Aarushi-Hemraj case: Time to switch off the camera

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Nupur Talwar's incarceration in Dasna jail has once again become a cause celebre in the media. Today the Aarushi-Hemraj double murder has become a collection of the many social stereotypes we hold in our collective imagination, stereotypes magnified by the media. These stereotypes include the relationship between employer and "servant". The class hostilities we have towards supposedly "upwardly mobile" people and their "elitist" connections. And the stereotypes we hold of a "mother". The Aarushi Hemraj double murder is a case difficult for most Indians to swallow. In a culture which mythologizes the bond of mother and child, where a mother's heart is supposed to ache if a child suffers even in a distant land, we find it difficult to accept and believe that a mother and father could sleep-"how could they actually sleep?"-- while their child was being murdered in the next room. To us, this is sufficient....

'Servants' of destiny

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The relationship between domestic worker and employer is in a crisis It is urban India's most unresolved relationship. A relationship that goes to the heart of the inequality every affluent Indian unthinkingly accepts, a relationship on which even the values of the Constitution founder. The "servant" exists in a realm that we dare not analyse too deeply, for fear the horrifying social tension that the institution embodies may threaten the comforts of cheap domestic labour. The fact that the "servant"-employer relationship increasingly verges on mutual distrust, the fact that barely disguised class hostility now marks this uncertain living arrangement, the fact that brutal violence in proliferating cases embody yet another aspect of India's million mutinies, these are issues we-the urban help employing classes-choose not to think about. The sight of a monied family, feasting at a restaurant, with a quiet dusky teenager sitting a little apart with her....

The Amol Palekars of Indian Politics

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A brave new voice has sounded in the Assembly elections of 2012. The voice of the Indian voter that has thundered out from UP, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur, is a voice both modern and rational and contains pointers for the future. The most modern aspect of Verdict 2102 is a complete rejection of sectarian agendas. In Punjab, the Akali Dal gave up the Akal Takht agenda and turned to emphasising a composite identity rather than a Sikh or a Punjabi identity. The jathedars were marginalised, rhetoric on 1984 riots and Operation Bluestar were cut and attacks on deras were curbed. The Akalis gave as many as 11 tickets to Hindu candidates who all won. In Goa, it was once again proved that the BJP wins thumping victories only when it rejects hardline Hindutva. In a stunning departure from exclusivist Hindutva politics, the BJP put up 7 catholic....

Power is all Maya

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Mayawati's aggressive display of state power is at odds with a new demanding electorate Sitapur, UP: Between the circling helicopter and the massive crowds there is almost a telepathic connection. Seconds before the chopper appears, a sparse crowd blooms into a sudden multitude. Silence and murmurings mutate into chants and shouts. Scores of blue elephant shaped balloons dance into the air. Mayawati's helicopter hovers. On the ground buntings, flags, streamers, waving hands reach upward. The helicopter descends into a mammoth flash fiesta, where only seconds before there were just a few thin lines of dozing cadres. Waiting journalists (your columnist among them) blink in disbelief: but the rally ground was almost empty just now, where did the crowd come from? Crowds and helicopter embody the Mayawati paradox. The face of the Dalit revolution who now brazenly flaunts state power. Ruling in the name of the poorest....

Politics of shakti

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Decoding amma, didi, behnji and madam. Respect the Trinamool Congress, or else, warns the Ma Durga of West Bengal. Accept that Tamil Nadu operates according to its own enlightened self-interest, advises Puratchi Thalaivi of the AIADMK. Divide UP immediately and don't even think of claiming my Dalit votebank, declares the Dalit ki beti. Mamata Banerjee, Jayalalithaa and Mayawati today are the face of Indian women in politics. They along with Sonia Gandhi exercise total control over their parties, paradoxically both distant as well as grassroots leaders. They are autocratic. They are lonely at the top and they are one-woman shows. Each wields a unique eccentricity in order to rule and control. India's women politicians cultivate a designer madness, a well thought out insanity, to force their presence and personality in the brutally male dominated world of Indian politics. Sonia Gandhi perhaps does not quite fit the norm of....

The bad old days

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Nostalgia is becoming a destructive force An interesting finding emerged in the recent Hindustan Times CNN-IBN survey on the public mood. Only 53 per cent of an urban middle class section of opinion said India's ruling class is adapting well to a fast changing world. Almost half said that politicians are unable to embrace change because they lack vision. Are we Indians still afraid of change? Do we lack leaders who can chart a vision of change? Are we trapped, as a distinguished editor has written, in the "dangerous romance of nostalgia" by which we hark constantly to an imagined era of the 'good old days', wallow in perpetual hatred of the present and have no collective dream of the future? Today, an overload of shallow nostalgia (rather than an informed sense of History) is becoming an obstacle to change. The government's announcement of 51 per cent....

The 2G case is a morality play

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Lines from the recent 2G judgement denying bail to Kanimozhi and others are telling. "Kanimozhi belongs to the upper echelons of society and is also an MP," wrote trial court judge OP Saini, "By no stretch of imagination can she be suffering any discrimination on the grounds of being a woman." A court order on 2G also says: "If a person knows that after misappropriating huge public funds, he can come out on bail...it will only encourage many others to commit similar crimes in the belief that even if they have to spend a few months in jail, they can lead a comfortable and lavish life thereafter.." 2G petitioner Subramaniam Swamy has also said that the 2G accused are not ordinary people but billionaires and must be kept in jail to protect witnesses. The implications here are: rich elite women can suffer no discrimination.Those wanting lavish lives must....

The yatri and the messiah

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Annaji, join politics It's the week of the two As. Advani is on a yatra, Team Anna is campaigning in Hisar. LK Advani, the veteran yatri, creator of India's political Rightwing, has set off on his Jan Chetna Yatra from Sitabdiara in Bihar. Meanwhile, the indomitable anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare and his Team are openly asking voters to defeat the Congress, creating a fresh debate about Anna's political neutrality. LK Advani and Anna Hazare are marked by a sense of "mission". Advani is pushing at the limits of formal politics and opting for what many have called "extra-constitutional" means to further a political agenda. Anna pushing at the limits of the "apolitical" and willy nilly becoming an unelected politician. Both aim to be national symbols of the fight against corruption. Both are senior citizens making a determined bid to capture the hearts and minds of the youth and....

A class apart

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The powerful must speak the language of equality In the crowds at Ram Lila Maidan, at the height of Anna fever, there was anger against corruption, but there was also anger against the rich. An "elite class" milking the system, sending their children abroad, "looting" benefits was the particular target of rage. A troubled New India is screaming for respect and equality. Income disparities are becoming sharper than ever before. Even the age-old feudal relationship between the wealthy and their domestic staff is teetering on the edge of breakdown. In these conditions, an institutionalized elitism is taking hold of the powerful. Its an elitism that still does not speak the language of equality. The UPA particularly seems to scorn New India. "Real" people are out there in rural areas to be ministered to by Nrega and loan waivers. Cities, where the middle class is in angry ferment,....

Power Bahu

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As Sonia Gandhi recovers from her highly secretive surgery, there are justifiable questions as to why the Indian public is not allowed to know what ails the leader of the main political party. Had some brief details been made available then as at the time of Rajinikanth's illness, or during Amitabh Bachchan's 'Coolie' accident, there may well have been a spontaneous outpouring of public sympathy. This is a good time though to ask the question: What does Sonia Gandhi mean for the Congress? She is now almost irreplaceable. She's not only held her party together for the last 12 years, but achieved an almost unbelievable political turnaround for the Congress by leading it to two consecutive Lok Sabha victories. Her preferred style is silence. She hardly speaks to the press. She almost never speaks in Parliament. Like a good bahu, she places her final faith....