Innehållsförteckning för February 2019 från The Caravan

With an old sky-blue surfboard tucked under her arm, Ishita Malaviya walked across the white sand of the Kodi Bengre beach in Karnataka’s Udupi district, towards the greenish-blue waters of the Arabian Sea. It was a cool evening. The sun was setting, with its last rays spreading across the beach. Even to my untrained eye, the foamy waves seemed unrulier than usual. After entering the water, Malaviya, who is India’s first female professional surfer, waded deeper and deeper. Finally, she mounted the board with a confidence stemming from years of experience. For a while, she seemed to be going steady, but an unanticipated wave made her slide off the board and splash into the water. This happened a few more times. I asked her about it after she came out,…

The ease with which the Awami League won the Bangladesh general election on 30 December 2018 surpassed even its most optimistic expectations. The party won 288 of the 299 seats in the country’s parliament. Even dictators holding sham elections, such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq or Josef Stalin in the Soviet Union, would have felt embarrassed at such a rout of the opposition. Sheikh Hasina Wazed was sworn in as prime minister for a third consecutive term. The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, promptly congratulated her on her “resounding victory” and said the results indicated “Bangladesh’s stunning development under her dynamic leadership.” China, too, was quick to deem the elections smooth and successful. And yet, this was nowhere near the dream victory it seemed on paper. The ruling party’s campaign…

A RESPECTABLE WOMAN Easterine Kire This novel switches between the Nagaland of today and of forty years ago, delving into a mother’s memories as she recounts for her daughter events that unfolded after the Battle of Kohima, during the Second World War. Won by the Allies and involving the bombing of several villages, the war left the region in a state of ruin and turmoil. The poet and novelist Easterine Kire chronicles, in fragments, the story of how lives and homes were gradually rebuilt in the state, after the Japanese troops retreated and returning soldiers attempted to grapple with their experiences in the war. ZUBAAN, 176 PAGES, R 395 HOW TO WIN AN INDIAN ELECTION WHAT POLITICAL PARTIES DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW Shivam Shankar Singh Shivam Shankar Singh, a…

ON 28 FEBRUARY 2007 , a statue of the former president Chiang Kai-shek in Tainan City, Taiwan, is defaced with the text, “Butcher, culprits of 2-28,” as the country commemorates the sixtieth anniversary of the “white terror.” The white terror refers to a crackdown in 1947 by Chiang’s Kuomintang regime against its political opponents, as it sought to secure its position in Taiwan following its defeat in mainland China to the forces of Mao Zedong. The crackdown started with what is known as the 228 incident. On 27 February 1947, in Taipei, armed agents of the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau assaulted a Taiwanese woman who had been selling contraband cigarettes. As a crowd gathered around the agents, protesting the use of excessive force, the agents fired upon them and fled. The…

In January 2015, Kavish Seth was travelling the country as part of the Jagriti Yatra, a two-week train journey for young entrepreneurs to meet prospective role models. He was 22 years old, a recent graduate in chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, and hoping to forge a career as a musician—although he worried about how restrictive the metropolitan indie scene would be. Seeking to kill time on the train between Nalanda and Gorakhpur, he pulled out his guitar and started playing. A co-passenger looked at him and said, “Ye kya bahar ka baja rahe ho? Kuchh apna bajao”—Why are you playing a foreign instrument? Play an Indian one. The Jagriti Yatra helped Seth address his concerns about a music career. Neha Arora, a fellow traveller, offered to…

In September last year, the Supreme Court overturned a ban on the entry of women of menstruating age into Kerala’s Sabarimala temple, triggering a violent conflict that has lasted for months. While the Left Democratic Front state government accepted it as a duty to implement the court’s verdict, the opposition parties such as the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party sided with those protesting the ruling. The BJP and the Sangh Parivar outfits have emerged as the face of the conservative side, inciting religious passions among devotees. In a bad imitation of the BJP, the Congress has tried to construct the debate as a clash between religious practices and the constitutional principle of equality. One of the Congress’s top leaders from Kerala, Shashi Tharoor, wrote in an article in The…

Theatre Ishara International Puppet Festival INDIA HABITAT CENTRE, DELHI 1 TO 9 FEBRUARY In the seventeenth edition of the Ishara International Puppet Festival, artists from India will share stage with performers from Afghanistan, Brazil, Germany and Iran, among others. The festival will showcase traditional as well as modern forms of puppetry, ranging from rod to string puppets, alongside mixed performances with dance, theatre and music. For further information, write to pooja.gulati@longform.in Art Kochi Muziris Biennale 12 DECEMBER TO 29 MARCH FORT KOCHI, KERALA The fourth edition of Kochi-Muziris Biennale, titled “Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life,” features over a hundred projects displayed in heritage properties, public spaces and galleries across Fort Kochi, Mattancherry, and Ernakulam. Running parallel to the festival are the Students’ Biennale and several collateral exhibitions. For…

The pressure-cooker manufacturer Prestige reported soaring profits last year, as did its primary rivals in the cookware market. But the good news for these companies came with bad news for the economy. The chairperson of Prestige told The Hindu that increased profits had come hand in hand with a fall in competition from the unorganised sector. “There are three or four organised players” in the industry, he said, listing a few rival brands. “The rest are all unorganised.” Since the government had implemented the goods and services tax, or GST, “the unorganised competition is reducing.” Official data claims that the Indian economy is growing at more than 7 percent per annum. But unofficial data contradicts that contention. A recent survey by the All India Manufacturers’ Organisation revealed that the economy…