Revision as of 15:57, 13 April 2019

Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.

Phalodi

Head-quarters of a district of the same name in the State of Jodhpur, Rajputana, situated in 27 8' N. and 72 22' E., about 70 miles north by north-west of Jodhpur city. Population (1901), 13,924. It is a large and flourishing town, the home of many enterprising merchants trading, in some cases, beyond the borders of India ; and it possesses several fine houses with beautifully carved sandstone fronts. The town contains a post office, an Anglo-vernacular school, and a small hospital. The principal manufactures are metal utensils and mats of camel hair. Phalodi is said to have been founded about the middle of the fifteenth century, and, along with the district, was taken by Rao Maldeo nearly 100 years later. It was granted to the chief of Jaisalmer by Akbar, and was subsequently included for a short time in Bikaner. The fort, a large and well-built one, with walls over 40 feet high, has a capacious reservoir for water and some fine palaces. About 10 miles to the north is a large depression (5 miles in length and 3 in breadth) called the Phalodi salt source. It was leased to the British Government in 1878 and worked till 1892, when it was closed, as the manufacture was found to be unprofitable owing to the distance from the railway.

The satta bazaar (betting market)

Anindo Dey & Vimal Bhatia, Rajasthan’s Phalodi, where you can bet on anything, from polls to rain, April 12, 2019: The Times of India

The easiest way to find the satta bazaar in Phalodi is to ask for the way to the Sadar police station. The two are a stone’s throw away from each other, but that doesn’t seem to bother anyone.

Satta is the only business in this sleepy, worn-out city in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur district. Though the market is known across the globe, there is little more than small tin kiosks to show for it. The satta and matka (another form of betting) markets that deal in crores of rupees operate from these kiosks.

“There is no industry or factory here to provide jobs for the local people. After school, it’s natural for them to migrate for higher studies and employment. In fact, most of them are MBAs, CAs, doctors or engineers spread across the country and even abroad. The Mumbai stock market is full of people from Phalodi. And it is this network that constantly provides information and forms the basis of our satta bazaar,” says Anntu Chanda, sitting in the middle of the noisiest part of the city, where people continuously shout out numbers, much like they used to in the stock markets before they went digital.

With the whole nation focused on the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, all bets are now on who will form the government on May 23. “We have people from Bihar, UP, Kolkata and almost everywhere. They provide us information on how various caste equations work. We open the market with rates decided by us at 10 am daily. The market is open till 5 pm but by then we would have done business worth crores. People phone in and bet. If they win, money is deposited in their accounts through some mobile wallets,” Chanda explains. “We get calls from all kinds of people. They may be MLAs, MPs and chief ministers. The Phalodi market is known for its accuracy, and therefore, we are in demand,” says Shiv Ratan Joshi, a bookie.

The market, of course, does not stop with the polls. Be it bulls fighting, the IPL cricket season or the US presidential elections, there is always a reason for people to bet in Phalodi.

A speck of clouds in the sky with news that it has rained in Bikaner will provoke a satta on rains for the next 15 days. A group of people sitting in a verandah will suddenly become animated as the numbers rain forth.

“Rain satta is for a period of 15 days. People here bet on not just whether it will rain, but if the rain water will flow out of the rain water pipe on the roof, or if the water will reach the ground. Locals are not required to deposit money since we know them, but outsiders need to deposit cash,” he says.

“The rates may fluctuate hourly depending on the conditions. The two terms that dominate the satta bazaar is ‘khana’ and ‘lagana’. While ‘khana’ is bets on which one has a slim chance of winning, ‘lagana’ has a good chance. On winning, one gets his money back and more, while losing will result in forfeiting the entire sum,” explains Kanwarlal Mali.

“The assembly polls saw Phalodi do business worth crores of rupees. This is in our blood and even a six-yearold will pick it up fast by the grace of Latiyalal Mata, who is our God,” Mali adds.

Political trends revealed by betting patterns

Amitabh Mattoo, Will Phalodi call it right this time?, April 4, 2019 The Hindu

Locals at the satta bazar (top) in Phalodi say that in the poll season, they are approached by netas and candidates who want to find out whom the odds favour as bookies do brisk business (right) taking bets on election outcomes
From: Amitabh Mattoo, Will Phalodi call it right this time?, April 4, 2019 The Hindu

From the betting market that has earned a name for its poll predictions to Jaipur, Rajasthan is in the grip of election fever.

On the fringes of the great Thar desert lies a remote sandy town, Phalodi. Trains from Jodhpur, and even one between Bandra and Howrah, pass through the junction at Phalodi, as they travel to the golden city of Jaisalmer.

Phalodi has many claims to fame: once a tiny oasis on the caravan route, it has recently recorded the highest temperatures in the country. The nearby saline depression once made it one of the important sources of salt; and it lies close to Pokhran, the country’s only nuclear testing site.

It is unlikely, however, that Feluda, Satyajit Ray’s legendary private investigator, would have stopped at Phalodi, in search of the elusive treasures in Sonar Kela, the fort of Jaisalmer. With a population of less than 50,000 and a few heritage buildings, the town does not immediately excite attention.

But today, especially during elections, it is Phalodi’s satta bazaar, or betting market, which is the cynosure of attention among political analysts throughout Rajasthan. An illegal speculative market flourishes with the benign cover of the law enforcement agencies. If the police were to act, they would have to close down the town — so overwhelming and all-pervasive is the political economy of the satta trade. The locals claim that the Election Commission can go wrong, but not Phalodi’s betting market.

One veteran claimed that they had accurately predicted Donald Trump’s victory to the American Presidency, while advancing arguments for legalising the satta market in the town. Globalisation creates its own transnational moral hazards!

While the election results are still several weeks away and a month is a lifetime in politics (in Phalodi’s paraphrased view of Harold Wilson’s dictum), the bookies are (with only an occasional murmur of dissent) betting on the NDA coming back to power, though with a reduced majority. The odds, they say, are heavily in favour of the BJP winning 18 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan. In the 2014 election, the BJP won all 25, getting more than 52% of the popular vote.

In the 2018 Assembly election, the Congress was able to form the government, but the difference in the voting percentage between it and the BJP was less than 1%. And if the polling percentage in the Assembly election was extrapolated today to the Lok Sabha poll figure, the Congress would have won 13 and the BJP 12 seats. Clearly, Phalodi’s predictions seem to justify the slogan: “Vasundhara Taireen Khair Nahin, Modi Tujh Say Varir Naheen” (Vasundhara Raje Scindia [the previous BJP Chief Minister], we will not spare you; but Narendra Modi, we have no quarrel with you).

The Phalodi Assembly constituency falls within the Jodhpur Lok Sabha constituency. The BJP’s Gajendrasingh Shekawat (currently serving as Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare) won the seat in 2014 by a margin of more than four lakh. In a political gamble, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s son, Vaibhav, is making his political debut from the constituency.

The issues that confront much of Rajasthan are rural distress and the pan-national “concerns” about national security and skilled employment. As general secretary of the BJP Kisan Morcha and activist of the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, Mr. Shekawat gives top priority to agriculture. On national security, he is believed to have developed a unique civil defence initiative on the border through the Seema Jan Kalyan Samiti. But the voters — at least anecdotally — are sceptical of his track record.

Nonetheless, the younger Gehlot is facing a formidable opponent in Mr. Shekawat and will require all the support and political magic of his father if he has to make a real dent. Recall that the Chief Minister had represented Jodhpur five times in the Lok Sabha, between 1980 and 1999.

Further west, in Barmer-Jaisalmer, former BJP leader and former Union Minister Jaswant Singh’s son Manvendra Singh, who joined the Congress before the Assembly election, has an upper hand, but only marginally at the moment. Infighting within the Congress could cause him damage, with former MP Harish Choudary having staked a strong claim for the constituency.

However, Mr. Manvendra had represented Barmer in Parliament earlier, and even as an Independent in the 2014 election, his father was able to secure more than four lakh votes.

Urbane and once part of Lutyens’ set (Mayo College, Amherst and SOAS), Mr. Manvendra has reinvented himself as a true grassroots Rajput leader, proud of his heritage but with a wider social base.

Jaipur vibes

But it is only when you are in Jaipur that you get a sense of the pulse of the whole State, beyond the forecasts of Phalodi. Early morning, even before the first sign of dawn, Central Park comes alive. An outsider would be forgiven for imagining that the entire civil lines of Jaipur has descended on this blessed green oasis, exercising in the multiple open gyms and then fortifying itself with aloe vera or Khas juice, ready to take on the world.

Mixing the sacred with the profane, political wisdom is quickly gathered as you join the huge crowds that arrive at Govind Devji’s famous temple, before the appointed hours for darshan. An evening dinner at Niro’s and you are truly equipped to hold forth on the political trends of the State.

The sitting MP for Jaipur is the formidable Ram Charon Bohra, who beat the Congress candidate by over five lakh votes in 2014. In a traditionally Brahmin-dominated constituency and viewed as a BJP fortress, the Congress has sprung a surprise by nominating the former Jaipur Mayor Jyoti Kandelwal. Ms. Khandelwal has appeal, with her clean and efficient track record as Mayor and especially among women voters, but it will require a major shift in Jaipur’s traditional fault lines for her to win.

In rural Jaipur, there is a colourful contest between an Olympian and an Olympian. Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, an Olympic medallist, is facing the Congress MLA for Sadulpur, Krishna Poonia, a Commonwealth Games gold medallist.

Rajasthan has made remarkable strides; its roads, its infrastructure and its heritage tourism are enviable examples of good governance. But rural disempowerment is a stark reality that faces you in all parts of the State. The possibilities of change were once evident as you diverted from the Jaipur-Ajmer highway at Tilonia to Bunker Roy’s extraordinary Barefoot College. Today, you see the remarkable Tilonia Bazaar on the highway, with its handicrafts displaying the skills of the village.

This bazaar is a symbol of Tilionia success, but also a reminder that its inability to scale up and replicate itself with the same robustness makes it just one drop of water. In a desert setting, that means success and failure.

Any trip to Rajasthan is rarely complete without paying Hazari at the dargah of Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti, revered by Hindus and Muslims alike. It’s the only place sequestered from the political noise of the world outside. For unlike Phalodi, the concerns of the dargah are of a different and more lasting order.

(The author is a Professor of International Relations at Jawaharal Nehru University and at the University of Melbourne)