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contents 9 november 2020

5 6 8 10 14 16 18 LOCOMOTIF INDRAPRASTHA MUMBAI NOTEBOOK notebook SOFT POWER WHISPERER OPEN ESSAY Trump vs. non-Trump By Virendra Kapoor By Anil Dharker Macron’s war against Awakening India By Jayanta Ghosal The virus and democracy By S Prasannarajan radical Islam By Makarand R Paranjape By Dipankar Gupta By Madhavankutty Pillai

26 AMERICA’S CHOICE 26 INDIA’S INTEREST India-America relationship is too solid and rooted in realism to be affected by the outcome of the US presidential election on November 3 By Siddharth Singh and Ullekh NP

34 LOST IN THE NOISE For a president who got so much wrong, Donald Trump got some important things just right By Sudeep Paul

10 38 THE LIBERAL DILEMMA 42 Is there something missing in how white progressives understand race? By Poulomi Chakrabarti

42 50 HAS KERALA BECOME A POLICE STATE? Pinarayi Vijayan’s government has promulgated an ordinance to amend the Kerala Police Act that could silence critics and gag the media By MG Radhakrishnan

54 46 A WALK DOWN MEMORY LANE Chandni Chowk, one of India’s most romanticised streets, is being restored and given back to pedestrians By Kaveree Bamzai Photographs by Sondeep Shankar 46

50 54 58 60 63 66 ‘THE BOOK ITSELF WAS THE SCARRED MEGAPOLIS THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM THE DARK OLD WORLD THY KINGDOM NOT PEOPLE LIKE US LIKE A BEST FRIEND’ The evolution of Delhi as a Ananth Krishnan’s Murder mysteries that share COME A new beginning Mira Nair on her city of the unfortunates in compelling portrait a fascination for the past Welcome to made-for-TV By Rajeev Masand connection with M Mukundan’s storytelling of China By Shylashri Shankar Stephen King Vikram Seth’s epic By Shashi Tharoor By Shivshankar Menon By Aditya Mani Jha By Divya Unny Cover by Saurabh Singh 9 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 More and more parts of the world are once again editor-at-large Siddharth Singh deputy editors Madhavankutty Pillai being placed under higher-tier Covid-19 restrictions (Mumbai Bureau Chief), (‘How Ill Is India’s Health Sector?’, November 2nd, Rahul Pandita, Amita Shah, V Shoba (Bangalore), Nandini Nair 2020). Large parts of Europe, including the UK, are creative director Rohit Chawla again seeing cases surge. So far, Western countries art director Jyoti K Singh Senior Editors Sudeep Paul, have resisted pressure for a circuit-breaker lockdown, Lhendup Gyatso Bhutia (Mumbai), but paid a heavy price for the same. Local lockdowns Moinak Mitra, Nikita Doval Associate Editor Vijay K Soni (Web) could persist for several months, leading to a daunting assistant editor Vipul Vivek and difficult winter. As soon as the virus spread across chief of graphics Saurabh Singh the globe, inaccurate and even dangerous messages SENIOR DESIGNERs Anup Banerjee, Veer Pal Singh proliferated wildly over social media, leaving people Photo editor Raul Irani confused, misled and ill-advised. Unfortunately, deputy Photo editor Ashish Sharma such messages are still doing the rounds. There is no National Head-Events and Initiatives certainty that a vaccine will be found by the end of party in this debate swears Arpita Sachin Ahuja by farmers and claims to be AVP (ADVERTISING) the year. We are all waiting for the day when the genie Rashmi Lata Swarup will be out of the bottle and the coronavirus will take their greatest wellwisher. GENERAL MANAGERs (ADVERTISING) Uma Srinivasan (South) its place. Once bottled, the virus shall be thrown in And yet, under the pre- the deep sea or a tunnel never to be found again. In reform system, farmers have National Head-Distribution and Sales Ajay Gupta India, we wait with baited breath when we will be remained at the bottom— regional heads-circulation D Charles (South), Melvin George able to announce the end of the outbreak. Weak state underprivileged and under (West), Basab Ghosh (East) capacity even without Covid-19 meant lakhs went debt, irrespective of who was Head-production Maneesh Tyagi without adequate protection against basic illnesses. in power. Politics in Punjab senior manager (pre-press) Sharad Tailang The pandemic has now put a strain even on the is full of contradictions. Both MANAGER-MARKETING private sector. Additionally, states are now distorting the ruling Congress and Priya Singh Chief Designer-marketing the market by controlling hospital prices. main opposition Shiromani Champak Bhattacharjee Jayanthy Subramaniam Akali Dal are engaged in a cfo & HEAD-IT Anil Bisht fight in public even though Chief ExecuTive & Publisher in private they are on the Neeraja Chawla same page as the Central All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner folk psychology like no other contemporary Government. There is no is prohibited. Donald Trump defied all politician. devil in the details of the Editor: S Prasannarajan. Printed and published by Neeraja Chawla on behalf trends when he defeated Bholey Bhardwaj farm reform, as evident of the owner, Open Media Network Pvt Ltd. Printed at Thomson Press India Ltd, Hillary Clinton, whom from the approval it has got 18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana). even pollsters had declared voice of punjab from agricultural experts. Published at 4, DDA Commercial winner in the 2016 US The Congress-led Punjab First, on the issue of the Complex, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110017. presidential race (‘An government’s legislation that new citizenship law, and Ph: (011) 48500500; Fax: (011) 48500599 American Folk Tale’ by makes ineffective the Centre’s now with the farm reform, To subscribe, WhatsApp ‘openmag’ to 9999800012 or log on to Keerthik Sasidharan, farm reform laws will have the opposition is merely www.openthemagazine.com or call our Toll Free Number November 2nd, 2020). to overcome the presidential opposing for opposition’s 1800 102 7510 Trump was speaking hurdle (‘Punjabi Rap’, sake. And, in the process, it or email at: [email protected] about the concerns of the November 2nd, 2020). Can is widening the federal rift. For alliances, email [email protected] average American who felt Punjab ignore India’s federal This does not bode well for For advertising, email threatened by migration. He system and unilaterally the future of democracy [email protected] For any other queries/observations, was blamed for pandering enact laws counter to the in India. Like during the email [email protected] to whites but he stood his Centre’s? This may create a implementation of the ground. He is never ashamed constitutional crisis. Is Punjab Goods and Services Tax, the Disclaimer ‘Open Avenues’ are advertiser-driven marketing of speaking his mind; there trying to create a template for Central Government must initiatives and Open assumes no responsibility for content and the consequences of using is a method in his loose anti-BJP dissent? rope in states and create products or services advertised in the magazine talking, as even linguists and Chanchal Nandy a consensus. Otherwise, Volume 12 Issue 44 psychologists have affirmed. the very institution of the For the week 3-9 November 2020 Trump understands the The tragedy in Punjab’s laws Centre will lose its writ and Total No. of pages 68 faultlines and divisions that try to nullify the Centre’s undermine India’s polity. within American society farm reform is that every Ashok Goswami

4 9 november 2020 LOCOMOTIF

by S PRASANNARAJAN TRUMP VS. NON-TRUMP istoric’ is an adjective liberally used by danger. That’s the most retold story of our times, and it’s the those who are struck by the enormity of the veracity of this story that November 3rd will test. present. America is in such a moment, when A good story, especially of the horror genre, needs a clash, the naked audacity of one man has brought and in one with an adjective as heavy as ‘historic’, it needs a out the best and worst instincts of them all— good guy. Joe Biden is the good guy, a perfect specimen of the ‘Hinstitutional guardians, media elite, liberals and progressives, same Establishment that America voted out in 2016. Then he the telluric warriors of social media, and the legion that fears embodied the swamp: status quoism, entrenchment, and a for the future of ‘greatness’—in a cracked-up superpower. It is fear of the new. He was pure prosaicness in the shadow of the that moment when the narcissistic transgressions and Twitter- lofty, poetic Obama. He didn’t matter. He didn’t matter even driven triangulations of an unhinged, apolitical president during the initial rounds of the Democratic primaries, when have turned the political arena into a site of tribal bloodlust. socialists and progressives were winning. He was the weary ‘Historic’ is the moment for those who see the world’s most reminder of yesterday. thoughtfully founded constitutional democracy going down In the ‘historic’ today, he is the elasticity of hope, the dream with its bad progeny. The presidential election on November 3rd America wants to dream after four years of nightmare—or is their ‘historic’ opportunity to restore the system, to redeem that’s the portrait of Candidate Biden you get from ‘responsible’ the original pledge, and to exorcise the bad spirit of demagogic media, shared by the culture warriors from the left. He may have populism. History, in America today, for all polemical purpose, the reassuring aura of the old guard, senescence apart, when revolves around a five-letter amorality paired with Trump, all volatility and called Trump. Or that’s the story we combustibility. He is the calm after are rereading. And that’s the story the storm liberal America wants, polls and pundits predict will come if the polls are any indication. And to an end, hopefully before the postal this America, tired of Trumpian ballots are counted. ‘Historic’ rhymes unconventionalism, is thrilled to have with horrific here. wonkery as vision thing. He is not Certain men—mostly men, yes— what he is. He is what he is not. He in politics evoke alarmism and is Non-Trump. apocalypse in equal measure, giving our adjective a darker tinge. Which means this election has nothing to do with Such men originally come from the impatience and impulses Joe Biden. For someone who has all along been a statement of of democracy. They dislodge the old consensus, frighten its political inanimateness, it’s an evolutionary high point. builders to submission, and set out to create—what else?— Finally, in the evening of his life, he, the gentle soul, is there to greatness. A perfumed future is guaranteed, and invariably, a reclaim America from the big intruder. He is there as future wracked by nationalist paranoia is ensured. Such men Non-Trump. Joe Biden, as it has always been the case, doesn’t have a use-by date, and what they leave behind, the toxic ism, matter. There is nothing in a name as long as the other name has a longer life. is Trump. He is defined not by what he says—‘I will be an That’s what is being feared about Trumpism too in the current ally of the light’—but by what the other guy tweets. He is the ‘historic’ narrative. And History—the occasion demands a nothingness beyond the cultural whirl of Trumpism, and, Capital H—made it a ‘twindemic’ in America, and the verdict is hopefully, it will take shape when America is reborn. The still not final on which is more of an existential threat. The two alternative to Trump is an unrealised version of complement each other. The coronavirus has chosen America Trump Undone. Being Non-Trump is not a negation of as its most favoured nation, and the president, through denial identity but the importance of being an accident. and bravado, gave the virus a free run. Trumpism, the other If it is still ‘historic’, it is because one man’s pandemic, devalued institutions, corrupted constitutional subversion of conventional politics has added some morality and declared war on good taste. The ‘twindemic’ has meaning to a conventional politician who has survived put the health of Americans and American democracy in mortal the storm. n

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 5 INDRAPRASTHA virendra kapoor

t is hard to imagine eight Treasury Secretary Lawrence Imonths after the coronavirus Summers, and Klaus Schwab, first forced a complete national founder of the World Economic lockdown, the pandemic is still Forum which conducts the annual raging in strength in large parts of jamboree for the who’s who of the country. But the bigger surprise global billionaires in Davos, have is that the capital city of India is gushing words for the substantial setting new records, registering and an all-encompassing daily ever-rising numbers of autobiography. Anyone looking for Covid-19 cases. As I write this, Delhi an insight into some of the major had recorded the highest single-day guilty of massaging the numbers, events in the country’s economic spike ever, reporting 4,853 new it cannot be said with a degree of history will profit from the book. infections on October 27th. Yet, if certainty that Delhi is not. And Indeed, even a cursory glance at you believe Chief Minister Arvind yet… we have it on the authority of the photo gallery tracing NK’s Kejriwal, Delhi is doing fine. Why? Arvind Kejriwal that Delhi is doing personal and professional journey Because he says so. And given the a fantastic job. Amen. illustrates the reason why he held open trade-off between the release such a ringside seat in various of ads by the Delhi government hey say never judge a book governments of diverse political and a favourable projection of the Tby its cover. But veteran civil complexions. Nandu Babu, as Chief Minister, we will never hear servant NK Singh’s autobiography, he is popularly called, was one a word edgeways about the gross Portraits of Power: Half a Century of bureaucrat who was close to all mishandling of the epidemic. Being at Ringside, is an exception. I those who mattered, regardless Instead, not unlike US President cannot recall another IAS officer of their party affiliations. Son of a Donald Trump, they will blame the who has had such a long and fruitful Bihar cadre ICS officer and married rising number of tests for the high innings at the centre of some of the into Jodhpur royalty, NK’s personal infections. In other words, let the most cataclysmic changes in India. life is no less interesting. Among infected suffer unattended, uncared Truly, he is the Amitabh Bachchan the several pictures of the wedding for so that the ruling politicians can of the Indian Administrative reception the one that caught the pat themselves on the back for doing Service, still going strong at 79, eye was of the ethereal beauty, a good job containing the virus. now as the Chairman of the 15th the late Maharani Gayatri Devi of Given that Delhi has traditionally Finance Commission. As a ranking Jaipur. Nandu Babu, always nattily received far more generous funding cog in the Central establishment, dressed in Savile Row suits, has from the Central Government and regardless of the regime in power, always liked to live the good life, is fortunate to have the premier he had an important role to play. patronising arts and artists and All India Institute of Medical The testimonials on the dust-jacket being personal friends with most Sciences and a number of other speak of his significance and of them. He was also not above well-equipped public and private wide-ranging connections. attracting controversy but then he hospitals, the unmitigated spread Former Prime Minister Manmohan survived all of them because of his of the virus is an apt comment on Singh, Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani immense intellect and talent as a the local authorities. Come to think talk of his role in shaping the doer in a system where even in the of it, Bihar with its woeful lack of economic liberalisation strategy. top echelons of babudom, there is a basic health infrastructure and And since NK’s influence is not premium on file-pushing and endemic poverty has one-fifth the confined to Indian shores alone, clock-watching. A must read for number of fatalities the capital has key players in the global economic anyone remotely interested in how recorded thus far. Even if Bihar were system, including former US New Delhi works. n

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hen is bad news not bad delectable food items we can relish Wnews? When the bad news till we are fully fed up. is not as bad as the bad news you expect. The bad news may be bad al Thackeray was known news in an absolute way, but the Bfor his fiery Dussehra speech, bad news may not be bad news in a so incendiary that Ravan’s effigy relative way. These headlines from a suitable for the proboscis of Cyrano immolated itself. Uddhav Thackeray, few days ago illustrate what I mean: de Bergerac. This was baffling at first inheritor of his saffron mantle, ‘State logs fewest (3,645) cases in 124 since Jaishankar’s own sniffer device forced by circumstances to be in the days, least deaths (84) in 146 days’; is of modest proportions; then you re- chief minister’s chair rather than ‘Active COVID 19 cases dropped to membered Pinocchio, and the classic the force behind it, has had to carry lowest (17,860) in past two months’; definition of a diplomat as an honest on this tradition, and no doubt to his ‘Dip in COVID cases over last week, man who had to lie for the good of his surprise, found that more than his pvt hospitals record vacant ICU beds, country. Hopefully, like his boss followers, his estranged partners, the allow walk-in patients’. Mr Stable Genius President, Pompeo BJP, hung on to his every word. “Our This must make everyone happy, is not one for high literature, and Hindutva is not clanging bells and particularly 3,645; 17,860; and the hasn’t heard of Pinocchio. utensils,” he said, “and allowing beef families of 84 people, as they realise The other cottage industry to be eaten’’ (a reference to Goa where the statistics they are part of are flourishing in our jugaad country is the BJP rules). Ashish Shelar, the cheerful ones. What makes me catering services. So far we have had Mumbai BJP chief responded by particularly buoyant, yet slightly Sindhi Dal Pakwan, Chinese Chicken saying, “Our Hindutva is like skin, puzzled, is the news about vacant Manchurian, Japanese Sushi, Brit- while Sena used it like a shawl, ICU beds: if patients can walk in, why ish Caramel Custard, Hyderabadi changing it when needed for power.” do they need to be in Intensive Care? Biryani, Parsi Dhansak and Mexican My Hindutva is bigger than yours, The big cottage industry is in Enchiladas. And that’s just from our and people’s welfare and jobs and masks. It started off with conven- own building. development be damned. No wonder tional ones being imported, some Since food is the music of love or we are where we are. impregnated (if that’s the word) with some such thing Shakespeare said Covid warriors and costing over Rs and love is all we need, as the aptly f only we could take wing and 2,000 each. Pretty soon, everyone and named Mary J Bilge said, Mumbai’s Iescape like this little Godwit did. their neighbour were making them: fashion superstores are quickly This felicitously named bar-tailed, 3-tier ones; no-tear ones; N-95s with converting to food joints. Benzer, a sharp-beaked bird, was recently two elastic bands, one of which went very large department store at Breach tracked flying non-stop for 12,200 km around your neck and one around Candy, has now made one of its three from Alaska for 11 days with speeds your ears. These were regarded as the floors into a premium supermarket reaching 88 kmph. These birds are most efficient in stopping aerosol selling chocolate, coffee, sauces and tiny, weighing between 190 and dispersion, probably by the simple the like. Roopam at Crawford Mar- 400 gm with the aerodynamic build expedient of suffocating the wearer. ket, known for its wedding apparel, of a jet-fighter. This particular bird, I like the one US Secretary of State found that people weren’t getting prosaically named 4BBRW, referring Mike Pompeo was wearing when he married, probably because masks to the blue, blue, red and white rings came for a meeting in Delhi. It looked and social distancing are a bit of a fitted to its legs, was followed bright and cheerful with the Stars hindrance on wedding nights. through a satellite. It flew solo for an and Stripes emblazoned across it. Our When the lockdown began, they estimated 224 hours, the longest non- own Subrahmanyam Jaishankar not sold a lot of carrom boards and stop flight by a bird ever recorded. only outdid him in the length of his mops; now Roopam’s lower floors And where did it choose to land? In name, but also with his mask, with a (there are seven floors in all) stock New Zealand. Wise Godwit. I want to nose cone of excessive length, more groceries, cakes, pastries and other be in New Zealand too. n

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NOTEBOOK Macron’s War against Radical Islam

o see the name of the countries lined up in outrage escalating row between France and some Muslim-majority na- against French President Emmanuel Macron is also to tions over Paris’s support for the right to caricature the Prophet’. come face to face with the problem of political Islam. Several Middle Eastern countries are angling for a boycott of The latest trigger has been his speech that paid tribute French goods. The Iranian foreign minister tweeted: ‘Muslims Tto Samuel Paty, the schoolteacher killed in public by a Muslim are the primary victims of the ‘cult of hatred’—empowered by fanatic for showing caricatures of Prophet Muhammad in his colonial regimes & exported by their own clients. Insulting 1.9B classroom. Macron eulogised Paty as only doing what a good Muslims—& their sanctities—for the abhorrent crimes of such teacher should do and affirmed that it wouldn’t deter France extremists is an opportunistic abuse of freedom of speech. It only from a culture that permitted the showing of such visuals. fuels extremism.’ Consider what he said and the reaction it drew. In Macron’s What these countries railed against Macron also share is words: “We will not disavow the cartoons, the drawings, even the idea that blasphemy is a crime and some blasphemies are if others recoil. We will provide all the opportunities that the deserving of death. The Iranian minister might have called Republic owes all its young people, without any discrimination. Paty’s killing an ‘extremist’ act but in Iran itself Paty would have We will continue, Sir. France’s schoolteachers primary and sec- been legally sentenced to death for what he did. The response ondary school teachers will teach history—both its glories and to Macron is, in a sense, a defence of the killing of Paty as just ret- its vicissitudes... Like you, we will cultivate tolerance. Like you, ribution. That so many of them should come together is also um- we will relentlessly seek to understand and to gain an even better bilically tied to why Europe is increasingly getting worried about understanding of the things they’d like to take away from us.” radical Islam’s intransigence and the assimilation of Muslim These are obvious legs that a good society must stand on unless it minorities. Why, after all, should Turkey or Iran be concerned is beholden to some other otherworldly end in sight. about what Macron says in and about France if they didn’t think And now look at the reaction it drew from Islamic countries of Islam as something they all had jurisdiction over? Blasphemy which had ignored the killing of is not an Islamic construct. There Paty itself. Turkey’s president effec- are things that must not be spo- tively called Macron mad, bigoted ken about in other cultures too and needing treatment. Imran France is instituting but it does not spill over nearly in Khan, Pakistan’s Prime Minister, such extremism into the migrant accused him of being an Islamo- measures that would make it outlook. Assimilation is a neces- phobe, tweeting: ‘Sadly, President more difficult for minorities sary condition to settle in another Macron has chosen to deliberately society and Europe is increasingly provoke Muslims, incl his own to remain in religious silos. recognising that they have a prob- citizens,... through encouraging the There is domestic politics lem over this with radical Islam. A display of blasphemous cartoons killing like Paty’s then becomes a targeting Islam & our Prophet involved. Politics however stark reminder. PBUH. By attacking Islam, clearly reflects issues that have Early October, Macron had without having any understanding given another speech where he of it, President Macron has attacked become imperative. For listed the manner in which Mus- & hurt the sentiments of millions Emmanuel Macron, the lims weren’t assimilating their so- of Muslims in Europe & across the ciety’s values. He said: “What we world’. Saudi Arabia, according to clash of civilisation is now must tackle is Islamist separatism. Al Jazeera, ‘has said it ‘rejects any not at the borders of the A conscious, theorised, political- attempt to link Islam with terror- continent but within religious project is materialising ism, and condemns the offensive through repeated deviations from cartoons of the Prophet’ amid an his country the Republic’s values, which is

10 9 november 2020 Illustration by Saurabh Singh often reflected by the formation of a counter-society as shown by and civilisation.’ Home schooling would be discouraged and children being taken out of school, the development of separate children would have to be compulsorily educated together in community sporting and cultural activities serving as a pretext schools. After the killing of Paty there has also been a crackdown for teaching principles which aren’t in accordance with the Re- on networks that foment radical Islam in France. A BBC article public’s laws. It’s indoctrination and, through this, the negation said: ‘The French government’s general crackdown on radical of our principles, gender equality and human dignity.” Islamism, in response to the beheading of the history teacher Global political Islam might have numerous warring outside Paris this month, has been rapid and tough—a blizzard factions—Iran and Saudi Arabia would destroy each other if pos- of inquiries, closures, plans and proposals that have sometimes sible—but over core beliefs and blasphemies, there is unison. As been hard to keep track of.’ “Fear will change sides,” President a minority, these core ideas can come into conflict with modern Emmanuel Macron is widely quoted as telling his Defence secular nations. In Macron’s argument: “And in this radical Council last week.The government has announced more than Islamism—since this is at the heart of the matter let’s talk about 120 searches of individual homes, the dissolution of associations it and name it—a proclaimed, publicised desire, a systematic accused of spreading Islamist rhetoric, plans to target terrorist way of organising things to contravene the Republic’s laws and funding, new support for teachers, and fresh pressure on social create a parallel order, establish other values, develop another media companies to police content more efficiently.’ way of organising society which is initially separatist, but whose There is domestic politics involved. Macron has seen his own ultimate goal is to take it over completely. And this is gradually popularity dipping and the far right leader Marine Le Pen’s in- resulting in the rejection of the freedom of expression, freedom creasing on the back of a clear Islamophobia plank. Elections are of conscience and the right to blaspheme, and in us becoming going to be in the first half of 2022 and he doesn’t have much time insidiously radicalised.” to ensure a victory. Veering rightwards is necessary to prevent the France, under Macron, is instituting measures that would gulf between him and Le Pen widening. Politics however reflects make it more difficult for minorities to remain in religious silos. issues that have become imperative and, for Macron, the clash of A Guardian article said: ‘The measures include placing mosques civilisation is now not at the borders of the continent but within under greater control and requiring that imams are trained and his country. And if he wanted any affirmation of it, on October certified in France… Associations found to be pushing ideas 29th, a man shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ killed three, including contrary to republican ideals could be ordered to disband, and beheading a woman, at a church in Nice. n €10m (just over £9m) of public funds would be used to finance higher education studies and research into Islamic culture By Madhavankutty Pillai

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 11 openings

portrait ADITYA PURI around 2 per cent]”. HDFC Bank under Puri stood tall not merely by reining in NPAs but by winning rock solid super Banker confidence of its stakeholders, from depositors to borrowers and stock market investors. In terms The man who made HDFC India’s most valued bank of market capitalisation, HDFC Bank is at Rs 6.5 lakh crore, more than triple the State Bank of India, hat bankers, businessmen and politicians often make for the country’s largest bank. It is double the next T not salutary partners has numerous illustrations in history. It was biggest private bank. Its strength also shows in the evident between Hitler and Hjalmer Schacht, the brilliant Reichsbank thick foreign portfolio investment—37 per cent— chief in the Weimar years, or, in more recent times, between a which is higher than the promoter’s 26.1 per cent. habitually defaulting American builder, Donald Trump, and the How did the HDFC Bank team under Puri reach over-lenient management of Deutsche Bank. Back home, what prevailed such heights? The obvious answer is the relative in most part of the post-Independence era was a system called ‘phone thinness of the promoter’s stake, making it difficult banking’, by which calls from powerful politicians to bank managers to be influenced by ‘phone banking’. Besides, Puri decided the fate of a loan application. Its cumulative bitter harvest is a gave his bank an enviable sheaf of balance sheets, crippled economy which flounders each time it attempts a sprint. Like the leaving large margins to play with. In a recent 2008 collapse after the eight-year-long bounce till then. interview, Puri himself has downplayed the NPA In 1994, when Aditya Puri quit his job as CEO of Citibank in Malaysia at element, saying, “NPA is not a big factor that ails the invitation of Deepak Parekh of HDFC, to build a “world-class” private Indian banking.” But HDFC Bank has generated, bank in India, he brought along a few personal habits that proved valuable year on year, enough profit to recapitalise the gross in the Indian context. First, to leave office at 5.30 PM, come rain or shine. NPA, leaving a manageably thin net NPA. This boils The other, apparently dictated by wife Anita, is not to carry a single office down to superior asset quality management. file back home. Finally, a resolve steeled inside to say no to loan requests HDFC Bank’s relatively high profitability from powerful men. On October 26th, when Puri retired on completion resulted from Team Puri’s tough cost-cutting of age 70, as mandated by the Reserve Bank of India, the effect of his long mindset and its customer-first spirit. In any Indian nurtured habits were in full evidence. While the non-performing assets city, the ATMs with the blue-and-red HDFC Bank (NPA) of the Indian banking industry is estimated to hit 12.5 per cent of signboard are usually the first to appear but are gross lending in March 2021, according to RBI’s Financial Stability Report, early to vanish if there are not enough customers to the NPA of HDFC Bank gently quivers around 1.5 per cent year upon year. show up. If you leave an idle savings bank account The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has brought the banks all over the for too long, the bank will blitz your inbox with world at the doorstep of another NPA cycle. But, as Sashidhar Jagdishan, reminders, gentle at first, to stop being forgetful Puri’s successor, says, “[HDFC Bank’s NPA] will not exceed the 2008 level [of about it. The other ‘too big to fail’ private bank, ICICI Bank, too is prompt in keeping customers Illustration by Saurabh Singh alert, and accounts active, but it was clearly Team Puri’s innovation that spread across the neighbourhood. Puri’s long evenings with the family—wife Anita, actress daughter Amrita and son Amrit—saved him from being a ‘public figure’. Less public exposure means less public pressure. His earning from the bank was stratospheric, nearly Rs 18.92 crore in 2019-2020. His stake in the bank was large enough for him to pocket Rs 843 crore in July by selling off 95 per cent of his holdings. He retired with no regrets. “I left Citibank because I didn’t want to remain an employee,” he was once quoted saying. In HDFC Bank, he was more owner than employee. In fact, most employees saw him as that. With so much post- retirement money in his pocket, will he give a shot to owning another business? And that, too, without breaking the vow of returning home at 5.30 PM? n

By Moinak Mitra

9 november 2020 ANGLE ideas Connecting the Lifeline What awaits Mumbai as suburban railways are opened for the public

By madhavankutty pillai Consistency hen the suburban can believe that, even if, all commuters In sports, consistency in team W locals start early November, as being honest and sticking to the rules, selection is a valued attribute. This the Maharashtra government has sig- they can maintain a six feet distance. is difficult in the IPL because players nalled, it will mark the true end of the For decades now, Mumbai locals have are answerable to not just fans lockdown in Mumbai. The city will been torture for all those who take it but also team owners. And this is be fully open for business and, as the because of the unimaginable crowd- why Chennai Super Kings (CSK) commercial heart of India, it should be ing. It was an intractable problem. How has been such a dominant force in good news for the rest of the country does anyone now expect a few lines the tournament. Even while most too. Yet, you can predict that it will be a in a regulation to fix it overnight? To teams have chopped and changed messy convoluted process. make peak hours into non-peak hours their squads and captains every few Media reports cite a letter sent to the is to ignore why the crowd peaks at all; years, CSK has been led by the same Centre from the state on the modalities the entire ecosystem of work and life, captain and had the same core squad of how the locals will function. It is a from household duties to family and for years now. But there can come a study on the bureaucratic brain that, in office management, that underpins it. time in every successful team’s life the absence of a solution, seeks solace Start to add clause after clause, zones when you need to break free from in complexity. According to a Mumbai after zones for categories of commut- the cage of your past ideas. But you Mirror report: ‘Now, in order to make ers, and in theory, there will be a perfect just cannot keep doing the same the services available to everyone, universe but in practice, nothing but thing again and again. In this year’s the state government has proposed chaos can ensue. This was as it was IPL, you can see this rigidity every a slot in which the general public when buses started taking commut- time CSK takes the field. Their team will be allowed to travel, adhering to ers, and soon there were queues that is filled with ageing superstars. As COVID-19 protocols…The government stretched unendingly in depots, and the former player Kris Srikkanth has suggested that any person with a social distancing went for a toss. says, when fielding, some players valid ticket or pass should be allowed Resumption of local train travel will look like they need a scooter to get to travel from the first local in the lead to a spike in Covid cases but around the ground. Unsurprisingly, morning till 7:30 am, then from 11 am there is really no alternative. The they have become the first team to to 4:30 pm, and from 8 pm till the last only course of action is to bear it crash out of the league. n local train. Those in essential services and, like earlier spikes, hope that it with valid QR code or ID card along tapers down quickly. Should the with a valid ticket or pass shall be government panic and go flailing Word’s Worth allowed to travel from 8 am to 10:30 around with new rules and gradations, am and from 5 pm to 7:30 pm. The then the inevitable will drag on. ‘A foolish consistency government has also suggested that Mumbai cannot function without is the hobgoblin of there should be a special ladies’ special local trains and that is the stark reality. train every hour.’ Herd immunity might be a morally little minds, adored How will anyone monitor these wrong policy to follow but if it is by little statesmen lakhs of commuters by profession? arrived at by default through local and philosophers Obviously, no one can. The idea is to trains, then seven months after a spread the crowd across the day to out- lockdown, it is still better than the and divines’ wit the virus. No one in his right mind ongoing destruction of livelihoods. n Ralph Waldo Emerson poet

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 13 soft power

By Makarand R Paranjape

Awakening India Vivekananda and the Himalayan connection—Part III

o keen was Swami Vivekananda on a must be looked upon as spirit” (bit.ly/3jH6joW). Himalayan retreat that on December 27th, 1899 he Consequently, when he visited in 1901, Vivekananda criti- wrote to one of his disciples, Christina Greenstidel: cised attempts to institute dualistic worship, including images S “I will buy a little place in the Himalayas—a of Sri Ramakrishna himself. Yet, those used to such modes of whole hill—about say, six thousand feet high with a grand worship continued with the shrine to Sri Ramakrishna till view of the eternal snows. There must be springs and a tiny March 1902. When it was removed, some were unhappy to be lake. Cedars—the Himalayan cedar forests—and flowers, deprived of it. It is only when the Sarada Ma, Ramakrishna’s flowers everywhere. I will have a little cottage; in the middle, consort also known as Holy Mother, intervened in favour of my vegetable gardens, which I will work myself—and— unalloyed Advaita that the matter was resolved. and—and—my books—and see the face of man only once in Earlier, in July 1898, the Seviers, at Vivekananda’s behest, a great while” (bit.ly/3jFhFty). had revived Prabuddha Bharata, the Ramakrishna Mission’s As we have already seen, it was Captain James Henry Sevier English magazine, with Swarupananda as its editor. Originally and his wife Charlotte Elizabeth, who made Vivekananda’s published from Madras (now Chennai) since 1896, the maga- dream come true. zine floundered in July 1898 with the untimely death from The Seviers met Swami Vivekananda during the latter’s acute nephritis of its founding editor, BR Rajam Iyer. second visit to London in 1896. Impressed by his lectures, they Vivekananda requested Captain Sevier to assume respon- requested a private audience with him. Vivekananda addressed sibility of its publication. Sevier bought a hand press, type for Charlotte as ‘Mother’, appealed to her to come back to India and letterpress printing, paper, ink and all the necessary equipment promised that he would give the couple his ‘best realisations’ from Calcutta (now Kolkata), transporting it all the way to (bit.ly/37PgANw). Mayavati in Kumaon. Vivekananda wrote a rousing poem in Sailing back from Naples with Vivekananda in November, vira rasa (the heroic mode) to commemorate this historic re- the Seviers rented a home near Almora. Two years later,in 1898, vival, linking it with the rebirth of India, which is the meaning they found a secluded tea estate at a height of 1,940 m, recessed of the name of the journal: in a thicket of deodars, pine and oak, affording spectacular ‘To the Awakened India’ views of the snowy mountains. Nine km from Lohaghat in Champawat district, Uttarakhand, it is known as Mayavati. Once more awake! That is where the Seviers, along with Swami Swarupananda, For sleep it was, not death, to bring thee life founded the Advaita Ashrama on March 19th, 1899. Anew, and rest to lotus-eyes for visions The following year, still in the US, Vivekananda referred to Daring yet. The world in need awaits, O Truth! Mayavati and the Seviers in his lecture ‘Is Vedanta the Future No death for thee! Religion?’ delivered on April 8th, 1900 at San Francisco: “... on the heights of the Himalayas I have a place where I am India’s revival and renaissance was not for itself alone, but determined nothing shall enter except pure truth. … There are for the whole world. For it was the custodian of a truth that an Englishman and an Englishwoman in charge of the place. was of great value to all humanity. Indeed, despite its downfall, The purpose is to train seekers of truth and to bring up children India remained the awakener of higher conscious: without fear and without superstition. They shall not hear Resume thy march, about Christs and Buddhas and Shivas and Vishnus—none of With gentle feet that would not break the these. They shall learn, from the start, to stand upon their own Peaceful rest even of the roadside dust feet. They shall learn from their childhood that God is the spirit That lies so low. Yet strong and steady, and should be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Everyone Blissful, bold, and free. Awakener, ever

14 9 november 2020 Can claim their own, the fathers of the Race, who felt the heart of Truth the same, And bravely taught to man ill-voiced or Well. Their servant, thou hast got The secret—‘tis but One. Then speak, O Love! Before thy gentle voice serene, behold how Visions melt and fold on fold of dreams Departs to void, till Truth and Truth alone In all its glory shines—

He prophesied that India would rise once more, awakened as it were, from her long slumber, inspiring other nations to greater heights of consciousness: And tell the world— Awake, arise, and dream no more! This is the land of dreams, where Karma Weaves unthreaded garlands with our thoughts Saurabh Singh Saurabh by Illustration Of flowers sweet or noxious, and none Has root or stem, being born in naught, which Forward! Speak thy stirring words. The softest breath of Truth drives back to Thy home is gone, Primal nothingness. Be bold, and face Where loving hearts had brought thee up and The Truth! Be one with it! Let visions cease, Watched with joy thy growth. But Fate is strong — Or, if you cannot, dream but truer dreams, This is the law — all things come back to the source Which are Eternal Love and Service Free (bit.ly/3mytzHw). They sprung, their strength to renew. This was the true meaning of India, according to Prabuddha Bharata, as suggested earlier, was a symbol of Vivekananda, to which Prabuddha Bharata was dedicated. To awakened India itself. Vivekananda underlined how the be bold, to face the truth, to realise it, to serve all humankind rebirth of the journal coincided with its relocation to the empowered by this embodiment of eternal love and free service. Himalayas, which he considered the birthplace and nursery Captain Sevier died in October 1900, the year after Advaita of ancient Indian wisdom: Ashrama was founded. He had not only spent lavishly to buy Then start afresh and fund Mayavati, but earlier generously donated money to From the land of thy birth, where vast cloud-belted members of Vivekananda’s family too (bit.ly/34CBQEa).On his Snows do bless and put their strength in thee, return to India in December 1900, Vivekananda heard the news For working wonders new. The heavenly of his disciple’s death. River tune thy voice to her own immortal song; On December 11th, writing to Josephine MacLeod, Deodar shades give thee eternal peace. he referred to Sevier as one of two ‘great Englishmen’, the other being his British stenographer, JJ Goodwin, who Apart from the flora and fauna of the Himalayas, he also ‘gave up their lives for us—us, the Hindus. This is martyrdom, invoked Goddess Parvati, the daughter of the mountains: if anything is’. On December 26th, he wrote again, ‘He was And all above, cremated on the bank of the river that flows by his ashrama, a Himala’s daughter Umâ, gentle, pure, la Hindu, covered with garlands, the brahmins carrying The Mother that resides in all as Power the body and the boys chanting the Vedas. … It makes me And Life, who works all works and love dear England and its heroic breed’ (bit.ly/2TxQqXc). The Makes of One the world, whose mercy Swami rushed to Mayavati, snowbound in January 1901, to Opens the gate to Truth and shows condole with Mrs Sevier. The One in All, give thee untiring ‘Mother’ Charlotte continued to stay at Mayavati for many Strength, which is Infinite Love. years before returning to England. She passed way in 1930 at the age of 83. Her remarkable story of dedication, idealism, sac- The blessings he sought were not only for the journal, rifice and spiritual progress is told by Amrita M Salm in Mother but for India itself: of Mayavati: The Story of Charlotte Sevier and Advaita Ashrama They bless thee all, (Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati, 2013). The seers great, whom age nor clime (To be continued) n

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 15 Whisperer Jayanta Ghosal

DEspite Nitish n the Bihar Assembly election, BJP campaign Iposters are dominated by photos of Narendra Modi. What they don’t feature are pictures of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The BJP thinks anti- incumbency against Nitish is high. While the BJP keeps reaffirming that he would be the chief minister no matter what, the party’s internal assessment is that the public mood has turned against its ally. But it hasn’t affected the BJP.

Absent Father Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad is practically absent from the Bihar polls this time. But also for the first time, the infighting in his family is settled. His son Tejashwi Yadav is the unanimous face of the party. Tejashwi has maintained a good relationship with the old guard, those close to his father in the party. They have all been given tickets. He needs the party united with the battle for Bihar being seen as Nitish Kumar versus Tejashwi. His public attacks are not directed at Narendra Modi. The RJD says the reason is that it is an Assembly election. But is it also because father and son are worried about the corruption cases—against Lalu and even New AVatar daughter Misa—and the involvement of the Enforcement Directorate and the As he himself said, the forced leisure after Central Bureau of Investigation? being stricken by Covid seems to have made an impact on Union Home Minister Amit Shah. After a long gap, he gave interviews to two television channels. In both, he was not as aggressive as he used to be. From Kashmir to the Citizenship Amend- ment Act, he sounded mellower, portraying more a responsible minister than a hawkish BJP leader. What did Shah do in his forced leisure? He read several books on history and a biography of Vallabhbhai Patel. He did not go to Bihar for the election campaign and also cancelled a Kolkata rally. He is taking his time to come out in his new avatar.

16

Illustrations by Saurabh Singh

Tripura Crisis ripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb is in trouble Twith several MLAs of his party, the BJP, demanding his ouster. Although it is a small state, for the BJP central leadership, it is an important one. The dissidents are complaining that the Chief Minister has not expanded his cabinet in the last two-and-a-half years. Deb himself is in charge of several ministries, including home and health. In this political situation, CPM leader and former Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has become active again and is trying to regain lost ground. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah want to repair the faultlines. Deb’s first task would be a proper cabinet expansion and a reshuffle.

Diplomat’s Road Trip akistan’s acting high commissioner in India, PSyed Haider Shah, has got a new posting—as ambassador to Nepal. Islamabad had asked him to join immediately. Since there was no direct flight from Delhi because of the pandemic restrictions, Shah took permission from the Union Government to travel by road. He went to the Wagah border in 15 hours and then headed for Lahore and Islamabad—about 12 hours Seeking the BJP? more. He stayed in Pakistan for a few days and then n the Rajya Sabha election from Uttar reached Kathmandu by air via Dubai. IPradesh, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati’s candidate is Ramji Gautam, the party’s national coordinator. But he can’t win Targeting Jay with only the BSP’s strength. Mayawati is ay Panda left the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) long ago and is said to be wooing the BJP for this extra seat. Jnow a BJP spokesperson. It is curious that there seems In 2019, the BSP and the Samajwadi Party had to be a sudden move now to target him. A citizen’s group supported one candidate. Then it was a politi- recently went to court and then held a press conference cal message against the BJP. If she manages at the Delhi Press Club accusing Panda of having money in shell companies overseas. At the press conference, to get BJP support now, it could open up the they asked for investigations to be rushed. Some say BJD possibility of a BSP-BJP alliance for the next head and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is still UP elections. upset with Panda and that his close associates are behind the move. Some lower-rung BJP leaders in Odisha are also said to be involved. Hilsa Bonds est Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Ticket Cut Wsent a saree, lots of sweets and a personal note to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina man who is ruing his political fate is former senior ACongress leader from Amethi, Sanjay Singh, who before Durga Puja. Their relationship goes long had switched to the BJP. He did not get a Rajya Sabha back but it assumes significance now with Dhaka nomination as anticipated. Former Prime Minister granting export clearance for the hilsa fish, which Chandra Shekhar’s son Niraj Shekhar got the ticket. Bengalis love. After all, the state elections are due Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was said to be against next year. Hasina too sent sweets and a saree Singh because his image is not good in the state. in reciprocation.

11 may 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 17 open essay

By Dipankar Gupta

The virus and Democracy How the East beat the West

he Covid-19 pandemic has obviously taught medical sciences several lessons, but it has also had a profound unsettling impact on a range of social sciences. For example, the spread of this disease and the way different societies have dealt with it has left political theory deeply puzzled. More pertinently, why have Eastern democracies, such as South Korea or Taiwan, done a much better job in containing this pandemic than Western democracies, such as France or the US? The old distinction between dictatorship and democracy is now unworkable because China, with its huge economic success, has emerged as a major theoretical disruptor. The more recent dichotomy separating liberal and illiberal democracies doesn’t take us far either. South Korea, Taiwan or Japan are hardly illiberal, yet they have a much better report card when it comes to handling Covid-19 than democracies in West Europe and the US. But why? How can one thread this needle? In the East, the Covid-19 surge was met more effectively because people abided by state regulations on physical distancing and maskT wearing more readily than, say, in France or the UK. West Europe, including the US, instead, saw significant resistance to such restrictions and hence the pandemic kept growing there. Even today, there are instances of protestors, in very large numbers, who believe these restrictions are undemocratic invasions of their right to privacy. Further, in South Korea, Singapore, Japan or Taiwan, for example, the population also willingly submitted to mass testing and contact tracing. Japan does not have legal rights to enforce lockdowns or contact tracing; even so, the state effectively implemented both. Obviously, this would entail a heightened degree of state surveillance, but that did not seem to matter much in these democracies. In Western democracies, from Spain to the US, the situation has been quite different. Obviously, societies that have not taken kindly to relatively non-invasive advisories, such as social distancing and mask wearing, will find contact tracing very difficult. No surprise then that in the West both mass testing and contact tracing have fared badly. They were popularly captioned, in several quarters, as edicts of a ‘big brother’ state. The European Union Trade Commissioner for Internal Market voiced this fear when he said that fighting Covid-19 is fine but “we will not compromise on our values and privacy requirements”. On the other hand, democracies of the East, from Japan to Singapore, have done very well. Many had learnt from the earlier SARS breakout, but neither then nor now have they faced popular opposition to the restrictions the state imposed to fight the pandemics. It would also be risky to take the distinction between liberal and illiberal democracies as mutually exclusive categories. At the weed level, there is so much of one in the other. It really boils down to the extent of illiberalism and not the complete lack of liberalism. For instance, the US president enjoys vast powers under the National Emergencies Act; in France too, Article 16 of their constitution gives

18 9 november 2020 Illustration by Saurabh Singh

The old liberal formulations that placed strict restrictions on state activities in the West are just not suitable in Eastern democracies and need to be tropicalised. The conditions in postcolonial countries were very different; sovereignty had just been won and external threat still imminent. The state also had the responsibility of uplifting millions left knock-kneed impoverished by colonialism

the president ‘exceptional powers’ in times of crisis. event is often rich with scientific potentiality. It was chance In Sweden there is little room, actually hardly any at all, for that brought about antibiotics and chance that led to the such provisions to apply. This is not so for neighbouring discovery of X-Rays, and chance, again, with World War II that Finland which allows for the curtailment of fundamental brought about major breakthroughs in physics, mathematics, rights, but in a timebound fashion if the country is in deep chemistry, even fishing. The meteor that is said to have caused trouble. Therefore, one should not take this distinction the Ice Age was a chance occurrence too. between liberal and illiberal democracies as absolute. There is Liberty was first symbolised by the French Revolution the exceptional state, behind every unexceptional one, hoping in the form of Marianne holding aloft a flaming torch. It has to control the mind, failing which, the body. since become the motherboard, quite literally, of all symbols of The slide rule should also apply when we analyse why some liberty. In pre-airplane days, the first thing that migrants saw Eastern democracies have done better than Western democra- as they sailed into the US was the Statue of Liberty, once again cies in effecting mass mask wearing and contact tracing. This ob- a gift from France. Marianne was, and is, the prime symbol of servation becomes theoretically tantalising as we find instances a united France well before ideas of nation-state began to gain of acquiescence and defiance, combining in different amounts, prominence there. in all democracies. East or West, none of these democracies under In Western democracies, liberalism is the principal feature. consideration is, however, a sham front of totalitarian rule. This is why constitutions in the West emphasise, most of Obviously, the Covid-19 pandemic is a rare historical occur- all, that citizens be protected from arbitrary state power. The rence and, hopefully, it will remain one. Nevertheless, a chance individual is supreme and to restrain the state from abusing its

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 19 open essay

getty images People wearing face masks in Tokyo, April 7

Rights, too, was drafted by Abbé Sieyès and Marquis de Lafayette in consultation, predictably, with Thomas Jefferson. The very idea of ‘natural rights’ is also utterly French from start to finish. Republican ideals were set in motion by the 1789 French Revolution and soon spread across Europe colouring even nationalist aspirations there. Not just France, the Italian Risorgimento (or ‘rising again’) too began in 1815 as a repub- lican movement, after the Napole- onic wars, before it culminated as a national movement in the 1870s. Eastern democracies are differ- ent from such liberal democracies, Democracies of the East, from Japan to Singapore, have done but they are not illiberal. They can very well. Many had learnt from the earlier SARS breakout, but best be characterised by the term ‘deontic’. ‘Deontic’ is appropriate neither then nor now have they faced popular opposition to the because it stands for obligation and restrictions the state imposed to fight the pandemics binding commitment. In ‘deontic’ democracies, it is not the liberty of the individual but duties of the state that occupies the pride of place. powers is a major concern in these democracies. It is this idea In a deontic democracy, the state bears the responsibility for a of liberty that allows the American gun lobbyists so much society’s wellbeing. influence. Nobody, they argue, can take away the right to buy The principal reason why such democracies are more deon- a gun, a rifle, even a rocket launcher. tic than liberal is because they emerged after long subjugation The American constitution clearly spells out the impor- under colonial rule. This made the fight for independence the tance of negative liberties over positive ones. Judge Richard major thrust of their long-drawn mobilisations. We can see Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court said in a landmark judg- this aspect reflected in the constitutions of a number of deontic ment: ‘The men who wrote the Bill of Rights were not con- democracies from India, to South Korea, to Singapore. The first cerned that government might do too little for the people but order of business here was to unite as a people and throw out that it might do too much to them.’ According to Posner, the the foreign oppressor. constitution protects citizens from state oppression, without Unlike a liberal democracy, in this case, the newly emergent imposing positive obligations on the state. state required muscle and sinew which only positive laws can The 14th Amendment of 1868 cemented the view that build. This state has obligations to its ‘people’, the authentic Americans, first and foremost, need to be protected from their sons of the soil. For example, the constitution of South Korea government. There is a famous quote, popularly attributed to says it is the state’s duty to make sure that people realise their Thomas Jefferson, which says: “When governments fear the full development and ‘elevate’ their quality of life. How differ- people, there is liberty. When people fear the government, ent this is from Jefferson’s vision of a liberal state which is all there is tyranny.” This quote carries a strong European flavour bare bones with no meat on them. and not coincidentally, Jefferson spent long years in France. In Taiwan, along similar lines, their constitution is ex- Of course, Jefferson was much enamoured by the arts, pected to ‘provide services that are essential to the well-being customs, manner and mores of Paris. Not surprisingly, the of society’. Lee Kuan Yew, the architect of modern Singapore, American constitution owes a lot to 18th century French proudly said: “If Singapore is a nanny state, then I am proud to thought. The idea of separation of powers came from Mon- have fostered one.” He also commented, very tellingly for our tesquieu, from Rousseau, popular sovereignty, from Voltaire, purpose, that “what Asians value may not necessarily be what the separation of church from state. America’s famous Bill of Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value freedoms

20 9 november 2020 and liberties of the individual”. Once again, it is important to caution that liberal and In deontic democracies, the state has a job of work to perform. deontic democracies are not binary opposites but only as This is evident both in their formal constitutions as well as in starting points for analytical reasons. In the real world they the expectations people have from their representatives. So, if are best placed along a continuum, just as we had earlier the state recommends masks and contact tracing for the greater advocated for illiberal and liberal democracies. If seen along a good, the popular mindset in these countries does not deem sliding scale, the contrary tensions within these states become such measures as anti-democratic.This is why the term ‘deontic more amenable to analysis for the ‘logic of the field’ (to quote democracy’ is truly appropriate for many Eastern democracies. Giorgio Agamben) comes alive. In none of these Eastern, deontic democracies, has there been any significant show of protest against the Covid-19 induced measures. As the state, first and foremost, is supposed here is also a gradual shading off when we look at to look out for what is best for its people, what is a little privacy Tthe principal thrust engines propelling liberal and deontic invasion between friends? The state is also expected to know democracies. In deontic democracies, in the main, it was most more than individual citizens. It is the repository of greater important to drive out the ‘foreign devil’, the colonial forces. knowledge garnered from experts and with those who have From the fulfilment of this urge, and only in some cases, came experience in the field. democracy. The 19th century Meiji Restoration made Japan an The deontic state may deliver faultily, it may not have its exception, but its democracy today was forced on her by the officials in place, it may be profoundly inept, but it will not Allied powers in the post-World War II treaty. be taken to task for taking up the task of acting for the whole. From anti-colonialism came the nation state, but not all of Indeed, if the state were to shirk from this responsibility, it them became democracies; India was foremost and the first would be seen as gross negligence of official duty. In a deontic to take this path. The passions fuelling nation-state ideologies democracy, the state can be forgiven for taking the wrong put democracy in the background. India, once again, was a rare action, even an incorrect action, but inaction is unpardonable, exception as its national movement also forwarded demo- especially in times of acute social stress. cratic ideals, such as minority protection and the abolition of Therefore, unlike most liberal democracies, when the state untouchability. Even so, it was freedom from colonial rule that in a deontic democracy issues a directive for the common good, was the primary goal. citizens do not immediately see that as a hostile act. They do The arrival of independence in all East Asian democra- not reflexively protest against these measures and view them cies also came with the awareness that there were external as infringing on their rights as citizens. If the state says let’s enemies one had to constantly guard against. This is why the wear masks or we need to know your cellphone co-ordinates laws in non-Western deontic democracies allow for greater for testing and contract tracing, there is no concerted ideologi- state intervention than they do in the West. The fear that once cal rebuff to these overtures. independence is lost, all is lost was real. There is no scope after

Anti-mask and anti-lockdown protestors at Parliament Square in London, October 24

Societies that have not taken kindly to relatively non-invasive advisories, such as social distancing and mask wearing, will find contact tracing very difficult. No surprise then that in the West both mass testing and contact tracing have fared badly. They were popularly captioned, in several quarters, as edicts of a ‘big brother’ state getty images

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 21 open essay

that for any sort of development, political or economic, and the fledgling nation-state would lie wasted. A protest during the This sentiment was clearly expressed by Lee Kuan Yew Quit India when he said: “Freedom of the press, freedom of the news media movement, must be subordinated to the overriding needs of the integrity of 1942 Singapore.” Independent India’s integrity was threatened right at the start by Partition, followed by the Pakistan army’s infiltra- tion into Kashmir. They didn’t just throw a brick through the window, they wanted to take over the house as well.

n the face of all this, the Mahatma’s proposals for a Ivillage-based, decentralised administration found very little support even among those who were, otherwise, clearly Gandhian. As the Indian state was far from being in a tranquil spot, a loose federalism would not do either. It was necessary to forge a union of states with a strong, weaponised centre armed with authoritarian powers to combat if and when any threat arose to India’s sovereignty. Fears of this order led to the acceptance of various forms of preventive detention in Eastern deontic democracies. They felt their sovereignty was still under threat for there were enemy forces outside who might be aided by fifth columnists and traitors within. The threat need not always be a military one. It could also be economic in character for there were rich countries out there chafing at the bit for having lost control over their former colonies. Given this background, Eastern deontic democracies state is the perennial provider and people are forever supplicants, formally granted their states greater powers. This is why the never true citizens. Such a depiction may well be a caricature, but old liberal formulations that placed strict restrictions on state the state does carry moral obligations to its people and the people activities are just not suitable here and need to be tropicalised. expect the state to deliver, not as subjects, but as citizens. The conditions in postcolonial countries were very different; The idealised liberal version of the state is not sensitive sovereignty had just been won and external threat still im- enough to adapt to the conditions under which democracy minent. Additionally, the state also had the responsibility of up- came to the East. Where nationalism emerged from the throes lifting millions left knock-kneed impoverished by colonialism. of anti-colonialism, democracy came in after a lag, sometimes As the state was the guarantor of these goals, the state a very lengthy pause, for example, in South Korea. Neverthe- should be given adequate powers as well. The state was expect- less, democracy, it must be repeated, was not the initial popular ed to protect its citizens as the foundations of the nation-state impulse even in those countries which eventually became were still fragile. In these Eastern democracies, the state was democratic; nationalism was. not the way Jefferson viewed it; the kind that should be kept In order to understand the ideological founts of liberal and strictly within bounds by negative sanctions. Deontic states deontic democracies we must read their pre-histories, but once had to be activist and ready to face external threats and power again with a sliding scale. Though their pasts are quite different much needed social development too. in emphasis and location, they are not always discretely separa- The prominence accorded to negative laws that curb state ble. In the West, to put it bluntly, and allowing for finer distinc- activities and give the individual the pride of place is the tions to come up later, democracy preceded nationalism, but in hallmark of a liberal state. This may seem like an idealised deontic democracies, nationalism preceded democracy. statement, but there is no denying that this attitude routinely To a large extent, this has conditioned the difference courses through the ideological veins of a large number of between these two democracies and what people in each citizens in Western democracies. This accounts for the quick expect from their respective governments. In Western liberal trigger resentment among sizeable sections in these countries democracies republican aspirations were lit before national- when masks and contact tracing are insisted upon. ism became the leading concern. Consequently, negative sanc- In Eastern democracies, people expect the state to step up and tions against the state are noticeably prominent in European do things for the benefit of its people. This sentiment has often law and constitutions, but not so in later deontic democracies been criticised as an extension of a medieval mindset where the where nationalism came first.

22 9 november 2020 waves. In Italy, again, just as in America, the The idealised liberal version ideological charge came from the French of the state is not Revolution. In the Piedmont and Lombardi sensitive enough to adapt regions of Italy, Garibaldi’s ‘Redshirts’ finally won against the more conservative faction to the conditions under led by Count Cavour. which democracy came to Germany stood a little apart from both the East. Where nationalism Britain and France, as well as from Italy, emerged from the throes of which is why the sliding scale, referred to earlier, is so important for our presentation. anti-colonialism, democracy At first glance it would appear that German came in after a lag, people in the principalities that Otto von sometimes a very lengthy Bismarck later unified as Lesser Germany were awash with liberal aspirations. A closer pause, for example, in South examination tells us that Germans, more Korea. Nevertheless, than other West Europeans, were drawn to democracy, it must be nationalism in a somewhat greater measure. Like nationalism elsewhere, East and repeated, was not the initial West, German nationalism too began with popular impulse even in those romantic idealism. In this case, it is said, that countries which eventually the first clear expression of it can be found became democratic; Johann Fichte’s 1808 Addresses to the German Nation. The Napoleonic wars where the nationalism was Germans suffered heavily certainly hastened the rise of nationalism among them, leading alamy in 1818 to a ‘customs union’ that lasted till 1866. It was this nationalistic fervour that A teaser trailer on 19th century Western European history supported Bismarck’s state activism and welfarism. might help. Britain is always an outlier, but consider the major The German state, quite distinctively, was enjoined to popular surges from France to Spain around 1848. These years think of the collective and that citizens were also encouraged were called the ‘Springtime of the Peoples’. Its famed partici- to realise themselves through the state. This ideological riff is pants, the legendary ‘Fortyeighters’, were all high on democrat- a constant theme in Germany and can be clearly traced to the ic rights. It is this trait that marked not just the Paris uprisings Hegelian vision of the ethical will. Here, the individual is aware but also the unification of Italy and Germany and led to Louis of objective duties, but the state provides conditions to actual- Philippe’s abdication. ise the free expression of a person’s will which, under proper Some believe that this stir actually began in 1832 with guidance, can reach to universality. the Hambacher Fest where black and red, the colours of the German nationalists did not reject republican thought, German flag of today, were first displayed. These surges of but their motivations to join in mid-19th century European democracy were expressed almost simultaneously all over uprisings were not exactly of the French or American kind. Europe, even if one were to quibble over the exact dates of German nationalism was also led by intellectuals, but in this each. Democracy led the charge against monarchical rule and case they promoted inherent traits and instincts of German absolutism in Europe before nationalism gained prominence people, more than reason, as vehicles of a just order. There on that continent. were promoters of republican ideals too in their ranks, na- It is widely acknowledged that the Italian Risorgimento, or tionalism was very powerful too. uprising, brought in nationalism, but Giuseppe Mazzini was The intensity of German romantic tradition is very well first and foremost a republican. On several occasions, especial- known and has sometimes been given a kind of mythical ly when his return to his native Piedmont was in the air, it is his status. In these renditions, blonde Teutonic beasts roam the republican convictions that kept him from making alliances. forests. They are gentle and forgiving yet ferocious and daring, Giuseppe Garibaldi bartered away his romantic image as a they are given to poetry, music and the arts but equally adept guerilla warrior for the cause of fashioning a republic, earning at philosophy and higher intellectual vocations. The Germans the wrath of many in Lombardi. must, therefore, have a state that is equally worthy of the The famous historian Benedetto Croce was convinced that innate noble and virtuous traits of its people. the Risorgimento in Italy was the triumph of republicanism This background prepares us to appreciate why the and democratic ideals and that nationalism rode on their German state holds a certain aura among its citizens which is of a

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 23 open essay

Lee Kuan Yew is elected the first prime minister of a free Singapore, May 1959 tively is never a serious consideration. It is highly likely that many in deontic democ- racies may resent these policies and view them as cumbersome and inconvenient, but that is a different matter. Then there are other exhibitions in deontic democracies where masks and physical distancing are not obeyed, nor is there adequate contact tracing. But these arise from incompetence and bureau- cratic mismanagement. In many poorer societies, there is also a serious asymme- try of information flow. For this reason masses of underprivileged people just do not realise the dangers they put them- selves in by not following even the basic steps in pandemic control. Then there are others who are very cynical about these exercises, beginning from quarantining to extensive hand washing and physical distancing because their living conditions are so dire. In working-class quarters there is neither space, nor water, nor wherewithal to observe many of these recommendations. ap Therefore, when somebody in a slum is told to observe pandemic-related norms, Lee Kuan Yew, the architect of modern Singapore, proudly there is every likelihood of such instruc- said: “If Singapore is a nanny state, then I am proud to have tions meeting with utter cynicism. fostered one.” He also commented, very tellingly, that All of these objections put together are “what Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans a species apart from opposing Covid-19 restrictions on grounds of democratic or Europeans value. Westerners value freedoms principle. When pandemic norms raise and liberties of the individual” fears of liberties being eroded, they are met with incomprehension by most in the de- ontic democratic world. They just wonder what democracy has to do with all of this. different order than in many other Western countries. To a large In a deontic democracy the state is supposed to energetically extent it might also explain why it is in Germany that we find provide on all occasions, especially during national crises. the most mouth and nose coverers in Western Europe post-Cov- The inability of either side to comprehend each other is id-19. A large majority of Germans have not sought philosophi- probably because the political cultures of democracy are cal reasons either to protest against such state recommendations. different and not because one is more or less democratic than the other. Nor is it, as several Western commentators sneer- ingly assume, that people from the East are not as committed biding by state injunctions and wearing masks in to democracy as they are. Apublic or even yielding to track tracing procedures could At the end of the day, what hurts Western sensitivities most also arise from fear. Such a possibility cannot be discounted, but is that Eastern deontic democracies handled the pandemic in the deontic states we are referring to, this is not a live feature. It way better than they did. Europe and America are so is to take care of this objection that China was not brought into accustomed to being judged as superior that the systematic the picture in this essay because its people shudder to disobey. setbacks they encountered in pandemic control was a rather What sets apart the deontic states in this regard is that the bitter pill for them to swallow. n acceptance of state directives is driven by the belief that they are legitimate and originating from a credible source. That Dipankar Gupta is a sociologist and public intellectual. He is the such measures affect freedom and individual rights nega- author of, among other titles, Q.E.D.: India Tests Social Theory

24 9 november 2020 While Inside Look Outside For FREE With access visit www.openthemagazine.com Cover Story America’s choice India’s interest India-America relationship is too solid and rooted in America’s choicerealism to be affected by the outcome of the US presidential election on November 3 India’s interest By Siddharth Singh and Ullekh NP

he visit of two senior members of US President Donald Trump’s admin- istration to New Delhi ahead of the November 3rd elections in the US T has evoked very differ- ent reactions. For India’s well-wishers, the message could not be clearer: domestic political uncertainty has little bearing on deepening ties with a partner considered important for Ameri- can interests in Asia. Detractors, of course, point to the timing of the visit, in a deeply polarised election season, to sign the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA), an enabling deal that had been de- layed endlessly. The reality veers towards a deepening relationship even if there are potential points of friction on the path. So, will a change of political climate in the US affect its ties with India? Opinion among observers of the India- Prime Minister Narendra Modi US relationship varies. C Christine Fair, and US President Donald Trump in Houston, US, September 2019

www.openthemagazine.com 27Photo ap Cover Story

professor of security studies at Georgetown University, US, says that while she feels Joseph Biden would be a better and more trustworthy president in creating an effective coalition against China, she thinks India-US relations are going to remain the same whoever wins: Trump or Biden. The worries of this scholar are not about the US meeting its commitments, but about India falling short in taking actions that promote defence ties between the two democracies. “This relationship is so bureaucratised, it doesn’t matter who gets elected. It is not something I expect to change with the out- come of the election. It is well regarded within the government and defence establishment that this is a relationship over the long term. I don’t see the US changing course. In fact, my biggest concern is that India has failed to make the defence procurement changes it needs to make. It is a longstanding problem. India doesn’t know how to set its national security objectives. Over the 25-year-horizon, with the threatened environment India is going to face, it hasn’t figured out much about the capabilities it requires,” she says, adding that a lot of attention is laid in India on the personnel cost of the Army.

For India’s well-wishers, The message from the timing of the visit could not be clearer: domestic political uncertainty has little bearing on deepening ties with a partner considered important for American interests

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“There are other issues that no one focuses upon. India its relationship with New Delhi. Washington sees India as a key does not consolidate its weapons programmes. Whether you partner in efforts to push back against Beijing.” look at aircraft, artillery or even guns, they prefer to have more There are exceptions to these optimistic views about the suppliers and completely different weapons systems that are bilateral relationship and how a possible change of political not interoperable.” guard in the US may end up affecting India. In an essay penned Her views find an echo in what Michael Kugelman, Asia in September, Ashley J Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for In- Program Deputy Director and Senior Associate for South Asia ternational Peace, wrote: ‘The community of liberal democracies at the Woodrow Wilson Center says: “There’s strong bipartisan internationally stands to lose if domestic unrest fuelled by con- sentiment in Washington in favour of maintaining and increas- frontational politics stymies India’s growth or if India enlarges its ing the US-India partnership, and especially amid a growing US- material capabilities only by sacrificing its liberal character. Either China rivalry that’s here to stay. Let’s be clear: Leaders on both outcome would dilute the West’s eagerness to partner with India.’ sides of the political aisle in Washington may talk about the He was writing about the changes made to the constitutional shared values that bind the US and India together. But at the end status of Jammu and Kashmir and other issues. of the day, it’s the cold, hard interests that drive the relationship. This is a source of potential friction that India may have to US concerns about China, and its increasingly troubling activities watch out for and its diplomats remain alert in case a Democrat in the Indo-Pacific region, provide the lens through which it views enters the White House. Human rights, minority rights and other

28 9 november 2020 US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi, October 27

liberal issues attract all Democratic administrations in the US. But likely to be invited to the event that features the Indian, Japanese as Tellis noted just after he penned those lines: ‘To be sure, India’s and US navies. Yet, when the Ministry of Defence announced relevance in the Indo-Pacific will survive, thanks to the exigencies that “in the light of increased defence cooperation with Australia, of balancing China. This ensures continued engagement by the Malabar 2020 will see the participation of the Australian Navy”, it United States and other powers, but a constrained acquiescence seemed India had taken one more step to counter its increasingly to partnership is a poor substitute for the enthusiastic boosting warlike relations with China. of India that would otherwise occur if its liberal credentials were The last time Australia was invited for Malabar was way not contested.’ back in 2007 when the navies of the four countries, plus that of Singapore, had carried out drills in the Bay of Bengal. China sent one of these potential sources of uncertainty was in a strong note of protest and that put paid to the four-country for- evidence when the Indian defence ministry announced mat. That single note was enough for India to begin ‘respecting’ that Australia will participate in the forthcoming Mala- Chinese ‘sensitivities’. In the bargain, the Quadrilateral Security N bar series of naval exercises. The announcement was Dialogue, or Quad, was also put in the icebox. hardly a bombshell, especially since there is a growing realisation That was then. These days, there is never a dull military mo- that countries facing the Chinese threat need to stand together. It ment in the subcontinent. China’s misadventure in eastern was speculated since the beginning of the year that Australia was Ladakh—that led to the skirmish in Galwan Valley in mid-June—

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 29 Cover Story

has ended the taboo against Australian participation in what is 2+2 dialogue between the foreign and defence ministers of the increasingly seen as the concert of Asian democracies against two countries when he noted: “Thanks to Prime Minister Modi Chinese aggression in the continent, from the Senkaku Islands and President Trump’s leadership and our shared values, our ties to the icy heights of eastern Ladakh. are growing stronger day by day. This morning, we visited the Along expected lines, all this was amped up during the visit of National War Memorial to honour the brave men and women US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark of the Indian Armed Forces who have sacrificed for the world’s Esper to India. Although several analysts are sceptical of the extent largest democracy, including 20 that were killed by the PLA forces of Pompeo’s commitment, during his visit, India finally signed the in the Galwan Valley in June. The United States will stand with BECA, the last of the four ‘foundational’ agreements between India the people of India as they confront threats to their sovereignty and the US that enable close defence cooperation between the two and to their liberty.” countries. Four other agreements, in non-military spheres, were The Joint Statement issued at the end of the meetings stated signed as well. In his remarks, Esper noted: “This year marks the that henceforth Quad meetings will be held annually, hinting at 15th anniversary of the first US-India Defense Framework and our the institutionalisation of the forum that had long shied away third 2+2 Ministerial. We have strengthened our defence and secu- from giving signals of formalisation. As various analysts have rity partnership considerably since then… Our focus now must be stated, this will not be an Asian version of NATO but much more on institutionalising and regularising our cooperation to meet the structured than an inchoate gathering that scatters at the first challenges of the day and uphold the principles of a free and open hint of Chinese displeasure. Indo-Pacific well into the future.” Notwithstanding what a section of pundits says, two things Pompeo was even more direct in his remarks made after the are happening simultaneously. First, the depth of the US-India

Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the first presidential debate in Cleveland, US, September 29

30 9 november 2020 military engagement is now of a qualitatively This relationship is so bureaucratised, it doesn’t different order than matter who gets elected. My biggest concern is that what could be imag- India has failed to make the defence procurement ined even a decade ago. ‘‘ Second, at a multilateral changes it needs to make. India doesn’t know how level, the four likemind- to set its national security objectives” ed Asian democracies are now militarily en- C Christine Fair political scientist gaged with each other at a more comprehensive level than ever before. At both fora, India has let go of its ‘hesitations of history’. There are of events—global and domestic—that could have landed it in good reasons for that. trouble. The outreach to the US, now a multi-party consensus, has For all the talk of becoming a Great Power, India has always remained strong through the terms of six different prime min- been acutely conscious of its military weakness and its need for isters. While the partnership with Russia has remained strong, friends who would help it in tough situations. This is a constant of it has increasingly acquired a transactional hue, something very India’s diplomatic and military history since 1947. In 1994, when different from the political closeness of the 1970s and 1980s. This India began its pivot to the West, it was reacting to a combination has been for obvious reasons: even after the US’ ‘unipolar mo- ment’ passed away, Russia remained at second rank. With China’s rise in the second decade of the 21st century, it is now a distant getty images third. More worryingly, it is now tied to China’s political-econom- ic heel. It cannot be the political partner that it was once, if not ever, at least for a very long time. Russia remains India’s partner of choice for military hardware even to the point of risking US displeasure, such as in the case of buying the S-400 missile system. The US had passed legislation—the Countering America’s Adver- saries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), 2017—that provides for sanctions against countries that purchase defence equipment from Russia. India ignored the warning, saying that its contract for the S-400 system pre-dated the CAATSA. That leaves China in India’s increasingly simple Eurasian equation. China’s calculations behind its actions in eastern Ladakh remain opaque. India had until that point in May this year not done anything that China could have deemed offensive. If anything, India had subjected itself to self-denying tactics just to keep peace with its much more powerful neighbour. That did not work. When China began attempts to nibble away at India’s ter- ritory in eastern Ladakh, something had to give. And it did. One speculative suggestion on China’s actions is that it concluded a while earlier that India ‘was lost to it’ and, come what may, it would align with the West and hence it was in China’s interests to make ‘tactical’ and ‘territorial’ adjustments. That also means India is in a situation where a much stronger partnership with the US makes enormous sense. The US also needs India to counter an aggressive China in Asia. But India ought not to be under any illusion that it needs the US more than the US needs it. The US has other ‘options’ such as Australia and Japan to counter China. India has none. The Quad sends an im- portant signal to China that it is not business as usual with India. This is an important step forward but India cannot rest here. At the very minimum, it needs to break the shibboleths that some in its strategic community display about the loss of ‘strategic autonomy’. One can turn it around and ask what else

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 31 Cover Story

Quad meetings will now be held annually, Formalising the forum. This will not be an Asian version of NATO, but much more structured than an inchoate gathering that scatters at the first hint of Chinese US, Japanese and Indian navies participating in displeasure Malabar 2019

is the partnership with the US about? And didn’t bending over This is why we need a new SEATO.” SEATO, or the Southeast Asia backwards to keep China happy amount to whittling down of Treaty Organization, was an America-backed organisation created ‘strategic autonomy’? in 1954 to check the rise of communism in the region.

hat Pompeo and Esper said was music to the ears of air, meanwhile, is currently worried more about the their Indian interlocutors. There are plenty of challenges chaos within her country than elsewhere. She says that the India has to confront before it can meet the military, eco- early voting turnout in the US, ahead of the keenly watched W nomic and political challenges thrown down by China. F November 3rd election, has seen a rapid rise from previous Fair says India is confronting a logistical chaos within its occasions and that there has been voter suppression, even intimida- armed forces, and regrets that very few people are writing about tion of poll workers, African-Americans and others reportedly by this. “A lot of people focus on the sexy stuff, like aircraft. But it rightwing groups. Which is also a reason why she thinks Trump is good logistics that help you win the war,” Fair points out, em- would return to power although the likes of Allan Lichtman, his- phasising that India needs to consolidate its weapons systems torian and co-creator of ‘The Keys to the White House’ model to and save costs. predict wins, and various other commentators have talked about That is not all. There is an even bigger challenge that the US has a Joe Biden victory. This is also because, she reasons, the US has a left unaddressed: Trump failed to counter Chinese revisionism with winner-takes-all system in most of its 50 states except two: which respect to India. “A proper president would be organising a coalition means whoever wins most votes (electors) in a state gets the entire to contain China. Trump didn’t do that. We need to have serious con- Electoral College votes. Each state has ‘electors’ in the Electoral versations (with our allies) to disengage our economies from China. College and that number is proportionate to the size of each state. In Our President (Trump) cannot even articulate that,” she says, add- total, 538 electors, who support their choice of president and who ing, “Biden is more aware of the national security concerns of India.” are voted in directly by American people, comprise the Electoral But finally, Fair asserts, as regards the India-US relations, “the ball is College, which decides the ultimate winner. in India’s court” to promote defence ties by integrating its weapons The question remains, will the varied styles of Trump programmes that would also help it tackle the growing threat from and Biden have an impact on American strategy with China China. “There are weapons systems that the US has cleared for In- and India? dia, including armed drones, but India has not followed through,” For his part, Kugelman says, “My sense is that New Delhi, recog- Fair says, adding that China is increasingly becoming a formidable nising the significance of its relationship with Washington, would military power. “We do not have the capabilities to counter China. much prefer to have a predictable and conventional president in the

32 9 november 2020 White House. And that means Biden—for all his quirks—would is often involved in conflicts on various sections of the border be regarded as much preferable to the famously mercurial Trump.” and in states, training for war has not been given due attention. Kugelman also points out that the timing of the 2+2 meeting In their own way, each of these scholars confirms India’s Achilles was significant. “One may wonder why there would be a high- Heel in countering China: its lack of military modernisation. And level engagement at a moment when the US leadership may very that makes it all the more difficult to wage a two-front war with soon be voted out of power. But I think the timing of the meet- China and Pakistan that would be a nightmarish worst-case sce- ing may be meant to convey a US message about bipartisanship: nario for Indian forces. Precious years were lost in debating whether In effect, our relationship with India transcends partisan issues to manufacture major weapons platforms like submarines, fighter like elections, and we won’t let those issues distract from the part- aircraft and the like domestically or whether to import them. There nership,” he says. was nothing but heated debate even as project deadlines slipped and To be sure, there are still challenges for US-India security rela- major equipment did not land with the military. Some strategic proj- tions, Kugelman warns. “We can talk all we want about the arms sales, the intelligence sharing and technology trans- While India and the US are going to be forced to fers, the revitalised Quad, and the new foundational agree- be allies until Chinese President Xi Jinping retires ments. But there is still a lack ‘to‘ a Buddhist monastery, not much can be expected of clarity as to how to orient a as regards intelligence sharing, simply because deepening security relation- ship that, because of India’s Washington doesn’t have enough of it to share” insistence on strategic auton- Edward Luttwak military historian and strategist omy, must take place outside

“It’s the cold, hard interests that drive the relationship. US ‘ concerns about China, and its increasingly troubling activities‘ in the Indo-Pacific region, provide the lens through which it views its relationship with New Delhi. Washington sees India as a key partner in efforts to push back against Beijing Michael Kugelman South Asia expert

of the alliance system that the US uses for its closest defence ects, such as the indigenous nuclear submarines, did take off but oth- partners. This will be an issue to be addressed in the next US ad- ers like combat-ready fighter jets have lagged behind woefully. Now ministration,” he offers. there is little option but to import equipment post-haste to meet the Offering a contrarian view, American military historian, Cold Chinese threat. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh spoke glowingly Warrior and strategist Edward Luttwak says that while India and about the partnership with the US to develop defence equipment the US are going to be forced to be allies until “Chinese President jointly but it needs to be remembered that these options take years, Xi Jinping retires to a Buddhist monastery”, not much can be if not decades, to bear fruit. The silver lining is that the US expected as regards intelligence sharing, simply because Wash- is ready to meet India’s defence requirements provided ington doesn’t have enough of it to share. He is pessimistic about New Delhi’s legendary sloth in acquiring weapons does not defeat military cooperation on a grand scale happening—that will heav- these efforts. ily arm India—until the Indian Army is drastically reformed by The objective that looms large before India is to shed any am- changing the people to capital ratio. Although the Indian Army biguity in strategic matters and iron out any potential frictions is the third-largest in the world in terms of personnel, it is often in building an alliance with likeminded democracies in Asia— said that the 12-lakh-strong force has “too many personnel and but even more importantly its single biggest source of strategic too little firepower”. Analysts suggest that it must slash its man- succour, the US. India is not what it was in 1962 but it needs to power and invest more in weaponry, especially surveillance sys- remember that countering China will require much more than tems, helicopters and other arms, to be able to go into a war. They advanced weapons, money and resources. India needs friends have also said that since a large section within the armed forces and an iron will not to let China walk over it. n

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 33 Cover Story

Lost in the noise

For a president who got so much wrong, Donald Trump got some important things just right

By Sudeep Paul

Photos ap

Oh happy the man who still can hope The Quaker Nixon is the most hated president. Or was, before To rise again from this great sea of error, we came to believe he was trumped circa 2020. Nixon, loathed What we do not know is the very thing we needed with good reason in this part of the world, had learnt his lessons And what we know we cannot use. well as Eisenhower’s vice president, observing how America’s sta- —Faust, Part One, Scene II tus as the sole economic superpower in a bipolar world could be leveraged. Nixon evolved into the arch-realist whose partnership etween Eisenhower and Donald Trump, with Henry Kissinger produced the most significant post-war for- the best US presidents were Lyndon B John- eign policy breakthrough. He also, technically, ended the bad war. son, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Nixon and Kissinger, playing chequers and chess with Brezhnev Johnson was the Vietnam villain-in-chief and Mao, made America less reckless abroad, abandoned the and the hippies had screamed, “LBJ, LBJ, ideological calculus in deal-making, and laid the ground for the how many kids did you kill today?” The institutionalisation of instrumentalism and incrementalism. Texas Democrat was the president, albeit On Reagan fell the double burden of restoring confidence in as a reluctant signatory, on whose watch the office after Nixon’s disgrace and of redeeming America after the page was turned on civil rights. Yet, the disappointment called Jimmy Carter, who had bungled on B ‘Nam’ and the 1960s destroyed the most the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In significant post-war president on social progress, as lamented in partnership with Margaret Thatcher, Reagan gave the Western their mature years by many who had hit the shrill streets against world its most conservative decade of the century. At home, he un- him, forcing him to not seek re-election in 1968. Youth, indeed, is leashed the ‘Reagan Boom’, an economic recovery that continued wasted on the young. well into the 1990s. Abroad, Reagan was not a Nixonian realist.

34 9 november 2020 Much of the ‘Trump boom’ had admittedly disappeared with the lockdown. But then began the recovery. The pandemic had cost about 22 million jobs. Since then, the economy has added back about 11 million. True, the other half of that 22 million is still jobless, but as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has pointed out, people have been spending through the pandemic and even when unemployed. The pre-pandemic economy had run well enough to put enough money in their accounts. GDP, season- ally adjusted, is expected to bounce back at almost 32 per cent in the third quarter. Mere numbers, but a marker nevertheless of a resilience that wouldn’t be evidenced if certain other things hadn’t gone right earlier. The Economist, no fan of President Trump, says in a recent edito- rial: ‘Before covid-19, America enjoyed its lowest unemployment rate in 50 years, fast annual wage growth of almost 5% among the lowest-paid workers and a buoyant stockmarket.’ It adds: ‘Mr Trump attributes all this to his three-pronged strategy of tax

The 45th president understood the meaning of China. The trade war, much decried, has been the most important weapon in his

US President Donald Trump arsenal. After Trump, will China and Chinese President resume getting away with Xi Jinping at the Forbidden City in Beijing, November 2017 everything as it did before?

He abandoned caution but got away with it. And yet, America cuts, deregulation and confrontational trade policy, and says more did not foresee the coming collapse of communism, beginning of the same will revive the economy after the pandemic. Many vot- less than two years after Reagan left office. ers agree. The economy is one issue where Mr Trump does not face a big deficit in the polls.’ The editorial then lunges at what Trump got wrong: protectionism. Even as that argument goes, the Presi- he current incumbent of the Oval Office walked into dent’s twin tools of ‘all-American’ and ‘pro-business’ made it “a and out of the penumbra of these men. Whether Donald great time to be an American worker” as Stephen Moore, Trump’s Trump left a legacy that could be pursued would depend, economic advisor during the 2016 campaign, would go on to say. T of course, on November 3rd. There’s less doubt whether In March 2016, Michael Goldfarb had argued that to under- Trump will leave a legacy that ought to be pursued—in part. stand why Trump stood a real chance of winning, one had to The argument of those who believe Trump got certain things go back four decades to the still-inhabited ghost towns of de- right but won’t be around to see them through runs as journal- industrialised America (‘The 40-Year Hurt’, bbc.com). Goldfarb ist Yair Rosenberg tweeted last week, tongue-in-cheek: ‘...given wrote, rather eloquently: ‘How much does it hurt to leave the the fundamentals, if Donald Trump was not Donald Trump he certainty in which you were raised, the community of family would be winning this election.’ Not in a long time has a presi- and church and friends who have known you forever? ...You find dent worked so persistently out of the box to overturn decades of a job, but unlike your daddy’s job it isn’t unionised, you work for misdirected and ossified policy abroad and yet have such a per- less and you have very little security. When the economy slows, ceptively debilitating social impact at home. Never before did a you know your job is at risk. America grows richer for some but president perform so well with the economy to see a near-civil not for you. That hurts.’ NAFTA-destroyed America had voted war unleashed in the street. for Trump in the red states and swing states, punishing Hillary

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 35 Cover Story

Clinton for an FTA that was her husband’s doing. Some of these troversy is that the embassy straddles the Green Line.) And what would be the ‘deplorables’, no doubt. But if 2020 were fought only has Trump achieved that no president before him managed? on the economy, some of the reportedly once-46 per cent Black When Israel and Sudan made peace last week, journalist Arsen approval for Trump vis-à-vis the economy could have translated Ostrovsky tweeted: ‘It took #Israel 72 years to make peace with into votes. As Americans surveyed across race and class tend to 3 Arab countries. Today’s deal with #Sudan is the 3rd peace deal say: the Trump years had been good for them (till the pandemic) in just *72days*!’ An apt summary. Under three months, Trump as individuals, but not for America. has brokered normalisation of relations between Israel and the The economy growing at almost double the Obama years UAE, Bahrain, Kosovo and now Sudan. The Sudan deal would seal (below 2 per cent) would itself be the story. But what made the dif- Trump’s legacy in the region, notwithstanding—that’s the man ference may be gleaned from two facts: One, rise in wages. From again—the crudeness of his alleged attempt to get Israeli Prime the highest of $26 in inflation-adjusted average hourly income at Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to admit how this couldn’t have the end of the Obama presidency in 2016, it peaked at $30 under come from another US president. Trump before the pandemic. Wages fell with the lockdown but The riskiest and boldest of moves was North Korea. America had climbed back to $29.4 by August this year. And, what makes a had tried the carrot-and-stick before, but Trump indicated he was big difference in blue-collar jobs, bonuses increased. Two, if aver- prepared to do a bit more. The world’s most dangerous rogue state ages don’t show where the money is going, and even as inequality with nukes and missiles had reached a point where it had rapidly increased in America, poverty fell to an all-time low of 10.5 per exhausted its options and pushed things to a point of no return. cent when it had been at 15 per cent around 2010 , as per data It would likely deal. Trump pounced on it, believing it was time from the US labour and census bureaus. Trump can hardly take to blunt the fangs for good. But North Korea being North Korea, credit for all of it. But unleashing America’s entrepreneurial ener- it would have taken more than one presidential term, if not gies and getting the jobs back was him. Whether it would have another Kim. sustained itself long-term we may never know. In Trump’s four years, the US was not drawn into or made to start a new war. Trump is not labelled a realist by strategic wonks but the moralistic impulse disappeared from foreign policy. here is more credibility to Trump’s self-positioning Whether that’s a good thing or bad would depend, normally, on as an ‘outsider’ in foreign policy. It needed an outsider to its consequences. But after nearly three decades of liberal cru- break with the pursuit of ‘liberal hegemony’ institution- T alised by the Clinton administration in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse. Trump has blown hot and cold on Russia to the extent that real intent and mere signalling became indistinct. Trump ordered the Syria pullout, in an apparent victory for neo- realists who wanted the US out of the Middle East, but took out Qasem Soleimani, scrapped the nuclear deal and sanctioned Iran. He has inconsistently (who can blame him when Pyongyang is at the other end of the line?), but persistently, tried to do a deal with Kim Jong-un. He upgraded defence and security ties with India; backed the resurrection of the Quad as early in his term as 2017; asked European and Asian allies to pick up the tab (he wasn’t the first US president to desire it, but the first to not mince his words in demanding so—something that aims to help US manufacturers too); and blessed deal after deal between Israel and Muslim states. Above all, his administration understood the military threat from China right before Chairman Xi finally jet- tisoned the hogwash of ‘peaceful rise’ that Beijing had sheltered behind for four decades. In the intersection of foreign policy and geopolitics, Donald Trump has been, in many ways, a president without precedent. Jerusalem was recognised as the capital of the State of Israel by Congress in 1995 and had become a public law (the Jerusalem Embassy Act). The Trump administration’s decision to shift the US Embassy, after two-plus decades and three presidents sitting on it, was met with international condemnation, the fact being lost that, whether on a single- or a two-state roadmap, Jerusalem, at least a half of it, would remain the capital of Israel. (The real con-

36 9 november 2020 sade—which couldn’t salvage even the necessary war in Afghani- each individual, institution and organisation with Chinese links, stan—somebody had to pull back. Steve Hilton, the host of The no matter how tenuous, informal or innocuous, in the West is ac- Next Revolution on Fox News may have exaggerated (‘Trump’s for- tually a front for the Party (the United Front Work Department or eign policy greatest of any president since WWII’), but wasn’t that the PLA). On the other, it exposes how Beijing has worked its way off the mark. Drawing down without retrenching—that’s what into the minds and pockets of people who matter—presidential Trump evidently began. To signal that an America in decline was candidates, Congressmen, MEPs, MPs, ambassadors, industrial- retrenching would have been calamitous. Trump pulled out and ists, journalists, et al. (Remember Clinton’s Chinagate of 1996? pushed in as needed. The result was a strategic rebalancing of And yes, the Bush, Biden and Trump families are all there in this America’s equations with friends and foes. story.) The ‘CCP’s influence, interference and subversion in North America and Western Europe’ also uses intimidation—against Chinese citizens abroad, people of Chinese origin with family uch of what Trump has done comes back to China. ties to China, and American and European citizens who irritate At the crossroads of geopolitics and geoeconomics, China the Party: tweets irking Beijing have actually cost people their is the biggest thing the 45th presidency grasped the mean- jobs. Many never know they are unwitting enablers of the CPC. M ing of. The trade war, much decried, has been the most In any case, Beijing always begins by extensively studying the important weapon in the arsenal of a Washington with eyes wide ‘elite power map’ in a country, identifying friends and enemies, open for the first time. and then making its approach. Roger Faligot’s Chinese Spies: From Chairman Mao to Xi Jinping— Part of this strategy, extending Mao’s ‘surround the city with on how deep Beijing’s espionage runs—is an important book the countryside’ on the grandest scale, is to shower dimes on poor, from last year. An equally, if not more, important book has come de-industrialised small towns across the geography of the US out this year—Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg’s Hidden (a similar thing is happening in the poorer former East Germa- Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party Is Reshaping the ny), enticing their grateful mayors and residents, and cornering World. Hamilton and Ohlberg’s scope is vast but limited to the local and national politicians who might think differently with Western world (North America, Western Europe and Australia). ‘public opinion’, which is also let loose upon the national capital On the one hand, the book maps the ambitions of the Communist (the city). China, thus, is perceived as benign and necessary, the Party of China (CPC) and shows, with evidence at every step, how narrative built up and legitimised as much from the bottom up as from the top down. (‘Sinophobia’, too, is a concoction, brewed diligently, by the Party.) The Trump administration threw the first spanner in Beijing’s works. Nixon’s détente can be retrospectively blamed today for On the floor of the If 2020 were New York Stock Exchange, China’s aspirations for Weltmacht. But that’s the cynicism of January 2018 fought only on hindsight and it turns the definition of ‘realism’ on its head. On the economy, both trade and its maritime adventurism, Beijing has found itself checked. An increasingly sceptical Europe, fearing entrapment, Trump would still is hesitating on the Belt and Road, the one project that would lock get a walkover. half the world into Beijing’s client system. In Hamilton and Ohl- Before the berg’s eyes, ‘While he is wrong on many other things, Trump is right that Beijing has been systematically violating the principles pandemic, the US of international economic engagement and getting away with it.’ saw its lowest However, Trump didn’t get it right from the start: he ‘zigzagged’ unemployment through 2017 and 2018 before settling into ‘a permanently hard rate in 50 years. position in 2019’. China’s military aggression and Xi’s exhortations for war- Wages for the readiness may be partly a reaction to feeling the heat for the first lowest-paid time since 1989. Or it may be the evolution of strategy as seen by grew, bonuses Xi’s hardliners. The pandemic may have battered Trump more than China—and Beijing, after the initial beating it took, per- increased. And haps considers it a boon. The question is: after Trump, will China poverty fell to resume getting away with everything as it did before? an all-time low of Johnson, Nixon and Reagan. Figures of hate. Two through their terms and thereafter. The third quickly found his way into the hall 10.5 per cent while of infamy with the reinvention of the left when history did not end. stocks boomed And history vindicates them, in large part, every day. How will it judge Donald Trump? And how can we use what we do know? n

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 37 Cover Story Opinion The Liberal Dilemma

he 2020 election is fought in the midst One, status beliefs or racial stereotypes shape broader societal of the largest social movement in US his- perceptions of competence of different groups, thus providing tory. ‘Black Lives Matter’ has shaped the an implicit intellectual justification for discrimination. Discrimi- policy platform of both presidential can- nation against Black Americans in the employment, housing, didates. The Democrats, not surprisingly, and especially the criminal justice system, is well-documented. are more progressive. Yet, as the former Controversial policing measures like ‘stop-and-frisk’ have been mayor of Minneapolis noted, racial in- defended on statistical grounds. Scientific racism has long been equality is amongst the worst in cities discarded but a recent study finds that Black Americans are un- run by the Democrats. One might argue dertreated for pain because white medical professionals hold T that we need our politicians to be more radical—America’s broken system needs to be rebuilt from the getty images ground-up. But left-leaning politicians like Bernie Sanders, who proposed just that, have not had much success with Black voters. Yes, his campaign could have done more to articulate the con- cerns of minorities (his 2020 campaign was an improvement over the last.) But is there something fundamentally missing in how white liberals understand race? Anti-Black discrimination is deeply ingrained in American society due to its long history of slavery, but this ‘liberal dilemma’ is not unique to the US. America’s more progressive neighbour in the north, where I currently work, is an exemplar of multicul- turalism for French-speaking Quebecers while its indigenous population was subject to genocide until recently and continues to be mistreated. The high incidence of poverty in India should have predicted the success of the left. Yet, barring a few excep- tions, caste-based parties dominate politics in most states. Indig- enous groups in Bolivia were forced to create their own political parties in spite of a strong left. Why do liberals continue to fail marginalised groups? Can social science teach us something about this dilemma? Societies with long histories of group-based discrimination owing to, say, legacies of caste, slavery, colonialism or apartheid, are not just stratified by class, but also by social status. In such soci- eties, class and status overlap. Black Americans and lower castes, for example, are more likely to be employed in low-skill and low- paying occupations. This is not a coincidence. Historically, this division of labour was institutionalised through slavery and the caste system. But even after formal legislation dismantled these institutions, the beliefs that legitimised these hierarchies continue to endure. While we think of political ideology largely in terms of the left-right spectrum, or support for redistribution, status is often a stronger predictor of political behaviour in hierarchical societ- ies. Status inequality relates to differences in honour or prestige between groups. Status is based on widely shared beliefs about the innate differences in the ability and worth of different categories of An anti-racism protest in people. These beliefs dictate social relations. In the process, they New York, June 14 reinforce inequality between groups through three distinct ways.

38 9 november 2020 Is there something missing in how white progressives understand race? The Liberal Dilemma By Poulomi Chakrabarti

unfounded beliefs about biological differences between Black as a Senator—‘I can recite the usual litany of petty slights that and white people. Similarly, few people in India would openly during my 45 years have been directed my way: security guards admit to being casteist, but those who believe in the ideology of tailing me as I shop in department stores, white couples who toss karma and caste—that being born into a lower caste is a reflec- me their car keys as I stand outside a restaurant waiting for the tion of sins in the previous life, are more tolerant of inequality valet, police cars pulling me over for no apparent reason.’ and oppose affirmative action. Status beliefs also dictate social Two, members of marginalised groups often internalise nega- relations between groups. Members of non-dominant groups tive status beliefs about their group. This shapes their expectations face humiliation, despite their class and achievements. Barack of self-worth, which in turn influences their behaviour and perfor- Obama, for example, has written about his experiences of racism mance. In experimental settings, women perform worse in maths

Black Lives Matter is encouraging because it is able to gather widespread support across ethnic and class boundaries. Its demands are expansive, targeting both redistribution and recognition

when reminded of their gender. Black athletes underperform in tasks framed as ‘sports intelli- gence’. Publicly revealing the caste of lower-caste schoolboys reduces their problem-solving abili- ties. Identity is not just something that’s in their head. It has real consequences. Research, surpris- ingly, finds that Black Americans generally en- dorse unfavourable stereotypes of their group as ‘lazy, irresponsible, and violent’, even more strongly than the whites. The policy response, as a result, is a call for change-from-within. Any exploitative social order—patriarchy, caste, racism, colonialism—cannot survive unless members of the subordinated group buy into the myth of their inferiority. Finally, the bias generated by status beliefs shapes our social networks—whom we work and collaborate with, whom we date and mar- ry, whom we choose to live around. One may not be racist, but if our networks only include

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 39 Cover Story Opinion

people who look like us, that decades of residential segregation from the leftist scholars who argued that the movements wors- has ensured, we are likely to be exclusionary by design. Over the ened class divisions and failed to win meaningful economic gains. long term, the cumulative effects of discrimination, notions of self-worth, and narrow social networks add up. The strength of status beliefs contributes to the accumulation of resources and es, better quality schools and universal healthcare sustains group-based inequality. would address many concerns in Black communities, Of course, liberals are not blind to racial inequality. They are but status hierarchy is more complicated than pure class. more likely to worry about inequality than conservatives. But Y Expansive social policy is not a cure for discrimination. most liberals, and Marxists in particular, believe that racial in- Countries in northern Europe outrank the US in human develop- equality is merely a disguise for economic inequality. Identity ment but are less tolerant of ethnic diversity. is secondary and epiphenomenal—once economic inequality Historical discrimination, in particular, presents a unique is eliminated, racial inequality will automatically fade away. If chicken-and-egg problem—if minorities form a significant pro- the poor don’t fight for redistribution, it must be ‘false conscious- portion of the poor, the high social distance and distrust between ness’. Hence, the famous slogan: ‘Workers of the world, unite! You groups is not conducive to cross-class solidarity that redistributive have nothing to lose but your chains!’ When Bernie Sanders spoke politics demands. But the way to ensure that minorities do not about racism, it was often in the context of proposals oriented to- remain disproportionately poor is greater redistribution. Status wards all working-class Americans, which would have also ben- inequality was precisely the reason why the Civil Rights Move- efitted Black Americans. Too much focus on identity is even seen ment had limited success. The deep racial cleavage did not allow as harmful because it divides the working class. Sociologists and for multiracial alliances. Not unlike Trump’s core base in the last political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven recall election, the white working class in the South was motivated by that the severest criticism of Black movements in the US came racial fears and an inclination to preserve its status. The leftist

reuters

Barack and Michelle Obama at the unveiling of their portraits at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, February 12, 2018

40 9 november 2020 scholars are right in arguing that the movement had limited re- gists that have emphasised the role of greater contact between distributive gains. But it brought an end to lynching and reduced groups in humanising the ‘other’ and extending the moral circle terror as a means of social control. No small feat. Given the persis- of our solidarity. The marginal becomes mainstream through its tence of violence as a means of social control, it should not be a representation in the public sphere. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 surprise that protestors are demanding the abolition of the police. novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for example, is attributed to end slavery In hierarchical societies around the world, groups are not just in the US and, more recently, popular television shows like The motivated by concerns of material well-being, but also the fight Cosby Show and Will and Grace have helped in reducing prejudice for status. Isabel Wilkerson’s book on social hierarchy in America against Blacks and gay people. rightly refers to race as a type of caste system. Members of dominant Representation can also help reduce self-reinforcing discrimi- groups seek to preserve their status, through, say, segregationist nation by demonstrating that all groups are equally capable of policies or restricting access of other groups to institutions of power. high achievement. A photograph of a two-year-old Black girl mes- Members of marginalised groups seek equalisation of status, as a merised by a painting of Michelle Obama at the National Portrait means to remedy domination, non-recognition and disrespect. At Gallery that went viral in 2018 illustrates this well. Reflecting on either ends of the spectrum, concern for status can often trump class the reaction to the image, the girl’s mother noted that her parents, interests. Poor white communities and poor Brahmins may even who grew up in segregated America, could not have imagined vote against their material interests if a Black president and first lady. She they believe that their status is under wrote, ‘Only by being exposed to bril- threat. Mobilisation by minorities, on liant, intelligent, kind Black women the other hand, demands recognition can my girls and other girls of color re- and representation. Representation can help ally understand that their goals and The gains of representation in reduce self-reinforcing dreams are within reach’. Michelle popular culture and fashion have discrimination by Obama was aware of the effect that been widely recognised in the last the portrait could have when she few years. Representational claims demonstrating that all spoke at its unveiling, ‘(Girls and girls on the state are important so that mar- groups are equally capable of colour) will see an image of some- ginal groups are reflected in institu- of high achievement. one who looks like them hanging on tions of power and seen as legitimate the walls of this great American insti- A photograph of a members of the political community. tution…And I know the kind of impact These claims can take several forms. two-year-old Black girl that will have on their lives because I was It may mean naming or renaming of mesmerised by a one of those girls.’ streets and public parks after leaders painting of Michelle So, as we confront the enormity of of marginal groups—the memorial this political moment, what is to be dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr Obama at the National done? Can centuries of injustice be at the National Mall or the statue of Portrait Gallery that undone? A class-based understand- Ambedkar, India’s most prominent went viral in 2018 ing of social justice is based on equal- lower caste leader, in the Indian Par- ity of opportunity, regardless of an liament, for example. It may trans- illustrates this well individual’s material endowment. late to removing symbols of majority Hence the focus on redistribution, domination, like demands to take especially public education and uni- down confederate monuments in versal healthcare. An identity-based the American South. Beyond symbolic measures, it may mean idea of justice aims for equalisation of status across groups. It faces that public institutions are more diverse—our legislators, city of- the additional burden of fighting bias, both institutional and psy- ficials, judges and perhaps, most importantly, our police resemble chological. Black Lives Matter is encouraging because it is able the identity of the people they are governing. A large body of re- to gather widespread support across ethnic and class boundar- search finds that representation can have positive implications ies. Its demands are expansive, targeting both redistribution and for policies directed towards marginal groups. Who occupies the recognition. And it comes at a time when other identity-based state has a bearing on what the state does. movements, particularly by feminist groups and the queer com- But more than its effects on policy, representation matters munity, have made a strong dent in social norms around inclu- because it helps dismantle status beliefs and, in the process, ex- sion. Despite all the catastrophes of this year, we have a lot to be tends the boundaries of social opportunity for marginal groups. hopeful about. n It targets societal as well as self-reinforcing discrimination. Repre- sentation in public institutions has been shown to reduce social Poulomi Chakrabarti is an assistant professor in the bias and increase support for minority leaders. These findings Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University are consistent with theories of social change by social psycholo- in Kingston, Ontario, Canada

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 41 Politics

Has Kerala Become a Police State? Pinarayi Vijayan’s government has promulgated an ordinance to amend the Kerala Police Act that could silence critics and gag the media, adding to the constraints on democracy already in place By MG Radhakrishnan

42 9 november 2020 S ingh S aurabh by I llustration Like Saturn, the Revolution devours The latest milestone is a decision by M Sivasankar, principal secretary to the its children the Left Democratic Front (LDF) cabinet to Chief Minister, who was suspended and — Jacques Mallet du Pan (1793) promulgate an ordinance to amend the has since been taken into custody by the Kerala Police Act, 2011. The proposed Enforcement Directorate. The sensational amendment intends to include a new case is grist to the state’s hyperactive media arch 30th, 1977. section, 118 (a), to punish with imprison- and with elections barely six months away, Nine days had passed ment of up to five years and a fine of up to a beleaguered CPM even declared a boycott since the repeal of Rs 10,000 those who attempt to threaten, against the premier news channel, Asianet M Emergency. On that insult or harm the reputation of others News. The government’s recent constitu- morning, the entire through media. The decision was taken tion of a fact-check division in the state Kerala legislature was ostensibly with the rise in slanderous and Information and Public Relations Depart- listening to a chilling speech by a 32-year- defamatory comments on social media, ment to monitor mass media and social old CPM member. It was his first address especially against women. In a recent media also came under criticism from the in the Assembly following his release af- instance, Bhagyalakshmi, a prominent ac- press when it began branding even genuine ter 18 months as an Emergency prisoner. tor and activist, along with her two female stories critical of the government as ‘fake’. Holding aloft like a red flag a blood-soaked friends, had assaulted a man after barging The appointment of Sriram Venkitaraman white shirt that he wore on his first day into his lodge for making obscene remarks to head the division, too, triggered a media in prison, he narrated the police torture against them and many other women on outburst as the official is a prime accused in he went through at the Central Jail in his YouTube channel. Although the YouTu- the case related to the death of a journalist Kannur. With wounds all over the body ber was arrested, the women activists, too, in a motor accident. and a broken left leg, he could not even were charged with non-bailable offences, The proposed amendment certainly in- sip water without help in prison. Point- like criminal intimidation, by the police tends to have a chilling effect on the media. ing a trembling finger at Chief Minister K Karunakaran, who was the dreaded Home Minister during Emergency, he Critics point to two serious threats. First, the thundered: “Many communists before me amendment does not restrict its realm to have gone through worse. Many have died social media but mentions ‘all means of in police lock-ups. Many lost lives in police communication’. Second, the offence being firings and at the hands of thugs. We have joined this movement expecting all this. cognisable, any one can lodge a complaint Hence Mr Karunakaran, don’t fool yourself thinking that a few torturing policemen despite the social upheaval in their favour. Critics point to two serious threats. First, would kill our spirit. Torture us to death Although there is a need to check the though the amendment is justified as a today but we will be reborn tomorrow”. growth in toxicity on social media, the measure to check cyberbullying, it does The fire-spewing speaker was cabinet proposal appears to be an attempt not restrict its realm to social media but Pinarayi Vijayan. Today, at 75, he is the to clamp down on criticism and gag the mentions ‘all means of communication’. powerful Chief Minister of Kerala. In media. The government and Chief Min- Second, by making the offence cognisable, February this year, laying stone for the ister had won laurels during the initial any one can lodge a complaint or a police renovated sub jail in Koothuparamb, stages for checking Covid-19, and were officer cansuo motu register a case against in his home district Kannur, Vijayan confident of returning to power. But over the accused. This gives the Kerala Police walked down memory lane. He said it the last few months, the wheel has turned Act (KPA) far greater teeth than the exist- was here that he was brought first after the other way, with the government caught ing Defamation Laws (Sections 499 and his arrest and where he suffered the first in a series of scams. The ugliest is the case 500 of the IPC) which need a complainant round of torture on that fateful midnight related to the seizure of 30 kg gold (worth to initiate legal action. of September 28th, 1975. “After beating me Rs 13 crore) from a diplomatic baggage by The proposed amendment is a blatant black and blue here, they took me to Kan- Customs on July 5th at Trivandrum Inter- ploy to overcome the historic verdict of nur Central Jail,” he remembered. national Airport, which was addressed the Supreme Court in 2015 which had But today, history repeats itself in to be delivered at the UAE Consulate in nullified Section 66 A of the IT Act along strange ways in Kerala. Could be either as Thiruvananthapuram. The case is being with Section 118 (d) of the KPA 2011 as tragedy or farce, or even both. For Vijayan, investigated by as many as eight Central unconstitutional. The scrapped sections once the worst victim of police brutality, agencies, including the National Investiga- had empowered the police to arrest any now appears to preside over a Kerala that tion Agency (NIA). Among those arrested person posting online comments it found seems to be turning into a police state, not- is Swapna Suresh, a former employee at offensive. The bench consisting of Justice withstanding its deep democratic fabric. the consulate who has had close links to J Chelameswar and Justice RF Nariman had

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 43 Politics

found both these sections violating the fun- Earlier too, the CPM’s and Vijayan’s deep-rooted democracy. But by August, the damental right to freedom of speech and attitude, after they came to power, towards state’s success in checking the pandemic expression enshrined in the Constitution. alleged Maoists had irked the Left and ac- had begun to wane as the curve started to The proposed amendment flies in the tivists. A month before the arrest of the rise due to many reasons, such as the mass face of the Left’s earlier stands. The CPM two students, in a rare case of encounter return of non-residents from outside the had conducted spirited campaigns against in the state, Kerala Police had shot three state and country, rise in political agita- 66A or the criminal defamation laws. The alleged Maoists, including a woman, at tions, laxity in containment and public party manifesto of 2019 had even promised the Attappadi hills in Palakkad. The next compliance. This led to the Chief Minister scrapping the criminal defamation provi- day, one more was gunned down when coming down heavily on his own admin- sions from the IPC ‘in defence of the Con- Maoists attacked officials who had gone istration and the public for “the sloth”, and stitution and democratic rights.’ Although to identify the bodies at the encounter site. the police got deployed. the CPM has remained silent on the new According to the government, the encoun- The opposition Congress and BJP amendment, Janayugom, the mouthpiece ter occurred when a seven-member Maoist criticised the move, saying it was intended of the CPI, the second-largest party in the group called Kabani had attacked Kerala to suppress popular agitations against LDF, has come out against it, call- the government’s failures. The ing it a threat to free speech. policemen carry the body of a maoist after the police were entrusted with Last year, the Vijayan govern- encounter in the attappadi hills, october 29, 2019 enforcing quarantine proto- ment shocked many of its sup- cols, contact-tracing, including porters when it showed an un- accessing call records, earmark- canny fondness for the Central ing containment zones, ensur- Unlawful Activities (Prevention) ing social distancing and even Act (UAPA) and the NIA, which home deliveries. the Left usually opposes as anti- The government is also plan- democratic. The case related ning a new law in line with the to the arrest of two students by dreaded Maharashtra Control Kerala Police for alleged Maoist of Organised Crime Act. If it activities in Kozhikode in No- happens, Kerala will be the third vember 2019. The two young- state after Maharashtra and sters—Allan Shuaib (19) and The government is also Delhi to have such stringent leg- Thwaha Fazal (23)—and their planning a new law in line with islation. In March, the govern- families were traditional CPM ment appointed a judicial com- supporters and even the party’s the dreaded Maharashtra mission to frame rules which Kozhikode district commit- Control of Organised Crime Act. recommended a more efficient tee and many top leaders had If it happens, Kerala will be the and stringent police system come out against their arrests. third state to have such as more than 16 lakh cases are Yet, Kerala Police went ahead pending investigation in the and charged them under the stringent legislation state where about 8 lakh crimi- UAPA and the case was later nal cases are registered every year. even handed over to the NIA. This led to Police’s special anti-terror squad, Thun- Kerala traditionally has had a demo- a public uproar and open protests by the derbolts, when it was patrolling the hills. cratic policing system thanks to literacy, CPI and even many CPM leaders, includ- Vijayan had remained unmoved when media penetration, decentralised admin- ing General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, human rights activists and even the CPI istration, political consciousness and a Politburo member MA Baby and Finance had lambasted the encounters. Some even balance of political equations that en- Minister Thomas Isaac extending support accused him of “aping Prime Minister sures no continuity in power for any party. to the youngsters. Yet, the Chief Minister Narendra Modi in his hostility to Mao- Hence, it is not easy for Kerala to turn into refused to budge and held that the youths ists.” A critic even called Vijayan “Modi in a police state overnight. Yet, history is re- were members of the defunct CPI (Maoist). mundu” (Modi in a dhoti). plete with instances that turned traditions But on September 9th this year, the NIA, Even during the fight against Covid, upside down, surprisingly sooner than the LDF government, the CPM and Vijayan Vijayan has faced flak for bestowing any one thought. n came in for a huge embarrassment when sweeping powers on the police. Initially, the NIA special court in Kochi granted state health personnel, civil society groups, MG Radhakrishnan bail to both youths, saying there was no NGOs, political organisations, etcetera, is the editor-in-chief of concrete evidence of their association with were at the forefront of the fight, which Asianet News. He is based in the banned outfit. also gained wide praise as a sign of Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram

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* For terms and conditions, visit http://www.openthemagazine.com HERITAGE A walk down memory lane One of India’s most romanticised streets in history is being restored and given back to pedestrians By Kaveree Bamzai Photographs by Sondeep SHANKAR

f you stop at Fatehpuri Mas- tiated by the Delhi government, executed jid, built in 1650, and look down by the Shahjahanabad Redevelopment Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi, Corporation (SRDC) set up in 2008, over- you get an unrestricted view of coming many hurdles including, at one the Red Fort. There are no low point, justified outrage from conserva- Ihanging wires to obstruct the vision, nor tionists as well as the imposition of a is there any vehicular traffic. Perhaps Jah- court-supervised nodal officer, Chandni anara Begum, Shah Jahan’s accomplished Chowk has attained a semblance of sym- A redeveloped section of Chandni Chowk daughter, who designed it as an octagonal metry and cleanliness. Much like India, (above); before chowk (public square) with a large pool at it is a street where the past co-exists with redevelopment began its centre would have had such a view. the present, sometimes cheek by jowl. Nadir Shah, who sat on the terrace of Sune- There is the State Bank of India build- hri Masjid in 1769 watching his soldiers ing on the remains of Bhagirath Palace pillage the bazaar, probably had no time to which was once where the colourful gaze elsewhere. A century later, the British Begum Samru had her palace. There is who vandalised Fatehpuri Masjid, built the multiculturalism the city is justifi- by one of Shah Jahan’s wives, Fatehpuri ably proud of—the Digambar Jain tem- Begum, looked up at the Red Fort to see ple, the Gauri Shankar temple, the Cen- what imperial grandeur looked like as tral Baptist Church and the Gurudwara they dreamt of making India the jewel in Sis Ganj. There is the Town Hall, dating Queen Victoria’s crown. back to 1863 when it was the Delhi Col- For now, more than 150 years later, it lege of Higher Studies. And then there are is the ordinary Delhi pedestrian who can the Metro, the public toilets under con- walk the path of history on a 1.4km street struction, the crisscrossing wires down of sandstone, dotted with bollards that the narrow bylanes and alleys. A monu- double as benches, going back in time mental task awaits the SRDC. while watching the very modern spec- For now, though, the consensus among tacle of sari and lehenga shopping in one conservationists and historians is that it of the national capital’s oldest streets. is a good beginning. Historian Swapna

Thanks to a five-year-long project ini- Liddle says the history of the street is very a l my

46 9 november 2020 The loss of the cultural heritage of Shajahanabad hurts. Redeveloping it as a faux Dilli Haat is unimaginative. Bollards and stone benches have replaced what was once a charming street with a central waterway

layered, and we have to ask ourselves what Putting the services underground has been it is that we would consider ‘restoration’ or a major improvement,” she says. ‘authentic’ heritage. “All one can aim for is Chandni Chowk—originally, when that the interventions be a reference to that built by Jahanara Begum, the name was past, for instance, maintaining the original reserved for the actual chowk in front of width of the road, indicating in some man- the later Town Hall—was the main cer- ner the place where the water once flowed emonial avenue of Shahjahanabad. It was [it would not have been practical to try and exceptionally broad, with a channel of revive this], and preserving the line of sight water flowing down its middle and trees from the Red Fort to the Fatehpuri Masjid. beside the channel providing shade. There By and large they have managed to do this. was a pool in the middle of the square,

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 47 HERITAGE

While pedestrianising the main street the impact on the interior markets is inadequately assessed and therefore these projects wind up half baked. It requires a much more comprehensive redevelopment with oneways, service lanes and customer facilities which reflected the moonlight, giving it the name Chandni Chowk. The street was lined with shops, but typically, the shop- keepers lived on floors above. It changed considerably over the years. In the period after the First Independence War of 1857 almost all the buildings on either side (with the exception of some temples) from the Red Fort right up to the Gurudwara Sis Ganj were demolished. Another important change was the clos- ing of the water channel and the pool. New British structures were added—a clock tower, a tramline. Even these disap- peared over time. The biggest challenge to the redevelop- ment project, according to SRDC Deputy General Manager Nitin Panigrahi, was Shoppers at Chandni Chowk fighting a perception battle with traders that restricting cars would mean less busi- ness. “Before we started work, stakehold- ers had to be reasoned with data or empiri- the earlier proposals, the details of the pres- of the project, but was persuaded enough cal evidence from other historic cities so ent construction work in progress were not to order that the issues raised should be as to allay their unfounded apprehension available in the public domain,” he says. considered by the Lieutenant Governor about the project,” he says. Through further enquiry, he, along (LG) who had headed the committee that In the context of Chandni Chowk, he with heritage conservation architect had initially approved the project. says the SRDC successfully convinced Smita Datta Makhija, former Convenor The LG asked the officials, the architect stakeholders that unless motorised ve- of the Delhi Urban Arts Commission and the litigants to work out a compromise. hicles were restricted, it would not be Ashok B Lall and expert landscaping plan- After several iterations, site visits and alter- possible to decongest the street or re- ner Sujata Kohli, found that the scheme natives, it was agreed that the toilets and the store its lost glory. For operational con- under construction proposed to build police booths would be removed from the venience, they decided to close the road seven public toilets, 18 transformers and central verge and most of the transform- in a phased manner which helped them several rooms for public services such as ers too would be relocated. So finally, these demonstrate the surge in the number of the police on the central verge of Chandni changes have been implemented. visitors. The rise of the number of pas- Chowk. Though the proposal would also sengers at the Chandni Chowk Metro put all electric wires underground, which station also strengthened their creden- was a laudable intervention, the new con- enon believes the govern- tials since it reflected the gradual shift to struction on the central verge would be a ment has done a commendable public transport for reaching this area disaster for this historic area. Mjob by beautifying the street after work began in December 2018. “We tried to discuss this travesty and through their interventions its heri- That was not the only stumbling block. with the officials, politicians and even tage significance has not been as compro- In 2018, says urban planner AGK Menon, the Chief Minister, who all said it was mised as it might have been. Among the he was alerted to major construction work too late to make changes at this stage suggestions that the INTACH Delhi Chap- in progress at Chandni Chowk. On enquiry and that the high court had approved ter had initially made when they drafted he was told that the Delhi government was the project and was closely monitoring the dossier nominating the area to the redeveloping Chandni Chowk under the its progress,” says Menon. Therefore they UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites was supervision of the Delhi High Court. “This had no option but to approach the high that Shahjahanabad should be conserved was surprising because, for such an impor- court for relief. Initially the judge was holistically, and therefore other streets tant public project, while one knew about upset at their intervention at this stage and attributes of this remarkable Mughal

48 9 november 2020 While pedestrianising the main street the impact on the interior markets is inadequately assessed and therefore these projects wind up half baked. It requires a much more comprehensive redevelopment with oneways, service lanes and customer facilities

city should also be dealt with along with in 2008 and the Delhi government started much more comprehensive redevelop- Chandni Chowk. “There is now talk that work on it in 2018. ment with oneways, service lanes and some other streets will be upgraded. We Yet the loss of the cultural heritage of customer facilities. Indian spenders don’t hope that the lessons learnt in the Chandni Shajahanabad hurts. Redeveloping it as a walk in Chandni Chowk with bundles of Chowk project will be followed,” he adds. faux Dilli Haat is unimaginative. Bollards jewellery or saris. “That understanding of Panigrahi has every intention of doing and stone benches have replaced what how we use our bazaars and how we ser- so, as he says to make it a complete success, was once a charming street with a central vice them is what we lack in project design the SRDC needs to extend this initiative to waterway. That loss is inexcusable, notes and even more in implementation,” says neighbouring streets/roads by creating a conservationist Amita Baig. “It constitutes Baig. “It is to me simply façade changes, seamless network of footpaths and non- the loss of our sense of identity. Sure, the cleaner, neater undoubtedly; but devoid motorised vehicle lanes in the entire area. British did it but they had colonial intent. of its historicity and cultural roots. We live There has to be a paradigm policy shift We, on the other hand, valorise our heri- in such times,” she adds. from car-centric planning to people-centric tage. The prime minister still speaks from Panigrahi, who also wears, with enthu- design, which also prioritises footpaths, the Red Fort, but we can erase its central siasm, the hat of Deputy Commissioner, cyclelanes, vending zones and public utili- axis, its genius loci,” she adds. Transport Department in the Delhi gov- ties. The decades of neglect of road users, Also, while pedestrianising the main ernment, says the project busted the myth whether pedestrians or cyclists, have not street the impact on the interior markets is about the necessity of making parking only turned most streets into a mess but inadequately assessed and therefore these lots before pedestrianisation. Almost also adversely affected the environment, projects wind up half baked. It requires a 1,500 cars which usually parked every day public health, as well as law and order. in Chandni Chowk disappeared without In the absence of inclusive public any congestion in neighbouring roads streets, citizens can hardly be blamed for despite two major parking lots (1,500 cars embracing motorised transport for even in Gandhi Maidan and 800 cars in Dangal short trips in the neighbourhood. To en- Maidan) becoming non-functional. It has sure last-mile connectivity, we first need to given the government confidence as it ap- assure people about first-mile convenience proaches the redevelopment of the 4.5km in their neighbourhood so that, irrespective Jama Masjid precinct and the 3.5km of age, they feel safe to step out in the street. “All one can aim for is Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Marg. It isn’t always easy to make changes in that the interventions be Chandni Chowk chronicler and pho- a city where the past is so present. Shaja- tographer Sondeep Shankar, who had hanabad, one of the seven cities of Delhi, a reference to that past” three family homes across Old Delhi, says was an extraordinary Mughal settlement Swapna Liddle he is conflicted about the new design, its which was once a thriving trade and com- historian McDonaldisation and standardisation. mercial centre. The Government of India He misses the hustle-bustle of the eater- had nominated this historic precinct ies, many of which have shut down, and (along with Imperial New Delhi) for inclu- the squawking and the hawking of every sion in the list of UNESCO World Heritage kind of traffic. Sites in 2013. The current Union Govern- An era has passed, leaving mere memo- ment withdrew the nomination in 2015, ries and vintage prints. As one of Chandni though it continues to be in the Tenta- Chowk’s most famous residents, Mirza tive List of UNESCO. The Master Plan of “There is now talk that Ghalib, wrote: ‘Hazaaron khwahishen aisi Delhi also identifies this precinct as a some other streets will ki har khwahish pe dam nikle/ Bahut niklay Heritage Zone. be upgraded. We hope mere armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle’ Shahjahanabad had over the years (Thousands of desires, each worth dying deteriorated considerably, and the rede- that the lessons learnt for/ Many of them I have realised, yet I velopment of Chandni Chowk (and the in the Chandni Chowk yearn for more). n Jama Masjid area) had been on the anvil project will be followed” for a long time, but the project never got AGK Menon Sondeep Shankar is a off the ground until the SRDC was formed urban planner Delhi-based photojournalist

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 49 cinema ‘The Book Itself Was like a Best Friend’ n o sal

Mira Nair

Courtesy Dan Callister 9 november 2020 ‘The Book Itself Was like a Best Friend’ Mira Nair speaks to Divya Unny about her connection with Vikram Seth’s epic and the joys and challenges of filmmaking today

1988, when Mira Nair’s A Suitable Boy has umpteen stories in debut film Salaam Bombay one. The emergence of post-independent In released, India was put on India, the hold of family and love, the power the global cinema map overnight. The of conflicts and politics. Which of these film was nominated for Best Foreign aspects of the show did you as a director Language Film at the Oscars that year. relate to the most? Only one other Indian filmmaker had had Well, I’ve loved the novel practically since that honour till then: Satyajit Ray. Then the day it was written. I always got so came Nair’s Mississippi Masala in 1991, a much inspiration from Vikram [Seth]’s unique love story about an African man writing, because he had really captured and an Indian woman. And then there us in our plurality, our distinctiveness, was Monsoon Wedding (2001), the perfect even the absurdness that people don’t antidote to Bollywood’s big, fat Indian know about us as Indians. That we can wedding. Vanity Fair (2004), Namesake listen to Schubert and speak in rhyme at (2006), The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012) the same time as we fight for the freedom and Queen of Katwe (2016) followed. Nair of our country from the British. All those worked with the studios, but chose contradictions he got so beautifully. For to retain her independence as a me the book itself was like a best friend. filmmaker. Today, three decades But the first thing besides the great abiding since her first documentary, love that called out to me was actually Nair forays into an the music. Its music was like my oxygen onscreen adaptation in many ways. The poems of [ Mirza] of Vikram Seth’s Ghalib, [Mir Taqi] Mir, [Daagh] Dehlvi are saga A Suitable basically the courtesan Saeeda Bai’s world. Boy. The show— The music that she emanates was the that has received music I grew up with as a child with my criticism and father who spoke in Urdu only and recited applause—carries shayari. In fact, Begum Akhtar who is the Nair’s signature style. inspiration of Saeeda Bai was somebody Her characters seek we heard every day growing up. The out themselves and love music was the first, and then the amazing within her sunset painted humanity of A Suitable Boy that got me scenes woven together by all in. All my films are like a circus of life threads of music. From her home and India is like that too. We may live in a in New York City, Nair talks bungalow, but right next door is a shanty. about breaking into the world of Cheek by jowl, we live with class and we streaming platforms and why every live with privilege and also we live having young filmmaker could take a lesson nothing. That’s one kind of plurality and from her arduous yet fulfilling journey. I love that about A Suitable Boy. I grew Excerpts from the interview: up with that. That interweaving of the

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 51 cinema

political and the personal was vital in literally every way. To pick locations the daylights out of me, and taught for me in the show where in my head, that have that perspective and depth. me the first key of storytelling—I had the protagonist Lata became modern So much of Suitable is in those great to deserve my audience. Whenever I India. As India found its way in the first old bungalows that have rooms upon would speak, it had to be riveting and election, she will find a way to discover rooms. I grew up like that. It’s also very engaging in some way or the other. I who she is and what she wants, without cinematic, the idea of going further was an industrious soul. I would go out making it too overt. and further. I grew up in a bungalow; running in the morning and instead of my father was a civil servant and space doing exercise I would return with the The definition of a ‘suitable boy’ has was never a constraint. That exists in milkman, sit down and say, ‘Aapki kahani changed for the modern young women my visual way and it also exists when batao, na [Please tell me your story].’ The of today. Marriage may or may not be we shot by the Ganges, or the Narmada people always intrigued me. As a 12-year- a priority as finding one’s voice and river in this case. It was not just about old I would go to the Rajarani temple freedom. How did you intend to speak having the lovers on a boat in close-up and watch Sanjukta Panigrahi, the great to them through the show that’s still old in the foreground. It was about what Odissi danseuse rehearsing on the steps school because of the times it is set in? was behind them, and further behind of the temple. That’s like an image I can I always have the young in my mind them. The house that passed the lovers close my eyes and see. Guru Kelucharan when I’m creating something. I want behind them had certain red ochre sails Mohapatra, the great exponent of Odissi to speak to them. Francis Ford Coppola that would go past, and then behind the taught right there in Cuttack in the who I knew a little bit long ago offered sails would be the ghats themselves, and middle of a paddy field, and I would get me a film, and I said, “Why me?” and he then pilgrims coming down. It’s life in there, would befriend him and observe said, “Because you speak to the young.” I motion and multiple stories blending him and get completely filled in my was taken aback then, but I appreciated within a single shot. All that had to heart and eyes with all of what he was that, because it is important for me to be reconstructed, through spaces and teaching. The idea that we had this speak to the ones who absolute ocean of beauty carry the future in their and this great tradition, hands and their hearts. So was something that always similarly, Lata—she had stayed with me. to embody the ’50s in her I cannot have a passive I discovered jatra—the decorum, in her propriety, female character probably traditional travelling in her deferential love ever in my films. Lata is today’s mythological theatre— of her family that they girl who has this kind of the idea that you could will come first before innocence where she hasn’t enthral 200 people with she does. But she had her experienced life, but she the written word was beating heart like we all eventually will find her own riveting. That was the do. That’s what interested childhood which I am so me. I cannot have a passive way of looking at life” grateful for because there’s director female character probably Mira Nair nothing that can fuel you ever in my films. She’s besides your imagination, today’s girl who has this and your family life, which kind of innocence where is kind of a small world but she hasn’t experienced life, but she costumes and the palette we chose. It one with constant discovery. eventually will find her own way of was elaborate but wonderful. looking at life. Which is what the young When you experienced the politics of of today, or the young of any day were Though you spent more than half your being a brown girl in a white country at and are. It’s that journey we are on. So, I life away from India, you’ve always said Harvard University, was it rebellion that hope it’ll speak to the young. that your childhood in Bhubaneswar made you turn to filmmaking? informs your storytelling. Were the The interesting thing about India is The theatrical quality of your cinema jatra theatre, the music and the dance of that the way we are raised, we have reflects in everything you make. Be it the Odisha your foundations as a filmmaker? a greater worldview about the rest of way it’s shot or the characters. It’s also The beauty of a childhood like we had the world than they have about us. apparent in the recreation of the ’50s in in Bhubaneswar, in Orissa, in the early Especially before the internet, before this series. Was that difficult to achieve? 1960s was that it was all about the the democratisation of it. So even in the I don’t think of it as only theatre, it’s more imagination. I was the youngest of two late ’60s as a teenager I was already anti- actually like mise-en-scène. I love layers older brothers who basically teased Vietnam war. I knew the Beatles lyrics

52 9 november 2020 It may take time, but you will have a body of work that’s yours alone and that’ll be your signature.

Your films are invested in their socio- political scenarios. What’s your take a scene from on the times we are living in today, a suitable boy especially with the pandemic? It’s a remarkably dangerous time that we are living in. The tale of the migrant backwards. And I was also studying the Mehta and Govind Nihalani come to labour is just horrific, where the most Bhagavad Gita with a professor and my me with international stories and they basic need of a person to be regarded life was a mixed bag of [all] that. When would want to cast the likes of Michael as a person has been stripped away. It’s I was nominated for that Oscar in 1988 Caine. At that point I would be like, ‘You like they are ants crawling across our for Salaam Bombay, they could not even don’t need Michael Caine. Look outside enormous continent with nothing. pronounce the word ‘India’ properly on your window. The story is around us.’ It’s a stark tale of politics, and I have to that stage. Even now they consistently say demagoguery has annihilated the ask me how I speak such good English You were asked to direct a Harry individual. Like the individual does and I tell them I’ll send my elephant to Potter film, but you chose to makeThe not matter. This pandemic has brought fetch them at Delhi airport and they Namesake. Despite big Hollywood to the fore the deepest inequities, and believe it. So it wasn’t rebellion, but the studios vying for you, you choose to how we are in the hands of the politics. films were more of a kind of bemused maintain your independence as a And how our lives and our struggles look at this world and its people. filmmaker and raise funds, sometimes are completely possessed by the people for years. What would you say to young who rule us. Here too, in America, it’s What do you think is it about your debut storytellers who often find their voices like the individual has not mattered. We Salaam Bombay that it is studied in muffled by corporate agendas? are still climbing the peaks of infection, cinema textbooks even today? I think you have to decide what you’ve and USA and India are the forerunners. It was lifechanging and it was been placed on this earth to do. I decided It’s startling. My friend Basharat Peer unbelievable what happened to that ages ago that I’m not going to be on wrote an extraordinary tale of two film. That kind of overwhelming the A-list of Hollywood. That’s not my migrant labourers who were walking embrace, where overnight you’re intention. After Salaam Bombay I entered and how only one survived. This is the somebody, that happens very rarely. the realm immediately. I had people story that we must never forget. How I think because India was very rarely clambering around me to represent me the human being is at the receiving end seen in that phosphorescence, grabbing and I would ask them, ‘What will you of these grand avalanches of politics life in the gut kind of way. The street represent me for?’ I was not looking for where the individual does not matter. In kids and their vitality for life, and a job. If I sought to be like everyone else fact, I have been thinking of creating a being absolutely unapologetic for who on the A-list of Hollywood, especially three-chapter series on migrants across they are, that kind of attitude was not in the 1980s, I would be making rom- the world, and their stories—pandemic something that was familiar at all. Even coms with white people and being a or not pandemic related. I’m hoping to technically we put real art and craft on cookie-cutter filmmaker. When you bring it to fore soon. screen. We shot all on location, all on choose the other way—the Mississippi the streets, and it’s probably one of the Masala—following your own heart type Lastly, what is cinema for you today? earliest sync sound films coming out of of way, it’s a very lonely way. Still can Cinema for me is and will always our country. That kind of vibrancy, of the be, I must tell you. But it’s a way that has remain a reflection of the times we live commonplace becoming deeply visual surprising gifts even in its loneliness. in. Our struggles to find our place in the and poetic was rare. Like the street I remember when I went to promote world, the pain, the discrimination, the murals of Indian gods by the side of Mississippi in England in 1991, the lines palpable nature of our ever-changing which the children would sleep. That in around the block to the cinema were all human selves—cinema is all this and itself had a power that had not been seen. hybrid interracial couples. I just looked much more. It breaks my heart to know Mostly I think it was good filmmaking. at them, and I said to myself that I did not that with the advent of OTT we may The story and the spirit of our kids, and even know I had an audience then. We have reduced cinema to viewing it in the humanity of having nothing, but never had Black and brown skin colour matchbox-sized screens, but it’s power wanting life, gives you courage. I had together on screen at that time. So dream to move and stir something within you independent filmmakers like Ketan on, but stay true to what you want to say. will never change. n

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 53 books The Scarred Megapolis The evolution of Delhi as a city of the unfortunates comes alive in this novel by a master storyteller By Shashi Tharoor

soliloquy, as any professor different from Kerala, too modern and important, for the of literature would tell us, is a mono- modest mundu or Kerala dhoti.) logue delivered to oneself; it involves But Sahadevan is a somewhat aimless young man, con- the act of speaking one’s thoughts stantly engaged in conversations with himself, seemingly A aloud when one has no one to address unmotivated to succeed, to make money, develop a career, them to. For most of the 538 pages of acquire a wife or establish a permanent home. As he drifts M Mukundan’s novel Delhi: A across the city observing its changes and its cataclysms, Soliloquy, I was left wondering why disillusionment strikes early: the term had been used in his subtitle, until at the very end its ‘If material comforts had been the purpose of life, by now relevance became apparent. Sahadevan would have gone back to Kerala. The only two This is the kind of subtlety one must be prepared for in problems there were unemployment and poverty. And even reading a book by the eminent Kerala writer, whose 2011 if there was poverty, there was cleanliness and hygiene. Even Malayalam novel, Delhi Gaathakal (Delhi Tales), has just if there was hunger, people were socially conscious. He saw emerged in a long-awaited English translation as Delhi: A nothing of that in Delhi.’ Soliloquy. Mukundan is at the very forefront of Kerala letters Sahadevan’s story of Delhi is that of an observer of the today. He is better known as the illustrious son of Mahe, the city’s turbulent evolution for nearly four decades, from an only French colony in Kerala, raised by the Mayyazhi, the overgrown provincial city overcome by refugees and stark river that featured prominently in his classic early novel, poverty, acquiring the trappings of authority as the national Mayyazhipuzhayude Theerangalil (On the Banks of the Mayy- capital, to the gleaming prosperity of today, mirrored in the azhi), which won numerous literary awards and established transformation of Sahadevan’s first employer, Gulshan him in the front rank of contemporary Malayalam writers. Wadhwa, from a make-ends-meet forwarding agent to a mil- But this novel takes us to the opposite end of the country, lionaire who can afford to give one of his daughters a Mer- abandoning the lush greenery of Mahe for the arid and soul- cedes-Benz as a dowry. On the way the novel is punctuated by less streets of the nation’s capital. the major historical events that shaped the The novel opens in 1959, with the author’s experience of the city’s evolution: protagonist, 20-year-old Sahadevan, arriving the war with China in 1962, the Indo-Pak by train in Delhi from Kerala, in pursuit of wars of 1965 and 1971, Emergency of 1975 an elusive future. ‘It’s in Delhi that your life and the Sikh riots of 1984. will begin,’ he tells himself. ‘As soon as you But it is above all the story of the reach Delhi, you should go to Nehru’s house Malayali community of Delhi, the and meet him,’ his mother urges him as he is struggling professionals among them and about to embark on a journey to the capital. the way in which they are impacted by ‘But don’t go there wearing a dhoti. Go only these events. Sahadevan benefits at the after you get trousers.’ This telling bit of start from the help of the communist trade Delhi: A Soliloquy advice encapsulates much of the mystery M Mukundan unionist Shreedharanunni, who hangs a and allure of Delhi in those days, the sense of Translated from Malayalam by portrait of Chou En-lai on his wall, his wife infinite possibilities before an ever-expand- Fathima EV & Nandakumar K Devi and young children Sathyanathan ing horizon, where a young man could go in and Vidya, whom Sahadevan regards as search of a future. (And decidedly too Eka his younger siblings. But his Delhi expands 538 Pages | Rs 799

54 9 november 2020 ism, the George Muthoots or Rajan Pillais of business—the big Malayali names most refer to when thinking of Keralites in the national capital—are neither mentioned nor fictionally reinvented. Theirs are not the stories that interest Mukundan. Instead there are the crusading journalist Kunhikrishnan and his unhappy wife Lalitha who yearns for a child her husband cannot give her; the eccentric artist Vasudeva Panicker, who wanders about indifferent to all social or personal niceties but is brimming with a precocious talent; the displaced young Rosakutty, who has rein- vented herself as the call-girl Rosily in order to make enough money to go home and marry her beloved in Kerala; the visiting school-teacher Abdulnissar, a widower who is wooing a sister of Sahadevan’s that our protagonist has been unable to raise enough money for (to ‘get her married’); the bespectacled scholar- activist Janakikutty, daughter of a firebrand revolutionary who is on the run during Emergency; the widowed Devi ekeing out her existence as a peon in the Central Secretariat, her days circumscribed by her routine chores at work or for

Saurabh Singh Saurabh by Illustration the children she must raise amid deprivation. M Mukundan is at the very forefront of Mukundan’s strength is as a great teller of stories. He inveigles Kerala letters today. He is better known you into the lives of his characters as the illustrious son of Mahe, raised by with his eye for the telling detail. the Mayyazhi, the river that featured Mukundan feelingly portrays the concerns and struggles of the in his classic early novel ordinary, lower-middle-class characters, recounting their struggles and yearnings in painful to include a host of other memorable Malayalis (and, detail. The college-going girl whose footwear is tattered and inevitably, a handful of non-Malayalis too, but only in frequently mended, the office-goer wearing the same shirt day supporting roles). after day because that is all he can afford, the Sikh carpenter As a chronicler of Delhi, Mukundan is interested in the who cannot save enough for a dowry for his daughters, unfortunates, not the success stories: there are references to the pavement barber whose livelihood is destroyed in an a Georgekutty who has made it big, but he is not a character Emergency cleanup drive, the young woman whose the reader gets to know. The Krishna Menons or Unnikrish- widowhood and poverty lead men to assume she must nans of politics, the KPS Menons and TKA Nairs of bureau- be available for the night—all these and more come alive cracy, the VK Madhavan Kuttys and BG Vergheses of journal- through the pages of Delhi: A Soliloquy.

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 55 books

The authorial tone is always understated: there is no melo- dramatic flourish even when events of great dramatic import are being narrated. A chronic consciousness of the fragility of M Mukundan’s life pervades the novel. Random deaths occur frequently in its pages: a large number of characters, both minor and major, die strength is as a great in the book, but many do so offstage, the details of their often teller of stories. He grisly endings omitted by the narrator. inveigles you into the lives of his characters till, this is not a novel that the Delhi tourism with his eye for the S department will want to promote. It shares in unsparing detail the seamy side of life in the city, telling detail the smells, the dust and dirt, the omnipresent excreta, the injustices and the daily horrors that make the very challenge of survival for the city’s residents an ordeal. Life in Mukundan’s Delhi is nasty, brutish and squalid, fragile and easily disrupted in eruptions of rage and violence. the novel is ‘25 June 1975. That was when the age of nightmares began.’ punctuated by the Nearly 100 of the book’s 536 pages of narrative are devoted to major historical Emergency, in searing and unsparing prose that graphically details the atrocities of that era. A 62-year-old man dragged off events that shaped the to a vasectomy camp is left to bleed after a botched operation author’s experience of and flung on the road. As the blood seeps from between his legs, the author caustically writes: ‘The Emergency had given the city’s evolution: the consumptive old man the gift of menstruation.’ For one the war with China key character in the novel, as for thousands in the nation’s capital, ‘the Emergency inside her mind still continued’ long in 1962, the Indo-Pak after the official state of siege was lifted. wars of 1965 and 1971, The savagery of the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 is also chronicled in heart-rending events that directly affect some of the key Emergency of 1975 and characters in the book. As two survivors walk hand-in-hand the Sikh riots of 1984 through the smouldering ruins, ‘with the stench of the dead in their nostrils’, drawing strength from each other, ‘Delhi appeared to them like a huge painting made with blood.’ The portrait of the city and the Malayalis there clearly reflect the author’s own experience of the city’s transformation Delhi years in this book. from a place of wheat and cauliflower fields into the scarred Delhi: A Soliloquy is undoubtedly a considerable book, its megapolis of today. It was, after all, in Delhi that Mukundan, physical heft justified by the weight of its ambitions. who arrived in the capital at the age of 21 just three years after The translation by Fathima EV and Nandakumar K is com- his fictional protagonist, in 1962, found his vocation as a petent and unobtrusive: I mean it as a compliment when I novelist. His recollections of the tortuous train journeys of that say the novel does not read like a translation. This does mean, era, which resulted in the passengers arriving covered in soot however, that literary flourishes are few and far between: from the coal-fired steam engines of the Madras Mail and the while the prose flows fluidly, it does not sing in English as it Grand Trunk Express, find echoes in his character’s accounts. would in Malayalam. As a young ‘marunadan Malayali’, Mukundan had a As a portrait of the city over four eventful decades, how- long innings at the French Embassy as a locally recruited ever—and of the diaspora Malayali community within it— cultural attaché, writing after office-hours and establishing Delhi: A Soliloquy has no equals. I commend this English- himself as a pioneer of modernism in Malayalam literature. language version to non-Malayalam-educated readers It was while based in Delhi that he authored a dozen novels, everywhere: a compelling, absorbing read by a master including the celebrated Daivathinte Vikrithikal (God’s Mischief, storyteller at the height of his powers. n 1989), and won multiple awards including the Ezhuthachan Puraskaram, the Kerala government’s highest literary Shashi Tharoor is a Member of Parliament and honour. After his retirement from the French Embassy he the author, most recently, of The Hindu Way: led the Kerala Sahitya Akademi before finally reliving his An Introduction to Hinduism

56 9 november 2020 The beauty of the written word; a story well told. The luxury of immersing myself in myriad lives; journeying to faraway lands. I am obsessed. And the Reviews in Open help me discover the best. A quiet corner. An interesting book. Life’s good!

Sanjay Malik, Dubai

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The Three-Body Problem Ananth Krishnan’s compelling portrait of China is a refreshing break from the familiar media trope By Shivshankar Menon

Illustration by Saurabh Singh or anyone who has lived in China, Ananth Krishnan’s motive to write this book evokes F a familiar feeling—the China one hears about in India is nothing like the China one has experienced. This book is a welcome, timely and high-quality ad- dition to the tiny shelf of books by knowl- edgeable Indians about the real contem- porary China and sets the bar very high for any book on China that might follow. This in itself makes the book valuable, for it offers a portrait of China’s complexity and development that is much more than the media trope of a militarised security state out to establish world dominion to include its frailty, social complexity and the diversity of opinion in China that strikes anyone who lives there and speaks the language as Krishnan does. The book frames the issue well in the title itself as ‘India’s China Challenge’. China is a challenge for India because it is part of our problems and also part of the solution to those problems. It then proceeds in six sections—on politics, economy, diplomacy, history, frontiers and portraits—to reveal the complex- ity that is China today. Each section contains detailed chapters on aspects of the issue. For instance, in ‘Politics’ the book examines the rise of Xi Jinping, the role of ideology in China today and the challenges of running a one-party state. Based on extensive interviews, there is a freshness and immediacy, backed by considerable scholarship in each section. Krishnan had good timing. He was in China from 2008 to 2018 and subse- quently during the Covid-19 pandemic and spent time in Hong Kong recently. He went to China at a time when it was at its most open, relatively speaking, not the friendless, closed and ideologically

58 9 november 2020 tight, security-obsessed party-state that is each other, from the disputed, as is only nor- today’s project—a project that is meeting 1950s onwards. This mal in a work on such a with partial success in my opinion. He book is the exception controversial and alive was able to meet and talk to Yang Jisheng, in that it is an accurate subject. For instance, he Mao Yuzhi and others of the non-official account of where China seems to believe that a persuasion. This is no longer easy or is and where India public reckoning in India possible. It is also testimony to Krishnan’s stands vis-à-vis China for 1962 is essential for energy and dedication that he did so, not today. As China gets India’s China a boundary settlement. only meeting people but also accessing more ambitious and Challenge This is hard to under- A Journey through the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs ar- nationalistic and views China’s Rise and What It stand as a settlement chives on 1962 and India during the brief itself as a regional hege- Means for India would require both sides period when they were opened and be- mon, the consequences Ananth Krishnan to put the past aside or fore they were redacted. He has travelled for the India-China behind them rather than HarperCollins to most of China—including to the politi- relationship, and for the 420 Pages | Rs 599 coming to an accounting cally sensitive parts. His enterprise comes subcontinent and the or truth and reconcilia- through on every page of this book. And Indian Ocean region, tion process. At one place the book benefits from the journalist’s are increasingly evident, the book suggests that healthy scepticism of what the state tells posing the difficult challenge of the title. China wants peace in Jammu and Kash- him. The picture of China that he paints The chapters on India-China rela- mir which is questionable. includes both achievements and failures, tions are well worth reading for they Overall, on the India-China bound- warts and beauty marks. trace the history and recent develop- ary and on the relationship as a whole, The book is insightful on several ments in the relationship and go a long Krishnan is careful to be objective and levels. For instance, he argues that the way to explaining why the relationship offers a fresh and useful perspective that Belt and Road Initiative, Xi Jinping’s is now in crisis. Chapter 8, especially, is deserves to be widely read. signature initiative, has taken reform the core of his argument. It traces the I also have another issue with the in China away from the market to the eroding convergence between India and book. Why is there no index? The absence state-owned enterprises (SOEs); he de- China which has changed the strategic hampers the ‘New Delhi read’ where scribes how China uses her history; how framework which kept the relation- people begin with the index to find what different the Chinese system of lao-gai or ship relatively stable between 1988 and interests them, namely, themselves, reform through labour and its modern 2012. Reading Krishnan’s account of the friends and enemies. This is a serious book variants are from the Soviet gulag; on Modi-Xi meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan about a serious subject, and it should take Bo Xilai and the new left in China— just before the Doklam standoff in itself seriously enough to have an index. which must now include Xi Jinping— 2017 makes one wonder whether India No one knows how the never-ending SOEs, ideology and the party role. missed some warning signs. Xi told Modi story of India and China will play itself In addition to the detailed picture of that after their many meetings he felt he out, for we are at a moment of great un- a complex China, the book has a second hardly knew Modi. This could have been certainly in the relationship, in Asia and great value. It is by an Indian, from an said positively (“I want to know you bet- in the international situation. Krishnan Indian point of view. It also does not ter”), negatively (“What the devil do you wisely refrains from too much prediction. overdo the comparison between what think you are up to?”) or neutrally (“I am The book’s strength lies in its descriptive are becoming two increasingly different going to test you to find out what you are rather than prescriptive passages. It also societies and economies as our paths about”)—two of three of the possible ex- keeps and encourages an open mind. diverge. Nor does this book fall into the planations should have raised red flags. Most of all this is a very readable recent trope of breast-beating and In any case, as China pushes out and book—Krishnan has the great moaning or whining by some Indian seeks to build a China-centric order in advantage of never having worked in gov- writing on China in the media. Here too Asia, and China-US relations grow more ernment or a corporation. He can there- he is insightful: comparing corruption in contentious, India (and Pakistan) have fore still express himself clearly, without India and China, retail in one and whole- been pushed up the Chinese priority list. jargon. The six portraits at the end are sale in the other. Krishnan examines all three triangles most useful in breaking the stereotypes In my experience, the Indian image that involve us—India-China-US, India- that still pervade foreign commentary on of China takes about 10-15 years to catch Pakistan-China and India-Russia-China; India-China. A book that is a up with Chinese reality. The reverse is ‘India’s three three-body problems’, as a pleasure to read. n also true. The Chinese image of India is colleague called them. But he is careful also far from the reality we live. India and not to predict the future. Shivshankar Menon is a former China have a long history of misreading Some of what Krishnan says might be National Security Advisor

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 59 books crime fiction

the dark old world These murder mysteries share a fascination for the past, which some authors explore by paying homage to the crème de la crème of classical mysteries and to the art of crafting them By Shylashri Shankar

an you leave your past who is fed up of the tavern business and Cbehind or will it somehow come misses the book world, takes the case. back to haunt you? That’s the question She begins interviewing the suspects tackled by Anthony Horowitz in The who include Cecily’s hostile sister, a Moonflower Murders. Susan Ryeland has grieving husband, a strange nanny, the left her publishing career and is now the victim’s angry sister and brother-in-law. co-owner with her long-time boyfriend Horowitz excels in entangling us in a of a hotel in Crete. One of the hotel fiendishly clever mystery whose guests, the Trehearnes, have a strange solution lies in a vintage mystery (which proposition for her. If she will come to I preferred), also part of the book. In Eight Detectives their boutique inn on the Suffolk coast the Atticus Pünd (modelled on Hercule Alex Pavesi and investigate their daughter’s (Cecily) Poirot) novel is the solution to Frank’s Michael Joseph disappearance, they will pay her £10,000. murder and Cecily’s disappearance. Lots 352 Pages | Rs 699 Cecily had read one of the books Susan of red herrings, anagrams, unreliable had edited—the third Atticus Pünd witnesses and all the usual stuff that novel by the late Alan Conway. Conway makes for a ripping and clever yarn. had based it on a murder of an advertis- there was an absence not of the perpetra- ing executive (Frank Parris) in the inn tor or of their method, but of meaning,’ eight years ago on the wedding weekend ight Detectives has the says Grant. Clues are not important— of Cecily and Aiden MacNeil. Just before Eperfect setting in our present world ‘Go through any murder mystery and she disappeared, Cecily had called her of fake news, untruths dressed as truth delete all the clues; you’ll still have a parents to say that the Romanian handy- told by unreliable narrators/politicians. murder mystery,’ says Grant. In an man who was charged with Frank’s It is a charming and clever ode to the interview, Pavesi repeats this sentiment: murder was innocent, and that she classic Golden Age cozies. Here too ‘Clues should be as banal as possible so knew the identity of the killer. Susan, we have a set of crimes within a larger the solution to our puzzle hinges on mystery like a matryoshka nesting doll, something so ordinary it couldn’t pos- that speaks to the bones of the perfect sibly be of interest to anyone.’ mystery novel. In the mid-1940s, Grant had worked Julia Hart, a young editor, arrives on out the rules and written seven perfect a remote island in the Mediterranean to detective stories to demonstrate them. meet and convince a reclusive author As the editor reads and discusses the (Grant McAllister) to republish a mys- eight stories with the author, she is tery he wrote 30 years ago. The mathe- struck by several inconsistencies in the matician turned author has a theory that stories, and the links with the murder a mystery structure can be explained by of a famous film star Elizabeth White in Moonflower four ingredients: two or more suspects, the mid-1940s, which itself was called Murders one or more victims, a detective or detec- the White Murder. What part of these Anthony Horowitz tives, and a killer or a group of killers. stories are based on facts and why did Century The only condition is that the killer Grant leave England and come to this 608 Pages | Rs 699 must come from the group of suspects. remote island then, she wonders. ‘The best mysteries were the ones where Eight Detectives is a wonderfully

60 9 november 2020 atmospheric novel with clean and crisp seems most unsuitable to the story, Perfect Murders is another homage to storytelling. The elegance of the nar- but in other ways fits perfectly, says the mystery genre. Years ago, the owner ration is matched by the intelligence Julia. It made me wonder if there is one (Malcolm Kershaw) of a mystery book of the plotting, and the integral link truly satisfactory ending to a murder shop made a list of eight perfect murder between the settings (deserted island, a mystery. After the clues, victims and mysteries for a blog on crime fiction. manor house) and the stories (families suspects appear on the pages, are we These included Agatha Christie’s ABC ruled by a terrifying matriarch, poi- satisfied only when one and only that Murders, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers soned drinks and chocolates, vanishing one person is marked as the killer? Or on a Train, Ira Levin’s Death Trap, AA weapons, bodies in the attic). Very as- is it that for each of us that satisfactory Milne’s Red House Mystery, Anthony sured writing for a debut author who is solution may be different? Berkeley Cox’s Malice Aforethought, a mathematician by training. The math James M Cain’s Double Indemnity, John is insignificant though and removing D Macdonald’s The Drowner and Donna it would not have changed the novel in ight again! Is the connection Tartt’s A Secret History. any way, which was a bit surprising. Ebiblical? Number 8 in the Bible An FBI agent (Gwen Mulvey) shows The craft lies in misdirection, in represents a beginning, a new order. up at the doorstep of his Old Devil’s picking the solution that in some ways Well, that’s another mystery. Eight Bookshop in Boston with the list.

Illustration by Saurabh Singh

is there one truly satisfactory ending to a murder mystery? After the clues, victims and suspects appear on the pages, are we satisfied only when one person is marked as the killer? Or is it that for each of us that satisfactory solution may be different?

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 61 books crime fiction

he 937-page tome with Private warding off the smarmy advances of a TDetective Cormoran Strike, the sub-contractor at the agency. wounded war hero turned detective, Despite being set in the present era, and his partner, Robin Ellacot who are the book has an old-world charm that hired to solve a cold case is book five of comes from Cormoran and Robin’s the series by JK Rowling in her crime examination of their values, which writer avatar as Robert Galbraith. You harken back to the Golden Age of detec- need to have muscle power and tummy tive fiction. Questions of friendship, fat to hold this book. If only she’d lis- loyalty, what it means to be a parent or Eight Perfect tened to her editor and lopped off a few a son, societal expectations of a woman Murders hundred pages, it would still have given as a wife and mother rather than as a Peter Swanson her fans great pleasure. detective (for Robin) all play off these William Morrow A doctor (Margot Bamborough) older values. Galbraith has a saga-like 288 Pages | Rs 2,155 disappears on her way to the pub ability (reminded me of MM Kaye) to from her surgery, after seeing her last pull us into the lives of these charac- patient. No body, no sighting and a ters. The book sketches the emotional badly botched-up police investigation. landscapes extremely well, creating in Someone has been recreating and The policeman in charge of the case is the process depth and vividness, and carrying out murders based on the list. in the midst of a nervous breakdown drawing out the simmering tensions Someone who knows Mal, and who has and begins thinking in star signs, black between Robin and Cormoran. It gives a been to his bookshop. In at least three un- magic and pentagrams while inves- fine spine to the tome. solved cases, there may be a link to the list tigating the case, which makes for a Some parts of the book, however, and Mal knows why. Mal is not going to very peculiar set of notes. After he is are tedious and could have done with tell her because it would reveal his own put out to pasture, it is already too late. an editor’s touch. Such as where the dark secret. Can he help, she asks? He The police suspect a serial investigators try to agrees because if he can’t stop the killer, killer of having murdered make sense of the police his secret will be outed. Thus begins the her. All this occurs in 1974. inspector’s notes of star cat-and-mouse game with the killer who Forty years later Anne, her signs and pentagrams blithely carries on with the murders. daughter hires Cormoran and a lot of mumbo As we see things from Mal’s point to investigate her mother’s jumbo connecting the of view, we realise that he is strangely disappearance. The suspects to these astro- detached. The closer he gets to people, suspects include the staff logical signs. the more they begin to recede into a fog, (the receptionists, a nurse) Galbraith’s sense of and the less he understands them, he and partners (a misogynist what evil is, remains tells us. It describes the way the reader is doctor) in Elizabeth’s tethered to the concept beginning to feel about Mal who may be practice, her husband Troubled Blood that evil is unredeem- an unreliable narrator. We learn about who is now married to the Robert Galbraith able, that an evil person his wife’s death—her car went off a cliff nanny, a former boyfriend Sphere cannot be saved. That’s while she was returning from her lover’s and a couple of patients 937 Pages | Rs 899 why the denouement house, a lover who has been supplying who had come to see her in this book and in the her with cocaine. The lover too is on the evening she previous ones can be subsequently killed in a brutal attack disappeared. As they seen as being unsatisfac- but the protagonist is nowhere near that track the suspects and piece together tory by some. We expect a valid reason scene. As the bodies begin to pile up, we Elizabeth’s personality and preoccupa- for a murder but in the crimes tackled realise that the victims are linked to tions, the duo is also tackling their own by Galbraith, the validity becomes Malcolm, and the killer is playing a private demons. questionable when evil is seen as a grisly game. Revenge is a dish best served Cormoran is battling emotional quality that is not amenable to reason. lukewarm. It is another splendid ode to upheaval in his personal life—his aunt He does a good job of hiding the killer the mystery genre even if the who had brought him up has terminal among the suspects, an element that denouement is not as satisfying as cancer, and his rockstar father, who had sets a good mystery apart from an one had expected. The game, and the ignored him for most of his life, now average one. Despite its size, Troubled links between the fictional mysteries wants to make amends. Robin too is in Blood is a breezy and satisfying read, and Mal’s life make it worth a Sunday the midst of a messy divorce, grappling leaving me agog for the next book in afternoon read. with her attraction to Cormoran, and the series. n

62 9 november 2020 Television

thy kingdom come Welcome to made-for-TV Stephen King By Aditya Mani Jha

Harry Treadaway in Mr. Mercedes

o anyone attempt- there are as many as three ongoing King a small town’ format (think Broadchurch, ing a new Stephen King adaptations (TV shows, all) on various Top of the Lake, Sharp Objects and so on). adaptation today, all we platforms right now: Mr. Mercedes on Here, in Cherokee City in Georgia, US, can say is: best of luck. SonyLiv, Castle Rock on Netflix India and we have a grieving father who also hap- T The 73-year-old writer, The Outsider, which premiered on HBO pens to be a police detective: Detective whose oeuvre is marked by various hues (Hotstar in India) earlier this year. These Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn) is of horror and crime fiction, especially, shows are all very different from each convinced that the local high school has been adapted for film and TV over other (indeed, they are based on books football coach Terry Maitland is behind 20 times, with over a dozen these last from different phases of King’s career), the grisly murder of a young boy, whose couple of decades. This line-up includes but together they have done a fine job of corpse is found covered in saliva and bite classics in every decade since the 1970s: ‘updating’ King’s works for contempo- marks. However, Maitland also appears Brian de Palma’s Carrie (1976), Stanley rary audiences. to have a rock-solid alibi, speaking at a Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), Frank Dara- Of these three, The Outsider has teacher’s convention—and soon, both bont’s The Shawshank Redemption (1996). rightly been getting the most critical men’s wives start having supernatural The streaming era’s market-driven attention. It follows the currently much- visions that may or may not hold the key abundance, however, has meant that in-vogue ‘weary protagonist investigates to the case. The story’s chief strength is

9 november 2020 www.openthemagazine.com 63 Television

how easily it moves from police proce- Boseman played an embattled cop in dural to supernatural thriller and in its 21 Bridges (2019), Daveed Diggs did so unconventional third act, straddles both in Netflix’s Snowpiercer series (2020) worlds expertly. and Delroy Lindo, Clark Peters et al In The Outsider—the novel was played a squadron of African-American published in 2018 —King operates in Vietnam veterans in Spike Lee’s film this slow-burning crime fiction territory. Da 5 Bloods (2020). However, a good TV screenplay cannot These characters, though tools of afford to overdo the slow burn lest it lose the state, subvert their origin stories if half its audience by the third episode. you will, and extract what society owes This is why Bateman and showrun- them. In that sense, they are liminal ner Richard Price (The Wire, The Deuce) figures, hovering at the edges of author- speed up the action in the first couple of ity and mainstream ‘acceptability’. episodes, almost beyond recognition if Similarly, Gibney as a Black female you’re familiar with the book. investigator is automatically the This also allows them to introduce designated ‘outsider’ in Cherokee City, lizzy caplan in their most likeable character early (and Georgia; her behavioural tics only make castle rock not in the second half of the narrative, as the liminal status all the more pro- King did in the book): this is the savant- nounced. Some fans of the book would like private detective Holly Gibney say that this is overkill—but for me, the (played by Cynthia Erivo). In an NPR medium (that is, streaming television) Mr. Mercedes is interview in April, King described the warrants this approach. much more of a character as “on the autism spectrum... The show Mr. Mercedes is much more traditional horror a person who is just very capable in one of a traditional horror story than The story than The area, you know, somebody who can do Outsider, albeit one told through a cops- numbers in their head”. Price and and-killers narrative framework. The vil- Outsider, albeit one Bateman amp the volume all the way lain here, Brady Hartsfield (Harry Tread- told through up on this trait: in the show, Gibney away), is one of King’s best creations in a cops-and-killers is basically Rain Man or John F Nash, recent years, a truly terrifying, cunning narrative framework. blessed with photographic memory and psychopath/mass murderer who later The villain here, Brady flawless logical/analytical acumen. gains the ability to control objects and Hartsfield (Harry Gibney was actually introduced in even certain people with his mind. Treadaway), is one of King’s hard-boiled detective novel Mr. Showrunner David E Kelley, the veteran King’s best creations Mercedes (2014), as a young woman behind triumphs such as Boston Legal, in recent years with OCD, synaesthesia and sensory Ally McBeal and Big Little Lies, does some processing disorder. She befriends the of his best work with Mr. Mercedes—the protagonist, retired detective Bill Hodges dialogue is memorable (‘when you love (Brendan Gleeson) and by the third people, you grow branches or limbs, and season, she has started assisting him in they are outside of your jurisdiction’), cases, as part of his PI agency Finders the dramatic tension calibrated perfectly Keepers. In the TV show Mr. Mercedes, and both Gleeson and Treadaway (who r. Mercedes is also part she was played by Justine Lupe (who’s was superb as Victor Frankenstein in M of an increasingly important Caucasian) but in The Outsider, Gibney Penny Dreadful) are clearly having a lot of tradition of American creators coming is played by Cynthia Erivo, a British-Ni- fun with their archetypal characters. to terms with the decay of the coun- gerian actress. The recasting of Gibney Literary novelists (Eleanor Catton, try’s rural and old industrial areas, in as a Black woman did not happen in Brit Bennett, for example) are branching particular—recent releases such as the a vacuum—over and above the very out into TV—Kelley, too, recruits high- novel Hillbilly Elegy and the Netflix film real need to diversify casts and crews in calibre writers like AM Homes (The End The Devil All the Time are cases in point. Hollywood, it should also be pointed of Alice) and Denis Lehane (Mystic River) King sets Mr. Mercedes in Bridgton, Ohio, out that a number of recent films/shows to write individual episodes for most likely a reference to the real-world have featured African-American author- Mr. Mercedes. This pays dividends Bridgetown, Ohio—a town with a ity figures confronting the inequities of through some truly delicious, pitch- population of 14,000 only. The fictional the systems they represent. Chadwick black comedic dialogue. Bridgton was clearly once a manufac-

64 9 november 2020 Cynthia Erivo in The Outsider

turing centre, as the sweeping shots of Needful Things, in particular, casts a Castle Rock. In a touching homage, Sissy rundown mills and factories show us. long shadow. This baggy monster of a Spacek, who played the titular role in Tellingly, the opening tragedy of the novel (at nearly 700 pages) is an elaborate De Palma’s Carrie, the first King adapta- story, the titular ‘Mr Mercedes’ running version of the Doctor Faustus story—in tion of them all, is cast as Ruth Deaver 16 people over with his car, happens at the novel, a mysterious stranger called Le- in Castle Rock—the old woman whose a job fair. The victims were all unem- land Gaunt opens up a shop called Need- dementia becomes a stand-in for the ployed people waiting in line. King’s ful Things, stocking antiques, mostly. town’s collective amnesia, its failure to metaphors, it is safe to say, have become Little do the townspeople realise that acknowledge past mistakes. more layered since his first novel Carrie, while they do not pay for these objects Stephen King, it is safe to say, has where a teen recently traumatised by with money, Gaunt ends up extracting a nothing left to prove as a writer. As one her first period (and her mother’s reli- heavy price from all of his customers. In of the most widely read authors alive gious ire at the same) is dunked over the the 1993 movie version, Gaunt is heavily (perhaps of all time), he can virtually head with buckets of blood. implied to be Satan himself—something dictate the terms of any potential adapta- Castle Rock, on Netflix, is a good also alluded to by the animated show Rick tion, for any movie studio in the world— reminder of just how prolific King has and Morty, which parodied the novel in a given this reality, it’s significant that he been down the years, and how he has season one episode. picks The Outsider, and the character of written in markedly different styles in In the show Castle Rock, we are never Holly Gibney as his new favourite (up different phases of his career. Unlike told what unnamed devastation hit the until now, King had always maintained the other two shows discussed here, it town years ago (almost as though talk- that Rob Reiner’s 1980s classic Stand by adapts King’s early career works. It is ing about the devil will make him reap- Me was his favourite adaptation). It’s based on elements of the many novels pear), but we do understand that this is a a sign of changing times that a young, and short stories King has set in the collectively traumatised town. We also preternaturally talented black woman is fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine — see the familiar characters we associate the centre of the latest King universe— novels such as Cujo (1981), The Dead Zone with the place, like the retired ex-Sheriff and as the author himself has sug- (1976) and Needful Things (1991), as well Alan Pangborn (Scott Glenn), who is one gested, he would be open to writing new, short stories like ‘The Body’ (which was of the protagonists of Needful Things. made-for-TV adventures for his beloved adapted into the film Stand by Me) and In deference to America and Ameri- character. It would be fascinating to see ‘It Grows on You’. There have been two can TV’s ongoing obsession with cults how Gibney negotiates the realities of a seasons so far — each follows one Castle (How to Be a God in Central Florida, Wild second Trump presidency, for example. Rock novel’s central mystery, broadly Wild Country, The Path, all in the last But that’s for another day. For now, speaking, while incorporating indi- few years), the second season follows King fans starved of new material would vidual short stories as either standalone the machinations of a potentially do well to binge-watch Castle Rock, episodes or subplots. catastrophic cult that starts to take over Mr. Mercedes and The Outsider. n

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RAJEEV MASAND

Regaining Confidence gearing up for the possibility that they could arrive in Dangal star Fatima Sana Shaikh is going to have an eventful cinemas around Christmas this year, news in the film trade is Diwali this year. She stars in two films that are expected to drop that Reliance Entertainment, the studio that has bankrolled on streaming platforms during the festive season. As it turns both films, has been in serious talks with streamers about a out, both are comedies. In Barfi director Anurag Basu’s Ludo, straight-to-OTT release for one or both tentpoles. According she is paired with Rajkummar Rao in a plot that appears to to sources, the studio is quoting an unheard of cost for these involve the two actors plotting a jailbreak to release the father premium titles, and leading streamers—although definitely of her baby. In Tere Bin Laden director Abhishek Sharma’s interested—are saying they’re way out of their budget. Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari, she plays a young woman who becomes a On 83, it appears that the film’s directorKabir Khan victim in a revenge plot hatched by Diljit Dosanjh’s character and leading man Ranveer Singh are hoping the studio will against her detective brother, played by Manoj Bajpayee. hold out until the cinemas reopen. There is some talk that Fatima says comedy is hard for her and she frequently both Kabir and Ranveer may have offered to slash their fees found herself seeking reassurance from Basu that she was on the project to offset some of the escalating costs that performing competently while making Ludo. Some of that the studio has to bear on account of the delay in the film’s self-doubt, she admits, was a result of the very public failure release because of the pandemic. With Sooryavanshi, it may of Thugs of Hindostan and the feeling of being written off that be a little more complicated. Turns out the studio has been came with it. “I was crushed. I felt my career was over. I lost reminded, repeatedly, of the many blockbusters director two big films, and I lost my confidence,” she reveals. “I Rohit Shetty has delivered for them over the years, asked myself if I had what it takes. I asked myself if I and hence, the expectation that they would hold know how to act.” out so his new film gets the big-screen release it With time, she says, she saw things in was always meant to. perspective. Sure it was a big failure, but it didn’t mean she had to pack up and leave. “Amitji was Hot Right Now still working, [Aamir Khan] was still working. The Priyanka Chopra-Rajkummar Rao That helped me come to terms with the fact that starring cinematic adaptation of I could and had to keep working too,” she says, Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger doesn’t referring to her Thugs co-stars and the fact drop on Netflix until December, but that she learnt from them that it had to be the film is already being spoken of as a business as usual. What she didn’t want potential Oscar magnet in Hollywood. to do was have to compromise what she Directed by Iranian-American helmer stood for. “I didn’t want to do sexist films. Ramin Bahrani, whose films Man Push I didn’t want to do films in which women Cart, Chop Shop and Goodbye Solo made were represented in a way that I didn’t him a festival darling and landed him a agree with. And I decided I was going to foot through the tightly cranked doors of stick to that, even if it meant I had to sit Hollywood, The White Tiger is produced around for a year without work.” by Priyanka. In its early prognosis of the Oscars 2021 race, The Hollywood Reporter Wait and Watch has counted the film as a potential Even as Akshay Kumar announces that he awards contender, suggesting that it could release Sooryavanshi in January when it could have heat in multiple categories is likely that cinema halls across the country including Best Picture, Best Director, Best may be operating at 50 per cent capacity, and Actress (for Priyanka), and Best Actor (for even as the makers of ’83 are saying they’re Adarsh Gourav). n

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