In Greenland, last weekend temperatures rose enough to cause 18 billion tons of the country’s ice sheet to melt over three days.
Scientists have warned about the fate of Greenland’s ice sheet.
Scientists say what happened between July 15 and 17 is the latest massive melting event contributing to an increase in the global sea level.
The amount of water from the melt – about 6 billion tons a day, or 18 billion tons over the weekend – is enough to “cover West Virginia in a foot of water – 4 inches per day, roughly,” Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado’s Earth Science and Observation Center and National Snow and Ice Data Center, told USA TODAY.
Much of the melting came from northern Greenland because warm air drifted over from the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Scambos said.
There is also a high-pressure dome over Greenland. Together, they created an “unusually extensive melt event,” he said.
Temps Heating Up
Temperatures vary over Greenland, but the coldest temperatures are in areas of high elevation, toward the center of the ice sheet, said William Lipscomb, a senior scientist in the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory.
Once temperatures are above freezing or 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the melting begins. Temperatures last weekend were around 60 degrees, or 10 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year, according to CNN.
“In recent years, we have seen a lot of heat waves in Greenland, this recent warming of it being one example,” Lipscomb told USA TODAY. “Any temperature above freezing can cause some surface melting.”
Tremendous Amount Of Ice Lost Every Year Now
In the 1980s and 1990s in Greenland, a melt event of this sort never occurred, but starting in the 2000s – especially since 2010 – the melting has been more extensive.
The melt is two times larger than normal, said Xavier Fettweis of the University of Liège. Fettweis, a polar researcher, created a model scientists use, along with satellite data, to study Greenland’s changes.
The melt is among two of the largest melts in the ice sheet history after the 2012 and 2019 melting events; in 2019, the runoff was about 527 billion tons. So far, the total melt is far below 2019 levels, but the situation is more dire over the Svalbard ice caps at the North of Norway, Fettweis said.
More melting was expected, said Scambos. “This event is one of many events over the whole summer,” he said. “We can expect on the order of 100 billion tons of water going into the ocean. Greenland as a whole is losing a tremendous amount of ice every year now.”
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center ice scientist Nathan Kurtz was recently in Greenland to help better calibrate ICESat-2, one of the agency’s satellites used to monitor Greenland.
Its data has shown a loss of ice from Greenland of about 200 billion tons a year over the past two decades, Kurtz told USA TODAY. “This loss of ice contributes directly to global sea level rise, which has significant societal impacts,” he said.
Lipscomb said scientists measure the amount of water melted in units of gigatons per year, or 1 billion tons of water. Before climate change, about 600 gigatons of snowfall were coming in each year and about 300 gigatons were going out in the form of summer melting.
Now, Greenland’s ice sheet is losing nearly 300 gigatons of water each year more than it gains from snowfall, Lipscomb said. “There is still time to avoid catastrophic sea level rise, but every year that greenhouse gas emissions continue at the present rate increases the chances of serious problems down the road.”
In some parts of the world such as Asia, seasonal water supply depends on the timing of the glacier melt.
“If the melt is happening too early, you may not be getting the water when you need it for farming,” he said. “And if the glaciers completely melt, then you won’t have the glacier melt water source at all. And that’s something people worry about for later this century as the warming continues.”
A CNN report said:
The water off the coast of northwest Greenland is a glass-like calm, but the puddles accumulating on the region’s icebergs are a sign that a transformation is underway higher on the ice sheet.
Several days of unusually warm weather in northern Greenland have triggered rapid melting, made visible by the rivers of meltwater rushing into the ocean.
The amount of ice that melted in Greenland between July 15 and 17 alone would be enough to fill 7.2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to data from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.
“The northern melt this past week is not normal, looking at 30 to 40 years of climate averages,” said Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado. “But melting has been on the increase, and this event was a spike in melt.”
For the scientists out on the ice sheet, the warmth has been alarming.
“It definitely worries me,” said Kutalmis Saylam, a research scientist with the University of Texas who is currently stationed in Greenland. “Yesterday we could wander around in our t-shirts — that was not really expected.”
Each summer, scientists worry that they will see a repeat of the record melting that occurred in 2019, when 532 billion tons of ice flowed out into the sea. An unexpectedly hot spring and a July heat wave that year caused almost the entire ice sheet’s surface to melt. Global sea level rose permanently by 1.5 millimeters as a result.
Greenland holds enough ice — if it all melted — to lift sea level by 7.5 meters around the world.
The latest research points to a more and more precarious situation on the Northern Hemisphere’s most icy island.
“Unprecedented” rates of melting have been observed at the bottom of the Greenland ice sheet, a study published in February found, caused by huge quantities of meltwater trickling down from the surface. This water is particularly concerning because it can destabilize the sheet above it and could lead to a massive, rapid loss of ice.
And in 2020, scientists found that Greenland’s ice sheet had melted beyond the point of no return. No efforts to stave off global warming can stop it from eventually disintegrating, said researchers at The Ohio State University. The rate of melting in recent years exceeds anything Greenland has experienced in the last 12,000, another study found — and enough to cause measurable change in the gravitational field over Greenland.
At the East Greenland Ice-core Project — or EastGRIP — research camp in northwest Greenland, the work of scientists to understand the impact of climate change is being thwarted by climate change itself.
Aslak Grinsted, a climate scientist at the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute, told CNN that they have been trying to get flights into the camp so they can ship out the ice cores they have recently collected. But the warmth is destabilizing the landing site.
“The temperatures we are seeing right now are simply too hot for the ski-equipped planes to land,” Grinsted said. “So we store the ice cores in large artificial caves we have made into the snow to protect it from the heat of the summer.”
Scientists take advantage of the abnormal warmth while they wait, playing volleyball in their shorts on an ice sheet at the top of the world.
Before human-caused climate change kicked in, temperatures near 32 degrees Fahrenheit there were unheard of. But since the 1980s, this region has warmed by around 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit per decade — four times faster than the global pace — making it all the more likely that temperatures will cross the melting threshold.
Grinsted referred the temperatures at the EastGRIP research site as a “heat wave,” and noted that global warming is pushing the mercury higher more often.
“Yes, the chance of temperatures getting this hot is clearly linked to global warming,” Grinsted said.
It is not possible to serve two masters with opposing goals. In the case of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it has not always been obvious that such a dichotomy exists, but it has become ever more apparent since Trump and Covid-19. Before that, many of us relied on the CDC for accuracy, integrity, public health science, and sound policy. Indeed, most of those who labor there do their utmost to live up to that ideal, and the CDC has had many notable achievements, such as the eradication of polio and control of Ebola. But, like the FDA, the CDC is not an independent agency free from corporate or political pressures, which has now been brought into excruciating focus. Indeed, the CDC is now openly complicit in the capitalist dictate to prioritize the health of the economy over that of workers. The CDC has now declared that its job is to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed instead of keeping people healthy. By ending mask mandates CDC has left the most vulnerable to fend for themselves and insured that the racism, ageism, and lack of concern for the poor manifest throughout the pandemic will continue. Thus it is essential, although difficult, that we continuously evaluate which CDC recommendations actually protect our health versus those designed or mitigated to protect the dollar.
How it Began
In 1942, the CDC’s predecessor, the Office of Malarial Control in War Areas, was created as mosquito-borne malaria and yellow fever continued to emerge from the wetlands of the southeast US and infect nearby military bases. As in the motivation for most public health initiatives, the need was to keep workers (or soldiers in this case) in good working condition. Such had been the reasoning behind the attack on hookworm in 1910 and many other public health initiatives (see https://multiracialunity.org/2017/08/04/more-about-health-profit-and-public-health/). The permanent CDC was then established in 1947 to surveil disease in the US and the world.1
A profound change occurred in 1983 when the agency was authorized to accept gifts from industry and other private parties. This practice was expanded in 1992 when Congress created the non-profit CDC Foundation (CDCF), and the large inflow of funds led to conflicts of interest and corruption. Since 1995 the CDCF has received $161 million from corporations, and according to a report by the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), in 2007 the CDC failed to identify conflicts of interest among its advisory committee members over half the time.1 From 2014-2018 alone, CDC received $80 million from Pfizer, Biogen and Merck;2 Roche, the maker of Tamiflu, donated $193,000 to fund a CDC flu prevention campaign.3 The CDC’s record on lead abatement (in which HUD, EPA, the White House and Congress also played large roles) is another story of compromise. In 1987 CDC called for complete abatement of the lead hazard, which was affecting mainly poor and black children, but in 1991 stated “In general the most thorough abatements are believed to be the most effective in reducing blood lead levels and residual lead in the environment, but given the limited resources for abatement, a balance must be struck between doing the best possible abatements in fewer units and using reasonably good less expensive methods in more units.”1a
In 2002, the Bush administration replaced lead experts on the CDC advisory panel with five individuals friendly to the paint industry.1b Lead poisoning remains a major problem today.
In 2016 a group of over a dozen senior scientists, calling itself CDC Scientists Preserving Integrity, Diligence and Ethics in Research, filed an ethics complaint stating that the agency was being influenced “by corporate and political interests.” The CDC responded by claiming that “its public-private partnerships are synergistic and beneficial.”2 The CDC’s policy on so-called prohibited donors actually states that “The fact that a potential donor is a prohibited source does not necessarily mean that a proposed gift may not be accepted; only that it must be carefully evaluated for possible conflicts of interest.”3 Some examples cited by the scientist petitioners were inflation of the success of the WISEWOMAN program for women’s health, and the ties to Coca Cola of top officials who blamed lack of exercise as opposed to sugar intake for obesity.5 In 2018, Director Brenda Fitzgerald resigned when her investments in drug, insurance and tobacco companies were disclosed.
Covid Under Trump
Long before Trump, the pandemic, and the appointment of Robert Redfield as Director, the CDC had been suffering from budget and staff cuts. But the weaknesses and lack of independence of the CDC were brought into sharp focus with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Several missteps were made early in 2020, when the agency focused only on the risk of infection spreading from China and did not consider spread from Europe. When a prominent CDC did give a public briefing warning of the threat, the stock market fell. Trump responded by putting Vice President Pence in charge of Covid policy. When the CDC updated its hospital tracking data, Trump instead handed date collection to a private contractor and then ordered hospitals not to report to CDC. In April of 2020, at the insistence of the Trump administration, the CDC deleted language warning of the dangers of gathering for worship, especially with a choir singing.
The CDC also made several glaring mistakes on its own. Instead of using test kits to identify the virus that were available from the World Health Organization, CDC insisted on creating its own, which turned out to be flawed and unusable, and was also slow to develop testing able to detect new variants. The delayed start of testing obscured the early outbreaks in Washington, New York, and New Jersey. CDC was also slow to recognize that the virus was airborne and recommend mask wearing.6
An early crisis involved cruise ships that began exploding with cases. Although the CDC tried to bring infected passengers home safely and prevent further sailings, they were overruled by the White House. Meanwhile, the administration began to turn back asylum seekers at the southern border, even expelling children with negative tests. Despite the objections of CDC officials, Redfield signed the order. When, in June, the CDC posted school guidelines suggesting masks and social distancing and closures in high prevalence areas, the DHHS wrote new contradictory guidance supporting school opening and minimizing any risks. In August, 2020, the CDC announced that close contacts of a Covid patient did not have to test if they were asymptomatic, advice reversed a month later. Even if not sufficiently stringent, when the CDC did issue workplace guidelines, as in May 2020, OSHA almost never enforced them.4 A full ten months into the pandemic, CDC advised “To preserve the supply of N95 respirators for health care workers and other medical first responders, CDC recommends non-valved, multilayer cloth masks or nonmedical disposable masks for community use.” 7 Many CDC scientists quit in disgust over this year.6
And Then Biden
However, the coming of a Democratic administration did not mean that Covid policy was freed from political and economic intrusion. Although Biden promised to put science in charge, in fact the interests of the economy have come first. The main administration strategy to control Covid was to increase vaccinations, and 75% of the population now has had at least one dose, but 60 million eligible Americans are still unvaccinated. Booster shots and vaccination of children 5-11(first shot) are only at 26% and 30%. Finally, as of January, 2022, free rapid tests are being mailed to all households that request them, and PCR tests are quite readily available. However, the CDC made clear even during the super infectious Omicron surge that its guidelines did not supersede state or local ones.7a
Advice on what masks to wear has been sorely lacking, with many people still using quite ineffective cloth ones.9 Only after two years did the CDC begin to explain to the public the difference between N95 and lesser masks and still touted K95s, even though the majority are counterfeit. True there was a real mask shortage at the outset, but the campaign should have been produce more, not concur that medical grade masks are not essential for all. In May 2021, the CDC declared that the vaccinated no longer had to mask in public places, which relied on voluntary masking by the unvaccinated. Cases soon began to rise, and the policy had to be reversed.8
Very devastating to public safety has been the new recommendation to shorten isolation and quarantine to five days from ten if asymptomatic and return to work without a test or even a mask requirement.9 The request for this policy came from Delta Airlines the week before Christmas as too many employees were out sick. The Association of Flight Attendants and National Nurses United objected, as Amazon, CVS and American Airlines, among others, applauded.10 Nonetheless, no vaccination or testing is required to travel domestically, with pre-flight testing only a suggestion. The need, according to current Director Rochelle Walensky, is to “keep the critical functions of society open and operating.”11
The CDC is even now allowing no work restrictions for vaccinated and exposed asymptomatic health workers in contingency and crisis situations and even allowing those with symptoms to work on “restricted” patients when staffing shortages are severe or after 5 days if symptoms are improving under moderate shortages.12These policies not only keep hospitals and businesses staffed, but in a disgusting way they are essential to US workers whose sick leave averages seven days annually if they have it, and the 10% of workers with no sick leave, including half of those earning under $15/hour. Meanwhile health insurance company profits and premiums are rising and Pfizer and Moderna are earning $1000 a second.13
The CDC was in support of opening public schools as of the 2022 school year and has supported all students wearing masks if community transmission levels are high. However, their policy does not describe what masks are best and social distancing was reduced from six feet to three.14 Although proper school ventilation is also described, there is no mention of the fact that 36000 buildings nationally need ventilation upgrades at the cost of $1million each or about $72 billion total.15
In the last decade public health has lost nearly 80,000 workers in local, state and national agencies who need to be replaced, and there is a great need to improve data collection systems. However, since neither states nor doctors are required to report to the CDC, data accuracy is inherently limited. There is also a need to train many new health care providers, all of which would cost tens of billions of dollars. Walensky is promoting this investment even as she goes along with tailoring recommendations to accommodate business.167 In perhaps its most heinous policy, the CDC has continued to support a restrictive immigration policy Title 42, barring the entry of asylum seekers, except unaccompanied minors, who are neither tested nor treated, on “public health” grounds while allowing tourists to enter the country if tested.17
Lessons We Must Learn
Some critics of the CDC believe the solution is to make it an independent agency, free from DHHS oversight and with a director and funding not subject to congressional authorization.17This might solve some problems, but not the major conflict. The CDC exists in a society in which the measure of success is profits made, and working people, be they blue or white collar, are valued only as a means to create those profits. As such, the public’s health is necessary only to provide enough workers in good working condition and to control contagion so as to protect the corporate class. To guarantee the wellbeing, happiness, and health of the working population as a goal in itself would be of no merit and much too expensive.
How is it that so many of us accept this trade off? It has much to do with the illusion of individual responsibility that we are taught, that each of us is responsible for our own status in life, including our health. It’s a matter of our habits, our nutrition, whether we exercise, while factors of stress, poverty, environmental hazards and health care are downplayed. Racism also plays a huge part, since non-white workers suffer a hugely disproportionate share of poor health and healthcare, dangerous and underpaid work, low grade housing and a contaminated environment. As long as too many white workers believe that they are at least relatively shielded from such conditions and that black, Latin, Native American and immigrant workers deserve their lot, the ability to wage struggles for better conditions for all is deeply compromised.
It is true that the capitalist government and its agents, such as the CDC, do not have our best interests in mind as such, but they do need for enough of us to be healthy to produce and not endanger their own health. Public health guidance is thus often in line with what is actually good for our health. We must carefully analyze all government guidelines as to the true motives behind them, which may be as glaringly racist and abusive as the Tuskegee experiments or simply expedient like delayed mask messaging. Other messages, like that for nearly everyone to get vaccinated are clearly correct. However, the refusal to do more to enable international vaccinations clearly puts us all at risk from evolving variants, but not enough to override the pharmaceutical industry’s greed for profits.
Many groups who long been abused by the US medical system, such as black and Native American, hesitate to accept any government given advice. Many right wingers, who live with the illusion that freedom is the absence of any social constraints or interdependence, refuse to comply with any government advice. Instead we must analyze the advice and demands from the institutions of our society, and adopt those which are to our benefit. At the same time we must fight to change our society from one based on the inherent conflict between workers and capitalists, between public health and private greed, to one run by and for working people in which agencies will be guided only by our best interests. That will require revolutionary change. For now we must keep our wits about us and organize to stay well and strong.
Ellen Isaacs is a physician and long time anti-racist and anti-capitalist activist. She is co-editor of multiracialunity.org and can be reached at eisaacs66@gmail.com. This article first appeared on multiracialunity.org
References
1a.Rosner D and Markowitz G, Building the World that kills us: The politics of Lead, Science and Polluted Homes, 1970-2000, J Urban History, 42(2)333-9
1b. http://www.webexhibits.org/bush/14.html
- https://ashpublications.org/ashclinicalnews/news/4797/CDC-Pressed-to-Acknowledge-Industry-Funding
- 5https://jpands.org/vol25no3/huntoon.pdf
- https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/103278/how-risk-of-exposure-to-the-coronavirus-at-work-varies.pdf
- https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/301432-the-cdc-is-being-being-influenced-by-corporate-and-political
- https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-the-fall-of-the-cdc
- https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6949e2.html
7a https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s1227-isolation-quarantine-guidance.html
- https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6949e2.html
- https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/01/18/1073292913/a-year-in-experts-assess-bidens-hits-and-misses-on-handling-the-pandemic
- https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/587539-rising-omicron-cases-cdc-guidance-threatens-businesses
- https://www.npr.org/2021/12/28/1068587852/cdc-director-on-new-isolation-rules
- https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/guidance-risk-assesment-hcp.html
- http://www.stethoscopeonrome.com/2022/02/
- https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-guidance.html
- https://www.the74million.org/article/parents-want-better-school-ventilation-this-fall-but-the-devil-is-in-the-details-and-the-expense/
- https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/21/rochelle-walensky-cdc-overhaul-public-health-covid-527630
Mrs Draupadi Murmu has expectedly won the Presidential contest defeating Shri Yashwant Sinha with a heavy margin. A large number of individual members of non-NDA political parties supported her apart from the ruling parties in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Jharkhand which reflected the popular sentiment among them not to be seen as opposing the candidature of the first President of India hailing from an Adivasi community. Let us celebrate the extraordinary journey of Mrs Draupadi Murmu and congratulate her on becoming the first citizen of the country. Adivasis actually are our first citizens of this country and they have got the first right over our natural resources which they have protected so a right person at the right place needs to be applauded. Having said this, we all know, president’s post is ceremonial in nature and most of them might look non-political but remain so. We can’t expect Mrs Murmu going against the government which brought her into the Rashtrapati Bhavan but one expects that she will speak up on the critical issues where things might be wrong particularly the issues of the Adivasis, Dalits and other marginalised who are now becoming victim of the ‘developmental’ process. So, none wants her to stop projects but one expects her to question the unlawful eviction and protect the rights of the Adivasis in particular.
Let us discuss how the opposition parties failed in this entire process. Some of the comments made by the opposition leaders have been extremely disturbing. Yashwant Sinha said that there should not be any ‘rubber stamp’ in the Rashtrapati Bhavan while Tejasvi Yadav said that we don’t need a ‘murti’, a statue as our president. Just when Mrs Murmu was declared elected, Indranil Chatterjee, Kolkata based Deputy General Manager of India Today magazine wrote an extremely racist-casteist post saying he was old fashioned and didn’t want an Adivasi to rule us. His twitter post said,” Few chairs are not meant for “All” & have a dignity attached to them. Do we allow a sweeper to perform Durga Puja? Can a Hindu teach at a Madrasah? These are nothing but cheap socio-political gimmicks of the ruling party in creating a Rubber Stamp Constitutional Head, so that laws can be passed easily showing a middle finger to the Opposition parties”, said Indranil who was later dismissed by India Today group for his offensive post. Now these statement and posts actually suggest the absolute filthy casteist mindset which does not want to give the Dalit Adivasis a chance to participate in the power structure. When the ‘secular’ ‘liberal’ spaces remain dominated by feudal Brahmanical mindset then any outreach by the Hindutva towards the Dalit-Adivasis would be welcomed by the communities. It is not a matter how much margin she won and obviously it might be less than many other luminaries won but the circumstances this time was different and if the opposition had worked harder and with better coordination they would have given a better fight.
In fact, it was not really a contest and the opposition parties had already lost it when they fielded Yashwant Sinha, an import from BJP who felt he was the most suitable person for the country’s finance minister and whose tenure as finance minister is remembered by none. Sinha and many others like him became Modi critics only after they realise that they have lost all chances of getting back into the cabinet. The other such ‘great’ is Arun Shourie who is favourite of Lutiyen media as none of his eulogisers find time to ask about his own writings. While Shourie is an open critique of reservation policy, Sinha was in the opposition camp at that time when the Mandal report was being accepted and placed in parliament by the then prime minister V P Singh. Sinha’s hobnobbing with Ranvir Sena too is well known to be discussed here. Victory of Mrs Draupadi Murmu was a foregone conclusion but the margin shows how her candidature created division among the opposition camp. It was unfortunate that they could not field a strong candidate or should have opted for a consensus candidate after BJP had declared its candidate but the opposition actually wanted to score a point and embarrass BJP as Sinha was a prominent leader of the party but beyond media headline, it made nothing as in terms of politics Sinha’s elevation would have helped to none while Mrs Murmu’s entering into Rashtrapati Bhavan give the BJP and Sangh Parivar enormous strength and good will of the Adivasi community though it is also a fact that in the last 20 years adivasis have faced the biggest threat to their existence, natural resources, forest and water in the name of ‘nationalism’ and ‘development’. The Congress started the so-called ‘developmental’ process and BJP has accelerated it further.
Let us see the track record of some of those who occupied the Rashtrapati Bhavan and their relationship with the leader of those times. The first president Dr Rajendra Prasad had serious differences with Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru on various issues though they had a very healthy relationship since the days of their struggle together in the freedom movement. The fact is that Dr Rajendra Prasad was staunchly opposed to Hindu Code Bill along with many other members of the ruling party as well as Jan Sangh. Baba Saheb Ambedkar had worked on this bill day and night and drafted a bill which actually gave women in India their right to choice and freedom. Many of the luminaries of the ‘right’ with in the Congress as well as outside it actually called the bill as against our culture which would destroy the ‘family values’. Babu Rajendra Prasad participated in the inauguration of Somnath temple against the advice of the prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru who felt that it would be wrong on his part to participate in such a religious function as a head of the state.
After Nehru’s demise, Indira Gandhi faced the biggest challenge in 1969 within the party, which threatened her leadership when fielded N. Sanjeeva Reddy. It was for the first time, perhaps in independent India’s history, that a prime minister opposed her party’s official candidate and supported V V Giri who contested as an independent candidate and defeated Reddy. But the real denigration and degradation of the presidential post actually happened afterwards. In August 1974, Mrs Indira Gandhi wanted a strong loyalist at the Raisina hills and it was Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed who became the president of India. It is said that when Mrs Indira Gandhi imposed emergency on 25th June’s night, the president signed on dotted line as the resolution that went to him was without any meeting of the cabinet. Despite an extremely impressive political career, Fakharuddin Ali Ahmed went down in the history of India as a complete ‘rubber stamp’ president. He passed away during his presidency which brought Neelam Sanjiva Reddy as next president of India who was elected unopposed. Between 1977-1982, Sanjiva Reddy had to deal with Morarji Desai, Charan Singh and Indira Gandhi as prime minister. In 1982, Indira Gandhi proposed the name of Giani Zail Singh, who was Union Home Minister that time and with Congress party’s massive majority and state under its control, he became the president of India. Many media organisations quoted Zail Singh as saying if Indira ji asks me to sweep the floor, then I will do it. We don’t know whether Zail Singh ever said or not but he was considered to be extremely loyal. First time, the privileged class or castes actually felt offended with his elevation to the presidential position because Giani ji came from an extremely humble background and was not an English speaker. On 31st October 1984 after the then prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated, Giani ji was abroad and cut short his trip and back to India. He then appointed Rajiv Gandhi as prime minister of India. Nobody questioned it but the fact remains Rajiv Gandhi’s elevation that time was without a formal meeting of either cabinet or Congress Parliamentary Party. In the din of nationalism nobody had the time to question it. The same Rajiv Gandhi after he returned to power with a massive mandate in 1985 started ignoring the President of India and not allowing Giani ji to visit abroad. Many of Giani ji’s trips were blocked by the prime minister’s office. The Prime Minister did not bother to meet the president after a foreign trip. Zail Singh was deeply pained and hurt but could do nothing but when Rajiv persisted with this policy, Giani Ji showed him the power of a traditional politician who might not have the sophistry of the words but enormous wisdom due to being an active ground level politician. It was for the first time in the history of independent India that a ‘down to earth’ politician president actually created an enormous crisis in the government particularly when Giani ji started consulting legal luminaries and political leaders about his ‘right to dismiss the prime minister’. The President was defining his right that prime minister and his cabinet work as long as they have the trust of the president and since Rajiv Gandhi was not reporting anything to the president, Giani ji felt that the prime minister has lost the trust of the president but thank to sagacity of leaders like VP Singh who was actually approached by Giani ji but declined to accept his offer and suggested not to do anything that become a model for anarchy in future. Good sense prevailed and Rajiv Gandhi too finally realised his mistake and somehow the relationship did not worsen further. It means a political person as president of India can strike at the moment whenever needed or may be when he runs out of tolerance.
Rajiv Gandhi had a massive mandate and he brought a former Congress person R Venkatraman into Rashtrapati Bhavan whose tenure was also tough as it saw fall of Congress government at the Center in 1989 and then two short term governments of V P Singh and Chandra Shekhar. Venkatraman was considered to be a copybook president. After Venkatraman, it was the turn of another Congress veteran from North India Shankar Dayal Sharma who was vice president of India prior to being elevated as president of India. Now, from the period of Shankar Dayal Sharma India had truly entered into an age of coalition era and hence consensus building was important. In 1997 United Front government led by Inder Kumar Gujaral which depended on the support of Congress party was actually looking for a ‘suitable’ presidential candidate. Till that time, Rashtrapati Bhavan was a domain of either Brahmins or elite Muslims. Congress had already made two Brahmin presidents and perhaps looking for the third. Suddenly, former Prime Minister V P Singh addressed a press conference and pushed the name of Dr K R Narayanan as the President of India. Narayanan was vice President then but his name was not being considered but VP’s timely campaign actually compelled political parties to agree on his name. In the presidential poll in July 1997, Narayanan got 95% of the total vote polled defeating T N Sheshan who contested against him. Narayanan was one of the finest presidents of India who redefined presidentship. He talked extremely sensibly and reminded the government time and again about their responsibilities. It did not sign on dotted lines and returned many bills for consideration again. K R Narayayan was therefore the true custodian of the constitution and people all over the country felt proud of him. Narayanan had raised the bar so high that BJP led NDA made a consensus in favour of APJ Abdul Kalam who they looked as an ‘ideal’ Muslim as well as thorough nationalist so Abdul Kalam became president in 2002. Kalam became extremely popular among the youngsters particularly students who would love to listen to his advice. The reasons were clear that through Kalam, BJP made inroads among the urban middle classes and they succeeded slowly in their efforts. In 2007 when UPA was in power, Congress President Sonia Gandhi gave preference to a family loyalist and extremely light weight Pratibha Patil who became the ‘first’ woman president of India. In 2012, UPA fielded Pranab Mukherjee because of various internal political compulsions. Mukherjee had always aspired to be the prime minister of India. He was an ‘expert’ of the parliamentary rules and procedures. In 2017, Narendra Modi led NDA made Ramnath Kovind as their candidate for the post of president. His Koli Dalit identity was used by the BJP during the Gujarat elections. Now, Smt Draupadi Murmu, a Santhal Adivasi from Mayurbhanj district of Odisha will be sworn in as our president.
Look at the difference between the Congress and BJP in their choice of president and I am not speaking about the Nehru era when there was still an inner party democracy in the party but the aftermath. Right from Indira Gandhi till UPA II, Congress preferred candidates picked up by the Gandhi family and its loyalists who did not bring anything to the party. Party gained nothing out of these as they were ‘political light weight’ and most of the people felt that they were made president because of family loyalty. Can anyone say that Pratibha Patil’s elevation as president of India helped Congress with women votes? What was her contribution to be at that position? It was extremely unfortunate that Congress could not bring its socialist-secular vision through presidential candidates. Even a lifelong Congressman and Nehruvian like K R Narayanan became Vice President and President of India because of a strong and timely campaign by V P Singh and his associates and not because of the Congress party. Pranab Mukherjee meant nothing for Congress and after he became president of India, he actually looked for a second term and did not utter a word against the Narendra Modi government which BJP was not keen to give him.
On the other side, BJP has used the identity of the presidents for building up a narrative that helped their party. Through APJ Abdul Kalam they send a message that the party likes ‘nationalist’ Muslims and will do everything to support them. Elevation of Abdul Kalam helped the party in the middle-class upper caste urban youngsters that it is different from Congress party where personal loyalty of the Gandhi family is the biggest merit of the person. Narendra Modi led BJP is keen on using every symbol that helps the party to gain extra votes. While Ramnath Kovind’s ascendency as president might not have given them much needed help in garnering Dalit votes but it helped at many places. Now, not opting for a consensus and making Mrs Draupadi Murmu as president of India, BJP has sent a message to the tribal and other communities that it cares for them. In a country where people look for ‘success’ stories and forget their own pains and suffering, Draupadi Murmu’s elevation will help the party in states like Jharkhand, Chhattishgarh, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh. It does not matter what the party is doing as in politics perception is important and BJP and Narendra Modi have actually outwitted opposition parties in the perception building. If you see the cast background of the candidates in the post 1987, Congress made R Venkat Raman, a Tamil Brahmin as president of India followed by a north Indian Brahmin Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma. In the two UPA term, it was Maratha-Rajput Pratibha Singh Patil and Bengali Brahmin Pranab Mukherjee contrary to BJP’s APJ Abdul Kalam followed by Ramnath Kovind, a Dalit and Draupadi Murmu, an Adivasi. The people know these things well but unfortunately the secular liberal ‘thinkers’ and ‘leaders’ in India could not go beyond their ‘casteless’ ‘classless’ fad ensuring that this space was pure domain of the Brahmanical elite.
It was therefore not shocking that when they started preaching that it was wrong for Mrs Draupadi Murmu to sweep the floor of a Shiva temple or her elevation is not going to the adivasis and so on. It means that Adivasis or Dalits have no right to come to top position for the fear of their inability to do anything. Why the same yardstick is not applied to the savarna leadership, after all somebody will have to be there as president of India. Nobody remembered that President Rajendra Prasad used to wash feet of the brahmins in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, much to the discomfort of prime minister Nehru. No secular critiqued Rajendra Prasad though some of the Cartoons of Shankar are being reflected these days but not much discussion among the upper caste leadership.
One can not ignore these jibes by the Brahmanical experts on Mrs Draupadi Murmu because they feel that ‘some posts are reserved for ruling castes’ which Rajendra Prasad, Radhakrishnan and Pranab Mukherjee occupied. Isn’t it shameful that we still have this kind of mindset who says that ‘sweepers’ can not be allowed to perform ‘puja’. This is the caste arrogance which comes out from the minds of ‘honest’ people. Most of the ‘experts’ are dishonest as they don’t speak what is debated inside their house. So Indranil Chatterjee felt he could get away with what he said and might get huge support. If the Congress had fielded it, he would have got huge support but Hindutva is working hard on these issues and hence Indranil was not only decried but lost his job too. Giani Jail Singh faced the same during his period when the same urban middle class mocked him but he remained one of the best dressed presidents of India who brought earthly wisdom in his speeches. They could not say the same about Dr K R Narayanan who would remind everyone about the legacy of Baba Saheb Ambedkar and Jawahar Lal Nehru through his brilliant articulations.
It is a fact that the Rashtrpati’s during the coalition governments were able to exercise more freedom in their work but then not everyone was like Dr K R Narayanan. Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukhrjee did not stop anything during the UPA period and rarely went against the ruling party line. Same thing happened with Mr Ramnath Kovind whose five-year tenure is now coming to an end without much to remember. Let us see what Mrs Draupadi Murmu does and how she responds to situations when there is a crisis even when we know that there is a powerful government and president has limited powers but even then if she speak for the rights of the people particularly the marginalized communities, it will send a big signal. Let us not expect too much but it is equally important not to judge her before she has taken her oath. We can oppose her political affiliations but it is also a reality that practically the ruling parties ensure they have a president who is not in confrontation with the government. Politics is pragmatism and not too much idealism. Opposition parties have failed in utilising this opportunity as they should have allowed the BJP/NDA to declare the candidate and then negotiated with the government as in that condition they would not have faced the allegation of opposing the first Adivasi woman as president of India.
Vidya Bhushan Rawat is a social activist. Twitter @freetohumanity
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.