The Political Fix: The BJP relies heavily on OBC votes. Will it bite the caste census bullet?

 Rohan Venkataramakrishnan   Aug 30

 

BJP votebanks

Where does the BJP stand on the caste census?

The leadership has so far been quiet. It hasn’t encouraged pushback against the demands, either directly or by empowering the BJP’s digital minions to make the argument online – even though plenty of upper castes are firmly opposed to the idea.

In the recently conclued Parliament Session, the BJP’s first speaker in the Lok Sabha on a Constitutional Amendment giving states the power to draw up their own OBC lists openly called for a caste census, which left many others in the party wondering, since the leaership has not endorsed such a call yet.

What could be the reason to oppose a census?

One explained might be the fear of pushback from upper castes, who are a key source of political an economic support for the BJP.

“As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, the top of Indian society remains overwhelmingly upper caste while its bottom has stayed almost entirely lower caste,” wrote Satish Deshpande. “A caste census threatens to push this dimension into the open, making it impossible for the political class to continue to hide behind euphemism and circumvention.”

Equally important is what such a move might do to the non-dominant OBC coalition that the BJP has built. Sanjay Kumar writes,

“The reason why BJP seems reluctant about a caste census may be for fear that the numbers that might come up about different castes, especially the OBC castes, might give a new issue to the regional parties to mount pressure on the ruling party for reshaping the OBC quota in central government jobs and educational institutions. It might result in a situation of Mandal II, giving a new lease of life to many regional parties which otherwise are struggling to find a positive agenda to challenge the BJP that has dominated Indian electoral politics for the last one decade.”

If the BJP were indeed to hand power over to the OBCs in a big way, while folding that effort within its broader anti-Muslim Hindutva narrative, that might serve to deepen the appeal of the party among a huge swathe of the population for even longer. But the actual act of handing over power will involve renegotiating current quotas and reducing the relevance of dominant groups, a complex process with many potential pitfalls, and the potential for competing demands to fell the current dispensation, or at least unsettle its political calculations in the medium term.

This is why governments in the past have preferred to kick this can down the road.

By not coming out openly against the caste census and permitting demands for it from various state leaders, the BJP is clearly suggesting that it recognises the appeal and doesn’t want to be seen as standing in the way. The many appeals from within the party too, which don’t seem to have received censure, imply that it may be calculating a way forward.

 Read full article: The Political Fix - Scrollin

శ్రీ కౌముది సెప్టెంబర్ 2021

 

శ్రీ కౌముది ఆగస్ట్ 2021

 

శ్రీ కౌముది జూలై 2021

 

Sri Koumudi జూన్ 2021

 

Sri Koumudi మే 2021

 

How the colonisation of India influenced global food

 The British, French, Portuguese, Dutch and Danes; India was colonised by many countries and each had an influence on its produce and cuisines. But less is known about the impact India has had on the food of its colonisers.

 

 The Indian dish khichdi, left, inspired the British dish kedgeree, right [Ruth Dsouza Prabhu/Al Jazeera]
 

By Ruth Dsouza Prabhu
1 Apr 2021

“Lunch is ready,” I called out to my husband and daughter, setting the serving dish down on the dining table. On cue, Anoushka, my 14-year-old, reached out to open the lid to check what was inside.

We were having khichdi – mashed lentils, diced vegetables and rice topped with caramelised onions. “Did you know that the British kedgeree (a mix of rice, flaked fish and boiled eggs) is inspired by our khichdi?” Anoushka asked, drizzling spoonfuls of ghee (clarified butter) onto the khichdi on her plate.

She was studying the colonial history of India for her upcoming exams and trivia was her way of making the subject easier. I did know the khichdi-kedgeree connection. I am sure there are more, I replied. “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could find out what Indian dishes were behind some of the colonisers’ cuisine and cook them?” the budding chef asked excitedly.

It was a great idea. We agreed to split the work – after all, she still had to study for finals – I would research the dishes and tell her stories about them, and she would do the cooking.

Read full article: ALJAZEERA

శ్రీ కౌముది ఏప్రిల్ 2021

 

'I Cannot Be Intimidated. I Cannot Be Bought.' The Women Leading India’s Farmers’ Protests

Kiranjit Kaur, far left, came to the Tikri protest site from Talwandi, Punjab, on Feb. 23 with a group of 20 women, including her mother-in-law and children. “It is important for all women to come here and mark their presence in this movement. I have two daughters, and I want them to grow up into the strong women they see here.” Kanishka Sonthalia for TIME

 World . India

Text by Nilanjana Bhowmick | Photographs by Kanishka Sonthalia for TIME
March 4, 2021 9:00 PM EST

The message to women was clear: Go back home. Since November, hundreds of thousands of farmers had gathered at different sites on the outskirts of the Indian capital to demand the repeal of three agricultural laws that they say would destroy their livelihoods. In January, as the New Delhi winter set in, the Chief Justice of India asked lawyers to persuade elderly people and women to leave the protests. In response, women farmers—mostly from the rural states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh—scrambled onto stages, took hold of microphones and roared back a unanimous “No!”

“Something snapped within us when we heard the government tell the women to go back home,” says Jasbir Kaur, a sprightly 74-year-old farmer from Rampur in western Uttar Pradesh. It’s late February and Kaur has been camping at the Ghazipur protest site for over three months, only returning home once. She was stung by the court’s suggestion that women were mere care workers providing cooking and cleaning services at these sites—though she does do some of that work—rather than equal stakeholders. “Why should we go back? This is not just the men’s protest. We toil in the fields alongside the men. Who are we—if not farmers?”

Read full article: https://time.com/5942125/women-india-farmers-protests/

శ్రీ కౌముది మార్చి 2021

 

శ్రీ కౌముది ఫిబ్రవరి 2021

 

Dirty air and lost pregnancies in South Asia

 

 

 

 

 

Mothers in India discuss breastfeeding. (Credit: Russell Watkins/Department for International Development)   

Jan 07, 2021

Particulate matter pollution in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh could be behind hundreds of thousands of stillbirths and miscarriages annually, according to a new study.

Brian Bienkowski

More than 349,000 lost pregnancies each year in South Asia are linked to excessive air pollution, according to a new study in The Lancet Planetary Health journal.

The research builds on previous evidence that small particulate matter pollution (PM2.5) can harm developing fetuses. The study is the first to estimate the air pollution burden on South Asian women and suggests that the excessive pollution may be responsible for up to 7 percent of pregnancy loss in the region from 2000 to 2016.

"South Asia has the highest burden of pregnancy loss globally and is one of the most PM2.5 polluted regions in the world," lead author, Dr. Tao Xue, a researcher at China's Peking University, said in a statement. "Poor air quality could be responsible for a considerable burden of pregnancy loss in the region."

Xue and colleagues collected health and household survey data from 1998-2016 from women in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh who had at least one lost pregnancy and one livebirth. They also estimated the women's exposure to PM2.5.

PM2.5 consists of toxic airborne particles much tinier than the width of a human hair, and is linked to a variety of health impacts including respiratory and heart problems, and altered brain development for children. It also affects proper development of the embryo in mothers' wombs and, along with other pollutants such as carbon monoxide, has been associated with stillbirths and spontaneous abortions.

They modeled the risk for each woman for every 10 micrograms per cubic meter increase of PM2.5, and used this risk to look at the whole region from 2000 to 2016, estimating how many lost pregnancies could have been prevented with cleaner air.

Each 10 microgram per cubic meter increase in PM2.5 was linked to a 3 percent increase in the likelihood of a lost pregnancy, with the greatest risk for older women, those in rural areas, or young women from large cities. The researchers estimate for every year from 2000 to 2016 about 349,681 lost pregnancies were associated with air pollution exceeding India's regulatory standards for PM2.5. This represents 7 percent of the total lost pregnancies in the region over that period.

When air pollution exceeded the more rigorous World Health Organization standards, such exposure was linked to 29 percent of the pregnancy losses.

"Our findings suggest that a considerable proportion of the pregnancy loss burden in South Asia is attributable to exposure to ambient PM2.5 and that improving air quality would promote maternal and infant health globally," the authors wrote.

Previous studies have found similar associations between air pollution and lost pregnancies in California, other parts of the U.S., China, and Africa. However, there's been less data on South Asia, even though it has the highest rate of pregnancy loss in the world. From 2010 to 2015, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh combined for 25 percent of all babies born globally, but accounted for 35 percent (917,800) of stillbirths across the globe.

The impact goes beyond lost pregnancies—a study last month found India's air pollution resulted in 1.67 million deaths in 2019, the largest such toll on the planet.

The new study was limited in that they weren't able to differentiate between natural pregnancy loss and abortions, there could have been bias in women's reporting because of stigma.

However, the implications are enormous, the authors warned, and branch into mental health problems and gender inequality.

"We know losing a pregnancy can have mental, physical and economic effects on women, including increased risk of postnatal depressive disorders, infant mortality during subsequent pregnancy, and increase the costs related to pregnancy, such as loss of labor," co-author Dr. Tianjia Guan from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, said in statement.

"Therefore, reducing pregnancy loss may also lead to improvements in gender equality."

Source: ehn.org

The Political Fix: Why is BJP treating the Supreme Court like a tie-breaker for the farmers protest?

A newsletter on Indian politics and policy from Scroll.in.

Rohan Venkataramakrishnan

The Big Story: Policy by proxy

As 2021 gets under way, after 45 days in the cold and despite eight rounds of talks with the government, tens of thousands of farmers continue their demonstration on the borders of Delhi. The farmers are protesting three agricultural laws passed in controversial manner by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government that seek to deregulate portions of the farming sector.

While the government sold the laws as reforms that would liberate and energise Indian agriculture, the protesters saw them as a gateway to a corporate takeover of farming. The subsequent pushback led to one long-time political ally of the BJP quitting the government and prompted thousands of protesters – Mint says the number is around 200,000 – making their way to the borders of the capital.

For background on the farmer protests, read our earlier articles:

    What you need to know about the chaos in the Rajya Sabha over the farm bills

    Three ways to understand the massive farmer protests taking on Modi in Delhi

    What unites protesting farmers and critics of RBI’s corporate banks proposal?

The protests managed to extract significant concessions from the government in the first two weeks after they began.

But the farmers have been steadfast in their demand that the laws be completely repealed. They are represented by a collection of farm leaders who managed to put aside their other disagreements and profit from a mistake – when Haryana farm leader Gurnam Singh Chaduni broke through police barricades instead of settling at the Haryana-Punjab border as planned.

The eighth round of talks, held on January 8 between the 41-member delegation of protestors and several Union ministers, was a clear indication of just how deadlocked the issue remains.

First, the ministers kept the farm leaders waiting for a half hour, as they have routinely done during negotiations. When talks began, the farmers restated their demand for a full repeal. The government refused. Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar claimed that not all farmers were against the laws – and so the ones who are protesting should stand down.

What followed was heated tempers and raised voices, and no resolution in sight. The farm leaders left, agreeing only to meet again on January 15.

Reports suggested the government did make two proposals to break the deadlock. One was to set up a small informal committee with representatives from both sides that would draw up a non-binding proposal for a way forward. The farmers had already rejected this, demanding that the laws should be repaled before any discussions on how agricultural policy should proceed.

The other was to use the Supreme Court – which is taking up the matter on Monday – as a sort of tiebreaker.

Read full article: scrollin

శ్రీ కౌముది జనవరి 2021

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