More than Meets the Eye in Vinesh Phogat Saga; Hasina Exit as India’s Latest Intelligence Failure; 69 Indians Still Stuck With Russian Army
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by MK Venu, Seema Chishti, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sushant Singh, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal and Tanweer Alam | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK
Snapshot of the day
August 9, 2024
Siddharth Varadarajan
There is a technical aspect to the disqualification of Vinesh Phogat hours before the 50 kg category wrestling final at the Olympics but there is just no getting away from the political backstory either. For the shadow of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the disgraced ex-chief of the Wrestling Federation of India, has been looming large in Paris.
Phogat was 100 gms over the 50 kg limit and was relegated to the bottom of the pool. This decision – based on a ruling by United World Wrestling, the global wrestling federation whose regulations the International Olympics Committee follows – has been challenged before the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport. The hearings concluded today and a decision is expected tomorrow.
The CAS also revealed today that Phogat’s appeal was taking time because she “did not request urgent interim measures”. Why this request was not made isn’t immediately clear. Was this a decision taken by the Indian Olympics Asociation? By the WFI? By Sanjay Singh? By Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh? Certainly the last two parties played a role in ensuring Phogat was unable to compete in her preferred weight category of 53kg.
Though Brij Bhushan stepped down as WFI chief after being indicted for sexual molestation and harassment of women wrestlers, including Phogat, who is one of the complainants, he managed to get his proxy, Sanjay Singh, ‘elected’ to the post. So scandalous was the manipulation that the government suspended the WFI’s executive committee last year. Imagine Phogat’s dismay to see Sanjay Singh in Paris still calling the shots, even in issues concerning her case.
Vinesh Phogat’s counsel argued in the Delhi high court yesterday that Sanjay Singh “is right now in the Olympic Village deciding what should happen to [Phogat],” Sohini Ghosh reports. Phogat and other petitioners, including Bajrang Punia, also asked the court to finalise a date when it would pronounce its verdict on a challenge to the WFI’s functioning – something originally due in May this year – but it did not do so.
The People's Commission on Public Sector and Public Services has said that had those in authority acted promptly regarding wrestlers' concerns, 'the nation would not have witnessed today the sad spectacle of women wrestlers being forced to forfeit the honours they deserve'. They want a panel headed by a senior judge to probe the concerns of women wrestlers.
Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem and India’s Neeraj Chopra won gold and silver respectively in the men’s javelin competition but those looking for jingoism in this India v Pakistan face-off will be sorely disappointed. "If mothers ran the world, there would be no hate, no wars,” says journalist Ghulam Abbas Shah. Arshad Nadeem's mother said: 'Neeraj Chopra is like a son to me. I prayed for him too,' while Neeraj Chopra's mother told ANI: 'We're happy with silver. The one who won gold (Arshad Nadeem) is also my child.'"
Delhi Police broke up a solidarity demonstration with Palestinians and detained several prominent activists, including economist Jean Dreze and Communist Party of Indian leader Annie Raja. The group was participating in a silent protest at the APJ Abdul Kalam crossing in Delhi to oppose the ongoing Israeli attack on Palestinians in Gaza and to call for a ceasefire. “We did not even shout slogans, but were standing silently with banners but unfortunately, police detained us,” Dreze said. “Under the Genocide Convention, which India has signed and ratified, India is required to take all possible steps to prevent genocide. This means that India cannot export military equipment or weapons to Israel if there’s a serious risk that these weapons might be used to commit war crimes,” they have said, demanding that arms supply to Israel be stopped immediately, along with the end of all official ties between India and Israel for the time being.
There are still as many as 69 Indians awaiting release from the Russian Army External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told Parliament today. Eight Indians have already been killed on the frontline with Ukraine. Not-so-fun fact: Getting a ‘promise’ from Putin for their speedy return return was supposed to be the big achievement from Modi’s recent visit to Moscow.
After 17 months in jail, the Supreme Court finally granted bail to former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia in the cases filed against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the alleged excise policy scam. “It is clear that there is not even the remotest possibility of the trial being concluding in the near future,” a bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan said, directing that Sisodia be released on a bond of Rs 10 lakh and two sureties of the like amount. “In the present case, there are 493 witnesses in the ED and CBI cases. The case involves thousands of pages of documents and over a lakh pages of digitised documents… In our view, keeping the appellant behind the bars in the hope of speedy completion of trial would deprive the fundamental rights to liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. As observed time again, the prolonged incarceration before being pronounced guilty of an offence should not be permitted to become punishment without trial,” the bench said.
The apex court also stayed a circular issued by a Mumbai college that imposed a ban on wearing hijab, niqab, burqa, caps and similar attire within its premises. The court, however, said no burqa can be allowed to be worn by girls inside the classroom and no religious activities can be permitted on the campus. A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Sanjay Kumar questioned the college’s selective ban on religious symbols, asking why it had not extended the prohibition to other markers of religion, such as tilak and bindi, if the intention was to enforce a uniform dress code. “Girl students must have freedom of choice in what they are wearing and college cannot force them...It’s unfortunate that you suddenly wake up to know that there are many religions in the country,” the bench told the college administration at the centre of a fresh row over a dress code for Muslim students. “Can you say someone wearing a tilak will not be allowed? This is not part of your instructions?” Justice Kumar asked, as per Live Law.
Talking of the sorry state of affairs, Samajwadi Party MP and actor Jaya Bachchan objected to the “unacceptable tone” used by Rajya Sabha Chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar while addressing Opposition members in the Upper House and demanded an apology from him. In her address, the actor said that as an artist, she understood body language and expressions. Bachchan was then interrupted by the chairperson, who asked her to take her seat amid protest from other Opposition MPs. He added: “But every day, I do not want to repeat myself. Every day, I don’t want to do schooling… You are talking about my tone?... You may be anybody. You may be a celebrity but I do not care.” Flanked by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, Bachchan told reporters outside Parliament that she had objected to the tone used by the chairperson. “We are not school children,” the actor said, noting the words used by Dhankar. “I am not asking him to care. I am saying I am a Member of Parliament. This is my fifth term. I know what I am saying. The way things are being spoken in Parliament these days, nobody has ever spoken before. I want an apology.” [For more on display, watch Dhankar after 18:00 — he seems to have lost it completely].
Some in the BJP and RSS have called for the protection of Hindus leaving Bangladesh, but others, such as the Assam and Tripura CMs, have spoken of the “fully secured” borders between their states and Bangladesh, Nistula Hebbar and Vijaita Singh report. For its part, the Border Security Force said it was turning people without entry documents away from the border “irrespective of their religion” in keeping with the Union home ministry’s orders.
Among reports of Bangladeshi Hindus being attacked after Sheikh Hasina’s ouster are old, computer-generated or otherwise misleading media. Monir Ghaedi debunks some of these false claims, including false reports of Hindu women being raped and a Hindu cricketer having his house burnt down. Hindu students in Bangladesh say the Indian media coverage of the violence in their country has been inflammatory and made the situation worse for them. “Report with facts” is their appeal.
The unrest in Bangladesh and the subsequent reduction in the movement of goods and people are affecting business across the border in India. Exporters, manufacturers, restaurant owners and tour operators tell Gurvinder Singh about how Bangladesh’s regime change has affected their work, with the cotton industry standing out for its sanguine outlook. Still, Indian companies based across the border are finding that things began returning to normal around yesterday, Reuters finds.
“Chaos at India’s eastern doorstep is also a warning to the bigger economy: The youth want employment, from politicians they can hold accountable. What they don’t want is jobless growth with democratic backsliding.” Andy Mukherjee writes on the lesson India must learn from Bangladesh’s turmoil, which was rooted in discontent among the youth – a familiar problem for the Modi government today.
Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav told Parliament yesterday that the forest cover in some of the hill states including Jammu and Kashmir had reduced owing to the upgrade of infrastructure and health facilities, while responding to a query by Rajya Sabha MP Ranjeet Ranjan, who said that while there has been a loss of forest cover in these areas, the government is going ahead with sanctioning more projects. Forest cover loss was also documented in states such as Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland. MP Ranjan said that while the government speaks about protecting forests, forest cover was being destroyed in the name of development projects.
Talking about the misplaced priorities, “Modi’s government has never seen a methodology it likes, says The Economist as the Modi government’s response to any kind of criticism and bad news is denial, and often the only response:
.Last year the Global Hunger Index, a measure of undernutrition, ranked India 111th out of 125 countries. The government said it had “serious methodological issues”. India ranks 176th of 180 countries on an environmental index. “Unscientific methods”. What about the World Bank’s human capital index, which measures health and education? “Major methodological weaknesses”. The World Press Freedom Index? “Methodology which is questionable”. The Freedom in the World Index, EIU Democracy Index and V-DEM indices? “Serious problems with the methodology”. Sometimes the government does not even like its own data. In 2019 it withheld the release of unflattering consumption numbers, promising fresh ones with “a refinement in the survey methodology”. When there is no methodology to question, the government sometimes shoots the messenger”. Modi “has projected himself as an almost god-like figure, demanding fact-free loyalty. But as this year’s election shows, not everyone still keeps the faith,”
But
Justice system in J&K a ‘cruel joke’, says High court
The justice system in Jammu and Kashmir has been reduced to a “cruel joke”, the High Court said as it criticised the Union territory’s administration for its failure to comply with a court order. A division bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Javed Iqbal Wani made its remarks on Monday as it heard a contempt petition against the administration for not complying with a court order from August 2023. The bench said that the “excessive latitude” shown to the executive in the past had allowed it to consistently ignore court orders, Live Law reports. This had led to a backlog of over 6,000 contempt petitions, it said, adding that some cases were pending for over a decade. The bench said that it is nothing but a reflection of the “sorry state of affairs” in the Union territory with regard to judicial proceedings and orders. “This reflects a shocking scenario where the executive is ignoring the orders passed by this court with utter disdain, cocky that this court shall take no measures imperilling their liberty for their disobedience,’’ it observed.
BJP leader let party politics dictate work of National Commission of Women
As the BJP’s Rekha Sharma wraps up her nine-year stint at the National Commission of Women, including over six years as chairperson, Tanishka Sodhi looks at some notable incidents that characterised her tenure and the eerie silence over important cases. She found that in 2023 and 2024, “eight out of ten of her visits to investigate crimes against women were … to states governed by the opposition parties. This data is not exhaustive, but some of the incidents in BJP-governed states for which Sharma did not hit the ground include the alleged rape of over 150 women in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur in June and the protest last year by women wrestlers, primarily from Haryana, over alleged sexual harassment by BJP leader Brij Bhushan Singh.”
‘Etc’: Home ministry expands list of documents that can pass CAA muster
Applicants under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act can now avail documents issued by the Union government, state governments or quasi-judicial bodies in India, and not just those issued by governments in Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan, to attest that they, their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents were nationals of those three countries, Vijaita Singh reports. This is a result of a July 8 ‘clarification’ the home ministry issued following confusion and concern among potential applicants, especially from West Bengal. There is also an “etc” appended to the list of Indian documents that can now pass muster, giving even more discretion to Indian government officials.
The Long Cable
Was Bangladesh India’s latest intelligence failure?
Omair Ahmad
It is now widely recognised that India’s foreign policy towards Bangladesh, with its focus on backing the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League party, has been less than successful. Most analysts have focussed on India’s backing of the flawed 2024 election results, as Narendra Modi became the first international leader to congratulate Hasina, paving the way for others to acknowledge the results of the election. It must be noted that, unlike the 2018 (also widely criticised) elections, the Indian ambassador met with the principal opposition party – the Bangladesh National Party in 2023. But this one meeting with the BNP, the only one in a decade, also indicates how limited Indian engagement had become.
The narrow range of official interaction, except between Modi and Hasina, is reflected in other aspects as well. The first major treaty signed between India and Bangladesh was the 1972 Treaty of Peace and Friendship. One of its key outcomes was the Joint River Commission, which is supposed to meet around four times a year. Its last meeting was in August 2022, after a gap of 12 years. Bangladesh shares 54 transboundary rivers with India, and in a riverine country river cooperation impacts almost all aspects of the political economy of Bangladesh. India, apparently, could not care less.
If such official cooperation was considered unnecessary, it is little surprise that India has said nothing about the political prisoners ‘disappeared’ by the Hasina government, some of whom are only appearing after eight years. The extended attack on Mohammad Yunus, which was perceived by many as Hasina’s personal vendetta against someone who was often seen as more credible than her, drew not a word from India. And now that Yunus is the head of the interim administration, the Indian government is left with few links, and can only resort to a combination of threats and bluster – that too outsourced to retired diplomats and security officials on the news channels.
The list of failures is long and bitter, and begs the question of how India got it so wrong. This is why it was appropriate that India’s National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, received Hasina when she arrived in India. Other than our diplomatic corps, the one person most responsible for gathering information and briefing the government on how to act on foreign relations is the NSA, and thus he shares much of the responsibility for this turn of events.
There are three possible explanations for why the Indian government misread the situation so catastrophically. It could be that the intelligence gathering skills of our agencies in Bangladesh is remarkably poor. Or it could be that the intelligence agencies were instructed badly, and while their information was good, it was not processed properly. Or, lastly and least likely, that the NSA credibly informed the government of the intelligence and was overruled. In other words, either the NSA oversees an incompetent operation, or he is incompetent himself, or he commands no authority in the government.
Unfortunately, the Indian public is not likely to find out what went wrong. This is because of the peculiarity of having built a formidable office and mechanism to deal with national security issues, but no real oversight. The Modi government elevated the NSA to Cabinet Minister rank in 2019, and we have a powerful National Security Advisory Board – a Deputy NSA is now the Foreign Secretary, but most Indians will be surprised to note that there is no legal definition of “national security” in India. Although we have had a National Security Act since 1980 – to facilitate preventive detention – we never bothered to define the term.
In that gaping legal void, an increasingly powerful national security architecture has great licence but little accountability. Unlike most democratic countries, India’s Parliament has no oversight of intelligence matters – unlike say the House Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in the United States. Given the sensitivity of intelligence information, it is wise not to have public hearings, but surely a committee of MPs, which includes the opposition, should have a chance to ask why such failures are happening.
Incidentally, this is not the first failure on Doval’s watch. As the government’s lead on border talks with China, the NSA bears primary responsibility for allowing India to be surprised by Chinese actions on the LAC. He is also the person who should be answering questions about allegations that a government agency may have murdered, and attempted to murder in North America Sikhs with Canadian or American citizenship.
Instead, all we have is silence, and an Indian public increasingly worried about how we keep seeming to get it wrong, time and again, as if we had no intelligence at all.
Reportedly
Throughout the world, the police employs sketch artists to put out drawings of wanted men based on eye-witness descriptions of suspects. But only in Uttar Pradesh do the police release an artist’s impression of the suspect closely based on the actual photo of the accused person presumably taken by the police after he was already in their custody!
Deep dive
In her analysis of Muslim politics in India, Shefali Jha explores the dynamic interplay between regional identities, federal structures, and political representation. She argues that communities employing alternative political idioms, distinct from the dominant ‘Hindu-Muslim’ narrative of the heartland, have proven fertile grounds for building coalitions and fostering accommodation. These contexts have facilitated the emergence of unique and resilient Muslim political platforms, capable of navigating and influencing the broader political landscape.
Prime number: 14
Those many bridges have collapsed in Bihar since June, with the latest being an under-construction bridge in the state’s Katihar district that locals said collapsed due to rain and a Ganga in spate. Amit Bhelari reports that alongside the collapses, there has also been criticism for one bridge in Araria that was built over an open field with no road connectivity on either side.Opeds you don’t want to miss
Christophe Jaffrelot on how the dialectics of caste and Hindutva find themselves again at a critical juncture. “The tactical dimension of the caste census apart, it will have long time substantial effects: even if fewer jatis than expected benefited from Mandal at first, the implementation of Mandal II, or reservation in higher educational institutions in 2006, helped thousands of young men and women experience upward social mobility.”
India’s establishment helped impose Sheikh Hasina on the Bangladeshi people hoping that she would ensure their gratitude for 1971, not realising that this “gratitude was [their] most painful cross to bear”, Ali Riaz writes in Protham Alo. He also wonders if the establishment is alive to the possibility that Bangladesh’s new government could ask that Hasina be extradited from India.
Inequality reigns, jobs vanish and citizens are on their own while “there is of course no discussion on the state of public services and their declining share in government expenditure,” writes Dipa Sinha.
In this review of Anuradha Sajjanhar’s The New Experts: Populist Elites and Technocratic Promises in Modi’s India, Subrata K. Mitra looks at the limits of Modi’s ‘techno-populism’.
Those who grieved the killing of Gauri Lankesh “are not wrong to point a finger at Modi and his ruling party,” says Nitish Pahwa in his review of Rollo Romig’s new book on the 2017 assassination of the Bangalore-based journalist. “‘While her killing may not have been ordered from the top, the impunity and permissiveness granted by the government — which conveys its approval to rank-and-file bigots like a mob boss, with gestures and hints — may be just as effective.”
The Supreme Court’s advisory on ending reservations for the ‘creamy layer’ among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes may be non-binding, says Manoj Mitta, it could encourage some states to introduce the filter and make Dalit, Adivasi teachers more scarce.
The latest regime change in the wake of a popular mass uprising should provide an occasion to rethink future relations between Delhi and Dhaka, says Salimullah Khan in the Daily Star, a Bangladeshi daily. “India's best interest may perhaps lie in strengthening a new democracy in Bangladesh. At any rate, not obstructing democratic aspirations of a new generation in its eastward neighbourhood is the key point.”
Listen up
Divya Arya speaks to young women from Haryana training to become world-class wrestlers, “following their idols who have tasted Olympic glory abroad and made a stand against attitudes to women at home”. But these aspirations don’t come without their costs, Arya says. Listen here.
Watch out
The Modi government’s Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill will be a hard blow for all digital content creators, particularly those from the news and current affairs space. Dhanya Rajendran talks to Akash Banerjee and Nikhil Pahwa about its impact and chilling effect.
Over and out
In a rare and highly-anticipated event, Bollywood star Aamir Khan was in the Supreme Court today for a special screening of the film ‘Laapata Ladies’, which is being screened for the judges, their families and officials of the registry with an aim of spreading awareness on gender equality. The event is part of the celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the Supreme Court.
While announcing the actor’s arrival, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud put on his funny hat and said, “I don’t want a stampede in court. But Aamir Khan is here today.”
Here is a quite telling picture.
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.
Why can't there be a law that restricts the no ofonths of prison without trail. It's disgraceful that we call ourselves a democratic country and yet incarcerate many without trails. Sure there are anti terror laws that alows arrest with a low threshold but surely there has to be an upper limit for jail term without trail. PMLA s are even more fractious and just a tool for this oppressive regime to target their opponents. This regime is anti everyone who is not with them. High time people realize that.