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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Red Romance

For long, the Naxalite in news was recognisable by the gun. But the more insidious version of Naxalism has never needed a rifle. It has thrived in varsity classrooms and newspaper and magazine columns, fostered by men and women sympathetic to it. These academics and other members of the so-called intelligentsia have long enjoyed their status as ‘respectable dissenters’ even when their politics offered intellectual alibis for Naxals carrying guns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent...

Red Romance

For long, the Naxalite in news was recognisable by the gun. But the more insidious version of Naxalism has never needed a rifle. It has thrived in varsity classrooms and newspaper and magazine columns, fostered by men and women sympathetic to it. These academics and other members of the so-called intelligentsia have long enjoyed their status as ‘respectable dissenters’ even when their politics offered intellectual alibis for Naxals carrying guns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent Independence Day warning about “dimaagi Naxals” should therefore not be dismissed as another political label. His larger point was that an insurgency does not survive on ammunition alone. It survives on ideas and people willing to make violence appear morally fashionable. The most revealing feature of India’s Maoist movement was never simply its brutality. It was the strange attraction it exercised over sections of the metropolitan Left elite. The Naxalite with an AK-47 could be transformed into a romantic revolutionary while the policeman he killed became an instrument of an oppressive state. This was not merely naïveté. At its ugliest, it was the intellectual laundering of political violence. The fantasy of the romantic revolutionary has always been seductive. In this narrative, amplified through sympathetic media priding itself on telling ‘truth to power,’ India was not a constitutional democracy struggling with inequality and corruption but an inherently illegitimate state waiting to be overthrown. In the minds of this elite Left, Maoist violence has often been recast as resistance while attacks on infrastructure as blows against capitalism. The armed overthrow of the Indian republic was the liberation they craved for. Some of India’s most celebrated intellectuals have flirted dangerously close to that moral inversion. The issue here is whether intellectual prestige can be used to sanitise an ideology whose practitioners have murdered civilians, policemen and public servants and terrorised some of India’s poorest districts. A university cannot be the place where Maoist romanticism acquires the legitimacy of a fashionable campus cause. Professors who turn armed insurgents into heroic revolutionaries are not merely exercising academic freedom. If they knowingly excuse violence, they are helping to construct the moral vocabulary that makes violence possible. Let’s be clear here. A professor who criticises the Indian state is not a Naxal while a journalist who exposes state excesses is not an enemy of India. But an intellectual who repeatedly excuses, glorifies or rationalises political violence cannot hide behind the word ‘dissent.’ India has paid an enormous price for the Maoist fantasy. Thousands have died. Entire regions were held back by fear while development was obstructed. The people supposedly being liberated were often the first to suffer. The armed Naxal is now being pushed towards extinction. But the Indian republic cannot afford to leave behind the romantic mythology that made the gun respectable. A democracy can tolerate dissent. It should never be expected to tolerate the glorification of those who seek its violent destruction.

MRIDC speeds up Elphinstone ROB, completion in Sep

Mumbai: Come Ganeshotsav, Mumbai is poised to get an eye-catching landmark – the ambitious Elphinstone Double-Decker Road Overbridge, being fast-tracked to provide a key link to the Sewri-Worli Elevated Corridor and Atal Setu, officials said.


The double-decker ROB, will dramatically arise by Sep. 2026 from the ashes of the 112-year-old British-era Elphinstone Bridge that is being demolished since Oct. 225 after it outlived its utility.


The swank double-decker coming up in its place will be a decisive leap in urban mobility for the country’s commercial capital, with hopes to unclog it's perpetually-jammed arterial routes while seamlessly connecting Mumbai to expanding eastern waterfront besides residential and commercial complexes in the region.


Being built by the Maharashtra Rail Infrastructure Development Corporation (MSRIDC) Ltd. at a cost of a little over Rs. 167-cr, hectic work is on to demolish the old bridge, built in 1913 that connected Prabhadevi-Parel.


Giant cranes at work

The precision engineering of the work involves two gigantic 800-tonne cranes which are deployed to lift and remove the massive sections of the old razed structure. This challenging yet delicate operation is being carried on live railway lines without disrupting the Mumbai lifelines of the Central Railway and Western Railway corridors, thanks to meticulous planning and coordination, said an official.


The new double-decker ROB will not merely replace the old bridge, but is set to redefine connectivity in the region. Spanning 132 metres across the two busy railway lines, described as a ‘rare and technically complex achievement in a dense urban terrain’ like south Mumbai.


The bridge’s twin-level configuration is custom-engineered for efficiency for both commuters and pedestrians and traffic movement.


To boost people-traffic pace

The lower deck will have a 2+2 lanes plus a footpath, to ensure continued east-west access for the local commuters or pedestrians, while the 2+2 lanes upper deck minus the public walkway, would provide a crucial artery of the Sewri-Worli Elevated Corridor, affording a swift, signal-free link to the iconic Mumbai Trans Harbour Link and onwards.


This would enable a much faster access to Navi Mumbai and beyond, reduced vehicular congestion at various points while opening up a new spine of regional connectivity and growth.


The double-decker bridge is engineered with a robust ‘Open Web Girder’ superstructure - a design suited to heavy railway crossings – with an eye on long-term durability and future capacity. “It reflects a broader shift in infrastructure thinking: building upward where horizontal expansion is no longer feasible,” said an official.


Game-changer for Mumbai traffic

He said that the Sewri-Worli Elevated Corridor itself is itself envisioned as a game-changer for Mumbai’s east-west mobility, easing pressure on overburdened roads and integrating with larger transport networks that are reshaping the city and the bustling Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).


“With a seamless link to the MTHL (Atal Setu), the corridor will boost the city’s strategic push towards decongestion, economic expansion and overall development of the surroundings,” said the official, as the project races to catch the Sep. 2026 deadline.


A joint-venture of Maharashtra government and the Ministry of Railways, MahaRail is entrusted with accelerating rail and road infrastructure in the state, eliminate level-crossings to enhance safety, streamline rail-and-road traffic, and is executing several new railway lines, ROBs, RUBs, subways and flyovers.

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