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ALL THAT MATTERS
Blowing in the
wind: A Modi
victory in UP
I wanted to make old Norse myths
more appealing to modern readers
The writing of Neil Gaiman spans so many genres, from
comic strips to noir fantasy and books for young adults, that
it is hard to pigeonhole him. Gaiman is now completing his
new project called Norse Gods, a retelling of Norse myths.
He spoke to Abheek Barman over the phone from London
about his work, collaborations and influences
SWAMINOMICS
SWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR
It’s often said that all politics is local. Voters in eastern Uttar Pradesh may not vote
like those in other parts of this giant
state. Yet a trip through eastern UP suggests such strong support for the BJP that
it will surely win.
At the grassroots, local issues usually dominate. But
once in a while a national wind blows everything else
away. That wind today is Narendra Modi. His national
sweep in 2014 was followed by electoral disasters in state
elections in Delhi and Bihar in 2015. The Modi wind
seemed to be dying. But it has revived with a vengeance.
Demonetisation (or DeMo) last November was berated by critics as a human and economic disaster, and
even as despotic (by Amartya Sen). They gleefully awaited a voter revolt. The very opposite has happened. After
DeMo, the BJP has swept local elections across India.
In Maharashtra, a traditional Congress stronghold
where the BJP was historically the junior partner of the
Shiv Sena, the BJP captured eight of 10 municipal corporations. In Gujarat, the BJP won 107 of 123 municipalities and panchayats. In the Chandigarh local election,
the party won 21 of 26 seats. In Faridabad, Haryana, it
got 30 of 40 seats. In Odisha, it made enormous strides
to oust the Congress from second position and pose a
challenge to four-time chief minister Naveen Patnaik.
If a wind is blowing from Maharashra and Gujarat
through Punjab and Haryana into Odisha, can UP be immune? No, politics in UP today is not local. There is little
support for any local BJP leader. The chant you hear
everywhere is “Modi, Modi, Modi.”
For many liberals, Modi is the mass killer of 2002,
beyond the moral pale. These liberals today struggle to
cope with the reality that Modi has captured the high
moral ground, and can sneer at liberal critics while the
crowds roar approval. In one speech, Modi boasted that
after denunciations by intellectuals from Harvard (read
Amartya Sen), GDP data showed no negative impact of
DeMo. The crowd guffawed when he said hard work mattered more than Harvard.
Earlier, opponents galore had denounced DeMo. “Demonetisation catastrophe.” “Modi Digs Ditch for BJP.”
“Core Insensitivity to the Poor and Rural Masses.” “The
poor have to pay for the money laundering of the rich.”
I myself wrote that DeMo would barely touch the stock
of old black money, would not stop fresh black money
generation without major additional reforms, and had
caused much short-term pain to small enterprises and
SUNDAY TIMES OF INDIA, MUMBAI
MARCH 5, 2017
HIGH GROUND: The crowd guffawed when Modi said hard
work mattered more than Harvard
casual labourers. I still expect that when revised GDP
data come in next year, covering small enterprises excluded in last week’s estimate, that economic growth will
show a significant fall.
But such economic analysis fails totally to capture
the moral dimension of DeMo. It is first and foremost a
political move to capture the political high ground, by
taking on the dishonest rich in a blunt way that no professed socialists and communists have done. It has
strengthened Modi’s charisma, that intangible characteristic that defies easy definition but is enormously
powerful, like that of a rock star.
Most rural voters say DeMo did not hit them, only the
wealthy. Urban retailers say business was hit for two
months but has revived. All say Modi is the only politician
serious about catching the dishonest and transforming
the status quo. They don’t know the many ways in which
DeMo was bungled. But after seeing a cavalcade of politicians who swear by the poor and then enrich themselves, they see in Modi a politician from a poor family
who has remained personally poor, has no greedy relatives exploiting his position, and is serious about economic development.
My fellow columnist Aakar Patel wrote a perceptive
column recently saying Modi was by far India’s most
credible politician. His charisma rivals that of Indira
Gandhi and Nehru, who remained popular for decades
despite glaring failures. Modi too can shrug off failures
like job stagnation and implementation bungles in
DeMo. Aakar is an articulate, vocal critic of Modi. Yet
he says, “The BJP will remain the dominant party in
India for a long time. And those who do not like it or its
policies must face up to this fact.”
Aakar says Modi will survive even if he loses in UP.
I agree, but must add that Modi will almost certainly
win in UP, paving the way for re-election as Prime Minister in 2019.
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Through much of your work,
whether Sandman, American
Gods or Good Omens, gods and
godlike characters mix easily
with people and historical characters like Shakespeare. What will your
forthcoming Norse Gods explore?
It will be a retelling of the Poetic Edda,
which is a long cycle of poems in Old
Norse. In Iceland, these poems were preserved, mostly for and by poets themselves, in the pre-Christian era. But as
Christianity moved from Germany to
Scandinavia and finally to Iceland around
1,000 years ago, with rapid conversion,
the Norse gods and their tales were
threatened. I wanted to bring those stories back for a modern readership.
FOR THE
RECORD
Will this be non-fiction?
Well, for hundreds of years, these stories
were taken as literal truth by those who
told them and heard them, in the sense
that the Bible is taken as literal truth by
Christian believers. These stories were
also guides to survival in a very cold,
harsh world. Their world was very different, say, from the Hellenic world, with
grapes, wine, peacocks, pools and time to
admire your reflection in the water. The
Norse world is relentlessly hostile, it’s a
place that wants to kill you…
That’s a striking thought…
Isn’t it? In Norse, Hel is a place where
people go to die. It’s presided over by a
female deity also called Hel. The Norse
make a distinction between ways of dying. One is to die like most people, in sickness, old age or childbirth; the other, better way to die, is in battle. Fight to the
finish, have fun and meet Odin
in Valhalla. That’s why Thor’s
hammer or his amulet are objects of such veneration in
these tales.
One of your favourite characters seems
to be Loki, because he keeps popping up
in Sandman and American Gods. Is there
a reason?
Oh yes. You see, Loki is a trickster, a
shape-shifter, a character who is hard to
pin down exactly. Sometimes he helps the
gods and sometimes acts in utterly capricious or malevolent ways. He’s also the
father of Hel. I suppose it’s his ambiguity
that makes him interesting.
Will you fictionalise them and put them
in a completely modern setting like in American Gods, or you’ll keep them in their
original context?
Definitely in the original context, but I’ve tried to make these
tales more appealing to modern
readers, who might find some
parts of a straight translation
confusing or find it hard to identify with certain things in the
original Norse context, which is
so far away in time.
Your most popular
work remains Sandman, an ‘intellectual’
comic book that ran
for 75 issues between 1989 and
1996. How did
you work with
around 10 artists
and letterers over such a long time?
Oh, it all started with a chance meeting
at a pub with Dave (McKean, who drew
all the covers). The thing about freelancing and being young — we were both in
our twenties — is you tend to have time
to hang around in places where you expect to meet interesting people. We got
talking and he asked, “What do you do?”
And I said I write, and he said, “Well I’m
an artist.” And then we started collaborating on Sandman. We never expected
it to become the sensation it became.
And how do you find the artists who best
fit the kind of story you want to tell?
Well, initially, it was tough, I mean
the only option was to go and hang
around places where painters and artists
did, go to exhibitions of relatively new
painters. But these days, since I’ve become better known, it works both ways.
I’m often approached by artists to collaborate with them.
For example, sometime ago, I wrote a
book about a princess and a tiger set in
India, called Cinnamon. I wanted an illustrator with Indian sensibilities and lo
and behold, I discovered Divya Srinivasan who did a wonderful job.
Finally, how important an influence has
the work of (mythographer) Joseph
Campbell been for you?
Oh, when I was doing Sandman,
I would refer a lot to his Masks
of God volumes. He is an utterly
brilliant, original mind, and he
spans so many cultures and
their myths. But then I read
about a third of his The Hero
With A Thousand Faces, which is
all about the Hero archetype, and I thought, “No,
I’m not going to let his
concepts overpower
me. If I’m going to
create heroes, I’ll
create my own.”
But of course, his
knowledge, erudition and writing
is brilliant.
Photo: Kimberly Butler
What out-of-control Delhi University colleges can learn from uncool IITs
THE UNDERAGE OPTIMIST
CHETAN BHAGAT
Several decades ago, as students
of IIT Delhi, my friends and I
used to be insanely jealous of
Delhi University colleges. Not
only did they have a better female-to-male ratio than us, their colleges were far
more relaxed when it came to discipline.
The IITs kept us in the grind. We had over 40 class
tests, quizzes and mid-term tests every semester, all
of which counted towards our grade point average.
Class attendance was strictly monitored, and sometimes even contributed to our final score.
Meanwhile, our friends at DU couldn’t party
enough. They rarely attended classes. College for
them meant doing adda in the campus lawns. Barring a handful of elite DU colleges (say Stephen’s
and SRCC), academics was second priority.
Apart from rigour, IITs were also at a different
level when it came to enforcing discipline. Any
significant act of student indiscipline — skipping
too many classes, breaking into a professor’s office
to steal a paper (yes, it has happened), vandalism
or inappropriate behaviour with women — met
with one fate, the infamous DisCo or Disciplinary
Committee. The DisCo never spares, used to be the
adage. DisCo punishment could mean expulsion
from IIT, which meant a dark future.
Hence, IIT students had a reputation for being
disciplined. We did have fun, including doing some
barely legal stuff. However, we also paid attention
to academics. And we never crossed a certain line
even when it came to mischievous fun.
DU students, of course, had no such restraint.
They even had time for politics, and took campus
elections seriously. Youth wings of national political
parties dominated DU elections. There was something cool about student leaders, bands around their
foreheads, screaming about change. Joining bus-
Where and wear of travelling
in the time of Trump
POLITICALLY INCORRECT
SHOBHAA DE
I nearly cancelled our carefully
planned vacation this month.
Simply because I didn’t know
what the hell to pack! I sort of
figured what not to pack — we’ll
come to that later. But even before the suitcase was
taken down from the loft, and the woollies located,
I decided to scan my passport...just in case. This
precaution was taken after a long conversation with
a highly distressed lady from Hyderabad who was
in tears talking about her young daughter’s recent
trauma as she tried to go back to her university in
America after her spring break. She had a couple
of semesters left to finish, all her papers were in
place. And yet, she was turned back from the airport when she landed in New York. Her mother was
in tears and wondering what to do about the various
INCREDIBLE INDIA: If Trumpland’s off your bucket
list, try going local. Discover the Gir lion
stamps on the family’s visa pages. Yes, they had
been to Syria on a pilgrimage. Iraq, too. Another
lady helpfully suggested this solution: “Why not
claim your daughter has lost her passport and apply
for a new one?” Some of the others narrated similar problems and warned me to “be careful”. What
does that even mean? ‘Be careful’ about what? My
surname? My appearance? Something else?
My surname has caused a few embarrassing moments in the past, particularly in Europe, where I
would be asked, “De? How can that be your family
name? De WHAT?” I’d smile and say, “Just De. De
nothing!” I’d get the European shrug and be waved
through. Well, not always. I have had to step aside a
countless number of times because my physical
features confused computer screens. From, “Are you
related to Benazir Bhutto? There is a resemblance.
Have you ever lived in Pakistan?” to a more direct,
“You must be from the Middle East originally. Lebanese? Syrian? Please come this way...” Not fun.
London creates its own challenges these days.
Wearing a saree (unless you are Sushma Swaraj)
gets you rude stares in certain areas. Placing a
bindi in the centre of your forehead is asking for
target practice. Wearing a loose tunic with a Peshawari shalwar? Forget it! Even a more traditional salwar-suit attracts the occasional, “Bloody
Paki... go home!” jibe. Since I don’t wear Hillary
Clinton-style pant-suits, and I don’t possess Melania Trump’s amazing silhouette to be able to
carry off fitted, super chic, powder-blue couture,
I am stumped. I hate blue jeans. I have never worn
‘frocks’ – well, not after leaving school at any rate,
so what do I pack without attracting trouble?
Our weather-friendly chappals are a no-no.
Open-toed sandals are permissible during summers in Capri. But the sight of bare feet deeply
offends people in certain cultures. Open hair is
another bugbear. Keeping my hair loose, without
pinning or clipping the somewhat wild and unkempt strands is unacceptable to some — only
wayward and wanton women do that (no problem,
baby!). I have to avoid baring my arms, too. Or
make sure I have a scarf handy to cover my exposed shoulders. A hat is always a good idea. But
a hat with a saree?
And that’s only the ‘look test’. Then comes the
inquisition. Since my passport pages do feature
stamps of interesting destinations, I’d better prep
myself for some intense questioning. It won’t be
enough to state frankly I went to XYZ place because
I was attracted to its magnificent architecture/
food/ bazaars. It’s come to a point where I might be
advised by a boorish immigration officer to stay
home and watch travel shows on television instead
of visiting countries Donald Trump does not approve of and may wish to bomb in the near future.
There are thousands of eager, adventurous
people like me, who are rethinking their plans to
discover places which have featured on their
bucket list for decades. Travel in the time of
Trump has taken on a whole new meaning. Meanwhile, the lady from Hyderabad is still struggling
to find a solution. Her daughter’s education is in
a state of limbo. There is one hell of a lot of serious
money that seems to have gone down the drain.
Even if America gets struck off many lists as a
favourite tourist destination, Europe is only going
to get tougher for us. What an irony! Much of Europe is borderline broke. As is Britain. They can
do with our Indian rupees at this juncture. Phir
bhi, they display such exaggerated ‘mizaaj’.
So, my friends, the writing is on the wall. The
same one Trump is building. Stay home. Plan a
Bharat darshan this summer. DeMo your nationalistic pride. Discover the Gir lion. Make out in
India. Honeymoon travels ke achhe din are here
again. Nothing like a Made in India baby to
strengthen this great country of ours!
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loads of students, roaming from college to college
campaigning seemed far more fun than preparing
for the next Applied Mechanics quiz.
IIT had student body elections too, but it was a
low-key affair. Even posters weren’t allowed on
campus. Our politics was limited to cute horsetrading between hostels, a far cry from the highly
charged atmosphere at DU.
We IITians weren’t as cool as DU in some ways.
However, we can safely say this — our students did
really well and got great jobs. And this is what they
came to campus for. We also did not have the ugly
violence that occurs in DU from time to time, as it
did in Ramjas College recently.
We endlessly discuss the Ramjas incident, although we focus on the wrong issues. We make it
about tolerance vs intolerance, ABVP vs AISA, right
vs left, BJP vs Congress, and ultimately what every
political debate in India gets reduced to — pro-Modi
vs anti-Modi. It’s stupid. For the key issue is this
— DU is out of control. The current management,
INBOX
Censoring the censor
The interview with Alankrita Shrivastava
reflects the Stone Age mindset of the
officials dealing with film certification
(‘The CBFC never faces any real
repercussions for its decisions’, Feb 26).
Her film, Lipstick Under My Burkha,
should have been barred for children
below 12 years and open to all others.
The CBFC should be reformed and all its
obsolete members retired.
S C Vaid, New Delhi
* * *
Refusing certification to a film and
dubbing it ‘lady centric’ is obnoxious and
unnerving. The govt’s muted response so
far is not helping matters. It must sack
the CBFC board; if anyone deserves to be
banned it’s Pahlaj Nihalani, not the movie.
Ashok Goswami, Chennai
Advantage BJP
One must concur with Swapan
Dasgupta’s view that the BJP is gaining
strength with every election, as reflected
by its excellent showing in the recent
civic elections in Maharashtra and
Odisha (ATM, Feb 26). The opposition
parties were expecting demonetisation
to spell doom for the ruling party. But
now it appears that Narendra Modi’s
policies are getting a thumbs-up from
voters, leaving the opposition clutching
at straws.
C V Aravind, Bengaluru
Courtly language?
Malini Nair’s article on the use of Urdu in
Indian courts was an enjoyable read for a
budding lawyer like me (Sunday Special,
Feb 26). The fact that the legalese we
lawyers unthinkingly use in courts has
such a rich heritage was a pleasant
discovery. However, it does tend to make
the law inaccessible to many sections
of society. I remember reading an FIR
that was peppered with Urdu words, and
it was all Greek to me! Urdu words and
poetry definitely have aesthetic value,
but in matters of the law, it is
comprehensibility that matters most.
Shyam Rajan, New Delhi
Email the editor at
[email protected]
with ‘Sunday Mailbox’ in the subject line.
Please mention your name and city
and that includes the V-C, the dean and the various
college principals, simply cannot keep DU in check.
We have a university that gets the best students, yet
has little regard for academic rigour or discipline.
More than 95% students who come to DU just
want to study and have a good future. The failure
to control the remaining 5% goons is harming the
university’s reputation, the atmosphere on campus
and risking the future of all who study there. This
can be fixed if there is a will to do so.
Why do we have a system where it is okay to
not attend classes while you can mug up for exams at the end of the year? Why are the disciplinary committees so lax? How many students have
been expelled from DU for engaging in violence
in the past few years? Why are people who don’t
study in a particular college hanging about in
the college canteen? Is it a college or an adda?
Why does all this happen at DU, but not at the
IITs, IIMs, NDA or AIIMS?
There is nothing inherently wrong in students
having political views or even an interest in politics.
The line is crossed when there are violent threats
or actual violence. It is then that immediate, hard
action must be taken so nobody tries such a stunt
again. Students must be kept busy through the duration of their course. And outsiders have no business hanging around the campus.
It is about time people who claim to be running
DU actually took charge and prevented this great
university from going out of control. As for the
students, the best advice would be to focus on your
studies and your future. It is good to have views
on national issues. However, don’t do it at the expense of deviating from your own life goals. Never allow yourself to be used by the media or politicians and mess up your career in the process.
Make the most of college life, and that is when you
use it to make your future.
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Why Viru has a right to be
wrong about Gurmehar
THE RATIONALIST
AMIT VARMA
The other day, an internet troll sent
me a love letter. “Why have you
blocked me on Twitter?” he demanded to know. “You claim to believe in the freedom of expression.
You are a hypocrite.” After that he said a few colourful things about my family. I think he wanted me to
copulate with them.
I am an absolutist when it comes to free speech,
and this friendly troll was wrong. Indeed, I find that
there is no concept as deeply misunderstood today
as the right to free speech. These misunderstandings
exist on all sides of the political spectrum. Thus, I
find myself duty-bound to write this brief primer on
the philosophical origins of free speech, to illustrate
what I understand it to be.
The earliest conception of individual rights came
from the 17th century Enlightenment philosopher,
John Locke. Locke held that the most fundamental
right of all, the one from which all others emerged,
was the right to self-ownership. After all, it is practically self-evident and beyond argument that, right
from birth, all of us own ourselves.
All individual rights arise out of this right to selfownership. The right to life. The right to our thoughts,
and thus to our speech. The right to our actions, which
also results in the right to property. And so on. Freedom, another misunderstood term, means a condition
in which these rights are not infringed.
All of our rights are contingent to our respecting
the corresponding rights (and thus, freedom) of others. My fist stops where your nose begins, as that old
saying goes. Libertarians also call this the non-aggression principle, where aggression is defined as
infringing someone’s rights. You may do anything as
long as there is no coercion involved.
By this reckoning, all voluntary interactions between consenting adults are kosher, as long as they do
not infringe on anyone else’s rights. This holds true,
as I often point out, whether those interactions happen
in the marketplace or in the bedroom. Both the left
and the right are thus incoherent when they support
one kind of voluntary exchange but not the other.
In accordance with the non-aggression principle,
the core question I ask myself in any situation is:
Where is the coercion? Looked at this way, many of
the questions that keep getting raised about free
speech answer themselves. Am I infringing on the
rights of the troll I block? No, because there is no
coercion involved. He is still free to say whatever he
wants, but he is not entitled to my time and attention.
Is a college within its rights to withdraw an invitation
to a speaker? Yes, it’s their property, and the speaker
can still express himself elsewhere.
If people have a right to free speech, though, it
doesn’t mean that all free speech is right. Virender
Sehwag had a right to mock Gurmehar Kaur for her
courageous video earlier this week, just as I have a
right to find his mockery tasteless, and my friendly
troll has a right to call me names for it. We all have
a right to be wrong, including the trolls who try to
have a chilling effect on free speech with their constant abuse. The truth is, only the government can
shut down free speech, and even trolls have a right
to abuse. (Do note that Twitter would also be within
its rights to ban trolls, who are using their property
after agreeing to certain terms of use.)
When it comes to our actions, there is much that
we can do that can harm others. But it is very hard
to breach the non-aggression principle with words
alone. As that old adage goes, “Sticks and stones
may break my bones, but words will never harm
me.” Recognising this, the first amendment of the
US constitution protects free speech in absolute
terms. Obviously, words can be used to incite physical violence, and that is a reasonable limit of free
speech. The US Supreme Court, in a famous case
THAT F-WORD: The Indian constitution does not protect
free speech. Article 19(2) lays out caveats such as
‘public order’ and ‘decency and morality’, which are
open to misinterpretation and misuse
(Brandeburg vs Ohio, 1969) set the standard as “imminent lawless action.”
The Indian constitution, sadly, does not protect
free speech. Article 19(2) lays out caveats such as
“public order” and “decency and morality”, which
are open to misinterpretation and, thus, misuse. This
is a pity, but our democracy is a work in progress,
and is made healthier by a free exchange of ideas.
For that reason, I was alarmed when I read Arun
Jaitley’s quote last week about free speech being “subordinate to the needs of the sovereign state”. That is
the wrong way around, and I would argue that a healthy
nation needs an open exchange of ideas, for which free
speech is indispensable. That is why, if I were asked to
compare Arun Jaitley and Umar Khalid, I would say
that it is Jaitley who is anti-national.
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