DKS assures growth of Cauvery basin; seeks support for Aarti
Highlighting the government's achievements, Shivakumar stated that several decades-old canals have been repaired, and excess rainfall has allowed the release of over 30 TMC of water to Tamil Nadu, much beyond the mandated 9 TMC. Over the past three years, Karnataka has consistently released large volumes of water, with 305 TMC discharged last year alone.
Appealing for cooperation, he urged people not to oppose the Cauvery Aarti initiative. 'Please do not politicise devotion. Water has no religion or caste. Worshipping rivers is part of our tradition,' he said, adding that around 1,500 locals would benefit from direct employment if the initiative succeeds, alongside the tourism potential of a developed Brindavan Gardens.
Shivakumar announced that a technical committee is being set up to inspect and repair dam gates statewide and criticized opposition parties for their past inaction. He also reminded the media to hold opposition leaders accountable by asking what contributions they've made to Mandya, Mysuru, or Bengaluru.
Reading a self-composed poem during the event, the DCM glorified the river and its blessings: 'Kaveri is full, the farmers rejoice. She has driven away the drought with her grace. For our prayers, for our devotion, Kaveri flows in abundance. When Kaveri flows, peace and prosperity follow.'
He reflected on the historical contribution of the Mysuru royal family and reiterated the Congress government's legacy of supporting farmers, investing ₹19,700 crore in free electricity for agriculture and ensuring water availability for second crops after rapid dam repairs like those at Tungabhadra.
On Mekedatu, he said the state is ready to implement the project and has already opened a project office in Kanakapura. Measures for land acquisition and afforestation are in motion.
Clarifying concerns around Cauvery Aarti, he said, 'Prayer cannot harm. It can only bless. There's no need for apprehension.' He affirmed that over 1,500 direct jobs can be created, making it not only a cultural revival but also an economic boost for the region.
Shivakumar concluded by stating that the government is determined to turn Brindavan Gardens into a world-class tourist attraction and called upon private investors to join hands.
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The Wire
21 minutes ago
- The Wire
The Kerala Precedent: How Article 356 Became a Weapon of Cold War Politics
Newly declassified British intelligence files have confirmed coordinated CIA-UK operations with Congress leaders that led to the downfall of Kerala's 1959 Communist government. EMS Namboodiripad. On July 31, 1959, the Nehru Government invoked Article 356 of the Constitution to dismiss a state government for the first time against a non-Congress administration. E.M.S. Namboodiripad, who had served as Kerala's chief minister from April 5, 1957, saw his Communist-led government terminated after 27 months in power. What followed was not just a change of government, but a constitutional precedent that would haunt Indian federalism for decades. For 65 years, the story of this dismissal has been contested territory. To supporters of the Vimochana Samaram (Liberation Struggle), the mass agitation that culminated in the dismissal represented a popular uprising against Communist overreach. To the Left, it was a carefully orchestrated conspiracy involving domestic and communal opposition with the help of foreign agents, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The story has taken a dramatic turn and become more intriguing with historian Paul McGarr's latest revelations. Drawing on recently declassified British intelligence files, McGarr's research reveals that the United Kingdom's MI5 and MI6, along with the CIA, mounted covert operations in coordination with senior Congress leaders and India's Intelligence Bureau to bring down the Namboodiripad administration. McGarr's findings reveal that when Kerala began gaining international attention as "The Indian Yenan" – a reference to the famous Chinese Communist revolutionary base – British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan became alarmed and authorised a "Special Political Action" program specifically designed to undermine the Communist Party of India's growing influence in the state. The operation included a covert training scheme that brought Congress leaders and union organisers to the UK for intensive anti-Communist instruction. The plan had the approval of IB chief B.N. Mullik and was politically green-lit by Union home minister Govind Ballabh Pant and Union finance minister Morarji Desai. Most significantly, the British archives reveal the careful diplomatic manoeuvering required to secure Indian government cooperation: "Having met Govind Ballabh Pant, India's Minister for Home Affairs, Morarji Desai, the Union Finance Minister, and Nehru himself, Lord Home reported back to London that Pant and Desai were firmly in favour. Nehru proved less enthusiastic. The Indian premier did, however, concede that it would be useful for the Indian government to be able to call on UK intelligence assistance in certain circumstances." The trained operatives were then "infiltrated into the Indian National Trade Union Congress," bolstering its ability to counter CPI-aligned unions. This created what McGarr describes as sustained political pressure that complemented CIA funding efforts. "The people of India have the right to know the truth about the 1959 dismissal of Kerala's first Communist government. I believe that much is still remaining hidden about the Vimochana Samaram, which was shaped not only by local politics but also by external interventions that influenced the course of democracy in postcolonial India. The newly revealed UK involvement is almost unbelievable, but surprisingly new," observed eminent political scientist G. Gopakumar. Ballot box Communists The undivided CPI's electoral victory in Kerala in 1957 created one of the earliest democratically elected Communist governments in the world. It was only the second revolutionary government ever elected democratically, after communist success in San Marino from 1945 to 1957. This democratic path to socialism sent ripples across the Cold War world, where the ideological battle between capitalism and communism typically played out through revolution or military intervention, not electoral politics. In Washington and London, policymakers watched apprehensively as Namboodiripad's government began implementing the radical reforms that had brought it to power. The Communist government's troubles began with its very success in implementing promised reforms. The Kerala Education Bill of 1957, piloted by state education minister Joseph Mundassery, aimed to bring the state's schools under tighter government regulation. The legislation required that teacher appointments in grant-aided private schools – many run by Christian churches and caste organisations – be made from government-approved lists. For the powerful Syrian Catholic Church and organisations like the Nair Service Society, these reforms represented an existential threat to decades-old control over education and patronage networks. The changes would have significantly affected the livelihoods and autonomy of thousands of teachers while reducing the influence of religious and community organisations over educational institutions. Even more explosive were the agrarian reforms championed by revenue minister K.R. Gouri. The legislation sought to confer ownership rights to long-term tenant cultivators, fix ceilings on landholdings, and prevent arbitrary eviction of tenants. For the landed elites – particularly the Nair and Syrian Christian communities who had dominated Kerala's rural economy for generations – these reforms were unacceptable. The gathering storm Opposition to the EMS government began coalescing almost immediately after the bills were introduced. The Syrian Catholic Church mobilised its considerable resources against the education bill, with Church leaders framing the legislation as an attack on religious freedom and minority rights. Simultaneously, the Nair Service Society, under Mannathu Padmanabhan's leadership, began organising against the land reforms. The Indian National Congress, smarting from its electoral defeat, provided political coordination for what would become a formidable opposition coalition. The protests, initially peaceful, gradually escalated. The turning point came on June 13, 1959, at Angamaly, where police firing on protesters resulted in seven deaths. Similar incidents followed across the state, creating a cycle of violence and political mobilisation that would ultimately provide the justification for central intervention. Evidence of foreign involvement The question of foreign involvement in the Vimochana Samaram has been the subject of scholarly investigation for decades. CIA funding of the Congress party has been documented on multiple occasions. The most significant admission came from Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who served as US Ambassador to India in the 1970s. In his memoir A Dangerous Place, Moynihan revealed that the CIA had secretly funded the Indian National Congress on multiple occasions, including operations targeting Kerala's Communist government. "In the 1950s, as the role of world policeman shifted from Britain to the United States, the CIA overthrew several democratically elected governments in the Third World, often with extreme bloodshed,' explains Thomas Isaac, CPIM leader and Kerala's former finance minister. Yet in former British colonies like British Guiana, India, and Iran, it was still British intelligence that held sway in the early years. The coup in British Guiana was initiated by Britain itself. 'Now, for the first time, concrete records reveal Britain's interventions in Kerala—until now known only through the memoirs of B.N. Mullik, then head of India's Intelligence Bureau," says Issac who co-authored the book Toppling the First Ministry: Kerala, the CIA, and the Struggle for Social Justice, along with Richard W. Franke. While the CIA's role in funnelling money to Congress politicians and anti-communist trade unions has been hinted at in past memoirs and research, McGarr's work adds detailed evidence of Britain's parallel campaign. The Cold War context Understanding the foreign dimension requires recognising Kerala's significance in Cold War calculations. A democratically elected Communist government in an Indian state represented a dangerous precedent from the perspective of Western policymakers who saw containment of Communism as a strategic imperative. Internal CIA documents, some later declassified, show the extraordinary level of attention Kerala commanded in Washington's intelligence apparatus. The agency produced detailed intelligence assessments tracking political developments in what internal communications referred to as "India's Communist State." The fear was not just about Kerala itself, but about the precedent it might set. If Communism could succeed through democratic means in one corner of the world, what would prevent similar outcomes elsewhere in the developing world? This concern shaped Western intelligence approaches to the crisis. The constitutional precedent On July 31, 1959, on the advice of the Union Cabinet, President Rajendra Prasad invoked Article 356 of the Constitution to dismiss Kerala's elected chief minister E.M.S. Namboodiripad and his cabinet, and ordered the dissolution of the state assembly. The decision came after months of escalating protests and violence, setting a precedent for using the provision against non-Congress administrations that would be repeatedly invoked in subsequent decades. Prime Minister Nehru, despite his initial reluctance as revealed in the British archives, ultimately accepted the advice of his Cabinet to dismiss the EMS government. The justification was the breakdown of law and order, but critics argued that the violence had been manufactured to create grounds for constitutional intervention. The dismissal of Kerala's Communist government established what would become known as the "Kerala precedent" – the use of Article 356 to remove an elected state government facing political opposition based on ideological grounds. While Article 356 had been used before in Punjab (1951) and PEPSU (1953), the Kerala case marked its first deployment against a Communist government and set the template for future political misuse of this constitutional provision. Over the following decades, Article 356 would be invoked repeatedly against state governments that were inconvenient to the party in power at the Center, fundamentally altering the federal balance envisioned by the Constitution's framers. Historical reassessment Recent research has begun to provide a more nuanced understanding of the Vimochana Samaram, moving beyond simple narratives of popular uprising or foreign conspiracy. The evidence suggests a complex interaction of genuine domestic grievances, opportunistic political calculation and foreign intelligence operations. The concerns of various Kerala communities about the Communist government's reforms were real and significant. The education bill openly threatened the autonomy of religious institutions, while the land reforms challenged established property relations. These fears of the elite provided the raw material for political mobilisation. However, the systematic coordination of this opposition, the sophisticated propaganda campaigns, and the strategic timing of escalations suggest influences beyond purely local concerns. The documented CIA funding and British intelligence cooperation indicate that foreign powers saw an opportunity to roll back a dangerous precedent and took it. McGarr's research reveals that the Kerala operation was not an isolated case. It mirrored interventions in other newly independent nations where Western powers feared communist electoral success could become a model for the developing world. The Kerala episode provides crucial historical context for contemporary debates about foreign interference in domestic politics. The techniques revealed in declassified documents – covert funding of political movements, sophisticated information campaigns, coordination between foreign operatives and domestic actors – bear striking similarities to modern concerns about electoral manipulation. Perhaps most importantly, the Kerala case demonstrates how constitutional provisions designed to protect democracy can be turned against it when political will is lacking. The misuse of Article 356, beginning with the Kerala precedent, would become one of the most contentious issues in Indian federalism. The unfinished story As archives continue to open and more documents become available, our understanding of the Kerala episode continues to evolve. The full scope of foreign involvement may never be completely known, as intelligence operations by their nature leave incomplete paper trails scattered across different countries and agencies. What remains clear is that the dismissal of Kerala's first Communist government represents a watershed moment in Indian democracy – a moment when the principles of federalism and electoral sovereignty came into conflict with Cold War imperatives and domestic political calculations. The Vimochana Samaram thus stands as both a historical case study and a contemporary warning about the fragility of democratic institutions. 'If the fresh revelations are true, it amounts [to] a Union government conspiring with foreign agents against one of its provinces, a rare moment in political history,' says Dr. Gopakumar. As India continues to grapple with questions of federalism and constitutional governance, the lessons of 1959 remain relevant. The Kerala precedent serves as a cautionary tale about the price of sacrificing democratic principles for immediate political advantage – a price that, once paid, may take generations to recover. M.P. Basheer, a journalist and writer based in Trivandrum, was the executive editor of Kerala's first TV news channel, Indiavision. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments. Advertisement
Mint
21 minutes ago
- Mint
Watch Viral Video: Did Rahul Gandhi's car 'crush' a cop during ‘Voter Adhikar Rally'? ‘Dynast did'nt even…', says BJP
Watch Viral Video: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on 19 August slammed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for allegedly "crushing" a police constable during 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' in poll-bound Bihar. The yatra, which began from Sasaram on Sunday will pass through Nalanda, Sheikhpura, Lakhisarai, Munger, Bhagalpur, Katihar, Purnea, Araria, Supaul, Madhubani, Darbhanga, Sitamarhi, East Champaran, West Champaran, Gopalganj, Siwan, Chhapra and Ara before concluding with a rally in Patna on 1 September. In a social media post on X, BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla shared a video in which a car carrying Rahul Gandhi, the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, is seen running over a police constable in Nawada. The policeman is later seen limping in the same video. LiveMint couldnt verify the credentials of the video: 'Rahul Gandhi's car crushed a police constable who was critically injured,' Poonawalla said in the X post. "The dynast did not even get down to check on him,' the BJP leader added. However, Rahul Gandhi was later seen making the police officer sit in his car. Earlier, RJD leader and foremer Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav exhorted the people of Bihar to make Congress leader Rahul Gandhi the prime minister after the next Lok Sabha polls. Addressing a rally on the third day of Congress's 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' in Nawada, he also called upon the youth to 'root out the NDA' from the state in the assembly elections due later in the year. Yadav was accompanied by Gandhi and other INDIA bloc leaders during the fortnight-long yatra, which began on Sunday. The RJD leader described Gandhi as the one 'who has given sleepless nights to Prime Minister Narendra Modi' for undertaking the state-wide yatra. 'In the upcoming assembly polls, we shall root out the NDA, which has been running a government comparable to a rickety old car ('khatara') for the last 20 years. And, in the next Lok Sabha polls, we shall make Rahul Gandhi the prime minister,' said Yadav, evoking cheers from the crowd. Donning a baseball cap and a T-shirt, Yadav also had a 'gamcha' wrapped around his neck, an apparent bid to emphasise that he wished to embody a mix of tradition and modernity. 'We have a vision for a new Bihar,' asserted the former deputy chief minister, who spoke into a hand-held mic, from atop an open vehicle that carried him, Gandhi, CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, Vikassheel Insan Party president Mukesh Sahni and state Congress chief Rajesh Kumar. Taking potshots at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the Leader of the Opposition in the assembly, said, 'The CM is not in his senses. He is not able to run Bihar. His government has become a copycat. I had promised free power, domicile policy, a hike in social security pensions and the setting up of a Youth Commission. Yadav reiterated that the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar was an exercise to 'snatch' people's right to vote. 'The SIR is dacoity of votes and we will not allow that to happen. It's a conspiracy of the ruling dispensation to disenfranchise voters in Bihar,' he alleged. The dynast did not even get down to check on him. 'The BJP and the EC think they can take the people of Bihar for a ride. But, they need to know that in Bihar, we mix lime with khaini (raw tobacco) and swallow it without a fuss. We are Biharis. And as the saying goes, a Bihari can take on anybody,' the 35-year-old RJD leader said.
Indian Express
21 minutes ago
- Indian Express
DU students' union polls: Housing, fees, period leave take center stage ahead of September contest
This year, the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) election is shaping up to be a contest over pressing student issues — from housing and campus infrastructure to menstrual leave, fee hikes, the National Education Policy's fourth undergraduate year, and efforts to field candidates from marginalised communities for central posts. Each party contesting the polls, slated for September 18, has positioned itself as the voice of everyday student concerns. The results will be declared the next day (September 19). The Congress-backed National Students' Union of India (NSUI), which broke a seven-year drought last year by winning the president and joint secretary posts, is foregrounding both campus welfare and gender equity. Speaking to The Indian Express, Ravi Pandey, National Chairman of NSUI's media department, said, 'Our teams are actively engaging with students across North Campus and various colleges, sharing diaries that highlight our agenda on accommodation and housing, campus infrastructure, transportation, social justice, and other key student issues. With female students, we are prioritising crucial demands like 12 days of menstrual leave per semester. NSUI will also organise interactive programmes in colleges to directly listen to students, understand their concerns, and prepare a concrete roadmap for solutions.' The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) is preparing to release its manifesto after consultations with students. State secretary Saarthak Sharma said, 'Basic issues that arise in campuses are hygiene in colleges. ABVP promised the U-Special (bus) and the fight to regulate the exorbitant fee hike, towards which we have worked in the past year. We will be presenting a list of promises that the ABVP has delivered soon.' Earlier this month, Chief Minister Rekha Gupta announced the return of the U-Special buses. It was once a popular transport option for students of the varsity, especially those living in far-flung villages on the outskirts. The Aam Aadmi Party's student wing, Association of Students for Alternative Politics (ASAP), is contesting under a new name — a decade after its parent party launched its youth wing, the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS). While CYSS contested DU and Panjab University elections, it faded from Delhi's student landscape until its reemergence this summer. Deepak Bansal, once a DUSU joint secretary in 2011 and an ABVP loyalist who joined CYSS in 2023, is steering the campaign. He said the organisation is committed to breaking the dominance of Jats and Gurjars in the four panel posts. 'This time at DUSU, we are trying to pitch an SC/ST candidate as one of the main four panel posts. No one fields a candidate from the marginalised community, but this year, ASAP will be changing that. We are taking registrations for nominations irrespective of caste or money. We see Rahul Gandhi coming to DU and speaking with the marginalised students, but how many times has NSUI fielded someone from the marginalised community? Additionally, when the ABVP came to power, it said it would provide a 50% concession on Metro passes, which never happened. We will be taking up this issue. There is also a signature campaign going on in the matter of fee hike in colleges.' The All India Students' Association (AISA) and Students' Federation of India (SFI), which contested in an alliance last year, believe new restrictions could level the playing field. AISA state secretary Abhigyan told The Indian Express, 'After the Delhi High Court's verdict against defacement last year, it is going to be a real advantage for us to see how ABVP is going to contest this election without splashing their name across the city. They will have to hit the ground, go from classroom to classroom and talk to students — that's what AISA always did.' He added, 'We will also be taking up the introduction of the 4th year under the NEP and how the dilution of education is happening at DU by introducing Value Added Courses, which are of no importance to students. We have also started approaching every other party, except for the ABVP, to form an alliance. The main aim is to make sure the ABVP doesn't win.' Last year, NSUI's Ronak Khatri was elected president and Lokesh Choudhary joint secretary, while ABVP's Mitravinda Karanwal and Bhanu Pratap Singh won secretary and vice-president posts, respectively. The counting of votes, however, was stayed by the Delhi High Court over allegations of large-scale defacement of sites across the city by poll candidates. Votes were allowed to be counted only two months after the September election. This year, candidates for the four central posts have until 3 pm on September 10 to submit their nominations. Each submission must include a demand draft of Rs 500, an affidavit, and a bond of Rs 1 lakh — the latter has drawn flak from several student bodies.
