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More than 12,000 people in <keyword id="6357713" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Uttar-Pradesh" source="Orion">Uttar Pradesh</keyword>'s <keyword id="576481" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Firozabad-district" source="Orion">Firozabad district</keyword> are suffering from <keyword id="6398743" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="viral-fever" source="Orion">viral fever</keyword>, according to the state health department officials. Four more deaths have been reported from the district in the past 24 hours, taking the toll to 114 that includes 88 children. The deaths have continued despite widespread fogging and door-to-door surveys to drain out stagnant water and to check the spread of vector-borne diseases. <keyword id="12080003" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="veer-pal" source="Orion">Veer Pal</keyword>, a daily wager, who lost his five-year-old son due to lack of treatment on Sunday, told reporters, that a private hospital in the city had demanded Rs 30,000 in advance to start treatment. "I requested them to start treatment and give me time to arrange money, but they refused. Later, I took my child to the <keyword id="3849448" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="firozabad-medical-college" source="Orion">Firozabad Medical College</keyword>, where staff refused to admit my child as beds were not available. I arranged for a private taxi to take him to Agra, but my son died on the way," he said. Chief Medical Superintendent (CMS) of Firozabad Medical College, Hansraj Singh, said that no official complaint was made in the matter. Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dinesh Kumar Premi said there are 64 active camps in the district and 4,800 people, including those with fever, are undergoing treatment there. According to the health department officials, 578 cases of dengue have been confirmed in Firozabad so far. A few cases of malaria, scrub typhus - a bacterial illness spread by larval mites, leptospirosis, another bacterial disease spread through the urine of infected animals, have also been reported. Diarrhoea has also emerged as a threat for children. Additional Director of the health department, A.K. Singh, said that over 100 teams of health staff are conducting door-to-door surveys to identify patients and provide them with medicines and required assistance. "There is no shortage of platelets or required medicines at the government centres. Additional ambulances have been arranged to take patients to hospital," he asserted. "Civic body teams are carrying out special cleanliness drives in the affected areas and all the recent deaths are being investigated," Singh added. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/education/news/neet-exams-tamil-nadu-will-table-a-bill-seeking-exemption/articleshow/86157693.cms">Stalin will table a bill seeking exemption from NEET exams in Tamil Nadu</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/apple-watch-series-7-release-date-price-features-and-everything-we-know-so-far/articleshow/85450261.cms">Apple Watch Series 7 release date, price, features and everything we know so far</a>

Uttar Pradesh's Firozabad district reports 12,000 cases of viral fever with four new deaths

In a heart-wrenching tragedy, a privately operated bus carrying about 40 passengers plunged into a deep gorge in <keyword id="19918812" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="uttarakhand" source="keywords">Uttarakhand</keyword>'s <keyword id="19897131" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="almora" source="keywords">Almora</keyword> district early Monday morning, claiming at least 23 lives. The bus, operated by the Garhwal Motor Owner Association, was en route from Pauri in the Garhwal region to <keyword id="20198956" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ramnagar" source="keywords">Ramnagar</keyword> in the Kumaon region, a distance of approximately 250 kilometres. According to officials, the bus veered off the road and fell into the 200-metre-deep gorge in Marchula, around 35 kilometres from its destination. Witnesses described the terrifying scene that unfolded around 8 AM, as the bus tumbled down the rocky, forested slope, ultimately coming to a halt near a stream. The vehicle was left a twisted wreck, evidence of the sheer force of the impact. Immediate rescue efforts were launched by the police and personnel from both the <keyword id="19905239" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="national-disaster-response-force" source="keywords">National Disaster Response Force</keyword> (<keyword id="19988414" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ndrf" source="keywords">NDRF</keyword>) and the <keyword id="21325214" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="state-disaster-response-force" source="keywords">State Disaster Response Force</keyword> (SDRF). Vineet Pal, Almora's District Disaster Management Officer, shared that 22 people were killed instantly, with another passenger succumbing to injuries en route to the hospital in Ramnagar. Rescuers worked tirelessly in challenging conditions to pull survivors from the mangled remains of the bus, with 15 injured passengers transported to the nearest hospital for urgent medical attention. Chief Minister <keyword id="20026860" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="pushkar-singh" source="keywords">Pushkar Singh</keyword> <keyword id="19958747" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="dhami" source="keywords">Dhami</keyword> expressed deep sorrow over the loss of lives. In a statement on social media, he said, "Received very sad news of casualties of passengers in the unfortunate <keyword id="42390" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="bus-accident" source="Orion">bus accident</keyword> that took place in Marchula of Almora district. The district administration has been instructed to conduct relief and rescue operations swiftly." He further assured the public that additional resources would be mobilised as necessary, including airlifting critically injured passengers if required. The accident underscores the treacherous conditions that drivers and passengers face on the narrow and winding mountain roads of Uttarakhand. Locals have long voiced concerns over road safety in the area, where landslides and steep drops add to the inherent risks. Authorities are investigating the cause of the accident, examining factors such as road conditions and the possibility of driver fatigue, given that it was an overnight journey. (With inputs from agencies)

Tragedy in the Hills: 23 killed as bus plunges into gorge in Uttarakhand’s Almora

Seemapuri Delhi assembly constituency candidate names

<keyword id="3407509" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ruby-Rai">Ruby Rai</keyword> has been arrested for not knowing what political science means, for pronouncing it as ‘prodigal science’ and still topping the Bihar Board exams. However, she is a student. There have been reports about teachers, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, who can’t spell 'evaluation' correctly or don’t know what 'audit' means. 
 
Doesn’t this hint at the bigger surrounding the education system in UP, when teachers don’t know the name of the state CM, or the date India gained its independence? 
 
It was on Monday that answer sheets of BA English, History and Economics were being evaluated at the Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management (ITHM), when the centre's evaluation coordinator smelled something fishy about two teachers and started interrogating them. Turns out, both had valid degrees and were teacher at colleges affiliated with UP universities. 
 
When TOI contacted UP governor and chancellor of the university Ram Naik, he said, "Mail me the details of the teachers. I will get it inquired into and take suitable action." 
 
One of the teachers, Shyam Bahadur is an associate professor in English is working at Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Rohilkhand University, Bareilly. Anil Kumar Pal, the second one, is associate professor in Economics, and works at Veer Bahadur Singh Purvanchal University, Jaunpur. Both have more than a decade of teaching experience, and yet... 
 
Evaluation coordinator and ITHM director Luvkush Mishra told TOI, "The English teacher used wrong grammar while writing a two-line application letter seeking permission for evaluating papers. And he spelled evaluation as 'evalluation'. He also failed to answer basic questions concerning English. 
 
Pal, on the other hand, didn’t know what 'audit' means, or what 'IMF' stands for. 
 
As per sources, a huge runs cartel behind hiring such teachers, who mostly are employees of private colleges, and are underpaid and made to do all sorts of work. The fact that they have earned degrees also hints at another possible scam in the education system. 
 
<a href="https://edtechindia.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/dscn0359.jpg">Image source</a> | File photo for representational purpose only

Teachers in UP can’t even spell ‘evaluation’ correctly

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The happiest part of my childhood was family vacations to <keyword id="41939" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Disneyland">Disneyland</keyword>.</li><li>But then I started learning about the racism and sexism embedded in <keyword id="46161" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Disney">Disney</keyword>'s products.</li><li>The magic of the theme park has faded as I've defined my moral values.</li></ul>I'm what many would derisively call a "Disney adult," a grownup with an unusually strong emotional attachment to the "happiest place on earth," Disneyland.My husband and I spent a day at the theme park as a kickoff to our honeymoon. Bins stuffed with Disney-themed T-shirts, sweatshirts, Mickey ears, and fanny packs are sitting in my bedroom closet.Whenever I visit Disneyland, it looks as if I've spent all 30 years of my life steeped in the media conglomerate's merchandise store - which, frankly, I have.But that's all changed. I'm experiencing an untethering of sorts.It's the strange, slow burn of realizing that this thing you love, Disney "magic," is both a real emotional link to childhood and a deeply troubling engagement with a corporation whose bottom line depends on your continuing to turn out your pockets and avert your gaze from its past misogyny, capitalistic trampling of staff, and the history of racism reflected in its movie catalog and theme parks.Read more: <a href="https://www.insider.com/hollywood-is-dying-pandemic-2021-1">How the $100 billion Hollywood machine is scrambling to come back after its worst year in decades</a>As I sit down to write this, I'm acutely aware of the privilege that comes with being a 30-year-old white woman reflecting on the ways I've been emotionally attached to Disney since before I can remember.But I can't undo my childhood. It's the only one I have. It was like growing up in a parallel universe where the only means of <keyword id="4578" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="entertainment">entertainment</keyword> and happiness came from Disney. A childhood glazed in visits to Disneyland, Disney movies, and the Disney Channel.<h2>Disneyland really was the 'happiest place on Earth' for me as a child</h2><div type="image" title="Kim at Disneyland 1995 to 2016.JPG" height="1450" width="2000" msid="80652931" hostid="261"></div>I don't remember my first visit to Disneyland, but there are pictures. My two sisters would tell you the same thing. We recycled outfits among us, swapping "Little Mermaid" fanny packs, Minnie Mouse sunglasses, and Daisy Duck hats.There was one year when I refused to wear anything other than my small Snow White dress. When we visited Disneyland that year, the "real" Snow White saw me in the crowd during the parade down Main Street and blew me a kiss. I burst into tears.That story, like so many others, became a sort of mythology in our family. Our Disneyland memories - riding Space Mountain (but waiting extra-long so we could sit in the last car), favorite snacks (heavy bags of saltwater taffy), road-trip traditions (first one to spot the Matterhorn from the California freeway gets a Mickey Bar ice cream) - were my foundational joys.Read more: <a href="https://www.insider.com/disney-world-losing-its-magic-2021-1">Disney World is losing its magic, and as a lifelong fan I worry it'll never come back</a>My family moved around. We lived in seven cities by the time I was 9 years old as a result of my dad's job changes. The only constant, steadying presence I can remember from my childhood was Disney. My parents would save up enough money for us to visit Disneyland every three years. Once they divorced, when I was 11, they continued our tradition, taking turns bringing us to the park.The place became reliable and familiar in the way none of my new houses or schools or play pals were. Its cobbled streets provided a consistency I felt lacking in the rest of my lonely, small world.<h2>Revisiting Disneyland as an adult, I noticed the magic had started to fade</h2><div type="image" title="Kim inside Star Wars Galaxy's Edge Disneyland Sydney Kramer 36 copy" height="1157" width="1542" msid="80652932" hostid="261"></div>Two years ago I moved to Los Angeles, finally within easy driving distance to Disneyland. Homesick for New York City - my home for the previous decade - I decided to buy my first annual pass to Disneyland, the one place in Southern California I knew like the back of my hand.I fell into a routine of visiting the parks about once a month, relieved to have at least one place where I could relax. Once again overwhelmed by the process of moving to a new city, I found comfort in Disneyland.As friends from the East Coast began visiting, each wanted to experience Disneyland with me. The running joke was that I could easily start a tour-guide service thanks to my brick-by-brick knowledge of the park. I could plan a perfect day customized to every person's needs. We'd walk some 28,000 steps in a packed, 16-hour day I would schedule, ready to bring the same magic I once felt to the people now in my life.But as I went through tour after tour with my friends, a twinge of shame now accompanied the magic. I felt the need to make sure they knew that I knew about the sometimes horrifying history of Disney, even as I showed off my deep affection for the park.<h2>In my 20s I had an awakening to the racism and more lurking beneath Disney's surface</h2><div type="image" title="peter pan disney" height="730" width="973" msid="80652933" hostid="261"></div>The origin of that shame can be traced to a number of encounters, mostly with people I met throughout my undergraduate years.It came when one of my sociology professors let out a big "Yikes!" after I'd shared a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Or-xfpivNM&amp;t=31s=31s">Disney campaign called "I Am a Princess"</a> as an example of advertising centered on gender stereotypes. The commercial, while inclusive, showed young girls driving go-karts, playing sports, presenting science projects, and more, while a young girl announces "I am a princess."My professor assumed my example was meant to show <a href="https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2012/12/03/can-disney-re-frame-princesses-as-strong-and-brave-while-still-making-fortune/">the hypocrisy in its messaging</a>, given Disney's lengthy history of removing agency and purpose from its princess-centered stories, but I didn't see it. Not yet anyway.Read more: <a href="https://www.insider.com/soul-movie-black-criticism-pete-docter-2021-1">'Soul' codirector admits he was 'afraid' to talk about race before working on Pixar's first movie with a Black lead</a>I was probably about 20 years old when, one boring morning behind the counter of the bakery where I worked in midtown Manhattan (to pay for night classes), my coworker asked me to share my favorite movie. Her face reflected something like horror and pity as I struggled to pick between "The Lion King" and "Beauty and the Beast." That was the day I learned about <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/23/15000768/beauty-and-the-beast-feminist-stockholm-syndrome">"Stockholm syndrome"</a> for the first time and realized that locking Belle up in a castle wasn't an admirable recipe for falling in love.My education, both literal and figurative, continued as I finished out my bachelor's degree in cultural anthropology and then entered the corporate workforce at Insider. As the years went on, lessons about systemic racism, cultural appropriation, and patriarchal power structures sank in deeper.<div type="image" title="the princess and the frog disney final" height="680" width="906" msid="80652935" hostid="261"></div>It was inevitable, then, that the next time I sat through the Jungle Cruise ride in Disneyland, I cringed not at the corny puns but how at the reductive African stereotypes of "headhunters" and more were put on display for my entertainment.The entire ride is designed to mimic the experience of white British colonialists visiting "exotic" African and Asian jungles as a cruise boat winds down a river. Whereas before I would've blindly soaked in that feeling of "Disney magic," now I felt a cynicism and shame my younger self wouldn't recognize.The realities I'd previously been ignorant to piled up from there: The way <a href="https://www.insider.com/pixar-soul-movie-review-2020-12">nonwhite characters usually spent most of the movie's runtime trapped in the body of an anthropomorphized creature</a>. How, even when Disney finally did start making stories centered on nonwhite perspectives, such as "Moana," "Coco," and "Soul," <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/moana-oceanic-trust-disney-controversy-pacific-islanders-polynesia">those films</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/movies/coco-pixar-politics.html">were all helmed by</a> <a href="https://www.insider.com/soul-movie-black-criticism-pete-docter-2021-1">white male directors</a>.<div type="image" title="Beauty and the Beast" height="736" width="982" msid="80652936" hostid="261"></div>Disney also veered into queerbaiting territory time and again, from <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/11/22/20975178/frozen-2-elsa-girlfriend-lesbian-queer-review">Elsa's arc in "Frozen II"</a> to the briefest of brief <a href="https://www.insider.com/beauty-and-the-beast-gay-moment-overblown-2017-3">"gay moments" in the "Beauty and the Beast"</a> remake. These story practices feel especially harmful given how so many of Disney's villainous characters <a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-strange-difficult-history-of-queer-coding">are queer-coded</a>, often imbued with characteristics people will identify as "queer traits" or stereotypes without explicitly labeling them.The list goes on. Harmful Native stereotypes and <a href="https://www.insider.com/moments-themes-in-disney-movies-that-havent-aged-well-problematic#pocahontas-romanticizes-and-skirts-over-the-atrocities-committed-by-europeans-against-native-americans-12">alternative history framed around white saviors</a> in movies like "Pocahontas" and "Peter Pan." Literal <a href="https://www.insider.com/moments-themes-in-disney-movies-that-havent-aged-well-problematic#the-crows-from-dumbo-reference-jim-crow-laws-and-portray-anti-black-stereotypes-3">Jim Crows in "Dumbo."</a> Racist <a href="https://www.insider.com/moments-themes-in-disney-movies-that-havent-aged-well-problematic#the-siamese-cats-in-lady-and-the-tramp-are-racist-caricatures-of-asian-people-8">caricatures of Asian culture</a> in "Lady and the Tramp" and "The Aristocats." The entire 1946 movie "Song of the South," which is so <a href="https://www.insider.com/moments-themes-in-disney-movies-that-havent-aged-well-problematic#every-moment-of-song-of-the-south-is-offensive-5">rife with racism and glorification of slavery</a> that Disney has locked all evidence of it away from public view, save for a handful of animated characters featured on the Splash Mountain park rides. Not to mention a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/25/researchers-have-discovered-a-major-problem-with-the-little-mermaid-and-other-disney-movies/">legacy of agentless princesses</a> whose dreams all add up to finding a husband.<h2>Disney's corporate practices have also raised red flags for me</h2><div type="image" title="Disneyland" height="2011" width="2681" msid="80652937" hostid="261"></div>In 2018 I was horrified to read <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/us/disneyland-employees-wages.html">a New York Times report</a> about Disneyland employees being paid so little they slept in their cars between shifts or commuted several hours each way to work because they couldn't afford to live in the same county as the theme park.The pandemic only served to fuel my ire against what I see as malignant business practices set by the larger Disney corporation, especially as it <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/california-theme-parks-group-rips-newsom-over-unreasonable-disneyland-stance">pressured California Gov. Gavin Newsom</a> to ease opening restrictions.Now, Southern California is practically the epicenter of COVID-19 in the US, with <a href="https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/">0% ICU bed capacity left at hospitals</a> and a growing number of cases each day.Read more: <a href="https://www.insider.com/why-i-regret-disney-world-family-trip-in-pandemic-2020-12">Don't make the same mistake I did by visiting Disney World during the pandemic. It's just not worth it.</a>The pandemic put many, many businesses into an impossibly hard position: Remain open and put employees and customers at risk of contracting and spreading a highly contagious, deadly virus, or close doors and risk corporate bankruptcy and the loss of hard-earned businesses and income.The Walt Disney Company is a multibillion-dollar corporation. Is it losing an astronomical amount of money with park closures? Yes. Can it, unlike most small businesses and restaurants, afford to shoulder that loss this year without going bankrupt? Also yes.<h2>My future relationship with Disney will be messy, to say the least</h2><div type="image" title="Disneyland" height="1614" width="2152" msid="80652939" hostid="261"></div>When I was much younger, I loved picking flowers. My mom had to teach me that I shouldn't pick flowers I saw out in public spaces. "If everyone picked the flowers, then there wouldn't be any left," she'd say.This sentiment eventually translated into my much broader belief in the effects of people's actions. Can one single person's practices translate into a felt change? Probably not. But if every person teetering on the verge of changed behavior decided to go through with it, the collective effect would be felt.As an adult, I'm constantly reexamining how I spend my money, time, and energy. In the past year, I decided that Disneyland was no longer a place I wanted to pour my money into month after month.Disneyland's annual-pass system has been dismantled, but I can choose not to sign up for whatever new iteration is eventually rolled out. And I can advocate for more changes like the shift from the racist "Song of the South"-themed Splash Mountain ride to one that <a href="https://www.insider.com/disney-splash-mountain-new-theme-princess-and-the-frog-2020-6">honors the sole Black princess, Tiana, in "Princess and the Frog."</a>The very least I can do is hold the company to higher standards and keep it accountable for its past.This story is part of <a href="https://www.insider.com/hollywood-is-dying-pandemic-2021-1">Insider's State of Hollywood</a> digital series, which details how the $100 billion entertainment industry shifted in 2020. <a href="https://www.insider.com/hollywood-is-dying-pandemic-2021-1">Click here to read more.</a>

Disneyland was once the most magical part of my life. Then I grew up.

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>"<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2268016/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Magic Mike XXL</a>" is fan service, perfected.It's a sequel that wastes no time trying to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/terminator-genisys-review-2015-6">fabricate a reason to exist</a>; it simply exists, and it's glorious.The stakes here are not just low - they're nonexistent. There are no arbitrary subplots, convoluted love triangles, or any of the serious 'deep-dive' examination of the male stripper world that the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Mike-Channing-Tatum/dp/B009VB97EY/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1435757227&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=magic+mike">first film</a> offered. The movie is all about giving these characters room to breathe and have some fun, and it more than achieves that goal. I can't stress enough how different this film is from the original - it's like they stripped out all of its "art-house" sensibilities and just left all the fun stuff. Watching "Magic Mike XXL" is a lot like catching up with your old pals for a couple hours after spending some time apart ... if your buddies happened to be super-ripped male strippers that took Molly in the middle of the afternoon.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>The "plot?" Mike and his crew of "male entertainers" striptease their way up the Florida coast en route to a stripping convention. What happens if they win this convention? Nothing, really. What happens if they lose? Still nothing. It's all about the journey, and fortunately, getting there couldn't have been more fun.Whenever you think the film is veering somewhere generic, like when Mike and an ambitious soul (Amber Heard) meet on the beach and hit it off, it reminds you that it doesn't really care about that and cuts back to the guys having fun. It's inspiring to see a film so dead-set on making its audience happy. When reviewing a film, it's best to keep in mind the film's goals and what it sets out to achieve. This applies to blockbusters, foreign films, indie dramedies, and every other subsection imaginable - what is this movie trying to accomplish, and does it accomplish it?Regarding "Magic Mike XXL," the answer to the latter is a definitive "hell yes."Channing Tatum is completely in his element, and it's incredible to watch. The man can dance, and the gorgeous (Soderbergh!) photography accentuates his skills masterfully. The way the camera captures his impossible-looking moves is like a bizarre form of visual poetry, and at times he appears to defy gravity, but it's all real. Tom Cruise may do his own stunts, but Tatum's feat here may actaully be more impressive. Everything from the goofy banter between the guys to the brilliant staging of its finale (best use of <a href="https://vimeo.com/3554226">NIN's "Closer</a>" ever) is pretty much note perfect. I dare you to watch the Joe Manganiello's convenience store striptease or Tatum's wood-shop solo "Pony" performance without cracking a smile or howling like an idiot.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>One of the most remarkable details about the film is that it manages to completely satisfy its audience without ever showing a naked body, male or female. There's some man-butt, but that's as far as it goes. Like a well-choreographed strip tease, "Magic Mike XXL" has the viewer under its spell, exhibiting total control, showing you just enough to get the job done but leave you wanting more. It's the very definition of a crowd-pleaser, and the (mostly female) packed house on opening night hooted, hollered and applauded uproariously throughout. When Mike encounters the girl from the beach for the second time, she's down in the dumps, and all Mike wants to do is cheer her up and "give her smile back." That's all "Magic Mike XXL" wants for its audience, too, and boy does it achieve it. Magic Mike XXL is now playing in theaters nationwide. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/magic-mike-xxl--trailer-2015-5">The new trailer for 'Magic Mike XXL' promises a guaranteed box office smash</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="J3dXl3dDp8cm9CvhfnW35RThr25__O0x" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

Forget 'Terminator Genisys' - 'Magic Mike XXL' is the best sequel of the summer

In 1906, in a lodging house for Indian students in Highgate, a pleasant area of north London, a young lawyer called Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi dropped in on a law student called Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who happened to be frying prawns at the time. Savarkar offered Gandhi some of his meal; Gandhi, a vegetarian, refused. Savarkar allegedly retorted that only a fool would attempt to resist the British without being fortified by animal protein.
The meeting is said to have begun hostilities between the two young Indian nationalists; whether or not the story is apocryphal, there were real reasons for antipathy.
The two men had very different approaches to the struggle against Britain. Gandhi, who became leader of the Indian National Congress (INC), was a pacifist with an inclusive attitude towards Muslims and Christians. Savarkar, who would lead the Hindu Mahasabha, was a right-wing majoritarian who spawned the idea of hindutva, or Hindu-ness--the belief that the Hindu identity is inseparable from the Indian identity. Congress eclipsed the Mahasabha and, since history belongs to the victors, the story of India's independence movement became one of non-violence. But the strand of thought that Savarkar represented was more important than is generally recognised, and is enjoying a revival.
A member of the Mahasabha broke away to form the paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or national volunteer organisation, in 1925, modelled, some say, on the British army. A social rather than explicitly political organisation, it presented itself as the world's largest non-governmental group, in which like-minded, khaki-uniformed men could gather for dawn calisthenics. It recruited boys at an impressionable age, as the Jesuits did, the better to inculcate them with discipline and with passion for the cause. One such was the eight-year-old Narendra Modi. The future prime minister attended training sessions with the RSS, was subsequently inducted as a cadet, and in 1985 was assigned by the RSS to its political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which he rose to lead.
Mr Modi is India's strongest leader since Indira Gandhi, and its most controversial. The source of controversy is his failure in 2002, when chief minister of Gujarat, to avert a massacre of Muslims, which opponents attribute to a hostility to Muslims born of the ideology that Savarkar spawned. Mr Modi has never apologised for the massacre, though he said last year that he felt regret over them, as he would at seeing a puppy run over in the street. Nor has he made any attempt to distance himself from the RSS.
The RSS, meanwhile, is becoming more overtly political. Mohan Bhagwat, its current leader, is somewhat in the mould of Savarkar, paraphrasing his beliefs and promoting Hindutva. In August this year Mr Bhagwat directly echoed Savarkar by saying all who live in "Hindustan" are in fact Hindus, whatever Muslims, Christians or secular Hindus might say. More striking, the RSS leader has switched the organisation's methods. Now, far from eschewing party politics, the group has become an enthusiastic and effective actor within it. The RSS's millions of members and volunteers (no one knows just how many active ones there really are) played a big role in electing the BJP by a landslide in 2014. At least 19 ministers in government, including Mr Modi, have a background in the RSS. Its leaders are seconded to senior posts in the party too. So the ideas of the man who inspired the RSS matter more than ever before.
<h3>The naked jumper</h3>
The lawyer described by a British official in 1906 as "a small man with an intelligent face and a nervous manner" does not sound like the muscular hero that Indian nationalists crave, but Savarkar clearly had a certain dash. In 1910, while he was in London, he was charged with conspiring to wage war against the king and with providing weapons used to assassinate a Briton in the Indian civil service, sentenced to two life terms--50 years--in jail and sent back to India. While the steamship "Morea" was berthed in Marseille harbour, he slipped away from his guards, leapt, almost naked, into the sea and swam ashore. Unfortunately for the eulogists, he was promptly caught by French police and bundled back to the ship.
His daring did, however, win him fame, and also created legal history. France's government, annoyed that Britain had overseen an arrest on its territory, wanted Savarkar returned. Britain refused so the matter went to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. It ruled his arrest was indeed "irregular", but decided Savarkar might as well stay in India. The case was one of the earliest heard by the tribunal.
Savarkar's next stop was the Andaman Islands--a group of islands in the Bay of Bengal. This palm-fringed tropical paradise served as a penal colony for the British. Cellular Jail in the capital, Port Blair, is now a memorial for freedom campaigners. In a park opposite stands a row of statues of independence heroes. One is of a slender man with a pinched face behind round spectacles. A pen protrudes from his jacket pocket, one hand rests on a part-furled umbrella and the other wags a finger at the sky. You might mistake him for a prissy bank manager, but a plaque identifies him as Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. The park is named after him.
Ranjit Savarkar, his great-nephew, who runs the Savarkar trust, says that he showed great fortitude in jail. A trained yogi, he overcame thoughts of suicide. Other inmates nicknamed him "Barrister Babu", for his London legal training. Already a published historian and poet, he used Cellular Jail to work on his writing--literally: he wrote on its walls. He spent a decade there before being moved to the mainland in 1921. He was subsequently freed, after pledging to keep out of politics--a promise which the ideology he was developing in jail suggests he did not intend to keep.
A fierce nationalist, he adored Guiseppe Mazzini, who fought for the unification of Italy, writing about him in the hope of inspiring resistance to the British in India. Savarkar believed that India is really composed of, and must only be run by, Hindus. In his 1924 book, "Hindutva", he drew on cultural, philosophical and religious practices of ancient Hinduism, a rich faith that allows immense variety in how it is followed. But he also distinguished the ideology of hindutva--an attempt to unite disparate Hindus in a political project--from the religion. He himself was an atheist, and disapproved of aspects of traditional Hindu belief, dismissing cow worship as superstitious--a stance that would upset many today. He was an early outspoken opponent of caste discrimination. In the 1920s and 1930s others among the emerging Indian political elite opposed "untouchability", the rejection as sub-human of those considered "below caste". But Savarkar went further, saying modern India should drop altogether the idea of dividing people by caste.
His attitude towards Muslims, who made up a quarter of the population before partition, and other non-Hindus was less liberal. He regarded them as alien and separate, in effect not as real Indians. He was fiercely opposed to the formation of Pakistan and what his great-nephew calls the "appeasement" of Muslims. He believed that they, along with the Europeans, had crushed Hindus for a millennium--a sentiment echoed by Mr Modi in an address to parliament after his election this year, when he spoke of ending "1,200 years of slave mentality" in India.
Aside from his view of Muslims, the big difference between Savarkar and the nationalists in the INC lay in their contrasting attitudes to violence. He also wrote one of the first Indian accounts of the uprising in 1857, centred in Delhi. Known as the "Mutiny" to the British, it is referred to by many Indians as the "first war of independence"--echoing the title of Savarkar's book, "The Indian War of Independence". It was a gruesome episode, in which hundreds of thousands were killed, but Savarkar was untroubled by the violence, and seemed to justify the murders of British women and children. His works are steeped in a desire for revenge against those who have humiliated Hindus, and his frustration with the passivity of his co-religionists: "I want all Hindus to get themselves re-animated and re-born into a martial race." In his early years, he circulated manuals on bomb making. He approved of--and probably assisted in--the assassination of colonial administrators. He was suspected, for example, of encouraging a student radical who shot dead Sir Curzon Wyllie, a government official, one summer night on a Kensington street in 1909.
<h3>Rewriting history</h3>

Today, some Indians adulate him. On the day your correspondent called in at Cellular Jail, a party of jovial men in their 80s and 90s, an official "Eminent Committee of Freedom Fighters", was also visiting. Among the last surviving veterans who battled the British in the Quit India movement in the 1940s, they raised gnarled fists to chant "Jai Hind", posed for pictures and praised Savarkar as strong. The local MP called veer (brave) Savarkar a "ferocious, dangerous man who frightened off the British". Rashida Iqbal, the jail's curator, assessed him as "one of the most important freedom fighters". Port Blair's airport, like the park, bears his name. Some 2,000km away, in his native Maharashtra, a street and a park in Mumbai also each carry his name. (In London a blue plaque identifies his former home in Highgate.)
Savarkar's enthusiasm for violence sits uncomfortably with conventional ideas of how India got its independence. India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and then the Congress party (successor to the INC) promoted a pacifist narrative of history, the idea that Gandhi and the likes of B.R. Ambedkar, a social reformer who inspired the Modern Buddhist Movement, triumphed through non-violent resistance. That meant downplaying the bloodshed of 1857, in which atrocities were perpetrated by both sides, and also the roles of Savarkar, Subhas Chandra Bose and Vallabhbhai Patel.
Bose, the Bengali leader of an Indian National Army against the British in the second world war and an ally of Hitler and imperial Japan, led some 40,000 soldiers against the British. (He didn't get far, though the Japanese briefly handed him control of the Andamans.) Patel, the "Iron Man of India", had the Bismarckian task of uniting the country. He oversaw the integration of 562 princely states into India, threatening and using military force. Operation Polo in 1948, a five-day conquest of Hyderabad, a wealthy and Muslim-run state in the south, was bloody indeed. Official estimates, only made public in 2013, suggest the fighting and subsequent Hindu-Muslim clashes there killed between 27,000 and 40,000 people. Some historians claim the real toll might have been five times higher.
The way the story of Indian independence is told is beginning to change. Mr Modi and the BJP are keen to celebrate muscular, nationalist figures. Patel is likely to have a much higher profile in future: in the national budget, in July 2014, the government set aside $32m to erect a statue of him in Gujarat, twice the size of the Statue of Liberty, by 2018. And while Mr Modi frequently invokes Gandhi's name and beliefs, he refers almost as often to Swami Vivekananda, a 19th-century nationalist who revived Hinduism and promoted it abroad. Mr Modi is said to be named after him (the swami was originally called Narendra Nath Datta) and frequently poses before his photograph. Vivekananda's ideas on invigorating Hinduism foreshadowed Savarkar's hindutva project.
Savarkar's profile is lower, but is also rising. Educational comics, hagiographies and patriotic films retell parts of his life story. In 2008 Mr Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, inaugurated a website (savarkar.org) that promotes a man "largely unknown to the masses because of the vicious propaganda against him and misunderstanding around him that has been created over several decades", and in 2012 he launched a Gujarati-language biopic. A previous BJP-led government put Savarkar's portrait in parliament. On his birthday this year, May 28th, the prime minister paid homage to him there. Mr Modi tweeted about Savarkar's "tireless efforts towards the regeneration of our motherland". Ranjit Savarkar's group plans various events to mark the 50th anniversary of Savarkar's death in 1966. (Aged 83, he submitted to what he called atmaarpan--refusing food, water or medicine in order to die. It took 20 days.)
Yet Savarkar remains immensely divisive. He was a fiercely outspoken critic of Gandhi, still India's top national hero: he called Gandhi weak, a "sissy" and far too willing to collaborate with Britain. Gandhian talk of man's common humanity he regarded as utopian to the point of naivety. In articles from the 1920s to the 1940s Savarkar lambasted Gandhi as a "crazy lunatic" who "happens to babble...[about] compassion, forgiveness", yet "notwithstanding his sublime and broad heart, the Mahatma has a very narrow and immature head." Gandhi promoted ahimsa, a Buddhist rejection of violence which Savarkar called "mealy-mouthed". He said Gandhi was a hypocrite for supporting violence by the British against Germany in the first world war. Nor did he cheer Gandhi's prominent backing for the Ottoman Caliphate Movement, designed to win Indian Muslims to oppose British colonial rule.
Over the years, Savarkar was eclipsed by his rival. During the 1920s and 1930s, the INC benefited from its ability to claim plausibly that it spoke for Muslims as well as Hindus, which made it a more credible interlocutor with the colonial authorities. Perhaps more important, it had an impressive organisation and, in Gandhi and later in Nehru, accomplished political leaders.
By the mid 1940s Savarkar and his supporters in the Mahasabha (which he led until his death) had a new gripe against Gandhi. They were enraged at the prospect of Pakistan seceding from India. Gandhi, in their eyes, did nothing to stop that "vivisection". Worse, he seemed to favour Pakistan when it sent forces to violently seize Kashmir, evidence to Savarkar that warlike Muslims were again crushing passive Hindus. When Nehru applied economic sanctions on Pakistan (refusing to pass on its share of central-bank funds from before independence), Gandhi launched a fast in protest and forced him to back down. To Savarkar's followers in the Mahasabha, that constituted national betrayal.
On January 30th 1948 Gandhi was assassinated in Delhi. The killer, Nathuram Godse, was a member of the Mahasabha, edited its newspaper and was an associate of Savarkar's. Godse's explanation of his actions echoed Savarkar: he said he murdered Gandhi for his "false notions of Hindu-Muslim unity" and in fury over the secession of Pakistan. Savarkar was arrested and tried as a plotter in the murder. He denied all and was acquitted. That did not convince everybody. As the leader of the Mahasabha, who had praised the efficacy of violence and railed against Muslims, it was reasonable to suspect he had at least inspired Gandhi's killer. A.G. Noorani, author of a book on Savarkar and Godse, goes further. He draws a parallel to the Kensington murder of Wylie in 1909, saying the elder man had twice pressed others to pull the trigger. "I would definitely call him complicit in the assassination of Gandhi," he concludes. He points, too, to an official commission of inquiry into Gandhi's death, in the late 1960s, which drew on testimony unavailable at the original trial. It found the evidence was "destructive of any theory other than the conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group". Following Gandhi's murder the RSS was also banned, for a year. Yet the final reason why Savarkar should remain unacceptable in modern India goes beyond suspicion over Gandhi's murder. It lies in his attitude to his fellow, non-Hindu, Indians. In his own writing he relates joyfully how as a 12-year-old boy he led a gang of schoolmates to stone his village mosque and smash its windows and tiles, in the aftermath of Hindu-Muslim riots. Relating how "we vandalised the mosque to our heart's content", he adds that when confronted by Muslim boys, he and his pals wielded knives and sticks and chased them away.
Throughout his writing he sets out Muslims as savage, immoral, sensual and eager to destroy the Hindu way of life. In 1937 he wrote of there being "two antagonistic nations living side by side in India", an idea that relies on using religion as the defining characteristic of any Indian, one utterly against the secular constitution of India. And while he occasionally wrote admiringly of the political and religious fervour of Islam, or rather of Muslim political leaders, he did so to encourage his fellow Hindus to match or exceed it.
In India today the fear of communal clashes--between Hindus and Muslims--should not be overblown. But it is never far away. Especially before elections, parties exploit religious tensions. Those who promote hindutva and echo Savarkar whip up stories of "love jihad", alleging that Muslim men convert large numbers of Hindu women by seducing them. Earlier this month a BJP parliamentarian praised Godse as a "patriot" equal to Gandhi. Members of the increasingly influential RSS feel emboldened. Such majoritarian politics, when a larger religious group sets out to absorb or flatten a minority, is utterly destructive. One need only look at the failure of Pakistan as a reminder of that. Sarvarkar could be a brilliant, eloquent and progressive leader. He could also be extremist, violent and divisive. If his influence grows, India's tolerance and moderation will be at risk.
"Notwithstanding his...broad heart, the Mahatma has a very narrow and immature head," wrote Savarkar
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Savarkar (back row, second left) was arrested and tried as a plotter in Gandhi's murder. He was acquitted
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