- The tools for counting
In this The Hindu piece, Sonalde Desai says its time to debate the modalities of the next Census, given the earlier confusion over caste data.
As the 2011 Census approached, demands for inclusion of data on caste in Census reached a crescendo. P. Chidambaram, the Union Home Minister at the time, was opposed to collecting caste data and blocked it by claiming that it was logistically impossible for the Census, but caste information could be collected via the planned Below Poverty Line (BPL) Census, later renamed the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC). The hasty inclusion of the caste question in the SECC has resulted in largely unusable data. The government tasked former NITI Aayog chairman Arvind Panagariya to look into this, but the effort has stalled. Consequently, if we want information regarding the size and characteristics of various castes in India, we must continue to look to the Census of 1931.
- A tribal uprising in Jharkhand that’s cast in stone
In this Hindustan Times opinion piece, Shashi Shekhar writes that from the times of the British, the Adivasi people have been writing on stone slabs and calling the practice Pathalgadi. It is a tradition that has been used on occasions such as weddings, births and deaths, social boycotts or for demarcating territory. But these days under its guise, a new controversy is being stirred up.
Earlier this month, on June 3, in Jharkhand’s Khunti district, in the presence of hundreds of Adivasis, the foundation was laid for the headquarters of the ‘all-Aadivasi government’. On this occasion, announcements were also made about the setting up of the departments of defence, education and health. The Adivasis were informed that the gram sabha would soon launch schools, colleges and universities. Not just this, a Bank of Gram Sabha was also inaugurated.
Clearly, a set of people doesn’t want that the Adivasis to benefit from the services of institutions founded and nurtured by the government. They don’t want that modern medicine makes a foray in these areas since it would endanger their exorcising practices. Not just this, through the setting up of the bank, they are making an attempt to stop the money of the Adivasi people from reaching the banking process. How about the department of defence? What would that do? It is a direct challenge to India’s sovereignty.
- How Not To Teach English
N S Gundur in this Indian Express opinion column says that narrowing down of the teaching disciplines merely to English language has impoverished not only humanities but also other knowledge systems, including the natural sciences and social sciences. language impoverishes humanities, other knowledge systems.
He says it is high time we paid attention to the current situation of English as a discipline in India (‘English-Vinglish, culture-vulture’, IE, June 9), I would like to explore what the discipline of English Studies has to offer to this country. Reflecting on English as a humanities discipline, leaving apart its different roles, offers exciting insights about the way we need to build up an intellectual culture. Reviving the tradition of reading classics in English will be more illuminating than treating it merely as an avenue for the job market.
Among all post-colonial nations, the case of India is unique as far as the teaching of English is concerned. When most Third World countries of the erstwhile Empire sought to teach English only as a language, India taught its citizens English through literature. In contrast to West Indian and African countries where English was mostly seen as a lingua franca and where the ELT (English Language Teaching) model of the British Council flourished, India chose to engage with literary texts. Several generations, including scientists, social scientists and humanists, acquired their idiom by reading the classics of English literature. It was not simply an education in Wren and Martin grammar, but an initiation into nourishing a taste, sense and sensitivity for the nuances of English.
- Why Delhi Will Have No Water At All In 2020
Swati Thiyagarajan, in an NDTV opinion column, highlights that the NITI Ayog has stated that New Delhi, along with several other major Indian cities, will run out of the water by 2020. That’s just two years from now. The alarming report goes onto to state that 40 per cent of the country will have no access to water by 2030.
Residents use hoses to fill jerrycans with water from a distribution truck in New Delhi’s Sanjay camp
The mess in the nation’s capital is a combination of bad planning, corruption, over-exploitation, the ruination of catchment areas, destruction of natural aquifers in the Delhi ridge due to mining, the loss of green cover, poorly maintained water-distribution equipment leading to over 40% of water leaking from pipes – that is nearly half the available water lost to leaks! Choked and toxic natural water bodies, poor maintenance of existing storage tanks and wells and, of course, reduced and unpredictable rainfall due to climate change. It is a fact that we should have been aware of a looming water shortage for at least this past decade and had several water-saving plans in place, starting with extensive rain-water harvesting.
We are also in permanent negotiations and arguments with Haryana over the sharing of the Yamuna waters, especially in summer. In the monsoons, when there is an excess flow in the river, in all of these years, no plan has been made to store this excess water in either state for their summer needs.
- With Eyes on 2019, BJP Is Shifting to a New and Sharper Polarisation
In The Wire, Ajay Gudavarthy writes that the BJP seems to be combining Dalits, Muslims and Left-liberals as the new combined other.
As we move closer to the next general election, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to be refashioning its strategy to gear up to the challenge of 2019 with a much-reduced credibility. For 2014, it employed a more Congress-style accommodative politics within the larger grid of a populist strategy, creating a narrative of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ – essentially to target the religious minorities and portray them as the outsiders. This was coupled with the credibility crisis facing the Congress. The party also had the advantage of Narendra Modi’s image, who at the time was seen as a decisive leader who could deliver dramatic results.
Many of these advantages are now on the wane. Modi is no longer considered infallible, even if his abilities to deliver are suspect. Congress – even if half-heartedly – is gaining momentum and finding a foothold in creating a narrative that can hold some interest. BJP realises it cannot repeat the magic figures in much of north India, and also perhaps in the west. The initial strategy was to compensate the loss with some compensation in the east, spreading to Bengal and other parts of the northeastern states. Similarly, BJP wished to spread its hold in the southern states too. Both of these strategies proved to be non-starters.