Right wing should frustrate liberals with strategic silence

Does it ever frustrate you? That even after losing two general elections in a row (and by massive margins), liberals still seem to hold a psychological edge over the right? That every time, we end up rushing to them, asking the ‘intolerance gang’ and ‘award wapsi gang’ and ‘tukde gang’ to speak up on this or that. As if their reaction is the only thing that matters. As if nothing means anything unless validated by a liberal.

And I am as guilty of this as anyone else. Perhaps even more guilty than the average online right winger.

But please hear me out on this.

Let me give you a small example. In your social media interactions, perhaps even with friends on Facebook, you must have come across this phenomenon.

Phenomenon 1

Liberal posts something from <insert usual suspect website/news channel>

RW: X, Y and Z in that article is wrong. Point number 3, 4 and 7 in that article is hypocritical. This website is biased. Why won’t it talk about A, B and C?

Liberal : Shut up you idiot, don’t do whataboutism.

Phenomenon 2

RW posts something from a right wing website or news channel.

RW: Hey liberal, see this!

Liberal : LOL! Fake news. F*ck it.

Now, neither side managed to convert anyone, as arguments rarely do. But there is a crucial difference between how a right winger treats a liberal website and a liberal treats a right wing website.

The liberal will dismiss the right wing website as fake and stupid, without even clicking on it. 

The right winger will actually read what the liberal posted, get angry and try to poke holes in it. 

Of course, it is a good thing to be informed about opposing viewpoints before picking on them. But do you see what happened here? The left wing website got due respect and validation from *both* sides of the aisle. By engaging with it, the right winger helped make the left wing website appear like a genuine authoritative source of information, providing a viewpoint worthy of respect.

The liberal on the other hand treated the right wing website with outright contempt, refusing to engage with it, dismissing it as fake by definition.

Globally, how did all the ‘authoritative’ sources of information get to be far left? Like New York Times or BBC? Precisely because the right wing keeps walking into this trap every single time.

Do you remember the contempt from liberals when Deepak Chaurasia was attacked at Shaheen Bagh a few days ago? Republic TV crew have also been attacked, heckled, manhandled. Just yesterday, the Zee News crew was attacked and dragged by anti-CAA rioters. But see the liberal reactions : each one saying that Chaurasia, or Zee News or Republic are not “journalists” at all.

Why not? Because Zee News refused to accept that people at Shaheen Bagh are magically receiving “kudrati khaana” directly from heaven?

But see how liberals don’t give even an inch to their adversaries, refusing to treat them with even an iota of respect.

Rather they make the right wing run around in circles, arguing and begging with the liberals to say a word about this or that. As if liberals have a conscience.

The good news is that we can do to them exactly what they do to us. We can frustrate them with our strategic silence on what they want to talk about. Let them be the ones begging with us to utter a word on this or that. Let’s act like we can’t hear them. Let’s talk about what we feel is important and act as if we cannot even hear their outrage, let alone respond to it. Let them foam at the mouth.

What explains this psychological edge that liberals enjoy? It’s a deep seated feeling of inadequacy that the left has sowed in us through its decades of control over every textbook, every newspaper, every magazine and every TV channel.

This was their backup plan. They knew they could lose elections some day, but they would retain the right to “validate” things, an abstract power that cannot be measured in real terms. And as long as they held that power, the right, even if it won elections, would feel inadequate and insecure, seeking out their approval.

I’ll give you another example. Every now and then, there’s a liberal out there who calls the right wing uneducated, illiterate, or something like that. This leads to a flood of responses, with right wingers announcing their educational degrees and professional success.

If you think about it, that’s a huge psychological victory for the liberal. It’s not like they didn’t know there were educated and successful people on the right. But they still managed to bait the right and get under their skin. They’re enjoying this.

Remember that the Indian liberal has spent decades rubbing their noses on the ground before a political dynasty whose leading lights have rarely managed to finish college.

Indira Gandhi wasn’t a college graduate.

Rajiv Gandhi wasn’t a college graduate.

Sanjay Gandhi wasn’t a college graduate.

Sonia Gandhi isn’t a college graduate!

How could loyalists of this dynasty manage to make other people insecure about their education? Only because the other side let them do it.

If the right had treated liberals with as much condescension as the liberals treat the right, this would never have happened.

Now, let me give you an example of something that the right did very successfully, which can serve as an instructive model. In the 2007-2014 period, at the dawn of social media in India, the right wing became an early adopter of possibilities offered by technology. They used this very successfully to turn the establishment candidate for ‘youth icon’ into a clown prince that everyone laughed at. And his career simply never recovered. Even liberals today are shy to defend him. Whenever it comes to him, it is liberals who are inadequate, feeling insecure, playing catch up, trying to prop him somehow. The outright contempt for him worked. It became the default across the political spectrum.

Of course, social media was a new thing. The right had the first mover advantage. The left has certainly leveled the playing field long ago. But see the power of defaults. Despite the fact that the left has just as much power on social media, they struggle to validate their leader.  Every few days they dust him up and beg before the right for validation. Do you concede he has grown up now? How about now? Okay, now?

Now you can see the structural reasons why the left still has a psychological edge in everything else. They got to set all the defaults. The right is still very new in power. Like a teenager, they want to rebel against the established ways, but they also crave  validation from the very generation they rebel against!

But all this can change. The right can set its own terms and absolutely refuse to give respect unless the respect is returned in equal measure. In other words, this is about growing up! Let’s make this happen.

 

Prashant Kishor to join TMC? My sympathies with Didi

One of my favorite TV sequences is this exchange from the comedy series South Park. Here, Eric Cartman, an obnoxious bully, realizes that he has to be nice to his classmate Kyle, because he wants to get invited to his birthday party. Read how Cartman struggles with being “nice”

Cartman cannot see the difference between being nice and putting on a nice sweater. When Jimmy tells him that the best way to act nice is to be genuinely nice, all Cartman can retort is : “How do you act genuinely nice?”

Cartman cannot recognize that there is something fundamentally wrong with him. He’s looking for props, a nice sweater, a way to act nice.

This is why the opposition keeps losing to Modi. They refuse to acknowledge the hard work of the BJP/RSS workers who have made the Modi wave happen. They refuse to acknowledge the genuine connect that Modi has with the masses.

Instead, they are convinced there is some super secret propaganda trick somewhere that Modi is using. Some unseen giant brainwashing machine that he is using to cast a spell on the public. And only if they can get their hands on the miracle potion that Modi uses, they will win just as big as he does.

Ironically, their left wing media allies are the biggest enemies of the opposition, aiding and abetting their illusion. After 2014, the media told them that Modi’s victory wasn’t real, offered them all sorts of consolations like “just 31% voted for Modi,” completely forgetting that 31% is the highest vote share of a ruling party since 1991!

And when they were done consoling the opposition with useless data points, they said Modi’s victory was all the work of one miracle man: Prashant Kishor. The media and the opposition desperately wanted to believe it. And they all fell for their own wishful thinking.

A few days ago, I had pointed out just how far Prashant Kishor had gone when he overstepped the CM to announce that there would be no CAA in Bihar. I had pointed out that this is an extreme insult to Nitish Kumar. This looked like a red line that nobody ever crosses in Indian politics. I mean: who is PK? What post does he hold? Does he have 10 votes of his own? This was the first time I began to doubt whether things were going well between Nitish and PK.

I had also pointed out that PK’s Twitter profile carries no sign of his relationship with JDU, even though he used to be a party vice president. No party colors, no party symbol, no mention of his party post and no pic of Nitish Kumar. Does PK believe that mannerisms of Indian politics don’t apply to him at all?

Good that I was proved right about the falling out between him and Nitish, as this outright spat now shows.

#WATCH Bihar CM on Prashant Kishor:Someone wrote a letter I replied to it,someone is tweeting,let him tweet. What do I've to do with it? One can stay in the party (JD-U) till he wants,he can go if he wants…Do you know how did he join the party?Amit Shah asked me to induct him. pic.twitter.com/wlN4Q2o9uo

— ANI (@ANI) January 28, 2020

Give it to Nitish Kumar here. He knows how to push the right buttons when showing someone their place. He said that PK had been brought into JDU at the behest of Amit Shah. Think about the kind of equation that PK and Amit Shah are rumored to have. I don’t know if PK has been able to sleep since then. This is an insult from Nitish Kumar that qualifies as “Modi class.” Remember how Modi stuck it to Hamid Ansari while bidding him farewell in the Rajya Sabha? That kind of biting insult…

PK has been jumping up and down since that day. And now there is word of him joining the TMC.

जेडीयू से निकाले जाने के बाद प्रशांत किशोर के तृणमूल कांग्रेस ज्वाइन करने की अटकलें लगाई जा रही थी… https://t.co/mzjG0IytkE@PrashantKishor

— News18 Bihar (@News18Bihar) January 30, 2020

My sympathies with Didi in advance if PK is going to join her.

The media tries to project PK as some kind of Chanakya out to get his revenge on Mahapadma Nanda. To me, he seems more like a know nothing guy with a big ego, his illusions reinforced by desperate left wing media.

For all her faults, Didi is a ground level politician, a mass leader. So is Amit Shah and the entire BJP/RSS machine of karyakartas.

Bringing in PK just means that Didi is going to take her eye off the ball, get distracted from the ground and think that elections can be won in the air. And that’s the biggest mistake when faced with someone like Amit Shah.

According to me, here’s the expected trajectory should PK actually join TMC: ground workers are sidelined to make way for PK’s so called strategies. In return, PK will act as if he is above the party and its workers, as if he is the reason Didi is in power. Will cause much heartburn among real workers, more mistrust, accusations and jealousy. This will take TMC to a shattering defeat before Amit Shah. After which there will be a fallout between PK and Didi. PK will then move on to another desperate opposition party looking for a miracle to save itself from BJP. My sympathies in advance with that future party as well…

Let’s see how much of this comes true.

Sharjeel Imam : Are liberals preparing us to accept Bharat ke tukde?

Notice anything?

“Scholar”. “Activist”.

He called openly for tearing India into pieces. Said that the chicken’s neck belongs to Muslims and they should cut off Assam and the North East from India. Said openly that non-believers can only join their cause as second class citizens on terms set by Muslims.

Still a scholar? Still just an activist?

And now, get a load of this.

Intellectuals are out to defend this one too. Not surprisingly, Sharjeel Imam is still a victim. This time his comments are being cherry picked.

When Faiz’s poem on breaking idols was being recited, that was supposed to be a poetic metaphor.

One wonders exactly what a liberal would have to say for his comments to be considered as hate speech. Apparently, there are no limits. If anything, liberals are using Sharjeel Imam to push the envelope even further, demanding even more abject submission to Islamism.

We have to realize that with each passing day, we are becoming conditioned to the subjugation of our country.

Rewind to the days of 2015-16 when the Bharat ke tukde and Azaadi slogans first surfaced. Liberals were terrified, scrambling to dissociate themselves from the event. They knew public opinion would not spare them.

The liberal ecosystem was spooked. They threw the kitchen sink, calling the videos fake, doctored, saying that the slogans were shouted by BJP agents planted in the crowd and what not. The key is that liberals were on the defensive.

Not any more. Day by day, the chant of Azaadi was normalized, moralized and even glamorized. A slogan taken from terrorists in Kashmir was branded as a form of dissent.

So what is wrong in a slogan such as “XYZ se Azaadi”, where XYZ could be poverty, unemployment, or maybe some social evil? Nothing if you take it literally. But the slogans are intended to work on a more subliminal level, gradually normalizing the form and idiom used by terrorists.

Liberals understand this marketing trick very well. And there is a reason they are choosing to use the idiom of terrorists. Otherwise, do you think that Hindi and English are so short of vocabulary that liberals could not have picked any alternative words to express their dissent?

Why do you think liberals repeatedly morph the Hindu Swastika or sacred Om symbol into a Nazi hooked cross? What point are they making? Has Hitler or his hateful ideology ever had any significance whatsoever in the Indian political context? Liberals do it because they understand the power of subliminal messaging. They constantly trying to create an association in Indian and Western minds that Hindus are somehow connected to Nazis.

The same with Faiz’s poem on breaking idols. Was there no other way to verbalize dissent against CAA than use the metaphor of breaking idols? Of course there was. But liberals wanted us to see the world using an Islamic idiom.

When some people objected, top liberals put them down by calling them culturally illiterate. Take that! Unless you subscribe to an Islamic idiom, expressed in high flown Urdu, you’re an illiterate. If you read Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four, language is the most potent weapon of controlling the mind. They want to cripple our ability to express any thoughts against the supremacy of the Islamist worldview. When we criticize our government, we are required to adopt rhetoric that sees idol worshipers as inherently low.

Notice how they reject Vande Mataram, but embrace Faiz.

A metaphor of the nation as a mother goddess makes you a bigot. You have to think of idols as the ultimate metaphor for evil and express all your thoughts as per those rules of rhetoric.

Once you adopt their rhetorical scheme, you won’t even have the words to resist Islamist subjugation. Your mind may feel unhappy, but your words will fail you. And when your words fail, your ideas will never spread. You are finished.

Remember the ‘sheroes’ from the Jamia protest last month. People dug into their social media histories and discovered that they were fans of Yakub Memon. But in 2019-20, the discovery barely made a scratch on their public image. Remember that Yakub Memon was involved in a terrorist attack that killed 250 innocent people. His sympathizers are ‘sheroes’ today. Let that sink in.

Even worse, ordinary people now take liberals sympathizing with Yakub Memon for granted. It does not shock them.

If you dig into Sharjeel Imam’s social media history, you will find the same tropes about sympathizing with Yakub Memon and Afzal Guru. Nobody is surprised any more. We have become numb, desensitized to such rhetoric. Remember that Afzal Guru was hanged in the UPA era. Would the UPA have hanged Afzal Guru today? I doubt it.

Now liberals are extending intellectual cover to Sharjeel Imam. Four years ago, the nation was shocked by slogans of Bharat ke tukde and Azaadi. Today we have a man who calmly gives the details of a plan to actually tear the country into pieces. Liberals are no longer shy of defending him. They don’t deny. They don’t distance themselves. They demand that we retreat.

If they win this rhetorical war, tomorrow they will all speak openly about strategies of tearing India into pieces, state by state.

This is how far we have been pushed as a country. Where do we draw the line?

Billion $$$ vs billion people : Why we should be scared of George Soros

April 1992. The UK General Election is about to happen. The left wing Labor Party, buoyed by favorable opinion polls, is hoping to unseat the ruling Conservatives. The Labor Party is on a high, right until the moment they begin counting the votes. In a stunning outcome, it is actually the Conservatives who coast to a majority, winning 336 of the 651 Parliamentary seats. Labor is far behind, with just 271.

Fine. Time to shrug off and accept the verdict. The people have spoken. In a democracy, the people are supreme.

Or are they?

Across the Atlantic, a group of wealthy investors in New York were getting ready, amassing billions of dollars. They were going to bet big money that the British Pound would sink, a so called ‘short position.’ Then, in one fell swoop, on the morning of Sept 16, 1992, they increased their short position to $10 billion and started selling pounds in a sudden flood.

The Bank of England tried to fight back, raising interest rates from 10% to 12% within hours. Remember that the RBI and the market spend months discussing even a 0.25% rate change. And we’re talking about a 2% increase here decided between 9 AM in the morning and noon. Imagine the panic.

But the Bank of England was overwhelmed, left helpless. The British Pound collapsed. In a month or so, the wealthy investors made over a billion dollars in profit.

The leader of that pack of investors? This man.

The name? George Soros.

He has billions of dollars. Do you know how much 1 billion dollars is? One billion is one thousand million. That’s 1 followed by nine zeros.

What’s the biggest sum of money you have ever seen?

Do you have what it takes to defend our democracy? Our sovereignty?

The UK was left economically devastated after the September 1992. Elections happened in 1997. The Conservatives lost miserably and couldn’t win power until 2010.

This man is now coming for us.

Think about what India’s left wing elite could do with a billion dollars. Every public intellectual, every think tank, every newspaper editorial could be changed. Think of the people that NGOs would hand all this money to. Think of the level of outrage that could be sponsored by a billion dollars.

What is our response? How are we going to defend ourselves?

True, the loopholes that Soros used to sink the British economy in 1992 have mostly been closed today. A French court in 2002 convicted Soros of insider trading in a case related to the French Bank Societe Generale.

But this is not about one man. This is about the entire global left that has drawn a bullseye around India and Modi. The UK didn’t realize the loophole until they were sunk in 1992. Somebody could find something else that is still out there; somebody who wants to take down India.

The UK was an economic superpower in 1992. If it could happen to them, it could happen to us. Imagine if the Indian Rupee was destroyed. Our markets would tank, our economy would sink, import bills would soar, the price of everything would go up immediately. There would be starvation and food riots in the streets.

Do you think the global left would not do this to us if they got a chance?

Something very significant for India happened in 2019, that economic doomsayers won’t talk about. India ended the year as officially the fifth largest economy in the world, a comfortable $200 – $250 billion ahead of the France and the UK. Our road was rocky, but we’ve made it to the top 5 at last. The  GDP of European countries  and Japan haven’t moved an inch since 2011. That’s a whole decade. Brazil and Russia have both fallen backwards, dropped out of contention. But India has made its way where nobody else has, except for China of course. Clearly, we did something right when nobody else could.

But with great power come great risks. As soon as we entered the league of the top 5, our politics became internationalized. Our politics isn’t just about India any more. Global forces are out to get us because we matter so damn much! The age of innocence had to end one day and it has.

The global left has announced its intentions very clearly. They have declared war on the people of India.

We can stop them. I don’t have a billion dollars. But I have something better. I have a billion Indians who will share my fate if this country goes down. And we have the civilizational memory of being invaded, subjugated and colonized by foreign powers.

Over there in the West, they say nationalism is a dirty word. Because their nationalism has always been about subjugating others.

My nationalism is about liberty. A one thousand year struggle for freedom.

The colonizer is back and he wants to get inside our heads. At the very moment when India is set to breathe free, the colonizer is back. Shall we let them take over again?

Is Arvind Kejriwal beginning to panic about Shaheen Bagh?

This is quite telling.

Kejriwal has finally mentioned Shaheen Bagh in a tweet. Not to express support or any particular sympathy for those protesters. Rather he points out that the prolonged dharna has blocked the public road, causing inconvenience to ordinary people. He accuses the BJP of letting the protest drag for political reasons. He then demands that BJP leaders should speak to the protesters and get them to open the road.

There is a lot to decode in this tweet, the first being the cavalier attitude of Kejriwal towards the Shaheen Bagh protesters and their demands. He doesn’t even want to discuss them. His tweet is focused purely on getting the public road to reopen.

In other words, his ground feedback suggests common people don’t care about what Shaheen Bagh has to say. That common people are prickly about an arterial road being closed because of the ruckus.

The second point is that he says BJP is doing dirty politics over Shaheen Bagh. Translation: he knows that the prolonged protest is actually going in BJP’s favor. That common people are not sympathetic to the Shaheen Bagh drama, that they likely see it as anti-national and they are putting the blame at the door of ‘secular’ parties and their surrogates.

Hence the desperation of Kejriwal to turn this around and blame BJP somehow.

Add this to the fact that the AAP campaign has so far maintained near total silence over Shaheen Bagh. Except for one costly indiscretion by Manish Sisodia. When Kejriwal spoke on it three days ago, he again focused on the inconvenience caused to ordinary people and not the protests themselves.

On the other hand, the BJP has been extremely vocal in talking about Shaheen Bagh. Not just in terms of inconvenience to people, but directly taking on the protesters and their demands.

There’s only one reasonable conclusion here. Both sides know that Shaheen Bagh has become a serious issue. The BJP knows it is helping them. The AAP wants people to speak as little about Shaheen Bagh as possible, because they know just as well that it is helping their adversary.

In other words, the ground feedback in both camps is the same.

This is not surprising. As the Shaheen Bagh (and assorted, sporadic anti-CAA protests) have continued, the worst of anti-national rhetoric has come to the surface. The hate was always thinly veiled to begin with. But as the government has not relented, the protesters in their frustration have spewed more and more of their inner venom.

One wanted to cut off the North East from India. Said openly that non-believers should live their lives as per terms set by Muslims. Just as disturbing as his words was the calm, almost scholarly manner in which he spoke. This was not a rabble rouser on a street corner making an untoward remark in the heat of the moment. This was a well educated Islamist expressing his well thought out opinion on how he sees the future of India. Torn into pieces and subjugated to Islamism. Chilling.

The other day there was another viral video. This time of an alleged journalist, known to be suave and well spoken. Explaining calmly that the show of inclusiveness in the protest is a strategic choice and not an ideological one. Again, chilling.

At least we got to hear this aloud. We as a nation needed to see this. Because too many of us are still denying the reality and the intensity of the hate.

One can only guess that with every passing day, as the frustration mounts, the anti-CAA crowd will expose themselves further. More such videos will be coming for sure and they will all go viral. And rest assured all of this will go against AAP in Delhi.

Eminent liberals had already anticipated this a couple of weeks ago. Remember when they begged with Shaheen Bagh to wrap up their protests in view of coming elections in Delhi? As the election is getting closer, the nervousness in the secular camp appears to be mounting. And Kejriwal is finally panicking.

State by state, the challenges before BJP President J P Nadda

It is Republic Day, so it is time for an “all India post,” looking all across the country and looking ahead.

I thought I would go state by state, listing the challenges and the possibilities and classifying them by difficulty level. Remember that Amit Shah wasn’t joking when he spoke of ruling from ‘Parliament to Panchayat.’ Nothing less is needed in order to remake India.

(1) Winning back Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand 

Difficulty level : EASY

This should go almost without saying. In Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand, the elections were decided by the narrowest of margins. Even though BJP has been dominating MP and Jharkhand for a fairly long time. The opposition eeked out a win on the back of a gentle anti-incumbency breeze. In Jharkhand, Babulal Marandi is set to return to BJP, which alone brings in additional 5-6% votes, besides the enormous goodwill he enjoys among people. In Rajasthan, the rotation is now in BJP’s favor. And when BJP wins in Rajasthan, it wins big. So all three states are poised to be swept by BJP whenever elections are due.

(2) Retaining Uttar Pradesh 

Difficulty level : EASY

This must be the greatest comfort of all to BJP supporters. The largest state in the country, so firmly in the BJP camp. The state seems to have an unending love affair with PM Modi and the love appears to be increasing with every passing day. I remember a disappointed liberal on counting day (possibly on ABP news) saying that UP should be renamed Modi Pradesh. They might as well do that 🙂

Add to that the Ram Mandir that will surely be ready by 2022 and you can see why I put UP in the easy column. The only reason I put UP as No. 2 and not No. 1 in this list is because UP has a tradition of not repeating Chief Ministers. Record probably set to be smashed by Yogi Adityanath.

(3) Winning back Chhatisgarh 

Difficulty level : MEDIUM

Raman Singh has led Chhattisgarh for a very long time. But everything comes to an end. That era is over. The real challenge for the party at the top is to handle the transition of the state unit to new leadership. In Chhattisgarh in particular, the two parties actually share a very close relationship, at least on the interpersonal level. Small state. Lots of moving parts. There’s Raman Singh. There’s Ajit Jogi, whose career has hit a dead end. There’s of course the CM Bhupesh Baghel and his many internal rivals in the Congress. Then there are new faces in BJP who fancy their chance. Winning Chhattisgarh is now less about votes and more about management.

(4) Retaining BJP dominance in North East

Difficulty level : MEDIUM

Tarun Gogoi made a very telling admission the other day that Assam needs a new party to combat BJP, because Congress is simply not up to the task. The Congress has been trying hard to fish in troubled waters in the North East after CAA, but their organization has weakened too much to be of help. The protests have been led by disparate groups of rabble rousers who might amount to little on the day of voting.

Now I know that the NE is unique in many ways, but I personally believe we tend to overestimate the difference between the politics of the North East and the so called “mainland.” Regional sentiments are strong, but the politics of regional sentiments has been failing all across India. Even in the North East, such sentiments did fail a long time ago. Remember that Sonowal himself lost the 2009 Lok Sabha election to Congress. It is the new BJP identity that catapulted him to the CM chair. With a strategist like Himanta, the BJP faces some challenges in the North East, but they will win out, eventually.

(5) Retaining Gujarat

Difficulty level : MEDIUM

The only reason Gujarat is “medium” and not “impossible” is because this is the home state of PM Modi. As such, it gets linked to the PM’s personal prestige, which resonates with the Gujarati voter. The BJP has now won 6 elections in Gujarat in a row. How much more could it possibly win? Two generations have grown up in Gujarat knowing nothing other than BJP rule. The best that BJP can do is point out that the state is well developed and there is no reason to change something that has been working well. But prospect of ‘change’ will always entice a section of youth.

Interestingly, while the Gujarat BJP faced a lot of challenges in the immediate aftermath of Modi’s departure in 2014, things seemed to have calmed down a little now. One hardly hears about Hardik Patel these days. He seems to have been thoroughly exposed and his politics discredited. Barring anything untoward, BJP should pull through in 2022.

(6) Winning Bengal

Difficulty level : HARD

Strictly speaking, this should be in the medium category. But the reason I have put it in the hard category is because Bengal election this time is a bit like the World Cup. No matter how dominant and confident a team you have, you have to treat the World Cup as a big challenge. You can’t take chances with it.

The BJP has already crossed the 40% vote share threshold in Bengal. Given the demography of the state, that means they got roughly 56% of the Hindu vote. The tipping point has been passed. It is a gold rush for votes from this point.

Indeed, if there is a battle royale during Modi’s second term, it is West Bengal. Somewhat similar to what Uttar Pradesh was in the first term, except the stakes are bigger. This time, it’s Bengal. The symbolism and significance of winning Bengal will be unmatched in Indian politics. The left in Bengal is no more, but the battle in Bengal is as much with the ghost of the left as with Mamata Banerjee. Because leftism in Bengal is everywhere. Like in grandma’s folk tales, the life of the evil magician is always in a parrot. Bengal is still the life force of the Indian left. Once BJP seizes Bengal, the Indian left is over.

Bengal is more than an election, it is the decisive battle between left and right. I have seen the ‘secular’ parties lose many elections to BJP, but rarely would you have seen the ecosystem in as much pain as when BJP swept Tripura. If you want to see the comrades weep from JNU to Jamia, wait till BJP gets Bengal.

(7) Retaining Karnataka

Difficulty level : HARD

Very very hard. Karnataka has a decades old tradition of voting out incumbents. The BJP isn’t strong enough in Karnataka yet to make a serious bid to end this cycle (like they could in Rajasthan). That will take 10 more years. And B S Yediyurappa isn’t getting any younger. A battle of succession is very likely, leading to more uncertainty.

(8) Flipping Bihar and Maharashtra

Difficulty level : HARD

These are the two most tricky states for BJP in India right now. For one, the party has huge existing imprint in both states. In fact, BJP is already the No.1 party in both states. And these are bulky states, one with 40 Lok Sabha states, another with 48. The tricky part is that BJP isn’t just fighting ‘enemies’ in these states, it is also fighting ‘friends.’

Of course there is no such thing as friend or enemy in politics. But the point is that both states have a party with which BJP must be open to some sort of relationship. The JDU and the Sena.

In Bihar, Nitish is still in saddle, frustrating the BJP. The BJP doesn’t have the votes to win alone, especially because Nitish will then join RJD. Nitish Kumar’s brand has frayed and he needs the BJP to command some semblance of legitimacy in Bihar. But he is unwilling to compromise on the CM post. And then there are clowns like his insufferable vice president, who is simply out of control. Possibly even out of Nitish’s control.

How can BJP get the CM post, without losing the JDU and its votes? How long can a bigger party allow a smaller ally to dictate terms when political reality is so different? Nobody knows. But this is the biggest, most tricky tangle in Indian politics right now.

In Maharashtra, the BJP has at least taken the issue head on and refused to back down before Shiv Sena. Yielding the CM post to them would have created another Bihar like situation, where again a smaller party with fewer votes gets to rule over a bigger party!

But that’s only half the battle. How does the BJP now find its way to the CM chair in Maharashtra? Especially with the so called Maha Vikas Aghadi now against it. Even if the MVA self destructs, which they will, BJP & Sena fighting separately against a Congress-NCP alliance might not end well.

(9) Solving the Odisha tangle

Difficulty level : HARD

The BJP needs clarity in Odisha. Is it with Naveen Patnaik or against him? It is in BJP’s interest to keep this question open for as long as possible. The BJP needs cooperation from BJD on a variety of political issues, especially in the Rajya Sabha. But they have to also consider the party’s increasing footprint in Odisha, which makes conflict with BJD inevitable.

The next election in Odisha is in 2024. The BJP has to decide now. Do they plan to win that election? Or will they officially present the people of Odisha with a clear compromise formula of “Modi for PM, Naveen for CM”? Will people really go for this? Will it raise chances of a Congress revival in the state. This is a problem of plenty for sure. But waiting too long before making a decision will only hit cadre morale.

(10) Winning new territory : Telangana and Andhra Pradesh

Difficulty level : HARD

A very significant election happened in Telangana the other day. The TRS swept 110 out of 120 municipal councils, which is probably a record. They were helped in this by the BJP’s rising vote share, which split the opposition vote.

Again the BJP has a decision to make here. What kind of relationship do they foresee with KCR? The frenemy sort of thing? Or full blown conflict, as with Mamata Banerjee in Bengal. Remember that TRS has already allied with MIM. So in some ways, KCR and KTR have already made their move. With the BJP vote share now exceeding 20% and with 4 Lok Sabha seats, they have replaced Congress as the main opposition. As the years pass, the anti-incumbency vote is likely to move wholesale towards BJP. The party needs a plan and very soon.

Andhra Pradesh presents the same tangle, but with slightly lower stakes. The BJP is farther behind in Andhra than in Telangana. If you ask me, the BJP needs two separate approaches in the two Telugu states. A medium term compromise with Jagan Reddy and direct conflict with KCR.

I think I have covered pretty much the whole country now. In Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the BJP still has minimal prospects. In Haryana, the party does not face too many challenges. In the two hill states up north : Uttarakhand and Himachal, the party will likely lose as per the usual incumbency cycle. Though they have a slightly better chance of holding Uttarakhand. And in Punjab, it is not yet clear what the BJP stands for, except as a junior ally of the Akalis.

Happy Republic Day!

Everything that was wrong about the privileged liberal vs cab driver episode

Yesterday, social media was abuzz about this incident.

Well done Ola cabs for explaining the basics of democracy, the right to free speech and the importance of free exchange of ideas in the public sphere. They were referring to this incident.

The pity is that Ola had to explain these basics to a person who holds himself out to the world as an employee of a top consultancy firm and a graduate from the reputed Indian School of Business.

As social media pointed out, there is a lot that was wrong about this incident. It brings up issues about democratic mindsets, liberalism, intolerance, class privilege and a lot more. In fact, this incident can be a learning experience as well as a moment of clarity for all. So let me state in four key points everything that the privileged liberal got wrong here.

(1) Liberalism or fascism?

The first rule of business is that the customer is always right. Fine. The first rule of democracy is that we all get one vote each. You can’t mix the two up. Good customer service does not include the expectation that others should submit to your political views.

Did the cab driver complain against the rider for having a different political view? Presumably not. It may be hard for the privileged rider to believe this, but cab drivers are allowed to complain too. But it seems that the cab driver had heard about democracy. The liberal rider had not.

The complaint might actually have affected the ability of the cab driver to earn a living. And it is likely that the rider understood this well. Now what kind of human being would be so heartless as to do something that might take away the daily bread of a humble man and his family? Perhaps someone who cannot see his political opponents as real people, with real lives. Is that liberalism or fascism? Are the two the same?

Keep this in mind for the next time a liberal tries to give a lecture on dissent.

(2) The class angle : privileged liberal vs humble cab driver

This one really stands out in this episode. Considering the vast urban support base of the Hindu right, I suppose this privileged liberal would have met several others who disagree with him. Say at work or in his neighborhood. At least, let us hope he is not living in such a bubble that he has never even heard an opposing view.

But I am guessing he does not make formal complaints against all of them. Perhaps there was something uniquely irritating about his views being challenged by an Ola driver that sent him over the edge?

Keep this in mind for the next time a liberal talks about how they care about the less fortunate in society.

(3) The irony :  Are only some people entitled to ‘personal views’?

Notice anything?

Shri Kanav Sharma has been careful enough to mention that his Twitter activity reflects “strictly personal views.” Presumably, he doesn’t want his employer to be bothered by vindictive people who might be looking to get him into trouble at work because of his personal views. Fair enough.

How different is it with the Ola driver? Why should he expect Ola to get involved with the driver’s personal views? Or did the Ola driver forfeit the right to have personal views? When and why? Is the Ola driver not a person or not qualified to have a view?

(4) And finally, the fallacy 

Beyond the double standards, here is what the entitled liberal really missed while making his core argument:

“The depth to which BJP’s propaganda and fake news has reached, it is getting really scary”

Let’s suppose for a moment that the rider truthfully narrated what the driver what had said to him. Let’s suppose that the driver did make some factual errors while talking about the history of our beloved Bharat Ratna winning political dynasty. Let’s suppose the rider was 100% factual (and has always been factual) about everything he said (or has ever said).

There’s still a huge fallacy.

In claiming that people of a certain political view are misinformed, he forgot to adjust for education and privilege. To establish his claim, he must compare his cab driver with those of similar education level on the other end of the political spectrum.

A graduate from one of India’s top business schools is almost always going to be more informed than a cab driver who may not have had all those great opportunities in life. This would likely have been just as true if the business school graduate was on the right and the cab driver on the left.

To conclude something about whether people on the right are well informed, Mr. Liberal must debate with those of his own education level but with an opposing political view.

The fact that a business school graduate could not understand this crucial point speaks very poorly of his intellectual abilities.

But keep this in mind for the next time a liberal accuses other people of going to “Whatsapp University.”

 

Deadly left wing terror : 7 tribals decapitated in Jharkhand

“Chilling and brutal,” to borrow an expression that The Hindu used while referring to some student union clash at JNU earlier this month. Except, I am not talking about JNU. I am talking about this.

You might have noticed that that this is not the top national news item on so called mainstream media. You might have noticed that it is not even trending on social media.

But why? Were the 7 villagers who were kidnapped and decapitated in Jharkhand only yesterday any less citizens of India? Were they less of citizens than any student union troublemaker at JNU, or some A list Bollywood celebrity, or some frustrated yesteryear movie actor?

For friends who may not know, Pathalgarhi is an innocent tribal custom in the tribal belt of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. Local folk heroes are honored by putting up a headstone next to their grave and recounting their brave deeds. This innocent custom has been seized upon by Naxals as some kind of assertion of separatism from India. In June 2018, five innocent girls in Khunti in Jharkhand were performing a street play to raise awareness among tribals against such forces. These girls were lured into the deep forest, with the help of a missionary school principal, and then gangraped as a punishment. So you can imagine the coalition of Break India forces arrayed against us.

The sheer scale and horror of left wing violence in India is such that it beats every other challenge to us as a nation. Dr. Singh was right when he said that left wing terror is the biggest internal security threat to India. The way the Congress party has reduced itself to an appendage of the radical left, I wonder whether he would stand by his statement today.

If there is one thing I have learned from the recent anti-CAA protests and the narrative around them, it is this: imagined fears, based on falsehood and prejudice, are everything. My real history doesn’t matter because it is just ‘whataboutism.’

But this massacre in West Singhbhum district is not from decades ago. I’m not talking about the bygone Communist era in Bengal, when 28,000 political murders happened (by the Communist government’s own admission …. imagine what the real scale of the violence was). I’m not talking about the hundreds of lakhs of people left dead in the wake of terrorism across the world.

I’m talking about West Singhbhum district from yesterday. Still whataboutism? And we all know this horror is going to happen again, possibly even in the next week. It’s like left wing terror is eating us alive. But we don’t notice it.

But how did we become so desensitized to left wing terror that we barely notice it at all? How have we handed over our minds to left wing media and intellectuals that we barely acknowledge the violence that drives their ideological cousins?

What will it take for us to acknowledge the sheer horror of leftism?

What will it take for us to chant “Communism se Azaadi”? How many more decapitated bodies?

The 7 anti-Pathalgarhi activists who were massacred in Jharkhand yesterday were heroes of Indian democracy. They lost their heads defending it. We are the ones who have lost our minds. Unless we speak up. Now.

 

Govt should not allow anti-CAA protesters any face saving exit

So this happened.

#Breaking | An attempt has been made to end the Shaheen Bagh impasse.

A delegation from Shaheen Bagh will meet Delhi Lt. Governor Anil Baijal.

Priyank with more details. Listen in. pic.twitter.com/uBjykDclES

— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) January 21, 2020

Only a few days ago, they were trending on social media, demanding that the Prime Minister himself come down to Shaheen Bagh and talk to them. Now it seems they are crawling to the Lt. Governor of Delhi, looking for a way out of the fiasco.

I’m very clear on one thing, no matter how politically incorrect. The anti-CAA protests have been among the worst things that Indian democracy has ever seen.

It has been pointed out numerous times now that Indian laws provide for targeted benefit to marginalized groups. Benefits specifically for women, for disadvantaged castes, for religious minorities and so on. This is not against the idea of India. In fact, this has always been the idea of India enshrined in the Constitution. And it has been completely non-controversial until the point CAA was introduced.  You cannot complain just because the marginalized group receiving a targeted benefit in this instance happens to be Hindus.

And I fully trust the Shaheen Bagh protesters to know all of this. I see Shaheen Bagh as a protest with a purely supremacist agenda. Comparable to KKK rallies against the emancipation of African Americans.

Yes, the folks at Shaheen Bagh have a right to protest. We are not a Communist state. We are not an Islamist state. The Indian Constitution grants them the right to protest peacefully, no matter how evil their agenda may be. They can have that.

But we as a nation can choose not to validate them in any way. Let them stay there until they figure out that nobody is listening to them. That like racists, bigots, sexists and homophobes of every stripe, they are standing on the wrong side of history. Let them disperse, in ignominy, with heads bowed and in defeat.

And we’ve already seen top liberals begging with them to withdraw for strategic reasons. The elections in Delhi are coming and BJP needs all the help it can get. If the radical Islamists at Shaheen Bagh end up helping who they see as their biggest political rival, that’s on them. Not anyone else. They started this. They could have chosen to regard Hindu refugees as human beings. They refused. Now it is nobody else’s fault if they look bad in the process.

I guess these so called protests have now entered their final lap. The hot air balloons floated across campuses by the hands of leftists have also dropped out, one by one. I sense a big win here. This is a chance for the government to rub it in and do a victory lap.

The only thing that remains is that the government should not give them any kind of face saver. Let them visit the LG, hand over a “memorandum” of their demands and get lost.

By now, the public knows enough about the ways of Indian politics to burst out laughing at this. Thank you for that nicely written up memorandum… now the concerns will be relayed to “appropriate authorities.”

I bet the appropriate authorities will get back to them any day now 🙂

And no, this emotional blackmail won’t work.

By the way,  Former President Fakruddin Ali Ahmed’s family is doing just fine. Have you thought about this innocent child, whose parents named her “Nagarikta” to celebrate the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act?

Do you want this innocent Hindu girl sent to Pakistan? What do you want should happen to her over there?

If you really want to hear a sob story, let me tell you about the time President Fakruddin Ali Ahmed signed an order allowing Indira Gandhi to snatch democracy from all Indian citizens.

Predictably, the emotional blackmail didn’t work in the Supreme Court.

Long time readers of this blog would remember that I had predicted that the anti-CAA crowd would get laughed out of court.

In the anti-CAA protest, liberals found a chance to vent their frustration against the people of India for giving 303 seats to Narendra Modi. The protests are now over. All that remains is to make sure that liberals are duly humiliated for this misadventure.

Amit Shah’s term as BJP President is a political innings to remember

Politics keeps moving. The faces keep changing. Unless, of course, it’s the Congress we’re talking about, as this viral meme points out.

But sometimes, someone comes along who plays such an innings that you are left wondering if anyone will ever be able to match it or surpass it. Something like a Sachin Tendulkar or Virat Kohli.

Now, I have spoken before about how “intellectuals” have been loath to give BJP due credit for its amazing electoral performance: from starting with 2 seats and then becoming a nationwide alternative to Congress. This was true even before Modi and 2014. Many political forces have risen in India to challenge the Congress… most of them got “acquired” by the Congress as soon as they became viable. As the Congress weakened, these allies established themselves as primary partners at the state level. All in all, these were ultimately drawn into the Congress orbit, the moral and intellectual cover of the dynasty was extended to them, along with the benefits of their patronage network.

The only exception here has been BJP. The party won 100+ Lok Sabha seats in every General Election : 1991, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2009. That in itself was no mean achievement. All forces that have challenged the Congress generally maxed out at around 10 Lok Sabha seats. Those from larger states like UP or Bengal did around 40, once in a while, when they managed to hit a peak.

But even by BJP standards, Amit Shah’s five year innings as party president is absolutely stellar. Many years later, when the hate subsides, even opponents will come to admit and study this as a roadmap for anyone planning to succeed in Indian politics.

Incidentally, many of his strategies, like panna pramukhs, have now been picked up by his opponents. Eventually they will acknowledge this.

The biggest thing that Amit Shah did of course, was Uttar Pradesh. The BJP had been down in the dumps there for almost a decade. When Amit Shah arrived in Uttar Pradesh in 2013, most BJP supporters would have been happy if the party had won 20 seats. The BSP and SP had all but squeezed out the BJP, with no caste base, no real supporters and no hope.

At some point, Amit Shah owes it to history to write a tell all book about how he turned around a state of 22 crore people in less than months. Or at least find someone to dictate it to (me! me!). Although what he has done in UP is so amazing that the BJP could claim that it’s a trade secret.

We have some broad guesses. We know about the panna pramukhs. We have heard things like how Amit Shah asked BJP workers to contact every single person who had ever been in contact with the party and revive their connection. The BJP made also used the non-dominant sub caste approach to restrict the SP to its core Yadav vote (as opposed to all OBC votes) and the BSP to its core Jatav vote (as opposed to all Dalit votes). But how exactly this was accomplished on such a large scale in such a short time is indeed mind boggling.

It took Mayawati 20 years in politics to win 19 seats in Uttar Pradesh. Mulayam Singh Yadav took the same 20 years to win 37. It took Amit Shah less than 1 year to win 73!

Just as amazing as 2014 is retaining that entire chunk of 42% votes in the Assembly election held 3 full years later. And then raising it to 50% in the 2019 election. This is miracle level stuff. No ordinary person can do this.

It’s hard to think of any political achievement in the history of India that parallels what Amit Shah did in UP.

And then there is Maharashtra. Another giant state. And no problem. In the course of one election, the BJP went from No. 4 to No. 1 in Maharashtra. He ruffled many egos on the way, most of all that of the Shiv Sena. But they say you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

Both the sheer scale of the win and the sheer numbers of voters involved : both are breathtaking.

Okay, but at least UP and Maharashtra had a decent chunk of BJP inclined voters to begin with. The BJP may have been down in the dumps in UP by 2013, but the state used to vote for the BJP at one time. In Maharashtra as well, the BJP had been around for a long time. Voters would be familiar with the idiom of BJP politics, at least, both in Hindi and Marathi.

But what about Bengal? A place where BJP’s politics was almost unknown, almost treated as foreign in some way. It was sheer guts and glory for BJP in Bengal, simply swatting away the CPI(M) and Congress and becoming the main opposition to Mamata Banerjee in no time. The strategy was very well executed, with the party’s focus on neglected tribal regions bordering Jharkhand and North Bengal. Staying away from the bastions of Bengal’s leftist elite ‘bhodrolok.’ The Bhodrolok are an insufferable gang of opportunists in and around Kolkata, who will pander to whoever is in power : Churchill, Bidhan Ray, Jyoti Basu and now Mamata.  In some way, it was UP all over again… restricting the leftists to their core “Bhodrolok vote” and taking away all other votes.

Who could have thought that the BJP would get 40% of the vote in Bengal? Just for comparison, the BJP’s vote share in UP was 42% in 2014. Yes, BJP can get as much vote in Bengal as in Uttar Pradesh. Mind blowing.

In case you haven’t noticed, UP (80), Maharashtra (48) and Bengal (42) are the three largest states in India. And Amit Shah won them all. Hard to match this one.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the North East. Again, a region where BJP’s politics was practically unknown. But in five years, the BJP managed to take the entire region, fulfilling a long held RSS dream.

Don’t forget Haryana. The state was a gap in the BJP’s spread in the Hindi belt. That’s 10 Lok Sabha seats extra!

I’ve tried hard to figure out if there were any strategic mistakes. Maybe there was one. I’d say Delhi. After winning 2014, the BJP could have called for elections in Delhi immediately, in June or July 2014. The BJP would have won hands down. The delay till Feb 2015 proved extremely costly.

Okay … so nobody is perfect.

Other than that, I simply could not find any mistakes. A failure is not the same thing as a strategic mistake. The BJP failed to win Bihar in 2015. They tried to become the dominant party in Bihar. They tried their best but could not. It wasn’t a mistake, just a failure. That happens.

For comparison, in the 1999 — 2004 period, the BJP made several mistakes. Losing its vote share in Andhra Pradesh, allying with the wrong party in Tamil Nadu, making Nitish the CM face in Bihar. The party also saw mass leaders leave from time to time : Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti, Babulal Marandi, B S Yediyurappa, to name a few. All have been brought back now (It’s believed that Marandi is set to return, finally).

Amit Shah has ended his innings as party president. He’s started his innings as Home Minister with another “impossible” seeming master stroke. Article 370. Let’s see what else he is going to do. Blow our minds sir! We’re waiting.