Shahjahan’s Hindu Blood

Media Watch 

From holy cows, Hindu India’s obsessions seems to have shifted to old mosques. India Today’s cover story this time [June 13] is on this new fad of Hindu nationalism. Titled ‘The Mandir Wapsi Movement,’ the story warns us of “a new phase of Hindu revivalism.”

Sunil Menon begins the lead story with Shah Jahan’s Hindu ancestry. “Shah Jahan’s mother was Rajput,” writes Menon, “and his father was half-Rajput. His son, Aurangzeb, had Rajput blood from his father and Persian from his mother.” The metaphor that is currently vitiating the country’s air – the Muslim as foreign invader – deserves a harder look. “The fact that the last three of the six ‘Great Mughals’ were products of intermarriage complicates that simplistic trope.”

However, the writer knows that facts hardly matter nowadays in India. The stories we tell ourselves matter. And we are fabricating a lot of false narratives these days by which many mosques are metamorphosing into temples. Modi’s government pretends to be an innocent bystander, says the editorial of India Today. The editor counsels the readers sanely that “instead of distracting ourselves with disturbing themes from the past,” we should be concerned with the present realities. “GDP Wapsi, anyone?” is the editorial’s last question. 

The Open magazine has put the bombastic babus of India’s bureaucracy on the cover this time. ‘Indian Entitlement Service’ is what the magazine calls the IAS. The focus is on the IAS couple that appropriated a whole sports complex to themselves for walking their dog. Our bureaucrats have a tendency to mimic their colonial predecessors, says the magazine. The Open also cites the example of a district magistrate who in the 1980s was dismayed by the facilities given him by the government: a three-acre campus and a support staff of 15 employees which he described as “obscenely decadent and slothful”. India pampers its politicians and bureaucrats too much. It is high time to make certain changes.

P R Ramesh, who wrote the story for Open, is a hardcore Modi fan. He goes on to write that after Modi became the PM, the system underwent revolutionary changes. “Suddenly, bureaucrats of all ranks were being made accountable for their work time and forced to clock in at both the entry and exit points while the dog tag ID card became a tell-tale gauge of work ethic and efficiency rather than a mere status showpiece,” Ramesh writes. Well! 

The Open has taken a well-deserved look at Geetanjali Shree’s Booker winner. “The importance and relevance of this domain of intra-national translations cannot be emphasised enough,” writes Ranjit Hoskote. “By introducing the lives, concerns and imaginative achievements of one language group to another, across the lines of linguistic states…, such intra-national translations could serve as a salutary antidote to the narrow and toxic forms of identity politics that are currently polarising India.”

The Week also has highlighted the Booker winner. “Shree’s win is very much a moment for Indian languages in English.” [Rather awkward sentence, that is, isn’t it?] “It is a moment, but it is still years from being a movement.” The movement that the Week seeks is increased translations within Indian languages.

Down to Earth informs us that tribal people in India die younger than others. A tribal in India is likely to live 4 years less than a “higher caste Hindu,” according to a study by the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics. While tribals live 4 years less, Dalits lose 3 and Muslim one year each, says the study. The quality of the food they can afford is one reason. The change in traditional habits necessitated by a changing world is another. There is also inadequate access to healthcare. “Crops and dairy products don’t smell the same,” the magazine quotes one Bhil tribe person from MP. Development has its dark sides too.

Down to Earth also draws our attention to the food crisis engendered by the Russia-Ukraine war. Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter and Ukraine occupies the sixth place. Now the war has hindered the supply of wheat to many countries. About 50 countries depend on these two waring countries for food supplies. The magazine prognosticates that food prices will continue to rise till the end of 2024. Bad news indeed.

Down to Earth informs me that I belong to the top 10% of Indians in terms of monthly salary. If you have a monthly salary of Rs 25,000, you are among the top 10% of earners, says a report in the magazine which is based on the ‘State of Inequality in India’ report by the Institute for Competitiveness. The income of the top one percent in India grew by 15% in in 2017-2020. The income of the bottom 10% fell by one percent. The magazine quotes the World Inequality Report that “India stands out as a poor and very unequal country, with an affluent elite.” Maybe, India could start thinking about that problem instead of going around bringing down old mosques.

PS. Last week’s Media Watch: Modi dominates the week again