The script is an adaptation of “Manikanchon”, a one-act play by the famous dramatist and theatre director Badal Sarkar, who had written it during a crucial juncture of Indian history – the pre-emergency period.

2034 is a futuristic dystopian drama in which magic plays a prominent role.

Moinak (played by Siddhartha Ghosh) and Niharika (played by Anindita Bhadra) are a world-renowned magician couple, who are famous for a fantastic thought-reading act which Niharika performs live on stage. The play starts with this act in the form of a direct interaction with the audience, enacted beautifully, and then proceeds with the happenings thereafter at a deliberately slow pace. When the magicians, along with their children (played by Rupkatha Bhadra and Ujaan Banerjee), were analysing the day’s performance, Mr. Agarwal (played by Ayan Banerjee), the owner of the auditorium, comes in and announces that Mr. Narottam Mallik, the right-hand man of the Chief of the State, would like to meet them.

Moinak and Niharika are then subjected to a discourse with Mr. Mallik (played by Suman Chakrabarty) who is eager to judge Niharika’s abilities on his own terms, since he thinks that these abilities would be useful to the Chief and hence to the State.  Thus commences Niharika’s test. Would she be able to read the mind of Mr. Mallik? Would the magicians be able to convince him of their usefulness? The play twists and turns unpredictably making the story even more exciting and enjoyable leading to an optimistic conclusion through a powerful message – the good things will go on in spite of the endlessly negative efforts of the oppressors.

Manikanchon, the original play, was written by Badal Sarkar during the pre-emergency period keeping in mind the repressive, Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), a controversial law passed by the Indian parliament in 1971 giving the Indian law enforcement agencies very broad powers – indefinite preventive detention of individuals, search and seizure of property without warrants, and wiretapping. The law was amended several times during the subsequently declared national emergency (1975–1977), the dark 21-month period of Indian history, and used for quelling political dissent.

In this particular adaptation, however, the script (by Ayan Banerjee) went beyond the original and reached novel heights. It revolved around arguably a darker period – India’s current and allegedly undeclared emergency, and perhaps its gloomier future, when curbing protests is expected to rise to a newer level.  Although the performers call it a futuristic play, I could hear someone from the audience remarking “instead of 2034, it could very well be 2024 or even 2019!” just after the drama had ended confirming the age-old belief of theatre is an important reflection of the past, present and future of society.

Of course, the year 2034 (=1984+50) marks half a century beyond 1984, the dystopian fiction novel and cautionary tale written by world-renowned English writer, George Orwell.

A lot of credit goes to the amazing acting of the main actors (Siddhartha Ghosh, Anindita Bhadra, Rupkatha Bhadra, Ujaan Banerjee, Ayan Banerjee, Suman Chakrabarty, following the order of appearance), who mesmerised us through sublime stage-work. Gouri Sankar Panda, a veteran actor, lent his voice, rather superbly, as the Chief of the State in a telephone call with Mr. Mallik towards the end. Excellent direction of Ayan Banerjee, a physicist by profession, deserves special mention too. Apart from these, melodious music (by Ayan Banerjee and Susnata Karmakar), light design (by Sudip Sanyal), art design (by Saumik-Piyali), sound execution (by Kalyan Sarkar), video design (by Aranya Banerjee and Anandarup Bhadra) and set execution (by Madan) also contributed significantly to this remarkable theatrical performance.

There are scopes of improvement, though, for some of the other actors, whose voices were unclear in spite of the amazing acoustics of the Academy of Fine Arts. There were moments where dialogues should have waited for the applause to end. There are minor opportunities for enhancement of the script – the world-famous journalistic sentence “Nation wants to Know” can be added, for example, in one or two appropriate places.  The pace too could have been tad faster in the beginning and slightly slower towards the end.

We need more productions like 2034, which will have the honesty and courage to criticize the suppression of dissent, and condemn the malicious intent of many, including that of media and social media controlled, in many cases, by divisive leaders with selfish political agenda. Expression of protests and political discourse against the oppressors cannot limit themselves to a particular form – use of strong mediums such as songs, poetry, paintings, plays, etc. have historically been significant, especially during authoritarian regimes. Much to our dismay, today is no exception, and plays like 2034 provide a platform for common people to identify the crisis and build an opinion about it. Do we really have to wait eleven years for this story to unfold upon us? Will this drama actually become a reality in the years to come?

Only time can and will answer these important questions. Irrespective of the answers, the magical effect of this drama will remain in my heart forever.

(Parthanil Roy is a professor at the Indian Statistical Institute Bangalore Centre. This article is based on the author’s personal experience and opinion)

Related:

Why academicians need to be more vocal than before

Skewed: A Personal View -A mathematician reflects on the powerful drama with his 11 year old son

Parenting in an Age of Unreason

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On the face of it, P. Ajith’s article would be thought of as a knee-jerk reaction to the remark[1] of a politician, who said people should not be too concerned with GDP maths, since “maths never helped Einstein discover gravity”, a comment that’s scientifically wrong on multiple counts. Neither did Einstein discover gravity (gravity was actually discovered by Issac Newton, not Albert Einstein), nor did he, in any way, refrain from using mathematics, a subject described by the legendary German polymath Carl Friedrich Gauss as the “queen of sciences”. However, in my opinion, articles like these cannot just be regarded as an immediate response to a politician’s loose, unsubstantiated and unscientific comment. They serve their purpose in overall popularization of science and clearing doubts about it among common people, whom we need to reach out as academicians, and explain our daily lives as well as the challenges therein.

Just to stress a bit more on why connecting with masses matters, I would like to share an anecdote. A reasonably rational neighbour of mine had mentioned the name of a premier science institute of India and asked me why nobody from there won a Nobel Prize despite the Government spending so much money on it. Saddened by his question, I requested him to name a few world-renowned institutions which received many Nobel Prizes in science, and he obliged. Then I bombarded him with questions such as, “have you checked the average budget per academic of those institutions in comparison to the one in India?”; “do you know how long it takes for an experimental scientist in India to order an instrument or a reagent in contrast with the time taken by one living abroad?”; “do you know how many exceptional young scientists do not want to come back to India for various reasons, including but not limited to bureaucracy, dearth of funding, lack of academic freedom, etc.?”. He could answer none and went away quickly.

Don’t we need to engage with our friends, relatives, neighbours and tell them about our problems? Don’t we need to discuss how our profession is getting affected due to whimsical decisions taken by an authoritarian regime that neither understands science nor appreciates the scientists? Don’t we need to protest against the forced propagation of pseudoscience? Don’t we, as a community, need to pitch in the fulfilment of Article 51 A(h) of The Constitution of India, which states “[it shall be the duty of every citizen of India] to develop scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform”. The spirit of inquiry requires “the right to freedom of speech and expression” enjoyed by each and every citizen of our country according to Article 19(1)(a) of the same document. Scientists, or more generally academicians, cannot be an exception to this rule as pointed out in a recent article by another outstanding physicist Suvrat Raju.

Raju’s article [3] was written at the backdrop of a series of unfortunate incidents that, much to our dismay, will have long-term adverse effect on the future on Indian academia. It involves autocratic behaviour of the administrators of two top-notch academic institutions of India. One disallowed a planned event (a talk by human rights activists Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal) at the eleventh hour curbing freedom of speech on the campus while the other sent show cause notices to two of their brightest and youngest assistant professors for signing an extremely polite letter [4] written by more than five hundred honest members of Indian academic community. Quelling of dissent has scaled new heights and taken many forms – the academia is not free from it either. Without even investigating the legality of any of these actions, just think how easily they will intimidate young academics from following their conscience in the near future. These actions will also discourage generations of prolific academicians from applying for a job in an Indian institution. Aren’t these damages serious enough for us to speak out? S. Raju’s article is a bold answer to this important question.

Whenever I talk to my colleagues about these issues, most of them give me a what-can-we-do look and silently walk away. Some, of course, are doing the needful, and I love and respect them from the bottom of my heart. A few (“a few, too few for drums and yells”?!) actually ask, “How do you think we can contribute?” It is my pleasure to respond to them directly as well as in this article. First and foremost, we all can contribute in our own ways, and within our limits and limitations. Once we understand that, half of the job is done. It is also important to realize that, just like P. Ajith and S. Raju, we need to talk about the obvious facts as well as intricate issues. If you are a mathematician like yours truly, just explain how your day is spent – trying to prove a lemma and struggling throughout the day only to discover in the evening that a special case has already been proved, and all we need to do is to extend it in the new setup. This too will be a significant contribution. You know why? It will help because your relative or your neighbour will know you aren’t wasting time using taxpayers’ money – a narrative that we need to refute at any cost.

If you are a biologist or a historian or a physicist but unable to write an article like P. Ajith or S. Raju, the least you can do is to participate in a discourse with your friends over coffee and discuss how your academic contributions matter. We, the academicians, should try our best to take a stand against each and every atrocious event around us. We tend to underestimate the usefulness of such activities but they inspire younger academics, especially students, postdoctoral fellows and even young assistant professors, and assures them they aren’t alone in the fight. We can also inform our friends, relatives and neighbours that the current oppressive regime has done away with most of the prestigious academic awards, fellowships and grants, and how we are suffering because of that. Overall, we need to be more vocal and less shy, and talk about our profession with all and sundry. That’s the only way we can ensure a better environment for our future colleagues in the years to come.

Parthanil Roy is a professor at the Indian Statistical Institute Bangalore Centre. This article is based on the author’s personal experience and opinion.

References:

[1] https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/maths-never-helped-einstein-discover-gravity-piyush-goyal/article61986618.ece

[2] https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/maths-helped-einstein-it-can-help-the-economy-too/article29461603.ece

[3] https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/scientists-need-the-oxygen-of-free-speech/article67076627.ece

[4] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Oee1bwCWrbOGivqYZzvTpjg8JN6VXQP-3iDwVn9Ud_A/edit

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“Skewed” is a relevant piece of work that describes how lopsided narratives emerge influencing everyone and affecting the people on the wrong side of them. The story revolved around the untimely and unusual death of a young police officer posted in Coorg, a beautiful and mountainous region of Karnataka, and how his death lead to unfounded suspicion of his wife (Divya, played by Soumya Pujari) manufactured by people around her, two detectives (Pallavi, played by Kavita Jindal and Amar, played by Arvind S. Kumar) and, of course, the misogynistic media.

Two narratives were built around this unfortunate incident:

(1) Divya, the widow of the dead, had an affair with a police officer named Varun (played by Vilok V Kowsik), a junior of her deceased husband and they killed her husband together;

(2) Divya’s late husband had an affair with his friend and neighbour Sanjana (acted by Jeevika), who used to play hockey with him, and hence Divya killed him out of jealousy.

We really loved how the hockey culture of Coorg was used rather aptly and fiercely in this drama – the pace was perfect, the acting admirable and the stage-work sublime. Powerful performances by the main actors and actresses mentioned above, together with impressive theatrics of a few other characters (e.g., Abdul, played by Uttam, Kuliya played by Manikanta, Maid Gange, played by Sarika, Bharat constable, played by Arjun, etc.), gave rise to an immensely enjoyable drama that contained multiple Rhea-Chakraborty-saga-remembering goose-bump moments.

There are scopes of improvement, though, for some of the newer actors, whose dialogues were unclear in spite of the amazing acoustics of Ranga Shankara. However, I am ready to give them the benefit of doubt – perhaps they were slightly tense and nervous in their first play on one of the best stages of the country. I do hope they will improve and present us with many magical performances in the years to come.

There were a few scenes and messages in this play that touched our heart and hence I would like to detail them a bit in this review.

The first and foremost, there was a scene in which the senior detective Pallavi (played by Kavita Jindal) and Divya (the wife of the deceased – played by Soumya Pujari) had a conversation. It was supposed to an interrogation but it became way more than that – a prejudiced trial or perhaps a moral policing effort of a police officer. Effortless acting of two great performers turned this scene into one that will be cherished for good.

Second, at the beginning of the drama, Divya and police officer Varun (played by Vilok V Kowsik) had an important discussion that played a significant role in the story. Both of these scenes lead the way to a superb story that unfolded gently yet shockingly before our eyes and ears. The most magnificent scene was perhaps the one in which all the actors formed a parabola (roughly, a U-shaped curve) with Divya in the focus (in terms of lighting too) and Varun at the vertex. This was, by far, one of the best symbolic depictions of a meticulous media trial of an apparently innocent lady and her friends. The play ended on a positive note in a moderately open-ended fashion and yet with a very strong message – “we should not form opinions too quickly on anyone or anything”, as Swapnil articulates it.

We need more productions like this one, which will have the honesty and courage to criticize the malicious intent of many, including that of media and social media controlled, in many cases, by divisive people with selfish political agenda.

Skewed narratives not only destroy many lives, but also help disruptive forces to the stage for the execution of their shameless divide and rule policy. Expression of dissent and political discourse against the oppressors cannot limit themselves to a particular form – use of strong mediums such as songs, poetry, paintings, plays, etc. have historically been significant, especially during authoritarian regimes. Much to my dismay, today is no exception, and plays like “Skewed” provide a platform for common people to identify the crisis and build an opinion about it.

A lot of credit also goes to the script (by Mahesh SP, Vilok V Kowsik, Arvind S Kumar and Gayathri Narayan), poetry (by Vidya Pathikonda), music (by Abhimanyu Bhupathi), handling of lights (Sachin and Ravishankar) and choreography (by Soumya Pujari), and last but not the least, the excellent direction (of Mahesh SP), all of which, along with the amazing actresses and actors, contributed to this remarkable performance. As a result, it was a delight to be in the audience and I am not going to miss the next production of Fourth Wall Theatre.

(Parthanil is a professor at the Indian Statistical Institute Bangalore Centre. This article is based on the author’s personal experience and opinion)

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The reactions are not far from expected: INC is hoping to capitalise on its victory in Karnataka and win back power at the Centre. The BJP, on the other hand, is sticking to its game of trying to control the narrative by using the familiar tools of misdirection and half-truths. Mr. Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the honourable Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, has reportedly recently said, “BJP never got more than 36% votes in Karnataka. This time also BJP got 36%. Five years ago, BJP got 104 seats, but this time our number of seats went down. It’s not defeat. It’s mathematics.”

Well, is it? Let us look at this so-called ‘mathematics’ a little closely and see why the pooled vote share is not at all a good or healthy way to look at the outcome of any election in India using a simple toy example followed by a real one.

As we all know, India has a multi-party, first-past-the-post electoral system. This means that the candidate who receives the most votes in a constituency wins, regardless of the margin of victory. As a result, the vote share does not directly translate into the number of seats won by a party. There are a number of socio-political factors that can impact the vote percentage in India, including regional variation, polarisation, voter turnout, lines of segregation along economic or caste lines, and so on.

However, we will not go deep into those trenches, at least not here, this time. We will stick to just one unambitious goal: showing that the total vote share has very little to do with who ‘wins’ the election. Let’s start with a “toy” example, albeit carefully chosen to drive home the point. In a fictional district, we have 3 constituencies (A, B, C) and 3 parties (X, Y, Z). Suppose their vote shares are as in Table 1. Roughly speaking, party X receives the highest percentage (38%) of the total votes, and yet fails to win even a single seat. Party Y, on the other hand, gets the lowest share (29%) of votes and wins 1 out of the 3 seats. Party Z, with the second largest vote share but the highest number of seats, forms the fictitious government because of its absolute majority!

If you find tables and numbers a bit dry, you can look at the following figure as well.

Is this surprising, or, a concocted, pathological example? Not at all! Let us go back in time a little bit and look at the Mysore district assembly election results in 2018. As per https://www.indiavotes.com/district/ac/258/1926, the total number of votes, number of seats won, and the vote shares of various political parties are given below.

Mysore, with its 11 seats, witnessed an intense electoral battle as all three major parties vied for victory across each constituency in 2018. In the absence of any alliances that could have influenced vote shares, an interesting picture emerges. Despite JD(S) securing the second-highest vote share, it emerged with the maximum number of seats. Interestingly, Congress garnered more than double the votes of BJP, yet both parties ended up with an equal number of seats. Delving deeper, we discover a strategic move by BJP, as it refrained from fielding strong contenders in seats like Hunasuru, Periyapatna, Chamundeshwari, T Narasipur, and Krishnarajanagara, where its vote shares ranged from 1.5% to 8%. Instead, the party focused on just six seats, successfully securing three of them. In the aforementioned five seats, the battle predominantly unfolded between JD(S) and Congress, with JD(S) emerging victorious in all five contests. Many observers interpreted BJP’s absence from these seats as a subtle alliance between BJP and JD(S),

Going back to the comment of Mr. Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the honourable Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, if this is indeed a “half-truth”, then where is the other half? What he remained silent about is how the Congress vote share was the highest achieved by any party in the last 34 years of Karnataka’s election history. Furthermore, the Congress vote share in the state has steadily increased since 2008, keeping in mind that Karnataka traditionally has been a three-party race since 2004. However, the 2023 assembly election looked more like a two-party race. Total vote percentage polled by the top two parties in Karnataka was 63.6% in 2004, 68.7% in 2008, 56.8% in 2013, 75% in 2018, and 78.9% in 2023. This indicates a strong consolidation and people’s increasing preference towards a two-party system. Despite the polarisation, the consolidation favoured Congress, while BJP simply managed to retain its stable vote share.

Another way to interpret Mr. Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s comment is that BJP’s core loyal vote share in Karnataka has never been more than 36%, in spite of their huge investment in social engineering, propaganda bandwagon and shamelessly divisive politics. This gives a scope (and a faint ray of hope) to the Congress to work on the fence-sitting voters, i.e., the voters who do not align with the core of extremist Hindutva, and consolidate more anti-BJP votes in its favour in 2024. Will that really happen? What will it take for Congress or other political parties, both regional and national, to strategize against the behemoth of a well-oiled machinery and strictly loyal voter base? We don’t know yet, and it’s too early to extrapolate Karnataka 2023 to pan-India 2024. As Winston Churchill, the former honourable Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, famously said, “the past no longer enables us even dimly to measure the future”. The optimists of the present may, however, hope whatever Karnataka thinks today, India will perhaps think tomorrow.
(Jyotishka Datta is an assistant professor of statistics at Virginia Tech, USA and an author. Sudipto Pal is a corporate leader, statistician, novelist and diversity champion for the LGBTQ community in the tech industry. Parthanil Roy is a professor of mathematical statistics at Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore Centre and a fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences. All views expressed in the article are solely based on the authors’ opinions, interpretations and analysis)

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What Karnataka thinks today, will India think tomorrow?

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The post Vote Share Percentage, Politics, Propaganda or Mathematics: Karnataka 2023 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The reasons cannot be listed fully but here are some:

1. Karnataka has a rich history of culture, intellect and education. The results of this election have proved this one more time. Karnataka cannot be called Dakshin Pradesh, period.

2. Even if we cannot, or have not eliminated communal forces in their entirety, this tremendous triumph of unity in diversity gives us hope that the propagandist representation of the divisive gang can now be significantly reduced within the Union. This too should be considered a prominent political success given the current scenario.

3. Article 51 A (h) of Indian Constitution states: (It shall be the duty of every citizen of India) to develop scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.

4. The “entire political science” of South India has now become more modern, progressive, inclusive and pluralistic. This change was absolutely necessary, a non-negotiable, for democracy, sovereignty and secularism within Karnataka as also in all of India.

5. Phase transition (borrowing a terminology from my physicist friends) takes time. It can be sharp but it needs various important steps, at times sacrifices.

6. This landslide victory is a huge morale booster for each and every person fighting against fascism in our country.

7. I went to the Orion Mall (Bangalore) on Saturday. Saw many people of various faiths coming out and enjoying with family, friends, etc. Being a privileged person with a Hindu name, I cannot even imagine what kind of stress they have been going through. It was surrealistic to see them in a relaxed mood, laughing mingling, simply enjoying themselves freely.

8. Fake hate-propaganda messages were sent regularly within our apartment complex WhatsApp group. Very few people used to protest. Yesterday, I saw a bunch of new people protesting against them. They were scared to silence earlier?

9. History has taught us nobody, absolutely nobody, is invincible. Isn’t it sweet to validate it through the present?

10. “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift”. Let’s learn from yesterday, relish today and prepare for tomorrow.

Parthanil Roy is a professor at the Indian Statistical Institute Bangalore Centre. This article is based on the authors’ personal experience and opinion. 

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In the midst of this maths circle session, there was the mandatory tea/coffee break. The students were chatting with each other and this is when the author overheard a student telling others that he is/was very happy with the current change in the history syllabus. The reason given was simple. For this young male talented in mathematics, “Mughals were not ethnically Indians” and “they did nothing other than destroying many Hindu temples”. Herein lies the justification for the erasure from history.

Over nine years now, with the present regime acquiring both state power and seemingly limitless access to monetary capital, the burgeoning of the propaganda mill, the WhatsApp University and the manufactured bots and troll armies being organised by the ruling party and its myriad outfits dish out carelessly perverted and manipulated versions of “fact” perpetuating dangerously selective myths about all Minorities, especially Muslims. Reason is as much a target of this Orwellian regime as diversity and this is evident from the equally brutally slashing of the Darwinian theory of Evolution from the same official NCERT texts. Easy prey then for bizarre concocted accounts of stem cell theory in ancient India with evidence of genetic science (test tube baby??) existing as “revealed” in the tales of Lord Ganesha’s Head and Karna’s birth! Not to mention flying machines being invented on “Bharatiya” soil!

Where and how did these school students get their history lesson from? Which books? Which sources? Was the books, the texts or the overall atmosphere a source of such toxicity? Coming from a school kid less than half his age, this was a shell-shocker to the co-author, assuming as he does that the study of both mathematics and science needs reasoning and logic. Not propaganda and hate.

Parenting was never easy, but it has become even more challenging under the current regime. As hate and toxicity swirl in our midst, with so much of this poison just a click bait video or Whatsapp forward away, one realises how careful, really careful, we need to be with our own kids. Teen and under teen, they are the future citizens of this country. What should the counter communication and counter experience techniques that should we apply as parents given that the Whatsapp University is so all pervasive, the propaganda so systematic and negative? To repeat the old cliché, charity begins at home. We cannot expect our ten year olds to respect people of a different community unless we practise a lived respect for diversity and co-habitation with difference, ourselves.

How many of us have attended an Iftar party in the recent past? How many of us have eaten a meal in a Muslim home along with our kids? How many of us know how Christians observe Lent before Easter Sunday? Or what the significance of December 6 is for Dalit children and parents? How many of us relatively privileged Indians really care?

To probe further, how many of us walk with our children into spaces where young kids from various ethnic background can and do freely interact? Unless we make a special, all-out effort, tolerance and plurality will fade and a rigid monochromatic existence will be thrust upon us. Brazenly brushing out a rather unique lived history of vibrant colours, difference and yes, plurality. That is the truth of our civilizational ethos that we need to reclaim with several positive steps before it is violently snatched away.  

Parthanil Roy is a professor at the Indian Statistical Institute Bangalore Centre. This article is based on the authors’ personal experience and opinion. Teesta Setalvad is a journalist and human rights defender.

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