| Talk about income inequality, redistributive policies and, for some strange reason, the mangalsutra, dominated the week. The question on everyone’s mind was if their gold and savings were safe. Fears of a class war are afoot. Congress cannot use religion to counter the BJP, so it has fallen back on caste and class. It might earn brownie points and a few cheers at rallies by attacking the Ambanis and the Adanis. But it forgets that the nature of wealth has changed in India since the days of Indira Gandhi, wrote Vir Sanghvi.
Many in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh may be looking for a third alternative. But they don’t see the BJP as one yet. With Modi leading the BJP’s charge, there can be a turning point in the south. There are, however, many ‘ifs’, which are beyond its control, wrote DK Singh.
Kapil Komireddi travelled to Kerala and wrote that there are few seats more significant than Thiruvananthapuram in this election. BJP’s Rajeev Chandrasekhar claims to be a modern, moderate, modernising figure. And yet he pledges allegiance to a political party animated by bigotry and reactionarism. To elect Chandrasekhar to Parliament is not to fortify the lived secular reality of Thiruvananthapuram, a city whose history of social harmony shames the rest of India, he wrote.
In an India that was post-Mughal but pre-British Raj, diplomacy, popular religion, and a constellation of genius painters created the most spectacular Ramayana adaptation ever, wrote Anirudh Kanisetti. The Kanchana Chitra Ramayana was nearly 1,100 pages, of which 548 were illustrated. The pages were startling to look at. The delicate, exquisite empathy of the Mughal courtly artist; the heavy-lidded eyes of the Jaipuri; the architecture-focused composition of the Awadhi. It took 18 years to finish, from 1796 to 1814.
The Harappans have been known as explorers, traders and agriculturists. But they were also producers, wrote Disha Ahluwalia. Supply, production, and distribution were all aspects of a well-designed matrix that united the Makran coast in the west to the Yamuna River in the east, and the Himalayas to western India. It was a bustling manufacturing hub.
I urge you to read two really well-reported and written Ground Reports.
One takes you into the lives of two families in rural UP, as seen over the last decades of UPA and NDA governments. What changed and what remained unchanged? Shubhangi Misra spent days with an OBC and ST family and came away with fascinating observations. Red lipstick, macroni dinner, LPG gas cylinder, a pacca house and a Pulsar motorcycle are the symbols of change in the former’s family. Meanwhile, corruption in welfare schemes, an old bicycle and a clay chulha are what is keeping the ST family behind. But aspiration is what ties their lives in new India.
For the 133-year-old football club from West Bengal, Mohammedan SC, the historic I-League victory has come after a long, despairing wait of two decades. The predominantly Muslim Mohammedan SC almost shut down after running out of money in 2014, wrote Keshav Padmanabhan. The resurrection of one of the big three of Kolkata football was largely due to the infusion of investment made by the Gurugram-based company, Bunkerhill, which has a Hindu owner. It’s the quintessential underdog story—a team in despair, and then a change in management, an influx of funds, and a new coach from Russia. It’s almost as if Ted Lasso had entered Kolkata. |
