If KartiPC can be arrested, who cannot?

Overdue. Long overdue.

Somebody needed to bring back the fear of god among the scum of Lutyens Delhi.

Honestly, I never thought this moment would come. But it seems that the government has finally had enough. Within the establishment, the most powerful Congress politician is P Chidambaram. For the BJP, it is Arun Jaitley. Over the years, you will see journos do lots of loose talk. But I challenge you to find me one journo who has ever spoken loosely or disrespectfully either about Arun Jaitley or P Chidambaram.

The arrest of Karti PC should send shivers through the establishment. It seems Modi is finally in the mood for some punishment. The question is: who is next?

Who wants to bet it’s Prannoy Roy?

NDTV has 10 days from the Delhi High Court. When they are down to counting 10 days of relief, you know they must be in hot water.

I don’t know what triggered this sudden flurry of activity from Modi. So far, the PM has been really generous to his foes. I guess his patience finally broke when the Congress tried to pin its PNB scam on Modi’s head.

Yeah, your Finance Minister sits in his office on May 16, 2014 signing files for Mehul Choksi. Your RBI Governor Rockstar Rajan approves the policy on May 21, 2016. They sure seemed to be in a hell of a hurry to get work done before the evening of May 26, 2014.

And now you turn around and say Modi is responsible for the scam?

I guess that’s the only good thing about PNB Scam, it caused Modi’s patience to break.

They are producing Karti PC in court at 2pm today. I have so much faith in the learning of our learned judges that I am sure he will walk free within the next 60 minutes. But at least the government has shown the intent to take on the big guys.

It was really something to watch Karti PC taunting law enforcement back home with his pictures of snowfall in Cambridge. This is probably not going to happen, but let’s hope they can keep him in jail … somehow.

But, as I said, this matter goes beyond Karti PC. When you touch the Chidambarams, you put the fear of god in the hearts of the entire liberal elite. You can be sure that the liberal elites are all calling each other right now, remembering all the scams and looting they have done in their lives and wondering who is next.

These elites have a calendar next to their beds where they are crossing out days till the possible return of the Dynasty in May 2019. Picture them in your head counting the days … still 15 full months to go … and calling up their lawyers. They know that 15 months is enough time for a government to do its homework and arrest them.

Much more than any drought stricken farmer, it is these elites who are today looking towards the summer of 2019, hoping for a bumper monsoon. All those years of collecting Padma awards for spreading lies on “Hindu terror”, of brokering deals between business and politicians on the phone, moving dirty money around through fake companies and unsecured loans. These must have come back to haunt them.

As the elite think of those rosy days, their longing for Rahul Gandhi’s return becomes even stronger. In their dreams they see him taking oath at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Soon enough, the invites for them start rolling out : an invite to sit on the board of some shady money-laundering NGO, an invite on the PM’s official plane, an invite to pick up the next level Padma award. The doors of Rashtrapati Bhavan even open up for any propaganda news channel wanting to celebrate its 25th anniversary in the highest style.

You know who they are. A good number of them have temporarily retired from public life in last few years. Some are on sabbatical working for foreign newspapers, some have reduced themselves to Twitter and a lazy weekly column. They are all waiting and counting days for the return of the good old times.

That their own Karti could be arrested has come as a rude shock to them. Dear common folks, this is our moment.

 

This day, that year : Never forget, never forgive #Godhra

Fifty nine innocent victims. Burned alive inside a railway compartment. Feb 27, 2002.

Never forget. Never forgive.

I say this, knowing well these are mostly empty words. Because the fact is that we have forgotten. And worse than that, we have forgiven.

Guess what is not trending on Twitter today? The memory of this painful day on which 59 innocent Hindus were roasted alive in plain sight. Of course, the secular brigade wouldn’t care. Why would they? They are happy to give this event the royal snub and pretend it never happened. That goes without saying.

But what of those that we consider our  “own” leaders? How many of their social media timelines have paid tribute to the victims of this great atrocity? I don’t think there is even one. What about the party that we generally think of as being our “own”? Not a word.

The fact of the matter is that the victims of Godhra have been forgotten. By *both* sides of the political spectrum. For one side, these victims are an inconvenient memory. For the other side, their death is no longer usable as a vote catcher. So, the dead of Godhra lie forgotten.

It is left to us, the common Hindus of India, to remember our dead. And mourn for them. These 59 dead are perhaps the most reviled among innocent victims of crimes anywhere. Who can forget that prominent news outlets in this country published “reports” soon after the Godhra carnage “accusing” the victims of refusing to pay Rs 5 to some hawker?

The price of 59 lives? Five rupees.

Then, the UPA government came in and created the Banerjee Commission, which produced a “report” saying that the fire was accidental. The Commission itself was later declared illegal by the Gujarat High Court, but copies of the Banerjee Commission report were waved triumphantly at UPA rallies by RJD’s Lalu Prasad Yadav, then a Cabinet Minister.

Remember this the next time they accuse some small right wing troll of “intolerance” in his/her tweets. Remind them that their Cabinet Ministers used to go around in their rallies waving nonsensical reports of illegal Commissions declaring that Godhra fire was accidental.

The next time they accuse you of reading “Whatsapp History,” remind them about the rumors they continue to spread about Godhra. Just because the lie is published in the New York Times or on BBC does not make it any less of a lie. The judgement has been confirmed by courts and the guilty have been sentenced. All liberal lies in the world won’t prove otherwise.

The fact remains that we forgot Godhra. We forgot the deaths of our fellow Hindus. Even I talk about it once a year, maybe.

Meanwhile, *every* single year on December 6, they go after Hindus, shaming Hindus over a defunct mosque. Like they showed in January this year, they can even dig up forgotten episodes from distant history and divide our Hindu society. There was a battle 200 years ago between two groups of Indian soldiers in Koregaon near Pune. It was a battle in which the only real winners were the British.

They dug up that memory and managed to divide Hindus today! And we Hindus fell for it!

Can you believe this?

Meanwhile, we have forgotten the massacre of Hindus on Feb 27, 2002. We are too busy settling the issue of which caste was defeated less badly by the British on Jan 1, 1818 in Koregaon!

Like the British, the liberal elite are nobody’s friends. They have no interest in Jats or Gujjars, they couldn’t care less for Patidars or Marathas or Dalits or Brahmins. The only thing they care about is getting their Shehzada to be Prime Minister so that they can get their Lutyens bungalows back.

Now, who will the Hindus that?

I conclude with a huge thanks to Gujarat High Court for canceling death penalty to 11 Godhra convicts, reducing them to life sentences. The night before Yakub Memon was hanged, some liberals stayed up all night petitioning the Supreme Court to give clemency (and perhaps a Bharat Ratna) to this angel of humanity. You saved them the trouble of having to go through the same drill. You also saved The Indian Express the trouble of printing a headline like “And they hanged … ”

 

 

Delhi High Court gives 10 days to NDTV

This appeared in the Economic Times

From the article:

“Delhi High Court has directed the tax department not to take any coercive action against it for a period of 10 days in case the assessing officer in the Rs 436.80 crore tax case for 2009-10 rejects the stay. ”

Folks, the noose is tightening … finally.

There’s actually not one but two pieces of good news here. First, NDTV is finally getting approaching the moment of truth, when its Rs 436 crore tax bill comes due. When they are reduced to 10 day stays, you know that the situation is dire.

That’s the first good news.

But the second one is even bigger. For me the big thing is here that the Economic Times has actually reported on this story. This *shatters* the omerta code between media houses of not spilling beans on each other.

We have all known for a while now that NDTV has been having legal problems (and boy, do they deserve it!!) But the news mostly filtered out to us from Twitter handles of people like Subramanian Swamy, a couple of other committed right wingers with legal inclinations and some websites like pgurus.com

I could be wrong on this, but this is the first time a completely mainstream news outlet like the Economic Times has published in detail about another media house getting into tax trouble.

Of course, the Economic Times piece is extremely cautious in itself and pretty much gives no details other than blandly stating the filings before and orders from the Delhi High Court. Now, this would not be wrong in itself. After all, isn’t it the gold standard of reporting to stick strictly to the facts and nothing but the facts?

The difference is that this gold standard of reporting is rarely ever followed in Indian media. Accusations and innuendos usually fly thick and fast in news “reports” and rarely is any distinction made between commentary and reportage. One wonders if Economic Times would have done such deadpan, factual reporting if the company at the center of Rs 436 crore tax soup were not NDTV, but say …. some guy whose third cousin has a business partner who had lunch with Gautam Adani.

The omerta code is not broken yet, but it’s definitely cracked. We haven’t got what we wanted, but we have definitely got more than we ever imagined. For those of us who remember distinctly the stony silence on Radia tapes, the Economic Times merely reporting on NDTV’s tax case seems like a giant leap forward.

I have no qualms crediting this change directly to the rise of Narendra Modi. Not really because of something he did, but the way his mere presence made people react. We always knew that the establishment hated the BJP, but they always made an effort to hold up a small fig leaf of plausible deniability. However tiny, this fig leaf was enough to maintain just a teeny tiny bit of public confidence in the media, at least among the 99% of the population that isn’t obsessed with politics.

This was actually more dangerous. Because as long as the mainstream media held on to a slight cloak of “neutrality,” secular propaganda could be administered more effectively.

But Modi’s presence changed that. However much the establishment tried, the mere sight of the man made them foam at the mouth with anger. They couldn’t hide it any more. Here, for example, is the headline of The Telegraph today, comparing Mohan Bhagwat’s words at the RSS Meerut meeting to Hitler’s Final Solution.

I don’t think The Telegraph realizes this, but a headline like this is bad for them and great for the BJP. Because by taking such an extremely hateful position, they have given too much warning to others about their political leanings. The Telegraph has made it that much harder for them to administer Congress propaganda disguised as “journalism.”

This is what hatred for Modi did to them. Their masks came off. The Telegraph here has managed to inform the whole world that they are Sonia Gandhi’s bootlickers. The 99% of people who are not obsessed with politics now know never to trust them again. Big mistake.

The other factor that contributed to this breaking of the omerta code is the rise of right wing channels like Republic TV. We all know how Republic TV crews have been treated … attacked by fellow journalists. And the establishment media bosses were thrilled when that happened. But, one of the unintended consequences of this is that journalists realized they were suddenly at liberty to tear down other media houses. You can’t control every last person in an organization with an iron hand. So, things like this happen … and one establishment media outlet ends up showing another’s dirty linen in public.

At the end, I have two questions. The first is for the media. If NDTV gets raided, will journalists again gather at the Press Club and protest? The last few days have seen lots of big and small businesses exposed in the public eye for looting public money. Just like NDTV’s case, not a single one of these are due to convictions or any other form of court judgements. All of these are, technically speaking, just accusations. Media has been calling them scams (and ABP News calls them “Mahaghotala”), not that I object to the description.

But will the business called NDTV be held to a different standard than Rotomac Pens? Will different nomenclature be used to describe NDTV’s tax case? We have seen media report details even of private lives of those it accuses of looting public money. I am not saying such reporting is right. I am only asking why this standard template being applied by media to reporting on Nirav Modi group, Rotomac Pens, Dwarka Das jewelers  etc is not being extended to NDTV?

The second question is for the Delhi High Court. In these 10 days, if the promoters of NDTV flee the country, who will be held responsible?

 

 

 

A super significant bypoll unfolds in Odisha today

Bijepur. A small Assembly Constituency of Odisha near the Chhattisgarh border. This is where history could be in the making today. What is unfolding here might become the pivot for a BJP comeback in 2019 and a firewall against a 2004 type result.

Let me explain. There’s a bypoll happening in this seat today, after the death of the sitting 3-term MLA who was from the Congress.

So, how come this poll is interesting? This seat sounds like it is a Congress stronghold anyway and with the sympathy factor working for the Congress, they should win hands down!

Not so fast. Wait! The wife of the deceased Congress MLA is in fact contesting from her husband’s seat, but on a ticket from Naveen Patnaik’s BJD!! The BJP is giving a furious contest in this seat by fielding an ex-BJD leader.

And the Congress? They are claiming they are more than just spectators. LOL!

The poll in Bijepur is the symptom of what has been unfolding across the nation. A sitting Congress seat, a stronghold of the Congress in fact, goes to polls but the Congress party does not even seem like a contender, let alone a winner.

Instead, it is the BJP that has stormed into the Opposition space. And it is the sheer energy of the BJP, it’s will to win, that is giving the entrenched satraps of India’s eastern seaboard sleepless nights.

The same story unfolded in Bengal only last month. A bypoll in Noapara, a constituency which had a sitting Congress MLA.  Forget winning, the Congress secures a humiliating 5% of the vote, losing its deposit. Instead, it is the BJP that comes out of nowhere and emerges as the runner up to the victorious Trinamool.

And of course the same story is unfolding in Tripura. A comatose Congress, which had never really challenged Manik Sarkar in his multiple terms in office, lies devastated and in the dust. In 2013, the BJP got less than 2% of the vote in Tripura. When the results come out on March 3, the BJP is likely to form the government in Agartala.

A state like Odisha could be the key to 2019. Naveen Patnaik has been the Chief Minister forever. There is bound to be significant voter fatigue. The Congress has faded away completely, leaving the Opposition space empty. In the local body polls last year, the BJP put up a tremendous performance in the districts of Odisha that border Chhattisgarh (the real strength of BJD lies in coastal Odisha).

A BJP win in Bijepur would set the cat among the BJD’s pigeons. It could lead to a complete collapse of the Congress vote, the Opposition defecting to join BJP en masse. With Modi as the mascot and a CM who has been in power since 2000, the energy of the BJP campaign can turn the state upside down in 2019. There are some scores that BJP has to settle with Naveen babu. Ten years ago, he betrayed the BJP at the eleventh hour before the 2009 Lok Sabha election. He thought BJP didn’t matter. In ten years, the BJP has come knocking on his doorstep, yearning for revenge.

Don’t forget that Odisha has 21 Lok Sabha seats. That’s nearly the same as Rajasthan. The entire anti-incumbency from Rajasthan can be made up from this one state.

My real nightmare for 2019 is always a 2004 like result, where we finish six seats behind Congress. That disaster happened because the BJP had a smaller national spread than the Congress. Can’t have that.

In order to avoid 2004, there is only one place to look : East.

And if we look East, we see that the Odisha story is extremely common : a powerful entrenched CM, facing a defunct opposition.

West Bengal : Entrenched Mamata, defunct CPM/Congress

Odisha : Entrenched Naveen, defunct Congress.

Telangana : Entrenched KCR, defunct Congress

Tripura : Entrenched Manik Sarkar, defunct Congress

In effect, these 4 states have become “Congress mukt,” but the anti-incumbent vote is simply lying there, waiting to be picked up by new ambitious political entrepreneurs.  Nobody better than BJP to fill the vacuum.

Together, these states make up 82 Lok Sabha seats. At the moment, I think the BJP has only 3 of these 82 seats!! Key to 2019?

Mamata gives Bengal a choice : secularism or Vivekananda?

In 1893, a young man in saffron made all of India proud at the Parliament of religions in Chicago. The Ramakrishna Mission that he established became renowned throughout the length and breadth of India for its social service, its emphasis on reform and focus on education. Since then, generations of Bengalis have prided themselves over the fact that the great Swami Vivekananda was born in our land.

But now, this icon faces a challenge and Bengalis face a choice. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s government has passed an order that all government schools must be painted in Didi’s favorite blue and white colors by March 5. On behalf of the taxpayer, the state government has already written a check for Rs 500 crore for this task.

Among these schools to be doused in blue and white, the Krishnachandrapur High School in South 24 Parganas, established by the Ramakrishna Mission in 1948. Swami Vivekananda’s saffron must go, to be replaced by Mamata Banerjee’s blue and white.

The Chief Minister has thrown the gauntlet before Bengali society. Mamata Banerjee or Swami Vivekananda? Make your choice now!

This situation has in it several lessons for Hindu society and let me make here an effort to list them all.

(1) First, it underlines the ruthlessness of the secular establishment. The secular establishment is committed to the absolute destruction of the Hindu psyche and the absolute humiliation of Hindus. Nothing less suffices. Swami Vivekananda inspires confidence and pride among Hindus. So, he must go.

It should be noted that Mamata Banerjee is only putting finishing touches to what the Left Front began by taking over this Ramkrishna Mission school in 1977. Now, Didi is wiping out Swami Vivekananda’s saffron color, as if, almost literally, to wipe him out of history.

This should be compared to the weak kneed response of India’s Hindu majority. Take the case of Aligarh Muslim University, which is a fully public funded institution *and* a minority institution at the exact same time. How? Nobody knows. In fact, there is even a verdict from the Supreme Court saying that the AMU cannot be a minority institution for the simple reason that it’s government run. And that Supreme Court verdict did not come yesterday. It came in 1967! No government has dared to enforce it. The Central Government has been appealing this verdict since 1967! In 2016, the Modi government withdrew the appeal but does that mean AMU will finally lose its minority status? Nobody knows.

Compare it to how the secular establishment gets things done. The Left Front government saw a Ramkrishna Mission school and just went and grabbed it. Now Mamata is even painting over the saffron so that the history of the school is lost forever. Case closed, sealed and buried.

(2) Second, it exposes all hollow claims by the secular establishment of having any respect for the regional diversity of India. In recent years, as the BJP has gained traction in Bengal, “intellectuals” have gotten into the act, warning that the BJP, supposedly the party of upper caste Hindu vegetarian males from North India, neither understands nor respects the local culture of Bengal.

Ha! Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee gets ready to wipe out Swami Vivekananda’s saffron! Is Swami Vivekananda also supposed to be a Hindi speaking male from North India? If Swami Vivekananda is not Bengali enough for you, who is?

So all this talk about Bengal’s unique culture and regional pride is just a ploy by the secular establishment to sow division among Indians and stem the rising tide of BJP. Inside Bengal, the secular establishment insists that Bengal must be completely stripped of its history, turned into one uniform kingdom that sees nothing except the supremacy of Didi’s blue and white.

(3) Faced with accusations of Hinduphobia, the secular establishment insists that there is a distinction between “Hindutva” and “Hinduism.” This episode in Bengal shows that this supposed distinction is pure made up nonsense.

No, Mamata Banerjee makes no distinction between saffron of BJP and saffron of Swami Vivekananda. The war on Hindus is very real. They don’t just have a problem with BJP, they have a problem with Hindus themselves. They get angry when they see anyone wearing saffron, even if it is Swami Vivekananda.

In fact, they will go after anything that sounds vaguely Hindu. Textbooks in Bengal even purged the word “ramdhonu” (meaning rainbow) and replaced it with “rongdhonu,” because the second word supposed to sound secular. Can’t have a Bengali word with “ram” in it! Did Modi invent this word? Did the RSS insert the word ramdhonu in the Bengali language? Of course not. We are seeing an inquisition of sorts against Hindus, where anything … a word for a rainbow, a color of paint … really anything can be seen as heresy against Indian secularism.

(4) There is now a concerted effort by liberal elites to destroy Swami Vivekananda in our national memory. This is related to (1), where I point out their commitment to destroying any icon that would make a Hindu feel proud about her/his place in the world.

In 2017, at the time people were commemorating the date of Swami Vivekananda’s historic Chicago address, Scroll came up with this mind boggling headline.

The gloves are off. Swami Vivekananda is not only a target for being a Hindu, he is now the man who apparently laid the “foundation” for India’s politics of sectarianism. Now you know who to blame for the Partition of India and the murder of 30 lakh people that went along with it.

In 2013, when the nation was outraging over the gangrape of Nirbhaya, The Hindu managed to find the real culprit.

Vivekananda’s “masculine pose” in photographs is to blame for the gangrape of Nirbhaya! How could we not have realized before something so obvious?

(5) The last and final lesson is also perhaps the most important. Hindus have to come out of their complacency. Yes, Mamata painting a school blue/white or one article in Scroll or one in The Hindu can’t destroy Vivekananda. Please be aware that the left is already fully aware of that. This is a victory that they intend to win inch by inch. Every little smear thrown at Swami Vivekananda pushes the envelope just a little. The difference will become visible decades later, when Swamiji is finally a hate figure that people are embarrassed to support.

Think it can’t happen? See what they did to Vande Mataram. At one time, it used to be one of the most revered battle cries of nationalism. But the left worked on it and worked on it … to the point that “cosmopolitan” Hindus today would be embarrassed to say it. In the future, they will do the same to Swami Vivekananda. They are working on it non-stop.

How to explain to Justin Trudeau the way we feel about Khalistanis

So, I hear that India is having a bit of a kerfuffle with Justin Trudeau, aka the Canadian Pappu. After he (reportedly) refused to meet Capt. Amarinder Singh, the Indian side went into a deep sulk. The result, one of the most humiliating welcomes that a Prime Minister of a G-7 country must have faced anywhere on earth.

Forget hugs from PM Modi, nobody knew who was the guy that welcomed Trudeau at the airport. Later, we found out that he’s the MoS for Agriculture. The next day Trudeau goes to Taj Mahal, but there’s no UP CM to welcome him. Then, he goes to Sabarmati Ashram, but Gujarat CM takes no interest. Forget meeting the Prime Minister, he does not get even a welcome tweet!

Finally, when Canadian Pappu is two steps away from being treated like a vagabond, the Canadian side gets the message. A meeting is set up with Capt. Amarinder Singh, after which the clouds lift somewhat. At least, Trudeau secures a meeting with Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani.

Wow! Almost unbelievable.

First of all, we must compliment the PM’s firm hand in dealing with the situation. An insult to our elected Punjab CM is an insult for us all. That Capt. Amarinder Singh is from the Congress is completely irrelevant. What a change from the days when Congress leaders would celebrate visa denials to elected Gujarat Chief Minister! What a change from the time 65 MPs wrote to a foreign head of state, requesting him to intervene in our domestic politics!

(On a side note, does anyone know how many of the Lok Sabha MPs among those 65 Jaichands could make it back into the sixteenth Lok Sabha? My guess is that not a single one made it.)

Secondly, we cannot overlook the fact that this is an outcome of India’s rising power and confidence in the world. Twenty years ago, no matter how much Indians felt insulted, I have no doubt we would have swallowed our anger and started wagging our tails humbly at the sight of a “world leader” from a rich “white” country. Not India of 2018.

We don’t take it no more. We dish it out.

Now, beyond that to the real point of this post, which was actually meant to be light hearted fun. I know Trudeau folded quickly after the Indian side showed its determination. Actually, folding is more like Trudeau’s best move. Apologizing is his speciality. Although I wouldn’t take it seriously until he cries along with it …

So, I cannot but feel that even though we might have won this specific diplomatic round, we haven’t really managed to get our message through to Trudeau. If he had really understood, he would have cried! Obviously, we have no reason to make an enemy out of Canada and so here are some humble suggestions to the Govt of India to get our message across to Justin Trudeau.

The essence of these tricks is all the same : we have to speak to Trudeau in his own language, the language of liberal social justice warrior bullshit. 

For example, this kind of talk, which comes from the former Indian High Commissioner to Canada, won’t work at all:

“We would expect a friendly country to show more sensitivity to India’s concerns and not allow anti-India activities or hatred and disaffection against India to be whipped up by just a few misguided elements who have made this their business – because 99.9% of the Sikh diaspora is friendly towards India and considers India their cultural home. It is just a microscopic section of the diaspora that is doing what it is doing, but in the last two to three years since the Liberal government came to power, we find they are emboldened.”

Whoa! Wrong approach to point out to Trudeau that only a “microscopic section” of the Sikh diaspora harbors Khalistani sentiments.  Liberals are programmed to pander to minorities. The moment Trudeau hears that word, he will be wagging his tail even harder in front of the Khalistan supporting minority. And if you add that they are a “microscopic” minority, he will be salivating even harder.

Instead, try something like this:

(1) Say that Khalistanis are carrying out “microaggression” against India

Liberal  brains by nature cannot process the enormity of evil. That’s why they support Communists and Islamists and all kinds of terrorists. So if you tell them about the pain of terrorism, it won’t appeal to their sensibilities.

Instead, let’s tell them that the idea of Khalistan is a “micro-aggression.” A micro-aggression is a form of extreme offense caused to a group that one cannot see easily. Since you cannot actually see micro-aggressions, liberals are totally convinced that these things exist. Tell Trudeau that the idea of Khalistan is a micro-aggression against Indians and the reason he can’t see it is because of his white male privilege. And then enjoy the reaction.

(2) Say that talk of Khalistan “triggers” Indian sensibilities

As a country of brown people, we have enormous bargaining power over Trudeau through encashing his white guilt. If he wants to know how we feel, tell him the word Khalistan “triggers” our painful memories of Partition. Especially, tell him how badly it triggers us when this kind of activity happens on Canadian soil, which used to be part of the British Empire.

(3) Say that our leaders are not snubbing him, they just need to be in their ‘safe spaces’

Liberals grow up in a bubble of privilege where they have never heard any opposing view. Their living rooms are full of “participation prizes” and other honors they have “won” in “contests” where everybody is declared a winner. So when they hear something unpleasant, liberals have to run away and burrow into so called ‘safe spaces’ where those from the real world are strictly forbidden.  So, let’s not offend the guy by telling him that our PM doesn’t want to meet him.

Just tell him that our PM got so “triggered” by their “micro-aggressions” on Khalistan that he had to go away to his ‘safe space.’

(4) Explain that the demand for Khalistan is racist and sexist

If you want to get a liberal to listen to you, use the word “patriarchy.”

How many Khalistani leaders are women? Even a cursory glance at the list of Khalistani terrorists and their sympathizers in Canada would show that it is heavily male dominated. This proves that Khalistan is actually a conspiracy by the patriarchy.

In fact, just keep repeating the word “patriarchy.” It’s a magic word; you can use it to get any liberal to eat out of your hands.

(5) Tell him that demand a white Canadian supporting Khalistan is a form of ‘cultural appropriation’

Liberals believe that when a white person adopts something from another culture : be it even a taste in food, a kind of dress or even a piece of music, s/he must seek “permission” from that culture. For example, a white woman wearing a saree is supposed to be incredibly offensive to Indian women for some unclear reason. Also, how a white person is supposed to take “permission” from an entire culture is beyond me.

Nevertheless, I can see that this kind of muddled reasoning of liberals can be used profitably by India. How dare white male Canadian Pappu adopt the demand for Khalistan without seeking appropriate permission? Isn’t this incredibly offensive to brown skinned Khalistanis?

(6) And finally the bomb : Explain that the demand for Khalistan is homophobic and transphobic. 

For a liberal, the possibility of being called “transphobic” or “homophobic” is something they fear more than anthrax. So, why not use it against them? Let’s point out to Canadian Pappu that homosexuals and transgender individuals are nowhere in the Khalistani leadership. Let’s point out that Khalistani leaders do not embrace gay marriage and definitely have never advocated for transgender bathroom choice.

You want to see Canadian Pappu cry? Dear government of India, try this please. Thank me later.

Shocking! Is Rahul Gandhi’s Data Analytics Chief against loan waivers for poor farmers?

On Feb 5, 2018, Congress President Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter to announce the appointment of one Praveen Chakravarty as the head of the party’s Data Analytics Unit.

Anybody who is even vaguely familiar with Congress culture will understand what a huge deal it is to be welcomed with a publicized handshake from Rahul Gandhi himself. Suffice to say Praveen Chakravarty will play a key role in shaping the Congress party’s strategies and policies going forward.

However, it seems that Mr. Praveen Chakravarty has, in the past, made some highly controversial observations regarding economic policies that are intended to directly benefit the poorest of our citizens. Sample, this piece, which we wrote for Bloomberg.

This was written in June 2017, shortly after loan waivers were announced to farmers in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The divisiveness is apparent from the headline, which is a shameful attempt to pit the poor of various states against each other. More shockingly, he writes thus:

“1.5 crore farmers of the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) were granted a waiver of their agriculture loans, totalling Rs 36,000 crore or $5 billion by the UP government. The farmers of UP did not need to indulge in creative protests for these loan waivers. They were just rewarded for voting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into power in their recent state elections. The TN farmers are still protesting, to no avail.”

See the mocking tone in the words: “The farmers of UP did not need to indulge in creative protests for these loan waivers”. 

Seems like Rahul Gandhiji’s Data Analytics chief demands that suffering farmers should have set up some kind of amusing spectacle for the ruling class so that they could “earn” their loan waiver! What kind of heartlessness is this?

The heartlessness is followed in the next line by his obvious irritation : “They were just rewarded for voting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into power in their recent state elections.”

And he concludes his paragraph by pitting the hardship of one group of farmers against those of another: “The TN farmers are still protesting, to no avail.”

If there was ever a display of arrogance, privilege of wealth, condescension towards the poor and the policy of divide and rule all rolled into one, this is it!

It should be remembered that Rahul Gandhi himself, during his campaign in the UP election, had promised loan waiver to farmers along with making several other promises. In fact, he did an entire yatra on this issue from Deoria to Delhi. He even called it the Kisan Yatra!!!

So, did the thinking in the Congress Party regarding loan waivers suddenly change simply because the people of Uttar Pradesh chose to rebuff Rahul Gandhi’s advances?

Considering that Praveen Chakravarty is now a key man in the party, the Congress and Rahul Gandhi should make it clear what is their stance on loan waivers for Uttar Pradesh farmers? Are they for or against it? Do they think that UP’s farmers deserved a helping hand from the state or not?

Or are they waiting for UP’s farmers to hold a protest that is “creative” enough to amuse the people in the top echelons of the Congress party and melt their hearts?

The rest of Praveen Chakravarty’s article is packed with sentences intended to rub the noses of people of India’s poorest states into the ground. Such as this:

“The average Bihari gets back a whopping Rs 420 for every Rs 100 that he or she gives while the Maharashtrian only gets back Rs 15. … Out of every Rs 100 that the average resident of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka contribute to the Centre in taxes, three-quarters (Rs 75) of it goes to help the other states and the Centre. On the other hand, for every Rs 100 that the average resident of Bihar, UP, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh contribute, they get back roughly Rs 200. ”

Now that Mr. Chakravarty is head of the Congress’ Data Analytics unit, I think we deserve to know what he feels the numbers should be. What does the Congress think? By how much should the benefits for states such as Bihar, UP, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh be cut?

Mr. Chakravarty ends with a fairly clear advocacy for cutting benefits to the poor in these states:

“It may be tempting to interpret the economic disparity among India’s states as a case for more redistribution from the richer to the poorer states. But given India’s unique political and social diversity, it will likely be counter-productive with adverse consequences. ”

Decisive words:

“Counter productive with adverse consequences”

Their views on farm loan waivers in Uttar Pradesh and welfare programs for the poor of states such as Bihar, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh.

We don’t expect a sympathetic attitude from the Congress Party towards the poor. No other party has benefited so much from the poverty and backwardness of India. But I think we deserve a clarification from Rahul Gandhiji. Does he find welfare programs for the poor to be “counter productive with adverse consequences?” Yes or no.

Did you know that Modi govt has kicked out 1500 squatters from Lutyens bungalows?

Yesterday, the Prime Minister inaugurated the BJP’s gleaming new headquarters on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg in New Delhi. Naturally, this event was highlighted prominently by most major news portals, channels and newspapers.

Predictably, there were also people on social media taking potshots at the PM and the ruling party, mocking them for making a show of wealth and asking why the party needs grand new headquarters. While these people were misinformed, I feel that it is unfair to call them trolls. Because the media at large has done a very poor job of informing the public about what goes on in Lutyens’ Delhi. This is likely a direct result of the fact that the media is closely involved with the exact same power elite that has benefited all these years from the colonial comforts of Lutyens’ bungalows.

So, here are the facts. Why is the BJP moving? Because there is actually a directive from the Supreme Court asking not just BJP, but *all* parties to vacate their Lutyens’ bungalows and move out.

So, for any Modi baiters out there on social media trying to shame the ruling party, the BJP is not making a show of wealth. It is merely being the first and only party so far to comply with the Supreme Court order. Too bad for you.

And, for sure, the Congress Party has also been allotted space in New Delhi for its own office. In fact, Dr. Manmohan Singh and Madam Sonia Gandhiji laid the foundation stone for the Congress’ new HQ as far back as Dec, 2009. And the Congress has done with this new space exactly what you would expect the Congress to do with anything it can get its ‘hands’ on. It took the new space *and* kept all the four bungalows that it was already occupying in Lutyens’ zone.

Their real election symbol is a closed fist, the open palm of the hand is just for show.

This also seems like an opportune moment to talk about the cleaning up that has happened in Lutyens’ Delhi since the Modi government came to power. In the first year itself, more than 460 squatters were sent packing out of their cozy Lutyens’ bungalows. Many of them had been staying there for generations, some approached the courts with appeals to let them keep their fiefdoms. But to no avail.

Ajit Singh, the son of former PM Charan Singh was squatting on a bungalow. He was locked out and his belongings thrown on the lawn.

Painter Jatin Das, father of actor Nandita Das, was enjoying another bungalow in Lutyens. Evicted!

Have you ever wondered why Modi has no friends? Why it is always “Modi vs all”?

That is one possible answer right there. Only today, Nikhil Wagle was asking in The Print why Narendra Modi does not have an army of intellectuals defending him,  unlike the Nehru-Gandhis. Dear Nikhil, this information may be of interest to you!

More than 460 evictions from Lutyens’ Delhi in his first year alone. But Narendra Modi was just getting started. By late 2016, the number of evictions had swelled to 1500.

You know why they love living in Lutyens’ bungalows so much? Because of the colonial sense of privilege, the prestige and the fact that all of it comes for the low price tag of only around Rs 16,000 a month.

But, as The Hindustan Times reported,

“the government came up with a rule, fixing 10% additional charge to the rent for the first month of overstay. For the second, the penalty goes up to 20%, and doubles each subsequent month until the charge reaches the maximum limit of Rs 10 lakh.”

The penalty doubles each subsequent month?

You can draw a graph and sketch the rising intolerance.

As I mentioned before, there are only a handful of articles in the media documenting this clean up mission in Lutyens’ Delhi. There is even a whataboutist article in The Wire explaining how the Congress had been more generous in letting people, including BJP leaders, hang out in Lutyens’ bungalows in the past.  But while scanning these few articles, I found this absolute gem of a quote in The Telegraph from an unnamed Congress MP.

“The Congress had a long tradition of not implementing the rules so strongly.”

This quote should go on the Congress party’s flag. Now you know why it is always “Modi vs all.”

 

 

 

 

Tripura : History unfolds

 

I will place my cards on the table. BJP is winning Tripura. Here is just a glimpse of the enthusiasm.

A piece of unprecedented gathering at Tripura to watch and listen PM Shri @narendramodi Ji on 15-02-2018 pic.twitter.com/AoN1TUUvM9

— BJP Tripura (@BJP4Tripura) February 17, 2018

 

As a Bengali, I have always wanted to see a BJP vs CPIM battle someday. As fate would have it, the Comrades ran away from Bengal before the BJP managed to stand up there. But Tripura, for me, is a small proxy for the battle we couldn’t have in Bengal.

Wind up your red flag Manik Sarkar. Pick up that your blood stained hammer and sickle. It is time for the lotus to bloom.

What I learned from PM Modi and why I am a BJP supporter

Yesterday, at PM Modi’s special event for “exam warriors,” one Girish Singh, a Class XI student from Delhi asked the Prime Minister the following question (rough paraphrase):

My Board Exams are next year. But you also have a board exam coming up in 2019. How are your preparations for that?

I really wanted to listen. And the crux of the answer brought tears to my eyes. After some general remarks regarding karma, hard work and optimism, the Prime Minister said (again, slight paraphrase)

“Many years ago, there used to be a party called the Jan Sangh. It’s symbol was a deepak. I was a member of that party. Those were the days when we didn’t even have the money to paint our election symbol the deepak anywhere. With great difficulty, we managed to find 103 candidates to contest the Gujarat elections for our party. And it so happened that in the election, as many as 99 candidates lost their deposits. But four deposits came back. We in the Jan Sangh were so delighted that we had a celebration for saving those four deposits. We celebrated, we ate mithai. It is this attitude that has carried us from there to here.”

You may not be a BJP supporter. You may be a supporter of Congress. Or even some regional party. Perhaps you are not even interested in politics. But you know that there is a lesson to learned there.

What is your dream in life? Perhaps you are a student preparing for Board Exams. Do you dream of going to IIT and getting a high paid job? Do you want to become a doctor? Do you dream of becoming a great scientist and winning a Nobel Prize? Do you want to become an author or a poet?

It doesn’t matter. There is a lesson for you to learn from the way the BJP and the Sangh Parivar have built themselves up in India’s politics against “impossible” odds.

What do I have to learn from the Congress? What do I have to learn from Rahul Gandhi? That if my great grandfather was rich and powerful, I don’t have to work for a day in my life? Is that supposed to be a lesson?

I don’t blame Rahul Gandhi for being born into the Dynasty. Obviously, he did not choose to be born in it. But the fact remains that his life provides me with ZERO actionable lessons. He was born a privileged prince, I was born a common person. There’s literally nothing I can do with information about the life he has lived, immune to failure no matter what.

If there is a lesson from Rahul baba’s life, it is roughly this: Lottery winners are lucky. That is a tautology. There’s nothing I can do with that information. Can you?

When we were kids, every story that we heard from our elders and every story that was in our school textbooks was supposed to end in a “moral.” A common theme was something like this: Rich kid has everything in life, grows arrogant and lazy and treats everyone else poorly.  Meanwhile, poor kid works harder because he gets nothing handed to him.

Finally a day comes when the poor kid grows up and becomes much more successful than the rich kid. You could easily name lots of movies and TV serials with the same basic plot.

For me, that is also the story of the BJP/RSS versus the Gandhis. No matter, what the Gandhis did, every action of theirs was praised to high heaven by courtiers in media, academia and popular culture. This is not limited simply to courtiers praising Rahul Gandhi merely for taking a break from vacation to campaign somewhere, or gushing desperately to write “Rahul has come of age” every time he manages to spell his name correctly. This has been happening for decades. Let’s just ask a few simple questions:

Who brought the Emergency? Congress did. But which party is repeatedly accused of being fascist? RSS/BJP!

Which party runs purely on hereditary privilege? Congress. But which party do our intellectuals accuse of having a casteist and/or feudal mindset? RSS/BJP!

Which party has massacred 1000 lakh people across the world? Communists. But which party is repeatedly accused of being violent? RSS/BJP.

Which party made a deal with the British about dividing India? Which party presided over Partition riots that killed 30 lakh people? Which party’s leaders were at the breakfast table of the British everyday?  Who benefitted most from the deals they made with the British?

All Congress!

Yet, who got “credit” for independence of India? Congress!

Who got accused of riots and of conspiring with the British? Not the people who presided over Partition riots that killed 30 lakh people. Not the people who were at the breakfast table with the British Viceroy everyday. But the RSS/BJP got blamed.

No, seriously. Please see here Sudheendra Kulkarni’s blog on NDTV explaining why RSS thought is the real reason for the division of India. Did you know?

The Congress tried to ban the Sangh multiple times. Another example of their belief in freedom of expression. But despite all the crushing odds, the RSS/BJP survived. Just like the moral “rich kid vs poor kid” theme I was talking about.

Not only did RSS/BJP survive, they thrived. And one day they stood up so high that they dwarfed the Grand Old Party of privilege.

There is a lesson there. And you can learn it and apply it to your own life. Whether or not you support BJP.

Right now, the Congress Party is reduced to just five Chief Ministers. There are three Assembly Elections happening right now. You would think that Rahul Gandhi would be moving mountains to capture power in those states.

But, no, the rich kid doesn’t care. Rahul Gandhi made a summary appearance in Tripura yesterday, almost a formality. Who is sweating hard to win Tripura? Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. They have 14 Chief Ministers but they are fighting for more.

A lesson to be learned there. Because in the Gujarat elections of December, Amit Shah, now party President, voted at the same place where he used to be a booth worker. It is only when you know what it means to work hard and achieve success that your life contains lessons for others.

But Rahul can’t care about Tripura. It’s too small for him. It has just 2 Lok Sabha seats. But the BJP knows the value of 2 Lok Sabha seats. Back in 1984, their entire tally was just 2!

One difficult day in 1958, Atalji sat down with Advaniji to his side and assured him, Phir subah hogi (There will be a new dawn). It’s the courage that comes from knowing that you are building up something from the ground up. The taste of mithai from the celebration of 4 candidates saving their deposits in Gujarat … that is the taste that stays with you and propels you to six consecutive victories in the state.

You may not be a BJP supporter. But you know you can always learn something from them and strive to make your life a little better. To aim higher. To work harder. And then, ask yourself: is there anything you can learn from Rahul Gandhi? Anything at all?