At INDIA Bloc’s Easter Sunday Show of Strength, Repeated Stress on Uniting

Multiple leaders spoke of the necessity to forget differences.

New Delhi: Easter Sunday’s Loktantra Bachao or ‘save democracy’ rally against the backdrop of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest turned out to be the opposition’s show of strength that also laid the roadmap for a joint campaign in the Lok Sabha polls. 

Each of the INDIA leaders emphasised the need to come together despite differences with each other, as they spoke of the necessity to build a political umbrella on the central issue of democratic backsliding in India and a right-wing takeover of India’s long-cherished autonomous institutions. The rally ended with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra reading a resolution on behalf of INDIA that demanded an immediate release of Kejriwal and former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren and urged the Union government to ensure a level playing field in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Uddhav Thackeray, leader of the Shiv Sena faction under his name, spoke about the need for a coalition government in the country and held the “one party, one man” rule in the country as the reason behind the weakening of the Indian nation. Leader of Kashmir’s People’s Democratic Party, Mehbooba Mufti, spoke about how opposition leaders were being put under the legal scanner without “any vakeel (advocate), any karyavahi (process), and any daleel (sound argument)”. 

“Those who the BJP had called corrupt are in the BJP now, after having gone through its washing machine. We have seen everything. We have also suffered everything. For how long will we be content in only criticising this government? That is why my call is abki baar, BJP tadipaar,” Thackeray said amidst a cheering crowd. The phrase is a take a BJP slogan for Modi and, loosely translated, means ‘the next time BJP will be little more than fugitives’.

Former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren’s wife Kalpana Soren said, “We have to truly understand Ram’s values. He valued neeti, niyam, aur dhairya (morals, rules and patience).”

She added that despite her husband’s arrest, she wanted to tell the BJP – “Jharkhand jhukega nahin, India jhukega nahin, India rukega nahin.” ‘Jharkhand won’t bow down, India won’t bow down, India won’t stop.’

The INDIA bloc’s rally on March 31, 2024. Photo: By arrangement.

Kejriwal’s wife Sunita Kejriwal also spoke at the event and asked the gathering whether they truly believe that Kejriwal is corrupt. The crowd responded with, “Main bhi Kejriwal” – ‘I too am Kejriwal’. She went on to read Kejriwal’s message from jail. “I will not stop working for the people of India and will keep dreaming about a Bharat where everyone, rich and poor, can get the best education and health care,” Sunita read.

Young leaders of the INDIA bloc Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav drew the biggest applause from the crowd. “Modi ji has time to meet Priyanka Chopra but not the farmers, not the poor,” said Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejashwi, as the crowd showed visible excitement. 

“Modi’s promises are like those cheap Chinese goods, the warranty periods of which last for only two or three months. In only 17 months, we in Bihar gave five lakh jobs to the young. What happened to Modi ji’s promise of two crore jobs every year?” he said, adding that one must understand that Indians are living in an era of “undeclared emergency”. 

Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav followed along the same lines. “In India, elected chief ministers are put in prison. The government and the BJP lie so much that we can call them the biggest liars of the universe. The BJP and its government have put India’s long-held global prestige to shame. PDA (peechde or backward, Dalits, and Adivasis) will defeat them this time. We all have to vote against them in full force.”

Leaders at the INDIA bloc’s rally on March 31, 2024. Photo: By arrangement.

Dipankar Bhattacharya of the CPI(ML-Liberation) said that not only the top leaders but even ground-level leaders from the opposition like his party’s MLA from Bihar, Manoj Manzil, have been falsely convicted. 

Sitaram Yechury of CPI(M) reminded the crowd about the Jayaprakash Narayan movement in which the socialist leader had called for a ‘total revolution’ to overthrow the autocratic government and save democracy, even as the veteran Maharashtra leader and Nationalist Congress Party head Sharad Pawar spoke about how every state institution and opposition leaders are under attack. 

Trinamool Congress’s Derek O’Brien, whose party has decided to contest alone in West Bengal, said, “I am here to say that TMC was, is, and will be a part of INDIA alliance. It is a fight between the BJP and democracy.” The recently-elected Rajya Sabha TMC MP and senior journalist Sagarika Ghose then read out a message on behalf of her party. 

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi was trying to do “match-fixing” in the Lok Sabha elections in 2024. “They have chosen the umpires; they are giving calls of ‘abki baar, 400 paar (this time, we’ll cross 400)’ which only makes us wonder about whether the match is fixed. Because as much as I understand, the BJP will not cross 180 this time.”

Rahul Gandhi and Bhagwant Singh Mann at the INDIA bloc’s rally on March 31, 2024. Photo: By arrangement.

He said how the Congress’s bank accounts have been frozen and opposition chief ministers were arrested merely two months before the elections, and not six months ago, because “the BJP wants to prevent us from campaigning. All this to snatch away the rights guaranteed to us by our Constitution. The Constitution is the Indian people’s heart beat, their voice. If that goes, then India may split into different parts.”

“I want to say from this stage that they may gag the media’s voice but they won’t be able to prevent the Indian peoples from speaking up. If we have to stop this match-fixing, we have to come out and vote against them in full force. Do not let them succeed in their plans,” Gandhi said. 

Sonia Gandhi, who rarely shows up in political events, also walked onto the stage as leaders were speaking, and sat between Kalpana Soren and Sunita Kejriwal as a mark of solidarity. Senior leaders like Farooq Abdullah, D. Raja, Tiruchi Siva, Thol Thirumavalan, Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, Jharkhand chief minister Champai Soren and others took their turns to tear into the Modi regime and exhorted people to “save Indian democracy”. 

“I want to tell these autocrats that our country is not someone’s property,” Mann, of the Aam Aadmi Party, said.

Mallikarjun Kharge at the INDIA bloc’s rally on March 31, 2024. Photo: By arrangement.

Jharkhand Janmukti Morcha’s Champai Soren said that his ancestors in the Adivasi communities have a history of fighting against authoritarian regimes. “We will fight the same battle again but this will through the medium of our votes. This is a fight for our justice,” Soren said. 

Priyanka Gandhi said that when the Hindu deity Ram fought the asura Ravana, he did not have power, whereas Ravana had “soney ki Lanka” – golden Lanka.

“Lord Ram stood up for truth and justice. We will follow the same example,” she said.  

Speaking at the end, Congress president Malliakrjun Kharge, however, addressed what has been troubling the INDIA bloc the most. Looking at Mann and O’Brien, he said that the INDIA parties first need to stand together, come what may, against this authoritarian regime. “We can’t let our mutual differences dictate our alliance as we must be clear that this fight is not only for one election but for a much larger cause.”

“The opposition has to unite. The unity in diversity that we see in India also has to be seen in our alliance. Remember that the RSS-BJP is a poison. You can’t lick it even once. Even that will bring you death. Whatever our differences are, we have to first learn how to become a united force. We will gain nothing by stomping on each other.”

“Our fight should not be about one person. This is a fight to save our democracy.”  

Congress’s Tax Trials and the Myth of Fair Elections

Maintaining the integrity of the electoral process is of utmost importance in a democracy. Any attempt to undermine this process, whether through politically motivated tax demands or other means, threatens the very foundation of it.

The clichéd phrase asserted by the Prime Minister of India on every foreign visit, amidst international criticism against his government for alleged human rights abuses, religious intolerance and democratic backsliding in the country is that India is “the mother of democracy”.

India is the largest democracy. Indeed the proudest achievement of our nation in its 75 years of existence as a modern state is its tryst with democracy.

But democracy is a form of government that is characterised by the rule of the people. And one cannot have meaningful political participation and competition without the relatively free ability to organise and offer policy proposals, criticise leaders and demonstrate in public without official intimidation. The presence of two or more political parties is a robust manifestation of this requirement. Elections become meaningful when there is genuine possibility of change in actual political power.

But, repeated elections alone do not make a democracy. Elections without effective or genuine political competition would only make the process a farce.

Elections are not mere casting of votes and festivities, they focus on offices that are seats of state power. When millions flock to cast their ballots and to have their voices heard, in essence, they are trying to occupy those authoritative seats to realise the policies they desire should govern them.

Opposition parties

In any democratic society, the presence of an opposition party is vital for the smooth functioning of free and fair elections. The role of an opposition party goes beyond mere political competition; it is an integral part of upholding democratic values and ensuring that the ruling party remains accountable to the people it serves. It is through these diverse political parties and interest groups, that a person acquires diversity of perspectives. Each political party provides for a lens to filter the information through ideologies, forge different personal identities and acquire diverse mental maps essential to cater to the plural demands inherent within any society. 

Apart from political competition, an opposition party provides an alternative voice and perspective to the ruling party.

Furthermore, an opposition party acts as a check on the ruling party’s power. Without an effective opposition, the ruling party might be tempted to abuse its authority or make decisions without proper scrutiny. The presence of a strong opposition party helps prevent the concentration of power in the hands of a few.

So, when we are exercising our right to vote, we are not simply checking a box or following a script. We are expressing an opinion that is shaped by a complex set of factors.

Hounding the opposition

When the principal opposition party’s accounts were frozen just two weeks before the announcement of the national elections, and fresh notices are continually being sent when the elections are underway, do you think democracy is alive in our country?

India, a vibrant democracy known for its free and fair elections, is currently facing a significant challenge in maintaining the integrity of its political system. India’s opposition has been struggling as it is being targeted by the Enforcement Directorate, Central Bureau of Investigation, Income Tax authorities and other federal agencies at the behest of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Multiple opposition leaders across wide spectrum of political ideologies – Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Nationalist Congress Party, Samajwadi Party, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Bal Thackeray), Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, Bharat Rashtra Samithi, and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha – opposed to the BJP, are facing the wrath of the investigative agencies unleashed to cower them, as if all sins can be only found in the ranks of the opposition, whereas the ruling party is clean.

The pinnacle of the abuse manifests in the arrest of chief minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal and Jharkhand chief minister, Hemant Soren, right before the elections.

Congress, too, finds itself burdened with tax demands that have raised concerns about the fairness of the upcoming elections. Timing of the tax demand was designed to cripple the finances of the party right before elections, thereby eliminating even the semblance of competition in these elections. These demands, which some perceive as politically motivated, have raised concerns about the party’s ability to contest the upcoming elections on an equal footing with its rival the BJP.

The tax matters which have been used as a pretext to hound the principal opposition party right before the elections have been sub judice for some time. All this while, the authorities never bothered to initiate any action, because the matters are still pending before different courts, even though there was no stay operating in favour of the Congress. In the month of February, two weeks before the elections were to be notified and model code of conduct came into effect, after a delay of one year from the date of appeal filed in 2023, Income Tax authorities sent directives to the banks holding Congress accounts, to create lien for a sum of Rs 105 crores. When the party approached the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal seeking a stay against this directive on February 16, 2024, where the appeal is still pending, the tax department undertook not to initiate any coercive action till the stay application is decided. Before February 21, the date fixed for hearing before the tribunal, the tax authorities went to the banks and got issued demand drafts totalling Rs 65 crores, in utter disregard of their own undertaking before the tribunal. Later, when Congress could not obtain any relief from the Delhi high court, the department withdrew the total demand of Rs 135 crores, including penalties. This was hastily done, without providing the party time to exhaust its remedy before the Supreme Court.

Next came a demand for a sum of Rs 53.9 crores for assessment year 1994-1995 after a delay of years, in a matter still pending adjudication before the apex court. Then an astronomical figure of Rs 3567 crores was raised on  March 29, 2024, which are ‘belated’ reassessment orders, as per numerous Supreme Court precedents. Break-up of the same is as follows:

IncomeTax Demand details as per demand notices received on 30.03.2024  
    (Rupees in crore)    
Financial Year Assessment Year Income Tax Interest Total demand Remark  
1993-94 1994-95 5.08 48.82 53.90 Assessment u/s 142  
2013-14 2014-15 294.69 368.36 663.05 Assessment u/s 153C
2014-15 2015-16 311.71 352.18 663.89 Assessment u/s 153C
2015-16 2016-17 207.64 209.67 417.31 Assessment u/s 153C
2016-17 2017-18 96.38 85.61 181.99 Assessment u/s 153C
2017-18 2018-19 102.06 76.67 178.73 Assessment u/s 153C
2018-19 2019-20 557.05 361.40 918.45 Assessment u/s 153C
2019-20 2020-21 320.86 169.15 490.01 Assessment u/s 153C
  Total 1895.47 1671.86 3567.33    

The issue at hand is not the tax demands themselves, but rather the timing and nature of these demands raising doubts about the fairness of the electoral process. At this juncture, the government’s actions against the Congress would only seem politically motivated and intended to weaken the party’s chances in the elections.

The financial incapacitation of Congress will eventually lead to a lack of diversity in our political landscape. As we approach election season, it’s important to remember that finances play a vital role in the success of any political party. Without proper funding, Congress will struggle to get its message out to potential voters and may also struggle to compete with the exorbitantly well-funded BJP.

Vital to any election campaign is advertising. Parties need to be able to get their message out to potential voters, and this often requires significant investment. This can include television and radio ads, social media campaigns, and other forms of advertising. Organising rallies, mobilising people, or funding candidates all require finances. In addition to these, parties also need to be able to pay for staff and other expenses related to running a campaign. This can include everything from office space to transportation to food and lodging for staff and volunteers.

Maintaining the integrity of the electoral process is of utmost importance in a democracy. Any attempt to undermine this process, whether through politically motivated tax demands or other means, threatens the very foundation of democracy.

In order to address these concerns, it is essential that the institutions that enforce rule of law, walk the talk and take immediate action. Collectively they should ensure that the tax demands against the Congress are fair and transparent, and not driven by political considerations. 

Additionally, it is crucial for independent institutions, such as the Election Commission of India, to play an active role in ensuring the fairness of the electoral process. They should closely monitor the situation and take necessary action to prevent any undue interference in the elections. This includes investigating any allegations of political bias or manipulation and holding those responsible accountable.

Vivek K. Tankha is a Congress Rajya Sabha MP. He is a Senior Advocate, a former Additional Solicitor General of India, and a former Advocate General of Madhya Pradesh.

‘The Heart Has Gone Out’: The Evolution of Hindi Film Songs – and India

Since nothing that is coarse and meek lasts for long, it is not surprising to witness that most of the movies and songs of our age come and vanish without making a mark.

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, this winter past, I chanced upon a ten-minute video on YouTube that brought together some of the most admired Hindi film songs from 1931 to 2021. It comprised short, quick snippets, one after another, of the most popular song of the year across those 90 years.

Then, as it often happens on the internet – a hyperlink leading to another, like how a memory leads to another – I started watching two YouTubers react to the original video as it played on. Presented with the 90-year montage, they bared their enthusiasm every time a landmark moment came up. At the first sound of Lata Mangeshkar for example, in 1949, their eyes twinkled, their faces beamed with a broad, affectionate smile as they cried out in unison: “THERE SHE COMES! LATAAA!” “What a great career, man!” said one of the YouTubers. “Yeah, and she was singing in films even before my parents were born!” added the other.

Ditto for when Mohammed Rafi or Kishore Kumar arrived on the scene. Or when a memorable song lit up the screen with the first sighting of a beloved actor, like the tramp Raj Kapoor bumbling down the road in Mera joota hai Japani, or the regal Madhubala rebelling and dancing her heart out in Emperor Akbar’s diwaan-e-khaas in Jab pyaar kiya toh darna kya, or the pensive Amitabh Bachchan (the YouTubers roared in unison again: “BIG BEEEEE!”) in Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein, or the fun and quirky Sridevi in Hawa hawaayi, or the diva Divya Bharti in Saat samundar paar, and, finally, the cheeky Shah Rukh Khan in Baazigar o baazigar, who is in a horrendous Batman-meets-Zorro costume, atop a white horse, ready to ride straight into a million hearts in the years to come, and down to many other defining songs through the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.

It is fascinating to watch the two YouTubers for their innocent, lovable reactions, but it is also pleasantly overwhelming to switch off, lie back, and think about the journey and the evolution of the Hindi film song itself, especially against the backdrop of enormous social and political changes. In these 90 long years – from 1931 to 2021 – India has had many trysts with destiny. She put up an arduous struggle for freedom for which there is little parallel in the history of the world. She was dragged into a long, bloody World War with nothing to gain and only to lose. She won her independence, but was partitioned simultaneously – the horrors of which continue to linger to this day. She wrote and gave its citizens a bold and proud Constitution to live by, has fought five wars with its neighbours, saw the imposition of the Emergency when democracy was suspended and then fought for and reclaimed. She has held 17 general elections, elected and voted out 13 prime ministers, and witnessed numerous tumultuous social and political movements, including riots, pogroms, attacks on its own citizens and ten devastating years of rule of the current prime minister, on the eve of whose ascent to power in 2014, a former prime minister had quietly, prophetically, cautioned the country: “Without discussing the merits of Mr Narendra Modi, I sincerely believe that it will be disastrous for the country to have him as the prime minister.”

Art is not made in a vacuum. Art is, in fact, the barometer of its age. And so the Hindi film song too, as a work of art in its own right, has imbibed and expressed the sense and sensibilities of its time. Sometimes it has merely mirrored and reflected – albeit beautifully and profoundly – the prevalent social and cultural moods, like in Dil ka haal sune dilwala, seedhi si baat na mirch masala, which offers a peek into the slums of a big city and sings defiantly, unabashedly, and yet smilingly, of the every-day life and struggles of the slum-dwellers, or in Thoda hai, thode ki zaroorat hai, which weaves together a myriad dreams and aspirations of a new, emerging middle-class. On other occasions, it has even influenced and refashioned the broader milieu of its time, like in Main zindagi ka saath nibhaata chala gaya, or in Aane wala pal jaane wala hai – both relegating the burdens of the past and the concerns of the future to the backseat and, instead, providing a quotable cause to enshrine and revel in the freedom of the present moment.

We have seen the Hindi film song to both heed and lead public taste and opinion. Along with other works of art, it has played a crucial role in encapsulating and even shaping the sense of life of its society in any given period of time in much of modern India’s history. How far the Hindi film song has come and how far we, who have grown up on a rich diet of it, have travelled!

‘Yeh chiraag bujh rahein hain’

The most notable shift in the Hindi film song perhaps is that it has receded to the background of the Hindi film over the course of the past few decades. There was a time when a Hindi movie would not shy away from telling the story at hand through song and dance, amongst other narrative devices. The song used to be a scene of the movie, like in Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool or Vijay Anand’s Guide, carrying the narrative forward and adding to the characterisation. And this is a very Indian way of telling a story, as Salman Rushdie, one of India’s literary icons, reminds us. Reminiscing about his Indian roots and heritage that shaped his method of storytelling, Rushdie once talked about a way of telling a story – the tradition of oral storytelling – that is still prevalent and popular in India. “The storyteller,” he said in his talk at the University of Vermont, “would begin a story, digress and tell a related story, break into a song and dance routine, tell a few jokes about nothing in particular, and return to the original thread again. The storyteller would have three or four performative threads co-existing and intertwining and the genius of the storyteller is that he keeps all the balls juggling in the air.” The audience loves the juggling act and goes along with it in their hundreds and thousands.

Influenced by this ancient method (all the way back to the structure and style of the great epics Ramayana and Mahabharata), and the Urdu-Parsi theatre of course, Hindi sound cinema arose in the 1930s, parallel to but unlike Hollywood, proudly using narrative styles of its own of which songs were a big part. And that is what distinguished Hindi cinema from other cinemas of the world.

It is difficult to pinpoint with considerable accuracy when the change happened and when the Hindi film song stopped being an integrated and integral part of its film. The claim is not that every song of every old Hindi movie was a scene of the film, or that it carried the narrative forward always, or that it added to the characterisation in any substantial measure, just as not every song of every new Hindi movie is an “item number”, or an unintegrated part of the film, or a bundle of arbitrary theatrics happening on the side or in the background, with little to do with the story that is unravelling around it. There were many blips, even trash, before, just as there are many notable exceptions now. The claim has more to do with the frequency and consistency of the role that the Hindi film song played and plays in the cinematic storytelling of which it is supposed to be a part.

The change, then, is more crucially linked to two phenomenons that began unfolding over many years in Hindi cinema starting surreptitiously in the ’80s, then setting foot insidiously in the ’90s, and consolidating further in the first decade of the present millennium, before coming into full bloom now. The two phenomenons are: the lip-sync song falling steadily out of ‘fashion’, and, coupled with, the falling away of the “poet” part and what it signified in the title “poet-lyricist” that can be attributed to most of the artists who wrote songs back then and which cannot be said for many who write songs now.

The fading away of the lip-sync song 

The most disdainful criticism of the lip-sync song perhaps is that it is “artificial”, and “not realistic”. If the holder of this criticism has acquired or desires to acquire fashionable western sensibilities and lives, voluntarily, in a deracinated urban bubble mistaking it for the whole world, their criticism of the lip-sync song holds true. But then the same could be said about them: that by uprooting themselves from their natural social and cultural environment and by trying to come across as a ‘nonconformist’ while actually conforming, quite anxiously, to anything western and to the western sense and ‘supremacy’, they, too, are “artificial” and “not realistic”, to say the least.

In commenting on art, any form of art, and while critiquing it, the question of what is legitimate and honest, what is true and real, the commentator and the critic must also pay attention to the socio-cultural ground from which that piece of art has emerged. The tradition of song and performance in India is deeply intertwined with the day-to-day matters of Indian lives. More than two-thirds of India’s population lives in its countryside and villages where, from births to deaths, weddings and harvests, practising one’s faith to indulging in leisure and entertainment, singing out songs over spirited claps and beats of a dholak are quite natural and realistic ways, often the most preferred ways, of expressing oneself and marking life-events. Even in India’s cities, in the many pockets that are outside the deracinated, elite bubbles (and even in those bubbles, in fact), the art of using a song, old or new, to express, to earmark a moment, to make something memorable, is spotted and experienced on numerous occasions.

To sum it up, we have been telling our stories through songs since time immemorial. Even before the arrival of talkies now almost a hundred years ago, the Urdu-Parsi theatre, relaying the age-old mood and custom, and mixing in new flavours and inspirations, would roam around towns and villages, telling tales and spinning yarns of which songs were an unmissable part. Bombay movies, as the Hindi cinema, or more correctly the Hindustani cinema, was called back then, readily adopted the ways of the Urdu-Parsi theatre, which was a raging success amongst the masses everywhere, and became the newest upholder and proponent of the old, native art of singing out stories. That this happened against the all-consuming backdrop of the call for swaraj and the freedom struggle is hardly a coincidence.

This aspect of an Indian way of life found easy, and natural, passage into its arts, and theatre, and its cinema. Rushdie’s tribute to the Indian oral storytelling tradition, paid decades after Hindi cinema came of age, is just another reminder of how this song- and performance-laden method of telling a story was mirrored without a fuss in its cinema. The Hindi film, along with other cinemas of India, had became a visual equivalent of a quintessentially Indian way of telling a story.

In addition to the arguments about authenticity, the other (underrated and little observed) beauty of the lip-sync song is that, at its best, it has added more dimensions to not just the story being told but also to the performance of the actors enacting the story. In order to perform, and in most cases lip-sync the song, the actors, to the extent of their genius, have had to become the song itself. They have had to learn projection, imbibe the song’s inflections, and pay attention to how to move and to be in the scene in a way that best epitomised what the song was saying. It made the best of them learn and explore themselves more and, as a result of those explorations, they accessed and brought out emotions that added to and enhanced the character that they played and revealed more deeply the situation concerned in the film. The lip-sync song helped add lyricism and depth to the characters that these actors portrayed.

This is not to say that every film must contain a song, or that every song must be performed and lip-synced. The argument is that we must not forget or underestimate the roots and influences of a musical performance in our movies and of lip-syncing a song, and we must not bare ignorance and an inferiority complex by looking at our own heritage and artistic productions through the ‘modern’, western glasses of what we think rules and moves the world. When and if done right, a song, lip-synced or not, adds more layers to the unfolding of the narrative.

‘Kahan gaye woh log’

The other notable shift in the nature and quality of the Hindi film song has to do with the lyricists and the filmmakers. As Javed Akhtar, one of India’s most celebrated screenwriters, poets and lyricists, said in a conversation with Kausar Munir at the Lucknow Literature Festival, “In the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, the lyricist was also a shayar, a poet.” Akhtar, who himself is a poet-lyricist, was perhaps thinking of people like Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Shakeel Badayuni, Kaifi Azmi, Hasrat Jaipuri, Shailendra, and Gulzar, to name just a few. Those decades were, indeed, alive and kicking with the creations of such lyricists who were accomplished poets too. Akhtar laments and adds, “Now, the lyricist is just a songwriter writing a song for the situation that they have been allocated in the film. If you are writing songs after listening to songs that came before, your vocabulary is bound to be narrow and repetitive. But if your sources are beyond the world of films and lie also in the literature and folk traditions of your culture, your vocabulary will be broad and fresh. Your ideas will be fresh. Jaanemann and maula: think of how many songs have used these! You put four maulas in a song and call it a Sufi song!”

It is not so much about any qualifications needed to pen a song as much as it is about cultivating a thoughtful, sensitive and diverse view of the world around you and beyond. Literature and poetry open the universe a little more. They reveal deep truths about human nature and existence. And a song – a great song – is, after all, a piece of poetry in motion which, set to music, lifts us and flies out, soaring high above for a moment, affording us an expansive, unobstructed view of how things are, before gliding down to the earth again, having enriched us, entertained us, and sometimes even having unpacked bite-sized philosophies for us, so that we look at our everyday life-situations with a newly found or renewed gaze and vigour.

According to Akhtar, one of the great achievements of Hindi film songs is that they also “shaped sensibilities in the masses for social justice and life philosophy”, which otherwise could have only come from high poetry, literature and works of philosophy. As Akhtar notes in the same interview, “In our society, the common man doesn’t read books on philosophy and sociology and social justice. The sensibilities towards human values and collective values were gleaned and imbibed from our film songs. Because in a few lines, set to a melody, profound insights into life were packed together in simple words.”

Kisi ke muskurahaton pe ho nisaar…kisi ke vaaste ho dil mein pyaar…jeena isi ka naam hai on one end of the spectrum and Dum maaro dum, mit jaaye gham on the other – these and many other songs in between, in addition to being scenes of the film in their own right, or adding to the drama and characterisation, also offered the audiences value systems and public philosophy. It is not uncommon, after all, the eclectic frequency with which we quote lines from a beloved song to mark a moment or to help a friend, or even ourselves, in life-situations and to show the way around and forward. In conclusion, Akhtar minces no words in stating that “now such songs are too few and far in between”. He says, “Kal ho naa ho comes to mind, and maybe that is it.” And even Kal ho naa ho happened more than 20 years ago!

One of the causes, then, of the deteriorating quality of the Hindi film song is that the reference points of most of the present crop of filmmakers and lyricists are placed outside of the milieu of the society for which they are making films and writing songs. Unlike the filmmakers and poet-lyricists of the past, the sources and inspirations of most of the contemporary filmmakers and lyricists are not rooted in their soil and lie saat samundar paar, in the pop-music and pop-culture of western countries whose lifetimes, as Akhtar puts quite wittingly, “are smaller than even the artistic traditions of India let alone its civilisation.”

‘Woh subah kabhi to aayegi’

The progression of the Hindi film song, across almost a century now, is more than just a nostalgic, romantic yaadon ki baraat. On a deeper level, they stand testimony to and are imbibers of the big political and social changes that have shaped the country. From the crucible of the freedom movement led by Mohandas Gandhi, the republic of India emerged. Beaconing the new nation on an exciting experiment, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister, spoke of redeeming an old pledge for a new age – one of equality, fraternity, liberty and justice. The heady idealism of the post-independence India from the early 1950s to the late 1960s made it possible for the filmmakers at the time to attempt to realise some of these ideals, mixed in with their own renewed romanticisms and artistic endeavours, in their movies and songs. It was the age of dropping the bitterness and burdens of the past and embarking upon a new journey, as depicted in the timeless Chhodo kal ki baatein, kal ki baat puraani; naye daur mein likhenge hum milkar nayi kahaani…Hum Hindustani. But it was also the age that made it possible for a Madhubala to play a Muslim courtesan and dance to a Krishnabhajan in Emperor Akbar’s court in MughalEAzam, portraying an incredible (and uncommon) combination of devotion and sensuality, of prayer and romantic love, in Mohe panghat pe nandlal chhed gayo re to the wild, wide acclaim of a largely Hindu audience.

As the founding ideals started to evaporate – as they usually do – and as the Tryst with Destiny with which India was launched in 1947 began to break down, the angry young man rose from the unjust streets of an impoverished India. The 1970s saw the beginnings of counter-culture, and of rage and colour and of unbridled, daring emotions. The Hindi film song was still memorable and melodious, but there was a visible shift in its vocabulary and values. Gone were the days of shy restraint, or of laid-back elegance and gentleness. It was the time, instead, of Indira Gandhi and of breaking the Zanjeer and playing with Sholay. It was the epoch of a great Aandhi both in Indian politics and society.

Like a bridge connects two separate, disparate masses of land, the period from the early 1970s to the late 1980s acted as the link-road in time connecting early Hindi cinema (widely believed to be its golden age) with its newest avatar in the post-liberalisation and post-Babri Masjid-demolition India. As the Indian economy, and with it the Indian society, opened their doors to the world and, amongst other things, to the internet and MTV and western (largely American) influences, the impact on the filmmakers precipitated the most notable shift in the language, vocabulary and values of their movies and, consequently, their songs. It was not an overnight phenomenon. The seeds of liberalisation would take years to shoot up and come into full bloom. But in the aftermath, the frequency of Hindi movies and songs that had their reference points in the pop culture of the west and the US was too stark to miss.

Coupled with the market forces unleashed by liberalisation (which encouraged Indians to look outward), the spectacular rise of Hindu nationalism catapulted a shift in public concerns (which demanded Indians to look more and more inwards, as if on account of a deep-seated insecurity born out of looking out at the west and its glittering achievements). This in turn further catapulted the shifts in the Hindi film song that we have talked about so far. In Modi’s India, a Padmavati couldn’t dance and express her desires with the flaming sensuality and unfettered abandon of an Anarkali in Nehru’s India. Or the angry young man (still committed to the ideals of democracy and social justice) of Indira Gandhi’s infamous Emergency wouldn’t know what to make of the toxic bigotry and hate induced by the new elite – the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party and their followers.

The coarsened public discourse and a narrow imagination have coarsened and reduced the Hindi cinema and its songs in equal measure, if not more. On the other hand, the contemporary filmmakers have not covered themselves in glory either. They have, mostly, bowed down to the market and political forces instead of arriving at a working combination of the commercial, the political and the artistic. And since nothing that is coarse and meek lasts for long, it is not surprising to witness that most of the movies and songs of our age come and vanish without making a mark.

Talking to Tariq Ali on his show on teleSUR in an unusually rare interview about Hindi cinema, one of India’s foremost writers and thinkers Arundhati Roy remarked when asked about the evolution (or regression) of the Hindi film song: “Earlier songs were like incense sticks. They are throwaway lighters now.” When pressed further to explain herself, Roy said in a low, lamenting tone of voice: “The heart has gone out.”

There is enough new brilliance and talent on the Indian film scene. Perhaps some of them, or even most of them, will usher in a new day in Hindi cinema and bring back the heart in it. But whether Apna time aayega again or not, time will tell.

Shivendra Singh is a writer based out of Lucknow. 

Scams it Raised Forgotten, ‘Tainted’ Leaders Rewarded, BJP Confuses Supporters

From star campaigners to tickets, the saffron party has welcomed a host of leaders from opposition parties who it had once attacked for their alleged corruption.

New Delhi: From Ajit Pawar, Ashok Chavan, Naveen Jindal to Geeta Koda, ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has continued to reward leaders from opposition parties who it had once accused of corruption but have since joined ranks with the saffron party or become its allies.

Opposition parties have accused the BJP of being a “washing machine” for tainted leaders who switch over to the saffron party to avoid further action from central agencies. The Wire has also reported on a statewise list of such leaders who have switched over in recent months. Since then the CBI has filed a closure report in a corruption case involving Praful Patel of the Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar faction), and illegal mining scam accused G. Janardhan Reddy has joined the BJP.

On Saturday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in response to a question on the BJP welcoming corruption tainted leaders, said that the “party is open” and “welcoming everybody”.

“Party is open, we welcome everybody,” she said.

When asked if even those with several cases against them are welcome, Sitharaman said: “Party is welcoming everybody.”

Here we look at some of the leaders who have been rewarded by the BJP with tickets and star campaigner status in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections.

1. Ajit Pawar on BJP’s Maharashtra star campaigners list

Once labelled as “Naturally Corrupt Party” by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar who led a rebellion against his uncle Sharad Pawar in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) last July has found his name in the BJP’s star campaigner’s list for the Lok Sabha elections released on Wednesday.

Pawar has been facing cases filed by multiple agencies – both at the state and central level. These cases – pertaining to a co-operative bank and the state irrigation project – have dragged on for close to a decade.

Just a week before Pawar’s rebellion in the NCP to join hands with Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction and the BJP, Modi had accused the party of corruption in the irrigation scam while addressing booth workers in Bhopal.

Earlier this month, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police submitted a closure report against Pawar in the alleged Rs 25,000 crore scam at the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank.

2. ‘Adarsh’ Ashok Chavan also star campaigner for Maharashtra

Not just Pawar, former Maharashtra chief minister and veteran Congress leader in the state Ashok Chavan who joined the BJP in February and was later that month elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha, has also been named as a star campaigner.

Like Pawar, Chavan was also routinely accused of corruption in Modi’s attacks on opposition leaders in public rallies. For instance in March 2014, Modi called the Congress “shameless” for giving a ticket to Chavan and referred to him as an “adarsh” candidate.

“All leaders accused of corruption will be dealt with proactively,” he had said at a rally in Nanded from where Chavan was contesting.

Chavan and his family members are accused of being primary beneficiaries of a 31-storey building named Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society which was originally built for 1999 Kargil war heroes and fallen soldiers’ war widows. The ED too is investigating the matter and Chavan has been named as an accused.

3. Naveen Jindal

Former Congress MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal has been named as the BJP candidate from Haryana’s Kurukshetra just hours after he joined the party last week.

At a rally in Kurukshetra in October 2014, Modi said that “scams, loot, corruption and land scams” are common in the then Congress-ruled state.

Jindal has been under the scanner of both the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate in connection with three cases related to alleged irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks in Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh.

Modi’s 2014 campaign had focused on corruption scams during the UPA government, including the coal block allocation scam. At a rally in Jharkhand’s Jamshedpur in November 2014, Modi said that he will not allow Jharkhand’s mines to be looted.

The coal block allocation scam also found place in the Centre’s white paper on the Indian economy that was tabled in parliament last month.

After Jindal was announced as the BJP’s Kurukshetra candidate, INLD’s Abhay Singh Chautala said that Modi himself had spoken about Jindal’s alleged involvement in the coal scam.

“Narendra Modi ji himself gave a statement about Naveen Jindal who they (BJP) fielded from Kurukshetra, regarding the coal scam, that people looted the mines and he would take strict action against them,” he said.

The Jindal group is among the top ten donors of electoral bonds, according to the data published by the Election Commission of India earlier this month, having donated Rs 202 crore in the last five years.

4. Krupa Shankar Singh

Krupa Shankar Singh, former Mumbai Congress president who also served as minister in the Congress’s Maharashtra government, quit the grand old party and joined the BJP in 2021. Subsequently, he was made the party’s state vice president has been fielded from his native Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh.

Singh is being probed by central investigative agencies in a disproportionate assets case in which he and his family members are accused of amassing income to the tune of Rs 230 crore.

In 2012, the BJP in Maharashtra had led the charge against Singh, and demanded his resignation.

5. Tapas Roy

Tapas Roy, former veteran Trinamool Congress leader and five-time MLA who joined the BJP earlier this month, has been fielded from Kolkata North. Roy was raided by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with irregularities in the recruitments to municipalities jobs scam.

Following the raids, Suvendu Adhikari, BJP leader and the Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal assembly, who himself had switched over from the TMC in 2021, called Roy a “thief”.

“There will be raids in a thief’s home. They are thieves. The youth and the people of Bengal want them to go behind the bars,” he said to ANI.

6. Geeta Koda

Geeta Koda, the Congress’s lone MP from Jharkhand, joined the BJP last month and has been fielded from Jharkhand’s Singhbhum. Koda is the wife of former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda, who was imprisoned in 2017 for corruption and conspiracy in connection with a coal block allocation case.

Geeta’s move to the Congress in 2018 was denounced by the BJP, with a state BJP leader calling the move “institutionalising” corruption

“By inducting Geeta Koda into the party, Congress is ‘institutionalising’ corruption. This proves that Congress leaders, too, were hand in glove with the then Chief Minister who was involved in the scam,” Ramesh Pushkar was quoted as saying by The Sunday Guardian.

Following her switch to the BJP, Jharkhand party chief Babulal Marandi has hinted that Madhu Koda too will join the saffron party.

7. Debashish Dhar

Former West Bengal IPS officer Debashish Dhar, who recently resigned from service, has been fielded by the BJP from Birbhum.

He was raided by the state CID in 2022 in connection with a disproportionate assets case. Subsequently a disproportionate assets case was lodged by the CID against him as well as businessman Sudipta Roy Chowdhury, who is also an accused in the Rose Valley chit fund scam case.

Dhar, the former superintendent of police in Coochbehar, was suspended after the 2021 state assembly elections after four people were killed in an alleged incident of firing by central forces in the district.

In Photos: The Asian Golden Triangle

The Golden Triangle, and specifically Shan State of Myanmar, is believed to be the largest methamphetamine producing area in the world (modest sized geographic area with highly concentrated production).

The car crosses the right banks of river Mekong as the evening falls. The mist settles on the sleepy town. Eateries and shops selling trinkets have pulled their shutters down. Under the setting sun, a tall statue of the Buddha keeps an eye on the activities, though his eyes seemed half closed. Yes, this is Chiang-Rai, Thailand.

Chiang-Rai is famous and infamous. It’s one of the corner countries of the Asian Golden Triangle, with Laos and Myanmar on the two other corners. China’s Yunan hills can bee seen far away, with naked yes.

Years ago, when the Vietnam war was in full swing, Americans needed money for their informers. Seeing poppy culture similar to Flanders poppy in Europe, the Shan province of Myanmar grew, producing opium. The Americans were losing heavily to the Viet-Cong army. They were forced to retreat in the mid ’70s. The Chinese mafias under the Mao regime took this opportune moment to seize the drug market. It became so powerful that the CIA coined the name ‘Golden Triangle’ and drugs from that region made and broke governments. The Golden Triangle, and specifically Shan State of Myanmar, is believed to be the largest methamphetamine producing area in the world (modest sized geographic area with highly concentrated production).

Today, here, there is some tourist flow, but one can’t see a lot of people around. At the confluence of Ruak river and the giant Mekong, a small island pops up. I asked the boatman, who was doubling as the guide, he waved his hand and tried to warn me away, as if it were somewhat like a no-go zone. The patch of island belongs to Myanmar.

The region’s drug production and trade continues. In 2022, there were some distress calls from an Indian from a geographical location around Hoxa, which falls on the opposite bank of Mekong in Thailand’s Chiang Rai district. India’s external intelligence agency R&AW along with the embassy staff in Vientiane, Bangkok and Yangon with the help of local intelligence rescued the Indians trapped in a Special Economic Zone as bonded labourers. They had been promised jobs, but that was a way to con them into joining a web of cybercriminals.

From the times of Myanmar’s junta dictator Than Shwe to the current regime run by another junta, senior generals continue to support the business of narcotics. Since the US has put a hold on trade and Myanmar has been economically sanctioned, the business of narcotics brings profits for the junta and its civilian supporters.

Asia’s widest road in Myanmar’s capital Napitaw. From here, the junta runs the country as drug money flows in.

Asian Highway 2,

Dragon fruit and durian sold on the highway to Shan state in Pyno Lyn.

Lorries driving along Shan state under the eyes of the Junta and Chinese intelligence

Shan State’s Muan Tan is the region that produces the most opium in Myanmar.

Shan valley in Taunggy.

Tatmadaw, the Myanmar army, keeps a vigil but the drug trade happens as usual and gets to the Asian Golden Triangle for further transport.

The border area with Myanmar and China is busy with trade and opium is among the important sources of revenue.

The mountains of Shan State in Myanmar, with China beyond the hills.

At Bangla market, sex tourism draws crowds.

Boats belonging to Chinese groups for allegedly transporting drugs and human trafficking.

Chiang Rai road going towards Myanmar, crossing villages and rice fields, is among the smuggling routes to transport humans and drugs like opium.

Different countries’ flags are hoisted on boats.

The landing at Laos.

The lone island in the middle of River Ruak and Mekong.

The lower Mekong delta, where large-scale trafficking allegedly takes place.

A view of the Golden Triangle.

Shome Basu is a photographer and journalist.

The Curious Closure of the Indian Embassy School in Beijing

‘Diplomats were not bothered because GOI picks up the tab, but this was a huge amount and few Indian expats could pay this out of their earnings.’

The following is an excerpt from section titled ‘India-China Cooperation and Conflict’ from the author’s book, Beyond Binaries: The World of India and China (2008-2022).

In June 2011, a school in the compound of the Indian embassy in Beijing was closed down. It had been functioning for nearly three decades in the Chinese capital, catering to children from Kindergarten to Class 4.

Beyond Binaries:The World Of India And China (2008-2022), Shastri Ramachandran, Genuine Publications, 2024.

The “Indian Embassy School”, as it had come to be known, may have been small and limited to the primary level, but it was an institution of value beyond its formal function. It had the potential, and deserved, to be developed as a senior secondary school.

Instead, our mandarins in New Delhi’s South Block decided to shut down the popular school and, to justify the decision, belittle its importance as well as the diplomatic and other purposes it served. With a view to justifying the closure of the school, it was made out as if the school had been unworthy of being run, and that did not redound to the credit of the Indian diplomatic establishment.

India’s Ambassador to China, S. Jaishankar (who is now the Minister for External Affairs) said that the school had outlived its purpose as a facility needed at a time, in the years after the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), when schools for expats were few. Beijing has scores of international schools, but their fees were $1800 or more per month at the time, whereas the embassy school charged about $200, making it affordable for not only Indians but also other expats.

While the reason given by Jaishankar was unconvincing, in all probability, the decision to close the school might not have been his but that of a higher authority in the Ministry of External Affairs; and the decision taken, perhaps, for reasons which the GOI did not want to make public. The school could not have been closed without the nod of Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, who was Jaishankar’s predecessor in Beijing.

There was a clear case of the need for more transparency. More important though was that with the closing of this school, there was no Indian school in China. The school helped GOI save a tidy sum, as it did not have to pay the exorbitant fees of international schools for embassy employees’ children at least until Class 4.

Diplomats were not bothered because GOI picks up the tab, but this was a huge amount and few Indian expats could pay this out of their earnings. Given the growing number of Indian ventures and Indians in China, and their need for an affordable option between the high-end international schools and local Chinese schools – the opening of Indian schools would have helped expats, enabled huge savings of government funds and created a new Indian institutional space. There are Indian educational enterprises running global schools in many countries.

Beyond the opaque politics that led to the closure of the only Indian school in Beijing and the business opportunity the vacuum presented, there were personnel and diplomatic dimensions to the issue.

When news of the closure became public, it was put out that most of the teachers in the school were ‘wives’ of Indian diplomats, implying that they were not competent or qualified for anything other than ‘wifery’. This was patently unfair to the female teachers, especially when the foreign secretary is a woman. Not appointing regular teachers was a lapse on the part of the MEA and not something for which the wives who took on the teaching should have been blamed to justify the school’s closure.

The Indian school was favoured by diplomatic staff and expats from several countries for their children’s primary English-medium education. The loss of this diplomatic spin-off was underscored by the fact that the only comparable English medium educational option then available for the affected expat community in Beijing was the school run by the Pakistani Embassy.

As business between the two countries boomed, it was surprising that at a time when India needed to increase its visibility and presence in more and diverse ways in China, the Government of India appeared to be doing precisely the opposite. Better a school for scandal than the scandal of having no school at all.

Shastri Ramachandran is a senior journalist and commentator.

Why Big Tech and the Modi Government Are Far From Adversarial

Over the past decade most tech CEOs have done pit stops in India with elaborate public communications in meetings with the Prime Minister.

Why did Bill Gates do a long interview with the Prime Minister weeks before a general election? Was he not aware of its use as a form of political propaganda?

Let me flip this question and answer it from the perspective of our Prime Minister’s historical courtship of silicon valley and how best I understand the nature of this relationship. Here both draw benefits from each other as much as they often experience friction.

Months after inaugurating the “Digital India” programme in July 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, did a roadshow in Silicon Valley in September 2015, announcing that, “technology is advancing citizen empowerment and democracy that once drew their strength from Constitutions”. This public speech opened with a nod to the Chief Executive Officers of Adobe, CISCO, Google, Microsoft and Qualcomm whose attendance was marked by their first names. The next day he separately met Zuckerberg and memorably broke down and cried at Menlo Park recounting adolescent hardship and memories of his mother.

As centralised power and a chokehold over institutions has grown within the Prime Minister’s chair as much as the size and depth of our market, the visits have been more inbound. Over the past decade most tech CEOs have done pit stops in India with elaborate public communications in meetings with the Prime Minister. This is irrespective of litigation in courts, deep disagreements on regulation and the tremendous erosion of the historical neo-libertarian notions of silicon valley.

In the last decade as India has looked to regulate and provide what is referred to as, “guard rails” on big tech, the BJP and the Prime Minister continues to court, exploit and control online platforms and their leadership for political benefit. This includes the political propaganda of national development through digitisation. A form of modernity that is marked by rapid change than carefully looking at rising social inequality.

To me it is far too simplistic to term the “big tech” and government relationship as adversarial.

Yes, it is, but it is not it’s defining nature. In my humble opinion, it is codependency.

Here foreign firms require political support (rather than being true believers in the PM or the Bharatiya Janata Party) in a weak rule of law society to enjoy market access. The ruling party in turn recognises it and uses it to advance its political interests (as also it’s policy objectives). The reality is that these are sophisticated entities that enjoy a close and layered relationship. It’s a partnership to maximise self-interest.

Aside: Here’s what came off late former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s interaction with Bill Gates on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in 2002-2003.

“I would like to narrate an event that took place in Rashtrapati Bhavan a few months back when I met Bill Gates, the CEO of Microsoft. While walking in the Mughal garden, we were discussing the future challenges in Information Technology including the issues related to software security. I made a point that we look for open source codes so that we can easily introduce the users built security algorithms. Our discussions became difficult since our views were different. The most unfortunate thing is that India still seems to believe in proprietary solutions. Further spread of IT which is influencing the daily life of individuals would have a devastating effect on the lives of society due to any small shift in the business practice involving these proprietory solutions. It is precisely for these reasons open source software need to be built which would be cost effective for the entire society. In India, open source code software will have to come and stay in a big way for the benefit of our billion people. I2IT has to play a major role in this national mission.”

Apar Gupta is an advocate.

This article first appeared in the form of two posts on the author’s X account on March 29 and has been reproduced with permission.

Sports Science Is Now Coming to the Aid of Everyday Athletes

Football stars and their movements are measured down to the smallest detail for injury prevention and biomechanical analysis. What used to be the sole domain of professional sports can benefit everyday athletes.

A young basketball player is being put through his paces in a sports medicine lab. On command, he jumps and lands with one leg onto a force plate embedded in the floor.

“I need one more,” Dr. Hauke Dewitz calls out to him.

So the same procedure again: taped with reflective beads, so-called markers, and electrodes that measure muscle activity, the 16-year-old jumps again. Pain in his right knee, which has been bothering him for months, has brought him to the lab. With the controlled movements completed, now comes the analysis by the sports orthopedist treating the athlete.

Based on the data, sports scientist Dewitz is looking for the causes of the inflammation of the patellar tendon. Why does the knee bend almost imperceptibly to one side? Do the muscles slow the body down properly? What forces are acting on the joints? Biomechanical analysis can reveal such clues. For more than two hours, the patient has had to call up his repertoire of movements: run, jump, change direction and perform squats. He has also had to demonstrate his sense of balance and strength.

Sports stars with everyday problems

Well-known professional athletes also come to the practice near Cologne. For professionals and their clubs, health is a million-dollar game – all options are exhausted when it comes to correcting physical ailments.

“However, hardly any athletes have come to us for preventive care so far,” Dewitz tells DW.

He believes that doing so could prevent some problems and injuries.

“Most of them come after an operation or with injuries that occur repeatedly, for example fiber tears in a particular thigh muscle.”

His conclusion from years of experience is that top athletes are not usually plagued by exotic aches and pains but have the same problems as everyone else: aching tendons, muscles or joints that cannot withstand the strain.

“People always think that top athletes are so well-trained that you can hardly find any weaknesses in the analysis,” Dewitz says.

However, in the sports of football and basketball in particular, there are sometimes fundamental weaknesses. For example, a lack of strength in key muscle groups, which means that the joints take the strain, Dewitz explains.

“I’m always amazed by that.

However, motion analysis in and of itself does not provide a cure.

The role of artificial intelligence in sports science

“It is a valuable decision-making aid,” Professor Maren Witt, head of the biomechanics laboratory at Leipzig University tells DW.

The results provide doctors, physiotherapists, and patients with information on where the pain is coming from and how it can be remedied.

“We are currently experiencing how this technology, which was reserved for top athletes just a few years ago, is becoming accessible to many people,” Witt says.

Whereas individual analyses used to take days, they can now be done in just a few hours.

“In the future, artificial intelligence will also make sticking on marker points superfluous,” the scientist predicts.

In addition to saving time, this could help people who go for analysis because of knee, hip or back problems but are reluctant to show themselves in swimwear.

In the coming years, Hauke Dewitz hopes to be able to measure athletes in a normal training environment, like on the soccer pitch or the basketball court, just as well as in the laboratory.

“That would be even more individual and therefore more sport-specific,” Dewitz explains.

Targeted training

After two hours of analysis, Derwitz finds that there is indeed room for improvement for the young basketball player. While the two-meter-tall (6’6″) youngster lands cleanly on his left leg, he doesn’t do so well on his right. The leg rotates slightly, the strength values show high load peaks – factors that cause stress on the inflamed patellar tendon.

The sports scientist recommends that he tackle the problem with targeted training. This includes simple strength training for the thighs and buttocks, but also finer technique exercises for running and landing.

How effective and suitable for everyday use can such training be?

“In high-performance sport, we assume that it works,” Professor Witt says, “even if it is difficult to scientifically attribute it to movement analysis alone, because many factors play a role in health and athletic performance.”

At this point, Dewitz recounts a story of a national team player whose hamstring had been bothering her for years. A problem that saw a number of medical solutions fail. Analysis revealed the simple reason: one muscle was compensating for the weakness of another and was therefore overloaded. With targeted training, the problem disappeared into thin air.

“Any physiotherapist or sports scientist can do that,” says Dewitz. “I don’t need a football club worth millions behind me for that.”

This article was originally published in German on DW.

The Unholy Bond: What Led Us Here and What’s Next

Apart from the illegality of electoral bonds, the donations received through electoral bonds could possibly be linked to grave crimes against the people.

Responding to widespread public criticism of electoral bonds in the light of recent revelations, Nirmala Sitharaman, the Union finance minister, is reported to have said, “All major parties encashed  electoral bonds; nobody has moral authority to say anything”  

When someone asked her whether she would contest in the ensuing elections, she said that she had declined Bharatiya Janata Party president J.P. Nadda’s offer to contest because she does not have ‘that kind’ of money to fight elections.

On the other hand, her colleague, Hardeep Singh Puri, the Union Minister for Petroleum, described  the money received through electoral bonds as “gifts”. Explaining this further, he said, “Every  morning you get up and you get gifts thrown up from the other side. These are gifts which come our way, electoral bonds was one of them. We suddenly discovered a party who got 303 seats got Rs 3000  crores worth of electoral bonds and a party with hardly any seats got Rs 1600 crores. I have been  overseas, tell me any system across the world where democracy works without political funding.”

While there is nothing moral anyway about electoral bonds, the off-the-cuff responses of the two senior colleagues of Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak volumes about the dishonesty surrounding them. When Sitharaman said that she did not have that kind of money to fight elections, she tacitly admitted that no ordinary citizen in India could afford to contest elections with the kind of money that political parties, particularly the BJP, could garner for themselves through all kinds  of dishonest means.

Puri’s description of the bond money as gift raises a serious concern about the motives underlying the BJP receiving corporate donations. Corporate entities by themselves are not voters and, therefore, a gift given by a company is not equivalent to a voter making her humble contributions to a political party. When a private company gifts a sizeable amount to a political  party, it is certainly not out of its love for democracy. Since private companies’ decisions are mostly profit driven, when they donate to the party in power, they expect favours in return. Puri’s view that democracies cannot work without political funding represents the view of those who tolerate dishonesty in politics. 

The finance minister’s contention that other political parties have no moral authority to question the BJP on electoral bonds is not entirely correct, as it is the BJP that rules at the Union, controlling enforcement agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the CBI and the Income Tax department, who could intimidate private companies and extort money from them. The recent revelations have brought to light how raids on private companies have forced them to donate to the party in power. Also, it is the National Democratic Alliance government that amended laws relating to environmental protection, forest conservation, mineral regulation, etc. to help private promoters of projects profiteer at the cost of public interest. Another ugly dimension of electoral bonds is that shell companies having little profits gave large donations to many political parties, especially the BJP, suggesting the possibility of laundered money finding its way into electioneering. 

One political party even nominated an electoral bond donor to the Rajya Sabha! What a travesty of democracy! 

Nirmala Sitharaman and her party should know that some Left parties questioned the ethics of the electoral bond scheme and refused to accept donations through it. Had the BJP really cared to cleanse politics of corruption, it would not only have desisted from introducing such a dishonest scheme as that of electoral bonds but also banned corporate donations altogether. 

Watch: Mega Extortion, ‘Quid-Pro-Quo’, Money Laundering Charges Must be Investigated

Corporate donations and political corruption: Two sides of the same coin

The implications of private company donations to political parties have been a subject of serious  debate in India for more than half a century.  

Initially, there was no prohibition on corporate donations when electioneering was not as expensive  as it is today and when political parties did not view politics as a profitable business venture. 

There was one instance in the late 1960s that raised a furore in the parliament when concerns were expressed about a donation of Rs 40 lakhs given by the Cement Allocation and Co-ordination  Organisation to some political parties and individuals.

Madhu Limaye, a staunch follower of Rammanohar Lohia, protested vehemently in the parliament, calling it nothing but outright political corruption. Unlike today, instead of trying to  suppress the voice of the opposition, the then Congress government readily responded and agreed to amend the Companies Act to ban corporate donations to political parties altogether.

As time passed by, electioneering became synonymous with splurging to buy votes, or even buy elected representatives, which in turn called for more and more funds. Crowdfunding for political parties, which was the predominant source of funds during the freedom struggle and during the first few years after Independence, progressively yielded place to corporate funding, which in turn created an unholy bond between big business houses and political parties. Apart from soft pedalling cases against private companies for statutory violations, the ruling party could also unleash its enforcement agencies against them to extort money. The relationship between business houses and political parties represents a two-way bond, with the former dictating terms to the latter  to adopt “business-friendly policies”, a euphemism for twisting policies and laws to suit their interests, even if they hurt public or even national interest, and the latter taking corporate help to fund electioneering to be able to continue in power. In other words, a democratic system that the people inherited at the time of Independence gradually degenerated into a “corporatocracy”, which the framers of the constitution would never have even dreamt of! 

The growing nexus between politics and business made it difficult for the ruling political establishment to resist the temptation of relaxing the ban on donations. As a result, the Companies Act was amended in 1985 to permit company donations, though for the sake of public consumption, the amended provision limited the donations to 5% of the company’s average profits for three years. As the appetite for corporate donations increased fast, the ceiling on donations was relaxed to 7.5% and an entirely new idea of business houses donating funds to political parties through the instrument of electoral trusts was introduced.

While all these statutory changes made it possible for political parties to receive sizeable corporate  donations, to a large extent, the relevant provisions still ensured a certain extent of transparency and accountability in electoral funding.  

Meanwhile, concerns were expressed about political parties receiving donations from foreign sources. This led to the enactment of the Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act of 1976, later replaced by an improved version in 2010, which imposed a total ban on foreign funding of political parties. 

Despite the restrictive provisions of the Companies Act and the FCRA, political parties were surreptitiously accepting donations in kind from domestic companies and direct or indirect donations  from foreign sources, in violation of the statute. 

On a writ petition filed by the author of this article and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) in 2013 against FCRA violations by the two national political parties, the Delhi high court pronounced a judgment on March 28, 2014, upholding the grounds on which the writ was based  and ordered the Ministry of Home Affairs to proceed against the two parties. When the two  parties contested that order before the apex court, the latter dismissed their appeals on November 29, 2016. Strictly, the MHA should have initiated prosecution proceedings against the Congress and BJP. However, the NDA government led by the BJP had other ideas.  

In 2016, through the backdoor of the Finance Act, the NDA government hustled through retrospective amendments to the FCRAs of 1976 and 2010 to condone the past FCRA violations committed by political parties and also, permit political parties thereafter to accept foreign donations through subsidiaries of foreign companies in India. This, although it amounted to going against the apex  court’s order.

As if that was not enough, the NDA government went one step further in 2017 and removed the existing ceiling on donations stipulated in the Companies Act. This meant that political parties could accept unlimited donations from private companies.

Also read: FCRA: Amending a Repealed Law Retrospectively Crosses all Ethical and Legal Limits

During the last decade or so, electioneering became so expensive that the ruling party at the Union had no hesitation in looking for more open-ended but less transparent sources of funding. The result was the egregious electoral bond scheme, introduced through the Finance Act of 2017, which  protected the privacy of the donor at the cost of the voters and created new avenues for political parties to extract money from business houses.

Anonymous, life-threatening donations violate Articles 19 and 21

When the NDA government hurriedly enacted the legislation on electoral bonds, it neither had the  patience to consult other political parties nor the courtesy to allow the parliament to discuss it in detail. The opacity that surrounds electoral bonds made a mockery of the citizen’s “right to know” under Article 19 of the constitution and disturbed the level-playing ground among political parties.

The way it was designed, funds could flow through bonds to political parties even from sources working against the national interest, as the only agencies privy to the details of donors would be the State Bank of India (SBI) and the NDA government itself, whose main concern was to  maximise the inflow of donations, not bother so much about the public interest part of it.

The list of bond donors is truly illustrious. Among them were those who violated environmental  norms, polluted the environment and damaged people’s health, drug firms that supplied sub standard medicines, crippling or even killing people, especially children and an engineering firm compromising the safety norms and endangering workers’ lives. In all such cases, in addition to violating the citizen’s right to know under Article 19, the donors violated the citizen’s right to live under Article 21. In all such cases, both the donors and the donees are liable to be prosecuted under  the relevant penal laws. 

It is unfortunate that the 2019 general elections and the intervening state assembly elections were allowed to be conducted with a clear financial advantage for the BJP which received the bulk of the bond money.  

In any case, after protracted litigation, the apex court finally held the electoral bond scheme to be  violative of the Constitution and ensured that the details of party-wise donations and the identity of  the donors were disclosed in the public domain.  

 Despite the apex court’s orders, it appears that the BJP has a fairly sizeable amount received  through bonds but still remaining unspent, which, unless restricted, the party would deploy in the  ensuing elections to the disadvantage of other political parties. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has ample authority under Article 324 to freeze that amount and stop the BJP from spending  on elections, pending a detailed scrutiny by an appropriate authority. 

BJP, the biggest beneficiary

As the party in power at the Union and as a party having no qualms whatsoever about leveraging its full regulatory might over the corporate world, the BJP remained the largest beneficiary of electoral bonds amounting to Rs 6,986 crores, five times more than its nearest competitors, the TMC and the Congress. This gave a distinct financial advantage to that party over others in terms of mobility across the country, conducting massive public rallies, buying legislators on a large scale and splitting rival parties and pouring money into a range of other means of winning elections.  

In terms of offering quid pro quos for bond donations, the BJP on its part has had no hesitation whatsoever to change environment laws and procedures, modify the Forest (Conservation) Act, amend the Mines and Minerals (Development & Regulation) Act, amend the Electricity Act, twist  procedures and ignore protective laws for tribals for making it easier to hand over precious mineral blocks cheaply to private miners.  

Electoral bonds, sub-standard drugs and crippling of people’s health

While the bond money, as indicated above, has certainly tilted the balance of elections in favour of  the BJP in violation of all democratic norms, their life-threatening consequences are far more  worrisome. 

The donors’ list includes several drug manufacturers who were being investigated for crimes  involving supply of sub-standard medicines that resulted in damaging people’s health and, in some  cases, even causing the death of children. 

It has been reported that “seven of the 35 pharmaceutical companies which have contributed Rs  1,000 crore to political parties through electoral bonds were being investigated for manufacturing  poor quality drugs such as cough syrups and Remdesivir” 

It is still in fresh in our memory how sub-standard cough syrups supplied by Indian manufacturers caused the death of children in other countries, bringing a bad name to the domestic pharma industry. 

Such cases call for an urgent investigation, as any political party getting bribed by a drug company  for compromising investigation against it would amount to a heinous crime against the people,  attracting the penal provisions of the newly enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and also the relevant  provisions of Drug (Control) Act, 1950.  

Some of those drug manufacturing companies have brought ignominy to India in other countries  where sub-standard drugs have resulted in the death of children. 

The curious case Silkyara Tunnel collapse

One of the electoral bond donors in the case of BJP is the Navayuga Group involved in constructing the Silkyara Tunnel in Uttarakhand, which collapsed in November, 2023, endangering the lives of  41 workers.  

A press release issued by the NDA government in 2018 stated, 

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi,  has given its approval to the construction of 4.531 km long 2-Lane Bi-Directional Silkyara Bend –  Barkot Tunnel with escape passage including approaches on Dharasu -Yamunotri section between  Chainage 25.400 Km. and Chainage 51.000 Km in Uttarakhand”.  

When the tunnel collapsed, there were reports that the contracting firm failed to provide an escape  passage, which resulted in trapping the workers. From subsequent new reports, it appears that a fact finding expert team did point to some technical lapses on the part of the contractor but seemed to underplay the failure of the company to provide an escape passage as required in the contract, ostensibly on the ground that global safety norms did not require such an escape outlet as Silkyara Tunnel had two corridors. 

Is the NDA government trying to provide a convenient alibi for Navayuga itself to escape criminal liability for the disaster, merely because it gave Rs 55 crores of electoral bonds to the BJP? If the  answer is in the affirmative, which an independent enquiry alone can establish, should not the BJP  be held responsible for the criminality involved? 

Did a part of the bond money come from intimidation or extortion? 

It is reported that 41 companies facing probe by the CBI, ED and the I-T department gave Rs 2,471 crore to the BJP through electoral bonds, and Rs 1,698 crore of it was donated after raids by those agencies.

If what has been reported is factually correct, it amounts to the party in power deploying its band of  loyal enforcement agencies to intimidate private companies and extort money from them, which amounts to a serious offence under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. 

Bond money to favour oligarchs against consumers’ interests:  

It has been reported that the BJP received Rs 150 crores of bond money from a telecom major, coinciding with the NDA government’s U-turn in telecom  policy that resulted in circumventing the auction route for valuable spectrum. This perhaps represents only a sample of how bond money is closely linked to policy benefits showered by the  NDA government on business houses. A thorough investigation is necessary to establish the nature  and magnitude of such quid pro quos and the cost to the public exchequer. 

Bond money from shell companies:

Among the bond donors are at least 18 companies that figure in the list of “high risk” companies notified by the finance ministry in 2018 from the point of view of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. After donating to the party in power, those companies seem to have abruptly disappeared from the list, suggesting that it was the bond money that did the trick.

There are at least 16 out of the top 200 firms that donated through electoral bonds, even though they were running their businesses in loss during the three previous consecutive years. Though they were incurring losses, they donated a whopping Rs 710 crore to political parties. Of this, Rs 460 crore (over 60%) went to the BJP.

This shows how the electoral bond scheme permitted political parties, particularly the BJP, to get  donations through dubious shell companies from unknown sources. It is ironic that the NDA  government expected to enforce the Prevention of Money Laundering Act should become a party to its violation. 

Also read: Electoral Bonds Worth More Than Rs 1,577 Cr Sold After SC Reserved Verdict on Scheme: RTI

Shell companies blessed by the NDA government?

“Shell” companies is a term not defined in the Companies Act. The Union corporate affairs minister admitted this in the Rajya Sabha February 2018 and suggested the need to adopt a proper legal  definition of it. A consistent definition of it is required to be incorporated not only in the Companies Act but also in the other related legislations such as the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and in the corresponding SEBI regulations. Considering that overseas shell companies have created a  shadow economy posing a serious risk to the domestic economy. one would have expected the  government to consult experts, study how the term is defined elsewhere and get the necessary  legislative amendments enacted in the parliament. On the contrary, the NDA government has  deliberately chosen to allow the legislative gap to continue, allowing overseas shell companies to  thrive. Apart from the legislative gap, the Ministry of Finance issued instructions in August 2022 to allow overseas shell companies to operate in such a manner that they could launder  money into India. 

It is therefore possible that a portion of money flowing through electoral bonds has originated from such shell companies. This certainly calls for an investigation too.

What next?

Considering that the apex court has held electoral bonds to be unconstitutional, the ECI should immediately freeze all unspent electoral bond money lying with the political political parties to ensure that such illegal money is not spent on elections.  

Apart from the illegality of electoral bonds, the donations received through electoral bonds could possibly be linked to grave crimes against the people and, therefore, such money should not be allowed to taint elections. 

The President of India, in the interest of upholding the democratic principles that lie at the heart of our constitution, should ask the apex court to set up an independent judicial committee to get the kind of concerns listed above investigated so that appropriate remedial action could be initiated. 

Corporate donations to political parties negate the very idea of democracy. It upsets the level playing ground among political parties in elections. It also places candidates not having financial  means to contest elections at a disadvantage. It subjugates political parties to corporate control  eroding the credibility of our democratic system. Corporate control over governance hurts the  public interest. Therefore, as a matter of principle, there should be a total ban on corporate  donations. 

To enable any citizen to be able to contest elections, irrespective of her having adequate finances, the state should step in and provide reasonable financial support to all such citizens. There should be stringent limits to the expenditure incurred by political parties and individual candidates  and any expenditure in excess should be deemed to amount to a corrupt practice leading to de-registration of the party or disqualification of the candidate as the case may be. 

As an authority set up under Article 324, the Election Commission can exercise power to freeze the  unspent electoral bond money lying unspent with political parties but the Commission seems to be far too subservient to the political executive to be able to exercise its authority. It is imperative that all political parties should collectively demand for unshackling the Commission from the clutches  of the political executive. 

E.A.S. Sarma is Former Secretary to the Government of India.

Watch: Mega Extortion, ‘Quid-Pro-Quo’, Money Laundering Charges Must be Investigated

The data revelations are only the beginning. Investigations must follow.

In Central Hall, host Kapil Sibal discusses various facets and implications of the “crooked intent” of the BJP bringing in electoral bonds. The data revelations are only the beginning. Investigations must follow, to rescue Indian democracy and restore probity in public life, which is at an all-time low. Where is this money coming from? Justice (retd) Madan Lokur, former judge of the Supreme Court, Sitaram Yechury, CPI(M) general secretary and petitioner in the matter in court, and economist Prof Arun Kumar discuss.