) 48500599 to do with Congress losing its and undecided voters who Lewis Hamilton has To subscribe, WhatsApp ‘openmag’ to 9999800012 or log on to plot and leaving a vacuum. find no better alternative. By surpassed Michael www.openthemagazine.com or call our Toll Free Number BJP has been honest and refusing to introspect and Schumacher’s record 1800 102 7510 sincere about its rightist shooting all the messengers recently and without or email at: [email protected] commitments since Day that bring news of change any doubt he is one of the For alliances, email [email protected] 1. So why is it finding an in India’s politics, Congress greatest F1 drivers of all For advertising, email audience only now? BJP is digging its own grave and time (‘Success Formula’, [email protected] For any other queries/observations, has successfully occupied probably is the biggest factor November 30th, 2020). But email [email protected] the nationalist space in BJP’s rise. It is going to what really sets him apart besides claiming to be the be a walkover for BJP until from his German rival is Disclaimer ‘Open Avenues’ are advertiser-driven marketing champion of Hindus’ rights, opposition parties can find his support for sensitive initiatives and Open assumes no responsibility for content and the consequences of using much thanks to the stale the right ethos and a positive and critical issues. There are products or services advertised in the magazine politics of Congress and outlook to attract Indians. not many sportsmen who Volume 12 Issue 48 other opposition parties. Ashok Goswami openly support a cause close For the week 1-7 December 2020 Whenever opposition to people’s heart due to the Total No. of pages 68 politicians question the BJP has won yet another sensitivity of the issue. Indian Army’s actions, election as a coalition. But Bal Govind 4 7 DECEMBER 2020 LOCOMOTIF By S PRASANNARAJAN BLACK NOISE JUST 117 SPARSELY printed pages, the young Martin, a former student of Diane, is expected to speak book has the lightness of a muted sigh, smart. So he quotes from his most quotable source, Einstein’s 1912 or an aside in isolation. Every sentence is Manuscript on the Special Theory of Relativity. Diane talks of him and like a stirring in a still world, shrunken to their abruptly stalled situation: “In class you quoted footnotes. You the size of a middle-class drawing room vanished into footnotes. Einstein, Heisenberg, Godel. Relativity, in New York City. The talkers are trapped, uncertainty, incompleteness. I am foolishly trying to imagine between anticipation and denial, between all the rooms in all the cities where the game is being broadcast. realisation and surprise. They talk shop All the people watching intently or sitting as we are, puzzled, with the mock seriousness of playful philosophers, with some abandoned by science, technology, common sense.” Soon Jim and Einstein thrown in. We read it in our own confinement, our Tessa, who survived the crash-landing, will join them, and they all own entrapment, in a pandemic world, and our consolation become footnotes in a text of existential silence. nowadays comes from Netflix rather than Nietzsche. The book could have been called, to improvise one of Don DeLillo, the last of the greats in American fiction (along DeLillo’s previous titles, Black Noise. The noise comes from with Paul Auster), has been here before, but not with this kind of an abruptness, and it pervades the pages as disoriented and austere premonition of apocalypse. This is as if he has chiselled disconnected soliloquies from people punished by technological an entire world of excesses to a miniature dystopia suspended progress. They don’t know why they are trapped; they still in time. The Silence (Scribner, 128 pages, $22), DeLillo’s new don’t know what’s happening out there, whether it’s cyber- novel, begins mid-air, in a flight cabin. Jim and his wife Tessa are terrorism or foreign intrusion or some nameless digital voodoo flying back to New York from Paris.