The Caravan November 2022

On a chilly morning in December 2019, Suryakant Narayan, a farmer in Bodh Gaya, woke up at 5 am and went to his field to harvest some exotic crops: bok choy, ruby ball and napa cabbage, lemon grass, celery, strawberry, lettuce, bell peppers, baby corn, water spinach, thyme and basil. He would deliver part of his produce at the local mandi, where retailers and purchase managers of nearby hotels come to procure fresh vegetables. Due to an abundance of supply, however, he did not get the desired price for his crops. The farmers of Bodh Gaya take huge risks in planting nontraditional crops in the winter months, instead of wheat, with the hope of high demand from East Asian pilgrims. They often deliver the produce to restaurants in the area, many…

The Congress’ organisational elections are over and, to no one’s surprise, Mallikarjun Kharge has defeated Shashi Tharoor to become the new party president. Kharge has said he will look to the Gandhis for guidance, even as Rahul Gandhi says his future in the party will be decided by Kharge. Despite such easy cues, the actual challenge before Kharge is not simply about trying to do what any one Gandhi wants but to balance the conflicting signals that the Gandhis themselves have been sending out. Kharge is their latest compromise. He was not their first choice for party president and has his task cut out. For the moment, the party is focussed on the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which has the advantage of showcasing Rahul’s attributes—such as his earnestness and willingness to be…

“India is celebrating 75 years of its independence, what we call ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav,’” S Jaishankar, the minister of external affairs, told the United Nations General Assembly, on 25 September. “The story of that period has been one of toil, determination, innovation and enterprise of millions of ordinary Indians. They are rejuvenating a society pillaged by centuries of foreign attacks and colonialism. And they are doing so in a democratic framework, whose steady progress is reflected in more authentic voices and grounded leadership.” In keeping with his recent role as a shrill spokesperson of the government abroad, Jaishankar extolled the virtues of a “New India,” under the “visionary and dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.” He parroted the five pledges announced by Modi in his Independence Day speech:…

In July this year, the Madras High Court issued what might be one of its most consequential judgments of the last two decades. The matter itself was minor, one that flew under the radars of a majority of the state’s loudest advocates, politicians and columnists. For over ten years, the Buddha Trust, a small Buddhist organisation in the industrial city of Salem, had pushed the courts to identify a small shrine in the nearby village of Periyeri as containing a statue of the Buddha. The statue had been a focus of prayer for Periyeri’s Hindus who had built a concrete temple around it and claimed that it represented the local deity Thalaivetti Muniappan—literally, headless Muniappan. The site, like many temples in Tamil Nadu, was owned and administered by the state…

Though the city of Leicester has had a recent history of ethnic animosity, the ferocity with which it descended into a maelstrom of communal violence in September caught the police, the press and local community leaders off guard. It started with a brief clash between cricket fans after a match on 28 August, though many could write that off as a common enough occurrence. But a sense of unease remained for the next few weeks, with The Guardian reporting seven communal disturbances in east Leicester. That was to change on 17 September, when a mob of three hundred young Hindu men in face masks and balaclavas—many of them armed—marched through the Muslim-majority Green Lane Road, chanting “Jai Shri Ram” and “Vande Mataram.” It was a sight immediately recognisable to anyone familiar…

When everyone was celebrating India’s seventy-sixth Independence Day, there was an unbearable sense of crisis at the Chanderlok Building on Janpath, in the heart of the national capital. About forty people living with HIV were sitting in protest inside the building, which houses the National AIDS Control Organisation. They had a single demand: the government should restore the supply of HIV medicines for one month. The country was facing stockout of key HIV medicines, such as dolutegravir, lopinavir and abacavir. The protestors told me that on 13 August they were informed that the building would be closed for three days. It meant that all the bathrooms were shut, except a few on the ground floor. Lifts were not working either. To use the bathroom or bring food, the protesters had to…