Author: muskaankanodia

Categories
Issue 7

Godspeed, Miya Bhai

The recently concluded test match series between India and Australia in Australia bears testimony to the fact that statistics and results are intended to capture final outcomes, but seldom represent the stories that bring them about. The visitors emerged victorious, and in doing so managed to retain the Border-Gavaskar trophy while defeating Australia at the Gabba, their unconquered fortress of 32 years. 

From the horrendous start, a reclaim to victory, a staunch defensive save to absolute heroics leading to a resounding triumph, there was no dearth of stories in the series. None of these, however, managed to capture the popular imagination of our country as well as the story of Mohammad Siraj.   

A late bloomer according to Indian cricketing standards, Siraj guided his home-team Hyderabad to a quarter-final spot in the 2017 Ranji season. He debuted for India in the game’s shortest format the same year, and in ODIs in 2019. He has also been an IPL mainstay over the last few seasons, his last assignment being his role as the strike bowler for the Royal Challengers Bangalore team. He came to face severe flak under this role, due to poor results from the team. However, it was only during the boxing day match last year that Siraj would don India’s test cap for the first time. Siraj scalped 5 wickets over the two innings at Melbourne, showing the world that he could bowl with immaculate discipline, capitalizing on his first-class experience. 

Mohammad Siraj is a Muslim from Hyderabad, a city with a rich history of Nizami culture that continues to permeate life there. Hyderabad has a high percentage of Muslim population, with 44% of its residents following Islam. Among his teammates, Siraj is referred to as Miya Bhai. This term of endearment is often used to refer to one’s friends, especially in Hyderabad. A glance through Siraj’s social media shows us a man doing the Mujra, a dance form central to Nawabi culture. Along with a host of cricketing awards, Siraj is still unvarnished and unapologetic to be himself, staying authentic to himself and his culture. An unfiltered stance like this takes bravery in these times, as India and Hyderabad witness changes antithetic to their multicultural, secular character. 

The BJP’s Hindu Nationalist agenda is contingent on the ability to identify and censure a fictive Muslim bogeyman. The party has leveraged this notion, seeming to work against “appeasement” politics. In Hyderabad, it has tried to rebrand the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM), a major political party as one that protects Pakistanis and Rohingyas, the villains of the current nationalistic discourse. In the search for pan-India Hindu support, BJP has reformulated local body politics in the city, by attempting to sideline the ruling TRS party and the AIMIM. Much of its campaign for the municipal corporation was centered around Hindu nationalism, rather than local issues. This method of majoritarian politics was effective in its success in December 2020, where it racked up 44 out of 150 seats.

At the same time, in Australia, Siraj with his heroics managed to win hearts all over the world. Playing on after losing his father just a few days before the series, it was evident how important cricket was after capturing his first wicket. He dismissed Marnus Labuschagne and pointed his hands towards heaven, knowing abba would be proud of him. 

After an Indian win in the second match, the opening ceremony of the third caught India’s collective attention. As the National Anthem played, Mohammad Siraj’s eyes teared up, prompting a widespread flow of both adoration and adulation for him. Amidst all this, to a certain few, this incident seemed to serve a point to further the “Good Muslim” idealogue that has become rampant. It seeks to present a caricature of accepted, even ideal behavior of the minority, to further strengthen control over the popular narrative. For Siraj, however, all it represented was a reminder of how far he’d come, and the joy that would have been all too evident for his father.

In this match, Siraj saw yet another challenge as he had to face racial abuse at the hand of spectators when he was fielding near the ropes of the Sydney Cricket Ground. This abuse started on the third day and continued over to the fourth day of the Test match. Certain sections of the ground were cleared, and an investigation remains underway. Following a hard-fought draw in this match, India were matched 1-1 with Australia on the scorecard. India’s squad was sodden with injuries to key players. Consequently,  Siraj, with all the experience of two matches, now had to lead a fresh bowling attack, one that had a combined total of 13 wickets, compared to 1033 for the Australians. 

Despite the obvious chasm between the two sides in experience and results, the Indians were resolute throughout the five days of play. On the fourth day, Siraj and Shardul Thakur fought hard to be the first Indian bowlers in the series to produce a five-wicket haul. This contest ended rather fittingly with Hazelwood getting caught by Shardul at third man off of Siraj’s bowling. On the last day of the series, Cheteshwar Pujara copped eleven blows to the body in order to shield the Indian team’s chances of fighting. The star of the show, however, was Rishabh Pant, whose intent and aggression sealed the match in India’s favor three overs before play ended. As soon as the winning runs were recorded, the first person to rush to the field was Siraj, embracing the day’s star before uprooting a stump to mark the end of a remarkable match and series. 

At the end of the tournament, India had made use of 20 players over their matches. It was the story of one of them, however, that will be talked about in the years to come. As soon as he landed in India, Mohammad Siraj visited his father’s grave, knowing that his trip was complete only then. Despite the “good other” comments that he attracts, or the vitriol that he has to face on social media, the identity of Mohammad Siraj, Miya Bhai is one that he wears proudly, defiantly, and effortlessly, one that is expressly similar to his bowling action.

Aditya Burra is an Economics and Finance major at Ashoka University. He enjoys hiking, and is particularly interested in understanding how right-wing online spaces function.

Picture Credits: Fox Sports

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

Categories
Issue 7

The Cost of the Cure: Understanding the Implications of India’s COVID-19 Inoculation Drive

Union Minister Amit Shah’s bold call for a duel to challenge vaccine skeptics came exactly a week after the Indian government’s inoculation program against COVID-19 was launched on 16th January 2021. The ambitious plan aims to vaccinate 300 million healthcare and frontline workers in its first phase using the vaccine derived from the Oxford-AstraZeneca candidate AZD-1222, dubbed Covishield in India, and Covaxin, produced by Hyderabad-based biotechnology company, Bharat Biotech and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Despite initial optimism, the program has witnessed low turnout rates, due to widespread misinformation and safety concerns. The root cause of doubt about the program stems from the announcement by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) on 3rd January 2021, when Covaxin and Covishield were given emergency use approvals. While the approval for Covishield was unsurprising, given its established efficacy in all three phases of trials abroad, it was the seemingly hasty rollout of Covaxin that caused a stir. 

Criticism of the vaccine primarily focused on the absence of Phase 3 clinical trial data, since the trials have not yet concluded. The initial backlash against the approval of Covaxin was met with officials responsible for India’s COVID-19 response claiming that it would be used as a “back up”, in case of the need for extra doses given the emergence of the new UK strain of the virus. Moreover, it was also made clear that Covaxin would only be administered in “clinical trial mode”, where its recipients would be asked for their consent and proper monitoring for side-effects would follow. 

However, this stance towards the vaccine changed a few days later, when it was announced that both vaccine candidates will be treated at par with one another.  According to Dr Samiran Panda, a scientist at the ICMR, the circulation of the vaccine essentially implied a single-arm clinical trial, where a placebo wouldn’t be used and results wouldn’t be published under a peer-reviewed journal. Moreover, vaccine recipients would not have the option to choose between Covaxin and Covishield. It was this sudden change of positions that raised concerns. 

Consent, Choice and the State

The question about individual choice and consent is critical to the discourse around the inoculation mission. The lack of choice between vaccine candidates has affected turnout rates with only around 56% of eligible individuals getting vaccinated due to concerns among healthcare and frontline workers about the controversy surrounding its fast-paced rollout.

Ethical concerns regarding consent plague the program – should recipients, who aren’t willing participants of a research study, not be allowed to choose between two vaccines that differ in terms of proven efficacy and safety? Given the major difference between the vaccine candidates, how can consent retain its true value when it directly robs an individual of their agency to make personal medical decisions? Most crucially, should the state have the authority to directly or indirectly force the hand of citizens in making informed medical choices?

The decision of the rollout of Covaxin under current conditions seems even more dubious at a time when essential workers are invaluable and at the highest risk of contracting the virus. 

Shifting Positions and Unwelcome Surprises

The behaviour of the Indian state and its important bodies in relation to its treatment of Covaxin is also perplexing. The very approval of a vaccine that hasn’t yet completed Phase 3 clinical trials raises alarm. The third phase of trials is critical since it provides for the closest possible model of how a vaccine candidate will behave when administered to a large population.

The vaccine’s intended use has also been disputed. The DCGI had claimed that it would be administered in an open-label clinical trial to ascertain its efficacy against the UK strain of the virus. In direct contradiction, Bharat Biotech managing director Krishna Ella has stated that there was no “confirmatory data” indicating that Covaxin works against it, and has suggested that this form of vaccine circulation was sprung upon him by the government.

The sheer disconnect between the understanding of India’s major regulatory body and the vaccine manufacturer not only is a matter of concern but also sets a worrisome precedent. Moreover, the suggestion that Bharat Biotech was unaware of the government’s expectation of the vaccine’s use can also lead to long-lasting implications for public trust in regulatory bodies and affect state standards for treatment approvals in the future. 

 Vaccine Diplomacy and Anti-Nationals
The past year has been marked by governmental positions that encourage the idea of India as a major player in the global response against COVID-19. The consequence of the same is the attachment of national pride to India’s vaccine response.  Hence, in the face of concerns about the vaccine, critics of the vaccination program have been liberally deemed ‘anti-national’, an all-too-familiar narrative that conveniently sensationalizes every aspect of the matter except its core problems.
Given that Covishield is relatively cheaper than Covaxin, it is important to question the government’s decision to purchase and circulate a vaccine that is yet to produce Phase 3 trial data. Moreover, India has only exported doses of Covishield so far despite having purchased 3.85 million doses of Covaxin, which is peculiar given the government’s otherwise confident domestic narrative around the vaccine. These facts paint a murky picture – one where India seems to be balancing domestic needs and international ambitions, with the former placed in relatively more uncertain territory than the latter.It is necessary to establish that the crux of the concerns surrounding Covaxin pertains to the confusion around its intended usage, authorization prior to completing Phase 3 trials, and the issues of recipient consent and choice. A pandemic is the worst possible time to sow skepticism around medicine. At the same time however, it is important to recognize that the consequences of any missteps in approval or administration of treatments can trigger mass disillusionment from life-saving scientific treatments for years to come. Given as things stand in India, one can only wait and observe what unfolds.

Aarohi Sharma is a Psychology student at Ashoka University. Her academic interests primarily focus on the intersection of politics and psychology in society.

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

Categories
Issue 7

The White Tiger: Poverty Porn or Gritty Realism?

Balram Halwai, the protagonist of The White Tiger, would have you believe that before any other label engulfs him, he is an Indian entrepreneur. The label of a murderer, a man emerged from ‘the darkness,’ or that of an ex-driver for the son of a wealthy and influential landlord is secondary. 

The White Tiger, released early this year, is an adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s Booker Prize winning novel by the same name. The movie provides an incisive narrative of the glaring class divide in India—and it does this humorously. The truth of the class divide is rather simple, as explained by Balram: the ones who live in ‘the darkness,’ who come from the castes of the narrow bellied and tuberculosis stricken; the ones from drought-struck villages, who make up 90% of India’s population are caught in a chicken coop. They see their fate played out in front of them through others caught in the same coop and they see their kind slaughtered right in front of them, yet they do not try to escape. That is their fate. 

“the trustworthiness of servants is the basis of the entire Indian economy” 

This is how Balram ends his philosophy with a macabre finality. As he says this, the movie displays montages of tired men cycling in rags, carrying furniture worth several lakhs, and being paid less than a hundred rupees for it. The dialogue ends with such a man bowing down to a woman in front of a mansion, displaying his thanks for being paid a meagre amount for his service—the people caught in the chicken coop do not try to escape. This is their fate. 

The film takes this simple philosophy, as thought of by Balram, and expands it into a carefully embroidered, gritty and rusted story that climaxes with a murder. Not once does the film slack in its depiction of the class divide—cities, when they belong to the caste of the big-bellied are grand, boasting of malls, clubs, people who converse seamlessly in English and wear short clothes. The same cities, when they belong to their populous, but largely overlooked counterparts are crowded, immobile, and reek with the stench of hate, crime, resentment, and, of course, open defecation. Throughout the movie, we see shots of crowded cities choked with poor people, and in the very next shot, open tennis courts, big residences occupied by not more than two people. We are very clearly shown how the rich (take, for example, the landowner) are unafraid of claiming the poor and treat the land and lives of the poor as if they already belong to them—like when Balram offers money to a crippled beggar, but receives scalding scorn from his ‘masters’; they treat his money as if it is theirs.  

Although this grisly, gritty depiction of urban and rural spaces contributes to how we view the limited accessibility of both public and private spaces, I thought this resolute ugliness veered towards the lauded portrayal of Indian poverty by Hollywood—think slumdog millionaire. This ugliness often felt like an attempt to translate Indian poverty, class and caste to a public who is far too separated from this problem to view it as anything more than entertainment. My saying that the portrayal of poverty often exists as a translation is also a privileged stance—after all, I am also writing this as a big-bellied person who has never had to step inside The White Tiger’s portrayal of ‘darkness.’ But the film often also presents poverty as a thesis; something to be dissected, explained and proved. We see this in the caricatural depictions of the wealthy high-class landlords, the bitter, soulless and money-hungry joint family back in the village and the typical rich, kind of nice, “caste-doesn’t-exist-anymore-papa” Americanized son. 

The characters, to prove a point of poverty, lack complexity and emotional depth. They are cruel just because they are. Their actions as a function of their class, caste and religion are one dimensional, and, frankly, a little boring. I mean, what’s new about a wealthy politically-inclined family that’s Islamophobic, casteist and misogynistic? In attempting to present and translate the ‘truth’ about Indian class, the movie misses out on a lot of character depth, choosing, instead, to employ stereotypes. The only redemption to this is a depth of contempt that runs through every character, despite their differences: nobody is happy, everyone wants to be somewhere they are not. The othering is mutual—the poor do not see the rich as one of their own, and of course, neither do the rich. 

The only character to break out of the stereotype, though, is the protagonist Balram Halwai, played phenomenally by Adarsh Gourav. If nothing else, I would recommend this film for its exceptional fresh-faced talent. Balram Halwai is probably the only intricately crafted character in the movie. He displays deep concern for his brother, which is laced with equal amounts of contempt. He cares for his ‘master’ (the landlord’s son) like one would care for a brother or a best friend, is hurt by his lack of consideration for him, but still does not hesitate for a second in believing that he has been greatly wronged by this supposedly nice man. 

The character of Balram Halwai is also charming and humorous. This humour seeps into the movie, and takes a dense and gritty topic accessible and interesting. We find ourselves agreeing with Balram, even when he is clearly in the moral wrong—we also see how our moral compass is deeply stricken by privilege. While watching the movie, I shamefully recognized some of my behaviours in the behaviour of the privileged. This is exactly where the film gets it right—although the characters portrayed as caricatural, their actions are mundane. They do what we all have done at some point in our lives. To be shown the wrongness of our beliefs and our actions is inherently shocking, and The White Tiger does a phenomenal job of that—shocking us by making our ‘mundane’ classism so lucid, so perceptible. 

Shivani Deshmukh is a second year undergraduate at Ashoka University. She studies Sociology and Anthropology.

Picture Credits: Netflix India

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

Categories
Issue 7

Museums of Democracy: How the Central Vista Project highlights the Importance of Curating History

This is primarily because any history we read, hear, or watch, is refracted, it is shaped by the person or thought process that is engaged in the exercise of compiling it. The difference between History with the capital ‘H’ and history as everything that happened in the past is crucial. The former is carefully picked out from the latter – a series of events  and artefacts chosen to tell a story. The historian then carefully selects these ‘chosen ones’ to help shape the narrative they wish to see furthered; a narrative that is intrinsically based on the politics of the day.

The question raised then is why should someone care about this act of selection now? The answer is simple, everyday instances like the renaming of roads, the demolition of buildings and the rebuilding of common spaces reinforce this act of selection. One such undertaking that makes one stop and think about this is the Central Vista Redevelopment Project.

The project aims to renovate 86 acres of land in New Delhi, including historical buildings like the Parliament House, the Rashtrapati Bhawan, and the India Gate. Moreover, the National Museum is also set to be taken down and rebuilt where the current North and South Blocks stand in the Central Secretariat. The area, associated with affluence and political power is commonly called Lutyens Delhi after the architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker who designed it when the capital was shifted to Delhi in 1911 under the British rule.

Ever since its announcement in September 2019 by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, the project has come under scrutiny for violations of municipal and environmental law as well as change in land use. Following this, the Supreme Court gave it the green light in January 2021. Close to a month prior to January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation of a new Parliament building under a Hindu ceremony. The ceremony itself was allowed when the government reassured the court that no demolition or construction would begin until the final decision had been received. 

The focus of this article, however, is to draw attention to something that seems fairly inconspicuous at first but can have lasting impacts on how we associate our present with our past. The act of demolition and consequently rebuilding employs the historical process mentioned earlier – that of selection and by extension erasure of what gets chosen to be rebuilt and featured. With the National Museum for instance, the idea is that North and South Blocks will be able to house more historical artefacts. However, which artefacts are highlighted and how are questions that remain to be answered. 

The entire episode reminds me of something Susan Sontag said in relation to photography – “[To photograph] means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge – and, therefore, like power.” While she was talking about the act of framing something within photographic borders, the idea at its crux seems especially relevant here – when somebody controls the framing of the past, they wield power. Perhaps, therefore, the same self-reflectivity is required for the curation of renovated spaces.

While the words ‘heritage’, ‘redevelopment’ and ‘conservation’ paint rosy pictures in one’s mind about the building of new spaces, they actually point to the larger question of historical knowledge production. Buildings and architecture has always been used to assert power, symbolise progress and display grandeur. The act of rebuilding is not unique either, as history is replete with examples of the same. That being said, the question, especially with an edifice like the National Museum is its current housing of historical artefacts, and the process of curation that will go into the remade property. 

While the aforementioned already acts as a repository of history, the other buildings like the current Parliament House are receptacles of public memory of post-colonial India while themselves being colonial products. The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) is a prime example of a building set to be taken down which is associated with the memory of a former Prime Minister. Founded by Kapila Vatsyayan, it is a space where art has found expression during nationally significant events. Keeping the relevance of these in mind therefore becomes important as contemporary history may be memory for now, but it will not remain so for the coming decades. This highlights the importance of preserving not just historical remains but also elements of post-independence public memory that have not become canonical History yet.

Preserving public memory, if nothing else, can create context. They point to the uncomfortable understanding that even if features do not fit proposed narratives, they cannot be razed. For instance, the reason behind the decision to withdraw the candidature of colonial Delhi and Shahjahanabad as UNESCO World Heritage sites in 2014 has been traced by some to their legacies rooted in the Mughal period and the colonial era. While the legacies may cause discomfort to some, their significance cannot be dismissed.

The Central Vista Project sheds light on the importance of history and public memory. The fact is that the past cannot speak for itself. Whatever the past says, it does through the actors who consolidate it. The thing to keep in mind then in light of the project is this – demolishing heritage buildings should not open up the passageway to raze history.

Sanya is a student of History, International Relations and Media Studies at Ashoka University.

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

Categories
Issue 7

Taking from the Rich: Reddit, GameStop and the Consequences of Greed

Near the middle of 2019, a Reddit user, known as “Roaring Kitty” boasted his $53,000 investment in “GameStop” a declining video game company. GameStop bought and sold video games, and it isn’t hard to see why that kind of model seems unsustainable in the streaming and digital age. u/RoaringKitty made his post on a subReddit known as “r/WallStreetBets” henceforth known as WSB. Every commenter on WSB cried out that this investment was foolhardy, that GameStop was dying but u/RoaringKitty paid them no heed and continued to keep his investment there. Today, that $53,000 stake is worth $48 Million. How did this happen? 

To begin, we need to understand a few terms. 

What is a share? 

When a company is formed, it’s corpus consists of a set of discrete units. The owners of these discrete units are shareholders and become direct stakeholders invested in the company. In the case of GameStop, there are roughly 65 million shares up for grabs. 

What is a short? 

A short is a financial action one can take concerning shares. While the obvious way of profiting off of stocks is to buy some shares, wait for the prices to rise, sell and profit off of the differences, there is a means of profiting off of the fall in the price of a share. The way to do this is through “shorting”.

What one does is, when they anticipate that the price of a company’s shares is going to drop in value, they “borrow” shares from shareholders, sell them at current market prices, then once the price drops, they buy the shares back and “return” them, and keep the difference for themselves. Now, when one shorts a given company’s stock, it is legally required to eventually return the borrowed shares. This means they have to buy back the shares, regardless of what they cost. 

In the case of GameStop, hedge funds (financial institutions that profit through the buying and selling of stocks and shares) shorted 140% of GameStop’s shares. How do you short 40% more shares than those that exist? Well, that’s actually not too wild. Essentially, shares can be double-counted. Suppose I buy a share in GameStop and then lend it to a broker who intends to short it. This broker sells it to another customer, named say, Saman. Now, to Saman, this is just another share, there is no association with me, so she can further lend the share to someone else who could short it. This way, we can have over a 100% short interest. 

What did u/RoaringKitty do?

Now, u/RoaringKitty didn’t just brag about a weird investment, he noticed something nobody else did: GameStop wasn’t a dying company. GameStop had reasonably large cash reserves, they didn’t have much debt, and with the release of the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series, the chain of stores was doing alright. 

Roaring Kitty started talking about his investment on YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, and people began to notice. Specifically, Michael Burry. Some of you might know him from Christian Bale’s portrayal of him in The Big Short, but for those who don’t, Burry was one of the first people to realize that there was a crisis imminent before the 2008 Economic Crisis and made a massive profit off of it. Burry, at last count, made a 1400% profit off of his investment in GameStop in just under 5 months. 

This discourse on GameStop’s financials, as well as public filings showing massive short interests from various hedge funds like Citron and Melvin Capital, became the seeds of a perfect storm. u/RoaringKitty mobilized r/WallStreetBets with the information that GameStop was viable fuelling thousands of members of the subReddit to buy millions of shares. This artificially drove the price of GameStop stock up hundreds of dollars and decimated the short position of various hedge funds. Melvin Capital lost nearly $4 billion throughout January. 

While initially, buying GameStop stock was sound financial advice, eventually anti-billionaire, anti-hedge fund rhetoric swept the subReddit, and users decided that keeping the stock was now a moral crusade to crush meddling Wall Street titans. You can find posts like this across the website describing their hatred for Wall Street money movers, and this no doubt fueled the stock buying. Eventually, various influencers, including Elon Musk joined the bandwagon, advocating to buy GameStop and crush the short sellers. Musk specifically dislikes shorting since firms have tried to short Tesla several times over the years. 

Robinhood, a free, fee-less trading platform began restricting trading GameStop stock, to avoid “volatility” in the stock market. Now, as surprising as it may sound, Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump Jr. all cried out that this was anti-competitive and anti-capitalist, you’d never expect to see the three of them agree on anything, let alone the free market. Robinhood was only the first of several services to restrict trading, an act that has led to several class-action lawsuits. This leaves a valuable question on the table, who gets to truly “regulate” the market? Why is social market manipulation “volatility” while a few billionaires doing it is a “hustle”? The actual nature of power within market structures has been exposed, and it cannot be allowed to fade from public memory. The “free” market is a selectively free market. 

Now, as trading continues it is to be seen which forces buckle first, the Redditors, or the hedge funds. As the value fluctuates, there are ripple effects across the industry. This entire incident is also provoking a series of questions about the power of social media. A user on Reddit mobilized millions of dollars through thousands of small traders, and apps like Parler managed to mobilize thousands to storm the US Capitol. While one shouldn’t conflate the two events, there needs to be cognizance of how these networks hold the power to organize people in ways that the people are not prepared for. But beyond that, the story is still unfolding, and we need to ask ourselves, who wins at the end of this? How do we even imagine “winning” in this scenario? And, where does this leave us? 

Vibhor is a third-year economics major, and frequent Redditor, with an interest in economic history, behavioural science and decentralised systems. He is a frequent critic of the free market and enjoys reading about market failure and similar shenanigans.

Categories
Issue 7

Regional Rap for a National Cause

“Rap is basically poetry with rhythm”, Imbachi reveals, in an attempt to explain what rap/hip-hop is to a middle-aged man who is curious about this newly emerging music genre in India’s regional music scene. In an excerpt posted on Instagram from one of his interviews, the Kerala-based rapper is seen opening up about his knowledge of the genre and his approach towards his rap.

“I don’t see myself being too politically associated, but my politics is whatever I see in front of me, and if I think it is wrong, I talk about it”, Imbachi asserts, when asked about hip-hop’s emergence as a genre that speaks up about socio-political issues. It’s just that simple.

As self-assigned torch-bearers of the movement, these rappers will rise up against injustice, write verses that reflect the struggles of the people, and bring the revolution home through music we can stream from our devices. Human struggles have always shared an innate relationship with the representation that they seek in forms of art, and poetry placed over hip-hop beats has become synonymous with the voices of protests in India lately.

 At the start of 2020, the women-led anti-CAA-NRC protests at Shaheen Bagh were invigorated by popular hip-hop acts from India’s independent music scene, such as Prabh Deep and Ahmer. They performed in solidarity with the movement on a stage at the protest site. The distinguishing trait about rappers such as Prabh Deep, Ahmer and Imbachi is that they can rap in their regional languages, Punjabi, Kashmiri and Malayali. While the growth of hip hop culture in India is similar to how it originated in 1970’s New York, these Indian rappers are pushing boundaries with regional and often multilingual rap. By rapping in the vernacular, these artists build a platform for oppressed, marginalised communities to be heard, stepping outside the more common English or Hindi rap which has been popularised by Bollywood. Turning a Western import into something of their own, these rappers have begun to embrace the expressive medium that rap originated as. Gradually, an entire nation is now waking up to the stories that are usually not covered on mainstream media through independent rap music.

Elaan, a multilingual track from Ahmer’s debut record, is a compelling collection of verses that reveal the harsh realities of growing up in the Kashmir valley. These verses placed over a gripping beat will leave you terrified, as Ahmer raps:

Kahan se aata mein?

 sab se darrawni jagah se

Insaaf hi mana hai, gunegaari mein mazza hai yahan

Tu talve chaate toh bada hai, sach paale toh saza hai

(You wanna know where I come from?)

(The most dangerous place on the planet)

(Justice, they deny it, violations bring them joy here)

(If you lick their boots, you stay relevant, otherwise you’re a criminal)

         Straightforward, without filters or fear is the style with which Ahmer fiercely delivers his verses. Making the listener aware about the grave, repressive conditions he grew up in, he portrays what life in Kashmir is like. The central government’s decision to abrogate Article 370 and Article 35A gave this song more relevance. Ahmer became Kashmir’s new, rising spokesperson in the independent music scene. Even though Ahmer raps in Hindi here, ad-libs such as “Asli Koshur Hip-Hop”, which translates to “Real Kashmiri Hip Hop”, are intended to create a regional imprint.

Prabh Deep, who features on the same track, delivers a bold verse in his quintessential, casually outspoken Punjabi style. The verse culminates at the hook,

“Jedde border ni tappe

Karan jung da Elaan.”

(those who have never crossed the border)

 (are the ones declaring war),

proving to be highly relevant since most of the opinions being circulated across India after Kashmir’s special status was revoked, were coming from self-proclaimed experts who have never actually witnessed the situation in Kashmir. Prabh Deep highlights the irony in this case, claiming that the decision-makers are always the least affected. As a consequence they fail to take into consideration what is actually being demanded by the people.

         Not only do Prabh Deep and Ahmer raise awareness about what they have personally witnessed, they provide an anthem that resonates with every affected individual who is part of the movement. They help a crowd mobilise and rise together, and provide a universal symbol of unity through their music. Ahmer’s narration of his personal experiences, and Prabh Deep’s call for action complement each other perfectly, validating the views of the protesters and the need to voice their neglected opinions.

This growing independent hip hop culture in India is incredibly encouraging in the sense that the movement is not restricted to individuals who have personally experienced gruesome circumstances. Multiple rappers have taken the initiative to raise awareness about socio-political issues that do not directly affect them. In a song titled Atithi Devo Bhava, Imbachi speaks up against the Modi government’s ideologies and attempts to expose the general demeanour with which they conduct themselves. In reaction to the introduction of the Citizenship Amendment Bill, he raps,

Hindu rashtriya malla yilla mulkul

onna bharathanadada

atithi devo bhava

(Not a Hindu State)

(But one that includes everyone our India)

(Atithi Devo Bhava)

Nammal kanda Bharatham maani pogumo kanmunbilnilna

Secularism ennula vakyala veendam beleyilla inna

atithi devo bhava

(Will we see our India fade away right in front of our eyes)

(There’s no value for the word secularism anymore)

(Atithi Devo Bhava)

By constantly invoking India’s supposedly core value of “Atithi Devo Bhava”, Imbachi brings out the bigoted manner in which the government is acting on their agenda to turn a secular state into a Hindu rashtra.

With independent hip-hop gradually cutting across India’s regional and linguistic lines and finding its comfort zone at the heart of the revolution, the movement only promises to grow bigger. While the government can censor the narratives being broadcasted or published in mainstream media, the growth of the independent hip hop movement shows how the people’s voices can never be silenced. With Indian rappers carving out their own niches by choosing to represent and reach out to their people with regional vernacular, they provide a voice to the communities that were never heard before, while also instilling a sense of belonging to the larger community of India. It is not long before the movement spreads across the entire country, and gives birth to newer voices who take inspiration from the likes of Prabh Deep, Ahmer and Imbachi.

Rohan Pai is a Politics, Philosophy and Economics major at Ashoka University. In his free time, you’ll find him singing for a band, producing music and video content.

Picture Credits: Jamun, YouTube

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

Categories
Issue 7

Farm Bills 2020 and The Future of The Indian Economy

Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, have been protesting at several Delhi border points since the 26th of November 2020. Their demands are centred around the repealment of three recently passed farm bills. The bills are namely, Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, and Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill. Unable to reach a consensus with respect to the terms of these bills, the central government has decided to postpone the implementation of the bill.

The discontent of the farmers and the inability of the government to meet their demands raises several questions about their validity and the causes for grievance. While the protests have received major media attention, this article will endeavour to shed light on the larger impact the bills could potentially have on the Indian economy.

The Indian agricultural sector has been the least efficient sector of the Indian economy. While over  42% of the country’s manpower is employed in the primary sector, it contributes to about 17% of the GDP, making it the most populated and least efficient wing of the Indian economy. Several factors contribute to the inefficiency of the industry, most of which the new farm bills aim to address. 

The Indian agricultural industry has had a grave imbalance over the last couple of years, in terms of surplus production as well as issues with Minimum Support Price (MSP). This imbalance has continued to plague the market. Farmers fear that with the three new laws, the government is signaling its movement away from the current patterns of procurement at MSP. This uncertainty and lack of trust is one the primary causes of the recent protests. 

Surplus stocks of wheat and rice have hindered the agricultural economy in India and also the environment. The continuous wheat-rice crop pattern, especially in North India, has resulted in dead and excess stock lying at FCI warehouses. Most of the surplus is mainly a result of MSP laws that have given farmers a guarantee of purchase at a fixed price. This has allowed farmers from green revolution states such as Punjab and Haryana to grow MSP crops like wheat and rice irrespective of the market demand. As per certain reports, nearly 89% of the rice produced by the farmers in Punjab and 85% in Haryana is procured by the government. Hence, farmers in Punjab and Haryana face no price risk and are incentivised to grow paddy and wheat that are going to waste in FCI godowns. The surplus production at highly subsidised rates leads to increasing government expenditure and wastage of resources. While the government has assured farmers that MSP will continue to be provided, its continued implementation will surely hinder economic growth. 

The APMC Bypass law introduced permits for trade in agricultural produce outside the APMC regulated mandis. Private mandis can be set up across the country where anyone can buy produce from farmers. In addition to this, the bill also includes contract farming laws that facilitate an agreement between farmers and buyers before sowing under which farmers are contracted to sell produce to buyers at a predetermined price. Both the AMPC bypass law and contract farming laws are designed to allow farmers to deal directly with buyers and eliminate middlemen, giving them more choices on whom to sell their produce to. The laws will also allow firms to dictate the crops that the farmers can grow, thereby eliminating the surplus issue and meeting market demands. Crop diversification will allow farmers to contribute more efficiently to the economy and could provide them with greater financial security. In addition to the economic benefits, crop diversification will make farms more environmentally friendly. Planting a variety of crops makes the soil healthier thereby reducing the need to use excessive amounts of fertilizer. It also ensures that crops are more resistant to disease and therefore require fewer pesticides.

If we view these laws through a simple high-school economic lens, they look great as more buyers usually means a better price for the seller. However, that may cease to be the case in a realistic scenario. There is a possibility that these laws may lead to the rise of oligopolies that dictate prices and bulldoze their way with the farmers. This fear of oligopolies controlling the market is a major concern for farmers and a crucial debate made by protestors. The bill in itself doesn’t do much to prevent the rise of oligopolies. It is peremptory that the government regulate these markets to ensure that farmers have a choice in buyers and are not forced to deal in an unfair market.

It is not uncommon for governments to subsidise agriculture.The agricultural industry continues to have the highest subsidies around the world. The government must switch their subsidy allocation. There needs to be a shift from spending money in the MSP system to increasing capital expenditure on infrastructure in machinery and irrigation facilities to help Indian farmers be more competitive in local and global markets. The solution to the economic and environmental challenges facing agriculture in Indian states points towards a shift from the current system to a revised one. The farmer’s bill while representing the first step towards this economic shift requires a second look to ensure that farmers continue to remain protected. 

Karantaj Singh finished his undergraduate in History and International Relations. He is now pursuing a minor in Media Studies and Politics during his time at the Ashoka Scholars Program. He enjoys gaming and comics in his free time.

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

Categories
Issue 7

Arnabgate, TRPs and What you need to know about the ‘Business’ of Journalism

Journalism, despite its claim to honesty, is not always about unbiased, neutral news coverage. What we see as news and the way it is presented and moulded into a narrative is often a product of a larger nexus of debates, deliberations, requests, and often political and social leanings. With sensational journalism and ideologically driven news becoming increasingly common, why the ‘business’ of news reporting needs to be understood today is more important than ever. Arnab Goswami and the Republic media’s TRP scandal is an important marker in understanding how this ‘business’ functions and affects news viewership, content and revenue from advertisements. 

Television Rating Point (TRP) is the primary mechanism that keeps track of the popularity of specific programmes and channels on the television. How the TRP works and the policies for survey and measurement of these points differ for each country. In India, however, BARC (Broadcasting Audience Rating Council) is responsible for installing 44,000 bar-o-meters to represent the program choices of over 2 lakh Indians. BARC thus, is supposed to be an independent, transparent body, vested with significant authority to understand television consumer behaviour within the country. However, despite the sample size of survey by these meters being too small for a country with over 2 crore television sets, another problem with the way the system is its ability to to manipulate these meters and their ratings by paying individuals or households to view particular channels or programmes. Several such instances would thus provide faulty samples and result in something that we see happening today with news agencies like the Republic. The question then arises,

Why do TRPs matter?

 Televised Rating Points, other than establishing what the Indian population watches, also decide who within the myriad of television channels is popular and worth investing by companies.Higher TRPs result in businesses and political parties advertising through these channels to get their product, ideology or achievements to the public. This, in turn, provides a platform for engagement between businesses, political organisations and viewers. This relationship between the three develops further as investments in these channels increases with higher increasing TRPs thus allowing for certain ideologies, products, and affiliations to thrive through advertisements and funding for the channel. 

 Why does the interaction/nexus/business matter?

When we as viewers watch these news channels, not only do we see specific advertisements for products, we also get a glimpse of promotional advertisements by political parties, the government as well as specific financial contributors to the channel, which in turn does affect our consumer behaviour and supply specific information about these products and organisations. Further, news channels may have ideological or political leanings, often stemming from the business aspect of it, or maybe projections of the organisation or editors’ opinions. These factors decide what ‘makes’ the news. Breaking news thus might be a result of deliberated pros and cons for the channel, its beliefs and is often reflected in the way news is presented on tv. What we get as news may thus reflect personal or organisational beliefs, ideologies or political leanings, owing to TRPs which increase the channel’s funding ,reach, narratives, and often holds power to affect public opinion. 

The business of news reporting is complicated and is often hard to understand. Sometimes, it might be difficult to differentiate between opinion, news and propaganda, owing to the fine line between the three. Thus, as consumers, what we can do is try to understand the industry as a business, separate and filter ideas of honesty and truth to further understand what constitutes news. 

While online media, Instagram channels and Twitter have become prominent spaces for debate, what still needs to be done is to understand and differentiate between news and organizational views we are surrounded by and subjected to every day.

Saman Fatima is an undergraduate History student who is an avid reader and poetry writer.

Picture Credits: “TV, Television and remote controller – stock photo” by espensorvik is licensed under CC BY 2.0

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

Categories
Issue 7

“Mark as Read” to “Mark has Read”: Privacy Policies in India

There are three imponderables when it comes to Privacy: the definition of privacy in today’s data-is-the-new-oil world, how to balance the desires of the individual and the powers-that-be (government or local law enforcement), and how to actually implement and enforce these ideas, once we’ve come up with them. In short, it wouldn’t be too wrong to say that we don’t really know what we’re doing when it comes to privacy!

Further, there’s usually a dichotomy proposed between privacy and security: you can have privacy, but that means criminals/terrorists would be able to operate without the government being able to track them. So, if you want to have security from all these evil people, you must consent to let the government snoop on your data as well.

This is actually a common thing: to protect the population from the wiles of food producers, the government sets up certain standards that these producers must obey. The government may send inspectors to check upon the processes followed, and then punish producers who do not conform. Here, however, every single one of us is a producer.

Fortunately (or otherwise) this relentless production of data by individuals is mediated by companies like Facebook, who collate and process this data, profiting from the detailed profiles they build of us in the process. So, it might be possible to regulate things simply by applying the regulations on these corporations instead of at an individual level. But it also means that there are now two entities (albeit with somewhat different incentives) who may want to read what we write, i.e., the government and the corporation. One thing is very clear: individual-level policies are insufficient. Most people do not (and cannot be expected to) have a deep understanding of privacy issues – just like we don’t all have a deep understanding of food safety norms. Some kind of aggregated negotiation tactic, then, appears to be the only solution.

Given that the government (an entity interested in seeing our data) is the one representing the population in this negotiation, civil society must be extremely vigilant about what the details are. Many people (loosely) propose some structure of the following nature: private messages between individuals must remain secret, both from the government and the corporation. However, if the government comes to the corporation with a warrant, the latter must hand over the data. This last bit, of course, is impossible in an “end-to-end encrypted” system, where only the sender and receiver can read information.

WhatsApp’s recent change is an interesting nuance in this 40,000-ft view. Your private messages in WhatsApp are still end-to-end encrypted and unreadable to anyone but the parties directly involved: nothing has changed on that front. What many may not have noticed, is that WhatsApp actually makes two different apps: one for private use, and one for businesses. WhatsApp’s new policy allows them to look only at communications with these business accounts.

Note that WhatsApp could already look at the metadata: they would know, for example, that you had been chatting with a number of mattress companies (but might not know what kind of mattresses you were looking for). Facebook could then advertise mattresses on your feed. With this new policy, WhatsApp can share data about your interactions with business accounts, so that Facebook can find and suggest the exact kind of mattress you were looking for. As far as changes in privacy go, it’s actually rather minor. Your private messages are just as private as before.

As discussed above, even an end-to-end encrypted system can reveal a lot about one’s preferences and behaviour; this is actually the main difference between WhatsApp and Signal. They use the exact same set of encryption protocols; WhatsApp provides more services (e.g., it is rolling out payments in India), but retains metadata. Signal retains no metadata whatsoever. It just knows the time you last logged in and some other basic information, nothing more, and backups are encrypted. In either case, your actual chats are end-to-end encrypted and cannot be seen by anyone else; this is with the notable exception of backups: unencrypted backups (WhatsApp does not have an option to encrypt) can be read by Google or Apple (and thus by a government with a warrant).

Any state regulation on these encryption and privacy policies would be incredibly difficult, and that’s without getting into the international nature of the problem (what happens with software written in Germany that facilitates a chat between a Japanese citizen and an Australian citizen, with the latter physically residing in India?). I think the short answer is “non-starter”. 

Perhaps the nearest we can get is a set of minimum standards, some rules about consent, and privacy scores. Such consent rules are also hard to frame, e.g., “a corporation cannot access any data belonging to a user without direct, time-limited consent, with sufficient granularity (not all-or-nothing options)”, but we have a lot of good lawyers who I am sure can do a much better job of this than I! In the short term, however, the best idea is almost certainly privacy scores, calculated by an independent government agency, providing something like a star rating to companies operating in India: this could be one way to provide citizens with the information they need to choose what is right for them. 

Debayan Gupta is currently an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Ashoka University, where he teaches a course on security and privacy as well as an introductory programming class. He is also a visiting professor and research affiliate at MIT and MIT-Sloan. 

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).