The Wire Talks

In President Trump’s second term, he has imposed several sanctions against India, starting from 50% tariffs on Indian exports for importing oil from Russia and the latest one of a massive $100,000 fee for new H1B applications. Considering that Indians get 70% of new H1B visas, it will affect professionals from India the most.   What is the reason behind these decisions, especially since many countries, including China, import oil from Russia? Does he have anything against India, more so since he calls Narendra Modi his friend?   “Trump is a bully and he likes strong leaders. ” says Manoj Joshi, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in this candid interview. Also, he says, “India does not offer the kind of business opportunities that China does.” As far as his praise for Pakistan, he has business opportunities with crypto deals there. “Plus, Pakistan. Nominated him for the Nobel Prize. He desperately wants it,” he said to Sidharth Bhatia on the podcast The Wire Talks.    He said the Indian side has chosen not to respond to Trump’s claims, “keeping a discreet silence.” “When we have no leverage, there is no point posturing.” Also, he said, “Indian leaders are not known for taking a courageous stand.”   Joshi also mentioned the huge fee on H1B visas, which, it has been clarified, are only for new applicants. “I don’t think H1B is a closed chapter.”

There has been growing anti-immigration and anti-Indian sentiment in many countries, including in Australia. A Member of Parliament recently claimed that the government was bringing in too many Indians so that they would vote for it.  The government criticised her and her own party demoted her status. A government report in 2021 called Indians a “national asset”. “The educated people and those in white collar jobs know this, but the rest of the populace does not,” says Surjeet Dhanji, an academic fellow at the Australia India Institute and a scholar of migration. “But when you have the Liberal party saying we need to cap migration or cap international students, and when Indians are among the leading numbers of migrants, what kind of message are you sending?” The Indians are polite, they work hard, they pay taxes, they speak English, but “there are no Indians in leadership roles,” she said to Sidharth Bhatia in a podcast conversation. “We need a concerted effort by the Indian community to tell the layperson who watches the news or is on social media that Indians are contributing.” But Australians don’t like it when “migrants bring their home issues to this country.” She explains that after the anti-Indian violence in 2008 and after Covid, migration slowed down and a huge backlog built up. “But the numbers of Indians are no more than of any other community,” she said. However,  they are visible in many blue collar jobs such as couriers, hospitality, security guards. 

The agitation in Nepal last week had three dimensions—the total collapse of the state machinery, multiple forces joining the GenZ agitators and unprecedented destruction of public and private property, says Mahendra P. Lama, senior professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi and an astute observer of Nepal for several decades. Lama was in Kathmandu during the agitation and also spoke to several local citizens.   “There was a huge gap between GenZ and the government,” he said in a podcast conversation with Sidharth Bhatia, ”but there was a pattern to the violence-it was well sequenced, with arson, looting, mayhem, killing.”  He expressed surprise that the army was not summoned on the first day and the political parties remained quiet.   Over the past 10 years, there have been 14 prime ministers, some lasting barely three months and none of them had done anything for the country or its citizens. He said Nepalis were not violent people but the “Maoists had inculcated a culture of violence in the country.” He embossed that over this period, “India had nothing to bring stability to Nepal or help build institutions,” he said, adding, “India needs to change its strategy in Nepal.”

What is the cause of the severe flooding seen in northern states and cities?    “Climate change and its impact is intensifying rainfall pattern. The bigger failure is how our cities are designed, planned and managed and continue to grow,” says Mihir Bhatt, Ahmedabad based architect and urban planner. Bhatt is the director of the All India Disaster Management Institute, which works on initiatives in risk reduction and climate resilience.   He said there was a “design mismatch.” “Our stormwater systems and drainage networks are built for rainfall pattern for the past, not for the present, even less for the future,” he said to Sidharth Bhatia in a podcast conversation.   He also gave the example of Gurugram, where “rapid urbanisation filled in natural catchments that once absorbed excess water from the neighbouring area.” Flooding would be seen in rural and urban areas for the near and perhaps long term future, but many solutions are there. He gave the example of Nagaland, where 39 local government bodies came together to work with the state government on disaster mitigation. “I am not a pessimist” he said. “Indians can build something if we let them.”

The reason why the Marathas have begun agitating for reservations in recent years is because there is a “rural as well as urban crisis” in the state’s political economy, says Sumeet Mhaskar, professor of sociology in OP Jindal University. Marathas are getting no access to economically secure jobs because more and more government jobs are contractual.   Mhaskar explains the process for getting reservations is not the Government Resolution (GR) such as the Maharashtra government has done. “Reservations can only be given by the Backward Caste Commission.” Nonetheless, he says, now the “OBC groups will agitate. They may go to court.” One danger for the OBCs is that the Marathas will stand for election in seats which are reserved for OBCs, he explains.    He also feels there is a political dimension to the entire agitation, especially since Fadnavis is a Brahmin and power traditionally has been held by Marathas. He points out that elections to municipal bodies are to be held soon and if Devendra Fadnavis hadn’t granted what the agitators wanted it would have had an impact on the elections.

A rupture has taken place within our community relationships and this will take a long time to heal even if the government changes. This is the candid analysis by Manoj Kumar Jha, academic and one of the more articulate Indian parliamentarians.   “Dogwhistling has moved from the fringe to the centre,” he says in a podcast conversation with Sidharth Bhatia.   Jha’s collection of columns has recently been published under the title In Praise of Coalition Politics and Other Essays on Indian Democracy. The essays cover a variety of subjects ranging from the caste census, Waqf properties, the RSS and government servants, and Jha’s letters to Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.    Jha says university appointments are made keeping in mind the candidate’s affiliation to the organisation. “The only thing spoken in favour of the new vice-president is that he is a die-hard RSS man. Is this a qualification for a post where the first one (vice-president) was Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan?”   Jha says, “If I love my nation, I must critique my government.” He points out that Nehru sat through debates where he was critiqued. “What is so sacrosanct today that you report from Assam and sedition laws are applied?”

Historian Richard M Eaton says he is “very concerned” at the erasure of the Mughals — “one of the most spectacular empires in the world” — from school history books.  Eaton, one of the most eminent historians of pre-modern Indian history, debunks some myths about the Mughals in this podcast conversation with Sidharth Bhatia.  He pointedly says that though the Mughals were Muslims, “they saw religion as a very personal affair and rarely tried to convert non-Muslims.” According to him, “they saw fooling around with religion as something that would only endanger the stability of the state. Akbar and Aurangzeb were both very explicit about not allowing religion to interfere with state policy.” It was the British who painted the Mughal rule as a “dark period”, because that way they could “project themselves as bringing peace, stability, efficiency” to the land which had till then experienced incompetent rule. He talks about how for a long time Aurangzeb was revered and venerated among his subjects, Muslims as well as well as Hindus. “His grave was a pilgrimage site,” he says. All this changed after the five volume biography of Jadunath Sarkar in the early 20th century. Eaton makes it clear that this villainising Mughals will not change the basic fact that their influence on art, culture, good, language and everything else in India is all pervasive and part of India. “You will never get rid of the Mughals, you will have to live with them.”

There is a widespread belief that the 1950s were a time of great Hindi films, in terms of stories, songs and film-making. Seventy-five years later, fans still remember those songs, those stars and, most of all, those directors. We look back and call it the Golden age. What does that mean? “I think it’s partly because the 1950s are also seen as a kind of Golden Age of India,” according to Rachel Dwyer, a former professor of film at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) who has written several books and articles on Hindi cinema. “A figure like Nehru at the time was seen as a major world figure. But also something exciting going on in Indian cinema at the time.” “We saw several great directors working, the rise of major stars, playback singing being normalised and the stories too, which were usually about a hero looking to find a place in this new world, really spoke to people in a very direct way, and not just people in India, of course, but people across the world,” she said in a podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia.  Two of the major directors of the period were Guru Dutt and Raj Kapoor. This is the 100th birth anniversary of Guru Dutt and last year was Raj Kapoor’s birth centenary. Dwyer discusses their work, through their films Pyaasa and Shri 420. “These have a great appeal about a certain innocence, about a freshness, and the way that they just happen to be really good entertaining films.” She also analyses their personas – the Raj Kapoor on-screen persona, the ordinary everyman, and Guru Dutt the poet.

The Election Commission’s announcement in Bihar that a citizen should prove his or her credentials to vote has sparked outrage among political parties. They say that a large number of marginalised communities will lose their right to vote. “It is indeed very problematic. To shift the onus of establishing identity or citizenship on the voter is fraught on principle in a democratic country,” says Ashwani Kumar, senior advocate and a former minister for law and justice and also former Additional Solicitor General. “What was the justification of excluding Aadhaar or ration cards from the process,” Kumar said in a podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia. He said that there is an element of distrust which has cropped up in the last couple of years. “So Election Commission now has the duty to dispel to the satisfaction of all concerned that its circular or its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) will not be exclusionary.” He also spoke about declining standards of Indian democracy. “Political opposition in a democracy cannot be treated as personal enemies,” he said. “All parties, without exception, are being seduced by the temptation of using the harshest possible language against political opponents. That is what we have come to.”

The Devendra Fadnavis government has withdrawn its proposal to introduce Hindi in the early classes in schools in Maharashtra because of the opposition’s pressure. In Tamil Nadu too, there has been pushback on the introduction of Hindi by the Modi government.   “In Maharashtra the BJP cannot afford to take electoral risks,” says Professor Alok Rai, academic and author who has taught in universities in India and in the US and has written a book called Hindi Nationalism.   But, he points out, the BJP does not want just to introduce the language. “It has a larger cultural agenda behind it. Hindi carries within it a coded language,” he tells Sidharth Bhatia in this podcast. “The agenda is a Hindu agenda, an upper caste agenda.” The introduction of Hindi in the south “consolidates their support in the Hindi belt.”    Also, “School Hindi is very different from what is spoken on the streets,” he says. Everyday Hindi, that is Hindustani, "has evolved". “School Hindi is sterile”, he says.