| Does West Bengal have a lynch mob mentality? Is it even right to say that about a whole state? The viral video of the public flogging of a woman in West Bengal by a TMC muscleman leader in a kangaroo court exposes this so-called lynch mob mentality. Social scientists have, for long, analysed it. What is different now, Monideepa Banerjie wrote, is that it now enjoys political patronage, coupled with a glaring lack of political will to stop it. CM Mamata Banerjee has not said a word in condemnation of the Chopra incident or any other instances of mob violence. The TMC MLA from Chopra received a mere slap on the wrist.
The Hathras stampede and the staggering death toll of 121 calls into question India’s chronic incapacity to manage large crowds. SN Shrivastava wrote an article giving the dos and don’ts for police officers and district administrations – from choice of venue to public address systems to security convoys and medical assistance. Large congregations of people require detailed crowd control management, which should not be left to ill-trained organisers. It’s a useful article on lessons learned and can act as a must-have toolkit for organisers.
The Lok Sabha session has been one of the week’s highlights. First, it was Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Shivji’ speech. Then PM Narendra Modi’s ‘tumse naa ho payega’ response.
Referring to Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Lok Sabha about the Abhay Mudra and Islam, Amana Begam wrote that the hand as a protective symbol is traditionally mentioned in Abrahamic religions in the Middle East. It’s not part of Muslim practices in the Indian subcontinent.
Jerry Rao wrote a provocative and scathing article on the new wave of Constitution-wavers in Parliament. He calls them ignorant and misguided Lefties. Why? He said this was a subliminal message that there was no India before 26 January 1950. No civilisation, no society, no culture, nothing. And another author asked: is the Modi government still behaving as if it won 400 paar? If the first few days are any indication, India’s self-confessed, “non-biological” PM still believes he has “divine” sanction to exercise absolute power, wrote Sagarika Ghose.
Should we measure poverty differently? ThePrint has kickstarted this debate in our opinion section and YouTube channel. The answer to this depends on what we are measuring it for, wrote Renuka Sane. Then she asked: In the last few months, how many times have you had to deal with the Indian bureaucracy to obtain what was legally yours? Second, in the last five interactions with any government office, was the government employee rude to you? The responses to these questions will tell us the status of poverty in India.
A woman is either a mother or a wife—this was the commonly held view of women in ancient India. In an earlier column, Patrick Olivelle had written about India’s first woman philosopher Gargi. This week, he wrote about another independent-minded woman Maitreyi and reproduced a fascinating dialogue she conducted on wealth, knowledge and immortality.
In my Ground Reports section this week, I have two really strong offerings from Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu.
Armed police personnel in riot gear walked past a group of lawyers in the courtyard of the 19th-century gothic-style Uttarakhand High Court building on 8 May. Inside, judges debated shifting the high court out of Nainital. Apoorva Mandhani travelled to Uttarakhand to write about a new wave of anxiety brewing among judges, lawyers and politicians. It has revived old insecurities and reignited the Kumaon vs Garhwal and hills vs plains debate.
Tamil Nadu has, for long, been trapped in the public perception of atheist politics. But that has been changing in recent years. If it is Ram in the north, it is the mass appeal of Murugan that Tamil politicians find easier to embrace. He is, after all, the quintessential Dravidian god. DMK is the latest in this religious outreach. And they are all set to organise an international conference on Murugan this Fall. Prabhakar Tamilarasu wrote a deep-dive article on the politics and sociology of Murugan. Is the DMK changing? |
