Five years ago, during this round of elections, BJP supporters were buzzing with just one question: how are things going in Assam? This time, they are quiet, almost as if they have forgotten. It’s all about Bengal this time. There itself we have a story about BJP’s relentless expansion.
The other factor, of course, is quiet confidence. BJP supporters think Assam is in the bag already. While I do plead guilty to a similar confidence, it can be a bit unnerving. Is BJP looking enough in the rearview mirror? What if there is a silent anti-incumbent surge at some level in Assam?
I have to say it doesn’t seem likely. The reasons to be assured about Assam are many. First, there is the indefatigable Himanta Biswa Sarma. He has been micromanaging every little aspect of the election, finding the right allies, doing all the calculations, dissuading rebels from contesting–everything. His calculations for the recent Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) and Tiwa Autonomous Council (TAC) polls were exactly right. Just like his calculations in every round of elections in Assam for the last 15 years or so. In the BTC case, they were so on the dot that it was like artwork. Distancing strategically from the BPF and going with the UPPL.
The BPF has now joined the UPA, but I am sure this possibility was taken into account a long time ago.
The top BJP leadership has also been very aware of the elections, with Shah doing a number of rallies already, leaving nothing to chance.
The only niggling worry comes from the arithmetic of the UPA alliance. With the Congress allying with Ajmal’s AUDF and now BPF, the UPA is assured of a pretty solid vote share. Their problems come from two sources. Their votes are concentrated : for instance, Ajmal brings with him huge margins in lower Assam where BJP did not have the slightest chance anyway. So the bloated UPA vote share becomes a bit of an academic exercise. On the contrary, the Congress will have to pay a price among Hindu voters for its alliance with the overtly Muslim AUDF. And BJP leaders have been hammering this point endlessly. This is why the late Tarun Gogoi would never hear of an alliance between Cong and AUDF. This is a different Congress, so desperate that it no longer thinks about anything.
But still, vote share is vote share. For the BJP, the biggest consolation is that the Congress is practically not even trying. The other day, Pawar sahib let slip that BJP is going to win Assam.
But for me, the biggest indicator is the way the Congress is (not) deploying Rahul Gandhi. No, not because Rahul is some powerful vote catcher the Congress could throw into the electoral battle. But because the Congress would have plastered Rahul’s face all over Assam if they thought they could win. They would make sure Rahul gets some (all) of the credit. See what they did in Tamil Nadu, where Congress is a junior partner of DMK. If there was a chance for Cong to climb on the winner’s podium somehow, the party would have made triple sure that Rahul’s name is written all over the campaign.
In Kerala and Bengal as well, Rahul is not showing his face. In Assam, the Congress is being led by Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel (lol). And I feel bad for the media chamchas who have been assigned the task of saying that Baghel is doing a good job leading the party there.
This kind of giving up is new, even by Rahul Gandhi’s standards. And truth be told, it is not particularly good for democracy either.
At the outset, the obvious disclaimer. Because of the high language barrier and my extreme unfamiliarity with the state, it is difficult for me to say anything meaningful about Tamil Nadu. I doubt most BJP supporters are paying very much attention to TN, what with Assam and Bengal being on everyone’s mind. But, hear me out. Because I believe the BJP is working to a plan in Tamil Nadu.
On the odd occasion, losing an election can work out quite well for a party. The BJP was not going to win Tamil Nadu anyway. To win elections, one has to lose first. Till date, the BJP was a non-contender in the state. Their aim is to gather vote share and become an actual player.
Normally, it can take decades to build vote share in such a large state. But I am sure Modi and Shah have noticed the massive opportunity in Tamil Nadu. The ruling AIADMK is about to collapse. Someone has to be there to mop up their votes.
I cannot say how many seats ADMK will get in Tamil Nadu. Except for 2016, Tamil Nadu likes to give sweeping majorities and the DMK-Cong alliance is likely to get one. The DMK has also made up for its only weak link – Congress – by allotting them only a handful of seats. The DMK would have won in 2016 itself. The reason ADMK held on to power is because they won the seats where DMK had put up Congress candidates. I have often wondered why the DMK gives the Congress so many seats to contest in Tamil Nadu – this time they are not making the mistake.
So in terms of seats, I doubt that BJP supporters have anything to look forward to. The whole point is that ADMK might collapse after this defeat. While the ADMK may be going away, remember that their voters are here to stay.
At a bare minimum, the ADMK would get 30% of the vote. This voteshare has to go somewhere. And the BJP would want it to come to them. The difference between ADMK and BJP is that BJP will not collapse after near certain defeat in Tamil Nadu. The BJP will barely suffer a scratch. The BJP needs these 30% ADMK voters to know that Modi/BJP is their friend. And when the ADMK boat capsizes, these voters will move across to BJP. And so will its leaders, eventually.
In some ways therefore, it is better for BJP if the NDA loses the election rather than winning it. If the “NDA” won, it would be ADMK’s victory. Power would naturally keep their party structure and votes intact. The BJP would remain on the margins. Maybe it could wrangle one ministerial berth, but what is what worth?
This is why it is good for BJP that Congress dominated in the recent local polls in Punjab. The SAD is practically wiped out at least in those elections. If the trend continues into state polls, the SAD might collapse. The BJP will lose too, but how much did they have to lose in the state anyway? They were a bit player. For them to become a real player in Punjab, they would need one of the big players to bow out of the contest. There is always going to be an opposition vote, which has to go somewhere. Same in Andhra Pradesh, where TDP’s decimation in local polls is good for BJP. Once upon a time, the BJP was a real force in Andhra, but they lost their way once they went with TDP (one of BJP’s costliest mistakes). If it has to emerge again, it needs TDP to collapse.
One very interesting addendum to Tamil Nadu polls is what is happening in little TN, aka Puducherry. The BJP’s alliance with AINRC and ADMK is expected to win an easy victory. In spite of that, PM Modi has already visited the state. He will do another rally and Shah will do a road show. Seems like disproportionate effort to win a tiny area: BJP is contesting barely 6-7 seats in its 30 member assembly. But there is a point they are making here. The BJP wants to be very much seen as part of the victory in Puducherry. They need Tamil speaking people to feel closer and closer to BJP. And Puducherry is a near perfect launchpad for this. Just like after Tripura, the slogan was “Ebar Bangla.” It wasn’t about 2 Lok Sabha seats in Tripura, although every seat matters. It was about the much bigger state which shares the culture and language of Tripura.
You would never have guessed this, would you? Am I really going to defend Rahul Gandhi? No, I am not going to be sarcastic. I am totally serious.
No, I am not turning into a Congress supporter. I am addressing the journalists, academics and intellectuals who have eaten the dynasty’s salt their whole lives. When you turn around and bite the hand that has always fed you, you come across as the lowest of the low.
The name of this blog is dynastycrooks. The term refers to so called civil society members who have been nurtured by the dynasty to serve as loyal pets. These people are still everywhere. But with the Congress’ political fortunes in tailspin, a new fashion has emerged among them. Writing articles attacking the Congress leadership for its inability to take on Narendra Modi. Go check : the fake Harvard journalist did it just today.
Dear Dynastycrooks, stop being so ungrateful.
Yes, Rahul Gandhi is a low IQ person. So what? His father Rajiv was the same. But you never complained against Rajiv because he could feed you. Today, Rahul’s party is in trouble. So you turn on the man and begin bashing him?
Yes, Rahul Gandhi is a low IQ person. Without his famous last name, he would have been nothing. And guess what, dynastycrooks? So are you! Without Rahul and his family feeding you crumbs for generations, you would be nothing too.
I address here three people, one a fake Harvard journalist, one a fake historian and third a fake psephologist. They know who they are.
Dear fake Harvard journalist, imagine what your life would have been without the dynasty to feed you crumbs. Do you remember how people believed you had been appointed to a position you are spectacularly unqualified for? Why did they believe that? Because they know everything else you have in your life is completely undeserved. Everything you have is a favor from the dynasty. Today you scorn the dynasty? Pathetic.
Dear fake historian, you do not have even a history degree. You are just a guy who likes to blabber. But the most prestigious international forums are open to you. Do you know why? Because of the dynasty and its connections. They have been throwing crumbs at you and you strut around like you are something. Ramu kaka, today you turn on “Chote Maalik” because he is seeing some bad days?
Dear fake psephologist, your qualifications are unknown. Your so called expertise does not exist. But they have fed you for years as part of whatever your think tank is called. You are neither a farmer nor a psephologist. But you are sought after on every issue because the dynasty picked you up from nothing and made you something.
Today, the Congress is losing its ability to deliver crumbs for you. Shut up and bear with it. Because, whatever Rahul Gandhi is, he is better than you folks. He is still willing to give you crumbs. But because the crumbs are no longer as juicy as they used to be, you start complaining?
Ha! You know, people make fun of you by comparing you to Rahul Gandhi’s pet dog Pidi. This is actually an insult to Pidi. Believe me, little Pidi will always be loyal to his master. Even if Rahul lost his entire political fortune tomorrow, he would always have Pidi.
My respect to Pidi, the poor little noble soul. No respect for people like the fake Harvard journo, the fake historian or the fake psephologist.
As a deeply secular, liberal and progressive person, you can imagine how I have felt about this country since 2014. Sure, the BJP won the 2014 elections, but that was because of all those Hindi speaking states. Okay, Gujarat and Maharashtra may not be Hindi speaking states, but close enough. What about Karnataka? There is always an exception somewhere to every rule. Just like the first past the post electoral system. It was good for sixty years. Suddenly in 2014, it was the worst.
But I have struggled to explain things that have happened after the 2014 election. First, the BJP swept all the states in the north east. And now, the BJP has momentum on its side in states like Odisha and Telangana. The BJP is now polling a solid 15 percent of the vote in Kerala and gaining ground in Puducherry. And then, there is Bengal.
Oh man, this hurts. Et tu, Bengal? All those decades we leftists spent in Delhi and New York glorifying the poverty of Calcutta and this is how you repay us? According to the 2011 census, Bengal had the highest number of beggars per lakh of population. I thought we were friends. You beg on the street. I take a photo of you begging and then go beg for an award at a film festival in Paris or Berlin. Our left wing economists go to America to beg for Nobel Prizes. We are all in this together.
I was confused. According to my well accepted scholarly theories, the BJP was a party of Hindi speaking vegetarians. No, wait! Make that party of upper caste, Hindi speaking, vegetarian, cisgender, able-bodied males. Then how would I explain the BJP’s massive gains all over the north east, Bengal, Odisha, Telangana, Karnataka and now even Kerala or Puducherry?
They say that when in doubt, read more. And that’s what I did. So I began reading up the works of everyone who already agrees with me. I pored over pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post and scanned articles by some beloved Indian journalists who were present at my last award ceremony. Surely I was not the only one suffering from post-2014 stress disorder.
Some patterns began to emerge. Like ‘undeclared emergency.’ Even if I can’t see it, I can believe that it exists. This continued for a while, until I chanced upon a report by the famous V-Dem institute based in Sweden. They have concluded that India is now an ‘electoral autocracy.’
That’s when I had my epiphany. When confronted with evidence that contradicts my assumptions, I don’t have to reject my assumptions. I can pretend that both are true at the same time.
How? By simply juxtaposing the labels. For example, if I were to say that India is currently under a state of emergency, I could get contradicted on facts. But if I admitted that India is not under emergency, it would contradict my beliefs. But what if I said ‘undeclared emergency’? Then, I don’t have to reject the facts nor do I have to reject my beliefs. I can keep them both. Because undeclared emergency does not actually mean anything, I win.
Similarly, if I say that India is an autocracy, nobody would believe me. After all, which autocratic country would allow protesters to occupy a highway and literally build pucca houses on it? But if I admitted otherwise, it would hurt my feelings. So how about I say ‘elected autocracy’? Because nobody knows what that means, they have to accept my version of the story.
Like ’eminent citizen.’ If I told someone that they are not a citizen, they would feel insulted. On the other hand, if I admitted that I am equal to other people, I would feel insulted. That is why I have always called myself an eminent citizen. As with so many other things, the Communists figured it out first. Think ‘People’s Republic.’ I choose a label I want and then I add a qualifier which nobody understands. Now, it can mean anything that I want it to mean.
Armed with these revelations, I had my solution. Everyone who votes for BJP is upper caste, Hindi speaking, vegetarian, cisgender and able-bodied male. Even the females (I get bonus woke points for realizing this). What about the Bengalis who are voting for BJP? They are simply ‘Bengali Hindi-speakers.’ And what of the BJP voting Bengalis who love their fish and meat? No problem. They are ‘meat-eating vegetarians.’
Problem solved. Article in The Washington Post coming soon…
In most states, here is how it goes. The election comes every five years. The politicians go nuts. The people sometimes pay attention, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes people are enthused and there is a wave. Like Rajasthan 2013 or Delhi 2020. Sometimes not, such as Karnataka 2018. Sometimes people change the government just because they are bored, like in Madhya Pradesh in 2018. Sometimes they vote in the same government because they are bored but don’t want to take risks, as in Bihar 2020.
But Bengal is not most states. In most states, people don’t take 28,000 political murders in their stride. In most states, the story of how a mother was forced to drink the blood of her sons is not told with a sense of romance, almost pride. In most states, it is not common to see 18 year old boys hanged from trees and poles, with political threats written on their shirt.
In Bengal elections, the stakes are not just high for politicians. The stakes here are extremely high for even common people.
Let me give only a tame example. A theater actor named Kaushik Kar recently joined the BJP. Immediately, he was dropped from his role in a play. Even if this happened somewhere else, the powers that be would have the decency to deny it. They would have insisted the decision has nothing to do with politics. Even lying shows a certain sense of insecurity : log kya kahenge?
But in Bengal, there is no such sense of shame. Here, the director openly said that the actor is being dropped because of his political affiliation.
Get it? There are no filters. Intolerance is open and in your face. There is no attempt to sugarcoat anything. Did Stalin make up all sorts of sweet stuff about Soviet rule? No, his police would break down the front door and take dissidents away.
Don’t think there is going to be a whole lot of sympathy either for what this actor faced. I bet you most people will say: so what? One guy had power, so he used it to oppress someone who did not. Isn’t that the whole point of power?
In Bengal, the politics of victimhood does not go very far. Why? Because Communist rule is a horrible thing. Once you have experienced Communist rule, something dies inside you. You grow up in an atmosphere where inhumanity is the norm. You stop feeling for victims of cruelty. This does not mean you have become a bad person. Rather, this is a defense mechanism. With so much cruelty around, your capacity for empathy is exhausted. If one guy beats up another, it is easy to feel bad for the one who got beaten up. When 28,000 political murders happen, your mind stops processing the evil or reacting to it.
In this election, those who are openly supporting BJP are putting a lot at risk. And they know it well. If you are in a slightly privileged urban setting, you only lose your career. And maybe you get beaten up occasionally. Do you remember the 70 year old woman whose face was all broken up? Her son told the media what the goons said: BJP korchis, bhalo. Tahole maar kheye thaakte hobe.
That translates to : you wanna be with BJP, no problem. Just accept your fate that you will get beaten up every other day.
That’s open power projection. No apologies, no shame.
For those in villages of the interior, the situation is even more grim. Those who support BJP openly are directly risking their lives. Just in case TMC wins, the reprisals will be bloody. They know it. Before the Lok Sabha election, there were places where BJP supporters based themselves in neighboring Jharkhand. They would surface every now and then, like a guerrilla army, cross the border into Bengal and campaign, before being chased out again. This is not normal. This does not happen anywhere else.
Bear in mind that I did not point fingers at the TMC here. They are just continuing a legacy they inherited. The real culprit here is the Communists — and always will be.
I keep saying this. Despite everything, TMC rule has made Bengal a lot better. There are many people with dictatorial instincts and mercurial tempers. But not everyone can think like a Communist. A Communist lives for sheer brutality. Not everyone can be a Communist.
I have seen the opinion polls predicting a TMC win. I don’t trust them even a little. Right now, there is an exodus in TMC ranks, even in areas such as Malda. A candidate with a TMC ticket crossed over to BJP. These people know what is going to happen if they lose their bet. Unlike media and opinion pollsters, these people are not playing with nothing at stake. This is not a normal election. There are people who have risked literally everything by joining BJP. They are certain they are going to be on the winning side.
Someone in the comments yesterday brought up a rather curious fact. In the last few days, I have written about every topic other than BENGAL!
Is this even true, I wondered? How could I be that crazy. But the facts are what they are. I have not written about Bengal recently, not on this blog at least. The simple reason is that those columns have gone on News18.
So here are my two (long) articles on Bengal so far. Mitron, please read and comment 🙂
#OPINION: As late as 2018, West Bengal led the nation in political murders. There is no data for 2019-20, but there is a shocking level of tolerance, even acceptance, towards violence as a core aspect of politics, writes @AbhishBanerj.#BattleForBengalhttps://t.co/iI1BKpjAhc
This is a visual from CNN, the most powerful brand in television news all over the world.
The building is burning right behind their reporter. The mob just burned it down. But CNN describes the situation with a one-liner that is beyond parody: fiery but mostly peaceful. Why? Because American liberal bosses have approved these riots. And CNN, the biggest name in television news, has to grovel before them.
Dear American liberals, this is your media. You own this.
Of late, American liberals have developed an obsession with “speaking truth to power” in India. The first world saviors have offered a helping hand to their ideological cousins in India, who struggle against the supposedly authoritarian regime of PM Modi. Like that CNN reporter, the first world saviors also need to turn around and take a look.
What is American liberal media doing to their country, to ordinary Americans? Did you know that 2020 was the most deadly year in decades for violent crime in the United States? Big urban centers such as Chicago and New York saw a 37-40% increase in violent crime. City after city smashed all previous records for murder. Nationwide, violent crime was up by as much as 20%.
What were the liberals doing? The BBC, the Economist, the New York Magazine were busy making excuses and floating wild theories to explain the data away. The Economist ran with a headline that said fears of a crime wave in the US are “overblown.” Indeed, why would The Economist care if murders in Chicago or Atlanta are up by 56%? The murders happened in poor and black neighborhoods, from where the American liberal elite have isolated themselves a long time ago.
For the liberal media, it was much more important to rally the folks in black neighborhoods with the slogan of “Defund the Police.” Because they had an election to win. For all its faults, the police is a public good. Anyone, rich or poor, can call the police. You can’t call the New York Times when armed gangs are breaking down your front door, can you?
But there is little crime where the rich white liberals live. And worst comes to worst, the rich white liberals can get private security, which many of them did. For them, it makes sense to rile up the poor against a public good and get it banned. Now, there’s no police and people in poor neighborhoods are getting murdered. But who cares? Trump lost.
Dear American liberals, give India a break and look at your own country. The current governor of New York is Andrew Cuomo. Till date, he has been accused of sexual harassment by six women. But because he is a liberal, you can’t do anything about it. Imagine that: in the whole of New York, there isn’t a single feminist anywhere. All of them, it seems, have relocated to villages of Uttar Pradesh, where they intend to teach UP Police about the finer points of postmodern feminist theory.
When the pandemic struck last year, New York governor Andrew Cuomo ordered elderly Covid patients into nursing homes, resulting in thousands of deaths. Nothing to worry. He just refused to report those deaths. Recently, his aide admitted on tape that they deliberately lied to the Federal Government. Why? Because if they gave the real numbers, Trump might have tweeted against them and this could have hurt the liberals in elections. Again, this is also on tape.
Imagine that. The liberal governor of New York built death camps for the elderly under the nose of the New York Times. Thousands of people died. There were so many bodies that trucks full of dead were lined up for weeks. And with all the world’s most liberal news organizations headquartered in New York, nobody wanted to investigate. Because politics.
Meanwhile, the news anchors on CNN and MSNBC and the late night comedians were competing with each other over who can praise Cuomo the most. Grown men and women, folks on whom the public depends for news and analysis, admitted they were getting turned on by the governor. The following is an actual passage from The New Yorker: all red colored heart emojis appear in the original text, which is titled : Andrew Cuomo – the king of New York. Yes, really.
They had a term for this. They called it ‘Cuomosexuality.’ The liberal governor even went on to brag about his achievements by writing a bestselling book, for which he made over a million dollars in advances alone! He also bagged an Emmy for his press conferences.
So the liberal governor of New York was a notorious sexual harasser who set up death camps for the elderly and then made millions of dollars bragging about it. Dear American liberals, what have you done to your country?
The elderly folks who died in Cuomo’s death camps were not part of the elite. They had no power. For the American liberal machine, they were just roadkill. If the governor has faultless and pure, guess whose fault it really was?
“The coronavirus was mainly brought into nursing homes by employees, many of whom never developed symptoms, said David Grabowski, a health care policy professor at Harvard Medical School.“
In other words, don’t blame the liberal governor who sent Covid patients into nursing homes. Blame the little people who work in nursing homes. This is liberal America today, “speaking truth to power.” Here is a very similar comment on the liberals who run California, brought to you by an expert at yet another great American institution.
““Do you build hospitals with the anticipation of these once-a-century epidemics?” says Ralph Catalano, a professor of public health at UC Berkeley, “or do you build them for 98 percent of the time?”“
See? Don’t blame the liberal government if thousands of people die in the richest state in the richest country in the world. Blame bad luck, the experts say. Yes, they are experts at knowing which side their bread is buttered.
This is the American liberal elite: compromised and pathetic. And they dare point fingers at us. Most of all, because they know it is safe.
Imagine if America faced half the challenges we do. What if they had to fight Covid with one hand, while dealing with mass poverty and a rickety healthcare system on the other? We had just finished building toilets for everyone when the pandemic struck. Where were we going to find hospital beds and ventilators for everyone? And when we have our hands full with Covid, imagine having to fight off China on our borders with one leg.
How would America fare in a situation like this? The other day Joe Biden went on his knees and suggested the genocide of Uighurs could be more of China having different “cultural norms.”
That’s liberal America which is finding fault with India. Despite all the challenges in the world, our systems did not collapse. We never had to leave trucks full of dead bodies in the streets. In less than a year, we even developed our own vaccine. At the moment, we are vaccinating 20 lakh people a day. We are also shipping these vaccines to some 50 countries. Oh and we held our own against China. They had to disengage.
How would Joe Biden handle even a tenth of this?
Did you know that California still cannot open its schools? Because the teachers unions control the schools and the teachers unions give huge donations to the ruling Democrat party. The teachers are getting paid without actually working. Meanwhile, millions of kids are going without an education. Not all kids, mind you. Only the poor kids, who go to the public schools. The rich white liberals are sending their own kids to private schools.
American liberals are so compromised by political interests that they cannot stand up to a teachers union in the interest of millions of kids who need an education. How do you think they would stand up to Xi Jinping?
In liberal America, it is all about the soft targets now. Blame the guy who sweeps the nursing home floor for Covid deaths instead of blaming the governor who sent Covid patients there. Never ever point a finger at the powerful.
That’s why India is getting so much hate from liberal America right now. Because we are a soft target. We are a democracy. You can get away with criticizing us. Most of us follow a strange pagan religion, which is not part of a big global Abrahmic league. It is always open season against Hindus.
That’s the principle of liberal America today, Lash the weak and grovel before the strong.
There is a reason people used to look up to America. Once upon a time, America freed the world from Hitler. Once upon a time, America ended the evil Communist empire. But the people who did that have faded away. Worse, they are all canceled. Those who fought real evil on the beaches of Normandy have all been canceled today. Those who fight statues on college campuses are the new heroes.
There is no reason to respect the new liberal America. The one that kneels before China and wags its finger at India. As CNN would likely say, America is kneeling but mostly a superpower.
In the last few days, a large section of India’s liberal commentators have revealed themselves to be great fans of the US based think tank Freedom House. Somebody out there has downgraded India from “free” to “partly free.” The andolanjeevis came out in full force for this one.
Who are these people, by the way? As Freedom House notes:
“External analysts assess 210 countries and territories, using a combination of on-the-ground research, consultations with local contacts, and information from news articles, nongovernmental organizations, governments, and a variety of other sources. Expert advisers and regional specialists then vet the analysts’ conclusions. “
That paragraph is written as if it conveys some information. But does it really?
Why did Freedom House use only “external analysts,” “expert advisers” and “regional specialists?” Why not ask “local consultants” and “global thinkers” too?
That’s when you realize none of those job descriptions actually mean anything specific. Freedom House is just using random words to fill up space. They think that if the sentence is long enough, you will assume they know what they are talking about.
Don’t fall for this. Ask why they are using a long sentence to hide the names and credentials. As it is, the idea of an oligarchy of “experts” supposedly upgrading and downgrading democracies leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Of course the problems go much further. Even if we saw the names and (supposed) credentials, why should we assume the best about the intentions of these people? Could they pass the most basic sanity tests?
Now, I really hate to compare India and Pakistan on any metric, except for comic effect. In all other cases, even discussing such matters belittles India. It gives the appearance that our democracy is somehow comparable to whatever mess they have over there in Pakistan. But, I had to ask. If the high minded experts feel that minorities in India are under threat, what do these global humanitarians have to say about atrocities on Hindus in Pakistan?
You would be surprised (or perhaps not).
Right off the bat, don’t miss the respective maps they created for India and Pakistan.
They conceded all of PoK to Pakistan! For India? They couldn’t even leave us with the portions on our side of the Line of Control. Instead, they went all the way and cut off the whole of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh from India. You would think this is some B-grade movie in Pakistan, looking for cheap applause from its audience. But no, this report is now a bestseller in India. This is what Indian liberals are cheering. Seriously.
Anyway, one good thing about the Freedom House report about Pakistan is that they began with a joke. Here is the first line from their overview on the country.
“Pakistan holds regular elections under a competitive multiparty political system.“
I appreciate this. Humor is always a good ice-breaker. By the way, I wondered what is the first line from their overview on India. Turns out it is fairly similar, with one small difference.
“India maintains a robust electoral democracy with a competitive multiparty system at the federal and state levels, though politics are marred by corruption.“
They wasted no time in showing their prejudice, did they?
You may object here. How can you say that they have a bias against India? After all, they scored India at 67/100 and Pakistan at a paltry 37/100. So, if they are being unkind to India, they are being extremely severe with Pakistan.
Yes, they are being severe with Pakistan. The question is : for what reason? Will they blame Pakistan for how they treat Hindus? Absolutely not. A simple Ctrl+F search through the Freedom House report on Pakistan reveals just 2 instances of the word “Hindu.” In contrast, the word “Muslim” appears 16 times in the report on India. Again, I absolutely hate putting the two numbers side by side, but doing so is necessary to reveal the bias.
The report on India features sentences such as:
“Two developments in 2019 undermined the political rights of certain minorities, and Muslims in particular…“
” In August 2019, a Rajasthan court acquitted six suspects in the 2017 killing of a Muslim man, despite eyewitness accounts and video evidence of their complicity“
Wait till I show you what they said about Hindus in Pakistan, because it is a masterpiece in propaganda writing. As it is, there were only 2 instances of the word Hindu in the report on Pakistan.
“Hindus have complained of vulnerability to kidnapping and forced conversions, and some continue to migrate to India.“
Did you catch that? Read the sentence carefully. They didn’t acknowledge the atrocities committed on Hindus in Pakistan! They only said Hindus have complained of atrocities, thus in no way endorsing the claim!
You must have seen other instances of this trick in operation. We all know the difference between a headline that says “Scam in XYZ procurement” and a headline that says “ABC alleges scam in XYZ procurement.” In the second case, the media takes no responsibility for the allegation. Just what Freedom House did with Hindus of Pakistan.
This will become even more obvious when you notice the startling turn of phrase in the paragraph the sentence is taken from.
“Hindus have complained of vulnerability to kidnapping and forced conversions, and some continue to migrate to India. Members of the Christian and other religious minorities remain at risk of blasphemy accusations that can arise from trivial disputes and escalate to criminal prosecution and mob violence. The blasphemy laws and their exploitation by religious vigilantes have also curtailed freedom of expression by Muslims.“
Three sentences, back to back. Christians are at risk of blasphemy accusations. Muslims face the threat of religious vigilantes too. Two straight assertions, with no qualifiers. But Hindus? They have only complained. Freedom House will not say if they believe there is any truth in these complaints made by Hindus.
This is straight up dehumanization of Hindus. The suffering of Hindus does not matter to them. The reason they think Pakistan sucks is because Muslims and Christians have a hard time there. Not because Hindus face atrocities. In fact, you can read the entire report on Pakistan. Not at a single place do they acknowledge by name that any crime was committed against Hindus.
In fact, such language tricks appear all through their report. Consider the following sentences they wrote about freedom in India:
“Muslim personal status laws and traditional Hindu practices discriminate against women in terms of property rights and inheritance.“
“Muslim personal status laws and traditional Hindu practices feature gender discrimination on matters such as marriage, divorce, and child custody.”
The exact same phrase “Muslim personal status laws and traditional Hindu practices” appears twice in the same report! Looks like someone had a template ready. And more interestingly, was trying hard to make sure you don’t notice the difference between laws in one community and practices in another. A lot of bad things happen in society. But when injustice is officially given legal sanction, it is a whole other level of unfairness.
But if Freedom House admitted that one community is just more open minded than the other, what would happen to their agenda?
In reading the reports from Freedom House, what stood out is how similar it is to the now familiar secular whitewashing style of mainstream media here in India. We all know the template: a Hindu victim becomes “Delhi man” while a Muslim victim is clearly identified as such. If a crime happens in a madrassa, you can’t just say that a crime happened in madrassa. You must say that the incident has put the spotlight on crimes in “madrassas and Vedic pathashalas.” You can’t just say that a Hindu was a victim. You can only say that that they are alleging it.
In other words, be strictly factual and super skeptical when reporting on Hindu victims. When a Muslim alleges victimhood, take all claims at face value, suspend all skeptical questioning and disseminate it widely. And above all, try to avoid mentioning Hindus as much as possible. If you don’t even mention Hindus, it becomes easier for the world to pretend like they don’t exist. Thanks Freedom House for showing us that this writing style has now gone fully international. Whether as a majority in India or as a tiny persecuted minority in Pakistan, global liberals have made it clear that we Hindus deserve no place at all.
One last thing. The cover of the Freedom House report is an apparent tribute to a group of protesters, their fists in the air, carrying signs that say “We want justice.” Who is on that cover?
Here is a thought. Could we please make child marriage illegal in India? In fact, could we do it today? And this is not just because today is International Women’s Day. This is because banning child marriage is the right thing to do. And always has been.
You might be taken aback at my request. Isn’t child marriage already illegal in India? We have all heard that the minimum age for marriage in India is 18 for females and 21 for males.
Except, that is simply not true. A Muslim girl can marry legally as soon as she reaches puberty, which could be around 14 or 15. No, I am not making this up. This provision has been tested in multiple courts of law and always been found to be 100% legal. Most recently, in February this year when the Punjab & Haryana High Court ruled thus.
Read that headline and weep. This is our country in 2021. The courts have repeatedly ruled that a Muslim girl who has attained puberty is “free” to marry as per her wishes. What free choice and agency can a 14 year old kid have with respect to marriage? I cannot say. However I can tell you that with laws like these, it will be hard to look any other modern democracy in the eye.
And before you ask: this also applies to a minor girl who converts to Islam from some other community. Accordingly, the following scenario would be completely legal. A grown man, say 40 years old, approaches a 14 year old Hindu girl for “marriage.” If the 14 year old “decides” to become a Muslim, she can now legally marry her 40 year old suitor. This is our country and these are our laws.
Of course, you never hear about anyone raising this issue. Because doing so would be against woke feminism.
I have compiled here a brief wish list for Women’s Day. If anyone believes I am asking for something that is unjust or unfair, I would love to know.
(1) Ban child marriage: As mentioned above, child marriage is still legal for Muslim girls. Let us ban this.
(2) Equal inheritance rights for males and females: As per Muslim personal law, daughters receive only half the inheritance that sons are entitled to. Let us change this. For all other communities, the inheritance laws have been amended a long time ago to give equal rights to males and females.
(3) Ban female genital mutilation: Believe it or not, our Honorable Supreme Court is still sitting on a case of whether female genital mutilation should be allowed among baby girls in the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community. The latest I have heard is that an entire division bench is trying to figure out whether this is right or wrong. Could we help them out by passing a law banning this?
As you can see, this is not a very long list. If we convene a special session of Parliament, we can sort out this matter today itself. And just in case these measures do not pass, we will have an official list of politicians who are in favor of child marriage, in favor of female genital mutilation and against property rights for women. It would surely help voters make good decisions if this list becomes publicly available.
I have a smaller, fourth item on my wish list. Show these three points to anyone who claims to be woke, liberal or feminist. And if you find that they are against any of the three items I mentioned here, never take them seriously ever again.
In January 2003, India’s capital had a festive look as it prepared to receive thousands of delegates for the first Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas. A family of Indians from around the world, coming home to the mother country. It was our job to welcome them. The smile on Atalji’s face said it all. Indians are Indians. Anywhere in the world that there is an Indian, there is an India. Passports come and passports go, but being Indian is forever.
Oh, how naive we were.
Even PM Modi, in his speeches to Indians around the world, had assured them : if you are an Indian and you are in trouble, hum passport ka rang nahin dekhenge (we will not look at the color of your passport). You are always welcome in our country. Your ancient nation is always there for you.
Oh how naive we were.
In the last few days, the Modi government has come out with a significant notification on the rights of OCIs, about the permits they need to travel freely within India, participate in journalistic or missionary activities and so on. We can quibble over whether these are new regulations or “clarification” of existing regulation. But the messaging is clear.
For decades, Indians have traveled the world in search of opportunity. In the early 2000s, Atalji saw this global family. He noticed its immense potential and also the bureaucratic walls that had come up between its members. So, is Modi building back the walls that Atalji had decided to knock down?
With a heavy heart, yes. The walls are going back up. Because, when it comes to Indian diaspora, the age of innocence is over.
We did not know that there would be a day when “Indians” in Canada would tear off the Indian tricolor from people’s cars and stomp on it. With their feet! Would you stomp on your mother’s face with your feet? When Atalji began the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas, did he ever dream that this day would come?
But this day has come. Some day we had to realize that millions of Indians around the world no longer see India as their mother. No, no…this is not a knock on every Indian who lives abroad. This is just an acknowledgement of reality. Some Indians abroad are deeply connected to India. Some are not. And some of them just despise India.
Going forward, we will have to seek out our friends among the Indian diaspora. And we will have to watch out for our enemies.
I remember that until around 2010, our media would celebrate every little achievement of every “Indian” on foreign shores. Even Indian kids winning the spelling bee was supposed to be news. An Indian becoming a top level executive or winning elected office was an amazing feeling. An Indian giving orders to people overseas? It was like a dream.
On the one hand, we had the inferiority complex of being a third world country. On the other, we had a deep conviction that Indians are a people destined for greatness. So if the motherland is still backward, so what? These people abroad are our ambassadors.
In retrospect, all this appears so innocent. We forgot that these people were not Indians at all, but held foreign citizenship.
The break was inevitable. First of all, many Indian families had been abroad for generations. How could we expect them to be “Indians” like us? Their kids and their grandkids grew up in Abrahamic societies, where pagan Hindus are viewed with contempt anyway. For that matter, why would the child of say an Indian father and a Canadian mother love India like their own? It really makes no sense.
A number of these “Indians” now read the New York Times to form their views about India. They attend universities where Hinduphobes like Audrey Truschke are on the faculty. Why would these people want a special relationship with India? And now that the global media is spewing anti-India venom in one voice, we have to watch out. No wonder the walls are going back up.
The two notions of nationhood are colliding. The old is giving way to the new. The old civilization state is giving way to the modern nation state. The color of the passport matters. The civilization less so.
On Monday, the British Parliament will have a debate on farm laws in India. The debate will be led by people with names that sound like they could belong to our relatives and neighbors. Even now, when we hear these names, we might wince. But we have to accept the new reality. Yes, a man with a name like Tamanjeet Singh Dhesi could be an enemy of India.
We have to be strong. We can’t be fooled by emotion. There is no difference between Tamanjeet Dhesi and Reginald Dyer. If we allow ourselves to become emotional about his name, Tamanjeet Dhesi will use this to cause more harm to India. He hates us. We cannot afford to get emotional about him.
It’s not all bad. Today our enemy might be named Tamanjeet, but we could also have friends named Jack or John. The other day, there was an article in The American Conservative about how global NGO terrorists are trying to overthrow our elected government. See? An American whose ancestors traveled out of Germany or Poland could be our friend. Someone whose ancestors traveled out of India could be an enemy. There are people right now in America’s rural heartland who are mocked and ridiculed by the New York Times as much as it ridicules Uttar Pradesh. The NYT calls them a basket of deplorables. Those people could be our friends. The world is changing.
Last year, foreign direct investment in India rose by 13%, the highest among all major economies. While the NYT berated and cursed India, the world bet their money on us. These people could be our new friends. Meanwhile, the NYT swept under the carpet thousands of elderly New Yorkers who had been sent to die in nursing homes by the liberal governor Andrew Cuomo. Those bereaved families could be our new friends.
As the world changes, our sense of solidarity has to keep up. The Indian diaspora is now divided. The folks who turned out at Howdy Modi are our friends. The folks in Canada who stomped on the Indian flag are our enemies. Going forward, we have to keep emotions in check and only our interests at heart. The age of innocence ends here.
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