The Media & some other thoughts...

I've criticised the media rather harshly in the past, even referring to the word as profane.

I've called some of them biased, some of them over the top & some sometimes slightly opinionated, I've questioned Pune Mirror, and decided that some of them (I mean the TOI here) had indeed sold their souls. And all of rightly so I believe.

Recently I was thinking about the awakening that we've witnessed in the masses recently. My uncle in far off Calcutta is doing his bit, awakened by the 26/11 attack on Bombay. Friends from Pune to Paris are doing something. Practically everyone is trying to say or do something to change the situation or the attitude to the sitation.

There's a campaign afoot to dress pramod muthalik up in lacy pink lingerie. They better wax his black ass before they do that, if they want it look anything like Beyonce's! The campaign has touched an instant chord with the masses & netizens alike. People are sending pink chaddis, suggesting wearing them on the steering wheels of their Mercedeses, others are blogging about it in a newer, fresher, more welcome vein! Scroll right down to the last widget on the right side this blog for more details.

People in India are doing something about the things that bother them. It's not enough yet, but it is a start. And we only need more people to keep joining in to bring about that change!

I believe that it is our Media whom we malign (often with just cause) that we have to thank for this awakening.
So we can criticize the excessive coverage of 26/11, the horror stories, the strong opinions being voiced.
We can accuse the media of being sensationalist (& we won't be wrong); but one thing we will have to give them, however much we don't like it, & that is the fact that their sensational, excessive, opinionated coverage has been able to awaken us out of our lethargy!

My dear friend TB seems to be missing this positive aspect of the Pink Chaddi Campaign & the media in general. (Edit: Oops! As usual, that comment has mysteriously disappeared! Trailblazer, any clue of what happened to the comment?)

Are you forgetting my dear friend that there was a karni sena who had indulged in nonsense sometime last year over the release of Jodha-Akbar. What happened to them? Is that karni a hero? He appeared on NDTV & everything. Does anyone remember him?? And what do you expect people (media are people too) to do when faced with these idiots? Keep quiet? Haven't we done that for far too long? It's much better than retaliatory violence, or long drawn PIL's or having to watch his goons pillage pub after pub. The people are standing up to a goon, without taking the law in their hands. It's a saluteworthy move! It's not enough, but it's a start!

And in case you missed it, this initiative too comes from someone who is associated with your favourite magazine Tehelka! :-) (do visit it & read through their "Vendors of Anarchy" piece to change your opinion.) Nisha Susan, more power to you!
You may also want to see what VS Naipaul has to say about Tarun Tejpal's latest novel.

So time to say it, however grudgingly... Indian Media, take a bow!
_________________________________________________

Trailblazer,

Continuing from our earlier discussions on war & capital punishment, I'd like to leave you with a few thoughts that appeared in an article in Verve:

Acharya Suryoday Surishwarji & Acharya Rajratna Surishwarji Maharaj of the Amichand Pannalal Adeshwar Jain Temple, Walkeshwar, Bombay, say that:
"Religion ordains that we should make our enemies our friends. A hundred guilty people can go free, but one innocent person must not die.
Politics or Governance demands that we finish off all our enemies. A hundred innocent people can die, but one guilty person shouldn't go free."

Hopefully you get the difference between governing human beings & living as human beings.
_____________________________

And lastly... WHY DOES NO ONE ACKNOWLEDGE SHEKHAR SUMAN AS THE MOST TALENTED THING TO HAPPEN TO THE TELLY??? THE MOST VERSATILE, THE AMITABH BACHCHAN OF THE SMALL SCREEN???

Maine kahaa thHa naa!!! Part 2

It feels GOOD to be CORRECT!

Looks like I'm not the only one exposing the lies. I've provided data, anecdotes & analysis, linked to reports; I've linked to leading newspapers saying the same thing.

I'm just SO thrilled that I'm not the only one! Churumuri, Mr. Gupta, Ms. Banerji etc. are saying exactly the same thing...! May your tribe increase!

Dipankar Gupta & Ranjona Banerji both point out (as I too have, I'm in august company!) how gujarat was always a prospering state, full of industrious business-minded folk; and how modi's is just a despicable PR attempt to take all the credit for himself! (Of course there'll be the usual small-minded, uninformed, biased, ignoble, ignorable folk who will call them all kinds of names, like opportunistic, leftist etc.; in the process revealing nothing except their own intellectual vacuity.)

Telling indictment of:

• modi's dishonesty
• people's gullibility or obdurate refusal to acknowledge the truth
• people in PR

---------------------------------------

Am also fairly disappointed with Symbiosis Institute of Mass. Comm. & Pune Mirror.

SIMC invited modi for a talk. What could he have to offer to mass comm students...? a man who cannot even communicate in the preferred language of the audience was seeking to address? anyway... he lied to them about the development that he didn't bring about in gujju-land. And Pune Mirror dutifully gave him full coverage.

The next day Anand Patwardhan spoke at the seminar. Now here's a documentary film-maker, with the credentials to talk to audio-visual mass. comm. students! At the end of his talk, one terribly misguided youth (& there are enough of that type going around since times immemorial) stood up & asked him whether he couldn't see the development that modi had brought about. The moderator stepped in to say that Mr. Patwardhan didn't need to answer that question as it didn't have anything to do with documentary film making; but Mr. Patwardhan insisted that he wanted to. He told the student (& others) that he wished he was present yesterday, or modi today, because he would've told him in no uncertain terms that he wouldn't ever vote for mr. modi's blood-stained hands.

Did Pune Mirror cover this the next day? Nope. I don't recall seeing it. Why Pune Mirror? Why?

Also see: Maine Kaha Tha Na (Part 1)

NEVER FORGET

They said he wanted to, so they went ahead, forged alliances, put in effort & did it!!!

The curtain lifts on this noteworthy initiative on this our 60th Republic Day, and the 2 month anniversary on the deplorable attacks on our beloved Bombay.

So all those who said, they wanted to do something... it's time. To ask questions. To NEVER FORGET!

a few questions for Vinodji (& his friends)

A great deal of thought, restraint & re-wording has gone into this post (& it's title).
After a lot of reading him, one part of my brain says that he means no malintent, that he's just differently motivated. Another part of me has come to the (possibly premature) conclusion that the gentleman in question has questionable motives. I guess I'll just leave that to be answered by him.

Vinodji, I am aware that criticism is not nice (& I am therefore making an attempt to not criticize but attempt a criticism of your writing). I have also always been aware that your stance may just be the mirror image of mine, and in all probability I could be reading you wrong. If this is indeed the case, bachcha samajh ke maaf kar deejiyega. I only want some questions answered & iron out certain inconsistencies. I maintain that you serve as unique a purpose in the political world & in the Universe as I presume to.

Prarambh...

Positives first:

1. Vinodji, you argue against the caste system, against a situation where one's

station in life was determined solely on that basis

It would follow that you wouldn't hold anyone's birth against them, but in another comment you go on to do just that! Stung by Sagarone's bringing up the loss of life & suffering endured by certain people, you half-chiding him say:

Sagarone,
please let us not talk of the suffering of the 'royals' in pursuit of power.
Others have suffered much more. Besides, the country has suffered probably even
more due to the many Himalayan blunders they have made. Their offspring have a
right to rule?

That's very inconsistent: Holding someone's birth against them?

2. Vinodji, your posts frequently celebrate a selective view of India & a select band of Indians. And lament certain issues that the country faces. Self admittedly you write about issues that energise you sufficiently. As a blogger you have the right to choose what you want to address through your posts.

Surprisingly, when your stance is challenged, your response is at complete variance from the energised or polite Vinod we know. When I challenged your attempt to cover-up Gandhiji's assassination by hindutva groups, you completely avoided coming back with an answer. Fair enough; maybe it didn't energise you sufficiently.

But that is precisely my point! Covering up Gandhiji's assassination & the sinister forces behind it, energises you sufficiently, but not coming back with an explanation as to what you meant by putting it like that???

And for those who may want to suggest that you chose not to get into a spat, they may want to ask you why you deleted a comment of yours where you referred to me as being in possession of a jehadi mentality. Very polite I'm sure.

That's inconsitency # 2.

Now for the opportunity areas:

3. Vinodji... your friends like Amit here are in a different league altogether. I may call you differently motivated, but I will never question your intellect. I may question where you choose to use it, but I won't deny it's existence. At least you know what you're talking about when you utter the word *elected*! Commenters called Amit are one of a kind it would seem!!! ;-)
Amit questions my respect for a Western education when he's already answered his own question by his erroneous reading of my nickname. A Western education & dictionary.com were meant for people like you Amit. Here's a comment that's still awaiting your response.
And another gem from mayawati awaits your response (point # 2) here.
Do you have it in you to answer these points? I didn't think so...

That's inconsistency # 3: Running down fellow Indians solely because they're scions, while lamenting the lack of respect to other fellow Indians. Inconsistency or Double Standards? Or just plain Stupidity?

4. An apparent anti-Congress fixation ^{(point 5 here)} makes you do some bizzare things Vinodji. Such as constantly railing against the likes of Rahul Gandhi for his belonging to a certain dynasty, for no fault of his except birth (see point 1 above).
So while you will alternate between mocking Omar's candidature and referring to him as the best of the lot (inconstency again?), you will never utter a kind word about Rahul. Maybe I am reading this fixation incompletely... It's probably an anti-Congress fixation with anti-Nehru-Gandhi-Mania.

Can you, Vinodji, not see that scions like Vasundhara Raje & Varun Gandhi were given tickets by your beloved bjp? Can you not bring that up in an attempt to appear fair?
Does that not energise you enough?

5. Should your being a blatant apologist for modi^{1, 2} tell me a little more about you? Maybe your attempted cover-up of hindutva's involvement in the cowardly killing of The Father of The Nation should tell me more...?

Your comment here gives me faith Vinodji that I am reading you wrong. That you don't have any malintent. But then your preceding comments & posts & the points I raised in # 6 above cause much damage to that faith, and need to be addressed.
I'm totally with you that no man should be indicted purely on the basis of reports & reporting. We have a judicial system & that must find someone guilty before we pronounce them guilty!
I don't want an apology. I don't want his ouster. I want you to answer these questions:

• Why is the Justice process getting delayed for the 2002 gujarat riots case?
• Why haven't the real perpetrators not being brought to book yet?
• Why does the man ("with the blistering pace" as you so fondly put it) not do enough to speed up Justice? Why does he not quickly restore my faith in my country???
• Why does he not ACT, so that Indians of any community can feel safe visiting a state in our own country???

Do you have answers Vinodji?
_____________________
PS: You may want to pay attention to the fact what I've pointed out here... Was the 2007 guj. assembly election closer than we think?

The TRUTH seems to be POURING OUT!!!

Woke up this morning to a very pleasant sight in the papers.

The Indian Express reported that Report by own Govt punctures modi's Gujarat hype.
The newspaper says:

"A state government document accessed by 'The Indian Express' says that out of
the proposed total investment of Rs 633,829.9 crore during the VGGIS melas of
2003, 2005 and 2007, only Rs 130,354.36 crore materialised. This works
out to 20.5 per cent, as against the 61 per cent modi
announced. But for even this rate, all of some Rs 1,030 crore worth of
projects, which the document says are still at a “planning stage”, have to
fructify."

It also says:

While Modi projected 25 lakh new jobs from the over 8,500 MoUs signed during the
fourth VGGIS last fortnight, the document indicates that Gujarat actually got
just 12.3 per cent of the 13,23,452 jobs promised in the 760 MoUs signed during
the three VGGIS from 2003

Haven't I always maintained that it was all a lie, a sham, a PR exercise waiting to be exposed?

The TRUTH about gujarat's "development"

There's more to it than meets the eye. Heard of this one before?
Or of, scratch the surface, digging deeper for the truth etc.?

Apparently, we're all content to believe what suits us. I'm not. And therefore here's my little expose of truth about gujarat's so called good governance & development.

What comprises good governance? I've heard terms like corruption free state etc. being thrown about. I quote here from a random search on the web:

“Good governance” is a relatively new term that is often used to describe the desired objective of a nation-state’s political development. The principles of good governance, however, are not new. Good governance is, in short, anti-corruption whereas authority and its institutions are accountable, effective and efficient, participatory, transparent, responsive, consensus-oriented, and equitable. These are the major characteristics of good governance as outlined by the United Nations.
The World Leaders at the 2005 World Summit concluded that good governance is integral to economic growth, the eradication of poverty and hunger, and sustainable development. The views of all oppressed groups, including women, youth and the poor, must be heard and considered by governing bodies because they will be the ones most negatively affected if good governance is not achieved.

Or you could refer to Wiki. Says almost the same thing.

NOW tell me whether the state of gujarat qualifies for the good governance that it is touted to provide?

• Bootlegging (the illegal liquour trade) is rampant despite Prohibition being in force. There's one example of Corruption!
• Transparency too seems to have become a victim, pointing towards a dishonest, corrupt Gujarat administration.
• And there goes Equitable!
• 6 years after the 2002 riots in the state, we're still wondering whether the perpetrators will be brought to book. There go all claims of an effective & efficient, accountable, transparent, Executive & Judiciary in the state!

Is THIS what Good Governance stands for???

Development:
I will present whatever facts & figures I have here:

• I grew up in Rajasthan & we regularly drove into Gujarat to visit Ambaji or Palanpur or en route to Bombay. On my first trip as a 9 year old, being excited about driving into a "new State", I remember asking one of the local uncles in the minibus, "Uncle, Gujarat kab aayega?". And Uncle replied, "Jab iss bus ki khidkiyaan khad-khad bajne band ho jayengi toh samajh lena Gujarat aa gaya!", in an obvious reference to the condition of roads in Gujarat. That was 1984. modi or the bjp weren't in power then. How then is this modi responsible for the excellent roads in Gujarat?
• Reliance set up Petro in Gujarat. Half the Pharma companies are in Gujarat. And this too has been happening for as long as any of us can remember. Gujarat has always been a prosperous state. It's been among the top contributors to India's GDP for longer than this man has been in power. HOW then does he get credit for developing Gujarat???
• And I'm not the only one pointing this out! If you don't want to take my word for it, I'm fairly certain that you will take Dr. Manmohan Singh's word for it. Even if you're not a fan of his (which makes you very, very strange!), you can't deny that the man isn't given to lying in public! Read the 4th para from top here! And onwards of course. :-)
• Do you know of the 489 farmers who committed suicide in Gujarat over a 4 year period? Is this the development that we are celebrating in Gujarat??? vilasrao deshmukh deservedly drew flak for farmer suicides in Maharashtra. Why not narendra modi???
• Take a look at the per capita income gross state domestic product figures in this table that I obtained from the planning commission website. A smaller state like Goa has TWICE the per capita GDSP income of Gujarat!!! Goa registered an improvement of 21% in 2004-2005! Jharkhand was at 35%! When then is only the Gujarat CM in the news & not Goa's CM??? Or Haryana's which is also close in the averages? There has to be a reason! Essentially PR. Presumably to cloud the 2002 sentiment? Good job on the PR though! Have to hand them that! Mooh mein Raam/development, bagal mein churi!

That's all I have for tonight! Will be back with more later if the readers want to know.

Here are a few more links that you may want to browse through in order to decide on what really gets the bjp it's vote in gujarat. These are from around the time of the last assembly elections in gujarat.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/dec/14sheela.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7132034.stm (last section, last few paras)

So was their unfortunate 2007 victory:
a) Due to the immense polarization of the electorate (of which 89% are Hindus)?

OR

b) Was the election closer than we think?

Oh! And if it's possible to tag someone on a post of this nature, I'd like to tag Sagarone, Trailblazer, Kislay and Vinod Sharma.

Disappointment & Hope-II

While the existence of one non-blinker-wearing blogger gives one hope that openly partisan apologists for murderers aren't the only people populating my country, the decidedly premature celebrations of the aforesaid apologists is a sad occurence.

Why do I use words like blinkers, partisan, premature etc., one may ask.

Let's see why:

• If you can see faults in everyone else, but not in narendra modi, it isn't because you're blind. You're just partisan or wearing blinkers. Please forgive the Raja Bhoj-gangu teli (respectively) analogy, but how else can one find faults with Dr. Manmohan Singh yet not give him his due for bringing India to where it is today economically, yet be totally forgiving of modi's complicity/inaction during the 2002 riots?


• How easily they forget the earlier toast of IT, AP, certain sections in the press, Chandrababu Naidu (apparently the longest serving CM/CEO of Andhra Pradesh)! This is why I say premature.


• They don't even have all the facts at hand, yet they celebrate! Good Governance did I hear? I guess offering security & a dignified living to it's citizens isn't part of good governance... No Corruption did I hear? I guess they don't know the real truth. Maybe they can compare PCI stats with other states before they rejoice prematurely? Do they actually believe no one else is watching? That no one else knows? That no one else will speak up? That the voices will not gather momentum? Blind? Nay... Blinkers!


• And for every ratan tata, sunil mittal & anil ambani, there is a rahul bajaj & Jamshedji Godrej to take into account! Hopefully the media is only keeping modi alive in public memory, so that the voices for him to be brought to justice become louder & louder!


• And how does the backing of those industry-wallas (with the obvious vested interest of making more money) hold good at all? Since when are industrialists as a group known for rectitude or ethics? They're known for protecting their own interests!


• Now this bit is purely conjecture, but anil ambani is close to Amar Singh, and he may only have backed modi in public to further widen the rift (vajpayee-advani-shekhawat-modi-rss factions) within the bjp! (Gleeful Grin!)

And since vinod sharma has taken to hurriedly deleting every comment that I put up on his posts, I'm refuting some more of his silly claims here:

1st reply:
Right Time???

He was on Karan Thapar's show & walked out when asked to express regret? Was that not an appropriate time?

He's just milking the sentiment of those hindus who're extremist. And similarly with the money that comes in. Forgotten so soon why sonal shah was embroiled in so much controversy? The funds come from hindutva sympathisers living abroad.

2nd reply:
You wish Vinod.... The recurring skirmishes/riots in India doesn't suggest that we're a different people.

3rd reply:
Amit,

There is no unhealthy obsession with 2002. The obsession with 1984 still continues till today.Both you & vinod have brought it up in this form & others do all the time. It isn't forgotten. Nor should it be.
Nor should 2002 be forgotten.
And just because we weren't able to fix problems in the past is no excuse to not cry out for justice now!
That's all one is saying.

And can you please stop berating the English media? They're the one's who raise the cry for justice. Read this Tehelka piece.

OPEN your eyes!!!

The other 2 pieces of rubbish that vinod claims in the latest post on his bog...

at a scorching pace that even now seems impossible in any state except
Gujarat

&

**** has become the beacon that has illuminated the truth that an honest,
competent and visionary leader

LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!! HAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Joke of the century vinod!!! Really good one!!! LOL!!! And I thought phoenixritu was the funniest blogger I knew!!! :-D

I really hope you went through the links to the PCI GDSP pdf & the prohibition news article, that I provided above. This making false claims vinodji... tsk tsk... aapko shobha nahi deta...

Stop being an apologist for modi. Otherwise people will remember you like they remember hitler supporters. Heard of the slur "nazi"?
_________________________

Related Post

Please look forward to 2 posts, one on the Janus-facedness of modi supporters
& the other that analyses the truth about gujarat.

So is the bjp good for anything at all...?

Let us examine that statement.

I have always maintainted that there is use for everything in this World. Purpose, Good, whatever you may want to call it. I have however been extremely hard pressed to see it with the lot this post is about.

I am of course not the first one to condemn them for their gadzillion faults. IHM recently did it, and rather eloquently too; Yaamyn's masterpiece cannot be forgotten even if one tried; & I've done it before, and on more than one ocassion (this one is power-packed with fact-filled links!).
I'm restricting the list of critics to unknown bloggers for now. If we go into the realm of well-known voices who have condemned , their actions or their ideology, this post will start to read like the Who's Who of India & the World! ;-)

So why not the bjp? The answers to that are simple. And many!

1st: Ideology. The bjp is the political front of the rss. All of them are essentially bound together, NOT by a love for the Indian Constitution, but by the ideology of hindutva propounded by savarkar, a little-known freedom-fighter of dubious renown; and therefore bound together by partisan respect for the underachieving savarkar, who's other claim to infamy is allegedly conspiring to kill the Father of the Nation, Gandhiji. This anti-national, contrary to our constitutional values ideology is what drives them. Surely they can't be considered candidates for governing a country as great as ours...?

2nd: They lack Foresight: When Dr. Manmohan Singh & PV Narsimha Rao were opening up India's economy, the perennially wet behind the ears bjp was yelling Swadeshi (a movement they ironically were not part of when it was first used against the British!). And when they came to power, eating humble pie, they simply carried on the implementation of Dr. Manmohan Singh's economic reforms. What does that make them...?

3rd: Hypocrites. As pointed out above. Also as was obvious to all discerning Indians, in the aftermath of the 26/11/2008 attaks on Bombay, despite their leader advani saying that they'd stand politically united against terror, they quickly did an about turn & happily went campaigning in the 5 states that were going to the Assembly polls. And of course, who can forget their soundbytes to the media? Thankfully an awakened Indian electorate & the indignant wife of martyred ATS chief Hemant Karkare, turned them down. What does that make them? Hypocrites AND Opportunistic!

4th: They breed, promote & defend marauders & murderers. A look at what their ideological allies have been up to in Khandmal & Karnataka in 2008, Gujarat in 2002, Ayodhya in 1992 will convince anyone not deliberately wearing blinkers.
They claim to be nationalists when the whole World recognizes them as facists, neo-zionists etc.
What nationalist, Constitutionally compliant, EC code compliant party would use temple building promises or distribute hate CD's(1) as part of their electoral strategy???
Yet another flagrant violation of the aforesaid code can be found here!
It's telling comment on how effete our Election Commission is. Or is our disinterested Judiciary/Executive to blame for not pulling the bjp up? But let me not shift the blame to our not so long an arm of the law, when in fact the real fault lies with these criminals!

5th: They're primarily anti-Congress. Also anti-secular. And anti-communist. Apart from THAT, they don't have any clear agenda for India's growth, development or place in the World order.
They're just blindly against anyone who denies them their Hindu-supremacist dream, and all their machinations & propaganda is targeted against them. So they & their followers have a limited number of hobbies: take open potshots at the so-called Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, and poorly-disguised ones at the likes of Gandhiji & Ambedkar.

So that brings us back to the questions we began this post with? Are they good for anything at all?
Contrary to what most people will think, I believe they are.
They serve a variety of purposes, but chiefly two:

1. They make us aware of what evil is.
2. They, with their mostly uncalled for, mostly inaccurate, but persistent criticism, help the Congress iron out the few flaws it has & get it's act together vis a vis their communication.

It prepares us, the citizens that they're supposed to be serving, to deal with their petty machinations.
And it helps the Congress emerge stronger & better equipped to govern India. A nation with a record for progressive, equitable thinking & living, demands that a party with similar people assist in governing it!

So there you have it. The bjp does serve an important two-fold purpose. It keeps us aware of the dangers of right-wing thinking, and it keeps India's sole hope for a sane mainstream political party, on it's toes. It's a job they do well (if we can call it that!) & they should be allowed to do that as long as they serve that purpose. Don't get me wrong! By no stretch of imagination are they a scrupulous bunch! They deserve to be hauled up everytime they break the law! But speaking strictly of politics, they enjoy opposing everything, and do so with single-minded dedication.
For those reasons & the ones mentioned above, they genuinely deserve to be in the opposition. They're apt for the job.
What would be interesting of course is to watch whether the other fringe/partisan/local players (like the sena) or other non-centred players (like the Left), take the battle to be the main opposition party, seriously enough or not.

You may have noted that I've softened my stance a little bit. I've gone from wishing the almost complete demise of the bjp to acknowledging that every voice in a democracy needs to be at least heard. And because of democratic considerations, I'm not only OK with the bjp's existence, I'm even glad! May they ALWAYS sit in the opposition!

There! That should make a few people happy! ;-)

Rehman rules the Globe!

HE'S DONE IT!!!

Another Indian achievement on the Global stage worth celebrating!
An achievement in the here & now!
An achievement by a soft-spoken, peace-loving Indian (as opposed to ranting pro-violence losers)!

Here's to a Genuine Winner! A Real World Beater!

Ab isko kehte hain India Shining! ;-)

Tunnel Vision?

Vinod,

Allow me please...

1. I agree with George. Negating the Aryan Invasion theory is either rightist propaganda or wishful thinking.

How else can you explain one set of fair-skinned, light eyed people & another set of dark-skinned, dark haired people? Does this dichotomy exist in any other peoples?

a) Human life did not originate in India. Africa is said to be the cradle of life. So even the very first settlers in India must have come from elsewhere?

b) This concept of India. What is it? When did it originate? What was the map like? Who integrated us into that map first? Was it done peacefully? Or by invading other kingdoms?? Interesting question, na?

c) What was the Ashwamedha Yagya about?

d) Since when are religious texts sufficient proof of History???

e) Sanskrit & Persian have a common progenitor. And common ancient customs. That should tell you something about the origins of some of our people.

2. Oldest Living Civilization? You may want to explain that as to my knowledge Mesopotamia was the first known civilization & that area is still inhabited according to all reports.

3. Mahatma Gandhi passed away????????

What a subtle cover-up Vinod. :-) I wonder why none of the other commenters didn't spot this or bring it up! Did I intrude on a private meeting?

4. Maybe the reason none of the other things were adopted because they didn't work for us. Did they help us at all in fighting invasion after invasion? Nope. Why adopt failed strategies of governance?

I really think we should thank the Brits for having united us into India. Take a look around... they're not here & we're back to fighting among ourselves. Without a common enemy, we're a doomed people! THAT is what is in our gene pool! Apart from the scientific & philosophical brilliance you speak of.

5. Lakshmi Mittal & Dhiru Ambani are only illustrious as far as Industry & Finances go! And they weren't the first. I think you're forgetting that Azim Premji was there before these guys got there! And he wasn't from a Hindi Medium.

Mittal didn't make his fortune in India. He doesn't live here. He lives in London. With the Brits who did us many favours (apart from uniting us) such as railways, machinery etc. And I'm certain he considers himself a Global Citizen more than Indian, Maru or Calcuttan!

Narayan Murthy is an ex-Communist & his Socialist bent is reflected in his company's treatment of employees. And some (uber-patriotic?) Indians go after him with alleged flag-insult accusations.

Nandan is ex-IIT, of course! :-)

Independent India's other gems are Amartya Sen, Rajendra Pachauri, Manmohan Singh. 2 Nobel Prize winners, & one a future Nobel laureate. And none of them come with a Hindi Medium education!

Neither do other gems like Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Arvind Adiga, Kiran Nagarkar, Amitava Ghosh etc. Nor Shashi Tharoor. Nor Amitabh Bachchan!

Nor Rita Faria, Aishwarya Rai, Sushmita Sen, Lara Dutta, Priyanka Chopra etc.

THAT SAID, I must commend you on your intent of awakening pride within Indians. But without balance & truth, it come across as a little jingoistic, uber-patriotic, ultra-conservative or if I may say, rightist.

Ways & Means

Everyone seems to be talking about what we can do about the terror breeding on paki soil.

While some are sane voices, very rightly saying that war isn't an option, others are given to more passion than pragmatism.

I, as is my wont, like to provide multiple solutions. Some will say, more talk than action, but regretfully, that's the way things are these days.

And here's introducing a new blogger who has the mental range to suggest this, & blog about the voices of reason from the other side as well.

Edit: And since Israel in mentioned in one of the links, does anyone have any views on what they've been doing in Palestine over the last 2 days? Over 200 killed, and I saw a picture of a bleeding child being carried away from the scene in the papers today. How different is this from terrorism?

Your views?

Terrorism: 2 Faces

I want to slap pakistan right now. Does anyone know a non-violent way to slap someone?

We've given them so much proof, but their kayani, gilani, qureshi & zardari are trying word-play instead of sorting out the mess they've made?

The US, UK & the UN are all of the opinion that 26/11 was planned on pakistani mud. They've got World Opinion against them, they have a very upset neighbour (one to whom they've lost 2 wars), yet they choose the posturing route???

Listen up pakis: In India we have a saying for this muddle-headedness. Vinaash kaale, Vipreet buddhi.

Your time is up. You've got the taliban attacking you from the West, you've lost a leader to an assassination, you have terrorist camps inside your own country. Even if we don't finish you, I think you're perfectly equipped to do it to yourself. All the best. May you succeed.

I'd like to link to a brilliant satire on the spineless lizards who currently govern pakistan.

Imran Khan too seems to be in a hurry to get slapped. He expressed his support for the jamaat ud dawa, saying that they're an NGO who helped immensely during the recent earthquake. The same argument is used by the equally slappable hindutvis in India, who contend that the vhp & rss helped immensely during the gujarat earthquake! Does helping during an earthquake make you any less of a terrorist???????
________________________

Engineer MK Gupta loses his life, not to pakistani terrorists, not to misled Jihadis, but to his own countrymen. BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari, who according to Times NOW coverage is a history-sheeter, is said to be behind the crime.
So how do we now ensure the security of our engineers?
Do we equip our engineers with guns for self-protection?

The question being asked (in the media & accurately so I believe) of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister mayawati is fairly simple:

Why did her party give a ticket to a history-sheeter?

The question I'm asking (of fellow bloggers) is this: Will maya now quit like vilasrao did? Or will she hang around like modi has been shamelessly doing?
Will India bay for their blood too? Or will political interest make us sacrifice our sense of fairness?

Is there a difference between them & us?

Consider this:

1. pakistan refuses to convincingly ban the jamaat-ud-dawa.
2. it refuses to bring lakhvi, dawood, the memons etc. to justice.

• India refuses to ban the rss, bajrang dal, vhp etc.
• It refuses to bring advani, modi, katiyar, bajrangi etc. to justice.

What's the difference between us & them?

Maybe if we gave them advani & modi, they would hand over dawood & lakhvi? It's worth a shot. Maybe we would be shaming them into action? Or maybe we'd be leading the way, for them to follow?
The only thing is that advani & modi are not their villians. They're our villians! Living (sadly) on & polluting our soil! And yet, we cannot haul their arses to justice! HOW do we expect to get people living on foreign soil to justice?
Beats me!

Maine Kaha Tha Na...!

Sometimes being right doesn't give you the joy you thought it would...

I'd told jokers like these quite a while back, that this is the way to go! Anjan & Zig had said it before me! And we'd just called for an economic boycott of the businessmen who choose to continue to patronize the rogue state.

Calling all those jokers for their views on this community specific boycott. I'd like to see what they have to say to my initial proposal now...

Also, a few more questions:

1. What do we do with Gujarat now? It's fast becoming an extremely polarized, rogue state, guilty of the same persecution that the pakis & b'deshis are blamed of. What do we do with them?
2. Vilasrao Deshmukh drew a lot of well-deserved flak when raj thakre went on his anti-"North-Indians" rampage. It remains to be seen whether narendra modi will draw the same kind of flak...
3. Dr. Manmohan Singh sent a stinker to Deshmukh for his failure to correct the mns created situation in Bombay. WILL l.k. advani send a stinker to modi for his inability to correct the situation in Surat? Or am I forgetting that advani & modi are more like raj thakre...?
4. Do we go in & set it right? How do we go into our own state??
5. Prez's rule? Since the current administration seems incapable of integrating it with the national thought mainstream.

If we don't do something fast, it's very likely that they will soon have very little in common with us & they may have secession demands. In that case we could have another prolonged internal problem. Or if they do secede, we'll have a b'desh on one side, a china on another, a sri lanka on another, a pak on one more & a gujarat on another front! We can't afford to have an open battle on so many fronts. We must nip this problem in the bud!!!

Plug

Another wearer of the Young India tag ;-) jumps on to the Call for Political Reform bandwagon. I wish him luck & your patronage.

Kerala CM Achuthanandan MUST GO!!!

BEFORE we do anything, we must ask for this crass, vulgar, disgraceful, insensitive brute to vacate the chair he thinks is his divine right!

How DARE he say something like this to the father & family of a Martyr???

He's shown the nation his absolute lack of class. He is unfit to lead. Show him his place! Take him out! NOW!!!

Where are all those lawyers from Bhopal, Indore etc. who were filing random PIL's for disrespect to the national flag??? Are they going to take umbrage & act now??? And it they won't, can we?

Can we petition the commies to show some spine please?

This post first appeared on the Mutiny in exactly this form, but the edit team there felt differently about it, so it's now available there in a new bottle.

The Bombay Tragedy

At this point more than anything else I'm feeling tired at the deplorable drama in Bombay. More than anger, humiliation, more than anything else, I'm feeling sorry for the innocent civilians killed, held hostage, the security forces killed & those still engaged in fighting a cowardly enemy, their families & their friends.

Ultimately, that is what it's all about. The talk around our security situation, the politicking, the sensational news coverage are all detracting from the basic human tragedy of it all in some way.
All of us armchair experts/concerned netizens have expressed concern & disappointment, and there are some brilliant points made on the still ongoing tragedy from sanjukta, Ketan, Jo & constantmotion. Apart from the call for us to use our heads & maintain peace, our posts have primarily focused on saying NO to getting used to terrorism! Very honourable. Most have desisted from blaming the Govt. machinery, which says a lot for the netizens. This is not true of some people on TV that I saw yesterday. I'm presenting my take on the situation.

Don't forget that above all, this is a enormous human tragedy!

Despite all the initial knee-jerk criticism of our intelligence, security & government machinery, one must commend our police, the ATS, the NSG & the armed forces for their unstinting efforts to bring the situation under control. Martyrs like ATS Chief Karkare, Salaskar, Maj. Unnikrishnan & the many other as yet unnamed bravehearts who lost their precious lives fighting a dastardly enemy! (Worrying is how Karkare got shot in the chest thrice despite wearing a loose bulletproof jacket? How Salaskar got shot in the head; wasn't he wearing a helmet? But that can be talked about later.) Such a waste of life! Human Tragedy like I said, above anything else! Kudos to all of our brave men who're doing their duty for the country. But prevention would've been better than cure.

Prevention: I don't know how many of us have worked on financial processes in BPO's. Mere Data Security needs to be watertight here (physical security too) lest critical customer information falls into the wrong hands! Despite putting in all kinds of measures, small & big incidents/frauds do happen. If a Risk Management Team, an Operations Team, an Audit Team cannot get it right on a 300 seater floor; you can imagine the challenges of ensuring security in a 1 Billion strong nation, that has the World's 7th largest landmass! It's a humungous task. India fails at things everyday! We failed at battling poverty for long, we fail at infrastructure, we fail at electing the right leaders, we fail at riot prevention. Failing at terrorism is nothing unexpected. It's just that it's a greater shock than all these other issues because of the immense human tragedy. But also because some of our elected leaders choose to make it a poll issue.

The same Navy that was being celebrated a few days back for sending pirate ships scurrying, is suddenly the villian for not having spotted the terrorists' vessels!!??

We're forgetting our victories against terrorism in Punjab. They came at a great human rights cost. A lot of our policemen & leaders like PM Indira & CM Beant lost their lives. This was largely internal terrorism that we quelled. Can we do it again? I'm sure we can. Should we do it that way again? I don't know about that.

Ratan Tata said something to the effect that we should've learnt from our mistakes. He's right about that. Why despite numerous terror attacks on public places was security lax at the Taj & Oberoi? Or at most malls/cineplexes? Why do we as citizens not walk up to the mall manager & question them on the security situation?

It's obvious that we need a better method to tackle terrorism. But all of us who're crying about it have no clue to go about it really. We must put our heads together. We must come up with ideas. We must form NGO's to tackle it. We must send our list of ideas to the PM. We must not stand on the sidelines. We must participate in solving the problem. A few good men can only make a beginning. They need our support to go all the way!

YP Singh echoed what I'd said in a comment. He said the intention is to target the Americans & the Britishers. Since they can't get to them intheir country, let's go to India & target them. Makes a lot of sense. Kill 3 birds with one stone! 4 if you add the targeting of Jews.

Srinivasan Jain asked whether we're seeing a new form of terrorism; one that has no demands, it just seeks to kill & terrorize. Is he only expressing himself now or did it just dawn on him?

Shobha De shot her mouth off as usual. I'd expected someone with her exposure to look for more constructive solutions than mouthing off. It looks like 20 something netizens have more sense than she does. What I don't get is how a literary porn star (or is it literary pimp/madam?) gets so much footage?

narendra modi came & announced a Rs. 1 Crore compensation for the families of all those security personnel who lost their lives in the battle. Momentarily stumped I caught myself slowly mouthing, "Noble move...";

Until I heard him this morning back to politicking & electioneering (criticising our Prime Minister) in the face of such human strife! Then these questions came to me:

1. Lives of brave securitymen who die in a high-profile anti-terrorist struggle are more important than those security forces who died recently in a naxal attack? Or those who lost their lives in the Bihar floods? No largesse for them?
2. What was he doing in Bombay? advani was there. He should've been talking. rajnath singh is their party president, he could've been there. What was modi doing there? Saying all the things that advani couldn't???
3. So the security personnel are doing a good job, but our intelligence failures must be blamed on the PM! So one days the Navy is a hero & on another day we must criticize the PM for the Navy or the coast guard failling to spot the terrorists?
4. Forgetting the intelligence failures of Kargil, Khandahar, Akshardham, Parliament is a very noble thing to do as well!

Such honourable politicking at such an opportune moment! I'm sure this is what we want in a leader!!!

Edit: For more related conversation, please refer to the sister post's forum.

Is this not development too???

In rural Maharashtra, away from all the recent madness, is a village. Like any of the other gadzillion villages that dot India's countryside? No. Unlike anything that dots rural India! This village is a shining example of development through local partnership, something that India is advised to emulate but hasn't unfrotunately been able to do yet. The village is called Ralegan Siddhi.

I quote from Wikipedia on Ralegan Siddhi:

The World Bank Group has concluded that the village of Ralegan Siddi was
transformed from a highly degraded village ecosystem in a semi-arid region of
extreme poverty to one of the richest in the country. The Ralegan Siddi example,
now 25 years old, by demonstrating that it is possible to rebuild natural
capital in partnership with the local economy, is a model for the rest of the
country.

And...

It is considered a model of environmental
conservation. Since 1975, led by Anna Hazare, the village has carried out
programs like treeplanting, terracing to reduce soil erosion and digging canals
to retain rainwater. For energy, the village uses solar power, biogas (some
generated from the communal toilet) and a windmill. The village's biggest
accomplishment is in non-conventional energy. For example, all the village
streets are lit by solar lights. Each light has a separate solar panel.

How did this happen? How did a debt, famine, disease & alcohol ridden village of 1500 people in 1973 start figuring on the prosperity & model village map of the world?

It happened primarily because of one man. Not that the villagers didn't contribute, but they had an able leader to show them the way. They are the first to acknowledge Anna Hazare's leadership. Read here about the unending list of achievements that he has helped them bring about.

There are other quiet achievers in Inda. My friend Animesh recommends making this daily reading in order to know about the lesser known quiet leadership of India, and I thank him for it.

His link tempers my rant to some degree, but I still want to tell the masses who use the word "Development" without understanding it's full meaning, use it even as an excuse for ignoring genocide!

This is real development! This isn't conspicuous industrial, urban development. It impacts the livelihood, life quality & even habits of what is said to be India's heart... it's villages! Better per capita income, reduced disease, no debt, no alcoholism. THAT'S ALL ROUND DEVELOPMENT! And this is what we should be celebrating! Ralegan Siddhi & Anna Hazare!! Continued development for 33 years!!! Read more here & here.

And I'd like to end with a few questions. One for all of us to ponder over: If our leaders were so gung-ho about development, wouldn't they have made Hazare a national hero by now? Wouldn't they have organised the state machinery (or their many branches, take your pick) to replicate his model by now?

And the others for our mainstream media: Why are you sitting content on your ample backsides, allowing people like thebetterindia & us to do your job for you? You seem to talk about development, about socialism, about new-age thought... why don't you focus on more stories like this? Why don't you influence public & Govt. opinion in this direction? If you won't, do we really need you?

Life’s little disappointments…

The last few weeks have been good on the personal front, but a look at the world around us also brought to light a few incidents that have left me more than mildly disappointed.

1. Barack Obama’s picking Sonal Shah as a member of his transition team. Sonal’s links with the VHP are public knowledge, but it is said that Obama knows her from his Harvard days. Maybe we can trust his judgement. Maybe he knows that her support to the VHP is limited to earthquake relief work. Maybe I’m dreaming! He may also be putting together a cabinet of rivals. It’s always better to have hope than to be perennially negative. It’s not a good path to be walking on, easy to start down it but very difficult to walk away from it.

2. Baba Ramdev. While I never bought into his tall claims of being able to cure cancer, diabetes & heart disease through Yoga, I did have respect for the man for having effected a positive change in the Indian masses towards healthy living. I didn’t lose that respect when someone accused him of using animal bones in his ayurvedic medicines. I knew people take potshots at celebrities. The guy went all over the country spreading the message of healthier living. He went to the UAE & spread his message there. I started thinking that a guy with his mass following can surely spread the message of communal harmony in our country. All he needs to do is say in each one of his shivirs that all human beings are equal irrespective of religion. That Indians should remain brothers. The masses would’ve responded well to his call. Even when one of the World’s premier Yoga gurus, BKS Iyengar publicly denounced Ramdev’s knowledge of Yoga, I still gave Ramdev credit for marketing Yoga well in India. I was taught Yoga by one of Ramdev’s disciples and can say from personal (bad) experience that Yoga isn’t the totally safe practise it’s made out to be. It has to be taught by someone who really knows it & knows how to teach it. Then the Ramdev I thought was progressive, inclusive & apolitical, goes & does the exact opposite of what I had in mind from him:

Raising the pitch on the Pragya Singh Thakur issue, Ramdev said: “Power is today
being exercised by people who should either be in jails or who should be hanged.
There will be a massive tussle for power three months hence. The country needs a
big change, where Sant Shakti (religious gurus) and Jan Shakti (people power)
come together. This process will not stop until the glory of India’s past is
restored.”

3. Our current Opposition Party, one that aspires to lead India in her march towards prosperity & peace, one that has always advocated a hardline approach, on being tough on terror, on equal rules for all; for doing a 360 degree turn on all of the above (which incidentally is consistent with their past record!). Rajnath Singh falls back on divisive politics (a harkback to the British rule they claim to hate) by saying on the Pragya Thakur investigation that the Govt. is angering Hindus and that it is pushing the country towards a civil war! Strangely, today’s Indian Express reports that Lt. Col. Purohit during interrogations revealed that RSS leader Indresh Kumar had received Rs. 3 Crore from the ISI!!! I thought my suspicions on the sangh & the ISI being in cohorts was just a silly theory!! And to borrow a sentence from Offstumped, the alacrity with which they moved from embarassment to aggression & opportunistic politics, they have managed to even embarass the word “shame” with their abject lack of it.

4. Disappointed at no one filing PIL’s, making any arrests, banning the seditious website because of this. No one cares, huh? sanjay? swati? guy? Are you not offended? Is your taking umbrage partisan?

5. Disappointed at terrorism claiming religions for themselves. But happy that amidst this madness there is hope, that there are people with whom we may have differences, but who agree on core issues. Do read this, this & this please.

I’ve come to realize that faults lie within all humans, not within all religions. That’s why a leader of men that brings our the best in human nature is called a Prophet; & a leader that brings out the worst in humans is called a politician or more appropriately a crook!

6. I’m disappointed at the difference between the leaders of their country & ours: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-gross/powell-honors-fallen-musl_b_135964.html

7. Ashutosh winning Bigg Boss. I erroneously thought that someone who publicly slapped a woman to win a third-rate reality show, shouldn’t get to win another third-rate reality show. I’m obviously disappointed that the rest of India doesn’t agree with me. But I know that this is not the whole picture.

What is the whole picture? The whole picture is work-in-progress. That is part of my learning.

What else have I learnt from these little disappointments? To ignore them. To move on. If there is any truth to the Karma philosphy, everyone gets their due. Also that “It’s all OK in the end. If it’s not OK, it’s not the end”.

So what’s the way out?

OK! Enough exposes about who’s fault it all is. Let’s look at what can be done to improve the situation in Bombay & Maharashtra. These are a few of my suggestions. Please feel free to add to this list.

1. We need equally strong voices from the other side. And politicians won’t do as we’ve already seen. We need the citizenry to speak up. While a Medha Patkar is as usual one of the first to speak up, she is a lone voice.

Commenters like akki have provided links to wonderful people like Mahesh Vijapurkar, whose views deserve to be widely disseminated, read & understood. Kudos & my respects to these people.

We also desperately need the Palekars-Paranjpais-Natekars-Padukones-Tendulkars-Gavaskars-Vengsarkars-Prabhakars-Rajanikanths-Mangeshkars-Bhosales-Nikhil Wagles to speak up & be heard. They enjoy an immense support base. People all over India & Maharashtra look up to them. They’re Indias Gems! I’d urge them to speak up in the interest of keeping the people of this nation together.

Of course, they don’t have to. They haven’t done any wrong, they’re not the out on the street, bus burning type of Maharashtrians. Why should they be defensive & speak up? I understand that mindset totally. It’s the same mindset that Indian Muslims stuck to for a long time. “I’m not an extremist. Why should I be apologetic? Why should I say or do anything?” As we all saw, that because of the intense propaganda & generalized hate campaign against them, they had to abandon that stance & speak up. And I’m glad they did.

Because as Edmund Burke said: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
And as Herr Albert Einstein himself said: The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

Apparently education & exposure is no longer guarantees a mind free from misconceptions & bias, as yet another politician demonstrates again.

2. Now this one is bound to be controversial, but it’s one idea. If we don’t want more & more people to come into Bombay looking for livelihood & putting more strain on it’s infrastructure; stop creating more jobs in Bombay! No new jobs, no more migration!

Create jobs elsewhere. Invest elsewhere, develop other parts of the country.

3. Revive the Gandhian approach: We need more & more people to use Gandhian means of protest instead of the madness that is making India an increasingly unsafe place to live in. I read somewhere recently that the terrorist is a disgruntled nationalist, one who is at a total loss as to what options he has left to save his nation. Let more & more people know that they way is Sarvodaya & Satyagrah. Medha Patkar, Baba Amte & Anna Hazare are not enough. We need a huge mass of humanity speaking the language of peaceful means of protest! THAT habit is our only hope that will save us from people resorting to violence.

4. Educate the aforesaid politicians on World affairs. They’re all stuck up in state & nation issues. If they were more tuned in to World Affairs (or even HBO where I picked it up from!!!), these excerpts from Al Gore’s concession (to Dubya) speech would’ve hit home:

While we yet hold and do not yield our opposing beliefs, there is a higher duty
than the one we owe to political party. This is America and we put country
before party. We will stand together behind our new president…
… As for the battle that ends tonight, I do believe as my father once said, that no matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and
let the glory out.

Can our politicians not learn to put Country before Party? As far as I can see Gore Sr. was right. Al Gore may have been spared the ignominy that Dubya had to bear… of being called America’s stupidest Prez, among other things. Instead he will always be remembered as a Nobel Peace Prize Winner.

Thank you and good night, and God bless India. :-)