The rumor that you, the mayor of my adopted hometown, Los Angeles, will be President Biden’s next ambassador to my native country, India, is picking up steam. And so I wanted to be the first person to give you the lay of the land in Delhi, where I grew up and have close family members and childhood friends. I last visited Delhi in fall 2019, and my mother is currently in Dehradun (a bit less than 250 kilometers or 150 miles northeast) while the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic unfold around her. Los Angeles has been among the cities hardest hit by the pandemic, not just with the high death toll among lower income communities but also vaccine inequities. A similar scene is playing out in Delhi right now.

But the Delhi I want to transport you to is the city you would encounter if you were to rewind to a time before this reality-altering pandemic. Just like Los Angeles, Delhi is a vast, vibrant, cosmopolitan place groaning under the weight of aging infrastructure and jolted by frequent tremors. Picture this: a city roughly similar in geographic size to Los Angeles, but with almost five times the number of people. If you include the neighboring regions that make up Delhi state, the population is larger than the entire state of California.

You and I, Mr. Mayor, are roughly the same age—I’m 15 months your junior—though you probably had a more promising beginning to your life. I was birthed unresponsive by nurses who didn’t want to revive me, my parents’ third daughter. My feisty mother snatched me from the jaws of death and raised me to be a bit of a daredevil. It’s those youthful adventures that I want to share as you consider the possibility of taking your own daughter to Delhi.

I envy you and your family moving there, though 21st-century Delhi can confound Americans, even as it offers compelling lessons for American cities.

Take transportation. You’ll find that many buses heading to Delhi University are designated “Ladies Special,” so you’re not going to be able to board those. You will be attacked with safety pins and umbrellas if you try. The Delhi Metro, too, has entire cars just for ladies, which are an olfactory haven in the long, sweaty summer months. You haven’t been able to truly move the needle on ridership on the L.A. Metro. The excuse that Southern California is too car-centric and sprawling for transit is a poor one, as Delhi will teach you: The city has cars, auto rickshaws, buses, and a Metro… all of which are crowded to capacity.

You will see that what L.A. lacks are the connectors from neighborhoods to public transportation hubs that make Delhi’s options more used by its populace. While the Marines guarding you may dissuade this, you should try some of them. Go to the local market in a “scootie,” a compact three-wheeled rickshaw meant to seat two but routinely carrying an entire family, all bouncing along happily. For longer rides, try a bus, and if it’s too crowded, just hang onto the ladder that connects to the rear bumper. You save a couple of bucks if the conductor can’t grab you and demand that you pay for a ticket. Though if the Delhi Police spot you, be prepared to make a running jump.

Whatever transportation options you choose, you should take advantage of all the food choices that Delhi offers its people. I’m sure you will receive many elegant dinner invitations from Delhi’s power brokers. I went to university with many of them (riding the aforementioned Ladies Specials), and you can be assured of impeccable manners, guest lists full of Rhodes Scholars like yourself, lavish meals catering to every dietary need (including veganism), and live music to boot.

Samosas from Old Famous Jalebi Wala. Photo by Moira Shourie.

Had you gone to Delhi in the early ’90s, I might have been the crooner softly singing jazz standards in the corner (much to the horror of my friends’ parents). After such engagements, my band would usually head to local restaurants: Chicken Inn on Pandara Road for a non-veg platter, Sagar in Defence Colony Market for dosas, or to Old Famous Jalebi Wala in Chandni Chowk for samosas and jalebis.

When you need a break from endless meetings, head on out to Bhimsain’s Bengali Sweet House. It’s pretty close to the embassy and perfect for an afternoon cup of chai with chaat and panipuri—a dish once made even tastier by the owner, who sat in lotus pose with his right foot protruding so that he could punch a hole in the round pastry with his interestingly long big toe nail. For fast food, don’t bother with any of the American chains like McDonald’s or KFC; opt for the many street food stalls called dhabas or reydiwalas. They serve their food in packets made from old newspapers and plates fashioned from dry leaves, with tea filling earthen cups that you just smash to pieces when you’re done. It’s the original recycling—no loading the dishwasher required!

You also should be aware that Delhi has its own housing problems, though the crisis there is very different than L.A.’s.

You’ll be among the fortunate to have a roof over your head. The ambassador’s residence is tucked inside the fortress-like U.S. Embassy on Shanti Path, which means the street of peace. Your neighbors will be your fellow diplomats. Each embassy is a tribute to its culture. The blue dome of the Pakistan embassy, the regal emblem of the British High Commission, the Soviet-style architecture of the Russian embassy, the sandstone arches of the Saudi embassy… all now sadly hidden behind impenetrable walls and electrified fences.

This was the vista I passed in the 1980s en route to the Delhi School of Music, where my parents dragged me and my sisters to piano lessons. You, a concert pianist, will find the school to be a treasure trove of lovingly well-maintained concert grands to bang away on. My older sisters were pretty good pianists, but I remember the director, Hosi Palamkote, shaking his head at my disappointed mother, “She should stick to singing.” That was good advice. Sticking to singing got me into the prestigious St. Stephen’s College, where the principal, Dr. Varghese, remembers to this day my rendition of “O Holy Night” at the Christmas Mass, to which the U.S. ambassador is often invited.

Multi-family apartments in Old Delhi. Photo by Moira Shourie.

But let’s get real—this is not how 99.9 percent of Delhi, or India, or California, for that matter, lives. Delhi’s big solution to housing is public. A large section of the middle class resides in apartments built by the DDA (Delhi Development Authority), allotted to them via an opaque method that no supercomputer can comprehend. After my parents retired from their teaching jobs, we were able to rent one of these boxy, poorly ventilated units thanks to the extra income from my singing gigs and my sister’s job at the British High Commission on Shanti Path. When I took a job in Mumbai, my parents moved to Noida, a vast development built on the old Yamuna River bed. This was a huge upgrade, but got off to a bumpy start with a power outage that took local authorities three years to restore.

Yes, you will see a heartbreaking level of poverty, but there is a huge difference between the street dwellers you will encounter in Delhi and the homeless population of Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, by and large, the unhoused are individuals struggling to navigate the systems of an unequal society plagued by decades of racist housing policies. Delhi’s homeless, by contrast, are mostly entire families, including grandparents and infants, who have traveled to the big city in the hopes of earning a living just to survive. When India started down the path of development and modernization, construction in cities boomed, drawing able-bodied young men from far-flung villages. Entire communities sprung up at construction sites, where you will see the skeletons of high-rise buildings populated with laborers and their children living in tenements. When these buildings are finally completed, the entire community usually moves to the next construction site, but several end up on sidewalks and under flyovers. Many children get access to education through American-supported NGOs and upskill to jobs as drivers, household staff, and shop attendants.

Life on the streets of Delhi is brutal and crushing. My childhood ayah was one such person—her husband was the watchman at the school where my parents worked, and sadly she took her own life by jumping off a building. My parents later adopted another family living on the sidewalk near our home and paid for their youngest son’s education while his mother, Maya, was a cleaner at the school. Sadly, Maya also took her own life by jumping in front of a train. You will pass by these people as you are chauffeured around the city in an armored car, so I wanted you to know some of their stories.

There is more to say about Delhi, and more for you to see. But the tenures of American ambassadors are short. My hope is that you will stay in Delhi long enough to be transformed in unexpected ways. And that if there’s one thing you take away from your time there, it’s the capacity for cities to change themselves, and reckon with problems in unexpected ways.

Delhi, after all, is an ancient place. The walls of the city have risen and been felled at least eight times since 1400 BCE. Los Angeles will also have to adjust and evolve—perhaps faster than it has recently—if it wants to live as long. Perhaps you can bring both ideas and some of Delhi’s enduring and adventurous spirit back to L.A., and tell us all about them, as you ride around town on the ladder attached to the exterior of a Metro bus.

The post Mayor Garcetti, Delhi Is Waiting to Transform You—And the Future of L.A. appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

India today has about 100 million farmers, more than 86 percent of whom own small, marginal properties of one or two hectares of land. This number of farmers, multiplied by the number of family members, plus those engaged in allied activities, means that the agrarian sector makes up over half of India’s population.

For the last half-century, subsequent governments have neglected the sector, resulting in a vastly misregulated system where farmers accrue huge debts and routinely commit suicide—an estimated 300,000 in the last two decades alone. Though the nation is supposedly enjoying a food surplus, the mismanagement of storage and distribution of grains has led to India to rank 94 out of 107 among the countries on the World Hunger Index. There is a need for better regulation. Instead, in the name of free markets, in June 2020, under the cover of the pandemic, as coronavirus cases were spiraling, the BJP issued three Ordinances which had a far-reaching impact in the nation’s agrarian sector.

They included the Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, which will usher in a parallel system of procurement of farm produce where farmers will likely never get a fair price for their crop. The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, which sets up a framework for contract farming through an agreement between a farmer and a corporate entity, and bars farmers from seeking any recourse in the courts in case of conflict—practically, this means the corporate entities will dictate terms without being challenged in any meaningful way. And the Essential Commodities Act, an amendment to an earlier law created in the 1950s when India faced a huge food crisis. It delists cereals and other items allowing private players to stockpile goods and cause artificial market inflation.

When the laws were passed in September, farmers from the state of Panjab, in the north west of the country, were the first to respond. Panjab, known as the granary of the nation, is one of the most agriculturally advanced states of India. In past decades, at the height of India’s Green Revolution, Panjab produced food grains for nearly 70 percent of the country; today it still produces for about 40 percent. For about two months, farmers there, under the leadership of unions, carried out blockades of trains and a boycott of highway toll booths, petrol pumps, and warehouses owned by the rich corporations that would benefit from the new laws.

Since the government did not pay attention to the farmers and their strike in one corner of the nation, the farmers from Panjab decided to march to Delhi on Constitution Day, November 26. Farmers from neighboring state Haryana and Uttar Pradesh joined in. The police sought to stop them with tear gas and water cannons, and by digging trenches and placing barricades. But the farmers broke through the barricades with their tractors, reached Delhi and camped on its outskirts. On the same day, another section of society—250 million industrial workers held a day-long strike demanding employment opportunities, against new anti-worker labor codes, and to stop privatization of public sector undertakings. Together, the workers’ and farmers’ actions became arguably the largest strike anywhere in the world.

The biggest provocation to date in the protests came on Republic Day, January 26, when the farmers organized a Tractor March in Delhi. Only days before, the 11th round of negotiations between the protestors and the government had broken down. When cornered by union leaders, government officials had first offered to amend the laws, and when farmers insisted on repeal, they offered to postpone the implementation of the laws by 18 to 24 months. The farmers rejected the stay, insisting, again, on repeal. So the atmosphere the day of the march was especially charged. Panjab also has a long history of confrontation with Delhi, specifically the Red Fort, which has been the seat of power, dating back to Mughal and British rule.

Events took a turn when some protesters reached the Red Fort and unfurled the Sikh flag, or the Nishan Sahib, along with other farmer union flags. Since farmers from Panjab are mostly from the Sikh religion, India’s news media—which has often sided with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his seven-year rule—portrayed the act as an affront to the nation flag, which went untouched, and used the event to frame the protests as being organized by anti-national Khalistan supporters.

But the smear campaign isn’t working. Despite ongoing government propaganda—from the very beginning of the protests, the government launched a fierce counterattack to blunt, exhaust, coerce and divide the farmers, calling them Khalistani, rich farmers, foreign hand, urban naxals, anti-nationals, and so on—the protests have continued to gain strength and have now moved beyond north India, spreading across 20 states. In Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat, in large meetings, thousands of people are vowing to boycott the government until it repeals the Farm Laws and legalizes the minimum price guarantee (MSP). Specific calls to block roads or trains are being carried out throughout India. The farmers are now planning a foot march to the Parliament in May.

The Sikh tradition of langar—communal eating—has served as the heart of the protests. Men and women join in cooking meals for the whole community. The tradition of sewa—selfless service—is also a core tenet, and it extends to running full-fledged libraries in tents, some of which double as informal classrooms for children of the adjoining slums, and to keeping the camp sites neat and clean. Panjabiyat—the sense of belonging to Panjab—has a cultural appeal beyond religious differences, which may also explain the boost of Muslim solidarity to the movement.

To date, more than 375 people have lost their lives mostly through heart attacks, accidents and some suicides. While national English media and television continues to blank out the protests, local media in languages other than English continue to focus on them. International media, too, has been paying attention; in early February, the Barbadian pop star Rihanna put a viral spotlight on the protests when she tweeted: “Why aren’t we talking about this? #FarmersProtest.” The farmers themselves have started their own YouTube channels, their own Twitter cells, and independent media, as well. The protests have even led to a new genre of protest music—with singers producing about 500 songs in three months.

The farmers are prepared for a long fight. In the winter months they fashioned tents with tarpaulin on their trolleys, and now with harvest season upon them, trolleys are going back and huts with grass and straw roofs, equipped with desert coolers and refrigerators, are coming up for the scorching summer. There is plenty food supply though never enough mobile toilets. The villages around the protest sites provide fresh milk and vegetables. In the villages, rosters of men, women and elderly, are maintained so that people can take turns at the protest sites. Depending on how much land a farmer owns, each home supplies rations and fire wood for the protest kitchens.

Since the last round of negotiations in January stalled, the government has not talked to farmers. Repealing the laws would shatter its strong-arm image. There is the pressure from the crony corporate lobby that sponsored the government’s election campaigns, which now backs the laws because they stand to benefit. The larger dimension is the pressure from the World Trade Organization which since the Uruguay round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, 1986-93, has been pushing to liberalize the agrarian sector.

In March, the Supreme Court of India’s committee assigned to look into the laws submitted its recommendations in a sealed envelope, but no details have come forward yet on the confidential process. As of now, the protests can have three likely outcomes: government agrees to repeal the laws; government uses armed action to evict the protesters; government continues to prolong the protests hoping they crack due to internal pressures, they turn violent giving the government an excuse to crack down on them, subside as they run out of steam, or the government manages to buy out union leaders.

Much also depends on the ongoing elections in five states. But as of now, the protests are growing strong and have become the longest stand-off since India achieved independence; to the protesting farmers, they view this as a second wave of the independence struggle.

The post Dispatch From India’s Farmers Protest appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.