Corona Daily: 500: Faces and voices

We see hundreds of faces every day. If you use public transport, work in a huge office, you may easily see a thousand faces, and hear hundreds of different voices every day. This is an important human interaction, its value often underestimated.

Now locked up in the house, we may end up seeing 1 or 2 faces, hearing 1 or 2 voices.  The same faces and the same voices day after day. That adds to the sense of being a prisoner.  

To fight this vacuum, start making voice and video calls. Texting is impersonal, voices and images are personal. Don’t text chat, call a person. Better still use whatsApp, Skype, zoom, Facetime for visual contact. Speak daily with your parents on video. Don’t feel shy, or think you are intruding. Faces and voices of strangers on the public transport were intruding in our lives, and we didn’t complain.

Technology has now privileged us to reduce social distancing. And it is mostly free. Use it to see many different faces. Talk to different voices. That will make everyone happier.

Ravi

Fish, Trump, and Modi

Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children won the Booker of Bookers. I have tried to read this greatest book several times. After umpteen attempts, the furthest I got was page no. 35. I tried many of his other books, with similar results. Since I was unwilling to consider myself as intellectually inadequate, I called Rushdie a pseudo-intellectual. Like certain avant-garde artists, he relishes in creating literature that will be praised because it is not understood. In a lighter vein, I had suggested Satanic Verses should have been banned for poor writing, not for any other reason.

When I began my anti-Rushdie tirade at a book club which I had just joined, the female readers pounced on me like vultures (metaphorically speaking). One lady had read Midnight’s Children more than twenty times, and had enjoyed it more and more during successive readings. One girl called him the greatest existing writer. An MBA executive recited entire passages from memory.

To be fair, there were other readers there, both male and female, who disliked his writing and agreed with me. We clearly had two camps. One passionately hating Rushdie and the other loving him.

Fish eaters and fish haters

Fish is as polarizing as Rushdie. I hate fish; I can’t sit in a room where somebody is eating fish. By a freak DNA distortion, my brother loves fish. I don’t understand how he can love fish; neither does he understand how I can hate it. The world is full of fish lovers and fish haters. But I have never heard of a riot happening between them.

Nobody calls the fish haters leftists or liberals, fish lovers don’t unfriend them on FB walls; neither party forwards floods of WhatsApp messages giving links to articles endorsing or condemning fish-eating. I don’t think Cambridge Analytica knows I hate fish, neither have they tried to convert me to fish-eating. Fish lovers and fish haters don’t start doubting the intelligence of each other, or stop talking to one another. Why are Trump, Brexit and Modi different from fish?

The only field

Fish is not the only polarizing subject where two sides coexist peacefully. In the book club mentioned above, sixteen years after my joining it, Rushdie haters and Rushdie lovers continue to be good friends. In literature, art, music, science and most other fields, healthy debates happen, differences in opinions persist but they rarely result in violence or wars.

In 2017, following Trump’s election, hate crimes in the USA grew by a record 17%. Brexit so polarized the UK that a week before the referendum, Jo Cox, a young MP, was murdered in broad daylight. In India, after the introduction of a discriminatory law, 53 people were killed in Hindu-Muslim riots in Delhi. In this week’s diary, I will attempt to explain why Trump, Johnson and Modi create a different kind of polarization from Rushdie or fish.

The food chain

Ecological scientists have classified the food chain into four key levels.

Level 1: (Producers): Plants. Plants make their own food and are therefore called the producers. Naturally, plants are the most non-violent species.

Level 2: (Primary consumers): Herbivores or plant-eaters. For example, rabbits who survive exclusively on plants. The world is full of vegetarian animals like rabbits.

Level 3: (Secondary consumers): Carnivores that eat herbivores. Rabbits eat plants, and foxes eat rabbits. So foxes belong to this level.

Level 4: (Tertiary consumers): Carnivores that eat carnivores. Wolves, bears, even eagles and owls eat foxes. They are the tertiary consumers.

You will notice that species like foxes can be predators as well as prey. Like a worker getting harassed by his boss, later beating his wife on returning home.

Species such as tigers or lions are called the apex predators. At the top of the food chain, they are nobody’s prey.

Trump, Brexit and Modi

The modern politicians understand the food chain well. In order to become predators, they need to identify their prey.

Johnson, Farage and other Brexiters identified European migrants as prey. The British, particularly the English, are inherently superior to the continental Europeans, but these outsiders were taking away their jobs. EU fishermen were catching fish in British waters. A danger existed that Brussels would represent a super-state and enslave Britain.

In India, the Modi-Shah combination belied hopes their party will focus on governance. Hindu predators have long identified Muslims as the prime prey. Destroying a 16^th century mosque to build a temple, whatever the rationale, was an animal act. Introducing laws and actions to harass or imprison Muslims suggests Modi-Shah trying to find a well-defined object in the food chain that can be subjugated.

Donald Trump is the apex predator. An American, rich, white male with nuclear weapons at his fingertips is undoubtedly at the top of the food chain. He has identified several species as prey. Muslims, blacks, gays, Hispanics, Chinese and immigrants in general.

Supremacists and herd mentality

Social psychology explains a concept called Group polarization. It says collective thinking and decisions of a group are more extreme than its individual members. A single person hating immigrants or Muslims, when joined by another thousand, can become vicious as a group member; is genuinely angry and hateful, is willing to drive them away or in extreme cases imprison or kill them. Since we are discussing animals in this article, this phenomenon is aptly termed: the herd mentality. Social media facilitates forming of such herds.

The winning formula discovered by modern politicians is to become a predator, and then appeal to voters willing to join the predator gang by forming herds. The two top prey species are immigrants and Muslims. Both are easy targets.

Trump started by calling Obama a Muslim. During the election campaign he advocated issuing ID cards for Muslims. After becoming a president, he imposed a visa ban on several Muslim countries. On the other front, he wants to build a wall to stop Mexicans illegally entering the USA. The laws for new legal immigrants are suffocating; many high caliber immigrants are subjected to a lottery.

Trump’s anti-immigrant stance is particularly amusing, because he and his white supremacists’ base are all immigrants themselves. The earlier immigrants’ attacking potential immigrants is similar to the hypocritical nuclear club: We (USA, China, Russia, UK and France), the members, will produce as many nuclear weapons as we wish, will exercise a veto power over every critical global decision, but no other nation should dream of producing a single nuclear warhead. 

Boris Johnson compared Muslim women wearing burkas to letter boxes. He said the EU nationals who made Britain their home have treated the UK like “their own”country for too long. (Conveniently omitting that British citizens have settled in EU countries as well).

Narendra Modi is more suave than Trump or Johnson. He delegates inflammatory speeches to his Home Minister. On Modi’s watch, beef-eating has become a grave sin and crime, love jihad has entered the vocabulary, a saffron monk is appointed as the chief minister of India’s biggest state, Allahabad has been renamed as Prayagraj. Bangladeshi immigrants are called termites by the home minister, and a recent law advocates discrimination based on religion.

These days we often hear the term “Supremacists”. It’s nothing but declaring yourself as a predator, identifying your prey, and screaming to the world that you are superior to your prey. Whether they are the White Supremacists in the USA or Hindu Supremacists in India, they display a behavioral pattern. They usually belong to privileged classes, are economically well-off, white or Brahmin males, pigeonholing immigrants or Muslims and hating the entire class. They usually bully or dominate their subordinates, wives or house maids. They readily believe in false statistics, in history devoid of facts, and specialize in whataboutism. (When I opposed India’s anti-Muslim legislation, one reader defended it by asking me: what about the female genital mutilation practiced by Muslims in Africa?)

Immigrants

Most immigrants, the Mexicans in the USA, the Poles in the UK, and the Bangladeshis in India do jobs the locals are unwilling to do. The lowest paid; the dirtiest jobs are often the only ones available to them. They face racism, humiliation, harassment, uncertainty and still diligently carry out their work. Their contribution to the economy is significant. In the next five years Britain will face a true crisis because of the shortage of plumbers, carpenters, gutter cleaners, barbers, waiters, bartenders and all low-paid jobs. Bombay’s Hindu supremacists, when they book an Uber, usually find that the driver’s name is Mohammed.

Instead of being grateful to the immigrants, the predator politicians declare them as prey; the voting herds applaud those politicians. All that Trump, Johnson and Modi have to do is to invoke the animal spirit. A winning formula is created: the animal instinct elevates the politician and his followers in the food chain, and the hunting game begins.

Evolution

Each of us has an animal sitting inside us. Civilization is about moving from that animal stage and becoming human. For 70+ years, we have lived without a World War. That is a stupendous human achievement. In every election, the voter needs to ask a simple question. Is the candidate a predator? An excellent clue: Does he talk about immigrants and Muslims? If he does, he wants us to become predators and join him in this hunting game.

Predators play a violent game. That is why Trump, Johnson and Modi are so different from Rushdie or fish.

Ravi

How Not to Count Indians

Sometime in February 2011, our doorbell rang. A woman in her thirties stood outside, carrying a sheaf of papers and a pen. She spoke politely, asked the name of my father, the number of people in our family, confirmed our mother tongue. The interview lasted for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. She thanked us and left. In the whole process she didn’t ask for a single document.

India has conducted the census exercise for nearly 150 years, starting in 1872. It happens every ten years. The 2011 census covered all 8000 towns and more than 600,000 villages. A total of 2.7 million officials, such as the young lady who visited our house, successfully counted India’s 1.21 billion (121 crore) people. Like India’s democratic elections, census data collection is the pride of India. The next census will be concluded on 1 March 2021 for most of the country.

The discussion about CAA/NPR/NRC has left many people confused. Will India count its people two, three, four times? And why? To remove the confusion, I will clarify four concepts. (a) Census (b) National Population Register (NPR) (c) National Register of Citizens (NRC) and (d) Aadhar card.

Census

Census is the largest single official source that collects statistical information on different characteristics of India’s people. It happens in two phases: house-listing that focuses on things such as the presence or absence of toilets, drinking water, electricity, television, vehicles. The second phase is people count. This pertains to questions about age, gender, religion, language, employment. Census offers a macro picture that helps the government in the planning process. No single individual is a focus of the census, no documents are asked for. People could lie if they wish to, but there is no real reason for people to lie or hide any information.

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National Population Register (NPR)

NPR is the register of the usual residents of India. Usual residents are defined as those living in India for at least the past six months, as well as those who intend to live in India for at least the next six months. The objective is to create a comprehensive identity database of residents, including their demographic and biometric details. If census is “Macro”, NPR is “Micro”. NPR includes citizens as well as foreigners, both legal and illegal. All of them will be included as long as they are “usual residents” as per the definition. 

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National Register of Citizens (NRC) or National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC)

If NPR is merely about a person’s identity, NRC looks at the legality of that identity. Residing in India’s geography is enough to be part of the NPR. To be part of the NRC, the Indian government needs to confirm you are a legal citizen. NRC also includes Indian citizens living outside India.

NRC= NPR plus Indian citizens abroad minus legal foreigners resident in India minus doubtful and illegal residents.

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Aadhar card

When NRC was conceived, so was a “National Identity card”. The Indian government successfully managed to create that card, called it Aadhar. Aadhar is now the world’s biggest biometric database with more than 1.2 billion entries. But the government blundered, and Aadhar became an NPR card (residence), rather than an NRC card (citizenship) as it was supposed to be. In other words, foreigners, legal or illegal, usually residing in India can get Aadhar, whereas Indian citizens abroad are prohibited from applying for it.  That is one reason Amit Shah, India’s home minister, repeatedly says Aadhar is not valid for citizenship claims. He is upset about two things. First, the Supreme Court repeatedly struck down the government’s attempts to make Aadhar mandatory. Secondly, for Shah, the most upsetting aspect of Aadhar is that it doesn’t mention religion.

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National Citizenship Register (NRC) in black and white

It is claimed people are protesting the NRC prematurely. Only the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has been published, there is nothing about the NRC yet. PM Modi said NRC was never discussed. These claims are incorrect.

Detailed information on NRC has existed in black & white for 16 years. On 10 December 2003, India’s Home Ministry issued the NRC rules. The current Home Ministry has referred to those rules at least on two occasions in its notifications, in 2015 and 2019.

The background for NRC was twofold. One was the mass migration from war-torn Bangladesh to Assam, and the demographic change that followed it. But the 2003 rules were mainly triggered by the India-Pakistan Kargil war in 1999. Pakistani operatives had infiltrated part of Ladakh pretending to be Kashmiri militants. The BJP was in power, and the home ministry was in the hands of L.K.Advani, an incendiary politician. The 9/11 attack in the USA reinforced the paranoia about the damage Muslim illegals can cause. Possibly as a result of Kargil followed by 11 September, L.K. Advani, the demolition architect of Babri Mosque, issued the NRC rules in December 2003. The rules were never enforced because within five months the BJP government lost power (2004 elections). It may be wise for Modi and Shah to reflect on that sequence of events.

The amended NRC equation

It is also claimed that there is no connection between CAA and NRC. I will now show mathematically how they are connected.

We saw above that

NRC= NPR plus Indian citizens abroad minus doubtful and illegal residents.

I will now break the formula further.

NRC= NPR plus Indian citizens abroad minus doubtful and illegal non-Muslim residents minus doubtful and illegal Muslim residents.

By offering amnesty and citizenship to non-Muslims from three countries, CAA has altered the equation.

NRC= NPR plus Indian citizens abroad minus doubtful and illegal non-Muslim residents minus doubtful and illegal Muslim residents.

NRC is now a weapon directed exclusively at suspecting and scrutinizing India’s Muslim residents. 

India-born Muslims

Since 1 July 1987, Indian citizenship, as explained in an earlier chapter, is jus sanguinis (by descent) and not jus soli (by birth). Like asthma, diabetes and obesity, being illegal in India is a hereditary disease. Once a person is illegal, his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren born after 1 July 1987 are all illegal. In the NRC equation, when we talk of doubtful and illegal Muslim residents, their India-born descendants are also included. As to how a Muslim born and raised in India can be called an infiltrator, only the Home Minister knows.

Doubtful citizens

This mortifying term was introduced by the 2003 Home Ministry rules. In Assam thousands of d-voters were robbed of their right to vote.

Now if India were to implement NPR or NRC (NPR minus doubtful Muslims), each Muslim will need to prove legality of himself, his family and ancestors. India introduced the Birth Registration Act in 1969. The related rules were published in 1999. Most Indians above fifty years of age don’t have a birth certificate.

If you read the NRC rules, 2003, you will notice it contains a series of petty bureaucrats empowered to scrutinize a person. Like in Assam, there may be a foreigners’ tribunal, a body to which a doubtful Muslim can appeal before going to jail. In theory, while in jail, he can even go to the High Court and the Supreme Court.

India has the largest number of illiterates in the world. The 350 million (35 crore) illiterates include 56 million (5.6 crore) Muslims. (One could argue that making people literate is the responsibility of the State.) The 56 million Muslims who can’t read or write are now expected to provide documentary evidence proving legality of their own and ancestors’ existence, argue with the petty bureaucrats, defend themselves in the tribunals and courts. No wonder they have intuitively understood the threat and would rather spend months protesting at Shaheen Bagh.

Illiterate population and illiterate minister

Amit Shah wants to conduct the NRC exercise in order to find infiltrators and imprison/deport them. No democratic country on earth has ever managed to do it. If an illegal immigrant decides to hide in the Himalayas, no NPR, NRC or any other exercise is going to find him.

USA, UK and Europe, far more developed than India, and far more attractive for migration, have admitted they have not enough resources to identify illegal immigrants. They try to focus on potential terrorists, and as 9/11 showed, they are not successful at that either. In those countries, visa overstays outnumber those who cross borders illegally. Trump can build a beautiful wall to stop Mexicans, but he can’t stop the thousands who enter USA legally and overstay their visas. That includes Indian illegal immigrants as well. Bangladesh sends the maximum number of tourists to India every year. India has no mechanism to catch those who overstay their visas.

India’s population exceeds the combined population of USA, EU and UK. It is evident that the “security” that is offered as the reason for NRC is impractical. The intent is clearly to target and intimidate Muslims in India.

Much to fear

Modi assures us that no Indian Muslim has anything to fear. This is patently false.

The dates for NPR are announced: 1 April to 30 Sept 2020. As we saw above, this exercise is the basis for NRC (=NPR minus doubtful and illegal Muslims). It can be assumed that the NPR data collection will probe every Muslim to decide whether he/she or his/her ancestors are doubtful or illegal.

The 56 million illiterate Muslims have much to fear. Many of them are unlikely to have credible documents. None of them can defend themselves against the belligerent bureaucracy, expensive tribunals and courts. The illiterate Muslims can be bullied, blackmailed, harassed, threatened and some of them imprisoned.

The India-born young Muslims (under 32) with illegal ancestors have much to fear. They are not even doubtful, they are illegal. The law doesn’t offer them protection. Their families are liable to be imprisoned for three years without bail. Since it is unlikely any country will take back India-born Muslims, their fate after three years’ imprisonment is unclear. They may rot in jail till the end of their life.

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India has been counting its people over the past 150 years. This is the first time the government wants to count the population in order to eliminate part of it. 

Ravi

References

(1)   http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Common/NRIC.html : This link gives the NRC (NRIC) Act and rules as well as information about the population register.

(2)  http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Act&Rules/notifications/citizenship_rules2003.pdf : NRC rules issued in December 2003 by L.K.Advani, India’s Home Minister.

(3)http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Act&Rules/notifications/NPR%20Updation.pdf and http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-Act&Rules/notifications/NPR%20Updation.pdf : Notifications issued in 2015 and 2019 by the Home Ministry that refer to the 2003 rules.

(4)  https://uidai.gov.in/aadhaar_dashboard/ At the time of posting this article, 1.255 billion people have been issued the Aadhar cards.   

(5)  https://www.orfonline.org/research/literacy-in-india-the-gender-and-age-dimension-57150/ Literacy in India report

(6)  https://cmsny.org/publications/essay-2017-undocumented-and-overstays/ Illegal immigration USA. Visa overstays significantly exceed illegal border crossings.

(7)   https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/01/us/undocumented-visa-overstays.html  Except Mexico, India has the highest illegal immigrants (visa overstay) in the USA.

R.

Silence of a Billion

I don’t know if feedback is the breakfast of champions, it certainly is the breakfast of writers. Writing is a dialogue with the readers. When I wrote two articles on India’s new controversial legislation (CAA/NRC), I expected the readers to join the debate. Other than the anticipated abuse from known and unknown readers, following are some of the emails I got. These are not excerpts, but complete responses.

·         I have stopped taking sides on these issues, so can’t comment whether I agree or disagree.

·         Was trying to know as much about the issue as possible. An article from you is much valuable.

·         Thanks for your articles. Belated happy birthday to you.

·         I am completely un-political (sic). I don’t vote in any election, on principle.

·         For me, have to know enough about something to have an opinion. And nowadays, as a global phenomenon, it’s very hard to find someone you trust who can present an unbiased view on things like this.

·         Your study and analysis about the topic are terrific. I am unable to react as my knowledge is not up to date.

·         Thanks for your last two articles. How do I pronounce the Russian word you mentioned in your article?

Wow! What a range of innovative ways to voice their silence. And these respondents are my friends, some of them PhDs and MBAs.

You don’t really need years of study to answer questions such as: (a) Do you approve of the construction of detention centers across India to exclusively imprison Muslims? Yes/No. (b) Do you approve of imprisoning Muslim babies because their great-grandfathers were illegal immigrants? Yes/No. (Mind you, the government manual mandates each detention centre to have a crèche facility. Have you ever heard of crèches in prisons?).

Answering these questions requires not a PhD degree but only conscience. It also requires fearlessness that allows you to express your opinion. Above responses suggest to me that those readers, all of them Indian citizens, are terrified of expressing their opinion in black and white. They prefer to stay silent rather than end up on the wrong side of the debate.

Dictatorship

I have developed a formula for dictatorship.

Dictatorship= those who knowingly support minus those who knowingly oppose plus those who are knowingly silent.

Dictators always project silence as support. In a corporate board meeting, or even in a family gathering, the loud mouths usually end up making decisions. The silent members later fume or protest, privately, for having to abide by the decisions thrust on them. But it’s too late.

Not using free speech is like engaging in a battle but refusing to use your ammunition.

Applying the formula:

Dictatorship= Supporters (20%) + Silent (50%) – Opponents (30%) = +40%. Though opponents (30%) may outnumber the supporters (20%), the silent crowd (50%) becomes the decision-making force. They crush the opposition with their silence.

The threat to be imprisoned may prevent people from protesting or expressing their honest opinion. But the moment they are afraid, they have already entered a prison.

Imprisonment of minds

Conventionally speaking, imprisonment is putting someone behind bars. But imprisonment can be of minds, not just bodies.

Each and every citizen of North Korea, except Kim Jong-un, is in prison. Most North Koreans sleep in their own houses and are not chained. But their minds are in prison. They have absolutely no freedom of expressing their thoughts, and an eternal fear of saying something wrong. Every day, school children and factory workers must sing a hymn “We will follow you only” dedicated to Kim Jong-un, in front of cameras wherever possible. North Korean YouTube (called Uriminzokkiri) allows condemnation of South Korea and the USA, nothing else. North Korea’s caste system Songbun classifies citizens into loyal, wavering and hostile. This is based on ancestry as well as behavior.

North Korea is an extreme example. In most nations, even democratic ones, people often speak on party lines (Republicans must support guns and oppose abortion), family loyalties (my parents vote for Congress, so I do as well), religion (we are Hindus, so I support awarding citizenship to Hindu illegal immigrants), employer loyalty (I pay bribes on my company’s behalf, because our business will not grow otherwise) etc.

If you can’t think independently, or express your thoughts fearlessly, at least some part of your mind is in prison.

Trump can’t be a dictator

Donald Trump is racist, xenophobic, a liar, a bully and a narcissist thug. And he is in control of the nastiest nuclear weapons. Other than Lincoln, he is the tallest president in America’s history. His handshake is made of iron. And yet he can never become a dictator. Why?

America’s constitution? More than two centuries old, it talks about separation of powers, offers safeguards for individual liberties. However, parts of that constitution are as rigid as the Koran is for Muslims. Despite perennial rampage killing incidents, the purchase and use of guns is easy. The Second amendment which allows such man-made tragedies is dated 1791.

America’s Supreme Court? Not really. For a democratic nation, the USA Supreme Court is biased. The president nominates the Supreme Court judges, and several verdicts are given on party lines. Trump managed to appoint Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh thereby ensuring a conservative majority in the Supreme Court. In the USA, Supreme Court judges are in office until they fall dead. Making the SC conservative has been one of Trump’s greatest contributions to his party.

The reason Trump can’t become a dictator is not America’s constitution or its Supreme Court. It is the fearlessness of America’s people. You can see it in media; CNN is on a relentless anti-Trump campaign since before Trump became president. On my FB wall, I see my American friends and relatives trashing Trump tirelessly. Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, Trevor Noah, Jimmy Kimmel, John Oliver, Bill Maher, and dozens of other comedians have got a new lease of professional life. They are not shy to use all kinds of obscenities when addressing their president.

Losing comedy is Russia’s tragedy

Vladimir Putin, in physical comparison to Trump, is a midget. If he was not what he is, you wouldn’t notice him on Moscow’s metro escalator. How did the world’s largest nation get trapped in the fist of this short man? Twenty one years so far with no end in sight?

Putin came into power in 1999, promising law and order, an end to corruption. Little did the Russians suspect that dictatorship is worse than lawlessness and corruption. Because under dictatorship, police and courts become subservient to the dictator. And corruption always becomes worse. The looters are stronger than before.

Boris Yeltsin’s regime in the 1990s was chaotic and traditionally corrupt. But Russia experienced democracy for the first time. Russian people were outspoken. You could be afraid of the Mafia but not of Yeltsin or his government. Kukli(puppets) was a weekly TV show of political satire. All of Russia, including the politicians who were ridiculed, loved the show. This weekly comedy came very close to American openness.

And then Putin happened. In 2002, Kukli ended. Since then, there is no political satire on Russian TV.  In clubs and cafes, comedians need to be very careful. Two weeks ago, Alexander Dolgopolov, a 25-year old standup comedian fled Russia after making jokes about Putin and Christianity. In America, his anti-Putin lines may have gone unnoticed: Our population has split into two camps. On one hand there are those who support Putin, on the other, there are those who can read, write and are logical. He had also joked about Christ and Virgin Mary. A former communist atheist, Putin has introduced strict anti-blasphemy laws.

In Yeltsin’s time, Russians proudly carried the sword of free speech and used it. In Putin’s time, they hide it in a sheath of silence. And now with disuse over two decades, they don’t know how to use it, even if they wish to. They have mastered the art of self-censorship. For Putin’s one-man rule, the silence of the Russian people is as responsible as Putin himself. “Puppets” closing marked the end of the Russian democracy.

India’s stand-up comedians

The good news for India is that the majority of the CAA-NRC-prison supporters, Islamophobes, radicalized zealots are not young. They are closer to crematoriums than to their maternity hospitals.

In the gym I regularly visit, most members and trainers are in their twenties and thirties. They don’t give a damn about Ram temple, cow worship, patriotism as defined by someone else, illegal immigrants or India’s partition (that happened before their parents were born). Not only that, they virally spread the clips of the stand-up comedians who ridicule the ridiculous. I am attaching a sample of performances. Kunal Kamra, known for the recent flight ban controversy, actually comes to my gym, when he is not performing. His JNU, BJP andMuslims, Abijit Ganguly’s CAA-NRC, Modiji and Amit Shah, Varun Grover’s Modiji, BJP and cows are top-class acts. Even if you support Ram-mandir or want to be silent about building prisons for Muslim babies, you may want to watch these clips. They are great fun. More importantly, they show fearlessness and sense of ridicule are still present in India. My gym friends circulating these clips make me believe that none of CAA-NRC-Detention camps are ever going to happen.

Public opinion

CAA legislation passing in both chambers is not the end of the process. Any new legislation still needs to pass the Supreme Court and public opinion.

Supreme Court judges don’t have the choice of remaining silent. They are obliged to form an opinion and to express it.

In any serious debate, I always consider myself to be a Supreme Court judge. That allows me to keep a clear mind and judge a particular issue objectively. Muslims protesting against CAA-NRC is natural; they are the victims of the legislation. Non-Muslims are also capable of forming an objective judgment. Not only do Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi have a right to protest, Deepika Padukone has it, too. When people in thousands, in millions, abandon their silence, and voice opinions, it becomes Public Opinion.

If you support Islamophobia, xenophobia or legislated discrimination, it is fine if you wish to remain silent. Because your silence is deemed as support anyway. But if you are against such initiatives, and remain silent, then you are pushed into the support camp. Politics is different from art, music, Netflix, sport. You are free not to watch Netflix or not to have any opinion on art or music. But nobody can be apolitical. Because your taxpaying, house-buying, marrying, banking, driving, drinking and even whether you should be free or in prison is decided by politics.

George Orwell, 75 years ago, wrote:

The relative freedom which we enjoy depends on public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it. If public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them. (“Freedom of the park” in Tribune: 7 December 1945)

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How incredibly relevant is Orwell’s quote even after 75 years.

Ravi