Patricia Mukhim

So NH7 Weekender came and went like it did last year. I got it from the horse’s mouth that the show drew in 35% more crowd this year, although the line- up of artistes in this edition was less spectacular than last year’s. From The Wailers, Megadeth, Kailash Kher etc., we are now down to Steve Wilson, Farhan Akhtar (who actually has no voice to talk about), Nucleya and a host of other lesser known bands. Perhaps Papon and Soulmate were the saving grace for this year’s show. But that is only if you’re there to enjoy good music. Now is that the only reason why NH7 attracts such a huge crowd? Or is it because drinks flow and there are no inhibitions on how much you drink, whether you get drunk or are just simply grooving with the music. It’s a liberating feeling to be in an open field and be holding a mug of beer or any other drink and to be largely among your non-judgmental peers, if you are coming from a society that is squeamish about social drinking. That’s why we now have cars that turn into bars in the evening because young people can’t find decent and affordable pubs to take in their tots.

For Vijay Nair, the NH7 promoter, the event is nothing short of a show stopper. He is a wizard who knows exactly what rocks the people of Shillong. Ah… no not just Shillong now. The suburbans of Ri Bhoi (meaning Umroi and its thereabouts) have also learnt what it is to share the thrills of the towns- folk of Shillong, so this year NH7 distributed several hundred tickets to be given to the suburbans with the rider that they are to be identified by the Rangbah Shnong of the area. Not everyone can afford tickets costing Rs 2000 per couple and Rs 1250 per head for both days. But in a city where the disparities are glaring, there are enough takers for the tickets even if they were to be priced higher. In fact the online sale of tickets happened at least a month ago.

Last year the show went off rather on expected lines. Everyone was happy…the artistes were happy. I tried to interview Dave Mustaine the lead Megadeth guitarist, to find out what angst pushes musicians like him to lunge out at death, war, politics and religion through music. But Dave Mustaine was sulking because he was told not to sing certain dark songs that could push our youngsters overboard and send them to cemeteries to vandalize graves etc. So I missed meeting this contentious musician who was once high on substances and even rammed his car into a parked vehicle belonging to a policeman who was off duty. Jail time sobered up Mustaine but he is the kind of person who subalterns would want as their hero. He is the rebel par excellence – a role model for resistance. This cocktail of toxic behavior and attitudes is what makes Dave Mustaine attractive, I guess. It also shows the huge gap in the kind of music that draws the youth of today compared to the generation before them.

So if there was a bigger crowd this year than there was last year (and this was bound to happen since last year everyone waxed eloquent about how well the show was organized) then what is it that has triggered a FaceBook Post from Vijay Nair where he raves and rants at the Rangbah Shnong who sold the free tickets meant for the youth of his area to people from Assam etc at a subsidy. Nair is also very angry that ‘some’ bureaucrats and police officers wanted free passes. I stress on the word ‘some’ because there were other bureaucrats who paid for their tickers and queued up for their wrist bands like ordinary folks. Nair tells us that he is doing something spectacular by bringing this show to Shillong because he has to invest a lot on sound and other technical stuff to host it. So in a sense he feels we owe him big time for putting up an event that people would otherwise have had to go to Hyderabad or Pune to witness. That he says would have entailed them buying air tickets, pay for hotels apart from paying for the tickets. But Mr Nair that works both ways! You are not exactly going out of pocket by putting up the show in Shillong are you? If you weren’t making profit you would not have returned here. Not by a long shot!

Nair is sore about the rent seekers but he made sure not to ruffle the feathers of those in the Government who made the going smooth for him. The chief executive of the state received praises galore and his office was congratulated for facilitating the smooth passage of the show.  You are smart Mr Nair. You could not have offended the Chief Minister and hoped to return next year for a bigger event perhaps. But yes you gave the villagers of Umroi a real dressing down. They don’t really matter in your scheme of things because they can always be paid to get back into your good books. How sad is that, but, how convenient for you.

There were quite a few stinkers on Vijay Nair’s post. One guy said, “Try and organize NH7 in Goa and watch the fun.”Another said that NH7 pulled out of Gurgaon because the rent seeking has become abominably horrifying.  The NCR region has more people wanting free passes than there are people who would buy tickets. Shillongites are very honourable in comparison. Nair calls Shillong his second home but I guess that is only as long as he can rake in the profits.

But there are a few issues one has with NH7. Several brands of liquor not usually allowed to be sold in the liquor shops here flow freely at the venue. Bacardi is not the only liquor company selling its drinks here. And there is no excise tax on these drinks and no entertainment tax on NH 7.  I don’t know if Vijay Nair enjoys the same patronage elsewhere. The affluent of Shillong who often feel besieged by busyness are also plagued by a daily excess of choices find NH7 an outlet for these souls with pent-up energy. No one has any problems with that! People who can afford have the right to enjoy themselves. But the problem is that the system that is meant to keep the law and order also looks the other way when this event happens. There were thousands of cars at the venue, not all of them chauffeur driven.  So one can conclude that on Saturday evening there were thousands of drunken drivers on the road and a couple of pranks as well.  Were those guys arrested for endangering the lives of non-drinkers on the same route?

Then there is the case of Farhan Akhtar who while on stage witnessed some unpleasant scenes. I am quoting a FaceBook post to show how enraged Farhan was. He said something to this effect. “At times and shows like these, we ought to help each other. So I have something to say, there are some boys in the front rows who have been behaving badly and groping the girls. If the security guys see you do that again, they’re going to beat the shit out of you, and I’ll join them. You’d better stop that behavior.”

That’s not a very good certificate for NH7 and one wishes this does not become a rendezvous for fornication. This is no moral tutorial. Those who have gone for the NH7 and are having their booze there are supposed to be adults (not below 18 years). Really?

So Mr Vijay Nair, profit is what drives everything in the world today. No one is doing anyone a favour. Of course Shillong gets prouder by the day and more famous perhaps for hosting these mega musical shows but I wonder what the social costs are and if anyone is interested in measuring that. And no, I am not a wet blanket, just an ant in your tight pants.

KARUNANIDHI BEQUEATHS PARTY TO STALIN

By Kalyani Shankar

The dynastic politics in India is getting stronger and stronger with the leaders of political parties naming their family members to succeed them even as their parties have been docile to accept it. Leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Parkash Singh Badal, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav, K. Chandrasekkhara Rao and Nara Chandrababu Naidu, and Farooq Abdullah, to name a few, believe in the dynastic politics. The latest to join this club is the 93-year-old DMK supremo Muthuvel Karunanidhi, who has declared his younger son M.K.Stalin as his political heir. “From his prison days where he faced a lot of hardships, he has himself worked very hard and elevated himself systematically to the position of future president (of DMK). In that aspect, he remains my political heir apparent today,” he told in a recent magazine interview.

Stalin may not have the charisma or the literary reputation of his father nor his colourful life, but he has moved up by sheer hard work playing his cards well by working under his father for over four decades now. No doubt that the DMK went through the democratic motions of electing its office bearers all these years. Karunanidhi had all along said that the party would elect his successor. So declaring Stalin as his political heir apparent is not in the style of the original DMK. The issue of Karunanidhi handing over the baton has been a subject of speculation in DMK.  His assertion that Stalin will succeed him has brought relief to the cadres and may put an end to the sibling rivalry in the party.

Strangely enough, the DMK was not a party which believed in dynastic politics. When the first DMK chief and Tamil Nadu chief minister C.N.Annadurai died in February 1969, although Nedunchezhian was his number two, Karunanidhi succeeded him. He went on to win elections in 1971 but once M. G. Ramachandran (MGR) split the DMK by launching AIADMK in October 1972, it became tougher for Karunanidhi. The DMK remained out of power for 13 long years but Karunanidhi’s leadership and organisational skills kept the party intact.

The DMK has weathered many a political storm in the past. During the Emergency it faced an existential crisis. After MGR’s death in 1987, the DMK wrested power from AIADMK in 1989 and from then on, both the AIADMK and the DMK have ruled the state alternatively. In the 1991 general elections, after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the DMK won just one seat. But the party bounced back in 1996 and 2006. But all these were comebacks made by Karunanidhi. Today, it is for Stalin to boost the morale of the party. From 2011, after losing the assembly elections and facing allegations in the 2G-spectrum scam, the DMK has been on the back foot. The consecutive loss of the Assembly polls in 2011 and 2016 has made the party workers gasping for political oxygen. After his hard work in the 2016 Assembly polls, the party won 100 seats, which was seen quite creditable for the DMK.

At the family level, Karunanidhi has chosen Stalin ignoring the claims of his elder son Alagiri who one time asked if the party was a “mutt” where the senior pontiff could anoint his successor. For years Alagiri and Stalin had been engaged in a tussle for their father’s favour and clout in the party. But Stalin trumped his elder brother when it came to winning the trust of their father, as also of the party rank and file. The sibling rivalry had been playing out as there is another claimant – Karunanidhi’s daughter and the Rajya Sabha M.P Kanimozhi, who is also in the fray.  In the ’80s, Karunanidhi’s eldest son, M.K. Muthu, was declared persona non grata in the DMK when he fell out with his father. An angered Muthu joined AIADMK and has been in political wilderness since. Karunanidhi promoted Stalin in the nineties in preference to the firebrand leader Vaiko, who floated his MDMK.

Alagiri, elder by two years, had been aspiring to lead the party.He was not only expelled from the party in March 2014 for alleged anti-party activities, but also lost the patronage of his father.  The dispute gained fresh momentum in 2013, when he insisted that the DMK continue in the United Progressive Alliance government, but Stalin wanted to pull out.Stalin had used the small window of opportunity after his brother was dismissed from the party and captured the party.

Karunanidhi’s move comes at a time when the AIADMK leader and Tamil Nadu chief ministerJ. Jayalalithaa is ailing in the hospital. The DMK and the AIADMK are ideologically from the same stable of the Dravida Kazhagam of Periyar Ramaswamy Naicker. There were apprehensions that the AIADMK might split if Jayalalithaa continues to remain incapacitated. That was one of the reasons for Karunanidhi announcing his crown prince.Secondly, there are apprehensions within the party that if he did not name his successor, in the post Karunanidhi era it might split. Thirdly, Karunanidhi wanted to bequeath his entire party to his son.

Despite naming his political heir, Karunanidhi is clear that he will remain the party chief till he dies. With Jayalalithaa ailing and Karunanidhi getting on in age, Tamil Nadu politics is at an interesting stage as there are no strong leaders in sight. (IPA Service)

Freedom of Expression

By Proloy Bagchi

Ram Chandra Guha, a free-thinker and historian who has authored numerous books on Indian history and random societal matters, recently enumerated eight reasons why Indians cannot speak freely. He says India is a 50-50 democracy. It is democratic only in a few respects and not so, in many others. The country is free in respect of conduct of free and fair elections and free movement of people within. However, it is only partly democratic in other ways: “The democratic deficit” that largely occurs is in the area of freedom of expression.

According to him, there are eight ways freedom of expression is being threatened. Analysing the whole gamut of connected issues, Guha cites retention of archaic British-era laws, a faulty judicial system where the lower courts, particularly, are too eager to entertain petitions seeking ban on individual films, books and a variety of works of art, the rise of identity politics, especially of the regional kind, behaviour of the police force which generally sides with the “goondas”(goons), pusillanimity of the ruling class in decision making, particularly when votes are at stake and dependence of the media on Government for advertisements as some of the ways in which freedom of expression has been brought under threat, even curtailed.

Guha’s analysis is unexceptionable. The last aspect is of specific concern, as I have had personal experience, like perhaps many others. Importantly, I also noted only recently, the Supreme Court directed the Rajasthan Government to release government advertisements to Rajasthan Patrika, one of the biggest newspaper group in the country with 37 editions across States and a readership stated to be over 1.25 crore.

According to the daily, the State government had violated its own advertisement policy and was discriminating against the group. It elaborated saying the group had received 34.12% government ads in 2015, but the percentage had dropped to 1.26 this year. Its counsel alleged the Government was being vindictive because some articles were critical of it, and the action was a ‘direct assault on freedom of press’.

This prompts me to my share my experience, about the denial of my right of expressing my views on local and other wider issues. I am a casual writer after retirement from the Government of India. To start with, the lack of civic amenities in Bhopal provoked me to write letters to the editor of the Central Chronicle,then the only English language newspaper in Bhopal with substantial local content but with limited circulation.  Twenty years ago, public bodies and other utilities were far more inept than today and there was much to write about. Most of the times, the letters would not have any effect but some would go home and yield results. That itself gave a great deal of satisfaction.

The postal system was reasonably good in those days and my letters on local issues would get published within two or three days. The ones I sent on wider issues to The Statesman in Calcutta would take five or six days to be published if the newspaper’s editor Irani then happened to put his seal of approval. I was gratified to see that some of my letters would occasionally lead the letters column on the Centre Page. That was a huge matter for me, and I would indulge in some slapping of my own back. The electronic media had till then not made the kind of inroads in journalism as now. The Statesman was then in a healthy state and used to be published from New Delhi and Calcutta and its Centre Page occasionally used to carry letters of readers in two whole columns.

Soon the Hindustan Times came to town. The newspaper had a four-page city supplement which used to cover political, social news as also news from the world of fine arts and sports. Its editor then, Zaidi had a different kind of take on journalism. He once happened to tell me that both newspaper and city would gain and become richer if the local thinking people were given a platform. And he did that and, as far as I am concerned, there was never an occasion when my piece did not find the light of day in the Supplement.

Articles from Late Mahesh Buch, Kripal Dhillon, former DG Police who was hugely concerned about the deteriorating quality of life in the city, Prof. Zamiruddin Ahmed who has a flair for writing in English as well as Urdu, RJ Khurana, retired chief of Joint Intelligence Committee of India and so on were published. I too joined them and my first article entitled “The Dying Lake”, was promptly published with photographs and all. It was an outright criticism of the way the Upper Lake, a great asset of the city, was being managed.

My honeymoon with the Hindustan Times continued for over five years till that editor left. Since then the editorial policy seems to have changed and the paper wouldn’t publish unsolicited articles. Even the Times of India, which later started publishing from the town, adopted similar policy. It was not clear whether this posture of the newspapers was adopted of their own accord or the management received directions from the local government. Now, however, it seems the print media is under threat of losing government ads were it ever to publish comments and opinion pieces that happen to be against it.

So we, all of us who happen to have opinions of our own and can ventilate them in our writings were effectively gagged. For some time, I was terribly annoyed and peeved but could do nothing about it. Everyone who used to read my columns would ask why I discontinued writing. I could only shrug my shoulders and say my lips were effectively sealed. Sadly, the healthy Bhopal supplement that HT used to bring out was scrapped and in its place what they came out with was nothing better than a rag to me. The same goes for the supplement Bhopal Live of the ToI – having more of Bollyood news than of Bhopal.

Print media, whether managed by corporate world or run on their own juice, are financially very vulnerable. While private sector ads seem to be running riot these days yet most of the papers hugely depend on government advertisements. Government is, therefore, a great beneficent for the promoters of print media. Scarce is a newspaper that cares little for the government ads. The net result is that a reader has no way to have his opinion published.

Most people would have noticed that even the column of “Letters to the editor” has been scrapped.  What has been provided is space for a measly few words through what they call “feedback”. So, even if one boils within with rage one cannot communicate it to the people through opinion pieces or letters to the editor

Guha very rightly says that the dependence of media on government advertisements is especially “acute in the regional and sub-regional press. The State and political parties can and do coerce, suppress and put barriers in the way of independent reporters and reportage.” Quite logically, therefore, the guillotine fell on us and we were all gagged. Our freedom of expression flew out of the window, forcing many of us to move over to social media. — INFA

ATTACK ON MANIPUR CM RAISES MANY QUESTIONS

By Barun Das Gupta

Manipur Chief Minister Okhram Ibobi Singh and some of his senior colleagues survived an abortive attempt on their lives earlier this week by Naga rebels suspected to belong to the NSCN(IM) faction. The rebel outfit, which entered into a cesefire agreement with the Centre decades ago, has been demanding a greater Nagalim which should include Naga-inhabited areas of States neighbouring Nagaland, including four Naga-inhabited districts of Manipur, namely, Ukhrul, Tamenglong, Chandel and Senapati. Naturally, all the concerned States – Assam, Manipur and Arunachal –  are dead against ceding any territory to the proposed Nagalim.

The attack on Ibobi was daring and exposes the negligence of those who are responsible for the security of the VIPs. Ibobi, Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam, Forest Minister Hemchandra, Deputy Speaker Preshow Simray and Parliamentary Secretary Victor Keishing landed in a helicopter at the Bakshi helipad at Ukhrul town, the headquarters of the Ukhrul district. Ibobi had come to inaugurate a number of official projects like the 100-bed Ukhrul district hospital, high voltage power sub-stations and some government offices.

The rebel attack came in the midst of a boycott call issued by the Tangkhul Naga Long. (The Nagas of Ukhrul district belong to the Tangkhul tribe.) The TNL had also imposed a day-long ‘public curfew’ in the town. What happened when the VIP chopper landed was indeed unthinkable. The rebels opened fire when the Chief Minister and his companions were alighting. And this despite the Assam Rifles’ claim that it had brought the entire area under ‘area domination.’

What followed next was stranger still. The Chief Minister was still determined to do the inauguration ceremony that he had come for. He wanted to go to the district hospital. But the road was impassable. The rebels had put burning tyres on a stretch of more than half a kilometer on the road, despite all the vigilance of the authorities. The police failed to disperse the TNL ‘volunteers’ and clear the road. These ‘volunteers’ had lobbed grenades, injuring two jawans. They also burnt some government vehicles The CM had to return to the helipad. As his chopper was airborne, the rebels opened fire again – for the second time. The firing continued for full ten minutes. But the chopper could fly away safely.

The incident has raised a pertinent question. The NSCN(IM) had stopped its armed activities after it signed a ceasefire agreement with the Centre on July 25, 1997. The ceasefire has been in force since then. The armed cadre of the NSCN(IM) have been put in the Hebron camp near Dimpaur, surrounded by the security forces. They have been allowed to retain their arms but are not allowed to leave the camp. Then in August last year, Prime Minister Modi signed another accord with the NSCN(IM) the terms of which have not been disclosed. It is not known whether the accord has satisfied the rebel leaders’ demand for a greater Nagalim or whether the degree of autonomy believed to have been offered to the Nagas has been accepted by them. The question is, in the circumstances, why did the NSCN(IM) indulge in violence?

The Naga insurgency has a chequered history. It was Angami Zapu Phizo, leader of the Naga National Council (NNC) who raised the banner of revolt in then Assam district of Naga Hills, following his failure to open talks with the then Assam Chief Minister Bimala Prasad Chaliha at Shillong. This was in 1953. Next year, 1954, Phizo set up the so-called Hongkhin Government of the ‘Sovereign Republic of Nagaland’. It marked the beginning of the Naga insurgency.

Nagaland was carved out of Assam as a full-fledged State on December 1, 1963. It went a long way to meet the Naga demand of autonomy. But conceding Statehood within the Indian Union did not satisfy Phizo who had by then exiled himself in London. The NNC-led revolt continued till 1975. On November 11 of that year the NNC signed a formal peace accord with the Centre at Shillong.  Clause 3(ii) of the accord said: “It was agreed that the arms, now underground, would be brought out and deposited at appointed places.”

This raised a raging debate in the NNC which was then dominated by the Angamis, the tribe to which Phizo belonged. The other tribes did not agree to surrendering their arms. To them this was ‘betrayal’ of the Naga cause and ‘surrender’ to India. They decided to carry on the struggle. Five years later, in January, 1980, Isak Chishi Swu, Thuinggaleng Muivah and S. S. Khaplang formed the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) to continue the fight for Naga sovereignty.

Later, Khaplang fell out with Swu and Muivah and after a fratricidal war in which many were killed, the NSCN was split on April 30, 1988, into two factions: NSCN(IM) and NSCN(K). Subsequently, both groups signed ceasefire agreements separately but last year, Khaplang unilaterally ended the ceasefire. Still later, in April last year, two colleagues of Khaplang, Y. Wangtin Konyak and P. Tikhak, broke away from Khaplang and floated their own outfit – the NSCN(Reformation). The ostensible cause of the split was the repudiation of the ceasefire agreement by Khaplang.

As the latest attack on the Manipur Chief Minister shows, despite fragmentation in the  rebel ranks, Naga insurgency is very much alive and a comprehensive peace accord involving all groups and factions and paving the way for permanent peace still remains elusive.

(IPA Service)