Sunday View: The Best Weekend Opinion Reads, Curated Just for You

We sifted through the papers to find the best opinion reads so you wouldn't have to.

Nothing like a cup of coffee and your Sunday morning reads. 

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Indianness is Citizenship, Not Caste

In his column for The Indian Express, P Chidambaram says that equating caste with the Indian identity, or "Indianness", would cause the country to go down a dangerous slope, and would reverse many of the advances which have helped to break down caste prejudices in the country.

He emphasises that Indian identity ought to be associated with citizenship in accordance with the idea of a Republic.

If we equate caste with Indianness, we will find ourselves on a dangerous slope. I have no illusion that caste consciousness or caste-based discrimination will vanish overnight, but there are encouraging trends toward getting rid of the caste system. Urbanisation, industrialisation, television and cinema, open economy, communications, out-migration, and travel (especially foreign travel) are breaking down caste prejudices. To equate Indianness with caste will reverse the progress made in the last few decades.

P Chidambaram

Wages of Languages

In an article for The Times of India, Chidanand Rajghatta reflects on learning multiple languages, both Indian and foreign, throughout his life. "My love for Indian languages has not dulled 25 years away from home," he says.

Rajghatta also says that he embraced 10 languages without any compulsion, and asks why one would try to "shadily sell me a pathetic three-language formula when I happily embraced ten without any compulsion?"

It is foolish on part of the government to force a language down people’s throat. It is also not smart on part of people not to learn more languages: for economic betterment, social mobility, and even health benefits. There is some research showing that learning more languages prevents dementia later in life. Think of it as brain exercise. We live in an age where learning (a) language is ever more easy and doesn’t cost a dime.

Chidanand Rajghatta

Stop This Violence

Tavleen Singh, in her column for The Indian Express, praises Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat for deploring violence as a means to achieve an end, and urging different communities in the country to come together in the spirit of bonhomie.

She also urges Prime Minister Narendra Modi to publicly condemn verbal and physical attacks against minorities, saying:

What is very hard to understand is why it was not the Prime Minister who took the lead in saying something about the deliberate targeting of the Muslim community by his chief ministers, ministers, acolytes, Twitter warriors and party spokesmen. The deliberate targeting of India’s Muslims is the root cause of the violence. There is no point in pretending that it is not, because the world has noticed.

Tavleen Singh

Why They Are Afraid of Jignesh Mevani

In an article for The Indian Express, Suraj Yengde speaks on the incarceration and subsequent release of Gujarat MLA and Dalit activist Jignesh Mevani.

He says that Mevani's arrest highlights the "growing repression by the BJP", and that the latter is afraid of the former, who, despite being an Independent MLA, has a "nationwide reach".

Mevani is a reason for the democratic celebration of an otherwise pessimistic, gloomy India. Even in his arrest, he invites celebration that an entire State machinery had to double down on an MLA living at the other end of the country, about 2,800 km away. It simply shows what the State’s priorities and fears are. It is clear by now that the BJP is afraid of Mevani. And Mevani and his followers like it. It has further ensured his position as an indisputable leader that the country is desperate to embrace.

Suraj Yengde

Legs Matter, More Than They Should

In an article in The Indian Express, Leher Kala argues that it is impossible to keep "female limbs, covered or bare" out of conversations, political and otherwise.

She also condemns the misogyny associated with the dressing choices of women, especially the urban youth, who are entitled to self-expression via clothing, however explicit.

As every woman will attest, it’s unpleasant being ogled at or commented on. There are good reasons why powerful parliamentarians stick to sarees and salwar kameezes even in the dead of winter, when they would be much more comfortable in pants and a jacket. They know if they don’t, they will have to endure insufferable remarks from all and sundry; barbs and ridicule on Twitter is a form of abuse too. More aggravatingly, the dialogue shifts from what they are doing, to what they are wearing. One has to pick one’s battles when the morality police are thriving.

Leher Kala

Who Quit This Space?

Upala Sen, in an opinion piece in The Telegraph, breaks down poll strategist Prashant Kishor's discussions with the Congress Party's leadership in recent weeks. She also speaks on the possible reasons the former declined to join the party, despite reports of a "done deal" between the two sides.

Comparing the situation to a romantic breakup, she says:

Stage 1. The Announcement. Stage 2. The Digestion of it. Stage 3. Giddying analyses of what possibly transpired. Stage 4. BrokenUp Entity A and BrokenUp Entity B go public. A is the first to break the silence and is all goodness and generosity, offering the classic “it’s me, not you” rationale. B, late to speak up, now insists the first move had been A’s. Basically to say, “it’s you, never me”. Kishor has said he “declined the generous offer of Congress to join the party”. In his “humble opinion” more than him, the Congress needs other things, leadership and collective will etc. etc. “He [Kishor] came to us [Congress], we did not go to him,” Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel has said. Stage 5. Business as usual.

Upala Sen

Hind or Hindi?

In an opinion piece in The Telegraph, Mukul Kesavan says that adopting Hindi as the sole national language in India will be in line with the "Soviet/Russian model", in which the elevation and imposition of a dominant language was considered synonymous with patriotism.

He argues that instead of viewing linguistic diversity as a sign of disunity, one must equate it with the strength of a nation.

A pluralist nationalism ducks the task of defining the national ‘self’. Recognizing that in a country as large and as diverse as a subcontinent one size can’t fit all, the republic improvised ways of avoiding the homogenizing definitions that Western constructions of nationalism pressed upon nation states. And thanks to this talent for postponement, republican India laid the spectre of Babel, the fear that linguistic diversity makes a democratic republic incoherent, disunited, unworkable.

Mukul Kesavan

Why Lanka’s Failed Dairy Experiment is Glass Half Full

In an opinion piece in The Indian Express, Nirupama Subramanian reflects on the failure of a joint venture announced between the "milk man of India" Verghese Kurien and the Sri Lankan government in 1997 called "Kiriya" - kiri being the Sinhalese word for milk.

She also says that during the time Kurien ventured into Sri Lanka, the country’s annual milk powder import bill was $60 million. In 2021, however, dairy imports accounted for $317 million of the country's total consumer goods imports of $1.6 billion.

Kiriya was never able to get off the ground. Union action over wages, hours of work, hirings and firings kept the three MILCO processing plants non-operational or functioning at levels much less than their capacity as to make them unsustainable. Influential ruling party politicians controlled the unions.

Nirupama Subramanian

Four Ways to Stop Pay, Pension Bill Eating Up Our Defence Budget

In an article in The Times of India, Pranay Kotasthane says that instead of waiting for a hike in the defence budget to improve military effectiveness, the debate has shifted to the initiation of reforms to optimise available resources.

He puts forth several alternatives to cut costs, including recruiting soldiers for a default short-service term of three to five years, retaining soldiers in the national security system after retirement, and moving incoming soldiers and officers to the National Pension System.

Prioritising these criteria and making the final choice between these alternatives is the government’s prerogative. What will help come to a better decision is bringing economists and the national security community across the table to evaluate these alternatives systematically. It won’t be easy, but the silver lining is that most stakeholders now acknowledge that drifting with the status quo is the worst of all alternatives.

Pranay Kotasthane

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