THE SUNDAY EXPRESS MAGAZINE Leading the Royal Charge KOLKATA,LATECITY Directors Priyanka Ghose and Nupur Asthana on helming The Royals, working with Zeenat Aman FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT MAY4,2025 14+4PAGES,`7.00 (`12 IN NORTH EAST STATES,`20INANDAMAN) DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SLUICE GATES LOWERED AS PART OF INDUS TREATY PAUSE; MAIL EXCHANGE ON HOLD ScrewstightenonPak:Curbonwaterflow throughBaglihar;crackdownonships,trade Second set of measures kicks in as Pakistan tests 450-km ballistic missile P VAIDYANATHAN IYER & SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, MAY 3 JUST OVER 10 days after the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 people, India has ratcheted up its diplomatic offensive with a second set of measures against Pakistan: curbing water flow through the Baglihar dam; stoppingtheimportof products; banning docking of Pakistanownedshipsandsuspendingthe exchange of all mail and parcels. This, even as it flagged its condemnation over the test-firing Saturday of a surface-to-surface ballistic missile by Pakistan. The testing wasn't lost on India. Turning the heat on Islamabad, the government put into effect a crucial next step as part of putting the Indus Water Treaty in abeyance. The gates of the sluice spillways on the Baglihar dam have been lowered to restrict water flow to Pakistan’s Punjab as a “short-term punitive action,” a senior official told The Indian Express. The Baglihar dam, over Chenab river, is designed as a run-of-the-river plant for hydro powergeneration.Chenabisone of thewesternriversintheIndus Water system and the treaty allowsforharnessingitswatersfor power generation. “By doing this, even if the choke is for a short while, we demonstrate that we will take coercive steps… The Chenab river water irrigates Punjab farmlands,andPakistanneedsto realise we mean to punish them on all fronts,” the official said. This may not be done in isolation – similar action in the KishangangadamontheJhelum rivermayalsobeintheoffing,he said. Pakistantesteditssurface-tosurface ballistic missile with a 450-km range on Saturday. The missile, known as the Abdali Weapon System, was tested as part of its military drill “Exercise Indus.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Governor flags ‘twin spectre’ of militancy, radicalisation in his Murshidabad report ATRI MITRA West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose KOLKATA, MAY 3 Prime Minister Narendra Modi with J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in New Delhi on Saturday. ANI EXPRESS NETWORK LAVROV: SETTLE ISSUES THROUGH DIPLOMACY LOCAL WHOSE SHOP WAS SHUT ON DAY OF ATTACK UNDER NIA SCANNER PAGE 7 REPORT,PAGE7 Govt bars Pakistan ships from its ports, curbs on Indian vessels too SIDDHANT KONDUSKAR & SUKALP SHARMA MUMBAI, NEW DELHI, MAY 3 AMID GROWING tensions with Pakistan in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack, India on Saturday banned the entry of Pakistani ships at Indian ports, while also barring Indian ships from going to Pakistani ports. According to an order issued by India’s maritime authority, Directorate General of Shipping (DGS), the restrictions were put in place“with immediateeffect” and “till further order” to ensure safety of “Indian assets, cargo and connected infrastructure, in public interest and for interest of Indian shipping”. “In exercise of power conferred by section 411 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958, read with objectives as enshrined under Preamble of the said Act, keeping in view the present situation, the following directions are hereby issued: A ship bearing the flag of Pakistan shall not be allowed to visit any Indian port. An Indian flag ship shall not visit any port of Pakistan,” the DGS order said. WEST BENGAL Governor C V Ananda Bose has submitted to UnionHomeMinisterAmitShah his report on the communal violenceinMurshidabadlastmonth, flagging the state police's “failures” and proposing a commission of inquiry into the incident. In the report, the Governor also said that radicalisation and militancy pose a serious challengeforWestBengal,especially in Murshidabad and Malda districts, which share borders with Bangladesh. The violence in Murshidabad, which took place in the wake of the new Waqf law,claimed three lives on April 11. Whilea manwas killed in police firing, another man and his son died in mob violence. In his report, Governor Bose said, “To go by the history of political violence that the state is prone to and from the spillover effect that the Murshidabad violencehadoverotherdistrictsin the state, may I suggest that the Government of India consider the Constitutional options not only to put a check on the current situation but also to generate confidence of the people in the Rule of Law.” He suggested “formulating anoverarchinglegislationtoempowertheUnionGovernmentto maintain law and order when the state machinery fails to act effectively”. Bose also sought the “reinstating/setting up of central forces outposts/BSF outposts on their jurisdictional limit in the vulnerable districts along the international border”. “An issue that is seldom voiced is the concern that is felt over the role of certain fundamentalist Islamist groups, which are seeking to mobilise Muslim opinion, using the subtext of ‘Islam in danger’. The twin spectre of radicalisation and militancy poses a serious challenge for West Bengal, especially in two of the several districts sharing the international border with Bangladesh – Murshidabad and Malda,” said Bose, who toured Murshidabad on April 18 and 19. “In both these districts, there isanadversedemographiccomposition with Hindus being minorities. Another district, Uttar Dinajpur, has a plurality. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ‘Riot tourism’: Adhir Govt bans backdoor hits out at Mamata over imports, shuts doors on Pak-origin goods Days before Pahalgam massacre, there was Murshidabad visit plan intel alert of attack on tourists: Top official NEW DELHI, MAY 3 TO PLUG loopholes and eliminate any possibility of Pakistani goods entering its territory, the governmenthasimposedanimmediate ban on the import or transitof allgoodsoriginatingin, orexportedfrom,Pakistan,aMay 2 notification of the Commerce and Industry Ministry said. This follows the termination of direct trade, marked by the closure of the Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Attari on April 24 in CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E E X P L A I NE D RAVI DUTTA MISHRA ATRI MITRA Punitive ● action THE BAN on all imports and transit of goods originating from or exported by Pakistan follows a series of punitive measures taken by India to hurt Pakistan economically and diplomatically in the wake of the Pahalgam attack. KOLKATA, MAY 3 Among 4 terrorists, 2 from south Kashmir may have ‘herded’ tourists to site: Official P VAIDYANATHAN IYER NEW DELHI, MAY 3 THE SECURITY establishment and the government are learnt to have got advance intelligence inputs about a possible attack targeting tourists staying in hotels in and around Srinagar days before the Pahalgam massacre in which terrorists killed 25 tourists and a local, officials aware of developments said. Infact,theofficialssaid,given the threat of an attack, there was heightened security presence in the foothills of the Zabarwan range overlooking the Dal lake and the Mughal Gardens in Srinagar. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Security personnel patrol along the Dal Lake. Shuaib Masoodi eye SEARCH ON FOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 6 months of tenure left, Govt recalls top official from IMF board THE SUNDAY EXPRESS MAGAZINE The Mirror Sees Her Now AANCHAL MAGAZINE NEW DELHI, MAY 3 SIX MONTHS before the end of his three-year term as the International Monetary Fund’s Executive Director, KrishnamurthyVSubramanianhasbeen called back to India by the government. An order, dated April 30, said CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Ex-CEAwas unavailable forcomment SENIOR CONGRESS leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Saturday hit out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over her scheduled visit to Murshidabad district that witnessed three deaths in clashes amid protests over the Waqf law last month. “Didi is coming to Murshidabad when everything has been completed. Janaza (final journey) completed, qabr (burial) done. She is visiting for riot tourism.” Chowdhury, who is a former statechief of thepartyandanexMP from Murshidabad's Berhampore, was addressing a Congress rally there. Banerjee, who is scheduled to reach Berhampore on May 5, recentlysaidshewouldalsovisit Samsherganj,oneof theareasaffected by the violence last month, on May 6. “The CM is scheduled to arrive in MurshidabadonMondaylateafternoon. She is scheduled to attend administrative pro- Transitioning from a deeply unsettled man to a woman at peace with herself, Anaya Bangar shares her remarkable journey that the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet had approved the "termination" of his grammes on Tuesday,” Rajarshi Mitra, District Magistrate, Murshidabad, told The Indian Expressover phone onSaturday. Chowdhury said, “Murshidabad has been defamed across the country becauseof thefailureof theadministration and TMC leaders. The state administration did not act with responsibility at the time. Andafterallthesedays,ithasoccurred to theCMthatsheshould visit the district now.” Earlier, while calling for the Congress rally in Berhampore, Chowdhury said on Friday, “The CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 INSIDE ALBANESE WINS SECOND TERM PAGE 8 WARREN BUFFETT TO QUIT AS CEO PAGE 9 FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury in Murshidabad’s Berhampore, Saturday. PTI From Census of nearly a century ago, a roadmap — and a note of caution PAGE 1 ANCHOR UMA VISHNU & VIKAS PATHAK NEW DELHI, MAY 3 THE GOVERNMENT’S surprise announcement of acaste census as part of the upcoming population enumeration exercise may have dented the Opposition’s campaign but the experience of John Henry Hutton, an anthropologist-civil servant from nearly a century ago, frames the challenge on the road ahead. Thoseweretheheadydaysof Mahatma Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement. Hutton, a Yorkshire-born, Oxford-trained officer who as Census Commissioner of India conducted the 1931 Census, the last to tabulate data on caste, writes withahintof annoyancethatthe exercise “had the misfortune to coincide with a wave of non-cooperation, and the march of Mr. Gandhi and his contrabandistas…”. Hutton, who joined the Indian Civil Service in 1909 and served for the greater part of his career in the Naga hills writing two voluminous monographs on Naga ethnography, brought to his census office his experience as an anthropologist. On the complexities of countingcaste,hiscensusreport, lacedwithinsightandwit,refers to former census chief Sir Herbert Risley, whose formulation of the caste system as a racial hierarchy in the 1901 Census laid the basis for subsequent surveys and policies on caste. “All subsequent census officers in India must have cursed the day when it occurred to Sir John Henry Hutton was the Census Commissioner of India when the 1931 Census was conducted Herbert Risley… to attempt to drawupa list of castes according to their rank in society. He failed, but the results of his attempt are almost as troublesome as if he had succeeded, for every census gives rise to a pestiferous deluge of representations,accompanied by highly problematic histories, asking for recognition of some alleged fact or hypothesis of which the census as a department is not legally competent to judge…” he wrote in the section titled ‘The Return of Caste’. Saying that doing away with caste entries “would be viewed with relief by census officers”, Hutton wrote, “Experience at this census has shown very clearly the difficulty of getting a correct return of caste and likewise the difficulty of interpreting it for census purposes.” Among the many challenges the census officials faced as they asked people to identify their caste was “misrepresentation” and people used the data collectionexercisetojostleforahigher spot on the social order. The census also offered examples of multiple castes consolidating into a single caste for bolstering theirnumbersorclaiminganew social status. “The best instance of such a tendency to consolidate a number of castes into one group is to be found in the grazier castes which aim at combining under the term ‘Yadava’ the Ahirs, Goalas, Gopis, Idaiyans and perhaps some other castes of milkmen, a movement already effective in 1921,” the report said. Italsonotedthat“carpenters, smiths, goldsmiths and some othersof similaroccupationsdesired in various parts of India to be returned by a common denomination such as VishwakarmaorJangida,usually desiring to add a descriptive noun implying that they belonged to one of the highest Varnas of Hinduism, either BrahmanorRajput…Of thetwo, Brahman was usually desired at thiscensusthoughinsomecases a caste which had applied in one provincetobeBrahmanaskedin another to be called Rajput and thereareseveralinstancesatthis census of castes claiming to be Brahman who claimed to be Rajput ten years ago.” The census explained these asattemptseitheratupwardmobility, a “desire to rise in the social estimation of other people”, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Kolkata