www.openthemagazine.com 29 MARCH 2021 / `50 CONTENTS 29 MARCH 2021 5 6 7 8 14 20 22 24 LOCOMOTIF INDRAPRASTHA MUMBAI NOTEBOOK OPINION SOFT POWER THE RACHEL WHISPERER OPEN ESSAY Rahul dismisses By Virendra Kapoor By Anil Dharker Subservient After Amarnath PAPERS By Jayanta Ghosal The water wars Indian democracy minds By Makarand R Paranjape The Indian By Brahma Chellaney By S Prasannarajan By Minhaz Merchant pastoral By Rachel Dwyer 28 THE FUTURE OF WATER 28 MODI’S WATER MANTRA The Jal Jeevan Mission is fulfilling a promise to provide every rural household with drinking water and a tap. Its biggest challenge now is to ensure India’s water security By Amita Shah 38 ‘I am confident that we will achieve the Jal Jeevan Mission’s target of taking drinking water to every household’ Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat in conversation By Amita Shah 42 A THIRST FOR CHANGE A sarpanch brings round-the-clock water supply to every household in his Haryana village By Nikita Doval 45 THE LOWER DEPTHS Bengaluru continues to be water-stressed despite citizen awareness and initiatives to conserve and recharge lakes By V Shoba 48 REMEMBERING IN THE RAIN 66 70 Mulshi, one of the wettest places on the planet, marks the centenary of the world’s first anti-dam movement By Nandini Nair 52 FLOWING FAR The benefits of river rejuvenation extend to water and food security, tourism and recreation By Abhaya K Agarwal & Maansi S Shah 55 WATER WARRIORS How India’s frontline fighters are making water scarcity a thing of the past By Kaveree Bamzai 58 THE HYDRATION REVOLUTION The reinvention of water as a wellness commodity By Lhendup G Bhutia 62 HOLY WATER From being gateways to gods to cleansing of sins, it has played a central role in religion and culture By Madhavankutty Pillai 74 79 66 TRADING IN DRAVIDIAN STOCK It is advantage DMK as the ruling AIADMK dilutes 74 79 82 Amma’s legacy and dabbles in appeasement politics By V Shoba THE FUTURE OF LOVE MEMORY’S DOOR STARGAZER The undiminished solar A group exhibition By Kaveree Bamzai 70 TRUTH AND FAITH power of Kazuo Ishiguro’s examines deletions and The Places of Worship Act stands in the way of imagination disappearances reclamation of religious sites of one community By Sanjay Sipahimalani By Prahlad Srihari allegedly occupied by another J Sai Deepak Cover by Rohit Chawla Photograph by Getty Images 29 MARCH 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 West Bengal is set for an interesting battle between EDITOR-AT-LARGE Siddharth Singh DEPUTY EDITORS Madhavankutty Pillai the incumbent Trinamool Congress (TMC) and BJP (Mumbai Bureau Chief), (‘An East Bengal in West Bengal’ by MJ Akbar, March Rahul Pandita, Amita Shah, V Shoba (Bangalore), Nandini Nair 22nd, 2021). The defections from TMC and the war CREATIVE DIRECTOR Rohit Chawla of words between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ART DIRECTOR Jyoti K Singh SENIOR EDITORS Sudeep Paul, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have added so Lhendup Gyatso Bhutia (Mumbai), many twists to the upcoming Assembly election Moinak Mitra, Nikita Doval SENIOR AssOCIATE EDITOR that a straight prediction has become difficult. In the Antara Raghavan wake of these developments, leaders remaining in the AssOCIATE EDITOR Vijay K Soni (Web) ruling party are trying to put on a brave face in front ASSISTANT EDITOR Vipul Vivek CHIEF OF GRAPHICS Saurabh Singh of BJP even as they are confounded by the popular SENIOR DESIGNERS Anup Banerjee, narrative that TMC is now a sinking ship. This is Veer Pal Singh despite politicians such as Rashtriya Janata Dal’s PHOTO EDITOR Raul Irani DEPUTY PHOTO EDITOR Ashish Sharma Tejashwi Yadav and Samajwadi Party (SP)’s Akhilesh its prestige, hardly has the Yadav coming out in support of Banerjee. The former same pull for professional NATIONAL HEAD-EVENTS AND INITIATIVES Arpita Sachin Ahuja Uttar Pradesh chief minister went so far as to say SP footballers anymore. AVP (ADVERTISING) Rashmi Lata Swarup workers will rally behind TMC in the elections. But do The increasing supply of GENERAL MANAGERS (ADVERTISING) these ‘outsider’ parties, to use TMC’s characterisation, cricketers, especially from Uma Srinivasan (South) really have any traction in the state to counter BJP? Not India’s non-metropolitan NATIONAL HEAD-DISTRIBUTION AND SALES if we go by the still steady rate of defections from TMC centres, has also forced the Ajay Gupta REGIONAL HEADS-CIRCULATION to BJP. We will find out very soon what the majority of cricket market to expand D Charles (South), Melvin George (West), Basab Ghosh (East) Bengal voters think. opportunities. The rise of the HEAD-PRODUCTION Maneesh Tyagi Krishnan S Maniam T20 format was inevitable. SENIOR MANAGER (PRE-PRESS) And the transformation of Sharad Tailang MANAGER-MARKETING cricket into entertainment, Priya Singh apart from the competition CHIEF DESIGNER-MARKETING Champak Bhattacharjee WHICH WAY BENGAL? like CPM to tie up with it was facing from the CFO & HEAD-IT Anil Bisht Four states and one Union the openly religious leader expanding league football, territory have Assembly Abbas Siddiqui’s Indian has only created more scope CHIEF EXECUTIVE & PUBLISHER Neeraja Chawla elections due in the next few Secular Front. It is only going for cricket to become more All rights reserved throughout the weeks but only West Bengal to make the fight even more batting-friendly. It’s the world. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited. is on every commentator’s difficult for TMC, which is market, stupid. Editor: S Prasannarajan. Printed and Vasudevan TMC published by Neeraja Chawla on behalf mind (‘The Indiscreet Charm banking on a consolidation of the owner, Open Media Network Pvt of Abbas Siddiqui’, of Muslim votes. Ltd. Printed at Thomson Press India Ltd, 18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, March 22nd, 2021). And Jaideep Mittra The third Test pitch at Faridabad-121007, (Haryana). Published at 4, DDA Commercial understandably so. The Motera, where the pink-ball Complex, Panchsheel Park, state’s political landscape PITCH PERFECT Test was played between New Delhi-110017. Ph: (011) 48500500; Fax: (011) 48500599 has witnessed momentous James Astill’s take on India and England, has To subscribe, WhatsApp ‘openmag’ to changes since Chief Minister the recently concluded become a target for former 9999800012 or log on to www.openthemagazine.com Mamata Banerjee’s first India-England Test series England players as the or call our Toll Free Number 1800 102 7510 victory in 2011. BJP has was spot on (‘Imperfect match ended within two or email at: shown its determination to Pitch’, March 22nd, 2021). days with batsmen on both [email protected] For alliances, email grab mindspace and become Notwithstanding the sides unable to live up to [email protected] For advertising, email central to public discourse inherent merits of the Test expectations. But we need [email protected] in a state where it has little format, competition in all the to remember two things. For any other queries/observations, email [email protected] history of administration. formats of cricket has been First, even the International Capitalising on its dominant increasing rapidly. The sport Cricket Council had called Disclaimer ‘Open Avenues’ are advertiser-driven marketing national status, BJP has has become as exhausting this pitch average. Second, initiatives and Open assumes no responsibility for content and the consequences of using managed to punch above and cutting-edge as football most batsmen fell to products or services advertised in the magazine its weight in the state. The where the best players are straight deliveries when party’s consolidation of continually playing one or they had come prepared to Volume 13 Issue 12 For the week 23-29 March 2021 Hindu votes has pushed even the other tournament. The play spin. Total No. of pages 84 old-fashioned secularists FIFA World Cup, beyond Bal Govind 4 29 MARCH 2021 LOCOMOTIF By S PRASANNARAJAN RAHUL DISMISSES INDIAN DEMOCRACY OR A TELLER of scary stories about stifled liberal pieties—free speech, for instance—would have made life democracies, it was a perfect audience, steeped in the easier for so many heretics. The radicalised liberal, now proudly radical liberal sensitivity of post-Trump America. holding the banner of ‘progressivism’, has returned to the old And the story that Rahul Gandhi told them could nomenclature of evil to start a war on the idyll-breakers from have earned him a prisoner-of-conscience asylum. It the Right—and even from the Centre. With casual aggression, Fwas a story with metaphors borrowed from the fallen Republics they are being indexed and exiled. In politics, popularity can no of Fear, faux democracies presided over by decorated dictators, longer be an alibi; it is, in the progressive telling, a manipulated each with a legacy of starting a revolution and building a terror magic of electoral politics. The wisdom of the lofty few is more apparatus. As a storyteller of the horror genre, Rahul Gandhi rewarding—and necessary—than the superstition of the masses. chose his history for maximum chill. This is the gist of what he Americans may have had a horrible experience with the ugly, told his audience, the students of Brown University: India is an unhinged side of electoral popularity; India’s Saddam exists only elected dictatorship, like Iraq and Libya in another time, classic in the hallucinations of a leader in search of self-serving horror examples of sham elections in which the supreme leader won stories. The Book of Progressives came handy to Rahul Gandhi. with 99 per cent majority. So, don’t be fooled by Narendra Modi’s It didn’t earn him anything but another bizarre headline.