Investigation on Reliance’s wildlife ambitions, India’s pre-election battles get dirty, and more – Southasia Weekly #06

This week at Himal

This week, we published an in-depth investigation into the costs of the Reliance conglomerate’s wildlife ambitions, which have seen it amass thousands of animals – including many endangered species – in and around the world’s largest petrochemical refinery complex. M Rajshekhar raises urgent questions about the sourcing of some animals and the dismantling of India’s wildlife conservation laws, with reporting that spans the full breadth of India and the globe.

Join us on Thursday, 27 March, for a conversation on the investigation with M Rajshekhar and a panel of experts, to be moderated by Himal’s Editor, Roman Gautam. Click here to register your interest and submit questions for Rajshekhar and the panel.

Aliya Bashir’s story discusses how, despite recent strides in reducing HIV prevalence and stigma in India, many mothers continue to hide their HIV-positive status from their families, with serious consequences for their children.

This week in Southasia

India's pre-election political battles get dirty 

Ahead of India’s elections, to be held between 19 April and 1 June, recently released data on electoral bond donations continue to make waves. Absent from the data initially revealed by the State Bank of India (SBI) on orders from the Supreme Court were the unique numbers that allowed for detailed tracking of who had paid which political party, and when, under the controversial and non-transparent electoral bond scheme. Also missing were details of electoral bond purchases between March 2018 and April 2019. The Election Commission had to direct SBI to ensure complete disclosure of all details in its possession by 21 March. 

It’s not just the SBI being secretive. The BJP claimed that it did not hold donor details since it was not required by law to do so, while other major beneficiaries of the scheme including the Indian National Congress and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) were also unable to share donor information. 

The released data reveals the nexus between big business and politics, with telling spikes in donations after electoral wins for the top beneficiaries, and several companies donating after being targeted by raids from central government agencies, or before winning key tenders. Perhaps it’s no wonder that many of the biggest beneficiaries are staying mum – the biggest among them being the BJP – even as at least ten parties, including the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Jammu and Kashmir National Congress, shared details of the donations they received through electoral bonds.

Even as it tries to hold tight to its donor secrets, the Congress has other financial headaches to worry about. The opposition party has seen its bank accounts frozen over a tax dispute right on the cusp of the elections – something it has decried as a move to hobble the opposition and ease the ruling BJP’s way to victory.

Similar howls of protest met the arrest of Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, of the opposition Aam Aadmi Party. Kejriwal’s arrest, linked to alleged corruption around alcohol-sale licensing, is also tangentially linked to the revelations around electoral bonds. P Sarath Chandra Reddy, director of Aurobindo Pharma Limited and an approver in the case against Kejriwal, had donated INR 5 crore to the BJP days after his arrest in the same matter. 

Elsewhere in Southasia  📡

• One child contracts polio in Balochistan, dashing hopes of the elimination of the disease after the world marked 19 weeks with no reported wild polio infections

• Tensions rise as Pakistan launches air strike on ‘armed groups’ along Afghanistan-Pakistan border, with eight civilians reportedly killed while Taliban returned fire

• Five students at Gujarat University assaulted during namaz prayers by men chanting Hindu slogans, five arrested 

• Indiscriminate air strikes in Myanmar’s Rakhine State kill dozens of civilians, who are ‘nearing starvation’ as the ruling junta continues to retreat before the Arakan Army. Around 100 Rohingya arrested for refusing conscription

• Deported migrant workers from Bangladesh report abuse, wage theft and false contracts in Saudi Arabia as it gears up for 2034 World Cup bid

• At least 10 Sri Lankan MPs tender resignations from Committee on Public Enterprises after appointment of new chair accused of misappropriation of public funds, saying committee has failed to act as a check on the government

• High-profile arrests in Nepal as the new government moves against the accused in a gold-smuggling scam – one of a series of recent scandals implicating powerful political figures 

• Controversy in Karnatic music community as the vocalist duo Ranjani-Gayatri withdraw from Madras Music Academy conference due to Karnatic vocalist, writer and anti-caste activist T M Krishna being selected for Sangita Kalanidhi award, drawing rebuke from the Music Academy

• Sri Lanka’s government-backed astrologers squabble over auspicious date and time for Sinhala and Tamil New Year, while lone dissenter warns Sri Lanka will ‘go up in flames’ if official times are followed 

• India’s Supreme Court stays operation of government-appointed fact-check unit until the Bombay High Court decides on challenges to amended IT rules – noting the rules impact freedom of speech and expression

Only in Southasia!

On 19 March, the CEO of Indian food-delivery company Zomato announced the launch of a ‘Pure Veg Fleet’, which delivered vegetarian food in distinctive light-green boxes and would never deliver non-vegetarian meals – or even vegetarian meals served by restaurants offering non-vegetarian options. 

The criticism started almost immediately (even as many gushed about the decision).

Only slightly deflated, Goyal said he had received an ‘overwhelmingly positive response’ to news of the fleet. He also explained that the fleets had to be separated because food from separate orders sometimes spilled into other delivery boxes, leaving a smell. Cue even more outrage.  

Pundits also queried whether Zomato was ready for their ‘Non Veg’ delivery riders to be set upon by mobs should they have to enter a ‘Pure Veg’ housing society – of which there are plenty in India. (Which also led to the creation of a parody Swiggy ad that the food delivery platform had to hastily debunk). 

The next day, a sheepish Goyal said that Zomato would remove ‘on-the-ground segregation’ (visually). He added that the Pure Veg fleet (and, hence, caste chauvinism) would remain intact, although there would be no more green uniform for the ‘Pure Veg Fleet’.

From the archive

Afghanistan after America (April 2007)

After USAID released a much-discussed report on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan as the Taliban entered Kabul in 2021, Thomas Ruttig’s 2019 commentary on what a post-withdrawal Afghanistan would look like is worth revisiting. Ruttig discusses the disappointment with the ‘reformist’ Afghan government of the time, led by President Ashraf Ghani, and the choices before Afghans as they contemplated a US withdrawal and subsequent power-sharing arrangements. Ruttig writes that the Taliban’s apparent moderation on many issues could be tactical, and easily rolled back in the absence of pushback from other Afghan political forces.