OC

CANCER: NEW
TREATMENTS BENGAL BORDER: PRISONERS OF THE PAST
www.indiatod Y 11, 2019 `60
REGISTERED NO. DL(ND)-11/6068/2018-20; U(C)-88/2018-20; FARIDABAD/05/2017-19 LICENSED TO POST WITHOUT PREPAYMENT

THE
RNI NO. 28587/75

PRIYANKA
GAMBIT
Will her entry give the
Congress campaign a
boost or upset a
fragile Opposition
alliance in the
high stakes 2019 battle
for Uttar Pradesh?
DIGITAL EDITION

FREE WITH YOUR

OC
CANCER: NEW
TREATMENTS BENGAL BORDER: PRISONERS OF THE PAST
www.indiatoday.in Y 11, 2019 `60
FEBRUARY

DIGITAL EDITION
REGISTERED NO. DL(ND)-11/6068/2018-20; U(C)-88/2018-20; FARIDABAD/05/2017-19 LICENSED TO POST WITHOUT PREPAYMENT

FORM AND
PLAY BY
ARTIST GANESH
HALOI

THE
RNI NO. 28587/75

HIGH ON

PRIYANKA HEALTH

GAMBIT
W
Congress campaign a
boost or upset a
fragile Opposition
alliance in the
high stakes 2019 battle
for Uttar Pradesh?

EXCLUSIVE MULTIMEDIA CONTENT

ONLY FOR IPAD
COVER STORY THE POWER OF PRIYANKA
COVER STORY THE CASTE CALCULUS
STATES ENEMY AT THE GATES
UPFRONT THE ETERNAL REBEL
UPFRONT ANDAMAN’S INNER FAULT LINES

#THEPRIYANKAGAMBIT
SUBSCRIBE NOW
www.indiatoday.in/digitalmagazines
SHRI NITISH KUMAR SHRI JAI KUMAR SINGH
Hon'ble Chief Minister, Hon'ble Minister
Bihar Department of Industries, Bihar

(A GOVT. OF BIHAR UNDERTAKING)

INVITES INVESTORS TO BIHAR

JOIN
TH
THE
TH
BIHAR INVESTORS MEET
ON 7 & 8 FEBRUARY 2019 IN MUMBAI
Calling investors for partnering with BSIDC, in PPP mode,
to set up Silk City, Bhagalpur and Agro City, Saharsa
SILK CITY, BHAGALPUR AGRO CITY, SAHARSA
Total area 15 acres Two adjacent plots of 33 acres and
THE INHERENT STRENGTHS 15 acres respectively
• Exclusive producer of Indian Tussar and known for THE INHERENT STRENGTHS
its silk industries • Saharsa is the highest producer of maize in the
• National Highways NH 80, NH 81 & NH 31 passes country and provides great opportunity for the Food
through the district ensuring good road connectivity Processing Industry
• National air connectivity through Patna airport • Existing industrial area on 1.57 hectares of land
• NTPC Super Thermal Power Plant of 2340 MW is • Agro city is linked with National Highway NH 107;
only 35 kms from Bhagalpur nearest railway station is Saharsa
FACILITIES TO BE ALLOTTED AT THE CLUSTER FACILITIES TO BE ALLOTTED AT THE CLUSTER
ON LEASE BASIS ON LEASE BASIS
• Manufacturing Facilities Centers – for 33 Years • Manufacturing Facilities Centers – for 33 Years
• Common Facility Centers (Schools, Theatres, • Common Facility Centers (Schools, Theatres,
Amusement Parks and Community Centers, Malls Amusement Parks and Community Centre, Malls
etc.) - for 21 Years etc.)- for 21 Years
• Low Cost Residential Facilities – for 90 Years • Low Cost Residential Facilities – for 90 Years
• District Industry centre MSME development Institute
VENUE: • Government support office & administrative block
Hotel Grand Hyatt, Santacruz East, • Skill development and training centre; Warehouse
Mumbai, Maharashtra - 400055 system

For any queries please connect with :

MR. PRADIP KUMAR MS. KAVITA KUMARI MR. PIYUSH NAYAN
Addl. Secretary, Dept. of Industries Under Secretary Email: piyush.nayan@in.gt.com
Email – addlsecy-ind-bih@gov.in Investment Commissioner Office, Mumbai Ph.: +91 9304675512
Mobile - 8789805713 Mobile-8928692206

BIHAR STATE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION LIMITED

st
Indira Bhawan, 1 Floor, R. C. Singh Path, East Boring Canal Road, Patna, Bihar - 800001 • www.bsidc.in
FROM THE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
uildings can be allegories for the vision and
B vitality of a political party. Last year, the
BJP’s sprawling new five-storeyed national
headquarters, the country’s largest, symbol-
ised a party bent on dominating the national narrative.
This month, Nehru Bhavan, the Congress’s rundown
party headquarters in Uttar Pradesh’s capital Luc-
know, started getting a facelift, a fresh coat of paint,
new doors, windows and a conference room. The
makeover for a party out of power in the state for three
decades follows the Grand Old Party’s January 23
proclamation of the formal entry of Priyanka Gan-
dhi into electoral politics. Priyanka, 47, the newest
member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to formally enter
politics, will be general secretary in charge of eastern
Uttar Pradesh, which comprises Awadh, Purvanchal
and Lower Doab, together accounting for exactly half
of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha seats. It is still not clear
whether Priyanka will actually contest the Lok Sabha
election, but if she does, the choice of the constituency
will be an attention-grabbing one.
As evidenced by the refurbishing of the dowdy party
office in Lucknow, Priyanka's entry has electrified a
party that has hit rock bottom in India’s most elector-
ally significant state. From 83 seats and a vote share of
51 per cent in 1984, the Congress crashed to just two
seats and a 7.5 per cent vote share in the 2014 Lok Sabha
election and a paltry seven seats in the 403-seat assem-
bly in 2017. In 2009, 18 of the Congress’s 21 Lok Sabha
seats—the party’s best performance since 1984—came
from eastern UP. Even at its weakest in 2014, the party
managed a 17.8 per cent vote share in Awadh.
The timing and reasons for Priyanka’s entry—in-
deed the choice of eastern UP as her electoral battle-
ground—seem to be part of a well-thought-out strat-
egy. The daunting alliance of the SP and BSP already
threatens to completely marginalise the Congress in UP.
The state’s eastern region also has a large upper caste,
mainly Brahmin, vote base, which the Congress is hop-
ing to snatch away from the BJP. In caste-ridden UP,
Priyanka could be the Congress’s most potent magnet
to attract recalcitrant BJP voters who might not want to
vote for the SP-BSP alliance. The recent INDIA TODAY-
Karvy Insights Mood of the Nation survey projects 58
Lok Sabha seats for the alliance if elections were held to-
day. This alliance presently excludes the Congress in all
constituencies save the two Nehru-Gandhi bastions of
Rae Bareli and Amethi. Priyanka’s entry, the Congress
believes, might prompt the alliance to rethink its stance,
particularly since she could appeal to the voters from
the Muslim community, who constitute 19 per cent of
the state’s population.
Our cover story, ‘The Priyanka Gambit’, by Senior
Associate Editor Kaushik Deka, analyses the impact
of the Congress scion’s entry into a key battleground
state. The accompanying essay by Consulting Editor
Ajit Kumar Jha provides a psephological analysis of UP.
The gambit is clearly the opening move of a long-term
strategy by Rahul Gandhi who realises that the Con-
gress cannot have a sizeable presence in the country or
in an opposition alliance without a stake in UP. Fielding
Priyanka in the state not only galvanises the cadre but
also frees Rahul to campaign across the country. He
is also creating more space for a tacit alliance with the
SP-BSP in key forward caste-dominated constituencies
where the Congress has an advantage. If the party can-
not reach an accommodation with the SP-BSP, it will
face three-cornered contests in many constituencies
which could benefit the BJP. The trick for the Congress
is to strike the right balance in UP’s complex electoral
calculus without fracturing opposition unity.
Priyanka has her strengths. She struck me as being
an astute, instinctive politician when I saw her cam-
paigning and village-hopping in her mother’s constitu-
ency Rae Bareli in 2014. She addressed people and
held impromptu press conferences wherever she went.
She seemed to be more effective in addressing smaller
groups of people rather than the large public meetings
that are Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s forte. Al-
though her Hindi oratory is far better than her mother
or brother can attempt, Priyanka the politician has not
been tested outside the family citadels. In eastern UP,
she has entered the bastion of UP chief minister Yogi
Adityanath and Prime Minister Modi, who holds the
constituency of Varanasi. She, of course, reminds many
people of Indira Gandhi, but the moot question is how
many among the roughly 20 million first-time voters
in UP recall the former prime minister. There are other
imponderables, too. For instance, the shadow of her
controversial businessman husband, Robert Vadra, who
faces a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation
and the Enforcement Directorate in nearly two dozen
cases related to land acquisition and money laundering.
Another concern is that with 100 days or less before the
election, the Congress may have played its trump card
too late in the game. Will Priyanka's induction reverse
the Congress party’s three-decade-old organisational
neglect? Only one thing is for sure: Rahul Gandhi is
pulling out all the stops for a good showing by his party
in the forthcoming general election.
(Aroon Purie)
F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019 INDIA TODAY 1
 DE
UPFRONT LEISURE
www.indiatoday.in THE KOCHHAR SAGA DANCING WITH
TWISTS PG 3 THE WOLVES PG 53
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Aroon Purie

GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Raj Chengappa

GROUP CREATIVE EDITOR: Nilanjan Das; GROUP PHOTO EDITOR: Bandeep Singh THE POLITICS OF Q&A: YAMI
MANAGING EDITORS: Kai Jabir Friese, Rajesh Jha UBI PG 11 GAUTAM PG 64
CONSULTING EDITOR: Ajit Kumar Jha (Research)
EXECUTIVE EDITORS: Damayanti Datta, S. Sahaya Ranjit,
Sandeep Unnithan, MUMBAI: M.G. Arun
DEPUTY EDITORS: Prachi Bhuchar, Uday Mahurkar, Manisha Saroop
HYDERABAD: Amarnath K. Menon CHANDIGARH: Asit Jolly
SENIOR EDITORS: Shweta Punj, Sasi Nair, Alokparna Das
JAIPUR: Rohit Parihar
SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Kaushik Deka, Ashish Mukherjee
MUMBAI: Suhani Singh, Kiran Dinkar Tare; PATNA: Amitabh Srivastava
ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Shougat Dasgupta, Chinki Sinha
KOLKATA: Romita Sengupta; BHOPAL: Rahul Noronha;
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Jeemon Jacob
ASSISTANT EDITOR: PUNE: Aditi S. Pai
PHOTO DEPARTMENT: Vikram Sharma (Deputy Photo Editor),
Rajwant Singh Rawat, Yasir Iqbal (Principal Photographers),
Chandra Deep Kumar (Senior Photographer); MUMBAI: Mandar Suresh
Deodhar (Chief Photographer), Danesh Adil Jassawala (Photographer);
KOLKATA: Subir Halder (Principal Photographer);
CHENNAI: N.G. Jaison (Senior Photographer)
PHOTO RESEARCHERS: Prabhakar Tiwari (Chief Photo Researcher),
Saloni Vaid (Principal Photo Researcher),
Shubhrojit Brahma (Senior Photo Researcher)
CHIEF OF GRAPHICS: Tanmoy Chakraborty
ART DEPARTMENT: Sanjay Piplani (Senior Art Director);
Angshuman De (Art Director); Devajit Bora (Deputy Art Director);
Vikas Verma (Associate Art Director);
Bhoomesh Dutt Sharma (Senior Designer)
Siddhant Jumde (Senior Illustrator)
PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT: Harish Agarwal (Chief of Production),
Naveen Gupta (Chief Coordinator),
Vijay Kumar Sharma (Senior Coordinator)

PUBLISHING DIRECTOR: Manoj Sharma

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: Anil Fernandes (Impact)

IMPACT TEAM
Senior General Manager: Jitender Lad (West)
General Manager: Mayur Rastogi (North),
Upendra Singh (Bangalore),
Kaushiky Gangulie (East)
GROUP CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER: Vivek Malhotra
Assistant General Manager: Garima Prashar (Marketing)
SALES AND OPERATIONS: D.V.S. Rama Rao, Chief General Manager
Deepak Bhatt, General Manager (National Sales)
Vipin Bagga, Deputy General Manager (Operations)
Rajeev Gandhi, Regional Sales Manager (North)

22 46 A RT

Volume XLIV Number 6; For the week

February 5-11, 2019, published on every Friday
A FEMINIST BIENNALE
C OV E R S T O RY
● Editorial/Corporate Office Living Media India Ltd., India Today Group Mediaplex,
Signalling a feminist makeover of our
FC-8, Sector-16A, Film City, Noida - 201301; Phone: 0120-4807100 artscape, more than half the artists at
● Subscriptions: For assistance contact Customer Care India Today Group, B-45,
Sector-57, Noida (UP)-201301; Phones: Toll-free number: 1800 1800 100 (from THE PRIYANKA the Kochi-Muziris Biennale are women
EFFECT
BSNL/MTNL lines); (95120) 2479900 from Delhi and Faridabad; (0120) 2479900
from Rest of India (Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.); Fax: (0120) 4078080;
Mumbai: 022-66063411/3412, Kolkata: 033-40525327, Chennai: 044-24303200;

34
e-mail: wecare@intoday.com
● Sales: Direct all trade enquiries to General Manager (Sales), Living Media India Rival parties must T H E B I G S T O RY
Limited, B-45, Sector 57, Noida-201301 (UP)
● Regd. Office: K-9 Connaught Circus, New Delhi-110001
recalibrate their
electoral calculations
● Impact Offices: 1201, 12th Floor, Tower 2 A, One Indiabulls Centre, (Jupiter
Mills), S.B. Marg, Lower Parel (West), Mumbai-400013; Phone: 66063355;
as Priyanka takes the
PRISONERS OF THE PAST
Fax: 66063226 ● E-1, Ground Floor, Videocon Towers, Jhandewalan Extn,
New Delhi ● Guna Complex, 5th Floor, Main Building, No.443, Anna Salai,
Chennai-600018; Phone: 2847 8525 ● 201-204 Richmond Towers, 2nd Floor,
political plunge. Will the Four years after the exchange of enclaves
12, Richmond Road, Bangalore-560025; Phones: 22212448, 22213037, Congress trump card between Bangladesh and India, the new
22218343; Fax: 22218335; ● 52, Jawaharlal Nehru Road, 4th Floor,
Kolkata-700071; Phones: 22825398; Fax: 22827254; ● 6-3-885/7/B, Somajiguda, pay off? citizens await their basic rights
Hyderabad-500082; Phone: 23401657, 23400479, 23410100, 23402481,
23410982, 23411498; Fax: 23403484 ● 39/1045, Karakkatt Road, Kochi 682016;
Phones: 2377057, 2377058 ; Fax: 2377059 ● 2/C, “Suryarath Bldg”, 2nd Floor,
Behind White House, Panchwati, Office C.G. Road, Ahmedabad-380006; Phone: Cover by BANDEEP SINGH; Photo imaging by AMARJEET SINGH NAGI
26560393, 26560929; Fax: 26565293 ● Copyright Living Media India Ltd. All
rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited.
Printed and published by Manoj Sharma on behalf of Living Media Readers are recommended to make appropriate enquiries before sending money, incurring expenses or
India Limited. Printed at Thomson Press India Limited,
18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana)
entering into commitments in relation to any advertisement appearing in this publication. The India Today
and at A-9, Industrial Complex, Maraimalai Nagar, District Group does not vouch for any claims made by the advertisers of products and services. The printer,
Kancheepuram-603209, (Tamil Nadu). Published at K-9, Connaught publisher, editor-in-chief and the editor of the India Today Group publications shall not be held liable for
Circus, New Delhi-110001. Editor: Raj Chengappa. any consequences in the event of such claims not being honoured by the advertisers.
● INDIA TODAY does not take the responsibility for returning unsolicited
publication material.
FOR SUBSCRIPTION ASSISTANCE, CONTACT: Customer Care,
All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of India Today Group, B-45, Sector-57, Noida (Uttar Pradesh)-201301.
competent courts and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only
E-MAIL to:
Phones: 2479900 from Noida, 95120-2479900 from Delhi and
Faridabad, and 0120-2479900 from Rest of India. Toll Free No.:
letters.editor@intoday.com or
1800 1800 100. Fax: 0120-4078080. E-mail: wecare@intoday.com log on to www.indiatoday.in
 UPFRONT
STATE OF THE
ECONOMY
PG 4
BOOKS: A
STRANGER TRUTH
PG 8
Twist in the Kochhar Saga
R
eportedly on the verge of being
dropped, the investigations into
the conduct of Chanda Kochhar,
former ICICI Bank managing director
and chief executive officer, took a sharp
turn on January 25 as the Central Bur-
eau of Investigation (CBI) booked her
for “dishonestly sanctioning loans to the
Videocon group”. Raids were conducted
on Videocon’s headquarters in Mumbai
and an office in Aurangabad, while
there were searches at the offices of
NuPower Renewables, an alternative
energy company co-founded by Venugo-
pal Dhoot, chairman of Videocon, and
Chanda’s husband Deepak. The CBI
I C I C I B A N K I N V E S T I G AT I O N
By M.G. Arun
also named a number of senior bankers,
either currently or formerly associated
with ICICI Bank, in its FIR, prompt-
ing a sharp response from Arun Jaitley,
the Union finance minister who is now
minister without portfolio as he con-
valesces in the US. Jaitley accused the
CBI, the country’s premier investigating
agency, of “adventurism”.
His criticism that the CBI casts its
net too widely and, as a result, often
fails to secure convictions, received nods
of sympathy from politicians and com-
mentators across party and ideologi-
cal lines, though some eyebrows were
raised at the strength and tenor of Jait-
OBIT: GEORGE
FERNANDES
PG 6
THE POLITICS OF
‘MINIMUM INCOME’
PG 11
RUBEN SPRICH/REUTERS
ley’s intervention. He accused officers of
“megalomania” in a blog post, essen-
tially condemned the CBI as unprofes-
sional, and asked if its investigation was
“a journey to nowhere (or everywhere)”.
While agreeing with the thrust of his ar-
gument, critics such as former finance
minister P. Chidambaram, also under
the CBI scanner alongside son Karti,
wondered why Jaitley waited until (in
the latter’s words) “the who’s who of
the banking industry” was implicated
before articulating doubts about the
standard functioning of the CBI.
On the CBI’s part, it maintains it
is still only asking questions of some
UPFRONT

of the high-profile figures named, and not casting aspersions. S TAT E O F T H E E C O N O M Y

Suspicions over Deepak’s dealings with Videocon first emerged
in a complaint filed by investor Arvind Gupta in 2016 and letters
he wrote to the prime minister’s office and the RBI. The com-
plaints were ignored at the time, but in May last year, ICICI was
PULLING OUT
forced, after complaints by an anonymous whistleblower, to set
up a committee to examine the allegations. While doubts were
expressed about Chanda’s conduct with other companies too,
ALL THE SOPS
the principal allegations concerned the Dhoot-Deepak Koch- With unemployment looming large and the economy
har dealings, and the granting of thousands of crores in loans by listing a bit precariously, the Narendra Modi govern-
ICICI Bank to Videocon. ment’s pre-election budget was always likely to be
The financial links between Dhoot and the Kochhars are populist. The BJP is suddenly fighting for political
tangled, but questions centre around Dhoot’s turning over his salience, and the Congress with its competitive
shares in NuPower Renewables to Deepak for a nominal sum carrot-dangling—in the shape of farm loan waivers
and a Minimum Income Guarantee in states it has re-
just months after Videocon had been granted a Rs 3,250 crore
cently won—has stolen a march on the saffron party.
loan by ICICI Bank. Chanda, the bank’s top executive at the time
At the time of going to press, it looked like the BJP’s
in 2012, was on the panel that sanctioned the loan, the majority
counter-offer would be a cocktail of direct benefit
of which became a so-called non-performing asset. ICICI Bank
transfer to landed farmers and minimum income
defended Chanda initially, denying that her actions were inap- guarantees to the landless poor. Maybe zero-
propriate. However, as regulatory authorities began to express interest loans for farmers and some concessions
curiosity about the transactions, and the bank appointed a for- to the salaried through tweaks in income tax slabs.
mer Supreme Court judge SMEs could be in for some tax concessions and pos-
to conduct a probe, Chanda
In July 2018, went on leave and then
sibly interest subvention. The government will also
hope that it will pay to please.
Jaitley described resigned from her position
the Prevention in October last year, just six
of Corruption months before her tenure GDP GROWTH FISCAL DEFICIT
Act, under which was to end. It took a knock after de- A bloating fiscal deficit
Kochhar is being On January 30, the monetisation in 2016-17
and has yet to recover to
remains the biggest
hindrance to the BJP’s
investigated, as bank made its internal
the 8.15% level of 2015-16 likely pre-poll carrots
probe report by Justice B.N.
a “most badly Srikrishna public. It said
drafted law” that Chanda had violated
8.5 (in %) Rs lakh crore %
10 5
the bank’s code of conduct 8
8 4
by refusing to recuse herself to avoid conflict of interest in the 7.5
6 3
Videocon matter. Chanda’s resignation has also been treated as 7
a “termination for cause” by the bank, which could result in the 4 2
6.5
revocation of all her existing and future entitlements. 2 1
Meanwhile, the CBI continues its investigations, though the 6 0 0
2013-14 2018-19 BE 2013-14 2018-19 BE*
investigating officer who filed the FIR, Sudhanshu Dhar Mishra,
has been transferred. The CBI is now inquiring into his conduct,
claiming Mishra leaked information related to the raids to the
media. The move prompted Congress spokesperson Priyanka INFLATION
Chaturvedi to tweet that the “interference of the government in Consumer inflation in December was among the
the CBI gets more brazen... CBI officer transferred because he lowest it has been in the Modi years
10
‘audaciously’ went after the government’s suited-booted friends”.
8
In July last year, Jaitley described the Prevention of Corruption CPI
6
Act, under which Chanda is at least partly being investigated, as 4
“one of the most badly drafted laws”. Amendments were passed 2
in August 2018, too late to affect Chanda, whose actions date 0
back to a time when the law was still in place. -2
But after Jaitley’s blunt assessment of the beleaguered CBI— -4 WPI
still reeling from the ugly public dispute between former director -6
Alok Verma and his deputy Rakesh Asthana—can its investiga- JAN. 2014 DEC. 2018 P*
tion into Chanda’s ‘quid pro quo’ dealings remain credible? „
*BE: Budget estimates P: Provisional

4 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019

 CURRENCY REVENUE/ EXPENDITURE
The rupee has weakened steadily Expenditure has consistently
in the past five years outstripped revenue
2.5 (Rs lakh crore)
85 (Rupee/ $)
Expenditure
75 2

65 1.5
Revenue
55 1

45 0
MAR. 2013 DEC. 2018 MAR. 2013 DEC. 2018

JOBS FUEL
The inability to create jobs was The fall in international crude
possibly the biggest failing of the prices, after an ominous re-
government. A CMIE household cent spike, has brought much
survey says 11 million jobs were relief to the economy
lost in 2018 alone
(Rs/ litre)

8 Jobs as 90
Petrol
7 per EPFO 80
6 (in lakh)
70
5
4 60
3 Diesel
50
2
40
1
0 30
SEP. 2017 NOV. 2018 NOV. 2011 DEC. 2018

10 Unemployment 150 Crude oil prices

rate (%) (USD/ barrel)
120
8 as per CMIE
90
6
60
4
30

2 0
MAR. 2016 DEC. 2018 NOV. 2011 DEC. 2018

FARM LOANS INVESTMENTS

Credit to the farm sector Foreign direct investment peaked in
has risen steadily 2015-16 but has fallen since; the Centre
has been withholding data since June 2018
(Rs crore)
($ 1,000 million)
12
42 FDI 50 FPI
10
36 40
8
30 30
6 24 20
4 18 10
2 12 0
0 6 -10
2013-14 2017-18 2013-14 2017-18 2013-14 2017-18

Graphics by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY by RAJEEV DUBEY

UPFRONT
O B I T UA RY
THE ETERNAL REBEL
BY RAJ CHENGAPPA
W
hen I first met George Fernandes in 1984 in
Bengaluru, he was already a national hero. In
the previous decade, he had built his reputation
first as a fearless trade union leader who could
bring the country’s railways to a halt. Then, as a fiery opponent
of the Emergency even willing to resort to violence to challenge
the establishment. And, finally, as the champion of socialism
by booting out Coca Cola and IBM when he was industries
minister in the short-lived Janata government.
George was always where the action was. Except that in
his home state Karnataka, while he was revered, he was never
regarded as a true local. He grew
up in coastal Mangalore (adjacent
GEORGE FERNANDES
to my home district Kodagu). He
1930-2019
initially wanted to be a priest and
even entered a seminary, but gave
it up soon after, disillusioned by
its practices. Thereafter, he left
for Mumbai, where he earned
his spurs as a union leader and
then catapulted himself into the
national reckoning.
He was contesting an elec-
tion in his home state for the
first time—from the Bangalore
North constituency—when I
covered his campaign as an
INDIA TODAY correspondent.
He was up against great odds as
the election was being held soon
after the assassination of Indira
Gandhi and the sympathy wave
for the Congress headed by Rajiv
Gandhi was evident. But George, ever the fighter, remained
undaunted. I recall him criticising Rajiv for building
swimming pools for the Asiad games while the rest of the
country, including Bangalore, faced a water shortage. He
lost the election and though he became a member of the Lok
Sabha nine times, it was never from Karnataka. That didn’t
bother George—he was never parochial and fought and won
most of his electoral battles from Bihar.
Five years later, I met him when he had become the Union
minister for railways in the V.P. Singh government. He was
his feisty self, his wavy hair askew, as he spoke passionately of
the need to reform the railways. Though credited for having
sanctioned the Konkan Railway network that connected
Mumbai to Goa and Mangalore, he didn’t get much of a chance
16 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019
to make a mark because the V.P. Singh government collapsed
soon after. George then set about building the Samata Party
with compatriots Sharad Yadav and Nitish Kumar after
breaking away from the Janata Dal.
It was when he was defence minister during the Atal Bihari
Vajpayee government between 1998 and 2004 that he truly
came into his own. Always at the centre of a storm, George
also exhibited a puzzling duality that was a hallmark of his
chequered career. Having opposed the 1974 nuclear explosion
ordered by Indira Gandhi, famously saying that “without the
necessary economic infrastructure, all talk of a bomb can
just be so much bombast”, he
endorsed the 1998 tests Vajpayee
conducted. “When I found that
other nuclear weapon countries
were unwilling to give up their
own capability, I decided we must
have them,” he told me at that
time. George didn’t do himself
proud either when he failed to
condemn the brutal killing of
Christian missionary Graham
Stuart Staines in Orissa in 1999.
Controversy remained
George’s constant companion
throughout his life. Soon after
the nuclear tests, he was involved
in an unseemly battle with then
naval chief Admiral Vishnu
Bhagwat and had him sacked
for insubordination. Vajpayee’s
coalition government sank after
its alliance partner, the AIA-
DMK, pulled out in protest over the sacking. The 1999 Kargil
War saw Vajpayee return to power in the next general election
and George was back as defence minister. But, in 2001, he
had to resign when allegations of corruption implicated the
defence ministry and Parliament came to a standstill. George
stepped down and when I asked him how he saw the future, he
said, “I have always fought against injustice in all forms and
will continue to do so.” Within months, Vajpayee reinstated
him as defence minister. After 2004, he found himself out of
government but continued to champion causes of all kinds
till first illness and then death took him gently into the night.
It would extinguish an extraordinary personality but not his
contribution as a fiery and irrepressible socialist leader who
left a permanent stamp on Indian polity. ■
Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE
UPFRONT

GUEST COLUMN

Andaman’s Inner
Fault Lines
ZUBAIR AHMED

T
he recent Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB)
introduced by the National Democratic Alliance
(NDA) government has sparked widespread protest
in the Northeast over its repercussions on the demography
of border states. A similar conflict with troubling parallels
is brewing in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where a
strong demand for an Inner Line Permit (ILP) regime has
been voiced by local communities concerned about the
growing number of migrants settling in the archipelago.
In an emotional remark during his recent visit to the
Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Prime Minister Narendra
Modi declared that there is no difference between the islands
and the mainland, and that for him they are one and the
same. The statement did not go down well with many local
residents, given the growing discontent over migrants from
the mainland competing for the scarce job opportunities and
resources available here.
Last year, this disgruntlement took the shape of a
movement when a joint action forum (JAF) was formed by
locals demanding an ILP to check the influx of new migrants.
The movement was led by the oldest settlers’ group, the
Local Born Association (LBA), headed by Dr Prem Kishan
(himself a descendant of a ‘penal settler’). The movement
also had its detractors, who claimed that the demand
was unconstitutional. The ruling BJP initially supported
the cause, but soon changed course, demanding other
instruments such as the domicile certificate and the National
Population Register identity proofs. BJP MP Bishnu Pada
Ray declared that the ILP was against his party’s ideology.
The issue is bringing some long-standing undercurrents
of ethnic rivalry to a head with some protesters raising
slogans against ‘Bangladeshis’. In fact, Bengali islanders have
long been a dominant demographic here, and the islands’
MP (whether Congress or BJP) has traditionally been from
this community. There is a widespread perception here
that Bengali migration has been tacitly encouraged and
that encroachments of public land by Bengalis are swiftly
regularised. Even the recent renaming of islands announced
on Modi’s visit is viewed by many as pandering to Bengalis.
Meanwhile, a parallel campaign by the Bengali
community, which felt targeted by the JAF, forced both
the Congress and the BJP to go silent on the issue. The
community, formed the Bengali Joint Action Forum (BJAF),
and tried to outdo the JAF with bigger rallies and public
meetings, most recently with a show of strength on January
23, Subhas Chandra Bose’s birthday. While most political
parties have been at pains to maintain their distance from
HERO WORSHIPPING In December, Prime Minister Narendra Modi
renamed three islands as a tribute to Subhas Chandra Bose
the ILP issue, the Trinamool Congress has entered the fray
with a more openly pro-Bengali stance.
The islands, which have extensive forest land, have
reportedly seen large-scale encroachments by migrants,
often in connivance with authorities, with politicians turning
a blind eye. It’s notable that the Supreme Court in May
2002, while hearing a petition on mass-scale logging and
uncontrolled plundering of natural resources in the islands,
had accepted the recommendations made by the Prof.
Shekhar Singh Commission. The commission had suggested
regulations to check population influx. It had recommended
that to prevent any further encroachment and rampant
immigration, the administration should regulate the entry of
people to the area within three months by having the islands
declared as an Inner Line Area.
The elections may have pushed the issue off the agenda,
but Kishan says the demand for Inner Line Area restrictions
cannot be ignored whether or not there is political support
for it. While maintaining that the new factor of the
Citizenship Amendment Bill will only aggravate the problem
of a migrant influx, he reiterated that the movement is not
against any community. For the moment, it seems that the
BJP’s nationalist stance and the interests of a commercial
‘development lobby’ keen on migrant labour have stymied
the demand for ILP restrictions. But the wider communities
of historic migrants are unlikely to remain silent on the
perceived encroachment on their fragile islands. ■
The author is a journalist and researcher based in Port Blair

F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019 INDIA TODAY 7

UPFRONT
BOOKS
FLAWED
TRUTH
By Siddharth Dube
O
ver 20 million people had
died of AIDS before the
world’s elite paid heed to the
carnage. Then, belatedly,
the disease became the global cause
du jour. Billionaires and movie stars
vied to declare their abiding concern
for the AIDS-stricken, notably for ‘in-
nocent’ women and children. Bill and
Melinda Gates were in the vanguard
of this elite, though with a commit-
ment to public health matters that has
been laudably sustained since—and in
2003, the couple selected Ashok Alex-
ander to lead an HIV prevention effort
backed by a $200 million gift.
A Stranger Truth is Alexander’s
journey from the moneyed world of
McKinsey & Company, the American
consulting firm, into the India of pov-
erty, scorn and injustice suffered by sex
workers of every gender.
Alexander is perceptive and icono-
clastic. He writes, in insights that will
surprise the many well-off Indians,
who seem unaware that ordinary Indi-
ans muster heroism every day to sur-
vive a lifetime of blows: “These women
stand out for the capacity to judge
character and negotiate well. They sur-
vive because of their personal courage,
charisma and sense of humour. They
are selfless. They exercise leadership
in the highest sense of the word, and
with a combination of attributes I have
rarely seen in business leaders.” For
such deep insights, Alexander deserves
praise and readers.
He deserves praise, too, for mar-
shalling evidence that rebukes the
18 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019
Lessons in Love,
Leadership and Courage
from India’s Sex Workers
by Ashok Alexander
Juggernaut;
`699; 287 pages
destructive campaign of disinforma-
tion on Indian sex work conditions led
by New York Times columnist Nicholas
Kristof, feminist Gloria Steinem,
journalist Ruchira Gupta and a motley
crew of far-right US legislators and
evangelical zealots, who heatedly in-
sist that sex work is indistinguishable
from sex trafficking and that the only
acceptable solution is to abolish sex
work, irrespective of the views of sex
workers themselves or the considered
advice of the United Nations’ human
rights experts.
“The brothels of India are the slave
plantations of the 21st century,” Kristof
pronounced in his trademark sensa-
tionalistic take on brutish Third World
nations, stridently adding, “India prob-
ably has more modern slaves than any
country in the world. It has millions of
Alexander marshals
evidence against the
disinformation
campaign on Indian
sex-work conditions
by those who insist
that sex work is
indistinguishable
from sex trafficking
women and girls in its brothels, often
held captive for their first few years.”
In truth, as Alexander points out, only
a tiny fraction—currently estimated at
below one in 10—of India’s sex workers
ever work in brothels.
Gupta, who has long been Kristof ’s
and Steinem’s interlocutor on this sub-
ject, equally absurdly claims in a Wall
Street Journal op-ed that, in India,
“the average age for beginning sex
work is between nine and 10”. Such
stunning disregard for evidence and
truth is only possible where the exag-
geraters know they are unlikely to ever
be held to account.
While A Stranger Truth deserves
to be widely read, it is a strangely
uneven book. The quality of Alexan-
der’s writing deteriorates after the first
hundred-odd pages, to the point that
it almost seems the work of another
writer. The analysis deteriorates too,
with the early insights giving way to
reverential anecdotes about the Gates
clan and needlessly exaggerated
claims about the Gates-funded HIV-
prevention effort.
The gravest weakness is Alex-
ander’s neglect of the far-reaching
efforts by India’s sex workers to fight
for their rights since the early 1990s,
endeavours that testify to the strength
of grassroots democracy. Readers of
A Stranger Truth would never know
that India’s sex workers do not merely
display the individual leadership quali-
ties that Alexander rightly celebrates,
but also have for decades led pan-India
movements demanding a cogent agen-
da of rights, a cornerstone of which is
the decriminalisation of consensual
sex work. My hope is that Alexander’s
ahistorical ‘great man leading the poor’
account will be the impetus for more
readers to turn to Nalini Jameela’s
truly revelatory autobiography of life
as a sex worker or the other recent ac-
counts that document how India’s sex
workers have actually won progress. ■
Siddharth Dube works on
social justice issues
UPFRONT

SONU KISHAN
BAHUBALIS
LEND A HAND
Vheartland states has
ictory in three Hindi
GL ASSHOUSE
earned the Congress
attention from some political
Prime Minister? heavyweights in Bihar,

Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE

though they are of the kind
Spare Me... the party should be wary of.
Former Janata Dal (United)

U
nion minister for road transport, highways and strongman Anant Singh,
shipping Nitin Gadkari is in the news for publicly who has a criminal past, has
questioning his government and the party leadership. launched a motorcycle rally
But if there’s one thing Gadkari would like to keep a distance to drum up support for Rahul
from it is the growing chatter suggesting his eligibility as the BJP’s Gandhi’s February
prime ministerial candidate. Gadkari was in Mumbai recently for 3 rally in Patna.
the wedding of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj And suspended
Thackeray’s son and inexplicably cancelled a scheduled meeting Rashtriya Janata
with the Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray. No reasons were
Dal (RJD) MP
given, but there is speculation this was prompted by a Mumbai
Rajesh Ranjan
daily quoting Sena leader Sanjay Raut as saying that Gadkari as
aka Pappu Yadav
prime minister was acceptable to his party. Raut clarified he had
is already seeking
been misquoted, but the damage had already been done. Gadkari
was not going to add a photograph to the caption.
support from the Congress
for his 2019 Lok Sabha
election bid.

SLOGAN OF THE DAY

I
t’s not yet known what the BJP’s PM Modi himself, have been riffing on
campaign slogan will be for the “How’s the josh?”, the catchline from
forthcoming Lok Sabha election, but Bollywood film Uri, based on the 2016
some big-name BJP leaders, including surgical strikes against Pakistan.
Talking Trump
U S president Donald Trump recently WHO WHERE WHEN
added American-made whisky to his Prime Minister Inaugurating the museum
pet peeves with New Delhi. The earlier Narendra Modi of Indian cinema in Mumbai January 20
one, of course, being Harley-Davidson
motorcycles, which Trump believes attracts
very high Indian import tariffs. But the Defence Minister Watching Uri in a
January 27
external affairs ministry has now learned Nirmala Sitharaman theatre in Bengaluru
to take Trump’s barbs in its stride. On the
contrary, as one seasoned diplomat says, it Goa Chief Minister Inaugurating a
is Trump’s silence that worries South Block January 27
Manohar Parrikar bridge in Panaji
more than his words.

Sandeep Unnithan with Sahil Joshi and Amitabh Srivastava

UPFRONT PULLQUOTE

“SAPNE DIKHANE
INDEX WAALE NETA LOGON
KO ACHHE LAGTE
We Need Education HAIN, PAR DIKHAYE
As the grim beast of the 2019 general election skulks closer, voters are
HUE SAPNE AGAR
girding themselves for tall claims and empty rhetoric, but never a serious PURAY NAHIN KIYE
speech about something like education and expenditure. Are we spending TO JANTA UNKI PITAYI
enough on primary and secondary school education and are we making
the most of what we do spend? Earlier this month, the NGO Pratham BHI KARTI HAI. ISLIYE
published its 13th annual status of education report (ASER) and while the SAPNE WAHI DIKHAO
overall picture is marginally brighter, with government schools reporting
an improvement in reading and arithmetical ability, the quality of Indian
JO PURAY HO SAKEIN”
education remains dismal. Development in a country like India, where the
demographic skews young, must include comprehensive education for all. Union minister NITIN GADKARI
However, India spends only 2.8% of its GDP on education, well below the warned the politicians who inveigle
world’s average of 4.8% (2015). India is also doing worse in international people into voting for them by
assessments than its South Asian neighbours and fellow BRICS nations. spinning tales of a glorious, if
illusory, future, to watch out. Those
same voters, he said, will turn

596 4.8% 28.1%

of India’s 640 districts
(as listed in Census
2011), 17,730 villages
visited by ASER 2018
researchers. 546,527
children (ages 3-16)
tested from 354,944
households
96%
overall enrolment
of children (ages
6-14). Attendance
(random day): >85%
Gujarat, Maharashtra,
Karnataka, Tamil
Nadu. <60% UP, West
Bengal, Manipur,
Bihar, MP
aggressive when those promises
prove false. Surely he couldn’t
mean Prime Minister Narendra
girls (ages 15 to 16) out class III children can
Modi. After all, Gadkari is rumoured
of school in WB, down do basic arithmetic
from 24.9% in 2006. (subtraction). Up
to be the RSS’s preference for the
Bihar 9.8% (28.2%). from 2014 (25.3%), top job, should the BJP’s majority
But MP 26.8% (23.4%), but lower than 2008 drop in the general election. Or,
Gujarat 24.9% (27.3%), (38.8%). Only 27.2% as the BJP insists, could he have
UP 22.2% (25.6%) can read at the been referring only to the Congress
don’t fare as well appropriate level and Rahul Gandhi, with whom
Gadkari was seen engrossed in a
conversation at the Republic Day
72.8% parade? Recently, Gadkari called
on the BJP’s leadership to face the
of class VIII students flaws exposed by the defeats in a
read at a class II level. series of assembly elections. He
Down from 2008 also spoke admiringly of Jawaharlal
(84.8%) and 2014 Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Bona fide
(74.6%). So, enrolment
evidence, in the current political
targets are being
met, but quality of climate, of conspiracy!
education is low

92,275
30.9%
children attend
single-teacher
government schools in
India, elementary and
private school in secondary, says Satya
2018, unchanged Pal Singh, HRD minister
since 2014 but up of state, in Parliament
from 18.7% in 2006 on January 7, 2019

13.5%
out of school girls (15-16)
66
on 100 on the British journal
10
years of schooling for
in 2018, down from 2006 The Lancet’s score for Indians on an average
(22.6%); 12.6% boys, down quality of education based on (2016 estimate by The
from 2006 (17.3%). 4.1% international tests. Pakistan Lancet). Compared
girls (11-14), down from (68); Bangladesh, Nepal (69); to 12 (Russia, South
RACHIT GOSWAMI

2006 (7.2%); 3.3% boys, Sri Lanka (75); Brazil (73), Africa, Brazil)
down from 2006 (5.5%) China (89), Russia (90) and 13 (China)

10 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019

UPFRONT
POINT OF V IEW
Back to Basics
By Reetika Khera
I
t’s budget season in an election year. No
wonder the idea of a ‘Universal Basic
Income’ (UBI), with its all-too-obvious
surface appeal, is getting a thorough
airing: from Rahul Gandhi’s attention-
grabbing announcement of a ‘minimum
income support’ for the poor to Sikkim’s
announcement a fortnight earlier that it would
become the ‘first state to roll out UBI’.
The two key principles of UBI are ‘universal’
coverage and an entitlement to a ‘basic income’,
to enable dignified living in the absence of other
earnings. For its votaries, a big part of its appeal
lies in the fact that UBI sidesteps the messy
and flawed process of identifying beneficiaries.
The oxymoronic variants such as a ‘targeted
universal basic income’ or the Congress’s
‘minimum income support’ for the poor—walk
right into the targeting trap UBI is supposed
to avoid by making the cover ‘universal’. This
tailoring is done to get around the vexed
question of affordability. Any amount that
might even vaguely qualify as ‘basic income’
would be unaffordable on a universal scale
because it would be next to impossible to create
the necessary fiscal elbow room.
One such proposal is former Chief
Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian’s
‘Quasi Universal Basic Rural Income’. At
Rs 1,500 per month per family, for 75 per cent
of the rural population—requiring an outlay
of 1.3 per cent of GDP—it’s neither universal,
nor basic. Economist Vijay R. Joshi’s proposal
of Rs 3,500 per person per year (at 2014-15
By proposing prices) would cost more (3.5 per cent of GDP)
and still fail to guarantee a basic income. Both
to ‘target’
proposals require creation of fiscal space: say,
beneficiaries, by winding down the fertiliser subsidy or crop
the proposed insurance etc.
variants of Besides its unaffordability, UBI faces
a Universal the question of equity: should I get the same
Basic Income amount as, say, a rural widow? And if indeed
become fiscal room can be created, aren’t there arguably
oxymorons, better uses for it—directing it towards primary
healthcare, for example? Another serious
and they
concern is that inflation can erode the value of
are hard to the transfer. And the experience with inflation-
implement indexing, the obvious workaround, has been
disappointing. For instance, the central
contribution to old-age pensions has been stuck
at Rs 200 per month since 2006! Similarly, in
the name of indexation, NREGA wages were
raised by Re 1/day in Jharkhand in 2017.
There is, in fact, a workable alternative
plan, recently sent up to finance minister
Arun Jaitley: to raise the central contribution
to social security pensions from the frozen-
in-time Rs 200 p.m. to Rs 500, along with
universal maternity entitlements of Rs 6,000
per child for women in the informal sector.
That would account for most working women
as less than 10 per cent of the workforce
is in the formal sector, where maternity
entitlements are fairly generous. The plan has
the support of over 60 economists, proponents
of UBI included. Even if pensions were
universalised at Rs 1,000, it would still cost
less than 1 per cent of GDP.
The proposal is better than the so-called
UBI on several counts: one, it is a financially
viable universal transfer. The target group—
all elderly, single women (including widows),
persons with disabilities and pregnant
women—is well identified. Besides being
affordable, it steers clear of the flawed and
fraught task of identifying beneficiaries.
Pensioners and young mothers are among the
most vulnerable demographic groups. And
the proposal scales up without displacing any
existing form of support. Other UBI proposals
require either ‘restructuring’ or discontinuing
‘non-merit’ subsidies. Incidentally, the
government’s Pradhan Mantri Matrutva
Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) violates the
provisions of the National Food Security Act
(NFSA) 2013, which mandated Rs 6,000 per
child; the PMMVY has cut this entitlement to
Rs 5,000 for the first child only.
Rahul Gandhi’s announcement is welcome
only to the extent that it is the first substantive
proposal ahead of the upcoming elections.
What is urgently needed, though, is to fix the
existing social security pensions, maternity
entitlements, NREGA wages etc. That would be
to put money where their mouth is. ■
Reetika Khera is a development economist
based in IIM Ahmedabad
Illustration by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY
 STATES
MAHARASHTRA: WEST BENGAL:
SENA PLAYS ENEMY AT THE
HARDBALL PG 1 4 GATES PG 1 6

ANDHRA PRADESH: TELANGANA:

NAIDU TO GO IT CABINET IN
ALONE PG 1 9 WAITING PG 20

SONU KISHAN

ALL FOR ONE... Bihar

Congress in-charge Shakti
Sinh Goyil (centre), state
president Madan Mohan Jha
(second from right) in Patna

adaquat Ashram, the Congress

S
BIHAR
headquarters in Patna, is buzz-
ing with activity. State leaders

SIGNS OF led by Pradesh Congress chief

Madan Mohan Jha are preparing for Ra-
hul Gandhi’s Jan Akanksha rally (rally for
people’s hopes) on February 3, the Con-

A REVIVAL
For the first time in decades, the Congress
gress’s first ‘stand-alone’ public meeting
in Patna in years. Ninety-five ‘observers’
have fanned out to Bihar’s 38 districts to
bring people to the event.
“Rahul has laid bare the NDA, and
looks upbeat in the state
Narendra Modi has been exposed for
failing to deliver on his big promises.
By Amitabh Srivastava Radicalism has trumped the prime
minister’s promised vikas,” says Chandan

12 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019 PATNA

Yadav, AICC secretary in-charge of
Chhattisgarh, who is helping out with
the preparations in Patna.
The mood in the Bihar Congress
has been upbeat since December
when the party snatched three
‘heartland’ states from the BJP. “And
now, we also have Priyanka Gandhi.
Her formal entry into politics will
have a spillover effect in Bihar,” says
a senior Congress leader. “This is like
a booster dose for the party after the
assembly election victories.”
The party suddenly has more
takers in the state too. Former JD(U)
bahubali (strongman) Anant Singh
is among the several ticket aspirants
for the coming Lok Sabha poll. “Ir-
respective of whether they (Congress)
give me a ticket or not, I will back the
Congress. And I will win,” he says.
Another equally notorious bahubali,
Rajesh Ranjan aka Pappu Yadav, also
wants the Congress to back his candi-
dature from Madhepura. His wife
Ranjeeta Ranjan is a sitting Congress
MP from Supaul. A senior Congress
leader points to the rush for tickets
as proof of the traction the party now
has in Bihar. And it’s not just the
strongmen, estranged BJP leaders
such as Shatrughan Sinha too are said
to be eyeing Congress tickets here.
But the problem for the Congress
is that the party is quite low in the ‘po-
litical pecking order’. The party needs
Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD to make any
impact. Consider this: for successive
elections, including Lok Sabha 2014,
when the BJP-led NDA won 31 of the
40 seats in the state, the RJD’s vote
share has hovered around 18 per cent.
Together, the RJD and Congress have
a sizeable 29 per cent vote share, but it
is still below the combined 2014 votes
polled by Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), Ram
Vilas Paswan’s LJP and the BJP.
Congress leaders, however, say
this calculation has too many im-
ponderables. “The BJP is unlikely to
catch a second ‘Modi wave’, in Bihar
or anywhere else,” says a state leader.
So enthused are partymen that
they are working overtime to make the
Rahul rally a talking point in the state.
If successful, they believe the Congress
can win back the upper-caste vote
bank it has lost to the BJP. Until 1990,
the Congress also had the largest share
of Dalit and Muslim votes. Although
the Congress has shared an amicable
alliance with the RJD, the party is
now evidently looking to reclaim lost
political ground. Jha’s appointment
last September, the first Brahmin to
head the Bihar unit since Jagannath
Mishra in 1991, is widely seen as the
start of the Congress’s big push.
Though the upper castes make up
only 11-12 per cent of the population
in Bihar, they can swing elections,
given the division of other caste votes
WINNING BACK THE
UPPER-CASTE VOTE
WILL BE KEY TO
THE CONGRESS’S
SUCCESS IN BIHAR
among the RJD, JD(U), LJP, Up-
endra Kushwaha’s RLSP and other
smaller parties. Congress leaders
contend this is what prompted the
BJP’s last-minute 10 per cent quota
sop for the economically weak among
the upper castes.
The first signs of the upper castes’
disenchantment with the BJP were
visible in the 2015 assembly poll,
when the Congress won 27 seats. As
many as 12 of the 16 upper-caste can-
didates fielded by the party won.
This time, the Congress is looking
for a bigger comeback in the company
of old allies and some new ones like the
RLSP, Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM and
Mukesh Sahni’s VIP party. Rahul’s
Jan Akanksha rally will offer some
clues to the puzzle of the party’s future
in the state. „
STATES
M A H A R ASHTR A
Sena Plays Hardball
Sensing the BJP’s desperation to re-stitch a poll alliance,
Uddhav ups the ante and demands equal share in power
By Kiran D. Tare
hiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray
S is playing his cards close to his
chest when it comes to a possible
pre-poll alliance with the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP). While a desper-
ate BJP has appealed to the Shiv Sena
to join hands for the Hindutva cause,
Thackeray has his eye on something
else. If sources are to be believed, he
will agree to an alliance if the BJP of-
fers the Sena a 50 per cent share of the
chief minister’s term in the office.
The BJP, meanwhile, has been try-
ing to woo Thackeray in various ways.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, on
January 23, handed over 2.5 acres of
prime land in Mumbai’s iconic Shivaji
Park for a proposed memorial dedi-
cated to Thackeray’s father and Shiv
Sena founder Bal Thackeray, along
with a fund of Rs 100 crore allotted for
the same. Earlier, Fadnavis had stayed
the land acquisition for a controver-
sial chemical refinery proposed in
14 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019
KUNAL PATIL/GETTY IMAGES
Ratnagiri district in view of the Shiv
Sena’s objections. Fadnavis has also
given his nod to a proposal by Aditya
Thackeray, Shiv Sena youth wing chief
and Uddhav Thackeray’s son, to revive
Mumbai’s nightlife. These steps have
been taken to pacify the tiger, who has
felt slighted by the BJP.
A source in the BJP says the party
will not be able to win 23 of the state’s
48 Lok Sabha seats again and would go
below 20 in the absence of an alliance.
Shiv Sena too will come down to around
five seats from its present 18. Being the
SHIV SENA IS WAITING
FOR A “RESPECTABLE
PROPOSAL” FROM THE
BJP BEFORE AGREEING
TO AN ALLIANCE
WILL THEY, WON’T THEY?
Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis
with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray
second most important state in terms
of the number of Lok Sabha seats,
Maharashtra will be important for the
BJP to retain power in Delhi.
At a function in Nashik last
month, Maharashtra water resources
minister Girish Mahajan had bluntly
told Thackeray that without an alli-
ance, the Shiv Sena will win only four
seats in the election. A Shiv Sena MP
said that almost all Shiv Sena MPs
have told Thackeray that he will face a
tough time if the BJP is not on board.
Maharashtra revenue minister
Chandrakant Patil, a BJP negotiator,
said there was no possibility of the Lok
Sabha and state assembly polls being
held simultaneously, but they have
been asked to start reaching out to
people in their various constituencies.
Fadnavis has asked the cadre to re-
mind the masses of the government’s
achievements. Addressing the BJP
office-bearers in Jalna on January 28,
he said that the party wanted an alli-
ance with the Shiv Sena to strengthen
the Hindutva cause and to prevent the
parties who have looted the country in
the past from coming to power, but it
does not mean that “we are helpless”.
“We will take you on board if you wish
or we will march alone,” he said in a
message to Thackeray.
Thackeray told Shiv Sena MPs on
January 28 that he has not junked
the idea of an alliance, but the BJP
needs to present a “respectable pro-
posal”. According to a Shiv Sena MP,
Thackeray will not accept anything
that is humiliating for party workers.
“We are hurt. I would like Narendra
Modi to deal with us as he used to do
before he became the prime minister,”
Thackeray said.
Sources say that BJP chief Amit
Shah will speak to Thackeray about
the alliance if he sends his represen-
tative at the National Democratic
Alliance rally to be held on February
3 in Patna. „
 STATES
SAMIR JANA/GETTY IMAGES
W EST BENGA L
ENEMY AT THE GATES
Led by PM Modi and Amit Shah, the BJP plans a blitzkrieg
on Mamata’s turf to face the mahagathbandhan head on
By Romita Datta
he united opposition, hosted by
T a beaming Mamata Banerjee
at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade
Ground on January 19, was dismissed
by Prime Minister Narendra Modi the
same afternoon as corruption-tainted
leaders ganging up to save themselves.
Now, the BJP intends to sharpen its
attack on the prospective mahagath-
bandhan with a series of rallies by
Modi and party chief Amit Shah across
West Bengal, to be rounded off with a
mega show in April at the very venue
16 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019
where Mamata and others had vowed
to end the BJP’s ‘tyranny’.
From all accounts, the BJP is
planning a point-by-point rebuttal of
all that the opposition leaders threw
at the party and Modi. Hurdles along
the way are being taken in stride. Like
the unavailability of the venue chosen
for Modi’s February 2 rally at Thakur-
nagar in North 24 Parganas—due to a
pre-booking by the Trinamool Con-
gress (TMC). The BJP perforce shifted
its programme to an alternative site.
SAFFRON SURGE
Amit Shah with BJP leaders
at the Jan. 22 rally in Malda
Shah’s rally on January 29 in the
paddy fields of a BJP supporter at Kan-
thi, East Midnapore, faced uncertainty
the night before as the TMC allegedly
forced the owners of adjacent fields to
go to the district police demanding that
the crowd should not spill over to their
land. On January 23, Union minister
Smriti Irani had to cancel her rally at
Suri in Birbhum since the Mamata
government sat on the request to allow
her helicopter to land on a government
helipad. Irani had to land at the Ka-
laikunda air force base, an hour’s drive
from the first rally venue at Jhargram.
The resultant delays made her miss the
second rally at Suri.
The BJP sees a pattern in all this.
“The government used the same dirty
tactics for Amit Shah’s rally on Janu-
ary 22,” says Dilip Ghosh, the party’s
state president. Shah gave it back by
vowing to fight every inch to uproot
the TMC from Bengal. “If they don’t
allow the helicopter to land, I will ad-
dress people from the chopper. If they
don’t allow the [save democracy] rath
[yatra], we will take out processions,
walk on foot, but we will challenge
them,” he said at the rally.
Expect more such ultimatums and
war cries as BJP heavyweights, includ-
ing Rajnath Singh, Yogi Adityanath
and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, get set
to address over 100 rallies across 32
Lok Sabha seats in the state in the next
two months. In all, the party plans to
hold more than 300 rallies in the run-
up to the Lok Sabha election. “Modi
will focus on how such opportunistic
coalitions in the past resulted in the
collapse of governments and frequent
elections,” said BJP state vice-presi-
dent Jayaprakash Majumdar.
With Shah setting a target of at least
22 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, Mamata’s
turf war with the BJP is intensifying
by the day. She has already instructed
MAMATA HAS TOLD
TMC LEADERS TO
HOLD COUNTER-
RALLIES AGAINST
THE BJP IN THEIR
CONSTITUENCIES
TMC leaders to camp in their respective
constituencies and hold counter-rallies
against the BJP. “Make sure to retaliate
against them (BJP) wherever they come
down to spread lies,” she said.
The January 19 rally hosted by
Mamata was a rare coming together of
over two dozen opposition leaders from
various parties and ideological hues,
but the ‘glue’ cementing them was Modi
and his party. While they all espoused
a common cause, there was predict-
ably no mention of who would lead
the mahagathbandhan if it succeeded
in toppling the saffron alliance at the
Centre. While Mamata had emphasised
the importance of collective leadership,
Shah responded with sarcasm at his
January 22 rally: “This is an alliance for
the lust of power. Recently, Mamataji
brought a handful of leaders to the
Brigade Parade Ground. Of the 23, nine
want to be prime minister,” he said.
The alliance is grappling with
fresh challenges. On January 28,
the Congress’s Malda (North) MP
Mausam Benazir Noor joined the
TMC in the presence of Mamata.
“Mamata talks of a grand alliance on
the one hand and poaches our leaders
on the other,” said a Congress MP from
north Bengal on condition of anonym-
ity. These are chinks in the opposi-
tion’s armour that Modi and Shah will
surely exploit as they crisscross Bengal
in the coming weeks. „
STATES

C H H AT T I S G A R H

Baghel on the Scent of a Scam R AIPUR

The probe into the alleged irregularities in Raman Singh’s tenure intensifies

By Rahul Noronha

resh investigations ordered by

F the new Congress state govern-

ment into decisions taken under
the previous BJP regime have kicked
up a political storm and pitted arch
rivals, chief minister Bhupesh Baghel
and his predecessor Raman Singh,
against each other. Vigilance agencies
have been asked to re-examine certain
aspects of the ongoing investigation
into the Chhattisgarh State Civil
VINAY SHARMA

Supplies Corporation scam and to

probe irregularities in e-tendering and
various purchases made by the previ-
ous government. The distribution of
free mobile phones under the Sanchar
Kranti Yojana, ostensibly aimed at
increasing mobile penetration in the
state, is also under the scanner.
The Rs 36,000 crore civil supplies
scam allegedly involved pay-offs by
traders to corporation officers and
employees in return for the govern-
ment purchasing substandard rice for
the public distribution system (PDS).
During the 2018 assembly election
campaign, Baghel had promised to
get the investigation completed. After
taking over, he appointed a 12-member
special investigation team (SIT) and
moved out Mukesh Gupta, the director
general of the Anti-Corruption Bureau
(ACB) that was investigating the scam.
The ACB had searched the premises
of corporation officials in February
2015 and found more than Rs 3 crore
in cash. Cases were filed against 18 offi-
cials, including IAS officers Alok Shuk-
la and Anil Tuteja. Eventually, charge-
sheets were filed against 15 officials. At
the core of the investigation is a diary
recovered from Girish Sharma, the per-
sonal assistant to Tuteja, the corpora-
tion’s managing director. The Congress
claimed that a diary read ‘CM Madam’,
but it was not investigated. Gupta had
claimed the entry referred to the wife of
a corporation employee.
After the assembly election, Tuteja
wrote to Baghel that the ACB had not
investigated matters thoroughly and
demanded a fresh probe. Citing the let-
ter, the chief minister set up the SIT.
“The SIT is ensuring that all as-
pects of the investigation are covered.
How can some names mentioned in the
diary be probed while other references
are left out?” Baghel told INDIA TODAY.
RAMAN SINGH
HAS DARED THE
GOVERNMENT TO
INVESTIGATE: “THEY
WILL FIND NOTHING”
ON THE OFFENSIVE
Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel
Former chief minister Raman
Singh has challenged the government
to prove his complicity in the scam.
“The (new) government is being run by
one individual. Let them investigate
all matters, but they will not be able to
find anything against me,” Singh said
on January 22.
In the e-tendering scam, the govern-
ment has asked the economic offences
wing to register an FIR. A Comptroller
and Auditor General (CAG) report had
pointed out that bids for tenders worth
Rs 4,601 crore announced by the Singh
government were placed using the same
computers through which the tenders
were floated. This raised the suspicion
that the departments unveiling the ten-
ders were in cahoots with the bidders.
Even as the investigations gather
pace, Baghel, it seems, has more sur-
prises up his sleeve. “I have just dusted
a few files and there is an uproar. There
are many more to come,” he said in
Raipur on January 25. „

18 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019

STATES
AMAR AVATI
A N DH R A PR A DE SH
Standing
Alone
Tom-tomming welfare schemes,
development projects and an
NTR biopic, Naidu prepares to
face the elections alone
By Amarnath K. Menon
howering benefits on back-
S ward classes and projecting
himself as the sole inheritor of
the NTR legacy, Nara Chan-
drababu Naidu is pulling out all the
stops to retain power in his state. After
his Telugu Desam Party’s alliance with
the Congress failed to deliver in the
recent Telangana election, his party
plans to go it alone in the simultane-
ous polls to the 175 assembly seats and
25 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Naidu
is looking at it in the larger context of
“saving the nation from the BJP”.
As his co-brother Daggubati Ven-
kateswara Rao decided to support the
rival YSR Congress, Naidu was back to
harking on the glory of his father-in-
law and TDP founder N.T. Rama Rao.
On January 27, a book by two retired
civil servants was released, a fortnight
after the first part of a biopic—NTR:
Kathanayakudu—hit the screens. The
second part, NTR: Mahanayakudu,
will be released soon. NTR’s son N. Bal-
akrishna, who plays his father, has fi-
nanced the film. However, the response
at the box office has been tepid so far.
Analysts say Naidu needs all the
gimmicks he can find to fight the
NDA, which he accuses of “betraying
the state”. The chief minister is also
banking on the impact of the schemes
initiated by him to build what he calls
WAR CRY Naidu addressing the Jayho rally on January 27
‘Sunrise Andhra Pradesh’. His rivals,
on the other hand, say that invoking
the legacy of the famously anti-Con-
gress NTR, may boomerang and the
intention behind such a move is only
to elevate Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh in
the party.
Coinciding with the release of NTR’s
biopic, Naidu unveiled a pylon marking
the construction of a five million tonne
capacity paper mill at Ravuru. Foreign
direct investment of Rs 24,500 crore for
the project is said to be the biggest sum
for any such project in India. He also
laid the foundation stone for the Ra-
mayapatnam port, the 15th in the state.
Naidu is to make fresh announcements
of what his government is to offer to dif-
ferent sections, unmindful of its impact
on the state’s finances. He has already
announced the doubling of old-age pen-
sions from Rs 1,000 and a grant of Rs
10,000 to women’s self-help groups.
On January 22, he announced five
THOUGH HIS MAIN
RIVAL IS THE YSRC,
NAIDU’S CAMPAIGN
IS DIRECTED
AGAINST MODI
per cent reservation for Kapus out of
the 10 per cent quota for the economi-
cally weaker sections provided by the
Centre. This is to woo sections of the
Kapus, who may support Pawan Kaly-
an’s Jana Sena. The Jana Sena and the
BJP were the TDP’s allies in 2014. This
will be the first time that the TDP will
face an election without a poll ally. The
YSRC, the Congress and the BJP will
also go it alone. The main fight, how-
ever, will be between the TDP and the
YSRC. But much of Naidu’s campaign
is directed against Prime Minister
Narendra Modi for not granting special
category status to Andhra. Modi, on
his part, has mocked Naidu for pushing
the state into the ‘sunset’ to see his ‘son
rise’. Calling NTR a ‘true icon of Telugu
pride’, Modi has said, “his son-in-law
(Naidu) has bowed his head before the
Congress to save his chair”. Countering
this, Naidu has said, “Modi is afraid
that Andhra Pradesh will surpass
Gujarat in development.”
Analysts, however, say that a zeal for
development may not be enough. Cha-
lasani Srinivas, president of the Andhra
Pradesh Intellectuals Forum, says, “The
NTR charisma is a help, but unless
Naidu changes his priorities—from
brainstorming sessions to understand-
ing the common man’s problems, it will
be difficult for him to come back.” „
STATES

TEL A NGA NA

The Long Wait Lengthens

Almost two months after re-election, KCR has yet to announce his cabinet
HYDER ABAD

By Amarnath K. Menon

a vote-on-account budget, and go for a

A HIGHER LOGIC KCR at the ‘sahasra chandi’ yagam at his farmhouse
. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) is a
ime. We do not want to shoot arrows in
full-fledged one after a new government
assumes office at the Centre. As per the
CM’s calculations, the state government
would have about Rs 8.9 lakh crore left
over after debt servicing, half of which
would be spent on development.
KCR also promised to fulfil all
“promises made in the TRS election
manifesto, along with those initiated in
the first term”. But, for the moment, he
is pursuing a bureaucracy-driven gov-
ernment. He has had officials work to
reorganise and cut the 33 government
departments down for ensuring their
effective functioning. The administra-
tion is also gearing up to fill up 15,000
vacancies by March-end, with 95 per
cent of the new jobs going to ‘locals’.
Party insiders first said the much-
awaited cabinet expansion is likely
after the Sahasra Chandi Yagam, a
five-day religious ritual at his farm-
house in Erravelli, which concluded on
January 25. The speculated new D-Day
is February 10, Vasanta Panchami day.

K superstitious man, which is why

he allegedly delayed the swearing-
in of new MLAs for more than a month
after the assembly election results were
declared on December 11. The Telan-
gana chief minister is also yet to name
his cabinet, and is currently running the the next three years and link
government with just one minister—
the dark, but take firm steps,” the chief
minister had declared during his first
The delay in installing a full-
fledged government has predictably
policy speech after the four-day inaugu- drawn criticism from the opposition.
ral assembly session on December 20. Congress party spokesperson Dasoju
KCR says his first priority is to bring Sravan has written to governor E.S.L.
irrigation to 12.5 million acres within Narasimhan, alleging the TRS had vio-
lated constitutional norms
Telangana’s 12,700 villages by not having the minimum

home minister M. Mahmood Ali. Ap-
parently the wait is for an “inauspicious
period” to blow over. That said, despite
the Telangana Rashtra Samithi’s (TRS)
commanding position—it won 88 of the
120 assembly seats—KCR’s ‘managers’
are still out wooing legislators of the
decimated opposition.
“My government is passing through after the Lok Sabha poll”. To
a transition, from an old to a new reg-
with black-topped roads
that “shine like mirrors”.
He expects to spend Rs 10
lakh crore over the com-
ing five years, and possibly
an additional “Rs 1.5 lakh
crore if there is a favourable
government [in Delhi]
that end, he plans to present
1
prescribed number of min-
isters in the cabinet. But
KCR remains unfazed.
Analysts say it is the
MINISTER CM’s way of establishing
KCR has allotted supremacy within the party
only one portfolio so and government. And it’s
far—M. Mahmood Ali working. There hasn’t been
mans the home dept a peep from anyone within
the TRS fold yet. „

20 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019


THE
POWER OF
PRIYANKA
With the Congress revealing its new trump card in Uttar
Pradesh, the party’s political adversaries must recalibrate
their electoral calculations for the summer of 2019
By Kaushik Deka
I n the late summer of 1999, a
27-year-old Priyanka Gandhi was
in Amethi to campaign for her
mother and then Congress president
Sonia Gandhi who was contesting her
first Lok Sabha election. During a media
interaction, a reporter asked Priyanka
what she thought of the opposition attack
on her mother’s foreign origins. Reaching
out to the journalist, Priyanka extended
her hand and asked: “Do you think I have
foreign blood in my veins?”
That was perhaps the first sign of the
politically savvy mind the Congress is
relying on two decades later to revive its
fortunes in Uttar Pradesh, the state that
sends 80 members to the 543-strong
Lok Sabha—more than any other state.
In 2014, the Congress took just two seats
in UP, both won by the members of the
Nehru-Gandhi family—Sonia in Rae
Bareli and Rahul in Amethi.
Priyanka’s entry into formal poli-
tics—as eastern UP in-charge (see
map)—has not only breathed new life
into the moribund Congress in the state,
22 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019
C O V E R S T O R Y: C O N G R E S S
but also suddenly changed the elector-
al landscape of 2019. UP, which often
determines who forms the government
in Delhi, is likely to see a three-cornered
contest with the Priyanka-led Congress
emerging as the third force besides the
HERE COMES THE
NEW MRS G
Ô Her entry has energised a listless
BJP and the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Congress organisation in UP
Samaj Party alliance. “She is a game-
changer,” says former Union minister Ô Her public speaking skills,
Jitin Prasada. “There is a visible resur- connect with workers and voters
gence among Congress workers.” The and striking resemblance to grand-
mood in the party is certainly upbeat, mother Indira Gandhi are draws
with many even demanding that she con-
test the general election from Varanasi, Ô Has to wean upper-caste votes—
directly challenging Prime Minister particularly Brahmin—from the BJP,
Narendra Modi in his own constituency. woo non-Jatav Dalits and
The unprecedented enthusiasm of non-Yadav OBCs
Congress workers for Priyanka, who till
now has remained untested in electo- Ô Is in-charge of Brahmin-dom ina-
ral politics, is not entirely misplaced. In ted eastern UP, where the Congress
1999, Arun Nehru—Rajiv Gandhi’s cou- has traditionally fared better; can
sin and also a member of his cabinet— challenge Modi-Yogi directly
contested the general election against
Sonia on a BJP ticket, following a bit- Ô Will appeal to youth and women
ter parting with the Congress. Priyanka
addressed just one meeting, telling the
MANEESH AGNIHOTRI
SOFT POWER
At Dharai village
in Rae Bareli in
October 2013
 C O V E R S T O R Y: C O N G R E S S

crowd with electrifying effect: “How did

you let a man who committed treachery
with my family in this area? Someone
who, despite being in the Congress, joi-
ned hands with communal forces and
stabbed his brother in the back?” It was
the end of Arun Nehru’s political career.
Two decades later, it will be a bap-
tism by fire for Priyanka. As in-charge of
UP East, she’ll be challenging the combi-
ned might of Prime Minister Modi and
UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath,
whose bastion Gorakhpur also falls in
eastern UP. There is a reason why Pri-
yanka—a graduate in psychology from
Delhi’s Jesus & Mary College—has been
given charge of this region just 100 days
before the election. Eastern UP, broadly
consisting of Awadh, Purvanchal and
MANEESH AGNIHOTRI

Lower Doab, has 40 Lok Sabha seats. In

2009, when the Congress won 21 seats,
its highest tally since 1984, 18 came
from this region. Even at its weakest in
2014, the party had a 17.8 per cent vote
share in Awadh.
The region also has a large upper-
caste population—mainly Brahmins—a
vote base the Congress is hoping to sna-
tch from the BJP with Priyanka’s appeal. WHY UP MATTERS
There will be an effort to highlight her
Hindu identity to attract the vote of the FOR THE CONGRESS
Brahmin community, which forms 13
per cent of the population and is report-
edly unhappy with the BJP for various
reasons—from the Modi government’s 404 The party could never recover from its massive
decision to overturn the Supreme Court slide in the 1989 Lok Sabha election
verdict diluting the provisions in the
Seats won across India
SC/ST Act to the growing influence of
Seats won in UP (vote share)
the Thakurs in the Yogi administration.
Priyanka is likely to flag off her politi-
232
cal innings on February 4, after taking
197
a holy dip in the Ganga at the Kumbh 206
Mela along with brother Rahul. “These
upper-caste voters are unhappy with the 140 141 145
saffron party but may not be willing to 83 114
support the SP-BSP alliance, primarily (51%)
a combination of backward and Dalit 15
votes,” says a Congress Rajya Sabha MP. 5 5 10 9 21
(32%) 0 44
Backward classes make up nearly 40 (18%) (18%) (6%) (15%) (12%) (18%)
per cent of UP’s population while Dalits 2
account for 22 per cent. (7.5%)
An analysis by CSDS (Centre for
the Study of Developing Societies) of its 1984* 1989 1991 1996 1998 1999 2004 2009 2014
election data shows that the Congress’s
*Total seats: 85

24 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019


UTTAR PRADESH
East UP
West UP
superlative performance in 2009 was a
result of the vote share it gained since
the 2007 state election among the
Kurmis, other upper castes, Brahmins,
Muslims, non-Jatav SCs and Jats. In
2014, the Congress lost upper-caste
and Kurmi votes to the BJP and Muslim
votes to the SP. But it remained the
second choice for Brahmins and non-
Thakur upper-castes. Now, Priyanka
needs to win back the support of the
Kurmis, Brahmins and non-Thakur
upper castes.
hile traders and busi-
W
nessmen played a key
role in the BJP’s 2014
and 2017 successes,
many of them are unhappy with the
party because of demonetisation and
the rollout of the Goods and Services
Tax (GST). The disconnect with farm-
ers is another factor the Congress hopes
to exploit, with Rahul making the agra-
rian crisis one of the core themes of his
poll campaign against the Modi gov-
ernment. UP farmers are particularly
unhappy with the Yogi government
BATTLEGROUND
Rae Bareli
Gorakhpur
Amethi
Varanasi
SIBLING REVELRY
En route to filing Rahul’s
nomination from Amethi in 2014
for its crackdown on slaughterhouses,
as government-run ones have failed
to tackle the increasing number of
unproductive cows, not only adding to
the farmers’ financial burden but also
resulting in destruction of their crops.
Caste calculations apart, Priyanka,
at 47, will also have a direct appeal
among youth and women. In the 2014
election, the BJP benefitted a great deal
from the support of young voters—51
per cent voters in the 18-22 age group
voted for the party. The importance of
the women’s vote is also evident from
the fact that in the past two assembly
elections the female turnout has been
higher than the male turnout.
Despite the enthusiasm among
Congress workers, Rahul is not too
hopeful of a significant electoral divi-
dend in the coming election. That’s
the reason why he keeps insisting that
Priyanka’s appointment is not a short-
term strategy but the beginning of a
grand revival plan that will be tested in
the 2022 UP election. The timing of her
entry—a month after the Congress won
the assembly elections in three heartland
THE
PRIYANKA
FILE
DATE OF BIRTH: January 12, 1972
EDUCATION: Studied at Modern
School, Barakhamba Road, New
Delhi till the assassination of her
grandmother Indira Gandhi, after
which she and Rahul were home
tutored. Graduated in Psychology
from Jesus and Mary College, DU
MARRIED: Childhood friend
Robert Vadra (now 50), on February
18, 1997, in a Hindu ceremony
RESIDENCE: Stays at 35, Lodhi
Estate, Delhi. and has two chil-
dren—son Raihan (18) and daughter
Miraya (16). Priyanka also has a
house at Chharabra, 14 km from
Shimla. The 3.5 bigha plot is located
at a height of more than 8,000 feet
EARLY INFLUENCES: As a teen,
was influenced by her grandmother
and wanted to become a politician.
Has taken her three decades to
take the plunge. Has always been
political counsellor to mother Sonia
and brother Rahul and looks after
their constituencies. Undertook her
first political campaign in 1997, at
age 27, for her mother
PRIVATE MOMENT: Regularly vis-
its one room in the Nehru Memorial
Museum and Library, where the
clothes, shoes and other items her
father used are kept, and cleans
them. In the one hour she spends in
that room, nobody is allowed inside
FORGIVING SOUL: Visited Vellore
jail on March 19, 2008, to meet
Nalini Sriharan, arrested in 1991 for
her role in Rajiv’s assassination.
“It was my way of coming to peace
with the violence and loss I’ve
experienced,” she later said
RELIGIOUS INCLINATION:
Believes in Buddhist philosophy and
practices Vipassana
DOTING MUM: Never misses her
children’s PTAs. Loves making
cupcakes for them
 C O V E R S T O R Y: C O N G R E S S
states—was a carefully planned one.
Without a victory, Priyanka’s entry
would have been seen as evidence of
Rahul’s weakness. Instead, the Congress
president has now won three elections,
engages on social media far more than
Modi, who has a larger following, and his
criticism of the Rafale deal has generated
some traction, as indicated by the INDIA
TODAY Mood of the Nation poll. Now the
Nehru-Gandhi family has the perfect
opportunity to launch a third member
into the organisational structure of the
party from a position of strength.
T
hough the January 23
announcement merely for-
malised Priyanka’s role in
the party, she had always
remained the political counsellor to her
mother and brother. Her public par-
ticipation in politics remained limited
to the family boroughs of Amethi and
Rae Bareli, but she has been involved—
directly or indirectly—in several major
Congress decisions. In December
2018, she was part of several closed-
door meetings to help Rahul decide
the chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh,
Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Earlier, in
2017, it was Priyanka who finally swung
the Congress-SP alliance for the UP
assembly poll. “She knows how to con-
nect with different individuals and irre-
spective of their stature and priorities
present a convincing scenario to each
one of them,” says a political strategist.
On her effective management of pro-
tocol details, a senior Congress leader
says: “She never summons any leader,
big or small, to her home. She either
drives down herself or meets them at
the residence of her brother or mother.”
The Priyanka card was also necessita-
ted by the Congress decision to go solo
in UP. Many grassroots Congress lead-
ers had told Rahul that playing junior
partner with 10 Lok Sabha seats in the
SP-BSP alliance would be fatal for the
party. That’s why the Congress stayed
away from the alliance even as Rahul
continued to pitch for a united opposi-
tion against the Narendra Modi-led
BJP in 2019 nationally. But to lead an
26 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019
effective campaign in UP, the party need-
ed a strong leader. Priyanka fit the bill
perfectly. What sets her apart from the
other members of her family is that she
doesn’t carry the baggage of the past and
can reach out to even those with whom
the family has fallen out. Also, unlike
Rahul, she keeps in touch with most
leaders through SMS or on the phone.
“In UP, she kept in touch with even
those leaders who did not have a good
rapport with Sonia and Rahul, and got
them on board,” says a Congress general
secretary. She had no qualms in admit-
ting that her excellent Hindi diction
and vocabulary are a result of personal
tutoring by Teji Bachchan, mother of the
superstar Amitabh Bachchan (before the
SUBHANKAR CHAKRABORTY/GETT Y IMAGES
latter’s mysterious falling out with the
family). In 2013, her son Raihan lit the
funeral pyre of Arun Nehru, whom she’d
dubbed a traitor in 1999. Insiders say her
Buddhist leanings and Vipassana prac-
tice have helped her evolve not only as
an individual but also as a politician who
always keeps the larger picture in mind.
What makes Priyanka a formidable
force is her instant and natural connect
with the masses—a quality she arguably
shares with Modi. She reminds many
Congress supporters of her grandmother
both for her charisma and the stunning
likeness—something they hope to cash CONGRESSMEN
in on to counter Modi. Priyanka also HOPE
speaks fluent Hindi, often laced with
Awadhi inflections.
PRIYANKA’S
She is constantly compared to her ENTRY WILL
brother Rahul but most analysts feel she MAKE THE
is the more natural and outgoing of the
two. However, Priyanka has always been
SP-BSP
careful not to upstage Rahul in public RECONSIDER A
life and is more than willing to share COALITION WITH
her grandmother’s legacy with him. MORE SEATS FOR
“His understanding of politics is really
very good—much better than he is given
THE PARTY
credit for. And that I think comes from
my grandmother,” she has said.
A natural understanding of politics
may be one of the many advantages of
being born to an illustrious political fam-
ily, but Priyanka’s dynast status will also
be a tool in the hands of the BJP to pit her
privileged background against the hum-
ble origins of its two mascots in UP—PM

JOINT MISSION
Akhilesh greets
Mayawati on her
birthday on January 15
this year
Modi and CM Yogi. Social media is
already abuzz with digital campaign-
ers snarking that in the Congress, the
family is the party while in the BJP,
the party is the family.
T
hough political rivals have
spared her personal attacks
so far, her formal entry into
politics has opened the
floodgates. BJP MP Subramanian
Swamy was at his vicious best when
he announced, “She has a disorder of
bipolarity. She beats up people. Her
ailment does not make her fit to lead
a public life. The public should know
when she is likely to lose mental
balance.” BJP leader Kailash Vijay-
vargiya said that the dearth of strong
leaders had made the Congress pull
out “chocolatey” faces. Bihar minis-
ter Vinod Narayan Jha said votes
could not be won on the basis of
WILL PRIYANKA
HURT BUA AND
BHATIJA?
Ô The SP worries she’ll take
away Muslim votes, but
believes the Congress will
damage the BJP more
Ô If she pulls in non-Jatav Dalit
votes, which had moved to
the BJP, she’ll indirectly help
the BSP
Ô May also help the SP-BSP by
wooing non-Yadav OBCs such
as Kurmis away from the BJP
Ô Her entry may prompt the
SP-BSP to rejig the poll
alliance, though Mayawati is
yet to relent
Ô Party insiders say leaders of
the three parties are likely to
informally agree on constituen-
cy-wise assessment to put up
friendly fights, wherever need-
ed, to minimise damage
beautiful faces. He also pointed
out that she was the wife of Robert
Vadra, “accused in several corrup-
tion cases”. That baggage may indeed
weigh down Priyanka. Her busi-
nessman husband—a friend from
schooldays whom Priyanka married
in a Hindu ceremony at her mother’s
home on 10, Janpath, in 1997—faces
probes by the CBI and ED in near-
ly two dozen cases related to land
acquisition and money laundering.
The couple, who stay at 35, Lodhi
Estate, Delhi, have a son (Raihan, 18)
and a daughter (Miraya, 16). Vadra’s
father Rajendra ran a brassware
export business in the west UP town
of Moradabad. Robert, his brother
Richard and sister Michelle spent
most of their childhood in Delhi,
where his mother Maureen taught
in a school. The family has seen hard
times and personal tragedies, such as
THE SUPREMOS
The BJP’s aces in UP,
Modi, Yogi and
Amit Shah
when Michelle was killed in a road acci-
dent in 2001, or when Richard commit-
ted suicide in 2003 or when Rajendra
was found hanging at a guesthouse in
Delhi in 2009. The Congress has always
maintained that the allegations against
Vadra are a case of political vendetta by
the BJP. And that despite BJP govern-
ments at the Centre and in several states,
they have been unable to prove a single
charge against Vadra in these five years.
Going by her past record, however, it
will be difficult to win against Priyanka
in a political slugfest. She has shown her
ability to give as good as she gets. In 2014,
when Modi claimed that the Congress
had gotten old, Priyanka quipped in a
rally: “Do I look old to you?” Later that
year, in another election campaign in Rae
Bareli, she countered Modi’s RSVP—
Rahul, Sonia, Vadra and Priyanka—and
ABCD—Adarsh scam, Bofors scam, coal
scam and damaad ka ghotala (scam of
the son-in-law)—digs with: “You’re not
teaching in a primary school, you’re add-
ressing the nation. Don’t teach people the
English alphabet like RSVP or ABCD. “
If not the English alphabet, Modi
and BJP will certainly focus hard on
the caste arithmetic that helped the
party sweep the state in 2014 and 2017.
The massive successes were a result of
well-planned social engineering at mul-
tiple levels—coalitions of upper castes
(Brahmins and Thakurs) and support
28 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019
from non-Yadav OBC groups, non-Jatav
Dalits and farmers. One of the BJP’s poll
strategies will be a continuation of this
caste management. The party recognises
the resentment among upper castes and
believes their announcement of 10 per
cent reservation for economically back-
ward upper castes will alter the mood
on the ground. The BJP also hopes to
coalesce all castes under a larger Hindu
umbrella by raising the decibel level
on the Ram temple issue. The RSS has
been upping the ante on the issue since
last year and has also been active on the
ground, appointing prabharis in each of
the 71 seats the BJP won for feedback on
the performance of the local MP.
However, one factor that could crip-
ple the BJP’s electoral management is
the disconnect between the Yogi gov-
ernment and the party. Around 600
THE BJP PLANS
TO PLAY THE
CASTE CARD
THAT STOOD IT
IN GOOD STEAD
IN 2014 AND 2017
SANJAY KANOJIA/GETTY IMAGES
government posts are lying vacant as
the CM and the party apparatus cannot
agree on candidates. Yogi doesn’t know
the district level leaders well and spends
more time in his home constituency,
Gorakhpur, than in the state capital
Lucknow. His supporters, on the other
hand, claim that he is not getting enough
support from the party structure, which
is virtually run by Sunil Bansal, the state
general secretary (organisation).
BJP president Amit Shah has also
been planning to rope in members of the
old guard such as Rajasthan governor
Kalyan Singh and West Bengal governor
Kesrinath Tripathi to iron out differenc-
es in the state organisation. Union health
minister J.P. Nadda has been appointed
Lok Sabha election in-charge. Gujarat
BJP veteran Gordhan Zadaphia has
been made party in-charge in UP, given
his proximity to Hindutva force.
Even as the BJP is yet to firm up its
final strategy to counter Priyanka, the
SP-BSP alliance may rethink its strat-
egy. This alliance of two arch-rivals is
a repeat of the exercise that was able to
stop a belligerent BJP from forming a
government in 1993 in the wake of the
Babri Masjid demolition. At that time,
the OBCs, led by Mulayam Singh Yadav,
and the Dalits, led by Kanshi Ram, came
together. This time the alliance looks
formidable on paper, as it’s likely to win
58 Lok Sabha seats, according to the
 C O V E R S T O R Y: C O N G R E S S
HOW’S THE
JOSH IN BJP?
Ô The BJP brass agrees, in
private, that Priyanka may take
away upper caste votes; the
party recognises resentment
among upper castes and hopes
10 per cent reservation for the
economically backward among
upper castes will alleviate it
Ô Plans to finesse the caste
arithmetic of the past two
polls—coalitions of upper castes
(Brahmins and Thakurs) and sup-
port from non-Yadav OBC groups,
non-Jatav Dalits and farmers
Ô Plans to bring all castes under
Hindu umbrella by raising tempo
on building the Ram temple
INDIA TODAY MOTN survey.
However, Priyanka’s entry may
split the Muslim vote, so far in favour
of the SP-BSP combine. Muslims,
who form 19 per cent of the popula-
tion, want to support the SP but are
uncertain about the BSP because the
Mayawati-led party does not have a
strong Muslim leadership. After the
2017 state election, the BSP’s Muslim
face and its former general secretary
Nasimuddin Siddiqui joined the
Congress. In the past one-and-a-
half years, more than 50 prominent
Muslim BSP leaders have joined
Congress ranks. The SP’s Muslim
face and Rampur MLA Azam Khan
has already asked the Congress not to
cut into the alliance’s votes.
But Priyanka’s presence may
also bring the non-Jatav Dalit vote,
which went to the BJP in the past
two elections, back to the Congress,
and helping the alliance eventually.
The party has an elaborate plan to
highlight the incidents of atrocities
against Dalits across the country in
the past four years. The party brass
is in talks with Dalit leaders such
as Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani
and Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan,
founder of the Bhim Army.
Rahul understands the dam-
age it may cause the alliance but the
Congress brass also realises that this
may prompt an SP-BSP rethink on
offering the party more seats in a
rejigged coalition agreement. Rahul
has already sent a veiled message:
“We’ll work in sync with Akhilesh
Yadav and Mayawati wherever pos-
sible. At the same time, it’s important
for us to create space for the Congress
ideology.” Congress insiders claim
the leaders of the three parties are
likely to sit down informally for con-
stituency-wise assessment in order
to put up friendly fights wherever
needed to minimise damage.
The challenge for the SP-BSP
is not just to arrest the division of
Muslim, Dalit and OBC votes but
also to expand its social base and
connect the other marginalised
groups as equal partners. The SP
right now is concentrated among
the Yadavs—9 per cent of the pop-
ulation—and the BSP among the
Jatavs—12 per cent of the popula-
tion. The effort to expand this base
was visible during the bypolls. In
Gorakhpur and Phulpur, the SP
had Nishad and Kurmi candidates,
communities which were earlier seen
to be locked with the BJP. But find-
ing the winning caste combination
for 80 seats, never an easy task, will
be complicated by Priyanka’s entry.
Even for Priyanka, the task
remains mammoth: to revive a party
that has slipped from a 51 per cent
vote share in 1984 to 7 per cent 30
years on. In 1999, asked when she
would join politics, she had said:
“You’ll have to wait a long, long time.”
Now that she has finally taken the
plunge, she doesn’t have the luxury
of time to deliver a winning result. „
with Uday Mahurkar
and Ashish Misra

THE CASTE
CALCULUS
Can Priyanka Gandhi’s star power revive the Congress in UP?
Will the disenchanted forward castes desert the BJP? Can
the SP-BSP alliance corner the OBC-Dalit-Muslim vote? The
changing poll arithmetic of India’s most complex state
By AJIT KUMAR JHA
S he has a striking resem-
blance to her grandmother,
the late prime minister
Indira Gandhi. Ever smiling, dimples
in place, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has
a fresh and youthful disposition even
at 47. A shrewd communicator, and
always warm and compassionate,
she has in the past displayed an
extraordinary connect with voters when
campaigning for her mother Sonia in
Rae Bareli and her brother, Congress
president Rahul Gandhi, in Amethi.
But can Priyanka, roped in as gen-
eral secretary in charge of eastern Uttar
Pradesh just 100 or so days before the
Lok Sabha election is scheduled, change
the grand old party’s fortunes in this piv-
otal state? Can an organisational decline
of three decades be reversed in this brief
interval through her induction?
Electoral compulsions
These questions are difficult to answer.
It is clear that Priyanka’s formal induc-
tion is an electoral consideration and a
compulsion. And there is no doubt the
Gandhi mystique will influence social
media and add a new narrative to the
Congress campaign. Left a paltry two
seats—Rae Bareli and Amethi—by the
SP-BSP formal alliance on January
12 in Lucknow, the Congress’s senior
30 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019
C O V E R S T O R Y: U T TA R P R A D E S H
leaders, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Raj
Babbar, decided to contest all 80 Lok
Sabha seats with the help of smaller
allies. The move to compete as a third
front might help increase the Cong-
ress’s vote share from the paltry 7.5
per cent it got in 2014, but will it fetch
more seats? That is still a big unknown,
but Priyanka’s induction in east UP is
sure to make her a thorn in the flesh for
both Prime Minister Narendra Modi
(who contests from Varanasi) and UP
chief minister Yogi Adityanath, whose
home base is Gorakhpur.
In the past, Priyanka has played
THE NATIONAL
PARTY STATUS
AND THE FRESH-
NESS QUOT IENT
PRIYANKA BRINGS
SHOULD HELP
THE CONGRESS
CHALLENGE
a key role in stitching up the alliance
between Rahul Gandhi and SP leader
Akhilesh Yadav for the 2017 assem-
bly election. But it failed to help the
Congress, as it won just seven of the 403
seats in 2017. This time it might fare
better, given that it is a Lok Sabha elec-
tion and that the ruling BJP is facing
double anti-incumbency in the state.
The Congress’s national party status
and the freshness quotient Priyanka’s
leadership will bring might add some
further zest to that challenge.
2009 versus 2014
So what is the new Congress narrative?
Dismissing the 2014 Lok Sabha elec-
tion as an “unusual anomaly” due to
the Modi wave, senior party leaders in
UP say the “Congress is aiming to rec-
reate the results of the 2009 Lok Sabha
polls, when the party under Rahul
Gandhi had won 21 seats, 18 of them in
eastern Uttar Pradesh”. Eastern UP is
composed of Awadh, Purvanchal and
Lower Doab which together comprise
40 Lok Sabha seats, half of the total 80
seats in the state. With its large upper
caste (mainly Brahmin) voter base,
together with Scheduled Castes and
Muslims dominating key constituen-
cies, eastern UP voted overwhelmingly
for the Congress and the BSP in 2009.
 SAFFRON
WASH
The 2014 Modi tsunami
effectively swept away
differences in a state
that was more diversely
LOK assertive in 2009
SABHA
2014
BJP 71
INC 2
SP 5
AD 2

LOK
SABHA
2009
BJP 10
RLD 5
INC 21
SP 23
BSP 20
Others 1

THE BIG PUSHBACK

A 2019 LS poll scenario: the BJP is with Apna Dal, SP
with BSP and RLD, and the Congress is on its own

MOTN*, JAN. 2019 LOK SABHA 2014

Total seats 80 Total seats 80
Seats Seats
58 71
4 2
18

12 46 8 22
1 5
42
20
36

2
7
6

Votes % Votes %
BJP INC RLD+SP+BSP Others BJP INC SP AD BSP Others
*India Today-Karvy Insights Mood of the Nation poll

Graphics by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY

 C O V E R S T O R Y: U T TA R P R A D E S H

two seats—the family bastions Rae

THE SUPPORT BASE Bareli and Amethi. So stunning was
An SP-BSP alliance will corner a big chunk of the Dalit-OBC-Muslim vote and the defeat of the secular forces that
the BSP did not even open its account
the Congress will likely threaten the BJP’s solid support among forward castes
and the SP managed a mere five seats,
all contested by family members of SP
NATIONAL ELECTION STUDY 2014, CSDS patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav. Three
FORWARD years later, in March 2017, the BJP, in an
CASTE OBC SC/ST MUSLIM even more stunning victory, swept the
UP assembly poll, winning an unprec-
% 4
%
7% 9
%
3% 10 %
11 edented 43.5 per cent of the vote and

32

11
312 of the total 403 seats.
48
9%

%
%
35 %

%
75 %

76
hat are the challeng-
3%

W
%
7

5
11% es Priyanka faces in
reviving the Congress
in eastern UP? First,
BJP INC SP+BSP Others unlike in 2009 and 2014, which were
four-cornered contests, 2019 might be
a three-cornered one. In three-cornered
MOOD OF THE NATION POLL, JAN. 2019
FORWARD contests, in a first-past-the-post-system,
CASTE OBC SC/ST MUSLIM the top player gets a disproportionately
larger number of seats, the second gets
% 6% 7% 10
%
23 1% 7 %1 much less and the third mostly gets left
2 2
12 % 1

out in the cold. With the SP-BSP alli-

%

%
39
%

ance contesting 38 seats each, the INDIA

8%
40
69 %

TODAY-Karvy Insights Mood of the

%

%
0

15 6 8
% Nation (MOTN) January 2019 poll pre-
BJP INC SP+BSP Others
Part of the reason for this was that
THE CIRCLE OF the Congress-led UPA had already been
INFLUENCE in power in New Delhi for five years.
Incumbency advantage and the long his-
In UP, an OBC-Dalit-Muslim
axis is hard to beat torical ties the Congress has with eastern
UP helped the party bag 18.5 per cent of
the vote and 21 seats in 2009. The BSP
% 19 % had the highest vote share of 27.4 per
19
cent (Mayawati was then CM), but got
only 18 seats, while the BJP, with 17.5 per
cent of the vote, managed just 10 seats.
8%
dicts the combination will win 58 seats,
with the BJP getting 18, leaving a mere
four for the Congress.
A simple sum-up of the SP and BSP
votes from 2014 gives the two regional
parties an advantage in 53 seats, in
addition to the five seats the SP won by
itself (a total of 58, as MOTN predicts).
In 36 of these Lok Sabha seats the BJP
had won in 2014, the combined SP-BSP
vote is much more than what the saffron
party got. In 17 of them, the combined
vote trailed the BJP by less than 10 per
cent. Clearly, the SP-BSP alliance is the
BJP’s main challenger.
UP BJP general secretary and the

9%

Demographic
The SP, with 23.3 per cent votes, had got party’s chief strategist there, Sunil
break-up
the highest number of seats, 23. Both the Bansal, admitted as much. “The SP-BSP
%

12 %
12

SP and BJP, though, won the maximum
20 % share of their seats in western UP.
The Modi wave in 2014 complete-
ly changed the electoral contours of
the state. The saffron party swept UP,
Upper castes OBCs (Yadav) winning 71 seats (plus 2 seats for NDA
Non-Yadav OBCs Lower OBCs ally Apna Dal) with a voter base of
Dalits (Jatav) Other Dalits Muslims 42.5 per cent. The Congress won just
alliance is the most formidable chal-
lenge for the BJP. In response, we plan
to highlight the achievements of the
Modi government through 250 meet-
ings planned between December and
February all over Uttar Pradesh. But,
in the end, destiny will determine who
wins this election,” he said.

32 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019

 C O V E R S T O R Y: U T TA R P R A D E S H

The Caste Conundrum to wean away the upper castes, mainly

In 1989, despite a Congress defeat in
the Lok Sabha election, the forward
castes (mainly Brahmins), the Schedu-
led Castes and Muslims constituted the
bulk of the party vote in UP. A CSDS
(Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies) post-poll survey in 1989
(Congress won 39.5 per cent of the over-
all vote then) revealed that the party got
41 per cent of the Brahmin, 44.2 per
cent of the SC/ ST and 45.8 per cent of
the Muslim vote.
Twenty-five years later, with the
Brahmin voters, away from the BJP.
HOUSE FULL A competition between the Congress
The Modi wave was still on, and the and the SP-BSP, however, could end
BJP swept the assembly polls in 2017. up helping the BJP because any split
The SP regime was blown away in the Muslim vote—who may favour a
national party, the Congress, for the Lok
Total seats 403 Sabha—will affect the SP-BSP minority
vote. A competition, then, is likely to
2017 help the third player, the BJP, in a three-
cornered contest.
Seats
hen it comes to gender
25

W preferences, a com-
3

Modi wave in 2014, the entire politi- parison shows quite a

47
cal sociology of UP underwent a total 7 contrast and reveals a
22 22

19
transformation. A decimated Congress, lot about the three parties. While a clear
which won a mere two seats and 7.5 per majority of Congress voters are male (59
39

cent of the popular vote, ended up with 9
per cent of the forward caste vote, 11 per
cent of the OBC vote, 3 per cent of the
SC/ST vote and 11 per cent of the Muslim
vote. The SP, which won 5 seats, won 7
per cent of the forward caste vote, 25 per
cent of the OBC, 8 per cent of the SC/ST
and 58 per cent of the Muslim vote. The
BSP, which drew a blank, won 49 per
22 4
cent of the SC/ ST vote, but did dismally
with all other caste groups.
10 5 per cent), with only 41 per cent female
6
voters, for the SP-BSP it is the other way
Votes % around—53 per cent female voters and
47 per cent male. The BJP also has more
male voters (52 per cent) than female
2012 (48 per cent). A Priyanka-led campaign
swaying more female voters in favour of
Seats the Congress might correct the gender
gap for the party but, here again, it is
4 likely to affect the SP-BSP more than
the saffron party.
7

Although each party contested 24 Priyanka Gandhi, the “X factor in the

28

26
80

separately in 2014, in the graphic (The 1 2019 polls” in UP, has quite a big respon-
29
Support Base), we have combined the sibility on her relatively young shoulders.
2

SP-BSP caste votes for the sake of com- While reviving the Congress’s fortunes,
15

18

parison with 2019. The MOTN poll pre-
dicts that the BJP will get 69 per cent of
the forward caste votes, 39 per cent of
the OBC vote, 23 per cent of the SC/ST
vote and 7 per cent of the Muslim vote.
Compared to 2014, the BJP is losing sup-
port among all sections, but it’s the maxi-
mum among the OBCs and SC/ STs as a
result of the SP-BSP alliance.
The alliance, on its part, is likely
to get only a paltry 12 per cent of the
upper caste vote, but it scores big with
the OBCs (40 per cent), SC/ STs (60 per
cent) and Muslims (80 per cent), who
constitute the bulk of the UP electorate.
The MOTN poll saw the Congress
ending up with 12 per cent forward
caste votes, 15 per cent OBC votes, 8
per cent SC/ ST votes and 12 per cent
Muslim votes. But Priyanka’s arrival
should shore up the numbers a bit for
Votes %
BJP SP BSP INC Others
the party, especially the forward caste
votes. After all, she is “one of the most
awaited entries in Indian politics...”, as
JD(U) vice-president, poll strategist
and former advisor to the Congress
Prashant Kishor tweeted when the
news came out.
Although the Congress vote base in
UP is much smaller than the BJP’s, the
main fight between the two national
parties is for the upper caste vote. In the between the SP-BSP and the Congress
next 100 days, the Congress campaign
led by Priyanka will seriously attempt
she has to see that SP-BSP votes take a
minimal hit while effecting the maxi-
mum damage to the BJP, which is easier
said than done. A more effective solution
would have been to negotiate an alliance
between all secular groups, the SP-BSP
plus the Congress. An across-the-board
anti-BJP alliance, the MOTN predicts,
would have left the BJP in tatters with a
mere five Lok Sabha seats out of 80.
It sounds far-fetched, though, given
the competition between the Congress
and the SP-BSP at the ground level.
But the reality of competitive politics
and the formidable challenge from the
BJP dictates that all secular forces need
to come together to oppose the Modi-
led juggernaut. Otherwise, the battle
might end up helping the BJP in the
Mahabharat of 2019. „


THE BIG STORY | ENCLAVES

PRISONERS
Four years after the
exchange of enclaves
between Bangladesh and
India, the new citizens of

OF THE PAST
India are still waiting for
basic rights
By Romita Datta
 COST OF CITIZENSHIP
Lack of street lighting
means the residents of
Shib Prosad Mustafir
chhit have to use lamps
if they want to step out
of the house after dark
SUBIR HALDER
T THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT ON
JULY 31, 2015, 51 enclaves in Ban-
gladesh were celebrating becoming a
part of India. After decades of state-
less existence, their inhabitants finally
e landmark Land Boundary Agreement
signed in 1974 had finally come into force, and 162 pockets
of land that existed as enclaves in Indian and Bangladeshi
territories were merged with the countries that surrounded
them. To mark the day, they sang the national anthem,
distributed sweets, the festivities lasting for days. Voter ID
cards, Aadhaar cards and some ration cards were promptly
distributed since the state assembly election was around the
corner. The new Indian citizens looked forward to a future
filled with hope and possibilities.
Almost four years later, they are still fighting for proper
documentation, land allotment, infrastructure and ac-
cess to sanitation and benefits from various government
schemes, such as the Kanyashree Prakalpa, incentivising
a child’s higher secondary education, or Yuvashree, to pro-
vide financial assistance to young job seekers. For a while,
government funds were available to build pucca struc-
tures like Integrated Child Development Services centres,
community development
centres, solar irrigation
pumps and greenhouses, “Yes, we have
but most of these are now voter ID and
defunct. Thirty tube wells
installed in Batrigachh, Aadhaar
a former enclave which is cards, but
now part of West Bengal’s
Cooch Behar district, in
we’re still
2018, have long stopped foreigners on
working, as have half the
solar panels meant to pow-
our own land”
MOHAMMAD ALI,
er the irrigation pumps.
Fisherman in
“The government spent Batrigachh chhit
five lakh rupees to build
[a greenhouse] without
training us on how to use it. They should have used the
money for building toilets instead,” says Bipin Chandra Bar-
man of Bakalichhara, another former chhit (as the enclaves
are called), which houses 215 families but only 704 voters.
Batrigachh residents, too, are facing similar quandaries.
“The block development officer (BDO) came the other day
and threatened to arrest us for defecating in the open. I
asked him what we were supposed to do in the absence of
even a single toilet here in our chhit of 238 families,” says
Noor Haq. Since the district administration had already
declared Cooch Behar district, of which Batrigachh is now
a part, ‘Nirmal Bangla’ (being 100 per cent free from open
defecation) in 2017, Haq was publicly reprimanded by BDO
Souvik Chanda for his impertinent question.
Under Mission Nirmal Bangla, essentially a rebrand-
ing of the Swachh Bharat Mission by West Bengal chief
minister Mamata Banerjee, an individual is supposed to
get a subsidy of Rs 12,000 for a constructed toilet, with the
Centre and the state sharing the funds in the ratio of 75:25.
The funds are yet to trickle down to the enclaves. The one or
two toilets constructed have been built by individuals who
bore the whole cost themselves by taking out loans or mort-
gaging a portion of their land to the local sanitaryware shop.
Chanda admitted that the erstwhile enclaves could not
be covered under Mission Nirmal Bangla because the base-
line survey for toilets was conducted in 2012 when they were
not a part of the Indian territory. “We have just completed
F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019 INDIA TODAY 35
 THE BIG STORY | ENCLAVES NATIONAL
INTEGRATION? West
India has failed its new citizens in Bengal
more ways than one
the survey of the houses left out. It will take time,” says Jalpaiguri
Chanda. He has no answer as to why no action was taken in WEST BENGAL
(INDIA)
the past three years since the exchange of enclaves.

NO COUNTRY FOR NEW CITIZENS Cooch Behar

Four years after getting the status of Indian citizens—
Aadhaar cards and voter IDs—Batrigachh residents are still
BANGLADESH
running from pillar to post to meet their basic needs. Politi-
cians have little time and no interest in addressing their con- Enclaves that became a part of India
cerns since out of the population of 14,215 in the 51 enclaves Enclaves that became a part Bangladesh
spread over an area of 7,110.02 acres, only some 8,000 are
Ô The 51 enclaves in India are spread over 7,110.02
registered voters. The enclave dwellers are yet to receive job acres and have a population of 14,215
cards, pensions, unemployment allowances, widow allow-
ances and other social benefits from government schemes. Ô The Aadhaar and voter ID cards given to the new
“Yes, we have a voter ID card and an Aadhaar card, but we citizens are full of errors
are still the outsiders, foreigners on our own land,” says
Ô Former chhits, located within Cooch Behar, a district
82-year-old Mohammad Ali from Batrigachh, while repair-
declared as “Nirmal Bangla”, still lack toilets
ing his fishing net, his main source of sustenance. Ali was
a prominent spokesman for the inhabitants of the enclaves, Ô Greenhouses, solar panels, irrigation pumps built in
pressing for both countries to complete the exchange and the chhits are already defunct
has, over the years, faced it all—humiliation, harassment,
Ô Land allotment in the former chhits remains
bullying from the Border Security Force, the state police and
incomplete
the political leaders—all to just be recognised as a citizen of
India. But citizenship has brought fresh woes. Ô Residents complain that they have become pawns in
While Bangladesh has completed the process of land a vote-bank war between the BJP and Trinamool for
distribution among the residents of the former Indian en- the Rajbongshi vote in 2019
claves it acquired by July 31, 2016, West Bengal has been
more lackadaisical about integrating its new citizens and
their lands.
Within a few weeks of being issued identity cards,
people saw that their IDs were full of errors, which made families, are yet to get even the ration cards. Though they
getting a job difficult. “For most of us, the first letter of have electricity in their homes, there are no street lights or
our names is used, N for Najemul, for instance. Employers pucca roads, only slim, muddy paths that become swamps
don’t accept such cards for recruitment,” says the resident during the monsoon. “Between the electric wires and poles
of Batrigachh. “There are few jobs for the enclave people. hanging loose and the kuchcha roads, we shudder to think
Local people treat us with suspicion even though we are what will happen if the area gets one or two spells of heavy
citizens. The men are all going to Delhi, Haryana, Benga- showers,” says 65-year-old Biswabandhu Barman of Shib
luru and Kerala,” says Roushan, who works as a labourer Prosad Mustafir chhit, who maintains that his enclave
in a cashew factory in Kerala. is among the most ne-
“Our boys are not even considered for the civic police. glected ones. “It’s be-
They have set up ICDS centres but don’t employ people from cause we support the
within the enclaves,” says Nitai Chandra Das of Shib Prosad Bharatiya Janata Par- “The land
Mustafir chhit. The young people living in the chhits espe- ty (BJP) in a district allotment was
cially have a deep sense of dissatisfaction with their new lives which is a Trinamool
in India and even held a demonstration last year to express Congress stronghold.
done in haste and
their wish to go back to Bangladesh. We often get picked up just prior to the
by the police on false election, obviously
POLITICAL BATTLES
According to Haq, the biggest benefit of the exchange so far
charges. We were not
even allowed to vote
to serve a purpose
has been the allotment of ration cards which entitles them during the panchayat and not with
to subsidised ration of 15 kilos of rice and 20 kilos of wheat. elections,” he adds. serious intent”
“Even here, we have to shell out a portion of our ration to the Though initially all DIPTIMAN SENGUPTA,
ration dealer,” he says. the chhits suffered the Coordinator, Bharat Bangladesh
People of Shib Prosad Mustafir chhit, which houses 65 same deprivation, things Enclave Exchange Committee

36 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019


changed after the BJP increased its vote share from 10.5
per cent to 28.5 per cent in the 2016 Lok Sabha by-election
in Cooch Behar. The penetration of the BJP in the former
enclaves, which are spread over five assembly segments of
Cooch Behar, as well as the rest of the district, might prove to
be dangerous for the TMC ahead of the 2019 general election.
In enclaves with a concentration of Muslim population,
such as Mashaldanga, development has been fast. Accord-
ing to Diptiman Sengupta, the coordinator of the Bharat
Bangladesh Enclave Exchange Committee, this is the TMC’s
way to appease the minority group. Sengupta, an active
member of the BJP now, believes this tactic will not work
since a majority of the chhit people belong to the indigenous
Rajbongshi tribe of North Bengal which constitutes 51 per
cent of Cooch Behar’s population. “Though the Muslims
constitute 28 per cent of the population, they are essentially
Rajbongshis, and ethnicity cannot be ignored for religion,”
says Sengupta. He added that his party is trying to cash in
on the discontent among the Rajbongshis with the TMC.
Meanwhile, the TMC has begun the process of land
allotment. The land distribution started only a few weeks
ago even though Mamata had asked the Cooch Behar ad-
ministration to speed up the process at a public meeting on
October 31, 2018. But the citizens are still unhappy. “The
EMPTY PROMISES
Residents of Batrigachh chhit
stand in front of solar panels
which became defunct within
months of being installed
SUBIR HALDER
government is giving us land without specific location and
demarcation. Even the quantities distributed do not match
with what we had in the enclaves,” says Ali, who says that
before the exchange, he owned 96 bighas of land, most of
which he had lost due to river erosion. The administration
has now allotted him papers for possession of a mere six
kottahs, or about 0.3 bigha.
Siddiq of Poaturkuthi enclave has been allotted 16 kot-
tahs of land (about 0.6 bigha) whereas he used to once own
nine bighas. “These are not isolated cases. There are com-
plaints in close to 90 per cent cases. The papers or deeds
handed over to them just mention the size of the land with
no other specification. This land allotment was done in
haste and just prior to the election, obviously to serve a pur-
pose and not with serious intent,” says Sengupta. According
to Joinal Abedin, a resident of the Madhya Mashaldanga
chhit, land without ownership rights makes them ineligible
for agricultural loans, kisan credit cards, potato bonds and
farm subsidy.
According to TMC MLAs Rabindranath Ghosh and
Udayan Guha, the BJP is trying to play with fire. “Every-
thing will be done legally. They are trying to incite the en-
clave people and Rajbongshis against the Trinamool, but
such cheap politics will not pay dividends,” says Guha. ■
F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019 INDIA TODAY 37
 CANCER PROJECT

BEATING
CANCER
How far are we from a cure for the most feared
disease of our time? Here’s what top doctors
have to say on the eve of World Cancer Day
2019. Plus, a look at some new research
B Y D A M AYA N T I D AT TA
I l l u s t ra t i o n b y N I L A N J A N D A S
Is cancer still OUTSIDE THE

a death sentence? COOKIE-CUTTER

Cancer treatment is going
beyond the troika of surgery,
chemotherapy and radiation
Most cancers are preventable and

“No. also treatable. Cancer diagnosis and

treatment have grown by leaps and
bounds. We know the cause of at
least 70 per cent of cancers now, around 60 per cent of
cancers are now preventable and 80 per cent of all stage
1 and 2 cancers are completely treatable. I have over two PRECISION MEDICINE
lakh cancer patients who are now doing well. It is unfortu- Using the genetic changes in a
nate that the largely preventable disease comes in for clinical patient’s tumour to determine
treatment at the third or the fourth stage, when the survival rate is only 20 per its treatment
cent. Half of all cancer patients now survive at least 10 years. The survival rates
for all cancers have gone up; topping the list are prostate, breast, bladder and
kidney cancers. Childhood leukaemia, a disease that was a big killer of the chil-
dren when it struck in the 1970s, is now one where 70 per cent patients survive.
The glass, however, remains half-empty as many other cancers still defy treat-
ment: lung to pancreas, liver to oesophagus. There is no need to fear cancer. I
am confident that scientific research is going to provide the lead in resolving TARGETED THERAPY
most of the issues of human sufferings from cancer in the coming years.” „ Drugs that zero in on specific
molecules that allow cancers to
DR G.K. RATH, Chief, National Cancer Institute, AIIMS grow fast and abnormally

Can it come IMMUNOTHERAPY

Treatment that helps your
without a immune system fight cancer

warning?
CRISPR-CAS9
or most of cure and survival. ing. As a society, we have

“F
Fast and precise software that
cancers, there We find that patients particularly poor “sus- allows scientists to edit, remove
are warning often dismiss their early picion index” for cancer or replace abnormal genes
signs and symptoms, especially if and it leads to delayed
symptoms and the “red-flag” warning diagnosis and treatment.
the benefits of early symptoms are painless For any symptom that
detection are indisput- or sporadic. Some just continues for more than
able. How people with watch and wait, some are three weeks, do not rule
possible cancer symp- afraid of poor prognosis, cancer out. Treating
toms decide whether or some lack confidence in cancer early means you ARTIFICIAL
not to seek medical help doctors, some think their have a far better chance INTELLIGENCE
determines their chances problem is related to age- of beating the disease.” „ AI, machine learning and deep
learning are revolutionising
DR HARIT CHATURVEDI, Surgical oncologist, Chairman, Max cancer detection
Institute of Oncology and Indian Cancer Society
 CANCER PROJECT

PUNJAB
All cancers higher GEOGRAPHY GANGETIC PLAIN
(UTTAR PRADESH,
BIHAR)
than average
TOP: Kidney, urinary
bladder, breast
OF CANCER TOP: Gall bladder, head and
neck cancers
cancers RISK: Water pollution, diet
RISK: Pollution, rich in animal protein
pesticide, toxin in
food

NORTHEAST
HIGHEST CANCER
GUJARAT AND RATES
RAJASTHAN TOP: Oral and stomach
TOP: Head and throat RISK: Tobacco,
cancers household burning of
RISK: Tobacco and firewood
paan masala

MADHYA
PRADESH
WEST BENGAL
TOP: Oral cancers
TOP: Lung, urinary
RISK: Tobacco and bladder cancers
paan masala SOUTH AND
GOA RISK: Air and water
COASTAL INDIA pollution
TOP: Colon cancers
TOP: Stomach cancers
RISK: Red meat,
alcohol, tobacco RISK: Diet rich in spices
and salt

1.1
MILLION
0.7 2.2 >30
MILLION MILLION PER CENT
8
PER CENT
New cases diagnosed Number of Number of 5-year survival of global cancer
in India each year deaths people afflicted rate in India deaths in India

7 in 10
Indian patients consult doctors at
40
PER CENT
25
PER CENT
the terminal stage
lower death rate from higher cancer in men
cancer in Indian men, than women globally;
30% in women, compared in India, cancer afflicts
with the UK or the US more women than men
 CANCER PROJECT
What has
changed in the
way cancer is
understood, THE BIG TEN
diagnosed and The most common cancers that impose the
heaviest suffering in terms of years of lost
treated? health and expense for individuals as well
as society—expressed as percentage of
Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) of all
“T here are major
developments happen-
ing in cancer. Newer
techniques and tech-
cancers in India

nologies are being developed that have

helped in the better understanding of the
3·5% 7.2%
Brain & Nervous Lip & Oral
biology of cancer. This, in turn, is improv-
System
ing the ways we could help diagnose
and treat cancers. For
6.8%
example, the grow-
ing list of ‘targeted 8.2% Pharynx
therapies’ available Breast
is a shift away from
7.5%
the conventional
toxicity-prone che- 4.3% Lungs
motherapy. One of Oesophagus
the targeted therapy,
5.8%
Imatinib, used in a form of
chronic blood cancer, has not only helped 7.5 %
Colon &
control the disease much longer than we Stomach rectum
could do earlier using the conventional

5.2% 5.2%
chemotherapy but also several patients
can be considered to be cured. Another
major advance over the past few years Cervix Blood
is Immunotherapy, wherein the patient’s
immune cells are being helped to fight
and eliminate cancer. In particular, new

25% 40%
monoclonal antibodies targeting an
immune pathway called PD-1 and PD-L1,
which is used by cancer cells to escape Unknown: 200 Tobacco and
detection by the host immune cells, have different cancers from paan masala: Lung
shown some very good results in ad- blood, pancreatic, and oral cancers
vanced cancers and have been approved eyeball to bone
by the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) for treating cancers, including that
of malignant melanoma [an aggressive 15%
THE TRIGGER
4%
skin cancer], kidney cancer, lung cancer, Obesity: Breast,
urinary bladder cancer, a form of lym- uterus, large
phoma. The downside, however, is that Genetic: Breast What affects
intestine, kidney
these newer therapies cost a fortune. and ovarian cancer risks cancers
Pembrolizumab could cost upwards of Rs cancers and how
50 lakh, which most Indians may not be
able to afford.” „
6% 10%
DR T. RAJKUMAR, Professor and Diet and poor Lack of personal
Head, Dept. of Molecular Oncology, preservation of food: hygiene: Cervical and
Cancer Institute (WIA), Adyar, Chennai Stomach cancers liver cancer

42 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019 I n fo g ra p h i c s b y TA N M OY C H A K R A B O R T Y

CAUSE &
IMPACT
Avoid processed meat and
alcohol and beware of air
pollution
PROCESSED
MEAT
Red meat and processed meat have
been linked to the increased risk of
colorectal cancers
9
%
higher breast cancer
risk from processed
meat, according to the
International Journal
of Cancer, Oct. 2018
The World Health Organization defines
processed meat as follows: “Meat that
has been transformed through salt-
ing, curing, fermentation, smoking, or
other processes to enhance flavour
or improve preservation”
Go for whole grains,
vegetables and fruits
Where does India stand in cancer
research and treatment?
“T
here are many hospi-
tals and laboratories
in the country that
offer targeted next
generation DNA sequencing which al-
low us to determine the specific genetic
change driving the tumour. Thankfully,
these labs offer such tests at a fraction
of the current western costs. The FISH
(fluorescence in situ hybridisation)
test that maps the genetic mate-
rial in human cells and MRD (minimal
AIR POLLUTION
In the first study of its
kind, air pollution has
been linked to height-
ened risk for mouth cancer; high
levels of pollutants, especially fine
particulate matter (PM2.5) and to
a lesser extent, ozone, may be key,
according to BMJ, Oct. 9, 2018
43 %
higher risk of
mouth cancer
for those ex-
posed to high
air pollution
Wear a mask
when going out,
avoid smoking
ALCOHOL
Scientists have shown
how alcohol damages
DNA in stem cells, helping
to explain why drink-
ing increases your risk
of cancer, according to
Cancer Research UK,
Jan. 2018
residual disease detection) test that
finds evidence of residual malignant
cells are now being developed in many
tertiary care centres and commercial
labs. The radiotherapy departments in
many centres have the best equipment
available anywhere in the world. Stem
cell transplantation for blood cancer is
available in India at Rs 12 to 25 lakh as
compared with $250,000 for a similar
transplant in the US.
However, cancer treatment is
DR MAMMEN CHANDY, Director, Tata Medical Centre, Kolkata
PRECAUTIONS
BE AN EARLY BIRD
Women who are ‘larks’, functioning
better at the beginning of the day
than the end of the day, have a lower
risk of breast cancer, according to
a new study by the National Cancer
Research Institute, Nov. 2018
TAKE A VITAMIN D PILL
A new study by the American Cancer
Society finds that higher circulating
vitamin D concentrations are
significantly associated with lower
colorectal cancer risk
HAVE DINNER EARLY
People who have their evening meal
before 9 pm or wait at least two
hours before going to sleep have
lower risk of breast and prostate
cancer, says the Barcelona Institute
for Global Health, July 2018
SAY NO TO FAT
A 2017 study by the Michigan State
University shows that a certain
protein (fibroblast growth factor-2
or FGF2) released from fat in the
body can cause a non-cancerous
cell to turn into a cancerous one,
and a lower layer of abdominal fat is
the more likely culprit
expensive and many of our patients
can neither afford the tests required
for personalised medicine nor the new
small molecules which specifically
target the tumour cell. A patient with
chronic lymphatic leukaemia with a
17p mutation requires treatment with a
BTK inhibitor, ibrutinib, which costs Rs
24 lakh for one year. Also, the infra-
structure to treat cancer is inadequate
considering the population that needs
such treatment.” „
F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019 INDIA TODAY 43

7 SIGNS YOU SHOULD
NOT IGNORE
Beware of unexplained changes in your body. There
is a vast array of symptoms for the 200 different
types of cancer: Here are the most common signs
FATIGUE
Feeling extremely tired can be a
symptom of cancer in your body.
A lump or thickening of skin can be
an early or late sign
of cancer. People
with cancers in the
breast, lymph nodes,
soft tissues, and
testicles typically
have lumps
MOLES
If you notice a mole that has an
irregular or asymmetrical shape,
is more than one colour, is bigger
than 7 mm in diameter, and is
itchy, crusty or bleeding, see your
doctor. It could be a sign of skin
cancer
LUMPS
Always see a doctor if you
notice a lump in your breast, or
elsewhere on your body, that
is rapidly increasing in size.
Lumps can be caused by
non-cancerous things like
cysts, but they need
treatment
regardless.
COUGHING
A persistent cough
lasting more than
three weeks could be
a sign of lung cancer
or throat cancer. A
long-lasting cough
could also be a sign
of pneumonia, which
would also need medi-
cal attention
CANCER PROJECT
UNEXPLAINED
BLEEDING
Blood in the urine, bleeding
between periods, bleeding
from the bottom, blood when
coughing and blood in vomit
should always be checked
out by a doctor. Unexplained
bleeding, depending on where
it is coming from, can be a sign
of cancer, including prostate,
cervical, bowel and lung
cancers
BOWEL HABIT
CHANGES
See a doc-
tor if you
experience
bowel
changes
lasting for
more than a
few weeks.
These can
include blood
in the stools, diarrhoea, consti-
pation, pain while urinating and
persistent bloating. Changes
in bowel habits could also be a
sign of something less serious,
like an irritable bowel syndrome
UNEXPLAINED
WEIGHT LOSS
Unexplained weight loss in the
space of a couple of months,
which can’t be explained by diet
changes, exercise or stress
is a symptom of cancer. It is
important to see a doctor so
that he can investigate
What percentage
of cancers are
hereditary in
nature?
“T here are two cat-
egories. The first is
familial or cancer
running in the fam-
ily—gene flaws that can be transferred
from one generation to another. About
10 per cent people belong to this. The
other is when fam-
ily members have
cancer, but there is
no genetic inheri-
tance involved. It
could be because
a family is living in
a coal mine area or
near farms that are
always full of insecticides
and chemical fertilisers. Such families
are exposed to so much environmental
pollutants that they end up developing
cancer. Another 10 per cent get this.
Cancer does not develop in a day. It’s a
complicated process that takes time.
Your stress levels, your body physique
(tall people are at slightly greater risk
as they have more cells in their body in
which dangerous mutations can oc-
cur), if you are obese, if you are a red
meat eater, if you don’t take plenty of
fibres and vegetables—all these factors
play a significant role. Cancers of the
bowel, breast, ovaries, colon-rectum,
kidney, skin (melanoma), pancreas,
prostate, eye (retinoblastoma) and
thyroid are some that have a genetic
component. It is possible to get genetic
tests done to check if you are carrying
any risk in your genes. However, I have
seen people with a strong genetic his-
tory of cancer not getting the disease,
even at age 70, because they lead a
very healthy lifestyle.” „
DR AMIT VERMA, Molecular
oncologist and cancer geneticist,
Max Cancer Care, Delhi
 THE BIG STORY Women in Art

A FEMINIST
MORE THAN HALF THE ARTISTS AT THE KOCHI-MUZIRIS BIENNALE THIS YEAR WERE WOMEN,

ARRIVING, ANON
The Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous collective of
‘artivists’ were guests at this year’s biennale in Kochi
BIENNALE
SETTING THE STAGE FOR A FEMINIST MAKEOVER OF THE INDIAN ARTSCAPE BY CHINKI SINHA
Photographs by BANDEEP SINGH
THE BIG STORY Women in Art
“Give it to the women”
—Anita Dube, curator, Kochi-Muziris
Biennale
At the Aspinwall House in Fort Kochi,
you cross a dark hall to emerge into
the light and come face to face with a
collage that is a mix of poetry, text and
miniature painting. Titled ‘Salam Che-
chi’, the work is artist Nilima Sheikh’s
ode to the Malayali nurse.
In one frame, against an intense
blue background is an outline of a girl
and a hospital bed in stark white.
“It could be me,” says Sheikh.
Indeed, there is a touch of the autobio-
graphical, a portrait of the artist as a
young girl. She would often accompany
her doctor father to hospital, sketch-
book in hand. It is where she learnt to
paint suffering.
In another frame, a woman is
shown being tended to by two nurses.
She is a victim of domestic abuse. The
words of poet-nurse Constance Studer
flow alongside:
“…an admission arrives
domestic abuse
we know this woman well
the ER nurse says.
We couple the fragile woman
To bubbling tubes and catheters
And monitors unconscious,
Fine skin with deeply incised
by both eyes…”
The panel in the middle has a
woman supported by two nurses on
either side while a third stands on
the side with a drip. “That image is
interesting,” says Sheikh, “because it
is very dear to me. There is a famous
15th century fresco by Fra Angelico of
a man and woman supporting Mary.
I have used that image as a reference
but changed it to two women to make
it about female support and feminine
bonding.” A Baroda-based artist who
has always been fascinated with the
traditional Indian art forms, Sheikh
48 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019
was the opening artist at the fourth edi-
tion of the Kochi-Muziris biennale this
year. Her work at the biennale might
have been about Kerala nurses, but was
of a piece with the themes she engages
in: displacement, longing, historical
lineage, domestic violence and the ideas
of femininity.
***
This could well be India’s first feminist
biennale, much as Maria de Corral
and Rosa Martinez’s curation of the
Venice Biennale in 2005 came to be
heralded as the world’s first feminist
biennale. More than half of the 95
artists chosen for the biennale this year
are women, signalling a shift in the
Indian artscape. India’s foremost art
exhibit this year is a celebration of the
marginalised, especially women, who
have been under-represented in art
so far. Gender informs their work, of
course, but it also goes beyond gender
to address other issues such as climate
change, the agrarian crisis, environ-
ment and labour.
It hasn’t been easy for Anita Dube,
co-founder and member of the KHOJ
International Artists’ Association, and
the first woman curator of the KMB.
First, the #MeToo movement rocked
the Indian art world too when KMB
co-founder and programme director
Riyas Komu faced allegations of sexual
misconduct and stepped down from
all official positions. Production took a
further hit with the devastating floods
BEFORE 2013,
NEITHER THE
MET NOR MOMA
NOR GUGGEN-
HEIM HAD
FEATURED A
SOLO EXHIBITION
BY A SOUTH
ASIAN WOMAN
in Kerala. Amidst all the chaos, Dube
kept at it, to make real the “possibilities
for a non-alienated life”, the curatorial
vision for the biennale. “At the heart of
my curatorial adventure lies a desire for
liberation and comradeship (away from
the master and slave model) where the
possibilities for a non-alienated life
could spill into a ‘politics of friendship’.
Where pleasure and pedagogy could sit
together and share a drink, and where
we could dance and sing and celebrate
a dream together,” her curatorial note
reads. “I haven’t seen this kind of in-
clusive expression of women’s concerns
and it is a marvellous step,” Sheikh says
about the curation.
***
In another room in Aspinwall House,
a cluster of 300-odd rusted iron sickles
crawl along the ground and climb up
the wall. They are part of Shambhavi
Singh’s ‘Maati Ma’ installation. The
social and metaphysical condition
of the agricultural worker has long
been this Delhi-based artist’s preoc-
cupation, expressed variously through
the instruments of the agricultural
workers’labour: the hasiya (sickle) and
rehat (Persian wheel). And the farmer,
for Singh, most often is a woman, her
thumb impression “a metaphor and
actuality of the real transfer of land, of
livelihood, of sustenance, of despair, of
the ultimate migration”.
Born in Patna in 1966, Singh draws
her inspiration, metaphors and tools
from the dark and unforgiving land-
scape of her state, the protests such as
after the 1975 floods of Bihar, and the
triumphs of its people over adversity.
The rusted iron sickles, sieves and giant
fans are at once a symbol of the state
of her state—raw and rusted—and of
strength and regeneration. An inverted
sickle could be representative of suf-
fering, of a farmer’s bent back. Or of
Shakti, as epitomised by the goddess
 ‘MAATI MA’
Preoccupied with the social and
metaphysical condition of the
agricultural worker, the ‘hasiya’
and ‘rehat’ are an integral part of
Shambhavi Singh’s practice, as seen in
this installation at the biennale
THE BIG STORY Women in Art
Kali. Singh has always been drawn to
the dark deity, an embodiment of the
eternal feminine powers of creation and
destruction. Kali’s anger and capability
for violence are manifest in her use of
the sickle. “This inevitability of violence
in the face of evil has always intrigued
me,” she says.
The woman’s point of view, Singh
believes, is ready to prevail. From the
mundane and the everyday will rise
the challenge to established norms,
patriarchy, leading to freedom. The
transformation, she is certain, is nigh.
***
Already, Indian women artists are
making their presence felt in the niche
museums and art galleries of the world.
“How many women had one-person
exhibitions at NYC museums last year?”
The Guerrilla Girls have been ask-
ing that question since 1985. Ask that
question in the South Asian context,
and you find that, before 2013, neither
the Met nor the Museum of Modern
Art (MoMA) nor the Guggenheim had
featured a solo exhibition by a South
Asian woman. Last summer, Ranjani
Shettar’s installation, ‘Seven Ponds and
a Few Raindrops’, was shown at MoMA.
The year 2018 has been better, with
several exhibitions by Indian women
artists, be it Mithu Sen, who works with
sexuality and subversion, or Bharti
Kher, who maintains that it is up to
women to come forward and challenge
the patriarchy with their work, or the
anonymous Princess Pea, a flaneur
trying to document the experiences of
invisible, unknown women.
In the coastal town of Kochi, it’s too
hot to wear the guerrilla masks bought
at Halloween stores in New York. Frida
Kahlo is tired. Kathy Kollwitz, in green
rimmed glasses, is more enthusiastic.
50 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019
“You have seen us with without our
masks,” she says.
A big deal, as anonymity is the
calling card of this shifting collective
of artivists formed in 1985. Frida and
Kathy are original members of the
American sorority that has around 60
members today. Over the years, the
stickers and posters the Guerrilla Girls
have used in their campaigns have
made their way into Tate Modern’s per-
manent collection. Their protest mate-
rial has also been showcased at the
Venice Biennale. This year, they were
guests at the Dube-curated biennale.
On the stage in Cabral Yard, the two
women in gorilla masks threw bananas
at the audience. It was part of their per-
formative talk. The audience broke into
peals of laughter. The metaphor was
hard to miss, the audacity infectious.
A bunch of women and men took
the mic and spoke about “the elephant
in the room”—the allegations of sexual
harassment by two senior artists associ-
ated with the biennale. A night before,
they had convened to ask the KMB
board to answer questions. At the end,
curator Anita Dube took the mic.
“This is a space for insurrection,” she
said. “Everything you considered infal-
lible and sacred can be questioned.”
***
It was in the 1970s that feminist
perspectives in art emerged from a
combination of political activism in
the contemporary art world. While
EARLIER THIS YEAR,
KUNSTMUSEUM WOLFSBURG IN
GERMANY CURATED AN EXHIBITION,
‘FACING INDIA’, THAT FEATURED SIX
WOMEN ARTISTS FROM INDIA

women’s status in society continued
to be a subject of endless debate, the
Indian art world witnessed a revolution
of its own with women artists using
the “feminist aesthetic” to explore their
social responsibility and finding a per-
sonal and political vocabulary. Earlier
this year, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg in
Germany curated an exhibition, Facing
India, that featured six women artists
from India exploring the past, present
and future from the female perspective.
Bharti Kher melted 10 tonnes of bangles
to make glass bricks to build a room.
She called it ‘The Deaf Room’.
***
Enter Pepper House in Kochi, turn
left and you find yourself in a library
lined with grey shelves. Except one
corner. Here, on neon pink shelves
Sister Outsider, a book by black feminist
lesbian Lorde shares space with a book
of poems by Emily Dickinson. They are
‘SALAM CHECHI’
The opening artist at the
biennale, Nilima Sheikh’s work
is an ode to the Malayali nurse
among the hundred books by women
authors that form part of the ‘Sister
Library’, a travelling library conceptual-
ised and mounted by artist and activist
Aqui Thami. The bright pink shelves are
a stark contrast to their grey counter-
parts, an exclusive space for women.
Originally from Darjeeling, but
now living in Mumbai, Thami calls
herself a ‘gender abolitionist’. “In a
world where women are told there’s
really no point in studying too much,
F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019 INDIA TODAY 51
THE BIG STORY Women in Art
not only have we been kept away from
spaces where knowledge is produced
but also from sharing and generating
knowledge. This epistemic hierarchy
needs to be broken, and libraries play
a very huge part in it,” she says in an
e-mail. Her e-mail id—ilovereading-
women—reflects her approach of using
libraries as a means of intervention to
challenge the heteropatriarchal world.
“Both public intervention and self-
publishing in my practice emerge from
a need to reclaim and change,” she says.
Why pink? “The colour has lost its
position as a colour of strength and
is now associated with weakness and
femininity. Having the library in pink
is my attempt to reclaim the colour. I
call it the Sister Library because it is for
all my sisters everywhere,” Thami says.
Thami is also the co-founder of
community spaces like the Dharavi
Art Room in Mumbai and the Bombay
Underground, an artists’ collective that
stands for art, expression and creative
social exchange and is dedicated to
celebrating the undocumented, the
underground, the lost, the forgotten.
Thami says she believes in creating
art that is grounded in the act of ‘doing’
and addresses political/social issues.
“The core of my art practice is healing
as I work with experiences of margin-
alisation and resilience—my own and
that of the people I work in collabora-
tion with,” she adds.
The books in ‘Sister Library’ are
exclusively works by women, a mix of
fiction, non-fiction, academic writing,
comics, zines, periodicals, community
news, protest leaflets, etc. They offer
a glimpse into the perception of the
women who have used writing as a way
of sharing, she says.
The library is a political statement
that addresses gender violence and in-
justices in order to change things. “The
arts, like everything else, have been in-
fluenced by the world we live in where
52 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019
works of women are not valued. The
only solution to this problem is to be
mindful of the problem and allow for
a fair representation,” she says. “Also a
sidenote to all the women in positions
of power, lift your sisters up.”
***
In a semi-dark room, voices whisper
next to you and then jump to another
speaker and then another. You strain to
hear the words in the strange medita-
tive silence interrupted by whispered
shards of poetry. It is a landscape of
sheets of paper, microphones, memory,
desire and oppression.
And then another whisper: “Where
is love? Outside this world?”
You are in the middle of artist
Shilpa Gupta’s work, ‘For, In Your
Tongue, I Can Not Fit: 100 Jailed
Poets’. Inspired by another project,
‘Someone Else, 100 Books’, written
anonymously and under pseudonyms.
The work on showcase in Kochi uses
excerpts from poems written by poets
who served time in prison.
Somewhere among them, Allen
Ginsberg whispers:
“And be kind to the poor soul that cries
in a crack of the pavement because he
has no body...”
“During the research,” says Gupta,
“I found that the books of one of my
DUBE’S BIENNALE
ENVISAGES A
FUTURE FOR ART
WITH WOMEN AT
THE FOREFRONT.
WE COULD BE ON
THE THRESHOLD
OF A RADICAL
REORDERING OF
THE PATRIARCHAL
WORLD ORDER
favourite authors, Premchand, were
burnt and he had to deal with imposi-
tions by the regime, including being
charged with sedition. I came across
the Turkish writer Aziz Nesin, who had
challenged the right wing and their vio-
lence against him. I started looking at
moments when words caused discom-
fort—to those who sought to restrict
imagination through the mobility of
a writer. This, along with the chang-
ing atmosphere in India, which has
been turning restrictive, with liberal
thinkers, writers and filmmakers being
targeted, first triggered this work and
I became interested in the power of
words and the nervousness around it
felt by those in power.”
Born in Mumbai in 1976, Gupta
graduated from the Sir JJ School of
Fine Arts in Mumbai in 1997. She
works with found objects, photogra-
phy, video, interactive computer-based
installation and performance. In her
previous works, she has used body hair,
marks on the skin or given women
pieces of cloth to stain with menstrual
blood and used them in her work.
“Being a woman does inform one’s
practice,” she acknowledges. “It makes
one more conscious to the act of listen-
ing which is what the work in Kochi is
also about.”
***
For too long, to borrow Marxist ter-
minology, capitalism’s annexation of
women’s bodies has done a disservice
to the gender. Together, women at the
biennale are reclaiming their space,
through confrontation and accom-
modation. There is an audacity to that
hope that the market will adapt, mak-
ing room for parallel and alternative
discourses. Dube’s biennale envisages
a future for art with women at the fore-
front. We could be on the threshold of
a radical reordering of the patriarchal
world order. ■
 LE
THE INDIAN MUSIC A TRIBUTE TO
EXPERIENCE SHAH HUSSAIN
MUSEUM PG 5 4 PG 56

AMERICAN SINGER Q&A WITH

BETH HART IN INDIA YAMI GAUTAM
PG 58 PG 6 4

W ILDLIFE

JUNGLE
HERO
F
Five years ago, while playing
golf, Indrajit Ghorpade had an
epiphany that would change
the course of his life.
Wildlife and
He overheard a conversa- rapher
photog ationist
tion about the golf club’s plan v
conser JIT
IN A DE
D R
to bring out a book on the A
GHORP roduce
birds commonly spotted on the o int
hopes t tching into
course and it struck him that ist
a
wolf-w ineraries
it
tou r
he had little to show for the
four days a week he had spent
surrounded by nature on the
links for 30-odd years. Why
not take up wildlife photogra-
phy instead, he thought? After
all, he was familiar with the
 LEISURE

wildlife around the grasslands near his ancestral home in the survival of the beautiful animals—of which only around
Koppal, Karnataka. Plus, he had dabbled in photography 2,000 to 3,000 remain in India. Working with the Bengalu-
in his youth and spent hours in the darkrooms of some of ru-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), he has made
India’s best wildlife photographers. great strides in eliminating poaching in Koppal.
However, Indrajit soon realised that he wasn’t content Indrajit hails from the Sandur royal family, which has
with just pretty pictures, and turned to conservation. It was historically been a patron of those studying and conserving
an encounter with the Indian wolf that sparked his pas- nature. Maharaja Yeshwantrao Ghorpade is known to have
sion for conservation. It had been about a year since he had employed wildlife photographer and naturalist M. Krishnan
started photographing seriously when, one morning, while in the 1940s and wildlife photographer T.N.A. Perumal
sitting in his 1947 4x4 Willys Jeep, watching later, to document wildlife in sanctuaries
a herd of blackbucks, his companion quietly across India for a book. M.Y. Ghorpade, the
pointed out a wolf to him. It was the first Not content titular Raja and Indrajit’s first cousin, was
time in decades that he had come across this with just photo- a renowned wildlife photographer himself.
dwindling species. He crept closer and took a graphing wild- Growing up in Bengaluru, Indrajit lived
picture. The shot marked a turning point for life, Indrajit next door to the naturalist Zafar Futehally,
Indrajit, who realised something: “There is no while O.C. Edwards, a pioneer in black and
turned to
wildlife photography without wildlife.” Soon white wildlife photography, was a dormi-
conservation
after, Indrajit founded one of India’s most suc- tory warden at his school. However, the most
cessful wolf-preservation projects—the Deccan
after a rare important reason for Indrajit’s interest in the
Conservation Foundation (DCF). sighting of the subject was that Koppal, his home, is teeming
He bought around 25 camera traps, hired Indian wolf with wildlife.
four workers, enlisted 20 volunteers and Located an hour’s drive from the spec-
started DCF in 2015 with the aim to ensure tacular ruins of the Vijayanagara empire in

M USIC

Listening to
History
he much talked about Indian Music
Experience (IME), a first-of-its-kind in-
teractive music museum in Bengaluru,
has opened its doors to the public.
The museum, which is planning a
formal inauguration later this month, is
spread over three floors with sound
exhibits, full of memorabilia and histo-
ry. While one section houses Ustad Bis-
millah Khan’s paan box within a glass
case, another displays Daler Mehndi’s
shimmery velvet gown. However, the
physical exhibits and the abundance of
textual information pale in comparison

54 INDIA TODAY F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019

Hampi, Koppal is geologically very unusual. “It is at a tran-
sition zone—lying in the doab between the Tungabhadra
and Krishna rivers,” he says. The vast grasslands and the
rocky outcrops, with both red and black cotton soil, make it
ideal for wildlife. Striped hyenas, jungle cats, rusty spot-
ted cats, leopards, blackbucks, jackals, and foxes can all be
found here. “Since I had good knowledge of the terrain, the
feeding habits and breeding season, I started getting good
photographs,” he says.
DCF’s initial plan to conduct a biodiversity study to
identify the remaining habitats in Koppal and the wildlife
within them didn’t get the government’s support. Then, one
day, he got a call from a WCS researcher. They had received
a grant to study the Indian wolf, but were about to lose it
because they hadn’t been able to find one for a year. Indrajit
volunteered to take them around Koppal. Sceptical at first,
WCS sent another researcher for a reconnaissance trip. “We
got into a jeep at six in the morning and by 6.40 am, we
had seen five wolves,” recounts Indrajit. The WCS spent the
next two years at Koppal, conducting anti-poaching camps,
setting up camera traps, spreading awareness, carrying out
studies and dealing with man-animal conflict.
According to Indrajit, the local shepherds worship the
wolf, believing that the predators ensure the sheep remain
healthy by culling the weakest of the herd, and that the
spike in the adrenaline that the wolf causes in the sheep
makes the meat especially delicious. “People from Hyder-
abad come to Koppal to buy the sheep because the meat is
so tasty,” he says.
Still, hunting by people living in villages nearby meant
poaching remained a big problem. Over the past four years,
DCF has managed to stop poaching across 200 acres
surrounding Mandalmari village, the highest point in Kop-
pal. “I saw a wolf in Mandalmari and said let’s protect this
area. In three years, by putting 8-10 camera traps and two
watchers, we have ensured there is no poaching,” he says.
“In the beginning, we would catch a poacher every week.
Now they avoid Mandalmari.”
Next up, he wants to tap into the tourists arriving at
Hampi and promote wildlife tourism in the area. A coracle
ride on the Tungabhadra is on the cards. But raising
awareness among the local children remains his first love.
“I want to tell the small boy on the road, ‘Hey, do you know
where the dog came from? It came from the wolf ’,” he says.
“It will trigger a subconscious thing, and that’s all I need.” „
—Shamsheer Yousaf

temple bells leads you to the exhibits

dedicated to Hindustani, Carnatic and
devotional music. Each is exhaustive
and takes you through famous families
and matching the various ragas with
times of the day and seasons. An
instruments gallery, with a fascinating
display of 108 musical instruments,
IAN allows you to see rare ones from folk
The IND
MUS C E
I traditions.
IENC
EXPER engaluru A floor dedicated to songs of resis-
in B
museum ue collection tance from the freedom struggle and
is a uniq usic and Bollywood, complete with posters of
of m
legacy to the actual music at IME. Each exhibit films, like 3 Idiots, is as kitschy as you
allows you to listen to music, understand could imagine.
notes, forms and gharanas with real IME also tips its hat to its home city
recorded examples. and takes you through the history of Kan-
Quite surprisingly, the tour begins nada music.
with a section on contemporary Indie mu- The tour ends in a hall of fame with
sic, with an exhibit of bands like Indian names of artists etched on a wall and
Rhythm city Ocean, Euphoria and Pentagram. Here, memorabilia on display. Different from
The instruments autorickshaws are turned into listening any other Indian museum, IME is a
gallery at the booths and the sound of Swarathama’s unique collection of music and legacy oth-
IME (left); the
entrance to the Topiwale reverberates through the room. erwise stored and forgotten in archives. „
museum An arched entryway with chiming —Prachi Sibal
 DA N C E

In Life and Death

I
nspired by the kafis (poems) of the
16th century Punjabi Sufi poet Shah
Hussain, vocalist Radhika Sood
Nayak and dastango Ankit Chadha
began collaborating on a musical sto-
rytelling piece in 2017. They hoped Poetic license
to premiere it at the Kabir Festival Hitesh Dhutia
and Vinayak
in Mumbai and someday even take Netke (top) and
it to Mela Chiraghan, an annual Sanjukta Wagh in
celebration honouring the poet at his shrine in Faqeer Nimaana
Pakistan—where he lies next to his upper-caste
Hindu lover, Madholal. However, Ankit, one of
the bright stars of the storytelling tradition, died
in a drowning accident in May 2018.
Nayak ensured that the project lived on. Her
efforts paid off and Faqeer Nimaana, dedicated
to Ankit, was performed at the Kabir Festival in
January. To make it happen, Nayak turned to
Kathak dancer Sanjukta Wagh, also an award-
winning theatre actress, who went on to com-
pose the melody for some of Hussain’s poems.
Faqeer Nimaana is Nayak’s first live collabora-
tion with a dancer. “Hussain’s poems radically
break across concepts of nation, gender, caste In ‘FAQEER
ur
NIMAANA’, fo
and class hierarchies, and need to be celebrated,” artists com e to ge ther
e th e
says Wagh. “Poets like him have the ability to to celebrat
Pu njab i Sufi
lead us to a space which is spiritually connected works of
in
poet Shah Hussa
and individually empowering.”
The two roped in guitarist Hitesh Dhutia
and tabla player Vinayak Netke. Sociologist
Gita Chadha came on board to strengthen the
script written by Nayak and Wagh, and Faqeer
Nimaana, meaning the egoless seeker, as audi-
ences will see it now, was born.
Wagh did not want to include unnecessary
ornamentation in the choreography. “We just
worked on the musical and sonic space that each
kafi creates before I began to inhabit them in
my body.” The team’s approach to each of the
seven poems is varied. In some, like in Jeti Jeti
Dunian Ram Ji, Wagh and Nayak simply sit on
stage and sing together. In others, Wagh dem-
onstrates her Kathak skills and her versatility
as she shifts effortlessly from classical to a more
contemporary dance style and even does baithak
abhinaya. In Faqeer Nimaana, the four artists
showcase a fluid amalgam of poetry, music and
dance. However, the biggest accomplishment
of the show is Hussain’s message of unity—the
need of the hour. „
—Suhani Singh
 LEISURE

Symphonic
stories
Tabla maestro
Zakir Hussain with
the Symphony
Orchestra of India

REVIEW

BLIGHTY
Hussain, SOI music director Bisengaliev, too, will surely
experience a bit of exhilaration.
The season, beginning on February 4 at Mumbai’s

AT LAST
Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, promises variety and appeal.
While Berlioz’s concert overture, Roman Carnival, is a
crowd-pleaser with its exuberant carnival spirit, Carl Maria
von Weber’s Oberon has been described as “a masterpiece

F
or National Centre of of operatic orchestration”.
Performing Arts (NCPA) In Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and Hus-
chairman Khushroo N. sain’s tabla concerto Peshkar (an SOI commission), east
Suntook, the Symphony Orchestra of will not only meet west, but merge ideas and perceptions
India’s (SOI) maiden tour of the UK this in a marvellous cross-cultural exchange. It is clear why the
spring season is “a dream come true”. two have been paired together. The former is music of the
For its spring
The tour is a realisation of the vision of Orient viewed through the filter of a western aesthetic in in-
season, the
NCPA founder Dr Jamshed J. Bhabha. strumentation and structure, while Hussain’s work “blends
Symphony
It was Suntook who conceived the rhythmic elements of Hindustani music with expressive
Orchestra
the plan to create India’s first profes- melodies for symphonic instruments”, says Zane Dalal, SOI
of India will
sional symphony orchestra over a associate music director. “It is a great honour to introduce
tour the UK,
decade ago and convinced Marat this marvellous piece to British audiences.”
as well as
Bisengaliev (who was “intrigued by Dalal will share the podium with the English National
India, with
the challenge”) to form an orchestra Opera’s (ENO) conductor Martyn Brabbins, who describes
tabla maestro
of musicians from his native Kazakh- the SOI as “an orchestra that wants to give all it can”. Under
Zakir
stan and India in 2004. his baton, the SOI will play Sergei Rachmaninov’s Sym-
Hussain
This season, as he performs as phony No. 2 and Ludwig van Beethoven’s masterful Ninth
the soloist in violin concertos by com- Symphony. The choral movement of the latter will feature
posers Camille Saint-Saëns and Max soloists from both India and abroad, and a choir compris-
Bruch in London with his team, along ing Kazakh and Indian singers. „
with the eminent tabla maestro Zakir —Nikhil Sardana

F E BRUA RY 1 1 , 2 019 INDIA TODAY 57

LEISURE and James Taylor, her list of inspirations include jazz
greats such as Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington.
Her brother introduced her to reggae royal Bob
Marley and hard rock heavyweights Led Zeppelin.
M USIC She credits an ex-boyfriend for turning her on to
blues boss Big Joe Turner. She came to love alt-rock

BLUE FROM emissaries Soundgarden and Alice Chains listening

to the radio in her early 20s, and she discovered soul
legend Otis Redding through a compilation tape

THE BLUES somebody handed her at one of her gigs.

Hart says they each share a quality. “They don’t
use the genre as a place to lean on but really use
their heart and soul,” she said. “To me, they’re really
leaning on their story.” As far as stories go, Hart
has plenty of her own to share. It might come as a

A surprise, though, that the melodies and arrange-

ments of her compositions come to her more eas-
ily than her lyrics. “I torture myself over [them],”
she said. “But I love it. That feeling of searching for
American vocalist Beth Hart, who will headline something. I know how I feel but [not] how [I’m]
this year’s edition of the Mahindra Blues Festival going to relay it to where it makes me cry or move
in Mumbai in the second weekend of February, has or feel like I’m finding the truth. [Songwriting is]
released a dozen studio albums over the course of a always a spiritual experience.” „
25-year career. She believes her being prolific has a —Amit Gurbaxani
lot to do with her personality. “One of the things I
attribute it to is being overly sensitive as a kid and
just being in so much pain all the time,” said Hart,
who’s always been candid about both the drug addic-
tion that almost derailed her career and the mental
illness she deals with daily.
Her eventful life has informed the songs that
make up her discography, which includes three col-
lections of cover versions recorded with American
blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa. Classics from
those albums, such as ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ by Etta
James and ‘I’ll Take Care of You’ by Bobby Bland, are
likely to feature in her set. But Hart, who Bonamassa
hailed as a modern-day Janis Joplin, doesn’t call
herself a blues musician. “First and foremost, I am
really a songwriter,” said Hart. Her influences cut
across genres, starting with western classical and
Beethoven, with whom she fell in love when she
started playing the piano at the age of four.
Along with songwriting stars such as Carole King

American
vocalist Beth
Hart headlines
this month’s
Mahindra Blues
Festival in
Mumbai

 
LEISURE
A RT
The Last
Laugh
eople laughed at me
P when I first started
photo performances,”
says artist Pushpamala N., whose
early work riffed on proto-feminist
legends like Fearless Nadia.
However, with her solo show,
The Body Politic, hitting New
Delhi’s Nature Morte art gallery
this month, it’s Pushpamala who
is having the last laugh. “You have
to keep fighting,” she says. “As a
woman artist, I am no
as seriously as I shou
In the early photo
Pushpamala cast hers
as the Phantom Lady,
wraith-like masked su
perhero who uses he
psychokinetic powers
to fight injustice in
Bombay. ‘Phantom
Lady or Kismet’—first
Theatrical note
Artist Pushpamala
N. has used
selective works
from her photo
performance
series along with
her installations
for the show Body
Politic
Artist
AMALA
PUSHP s her
N. use edium
sam
body a on the
to t ke tate
a
nation s
Mata, dissembling the medical model
of a ‘bisexual’ torso in a satirical take
on the idea of the ‘ideal’ citizen. Simi-
larly, in the three videos of ‘Good Hab-
its’, the artist performs ‘operations’
on models of the human body, again
dressed up as Bharat Mata to com-
presented at Gallery Chemould ment on government programmes in
in 1998—is based on Bollywood’s
Fearless Nadia (aka Mary Ann
health and education.
In the ‘Transcripts’ sculptures,
Evans), a superheroine, seen in a Pushpamala explores her experience
setting reminiscent of film noir. with a vitrine containing ancient cop-
In The Body Politic—a reference per plates on a visit to the archaeo-
to her use of the body as well as logical museum in Bengaluru. These
a play on the phrase used to de- were records of land grants given by
scribe the citizenry of a state—she the kings centuries ago and for the
illustrates how individual bodies artist, these connect to the idea of
suffer political violence and wield body politic. “There is an attempt to
political authority. “It is a pun,” she make pseudo-history now,” she says,
the title.” explaining that the transcripts offer a
aborate tableaux counter-viewpoint to that notion.
many nuanced To understand Pushpamala, you
rs. ‘Kichaka- have to ask her “silly questions”, like
andhri’, for insta- when did you start dressing up. She
e, is inspired by the lights a cigarette and talks about how
890 oil painting by her mother, an amateur theatre artist,
Raja Ravi Varma. would play pranks dressed up as a
n the video piece sadhu, etc. “My work always has a
‘Model Citizen’, she theatrical note to itself,” she says.
appears as Bharat —Chinki Sinha
LEISURE

I N T E RV I E W

Building the Bridge

The name Markus Zusak may not ring a bell. But The Book Thief almost certain-
ly will. Adapted into a film starring Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson in 2013, The
Book Thief is the story of a young girl who learns to read from a Jewish refugee
her family is hiding from the Nazis. It went on to be a best-seller. Now, more than a
decade since its publication, Zusak is back with his much-anticipated next novel,
by Markus Zusak
Bridge of Clay, a family saga of five brothers who are bringing themselves up
DOUBLEDAY
without any adults. He spoke with INDIA TODAY about how the book evolved.
` 799; 544 pages
Q: You’ve said you conceived of Bridge of Clay when you were 19. What
sparked the idea?
I was 19 or 20 years old, and in my mind I saw a boy who was building a bridge. I
named him Clayton, which was the one piece of luck I needed. I thought I would

call the book ‘Clayton’s Bridge’, and
then a few months later, I thought: No,
not ‘Clayton’s Bridge’—make it ‘Bridge
of Clay’. And that was when a whole
new depth of meaning and emotion
instantly entered the idea. I thought
of a boy who was building a bridge of
stone or wood, but it was also made
of him—of Clay. I immediately saw
the dual meaning of Clay (the name)
and clay (the material), which can be
moulded into anything, but needs fire
to set it. That was when I knew there
was a book to write.
Q: How did the book evolve in the
decade that it took to write it?
When I finished The Book Thief, I knew
somehow that I had published four
books previously that really meant
something to me, and that book meant
everything. I never wanted to go back
to writing books that meant just some-
thing to me ever again.
Q: You have said elsewhere that
instances from your own life have
inspired bits of the book.
It’s usually just the very small things,
and they never exist in a book exactly
as they happened in real life. In my own
house, for example, we have two
children, two dogs and two cats, and
in the Dunbar household in the Bridge
of Clay, there are five brothers and five
animals. There is plenty of chaos in our
household with our foursome of pets,
 REVIEW
NO REFUGE
IN THE
hing
ft er the smas
A s of The
succes hief,
Book T USAK
US Z
MARK re than a
RUINED CITY
o
spent m riting his
w
decade novel
new
but I elevated it to make it five.
The cat in the book named Hec-
tor is based on one of our cats,
named Brutus, but he grows in
the writing of the novel. That’s
why I love writing. We see the
world in a totally unique way
that is also somehow familiar.
Q: The Book Thief had death
as a narrator. Do you feel
that death continues to be a
character in this book?
I guess death is a kind of friend
to all of us in a way, because
knowing it hangs over us is
what makes everything we
do worthwhile. Death is still a
major force in Bridge of Clay
and there are a few cameos,
where Matthew imagines Death
hanging from the power lines,
or sitting on the curtain rod in
the kitchen. This time around,
what hasn’t changed is finding
great life in the face of death.
Q: The premise of The Book
Thief—a family shielding a
Jew from the Nazis during
World War II—was familiar
to readers in the subconti-
nent. Bridge of Clay is more
foreign ground.
It’s a very Australian book in
some ways, and I think our
countries do have a bond over a
particular sport. All of my books
are about family. About trying to
live decently, to look for laugh-
ter and ambition in our lives
and, having been to India once
before, I know the people are
generous and warm, and talk-
ative and kind. These are all the
elements I look to write with,
and so I hope Indian readers will
connect with the Dunbar family,
and with Clay, whose story is
about building a bridge, to make
one perfect, beautiful thing. „
 —with Farah Yameen
T
he protagonists are damaged children, star-
ving and scrounging amidst the rubble of a
ruined city. Nothing is clear at the outset of this
science fiction novel except that some sort of
unholy conflict centred upon Ceylon has pro-
duced tribes of feral youngsters.
Wait: Ceylon?
Yes. Because the British Empire is still
intact, China never became Communist and
because this is 2033 and history as we know
it is just another mirage in the reader’s mind.
Even the little children who seem so pathetic in
the opening pages are not what they seem. The
Silent Girl for instance, is a vicious little war-
rior. She wields a wooden spear and can only
speak via a cassette player she uses in place of a
voice. She befriends a boy named ‘the Pissa’, a
word which, according to the internet, means
‘crazy’. Together, these two scale a towering
mountain of garbage, and fight their way into
a refuge called Halfway House. Except it’s not
a refuge at all and the man who runs it is to be
feared rather than trusted.
Wijeratne backs his way into this tale of
horror and degradation with a series of nested
revelations, involving the ruling élite of Ceylon
and their pale-skinned, Caucasian administra-
tors. He holds our attention by concealing the
THE INHUMAN
RACE true scale of the betrayal ticking at the heart of
the story until well past the mid-point. Once
b Y dh j
the mystery is revealed however, the final third
of the book settles into predictability. There’s a
clunky court scene, some amusing caricatures
and a sari-clad heroine is introduced before the
story comes to an open-ended conclusion. This
book is, according to the front-cover sticker,
the first of what will be the Commonwealth
Empire trilogy.
While the plot is mildly innovative in terms
of science fiction, what makes the
novel interesting and strangely poignant is
its setting. The depiction of lush, beautiful
Ceylon/Sri Lanka as the site of extreme devas-
tation is an absolute perversion of reality. This
is the kind of future we must hope will never
come to pass.” „
—Manjula Padmanabhan
 LEISURE

N OW S T R E A M I N G

Women at Work
wara Bhasker has more gumption than Writer Charudutt Acharya creates believable,
S most Indian actors. In just five years, she
went from playing the teenaged daugh-
upper-middle-class characters with shades of
grey, and they mostly speak like real people, but
ter of Deepti Naval (Listen... Amaya, 2011) to play- he succumbs to television dramatics with multiple
ing the mother of a teenaged schoolgirl (Nil Battey subplots involving affairs, workplace wars, past
Sannata, 2016). In 2015, she was both a hoity-toity betrayals, and even a long-lost offspring.
sister to Salman Khan’s stuffy prince in Prem Ratan Despite the low production values and Danish
Dhan Paayo and an evil seductress aunty in X: Past Aslam’s over-dramatic direction, there is fun to be
is Present. Her most recent big screen outings—as had and gender politics to be thrashed out, even if
Anarkali of Aarah’s irrepressible risque songstress in a slightly proselytising manner.
and Veerey Di Wedding’s rich Delhi girl caught In Season 2, streaming on Voot, the world keeps
masturbating—seem of a piece with her openly showing Mira her aukaat as a woman—and Mira
political, unapologetically feminist makes sure to point it out to us. Men
Twitter presence. who say such things as “You’re nothing
It’s Not That Simple riffs off this
Swara Bhasker but a c*** tease” and “Jab ladki gusse
persona, creating a female protagonist shines in mein ho, sorry bolne mein hi bhalaai
still rare for Indian television. Like a Season 2 of hai” are pretty grave provocations.
younger Alicia Florrick (The Good the politically Happily, the women are not beyond
Wife), Mira Verma is a single mother savvy, if some- professional intrigue, road rage or
trying to re-enter the world of work times preachy, social media fights.
after a long marriage-and-mother- It’s Not That Bhasker makes the most of her
hood hiatus. Still to get a divorce from Simple writer-backed role, ably aided by a
her husband, she finds herself the decent ensemble cast, especially Purab
object of attention of male friends and Kohli’s rakish journalist. „
male colleagues alike. —Trisha Gupta

Clarkson and
Crew x 3
T
he legends of televised motor-
ing series are back. With a total
of 70 years of experience be-
tween them, it is only fair to call
them masters of the modern
motoring shows on television.
Jeremy Clarkson, James May and
Richard Hammond have moved ahead
with the times to now present their
witty takes on cars on The Grand Tour
on Amazon Prime.
With two seasons of the promised
36 episodes already on Prime, 2019
welcomes the third instalment of The
Grand Tour with the first episode that
was released on January 17.
The teasers posted on social
media and a short trailer aired at the
end of December last year, promised
a grand spectacle. Already garnering
over 2 million views, the introduc-
tion scene shows Hammond stuck in
an old Chevrolet pick-up on a fragile
wooden bridge hoisted at a dizzy-
ing height. A series of breathtaking
views featuring period correct cars
follow, before the real theme of the
first episode is revealed—three
American muscle cars storm-
ing the streets of the original
motor city, Detroit. Offering
only a glimpse of the cars
and tongue-in-cheek
WAT C H L I S T
LUTHER
Admit it, you would even watch
Idris Elba paint a house. Luckily,
HITLIST Season 5 of Luther–a gritty,
sometimes moving police proce-
dural that teams Elba up with Ruth
Wilson’s psycho killer–means you
don’t have to.
NETFLIX
banter, the first episode leaves you SONI
wanting more. Billed as Netflix’s best Hindi film
Named ‘Motown Funk’, the episode to date (okay, faint praise), this
story of two policewomen battling
features highly tuned versions of the
sexual harassment has impressed
Ford Mustang, the Chevrolet Ca- critics with its power and subtlety.
maro ZL1 and the Dodge Challenger NETFLIX
SRT. With a complete review of the
McLaren Senna, Clarkson puts you in
the driver’s seat of the limited produc-
tion supercar, which goes on to clock
the fastest time on the lap board, set
by British racing driver Abigail Eaton
on the Eboladrome track.
May describes the battle be-
tween the three as good versus evil,
referencing the names of the cars—the
A STAR IS BORN
Exorcist Camaro and Challenger SRT Everybody went, well, gaga over
Venom. Of course, the less-powerful Lady Gaga’s feature film debut in
Mustang had to be given a nickname to a flick produced and directed by
go along with the three and was called Bradley Cooper. Now you can see
for yourself if the Lady outdoes
the Blue Nun (a reference to a much-
Barbra Streisand’s 1976 perfor-
lampooned German wine brand). mance in the same role.
Humour aside, no celebrities iTUNES
came into the tent that doubles as
the show’s studio in the first episode.
Clarkson signs off promising a mega
road trip beginning in the next
episode, “the Grand Tour” of
on 3 o f the season, and offering
In Seas AND
THE GR , top-class motoring
TO U R
n entertainment for the
rem y Clarkso it
Je th next 13 weeks. ■
co-hos
and his he original
–t —Abhik Das
Detroit ity
motor c
 Q A
Stri k e
h
W otile
She’s H
a ct
i G a ut a m, e mini ster, a
Ya m e d e fe n c a l s t r i k e
g t h
m e e t in l a te st s ur g i
he r
Are people still asking you
‘How’s the josh’?
I will never tire of it. I am
getting videos on my social
media feed, some with two-
year-olds asking ‘How’s
the josh’ (a dialogue from
the film Uri: The Surgical
Strike] and replying ‘High,
Sir’. It’s just overwhelming.
I have happily made peace
with the fact that I will be
asked this all year round.
64 Volume XLIV Number 6; For the week February 5-11, 2019, published on every Friday Total number of pages 84 (including cover pages)
o r, o n ‘ josh ’,
nd
c
Q. Did you anticipate that Uri
would be so successful?
I did. When I read the
script, I got the intent
with which Aditya [Dhar,
filmmaker] was making
it and what he wanted to
express. He said he wanted
to make a film that not just
audiences love but also one
the army would be proud
of. It’s a sensitive subject
and he understood the
responsibility. I remember
standing at the air force base
in Serbia and watching the
choppers and feeling proud
of being a part of this film.
Q. You met defence minister
Nirmala Sitharaman and
army chief Gen. Bipin Rawat
recently. What was their take?
“More than the
screen time,
what’s impor-
tant is that you
are bringing
something
substantial to
the film”
We met them on Army Day.
They hadn’t watched it then,
but they said that people
in the army had told them
about how they loved the
film. The President and his
wife loved it too. One could
see they actually meant it.
Q. What do you say to people
who call Uri: The Surgical
Strike a propaganda film?
It’s unfair and disappointing
to do that to the army. We
heard from people in the
forces about the levels to
which they go to selflessly
guard us. We don’t have
many patriotic films that
depict the army’s valour.
Here’s a film on a real-
life incident and we have
tried our best to keep it as
authentic as we could.
Q. Would you have liked
longer screen time in Uri and
Batti Gul Metre Chalu?
In any film, you have to
justify your work and pre-
sence in it. What’s important
is that you are bringing
something substantial to the
film. I feel I have done that,
be it Batti... or Uri.
--with Suhani Singh
 DIGITAL EDITION

THANK YOU FOR READING

OC
CANCER: NEW
TREATMENTS BENGAL BORDER: PRISONERS OF THE PAST
www.indiatoday.in FEBRUARY 11, 2019 `60
REGISTERED NO. DL(ND)-11/6068/2018-20; U(C)-88/2018-20; FARIDABAD/05/2017-19 LICENSED TO POST WITHOUT PREPAYMENT

THE
RNI NO. 28587/75

PRIYANKA
GAMBIT
Will her
h entryt give
i th
the
Congress campaign a
boost or upset a
fragile Opposition
alliance in the
high stakes 2019 battle
for Uttar Pradesh?

PLEASE CONTINUE
TO YOUR FREE MAGAZINE
FEBRUARY 2019

FORM AND
PLAY BY
ARTIST GANESH
HALOI
A MONTHLY CITY MAGAZINE

HIGH ON
HEALTH Saroj Sharma,
co-owner, Wabi Sabi
 FEBRUARY 2019

FORM AND
PLAY BY
ARTIST GANESH
HALOI
A MONTHLY CITY MAGAZINE

HIGH ON
HEALTH
LIGHT MEALS, NEW WORKOUTS, ORGANIC Saroj Sharma,
BEAUTY PRODUCTS & MORE co-owner, Wabi Sabi
 Editor-in-Chief
Aroon Purie
Group Editorial Director
Raj Chengappa
Group Creative Editor
➜
4
Cover Story
Nilanjan Das
Group Photo Editor
Bandeep Singh Road to Fitness
Whether it's going out for a meal or working
Deputy Editor out, healthy no longer equates to boring.
Prachi Bhuchar
Special Correspondent
We bring you fun ways to stay fit in the city
Malini Banerjee
Consulting Editors Cover photograph by SUBIR HALDER
Mohini Mehrotra, Rewati Rau
Photo Department
Vikram Sharma, Subir Halder
Photo Researchers
Prabhakar Tiwari, Saloni Vaid,

Visual Treat
Shubhrojit Brahma
Design
Angshuman De, Rajesh Angira
Production Till February 11
Harish Aggarwal (Chief of
Production), Naveen Gupta, Check out Form And Play an
Vijay Sharma, Prashant Verma exhibition of the works by Ganesh
Layout Execution Haloi. Evocative abstract paintings
Ramesh Kumar Gusain
Pradeep Singh Bhandari in diaphanous colours are brought
to life by the artist who won the
Publishing Director Lifetime Achievement award In the
Manoj Sharma India Today Art Awards this year.
Associate Publisher (Impact)
Anil Fernandes
At Akar Prakar, P238, Hindusthan
Park
Impact Team Tel 24642617
Senior General Manager: On Monday to Saturday
Jitendra Lad (West)
General Managers:
Time 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Upendra Singh (Bangalore);
Kaushiky Gangulie (East)

2 INDIA TODAY KOLKATA ✦ FEBRUARY 2019

 Cover
Story

to
Fitness
Whether it's going out for a meal or working out,
healthy no longer equates to boring. We bring you
fun ways to stay fit in the city. ■ By Malini Banerjee
Photographs by SUBIR HALDER

4 INDIA TODAY KOLKATA ✦ FEBRUARY 2019

 Soccer
Punch
ACADEMEY OF WOMEN’S FOOTBALL,
V/S SPORTING ARENA

I
f you prefer to play a sport rather than sweat it
out in a gym, here is your chance to try some-
thing new. Shatadru Dutt, 26, coach and co-
owner of VS Sports Arena coaches a women’s
football team thrice a week with no restrictions of
age, fitness or qualifications. Also coaching them
is Ria Rao, 23, a young footballer who represented
West Bengal in national competitions in the under
17 and under 19 category. A motley crew made
up of homemakers, national rowing champions,
marathon runners, basketball players and young
corporates, have now made it a point to play the sport
religiously for two hours thrice a week. More are fol-
lowing suit. “The batch is expanding so we might just
start another one soon,” says Dutt.
The idea behind the academy was two-fold. One
was for people like Ria Rao who loved the sport and
played it in school and college but had nowhere to
keep playing football as a working adult. The second
was to develop the game further. Dutt who coached
Rao in St Xavier’s College spotted the gap when he
met more women like her. “The Calcutta Football
League which is a fifth division football league has
one of the oldest women’s football team and not
many know about it. My aim is to build interest in
the sport from the ground up so that more can play
those leagues,” says Dutt.
The results of their experiment speaks for
itself. Barely a couple of months since the start of
the Academy, Dutt says that “the girls are already
fitter and have greater stamina and endurance,
better technique.” Rao believes that football can
transform your mind body and soul. “I am a differ-
ent person when I am playing. I eat better and sleep
better,” says Rao.
The women's
At VS Sports Arena, 5A Sarat Bose Road, Lane
football team at beside Chandrani Pearls, Opposite Ashok Hall Girls
VS Sports Arena Tel 7980116259 Price Rs 1,000 a month
Email rohan.dutt@germinatysportz.com

5
FEBRUARY 2019 ✦ INDIA TODAY KOLKATA 
Cover
Story

S
ienna Cafe and Store started
as a space to promote the
brand’s range of ceramic
tableware and handicrafts
from their workshop in Shantiniketan.
The food and the menu became some-
thing of an accidental success. “We
started with some of the things that
were made in our own family kitchen,”
says Sulagna Ghosh, 32, co-founder,
Sienna. Its roots in a family kitchen
may explain the menu’s light whole-
some vibe. “People were sceptical when
they found light salads in a Kolkata cafe
menu. People in this city generally like
deep fried, cheesy dishes,” says Ghosh.
But the avocado tortilla salad turned out
to be a dish that has been there since
inception and lasted through at least two
new menus. Also on the salad menu is the
black rice salad with an Asian dressing
with sesame and peanuts. "This used to
be an Asian salad before. Later we added
black rice to it and the flavours ended
up working well together," says Anindita
Rawat who is consultant for the Sienna
menu. Rawat is a home cook and has
also introduced the popular Aubergine
pesto crostini on the menu. "Ingredients
like oyster mushroom and basil come
from Rawat's family farm and a lot of
vegetables from the Ghosh’s vegetable
patch in their Shantiniketan workshop."
If you are down with a cold, Ghosh
promises that the clear chicken soup
with bok choy, carrot, baby corn and
mushroom is an instant pick-me-up.
Their focus is not so much on calories
Sulagna Ghosh, as much as on freshness and authentic-
co-founder, Sienna
ity. Their breads, cakes and pesto are
made in-house and everything, if not
low calorie, is at least nutrient or fibre

Eat Out Healthy

SIENNA CAFE AND STORE
rich such as the date almond walnut
cake. “Its decadent but also loaded with
micro-nutrients,” says Ghosh.
Meal for two Rs 600 onwards
At Sienna, 49/1 Hindustan Park

6 INDIA TODAY KOLKATA ✦ FEBRUARY 2019

Cover
Story
Veggie
Haven
WABI SABI
C
afe-store Wabi Sabi is inspired by the
idea of “finding joy and acceptance
in imperfections”. The store stocks
a number of organic or nutritious
cereals like black and red rice and organic pulses.
The cafe on the other hand serves all kinds of
vegetarian and Jain friendly contemporary global
cuisine. “The menu is designed in such a way that
none of the dishes will make you feel uncomfort-
ably full. Most of our dishes are very light and
fresh,” says co-owner, Saroj Sharma, 45.

Saroj Sharma,
co-owner, Wabi Sabi
If eating healthy means having hearty salads, check
out their couscous salad or chickpea salad. “Both have
very light vinaigrette-based dressing and are rich in
dietary fibre. Our watermelon salad is another option
that is so delicious that you don’t even think of it as eat-
ing healthy,” she says.
The gluten-free momos are made with potato
starch and are another light option that will spare
you the bloating caused by flour-based dishes. Want
your meal to pack in vegetables and proteins? Try
the zucchini roll up which is a cold dish made up
of zucchini slices filled with crumbly cottage cheese
and asparagus.
Most of their rice-based mains use black or
Bhutanese red rice so it is possible to have a full meal
here without feeling too guilty. “Even our pastas come
with an option of whole wheat, and we do not use flour
or corn flour to thicken our sauces,” adds Sharma.
Price Rs 800 for two
At Wabi Sabi, 10 Sarat Banerjee Road
 Cover
Story
Founder Surhid Chandra
with chief knowledge officer
Suvendu Sekhar Das, at the
Hari Mitti nursery
Choose to
Grow organic
HARI MITTI
F
arm-to-table or garden to table
are concepts that may have
seemed unattainable for city
dwellers with busy lives till now,
but Hari Mitti will make it possible for
you. The New Town-based start-up
grows over 40 varieties of vegetables,
fruits and herbs and air purifying plants
that you can plant in your own homes.
If you do not have a green thumb,
do not worry. Hari Mitti provides soil-
free mulch lined crates that are loaded
with vermicompost and cocoa peat
18 INDIA TODAY KOLKATA ✦ FEBRUARY 2019
and only bring plants to you once they
are “hardy enough to survive beyond
the nursery.” “Most plants need a lot
of care during the seedling stage. Our
aim is to take away the hassle of urban
gardening. All you need to do is water
them,” says founder Surhid Chandra.
Maintenance of the plants is all natu-
ral and free of harmful chemicals. “You
may even call it organic but we avoid
the label since there is no accounting
for acid rain or even groundwater,” says
Chandra. What he can vouch for is the
potency of the nutrient rich greens.
“We have had clients who say they
cannot stomach coriander and toma-
toes from the vegetable seller after
growing their own,” he says.
From your garden variety
beans to “exotic vegetables like bell
peppers broccoli and oyster mush-
rooms” they grow it all. “We have studied
that if one opts for about 30 to 35 crates,
then a family of three can sunstain on
what they grow and need to only buy
potatoes and onions,” says Chandra.
If you want to pass on the gift of
growing to friends and family, Hari
Mitti has also designed pinewood
boxes of herbs. “These small pots
already come packed with enough
nutrients that they continue to grow
without needing extra maintenance,”
says Chandra.
Price Rs 500 per crate or box plus
installation cost
Details harimitti.com
 Kettle
Calling
SAMRAT SEN, COREFIT
S
amrat Sen, 32, a former PR
professional, was always
passionate about fitness.“I
was into kickboxing and
martial arts and using the kettlebell
as well. However, I started taking
it more seriously as a sport when
I began to benefit from kettlebell
training,” said Sen. Kettlebell lift-
ing as a sport is a test of “endur-
ance since it relies on an equal mix
of strength, endurance, flexibil-
ity and cardiovascular stamina. Also
called endurance lifting, the sport
requires lifters to complete as many
repetitions as possible within 10
Samrat Sen,
owner, Corefit
minutes. Sen has represented the
country in this sport in Thailand
and Malaysia.
But Sen is not just a kettle-
ball athlete. He is also a Master
Kettlebell Coach as well as a certi-
fied animal flow coach and a func-
tional trainer. If he were to have
a fitness mantra it would be
“lengthen your front and strength-
en your back.” His outfit is called
Corefit, which as the name sug-
gests, is about focusing on the core.
Sen believes in a completely
personalised approach where he
designs different programmes for
people of different fitness levels
and different targets. His biggest
success? “One of my students, a
53 kg mother of one, who couldn’t
lift 12 kg kettlebells, recently rep-
resented India and lifted two 16 kg
kettlebells in tandem,” says Sen.
Price On request
At corefit.co.in
 Cover
Story
Aishwarya
Biswas,
founder and
MD, Auli
Lifestyle
Au Natural
AULI LIFESTYLE
I
f you are eating organic, then it goes without saying that
you should opt for "natural" when it comes to skincare as
well. Auli Lifestyle, a homegrown Kolkata-based com-
pany, makes a variety of skin and haircare products that
are completely natural, paraben and chemical free.
Founder and MD Aishwarya Biswas, 35, started using
honey and beeswax from her country farm in suburban south
Kolkata to formulate her products, and slowly expanded to
use “only the best organic and natural ingredients she can
from across the country.”
She gets glowing reviews about her products online—
which is her primary market. An ex-model-turned-entre-
prenuer,she is a firm believerin her ownproductsand it is easy
to see why. Her bestsellers include Magic Potion, an aloe-vera
massage gel that she says helps tackle a variety of problems
10 INDIA TODAY KOLKATA ✦ FEBRUARY 2019
such as cuts, burns, acne, tanning and rashes and can
also be used as a make-up primer and sunscreen. “In
fact I did not know it could be so successful until I heard
praise from my buyers who cannot get enough of it,”
she says. Also popular is Luminous, a fragrant all-natu-
ral shampoo that is good for all hair types. “It is packed
with ingredients that are great for hair, such as brahmi,
olive oil, aloe vera, essential oils and other ayurvedic
extracts,” says Biswas.
Even if you don't have a beauty regimen, Auli has
starter kits for men and women, anti ageing skin ritu-
als and rituals for dry oily and combination skin, facial
kits, hair kits, pamper bath rituals, de-tanning kit and
the ultimate indulgence in the form of a bridal kit.
They also make honey-based snack boxes that
include green tea, a small pot of honey and honey
roasted almonds.
Price Rs 300 onwards At aulilifestyle.com
 Cover
Story

E
ntrepreneur and director of The
Yoga exponent
Belgadia Palace and princess from
Mrinalika Bhanjdeo the Royal Family of Mayurbhanj,
Mrinalika Bhanjdeo, 28, start-
ed practicing yoga seven years ago and
three years ago, she started teaching it
too. It seeped into my everyday life and
even though I did not enter the practice of
yoga with the intention of making chang-
es in my lifestyle, it made me aware of
how I live my life—from what and how
I eat, to having a phone-life balance,”
says Bhanjdeo.
The stress caused by the digital
medium is one of the main things yoga
helps address, says the hatha yoga expo-
nent. “The practice of yoga helped me
mastermybreath,whichwasthefirststepto
learning how to control my mind.
We are bombarded with external
stimulation which throws us off bal-
ance, especially as we live in the digi-
tal age where our biggest health
concerns are related to poor lifestyle
choices,” she says. Those choices are
what you can address with mindfulness.
Bhanjdeo especially recommends
“meditation to relax the body and
mind” with nadi shodhana (alternate
nostril cleansing) and sheetal pranaya-
ma which helps improve the flow of
oxygen into the body, lowers blood
pressure, and calms the mind and body.
For common ailments and problems
she suggests cat/cow poses to improve
circulation through spine and core and
the cobra pose to “open up the chest

Breathe
and improve lung capacity” as well as
alleviate lower back pain. She also advo-
cates popular and relatively simpler poses

Free
like the standing forward bend and tree
pose that help improve flexibility and
balance.
At Calorie Burn Centre, 3B
Lovelock Place; The Salt
YO GA House, 40 Shakespeare Sarani
Tel 9830290530

12 INDIA TODAY KOLKATA ✦ FEBRUARY 2019