The far left is destroying the Congress party

When I was a kid, my parents greatest desire in life (like every other Indian parent) was to push me to do better and better in school.

Me : But Mom, I already studied so much. Why study more?

Mom: You have to son, otherwise you will amount to nothing in life.

Me: But Mom, those friends of mine are having fun right now. Why not me?

Mom: They are destroying their future. Either their parents are already rich and they don’t need to work. Or they will grow up to be street thugs. You don’t worry about them and study hard.

Most Indian kids have been part of some version of this conversation. Study hard and don’t worry about those jocks who are ruining their lives. Don’t get in with the wrong crowd of friends. They will destroy your life.

Right now, that is exactly what is happening to the Indian National Congress.

Post its disastrous 2014 defeat, the depressed Congress has found itself in the wrong company. Now I may not be a Congress supporter, but I do realize that the Congress is the most successful party in Indian history. It has won more elections than anyone can even count. They are still the main opposition in several states. And they still have what it takes to revive themselves.

Except, they are in the wrong company.

I am talking about the newfound friends of the Congress like Kanhaiyya Kumar and Shehla Rashid and the entire far left gang of nutcases.

 

Remember the kids mom warned me about? The kids who have no future? In the political context, that is what the far left is today. The participation of left parties in electoral politics is only ornamental. The Kanhaiyas and Arundhatis of the world are the most unpopular people in the entire country. They’ll never win an election. In fact, the likes of Medha Patkar and Aruna Roy will actively repel votes.

But the Congress under Rahul Gandhi is hanging out with this wrong crowd. And it is picking up their ways. Unlike the Left, the Congress is a real political force. But it is ruining its prospects by picking up the ways of the Left parties who have no stake in politics.

Just like the jocks who smoked and drank in school, the Left throws beef parties. The Left can afford to throw beef parties because it does not need to care about public opinion. They wouldn’t win elections anyway.

The Congress fell in with this crowd. And just like smoking and drinking in school, it felt cool at first. When Rahul baba shared the stage with those who raise slogans of Bharat ke tukde and Bharat ki barbadi, it was a high for him. The far left intellectuals from the crevices of academia applauded him. The journalists with arts degrees from Stephens’ and Jamia Milia applauded him. It felt awesome.

Then the Congress went ahead and weakened India’s position after surgical strikes on Pakistan. Again, the intellectuals were delighted.

Dissent! Yay!

And now it came to this. The Youth Congress carries tortures and kills a cow in broad daylight.

This had to happen. The downward spiral began with JNU. It has come to its logical conclusion.

Gau hatya!

Oh Congress what have you done!

A simple comparison of the coverage on English news channels vs Hindi news channels should bring the point home.

The weight of the crime cannot even be expressed in English. It makes sense only in an Indian language.

Do you know what the words “Gau hatya” mean to hundreds of millions of Hindus who don’t live in Lutyens Delhi?

But the Congress fell for the lies of its far left intellectual friends. They convinced themselves that the cow is sacred to only a handful of Brahmin males living in the Hindi heartland. They were convinced that most Hindus out there are all either eating beef or craving it : Dalits, tribals, OBCs, Bengalis, Tamils, Keralites, Kanadigas, etc…

The Congress came to believe this because it had made too many friends at Lutyens and too few workers at the grassroots. This entire ecosystem had been carved out by the Congress itself for its own benefit, but it is now the ecosystem that is choking the Congress.

I had made this point before when 8 SIMI activists were shot by Madhya Pradesh Police. Then also the Congress erred because it listened to the chorus of its flatterers. Simply put, no one out there gives a damn for the lives of SIMI terrorists. People want these terrorists to be eliminated one way or the other. And similarly, the vast majority of Indians does not give a damn about the well being of stone pelters. If an Army major ties one of these lowlife scum to a jeep, the country will back the major, not the stone pelter.

But behind those far left glasses, the Congress cannot see the masses. Bharat ki barbaadi, questioning surgical strikes, standing with stone pelters and now Gau hatya! The road from 44 to 4 seems clear.

Some animals are more equal than others

As if we needed further evidence of the Congress trampling over Hindu sentiments.

https://twitter.com/IRealArnab/status/868759711050498048

If they want to make a point about freedom to eat beef, fine. I am willing to listen. That’s one of the reasons I don’t support Indira Gandhi.

But such barbarism and ritual slaughter of a poor calf just so they can raise slogans against Narendra Modi? Some videos on TV channels show the poor creature being chased into an open vehicle, Congress workers sharpening their knives and then proceeding to torture and kill it.

https://twitter.com/binoyvinodan/status/868799676849545220

Who is the animal here? The meek gentle one being tortured to death or the bloodthirsty ones attacking it?

Of course, now would be the time when fashionable NGOs and animal rights activists go on vacation.

Where are the people who protested against the so called cruelty of traditional Jallikattu? Also on vacation I suppose.

Where are the celebrities who post cute pictures just before Diwali telling us not to use crackers for the sake of poor animals, reminding us to #BePawsitive ?

Remember the political party that cried copious tears for the police horse Shaktiman? This even came from their official handle.

Was Hypocrite Congress Shedding Crocodile Tears When #Shaktiman Died? Or Were They Doing Politics Over Its Death? #गउ_हत्यारी_Congress pic.twitter.com/AgGRRslXWB

— Sir Jadeja fan (@SirJadeja) May 28, 2017

What now?

I read this somewhere : “Hindus have no human rights and cows have no animal rights“.

Or as George Orwell famously put it: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Cheap, absurd criticism actually makes Modi stronger

What is Narendra Modi’s greatest strength?

I’ll say that it is his critics.

There is something about Narendra Modi that drives them mad. Towards something I like to call “Modi derangement syndrome” (I did not invent that term… see also the related term Bush Derangement Syndrome from the early 2000s)

So the government completed 3 years in power on May 26. To celebrate this occasion, Prime Minister Modi inaugurated the Dhola Sadiya bridge in Assam. It’s India’s longest bridge, nearly 10 km long.

It’s concrete development for the people of the neglected North East who have often received stepmotherly treatment from out Delhi centered discourse.  It cuts down the travel time between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh by some 5 hours. It sends a message to China that we will be assertive and forward in defending Arunachal Pradesh.

Who could possibly have heartburn about this? Only some poor miserable creatures in the media who suffer from Modi Derangement Syndrome (MDS). Like this from Timesgroup.

Cheap, absurd and jealous reporting.

But above all Mr. Prabin Kalita, let me tell you this. Your “reporting” is self-defeating. Through your absurd criticism, you have actually made people sympathize with Modi. Any rational person who reads this headline, even if not a Modi supporter, will agree that you are victimizing the man for doing something that is clearly in national interest.

Your MDS is helping Modi. Take that.

Now, this was not an isolated example. India Today’s DailyO also came out with this absurd piece.

Yes, the bridge has robbed boatmen of their jobs and helped out corporates. How much further will MDS victims go in their insanity?

Wait until you hear how this bridge is supposed to help corporates. Apparently, it will let them get their heavy machinery across to build hydel power plants in Arunachal Pradesh!

Now, the “independent journalist” who wrote this article probably did not realize that what she listed as a criticism is actually considered by most people to be an advantage.

Here is what this mediaperson thinks people are saying after reading her article:

Damn you Modi for helping corporates build power plants.

Here is what people are actually thinking :

Thank you Modi for helping to build hydel power plants. 

Sometimes I wonder if Modi and the BJP themselves are paying for such absurdly negative coverage. Because such negative coverage actually helps Narendra Modi create an image of being the underdog despite being India’s most powerful Prime Minister in 30 years.

For the nation, the real danger of such negative reporting is not that it will help the secular establishment come back to power. That’s not happening at all. The danger actually lies in the cloud of public sympathy around Modi created by this negative reporting. This cloud of public sympathy is actually protecting the Modi government from real criticism over real failures.

Here is another recent example from The Wire which has recently started a new Youtube series with Vinod Dua bashing Modi non-stop for 8 minutes or so at a time.

In this episode, Vinod Dua makes the breathtaking claim that he does not remember any politician using the 1971 war for internal political advantage!!

Really?

You know Indira Gandhi imposed emergency when war began in December 1971 (which makes sense). The war ended in less than 3 weeks. But Indira Gandhi kept extending the emergency …not 3 weeks… not 4 weeks… the Emergency lasted all the way till March 1977.

(Remark : It is a lesser known fact that the Emergency Period did not actually begin in 1975. The “External Emergency” imposed during the Indo-Pak war began from December 1971 stayed in force until June 1975, even though the war was long over.  In June 1975, Indira Gandhi merely added “internal Emergency” to the already existing “External Emergency”.)

So, Indira Gandhi used the 3 week Indo-Pak war to impose a 4 year Emergency and then added an internal Emergency in which Lok Sabha elections were canceled! But no, Mr. Vinod Dua cannot remember an example of any politician using the 1971 war for political benefit!

*Facepalm*

Modi’s detractors in the media are going so far overboard in their criticism that people are simply beginning to tune them out. When a genuine criticism comes along, the public no longer wants to listen. It becomes easy for BJP to dismiss all criticism as motivated and malafide because so much of it really is.

For instance, here is a genuine criticism. Why has the CBI under the current government given Manmohan Singh a clean chit in the coal scam? In fact, the former coal secretary H C Gupta who was recently convicted has repeatedly said that he did everything with full permission from Dr. Singh.

Instead of using Gupta’s confessions for indicting the former Prime Minister, it was actually the CBI that insisted in the court that Dr. Singh had been kept “in the dark”.

Why? This is for the people to ask and for Narendra Modi to answer.

Yes, there is no escaping the fact that Narendra Modi has saved Manmohan Singh in the coal scam.

There’s a genuine criticism right there. But it is all too easy for BJP to dismiss this uncomfortable fact along with the bundle of unfair criticism that Modi receives everyday. And therein lies the real danger to democracy.

The God of False Things : How Arundhati Roy creates fake news and gets away with it

Arundhati Roy is a very lucky person. Right before her book release, it just so happens that somebody starts planting fake news stories about her, putting Ms. Roy at the heart of controversy. Everybody knows there is no such thing as bad publicity.

 

So what’s fake news? How to create it, sustain it and how to actually use it to further advantage even when caught?

I’ll illustrate this  by telling you how Arundhati Roy herself does it. You kids take notes. Watch and learn from the legend herself.

(1) It happened to a friend of a friend …

The year was 2002. A fiery Arundhati Roy was determined to shake the conscience of the nation like she always does. Here she is, writing in the Outlook.

 

Shocking beyond words, no?

Soon after, Balbir Punj (then a BJP MP) decided to follow up on this horrific incident to try and get justice for Sayeeda. Only to find out this.

Not only was Sayeeda brutally murdered, the friends of her friends didn’t even want to help with identifying her or her killers.

Key takeaways :

a. Never take direct responsibility for a claim. Always refer to a “friend from Baroda”.

b. When pressed for details, exercise your legal right to remain silent.

(2) Use the fact that foreign audiences don’t know a lot about India 

Are you facing a foreign audience that knows little about our internal political affairs? Excellent! Here is your chance to retell India’s history any way you want by moving events around freely in all dimensions of time and space. There’s no fear of getting caught.

So here is Arundhati Roy unplugged at Northwestern Law School in Chicago (see here for full speech)

She goes: “A train full of pilgrims coming back from the destruction of this Ayodhya mosque which was disputed. The train caught fire; nobody knows who set fire to the train…”

Yes, why not slide the Babri demolition along the time dimension from 1992 to 2002 so that the karsevaks who died in Godhra can be accused of destroying it? The American audience probably won’t realize this. So, lie away…

Not to mention that she shoved in another lie into that quote. Nobody knows who set fire to the train? Really? A court of law has actually sentenced the accused, many of them to death.

But then, liberal media is such that I suspect most Indians don’t know about the conviction of the perpetrators of Godhra. This is likely because the sentencing in the Godhra carnage was not followed by screaming headlines of “Justice for Godhra victims”. How would Americans know?

(3) Genuine Errors do not alter the substance of what is being said

In the same Outlook article that I mentioned above, Arundhati Roy speaks thus on the Gulberg Society case.

Stripped his daughters and burned them alive? It turns out that Ehsan Jaffri had only one daughter (not daughters) and that she is very much alive. In fact, she was actually in the US (and thank god that she is safe and sound) on the day this attack happened. As Ehsan Jaffri’s son pointed out in an interview to The Asian Age on May 2:

“Among my brothers and sisters, I am the only one living in India. And I am the eldest in the family. My sister and brother live in the US. I am 40 years old“.

This time Arundhati Roy had broken her own standard operating procedure and forgotten to blame a “friend from Baroda”. And so it happened that she actually had to publish an apology in which her justification achieves the gold standard of hypocrisy.

“In a situation like the one that prevails in Gujarat, when the police are reluctant to register firs, when the administration is openly hostile to those trying to gather facts, and when the killings go on unabated—then panic, fear and rumour play a pivotal role. People who have disappeared are presumed dead, people who have been dismembered and burnt cannot be identified, and people who are distraught and traumatised are incoherent…. This and other genuine errors in recounting the details of the violence in Gujarat in no way alters the substance of what journalists, fact-finding missions, or writers like myself are saying.”

Did you catch that? When you are caught peddling fake news, don’t retreat. Instead blame the other side for creating a situation which led you to fall for the rumors! So what if rumors are playing a “pivotal role” in Arundhati Roy’s reporting? It is actually the fault of the Gujarat government that Arundhati Roy did not check her facts. And then there is the amazing assertion that “genuine errors in recounting details” in no way alter the substance of what is being said!

The errors in recounting details (i.e., the facts) don’t matter. Only the substance of what is being said (i.e., the narrative) matters. 

Has anyone ever expressed the motto of fake news so crisply and clearly? 

You kids take notes. Learn from Arundhati Roy how fake news is done right.

 

Fake news alert! Liberals spin Sikh man into Muslim to safeguard “narrative”

Now that Europeans seem reconciled to the reality of terrorist attacks, liberals in the West can breathe easier. Just a few years ago, when such happenings in Europe were still a novelty, the left would be thrown off its game each time there was a terror attack. After all, how do you defend the ruthless massacre of innocents? How do you prove that those of slaughter people day in and day out are actually following a religion of peace?

Obviously you can’t.

Instead, you do you what you can and wait for Europeans to get used to terrorism. Well, it seems Achche Din have arrived for European liberals. Because people on the continent have stopped complaining. Terror attack happens in Manchester; Europeans just shrug it off and get on with their lives. They are reconciled to the fact that their continent is committing civilizational suicide. Why bother stopping the inevitable?

 

No wonder, liberals are now going on the offensive. After terrorist attacks, the spotlight is now put firmly on the *real victims*. In case you are wondering, the *real victims* are NOT those who got their insides blown to bits. No, the *real victims* are definitely NOT those whose relatives and friends perished in the blast.

Who is the *real victim* then? Well, the real victim is the Muslim living in Europe, who might get dirty looks and rude comments from the “racist” Europeans!  They came in droves because they had burned their own countries to the ground. Which obviously entitles them to enter Europe and spend a lifetime on taxpayer funded welfare.

Then, they said that Europe wasn’t doing “enough” to accommodate their valuable guests. Why, for instance, can’t Europe be ruled by Sharia law so that those who fled Muslim lands can feel more at home?

Alas! Europe hasn’t accepted Sharia law yet. Which makes Muslims living in Europe the *real victims* of terrorism.

Confident European liberals will now go all out to fight for the *real victims*. If that means creating fake news, why not?

This collage prepared by “The Frustrated Indian”  says it all

See how brazen? They see a tweet that mentions a Sikh taxi driver along with a photo. They ask the person for permission to use the pic. And lo and behold… the picture is published with the Sikh man now labelled as a Muslim!

If you can’t find Muslims doing good things, nothing to worry. Just take brown looking people from another religion who are actually doing good things and label them as Muslims! Problem solved!

Now, Twitter as we know, is full of “abusive trolls”. Which is why Cosmopolitan’s trick got found out in no time! The Tweet had to be deleted.

Victory, you might think! After all, they got caught with their pants down  … Tweet deleted… battle won, Right?

WRONG!

If you believe this is a battle won, then you have not learned anything from the way terrorists and liberals have shown themselves to think.

You caught this one… will you really be able to stop every single fake news missile that is fired by the liberals? Some of them will reach their targets nevertheless. Just the way terrorists think. Some terrorists will always get caught and some plots foiled, but there is no foolproof way to stop *every* single terror attack.

Just look at the Twitter timeline of the “reporter” who began the operation.

0% regret. 0% apology. 100% brazen.

She just deleted the tweet and forgot all about it. No consequences for her career. If anything, she is probably going to be applauded for the bold new stream of fake news she has created. In order to show Muslims doing good things, just take photos of Sikhs and label them as Muslims.

This is a goldmine really. Sikhs are a community that is spread the world over, especially in big cities where terror attacks generally happen. And Sikhs seem to have this amazing spirit that they are always the first ones to come to help and always the last ones to leave.

Every Indian knows this. You can count on Sikhs to help out the community whenever a disaster happens.

Honestly, how did no liberal think of this before? Just take pictures of Sikhs doing community service and package them as photos of Muslims. This is going to be really easy for them.

Here, for instance, is a picture of “Muslims” coming to help Nepal during its terrible earthquake.

You see that, Westerners? See how big hearted folks from the religion of peace came to help in Nepal? Some internet Hindus must have spread the rumor that Muslim nations airdropped beef masala packets over Nepal to mock their religion in their hour of need…

Uncaging the Army : Building a new normal

 

Ultimately, it is the “normal” that dominates our lives. Have you seen the terrorist attack in Manchester? Europeans were definitely sad, but they didn’t really stop… they just went on with their lives.

Increasingly, all over Europe, there is a realization that losing a certain number of innocent people each year to Islamic terrorism is a given. Sure, Europeans will regret it. Any rational human being will regret  the loss of innocent human life. But the problem is that Europeans will not “really” care enough about it.

The same logic of the normal applies to the perpetual “war” between India and Pakistan. Does any of us really expect peace to come in our lifetime or in the lifetime of the next generation or the generation after that?

In a vexed war like this, the only positive outcome can be to change the normal. Or if you like technologically slanted language, to change the default setting.

So far, the default setting has been for Pakistan to keep striking India and India maintaining a forever defensive posture. Even in the face of an extreme provocation like Kargil, the Indian military including the Air Force were under strict instructions not to cross the Line of Control (LoC).

It is not that people of India don’t understand. We know there will never be peace. We were just fed up of the normal. They pick their time and their spot and all we get to do is pick up the pieces.

This is what the Modi government has changed forever.

We will now carry out surgical strikes across the LoC when we want and wherever we want. We will destroy their fortifications with large artillery guns and announce it triumphantly to the world.

It is noteworthy that while the surgical strikes of September were against “terrorists”, the operation that the Army publicized yesterday did not try to put up any such facade. The Army was very open about showing the action against official Pakistani army fortifications.

THIS is the new normal. At one time, we were scared to touch our nuclear armed rogue neighbor for fear of an extreme reaction. Now we know that the nuclear bravado was just a bluff.

One only hopes we can keep pushing the normal. Air strikes the next time perhaps? You know like the way Americans do. They don’t put up any appearances.. they bomb Pakistan as and when they want. Sometime they inform Pakistan … sometimes they don’t.

A very similar thing has happened in the jeep “incident” with the dude tied to the front as a human shield. Major Gogoi, the army man who took the controversial decision has received a medal from the Army. On paper, the medal is for his services in general and not this incident in particular, but we all know how well Modi government understands the power of timing.

The timing and the message is clear. The Army has a free hand in Kashmir to fight the war. And human rights activists never won anybody a war. Worse, we are fairly confident that the human rights activists are on Pakistani payroll, selling out their country for literally pennies.

The ultimate beauty of a “new normal” is that it doesn’t matter who holds the power in Delhi. If tomorrow the BJP were to lose power, the “normal” would still be available for the next Prime Minister to use. A new normal has been established and Pakistan has to live with it. Jai Hind!

 

 

What Mahatma said about rape and why it’s important to control institutions

Ever since Narendra Modi came to power, some of the most bitter struggles have happened (at least in the media) over the control of institutions. The Nehruvians and Communists who have enjoyed political patronage for 70 years have been throwing tantrums ever since, suddenly discovering the importance of “dissent”.

The latest flashpoint of this war concerns the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) in Delhi. Apparently, the leftists are ticked off because someone is holding a seminar on “Nationalistic Journalism”, which as we all know is totally morally inferior to the “Secularistic Journalism” that we all love and respect so much. Not only will the seminar begin with a yagya, but it will also feature S R P Kalluri, the ex-IG of Bastar.

This was nothing less than showing saffron to the red bull. And so it happened that on Saturday evening, a motley group of fire breathing leftists gathered outside the IIMC to show just how angry they were.

The holier than thou left wing website Newslaundry was also there to cover the show of “dissent”.

 

Some of India’s most privileged kids gathered at IIMC to show how much they care for tribals of Bastar. The celebrity dissenters were out there in full force : JNU student Anirban Bhattacharya, JNUSU President Mohit Pandey and many others that the media has made into household names.

But amid the sympathetic reporting, what also slipped out was what was left after the dissenters were done with their little Saturday party.

Pamphlets and signboards strewn on the roadside after the protesters were long gone? The photo above as also some of the videos posted of the event also appear to show the protesters tearing up pieces of paper to spread all over the place.

Of course it is now up to the sweepers who work for the municipality to clean up after the privileged kids have finished their party.  They came to speak for the downtrodden tribals of Bastar, remember? A lesson in class privilege that is rich in irony!

Why can’t JNUSU President Comrade Mohit Pandey pick up the trash left behind by their protest? Of course he can’t. A “Pandey” who has to hold a broom and sweep? Sacrilege! Does no one read the Manu Smriti any more?

One has to understand why the left is fighting so hard for control of institutions. Because institutions matter. Because institutions set the parameters for our day to day discourse.

Take, for instance, the following (absolutely absolutely shocking) quote on rape.

“I have always held that it is physically impossible to violate a woman against her will. The outrage takes place only when she gives way to fear or does not realize her moral strength. If she cannot meet the assailant’s physical might, her purity will give her the strength to die before he succe­eds in violating her.”

Would you believe that this is actually a quote from the Mahatma himself? Are you in shock? So was I when I came across this.

My intent is not in any way to insult the Father of the Nation. In case you didn’t know, that would actually be illegal as per the Honorable Supreme Court of India.

My intent is to show that history was written with a certain slant, deifying certain individuals and demonizing others as per the convenience of the ruling establishment in Delhi.

How many times have you seen pundits in media and academia go on and on about what Guru Golwalkar may or may not have said about Nazis almost a hundred years ago? No introduction to the RSS in a foreign newspaper article is complete without a mention of their so called Nazi sympathies. Why? Because academic liberals have pushed certain quotes  from Guru Golwalkar into the standard narrative on the RSS.

Now imagine if the Mahatma’s quotes on rape were in wider circulation while talking about his life and the roots of the Congress party. Can you imagine how different the popular discourse would have been?

Instead of talking about what RSS may have said about Nazis, what if popular discourse remembered the fact that Communists were actually military allies of the Nazis from 1939-1941? What if we remembered that WW-2 began with Communists and Nazis jointly invading Poland, one from the east and the other from the West as per the pact between Hitler and Stalin? The two brother armies even met up for a joint celebration and military parade after the occupation of Poland.

Can you imagine how differently the debates today about RSS affiliated ABVP vs Communist AISA would have been formulated if we remembered facts like these?

The same goes with Dr. Ambedkar. While the left is happy to promote his withering criticism of caste injustices, it conveniently leaves out Baba Saheb’s views on Islam. Because the aim of the left is to make the Hindus squirm in their own skin. But, the great man was no appeaser. Here, for instance, is what he said about Islam.

“Islam speaks of brotherhood. Everybody infers that Islam must be free from slavery and caste. Regarding slavery nothing needs to be said. It stands abolished now by law. But while it existed much of its support was derived from Islam and Islamic countries… The existence of these evils among the Muslims is distressing enough. But far more distressing is the fact that there is no organized movement of social reform among the Musalmans of India on a scale sufficient to bring about their eradication. The Hindus have their social evils. But there is this relieving feature about them—namely, that some of them are conscious of their existence and a few of them are actively agitating for their removal. The Muslims, on the other hand, do not realize that they are evils and consequently do not agitate for their removal. Indeed, they oppose any change in their existing practices” 

But the left made sure that no one talks about this. In doing so, they reduced one of India’s most brilliant minds to the level of a common caste based politician.

These days, with the increasing influence of the internet, it has become harder to suppress such inconvenient quotes. Indeed, the left made some laughable attempts (see here for instance) to “explain away” these direct quotes from Dr. Ambedkar himself by quoting other random people who had written books on Ambedkar.

But now there are signs that the embarrassed left might be throwing in the towel. In what I believe is a first, a leftist propaganda blog like Scroll has actually published an article that is critical of Ambedkar, actually trying to smear him as an ally of the Muslim League and an “advocate for Pakistan”! (their words, not mine!)

The left has begun a retreat on Ambedkar. It is now for ascendant right wing forces to restore the greatness of Ambedkar, lifting him above the cheapness of the agenda of Indian pseudo-secularism.

As George Orwell wrote in Nineteen Eighty Four,

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past“.

It is now for those who control India’s present to make their power felt in institutions and take charge of the past.

Did Catch Team outsource its take on 3 years of Modi sarkar to the Congress social media team?

We get it. The good folks at Catch do not think highly of Prime Minister Modi.  It’s no surprise then that Catch would carry an article titled  “Dear Mr. Modi, the only growth you have achieved is in propaganda“.

 

But there is something curious (sinister?) going on with this article. First, I want you to take a look at the article as it is advertised on Catchnews main page.

As you can see clearly in the screenshot, the article has been written by “Catch Team”.

At this point, you might ask. So what? What’s the big deal about a news website posting its take on 3 years of the Modi government?

Give me a moment then to click on the article and see what comes up. Here’s the screenshot.

Well, no surprises here. The expanded view only tells us that this article was posted by “Catch Team”, last updated at 18:42 IST on May 20, 2017.

Now the fun begins. Scroll down to the bottom of the article. Here’s what you get.

It now says that the writer is the social media in charge of the Indian National Congress and also says that the opinions are the personal views of the author. Even the times mentioned at the top and at the bottom of the post are identical : May 20, 2017 at 18:42 IST.

Only the author has changed from “Catch Team” at the top to “social media in charge of the Congress” at the bottom.

So who really wrote this? Did the Congress social media in charge write the official take of “Catch Team” on 3 years of Modi government? Or was it the other way around?

Or maybe they wrote it together? Did “Catch Team” sit down with the social media cell of the Congress party and prepare a joint statement on 3 years of Modi government?

We might have stumbled on to something here … and it seems to be very interesting.

I am sure a reputed and honest organization like Catchnews will have a simple and satisfactory explanation for this. I am sure they will clear all our doubts. And we can go back to treating Catch as a trustworthy news source. Like always…

Pro Tip : You can’t delete stuff from the Google webcache.

Shocking! The New York Times and the world have forgotten the Hindus who died in Godhra

I will start with a clear statement about myself No single incident has ever impacted my views on politics as much as the Godhra carnage of Feb 27, 2002. It is the pivot around which my outlook on our nation has been built. Perhaps that’s because it happened in my most crucial formative years, right when I was on the verge of becoming an adult.

But if there is one question that keeps haunting me, it is this:

S-6 coach. Signal Falia. Sabarmati Express. Feb 27, 2002.

Can you ever forget Godhra? I know I can’t.

But since that day, I have lived with the anger of watching these 59 people denied their place in history. Does anyone know the name of even one person who perished in that S-6 coach that day? Is it because they were not members of the secular religion? If this is the condition of Hindus in our own India, where do we go?

A few weeks ago, I had written a post on this blog about how the victims of the Godhra carnage are the stepchildren of Indian history. Either they have been blamed for their own murders or liberals have called the train fire an accident. It does not seem to matter that the criminals behind Godhra have already been convicted in a court of law.

Only the liberal narrative matters. If there ever was an example of post-truth, this would be it.

I submitted my post to Opindia and they were looking for an opportune moment to publish it. Today the article went online here

https://twitter.com/EllenBarryNYT/status/865755012374319104

To my article, they had added a tweet which came out today from Ellen Barry, the Hindu hating South Asia correspondent of the NY Times.

Another sigh of disgust and helplessness.

Whitewash what? Calling the Gujarat violence of 2002 an “anti-Muslim riot” is a horrible thing to do. It leaves out the 59 Hindus who perished inside the burning train. This is what started the violence, remember?

So, NCERT takes one small step in the right direction. And by now global liberal media is so confident in its whitewashing of the Godhra carnage that they actually turn back and accuse NCERT of whitewashing!!!!

Folks this is *exactly* what post-truth is!!

Yes, the train went into spontaneous combustion. Or who knows, maybe the Sangh Parivar elements did it to themselves. Who cares?

The best way for liberals to “explain away” the Godhra carnage is to not explain it at all. Erase it from history like it never happened. 

Today’s liberals are asking whether Muslims really set fire to the train. 

The liberals of 30-40 years from now will ask whether there even was a burning train. 

The only thing that liberal history will show is that there was an “anti-Muslim riot” in Gujarat in 2002. 

Remember folks that they are very good at this whitewashing. They will raise the chorus to such a fever pitch that even you might begin doubting if the carnage actually happened.

But we have to stay strong in our memories. It happened in our lifetimes. I am not going to forget.

Speaking at the BJP’s Goa conclave in 2002, Atal Behari Vajpayee had this question to ask about the Gujarat riots:

“Pehle aag lagayi kisne? ” (Who lit the fire first?)

I’m never going to stop asking that question.

India has won, Bharat ki Vijay!

I don’t really believe in luck. But I like to party when I have a chance. And… well.. it seems that the 3rd anniversary of the 2014 Election results has come bearing gifts for the nation. The other day I wrote about the triple bonanza on May 16 : what with raids on Chidambaram and Lalu followed by the announcement that CRPF had sent 20 Naxals to whatever version of jannat that Commies subscribe to…

Now, this is even more real. What a crushing humiliation for Pakistan in front of the whole world! Of course there were some glum faces in Lutyens Delhi.

These allegedly Indian outlets are going through denial, which is, classically the first stage of grief. But if you want to have fun, go watch Pakistani media.

They know how badly they lost despite anything that The “Indian” Express might say. They have not been defeated as much as they have been shamed on an international forum.

You guys should have seen Mani Shankar Aiyar’s face on NDTV yesterday. He looked like a man who had just lost his entire life’s savings. Somebody in the NDTV studio, possibly a retired Army man called Pakistan a barbaric state. At this Mani Shankar Aiyar winced as if he was in physical pain. Technically his point was that we need to be somewhat nice to Pakistan right now because they have our man… but it was easy to see where his real sense of hurt was coming from…

There is a lot of credit to go around. There’s Harish Salve, the man of the moment. The fact that he won his case for Re 1 appears to have become a buzz in Pakistan. From what I am hearing, the cartoonish loser from the Pakistani side charged their government something of the order of Rs 5 lakh to embarrass their country internationally 🙂

Sweet 🙂

Pakistan has not been walloped like this in a long time.

I know that it’s a long road to freeing Kulbhushan Jadhav (honestly, we don’t even know if he is alive), but sometimes it is good just to make merry.

What is particularly special is to see the Indian government move mountains to save the life of an Indian citizen.

The one key difference that I have observed between India and developed Western countries is that we generally do not value the lives our citizens that much. The Sukma attack was exceptional in that we talked about it for a whole week, perhaps because the death toll had crossed 20. Typically, Maoists can kill a dozen or so jawans and it will barely get reported. We don’t value the lives of our own.

But yesterday was different. We showed the world that we will go to any length to save a citizen. That India does not give up on its own.

Modi’s strategy of going to the ICJ is fraught with risks. On the ICJ floor, we basically disavowed bilateral treaties with Pakistan over treatment of prisoners and demanded that everything be done as per the Vienna convention. Certainly this makes our position vulnerable in the sense that Pakistan could now demand international meddling in Kashmir.

As you can see, this opportunity for Pakistan did not go unnoticed in the tweets of ringleader Shekhar Gupta:

Fine success #ICJ reprieve for #KulbhushanYadav Shows international laws work. Lesson also to warriors spoiling to dump Indus Waters Treaty

— Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) May 18, 2017

But so what? We took a risk. And we took it for good reason. Because we wanted to save one of our own.

We have shown the world that we will deal with our rogue neighbor on a “case by case basis”. Last year, they attacked us in Uri. We replied with surgical strikes. Now, we have gone to the ICJ. We will use whatever means is necessary at that moment without thinking very much about future implications.

For a very long time, Pakistan essentially always had the upper hand. Because India was always too predictable in its response. That’s why Pakistan never had to worry about pushing us.

Well we have a new Modi doctrine now  and it’s called “By any means necessary“.

Pakistan can no longer anticipate our response. They don’t know how far we could go. They don’t know what is in Modi’s mind. The next time we just might decide to go bomb Lahore.

So, I am not going to sweat over the “internationalization” of what India’s foreign policy establishment has always treated as “bilateral issue” as a matter of faith.

Confident nations are flexible in such matters. From now onwards, when it suits us, we’ll treat Indo-Pak disputes as a bilateral issue. When it suits us, we’ll treat it as an international issue. Isn’t that what big powers do? They use international law when it suits them and say a big “F*ck you” to international law when it doesn’t suit them. And it’s about time we started thinking big.