When Swedish Media Went Bonkers Over A Speech By Indira Gandhi; Seven Movie Recommendations, Casteism In Ramacharitmanas And Manipur
Streets across the northern states, including in Punjab, Delhi and Uttarakhand, were flooded. Roads in several parts of Delhi were submerged in knee-deep water as it was inundated with 153mm of rain, the highest precipitation in a single day in July in 40 years. Landslides in Himachal Pradesh blocked about 700 roads. — That’s not the whole picture but a brief glimpse of monsoon and mayhem from The Guardian. I’m assuming the reader is already aware of what kind of madness unfolded and continues to unfold in these states due to flooding. I wish to dwell instead on some past.
Down To Earth, a reputed magazine on Environment reported on 16 May 2019:
On May 3rd, 2019, Divya Himachal, a Hindi daily, reported that the 100 MW Sainj Hydropower Project in Himachal Pradesh’s Kullu district had stopped its operations after severe leakage due to massive cracks in the dam was noticed.
Owned by the Himachal Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd (HPPCL), the project has been non-operational for more than a month, creating a loss of Rs 5 crore so far for the company. However, what is shocking about the case is that the leakage has been continuing since the last two months but not a single remedial measure was taken. The project, reported Divya Himachal, is apparently moving towards a massive disaster, putting the lives of hundreds of people at risk.
It’s not a building, it’s a freaking dam. And that’s how serious we are about safety. Imagine a series of events that would unfold if the dam bursts from this leak. Villages would flood, and hundreds if not thousands of people would lose their life and livelihood. This bit is given just like when three trains crashed in Balasore and passengers onboard lost their lives. It is unavoidable. What would happen next? Some low-level employees would be identified and sacrificed before the media glare to communicate action from a prompt government and then, the irony of irony, citizens would be expected to praise the dear leader and government. For years and months, journalists writing about how railways were ignoring the risk of not filling vacancies in safety-related posts, and how railways were running low on critical safety-related staff would be forgotten. Nobody would be held responsible for their callous administration.
Huge vacancies in the Indian Railways coupled with the delay in the process of recruitment seem to have put the safety of train operations at risk. […] the issue was flagged by General Managers at an urgent videoconference meeting convened by the Chairman, Railway Board in December, after the derailment of the Goa-Patna Express in Uttar Pradesh, which left three people dead and many injured last November. […] With accidents happening more due to fracture of rails or failure of welds, officials called for immediate filling up of vacancies relating to track maintenance. […] The increasing incidents of rail/weld failures in the backdrop of vacancies in track maintenance posts like trackman, patrolman, Section Engineer etc, is mounting pressure on the railways since it has to ensure safety by managing the operation and maintenance of rolling stock with available manpower. […] In Southern Railway alone, there were 12,500 vacancies in the safety category, mostly in the track maintenance wing.
In the post-pandemic scenario, almost all the trains have been restored. But the vacancies remain across the zone. To tide over this shortage, loco pilots are being denied of leave or rest, which is resulting in their working on trains under mental stress… this is against the interest of safety.
— The Hindu reports from as late as 2018
As long as we continue to behave in this manner where prolonged negligence of safety and risk is ignored and we let off the powerful after tragedy over the dismissal of lowly staff, we will continue to witness tragedy after tragedy. This is inevitable.
DOE further notes:
Himachal’s mountainous landscape, though exquisite, is seismically fragile. According to Landslide Hazard Zonation Atlas of India, 2003, more than 97 per cent of the total geographical area of the state is prone to landslides.
In this highly landslide-prone state, 153 hydropower projects (HPPs) have been commissioned as of March 2019, records the DOE. Astoundingly, a 2015 study of the State Disaster Management Authority warns that 56 per cent of Himachal’s total constructed HPPs are under serious threat of landslide hazard risks. Any construction that involves underground disturbance, working near fast flowing rivers prone to flash floods and eroding the soil of steep slopes is risky business.
What the reader needs to understand is, the point is not to blame this or that government but urgently focus on our continued and collective ignorance of the risks that we are not only ignoring but continue to create for our own peril.
That’s not all. On July 7, ABC News reported, “For four days in a row, the planet reached its hottest day ever recorded as regions all over the world endure dangerous heat.”
On Wednesday, the record was tied as global temperatures again reached 17.18 degrees Celsius. That record was broken on Thursday as global temperatures climbed to 17.23 degrees Celsius, or 63.01 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the NCEP.
The record was first set on Monday, when average global temperatures measured at 16.2 degrees Celsius, or 61.16 degrees Fahrenheit, but it only took one day to surpass that temperature.
Heat is the number-one weather-related killer in the world, with more than 600 people dying from heat-related illnesses every year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This is all current and 2023. Let’s now travel back to 1972. Many years ago. Do note how even today many of us do not understand the risk and urgency of climate change and pollution. 1972 was fifty years ago.
In the developing countries most of the environmental problems are caused by under-development. Millions continue to live far below the minimum levels required for a decent human existence, deprived of adequate food and clothing, shelter and education, health and sanitation. Therefore, the developing countries must direct their efforts to development, bearing in mind their priorities and the need to safeguard and improve the environment. For the same purpose, the industrialized countries should make efforts to reduce the gap between themselves and the developing countries. In the industrialized countries, environmental problems are generally related to industrialization and technological development.
Above is the fourth paragraph of the declaration of Stockholm Conference. What you read above is considered common knowledge today that developed world progressed itself on the back of heavy pollution and was asking developing world today to limit their pollution which would adversely affect their ability to grow. We today consider it given that the developed world has lot to answer and work towards world pollution. But this wasn’t so then.
In the early 1970s human-induced climate change was still a matter for the academy. A link between climate change and the burning of fossil fuels had been mooted but debate would not move into the political sphere for more than a decade.
This paragraph was almost entirely derived from then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi’s what is now considered milestone speech in world environment conversations. Even as late as last year when UN was celebrating 50 years of this conference, UN in its note wrote, “India’s Prime Minister at the time, Indira Gandhi, was the only foreign head of government out of 113 nations in attendance. Her speech at the conference was ground-breaking in that it linked environmental conservation with poverty reduction – one of the key principles of the Sustainable Development Goals.” Celebrated environmental journalist Karl Mathiesen wrote for the Guardian in May 2014 titled, “Climate change and poverty: why Indira Gandhi's speech matters”. The line that created waves back then and continues to ring in these conversations even today was in fact a question she posed.
“Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters?” She said this to bring home to the West that developing countries like India have their own pressing challenges to raise the standard of living of millions of their citizens. She underscored the injustice and inequity in the fact that countries with a small fraction of the world’s population consumed the bulk of the natural resources causing far greater environmental degradation than what countries like India were doing. Her speech was wide-ranging and dealt with the environmental effects of war as well, the ongoing conflict in Vietnam being uppermost in people’s minds especially with the use of horrific chemical weapons. Quoting from the Atharva Veda, she ended by drawing attention to how ancient Indians had recognised the need for ecological balance: What of thee I dig out/Let that quickly grow over/Let me not hit thy vitals/Or thy heart.
Mrs Gandhi put the case for the world’s poor with eloquence “…how can we speak to those who live in villages and in slums about keeping the oceans, the rivers and the air clean, when their own lives are contaminated at the source?” She went on to plead that a higher standard of living for the impoverished people of the earth be achieved without alienating from their heritage, “without despoiling nature of its beauty, freshness and purity so essential to our lives”.
The Swedish media gave Indira Gandhi phenomenal coverage—but for a different reason. In his speech the Swedish prime minister had accused the USA of an ‘ecocide’ in Vietnam. On her part, Indira Gandhi said:
The most urgent and basic question is that of peace. Nothing is so pointless as modern warfare. Nothing destroys so instantly, so completely as the diabolic weapons which not only kill but maim and deform the living and the yet to be born; which poison the land, leaving long trails of ugliness, barrenness and hopeless desolation. What ecological projects can survive a war?Indira Gandhi became a sensation in Stockholm for this particular paragraph. An article by Anne Norlin that had appeared on 18 June in Aftenbladet:
Indira Gandhi, the 54-year-old Prime Minister of India took Stockholm by storm. Everywhere she went, Swedes took up long and spontaneous applause. She took the time to sign autographs and shake hands. It is just ten years since Nikita Khrushchev was here. He was guarded by hundreds of policemen. U.S. President Richard Nixon would not dare make an intermediate stop at Arlanda.
Indira Gandhi—the world’s most powerful woman and ruler of the world’s most populous nation and six months ago one of the parties to a merciless war—could walk about in Stockholm nearly unprotected.
Indira Gandhi is the victor of the Environment Conference. Her speech at Folkets House Wednesday brought the House down.While it certainly created ripples— when any reference to Stockholm was made in the international community in the 1970s and 1980s, her speech would invariably get mentioned—its impact remained restricted to a limited circle for quite some time. It was most probably in the run-up to the famed Rio Earth Summit of 1992 that it was rediscovered with a bang, as it were. That it continues to resonate is proved by the fact that Karl Mathiesen wrote an article in The Guardian on 6 May 2014 with the title ‘Climate Change and Poverty: Why Indira Gandhi’s Speech Matters’. The Pakistani economist Tariq Banuri told me in September 2009 that her speech ranks with Rachel Carson’s book of 1962, Paul Ehrlich’s book of 1968, and The Limits to Growth study of 1972 as one of the four crucial milestones in the global environmental discourse.
— Poverty Is the Greatest Polluter: Remembering Indira Gandhi’s Stirring Speech in Stockholm
Movie Recommendations
The Best of Enemies is extremely good. It’s so good that I want you to play it right away on Netflix without playing the trailer here.
Primal Fear when released might have created waves. But by now we have seen part of its scenes and storylines in a few recent movies but this one still holds its place tight especially its lead characters and the craft they put on display.
Afwah could have been far better but despite its flaws, it grows on you. My friend didn’t like it as much as the hype on Twitter but I liked it nonetheless.
Like The Best of Enemies, Seven Years in Tibet is based on true events. It is about an unlikely friendship between an Austrian mountain climber and Dalai Lama. What struck me in the beginning was the sights of snowy mountains and how beautifully mountain climbing is shown. The early Tibet they show is beautiful too. Recommend watching this for many such reasons.
The Unknown Saint is a well-made dark comedy. I enjoyed its slow pace. This is an Arabic-French movie on Netflix. Switch on the subtitles and watch. Although it has very few dialogues so even if you don’t like reading subtitles it won’t bother you much.
Oh! Also, go and see Barbie and Oppenheimer. I particularly liked Barbie. Oppenheimer, while good still, I think we are used to expecting a certain kind of ununderstandable brilliance from Christopher Nolan. And I felt that bit was lacking. Otherwise, the movie delivers, especially its background score.
Sidenote: Kohhra on Netflix is a nice show too. I didn’t like it as much as people praised but the Punjabi is on point unlike that Bollywood movie. They have also shown Punjab with its sad tones unlike the usual song and dance bollywood portrays. The last two episode do have great music tracks though!
Is there any movie you want me to watch and include in next one?
Tulsidas’s Ramacharitmanas
While speaking on the birth anniversary of the medieval anti-caste reformer Ravidas, on 5 February, Mohan Bhagwat, the sarsanghchalak—supreme leader—of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and a Chitpavan Brahmin, claimed that a few pandits had been misinterpreting Hindu scripture to propagate caste supremacy. Everyone was equal before god, he said. It led to a backlash on social media. Demanding that Bhagwat apologise, many Brahmin users posted a verse from the Gita in which the Hindu deity Krishna says that he created the four varnas. The ecclesiastical leader Nishchalananda Saraswati accused Bhagwat of not studying scripture, arguing that the caste system was fundamental to Hinduism. He was right. Brahminical literature, including the Gita, the Manusmriti and the Rigveda, provides scriptural support for caste. Bhagwat could not defend the indefensible, so attempted obfuscation instead. A day after his speech, the RSS claimed that, when referring to pandits, he had meant scholars, not Brahmins—who, thanks to their historical monopoly over education and Hindu rituals, are usually considered synonymous with the title.
The caste system has remained an Achilles heel for the RSS and its electoral arm, the Bharatiya Janata Party. Sangh ideologues, such as MS Golwalkar, Deen Dayal Upadhyay and Dattopant Thengadi, wanted to preserve caste, but the RSS’s purpose was to unite Hindus as a political monolith. It sought to resolve this internal contradiction by projecting Muslims and Christians as the enemies of all Hindus.
On 11 January, the education minister of Bihar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Chandra Shekhar, described the Ramcharitmanas, along with the Manusmriti and Golwalkar’s Bunch of Thoughts, as “books that sowed hatred in society in different eras.” To support his assertion, Shekhar, a professor of zoology who belongs to the Yadav caste, quoted a verse from the Ramcharitmanas: “Adham jati main bidya payein, bhayaun jatha ahi doodh piyaen”—Educating someone from a lower caste is like giving milk to a snake.
The BJP MP Sushil Kumar Modi, a former deputy chief minister of Bihar, responded by questioning Shekhar’s educational credentials, accusing him of spreading hatred and calling for him to be charged with treason.
In Bihari politics, Ram’s sons, Luv and Kush, are associated with the Kurmi and Kushwaha castes, which are classified as OBCs, while Krishna is believed to have been a Yadav.
Six days after Shekhar’s statement, the Samajwadi Party spokesperson Rajkumar Bhati, a Gujjar, joined him in his condemnation. “Tulsidas accomplishes two things in the Ramcharitmanas,” Bhati told National Dastak, a Bahujan media platform. “While narrating the story of Ram, he adds a couple of verses, without any context or relevance, that say that Brahmins should be worshipped and given alms, and that those who make them unhappy will never live in peace, while those who serve them will achieve progress. Also, he criticises Shudras—OBCs, farmers and labourers.”
Swami Prasad Maurya, a former minister in the Adityanath government who joined the SP before the 2022 assembly election in Uttar Pradesh, on 23 January told the news agency ANI that certain verses of the Ramcharitmanas that insulted women and Shudras should be banned. He added that he did not consider the epic to be a religious text, since Tulsidas had specified in one verse that he wrote the Ramcharitmanas for self-amusement.
One Brahmin priest, Raju Das, declared a bounty of Rs 21 lakh for Swami Prasad Maurya’s head. During an event organised by a television channel, on 15 February, Das allegedly attempted to assault him with a sword. Maurya, who had refused to apologise, used the opportunity to question the veneration of Brahmin priests in society. “Recently, some contractors of religion have offered a reward for cutting my tongue or head,” he tweeted. “If someone else had said this, the same contractors would have called them terrorists. What should we call these priests from this particular caste: terrorists, devils or executioners?” He mocked Das in another tweet, asking why such a powerful priest had to resort to offering a bounty. “You could have used a curse to turn me into ash. You would have saved the Rs 21 lakh, and your true face would not have been exposed.”
Besides threats and epithets, the BJP’s response to this unapologetic assertion by OBC leaders was to evoke the myth of Hinduism being a sanatan dharma—eternal religion—which BR Ambedkar has dismissed as an “article of faith,” since most Hindu texts are of much more recent vintage than orthodox Hindus claim.
OBC leaders, many of whom consider Ram an ancestor, were not objecting to the deity but to its use by Brahmin writers seeking to elevate their social status. They were in no mood to back down. “Who made the caste system?” Tejashwi Yadav, the deputy chief minister of Bihar, said at an event on 3 February. “A few people, who call their own caste superior and consider those who make up the majority to be inferior. When the so-called lower castes get educated and begin asking questions about the caste system, they start acting in their own way. So, I would like to ask: if we are all Hindus, why are some of us higher and others lower?” While sharing the clip on Twitter, he described such a notion as “foolish anti-constitutional thinking,” which is “against the nation, humanity, harmony and love.” India and Hinduism would progress, he added, “only if everyone receives their proportionate share. Otherwise, socioeconomic inequality will prevail.”
In a television debate, later that week, Bhati exposed how this notion of social harmony is treated in the Ramcharitmanas. “Are you aware what Tulsidas made Nishadraj say when Ram came to meet him?” he asked. “Lok bed sab bhantihim neecha, jasu chhanh chhui leyia seencha”—I am so low that one must bathe even if they come in contact with my shadow. “And, when Ram goes to Sabari’s ashram, what does Tulsidas make her say? ‘Kehi bidhi astuti karau tumhari, adham jati main jadmati bhari’”—How should I praise you? I am a lower-caste fool. “These castes were insulted again and again,” Bhati added.
In another debate, when the anchor accused him of reviving the politics of “Mandal and Kamandal,” a phrase used in the early 1990s to refer to the dichotomy between the politics of affirmative action and that of religion, Bhati replied, “First, regarding your allegation that we are trying to divide society, let us understand that we didn’t make castes. It was those who were at the top of the social hierarchy, who benefited from this hierarchy for thousands of years, who made castes. Second, Tulsidas was a poet. Ramcharitmanas is taught as literature in colleges and universities. It is an epic, not a religious text. And, even if you believe it is a religious text, it should be amended if it insults ninety-five percent of its own followers.” Swami Prasad Maurya also kept up the pressure. “Is insulting Dalits, Adivasis, women and Backward Classes a religion?” he asked at a press conference, on 2 February. “What kind of religion calls its own followers lower?”
One of the primary reasons why the BJP is losing this debate is because it simply cannot deny the religious sanction to inequality within Hinduism. For over a century, anti-caste politicians have produced several scholarly works on how Hindu scripture establishes Brahmin supremacy, such as Periyar’s Ramayana Pathirangal and Ramayana Kurippugal, Achhootananda’s Ramrajya Nyay, Ambedkar’s Riddles of Hinduism and Philosophy of Hinduism, as well as Ramswaroop Verma’s Brahmin Mahima: Kyun aur Kaise?, a compilation of letters and articles the socialist leader wrote, in the 1970s, to protest the Indira Gandhi government’s decision to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the Ramcharitmanas.
The criticism of Hinduism for its gradation of Hindus is a tried and tested—and authentic—political strategy to counter the BJP’s use of religion. It is, however, still limited to a few politicians from the SP and RJD, albeit with the support of their party leaders. To mount an effective challenge, it needs to become a national plank for the entire opposition. The primary Savarna opposition party, the Congress, has chosen to side with the BJP on the Ramcharitmanas issue.
Swami Prasad Maurya tweeted out a response, noting that Ram had beheaded Shambuka, a Shudra ascetic, for performing Brahminical rituals and that, in the Mahabharata, Dronacharya had cut off the thumb of Eklavya, a Nishad who had surreptitiously learnt archery by watching him instruct the princes of Hastinapur. “Either those who equate tadna with education are naïve, or the people are naïve,” he added. “The right to education was provided by the Constitution, thanks to the efforts of Phule, Maharaj Sahu and Dr Ambedkar.”
— Chapter and Verse, Caravan Magazine
Manipur
‘If you don’t take off your clothes, we will kill you’: Kuki women paraded naked in Manipur — Scroll.in
Here’s what we know about this ghastly story so far.
It happened over two months ago. A viral fake news message started doing the rounds soon after violence broke out in Manipur. The message had an image of a woman's body wrapped in plastic. And it said that a Meitei woman had been raped by Kukis. On May 4th, in a revenge act, a Meitei mob of 8,000, men carrying sophisticated weapons, like AK rifles entered a village.
The sick justification of the mob was that if a Meitei woman had been raped, it was now time to exact revenge on Kuki women. The mob started attacking a Kuki family seeking revenge. The family comprised a 56-year-old man, his 19-year-old son and his 21-year-old daughter. Two other women were also part of this group. The police somehow rescued them but then the mob managed to grab the women from the police custody. All three women in this group were physically forced to remove their clothes and were stripped naked. The 21-year-old woman was allegedly brutally gang raped by the mob and her brother and her father were killed. Her brother died trying to save her.
One of the women from this group has spoken to the media. Here's what she has said. “When we resisted, they told me, if you don't take off your clothes, we will kill you. The woman said she took off every item of clothing, only in order to protect myself.”
After the viral video emerged, the woman who was gang raped and her husband spoke to the Indian Express and said, The police picked us up from near home and took us a little away from the village and left us on the road with the mob. We were given to them by the police. The woman who was raped, said, she doesn't recognise all the men in the mob but was able to recognise a few of them including one who she said she had known to be a friend of her brother.
The story about the rapes amid Manipur violence was first reported by The Print on July 12th. Back then Newslaundry acknowledged this report in a media critique column and even questioned why the mainstream media had failed to report such crimes in Manipur.
The Print reporter who got this story is Sonal Matharu. And I urge you to read her report. There is a very important detail that she's given in her story. The detail about fake news that had spread into Churachandpur about a Meitei woman being raped by Kukis. That fake news was accompanied by a picture of a woman's dead body wrapped in plastic. And that photo is of an old honour killing incident from Delhi. It had nothing to do with Manipur. This is a real case of fake news leading to deadly dehumanizing violence. So please think next time before you forward that WhatsApp message.
I want you to pay attention to one more thing. This ghastly story was first reported by a digital media organisation, The Print. Then on Wednesday, the video of the incident was going viral online on Twitter and across social media platforms at 8:57 p.m., The scroll authenticated that video and spoke to one of the victims.
Above is a transcript from Manisha’s excellent weekly show Newsance. She next mentions how this breaking news did not find any mention on national tv. Do watch this one.
I would highly recommend watching the below explainer from Akash Banerjee where he in his humorous style not just explains what’s currently happening but also some bit of historical context to the current crisis. Don’t miss this one.
That’s all for this one.
If you liked what you just read, can I nudge you to share it with your friends and network? That would mean a lot to me. Thanks.