Professional Documents
Culture Documents
NUMBER 24
ISSN 0970-1710
WWW.FRONTLINE.IN
ESSAY
Balochistan vs Kashmir
51
LAB OUR I S S UE S
S.C. ruling on equal
pay for equal work
59
E N VI R ON M E N T
Delhis air pollution
explained
62
C ULTUR E
COVE R S T O R Y
As people queue up to gain access to cash, the politics of the demonetisation move reveals the cynicism of the ruling dispensation. 4
Impact on informal sector 32
RELATED STORIES
Interview:
Thomas Franco, AIBOC 12
Wrecking the system 14
Black money in a new hue 18
67
92
96
99
102
U. S . E LE CTI ON S
Trumps election:
Politics of refusal
Questions for Europe
Why the U.S. media
got it all wrong
Far Right captures
imperial homeland
Letter to friends
in the U.S.
BOOKS
On the Cover
In Punjab, people queue up at a bank at Khasa village, 20 km from Amritsar, to exchange the demonitised notes.
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DECEMBER 9, 2016 .
FRONTLINE
CO VE R S TO RY
POLITICS AT ITS
DECEMBER 9, 2016
R.V. MOORTHY
CYNICAL WORST
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
PTI
R.V. MOORTHY
P R IM E M I N I S T E R N AREN D RA M O D I at a function in
New Delhi on November 16. (Right) Finance Minister Arun
Jaitley and Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das at a
press conference on demonetisation on November 12.
DECEMBER 9, 2016
AJAY VERMA/REUTERS
A N OTI CE displayed on an
V. SREENIVASA MURTHY
Bengaluru on November 19
to withdraw and deposit cash.
an ATM in Mumbai
on November 16.
PAUL NORONHA
Q U EU E O U T S I D E
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
PTI
NEEDLES OF SUSPICION
DECEMBER 9, 2016
A COVER-UP ATTEMPT?
SHANKER CHAKRAVARTY
WE ST B E N G A L C H I E F M I N I S T ER Mamata Banerjee
with National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, AAP MP
Bhagwant Mann, Shiv Sena leaders and other opposition
MPs, marching to Rashtrapati Bhavan to present
a memorandum to the President, on November 16.
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
Banks have
suspended all
normal operations
Interview with Thomas Franco, senior
vice president, All India Bank Officers
Confederation. B Y V . S R I D H A R
S. KRISHNAMOORTHY
ON the night of November 9, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi unleashed his surgical strike
against black money, eight employees of State Bank
of India (SBI) were killed in an accident. The eightfour officers, including a branch manager, three
staff members and the driverwere killed while returning late in the night after making arrangements to
meet the ood of customers expected at the bank the
following morning. Since then, reports of more casualties of bank employees have come from other parts
of the country, indicating the extent to which this
section of the workforce has been subjected to hardship in the wake of the unprecedented crisis in Indian
banking. Thomas Franco, senior vice president, All
India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC), who is
also an officer with SBI, spoke to Frontline about how
bank employees have borne the brunt of the chaos that
has hit banking operations in the country. Excerpts:
THOM AS FR A N C O.
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
12
13
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
VI D YA R AM , a
farmer, exits a
bank holding a
new Rs.2,000 note
in Dadri, Uttar
Pradesh, on
November 15.
Wrecking the
system
The liquidity crisis of unprecedented dimensions that the Modi
government has unleashed shocks the economy, drives people to despair
and ruin and threatens consequences that have not been fully
fathomed yet. B Y V. SRIDHAR
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
14
ANINDITO MUKHERJEE/BLOOMBERG
C OVER STO R Y
India and elsewhere. Carrying dud notes in their walletshaving received their salaries in these very notes just a
few days earlierand not sure whether they would get
paid that day, there was no reason for them to travel
anywhere that day.
The timing was horribly wrong for those in rural
India too. In many places the kharif crop had just been
harvested; elsewhere harvesting was just about to commence when demonetisation hit them like a tsunami. In
Hassan (about 180 kilometres from Bengaluru), for instance, ginger growers, many of them migrants from
Kerala a generation or two ago, are postponing their
harvest in the hope that they can ride out the crisis. But
they have to pay a price for this wait because the roots will
dry up and weigh less. Those unable to wait found that in
the eight days since the demonetisation announcement,
ginger prices had fallen from Rs.1,200 a bag (62 kg) to
Rs.900 a bag.
Maize growers with small holdings, whose harvest is
too small even in normal times to justify the costs of
moving the produce to the local mandi, nd that the local
merchants simply do not have the cash to bail them out.
The collapse in demand has resulted in the price of maize
dropping from Rs.1,700 a quintal two weeks ago to
Rs.1,350 a quintal, says Rajaiah, a maize grower in Boovanahalli, a village near Hassan town. Those waiting to
commence the harvest have no cash to pay wages to
workers. And meanwhile, if it rains, they will lose everything. Those who have harvested their crop and need to
quickly prepare for the rabi season cannot buy inputs
because no one is willing to accept the money they have.
Modis announcement, made with much fanfare, that
banking correspondents (going by the nice-sounding
name of bank mitra (friend) would extend the reach of
the banks by delivering cash and enable exchange of the
invalid notes in rural areas appears hollow. It has had no
impact on the ground as they refuse to accept the justoutlawed currency even from womens self-help groups.
Hassan is also coffee country, with a predominance of
small growers. But with the picking season just around
the corner, growers are restive because they are unable to
access cash to pay their workers. Although some workers
do have bank accounts, B.A. Jagannath, a planter at
Ballupete in Sakaleshpur taluk, asks: What is the point
in having the money in the bank if the worker is unable to
purchase vegetables or groceries?
As queues lengthened at the nearly two lakh bank
branches and half of the countrys 2.25 lakh ATMsthe
other half simply did not work in the rst week anywayreports of more than 50 deaths poured in from
across the country. The simple question people were
asking was, why should someone have to die in a queue to
draw money that belongs to them?
LIVELIHOODS AT A STANDSTILL
It was evident from the start that the prime victims of the
demonetisation exercise were ordinary people even if the
move was portrayed as a war on black money. Vehicular
movement in Bengaluru, famed for its traffic snarls, was
smooth on the morning after the announcement. It was
not difficult to comprehend why. In the medias imagination the city may be seen as the IT capital of the
country, but it is also home to a large migrant populationcarpenters from Rajasthan and Bihar; plumbers and cooks from Odisha; domestic labour from West
Bengal, Tamil Nadu and many other parts of the country;
and security personnel from Nepal, Bihar, north-eastern
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
M. PERIASAMY
A R OA D S I D E S T A L L near VOC Park in Coimbatore offers customers the option to pay by paytm. Immediately after the
announcement, companies offering nancial services, especially e-wallet service providers, launched a media blitzkrieg.
less than half the entire value of the currency in circulation in India; add the 1,000-rupee note, and the two
together account for 86.4 per cent of the value of all bank
notes in circulation (see table). Add the 100-rupee note,
and the three notes together account for 96 per cent of all
the currency moving aroundpractically all of it.
A currencys primary purpose is to provide liquidity;
the various denominations are structured in such a way
that they maximise this by providing options to citizens
and other economic agents, which depend on the nature
of the activity in the economy. The central pivot of the
Indian currency system was clearly the 500-rupee note,
much like the role played by the 100-rupee note a decade
or two ago. In this currency scheme, the 500-rupee note
played a central role by providing not only liquidity but a
store of value that was available on call. The notion
among armchair bhakts that the 500-rupee is a just a safe
haven for ill-gotten wealth demonstrates an utter lack of
empathy for those who have suffered most from ination,
especially of the basic necessities of life. A 500-rupee note
is not even one and a half days wage for a casual worker in
an Indian city. Or put another way, gure out how long it
would last for a family of four to merely buy rice and dal.
DECEMBER 9, 2016
16
17
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
just 3.17 billion, goes the logic of this bizarre move! In any
case, the total now adds up to 18.88 billion new notes. But
the numbers do not stop there because the introduction
of the 2,000-rupee note implies that both 100s and 500s
have to be printed in greater quantities because there is a
huge gap created between the 500- and the 2,000-rupee
notes. Extrapolating from the gures of notes printed in
2015-16 (available in the Annual Report of the RBI
Board, which was submitted by Raghuram Rajan a week
DECEMBER 9, 2016
18
19
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
DECEMBER 9, 2016
20
C OVER STO R Y
K. MURALI KUMAR
declaring, for reasons wrong and indefensible, that currency notes of Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 denomination,
which accounted for more than 85 per cent of the value of
notes in circulation (and around 25 per cent in terms of
sheer numbers), would not be legal tender within four
COMM E R C I A L S T R E ET in Bengaluru on November 14. The usually busy area saw very few shoppers in the days after the
demonitisation and the worst hit as a result were street food vendors and hawkers.
21
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
DECEMBER 9, 2016
YOGESH MHATRE
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
V. SREENIVASA MURTHY
DECEMBER 9, 2016
24
African experience
Examples from the continent show that
if demonetisation is not properly
conceptualised and implemented, it can
spell endless suffering for the people.
THE dramatic announcement
by the Prime Minister that more
than 80 per cent of Indias currency in circulation was no
longer valid tender brought
back memories of this correspondents experience in Nigeria way back in 1984. The
civilian government under
President Shehu Shagari was M U H A M M A D U
overthrown in a military coup B U H A RI ,
led by a relatively young officer President of
by the name of Muhammadu Nigeria.
Buhari. The military junta led
by him claimed that Nigeria under civilian rule had
become a highly corrupt country, with a rich elite
gobbling up the countrys enormous oil-generated
wealth and secreting it in secret bank accounts in the
West. After taking power, Buhari launched a War
against Indiscipline, which included raids on corrupt
officials and businessmen, along with the public
shooting of armed robbers and those accused of violent crimes.
When the military took over, the Nigerian currency, known as the naira, was among the strongest
in the African continent. You could get two American
dollars for one naira those days. The Nigerian economy, however, had come under great strain at the time
as international oil prices were plummeting. A country that once had a thriving farm sector had become
almost totally dependent on imports for its food
needs. General Buhari initially resisted the demands
of the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund to restructure the economy by resorting to devaluation of the currency. Instead, he opted for the
radical measure of demonetising the currency.
Without any warning, the military government
announced the decision over radio and television in
early 1984. The government just changed the colour of
the notes. The countrys borders were sealed and a
wage freeze was implemented. What followed was
utter chaos and confusion as the weak banking system
was not in a position to cope with the anarchy the
decision had unleashed.
This correspondent remembers paying a hefty
bribe to get his money exchanged and to retrieve his
savings from the bank. Those days there were no
JOHN MACDOUGALL
BY J O H N C H E R I A N
25
DECEMBER 9, 2016
DECEMBER 9, 2016
26
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
DECEMBER 9, 2016
28
ANUPAM NATH/AP
C OVER STO R Y
SANTOSH HIRLEKAR/PTI
AT A J E W E L L E R Y S T O RE in Mumbai on November 12. The days that followed November 8 at the citys jewellery trading
centre, Zaveri Bazaar, resembled the week before Deepavali when people buy a lot of jewellery.
29
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
CORPORATE THUMBS UP
DECEMBER 9, 2016
30
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
C OVER STO R Y
Ruined livelihoods
More than 80 per cent of Indias workforce is in the informal
or unorganised sector and has taken the full brunt of the
demonetisation move. BY AKSHAY DESHMANE
most glaring instance of how badly Indias informal economy has been affected by the sudden invalidation of
nearly 86 per cent of the countrys circulating currency.
According to the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, the informal or the unorganised sector comprises all unincorporated private
enterprises owned by individuals or households engaged
in the sale and production of goods and services and
operated on a proprietary or partnership basis with fewer
than 10 workers. In 2011-12, nearly 83 per cent of Indias
workforce was concentrated in the informal sector.
By its very nature, the informal economy relies on
cash. Electronic nancial transactions are an exception
to the norm of daily transactions in cash carried out by
hundreds of millions of Indians engaged in micro-,
small- and medium-scale businesses. Predictably, the
effect of demonetisation has been the worst on the informal economy, especially on the workers who depend
on their daily earnings to make ends meet and have no
reliable social security mechanisms to fall back on.
It should come as no surprise then that many interest
groups representing specic sectors of the informal economy have spoken out against the demonetisation measure or the manner of its implementation. Speaking to
Frontline, Shaktiman Ghosh, general secretary of the
National Hawker Federation, said: There has been an
adverse impact on street vendors and the entire lowcircuit economy. Our producers come from cottage and
small industries. They are small, poor and retail-dependent. They number about four crore and have a turnover of
Rs.8,000 crore a year. The adverse impact on the lowcircuit economy has beneted the online businesses.
From November 9, sales in the retail market has been
reduced to one-third of what it was previously and in
wholesale markets to half of what it was. This is unjust.
They have let off the big businesses easily.
Interestingly, an assessment by the international
consulting rm Deloitte, which was released soon after
the demonetisation announcement, also pointed out that
there would be an adverse impact on the informal economy. It said: There will be disruption in the current
liquidity situation as households are likely to get affected
by the note exchange and currency withdrawal terms laid
DECEMBER 9, 2016
32
Post-demonetisation, trade in the markets of the country has reduced to 25 per cent in comparison with normal
days. Rural retailers from taluka and other mofussil areas
who generally visit nearby district markets for procurement of goods had to remain at their respective places for
want of sufficient funds of acceptable denomination.
APMC [Agricultural Produce Market Committee] and
mandis across the country had very less business as
farmers who had brought their produce for sale in the
market have to face a nightmare when he could not get
money against his saleable produce due to non-availability of smaller denomination of notes. The logistics sector
came to standstill as the truck drivers had only high
denomination notes which caused blocks in smooth
movement of transportation.
To give a sense of how large the retail sector is and
what an adverse impact on it could mean for the economy, the CAIT shared some gures: It is estimated that
the Indian retail trade is of about 42 lakh crore of rupees
annually, resulting to approximately Rs.14 thousand
crore per day, out of which about 40 per cent trade is
conducted through Business to Business (B2B) whereas
rest of the 60 per cent business is conducted through
Business to Consumer (B2C) activities. Sixty per cent of
the total retail trade is conducted in urban areas whereas
rest of the 40 per cent trade is conducted in rural areas.
Opposition politicians have naturally seen this as an
opportunity to intervene. Back at the Azadpur Mandi,
while discussing the losses in the apple trade, Nabi
Ahmed also spoke animatedly about politics. On the day
he spoke with this correspondent, Arvind Kejriwal and
Mamata Banerjee were at the market and they spoke
against the policy of demonetisation. Kejriwal mentioned the lack of trading activity at the market and called
the policy Independent Indias biggest scam. While
Ahmed was not sure about this claim, he agreed with
Kejriwals larger message: demonetisation has affected
the most vulnerable and poor unjustly and disproportionately.
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
C OVER STO R Y
Rural distress
To rural India, which is already reeling under multiple crises,
demonetisation has come as yet another blow. B Y T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
WHEN THE PRIME MINISTER MADE THE
decision to withdraw Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes, he did
not quite factor in the impact it would have on agriculture. Despite the rhetoric the concept of digital wallets
has not yet entered rural India unlike in much of the
countrys urban areas, and much of rural and agricultural
India was caught unawares by the decision. While the
mainstream media documented the serpentine and unending queues in front of banks in the metros and smaller
cities, similar images from the rural hinterland were
missing. This was not because there was no crisis of a
currency crunch there but because of the thin density of
the banking network in rural India. If anything, the
reduced footfall at vegetable markets in the metros and
other cities was an indication of the crisis that had hit the
perishable commodity sector.
Private consumption overall was expected to drop
because of the cash crunch, which was interpreted by
some quarters as short-term pain. But the crisis in the
rural hinterland and the shape of things to come because
of it remain understated. The effects of the currency
crunch, coming as it did at the peak of the sowing season,
are going to be long term. Producers of perishable items
such as vegetables and fruits have already begun to feel
the punch.
Despite a record harvest, farmers were not able to sell
their produce; neither could they procure seeds and fertilizers for the rabi crop. All the four largest markets in
the country run by Agricultural Produce Marketing
Committees suffered major losses as traders were not
able to sell the produce or pay farmers.
The volume of trading in Asias largest wholesale fruit
and vegetable market, Delhis Azadpur Mandi, which has
around 30,000 small traders apart from labourers engaged in loading, unloading and other activities, came
down by 10 to 20 per cent. The low turnout of the public
too at prominent vegetable markets was an indication of
the exchange crunch. The only queues seen were at bank
branches for the entire fortnight. The mandis were empty. The rural economy, comprising almost 65 per cent of
Indias population, is a cash economy. Plastic money is an
unheard of concept here. And with just 53 per cent of the
people having bank accounts in the country, it was unrealistic in the least to assume that much of the rural
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
KUNAL SHANKAR
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
DECEMBER 9, 2016
36
C OVER STO R Y
Cash bombs
in rural U.P.
Times are bleak in the season of sowing wheat, mustard and lentil in
western Uttar Pradesh. B Y ZIYA US SALAM
days labour. The workers in turn use these canes as fuel.
Even these meagre earnings are welcome when cash has
virtually disappeared from rural India.
Says Haz Sheikh Mansoor Ahmed, a villager: I have
had a small plot of land here for a long time. Things have
been bleak for many years now, but this is the worst. We
have not had a suitable procurement price for sugarcane
for the past ve-six years. This time, with the elections
near, we were expecting better times, but then Modijis
move took us all by surprise. I do not have cash at home to
pay the worker who wants to be paid daily wages. I am
dependent on those who take sugarcane in lieu of wages.
ANINDITO MUKHERJEE/BLOOMBERG
A SU GA R C A N E F A R M ER with his crop in Modinagar, Ghaziabad district, Uttar Pradesh. It is harvest time and the daily
wagers have not turned up in several places as the farmers cannot pay them in cash. Those who come are paid in kind.
37
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP
farmer; the more acute the need, the higher the rate.
Some have been charging as much as 10 per cent since
the money demonetisation. Earlier the rate was 5 to 7 per
cent.
The farmers in Hardoi were used to an informal
banking system. That is, the most popular or the richest
farmer takes a big loan from a bank and gives a share of it
to smaller farmers at a slightly higher rate. This rate has
never been exploitative, and the farmers were happy to
pay the amount at the time of harvest. It is different now.
It is each to his own. Some farmers go to Lucknow to get
loans. Others fall back on their relatives and friends. Still
others mortgage their jewellery. But everyone urgently
needs money for sowing and manure. Ploughing is going
on. We cannot wait for seeds, says Rishipal.
The government has sought 50 days. We would be
ruined much before that. But does a farmers problem
bother anyone at all? he asks.
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
C OVER STO R Y
Grinding to a halt
A rural economy like Mahbubnagars runs on cash transactions and
demonetisation has brought a painful disruption to normal life.
B Y KUNAL SHANKAR
building work for the past 14 years except this year, when
farm labour has been in demand as the rains have been
good. The arrangement with the landlord is that he will
pay a days wagesRs.150 for women and Rs.200 for
menfor standing in the serpentine line at the post office
and something extra for chai aur pani (tea and water),
says Shanti. They produce a photocopy of a government
ID, mostly Aadhaar or ration cards, along with the forms
and the currency, and the post office returns the
Rs.4,000 in newly printed Rs.2,000 notes or worn-out
Rs.100 notes, which the landlord takes back.
Less than ve minutes walk from the post office, the
main wholesale vegetable market of this town with a
population of about 18,000 is near empty at 9:30 a.m.
Mohammad Abdul Salim, a wholesaler selling mainly
chillies, says that usually most of the produce would have
been sold by now, but not today, November 15, a whole
week after the big currency recall. Salims bags of chillies
lie on the road unsold. Most customers buy produce for a
few hundred rupees. I dont have change when they give
me Rs.2,000 now! says Salim, exasperated.
Ramulu, another wholesaler within earshot, says
people are panic-stricken. He says: One normally needs
about a kilogram of salt per family every month. But at
the market yesterday, I saw people buying 10 kg. Everyone is afraid they will run out of money.
About two kilometres away, outside the local State
Bank of India (SBI) branch, a jeweller-cum-pawnbroker
gets a Lambada tribesman to affix his thumb impression
on a promissory note to return Rs.1.85 lakh of the Rs.2
lakh that he has lent him. The deal is for the jeweller to
pay off the latters farm loan of Rs.15,000 in return for
this favour. The rest of the money is to be paid over a
period of time free of interest.
Inside the bank, it is utter chaos. A worn-out employee says there has been no let-up in the near stampede-like
situation for the past week, and most of those coming in
are not customers. They are there to exchange Rs.4,000
as cash, as that is the amount the bank had been authorised to dispense to a single customer each week. The
official says that those with more cash simply take the
rest to the next bank and get another Rs.4,000 exchanged there. This was a day before the government
KUNAL SHANKAR
DECEMBER 9, 2016
40
KUNAL SHANKAR
whether there has indeed been any recovery of unaccounted wealth. Until then, we will keep all the records,
he says.
It is as if Mahbubnagars overwhelmingly rural economy had come to a near standstill, but the response to the
Narendra Modi governments sudden jolt to the countrys monetary policy ranged from adulation to shock.
Back at the vegetable market, Venugopal, a wholesaler-turned-auto nance dealer, says: I read in the
papers, in WhatsApp and in other social media that fake
currency worth Rs.20 lakh crore has been taken out of the
system. Haz Sayeed has been sending this into India
through Jammu and Kashmir. The government should
go after the Vijay Mallyas of the country next. Ramulu,
standing next to Venugopal, also approves of the policy
but disapproves of the timing to introduce Rs.2,000.
He says it is easier to hoard, say, Rs.10 crore with
Rs.2,000 notes than it would be with Rs.500 or Rs.1,000
notes. The latter takes up more space, says Ramulu. He
also wishes the government was better prepared, with
pre-calibrated ATM machines to dispense Rs.2,000
notes and wished the recall of the Rs.500 and Rs.1,000
had been done in a staggered manner.
But 40-year-old Mohammed Nayeem Irfan, who
joined the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti party four
years ago, is a worried man. He has a poultry business
and sells 10,000 eggs a day. Until November 8, the going
rate per egg was Rs.3.91, he says, but that has now
dropped to Rs.3.50 as wholesalers complained of a cash
crunch, citing looming tax payments. If the trend continues, Irfan calculates a revenue loss of about Rs.1.5 lakh
every month. The rural economy runs on cash, even if it
is in lakhs of rupees. All of the money is rotated from one
business to another. All our savings are also in cash. How
are we to pay daily wagers, for chicken feed, or to buy
groceries? And how can we be sure that we can get back
the money once we deposit it in the bank? Some families
have Rs.10-20 lakh in cash, but thats their savings for the
past 20 years! Would all that be taxed now? And how can
they prove that it is genuine income? No one maintains
receipts! says an anxious Irfan.
A high-ranking officer in Telanganas Panchayati Raj
and Rural Development Department, however, sought to
dispel such fears. He pointed out that agriculture was
free from income tax and that most farmers knew this
already.
He said: If somebody has commensurate landholdings to justify having such large amounts of cash, then the
banks should accept it as genuine income. Look, farmers
dont normally operate bank accounts, and most people
dont deal with cheques. The fact is that the practices
which people are used to have been disturbed, so naturally they are worried. But going cashless is the future. They
will take to banks the way they took to mobile phones or
cable TV. It is only a matter of time. Deepening the
governments e-seva portal and other such measures will
help.
Hyderabad, which is just 80 km away from Jadcherla,
suddenly felt a world away.
KUNAL SHANKAR
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
COV E R S T OR Y
Despair
in the
delta
R.M. RAJARATHINAM
DECEMBER 9, 2016
which are the backbone of the rural economy, have refused to exchange Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes from farmers. Farmers have not been allowed to withdraw money
from their savings bank accounts in these banks and
credit societies. Ration shops in villages do not accept
Rs.500 or Rs.1,000 notes either. With no ATMs in villages and nationalised banks having their branches mostly
in the towns, farmers across Tamil Nadu do not have
money even to buy groceries. They do not have cash to
buy fertilizers, repair pump sets, pay farm labourers or
undertake weeding operations where groundwater is
available and the samba crop has been sown. That the
long-term samba crop, raised between August and December/January, has withered away for want of water is
another story. Worse, there has been no cultivation of
kuruvai, which is done from June to September, for the
past ve years.
To add insult to injury, District Collectors have told
farmers that they will have to pay the premium for their
crop insurance in cooperative banks or primary cooperative credit societies before the November 30 deadline.
Farmers have been warned that if they fail to do so, they
will become ineligible to receive compensation for their
failed crops. On top of all this is the currency famine.
42
AN ASSAULT ON FARMERS
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
Struggling to
stay aoat
Fishermen in Tamil Nadu are hit hard as
the cash ow dries up and people stop
buying sh. B Y R . K . R A D H A K R I S H N A N
CUSTOMER footfalls in the Chintadripet fish market,
one of the many government-designated markets for
the retail sh trade in Chennai, have gone down from
about 5,000 in the morning hours to a few hundreds.
Arrivals at most sh markets in the State remained
steady on November 8 and 9, but fell subsequently
because of poor demand.
Yes, there is a huge slip [after the demonetisation], said S. Janakiraman, who was until recently
president of the Kovalam panchayat, a village that
depends on shing and tourism for its survival. Earlier, for instance, if a hawker sold sh worth Rs.5,000,
now it is down to about Rs.1,500, he said and added
that people were willing to undergo the pain caused by
demonetisation because they believed that it was for a
greater good and that it was a temporary phenomenon.
What if the present situation continues? Then,
there will be a problem because people will nd it
difficult. Cash is an essential requirement to run the
trade, he said. Similar sentiments were voiced by other workers and association representatives across the
State. Theres a liquidity problem even after a week,
said U. Arulanandam, a prominent voice in the Fishermens Association in Tamil Nadu. All of us support the
government in the drive against black money. Our only
request is that the government help us with some kind
of subsidy because many shermen are out of work, he
told Frontline.
That is the main problem. Across the country, the
sheries sector has ground to a halt. In Tamil Nadu,
despite the fact that no association has openly come
out demanding relief, most of the boats across the 13
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
44
B. JOTHI RAMALINGAM
Dhanapathy said, We are unable to pay farm workers. They havent got their wages. The new Rs.500 and
Rs.1,000 notes are not available here. In petrol bunks,
they accept Rs.500 notes. But if we buy petrol or diesel for
Rs.200 or Rs.300, they write out the balance on a slip of
paper and ask us to come after some days to get the
money. Demonetisation is a good scheme but people are
running from pillar to post to rustle up some valid money.
They are undergoing indescribable hardships, he added.
We are not able to do any work and agriculture has
been hit hard was the refrain of R. Manickam, a farmer
boats, 28,886 motorised and 5,261 non-motorised traditional craft have been registered till 15.07.2016, says
the policy note for 2016-17. Tamil Nadu has the second
longest coastline in India: 1,076 kilometres across 13
coastal districts (exclusive economic zone of 1.9 lakh sq
km and a continental shelf area of 41,412 sq km). The
marine sher population in Tamil Nadu is 9.64 lakh,
living in 608 shing villages. Fishermens unions, including its leaders such as Arulanandam, dispute this
number. They say that the State government only
counts those with a government identity card; in reality, there are over 13 lakh sh workers in Tamil Nadu.
The entire trade, barring a few up-market retail
outlets, operates on cash. Cash is required to meet the
daily needs of the labourers and also for the cost inputs
for the next trip. A few shermen this correspondent
spoke to insisted that there was nothing illegal about
their cash transactions as most of them did not have
the annual income required to make it even to the
lowest income tax bracket.
It is largely a hand-to-mouth existence, and the
government subsidies, such as the lean season allowancethough it is delayed every single timeare a
welcome relief whenever they reached them. Most of
the registered shermen do have bank accounts and
also opt for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme during the lean months.
Fishermens representatives insist that there is no
other way to run the sectorbarring a minuscule part
of the industry populated by big multi-day trawlers
employing 15 to 20 labourers. In such cases too, the
labourers have to be paid in cash after each trip.
Despite the fact that the sector provides employment to about 15 million people in the country, the
problems of the sh workers have barely made it to the
media after the November 8 announcement on demonetisation. The sector is in danger of falling apart
unless the government provides input support or buys
the catchas it does in the case of procurement of
cropssh worker leaders say. But, with hardly any
spotlight on the sectorexcept when shermen are
shot at by the Sri Lanka Navyeven this is a tall order.
For now, it appears that the shermen will have to fend
for themselves.
45
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
E. LAKSHMI NARAYANAN
R.M. RAJARATHINAM
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
46
C OVER STO R Y
Choking a lifeline
Ruling and opposition parties in Kerala join hands to protest against what
they see as a politically motivated move to destroy the cooperative sector
in the State. B Y R. KRISHNAKUMAR I N T H I R U V A N A N T H A P U R A M
C. RATHEESH KUMAR
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
DECEMBER 9, 2016
48
C OVER STO R Y
T H E S T A T E MEN T showing cash deposits amounting to Rs.1 crore made by the BJP at the Central Avenue
branch of Indian Bank in Kolkata on November 8 before the Prime Ministers demonitisation announcement.
49
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
DECEMBER 9, 2016
50
ESSA Y
BALOCHISTAN
VS KASHMIR
tan, Ajit Doval, now Prime Minister Narendra Modis
National Security Adviser, said at the 10th Nani Palkhivala Memorial Lecture at Sastra University, Thanjavur, on February 21, 2014. This was three months before
he became NSA and the Manmohan Singh government
was still in power.
The shock this Doval Doctrine of defensive-offence
induced precluded any cool analysis of its implications
(see the writers The Doval doctrine, Frontline, November 13, 2015). Doval was advocating a diplomacy of tit for
tat with full knowledge of the perils it entailed, not least
among them being the risk of matters getting out of hand
in the retaliatory ladder of escalation. This becomes apparent when one moves from the doctrine to the specic,
Balochistan.
Whoever perpetrated the Mumbai attacks committed a dastardly crime. But at no time did India ever allege
that Pakistans top leaders were complicit in it. Is it not a
wholly disproportionate retaliation to secure the detachment of one of Pakistans four provinces? Would its
I N HI S I N D E P E N D E N CE
MONEY SHARMA/AFP
51
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
KAMAL NARANG
DECEMBER 9, 2016
52
INDRANIL MUKHERJEE
DSFSGSGEA
DECEMBER 9, 2016
54
BANARAS KHAN/AFP
containing China, which is developing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and prevent it from setting up a base in Indian Ocean. Thirdly, it will provide a
safe and short passage to India in Eurasia, which it can
get in Balochistan through the sea route. This is benecial for India to get its resources, gas, and oil from the
region as its energy requirement will double by 2030.
India is a developing the Chabahar port in Iran,
which is in occupied Sistan Baloch province. We welcome India. Why is China so insecure and not able to
move freely in the province for its CPEC project? (Armed
Baloch insurgents attack Chinese employees in Balochistan as it opposes Pakistans occupation and Chinese involvement.) We dont want the same to happen to Indian
nationals in Chabahar as we love and respect India. We
want India to emphasise to Iran and Afghanistan to
protect the human rights of Baloch nationals living in
their region. Iranian forces have already started killing
Baloch people and displacing villages for the development of ports, like the ones in Kumb-Moradabad and
Roshanabad. Pakistans development of Gwadar port for
China has resulted in the genocide of our people and now
Iranians are doing the same in Chabahar. India cant
criticise human rights atrocities against Balochs in Pakistan and ignore those being committed in Iran. It needs to
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
terference in the internal affairs of India (Indian Express, August 13). But Kashmir is not on a par with
Balochistan, legally and politically.
The episode illustrates the knee-jerk, impetuous
character of the Modi-Doval decision-making process. It
calls for a close study by itself. It is reected in other
policies as well. Evidently, no thought was given to Balochis within Balochistan. The pliable exiles were all that
mattered. Exiles are a notoriously embittered lot. Undoubtedly, though, over the years Pakistans policies in
Balochistan have been disgraceful.
EARLIER MEDDLINGS
COLD FEET
The signs are that New Delhi has begun to develop cold
feet. These squabbling Baloch leaders will ruin Indias
relations with China as well as Iran. Baloch separatists
will any time cut a deal with Pakistan, leaving India high
and dry. Brahamdagh Khan Bugti said in Washington,
D.C. that he was prepared to talk to Pakistan. We are
practical people. We will talk (Dawn, August 2016).
The United States State Department spokesman
John-Kirby said on September 15 that the U.S. respects
the unity and territorial integrity of Pakistan and we do
not support independence for Balochistan (The Telegraph, September 16).
However, while accepting that Balochistan is Pakistans territory, the U.S., increasingly Indias natural ally, also holds that Jammu AND Kashmir is very much a
disputed territory. This was stated unequivocally, in so
many words, as late as on August 20, 2015, by none other
than the Special Assistant to President Barack Obama,
Peter R. Lavoy: Jammu and Kashmir is disputed territory. There was no change in the U.S. position, he explained. We do acknowledge that this is a contested
territory; or contested border between India and Pakistan (The Asian Age ,August 21, 2015). To this day, United
Nations maps carry the legend The Final Status of Jammu and Kashmir has not yet been agreed upon by the
parties. Kashmir cannot be put on a par with Balochistan. Such a policy is doomed to failure.
The timing suggests two things. The infrastructure
of intervention was long in place. Failure to tackle the
revolt in Kashmir led to desperation. The Baloch card
was used in the foolish belief that Pakistan was behind
the revolt. It was not, as even Omar Abdullah said. In the
three months since Modi spoke on August 15, the revolt
has not subsided.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley let the cat out of the
bag on August 12. Asked why the Prime Minister had
raised the question of Balochistan and PoK, Jaitley said
Modis remarks were in the context of Pakistans inFRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
CHASTENING PERSPECTIVE
actually helped the Pakistan establishment most separatist Balochis who are thanking Modi are in the West.
They are not present on the ground because they lack
public support.
Many in India claim that Pakistan forcefully occupied Balochistan in 1948. But facts are different from
ction. There were four princely states ruled by Baloch
leaders in 1947. The Baloch tribal areas and Quetta
Municipality were separate entities. On 29 June 1947,
the Tribal Jirga (54 members) and Quetta Municipality
(100 members, including Hindus and Sikhs) voted for
Pakistan, including Nawab Akbar Bugti, grandfather of
Brahamdagh Bugti, who thanked Modi for his 15 August
statement. Akbar Bugti not only voted for Pakistan but
also helped Mohammad Ali Jinnahs Muslim League
nancially.
Sorry to say, Modi actually strengthened the Pakistan establishment in Balochistan. Time will prove the
speech was one of Modis biggest mistakes. The Indian
PM tried to internationalise Balochistan but, in fact, he
internationalised hatred between India and Pakistan
and helped the hate-mongers (Outlook, September 5).
India has not only waded into a marsh but ripped apart
the India-Pakistan Accord of 1947, an aspect which is not
noticed. An Experts Committee comprising members
from both sides was set up then to consider the effect of
Partition on the existing treaties and engagements between India and other countries and tribes. Annexure V
contained a list of 627 treaties and engagements. Treaties
Nos. 109-124 between the British Crown and Kalat were
listed as ones of exclusive interest to Pakistan. More
relevant to our times, item No.143 concerned The IndoTibetan Boundary Agreement of 1914 regarding xation
of Assam-Tibet boundary, that is, the McMahon Line.
Item Nos. 149 to 158 covered treaties with Afghanistan,
including the ones on the Durand Line. The Steering
Committee accepted this. So, did the Partition Council.
On August 14, 1947, the Governor General made an
Order, under Section 9 of the Indian Independence Act,
1947, endorsing the India-Pakistan Agreement, based on
the Experts Report, which was set out in a Schedule. The
result is that India cannot question Kalats status nor the
Durand Line, and Pakistan cannot question the McMahon Line, either (Partition Proceedings, Vol. III, Experts
Committees, Nos. III-IX, Government of India Press,
1948, pages 226-230).
MIRROR IMAGES
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
DECEMBER 9, 2016
As a rst step we must accept what the world acknowledgesthere is a dispute to be settled. It is no use talking
of Kashmir as an atoot ang of India or as a jugular vein of
Pakistan. In the opinion of the Office of the Legal Adviser [of the U.S. State Department], the execution by the
Maharajah in October 1947 could not nally accomplish
the accession of Kashmir to either Dominion, in view of
the circumstances prevailing at that time (Foreign Relations of the U.S., South Asia, Vol V; page 1,379). Britains
Attorney-General and Foreign Office questioned the validity of the Instrument.
The cowardly Maharaja had ed, deserting his people
and thus relinquishing his title as ruler. Of what avail the
g leaf when the tree itself is gone? Kashmir cannot be
settled by legal debates, only by political conciliation.
58
L AB OU R ISSUE S
End of wage
disparities?
ONE worrisome and persistent
phenomenon in the labour market
has been the growing tendency of
employers to keep a signicant proportion of their workforce, especially
the blue-collar sections, in temporary forms of employment. Recruited
through an elaborate system of contractors, these workers, though they
are as competent as their regular
counterparts, are denied not only the
same wages and emoluments for the
same work done but also other benets. Such workers constitute almost
50 per cent, sometimes more, of the
workforce in many organisations
and even in government departments. These are the precariat of the
21st century, the social class of people subject to the uncertainty of existence.
On October 26, in a landmark
judgment, setting aside a clutch of
appeals and adjudicating on the
principle of equal pay for equal
work, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices
J.S. Khehar and S.A. Bobde directed
the Punjab government to pay equal
wage for equal work to thousands of
casual, temporary, daily wage workers employed by the State
government.
The court ruled that it was fallacious to determine articial parameters to deny fruits of labour. An
employee, observed Justices Khehar
R. RAGU
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
DECEMBER 9, 2016
J U S T I C E S . A . BOBD E .
K. MURALI KUMAR
ROOTED IN REALITY
V. SUDERSHAN
DECEMBER 9, 2016
EN VI R O NME NT
C ON N A UG HT P LACE ,
DECEMBER 9, 2016
ALTAF QADRI/AP
Hazy winter
NASA
NASA
P IC. 1 : Distribution of res on November 2, 2016, based on data from the VIIRS
instrument aboard satellite Suomi-NPP. Each of the small coloured squares
(25 km 25 km) on the map indicates the number of res detected. The dark
red squares have between 1 and 5 re detections (within the 25 km 25 km
area), while the yellow areas represent up to 25 re detections.
NASA
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
64
FIG . 3 : Wind Rose Diagram: The gures show how wind speed and direction were distributed during the days indicated. The colour
shading scale on the left of the plots indicates the wind speeds and the circles indicate different percentage shares of the total time for
each speed and direction.
65
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
NAAQS
FIG . 4 : PM2.5 concentration levels during October 20-November 6. The plot also shows temperature, horizontal surface
wind speeds on each day and the categories of air quality index in which the values fall.
TAB L E 1: Though it may seem that recracker bursting was less this year, pollution
on the single day of Deepavali was higher than last year. (Credit: Central Pollution
Control Board)
DECEMBER 9, 2016
C U LTUR E
RAMAYANAS
OF SOUTH AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA
R A MA A N D S I T A .
Yogyakarta.
IMAGINE a gure who has been loved and worshipped by hundreds of millions of people in many
countries for untold generations, a personality upon
whom countless kings have modelled themselves, a
story which has been central to the culture of many
countries cutting across a spectrum of religions, an epic
which has shaped the lives and daily behaviour of millions of people and provided them an ethical framework
on which to build their understanding of their duties in
the world.
We are speaking of the Ramayana, one of the great
stories of the world. The story of the Ramayana is
enacted more often than any other story in the world. It
is performed by Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims. It is
the most important cultural tradition of Thailand,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Nepal and India. It is also widely preva-
Series
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
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DECEMBER 9, 2016
70
71
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DECEMBER 9, 2016
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72
D E A TH OF J A TA YU.
Ramayana ballet,
Prambanan Temple,
Yogyakarta.
73
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DECEMBER 9, 2016
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DECEMBER 9, 2016
74
Ramayana ballet,
Prambanan Temple,
Yogyakarta.
75
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
DECEMBER 9, 2016
76
R AMA A N D L A K S H M A N A . Wat Xieng Thong, Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic.
77
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
R AVA N A .
GURU
AMM A N O O R
M A DH A V A
CH A K YA R ,
Koodiyattam,
Sanskrit dance
drama.
R AVA N A , W A YA N G
SH A D O W PUPPE T .
Museum Wayang,
Jakarta, Indonesia.
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
78
R A VAN A .
Lav Kush
Ramlila
Committee.
R A VAN A ,
OD I S S I
D AN CE . Kiran
FRONTLINE .
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80
81
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DECEMBER 9, 2016
82
R AMA A N D S I T A , O D I S S I . Kiran Sehgal & Sahitya Kala Parishad (all female cast).
R A MA, O D I S S I . Kiran Sehgal & Sahitya Kala Parishad (all female cast).
83
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
DECEMBER 9, 2016
84
85
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
BOO KS in review
Challenges to the
global economy
In this tribute to their teacher, Prabhat Patnaiks former students put
together a volume that covers three major themes: the internal
contradictions of capitalism, the growth of the Indian economy
and the feasibility of socialism. B Y C . T . K U R I E N
RABHAT PATNAIK,
a frequent contributor
to Frontline, is currently
Professor Emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University
and has been one of Indias
most renowned economists and public intellectuals. The volume under
review contains essays
contributed entirely by
Patnaiks former students,
especially those whom he
guided in their doctoral
work. It is a tting tribute
to a teacher who inspired
them by his commitment
to scholarship and involvement in public affairs.
Apart from an excellent introduction by the editors,
there are 19 chapters in the
book, making the reviewers task difficult.
The editors have indicated that there have been
three major themes in Patnaiks voluminous writings: the growth of the
Indian economy, the internal contradictions of capitalism, and the feasibility
of socialism. In this review,
I shall follow that lead, although that would mean
not identifying individual
contributors. Critical reviews of individual papers
are sure to appear in pro-
FRONTLINE .
Economic
Challenges for the
Contemporary World
Essays in Honour of
Prabhat Patnaik
Edited by Mausumi
Das, Sabyasachi Kar
& Nandan Nawn
Sage, New Delhi,
2016
Pages: 324
Price: Rs.1,195
DECEMBER 9, 2016
FINANCIALISATION
BLOOMBERG
capital is akin to merchant capital tending to subjugate even industrial capital, one of
the authors in the book observes.
87
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
OU TS I D E the Bombay Stock Exchange in Mumbai. Currency trading is one of the most
protable activities for capitalist corporations.
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
88
BOO KS in review
Environment
and business
The strength of the book is that it casts a wide net
and looks at the interface between business and the
environment over multiple sectors. Its weakness is
the varying quality of the papers collected.
BY S . G O P I K R I S H N A W A R R I E R
Business Interests
and the
Environmental
Crisis
Edited by Kanchi
Kohli and Manju
Menon
Sage Publications
India
Price: Rs.845
scientists, policymakers,
economists, legal experts,
NGOs [non-governmental
organisations], environmental activists, indigenous community leaders
and heads of state. The
punchline is strong. The
congurations of partnerships or collaborations that
emerge from these negotiations rely on commitments
between partiesbe they
nations, regions or communities. These are similar
to scal contracts and these
efforts to arrive at agreements are presented as
philanthropic initiatives of
corporations for a better
world or a greener planet.
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
DECEMBER 9, 2016
PAUL NORONHA
perceived.
Himanshu
Burte, in his paper on the
abstract nature of building, writes about how neoliberalism promotes the
consolidation of abstract,
common-property spaces
into real, privatised spaces.
He gives three examples:
the Sabarmati Riverfront
Development project in
Ahmedabad; the Lavasa
urban development project in the Western Ghats
of Maharashtra; and the
Delhi-Mumbai Industrial
Corridor (DMIC) stretching across seven Sates and
involving the creation of
nine new cities. The Sabarmati Riverfront Development project involved
construction of platforms
and walls along the natural
ood banks of the river
owing through the heart
of Ahmedabad. About 185
hectares of land will be created along the riverside,
S. Gopikrishna Warrier is
an environment journalist
and blogger.
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
L I T ER A TUR E
DECEMBER 9, 2016
them
down
to
the
earth. (Kanthapura)
To be orthodox, to be a smartha,
I said to myself, is to accept the real.
Stalin is orthodox; he is crude and
smelly like some Jesuit father, he the
product of a seminary. But Trotsky
promised us beauty, promised us
paradise. There is a saying that when
Trotsky was talking of the beautiful
world revolution, Stalin was making
statistics of the bovine riches of Soviet Russia.... But the smarthasome
Innocent IIIknows this world is intangible, and all worlds therefore are
intangible, and turns his vision inwards... (The Serpent and the Rope)
Fortunately there are wars. And
rationing is one of the grandest inventions of man. You stamp paper
with gures and you feed stomachs
on
numbers. (The
Cat
and
Shakespeare)
Suicide is your endor the
Buddhist Royal robe. (Comrade
Kirillov)
But do you know Brahman?
No. Not yet! For to know Brahman really one has to become Brahman, to become it.
Yet, It, he smiled as if hed found
a new idea to play with. (The Chessmaster and His Moves)
Is this Raja Rao your agenda-driven spiritualist, who was accused of
stereotyping India in the wake of Edward Saids Orientalism? Did our
media and the academia have to
readily and necessarily forsake Raja
Rao in order to welcome Salman
Rushdies keen political voice in Midnights Children? Where has
this separation between the seeking
and the pragmatic led us towhere
is the Indian novel today? Where is
the idea, the hunger, the irony, the
play?
At his 108th birth anniversary
(such a nice Vedic-type number!), on
the one hand, some of us harbour
very legitimate nationalist aspirations to make Raja Rao more relevant in todays India. On the other,
the dim quasi-secular plots are as
ready as ever to mundanely dismiss
him as a Vedantist propagating
Brahminical elitism through his
works.
We have now come to the point:
93
DECEMBER 9, 2016
DECEMBER 9, 2016
moralistic philosophy and theological framework which clearly distinguishes between Gods goodness and
spirituality and the demiurges worldliness and materiality. Madeleines
dualistic belief and spiritual practice
are possibly inuenced by the Cathar
theology, the dualistic world view of
which suffered a violent death and
complete erasure at the hands of the
monistic Church Council by the
mid-13th century. Her deep engagement with and belief in this theology
might have had a subconscious role
to play in effecting her separation
from Rama; it seems her growing
physical aloofness from Rama cannot be attributed entirely to her apparent Buddhist devotion.
SANKHYA DUALISM AND RAMA
DECEMBER 9, 2016
night Ayya would appear like a respitting demon, his beedi-end glowing. He always had a matchbox. Even
if he didnt have a beedi, he would
always have a matchbox.
Ayya always lay down smoking a
beedi. When the lit beedi moved from
hand to mouth, this way and that,
you wondered if the eyes of the bogeyman-thief looked like this.
Ayya often lit the beedi in the
night and whenever he struck the
match, sarr, the whole house would
ll up with light. Even in that mo97
DECEMBER 9, 2016
Powerful imagery
KONANGI was one of the
frontrunners who
experimented with Tamil
prose with verve and energy.
This poignant story is one of
his earlier stories, woven
around two children in the
deep, rural south, where
childhood is often unsettling,
lled with tension, and given
to sudden dislocations on
account of poverty.
The heart-wrenching
reality of this tale is related in
a solemn, sombre tone,
rendering it even more
convincing. In the deft hand of
Konangi, the single naked
lamp in their home, covered
by a broken chimney picked
up from an undergrowth of
weeds and patched up with a
leaf of paper torn from a
mathematics notebook,
becomes a mystical motif. The
sudden decision by the father
to relocate to another town in
DECEMBER 9, 2016
W O R L D A FFA IRS
THE PRESIDENT'S
FRIEND
CHOI S OON - S I L
AFP
being escorted
from the Central
District Court in
Seoul following
her arrest, on
November 3.
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
revelations emerge, the signs are ominous for the countrys rst woman President. Park Gyeun-hye was elected
in 2012 on a right-wing platform espousing national
security, economic growth and a corruption-free government. She had promised an end to the culture of corruption that had perennially plagued South Korean politics.
As an opposition lawmaker, she had cultivated an
image of probity. The fact that she was the daughter of
the former dictator Park Chung-hee had also bolstered
her image. Many Koreans, particularly those belonging
to the older generation, idolised the former military general who seized power in a military coup in 1961. He was
in power until his assassination in 1979 at the hands of
Kim Jae-gyu, the head of the Korean Central Intelligence
Agency (KCIA). Park Gyeun-hyes mother fell prey to a
Japanese-born assassins bullet in 1974, which missed
Park Chung-hee, the intended target.
D JONES/REUTERS
President Park Gyeun-hye had pledged to improve relations with North Korea after taking office and to tackle
economic inequality. But all her campaign promises were
soon forgotten. Relations with the North went further
CULT LEADERS INFLUENCE
downhill. Her hawkish views on the North, probably
After her mothers assassination, Park Gyeun-hye came inherited from her father who was a known Central
under the inuence of a charismatic cult leader who at Intelligence Agency (CIA) asset, have been mainly rethat time went under the name of Choi Tae-min. In his sponsible for the tense security situation in the Korean
long career as a spiritual healer, occultist and head of a peninsula.
Christian evangelical cult, he had assumed several aliasThe current leaders of both North and South Korea
es.
are dynastic leaders. Relations between Pyongyang and
The young Park Gyeun-hye, heartbroken by the un- Seoul were even more tense when Park Chung-hee was
timely demise of her mother, was convinced by Choi the President of South Korea. There has been a record of
Tae-min that she would be able to communicate with the hostilities between the two families.
spirit of her mother. From that time on, the preacher and
Park Gyeun-hyes decision earlier in the year to install
his family became extremely close to her. She never the sophisticated American anti-missile THAAD battermarried and is estranged from her two siblings, a brother ies on South Korean territory has angered China. It
and a sister. Unlike her predecessors in office, she did not claims that the THAAD systems based in South Korea
have greedy relatives exploiting their closeness to the seriously impair the security balance that prevails in the
presidency. I have no child to inherit my properties. You, region. Many Koreans are also unhappy with the deal she
the people, are my only family, and to make you happy is struck with Japan on the emotive issue of Korean comthe only reason I do politics, she said while taking over fort women forcibly enslaved to be sex workers in milthe presidency.
itary brothels during the Second World War.
The last three Presidents were accused of corruption
After Park Gyeun-hye assumed the presidency, her
and investigated after they left office. One former Presi- key speeches were rst vetted by Choi Soon-sil, despite
dent, Roh Myoo-hun, whom many South Koreans con- her being a private citizen without a high-level security
sidered the least corrupt head of
clearance. The President initially destate, committed suicide in 2009 as
nied that that there was any wronginvestigations into the corrupt activdoing and called the allegations
ities of his close relatives were going
baseless. It was the discovery of a
on.
discarded computer used by Choi
After the death of Choi Tae-min,
Soon-sil that provided concrete evihis daughter Choi Soon-sil stepped
dence that more than 40 speeches
into Park Gyeun-hyes life. A U.S.
made by Park Gyeun-hye when she
State Department cable released by
was running for President and later
WikiLeaks in 2007 quoting sources
after she assumed the high office
in Seoul described the senior Choi as
were vetted and approved by Choi
a Rasputin-like gure who had
Soon-sil. The President even dependcomplete control over Parks body
ed on her advice about the colour of
and soul during her formative years
clothes to wear on particular days.
and that his children accumulated
Choi Soon-sil even had advance noP A RK GY EU N- HYE addressing
fabulous wealth as a result.
tice of itineraries of the foreign trips
the nation on November 4. She has
Park Gyeun-hye officiated as
undertaken by the President. She
pledged to submit to an inquiry into
South Koreas rst lady after the death
used her inuence with the President
her ties with Choi Soon-sil.
of her mother. Choi Tae-min also had
to place her cronies in important posiFRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
100
I N ON E OF THE
Now Park Gyeun-hye has been left friendless. Her mentor-cum-adviser Choi Soon-sil was forced to return from
Germany and surrender to the authorities. The President
has tearfully admitted to some of her lapses, saying that
she shared only certain documents with Choi Soon-sil.
She has apologised to the South Korean people and has
pledged to submit to an inquiry by prosecutors looking
into her ties with her spiritual adviser and close friend.
Park Gyeun-hye had earlier announced that she was
severing her ties with Choi Soon-sil and dismissed eight
of her political aides who had close ties with her disgraced friend. She also replaced the Prime Minister and
two other Ministers, but the South Korean parliament
refused to accept her new choice for the post of Prime
Minister.
The opposition has a majority in the parliament.
biggest protest
rallies South Korea
has seen, people
from all over the
country
congregated in
Seoul on November
12 demanding that
the President
tender her
resignation
immediately.
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FRONTLINE .
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W OR L D A F F A IR S
INDIA-JAPAN
Nuclear embrace
FRANCK ROBICHON/AP
P R IM E M I N I S T E R Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe at a press meet in Tokyo on November 11.
DECEMBER 9, 2016
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103
FRONTLINE .
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TORU YAMANAKA/AFP
DECEMBER 9, 2016
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U.S . E LE CTIO NS
POLITICS OF
REFUSAL
MARK WILSON/AFP
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
DECEMBER 9, 2016
106
inequality and proposedunlike Trumpconcrete measures such as free college and higher taxation on the
wealthy as the means to ease the suffering of the population. The hunger of hope and change that Obama
awakened remained, said Nikhil Singh, author of Black
is a Country: Race and the Unnished Struggle for Democracy. Yet, Singh told me: Democratic voters were
told that they needed to bring back these scandal-tainted,
now well-heeled plutocrats as the best leadership that the
party had to offer. The Sanders challenge, Singh said,
revealed Hillary Clintons weakness not only with the
base but in terms of the zeitgeist. The times wanted
populist change. Trumpdespite the fact that he is a
billionaire with no planhad an appeal to crucial voters
in essential States who had been bludgeoned by the trade
deals favoured by globalisation.
Reliable Democratic votersAfrican Americans and
Latinosdid not come to the polls with the same enthu-
107
FRONTLINE .
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JEWEL SAMAD/AFP
D E M OC R ATI C
P R E S I D E N TI AL
CA N D I D A TE
Hillary Clinton
makes a concession
speech in New York
on November 9.
DECEMBER 9, 2016
108
U.S . E LE CTIO NS
Echoes of Trump
Trumps election raises a number of questions for Europe, particularly
around the extent to which his victory will impact the politics of the
continent. BY V I D Y A RA M I N L ON D ON
was one of the primary faces. There are millions of
ordinary Americans who feel let down, feel the political
class in Washington are detached from them you can
beat the commentators you can beat Washington, he
proclaimed to loud cheering.
The parallels between the British Brexit campaign
and his own is a theme that Trump returned to over and
JONATHAN BACHMAN/AFP
DONA L D T R UM P greeting UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage during a campaign rally at the Mississippi
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
CHARLES PLATIAU/REUTERS
DECEMBER 9, 2016
110
JONATHAN BRADY/AP
politician Vice President-elect Mike Pence spoke to. Another one has been raging too about whether Farage will
play an intermediary role between the two administrations. While Farages critics have been castigating the
government for missing a golden opportunity, given his
links to Steve Bannon, the Far-Right Chair of Breitbart
News, who is now Trumps chief strategist, No 10 has
responded furiously, pointing to the potential of a relationship along the lines of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, without the need for a go-between.
The U.K. government has been particularly sympathetic in its overtures to Trump, with Boris Johnson
criticising the whinge-o-rama taking place across Europe (the former Mayor has displayed a chameleon-like
ability to change his colours, having previously ridiculed
Trumps suggestion that there were no-go areas in London). And though not quite as extreme, there has also
been a certain resemblance between the rhetoric employed by the British government and Trump in the run-up to
the election in its appeal to anti-immigrant nationalist
sentiments. If you believe you are a citizen of the world,
you are a citizen of nowhere, Theresa May declared in
October to the glee of the right-wing tabloids, which
hailed her as the champion of ordinary Brits.
Nevertheless, the extent of appeal for a major trade
111
FRONTLINE .
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NIKLAS HALLE'N/AFP
rarily blocked the trade deal between Europe and never before.
FRONTLINE .
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112
U.S . E LE CTIO NS
SHANNON STAPLETON/REUTERS
The American liberal media bemoan Hillary Clintons loss, but they do not,
of course, bemoan the wanton death and destruction that she and her
administration authored. B Y S A S H I K U M A R
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DECEMBER 9, 2016
114
NEIL HALL/REUTERS
populist candidate with a large following. The predetermined media standpoint on Sanders slim prospects
emerges from a dogged little piece of investigation by
Thomas Frank in the November 2016 issue of Harpers
Magazine, into the short shrift the democratic socialist
candidate got from the leading press, including The New
York Times and particularly The Washington Post. I
have never before, says Frank by way of setting the
framework and rationale for his study, seen the press
take sides like they did this year, openly and even gleefully bad-mouthing candidates who did not meet with their
approval. The Washington Post, for all its track record of
path-breaking journalism, set out to systematically chip
away at Sanders campaign in its edit and opinion pages.
The reason, Frank thinks, was because for the sort of
people who write and edit the opinion pages of the Post,
there was something deeply threatening about Sanders
and his political views. And the sort of people he is
talking about are the comfortable bunch at The Post,
the well educated and well connected, who, when they
look around at the comfortable, well-educated folks who
work in government, academia, Wall Street, medicine,
and Silicon Valley, see their peers.
BERATING BERNIE SANDERS
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DECEMBER 9, 2016
nand even though such forces have been gaining momentum across continents, the U.S. had seemed to be the
last place where such a takeover could come so very
swiftly. Some taste of it has come already in India and,
considerably more ferociously, in Turkey; smaller European countries such as Austria, Hungary and Poland
have been teetering on the verge. Such forces have been
inuential in France and have gone from strength to
strength throughout these neoliberal times; they played
the key role during the Brexit campaign in the United
Kingdom, and they are ascendant in virtually all corners
of Europe, from Greece to Denmark and Sweden. The
fear was that they might come to power in the smaller
countries of Europe and then grow further into its central
formations. Their coming to power in the U.S. alters this
global equation altogether. That power mainly resides, in
my view, not in the person of Trump per se but (a) in the
kind of people who are likely to run the government on
his behalf and (b) the simultaneous Republican control
over the Supreme Court as well as both Houses of the
Congress.
An analysis of the host of contradictory factors that
led eventually to this one fatal outcome shall be attempted in some sections of this article. The full story of how a
political non-entity who seemingly had little else going
for him save his bluster and self-praise got catapulted
into a position of such power shall unfold very slowly,
over the years. What is clear is that the campaign was
crafted very carefully to portray him as a man opposed to
the political Establishment as a whole, Republican as
well as Democrat; ercely independent of the media as
well as corporate power; a great champion of the American working class; a foe of the neoliberalism with its free
trade policies and globalised nance that had wrecked
Americas own productive economy; a sober patriot opposed to wars in West Asia with its expenditure of trillions of dollars that had led to nothing but mountains of
debt; a sagacious statesman who understood the perils of
a New Cold War and the confrontation with nuclear-
116
IMPERIAL HOMELAND
armed Russia. On this side of his public persona he
seemed to be as opposed to neoliberalism and deindustrialisation of the U.S. as Bernie Sanders, who had
mounted a challenge to Hillary Clinton from the Left,
and distinctly more anti-war and anti-Establishment
than Sanders. Both were vying for the working class vote.
This side of the electoral ambiguity in the U.S. was
supporter
celebrates as
election results
come in, at
Manhattan,
New York, on
November 8.
JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS
A DONALD
T R UMP
Trumps calculated, obviously cynical appeal to political rationality and working-class interest was carefully
balanced, however, against the much more visceral, atavistic appeals to the darkest sides of U.S. society: with
off-hand promises to use nuclear weapons against the
enemies of America; with rampant, vulgar, he-man misogyny (at age of 70, no less); with unbridled racist
rhetoric against all non-white immigrants, portraying
Latinos as rapists, drug pushers and generally criminals,
and with promises to deport millions of them and to build
a wall on the Mexican border to keep them out in the
future; with constant appeals to Islamophobia by equating Muslims with terrorism and promising to force
Muslim citizens in the U.S. to register with anti-terrorist
law enforcement agencies as well as to control further
entry of Muslims into the U.S.
Trump is, in other words, a classic demagogue. And
yet, he contradicts himself so often and seems so unable
to either think clearly or talk cogently that it is hard to
know if he has any convictions at all, beyond a narcissistic
pursuit of power and money for himself. It would be
charitable to recall Mussolinis famous dictum: we fascists are super-relativists. In other words, lack of conviction is the road to power. That of course is not an attribute
of fascism alone. It is equally an attribute of liberal
politicians, particularly so these days among the ones
whose political personae incline towards the social democratic. That you will betray your campaign promises is
the norm which applies to Obama and Trump equally.
What Trump is likely to do in office can, therefore, be
surmised less by what he said or did on his road to the
presidency but from the company he keeps.
We shall return later, at some length, to the question
of the kind of company he keeps, that is, the reality of his
affiliations beyond the rhetorical effects, the kind of government that is likely to emerge, the policies that might
get pursued while he serves as gurehead President. The
broader question that needs to be addressed in the rst
instance is this: what was the broader eld of force within
which a presidency of this kind could emerge? With their
planetary wars, their brutish nancialisations, and their
destruction of the productive fabric of the U.S. economy
itself, what role have Democrats and Republicans alikethe political Establishment as suchplayed in creating this new eld of force that swerved so very sharply
towards the Far Right?
FRACTURED AND RACIST
DECEMBER 9, 2016
S P A N I S H- S P E A KI N G I M M I G R AN TS , many of them
undocumented, gather at a school on Staten Island on
November 14 to coordinate a response to the election of
Donald Trump.
118
DAVE SANDERS/NYT
We need not doubt that the darkest forces in the American underbelly have been greatly energised in the process, with a feeling of new empowerment on the national
scene. Only a small minority needs to be thus encouraged
and activated to start producing quite large and farreaching social effects. But that this minority, so active
and visible, had immediate electoral effects of any decisive nature is doubtful. Let us consider two simple facts.
Fact number One: Trump won 53 per cent of white
womens vote as against Hillary Clinton; Obama had won
among white women with almost exactly the same percentage against Romney, a white male, only four years
ago. Why did Hillary Clinton not win among white women the same percentage of votes as Obama? Race? Gender? Or something else? Hillary Clinton won 54 per cent
of the total womens vote, thanks to the non-white vote
but Obama had also won, by 55 per cent. Meanwhile,
Trump did 2 per cent better among black voters than
Romney four years earlier, while Hillary Clinton did 5 per
cent worse than Obama. Why? Race?
Fact number Two: As everyone else has pointed out,
Hillary Clinton lost six States that Obama had won twice:
Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin,
OhioStates that included some of the most devastated
centres of U.S. manufacturing that has been liquidated.
Why? Race? Gender? It is more plausible that the suffering poor who had reposed their trust in the Democratic Party for so long nally lost that faith and turned to the
alternative, in the spirit of anyone but . . . What needs
further explanation is a third fact: Hillary Clinton polled
ve to six million less votes than Obama, in an enlarged
electorate. Who are these millions who would vote for a
black man but not for a white woman whom that very
black mannot to speak of his very popular black wife
has wistfully endorsed? How much political work can
race or gender do by itself?
We do not have reliable enough, extensive enough
facts to answer these questions rigorously. It is quite
plausible, though, that Trump is a gift from the combined
Establishments of the Republicans and the Democrats
who have given us endless wars and mass destitutionthe gift of a power structure led in recent years by
Obama and Hillary Clinton.
The U.S. does not have a conscript army whereby the
young of all classes are required by law to do military
service. It has a volunteer army so that the soldiery is
overwhelmingly drawn from the most destitute classes.
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JOHN MOORE/AFP
DECEMBER 9, 2016
120
The capacity of the President of the U.S. to act independently and pursue his own policy is in any case greatly
exaggerated. He is restrained, rst of all, by key members
of his own Cabinet who run the major Departments
State, Defence, Treasuryand by other officials such
as the Attorney General or the Chairman of the Federal
Reserve, all of whom act nominally on his behalf but
actually command independent efs. It is quite doubtful
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U.S . E LE CTIO NS
JASON REDMOND/AFP
We understand and empathise with you because in our own way we have
been there. Do not be afraid: fear is what the newly powerful groups want to
instil in you, but like all bullies, they retreat in the face of determined and
unied opposition. B Y J A Y A T I GH O S H
123
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
TERESA CRAWFORD/AP
CH ICA G O M A YO R R A HM EM A N U EL at a news
conference on November 14. He said that the outcome of
the presidential election would not impact Chicagos
commitment to serve as a sanctuary city for immigrants.
UNEXPECTED U-TURNS
DECEMBER 9, 2016
124
Expect also that the world will forgiveor at least not bother
too much aboutvarious transgressions of democracy and
trampling of human rights inside your country, as long as
external relations work to their favour.
various forms of media to suggest that it is doing all kinds
of great things even when the opposite is true. Expect a
new apogee in doublespeak, which so confuses the public
that they celebrate measures that contribute to their own
impoverishment. Anticipate a weird new personality cult
that will be developed around this unexpected leader,
fuelled by both the aggressive use of social media and the
caving in of the mainstream media.
Expect a government that will be unconstrained by
the fact that only a minority of voters in the country voted
for Trump. (In India, less than one-third of the electorate
voted for the BJP; they still ended up with an absolute
majority in the Lok Sabha because of the electoral system.) Instead, be ready for a condent all-out attack on
various institutions: by replacing their heads with those
seen to be more amenable, by undermining others and
attacking their legitimacy, and by distorting their purposes and methods of functioning. In your case, Trump
and the Republicans are entitled to choose judges of the
Supreme Court; in our case, Modi and his party have
simply delayed the official ratication of judges nominated by the judiciary until they can force in more of their
own sympathisers.
Next, expect growing controls on the media in direct
and indirect ways. Do not be surprised when major mainstream media outlets become more prone to self-censorship and are unwilling to give too much time and space to
dissenting views or perspectives, and eventually reduce
news coverage of many developments that may be awkward for the administration. Understand that smaller
independent media will face both nancial and physical
attacks. Be ready to deal with various kinds of harassment and intimidation of anyone with different opinions
from those now emboldened by their new proximity to
power, ranging from Internet and social media trolling to
actual physical threats. Expect those in charge of controlling such behaviour to be quietly indulgent of it and
express only subtle and tangential disapproval in public.
DISDAIN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Expect a focus on human rights to become passe, something no longer espoused openly by people who matter
and met with bored disinterest and even disdain by
officialdom. Expect active suppression of all kinds of
dissent, including by starving civil society groups of
funds, as well as by embroiling them in expensive and
time-consuming responses to legal and official action
against them. Prepare to deal with a slew of offensive
actions against civil society activists and human rights
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FRONTLINE .
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C OVER STO R Y
Deadly disruption
The chaos following the move to remove notes from circulation
exposes the countrys lack of preparedness in the bid to shift to a
cashless economy. B Y SESHADRI KUMAR
WAS THE MOVE TO TAKE THE RS.500 AND
Rs.1,000 notes out of circulation and replace them with
new notes carefully considered in light of the existing
infrastructure? Are there any alternatives?
The decision to remove Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes
has left most Indians in the lurch because 86 per cent of
all the currency printed by the government was in the
form of Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes (by value). According
to the annual report of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
dated August 29, 2016, as of March 2016 the currency
notes in circulation had a total value of Rs.16.42 lakh
crore. Of these, 86.4 per cent, or Rs.14.18 lakh crore, was
in Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes. This was the amount
sucked out of the system from November 8 midnight. It
was estimated that of this amount, about 25 per cent, or
Rs.3.5 lakh crore, was black, meaning that people possessing it would not deposit it in the bank for fear of
attracting huge penalties or jail time. That would mean
that the amount of money in circulation that would now
need to be deposited in banks and exchanged for new
notes is approximately Rs.10.64 lakh crore. This is to be
done entirely through bank branches and ATMs.
In press interactions since the demonetisation move
was taken, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley informed the
people that this move was part of a larger plan to move to
a cashless economy and urged them to start using electronic banking, mobile payment, and credit and debit
Banking density
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
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L ETTE R S
Encounter deaths
THE killing of eight SIMI undertrial prisoners who were lodged in the high security Central Jail in Bhopal raises more
questions than answers (Cover Story,
November 25). It reads like a script for a
Bollywood thriller. The jail officials explanation that the prisoners used toothbrushes, aprons, spoons and bed sheets
to escape from the prison cell and then to
scale the 35-foot prison wall sounds ridiculous. It is baffling that all the CCTV
cameras in the jail premises were inoperative at the time of the escape and that
none of the guards in the watchtower saw
the prisoners escaping. It is tragic that all
the prisoners were killed, though none of
them were carrying rearms, as eyewitnesses testied. An impartial inquiry by a
sitting Supreme Court judge will reveal
the truth behind this grisly episode.
Meanwhile, we can see that a police raj is
spreading its tentacles rapidly in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat,
Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
N.C. SREEDHARAN
KANNUR, KERALA
Tata crisis
THE article on the crisis in the Tata group
(A coup in the House of Tatas, November 25) shed light on the murky complexities, the managerial inadequacies, the
traditional traps, the organisational manoeuvres, the invisible resistance to
change, the wars for functional supremacy, and the hidden hands at the powerlevers in the organisation. Cyrus Mistry,
the former chairman of Tata Sons, is accused of trying to prop up the bottom line
by shedding unproductive ventures,
though it is not perceived as the Tatas
FRONTLINE .
DECEMBER 9, 2016
B. RAJASEKARAN
BENGALURU
K.R. SRINIVASAN,
SECUNDERABAD, TELANGANA
Death of a child
THE death of Aradhana Samdariya, a
Class VIII girl in Hyderabad, after a strenuous fast lasting 68 days can only be
termed as a case of brutal murder
(Child rights and faith, November 11).
What is more pathetic is that the parents
were asked not to mourn her death but
celebrate it. It is a strange to justify the
death on religious grounds when Jainism
stresses that life is precious. No scripture recommends such a severe penance. Such practices should be
condemned and prevented from happening again.
A.J. RANGARAJAN
CHENNAI
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