Vanishing Farsi, Resized Modi, Shameless Election Commission Of India, Lot Of Cartoons and Three Things To Watch!
It is difficult to think of Persian as an Indian language today. Yet for hundreds of years, Farsi held sway as a language of administration and high culture across the subcontinent. It was brought in by Persiophile central Asians during the 12th century, and played a role very similar to the one English does in modern India. So, in the 17th century, when the Marathi Shivaji wanted to communicate with Rajasthani Jai Singh, the general of the Mughal army in the Deccan, they used Farsi.
The elite of 19th century Bengal were bilingual in Farsi (Persian in English) and Bangla. Raja Rammohan Roy edited and wrote in a Farsi newspaper, and the favourite poet of Debendranath Tagore, Rabindranth’s father, was Hafez, a 14th century poet from Iran. So impactful was Farsi’s role that India’s largest language today, Hindi, takes its name from a Farsi word meaning “Indian.” With the coming of the Raj, English replaced Farsi, but pockets of the language still survive in India. This is an extract from the diary of a Persian teacher in Kolkata: The Persian language has a rich history in India, but it’s slowly dying out
Things To Watch
Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix - The title “Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities” makes a promise and delivers on it, to a greater degree than is absolutely necessary.
Rise of Empires: Ottoman on Netflix - You mean to tell me this show isn’t just entertaining and super-violent, but it’s also educational? Sign me up. Things like this usually make you stupider, but not Rise of Empires: Ottoman. No way. I kid. This series is clearly designed to deliver all the money shots without bothering with character development and “thematic elements” you need in actual movies and shows. The historians fill in the blanks so the actors don’t have to do much boring stuff, and Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister on Game of Thrones) gives the endeavor some tonal bluster via his narration.
Funny, terrifying, and brilliant in equal measure, Apple TV+’s “Severance” is one of the most impressive new shows of the last couple years. Indebted to the world-bending works of Charlie Kaufman and Franz Kafka, but also refreshingly original, "Severance" tells a complex story of unimaginable technology that takes place in an exaggerated, impossible world that still feels relatable and deeply human. Anchored by a perfectly calibrated performance from Adam Scott and directed by Ben Stiller and Aoife Mcardle, “Severance” balances a twisty narrative with characters who we come to care about and want to see escape a kind of work drudgery that only smart genre fiction could conceive.
Just don’t miss Severance. It’s incredibly brilliant.
The Tyranny Will Get Worse
“WE HAVE NEVER had an election like this before, with the people split between elation and foreboding. The majority eagerly anticipates the result, with many among them unconcerned about what it would mean for India or for the compact under which the country came into being. The smaller fraction hopes for, at best, any possible reduction in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s numbers that might bring a temporary respite to its betrayal of constitutional values.” - reads Caravan Magazine’s May 2024 cover story.
When Narendra Modi first came to power, in 2014, most people—including many liberals and all those who, even today, remain on the fence despite the prime minister’s rising concentration of power—did not think that the country was witnessing a radical departure from the past. They witnessed the overt Islamophobia, the lynchings of Muslims, the anti-intellectual environment in which all dissent was portrayed as “anti-national” and deluded themselves into believing that all this would not enjoy lasting popular support.
The 2019 results should have put paid to such delusions. Within months of the BJP returning to power with an increased majority, some key elements of the Hindutva agenda, such as the abrogation of Article 370 and the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya, were immediately put into force. Despite this buildup to a Hindutva, or a Hindu, nation—no one has been able to clearly articulate the difference, but we are constantly told to avoid conflating them—the opposition, political or intellectual, has remained in denial.
Modi is most frequently attacked on his record of governance. It is, of course, the job of the opposition, as well as of an independent media and civil society, to continually monitor and criticise the policy failures of a ruling government. At any other time, these failures would be enough to unseat an incumbent government. But why is it that, today, almost no one believes that Modi will lose power?
Part of the answer lies with India’s institutions, most of which have ended up helping the BJP in the election. As we documented in our April issue, the Election Commission of India is no longer seen as a neutral observer. Among its various failures, the lack of transparency over repeated questioning about the use of electronic voting machines has increased doubts about the electoral process. On 21 April, Modi made an openly Islamophobic and incendiary speech, in Rajasthan’s Banswara, violating not only election laws but also several sections of the Indian Penal Code. The ECI has so far refused to act directly against Modi, instead choosing to write a letter to the BJP president. The playing field is further skewed by the mismatch in campaign funds between the BJP and all other parties combined. Back in 2014, when the Congress had been in power for ten years, the BJP raised more money for its campaign. Today, with the BJP in power for ten years, it has the ability to outspend the Congress seven to one.
— The Tyranny Will Get Worse: Hindutva’s consolidation of a varna autocracy is destroying the republic
Prime Minister Narendra Modi made another astonishing claim today. In an interview to four editors from the India Today/Aaj Tak TV group, he said that he sent a special envoy to Israel to tell Bengamin Netanyahu to avoid bombing Gaza during the month of Ramzan. “And [Netanyahu] did his best to follow my advice. Only in the last few days was their fighting.” You can watch this tall story here. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval did indeed spend a couple of days in Israel at the beginning of Ramzan. Even if he conveyed the advice Modi claims he game, the Israelis clearly did not follow it. In the first 10 days of the Islamic holy month alone, Israeli forces killed over 800 Palestinians.
But there is a more fundamental hole in Modi’s boast. His government has been busy authorising the shipment of lethal munitions to Israel to helps its bombardment of Gaza. Today it emerged that Spain has denied docking permission to a ship named the Marianne Danica, which local media reported is carrying 27 tons of explosives from an Indian company to Israel. The cargo was loaded in Chennai on April 8, i.e. before Ramzan ended, which means permission to export would have been granted weeks earlier.
Spanish law bars the country from allowing the shipment of weapons if they are likely to be used in the commission of genocide. There is, in fact, a second ship named the Borkum, which pro-Palestinian activists say also carried armaments from India and docked in Spain en route to Israel—though its manifest listed the destination as the Czech Republic.
“You all corner me on treatment of Muslims in India, but see what I did for Muslims in Gaza”, Modi boasted as the four TV editors nodded furiously. Not one of them raised a question about the documented export of Indian assembled drones by the Advani-Elbit JV in Hyderabad – which has been widely reported.
— Siddharth Varadarajan, The India Cable
The Lie Of Free and Fair Elections
In Kancheepuram, Lok Sabha seat in Tamil Nadu, the EC data says 12,14,086 EVM votes were polled, and 12,32,417 EVM votes counted – a surplus of 18,331 EVM votes. Why? No answer from EC.
In Dharmapuri, Lok Sabha seat in Tamil Nadu, the EC data says 11,94,440 EVM votes were polled, and 12,12,311 EVM votes counted – a surplus 17,871 EVM votes. Why? No answer from EC.
In Sriperumbudur, Lok Sabha seat in Tamil Nadu, the EC data says 13,88,666 EVM votes were polled, and 14,03,178 EVM votes counted. A surplus of 14,512 EVM votes. Why? No answer from EC.
In Mathura, Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh, the EC data says 10,88,206 EVM votes were polled, and 10,98,112 EVM votes counted. A surplus of 9,906 EVM votes. Why? No answer from EC.
These are four of highest surpluses in the data.
During each election in past, the Election Commission of India traditionally released voter turnout data at the end of the polling. Along with this data, there were press conferences after every polling done. These crucial activities that make people trust the authority conducting these elections have been discarded this year.
What we are having currently are in no way free and fair elections. Before coming to the election commission’s role in this madness, it would be wise to list down a few things.
Supreme Court ruled Electoral Bonds scheme of Mr Modi was unconstitutional. But the money received through this scheme remains with political parties and BJP received a lion’s share. It encashed bonds worth ₹6,060 crore from April 12, 2019 to January 24, 2024. Congress came in a distant third with ₹1,422 crores, behind Trinamool Congress which has encashed bonds worth ₹1,609 crore.
Notice the difference in funds. How is anyone expected to fight the BJP? Where is the level playing field?Mr Modi’s government has frozen bank accounts of India's grand old party, Congress. It was unable to meet its day-to-day expenses when its bank accounts were frozen last month. Congress had alleged that the tax department had frozen all its bank accounts, crippling its activities ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
That’s not all. Income Tax Department also issued a demand notice of about ₹ 1700 crore to Congress.The Communist Party of India (CPI) received a notice from the Income Tax Department regarding discrepancies due to the use of old PAN cards!
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, and Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia are part of a long list of opposition leaders arrested by ED just before crucial elections. Delhi minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Satyendar Jain for instance was arrested ahead of the Himachal Pradesh elections to taint AAP’s image.
Doordarshan and All India Radio did not allow CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury to call the government a “communal authoritarian regime”, some laws as “draconian” and refer to the “bankruptcy” of its governance in speeches made on their airwaves – he was asked to replace the last word with “failure”, Liz Mathew reports. Yechury also said he was asked to delete references to electoral bonds, while All India Forward Bloc politician G Devarajan was asked to delete the word ‘Muslims’ when referring to criticism of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. A Prasar Bharati official cited Election Commission rules as the reason for this censorship.
Note the irony here: EC rules do not come in the way of Modi speaking about ‘Muslims’ in campaign rallies but when the opposition tries to criticise him for that, they are not allowed to use the M word on public television.
I love the Bong Eats channel on YouTube. Their recipes, and the way they are shot are cinematically beautiful and satisfying. I have in past shared their recipes but I was surprised and delighted to find their show “Rannaghore Ke” where they invite prominent people, to talk and cook with them. They had Abhijit Banerjee for one episode. Yes, the Nobel laureate!
The following one with Shoaib Daiyal is full of stories from Calcutta. Loved it!
That’s it for this one. Do take care of yourself. Monsoon is here and as usual, it brings with it flu and such infections. Guard yourself. Stay warm.