His tragic death has been widely mourned but it should also lead to soul searching beyond improving VIP travel modes. They get all the attention, they choose to spend huge amounts chartering aircraft even when there is no urgency for travel, they build airports in their areas leaving State bus transport in a shambles, the bus stations are dirty, basic amenities are lacking.

Similar neglect of a train travel long distance as well travel in urban areas. In Mumbai 3,000 people fall from overcrowded trains each year, three days before Ajit Pawar’s death, a college lecturer was murdered in a local train in Mumbai due to tension caused by overcrowding.

On roads in the country over 100,000 are killed in crashes, many more are injured every year and the numbers keep rising. But there is little media attention, little discussion on TV channels which spend hours on deaths of people like Ajit Pawar or when there was the Indigo air disruption. Far more disruption is caused to millions on a daily basis to ordinary people which never gets the focus.

Our ecosystem now exists largely to serve political, corporate and VVIP clients — an ecosystem where aircraft are booked at short notice, routes change rapidly and operators compete to provide speed and reliability. This demand structure means aircraft are often flying multiple sectors in a single day, crews are working tight rotations, and planning windows are compressed. While none of this automatically implies unsafe operations, it creates an environment where margins are thinner and the system relies heavily on strict procedural discipline to compensate for Even during investigations into the Baramati crash, VSR aircraft were used to ferry politicians for funeral-related travel, underscoring the company’s continued role in high-profile political transport, points out Shreedhar Rathi, aviation writer.

Santosh Desai said in response to the Indigo, disruption, mismanagement. When airports were being built and modernised in the 1990s and 2000s, railway stations were also there, also serving millions. The choice to pour resources into airport infrastructure while leaving railway infrastructure as it was did not arise from abstract economic reasoning. It reflected a clear judgment about whose comfort mattered, whose complaints would be heard and which spaces needed to perform India’s modernity to the world.

Even when stations are redesigned, the aesthetic choices tell their own story. They gain glass facades, retail units and food courts. They are remade to resemble consumption spaces rather than transportation hubs.

What is being modernised is not only travel but the traveller. The aim is to turn them into a new category of person, someone who buys a latte, a fancy coffee cup, rather than someone who sits on a platform eating from a tiffin. It is a prefab vision of modernity often unconcerned with what railway users actually need.

When passengers complained that airports looked like railway stations, they were not merely pointing out operational failures. They were confronting the fear of category collapse, the discovery that their status as air travellers rested on fragile foundations and that a system breakdown could render them ordinary again. They had paid for elevation but found themselves in conditions they recognised from the category they believed they had left behind. Without the confirming architecture, they became just people in a crowded building, shouting to be heard.

When IndiGo flight cancellations caused massive chaos, newsrooms called in panels to discuss the ‘crisis’. But delays on trains, including the Rajdhani whose fares now match those of a budget flight, feels ‘normal’. Over 23 million people take trains every day, which is 51 times the number of air passengers, and an estimated 20% of long-distance trains experience delays of several hours.

Passengers inconvenienced by the flight crisis were described as the ‘stranded middle class’, officially numbering 4.5 lakh daily flyers according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. But what about the beedi-roller in Bihar rushing to a clinic or the daily wage worker from Patna standing for 12 hours in a general compartment? As the sociologist, Ashis Nandy, points out in The Intimate Enemy, the post-colonial elite’s sense of time favours the clock of capital over the rhythms of the struggling classes. This makes waiting seem like a normal part of life for the impoverished.

daily wage worker from Patna standing for 12 hours in a general compartment, pointed out Ankita Jain in an article in the Telegraph earlier this month.

Ajit was also known as Ajitdada

The original Dada in Maharashtra’s politics was Vasantdada Patil, former chief minister, whose government was toppled by Mr Sharad Pawar through defections and alliances in 1978.  SP (Sharad Pawar) was then a young man, I was recently looking at all the names in his ministry, all are gone, he remains but clearly now he has really aged.

Vasantdada came to acquire the respectful way of address (Vasantdada) through love: he was a freedom fighter, knew difficult days, there were times when he travelled second class by train to attend Congress meetings.

Sharad Pawar never acquired the title dada, he remained Sharad Pawar in the media, at best during personal meetings people would call him, saheb, Sharad rao, sir etc. He never instilled fear.

Ajitdada grew in entirely different circumstances, he acquired power at a very young age becoming a minister in SP’s ministry when I met him a few times, never later. His becoming a dada is relatively a later phenomenon.

Politics has changed so much in the last few weeks. I saw Supriya Sule in a jovial mood at the inauguration of the golden jubilee of Stree Mukti Sanghatana at Y.B. Chavan Centre last month.

She cracked jokes about there being both Pawar and Shinde in her family, her mother is originally a Shinde (the daughter of cricketer Sadu Shinde.). She was referring to the two deputy c.ms, Pawar and Shinde. She said people should not draw any conclusions from what she was saying.

Subsequently there were reports that she may be drafted into the ministry at the Centre following the alliance with the AP (Ajit Pawar) faction.

Sanjay Raut of the Uddhav Sena made a valid point in a news conference that top ministers should not exert too much, should not travel too much by air, they should leave decisions to other leaders, they themselves need not campaign in every lower level election. All this was taking toll of their health.

After all these years in the profession, I get a feeling that journalists can be too liberal in their understanding of politicians, even naïve. They get easily carried away with all the hospitality they enjoy, they must realise that the politician treats you well because you have clout, you are from the media. They may give you a scoop, but in that also they have a motive, else they would just keep their mouth shut. The question is how the politician treats common people, that is the real test.

These journalists praise some politicians for working hard, the question is working hard for whom? They are busy enriching themselves, average politicians with some standing now have assets running into crores of rupees.

If the politicians were so competent, why are their constituencies getting, worse, unliveable?

(The author is a senior journalist and commentator; the present text is from his post on Facebook on January 31, 2026 that may be read here)

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Government and automobile lobby are in a cosy affair while public transport is treated like filth

The post Ajit Pawar’s death and the deprivation of everyday connectivity & transport appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The interesting part was that in the front of the processions were bullock carts in keeping with the tradition , unlike some other processions where they use mechanized vehicles. This makes our streets so lively, of course mostly we have bad traffic jams and things are bad. But these old traditions lend much colour to the otherwise drab lives of common people. In the West they have given up these traditions long ago, the streets are too sanitized, too orderly.

A Sandal Procession (Sandal Sharif) is a Sufi Islamic ritual where devotees carry fragrant sandalwood (Sandal/Chandan) paste in plates, often with incense, to anoint the tombs (dargahs) or walls of mosques belonging to Muslim saints during Urs (death anniversary) celebrations. It is a display of devotion, purity, and unity, sometimes integrated with local traditions, there is Hindu Muslim unity, the Mahim police station takes the lead in the organization.

Some people may scoff at the idea animals on the streets which they think should be reserved for their cars, forgetting that motor cars are big polluters and impose such heavy social costs.

With all the faults, traditionally Indians have a good relationship with domestic animals, on some days the bullocks are worshipped decorated, not burdened on the day of Pola in Maharashtra and there are similar days in other states.

Westerners with all their sophistication in certain matters had had a pretty unfriendly, even hostile relationship with animals like in bull fighting which involve so much violence and though horse racing appeals to so many people, it involves much cruelty to the animal which we never get to see.

As coincidence would have it I saw a fairly interesting film at Alliance Francaise earlier this week which showed a woman, the protagonist, who realizes the need to treat the bulls kindly in bull sports.

In the film Animal, the first local woman to enter the ring with the young men who tempt, chase and are chased by local bulls starts to see things from the bulls’ perspective as bulls go “rogue” and started goring and stamping the locals in the dark of night, long after the audience — mostly tourists — for some events has left.

The Camargue style of bullfighting is non-fatal, a lot less bloody and far and away a more humane and “even” contest and is thus referred to as “bull racing” by the locals, who enter the ring — basically unarmed and on foot — and try to snatch cash-prize tokens attached to the bull’s scalp.
But as experts point every year, approximately 180,000 bulls are killed in bullfights around the world, with many more killed or injured in bull fiesta events. Bullfighting is already banned by law in many countries including Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Denmark, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Although legal in Spain, some Spanish cities, have outlawed the practice of bull fighting.

(From Vidyadhar Date’s page on Facebook)

Mahim Durgah, a Sufi Saint and a Mumbai police ritual

A colonial practice, this ritual of Mumbai’s top police officers walking to durgahs with an offering every year has continued –despite the serious fissures between the police administration and Mumbai’s (then Bombay’s Muslim minority) during the post-Babri Masjid demolitions in December 1992 and January 1993. Sections of an otherwise acclaimed police force were accused, and found by the Justice BN Srikrishna Commission of being guilty of deep anti-minority biases. The practice of officers offering the ceremonial chadar has continued and this year. Each year, as Urs begins at Mahim Dargah, in December, a scene plays out on the streets of Mumbai with a police band at the front, uniformed officers behind and senior police officers carrying a green chadar as they walk towards the 600-year-old shrine of Hazrat Makhdoom Ali Mahimi.

After Independence, while most government departments quietly shed the ceremonial and religious practices they had inherited from the British era a few exceptions endured, particularly at dargahs such as Mahim, and Dongri’s Rehman Shah Ba.

What is the legacy of the Mahim Dargah?

The Indian Express reports that the Mahim Dargah of Hazrat Makhdoom Ali Mahimi is one of Mumbai’s oldest and most historically revered Islamic shrines, with a lineage going back over 600 years. Long before Mumbai grew into a metropolis, this coastal dargah functioned as a spiritual anchor for sailors, traders, scholars and communities along the western coast. The saint himself was of Arab descent; his ancestors are believed to have arrived in India around AD 860 (AH 252) after fleeing the persecution of Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, the much-feared governor of Basra. Born roughly five centuries later in India, Makhdoom Ali Mahimi received rigorous training in Islamic law and theology and was eventually appointed the faqih, or law officer, for the Muslim community of Mahim. He passed away in 1431, and soon after his death, the local community built a mosque and shrine in his honour. Over the centuries, that shrine evolved into one of Mumbai’s most significant pilgrimage centres.

Related:

Preamble to be read at Mahim Dargah in Mumbai

A Mahim Dargah revered by Mumbai Police

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The common tone suggested that there is a desperate need to restore, improve, and expand the BEST bus service now seriously threatened by government neglect. The BEST bus service is a low hanging fruit, it requires little investment, it should be supported, it carries millions of people said Rahul Kadri.

The topic was Who is the City for. Very relevant and seldom is this crucial question raised, addressed. The obvious answer is the government needs to give top priority to common people but that is exactly what the authorities are not doing.

The very first question raised by a student after the panel discussion, was from Nikhil Padhan, a fourth year student, pointed to the car centric urban planning which needs to change the general tone I have been hearing at several such meetings is that people are really frustrated by the authorities’ pro-builder, anti-people policies.

All these voices yesterday were independent, genuine. A general complaint I heard was ‘we do not even have proper space to walk’ and cross the road and here we are bombarded by talk of fancy projects which have at best limited use for the common man.

The coastal road, as Rahul Kadri pointed out, serves only a few thousand motorists even as basic problems of millions remain ‘unattended.’ And the programme ended with a vigorous rendering of Maharashtra Geet in Marathi Garja Maharashtra Majha.

The gathering was not politically motivated at all. It began on a very traditional note with Saraswati Wandan. The invocation to the goddess of learning, Ya Kundendu Tushaar, stressing the importance of knowledge and the need to remove ignorance.

Since the programme was organised by the Constitutional Law Society of the college and public transport figured prominently in the discussion, I must mention that justice Hemant Gokhale, travelled by a local train to Vasai recently to felicitate social worker Manvel Tascano on his completing 75 years. Mr Gokhale had appeared as a lawyer years earlier for Tascano in cases pertaining to the green Vasai campaign and other issues.

It is best to make optimum use of public transport if we take it at least during off peak hours, when there is little rush.

(The author is a Mumbaikar and formerly senior journalist in The Times of India; this piece of writing is from the author’s Meta FB post)

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One had expected much better from Dabholkar who has adapted the original Pradeep Dalvi play in Marathi Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoy (I am Nathuram Godse speaking). I had seen it more than 25 years ago in Mumbai. Even then people had clapped, I immediately wrote a report for the Times of India where I was working, it was, however, suppressed. The Marathi version was directed by Vinay Apte, who was associated with the Sangh Parivar, and the actor Sharad Ponkshe, playing Godse, remains to this day a great admirer of Godse in real life.

Dabholkar is much better educated than Dalvi, has a much better social exposure with his experience in advertising and other fields; he is financially better off. I have enjoyed some of his humour. Unfortunately, he leaves a a much worse taste in the mouth, with this play, than the earlier one. He claims to be impartial but gave himself away during the bow to the audience after the performance when he announced that those who wanted to see the clothes and other belongings of Godse could see them in Godse’s house in Pune. This clearly shows his bias in favour of Godse. He retains some of the wildest distortions of the original with clearly fake characters and scenes regarding the trial.

As Y.D. Phadke[1], the eminent scholar and political science professor, wrote in response to the Marathi play that characters of inspector Shaikh and sub inspector Sawant simply did not exist in real life, in the trial. There is so much nonsensical fiction thrown into the play, Devdas Gandhi , son of the Mahatma, is shown to be a lawyer who wants to take up the case of Godse, his meetings with Godse are shown. In fact, no such meetings took place and Devdas was not a lawyer. More ludicrous is the scene of a burqa clad Zubeida, showing her great afffection, respect for Godse, and she is the sister of the fictitious inspector Shaikh who also becomes an admirer of Godse! Too many falsehoods to be mentioned here.

A note. Since the issue dealt here is sensitive, comments if any may be moderate in tone. (This was for Meta Facebook where the post appears) Extremists, please look elsewhere if you want to write on this.

The volume, Beyond Doubt, A Dossier on Gandhi’s Assassination, edited and introduced by Teesta Setalvad brings to light the report of the Kapur Commission which was appointed by the Government of India in 1965 to examine the depth and scope of the conspiracy that lay behind the killing of Gandhi.

This three-volume report has been absent from the public domain though it contains invaluable evidence—intelligence reports, oral and documentary evidence—of the extent of complicity behind the hate-driven conspiracy that resulted in the Mahatma’s killing.

On November 12, 1964, at a programme organized in Pune, Dr G.V. Ketkar, the grandson of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, disclosed that six months before the actual criminal act, Nathuram Godse had disclosed his intentions to kill Gandhi. This information was passed on by him via others to the Chief Minister of the then Bombay state, B.G. Kher. Not only was Ketkar arrested but a furore ensued in the Maharashtra State Assembly and the Indian Parliament at the time. In 1965, the Government of India set up a Commission of Inquiry into the Conspiracy to Murder Mahatma Gandhi, headed by Justice Jeevan Lal Kapur, a former judge of the Supreme Court. The commission examined evidence not produced during the trial. Justice Kapur concluded that the facts showed that a clear conspiracy existed on the part of Hindu supremacist groups.

(The author, a senior journalist with The Times of India wrote this on meta/Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/share/p/gnM6x6wsr1ykaXp7/?mibextid=WC7FNe; this version has been edited slightly–Editors)

[1] Communalism Combat, in October 2000 published, in translation, extracts from noted historian, YD Phadke’s book in Marathi, Nathuramayan. This was titled, The murderer as martyr https://sabrang.com/cc/comold/oct00/cover1.htm. It is also available on https://sabrangindia.in/murderer-martyr/#:~:text=In%20independent%20India%2C%20politics%20has,his%20statement%20to%20the%20court. This article by eminent historian YD Phadke had exposed Pradeep Dalvi’s claim about his play, Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoye, being based on historical facts as completely bogus. Nathuramayan is a compilation of a series of incisive articles by the (The article in Marathi was first published in the Marathi eveninger, Apla Mahanagar and translated for us into English by Mukta Rajadhyaksha). 

The post Bharat Dabholkar’s adulation of Nathuram Godse is titled Nathuram Godse Must Die appeared first on SabrangIndia.

After some time Mukesh Ambani came and walked along. Looked much more dignified than wife Nita who followed a while later in an all white dress with high heels. There was a long row of very well dressed attendants, young and smart on both sides of the foyer. Clearly, they were all drawn from fairly well to do families, at least one I noticed was a college student. So the whole class character of the attendants is also changed. One sees here for the first time a sort of wealthy people in Mumbai you would never find at a performance of anything like Sound of Music. They were here just because they can afford the hugely expensive tickets. People like that no longer want to see ordinary people anywhere near them. Ordinary people are to be exploited, left outside and must remain invisible.

There is an interesting oil painting of Mahatma Gandhi, not in the exhibition hall but outside, done by a noted Bangladeshi painter Shahabuddin Ahmed which seems extremely relevant. It shows Gandhi as an utterly broken man, very disturbed, almost mutilated. This is how Gandhi would have felt had he been around to see the vulgarisation of life and taste. The painting seems such an ironic commentary on the absolute brazen, naked, almost arrogant display of affluence all around. On the other side by the same artist is a painting of Rabindranath Tagore. The man from Shantiniketan would have been outraged as well, especially considering his deep understanding of culture. He remains our guiding star on many issues.

Given the tremendous media clout of the Ambanis it is not surprising there is hardly any honest, serious , critical look of this complex except in a recent issue of Frontline which says in some respects it looks like an airport.

One would say that in sense the whole edifice is a monument to automobile culture, the most stark symbol of the upper class ethos. There is more car parking here for some five thousand, yes five thousand cars, which is more than the capacity of car parking at both the airports in Mumbai. It is spread over five floors, three of them underground. Already there are complaints of horrendous traffic jams after events here as so many cars come out at the end of the mega events. Such a vulgar allotment of huge space spread over several acres of built land is completely unjustified in the light of the urban transport policy as well as the claims of the metro rail’s seemingly blind promoters that there would be much less need for cars . A high rise car parking tower next to the culture centre is lying empty, almost unused. Let the parking authority come out with facts. Besides, this is MMRDA land given to Ambanis on lease and there have been several violations over the years.

Some comparison of the Ambani centre with the NCPA would be inevitable. NCPA was created mainly by the Tata group with some support from other capitalists. But the centre was named National Centre for the Performing Arts, no family name, no personal ego boosting.

We know almost nothing about the inputs put up in terms of art and culture in the Ambani centre. We hear of no name other than the Ambanis. As for the NCPA, on the other hand, the initial advisory group included such stalwarts as Vilayat Khan, Ravi Shankar, Yehudi Menuhin,P.L. Deshpande and Satyajit Ray, what a formidable list that is.

It was inaugurated by Mrs Indira Gandhi in 1980. J.R.D. Tata and Jamshed Bhabha were the main creators. J.R.D. for all his other high accomplishments did not have much appreciation for non elite culture. I still remember a snide reference he made about the experimental theatre. But this is a very minor point.

The first director of NCPA was V.K. Narayana Menon, a man with a very formidable background, he was a retired director general of All India Radio, was a big figure in BBC in London, was a prolific writer, critic, with very sound knowledge of dance. There is a very interesting photograph of him from 1942 sitting along with E.M. Foster, the novelist, T.S. Eliot, the eminent poet Venu Chitale, secretary of George Orwell and a highly talented person herself. Orwell is among those standing.

He was always a suit in NCPA and a bit aloof. In retrospect, one thinks much more highly of him now than one did then. He was followed later as director by P.L. Deshpande and Vijaya Mehta and the team included some very highly talented people like Ashok D. Ranade, the renowned classical music expert and Kumud Mehta who was a guiding light for the experimental theatre, she grew up in the progressive movement and the freedom struggle.

Menon ‘s friendship with Menuhin was to prove providential for India. The world famous artist was specially invited to perform in India in aid of drought relief and Menuhin reached Delhi in 1952 and at the residence of Menon he renewed his acquaintance with the sitar maestro Ravi Shankar whom he had met as early as 1932 in Europe. It was in this house too they had a meeting with some of the musicians who were already famous and the violinist was charmed by the variety and spiritual overtones of Indian classical music, both Hindustani and Carnatic. He probably met the young DV Paluskar, who had suddenly burst into the music scene with his concert at the Harivallabh Samaroh at Jullundur, and was charmed by the mellifluous voice of this gifted musician. Menon recalled how they went about planning and executing the project for which the Maharashtra Government was generous enough in giving eight acres of prime land, of which five acres had been reclaimed from the sea. The estimated cost of the land was Rs. 20 crores and this was given on a 99-year lease for a token fee of Rs. 1 a year! They chose architect Philip Johnson who had designed the Lincoln Centre and who had been familiar with the demands of the modern theatre and its ambience, says an article in Open magazine. When he was approached he was only too willing to do something in this part of the world. He made more than a dozen trips to examine the locale and the building material and the local area sources. Thus he took care to see that everything that went into its making has been indigenous. The stone for the structure was quarried from the Malad area.

About some of the unique features of the auditorium Menon explained that the acoustics consultant was Prof. Cyrill Harris, who was professor of Architecture and Engineering at Columbia University and he had suggested a fan-shaped theatre with number of rows reduced to 17 from the normal 32and the stage projected almost into the audience. And the electronic amplification of sound was eliminated by the construction of elongated three-sided forms of high density plaster which extended in concentric circles over the entire ceiling and along the walls of the auditorium.

In those days many of us thought the NCPA was elitist and in some respects it still is. But compared to the Ambani edifice, it wins hands down.

Taken from the Facebook wall of veteran journalist and author Vidyadhar Date

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The deaths of at least 13 people, apart from the ill-health of hundreds of people, should be classified as “social murders” as Friedrich Engels called them. These were a direct result of state negligence; they took place at a State government-organised event for the aggrandisement of politicians and the so-called spiritual leader in whose honour the spectacle was organised in Kharghar in Navi Mumbai on April 16.

This calls for a judicial inquiry as anyone aware of basic Parliamentary norms would bear out. The most essential element is very much there, the involvement of the state government which was so direct and even a most unscrupulous State would not be able to deny it. It was a State government organised event, adverstised through with front page advertisements in many newspapers.

Formerly there used to be regular judicial inquiries into disasters of even small magnitude. One will find any number of such reports in the state legislature library. Now, the opposition in the State is so feeble and for a long time one has not heard of demands for judicial inquiries.

Shamefully, a section of the NCP (Nationalist Congress Party), now appears all set to join hands with the ruling network in clear betrayal of the legacy of Phule, Shahu and Ambedkar. If not a judicial inquiry, people can (should) hold a people’s court, a jan sunwai, in which witnesses and others can be called and the proceedings recorded and publicised. 

Often the government machinery routinely harasses social organisations wanting to take out morchas, all kinds of permissions have to be taken, and those upholding democracy are treated like criminals. And here, the government and the alleged spiritual organisation in a joint exercise organised this mega event at a cost of some Rs 12 crore to the government without preliminary precautions. 

The least that the government can do now is to ensure that organisers of such mega events including corrupt politicians and others organising cricket matches, should ask the attendees to use public transport. In any case the size of such events ought to be restricted to a manageable degree.

For years we have been hearing disgraceful arguments being made by the government machinery that trade union and political morchas should be discouraged as they are a hindrance to traffic. But they have no problems with huge traffic jams caused by monopolisation of road space by motor cars. 

A few years ago there was a spiritual guru called Pandurang Shastri Athavale, he was trained in philosophy, he helped many to give up drinking liquor, improve their lot, he had a mass following but he never went to such absurd lengths as organising these monster events. 

The Navi Mumbai deaths remind one of the Hillsborough tragedy in which 97 football fans were killed and many injured during an FA cup semi-final in Sheffield in 1987. The police were severely indicted for their mismanagement in an inquiry that lasted years. The deaths are remembered every year to this day with floral offerings. The disaster had occurred on April 15, datewise, just a day before the State-caused deaths. 

(From the author’s FB post dated April 17; he is a senior journalist formerly with The Times of India) 
 

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This was clear from  his speech and choreographed scenes during the performance at the big show he and the authorities mounted in Varanasi on December 13. It was a piece of theatre. But real theatre is much more than that. Mr Modi exploited emotions, religious sentiments, it was grandstanding. Real theatre reveals the truth, it does not manipulate truth. 

Here are a few points about looking at the Modi theatre phenomenon in the context of serious theatre.

Bertolt Brecht, perhaps the most influential  theatre personality of the 20th century, created a theory of epic theatre now widely appreciated all over the world. He wanted to make his audience think and famously said that theatre audiences “hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom”. He wanted his audiences to remain objective and distant from emotional involvement so that they could make considered and rational judgements about any social comment or issues in theatre. 

But much before Brecht, Shakespeare used the device of play within a play in Hamlet to seek and reveal the truth. So he investigates the murder of his father, the king. Hamlet stages the play, the Murder of Gonzago, before Hamlet’s mother and the ususrper king Claudius, his uncle. When the poison is put into the ears of the king in the play within the play, directed by Hamlet, Claudius asks it to be stopped and shouts Lights, Lights, Lights. So  in a sense the murderer is exposed. 

The ancient Greek theatre used the device of the chorus to offer interpretation of the story that follows. In  the acclaimed 16th century play Doctor Faustus Marlowe retells the story of Faust, the doctor-turned-necromancer, who makes a pact with the devil in order to obtain knowledge and power. Both Doctor Faustus and Mephistopheles, who is the devil’s intermediary in the play, are subtly and powerfully portrayed. Marlowe examines Faustus’s grandiose intellectual ambitions, revealing them as futile, self-destructive, and absurd, as analysts have pointed out.The comments of the chorus substantiate these points. 

The Modi script of the performance in Varanasi should be perhaps edited by someone by  writing a critical commentary in the beginning and end. Overlords like Mr Modi use the medium of the performance for their ends, but they do not like truth telling comedians or serious dramatists. Dario Fo, the Italian dramatist and popular actor, made some significant points  in this connection in his Nobel prize speech. He said in the 13th century emperor Frederick declared that anyone could commit violence against jesters without fear of punishment. 

Rulers resort to melodrama but do not like honest theatre. In Maharashtra the tamasha was originally a very irreverent, elastic, flexible theatre form in which Songadya, comedian, made very  caustic  and hilarious comments against State power and ills in the society. That whole tradition has been cleverly subverted by the powers be and the tamasha is now reduced to an erotic song and dance show  for the consumption of the new rich in the rural areas. That the women artistes are also exploited off the stage is yet another matter. 

In Sanskrit theatre the troupes included various professionals, from minor actors to make-up assistants, stage technicians, musicians and the conductor of the orchestra. Music had a central role in the Sanskrit dramas. 

In the case of Modi at Varanasi, it was a one man show mainly for most of the time, even the UP Chief Minister was assigned little role. Modi’s bathing, his dip and all these devices could not have been possible without a formidable security ring around him. This too was clearly kept out of the view. As if it was all devotion and piety and had nothing to do with state power apparatus. 

But credit should be given to Mr Modi for the way he effortlessly summoned quotes and stories from several regions and languages including the local Varanasi region dialect. Mr Modi, ironically, quoted the Sanskrit words Idam Namam which means complete surrender to god without expectation of any reward. That was completely at variance with reality since the whole exercise, many would say, was directed towards the UP assembly elections. 

Mr Modi also frequently mentioned that a visit to Varanasi is important for washing away all sins. These ideas apparently had a different overtone in the olden days. Most of the important religious sites are in beautiful natural surroundings, there must have been a motive of being one with Nature amidst Nature. Over the years, that sanctity has gone, and corruption took over some of these sites so  Sant Kabir lived in Kashi or Varanasi, but chose deliberately to die in the so-called cursed town of maghar because he found it less corrupting.  

Coming back to the theme of theatre and acting, and role of tyrants, it is significant that in the play Macbeth the usurper sensing his impending defeat utters the line about life being like a player who struts about on the stage full of sound and fury signifying nothing.  

Be as it may. Mr Modi had the appearance of humility and devotion, but it was essentially strutting around against the backdrop of the Ganga. As for his ability to so fluently quote from various aspects of old culture, perhaps the only Congressman in recent times who could do that if he wanted to was P.V. Narasimha Rao. Of course, PVN  had a real grounding in culture and language. In any case  the opposition certainly needs to improve its communication skills among other things if it has to take on Mr Modi seriously.

*This was a note originally published by the author on Facebook. Views expressed are the author’s own.

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Kashi-Vishwanath corridor inauguration: No separation of Mandir and State?

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Mr B.T. Ranadive, well-known trade union and CPM leader, passed away this month 30 years ago in 1990. I still remember walking in the heat as part of his funeral procession from the CITU office in Worli to Dadar. It was an unusually long procession.

Trade unions still held a strong position in society then. But even back then, the mainstream media was not very supportive. I recall covering a well-attended,  CITU conference at the Shanmukhananda hall, Matunga.  Yet, the day after the inaugural session, the Times of India where I worked, did not carry any report. The TOI had a strong CITU union at the time. I think someone spoke to chairman Ashok Jain and subsequently a report appeared.

In the  subsequent era of neoliberalism, union busting became common, it became fashionable among intellectuals to run down the struggle for workers’ rights. Of course, they were handsomely rewarded for their loyalty to the establishment and for their betrayal of people. The most naked example at the government level was the Exit Policy in the nineties which favoured a hire and fire policy. For some years there was not even a cabinet rank labour minister in the state. There used to be a lower rank minister with the status of minister with independent charge.

But then the stark visuals of  the trek  of  long lines of migrant labour from different parts of the country worked like an eye opener. The harsh reality (of their lives) could no longer be ignored. 

It was good to see the bow tie wearing columnist and television interviewer express so much sympathy for workers in a recent interview with an academic. Mr Karan Thapar has changed so much for the better in the last few years. There is a sea change in public perception of labour: we seem suddenly to have become aware of their version of the  tragedy, the problems they face and their overall exploitation.

This is  an interesting phenomenon on the eve of May Day, traditionally a day of assertion of working class solidarity.  There is now the very real possibility of a solidarity being built with other sections as well. Every one is going to be hit now with the exception of the one percent who have fattened themselves at our expense and who pose a serious threat to democracy. Unfortunately, this is also a sad time as there is massive unemployment already and wages are being cut. 

There are various historical versions and accounts around the origin of May Day. Rosa Luxemberg, the renowned radical thinker has said the struggle to attain the eight-hour day was first born in Australia. The workers there decided, in 1856, to organise a day of complete stoppage together with meetings and entertainment as a demonstration in favor of the eight-hour day. The day chosen for this celebration was to be April 21. At first, the Australian workers intended this only for that year, that is 1856. But the first celebration had such a strong effect on the proletarian masses of Australia, enlivening them and leading to new agitation, that it was decided to repeat the celebration every year.

In fact, what could give the workers greater courage and faith in their own strength than a mass work stoppage on which they had decided themselves? What could give more courage to the eternal slaves of the factories and the workshops than the mustering of their own troops? Thus, the idea of a proletarian celebration was quickly and widely accepted and, from Australia, began to spread to other countries until finally it had conquered the whole proletarian world.

The first to follow the example of the Australian workers were the Americans. In 1886 they decided that May 1 should be the day of universal work stoppage. On this day 200,000 of them left their work and demanded the eight-hour day. Later, police and legal harassment prevented the workers for many years from repeating this demonstration. However in 1888 they renewed their decision and decided that the next celebration would be May 1, 1890.

The movement grew stronger over the next few decades

(There have been minor edits made to the original)­

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The car lobby , the traffic police and the whole establishment will surely not relish this. But they should remember that their policies actually are resulting in rasta roko for millions of people every day in the whole country.

So a rasta roko against cars for a few minute should not cause much alarm.

Think of this idea which emerged from James C Scott, the author of the book Weapons of the Weak and professor of political science at Yale university .He was watching traffic in a small town in East Germany in 1990 a few days before the unification. He noticed that scores of people patiently waited at a traffic signal for a long time even though there was little vehicular traffic.

The traffic system, he felt, was unjust and people should cross the road as an act of defiance of unjust rulers. He argued that these little acts of resistance are essential to prepare us for bigger struggles ahead.

Mr Scott is a widely respected scholar who has done a lot of research in south east Asia studying the lives of the poor. If one studies his writing it can be surmised that the suppression of the BEST bus system in the last few years is a deliberate attempt to wear down the poor , reduce their power of resistance.

He has cited an example from Massachuseets in the U.S. where the bureaucracy used various means to deny welfare benefits to the poor. It could not openly do so. So, it made life difficult for the poor so they would find it difficult to get the benefits.

Let us see how the system resorts to Rasta Roko against common people every day. Turner road or Guru Nanak road is an important arterial road in Bandra West which the government now wants to connect to the proposed coastal road. So, it is quite a key road. Here the pedestrian crossing time given is just five seconds. The fittest person would not be able to cross even half the road. So one has to wait for another 180 seconds or so at the intersection breathing poisonous fumes emitted by cars.

This is the 50th year of the student protest movement of 1968 which created a great awakening among people and gave a new light of hope. Those days are recorded in the book Street Fighting Years written by Tariq Ali, a stalwart of those days.

And the word street fight need not cause alarm. It is the title of a book by Janette Sadik Khan, former traffic commissioner of New York, who brought in a number of reforms in the city by reducing access to motor cars and bringing some kind of a democracy to roads. She had to fight vested interests and so the title of the book.

Walking, cycling, taking public transport are little acts of resistance against a car-dominated, capital-dominanted unjust, unequal transport system. Since we are on the issue of BEST, let me recall a statement often made to me in his retirement days by Mr J.B. D’souza, former BEST general manager and then municipal commissioner and chief secretary of the Maharashtra government.

He used to say that there appeared to be conspiracy against pedestrians. His wife, Neela D’souza, writer, keeps up the fight and walks daily on the roads of Bandra west at the age of 82 battling motor car traffic. She seldom uses a car and for walking seldom chooses the confines of Joggers Park.

As for the illiberal ideas of the governing class in India about subsidies to public transport, let me cite an editorial in the New York Times last month which fully supported a proposal of the New York city council to give a subsidy of 212 million dollars a year to give discounted fares to nearly eight lakh poor people.

We can improve the lives of the people in a single stroke, the editorial said. The editorial makes it clear that it has the backing of the editor, the publisher and the editorial board.

This editorial and the huge subsidy tells us a lot about the changing nature of thinking on urbana transport in several Western countries. There is a big tide in favour of public transport and against motor car dominance.

I am afraid there is a terrible deficit in knowledge in Maharashtra’s ruling circles, the governance system. We are severely running down our public bus transport in the city and in the state.

Even cities smaller than Mumbai and towns have much better facilities for public transport, some look like airports like one I saw in Chennai. Mysore has an excellent information technology-enabled facility which display the timing of buses arriving at stops, routes and so on. With GPS it is possible to monitor the movement of buses, it has helped vastly improve punctuality and reduced rash driving. It is a pleasure to travel by bus in Mysore and a pain in Mumbai, said corporate executive Sharad Bailur who knows both the cities well.

There are serious transport problems in Mumbai not only regarding BEST buses, but also ST buses of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation as well as long distance private buses.

The Metro rail construction work has literally bulldozed the compound wall of the head office of the state transport headquarters opposite Mumbai Central rail terminus.

It is making further inroads into the compound. I visited the premises on May 10 and clearly entry is not easy even for the managing director Ranjit Singh Deol, or transport minister Diwakar Raote, who is the chairman of the corporation.

The main road Anandrao Nair Marg is now out of bounds for ST buses and they have to take a long diversion via Byculla area. It takes our driver of long distance ST buses three hours simply to reach Panvel from Bombay Central.That leaves him exhausted, said an official. Even before the Metro, things were no better.

And for pedestrians walking towards the ST bus station or for motorists there is no end to misery especially if they are coming from the Maratha Mandir cinema theatre side.

For ST bus operations there were serious traffic problems even before the Metro completely took over the area.

Despite all handicaps,ST buses are far more punctual, reliable and affordable than private buses. The ST bus network at least has some primitive infrastructure in Mumbai. The private operators do not have even that. They operate from the roadside. It is a common site to find families wait patiently for hours together at some street corner or under some shelter with little children and luggage.

The entire long distance private bus operations in the city and elsewhere is illegal. These buses are licenced to operate only from point to point without intermediate stops, their mechanical condition is poor, breakdowns are frequent even in the case of big operators. Some of these vehicles carry out illegal modifications. Their safety record is not considered good. The Mumbai high court has passed severe strictures against the state government for failing to take action against these operators.

These private buses heavily eat into the earnings of ST buses.. Four thousand private buses heavily outnumber the 1500 of ST in Mumbai. It is also more fashionable to travel by private buses, ST buses are considered down market, even though actually they are more efficient and punctual.

The ST corporation now proposes to make some amends and provide modern bus stations at Nancy colony, Borivali, Panvel, Bhiwandi and Kalyan. The Kalyan bus station will be integrated with the railway station and taxi and auto stands.

Mumbai’s progress is all right in terms of the suburban rail network, airport, car traffic but is primitive when it comes to public sector road transport which is such a pity.

Regarding the BEST controversy the views of Dr Shanker Keshav Modak, transport economist, deserve some consideration.

He is now 85 and at this age he has no axe to grind. So when he says the BEST bus fare should be actually brought down, we need to take this more seriously.

Any increase in fare or reducing routes , as proposed by the civic body, would be suicidal. He knows about this subject particularly because he has studied BEST fare hike in the seventies. He suggests that the minimum fare from the present Rs. 8 should be brought down to Rs. 6 or the psychologically more appealing figure of Rs.5 which makes transaction easier.

He taught transport economics in Mumbai university’s economics department before becoming principal of Sydenham college and Elphinstone college. Mumbai university has a chair in transport economics in the name of former industrialist Walchand Hirachand. Dr Sriraman used to be there as professor some years ago. One hears little about this department these days.

Dr Modak is far from being a left-winger . But he is a strong supporter of public transport and thinks the government must muster courage to check the automobile lobby.

A lot of mobility problems in Mumbai can be dealt with with a little imagination and little expense. A female British employee of Tatas in Mumbai rides by bicycle to work every day . She asked the management for a bicycle parking facility and got it promptly in Trent Tower at Bandra Kurla complex.

Instead, our administration creates more and more problems for the common man by encouraging congestion by cars.

The Tata employee’s husband is also an avid cyclist. Both are said to be almost six footers. That is only incidental. Anyone can ride a bicycle. Unfortunately, there is too much timidity in our society, so people don’t want to ride a bicycle. True, we need to be careful, but problems can be easily surmounted if more and more people take to cycling, that will deter arrogant motorists.

The authorities mechanically created a cycle track in BKC but it is serving little purpose as there are no supporting facilities and this requires a lot of social engineering. What we have is a very mindless, civil engineering approach without any concern for the human angle.
The Tata connection reminds me. Darbari Seth, the chief of Tata Chemicals, used to ride on a bicycle in the Mithapur plant in Gujarat.

Our IIT campuses can start by restoring the bicycle culture. The father of Jairam Ramesh, former minister and ex IITian used to cycle in the IIT campus in Powai when he taught there some years ago. The bicycle is the predominant mode of transport in the campuses in top universities in the world. But we believe in importing the worst car-oriented models from the West while rejecting the best.

Like Kiran Nagarkar, creative writers have played a great role in helping improve life with their ideas and convictions.

The sterling work done by A.J. Cronin as a novelist led to the creation of Britain’s famous national health service. Cronin, a medical practitioner, worked for several years in the coal mine areas in Britain and his novel Citadel written in 1937 depicted the alarming effects of pollution on workers.

There are multiple, well recognized reasons, why we should strongly oppose car dominance.Besides, new technology cars are doing more harm than before. The New York Times reported recently that carbon monoxide emissions from keyless cars have caused 28 deaths since 2006. Leaving the car engine idling in the garage proves fatal if the invisible odorless gas finds its way into home.

The crimes of auto manufacturers are widely known but little action is taken as governments often act as their agents rather than regulators. And rich motorists get away with driving violations because of their economic status. Surprisingly, while the society shows such aversion to tobacco smoking because of its harmful effects, no such awareness is shown about cars. This is partly because many of us are so heavily implicated in the driving culture with all its harmful effects.

How lightly we take serious offences, or shall we say alleged crimes, committed by the rich with respect to cars is best illustrated by the example of Navjyot Singh Sidhu, well known cricketer, popular television commentator. He punched a man over a car parking dispute in Patiala in 1988 after dragging him out. The man died subsequently.

The high court sentenced him to jail for three years in 2006, then the Supreme court stayed his conviction and now he has been let off with a small fine. This reminded a facebook friend of an incident in the U.S. in 1963 in which an Afro-American barmaid,51, a mother of nine children, died after a blow from a cane by a wealthy white tobacco merchant during a party in the days of racial segregation .. The assailant got away with six months in jail, away from a regular jail where he would have been beaten to death by other prisoners.

Bob Dylan wrote a famous song on this incident, Lonesome death of Hattie Carroll.

Coming back to Sidhu, he seems to have made some amends. As Punjab’s urban development minister he is the first minister in the country to recently introduce car parking regulations in the whole state of Punjab.

It is extremely disgraceful that our authorities cannot formulate any proper policy, cannot collect charges even from wealthy motorists parking their cars on Altamount road.

Vidyadhar Date is a senior journalist and author of the book Traffic in the era of climate change. Walking, cycling, public transport need priority. datebandra@yahoo.com

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/
 

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Image: Indian Express

It  seemed to be fair enough.
 

Unfortunately,   politicians  do  know the issues but  not all  want to act on them.
 

An activist had brought the violations  involved  in  the Kamala Mill  fire to the attention of the BMC and yet it did not act . This also takes care of a point made by Shekhar Krishnan, research scholar , to me that I should follow up  my comments on civic issues  with the BMC.
 

At official press conferences the general experience is that if a journalist  raises an issue,   the response is that if the  journalist has a personal issue, it would be attended to soon , don’t   bother about public issues. We know what is happening and . What is your problem  ?  And so on.  It is not always like that.  Some times the authorities  are certainly serious.  At  public  interactions, the politician usually  issues a directive  –  give only concrete suggestions, meaning don’t   make complaints. So  the point is the authorities are  simply not interested in getting to know the truth.

 

Mr Patel made the suggestion at a meeting convened by the Mumbai Vikas Samiti in Dadar in  which the chief of the BMC’s   disaster management cell , Mr Narvekar,  spoke very confidently about the preparedness of  the civic body. 

 

The trouble is the class character of  most prominent   politicians has changed over the years.They are now  in  the same hedonist, luxury-loving   class  as the people they should be asking questions.  The central  minister Babul Surpriyo    said  on TV  that he went through the list of the Kamala Mill fire victims to check if  there was anyone he knew. And the  articulate Mr Aditya Thackeray  said he  might as well have  been at the   restaurant  at Kamala mill   which underscores  his life style.  By the way, he has a bigger task ahead of him now since he is the  main spirit behind  the  civic decision to  let people   enjoy night life and shopping and eating out by extending their hours  This means people are actually going to be more vulnerable if   corrective steps are not taken.

 

If only our  architects, civil engineers,  food writers  speak out on such issues,  things will be better. I have so far noticed only one  intervention from the  gourmet class on the  Kamala mill restaurant.  Kunal Vijaykar mentioned  that there are so many  other such sites  including Todi mill compound.

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