The Wire Talks

Crucial elections will take place in West Bengal in two phases on April 23 and 29. Mamata Bannerjee’s Trinamool Congress has to fight anti-incumbency, because it has been in power since 2011, and the main challenger the Bharatiya Janata Party sees its best opportunity to win the state. This time, the Special Intensive Revision ordered by the Election Commission has also complicated matters since over 90 lakh voters have been struck off the rolls and between 30 and 34 lakh have appealed their removal. The Trinamool Congress and other opposition parties have said that the Election Commission is playing a partisan role and helping the BJP. “The Election commission is the key player in this election. It is election commission that has issued an ultimatum to the Trinamool Congress. It is the election commission that is taking the administration in their control,” said Snigdhendu Bhattacharya. In this election, it looks like Gyanesh Kumar has emerged as the face that wants the change to happen in Bengal. So that means Trinamool Congress, which is the main party in West Bengal and the other smaller opposition parties are fighting not the BJP so much as Gyanesh Kumar,” he said, in a podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia.

The recent proposed amendments to IT rules inviting public comments has been explained by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology as just procedural but this is not the case. Activists say that if passed, the new rules will further tighten censorship of online content. Rules were already there and takedown orders were being issued in large numbers, but now it will further expand to censor not just publications but also comments by citizens, said Nikhil Pahwa, founder and editor of Medianama and also activist on tech policy. Of the many changes proposed, “There is an expansion of the powers of the ministry, that it can issue advisories and circulars and all sorts of notifications, and those are basically going to be binding obligations on online platforms,” Pahwa said in a podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia.

With the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) picking up immigrants especially brown looking people, and even deporting them, a climate of fear has built up among the Indian community, says Sravya Tadepalli. “Indians are the third most undocumented community in America,” says Tadepalli, deputy executive director of Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR). “Among Indians there is a perception that we are all here legally, as tech workers, doctors, but many Indians are not in a position of privilege,” she says in a podcast conversation with Sidharth Bhatia. Many organisations are working on educating Indians of their rights vis a vis ICE, she says. HfHR runs a Know Your Rights programme. “We’ve operated at Hindu mandir’s in New York City, coordinating with 10 of them and distributed Know Your Rights cards, conducted training.”

Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam have been in prison for the last five years. Their bail has been denied repeatedly. Last week their five colleagues, also arrested in the Delhi riot case of 2020, were granted bail. Why haven’t they?

Lawyer Sarim Naved, who fights both civil and criminal cases, analyses this in a podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia. While bail not jail is a general principle, “the courts have a lot of discretion in this matter”, he said. But he says, “the way the current government behaves, yes, a political element cannot be ruled out.”

Also, he says, times change and “our understanding of civil liberty shifts from time to time.” He points to cases from the 1990s when “somebody said Khalistan Zindabad and the Supreme Court said this does not amount to terrorism.”

But, he says that the cases of Khalid and Imam cannot be discussed by themselves without considering the larger systemic issues of police investigations and the judiciary. “Even in UAPA, there are people who are waiting for a longer period for their trials to start.”

The strong statements by President Trump against India are echoed by the growing anti-Indian sentiment in parts of the country. No longer are Indians viewed as the model minority — well educated, successful, tax-paying members of the US. Instead, they are rousing the anger of local communities. Some of the traits which are not very well liked, says journalist and author Salil Tripathi who lives in the US, “such as noisy celebrations, weddings, and you know, you take over the entire street and then after the after the wedding is over, you have a lot of garbage on the street or something like that. All of those things are attracting unwanted and untoward attention.”

He says the soft power of India is very much visible—Ravi Shankar was popular and now Yoga is, but such things are “a little more in your face.” 

In Seema Says, this week, The Wire’s Editor, Seema Chishti discusses the reasons behind the United States’ attack on Venezuela and India’s muted response to the flagrant violation of international law. She also discusses how the strained ties between Bangladesh and India following India not allowing Bangladesh cricketer, Mustafizur Rehman for KKR in the IPL have got more strained. In a discussion with Elisha Vermani, Seema discusses the denial of bail to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam and why everyone must go and watch the latest Hindi war film – Ikkis, based on a real life story.

Recommendations:

Seema:

1. Watch Varun Grover in Nothing Makes Sense -    • Varun Grover || Comedy Special || Nothing ...  

2. Neil Postman’s ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’   / 74034.amusing_ourselves_to_death  

Elisha:

On a woman rescued after two years of being locked up in a bathroom. https://www.himalmag.com/culture/dome...

Mumbai’s cuisine has been shaped by its migrants, not just from other parts of India but also from different countries.

“Irani food, for example, is not available in such abundance in other cities,” says Pronoti Datta, in this podcast conversation with Sidharth Bhatia. Datta’s new book In the Beginning There was Bombay Duck, a Food History of Mumbai, details the various cuisines brought by the city’s communities when they moved here. They brought their food traditions, met other food traditions and it all got transformed in the city. 

“I suppose my one thought, one idea that runs through the book, or I hope it runs through the book, is the idea of what it means to be native. And the idea of you know, being native is a very strong political idea in the state” she says.

She explains that the dining out culture did not start in the then Bombay till quite late. Most eating places catered to the working classes of their particular communities—Maharashtrians, south Indians, Gujaratis, Muslims. Only the westernised restaurants, which became popular in the 1930s, were patronised by the elite. It was only the Irani restaurants that were open to all communities and classes, she points out. 

Thirty years ago, Saeed Akhtar Mirza made his final feature film, Naseem, about an aging Urdu poet, played by Kaifi Azmi, and set in the days preceding the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The film opened with a title card which said, “That one act of demolition wrote the epitaph of an age that has passed, perhaps never to return!”

“The Babri Masjid epitomised the final collapse, you know, of an idea of India, of a sovereign, secular, democratic republic, equal for all, equality and justice. You saw it collapse in front of your eyes,” he said. “I was in despair but I was also angry when I made the film,” Mirza said in a podcast conversation with Sidharth Bhatia. He has not made any feature film since, though he still makes documentaries and has written two books.

Mirza spoke about how the “Hindu-Muslim binary was stupid” and said that those who promoted it hadn’t read any history. Their idea of history is “fundamentally flawed”, he said.

He said over 10 million young persons finished school every year and they too had aspiration. “They see glamorous weddings on television, they see cars, fashion and they want all that. And why not?” Without adequate jobs, “where will all that energy be channelled”, he asked.

He also spoke about the growing trend of Hindutva-oriented films and said that the filmmakers “know exactly what they are doing and in a strange way I believe they think they are doing no wrong because this is the time for retribution”.

But in the end, he said, “Hate cannot last forever, it has to have an expiry date.”

India’s left parties are no longer as influential as they used to be. In her new book, Comrades and Comebacks: The Battle of the Left to Win the Indian Mind, Saira Shah Halim, CPI(M) candidate in the 2024 elections, analyses the reasons for this and suggests the way forward.

Comedians and satirists have borne the brunt of the state and of people who are offended by something or the other, but even so, the stand up comedy scene is quite active with many faces. One such is Punit Pania, who left his corporate job 10 years ago and is now a very successful stand up comic.

His topics range from poor roads and civic architecture, know-all bhakt uncles, and NRIs, but he also talks about social issues. “In my first open mic, I had two minutes and talked about domestic violence because I felt it had to be talked about,” he said to Sidharth Bhatia in a podcast conversation. He noticed that a man from the audience left, “dragging a woman behind.”

Pania says he is not a political activist, but his comedy cannot help being political. “Why there are potholes on the road and why there is no beef on your plate, both things are politically driven. And those are just the most blatant examples. If you really drill down, almost every aspect of your life has a political background to it.”

Even so, he slips in references to political leaders. “When you completely inundate the country with your image and your persona and then people can't even mention your name. Even slightly critically. How is that fair? So, when you take all the credit you will get all the blame also.” 

He also explains why the laws have made religion out of bounds but there are still “innovative ways to say what you want to say.”