Ram Mandir struggle reaches triumph

In the Indian tradition, there is a very important distinction between “jay” and “vijay.” The word “jay” means victory. “Vijay” is also victory, but it is total victory, wiping the record clean. You could translate “vijay” as triumph, instead of just victory.

On Aug 5, 2020, when PM Modi laid the foundations of the Ram Temple, it was “jay” or victory. Today we have “vijay” or triumph.

Most of all, I am glad Advani ji and Dr. Joshi lived long enough to see this day. All their lives, they had been vilified as if they were criminals. Not any more. The judgement of the special court in Lucknow has acquitted all 32 accused in the demolition case. The court has said clearly that there was no conspiracy.

Last year, the Supreme Court delivered its verdict on the disputed land and handed it to Hindus. On Aug 5, 2020, PM Modi laid the foundation stone for the grand temple at Ram Janmabhoomi.

A long and painful chapter of history has come to a happy end. I am not a big believer in fate, but this is one of those days when you might want to believe that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice.

No revival of India is possible without a revival of Hinduism. And how can there be a revival of Hinduism without rebuilding the Ram Temple? It would be like asking for an “independent” India without Delhi.

But remember, it is not the temple, but the greatness of the Hindu nation that history will judge us by. The temple is a symbol that we are ready to reclaim our place in the world. So let us get ahead and do that.

Obviously, there will be two different reactions to this verdict among two groups of people. If you are like me, the reaction is one of unqualified jubilation. On the other side, there will be “liberals” who will be angry, who will call it miscarriage of justice, who will make cynical remarks about a structure demolishing itself, with no conspiracy.

I don’t believe there was a conspiracy. I believe it was a spontaneous event. A sudden expression of anger against a symbol of subjugation. It was a victimless “crime” as well. And today, I have a court judgement to back up my belief that there was no conspiracy.

But I know there are people who will choose to believe otherwise. I will not argue with them. And most importantly, I will not sympathize with them. They are welcome to their beliefs. If they reject the court verdict, so be it. If they believe that power has forced an injustice on them, so be it.

There is really not that much to say. The chapter is thus closed.

Coronavirus shows that Kerala model is the same as Bihar model of healthcare

Yesterday was a moment of truth for the Kerala model, hailed worldwide as the one true model of healthcare. For the last several days, Kerala’s coronavirus numbers had been skyrocketing at close to 7000 per day. But a particularly significant milestone was reached yesterday.

As on date, Kerala has 1,79,923 confirmed cases of Corona virus. The state of Bihar has 1,80,032 confirmed cases. The difference between Kerala model of healthcare and the poorest most backward state in the country? Just 109 cases!

In fact, Kerala would have crossed Bihar yesterday, going by its recent trajectory. But Kerala aggressively reduced testing, doing just 33600 tests yesterday, resulting in 4538 confirmed cases. The test positive rate in Kerala is an alarming 13.5%.

Meanwhile, Bihar carried out some 1.2 lakh tests and reported 1150 cases, a positive rate of 0.9%.

Sadly, the media hasn’t followed up on what happened since they praised Kerala model to high heaven all the way from April to July. So a lot of people might be taken aback by the comparison between Bihar and Kerala.

Let me update you on the facts. Bihar has been testing much more than Kerala, doing well over 1 lakh tests a day. Kerala has been lagging very far behind at just 50,000 or so per day. So far, Bihar has done 70 lakh tests and Kerala only 28 lakh. The test positive rate in Kerala is now among the highest in the country. And the test positive rate in Bihar is possibly the lowest.

What about number of deaths? Bihar has seen around 900 deaths and Kerala around 700. This is not a big gap. And remember that Bihar is testing much more than Kerala, with a much lower test positive rate. This means that Kerala is likely missing many more cases than Bihar is. So the small gap in number of deaths is easily explained by that.

That’s the Kerala model: global PR, global fame, international awards. But when it comes to delivery on the ground, Kerala’s healthcare stands at the same level as Bihar.

Let’s not forget: we are comparing Kerala and Bihar here. The poorest state in India versus the alleged global champion in healthcare. The Health Minister of Bihar never went to BBC mocking the rest of India for not having hospitals. Bihar didn’t win any awards for healthcare or HDI. Bihar didn’t mock anyone. But when it came to delivering on the ground, it did just as well as Kerala. Minus international awards, of course.

Side note on Uttar Pradesh. As of now, UP has some 54,000 active cases versus 58,000 active cases in Kerala. Congratulations to Kerala’s star Health Minister Shailaja Teacher for surpassing Uttar Pradesh, a state with 7 times the population of Kerala, in total number of active cases. Oh, and UP’s test positive rate is only around 2.5%.

An award from the UN might not be enough for the great ‘Teacher.’ Some special inter-galactic award might be in order for the best healthcare system in the universe.

There are many points to note here and I will make them one by one.

First, the intellectual cheerleaders of Kerala model have fallen completely silent. When the going was good, we heard so much about it. Now that Kerala has collapsed to the level of Bihar, these experts have simply gone silent, hidden under their desks or slipped out through the backdoor. This proves they were never experts, but simply politicians with a partisan operative mentality. What use do we have for experts who hide their faces and refuse to admit their mistakes when the facts go against their political bias? Can we ever trust them again?

Second, the stranglehold of the Communists over the media is scary. When the going was good, the Communists had the media eating out of their hands. When things went bad, they simply stopped the media coverage, like turning off a tap or clicking a switch. No apologies were offered for the publicity around Kerala model. The media just went dark. This is terrifying. The CPIM can get away with literally anything because their media network will not shine a light on their misdeeds no matter what.

The third point is that the people of Kerala are now in serious danger. There is a reason the media is called one of the pillars of democracy : it is supposed to highlight failings of the government. But the media observes a mafia like code of silence over the unfolding disaster of Kerala healthcare. For decades, the Communists have unleashed political massacres all across Kerala (ask a Bengali like me about what Communist rule is like). The political murders went unreported. The mafia like code of silence in the media around Communist crimes makes people of Kerala less safe, not more. But this time, the stakes are much higher. This is a virus. It is capable of unleashing death and destruction on a scale that even Communists cannot match. And nobody will know what is happening in Kerala because the media will not talk about it.

Fourth, one should realize that the Communists have been fooling the masses of Kerala for a long time with a curious form of regional sub-nationalism. I’m sorry to break the facts, but Kerala just isn’t the star performer that Communist propaganda says that it is. In fact, it’s economy is a basket case and has always been so. The grip of political malaise in the state has been such that most enterprising folks have left. They had to use their talents to built businesses and wealth in the Gulf, instead of India. The genius of Kerala is making UAE richer, not Kerala and the rest of India. The state is reduced to operating a remittance economy.

The many disasters of the Kerala model have been swept under the rug by propaganda about regional pride. The regional pride plank rose to a crescendo when liberal ecosystem arranged all sorts of awards and interviews with BBC for Kerala’s Communist ministers. Now that Kerala’s healthcare system has proved no better than Bihar, the scales should fall away from everyone’s eyes. Those experts with connections at BBC and Al Jazeera were never friends of Kerala. They used Kerala as a marketing tool to push their political agenda. Now that Kerala is in peril, they are not willing to discuss the fate of real people.

Fifth, with the collapse of the Kerala healthcare model, the Communists are going back to the frightening basics of Stalinism. The Chief Minister and his star Health Minister have refused to take all responsibility. Instead, they say the surge of cases is because of the opposition protesting against the government in the gold scam. You get that? The cornered Communists know only one language: repression. They are not blaming themselves. They are blaming democratic expression for the failure of the Kerala model. They are coming for your liberties.

Finally, we have to note the story of Bihar and Kerala has many life lessons in it. This is like one of those Panchatantra stories we learned as kids. This is a tweet back in March from someone who has written in The Wire and Newsclick.

I will not speculate on what he wanted to say or what his tone was. You be the judge of that. I will just make some general observations, which may or may not be related to his tweet. Or the tweets of so many other liberals in the last several months.

Arrogance is wrong. Never look down on anyone. Especially, never look down on anyone because they are poor or underprivileged. They might have lessons for you. Be humble. Pride always comes before a fall. Life is a great leveler. Life is a great teacher. Even greater than Shailaja ‘Teacher.’

Bihar: If people are unhappy, it will show

The elections have finally been announced in Bihar. A three phase election after many decades, with results just before Diwali.

On paper, the BJP looks strong enough to be complacent. With JDU on its side and of late Paswan’s LJP turning fanatically pro-BJP, it is hard to imagine an alliance with a bigger advantage in terms of arithmetic.

The main opposition RJD is perhaps the most discredited party in the whole of India. As much as people would be tired of Nitish, the term Lalu-raj creates a very primal kind of fear among people. A lot of young people may not have seen it, but like Gabbar Singh or Darth Vader, the fear of Lalu-raj is an idiom that is passed down the generations.

For some reason, the RJD and Congress insist on calling themselves a “Mahagathbandhan” when in all fairness, the title should belong to the BJP+JDU+LJP alliance. The RJD+Cong is a mini-bandhan, with a core vote barely reaching 30%.

On the other hand, the BJP+JDU+LJP has a core vote share likely well above 45%.

Then, there are the smaller parties like HAM and RLSP which had initially wanted to be part of RJD+Cong alliance. Both have deserted, seeing no future. Both are reportedly at the door of NDA, begging to be accommodated in some capacity.

It is not like RJD has the leadership to put up a spirited fight. “Tejasvi bhaiyya” was once rumored to be picking up a bit, but has proven a damp squib mostly. He has announced that he will fill up 10 lakh vacant posts in the state govt if elected. But people rarely take such promises honestly. There’s no way his credibility is above Nitish Kumar (however low it may be now) and of course he is nowhere near Modi.

The once Nitish vs Modi popularity question is now reduced to a joke. Would you ask which is bigger: an elephant or an aircraft carrier?

On paper, this election is over.

On paper.

But democracy is a very curious creature and I bet both Nitish and BJP will be aware of it. I can’t put a finger on it, but I feel some genuine uneasiness about this election in Bihar.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m just letting my deep dislike of Nitish Kumar get in the way. But I will tell you this: I am uneasy about Bihar election.

The BJP looks a bit too comfortably placed. I feel complacency in the air. I fear there might be less than total mobilization of the cadre to bring the voters to the polling booth. Especially during Covid times. Commander in Chief Amit Shah is out of commission for the moment.

Perhaps I am just compensating for my over optimism during Haryana and Maharashtra elections. The opposition in Bihar is much more discredited and the arithmetic advantage of BJP much bigger. But I have to say this: if people are unhappy, it will show.

Democracy is a teacher like that. It will not allow complacency to set in. If people sense arrogance or laziness, they will not hesitate to teach a lesson.

The absence of an opposition does not in itself guarantee a walkover. Think about a year such as 1967. There was Congress and only Congress in those days. But after 3 terms in power, fatigue had set in among the voters. Yes, Congress did win in 1967, but with 287 seats, a sharply low tally unthinkable for Congress at the time. If a non-opposition could have scored nationally in 1967, you just can’t write off RJD.

The BJP has to plunge into this election like it means everything. Right now, the party feels a bit like a victim of its own success, with too many factors going right to give cause for worry. Even Coronavirus, amazingly, has been quite mellow in Bihar. I just don’t see the spring in BJP’s step. I expect very little from Nitish Kumar by way of cadre mobilization. For that matter, JDU would need to have cadres first.

A lot of India’s greatest maharathis of politics have been humbled on the banks of the Ganga, in Bihar. The electorate in Bihar takes great pride in the power of their vote. In their power to humble great maharathis of Indian politics. You just can’t take Bihar for granted.

Bollywood coverage saves liberals the blushes as Bharat Bandh becomes a mega flop

The following is an actual line from Aaj Tak’s coverage of the Bharat Bandh yesterday:

“भारत बंद का पंजाब से हरियाणा तक असर देखने को मिल रहा है” (Effect of Bharat Bandh is visible from Punjab to Haryana).

I do not wish to be too hard on the poor intern who wrote these words, probably not realizing the irony. In fact, I feel bad for the big media channels yesterday. For days, they had been put on notice by liberal conscience keepers of our great nation.

“Farmers” are protesting, the conscience keepers had said. They had taunted the TV channels endlessly for their supposed obsession with the dark underbelly of Bollywood. They wanted to see coverage of “real issues.” Most of all, on Sep 25, when farmers all over India were supposed to rise up in a day of rage against the new farming bills passed by the government.

In doing so, the liberal conscience keepers set up the media to cover the biggest non-event of the year. All through the day, the media was reduced to putting out images of dozen or so people here and there in Punjab. A handful of people protesting in areas of Haryana bordering Punjab. And that’s about it. Perhaps not wishing to embarrass the “activists,” media took photos of the protesters from up close, so that the sparse crowd would not be so obvious. They probably did the same with Tejaswi Yadav’s “tractor rally” in Patna.

Until a day before, India’s one true journalist Ravish Kumar had been wagging a finger at the media, expressing fears that “crores of farmers” would lose out to one Deepika in TV coverage. Last evening, after the bandh had flopped, he bleated out something roughly like this: People are calling it a Punjab-Haryana bandh, but there was a protest 3 days ago somewhere in Odisha…

Don’t cry, Ravish ji. I hate tears.

As a kid, my greatest fear was that nobody would show up to my birthday party. That I would be waiting, dressed up, with cake, balloons and all, but nobody would show up. Thanks to my friends, that never happened. But after watching Ravish Kumar’s show yesterday, I know what that nightmare would have been like.

They said farmers were very angry. They said farmers had been sold out. Remember that 50% of India works in agriculture. If farmers were really angry, they wouldn’t need to schedule a day of protest. They would spill out into the streets and instantly bring the country to a halt. Instead, the opposition took like a week to prepare the “protests” and delivered a damp squib bigger than Deepika’s last movie.

Ironically, the one thing that saved the liberals the blushes yesterday was the same Bollywood coverage they had been mocking. Had there been no Bollywood scandal taking up air time, liberals would have been even more embarrassed by the complete absence of protests.

There is an important lesson here for those of us in India’s cities. It’s true that we know almost nothing about farmers’ issues. So we tend to fall for the image of the Indian farmer as helpless and forever in distress. And we tend to get caught up in feelings of doubt and guilt. We tend to worry about whether we are paying enough attention to our farmers.

Those are legitimate concerns. But we also need to understand that a class of snake oil salesmen is trying to cash in on this guilt. We don’t know about farmer issues, but trust me: the five star comrades know even less. Some sweet talking fake psephologist from Lutyens, for instance, is no farmer leader. He is much more disconnected from real issues of India than almost anyone else.

Yesterday, the farmers of India did send a message after all. By giving a cold shoulder to yesterday’s “Lutyens bandh,” they told the rest of us that five star comrades don’t represent farmers. Let us pick up this message from our kisan brothers and sisters and stop paying attention to five star activists.

Oh and here is some free advice for liberals. Next time you call a bandh in which nobody wants to participate, try playing Arnab’s show in public places. You might gather some crowds. Then, you can pass them off as “protesters” who have gathered to support your cause.

Why the mainstreaming of Umar Khalid is scary

As a practical matter, anyone who is accused of a crime has to appear before three kinds of courts. The first is the court of law, which is of course, the only legitimate one. The second is a court of elite opinion made up of “eminent” people: academics, intellectuals, journalists and such. In other words, people in positions of privilege, whether earned or inherited. The third is a court of general public opinion, where all of us get to say.

Now, the court of law has to proceed slowly and very carefully. And the court of general public opinion delivers its verdict only once every five years. As such, this gap is filled by the court of elite opinion. At the moment, with a range of “eminent” personalities coming out in favor of Umar Khalid, he is winning this circuit hands down.

I cannot tell you if Umar Khalid is guilty or innocent. However, I can tell you that the mainstreaming of Umar Khalid and other elements like him is absolutely terrifying.

Who is Umar Khalid? He first surfaced around 2016 as an apologist for Afzal Guru. Just listen to him speaking on Times Now here.

Remember Afzal Guru? He was a terrorist who was executed in Feb 2013 for his role in the attack on Indian Parliament in 2001. Not that it should matter, but his execution, as well as most of his trial happened under the UPA government of Sonia Gandhi.

As with anything to do with terrorism, a small club of fringe elements sprang up around the issue, spreading conspiracy theories. It consisted of pathological anti-India elements like Arund**ti Roy, radical Islamists, JNU “students” with nothing better to do and the like. Nobody took them very seriously. They were the fringe. Whether left, right or center, nobody in mainstream politics would have anything to do with them.

How did that change? How did someone like Umar Khalid become mainstream?

Here is Umar Khalid’s tribute to Hizbul terrorist Burhan Wani.

“I don’t care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting. These were the words of Che Guevara but could have just been Burhan Wani’s too”

And:

“Burhan wasn’t scared of death, he was scared of a life lived in subjugation. He detested it. He lived a free man, died a free man …..”.

In case you missed it, we are talking here about Burhan Wani, a commander of the dreaded terrorist organization Hizbul Mujahideen. Whether or not you think Umar Khalid belongs in jail, he certainly does belong to the mad house.

But today, they speak as if Umar Khalid isn’t fringe. When did supporters of Hizbul Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba become mainstream? Where is this country going?

Umar Khalid is not the only example of this phenomenon. Take Sharjeel Imam, another hero of modern Indian liberalism. A man who asked for the Northeast to be cut off from India. Now, India has never had a clear free speech law and therefore those who say outrageous things (on any topic) have often found themselves in jail.

Five years ago, Sharjeel Imam would have gone to jail and nobody would have cried for him. But today, the liberal media has come up with long winded excuses about why he should be excused for saying what he did. Sharjeel is a man who wants thousands of portraits of Jinnah across this land to inspire Muslim youth. Incidentally, Sharjeel rails against liberals who wanted Muslims to vote for Kanhaiya Kumar in Begusarai Lok Sabha seat instead of the RJD candidate Tanvir Hasan. He asks how Muslims could be expected in good conscience to vote for a non-believer.

Sharjeel Imam despises liberals. The liberals love him. How did it come to this?

Some 15,000 people showed up to pay last respects to Yakub Memon, a terrorist executed for his role in Mumbai serial blasts. Leading national newspapers covered it as if it was the final journey of a hero. How did it come to this?

It’s not only the radical Islamist fringe that has become mainstream. The radical Communist fringe has enjoyed a similar welcome into the mainstream.

In Aug 2018, the Congress party’s official handle spoke up against arrests of a bunch of “activists.” Among the activists was Vernon Gonsalves, a man who had been convicted under many sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. Again, his arrest, trial, sentencing and jail term had happened entirely under the rule of Congress party, both at the Center and in Maharashtra. Yet, five years after he was released from jail, the Congress official handle made him out to be a hero.

Then, there is Varavara Rao, currently lodged in jail. He has been arrested multiple times under Congress govts as well. But today he is another hero of Indian liberalism. How did the mainstream come to embrace a man who supports “azaadi” for Kashmir, Hyderabad and the North East?

Remember how Dr. Singh had called left wing terror the greatest internal threat to India?

Seen through the prism of Indian liberalism in 2020, the government of Dr. Singh, under the control of Sonia Gandhi, now sounds like it was right wing.

So what happened? What happened is a spectacular failure of the Congress Party to keep its ecosystem together. If you look at the list of “eminent” people defending Umar Khalid, the mutually back scratching elites signing themselves with the names of their famous dads and moms, great granddads and great grandmas, these elites would never have come to BJP anyway. They belonged as friends of the Congress, the traditional party of zamindars.

But after the 2014 election, the Congress party collapsed. It’s intellectually void leadership could not give a home to the intellectual zamindars of the world. This left the field open for fringe elements such as Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and Vernon Gonsalves to take charge.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, its nuclear weapon stockpiles were left scattered all across their fallen empire. Rogue states from all over the world seized on the opportunity: Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, etc. Everything, from jobless Soviet nuclear and bio weapon scientists to stores of highly enriched uranium, fell into the wrong hands. We are witnessing the political equivalent of that.

We need to restore sanity by drawing lines in the sand. It’s okay if the extreme left is defined by people such as Ram Guha or Shashi Tharoor. But the fringe, consisting of Yakub Memon, Umar Khalid, Afzal Guru, Burhan Wani, Vernon Gonsalves or Varavara Rao must not be allowed to become mainstream.

Triple talaq to child marriage: all the crimes against ‘Bilkis’ that Indian liberals would have supported

If you stand in the crowd at Mumbai’s CST station, you are likely to come across at least one Bilkis. A common name for an Indian Muslim girl, “Bilkis” could be almost anyone among the great masses. But today, among the 1300 million citizens of India, one Bilkis stands apart.

Indian liberals are very proud of her. The 82 year old Bilkis has been featured as one of the most influential people in the world by TIME Magazine.

At 82 years of age, Bilkis must have seen a lot of life. This is not a biography of Bilkis. I do not know about her, except that she was part of the protests at Shaheen Bagh in Delhi. Like I said, Bilkis could be any face in the crowd. This is a telling of all the things that could have happened to someone named Bilkis as she grew up in India, all the way to the ripe old age of 82. All the crimes that could have been committed against her. All the crimes that would have been approved by Indian “liberalism.”

What if ‘Bilkis’ was a 62 year old mother of five, who had dedicated her whole life to raising her children? And what if her husband had one day pronounced a talaq against her and turned her into the street, without a single paisa to her name? What if, at the age of 62 years, she found the strength to approach the Supreme Court and actually win the right to alimony? What would liberals do? Would they want to see her on the cover of TIME Magazine?

No. Of course not. Indian liberals would want Parliament to call an emergency session and pass a law to deprive her of the means of living. The liberals would go on to proudly call this the “Muslim Woman (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act.” She would receive the “protection” of losing everything. Like George Orwell said, “Freedom is slavery.”

What if ‘Bilkis’ was a woman living an ordinary married life and one day her husband just decided to get rid of her? All he would have to do is say “Talaq – Talaq – Talaq.” Three times. That’s all. If he was an even bigger coward and unable to look her in the eye, he could just say the words by SMS. And she would be out of his life instantly. She would have been cast away with no rights to anything. Indian liberals would have supported that.

What if ‘Bilkis’ gave up her self respect and begged and pleaded on hearing those three words, or reading them in an SMS? What if her begging and pleading melted her now ex-husband’s heart and he agreed to take her back? What would ‘Bilkis’ have to do? First, she would have to sleep with a strange man as part of “Nikah-Halala.” Indian liberals would have supported that too.

What if ‘Bilkis’ was 30 years old and suddenly heard the terrible news that her father had passed away? Her father would have worked hard his whole life to leave something for all his children, whom he would have loved equally. So can ‘Bilkis’ get an equal share of the inheritance?

Not if ‘Bilkis’ had any brothers. As a daughter, she would be entitled to receive only half of what her brothers get. Actually, that’s wrong. As a daughter, she isn’t “entitled” to anything. Muslim personal law divides people into “sharers” and “residuaries.” The sons are “sharers” : they are the ones who are entitled to a share of the property. As a ‘daughter’ she can only be a “residuary”: those who take up what is left over after the sharers have taken their part!

Equal citizen of India. But not equal in the eyes of the law. Indian liberals support this.

What if ‘Bilkis’ was a mere teenager, perhaps 15 or 16 years old? At that age, she would most likely be starting to develop an interest in boys. Perhaps thinking about holding hands with a boy or dreaming about her first kiss. Not old enough for marriage. Or for that matter, dating anyone seriously. She would have too much homework at school anyway. Could they take young ‘Bilkis’ and force her to get married? They absolutely could. A Muslim girl in India can be legally married off once she has hit puberty. Liberals support this as well.

What if ‘Bilkis’ was a naturally curious 10 year old girl, with an interest in math or science? Would her teachers at school spot her talent and try to nurture it? Well, not necessarily. Her “school” could be a madrassa that does not even teach science or math. It would still be called a “school” despite the fact that it doesn’t teach math or science. In 2015, the Govt of Maharashtra decided that in order to be recognized as a school, it must teach math and science. Liberals were very angry with this. They said this was an example of “intolerance.” When has anything good ever come from teaching math and science to kids?

What if ‘Bilkis’ was a six or seven year old girl and they decided to mutilate her genitals? Should that be legal? Indian liberals seem to think it should be. As for the Supreme Court, they have referred the matter to a larger bench. They are still thinking. We will know when the honorable justices have made up their minds.

And finally, let us get back to a protest site such as Shaheen Bagh. What if ‘Bilkis’ was an infant, a newborn barely a few days old? What if her mother and father kept taking her out to the protest in the bitterly cold Delhi winter nights? What if ‘Bilkis’ was coughing, but she was so little that nobody even noticed? What if one day, her struggles suddenly came to an end, without so much as making a sound? And she left the cruel world, just a few weeks old? All this while, secular intellectuals would be circling like vultures, making provocative speeches and glorifying the mothers for bringing babies out there. And of course, scouting for a kind looking 82 year old grandmother to put on the cover of TIME Magazine…

Like I said before, ‘Bilkis’ could be any face in the crowd. In India, ‘Bilkis’ could come in many forms. But Indian liberals love just one of them.

BJP govt must be careful about ecosystem trying to engineer price rises

On the recent farm sector reform bills, the hypocrisies of the opposition are perhaps too numerous to count. We could start from the fact that in 2012, then Prime Minister Dr. Singh appealed to states to reform the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) and create a national market. In his signature style of always using a raincoat when in the shower, Dr. Singh didn’t actually do anything.

Then, there is of course the fact that the Congress manifesto for the 2019 elections promised to end the monopoly of the APMCs. On the Essential Commodities Act of 1955, the Congress manifesto was even more severe, perhaps taking a jibe at Nehru! The Congress manifesto called it something that belongs to the “age of controls.” Very clear thinking, one must say. Except that the Congress is opposing both its manifesto promises right now.

Then, there is Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram. He wants to know how the government will guarantee an MSP in private transactions. Well, the new act does not abolish APMCs, it merely removes their monopoly. When the higher MSP is still available at the APMC, why would any farmer sell at a lower price outside it?

It isn’t just the Congress. There are the left parties as well, who have been vocal in their criticism. Ironically, CPI(M) ruled Kerala is one of the few states that does not even have APMCs. Nobody knows what the left is even doing.

But as long as venerable members of the opposition can climb up to the table of the presiding officer of the Rajya Sabha and break his mike, who cares? Opposing Modi is the one point agenda. No matter how silly they look.

But the BJP government needs to watch out about what comes next. The so called “age of controls” may be over, but the mentality of that era might not be. The ghost of socialism is far from dead. We never know what can bring the paranoid socialist era fears back with a bang.

And if the “ecosystem” can do anything about it, they most certainly will.

The year was 1998 and Atalji had just assumed power as Prime Minister. This was India’s first truly non-Congress government. As Modi ji had put it in 2013, Atal Behari Vajpayee was the first Prime Minister of India who did not come from what he called “Congress gotra.”

Then, something happened, which a lot of people may not be old enough to remember. The prices of onions started soaring and nobody knew why. People had never seen a non-Congress government before. Sure, they were hopeful, but they were also nervous. Nobody knew for sure if a non-Congress government could actually run the country. And when the price of onions began soaring, panic set in among the populace.

The media quickly got into the act. The newspapers began raising a fever pitch. Entertainers such as comedians on TV stepped in as well to create a wave of public opinion against the new government. Remember that back then, almost all of these people were beholden to the old establishment.

The panic cost the BJP heavily in the state elections later that year. It lost Delhi and Rajasthan by massive margins. In Madhya Pradesh, Digvijay Singh managed to save his government by a whisker.

The onion panic of 1998 cost the BJP three crucial states. The elections ended. The price of onions came down to normal.

Could something similar happen with food items today, after the reforms to the Essential Commodities Act? We don’t know, but the fear certainly is there.

To be sure, things are a lot different now. The ecosystem is much weaker than it was in 1998. Those who run the links in the supply chain are no longer beholden to the old establishment. Not everyone in the media is beholden to them either. And finally, the population itself has changed. Nobody asks today if a non-Congress government can run the country.

But it never hurts to be forever watchful.

Should India follow everyone else and stop testing to avoid bad publicity?

The missing headline of the last one and half months of the pandemic is the collapse of the much vaunted “Kerala model.” Now, here is why I have nothing but contempt for the media. When they had decent numbers to report from Kerala, they went to town about the world beating “Kerala model.” Then, the numbers got sour — very very sour. Right now, Kerala is among the worst performing states. Instead of eating their words, the media just moved on.

Yesterday, Kerala did around 23200 tests and found 2910 cases, a positive rate of nearly 13%.

Yes, the great intellectuals who brought us the Kerala model are cheating now. They are cutting down testing to save themselves bad publicity.

Maharashtra has done something quite similar and aggressively reduced testing. For once, here is a thought. If not the old Kerala model, is the “new Kerala model” worth considering?

You can think of it as a form of cheating. But if literally everyone else is doing it, is it still ‘cheating’?

Take Mexico, for instance. They did 6000 tests yesterday and reported 3000 positive cases. A positive rate of 50%. You’d think people would be worried about Mexico. But, surprisingly, they’re not. On paper, Mexico has “flattened the curve.” See?

The story is the same all across Central and South America. Test positive rates above 50% across Brazil, Argentina, etc. By reducing tests, they have all “flattened the curve.” On paper.

You could say they are all cheating. But global media seems to be playing along. They should care about the low testing and high rate of positives. But somehow, they don’t seem to.

Even Western Europe has got in on the ‘cheating’ game. The test positive rate in Spain is now 12%, much higher than India. Nobody seems to care. Here is the curve for Spain.

They know it’s out of control. They have decided to start cheating. Meanwhile, here is the flat curve for France, the country with the globally #1 ranked healthcare system.

If this curve does not look flat to you, don’t worry. The world’s greatest economists and epidemiologists have proved by means of logical arguments that this is actually a flat curve.

Till date, I have not seen a single media article critical of France’s much vaunted #1 position. They are all praise for France. They have harsh words only for India. The headlines of India reports 90,000+ cases each day are hurting our international image.

At the end of August, the New York Times produced with much relish the headline that India’s pandemic is now the “fastest growing in the world.” In the 10 days before that, the number of cases was increasing around 2-2.4% per day.

Now see the situation in France in the last few days.

Look at that. Lots of daily growth numbers between 2.5% and 3% and some more than 3%.

Hey, New York Times: where is your headline that France now has the fastest growing pandemic?

Stupid question, I know. For one, France is full of white people, not brown folks like us. And more importantly, you folks at NYT have to win an election in November by telling Americans that the French healthcare system is super awesome.

So if everyone else is cheating, why are we buying bad publicity by doing honest testing on a large scale?

There are two caveats here. First, if we stop testing, what will happen on the ground? Will we face disaster? Nobody can answer that for sure, but the signs are encouraging. All over South America (especially) they are not testing. But things have not gone out of hand. Perhaps the virus is just less dangerous than we feared.

The second caveat is more interesting. All these other countries I named : Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Argentina are able to cheat because the media is playing along. They are letting them cheat. There is no billion dollar global industry dedicated to defaming Spain, for instance. But defaming India is a big industry, employing lakhs of low IQ personnel around the world. They will create the greatest hue and cry about it and could make it even worse. And don’t think that in “exposing” India, they will also expose how everyone else is cheating as well. The anti-India industry is capable of sustaining remarkable levels of hypocrisy on a massive scale.

So what do you think?

Farm bill passage shows how many levers of power are needed to run the country

It was a stormy session, but the bill did get passed after all. And with that, we have officially entered the era of farm sector reform. Dr. Singh appealed for it in 2012 in his signature play safe/raincoat in shower style. The Congress manifesto promised it in 2019. Even the Swaminathan report suggested it.

Somebody had to get it done, instead of cowering for fear of the political risk. That was Modi.

This is a small start to big bang reforms. There is so much more that has to be accomplished. On land, labor, everything.

You can accuse the Congress of hypocrisy if you want. But that’s more of a surface diagnosis. The fact is that everybody wants to stay away from political risks. The Congress put it in their manifesto, but they knew they weren’t coming to power anyway. Even if by some chance they did, they would have a big coalition and they could easily shake off manifesto promises by citing coalition dharma. In any case, who even reads the manifesto?

It’s not just political risk that people shy away from. It is even intellectual risk. In the last several months, you have seen economists and non-economists (is there a difference?) fire off articles, tweets and soundbytes about the way the Modi government has handled the economy. Some fair criticisms and many unfair ones. All of them written with much flair and flourish.

And yet, when there was real reform on the floor of the Rajya Sabha yesterday, these experts were nowhere to be found. They didn’t want to take the intellectual risk. They can raise a freaking hurricane in their Op-ed pieces, but they are always missing when there is real action. They can only sit in their armchairs, waiting for the luxury of hindsight. If you ask them to come up with a specific proposal for the future, they can only fire blanks.

I will specifically mention Chetan Bhagat here, because I respect him for his accomplishments and expect better from him. The other day he wrote a much publicized piece in ToI about the need to talk about the economy. And he swooned when Shashi Tharoor patted him on the head for it. Yes, the groveling was hard to watch.

I actually took 5 minutes out of my life to read Chetan’s piece. There’s only one specific prescription I found there. It was:

“Open up the economy. Like, really.”

Totally agree, Chetan. They were doing just that yesterday. Where were you?

I know Chetan Bhagat has nothing to say. The IIT graduate — the IIM graduate — the high octane Goldman-Sachs investment banker — the outsider who changed the face of Indian writing: all that is no more. He now craves the “prestige” of being a lazy intellectual. Sad.

So that’s the way things are. Nobody wants a political risk. Nobody wants an intellectual risk. The political parties feed off the status quo and the intellectuals feed off hindsight. Neither is a way to get anything done.

One more thing. An observation about just how many levers of power you need in order to be in control of the country. On paper, the BJP came to power in 2014 itself. But it took 6 years to get good numbers in the Rajya Sabha, without which most attempts at legislation were hopeless. Yesterday, the BJP got a helping hand from a bunch of smaller regional parties. This wouldn’t have happened a few years ago. Till 2014 was seen as an aberration and Congress was seen as the default party of governance, the regional forces would never have helped out the BJP. That changed only because of 2019. The assumption about which is the default party of governance has changed.

It’s more than just numbers in the Rajya Sabha. It’s also about who is in the chair. What do you think would have happened if Hamid Ansari (or Deputy Chairman P J Kurien) had been presiding over the house? Do you think they would have let the bill pass amid the commotion? Or do you think they would have adjourned the house?

Two final notes: First, Ex-Deputy Chair of the Rajya Sabha Mr. P J Kurien has an interesting past. Look it up. Don’t let your jaw drop.

Second, I found out yesterday that CPIM ruled Kerala doesn’t even have APMCs. And they were fighting tooth and nail, arguing that an APMC monopoly is essential to save the farmer. That makes the Communists, beyond all doubt, the joker in the pack.

Why Arnab vs Ravish is like India vs China

The other day, while hearing the Sudarshan News case, the Hon. Justice K M Joseph of the Supreme Court made the following observation about the way debates are conducted on television:

“Certain channels mute panelists when they express views which go against the anchor’s views. This is unfair.“

This made me wonder. Which channel is the Hon. Justice K M Joseph watching? It also made me smile. Because it is always reassuring to know of an ordinary human side to someone as eminent as His Highness Justice K M Joseph. Turns out eminent people can be a little bit like us. Who knew?

Speaking of news channels, we have to talk about Arnab. They say Arnab is loud. They say his show is chaotic and you can barely hear anything. They are right.

On the other extreme, there is Ravish Kumar. Ah! NDTV : the one true channel of Indian liberalism. The sweetly pessimistic voice of Ravish Kumar, night after night, telling us how everything went wrong since Sonia Gandhi lost power.

Which is better? I know liberals are rolling their eyes right now. How can you even compare the Magsasay winning Ravish Kumar to Arnab? Seriously? Haven’t you heard that Arnab has destroyed Indian journalism? The other day a liberal who probably made a ton of money as a once frequent guest on Arnab’s show referred to his channel as a “gutter.”

It has to be true. Arnab has destroyed Indian journalism. With his support for nationalism and communal agendas. You can hear all about this from Indian liberals explaining this to Al Jazeera, the official mouthpiece of the Islamic theocracy of Qatar.

But let us think again about what Justice Joseph said. There is indeed something that just feels wrong, sort of undemocratic about a TV channel muting a panelist when they don’t agree with the anchor. These TV channels are privately owned, so there isn’t much of a free speech argument. And yet, as citizens of a democracy, it just “feels” wrong to watch somebody being stopped from speaking, isn’t it?

So why is there shouting on Arnab’s show but no shouting on Ravish Kumar’s show? Because there is something in Arnab’s show that Ravish Kumar never has: an opposing voice.

He may shout over it. But it’s there. In fact, he has to pay these panelists to come to his show and disagree with him. However you look at it, there is something honorable about that. Something democratic. Like our nation itself.

Take our Lok Sabha – the house of the people. Often times, it is chaotic. Members interrupt each other. There is shouting. There is sloganeering. Often times, members break all rules of decorum and burst into the well of the house. Sometimes, they say things that are downright abusive.

And just like Arnab’s show, the outcome of these Lok Sabha “debates” is never in doubt. We always know which side has the numbers. That side always wins. And yet, it is important to have the opposition and the government in the Lok Sabha, facing each other, if only to shout.

You can complain about the tone and quality of the Lok Sabha debate. But would you do away with the ritual of it? Sure, it would be better if members didn’t shout. But would you ever replace it with the Chinese way?

In China’s parliament, known as the Great Hall of the People, nobody ever shouts or screams. Nobody ever disagrees. I mean the President of China comes in, issues his orders and everyone applauds.

Remind you of Ravish Kumar’s show? One man, one view. Sometimes, “guests” come in, only to tell him that he is right.

The China model? You can hear what Ravish Kumar is saying. You are simultaneously reminded that your place is never to speak, but only to listen. There is never a conflict or disagreement and Ravish never has to mute any panelist for disagreeing with him.

Which do you prefer? The Arnab model of chaos and conflict? Or the Ravish Kumar model of “one true journalist”? Which one appeals to your democratic spirit?

I will tell you my preference. I prefer the Republic of Arnab to the “People’s Republic” of Ravish Kumar.

Everyone knows that Arnab has the highest TRPs. The smart people insist that is because most people are dumb. Have they considered this : perhaps people tune in to Arnab’s show because the format appeals to their democratic spirit? Our way may be loud and inefficient, but we Indians are a free people. The China model does not appeal to us.

When I shared these views on Twitter the other day, some liberal friends pointed out that I am being unfair. They said to me that Ravish Kumar has an open invitation for PM Modi to come to his show any time and disagree with him.

If that is true, I guess Ravish Kumar does allow people to disagree with him on air. To have that honor, you just have to be the Prime Minister of India.

For that matter, the Chinese government does make exceptions to their no disagreements rule : it allows countries like US, India and Japan to operate embassies in Beijing. Maybe that means China is also a democracy. I do apologize to China. I also apologize to Ravish Kumar.