There has been an outpouring of tributes to “Uncle Niketu,” the Naga statesman who died at age 91 on Aug. 18, for his role as a frank, wise and constant friend to a great many men and women of all ages.
For their aptness today, let me recall two observations that Niketu Iralu made in a YouTube interview with Barkha Dutt three years ago, when violence in Manipur was at its peak. Referring to Prime Minister Modi’s long silence over the violence, Iralu said that the premier and his home minister, Amit Shah, should obey the Gita’s instruction, which was to do one’s duty without worrying about its fruits.
Niketu Iralu’s second observation to Dutt was that conflicts between groups offer rulers “a challenge but also a temptation.” He was pointing out that rulers must choose between what benefits them politically and what may resolve a conflict.
The interview can be accessed here.
Imposing a Song
Home Minister Amit Shah, who skipped Parliament’s sessions and avoided answering questions about police violence on young protesters, has dared Rahul Gandhi and the Congress Party to oppose the Modi government’s recent (July 30) law that makes “intentional disruption or disrespect” of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s full "Vande Mataram" song a punishable offense. From 1947, the song’s first two stanzas have been accepted and rendered as India’s national song, which complements India’s national anthem, "Jana Gana Mana," written and composed by Rabindranath Tagore.
Since "Vande Mataram’s" subsequent stanzas venerate Hindu goddesses, a state assuring freedom of belief cannot require Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists and other non-Hindus to sing them.
Shah, presumably with Modi’s agreement, smells profit in throwing doubt on the Congress’s fervor for Hinduism. However, just as requiring Hindu (or Jewish or Muslim) citizens of the United States or the United Kingdom to sing a song privileging Christianity would be too much, requiring India’s non-Hindus to sing in praise of Hindu divinities cannot be right. Shah is wrong. Not the language of supremacy but the spirit of mutual respect is what nations need.
"Vande Mataram’s" complexity is a very old story. Ten years before it was won, the tallest leaders and thinkers struggling for independence, including Gandhi, poet Tagore, Nehru, Patel and Subhas Bose, agreed that since "Vande Mataram’s" first two stanzas inspired everyone, those stanzas should be accepted as the national song. The remaining stanzas stirred Hindus but could not be imposed on non-Hindus. Sound in 1937, the reasoning remains sound in 2026.
As advocate Irfan Engineer points out in this "Red Mike" interview with Saurabh Shukla, in "Jana Gana Mana’s" case too, only a portion of the original poem is sung. Neither the BJP nor anyone else protests at the exclusion of five stanzas of Tagore’s poem, one of which rejoices that India contains Muslims, Christians and Parsis in addition to Hindus.
Is This a School?
Having lost narrative control, the Modi-Shah duo want to push Vande Mataram as a talking point, but the Cockroaches have another plan. The "Fix the School" agenda of the Cockroach Janta Party is inviting vigorous nationwide discussion. This is not only because the pathetic state of government schools in much of the land is well known, but also because YouTube videos have captured violence by goons against CJP teams showing up at government schools that are practically non-existent.
Not far from Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan (in area India’s largest state), is Rampura Kanwarpura village, located in the Bagru assembly constituency. When a CJP team went to the village to inspect its government school, they were roughed up. This team was led by Ashutosh Ranka, a CJP co-convener who belongs to Rajasthan. Later Ranka was interviewed on YouTube channels with a wide reach, including Ajit Anjum’s AAA Media.
The prestigious newspaper, The Hindu, and popular online portals including Scroll.in and The Print also covered the CJP team’s attempt to examine this village school. Here’s what The Print quoted Ranka as saying:
“All levels of disgust were crossed today. For the past several years, the school at Rampura Kanwarpura has been running from a buffalo shed. But when we reached there for an inspection, we were openly assaulted, pelted with stones. Car windows were smashed, stones were rained down on the team. Clothes were torn. My clothes were also torn.
“Our volunteers’ hands were broken, vehicles were smashed. Women were also targeted and misbehaved with by men. Their phones were broken. Not even a single policeman was present there. Instead, BJP workers were present.”
Ranka told Ajit Anjum that, anticipating trouble, he had sought police protection ahead of the CJP team’s visit and asked for protection.
The request was ignored. Under the current dispensation, protecting citizens is not the police’s duty.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP ministry led by Yogi Adityanath has warned Fix the School activists that “unauthorized” visits to government schools may lead to their arrest. Sanjay Singh, a Rajya Sabha MP from the Aam Aadmi Party, has named five schools in eastern UP that exist in government records but not on the ground, adding that his party will reward anyone showing the physical version.
Lodging an FIR
In principle, anyone who is assaulted, swindled or robbed can go to a police station in India and lodge his or her complaint, whereupon the police would record a First Information Report. Every corner of India, whatever its language, knows what “FIR” is.
Young Sahil Lochab, too, is widely known across India. On July 20, millions saw videos showing the wounds Lochab received that day from pellets fired into his body by police cracking down on protesting youngsters. Most people in India also know that Rahul Gandhi is the “Leader of Opposition,” a constitutional title for one heading the largest opposition group in Parliament.
It was only on Aug. 21, i.e., 31 days after Lochab was severely injured, and after he and Rahul Gandhi had spent eight hours at the Parliament Street police station in New Delhi, with Rahul declaring that he would not leave without an FIR being registered, that it was. This fact alone is a sufficient verdict on democracy’s state in India.
During those eight hours, Parliament Street police officers phoned their seniors for permission to record Lochab’s complaint. Home Minister Amit Shah is their seniormost senior. Finally, either Minister Shah “authorized” the recording of the complaint, or a top bureaucrat interpreted what Shah said or didn’t say as an authorization, and the Parliament Street station felt safe entering the complaint on a page in its book!
Shah and Modi have been unwilling so far to say to Parliament or to anyone whether or not pellet guns were used against protesters on July 20. A hospital had confirmed that Lochab’s injuries were received from pellets. On July 20, all of India saw what had just been fired at him. Now eyes will be focused on what the investigation reveals or is allowed to reveal.
Rahul Gandhi’s unorthodox approach was again witnessed on Aug. 22 in Pune where he addressed a large and enthusiastic rally of young women. Their wish for autonomy was the theme, and Rahul got several of them to tell their individual stories.
The rally’s response to Rahul was more than wholehearted, suggesting that Shah and Modi may have a hard time persuading India’s Hindus to focus only on the Congress Party’s attitude to “the full 'Vande Mataram'.”
Chief Minister Not Permitted
The successful resistance of India’s southern states to Hindutva has not endeared them to Modi and Shah, who have denied permission to Revanth Reddy, Telangana’s chief minister, to visit the U.S., where he intended to seek support for advancing higher education in his state.
From the U.K., where Reddy was seeking investment in his state and meeting the Telugu diaspora, he was scheduled to fly to the U.S. and visit Harvard, MIT, Northeastern and Virginia Tech. The disappointed chief minister commented that “issues such as youth development should be above politics.”
According to the Hindustan Times, Reddy “pointed out that the only purpose of his [proposed U.S. visit] was to bring the world’s best institutions to Telangana as part of the country’s New Education Policy.”
Gujarat’s BJP chief minister, Bhupendra Patel, is currently on a visit to the U.S. and Canada. The headline in Indian Express is “GUJARAT CM ALLOWED U.S. VISIT, WHY WAS I DENIED? — REVANTH."
This selectivity will not help the BJP in the south.
Central Asia’s Mughals
The countries of the vast expanse of mineral-rich Central Asia aren’t merely physically close to India and Pakistan. Originating in what now is the Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan, the Mughals had made India their home from the year 1526 and established a long dynasty in Delhi and Agra, providing a cultural and historical connection of considerable potential today.
For India to deprive itself of that potential just because the Mughals happened to be Muslim is patently foolish, but it’s a sign of our times that the foolishness has to be pointed out.
In an article (Aug. 21) in The Telegraph of Kolkata, T. C. A. Raghavan, retired career diplomat and a former ambassador to Pakistan, wrote: “There may be multiple views of the Mughals but they represent a period of great proximity between India and Central Asia. Their 500th anniversary in India can remind us of that. Why cede that privilege?”
These two Instagram reels circulating in Pakistan and aired by Dumb TV, a Pakistani digital content and social experiment channel, will interest Indians and other non-Pakistanis. I shouldn’t reveal their contents but may say that while one tries to capture the attitude of everyday Pakistanis to India’s flag, the other shows a Pakistani take on India’s national anthem.
It was good to learn from the BBC that the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Canada have condemned Israel's West Bank settlement project.
But the AFP story, citing a World Bank report, that Lebanon’s economy would contract by 6.4% this year is saddening. The hits being taken by Lebanon are a poor verdict on our world’s collective abilities.
Tailpiece: The Press Trust of India PTI reports that under a proposed “One Day, One University” program, one Union minister will be dispatched to a university every day to “listen” to students and tell them about government schemes.
Who says the Modi government isn’t responding to Gen Z discontent?
