125

AYODHYA: 21ST CENTURY:

AFTER THE 21 MILESTONES
VERDICT SO FAR
December 2019

THE EDUCATION
ISSUE
How is the Indian education system Looking at the
doorstep of the third decade of this century? what are
the most important trends and what are the big ideas?
LETTERS

A very pertinent and timely piece (In The Name of Dharma,

November 2019). Fakery is only one part. No doubt, anyone
who seeks to develop a following by advertising any special
power should be rigorously tested by qualified sceptics. But Got to be honest witcha.
the second aspect is the need for the followers to realise the At the core of the beauti-
debasement, the delusion and the entanglement that any ful marble monument
such power would extract. that is the Taj are two
—Thrinethran T V
rotting corpses centuries
old. Dignitaries being
paraded around there
and then having their
photo taken, to claim that
they have visited India,
is quite apt — there
are dead bodies neatly
covered by marble in
the background. More
than showing India’s
rich heritage to foreign
dignitaries, he [Modi] is
showing them to his own
countrymen. (Beyond The
Medieval Door, November
2019) The expression of
awe which fills the faces
of the foreign dignitaries
is meant for the average
Indian, who has been
told for decades, even
centuries now, that the
handiwork of his own
antecedents is nothing
but idolatrous nonsense.
India Beyond Taj Ekla Cholo
Excellent article! (Beyond The Medieval Door, November Put in other words, Jaggi is saying that India is now in a More than anything Mr
2019). The author has analysed and brought out every as- position to carve its own sphere of influence and I agree Modi has done, it is this
pect and thought that must have gone into the setting up with him. (Ekla Cholo Re, November 2019) There is a funda-
of the place for each of the meetings which all of us take mental requirement to attaining and retaining the position
loud but subtle message
for granted. This is an article that should be shared with all of leadership where you chart your own course, and that that is unmistakable.
students of history! is the military power. India has reached the stage where it Rise, Indians, to the
can aspire to be the leader.
—Venkataraman S —Vijay Rajvaidya immensity of your own
Flames And Firsts heritage!
Very well said (Beyond The Medieval Door, November 2019). This piece is a bit late (Flames and Firsts, November 2019),
Compliments. Indeed, Modi has changed the language of a wonderfully narrated movie lost out to clamour of war
communication with his guests. Consider the amount of for Hindi audience. A powerful movie with power-packed
thinking that must be going in to choosing venues, menus, performances from the leads; was surprised to see a
cultural shows, stories and all. Our guests deserved all lengthy role for Tammanah as that is not the typical norm
—Krishnan Madathil
these but never got them. in Telugu cinema where hero takes the centre stage. Kudos
to mega star for getting into skin of Narasimha Reddy.
—Jitendra Desai
—Sir Pawan Kalyan

D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 3
IN THIS ISSUE

COVER STORY

14

VOL 63 ISSUE 11

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Manish Sabharwal
Surjit S Bhalla
Swapan Dasgupta

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
R Jagannathan

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Prasanna Viswanathan

PUBLISHER AND CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER

Amarnath Govindarajan

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

N Muthuraman

EXECUTIVE EDITOR
M R Subramani

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Aravindan Neelakandan, Jaideep A Prabhu,
Jaideep Mazumdar, Rajeev Srinivasan

CHIEF COPY EDITOR

7 TRENDS IN INDIAN HIGHER EDUCATION

Ravi M G

SENIOR EDITORS
Arush Tandon, Arihant Pawariya, Sumati INDIA CANNOT CLAIM ITS PLACE IN THE 21ST CENTURY WITHOUT UPGRADING ITS HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM. AS IT
Mehrishi, Swati Goel Sharma
STANDS ON THE DOORSTEPS OF 2020, THESE ARE THE SEVEN MOST IMPORTANT TRENDS FROM THE SECTOR.
SENIOR SUB EDITORS
Prakhar Gupta, Tushar Gupta, Harsha Bhat,
Hemant Bijapurkar,Nishtha Anushree 21ST CENTURY SO FAR

46
ASSISTANT COPY EDITORS
Karan Kamble, Shravan K Iyer

DIGITAL MARKETING AND ONLINE SALES

Raghu Ravi, Tejesh K

HEAD - VIDEO PRODUCTION AND GRAPHICS

Jones Abraham

VIDEO PRODUCTION AND GRAPHICS

Hari Prasanth, Mani Bharathi G

www.swarajyamag.com

/swarajyamag @swarajyamag
/+Swarajyamag /company/swarajya

For Editorial queries:

editor@swarajyamag.com

For Subscription queries:

subscriptions@swarajyamag.com

For Advertisement and Business queries:

prasanna@swarajyamag.com

KOVAI MEDIA PVT LTD

356/2, 14B Cross, 5th Main HSR, Sector 6,
Bangalore, 560102
Phone No: 91 9632138005

All rights reserved. Printed and published by

Amarnath Govindarajan on behalf of Kovai

2000-2019: 21 EVENTS THAT DEFINED INDIA

Media Pvt Ltd. Printed by G. Packia Selvan at
Bhagya Offset Printers, No 89/A1 [New no.
109], Chinnammal Street, Saibaba Colony,
Coimbatore 641038. Published at 43 Nehru
Nagar, M.D Gardens, Civil Airport Post, FEW WOULD HAVE FORESEEN THE INDIA OF TODAY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MILLENNIUM. COVERING TRIUMPHS
Kalapatti Road, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, AND TRAUMAS, HERE ARE THE 21 MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS OF INDIA’S JOURNEY SO FAR THIS CENTURY.
INDIA 641014.

4 D E CE M B ER 2019
 POLITICS AFTER MAHARASHTRA PAN-INDIA NRC

31 34

THEIR UNITY FUELS BJP A SMOOTH SCAN

STATE AFTER STATE IS THROWING UP THIS TREND: GRAND ALLIANCES OF HERE IS HOW A PAN-INDIA NRC EXERCISE CAN BE MADE SIMPLER AND LESS
NON-NDA PARTIES PROVIDE A BOOST TO THE BJP RATHER THAN HALT IT. DISRUPTIVE, EVEN PAINLESS FOR MOST CITIZENS.

B O O K S A N D

73 UTTARAKHAND: SHIFT THE GEARS 04

KERALA: THIS METRO WILL SAIL 06

UP: YOGI’S EXPRESSWAY TO POWER 11

ACADEMIA-STARTUP SUPERCOMPLEX 21

AFTER THE VERDICT, VIKAS 39

2010-2019: WHAT INDIAN MUSIC LOST 56

21 BOOKS FROM THE 21ST CENTURY 62

OBITUARY: T N SESHAN 80

CONTRSUCTING A TELE-KAVYA
A NEW BOOK BY RAMANAND SAGAR’S SON ON THE FORMER’S LIFE NARRATES HOW
THE FORMER OVERCOME MANY HURDLES TO DELIVER THE RAMAYAN SERIES.

D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 5
FROM THE STATES/UTTARAKHAND
SHIFT THE GEARS
For Uttarakhand, most of what is ‘local’ is ‘national’ too; Chief Minister Rawat must continue
to use this to his advantage.
U
ttarakhand chief ministers from
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
have kept the ‘border state’ sta-
tus bold and clear in their politi-
cal narrative. Trivendra Singh Rawat is no
exception.
In his work and policies, Rawat keeps
two aspects of Uttarakhand on priority.
One, of Uttarakhand being border state and
the other, of Uttarakhand being “sainya ba-
hulya kshetra” (soldier-majority region).
“Uttarakhand ek sainya bahulya rajya
hai, aur Garhwal aur Kumaon sainya ba-
hulya kshetra hain. The well-being of the
6 D E CE M B ER 2019
soldier and the Indian Army is the utmost
SUMATI MEHRISHI
concern of people living here. Moreover,
people living in the upper regions are the
support of the Indian armed forces. I am
doing everything possible to ensure that
the people remain rooted to their homes
and they are provided everything to keep
the villages thriving,” Rawat told Swarajya
earlier this year.
It is not surprising, hence, that Rawat’s
responses to concern about his state and
his statements on the government’s steps
being taken towards curbing out-migration
has the mention of the ‘border state’ inter-
 twined.
The first step In April, Rawat had told Swarajya that
towardseffectively aspects of life and livelihood that might
appear minute to outsiders play a massive
dealing with out-
role in strengthening the possibility of re-
migrationcamefrom ducing out-migration step by step.
thestategovernment The first step towards effectively deal-
itselfin2017,when ing with the problem of out-migration came
it constituted the from the state government itself in 2017
ruraldevelopment when it constituted the rural development
and migration commission on returning to
and migration
power.
commission on The commission has studied many vital
coming to office. issues relating to life and people in the state
surrounding out-migration.
Rawat’s focus is on curbing the out-mi-
gration of institutions — such as agricul-
ture, education and health, and not curbing
the out-migration of people alone. He knows
that the nerve of keeping these institutions
and aspects within the state is tourism and
tourism-related activities.
Then, under Rawat, the cementing of
Garhwal and Kumaon regions as ‘one’ —
has found a place in BJP’s electoral politics
and narrative.
Rawat shifted a cabinet meeting held in
October to Almora after Tehri and Pauri, in
careful messaging.
Rawat’s predecessors have been less suc-
cessful than him in demolishing the imagi-
nary divide between Kumaon and Garhwal.
BJP leaders addressed the well-being of
‘Paanch Pandavs’ — Nainital, Udhamsingh
Nagar, Tehri Garhwal, Pauri Garhwal and
Haridwar under the ‘double engine sarkar’
(BJP in state and Centre). Rawat is looking
at the state in the same spirit.
These aspects bring Uttarakhand under
Rawat right under Prime Minister Naren-
dra Modi’s nose. It is advantageous to the
state; to Rawat’s own position as the ‘sahi
kaptaan’ (non-corrupt leader of the state),
and to the BJP in a ‘double engine waali
sarkar’ (BJP in state and National Demo-
cratic Alliance or NDA at the Centre).
Prime Minister Modi’s attention to de-
velopmental efforts in the state, including
the all-weather road project, Kedarnath re-
construction, the cooperative development
scheme and Rishikesh-Karnprayag rail pro-
ject is well known.
According to reports, the Centre has
recently approved Rs 1,400 crore ($200 mil-
Sumati Mehrishi is Senior lion) under Urban Infrastructure Develop-
Editor, Swarajya. ment Scheme for Secondary Towns for 16
urban areas of Uttarakhand.
This will help Rawat in focussing on 24x7
drinking water supply, rainwater manage-
ment, wastewater management, urban
roads and other areas in six districts (their
local urban bodies).
Even though having Modi at the Centre
is an emboldening plus for the state govern-
ment, it alone is not being seen as sufficient
to uphold Rawat’s performance in public
perception.
In April this year, the state voted on na-
tional issues. For Uttarakhand, the cusp in
national and state issues is thicker than
usual.
Half a year down the line, Rawat might
need to increase the momentum of the con-
structive steps taken to meet the expecta-
tions of voters.
They want to see the Modi-Rawat team
lay down more visible changes in educa-
tion, health, employment and livelihoods,
faster and in an effective manner.
Needed from Rawat is some shrewd edge
to his image as a ‘straight forward CM’ and
a bit more gentleness as a ‘pahadi’, even as
he continues to address certain vulnerable
areas.
The media and opposition have kept the
pressure on Rawat over some of his unpopu-
lar statements and utterances.
Yet he seems to stand unwrinkled and
going ahead steadily — his ears and eyes
open to work in the state.
So far, he has been seen much more in
the state than in Delhi.
And in the state, education and health,
it was clear, are prime concerns on ground.
Rawat is working on his vision for Ut-
tarakhand in sincerity and is going beyond
the cosmetic changes. He needs to spare
some moments to view it in a detached man-
ner — and check whether the work momen-
tum and his aggression are enough to meet
the high expectations of the people.
His ‘double engine sarkar’ has skin in
Modi’s vision for Uttarakhand — devbhoo-
mi and a border state.
Keeping his armour intact against rivals
and opposition, Rawat would do well to peel
a few layers off his gentle exterior to play
his vision and implementation on front foot.
The full version of this article can be read
on the Swarajya website.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 7
FROM THE STATES/KERALA
THIS METRO WILL SAIL
By this time next year, India’s first water metro would be running in Kochi. Its waterways
present an alternative mode of transport that can help decongest its choked roads.
L
ate in October, the Union Min-
istry for Environment gave its
clearance for the Rs 891 crore
Kochi Water Metro in Kerala, the
first such transport project in the country.
The water metro project’s objective is
to connect islands around Kochi with the
mainland. The project will be implemented
by the Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL).
Things are moving fast for the water
metro with the KMRL appointing Hol-
land’s Antea Nederland BV and Unihorn
as consultants for concept design, detail
design and supervisory services of the
Integrated Urban Regeneration and Water
Transport System (IURWTS) project early
in November.
According to the Indian Council for
Research on International Economic Rela-
tions (ICRIER), the port city of Kochi is
characterised by crisscrossing rivers and
canals connected to a backwater system.
8 D E CE M B ER 2019
The Kochi city is situated in a complex
M R SUBRAMANI
estuarine system comprising Lake Vemba-
nad and rivers such as Periyar and Muvat-
tupuzha that flow into the lake. A sizeable
portion of the land is covered by sheets of
water comprising canals, backwaters and
rivers in the city.
Thus, a water transport system assumes
significance as it can not only offer multi-
ple benefits but also be one that is cheaper
to develop, manage and maintain.
ICRIER says that the cost of creating
inland waterways is only 5-10 per cent
compared to expenses in developing a
four-lane highway. Maintenance costs are
also roughly one-fifth compared to that of a
highway.
The financial capital of Kerala has been
facing problems of unplanned develop-
ment, and the share of water transport has
dropped significantly from 23.4 per cent in
1981 to 3 per cent now.
 At least 50 per cent of the people who
Currently, the commute to Kochi every day, work there,
Kerala State with some of them coming from at least
Water Transport 25 km away. While buses are the most
Departmentoperates preferred mode of transportation, narrow
roads and congestion result in the average
a few ferries along
travel time exceeding more than an hour.
with some private It is in this context that Kochi’s
operatorsconnecting waterways present an alternative mode
thewesterncoastal of transport and can help decongest its
areas with the city. choked roads. It can also reduce travel time
Butthiscoversjust drastically.
Currently, the Kerala State Water
3percentofKochi’s
Transport Department operates a few
commutertraffic. ferries along with some private operators
connecting the western coastal areas with
the city. But this covers hardly 3 per cent
of the commuter traffic in the city.
While the KMRL will result in a 30 per
cent shift from roadways to the metro rail,
it does not extend to the islands that are
densely populated, contributing large num-
bers of commuters to inter-city travel.
It is here that the water metro project
can work in tandem with KMRL to provide
cross-modal connectivity.
The water metro has identified 16 routes
connecting 38 docks across 10 islands with
the total network likely to be 76 km.
In addition, seven terminals will be
M R Subramani is Executive developed as part of KMRL’s social initia-
Editor, Swarajya. tive at Info Park, Vaduthala, Njarackal,
Mulavukad, View Point and Embarkation
Jetty.
The project is planned to be imple-
mented in two phases. In both phases, the
water metro project will not only build on
the existing routes but also extend some of
them.
To ensure better planning, coordination
and maintenance of services, KMRL has
proposed the setting up of a unified metro
transport authority for the metro rail and
the water metro.
Once the water metro comes up, Kochi
will likely say goodbye to the traffic conges-
tion it witnesses now.
Developing Kochi’s hinterland connec-
tivity through inland waterways will result
in an annual economic benefit of Rs 442
crore, according to the National Transpor-
tation Planning and Research Centre.
The water metro will also boost tourism
and be the key to the development of the
Kochi-Alappuzha backwater belt. Besides,
it will help Kochi to safeguard itself from
floods that impact its economy badly.
The first phase was scheduled to have
begun in April this year but the project
was delayed. With the water transport
metro now getting the green light,
it could be up and running by this time
next year.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 9
FROM THE STATES/HARYANA
LACK OF CONVICTION
What happened when the Punjab and Haryana High Court found out that under the 2015 anti-
cow slaughter act, not even a single conviction had taken place in Haryana?
W
ith much fanfare and lofty
claims, the Manohar Lal
Khattar-led Haryana govern-
ment released the notifica-
tion of the Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan
and Gausamvardhan (HGS and GS) Act
in November 2015. It chose the occasion of
Gopashtami to officially announce that the
anti-cow slaughter act had come into force
after the then president Pranab Mukher-
jee’s nod.
Under the act, cow trafficking, slaugh-
tering and possessing or consuming beef
were prohibited in Haryana. A ban was
also imposed on the sale of canned beef
(meat of cow in sealed containers) that was
legal under the previous state government.
Newspapers called the act “stringent”,
10 D E CE M B ER 2019
“tough” and even “draconian”.
Four years later, the claims turn out to
be farcical. It is revealed that of 800 cases
filed under the act so far, no accused has
SWATI GOEL SHARMA
been convicted.
The reason? The state government
stopped at publicising the act but never
cared to frame rules for its implementa-
tion. In absence of laid-out rules and
training to the police, more than 2,000
accused are either out on bail or have been
acquitted.
It was only after the Punjab and Hary-
ana High Court lambasted the government
earlier this year that things have started
moving. In the process, a disturbing pic-
ture of the menace of cattle-smuggling in
Haryana’s Mewat district, and the police
 and administration’s helplessness in tack-
ling it, has emerged.
Court Pulls Up Police
Adisturbingpicture On 28 March, Justice Mahabir Singh
of the menace of Sindhu of the Punjab and Haryana High
cattle-smuggling Court was hearing an anticipatory bail
plea of an accused booked under the act.
in Haryana’s
The accused, Israil, had a first information
Mewat district, report (FIR) filed against him more than
and the police and nine months ago at Nuh Police Station in
administration’s Haryana’s Mewat district (FIR number 432,
helplessness in dated 13 June 2017), but till date, had not
tackling it, has been arrested.
Justice Sindhu came down heavily on
emerged.
the police, observing that the court had
come across a number of similar cases,
where accused booked under the HGS
and GS Act managed to flee from the spot
“despite a secret information to the police
prior in time”.
“This shows that there is a complete
inaction on the part of the police of District
Mewat or deliberately the accused are let
to go; or there is a question mark for regis-
tration of these cases,” the judge observed,
and directed Haryana’s police chief to
provide details of all cases registered under
the act so far.
‘Zero Conviction Under The Act’
As per the court’s directions, the Haryana
Director General of Police (DGP) Manoj
Yadava submitted a report on 4 April. It
said that the police personnel in Mewat are
working in a quite hostile atmosphere, fac-
ing danger to their life as well as safety.
Close to 800 cases were filed under the
act but not even a single person was con-
victed, it revealed.
The DGP’s report, that compiled data for
nearly three years — between the enforce-
ment of the act in November 2015 and 31
March 2019 — said,
1. A total of 792 FIRs were registered
in district Mewat (renamed to Nuh) out of
which accused were arrested on the spot
in only 96 cases. In rest of the 696 cases,
accused managed to escape
2. A total of 2,156 accused were booked
under the Act but only 1,194 had been ar-
rested. While 236 were arrested on the spot,
958 were arrested later on. In 386 cases, no
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 11
 arrests of the 856 accused
were made
3. Only 13 cases went to court but even
then, not even a single person was con-
victed. As many as 17 got acquitted.
The sorry figures prompted the court to
pull up the police. In a 5 April hearing, the
court observed,
…it is apparently clear that situation
is quite alarming and mere registration
of the FIRs for commission of the offences
under the Act of 2015, resulting into 100%
acquittal by the trial Court(s) can only
be termed as a police paradise and by no
stretch of imagination, it can be accepted
that law enforcement agency is successful
in any manner for implementation of the
provisions of the Act of 2015 in District
Nuh.
The judge also made some sharp obser-
vations on the nature of the crime,
…the offences are being committed
by hardcore smugglers, fully trained and
that too in a well planned manner on large
scale in an organized way. The affidavit
also reveals that whenever the police tried
to apprehend the accused or make efforts
for intercepting or stopping the vehicles
carrying smuggled cows for slaughtering,
then accused persons attacked them not
only with stones, but there are instances of
using illegal firearms/weapons and such
incidents are frequent in District Nuh.
The police affidavit said there were 30
cases, where accused were booked for us-
ing weapons.
12 D E CE M B ER 2018
2019
Things Get Moving — Training For
Cops, Amendment In Act
In an 8 May hearing, the court was
informed that Israil was arrested by the po-
lice — nearly a year after being booked —
and action was initiated against five cops
for their failure to act against the accused.
The court was also informed that the Hary-
ana government was considering framing
of rules under the 2015 anti-cow slaughter
act to put in place effective mechanism for
export or transportation of cows in and The state
outside the state. governmentstopped
The court appointed advocate Deepak
atpublicisingtheact
Balyan, who is also an Additional Advo-
cate General with the Haryana govern-
but never cared to
ment, as an amicus curiae in the case for frame rules for its
assistance. implementation.In
absenceoflaid-out
Why Was Nothing Done Before Court rules and training
Rap?
to thepolice,more
With such poor handling of cattle theft,
smuggling and illegal slaughter problem
than2,000accused
on part of the state, it is no wonder that are either out on
those involved in the beef trade have bail or have been
resorted to killing cattle owners and firing acquitted.
at the police. Reports after reports tell us
about the fear among farmers of the beef
mafia and their growing anger against
the government and the police. Reports of
farmers staging agitations outside police
stations are now a routine sight in regional
newspapers.
The average cow-revering villager is
left to silently bear the everyday horror of
brutality inflicted on the cows. One won-
ders why the government failed to see it all
before the court rap? Above all, will things
now become better?
The full version of this piece can be read Swati Goel Sharma is Senior
on the Swarajya website. Editor, Swarajya.

EXPRESSWAY TO POWER
Chief Minister YogiAdityanath knows his infrastructure push for Uttar Pradesh worked in the
2019 Lok Sabha polls, and now, he appears to be doubling down on it.
K
amlesh Kumar Dhuriya has
PRAKHAR GUPTA
been selling laiya chana outside
Prayagraj’s Motilal Nehru Na-
tional Institute of Technology
(MNIT) for over a decade.
“Just a few years back, there used to be
a traffic jam here everyday from 4 pm to 9
pm. If an ambulance got stuck here, there
was no hope of it reaching the hospital in
time. People died on the way. Since the day
this road has been widened, there has not
been any traffic jam here,” Dhuriya said,
with Manoj Kumar, a temporary employee
of MNIT, nodding in approval.
“Zameen-aasman ka antar hai (there’s a
drastic change),” Kumar added.
Dhuriya’s and Kumar’s comments came
as no surprise. As this correspondent criss-
crossed Purvanchal — the eastern part of
Uttar Pradesh — during the Lok Sabha
elections, the state government’s road in-
frastructure push was clearly visible, and
its effect palpable, as many echoed similar
sentiments.
FROM THE STATES/UTTAR PRADESH
“Were roads in the state ever this
good?” asked Gangesh Gond, who runs a
transportation business in Phulpur’s Indi-
an Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative mandi.
Gond was referring to State Highway 7 that
links Prayagraj and Gorakhpur.
Nearly 250 km away, in Gorakhpur’s
Campierganj, Phool Chand Nishad, who
works in the construction sector in the
Gulf, said, “the speed of development in
this region has doubled. You can see new
roads being constructed wherever you
look.”
It was clear that this sentiment was
translating into votes, as these men had
told this correspondent in the first week of
May this year that they were supporting
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Of course,
better roads may not have been the only
reason why they were choosing the BJP
over others, but it was definitely one of the
important ones.
Six months later, it is more appar-
ent than ever that Chief Minister Yogi
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 13
 Adityanath knows his infrastructure push
has worked, and he appears to be doubling
down on it. In November, his cabinet
cleared the decks for two road projects, the
296-km long Bundelkhand Expressway and
91-km Gorakhpur Link Expressway, even
as work continues in full swing on the 340-
km long Purvanchal Expressway.
Uttar Pradesh has the country’s longest
expressway network with two operational
expressways, the 302-km Lucknow-Agra
Expressway and the 165-km long Yamuna
Expressway. Apart from the two approved
and one under-construction expressways,
the state also plans to build a 1,020-km long
expressway along the Ganga. The nodal
agency for these projects, Uttar Pradesh
Expressways Industrial Development Au-
thority (UPEIDA), is also working on many
more proposals.
Understandably, the state government
believes it can project expressways as one
of its achievements in 2022 when Adity-
anath seeks re-election after five years in
power. In a meeting in July this year, just
days after the Lok Sabha elections, Adity-
anath brought forward the deadline for the
Purvanchal Expressway to 2020.
The Purvanchal Expressway originates
near Chand Saray in Lucknow on the
National Highway 731 (Lucknow-Sultanpur
road). It will pass through seven districts,
Barabanki, Amethi, Sultanpur, Ayodhya,
Ambedkarnagar, Azamgarh and Mau,
which lies on the border with Bihar, link-
ing them to the state capital. Lucknow,
in turn, is linked to Delhi through the
Lucknow-Agra Expressway and Ya-
muna (Agra-Greater Noida) Expressway.
Therefore, this would make for seamless
connectivity from the eastern part of Uttar
Pradesh, right from the border with Bihar,
to the National Capital Region.
Mooted and passed under the Samajwa-
di Party regime, the project hasn’t fallen
off the radar under the BJP government.
If anything, Adityanath appears to have
made this a priority — Gorakhpur, the seat
of the Gorakhnath Peeth, which he contin-
ues to head as mahant, is in eastern Uttar
Pradesh. He has represented Gorakhpur
in Parliament five times in a row between
1998 and 2014. Consequently, both his
spiritual influence and political power are
concentrated in this part of the state.
There was some delay initially, though.
14 D E CE M B ER 2019
When the Adityanath government took
office, it found that the bids received in re- Understandably,the
sponse to the tenders put out by the Akhile- state government
sh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government
believes it can
were overpriced. These bids were cancelled
in June 2018 as the government decided to
projectexpressways
go for fresh bidding. New bids were invited as one of its
for the expressway and contracts were achievements
swiftly awarded in July 2018. in 2022 when
As a result, the government saved hun- Adityanath seeks
dreds of crores in construction cost.
re-electionafterfive
The approximate cost of the civil
works of the project, which was Rs 11,836
years in power.
crore initially, has now come down to Rs
11,216 crore. The original bids, UPEIDA
says, were overpriced because companies
“joined hands and worked as a cartel”.
Work on the expressway began in Octo-
ber 2018. In the first week of November this
year, UPEIDA officials in Lucknow told
this correspondent that around 20 per cent
of the physical work on the expressway has
been completed.
The project has been divided into eight
packages. Gayatri Projects is working on
packages one and two, Apco Infratech
on package three, GR Infra Projects on
packages four and seven, PNC Infratech on
packages five and six and Oriental Struc-
tures on package eight.
So far, around 98 per cent of the land
required for the expressway has been
acquired. At least 97 per cent of clearing
and grubbing work, which involves the re-
moval of vegetation, demolition of existing
structures, and clearing of surface debris
and litter at the site, has been completed.
Around 58 per cent of earth work, which
includes levelling of land for construction,
is also complete.
With much of land acquisition, grub-
bing, clearing and earthwork complete,
and the process of blacktopping in full
swing, UPEIDA officials say the main car-
riageway of the Purvanchal Expressway
will be completed in time, that is in 2020,
and are confident of opening it to traffic
around Diwali the same year.
“The main carriageway of the Purvan-
chal Expressway will be completed in the
second half of 2020. That’s when we will
start trials on the carriageway. After the
trials are complete, we will open the main
carriageway to traffic by Diwali 2020,”
Awanish Awasthi, Additional Chief Sec-
retary of Uttar Pradesh government and
 Chief Executive Officer of UPEIDA, told
Swarajya in November.
“With the main carriageway open for
UttarPradeshgoes traffic, we will finish the remaining work
topollsnextin2022. on the expressway by April 2021,” Awasthi
The significance said, adding that “the normal timeline for
of infrastructure the completion of the project is 36 months,
the optimistic timeline is 30 months, and
development
we are trying to finish the work just under
in general, and 30 months”.
expressways in Plans are also afloat to extend the ex-
particular,inYogi’s pressway to Balia, the state’s easternmost
re-electionplan,is district. This extension will add another
clear. 50 to 60 odd kilometres to the expressway.
But the government’s focus, right now, is
on another extension — Gorakhpur Link
Expressway. The 91-km long expressway,
as its name suggests, will link Gorakhpur,
the home-turf of the Chief Minister, to the
Purvanchal Expressway, passing through
three districts — Kabir Nagar, Ambedkar
Nagar and Azamgarh.
In November, financial bids for the
Gorakhpur Link Expressway were ap-
proved by the state cabinet, along with
those invited for the Bundelkhand Express-
way.
The 296-km-long Bundelkhand Ex-
pressway will link Chitrakoot with the
Agra-Lucknow expressway near Etawah,
passing through Banda, Hamirpur, Jalaun
and Auraiya districts, providing the region
improved connectivity to NCR through
the Lucknow-Agra Expressway and the
Yamuna Expressway.
The region is electorally important for
the BJP — of the 19 assembly seats in the
Prakhar Gupta is Senior Sub seven districts that for Uttar Pradesh’s part
Editor, Swarajya. of Bundelkhand, the party had won all 19 in
2017. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party
had won all the four seats in the region,
repeating its performance of the 2014 polls.
This connectivity is also critical for
the Defence Industrial Corridor being
developed in this part of the state. The
Bundelkhand Expressway, along with the
two operational expressways in the state,
will improve connectivity between the six
nodes of the corridor—Jhansi, Chitrakoot,
Agra, Lucknow, Kanpur and Aligarh.
UPEIDA, also the nodal agency for the
defence corridor, is acquiring land around
the nodes to use it as a ‘land bank’. In
the first phase, the agency has to acquire
around 5,000 hectares, of which 85 per cent
work has been completed.
Around 93 per cent of the land needed
for the Bundelkhand Expressway and over
50 per cent of the land required for the
Gorakhpur Link Expressway has also been
acquired. UPEIDA says work on the former
will begin before the end of this year and
on the latter in the early months of the next
year.
“Work on the Bundelkhand Express-
way will begin in December itself, and we
plan to start working on Gorakhpur Link
Expressway in early 2020,” Awasthi told
Swarajya.
“We want to finish work on the Bun-
delkhand Expressway by the end of 2021 or,
maximum, in the early months of 2022,” he
added.
2022 is when UP goes to polls next.
The significance of infrastructure develop-
ment in general, and expressways in par-
ticular, in Yogi’s reelection plan, is clear.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 15
SEVEN TRENDS
IN HIGHER
EDUCATION
EVERY INDIAN
MUST KNOW
Indiacannotclaimitsplacein
thetwenty-firstcenturywithout
streamliningandupgradingits
highereducationservices.The
good news is that the latest
numbersforhighereducation
throwupsomeencouraging
trends.
T V MOHANDAS PAI AND NISHA HOLLA

F
or the development of a nation
and its society, three types of
capital are essential — physical,
financial and human. Of these,
in today’s era of knowledge economy-led
growth, human capital will have the most
significant impact on socio-economic
growth for decades to come.
Development of human capital starts
with our education system. Every year
since 2011, Ministry of Human Resource
Development has compiled extensive data
via the All India Statistics on Higher Edu-
cation (AISHE). A survey of AISHE brings
to light interesting trends in India’s higher
education that can be capitalised on to
drive our development of human capital.

India Has Successfully Built Capacity,

Now Focus Is On Quality And Enrol-
ment
Total enrolment in India’s higher educa-
tion (HE) in 2018-19 was 3.74 crore, rising
from 2.91 crore in 2011-12 at a compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.6 per cent,
as shown in Table 1. We have caught up

16 D E CE M B ER 2019

with China’s enrolment of 3.8 crore in 2018
and will soon have the largest education
system in the world.
We have 51,649 educational institutions,
of which 993 are universities. China’s
gross enrolment ratio (GER) in higher
education is expected to cross 50 per cent
in 2020, whereas India is at 26.3 per cent
— indicating potential and capacity for
growth. Gross enrolment ratio in this case
is equal to the number of students enrolled
in higher education/total population mul-
tiplied by 100.
Various stakeholders like Federation
of Indian Chambers of Commerce and
Industry (FICCI) based on “Vision 2030 for
Higher Education” 2013 report and the Na-
tional Education Policy 2019 place India’s
potential to grow its GER to 50 per cent in
the year 2030.
A seven-year enrolment CAGR of 3.6 per
cent projects total enrolment to 5.5 crore in
2029-30. The 18-23 year population projects
to 14.5 crore in 2029-30.
With these projections, the GER will
only rise to 38.1 per cent.
With the 2030 target of GER of 50 per
cent, we can back-calculate the required
total enrolment figure to be 7.24 crore. For
this to happen, enrolment must grow at 6.2
per cent CAGR starting now to arrive at
7.24 crore in 2030, which is 2.6 percentage
points higher than the current CAGR of 3.6
per cent.
Currently, we average 724 students per
institution. At the 2030 projection of 7.24
crore students, while retaining 51,649 insti-
tutions, we grow to 1,400 students per insti-
tution — very reasonable. Of course, there
is tremendous variance across states, but
on average, India has an adequate base in-
frastructure. It would be more productive
and efficient hence, to focus on brownfield
expansion. Enhancing our institutions and
improving quality and GER is the need of
the hour.
Women Enrolment Is Rising Exponen-
tially
About 1.92 crore men and 1.82 crore women
enrolled for higher education in 2018-2019.
Since 2011-2012, male enrolment grew at
2.5 per cent CAGR and that of women at an
incredible 4.9 per cent CAGR.
Women are increasingly turning toward
higher education with clearer aspirations.
As more educated women join the work-
force, the 2020-2030 decade is set to see the
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 17
 rise of the Indian woman. education, law, business administration,
Male enrolment is slowing down. and so on. So, what are our students study-
Between 2017-2018 and 2018-2019, it only ing?
moved by 5,000 whereas women enrolment In 2018-2019, the top five fields enrolled
rose by 7.5 lakh. 1.09 crore (BA and BA Hons), 52.6 lakh (BSc
Women are now 48.6 per cent of enrolled and BSc Hons), 40.3 lakh (BCom), 37.7 lakh
students in higher education in India, up
from 44.6 per cent in 2011-2012. This is a
pan India phenomenon.
Even within the Muslim community
with the lowest enrolment ratios in the
country, women’s enrolment, at 8.7 per
cent CAGR, is rising faster than that of
men at 6.7 per cent.
2018-2019 is the first year that female
GER at 26.4 per cent rose above male GER,
which stagnated at 26.3 per cent. Gender
parity Index too reached 1 per cent for the
first time, up from 0.88 per cent in 2011-
2012.

Domain Expertise Is In Flux

Growing economies need expertise across
numerous domains — science and technol-
ogy, finance and commerce, healthcare,

18 D E CE M B ER 2019

(BTech and BE), and 12.2 lakh students
(BEd).
MBBS students made up 2.7 lakh while
the remaining fields made up 1.2 crore
combined. A total of 90.9 lakh graduated.
Over the last five years, enrolment in
BA and BA (Hons) degrees — the most
widely-studied field in India — is stag-
nating at a negative 0.03 per cent CAGR.
This may indicate that as the diversity of
domain subjects increases, India’s youth is
diverging from traditional pursuits.  ments in society, and the ability to produce
Enrolment in BSc and BSc (Hons) de-
grees is growing at 3.24 per cent CAGR.
India has produced 53.5 lakh BSc and
BSc (Hons) graduates from 2014-2015 to
2018-2019. With enrolment rising, care must
be taken to provide graduates with suf-
ficient follow-on opportunities in research
and post-graduation.
A worrisome trend, however, is the
negative 2 per cent CAGR in enrolment
in BTech and BE courses over five years.
Technological development is amongst the
most decisive drivers of socio-economic
growth, and India needs to stimulate enrol-
ment here.  
Enrolment in BCom is increasing at
1.6 per cent CAGR, and we have produced
45.36 lakh BCom graduates over five
years. India is among the world’s most
exciting financial development sandbox-
es, and incentivising creative thinking in
finance specialists is essential. 
Enrolment in MBBS advanced to 2.7
lakh in 2018-2019, at a promising 9.9 per
cent CAGR. India, with its 130-plus crore
population, is building a comprehensive
healthcare infrastructure network; we
need to develop a critical mass of doctors
for this. 
BEd enrolment is growing at a rapid 11.8
per cent CAGR. On the other hand, Minis-
try of Human Resource Development data
shows the number of children in school
has stabilised. Census and fertility data
indicate the number of children is reduc-
ing. Teaching requirements thus must be
forecasted to avoid over-staffing. 
Less Than 0.5 Per Cent Of Total Enrol-
ment In PhD Programmes
Specialisation is crucial for a growing
economy. It enables productivity improve-
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 19
 world-class products and services to, both,
meet our growing needs and capture global
markets.
About 1.69 lakh students were enrolled
in PhD programmes in 2018-2019, amount-
ing to 0.45 per cent of the total enrolment
in higher education. China’s number of
doctoral students in 2018 was 3.89 lakh,
almost double.
A total of 40,813 PhD degrees were
awarded in 2018-2019, which is also 0.45
per cent of total graduates. India has to
improve this rate of specialisation to
dominate in research and development,
improve our innovation index, and drive
socio-economic growth.
The highest number enrolled for a PhD
was in the sciences at 44,700 and engineer-
ing and technology at 41,900.
Apart from improving numbers in these
fields, focus on agriculture innovation
(currently 6,000), medical sciences (cur-
rently 7,400), and information technology
and computers is sorely needed.
India needs more quality researchers
with PhDs to lead research and innovation
efforts across several disciplines.
Affirmative Action Has Yielded Results
Towards the objectives of inclusive enrol-
ment and coverage, affirmative action has
undoubtedly yielded results.
Between 2012-2013 and 2018-2019, enrol-
ment among various groups increased at
astounding growth rates — by 17.2 lakh
(Scheduled Caste), 7.5 lakh (Scheduled
Tribe), 41.8 lakh (Other Backward Class),
and 10.1 lakh (minorities).
‘General merit’ enrol-
ment reduced by 4 lakh at
a CAGR of negative 0.5 per
cent. The government’s fo-
cus on higher education has
enabled rapid development
of previously disadvantaged
classes.
Enrolment proportions
for the SC, ST and OBC
communities in 2018-2019
are close to their population
composition:
For the SC community,
14.9 per cent enrolment
against 16.6 per cent of the
population; remarkably
20 D E CE M B ER 2019
close. 
For the ST communi-
ty, 5.5 per cent enrolment
against 8.6 per cent of the
population; this, too, is
quite close.
For the OBC commu-
nity, 36.3 per cent enrol-
ment against 40.9 per
cent of the population;
close, as well.
Minorities, however,
have not demonstrated
the same progress. They
constitute 20.2 per cent
of India’s population but
are only 7.5 per cent in
higher education enrolment.
Muslims Are Considerably Behind,
Must Take Charge Of Their Develop-
ment
GER is an excellent indication of human
capital development within a community.
Muslims represent only 5.2 per cent of HE
enrolment against being 14.2 per cent of the
population.
Since AISHE does not provide GER
estimations for Muslims and other minor-
ity communities, the authors estimated
the above figures using Census 2011 and
AISHE enrolment data. There is a stark
difference between the overall GER, 26.3
per cent, and estimated Muslim GER, 9.7
per cent.
The five states with the highest Muslim
populations as well as erstwhile Jammu
and Kashmir (J&K), with a Muslim major-
ity population at 68.3 per cent, also have
this big delta. For example, Uttar Pradesh’s
GER is 25.8 per cent, but estimated Muslim
GER is only 6.6 per cent. Surprisingly, even
J&K being a Muslim-majority state has a
low Muslim GER, 18.1 per cent, compared
to the state GER of 30.9 per cent. There has
been a policy failure here, indicating the
need for a different approach. 
From the government’s side, utilising
the budget of the Ministry of Minority
Affairs to increase capacity and number of
institutions in Muslim-dominated areas is
necessary.
The Muslim community must take
charge of improving their human capi-
tal. When other groups like SC/ST/OBCs
have rapidly grown, there is no reason the
Muslim community cannot. Muslim wom-
en, in particular, have shown an appetite
for further learning. Their enrolment grew
at 8.7 per cent CAGR; they must be encour-
aged by building capacity and providing
them with greater access. 
One Common Policy Across India
Won’t Work
A snapshot of the higher education bases
across representative states shows vast
differences. Uttar Pradesh tops the coun-
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 21
 try — with 17.3 per cent of
India’s enrolled students in
higher education (64.7 lakh
of 3.74 crore), 16.8 per cent of
graduates (15.3 lakh of 90.9
lakh), and 15.6 per cent of HE
institutions (8,077 of 51,649).
Maharashtra is next, followed
by Tamil Nadu.
In terms of GER, Tamil
Nadu leads by far with 49 per
cent. No other big state had
even crossed 40 per cent in
2018-2019.
In general, all southern
states, including Maharashtra,
have decent GERs above the
all-India average.
Apart from Punjab, states
in north-central and Gujarat
in the west have GERs below
the India-average.
Given its large population,
Uttar Pradesh has an impres-
sive GER of 25.9 per cent,
tracking very close to the all-
India average of 26.3 per cent.
Unfortunately, eastern
states like Bihar, Jharkhand
and West Bengal have not
crossed GER of 20 per cent.
Eastern states have a mea-
gre number of institutions,
indicating a lack of drive to
develop human capital. Im-
mediate planning is required
to bring GERs in these states
to at least the all-India average to its needs to reach GER of 50 per cent by
of 26.3 per cent by increasing capacity and 2030.
access. All evidence points to higher education
Only four states have teaching staff and human capital development being the
of more than 1 lakh for higher education key to socio-economic growth, higher per-
institutions, led by Tamil Nadu. Southern capita incomes, a better quality of life, and
states have an impressive pupil-teacher employability.
ratio (PTR) of below 20, led by Karnataka
at 15. The authors have published a detailed
On the other end, eastern states like report on ‘Human Capital Development in
Jharkhand and Bihar have absurdly high India’ with greater analysis on these aspects
PTR of 60-plus. Uttar Pradesh is at 46, but of India’s higher education.
given the large population and enrolment
base, the state is showing promising re-
sults compared to other population-dense
states like Bihar and Jharkhand. T V Mohandas Pai is Chairman,
One policy across India for higher Aarin Capital Partners and
education will not yield results. Each state Nisha Holla is Technology
needs a differentiated strategy to respond Fellow, C-CAMP.

22 D E CE M B ER 2019

ACADEMIA-STARTUP SUPERCOMPLEX
Academia and startups are conduits that transport two of humanity’s greatest gifts — the ability to
imagine and the will to seek. A resonance of the two can work miracles for any nation.
T
he alternative to technologi-
RANAJAY GHOSH AND ALOKE KUMAR
cal superiority is technological
slavery. Technology typically
comes in waves, with rapid suc-
cessive breakthroughs clustering together.
This winner takes all character of innova-
tion dramatically transforms society and
geopolitics.
Unfortunately, India continues to ignore
the obvious. Today, as the world is racing
towards an era of pervasive artificial intel-
ligence (AI), quantum computing and a
second ‘Space Age’, India’s illusory vision
of catching up via tech transfers from oth-
ers will prove disastrous.
India’s recent attempts at leapfrogging
in information and biotechnologies have
been tortuous. We jumped and wiggled
through circus hoops placed and managed
by other nations. What was supposed to be
a fine ballet of Indian technological revolu-
tion, post 1990s liberalisation, turned out
COVER STORY
to be considerably muted. What we got was
an ‘affordable’ but banal performance now
at its final phases of stagnation.
Is India destined to languish in the
make-believe world of prosperity, numbed
by the convenience of a sharing-delivering
economy and Bollywood entertainment?
The answer to this conundrum lies in how
we chose to structure our collective pur-
suits and aspirations.
Since the Industrial Revolution, the
recipe for steady growth has been well-
known and replicable — create or master
critical aspects of technology and reap the
benefits using markets, modern finance
and favourable government policy. It is
naive to expect government to shepherd
every aspect of this process, especially for
a country like India, where governance
is limited and past attempts to decisively
manage disparate aspects of effective tech-
nology commercialisation have been less
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 23
 than stellar.
A centralised top down policy is unique-
ly unsuited to a large and diverse country
like India. Here, the most natural unit of
productivity is a startup; small groups of
individuals dedicated to solving specific
technical problems, with the explicit goal
of earning substantial profit. Startups
function almost like neurons, carrying out
specific tasks but heavily dependent on in-
teraction with knowledge centres and even
other startups. Due to this collaborative
architecture, startup hubs tend to exist in
clusters as, most famously, Silicon Valley.
Startups that solve unique problems
with solid engineering solutions tend to be
most successful. In this way, they can also
play a far more basic and impactful role
than just accumulating wealth. Startups
can help solve many of the problems we
face, while attracting the young demo-
graphic with the promise of purpose and
prosperity — a natural lever of the demo-
graphic dividend.
But at the heart of any venture is its
people. This brings us to the ultimate re-
cursion — what starts up those who would
start up?
The answer is energy, training and
curiosity.
This is where universities come into
play.
For startups to really succeed in
sustainable ways, academia must step
in. Universities are the natural training
ground for individuals. At present, this
is not the case. Elite technical colleges,
although contributing to a large portion of
successful ventures, can do much more. It
is easy to blame the students for a myopic
and lackadaisical attitude, but the problem
is deeper and systemic in nature.
For example, our university teach-
ing structure is broken and fixing it will
require more than simply teaching a good
class in computer programming or design.
It needs a fundamental restructuring of the
curricula. It requires a radical rethinking
of how education is imparted and how it is
absorbed.
We have already suggested radically
reshaping branch allotment in under-
graduate (UG) studies. Forcing students to
choose professional specialisation about
which they know almost nothing, at the
very beginning of their education is a
24 D E CE M B ER 2019
regressive idea. This needs to be abolished.
Interestingly, some institutes like India Startups that
Institute of Science and Indian Institute of solve unique
Science Education and Research-Bhopal problems with
are already recognising this truth.
solid engineering
The energy, initiative and curiosity,
which makes universities the breeding
solutions tend to
ground of startups lead to immense cluster- bemostsuccessful.
ing. Therefore, remote geographical isola- In this way, they
tion of universities and academic centres can also play a far
from large urban areas often becomes more basic and
counter-productive. The focus should be to
impactfulrolethan
build megacentres and hubs where several
institutes and centres are in close geo-
just accumulating
graphical proximity, preferably enervat- wealth.
ing or circumscribing urban centres. This
mutual feedback is what leads to academia-
industry supercomplex.
But major roadblocks to the academia-
startup supercharging loop arise from cur-
rent structural problems, as well as inher-
ent contradictions in the inter-operability
of mission centric startups versus organic
entities like academia.
Academic institutes are known and cel-
ebrated for their pursuit of the unknown,
making academic research and develop-
ment (R&D) very different from industrial
R&D.
Yet, this nature of academia has allowed
it to anticipate and prepare futuristic and
disruptive technologies.
Startups on the other hand live and
operate in the present. Solving present-day
problems usually necessitates mission-
centric R&D.
The bridge between academia and
startups must be engineered carefully to
ensure achievement of mutually beneficial
outcomes. Academia and startups must
work closely to identify problematic areas
and prioritise those which have both com-
mercial and academic value.
A closely related index would be the
PhD to startup spin-off ratio, which must
be increased significantly. Institutes like
MIT, Harvard etc have obviously mastered
this art, while closer to home, institutes
like IIT Madras and IIT Kanpur have done
a commendable job creating this link. India
needs at least 10 hubs of this kind in order
for the academia-startup supercomplex to
flourish.
Academia and startups are conduits
that transport two of humanity’s greatest
gifts — the ability to imagine and the will

Dr Ranajay Ghosh is currently
an Assistant Professor at
University of Central Florida
(USA). He tweets at @
ranajayghosh
Dr Aloke Kumar is currently an
Assistant Professor at Indian
Institute of Science, Bangalore.
He tweets at @aalokelab
to seek. A resonance of the two can work
miracles for any nation and at the moment
the academia-startup supercomplex is
possibly the only ray of hope for Bharat as
it lags other nations severely in terms of
technological growth in almost all areas.
In the US, about 50 per cent of employ-
ment is generated by small businesses.
A successful take-up of the academia-
startup supercomplex can rid this nation
of jugaadism, price hyper-consciousness
(as opposed to quality consciousness), skill
deficits and job crisis.
Whether the academia-startup super-
complex is able to grow exponentially or is
eventually limited by an asymptote will be
strongly dependent on free market access.
India is a strange cocktail of social-
istic and capitalistic systems. A large
proportion of businesses are government
controlled, making government one of the
most important buyers.
Startups have to scale up, and govern-
ment must focus on facilitating their
growth. Current government bureaucratic
red-tape and opaque purchasing models
will arrest the flight of this bird of hope in
mid-air and force it to crash land.
It is imperative that government begins
to simplify norms and purchasing process-
es while strengthening the audit process to
allow our startups to succeed.
The article expresses the personal opin-
ion of the authors. They would especially
like to thank Prof Amitabha Bandyopad-
hyay (IIT Kanpur) and Rahul Raj for help-
ful discussions.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 25
COVER STORY
INTO THAT HEAVEN OF INNOVATION
‘Publish or perish’ policies will not deliver a culture of innovation. For that, research- and
innovation-oriented students have to be brought into the system early on.
W
hen resources are limited
it is creativity and its first
cousin, innovation that
allows us to get ahead by
achieving more with less. In practical
terms, it translates into the importance
of research and development (R&D) in
corporates, or its precursor, research in
academia. Which is why ‘publish or per-
ish’ has been the guiding mantra for those
seeking tenure — or permanent employ-
ment — in US academic institutions.
Since the US is the fountainhead of the
most innovative ideas in STEM (science,
technology, engineering and mathemat-
ics) and related disciplines there must be
a positive correlation between innovation
and publications. This is the logic used
in China, where it is mandatory for all
academicians to be prolific in publishing
papers.
This policy has resulted in interesting
26 D E CE M B ER 2019
developments.
PRITHWIS MUKERJEE
First, China — and Chinese research-
ers embedded in US academia — lead the
world in terms of the sheer number of
papers published.
Second, a large number of these papers
have been found to be of poor quality if not
actually fraudulent.
Third, and most interestingly, China
still needs to employ thousands of hack-
ers to break into and steal industrial and
scientific knowledge from US companies
and institutions. This weakens the linkage
between published research and real in-
novation.
Perhaps, China is doing phenomenally
well in fundamental research but until we
have greater transparency through the
Bamboo Curtain, we remain sceptical.
This lack of correlation between pub-
lication and innovation is an outcome of
Goodhart’s Law, first enunciated by the
 British economist in 1975: “Any observed
This obsession statistical regularity will tend to collapse
with publications once pressure is placed upon it for control
masquerading as purposes”. Marilyn Strathern puts it more
succinctly — “When a measure becomes a
research has now
target, it ceases to be a good measure”.
infected Indian This means that while publications may
academia too. So be a good estimator of innovative think-
muchso,thatanIIM ing, when people are tasked to publish for
directorhasdecided the sake of employment it ceases to be an
thatactualteaching estimator of anything at all.
Anybody who has been in the vicinity of
mustbeoutsourced,
academic publishing would know that ac-
andfacultyfocuson ceptance of a paper for publication depends
writing papers. on (a) choice of an ‘acceptable’ subject (b)
the ‘methodology’ of research and ‘style’
of representing it and (c) the ‘literature re-
view’ and ‘references’ that weave a delicate
but readily perceptible network that cycles
through a self-sustaining ‘citation index’.
The originality of the idea or the
elegance of its implementation has little
impact on the acceptance of a paper in
a scholarly journal. As long as it looks,
walks and quacks like a duck — oops, like
an academic paper — then it must be an
academic paper worth publishing. [Public
disclosure — this author has only two
papers published in non-Indian academic
journals and so could have an issue with
sour grapes]
This obsession with publications mas-
querading as research has now infected
academia in India as well. So much so that
the director of one Indian Institute of Man-
agement, as holy a cow as one may find in
Indian academics, has decided that actual
teaching should be outsourced to contract
teachers while tenured faculty, freed from
such mundane distractions, should focus
on publishing papers. Which is actually
a joke because — at least in the area of
management — the ability to architect a
complex solution and execute a commer-
cially viable project is a far better evidence
of innovation than publishing a paper
based on dodgy data collection and P-value
based testing of pointless but statistically
significant hypotheses.
But unfortunately, university ranking
mechanisms and regulators like the Uni-
versity Grants Commission (UGC) and the
All India Council for Technical Education
(AICTE) have latched on to publications as
measures of excellence. Hence we are back
to this concept of publish or perish without
any thought to its correlation with genuine
innovation.
In fact, such borrowed measures of aca-
demic prowess have their roots — at least
in India — in the larger story of the lack of
innovation in the economy. Who decides
on what is meant to be a good student in
India?
First, academicians and then, more
importantly, corporate executives, mostly
engineering and management graduates,
who decide on whom to hire and from
which colleges. What is common to all
such decision-makers is not innovative or
original thinking but a history of having
cracked entrance examination in their
student days.
That is why they like examination
crackers, or people like them. The entire
edifice of corporate and academic India is
brimming, not with innovators, but with
those who have been able to game the
entrance examination system.
Entrance examinations like Common
Admission Test (CAT) and Joint Entrance
Examination (JEE) were once designed
as estimators of intellectual ability. But
again, in a perverse reaffirmation of
Goodhart’s Law, cracking these tests have
become the end goal for all students.
The JEE rank that was once a good
measure has now, after becoming a target,
become worthless in evaluation. Kids with
original ideas will never be able to game
the system with coaching classes and the
thought conditioning necessary to reach
the colleges that will take them to com-
panies that in turn could come up with
original ideas.
Hence Flipkart will always be a copy
of Amazon (without its cloud technology)
and Ola and Oyo will be copies of Uber and
Airbnb. Even when wildly successful, there
is nothing original in their products and
services. Nothing like Skype or WhatsApp,
let alone molten-salt nuclear reactors or
CRISPR will originate from them.
So is there an alternative? Is there
anything else that could seek out people
with raw and native talent? Is there a way
to eliminate artificially difficult entrance
examinations, like JEE, that only the best
coached and best prepared can crack? Once
upon a time, long long ago Class X and XII
marks were good estimators of talent but
with state boards competing to give 90 per
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 27
 cent to all, that option has been ruined.
What if the ‘percentile rank’, instead of
the absolute marks, in the normal Class
XII examination becomes the yardstick of
measurement for college entrance?
The immediate objection would be that
different boards with widely different num-
ber of students are not really comparable.
The top five percentile in a small board like
Tripura may not be comparable to the top
five percentile in a large state like Maha-
rashtra.
What if we mandate that everyone
should take the one, common national Cen-
tral Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)
Class XII examination? Either in addition
to the state board or as an alternative? This
may sound good but there is the danger of
rigid centralisation and the concomitant
spectre of a single point of failure.
What we could do instead is to redefine
the country in terms of education zones
and create a Zonal Board of Secondary
Examination (ZBSE) for each zone. This
will be analogous to the Indian Railway
network being managed through 16 rail-
way zones like Western, South Eastern,
East Central and so on.
Each such education zone will cover
more than one state and may even span
state boundaries depending on linguistic
and cultural similarities.
Each ZBSE will conduct its own Class
X, XII board examinations based on a syl-
labus that takes into account both national
perspectives and regional diversity and on
a schedule that reflects local convenience.
State boards would become irrelevant but
28 D E CE M B ER 2019
even if retained, students should be al-
lowed to take ZBSE examinations in their Instead of a top-
respective zones of domicile ‘irrespective downphilosophyof
of the schools that they physically attend’. publishorperish,a
With educational zones in place, the
bottom-upapproach
percentile marks in both ZBSE Class X,
XII examinations should be used as the
usingZBSEClassX,
primary selection criteria for admission to XII percentiles for
all central universities and all UGC-funded college entrance
institutions. wouldbeasuperior
In addition to the percentile on aggre- waytorecogniseand
gates, different disciplines like engineering
rewardtruetalentin
or liberal arts could use the percentiles on
specific subjects or groups of subjects. This
‘innovationnation’.
will free students from the need to sit for
any artificially-constructed aptitude test
for college entrance and instead, focus on
a traditional broad based, multi-subject
ZBSE school curriculum.
Recruiters from the author’s generation
have always used Class X, XII marks as an
effective measure to discriminate between
candidates and having ZBSE marks, that
ensure better parity across the country,
will reinforce this method. Colleges that
look for good placements will now have to
run after students with good ZBSE percen-
tiles instead of the other way around.
So truly good students will enter good
colleges, and then get good jobs or go for
research. Prithwis Mukerjee is an
Instead of a top-down philosophy of pub- engineer by education, a
lish or perish, a bottom-up approach using teacher by profession, a
ZBSE Class X, XII percentiles for college programmer by passion and
entrance would be a superior mechanism an imagineer by intention. He
to recognise and reward true talent in ‘the has recently published an Indic
innovation nation’. themed science fiction novel,
‘Chronotantra’.

“YES, THIS IS THE EDUCATION MINISTER
SPEAKING”
S Suresh Kumar has been in office as Education Minister of Karnataka for just 100 days. But,
in this period, he has been in the news both for his ideas as well as his actions.
“T
he last bell is the one that
HARSHA BHAT
all students look forward
to but that should not be
the case. Children should
await the morning bell and look forward
to school. This is the end we are working
towards.”
In less than 100 days of having taken
charge, schoolchildren across Karnataka
know this minister. They have the liberty
to pick up a phone and ‘complain’ as they
would to their favourite elder in the family.
They can have him stay in their schools
and have the problems fixed as they want
them fixed. All of this while he also ensures
that the students pull up their socks and
prepare for their exams.
His twitter handle (@nimmasuresh)
reflects his persona too as the Minister
for Primary and Secondary Education. S
Suresh Kumar is just that — nimmasuresh
(your suresh).
COVER STORY
It is surreal to witness a schoolteacher
from a remote rural school in the state
directly ring up the Education Minister
and complain about a non-cooperative
headmaster, who isn’t facilitating the setup
of LKG, UKG classes in the school.
“Sir awarannu transfer madi,” said the
teacher, requesting the headmaster (HM)
be transferred.
When the minister asked for details and
assured action, the teacher insisted that
the headmaster be transferred.
“Is it important that the said HM
be transferred or that LKG classes be
started?” asked the minister.
Taking down details of the school, he as-
sured that the school will have LKG, UKG
classes from the next academic year.
This is a unique live phone interaction
programme that the Education Minister
held with the teachers, students and the
general public of the state. Called ‘Sam-
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 29
 vedana’, the programme is intended to be
a fortnightly affair, where the minister is
available for conversations and addressing
issues that people face in schools.
But who can hold Kumar and his team
accountable for the promises they make or
actions they assure during these interac-
tions? “You can,” he says, “as the minutes
of the interactions will be logged”. All
details about the query, the response pro-
vided, the action plan and the progress in
the direction will be filed and also provided
to the audience in the next interaction,
which he intends to hold every fortnight.
“May be we will also update the same
on our website. That way people can track
and know how their issues are being ad-
dressed,” says Kumar.
For a state that boasts of having many of
the better higher education institutes of In-
dia, that Karnataka’s primary and second-
ary education has lagged isn’t flattering.
Government schools in the state have
especially been battling many an odd to
stay afloat with their numbers decreasing
every year.
The appointment of teachers had been
pending for years. Government schools,
especially Kannada medium ones, have
seen a steady reduction in the strength of
students. Many have shut down owing to
dismal number of students and unavail-
30 D E CE M B ER 2019
ability of teachers.
But all this is bound to change, says S His vision for
Suresh Kumar in an animated yet thought- education in
ful conversation.
Karnatakahesaysis,
From reducing the weight of schoolbags,
appointment of craft and physical educa-
“qualityeducation
tion teachers to the personal inspection of whichisaffordable
schools with the ‘shaala vastavya’ (school and accessible,
stay) and implementing the suggestions becauseeventoday
he gets during his interactions, to tweak- many of the rural
ing the new education policy that will be
children don’t
drafted by the Centre to suit the needs of
the state, Kumar sure is positive about
feel like attending
revamping the education scenario in the schools”.
state.
His vision for education in Karnataka
he says is, “quality education which is
affordable and accessible, because even
today many of the rural children don’t feel
like attending schools. So it is our motto
to make school a place where children feel
like attending.”
Since he has taken charge, the ministry
has been in the news almost every day.
“There were many lapses in the transfer
policy which we have tried fixing with
some major amendments after discussing
it with teachers and teacher organisations.
These amendments will be put in place
once we have our first session in January.
Over 10,500 primary school graduate teach-
ers were awaiting appointments for the last
 few years. This too was fast-tracked and
“All these years, the list has now been put out,” says Kumar.
we were facing a The other key focus of the ministry will
continuousdecline be to reduce the size of schoolbags, he says.
Remembering the words of author R K
in the number of
Narayan, who also expressed his concern
students. But for with regard to the weight of the bags in his
the first time in the only speech in Rajya Sabha, the minister
recent years, this assures to not just “come up with a formula
hasstopped.Instead to reduce the weight of the schoolbags but
there has been an also have one day of the week as a bag-less
day.”
increase of 2,000
He has also been touring the state, and
studentsalloverthe not just visiting schools but also spending
stateingovernment a night at certain schools in remote cor-
schools.” ners of the state to find out the issues that
plague them.
All his interactions so far, he believes,
have resulted in him receiving suggestions
that “no educationist could ever give”.
We have this conversation even as he
prepares for his second ‘shaala vastavya’
in a remote village called Gopinatham in
the border district of Chamrajanagar. This
village had been in the news for all the
wrong reasons during Veerappan’s era, he
tells Swarajya.
It’s not only about managing trends on
social media but coming up with practi-
cal solutions for the real world. The latest
instance of this being Kumar implement-
ing the idea of a ‘water bell’ in Karnataka
government schools after reading about it
on Twitter.
In government schools in Kerala, a bell
would be rung at 10.35 am, noon and at 2
pm. This would signal that it was time for
students to drink water. Staying hydrated
cannot be taken for granted in this part of
the world.
As news reports of this unique prac-
tice were brought to the attention of the
Karnataka Minister for Tourism, C T Ravi,
he tagged the Minister for Education, S
Suresh Kumar.
Within a week, the Commissioner
of Public Instruction had been asked to
formulate a plan to get this practice going
based on the situation in different districts.
Even the issue of Kannada medium
schools in the border district of Kerala has
been taken up. Kumar wrote a letter to the
Education Minister of Kerala to consider
the sensibilities and the needs of the bor-
der school.
“In Kasaragod, most of the people speak
only Kannada. Even when I go for election
campaign, my speeches will be in Kannada
only. So the students were right in demand-
ing that they want Kannada teachers,
which is why I wrote to the Kerala govern-
ment. I think the government has now
understood the need and reality and are
taking corrective steps,” says Kumar.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 31
 But Kannada schools in the state have
also not been in the best of shape. Many
have been shutting down over the years.
“All these years, we were facing a con-
tinuous decline in the number of students.
But for the first time in the recent years,
this has stopped. Instead there has been an
increase of 2,000 students all over the state
in government schools,” he says, adding
that it is also because of citizens them-
selves that the change is taking place.
He cheerfully shares instances of
schools that have been adopted by organi-
sations or individuals.
“Recently, I had been to a school in
Bantwal in Dakshina Kannada. The num-
ber there had once fallen to just 30. But the
villagers said, “we should somehow save
our village school; formed a committee,
adopted the school and after three years
the number in the schools has risen to 670,”
says Kumar, adding that the school is now
seeking to be a high school.
As for that part of school that most
students dread — exams — Kumar plans
to introduce exams Class VII onwards so
that the students are acquainted with them
and ‘fearlessly’ appear for their secondary
school leaving certificate (SSLC) exams.
“The exam hall is not a war field. Students
should see it as a sports ground and just
32 D E CE M B ER 2019
enjoy while giving their best there,” says
Kumar.
Coming to controversial issues like “Theexamhallisnot
Right to Education and the exclusion of awarfield.Students
Tipu Sultan from school textbooks, the should see it as a
minister says there isn’t any change in the
sportsgroundand
policy regarding the former while being
very vocal about the latter. Tipu in text-
just enjoy while
books would never be an issue of the scale giving their best
it is being made out to be, had it not been there,”saysKumar.
for the politics around the celebration of
Tipu Jayanti, which was scaled up by the
opposition.
“Tipu has been a controversial figure in
our state. People in Kodagu, Mangaluru,
Chitradurga, some places in Mandya have
very strong sense of anger and anguish
when it comes to Tipu. That is the reason,
one of our MLAs who comes from the
region, sought the exclusion and has pro-
vided a voluminous document supporting
it,” says Kumar.
The Department of State Educational
Research and Training will now examine
the documents and furnish a report based
on which it will be decided if and how Tipu
Sultan will make it to the school curricu-
lum in Karnataka.
Harsha Bhat is Senior
This is an abridged version of the minis- Sub-Editor and columnist,
ter’s interview. Swarajya.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 8

MAHARASHTRA IS NEW KARNATAKA?
State after state is throwing up this trend: grand alliances of non-NDAparties provide a boost
to the BJP rather than halt it.
T
he political math of today’s India
PRAVEEN PATIL
is at a unique position in history.
Very few people can recognise
this new beast, let alone compre-
hend it fully.
Let me try and explain this new math-
ematical paradigm using some simple
voting numbers.
In the 2019 parliamentary elections, the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured 1.8
crore (18 million) votes in Karnataka, a
quantum jump of nearly 50 lakh (5 million)
votes as compared to either the 2014 par-
liamentary elections or the 2018 assembly
elections.
Similarly, in the 80 parliamentary seats
of Uttar Pradesh, BJP accrued a total of
4.38 crore (43.8 million) votes, again a quan-
tum leap of nearly 1 crore (10 million) votes
from the 2014 elections.
In both Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh,
the BJP had done exceedingly well in the
POLITICS/BJP
2014 elections, so this new leap in 2019
came about from a high base and not a low
base.
In both these states, BJP secured 50 per
cent or more vote-share in the 2019 elec-
tions which meant that at least one out of
every two voters voted saffron.
Incidentally, both Karnataka and Uttar
Pradesh had witnessed a massive realign-
ment in the opposition political space.
Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) or
JD(S), erstwhile arch-rivals in Karnataka,
moulded a formidable alliance. Similarly,
the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan
Samaj Party (BSP), longtime political oppo-
nents in UP, had also joined hands (along
with the Rashtriya Lok Dal in western
parts of the state) with the express inten-
tion of defeating BJP and Narendra Modi.
As it turned out, these realignments,
instead of halting the BJP, gave it greater
political capital in the elections.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 33
 It is a fascinating aspect of this era of
saffron political hegemony in India.
During the post-Independence Congress
era, the Index of Opposition Unity (IOU)
was the most commonly deployed math-
ematical tool to measure the opposition’s
ability to trump the grand old party.
Today, IOU has been turned on its head,
for the new political mantra is — greater
the opposition’s unity, stronger the growth
of BJP.
The politics of Maharashtra too has not
remained untouched by this newly-formu-
lated electoral math of India. The coming
together of Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress
Party (NCP) and Congress has now vacated
a deeper socio-political space for the BJP to
grow in the state.
The media spectacle of Uddhav Thack-
eray, Sharad Pawar and the assorted
Congress leaders taking oath in the name
of Sonia Gandhi inside a five-star hotel
has already sent a powerful message to the
voters in the state. It is now just a matter
of time before the undercurrent of demo-
graphic shift occurs in Maharashtra.
Shiv Sena’s presence in Maharashtra is
largely limited to the Mumbai-Konkan belt.
A significant section of the Sena support-
base comes from ideological persuasions
— the party’s governance track record is
tardy at best, as symbolised by the various
corporations that it controls, including the
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation
(BMC).
Whether it is the core Hindu voter or
the agitational ‘Maratha Manoos’, both
these groups will soon be disillusioned by
the tight control of Congress over Sena’s
passion politics. In fact, quite a few of the
Sena voters are now angered by the party’s
sudden shift to the left. The drift will begin
sooner than expected.
Already Uddhav Thackeray has
betrayed nerves. Unlike Bala Saheb, who
wielded all his power from Matoshree,
Uddhav Thackeray has had to reach out to
five-star hotels to cobble up a coalition.
Power in an organisation like that of the
Sena comes with pure conviction. If that
conviction weakens, the organisation itself
begins to lose power.
We witnessed something similar in Kar-
nataka after the 2018 state elections. The
Gowda family there had been historically
holding sway over the Vokkaliga com-
34 D E CE M B ER 2019
munity in the Old Mysore region. Yet, the
Vokkaligas abandoned the JD(S) in 2019, Thecomingtogether
despite the fact that their own man, H D of Shiv Sena,
Kumaraswamy, was the chief minister of NationalistCongress
the state.
Party (NCP) and
As Uddhav Thackeray begins his
journey of compromises, Maharashtra
Congresshasnow
will display the same political current as vacated a deeper
Karnataka did. socio-politicalspace
If that is the fate of the Shiv Sena, NCP’s fortheBJPtogrowin
situation is no better. the state.
Contrary to all the narrative of how
Sharad Pawar has revived the party in this
election, the fact is that NCP’s vote-share
has remained stagnant and regionally lim-
ited. If the Pawar-led outfit has still man-
aged to win a decent haul of legislators, it
is owing to just two factors: One, the severe
weather conditions of the state, drought
followed by floods, which had created an
undercurrent of anti-incumbency; and
second some serious strategic errors by the
BJP (especially in some dozen odd seats
where it lost despite being ahead before the
elections).
Now that NCP will be forming a tripar-
tite government, the tug-of-war within will
soon unfold in front of our eyes.
Maharashtra today offers the best pos-
sible scenario for the BJP to grow expo-
nentially in a short period of time. This
was a state where the party had stagnated
between the 25 and 30 per cent mark (vote-
share) for the last five years.
Now, unencumbered by any alliance
pressures, the party can virtually double
its presence in under five years as it has
done in UP and other parts of India. This
saffron growth will again be powered by
the strength of the IOU.
Let me elucidate this growth trajectory
through a five-point political analysis.
1. When different opposition parties
unite, it leads to political friction within
that opens up substantial gaps for the BJP.
For instance, if Ajit Pawar is now
sidelined, he will have little incentive to
remain within this three-party alliance —
we also have definitive information that
at least 21 NCP MLAs are deeply discom-
forted by this alliance and are just biding
their time to strike. Such a disquiet will be
true of legislators of all three parties in the
alliance.
2. Historically, antagonistic political
parties coming together means attrition of
 votes and not addition! This is the key to
understand today’s political scenario.
For example, for a big chunk of Sched-
uled Caste (SC) voters in UP, phool (mean-
Whether it is the ing lotus, the symbol of BJP) is the second-
core Hindu voter choice preference where haathi (elephant,
or the agitational the symbol of BSP) is absent and not cycle
‘MarathaManoos’, (SP symbol).
This holds true to Maharashtra too. A
boththesegroups
big chunk of Sena voters are intrinsically
will soon be antagonistic to Congress/NCP and vice-
disillusioned by versa.
the tight control of BJP, being the sole opposition vote
CongressoverSena’s magnet will ensure that this attrition
passion politics. vote shifts en masse towards it (minus,
of course, the Muslims who will begin to
gravitate towards parties like All India
Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen).
3. BJP is the only big tent Hindu party
today that goes beyond caste arithmetic.
For a large section of upper castes, Other
Backward Classes and SCs of Maharashtra,
who will soon begin to feel the dominance
of the Maratha lobby, turning into a deeper
hue of saffron will be the only logical
choice.
4. Regional disparities will aid BJP
further as Uddhav Thackeray is essentially
a Mumbai leader with no connect to vast
swaths of the state. Since BMC elections
are also due in two years and it is the one
region where the Sena has to maintain its
Praveen Patil is founder and patronage network, the government will
CEO of 5Forty3 Datalabs. most likely be skewed towards Mumbai
and surrounding areas.
Again, something similar happened in
Karnataka between 2018 and 2019 when
Kumaraswamy was seen as catering only
to the Old Mysore region at the cost of the
rest of the state.
5. BJP today is the largest political party
with crores of workers and strong network
of volunteers spread far and wide. When in
power, large parts of this political network
turn dormant. It is only when the party is
pushed to the wall that this network gets
strongly activated.
This is the true strength of the party
both on the ground as well as on social
media which will now come to play in
Maharashtra.
The leadership of BJP also has to realise
the full import of the 2019 mandate and
create cohesive political opportunities for
the party to grow unilaterally, shunning
alliances as far as possible.
For instance, had the party fought
Maharashtra on its own, it stood a much
better chance of reaching closer to the
150-seat mark in the state. Nearly 20 BJP
rebels have also made it to the assembly,
highlighting the mistake of an alliance
with Shiv Sena.
(You will find a deeper analysis of vari-
ous facets of India’s politics today, like the
changing contours of IOU, in my upcoming
book, ‘2019 The Election Story’).
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 35
PAN-INDIA NRC
A SMOOTH SCAN
There is little doubt that a nationwide NRC will be highly disruptive, unless it is structured
well. Here is how it can be made simpler and less disruptive, even painless for most citizens.
H
ome Minister Amit Shah
has repeatedly asserted that
India will create a nationwide
National Register of Citizens
(NRC). In principle, no one can object to
any country wanting to generate a proper
list of its citizens, who are entitled to all
the rights and responsibilities that come
with it. Non-citizens and illegals should be
entitled only to the basic protection of life
and liberty — and humane treatment —
when residing in India.
An NRC makes sense only if it is
national in nature — as the botched As-
sam NRC shows. If non-citizens left out
of the Assam list merely run off to some
other state and settle down, it would be a
mockery of the law. Non-citizens have to be
identified everywhere, even if they are not
to be deported.
So, if West Bengal Chief Minister Mama-
ta Banerjee says that she will not allow an
36 D E CE M B ER 2019
NRC to be conducted in the state, she is
R JAGANNATHAN
either afraid of what it might throw up, or
being deliberately obstructive of the law.
The Centre must move the courts to ensure
compliance.
That said, there is little doubt that a
nationwide NRC will be highly disruptive,
unless it is structured well. Here is how it
can be made simpler and less disruptive,
even painless for most citizens.
First, the government should set a
common cutoff year as close to the present
as possible. If, say, the cutoff year is set
as 2014, anyone with documents showing
birth, residency, property ownership,
or schooling in India before 2002 should
automatically qualify. This is because
one becomes a citizen by naturalisation if
one is ordinarily resident in India for 12
years. This cutoff, even though it will allow
millions of illegals to become citizens by
virtue of having documents dated before
 2002, is a small price to pay for making the
process smooth.
What the NRC should attempt to do is
Using artificial prevent further arrivals of illegal migrants.
intelligenceanddata Past arrivals cannot easily be wished away
analytics,itshould without causing needless human misery
and also disrupting micro-economies in the
bepossibletomatch
states where the illegals reside and work.
residentssuspected The problem in Assam was the cutoff year
ofbeingBangaldeshi of 1971, which made it near impossible for
citizensfairlyeasily many to get documents that went so far
using multiple back in the past.
databases. Second, one should — to the extent
possible — combine the process of the
2021 Census with NRC document collec-
tion from households. Since Census 2021
will kick off from September 2020, there
is enough time to tell people to get their
documents ready and hand them over for
verification to Census workers, who can
then remit them to the designated tribu-
nals or benches that look into the validity
of the documents.
Third, make the process totally docu-
ment-free in some cases. As at the end of
2017, for example, the Ministry of Exter-
nal Affairs had issued nearly 74 million
passports to citizens, about whom there
should be no doubts about citizenship. It
would make sense to take these records as
correct without the need for passport hold-
ers to produce any additional documents.
Children of passport holders should, again,
automatically qualify as citizens, as long as
they have birth certificates with them.
There could be other records, especially
property and school and college admission
records, which can be accessed by the NRC
officials for confirmation of citizenship
without the need for additional documenta-
R Jagannathan is Editorial tion.
Director, Swarajya Fourth, technology should be used ex-
tensively for verification. There are digital
lockers that house many documents, from
driving licences to college degrees and
insurance policies. If citizens are told right
now to get all their documents authenticat-
ed in digital lockers, all they would need to
do is provide access to this documentation
when the NRC happens.
The DigiLocker is currently underused,
and states seeking an NRC should be asked
to bring more of their own documents
under digital record-keeping between now
and September 2020, when the Census will
begin.
Fifth, it would be worthwhile to get the
support of the Bangladeshi government
and get authenticated copies of their own
voter and citizenship records. If Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina is guaranteed that
no involuntary deportation will take place,
and those Bangladeshis currently residing
in India illegally will only be struck off
voter lists and denied benefits like subsi-
dies available only to citizens, she could be
persuaded to cooperate.
In any event, since the main suspicion
is that the bulk of the illegal immigration
is from Bangladesh, the focus should be on
maximum scrutiny of those with this iden-
tity. Using artificial intelligence and data
analytics, it should be possible to match
residents suspected of being Bangaldeshi
citizens fairly easily using multiple data-
bases.
The Citizenship Amendment Bill, which
seeks to grant citizenship for persecuted
Hindus who have entered India illegally
upto 2014, is a necessary adjunct to the
NRC.
If an NRC has to be done, it should be
done painlessly, without making it highly
disruptive.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 37
BUSTING NARRATIVES/AYODHYA

SUPREME TAKE DOWN

An addendum to the SC’s judgement on the Ayodhya dispute rightly takes down leftist
historians for distorting the facts of the case.

T
he perfidies of leftist historians
on the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri
Masjid land dispute are well
known.
For decades, they constantly tried to
mislead the country on this issue and
played to the Islamist gallery in total dis-
regard for facts, thereby not only doing a
great disservice to their profession but also
weakening the social fabric of the nation.
If it weren’t for their machinations, it
would have been easier for the Muslim side
to reach an amicable solution with Hindus
and saved everyone a lot of agony.
K K Muhammad, former regional direc- ARIHANT PAWARIYA
tor of the Archaeological Survey of India
(ASI), had said that, “the Babri issue would
have been settled long ago if the Muslim
intelligentsia had not fallen prey to the
brain-washing by leftist historians”.
Every time that their lies were exposed
by hard evidence, they invented new
ones and shifted goalposts. Before the ASI
started excavations, they said there was
“no evidence of any ruins” beneath the
Babri mosque.

38 D E CE M B ER 2019
 When digging at the site actually
In May 1991, four unearthed columns and pillars on which
the mosque was raised, they said there was
Lefthistorians—R
“no evidence that ruins belonged to an erst-
SSharma,MAthar while temple” and that “those could very
Ali, D N Jha and well be from a mosque or a stupa”. Then
Suraj Bhan — had they said those could have been “planted
puttogetherareport from outside”.
titled “Historian’s And on and on they went until their
manufactured mansion of falsehood im-
reporttothenation”
ploded with the presentation of irrefutable
in a bid to counter facts.
thewidelypopular The Allahabad High Court, in 2010,
campaign of the while delivering its judgement had taken
VHP. these ‘expert’ historians to task for mis-
leading the public.
In its verdict of 9 November, the
Supreme Court has also called out their
distortions.
In May 1991, four left historians — R S
Sharma, M Athar Ali, D N Jha and Suraj
Bhan — had put together a report titled
“Historian’s report to the nation” in a bid
to counter the widely popular campaign of
the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
The report contained several errone-
ous assertions which were first put in the
dock by the Allahabad High Court in 2010
and have now been discredited by the apex
court.
One of the five judges had dealt with the
historians’ report in detail in the addenda.
The report claimed that, “our study
shows neither any evidence of the exist-
ence of a temple on the site of Babri Masjid
nor of the destruction of any other struc-
ture there prior to the construction of the
mosque.”
Muslim side advocate Rajeev Dhawan
relied on the report to make his case that
there was no evidence even in scriptures to
show that the janmasthan is the same place
which is the site of the disputed structure.
But the court refers to shlokas 18 to
25 of Chapter X of Ayodhya Mahatmya of
Skanda Purana and finds that as per shlo-
kas, janmasthan is “situated to the east of
Vighnesvara, to the north of Vasistha, and
to the west of Laumasa”.
The court has further relied on state-
ments of Mahant Ram Chandra, Jagadguru
Ramanandacharya, Swami Rambhad-
racharya, Mahant Ram Vilas Das Vedanti,
Swami Avimuktswaranand Saraswati and
those of the witnesses produced by Muslim
parties to conclude that even though clear
boundaries have not been given of the
Ram Janmabhoomi, indications have been
given about the legends situated on east-
ern, western and northern side and how to
reach the Ram Janmabhoomi. These are
“sufficient indication to locate the Ram
Janma Bhoomi.”
The judgement notes that, “the report
jumped to the conclusion that it is even
doubtful that belief (of Janmasthan is same
as the disputed structure) is earlier than
the late eighteenth century.”
The report claimed that Ayodhya Ma-
hatmya of Skanda Purana was composed
towards the end of the eighteenth century
or the beginning of the nineteenth century.
But the addenda notes that this view
cannot be accepted as P V Kane has clearly
established that Skanda Purana “cannot
be placed earlier than seventh century and
not later than ninth century A.D.”.
In fact, one of the leftist historians,
Shirin Musavi, who deposed as a witness
in the court herself, admitted to Skanda
Purana belonging to the ninth century AD.
The historians’ report, while record-
ing the legends mentioned in the Ayodhya
Mahatmya of Skanda Purana, refers to
“Laumasa” with present Rin Mochan Ghat.
The Supreme Court labels this identifica-
tion as “palpably wrong”.
The judgement notes that in the site
plan and map prepared by Court Com-
missioner (which was relied on by the
Allahabad High Court), Laumasa is south-
eastern corner of janmabhoomi and not
Rin Mochan Ghat, which is on the banks
of Saryu.
The report tried to play down the impor-
tance of the janmasthan in scriptures too,
stating that 100 verses in Skanda Purana
were dedicated to Swargdwar Tirth,
while only eight verses were dedicated to
janmasthan. The Supreme Court notes that
this in no way dilutes the importance of
janmasthan.
In a scathing indictment of the report,
the author of the addenda junks it as “noth-
ing but objection to the case of the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad”.
“The report, thus, has been prepared as
the counter to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
case, which itself suggests that the four
historians had not treated the entire sub-
ject dispassionately and objectively,” the
addenda concludes.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 39
 Though the rebuke in the main judge-
ment is mild, where the judges say that the
Allahabad High Court was harsh on these
historians because they did “not have the
benefit of inspecting the material on the ba-
sis of which Dr B B Lal had conducted his
research in 1979”. However, these histori-
ans weren’t even interested in the findings
of Professor Lal.
Dr Lal had found bases sustaining
pillars, south of the Babri Masjid during
excavations in 1975-1976.
In their report, the historians dismissed
this saying that “there is nothing to show
that the pillar bases existing at a distance
of about 60 ft to the south of the Babri
Masjid structure are in alignment with the
pillars used in the Babri Masjid. In fact, no
importance can be attached to the struc-
ture postulated on the strength of the pillar
bases.”
40 D E CE M B ER 2019
He was derisively dismissed as a ‘Hin-
dutva’ archaeologist. In fact, Dr Lal had But as massive
to publish his findings in a Sangh-leaning excavationscarried
publication, Manthan, in the 1990s rather
out by the ASI in
than in mainstream research papers.
But as massive excavations carried
2003haveprovedDr
out by the ASI in 2003 have proved Dr Lal Lal right, the apex
right, the apex court said that the “Histo- court said that the
rian’s report cannot be relied upon”. “Historian’sreport
Today, those leftist historians stand dis- cannot be relied
credited. The highest court’s commentary
upon”.Today,those
on their report is the final nail in the coffin
of their narrative.
leftist historians
The humiliation meted out to these standdiscredited.
eminent historians, first at the High Court
and later at the Supreme Court, is richly
deserved.
They sacrificed their professionalism at
the altar of ideology. They treated history
with disdain. Now, it’s time for history to Arihant Pawariya is Senior
return the favour. Editor, Swarajya.

AFTER THE VERDICT, VIKAS
To be sure, the Yogi Adityanath administration has been giving Ayodhya the attention it
deserves. But it is the Ram temple which likely holds the key to its overall transformation.
I
had the good fortune of visiting Ayod-
ARIHANT PAWARIYA
hya on Diwali last year (7 November)
and having darshan of Ram Lalla
under the tent protected by rings and
rings of military personnel in the 70-acre
complex including the disputed 2.77 acres
on which the Supreme Court pronounced
its verdict on 9 November.
While talking to the locals — be they
saints, shopkeepers or commoners (includ-
ing Muslim residents), it became obvi-
ous that the decades-long mandir-masjid
dispute had become the primary stumbling
block in Ayodhya’s development.
It was akin to imposing Article 370 on
the city.
Article 370, which became synonymous
with keeping Jammu and Kashmir poor
and backward since the mid-1950s, was
recently revoked by Parliament.
Now, by declaring a clear verdict in
favour of building the temple, the judici-
AYODHYA/RAM JANMABHOOMI
ary has lifted Article 370-like conditions in
Ayodhya and opened the doors to the city’s
transformation.
During my visit last year, I met the head
of Ayodhya Saints Committee, Mahant
Kanhaiyadas Ramayani. He explained how
the city’s development was obstructed due
to the Ram Janmabhoomi dispute:
Anyone who has been to Ayodhya would
testify to the backwardness. Mahatma
Gandhi, who envisioned that the modern
independent Indian state follow the ideals
of Shri Ram also had ‘Ram Rajya’ in mind.
He was instrumental in popularising
the term in the political discourse of the
nation. In this regard, it’s the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) which has taken the
baton from Gandhi and is running with it.
But for seven decades, the modern Indian
state ignored Ayodhya, let alone caring
about Ram Rajya.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 41

Only in 2017, when the BJP came to pow-
er in Uttar Pradesh and Yogi Adityanath
became Chief Minister, did this ancient
city start getting some attention.
Between 2002 and 2017, UP chief minis-
ters Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati and
Akhilesh Yadav wouldn’t even visit Ayo-
dhya, let alone announce any big develop-
ment works for this important city.
On the other hand, Adityanath has been
to Ayodhya 18 times in the past two-and-a-
half years alone.
Ayodhya was merely a municipal
council when he took the reins of the state.
It was first declared as a corporation in
December 2017 and later, Faizabad district
was named as Ayodhya, last Diwali. This
move alone has opened many doors for the
city’s development.
The Adityanath government has been
organising grand Deepotsav celebrations
every Diwali when the entire city is lit up
and decorated like no other in India.
This event has put Ayodhya back on
the country’s map and people from all over
have started visiting to witness the celebra-
42 D E CE M B ER 2019
tion, which goes on for many days.
The local economy has also got a fillip Between 2002
due to the government’s efforts to give it a and 2017, UP
facelift. chief ministers
Before 2017, power supply in Ayodhya
Mulayam Singh
was erratic and hours-long electricity cuts
were the norm. But now, the government is
Yadav, Mayawati
supplying power round-the-clock. andAkhileshYadav
The water at the famous Ram Ki Paudi wouldn’tevenvisit
is now fresh and flows uninterrupted un- Ayodhya,letalone
like earlier when it used to stink and the announceprojects
steps on the paudi remained dirty.
for this important
After the city got municipal corporation
status, waste disposal and cleaning drives
city.Adityanathhas
have helped improve the swachhta at all changed all that.
important places.
The government is installing LED lights
at all vantage points to ensure illumination
at night.
New ghats are being built (such as at
Guptar Ghar) and the old ones are being
repaired. Roads which had turned into nar-
row lanes due to encroachment by shops
and shanties have been cleared in some
parts of the city.
Main roads are also being widened.
Sewage facilities and waste management,
 which were non-existent until a couple of
Ayodhya people years ago, are coming up too.
believe that while A new medical college named after Raja
theRamtemplewill Dashrath started classes this year. The
attract the pious Adityanath government has already prom-
andthedevout,the ised to convert the airstrip in Ayodhya
into a full-fledged airport and has allocated
statue will woo the
money for the same in the latest budget as
tourists.It’sadouble well.
bonanza for the The land acquisition for the same is cur-
region’seconomy. rently under way.
Incidentally,workon The state government has announced
theRamstatuehas plans to build a ‘New Ayodhya’ township
on 500 acres, close to the banks of the
already begun.
Sarayu. This will stretch into neighbouing
villages and the township will have resi-
dential areas, luxury hotels, public spaces,
parks, temples and shopping arcades.
The government has already started
work on building the world’s tallest statue
of Shri Ram (221 metres) on the Sarayu
riverfront.
It will have a museum attached to it.
The complex comprising of a statue and
a museum will be spread over 150 acres,
Arihant Pawariya is Senior more than double the size of the Ram tem-
Editor, Swarajya. ple complex.
Ayodhya people believe that while the
Ram temple will attract the pious and devo-
tees, the statue will woo the tourists.
It’s a double bonanza for the region’s
economy.
Now, with the Ram temple on its way,
the city’s fortunes are sure to turn for the
better.
How?
Shubham Gupta, a shopkeeper who
runs a carpet-and-drape shop near Raja
Janak Mahal, told me last year that,
“Now, only 5,000 to 10,000 people come
for a darshan (view) of Ram Lalla. If
the temple is built, it will be like a mela
(carnival) every day here, and the num-
ber of devotees coming to Ayodhya will
multiply. This will give a great fillip to the
local economy and tourism. Many facili-
ties will develop with the increase in the
demand. Presently, we don’t even have a
decent hotel here. Tourists have to stay in
Faizabad.”
Article 370 on Ayodhya has been re-
pealed by the judiciary. Vikas will follow.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 43
THE STATUE OF UNITY
IRON TEAM FOR IRON MAN
What ideas and efforts went into the construction of the enormous and enormously
important, Statue of Unity?
W
hen Vinita Kapur was
young, she would doodle
and solve puzzles. That
childhood dream led her
to getting a PhD in architecture from the
University of Pennsylvania. After all, in
her own words, “isn’t architecture itself
nothing but a ginormous 3D visual puzzle
with an aesthetic slant?” Little did she
know that she would have the supreme
honour of working on the Sardar Vallabhb-
hai Patel statue as director, India Projects
at Michael Graves Architecture & Design
in Princeton, New Jersey.
Michael Graves Architecture & Design
44 D E CE M B ER 2019
(MGA&D), the global architecture and
RAKESH KAUL
design firm, went into the statue bid-
ding process as part of a consortium that
included Turner Construction as project
manager, and Meindhart as structural
engineers. It was the very first project that
MGA&D would work on in India, and it
was a project that they knew was guaran-
teed to see the light of day. The team was
filled with exhilaration at the prospect of
designing a famous historical project of
national importance and significance.
MGA&D’s brand statement, ‘We Create
Designs that Strike the Senses’ gives the
first insight as to how they approached this
 ginormous assignment. The ancient writer
The statue was Narayana couldn’t agree more. He main-
to serve as a tained that no sentiment (rasa) would arise
remembrancethat if it was not triggered by a sense of marvel-
ling by the self, implying that wonder (adb-
Patel’s unification huta) was basic to all emotions. French
of the states into philosopher Rene Descartes similarly said
the Dominion that wonderment or a ‘sudden surprise to
of India was the the soul’ was basic to all emotions.
single biggest
achievementofthe In The Pursuit Of Realness
When she sat down for an interview, Vinita
firstGovernmentof Kapur stressed that the priority in creat-
India. ing the Sardar Patel statue was to ensure
that the experience was to be real, not
abstract, not synthetic, not idealised. Real
is what would lead to instant recognition
of Patel’s towering idea that “Manpower
without Unity is not strength unless it is
harmonized and…. united properly, then
it becomes a spiritual power”. The statue
was to serve as a remembrance that Patel’s
unification of the states into the Dominion
of India was the single biggest achievement
of the first Government of India. Even the
naming of the statue was not after the man
but after the narrative of unity that he was
a symbol of.
Unity is always accompanied by uni-
versality. Notwithstanding the allegations
of small minds that this initiative was
aggrandisement on the part of a sectarian
‘Hindu’ government, the statue itself was
designed shorn of all traditional mudras,
religious and regional symbols or mean-
ings, as befitted the great man.
Real also meant a search for the tradi-
tional garb of Sardar Patel, down to the
detail of his sandal-clad feet and exposed
ankles. Patel has been given the honorific
of the Iron Man. So, iron was collected from
citizens across India and laid inside the
foundation of the statue. Then earth was
collected from all the states and districts
in India. A rammed earth wall has been
built with layers of this earth, and acts as a
backdrop for the flagpole with the national
flag of India and the motto engraved on it:
United India Best India. Simple but true. If
one wants to see mere desh ki dharti in one
place this is it, this is it.
The search for real took the MGA&D
team to museums. Ultimately, the
Ahmedabad airport which houses the Sard-
ar Patel statue by the sculptor Ram V Sutar
became the model prototype. The team had
found their man. Padma Bushan awardee
Ram Sutar is a legend who has created
more than 50 world-class sculptures. He
and his son Anil joined the team, modelled
the statue at a relatively small size and
eventually worked up to a 30‐foot tall ver-
sion. The statue is a made in India design
and made by ‘superstar’ Sutar. From this
physical model, two full‐size digital models
were created.
This phase required skilled artists and
fabricators to adjust the details of the face,
body and clothing so that they could be
read from a distance. MGA&D retained
a conceptual digital sculptor, Joseph
Menna, in the US. The statue was planned
to be 182 metres (597 feet) high, nearly 50
storeys tall. Creating this digital model
demonstrated in 3D how the statue would
be viewed as a tall building and how the
building elements would function within
an envelope.
The Construction Challenges
The design elements had now taken shape.
As Karen Nichols, principal of MGA&D put
it: “Our task was to create a concept design
for the statue and the rest of the develop-
ment in enough detail so that it could be
executed by an EPC (engineering-procure-
ment‐construction) team.”
This was the beginning of the stressful
phase of the project. There were two types
of stress: the first was of dealing with a
relatively scarce and unknown typology
and the process of construction. The sec-
ond was about the construction problems
and issues that arose based on choices
made regarding the statue. The Turner‐
Meinhardt‐Graves team provided the basis
of design for bid to an EPC contractor that
would further develop the design and ex-
ecute the project. The selected project con-
struction/delivery team was led by Indian
engineering giant Larsen & Toubro (L&T)
and included Woods Bagot as the executing
architect and ARUP as the structural and
mechanical engineers.
Two special challenges confronted the
combined team. The statue is thinner at
the base than at upper levels (the opposite
of most monumental statuary). This chal-
lenged L&T’s engineering team to design
the structure to withstand wind and earth-
quakes, necessitating two large tuned mass
dampers (harmonic absorbers) above chest
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 45
 height to reduce vibrations and minimise visually display the story of Patel uniting
sway. 500+ states into a united India on a lighted
The other issue was adopting a process shawl. On the podium, the team had
of construction that was feasible. Hung on discussed planting another narrative: The
the two concrete cores are large steel space no tax campaign and returning land to the
frames to which the bronze panels are farmers by the British-
attached. The bronze panels are assembled ers; placed in objects
in a mock‐up area in a series of rings that at the feet of the
are supported by the space frames attached statue. Finally, in
to the concrete cores. The rings are each the interior spaces
tested for fit on the ground, which allows of the museum more
the workers to make any final adjustments historical narratives
before the panels are craned into place on were contemplated.”
the statue. Once the section is measured, I asked Vinita as to
adjusted and approved, the panels are sepa- how she had changed
rated into manageable sections and lifted after this experience?
one by one into place. The most challeng- “On a professional
ing aspect was that the statue is a double level, an intense
curve at every segment. respect for collabo-
ration in archi-
The Vista And The Visual Impact tecture, and a
The views out of the statute are carefully willingness
coordinated. The openings in the surface to enter into
of the statue that allow the visitors to see relatively
out are coordinated in the pattern of the unknown
threads in his tunic in order to minimise territories,”
the visual impact of this large opening on she replied,
the exterior of the statue. One of the but- adding, “on
tons in Sardar Patel’s tunic is purposely a personal
located within the open area of the obser- level, a deep
vation level at an elevation of 193 metres admiration
so that visitors can get a sense of the scale for Sardar
even when standing inside the statue. Patel and
Another portion of the gallery is open to his role in
the wind and weather, enhancing the visi- uniting India
tor’s experience and the sense of height, at Independ-
while providing a grand vista of the Sardar ence.” Rakesh
Sarovar Dam and river without any inter- I saluted Kaul was
vening glass. There would be an opening of Vinita Kapur a founding
the mind from the panoramic views of the and through contributor
Narmada River, the Sardar Sarovar Dam her all her to the first Chair
and reservoirs, the lush Shoolpaneshwar team mates of India Studies
Wildlife Sanctuary and surrounding moun- and collaborators at University of
tain ranges. who have created a California Berkeley,
Best of all, the statue is a living statue marvel for the ages. the Center for the
in the sense that it will keep on growing as When you visit Advanced Study of
more narratives and stories are added to it. the Sardar statue, India at University
Vinita Kapur said, “at the ideation stage, visit you must, and of Pennsylvania
MGA&D thought of showcasing history if you happen to see and the Mattoo
in a manner that is visible in the facade, a young girl rest- Center for India
the podium and interior spaces in the first ing on the grass and Studies at The
phase. In the future phases, the streets and doodling, pay atten- State University
plazas could also showcase some histories, tion. There is a future of New York. He is
including through India’s own special wonder of wonders the author of the
street theatre and dance mediums. On the ginormous dreamer bestseller ‘The Last
skin — the shawl — MGA&D wanted to there. Queen of Kashmir’.

46 D E CE M B ER 2019
 21 MILESTONES FOR INDIA IN 21ST
CENTURY SO FAR
As we stand at the gates of 2020, few would have foreseen the India of today at the
beginning of the millennium. Here are the 21 most important events of India’s journey so far
this century.

48 D E CE M B ER 2019
 “H
istory is that certainty
AASHISH CHANDORKAR
produced at the point
where the imperfec-
tions of memory meet
the inadequacies of documentation,” said
Julian Barnes, English author, in his book
The Sense of an Ending, for which he won
the Man Booker prize.
One way to address this shortcoming
is to document contemporary history —
events which are not too old to research
and not too recent to bemoan or celebrate.
Reflecting on the two decades gone by of
the twenty-first century, there are several
such events which took place impacting
India’s destiny, which merit a recall. It is
common to underestimate the impact of
Two decades is events which have happened long back,
not a long time while overestimating the impact of fresh
in the history and events. Recency effect is one of the most
the destiny of a common psychological biases. However, a
country.Especially two-decade window to reflect upon impact-
ful events is quite ideal — not too long, not
for a civilisational too short.
state like India, Here is the list of 21 events from the
where 72 years of twenty-first century, which have shaped
modernnation-state and influenced India the most.
existence are still
being reconciled The Vajpayee-Musharraf Agra Summit
(July 2001)
withthethousands The Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National
ofyearsof journey Democratic Alliance (NDA) government
leading up to the attempted to normalise India’s relationship
current form. with Pakistan. The process began when
Vajpayee called General Musharraf, then
Pakistan’s supreme leader on 2 February.
On 24 May, a formal offer was extended
to Musharraf to visit India, which he
accepted, and the summit date was an-
nounced on 18 June.
The Agra Summit lasted 14 to 16 July
and ended without an agreement on
Kashmir. India was left disappointed with
General Musharraf’s grandstanding.
Could the Line of Control (LoC) have
been accepted by the two countries as the
effective national boundary? India felt
slighted and Pakistan followed up with
what it has always done — a sponsored
terror attack on Indian soil, in this case,
bombing several government offices in
Srinagar, killing 38 people.
The boldest and the closest attempt yet
to resolve Kashmir via talks had failed.
Pakistan’s duplicity in using terror as
an instrument of state policy had been
exposed yet again.
Parliament Attack (December 2001)
On 13 December, five gunmen made their
way to the poorly guarded Indian Parlia-
ment attempting a suicide attack. The ter-
rorists came in a car with Home Ministry
and Parliament access labels. Although at
the time of attack, several leaders from var-
ious political parties were in Parliament,
there was no political casualty.
This safety came at the cost of life of
INDIA FROM 2010-2019
nine security personnel. All five gunmen,
allegedly belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammed
were neutralised. The mastermind of the
attack, Ghazi Baba, was killed in an en-
counter in Kashmir in 2003.
Meanwhile, after a year-long trial, four
Jaish activists were convicted. Afzal Guru,
one of the key actors, was sentenced to
death and hanged only in February 2013
after a protracted legal process.
The temple of Indian democracy was
attacked, and Indian state took a decade to
bring the case to closure. The Indian state
did not attack Pakistan despite mobilising
more than half a million troops in Kash-
mir. India’s security vulnerability and
foreign policy limitations were exposed at
the highest level.
Godhra Train Fire (February 2002)
On 27 February, 59 individuals, were
charred to death in the Sabarmati Express
at the Godhra station. This happened after
a mob of more than 2,000 rioters attacked
the train. Among those who died were 27
women and 10 children.
Most of the passengers in the ill-fated
train were returning from Ayodhya after
the kar seva at the Ram Janmabhoomi site.
The Godhra incident led to a flash of
communal riots in Gujarat and in other
parts of India. These riots brought tre-
mendous pressure on then Gujarat chief
minister (CM) Narendra Modi and his key
minister Amit Shah. Both Modi and Shah
spent several years with accusations of
direct involvement in Gujarat riots.
The Congress-led United Progressive
Alliance (UPA) government conducted a
strict judicial process against both. Neither
of them was implicated in any case.
Meanwhile, Modi scripted a dream
comeback for Gujarat in his 13-year CM
stint, leading the state towards industriali-
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 49
 sation and administrative reforms.
The taint of 2002 did not stick, overruled
by his work as the CM and he eventu-
ally rose to become India’s Prime Minis-
ter (PM) in 2014. Amit Shah has led the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as president
since 2014 and now serves as India’s Home
Minister.
Roads Revolution — Mumbai Pune
Expressway Launch (April 2002)
At the turn of the last century, India had
started focusing on creating a good qual-
ity inter-state and inter-city road infra-
structure. The Vajpayee government had
planned the Golden Quadrilateral, which
was launched in 1999. The Pradhan Mantri
Gram Sadak Yojana was launched in 2000
with an ambition to connect all Indian
villages with an all-weather road. This was
India’s own “New Deal”.
The first differentiating realisation of
this road infrastructure focus, however,
came from the state of Maharashtra. The
Mumbai-Pune Expressway was inaugurat-
ed in April 2002, after trials started in 2000.
This 95-kilometre, six-lane expressway still
supports the connectivity and commerce
between India’s largest and eighth-largest
50 D E CE M B ER 2019
city economies.
Planned through the 1990s, the express- Since2002,theDelhi
way construction started under the chief
MetroSystemhas
ministership of Manohar Joshi with Nitin
Gadkari at the helm of the Public Works
now grown to 391
Department. The Golden Quadrilateral kilometres, with
itself took another decade to complete, link- 285stations,being
ing the five big metros of India — Delhi, servedby310trains
Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata. andadailyridership
In the last two decades, government
of 6 million. E
capital expenditure on roads has become a
closely tracked item serving as a proxy of
Sreedharan truly
Indian economic health. emerged as the
‘MetroMan’ofIndia.
Metro Rail Revolution — Delhi Launch
(December 2002)
Most of the large cities in the world have
had metro rail networks for the better part
of last 100 years. Indian cities had faced
permanent and perennial infrastructure
deficit since Independence. Mass rapid
transportation had been the biggest casu-
alty, with almost no big investments in
new means.
Delhi led the way with the launch of
an ambitious metro rail programme in
1998. The first section — Shahdara to Tees
Hazari — opened on 24 December 2002 with
a Red Line label.
 The central governments under Vaj-
payee and later Dr Manmohan Singh kept
Twelve editions
focus on the Delhi Metro, with great local
later the IPL is still political leadership by Delhi chief minis-
goingstrong.Several ter Sheila Dixit. The Delhi Metro System
state-level cricket has now grown to 391 kilometres, with 285
leagueshavealso stations, being served by 310 trains and a
cropped up since daily ridership of 6 million. Elattuvalapil
Sreedharan, who served as the managing
then.Theconcept
director of Delhi Metro from 1995 to 2012
hasbeenreplicated truly emerged as the ‘Metro Man’ of India.
infootball,hockey, India today has 13 operational metro
badminton,tennis, systems covering 18 cities. New cities are
table tennis and getting added on the metro map rapidly
kabaddisincethen. and existing metros are seeing expansion.
Private players are now exporting metro
coaches globally from local facilities — an
unimaginable thought at the turn of this
century.
Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore’s Silver
Medal At Athens Olympics (August
2004)
India has never had a great record at the
Olympics, barring the medals won in
hockey. It was only in 2004 that India won
its first-ever individual silver medal at the
Olympics.
Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore won a sil-
ver medal at the Athens games in the dou-
ble trap event of the shooting discipline.
Rathore had earlier won a gold medal at
the 2002 Commonwealth Games, which had
propelled him to national fame.
Rathore, who retired as a Colonel in
the Indian Army, was awarded the Rajiv
Gandhi Khel Ratna Award for 2004-2005
and a Padma Shri in 2005. He was also the
flag-bearer for the Indian contingent in the
2006 Commonwealth Games and the 2008
Olympics.
After Rathore’s accomplishment, India
has seen a steady rise of Olympics per-
formance. In 2008, Abhinav Bindra won a
gold. In 2012, Vijay Kumar and Sushil Ku-
mar won silver medals. In 2016, P V Sindhu
won a silver medal.
TCS Public Listing (August 2004)
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been
India’s premier technology services firm
since its inception in 1968. Leading India’s
information technology (IT) enabled ser-
vices revolution, TCS is now a major global
player in the business.
While Indian technology firms had been
raising capital in the past, TCS getting
publicly listed was a big event, given its
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 51
 market leadership. The stock listed on
exchanges on 25 August 2004. The first 10
years of TCS stock trading resulted in 27
per cent compounded annualised returns.
In June 2019, TCS crossed IBM on
market capitalisation. This was significant
as IBM was the undisputed sector leader
when TCS was founded in 1968. With the
ups and downs of Indian rupees, TCS mar-
ket capitalisation has not stayed constantly
over that of IBM.
However, the TCS listing heralded a
new era on Indian stock markets, where
a home-grown new-economy firm took on
the best of the world and outshone them by
its financial and operational performance.
Global wealth creation by an Indian firm
was a great inflection point in building
business confidence and self-assurance.
Ballistic Missile Defence Programme
(November 2006)
During and in the aftermath of the Kargil
War in 1999 with Pakistan two things came
to fore — a nuclear threat from Pakistan
escalated and limitations of India acquir-
ing latest weapons from other countries
got exposed. It was then that India started
focusing on the development of own bal-
52 D E CE M B ER 2019
listic missiles.
The programme focused on developing 26/11: A whole
sea and land-based interceptor missiles. In- generation of
dia started working on a two-tier intercep- Indians saw three
tion programme for high and low altitudes.
days of live Indian
The Prithvi Air Defence (PAD) catered to
the former and the Advanced Air Defence
helplessness.Itwas
(AAD) to the latter objective. perhaps the time
The PAD Exercise (PADE) was conduct- manymoreIndians
ed in November 2006, where the system in- had their first tryst
tercepted a Prithvi-II missile at an altitude with irreversible
of 50 km.
nationalism,which
This programme has moved from
strength to strength since. The March 2019
would impact the
Ant-Satellite Missile Test (ASAT) was the politicsoftheyears
logical progression of the ballistic missile to come.
defence programme.
The Indian Premier League Launch
(April 2008)
India has always been a big cricket
economy. But the advent of T20 cricket
took the commercialisation of the sport
and the monetary benefits accruing to the
system, including hitherto fringe players,
to another level.
The Indian Premier League (IPL) was
launched in April 2008 by the Board of
Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) as a
 response to splinter leagues challenging
A 12-digit unique hegemony of the BCCI in managing cricket
identification in the country.
number for each The cash rich eight-team T20 league cre-
ated its own window in the international
Indian along
cricket calendar. Several lesser known
with biometric players, who could not make it to the
identification — national team, played shoulder to shoulder
what would be with the biggest names in cricket for two
the probability months in India.
that a developing Twelve editions later the IPL is still
going strong. Several state-level cricket
country pulled off
leagues have also cropped up since then.
suchanambitious The concept has been replicated in football,
technology-led hockey, badminton, tennis, table tennis
project? and kabaddi since then. IPL has become
the new home ground for talent hunting.
Many Indian sportspersons across sports
have become more financially secure with
the leagues catching on.
Chandrayaan-1 Launch (October 2008)
With an intent to boost India’s space pro-
gramme and to leapfrog the Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO) as a global
giant, Prime Minister Vajpayee announced
India’s mission to the moon on Independ-
ence Day 2003. The programme develop-
ment continued with Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh taking over in May 2004.
ISRO spent Rs 386 crore to develop a
lunar probe named Chandrayaan-1. The
National Lunar Task Force had already
been working since 2000 to develop technol-
ogy capability on India approaching the
moon. The probe was launched from the
Satish Dhawan Space Centre using ISRO’s
four-stage PSLV C11 launch platform.
On 12 November 2008, the probe entered
the lunar orbit 100 km above the lunar sur-
face. The probe operated until 28 August
2009 — a total of 312 days as against the
originally planned two-year timeframe.
The terrain mapping camera part of the
probe sent back 70,000 three-dimensional
images of the moon during this period. The
mission also led to the lunar water and
lunar caves discovery.
Chandrayaan-1 was the first step in
India’s attempt to send a manned mission
to the moon. The programme made India a
serious player in the space research field.
Mumbai Attacks (November 2008)
Ten Pakistani terrorists equipped with
arms and ammunition and a jihadi brain
strolled into Mumbai and brought the city
to its knees chatting with their handlers
in Pakistan for several hours. Around 166
lives were lost. Five-star hotels, a busy rail-
way station, chic cafes and a Jewish prayer
centre were targeted. It was one of the most
audacious terror attacks anywhere in the
world.
Tukaram Omble, a Mumbai Police offic-
er, helped catch one of the terrorists — Aj-
mal Amir Kasab, alive. He took 40 rounds
in his stomach from Kasab’s weapon while
reinforcements arrived to nab Kasab.
Vishnu Zende, the railway announcer at
the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus
guided hundreds of commuters to safety.
Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan was shot
dead by the terrorists while rescuing the
hostages in the Taj Hotel. Ordinary Indians
were the heroes on an otherwise pathetic
day for India and Indian self-esteem.
The Indian state condemned the attack,
sent dossiers to Pakistan, but nothing
much happened. Kasab himself was hanged
to death in Pune after a trial. The details of
the government lapses were shocking. The
allegations that this was an internal hit
job — including those by members of the
ruling Congress party — were even more
shocking.
India was bruised, dented and on the
mat. But a whole generation of Indians saw
three days of live Indian helplessness. It
was perhaps the time many more Indians
had their first tryst with irreversible na-
tionalism, which would impact the politics
of the years to come.
Aadhaar Launch (January 2009)
A 12-digit unique identification number for
each Indian along with biometric identi-
fication — what would be the probability
that a developing country pulled off such
an ambitious technology-led project?
Nandan Nilekani, the ex-boss of Infosys,
appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh for this task, pulled it off. Aadhaar
is the largest biometric identification pro-
gramme in the world.
Aadhaar has since been used for de-
livering government benefits, creating a
direct debit infrastructure around various
programmes. Aadhaar is used for quick
enrolment in various services — private
and government.
The legal backing to the Aadhaar
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 53
 system was provided by the government
only in 2017. In 2018, the Supreme Court
ruled that Aadhaar was constitutionally
valid. After a decade of its existence, with
nearing complete enrolment of all Indian
citizens, all hurdles were removed from the
use of Aadhaar.
From World Bank to Bill Gates, Aad-
haar has many admirers.
Alleged 2G Scam (November 2010)
On 8 November, Vinod Rai, then Comptrol-
ler and Auditor General (CAG) of India,
submitted a report to the President of India
that the Congress-led government had un-
dercharged the winners of the 2G spectrum
auctions. The amount undercharged was
said to be Rs 1.76 lakh crore.
This CAG report created a furore, lead-
ing to judicial investigations and Supreme
Court cancelling all 122 licences awarded
under the watch of then telecom minister
A Raja. This was the first big accusation of
corruption to hit the Manmohan Singh-led
government in its second term.
The alleged 2G scam became the focal
point of opposition rallying against the
government, supplemented with allega-
tions of irregularities in coal auctions,
Adarsh Housing Society construction and
Commonwealth Games contracts.
In 2017, long after the political points
were scored in the 2014 Lok Sabha election,
the Supreme Court acquitted A Raja and
Kanimozhi, two Dravida Munnetra Ka-
zhagam leaders, and prime accused in the
case. Investigation agencies filed appeals
soon after. While the judicial process con-
tinues, the political import of the alleged
scam was huge.
Anna Movement (April 2011)
The 2011 Jan Lokpal movement launched
by social activist Anna Hazare became the
focal point of anti-corruption protests in
the country. For weeks at end, thousands
of people would stage sit-ins protesting
political corruption in the country.
Led by Hazare from the village of
Ralegaon-Siddhi in Maharashtra, the
movement spread like a wildfire across
the country. People from all walks of life,
seemingly without any organised nudge,
would go to protest sites in their cities and
sit for hours.
Political newbies like Arvind Kejriwal,
54 D E CE M B ER 2019
Kiran Bedi and Kumar Vishvas came to be
recognised as key associates of Anna Haz- 2011:TheJanLokpal
are. Arvind Kejriwal later created the Aam movementlaunched
Aadmi Party (AAP), which briefly came to
by social activist
power in Delhi in 2013 and then swept the
state election in 2015.
AnnaHazarebecame
After the Mandal and Mandir move- the focal point of
ments of the late-1980s and early-1990s, this anti-corruption
was the biggest socio-political movement in protests in the
India. There were seemingly no organisers, country.Forweeks
which made it even more significant.
atend,thousandsof
While the Indian Parliament hurriedly
enacted The Lokpal and Lokayukta Act
peoplewouldstage
2013 to blunt the Anna agitation, the politi- sit-ins protesting
cal ramifications for the Manmohan Singh politicalcorruption
government were severe. The government in the country.
image took a beating, facilitating the rise of
Narendra Modi as a national leader.
Twitter Blockade (August 2012)
Social media came to Indian politics in
2012. This was the time when India was
witnessing a proliferation of mobile teleph-
ony. Twitter and Facebook were spreading
their wings at a rapid rate.
In August 2012, the government of India
ordered the blocking of several individual
Twitter accounts. These accounts were ac-
cused of spreading fear of violence against
people from North East India.
This was the first time, a serious debate
on freedom of expression, right to freedom
considering technology expansion and poli-
tics of social media came to fore. Twitter
trended #GOIBlocks for days together. Fast
rising nationally, Narendra Modi led the
protests by putting a black Twitter display
picture on his profile.
The government enacted the IT Act in
the aftermath of this event. However, parts
of it could not muster necessary scrutiny
and were made defunct later. The role of
technology in politics has since been on
an upward trajectory. The 2014 Lok Sabha
election became India’s first Twitter-driven
election.
Modi Wave (May 2014)
After 1989, India had reconciled to an era of
coalition governments at the Centre. It was
almost assumed that no party can ever win
a majority of its own. This changed in May
2014, when Narendra Modi led the BJP to
win the Lok Sabha election.
Winning 282 seats, highest BJP tally
ever, Modi won his party the biggest major-
2014:Winning282 ity since 1984. His high-octane, 24x7 politi-
cal campaign stunned Congress, which
seats,highestBJP could only win 44 seats.
tally ever, Modi Modi used social media to reach out to
won his party the voters, always being ahead of the opposi-
biggest majority tion in his campaign, in making promises,
since 1984. His in explaining issues and in raising accusa-
high-octane,24x7 tions against the Manmohan Singh govern-
ment. The opposition was far too lethargic
politicalcampaign to react.
stunnedCongress, Modi himself contested from Varanasi,
whichcouldonlywin the premier and holiest site of the Sanatan
44 seats. Dharma, heralding a new era of politics
based on nationalism, development and
assertive identity. He also made politics
presidential, a style used by several state
leaders of his party as well as the oppo-
nents routinely since then.
The politics and the political idiom of
Delhi changed in 2014. The change acceler-
ated in 2019, when Modi returned to power
winning an increased tally of 303 seats for
the BJP.
India’s Change Of Foreign Policy
Against Pakistan — Surgical Strikes
(September 2016)
On 18 September, four Pakistan backed ter-
rorists from Jaish-e-Muhammed launched
a fidayeen attack on an Indian Army camp
in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir. Nineteen
Indian soldiers were killed.
This was not new — Pakistan had perpe-
trated its ‘death by a thousand cuts’ strat-
egy on India for years. India had responded
with some bluster but mostly coming back
to new rounds of talks to form confidence
building measures.
This changed on 29 September 2016. On
this day, India launched surgical strikes on
suspected Pakistan-backed terror camps
in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir
(PoJK). India eliminated up to a hundred
terrorists in four different raids. The cross-
border strike teams went as deep as three
to four kilometres into PoJK.
India announced these raids on tel-
evision through the army. The External
Affairs Ministry deftly managed global
communication. India had changed the
response style and magnitude to Pakistan’s
misadventures. India had also called out
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 55
 Pakistan’s bluff that any cross-border
Indian action would lead to a nuclear
escalation.
In 2008, Modi as Gujarat Chief Minis-
ter, had criticised Manmohan Singh for
his ham-handed response to the Mumbai
attack. In 2016, Modi as the Indian Prime
Minister, led the alternative.
Demonetisation (November 2016)
At 8 pm, 8 November 2016 — a nation was
glued to the television and mobile screens
as Prime Minister Narendra Modi made
a special address. India was going to
eliminate its stock of high value currency
notes — 86 per cent of all currency under
circulation was to be extinguished by the
government.
Demonetisation was a seminal event,
undertaken to curb the menace of black
money in the economy. The government
struggled through the remonetisation pro-
cess, with all kinds of logistics challenges.
With a chunk of Indian economy still
being cash-based, economic activity took
a hit. But people generally praised the
exercise for finally something was being
done to curb black money. Despite the day-
to-day hardships, the measure remained
popular. The BJP won the Uttar Pradesh
state election in March 2017 despite the
issues people faced.
Demonetisation led to almost all the
cash in the system coming back to the
56 D E CE M B ER 2019
banks, though the initial expectation was
that some part of the currency in circula- TheArunJaitley-led
tion will have to be extinguished by the Finance Ministry
Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The govern-
eventuallybrought
ment doubled down on digital payments —
the UPI system and the BHIM app — have
all the states and
since scaled manifolds. Union Territories
onboard,andafter
Goods And Services Tax Launch (July being a work-in-
2017) progressformany
With its central and state list of subjects,
years,theGSTwas
Indian federal governance system is quite
complex. Indirect tax was one such area,
finally launched in
where dozens of taxes, levies and cess July 2017.
were imposed by the central and the state
governments.
The Modi government launched the
goods and services tax (GST) on the mid-
night of 1 July 2017 in Parliament. India
had become a tax union, with free move-
ment of goods and services across the state
borders.
Several states used to have border posts
for charging tax on goods being transport-
ed. This process got eliminated with the
introduction of the GST. Logistics for busi-
nesses became more centralised, with no
need to maintain warehouses across many
states to avoid taxation complications.
The GST design as well as the support-
ing IT infrastructure has come under ques-
tion. The government continues to work on
both the aspects regularly. All decisions for
GST slabs and design are made in a council
 of states jointly, which meets on a periodic
On 9 November basis.
2019, a five-judge The GST is just beginning to be adopted
bench of the by small businesses. The data collection
Supreme Court through its system and the possibility of
decided that the invoice matching on an automated basis
holds great promise in the years to come.
RamJanmabhoomi
The system can lead to both — the preven-
site was indeed tion of revenue leakage for the government
to be given to the as well as better and cheaper flow-based
Hindu side for the credit for the businesses.
construction of a
temple.A491-year- Removal Of Special Status For Jammu
And Kashmir (August 2019)
oldbattlecametoa
“Ek desh men do vidhan, do pradhan,
logicalconclusion. do nishan, nahin challenge” — Syama
Prasad Mukherjee, the tallest leader of the
Bharatiya Jan Sangh said this in its first
ever convention in Kanpur in 1953.
Jammu and Kashmir had acceded to In-
dia in 1948. But a Pakistan-sponsored army
of tribesmen had taken control of a part
of the state, territory which Pakistan still
holds on to as PoJK. India agreed to enact-
ing Article 370 of the Constitution, which
gave special rights to the state of Jammu
and Kashmir, including its own Constitu-
tion, flag and legislative system.
This was further complicated by the
enactment of Article 35A, which led to
severe discrimination against migrants
to the state after the 1947 Partition as well
against the women of the state who mar-
ried outside. Removal of Article 370, and an
implied removal of Article 35A, had been
Jan Sangh’s core demand since inception.
The BJP carried this demand forward
since 1980, when the party was formed.
Syama Prasad Mukherjee in fact died
in Srinagar in 1953 while fighting to have
Indian Constitution being applied to the
state. For the BJP, Sardar Patel’s epic
effort to unify India’s princely states had
always been incomplete without these
articles being removed for J&K.
On 5 August 2019, Amit Shah, the Home
Minister of India, introduced the Jammu
and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill in Parlia-
ment. The twin draconian articles had
been removed. The state was bifurcated
into two Union Territories, giving wings to
Aashish Chandorkar writes the aspirations of people of Ladakh. One of
on public policy, politics, the oldest political issues in India had been
and current affairs. He is put to rest.
based in Pune and tweets at
@c_aashish. Ram Janmabhoomi Verdict (November
2019)
Construction of a grand Ram temple in
Ayodhya had been another core demand
for the BJP since the late-1980s. In fact, the
party rose to political relevance with its
top leader L K Advani taking out a rath
yatra across India.
The legal and emotional battle for Ram
Janmabhoomi, however, had been centu-
ries old, much before politics caught up
with it. Ayodhya has always been recog-
nised as the birthplace for Lord Ram. In
1528, Mir Baqi, Babur’s general, is said to
have demolished the temple and construct-
ed a mosque on top of it.
Historical records since 1520s, through
until 1870s, had mentioned in various ways
that a temple existed at the disputed loca-
tion. The first litigation to claim the site
started in 1885. In 1949, idols of Lord Ram
and Ma Seeta were installed at the site.
In 1988, then Rajiv Gandhi government
allowed a shilanyas at the temple site. In
1992, the Babri mosque was demolished
towards the end of an agitation led by Vish-
wa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the BJP.
It was only in 2019 that a five-judge
bench of the Supreme Court of India
decided that the said site was indeed to be
given to the Hindu side for the construc-
tion of a temple through a trust formed
by the central government. A 491-year-old
battle came to a logical conclusion.
Two decades is not a long time in the
history and the destiny of a country. Espe-
cially for a civilisational state like India,
where 72 years of modern nation-state
existence are still being reconciled with the
thousands of years of journey leading up to
the current form.
However, as the Roman statesman and
philosopher Cicero once remarked — “not
to know what has been transacted in
former times is to be always a child. If no
use is made of the labours of past ages, the
world must remain always in the infancy
of knowledge.”
Recognising contemporary history and
its impact is both easier and more accept-
able.
The 21 most important events of the
twenty-first century can be different for
different people, that we can reflect upon
them together with a mix of pride, solem-
nity, anxiety and hope is a worthy common
cause to pursue.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 57
2010-2019
THE LAST BREATH
The second decade of this century took away from us artistes who broke new grounds in
Hindustani and Carnatic music. A tribute.
H
oli, the festival of colours, of ro-
mance, of love between Radha
and Krishna and sringar rasa
would see Vidushi Girija Devi
become a nayika herself.
At this particular concert dedicated to
Holi, held in 2017, she presented khayal,
and thumri, dadra, hori, kajri, the fine
semi classical nuances of the Benaras
Gharana. An artiste known for taking over
the dais as a queen, she was in her element,
connecting the spiritual with the romantic.
The venue was the Ravi Shankar
Institute for Music and Performing Arts,
and Appaji was swaying into nostalgia,
remembering Pandit Ravi Shankar and
Ustad Bismillah Khan.
She addressed them as “bhaiya”
(brother) respectively. Between composi-
tions, she announced that this could be her
last dedication to the festival. It is hard to
explain what prompted Appaji to make this
58 D E CE M B ER 2019
declaration of sorts.
SUMATI MEHRISHI
Appaji was unstoppable during the
summer that followed. It would be the last
stretch of her illustrious life immersed in
a unique mission. She wanted to give the
audience more and more — in terms of
what she delivered at a single concert. So
battle ready she seemed towards giving as
much as she could, that it left her followers
stunned.
The energy in her singing was pouring
out in total control, voice — even more
chiseled and softer, improvisations —
unparalleled and retrospective — and her
explaining of what made her generation of
musicians different and robust — affection
laden but blunt.
In the Holi concert, she sang the cel-
ebrated dadra — Ganga Reti. She dedicated
it to Ustad Bismillah Khan’s memory. Her
tear-laden eyes glistened through it more
than the diamond in her nose in the yellow
 light that fell on her.
Appaji and Tai, Another concert at another venue fol-
as they were lowed days later, and there too, this author
endearinglycalled listened to Appaji, in awe of her hurried
mission, a strange sense of time-bound
and known, are
duty towards the audience, and an emotion
amongthestalwarts behind it.
wehavelostduring She passed away later that year.
theyearsbetween Miles, months and states away, in
2009and2019.Their Maharashtra, Vidushi Kishori Amonkar
passingawaymeans was performing at concerts, being gener-
ous with her balance of popular and less
thatIndianclassical
popular compositions.
musicwillnotbethe Then one day, she asked Swarnima Go-
same again. sain, one of her senior disciples: “Thumri
gayegi? (Will you sing thumri?)”. The
question meant that it was time for Gosain
to leave for Kolkata — to start learning
thumri from Appaji after a gruelling train-
ing in khayal singing from Amonkar for 11
years.
The question came a year and half
before she left the world. Gosain explains
the guru’s vision for a disciple as a yogi’s
insight.
If music itself had a voice, mind and
temperament it would be best represented
by Vidushi Kishori Amonkar’s.
Tai, in this author’s humble opinion,
could easily be seen as the Navadurga of
music in general and Hindustani classical
music in particular — such were her differ-
ent swaroopas and strengths exploring the
ragas and presenting them.
Raag Nand, Bhimpalasi, Rageshri,
Bhupali, Bhoop, Madhyamaad Sarang, and
so many other ragas, earned a miraculous,
prayerful and contemplative approach
from her. She bathed them in her intro-
spection.
Appaji and Tai, as they were endear-
ingly called and known, are among the
stalwarts we have lost during the years
between 2009 and 2019. Their passing away
means that Indian classical music will not
be the same again.
It meant that practice as sadhana has
lost volumes of its physical and spiritual
mettle. It means that the soakers of inter-
gharana richness would not return, and
that a living heritage — 5,000 years old has
lost its defining pillars and preservers of
gharanas; that and ragas have lost some
fervid, fervent and fanatic worshippers of
shruti and grammar.
These artistes were initiators of a move-
ment which was inspired by the way they
decided their own journey through raga-
bound aesthetics, or in the way they chose
a musical instrument to make it blend with
the Hindustani and Carnatic language of
music making, or in the way they per-
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 59
 formed the ragas. There is a moment in the jugalgayan
Their performance caused creative of Dr M Balamuralikrishna and Panditji,
disruption in the already enriched, im- where Panditji leaves to him with the
mensely practised nuances of grammar madhyam, and then invites him to nishad.
and technique. The raag is Yaman. Balamuralikrishnaji
So intense was their quest in music, follows him, but carves his own intricate
that when their musical journeys are path through gamakas. Characters get
discussed, the spiritual understanding of defined in their peerless singularity. They
it goes back to their childhood, their early establish the accent from nishad and
days in learning. shadaj respectively, they do a broth-
Vidwan Lalgudi Jayaraman and Pandit erly ‘follow-me’ over phrases
Bhimsen Joshi, Vidushi Gangubai Hangal in sargam from Balamura-
are three such greats. likrishna.
The stories of how they turned them- Panditji shoots off to the
selves to music and to their gurus, how taar saptak later on in
they chased both, speaks of an eternal taans, and even shows his
journey which can never be wrapped in co-performer in gestures
their meeting the five elements. that he is filling the taans
They lived as yogis practising music, in ‘dana’. Both, then,
and music reflected their meditation in full sum it up in the swaras of
brim. Yaman before concluding
The 1990s and the early 2000s will be this making of
known for taking away with them yogis, history.
such as Madurai Shanmukhavadivu
Subbulakshmi, Kumar Gandharva and
Vidwan Mallikarjun Mansur and Vidwan
Sundaram Balachander.
The years between 2009 and 2019 will
be known for taking away of several
others whose concerts and journeys in
themselves were revered as pilgrimage
for the rasikas.
And with the combined vacuum
left by these two decades, never will
Indic music — flowing out in voice
and sound, be delivered in the
same intellectual proclivity, same
intensity, initiative, matter and
courage, again.
Among the greats who crossed
over during this decade was Dr M
Balamuralikrishna, whose contribu-
tion to Indian classical is extraordinary,
generous, and grossly underrated — in
how he infused his own genius into jugal-
gayan, or duets, with stalwarts practising
the Hindustani tradition.
His duets with Vidushi Kishori
Amonkar, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi came
straight from the churning of amrita.
Their duets were waiting to happen
for centuries. People growing up on their
telecast in the 1990s would often be locked
in emotion. Their alacrity to collaborate
suffused two genres with a divine conflu-
ence of two traditions.

60 D E CE M B ER 2019
 Each improvisation coming from
Among the greats Balamuralikrishnaji has Panditji’s ear,
who crossed followed by his voice marking appreciation
for a peer and his expression. These two
over during this
collaborators and their collaboration will
decade was Dr M never return.
Balamuralikrishna, This is jugalgayan, as it must, and
whosecontribution should have existed over the years, and
to Indian during the years which followed Panditji’s
classical music passing away. It did not happen.
There will not be another Sangeeta
is extraordinary,
Kalanidhi Nedunuri Krishnamurthy, Vidu-
generous, and shi Kishori Amonkar, Vidushi Annapurna
grosslyunderrated. Devi, Vidwan Mandolin U Srinivas. These
greats treated the raga like a deity. Their
performance of the raga was meant for the
raga. Their performance of the raga has
lent the ragas emotive evolution.
Ananda — bliss — the outcome of their
practice — got redefined everytime these
stalwarts chose to sing the popularly sung
ragas and compositions set in them.
The approach of these maestros to the
ragas was not of plain veneration. It was
a blend of scientific and philosophical out-
look towards the swaras that made ragas,
their inner-most contours, the vaadi and
samvaadi swaras, the underlying possibili-
ties and swaras in their inherent ebb and
fall of perfection-driven challenges.
“Music is a prudent combination of art
and science,” Sangeeta Kalanidhi Ne-
dunuri Krishnamurthy once told Shruti,
the leading magazine on Indian classical
music published from Chennai.
Listening to Nedunuri Krishnamurthy’s
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 61
 singing of Natakuranji varnam Chalamela
Jesevayya would be a good beginning and
end to understand what he meant when he
referred to the word ‘combination’.
Renditions of Natakuranji varnam
Chalamela Jesevayya from a younger
maestro, who is known for his activism
towards demonising the sacred in Carnatic
music, is not half as robust, and is pale in
comparison.
The greats who have left us during this
decade were propellers of a deep thought in
art and music, who made the ragas talk to
themselves and did not merely perform the
ragas, or talk to the ragas. Take Raag Manj
Khamaj.
How would the raga fulfil itself if not
on the surbahar of Annapurna Devi — the
greatest of the great artistes?
Annapurna Devi’s performance of this
raga surpasses human imagination in
thinking of this raga and playing. It is, as
if the raga is bursting to itself under her
brilliance, flowing feminine in the alaap —
revealing its beauty and its many charac-
ters — abound.
And in jod — splinters of it fall out from
her fingers and mind. She would bury her
beautiful face in these splinters. The tempo
speaks of the woman she perhaps was —
free — bold — unparalleled. Its concluding
— gentle and reclusive.
A rasika’s lifetime is short to hear and
unravel how Annapurnaji establishes Raag
Kaushiki, letting it sprawl, and scooping
it safely enough back to herself, keeping it
wet-muslin-thin breadth away from Bhim-
palasi. She would have passed some of it to
Pandit Nikhil Banerjee, whose rendition
involuntarily guides you to “Ma”, as her
followers and disciples addressed her.
It was at Maihar, the small princely
state in Madhya Pradesh that was begin-
ning to establish itself as a gold mine of
musical genius under Ustad Allauddin
Khan, where it can be said that Goddess
Saraswati decided to pause for longer than
she did elsewhere.
What else would explain the emergence
of Annapurna Devi — one of the greatest
of all musicians born in a civilisation with
more than 5,000 years of musical heritage?
Annapurna Devi. Daughter to a father who
was, in Pandit Ravi Shankar’s own words,
came from “years of fanatic dedication and
discipline”.
62 D E CE M B ER 2019
Music lovers have looked around for
Ustad Imrat Khan at concerts, where he The greats who
was needed the most, but wasn’t present. have left us during
We found him, instead, in the brooding
this decade were
masculinity in Raag Darbari on surbahar,
where his meends in mandra saptak estab-
propellersofadeep
lished two meanings — one of the alaap thought in art and
and the other of the raga itself. He stays music, who made
there — in the meends of the mandra. He the ragas talk to
built an abode there. We saw a glimpse of themselvesanddid
his elder brother in that abode.
notmerelyperform
Gangubai Hangal’s contribution to
gayaki, bandish, vachanas and devaranams
the ragas, or talk to
established Hubli-Dharwad — an entire the ragas.
region — as the destination for gyaan seek-
ers.
Gangubai Hangal was the hero of a con-
stant quest dedicated to voice — her uncon-
ventional voice ripped performance-related
limitations. Amonkar’s struggle with her
own voice, Pandit Bhim Sen Joshi’s with
his — these phases bound the rasikas to
them forever emotionally.
Where are those bonds through thick
and thin now?
Some of these greats were artistes
who became instrumental in giving their
Western musical instrument the Indic soul,
the flow, the tenacity of Indian embellish-
ments.
Two of them, Kadri Gopalnath and
Mandolin U Srinivas had tamed two West-
born instruments — the saxophone and the
mandolin — to give music more beginnings
and the ragas two new voices.
Mandolin U Srinivas’s passing away
was particularly heartbreaking for this
author. Perhaps, watching him teach his
disciples at his home in Chennai, and
watching him collaborate in the illustrious
‘Remember Shakti’, and other collabora-
tions, did play a part in feeling this great
loss.
In the years he was celebrated as a child
prodigy, he was setting the pace for a task
he had to leave incomplete even in the
dedicated and religious pursuit of excel-
lence.
Srinivas made the mandolin sing to
cover a humongous range of traditional
Carnatic compositions and kritis. His art
made me feel as if he had fitted the heart of
a veena into his mandolin — and some of
his own throat to the mandolin.
His brother and co-performer Mandolin
U Rajesh is giving it continuity through his
 dedication, but then, it is hard to not feel
U Srinivas made the vacuum and not miss Srinivas’s swan
the mandolin like approach to music.
sing to cover a Pandit Ravi Shankar, as post Woodstock
music history would tell you, braved tough
humongousrangeof
peer reviews during those years. A man
traditionalCarnatic who took the chaar taal ki sawari to seem-
compositionsand ingly the most unconventional stage —
kritis. His art made where Ustad Alla Rakha Khan saab clearly
mefeelasifhehad won hearts and Panditji himself, should
fitted the heart of be given the credit for opening the world’s
heart for Indian music.
a veena into his
Panditji is often subjected to unfair
mandolin. criticism for reasons well known. All those
notions should be watered away.
Today, when his music still resonates,
it is important to accept that the events
that took place in his life, the concerts and
collaborations he chose, the path his took,
had a strong purpose and was guided by
a multifarious approach to ‘sangeet’ as a
whole.
His gallantry contribution to the arena
of composing a global language of music, of
orchestration, of assimilating Indian musi-
cal instruments popular in both Hindu-
stani and Carnatic genres — will not visit
Sumati Mehrishi is Senior this planet, unless Panditji himself decides
Editor, Swarajya. to reappear.
Yes, gayaki is the soul of Indian classi-
cal instrumental music, but Panditji had
his own throat to strings, his own way of
gayaki. This civilisation will not witness
his celebration of the alankaar again.
He was a lover of instrumentation, a
worshipper of the deepest treasures in
sound, of happiness and the eternal festiv-
ity and musical universe called India. His
use of kharaj and baaj attracted a new
thought in global music. His use of the
chikari — it resonated his own love for life
as a musician. It can’t be grudged. It has to
be celebrated.
Pandit Ramakant Gundecha passed
away recently. He defined the singular-
ity — even as being one half the historic
pair of Dagarvaani known as the Gunde-
cha brothers. With his passing away, his
brother Pandit Umakant Gundecha and the
pair has lost half its voice.
These performing thinkers gave the
last breath of greatness to Indian classical
music. Between Balamuralikrishna ji’s
rendition of Thyagaraja’s Marugelara O
Raghava and Pandit Ramakant Gunde-
cha’s Rann Jeeti, Ram Raghu Aaye, Ram
himself will seek dedications that won’t
return.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 63
 21 BOOKS
LITERATURE

FROM THE 21ST

CENTURY
KamalpreetSinghGilllistsdownthe21booksfromthetwenty-firstcenturysofarthathavestayed
with him the most.

T
he twenty-first century will soon be two decades
old. The first 19 years of this century have
produced some remarkable literature that has
warmed our hearts, broadened our minds, and
enriched our souls.
Here is a list of 21 best books ranging across the fields
of fiction, poetry, philosophy, science, technology, and his-
tory that have stood out, and are likely to stand the test of
time for decades to come.

1. The Testaments (2019)

I
f you’re at a dinner party with people
who read a lot and you want to
impress everyone with the breadth
of your own reading, but could only
name-drop one author to grab attention,
who would it be?
Margaret Atwood, of course.
The 79-year old Canadian author has
been around for a long time; her phenom-
enal The Handmaid’s Tale was published
in 1985. But it was only in the last two
decades that her fame began to ascend
dramatically.
In 2000, she won the first of her two
Booker Prizes for The Blind Assassin.
Along with Iris Murdoch, she holds the KAMALPREET SINGH GILL
distinction of being short-listed for the
Booker Prize maximum number of times
— six in all.
Margaret Atwood is to the 2010s what
Ursula K Le Guin was to the 2000s and
Toni Morrison was to the 1990s — the
grand old dame of English letters whose
every utterance is profound wisdom on
life, letters, love and literature.
The Testaments won the 2019 Booker
Prize jointly with Bernadine Evaristo’s
Girl, Woman, Other and is Atwood’s much
anticipated sequel to The Handmaid’s
Tale. Margaret Atwood

2. Hanuman’s Tale: The Messages of a

Divine Monkey (2007)

P
hilip Lutgendorf was a profes-
sor of Hindi and Modern Indian
Studies at the University of Iowa
— a position he held for 33 years
until his retirement in June 2018. He is
best known for his seminal work, The Life
of a Text: Performing the Ramcharitmanas
of Tulsidas (1991) that mapped in rich eth-
nographic detail the various performances
of the Ramcharitmanas through northern

64 D E CE M B ER 2019
 India that have kept alive this vital medi-
eval text.
It was while researching the Ramcharit-
manas in Benaras in the early 1980s that
Lutgendorf came to a surprising realisa-
tion — that for most people, the most en-
dearing character of the Ramchartimanas
wasn’t Ram himself, but Hanuman. Thus
was born the idea for Hanuman’s Tale. As
the preface to the book announces:
Philip Lutgendorf
3. Fasting, Feasting (1999)
A
nita Desai has the unique
distinction among Indian
novelists of being awarded the
Sahitya Akademi award as well
as being shortlisted for the Booker Prize
on three occasions — for Clear Light of the
Day (1980), In Custody (1984), and Fasting,
Feasting (1999).
It was however her daughter, Kiran
Desai who would win the coveted prize for
her 2006 novel, The Inheritance of Loss.
The distinction is well earned, for
Desai is arguably, the finest Indian writer
Anita Desai of fiction in English today. Her prose,
unassuming but succinct, stands in stark
contrast to the hollow pyrotechnics of the
generation of writers that were to follow
4. Kashi ka Assi (2004)
V
aranasi is the beating heart of
India, and the beating heart
of Varanasi is the Assi Ghati.
Not surprisingly, it has always
attracted the attention of poets, painters,
photographers, film makers and writers.
To pick one among the various Assis
that each chronicler has captured as the
quintessential Kashi would be a herculean
task. But if one were forced, then by set-
tling for Kashinath Singh’s Kashi ka Assi
one would not be very far off the mark.
Kashinath Singh When first published as a series of
stories in 2004 in local Hindi presses in
north India, it created a huge stir, and a
little controversy. Its accurate depiction
of everyday life in the ghats of Benaras
My heart lord is convinced
That greater than Rama is Rama’s serv-
ant
— Tulsidas, (Ramcharitmanas 7.120.16)
Thus begins a fascinating academic
study of the various manifestations of
Hanuman in the cultural and religious life
of India that traverses history, geography,
and the landscapes of India’s numerous
cultural traditions. Professor Lutgendorf
has recently finished a seven volume Eng-
lish translation of the Ramcharitmanas for
the Murty Classical Library of India.
her in the 1990s and 2000s. Her novels,
deceptively slim, carry within them worlds
far more expansive than the 700-page door
stoppers spanning centuries and genera-
tions, that pass for literary fiction today,
can ever convey.
Fasting, Feasting like several other
Desai novels, tells the story of quiet decay,
of a world, and of a family, told through the
perspective of its female protagonist, Uma.
Like all her novels, it is profound, deeply
moving, and above all, timeless.
Anita Desai is a writer more people
should be reading, in order to see through
the clutter and noise that Indian literary
fiction in English has become.
and the razor sharp wit and banter of the
characters that inhabit the ghats, captured
in the quintessential Benarasi dialect of
Hindi made the literary world sit up and
take notice.
Kashinath Singh perhaps did too good a
job of capturing in prose the lilting colour-
ful dialect of the ghats, for it is unfortu-
nately one of those books that would most
certainly be lost in translation. Kashinath
Singh would later receive the Sahitya
Akademi award for his 2011 novel Rehan
par Ragghu.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 65
 5. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
(2014)
A
rguably, the most talked
about book of the twenty-first
century, Sapiens, along with
its 2016 follow up, Homo Deus:
A Brief History of Tomorrow has sold over
12 million copies worldwide and continues
to sell.
Israeli historian Yuva Noah Harari’s
tale of mankind’s evolutionary history
told in a simple, yet highly engaging style
6. Girti Deewarein — Upendranath Ashk
(first published in 1947) (2015)
B
orn in Jalandhar, Punjab in
1910, Upendranath Ashk is one
of the finest writers in Hindi
that the past century has seen.
Ashk began writing first in Punjabi, then
in Urdu, and finally at the insistence of
Munshi Premchand, switched to Hindi for
good.
It was in Hindi that his seven-volume
Magnum Opus, Girti Deewarein was writ-
ten. Following the life of an aspiring writer
Chetan as he wanders between Jalandhar,
7. Chemeen—T S Pillai (first published in
1956) (Anitha Nair, 2011)
C
hemmeen is not only the best-
known Malayalam novel outside
Kerala, it is one of the few works
of Indian literature of the post-
colonial era not written in English to have
acquired a global audience. Written by
the prodigious Thakazhi Sivasankaran
Pillai, Chemmeen (prawns) is a retelling
of an ancient fishermen’s myth of chastity
and fidelity, woven into the struggles and
harsh lives of those who make their living
from the sea on Kerala’s Malabar coast.
First published in 1956, Chemmeen was
instantly recognised as a classic, winning
the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1957. It was
among the first post-colonial Indian novels
to be translated into English, with the
66 D E CE M B ER 2019
struck a chord among readers worldwide,
especially at a time when the rise of Netflix
was raising concerns about falling book
sales.
Despite criticism from some observers
that it was just old ideas packaged in a new
style, being seen with your own dog-eared
copy of Sapiens was the in-thing during the Yuval Noah Harari
middle years of the second decade of the
twenty-first century.
Lahore and Shimla in the 1930s, Girti
Deewarein has been compared to Marcel
Proust’s classic In Search of Lost Time.
It is, however, a tragedy of Hindi
literature that only after being translated
into English by the American translator
Daisy Rockwell that Upendranath Ashk
was rescued from the depths of obscurity
where most literary geniuses writing in
Indian languages go to die, until rescued
by English translations. Upendranath Ashk
English translation getting accepted into
the Indian series of UNESCO Collection of
Representative Works — a UNESCO pro-
ject that aimed to translate masterpieces
of world literature that was active from
1947-2005.
Thakazhi Sivasankaran Pillai would
later write another enduring classic docu-
menting the struggles and aspirations of
Kerala’s fishing communities — the epic
Kayar (coir) that would win him India’s T S Pillai
highest literary award, the Jnanpith.
 8. Kadambari—Bana (Seventh Century CE)
(Padmini Rajappa, 2010)
K
adambari is a timeless tale of
love between a king named
Chandrapida and a princess,
Kadambari, first composed in
the seventh century CE by Bana Bhatt,
the court poet of King Harsha Vardhana
of Kannauj, and his son Bhushan Bhatt.
Bana
9. Chauthi Koot—Waryam Singh Sandhu
(2000) (Akshaya Kumar)
C
hauthi Koot (Fourth Direction)
is a collection of stories by
the renowned Punjabi writer,
Waryam Singh Sandhu that won
him the Sahitya Akademi award in 2000.
The stories capture in masterful detail the
lives of Punjabi peasantry caught between
militancy, state violence, and the harsh
realities of eking out a living from an
Waryam Singh Sandhu unforgiving land.
Chauthi Koot was adapted into an ac-
10. Ghachar Ghochar (2015)
V
ivek Shanbhag’s Ghachar
Ghochar, was perhaps the most
talked about work of fiction to
have come out of India in the
second decade of the twenty-first century.
It was the toast of London and New York
where it made it to the Guardian and New
York Times end-of-year best books lists.
“A Great Indian Novel Reaches American
Vivek Shanbhag Shores,” the New York Times emphatically
proclaimed in 2017, underlining both the
significance of Shanbhag’s achievement
and the tragic state of Indian literature
not written in English. For what made its
11. In a Forest, A Deer (2006)
A
mbai is the pseudonym of Ta-
mil writer C S Lakshmi. Born
in Coimbatore in 1944, Ambai
has been a prolific writer and
a renowned scholar in the field of women’s
Considered a classic of Sanskrit literature,
what makes Kadambari stand out is the
fact that it is one of the earliest novels
ever written, almost a millennium before
the novel, as a literary form, would attain
widespread popularity.
claimed film of the same name by director
Gurvinder Singh in 2015 that was screened
at the Un Certain Regard section of the
Cannes Film Festival. Waryam Singh
Sandhu is a towering figure of contempo-
rary Punjabi literature, though it is unfor-
tunate that unlike other Indian languages
such as Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam or
Tamil, few gems of Punjabi literature find
their way to English translations and a
wider audience.
success so remarkable was that Ghachar
Ghochar was not the work of any of the
Indian authors writing in English who are
usually the stars of lit-fest circuits, but a
work first written in Kannada, and trans-
lated into English by Srinath Perur.
It was after a long time that a work from
a regional Indian language was to break
the language barrier and find such wide ac-
claim on the international stage, opening
the floodgates for more translated works
like those of Perumal Murugan and others
to follow.
studies. As a writer of fiction, Ambai
writes stories of love, longing, and long
journeys blended with Tamil folkore. As a
historian, she is the founder of Sound and
Pictures Archives for Research on Women
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 67
 (SPARROW) — India’s first dedicated ar-
chive for women that collects print, visual,
and audio material related to women’s
12. Shahdaba (2012)
T
he ability to recite a prompt
Urdu/Hindi couplet to match
any given situation is a much
prized literary skill in the
heartland of north India. It is, however,
a difficult task for many a young man or
woman, for littered with difficult Persian
and Arabic vocabulary, classical Urdu
poetry remains inaccessible to the average
lover of poetry. This perhaps is what has
made Munawwar Rana the most widely
recognised Urdu poet in India today. His
13. Em and the Big Hoom (2012)
W
hen it was first published
in 2012, Jerry Pinto’s debut
novel about living with
mental illness drew instant
praise from figures no less than Salman
Rushdie and Amitav Ghosh. Pinto’s
delicate portrayal of family life in late
twentieth century India is suffused with
humour, heartbreak and compassion in
equal measure.
The novel has quickly become a yardstick
to measure twenty-first century Indian
14. Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)
D
aniel Kahneman is a psy-
chologist and economist widely
regarded as one of the most
influential thinkers of our
times. In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel
Prize in Economics, along with Vernon L
Smith, for his research on the psychology
of judgement and decision-making.
In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman
summarised his most important findings,
that challenge one of the most basic as-
sumptions on which modern economic and
social theory rests, ie humans, in the long
run, tend to act as rational actors.
Drawing on his rich academic experience
in psychology, mathematics and econom-
ics, as well as his experience in working
68 D E CE M B ER 2019
histories. In a Forest, A Deer won the 2006
Vodafone Crossword Book Award in the Ambai
translated Indian language fiction section.
ability to capture the subtlest of emo-
tions in the simple Hindi of the average
north Indian makes him accessible to the
multitudes who long for poetry in their
everyday spoken tongue, but are let down
by purists who would rather compose in
what are perceived to be more prestigious
variants of Urdu and Hindi.
Shahdaba, Rana’s latest collection of
poetry, was awarded the 2014 Sahitya Aka-
demi award in Urdu. Munawwar Rana
writing in English. Book blurbs on new
fiction about family life or mental illness
now carry emphatic claims about how
favourably they compare to Em and the
Big Hoom.
Jerry Pinto, catapulted to instant literary
stardom, would go on to win the Sahitya
Akademi Award, the Crossword Book
Award, and the Windham-Campbell Litera-
ture Prize for this masterful work.
Jerry Pinto
with the Israeli Defence Forces, Kahneman
presents a gripping account of the way in
which our brain works, operating through
two different systems, one fast and instinc-
tive, and one slow and rational.
However, our mind, habituated to being
lazy, inclines towards the first in most situ-
ations, often leading to instinctive rather
than rational decisions. Kahneman’s
masterful study of the human mind is one
of those books that can change the way we
perceive the world around us. Daniel Kahneman
 15. Rise And Kill First: The Secret History
of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations (2018)
R
onen Bergman is one of Israel’s
foremost investigative journal-
ists and military analysts, who
presently works for The New
York Times.
Bergman collected interviews and stories
from countless agents, double agents, spies
Ronen Bergman and assassins, then rigorously cross-
checked them to ensure he wasn’t being
used as a conduit by the IDF to further
their own version of events. Then he put
them all together in this unputdownable
book about international deceit and tar-
geted assassinations.
We learn about the ‘bureau for arrang-
ing meetings with god’ — a euphemism
for an Israeli explosives unit tasked with
16. Tales from Earthsea (2001)
U
rsula K le Guin was a writer
who, during her long writing
career of over 60 years wrote
mostly speculative fiction — a
choice that led to her being bracketed with-
in a small niche, away from the prestige
and limelight of literary fiction.
Quietly, however, she laboured on,
creating universes of fantasy best known
through her Earthsea series that spanned
many novels, and firing the imaginations
Ursula K le Guin of an entire generation of writers who
today claim her as their inspiration.
Without Le Guin there is no Harry Potter
17. The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biogra-
phy of Cancer (2010)
S
iddhartha Mukherjee had an out-
standing career as an oncologist
before he decided to pen down his
experience of a lifetime studying
cancer. The result was a book that quickly
became a literary phenomenon. It won the
2011 Pulitzer Prize for Literary non-fiction
and was picked by TIME magazine as one
Siddhartha Mukherjee of the 100 best non-fiction books of all time.
Mukherjee’s genius lay in presenting
combating the problem of fidayeen attacks,
or the ‘death by toothpaste’ of Palestinian
hijacker Wadie Haddad, carried out by an
agent identified in the book as Agent Sad-
ness, who broke into Haddad’s bathroom
and poisoned his toothpaste, and other
stories, fascinating and tragic in equal
measure.
Bergman is clear that he does not intend it
to be a celebration of the killings orches-
trated by Mossad. Many of these secret
operations proved counterproductive in
the long run and he forces the reader to
confront the moral issues arising out of
such a free use of targeted, lethal violence
as has been the preferred modus operandi
of the Mossad to deal with its adversaries.
and there is no Neil Gaiman.
It was Le Guin who first introduced the
boy wizard and a school for wizards,
themes which were later developed more
fully by J K Rowling. Both Rowling and
Neil Gaiman acknowledge Le Guin as a
prominent influence on their writing.
Her impact was not limited to fantasy
fiction alone — doyens of contemporary
literature from Salman Rushdie to Maraga-
ret Atwood to David Mitchell have all cited
Ursula K le Guin as having influenced
their writing.
a subject considered too morbid by all
but those in the medical profession, in a
humane, and highly readable manner. The
result was an international best-seller that
also met with literary acclaim.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 69
 18. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers,
Strategies (2014)
N
ick Bostrom is a Swedish phi-
losopher at Oxford who works
at the intersection of technol-
ogy and philosophy. Besides
his impressive academic CV in the field of
philosophy, Bostrom also holds an MSc in
computational neuroscience from King’s
College, London.
Superintelligence is not an easy book to
read, but it is certainly one where the
reader is rewarded for their efforts with
startlingly original insights.
The book addresses one of the most im-
19. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life,
Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
(2014)
T
he grisly spectacle of India’s
crushing poverty has held a
morbid fascination for the
Western mind ever since the
colonial encounter. One would imagine
that the fount of morbidity would have
run dry by now, having reached its pin-
nacle with Slumdog Millionaire. And yet,
Pulitzer Prize-winning American journal-
ist Katherine Boo managed to produce an
account of life in the Mumbai slums that
stands out on its own, opening up a world
that feels familiar, yet strange, even to an
Indian reader.
Behind the Beautiful Forevers follows the
lives of several characters who live in An-
20. No Presents Please: Mumbai Stories
(2017)
J
ayanth Kaikini is a Kannada poet,
short story writer, and lyricist
in Kannada cinema. Having won
four Karnataka Sahitya Akademi
awards, Kaikini is an established presence
in the Kannada literary world.
With No Presents Please, translated into
English by Tejaswini Niranjana, Kaikini
70 D E CE M B ER 2019
portant questions facing mankind in the
age of self-driving cars — will machines
evolve with time to supersede human intel-
ligence, and eventually replace humans as
the dominant life form on the earth?
The answers Bostrom gives are not very
pleasant, with both Elon Musk and Bill
Gates lending their support to Bostrom’s Nick Bostrom
thesis and declaring that superintelli-
gence is a greater threat to mankind than
nuclear weapons.
nawadi, a slum created on land belonging
to Mumbai international airport.
It is easy to dismiss the book as yet anoth-
er product of the oriental gaze and white
saviour complex, but it is at the same time
a deeply moving look at a side of India the
Anglophone Indian is increasingly getting
alienated from.
Katherine Boo spent four years from 2007 Katherine Boo
to 2011 in Annawadi documenting the lives
of its slums. Behind the Beautiful Forevers
won America’s National Book Award 2012
in the non-fiction category.
broke through the language barrier that
has been the bane of Indian literature
in regional languages. The book went
on to win the DSC Prize for South Asian
Literature in 2018, beating competition
from established writers in English such
as Mohsin Hamid, Manu Joseph and
Kamila Shamsie. A collection of 16 stories Jayanth Kaikini
 set in Mumbai, No Presents Please is like a pavements despite the millions of feet that
tender gaze at a city of chaos and violence step over it everyday.
where life sprouts from cracks in concrete

21. Human Chain (2010)

S
eamus Heaney was the last of
the great poets of the twentieth
century, in the line of T S Eliot, W
B Yeats, Pablo Neruda and Sylvia
Plath. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Lit-
erature in 1995, Heaney, who passed away
in 2013, was widely recognised as among
the greatest poets in the world during his
Seamus Heaney
lifetime.
Human Chain is his twelfth and final
collection of poetry. Published three
years before his death, the poems in the
collection grapple with issues of death,
loss of memory and the struggle against
forgetting, and the consolation that poetry
provides against the tragedy of it all.

Kamalpreet Singh Gill is

a regular contributor to
Swarajya. His areas of interest
include history, politics, and
strategic affairs.

D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 71
BOOK REVIEW
THREE HUNDRED MORE RAMAYANAS
Amar Chitra Katha’s latest issue introduces children to the diversity of epic traditions that
exist in India and also to the multi-dimensional nature of every character.
A
few years ago, I attended a
Hindutva conference. One of
the speakers, whom I will not
name, was speaking against a
particular book introduced in an under-
graduate course.
As the speaker listed the ‘errors’ in
the book, one of them caught my atten-
tion. “Sita was the daughter of Ravana. So
informs one of the stories of this book,” the
speaker told the audience and the audience
burst into laughter.
Unfortunately, I could not join that de-
risive laughter because I was familiar with
this version, and this was indeed popular
in South India.
In this version, Sita was Ravana’s
daughter but a divine voice proclaimed
during her birth that she would be the
cause of Lanka’s destruction.
So, with a heavy heart, Ravana ar-
ranged for Sita to be put in a golden basket,
72 D E CE M B ER 2019
which would eventually reach the hand of
ARAVINDAN NEELAKANDAN
Janaka.
Ravana was secretly monitoring
Sita. Like all fathers-in-law, he was also
doubtful if Rama was really worthy of his RAMA’S RING: STORIES
daughter. FROM DIFFERENT
So he abducted Sita because he did not VERSIONS OF THE EPIC.
want his daughter to suffer in the forest, AMAR CHITRA KATHA.
and also to see if his son-in-law would cross 72 PAGES
all barriers and fight the battle. So the Rs 160
story goes.
It is a folk rendering, where the Indian
mind does not want to make anyone a vil-
lain and attributes a noble motive even to
Ravana.
However, present the story as ‘Sita,
daughter of Ravana’ and you have your
shock value and an audience enthralled.
We need to tell the Hindu generation
of the present day that there are indeed
various versions and folk renderings of the
Ramayana and Mahabharata, and — while
 not all have the same quality — they all
In the Adbhuta show the way India has absorbed the epics
Ramayana, Sita is into its very being as a nation.
none other than If we do not do that then forces with ul-
Shiva—thegoddess terior motives would do it — not to praise
the diversity but to injure the national
insideallexistence,
spirit.
includingShiva.So, The Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) in its lat-
she assumes the est release has taken up this task of telling
fierceformthatkills the young minds the way both Ramayana
thedemonandthen and Mahabharata have been enriched by
becomes Kali, in a each part of India in its own way.
Titled Rama’s Ring and published this
revelationtoRama.
Diwali, the book has 72 pages and nine
stories derived from different versions of
the Ramayana and Mahabharata from dif-
ferent parts and communities of India.
The first story, Rama’s Ring, is said to
be from central India. Actually, it has its
variants all over the country. It also has a
science-fiction touch to it.
Hanuman finds out that there are infi-
nite number of Ramas and infinite number
of Ramayanas happening. It is a very good
starting point to introduce the concept of
countless cycles of time to children.
While in the version given in the ACK,
the moral of the story is to make Hanuman
realise that the natural cycle of the present
Rama should end, in the case of the Tamil
variant, the goal is to remove even the
slightest of pride from entering the mind of
Hanuman.
The second story is said to be from the
fifteenth century Odiya Ramayana by poet
Sarala Das. Actually, the work comes from
Adbhuta Ramayana (attributed to Valmiki
but a very later work with a clear ‘Shakth-
ic’ rendering of the epic — particularly the
aftermath of the slaying of Ravana).
Here, from the dead body of Ravana
emerges a more demonic form with a
thousand heads. In the comic, Sugriva and
Hanuman say that Sita would know the
secrets of Ravana and hence she should be
summoned.
In the Adbhuta Ramayana, Sita is none
other than Shiva — the goddess inside
all existence, including Shiva. So, she as-
sumes the fierce form that kills the demon
and then becomes the ferocious Kali and
reveals herself to be so to Rama.
One could say that the comic creators
missed an opportunity to present a great
scene here.
The third story gives a puranic back-
ground to Nagapasa — the serpent-binders
that Indrajit wields against Rama and Lak-
shmana with considerable success — that
immobilise the two heroes.
Garuda appears and releases them from
the Nagapasa. The story is attributed to
Kamban though in the main Kamban epic
one cannot find this reference.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 73
 The fourth is about the killing of Indra-
jit, again taken from Kamban’s Ramayana.
The fifth story is from the Gond-Bhil
communities. Here, the Ramayana and
Mahabharata characters have a cross over.
Bhima is called to rescue Lakshmana when
Indra’s daughter Indrakamini abducts him
by transforming him into a ram. The story
is quite fascinating.
The one-sided love of Indrakamini ends
in disaster with her being trapped in Lak-
shmana’s palace by Narada and the story
ends enigmatically thus: “some people of
Bhil community believe that even today,
on a dark night, they can hear Indrakamini
screaming to be let out.”
Then there is the story of Sahadeva
making Sri Krishna devotion-bound and
immobile. The story is attributed to folk
legends of Himachal Pradesh and Uttara-
khand, and is fairly well known through-
out India.
It shows the power a devotee has over
the divine — a unique Indian understand-
ing of the relation between the devotee and
his or her beloved devata.
The seventh story has a different style
of illustration and is from the Bhil Mahab-
harata.
Here the emphasis is on the real nature
of Draupadi, who is worshiped as Shakti,
as she reveals her true form.
The emphasis on the divine feminine
actually adds a whole new dimension to the
way we look at the epic.
These ‘folk versions’ actually aid in
the understanding of the epics of Vyasa
and Valmiki in a way that adds even more
beauty and dimensions to them — all this,
without being in any way contrary to the
74 D E CE M B ER 2019
core spirit of the epics.
The eighth story is supposedly from a On the whole, the
Tamil folk version of the disrobing and book is a treat. It
subsequent saving of Draupadi’s honour.
introduceschildren
Of all the stories assembled, this seems to
be the weakest.
to the diversity of
A rational explanation is given with a epictraditionsthat
superficial feminist touch. Having lived exist in India and
all my life in Tamil Nadu and also having also to the multi-
seen quite a few village theatre versions of dimensionalnature
the aforesaid episode, I should say I have
ofeverycharacter.
never seen this version.
It reads more like a cooked-up story of a
This will help
mediocre scriptwriter than a genuine folk childrenunderstand
traditional version. their culture.
The ninth story is quite interesting.
Here the anxious and doubt-ridden Duryo-
dana scripts his own doom by being over
doubtful of Bhishma. However, the story
also brings out an admirable quality in
Duryodana: adherence to his words despite
knowing well that such adherence would
result in his defeat.
On the whole, the book is a treat. It
introduces children to the diversity of
epic traditions that exist in India and also
to the multi-dimensional nature of every
character.
This will lead children to understand
their culture with depth and clarity and
also to rise above simple categorisations of
everyday life.
Brilliantly illustrated, this ACK issue
continues the legacy of ‘Uncle Pai’.
The fact sheets on Ramayana and Ma-
habharata in between the stories add more
beauty and value. It is a must-read not only
for children but also for the adults who
love Indian culture. Aravindan Neelakandan is
Contributing Editor, Swarajya.

CONSTRUCTING A TELE-KAVYA
A new book by Ramanand Sagar’s son on his father’s life narrates how the former overcame
many administrative and practical hurdles to deliver the Ramayan series.
E
veryone took a casual sugges-
PREM SAGAR
tion to mean the prime minister
wanted the Ramayana and the
AN EPIC LIFE: RAMANAND Mahabharata on DD. There was
SAGAR: FROM BARSAAT TO no time to spare, no tenders, no shortlist-
RAMAYAN. ing. Two Bombay filmmakers, Ramanand
PREM SAGAR. WESTLAND Sagar and B.R. Chopra, were asked to im-
PUBLICATIONS. mediately produce the epics. Rajiv Gandhi
304 PAGES had asked for Ramayan! That is how the
Rs 699 biggest moment in Indian television came
about. However, adversities never left Pa-
paji. There was a continuous barrage from
the press and the bureaucrats criticising
the show and wanting to get the telecast
truncated as early as possible, even during
its unprecedented success as a cult classic.
Bhaskar Ghose refused to give Papaji
an additional twenty-six weeks so that the
show could be stopped midway. But the
addiction to Ramayan in the country was
so strong that if it had stopped, the whole
country would have been hurt.
BOOK EXTRACT
Despite Ghose’s many efforts, the broad-
cast of the show did not stop. Papaji sought
permission to continue with it, directly
from H.K.L. Bhagat, who was the I&B min-
ister at that time. Ghose’s dictatorship still
did not end. He told Papaji that by reducing
the Hindu element in Ramayan, it could be
made a little more secular so that it could
be watched by diverse viewers. This meant
that there was no unity among the Hindus,
and their ascendancy could not be in
danger. But Papaji did not give up, despite
all these conspiracies by Ghose. Nor did
he agree to any kind of compromise in his
direction of the show which he felt could
not be stopped or changed. He was smart
enough to send the video tapes to Ghose
just at the time when there were only few
hours left for the broadcast. Despite all the
negativity, Ramanand Sagar had delivered
the show with complete honesty.
Papaji had barely nine days before the
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 75
 telecast of Ramayan on 25 January 1987.
The almost-impossible, Herculean job was
to find a studio, erect sets, get costumes,
etc. During the making of Vikram aur
Betaal, I had worked very closely with
Hirabhai Patel, the famous art director
of yesteryears. He had ingenious ideas
like miniature palace roofs, entire sets in
miniature with background paintings and
other cinematic tricks. I had managed to
shoot the entire serial Vikram aur Betaal
in Sagar Villa itself. As a classic costume
drama, the script had required palaces, a
set resembling the Mahakaal in Ujjain, etc.,
but the legendary Hirabhai, who had done
a lot of mythological shows and fantasies
for Wadia Movietone, managed all kinds of
settings required on a shoestring budget.
Hirabhai was the owner of the aban-
doned sprawling Vrindavan Studios in
Umargaon, Gujarat. The moulded palace
pillars, thrones and settings were ready, all
just waiting to be assembled. The creaking
doors were opened, the cobwebs cleared
and Hirabhai’s Vrindavan Studios and
Umargaon were about to enter the pages
of history. An unknown small sleepy
town, Umargaon, on the shores of Gujarat,
would soon be recognised globally and
find its place of pride on the world map.
Even the BBC would speak about it. Papaji
76 D E CE M B ER 2019
concentrated on the writing and research;
Anand was the creative director; Moti took
“Therewerenocall
charge of editing; Subhash was in charge of sheetsorschedules.
production and I was in charge of technical All actors were on
matters, including camera, special effects twenty-four-hour
and graphics. The team worked in total redalerts.IfPapaji
coordination. The star cast of Vikram aur
finished writing a
Betaal, now in Ramayan, was a perfectly
well coordinated one—whether it was Ram,
sceneat3a.m.,the
Sita, Lakshman or Hanuman. Sawant Dada actorsimmediately
and his team, who had earlier worked got ready with
on multiple mythological episodes and their make-up
fantasies with the Wadia brothers, were in andcostumesand
charge of the make-up department.
shootingbegan.”
On the morning of 25 January 1987, the
first episode of Ramayan was telecast at
9 a.m. to the whole nation. Papaji and his
entire family and staff watched it qui-
etly, sitting on the Persian blue carpeted
floor of his bedroom. When the episode
ended, there was pin-drop silence for a few
minutes, and then the entire room echoed
with claps. Despite all the hurdles, Papaji’s
Ramayan was now a reality. Week after
week, for seventy-eight weeks, Ramayan
was telecast without a break or hurdle, no
one fell sick, the tapes reached Delhi, at
times minutes before the telecast, which
was by itself a miracle. Over a hundred
unit members, technicians, actors and
workers slept in shifts, at times just for a
Another still from the shooting
of Ramayan (Prem Sagar).
Actors like Dara
Singh spent three
to four hours in
themake-uproom.
TheHanumanlook
— with his foam
rubber-moulded
mouth—involved
painstaking effort
and was time-
consuming.
Prem Sagar is
director-producer and
cinematographer. Closely
associated with the show
‘Ramayan’, Sagar went on to
have an extremely successful
career in television being
associated with shows like ‘Shri
Krishna’, ‘Sai Baba’, ‘Prithviraj
Chauhan’ and ‘Chandra Gupta
Maurya’ in various creative
capacities.
few hours, to complete the shooting and
post-production in time. Day and night, the
Bombay-Umargaon route had cars plying
and trains loaded with the Ramayan team.
Strictly no air travel was allowed, neither
for the boss nor for the actors.
There were no call sheets or schedules.
All actors were on twenty-four-hour red
alerts. If Papaji finished writing a scene at
3 a.m., the actors immediately got ready
with their make-up and costumes and
shooting began. There were no shift tim-
ings, as it was round the clock. Actors like
Dara Singh spent three to four hours in the
make-up room. The Hanuman look—with
his foam rubber-moulded mouth— in-
volved painstaking effort and was time-
consuming. Hundreds of junior artists had
to get ready. In the mass monkey scenes,
local ideas were adopted—coconut shells
with a marble strung between the cut edge
to hold between the teeth in the mouth.
They were called ‘goti bandars’ or ‘marble
monkeys’. During the shot, they were in-
structed to hold the marble, and a hundred
monkey soldiers would be ready in a jiffy.
Sawant Dada worked his make-up magic
on everyone, be it the gods or the demons.
The pressure of writing weighed very
heavily on Papaji. Imagine writing day
and night, scene after scene, sometimes on
the set itself, while the shoot was on. The
responsibility was immense as the viewer-
ship was huge and cut across all social
strata.
I remember praying in the Hanuman
temple at Connaught Place, Delhi. Once,
Papaji felt as if a copper statue of Hanu-
manji in the opposite shop was speaking
to him. He just walked across and bought
the statue, without even bargaining. After
that, he would tell me that whenever he
had writer’s block, he would talk to the
statue kept in his private room about what
the dialogues should be. Papaji told me that
Hanumanji would ‘speak’ to him and some-
times even narrate the dialogues required
for the scene.
As I recall, on 1 January 2003 Papaji
met Ashok Singhal, chief of the Vishva
Hindu Parishad (VHP), at Sagar Villa. Both
of them exchanged their experiences of
miracles during the making of Ramayan.
Papaji confided in him about how he had
been worried and burdened with self-im-
posed responsibilities. Early one morning,
a sadhu came to Sagar Villa. Papaji was on
the terrace with my mother, feeding the
pigeons.
It was a normal practice for many
sadhus to come home or to our office at
Natraj Studios. They were all treated with
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 77
 reverence. Some would want a rail ticket,
and others, a blanket, and so on. If they
appeared genuine, their requests were
complied with, and if anything was found
suspicious about them, they would still be
given a ten rupee note, because Papaji al-
ways believed that a sadhu should never be
returned empty-handed. That day, instead
of my mother, Papaji decided to meet the
sadhu.
He was a very young sadhu and had a
brilliant aura around him. Papaji asked
him how he could help him. He said that he
had come to give him a message from his
guru in the Himalayas. Suddenly, to Papa-
ji’s shock, the tone and volume of the sadhu
changed into that of a command, ‘Who are
you? What is this pride—I will not do this
… I will not do that! What do you think …
you are making the Ramayan! Why are
you worried? In the upper spiritual world,
there is a yojana vibhag (planning commis-
sion). India is going to lead the world and a
few of you have been sent to create aware-
ness. Do your work and come back …’ The
divine-looking sadhu did not look back,
and walked straight out of Sagar Villa.
After that day Papaji knew Ramayan
was being written and executed by higher
powers, and he was only an instrument.
One such example to support this feeling
was the sequence in Ramayan in which
Bharat, Ram’s brother, refuses the throne.
The entire sequence had been shot and
canned. Late at night, Papaji got an inspi-
ration to redo it to make it more contempo-
rary and relevant. Before King Dashrath
in his royal court, his council of minis-
ters and the praja (people), Bharat first
analyses that there are three affirmations
required to crown a king. The vote of the
people, the approval of the gurus and the
acceptance of the king to crown his next
heir. In the case of Ram, all three condi-
tions were fulfilled. Why, then, was he sent
to exile for fourteen years? If you have a
right to vote, it is your duty to protect this
right. Surprisingly, no one rebelled when
Ram was banished, to live in the forest for
fourteen years. In such cases where you do
not protect your right, other factors like
palace intrigues and secret plots will be
forced and dumped on the citizens and the (Prem Sagar)

country. This was a commentary on the

dynastic family rule prevalent in Delhi.

78 D E CE M B ER 2019

GOOD SANITATION, GOOD ECONOMICS
Providing good sanitation to all is a target noble and critical enough by itself. That it boosts
economic indicators too, is an added bonus.
A
ddressing Sanitation Chal-
HARTWIG SCHAFER
lenges
There is no single solution
to the sanitation challenge;
THE SWACHH BHARAT however, ensuring the availability of
REVOLUTION: FOUR toilets at home and in public buildings is
PILLARS OF INDIA’S a necessary step in the development of a
BEHAVIOURAL sanitation service chain.
TRANSFORMATION. Changing Mindsets
EDITED BY PARAMESWARAN Better health and other economic impacts
IYER. HARPERCOLLINS of access to sanitation facilities can be
INDIA. achieved only by the effective and sustain-
280 PAGES able use of these facilities by all members
Rs 419 of the population. One of the lessons the
World Bank has learned, not only from
SBM [Swachh Bharat Mission], but also
from our projects across several countries,
is that it’s not just about building a toilet
BOOK EXTRACT
– it’s about changing the mindsets and
encouraging people to use them.
Achieving lasting behaviour and social
change remains essential to sustaining the
development outcomes of improved sanita-
tion. This means tackling those ‘below the
waterline’ elements of change – breaking
taboos and addressing biases. After all,
changing centuries-old habits of defecat-
ing in the open is a complex undertaking
involving behaviour change at a deep level.
Yet, examples from around the world
and from SBM have shown that com-
munity led sanitation programmes can
and do change people’s behaviour around
sanitation. By entrusting and empowering
households and communities and building
ownership around the cause of becoming
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 79
 open defecation free, these programmes
may sustain achievements in sanitation
with lasting impacts.
SBM has placed considerable emphasis
on behaviour change campaigns at all
levels and utilized many different chan-
nels and platforms to do so. Importantly, it
provides opportunities for women to take
leading roles in their communities.
Women comprise roughly 30-40 per cent
of the volunteers – swachhagrahis – who
lead the process of triggering behaviour
change at the village level (World Bank
2018, pg. 1). In addition, enlisting well-
known celebrities and mass media has
proven to be an effective means of dissemi-
nating important messages.
The Darwaza Band mass media cam-
paigns supported by the World Bank focus
on ‘closing the door’ on open defecation
and sustaining behaviour change as a com-
munity.
Toilets Alone Are Not Enough
While building household toilets outside of
each home provides every family member
access to a dignified service, pit latrines
and septic tanks do fill up, and their waste
must be treated, just like any piped sewage
system.
An analysis of data from 39 countries
shows that 43 per cent of the human waste
that is transmitted through sewers is un-
treated. Similarly, the sewer-connected toi-
let is not the right fit for every community.
Such toilets require significant amounts of
water and well-functioning sewer infra-
structure to operate effectively.
At the same time, in the absence of
sewer-connected toilets, people around the
world use a range of non-sewered, on-site
toilet options to meet their needs. While
these options safely contain human waste,
they need to be linked to collection and
treatment systems that ensure the removal
of pathogens from the environment. The
twin-pit toilets being promoted by SBM are
an important and innovative technology
that manages the waste on-site and also
requires less water.
There are also huge opportunities for
effective resource recovery – by generating
energy and nutrient-rich by-products from
treated waste, and re-using these for agri-
culture, or even the production of recycled
or ‘new’ water.
80 D E CE M B ER 2019
All of this requires creativity, tech-
nological innovation and novel ways of Ultimately,investing
delivering services across the value chain
insanitationisabout
– which in turn create jobs and opportuni-
ties.
preventingneedless
deaths, investing
Finance, Incentives And Institutions in people and
Breakthroughs in financing models are transforminglives.
also needed to provide sanitation as a ser-
vice which responds to user demands. To
this end, setting clear public policy goals
and using public funds to leverage the
financing and technical capabilities of the
private sector, as demonstrated by SBM,
are critical to accelerate the integration of
disruptive thinking and the adoption of in-
novative approaches to deliver sanitation
solutions at scale.
Several countries are implementing
these ideas. In Sri Lanka, for example,
the National Water Supply and Drainage
Board is testing a new model of public-pri-
vate partnerships for toilet improvement
and septage management in four munici-
palities outside of Colombo.
In India, large public investments in
sanitation have been instrumental in build-
ing momentum for improving sanitation
across the country. These examples show
that there is a fundamental complemen-
tarity between infrastructure and institu-
tions, and both are central to improving
the quality of sanitation in the developing
world (Ashraf, Glaeser and Ponzetto, 2016).
A Complex Challenge – But Not Insur-
mountable
Ultimately, investing in sanitation is about
preventing needless deaths, investing in
people and transforming lives. Achieving
improved and safely managed sanitation
for all may be a complex challenge, but the
transition from open defecation to the safe
disposal and treatment of waste is possible
– and essential.
Toilet-building combined with other fac-
tors such as social and behaviour change,
maintenance and repair of toilets, waste
and drainage management and treatment,
re-use of by-products of treated waste for
productive purposes, innovations in tech-
nology and finance along with institutional
and policy reforms remain the key ingredi-
ents to help countries meet the challenge of
sustained sanitation improvement.
 Achievingimproved
andsafelymanaged
sanitation for all
may be a complex
challenge, but the
transitionfromopen
defecation to the
safe disposal and
treatmentofwaste
is possible – and
essential.
Hartwig Schafer is the World
Bank’s Vice President for the
South Asia Region.
Keeping An Eye On The Ball: Measur-
ing Results And Impact
Global experience has highlighted the
importance of effective monitoring and
assessment mechanisms to measure the
short- and long-term performance and
impacts. The World Bank support to SBM
builds such capacity at the national, state
and gram panchayat levels.
This includes annual monitoring of
progress through a nation-wide survey, the
National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey.
This measures not only the availability of
safe sanitation facilities, but also the sus-
tained use of these facilities by the popu-
lation. Such monitoring helps measure pro-
gress and informs when course correction
may be required.
Two rounds of this survey have been
completed, the first in 2017–18 and the
second in 2018–19, and they have shown
the significant progress India has made in
increasing access to sanitation in a short
span of time. The World Bank is commit-
ted to supporting the Government of India
in continuing these surveys to ensure that
sustained and effective use is being made
of the toilet facilities, so that the intended
economic, social and environmental ben-
efits of SDG 6.2 are fully realized.
Solutions to the challenge of attaining
sustainable universal sanitation are avail-
able as demonstrated by the lessons and
results of SBM. This is perhaps the right
moment for other countries across the
world to seize the momentum of SBM by
providing the same level of political leader-
ship and financing to achieve the SDG
objectives of an open-defecation-free world.
The World Bank is proud to support
SBM and, through its Lighthouse India
initiative, stands ready to build on the
tremendous results of SBM and work with
partners across the world to deliver a fu-
ture where sound political leadership, pub-
lic financing, policy direction and people’s
engagement ensure that the safety, dignity
and opportunity of sanitation become a
reality for all.
D EC EMB ER 2 0 1 9 81
 THE
COMMISSIONER
OBITUARY
ItwasTNSeshanwhoestablishedthepracticalsupremacyofthemodelcodeofconductinIndian
elections.
T
irunellai Narayana Iyer Seshan
or T N Seshan, the pioneer of
election reforms in India, passed
away on 10 November following
a cardiac arrest. According to his colleague
and former Chief Election Commissioner
(CEC) T S Krishna Murthy, the history of
the Election Commission of India can be
divided into two parts — pre-Seshan and
post-Seshan era.
When the then prime
minister Chandrashek-
har made him the CEC
in 1990, little did he
expect T N Seshan
to mean business.
He soon became
a nightmare for
political parties,
particularly ruling
ones, and contest-
ants in elections.
Some parties de-
tested him and the late
J Jayalalithaa, who was the
Tamil Nadu chief minister dur-
ing his term as CEC, called him an “embodi-
ment of arrogance”. In fact, she even dared
to threaten him when nearly 100 persons
from her party went in autorickshaws and
attacked a five-star hotel in the heart of
Chennai where Seshan had stayed during
a visit.
Seshan had listed various violations be-
ing committed in elections and it helped his
successors to improve on that and tighten
the election process.
It was Seshan who first insisted that
the model code of conduct for elections be
adhered to in letter and spirit. After this, no
government, either at the Centre on in the
82 D E CE M B ER 2019
states, dared to come up with schemes that M R SUBRAMANI
could be seen as trying to influence voters
once the conduct was in place.
Seshan was such a stickler for the law
that in 1993, prime minister P V Narasimha
Rao made the Election Commission a multi-
member body so that he could be reined in.
It did pay a dividend to some extent as one
of the election commissioners, M S Gill, was
often seen confronting Seshan.
There are, however, four
events on which one hoped
Seshan would have pro-
vided some answers.
First: why, in 1991,
did he put off the
assembly elec-
tions for Punjab?
Second, why did
he not take action
on a complaint filed
by Subramanian
Swamy on a petition
seeking disqualifica-
tion of Jayalalithaa? Third,
Seshan never had good things to
say about politics and politicians. Still, he
availed of Shiv Sena’s nomination to op-
pose A P J Abdul Kalam in the presidential
elections and lost badly. And fourth, why
he took the Congress nomination from the
Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency to
take on Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K
Advani, only to lose again. The reasons for
these will remain a mystery.
In the end however, Seshan would be
remembered as someone who put Indian
democracy and its elections back on track.
M R Subramani is Executive
Editor, Swarajya.