The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Police brutality
Reforms needed to check custodial deaths

Torture is institutionalised, endemic and central to the administration of justice in our country, and not just in the states facing insurgency. The custodial death of an Ambala youth has once again shifted the focus to thousands of deaths in police custody across India that never come to light. On Tuesday morning, the mutilated body of a youth named Ram Kumar was found on the railway tracks in Ambala. He and another youth Vikram, were allegedly picked up by Ambala policemen for an alleged theft in the city. Both were tied with a chain and iron cuffs to a post. Without registering a case in the police diary, they were detained in the police post overnight. Ram Kumar was later pushed before a speeding train, allegedly by the police to make him confess the crime, while Vikram escaped, with iron cuffs still on his body.

The police in general believes that efficiency of its performance rests on the human rights violations of the suspects. Though the country has a National Human Rights Commission since 1993, supported by State Human Rights Commissions, their presence has not made much impact on violations of human rights. They are embroiled in their own controversies. Lack of respect for human rights among the police officials reflects lack of modern training. In majority of cases that involve illegal custodial detention, torture and custodial deaths, the victims are from the lower strata of society, with little means and awareness for the complexity of legal system.

Often they lack means to fight time-consuming and expensive legal battles against violation of their rights, which emboldens the administrators of law and justice in our country. All the three accused policemen in this case have been arrested and remanded in police custody. The Director General of Police has entrusted the probe of this case to the state crime branch. However, one cannot forget the fate of dozens of such cases where after years of probe and trial the policemen are exonerated and custodial deaths proven as cases of suicide.

Parking woes
Efficient public transport is the answer

THE out-of-the-box suggestion of the UT Administrator to park cars on rooftops would have been laughable had the parking problem in the city not assumed such serious proportions. Indeed, parking cars on roofs is easier said than done and would certainly involve not only restructuring of the existing buildings but also huge expenses. At best, the unusual idea can be implemented in new buildings. However, there can be no two opinions that parking problem in the City Beautiful can no longer be ignored. With 4.4 lakh vehicles per 1,000 kilometres, compared to 2.4 lakh in Delhi, Chandigarh's traffic and parking woes require urgent redress. The city frequently faces traffic snarl-ups that become more acute during the festive season.

Traffic congestion is the obvious fallout of urbanisation and economic development. No doubt the vehicle density in the City Beautiful, where 43 per cent households own cars, is adding to the parking chaos. But problems stem from the failure of urban planning and the absence of a long-term vision. That a well-planned city like Chandigarh too would come to face a shortage of parking space is a sad commentary on the civic authorities and underlines its failure to take suitable action. In fact, in most parking slots it's not the dearth of space but its improper utilisation that creates parking mess.

Initiatives like creating multi-level parking, which has otherwise taken a long time to come to Chandigarh, are more than welcome. Commuters use their personal vehicles for 73 per cent of their travelling. Measures to dissuade people from buying more vehicles, like higher registration fee, alone will not put an end to the increasing vehicle density. More than that, what Chandigarh needs is an efficient public transport system that will not only tackle parking woes, but also help combat air pollution. Developing cycling tracks and encouraging people to use bicycles at least for short distances too is an idea that needs to be explored.

Thought for the Day

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past. —Thomas Jefferson

ARTICLE

Heading for split verdict
Assertion of identity and regional sentiments
by Kuldip Nayar

POLLSTERS are busy counting straws in the wind to guess which party will form the next government at the Centre. Newspapers and television channels lap up the surveys made because they make a good copy. Astrologers have also jumped into the fray as they have done before every election.

At stake are the 535 seats in the Lok Sabha, the Lower House. The elected candidates will constitute the next five-year-tenure government. One point which is common in all estimates that are coming out is that no single party will get a majority and that each one of them will have to seek allies to reach the magic figure of 272.

The present government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is the product of a similar exercise. Some 25-odd parties have given support to the Congress-led coalition. The Congress won 203 seats in the last election. The next Parliament may require many more parties and independents to have a viable combination.

It looks as if India's political scene, after the 2014 elections, may still be more divided and fragmented than before. More and more parties have emerged on the basis of regional sentiments. Then there is the assertion of identity and some parties have surfaced to represent their region or caste. This seems to be the trend that has stuck with the nation.

After Independence the Congress was the only party which commanded a majority. It stayed in power for almost five decades. But then the Congress benefited from its leadership during the freedom struggle. It was a platform for all those who participated in the national movement. To equate the Congress with Independence is a misdemeanor. Today the splinter groups of the Congress are full-fledged parties. It may seem the trivialisation of politics. But it is the result of a democratic process.

One party which is not an offshoot of the Congress is the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). It can claim to have built itself from the scratch. It seems to be the only viable opponent of the Congress at present. What beleaguers the two parties is not so much their hostility towards each other as is the groupism within. And it is comical how a pro-Hindutva BJP member becomes secular overnight when he joins the Congress or the secularist Hinduvta votary when he crosses over to the BJP.

How long the high commands of the two parties can hide the internal revolts from the people is yet to be seen. The coming elections will be the test because those who do not get the party ticket are potential rivals. Assembly polls in recent years have witnessed such trends in states. The Parliament elections will be no different.

Till recently there was no doubt that the Congress would emerge as the largest party in the 2014 polls. But today this is not the case. Most people would place their bet on the superiority of the BJP. The Congress would be placed at No. 2. Surveys conducted by several newspapers and television channels also made similar predictions. It would be indeed a big upset if the elections were to throw up the Congress as the No. 1 party, although it has retrieved a bit of lost ground.

The credit for this is being given to Rahul Gandhi. This may be only partly true. The main reason is that the Muslim vote is returning to the Congress because the community feels disillusioned with Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, which failed it during the Muzaffarnagar riots. Now another faux pass has taken place over the letter sent by the state Home Secretary. The letter said that top officials should meet to ponder over the construction of Ram Janambhoomi at the site where the Babri Masjid stood once. The Home Secretary has been suspended but the damage has been done.

The BJP's renewed strength is the emergence of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. He has created in northern India a strong sentiment for the Hindutva philosophy. The BJP is riding the crest of that chauvinism. In the process he has damaged the idea of India and the country’s integrity. The BJP, or for that matter the RSS, is happy over the polarisation he has done, something both had failed to bring about.

Consequently, the pre-eminent position that the Congress has enjoyed so far has undergone a change. Despite a patchy support in the South, the BJP is currently ahead of the Congress. This has given a new edge to the conflict between the two. It is sharper and more intractable than before. The last two Parliament sessions saw the unbridgeable distance. There was not even a semblance of agreement on any matter that brought the proceedings in both the Houses almost to a standstill.

Opposition is understandable. It is a common feature in democracy. Yet one cannot make out why the two parties have adopted a posture which is harmful to the country. Both are in the way of development, a slogan which Modi has adopted to hide communalism by spoiling the chance of even limited consensus. Some equation, however slim, is essential for a dialogue in democracy.

Finding the people's exasperation from both, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has come into being. Yet mostly confined to Delhi, it has caught the imagination of the voters. The people's boredom to see either the Congress or the BJP may well have been the reason for serious talks over a third front.

The Left, the Samajwadi Party, the Janata Dal (United) and Odisha's BJD have met at Delhi to discuss an alliance. The pre-poll alliance has been rightly rejected because they are pitted against one another in states. Their unity depends on how they fare in elections. Even then it is difficult for anyone or some of them forming the government at the Centre without the support of either the Congress or the BJP. The only silver lining is that all parties are looking for allies. This may compel them to change their set agenda. If this forces the BJP to dilute its Hindutva stance, it is good for the nation.

MIDDLE

Missing Khushwant at Kasauli
by Gulzar Singh Sandhu

THE second Khushwant Singh Literary Festival begins from October 18 to 20 in Kasauli. The veteran writer has spent many a summer at Raj Villa located on The Mall. It was bought by his father-in-law, Teja Singh Malik, from a British emigrate. He named it after his wife, Raj Kaur, and later bequeathed it to his daughter, Kaval Khushwant Singh. After the death of Kaval, the family put her ashes in the roots of flower plants that add to the charm of the Villa.

Khushwant Singh, my benefactor-turned-friend, has been gracious enough to allow me to stay in it as he had earlier done for celebrities like Dr. Karan Singh, Balraj Sahni, Sunil Dutt, Nargis and a few more whose wards studied at the Sanawar Public School. Of course, he made sure that none would disturb his library. The added proviso in the case of film actress Nargis, he laughingly states, was that she would allow him to tell others that she slept in his bed.

I have not taken advantage this loveable place for eight years now. My niece, Bhupinder Padda, owns a flat in Kumar Hatti which is available to me. I can recall the date of the last meeting with Khushwant at Kasauli as I am in possession of a book autographed by him on September 13, 2006. It is titled “Not A Nice Man To Know”, edited by Nandini Mehta, who is a friend of his daughter Mala Singh. But the title is fallacious. All I know he might have propounded it himself as I have seen him carrying fondly a post card bearing a four-word address: “Khushwant Singh, Bastard, Delhi”.

Having known him for over 50 years, I can vouchsafe with authority that he is at his best while dealing with his female visitors. He opens the door to them himself and makes it a point to see them off the same way. The biggest lie of his life is his declaration: “I do not have the gift of loving or be loved and hate is my stronger passion”. Dozens of books edited and compiled about him and his writing speak volumes about his having been a much-loved individual. Innumerable people have post cards bearing two-line replies from him as their precious belonging.

Born at Hadali, a dusky Sargodha village of Pakistan, Khushwant will enter the hundredth year of his life on February 15, 2014. Having graduated in law with a short stint in the Lahore High Court, he rose to become a reputed writer, critic, commentator, diplomat, a visiting professor in a number of foreign universities and a member of the Rajya Sabha.

His first novel “Train to Pakistan” made me contact him in 1958 to translate it into Punjabi. He was good enough to make me write for Yojana, Hindustan Times and the Illustrated Weekly of India when he edited them. Let me confess that I have tried to copy the style and manner of his weekly columns, which have appeared for seven decades. I also take the liberty of sharing a secret: the turban that has appeared with his column in The Tribune for the last ten years was actually mine. He had to borrow it from me for the launch of “Mauj Mela”, a Punjabi version of his autobiography, at Chandigarh Press Club in 2003. He did not have a single one in Kasauli from where he came for the function. This also shows that Kasauli for him was a private resort where he shunned public contact.

Khushwant’s absence at the Lit Fest notwithstanding, his love for Kasauli is unabated. At a recent function where the Punjabi Sahit Sabha, New Delhi, gave him a token cheque of Rs 50,000, he got it changed in the name of the Khushwant Singh Foundation for planting trees in Kasauli. The proceeds of the festival are also meant for the face-lift of Kasauli.

OPED-The arts

Photography — the new art or a fad
Art festivals used to have a section dedicated to photography, paving the way to fullfledged photo festivals. Will this lead to an exclusive market for photography or is Indian contemporary photography another fad in the burgeoning art circles?
JohnyML

Photography seems to be the ‘in thing’ in the Indian contemporary art scene. With the second edition of Delhi Photo Festival organised by the Nazar Foundation, an exclusive organisation for promoting photography, initiated by two well known photographers, Prashant Panjiar and Dinesh Khanna, and twenty five collateral photography exhibitions in various galleries and venues in Delhi, the art of photography has come of age or at least one gets that impression. From showcasing of prints sourced out of the original negatives from small town photo studios to politically conscious socio-ethnological photographic studies, marks this new phase of Indian contemporary photography. A few months back Mumbai’s Colaba galleries had celebrated a photography and digital art festival. The recently concluded and surprisingly low profile United Art Fair too had a major section devoted to photography.

Best English teacher in the world, Rati Wadia, Bombay 2004. Photo Courtesy: Sooni Taraporevala / National Gallery of Modern Art

Where is the moolah

Though the photography artists are in an upbeat mood, the general enthusiasm has not been translated into money. However, the young photography artists are optimistic about the emergence of an exclusive market for photography. Delhi Photo Festival does not aim at marketing photography as it pitches its philosophy on the idea of creating an exclusive platform. “Such platforms are needed for generating an interest about photography amongst the general art loving public,” says Vicky Roy, a Delhi based young photographer whose monograph has been published and released by the Nazar Foundation as a part of the Delhi Photo Festival. However, Anubhav Nath, the director of Ojas Art Gallery where Vicky Roy’s solo show titled, ‘Home.Street.Home’ is currently on view, feels that good photography always has takers. “Photography has not yet entered in the speculative investment market. Hence, whoever collects photography works does so out of sheer interest. As it is an edition based medium, the exclusivity that we attribute to a painting cannot be assured,” opines Nath who had recently conducted a solo show of the veteran photographer, Raghu Rai.

Promotional efforts for art photography in India have been there for almost a decade now. Seagull Foundation in Kolkata, Tasveer in Bangalore, Photoink in Delhi are the pioneers in this field. They make collaborative programmes with private galleries and showcase major photography exhibitions in different cities. The photography department of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, and Centre for Alternative Photography (Goa CAP) in Goa, have also been at the forefront to promote photography. The recent addition to these efforts is Thiruvannamalai based Ekalokam Trust headed by photography artist, Abul Kalam Azad. In Delhi, two galleries, Wonderwall and Abadi Art Space, have come up at Lado Sarai, a new art street, with an aim to promote photography.

Capturing future

A cursory look at the Delhi Photo Festival and the collateral exhibitions offers an interesting comparison with the art market boom we had a few years back. During the art market boom, galleries and other players in the art market had brought many artists from every nook and corner of the country, propping them up as the future masters. Recession spelt doom for everyone in the art market including the artists. Today, so many young photography artists are given chances to showcase their works in various platforms while none has so far spoken about the future of these artists. Photography artists face a very peculiar challenge, as far as the market is concerned. On the one hand they have to vie with their fellow photography artists, on the other hand a tough competition is already in place, mainly coming from those already established ‘artists’ who also do photography and digital art as a part of their art practice.

Photographer vs artist

Rizwana, Ratanpur, 2007.
Photo Courtesy Ketaki Sheth/Photoink and National Gallery of Modern Art

Over enthusiasm and availability of technology has generated a new crop of photographers, who claim themselves as photography artists, taking advantage of this unique opportunity. Till very recently, a photographer was called a photographer. But when photography itself achieved the status of a distinct art form, removed from its traditional roles as documentary, journalistic, advertising, popular and hobby photography, photographers became ‘photography artists’. Today, anybody who takes a picture with any kind of photographic equipment says, she/he is a photography artist. Perhaps, that is the reason why Prashant Panjiar, the curatorial director of Delhi Photo Festival stated in one of the interviews that this year the submissions from Indian photographers were not up to the mark. The result was that Delhi Photo Festival had more than sixty per cent of foreign photography artists as participants.

Some people preferred to read the statement of Panjiar as elitist and condescending. In its second edition, with the minimal presence of Indian photography artists within the Delhi Photo Festival, it has received a huge amount of criticism for the same. “It has become elitist and exclusivist,” says a Delhi based photography artist who does not want to be named. “May be Delhi Photo Festival aspires to be an international photo festival. But it should have achieved that goal through a fair representation of the Indian photographers too. One cannot say that contemporary Indian photography has not produced international quality artists,” he adds, a bit dejected. This photography artist’s opinion finds many takers. Most of them are happy that something like Delhi Photo Festival is taking place in Delhi but they are equally worried about the skeletal presence of Indian photographers. “I have never said Indian contemporary photography is not good or not world class. What I said was that this year we had poor submissions from Indian photographers,” clarifies Panjiar.

The Indian photo artist

Delhi Photo Festival may not have enough Indian artists in it but the collateral shows prove that the quality of Indian photography can match up with its international counterpart. The National Gallery of Modern Art wakes up to the situation by mounting two solo exhibitions by Sooni Taraporewala and Ketaki Sheth. Taraporewala’s three decades long documentation of the Parsi community makes an interesting show while Sheth’s documentation on the Sidis, the Afro-Indian tribe sheds light on the marginalised racial group in India. Photoink has presented Raghu Rai’s solo exhibition and Pablo Bartholomew has occupied the new IIC Gallery with his documentation of North-East tribes. At Art Heritage, noted photography scholar Christopher Pinney presents an exhibition titled, ‘Studio Suhag’ that features the experiments of a small town studio photographer, before the advent of digital technology. At the same venue, Cop Siva, a policeman turned photographer follows the lives of two people who impersonate Mahatma Gandhi and M.G.Ramachandran (MGR), for a livelihood.

The man in the sola hat, Bombay, 1985. Photo Courtesy: Sooni Taraporevala / National Gallery of Modern Art

Interest in photography, as an art form, is growing across sections. “We came from Ahmedabad only to see the photo festival,” says a post graduate photography student from the National Institute of Design. “The seminars are interesting as we get to hear from scholars and photography artists.” But another set of seminar hoppers contest it by saying that the Delhi Photo Festival seminar has become another elitist platform where autobiographical narratives overtake scholarly engagements. There seems to be no end to disagreements and critique. But everyone would unanimously accept that photography has become the latest fad in the art circuit. But, major galleries in India are yet to promote their own photography artists. In the meanwhile, photography itself is on its way to find a new language by rearticulating the old technology, old studios, old albums and anything that looks old. In photography, old is the new ‘New’.

India show abroad

* Dayanita Singh’s show of photographs “Go Away Closer” is presently on at Hayward Gallery, London(October 8-December 15). Her images capture insights into contemporary Indian life that often challenge the exotic stereotypes of the West.

*z A growing interest in the politically conscious, socio-ethnological photographic studies and documentation of the multi- ethnic India has led to several shows of Indian contemporary photographers in prestigious galleries abroad.

* Along with the famous art show of contemporary Indian artists in Paris, “Indian Highway,” at Pompidou, in 2011, “India abroad: 10 Indian photographers show in Paris” was co-curated by Mumbai-based photographer Fabien Charuau, to break the western convention of photo festivals.

The writer is Managing Editor of Art &Deal magazine