Innehållsförteckning för April 2021 från The Caravan

Nascimento Fernandes is a third-generation beef trader in Goa. Ubaldo’s Beef Shop, set up by his grandfather in the 1920s, overlooks Calangute’s bustling fish market. Fresh beef from Belgaum, in neighbouring Karnataka, is brought in daily. Five minivans make deliveries in Panjim, Mapusa, Ponda, Vasco and Margao—about fifteen to twenty tonnes a day—between 7 am and 10 am. These supplies then make their way to traders like Fernandes, who caters to both residents of the village and the restaurants and beach shacks in the area. During festivals, live buffalos and bulls have often been transported from Karnataka to a state-run abattoir. All of this, however, stands to change. On 9 December, the Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill, 2020 was passed in the Vidhan Sabha without discussion,…

The Bharatiya Janata Party looks set for more electoral success in the four states and one union territory going to the polls this summer. The Congress is struggling in all of them, and obituaries have been written in advance for regional parties such as the Trinamool Congress. On cue, the liberal commentariat is back to its usual debate on Rahul Gandhi and the Congress. One set, impatient with the Congress’s perennially stalled revival, wants him to step aside from de facto leadership of the party, making way for other people who can pull it out of the morass; another set defends him and voices its confidence that he remains the right man for the task. If Narendra Modi returns as prime minister in 2024 for his third consecutive term, “a…

I think that there will come a time when people will ask of the Indian media: What were you doing in those five years when a government came to power that spread hate and poison, that controlled the media, what were you doing then? And very few in the Indian media will be able to hold their heads up and say that we were calling the powerful to account. I think Caravan is one of the few magazines that will be able to hold its head up, if it stays afloat. And I hope it stays afloat, which is why I’m saying, please read Caravan. ARUNDHATI ROY, Author I love reading The Caravan, because the kind of reportage it does, is away from the din of fast news, of something…

IN 1957 , a special-forces inspector in Tiruchirappalli filed a case against EV Ramasamy—the founder of the Dravidar Kazhagam, popularly known as Periyar—under Section 117 of the Indian Penal Code. Section 117 forbids the abetment of an offence by ten people or more, and is punishable with three years of imprisonment. Periyar, 78 years old at the time, was charged for allegedly urging people to kill Brahmins and set fire to their houses, and for burning sections of the Indian Constitution at a public demonstration. A sessions judge sentenced him to six months in prison. In the three speeches submitted to the trial court for review, all of them given in the first three weeks of October that year, although Periyar did not urge anyone to kill Brahmins or burn…

EMS NAMBOODIRIPAD (LEFT) and members of his cabinet head to lunch from their offices in Trivandrum in April 1957, shortly after he was sworn in as the chief minister of Kerala. The Communist Party of India won the largest share of seats in the inaugural election to the Kerala legislative assembly and formed one of the world’s first elected communist governments—in the thick of the Cold War, and amid a Congress monopoly over all other state governments at the time. Namboodiripad’s administration struggled to contain massive backlash to its programme of reforms. Its tenure was cut short in about two years and three months, when the central government under Jawaharlal Nehru imposed president’s rule in Kerala. Namboodiripad was a Congress man early on, and in the mid 1930s he was…

On 15 March, at the sixth protest gathering of the National Adivasi Indigenous Religion Coordination Committee, Adivasis from across the country came together at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar to demand a separate column for “tribal religion” in the census. They also appealed for the inclusion of Adivasi languages in the eighth schedule of the Constitution. A month earlier, speaking at a conference organised by Harvard University, Jharkhand’s chief minister Hemant Soren said that “Adivasis were never Hindus, neither they will ever be.” He added, “Adivasis are nature worshipers, their culture, religious rituals, and lifestyle is entirely different than Hindus.” Soren’s comments, which became a point of criticism for right-wing leaders, echoed the voices of Adivasis in Jharkhand who follow their own distinct belief systems, which have been transmitted orally through generations.…

On 12 March, the Election Commission announced an unprecedented eight-phase polling schedule for West Bengal’s 294 assembly seats and a three-phase one for 126 seats in Assam. The way the phases have been marked out has drawn attention, especially since Bihar’s elections, in 243 seats last year, were divided into just three phases, and polling in Tamil Nadu (234 seats), Kerala (140 seats) and Puducherry (30 seats) would all be over in one day, on 6 April. The EC says the prolonged schedule in West Bengal would help make available adequate security forces in all the areas. But concerns are being raised that the scheduling will load the dice in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Since the BJP has fewer workers on the ground in West Bengal, dividing the…

Post lunchtime on a crisp winter afternoon, Rupesh Khakholia settled into a black leather chair at his tea shop in Fancy Bazaar, a bustling market in Guwahati. His tiny office was lined by posters and boxes for various kinds of tea—CTC, green and orthodox, and numerous speciality varieties. Outside, a few employees worked frantically to package teas and keep pace as new crates arrived from nearby warehouses. Last October, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Khakholia bought a batch of Manohari Gold tea—a highly prized speciality tea from the Manohari Tea Estate in Assam’s Dibrugarh district—at ₹ 75,000 per kilogram. This was a record price, confirming Manohari Gold one of the most expensive teas in the world, and it made for many giddy headlines. Khakholia placed his winning bid from his office…

Every few decades, India gets a new National Education Policy—a framework to guide the development of education in the country. The first education policy was passed in 1968, the second in 1986 and the third was approved by the cabinet on 29 July last year. This policy will provide the vision for India’s education not just now, but for decades to come. The 2020 edition of the NEP promises some sweeping changes in India’s education system. It plans to overhaul the 10+2 structure of school education into a 5+3+3+4 model, bringing preschool education into the ambit of formal schooling. It seeks to introduce pedagogic and curriculum reforms, including with respect to the flexibility of subjects and synergy between streams of learning, as well as changes in the assessment system. It…

SINCE NOVEMBER LAST YEAR, protests have erupted throughout Nepal, including in the cities of Butwal, Biratnagar, Dhangadhi, Pokhara, Janakpur and Kathmandu. While civil and political protests are a strong and regular feature of Nepali politics, these recent developments assume significance because of the coming together of various fringe groups on two broad demands: the restoration of the monarchy and the establishment of a Hindu Rashtra. These demands are not novel—the country has seen sporadic protests of this kind over the past decade, but they have been few and far between. This time, however, the protests have drawn larger numbers than before and not been limited only to the usual suspects. Journalists have noted the presence of not just traditional royalist parties, such as the Rastriya Prajatantra Party, but also supporters…

THE PUNISHED STORIES OF DEATH-ROW PRISONERS IN INDIA Jahnavi Misra Between 2013 and 2016, Project 39A, a criminal-justice research-and-litigation centre, interviewed death-row prisoners and their family members. This book is a counterpart to the Death Penalty India Report based on these interviews, with 19 snippets giving sharp insights into the experiences of prisoners and their relatives, during courtroom proceedings and their time in police custody. HARPER COLLINS, R 499, 176 PAGES ON NATIONALISM Eric Hobsbawm A collection of the historian Eric Hobsbawm’s writing and lectures, this book traces the construction and growth of nations, language and popular revolt, modes of nationalism in primary schools and in revisionist history-writing, and free markets and the globalisation of capital. LITTLE BROWN BOOK GROUP, R 799, 400 PAGES I WANT A POEM AND OTHER…