'Anyone of them could have been the girl. So in a way it had what I call the 'rakhi effect'. Everyone felt the rape victim could have been my sister and everyone felt that could have been myself.' Professor Shiv Visvanathan speaks to Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt on the recent demonstrations by India's youth, and on current political and social trends.
What is it about India that tugs at the chords of our hearts? What makes this often beautiful, often frustrating, country the best country in the world for us? Why does it deserve to be celebrated and constantly nurtured? Why the journey for its Freedom is a continuing one. Continuing our Special series: Well-known Indians tell Rediff.com what they love most about India.
In the final part, Prof Shiva Visvanathan talks some more about Modi's chances of becoming PM, the professor's stay in Gujarat and how he was finally ousted from there.
Professor Shiv Visvanathan talks of the dangers of celebrating of reign of Narendra Modi and why the Gujarat chief minister may be as bad bet as prime minister.
The AAP phenomenon is the voice of a people desperately wanting to believe that democracy and politics can create a decent society. For the media to ignore this and treat it as temporary one is both pompous and nave, says Shiv Visvanathan
Subramanium, a feisty character, is not going to let anyone sully his reputation. He is ready to answer any question, any change which is more than what the Modi regime might be ready for. One man's integrity and toughness can crack a regime's carefully-built faade. Suddenly its backstage looks murky, says Shiv Visvanathan.
'I see you as a man who has split the nation into two. Vajpayee or even Advani would hold it together. One senses you cannot do this. To heal, to apologise, and to glue together a nation seems beyond you,' Shiv Visvanathan tells the BJP's prime ministerial candidate.
'Earlier India as part of the Third World fought for the rights of the Palestinians. But oddly the defeat of the Congress and the decline of the Nehruvian imagination has altered such perceptions. The new middle class expresses an open sympathy for Israel, contending that Jews like many Hindus has been misunderstood,' says Shiv Visvanathan.
Today when we see the man behaving in a controlled, almost genteel fashion, creating a government with Prussian efficiency, colonising Delhi with a strange silence of expectation, one must ask is this Modi? Or is Modi all the trails he has left behind?'
Hindi cinema seems readier than society to focus on women. It is not just rape one is talking about, though an act of rape and its consequent injustice unfolds most narratives. Suddenly women are central not just as problematic but as possibility, as agency, as alternative, feels Shiv Visvanathan.
The army of the future needs a system of transparency and research. An open sociology of the army is a democratic necessity. An openness of information is a necessity of the army of the future fighting the next peace and next war on behalf of society, says social scientist Shiv Visvanathan.
'His script, his body language is different, at the most he is a trained pracharak, a national politician building a base, an audience, a community of behaviours and followers from a younger generation, attempting to talk to children so they become his enthusiasts. Many are and that is his victory.'
'His is a naive genius which eludes the sophisticated. He is natural, lazy, effortless. He is no match for other stars. His acting is poor, his dancing is worse. Yet Salman as Salman is miles ahead of them....'
AAP is arguing quietly that indifference, alienation have to go. These are symptoms of disempowerment. For AAP, the battle to empower people demands new engagements with the marginals and corporations, says Shiv Visvanathan.
The Diaspora is no longer a mere remittance economy. It today claims dual loyalty and demands a say in Indian politics, says sociologist Shiv Visvanathan
'In Modi's moral majority, words like security become problematic and a moral majority can turn devastatingly inquisitorial. It turns history into a preferred flatland of the nation State challenging cultural diversity in the name of majoritarianism expressed as patriotism. Dissent almost immediately becomes seditious,' says Shiv Visvanathan.
From Arvind Kejriwal to Priyanka, this has been a media-determined election. Two forces stand poised, the people inventing new politics and the media inventing its own version of that politics, says Shiv Visvanathan.
The Queen has retired, the bosses have left, long live the prince as king, says Shiv Visvanathan.
'If Modi arrived like a juggernaut, he left like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces were being dismantled bit by bit. It was as if India had seceded quietly from him.' Shiv Viswanathan's social science fiction about what India would be like in 2020.
State after state has imposed an alcohol ban, and has had to retreat, unable to address the financial and administrative fallout. Are we set for more of this cycle, asks Aditi Phadnis.
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