Nepal Irked By ‘Akhand Bharat’ Mural; SCO Summit: For Modi, Diplomacy Takes A Back Seat To Domestic Politics

Gujarat hospitals play ping-pong with doctors, new book warns against nationalist ‘out of India’ theory, Janaki Ammal honoured in Chelsea, women head households and toxic bosses rule Indian offices

A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by MK Venu, Seema Chishti, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sushant Singh, Sidharth Bhatia and Tanweer Alam | With inputs from Kalrav Joshi | Editor: Pratik Kanjilal

Snapshot of the day

June 2, 2023

Pratik Kanjilal

In Karnataka, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s cabinet has approved five welfare schemes to make good five poll guarantees of the Congress. 

The contents of two FIRs filed by adult women wrestlers and the father of a minor sportsperson against Wrestling Federation of India chief and BJP MP Brij Bhushan Singh are simply dreadful. The list of offences includes an offer of dietary supplements in exchange for favours. Incredibly, the BJP remains unwilling to act against its man. Earlier, it had dropped its minister of state for external affairs MJ Akbar. Meanwhile, representatives of the khap mahapanchayat convened in support of the wrestlers by the Tikaits have decided to take the matter to President Droupadi Murmu. 

Whether it is his claims about the Hindu foundations of Mughal monuments, or his support to BJP MP Brij Bhushan Singh, who is accused of sexual offences by the protesting wrestlers, the similarly accused Rajyavardhan Singh Parmar remains in the news as the boss of an obscure Hindutva outfit, the Maharana Pratap Sena. He was arrested earlier this week, three weeks after a woman accused him of sexually assaulting her at Uttar Pradesh Bhavan in Delhi, after summoning her on the pretext of setting up a meeting with Union ministers for her film project. Newslaundry reports that Parmar managed to book a room earmarked for bureaucrats and ministers, and this is now being probed in UP. But Parmar has been living in Lutyens’ Delhi’s Vithalbhai Patel House for two years with his wife and two children. Flats at VP House are reserved for MPs and former MPs, and a booking needs the approval of the Lok Sabha Secretariat. This is not being probed.

Even more disturbing than the wrestlers’ account is the story of a family in the throes of the violence in Imphal, recounted in Newslaundry. Residents for three decades, they may not want to call the city their home any more. The Print reports on three Kukis who were singled out by the mob using their ID, beaten and left to die on the streets. One, a construction worker, was dumped, still alive, in a mortuary. Significantly, throughout the violence in Manipur, ID promoted by the government for efficient delivery of welfare has been used to identify and target minorities. The Indian Express met the families who still await the return of the bodies of their kin. 

The New Yorker explores the creepy world of hackers for hire in India. Their targets number in the hundreds of thousands  ― volumes that make unethical hacking an industry. A researcher at Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which has been involved in cyber-forensics in India (including the use of Pegasus spyware on the devices of the Bhima Koregaon accused) said: “You know how in some industries, everybody ‘knows a guy’ who can do a certain thing? Well, in hacking for hire, India is ‘the guy’. They are just so prolific.”

In February, Karnataka approved a law that increased the daily work hours in factories from nine to 12, with a weekly maximum of 48 hours. The Financial Times reports that Apple and its contract manufacturer Foxconn lobbied for this because it would enable them to operate 12-hour production shifts continuously at a future site in the state, like they do in China. In March, AIUTUC demonstrated against the lengthening of hours and burned drafts of the bill. Union leaders are hoping that like in Tamil Nadu, the new Karnataka government, which had earlier opposed extension, will postpone the law. In April, Tamil Nadu established flexible work schedules that go up to 12 hours each day. However, the regulation was almost immediately dropped after fierce criticism from workers’ rights organisations and opposition parties. Restofworld.org reports on how Apple and Foxconn lobbied India to relax labour laws. 

CNN has investigated a cruel paradox in India ― the economy is about to take wing, but there are too many qualified young people and too few quality jobs, and Plan B consists of menial and precarious work. As India overtakes China in population, it is unable to encash the “demographic dividend”, which PM Modi had talked up incessantly. 

A National Investigation Agency (NIA) special court in Chandigarh on Wednesday declared a member of the banned pro-Khalistan group ‘Sikhs for Justice’ (SFJ), Jaswinder Singh alias Multani, a proclaimed offender in the Model Jail Tiffin Bomb case of April 2022. 

The mural in the new Parliament House which Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi had applauded as a representation of the quest for Akhand Bharat is raising hackles in Nepal, over Lumbini, the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama, whose ownership has been contested. Former Nepali PM Baburam Bhattarai said it could “stoke unnecessary and harmful diplomatic row in the neighbourhood including Nepal. It has the potential of further aggravating the trust deficit already vitiating the bilateral relations between most of the immediate neighbours of India.” Yesterday, the boundary issue came up in PM Modi’s meeting with Nepali PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal, in which the transit treaty was renewed.  

In the general and specific interest, Subramanian Swamy has reminded the public that Narendra Modi had “pleaded” with him “to put in a good word”, to prevent the US from taking up the Gujarat riots at the International Criminal Court at the Hague. Taking the cue from him, Joyojeet Pal of the University of Michigan lists documents showing that Washington regarded Modi as complicit, and that the consulate in Mumbai was in touch with people planning to take legal action. 

The Indo-European Puzzle Revisited, a new book of work at the confluence of archaeology, linguistics and genetics, has singled out the Hindu movement in India and Aryanism in 1930s Germany as dangerous experiments constructing a past for nationalist political ends. It specifically dismisses the ‘out of India’ theory, which claims that the proto-language from which the Indo-European languages ― including Sanskrit and Latin ― developed originated in India and spread across Europe and half of Asia.  

The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CMIE-CPHS) finds that Indians spent over Rs 120 billion on healthcare in November 2022. Fitness, hygiene products, parlours and spas accounted for 45.5% of the spend, doctors’ and physiotherapists’ fees for 5.6% and insurance premiums for just 2%. 

A survey conducted by Harappa Insights finds that 86% of employees who plan to quit within six months are impelled by toxic bosses, hostile work environments and low wages.  

Eight ‘Heroines of Horticulture’ were honoured at London’s Chelsea Flower Show, including the Indian botanist Dr Janaki Ammal, who battled adversity and notably, male prejudice, to reach the Royal Horticultural Society and was one of the leading botanists of her generation. Ammal was born in Kerala in 1897 and conducted groundbreaking research at Wisley in Surrey in 1946-1951.

As aware young Indians turn away from fast foods, enterprising chefs are going back to their roots and putting fresh twists on traditional regional cuisine, reports the South China Morning Post. Meanwhile, India seeks mutual recognition of the food certification system with Canada for seamless trade in edibles, as its Indian diaspora grows.  

Govt trims textbooks again to lighten young minds

Chapters on the periodic table, challenges to democracy and sustainable management of natural resources have been dropped from Class 10 textbooks by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT). The agency says that it has been carrying out a “rationalisation” exercise based on expert recommendations. Textbooks were apparently trimmed in view of the Covid-19 pandemic, and to “reduce the content load” on students. 

Researchers say that the government’s move reflects the growing influence of pseudoscience on Indian officials. Evolutionary biologist Amitabh Joshi of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research told Nature that the removal makes “a travesty of the notion of a well-rounded secondary education”. 

Gujarat’s new hospitals play ping-pong with doctors

The Gujarat government transferred 41 doctors to GMERS Vadnagar MCH in Mehsana through three orders dated May 30, a month after the National Medical Commission (NMC) issued a circular criticising the custom of moving medical teachers between medical colleges and hospitals (MCHs) to demonstrate full staff strength during inspections. An unexpected NMC examination was the cause of the transfers, Ahmedabad Mirror reports, and has exposed desperate efforts by the medical college in PM Modi’s hometown to pass the NMC inspection. The publication is reporting on the shortage of doctors at the 13 MCHs managed by the Gujarat Medical Education and Research Society (GMERS). All is not well with this Gujarat Model. 

Science scares off SC/ST students

An assessment of Class 10 and 12 exam results by the Union Ministry of Education has revealed that most Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students have not opted for science in Class 11 in the past decade. The Tribune and the Times of India have highlighted that 37% of SC students and 30% of ST students opted for science. Overall, 47% of students chose science.

Reportedly, last month, the enrolment of SC, ST and Other Backward Classes in higher education improved by 4.2%, 11.9% and 4% while that of the Muslim community declined by 8%, according to the AISHE Survey 2020-21.

Bengaluru growing recklessly

Global property consultant Knight Frank says that Bengaluru may need Rs 28 billion ($339 million) to repair a drainage network harmed by unchecked urbanisation, as frequent floods threaten to disrupt life and the economy in the city. It predicted that the city’s population would rise from 12.3 million in 2021 to 18 million by 2031. Data from municipal body BBMP shows that the urban area more than quadrupled to 741 sq km in 16 years up to 2011.

The Long Cable

For Modi, diplomacy takes a back seat to domestic politics

Devirupa Mitra

When India hosted the foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Goa on May 4-5 to thrash out the outcomes of the leaders’ summit, it was assumed that they would be back in India with their bosses in a couple of months. It was a legitimate assumption since the golden age of Zoom summits had categorically ended nearly a year ago, with all major multilateral meetings having returned to physical since the waning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In fact, on April 27 the official Twitter handle of the Russian embassy in India announced that the SCO leaders’ summit would be held on July 4. This was the first time that the date had been publicly confirmed by any SCO member state. The usual protocol is for the host to announce the date after official confirmations are in place.

The Russian embassy also specified that the summit would take place “in New Delhi”, which signified an in-person meeting. Therefore, it was a bit surprising when India announced on Tuesday that the SCO summit would be in virtual mode, contrary to the prevailing trend.

“Lots of international summits in recent years have taken place in virtual mode. Taking all factors into account. There is no single factor, it is a totality of various factors,” the MEA spokesperson said today when asked why the physical meeting was junked. “There were queries that we had announced that it would be in a physical manner. We never made such announcements,” he added. This assertion is a white lie, since India may not have announced a physical meeting, but Russia certainly had.

There had been a bit of muttering inside SCO when India had earlier changed the date from the earlier circulated and agreed upon June 25. The June date had seemingly been locked in as early as January. Even Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi was confirmed to visit as Iran was going to be inducted formally as a full member of the SCO.

But then suddenly India requested a postponement. The new date was July 4. After some ruffled feathers – many members said the schedule of leaders couldn’t be changed quickly – the July date was confirmed in principle, with China reportedly being one of the most vocal in its dissatisfaction.

While it is not clear what reason India gave to SCO member states for the change, they had already joined the dots. In the Indian media, reports of PM Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States had emerged ― his first state visit there, and the schedule would include a state banquet. The US visit is set to end on June 24. It was surmised that India was changing the SCO summit date to accommodate Modi’s.

With the next Lok Sabha election less than a year away, the PM’s managers must have decided a ceremonial toast between Modi and Biden in the White House dinner would be politically useful for the ‘vishwaguru’.

By the same token, a meeting or photo op between Modi and the Pakistani prime minister, or with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the SCO summit, was likely deemed politically unhelpful.

India had already taken pains at the SCO foreign ministers’ meeting to ensure that there was no handshake in public with Pakistan’s Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. This was ensured right at the welcoming ceremony of foreign ministers at the airport.

The official photos sent out by the MEA of a senior official greeting Bilawal and state councillor Qin Gang at Goa airport was a study in contrast. With the former, the senior MEA official was only standing side to side with a considerable gap between them. However, with the Chinese minister, the photo was of a handshake.

When External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar stood at the door of the meeting hall to greet his foreign guests one-by-one, it was with folded hands – while cameras clicked away. Two months ago, when Jaishankar was doing the same duty for his G20 counterparts, he had offered everyone a polite handshake.

While elaborate measures were taken to avoid a handshake in Goa, it was not clear that the optics could be managed as well at the leaders’ summit in Delhi. Since India would be the host, Modi would have had to have a bilateral meeting with all his guests, including the Pakistan PM.

The signals were there that Shahbaz Sharif was still likely to travel to India, despite the verbal tiff between the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers at Goa and after. After all, Pakistan has framed the trip domestically as a sign of its commitment to the SCO – and China.

While a Modi handshake with Xi would not be as loaded politically, it would certainly be new ammunition to an opposition that has been asking the government about its alleged concession of territory to the Chinese at the Line of Actual Control during disengagement at several stand-off points.

The visit of Russian President Vladmir Putin for a SCO summit would also have thrown up challenges for India. Even before the Ukraine war, the US looked at the SCO as an anti-West mechanism led by China and Russia, trying to create a parallel global order.

Therefore, India’s attendance at last year’s SCO summit at Samarkand in Uzbekistan had led to a lot of questions in the Western media. But Modi’s reported line to Putin about this being ‘no time for war’ helped to quell some of this chatter, at least in public. The PM’s phrase was then also projected by the establishment as India’s main contribution to trying to find peace in Ukraine.

If Putin had come to India for the July 4 SCO summit, and all indications are that he was likely to, New Delhi would have to again do a balancing act. A ‘Samarkand 2.0’ script would have to be written for the PM containing some pithy (if ultimately meaningless) phrase for Putin. But Delhi today does not have much of an appetite to draft a stronger message to Putin. With the click of a mouse, the decision to hold a virtual summit has ensured there will be no diplomatic awkwardness for the Indian PM.

Reportedly

Stone-built fountains are being installed on Delhi’s avenues as part of beautification for the G20 meeting in September, but no one bothered to connect them to the water supply. They recycle their water and as the capital’s harsh summer sets it, they are drying up very quickly, said a senior official involved in their upkeep. It’s a replay of an embarrassment from the PM’s push against open defecation when, in many locations, toilets were quickly constructed to meet deadlines, but there was no time to provide them with water connections. 

Prime Number: 17

The Union government will recruit 17 senior officers from the private sector by lateral entry. The posts are three joint secretaries and 14 officials of the rank of directors and deputy secretaries in the Ministries of Health and Family Welfare, Power, Rural Development, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Finance, Statistics and Programme Implementation.

Deep Dive

The BBC meets women who head households in India’s mostly patriarchal society, who have been liberated by internal migration ― their husbands have to travel in search of work. People in their communities now know them by name, not by their relationships, and give them the respect traditionally accorded to patriarchs.  

Opeds you don’t want to miss

• Amateur Hindustani singer Balamohan Shingade says that it has become very difficult to avoid the co-option of Indian classical music by the Hindutva brigade ― in distant Auckland, New Zealand. 

• Andy Mukherjee says that the expensive push to make India a hub of semiconductor manufacturing is not even semi-successful.  

• Taxation according to the ability to pay, as in taxing overseas credit card spends, has a long and hilarious history, stretching back to taxes on hats, wigs and shoes, finds Krishnan Ranganathan.

• For the inauguration of the new Parliament building, for one day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi donned the mantle of head of state ― and effectively became president of India, says Anand K Sahay. 

• With the South mukt of BJP governments, Sudha Pai and KK Kailash discuss, with Sobhana K Nair, if there is a clear north-south divide in Indian politics. 

• Why is the BJP not moving against Brij Bhushan Singh? Because he carries electoral weight, unlike the wrestlers he is accused of having preyed upon, says Bharat Bhushan in Deccan Herald. 

• In the Guardian, Asim Ali recounts the experience of sitting through Kerala Story in a Delhi theatre, with Hindutva supporters applauding the obvious lies that the film peddles. 

• The BBC asks if Agra is the most shocking Indian film ever made.   

Listen up

YouTube masterchef Kabita Singh tells Anupama Chopra how Ratatouille and English Vinglish inspired her to start her professional journey. 

Watch out

The situation in Manipur is taking a very dangerous turn, says former BJP MLA RK Anand. He fails to understand why the Manipur government doesn’t have the stomach to lay down the law.

 

Over and out

Relying on the log-books of shipping in 1700-1850, which have been digitised by the University of Madrid, this map plots the colonial shipping lanes used by the British, the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch in the 18th and 19th centuries. 

Wolf-dog hybrids, which have earlier been reported in Europe and North America, have now been spotted near Pune, reports Nature. Genetic analysis of hair from a feral pack confirmed their status. Canine species do interbreed, so there’s nothing special here. But Indian wolves are protected by conservation law. Dogs are not. So, what’s the legal status of their offspring? 

The attack on the Chauri Chaura police post which caused Mahatma Gandhi to suspend his movement was tragic, but it was led by community members, including a champion wrestler.   

https://twitter.com/paperclip_in/status/1664111827234746369?s=46

 
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.