In January 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave 1,06,000 land certificates and addressed a large gathering at Jerenga Pathar in Sivasagar, Assam, a historic site where Joymoti, an Ahom princess, had sacrificed her life in the 17th century. “When our party came to power in Assam, there were nearly 6,00,000 families who were landless and had no land documents. The previous governments didn’t care for these families. But our government started working on it earnestly to give them land certificates,” PM Modi said. The allotment of these certificates would ensure the benefits of several Central and State government schemes to these families and they would even be able to take bank loans based on land ownership. Till date, over 3.28 lakh families in Assam have received “land pattas” thanks to the Modi government’s incessant efforts. As part of this initiative, landless families in rural areas will get seven ‘bighas’ of agricultural land and another one ‘bigha’ to construct houses. One ‘bigha’ is equal to 14,400 square feet. In urban areas, the allotment would be 1.10 ‘katha’, and in Guwahati, it would be 1.50 ‘katha’. One ‘katha’ in Assam is equal to 2,880 square feet. Giving land rights to indigenous landless families was an important promise made in 2016 by the BJP, which came to power in Assam with the slogan of protecting ‘jaati’, ‘maati’ and ‘bheti’ (community, land and hearth). The BJP has clearly lived up to the promises made and outperformed by a wide margin.

PM Modi’s decision to extend the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) for nine months during the Covid pandemic last year benefitted Assam and its people in a big way. Over 58 lakh families, which is around 2 crore 5 lakh individuals, in Assam, reaped the benefits of the extension, with each individual getting 5 kg of rice and each family getting 1 kg of pulses per month. Roughly 1.25 lakh tonnes of rice and 5,795 tonnes of gram were distributed by the Modi government every month in Assam, till the scheme persisted. Assam also got an additional Rs 2,236 crore from the Centre. 

PM Modi has repeatedly emphasised that his government is working to create a new Assam by investing Rs 90,000 crore in highways. The government’s ongoing work on restructuring the National Bamboo Mission is praiseworthy. Due to the classification of bamboo as a forest product, northeast India had suffered for decades under successively incompetent Congress-led regimes. The Modi government started restructuring the National Bamboo Mission with an outlay of Rs 1,300 crore in 2018 and that number has only multiplied subsequently.

In February 2021, PM Modi launched various connectivity projects in Assam to further reduce the “geographical and cultural distances” between the state and rest of the country, including the Mahabahu-Brahmaputra inland waterway project. These projects are a continuation of the slew of similar development and infrastructure projects in excess of Rs 1 lakh crore that are currently underway in Assam. The Brahmaputra is a confluence of brotherhood and togetherness. For years, this sacred river has connected people. The mighty Brahmaptura is on a timeless pilgrimage, assimilating, integrating and unifying people of diverse cultures. But it is also true that for long, work that should have been done to increase connectivity on the Brahmaputra was never done, and a clueless and rudderless Congress that ruled Assam for decades has to bear the onus for such apathy. That is why connectivity has always remained a challenge, not just in Assam but in the entire Northeast too. However, after the BJP came to power in Assam in 2016, things began to improve sharply and steadfastly. From bestowing the highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, on the legendary Bhupen Hazarika to reclaiming Assam’s rich history, the Modi government has gone beyond economic progress to instill a sense of pride and mainstream Assam and the Northeast with the rest of India by breaking through the infamous tyranny of distance.

To mark the Rs 3,200 crore Mahabahu-Brahmaputra initiative, aimed at improving water transport connectivity, PM Modi recently inaugurated three Ro-Pax vessel operations between Neemati Ghat (Jorhat) and Majuli island, North Guwahati and South Guwahati as well as Dhubri and Hatsingimari. Modi also laid the foundation stone of an Inland Water Transport (IWT) Terminal at Jogighopa and various tourist jetties on the Brahmaputra and launched two portals for the ease of doing business last month. The Ro-Pax service between Majuli and Jorhat would reduce a travel time of 11 hours to only one hour, while the travel time between North and South Guwahati will be reduced from three hours to just 30 minutes. Meanwhile, to reach Dhubri from Hatisingmari, it will now take barely three hours, instead of the earlier eight.

The BJP has done stellar work in Assam, vindicated, amongst other things, by the proposed 19-km-long four-lane bridge over the Brahmaputra, which will be India’s longest bridge over a river, that connects Dhubri in Assam and Phulbari in Meghalaya. The bridge is to be constructed at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore. A bhumipujan, or ground-breaking ceremony, was also performed recently for a 6.8-km-long two-lane bridge that would connect Kamalabari in Majuli, the world’s largest river island, to Neematighat in Jorhat. Whether it is the Bhupen Hazarika Setu, the Bogibeel Bridge or the Saraighat Bridge, all of these have made life easier in Assam for the common man and woman. It has not just strengthened the internal security of the country, but also protected the brave soldiers of our nation. Majuli residents got their first helipad and now they will have a road network too, thanks to the Modi government. The 8-km-long bridge connecting Kalibari (in Majuli) with Jorhat will be a lifeline for thousands of Assamese families. The distance between Meghalaya and Assam was about 250 km by road, but the Dhubri-Phulbari bridge will reduce it to just 19 or 20 km. This bridge will reduce travel time from six hours to merely 20 minutes. The Modi government is committed to improving connectivity to South Assam’s Barak Valley and reducing the distance between Assam and other northeastern states like Meghalaya, Manipur and Mizoram.

The recent laying of the foundation stone of two hospitals and opening of medical colleges in  Biswanath and Charaideo, besides the launch of ‘Asom Mala’, a programme for state highways and major district roads at Dhekiajuli in Sonitpur District, are significant events for multiple reasons. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister Rameswar Teli and Chief of Bodoland Territorial Region Pramod Boro were present on the occasion of the launch of the historic “Asom Mala” by PM Modi. Leaving behind the legacy of violence, deprivation, tension, discrimination and struggle, today, the entire Northeast is moving forward on the path of development and Assam is playing a key role in this. Thanks to the BJP’s untiring efforts, after the landmark Bodo accord, the recent election of the Bodoland territorial council has marked the beginning of a new chapter of progress in the region. 

The poor state of medical infrastructure in Assam can be gauged from the fact that in between Independence and 2016, Assam had only six medical colleges. Whereas in the last five years under the Sonowal government, work on six new medical colleges has already been initiated, which is noteworthy and speaks volumes about the fast-paced growth under the BJP-led dispensation. Besides the AIIMS in Guwahati, the Biswanath and Charaideo medical colleges will cater to north and upper Assam. Similarly, in the backdrop of just 725 medical seats in the state, 1600 new doctors will come out every year once these new medical colleges become operational. This will significantly improve medical facilities in far-flung areas of Assam. Also, over 1.25 crore people in Assam are benefitting from subsidised treatment under the Ayushman Bharat Yojana, with over 55 lakh people in the state having already availed of primary health treatment in the Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs) that have been established in Assam. Nearly 40% population of the state has benefitted from Ayushman Bharat and 1.5 lakh people have received free treatment already. Janaushadhi Kendras, Atal Amrit Yojana and dialysis programmes are also bringing positive change in the lives of the common people.

Moving on from health to Assam’s tea gardens, crores of rupees have been transferred to the accounts of 7.5 lakh workers of tea gardens under the Dhan Puraskar Mela Scheme. Over 47,000 pregnant women working in tea estates are being helped by a special scheme worth Rs 12,000 crore. That allocation has now been raised to Rs 18,000 crore. Moreover, special medical units and over 130 mobile vans are operating in over 445 tea estates to take care of over 40 lakh workers, directly and indirectly associated with tea estates. Over 6.5 lakh people in Assam have also benefited from the nutrition-based Poshan scheme of the Modi government. Again, 35 lakh women have received gas connections under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, with 4 lakh of the aforesaid families in Assam belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Toilet coverage in Assam has also increased from 38% to 100% in the last five years. Five years ago, less than 50% of households had access to electricity, which is now almost 100%. In Assam, under the Jal Jeevan Mission, piped water connections have been provided to 2.5 lakh homes in the last 1.5 years alone, endorsing PM Modi’s mantra of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas’.

Assam, where illegal migration from Bangladesh has been a concern, has undergone dramatic demographic changes in the last few decades, with successive inept Congress regimes turning a blind eye to the said demographic invasion. There are a total of 34 districts in Assam today, with Bajali recently becoming the 34th. As per the 2011 census, Dhubri district has 79.67%, Barpeta 70.74%, Darrang 64.34%, Hailakandi 60.31%, Goalpara 57.52%, Karimganj 56.36%, Nagaon 55.36%, Morigaon 52.56% and Bongaigaon 50.22% people of the Islamic faith. The rise in non-indigenous Muslim populations is reportedly due to a large-scale influx of illegal migrants and is not necessarily organic in nature. Unlike the Muslims who migrated from East Bengal and Bangladesh, indigenous Muslims use Assamese as their mother tongue and follow cultural traditions similar to Assamese Hindus, which clearly differentiate them from the migrants.

Assamese Muslims have no cause to feel a threat to their identity and their interests will be protected by the Modi government. The Opposition, primarily the Congress and the AIUDF, have been trying to fearmonger and peddle lies with respect to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) to alienate Assamese Muslims from the BJP. Who are Assamese Muslims? In Assam, indigenous Muslims can be divided into three distinct groups called Goria, Moria and Deshi. Some smaller groups like Moimal, Julha, Ujani and Syed are also called Assamese Muslims. It is reported that while the Morias are mainly descendants of Muslim soldiers who were part of invasions in Assam and were captured by Ahom kings, the Deshis and Gorias are people from indigenous communities in lower and upper Assam, respectively, who converted to Islam. Deshis were from the Koch-Rajbongshi communities, while the Gorias consist of Muslims brought from outside Assam by Ahom kings, captured Muslim soldiers and those who converted locally, as per Muminul Aowal, Chairman, Assam Minorities Development Board. Assamese Muslims have contributed a lot to the state’s history, right from the time of the Ahom kings when they distinguished themselves in the army to the Assam Agitation of 1979-85 against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, as well as to Assamese literature and culture.

According to the 2011 census, there are over 10.67 million Muslims in Assam. This includes Muslims who migrated from East Bengal and Bangladesh, those who came to Assam from other parts of the country as well as Assamese Muslims. At present, the fate of nearly one-fifth of the total 126 assembly seats in Assam is decided by the votes of migrant Muslims and their descendants. “The Assamese Muslims, who are scattered all over the Brahmaputra Valley, don’t have a single representative in the state assembly,” Nekibur Zaman, a senior advocate and vocal activist for rights of Assamese Muslims, said. “We are aware of the unique problems faced by Assamese Muslims. The process of doing the needful is underway. Once that is done, a survey will be done to find out the exact number of indigenous Muslims,” said Minorities Welfare Minister Ranjit Dutta a few months back.

It should be noted that Clause 6 of the 1985 Assam Accord, which seeks to give constitutional safeguards to indigenous Assamese through the reservation of seats in legislature and jobs, was never implemented by the erstwhile Congress regimes, thereby denying the fruits of development to Assamese Muslims. 

The Modi government has a great rapport with Bangladesh and on March 26, 2021, a new non-stop passenger train with ten bogeys, running between New Jalpaiguri and Dhaka, that will cover a distance of 513 km, will be flagged off to mark the Bangladesh liberation day and the birth centenary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rehman. This will also be the third passenger train between the two countries. The other two are the Maitree Express that runs between Kolkata and Dhaka and the Bandhan Express that connects Kolkata and Khulna. The Haldibari-Chilahati (in Bangladesh) train route was opened after a gap of 55 years for goods trains on December 17, 2020. The passenger train between New Jalpaiguri and Dhaka will take the same route. Hence, those trying to peddle a false narrative about trouble in Indo-Bangladesh bilateral relations, under the garb of the elections in Assam, are clearly mistaken. 

The Modi government has done far more for minorities and Muslims than any other government in post-Independence India, with over 3.4 crore minorities, including Muslim youngsters, being granted scholarships in the first five years of the Modi government. Under Modi 2.0, the aim is to provide scholarships to 5 crore students from minority groups, including Muslims. Meanwhile, the Congress, with no leader, legacy or positive agenda, has only used Muslims for its nefarious vote bank politics. Perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal’s AIUDF too has never cared for Muslims, apart from furthering its divisive agenda by using Muslims to propagate its politics of hate and dangerous polarisation.The unholy Congress-AIUDF alliance is merely an opportunistic one, with nothing but instability to offer to the peace-loving, beautiful and culturally rich Assamese community. Assam simply cannot suffer instability any more, as it is now on the cusp of reclaiming its rightful place in the annals of Indian history. In sharp contrast to the divisive Congress, the BJP has a stated objective of “justice for all and appeasement of none”. If good politics is indeed about good economics, then the people of Assam must come together to vote for growth, progress, inclusivity and development, which is what Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s unifying political mantra is all about, in more ways than one.

The author is an economist, a national spokesperson for the BJP and the bestselling author of ‘Truth & Dare: The Modi Dynamic’. The views expressed are personal.

Though we are still living in a Covid continuous world, it is going to be one year since Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered what was probably the world’s longest lockdown in India. And without much of a notice, life as we knew it came to a grinding halt as we all learnt to pause a little. New concepts and a new way of life became part of our lexicon as we learnt to work—and workout—from home. We stopped taking vacations and began to spend time within our own four walls. A lot of neglected ‘homework’ got done as we fixed that leaking sink, oiled that creaking door and rearranged our furniture. In fact, one of the offshoots of this new lifestyle has been a rise in real estate prices (that had fallen post-demonetisation) as everyone realised the importance of owning your own home. This home no longer had to be in a prime real estate zone right next to our workplaces but could be in the far-flung suburbs, so long as there was a good Internet connection there. In fact, one of the first sectors to make a recovery was the real estate sector (residential, not commercial).

Moreover, those looking to live in concrete and crowded jungles just so they could be close to their workplace or the most happening mall and night club have now realised that this is not such a priority anymore. Instead, it is homes that have the most green cover, that are close to parks that are most sought after. Which is why I predict that Noida is soon going to overtake Gurugram as the most sought-after destination for homebuyers in the NCR.

Another lesson learnt from Covid times has been the value of relationships. Although lockdown has lifted and socialising has begun again, it would be interesting to note that the focus is one family and meaningful get-togethers instead of the statement parties. Since we are still being careful about whom we meet and limiting our social interactions, one is also reaching out to those who are really important instead of just anybody. This is a lesson that we had forgotten in our search for Instagram posts and Facebook updates. And of course, most of us have also learnt how to bake banana bread!

And just as we learnt to prioritise our socialising, we have also learnt how to prioritise our spending patterns. With incomes taking a drastic cut (the job market is still to bounce back to pre-Covid normals), we also realised that most of what we bought was stuff that we didn’t really need. Why rush after the latest brands when all you need to lounge around your home is that pair of bargain basement pyjamas?

Of course, now that the vaccine is here—and in spite of the fact that Covid is still very much around—we are slowly finding our way back to a new normal. And that’s the best part of it all for in the process we are also getting a chance to redefine ourselves; and to begin again!

Saturday, 2 November 1929 was an unusually warm and noisy weekend in Philadelphia. The newspapers termed the weather an ‘Indian summer’. A thirty-year-old immigrant from India Noni Gopal Bose, like multitudes of Americans, had already watched his hard-earned savings diminish in a matter of days. The dreadful week had started on 24 October with the panic selling of stocks on Wall Street and quickly wiped out entire fortunes. Noni paced outside the hospital, tightly holding on to $75 borrowed from friends for the doctor’s fees. Then he heard the faint sound of a baby crying. Charlotte Mechlin, his American wife, had given birth to their son. They named him Amar, which signifies immortality. 

After the Great Crash, the Depression era of the 1930s was a demanding and dangerous time for the mixed-race couple in Philadelphia. The preschooler Amar saw his parents, Noni and Charlotte, being turned down repeatedly at restaurants and rejected regularly as tenants. Eventually, they leased a white stucco, clay tile-roofed house in the rough Fox Chase neighbourhood. Amar grew up in a quiet Indian-American household with Vedanta leanings and attended the Abington High School six miles away where racial discrimination was a regular practice. The racist slurs at times got vicious and Noni taught his son how to box. He instructed him not to ever start a fight but to never lose one either. He did not lose thereafter. The small boy then distracted himself by discovering the violin and fell in love with Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert. Later, Amar found out that his father imported jute rugs and coconut-fibre doormats from India while secretly sustaining the underground network of revolutionaries of the former Ghadar Party in America. 

Earlier in 1920, Noni had been arrested by the Calcutta (now Kolkata) police for producing banned literature that opposed the British rule in India. The firebrand physics student had successfully escaped the dragnet of the British intelligence operatives and boarded a ship. He had disembarked at Ellis Island in New York with the help of Ghadar Party patriots. Then while the police sought him in India, he settled down far away in Philadelphia as a salesman. At a spiritual retreat, Noni came across Charlotte, a school teacher captivated by meditation and vegetarianism, and in time they got married. Right through the 1930s, Indians escaping British persecution stayed with the Bose family in their small suburban house for months. There were covert meetings at night and Noni travelled all along the East Coast narrating traumatic tales of Jallianwala Bagh and other British atrocities in India to American audiences. Then during World War II, Noni’s import business was wrecked by the naval blockades and Charlotte’s salary was not enough to pay the bills. Amar later recalled, “We didn’t have enough money to buy toy trains so I would buy scrap ones and fix them – that gave me the interest in repairing things.” 

It turned out that the teenager had a great fascination for all things electrical. While still in high school, he helped his father set up the “Bose Radio & Television Service Co.” in their basement. Desperate for news about the war and unable to get spare parts for their broken radios, customers flocked to the father and son’s repair shop. The young Bose utilizing his innovative fixing techniques reconnected his customers with the world. With a little bit of inspired advertising in local hardware stores, he became the go-to radio repair guy throughout Philadelphia. Soon his projects grew ambitious as he built a television set from oil burner parts and people came over just to watch the experimental broadcasts. He was the family’s primary breadwinner in those challenging years. But more importantly, the young man had found his mission in life.

In 1947, Amar entered the engineering school at the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a burning desire to learn how to design electronic products. Though the income from refurbishing radios carried the family through the war years, Noni and Charlotte had to borrow $10,000 for the exorbitant college fees. Thrown among super brilliant classmates, the teenager despite his tremendous practical experience in electronics survived the challenging academic environment by the skin of his teeth. He later recalled, “Every morning I just studied and studied and studied.” MIT was sufficiently impressed by the passionate tech-tinkerer with a problem-solving mind and granted him a scholarship through his undergraduate and graduate studies. Subsequently, he was dispatched for summer training on audio equipment at Philips Electronics in Eindhoven, Netherlands. By 1956 he had successfully finished a doctorate on complex statistical communication theory. 

After nine years at MIT, Amar couldn’t wait to get out to take up a research job and provide for his family. However, the extraordinarily gifted MIT mathematician Norbert Wiener, who had multiple doctorates, saw unusual potential in him. After facing anti-Semitism in academia, Wiener had spent seven months in 1955 at the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta on the invitation of the legendary Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis. On his return, he officially stated the need for Indian authors in global scientific journals to supplement Western research that “was showing the intellectual and moral enfeeblement following two World Wars”. He inspired the young scholar; “Bose, your heritage is from India, you should spend a year there… apply for a Fulbright scholarship…”. Though Amar did not speak a word of any Indian language he nevertheless submitted his application. Wiener’s glowing recommendation won him the postdoctoral Fulbright scholarship. Though he was not enthused about teaching, the talented youngster made such an impression that MIT professors secured support to fast-track his appointment as a faculty member. A few days before his departure for India, while Amar was enjoying a swim, a colleague rushed to excitedly announce that he had been appointed a Professor at MIT. 

Earlier that summer, while lounging in his dorm, Amar had listened to the state-of-the-art stereo he had bought as a reward for finishing his doctorate. He was appalled by the poor reproduction of the violin. His engineering knowledge approved the specifications but his musical training did not endorse the sound. Keen to resolve the dilemma, he tested out his music system at the MIT Building 20’s anechoic chamber over many nights. It was the turning point in his life. He became almost obsessively devoted to improving loudspeakers and to the study of acoustics and psychoacoustics.

Then in September 1956, the tall, handsome and intellectually inquisitive MIT Professor Amar Gopal Bose landed at the Willingdon Airfield in Delhi. Weiner had set him off to India armed with two words: “insatiable curiosity”. These were to become his guiding tenets. He divided his time at the Indian Statistical Institute with Mahalanobis and the illustrious Professor K.S. Krishnan at the National Physical Laboratory. During the day he taught, but in the evenings he applied his mind to solving audio problems and explored acoustics. Fortuitously, at a high-profile lecture, Amar Bose met his future wife, Prema, the daughter of R.P. Sarathy, a senior Indian civil servant. To the delight of Noni and Charlotte, they married four years later on 17 August 1960 and subsequently had two children, Vanu and Maya.

After a year in India, Amar Bose began teaching at MIT and planned on improving the brittle suspension of his brand new Pontiac Bonneville. Then on 5 December 1959, The New York Times reported that his designs for speaker systems employing abstruse mathematical theories were patented. The article specified that the MIT Professor did much of the mathematical analysis for the invention while in India. Amar Bose was summoned by his mentor Professor Yuk-Wing Lee who advised that the patents were of value; that he shouldn’t let them slip away through licensing. Lee even loaned him $10,000 for a start-up. In August 1964, the inventor turned into an entrepreneur and opened the doors of his corporation. He chose his namesake Bose as a brand name since it had one syllable and was easy to pronounce in different languages. 

Right from the beginning, he wanted to replicate, as clearly as possible, the sound of live music through technology, and his distinguishing factor was research. A sign on his desk read, “If you think something is impossible, don’t disturb the person who is doing it!”. Filled with enthusiastic MIT graduates, the corporation’s initial contracts were with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its earliest home systems appeared in 1965, bringing the revolutionary concert-hall experience to home-speaker systems. Eventually the corporation took off and in 1972 Amar Bose presented a cheque of $250,000 to Professor Lee in return for his initial investment. He also ensured that his research and development team worked without the pressures of quarterly financial results and all the profits were reinvested back into the corporation, facilitating advancements in non-audio areas. 

In 1978, following his divorce from Prema, Amar Bose was on a transatlantic flight from Zurich to Boston with his second wife Ursula Boltzhauser when he realized that the aviation headset sounded horrendous. The music aficionado immediately got down to designing noise cancellation headphones. From the drawing board to a popular product for both air force and airline applications, it took fifteen years and fifty million dollars in research. This was followed by the surround sound systems and an energy-efficient suspension for automobiles. He told Popular Science magazine, “I would have been fired a hundred times at a company run by MBAs. But I never went into business to make money. I went into business so that I could do interesting things that hadn’t been done before.” Before long, the university professor who revolted against conventional woofers and tweeters in high fidelity was a respected name in global consumer electronics.

On Friday, 27 July 1981, Amar Bose lost his father, Noni. His mother, Charlotte, had died eight years earlier. Before their demise, they had watched him become the perfect example of the American Dream. Acclaimed for the rich sound of his size-defying audio machines, he was named Inventor of the Year in 1987. A year later, he was inducted into the Abington High School Hall of Fame. By 2007, he had a place on Forbes’ list of billionaires and was the 271st richest man in the world, with a net worth of $1.8 billion. However, the self-made billionaire with 84 patents was greatly influenced by the spiritual insights of his parents and had no interest in material wealth. The recipient of the IEEE James Clerk Maxwell Medal 2010 lived just ten miles from his company’s unpretentious headquarters in a modest home in Wayland, west of Boston. He owned just one car. A media-shy person, he meditated every day and was an avid badminton player and swimmer who enjoyed spending winters in Hawaii. The farsighted inventor later revealed, “I have never worried one day about anything like (money) when I didn’t have any money or I did. I never even decided my own salary in my company… none of those bring happiness by the way… I can guarantee that what brings it is your satisfaction of doing something exciting and better.” Over time the corporation he built from scratch had revenues in billions but, possibly due to his father’s shattering stock market experience in 1929, he ensured that it remained privately owned from its inception. And finally, as Noni had repeatedly told his son to do something in India, the first company-owned international store launched in New Delhi in October 1998.

During his lifetime, Amar Bose had a meaningful association with his alma mater. On his induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2008, he declared, “Research and teaching are two top professions that I have enjoyed the most”. The once reluctant teacher emerged as an eminent Professor at MIT and received the Baker Teaching Award in 1963-64. From 1956 to 2001, he taught freshman classes every year, influencing multiple generations of students with his amazing ability to mesmerize and convey complicated ideas eloquently in simple words. His students renamed the course “Acoustics and the Philosophy of Life”. In 1989, the Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching was established by the School of Engineering as the highest award for teaching. In one of his conversations with the students, Bose in his gravelly voice predicted, “The future isn’t in solving the problems to which we already know the answers. It’s in learning how to work through the problems you will experience in life… in any subject”. In April 2011, Amar Bose, the chairman and technical director of the Bose Corporation and professor emeritus of electrical engineering and computer science, in an unprecedented step in corporate America’s history, bequeathed to MIT the majority of the stock of his company. The substantial cash dividends today sustain revolutionary research at the top technological university of the world.

 Then on 12 July 2013, the visionary inventor, billionaire and sound revolutionary, Amar Gopal Bose, quietly passed away in his sleep at his home. Today, when we think of top-of-the-line sound speakers, Bose comes to mind. Bose sound systems can be heard in millions of houses, automobiles, auditoriums, sports arenas and spiritual centres all over the world. And Amar Bose’s creation of a globally recognized brand based on high-tech scientific research remains his enduring contribution to the world we live in. 

Bhuvan Lall is the author of ‘The Man India Missed The Most: Subhas Chandra Bose’ and ‘The Great Indian Genius: Har Dayal’. He is currently writing the biography of Sardar Patel. He can be reached at writerlall@gmail.com.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that some people have a major problem with India’s greatest badge of honour—its democracy. Or rather, they have such a huge problem with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that according to them India is ceasing to be a democracy just because he is in power. He may have been elected with a landslide, but according to them, they are the ones who know what India needs and not the “unwashed masses” who voted him to power. No wonder every second day we hear new terms being coined to describe India—“partial democracy”, “electoral autocracy”, by the so-called custodians of democratic values. Amusingly, this week, in that unelected citadel of British democracy, House of Lords, their lordships expressed their concern about the backsliding of democracy in India, without realizing the irony of the situation. It’s appearing as if some people, frustrated with the way the Indian political landscape is shaping up, and the way India’s geostrategic heft is increasing, are trying to knock off India from its high perch; while others, like the “lords” of the British Empire-Without-an-Empire, are having their Churchill-told-you-so (about India) moment by imagining the worst of India.

The sharpest reply to all this came from External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar, who when asked about the downgrading of India as a democratic country, rightly replied, “You use the dichotomy of democracy and autocracy. You want the truthful answer—it is hypocrisy. Because you have a set of self-appointed custodians of the world, who find it very difficult to stomach that somebody in India is not looking for their approval, is not willing to play the game they want it to be played. So they invent their rules, their parameters, they pass their judgements and then make out as though this is some kind of global exercise.”

The problem is that this narrative in the West is being fed from within India itself. It’s sad to see the Opposition, particularly Rahul Gandhi become a part of this narrative-mongering. In an interaction with a US university, the democratically elected MP from Wayanad, brazenly said, “yes democracy is weakening…even Gaddafi and Saddam allowed voting”. So, the gentleman who was until recently the president of a party that is the main political Opposition in India, a party that has ruled this country for eons, in one fell swoop brought India down to the level of two of the world’s worst dictatorships. Does he realise the implication of the message that he sent out to the world—that India is unfit to be in the company of big powers or be home to big business? Can “responsible”, senior leaders afford to be so casual in their comments? He even cast aspersions on the institution of the judiciary, saying that it is failing. According to him, even the Indian media is failing, a conclusion he arrived at apparently because the media does not give him enough airtime. Surely that is a strange claim, for even Rahul Gandhi would have noticed that whenever he is in the news, all media spotlights are on him. But for that he has to be in the news. Interestingly, to prove his point that democracy is failing, he claimed that his microphone is switched off when he speaks in Parliament. The allegation perhaps had to do with an incident in 2018 when a technical glitch made his microphone malfunction for a few seconds when he was speaking in Parliament. However, to red-flag that incident at an international forum as an instance of democracy being killed is a bit of a stretch. The irony of such claims is that it was one of his family members who muzzled democracy in the country by imposing Emergency and it is again his party, which is being accused of muzzling inner party democracy even in 2021.

Questions will naturally rise about the intention behind such comments. Doesn’t the Congress leader realise that casting of aspersions on Indian democracy will not go down well with the Indian voters? If the intent is to convince Indians that they do not have democracy because they have chosen the wrong leader, it’s unlikely to have any impact on the ground. For, democracy is a living breathing entity for Indians. And it is as perfect or imperfect as any other robustly democratic country with strongly functioning institutions. The failure of Rahul Gandhi’s party to win elections is not Indian democracy’s fault. He needs to look closer home for it.

Certain sections of the western world can make all sorts of claims about Indian democracy’s health. But Indians are intelligent enough to know that such claims are not true. Indians have nothing to be apologetic about. However, politicians definitely need to rise above politics when talking about India internationally.

According to the website China Tibet News, many young Tibetans applied for recruitment in the Chinese Army in the first half of 2021. This was the first post-Covid-19 recruitment exercise for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), after the confrontation with the Indian Army in Ladakh. Normally, recruitment happens twice a year all over China. Beijing is apparently trying hard to recruit Tibetans in the PLA, offering many incentives to those willing to join.

The article says: “This year is an important year for Tibet to implement biannual conscription. At present, the conscription work in Tibet has entered the final stage. As a key part of ensuring the quality of troops, the recruitment department of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) attached great importance to the work of conscription medical examinations.”

On 8 March, 22 young women from different prefectures in the TAR had passed the preliminary screening. Once preselected, they were sent to the Medical Examination Center of the General Hospital of the Tibet Military Command for further testing. The article notes that in order to recruit female soldiers, the TAR’s Recruitment Department has established four groups, responsible respectively for physical examinations, physical fitness tests, ‘political’ assessments and interviews “to ensure that aspiring female youths meet the standards of physical and psychological quality.” There is no doubt that ‘political’ assessment is the most important in the volatile Land of Snows.

This year, despite the conflict in Ladakh, the number of Tibetan applicants, aged 18 to 22, is said to be more than 3,800 (3,069 young men and 753 women). The exercise targets educated youth, mostly college students, most of them with degrees. Another recruitment session will take place in June/July this year.

Recruitment and conscription are major issues for the PLA leadership, which has probably realised its shortcomings on the Ladakh front. After the fiasco in Ladakh, where the Chinese soldiers did not fare well compared to the Indian jawans (one of the reasons is the enforced military conscription in China), Beijing is seriously thinking to bring reforms and enroll more minorities like the Tibetans in the PLA (for sure, the latter are suffering less of the lack of oxygen unlike Chinese soldiers). But, of course, ‘ideology’ remains the crucial criterion for the final selection.

China Military Online reported in Januarythat a first plenum of the inter-departmental joint conference on national conscription work was held in Beijing on 18 January. It was addressed by General Wei Fenghe, Defense Minister and member of the all-powerful Central Military Commission (CMC). The Chinese media commented: “The joint conference is responsible for implementing related major decisions and deployments concerning the military conscription.” Beijing seems to be fully aware of the recruitment deficiencies; one of them being the quasi absence of ‘minorities’ troops in the PLA. 

While addressing the PLA delegation during the recently concluded Two Sessions (the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference or CPPCC and the National People’s Congress or NPC), President Xi Jinping noted that the PLA achieved “a good start in strengthening national defence and the armed forces during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) period.” Xi, also CMC chairman, praised the armed forces “for reaching the targets and missions for 2020 amid the COVID-19 epidemic and complex domestic and international circumstances.” Xi also urged the PLA to focus on combat readiness and, while remembering the ‘instabilities’ and ‘uncertainties’ in China’s current security scenario, the PLA “must always be ready to respond to all kinds of complex and difficult situations, resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security.”  

To be ready for a war with India may not pass well for the Tibetan recruits, most of whom have relatives living in exile in India. Undoubtedly, the recruiters must be asking themselves some serious questions: can the Tibetans be loyal to the Communist Party and faithfully serve Chairman Xi and their ‘Chinese motherland’ or will they continue to pay obeisance to their spiritual leader in exile in India? 

One detail is telling: the PLA delegation in the NPC (which also includes the People’s Armed Police) has 294 representatives. Most of the top generals are NPC members, including the infamous Gen Zhao Zongqi, who triggered the Doklam incident in 2017 and more recently the Ladakh confrontation. Tibet is only represented by three ‘model’ soldiers, Sergeant Yangchok Geshe, 30 years old from Ngaba in Sichuan, Captain Jampa Khedrup, 31 from Kangding which is also in Sichuan, and 2nd Lieutenant Sonam Tashi from Lhoka in Southern Tibet. These are puppets to show the world that Tibet is represented, though today China needs Tibetan puppets for its propaganda, however, it fools less and less people around the world, even if China continues to call itself a good neighbour and a peace-loving country. 

On 1 March, China Military Online, quoting a statement from the Ministry of National Defence, stated: “China’s strategic choice to take the road of peaceful development and independent foreign policy of peace, as well as the traditional Chinese culture advocating ‘harmony’, …China unswervingly pursues a defence policy that is defensive in nature.”

The same article stressed that “China must not lose an inch of the territory that the country’s ancestors have left behind. The building and development of China’s national defence and armed forces is entirely driven by the need to safeguard China’s national sovereignty, security and development interests, not targeting any country or not posing threat to any country.”

One could ask: Have these ‘ancestors’ ever set foot in Ladakh, in Arunachal Pradesh or elsewhere on India’s northern border? The answer is no.

During a recent CPPCC session, the PLA deputies discussed a number of issues related to national defencse. One of them was about how to “incite rural revitalisation in ethnic areas through military-civilian cooperation.” The present recruitment is in line with this policy. 

However, the truth is that the PLA leadership today fears the Tibetans. Recently, a notice from the Metok Border Management Brigade announced that from March 1, the Chinese authorities began “to check border pass, ID cards and other documents of people entering and exiting Metok.” Metok is the last small but strategic town located near the Great Bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo, north of the McMahon Line (where mega hydropower plants are being planned). Even the PLA is not exempted from these new restrictions: “officers and soldiers of the PLA and the People’s Armed Police who are not stationed in the area must present a certificate issued by the competent department to enter and leave the border area.” 

China clearly has a dilemma: how to show that the Tibetans are on its side, when they are probably not. And this is happening when Beijing is preparing to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the 17-point Agreement on the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, an accord signed under duress according to the Dalai Lama (at gunpoint, in fact). This is a great dilemma indeed for Beijing.

The writer is a French-born author, journalist, historian, Tibetologist and China expert. The views expressed are personal.

To be ready for a war with India may not pass well for the Tibetan recruits, most of whom have relatives living in exile in India. Undoubtedly, the recruiters must be asking themselves some serious questions: Can the Tibetans be loyal to the Communist Party and faithfully serve Chairman Xi and their ‘Chinese motherland’, or will they continue to pay obeisance to their spiritual leader in exile in India? 

After 2014 there have been very few elections where one has seen a clash of strong personalities. For once the BJP came to power, not only did Narendra Modi become the Prime Minister, he also became the party’s star campaigner. In fact, as S. Prasannarajan, editor, Open magazine, wrote, there has been no local election since 2014. Each election has been fought on the Modi mandate with the PM’s posters adorning each hoarding, larger than life. Yes, there have been some battles where he has had a fight on his hands (such as what happened with Arvind Kejriwal in the last battle for Delhi) but most have been walkovers. However with Mamata Banerjee, the BJP—and PM Modi—have a fight on their hands. And if anyone can match the PM in theatrics and the art of mass connect, it is the TMC leader and current West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

In fact, did the BJP mess up its reaction to Mamata Banerjee’s injuries? Instead of taking her on and calling it fake, if only the PM—or some national leader of standing—had expressed sympathy that would have been the end of this issue. By questioning Mamata they have given her an issue on a platter and also a brand new identity—wheeling in the wounded tigress for the voters. And not one to miss an opportunity, Mamata has played the injuries to the hilt, from the social media outreach from her hospital bed to campaigning on a wheelchair. For, ever since she took on the Left in Singur, Mamata knows all too well how to play the victim card. And so this is an election that is going to be about Mamata vs Modi—yes the issues are there, from CAA, Muslim appeasement, Hindutva, to local governance, but all these have been superseded by the personality cult of the two leaders. Both know how to play the politics of emotion, as a means to distract from the real issues. So, the question really is which of the two can deploy better weapons of mass distraction.

The other states going to the polls lack such a tall leader. In Assam, undoubtedly, CM Sarbananda Sonowal is overshadowed by his No. 2, Himanta Biswa Sarma, but both are from the same party. Tamil Nadu has been missing a personality clash ever since the demise of J. Jayalalithaa and M. Karunanidhi. The DMK’s Stalin did try to play up his personality but in the end his best bet is being his father’s chosen heir. If Sasikala had joined in the electoral fray, then there would have been a personality at play. In Kerala the sitting CM Pinayari Vijayan however has succeeded to an extent in making this election about himself. In fact, some say that perhaps because of his authoritarian ways and strong personality, he is known locally as “Modi in a Mundu”. 

In the end, we come back to the age of question—what wins elections? If it’s emotions then we have a full scale drama to watch in West Bengal.