When our earth speaks cruelly to us, as in a quake, tsunami, landslide or torrent, what is she trying to say? That we must not take our lives, even the next hour, for granted? That the essential must not be put off? That we should not let burdens fall on our children’s shoulders? That while there is time we should repair relationships, offering the needed word of appreciation, thanks, apology, whatever? Or is the earth showing fury at neglect and demanding attention?
Similar reflections are provoked when a shootout takes place in a mall or school, or a horrible accident occurs in air, ground or water. Life seems “normal” until the moment it isn’t, and we know not when that moment arrives.
These musings were triggered by the astounding, violent collapse on Aug. 26 of a mountain of Himalayan ice-and-rock close to the border between Tibet — the Himalayan region administered by China — and Nepal, on a ground favored year after year by thousands of pilgrims and tourists, and the resultant high-velocity flood that swallowed hundreds, maybe even more, of unsuspecting humans of varied nationalities.
The world seems helpless as it tries to imagine what may still be happening to those swept down steep hills by a newly created river, or buried under displaced earth, or wonder who these victims are and whether or not a missing loved one is one of them, or was somehow missed by the raging torrent and might still show up. Helplessness dominates but hope doesn’t die.
Weighty Wish
I want to underline a wish expressed on Saturday, Aug. 29, when over 200 joined a virtual remembrance of Niketu Iralu, a native of that extensive structure of mountains, forests and rivers where the Aug. 26 disaster occurred, who had died on Aug. 18. Recalling Niketu’s lifelong work of reconciling sharply estranged groups, the wish was for efforts to bring people together “on both sides of the Himalayas.”
Reconciling groups, communities and nations south of the Himalayas — in the region commonly spoken of as South Asia — has been visibly attempted for some time. Energies have been spent in bids for understanding between, for example, India and Pakistan, or between India and Bangladesh. As for Nepal and India, travel between them has always been visa-free even though misunderstandings crop up from time to time.
Though South Asians quarrel volubly, and on occasion violently, with one another, they belong to a common linguistic-cultural world. India-China relations is an entirely different story. Interaction between Indians and Chinese remains rare, even though China has become India’s biggest partner in trade, having displaced the U.S. from that position.
Links Are Minimal
Indians engage with Americans round the clock and in every area of life. The Chinese do the same with Americans and have done so for much longer, the Pacific being a strong connection. But people-to-people ties between the Chinese and the Indian people have been minimal, and not primarily because of the Himalayas.
In the past, mountainous barriers confined contact between these Asian neighbors to the brave and determined few. Today, more than 25,000 young Indians live and study in China, a great majority in the medical field.
One wonders if any word about India’s Gen Z and its recent manifestation, the Cockroach Janata Party, has reached the ears of China’s Gen Z. Old and young Indians know about Tibet and its leader, the Dalai Lama, who has been living in exile in India since 1959. Indians are also aware that Xi Jinping is the all-powerful general secretary of China’s Communist Party, in effect the country’s president for life, and a warm friend of Pakistan, a neighbor Indians have been taught to dislike.
All that and more must be conceded, but the message of the Aug. 26 disaster is stronger by far, and it is this. The people who live south or west of the Himalayas, whether in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal or Bangladesh, including the people in territories about which rival claims are made, and the people who live north or east of the Himalayas, whether in China or in Central Asia, including those living in territories about which rival claims are made, are neighbors who must learn to get along.
Niketu Iralu had named his home “House of Listening.” He wanted everyone to listen to the voice of truth — and to the voices of neighbors. Even to the voices of enemies.
Not a Steel Curtain
When they are angry, and also when they are calm, the vulnerable (and venerable) Himalayas say the same thing. “We’re not a Steel Curtain. We’re a bridge, though not an immortal bridge. Be gentle with us. Listen to us, to the danger we are facing.
“Remember that we are not blocking your sight. We are transparent. Indians should look at the Chinese, who should look at the Indians.”
Perhaps young Chinese and young Indians, whether they see themselves as cockroaches, dragons, elephants, swans, whatever, will look at one another. Perhaps they will go further and listen to one another on subjects that include the groaning Himalayas.
In today’s world, a dialogue will pose no technical challenge. But Mukul Kesavan’s frank words in Kolkata’s The Telegraph (Aug. 31) should be soberly absorbed:
“[The Indian] government’s willingness to deregulate the country’s forests and natural resources to favor crony conglomerates, its unwillingness to rein in the construction and transport lobbies that have made India’s cities polluted hellholes, its addiction to sectarian politics and its near-uniformly hostile relations with its subcontinental neighbors, make Indian environmental leadership in South Asia a dangerously remote prospect.”
While power in India remains with 75-year-old Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been in command since 2014, the Gen Z-led change in mood is palpable. While the hoary Congress Party’s Rahul Gandhi, 56, has contributed to the change, it was the Cockroach Janta Party that sparked it off with its successful protest against exam leaks in June and July.
Big CJP Win
The CJP’s well-known faces, Abhijeet Dipke, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das, are Gen Z themselves or were Gen Z a year or two back. On Sept. 1, the CJP registered a big win when India’s Supreme Court quashed all the cases filed against student protesters between July 20 and 25. In response, the CJP has called off the Sept. 5 march in Delhi it had earlier announced.
The Modi government assured the court that it would honor an earlier assurance to compensate the families of students who died by suicide following the cancellation earlier this year of a nationwide exam. The court directed the government to finish compensation modalities within three months.
So far, thankfully, the Congress Party and the CJP have been walking in the same direction while functioning independently. In their public appearances, moreover, Dipke, Ranka and Das have looked credible, likable and courageous.
Speaking to the BBC’s Ishadrita Lahiri on Aug. 30, 30-year-old Dipke thanked India’s Chief Justice Surya Kant for inadvertently coming out with the word “cockroaches,” thereby gifting Gen Z and everyone else in the country with the line, spelled out in an inspired moment by Dipke, “What if all cockroaches unite?”
The New York Times, too, has interviewed Dipke. The conversation can be found here.
In earlier columns I had noted how, defying predictions, the CJP’s Delhi protest compelled Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign. In another victory, the CJP’s Fix the School campaign, demanding rectification of government schools in rural India, has forced sudden and large allocations of funds to, literally, fix such ramshackle schools, which sadly add up to a huge number.
“After CJP’s drive, Rajasthan unveils Rs 12,500 crore ($1.32 million) school revamp plan” was the headline in the Times of India.
A week ago, this column had described the violent assaults on a team led by CJP’s Ashutosh Ranka that had gone to study the condition of a supposed government school in a village not far from Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan state.
Can the CJP possibly sustain this remarkable momentum? Will its leaders survive the adulation and publicity their success has earned? Will they maintain their unity, simplicity and straightforwardness? Can discipline endure in the hundreds of thousands, in fact millions, of Gen Z and Gen Alpha protesters who in recent weeks have taken to the streets and spoken out?
Dipke conveys much sense in repeatedly insisting, “Don’t make anyone a hero,” and “No one is larger than the movement.” Given the reality of pre-July India, Dipke also speaks of a remarkable change when he asserts that Indians have lost their fears, are demanding their rights as citizens and are questioning the government.
Given the ugly realities of election management in India, the changes of which Dipke speaks may not necessarily be reflected in the voting expected early next year in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, and elsewhere, or, looking further into the future, in the national elections due only in 2029. Still, one may hope that civil servants and judges will note the changed mood and be bolder when required to deal with anti-democratic measures.
“Purifying” a Ground
Paralleling the CJP’s successes is Rahul Gandhi’s currently popular campaigns for women’s rights and for the rights of “lower” castes and Dalits, the former “untouchables.” An extraordinary call by some right-wing Hindus in Haldwani in the northern state of Uttarakhand for “purifying” the ground from where Mallikarjun Kharge, the president of the Congress Party, had recently spoken, because Kharge is a Dalit, has invited a sharp challenge from Rahul Gandhi.
Reports the Indian Express on Aug. 31: “Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi on [Aug. 29] attacked the Uttarakhand government and the BJP over the “shuddhikaran” (purification) of the Ramlila Maidan at Haldwani after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s speech, charging that this was an instance of ‘untouchability.’”
Since untouchability is a criminal offense under India’s laws, Rahul wants a case registered against those who called for “purifying” the Haldwani site.
Successfully identifying himself with the causes of the youth, women and Dalits, Rahul Gandhi has openly rejected anti-women and anti-Dalit verses in an ancient Hindu text, Manusmriti. Despite its distasteful recommendations, Manusmriti has enjoyed a kind of religious halo which Rahul has disregarded but which sections of the Hindu Right uphold. He is in favor, Rahul asserts, of “smashing the patriarchy.” Whatever the political ramifications, his stand is courageous.
