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

The Quint’s compilation of the best op-eds for your Sunday reading.

Nothing like your morning cuppa and a newspaper on a Sunday. 

(Photo Courtesy: iStock)

1. Mandatory Versus Voluntary Patriotism

In his column for the Hindustan Times, historian Ramachandra Guha weighs in on the raging debate on whether or not to play the national anthem at movie halls. Guha argues that historically the national anthem was reserved for and played only on “special and solemn occasions’’. He invokes the example of JRD Tata, who was a critic of playing anthems at movie halls, to illustrate the meaning of true patriotism- one that is robust and spontaneous, rather than organised and coerced.

It is now a year since the playing of the national anthem has been made mandatory in cinema halls. In the first week of the order’s implementations, reports came in of elderly people as well as foreigners being beaten up by vigilantes for not standing up for the anthem. Since it is many years since the last India-Pakistan war, questions were asked as to why this practice was necessary to maintain a spirit of patriotism. Why must a place for simple and harmless entertainment be made a theatre for hyper-nationalism?

Ramachandra Guha in Hindustan Times

2. The Jury Is Out On Gains From The Note Ban

Veteran journalist Karan Thapar analyses the hits and misses of the noteban, one year on. In his column for the Hindustan Times, Thapar discusses the objectives of the noteban as laid down by the Prime Minister on the 8th of November and examines if they have been fulfilled. While black money has been identified and will be taxed, what proportion of the total black money in circulation is back in the system is what Thapar questions. He opines that in terms of curbing counterfeit currency, tackling terror funding and bolstering the shift to digital payments, the process of demonestisation probably did not fulfill its objectives.

So you can’t say demonetisation has fulfilled its objectives. But there’s also the well-established economic cost in terms of growth, jobs and human suffering. Growth has collapsed to 5.7% and, perhaps over a millions jobs lost. This raises the deeper question: was demonetisation worth it? The Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections suggested the initial answer was yes. But is that changing? We have 18 months before the next election to find out.

Karan Thapar in Hindustan Times

3. GST Unravels, Quick Fixes Not The Answer

In his weekly column for The Indian Express, P. Chidambaram hits out at the government for what he says is the ill-conceived version of the “original GST’’ as recommended by the Chief Economic Advisor. Chidambaram contends that the GST was rolled out with a number of niggles and that the government is now in quick-fix mode to fix them so that a “tax-problem’’ does not turn into a “political problem”.

I counted 27 reduction of rates; 7 prescription of rates; 22 exemptions; one waiver; and 15 extensions of time. The 11th Amendment to the GST rule was made on 28 October, 2017. Many of the changes were to correct obvious errors in the design and structure, especially the provisions concerning small and medium enterprises.

P. Chidambaram in The Indian Express

4. Pogroms And Politics

Pogroms don’t hurt the political parties that are responsible for it, but rather accrue political dividends for them, argues Mukul Kesavan, in his column for The Telegraph. Kesavan uses the examples of Assam, Delhi, Bombay and Gujarat to illustrate how parties that were responsible for the worst riots in these areas came back to power- be it the Congress in 1984 or the BJP in 2002. There are two things that came out of the violence caused by the riots in the country in the two decades from 1983 to 2002, he says. One, that violence can used as an effective means of political mobilisation if invoked along the lines of a ‘Hindu grievance’ and two, a realisation of the impunity with which this violence could be inflicted because of the existing biases within the civil administration against the minority community.

The Congress won the largest mandate in India’s electoral history after Congressmen helped murder thousands of Sikhs in Delhi in 1984. Forty nine per cent of the vote. Four hundred and four seats. This wasn’t the accidental outcome of a tragedy; the Congress milked the pogrom in its election campaign. The Rediffusion advertisements that Rajiv Gandhi ran asked potential voters to vote for the Congress if their taxi driver made them nervous. Why? Because Sikhs were often taxi drivers and the Congress, as the pogrom demonstrated, had a way with Sikhs. Congressmen accused of leading or organizing the violence remained members of parliament, ministers and senior party functionaries for decades after the pogrom.

Mukul Kesavan in The Telegraph

5. A Meltdown

In his weekly column for The Indian Express, Meghnad Desai talks about the meltdown in institutions across the world that we have witnessed in the last few weeks. He begins with the plunge in the British administration and state-of-affairs which he says took a downward turn after the end of Cameron and the advent of May. He talks about the Harvey Weinstein scandal, the #Metoo trend and Kevin Spacey and observes that women will not remain silent anymore if they are exploited. But, how long will we have to wait before India joins this revolution?

The Metoo hashtag has now gone viral. Other men have been named as taking advantage of their staff or journalists. The issue is unsuitable behaviour. If you have consent, then your behaviour is admissible but if there is no consent, then there is no defence of misbehaviour even if the woman in question had a ‘loose’ reputation.

Meghnad Desai in The Indian Express

6. Cracks In The Facade

In the Fifth Column, her weekly column for The Indian Express, Tavleen Singh talks about the emerging cracks in Prime Minister Modi’s image that are coming to the fore after three and a half years of his leadership. The fact that Rahul Gandhi is gaining eyeballs in Gujarat in spite of there being no new, visible change in the Congress party is what Singh believes should trouble the Prime Minister. She criticises the government’s handling of the new tax regime and also the BJP’s inordinate focus on issues such as ‘love jihad’, which she believes is responsible for the uncomfortable questions that are now being asked to PM Modi.

What should worry the Prime Minister is that Rahul Gandhi is attracting so much notice without a hint of renewal in the Congress party or his ideas. To mock Modi for demonetisation and GST is not enough. Nor is it to arrive on Gujarat and hope to win a few extra seats by luring newly minted caste leaders into the fold. An old, old COngress tactic at election time. Other than this, he offers voters not a single new political or economic idea. And yet the Congress seems to have more steam in its engine in the Prime Minister’s home state than it had for a very long time.

Tavleen Singh in The Indian Express

7. Bharat Was Swachh Many Millenia Ago

In her column for The Statesman, Kabita Ray talks about the fascinating sanitation system during the Indus Valley civilization arguing that India has had the culture of sanitization for many, many years. She offers a detailed look at the exact system of waste disposal in the Harappan civilization. Did you know that almost every Harappan house had a toilet? We didn’t either.

Although rivers provided water for drinking and bathing purposes for some inhabitants, wells and reservoirs were also built in the Indus cities depending of geographical setting. At Mohenjo Daro, numerous wells ten to fifteen metres deep were dug throughout the city. These were lined with special wedge-shaped bricks. More of the houses or blocks of houses had private wells usually near the entrance. There were also public wells along the main street for the general public. That water purity and pollution had become an important problem is evident from the abundance of private wells as opposed to public wells.

Kabita Ray in The Statesman

8. Taj Mahal: History Or Heritage?

Dipankar Gupta attempts to answer questions on the historicity of the Taj Mahal in his piece for the The Times Of India. Gupta draws a distinction between history and heritage. History, he says, is a patriarchal narrative that is about rulers and their subjects, whereas heritage is about the ordinary people. Unlike history, heritage is not war or policy-driven. It proceeds in peace. Is the Taj Mahal history or heritage? Well, that depends on who is reading its history.

Is Taj Mahal then history or heritage? Is it beautiful because a powerful ruler ordered it be made or because of the magic that craftspeople created? These workers had gathered from different parts of India, as well as from Central Asia and Turkey and it is here that Islamic and Hindu motifs merged. In none of this was the throne involved. Makrana marble came from Rajasthan, jade and crystal from China, jasper from Punjab, and sapphire from Sri Lanka.

Dipankar Gupta in Times Of India

9. Inside Track

To end your Sunday, here’s Comi Kapoor’s tongue-in-cheek column for the Indian Express where she talks about the Pidi sensation, Prime Minister Modi’s amicable avatar at the BJP’s annual Diwali milan, presidential elections for the Congress and more. Pidi adds to the long list of politicians and their friendly canines says Kapoor, preceded in fame by Vajpayee’s Apso, Arun Nehru’s hound and Sitaram Kesri’s Pomeranians, who would travel to India Gate in an AC car for their ice-cream treats!

Rahul Gandhi’s pet dog Pidi became an overnight sensation following his master’s jocular tweet. Specially as former Congressman Himanta Biswa Sarma was quick to tweet back that Pidi was the same frisky Fox Terrier whom Rahul was preoccupied feeding biscuits to when he should have been discussing the political crisis in Assam.  A greivance shared by a number of Congress leaders. Pidi joins a list of pets closely associated with their political masters.

Comi Kapoor for The Indian Express

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