May 2022 Archives

Heatwave: No Respite For Northwest, Central India in May; Worst Power Crisis in 6 Years

Northwest and central India experienced the hottest April in 122 years with average maximum temperature touching 35.9 degrees Celsius and 37.78 degrees Celsius respectively.

New Delhi: Northwest and central India recorded the highest average maximum temperatures in April since 1900 as there would be no respite for the region in May, the weather office said on Saturday.

Releasing the monthly outlook for temperature and rainfall for May, India Meteorological Department director general Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said most parts of the country, barring parts of southern peninsular India, were likely to experience warmer nights in May.

With scanty rains owing to feeble western disturbances, northwest and central India experienced the hottest April in 122 years with average maximum temperature touching 35.9 degrees Celsius and 37.78 degrees Celsius respectively.

The northwest region had previously recorded an average maximum temperature of 35.4 degrees Celsius in April 2010, while the previous record for the central region was 37.75 degrees Celsius in 1973.

“Most parts of northwest India – J&K, Himachal, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat – are expected to experience above normal temperatures in May,” Mohapatra said.

“The average rainfall in May 2022 over the country is most likely to be above normal,” Mohapatra said.

Commuters cover themselves with pieces of clothes to shield themselves from the sun, on a hot summer day, near Golden Temple in Amritsar, Saturday, April 30, 2022. Photo: PTI

However, parts of northwest and northeast India as well as the extreme southeast Peninsula are expected to get below normal rainfall in May, Mohapatra said.

Mohapatra also did not rule out parts of western Rajasthan reporting temperatures more than 50 degrees Celsius. “I cannot make that forecast, but it is climatologically possible as May is the hottest month,” Mohapatra said to questions on whether temperatures would top 50 degrees Celsius this summer season.

On Saturday, Banda in Uttar Pradesh had recorded a high of 47.4 degrees Celsius, the highest in the country.

According to Mohapatra, average temperatures observed pan-India for April was 35.05 degrees, which was the fourth highest since 1900, when the weather office started keeping weather data.

The high temperatures in March and April were attributed to “continuously scanty rainfall activity”, he said.

In March, northwest India recorded a deficit in rainfall of around 89%, while the deficit was nearly 83% in April, mainly on account of feeble and dry western disturbances, Mohapatra said.

North India witnessed six western disturbances but they were mostly feeble and moved across the higher parts of the Himalayas, he said adding that the last three western disturbances caused strong winds in parts of Delhi and dust storms over Rajasthan in April.

Heatwave conditions continue in Delhi

The minimum temperature in Delhi settled at 25.8 degrees Celsius, a notch above the season’s average, on Sunday as the national capital continued to reel under heatwave conditions, the IMD said.

According to the IMD, the maximum temperature in the national capital is expected to touch 43 degrees Celsius on Sunday.

Relative humidity was recorded at 61%.

The weatherman has forecast partly cloudy sky with the possibility of thunder development and heatwave conditions at isolated places.

Rickshaw pullers rest under a tree on a hot summer afternoon, in New Delhi, Saturday, April 30, 2022. Photo: PTI/Manvender Vashist

Heatwave conditions are expected to continue over Delhi and adjacent regions for the next three days, whereas dust storm or thunderstorms are expected in isolated places over Haryana-Chandigarh-Delhi between May 2 and May 4, an IMD bulletin said.

According to the IMD, Delhi recorded its second hottest April in 72 years with a monthly average maximum temperature of 40.2 degrees Celsius. The city’s normal monthly average temperature in April is 36.30 degrees Celsius.

In 2010, Delhi had logged an average monthly maximum temperature of 40.4 degrees Celsius.

The national capital experienced three prolonged heatwaves this month in the absence of periodic light rainfall and thundershowers which typify this time of the year due to lack of active western disturbances.

It recorded a monthly average maximum temperature of 37.30 degrees Celsius in April last year, 35.30 degrees Celsius in 2020, and 37.30 degrees Celsius in 2019.

Elderly man dies of heatwave in Nashik

A 68-year-old man has died of heatstroke in Nashik city of Maharashtra, police officials said on Friday as parts of the state continued to reel under extremely hot weather conditions with mercury soaring to 46.4 degrees Celsius in Chandrapur district, the highest in the state.

The deceased, Mohan Chandmal Varma, a resident of Nashik Road, had gone out to meet an acquaintance on Thursday afternoon in the Makhamalabad area of the city when he suddenly fell unconscious, they said.

The senior citizen was taken to a nearby private hospital, where he died during treatment, the officials said. The cause of death was heatstroke, they said.

Nashik city recorded a maximum temperature of 41.1 degrees Celsius on Thursday.

Chandrapur in eastern Maharashtra on Saturday recorded a maximum temperature of 46.6 degrees Celsius which was highest in the state during the day, an official of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said here.

Several other cities in Vidarbha region (eastern Maharashtra) recorded maximum temperatures above 44 degrees Celsius.

Brahmpuri recorded a maximum temperature of 46.3 degrees Celsius, Akola 45.5, Wardha 45, Nagpur 44.6, Gondia 44.5 Amravati 44.2, Yavatmal 44, Gadchiroli 42.8 and Buldhana 42 degrees Celsius, the IMD data showed.

Worst power crisis in six years

India is facing its worst electricity shortage in more than six years just as scorching temperatures force early closures of schools and send people indoors.

Extreme heat parched large swathes of South Asia this week after India‘s hottest March on record, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to warn of rising fire risks as the country heats up too much too soon.

In the northwest, Rajasthan has scheduled four hours of power cuts for factories, making it at least the third state to disrupt industrial activity to manage surging power demand.

“In view of the present power crisis, .. it has been decided to impose scheduled cuts,” a state utility said.

Industrial disruption and widespread power cuts are bad news for corporate India, as economic activity has just started to pick up after months of stagnation amid coronavirus lockdowns.

Power cuts are expected to worsen in the coming days as the heatwaves and a pickup in economic activity are seen increasing electricity demand at the fastest pace in nearly four decades.

The unprecedented heat puts millions of blue-collar workers, including construction and farm labourers and those working on factory shop floors, at great risk. Sunstrokes have claimed thousands of Indian lives over the years.

“Most of India‘s population is rural, without access to air conditioning and cooling stations,” said Arpita Mondal, hydroclimatologist at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.

Daily wage earners and those in urban slums are among the most vulnerable to heat, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, since cities tend to be warmer than rural areas due to the heat trapping effect of buildings and other factors.

In addition to power cuts for factories, Rajasthan imposed four-hour power cuts for rural regions, exposing thousands of families in the desert state to extreme temperatures.

The leap in power demand has left India scrambling for coal, the dominant fuel used in electricity generation in the country. Coal inventories are at the lowest pre-summer levels in at least nine years.

Peak-power demand in India surged to a record high on Thursday, and is seen rising by as much as 8% next month, the power ministry said. India‘s weather office has warned of hotter weather in the coming days.

Labourers carry coal onto goods train at Ashoka Coal Mines in Peeparwar, amid a power crisis due to shortage of coal, about 70 km from Ranchi, Saturday, April 30, 2022. Photo: PTI

A shortage of trains to transport coal is exacerbating a fuel supply crisis. India‘s power secretary said this week that train availability was 6% lower than required.

Electricity supply fell short of demand by 1.88 billion units, or 1.6%, during the first 27 days of April, the worst monthly shortfall in over six years, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the federal grid regulator POSOCO.

Power cuts in five states, including Rajasthan and Haryana in the north and Andhra Pradesh in the south, were the worst in over six years, the data POSOCO showed.

With power cuts showing an increasing trend, April shortages could exceed the large cuts implemented in January 2016 during a previous shortfall in power supply.

Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh states restricted industrial activity this month as household air conditioning demand peaked.

India last faced a big power crisis in October but the situation this month is far more widespread, with more than half of the country facing more power cuts than in October.

(With agency inputs)

Jamia Shooter Now Amplifying Hindutva ‘Hate’ Music Videos Featuring Violence Against Muslims

Despite his history of making communally charged speeches and advocating violence, he continues to be at liberty in defiance of his bail conditions.

New Delhi: Uploading “music” videos featuring the assault and abduction of Muslim men is the latest turn that the communal career of the Hindutva extremist known as ‘Jamia shooter’ has taken, but the police continues to ignore his violent activities.

The young man – who cannot be named for legal reasons – first burst to prominence two years ago when, as a juvenile, he opened fire on unarmed protestors from Jamia on January 30, 2020. Since then, he has been made a number of anti-Muslim hate-speeches and gained a large following on social media as a poster-boy for Hindutva, advocating mass violence in pursuit of the cause of turning India into a Hindu rashtra. He is also an associate of the known militant Hindutva leader Deepak Tyagi, who goes by the alias of ‘Yati Narsinghanand’.

His latest actions involve the amplification of ‘music videos’ that show the abduction, assault and armed intimidation of Muslims at different locations. Some of his associates who had participated in the recent anti-Muslim mahapanchayats in Haryana uploaded these “music” videos, at least four of which are doing the rounds on social media in the Hindutva hate ecosystem.

While videos showcasing violence against Muslims are regularly uploaded by these groups, what marks uploads as distinct is that they appear to have been made for entertainment. One of the Jamia shooter’s “music” videos on his Instagram page has the following lyrics: “Chamak rahi talwar hai, chamak raha Trishul hai. Hindu ko kamzor samjhna dushman ki bhool hai (The trishul and sword are shining. It was the enemy’s mistake to think that Hindus are weak).”

Assault, abduction and the saffron brigade

In the first video that was uploaded on the Jamia shooter’s Instagram page and also shared on one Monu Manesar’s account, a man who can barely walk is being dragged by a group of Hindutva workers at gun-point. The caption reads, “Taking away the cow-smuggler.” The man in the video is then forcefully loaded into a white Scorpio car from Haryana which is registered in the name of ‘Development & Panchayat’.

In the second video, an armed convoy of Hindutva nationalists passes through a village in Haryana’s Mewat – where there is a sizeable Muslim population – threatening children and unarmed women with weapons as they run away.

Also read: How the Jahangirpuri Demolition Destroyed Lives of India’s Poorest Women

In yet another video, men can be seen assaulting a Muslim scrap-picker with bamboo sticks. The man’s motorcycle and scrap was flipped over and the mob pinned him to the ground after which blows were rained on him. The caption claims that these are scrap-pickers who attack Hindu festivals and Bhagwa-soldiers.

In the final video uploaded on Monu Manesar’s Instagram account, an old Muslim man with blood all around him is begging for mercy in a car. Later, he falls unconscious.

Monu Manesar, who posted some of these videos, is a self-styled gau rakshak (cow vigilante) with thousands of followers on social media. Manesar was introduced by the host of the anti-Muslim Haryana Mahapanchayat in July 2021 as someone, “who shoots and gets shot while protecting cows”.

Manesar had also spoken at the Pataudi mahapanchayat and his solution to the ‘love jihad’ issue was a direct call to murder. He demanded in his speech that Muslim men who commit love jihad should be killed and sought a list of ‘love jihadis’ to be killed by his team while referring to the “big brother”, seemingly a reference to the BJP, who would ‘save’ his team, presumably from the law.

‘Love jihad’ is the term Hindutva groups use to describe an imaginary conspiracy by Muslim men to seduce Hindu women in order to convert them to Islam.

Manesar and the Jamia shooter had posted several such videos and photos of violence on their social media, The Wire had reported. It was at this same event that the Jamia shooter led a massive mob of hundreds of men into the Ramlila ground, the venue of the Pataudi mahapanchayat. They chanted slogans that included ‘Mullo ka na qazi ka, ye desh hai veer Shivaji ka (This country belongs to brave Shivaji, not to Muslims or qazis)’. “When Muslims are murdered, they will shout Ram Ram,” he said in his virulent speech* at the Pataudi event. When the speech went viral on social media, triggering outrage, he was arrested and let out on bail swiftly after.

Before this, on May 30, he had made an incendiary speech via Facebook Live at a mahapanchayat in Indri village, Haryana, calling upon Hindus to assemble in support of the accused in the case of the kidnap, lynching and murder of a man named Asif Khan on May 16.

Asif, who was from Khera Khalilpur village in Nuh, Haryana, had been kidnapped on May 16 and then lynched by a mob. When the Nuh police named Hindus among the accused in Asif’s murder, a ‘Hindu mahapanchayat’ organised reportedly by the Karni Sena at Indri on May 30, justified Asif’s murder.

The Jamia shooter also asked Hindus to avenge ‘love jihad’ by abducting Muslim women. “Can’t we abduct a ‘Salma’?” he had demanded.

Also read: Roorkee Mahapanchayat: ‘Why Didn’t Police Crack Down Earlier,’ Ask Residents

He was charged under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence) and 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code. At the time, the Gurgaon court said its “conscience was utterly shocked” on viewing a video recording of the incident, and that Indian society needed to tackle “… these kind of persons… who, if given a chance, would organise a mass murder to kill innocent lives based on their own religious hatred…”

“The accused standing before the court is not a simple, innocent young boy knowing nothing… rather (his actions) show that (with) what he has done in the past…. now become capable of executing his hatred without fear… and that he can move the mass to involve his hatred.”

He was released on bail again after a month on the condition that he stop making communally charged statements. However, the Jamia shooter has repeatedly made calls for violence against Muslims on multiple occasions.

Two months after his bail, he made hateful and sexualised abuses against actress Urfi Javed, after which the National Commission for Women took cognisance of the matter and its chairperson Rekha Sharma wrote to the DGP of Maharashtra to file an FIR and complete the investigation in a time-bound manner, a report of which was sought by the commission.

While this is not the first time that the Jamia shooter has glorified acts of anti-Muslim violence, his recent ‘music’ videos showcase criminal activities that the Haryana Police has yet to take any action against the perpetrators for. While The Wire cannot conclusively identify who the men in these videos are, their faces can clearly be seen. Only a proper police investigation can tell us whether the Jamia shooter also played a role in the videos that he posted on his social media accounts. On Twitter, he claimed that he has nothing to do with the videos and that Mewat has become a hub of ‘thousands of cow-killings daily.” In an interview to a local channel, Monu Manesar also claimed that he was not present at the site and those brandishing guns are policemen.

*The Wire has access to all of the Jamia shooter’s videos and posts mentioned. While we cannot share them here as that would identify him, we would be willing to share them with law enforcement in the event that these are required for any criminal investigation into his activities.

Vaddarse Raghurama Shetty: A Pioneer of Reader-Owned Journalism Yet to be Emulated

The leading Kannada writer Devanoora Mahadeva remembers Shetty’s ideals of public-spirited journalism and contrasts it with the state of the media, and society at large, today

The following is a translation of the speech delivered in Kannada on the occasion of the release a book titled, Bereye Maatu, a compilation of articles by the late Vaddarse Raghurama Shetty. Shetty was the legendary editor of Mungaru, a reader-owned Kannada newspaper published from Mangalore in the 1980s.

I have not been going out much these days. My health is failing. Yet, I have come here. There is a reason for it.

I had known Raghurama Shetty from his Prajavani [a Kannada daily] days. Then, he started his own newspaper, Mungaru. He always stood for social justice, which is a rarity now. He wished that Dalits, Other Backwards Classes (OBC), the rural poor and other disempowered communities should take an active part in all public fields. He tried to ensure that his own chosen field of journalism was full of people from these backgrounds while he, himself, hailed from the Bunt community of the Dakshina Kannada district.

Raghurama Shetty is no longer with us. His Bunt community has forgotten about him. All the marginalised communities whose upliftment was closest to his heart also do not remember him anymore. This is painful to me, and I am here before you with that pain.

I inaugurated Mungaru. Reluctant as I was, Raghurama Shetty had virtually dragged me to the launch function, organised in Mangalore. It was September 9, 1984. [Renowned Kannada writer Poornachandra] Tejaswi presided over the function. I spoke just five or six sentences on the occasion. I remember those sentences even now, exactly as I spoke them, maybe because I have fallen in love with what I could speak there.

This is what I said:

In my part of the state, we think that people of Dakshina Kannada district are intelligent and educated. This the land of Bhootaaradhane (spirit worship) and Yakshagana (a traditional folk dance in parts of coastal Karnataka). I am curious as to how the people here would see Raghurama Shetty’s Mungaru adventure. Perhaps they would wonder if Raghurama Shetty has brains. They would wonder how on earth this man can plunge into this battle with only a bunch of young lads. But remember one thing. This Raghurama Shetty is like the bhootas (spirits) that people worship here. Each of those young lads is like child-hero Abhimanyu.

This is it. This what I said there.

True, those young lads in the editorial team of Mungaru were like Abhimanyu. They were capable of breaking into the formidable Chakravyuha [a labyrinthine military formation]. But they fell victim to their own juvenile ideals and quit Mungaru after a few months.

Watching all these developments I had thought then: Well, these youngsters only knew how to break into Chakravyuha but did not know how to win the war. They could roar like a tiger but did not know the tactics of a clever cat.

I think those former young lads have also realised this now.

The youngsters who quit Mungaru amidst all this were also my favourite young friends. I was deeply pained. I was unable to fathom the depths of Raghurama Shetty’s sad state of mind. I do not wish to think about it even now.

Vaddarse Raghurama Shetty
Bereye Maatu
Aharnishi Prakaashana, 2021.

I would like to recall one incident. Mungaru faced a serious financial crisis soon after its launch. Raghurama Shetty was struggling hard to keep the publication afloat. This incident is narrated in the book being released today. Dinesh Amin Mattu, a former member of Shetty’s team of young lads, has narrated the incident in a section titled, Gurunamana:

‘As this cold war was on, one day Raghurama Shetty met S. Bangarappa (former Karnataka chief minister) in Bangalore, and sought his help to resolve the newsprint problem facing Mungaru. Bangarappa telephoned one of his industrialist friends who was in the excise business to send a load of newsprint to help Mungaru tide over the crisis. [The] very next day, Mungaru, on its front page, carried a cartoon which depicted Bangarappa in a very poor light – it depicted him in a saree, wearing bangles, waiting in front of Indira Gandhi’s house. The hint was that Bangarappa was trying hard to re-join the Congress after a stint in the opposition. Raghurama Shetty saw the hands of his colleagues in the publication of this cartoon at that critical juncture. He was extremely hurt. A director of Mungaru met Bangarappa that day with great trepidation. But Bangarappa took the cartoon in his stride and told the director that he knew Raghurama Shetty very well and that he need not worry about what had happened.’

Bangarappa’s mature response was indeed a relief to me. Mungaru had to fight its battle with its competitors. At the same time, Mungaru had to fight within its own establishment also. I do not know what to call this. My mind refuses to call it all as providential.

I am confused even now. How do we describe Raghurama Shetty? As a hero? Or as a tragic hero? He had a big dream. He built a mansion to nurse that dream. Even when the mansion was crumbling, he clung to his dreams, eventually only to crumble with the mansion he built. When we see all this, he comes across as a tragic hero. But let us also remember that Raghurama Shetty, an adventurist, started Mungaru Publications, a public limited company, launched the Mungaru newspaper and made its readers shareholders of the company.

Thus, he has left behind an invaluable model of journalism which has since been awaiting emulation. Now, if we weigh Raghurama Shetty as a tragic hero against Raghurama Shetty as a hero, I will say the latter will weigh more than the former.

My sub-conscious mind may be seeing a hero in Raghurama Shetty because I am deeply saddened by the steep fall of the professional standards of the media today, especially the electronic media. Be that as it may; it is not all that important. But we need to ask one question: Does the media report society’s problems or does the media create problems in society? What is really happening?

Also read: Karnataka Has a Long History of Attacks on the Freedom of Press

Take the example of the hijab controversy. Was there indeed a problem at the core of this controversy or did the media make it look like a problem which then led to this controversy? Can someone tell me? The media is out ruining its own respect, dignity, restraint, and scruples. This makes us remember Raghurama Shetty. His dream of a newspaper owned by none other than its readers should be a reality, at least now.

I know my speech has now turned a little serious. As I was writing my speech, I watched on the television the news of ‘love kesari’ (Saffron Love). Accusing ‘them’ of waging ‘love jihad”, ‘these people’ launched ‘love kesari’ to counter it. It is like these people are accusing ‘them’ of theft and then using it as an alibi to commit robbery.

What is this ‘love jihad’? Everyone knows what love is all about. They say jihad is a war for religion. True love transcends religion. Love and war are poles apart. So, what is ‘kesari love’? Kesari stands for renunciation. How can love and renunciation go together? If the one who has given up everything in renunciation falls in love, what is the fate of the one who is loved?

This also has to do with the way men think. Men think that women are like dolls, with no mind of their own. As I thought about all of this, my mind became a furnace.

Also read: For India’s Sake, Stop Destroying Communal Harmony With the Bogey of Love Jihad

Before I end, let me share with you something that I find a marvel. All of us know that the Nagpur-based Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been trying to propagate the ‘de-values’ of Golwalkar, who championed the cause of one particular group of the Chaturvarnya dharma (the religion centred around a four-fold segregation of society) and the inequality it engendered. [People inspired by Hindutva ideology] also champion the cause of Nathuram Godse, who is an icon of violence.

Statue of B.R. Ambedkar at the Karnataka Vidhana Soudha, Bengaluru. Photo: Moheen Reeyad CC BY-SA 4.0

In order to establish Golwalkar and Godse in the national psyche, the champions of the Chaturvarnya dharma are evacuating Gandhi and Ambedkar who have, so far, remained an integral part of that psyche. They are virtually butchering Gandhi and Ambedkar who have stood tall all the while, like a banyan and peepal tree respectively. Despite all these efforts to demolish them, the way Gandhi and Ambedkar emerged all over during the movement against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a marvel.

Did Gandhi and Ambedkar apply some kind of balm to the blistering wounds of the people? If you squeeze Gandhi of his essence and make a statue out of it, that statue will forever be a fountain of love and tolerance. Ambedkar rescued justice when even justice was longing for justice. Only Ambedkar could give justice its ‘right to justice’ in this country. Therefore, if we squeeze Ambedkar of his essence and make a statue out of it, that statue will forever blaze the beams of justice and equality.

The parched land of India has been waiting for the droplets of tolerance, love, justice and equality. So, what are Gandhi and Ambedkar to India? Is Gandhi like a peepal tree which provides abundant oxygen, the life sustaining element, and Ambedkar like a banyan tree, the great shelter?

Translated from Kannada to English by A. Narayana, an associate professor at the Azim Premji University in Bangalore.

Devanoora Mahadeva is a Kannada writer who has been conferred with the Padma Shri as well as the Sahitya Akademi award, both of which he returned in protest against the growing intolerance in the country. A public intellectual and Dalit rights activist, he has been a guiding force to various social movements in Karnataka and the country.