Venkatraman Krishnan, born in Tamil Nadu and educated at Baroda University in Gujarat, where he took his first degree, set off for the United States for higher studies. Along with two other scientists, one Israeli the other American, he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, after moving to the UK and Cambridge University, where he now works. He became a British citizen in the interim and was awarded a knighthood by the Queen. He was elected President of the Royal Society – the unanimous choice of fellow scientists reflecting the esteem in which he is held.
Professor Venkatraman Krishnan has kept in close touch with his Indian roots as a frequent visitor to the country. He was President of the first Indian Science Congress, following the BJP government’s accession to power in May 2014. He was disturbed and distressed by the number of outlandish papers accepted by the organizers for public presentation. Such instances of proto-science have always existed in India, and been aired from time to time, but now, apparently, they were centre-stage, hence earned his displeasure. He has held fast to the ethos of true science that holds doubt to be sacred, that the right and ability to question intelligently and searchingly has been the perennial road to verifiable truth.
In his latest sally, Professor Krishnan has warned the Indian establishment that education, as the principal source of social uplift, should be the prime concern of government and political leaders, not dietary considerations of meat eating and the like. He himself is a vegetarian.
One must presume that certain manifestations of public disorder such as lynching of suspected beef eaters by cow protection thugs, mostly in the Hindi-speaking Gangetic belt, are matters of deepening concern to him and those given to uphold freedom of choice in the private domain, and freedom of thought and expression within the rule of law in the public sphere.
The recent assassination of Bangalore-based journalist and satirist Gauri Lankesh has aroused widespread anxiety among the ranks of the hitherto silent majority of Indians long accustomed to perceiving this right as almost a free gift of Nature, like land, forests and water. Such complacency has been rudely broken by rising fanaticism and intolerance in the nation’s public life.
Environmentalists have understood the importance of protecting and not abusing Nature. The Paris accord on global warming and its long and medium-term consequences for humankind have awakened the international community, although not all national leaders, of whom the notable example is US President Donald Trump, whose reaction to every international crisis is to raise military spending, now standing at an obscene, astronomical $620 billion, with 800 military bases across continents. Far from satsfying US security goals, such moves are symptoms of deepening insecurity with no end in sight. Meanwhile a broken society remains untended.
The political and social scars alluded to in India transcend borders in lesser or greater degree. Continents are littered with the debris of broken societies and suffering humanity desperate to escape their traumatic circumstances, cling to despairing hopes of a more tolerable existence somewhere, anywhere.
Professor Venkatraman Krishnan’s warning to India touches a deeper chord, both within the country and outside it as the template of global order appears to be giving way under the strain of the mounting challenges placed upon it.
Pakistan’s red lines fantasies
Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi – Nawaz Sharif’s appointed interim replacement - addressing the Council for Foreign Relations in New York, said that there was ‘no role for India in Afghanistan’ until New Delhi settled the Kashmir dispute to Islamabad’s satisfaction. He received an appropriate broadside from India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who suggested the Pakistan be renamed ‘Terroristan’. Others more kind will ascribe his outburst to a flight of fancy with a likely hard landing.
Be that as it may, one is tempted to ask by what right Mr Abbasi spoke in this vein, when Afghanistan has an elected government with sovereign powers to judge what was (is) best in the national interest. The Afghan Foreign Minister, who was recently in New Delhi for talks with his Indian counterpart, during which he identified areas where Indian support would be most appreciated in Kabul. These happened, for the most part, to be in infrastructure development, finance and police-military training. This was underscored with US Defence Secretary Mattis and senior Afghan Minister Abdullah Abdullah in New Delhi, where they met with Prime Minister Modi, Ms Swaraj and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.
Mr Abbasi would most likely respond to questions on India’s hypothetical role by affirming Pakistan’s right to determine Afghan policy by Pakistani need for ‘strategic depth in Afghanistan’(military command and control of Afghanistan’s assets)s. Lunacy is apt to take weird forms, none rooted in contemporary reality or a remotely likely to be a scheme of things, accepting that the paramount reality or possibility. The US military presence in Afghanistan and its infusions of financial support to the Kabul government. Estimates of US economic and military to Pakistan over the past decade vary from $20 – 25 billion, since Pakistan enjoyed the status as Uncle Sam’s most important non-NATO ally.
In a gesture of petulance, Pakistani leaders brandish the threat to turn to their ‘all-weather’ friend, China as an alternative supplier of guns and butter. Whether Beijing can, or will, oblige its Pakistani client to the scale required is moot. Delusion has been Pakistan’s original sin. In an interview with US correspondent of Time magazine, Margaret Bourke, Pakistan’s founder Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, claimed that ‘America needed Pakistan more than Pakistan needed America,’ that Pakistan was the world’s most important country by virtue of its strategic location. That, alas, has been Pakistan’s DNA ever since.
Possibly, the Chinese promise to initiate an international conference on Afghanistan, with participants restricted to the Kabul government, Pakistan and China, is responsible for Prime Minister Abbasi’s lift-off into galactic orbit. Hopefully the gravitational pull of Planet Earth will result in a rational touchdown with no harm to body, mind and Islamic spirit. Having experienced a close-up of distant stars, a spot of quiet reflection on terra firma is what any good doctor is likely to prescribe.
That also holds good for China. The Doklam stand-off with India didn’t end at all well for Beijing. The crescendo of threats, intimidation and racial abuse ended not with the expected bang, but with a less spectacular whimper, and a belated recognition of Churchill’s memorable phrase, ‘jaw-jaw is better than war.’ The outcome of this confrontation is being quietly digested in South East Asia, which abuts the contentious South China Sea. More visible is the closer India-Japan alignment and its far-reaching consequences from the Indo-Pacific region to East Africa. Game on!
Sabarmati: From garbage dump to green zone
Ahmedabad’s Pirana-Piplaj areas were once concentrations of factories and warehouses and four enormous garbage dumps on the banks of the Sabarmati river. The monsoon-fed Sabarmati was reduced to muddy trickle and its bed a wasteland of flotsam and jetsam.
That was 14 years ago, when then Gujarat chief Minister, Narendra Modi, decided that these Augean Stables had to be cleansed. His path-breaking initiative was to initiate the ambitious Riverfront scheme with the planting of trees as a first step. The ensuing green zone started attracting birds, animals and insects; these have been joined by 40 exotic peacocks. The emerging fauna is pleasing to the eye, and the previous stench has been replaced with a pleasant aroma
A 23 km promenade with two levels: one for pedestrians and cyclists, the other reserved for cultural and leisure activities, have come up. About 70 hectares of reclaimed land are now dotted with parks, gardens and shaded plazas for people to meet socially and chat. There are parking bays and 20 ft wide carriageways and the Ravivari flea market that accommodates almost 1700 vendors, paved walkways, seating areas and food courts.
Finally, the Sabarmati has been transformed into what it once was: an authentic river, thanks to the Sardar Sarovar Namada Dam project, which is doing for Gujarat what the Bhakra Mangal did for Punjab in the first post-independence decades.
Ahmedabad is now the model for cities such as Pune, Jammu and Nasik. Even Kolkata has a riverfront (work still in progress) on the bank of the Hooghly. Its promenade of cafes and restaurants has added a touch of colour to a city that was once the despair of its citizenry.
