THE morning newspaper of March 17 had left Mohammad Enamul Haq, 55, perturbed. The report said the Bermo police station, 15 km from Bokaro city in Jharkhand, had registered an FIR against his 20-year-old son Adil Akhtar for sharing and reacting to a Facebook post that allegedly denigrated Goddess Durga.

As Haq, or Karu Mistry as he is known in Jaridih Bazar locality of Bokaro district, would soon find out, Adil had shared a post by one of his Facebook friends — an acquaintance and a distant relative — commented on it and deleted it when someone reacted angrily to his comment. But was it grave enough to land Adil, his Facebook friend and many others in jail, set a town on fire and sharpen suspicions between two communities? Karu says he keeps asking himself these questions and finds no answers.

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Adil and his Facebook friend, a minor, are under arrest for allegedly hurting religious sentiments, a non-bailable and non-compoundable offence, besides being charged under the Information Technology Act. Police have also arrested at least 22 others from Bermo for rioting and arson. Some of the accused are still absconding.

On March 15, the Bermo police station registered a written complaint against Adil and the minor for sharing and commenting on the post. It’s still not clear who first posted the message. Police called the minor’s family, who lives in a locality in Bermo, and asked the boy to appear before them. Police say that on March 16, when the boy was on his way to the station, a mob allegedly waylaid him and detained him at the Kargili Community Centre in Bermo. Police, however, reached the community centre before the mob could attack the minor, rescued him and took him in custody.

The mob, angry that the police hadn’t handed over the boy to them, resorted to stone-pelting and arson in Kargili Bazar and Bermo-Phusro area near Bermo town, set shops and vehicles on fire and even attacked the Bermo police station.

At his home in Jaridih Bazar, nearly 7 km from Bermo town, Adil’s father Karu says he had heard of the tension in town but had no idea that his son was involved.

“I saw Adil’s name in the paper and was shocked. He was away in our ancestral village Sherghati (in Bihar’s Gaya district), attending a wedding in the family. I went to the police and they asked me to get Adil to come home and join the investigation,” says Karu, who has a small business of recharging car batteries.

Karu says he called Adil and asked him to come to a place near Tenughat Jail, nearly 40 km from home, “since Bermo and surrounding areas were tense”. “I informed the police that Adil would be coming there and they arrested him,” he says.

Karu says he first came to Jaridih Bazar in 1993 and over time, got all his five children — two daughters and three sons — enrolled in government schools and built a home with the pension his father, a government school teacher, got. His eldest son, Arzu, 18, died of cancer. “I lost him in April last year. And now my second son is caught up in this,” says Karu, brushing away tears.

Karu says his “six-foot-tall” Adil was keen on joining the police and practised hard by running long distances every day. “Last year, he had gone to Ranchi to take a CISF test for constables. He missed it by about five marks. A couple of months ago, he went to Bokaro and appeared for the Jharkhand Police’s recruitment examination. I don’t know what happened to that.”

A couple of days ago, when Karu met Adil in jail, the son was worried about this. “He is concerned whether he will still qualify for a government job,” says Karu, who has paid a lawyer Rs 100 to file the bail petition.

Karu’s wife Ishrat Jahan, a second-time ward member of Jaridih Bazar, says, “Had we the slightest idea of what my son had done, I would have personally taken my boy to anywhere people wanted and asked for forgiveness. He was only doing what all boys do on the phone — he had no intention of hurting anyone.”

Karu chips in: “They could have made him do sit-ups, slapped him a couple of times, but they could have forgiven Adil. I have asked Adil several times why he did this and he keeps saying he didn’t know it could have led to such a huge issue. Nobody should be allowed to hurt religious sentiments, but what Adil did was certainly not intentional.”

At Dhori, close to Kargili Bazar, where the arson of March 16 happened, the house of the minor is locked. The boy’s parents and siblings left the house a few days after the boy was arrested. “They left last Friday. Nobody knows where they are,” says an autorickshaw driver in the area.

Neighbours say that the boy’s father did jhaad-phoonk (exorcism) and got into fights with everyone. “But the boy was quiet, like any other child,” says Geeta Devi, a neighbour.

A few houses away, Mohammad Kamruddin, who taught the boy Urdu at the oldest mosque in Bermo, says, “I have taught him since childhood. He was a religious boy, read namaz five times a day.”

Mosque committee head Pervez Akhtar says over phone, “The incident is beginning to affect our relationship with people from the other community. This has happened for the first time in Bermo. We did not want to be seen helping the boy’s family simply because he is from our religion.” He vouches for the boy though. “He was a normal child. I am sure he did not know what he was doing on the phone,” he says.

At Ram Ratan High School, where the boy recently sat for his Class X exams, office assistant Sanath Kumar Singh says he has been the boy’s “Facebook friend” for the last two years. “He was average in studies, but his classmates and teachers were fond of him. He even participated in the Saraswati Pooja celebrations,” he says, before launching into an emotional defence of the boy.

“Even if you agree that he committed a mistake, was it so big that they treat him like a big criminal? They could have just warned him and alerted his family. He is not a serial offender, after all.”

“I thought it was an earthquake, we ran away from the spot screaming,” recalls Vinod Sonkar. “My cart and fruits worth Rs 5,000 were completely buried under the rubble.”

The 37-year-old is a fruit vendor and owns a stall 20 metres from the site where a part of the under-construction Vivekananda flyover in the Burra Bazar area of Kolkata, the city’s trading heart, collapsed on March 31. Twenty- seven people were killed and more than 80 were injured in the incident.

A week after the tragedy, Sonkar is back at the spot, but the area “doesn’t look the same anymore”.

It’s 10 am and the busy Ganesh Talkies crossing is slowly stirring itself awake. The flyover was being built to decongest the crossing, which on most days is choked with traffic.

Traffic has reduced in the area, but only because most vehicles have been diverted to an alternative route. A few metres from Sonkar’s stall, the flyover has hit the road like a slide in a park and a group of civil engineers with yellow helmets are inspecting the accident site. A few commuters peep out of buses to get a glimpse of the fallen flyover.

“On other days, we would have sold fruits worth Rs 4,000 by now. But the flyover incident has affected sales. I have just earned Rs 1,000 so far,” says Sonkar.

Sonkar’s day starts early. He wakes up at 6 am at his two-room Company Bagan residence, which he shares with his wife, mother and three children. “It’s just a five-minute walk from the stall. I have a cup of tea and prefer to get to the market by 7 am,” he says. His helper Naresh Yadav, 45, also comes in by that time. Once Naresh arrives, Sonkar makes his first trip to the nearby Mechua Bazar wholesale fruit market, eventually going at least four times there in the course of the day. His shopping done, he takes full charge at the stall by 9 am.

A customer halts at the stall and begins examining musk melons, arranged in a pyramid on Sonkar’s cart. Amid price negotiations, the conversation drifts towards the events of March 31. “The area looked like a blast site, all vendors were covered in dust. The roads were empty… All we saw were terror-stricken faces and relief workers in masks,” he recounts.

After the incident, Sonkar, like the hundred-odd stall owners around the Ganesh Talkies crossing, closed his stall for two days. “I had rushed out of the area after the collapse and returned after 15 minutes. All of us were trying to help the victims,” he says.

That is when he spotted his friend Gulab Mali, who owned an incense stick stall close to his cart. “He was severely injured. I rushed him to the nearby Marwari Relief Society hospital, my shirt was completely stained with his blood,” he says. “He didn’t make it”.

March 31 had been an ordinary business day for the scores of vendors who sell everything from bidis to utensils at the traffic junction. “The flyover collapsed a little after noon, when business is slow. Most people buy fruits before noon or after 5 pm in the evening. I would have headed home for lunch a few minutes later,” says Vinod.

A few days later, he took stock of his “losses”. “The flyover incident has cost me

Rs 20,000,” he calculates. “I just make profit of about Rs 400 a day. Even the daily sales are just half of what they used to be a week ago.”

It’s 11 am, and it is time for Sonkar to make his second trip to Mechua Bazar, this time to refill his watermelon stock. “A basket of watermelons, holding about 80 kg of the fruit, will cost me Rs 800,” he says. After a brief conversation with Naresh, he decides to bring in just a basket.

A porter transports the fruit basket to Sonkar’s stall. “Many porters too were injured that day,” Sonkar notes, negotiating his way through the busy, narrow lanes of Mechua Bazar.

It’s 2 pm, and just about 15 people have made a stop at Sonkar’s stall so far through the day. “A lot of people come to me to just know about what happened on March 31. Maybe I should start charging a fee for telling my story,” he smiles.

Post lunch hours, most of his customers are mothers picking up their children from nearby schools. “Fortunately, my daughter’s school gets over at 2 pm. I often wonder what would have happened if we had left earlier that day,” says Tumpa Mukherjee, a resident of the nearby Girish Park area, who takes the Burra Bazar route from her daughter’s school every day.

Handing out a watermelon to Mukherjee, Naresh talks about how he had a close shave too. “I had gone to buy some bidi on the other side of the road. I had just crossed the road when the flyover collapsed,” he says.

As the day drags along, business at the stall continues to be slow. A little after 3pm, Sonkar’s phone breaks into the tune of a Himesh Reshammiya song. It’s his wife Shobha. She has called Sonkar thrice since noon, asking about when he would come home for lunch.

“I have already told her I am skipping lunch today, I will have a mango,” he shrugs, keeping the phone back in his pocket.

Since the incident, Shobha has taken to calling up her husband at least “five to six times a day”. “She fears that the remaining part of the flyover will fall too,” says Sonkar.

A few days after the collapse, engineers from Kolkata Municipal Corporation had visited the site. “We heard them say that during the clearing operation, the structure may become more unstable,” says Naresh.

So are they scared? “I am worried, yes. But I need to make a living,” says Sonkar.

Written by Aranya Shankar in Delhi, Sreenivas Janyala in Hyderabad, Chandan Haygunde in Pune, Johnson T A in Bangalore, Dipti Singh in Mumbai and Arun Janardhanan in Chennai

#castoutcaste”, reads a blue band pinned to the wall in Sooraj Malayattil’s room at Sutlej Hostel in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. The band and two flags — one the deep red of the All India Students’ Association (AISA) and the other the blue associated with Dalit groups — have been in his room since January 18, the day JNU students took out their first march for Rohith Vemula, the Hyderabad University student who committed suicide on January 17.

Read | Lessons from history: When Ambedkar, Left came together, when they didn’t 

Sooraj’s wall offers a new campus vocabulary, one that talks of the coming together of Dalit groups and traditional Left parties. It’s a union that first caught attention during student marches that were taken out after Rohith’s suicide and later during the JNU protests, when student union president Kanhaiya Kumar would end almost every speech of his with ‘Jai Bhim, Lal Salaam’, a double-barrelled slogan that brought together the war cries of the Dalit and Left movements.

“At the first Rohith Vemula solidarity march that JNU students went on, the slogans were predominantly ‘Jai Bhim’ and ‘Neela Salaam’ (both associated with the Dalit movement). It was at the second march that slogans of ‘Jai Bhim, Laal Salaam’ were first chanted,” Sooraj says.

This then is an alliance that’s taking shape in campuses across the country — from Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University in Aurangabad to Hyderabad Central University, from Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences to even the largely apolitical IITs.

On January 20, over 200 students of Left student groups such as AISF, AISA and SFI, and Dalit groups such as Republican Panthers, gathered outside Mumbai University’s Kalina campus, where the red and blue flags flew together. The protests and rallies continued throughout February, with more organisations joining in. On March 2, around 10,000 students from across Maharashtra went to Delhi to participate in a march to Parliament. At each of these protests, students flashed placards and shouted slogans such as ‘Bhim shakti, laal salam…chalenge saath saath (The blue and red movement will march together).’

At Savitribai Phule Pune University on February 12, 13 Ambedkarite and Communist groups, including the SFI and the Dalit Adivasi Adhikar Andolan, came together under the banner ‘Phule Shahu Ambedkar Vidyarthi Kruti Samiti’ and shouted slogans of ‘Awaz do… hum ek hain’, ‘Jai Bhim, Laal Salaam’ and “Jai jai jai jai Bhim… Phule Shahu Bhagat Singh’.

Even in Karnataka, where a decade-old ban has left campuses largely depoliticised, the SFI, the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) and the Congress’s NSUI put together their motley numbers on February 16 and organised a “partially successful” bandh to protest against Rohith’s death.

IIT Madras too joined the chorus, when around 200 students marched and raised slogans in solidarity with the students of JNU. Considered largely apolitical and part of an elite group of institutions that see meritocracy as their hallmark, the protests at IIT Madras, which came a year after the brief banning of its Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle, signalled change.

Anant Prakash Narayan, a Dalit student from AISA at JNU, says, “The Rohith Vemula incident changed the Left’s rigidity towards the slogans that were being raised. I think there was a realisation that these symbols could be incorporated without letting go of the ideology which has anyway always been supportive of Dalit issues,” he says.

A new icon?

As these student groups came together in their “fight for the marginalised”, they didn’t have to go far searching for a symbol — he was there on every campus, in his mandatory suit and and dark-rimmed glasses. One hundred and twenty five years after Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born on April 14, 1891, the Dalit leader has seemingly given campus politics a new spin.

At JNU’s administrative block, the nerve centre of the recent protests, is a large hand-painted SFI poster that features Ambedkar and his quote: “The world owes much to rebels who would dare to argue in the face of pontiff and insist that he is not infallible”. A couple of metres away is another Ambedkar poster by the ABVP, the RSS’s student wing.

Every student group in JNU — Ambedkar groups such as the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association (BAPSA) and the United Dalit Students’ Forum (UDSF); Left groups such as AISA, AISF, SFI and DSF; the Congress’s NSUI and even the ABVP — has its own understanding of Ambedkar and what the man stands for.

“For us, Ambedkarite ideology is about the struggle against Brahminical hegemony and annihilation of caste, and for this, we believe that Hindu traditions have to be renounced. Ambedkar was not a reformer within the Hindu fold as is being projected today; he was very much outside the fold,” says BAPSA’s Manikanta, a first year MPhil student at JNU.

Ambedkar’s works, he says, are mandatory reading for every BAPSA member. “New members get a 17-volume collection of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches along with Jyotiba Phule’s Gulamgiri. It’s an expensive collection, costs Rs 3,000, but how can one understand Ambedkar without reading him?” says Manikanta. In his room at JNU’s Periyar Hostel is a black and white photograph of Ambedkar, large enough to cover almost an entire side of the pale green wall.

Ambedkar is on another wall, in another room, at JNU’s Kaveri hostel. Ishan Anand, secretary of the DSF, a breakaway group of the SFI, has a similar poster in his room with Ambedkar’s quotes written in Hindi: ‘Shikshit bano (educate), Sangathit bano (organise), Sangharsh karo (agitate)’.

“Without understanding caste, it is not possible to be a part of the Left in India. The relevance of Ambedkar is not only that he helps understand caste-ridden societies better, but also to question the status quo,” Anand says.

After his graduation from Delhi University, where he was with the SFI, Anand went to the University of Hyderabad (UoH) for his post graduation. “It was there that I was introduced to Dalit politics. Of the two years that I spent there, the first year the SFI and ASA contested separately. The ABVP won and they indulged in violence. The next year, the ASA and SFI contested together. I left HCU on that note — an alliance between the Left and Ambedkarite organisations, directed against the right wing,” says Anand.

At UoH, that “alliance” has only been strengthened by the Rohith Vemula and JNU incidents. “Ambedkar has always been at the centre of activities of the ASA and SFI for many years, but it has come to the fore only recently,” says Sannaki Munna, a PhD scholar.

Meanwhile, the man himself is everywhere at UoH — on walls, cupboards, stray rocks and boulders, even in songs such as “Anduko dandalu Baba Ambedkara”, a Telugu song in honour of Ambedkar that is played in most hostel rooms on the campus. In room number 306, the walls are full of Ambedkar slogans: ‘Educate, Agitate, Organise’; ‘Tell the slave he is slave and he will revolt’; ‘Men are mortal. So are ideas’.

“There is a resurgence of debates on Ambedkar on the campus, more so after Rohith’s death. I think all students, not just Dalits, should be taught Ambedkar’s philosophy and thoughts, and a reading of Ambedkar is a must for all students to understand true democracy,” says D Prashant, an ASA member at UoH.

He says the ASA regularly publishes pamphlets of Ambedkar’s works, besides promoting songs relating to the Dalit movement. However, the ASA’s “most important task”, Prashant says, is to “help freshers”, especially those from rural areas, find their way around the campus. “Most of them do not speak English and are not aware of the discrimination that takes place here. They come with a lot of excitement about having made it to the university but are soon confronted with the reality here. So we talk to them, make them feel at home, tell how things work,’’ says Munna of UoH.

At IIT-Madras, the only Ambedkar posters and slogans are in the hostels, none in public spaces. Students associated with the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle say that’s by design. They say that when the Study Circle was formed in 2014, they had decided against deifying Ambedkar. “The argument was that we need debates on Ambedkar and should not limit him to an icon,” says one of the students who was part of the 2015 protests and doesn’t want to be identified.

Behind the symbolism

So is this understanding between the Dalit and Left groups an unlikely one, even an ‘opportunistic’ coming together against the government of the day and its policies?

On campuses, at least, there are many who believe that this is a logical partnership. “For too long, the Left had not been able to understand or take up the caste question seriously. A section of the Dalit movement too has taken an anti-Left stance. There is a need for a synthesis, more so today as the main enemy for both is the current government,” says Ishan Anand, secretary of the DSF at JNU.

“We need not be suspicious of the emerging solidarity of Dalit and Left students, because that is the need of the hour,” says Veena Vimala Mani, a PhD scholar in the humanities and social sciences department of IIT Madras. In June last year, as Veena stood on a kerb on the campus and read out from Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste, it was a sign of defiance against the ban on the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle. Barely a hundred students turned out to hear her and attend the march that day, but students say it was that what led to the lifting of the ban.

Abhilasha Harendra, all India joint secretary of the AISA and a student of Pune University, too says it’s “natural” for Left and Dalit groups to come together. “Yes, Ambedkar had some differences with communists, but not as much with communism. Looking at the goals of the two movements, it is quite natural that they will come together. The people of India face two challenges — Brahmanism and imperialism. I strongly believe we need Ambedkar’s ideology to fight Brahmanism and Marx to fight imperialism.”

Nitish Nawasagare, a professor at the Indian Law Society’s Law College in Pune, says the two movements have discovered each other, even if belated. “The communists have finally realised that caste discrimination is a bigger problem in India than class discrimination. Earlier, in cases of caste discrimination on college campuses, it was only Dalit students who raised their voices. But now, we find the communists too taking up these issues,” he says, adding that the Dalit movement too has witnessed change. “The first two generation of leaders in the Ambedkarite movement were rigid about their differences with communists. But the new Dalits, mainly the Ambedkarite youths and students, have broader views and do not mind joining hands with the Left,” says Nawasagare, who is also state executive member of the Dalit Adivasi Adhikar Andolan (DA3).

Professors and students who have been part of recent protests say it was the idea of a “common enemy” that brought together these two ideologies.

“Ambedkar is no longer just another Dalit leader or simply the Constitution maker. Today, the red and blue flags are coming together as a ‘progressive movement’ to take on right-wing politics. I look at it as a reaction to the government’s interference in campuses,” says Mridul Nile, who teaches political science at Mumbai University.

Ajmal Khan, a student and member of the Radical Study Circle at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences who takes up Dalit issues, is sceptical of the ‘alliance’. “Historically, both liberal and radical Left student unions have never supported the Ambedkar movement. We have testimonies to show that Dalit students were beaten up by both these groups. Somewhere, we are still not able to resolve our differences because of this history of violence. For too long, the Left was busy with its class fight and left out caste. But now, the struggle against the RSS, BJP and ABVP has prompted them to stand together,” says Khan.

Manikanta, the JNU student who is a member of the Dalit group BAPSA, says the Left needs to introspect before it can claim to talk for Dalits. “Before talking of any alliance, the Left has to fight Brahmanism and end caste prejudice within its rank,” he says.

Prof Siddalingaiah, 62, one of the founders of the Dalit Sangharsh Samiti in Karnataka, says Dalit groups could do with some introspection too. He says that even among Dalit students on campuses across Karnataka, there is no proper understanding of what Ambedkar stood for and there is a tendency to view him as a “super hero”. “There is only a superficial understanding of Ambedkar even among Dalit students. Their understanding of Ambedkar is rooted in hatred for other communities because of all the suppression they suffered over the last 2,000 years. So there is a desire for revenge at the root of a lot of Dalit thinking. This is dangerous to Dalits, non-Dalits and the nation itself. Ambedkar had a positive approach. He did not look at Dalit issues through the prism of anger and revenge,’’ says Siddalingaiah, who is director of the Ambedkar Study and Research Centre at Bangalore University.

Siddalingaiah says Dalit politics propagated by groups like the Bahujan Vidyarthi Sangh (BVS, the BSP’s student wing) on campuses in Karnataka is very insular. “The BVS has become quite strong, but they keep doing things secretly, all focused on Dalits coming to power. Even in the Dalit youth movement, a sort of fanaticism has set in. Groups operate like a Dalit RSS. There is no great leaning on Ambedkar or Marxist ideology,’’ says the professor, who was associated with the SFI in his student days.

There is another group that is now “leaning” on Ambedkar and which believes there can be no real alliance between the Left and Dalit groups. “This is an opportunistic alliance. Ambedkar was against communism and had said that the country can never benefit from them. How can there be an alliance then?” asks ABVP’s JNU unit president Alok Singh. “For us,” he says, “Ambedkar is a nationalist icon, someone who believed in rashtrabhakti (patriotism).”

Everyone, it seems, has his own Ambedkar.

This time last year, the Congress was waiting for Rahul Gandhi to return from a sabbatical that stretched to 56 days. He landed on April 16 morning, as unexpectedly, to emerge in his front lawn. In the year since, Rahul has made an effort to be more visible. However, for a party with two governments striving for electoral survival and two governments toppled, its vice-president remains a leader just out of reach.

Now, rarely in a party with its famed high command, its leaders are replying in kind. As the BJP sharpens its slogan of “Congress-mukt Bharat”, it’s these rebellions and minor revolts that are echoing in the Congress hollow at the centre.

Read | Rahul now holds focused meetings, is available on mail 24X7: Ambika Soni

The Congress in its 130-year history has seen many debilitating splits and high-profile exits. But Sonia Gandhi had used the levers of power deftly and swiftly to emerge all powerful after the choppy Narasimha Rao and Sitaram Kesri years. At 18 years, she is now the longest serving Congress president ever.

It’s only in the Congress that this sounds like a compliment. But that’s just one problem. As party leaders say in private, according to the high command’s own plans, this should have changed by now, with Rahul becoming president. For many, it’s in this limbo between an almost-retired Sonia at 10 Janpath and the reluctant Rahul at 12, Tughlak Lane, that the Congress hangs. When the Congress rebels arrive in Delhi — Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Himachal Pradesh, Tripura and Kerala are just the known ones — they don’t know which address to head to.

The party can hardly afford this confusion. With the regime change in Arunachal and with Uttarakhand under President’s rule, the Congress is left in power in only seven states out of 29, and is the third wheel in a coalition government in Bihar.

Of the seven Congress-ruled states, Kerala and Assam are seeing polls, while Meghalaya, Mizoram and Manipur are in the Northeast, accounting for less than 1 per cent of the total population. Himachal is battling rebellion, and its Chief Minister corruption charges. That leaves just Karnataka. While the state goes to elections only in 2018, anti-incumbency looms large against the Siddaramaiah government there, and former CM S M Krishna has put this in writing to Delhi.

Overall, just 11 per cent of the population of the country is now under Congress rule (excluding Bihar), in comparison to the over 36 per cent under the BJP. If the Congress loses in Kerala and Assam, the figure will come down to 6 per cent, a historic low.

Since the Lok Sabha poll shocker in 2014, many state leaders have left the Congress — G K Vasan, Jayanthi Natarajan, Himanta Biswa Sarma to name a few. The Congress central leadership failed to intervene decisively on time in all these cases. It either dithered or remained indifferent, too wary to disturb the prevailing satrap.

In most cases, criticism has been levelled at Rahul’s door, with rebels accusing him of being inaccessible. After the Uttarakhand rebellion, one of the dissidents said, “Rahul Gandhi has time to meet JNU students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar but not his own party MLAs.” Even those partymen who refute the charge concede that while the vice-president meets leaders from across the country, the problem is indecision.

Over a month ago, Rahul met top leaders from Tamil Nadu to assess the party’s poll readiness. What transpired was an unexpected and across-the-board venting against state Congress chief E V K S Elangovan. P Chidambaram is said to have even told Rahul plainly that with Elangovan at the helm, he would like to stay away from election efforts. Neither the state chief was replaced nor any meaningful efforts made to douse the anger.

Cut to Uttarakhand. When the Congress high command replaced Vijay Bahuguna with Harish Rawat as CM in January 2014, the understanding was that two of Bahuguna’s loyalists would be inducted into the Cabinet. Rawat did not oblige, despite repeated reminders from the central leadership. What’s more, Rawat dropped senior leader Amrita Rawat from his Cabinet.

Only in January did Rawat form a committee for coordination between the party and state government. But the only meeting of the panel was held in February. Since the revolt, Bahuguna and the other eight rebel Congress MLAs have accused the central leadership of not giving them time for talks.

Kedarnath MLA Shaila Rani Rawat says Rawat ignored her demands for jobs for the region after the 2013 floods, while her efforts to get an appointment with Rahul, “three times in the past two years”, failed. “Every time, I was asked by his office to contact Ambika Soniji. But she could not help. When Rahul came to Kedarnath in 2014, I met him to tell him the state government was not approving my proposals for Kedarnath. But he did not talk on these issues.”

The Arunachal story is all too known. Dissidents demanding Nabam Tuki’s removal as CM claim they were not given an audience by Rahul despite camping in Delhi for months together. AICC general secretary in charge of the state V Narayanasamy denies this. According to him, both Sonia and Rahul had one round of talks with the rebels in the middle of last year, after which it was heard that they were hobnobbing with BJP leaders. They did not meet the rebels after that.

In Himachal, the rebels, who are chafing at “concentration of power” with CM Virbhadra Singh, say meetings with Sonia and Rahul got them nothing. While a Cabinet minister says they are not about to join hands with the BJP, he adds, “Rahul Gandhi and Soniaji are well aware of the scenario. Ministers don’t have powers to even transfer a peon.”

Himachal PCC president Sukhwinder Sukhu openly talks of “lot of grievances” against the Virbhadra government. “For example, appointment of chairmen and vice-chairmen of PSUs. Elected representatives are totally marginalised. No regional balance has been maintained.”

In 2013, the high command, acting on rebel complaints, had even instructed Virbhadra Singh not to appoint more chairmen and vice-chairmen. He went on doing so, and the number now stands at around 40.

However, apprehensive of what an angry Virbhadra might do, the Congress leadership is not likely to touch him. Instead, they are banking on the CM prolonging his legal options in the corruption cases he is facing till elections in December 2017.

Other individuals too have been holding the high command to ransom. The Indian Express reported in December last year about tapes purportedly showing that Ajit Jogi and son Amit played a key role in withdrawal of the party’s nominee from the 2014 Antagarh by-elections. While Amit was expelled, Jogi senior, a CWC member, has not been touched. The A K Antony-led committee is still “holding a probe”.

In Kerala, CM Oommen Chandy has had his way on giving tickets to MLAs and ministers facing charges. Rahul has often taken a strong and public position against this, but Chandy threatened to stay away from contesting, and the high command buckled.
Earlier, in Punjab, Amarinder Singh compelled Delhi to appoint him the state unit chief after hinting that he would otherwise form a separate outfit.

In West Bengal, Rahul wanted the Congress to explore the option of aligning with the Trinamool Congress. The state unit prevailed, and the party is now in an arrangement with the Left. The result is that there is a rebellion now in its Tripura unit, with leader of the Opposition Sudip Roy Barman resigning.

In Manipur, while peace has been bought by hastily appointing T N Haokip as the new state party chief — after 25 of the 47 Congress MLAs (in a House of 60) threatened to join another party — rebels are also demanding a Cabinet reshuffle.

Accusing existing ministers of “arrogance” and “non-cooperation” towards Congress workers, a dissident MLA echoes others in saying little development has taken place in Manipur, and whatever little has happened has taken place without the approval of the area MLA. “What exactly are we going to go to the people with when the elections arrive?”

While Rahul remains an easy target, party leaders point out that both he and Sonia go by the advice of general secretaries, the AICC pointspersons on issues related to state, and that the latter are not entirely without blame.

“There is no change in the decision-making pattern. What is happening now is the failure of the people in charge of states,” a Congress general secretary says. “If a general secretary wants to meet Rahul, immediately he gets time. When they themselves fail, the blame is put on the Gandhis…”

Citing the week-long ticket distribution drama in Kerala, a senior leader from the state wonders why Antony, who is known as the conscience-keeper of Sonia, did not intervene in time. “The ball would have never come in the high command’s court had he intervened. Antony could have told (PCC chief) V M Sudheeran that his demand that three ministers should not be renominated could not be met. Not because the demand was unreasonable but because grounding Chandy’s cabinet colleagues means conceding the entire allegations of the Opposition on the eve of elections. It is suicidal,” he said.

In fact, the leader says, Sonia’s suggestion that more women be given tickets was also not accepted by Kerala leaders, including Chandy and Sudheeran. Sources said Rahul specifically wanted a former AICC secretary, Shanimol Usman, to be accommodated, while Sonia was pitching for state Mahila Congress chief Bindu Krishna. Both did not get a ticket. “After Sudheeran became president, Rahul had told him to accommodate Usman in the PCC. He did not… It is unbelievable.”

A senior CWC member seconds this. “Both Rahul and Sonia take decisions in a very democratic manner. The general secretaries in charge can arrange a meeting with dissidents… The high command is helpless because the interlocuters are not doing their job,” the senior leader says.

At a recent meeting with Ambika Soni, Himachal leaders put up a united face. However, the rebels say her preoccupation with other states or matters is also a reason for the simmering disquiet. “It’s easier to meet Sonia Gandhi than Ambika Soni or Rahul,” remarks a senior MLA.

Soni is also accused of delaying action in Uttarakhand till too late. While the nine rebel Congress MLAs appeared before the Governor on March 18 against Harish Rawat, she and other leaders from Delhi reached Dehradun only on March 30.
“The Congress has a unique culture. It acts at the postmortem stage, not when the patient is terminally ill. If it fails to act when needed, why cry over loss?” an MLA adds.

Says a senior leader, “It is not Narendra Modi but our people who are working to ensure a Congress-mukt Bharat.”

The solution may lie in changing the team. But two years after the party’s worst electoral performance, the wait for a shake-up in the AICC has proved unending. “The same faces are continuing,” says the CWC member.

Adds a senior leader, “Rahul should display leadership qualities… People who have messed up states are still continuing. What happened to those who advised madam wrongly on the division of Andhra Pradesh. Have their heads rolled?”

There is little chance of a change anytime soon either. Says the senior leader, “A set of seniors cannot agree with Rahul’s style of functioning and Sonia is finding it difficult to make the changes.” A senior leader from Uttar Pradesh says he once asked Sonia to take the lead. “She told me she does not have the energy left to lead a fightback.”

Another important functionary says, “I shudder to think about the Congress’s future. When RG (Rahul) takes an incorrect decision, I can’t rush to CP (the Congress president) to complain. She guides us politely, saying, ‘talk to Rahul’.”

Where do they go, asks a CWC member. “Even the CWC is not meeting regularly. Since 2014 May (when the Modi government took over), the CWC has met twice or thrice with specific agenda. Where will we articulate our views?”

The BJP has been watching closely, and the one interpretation it draws from Rahul still not becoming Congress president is that the party doesn’t have much confidence in him, in a Rahul vs Modi battle in 2019.

Having given the “Congress-mukt Bharat” slogan back in 2014, it now senses in this vulnerability of the party a chance for a “satta-mukt” Congress. This is why the strike in Uttarakhand, despite elections in the state being only a year away. As for Arunachal, the Northeast occupies a special place in the Sangh Parivar’s idea of Rashtravaad.

In the BJP plans, by December 2018, the Congress should be out of power in all major states in India. In the run-up to the 2019 polls then, the BJP would focus on regional stalwarts, who don’t provide a national contest.

If the Congress has a plan, it isn’t showing. In BJP-ruled states, except in Rajasthan, one doesn’t see the political work required to exploit anti-incumbency. In Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, gains of by-elections and local body polls have been withering away.

Asked about their plans, a senior leader of the Gujarat Congress said, “We are resting.”

[With additional reporting by Ashwani Sharma, Lalmani Verma & Esha Roy]

Speaking at a function to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar in Chennai on March 24, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury said, “I’ll shout Jai Bhim, I’ll shout Lal Salaam and all the slogans will converge into one slogan that Bhagat Singh gave — that the communists give today – and that is, Inquilab Zindabad!” Yechury went on to say that the convergence of Ambedkar and Communist parties was necessary to build a new India and to “face the common enemy”.

Anand Teltumbde, who has written extensively on Dalit politics, says that “as an aspiration”, the coming together of the two traditions “is a positive development”, though historical discordance remains. “Slogans are only aspirations, and ideological issues that kept the two movements apart will need to be seriously studied to cement the relationship,” says Teltumbde. He adds that the “superficial understanding” among Indian Marxists about class made them ignore caste and that vested interests misinterpreted Ambedkar’s utterances on communists to keep the two movements apart. The youth, he believes, may be able to bridge the divide.

Read | Two colours: How ‘common enemy’ in university campuses united Jai Bheem and Lal Saalam

Ambedkar’s political journey had many moments where he collaborated closely with the Left. After the Poona Pact of 1932, which denied separate electorates for Dalits, Ambedkar turned a bitter critic of Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress. The Independent Labour Party (ILP), which Ambedkar organised in 1936, sought to be a worker-peasant party and had a programme to “advance the welfare of the labouring classes”. The ILP, unlike the socialists and communists, refused to accept the leadership of the Congress in the national movement but organised or were part of many mass struggles against tenancy and landlordism. A massive textile workers’ strike in Bombay in 1938 saw the ILP in alliance with the communists. The ILP had a broad social base across Maharashtra though its electoral successes were limited.

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In the 1940s, the ILP made way for the Scheduled Castes Federation (SCF), conceived as an all-India party exclusively for Scheduled Castes. In her book Dalits and the Democratic Revolution, Gail Omvedt describes the formation of the SCF as a step backwards from the radicalism of the 1930s. “Its very formation meant giving up the effort to form a broad radical party of Dalit and caste Hindu workers and peasants for the different goal of uniting Dalits on an all-India level,” writes Omvedt.

The Ambedkarite movement has since then carried on with the political logic of the SCF to build a social and cultural universe for Dalits that’s independent of Hinduism. Socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia wanted Ambedkar to engage with the Socialist Party in the mid 1950s and received a favourable response. However, Ambedkar passed away in 1956 and a possible collaboration between the two anti-caste ideologues never materialised.

Thereafter, the welfarist and patronage politics of the Congress blunted the radical edge of Ambedkarite politics by coopting leaders or splitting the movement. However, the fire was kept alive in the cultural space as literature, music and other forms of cultural production became the voice of Dalit political expression. The Dalit Panthers, which emerged as a political platform of Dalit writers, sought to redefine Dalit politics in the way ILP had — as a broad platform of the working class, though in a much more militant way. However, it later split into different groups.

The Dalit movement and the Left have shared a history of mutual suspicion and disagreements that dates back to pre-Independence days. The Left subordinated the problem of caste oppression to class struggle whereas Ambedkar foregrounded annihilation of caste in nation building. The Marxists dismissed any Dalit attempt at political assertion as ‘identity politics’.

In fact, Ambedkar’s writings on caste and social exploitation were ignored by Left ideologues who worked on similar issues. Attempts like building a communist party (Satyashodhak Communist Party) based on the teachings of Marx, Ambedkar and Phule by Sharad Patil were too few and had limited influence. Much of the intellectual and organisational activity in Dalit politics in the past decades has been focused on exclusive platforms than building political solidarities. This may not have helped the Dalits increase representation in legislatures but there is now a powerful Dalit presence in the cultural space, especially in literature and music. Violence against Dalits has not reduced, but the violence does not go uncontested.

Political scientist Badri Narayan argues that the rise of Hindutva “does not leave the two movements with any other option other than explores a common political language and space”. He points out that Kanshi Ram identified with the communist position on many issues, including land, and the BSP under Mayawati has been neutral towards the communist parties. On its part, the Left, especially the CPM, has started floating exclusive outfits to fight caste oppression and organise Dalits. In Andhra, the party had launched a campaign to fill up posts reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

For now, the solidarities between the two political streams are visible mainly only on university campuses. It will take a lot of hard work before the two can come together and become a viable political force.

Some 400 years ago, a Muslim cleric and scholar named Maulana Shafiqulla is said to have come and settled in the fertile agricultural zone of present day western Uttar Pradesh. He set up a mosque around which grew a small colony of devout Muslims. This colony is now known as Maulviyan Mohalla. As the colony grew and more families migrated and settled around it, it took the shape of a huge village that now goes by the name Sahaspur, in Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh. One of the earliest families to settle in the colony of Maulviyan was that of Yamin Pehlwan’s ancestors, who left him a huge land bank. The prosperous zamindar had many peasants working on his land. One among them was the impoverished family of Masood Ali, a descendant of Maulana Shafiqullah.

On April 3, at around 12.30 am, near a culvert at the entrance of the village with blooming mango orchards on either side, Ali’s grandson Munir allegedly chased and stopped the car of Pehlwan’s son Tanzeel Ahmed. He then pumped 24 bullets in his chest, killing him instantly. He also fatally wounded his wife even as Tanzeel’s teenage children watched in horror from the back seat.

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The farmer’s son was a celebrated police officer with the country’s premier counter terror agency, the National Investigation Agency (NIA); the descendent of the holy man had grown up into a gangster with seven cases of murder and armed robbery registered against him across Uttar Pradesh. This local tale and its tragic culmination encapsulate the complex web of relations and their souring that hang over the killing of Tanzeel.

The brutal murder of the investigator of many cases of terrorism, including those involving the Indian Mujahideen, had sent shock waves through the police top brass in Delhi and UP. It was suggested that Tanzeel could have been killed by a terror group. After all, Tanzeel, a BSF assistant commandant on deputation to NIA, had been with the agency since its inception in 2009. He was also known to be an officer of impeccable integrity and commendable skills.

On April 12, with two arrests, the UP Police claimed to have cracked the case. At a press conference, Bareilly Zone IG Vijay Singh Meena and Bijnor SP Subhash Singh Baghel said that the motive behind Tanzeel’s murder was “personal enmity” and that his brother-in-law’s nephew had abetted the murder.

They also hinted that Tanzeel himself was involved in a land deal with Munir, having bought two properties in Delhi-NCR with him. Police believe that a dispute related to this deal, and Munir’s subsequent suspicion that Tanzeel could report him to police for a recent bank robbery, prompted him to kill the officer.

According to police, the conspiracy was hatched by Munir along with Mohammed Rizwan and Mohammed Tanzeem and the murder was executed with the help of Reyan Hussain and Mohammed Zaini. All except Munir are under arrest.

The accused, including Munir, are all in their early 20s, live in the same colony of Maulviyan and have been thick friends since childhood. Reyan is the only son of Shahadat Hussain, the elder brother of Zaqawat Hussain, who is married to Tanzeel’s sister Tanzeela.

As Tanzeel’s relatives grapple with the tragedy of both the victim and one of the accused coming from the same family, Sahaspur has begun to rue the NIA officer’s death and Munir’s involvement in it in almost equal measure.

For the villagers, both Tanzeel and Munir were men they turned to when in distress and doubt. If Tanzeel was the pride of the village who could always be called on to help in matters of “police trouble”, Munir, with his dreaded crime record, held considerable clout and helped villagers on various issues, most importantly, school and college admissions. As one villager put it, “In one incident, we have lost two good sons.”

With over 20,000 voters, Sahaspur is a large and comparatively prosperous village. Its streets are clean and houses pucca. Most of them have fresh paint on the outside and carry signs of new construction. If there are many among the old who speak chaste Urdu laced with Persian thanks to madarsa education, there are those among the young who can speak good English. Much of this seems to have come about with Gulf money. There is not a single family in the village that does not have someone working either in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Dubai. All the accused in the case too have at least one member from each of their families in the Gulf. It was this backdrop that shaped both Tanzeel, 47, and Munir, 24, albeit with divergent results.

Tanzeel’s father, who owned over 60 bighas, apart from mango orchards, ensured his two sons were well-educated. After school in Sahaspur, both Tanzeel and his brother Raghib went on to take admission in Jamia Millia Islamia and graduated with “good marks”. While Tanzeel joined the BSF, Raghib became a teacher. Both settled in Delhi’s Batla House area, with their wives in teaching jobs. The families have been there for the past 30 years.

Munir’s father Mehtab Ali, who runs a tile shop in a nearby town, was just as concerned about his only son’s future. With his limited means, he sent his son to the best school in the neighbourhood: the Sarang Convent. An English-medium school affiliated to CBSE, it charged Rs 500 a month as tuition fees. He later went to Aligarh Muslim University for his graduation.

Locals describe Munir as a “very good student” who also “respected elders in the village”. Sub-inspector K S Raghav of Seohara police station, under whose jurisdiction the village falls, says, “I know his father and family. Decent middle class people. Munir was a good student and a smart chap. How else would he get admission in AMU? It was only recently that his name began cropping up in various crimes.”

Mohammed Samad, 40, who claims to have seen Munir grow up, calls him “adabdar bachcha (well-mannered child)”. “Some years ago, after he came back from AMU, he was smoking a cigarette. He saw me and quickly threw it away. He was once racing on the bike with Reyan. I stopped him and scolded the two. Munir lowered his eyes and never uttered a word,” says Samad.

It was during his AMU days that Munir, it seems, lost his way. In the past two years, he has been wanted for four murders in Aligarh (before Tanzeel’s), apart from three cases of robbery, and has been on the run. “He fought a university election in AMU and lost. Around the same time, he came in contact with an Aligarh gangster and began working with him. He now carries out contract killings for him,” says a police officer.

But even as a “criminal”, Munir remained an acceptable figure in Sahaspur. “Police may say anything. But that boy has done a lot for the village. Be it with money or with connections, Munir has helped all, from a businessman to a rickshaw puller. There are so many in the village whose children are studying in Aligarh because Munir got them admission. So many AMU admissions here are thanks to him,” says Shagir Ali, a transporter in the village.

It was, perhaps, for this reason that though Munir kept coming back to the village intermittently in the past two years, no one ever informed police. “He was here during last Eid. Stayed for five days, offered namaz too with all of us. But for the past two years, his visits have been few and largely secretive,” says a villager.

Tanzeel, on the other hand, always kept in touch with the village, coming back every few months to meet his extended family, attend village weddings and engage with his friends and acquaintances. “He was a vatanparast (one in love with his native place),” says Shahadat Hussain, Reyan’s father and Tanzeel’s relative.

A newly built three-storey building at the entrance to Maulviyan Mohalla stands in testimony to that statement. Tanzeel and Raghib got it built two years ago after putting their ancestral home on rent. “He wanted to retire here,” says Mohammed Allauddin, his neighbour.
Tanzeel’s heart was always in Sahaspur, villagers insist. “He always met people with great warmth and never missed a ceremony in the village. I invited him for my wedding in 2013. He said he was busy with an investigation in Bihar. When I insisted, he took time out,” says Mohammed Samad, who lives nearby.

Hakim Nauman Adil, who stays opposite Tanzeel’s new house, recounts how he always conducted himself with simplicity. “He would come to the village wearing ordinary clothes and slippers. Sometimes he carried his clothes in a plastic bag. I would ask him: ‘Why don’t you come in uniform with your gun hanging from the waist? It will create some influence for us with local authorities.’ But he would say, ‘How can I come home in uniform?’,” says Adil.

Mohammed Allauddin is still dazed with the attention that Tanzeel’s murder got. “We knew he was in the forces and working with some intelligence department, but we never knew he was so big a man. The whole of UP Police, including the DGP (Javeed Ahmed), was here as were officers from Delhi.”

Almost everyone remembers how Tanzeel stood with villagers in difficult times. “If ever you got into trouble anywhere in the country, he was just a call away,” is the common refrain in the village.

With his stature as a police officer and his people skills, Tanzeel had also acquired a sort of quasi-judicial authority. People went to him to sort out their disputes – property and family matters or even the outlet of a drain. “He was blessed with salahiyat (the ability to offer advice). He always sorted out local issues peacefully and to the satisfaction of all,” says Reyan’s father Shahadat.

This skill won Tanzeel both friends and enemies. Reyan was among the latter. Police say that one of the several grudges he bore against Tanzeem was an occasion when he refused to bail his aunt (his father’s sister) out of police trouble in Delhi’s Ranjeet Nagar. Reyan also felt his family was given short shrift in a deal where his uncle exchanged his house with a shop owned by Tanzeel at Batla House. He was also cross with Tanzeel for blaming his aunt for a mobile theft in the house, a charge, Reyan told the media, “that brought tears in the eyes of my grandfather”.

Tanzeel’s brother Raghib says, “His aunt had made it a habit of getting into trouble with neighbours by using Tanzeel’s influence. It had to be stopped.”

While families of both Reyan and Tanzeel confirm the incidents, they say such matters are common in every family and not reason enough to kill someone. “There was no problem with the deal. The price of the house and the shop was mutually agreed upon and the difference paid for after the exchange,” says Reyan’s grandfather Abdul Haq, who also vouches for his grandson’s innocence.

Reyan’s father Shahadat says there was no ill-will among the families. “In fact, before going to the wedding on that fateful night, Tanzeel’s children were sitting in my house.”

But these incidents seem to have deeply affected Reyan, who grew up under the care of his 93-year-old grandfather as his father was away in Saudi Arabia for several years. He allegedly collaborated with Munir to kill Tanzeel. With Munir sitting pillion, he allegedly rode the bike that was used to chase and stop the NIA officer’s car.

Reyan’s help to Munir was also an extension of their friendship. Reyan, Munir and Zaini had studied in the same school. “They were thick friends. They once beat up a teacher so badly that he was hospitalised. The teacher had scolded one of them,” said a villager.

Most people in the village believe that Munir used his two impressionable friends who perhaps idolised him. Zaini is accused of carrying the bag that Munir brought with him on the fateful night to Zaini’s home. In the bag were Munir’s clothes and allegedly a 9 mm pistol apart from ammunition.

Zaini’s father Khurshid Anwar, who had to rush back from Dubai where he works as a cook, says, “He is a fool. Look at my house. There isn’t even a bulb here. Do you think a gangster’s friend will have nothing in the house? He doesn’t even have a mobile phone.”

Anwar breaks into tears recounting how Zaini wanted to study hotel management but he could not arrange money for the same. “He went to Aligarh to complete his intermediate. But I couldn’t help him further,” he says.

Reyan’s father Shahadat says he can’t deny that Munir and Reyan were friends “but that doesn’t mean he helped him kill Tanzeel”. “Reyan was never good in studies. So I wanted to send him to Saudi. We were preparing for that when this happened,” says Shahadat.

Tanzeel’s brother Raghib, however, says that Reyan was a wayward child since the beginning and this was thanks to his poor upbringing. “He says he felt for his grandfather. Few know that he has beaten up the grandfather who brought him up. He was jealous of the way our family had progressed. But he was the only one who felt that way. The rest of the family has given us a lot of love,” says Raghib.

Police, however, believe that there are bigger players in the killing: Rizwan and Tanzeem, who were arrested on April 13. According to Investigating Officer Raj Kumar Sharma, the two are not only close friends of Munir but also his collaborators in various crimes, including a bank robbery of Rs 91 lakh in Dhampur town last December.

“It was Rizwan who bought a SIM card and a mobile phone that was used by Munir in the Dhampur robbery. Tanzeem got a place rented for Munir in Batla House, where he was hiding,” says Sharma.

He adds that when Munir’s name began cropping up in the Dhampur robbery case, the duo informed Munir about it. “Munir felt that Tanzeel was behind all this since he had a running feud with him,” says Sharma, adding that the real motive would be revealed when Munir is caught.

The family of Rizwan, who works as a small-time contractor, denies the charges as does the family of Tanzeem, who, his brother Nadeem says, was preparing to leave for Saudi Arabia.

As the police probe appears to cast aspersions on Tanzeel’s integrity, his family too has grown suspicious of the probe. “They have arrested the right people. But the kind of stories that are being spread have shocked us. Neither Tanzeel nor I know Munir too well. Still, they say they own property together. Show me the property,” says Raghib.

Police are yet to figure that out. Their findings are based on the statement of Munir’s father. Yet, Munir’s decision to kill Tanzeel based on the suspicion that he would report him raises questions.

Questions that perhaps only Munir can answer. “Wait for his capture,” says IO Sharma, and then unwittingly quotes Mark Twain: “Truth can be stranger than fiction.”

Galaxies are the fundamental building blocks of our visible universe, each containing billions of stars, like our Sun. They can broadly be classified into two types – elliptical and spiral. A typical spiral galaxy has two structural components: a central bulge in which stars move, more or less, on random orbits and a disk in which they move on approximately circular orbits like planets in our solar system. Understanding the formation and the evolution of these galaxies over the age of the universe, approximately 13.7 billion years, is at the heart of astronomical research.

Modern astronomy provides a fairly good understanding of how the universe has developed into its present state. Smaller galaxies are known to have merged and coalesced into more massive ones. More than half of the mass of the present day galaxies has been acquired in the last eight billion years.

Computer simulations based on theoretical models like these have been very successful at explaining the shape and structure of galaxies and the universe as we see through observations. Our computers are able to recreate the processes happening in the universe with very high accuracies.

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However, what has defied a successful explanation till now is the presence of large or massive spiral galaxies without a bulge at the centre, i.e., galaxies with only the disc component. The kind of processes involved in the formation of large galaxies, i.e., continuous mergers and accretion of matter from outside, should have led, at least some of the stars in the disc, all in constant rotational motion, to lose their angular momentum and fall to the centre of the galaxy, thereby creating a bulge. All computer simulations done to create massive spiral galaxies indeed create a bulge at the centre.

Even if it is assumed that these galaxies grew bigger in isolation, not through mergers, a central bulge seems inevitable because of the physical churning of the matter already inside. Thus, whether the galaxies evolved through mergers or in isolation, the understanding is that massive spiral galaxies should invariably have a bulge.

Our study involving statistical analysis of the data on galaxies, observed through the Hubble Space Telescope, has revealed that at present about 18 per cent of massive spiral galaxies are without a bulge. Interestingly, this proportion does not seem to have changed over last eight billion years which is roughly half of the known age of the universe.

Our deduction is based on the fact that a single exponential function is observed to fit the full light profile of these galaxies, from the centre to the edges. It indicates that the galaxy has a flat shape. Studying the light profile, we were further able to conclude that the average central brightness of the galaxy and the scale length have remained the same over the last eight billion years. However, the mass and size of these galaxies has increased substantially, by 40 and 60 per cent respectively, over the same time range.

This suggests that these galaxies have grown not by mergers but by accumulating matter mainly at the edges. That can possibly be the only explanation for the absence of bulge at the centre.

This hypothesis is able to account for massive bulgeless spiral galaxies as of now. However, it needs to be strengthened further by observations from future telescopes which would be able to probe the internal galaxy dynamics with better resolution.

Our work has been chosen as one of the most interesting recent results by American Astronomical Society. The post summarizing the work is available at: http://aasnova.org/2016/04/04/forming-galaxies-without-bulges/.

Sonali Sachdeva (Post-Doctoral Fellow) and Kanak Saha (Faculty) Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, India.

An Earth scientist, Talat Ahmad assumed office as vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia in May 2014. Ahmad is an alumnus of AMU, JNU, Leicester University and Cambridge University. He served as vice-chancellor of University of Kashmir for three years before taking charge at Jamia. With the Centre questioning the minority status of AMU, there have been concerns about Jamia’s fate too. Ahmad’s invitation to Narendra Modi for Jamia’s January 19 convocation had triggered a strong reaction from alumni. The PM eventually did not come for the convocation.

APURVA: You have said that Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University and Jamia Millia Islamia attract different sets of students. What could be the reasons for that?

I don’t understand. After joining Jamia Millia Islamia (May 2014), when I had my first meeting with the deans, I told them that when I see the education sector in Delhi from outside — from any part of India or abroad — the first two universities that come to a person’s mind are JNU and DU. Why is it that Jamia is not even considered? It is an old university. Why have JNU and DU become famous and not Jamia? I told them (the deans) that we need to do something about it. Fortunately, we now have students applying from Yale and Cambridge. See, unless you make the application process easy for the students, they won’t reach out.

WATCH| Idea Exchange With Talat Ahmad
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntoPoS-Vd8g&w=640&h=390]

APURVA: After the 2008 Batla House encounter, Jamia was in the news for the wrong reasons. Many politicians made statements about Jamia. Do you think that affected its image?

Even when I was a student at JNU in the 1980s, I did not really consider Jamia… Jamia has not been able to attract students since the beginning because the university was not projected in the right manner. There was nothing on the Web, no information… Maybe the university was content with having students from Delhi and nearby areas, and everybody got admission. But it is a national university and should have people from all over the country and abroad. In two to three years time, we will have them.

APURVA: Right at the beginning of the JNU agitation in February, many Jamia students were seen supporting students of JNU.

The protests were not on our campus. But students and teachers of Jamia are free to go anywhere. We cannot restrict them. If the entire country is participating in an agitation, you cannot block Jamia. They (students and teachers) go if they have to go and express themselves. It is natural.

ABANTIKA GHOSH: Why is the minority status so important to Jamia?

I would say that I have inherited this. There are some important factors about Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University in terms of our character, that our mandate is to try and educate people who have not been doing so well earlier, particularly the minorities, and the Constitution allows you to do that. Even if there is a minority institution, it is still open for everybody. There will be 50 per cent reservation for (minority) students, but that too is through competition and not for everybody. Last year, we had 1.5 lakh applicants for 6,000 seats.

We also need to examine the social structure of our country. Why these people (minorities), particularly the Muslims, have not risen, why have they not been encouraged to pursue their education. Some form of special help is needed to encourage them to be like the others, we need to teach them and bring them on a par with the others. St Stephen’s and Khalsa College (both Delhi University) too are minority institutions and there is a provision for such institutions in the Constitution.

MANEESH CHHIBBER: Does the presence of a BJP government at the Centre affect a university like Jamia Millia Islamia in any way?

At present, I don’t see see anything happening. Since I have joined the university, the budget we have received is much better in comparison to other institutions. I haven’t had any problems with the ministries.

RITIKA CHOPRA: Do you agree with the Centre’s decision to withdraw its appeal filed against the Allahabad High Court judgment, which held that Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) is not a minority institution? Jamia too is established through a Central Act.

There is something called the Minority Commission, which was put in place by Parliament. The commission was authorised to access the cases (documents of universities) and decide whether they fulfill the criteria to be a minority institution. And we got this (The National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions declared Jamia a religious minority institution in 2011). This was through the commission and it has Parliament’s endorsement.

The (AMU) case is now sub-judice; I don’t want to say much, but there is some problem. In AMU, there was some problem with the documentation etc. Jamia submitted all relevant documents and got the (minority) status. See, Parliament needs to take a stand on whether this commission should be scrapped or not, and if they do, then it is not only Jamia that needs to be considered, but all minority institutions of Christians, Jains, Muslims, Sikhs, everybody. I am not sure if Parliament will take such a stand.

AJAY SHANKAR: You have studied at JNU. What do you make of the recent controversy?

I have spent a long time at JNU. Even when we were students, there were several activities going on. There were also incidents when the university would be shut for a few days… But this time (the February 9 incident) things got complicated because the administration allowed police to come in. JNU has a proctorial system which has the capability of handling situations. Such demonstrations have been going on in JNU for long, it is part of JNU’s culture. If they (students) don’t accept something, they demonstrate and this is all right.

NAVEED IQBAL: When Indian universities are asked why they don’t feature in QS World University Rankings (an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds), one of the points raised is that even though there is a lot of research work happening, none of it is uploaded on the website, something QS looks for.

I agree with that, because unless you put all the information on the Web, nobody will take notice. Since the time I have joined Jamia, we have updated our website and put out all the information. But when it comes to international rankings, a lot has to be considered. They (ranking organisations) ask about the number of foreign teachers on campus. But we have so many of our own people and we are unable to give jobs to them, how can we bring somebody from outside?

Universities abroad are getting the best students and teachers from everywhere. If we want to do that, we will need a lot of funds. So foreign students, foreign teachers… for all these criteria, we will get a lower rank compared to universities in the West. But we are trying.

RAKESH SINHA: What do you think about the idea of hoisting the national flag on campuses?

Many universities have already been doing this. I don’t see anything wrong in hoisting the national flag. In many other countries, offices, institutions etc put up the national flag. So I don’t think there is any problem in that. The only difficulty is when I read in the newspaper that the flag must be of a certain height etc. We have not received any information on that.

NAVEED IQBAL: Recently, a lot of academics in Delhi came together and said that these are the most politically polarising times in our history since Independence. Do you agree?

Maybe. But many of the things that are happening now also happened when we were students. When we were students there was the JP (Jayaprakash Narayan) movement (1974-75). It was a very strong movement. It was against the government of that time (Indira Gandhi government). These things happen in a democracy and it is part of the evolution process of the system.

MANEESH CHHIBBER: There was a controversy over Prime Minister Narendra Modi being invited for the convocation ceremony at your university. Can you take us through what happened ?

There was no controversy. Some of our alumni who are in the media put out stories about the PM’s comments on the 2008 incident (the Batla House encounter). But I look at it from the other angle. There is a big difference between 2008 and 2015. Modiji was CM of Gujarat then and now he is the Prime Minister. We have had President Pranab Mukherjee too (for the 2014 convocation). At that time they said Congress wale ko bula liya (you invited a Congress person). But we called him because he is the President.

After the President, the other important person that I can call is the Prime Minister. And I felt that it is a good idea to have the Prime Minister if he agrees to come. But because of some alumni, some teachers and students… They should have talked to me rather than putting out everything in the newspaper.

It was unfortunate and I hope that in the future, people will take the right path. He (PM) could not come because of some time constraints, the event was clashing with his trip abroad. That is alright. Things happen, there is a controversy and then it dies down.

MANEESH CHHIBBER: Will you call him again next year?

I will definitely call him. But we have to follow a procedure and send a request again. Most probably I will call him.

SEEMA CHISHTI: When will you allow student union elections in the university and why aren’t they allowed now?

There are many things that I inherited when I came to Jamia, and for now, there is a stay on student elections. Unless the court allows us, we cannot hold elections. The matter is sub-judice. I will be the happiest person if student elections are held. I would be happy to do it as soon as we get some sort of recommendation from the court.

RITIKA CHOPRA: You mentioned about the efforts being made by Jamia to draw faculty from universities abroad. Is there a sense of the standards of teaching dipping?

We have no dearth of good teachers in the country. The youngsters particularly are very well-trained. They are also very hardworking. But you need to make the system competitive. There are now possibilities and openings for our own children who are abroad and want to come back. Also, when these teachers come from abroad, there will be competition with the local teachers. They (local teachers) will feel that if they don’t do well, these other teachers will take their position. Many of our institutions produce high-class PhDs who can be very good teachers provided they get jobs. There are lots of highly talented unemployed children. But where are the openings? There are many factors at play, but that doesn’t mean people from abroad should not come. If the education system of the country has to expand, then we require these people to come.

APURVA: Many PhD students find it very hard to get data for research, they are forced to file RTIs. Shouldn’t there be a system in place to access data for research?

Yes, there should be a system. Data should be freely available, that is, secondary data. The competition in the field of science is immense. If you want to do high-end research and get published internationally, you need to have access to good facilities. For this, we need to have a system in place for students to have access to machines and training. This is being done at a very small scale now.

We as a country need to very seriously think about it (providing research facilities to our students), the way China has done it. Earlier, there were a lot of Chinese students going to the UK. But now most of the British students head to China, because they have all the facilities. You see their (Chinese) publications everywhere. They have spent money on building good facilities and resources. We need to do that.

APURVA: If money is the big problem, will private universities be able to bridge the gap?

With all due respect to private universities, some of them may be sincere in academics, but many of them are just doing business. Why would they spend so much money? It has to be the government or the system as a whole needs to evolve in the country. Industries should have centres in universities so that students get trained.

ARANYA SHANKAR: There is a perception that students are somewhat restricted in Jamia. For the girls’ hostels, there was a recent circular banning night-outs.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of wrong information about Jamia. The 8’o clock deadline (for the girls’ hostel) has been there for a long time. Night-outs were allowed, but the students needed to get permission from their local guardians. This was being misused.

So we made it clear that if anybody has any reason to be out, like when one is doing research or is busy in the lab or has to go to the library, they should just inform the warden and go.

When I was teaching in Delhi University, I had a lab of my own. All my students would rush out after 7.30 pm saying it would get difficult (to get entry into their hostels) after that. So why should Jamia be singled out? Only in JNU there is no time restriction as it is a very secure campus. Have you seen the girls’ hostels in DU?

NAVEED IQBAL: When you joined Jamia, you enacted some administrative reforms. You said professors were not able to teach because they held administrative posts. You said nobody will hold administrative posts for more than two years. Has that paid off?

Yes. If a teacher is holding one post for 10 years, when will he teach? He (the teacher) is a highly specialised person and the benefit of his knowledge should go to the students first. You can put anybody who is capable to run the proctorial department. I also ensured that others got a chance (to hold administrative posts). Now they all feel they are part of the system.

APURVA: You spoke of students coming together during the JP movement. Do you see something similar happening now?

Maybe. Everywhere there is some sort of movement taking shape. It could be for many reasons… rising aspirations of the people, students, things they expected and didn’t get; and at the same time many political changes are taking place. Don’t ask me to explain why, but everybody knows. There is a possibility of some sort of change coming.

SHEELA BHATT: Is there a sense of alienation among students now?

I don’t think so. I don’t think that students of Jamia feel alienated because whatever we got from the previous government, we are getting under the current government too. We are one of the best-funded universities in the country. Given the size of the university, the number of teachers and students, we are doing well. So there is no discrimination.

SHEELA BHATT: Is there a conscious effort on your part to stay away from politics?

Even when I was a student in JNU, which was a politically charged campus, I was content being in the labs. That’s how I am even today. I try to avoid controversies, but at the same time I do whatever is needed to help the university and the students.

Lali Choudhary, 50, was all of 13 when he learnt to climb palm and date trees. He went on to become a full-fledged toddy (palm wine) tapper and seller only in his mid-20s. Since then, for the last 25 years, Lali’s world has revolved around three words: lavana (an earthen pot hung on trees to collect palm sap); pashki (a ring-like device made from tyres used to climb the trees) and akuda (a hook on the tapper’s waist fastened to the rope that is tied around the pitcher).

With the Bihar government banning all forms of liquor, the demand for toddy, that is exempt from the new order, has gone up. Lali, like the 20 lakh members of the Mahadalit Pasi community, depends on palm wine for his livelihood.

The extraction of the sap happens between April and July. For the rest of the year, Lali does sharecropping or works as a daily wager.

It is the onset of the season now and Lali’s day begins at 6.30 am, when the 50-year-old sets off from his thatched hut in Beduali, which comes under the Naubatpur block of Patna. He had hung three earthen pots on palm trees at the adjoining Fatehpur village the previous evening. The sap collected overnight is called neera and has the least alcohol content. “Neera is a health drink,” says Lali and points out that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar agrees with him. The CM had said this while explaining the exemption to toddy.

The tappers make cuts in the trees and hang the pitchers twice: once in the morning and then in the evening. The toddy collected in the evening has more alcohol content from exposure to the sun.

At Fatehpur, Lali has taken five palm trees on rent for Rs 500 each this season. Earlier, he paid Rs 150 to Rs 200 for a tree, but the ban has pushed up rates. “Now that the government has banned all sorts of liquor, toddy is in high demand. We knew the tree owners would hike the rent, so we readily paid up,” says Lali, now all set to climb the 40-foot-tall tree.

The 50-year-old holds the tree trunk in a tight embrace, wraps the pashki around both his legs and in less than three minutes scampers up and disappears into the thick palm leaves.

Below him, Fatehpur villagers, most of them habitual toddy drinkers, shout out, anxious to know if the pitcher is full. A few women and children too watch the proceedings.

A man carrying husk on his head stops to chat with the group. “He (CM Nitish Kumar) has not done the right thing by banning liquor,” he says, before quickly adding, “But maybe it is for the good. Instead of drinking, the men will at least work and earn some money for their families.” The women in the group nod in agreement.

As Lali climbs down, he complains that the pitcher is only half-full. He has better luck with the two other trees, which give him full pitchers. Lali says that by mid-April, when the plants mature, he would be able to get at least 10 pitchers in a day.

With his stock in hand, Lali seats himself under a tree, where some customers have already turned up. “I do not have to go to any market to sell it. All the stock is sold off within an hour. When the country liquor was available, I would sell four to five pitchers by the evening, but with the ban, everything is sold almost immediately,” says Lali, who has a family of eight, including his parents. Peak season sale gets him Rs 1,000 a day, but now he has to contend with Rs 300 to Rs 400.

The toddy is sold in a small, 500-ml plastic mug. Lali charges Rs 10 a mug. The price goes up to Rs 20 by the end of May, when the sap becomes much sweeter.

The ban has not led to a rise in toddy prices, perhaps because the toddy sellers are still unclear about the new law. There have also been raids at toddy shops since the ban, making sellers “nervous”. Some of the toddy customers too are cautious. “Photo mat lo, bal-bachche wale hain, jail chale jayenge to unhe kaun khilayega (Don’t take my photograph. I have a family, who will feed them if I am sent to jail),” says a man, gulping down his mug of toddy, handing Lali the money and rushing out.

As he places the Rs 10 note in the cloth folds around his waist, Lali says he needs to climb palm trees at least three times in a day to make fresh cuts. This is done to “maintain sap flow”. “It’s a poor man’s drink. You can gain weight if you drink neera for three months,” says Lali.

The tapper and his customers seem a little relieved when told that toddy can be sold at a distance from public places. But they continue to be wary of the new law. “We are poor and half-read people and cannot confront police,” says a villager.

“Selling neera should be no crime. It is our traditional profession. After all, what are palm trees for?” says Lali, before insisting that his toddy has no impurities in it. He also says that there is “no question of any opposition” from the women in the village, one of the reasons cited for the ban. “It is our bread and butter. Who can oppose it?” says the tapper, adding that the women too drink neera and at times, sell toddy in the evenings.

By 8.30 am, Lali has sold most of his morning stock. An 18-year-old boy with a plastic bottle approaches him. “There is no toddy,” the tapper says. After arguing for a few minutes, Lali hands the boy two mugs of toddy. Another teenager, who works as a driver, threatens to break Lali’s pitchers if he does not get some toddy. “200 ml is all that I have,” lies Lali — he has “saved about 500 ml for himself”. “I like my drink but never consume more than 600 or 700 ml a day,” says the 50-year-old, who has earned only Rs 250 this day. Some customers will pay later, he says.

As he winds up his day’s work, Lali admits the constant climbing tires him. He has, however, never had an accident and attributes it to him being “cautious”. “I avoid climbing the trees when there is strong wind,” he says.

Lali though regrets that his profession will die with him. “My son studies in Class VII and is not interested in selling toddy; he does not even come near a palm tree. My nephews work as construction workers. One of them is contesting for the mukhiya’s post in the coming panchayat polls. The toddy tapping will end with me,” he says, adding that his profession allowed him to bond with people of all castes.

It is 9.30 am now and time for the tapper to begin his “other life” — that of a labourer in the fields. “The Chief Minister has done a lot for the Mahadalits. He must not ban toddy. If he does, it will be tampering with nature,” says the 50-year-old, leaving with the empty lavanas.

For a month now, Arvind Ramesh Shimpi’s body has been lying in the morgue of J J Hospital in Mumbai. His family has refused to accept it, accusing the police of beating him to death in custody after arresting him for a theft, they say, he didn’t commit.

At the city’s Churchgate station, with a footfall of over 1.6 lakh commuters every day, Arvind was one of 24 shoe-shine men. As a row rages over the 34-year-old’s death allegedly at the hands of police, his friends remark on the irony. In the busy station where little stands still, this unseen, unheard force of two dozen, with their permanent stations, have another crucial task: being the eyes and ears of the Government Railway Police.

Until a decade ago, the shoe-shine men, along with the taxi-drivers and porters at the station, had a ‘Railway Mitra’ identity card, an official recognition of their assistance to commuters and to police as informers. “The IDs were misused by many and subsequently discontinued, but the system of informers still exists,” says Deepak Deoraj, DCP at Government Railway Police (Western).

“We used to get leads on molestation and chain-snatching on trains from them,” says retired DCP, GRP (Western), B Shirsat.

In 2015, the Railway Mitra programme officially began again, though without the IDs, and this time only for authorised workers living permanently at stations. Every month, the GRP holds a meeting with the shoe-shine men, telling them to look out for suspicious people or activities.

“If a stranger is at the station for very long, we inform the police. With a history of train blasts, unclaimed bags are the first to be reported,” says Sanjay Ram, who has had a fixed station, opposite platform no. 2, since 1999.

“Police sometimes pay us for tip-offs,” says Balu Gangaram More, who claims to know each hawker and police constable at the station, as well as those who regularly sleep at Churchgate at night and those who are strangers. He is reluctant to talk about Arvind, except saying he knew him. “Arvind may have stolen the phone. I don’t know how he died.”

Arvind sat between platform no. 2 and 3, a regular for 24 years. He began working at the age of 10, accompanying his father, who also polished shoes, at the station.

“We were born and brought up here, on the road,” says elder sister Rehana Shaikh, pointing to a tiny space on the footpath opposite the station, where tin boxes, plastic bags full of clothes, bed and a mirror show signs of inhabitation. Rehana took on a Muslim name after her marriage.

Their mother abandoned the family when Arvind was five. After Class IV, he stopped going to school, and started working. Ashok Patil, Arvind’s classmate, joined him at the station two years later.

It was at the station that Arvind met Sunita. Nine years younger, Sunita also lived on the footpath and sold mogra (jasmine) flowers on local trains. She visited the station for tea breaks. When he was 24 and she still 15, Arvind proposed. “I agreed because he promised me I wouldn’t have to work after marriage,” Sunita says.

They have three children — aged 9, 5 and one just a few months old.

Arvind’s income was irregular, with weekends particularly bad. But, Sunita says, “He kept me happy. Only that he drank a lot.”

On March 8 night too, the last time she saw him, Arvind had stomped away after an argument between the two over his drinking. When Arvind didn’t return for four days, Sunita assumed he was sleeping over at Rehana’s shanty, like he did after their fights.

At 1.30 am on March 12, a policeman shook Sunita awake as she slept on the pavement. The frail 25-year-old, with her three children snuggled by her side, heard disbelievingly as he said, “Tera aadmi shaant ho gaya hai, uski body JJ se le le (Your husband is no more. Collect his body from J J Hospital).”

She learnt later that at 4 am on March 9, within hours of leaving home, Arvind had been picked up along with Suresh Goregavkar, 66, and a 14-year-old for allegedly stealing a Nokia handset and Rs 200. While the minor was sent to a shelter home, Arvind and Goregavkar were sent to Arthur Road jail. Arvind died in judicial custody there. Police approached her 13 hours after he died.

“How could he suddenly die? He was fit when I saw him last,” says Rehana. Guddu Shimpi, Arvind’s middle sibling who sells lemon juice for a living, adds, “He would never steal anything.”

Police say they have clear evidence to nail him. “Arvind was arrested on the basis of CCTV footage. He was part of a group of three who stole the phone,” says Vijay Kadam, senior police inspector at Azad Maidan station. Investigations are on into the custodial death allegation, he adds. Police have said Arvind had sudden abdominal pain and collapsed, and are hoping the histopathology report will show he was suffering from a disease.

A postmortem, conducted at J J Hospital on March 13, showed fresh contusion marks on Arvind’s left hand, an enlarged liver, cut lip, scratches on his body and a red bruise on his head suggestive of internal bleeding.

While the cause of Arvind’s death is officially “awaited until further reports”, Guddu says, “He died because he was hit on the head.”

Balaji Nirmal, whose phone had been stolen, remembers seeing Arvind at the Azad Maidan police station. “Police asked him if he wanted tea. He was sleepy and said no. He assumed he would be let off.”

There were few shoe-shine men at the station around the time when Arvind was picked up. Like the others, he started at 7 am each day, took a break from 11 am (after the morning office rush hour) till 2 pm, and then worked for two more hours, after which he ate and slept. However, Arvind was known to wander off for drinking bouts. “He was an alcoholic,” asserts Sanjay Ram, who claims to have known Arvind since he was a toddler. “He also had a temper problem,” adds friend Ashok Patil.

Balu More, wearing the symbolic blue uniform of a shoe-shine man, occupies Arvind’s spot now. The peti he carries, which has a tiny stand, four brushes, bundles of shoelace, insole, glue, and four circular boxes of polish, is the same as carried by all the 24 shoe-shine men, who sit lined together.

As he knocks his brush against the wooden shoe-stand to attract customers, swishing the bristle left and right like a pendulum, Buddu Natarajan says their customers are increasing in number, with at least 10-15 loyal ones frequenting each one of them. From Rs 3 for a normal polish and Rs 5 for cream a decade ago, the rates have gone up to Rs 7 for normal polish, Rs 10 for cream and Rs 15 for colour polish. “In a day, we earn Rs 500,” Natarajan says.

Even liquid shoe-polish, which once threatened to hurt their business, has not eaten into it much, he smiles. “In a train with so many people, shoes tend to get dirty.”

Except for VIP visits, police too largely leave them alone, though there are incidents of pavement dwellers being roughed up. “Because a draconian law allows it, police can round up streetdwellers if they don’t have identification or employment proof,” says Abhishek Bharadwaj, an activist.

Since Arvind’s death, the uncertainty has increased. “Anyone can be picked up. They are beaten up in jail, bones are broken,” says Patil.

On the footpath outside, as she waits for high court dates in her husband’s case, Sunita sighs, “The poor have no worth.”

She is stitching together a garland of mogra flowers. She has started working again.

It was in January 2013 that Maharashtra first considered running water trains. It was again to provide water to drought-hit Marathwada. At a Cabinet meeting, then chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said that initial discussions had been held with the Railways to arrange three wagons to transport 5 lakh litres of water daily.

Last year, as the drought in Marathwada persisted, the idea was thrown about again, this time to transport water to Latur from Pandharpur’s Ujani Dam, 190 km away.

Finally, when the government picked Miraj, Sangli, 342 km from Latur — the longest distance for a water train in India — to supply water, it was the most natural choice.

The Krishna basin, extending over Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra, is known for its prosperity. The Warna Major Irrigation Project, with a capacity to store 34 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) water and holding 15 TMC of water at present, keeps the area around Miraj one of the few Maharashtra regions unaffected by the drought.

Among lush fields of grapes, sugarcane, banana and raisins, farmers say they haven’t faced water scarcity in years. Residents talk about getting water supply “twice a day”.

The water train to Latur, since named Jaldoot by Pune Divisional Railway Manager B K Dadabhoy, draws its water from the Krishna river downstream of Warna dam.

From there to a Latur doorstep, it is a Rs 2.8-lakh, 25-hour operation now, for every run with 10 wagons. The wagons are clover-green in colour, having been delivered clean and freshly painted from the Railways’ Kota workshop. Eventually, the Railways plans to carry 50 wagons every trip.

Day and night at Miraj

The first of the 50 ‘BTPN’ tank wagons arrived on April 10, one day before the trial run. The Kota division of the Railways was chosen for supply of the rake because it has an “expertise” in cleaning tank wagons, says Chief Workshop Manager P K Tiwari.

“Tank wagons are primarily used to transport petrol, vegetable oils, molasses and crude oil. Earlier, we had cleaned crude oil wagons to be employed for high-performance petrol,” says Deputy Chief Mechanical Engineer Haripal Singh.

To carry water, the wagons were steam-cleaned, then cleaned with chemicals, scrubbed, and finally washed with high-pressure water jets, he adds.

At Miraj, preparations were on by then for the task ahead. (Read more)

Sleepless at Latur

At the Latur station too, Jaldoot arrives to a special welcome. The Railways have dedicated a special track, that ends behind the main station, for the water train to halt.

Rubber pipes help empty water from the wagons into an 850-m-long RCC pipeline, leading into a well nearby. The emptying of water takes upwards of three hours.

The RCC pipeline was laid by Sunday night, before the first trial run. Later, holes were drilled into the concrete pipeline for inlet pipes coming from the wagons.

Officials say they began work as soon as Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse, deputed to Sangli by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, made the announcement on April 5. (Read more)

Rajasthan: Daily, for 3 months now, a ‘perfect’ water special

The water train to Marathwada is making no waves in this part of the country. For 14 years now, arid Rajasthan has been using the Railways to get its districts water. This year since January, the state’s Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) has been running a 50-wagon train from Ajmer to Bhilwara daily, carrying 25 lakh litres —the same as planned for Jaldoot eventually.

Data with the North Western Railway, headquartered in Jaipur, shows that between April 2002 and October 2002, water trains made a total of 243 trips from Ajmer to Abu Road (in Sirohi district), and to Sojat Road and Bomadra (in Pali district). A severe drought had been declared that year in all the districts of the state.

“The trains were run from Ajmer division and water was sourced mainly through Jawai dam,” says NWR’s CPRO Tarun Jain. The dam has a capacity of 78,875 million cubic feet.

“I was posted at the Mandal railway station then,” recalls Anwar Ali Khan, now the station master at Bhilwara railway station. “As soon as the water train arrived there, people would climb atop it, with buckets and pipes, and make off with whatever they could. The Railway Protection Force too wasn’t harsh. The people just wanted water to drink. They anyway couldn’t collect much.”

The water trains have been working intermittently since. (Read more)

Gujarat: One May, 30 years ago — India saw its first water train

Carrying around 3.7 lakh litres of potable water over 200 km, India’s first water train chugged into Rajkot on May 2, 1986, afternoon, cheered by thousands.

Saurashtra had been seeing consecutive drought years in the 1980s. In 1986, it rained a bit, but far from enough. By February 1986, all the sources of water in Rajkot, the biggest city of Saurashtra with a population of around five lakh then, had almost dried up.

“We had no option but to look outside for water,” says Janak Kotak, a BJP leader who was then a corporator and later became the mayor of Rajkot. “Tubewells were drilled, around a thousand water tankers were engaged. But the situation turned worse with summer… Then mayor of Rajkot Vajubhai Vala requested the state government to do something, else the entire city faced the prospect of migration.”

Chief Minister Amarsinh Chaudhary decided on water trains. (Read more)

The Precedents

Australia used rail networks to transport water as far back as the late 1800s. In 1952, drought-relief water shipments were sent to the mining town of Broken Hill in New South Wales via six water trains a day. In 2008, the Queensland Rail Freight of Australia delivered water to Cloncurry town in north-central Queensland.

The US has also used water trains for long. As per Illinois State Water Survey, 1971, Mount Vernon got drinking water by railway tank cars in 1905, 1925 and 1945. The January 1945 operation, with 100 tank cars, lasted 45 days and cost over $50,000 then. As late as 2015, rail cars were proposed in the US to provide potable water to small communities in California, reeling under a four-year drought.

The photograph of the bride in her wedding finery, her kohl-rimmed hazel eyes peering into the camera, bears little resemblance to Shayara Banu of today. The wedding album titled ‘Romantic Moments’ also features photographs of a two-wheeler, household furniture, utensils and jewellery that were given away at the time of the wedding.

Next to the album is a polythene bag with medicines for the “infections” Banu claims to have caught from multiple abortions and a heavy dose of anti-depressants. For the last 15 years of her marriage, she says, her greatest dread has been the word talaq being uttered thrice by her husband Rizwan Ahmed. Last year in October, while she was at her parents’ home in Uttarakhand’s Kashipur district, her fears came true: Rizwan sent her the talaq-nama from Allahabad.

On the advice of her family, the 35-year-old is using her case as a plank to challenge the triad of instantaneous triple talaq (talaq-e-bidat), polygamy and halala (a practice where divorced women, in case they want to go back to their husbands, have to consummate a second marriage). Her petition in the Supreme Court makes no mention of the contentious Uniform Civil Code, neither does it ask for codification of the Muslim personal law. She has sought equality before law and protection against discrimination on the basis of her gender and religion.

“Soon after the wedding, they started demanding a four-wheeler and more money. But that wasn’t the only problem. From the very beginning, my husband would threaten to give me talaq each time he found some fault with me. For the first two years of marriage, when I didn’t bear a child, my mother-in-law would egg him on to divorce me,” says Shayara, who is today mother to a 14-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl, both of whom are away from her, in her husband’s custody.

Shayara says that a year after her marriage to Rizwan, a property dealer based in Allahabad, UP, she wasn’t allowed to attend her sister’s wedding in the same city. In the last 14 years, she says, she wasn’t allowed to visit her sister, who lives within a half-hour distance from her house in Allahabad.

She lost count of the number of abortions she was forced to undergo by Rizwan. “Six or seven times maybe. I would often plead with him to allow me to undergo tubectomy, but he wouldn’t relent,” she says.

Her mother Feroza Begum says the emotional and physical battering turned Shayara into a bundle of nerves. Until last year, she says, her daughter never uttered a word about her agony, not even about how he allegedly tried to throttle her once. “Dimaag kharab ho gaya tha Shayara ka tension le le kar. Yahan aakar hamne ilaaj karaya (Shayara had lost her mind with all that stress. We got her treated after she came here),” says Feroza.

Last year in April, when her condition deteriorated, Shayara says Rizwan asked her to pack a small bag and asked her father to meet them half-way in Moradabad, from where he could take her home. She was told that she could return once she recovered entirely. “As I regained my health slowly, I would call him and ask him to come take me back but he didn’t want me to come and wouldn’t let me speak with my children either,” she says. She waited restlessly for six months, and it was then that the talaq-nama came.

Rizwan denies having ever beaten Shayara, though he admits to keeping her away from her relatives as he “didn’t want anything to do with them”. He also admits to the multiple abortions. Vasectomy and tubectomy, he says, are considered to be “bahut haram”. “I have given her talaq the way Shariat and Hadith allow me to. I cannot take her back now, it will be against the Shariat. It is not good to go against what the religion has prescribed,” says Rizwan over the phone from Allahabad.

***

For over three decades now, the tiny Army quarter at the cantonment of RTSD-Hempur (Remount Training School and Depot) in Kashipur tehsil has been home to Iqbal, an accountant in the Army, and his family: wife, three daughters, son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. Today, in this cantonment, his daughter Shayara is insulated from censure that would otherwise have come her way for taking on the practices in her community. “I grew up in Allahabad where I have seen women around me being subjected to this, but they were all too poor to go to court. When my daughter fell in the same trap, I decided it was time to do something,” he says.

The family first met Supreme Court advocate Balaji Srinivasan for inter-state transfer of a case filed by Rizwan at the Allahabad family court. “In the meantime, her husband sent her the talaq-nama by post, which then became the basis of her writ petition,” says Srinivasan.

In her petition, she has challenged ‘instantaneous triple talaq’ and not triple talaq itself, which is allowed by the Quran as long as the three utterances are spread over 90 days. There have been PILs filed by NGOs and individuals in the Supreme Court but, he says, those didn’t stand as they weren’t filed by an affected party or because they pleaded that Uniform Civil Code be introduced. Shayara’s is the first such case where a Muslim woman has challenged a personal practice citing fundamental rights guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.

***

Outside the Army cantonment, Shayara’s case is yet to make news in the rest of Kashipur. The religious heads of the small town got wind of the case only recently after local newspapers approached them for their views on the matter.

About 14 km away from her house lives 65-year-old Ataur Rehman, the imam of the town for 25 years before he retired two years ago. Scattered across his room, that doubles up as a unani clinic, are vials of pills and medicines. Having just gotten off the Persian rug on which he takes his afternoon siesta, before his next batch of patients start streaming in, Rehman is still heavy-eyed. But in a resounding voice, he explains that the courts or the State have no business interfering in religious matters.

He says that the recommended way of giving talaq is for a Muslim man to utter it once, give the woman some time to mend her ways, utter it again, give her some more time, before making the third and final utterance. “However, even if it is uttered thrice in one go, it is valid. Kami auraton ki bhi hoti hai. Bina wajah koi aadmi talaq nahi deta (Women are also at fault. No man gives talaq without a reason),” he says.

The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, allows Indian Muslims to be governed by the Shariat. The absence of codification has legally allowed community leaders to hold the practices as sacrosanct. The Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939, however, codifies a woman’s right to seek divorce by approaching the court.

Rehman believes that a woman’s right to khula only allows her to plead with her husband for divorce and doesn’t actually give her the right to divorce her husband. “I don’t care what the Act says, but if the woman is given the right to talaq, she won’t live with her man even for six months, she will leave. Women can’t have the right to give talaq, it’s without doubt a man’s prerogative.”

Polygamy, Rehman says, is allowed as long as the man can take care of all four wives equally and halala is required as it will ensure that the man “thinks twice before divorcing his wife”.

***

A post-graduate in sociology, Shayara, the eldest of four siblings, is the most educated in the family. “Mujhe samaj ke bare mein seekhna tha (I wanted to learn about society),” she says. Her ambition was to teach, which she did very briefly for a few months before she got married.

If the court rules in her favour, holding triple talaq to be null and void, she will be faced with taking a call on whether she wants to go back to Allahabad. “I might go back, for the sake of my children, that is, if he shows an inclination to change,” she says.

Her family, however, is more determined. Their objection is to the manner in which her husband divorced her and not to the divorce itself. Her mother says that if the apex court holds her triple talaq to be invalid, they will approach the court to seek divorce through the legal route. Her father says, “A person who has brought her to this state, kept her like a prisoner all these years, why go back to him? But I always leave it to my children to take the final call.”

On her part, Shayara’s low-pitched voice wavers throughout as she talks about her past or her uncertain future. The only time it takes on a resolute tone is when she talks about the present. “Shah Bano got a ruling in her favour from the Supreme Court but it was later overturned by the government, denying divorced Muslim women their right to maintenance. Had her case been a success, it would have been one battle less for us,” says Shayara.

TAGGED ON

* Thirty-ONE years after the SC urged the government in the Shah Bano case to frame a uniform civil code, a two-judge bench in October 2015 suo motu ordered registration of a PIL.

* Justices Anil R Dave and Adarsh K Goel sought responses from the Attorney General and the National Legal Services Authority of India on whether “gender discrimination” suffered by Muslim women should not be considered a violation of fundamental rights.

* The bench was hearing a matter related to succession when it said it is time to focus on rights of Muslim women. The judges asked for the case to be placed before the CJI to constitute a bench. It is now being heard with Shayara Bano case.

On Wednesday, five families sat amongst nearly 15 others for a formal meeting of a committee set up to discuss an upcoming academic session, in tents located in Naya Basti, Boudh, Kathmandu. The locality derives its name from the 1,500-year-old Boudanath stupa, located not very far from the tents.

As many as 4,98,697 households were entirely destroyed, and another 2,56,617 partially destroyed, when the magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal on April 25 last year. As much as $4.1 billion was pledged, and about $2 billion has been received by Nepal’s National Reconstruction Authority (NRA).

Nearly a year later, just 641 people have received reconstruction grants for homes. They all belong to Lamidanda and Laduk Village Development Committees in Dolakha district, who received Nepali Rs 50,000 as first instalment of an eventual grant of NRs 2,00,000. The five families of Naya Basti , who met to discuss their children’s school on Wednesday, were not among the 641 beneficiaries.

The NRA was constituted in December last year and has seen two chiefs in five months, while the latest is facing corruption charges.

NRA spokesperson Ram Prasad Thapaliya says, “First, we undertake a survey of houses through engineers — that’s still ongoing. The approved names are then sent to the Registration Department, which takes a look and sends them to Central Level Project Implementation Units of the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development. The ministry then sends the list to the NRA, which takes a call on its approval, and relays back the information,” Thapaliya says. “It is the proper method.”

According to Oxfam, the long-drawn procedure means most of the over six lakh displaced families are still living in temporary or unsafe arrangements, and at least 40,000 families have no land documentation to begin with. Just a few kilometres from Naya Basti, the Chuchepati camp has over 450 tents.

Those living in tents say their relatives will flood back to these temporary quarters when monsoon arrives, afraid that the loose mud from last year’s quake will slide down in their villages. Besides, back home, apart from homes, even schools and hospitals still lie crumbled.

The Naya Basti camp has more than 60 families living in tents. Most of them belong to Sindhupalchok district, 110 km from Kathmandu. Barring a couple of residents, they are all “distant relatives”, within the Sherpa community.

In the year since the tents came up on the land, the owner of the land has served them three notices to evict. But the worry topmost on their minds is their children’s education, and the subject of their meeting today is the crowded local school their children attend. Finally, it is decided that the children should continue at the same school as it is “too late” to do anything. So on Monday, the anniversary of the quake, the children will return to school.

Stories of survival and struggle of five residents of the Naya Basti camp:

Laxman Sherpa

The 26-year-old worked as a taxi driver in Khokundol in Sindhupalchok, about 110 km from Kathmandu. When the quake struck, he, his wife and a year-old daughter, along with six others, had been out in the mountains looking for a herb known locally as a magic drug for “strengthening immunity”. The tremor flatted homes in Khokundol, and Laxman wonders now if their trip to the Himalayas was what saved his family.

Still, Laxman says, his life could do with a bit of magic. The most valuable objects in his tent are a wooden cupboard placed at the front, a gas stove and a sewing machine lying at the back.

“We could retrieve only the gas stove and the wooden cupboard from the rubble of our house. The rest was all rendered useless,” he says.

An NGO donated them the sewing machine, so that they could eke out a living. However, since no one in the family knows how to sew, they have little use for it.

A stack of quilts and clothes sits in one corner, while other objects lie around the place. Summer has come to Kathmandu, but there is no place to keep the woollens.

Laxman says he received Nepali Rs 25,000 each from two separate NGOs, one of them Japanese. However, within four months of the quake, all the money had got over. So in September last year, Laxman sold off the family’s SUV, which he drove around as a taxi to earn a living.

“I have been looking for jobs, but haven’t been lucky. People don’t trust an outsider (since he is not originally from Kathmandu) easily,” he says, adding that the whole family is now scattered across the country, similarly looking for jobs.

Every so often, Laxman visits his ancestral village, to ask for help from the remaining relatives there, the only people he can still turn to.

Occasionally, his mind returns to that day in April. They had been trekking for three days in the Himalayas, and if they had found the prized yartsa gunbu — believed by locals to be an aphrodisiac, and to help treat several diseases, including cancer —they could have turned their fortunes around. The herb has become so scarce that the yartsa gunbu plucking community takes a trip only once in three years to the hills now to look for it.

“A kilo of dried yartsa gunbu fetches Nepali Rs 7 lakh (INR Rs 4.37 lakh),” says Laxman. “Often, we crossed into China looking for it as it has become so rare here,” says his wife Sabina, waving away mosquitoes hovering around their sleeping daughter Sona.

Among those who barely managed to escape the quake were Laxman’s mother and a nephew. Immediately after, the taxi work nosedived, and there was little food to go around, or the money to buy it.

In May 2015, as health conditions in Khokundol worsened, Sona contracted pneumonia. It was then that Laxman decided to move to Kathmandu, along with Sabina, Sona and two of Sabina’s sisters, aged 14 and 15. They obtained tents which were being distributed by NGOs, and lived for a while on the food provided by volunteers. The last NGO came with food till about four months ago.

A fortnight ago, Laxman says, he had his first good news in a year. He got a job, even if for a brief while. “A businessman hired me to drive a truck to transport cargo. I was paid NRs 5,000. I am hopeful I might be hired again.”

Nami Sherpa

When one by one, the others affected by the quake in their village Tatopani in Sindhupalchok left, Nami Sherpa, 31, and her family hung back. “We were confident we wouldn’t have to move out. Elders told us how they had braved a similar earthquake in 1934,” she says. “We also thought that as the others moved out, there would be more resources for us.”

However, aid was slow in coming, and little at that. “As people started leaving, whatever aid workers came our way went elsewhere too, seeing the deserted villages,” she says.

So two months after the quake, Nami, her husband Chhewang Sherpa, two sons, and uncles and cousins, moved to Kathmandu.

Life has been a struggle since, she says, particularly when the “second earthquake” hit, talking about the unofficial embargo on fuel from India. “The price of an LPG cylinder was already high. The blockade from India made it worse. From NRs 1,400 before the earthquake, the cost went up to NRs 8,000-9,000. It is now sold for about NRs 2,500 and we don’t know when it might go back to the pre-quake figures,” she says.

The plastic sheet walls inside her tent are all blue. She tries to keep things organised, as best as she can. In one corner is the kitchen, her father’s bed occupies another, while the others in the family sleep in another corner. Of the family members that moved into the tents, only Nami, Chhewang, their children, and his parents now remain.

Standing out in the cramped surroundings is a stack of egg crates. “My children are growing up,” Nami explains.

Most nights for dinner, she serves thick soupy chicken, which Lopsang, her younger son, 7, devours from a bowl. However, she is not sure how long she can keep up the meals given that they are on the last leg of their savings of NRs 3 lakh.

Nami also shivers thinking about what a close shave Lopsang and her elder son Karma, 13, had on the day of the quake. The brothers were by the Bhote Koshi river washing their clothes when they felt the ground shake. They laughed initially, but the rumble soon scared them, and they ran back home.

“Soon after they returned, water came crashing down and flooded the area where they were. Water had been released from the Bhote Koshi dam after the earthquake,” says Nami.

Her husband Chhewang led a Truckers’ Association at the Chinese border and helped them leave. He had been away at the time attending a prayer ceremony.

Nami remembers that she and Chhewang had moved to Tatopani from Pangshirpu village for “a better life”. “We had sold our yak, two dozen dzos (a yak hybrid), and about a dozen goats for a better start.”

“We lived on rent in Tatopani and it was that house which collapsed. The owner’s aunt screamed for help for a good 15 minutes before she was rescued,” she recalls.

Now her priority are her children. Nami is worried that Samata, the low-cost and heavily subsidised private school they go to, is crowded with over 1,900 students. The admission was free and the fee is only NRs 100 per month per child. NGOs provide the children schoolbooks, shoes, uniforms, though her sons couldn’t get the same as they were initially enrolled in Shram, a government school, which had NRs 3,500 admission fee and NRs 150 monthly fee.

She thinks of returning to her village sometimes. But her sons’ education stops her. “The next session is about to start and I can’t think of leaving.”

Lopsang Sherpa

The family of seven shares a tent, with a double-bed mattress serving as a combined bed. The seven include Lopsang, his wife and seven-year-old son, his sister and her two daughters, and his sister-in-law.

Utensils are neatly stacked by a gas stove, as a lone solar bulb dangles overhead.

The odd family dynamics stopped worrying Lopsang, 33, long back. They moved in just 15 days after the quake, after their village Pakip in Sindhupalchok was hit by the quake.

“We received NRs 15,000 from the government and another NRs 15,000 from an NGO,” Lopsang says. The money didn’t last long. The production on their 16 ropani (1 Indian bigah) agricultural land has also been steadily falling, though it is their only source of income now. “The land supports a large family and the savings are stretched,” Lopsang says.

Before the quake, the 33-year-old was a small-time businessman. “By showing our Nepali identity cards, we were allowed to enter about 10 km into China to purchase clothes,” he says. “We would sell these goods in Nepal, and earlier, even in Majnu ka Tila in New Delhi.”

Most days, his destination used to be Liping, one of those towns now in China where, Lopsang says, people are ethnically Nepali. One of his sisters was married into the town too, he says. The tremors flattened Liping too.

Lopsang believes the earthquake also gave China the opportunity it had long been looking for to crack down on the people in Liping, who are Tibetan Buddhists and hence followers of the Dalai Lama. “My sister told me Chinese authorities asked everyone to move several kilometres inside the border on the Nepal side. The border was then sealed. Liping has become a ghost town. I hear they intermittently reopen the border for a few days, but my business is dead. My sister has gone far away too.”

Lopsang ponders about going back to Pakip, but the thought of the coming monsoon makes him nervous. “The land has loosened after the earthquake and, during monsoons, Sindhupalchok will witness landslides. The conditions are already terrible.”

Yes, some of his family members have gone back home, leaving the tents. But, Lopsang says, “They will come back.”

Sapna Khatri

All they have left are the mattresses and quilts in the small tent that the six of them share. However, what weighs on Rajendra Poudel’s mind most is security. “We have had our solar lights stolen twice. And people also steal these mattresses or quilts,” he says.

Poudel shares the tent with his three nieces — Renuka Karki, 14, Devika Kharki, 12, Sapna Khatri, 17 — their brother Rohit and Sapna’s seven-month-old son.

Sapna’s parents also lived in the tent till a week ago, but have now gone back to their village Daragaon, Sindhupalchok, to tend to the fields, the family’s only source of income. As her sisters go to school, Sapna stays back to look after her son. “He still doesn’t eat biscuit paste well, so I have to feed him water after every spoon,” she says.

When the earthquake came, Sapna was tilling their field, while a scared Renuka and Devika first rushed indoors. Elders yelled and chased them out, says Sapna. “The house collapsed a few seconds later.”

Sapna has another brother, just 19 months old, who is currently with her parents in the village.

“We could just retrieve a few clothes from the rubble when the quake came. Everything else was buried,” Sapna says. Her father-in-law, aged 70, suffered from broken bones as he got buried under their crumbled house.

Renuka says they don’t have much to do at the camp. “We just go to school, eat, sleep, or check each other’s hair for lice.”

Talking about her parents who are also rebuilding their house, Sapna sighs, “Earlier, the house was just a big hall and they had initiated building of more rooms for the family. But we never got to live in the rooms. They collapsed.”

Mingmar Sherpa

He lives in a tent with his wife and an infant son, but Mingmar says he couldn’t be happier.

The son, Tenzin Somgpo Sherpa, now three months old, was born at the camp. “This is his home,” wife Lamu says. “The doctors too said that we should keep him here, and not take him back to the village.”

However, that’s only part of the reason for them not minding living in the tent. As Lamu adds, laughing, since the quake, Mingmar hasn’t needed to work. “We were given NRs 9,600 by Myanmar and about NRs 20,000 by our relatives,” she says.

“Each day, I wash Tenzin’s clothes, massage him with mustard oil, change his clothes at least twice daily,” she says. Around her lies a UNICEF-marked bucket, among other things. “It had a towel, toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, nail-cutter, comb and other hygiene products,” she says.

Above her, the tarpaulin is marked USAID.

In contrast, the family’s life back home in Selangkatti in Sindhupalchok was never easy. “I didn’t own any land but would work on fields owned by my relatives,” says Mingmar. “I had a hand-to-mouth existence, though there were people around who supported us. I studied till Class IV and then dropped out.”

He claims that while he worked hard in the farms, the yield was never enough to put money in the pocket. Mingmar and Lamu, along with Mingmar’s brother and his wife, as well as their parents, tilled the land, measuring a little less than 1 bigha, together. The youngest brother went to school.

“I even took a certificate course to become an electrician, but it didn’t help,” Mingmar says.

After the quake brought down all the three houses the extended family lived in, they shifted to Kathmandu. A few months ago, they went back, except for Mingmar, Lamu and Tenzin.

While content, Lamu is a bit worried. Tenzin “isn’t laughing much” as he has diarrhoea for the past few days. Suspended above him is a ball, an earthquake-victim family card, and a pacifier.

Quake, and after

* 8,891 Number of deaths
* 22,309 Number of injured
* 6,02,257 Number of houses destroyed
* 6,430 Number of government buildings damaged
* Nearly 1 million Number of children left with no school
* 3.7 million Number of people receiving humanitarian aid
* Less than 5% Percentage of homes rebuilt so far
* $6.6 billion Total estimated cost for reconstruction
* $4.1 billion Amount pledged so far in donations
* $308,880 Total funding Nepal has offered for reconstructing homes
* 641 Number of Nepalese families who have received reconstruction funding

“My mother was a simple woman but circumstances made her tough. She was so angry with my father that she warned him, ‘Vakil saab, if I go to court, you will never be able to wear your black coat again’. He lost the case and never wore his coat again,’’ says Siddiqua Ahmed about her mother Shah Bano, who, as a 62-year-old, famously dragged her advocate husband Mohammed Ahmed Khan to court for maintenance, setting off a political battle over Muslim personal law.

Shah Bano won in 1985, with the Supreme Court ruling that she was entitled to maintenance like any other Indian woman. The Congress government headed by Rajiv Gandhi then enacted the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, to set aside the Shah Bano verdict. Shah Bano eventually died in 1992, though her case continues to be a milestone.

It was the second marriage of Shah Bano’s husband Mohammed Ahmed Khan, to a cousin of hers, that tested the couple’s already strained relationship. For years, however, the two women lived together in the same house. Khan later asked Shah Bano to move out to a separate house he owned, a shanty in an adjacent lane, with her three grown-up sons, before divorcing her. Both Khan and his second wife are no more. Khan, who had a law degree from Bahrain and who practised in the Supreme Court and in the High Court, died four years ago when he was in his eighties.

Siddiqua, 67, lives in Khajrana, a Muslim-dominated locality in Indore, only a few houses away from where she grew up with her four siblings and seven half-siblings. She lives with her husband Shafiaq Ahmed, a lawyer by training and an Income Tax consultant, two sons and their families.

Siddiqua says she and her younger sister Fatima were already married when their parents started living separately. Despite what happened to her mother, she adds, she hoped to someday make up with her father. But after the court case, he stopped talking to them.

“We once met at a funeral but did not speak. He was a good man but was under the influence of my stepmother. She would mistreat my mother and brothers,’’ says Siddiqua.

According to her, her father Ahmed stopped practising law after losing the case because he took it as an insult.

Siddiqua’s eldest brother Hameed Khan is no more while the youngest bother, Jameel, who, she says, accompanied their mother to meet Rajiv Gandhi in Delhi, has been unemployed ever since he lost his job with a cooperative bank. Siddiqua says she and her siblings are not on talking terms with her half-siblings.

Siddiqua recalls how, after the court victory, protesters would menacingly walk past her mother’s house . “People even offered us money to toe their line. But she stuck to her stand,’’ she says.

When a fire gutted rare specimens at the National Museum of Natural History in Delhi on April 26, Dr Santosh Gaikwad’s heart sank. The country’s lone practising taxidermist now, Gaikwad remembers drawing inspiration from a treasure trove of stuffed animals, mounted during British rule, showcased at the museum. “Perhaps the largest wildlife collection of taxidermy in India,” he rues.

The fire also brought back a familiar fear: that the art of taxidermy might die with him.

As part of taxidermy, a dead animal’s skeleton and skin are carefully extracted. The skeleton is then repositioned with an iron support, stuffed with clay or some other mould, and the original skin wrapped around it to create a life-size specimen. This generally stays intact for a hundred years.

Taxidermy was popular over a century ago when royals hunted animals and showcased them as trophies. With the introduction of the Wildlife Protection Act and the ban on hunting, taxidermy has been reduced to an art confined to a few museums.

Gaikwad was first drawn towards it in 2003 when, as a 29-year-old, he visited the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai. He was an assistant professor of anatomy and a practising veterinarian at the time.

He initially tried to join a course on taxidermy, but when he found none, he began visiting the museum, lying on the floor to observe the cuts and stitches underneath the model. With those observations and the help of a few retired experts, he taught himself the art. To hone his skill, Gaikwad learnt carpentry, worked at Ganpati workshops to pick up moulding and casting techniques, and spent time with students of the J J School of Art to learn painting.

In 2005, he finally took the plunge and chucked his vet job. Now, a huge deep freezer in the Department of Anatomy at the Bombay Veterinary College, where he teaches anatomy to students, holds a dead calf, a dog, and two rare fish, all waiting to be taxidermied by Gaikwad. At his old home in Jogeshwari, where his family stayed till last year, three more dead pet birds lie in a tiny refrigerator. “My wife does not like dead animals in the house now, even those taxidermied,” he laughs. His family has moved to a one-bedroom flat in Andheri, a much crowded western suburb of Mumbai.

Among his other assignments is the stuffing of a leopard, Raja, which died over three months ago at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. The park has the country’s only taxidermy centre, and in 2009, the Maharashtra forest department made him in-charge of it.

The Taraporewala Aquarium has sought him out to make a few fish specimens, as has his old haunt, the Prince of Wales Museum, which wants its old specimens replaced. Gaikwad charges between Rs 10,000 and Rs 20,000 for birds — the price depends on size and difficulty — and over Rs 50,000 for large animals like lions and tigers.

The taxidermist’s day begins with dropping his children to school at 6:45 am. He then goes on a half-hour run before reaching the Bombay Veterinary College in Goregaon, to teach anatomy to first and second-year students until noon.

The college has given him a separate room to stuff and preserve animals in his free time. A rack in his department is stacked with bones of various animals. A room, full of glass-encased displays, has preserved animal organs. But the centrepiece for him is the last glass case in a corridor — it contains a taxidermied hen and a duck. “Stroke the feathers, they are still soft. This is a decade old,” he smiles.

On Thursday, as a group of 15 huddle around him in class, he displays a calf’s head. “Samajh aa raha hai na (Can you all understand)?” he asks. During the lecture, he keeps telling the students to join him at the national park and learn about taxidermy. “You won’t find a teacher after me,” he tells them. The students do turn up at the park, but only to click pictures with the specimen of a dead lion, Ranga, before leaving. Nobody waits to see Gaikwad at work.

It is lunch hour and Gaikwad has to go to the veterinary college’s Parel campus, some 20 km away, to teach another batch of students. Again, he is more keen on talking about taxidermy to his class.

Gaikwad says he has so far created life-size specimens of 12 big cats, a black bear, its cub, an elephant’s head, a mule, a 6.3-foot- long turtle, over 100 fish and 500 birds.

He remembers 25 failed attempts with dead birds while he was learning. He would collect the birds from the college campus, shove them in a bag, and put them in the refrigerator at home. “Yes, my wife was cooperative then,” he says. She shared her fridge as he had no other freezer at the time.

Gaikwad credits his wife’s early acceptance of his profession with having made the difference. His father, who was a sub-inspector with the Mumbai Police, also objected initially, particularly to the hours he spent working on specimens. “When I start skinning, it can go on for hours and I forget attending family events,” Gaikwad admits.

Gaikwad’s day at college usually ends at 5.30 pm, after which he heads home. “Over the years, my dining table has been used more for animals than food,” he jokes.

His children, Samruddhi (13) and Sarthak (8), are used to watching their father “do something with frozen animals”. Samruddhi also plays with the bird specimens he makes.

For over three hours every evening, Gaikwad again works on his projects. He has dinner with family, and finally wraps up around midnight.

He talks about the time in 2009 when he had got a call from Nainital, soon after the death of the country’s last Siberian tiger. The authorities had wanted it preserved, so that it could be showcased at the High Altitude Zoo there.

Gaikwad says he had dropped everything, taken the first available flight to Delhi, and rushed to Nainital. “The skin of an animal must be removed within 36 hours of death,” he says. He had later fleshed out all the organs, and extracted the bones to carry with him. “I forgot I could be stopped at the Delhi airport,” he laughs.

The security check scan showed teeth and bones in his long black bag. With airport authorities clueless about taxidermy, Gaikwad had ended up missing his flight.

That tiger specimen, which had taken over five months to be prepared, is now on display in Nainital.

Every day, he says, is another opportunity to try and attain similar perfection. “Jab lage ki asli lion hai, tab model perfect hota hai (When it looks like a real lion, then the model is perfect).”

Recently, Gaikwad taught 15 forest officials to prepare a specimen of a bird. They never turned up with their models but he hasn’t given up on them.

His eyes sparkling, he says, “You know what would be really challenging?

A human taxidermy… If a VIP wants himself preserved.”

A science and an art

Taxidermy is a combination of art and science in which a dead animal can be preserved by using its skin on another mould. This field combines knowledge of anatomy, carpentry, painting and moulding. The skeleton of the dead animal is reused as main cast. In India, apart from Gaikwad, there are estimated to be four other taxidermists. They are not known to practise anymore.

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Last Sunday, addressing the conference of Chief Justices and Chief Ministers, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Tirath Singh Thakur became emotional as he spoke about the shortage of judges in the country, telling the audience, which included Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda, that the judiciary shouldn’t alone have to bear the cross for the huge pendency of cases in the country. Referring to the shortage of judges — both in lower and higher judiciary — in the country, the CJI lamented the “inaction” on the government’s part in strengthening judicial infrastructure and increasing the judge-population ratio to deal with the mounting number of cases. While the CJI did manage to put the government on the backfoot, answers to the real issues remained elusive.

First, the facts. India has a total of 21,598 judges (sanctioned strength till December 31, 2015). This figure includes 20,502 judges in lower courts, 1,065 high court judges and 31 Supreme Court judges. However, on the day CJI Thakur made his impassioned speech (April 24), there were six vacancies in the Supreme Court, 432 in the various high courts and a whopping 4,432 (as of December 31, 2015) in the subordinate judiciary.

But, more importantly, if all the 20,502 posts of judges in the subordinate judiciary are somehow filled, there wouldn’t be enough courtrooms to accommodate all of them since there are currently only 16,513 courtrooms —a shortfall of 3,989 — across the country. Judicial infrastructure, it is clear, hasn’t kept pace with the rate of litigation.

In 1987, the Law Commission of India pointed out that the judge-population ratio in India was only 10.5 judges per million population (it is now 12 judges per million) while the ratio was 41.6 in Australia, 50.9 in England, 75.2 in Canada and 107 in the United States. The Commission recommended that India required 107 judges per million population. It also suggested that to begin with, the judge strength could be raised five-fold (to 50 judges per million population) in a period of five years. Almost 30 years later, even that five-fold-increase target looks distant.

The gravity of the situation is all the more pronounced when you consider the fact that there are 38.76 lakh cases pending as on December 31, 2015, in all high courts, of which 7.45 lakh — almost 20 per cent — have been pending for over 10 years.

The situation in subordinate courts is not any better. Of the 2.18 crore cases pending in lowers courts in the country, 1.46 lakh are criminal cases and over 72 lakh are civil cases.

Interestingly, while the Supreme Court saw a rise in the number of cases disposed of over three years — from 40,189 in 2013 to 47,424 in 2015 — the figures for disposal by high courts actually went down from 17.72 lakh to 16.05 lakh in that period.

Subordinate courts too have shown a fall in the disposal rate, with 1.87 crore cases being disposed of in 2013 and 1.78 crore being disposed of in 2015.

The Sunday Express speaks to serving and retired judges, legal experts, including eminent lawyers and policy planners, to find some answers to the vexed issues of pendency and shortage of judges and whether both the judiciary and the government have a plan to deal with these.

Do we need more judges?

“Of course. There is a burning need to increase the number of judges at all levels, including the Supreme Court and the subordinate courts,” says E M Sudarsana Natchiappan, MP and Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Law and Justice. “But, let’s first start with filling the existing vacancies. In most states, the high courts have taken upon themselves the job of selecting subordinate judges. But the results so far are not very heartening. There are either not enough good applicants… or the judges don’t have adequate time to do this job. Also, there is need for more transparency in appointment of high court judges. Everything should be in the public domain. Put up the names of the candidates on the website at every stage —from the preliminary level to the final stage of President’s approval, with recommendations at various stages. Secondly, civil court fees structure must be suitably modified and it must be made mandatory for state governments to spend the entire fees so collected on building judicial infrastructure,” he adds.
Frivolous litigation as PILs?

Adding to the long list of pending cases are cases such as these: Taking suo motu cognisance, a judicial magistrate in a district court in Mahoba, Uttar Pradesh, in October 2015 registered a case accusing Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of sedition for allegedly criticising the Supreme Court on the issue of appointment of judges. The summons issued to Jaitley were later quashed by the Allahabad High Court. In August 2014, a court in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, directed the police to register a case against Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, filmmakers Raju Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and others for publication of a poster of their movie PK.

Attorney General of India Mukul Rohtagi says, “I think there is needless interference and no self-restraint by the judges. Too much time is being wasted on cases that are plain frivolous. Frivolous cases that consume too much court time should be dealt with a heavy hand and exemplary costs should be imposed on such litigation. The same must be done for cases where corporates file frivolous cases against their business rivals. The judiciary will have to devise a way to deal with this. Unless this is done, even a ten-fold increase in the strength of judges won’t serve any purpose.”

Former Supreme Court Judge H S Bedi agrees. “Frivolous litigation needs to be tightly regulated. I also agree that in some cases, judges overstep the boundary. They must remember that courts can’t be a substitute for the government.” He also added that while speedy disposal of cases should be a priority, cases must not be dismissed only because it amounts to addition in the number of disposed cases. “Cases must be decided on merit, not because speedy disposal needs to be done.”

Long route to filling vacancies

“It is not possible to fill all vacancies in one go. How can the Chief Justice and collegium of, let’s say, the Allahabad High Court, recommend names for all the 75-odd vacancies that exist right now? For this, they will have to really lower the standard and opt for sixth- or even seventh-tier lawyers. Also, how can the government expect Chief Justices (of high courts) to recommend names when earlier names recommended by them are still under process? But I strongly feel that the existing system of bringing 30 per cent (HC) judges from the subordinate judiciary is flawed since the person who comes at the fag end of his or her career becomes a high court judge only due to seniority. Such a person will only spend their time waiting for eventual retirement. I think either this quota needs to be revised or such elevations must only be on the basis of performance as a judge,” notes Justice Bedi.

Paucity of good candidates?

“Over the years, I have seen a general reluctance among good lawyers to accept judgeship. But I refuse to accept that money is the only criteria behind this. Anybody who accepts it has to do it for the honour, prestige and dignity attached to it. It may be the case that now many good lawyers don’t feel there is enough dignity in being a judge. But this must change,” says former Union law minister and senior lawyer Ashwani Kumar.

Government as biggest litigant

P K Malhotra, who retired as Union law secretary last week, says, “That the government is the biggest litigant is a fact and we are aware of that. But very few people realise that in most cases the government is either the respondent or a proforma party (where the main case is against somebody else). The National Litigation Policy that the government is finalising will deal with this issue, especially the needless and vexatious litigation by government departments. The Legal Information Management-Based System (LIMBS), which we have launched, makes it mandatory for all government ministries to upload all data about pending cases involving them so that we can monitor them.”

Is there a way ahead ?

As a former Supreme Court judge who was a member of the collegium says, there is no “quick-fix solution” to the issue of shortage of judges and pendency.

“It is only in the last 15 years or so that we have started talking about the judicial system and the issues connected to it. Look at the money that the governments were earlier allocating to the judicial sector for creation of infrastructure and hiring more judges. It was dismal, and I am being charitable. However, now both the Supreme Court and Central and state governments are aware of the situation and are working together to find solutions. Funds, while still not adequate, are more freely available and are being spent. In most states, there is a visible change in the infrastructure,” says the judge, who didn’t wish to be quoted.

As per government figures, from Rs 1,245 crore spent on creating judicial infrastructure under the centrally sponsored schemes between 1993 and 2011, the amount went up to Rs 3,695 crore from 2012 to 2016.

Interview with K G Balakrishnan

‘Don’t think retired judges will work as additional judges. Why not appoint regular judges?’

As Chief Justice of India, K G Balakrishnan tried to bring in lawyers to become additional sessions judges for five-year terms and appoint eminent lawyers as ad hoc judges. In an interview with Maneesh Chhibber, the former CJI and ex-NHRC chief says he didn’t see “much enthusiasm” for the scheme.

You tried to get lawyers to work as additional sessions judges. What was the response?

Initially, we tried to appoint lawyers for this post for a fixed period. Some of them were later absorbed in the service. But later, some state governments were not very keen to provide funds to pay their salaries, etc.

You also tried to get regular subordinate court judges to hold sittings beyond normal working hours. Did that work?

We asked judges to sit for two hours (6 pm to 8 pm) after finishing their regular court work. For this, they as well as their court staff were given extra money. In some areas like Bengaluru and Ahmedabad, this worked very well. However, later, many state governments didn’t provide funds for this. So, it fell through. Such a system works wonders in a place where a magistrate has a large number of cases. But for this, the magistrate, his staff, his peon, everyone needs incentives.

There is a suggestion that retired judges could be asked to work as ad hoc or additional judges in the Supreme Court or high courts. Will that help tackle the issue of pendency?

I don’t think many retired judges will be willing to work as additional judges after they have demitted office. Some of them may be holding post-retirement jobs, some may be doing arbitration. Why not appoint more regular judges?

Whose responsibility is it to ensure that all vacancies are filled — the government’s or the collegium’s?

We can’t pin responsibility on any one person or agency. There should be timely recommendations by the collegium, the government must clear the cases quickly and warrants should be issued. As for subordinate judiciary, it is the duty of the chief justice of the respective high court to take the initiative to see that selections are made on time. There is a system already in place, that every year, vacancies that are likely to arise should be calculated and the process for filling those vacancies should begin. Unfortunately, not all high courts follow this.

Does the judiciary have too many vacations?

It was earlier eight weeks and we cut it by one week. Then we tried to cut one more week for the Supreme Court, but there was no unanimity among the judges. Some judges raised objections and said, ‘do it after our retirement’. So I dropped the proposal. But a majority of judges were willing to reduce it to six weeks. It’s not just the judiciary; in this country, we have too many holidays.

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AT THE imposing entrance of the Namdhari headquarters at Bhaini Sahib, some 30 km from Ludhiana in Punjab, hangs a huge portrait of ‘Mataji’. As devotees of this austere Sikh sect, clad in crisp white from head to toe, stream in through the main gate, they bow before the portrait; some wail while others click pictures on their mobile phones. A woman tells her child to kneel before the portrait, while another asks her daughter to cover her head properly — one of the many “lessons” from Mataji.

The reverence is telling for the 159-year-old wealthy sect, whose very existence is under threat following a brutal murder: less than a month ago, in the early hours of April 4, 88-year-old Chand Kaur, the matriarch of the Namdhari sect and Mataji to her followers, was gunned down inside the dera.

While women can never head the sect, Kaur was the matron ‘saint’ who held the influential six-lakh-member community together: she provided legitimacy to her nephew and the present Namdhari satguru (sect chief), Uday Singh, in the succession battle with his older brother Dalip Singh.

A few metres from the Mataji portrait, a white board, meant for devotees to pay tributes to the elderly woman, contains handwritten messages that sum up the turmoil in the dera since the murder. ‘The vacuum left by Mataji cannot be filled…’, reads one. ‘Mataji… please come back. You were our only hope…’, reads another.

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The Namdhari factional battle has its genesis in 2009 — a year after the death of the brothers’ father, Maharaja Bir Singh — when the older Dalip Singh and their mother Dalip Kaur were ousted from Bhaini Sahib, allegedly on Uday’s directions. It worsened in 2012, when the previous satguru Jagjit Singh, Kaur’s husband and Maharaj Bir Singh’s brother, passed away. Since then, there have been over 30 incidents of violence between supporters of the brothers, including an attack on Uday Singh at a gurdwara in the UK in August 2014. Kaur’s murder though is unprecedented and has opened a can of worms for the sect: Whom should they consider as their guru, now that the only ‘peacemaker’ is no more? And more importantly, should they continue being Namdhari at all?

The divide in the community is over Uday Singh’s ascension. The brothers were in line to take over as Jagjit Singh and Chand Kaur had no male heir. Insiders say Jagjit may have wanted Dalip to be his successor but Chand Kaur supported Uday Singh; no one is sure of why she backed the younger brother.

The mystery over Chand Kaur’s murder has not helped matters either, coming as it did inside the heavily guarded dera. Police have made no arrests so far (they are yet to identify the accused) and the two brothers have been blaming each other.

“The seeds were sown in 2012 itself. We don’t know what happened behind the four walls of these palatial bungalows. We considered Jagjit Singhji as our satguru and his decision on a successor would have been supreme for us. But till date, it is a mystery as to who he wanted to take over from him,” says Surjit Kaur, a devotee from Bathinda, which is three hours away.

“There is no elder to solve this family dispute, which is affecting followers now. When satguru Jagjit was alive, we had hope. Even when Mataji was alive, there was still hope. We knew she would unite the clan and guide followers like us who are currently torn by this battle. Following satguru Jagjit’s death, there has never been a clear answer on who our guru is. Mataji supported Uday Singh but doubts have always been there,” says Namit Singh, another follower.

The cracks at the top are now tearing away at the social fabric of the Namdharis and splitting families. “Husbands are fighting with wives over believing in different gurus. Sons are disagreeing with fathers and families are entering into disputes. This is not what the Namdhari sect was all about. We believed in unity, not clashes. We believed in simplicity, not wars over wealth and succession. The entire meaning of our faith is being lost, vanishing to where it can never return from,” says Rachhpal Singh, a devotee.

At stake in the feud, apart from the sprawling Bhaini Sahib headquarters, with its manicured lawns, plush buildings and golf carts, is over 6,000 acres of land in Punjab and Haryana; farms in Ooty, Manali, Ludhiana, Thailand and Bengaluru; a fleet of luxury cars from Maybachs to Rolls Royces; and a multinational seed company with a turnover of over Rs 800 crore.

“Wealth will keep fillings the dera coffers but Namdhari followers are not increasing as expected… Our faith has been shaken with this becoming a battle of money and egos,” says Kirpal Singh, 46, from Moga, whose family has been a part of the sect for decades.

Founded in April 13, 1857, by Ram Singh, the Namdharis differ from mainstream Sikhism in their belief that the lineage of the living gurus continued after the10th Sikh Guru, Gobind Singh (hence the satgurus). They also maintain their own gurdwaras, practise strict vegetarianism and do not marry outside the sect. Most of the believers hail from Punjab, Haryana and include wealthy Sikhs in Thailand.

The older devotees feel their children may no longer follow their faith. “We are just a few lakh in number. Seeing this feud, even my son sometimes says ‘let us not get into this. Let us simply believe in pious Guru Granth Sahib like other Sikhs’. When both the gurus are themselves fighting, how can they preach peace to us? If this battle continues and gets uglier, which it will now with the murder of Mataji, we doubt if the coming generations will continue to be in the Namdhari faith,” says a follower who lives within Bhaini Sahib.

“In this war of rights and wrongs, it is the Namdhari sect which is the ultimate sufferer,” says another follower.

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Being Mannat on a Sunday is hard work. Bombarded with the harsh flashes of eager cameras, the fortress on Bandstand in Mumbai’s Bandra West, that houses Shah Rukh Khan and his family, has hundreds of fans lining up outside its gates every weekend. The release of the latest Khan thriller, Fan, which tells the story of an obsessive fan who travels to Mumbai to meet the star he worships, has only added to this weekend’s crowd of people.

It’s 2 pm on a Sunday and sturdy men in grey overalls have begun to take up strategic positions around Mannat, now one of Mumbai’s most famous tourist spots. Among the people posing before the Mannat nameplate by the front gate is 32-year-old Nafeez, who works at a restaurant on Mohd Ali Road in south Mumbai. After getting his photo taken, Nafeez turns to his friend Shoaib and gives him a ‘tour’ of Mannat — telling him the stairs unwind into the halls and which room belongs to whom. Paying great attention to this guided tour of the house are three teenagers: Kabir, Kasim and Nihal. “We come from Lower Parel every Sunday. Star logon ka ghar dekhna pasand hai (We like seeing the homes of filmstars),” says Kasim, 14.

As evening approaches, the road leading to Mannat is choked with frenzied fans and their vehicles. Around 4 pm, more than seven tourist buses and several private taxis stop in front of the mansion, all in a span of seven minutes.

The Purushottamans, who are visiting the city from Muscat, have just alighted from one of the taxis. As they take turns to pose before Mannat, struggling to hold on to their bottles of packaged drinking water, Sreenivas Purushottaman says, “I have been working in Muscat for 21 years. I first came to Mumbai from Thrissur in Kerala when I needed to get my visa approved and I had to catch my first flight out. It was Bombay then and completely different. My family is visiting Mumbai for the first time and for them, the city is all about Bollywood glamour. My wife is a big Shah Rukh Khan fan.”

At 6.30 pm, another flurry of SRK fans spill out of BEST Bus 211, which halts inches from Mannat’s front gate every 12 minutes. Neeta and Suhani, students from a Churchgate college, say they decided to make an impromptu trip to Mannat after having watched Fan the day before.

“We saw the film and thought it has been a long time since we visited Mannat. All our friends from college are big Ranbir Kapoor fans and keep going to Bandra to see his house. But not us. I have been an SRK fan since DDLJ (Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge) and for me, Raj can never get old,” says Neeta. As Suhani makes her way across the road to catch a better glimpse of the house from the platform that seats the rest of the crowd, she is stalled by vendors selling fried snacks.

Sundays are good for Sunil Kumar’s business. The 41-year-old from Bihar sells peanuts in front of Mannat. “Hum bade fan nahin hain unke. Hamein toh sirf pet paalne se matlab hai (I am not a big fan of Khan. I am only concerned about feeding my family),” says Sunil, who sets up his wares in front of Mannat every evening and leaves around 11 pm. Sunil usually obliges Shah Rukh Khan fans who come to him with requests to take their photographs. Though his family in Bihar is aware of his ‘Mannat connection’, Sunil has never entertained their pleas to bring them to the city.

Around 7 pm every Sunday, the extended Siddique family assembles at Mannat to make dinner plans for the night. Niyas, 17, a die-hard SRK fan, decided on this spot as their meeting point for the family ritual. “We live close by and can come here every Sunday. It feels great to be so close to SRK,” he says.

At 8:30 pm, an auto pulls up before the house with six members of a family from Dehradun. Aleena Bahuguna has brought her four children and mother Pushpa Layll on a tour of Mumbai’s star homes. They have already stopped at the homes of Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgn and a few others. “Main toh ab marne hi waali hoon. Lekin meri mannat thi ki main khud aaun aur Mannat dekhoon (My days are numbered. I have always wanted to see Mannat),” says Pushpa. The 85-year-old pushes her luck and asks the guards if she can go in and meet the actor, but they refuse to indulge her.

Their auto driver Dawood Khan is getting restless. The meter, still running, has clocked Rs 600, but that’s not why he is fidgety. Dawood calls himself “the biggest Salman Khan fan alive” and doesn’t want to be seen anywhere near SRK’s home. He feels cheated because the family hadn’t told him of their plans when they got in. “Whenever anyone says they want to go to Mannat, I just ignore them and drive past. I am a fan of Bhaijaan’s and will take you anywhere but here,” says Dawood.

It’s 9 pm and Nilesh Pandey is a lonely man in this maddening crowd. The “struggling actor” says he comes to Mannat every time he feels his resolve shaking. “Look at this house. It was SRK’s dream. He came with nothing but a few hundred rupee notes in his pocket and now owns millions of hearts. It gives me hope that someday I can get everything I want,” says Pandey, looking up at the building.

With two hours to Cinderella hour, the crowd in front of Mannat begins to thin. The gates remain firmly shut.

The fans will return again. To another day.

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Long after the pain of the gangrape subsided, it was the thumb impressions a social activist, claiming to be a women’s commission member, took of her and her father on a blank paper that stayed in her mind.

Then 13 and unlettered, she resolved that should she get a chance, she would study. On April 13, the last of her assaulters, the influential nephew of a Samajwadi Party leader, was convicted. The girl, now 24, better known as Lucknow’s ‘Ashiana rape victim’, is set to enter Class XI.

“Yeh 11 salon ne mujhe sabak sikhaya — ki ladhai majboor banke nahin, majboot banke hi jeeti ja sakti hai (These 11 years taught me a lesson — that a fight can be won only by becoming strong and not by being vulnerable),” she says, sitting in her two-room house near a railway track in Lucknow, where she lives with her parents and siblings.

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Initially, all the six accused in the case had pleaded that they were minors. The court rejected the pleas of each of them, one by one. Two of them, Saurabh Jain and Asif Siddique, died in separate road accidents in 2013 when out on bail, while Aman Bakshi and Bhartendu Mishra were sentenced to 10-year imprisonment in 2007. Sons of Lucknow businessmen, they are now out on bail. Faizan was awarded life imprisonment in January 2013.

The sixth accused, Gaurav Shukla, who was convicted on April 13, proved the most elusive. He is the nephew of mafia-turned-politician Arun Shanker Shukla. While Arun Shanker is a former Samajwadi Party MLC, Gaurav’s father and elder brother were also associated with the ruling SP at the time. After repeated attempts to claim he was a juvenile failed, the trial of Gaurav finally began only last year in November.

Walking back home on May 2, 2005, from the house where she worked as a domestic help, the girl had been kidnapped by the six youths, who raped, tortured and left her on the roadside at Lucknow’s Ashiana colony with a Rs 20 note and her torn clothes.

When she went to police, the family, which had migrated to Lucknow from Assam after floods washed away their land, had a hard time explaining what had happened. They could neither speak Hindi properly, nor read or write. “Hardly four days after the incident, police came and asked me to identify three boys. I tried to tell them that one of the boys was wearing a red shirt like one of my assaulters. But without trying to understand what I was saying, they put those boys in jail. They were later released. Soon after, some people came to us as government representatives and took thumb impressions of me and my father on a blank paper, which was used to weaken my case.”

According to her, they were told that the paper said they would be given compensation. Instead, the affidavit was used by Gaurav and Aman, the main accused, to seek a stay on their arrests. “They used the affidavit to claim that the real culprits had been caught and innocents were being harrassed by police,” says the girl’s lawyer, Jalaj Gupta.

Given the wealth and power of the accused, “records were forged”, Gupta adds. “Gaurav had strong backing, while the victim and her family had nothing except her zeal to get justice. She appeared over 60 times in three different trials in the case. It took nine years and repeated hearings at the juvenile board to finally prove that Gaurav was an adult at the time of the crime.”

The girl says that following the misuse of the affidavit, “I pledged that I would get an education the first chance I got. But I was weak, both mentally and physically, and was soon put into a protection home, where I remained for 18 months.”

It was after the first convictions, of Aman and Bhartendu in September 2007, that the court allowed her to return to her family.

Soon after, she told social activists about her desire to study. But finding a school or even a teacher proved difficult as the girl had never gone to school. Someone suggested the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya in Balrampur, 160 km away, as it was meant for girls who had dropped out of school. Under tremendous pressure to drop the gangrape case — including from people allegedly sent by the accused to their home — her parents thought it would be a good choice as no one would know her in Balrampur.

She cried for days before leaving, the 24-year-old says. “I knew what people said about me behind my back, ‘Wahi Ashiana rape wali ladki hai’. I did not wish to speak to anyone or go out at all. I felt protected in the four walls of my house.”

But the desire to study overruled the fear. “My father convinced me that education was a must to continue my fight as no one else in my family had studied.”

She stayed in Balrampur for three years, coming to Lucknow only for court hearings. In 2010, after completing Class VIII, she came back home. With five years having passed, the 18-year-old felt brave enough to enrol in a regular school. However, her past caught up there too. “People would still point fingers, call me ‘rape wali ladki’.”

Activists decided to arrange home tuitions for her. But after 15 days, the woman teacher got to know of the girl’s past and refused to teach her. “The girl was hurt and kept asking why the teacher had left,” says social activist Madhu Garg, who has been with the woman since the case began.

They then registered her with the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). She took five years to complete Classes IX and X, taking the help of a neighbour, and now plans to get enrolled in Class XI through NIOS.

After she had come back to Lucknow, the 24-year-old had dreamed of becoming a judge, “so as to clear cases of crime against women quickly”. She realised soon that she was too old and had fallen too far behind for that to be possible, she says. “All I wish now is to be able to earn, to be independent.”

Of her four siblings, her elder brother died last year in a road accident. Only one of the three remaining siblings, all younger to her, is married, and her parents have been urging her to tie the knot. She says that is the last thing on her mind.

She has set herself another goal. “I wish to have command over English. I am also taking basic computer classes, but even for that, one needs to know English,” she says.

She was not able to find a regular English teacher, and an LLM student, who is studying for her civil services examination, is giving her special classes free of cost. At her computer classes, she takes care to hide her past.

However, when there are protests over women issues, she is at the forefront. She was part of the agitation in December last year against the release of the juvenile convict in the Delhi gangrape case. She talked about the accused in her case claiming to be minor.

At one point, the family had thought of shifting out of the locality where they live. Not any more. “I hardly care what other people say now. I know who I am, what I wish to do and what I can actually do,” she says.

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E P Unny travels through the poll-bound southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry to find interchanged campaign styles and voter attitudes, but not one confident player.

These neighbouring states have been voting out their rulers. Kerala, ever since 1980, and Tamil Nadu, after the days of M G Ramachandran. MGR, the film legend, reigned through three successive chief ministerial terms for 10 years till his death in 1987. Incidentally, he was a migrant from Kerala. There has been no such big-ticket crossover since, but this time there is a virtual barter of campaign styles and voter attitudes across the linguistic border. The Kerala campaign looks a bit Tamil-like, more demonstrative than ever before, while Tamil voters seem to be sizing up their tired iconic leaders with the measured air of the Malayali.

With the colour shift has come content change. Coast to coast through seven days and 1,740 km, you hear a steady buzz of trends being bucked. Does that mean incumbent chief ministers Jayalalithaa and Oommen Chandy will stay on? Against considerable odds — Amma ran a whole term with little access to her party and public while Chandy’s office gave free access to just about any trespasser. Supporters say the Dravidian supremo will continue on the sheer strength of freebies and the coalition head (the Congress heads the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala) on his developmental promise. Analysts add that both are subject to an emerging third factor.

Multi-cornered upsets are nothing new in either state but never before has a state-wide third way stared you in the face. The Vijayakanth front in Tamil Nadu and the BJP-led alliance in Kerala could garner enough votes to spoil and arguably enough seats to be kingmakers. Does it mean it is curtains for the boring bipolar battles – between two Dravidian parties and two Kerala coalitions? Is politics in these parts turning triangular or just more angular? The devil could well be in the detail, particularly in the small surprises closer to the ground.

To begin with, the most rousing campaign is no longer run by Amma or Kalaignar but by the unlikely Achuthanandan. Known by his initials VS, the Marxist veteran speaks as plainly as he dresses. At 92, he needs help to negotiate the makeshift stairway to the podium. The mid-noon crowd at sweltering Kanjirappally, in Kottayam district, laps up his trademark singsong flourishes, done to death by Malayali mimics. Elsewhere, his occasional memory lapse — mixing up Narendra Modi with Narasimha Rao — is nitpicked by the media but the audience doesn’t care.

Why then is a star campaigner being projected this half-heartedly? Ask a CPM man and he looks the other way. The party just ushered in the clean shaven VS most volubly as Fidel Castro, perhaps not so much for vintage revolutionary zeal but hoping he would do his poll-time deed and make way for Raul Castro (read Pinarayi Vijayan, the unnamed CM-in-waiting who shaped the state CPM unit as secretary for a good 17 years).

In a five-minute cameo, VS creates a stir missing in Tamil poll rallies that last longer than feature films. Back in the 1980s, voters in Tamil Nadu would wait for hours for Kalaignar through warm-up sessions by voice artists – minor celebs in their own right with sensational appellations like ‘Pal kural mannan Rocket Vincent’ (Vincent, the king of many voices who goes like a rocket). Then Karunanidhi’s voice competed with MGR’s face. The voice is now straining to be heard above the familial din and the face that succeeded MGR nearly three decades ago remains the only one in the faceless party.

There is little sign of the voice or the face through miles and miles across the politically vibrant Tamil towns of Coimbatore, Trichy, Thiruvarur, Theni, Chidambaram, Dindigul,… You know an election is on because your vehicle is stopped periodically by police and extra-polite poll officials. The Election Commission has put up catchy billboards where a silhouetted Gandhiji and an animated Abdul Kalam take turns to urge you to step out on May 16 and vote ethically. Cops are seizing cold cash from all over and the day’s catch is enough to fill several ATMs.

Fine to promote a good cause but why monopolise public display in the bargain. Is it even legal to deny parties their right to showcase candidates, symbols and slogans? A poll official explains: “We all have to enforce the model code of conduct. Each regime finds the best way to do it. Here in Puducherry, there is a law against disfigurement of public places that includes private spaces in public view. So zero tolerance for visual publicity here. In Tamil Nadu, some spectacle is allowed around rallies and meetings.”

Parties and voters have their own ways of coping with denial. A low-key campaign suits the lonely BJP. It plays a listless poll song set significantly to an old MGR film tune, indicating an unburnt bridge with Amma — all the way to the Rajya Sabha. As for poll-speak, only public expression is restricted, not private texting, far more lethal. When a DMK rally blocks traffic near the Trichy railway station, road users stranded under a partly done flyover pull out cellphones to vent their spleen: on not just the leaders who ruined their evening but whoever failed to complete the flyover that would have cleared up the clutter. Back home when tempers cool through the night that refuses to, they would resume WhatsApp poll chats.

Back to the physical space, you are reconciled to the campaign blackout when out of the blue appears the godsend graffiti on a suburban wall at Seelayampatti in Theni district — the rising sun and the twin leaves done in the retro stencil style. Facing the symbols of the Dravidian majors, across the road sits Muthayya, a wayside tailor working out of a push cart. Retired from a nearby tea estate, the 70-plus elder took up this second livelihood because he must work to live. No old age pension; no medicare; no freebies. The welfare race has sped past this workman. “I saved up and bought the push cart but the sewing machine is on rent. They give mixies and grinders; no working tool.” Will you vote? “Surely,” he says with a broad smile, lips sealed on the choice. A perfect foil to the livid anti-government outburst by a lottery ticket vendor in Kerala.

All of Kerala isn’t that candid. But it is surely being wooed more candidly than ever before – more ceremonially, more graphically, more anxiously. Posters, banners, cut-outs, bill boards in harmless cloth and toxic plastic. Larger-than-life images screaming out of street corners offset by vertical arrays of faces eerily shrunk into the meagre width of utility poles. A free mix of forms, fonts and formats.

For the likes of CPI’s Bijimol, sitting MLA at Peerumedu in Idukki district, a new favourite is the group photo – the candidate in the company of farmers, plantation workers, college kids and women. Often in distinct homogenous groups rather than in a mixed crowd, quite in keeping with the block-vote hunting that is in vogue. More vitally, in such group pictures, the candidate doesn’t make that crucial eye contact with the onlooker. Again, visuals are so souped up on Photoshop that they could clash with the staid mug shot on the voting machine. The poor voter might lose all sense of facial recognition. Photoshop could be a spoiler.

In this overzealous splurge of new-found image-making, a new gestural vocabulary is emerging. Two young faces from the Rahul brigade, V T Balram and Shafi Parambil, are seen in poster after worrisome poster with the right hand pressed against the chest. The radiant faces betray no sign of cardiac distress. It turns out to be a new hearty hand salute that is gaining state-wide currency.

Even as these Congressmen are acting coy with their hand symbol, their Marxist opponents, Subaida Ishaq and N N Krishnadas, are freely waving their hands. So does their leader V S and look who is waving back — A K Antony. He is asking for a BJP-mukt Kerala. The visiting Sitaram Yechury is nodding along.

Amidst such flux and much nuance, there is however one blunt instrument almost every southern leader swears by — prohibition. In Kerala, the country’s hardest drinking state, Congressmen and comrades are brawling to look uber Gandhian. In neighbouring TN, Dravidian parties are threatening self-immolation on the matter as is their wont. This could indeed happen if the freebie state goes dry and soon enough broke. Both states would have to settle for pilgrim tourism unless abstinence stays on paper like socialism does so well, enshrined as it is in the Constitution’s preamble.

Travellers will head for the welcoming Puducherry. The only party threatening to drip dry this once French heritage destination is the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK). Led by Dr S Ramadoss and son Dr Anbumani Ramadoss, PMK’s turf for the moment is confined to northern Tamil Nadu, where it works out of a sprawling farm house in Thailapuram. The good doctors can teach the BJP a thing or two on appropriation. Busts of Periyar, Ambedkar and Marx stand guard over the party’s militant caste base. Windswept festoons and dried up garlands give away a recent enough celebration of the threesome.

Heaps of fresh flowers and garlands also greet you at seven in the morning, when you enter the first floor of the Puducherry CM’s home. You see three men at work decking up a wall full of deities and saints. There were intimations of divinity even as you stepped into the house. In the front room absolutely bare, sat stone still and eyes shut a clean shaven version of Baba Ramdev.

The prime devotee N Rangasamy himself is nowhere to be seen. He has been playing hide and seek since the previous evening and not tennis as his aides claimed. This Kamaraj loyalist lives true to form in a clumsy house on one of the most congested streets of the town, in his chief ministerial watch for 12 years in two stretches. A champion survivor in a dicey polity, NR needs divine intervention. Who doesn’t?

Some election! Coast to coast, not one confident player.

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