Stochasticity, Parliament Attack, Great Land Grab and A Beautiful Poem On Being A Palestinian
And more of course!
Imagine yourself outside your home. You are holding a balloon. It is windy. You have written something on your balloon. And you leave this balloon. It flies away. It flies over towns and villages, some 100 miles. And then lowers down and is picked by someone.
How much chance there is that the person who left this balloon and the person who received it have the same name (including the same last name) and, are of the same age?
That’s exactly what happened in real. That, and more on this interesting podcast from Radiolab.
“We hold human life sacred beyond words. We are neither perpetrators of dastardly outrages … nor are we ‘lunatics’ as … some others would have it believed,” Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt wrote in a statement responding to the public criticism of their throwing of smoke bombs and pamphlets in the Delhi central legislative assembly on 8 April 1929. Inspired by the actions of Auguste Vaillant, an anarchist who had bombed the French chamber of deputies, the two revolutionaries aimed to protest the passing of two repressive bills. They had planned to surrender after the act and use court appearances as a stage to publicise their cause. Singh and Dutt were sentenced to life imprisonment for “causing explosions of a nature likely to endanger life, unlawfully and maliciously.”
The scenes witnessed in the Indian parliament on 13 December 2023 were mimicking that incident from 94 years ago. Manoranjan D and Sagar Sharma threw smoke bombs in the Lok Sabha to draw the country’s attention to some of the grave problems that remain unaddressed by the government and unheard in television studios: inflation, authoritarianism, the situation in Manipur, and, above all, joblessness. Lest they be castigated as anti-nationals, videos show that Manoranjan and Sharma shouted “Bharat Mata Ki Jai.” The two were arrested, along with their other accomplices, and have been charged under the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The police have yet to find any links between the accused and any terror group or political party.
Terrorism is now a loaded term with negative connotations. But a century ago, it was just a tactic. One of Bhagat Singh’s fellow revolutionaries, Bhagwati Charan Vohra, explained this in the manifesto Philosophy of the Bomb, his response to MK Gandhi’s criticism of the “cult of the bomb.” Terrorism, Vohra wrote, “is a necessary and inevitable phase of the revolution. Terrorism is not the complete revolution, and the revolution is not complete without terrorism.”
The young lot who intruded into parliament, chose their date with great care, seemingly to expose the Modi government’s boasts of guaranteeing security. Exactly 22 years ago on 13 December, Pakistan-based armed militants had attempted to storm the parliament. The storming failed but only after nine people lost their lives. The whole country, and South Asia itself, was shaken by the incident, which resulted in the Vajpayee government mobilising the armed forces to the Pakistani border. The two countries were alarmingly close to war on at least two occasions, but, after six tenuous months, the situation de-escalated. The end result: 798 Indian soldiers dead. India had lost only 527 soldiers during the Kargil War.
No one died in the latest incident, but the breach of parliament’s security was more embarrassing than the 2001 attack. The weakest link was the Bharatiya Janata Party parliamentarian from Mysuru, Pratap Simha, who facilitated the entry of intruders into the Lok Sabha by recommending them for a visitors’ pass. It included a certification that the persons recommended for the pass were known to him. Simha has not been questioned—though he recorded a statement—let alone being charged with abetting terrorism, which would have been the case, in all likelihood, if it was an opposition member of parliament in his place. In 2012, a similar incident had occurred in Jammu and Kashmir when three people sitting in the visitors’ gallery suddenly jumped into the well of the legislative assembly, raising slogans against unemployment. BJP legislator Jagdish Raj Sapolia had recommended the VIP entry passes for the trio and had to subsequently apologise for the incident before the house. Simha has not apologised and the Modi government, along with the presiding officers of both houses, has gone out of its way to prevent any discussion on the subject.
The institutional lapses in security were glaring. Following a routine transfer in the first week of November, the topmost post of joint secretary (security), responsible for safeguarding the entire parliament complex, had been lying vacant. With a current strength of 230, the parliament’s security establishment has a shortfall of almost 40 percent of its personnel. Moreover, the government reportedly imposed a Rs 30 crore cut in the annual budget of the parliament complex recently. When the two intruders opened gas canisters inside the Lok Sabha chamber, the smoke alarms in the state-of-the-art parliament building did not get activated.
The foremost question is about accountability. The parliament security breach is another in the long list of major failures where no one in the Modi government is held responsible. Whether it is the Chinese intrusion in Ladakh, the ongoing ethnic violence in Manipur, the political and security situation in Kashmir, the collapse of a tunnel in Uttarakhand, or the death of imported African cheetahs, the Indian media gives the Modi government a free pass. It instead acts as a handmaiden of the government to distract the masses, boosting propaganda onto irrelevant issues. News channels had collapsed much earlier but even the English language newspapers now shamelessly play the same game. Television reporters squabbling over a smoke canister can be dismissed with a supercilious smirk by newspaper editors, but their own role is far more sinister and distressing.
[…] Those who intruded into parliament reportedly told the police they were upset about high rates of unemployment. Youth unemployment in India is at around a staggering 23 percent, the highest for any major global economy and nearly double that of neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh. For graduates under 25, a report by the Azim Premji University estimates, this number rises to 42 percent. IT firms such as Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro have announced they will reduce the hiring of engineering graduates by 30 percent—reducing it by 40 percent from the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology—leaving thousands of freshly graduated students without jobs. Since the onset of the 2022 funding winter, 34,785 employees have been laid off by just 121 Indian startups, with 15,247 of them fired by 69 Indian startups so far this year.
— Fire and Smoke: The smoke in parliament must be a recognition of, not a distraction from, India’s ailment
If only you knew a Palestinian, you would know exactly how peaceful we are. If you knew a Palestinian by now, you'd have indulged in the gentle lush comfort of our welcoming hearts long enough to know how wildly loving we are, even in the midst of our sorrow. If you knew us, you'd know how kind we are. And though our kindness has historically been taken for weakness, you'd know the truth. Palestinians are as strong as the sky is blue. But if only you knew a Palestinian, you'd be able to narrate our pain. You would know exactly how deep trauma runs in our veins. If you sat with our parents, I know you'd understand. Our grandparents were robbed of a life in their land. If you knew us by now, I'm sure that you'd learn. All we desire, is just to return to our homes that were stolen. Our villages taken, how for 100 years our tears remain forsaken. If you knew us by now, you'd tell the world of our grief. How we mourn for our kin with a sorrow so deep. But in that same breath, you would extol our resilience, how our mountainous courage is our fountain of brilliance. If only you knew a Palestinian. -- Anees
People today, especially those who do their politics in the name of lord Ram lie through their teeth casually. Like, they thoroughly do not care. People used to be terrified of being caught with their lies. Not anymore. There is no shame anymore.
Kangana Ranaut, Bollywood actress and BJP Loksabha candidate from Himachal Pradesh recently tweeted, “I don’t consume beef or any other kind of red meat, it is shameful that completely baseless rumours are being spread about me..”
But she in past has said she liked eating beef. There are still pictures on her social media where she is eating red meat.
”I eat steak which my family doesn't allow but I do exactly what they don't allow. So I tried beef, I liked it and now I am a regular beef eater. I eat steaks but I didn't have the courage to try snakes and octopus though I am someone who can put anything into my mouth! And then I have these mad directors who have always been very caring and have guided me to all kinds of food joints. Aanandji (Aanand Rai, director of Tanu Weds Manu) is crazy about food and he makes sure that he always gives me something exciting to eat. He'll take me to some Kashmiri restaurant and order nice lamb chops. He takes me to restaurants I have never seen. Anurag (Basu, director Gangster) would also take me to places in Korea for different food. On my own I'd never have discovered such places in Mumbai or elsewhere. We used to have lamb and chicken but also other meats like reindeer, deer, rabbit. Everybody used to eat different meats.”
— Kangana Ranaut, before Modi became PM and curtailed free speechCentre’s timely intervention improved situation in Manipur, says PM Narendra Modi
PM Modi has yet to visit Manipur and violence and arson in the state continue. The violence has left 219 persons dead and displaced 60,000 people from their homes since May 3, according to figures released by the state government in February. And yet PM Modi can lie through this.
Now, just pause for a moment and think what would happen if someone asked this question, and countered his lies with facts, in an interview? Imagine his face and fumble. Do you think he would lie post it? Or lie so blatantly at least? But he has not faced a press conference for ten years of his premiership. Even Manmohan Singh whom Modi used to call ‘Maun-Mohan Singh’ or ‘silent Prime Minister’ regularly gave Press Conferences. Mr Singh used to face the press after each of his foreign visits and detail to them what was discussed and achieved in each of these trips. That is why it is important to hold those in power accountable and on their toes which current media is failing to do. And so we have blatant liars in power.
[…] at the Battle of Pollilur when Tipu and Hyder Ali together made mince meat, for the very first time of a company army (British East India Company army). I mean, there's been one major defeat of a small detachment from Bombay that went up the ghats and was defeated by the marathas, but it was relatively small in numbers. The next year Tipu wiped out an entire Army. Not only that but associated with this defeat was the man who had just defeated not just the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II, Shuja-ud-Daula (Nawab of Awadh) and Mir Qasim ruler of Bengal. This three Army Megaforce that decided to try and take on the company and expel it once and for all in 1765 at the Battle of Buxar. The man who won that Victory, sir Hector Monroe was the man who was defeated effectively at the bottle of Pollilur. This is the moment that Tipu enters the wider British Consciousness. And the fact that he had not just defeated this army but had wiped out an army and more importantly captured the officers who then spent three humiliating years in Sri Ranga Patnam being made to dance at his dinners, convert to Islam, do menial tasks and all the kind of things that you can make captives do. This is the point that legends start to spread in Britain that there is this new kid on the block who for the first time after many defeats culminating in Plassey and Buxar, now suddenly the Indians are giving it back. And it's no longer certain that a company army with modern weaponry can defeat Indian armies effortlessly and all those figures like in Plassey where tiny numbers of company troops defeating vast Mughal Cavalry armies; that period's over because now these guys are around and it's all completely different. And so while in this country people are brought up on stories of the Rani of Jhansi and Shivaji, particularly in this city and all the the other Freedom Fighters who defied the British at different points, the one who made the most impression in Britain, is Tipu Sultan.
Also, elections are here; don’t forget to go vote!
AT 12.44 PM ON 5 AUGUST 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the Ram temple at Ayodhya. The silver brick, weighing 40 kilograms, had been donated by Nritya Gopal Das, the mahant—high priest—of Ayodhya’s largest temple, Maniram Das Ki Chhavani, located near what had once been the sixteenth-century Babri Masjid. Since 2003, Nritya Gopal had been president of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas, a trust set up by the Vishva Hindu Parishad, following the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid, to work for the creation of a Ram temple in its place.
[…] when the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Ram Lalla, on 9 November 2019, it asked the Modi government to set up a new trust within three months. On 5 February 2020, the government established the Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra. Nritya Gopal was initially excluded from the RJTK but, after he threatened to launch an agitation in response, the trust elected him its chairperson at its first meeting, on 19 February.
The silver brick donated by Nritya Gopal—worth Rs 26 lakh at the time—was merely a prop. After Modi placed it in the ground, it was removed and transferred to a bank locker belonging to the RJTK, adding to the trust’s rapidly expanding coffers.
The RJTK announced at the time that it would accept contributions in cash, kind or property, without any conditions. By August, it had Rs 42 crore in the bank. As of March 2023, it had raised over Rs 3,500 crore from all over the country and spent around Rs 900 crore on the temple complex.
In October, the trust was granted a license under the Foreign Contributions (Registration) Act to solicit additional donations from abroad. Such a license is an exceedingly rare commodity in Modi’s India. The home ministry told the Lok Sabha, in December 2022, that it had cancelled the FCRA registration of nearly two thousand NGOs between 2019 and 2021. Unlike other NGOs, the RJTK has faced very little scrutiny from the government over how it raises and spends money. A study of the transactions it conducted reveals that some of the donations were used to help certain individuals connected to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party make windfall gains.
On 7 January 1993, the Narasimha Rao government had promulgated the Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya Ordinance, under which it would take over the disputed site and purchase additional land surrounding it, in order to eventually construct a Ram temple, a mosque, amenities for pilgrims, a library and a museum. The BJP opposed the ordinance, which its vice-president at the time, SS Bhandari, called “partisan, petty and perverse.” The All India Muslim Personal Law Board also opposed it, calling the proposal “un-Islamic,” since land dedicated to a mosque could not, under sharia, be sold, gifted or alienated in any way. Nevertheless, the government acquired 67.7 acres—27.4 hectares—of land in Ayodhya’s Kot Ramchandra village. Previous owners were paid the market price for their land and properties, as determined by the circle rates set by the district administration.
When the Modi government formed the RJTK, it transferred this land to the trust. However, during a meeting on 11 November 2020, the trust accepted Mishra’s proposal that, in order to “fix the vaastu”—Hindu architectural principles—of the temple, accommodate the thousands of pilgrims expected to visit it every day and to make sure that its perimeter was rectangular, the trust should acquire additional land near the north-eastern corner as soon as possible. Much of this land was occupied by temples, such as Fakire Ram, Kaushalya Bhavan and Kaikeyi Kop Bhavan. While the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign had been predicated on insisting upon the Babri Masjid being the exact spot where Ram was born, despite an absence of archaeological evidence for this, and refusing to build the temple anywhere else, the RJTK was willing to demolish any temples that were inconvenient to its designs and relocate them elsewhere. This was not the only argument from the Babri Masjid dispute that the trust would invert to facilitate the land acquisitions.
Over the next few months, the trust purchased an additional 71 acres—28.7 hectares—to expand the temple complex and compensate those it had displaced. Bansal and Mishra were at the forefront of the buying spree. Given the Modi government’s push to have the temple ready before the 2024 general election, these acquisitions took place in an accelerated manner, often disregarding legal processes and ignoring the disputed nature of much of the land. Municipal and district authorities helped this process along by driving off the occupants using threats and inducements, while the revenue courts inevitably sided with the trust whenever the purchases were challenged. “Brother, there’s no decision from the courts in Uttar Pradesh,” Santosh Dubey, a Shiv Sena leader who filed a petition against the acquisition of the Fakire Ram temple, told me. “All decisions are taken by the government: thok do, goli maar do, bulldozer chala do, court kya hai?”—kill them, demolish their houses, what is the court in all this?
The process allowed a number of local notables—almost all of them Brahmins—to make crores of rupees in profits. I analysed several land deals involving the RJTK in Kot Ramchandra and the nearby Bagh Bijaisi neighbourhood, and found a common pattern in most of them. Instead of the trust acquiring the land directly from its owners, it went through a number of intermediaries, many of whom were connected to Rishikesh Upadhyay, the mayor of Ayodhya at the time. They would first purchase the land at about the market price and then immediately sell it to the RJTK at an exorbitant markup.
[…] In Ayodhya, where temples often have considerable assets, it is the mahant who profits from leasing out the deity’s land for commercial purposes, though they rarely sell it outright. There is often fierce competition between disciples to be appointed the new mahant after the previous one dies, and many priests have been murdered as part of these succession disputes.
[…] Dubey told me that he had participated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid and had been shot in the 1990 police firing. “Let me tell you something,” he said. “We fought for the birthplace of Ram being where it was. Why did we demolish the Babri Masjid if gods can be shifted? We were taught that the temple can only be built where the god was.” He noted that the RJTK had destroyed a dozen major temples. “Whatever they like, they do,” he added, calling the demolitions “the kind of policy Aurangzeb and Babar used to have.”
As part of the deal Raghuvar struck with the RJTK, Sita and Vallabh were to receive an equal amount of land in Kot Ramchandra—specifically, according to court records in the civil suit, 255 square metres from Plot 131 and 1,040 square metres from Plot 138. Both parcels of land had been acquired by the trust, shortly before the Fakire Ram sale, for much more than their market price. The RJTK had done so by working with intermediaries connected to Rishikesh Upadhyay, who was Ayodhya’s mayor from 2017 to 2023. These intermediaries bought the land parcels for cheap, by telling the occupiers that they would be evicted if they did not sell. They then made large profits by immediately selling the land to the trust.
Plot 131 was minjumla land—an unpartitioned plot that has been theoretically divided among several tenants. On 15 March 2021, Anil Pathak, a resident of Basti district, sold 255 square metres from the plot to Vishnu Kumar for Rs 10 lakh, just under the market price of Rs 10.2 lakh. According to the Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh, who raised the issue of the RJTK buying overpriced land at the time, Vishnu was Rishikesh’s accountant. One of the witnesses to the deal was Deep Narayan Upadhyay, the mayor’s nephew.
Three days later, Anil’s brother Harish Pathak—who was absconding from the Uttar Pradesh police on charges of theft, impersonation, cheating, forgery and criminal breach of trust—sold another 255 square metres to the RJTK for Rs 60 lakh. Like Anil’s portion, this parcel also had a market value of Rs 10.2 lakh. This deal was witnessed by Rishikesh and Anil Mishra, the RJTK trustee.
The 1,040 square metres from Plot 138, meanwhile, was purchased by the RJTK from Jagadish Prasad, a resident of Ayodhya’s Rudauli tehsil, for Rs 2 crore—as opposed to a market price of Rs 41.6 lakh. The witnesses were Mishra and Indra Pratap Tiwari. At the time, Tiwari was the Bharatiya Janata Party legislator from Goshaiganj. Popularly known as the “Dabangg of Faizabad,” he had a number of cases against him and, in October 2021, was sentenced to five years in prison, and subsequently disqualified from the assembly, for using a fake marksheet after failing his college exams, in 1990.
[…] In 2013, Ram Asare told Open that Brijmohan had tried to kill him and seize the Chaubhurji temple’s property. Following the attempt on his life, he said, he had fled the temple, leaving Brijmohan in control. Brijmohan denied the murder attempt, claiming that Ram Asare was making false charges because he had prevented him from selling off the temple to a land mafia.
The land was formally transferred to Brijmohan after Ram Asare’s death, in 2018. Besides the 340 square metres in Plot 131, it included 540 square metres in Plot 90, 340 square metres in Plot 132, 100 square metres in Plot 134 and 860 square metres in Plot 135. In the transactions involving the RJTK, Plot 135, in particular, proved to be a cash cow for the local intermediaries connected with Rishikesh.
[…] On 11 May, Deep Narayan sold his 890 square metres, which he had bought for Rs 20 lakh, to the RJTK for Rs 2.5 crore. This was immediately handed over to Kaushalya Kishore Tripathi and Yashoda Nandan Tripathi, two brothers who were priests at Kaushalya Bhavan. In exchange, the Tripathis sold the 650.557 square metres on which their temple was located to the trust for Rs 4 crore, as opposed to the market price of Rs 1.61 crore.
In February 2021, Kailash Chandra Moondra filed an RTI request seeking information on tax exemptions granted to the trust. Moondra, who is in his sixties, is a chartered accountant and former RSS member who was active in the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign. In May 2020, the Central Board of Direct Taxes had declared the RJTK a place of “place of historic importance and a place of public worship of renown.” Section 80G(2)(b) of the Income Tax Act exempts “donations for the renovation or repair of any such temple, mosque, gurdwara, church or other place as is notified by the Central Government in the Official Gazette to be of historic, archaeological or artistic importance or to be a place of public worship of renown throughout any State or States.” In order to qualify for such an exemption, the place of worship must register itself under Section 12A of the act, which requires the trust to submit regular audits. Moondra had sought all the documents submitted by the RJTK under this section. The CBDT denied him the information on the grounds that the trust is an “autonomous body” and, thus, outside the purview of the RTI Act. When he appealed, it told him that the RJTK “could be said to be a non-governmental organisation, as it does not depend for its finances, in any away, much less substantially, on the government either directly or indirectly hence the same is outside the purview a public authority of the RTI Act.”
The opacity around the RJTK’s dealings is not surprising, given how the Modi government has operated over the years. While much smaller in scope, the Ayodhya land transactions were not so different from the Rafale deal, which I reported on in 2018—the RJTK overpaid for land and subverted usual procurement procedures, allowing intermediaries to make windfall gains, even as the government obstructed all attempts at seeking transparency and the institutions meant to hold it to account gave it a clean chit under questionable circumstances. That this corruption was carried out in Ram’s name highlights the hypocrisy of the Hindu Right but is not surprising either, given how lucrative the business of religion is in India and the political capital Modi has already accumulated through displays of piety. While the processes by which the land was acquired to construct the Ram temple will soon be forgotten in the pageantry surrounding its inauguration, they serve as an instructive episode on what progress looks like in Modi’s New India.
— Land Lords: The windfall gains made in the name of the Ram temple
That’s all for this one. Thanks for reading so far. Will soon send a fresh one with only show/movies/music recommendations.