OC

DEFENCE: REVAMPING THE BJP: PUSHING FOR AN COVID VACCINATIONS:

ORDNANCE INDUSTRY INCLUSIVE HINDUTVA PRIVATE SECTOR FALTERS
www.indiatoday.in august 16, 2021 `75

Published on every Friday of Advance Week; Posted at LPC Delhi – RMS – Delhi – 110006 on Every Friday & Saturday; Total number of Pages 60 (including cover pages)
REGISTERED NO. DL(ND)-11/6068/2021-22-2023; LICENSED TO POST WPP NO. U(C )-88/2021-23; FARIDABAD/05/2020-22
RNI NO. 28587/75

tokyo o lympic s

WOMEN
the medallists
P.V. Sindhu,
Mirabai Chanu,
Lovlina Borgohain

POWER
While sportsWomen did india proud, our contingent’s
overall performance Was disappointing. hoW We
can Win many more olympic medals in the future
FROM THE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
D
uring every Olympics, the country goes through
the usual hand-wringing over why the Indian
contingent doesn’t perform to its potential. The
Tokyo Olympics this year are no different. Team
India’s overall showing has been dismal. On Aug-
ust 5, India languished at the 62nd spot out of 85 medal-
winning countries, behind even tiny Qatar and Kosovo,
which won two golds each.
Many of our athletes failed to live up to their promise. The
collapse of the Indian shooting team is a case in point. Two of
India’s most decorated boxers were ousted in the first round.
O ur cover story, ‘India’s Wonder Women’, written by
Remarkable. Before getting to the Olympics, Indian athletes
have to jump multiple hoops—abysmal sporting infrastruc-
ture, politicised sporting bodies and insensitive officials.
There are deeper issues at play once our sportspersons reach
the world’s ultimate sporting arena. A 2018 confidential rep-
ort sent by a coach to the National Rifle Association of India
says 72 per cent of Indian shooters underperform at every
major event. He attributes this to their inability
to handle pressure or to self-regulate. While we
have enormous talent, what we lack, the report
says, is sports science. This is what the Beijing
Olympics gold medallist Abhinav Bindra calls
the elusive ‘1 per cent’ that can make the differ-
ence between victory and defeat.
However, the performance of the Indian
women athletes has been the silver lining in the
current Olympics. They need exceptional skills
to get ahead in what is still a deeply patriarchal
society—from battling the son-smitten and sex-
selective practices among Indian families to fac- July 19, 2021
ing discrimination at the home and workplace to
competing for nutrition and education. The World Economic
Forum’s Gender Gap report of March 2021 says India has
bridged only 62.5 per cent of this gulf—down from the 66.8
per cent it had achieved in 2019. Fifty-nine per cent of India’s
illiterate population are women. This gender gap is just one
of the many reasons that make the performance of the Indian swimming and athletics to increase our medal prospects. We
women in Tokyo so remarkable. Until 2021, women had won
only five of the 17 medals Indians have won in all individual
events. At Tokyo, they have won three of India’s five medals
so far. The women’s hockey team broke into the semi-finals
for the first time. Even the women who didn’t win—fencer
Bhavani Devi, table tennis player Manika Batra and discus
thrower Kamalpreet Kaur—put up spirited performances.
Indian women clearly outclassed their male counterparts.
What makes their achievements even more creditworthy is
that none of them has had an easy journey. Rani Rampal, the
gutsy captain of the women’s hockey team, led a hardscrabble
early life and took to the sport to ensure she could build a
pucca house for her family and eat two full meals a day. The
diminutive weightlifter Mirabai Chanu once lifted logs to en-
sure they could light a winter fire in their village home before
she went on to win a silver at Tokyo. There was no permanent
road to Lovlina Borgohain’s home in the village, but that
didn’t stop her from boxing her way to a bronze. These are
heart-stirring stories of deprivation that give an inkling of
the odds women athletes struggle against.
The men’s hockey team won a bronze medal, India’s first
in the game in 41 years. Their spirited performance and the
entry of the women’s team into the semi finals are encour-
aging signs of a revival in a sport India once dominated.
Elsewhere, Ravi Kumar Dahiya booked a spot for himself in
the finals of the men’s 57 kg freestyle wrestling.
Consulting Editor Boria Majumdar, analyses our
performance in Tokyo. We are clearly not lacking in talent
or DNA—we just lack the ability to execute. We need to do
what the sporting superpowers have done—create a sporting
culture. Just as we did with cricket by building hundreds of
sporting academies and a process that filtered the best play-
ers from the school level to the league level and finally the
national team. We need to cricket-ise the Olympic sports.
Not all sports can have cricket’s financial muscle. This is
where the state governments need to step in.
The Odisha government’s enthusiastic support
for India’s men’s and women’s hockey teams, for
instance, allowed them to get the best coaches
and to train in world-class institutions.
We can learn lessons from several countries.
South Korea, which completely dominates both
men and women’s archery, trains medal hopefuls
in all-weather conditions and in packed stadiums
to condition them for the stress of competition.
China’s laser-like focus on seven sports—weight-
lifting, swimming, gymnastics, diving, table
tennis, badminton and shooting—yielded a rich
haul of golds that allowed it to surge ahead of the
United States. Great Britain had won a solitary gold medal in
Atlanta in 1996. The country channelled lottery funding into
British sport from 1997 onward, and within a decade and a
half, the British team won 29 gold medals in London 2012.
We need to increase participation in individual sports like
need to shed our attitude about sports being a luxury. Sports,
in many ways, reflects the culture of a nation. Success in
sports requires robust institutions, discipline, commitment,
and the will to win. The 2024 Olympics in Paris are three
years away; the 2028 Los Angeles Games are seven years
hence. It is time for us to get our act together and launch a
structured revival plan. After all, there are 1.3 billion of us.
Surely, we can groom top talent in almost every sport if we put
our will and resources into it. There is no better way to pro-
mote national pride and unity than success at the Olympics.
Even the world will view India in a far more positive light.
Much better than all the dubious narratives used to boost na-
tionalism and international stature. If we don’t work towards
a plan earnestly, our hopes for sporting glory and national
pride are destined to remain trapped in the Olympic rings.
(Aroon Purie)
AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 3
www.indiatoday.in
16
C OV E R
S T O RY

CHAIRMAN AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Aroon Purie

VICE CHAIRPERSON: Kalli Purie
GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER: Dinesh Bhatia
GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Raj Chengappa
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER: Manoj Sharma
GROUP CREATIVE EDITOR: Nilanjan Das; GROUP PHOTO EDITOR: Bandeep Singh
EDITORS: Kai Jabir Friese (Features), Rajesh Jha (News)
MANAGING EDITOR: Sandeep Unnithan
EXECUTIVE EDITORS: S. Sahaya Ranjit, Manisha Saroop; Mumbai: M.G. Arun
SENIOR DEPUTY EDITOR: Hyderabad: Amarnath K. Menon
DEPUTY EDITORS: Kaushik Deka, Shwweta Punj, Sasi Nair;
Jaipur: Rohit Parihar
SENIOR EDITORS: Anilesh S. Mahajan, Ashish Mukherjee; Mumbai: Suhani
Singh, Kiran Dinkar Tare; patna: Amitabh Srivastava
SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Sonali Acharjee; Kolkata: Romita Sengupta;
Bhopal: Rahul Noronha
ASSISTANT EDITORS: Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri, Aditya Wig
PHOTO DEPARTMENT: Yasir Iqbal (Deputy Chief Photographer),
Rajwant Singh Rawat, Chandra Deep Kumar (Principal Photographer),
Mumbai: Mandar Suresh Deodhar (Chief Photographer)
PHOTO RESEARCHERS: Prabhakar Tiwari (Chief Photo Researcher),
Saloni Vaid (Principal Photo Researcher)
CHIEF OF GRAPHICS: Tanmoy Chakraborty
ART DEPARTMENT: Sanjay Piplani (Deputy Creative Editor);
Angshuman De (Art Director) Vikas Verma (Deputy Art Director);
Siddhant Jumde (Chief Illustrator)
PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT: Harish Agarwal (Chief of Production),

INDIA’S WONDER WOMEN

Naveen Gupta (Chief Coordinator)

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHERS
Vidya Menon (Impact)

IMPACT TEAM India’s sportswomen did India proud at Tokyo 2020 despite daunting
National Head: Suparna Kumar (Government & PSU) odds. But with the contingent’s overall dismal tally, here is a blueprint
Senior General Manager: Jitendra Lad (West)
General Managers: Mayur Rastogi (North), Upendra Singh (Bangalore) for winning many more medals in the future Olympics
Deputy General Manager: Indranil Chatterjee (East)

INSIDE
GROUP CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER: Vivek Malhotra
SALES AND OPERATIONS
Deepak Bhatt, Senior General Manager (National Sales) UPFRONT LEISURE
Vipin Bagga, General Manager (Operations) PORN AND MANOJ BAJPAYEE:
Rajeev Gandhi, Deputy General Manager (North)
Syed Asif Saleem, Regional Sales Manager (West)
PREJUDICE PG 6 CAN’T TOP THIS PG 47
S Paramasivam, Deputy Regional Sales Manager (South)
Piyush Ranjan Das, Senior Sales Manager (East)
HINDUTVA’S Q&A WITH
TRIBAL TROUBLES NAGESH
PG 12 KUKUNOOR PG 56

BJP VAC C I N E S AU T O E X P O R T S
Volume XLVI Number 33; For the week
August 10-16, 2021, published on every Friday

l Editorial/Corporate Office Living Media India Ltd., India Today Group Mediaplex,
FC-8, Sector-16A, Film City, Noida - 201301; Phone: 0120-4807100
l Subscriptions: For assistance contact Customer Care India Today Group, C-9,
28 ALOOK
NEW
32 PRIVATE
PROBLEMS 36 CATCHING THE
TRADE WINDS
Sector-10, Noida (UP)-201301; Phones: Toll-free number: 1800 1800 100 (from The BJP tries to shed its Rate of vaccination at Auto exports surged across
BSNL/MTNL lines); (95120) 2479900 from Delhi and Faridabad; (0120) 2479900 ‘Brahmin-bania’ image, private centres remains the board in Q1 of 2021, with
from Rest of India (Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.); Fax: (0120) 4078080;
Mumbai: 022-66063411/3412, Kolkata: 033-40525327, Chennai: 044-24303200; creates a younger low. What can be done to two-wheeler exports three
e-mail: wecare@intoday.com leadership tier scale up numbers? times the figure for 2020
l Sales: Direct all trade enquiries to General Manager (Sales), Living Media India
Limited, C-9, Sector-10, Noida-201301 (UP)
l Regd. Office: F-26, First Floor, Connaught Place, New Delhi-110001.
l Impact Offices: 1201, 12th Floor, Tower 2 A, One Indiabulls Centre, (Jupiter OFB REFORMS W ILDLIFE Note to the reader
Mills), S.B. Marg, Lower Parel (West), Mumbai-400013; Phone: 66063355;
From time to time, you will see

39 THE MEGA
42 THE GREAT
Fax: 66063226 l E-1, Ground Floor, Videocon Towers, Jhandewalan Extn,
New Delhi l Guna Complex, 5th Floor, Main Building, No.443, Anna Salai, pages titled ‘An Impact Feature’
Chennai-600018; Phone: 2847 8525 l 201-204 Richmond Towers, 2nd Floor,
12, Richmond Road, Bangalore-560025; Phones: 22212448, 22213037,
MAKEOVER WILD HOPE or ‘Focus’ in India Today. This is
22218343; Fax: 22218335; l 52, Jawaharlal Nehru Road, 4th Floor,
Restructuring 41 India wakes up to the no different from an adver-
Kolkata-700071; Phones: 22825398; Fax: 22827254; l 6-3-885/7/B, Somajiguda,
Hyderabad-500082; Phone: 23401657, 23400479, 23410100, 23402481, ordnance factories need for mitigation tisement and the magazine’s
into seven new editorial staff is not involved in
23410982, 23411498; Fax: 23403484 l 39/1045, Karakkatt Road, Kochi 682016;
measures to curb
Phones: 2377057, 2377058 ; Fax: 2377059 l 2/C, “Suryarath Bldg”, 2nd Floor,
its creation in any way
Behind White House, Panchwati, Office C.G. Road, Ahmedabad-380006; Phone: defence PSUs wildlife mortality
26560393, 26560929; Fax: 26565293 l Copyright Living Media India Ltd. All
rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited.

Printed and published by Manoj Sharma on behalf of Living Media
India Limited. Printed at Thomson Press India Limited,
18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad-121007, (Haryana).
Published at F-26, First Floor, Connaught Place, New Delhi-110001.
Editor: Raj Chengappa.
does not take the responsibility for returning unsolicited
l india today
publication material.
All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of
competent courts and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only
Cover by NILANJAN DAS; Digital imaging by AMARJEET SINGH NAGI
Cover photographs by Getty Images, Paras Mendiratta/SAI, & BFI
Readers are recommended to make appropriate enquiries before sending money, incurring expenses or
entering into commitments in relation to any advertisement appearing in this publication. The India Today
Group does not vouch for any claims made by the advertisers of products and services. The printer,
publisher, editor-in-chief and the editor of the India Today Group publications shall not be held liable for
any consequences in the event of such claims not being honoured by the advertisers.
FOR SUBSCRIPTION ASSISTANCE, CONTACT: Customer Care,
India Today Group, C-9, Sector-10, Noida (Uttar Pradesh)-201301. E-MAIL to:
Phones: 2479900 from Noida, 95120-2479900 from Delhi and
Faridabad, and 0120-2479900 from Rest of India. Toll Free No.:
letters.editor@intoday.com or
1800 1800 100. Fax: 0120-4078080. E-mail: wecare@intoday.com log on to www.indiatoday.in
 UPFRONT
COUNTING
THE CASTES
PG 10
GUEST COLUMN
PORN AND PREJUDICE
By Amrita Narayanan
L
ast month, the police made
a celebrity arrest for porn
trafficking. The accused, Raj
Kundra, countered that the
material he had been circulating was
erotic, not pornographic. Since we are
not privy to the particularities of the
disputed material, the point is moot,
but it’s a reminder that the law is not
sensitive to the distinction between
pornography and erotica.
Section 67A of the Information
Technology Act, the law invoked in the
Kundra case, prohibits the circulation of
“explicit material”, legal language that
makes no distinction between purchas-
6 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1
ing a sexually explicit home video to
watch with your consenting partner
and acquiring a sexually violent video to
watch as a prelude to a gang-bang.
While the law against circulating
pornographic material may be pro-
tective in its intention, in its effect, it
infantilises the public. By legislating the
circulation of pornographic material,
the law effectively polices the public dis-
cussion of what is and isn’t acceptable in
sexuality. If, for example, the media cov-
erage of Kundra’s case had laid out the
nature of the contraband material for a
debate about its erotic or pornographic
status, then the report itself would have
HINDUTVA’S
TRIBAL
TROUBLES PG 12
Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE
likely been in violation of the law.
As a consequence of the law on
circulating pornography, media cover-
age of cases like Kundra’s is obliged to
cleave to the stylistic trope of Cops and
Robbers. Cases of pornography traf-
ficking are presented almost identically
as a series of repeated scenes in which
vigilant and protective police officers
“bust” wicked pornography traffickers.
Such a tsk-tsk reflex shuts down the
possibility of a capacious intellectual
reflection about what, as a society, our
relationship to sexually explicit material
should be. Public discussion is obliged
to retreat into private echo chambers.
UPFRONT
This ghettoising of opinion reduces
the diversity of possibilities present in
sexually explicit material; it prevents
us from encountering and knowing our
collective differences in sexual taste.
Generalised attempts to refine the
distinction between pornography and
erotica invariably end up as asser-
tions of one form of sexual taste over
another. It is, after all, an extremely
subjective distinction. BDSM porn
purveyors find beautiful and erotic
what Romance porn purveyors find
pornographic. There can, therefore,
be no objective metric for what is por-
nographic or erotic, but content and
context seem important.
P
ornographic content is defined
by immediacy. Merriam-
Webster defines pornography
as “the depiction of acts in a sensational
manner so as to arouse a quick, intense,
emotional reaction”. Porn is fast food
and erotica is a slower, more Epicu-
rean experience. More from Merriam-
Webster: pornography is material
“intended to cause sexual excitement”
while erotic is defined as “devoted to, or
tending to arouse sexual love or desire”.
Here, too, tempo seems to distinguish
pornography from erotic material but,
additionally, the erotic is associated with
emotion words that imply relatedness
and longing alongside lust.
Indeed, aside from a being rapid
versus a slow delivery system for plea-
sure, pornography is famously known
for being less considerate of human
feelings than erotica is. With the porta-
bility and convenience of an individual
use model of pleasure, pornography
spares the user (telling word) the pain-
fulness of waiting for a specific person
by offering pleasure prêt-à-porter. The
pros of pornography are independence
and autonomy in sexuality, with the
possibility of diverse horizons that may
not be possible with a single partner.
Context also seems to distinguish
pornography from erotica. Even people
who object to pornography seem to
agree that it is acceptable and “erotic”
for a couple to watch porn within the
context of a sexually and emotionally
8 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1
fulfilling relationship. Also well under-
stood—particularly amongst men—is
the use of pornography as a dress re-
hearsal for future real-world experience.
When we make pornography illegal and
treat it as a danger to the public, then we
are implicitly saying people can’t use it
to take the edge off a first sexual experi-
ence, or to find out more about their
own sexual taste. If it were legalised, we
could lobby the industry to provide for
a range of tastes, and better, more ac-
curate sex education for first-timers.
Critiques of pornography have
historically come from feminism
where radical feminist Robin Morgan’s
famous words “pornography is the the-
ory, rape is the practice” brought for-
ward the legitimate concern of violence
towards women in pornography. At the
heart of this objection was the concern
IF PORN WERE LEGAL-
ISED, WE COULD LOBBY
THE INDUSTRY FOR
A RANGE OF TASTES,
AND MORE ACCURATE
SEX EDUCATION FOR
FIRST-TIMERS
that watching violent pornography
would increase the chances that violent
and demeaning behaviours would be
tried out in the real world. But the
research on the effect of pornographic
material on behaviour does not clearly
and reliably suggest a correlation: some
studies suggest that watching violent
pornography may be satisfying enough
to curtail actual enactments of violent
sexuality in the real world.
Feminism has since moved its cri-
tique of porn from a blanket objection
to a more particular demand: for porn
to reflect women’s subjectivities and
erotic tastes. This does not mean ruling
out certain kinds of porn: Richa Kaul
Padte’s research in CyberSexy (2018)
tells us that Indian women are inter-
ested in a diversity of pornographic
material. Amia Srinivasan, writing in
the London Review of Books in 2018,
captures the current feminist position
on pornography: “If a woman says she
enjoys working in porn, or being paid to
have sex with men, or engaging in rape
fantasies, or wearing stilettos--and even
that she doesn’t just enjoy these things
but finds them emancipatory, part of her
feminist praxis—then we are required,
as feminists, to trust her.”
Feminists may be more open to
pornography than they ever were, but
pornography’s limitations still irk them.
The excessive use of porn and the use of
porn in lieu of relationships has been as
much a concern of psychological science
as it has of feminism. As a main dish
rather than a side dish, pornography
can reduce the capacity for intimacy
and relatedness, locking the user into a
narcissistic, self-directed inner world, in
which the subjectivity of another person
is routinely ignored or annihilated.
When we are upset about pornogra-
phy, it means we have encountered an
intolerable difference in sexual taste,
something we can’t stand. For instance,
the annihilation of women’s subjectivity
is one example of a sexual taste many of
us can’t stand. But it is worth consider-
ing that pornography’s service—effi-
ciently and rapidly delivered goal-direct-
ed sexual pleasures that are independent
of other people’s feelings—might not
simply be in need of policing, it might be
a product of the policing of sexual taste.
Socially, the media seems to suggest,
we divide in a binary fashion: there are
those who indulge the pleasures of visual
sexual stimuli, and those who like to read
about, chase, ferret out and punish them.
What are we to make of the fact that
while the appetite for pornography is po-
liced, the appetite for catching, reporting,
and discussing those who watch obscene
material is lavishly entertained? As the
French psychoanalyst Lacan reminds us,
the superego is by its nature obscene, it is
always hungry for more offences. n
Amrita Narayanan is a
clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst
in practice. Her book In a Rapture of
Distress: How women’s sexuality is con-
structed in modern India is forthcoming
from Oxford University Press
 PUNEKAR
SEVA
O f late, Pune,
Maharashtra, has
been a favourite destina-
tion of two state Congress
leaders. State president

Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE

Nana Patole made three
trips to the city within a
fortnight, while former CM
Prithviraj Chavan, too,
was spotted in the city
after Patole landed there.
Patole’s visits, the grape-
GL ASSHOUSE vine says, are social rather
than political. His daughter

JAB WE MET and her in-laws live in the

city. Chavan, however,
is possibly eyeing a Lok

T
he animosity between former allies Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav
Thackeray and opposition leader Devendra Fadnavis is well known. But things, Sabha ticket from Pune.
it seems, are changing. On the morning of July 30, their paths crossed during an
inspection of flood-hit areas in Kolhapur. The meeting was brief but convivial and, as it later
emerged, scripted. Thackeray’s personal assistant Milind Narvekar had coordinated the
meeting with Fadnavis’s team. The parties seem to be softening their stance towards each
other, too. Later on the same day, a BJP leader, requesting anonymity, told some reporters
in Mumbai that senior party leaders from Delhi had asked him to refrain from making
personal allegations against Sena leaders. Is the Sena-BJP alliance back on track?

Modi Vs the IAS? Didi’s Game Face

P rime Minister Narendra Modi’s
address to IPS probationers on
July 31 has triggered a flurry of activity
M amata Banerjee’s recent whirl-
wind tour of Delhi made it clear that
the West Bengal chief minister wants to
LOSE SOME,
WIN SOME

JSingh)
among Madhya Pradesh’s IPS officers. play at the national level. Her ‘Khela hobe’ D(U) MP Rajiv Ranjan
The PM said that most cities with a (Game on) election Singh (alias Lalan
ANI
population of over a million are heading slogan, inspired has now been over-
towards a police commissionerate by the rap num- looked twice for a berth in
system and the ones that haven’t yet ber written by a the Union cabinet—first in
will hopefully follow suit. MP does not young Trinamool 2019 and then again dur-
have this system, mainly because of Congress worker, ing the cabinet expansion
resistance from the IAS lobby. But even is being adopted this year. But he is not
as the police circulates clips of by other par- complaining. In a surprise
the PM’s speech hoping CM ties too. Akhilesh move, Nitish Kumar’s party
Shivraj Singh Chouhan pays Yadav’s SP wants to elevated the upper-caste
heed, the question remains— adopt a modified version—‘Khela Hoi’—as MP to the post of the
will the powerful it prepares for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh JD(U)’s new national presi-
IAS lobby stand assembly poll. Mamata has also requested dent. As the old adage
for it? lyricist Javed Akhtar to help translate the goes, when one door clos-
song into Hindi for a pan-India appeal. es, another opens.
ANI

—Sandeep Unnithan with Kiran D. Tare, Romita Datta, Rahul Noronha & Amitabh Srivastava
UPFRONT
CASTE CENSUS
COUNTING
THE CASTES
By Amitabh Srivastava
W
hen the Union minis-
ter of state for home
Nityanand Rai said in
the Lok Sabha on July
20 that the Centre had
decided against a caste-wise enumera-
tion of the country’s population in the
census—other than of Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes—many saw it as
an attempt by the BJP to avoid stirring
up the caste cauldron in the run-up to
the Uttar Pradesh assembly election due
early next year. The first BJP ally to red-
flag the Centre’s move was Bihar chief
minister Nitish Kumar.
Nitish, on July 24, urged the Centre
to reconsider its stand. “We believe
there should be a caste-based cen-
sus. The Bihar legislature had unani-
mously passed a resolution to this effect
on February 17, 2019, and again on
February 27, 2020, and sent it to the
central government. The Centre should
reconsider the issue,” he tweeted. Nitish
and his Janata Dal (United) believe that
a caste census will enable a detailed enu-
meration of the OBCs (Other Backward
Classes) and help identify sections
among them in Bihar that remain off
the government’s social welfare radar.
A total of 2,633 communities are
listed by the Centre as OBCs. They are
entitled to a 27 per cent quota in gov-
ernment jobs and centrally-funded edu-
cational institutions. But OBCs aren’t
a homogenous bloc. The communities
listed under this broad umbrella are of
varied economic and social standing.
Given this, it is argued that data from a
caste census will help governments map
10 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1
this segment of the population better
and extend welfare programmes to the
bottom of the social pyramid.
The JD(U) has been demanding
sub-categorisation within the OBCs
with the aim of a more equitable redis-
tribution of quotas within the group-
ing. Last month, the Centre extended
by six months (till January 31, 2022)
the term of a commission set up in 2017
to consider sub-categorisation within
OBCs. According to reports, the com-
mission, headed by retired high court
chief justice G. Rohini, has found a
handful of OBC communities to have
cornered the bulk of quota benefits.
Besides, more than 1,000 OBC groups
remain largely deprived of access to
quota due to various reasons, such as
economic and educational status. The
JD(U) passed a resolution in its recent
national executive meeting that the
Rohini Commission’s recommenda-
tions be published so that quota benefits
2,633
OBC communities in
central government list
27%
Quota for OBCs in government
jobs and educational institutions
52%
Backward caste population as
per last caste census (1931)
are extended as per the population of
communities.
Nitish’s demand for a caste census
has the backing of Bihar’s principal
opposition party, the Rashtriya Janata
Dal (RJD). On July 30, Tejashwi Yadav,
leader of the opposition in the state
assembly, and other opposition leaders
urged Nitish to take an all-party delega-
tion to the prime minister on the issue.
According to political observers, a
caste census will be disadvantageous to
a nationalist party like the BJP, which
rides on the idea of Hindu consolida-
tion. “The JD(U) and RJD, which claim
to represent marginalised communi-
ties, are demanding a caste census to
strengthen their identity politics. But
a party like the BJP, which is often
accused by rivals of communal polari-
sation, will stand weakened. They can-
not afford that in the run-up to the UP
polls,” says Nawal Kishore Chaudhary,
former head of the economics depart-
ment at Patna University.
Another proponent of the caste
census is former UP chief minis-
ter and Samajwadi Party president
Akhilesh Yadav. In January last year,
he claimed—without elaborating
how—that a caste census would end
Hindu-Muslim conflicts. Maharashtra
and Odisha have also demanded a
caste-based enumeration. “While a caste
census may further divide the already
fragmented Hindu society, it will also
ensure greater empowerment of those
who have been left out. Importantly, it
will strike at religious polarisation to the
detriment of national parties like the

BJP,” asserts a senior JD(U) leader.
The 27 per cent OBC quota was
a key recommendation of the B.P.
Mandal Commission and implemented
by the V.P. Singh government in 1990.
This was also a period when the BJP
was spearheading the Ram Mandir
movement. Dwelling on the ‘Mandal-
Kamandal’ politics of that time, another
senior JD(U) leader says: “The Mandir
movement was a one-off event and has
suffered from the law of diminishing
returns. It was the Mandal movement,
with the promise of empowerment of
the socially backward, that had a last-
ing impact. It created such awareness
among the backward castes that no poli-
tician can reverse the process.”
Positive discrimination has been
at the centre of India’s approach to
addressing disparity, be it social or eco-
nomic. Bihar, under Nitish, has focused
hard on it while striving for the uplift
of the downtrodden. Backward classes
in the state are divided into OBCs and
EBCs (Extremely Backward Classes). As
against the Centre’s 27 per cent quota,
OBCs in Bihar get 12 per cent reserva-
tion. EBCs get 18 per cent and backward
class women 3 per cent. “A caste census
can throw up numbers that can help
regional parties,” adds the JD(U) leader.
T
he last caste census was held in
1931. The pre-Independence
exercise, which covered present-
day Pakistan and Bangladesh, put
backward castes at 52 per cent of India’s
population. There has been a longstand-
ing demand for a fresh assessment of
the OBC population in the country, but
successive governments have failed to
show political intent.
In 2011, the UPA government
undertook the Socio-Economic Caste
Census to compile data on the caste and
economic status of households. The
Registrar General of India (RGI) and
several central ministries were involved
in the process. The socio-economic data
SONU KISHAN
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
Nitish Kumar has called for a caste-
based enumeration in the census
from the census was made public in 2015,
but the caste data was withheld, citing
discrepancies.
Going ahead with a caste-based
census could be a double-edged sword
for the BJP-led central government.
Depending on the data that is thrown up,
it could trigger an unpredictable politi-
cal and social churn. But given how caste
and social justice are interlinked in the
country, it may not be possible to put off
the census indefinitely. Arguments have
been made in favour of apportioning
benefits and opportunities provided by
the state solely in terms of the population
size of castes and communities, but there
are larger questions to be considered.
For instance, will such an allocation not
prove to be a massive setback for the lon-
ger-term goal of a caste-free Indian soci-
ety? Clearly, there are no easy answers. n
AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 11
UPFRONT
R AJASTH A N
HINDUTVA’S
TRIBAL
TROUBLES
By Rohit Parihar
O
n July 21, a video went viral
of a saffron flag hoisted
at the Ambagarh garri-
son ramparts being torn
while it was being taken
down. The flag was planted by local
Hindutva outfits a week before and was
taken down by the Rajasthan Adivasi
Meena Sangh led by its president and
independent MLA from Gangapur City,
Ramkesh Meena. The Meenas were
apparently angry at the Hindutva out-
fit’s attempt to appropriate a temple of
Amba Mata Devi—a goddess revered by
the tribal community—at the fort.
Soon, social media was agog with
outraged comments from both sides,
with some sections tying the events to
a ‘sanatan saffron’ cause. Hindutva
groups and fringe personalities, includ-
ing Suresh Chavhanke, editor-in-chief
of the controversial Sudarshan TV chan-
nel, precipitated matters with a call to
the public to march to the fort to “rein-
stal the saffron flag with Jai Shri Ram
written on it” on August 1. Realising
the situation could turn explosive, FIRs
were filed against both Chavhanke
12 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1
ROHIT JAIN PARAS
and Ramkesh Meena, the police was
deployed and the fort was sealed.
Initially, the BJP kept off the con-
troversy but after reports of a back-
lash from the Meena community, the
party brought its MP and influential
community leader Kirori Lal Meena
into play. His first action was to attack
Ramkesh Meena and the Ashok
Gehlot-led Congress government, say-
ing they were trying to create a divide
between the Hindus and the tribal
Meena. He also declared that he would
“unfurl a flag” at the fort. Despite heavy
deployment of police all around, Kirori
Lal, 69, and his men, braving the rains,
The Meenas are angry
at the Hindutva outfit’s
attempt to appropriate
a temple of Amba
Mata Devi, a goddess
revered by the tribal
community
climbed through the thick forest and
unfurled the flag on the morning of
August 1. But it wasn’t a saffron flag;
it was a flag of the Meena community.
That move left both sides stumped
briefly, but the matter was soon back
on the boil.
The whole issue started in June
when it was reported that miscreants
had damaged the idols at the temple
and, subsequently, that new idols were
installed. The initial suspicions focused
on the local Muslim community and
the police even detained some juve-
niles. Then, in July, it was reported that
a saffron flag had been hoisted on a
high mast installed in the fort.
That was when the Adivasi Meena
Sangh decided enough was enough.
There was already some resentment
since when the idols were replaced—the
original Meena deity, Amba Devi, had
made way for the sanatan Ambika Devi.
The ruins of the Ambagarh fort,
listed as an archaeological site, are said
to be one of the last relics left of the
Meena tribe that once ruled Jaipur and
Amer before they were vanquished by

the Kachawa Rajputs who founded the
Jaipur dynasty a thousand years ago.
Ramkesh Meena says he had taken
along the people who had installed the
saffron flag to remove it amicably as
they had “realised their mistake”. Jaipur
police commissioner Anand Srivastava
too confirmed this to india today. But
after Chavhanke’s public dare, Ramkesh
and his cohorts declared that “there can
either be a Meena flag or a tricolour at
the fort, but we will not allow an RSS-
sponsored saffron flag”. Soon enough,
many others joined the war of words
with support for the Meena cause com-
ing from even outside the state. Gujarat
MLA and founder of the Bharat Tribal
Party (BTP) Chhotubhai Vasava and
Chandra Shekhar Azad of the Bhim
Army were among those quite vocal in
their support. Some leaders of the Jat
and Gujjar communities too extended
their support. BTP legislator from
Chorasi in Rajasthan, Raj Kumar Roat,
even highlighted a similar attempt in
Salumbar in Udaipur district last year,
where Hindutva forces had tried to
“convert” a tribal temple in Sonarpahari.
CUSTOM CAUSE
BJP’s Kirori Lal Meena at the
fort; video grab of the saffron
flag being taken down
Fearing a backlash, the BJP ini-
tially stayed silent on the issue. But
party MLA and ex-minister Vasudev
Devnani sees a bigger conspiracy. “A
small section of the Meena is trying
to separate the community from the
Hindus; it’s part of a plan to unite the
tribal population as a separate, non-
Hindu entity. This is a ploy to weaken
India...,” he says.
B
oth the Congress and the BJP
have tried to downplay the epi-
sode but the tribal rights issue
could become a political hot potato
soon in Rajasthan. Right now, 25
of the 200 seats in the assembly are
reserved for the Scheduled Tribes, and
they influence the results in a dozen
other seats. The Meena are the domi-
nant tribal community here, one which
has benefitted tremendously from the
ST reservation in education and jobs.
The community has huge clout in the
bureaucracy and has little in common
with the poverty-stricken tribes of
southern Rajasthan.
The tribal rights issue has been
brewing since March 9 when Youth
Congress chief and tribal MLA Ganesh
Ghogra, a confidant of Gehlot, created
an uproar in the assembly by claiming
that tribals have their own culture and
the Hindu religion was being forced
on them. The BJP has since asked the
Congress to take a clear stand on wheth-
er it considers the tribals Hindus or not.
Meanwhile, many others are now asking
if non-Hindu tribals should get reser-
vations in the first place. On March 13,
another Congress MLA, Gopal Meena,
and independent Ramkesh Meena
demanded a separate national tribal
religious code with a separate column in
the census form at a Meena community
conference in Jaipur.
The same day, the state BJP too
upped the ante. At a seminar in Jaipur,
Union minister Faggan Singh Kulaste
waded in, calling the tribals sanatani
Hindus, citing examples of similar
religious customs and describing the
Meena as “descendants of Vishnu”.
What is significant is the BTP,
which stunned everyone by winning
two seats in the last assembly poll, have
hailed the demand for declaring tribals
as non-Hindus and a separate code for
them. The BTP has a love-hate relation-
ship with the Congress. It backed Gehlot
during Sachin Pilot’s revolt last year but
withdrew support to the government in
December when the Congress and BJP
joined hands to thwart the BTP can-
didate in the Dungarpur zila parishad
chairperson poll.
The two main political parties have
always cornered the ST votes, and they
will be keenly watching how much
traction they get in the debate over the
Hindu-ness of the Meenas. The BJP is
also ratcheting up the issue of religious
conversions, which will help it consoli-
date its Hindu vote-bank in non-tribal
areas. On August 8, in a bid to defuse
the situation (and the BJP’s threat of an
agitation), the government allowed wor-
ship of Amba Mata at the shrine from
8 am to 4 pm. Political parties have
rarely tried to play the tribal card in
Rajasthan, but it seems even that no-go
area is up for grabs now. n
AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 13
INDIA’S
WONDER
WOMEN
AGAINST DAUNTING ODDS, INDIA’S
SPORTSWOMEN DID US PROUD, BUT
THE OVERALL MEDAL TALLY WAS
DISAPPOINTING. HERE’S A BLUEPRINT FOR
WINNING MORE MEDALS IN THE FUTURE

BY B O R I A M A J U M D A R I N T O K YO

I WAS IN TEARS AFTER

LOSING IN THE SEMIS.
MY COACH, PARK,
REMINDED ME THERE
IS A BIG DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN A BRONZE
AND FINISHING
FOURTH. THAT HIT
ME—I KNEW I HAD TO
GET THAT MEDAL”
P.V. S I N D H U , 2 6
BRONZE, WOMEN’S
SINGLES, BADMINTON

16 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1

GETTY IMAGES
 COVER
STORY

I WAS DEJECTED I HAD LOST TO N.C. CHEN FOUR

AFTER THE RIO TIMES. FOR ME, THE CHALLENGE
GAMES. AFTER WAS TO PROVE TO MYSELF THAT I
WINNING THE 2018 COULD BEAT HER. I DIDN’T HAVE A
COMMONWEALTH STRATEGY. MAIN KHUL KE KHELI”
GAMES, I HAD
DREAMT OF LOVLINA BORGOHAIN, 23
WINNING AN OLYMPIC BRONZE, WOMEN’S
W E LT E R W E I G H T B OX I N G
MEDAL. IT HAS
FINALLY COME TRUE”
MIRABAI CHANU, 26
S I LV E R , W O M E N ’ S 4 9 KG
WEIGHTLIFTING

MIRABAI CHANU 00
S I LV E R M E D A L I N W O M E N ’ S
4 9 KG · W E I G H T L I F T I N G

PARAS MENDIRATTA/SAI

AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 17

AFP
 COVER
STORY

P.V.
JACK GUEZ/ GETTY IMAGES
SINDHU HAD JUST WON her second Olympic
medal and the few of us from India who were in the
stands at the Musashino Forest Sport Plaza were
understandably ecstatic. After all, Olympic medals
are still hard to come by for India, and Sindhu is the
happy exception who lived up to her billing, with back
to back medals on the world’s biggest sporting stage. MEN WHO
SHONE
Sindhu knew I’d press her for an exclusive inter-
view, and was happy to comply. But these were ex-
ceptional circumstances, and the Covid-safety norms
at the Tokyo Games were understandably stringent.
Neither of us knew, though, at the time how difficult it THOUGH OUTPERFORMED BY
would be to pull off what is now, between us, a routine
post-match/ event ‘exclusive’. As soon as she emerged INDIA’S WOMEN ATHLETES, THE
from the mandatory post-match dope test, the organ- MEN ALSO NOTCHED UP SOME
isers made for Sindhu, to shepherd her to the safety IMPRESSIVE RECORDS
of the athletes’ room. Stepping out for the interview
would be a breach of government-mandated protocol,
and the warning was stern: “You can’t return to the
athletes’ village if you go with him!”
N E E R A J C H O P R A 23
By this time, the television newsroom back home was in a
state of panic, dreading that the much-anticipated interview J AV E L I N T H R O W
would not materialise. After much persuasion, Sindhu was al-
The 2018 Asian Games gold
lowed to do a print interview (no cameras, please!), in the press
medallist and former junior world
conference room, with an official on watch to ensure we kept
champion lived up to his billing
the mandated safe distance of six feet between us. There had to
by finishing first in the qualifica-
be another way. tion round, where he out-threw
Sindhu left for the Games village and I got on the media bus his biggest rival for the gold,
for my hotel—but only to get off midway once she messaged. Germany’s Johannes Vetter. In his
We eventually recorded the interview at 3 in the morning, on a very first throw, Chopra cruised
Zoom call, in some nondescript place en route! What she told past the qualification mark of
me was worth the struggle: “There was a lot of pressure and I 83.5m. Regardless of the result on
knew people back home were expecting everything. I kept that Saturday, he made history by be-
emotion aside when I played and gave my best. It’s not easy. It’s coming the first Indian to qualify
a lot of hard work. Now I’m super happy.” for the finals in this event.
Tokyo 2020/21 has been by far the most difficult Olympic
Games to cover. But the insistence on these sometimes-painful
protocols is also the reason why the Games organisers managed
to pull it off. Despite all the doomsday predictions, Covid cases

18 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1

 F O U A A D M I R Z A 29
EQUESTRIAN (EVENTING)
Competing with Seigneur Medicott, the
horse with whom he won two silvers at
the 2018 Asian Games, Mirza started out
with a fine routine in dressage which
saw him finish in the top 10. His ranking
dropped in the subsequent rounds—
cross country and jumping—but the
world #70 rider rode with aplomb to
qualify for the final round of 25 pairings.
It was an incredible feat among an elite
group of 63 riders from across the world.

—SUHANI SINGH

R AV I K U M A R D A H I Y A 2 3
F R E E S T Y L E W R E S T L I N G ( 5 7 KG )

Dahiya became only the second wres-

tler after Sushil Kumar to make it to an
Olympic final. After easing through two
bouts on technical superiority, Dahiya
demonstrated tremendous spirit and
composure in the semis where he fought
back with hardly a minute to go. Gold or
silver, a new wrestling star is born.
BEHROUZ MEHRI / AFP

AFP

AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 19

 COVER
STORY
JUSTIN SETTERFIELD/ GETTY IMAGES

among key participants—officials, athletes, contracted

staff and media—never exceeded the 0.02 per cent mark,
and the Games, by and large, went off well.

T
he same cannot be said of the underwhelming
Indian campaign, the odd highs notwith-
standing. There were some breakthrough
performances, but the hope of a double-digit
medal haul, which appeared realistic when
we left India, remained a hope for later. The shooting team
had their second consecutive barren Games; the archers
belied their promise; boxers like Vikas Krishan and Amit
Panghal failed to live up to the hype; and some like Chirag
Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy in badminton were
unlucky to not make it to the quarter-finals even after win-
ning two of their matches.
But even in the midst of these disappointments and a
persistent medal drought, there were uplifting stories of
gutsy effort. Nobody would have given the women’s hockey A R C H E RY
team a chance against three-time Olympic champions
Australia. Yet Rani Rampal, who took to hockey to ensure Deepika Kumari arrived in Tokyo ranked
she was able to build a pucca house and eat two full meals world #1, but only made it as far as the
a day, inspired her girls to do a Chak De! India. An un- quarter finals—her best showing in three
fancied team defied all odds against the best in women’s Olympics—where she fell to the eventual
hockey, writing an inspiring renaissance tale even though Olympic champion, South Korea’s An San.
they lost in the semis. The scenes at the Oi hockey stadium, Atanu Das beat 2012 Olympic champion
the girls crying for Oh Jin-hyek in a thrilling contest, but then
joy and Hindi music lost to Tokyo’s bronze medallist Takaharu
blaring from the Furukawa in the pre-quarters. The favou-

33 *
loudspeakers, could red mixed team pairing of Kumari and Das
have been out of the didn’t materialise after Pravin Jadhav out-
Shah Rukh Khan scored Das in the individual ranking round.
film. Only this time
round, it was for real.
MEDALS INDIA
HAS WON AT The hockey girls
THE OLYMPIC weren’t alone. The
GAMES SINCE diminutive Mirabai dreams do also come true with grit and hard work. Boxer
1900 Chanu, who lifted Lovlina Borgohain’s village did not have a pucca road
logs to start with—to leading to her house, but the moment she was assured of a

32 *
make sure there was medal, the state government back home in Assam started
enough wood to light construction in a gesture of appreciation for their new
the fire in her village champion. While Chanu and Lovlina won medals, fencer
home 22 km from C.A. Bhavani Devi, Manika Batra (table tennis), Kamalpre-
Imphal—ignited et Kaur (discus) have also impressed in Tokyo. It wouldn’t
THE NUMBER OF
Indian hopes on the be a stretch to say women led from the front in these Games,
GOLD MEDALS
CHINA HAS WON AT very first day of the and gave India more joy than their male counterparts.
THE TOKYO GAMES competition in Tokyo. A close analysis of the Indian effort, at the Games and
ALONE From failure in Rio more crucially in the preparatory run-up, will reveal that as-
to the silver in Tokyo, pirations aside, brag-worthy performance is some distance
*As on August 5, 2021
Chanu is proof that away. We have taken some good steps, and made some prog-

20 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1

 UNDER
PERFORMERS
HOPE RODE HIGH FOR INDIA’S ARCHERS, SHOOTERS
AND BOXERS, BUT IT WAS NOT TO BE. LACKLUSTRE
PERFORMANCES LED TO EARLY EXITS

SHOOTING
Many hoped India’s shooters would match, if
not improve, the London 2012 performance,
where India’s contingent won two medals. It
wasn’t to be, with only Saurabh Chaudhary
making it as far as the finals. The rest buckled
under pressure, with many, including Manu
Bhaker and Abhishek Verma, failing to hit
the target at the tail end of the competition.

M E N ’ S B OX I N G
Expectations were high for India’s male boxing
contingent, riding on a squad that included flyweight
world #1 Amit Panghal. Instead, Panghal, along with
Manish Kaushik and Vikas Krishan, was comprehen-
sively beaten in the first round itself. Satish Kumar
was the lone warrior to win a match. With this result,
Vijender Singh in the 2008 Beijing Games is still the
only male Indian pugilist to win an Olympic medal.

—SUHANI SINGH

SHOOTERS HAD ALL THE ress too, but a place in, say, the Top 10 medal winners list at
the Olympics is still at least a decade away. Tokyo was not an
FACILITIES TO EXCEL. YET aberration. While we do expect shooting to pick up and per-
A CONFIDENTIAL REPORT haps boxing as well, do not expect a magical turnaround in
SENT TO THE NRAI SAID Paris 2024. Our expectations need to be moderated: we can
70% SHOOTERS UNDER- still aspire to a double-digit medal haul in Paris, but we are
not on the threshold of breaking into the big league just yet.
PERFORM AT EVERY MAJOR This is not to doubt the talent or potential of Indian
EVENT DUE TO PRESSURE athletes. Nor to suggest that these men and women are not
OR THE INABILITY ready for the world stage. But it takes more than just talent
to win at the Games. Take, for example, Saurabh Chaud-
TO SELF-REGULATE hary in shooting. Over the past three years, Saurabh, 19,
has won many medals in the 10m air pistol event. It was
only natural to expect a medal from him in Tokyo. True to

AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 21

COVER
STORY
THE BIG
REVIVAL
WITH THE MEN’S TEAM WINNING A MEDAL
AFTER 41 YEARS AND THE WOMEN’S TEAM
QUALIFYING FOR THE SEMI-FINALS FOR THE
FIRST TIME EVER, INDIAN HOCKEY IS FIRMLY
BACK ON THE GLOBAL STAGE
B
ack in 2011,
during his first
stint in Indian
hockey, David
John was the
fitness trainer
for the men’s
team. The Australian’s compatriot
Michael Nobbs had just been
appointed the team’s coach and
had underlined physical fitness
(or the lack thereof) as a major
factor behind India’s dwindling
performances.
Both set out to instil a culture
of physical transformation among
the Indian players to match their
European counterparts. Under
Nobbs and John, players like
Sardar Singh and Sandeep Singh
dramatically improved their
physical prowess. Yet, global
success eluded India. Nobbs was
sacked unceremoniously in 2013,
as were many coaches who came
after him. John, too, initially got
the boot, but made a comeback in
2016 as the team’s high-perfor-
mance director.
Today, though, as Indian
hockey finally unshackles itself
and rises after years of falling
short, Nobbs’ and John’s contribu-
tion to the game in India cannot
be overlooked. What Graham Reid
(current men’s hockey coach) and
Sjoerd Marijne (current women’s
hockey coach) have done differ-
ently is make the players believe
in themselves.
One must also remember that
Indian hockey had to free itself of
the old-school methods that had
taken them to great heights in the
previous century. A re-education
was necessary. The Indian wom-
en’s hockey team losing to Great
Britain in the league stage on July
28 was a prime example of the old
ways failing to make an impact.
“The old Indian style of hockey
doesn’t work anymore. That’s
what they did today, kept the ball
with them for way too long, and
we lost,” coach Marijne said after
the 1-4 loss.
However, apart from
physical fitness, the Indian teams
are mentally confident like never
before. It was visible in the way
the men’s team came back to
win five straight matches after
going down by their biggest
margin ever (1-7 to Australia) in
an Olympic contest. Or the way
the women’s team made it to the
semi-finals for the first time after
three consecutive losses in the
group stage. “The difference is
believing in ourselves, and then
it’s about going back to reality,”
Marijne said after upsetting world
INDIAN HOCKEY
COMES FROM
A DIFFERENT
PLACE. A LOT OF
INDIAN SKILLS
HAVE DEVELOPED
BECAUSE THEY
ARE NOT BIG-
BODIED LIKE THE
EUROPEANS”
—GRAHAM REID
Coach, Indian men’s hockey team
No.2 Australia in the quarter
finals in Tokyo. “If you lose, you
don’t stop believing and that’s
what I told the girls.”
The Indian team has been
blessed with a perfect blend of
youth and experience. So, along
with veterans like P.R. Sreejesh,
Rupinderpal Singh and Manpreet
Singh, there are newer players
like Harmanpreet and Dilpreet
Singh. On the women’s side, an
experienced Rani Rampal can
play her game peacefully, fully
aware that a young Lalremsiami
always has her back.
“Indian hockey comes from
a different place. A lot of Indian
 AFP
The men’s team celebrates after their
historic bronze win (Aug. 4)
skills have developed because they
are not big-bodied like the Europeans.
We have to bridge the gap in strength,”
men’s hockey team coach Reid told the
Olympic Channel. “Some of the best in
the world are not huge. We have a lot of
stick skills and we will continue to use
those. We like to pass the ball around
and don’t give time to tackle. We have
different skills than Germany, the Neth-
erlands and Australia, and that is what
is unique about India.”
Another crucial factor is the rising
clout of Hockey India. The national fed-
eration has ensured that Indian players
get maximum exposure by bringing in
almost all global hockey competitions to
the country in the past few years. Odi-
sha, which is also the chief sponsor of
Indian hockey teams, has now become
the hub of international hockey.
In March 2008, Indian hockey had
hit a low point when it lost to England
2-0, which kept India out of the Beijing
Olympics. For the first time, India did not
have a hockey team at the Olympics.
But, with the men bringing home bronze
and women making it to the semi-finals,
Tokyo 2020 has marked another chap-
ter in Indian hockey.
—RAHUL RAWAT
his billing, Saurabh scored an outstanding 586 (out of 600) in the
qualifying round and made it to the final as the top-ranked shooter
in a strong pool of 70. It looked like he had peaked at just the right
time. But it all went awry for him in the first final relay of five shots.
Saurabh totalled a poor 47.4 (on 50)—when he has never done a 47
in the past four years! That unexpected dip in performance came in
an Olympic final.
Does that make Saurabh a bad shooter? Was he not ready for the
big stage? No sooner than he had flubbed the 10m air pistol event,
self-styled experts on social media were writing him off—he was
all hype, no substance, they said. For some more parallel-universe
context, even Novak Djokovic failed to win a medal at these highly
unusual Games; Simone Biles chose to bow out of most of her gym-
nastics events citing mental health issues; Kento Momota crashed
out; Ashleigh Barty made 55 unforced errors in the first round; and
Naomi Osaka too failed to
deliver. Saurabh Chaudhary is
3
human—and still young.
Just two days after that
setback, he was back at the
range partnering Manu Bhak-
er in the 10m air pistol mixed
MEDALS FOR event. This time, he was in
INDIA IN WOMEN’S stellar form. India scored 582
BADMINTON IN 3
in the first qualifying round,
BACK-TO-BACK
OLYMPICS an Olympic record, with Sau-
rabh leading the charge with
a spectacular 296 of 300. In
5
the second qualifying round,
where the top four teams make
the cut, Saurabh finished with
194 of 200. Had Manu been
INDIA’S MEDAL even close to her best, Saurabh
TALLY IN might have won a medal.
WRESTLING IN It’s this ‘what could have
4 OLYMPICS SINCE been’ feeling that defines
2008 India’s performance in
Tokyo. What explains India’s
seemingly chronic underper-
formance at the Olympics?
Financial backing did improve considerably after Rio 2016. Shoot-
ers have had all the facilities they needed to excel. Yet, a confidential
report by one of the coaches, sent to the National Rifle Association
of India (NRAI) in 2018, says that more than 70 per cent of our
shooters underperform at every major event. The report attributes
this dip to pressure and the inability to self-regulate. It also notes
that while we now have a lot of talent, we lack sports science. Manu
Bhaker’s performance illustrates the point. In the rapidfire segment
of the 25m pistol, Bhaker had a good 3 seconds to shoot a bullet.
When she held her nerve, and utilised close to the allotted time, she
ended up with scores of 10.7-10.9 (where only 10 is recorded); the
only time she fired a shot in 1.7 seconds, she got an 8. She failed to
make the final by 2 points.
There’s no questioning Bhaker’s talent; what she lacks is what
Abhinav Bindra—still the lone Indian to win gold in an individual
event—refers to as “the decisive 1 per cent”. After London 2012 (he
won gold in Beijing 2008), Bindra modelled his entire training
on sports science and came closest in Rio to winning his second
AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 23
 COVER
STORY

GRIT &
Olympic medal. That’s what these young shooters need to do
going forward: make use of sports science and learn to handle
GLORY
INDIA’S WOMEN ATHLETES
pressure. That may be easier said, but if done, Paris could be a
different story for the current bunch of talented Indian shooters.
PERSEVERED AGAINST HEAVY
Another coach said on condition of anonymity: “You ask why ODDS TO LEAVE THEIR MARK ON
we win world cups but not Olympic medals. When they shoot THE WORLD STAGE
at world cups, they know the next event is just a month away. ‘If
not here, then at the next event’ is the thought process. But at the
Olympics, they are not certain of a next chance four years down
the line.” This now-or-never pressure at the Olympics, he says, is
LOVLINA
a big factor affecting performance. BORGOHAIN 23
Likewise with our archers and boxers. While Deepika Ku- B OX I N G
mari and Atanu Das are both experienced campaigners, sports
science is not a big feature of their training modules. A review
of Deepika’s health parameters, monitored during the quarter-
final against An San of Korea (the eventual winner), showed she “There was this belief that my parents must
was not in control of her have done something bad in their past lives to
nerves. She was trying too have deserved three daughters,” said Borgo-
hard. Atanu Das, likewise, hain, recalling the taunts her parents faced in
faltered in the final series
“WE HAVE THE against the Japanese after
Bara Mukhia village in Assam’s Golaghat dis-
trict. That all three took to a combat sport like
99 PER CENT ousting a two-time Olym- muay thai didn’t help. While her twin sisters
BUT IT IS THE pic champion, drawing at- gave it up, Lovlina persisted, later switch-
BATTLE FOR tention to the inconsistency
that continues to plague
ing to boxing. Now, all anyone can talk
THAT 1 PER CENT India’s archers.
about is her Olympic medal and how
it has transformed the village. Her
THAT CONTINUES The most crushing bronze medal has paved the way for
TO TROUBLE disappointment, however, a concrete road to ensure her smooth
was the tame, first-round
OUR SPORTS­ exit of decorated boxers
homecoming.
PERSONS” Vikas Krishan and Amit
Panghal. Vikas, uncon-
— A B H I N AV B I N D R A
Olympic gold medallist, Shooting
scionably, fought with a R A N I R A M PA L 26
severe injury to his shoulder
and never stood a chance.
HOCKEY
How could someone with a Growing up in a tiny one-room house
serious tendon injury even travel to Tokyo as a part of the Indian in Shahbad, Haryana, Rampal knew
contingent? The Olympics are not a participation junket. While early on that picking up the stick could
Vikas was injured, Amit, sources in the team confirmed, was fully be a way out for her family which was
fit and ready. What went wrong with him, then? Some say Amit struggling to manage two meals a
hadn’t eaten right the night before, and apparently overate the day. At 15, she became the youngest
next morning before heading to the venue—flyweight boxers need player to make it to the national team
to watch their weight ahead of the bout. “Uska diet idhar-udhar and was immediately nominated
ho gaya tha, woh sambhal nahin paya. Woh pehle round ke baad for FIH’s 2010 Young Player of the
RAMINDER PAL SINGH/ EPA

tired ho gaya (his diet went awry and he got tired at the end of the Year Award. A veteran at just 26,
first round),” said one of the coaches. This kind of lapse is uncon- Rampal has led India in back-
donable at the highest level; competing athletes have to be moni- to-back Olympics now. A
tored and managed professionally, with scientific aids at the ready. year after the Rio Games,
Santiago Nieva, the high-performance director for Indian boxing, she realised another
made a startling revelation: “Amit had sparred with this Colom- dream—buying her
family a house.

24 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1

K A M A L P R E E T K A U R 25
DISCUS

VINCENZO PINTO / AFP

For Kaur, taking up a sport meant avoiding the pres-
sure of early marriage that many young girls in her
village Kabarwala in Punjab face. “I thought sports
will be my ticket to get a job and avoid marriage,” she
told the website Scroll in an interview early this year.
Luckily, the strappy 6’1” girl had her father Kuldeep
Singh’s support. But Kaur didn’t want to burden
him financially, given that the joint family lived on
modest earnings earned through farming. So Kaur
moved to the Sports Authority Centre in Badal to
pursue shot put before turning to discus throw on
the recommendation of coach Preethpal Maru. Kaur
showed immediate results at the youth level, break-
ing the under-20 national record. The funds shortage,
though, remained till she got a job in the Railways
and was selected to be part of Go Sports Foundation’s
Rahul Dravid Athlete Mentorship Programme. Kaur’s M I R A B A I C H A N U 26
sixth place finish in the finals of the To-
kyo Games matches Krishna Poonia’s WEIGHTLIFTING
feat in 2012 London.
In her childhood, lifting weights was
more a necessity than an Olympic
dream for Mirabai Chanu. Youngest of
six siblings, she would carry firewood
on her head, at times a heavier load than
her two brothers, so as to reduce the
burden on her mother, who worked in
the paddy field in addition to running
a small tea kiosk in Nongpok Kakch-
ing village in Manipur. The family, after
all, couldn’t depend only on her father’s
salary as a construction worker in the
Manipur public works department.
When Mirabai, then 12, decided to take
up weightlifting and travel daily to the
Khuman Lampak stadium in Imphal
for practise, the family chipped in with
all its resources. Her sisters saved and
contributed for her commute while on
occasion the youngster walked half the
distance so as not to inconvenience the
family. All those hardships paid off after
Chanu started faring well internation-
CHRISTIAN PETERSEN/ GETTY IMAGES

ally, especially in 2017, when she became

only the second Indian to become a
world champion. The silver at Tokyo has
already reaped rich dividends, with the
Manipur government and her employ-
ers, the Indian Railways, announcing
cash awards. The weight of supporting
her family already seems lighter.

—SUHANI SINGH
 COVER
STORY
bian player (Yuberjen Martinez) in Italy and we knew he
was dangerous. Amit had to win it in two rounds, or it
was going to be tough.” Nieva also confirmed that Amit
was tired after the first round. How does this happen?
How does one of India’s leading amateur pugilists lose
steam after three minutes of boxing? Why bother with
‘high-performance coaches’ and pay them top dollar year
after year if this is the quality of their intervention?
It seems some things in Indian sport will never
change. While action is being taken against Manika Batra
for refusing to have national coach Soumyadip Roy in
her corner, we need to ask: why wasn’t Manika’s coach
accredited? Had the TTFI (Table
Tennis Federation of India) decided
not to accredit general secretary M.P.
Singh and helped Manika instead,
the unnecessary controversy may
have been avoided. “At IOA (Indian
Olympic Association), we do not decide
on the accreditations. We are like a (PLUS 1 SILVER, 3
post office—we accredited whoever BRONZE) MAKES
TTFI suggested,” said IOA president
HOCKEY THE MOST
Narinder Batra. This ‘babu culture’
persists in Indian Olympic sports, and
Manika Batra’s fate is an illustration of
its consequences.
T
he total medal count in
Tokyo may be an improve-
ment on Rio (where we got
1 silver and 1 bronze) but AFTER WHICH THE
it’s nothing to crow about,
certainly not for a country of 1.3 billion, HOCKEY TEAM HAS
with superpower aspirations. Should
we expect a dramatic turnaround in
Paris 2024? For perspective on how
long it might take, the example of Great
Britain may be apt. Britain had won a solitary gold medal
in Atlanta in 1996. In 1997, National Lottery funds were
ploughed into British Olympic sports, and in a decade and
a half, Team GB had won 29 gold medals (London 2012).
They added to their tally in Rio and at the time of going
to press, Team GB was placed at #4 in the overall medal
standings in Tokyo.
In India, the process has started. There is no ques-
tion that Rio was a big disappointment, but it was also a
reminder of the uncertainty of sport. You can train hard
and prepare all you might—and yet falter on the big day. If
there was a medal for preparation, Abhinav Bindra would
surely have won it. Reassuringly for India, the building
26 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1
blocks of a revival are in sight. On the positive side of the
ledger, funding for sport in India has increased. In 2016,
the government of India was spending about Rs 11.5 per
Indian on sport (Budget allocation: Rs 1,541 crore); by
2019, this had increased to Rs 16.5 per Indian (Budget
outlay: Rs 2,217 crore).
The National Sports Development Fund was set up
in 1998-99 with a measly corpus of Rs 2 crore. In two
decades since, the Fund has garnered Rs 240 crore, with
roughly 38 per cent of that amount coming from private
sources, 35 per cent from government-owned companies
and the rest from the government. Government funding
of elite athletes, extended through the sports federations,
for their training and participation in international events
has gone up nearly fourfold between 2014-15 (Rs 130
crore) and 2019-20 (Budget ceiling: Rs 482.5 crore), the
sports ministry reported in Parliament.
Under the government’s Target
Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS),
8
which identifies elite athletes and sup-
ports their training, Rs 100 crore was
earmarked specifically for Tokyo 2020,
the Sports Authority of India had an-
GOLD MEDALS nounced in December 2018. TOPS was
set up in September 2014 and became
operational in mid-2015. Abhinav Bin-
INDIAN MEN’S
dra headed its selection panel through
SUCCESSFUL 2017, when 220 athletes were funded
TEAM EVER by the scheme. In 2016, TOPS spent
Rs 19.9 crore on athletes in 17 sports.
41
This increased to Rs 28.2 crore across
19 sports in 2017-18.
National badminton coach Pullela
Gopichand confirms the government
NO. OF YEARS has been supportive: “For the (SAI
Gopichand National) Academy, they
INDIAN MEN’S gave about Rs 5 crore from the NSDF
(National Sports Development Fund).
WON A MEDAL
Also, about 50 players are supported in
terms of their food and accommodation.
So, food, accommodation plus tourna-
ment exposure for these 50 kids is huge
support, which I get from the government of India.”
Add to this: private initiatives from the likes of Go
Sports Foundation, JSW Sports and Olympic Gold Quest,
and it’s clear the support infrastructure is slowly falling in
place. For Britain, the turnaround was a 15-year cycle; In-
dia is barely four to five years into the process. We should
hope to progress with every Olympics, and hope for much
better in Paris 2024, but it’s probably more realistic to
expect the big surge in India’s Olympic performance, the
stuff every Indian dreams of, no sooner than Los Angeles
2028. Between now and that coveted glory lies a hard
grind, a slow, barely perceptible march towards what
Bindra calls “perfection on an imperfect day”. n
 THE NATION | BJP
MAKING
OF A NEW
LOOK BJP
THE PARTY TRIES TO SHED ITS ‘BRAHMIN-BANIA’
IMAGE WITH A YOUNGER LEADERSHIP TIER
WHERE WOMEN AND BACKWARD CLASSES
SANJEEV VERMA/ GETTY IMAGES
CAN BE PIVOTS OF FUTURE GROWTH
By Anilesh S. Mahajan
O
n July 30, the Union cabinet cleared the
decks to give 27 per cent reservation to can-
didates from the Other Backward Classes
(OBC) and Economically Weaker Sections
(EWS) in the all-India quotas for under-
graduate and postgraduate medical/ dental
courses. The decision appears to be politi-
cally timed, as just months from now, five
states go to the polls.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
is obviously calculating its electoral divi-
dends from this. Taking a piecemeal view,
this could be thought of as a one-off effort
to score brownie points before the elections,
but party sources say it’s just another piece
in the BJP and Sangh parivar’s larger plan
to change the party’s image. The BJP top
tier, consisting of Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, home minister Amit Shah and party
chief J.P. Nadda, are rebuilding the party
with a focus on a convergence of castes—
largely from the OBCs and Dalits—as a win-
ning formula while simultaneously building
a new leadership category of women and
younger party leaders.
The new BJP is not only chasing the
OBCs for votes but is also looking at their
younger generation for its cadre and leader-
ship positions. To this end, in Maharashtra,
the party is anchoring the movement to
protect OBC reservation in local bodies.
Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has even
written to Maharashtra chief minister Ud-
dhav Thackeray asking him to postpone the
local body election since a decision on quotas
is pending (the fight has reached the apex
court). In Punjab, after the divorce with the
Akali Dal, the BJP is consolidating its base
among the OBCs (31.3 per cent of voters) and
Dalits (31.9 per cent) with commitments on
larger political representation and equitable
reservation in education as well as govern-
ment services. In poll-bound Uttar Pradesh,
the party has formed OBC (non-Yadav) and
Dalit (non-Jatav) caste coalitions and is try-
ing to consolidate them. The Centre is also
working on the 127th Constitution Amend-
ment Bill which will restore powers to the
states and Union territories to draw up their
own OBC lists. A May 5 Supreme Court

order had taken this away from the
state governments, saying a 2018 law
confines such powers to the Centre.
In the past seven years, the Sangh
Parivar and the BJP had put out a
Hindutva version of nationalism-
populism that has gained traction
with several communities among the
Dalits, OBCs and STs. It also had to
do with the voter chemistry Modi
created—for the first time, the BJP
had a leader who was an RSS product
and also belonged to an OBC caste.
This allowed the BJP and the Sangh
to shed its image of being a Brahmin
and Bania outfit—the ’90s leadership
of two Brahmins (Atal Bihari Vajpayee
and Murli Manohar Joshi) and a Bania
(L.K. Advani) had cemented this nar-
rative. Even the second-rung leader-
ship was monopolised by Brahmins
then, with Pramod Mahajan, Arun
Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Anant
Kumar. The RSS leadership too was
dominated by pracharaks from these
A NEW PLAN
PM Modi with Amit
Shah and J.P. Nadda
at a BJP parliamentary
party meeting
A FRESH
SAFFRON
WASH
 WOMEN POWER
In the party organisation, 5 of the 12 vice-
presidents are women, 10 of the 75-mem-
ber national executive too. The Union
cabinet has 11 women ministers now
 NEXTGEN LEADERS
MoS for home Nisith Pramanik, 35, is the
youngest cabinet member; K. Annamalai,
36, is Tamil Nadu unit chief. The average
age of the state unit chiefs is 55; for the
national council members, it is 58
 OBC & DALIT PUSH
The cabinet now has 27 OBC ministers, 12
of whom are Dalit. The party is also giving
backward leaders more responsibility at
the district/ state level
two communities.
Today, party president J.P. Nadda  BRAHMIN/ BANIA PARTY
NO MORE
is a Brahmin as is B.L. Santhosh,
The BJP is gradually moving out of this
but the other eight general secretar- caste combine, which has dominated the
ies are from other castes. They are party and the Sangh Parivar since the
all in their mid-50s too, except for D. Jan Sangh days
Purandeswari, who is 62. The BJP has
come a long way from the Mandal days
where it built its electoral fortunes
championing the anti-reservation
movement and securing the upper The new BJP is
caste vote base. Modi has played a big
role in this too, presenting himself as not only chasing
the chaiwala-come-good, a self-made
man and the perfect antidote to the
the OBCs for votes
Mandal politics of regional parties but is also looking
while also appealing to the middle-
class upper castes. To appease the at their younger
latter, the cabinet has kept 10 per cent
seats for the economically weaker sec-
generation for the
tions in medical colleges. party cadre and for
With the recent cabinet reshuffle,
Modi’s government now has 27 OBC
leadership positions
and 12 Dalit ministers (out of a total
78)—among the most representation
AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 29
 THE NATION | BJP
the backward castes have got in inde-
pendent India. In the past two decades,
the BJP benefited massively from the
collapse of the Janata Dal and the
large-scale migration of political leaders
from parties like the Samajwadi Party,
Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress. At
the state level, the BJP and Sangh Pari-
var are working on a coalition of castes
to counter those who have traditionally
been mobilised against the party. They
realise that a big flashpoint is the cor-
nering of reservation benefits by a few
sections. So, in UP, the BJP is banking
on the anger against the Yadavs (diehard
SP voters) and Jatavs (BSP’s main vote-
bank) for having cornered most of the
resources and reservation benefits.
The next big task is to convert caste
cohorts to the BJP ideology. Sangh
Parivar leaders say the recruited defec-
tors can help during election time, but
they don’t contribute much in building
the organisation. “The BJP under Modi
did not attract OBC and Dalit voters
just because of his backward caste and
Hindutva; his governance synergised
the caste politics in the name of develop-
ment and class,” argues Shri Prakash,
professor of political science at the
University of Delhi.
fter opposing it for
A
more than three
decades, there is
also a huge lobby
in the BJP-Sangh
Parivar which now
believes the
country needs a caste-level census—as
originally demanded by the Janata
parivar. The Bihar assembly has passed
a resolution favouring caste-based
census twice, which was supported by
the BJP as well. The census data now
collates stats on SCs and STs but not on
the Backward Classes. In 2018, the
Modi regime had started initial work on
caste-based data, but the exercise was
later dropped due to internal pressures.
But top BJP sources say the issue is
under consideration now, even as the
government publicly opposed such a
census in Parliament in July (see
Counting the Castes in Upfront).
30 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1
In 2018, the Modi regime started initial
work on a caste-based census, but the
exercise was later dropped due to internal
pressures. It is now back in consideration
“In UP, the BJP has the attention of
three sets of communities—the upper
castes and a section of the OBCs and the
Dalits, but we don’t have a substantial
cadre base among the latter. Efforts are
on in this regard,” says a top RSS leader.
This includes giving tickets to commu-
nity leaders in local body polls, building
up their social icons, engaging with sect
leaders etc. The Sangh’s plan to get OBC
and Dalit youth into RSS ranks has got
a boost with the Ram Mandir construc-
tion at Ayodhya, for several volunteers
from these communities have stepped
up. But these efforts will require “not
just political will but social change as
well”, says the RSS leader.
KEEPING IT YOUNG
The new-look BJP also wants more fe-
male and youth participation in politics.
So Shah, Nadda, Santhosh and defence
minister Rajnath Singh have been
tasked to identify young talent—edu-
cated, qualified professionals, especially
from among women, OBCs, Dalits and
tribals—who can be groomed as future
leaders. A top BJP leader argues that the
caste-based outfits collapsed after their
rise in the 1990s as they had little to
offer beyond reservation commitments.
“The grooming of the younger genera-
tion and women leaders is part of the
future expansion strategy,” he says.
In the recent cabinet reshuffle,
Nisith Pramanik, 35, was the young-
est minister. The average age of the
council of ministers came down to 58,
with 72-year-old MoS Som Prakash the
eldest. The central decision is reflecting
in BJP-ruled states too. In Karnataka,
B.S. Yediyurappa, 78, was replaced by
his protégé B. Bommai, 61; and Push-
kar Singh Dhami, 43, replaced Tirath
Singh Thakur, 56, in Uttarakhand.
Similarly, Sushil Modi, 69, made way
for younger leaders Tarkishore Prasad
and Renu Devi in Bihar. Inciden-
tally, ex-RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan had
suggested the 75-year bar to ease out
Vajpayee and Advani.
To continue Mission Kamal down
south, the BJP is relying heavily on new
caste combinations and young leaders
who they feel are in for the long haul. In
July, K. Annamalai, 36, was appointed
Tamil Nadu unit chief; Telangana unit
chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar is 50, while in
Karnataka Nalin Katil is 55. Among the
state unit chiefs, C.R. Patil, 66, of Gu-
jarat, is the eldest. Similarly, in Nadda’s
team, all the general secretaries are un-
der 56 years; Nadda himself is 60. Apart
from giving fresh legs to the organisa-
tion, the younger-generation leaders
also bring in a new set of loyalists for the
Modi-Shah duo. In March this year, a
generational shift happened in the RSS
as well. Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi, 73, made
way for Dattatreya Hosabale, 66, as
general secretary or sarkaryavah; Arun
Kumar, 57, and Ramdutt Chakradhar,
58, joined the team of five sah-sarkary-
avahs. Arun Kumar also took over the
liaison work with the government from
Krishna Gopal, 66.
Meanwhile, BJP Mahila Morcha
chief Vanathi Srinivasan points out how
women are taking on more responsibil-
ity in the party. The 75-member BJP
national executive now has 12 women; 5
of 12 vice-presidents are also female. The
recent cabinet reshuffle expanded the
number of women ministers to 11—one
more than in Manmohan Singh’s time—
and except for finance minister Nirmala
Sitharaman, all are from the Lok Sabha.
All in all, it’s a time of radical change
in the BJP organisation, one the party
hopes will take it to greater heights. n
THE BIG STORY VA C C I N E S

Public Health’s
Private Problems
THE PERFORMANCE OF PRIVATE SECTOR VACCINATION CENTRES REMAINS UNDERWHELMING—
DESPITE IMPROVEMENTS IN SUPPLY. WHAT CAN BE DONE TO SCALE UP THEIR NUMBERS?

BY SONALI ACHARJEE

32 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1

 S
ince May 2021, the
pace of vaccina-
tion has steadily
gathered steam. In
July, India achieved
the target set by the
Union minister for
health and family
welfare Mansukh
Mandaviya for the month—135 million
Covid vaccine doses, with an average of 4.3
million daily doses. June, which saw 119
million doses administered, had also been
IMMUNITY RECEIPT
People lined up at the a milestone for the vaccination programme
billing counters of the with a 96 per cent increase in the number
vaccination centre set of doses administered in May, when an av-
up by BLK Hospital, erage of 1.9 million doses were given a day.
Rajendra Nagar, Delhi, As of August 3, a total of 474 million
on May 10, 2021
doses had been administered in India, with
369 million adults having received at least
one dose and 104 million fully vaccinated.
There is, however, still a long way to go.
India’s adult population is estimated to be
around 940 million, as per the 2011 Cen-
sus, which means 1,880 million doses are
needed to fully vaccinate all. To complete
the target of 100 per cent adult vaccination
by the end of 2021, we now need to hit a
rate of 9.3 million doses per day.
“We will not reach any kind of mass
immunity without vaccines,” says P. Sri-
nath Reddy, chairman of the Public Health
Foundation of India. “People need to be
given affordable, accessible channels to
vaccines and be assured of their protection
and safety.” The Union government has
assured an improved supply of vaccines in
the months ahead. As important is delivery.
The government had set aside 25 per cent
of the vaccine manufacturers’ production
for private hospitals, but the decision to
include the private sector to both pick up
speed and increase the spread of vaccina-
tion hasn’t yielded the desired results yet.
The underutilisation problem
Government data reveals that private
clinics and hospitals accounted for only
CHANDRADEEP KUMAR
7 per cent of all vaccinations over the past
two and a half months. The figures speak
of the private sector’s shortcomings. From
May to June 15, around 830,000 doses
were administered by private hospitals,
while a total of 12 million doses had been
procured directly by the sector in May.
According to the ministry of health and
family welfare (MoHFW), as of end of July,
over 30 million unutilised vaccine doses
remained with states and private centres.
The figure of underutilisation is also larger
in some states as compared to others—as
per state governments’ data, although 3.5
million doses have been supplied to private
hospitals in Andhra Pradesh since May,
only 463,000 doses have been used till
date; and in Tamil Nadu, of the roughly
10 million doses administered so far, only
5 per cent were at private centres. These
states have already written to Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, asking for a
re-allocation of unused doses. Other states
are asking for a reduction of the reservation
quota—like Odisha chief minister Naveen
Patnaik has asked Modi and Union home
minister Amit Shah to reduce the alloca-
tion for private hospitals to 5 per cent from
the existing 25 per cent.
The Union minister for commerce
and industry Piyush Goyal has castigated
the private sector for falling way short of
expectations. “You all [in the private sec-
tor] demanded and I remember how much
you fought with me and sought for the
vaccination to be opened up for the private
sector. Today, you are not even buying those
25 per cent of vaccines allotted to you,” he
said. “I remember one industry group said
it will do a crore vaccinations and another
said it will go to remote areas and do it.
Nobody has gone to Bihar, the Northeast,
Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to run cam-
paigns to remove vaccine hesitancy and use
up that 25 per cent quota.”
The key factors
According to the government, there are
four key problems of usage with private
centres. First, many are not placing orders
for the full quantity of doses earmarked
for them. Second, even after ordering, the
full payments have not been made in some
instances. Third, some clinics are not lift-
ing the full quantity of dispatched doses in
one go. And, finally, even when the doses
are fully acquired, their actual adminis-
tration is falling short.
“We must use the vaccines available
with the private sector optimally,” says
AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 33
THE BIG STORY VA C C I N E S

Dr V.K. Paul, chairman of the national task force on Covid premium in the name of a service fee was charged for drive-
management. “People should be encouraged to consider throughs, or corporate and RWA doorstep vaccinations. As
that channel of availability as well.” According to the joint a result, in May, the prices for a single dose of Covaxin was
health secretary Luv Agarwal, states too need to step up their Rs 250 at a public clinic in Delhi, but went up to Rs 2,500
planning for vaccination drives. “After one knows how many for a drivethrough at a private hospital. “New models were
vaccines will come two weeks ahead, they need to engage added by larger private hospitals for which higher prices
with the community and vaccination centres and ensure that could be charged. Smaller clinics and nursing homes were
the doses available reach the people,” he says. starved of doses and stopped vaccinating. The very objective
The problem of full utilisation in of involving the private sector—expand-
the private sector is also a problem of
policy. “Earlier, the private sector lobbied Lagging ing vaccination centres and geographical
access—was undermined,” says Aisola.
hard for the right of hospitals to directly
procure vaccines from manufacturers
Behind Taking note of this, the Centre
revised the vaccination policy on June
and set their own prices for vaccination. Despite a 25% quota of the 21. Now, bulk purchases for multiple
The policy shift that came on May 1 was monthly Covid vaccines manu- locations are no longer an option. Every
factured in India, private centres
therefore designed to largely benefit single hospital has to put in an individ-
have yet to pick up pace
prominent hospitals and corporate ual requirement request via Cowin for
chains,” says Malini Aisola, public health its doses. The state governments were
expert and co-convenor, All India Drug 7% also given the power to ensure equitable
Action Network (AIDAN). It allowed for of all vaccinations done since sale of vaccines so that smaller private
May 2021 have been at private
bulk ordering directly from manufac- centres can also have the opportunity to
clinics and hospitals
turers and, as a result, the size of orders purchase vaccines. While the govern-
from larger corporate chains could not 830,000 ment will buy 75 per cent of the vaccines,
be matched by small-to-medium busi- doses (approx.) administered since 25 per cent of a manufacturer’s monthly
nesses. “With such a big price difference June 15 by private hospitals; a total production could be kept for the private
between public and private clinics, most of 12 million doses were ordered sector. There is no price cap on what
people, particularly in small towns, wish 463,000 manufacturer’s decide to sell to private
to opt for the public clinics,” she adds. of 3.5 million vaccine doses players at, but a price cap introduced on
given to private centres in Andhra the service fee—Rs 150 per dose. Thus,
Where did we go wrong? Pradesh administered. The rest starting prices are now Rs 780 per dose
In May, the government allowed Ayush- remain unutilised. In some states, for Covishield, Rs 1,410 for Covaxin and
more doses lie unused; in Tamil
man Bharat-empanelled hospitals to Rs 1,145 for Sputnik V in private clinics
Nadu, only 5 per cent of the doses
begin conducting vaccinations. This across states; but free of cost at state- or
have been given at private
was soon expanded to include private hospitals Centre-run centres.
hospitals that met certain basic ac- However, the rate of vaccination at
creditation requirements, with an aim to 30 million private centres remains low. Experts say
increase the number of centres. Indeed, unutilised vaccines remain the glitch lies in the ‘minimum order of
with states and private
larger chains were able to negotiate bulk 3,000 vials’ requirement. For small to
centres, as of July 31
orders directly from manufacturers for medium chains, such a large procure-
branches of their group across locations. ment is a difficult financial proposition,
According to an MoHFW official who especially when there is a cap on the
wished to not be named, “One hospital profit they can make when they sell the
group, acting as a single corporate entity, “The private sector product further on. “There should be a
even placed orders for close to 20-25 of lobbied hard for the provision for smaller orders.... Either the
its hospitals across multiple states.” Since right to administer manufacturer price should be open to
the profit margin for such bulk orders vaccines, hence the negotiation to bring down the difference
was higher, manufacturers began to pri- between a government and private sale
oritise supply for these. It reached a stage
policy in May was or smaller orders should be allowed,” says
mid-May when small primary health designed largely Girdhar Gyani, president of the Asso-
centres (PHCs) and community health to benefit larger ciation of Healthcare Providers, which
centres (CHCs) in Delhi, for example, did corporate chains” recently carried out a survey of 70 private
not have any vaccines, but the same could hospitals across India to understand
be booked at private hospitals. —MALINI AISOLA their vaccination status. As per the
In addition to this, corporate chains Co-convenor, All India Drug Action survey, 25 hospitals said the government
began a new business strategy where a Network (AIDAN) has not appointed any nodal officer to

34 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1

 DEBAJYOTI CHAKRABORTY
address their concerns, while 39 hospitals said nodal officers
have been appointed, but states are not making any efforts.
How do we fix the problem?
Experts have suggested lowering the cost of vaccines sold at
private hospitals. “The price at private hospitals is Rs 1,000-
1,200 on an average for one dose. Two shots mean Rs 3,000.
For a couple, getting fully vaccinated would mean Rs 6,000.
Then, there are other family members. How many can afford
this? The past few months have been difficult for the working
class and the poor. There has been no source of income for
many,” says Dr Devi Shetty, chairman of Narayana Health-
care. “The government must negotiate deals in terms of
money and delivery time of doses.”
On August 4, though, in response to BJP MP Sushil
Kumar Modi’s query in the Rajya Sabha, Mandaviya said:
“In a month, we saw that 7 per cent to 9 per cent vaccines
procured by private centres remained unused, so we decided
to take those doses in the government quota. Therefore, it is
not necessary to reduce the quota for the private sector. The
vaccination is happening smoothly.”
T
he Centre has already committed an advance
of Rs 4,500 crore to the Serum Institute of
India (SII) and Bharat Biotech. Yet, produc-
tion hasn’t improved significantly. The SII is
producing around 110-120 million doses a
month with no plans to scale up, while Bharat
Biotech is producing around 25 million a month, despite
having said in January that it will increase to 40 million a
month soon. “The argument that manufacturers can sell at a
higher price to private chains as an incentive for more
production isn’t working. Production is down as the manu-
facturers have reached their current capacity, not because
they don’t have the money,” says Aisola.
NEW KID ON THE BLOCK
A recipient of the Sputnik V vaccine
gets photographed at the R.N. Tagore
Hospital, Kolkata (June 12, 2021)
Another solution experts offer is that the
central and state governments procure all
doses and the private sector buys it off them
at the same price. “Private clinics should be
an alternative means of accessing vaccines for
those who want to pay for it,” says Gyani.
Odisha’s capital Bhubaneswar, which has
vaccinated its entire adult population, has
done an exemplary job of optimising its private
sector. The government asked all districts and
municipal corporations to conduct a meet-
ing with hospitals to sensitise them on the
procurement process and to note down their
demand and capacity to vaccinate. Based on
this, doses were allocated. Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Buddha
Nagar saw similar success—40 per cent of the vaccinations
carried out in the district in July were done by private centres.
“We faced no procurement problem at all,” says Dr
Anupam Sibal, group medical director of Apollo Hospital,
Delhi. The Apollo Group has been the largest vaccinator in
the private sector. They clocked a million doses in just three
weeks and aim to complete 20 million by September. “We did
face some issues with vaccine hesitancy—every time there is
a report in the media, people question the safety of the vac-
cines. Our doctors have been answering questions through
open house and phone-ins to educate people. We have also
conducted research on the protection offered by vaccines.
That has helped many overcome their hesitancy,” he adds.
Fortis Bengaluru, a leading private vaccinator in the city,
says it, too, had to work to augment demand once doses were
opened up for all above 18. Dr Priya Sreedharan, medical
director of Fortis on Bannerghatta Road, says the hospital
has seen a rise in demand post vaccine awareness campaigns.
“We had to tell people that you can get Covid after a vaccine
but it will be a milder version,” she says.
With India’s reproductive (R) number rising over 1,
which means that more than one person is being infected
on an average by an already-infected person, and around 43
districts reporting a total positivity rate of over 10 per cent,
experts say all efforts must be put in to use up the entire
monthly supply of vaccines in the country. According to the
MoHFW, the ‘R’ value remains higher than 1 in eight states,
including Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil
Nadu and Kerala. Swift vaccination, add experts, should be
a priority, particularly in states like Kerala, Assam, Haryana
and Maharashtra, where seropositivity is low, indicating that
people have not had previous exposure to the virus or devel-
oped antibodies against it. A third wave’s impact can only be
minimised through sufficient immunisation. n
AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 35
 BUSINESS | AUTOMOBILES

CATCHING THE
TRADE WINDS
Auto exports surged across the board in the first quarter of 2021,
with two-wheeler exports three times the figure for 2020
BY M.G. ARUN

WELCOME SIGHT
Maruti Suzuki cars
being prepared for
shipping at Mundra
Port, Gujarat, in March

36 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1

A
t a time when domestic auto sales
have been choked by Covid-19, Indian
manufacturers finally have something
to cheer about: the export market.
According to data from SIAM (the
Society for Indian Automobile Manu-
facturers), India’s total auto exports in
the first quarter of fiscal 2021-22 (Q1,
from April to June) was 1.4 million
units, over three times the figure in
the same period in the previous year.
Two-wheeler manufacturers saw an
especially large boost, exporting about 1.1 million
units in this period, compared to 337,983 units a
year ago. With the industry having seen major dis-
ruptions over the past year and a half due to Covid
lockdowns and cutbacks on discretionary spending
by consumers, this has proved a major relief.
As a matter of fact, export figures for two-
wheelers in Q1 2021-22 were
better even than figures from
pre-Covid times, higher than
exports in the previous three
AUTO EXPORTS IN
years (see graphic Outward THE FIRST HALF OF
Bound). Exports of passenger 2021 INCREASED
vehicles in Q1 2021-22 totalled
127,115 units, up from 43,619
ALMOST 50 PER
in the same period in 2020-21. CENT OVER LAST
“Exports this year will defi- YEAR TO $23.61 BN,
nitely be better than last year,
since many countries we export
THE BEST EXPORTS
to did not go through the strict PERFORMANCE
lockdowns that India has seen,” SINCE 2014
says R.C. Bhargava, chairman
of Maruti Suzuki. His f irm
shipped the most passenger vehicles during this
period—45,056 units—followed by Hyundai Mo-
tors India, which shipped 28,881 units.
However, though passenger vehicle sales were
better in Q1 2021-22 than in Q1 2020-21, the
figures lag behind those in Q1 2019-20 and Q1
2018-19. As a result, industry experts are adopt-
ing a wait-and-watch attitude before comment-
ing on whether this year’s figures indicate a long-
term trend. “Although the regional lockdowns
prevented companies from selling in India since
most dealerships were closed, many states allowed
companies to export,” says Rajesh Menon, director
general of SIAM. “We will have to wait and see
whether the uptick in sales is specific to the first
quarter of the current fiscal year or whether it is a
sustainable trend.” Exports as a percentage of pro-
duction were the highest in Q1 2021-22—about 31
per cent—compared to the corresponding quarters
in the previous three years.
A RISING TIDE LIFTS ALL BOATS
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has said
that auto exports in the first half of calendar year
2021 increased nearly 50 per cent over last year in
value terms, to $23.61 billion (Rs 1.7 lakh crore).
This, it added, is the best auto exports performance
since the first half of 2014, when exports were val-
ued at $25.23 billion (Rs 1.8 lakh crore). Agencies
quoted a ministry official saying the increased ex-
ports were due to South Korean auto companies in
India increasing their “product competitiveness”
despite an overall shortage of auto components.
Sales of passenger cars from the Indian arms of
South Korean firms Hyundai Motor and Kia in
the US market increased by 48 per cent in the first
half of this year on a year-on-
year basis, breaking the highest
sales record of both companies.
Apart from the US, other major
export destinations for Indian
auto firms include West Asia,
Latin America, Africa, Oceania
(comprising Australia, New Zea-
land and other countries) and
our Asian neighbours. The top
two-wheeler exporters include
Bajaj Auto, TVS Motor and Hero
Motocorp. For FY21, Bajaj Auto
and TVS together accounted
for 78 per cent of India’s total
two-wheeler exports. The major
regions for two-wheeler exports include Africa,
Southeast Asia, Latin America, the US and Europe.
The improved performance on the auto ex-
ports front seems to have had a knock-on effect
on the exports of auto components as well. The
exports of automobile parts in the first half of
calendar year 2021 increased 43.6 per cent year-
on-year to $11.61 billion (about Rs 86,000 crore).
“The performance of the auto component industry
usually mirrors the vehicle industry, even a tad
better,” says Deepak Jain, president of industry
body ACMA (Automotive Component Manufac-
turers Association). “We have seen exports as well
as aftermarket sales continue to have an uptick.”
One of the reasons for the focus on exports is
that domestic vehicle purchases have been hit by
regional lockdowns. “Retailers don’t want to carry
too much inventory. We are hoping that when re-
AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 37
 BUSINESS | AUTOMOBILES

OUTWARD BOUND
Two-wheelers saw the greatest spike in exports, with 1.1 million units exported in Q1 2021-22,
compared to 858,000 units in Q1 2018-19 and 884,000 units in Q1 2019-20

PASSENGER COMMERCIAL TWO

VEHICLES VEHICLES WHEELERS

1,200,000 300,000 8,000,000

900,000 225,000 6,000,000

600,000 150,000 4,000,000

300,000 75,000 2,000,000

0 0 0

2018
-2019

2019
15.2 -2020

2020
-2021
32.7 2021
-2022
2018
-2019

2019
-2020

30.1 2020
-2021

2021
-2022

2018
-2019

2019
-2020

2020
-2021

2021
-2022

13.3
16.3

15.9
19.2

27
13.4

11.7
9

Note: Data for Q1 (April-

Production Exports Exports as a percentage of production Source: SIAM
June) in the given year
Graphic by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY

strictions are eased, there is some pent-up demand and a
continuous recovery to bring sales back to sustainable levels,”
says Jain. In fact, several global auto companies had plans to
make India a key hub for sourcing automotive components
after supplies from China, a major supplier of auto parts, had
been hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. Called the ‘China plus
One’ strategy, this would have been immensely beneficial for
India, which currently contributes only around 1.5 per cent
to the global components value chain. As much as 50 per cent
of India’s overall component exports are to quality-conscious
markets in the US and Europe. Some of AMCA’s member
companies have said that they are derisking from China, but
Jain points out that boosting exports is not an overnight game.
The components industry is also awaiting details of the
Centre’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme. Under
this, the Centre has announced a package of Rs 57,042 crore
for the auto and auto components sectors to provide incen-
tives to increase manufacturing and cut down import bills.
Jain believes the scheme will boost both domestic production
and exports. With the incentives, ‘automotive suppliers can
leverage their strengths, including their competitive costs,
process expertise, high quality and innovation focus, to pursue
international growth and leverage the recent tailwinds’, said
consulting firm McKinsey in a March 2021 study.
THE ROAD AHEAD
In February, Maruti Suzuki said it had drawn up a plan to
boost its exports to Africa and Latin America and had plans
to launch a flurry of new models in those regions. Europe is
another major export destination for Maruti, as are Indonesia,
South Africa and Sri Lanka. Reports say the company’s cars,
including the Alto, the Baleno, the Dzire and the Swift are
popular choices in these markets. In January, the company
started production and export of Suzuki’s compact off-roader,
Jimny. Although meeting domestic demand was its priority,
Maruti, whose exports accounted for only six per cent of its
total production in 2020, had plans to use the excess capacity
at its third manufacturing line in Gujarat to pursue exports
and take it to 20 per cent of the total production in future.
Hyundai, meanwhile, has plans to develop India as one of
its global hubs for parts and vehicles and also to increase the
procurement of parts for its factories in South America and
Eastern Europe from India. Last year, Kia Motors, which
entered India in 2019, said it is planning to use India as an
export hub for its compact sports utility vehicle, the Sonet, and
other models. Other key exporters from India include Ford
India, Nissan Motors, Volkswagen India and General Motors.
Gaurav Vangaal, an associate director with IHS Markit,
an information and analytics firm, says OEMs (original equip-
ment manufacturers, as auto-makers are called in industry
parlance) are considering India as a manufacturing base for
vehicles powered by internal combustion engines in the com-
ing years as globally, there is a shift in favour of electric vehicles.
Most experts say that India has the right kind of oppor-
tunities coming its way in vehicle production and exports as
well as in auto parts, but the country needs to be far more
competitive than it is today in order to attract more invest-
ment from global players. While several auto-makers have
announced intentions to make India a manufacturing and
exports hub, there is a long way to go before they can actually
translate their plans into reality. n

38
40 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1
FIRE POWER
Dhanush howitzers
on display at the
Jabalpur Ordnance
Factory in 2019

ANIL TIWARI

I
DEFENCE OFB REFORMS
NDIA’S HIGHEST DECISION-
MAKING committee on security

THE MEGA
affairs, the Cabinet Committee
on Security (CCS), fired a starter
pistol on June 16. The CCS okayed
what could be the most extensive
and complex shake-up ever of the

ORDNANCE
country’s defence industrial produc-
tion base—the restructuring of 41 ordnance
factories into seven fully government-owned
corporations by next year.

MAKEOVER
CAN THE RESTRUCTURING OF 41
ORDNANCE FACTORIES INTO SEVEN
NEW DEFENCE PSUs GIVE INDIA’S
DYSFUNCTIONAL MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL
COMPLEX A NEW LEASE OF LIFE?
By Sandeep Unnithan
The move aims to jumpstart productivity
in these factories that have a combined net
worth of around Rs 80,000 crore, employ
70,000 people and together constitute the
largest government department in the world.
The factories manufacture battle tanks, in-
fantry combat vehicles, rocket launchers and
artillery gun systems primarily for the Indian
Army. But with no innovation and a dwin-
dling product portfolio over the years, they
have failed to reduce India’s crippling depen-
dence on imports or add heft to diplomacy by
supplying indigenous weapons for export.
The seven proposed defence public sector
undertakings (DPSUs) will add to the existing

AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 39

BETTING ON THE NEW DPSUs
The seven defence public sector undertakings will be headquartered in five cities
UTTARAKHAND
Optro-
electronics
Dehradun
`861 cr
3,152
MAHARASHTRA
Ancillary
Ambajhari (Nagpur)
`1,533 cr
12,225
Ammunition &
explosives
Khadki (Pune)
`4,348 cr
24,436 Revenue in FY2020-21
nine, such as HAL (Hindustan Aero-
nautics Ltd) and Mazagon Dock Ship-
builders Ltd, that supply fighter jets,
helicopters, warships and submarines to
the air force and navy. The DPSUs will
form the world’s largest state-owned
military-industrial complex, after those
in Russia and China.
The ministry of defence (MoD)
has begun recasting the 41 ordnance
factories into seven DPSUs based on
their products (see Betting on the New
DPSUs). The Kolkata-headquartered
Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), under
which the ordnance factories function,
will be dissolved. “The OFB is like a
joint family. In a joint family, everybody
is responsible, yet nobody is responsible.
We’re now creating seven nuclear fami-
lies,” says a senior MoD official.
With the Indian armed forces
deployed in a high state of alert along
unsettled borders with China and
Pakistan, the Union government did
not want the OFB’s powerful employee
unions to disrupt the DPSU process.
On June 30, the government promul-
40 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1
UTTAR PRADESH
Weapons &
equipment
Kanpur
`1,660 cr
14,524
Parachutes
Kanpur
`116 cr
1,254
TAMIL NADU
Troop comfort
Vehicles items
Avadi (Chennai) Kanpur
`3,609 cr `628 cr
12,169 6,325
Employees as on Feb. 2021
gated the Essential Defence Services
Ordinance, 2021, declaring defence
items as an essential service, outlaw-
ing strikes and preempting the OFB
unions’ call for a nationwide strike.
G
overnment sources say a decision
has been taken to provide the
DPSUs autonomy and at the
same time make them account-
able and efficient. The restructuring
hopes to transform the ordnance
factories into productive and profitable
assets, deepen specialisation in their
product range, enhance competitiveness
and improve quality and cost-efficiency.
Last year, the government set ambitious
goals under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat
campaign to achieve self-sufficiency in
defence. The target is to increase the
turnover in defence manufacturing to
Rs 1.75 lakh crore, including exports
worth Rs 35,000 crore, by 2025.
The MoD’s Department of Defence
Production (DoDP) has its hands full
over the next few months. It not only has
to register the new DPSUs but also ap-
THE NINE
EXISTING
ONES
1. Hindustan
Aeronautics Ltd
2. Bharat
Electronics Ltd
3. BEML
4. Bharat
Dynamics Ltd
5. Mishra Dhatu
Nigam Ltd
6. Goa Shipyard
Ltd
7. Garden Reach
Shipbuilders &
Engineers Ltd
8. Mazagon Dock
Shipbuilders Ltd
9. Hindustan
Shipyard Ltd
Graphic by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY
point their board of directors and begin
the tedious process of establishing their
corporate offices within the existing
ordnance factories. The seven corpora-
tions will be headquartered in five cities
across four states. Three of them will be
in Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh.
The process will be far more com-
plicated than the two biggest corporati-
sation moves in India in the past two
decades. In October 2000, the govern-
ment created Bharat Sanchar Nigam
limited (BSNL) by corporatising the
erstwhile department of telecom ser-
vices. In 2006, four mints, four presses
and a paper mill under the Union
finance ministry were converted into a
single wholly government-owned entity,
the Security Printing and Minting Cor-
poration of India Limited (SPMCIL).
CHALLENGES AHEAD
In the past four decades, at least four
expert committees have recommended
the corporatisation of OFB, but succes-
sive governments dithered from lack of
political will and the fear of strikes by

OFB unions. The most recent recom-
mendation for corporatisation came in
December 2016 from the MoD experts
committee headed by Lt General D.B.
Shekatkar (retired). The panel sug-
gested the immediate shutting down
of 11 ordnance factories, citing their
non-profitability. However, in the new
DPSU structure, the government has
chosen to retain all 41 ordnance facto-
ries and their employees.
S
etting up the DPSUs is only part
of the task. The bigger challenge
is ensuring their survival. The
corporations, for the first time
in the 120-year history of the ordnance
factories, will have to compete for
defence orders. The ordnance factories
were created as a gigantic war produc-
tion agency to provide uninterrupted
ordnance supplies to the armed forces.
No formal contracts were signed, only
indents were placed. In 1801, the Brit-
ish East India Company set up the Gun
and Shell Factory in Kashipur, Kolkata,
for producing cannons and shells for the
company armies. By 1944, Britain had
added 13 more factories. Independent
India set up 27 more factories between
1949 and 2010. The largest expan-
sion—16 factories—came after the 1962
Indo-China war as the Indian armed
forces more than doubled in size. The
last major reform in ordnance factories
was in April 1979 and a functional one:
the OFB, headed by a chairman and
board of directors, was set up and all 41
units brought under its aegis. But with
a weak OFB, each ordnance factory ef-
fectively functioned as an independent
entity, headed by a general manager.
Since the ordnance factories func-
tion as subordinate departments to the
DoDP, they don’t maintain separate
balance-sheets. They sign no contracts
with their largest client, the army, to
whom the bulk of their 1,000 principal
items, including tanks and howitzers,
are supplied. This will end once the
seven DPSUs come into the picture.
A senior MoD official explains the
threefold reasoning behind the cor-
poratisation—to get maximum bang
for the government buck, reduce arms
imports and boost exports. “The basic
premise is that the current structure
has failed, so we are restructuring. The
new corporations will be driven by a
profit motive and will be accountable
for lapses,” says the official.
That’s easier said than done. In an
open market, the DPSUs will have to
compete with the best. Explosives, for
instance, form the biggest chunk of
the OFB’s output. In the new system,
12 factories will be placed under a
single corporation based in Khadki,
Pune. It will face intense competition
from highly efficient private sector
firms, such as the Nagpur-based Solar
Industries, the world’s fourth-largest
manufacturer of explosives. The DPSU
for armoured vehicles will have to
compete with private sector giant
Larsen & Toubro, which has delivered
THE BIGGEST
CHALLENGE WILL
BE ENSURING
THE VIABILITY
OF DPSUs . THEY
WILL HAVE TO
COMPETE WITH
PRIVATE PLAYERS
FOR ORDERS
100 self-propelled howitzers (ones
mounted on a tank hull) to the army in
less than four years. The state-owned
factories will also have to reckon with
the Pune-based private firm Bharat
Forge. It has a complete range of how-
itzers and armoured vehicles that are
being supplied to the army.
CAN DPSUs DELIVER?
The head of defence business of a
private sector defence company is
sceptical of the viability of the DPSUs.
“A few larger corporations, such as
those making combat vehicles and am-
munition, will survive. I’m not sure of
DEFENCE OFB REFORMS
the others,” he says.
Former OFB officials point to the
issue of interconnectivity between ord-
nance factories, particularly for ‘Inter
Factory Demands’ or demands placed
by one factory on a sister unit for sup-
plying components, castings and forg-
ings. The new corporations, they fear,
will disrupt this backward integration
and this could delay the supply of or-
ders. “Armoured fighting vehicles will
be made by one corporation, but they
will require supplies from the engine
factory, which will be another corpora-
tion, and barrels from Kanpur, a third
corporation. Each of these transactions
will now mean issuing tenders and fi-
nalising orders. There will be delays in
finalising contracts,” says Hari Mohan,
a former OFB chairman.
OFB unions are demanding the
government’s assurance for orders
over the next five years to ensure the
corporations are viable. There is also a
question mark on the large OFB work-
force. The MoD says it will safeguard
the interests of all OFB employees. Staff
belonging to the production units will
be transferred to the corporate entities
on deemed deputation, initially for two
years. This will be done without alter-
ing their service conditions as central
government employees. After the two-
year period, the employees will be given
the choice of continuing in government
service or being absorbed by the new
corporations. The package the corpora-
tions will offer cannot be lower than the
government scales. Pension and other
benefits will also remain as is.
What about the defence land on
which the ordnance factories are
sited? The OFB holds nearly 60,000
acres of defence land, on which it has
factories, housing colonies, hospitals
and sports facilities. The land has been
categorised as ‘A1’, or core defence
land, meaning it cannot be used for
any other purpose. The MoD is work-
ing out the details of how this land is
to be used. Some of it will be leased to
the DPSUs while the rest will be vested
with MoD. India’s big-bang defence
reforms have been long in the making.
Now, its defence factories could finally
be on the mend. n
AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 41
SPECIAL REPORT WILDLIFE

THE
GREAT WILD
HOPE
India wakes up to the need for
mitigation measures such as
underground transmission
lines and animal overpasses
to curb wildlife mortality, even
BY ROHIT PARIHAR if it means driving up solar
energy and highway costs

SAFE
PASSAGE
A tiger using a
mitigation route
in Pench
2018, THE NUMBER OF WILD
IN
ANIMALS LOST in road and rail
accidents was 161. Two hundred
elephants have been killed in rail
accidents in three decades, 65 in
the past three years. Power line
collisions have killed one per cent
of the total sarus crane popula-
tion in India. Leftover food dumped from the pantry
cars of trains has resulted in accidents killing over 100
animals, including five tigers and seven leopards, at the
Ratapani Tiger Reserve station in Sehore district over
the past five years.
These are the chilling statistics the Wildlife Protec-
tion Society of India offers. As urbanisation and rap-
idly growing infrastructure edge out animal habitat,
animal-human conflict and wildlife mortality have only
risen. Taking cognisance of this, the Supreme Court, on
April 21, 2021, made discretionary mitigation measures
mandatory in developing linear infrastructure that poses
a potential risk to wildlife and environment. The order,
by a three-judge bench comprising the then Chief Justice
S.A. Bobde and Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasub-
ramanium, came in response to a public interest litigation
filed by the noted environmentalist and ex-bureaucrat M.K.
Ranjitsinh two years ago. Upholding the cause of environ-
mental justice, the judges observed that it could be achieved
“only if we drift away from the principle of ‘anthropocen-
trism’, which is human interest-focused, to ‘ecocentrism’
which is nature-centred, where humans are part of nature
and non-humans have intrinsic value. In other words, hu-
man interest does not take automatic precedence and hu-
mans have obligations to non-humans independently of
human interest”. The National Wildlife Action Plan and
the centrally-sponsored Integrated De-
velopment of Wildlife Habitats Scheme,
it noted, were already based on the prin-
ciple of ecocentrism.
The judgment is expected to have far-
reaching consequences as funds for miti-
gation measures for wildlife, including
birds, will now have to be part of project
costs. The court, for instance, has or-
dered the undergrounding of transmission lines to save
the Great Indian Bustard, which will involve an expenditure
of Rs 22,000 crore in Rajasthan alone. Several renewable
energy projects are planned in the Thar, for which a mas-
sive network of high-voltage transmission lines will be
required—these will have to be undergrounded to save the
Great Indian Bustard, a species native to the Indian subcon-
tinent. The numbers of the heavy flying bird have dwindled
to just 150 in India in 2018 from an estimated 250 in 2011.
They have a 15 per cent mortality rate due to electrocution
from these wires as per a survey by the Wildlife Institute of
India (WII), Dehradun. Thanks to their narrow range of
frontal vision, and the habit of scanning the ground while
flying, they fail to manoeuvre across power lines within
close distances only to collide and die. In addition, solar
energy panels are being set up on vast tracts of their home-
land, depriving them of space to lay eggs. “Solar energy is
not so green,’’ says Ranjitsinh.
India is the current president of the Convention on Mi-
gratory Species (CMS), which approved its concerted action
plan for the Great Indian Bustards in February 2020 and is
pioneering a Conservation Breeding Programme in Jaisalm-
er, where 17 chicks have been born in captivity and will now
serve as a founder population. Dr Bivash Pandav, director,
Bombay Natural History Society, says, “The Thar desert is the
only intensive care unit of the Great Indian Bustard in India,
with just a hundred remaining.” Y.V Jhala, dean at WII, has
for long asked for the protection of the priority area for these
birds so that the captivity-bred population, when released,
does not get killed either by electric wires or feral animals.
AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 43
 SEEKING
SPECIAL REPORT WILDLIFE SAFE New
PASSAGE
H A RYA N A
Delhi
R A JA S T H A N Jaipur U T TA R
The Delhi- PR A DE SH
Mumbai Ajmer
Road to resurrection
In another pioneering development, the National Highways Expressway
Authority of India (NHAI) will build two parallel tunnels, shows
each of 3.65 km length and with four lanes, to allow ve- the way in Bhopal
how linear Ahmedabad
hicles to pass through the Mukundara Tiger Reserve in
Rajasthan. The tunnels will be part of the 1,350-km-long, infra can M A DH YA
GUJA R AT
eight-lane Delhi-Mumbai Expressway. The Rs 90,000 incorporate PR A DE SH
crore project is expected to be completed by January 2023. mitigation
The tunnels, which will cost an additional Rs 741.77 features
crore, will be the first in Asia to feature animal overpasses M A H A R A SH T R A
for unrestricted movement of wildlife. They will have ramp
sections of 500 metres each at the start and the end, and Mumbai
connecting passages of 30-metre length at regular intervals
to divert traffic in the extreme right lanes in emergencies.
The issue of four-laning the existing road through
Mukundara has been on hold for a long time due to the
lack of environmental clearances. This stretch connects
Kota to Jhalawar, and on to Ujjain and Indore. The NHAI
had earlier suggested a double-decker flyover through
Mukundara, but the idea ran into an Archaeological
Survey of India monument within a hundred metres. The
existing four-lane highway will now connect to the tunnel
through clover leafs.
There will be other mitigation measures too, such as
three-metre-tall boundary walls and dedicated sound and
glare barriers along the 53.4 km stretch passing through
the ecosensitive zone of the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve.

Navigating roadblocks Graphic by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY

While laudable, these initiatives face multiple challenges.
For instance, the apex court’s order on undergrounding
transmission lines to protect the Great Indian Bustard
will hit solar energy generation projects. Most of the area
the apex court has earmarked for the birds is where the
proposed 94 GW of solar power arrays were to be installed.
These projects are crucial to India’s target of achieving 450
GW of renewable energy by 2030. The apex court has left it
to the central and state governments, corporate special re-
sponsibility initiatives and the Compensatory Afforestation
Fund (CAMPA) to compensate for costs. Investors in solar
energy say the per unit cost may go up by up to Rs 1.50, but
environmentalists allege some of them had cleverly rushed
in their projects during the pendency of the petition. “The
work on laying overhead powerlines is continuing in Rajas-
than and Gujarat, without complying with the conditions
the apex court has laid down, and no bird diverters have
been fitted on wires (which the SC said needed to be done
until undergrounding takes place),” says Kedar Gore, direc-
tor, The Corbett Foundation. If they are worried about the
high cost of mitigation measures in forests, Ranjitsinh says,
the investors must explore alternatives. “How about setting
up solar panels over the Indira Gandhi canal?”
Officials in the power sector ask if undergrounding
transmission lines won’t severely affect the ecosystem since
the desert national park is heavily inhabited by reptiles
and other underground species. They also wonder if high-
tension powerlines beyond 33 KV can be shifted. The apex
court has set up a three-member committee to look into the
feasibility of high power lines. As compared to an overhead
transmission line of 33 KV, which may cost Rs 6 lakh, an
underground line can cost Rs 28 lakh per km. The cost is
even higher for lines of 66 KV and more. Subodh Aggar-
wal, the additional chief secretary for renewable energy,
Rajasthan, says he is getting the assessment done for the
existing pipeline projects that are affected.
As for the NHAI project, the agency has already de-
posited Rs 80 crore as compensation for damage to the
environment, but the forest department is asking for Rs
120 crore to relocate two villages situated 30 km off the
expressway. The NHAI has refused, saying it cannot be
subjected to CSR norms, but has given an undertaking
that it will pay should the various central government
bodies involved in the clearances order it.
The tunnels, which will be dug mainly through black
soil, are also a technical challenge. Conservationists also

44 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1

 WHY WE NEED MITIGATION
MEASURES FOR BIRDS AND ANIMALS
India’s forest cover is 21.34 per cent of its total
geographical area, of which 4.89 per cent is
protected area comprising 103 national parks, 536
wildlife sanctuaries, 67 conservation reserves and
26 community reserves. Roads pass through 26 tiger
reserves, hampering generic flow of fauna
In 2018, the number of wild animals lost in road and
rail accidents was 161. Two hundred elephants have
been lost in rail accidents in three decades, 65 in the
past three years. Power line collisions have killed one
per cent of India’s sarus crane population.
COST OF SAVING WILDLIFE FROM
LINEAR INFRASTRUCTURE
a practice.” Last October, the Prakash Javadekar-headed
sub-committee of the National Board for Wildlife rejected
WII’s recommendation to circumvent the Ranthambore
National Park’s ecosensitive zone by extending the length of
the expressway by 40 km instead of taking mitigation mea-
sures. Jhala says that while many wild animals, including
tigers, use safe passages as has been demonstrated at the
Pench Tiger Reserve, others such as caracals, found only in
Ranthambore, avoid these. However, Mukesh Kumar Jain,
the chief general manager, Jaipur, NHAI, insists that any
change in alignment of the expressway at Ranthambore
would have involved land acquisition of populated villages,
displacement of human population, bends that reduced
vehicle speed and congestion, thus defeating the very pur-
pose of the express corridor as the fastest and shortest route
between the national capital and the financial capital.

22,000 742 1,150 I

n July 2019, Nitin Gadkari, the Union minister for
` ` ` road transport and highways, said in Parliament
that “a poor country” must decide how far it can go
CRORE CRORE CRORE in spending public money to protect environment and
balance out development needs. Gadkari was respond-
Estimated cost Additional Expenditure
ing to a question by Congress MP K. Suresh, who
of underground- expense on in excess for
ing powerlines in building 4.87 km overpasses, un- wanted to know if the minister would consider building
the Great Indian of eight-lane derpasses and underpasses on the national highway between Mysuru
Bustard habitat tunnel through other mitigation and Wayanad to protect tigers in the Bandipur wildlife
in Jaisalmer. the Mukundara measures at the sanctuary, like in Pench, where Rs 240 crore was spent
Most of it is Hills Tiger Ranthambore on mitigation measures while widening the highway.
linked to solar Reserve National Park A WII report, anchored by principal investigator Bilal
projects
Habib and released last year, highlighted the usefulness
of nine such crossings in Pench. Seventy-eight cameras
captured 91,284 shots of humans, domestic cattle, feral
and domestic cats and dogs using the underpasses. The
analysis of these photos revealed eight species of wild
fear that the convergence points before and after the tunnel animals using the crossing structures, with varying
will become hubs of activity. Already, a railway track that frequency. A total of 89 crossings, by 11 individual tigers,
passes through the reserve cannot be shifted. The railways were recorded in six of the nine structures.
hold it up as a technical marvel, as the Rajdhani Express The wildlife protection measures at Ranthambore,
can travel at speeds it cannot achieve elsewhere. claims NHAI, will be better than in Pench. The 53.5 km
corridor will include a 1.5-km-long animal underpass,
Perils of linear thinking 1.7 km elevated corridor, and five animal underpasses of
So, will mitigation measures now become the norm in lin- 300 metres each. In addition, 3.5 km of underground box
ear infrastructure projects intersecting wildlife zones? Of structures with ventilation and cross structures, major
the 21.34 per cent forest cover that is part of India’s total and minor ridges will be provided. A three-metre-high
geographical area, 4.89 per cent is protected, comprising boundary wall will prevent the wild animals from enter-
103 national parks, 536 wildlife sanctuaries, 67 conser- ing the main carriageway. In addition, one major bridge,
vation reserves and 26 community reserves. Roads pass four minor ones and 13 culverts with extra openings in the
through 26 protected areas declared as tiger reserves, tiger corridor are proposed for the safe movement of wild
making it near-impossible for wildlife to move from one animals and for drainage. The structures will come up in
side to the other. Even reptiles and birds are unable to places where the state wildlife department has noted tiger
cross high-speed, multiple-lane roads or wide canals. movement. The top of the underground boxes will be over-
Such linear projects fragment habitats and totally block laid with soil and vegetation to merge with the surrounding
the generic flow of fauna in nature, leading to loss or area. The plantation and a Rs 41 crore noise barrier are
extinction of wildlife, say experts at the WII. expected to nullify or minimise noise, vibration and light
However, as WII dean Jhala says, “We want mitigation effects. The measures will increase the cost by Rs 22 crore
measures for wildlife as a last-resort exception rather than per km over 50 km. The question is, will it be enough? n

AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 45

 ASHUTOSH RANA: A GENRE OF
MORE GOOD THAN THEIR OWN
EVIL PG 49 PG 5 0

ANNA BEN: ACTING NAGESH

ON HER OWN KUKUNOOR
INSTINCT PG 52 PG 5 6

The
ork in
His w ily Man,
Fam ANOJ
says MYEE, has
A
BAJP ded him “a ”
a ffo r hoose
e to c
chanc projects
his

FILMS

CAN’T
TOP THIS
MEETESH TANEJA

WITH A STRING OF RELEASES ON OTT

PLATFORMS, MANOJ BAJPAYEE IS
EMERGING AS NEW BOLLYWOOD’S
FIRST SUPERSTAR

AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 49

 LEISURE

IN HIS ELEMENT
Manoj Bajpayee in
Zee5’s new thriller, Dial 100

to choose”. Since OTT has helped erase geographical barriers,

Bajpayee is confident that more audiences will seek out his
work. He says he has first-hand evidence. While shooting a
film in Uttarakhand, he saw people were busy watching web
series on their mobiles: “Just imagine the possibilities of OTT
after five years, of where all it could go!”
Bajpayee burst onto many radars in 1998, a year when
three of his films released—Satya, Shool and Kaun. The
2000s, sadly, saw the National Award winner in one too many
forgettable films. For Bajpayee, these failures were only a way
to keep the “stove burning”. He says, “Many think that it was
a difficult or depressing time. It wasn’t. I worked on myself.
I don’t take failure or rejection personally.” That lean patch,
however, taught him he had to seek the roles he wanted. He

M
reached out to directors who were making films he liked. Soon
enough, Prakash Jha cast him in Rajneeti (2010), Anurag
anoj Bajpayee will tell you he doesn’t aspire Kashyap gave him Gangs of Wasseypur (2012) and Neeraj
for stardom: “Keep giving me good work Pandey offered him Special 26 (2013).
and give the superstar tag to someone else. Bajpayee is no longer the one doing the chasing. He, as
What I long for is great work. I am greedy in a matter of principle, now works to ensure that those who
that I don’t want anybody to take any good chase him, especially independent filmmakers, get the time
character away from me.” Though the actor’s and attention they seek. Over the past decade, it is, after all,
humility and dedication are inspiring, it must be noted that the indie directors who have given him his career-defining roles—
pandemic has changed the very definition of stardom. Theatres Hansal Mehta with Aligarh (2015) and Devashish Makhija
are today struggling to lure audiences and the Rs 100 crore film with Bhonsle (2018). Bajpayee won the Asia Pacific Screen
seems like an impossible dream. The protagonists of web shows Award for best actor for his restrained, pitch-perfect perfor-
have come to rule the roost. With both seasons of Bajpayee’s The mances in both these films.
Family Man (2019-) having unanimously been Though Bajpayee maintains he doesn’t
declared hits, he is now not just an acclaimed “differentiate between mainstream or inde-
actor but also a household name. This week, Though Manoj pendent cinema”, his roster does suggest an
Bajpayee returns to OTT, this time on Zee5, Bajpayee says he affinity for the latter. He has recently finished
with the thriller Dial 100. With the string of doesn’t “differ- films with Raam Reddy, best known for the
new releases on OTT platforms, including the entiate between acclaimed Kannada film, Thithi (2015), and
Netflix anthology film Ray, based on the works mainstream or Kanu Behl, who directed the gripping family
of Satyajit Ray, released last month, Bajpayee is independent cin- drama Titli (2014). After having worked with
fast emerging as new Bollywood’s first superstar. Abhishek Chaubey in Sonchiriya (2019) and
ema”, his roster
Bajpayee says he isn’t disappointed that Dial Ray (2021), the actor is teaming up with the
does suggest an
100, a film that was intended for theatres, is re- filmmaker again. Soon after Raj & DK fulfil
leasing on digital, instead. “I feel a new audience
affinity for the earlier commitments, Bajpayee will resume
has emerged which is interested in watching my
latter his work on The Family Man. He even hints
work,” he says. “Their interest in the work that I there is another web series in the offing. “The
have done [before] is quite overwhelming.” The good thing is I get along with these directors
rise of digital platforms, one can safely argue, and they understand me.”
has especially benefitted artists like Pankaj Tripathi (Mirzapur, After a long break, which included a bout of Covid-19,
2018—), Kay Kay Menon (Special Ops, 2020—), Jaideep Ahla- Bajpayee isn’t concerned about where or how these films
wat (Paatal Lok, 2020—) and Bajpayee. Though their thespian release. “Actors aren’t supposed to be biased towards a plat-
credentials were never in doubt, they once struggled to find form or genre. They should just be interested in acting. That’s
meaty parts in films. When they did, the star-centric theatrical what I do,” he says. Only a few like Bajpayee do the acting bit
distribution system robbed them of audiences. so effortlessly. n
The Family Man, says Bajpayee, has afforded him “a chance —Suhani Singh

48 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1

 ACT TWO Ashutosh
Rana in Chhatrasal

FILMS

MORE GOOD
talking and that is what the titular character, Rana
caught my attention,” says plays Aurangzeb. “To play a
Rana. Having spent a little role opposite such a brave

THAN EVIL
over 25 years in the business,
the National School of Drama
graduate continues to be just
as excited about acting as he
Known for his villainous performances, was when he first landed in
Ashutosh Rana is today being given Mumbai. “I studied acting. This
a larger canvas for his art is what I’m passionate about
and I’m very grateful that it’s
also my profession,” he says.
Rana now plays a piv-
n Dushman is one genre I have not done otal part in the MX
and interesting character is
fascinating.”
As with every character
he has brought to screen,
Rana prepared for playing
Aurangzeb by ensuring that
“Ashutosh Rana isn’t visible
at all”. The attempt, he says,
is to do “honest work”: “You
could say that my work is
sometimes good and at

I (1998), Ashutosh
Rana’s portrayal
of a rapist and
serial killer left many cold with
fear. But it was that now-
iconic scene from Sangharsh
(1999)—Rana in a sari, his index
finger flicking his lips, letting
out a terrifying scream—that
gave Hindi cinema one of its
most fearsome villains. Since
then, the actor has found even
more shades of evil to explore,
but the 53-year-old wishes he
had been offered more comic
characters. “I’m fortunate to
have done so many different
types of roles where I got to
explore different emotions and
human psyches, but comedy
enough of,” he says.
In what some are call-
ing the “second phase” of his
career, Rana says filmmakers
are open to the idea of casting
him in roles that don’t always
terrify. In the past few years,
we have seen him as the mor-
ally upright Constable Mohile
(Simmba, 2018), a stern
patriarch (Humpty Sharma
Ki Dulhaniya, 2014) and as a
father struggling with grief
(Pagglait, 2021). “My charac-
ter in Pagglait was particularly
challenging because my dia-
logue delivery is considered
to be my USP and I barely
had any dialogues in the film.
I had to express grief without
Player historical other times not, but it’ll
TO S H
series Chhatrasal. ASHU A always be honest
Growing up in R AN e se to the character I
at t h
Gadarwara, says th e isn’t am playing.” These
h
days cast
Madhya days when Rana
s
alway ifying
Pradesh, where r isn’t shooting—he
te r
he played Ravan as a ter
c ha ra c will next be seen in
in local Ramleela the Tigmanshu Dhulia
productions, the actor series Six Suspects—he
had heard stories about the is scribbling notes for his
unsung hero King Chhatrasal next book on his phone. The
of Bundelkand. “He started actor has already authored
his army with five horsemen the satire Maun Muskaan
and 11 foot-soldiers. In the Ki Maar and the mythologi-
44 years that he ruled, he cal Ramrajya. “Writing has
fought 56 wars and took on always been a way for me to
Aurangzeb, one of the most relax and calm myself down;
powerful and feared men to it’s the best medium for me to
ever rule our country,” he use my creativity,” he says. n
says. While Jitin Gulati plays —Karishma Upadhyay

AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 49

 A Genre of I
t has been 15
years since
Spike Lee used
and Grammy wins. It was
around this time that Sunny
Jain, born in Rochester, NY,

Own
Their
Young Indian American musicians
are adding the dhol to their songs and a
spunk to their politics
A.R. Rah-
man’s ‘Chaiyya
Chaiyya’ in
the opening credits of his
2006 film, Inside Man. What
was refreshing was how the
song didn’t feel ‘exoticised’
and how it blended in with
Terrence Blanchard’s trumpet-
heavy score for the film. Two
years later, Rahman became
something of a household
name in the US after his Oscar
founded Red Baraat.
“My background as a jazz
drummer started to shift and
I fell in love with the dhol. The
intention was to have a band
bringing in diverse influences,
with the guiding force being
the Indian marching band tra-
dition coupled with jazz,” says
Jain. The result was a sound
that was distinct and nothing
like the more popular brand of
desi fusion happening at the

52 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1


time in the UK. “I was well
aware of the UK scene and
loved artists like Talvin Singh,
Nitin Sawhney and Asian Dub thappa and Qasim Naqvi—
Foundation, but I wanted Red
Baraat to be an expression of
my South Asian American
experience,” says Jain.
His latest album, Phoenix
Rise, is a culmination of
alaaps, jazz drums, distorted
guitars, and Bollywood. It’s
the sort of ambitious, over-
wrought fusion that seems
miles ahead of the ‘fusion’
one would normally hear in
the early 2000s; intermittent
splashes of sitar in a song. The
contemporary Indo-American he was forced to endure slurs
fusion is a messy multitude of
influences, much like the art-
ists themselves.
Born in Buffalo, NY,
and bandleader of
the Elder Ones
ise)
quartet, Amirtha (clockw gh (in
Sin
Kidambi was Sonny n); Ashni
ba
relegated to red tur ; Sunny
Dav e
being the a n av ya
‘merch girl’ for Jain; G my; and
is w a
D o ra
her high school m ir t h a Kida
A
bands. “It was
pretty degrading now
that I look back on it,”
she says. It’s only in 2013 that
Kidambi began to overcome
self-doubt. “After getting
into the music of the Associa-
tion for the Advancement of
Creative Musicians (AACM), I
felt I finally had permission to
do my thing. They weren’t jazz
or classical, they weren’t just
composers but also perform-
ers, and, aesthetically, they
did whatever they wanted. I
incorporated the harmonium
into my music,” says Kidambi.
Vocalist Ashni Dave talks
about how an ‘alien envi-
ronment’ has shaped most
diaspora artists. “Many are
battling a layer of self-doubt
fuelled by a lack of examples,
spaces that give them a
platform, and often, resis-
tance from parents,” she says.
“When I began, there was
just one person I knew as an
Indian jazz drummer, Trilok
LEISURE
Gurtu,” says Jain. By the time
FUSION REACTORS
he met his peers—Rez Abbasi,
Vijay Iyer, Rudresh Mahan-
British Indians making their mark
Jain was already in his 20s.
A trumpeter and an origi-
nal member of Red Baraat,
Sonny Singh recounts grow-
ing up as a Sikh musician in a
largely white Tucson (Ari-
zona). Even though he was
sometimes subjected to ‘exoti-
fying’ remarks, Singh says the
reception to his Ska band was
usually warm. But in a post-
9/11 America, when Singh’s
rock band Outernational
would open for other bands, NAYANA IZ
A vocalist, rapper and multi-instrumentalist,
the North Londoner has been hailed for
and Osama bin Laden jokes.
‘breaking the hip-hop mould’. The M.I.A.
“For me, performing as a
comparisons notwithstanding, Nayana’s
brown, turban-wearing Sikh complexity truly comes to the fore in her latest
has always felt like a politi- single, ‘Breaking Point’.
cal act,” he says. Almost
two decades after
starting out, Singh
has also em-
barked on a solo
project, where
he’s reinterpreting
mbi
Sikh hymns from
his childhood using
modern sensibilities.
The modern Indian
diaspora sound is confident
of its roots, its ability to
amalgamate with any genre,
and to be astutely political. SOUMIK DATTA
Like vocalist Ganavya Do- The London-based sarod player has been
raiswamy’s tribute to Rohith around since Bricklane (2007), whose motion
Vemula, weaving a melody picture soundtrack he contributed to. Since
around the words in Vemula’s 2019, Datta’s brand of fusion has resulted in
suicide note. “What is music? three albums: King of Ghosts, Jangal and
Silent Spaces.
For me, it’s a technology of
care. There’s no music without
politics. Being an artist during
hate-filled eras is like being a
healer in a war zone,” she says.
“I don’t know if I have
overcome being ‘othered’. The
culture needs to change. This
white and western hegemony
needs to be dismantled, so
other voices can be heard,”
says Kidambi. Singh echoes
her sentiments, “Represen-
tation doesn’t mean much
without truly challenging
oppressive structures.” n SARATHY KORWAR
—Tatsam Mukherjee
The UK-based percussionist shot to fame with his
debut, Day to Day (2016), featuring Siddi musicians
from Gujarat. Korwar is currently working on his
next album, expected to release in early 2022.

ACTING ON HER
INSTINCT
D
espite growing up
with a screenwrit-
er father (Benny
Nayarambalam),
Anna Ben didn’t con-
sider becoming an actor till
about three years ago. “It was
in 2018 that I thought I’ll
experiment with a few audi-
tions here and there. I never
imagined I would get call-
backs. It was only something I
wanted to ‘try out’ in my early
20s,” says the 26-year-old
actor. Though she knew the
workings of the Malayalam
film industry well, Ben hadn’t
thought she would one day be
a part of it. “It was only after I
52 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1
FILMS
It has taken Anna Ben just four films
to cement her place as Malayalam
cinema’s everywoman
got a callback for my audition
for Kumbalangi Nights that I
told my mother. She has been
supportive about everything I
have wanted to do, but initial-
ly even she was scared if Dad
would be okay. Finally, he just
said, ‘Please don’t embarrass
me’,” she says with a laugh.
Ben has, of late, emerged
as one of the most exciting
young actors in an already
fertile industry that is
bustling with an incredible
amount of talent. In a span
of three years and four films,
Ben has cemented her place
as Malayalam cinema’s every-
woman. Having made her
debut in an ensemble cast
of Madhu C. Narayanan’s
acclaimed Kumbalangi
Nights (2019), Ben subse-
quently shouldered films
like Mathukutty Xavier’s
Helen (2019), Muhammad
While the roles
Anna Ben has
essayed all seem
straightforward
on the surface,
each had a twist
of its own
Musthafa’s Kappela (2020),
and Jude Anthany Joseph’s
Sara’s (2021). While the
roles she has essayed all seem
straightforward on the surface,
each had a twist of its own.
Born and raised in Kochi,
Ben studied fashion and worked
for a year in Bengaluru before
entering the industry. She grew
up watching a variety of films,
thanks to her mother’s obsession
with movies. “There was this
local CD shop where the latest
foreign films would be avail-
able, and my mother would buy
CDs from there.” Ben’s mother
introduced her to My Dear
Kuttichatan (1984), India’s first
3D film which Ben says she was
“blown away” by. They would
also often watch The Sound of
Music (1965) on their personal
computer. Like most kids grow-
ing up in the ’90s, even Ben was
gripped by the Shah Rukh Khan
fever in her teens.
Ben remembers accom-
panying her father on sets
as a child, describing it as a
“vibrant” place. However, it
was only on her first day on the
Kumbalangi... set that she dis-
covered the “electric” experience
of acting in front of the camera.
She hasn’t looked back since.
Ben’s filmography might not
be long but it sure is eclectic.
She has starred in an ensemble
film, a survival thriller, a twisted
‘romcom’, and a film on the deli-
cate issue of a woman’s repro-
ductive rights. It’s an interesting
gamut of films for a young actor,
who wasn’t even on anyone’s
radar till three years ago. n
—Tatsam Mukherjee
 DOWN
SOUTH
New must-watch regional films
TAMIL
VAAZHL
(SonyLIV)
Director Arun Prabhu Purushothaman
shows how strangers come to impact
our lives. Starring Pradeep Anthony,
the film is so stunning that the
seamless script works doubly hard to
keep up with its visuals.
TELUGU
NARAPPA
(Amazon Prime Video)
This adaptation of the Tamil Asuran
(2019) is ably carried by its lead,
Venkatesh. A saga of sacrifice and
revenge, the film keeps you glued by
giving that haves-and-have-nots tale
several dramatic twists.
MALAYALAM
SANTHOSHATHINTE
ONNAM RAHASYAM
(Neestream)
The devices filmmaker Don
Palathara uses—a single continuous
take, a fixed camera—aren’t exactly
new, but the way he employs them
to tell the story of a bickering couple
in a car is altogether novel
LEISURE
“I LIVE WITHOUT FEAR”
Streaming on Netflix, the Tamil anthology Navarasa is a collection of nine shorts
that explore one human emotion each. It seems strange that for one so
undaunted, Siddharth examines the feeling of fear. Having debuted in Shankar’s
Boys (2003), the actor built his reputation as a reliable powerhouse with films like
Rang De Basanti (2006) and Jigarthanda (2014). Fluent in both Hindi and Tamil,
Siddharth says the time for actors is now.
Q
Q. You and Parvathy
feature in a short on
fear. Your Twitter
account shows you’re
not afraid to speak
truth to power, but are
you wary of the conse-
quences this time?
I’m hoping the director
cast us as actors, not as
our true selves. In the past
15 years, I have tried to
live without fear. It comes
from being a very secure
person. As an actor, you
worry about doing your
job well, having the where-
withal to do it. In real life, if
you stand by your intent,
then you are prepared for
the consequences.
FILMS
Q. The past two years Q. You’ve dabbled in
have seen a series of Hindi films but you
anthologies on OTT have not done one for
platforms. Do you a while now.
think the format is I don’t work in Hindi
ideal for digital? as much for no other
Personally, I am not a reason but that I have
fan of anthologies. I am a very successful
not someone who will career [in Tamil]. Only
watch all the nine films when something excit-
[in Navarasa] at one ing comes from Hindi,
go. I would much rather do I approach it. Right
watch a film a day. I am now, OTT is that space
looking at the medium because a lot of writers
purely in its short for- are getting recognition.
mat. As an actor, though, It is important to have
it makes no difference. writer’s rooms and
What I do between showrunners. I think the
action and cut doesn’t next 15 years are going
change depending on to be great for actors.
whether the film will A lot of power has been
have a streaming release taken away from the
or a theatrical one. hands of people who
shouldn’t be deciding
Q. Can you pick one who should act, who
rasa to describe what should be a star and
the past 17 months who people should
have been like? like. You are giving that
My main rasa for the control back to the audi-
last 20-25 years has ence. The process, as
been the same—anger. a result, becomes more
The pandemic causes efficient and there are
sadness, anxiety and fewer restrictive trade
incredible amounts of practices, practices that
uncertainty, but when have all been a hallmark
nothing happens and of the entertainment
nobody helps, it makes industry in India.
you really angry. —with Suhani Singh
ays
l life, s
In rea ARTH,
H
SIDD u stand
if yo intent,
ur
by yo you are
then d for the
re
prepa quences
conse
 REINING
IT IN
BOOKS
T
There is a classic clip
out there of Ian McKel-
len rehearsing Hamlet’s
deadly soliloquy, “To
be or not to be”. It is an
actor’s nightmare, a set
of lines so familiar that
there is a distinct pos-
sibility that, pretty soon,
While fictionalising the life of Ashoka most audiences will start
the Great, not once does Irwin Allan intoning the rubbed-
Sealy forsake restraint. This can be both down words and phrases
along with the hapless
delightful and frustrating actor. It takes an actor
of McKellen’s calibre to
make those words sound
fresh, as if being heard for
the first time, rich with
nuance and insight. It is a
challenge that Irwin Al-
lan Sealy will recognise.
Ashoka’s conversion to
Buddhism after the car-
nage of the Kalinga War
must be one of the most
famous conversions in
the history of the world.
Every schoolchild knows
about it—but beyond
that, all we know is that
Ashoka was “Great”. The
Rock Edicts, preaching
tolerance and harmony,
lie scattered and practi-
cally forgotten all over
this heedless land. For
the rest, there are only
caricatures—the gran-
ASOCA deur of Chandragupta
A Sutra
Maurya—here, Grand-
by Irwin Allan Sealy
PENGUIN VIKING father—and the cunning
`699; 392 pages of the incredibly durable
56 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1
Kautilya, author of the
ur-Machiavellian text,
the Arthashastra—Uncle
K. But beyond that, un-
like Marguerite Your-
cenar writing the Mem-
oirs of Hadrian, or Hilary
Mantel reimagining the
villainous Cromwell,
Sealy has significantly
less historical material
to rely upon. Even the
Mauryan background
is relatively sketch-
ily known, compared to
Rome, or Tudor Britain.
It is all to be done.
Sealy holds a some-
what anomalous position
in the pantheon—al-
ready!—of Indo-Anglian
fiction. His Trotternama
was practically a foun-
dational text of the new
magic realism—head-
to-head with Midnight’s
Children. The Everest
Hotel was a sombre med-
itation on mortality—and
appeared on the Booker
shortlist for 1998. Over
three decades, there has
been a steady stream of
serious, considered works
in a variety of genres.
But for all that, Sealy
occupies a quiet niche,
away from the spotlight,
squirrelling away in his
Dehradun retreat. And
surfaces from time to
time with texts that bear
 LEISURE

Under Buddha’s
Influence
Buddhist impact on new literature

his unique signature. tous conversion. This implies

First, there is the lan-
guage, the perfectly poised
sentences, the meticulously
chosen words, the stately
decorous prose, ever mindful
of the majesty of its subject.
I was put in mind of a fine
jeweller, of engraved silver—
but perhaps it is something
of the lapidary quality of the
Edicts that has seeped into
the prose. Such a sustained
linguistic performance is a
rare pleasure in Indo-Angli-
an writing, where
much of the
ating
delight is often In narr e first
in th
the unintended Asoca , IRWIN
consequence person EALY sets
NS
of linguistic ALLA a challenge— t
lf
himse narrator mu n
infelic- a t t h e
th
y b e th
ity—and for alread becomes
that, one is duly he
grateful.
But I am not sure
if that is sufficient to sustain
the narrative. In choosing
to narrate Asoca in the first
person, Sealy has set
himself another serious
challenge. Thus, it is a given
of the first-person narra-
tive that the narrator must
already be the person that
he becomes. This is difficult
enough in narrating a life
that goes from childhood to
maturity, but the difficulty
becomes particularly acute
when the challenge is to nar-
rate a life whose key point of
interest is a hugely momen-
that the person has to be
endowed with complex and
even contradictory motives,
with a self-consciousness
that is endowed with both
insight and blindness, suf-
ficient to enable and explain
the lurchings of a roller-
coaster life.
The aftermath of the
Kalinga War is, obviously,
the crux of this life—and
yet, all that we are shown
apropos the “purging” of “the
Kalinga guilt” is a
father shelling peas
with his daughter
in the winter
sun. There is
in
obviously an
s
e r s o aesthetic that
ep
informs this he-
roic restraint, but
I can’t help think-
ing—with my taste for
melodrama—that here was
an occasion for the language
to shed its monumental qual-
ity, to rage and thunder, and
stutter and break down—and
so strike those deeper notes
that must inform such a
climactic moment. Still, to
return to McKellen’s Hamlet,
perhaps it is Sealy that has
the last laugh. His doubting
Buddhist Asoca, reminiscing
in a cave, unspooling his slow
sutra, is a far cry from the
familiar “Ashoka the Great”
of dog-eared textbooks. n
—Alok Rai
1
PHANIGIRI
Interpreting an Ancient Buddhist
Site in Telangana
by Naman P. Ahuja (Editor)
THE MARG FOUNDATION
`1,800; 228 pages
Phanigiri is Telangana’s most important Buddhist
archaeological site and this book meticulously
catalogues its sculptures and inscriptions, built
between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD
2
BUDDHA IN GANDHARA
by Sunita Dwivedi
RUPA
`795; 336 pages
The Buddhas of Bamiyan have been
desecrated, yes, but Dwivedi finds
in her travels through Pakistan and
Afghanistan more signs of Buddhist
influence—broken sculptures, even
Buddha’s begging bowl
3
RETURN OF
THE BRAHMIN
by Ravi Shankar Etteth
WESTLAND
`399; 342 pages
What did Ashoka do after embracing
Buddhism? Compared to what
Etteth imagines, history seems all
too staid. According to this novelist,
the emperor kept busy by fighting
Khandapati, an invisible foe

AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1 INDIA TODAY 55

Q A

Q. What was your reference

point for the Disney+ Hotstar
series City of Dreams?
My inspiration was The Wire. One of
the most amazing things about the
show was that the creators took
different aspects [of Baltimore]
for each season and explored it in
depth. I wanted to explore Bombay
without offending people and give
audiences a peek into what happens
in the so-called ‘city of dreams’. The
series format allows you to explore
many different lives. There were no
boundaries.

Q. You shot Season 2 in the

middle of a pandemic. Tell us
about that.
It went from being one of the most
enjoyable shoots to one of the most
torturous. Everything was humming
along [in March 2020] and we were 18
days away from wrapping the show.
We then heard rumours there’s this
virus called ‘corona’ going about.
Three days later, we had to shut the
show down. I told everyone we will
regroup in two weeks. [Laughs] We
finally resumed shooting in January.

Q. You have an affinity for

characters on the margins…
There’s this invisible force that
sways me towards that. Isn’t that
more exciting than seeing the clichéd
freaking heroes and their spotless
characters? My biggest problem
watching commercial cinema is that
the predictability gets boring. My
approach to writing is to surprise the
audience in a very organic way.

Q. Your first Telugu film, Good

Luck Sakhi, is also expected
to release this year. How does
that feel?
It is both exciting and terrifying.
So far, all Telugus have asked me,
‘When the hell are you going to make
something in your mother tongue?’ I’d
say I was not confident enough. That
was the truth. Being a Hyderabadi,
Dakhini came easier to me than
Telugu, even if I do speak it with my
mother. People are going to have me WRITING FROM
under a magnifying glass.

—with Suhani Singh

THE MARGINS Nagesh Kukunoor broke out with Hyderabad
Blues in 1998. More than two decades later, the
filmmaker is still dodging predictable tropes
while enjoying his day in the OTT sun

56 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 16 , 2 02 1

56 Volume XLVI Number 33; For the week August 10-16, 2021, published on every Friday Total number of pages 58 (including cover pages)
SEARCH FOR
EDITORIAL IMAGES
ENDS HERE