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By Ritwik Agrawal | July 17, 2010 2:38 am

Ours is a law-loving country.  Deprivation, oppression and crime are rampant. However our esteemed leadership cannot be accused of not doing enough legislatively to contain these problems. It’s a different matter that our bewildering gamut of laws usually end up multiplying aforesaid problems.

Readers would hardly need reminding of the far-sighted legislation that imposed a blanket ban on smoking in public places. Every major college and university now have big boards that declare them to be no smoking zones. Of course, this has caused all professors in say, JNU to give up smoking overnight. If there exists a place where this glorious objective has not been achieved then that is a lacuna of implementation. Of course, there could be nothing wrong with the law itself, even if it is making law breakers out of all us.

Or we could take the Punjab Excise Act, 1914 which somehow applies to Delhi and which bans the sale of alcohol to those under 25 years of age. I feel tempted to repeat the oft quoted line about being mature enough to vote and drive at 18 …

The latest such initiative comes from the Women and Child Development Ministry. This department has already given us controversial legislation like the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act and the Dowry Prohibition Act, which though noble in spirit, are overly susceptible to misuse. Earlier this year, the Ministry saw a change of guard when the last minister lost her Lok Sabha seat. There was  some hope that her successor will not display excessive zeal but would instead focus on deliverables.

This time, though, the Ministry has outdone itself, thus sending out an emphatic signal that it will continue to battle common sense regardless of changes at the top.

So what has happened? The Times of India reports that the Ministry is “piloting” a legislation that will make it possible for the authorities to penalize and even jail parents who beat their kids. In fact, it goes beyond that as the “comprehensive” draft bill, which not surprisingly, has been drafted after consultations with “civil society” seeks to prevent the abuse of children by parents, schools, day care centres, workplaces etc etc. It even seeks to cover ragging.

Of course, any effort to strengthen the legal framework to deal with child abuse is laudable, but some salient features of the proposed legislation require closer examination:

The proposed punishment for the first offence is one year imprisonment or a fine of Rs 5,000 that can be raised to three years’ imprisonment for a second offence with a fine of Rs 25,000.

Maybe I am reading this wrong. But the above seems to say that if ever this law is passed and implemented [which in India, as noted above, are two very different things] then any reasonably well off parent can get off by paying a paltry fine. However the same amount can be backbreaking for any of the country’s countless poor people. Maybe I ought to have more faith in our police system, but I cannot let go off the idea that this gives yet another tool for unscrupulous policemen to harass and torture the poor. Might it be that  the “civil society” activists who have consulted on the bill missed this insignificant detail?

The draft bill says, “Whoever intentionally inflicts physical penalty on a child for disciplinary purposes shall be punished for the offence of corporal punishment.”

Whoever means “family member, school, relatives, neighbours, friends, educational or care giving institutions, prisons and homes set up under the Juvenile Justice Act.” Again, maybe it’s just me but this seems awfully broad ranging. What will happen in case of a fight between two children, say one who is 14 and the other 17 ? Maybe the aggressor could be sent to one of our homely juvenile justice homes, which we can expect to be homelier still once this bill has been cleared.

It is obvious that the proposed bill is yet another act of over-zealousness which seeks to achieve social objectives by force of law, rather than investing in necessary social and cultural reform. It will be non-implementable, because of its sheer impracticality. That does not bother me as much as the fact that unlike the equally stupid anti-smoking law, the proposed bill has inherently greater scope for misuse and harassment.

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By Ritwik Agrawal | July 9, 2010 6:17 pm

A few days back, thugs belonging to a radical Islamist outfit called Popular Front chopped off the right hand of Prof. T.J. Joseph, a private college lecturer in Muvattapuzha in Kerala as “punishment” for the  ”offence” of hurting religious sentiments. The Hindu has covered this story in some detail.

Dilip D’Souza has raised some pertinent questions in this regard:

* Why the college management “apologised”.

* Why the Kerala government saw fit to issue “instructions” that the professor should be suspended.

* Why the college followed the government’s instruction and suspended him.

* Why the police lodged a case against the professor.

The following is worth noting as well:

T. Vikram, Superintendent of Police, Ernakulam Rural, who was camping in the area, said: “We have talked to church leaders to convince them that an all-out effort is being made to nab the culprits.” (as reported in The Hindu)

I don’t understand why the police needed to specifically assure church leaders that the perpetrators of this ghastly attack will be brought to justice? Surely these “church leaders” should have been incensed regardless of the religious affiliation of the victim?

Of course, this episode would not have even become a news story had the attackers not committed the tactical error of chopping off Joseph’s hand. As it is, they had him on the run. A little bit of shouting from the rooftops had ensured that:

1. Joseph was suspended from his job. In what capacity did the state Government instruct a PRIVATE institute to suspend an employee is not clear.

2. He was picked up and harassed by the police.

3. After getting out on bail, he went into hiding to escape frequent death threats. In response, the police put out a wanted poster for his arrest

Why exactly were the government and the police so keen to prosecute Prof. Joseph? Why were the charges of “hurting religious sentiments” believed at face value and not investigated properly? What constrained the government to apply the serious charge of “fomenting communal hatred” on the Professor? What about the concept of an educational institution being an open space? Why did the state not defend Prof. Joseph’s fundamental right to expression?

Maybe the secular, progressive and people friendly Left Democratic Front government of Kerala can provide some answers.

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By Ritwik Agrawal | August 23, 2009 6:26 pm

Jaswant Singh's Controversial Book

Over the last week, there has been much brouhaha over Jaswant Singh’s new book titled Jinnah: India Partition Independence

The former BJP leader has tried to argue that Jinnah was a secular man who was “pushed” towards communal politics due to the inflexible attitude of senior Congress leaders.

This basic contention fits in well with the old RSS/BJP approach of using any stick to beat Nehru and other Congress leaders, and hold them responsible for all of India’s ills.  Jaswant Singh advocates that Jinnah’s recommendations to the Motilal Nehru Committee (demanding special concessions to Muslims) should have been accepted back in 1929. Singh contends that had this been done, Jinnah would have never orbited towards communal politics.

It is amusing to see a senior (now former) leader of a Hindu nationalist organization like the BJP advocating concessions to Muslims. One can well imagine what the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha response would have been (in the 1930s) had Jinnah’s recommendations been accepted by the Congress. For some reason, I can clearly hear “minority appeasement” echoing in my head.

I’ve always found it incredible how RSS/BJP sympathizers, who otherwise profess a deep hatred for Jinnah and his muslim communal politics, hold that if only Nehru had overcome his personal “greed” and allowed Jinnah to be prime minister, then partition would have never occurred.

These people set no store by the popular will of the people of India, who elected the Congress by record margins in all polls conducted till then. The Congress was the largest political organization in the country [by far], Gandhi was the tallest leader, and Nehru was both a tall leader and Gandhi’s handpicked nominee. None of these things seem to make any impact on the immune-to-logic grey cells of the Hindu nationalist crowd.

This is probably because inspite of public protestations to the contrary, I suspect that the RSS/BJP and their cohorts feel quite comfortable with Jinnah. Believing as they do in identity politics, they deem it natural for a muslim to speak for muslims, as a hindu must speak for hindus. It is incomprehensible for them to see Gandhi, Nehru and other hindus speaking for the minorities, and minority leaders Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan speaking for an inclusive nationality.

Thus, what has done in Jaswant Singh is not his exoneration of Jinnah, or putting the blame on Nehru. The seasoned politician that he is, Jaswant Singh must have realized that holding Sardar Patel equally culpable for the partition of the country would seriously ruffle feathers in the “parivaar”. Over the years, the RSS and its fronts like the BJP have successfully wrested Patel’s legacy from a stupor-ridden Congress, which seems to have forgotten it ever had leaders other than the “first family”. Patel’s aggressive nationalism and “iron man” image fits in well with the RSS idea of India.

In this light, one can well imagine the fury of RSS leaders. Jaswant Singh was identified as a very senior BJP leader, and organizationally speaking, it was extremely irresponsible of him to “tarnish” Patel with the same brush as Nehru, when the RSS has for years been trying to appropriate the former and demonize the latter.

To put it simply: in the RSS fantasy world, Nehru was a Europeanized brat, who tricked Gandhi and wrested the PM-ship to satisfy his personal greed, which led to the partition of the country. Patel was the good samaritan who had to bow down to pressure from Gandhi, but who nonetheless did unparalleled work in unifying the country. Jaswant Singh effectively shows Nehru and Patel to be working together, as a team, and not at cross purposes as the RSS would wants us to believe.

When the BJP says that Jaswant’s contentions are against it’s core ideological beliefs, this is what it is alluding to: a senior leader cannot undermine the years of ideological work done by committed RSS pracharaks, and consequently leave the parivaar in an indefensible position.

Politically speaking, if Jaswant Singh had not been expelled, then the self-styled “Chotte Sardar” Narendra Modi would have been taken to the cleaners by the Congress in Gujarat. Patel is a highly respected leader even outside his home state, and one can well imagine the BJP’s discomfort had it not taken prompt action by expelling Mr. Singh.

Thus, I find it incredible that the media [both print and broadcast] has been typifying the BJP’s action as intolerant. It is amazing that The Hindu faults the BJP for expelling Jaswant Singh, but didn’t bat an eyelid when Somnath Chatterjee was expelled for defying party orders. The latter didn’t even question his party’s core beliefs in marxism-leninism!

The BJP is right in expelling Jaswant Singh because a senior leader cannot publicly question his party’s view of history – that puts the entire ideology under a cloud of doubt.

I completely agree that Mr. Jaswant Singh should have freedom of expression, and thus I think it is reprehensible that his book has been banned in Gujarat [for I believe that no book should be banned], but as far as being member of a political party goes, he cannot continue being a member of a party unless he accepts it’s core ideological position.

To sum it up: it is right to expel jaswant singh, but wrong to silence him.

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By Ritwik Agrawal | July 28, 2009 3:44 am

Last week there was much drama following the unexpected courtroom confession of Mohammad Ajmal Amir ‘Kasab’.  By owning up to his crimes, the terrorist managed to take the court and the public prosecutor by surprise. Kasab, who had pleaded not guilty on an earlier occasion, wished that he given the death penalty, ostensibly to ease his feeling of ‘guilt’.

Maharashtra chief minister  Ashok Chavan too expressed a desire for the quick completion of the trial, resulting in the hanging of the accused.

The rationale for awarding the death penalty to Kasab is strong. His crime unquestionably falls into the “rarest of rare” category, which is the Supreme Court mandated requirement for a criminal to be hanged unto death.

According to our legal system, Kasab should be hanged for the sheer barbarity, audacity and scale of his crime. For the fact that he and his accomplices crossed into foreign territory, fired indiscriminately at innocent civilians, killed persons in uniform and tried to destroy heritage structures and take hostages.

Hanging Kasab would presumably provide closure to the families and friends of those killed and injured in the Mumbai attacks.

Ujjwal Nikam, the public prosecutor in the case, has argued that Kasab confessed to win sympathy and somehow avoid the death penalty.

I think he misses the point entirely, or more probably, chooses to gloss over Kasab’s true intentions.

It is an inconvenient truth that young boys like Kasab are systematically brainwashed using a potent mixture of religious and national ‘pride’. Such recruits and their families are assured of the “glory” of the mission and their place in history. It is repeatedly drilled into impressionable young minds that their “sacrifice” would not be in vain and would in fact corner the highest rewards. They would be honoured forever as heroes and martyrs.

Few things match the appeal of the idea of sacrificing one’s life while fighting for a cause.

Thus in many ways, the people and the ideology which converted Kasab into a cold blooded killer would actually want him dead. Used once, he is not of any utility to them; his death though would presumably give them another “martyr” whose “memory” would serve to inspire countless others.

In light of this, though I can see the legal and sentimental reasons which demand that Kasab be hanged, I sometimes wonder, whether Kasab should be given life imprisonment [for the extent of his natural lifetime, without an option of parole]? This would send out a message that we are ready to fight terrorism ideologically, not just legally. This would be one example which would hopefully force terrorist masterminds to ponder and maybe recalibrate their strategies.

At least, we would, for once, be taking the initiative in the so called “war” against terrorism.

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By Ritwik Agrawal | July 22, 2009 2:30 am

The following is a riveting drama possible only in the contradiction that is India.

*a nod to history: all characters & situations in the following work are imaginary. Any resemblence to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The players:

The Long Arm of The Law: it is omniscient. It extends everywhere, in every domain, in every direction.

JM Lyngdoh and minions - tasked by The Long Arm of The Law to rewrite the rules of student union elections.

“Student”  ”Leaders” – who are neither one nor the other.

Universities – the canvases on which above artists show-off their wizardry.

Jawaharlal Nehru University – it happens to be an actual university [gasp!] with a functioning and vibrant students union [big gasp!] comprised of people who are students as well as leaders [gasp leading to asphyxiation]

Narrator: at times, a direct victim of aforementioned wizardry; at other times,  a scarcely believing observer of this theatrical production.

AND ….

The Report: it is the final word, to be applied in unaltered form all over the country. Logic, common sense, practicality all be damned.

Synposis:

Act 1

It is felt that student union elections are infested with corruption, overt political interference and unaccountability. The Long Arm of The Law tasks JM Lyngdoh and minions to rewrite the rules of student union elections.

Act 2

JM Lyngdoh and minions tour the country. Write what is already known: student union politics is dirty. Then they visit JNU, and document the election process in that university and immortalize it in the form of The Report. They effect certain cosmetic changes [no printed posters, for example] but otherwise are so impressed by the JNU election process that they essentially plagiarize it. They mention that elections in JNU are vibrant, participative, issue-oriented, non-violent and non-coercive.

Act 3

The theatre shifts to Delhi University. The Report mandates that “Student” “Leaders” must have a certain minimum attendance, otherwise they’d be barred from the election process. This results in established party candidates magically acquiring 90% attendance overnight. A clean independent candidate like the Narrator is conveniently dispensed with through this filter.

Other points of The Report – like campaign expenditure limits, non-use of vehicles, even non-use of printed posters all lie in tatters. Voter turnout plummets to 25%, from 45% an year ago.  Thus, voter participation also lies in tatters.

The Result: DU elections proceed as before, with no qualitative change whatsoever. However, on paper The Report has been implemented. This is to the satisfaction of The Long Arm Of The Law.

Act 4

JNU elections are held. Lyngdoh recommendations are not implemented because they are already in place [Lyngdoh copied from JNU, remember?]. Printed posters and pamphletes are still allowed. Unlike DU, these pamphletes stress on issues and ideology. They are not modelling portfolios of candidates like in DU.

A new students union is chosen. It does good work, like raising the issue of labourers on campus not being paid minimum wages. [contrast this with illustrious "Student" "Leaders" in other universities].

But The Long Arm Of the Law is unamused. Criticizes JNU for not implementing The Report. Suspends the union.

Result: Union is still suspended. The country’s most vibrant and effective students union movement has suffered a massive setback. Nobody knows what is going to happen next.

Act 5 – Conclusion:

The Report set out to duplicate the JNU model in other universites. Other universities function as before; the report is implemented only on paper.The JNU election process is on life-support, desperately seeking blood transfusion.

The Law is satisfied in its glory.

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By Ritwik Agrawal | July 17, 2009 4:59 am

Recently there has been a fair bit of comment on the Mayawati government’s decision to build statues and memorials to “Dalit icons” [including herself] at a cost of thousands of crores of taxpayer money.

While the commentary on this matter has been relatively recent, large scale edification has been on Mayawati’s radar ever since she first assumed chief ministership of India’s largest state, back in the mid nineties. Over the last two decades and more, erecting statues of Ambedkar and other Dalit icons has been seen as a potent symbol of the shift in the dynamics of power. Like all manifestations of identity politics, Dalit leaders sought to give their followers “pride”, as a substitute for real improvement in the ground situation.

Much of the reporting and “analysis” regarding the latest statue building exercise, in newspapers and on TV [between such vital topics as "dhoni ke dhurandar" and "rakhi ka swayamwar"] hasn’t touched upon the topic of electoral gain: will this statue building spree benefit Mayawati electorally? A happy exception is Gautam Bhatia’s article in Open magazine, in which Bhatia lambasts Mayawati for wasting not only vast amounts of money, but also a real opportunity of providing change.

Bhatia’s piece aside, the lack of electoral speculation is hardly surprising – the Indian media [particularly of the English language variety] has a terrible record of predicting electoral outcomes.

We must not forget that this is the same media which was projecting no more than 150 seats for BSP in the 2007 UP assembly elections [BSP finally got 200+ for a simple majority]. After that stellar performance, the media pendulum swung the other way, with commentators falling over themselves projecting 40+ parliamentary seats for the BSP. Some went so far as to project Mayawati as a viable candidate for Prime Ministership.

The people, sadly for the commentators and happily for the country, gave Mayawati a total of 19 seats, way less than any opinion poll prediction.

The media, still licking its wounds, has apparently decided not to stick out its neck once again, and is thus refusing to speculate about the electoral dividend [if any] generated by what one reporter has charmingly called the ‘BSP School of Architecture’. The reporter, an avid propagandist of the BSP movement, seems to have temporarily stopped writing on Dalit issues ever since the Lok Sabha results. Now, he wisely devotes his attention to matters such as LGBT rights and persecution of Uighurs in China.

Since I am not a journalist, nor connected to the media in any way, I will go ahead and do what most Indians are very happy doing in their drawing rooms/paan shops/offices/playgrounds etc etc – predict the fate of politicians and political parties.

I contend that this grand architectural exercise is not going to help Mayawati in any way. The fact remains that BSP candidates lost 15 out of 17 reserved constituencies in UP in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. This clearly implies that BSP’s trustworthy core votebank of Dalits deserted it in large numbers. It is my hunch that non-jatav dalits didn’t vote for Mayawati this time as enthusiastically as 2007.

Mayawati seeks to win back these sections through the tired old formula of “pride”. I firmly believe that his formula is now past its sell-by date.

How will I prove my assertion?

Well, certainly not through a “caste based voting pattern survey”, or whatever the hell it is called, brought out by comedian-in-chief Yogendra Yadav and his team at CSDS, election after election. In a secret ballot, how the hell does the CSDS team know that 33.67% leuva patels voted for BJP? Were Mr. Yadav and his cohorts hovering as invisible angels near the voting machines?

I have a much more reliable formula on which I base my political predictions. My weather vane is our ever unreliable Indian English media. Much as when the Met department predicts rain, I apply sunscreen, when I see a topic garnering massive attention in the English language press, it is clear that the issue has no great resonance with the masses.

For example, almost nobody wrote about Mayawati’s “social engineering” [going on since at least 2003] before the 2007 UP elections. After her stunning victory,social engineering was the buzz in town. This time, the English press focused only on social engineering, forgetting about such petty matters as crime and ganglordism, and the BSP was swept aside. In much the same way, statues had resonance in the 80s and the 90s, when the press was busy elsewhere [high number of beauty queens from India, for example]. Now that the press focuses on statues, I am sure the real issues lie elsewhere, such as water scarcity in Bundelkhand.

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By Ritwik Agrawal | July 8, 2009 3:34 am

Appliepiecrust has written a strong rejoinder to Swapan Dasgupta’s diatribe against gay rights.

You can read it here

Excerpts:

Mr. Dasgupta is concerned about “in-your-face-gayness” and militant gay activism, and believes all gay activism to be defined by this “perverseness.” This concern can be addressed with two brief points. The first is that some amount of what he terms “in-your-face-gayness” isrequired for increasing the visibility of an otherwise invisible minority. The second is simply that not much gay activism is militant or “in-your-face” at all – a lot of this activism is happening in the courtrooms, on editorial pages such as these, and in day-to-day lives of people living their lives honestly and openly.

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By Ritwik Agrawal |

Danish friends of a friend were recently in town.

They decided to go on a bus trip.

Just before boarding their bus, in Connought Place, they had their first encounter with poverty

poverty, of the killing kind

the one that kills you, and kills your dignity.

They were shocked, and moved to comment:

In denmark, we don’t have such things

In our country, we tax the rich

and give to the poor, and

thus nobody is really poor.

we have free education, world class hospitals

and no crime, grime and grimness.

my friend, listened, with envy

and also rattled, by jaw dropping naivete

small problem, he said,

really minor, indeed

the only thing is: you were never, in fact, a colony.

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By Ritwik Agrawal |

This week NDTV 24×7 will be airing Kathryn Millard’s film, The Boot Cake at the following times:

The Bootcake – a film by Kathryn Millard – Part 2

July 11: 3 – 4 pm
July 12: 1 – 2 pm

A short synopsis (from NDTV)

A small desert town on the edge of western India’s famous salt plains is the unlikely home of the world’s largest population of Charlie Chaplin impersonators. The Charlie Circle of Adipur embraces businessmen, shopkeepers, a doctor who prescribes Chaplin movies for medicinal purposes, teachers, engineers, students and a three-year-old pre-schooler. They all share a passion for the silent film star of the early 1900s, with his twirling cane, wobbly walk and agitated eyebrows.

Award-winning Australian film-maker Kathryn Millard stumbled across the beguiling Charlie Circle during research for another film project. She was immediately invited to join their 116th birthday celebrations, which included a parade of Charlie look-alikes through town along with dancing girls, floats, strolling musicians and a camel. Would she do them the honour of bringing the grand centrepiece: the birthday cake?

And not just any cake, but one in the shape of a boot, as homage to the famous scene in The Gold Rush, where the starving Tramp boils and eats his own boot.

The Boot Cake is a wonderful, mad, poignant story of resilience and hope.

Comments (3)

By Ritwik Agrawal | July 2, 2009 3:42 pm

The following is a critique of Jean Drèze’s article Interpretation of Dreams published in the Times of India [April 28,2009]. Read it here

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In an article published in the Times of India, noted economist Jean Drèze has launched a stinging attack on the BJP [‘Interpretation of Dreams’, Apr 28], calling the preamble to the party manifesto an “exercise in obfuscation”.  Undoubtedly, the BJP’s politics is based upon deception. BJP ideologues, if given a free reign, would love to rewrite Indian history to suit their own world view. But in pointing out the excesses of the BJP’s rhetoric, Jean Drèze has swung to the other extreme. His article has ended up sounding, perhaps unwittingly, like an apologia for colonialism.

To take just one example, Drèze cites the Ramayana, Mahabharata et al to prove that famine existed in India and thus India was not a “land of abundance”. Famine has existed in all societies. What is pertinent is not just the occurrence of famine but the rate at which successive famines occur. W. Digby, noted in “Prosperous British India” in 1901 that :

stated roughly, famines and scarcities (in India) have been four times as numerous, during the last thirty years of the 19th century as they were one hundred years ago.

In Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis points out that here were thirty one serious famines in one hundred and twenty years of British rule compared to seventeen in the two thousand years preceding British rule.

It is generally accepted that this was because of the mercantilist economic policies thrust upon India by her colonial masters. Wikipedia tells us:  “British policies led to the seizure and conversion of local farmland to foreign-owned plantations, restrictions on internal trade, heavy taxation of Indians to support unsuccessful British expeditions in Afghanistan, inflationary measures that increased the price of food, and substantial exports of staple crops from India to Britain.” (Dutt, 1900 and 1902; Srivastava, 1968; Sen, 1982; Bhatia, 1985).

In view of this, it would be difficult even for an eminent economist like Jean Drèze to prove that economically, India was better off under the British than without them. It seems that Indians knew how to manage their agriculture better than their “advanced” colonial masters.

Does Indian nationalism exist? Do Indians have a sense of national pride, some sense of the history of their civilization?  Reading Drèze’s article, one would think that such sentiments would by and large be restricted to the so called upper castes. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Even though the BJP’s manifesto talks of the “hurt pride” of India, Drèze considers it appropriate to substitute India for “upper castes”. In doing so, he denies the freedom movement, which derived its strength from the support of various sections of society. In contemporary times, the BJP, according to Dreze’s argument, should be the natural party of so-called upper castes. But it derives its strength from so-called other backward classes [OBCs]. Examples of OBC stalwarts like Narendra Modi, Kalyan Singh and Vinay Katiyar can be cited and multiplied, but will it open Dreze’s eyes to the fact that the hurt pride of India does not constitute the hurt pride of upper castes only but also that of the under classes?

Colonial rule contributed not only to misery but also to cultural stagnation of Indian society. Most non-European societies had to undergo the painful experience of colonialism which didn’t allow indigenous modernity to grow organically. European ideas were thrust upon non-European people with minimum regard to their histories and experiences. Apart from pauperizing the colonies, colonialism broke the continuity of civilizations. In matters of caste too, colonialism wasn’t a silent spectator; it played an active role in altering caste dynamics. Thus, Indian society is unequal today both because of its own ills and because of the ills perpetuated by colonialism. Any comment on Indian society which fails to note this point, as Drèze’s intervention appears to, can hardly be deemed fair.

Medieval European society was characterized by widespread inequality and cruelty. Europe was witnessing “witch” burning on a massive scale; hundreds of thousands of women were most mercilessly put to death, often with the authorization of the Holy See. Europe’s dark past does not prompt scholars to dismiss achievements of European Civilization out of hand. Similarly, Drèze should not flippantly disregard Indian thought and tradition because society was (and is) unequal and discriminatory.

The problem with Drèze’s approach is that it concedes the patriotic space to the BJP – which in turn does not hesitate in making pernicious use of it. Undoubtedly, India has many failings, but at the same time there are real achievements to the credit of the Indian civilization. More than occasionally, Indians have been known to take pride in the achievements of their countrymen even if they are not related by caste. People may be attracted to support aggressive votaries of India “pride” when they see famed scholars casually dismissing the glories of India’s past.

The BJP is definitely given to constructing a romanticized ideal of ancient India as a society free from all defects. But equally, Drèze must examine his position and determine whether by denying the achievements of Indian civilization, does he manage to successfully ridicule the BJP or does he end up making himself ridiculous in the eyes of the average Indian?