The Perversity Of The Bhadralok Writ Large In Whataboutery

If it wasn’t for some quick student intervention, in support of outraged doctors and medical support staff,  the equally fast attempt at a cover up would probably have worked. Call it the Justice For Abhaya Movement.

The Kolkata intelligentsia, the vaunted and storied bhadralok, has lost its nerve in the face of lathi charges and tear gas. It sold out to the Mamata Banerjee government a decade ago and to the Communists who ruled for 34 years before that. The spine of the bhadralok, at the vanguard of leadership and reform in the 19^th century is broken.

So in the beginning of this protest it maintained a frightened silence and made only anodyne statements  days later carefully vetted to avoid giving offence to Mamata Banerjee and her cabinet. Perhaps they are more afraid of the TMC goon squads and the violence they can unleash.  They are probably wise to cower under the circumstances. Certainly, they are right to not expect any help or protection from the West Bengal police if they criticise the government or the party.

The Bengal BJP however is trying its best to attack the government via mega protest rallies. It is being stopped 4 km before  they can reach Swasthya Bhavan or the health ministry.

The handling of the latest ghastly rape and murder in Kolkata by the West Bengal police has shocked the whole nation in its blatant effort to destroy evidence, disturb the crime site, and protect the perpetrators.

But then, it was just as casual in its handling of the Sandeshkhali rapes of 2024 which they blamed on the BJP, the Hanskhali rape of 2022, the Kamduni gang-rapes of 2013 blamed on the Communists, the Park Street rape of 2012 where the victim was called a prostitute. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself set the stage, with her bizarre if self- serving remarks in each instance, and the state police that reports to her, took their cue from it. But this time, they might, or might not, be able to keep control.

The swaggering young principal of the R G Kar Medical College, Dr Sandip Ghosh, is the main villain of the piece. He  was grilled by the CBI. Ghosh, familiar with cases like this from earlier in his career, is puffed up with state government backing. He tried to pass it off as a suicide at first. He might have got away with it by brow-beating the poor parents and withholding the broken body till they caved in. But things spiralled up rapidly.

 The other doctors and medical staff, and not just in this establishment, but from all over Kolkata, West Bengal, and elsewhere in the country, the students in Kolkata and nationally, the outraged social media, the Calcutta High Court that forced the state government to hand over investigations to the CBI, the Supreme Court that took suo moto notice of the savage gang rape, torture, and murder all played their part. The relentless media coverage also did its best to prevent the cover up and secure justice for the victim.

After Dr Sandip Ghosh stepped down, the other senior doctors at the college were initially retained to take his place, but were swept out and transferred to other government state hospitals in Kolkata, four of them in all, including the head of the department of Chest Medicine, the victim’s department, at the insistence of the student protesters. The swelling discontent is now asking for the resignation of Mamata Banerjee.

 The savage treatment meted out to a 31 year-old post-graduate trainee woman doctor, an only child from a poor family, in a leading Kolkata government hospital, was reminiscent in its brutality and callousness to the Nirbhaya gang rape, torture and murder in New Delhi more a decade ago in 2012. It is as if nothing has changed between Nirbhaya and Abhaya despite tightening of the rape laws.

But the Kolkata Bhadralok that should have jumped into the fray with fierce condemnation, were sorely wanting. West Bengal with its revered Durga Puja and Kali Puja coming up shortly and its pretensions to being cultured, was  once thought to be most respectful of women. But, if that ever existed in reality, it clearly does not exist now. The bhadralok, vociferous in support of various TMC initiatives, has nothing much to say in this instance. Instead, it is in agreement with the TMC line that horrible rapes followed by murders take place regularly in other states too. They are indeed unfortunate and tragic, but the West Bengal government and its police department were being singled out and unfairly targeted. Much of the opposition in the INDI Alliance echoed these sentiments too. On social media they point out the recent rape and murder in Dehradun. They are willing to wear black bands.

To compound the lack of empathy in most cases, some said the unfortunate victim must have done something to deserve it. She was allegedly about to expose corruption involving medicines, hospital beds, sale of cadavers, and this had angered a lot of people. Was she blackmailing some people? What was she doing in the conference room so late at night? Why had she accepted night shift work at all?

The students and fellow doctors and the odd outraged citizen protested, of course, and were threatened roundly by the TMC goons for their trouble. TMC ministers threatened to sack the protesting doctors and dock their pay till the Supreme Court said they will not be penalised.  One former female TMC member of parliament was threatened with rape online for supporting the protests. A twelve-year old boy was arrested for wishing harm to the chief minister.  Mamata Banerjee is also the home minister with the police reporting directly to her.

The police did such a clumsy cover up job that the three judge Supreme Court bench, including the CJI, holding live televised hearings of the proceedings was appalled. Why, for instance, was the FIR filed, not by the medical college, but the hapless father of the victim, after the post-mortem was conducted? Other reports say the FIR was filed some hours after the hurried cremation of the unfortunate victim.

The question in everyone’s mind is why is Mamata Banerjee and the TMC so keen to cover-up this affair? Why was the dissenting TMC functionary who spoke in favour of the victim hauled up? What was going on in RG Kar Medical College that the victim was likely to have exposed?

How many rapists and abusers were involved, and who are they, in addition to the sole person arrested, a totally remorseless Sanjoy Roy, who was apparently part of the erstwhile principal Dr Sandip Ghosh’s security team. He was allowed to live in the adjacent police barracks. This, even though he was only a volunteer and general tout.  Roy is said to be mentally disturbed and perverse, with a smart phone full of pornography. He was allegedly a frequent visitor to the Kolkata red-light district of Sonagachhi. Were the other perpetrators doctors too? Sanjoy Roy is not talking.

The CBI has submitted its findings in a sealed cover to the Supreme Court (SC), and the hearings are ongoing. However not only the Kolkata police but the West Bengal government has been criticised by the SC.

The West Bengal government is being represented by Senior Counsel Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, while the CBI is represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta.

The SC has now mandated that the CRPF will guard the RG Kar Medical College in addition to the Kolkata police going forward. The failure of law and order, a state subject, is clearly pointed towards. Right now, the Rapid Action Force has been brought in to control the protests.

Just like in Bangladesh, where the intelligentsia was in support of the Awami League and the erstwhile government of Sheikh Hasina, the Kolkata bhadralok is highly compromised.  As they abdicated all responsibility in terms of a vocal presence, it was up to the students and opposition BNP supported by the Islamists. It was they who took the  allegedly undemocratic Sheikh Hasina government down - with crucial help from the Bangladesh Army after the police failed the protestors. Will this volatile situation in Kolkata escalate into a popular revolt against the Mamata Banerjee government? It will surely be supported by the Bengal BJP which is the principal opposition. Meanwhile the crack downs against all protests continue while questions about democracy are raised, not by the bhadralok, but the media.

(1,412 words)

August 22^nd 2024

For: Squirrels.in

Gautam Mukherjee

 

 

Extradition Of Sheikh Hasina To Bangladesh Is Not Likely

While two or three murder, abduction, torture, genocide etc. charges against Sheikh Hasina have sprouted since well after her ouster from power and safe passage to India, they hardly qualify as legal challenges. They do not, as they stand, hold up under universal ‘burden of proof’ criteria. Or in terms of the much more pedestrian extradition treaty of 2013, between India and Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina was deposed nearly a fortnight ago, on August 5th.

Sheikh Hasina was air-lifted to India, first to Assam, and then to near New Delhi, along with her family, in Bangladesh military air transports. She was accompanied by an escort of Bangladesh military personnel, and set flight after permission was obtained via the Indian ambassador to Dhaka and India’s external affairs ministry. The Bangladeshi military personnel along with their aeroplane left the Hindon Airbase near the capital, after a day, leaving Sheikh Hasina and her family behind in India.  

The nature of Sheikh Hasina’s departure from Bangladesh in a bloodless coup engineered by the Bangladesh military, suggests, as in other such circumstances, immunity from subsequent prosecution, probably in return for her immediate resignation.

Sheikh Hasina was the elected head of the Bangladesh government, whereas the current government is nominated by the military. Her present refuge in India is based on a long history of good relations with India. However, she is here temporarily, and has not sought either asylum or political refugee status.

Meanwhile, India is bracing for the possibility of a large influx of Bangladeshi Hindu refugees and other people from her Awami League Party that are facing hostility in Bangladesh. India is maintaining a vigil on the border and working with the current Bangladeshi government to stabilise the situation.

India is already host to crores of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants that have arrived over the years. They have not been pushed back in the interest of good neighbourly relations with Sheikh Hasina’s government. These include the dangerous and disruptive Rohingyas, originally from Myanmar. However, India’s attitude to harbouring all these Bangladeshi illegals could change, based on the behaviour and manifest attitude of the new government.

The murder and other charges against Sheikh Hasina were posted since her departure, mostly by affected citizens. All of them happened after she left the country, and could be interpreted as an afterthought. The Bangladeshi courts themselves are yet to admit any of these cases, let alone consider them.

The erstwhile Chief Justice of Bangladesh was also ousted and replaced through the action of a revolutionary mob. The current judiciary will be struggling to maintain its autonomy in the presently charged atmosphere.

The 2013 extradition treaty with Bangladesh was hardly designed to extradite former heads of state. It was a construct put together to apprehend mostly convicted criminals from India or Bangladesh who might have run away across the border.  How often it has been used is another question, given the many illegals found in all parts of India including the national capital. These illegals work as domestic helpers, construction workers, and at other humble jobs. Unfortunately, they also contribute to a fifth column, from those that are radicalised, to the criminal, flesh and drug trading cohorts, and the terrorist/rioting element. They have been caught more than once engaged in such practices.  

A reported three hundred people were killed in the recent unrest leading up to Sheikh Hasina’s resignation. This was hurriedly forced upon her by the Chief of the Bangladesh Army in person. However, these casualty numbers include a number of police and other security personnel, ordinary citizens, students, party officials and workers from the Awami League and BNP, people on both sides of the conflict. There was also extensive arson, illegal destruction of government property and monuments, private property, mob-lynchings, before and after the fall of the Awami League government.

Post the ouster, there was wilful slaughter of Awami League personnel, of minorities, particularly Hindus who were said to be backing the Awami League, rape and other atrocities. All this was largely unchecked by the Bangladesh security forces. These constitute human rights violations on the grand scale. The same sort of thing that the new mob accuses Sheikh Hasina and her people of.

However, one of the cases filed relates to an alleged abduction way back in 2015.None of them involve Sheikh Hasina personally, though the deaths and other actions have been attributed to her.

The interim government, cobbled together after Sheikh Hasina’s departure, is unelected, inexperienced, and no deadline has been announced for fresh elections. Some reports indicate that this unelected government may continue for a prolonged period.

The head of the advisory government is the 83 year-old Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Laureate for his work with the Grameen Bank, a micro-lending institution. Yunus has come back from exile in Paris as he was not in favour with the Hasina government. He also faced a number of corruption charges.  

Does this largely advisory and de facto government, headed by Yunus and propped up by the Bangladesh Army, have the legitimate authority to conduct the affairs of state, let alone seek Sheikh Hasina’s extradition?

The de facto foreign minister Mohammed Touhid Hossain said on August 15^th, 2024 said his government will soon decide on the demand for Sheikh Hasina’s extradition based on inputs from its home and law ministers.

The students, central to the quota stir, have already announced they will be forming a political party of their own, to get away from the bipolarity of the Awami League and the Islamist backed BNP. So, this implies elections will be held eventually, or at least the students think so.

Hindus still constitute about 8% of Bangladesh’s 170 million population, down from nearly 20% at Partition in 1947. Their decline in numbers has been called a ‘drip-drip genocide’ by a commentator. Muhammad Yunus has assured India and the community of their safety. But more time must go by, amidst reports of blackmail and demands for extortion money to ensure their self-same safety.

The Bangladesh economy which was doing well under Sheikh Hasina must be stabilised by the new government. The challenge is to not descend in chaos in the name of religious fundamentalism, or fall under the sway of foreign entities keen on dominating in Bangladesh. It is important for Bangladesh to maintain cordial relations with nuclear weaponised India next door for the sake of its very economy and security. It would be well advised not to do anything provocative vis a vis India at the instigation of foreign agencies.

Demanding the extradition of Sheikh Hasina will not be acceded to by India. It is shortly, perhaps as early as the end of this fiscal, to become the 3^rd largest major economy in the world. India won’t buckle to Bangladeshi pressure. Souring of relations with India may be music to Chinese and Pakistani ears, but is not in the best interests of Bangladesh itself.

(1,145 words)

August 17^th, 2024

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Who Is The Fascist In Germany?

What is going on in Germany now is deeply ironic, given the left-leaning German coalition government’s penchant for criticising India at every turn. It does so, supported by its leftist media like Der Spiegel and DW, using slanted, prejudiced, badly-researched, false, and spurious information.

It calls India out on its alleged communalism, human-rights violations, the ‘occupation of Kashmir’, repression of Khalistanis, Hindu majoritarianism, persecution of minorities, including Christians and Muslims. They could not find a way to criticise India’s economic handling, because it will very soon overtake Germany, growing as it is, at a good rate of 7% p.a. compared to Germany’s 0.2%.

You would be forgiven to assume that Germany must be a paragon of virtue. And yet, it is clear that it cannot stomach criticism coming its own way. It cracks down just like the former Nazi fascists it accuses the Far-Right of admiring.

Nevertheless, the German left, government and media alike, tend to believe their own lies. It is seen they do not listen to our protests or mend their ways. Left-run Germany also does not care for India’s neutral stance on the Ukraine War, and indeed its close bilateral relationship with Russia.

So much so, that Germany has been reluctant to share high technology for submarines with India. This has changed now because of its economic desperation.  

Now Germany has taken a U turn and is very keen to collaborate with us on the submarines, despite a very close relationship with China, its largest trading partner. Which, of course, probably has something to do with the supercilious  anti-India stance in the first place.

On the other hand, highly admired German luxury cars are sold widely in India and are much in demand.

While Olaf Scholz is Chancellor now, and visited India recently during the G20 Summit in New Delhi, the four earlier terms of arch-leftist Angela Merkel were anti-Indian too. At the same time Germany’s trade with China boomed, albeit in China’s favour.

Merkel also let in millions of refugees from war-torn Syria, partially to address a labour shortage for the menial jobs. So, in a very real sense, it is the excesses of the long-serving Leftist governments that have given rise to the Right today.

Inevitably, the immigrants are now asserting themselves. Many have moved up the ladder from the menial jobs. Ones shortly off the boat are more rough and ready. They assert their Islamic identity quite vigorously, even violently, to the dismay of the local White population.

And yet, its Right Wing wants the Americans out and not just the immigrants, and friendship with Russia in its place. Perhaps it is they, now being persecuted by their own government, who understand the shape of the future rather better. Germany has been suffering, more than others, with high gas prices, after being forced by  an outdated NATO to cut off the Russian gas, for example.

The latest move of this left-liberal German government is to crack down on the anti-immigrant, anti-refugee, and anti-minority movement, mostly amongst growing numbers of White Germans.

Suddenly, two days ago, the government acted. It caused a sensation in the international media, when it shut down a right wing magazine, calling it anti-semitic to boot. It conducted fascist-style raids to close down the print, online and film organisation and ban its operations. It was blatant state-sponsored censorship. 

Earlier the German government, made up of three left-leaning parties, also froze the bank accounts of people who donated money to any group the government declared to be ‘far right’.  

The causes for the crack-down are probably deeper. The German Federal Government’s Interior Ministry, is rattled by an upswing in support for the Right Wing political party Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD). That is why it raided and shut down the most influential right wing Compact Magazine. It also shut down its associated film production company Conspect Film.

This action, which may be held illegal by the courts, also flies in the face of Germany’s ‘counterspeech doctrine’ that was meant to allow contrary viewpoints in the interests of democracy.

Raids were conducted at the offices and homes of Compact functionaries to confiscate assets and evidence.

Compact Magazine had a print run of 40,000 copies and a much larger online following of around 350,000. Justifying the closure, Interior Minister Nancy Faesar called Compact a ‘Mouthpiece of the far-right extremist scene’.

Compact was cited as a ‘nexus’ for various right wing extremist and xenophobic groups including not only the very popular AfD, but also the Pegida and Identitarian movements. AfD came second in the European parliamentary elections recently and ran at first place in most of the East German states. So it cannot be dismissed as irrelevant from the political landscape.

While the German government cited threats to the constitution by closing down and banning Compact and Conspect, it actually has an Article 5 that guarantees freedom of speech, expression, and opinion to its citizens.

How bogus rankings can be, is illustrated by the 2008 Freedom in the World  report by the US funded Freedom House  that gave Germany a score of ‘1’, the best possible, for both political rights and civil liberties. The German press freedom index number for 2024 was 83.84, ranking it 10^th globally.

The reason for banning and shutting down Compact now is thought to be because German federal elections are coming up soon and the Left Wing wants to weaken AfD.

Editor-in-chief Jurgen Elsasser of the erstwhile monthly Compact magazine liked to irk the government by using slogans like ‘Americans go home’ and ‘Friendship with Russia’ at events of the far right.  

The shut-down and ban is unlikely to quell the unhappiness of the general public with the way the leftist governments have been handling things, and their lacklustre performance. It may seem decisive now but it could come back to haunt them.

(972 words)

July 18^th, 2024

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Reliance Jio Bharti Airtel and Now Adani Enterprises Compete To Roll Out 5G

Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have completed an All-India rollout of 5G networks. They have cumulatively aggregated over 100 million 5G customers according to Julian Gorman Head of Asia Pacific (APAC), GSMA. Gorman was speaking at the 7^th edition of the ETTelecom 5G/6G Congress 2024 held in March at London. Both Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have recently raised their rates, cartel-fashion, in an effort to be profitable.

The potential number of users in a country of 1.4 billion plus people is the great attraction. There are more than a billion phones in use already (1.18 billion per 2021 data). And a large proportion, even at the bottom of the pyramid, are smart phones, used at a minimum for entertainment streaming and the like. 5G will work faster and better. The gross revenue from the telecom industry was Rs 64, 801 crores ($8.74 billion) in the first quarter of FY 22 as per government data from then. At least another 500 million new internet users will be added in India in the five years from 2022 to 2027.

The prospects have recently lured the Adani Group also into the fray. This, after  it spent time denying that it intended to do so.

However, even with three big contenders, the competition is likely to intensify, and might grow uncomfortable. The pie is big enough to go around, and there is no absolute necessity to step on each other’s toes. Having said that, it will have to be a discovery process in tier 2,3, and 4 cities, even as jostling each other in the metro cities could benefit the consumer, if not the provider. The government will gain from further spectrum sales. Adani has only bought limited spectrum so far for its operations in Gujarat, and not enough to roll out a consumer foray.

Rural India too will be served much better than before, probably using satellite linkages, the cost of which will have to be absorbed by the companies till the  consumer numbers are large enough and viably clustered.

The other weak player in the current mix in India is Vodafone Idea (VI), back from the dead, but still ailing.  VI has succeeded in only rolling out a network in four circles it operates in, with the four vendors there. This is a minimum rollout obligation (MRO), to stay in the game, even though Vodafone Idea has not succeeded in rolling out a commercial network as yet.

 As of the end of 2023, some 5.6 billion people worldwide are using mobile telephony. Of these 58% are using broadband and 18% of these users are now using 5G. And the data usage per consumer in the second largest market for mobile telephony in the world and probably the cheapest, is growing exponentially.

The lucrative nature of the telecommunications beast has attracted both the Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Group and the Adanis. These groups are matched in size. Both are simultaneously in heavier businesses, the former anchored in petrochemicals and refining, and the latter in ports, infrastructure, transshipments. It is only Bharti Airtel that is mainly, and one might broadly suggest, only in telecommunications. Bharti has encountered some headwinds in its efforts to stay profitable, not being in a position to cross fertilise its yields.

India is rapidly establishing itself as the most digitalised country in the world. It is inexpensive, accurate, swift and relatively safe if all protocols are followed. More and more Indians are learning to trust the process, as the government vigorously promotes digital usage.

Mukesh Ambani was indeed an early entrant into telecommunications, but had to back off after the Reliance Group was divided between himself and his younger brother Anil. There was a seven-year period during which he could not compete with the Anil Ambani led Reliance Communications. At the end of this period, there was a second coming, christened Reliance Jio. Because of very competitive pricing and deep pockets, Reliance Jio soon built-up enviable numbers, both in terms of subscribers and market share. Reliance Communications meanwhile, sadly failed.  

Principal rival and survivor Bharti Airtel was helped by its win of the Mumbai and Delhi circles early in the day. Others, like Escotel, eventually collapsed after making heavy losses, because its/their circles were not so creamy. There were not many survivors out of a dozen that existed in 2016. Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance actually got a chance to launch afresh with free calls and cheap data. It soon gained a 40% market share.

Based on the Vodafone experience, presumably other international mobile telephony companies will stay away from India’s mass market, even in joint venture, because of its low rates. They may, at best become passive investors and leave the operations to the Indian operators.

The 6G rollout is also lurking in the wings, and happily, all three big players are able to take care of its demands. China had hoped to roll it out, along with 5G at cut-throat prices, not just in India but in Europe, America, and Canada. But it was not possible to allow it because of spying suspicions and security concerns. China would have done better to not be so predatory but it never seems to learn.

The Reliance Group has entered hospitality, retail, fashion, toys, hydrogen. Adani is in real estate development, green energy. Both are seeking multiple touch points with the consuming and aspirational public. The Ambani children are already at the helm of many of these new companies, with the 67 year old patriarch as overseer, patron and facilitator.

One can’t say about Bharti Airtel, because of its lack of diversification, but it is likely that both the Reliance Group and the Adanis will emerge soon as trillion dollar conglomerates. They will be willing and able to contribute even more to the mission of India becoming a developed country in all respects by 2047, our centenary year.

(976 words)

July 17^th, 2024

For: thesquirrels.in

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Mukesh And Nita Ambani Organise An Industrial Scale Sanatani Dharma Wedding With Glitzy Celebrations Over Four Months For National And International Guests

This was the mother and father of tradition observing, and yet modern, big fat Hindu Wedding. Perhaps this is a contradiction in terms, but as the saying goes ‘we are like this only’.

This wedding will be difficult to surpass in scale, size, banquetry, jewels, watches,  presents,wedding outfits, vehicles, jets on hire, star power, associated  razz-ma-tazz -  a potent messaging for years to come.  It is a wedding that has set a record on par with anything that went on in the reign of Louis IV, the Sun King, at Versailles, or at the coronation of the Emperor Bokassa I in the Central African Republic (CAR). Except, here, the essential difference is that the Ambanis will not go bankrupt. Far, very far, from it.

The wedding most deliberately flies in the face of Gandhian simplicity, Macaulay induced squeamishness, notions of taste and vulgarity sought to be imposed by some.

And yet, it ran true to the best traditions of Sanatan Dharma. The Ambanis conducted a Bhandara in Mumbai for four months that fed hundreds of people. They organised and paid for mass weddings of poor people with gifts of clothes, gold for the brides, and rupees one lakh each for the grooms.

Their own celebrations and wedding was unabashed, massive, exuberant and cost some $156 million. Some say, the preliminary bash at Jamnagar alone cost $150 million.

Mukesh and Nita Ambani, who head their second-generation business along with Mukesh’s mother Kokilaben, find themselves near the top of Indian industry. They have spent an estimated 0.5% of their wealth on the four month wedding extravaganza. But then, Mukesh Ambani, 67, is the richest man in Asia, and the 9^th richest man in the world, with a personal net worth of about $ 124 billion.

The wedding and celebrations were criticised by the usual suspects, who want India to be seen as an impoverished country and feel threatened by this strong show of  North Indian Hindu tradition and culture. The Ambanis however are used to it. They put on a similar show for the marriage of their daughter Isha in 2018, for which they had invited American entertainer Beyonce.

This wedding will take time to sink in for its full import, but it spoke to the world of the coming of age, not just of a leading industrial group, but of the Bharat of 2024. One that is on its way shortly to becoming the 3^rd largest economy in the world. One that will go from a $ 4 trillion in GDP to three times as much at the very least, fuelled by its 7% growth rate, the biggest amongst major economies in the world. A country that believes it will be a developed country in every respect by its centenary year 2047.

 The pre-wedding celebrations were kicked off at the Ambani petrochemical complex and city of Jamnagar. Dozens of national and international big-wigs came to it among the 1,200 guests. They included Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.  This time, Rihanna came to perform, as did many Bollywood stars. Diljit Dosanjh  electrified the audience with his performance.

It is also there in Jamnagar that Anant Ambani, the groom, and the youngest Ambani son, works and lives as the resident Director in-charge. Anant Ambani has also created an animal hospital and sanctuary over 3,000 acres in the area. This too was unveiled to the public as an opener, with Anant emphasising it was a sanctuary for traumatised and injured animals, including elephants, and not a zoo.

The Ambanis have restored and rebuilt scores of Hindu temples in the Jamnanagar-Chorwad area in Gujarat, which they hail from. One or two of the temples were featured in the media recently, as part of the wedding build up.

The Ambanis are also major sponsors of Lord Krishna temples, including the Shrinathji Temple, at Nathdwara in Rajasthan. Here too, they made preliminary visits leading up to the auspicious occasion.

Wedding celebrations continued aboard a yacht in Italy, during a four-day cruise in June, from Palermo to the South of France with stops in Rome, Portofino, Genoa and Cannes for a series of parties. Several international singers including The Backsteet Boys and Kate Perry were engaged to entertain the selected eight hundred odd guests. Several restaurants were engaged to provide vegetarian fare such as focaccia, paneer tikka-beetroot, and goat-cheese kebabs. In addition there were lobster sandwiches.

Many locals however, were irate, at the taking over of Portofino exclusively for the Ambani guests. The Genovese complained about the loud music till nearly dawn.The Ambanis paid for the privilege, and all the local authorities were satisfied, if not the uninvited local media.

 And the wedding celebrations culminated in multi-day ceremonies and occasions in Mumbai in mid July.

Prime Minister Modi attended the Ashirwad, held the day after the nuptials.  The final celebrations were entertained by American singer Justin Beiber. The several days here were attended by most of India’s A list actors, others like John Cena, Kim Kardashian, politicians from the ruling party and the opposition, former British prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, cricket superstars Sachin Tendulkar and Mahendar Singh Dhoni.

But contrast this with our earlier projections. Fortunately, long gone are the days when Prime Minister Nehru called in a snake charmer to amuse Jacqueline Kennedy in the 1960s - nearly twenty years after independence. A telling photograph of the event was followed up by Mrs Kennedy becoming a guest of the Maharaja of Jaipur to live in a palace, enjoy royal banquets and entertainments, and witness polo matches.

Nothing much was done, it seems, to change the Kiplingesque ‘Jungle Book’ style image of an India of Gunga Din, Fakirs on beds of nails, others who could climb an unsupported rope, and of course, tigers that roamed the forests, still allowed to be hunted by VIP guests from Britain. And yes, snake charmers for the King Cobras.

Prime Minister Nehru saw no contradiction between his ardent Fabian Socialist principles and admiration of Soviet five-year plans which India aped. Alongside, he established the first of top-class government financed higher education institutions, dams, heavy industry. Heavy industry was to take up the ‘commanding heights of the economy’, and be regarded as the modern ‘temples’.

Nehru was notoriously against promoting Hindu temples, Sanatan Dharma and its traditions, because he thought they were both majoritarian, and obscurantist to boot. He stoutly opposed the restoration of Somnath Temple destroyed by Islamic invaders, including Allauddin Khilji, for example. It still got done, with the help of first President of India, Rajendra Prasad and others.   

Subsequent years after Nehru, but persistent socialism inflicted shortages of everything, saw restrictions on the number of wedding guests, scarcity of milk that occasioned bans on milk based sweet meats for weddings and ceremonies. Things were so bad it is difficult to believe nowadays.  

Today we still have erstwhile Maharajahs, but they do much more than play polo and take pictures of wild animals they are banned from hunting. Some are politicians, others are hoteliers, conservationists and industrialists.

 Yes, we are proudly Hindu, but we are also doing everything possible to realise our potential in the modern world. The spectacular wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant is a tribute to this fact.

(1,208 words)

July 14^th, 2024

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

The Original Sin Of A Badly Managed Brexit Eventually Led To The End Of Conservative Rule Of 14 years

The landslide Labour Party victory in Britain after 14 years could be beneficial for the India-UK relationship. Britain should be hungry for trade, industrial collaboration and new markets, and India could provide a very lucrative opportunity. The outgoing Tory government has failed to fill the trade vacuum after Brexit, even though the referendum and vote to exit came eight years ago.

With India, Rolls Royce has signed an agreement, but only as recently as January 2024, to work with India’s Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited (GRSE), to manufacture MTU Series 4000 Marine Engines in India for the Indian Navy and Coast Guard. Rolls Royce makes a range of state-of-the-art naval application engines. This, at GRSE’s Diesel Engine manufacturing plant at Ranchi. Rolls Royce has also signed a seven-year agreement with Azad Engineering, based in Hyderabad, for it to manufacture critical components for its aircraft engines, again at end January 2024.  

More initiatives in line with India’s atmanirbhar defence manufacturing policy could be welcomed by New Delhi. Let us hope the incoming Labour government acts with more urgency than its predecessor. The FTA agreement should have been finalised at least a couple of Diwalis ago, but Keir Starmer has already referred to it as a priority on the campaign trail.

The ‘original sin’ as far as domestic politics in Britain is concerned, was committed by the Tories, when they held the 2016 referendum on Brexit. This act, under David Cameron as prime minister, was expected to result in a negative vote against leaving the EU. Instead, as is often the case in such yes or no binary votes, the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU. It was a narrow thing, 48% against to 52% for, but it illustrated the famous British class divide. The poor and working class voted to leave EU, the middle classes and above wanted to stay part of Europe.

David Cameron, an upper class ‘toff’, most recently acting as Rishi Sunak’s Foreign Minister, had also risked his arm with Scotland in a similar referendum in 2014. There, only 44% voted for Scottish independence, while an unprecedented 86% of the electorate voted in that referendum. And so, Cameron thought to repeat the feat with regard to the EU.

The Scottish vote had gone along the lines expected. It proved to be a setback for the separatists including Scotland’s then ‘First Minister’ Nicola Sturgeon and leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP). Sturgeon worked as head of SNP from Cameron’s day to the early part of Rishi Sunak’s prime ministership, but with no real traction for SNP’s separatist plank.  

Coming to today, in the 2024 election, the Labour Party took most of the Scottish seats, with the separatist SNP Party nearly wiped out, winning just 9 seats. Scotland definitely does not want to leave the United Kingdom.

David Cameron promptly resigned after the Brexit vote, and left the matter of negotiating Brexit with the EU to his successor. After that, Tory prime ministers came thick and fast trying to get out of the EU with reasonable terms. Of these, the oft described as ‘bizarre’ Boris Johnson was the most successful. But Britain has not recovered from this radical surgery still. And amongst other things that brought Tory rule to a decisive end 14 years later, Brexit is one of the thorniest thorns embedded deep in the flesh of subsequent economic woes.

Anti-incumbency is a hydra headed thing, and most analysts advance more recent causes such as high prices, unemployment, withdrawal of a host of subsidies that have made it harder to live. The government revenues have proved inadequate and further borrowings have become unsustainable.  Inflation is rampant, and prices have sky-rocketed. So much so, that ordinary people are struggling to put food on the table.

Illegal immigration, taking scarce jobs from those who most need them, is a hot button issue that the Tories have tried and failed to tackle.

Meanwhile, The Labour Party has been reforming itself. It got a new, centrist leader along the ‘New Labour’ lines of the very successful Tony Blair.

Keir Starmer, the PM elect, exudes a kind of stodgy dependability that lacks the Blair charm and silver tongue. It won Blair the Labour victory and prime ministership in 1997. But Starmer is well away from the dour resentfulness and anti-semitism of his Labour Party predecessor Jeremy Corbyn. He is, however, not that far in image from former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, 2007-2010. Brown was earlier a successful Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is credited with reforming Britain’s monetary and fiscal policy under Tony Blair.

The 61 year old Starmer is a barrister who has been a human rights lawyer. He has no truck with the radical element in his party, though he recognises that they too get elected by Labour voters. Still, it is his centrist ways that has given the Labour Party a landslide victory with  412 seats in a 625 seat lower house at Westminster. The Tories are likely to end with 121.

 Meanwhile even as he conceded defeat and congratulated Starmer and the Labour Party, Rishi Sunak won his seat at Richmond and Northallerton. So did the anti-immigrant right-wing former Tory minister Suella Braverman that Sunak fired for insubordination. This, even as most of the Tory ministers lost.

Hard Right Reform UK Party leader Nigel Farage won his seat at Clacton on the 8^th attempt. Along with three others from his party, he will now be heard not just in the media but at Westminster too. The Liberal Democrats are likely to end up with about 71 seats to make up the third largest block in the British parliament.

The people of Britain have voted for change, and the old orthodoxy that determined whether one was a Whig or Tory voter has become a thing of the past. The new mantra is perform or perish, and the British politician is getting used to an electorate without loyalists.

(990 words)

July 5^th, 2024

For:Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

 

Cannot Wish The Right Wing Away In Europe Anymore

High prices, low growth, imposition costs of a green transition, rampant and disruptive immigration that preys on limited resources, all have contributed to the rise of right-wing and far-right parties in Western Europe.

An immigrant that does not say thank you, instead attempts to impose its foreign will, is a big departure from earlier waves of foreign arrivals. Then the newcomer tried his best to integrate with the ethos of the host country and in a few years succeeded in doing so.  

The hard-liners amongst the right-wingers alone will win about 25% of the seats in the EU assembly at Brussels, in elections conducted on the 9^th of June. Predictably, they are already demanding a say in policy in proportion to their expected strength.  

The current centre-right leadership of the EU under Ursula Von der Leyen and her European People’s Party (EPP), as the biggest group, can hold out for now. It can possibly win a second term too. The EPP can obtain a majority after the counting is done, with some moderate Right-Wing support, such as from Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy.  

Meloni has extended a warm invitation to perceived fellow right-wing leader Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to attend the outreach sessions of the G7 Summit Italy is currently hosting. Prime Minister Modi is expected to attend for a day very soon now.

So far, the radical Right, unlike Meloni’s moderate Right, has not been able to unite, but once that happens, it will be difficult to stave them off in European politics. Nationalist prime ministers are already in place in Hungary, Italy, and Slovakia, and right-wing parties are in the government of several other countries.

The right-wing reaction is to past liberal immigration policies that led to a flood of mainly Islamic middle easterners, both legal, and illegal - boat people and overland infiltrators. They do provide cheap labour but at what cost? They have come typically from Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, plus the countries of North Africa, Turkiye.

These immigrants, with aggressive anti-western attitudes, are unable to identify with the liberal post-war Judeo-Christian ethic and way of life.

So they resort to violence in the name of Allah, indulge in gang-based molestation of women, rape, murder. In their culture they do not allow uncovered women in public. And going to the West to avail of a better standard of living does not mean one has to accept their ways.

The targets willy nilly are the very native White populations. These indigenous Europeans are now fed up with immigrants exhorting them to give up their sinful ways and adopt Islam. The immigrants themselves tend to live in ghettoes that they barricade. They refuse to let the state police or other authorities into their areas even as they seek to introduce Shariah laws for their community.

In reaction to this daylight hijacking, the right-wing has now mobilised politically. Their parties are dedicated to resisting such immigrant dictation. Many want the immigrants deported and the laws tightened.

The right-wing has many other grouses beyond immigration. They resent the perceived excesses of the Green Movement, the banning of cars based on Co2 emissions, for example. They do not like orders from a bureaucratic council in Brussels. They increasingly find the EU itself stifling and restrictive, but have shelved the earlier ideas of wrecking it in favour of influencing it from within.

The people who back these right-wing organisations often disagree with prevailing economic policy they see as anti-nationalist. Likewise, many governance issues are not perceived to be in their best interests. The liberal dispensation and its court systems have laws that make matters worse by allowing the immigrants, for example, to conduct themselves with impunity.

Right-wing parties such as the Swiss People’s Party, dominate in Switzerland even though it is not in the EU. Far-rightists rule in Italy, Brothers of Italy, Lega. In Hungary it is the Fidesz. The right-wing Finns Party is part of the government in Finland. In Sweden, the right-wing Swedish Democrats are prominent. In Serbia, the right-wing United Serbia is in a dominant place.

In the recent EU elections, centre-right and far-right parties have done well in France and Germany, the two biggest economies in the EU. As results trickle in, we see that in France, the far-right Nationalist Rally has already won a big victory. Early results suggest the right-wing would win 32% of the vote, double the votes in favour of Macron’s liberals. In reaction, President Emmanuel Macron has promptly dissolved parliament and called for a snap election. If he loses still, will the right-wing under Marie Le Pen treat India with the same warmth? Most likely, as the French Right is not opposed in any way to the Modi government or the NDA.

In Germany, the centre-right is likely to win the largest number of seats followed by the far-right AfD, expected to bag second place. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Socialists cannot hope for more than coming in third. Again, India should have no difficulty dealing with Germany. In fact, the collaboration and technology transfer mechanics with the Germans could well do better. The left-leaning penchant for finger-wagging will be discontinued.

The story of the tilt towards the Right repeats itself in almost all of the 27-member country EU. And the trend line is unmistakeable.

There is a similar movement in America, with the rising possibility of Donald Trump and a decidedly conservative Republican Party winning a second term in November.

Some analysts are pointing towards a similar rightwards trend globally, though the liberal- left is also tightening its belt. Is this because of tougher economic struggles that affect everybody? The rising intolerance towards foreign immigration certainly points in that direction. Initiatives of government that further burden the tax payer rather than strengthening his arm are becoming unpopular. When they are intended to potentially benefit the cause of planetary issues such as global warming, it becomes all the more annoying because people issues should have come first.

In fact, globalisation, once the buzzword for progress, is now regarded as an inconvenience to be controlled. Import tariffs are going up and restrictive visa regimes are being imposed.

It may be impossible to retreat behind protectionist walls beyond a point, but national interests, rather than international ones, are the new points of emphasis.

Is this going to slow progress? If it does, countries around the world, and not just in Europe, seem to be prepared for it. The idea of gaining what you lose on the swing road being made up at the roundabout, is presently not very popular. The generosity of globalisation is being replaced by ‘me first’ policies. Is this cyclic and likely to revert to form once the economic conditions improve? Probably not. The bilateral give and take is the more likely model going forward, rather than outfits like the WTO or some UN agency.

(1,145 words)

May 10^th, 2024

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee