Why do Hindus get so little respect from the world?

This really bothered me last night.

It’s the global culture of casual disrespect towards Hindus. There’s no excuse for the Wall Street Journal here. This is not 1950, but 2020. I’m sure the WSJ has met enough Indians to know that Ramayana is one of the world’s greatest epics. This is a deliberate, calculated putdown for Hindus. A way for WSJ to literally stomp in Hindu faces and show how little they care.

When I first put this up on Twitter, some leftists came to defend. So what, they asked. It’s “factual.” Isn’t Ramayana on DD really an “80s TV show”?

Yes, it’s factual. But this trick in the liberal book has been duly cataloged and understood before. Anything can be described in any number of factual ways. You could describe Marie Curie just as “factually” as the wife of Pierre Curie. Or you could describe her as the discoverer of radium, as well as the winner of Nobel Prize in BOTH physics and chemistry. Which one you choose shows your attitude.

I remember some years ago when The Economist introduced the Amarnath lingam as a “penis shaped lump of ice.” Their defense? That it was factual.

I think it was Vamsee Juluri who made the point brilliantly when he replied that the Economist could just as well be described as “precycled future toilet paper.” While 100% factual, it is clear that describing the Economist this way is an insult.

The WSJ chose to describe Ramayana in a way that diminishes its stature as one of the world’s great epics. This was a deliberate snub.

The question is why. Why pick on Hindus like this? I put this question on Twitter and received hundreds of responses, which may be divided broadly under following headings.

(1) Hindus are not united. 

I agree but I also disagree. Faultlines do exist within every community. Obviously, being disunited doesn’t help. But even so, other communities, especially the “peaceful” community, are able to extract respect from the world.

(2) Abrahamic religions look down on pagans

I believe there is more truth to this one. The world is dominated by two big Abrahamic faiths : Islam and Christianity. And there’s Communism which has absorbed all aspects of another Abrahamic faith.

When I say Christianity, I also include what can be called “cultural Christianity.” It is hard to imagine New Yorkers or Parisiens caring a whole lot about Jesus. Despite their lack of faith in the Christian god, the cultural beliefs endure. And one of the cornerstones of that belief is the idea that pagans, the ones with “many gods” are somehow less evolved, less intelligent and in need of enlightenment.

(3) Post-Colonial complex

One significant problem is that anyone looking to bash India or Hindus will immediately find a large and well-connected group of allies within India, who come from Hindu backgrounds. These are people whose self worth is based on how far they can pretend to be from the cultural roots of their own country.

Have you seen the elite journalist who conducts interviews wearing a bow? In the real world, they would think he has escaped from either a traveling theater or a traveling circus. But in our media world, he is seen as an intellectual, his ridiculously outdated accent seen as something valuable.

This problem is hardly limited to media. Starting with the fetish for “missionary schools” and “convent education” the problem goes deep. Nothing inherently wrong with either. Just that much of our society is still living the social structure of an empire that has long ceased to be taken seriously.

I would add something here. I would blame the “nationalist” side just as much for the post-colonial complex. A few years ago, there was a video of Shashi Tharoor at some debate at some crummy club in England, where he was making a case for colonial reparations or something. The video was viral and was shared quite enthusiastically by the Indian right as well as the left. Look, Shashi showed ‘them.’

I remember squirming with embarrassment as I watched Shashi Tharoor in that video. All I saw was a circus monkey performing for his masters, acting out tales of their past glory to pad their ego.

Yeah, we know lots of weird things happened in the past. Britain ruled over India. There was a time Rome ruled over Britain. There was a time Spain ruled like half of the world. The British know its over. All they have left is circus monkeys like Tharoor. With his pretend anger, Tharoor makes the British feel big and important. Instead of complaining, why don’t we put an arm around the British and have a beer with them? And laugh together about the time they ruled us. You know, like when everyone in the kitchen is running circles around a tiny mouse? Trust me, this attitude is the real revenge.

So let me ask you. Why do you think Hindus get singled out and insulted?

 

A Coronavirus depression could become a problem for Modi sarkar in 2024

It is when people started worrying about Ramzan and large gatherings that it struck me. Last year as well, people were performing all sorts of calculations about Ramzan. Those were political calculations, related to the 2019 elections. And that’s when I realized!

We are almost one full year into the second term of PM Modi. How time flies…

By now, it is clear that the Wuhan Corona virus is possibly the biggest event of our times. And possibly one of the biggest events in human history. This is our World War 2.

Needless to say, this is an event that will shake up politics around the world. And upset all previous calculations.

When Modi won the 2019 election, it was sort of taken for granted that he is set to be PM for three full terms. Indeed, the vote share difference between BJP and Congress is now almost 20%. It would probably take a generation anyway for a 20% national vote share gap to be bridged. On top of that the BJP is still rising, in Bengal, in Odisha and even some southern states. If anything, this vote share gap would go up, not down!

But what happens when an unforeseen event, unprecedented for generations, shakes everything up?

The Wuhan Corona virus might just be that event.

Right now, India is doing tolerably well, managing to keep its head above the water. But that’s only until the patience of people and stocks of food last. It is widely expected that the lockdown will be relaxed at least somewhat on May 3.

The real challenge only starts now as India tries to put together the shattered economy. People have neither money to invest nor to spend. Small and medium enterprises are probably at the end of their rope already due to the lockdown. As they slowly limp back, there is no question of speedy recovery. Big business simply does not have the ability to hire. You can ask for stimulus. There probably should be one and there will probably be one.

But stimulus money isn’t real. It’s just money from nowhere. By all means, we should try it in desperate times. But there’s no guarantee it will work.

The adverse political fallout of such a crisis is bound to start, sooner or later.

Right now, nobody would blame PM Modi for the pandemic. Obviously, it’s not his fault. As for managing the pandemic,  it’s impossible to do get everything right in a situation such as this. But in broad strokes, India has definitely done well. It has stunned (let’s also say saddened) our enemies in global media by keeping our death toll so low. This when the death toll in the US is nearing 60,000, with over one lakh dead in Europe.

The political fallout is not now, it’s probably a year or more down the line.

When a calamity happens, the ruling incumbents usually get a slight bounce in approval ratings. After all, people look to them as saviors. In fact, if Hurricane Sandy had not struck in late 2012, Mitt Romney would probably have defeated President Obama in the election.

The problem is with a calamity such as this Coronavirus, whose impact could last literally for years. Some say it could be an entire decade. The Great Depression of 1929 lasted for an entire decade. There is literally nothing else in human history that this current crisis can be compared to.

Imagine after a year. If the economic engine is at a standstill, people have no jobs, nothing… sooner or later, they will turn against whoever is ruling. Not specifically because they think it’s their fault, but due to outright despair. Even if it means shuffling chairs on the deck of the Titanic. The argument is going to come : well, the current regime isn’t working, so why not try literally anybody else?

Let me give you an example. Remember the European crisis from 2011 and the PIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain)? When the crisis struck, Spain was ruled by the leftists. Due to the crisis, the leftist government had to adopt emergency austerity measures which were extremely unpopular. The right wing capitalized on this anger to win a landslide victory. The ruling left suffered the worst defeat for any sitting Spanish government in history.

Could the new government manage the situation? Of course not! The situation was far beyond anyone’s control. In the 2015 election, the sitting government was again wiped out, in another “worst ever in history” defeat! Two elections like that, back to back.

Did people really switch between ideologies that quickly? Did they compare, contrast and draw informed conclusions based on evidence? Of course not!  This was pure desperation at work. People had lost control of their lives and so they did the only thing they could still control : change the government.

If the economic crisis continues, the “spin the wheel” argument could make sense to a large number of desperate voters in 2024.

This could well become the threat for Modi sarkar in a year or two. The Corona virus induced depression could continue for a long time. As much as we may wish for a speedy disappearance of Corona and a quick bounce back in the economy, there is no reason to just assume the best will happen. We’re just some bits of DNA on a rock that is hurtling through space which is billions of times bigger. As Carl Sagan would have said, “pale blue dot.” We matter very little in the grand scheme of things. No reason to assume that good things will happen to us, like at the end of most movies.

What could be done to guard against this? Well, we have the example of FDR and his “New Deal.” The New Deal gave jobs to people as part of a massive public works program. This could be the moment when India gets to building world class infrastructure that we have all dreamed of.  It is a bet on the future and it could very well go (very badly) wrong. But, without such drastic measures, we’re probably going down anyway. So what’s the harm?

In one sentence, all I am saying is this : the government should take a gamble and spin the wheel on stimulus, before the electorate spins the wheel on the government.

Arnab Goswami has opened many boxes never thought possible

In my lifetime, I never thought that I would see Sonia Gandhi being mocked and ridiculed on live television.

In 2014, Congress didn’t just lose an election. They were left in a situation where they couldn’t even be recognized as an opposition party. But apparently, that was not enough. Five years passed and still nobody in media dared to say a word of criticism against Queen Sonia Gandhi.

Their worries were not unfounded. What if the Congress had come back in 2019? The Congress has had many setbacks, but it has never lost two general elections in a row.

So 2019 came and went. The results for the Congress were even more disastrous. The BJP went past 300 seats. The Congress, again, was not in a position to even form the opposition.

A year after that historic verdict, the inevitable has finally happened. Somebody in the media has had the courage to ridicule Sonia Gandhi! What is amazing is how long it took.

True, Arnab became a pariah in the media by taking this huge risk. When the Mumbai Police picked him up for a grueling 12 hour interrogation, not one journalist dared to so much as tweet in his favor. The week before they were all crying copious tears because some editor of some two bit leftist portal got a knock on the door from police.

In fact, as it stands, Arnab has been disowned by the entire journalist community. Liberals on social media had a field day enjoying his plight at the hands of police. The right wing on social media was boiling with anger.

But these things don’t matter very much. The mouse does not matter. What is important is that somebody has belled the cat.

All these years, so many people believed that much worse things happen to those who dare speak against the Queen. Yes, Arnab didn’t have a picnic, but come on… at the end of the day, it was 12 hours of his life. And he came out of it roaring with energy. And he went on to continue his anti-Sonia Gandhi tirade. And he will probably emerge as the biggest winner in the TRP game.

Something has changed now and it cannot be changed back again.

A few days ago, I had described criticism of the Queen as an invisible electric fence. I bet even the most compromised Pidi journalists must have fantasized about it, just for fun. But their hearts would melt in fear at the thought of crossing that threshold.

Arnab has shown that the fence was never there. And once you prove that the fence isn’t real, the floodgates are bound to open. He was about six years too late, but the inevitable has happened.

Do you realize that Rahul Gandhi is the first ever member of the Nehru-Gandhi clan to be mocked by the people?

It wasn’t always like this. Around 2005-06, when his career was being launched, there were all the symptoms that he too would live the sheltered life of Congress royalty. Everything would be credited to the power of his “dreams.”

Well, Rajiv Gandhi had dreamed about computers, but he surely hadn’t dreamed about social media. Mocking Rahul Gandhi was something that began on social media. At first a trickle, then a flood and finally a deluge. And now it has got to the point that even a two bit liberal Pidi has to make some jibes against Rahul Gandhi simply to stay borderline credible.

You see what happened here? The Dynasty just gave up.

But think about it. There is no real difference between Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi. What happened to Rahul can happen to Sonia just as well.

And this time, the credit goes to Arnab Goswami. He’s moved into the openly anti-Sonia Gandhi space and taken ownership of it.

Other journalists can boycott him, act like he doesn’t exist or that he doesn’t have any rights. Fine. But in the public square, the Pidis will now have to defend BOTH Rahul and Sonia Gandhi.

Until now, Sonia Gandhi was the politician whose politics could not even be discussed. You were supposed to revere her politics without question. Now, Pidis will have to step out and defend her. And we all know how badly that defense can fall apart.

In five years, I guarantee you Sonia Gandhi will be mocked just as badly as Rahul Gandhi is today. Then, we will all look back and wonder what the fuss was all about…

 

 

50 IRS officers give 100 reasons we should end the UPSC exam

A few weeks ago, I saw a cartoon that really stayed with me.

It showed the world as a morsel, about to be swallowed by a giant shark labelled “Coronavirus.”

Now, below that shark was another shark, 10 times larger, with its jaws wide open, about to devour the smaller shark. That shark was labelled “Economic crisis.”

Below the second shark, there was another even bigger shark, about to devour the shark just above. The third and biggest shark was labelled “Climate change.”

Now, if it were up to me, I would insert one extra shark in between  “Economic crisis” and  “Climate change.” That shark would be labelled “UPSC.”

Can you believe this?

To be fair, that headline does not give us much information. After all, if 50 IRS officials have come up with some suggestions, why not hear them out? So you can click the actual link and read all their ideas here.

And yes, they are just as bad as you would think. In it you will find some of the best worst ideas you will ever come across

(1) Super rich tax

(2) Inheritance tax

(3) Increase in Capital Gains tax

(4) Increased surcharge on India income of foreign companies

(5) Increased tax on companies that do their business online

(6) Covid relief cess

There are actually some decent suggestions as well, such as allowing companies to contribute to PMCARES fund as part of their CSR obligations. Another is the introduction of tax deductible savings schemes on the lines of the National Savings Certificates. But that is a bit like pointing out that human excrement contains trace amounts of gold.

Wait till babus find out about that one and then propose a tax on emptying our bowels.

The document was shared by the official handle of the IRS association.

https://twitter.com/IRSAssociation/status/1254279697854332933

Even more disturbing is the fact that these are allegedly “young” IRS officers. That means they are going to be around for a long time.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t blame them personally. I am sure these are perfectly well-intentioned intelligent men and women, who have cleared a difficult and highly competitive exam. And they are just trying to help.

The problem is that we have taken these talented men and women and put their minds to a job that does not require high skills. The entire philosophy behind the UPSC is wrong. We hold a big competitive exam, in which anybody with any kind of college degree is eligible to appear. Then, we allow them to opt for various bureaucracies according to their ranks. The top rankers go to the Foreign Service, then there’s the Administrative Service. Further down the ranks, there’s all sorts of things like Railway Service, Revenue Service, Forest Service, etc.

The fundamental assumptions of this system are wrong and the process is wasteful every step of the way.

Let’s think clearly here. First let us decide. How do we envision the role of these officers? Do we expect them to be high skill workers? If they are in the Foreign Service, would they have important insights and an educational background in international relations? If they are in the Forest Service, are they expected to come up with ideas on conservation, etc? In the Railway service, are they expected to have technical expertise to make the system more efficient, keep up with the latest technologies around the world and so on? In the IAS, are they expected to know how to make welfare schemes reach the last person in line.

As Richard Feynman said, anything is interesting if you think about it deeply enough.

So, if we expect them to be high skill workers in their specific services, we cannot possibly draw them from a general pool where anyone with any sort of college degree can apply. Also the exam and interview is mostly about trivia on current affairs instead of logical reasoning, creativity or innovation. We cannot get specialists by bringing in generalists and asking them to choose based on ranks! This is elementary.

(And before you ask, I once looked up online the UPSC subject paper in mathematics. It looked like it had been designed specifically to make students hate the subject. Math is about fun, not boring yourself to death with large systems of pointless equations.)

Worst of all, we bring in these generalists, give them specialized tasks and we then convince them that they are subject experts! That’s why things go so badly wrong.

The second possibility is that we treat the bureaucracy as low skill workers, stamping papers, filling out forms and the like. This is essentially the American model, where the “civil service exam” is for those who just want a (low paid, low prestige) job for life, with a solid medical and dental plan, good enough to raise a family. Philosophically speaking, this is the correct model, since in a democracy, decisions should ideally be made only by people’s representatives. But in a country as large and complicated as ours, this may not be practicable.

So we have two options. Either we demote the bureaucracy to doing low level tasks only. Or we bring in subject experts into the bureaucracy.

The biggest waste by far that the UPSC does is not with the few hundred people who get in. The real waste is the several lakh people who don’t get in. These young men and women are ambitious and want to achieve something in life. They should be out there using their minds, following their passions, innovating, coming up with ideas. Instead, we have given them a worthless goal to aspire for and then they waste productive years memorizing stuff for the UPSC exam. If they succeed, they will end up doing a job they are not qualified for. Most of them will fail and walk away with a sense of dejection, having thrown away some of the best years of their lives. They will absorb the disappointment and find a way to “adjust” to it. The tragedy is that they have failed at something that was not worth succeeding it. It has robbed them of their self confidence, their time and kept them from figuring out their passion.

The things that India could have done if only we didn’t have the UPSC exam… The possibilities were endless. And we have said no to them all.

 

Why is Congress obsessed with stopping Bullet Train and Central Vista?

Dr. Manmohan Singh is back and he has some advice. And it appears that he would like to be taken seriously. This time, he has a problem with the fact that the Central Government has frozen Dearness Allowances (DA) for employees until late next year.

So how much is the Dearness Allowance? About 4% of Basic Pay. Meanwhile, here is the Government of Maharashtra, in which the Congress has managed to become a ruling partner, despite finishing fourth in the elections.

Anywhere between 25-50% of salary frozen and deferred for state government employees. According to calculations by several expert economists, 4% is a lot less than 50%. Also bear in mind that dearness allowance is merely a compensation for inflation. With the economy at a standstill, right now the risk is one of deflation and not inflation. So, with the dearness allowance frozen and no inflation, the purchasing power of a Central Government employee would remain the same.

This is hardly the case with Maharashtra state government employees, who could see 50% of their salary deferred. You can easily imagine how this would wreak havoc on household budgets.

Why does it appear as if nobody listens to Dr. Manmohan Singh?

Anyway, among the demands made by the Congress, a call to scrap the Bullet Train project and the Central Vista redevelopment project in Delhi.

Why does it feel like scrapping the Bullet Train and Central Vista have become a Congress Party obsession? They seem to be a couple of weeks away from saying that one of Rajiv Gandhi’s dreams was that India would never have a Bullet Train?

Now, if Dr. Singh took himself seriously as an economist, he would know that in times of recession, it is for the government to spend money on large public projects.

Indeed, when the Great Depression hit the United States in 1929, the government put people to work as part of a massive public works program. This came to be known as the “New Deal.” Under the formidable Franklin D Roosevelt, the US government created the Public Works Administration (PWA) in 1933. The PWA completed some of the most iconic infrastructure projects in the US, including the legendary Hoover Dam. The infrastructure that the US created in that decade laid the foundation of the post WW2 boom when the US began a 70 year reign as the world’s pre-eminent economic, military and industrial power.

In fact, the economic crisis triggered by the Wuhan Coronavirus could be the moment for India to launch its own “New Deal.” This is the time to build those bullet trains, dams and super highways that could last us for several generations.

And considering that the bullet train is financed with a near interest free loan from Japan, it’s a no brainer.

Along with the PWA, President Roosevelt also created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as part of his New Deal. The role of the WPA was to fund the construction of public buildings, museums, theaters, libraries all across the United States. If Dr. Manmohan Singh had been around, he would probably have called them vanity projects.

It is not difficult to imagine why the Congress is so obsessed with scrapping the Bullet Train and Central Vista. They are probably worried that India might end up with landmarks on which they won’t be able to stick the names of their one great dynasty. With no workers, no organization skills and no ideology, the Congress is just a brand name. Without everything being called “Jawahar this” or “Indira that” or “Rajiv Gandhi XYZ,” the Congress would have to shut down.

It’s bad enough that the Congress is being taunted for spending its decades in power allocating Bharat Ratnas rather than building toilets. What if tomorrow India has a bullet train and nobody gives credit to Rajiv Gandhi for dreaming it up? What would the Congress do then?

Hence the Congress obsession with stopping the project at all cost.

Incidentally, I have some advice for Dr. Manmohan Singh. More like a request.

Respected Sir, in the final days of the UPA government, your government gave you a parting gift that you would never have to pay for water and power again. In view of the economic crisis due to Wuhan Coronavirus, how about giving up that subsidy? Why not pay your own power and water bill? I am sure the nation would appreciate the gesture. Thanks.

Can you believe that two of Sheikh Mujib’s killers were hiding in West Bengal?

This is a very crucial piece of news that has escaped notice among all the reporting around Wuhan Coronavirus.

Quick refresher for whom the name “Sheikh Mujib” may not ring a bell. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (known most commonly as Sheikh Mujib) is the founder of Bangladesh. He was the leading light in the struggle against the Yahya Khan regime in Pakistan. When India liberated Bangladesh in 1971, Sheikh Mujib became Prime Minister.

However, Sheikh Mujib did not last very long as Prime Minister. About three years into his term, he was assassinated by a group of conspirators, among them members of his own party as well as the Bangladeshi military.

Suffice to say that a coup like this does not occur naturally, especially during Cold War times. Suffice to say that this was a huge blow to India’s interests in the region. And it is probably not hard to guess which superpower would have wanted to hurt India at the time.

Following the assassination, utter confusion prevailed in Bangladesh for a while. Coup and counter coup. Some assassins were exiled, but some were actually promoted in army rank as a reward. However, after various twists and turns, the assassination came to be finally recognized as a crime. And several of the assassins were convicted “in absentia” (because they were missing) and sentenced to death.

So why are we talking about this today?

Because two very significant developments have happened in the last one month. The first is the hanging of Abdul Majeed in Dhaka on April 12.

The chilling part of the article is this:

“A prosecution lawyer said Majed told the court that he returned to Bangladesh on March 15 or 16. The convict, he said, claimed he managed to live secretly in Kolkata for the past 23 years.”

23 years! An assassin from Bangladesh had been living comfortably in Kolkata. He didn’t even flee to a distant country. He assassinated India’s big ally and then fled to India itself! He didn’t even go to Pakistan which would probably have welcomed him, as per their stated national policy of welcoming all terrorists.

Can you imagine how humiliating this is for India? He has made our borders look like a joke. He has made a mockery of our enforcement systems and ID cards. If he lived 23 years in Kolkata, chances are he helped himself to everything from bank account, to phone connection to Aadhar card.

By the way, when I first became aware of this story, I scanned news reports carefully to understand how he managed to be in Bangladesh again. Did our government arrest and hand him over? Did he go of his own accord? What could he possibly want to do in Bangladesh again?

Interestingly, this part seems shrouded in mystery. Nobody is clearly explaining what happened. As you can see, Bangladesh was in great hurry to execute him as soon as caught. They say they got their hands on him on March 16 and they have already hanged him on April 12. You may now come up with whatever fun conspiracy theory catches your fancy.

More is known about the case of Risaldar Moshleuddin, another of the killers.

India handed him over to Bangladesh a few days ago. As per reports, he had been running a medicine shop in Bongaon in West Bengal for over two decades!

Caught in the space of one month. Two “most wanted” fugitives who had been living a quiet life in West Bengal for over twenty years.

Well, this is embarrassing.

Obviously, not every infiltrator from Bangladesh is a most wanted fugitive. But this episode surely does show how easy it is to break Indian laws and sneak into our country. And worse, how it is to stay in our country illegally. In the last 15 years, India has tightened so many regulations. Beginning with the simple KYC for opening and operating bank accounts. Then, there were stringent ID requirements for obtaining phone connections. And then came Aadhar, which was linked to pretty much everything. And yet none of these people were caught in the net.

Swarajya reports that the men even had voter cards and passports. Disaster!

The episode underscores both the difficulty and the importance of the NRC exercise. These people had documents! There are likely lakhs of Bangladeshi infiltrators who have managed to do the same. How are we going to design an NRC requirement that catches these folks while not bothering genuine Indians?

On the other hand, we absolutely need to get this done. Otherwise, whatever little of Bengal remains on the Indian side will be gone as well. We will end up with a national anthem written by someone who will become a foreign author in what will become a foreign language. Like Sind, our kids will wonder where is this “Banga” that the song talks about. Imagine that.

Congress must realize that they and their leaders are not special

So the other day, Arnab Goswami, in a riveting segment on Republic Bharat, used some particularly harsh language against Sonia Gandhi. Since then, social media has been on the boil about this. Congress supporters have been running from pillar to post trying to file FIRs. The larger secular ecosystem has been ringing with condemnation, each intellectual competing with the other in showing off their outrage and their loyalty to the Crown.

To borrow an expression from a famous person, liberals on social media have been jumping around like spooked ….

At the heart of this mass hysteria is astonishment. How could someone have spoken so harshly about Madam Sonia Gandhi? How could they dare?

Indeed, in her ten years of power and six years out of power, I have never seen an article in the Indian media criticizing Sonia Gandhi. For the “free” Indian media, it was like an invisible electric fence. While Congress has been criticized, Rahul Gandhi and Dr. Manmohan Singh have been criticized, never Sonia Gandhi.  When things went far too badly, we would hear that Sonia ji is “unhappy.” The media never blamed her for anything. In Orwellian terms, Indian media seemed capable of stopping automatically at the threshold of such a thought.

And then Arnab Goswami comes along and walks across the red line as if he just doesn’t care.

The secular ecosystem of the Congress needs to realize that they and their leaders aren’t special. They have a sense of entitlement from six decades of rule. And the fact that half of the landmarks in Delhi are named after them.

They need to get over this sense of entitlement. Indian politics is not a polite tea party. Perhaps this episode will make the secular ecosystem aware of their own use of harsh language. Expressions like “Nazi” and “fascist” are used in an almost routine manner for India’s elected Prime Minister. Jibes at his personal life, his humble background as a tea seller, etc are also routine. The RSS is routinely labelled as “terrorist” and what not. Despite the UP CM making a conscious decision long ago to give up his birth name when he became a yogi, liberals routinely refer to him as “Ajay Singh Bisht,” thus invoking his caste origin. The list of harsh insults used against Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah are too numerous to list here.

This is highly regrettable, but for better or for worse, it is the normal. The Congress and its apex leadership are not special in any way.

Since using such harsh language, Arnab Goswami has not only faced calls for arrest, but actual physical attacks, for which he believes that “Congress goons” are responsible.

I cannot say who was responsible, but Arnab is certainly within his moral rights to make that accusation. After all, the BJP and Prime Minister Modi have often been held personally accountable by the secular ecosystem for random acts of violence. It could even be a matter of people fighting over seats in a train or some thief who stole Rs 8000 from a Christian school.

Liberals are extremely good at defending the free speech rights of those that they perceive to be on their side, no matter how malevolent. This includes Sharjeel Imam, Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Arund**ti Roy and so many others. Free speech has been offered as the defense for everything from slogans of “Bharat tere tukde honge” to speeches that laid out actual strategies for cutting off the North East from India. I don’t even want to write out the rest of the liberal slogan  “Afzal hum sharminda hain…”

Of course, what Arnab said is nowhere near as offensive as the examples of ‘liberalism’ just mentioned. Nevertheless, his words were harsh and this can be a great test case of whether liberals can actually take the heat they love to turn up on others. So far, they have failed spectacularly.

Most of all, you might have noticed that no journalist or intellectual has even come forward to condemn the attack on Arnab Goswami. As much as his intellectual detractors may dislike (and/or be scared of) his journalism, they cannot walk away from the fact that he faced an attack on press freedom. If I may add, in a state where the Congress is part of the ruling formation.

This is how the left wing elite normalizes and intellectualizes violence against those they don’t like. Mostly, this violence is directed against the Hindu right, but it could just as well be any agency of the Indian state. This is why the extreme violence against the Hindu right in say Bengal or Kerala, passes by without comment. Or the countless attacks by left wing militia against innocent people in states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh or Odisha. Of late, we have seen the secular cartel extend its intellectual cover to those attacking police in urban centers during the anti-CAA riots. Even more recently, some eminent liberals have gone so far as to talk of attacks on sanitation workers by members of one community as acts of “resistance.”

Meanwhile, in a development that will surely make Arnab’s detractors more angry, his newly launched Hindi language channel Republic Bharat has broken into the top five in terms of TV ratings.

Indian liberals joining hands with theocratic regimes is a terrifying development for India

When elections stop giving the results you want, why not turn to fascism? In 2014, the Indian electorate rose in revolt against the old elite. In 2019, they looked the elite in the eye and screamed out their verdict with even greater force.

How do you get back at common people who refuse to vote your way? You find the weakest, most vulnerable and you go after them. It’s the liberal way.

So there are millions of common Indians working in the Gulf. Those are theocratic countries ruled by religious law. Many apply the death penalty for blasphemy, for apostasy, for homosexuality and so on.

But Indians being Indians, they carry within themselves a bit of the democratic spirit wherever they go. A spark of the open minded, free society where they come from. They are used to speaking their mind. Sometimes they forget where they are and commit crimes of speech and thought. It was only a matter of time before Indian liberals realized these people were vulnerable and decided to go after them.

Right now, the Indian liberal corner of social media is on a dangerous power trip. They are scanning the online footprint of common Indians who work in the Middle East, flagging any sign of disobedience to ultra conservative religion. They have become the online eyes and ears of the religious police, which then picks up these hapless victims for prosecution under conservative religious law.

Coming together of liberalism and Islamism

In trying to smear India, liberals had so far used some pretenses, spreading their message to America, Europe, Canada, Australia and the like. In doing so, they could hold up the fig leaf that these are all free societies. They could hide behind noble ideals such as human rights, liberty and free expression.

Not any more. Liberals have crossed the big red line and approached theocratic regimes in the Middle East. The other day, Communist trolls gleefully handed over to prosecution a man who had dared to say that the gleaming skyscrapers of the Middle East were built by the sweat of Indian workers.

The irony is think on that one. Communists on the side of the king and not the worker. By the way, the workers’ strike, the most sacred of all Communist rituals, is illegal in the Middle East.

Transnational loyalty of liberals is a danger to India

What do you make of it when prominent journalists, who publish in mainstream outlets, say openly that India’s internal matters are not internal any more? Instead they are trying to get foreign Islamic governments involved in our affairs. Where does this stop? Now they are approaching theocratic Islamic states to interfere in our politics.

Well, Pakistan is an Islamic state. Will Indian liberals approach them as well for support? Have they already done so? Who is next in line to be approached by Indian liberals against the Indian government? China? North Korea? Territories controlled by ISIS or Taliban or Al-Shabab?

By reaching out to Islamic countries, liberals have dropped all pretense that this is about human rights or free expression. This is now about religion. And tapping into transnational loyalties to impose their will on common Indians.

It will get worse, much worse

Imagine this scenario. An Indian in a Middle Eastern theocracy comes home after a hard day at work and pulls out a chilled beer. The next moment, there is a loud banging on the door. The religious police is here. They have been alerted by Indian liberals who noticed the photo he had casually posted on Facebook. Caught with alcohol, he now faces an uncertain and brutal future. Years or even decades in jail, mutilation, possibly even death.

Tomorrow, these online liberal vigilantes could report an Indian to the religious police for being gay. Or perhaps an Indian Muslim, who decides to leave the religion or convert to a different religion. Apostasy is treated as a capital offense in many of those countries and conversion away from Islam is not allowed. Or perhaps even a single woman, who posted pictures of herself taking a casual walk without a “male guardian.”

At the moment, Indian liberals have started out with reporting thought and speech crimes of a political nature to the religious police. This can only get more intrusive. Online vigilantes will soon prey on anyone who breaks any rules of ultra conservative orthodoxy.

Indians in theocratic countries should observe extreme caution

Life isn’t fair. Despite all our outrage over the hypocrisy of Indian liberalism, we have to accept the bitter reality that they win this round. We know that these theocratic countries aren’t likely to change their ways. There’s no use going against their customs, whether knowingly or otherwise.

So, it is up to Indians working in such places to police themselves and observe extreme caution. They have to give up the freedom to express themselves in thought, speech, sexuality, everything.

For people who are used to liberty, this is not an easy transition. But this is the price we must pay for incorporating undemocratic regimes into the global supply chain. A bit like China. Think of existence in a theocratic Middle Eastern country as a permanent state of mental lockdown.

Depressing, but true.

Remember that this shall pass

If it is any comfort, understand that the power of these theocratic regimes is transient. And soon to be done to dust. Why?

Quite simply, because the world will pass them by. Right now, they have a single resource and they live off those lottery winnings.

But think about it. They must have had that resource for thousands of years. It didn’t bring them any prosperity. Until human knowledge advanced to the point that we figured out how to use that resource. And just like that, human knowledge will move past them, discovering newer and better resources.

These theocratic regimes have not used their windfall gains to invest in the knowledge economy. And sooner or later, nations that do not produce new knowledge will be left nowhere. In the long game, the open mind, which welcomes knowledge, will always win over the closed mind.

It is time to worry about Bengal

One of the obvious strategic moves made by the Central govt has been that Home Minister Amit Shah has been mostly away from the public gaze. It is not difficult to guess why. We know that the opposition suffers from pathological, chronic hatred towards Narendra Modi. Not much can be done about that. But,  they break into absolute hysteria of hate when they see Amit Shah. After all, he has crushed most of them in elections.

At this moment, we need full cooperation from opposition Chief Ministers. So it is PM Modi who has to be the face of India’s fight against the virus. The one among the duo who is perceived as more “accommodating.” Which is hilarious, because the two act in absolute coordination. But whatever helps the opposition sleep at night…

So far, things have gone okay. Opposition ruled states have been just as responsible and proactive as BJP ruled states. I keep saying this without any reservation: India has done a good job. Every single state.

But now there is an emerging spot of bother. We always knew who was the weak link. Who is going to manage Didi’s temper?

Who will explain to Mamata Banerjee that this is not the time for silly jousts with the Center? This is not Army or CBI that she can do some grandstanding, shore up her political base and throw all sorts of tantrums. The situation in Bengal is serious. Attempts to delay or cover things can literally knock out the nation itself.

The Central government has also sent teams to 3 other states : Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. By the way, while each state has its challenges, I think central teams were sent to 3 other states at least partially to stave off the impression of any specific targeting of Bengal.

Nobody is targeting Bengal. But who will convince Didi? She is obsessed with proving that she is a person of many talents, from the arts to politics. To be fair, she is. But fighting Corona with anger is not one of her talents. The bureaucracy in Bengal has learned to work around her tantrums. But the virus won’t make any accommodations for her.

Terrifying videos from quarantine ward in Bengal.

Patient says seen 5-6 people die of respiratory distress before his eyes.

Some dead bodies still lying. Other people developing symptoms.

Test taking 4-5 days. No confirmation.

Ego of Didi could unleash extreme devastation. https://t.co/JtD7qaPpjC

— Abhishek (@AbhishBanerj) April 21, 2020

Videos like these are simply terrifying. Sadly, I know exactly what TMC is going to say. That Modi has planted agents to pose as contacts of Coronavirus patients in quarantine wards. And that all this is a BJP conspiracy. In fact, we will be lucky if Didi doesn’t say that the whole pandemic itself was planned by BJP.

I’ll just give you one example. Bengal’s handling of the situation has been so alarming that even the New York Times wrote an article criticizing it. Imagine how bad things would have to be for the NYT to write an article about India and not blame Modi. A personal friend posted it on Facebook. In the comments, an “intellectual” jumped in and wondered if BJP’s Locket Chatterjee and Dilip Ghosh had got the article published in the New York Times.

In other words, myth is ruling over reality. Who could be this ridiculous as to think that NYT is getting its orders from Dilip Ghosh? Apparently, wild theories like these have lots of takers…

A few days ago, another video went viral in Bengal. A TMC MLA had been distributing food rations to the poor. There were some complaints about the food being rotten when it was distributed. A news channel asked her to explain and she retorted… how do I know if BJP has put frogs or snakes inside the food rations I distributed?

The license to engage in such wild conspiracy theories is coming from the very top, from “Nabanno,” the seat of the government in Kolkata.

Sometimes, playing the blame game is a must. Because Didi isn’t listening. I honestly don’t know what options are available at this moment. Putting Bengal under President’s rule would lead to large scale protests, which is the last thing we can afford at this time. And she is determined not to let Central teams inside Bengal, nor any information to go outside.

 

How fake news about ‘intolerance’ inspires attacks on essential workers

With the raging Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic, our society needs its essential workers more than ever. Our police, our doctors, nurses, sanitation workers and the like. Without them, the nation would stand no chance. While we stay at home, they go out on the roads every day, possibly risking their lives in the process.

Not surprisingly, we have seen heartening videos on social media of common citizens expressing their gratitude. Going up to them, handing them something nice and cold to drink. Trying to keep them in high spirits. Don’t forget that the brutal Indian summer has already begun.

But not everyone is like that.

In Dewas in Madhya Pradesh, some workers were out sanitizing the area when they were attacked by a group “armed with sticks, rods and axes – surrounded them. Before the sanitation workers could comprehend anything, the gang attacked them. While most of the workers managed to escape unhurt, one of them sustained critical injury in hand after being hit by an axe.”

Imagine that. A sanitation worker hit on the hand with an axe! Now, who would do something like that?

Allegedly, a mob led by a man called Adil.

And what great purpose was Adil hoping to accomplish with his dastardly act? This report from India Today gives us a hint.

“Locals.” Hmmm… From the article.

“Aadil, his father Habib and cleric Gop Khan, who allegedly instigated the attack, were arrested on Friday, while Aadil’s brother Arif was nabbed on Saturday, Chourasia said.

During interrogation, Aadil claimed that he indulged in violence as Gop Khan had told them that since the lockdown, namaazees and followers of the Tablighi Jamaat were hounded by government workers, the ASP said.”

In other words, this is the bitter harvest of the hatred that Indian liberals have been diligently sowing among India’s Muslim minority for the last six months now. They had been simmering it on a low flame for five years with the wildly exaggerated “lynchistan” narrative. It was set to boiling point when widespread hysteria was engineered over the CAA and the yet to exist NRC! And now we are living in this alternate reality where the Tablighi Jamaat are being touted as victims of some great atrocity by the government.

It’s a fact that approximately 30% of all confirmed cases of Wuhan Coronavirus in India so far can be traced to a gathering of the Tablighi Jamaat. And even if some people make the excuse that they were too poorly educated to know better (despite 60 years of supposedly ‘secular’ rule by their alleged well wishers), nothing can excuse the subsequent behavior : spitting, pelting stones on doctors and cops, misbehaving with nurses and so on.

But in the upside down world of Indian liberalism, myth rules over reality. Eminent liberals have gone to comical lengths to give clean chits to the Jamaat. Some even cited their claims of religious piety and said they couldn’t possibly molest a woman or commit any other kind of crime. Yes, when has it ever happened that members of a conservative religious group have engaged in any kind of criminal behavior?

These conspiracy theories were invented to defame India. I understand that they sell like hot cakes on the global media scene. But at home, these conspiracy theories are wreaking havoc on the psyche of India’s minorities. As if the paranoia over CAA and NRC and ‘lynchistan’ were not enough.

It is beginning to some people like Adil over the edge. Making them so crazy that they are now out with axes to hit sanitation workers. Because everything seems like a conspiracy now; the virus, the quarantine, everything.

There’s no ‘lynchistan.’ Neither is there a draft of NRC. But many folks like Adil have been tutored to fear it. Now, they don’t even know what is real any more. And many have stopped caring. They are living in a state of mortal fear. And irrational fear.

The incident in Dewas in Madhya Pradesh is not isolated. Few weeks ago, doctors trying to enter possible hotspots of the virus in Indore were pelted with stones. Reports of a similar nature have poured in from across the country : Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, everywhere. In each of these cases, the culprit is the same : irrational fear, provoked by a fake intolerance narrative.

We are at a fateful moment in our nation’s history. We require the cooperation of every single individual to make the fight against the Wuhan Coronavirus a success. But at every step, essential workers like doctors, cops, nurses, etc have found themselves stonewalled by groups of people acting out of irrational fear. Who sowed this fear? Who has been earning big bucks by marketing the intolerance narrative all around the world? This time their personal fortunes are literally coming at the cost of the nation and perhaps even all of humanity. For the love of humanity, STOP!

Okay, that appeal definitely won’t work with them. How about I put this differently? India has 1.3 billion people. If India fails to stop the virus, the rest of the world is toast along with us. You can then forget about those big bucks from abroad. For the future of your own bank account, STOP!