Recently, I received a message from someone I had known since my Gandhinagar days, when I represented the Times of India from 1997 to 2012. He wanted to send me the English translation of a memoir he had written: “Homes Without Windows“. Thin, short, and darker in complexion than me, he would occasionally come down to my office in Akhbar Bhawan. His name is Chandu Maheria.

Seen through a middle-class lens, Maheria had an unimpressive personality. But that didn’t concern me. I knew little about his background, except what he had told me — that he worked in the state education department, and if I am not mistaken, in its midday meal section. Whenever I met someone new, I would try to find out whether there was a story in them. Education interested me: that was my selfish reason for talking to him.

Once, speaking on the phone, I asked Maheria to stop by my office on his way home to Gandhinagar, as he said he had a story. I was momentarily hesitant: he would have to arrange a drop to my office and back, since he did not drive a scooter. So I decided to meet him instead in the canteen of the Old Sachivalaya, where he had his office. Meeting him there directly, I felt, was also a better idea than going to his office, which might have exposed his closeness to a journalist.

Much later, after my retirement, I discovered that he was regarded quite a buff — a respected one at that — in Dalit circles: an intellectual and a committed writer, one who could speak extensively on Dalit issues. I saw him speak at meetings at Dalit Shakti Kendra, an empowerment-cum-technical school for teenagers founded by the well-known human rights leader Martin Macwan, located off Ahmedabad. I found him very sharp.

Until I received the book, all I knew about it was that it had been praised by the eminent historian of modern India, Ramachandra Guha, who called it a “truly remarkable and compellingly readable memoir” — a comment that had appeared on Facebook. With the book in hand, I began to randomly glance through it.

But contrary to the anti-Gandhi views prevalent among most Dalit intellectuals across India, this is what I found him stating: “Gandhi might have been anything — call him whatever names — but one thing he was certainly not was anti-Dalit. Oh no, never. Alas!”

This made me take a deeper look at the book and see what Maheria, a Dalit and a firm follower of Dr B.R. Ambedkar, thinks about Gandhi. Though a very reluctant reader, I read through its approximately 230 pages in a couple of sittings.

Largely a personal account, the memoir describes how Maheria spent his early life in extreme poverty, growing up in a working-class chawl of Ahmedabad as the son of a mill worker — until he shifted to Gandhinagar on securing a government job. They lived in what he describes as “the squalid, tumble-down, cheek-by-jowl dwellings in the backstreets of the city, dubbed as the heart of the state.”

Maheria describes how Dalits from different parts of Gujarat had settled in the chawls: “Our chawl was inhabited by the Rohits, people of the tanner caste, who had migrated from Charotar, a large swathe of fertile land covering districts like Kheda and Anand in central Gujarat”, and “the Vankars, people of the weaver caste, from Mehsana, a district in north Gujarat.”

Belonging to different Dalit sub-castes, all of them would daily queue up for the dirty common toilet. He underlines, “A strange thing to say, but it was in these queues that I learnt my first lessons in social inequality.”

According to him, “All these people were extremely beleaguered, a harried lot that had come here to escape poverty, untouchability, oppression and exploitation, and yet they saw hierarchy and hatred as natural ways of being, such that even the slightest breach in the set order resulted in exchanges of expletives and blows.”

Pointing out that “all this cheek was for toilets that were no better than hellholes”, he states, “Though not untouchability in its conventional sense, these practices were rooted in direct discrimination, in an ordained difference between the high and the low, that had seeped right up to the bottom of the caste order.”

Offering an example of intra-Dalit casteism, he gives the example of Neno Ma’raj, a man of the priestly Garoda caste, considered the highest among the Dalits. “A mill worker of no consequence, Ma’raj would, in a blatant exhibition of his caste pride, lay his string cot out on the footpath every evening and lounge there like a maharaja, a veritable badshah holding his royal court.”

He explains, “In his exhaustive, eye-opening study of the forms of untouchability practised by non-Dalits and Dalits (among themselves) in Gujarat, my friend Martin Macwan has pegged the numbers at ninety-eight and ninety-nine, respectively.”

Explaining caste discrimination and related issues through personal anecdotes, Maheria reveals why he believes a section of Dalit intellectuals’ anti-Gandhi stance has gone overboard. None of them, he feels, will admit that no other leader fought untouchability like Gandhiji. Indeed, the book’s chapter “That Fellow, Gandhido” particularly excited me.

Maheria starts by stating that he likes wearing khadi as it suits his “short body and slim build”, and explains why his mother didn’t like it. The fabric was anathema to her. She would take a dig at him, saying, “You look like a ditto Gandhiyo in this pair.” An unlettered woman who had picked up the Gandhi-Ambedkar debate through household conversations, her “pet peeve was, ‘None but that fellow, Gandhiyo is responsible for erecting these caste enclosures’.”

Yet Maheria graphically describes how, growing up in the working-class chawls, much of his early education happened in the suburb’s Municipal School No. 3-4, whose principal was a man called Balawantbhai Parmar. “A Dalit by birth, he was a thorough Gandhian. Clad in khadi kurta and khadi dhoti, with a topping of Gandhi cap, when he moved around, the earth shook. Such a disciplinarian the man was.”

Stating that his “formative years were spent among Gandhian, Ambedkarite and communist activists and their respective liberal-radical activism”, Maheria reminisces about the Gandhians’ “prolific welfare activities and women-centric programmes” of Majoor Mahajan Sangh and Jyoti Sangh, respectively.

He says, “Our lonesome chawls received substantial footfall of Gandhian leaders and activists on an almost daily basis. As a result, the atmosphere in the chawls in general remained electric. I received my pre-primary education in a wonderful, Jyoti Sangh-supported Anganwadi, a childcare centre unlike its present-day, state-funded counterparts that are mired in corruption and inefficiency.”

He continues, “The service-oriented women of the Jyoti Sangh made repeated rounds of the chawls during summer vacations, unbothered about the baking sun overhead or the squalor all around, to persuade Dalit mothers to send their children to the Anganwadi. Little wonder that the image of Jasubehn, our loving Anganwadi teacher, in her signature white khadi saree and a winsome smile about her eyes, has survived intact in my mind after all these years…”

He adds, “It was she who first held my hand and helped me trace the lines of Gujarati alphabets and numerals. It was from her that I first learnt the sarvadharma prarthana, the all-religion prayer so close to Gandhi’s heart.”

Further: “Those ‘sisters’, from posh families and in swank white sarees, plodding the narrow, labyrinthine chawls and selflessly working for the welfare of women and children, had won people’s hearts; the chawlwallahs acknowledged and appreciated their single-minded devotion to service no end.”

One of them, Shantabehn Patel, a senior sister of the Sangh, had made a small-time mill worker her sworn brother, just to rid him of the habit of drinking. “Tying a rakhi on his wrist in the presence of the chawl residents, she had made him promise, placing the life and love of a sister at stake, never to touch liquor again.”

“Today”, he regrets, “when I see small children sell liquor and lurch around in drunken stupor in Rajpur — where Maheria’s chawl stood — a mix of painful realisation and profound remorse weighs me down, that now no upper-caste woman worth her salt will come forward to swear the addicts as her brothers or sons and wean them off the bane of booze.”

Maheria describes how, despite being a consistent topper, he was never given an opportunity to speak publicly at school events, including the school’s prayer assembly. However, he adds, his inborn talent was first spotted and then “lovingly nurtured by those Gandhi pathshalas” that imparted him with “informal, but life-transforming, education.”

“Back then”, he notes, “the Majoor Mahajan Sangh celebrated Gandhi’s birth anniversary and other programmes only in working-class suburbs and with great fanfare… As a part of these celebrations, huge public meetings were held where various competitions for mill workers’ children were organised. True to my temperament and expertise, I participated in elocution and essay-writing competitions…”

During those competitions, he would “win household essentials like hankies, towels and bedsheets.” The “precious lesson” in public speaking and discursive writing he received in the Gandhian institution later made him represent his school in an interschool elocution competition, where he received a copy of ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth‘ as a prize from Babubhai Patel, the then Chief Minister of Gujarat.

According to Maheria, “Majoor Mahajan Sangh, in those days, was a name to reckon with; it held sway over a large chunk of the public imagination. Leaders of the Sangh like Arvind

According to Maheria, “Majoor Mahajan Sangh, in those days, was a name to reckon with; it held sway over a large chunk of the public imagination. Leaders of the Sangh like Arvind Buch, Shantilal Shah, Manhar Shukla, Navinchandra Barot, and others showed up in the chawls every other day and held public meetings.”

Maheria further recalls, “Those were not the days, unlike today, of every house having a dedicated toilet. The chawlwallahs used public toilets whose squalid condition, in a way, reflected the destiny of those Dalit suburbs. I vividly remember Bhailal Patel, the Gandhian chairman of the municipal corporation’s Health Committee, who was often seen in Rajpur at seven sharp in the morning, literally breathing down the neck of the sanitary worker on duty to clean every single corner and cranny of those reeky, soiled toilets.”

He comments, “I don’t recall if he ever recoiled in disgust or involuntarily curled up his nose while overseeing the execution of that dirty, dishonourable job.” Yet he regrets, “As I grew up, the frequency of the Gandhians’ rounds to our chawls appreciably tapered off.” He points out, “The last time I saw a Gandhian activist pace up and down Dalit chawls was during the anti-reservation riots of 1981; it was Babal Mehta, the last of the thorough Gandhians whose heart was lacerated by the torn social fabric of his city.”

“To put it bluntly”, he comments, “the dicey, dithering position of the Gandhians on the idea of and the movement for reservation became the root cause of their retreat — not only from Rajpur but from emergent Dalit political discourse altogether. It was a turning point in history. A point of departure, more accurately.”

According to Maheria, “In contemporary Dalit discourse, it is a taboo to utter even a few words in favour of Gandhi — for a lay Dalit individual, to say nothing of a Dalit karmashila or writer — so dominant and pervasive is the climate of Gandhi-bashing among Dalits.”

He underlines, “There are some legitimate reasons for it; no one can deny that. But I refuse to be smothered by them. I have criticised Gandhi in no uncertain terms whenever the context justly demanded it, but at the same time I have not turned tail whenever I felt that Gandhi needed to be defended from trumped-up charges.”

Believes Maheria, “The role of the Gandhians in Gujarat during the anti-reservation riots of 1981 morphed the Dalit bitterness towards Gandhiji into deep hatred… Today, things have come to such a pass that one rarely encounters Gandhi’s photograph in a Dalit household, especially in cities… The Gandhians have played no small part in bringing about this sorry situation.”

Yet he firmly believes that it was Gandhiji who “helped place the Dalit question at the centre stage of India’s social and political life”. Indeed, Gandhi “courageously allowed a ‘Harijan’ family to take residence in Kochrab Ashram at the risk of outraging many of his associates and endangering the financial security of the ashram.”

Gandhi’s fight against, suggests Maheria, has had its social impact. Ahead of his retirement in the second half of the 2010s, Maheria was transferred to Dhoraji, a town near Junagadh, which he agreed to accept as it came with a promotion. Here, he writes, “I must confess that none of the people who knew about my being a ‘Harijan’ ever practised untouchability with me. Every day, I took lunch with my non-Dalit colleagues as their equal.”

And yet, he underlines, “The attitude of the upper castes wasn’t above board all the time. For I didn’t even realise when and how my initial residential address in Jamanavad, a non-Dalit area, got changed to Baharpura. In weddings and other social ceremonies, non-Dalit staff invited their Dalit colleagues — but they wouldn’t attend similar events that their Dalit colleagues organised.”

Further, while he was greatly impressed to learn of a common crematorium in the town serving the entire Hindu community, he was shocked to discover that a separate space was earmarked for Dalits to bury their dead. “Thus, though the crematorium was common, it was partitioned along the logic of caste.”

Courtesy: counterview.in

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The other day, a discussion broke out among ten friends on love marriages—a contentious issue in Gujarat following moves in the corridors of power to regulate them by making parental consent mandatory. One of us claimed that, unlike in the past, nearly 70 percent of weddings today are love marriages. Another person, who had eloped to get married years ago, remarked, “Problems exist everywhere, whether it is a love marriage or an arranged one.”

I asked my friends what they thought about the Gujarat government’s proposal to bring in such a law. The woman and her husband who had themselves run away to get married without parental consent (and are happily married ever since) insisted the proposal was meant only to curb what is described as “love jihad.” “They just want to protect Hindu girls who are lured away by Muslims,” they said.

When I suggested that if such an obligation—parental consent for marriage—were introduced, it would apply to all marriages and not just to the supposed victims of “love jihad,” the woman immediately objected. “That would be bad,” she said. “How can parental consent be made mandatory? It goes against personal freedom and the Constitution.” However, another woman insisted that the government would have to ensure that such a rule applied only to cases of “love jihad,” not to all marriages.

I could not help wondering how deeply anti-Muslim sentiment has seeped into sections of Gujarat’s middle class. Love marriages without parental consent seem acceptable as long as they are within the same religion, but not when a Muslim man seeks to marry a Hindu woman.

Be that as it may, looking at the overall socio-political atmosphere in Gujarat, there appears to be a broad consensus on parental consent. The only difference is that while the BJP rulers speak openly about “love jihad,” the two main opposition parties in the state—the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)—avoid using that phrase.

In a statement in the state legislature recently, Gujarat’s home minister, who is also deputy chief minister, Harsh Sanghavi declared that the Gujarat Registration of Marriages Act, 2006 might need to be amended to make parental consent compulsory for legalising any marriage. Raising the spectre of “love jihad,” he said, “There is no objection to love. But if some Salim posing as a Suresh traps a girl, we will not spare them.”

From all appearances, this seemed more for public consumption. It appeared designed to pacify recent all-male caste gatherings—especially among the numerically strong Patel and Thakor communities—which have expressed concern over a rising number of love marriages taking place without parental approval.

Not without reason. While Sanghavi claimed that in the Panchmahals district there were a very high number of “fake marriage certificates,” particularly in cases of inter-religious weddings—even in rural areas where he said there were “no Muslims or mosques”—the government itself appears reluctant to immediately amend the law.

In fact, it has shown little urgency. The government has announced a 30-day period for public suggestions and recommendations on the proposed changes, after which a review committee will be formed before any amendment is drafted. In effect, this means no immediate change to the law is likely in the coming months.

All indications suggest Sanghavi’s remarks were aimed at placating influential Patel and Thakor caste groups that provide an important electoral support to the ruling party. For quite some time, they have been approaching Gujarat authorities demanding that parental consent be made compulsory for the registration of marriages.

Early this year, a Thakor community meeting was held in Patan where a new “social constitution” was read out and oaths were administered to allegedly eliminate old customs and build a more disciplined society. The gathering announced that elopement marriages would not be accepted and introduced around sixteen new rules, including bans on DJs and sunroof cars at wedding ceremonies. The slogan “One Society, One Custom” was adopted to promote unity.

Notably, the convention was overwhelmingly male. Only one woman was present (photo): the Congress MP Geniben Thakor, who read out the so-called social constitution. A year later, she publicly supported Sanghavi’s declaration about banning marriages without parental consent, describing such a move as “meeting the demands of the current times.”

She argued that some criminal elements were “trapping” young girls into love marriages whose consequences “often prove tragic,” which is why, she said, “all communities have been demanding that the law related to love marriage be amended to make parental consent mandatory, and that villagers be included as witnesses.”

This was not a new position for her. In 2019, as a Congress MLA, she supported a decision by sections of the Thakor community to ban the use of mobile phones by unmarried girls. In 2023, she, along with BJP MLA Fatesinh Chauhan, demanded an amendment to the marriage registration law to make parental signatures mandatory when adult children chose their own partners.

Curious about whether the Congress as a party supported Sanghavi’s proposal, I called up a party spokesperson in Gujarat. Instead of offering a clear position, the spokesperson simply forwarded Geniben’s statement, which I have quoted above. “She is our esteemed MP—the only one from Gujarat,” he said. “There is little reason to believe this is not the Congress view.”

As for AAP, one of the first things its leader Gopal Italia (photo) did after winning the Visavadar assembly seat in a by-election last year was to write to the chief minister demanding a law to prevent young women from eloping with their boyfriends to get married.

Italia, a Patel and one of AAP’s most prominent leaders in Gujarat, argued that the large number of “incidents of girls running away or being made to run away at a legally adult but socially immature age” needed to be stopped. Among other things, he proposed that marriages should be registered only at the permanent residence of the bride.

Calling love marriages a “huge social problem,” he claimed that in many cases girls are “targeted and trapped in a web of love at an innocent age while still studying in school.” According to him, “a well-organised and systematic conspiracy is underway to arrange marriages for runaway couples.” He alleged that such couples are often taken to remote villages in distant districts where marriages are registered for money without proper documentation.

Italia cited what he called data from several villages: in Panchmahal district’s Bhadrala village, he claimed, 560 such marriages were registered; in Amreli district’s Dhampur, Jamka, Mujyasar and Tulindhya villages, the numbers were 1,341, 944, 380 and 258 respectively; and in Anand district’s Sandh, Rel and Vali villages, the figures were 365, 1,193 and 113.

He alleged that these registrations were frequently based on fake documents and involved various irregularities. According to him, “private agents, ‘love mafias’ and gangs”—some allegedly from outside the state—facilitated such “fake marriages,” often exploiting young couples financially and physically in the name of providing protection.

Italia’s letter, written in Gujarati, appeared primarily aimed at reassuring dominant sections of the community he belongs to—the Patels—where, particularly in rural areas, love marriages without parental approval are often viewed with deep disapproval. Notably, neither his letter nor Geniben Thakor’s statement touched upon another pressing social issue within these communities: the skewed sex ratio.

Courtesy: Counterview

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Announcing this, senior High Court advocate Anand Yagnik, who heads the Gujarat chapter of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), said that a committee has already been formed to examine the pros and cons of SIR. “While the SIR exercise began in Gujarat on November 4 and is scheduled to continue for a month, we will file a supporting petition in the case against SIR in the Gujarat High Court or the Supreme Court after observing how it proceeds in the state,” he said.

Yagnik’s announcement followed senior advocate Shahrukh Alam—who is arguing the SIR case in the Supreme Court—urging Gujarat’s civil society to also file a petition. She said there was an urgent need to create public awareness and build pressure against SIR, especially in the apex court, and that this could only be achieved if petitions were filed from different states.

Supporting the view of Gujarat activists that SIR is an exercise aimed at excluding marginalized sections from the electoral rolls, Alam said that the SIR, which began ahead of the Bihar elections despite a revision having already taken place in January, should be seen against the backdrop of an overall attack on democracy, freedom of speech, and the Constitution itself. However, she regretted that the political class remains “largely indifferent” to what is happening.

According to Alam, “We must remember that the space for free speech is shrinking—universities are cancelling lectures and refusing discussions. The state is seeking to decide everything: what to wear, what to eat, whom to marry. Exercises like the UCC, NRC, and actions around Waqf are all about the state deciding your identity. Today, state endorsement has become essential for everything. We are living as if in an open jail.”

Continuing, Alam said that in the same vein, it is now the state that seeks to decide whether one is a voter or not. “Civil society must take up the larger issues around SIR. Voting is based on the universal adult franchise, and it has always been the state’s job to ensure that no eligible citizen is left out. But now, the burden is being shifted—citizens are being asked to prove they are voters by submitting citizenship documents. The state is abdicating its responsibility,” she said.

Alam questioned why the ECI spent a huge amount of public money to revise the electoral rolls in Bihar in January, only to begin another “intensive revision” within six months, allegedly to “purify” the rolls. “Who is accountable for this waste of public funds? The ECI has not been questioned on this,” she emphasized.

On the legal front, Alam noted that while the ECI has the right to create electoral rolls, problems arise when it makes it mandatory for individuals to prove citizenship to qualify as voters. The ECI claims it will verify this on the basis of 11 documents, excluding Aadhaar and ration cards. “The ECI cannot act arbitrarily,” Alam asserted. “The Representation of the People Act merely requests citizens to assist in creating complete electoral lists. For 70 years, teachers went door-to-door recording names without asking for documents. Now, the onus has been reversed—each resident must prove citizenship.”

Countering the ECI’s initial claim that SIR aimed to remove “infiltrators,” Alam said, “Only three infiltrators were found.” When challenged, the ECI changed its justification, saying it was to “remove dead people” from the rolls. “But even that proved flawed—instances of deceased individuals remaining on the lists continued. The Supreme Court has yet to hear the case, even though Aadhaar has now been allowed,” she added.

Addressing the meeting, Sarfarazuddin of PUCL Bihar, who played a key role in opposing the ECI, called the exercise “dangerous” and “without legal basis.” He said it began in Bihar on June 24, requiring individuals to verify that they were on the 2003 electoral list to remain eligible voters. “No rationale was given. The timing was deliberate—monsoon floods begin after June-end. Would people save their lives or their documents in such a situation?” he asked.

He explained that block-level officers (BLOs) distributed enumeration forms requiring verification from 2003. In the absence of that, 11 alternative documents were allowed—but Aadhaar and ration cards were excluded, while passports, school-leaving certificates, birth certificates, and residence proofs were accepted.

“This was designed to exclude marginalized communities,” he said. “The Manjhi community, for instance, has only about 10 percent literacy. How can they be expected to comply? Many people had to bribe officials to get documents, leading to rampant corruption.”

In an instance of how marginalized sections are being excluded, Sarfarazuddin said that an 86-year-old poor woman’s name was missing from the draft voter list, following which her widow pension was also stopped. “Women are likely to suffer the most because of SIR,” he warned. “The ECI requires parents’ proof as one of the 11 documents. How do poor married women cope with this?”

He recounted an incident in a Muslim locality where residents protested after their duly completed forms were rejected. “A schoolteacher acting as BLO called her superior and said, ‘You told us not to accept Muslims’ forms. People are protesting—what do I do?’ Embarrassed, the officer told her to accept all the forms,” he said.

Similar protests were reported elsewhere. Initially, 64 lakh voters were found excluded in the revised draft. Following protests and legal interventions in the Supreme Court, many were restored, but the case remains pending. “This will be a long, drawn-out battle,” said Sarfarazuddin. “The ECI knows it has erred, but it has made it a prestige issue.”

Mujahid Nafees, who heads the Minority Coordination Committee and is PUCL Gujarat’s general secretary, pointed out that thousands of houses of fisherfolk on Bet Dwarka were demolished, though residents had Aadhaar cards with those addresses. “No one knows what will happen to their voting rights now,” he said.

Another Gujarat activist, Pankti Jog of the Association for Democratic Reforms, questioned how the ECI plans to “purify” electoral rolls amid Gujarat’s large-scale internal migration. Economist Hemant Shah asked whether the ECI’s aim was to prepare a voters’ list or to assess citizenship.

Courtesy: Counter View

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Frankly—call it my inertia or whatever—I am not very familiar with Sainath’s recent writings, though from time to time I do read some of the very in-depth reports focusing on rural India on the excellent site he has been running for about a decade, People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), which is, for all practical purposes, a virtual database for learning or understanding anything about how people live and work in rural India.

Not that I wasn’t familiar with Sainath earlier. As part of a Times of India project, I remember reading his in-depth reports in the paper in the 1990s, after I joined in Ahmedabad in 1993. However, at that time, from what I can remember, he concentrated more on doing stories on rural India. The latest lecture, which he gave in Ahmedabad on September 6, 2025, for the first time familiarised me with his worldview on the increasing concentration of wealth in India—especially in the media—and how it is adversely impacting Indian democracy.

According to Sainath, this concentration of wealth began soon after Independence, when the Nehru government, in its bid to give a helping hand, gave away land to top media houses for peanuts at prime spots—for instance, in Nariman Point in Bombay (now Mumbai) and Bahadurshah Zafar Marg in Delhi. This, he said, turned them into real estate barons: building multi-storey buildings on these prime plots, the media houses rented out all other floors—except for one, kept for publishing the newspaper—helping them amass huge wealth.

Today, said Sainath, these media houses are also powerful real estate developers. He quoted an interview Vineet Jain, one of the owners of the Times of India group, gave to the New Yorker. Jain, according to him, said, “We are not in the newspaper business; we are in the advertising business.”

I immediately wondered if this was a sharp change from the view held in the mid-1990s, when, while addressing a few of us “seniors” of the Times of India, Vineet Jain’s elder brother, Samir Jain, had said we should remember the paper was in the business of news, emphasising that the Times of India was a family business and had no social agenda. Then he turned to the whiteboard behind him and wrote “liberal social agenda”, crossing it out. He turned to me to ask if I agreed, and out of curiosity, I asked him, “Sir, what about a liberal political agenda?” Visibly embarrassed, he quietly said, “That of course is there…”
Stating how media has changed over time with the rise of television and digital media, Sainath said the corporate hold over media has further solidified, with top tycoon Mukesh Ambani controlling nearly 40 percent of all media in India today, buying up stakes in one outlet after another. Also referring in passing to Gautam Adani’s takeover of NDTV, he pointed out that politicians too are now deeply involved in the media business—owning several TV channels across India, especially in the South.

Stating how this has adversely impacted media coverage, Sainath said, there are several reporters covering Bollywood and business, but was for poverty and rural India, which makes up to nearly two thirds of India, there is no reporter.

Giving figures worth trillions of rupees related to corporate ownership of Indian media, Sainath then discussed how, with the rise of digital media, there has been further concentration of wealth. According to him, four major corporate houses across the globe now control the strings of digital media—they have access to all the data uploaded to digital platforms. With the Government of India seeking to further control digital media by proposing new laws, an attack on press freedom seems imminent, he added.

Giving examples, Sainath said there was an attempt during the Covid period to control media after Reporters Without Borders ranked India 161st out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index. A committee was formed, consisting mainly of government bureaucrats, to counter the index results. Only two journalists—including himself—were included. He said he joined on the condition that media freedom would be ensured. However, after finding his interventions too strong, the committee, which was headed by the Cabinet Secretary, eventually “disappeared”.

Now, said Sainath, there is a move to introduce a law that would impose a huge income tax on non-profit media houses. Pointing out that non-profit organisations like PARI, which he owns, and The Wire, are likely to suffer the most as a result of this move, he said the intention is to squeeze independent media outfits that have emerged over the last decade. This would take away ₹1 crore out of the approximately ₹2.5 crore that PARI raises annually to run its digital operations. He called upon the largely receptive audience—gathered at the invitation of top veteran Gujarat economist Prof. Indira Hirway—to financially support such independent media.

Later, talking informally, I asked Sainath a pointed question: would PARI, which is a digital media platform, have been possible 10 or 15 years ago, when internet penetration was low? He replied that he had started thinking of the PARI project 15 years ago. However, he admitted it was impossible for him to go into print or TV media, as it was too costly—one reason why he opted for the digital route.

I further asked him whether it was possible for ordinary journalists or people aspiring to share news to do so 15 years ago, as is now possible through blogging platforms and social media. To this, he replied that reaching out to readers is a huge issue. Algorithms control what gets propagated. If you’re willing to pay for services on platforms like X, for instance, you have a chance of reaching a wider audience—otherwise not.

Courtesy: CounterView

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Following my blog “AAP’s rising star in Gujarat or guardian of patriarchy? The Gopal Italia dilemma”, I received an interesting comment from social activist Sudhir Kariyar, who works among tribal workers in Gujarat. The blog discusses how Italia, who won a by-election, wrote a letter to the Gujarat chief minister claiming that, on getting involved in love affair, young girls are being “lured” and “trapped” by wedding mafias across the state, urging the authorities to take legal action against this.

In his message, Kariyar said that the well-known Gujarati writer Pannalal Patel’s novel, written in 1931, “about the inter-caste love story between Patel and Barber caste individuals,” should be sent to Gopal Italia. He referred to a social media post by Dalit rights leader Raju Solanki, whom I have known for some time, which featured the cover of Patel’s novel Malela Jeev (Meeting Souls).

I looked up Raju Solanki’s timeline and found that he not only shared the novel’s cover but also posted a write-up on it. In his powerful piece—without once mentioning Italia by name—Solanki dismantles the AAP rising star’s contention that love marriages are an organized racket. Solanki titled his post Balela Jeev (Burnt Lives), a pun on Malela, symbolically referring to Italia.

Let me quote Solanki. He calls Malela Jeev a remarkable novel, recommending it to anyone who has not read it. The novel, he says, tells the “love story of Kanji, from the Patel caste, and Jeevi, from the Valand caste. Because of caste restrictions, they cannot marry. On the advice of his friend, Kanji convinces Jeevi to marry Dhulo, an ugly man from her village, so that she can remain close to him.”

Jeevi agrees and marries Dhulo. “A suspicious and violent man, Dhulo beats Jeevi daily. Kanji moves to the city for work, while Jeevi, weary of her life in the village, one day tries to commit suicide by mixing poison into bread. By mistake, Dhulo eats it and dies. Widowed Jeevi becomes the subject of public slander and eventually loses her sanity. Kanji returns from the city and takes her away with him. The story ends there.”

Providing historical context for when Pannalal Patel wrote the novel (1941), Solanki says, “it was still 14 years before the system of ganot (forced agricultural labor) would be abolished. The Patels were ganotiya (bonded labourers) of the landlords. In the Sarth Gujarati Dictionary, Kanbi was defined as slave and Valand as useless person. Thus, at that time, both Patels and Valands were considered Shudra castes of equal status, yet marriage between them was unthinkable. It still is today.”

Solanki quotes Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi, a well-known Gujarati litterateur, as telling the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad in 1934 that among Gujaratis “men outnumber women,” pointing out that in the Bombay region, which included Gujarat, for every 1,000 men there were 900 women; in India as a whole, there were 950; but as for the Patel community, “there were only 772 women for every 1,000 men.”

Adds Solanki, “Because of this shortage of women, Patels became a gender-challenged caste. Patel youths married tribal girls, and even fairs were held to bring brides from the Kurmi caste of far-off Bihar.” Yet, alluding to Italia’s opposition to love marriages, he adds, “When it comes to their own daughters marrying for love, they oppose it.”

He wonders, “In 1941, Pannalal Patel wrote a great novel on the theme of love marriage. Who today will write about the burnt lives who oppose love marriages?”

Praising Malela Jeev in an online lifestyle journal, one Snehal Parmar writes, as a “huge fan” of romantic Gujarati novels, that in Malela Jeev Pannalal Patel “illustrates the power of true love: it always lasts, always wins, and always has won. In contrast, false love quickly fades and cannot stand up to the power of true love.” Parmar adds, “The writer expresses the difficulty of finding and sustaining true love in today’s age.”

Indeed, Pannalal Nanalal Patel (1912–1989) is renowned for his seminal novels Malela Jeev (1941) and Manvini Bhavai (1947), having written over 61 novels and 26 short story collections. He is celebrated for using the local dialect and idioms of the Sabarkantha region, making his characters and settings feel vividly authentic.

Keen observers note that the timeless tragedy of Pannalal Patel’s Malela Jeev resonates with chilling relevance in today’s Gujarat, particularly in light of recent remarks by AAP MLA Gopal Italia concerning inter-caste love marriages. Italia’s controversial statements, questioning the social harmony of such unions and suggesting they sow discord within communities, starkly contradict the core message woven into Patel’s classic.

It is pointed out that Italia’s assertion that inter-caste love marriages lead to “social and community tensions” attempts to shift blame from the entrenched caste system and its proponents to the individuals daring to defy it. Malela Jeev, by contrast, powerfully refutes this notion by demonstrating that the tension does not arise from love itself, but from the judgmental, exclusionary responses of the community.

Courtesy: Counterview

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Maninagar, I have been told, was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initial political karmabhoomi during his formative years. While covering Sachivalaya for the Times of India (1997-2012), a senior bureaucrat told me that during the Emergency days (1975–77), Modi would hide in the house of an RSS pracharak to avoid arrest. This babu, who retired a few years ago and lived in Maninagar, told me he personally knew this RSS pracharak, “a simple soul, always ready to help.”

A known Hindutva bastion, Modi represented the Maninagar constituency in the state legislative assembly thrice — 2002, 2007, and 2012. Expectedly, following the stabbing incident, in which the accused happens to be a Muslim and the victim a Hindu, there was strong protest led by the saffron brigade over the alleged failure of the administration, led by a Christian principal, to keep outlaws in the school under control.

Following the ghastly incident, I happened to interact with the principal of another school. Fear was writ large on his face: what if such an incident happened in his school? Wouldn’t he be beaten up like the Seventh Day School principal was? What if a similar crowd entered his school premises? He had no clue how to control it, nor any idea how to deal with what he called “increasing incidents of violence among schoolchildren, which we are witnessing in front of our own eyes.”

Even as I was speaking with this principal, I came to know that the Ahmedabad district education office (DEO) had called a meeting of school principals where discussions were held on how to prevent incidents like the one in the Maninagar school. I asked this principal what had happened in the meeting. While I wasn’t apprised of the details, he told me he had taken “a few precautionary measures.”

And what were these? “We have started checking the school bags of all the children studying in secondary classes, and we confiscated whatever sharp objects were found,” the principal revealed, adding, “While scissors were found in many children’s bags and we took them all, telling them they were in our lock and key and would be returned when they had crafts period, three children had knives in their bags.”

The principal claimed — and this struck me like a bolt from the blue — “All three were Muslims. One of them carried a rather long knife, which the child told me was used for slaughtering goats. We called the child’s father, whose immediate reaction was that his son was being targeted because he was a Muslim. I told him, we don’t discriminate on religious lines; otherwise, we wouldn’t be admitting Muslims in our school.”

The principal, who headed a private school, further claimed that he had “observed” violent incidents happening “mostly among students admitted under the 25 percent quota for socially and economically backward children under the Right to Education Act. They study for free, for which the government compensates us. We cannot fail them till they reach the eighth standard. They have to be compulsorily promoted. They can’t be rusticated either. So, they become careless. In my school, 50 percent of these children are Muslim.”

A teacher with whom I later interacted told me that in his school — one of the better ones providing “quality” education — following the school authorities’ directions, “we search the children’s bags of one classroom every day. It’s such a headache. Many children — especially those admitted under RTE — are found to keep some sharp object in their bags. Some remove the screw from the pencil sharpener and keep the blades in their bags. Do we teach children or do this security check?”

I mentioned all this to someone close to me. This person, who did not want to be named, said that while he couldn’t comment on the Seventh Day School incident per se, in the late 1990s and 2000s, when he studied at a top Ahmedabad school, he personally witnessed how Muslim children were targeted. “One of the very decent boys, a brilliant one, would be called ‘Oy Miya,’ used as an insult; he was rarely addressed by name. He wouldn’t react, but surely this is the type of atmosphere that prevails in many schools. One must understand the psychology of such children.”

I was reminded of what a well-known cultural personality told me when we met around the time I joined the Times of India in 1993 as part of my acquaintance drive. He told me about a top school, preferred by Gujarati parents for their children. Telling me his daughter studied there, he said, “A day ahead of the 15th August function, the teacher told the children they must compulsorily attend flag hoisting, underlining, ‘those who don’t attend are Miyabhai.’ My daughter asked what is this Miyabhai… I was at a loss to tell her the teacher was spreading communal hatred through such a statement.”

Courtesy: CounterView

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In a passionate defense of Urdu’s rich heritage and its rightful place as a language of India’s heart, in an article shared on his Facebook wall, former Supreme Court Justice Markandey Katju delves into its origins, evolution, and cultural significance, describing it as a uniquely Indian language with a dual character—both aristocratic and rooted in the common man’s experience. Titled “What is Urdu,” the piece challenges the notion that Urdu is a foreign language, asserting its indigenous roots and its deep connection to the Indian populace.

Urging its revival and recognition as a unifying cultural force, Justice Katju explains that Urdu emerged from the superimposition of Persian vocabulary and features onto a Hindustani (Khariboli) foundation, making it a hybrid language, once called Rekhta. “Urdu is a language created by the combination of two languages, Persian and Hindustani,” he writes, emphasizing that its verbs, derived from Hindustani, classify it as a special kind of Hindustani rather than Persian. “The fact that it is a special kind of Hindustani shows that it is a desi or indigenous language,” Katju asserts, countering claims that Urdu is foreign.

Tracing the historical context, Katju notes that Hindustani, the foundation of Urdu, developed as the common language of urban markets in North India, facilitating trade across diverse regions. “A trader traveling from Bihar or Madhya Pradesh could easily sell his goods in a city in Uttar Pradesh or Rajasthan or Punjab because there was a common language, Hindustani,” he explains. Urdu, built on this base, incorporated Persian sophistication due to the latter’s status as the court language during the Mughal era, particularly from Emperor Akbar’s time.

Katju highlights the transformation during the decline of the Mughal Empire after 1707, when the later Mughals, reduced to nominal rulers, adopted Urdu as the court language. “Urdu is thus the language of aristocrats who had become pauperized, but who retained their dignity, pride and respect,” he writes, citing the example of poet Ghalib, who, despite financial struggles, maintained his aristocratic pride. Katju quotes Urdu poet Josh to encapsulate this dignity: “Hashr mein bhi khusrawana shaan se jaayenge hum / Aur agar purshish na hogi, to palat aayenge hum” (Even on judgment day I will go in style / And if not given respect, will turn back).

The article underscores Urdu’s dual nature: “It is both an aristocratic language as well as the commoner’s language.” While its content reflects the struggles and aspirations of the common man, its polished, sophisticated style draws from Persian influences, making it a powerful medium for expressing human emotions. Katju praises Urdu poetry’s elegance, stating, “In no language does the voice of the human heart emerge with such power and elegance (andaz-e-bayan) as it does in Urdu.”

However, Katju laments the damage inflicted on Urdu post-1947 Partition, when it was branded as a “foreign” or “Muslim” language in India. He criticizes the systematic replacement of commonly used Persian words with obscure Sanskrit ones, such as replacing zila (district) with janapad. “This policy of hatefully removing Persian words… resulted in almost genocide for Urdu in India,” he writes. Despite this, he remains optimistic, pointing to the enduring popularity of Urdu in mushairas, Hindi film songs, and the sale of Urdu poetry books at railway bookstalls as evidence of its vitality.

To revive Urdu, Katju suggests making it compulsory in schools for five years, alongside Sanskrit, to connect it to livelihoods and ensure its cultural preservation. He also advocates for publishing Urdu works in both Persian and Devanagari scripts to make them accessible to a wider audience. Quoting Urdu critic Shamshur Rahmaan Farooqui, who called Urdu a “dead and buried” language, Katju disagrees, asserting, “The language which speaks the voice of the heart can never be stamped out as long as people have hearts.”

Katju concludes by urging Urdu and Hindi writers to use simpler language to address contemporary issues like poverty and unemployment, making literature a tool for the masses. He celebrates Urdu poetry’s ability to capture historical transitions, citing Firaq’s couplet: “Har zarre par ek kaifiyat-e-neemshabi hai / Ai saaqi-e-dauran yeh gunahon ki ghadi hai,” which he interprets as a profound depiction of India’s ongoing transition from feudalism to modernity, marked by societal upheaval and clashing values.

The post ‘Heartbeat of India’s soul’: Urdu is an indigenous language with a dual nature, insists Markandey Katju appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The article also notes the RSS’s controversial history, including its association with communal violence—such as the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by a former RSS member and the 1990s demolition of a 16th-century mosque in Ayodhya, which sparked significant backlash.

The post 100 yrs of RSS as seen by global media house: Power, controversy, push for Hindu-first India appeared first on SabrangIndia.

While writing my previous blog on how and why Narendra Modi went out of his way to promote English when he was Gujarat chief minister — despite opposition from people in the Sangh Parivar — I came across an interesting write-up by Aakar Patel, a well-known name among journalists and civil society circles.

Titled “How Gujarat ignores the English language”, with a subheading “Exploring clichés about Gujarat’s English and education system”, the piece was published in the online edition of the Hindustan Times’ business daily, Mint. It is now 12 years old — one reason why I decided to review what Aakar had written.

While quickly going through the article, I found Aakar — who served as the head of Amnesty International India between 2015 and 2019, and currently chairs its board — was grossly mistaken in stating that the Congress in Gujarat “has supported introduction of English earlier but the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) reject this.”

Traditional Indian spices

As my two previous pieces on this site suggest (click here and here), poor English in Gujarat is actually a Congress legacy — one that sections of the Sangh Parivar wanted to continue. Modi, however, made efforts to reverse this by crafting policies and programmes supporting the teaching of the language.

That said, much of what Aakar wrote in his article — published online in Mint on October 18, 2013 — still holds true. Written after attending a function at a school in Surat where he had studied 25 years earlier, Aakar states he “was struck” to find school teachers speaking “an embarrassingly-broken English, sprinkled with errors and without felicity.”

I don’t know how much teachers’ knowledge of English has changed since then, but Aakar’s quotation from the Gujarat education department website suggests that Modi’s efforts to promote English seem to have failed — at least at the official level. The web address quoted by Aakar may have changed, but the gibberish English written on it remains stuck in time.

Indeed, the two long quotes from the website that Aakar reproduced in 2013 remain unchanged. They appear verbatim today as they did then — serving, as he called them, “an evidence on display” of the poverty of English in a department meant to support Modi’s language promotion policies through such grand programmes as SCOPE, or Society for Creation of Opportunities through Proficiency in English.

Let me now reproduce the two long quotes from the Gujarat State Education Department website which Aakar copied in 2013 to “explain” how the department puts together its textbooks — and which remain as incoherent today as they were back then.

The first appears under the “Overview” section (screenshot here) of Gujarat textbooks. It states (quoted verbatim, without correcting grammar):

“Establishment

“Gujarat state Textbook Mandal was established in AD 1969 on 21st October. Since 38 year mandals main target. High quality textbooks are published and to Gujarat students they are easily available at reasonable prices.

Through Mandal Std. 1-12 Gujarati Medium textbooks are published. Thereafter in Hindi, English, Marathi, Sindhi, Urdu, Sanskrit and Tamil Language also text books are published.

Board Committees

Mandals whole management is done properly; it decided objectives are fulfilled for that Board Committee is formed as below.

(1) General Board (2) Director Board (3) Working committee (4) Educational committee (5) Production committee (6) Research committee.

Above mentioned all committee’s administration works properly regarding that advise suggestions are given.

Aakar Patel

 

Mandal distribution related works

Printed textbooks are distributed in whole Gujarat at Government level working organizations through them with district distributor textbook are sold in retail for that work distributors are hired. Retailers registration is done in mandal. In Ahmedabad also Ahmedabad has its own selling centre. (Sale Depot, Godown no. 9 below Asarva Bridge, Ahmedabad – 380016, Ph. 22133920) is there. At any institute or personal level to any student from this sale centre textbook can be availed at retailing std. from outside Gujarat through money order or bank draft also textbooks can be obtained.

Mandals research related work

Textbook mandal by publishing textbook is not satisfied. Textbooks quality improves continuously for that research related work is also done. From primary teacher to university professors knowledgeable persons are joined in evaluation programme and other educational programme. Textbooks writers, advisers, translators etc. for them work of finding genius is done.

Mandal’s work in new sector

Basic subject’s textbook – AD 1999 to Std. 11-12, basic subject 26 textbooks publishing being done Mandal for general exam additional subjects through textbook relevant sectors students are provided basic literature. Due to this in village and Kurshi sector also Mandal human research development important work could give own contribution.”

The second is what the department calls a “Disclaimer” (screenshot here):

“Gujarat Government Education Department related information is easily available to people from one place only with that aim this website is developed. Regarding this matter if you have any opinion then you are requested to contact us. To keep this site latest and the mistake that come our consideration to correct those mistakes all efforts will be done. In this site document information created by people and private organizations is there. The information available for outside, on its exactness, co ordination latest or completion we have no control or we can give any promise, this matter has to be kept in mind.

The information of this web site is for the benefit of general public and from it any legal right or responsibility is not created. For over sight or any mistake of typing this department is not responsible.

If any information is not true or some corrections are needed in it, if this is known then the steps to solve it opinions can be given. This web sites documents/samples (PDF file) soft copy and hard copy thus from both they are taken. While conversion certain documents formatting may change that can happen for conversion raised mistakes efforts are done of correcting it. In spite of that now also there can be any mistake in it. If regarding this matter you have any questions then original documents respective copies have to be brought or you are requested to contact us. Moreover for linked sites policy or method we are not responsible.”

Established in 2007–2008, the site has had a whopping 19,816,644 visitors. Yet it hasn’t been updated since 2014 — the year Modi left Gujarat to become the country’s Prime Minister. On Google, interestingly, the site is labelled as “Not secure or Dangerous,” with its identity marked as “not verified” (screenshot here).

Courtesy: CounterView

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This blog is a continuation of my story “English proficiency for empowerment: Modi’s SCOPE vision contrasts Amit Shah’s remark”. I personally found nothing unusual in the Union Home Minister’s “feel ashamed” remark directed at those who speak in English, as I have witnessed his dislike for the language on several occasions during my stint as the Times of India representative in Gandhinagar from 1997 to 2012.

In fact, Amit Shah never tried to hide his disdain for English. He would candidly tell me that he didn’t read the Times of India because it was an English daily. Once, ahead of a mass rally during an assembly election campaign in a tribal-dominated region of Gujarat that Modi was about to address, I spotted him. On seeing me, he objected to a particular news item I had written. I asked, “How do you know? You don’t read the Times of India.” He responded, “Yes, but others tell me what appears in your paper.”

On another occasion, as narrated to me later, Shah, accompanied by senior BJP leader Purshottam Rupala, reached my office to lodge a complaint about a report I had written. Bharat Desai, then my editor, heard them out patiently. Suddenly, Shah snapped, “Who reads your English paper?” To this, Desai calmly replied, “If nobody reads our paper, why have you come here? You can have tea and leave.”

Shah’s attitude wasn’t limited to just a contempt for English. Once, while discussing the poor state of education in Gujarat in his home minister’s chamber—an issue many would privately raise—I asked him what he thought should be done to improve the state’s educational standards, which I believed were among the poorest in India. His informal reply was startling: “Nothing needs to be done. It’s doing fine. No need to change things.”

Ironically, no one seemed to understand the importance of English for improving educational standards in Gujarat better than his boss, Narendra Modi. Unlike many earlier chief ministers, Modi went out of his way to promote English education in schools. His flagship initiative, SCOPE—Society for Creation of Opportunities through Proficiency in English—was launched with this very objective and continues to this day.

I don’t know the exact reason, but I believe he was convinced that English was a crucial business requirement for attracting investment to Gujarat. One of the major hurdles for those looking to set up enterprises in the state has been the poor educational standards of Gujarati job seekers, which he seemed to associate with their weak English communication skills. I have no reason to believe that he has changed his view after becoming the Prime Minister.

From what I gathered during my days at Sachivalaya, after Modi became chief minister, he consistently urged government officials to draft policies to make English a compulsory subject at the primary and secondary levels. In doing so, he even went against his trusted protégé Anandiben Patel—then education minister and now UP governor—who once told me, “We don’t need English, we need Sanskrit.” Modi’s push for English education became a sore point for many in the RSS.

Once, a pro-RSS group running a school in Gandhinagar, Vidya Bharati, invited journalists for a press-cum-lunch meet. Cloaking a swadeshi garb, their aim was to accuse Modi of “neglecting” Sanskrit in favour of English. They even announced an agitation against this perceived slight to Sanskrit—an agitation that never materialized. I reported the event for the Times of India.

Despite his ideological leanings, credit for reviving English in Gujarat must go to Modi—even though his command of the language was initially weak. During his first business summit, Resurgent Gujarat, held in early February 2002 in the presence of the British ambassador, Modi pronounced “delegates” as “dulgats,” causing amused chuckles in the audience. Yet, he took a surprisingly pragmatic approach to the language that Shah dismissed as “foreign.”

Within three years in office, Modi had improved his English considerably. Around 2003 or 2004, he inaugurated an IT event at InfoCity in Gandhinagar, supported by a global firm. He spoke in English, ex tempore, using short but grammatically correct sentences. During subsequent Vibrant Gujarat summits, Modi continued to speak off-the-cuff in English, without a teleprompter, fully aware that foreign dignitaries and entrepreneurs were key participants.

Even while denouncing “English culture,” Modi, by 2003, had begun instructing officials to draft education policies to overcome English language deficiencies. In fact, his was the first major reversal of a flawed language policy that had persisted since the 1960s. That policy, the result of a debate between two ministers both surnamed Thakore—one dubbed “Thakorebhai Panchava” for wanting English from Class 5, the other “Thakorebhai Athva” for preferring it from Class 8—had led to a compromise: schools could choose. The result? Children began English in Class 8, and dropped it by Class 10, producing a generation with little or no English proficiency.

Modi seemed to recognize this gap as a barrier to Gujarat’s global aspirations. He pushed for English in schools. A key obstacle, then and now, was the chronic shortage of English teachers—but the blame for that lay with his predecessors.

Looking back at my stories for Times of India, I found that in 2006, Modi urged the education department to launch a movement promoting spoken English among Gujarati youth. At the department’s Chintan Shibir, he stressed the importance of this skill: “Poor English among the Gujarati youth is telling adversely on their standing in the world. This stigma should be removed at the earliest. There is a need to develop an atmosphere in which the Gujarati youth, well-equipped with English, are able to show their best skills to the world.”

This was not Modi’s first push for English. A year earlier, in 2005, he proposed starting English education from Class 1. Although the idea gained traction in the bureaucracy, he had to backtrack due to resistance from the Sangh Parivar. The RSS’s education wing, Shiksha Bharati, labeled the move “anti-swadeshi.”

Even in the mid-1990s, when Gujarat decided to introduce English from Class 5, it had declared the subject non-examinable—so most students didn’t study it. Modi changed that in 2004, making English exams mandatory in Class 5 across the state.

“There is indeed a major change now. Even rural areas show a strong interest in English. With free textbooks, rural children are now scoring better in English than in other subjects,” Nalin Pandit, former director of Gujarat Council of Educational Research and Training (GCERT), once told me.

Thanks to Modi’s insistence, the Indian Institute of Teachers’ Education (IITE) was established in 2010 as a university with English as the medium of instruction. I had quoted him in a report saying, “World-class teachers to be produced at IITE must be taught in a language used internationally.” A brainchild of Modi, IITE today offers BA-BEd and BEd-MEd programs in English at its Centre of Education, while affiliated colleges offer B.Ed programs in both English and Gujarati.

IITE emphasizes the development of communication skills in both the mother tongue and English, showing a commitment to multilingualism in teacher training—a vision that stands in direct contrast to the anti-English rhetoric of Amit Shah.

Courtesy: CounterView

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