It does not stop at 49.5 percent

Mumbai gets a load of secularism

2012-08-18T19:16:00.000-04:00

[WARNING! Graphic images of violence and foul language]

August, 2012 will forever live in infamy. Not because of the widespread violence, fear mongering, not because we let down a very large section of our own citizens but how media and opinion makers colluded to indulge in persistent censorship, rumor mongering and utterly crass irresponsible journalism. We will bring the whole conspiracy to light - little by little. Meanwhile, enjoy the show.

Home Invasion in Bodoland - Part II

2012-08-05T01:31:00.004-04:00

In continuation of the previous post.

'Structures'

While seculars have completely glossed over facts laid out in the previous post and settled on "Bodo massacre of Bengali Muslims" or some such nonsense, we take you to a very different place to explain the genesis of this conflict.

In the last few years, a new and disturbing phenomenon has emerged. Muslims started gathering in strength, flash mob style, in dozens of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) protected sites in the National Capital Region and started offering mass prayers. These are fragile buildings and have heritage status, they haven't been in use in perhaps centuries. The sites include the Qutub Minar. In any case, this is about existing and visible structures, but the scope has now increased phenomenally.

A few weeks ago, high drama erupted in the Subash Park area (near Jama Masjid) in New Delhi over claims that the area had the ruins of a mosque underneath it. A structure was illegally built over the site, thus preventing ASI from even ascertaining the claim. Needless to say the secular Govt of Delhi had no intention of forcefully removing the faithful from the area or demolishing the illegal structure over this completely absurd claim. This was not the only dispute over such things in New Delhi, previously, there was a huge chaos near the Jangpura area. A similar dispute came to light in Jalandhar.

Coming back to Bodoland, the recent clashes may have started over a Mosque as well. On May 29th, a minority students union called a strike over the removal of a sign from a newly built Mosque (de jure highly illegal in a tribal area). This led to drive by shootings and counter shootings that slowly escalated into mass violence. Seculars are counting a convenient shooting incident as the start, as though nothing had happened before that.

So, if indigenous minority populations are erupting into frequent violent disputes over new mosques and graveyard extensions (like in Bharatpur, Rajasthan), it is easy to see how endogenous growth combined with massive inflows will create tensions. These populations will require exclusive places, structures and pastoral and agricultural lands.

Dangerous Elements

Seculars have also tried to paint the influx as a mostly pitiable group of people, just trying to escape misery and make a living.

He added, "The UMNA is headed by Ramjan Islam. We suspect that Ramjan Islam and Ratul alias Mohibur Islam of Magurmari, Kokrajhar are the same person and he is involved in criminal activities. Mohibur was shot at on July 19 by unidentified armed youths and the Bodo people were blamed for it. The same night, some youths, suspected to be UMNA activists, came in motorcycles and destroyed the house of a Bodo family at Bhatipara. Mohibur alias Ratul is wanted by the police for stealing arms, murdering two women and shooting an obscene film inside the All Bodo Minority Students’ Union (ABMSU) office." [Link: Assam Sentinel]

It is a well known fact in the intelligence circles that Bangladesh and India's border areas have become a hotbed for ISI activities, counterfeit currencies, contraband smuggling, human trafficking and terror activities. While Kashmir still remains the pivotal Pakistan strategy to harass India, increasingly Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and UP - perhaps Bihar too are getting a slice of the action. Pakistan politicians, military strategists and some of their hard-line commentariat publicly say Assam is a key area of interest. While it is true that largely the incoming population or the endogenous populations remain impoverished people, there are dangerous elements with automatic weapons and worse on the prowl.

The Politics get murkier

If the media had tried to whitewash the clashes as an "ethnic conflict", the political leadership certainly did not make any pretense of doing to. The prime minister visited the area and met with minority leaders exclusively. Inflammatory statements were issued by prominent Muslim leaders like Badruddin Ajmal. They actually had the audacity to suggest the BTC (Bodoland Territorial Council) be dismantled, reportedly going so far as to suggest since Muslims now outnumber the Bodos, they have more rights - echoing the famous statement of the Prime Minister.

From Bihar to Hyderabad, Muslim leaders jumped on the bandwagon. MIM leader Owaisi led a relief team to Assam, exclusively for Muslims. Razakar elements now suddenly all lovey dovey over Bangladesh - it just couldn't get any more ironic.

The secular party also deployed rabid elements like Digvijay Singh who reiterated - there are no illegal immigrants in Assam. Of course, there are no terror cells in India, 26/11 did not happen and there was no inside support to the job.

The secular party seemed completely unperturbed by criticisms and announced a relief package. By the looks of it, they are treating the camps as staging areas for voter acquisition for 2014, with brazen plans underway to disperse them to key areas. This crisis is not going to waste, the party is treating it as a grand opportunity.

International Intrigue

While Bodoland continues to burn, yet another conflict was unfolding at the other border of Bangladesh with Burma. Bangladesh is forcefully turning back Rohingyan refugees fleeing from clashes in Burma. The Bangladesh PM categorically said the Rohingyan are not her responsibility. In fact, Bangladesh is perhaps causing more human rights atrocities on the fleeing Rohingyan than the Burmese, with reports coming in of Bangladesh armed forces bombing boats with Rohingyan refugees.

Pakistan and India's minority Muslim politicians are trying to get maximum mileage over this. While the Rohingyan's are truly facing persecution and scores have been killed over clashes following the rape and murder of a Burmese girl by some Rohingyan youth, their misery has been amplified in the social networks using rumors, photo-shopped pictures and terrible propaganda. Indian minorities are highly agitated, if social media reactions are anything to go by. They are swallowing the propaganda hook, line and sinker while maintaining stoic silence over ethnic cleansing in Pakistan and Bangladesh, not to mention obvious violation of rights of minorities in China.

One can understand Pakistan's milking this issue, they thrive on borrowed victim-hood. But what has India got to do with it? Actually, a lot. Apparently Rohingyan's are now seeking political asylum in Hyderabad - a batch of about a few dozen have arrived.

The mind blowing hypocrisy and India's absurdly vulnerable position could not get any starker. So, India becomes a catchment for castaways from failed nations, whose victim-hood is borrowed by the ummah and milked to the fullest for political mileage. Obviously the Hyderabadi Muslim's love for ex-Bangla or ex-Burma will need to last for as long as they provide the electoral boost. After that it is going to be 1971 all over again.

Borrow victim-hood, get mileage and then do an ethnic cleansing of your own. Rinse. Repeat.

Conclusion

It is quite clear that India's political leadership is now actively aiding and abetting - first, the dilution and deliberate violation of rights of its own citizens. Second, they are playing into the hands of the rising ummah - the signs of which are unmistakable. Rapidly rising populations of certain groups are threatening the very existence of others. Yesterday it was Kashmiri Pundits, today it is the Bodos, tomorrow it will happen to more and more groups inland. Already native populations face extreme squeeze from Assam to Delhi to Rajasthan to West Bengal, with Kashmir and Kerala long gone. This is only getting worse since laws and the constitution are violently thrust aside by the tsunami of electoral realities.

How do we define nationhood in the backdrop of South Asian reality? Where do the loyalties lie? Clearly religion trumps borders or citizenship. Just how much bullshit the nation will have to take for supposedly "victim" groups, who repeatedly prove to be aggressors?

Seculars keep drawing the red herring of "humanity" over the issue, but no one asks the real questions. If you have to make a choice and it increasingly looks like we will face nothing but binary choices in many situations, does citizenship mean anything at all? Also, why is Bangladesh getting a free pass? Surely they have some responsibility of keeping their citizens within their borders. While we scream "humanity", surely the influx is happening because Bangladesh is getting rid of its surplus? Clearly, they are simply not trying and neither is our political leadership. There are loads of creative ways, with help of Bangladesh of course, not only to reduce but to reverse this flow. But it does not help our "secular" politics, neither does it fill the coffers of our "secular" intellectuals.

There are two key takeaways from the plight of Bodos. The best strategy for survival in South Asia might just be to curve out your own place and erect as high walls around it as possible. Otherwise get wiped out. It will happen, for some in a couple of decades, for some, maybe five. But the signs are unmistakable.

The second is, we might be experiencing a dramatic shift in the leadership of the ummah. If the 80s and 90s saw Arab leadership, the power equation is now beginning to favor South Asia. Ironically, India's rise and its democracy has a lot to do with it.

Home Invasion in Bodoland - Part I

2012-08-01T00:33:00.005-04:00

As if devastating floods this season was not enough of a misery, violence broke out in and around the areas called the BTAD (Bodoland Territorial Areas District) in Assam, causing further displacement, loss of lives and livelihood and all the other attendant misery.

Like the floods, the media would have given the episode a pass. But three things happened. First, having extensively covered the molestation of a young girl in Guwahati in the hands of a Youth Congress worker and journalists employed by a TV channel owned by a Congress minister in Assam (of course, the coverage did not go into these details), only recently, media could not pretend that the North Eastern state of Assam did not exist. Second, there was a very strong blowback from North East social media activists.Third, India now receives very strong coverage in the Western press, which in turn makes it back to Indian audiences thanks to - Globalization.

This put seculars in the press/TV or otherwise into an uncomfortable position. Facts travel far these days and it is not a nice prospect having to put what could nominally be called Shri Rajiv Gandhi Voter Acquisition Yojana on prime time, especially in a time of political turmoil. So, it was wrapped around in various euphemisms like 'ethnic clashes', 'sporadic violence between groups', 'clashes between tribals and Bengali speaking Muslims' - reluctantly graduating up to - 'Muslim settlers'.

A secular person bellowed: Do these Hindu fundamentalists even know who Bodos are?

Maybe we don't, why don't you tell us? Oh wait, you wrote like a zillion op/eds on Kashmir and another bazillion on Gujarat. Why didn't you write on Bodos? Not enough glamour or not enough dollars?

Talking of Kashmir. A few years ago, the bodies of a young Kashmiri woman and her sister-in-law were found in a stream, in Shopian, Kashmir. That triggered a massive protest by locals, seculars jumped into the fray, concocting conspiracy theories after conspiracy theories. It turned out the women had simply drowned in the stream and not raped and murdered by the army, as the locals has suspected.

A few days ago, a very tragic case came to light - a schoolgirl in Rajouri, daughter of a Hindu armyman committed suicide after having been raped by her school principal, his son and two other teachers. The crime was abetted by a fellow student. Naturally, seculars could not be bothered with this. Then again, that cylinder blast a few days ago which may or may not have been a grenade attack.

But we digress. The point is simply this, whenever Hindus found themselves in a demographic disadvantage, things did not turn out so well for them in South Asia. It did not really matter whether in Pakistan or Bangladesh or in India. In Kashmir for instance, India's only comprehensive, devastating and irreversible ethnic cleansing happened.

So, the coverage began, with choice tricks of secular TV played to perfection - selective visuals, interview of select experts with the right sound bites to offer etc. According to the secular party, apparently there are no illegal immigrants, while some estimate the number in Assam currently at about 15 lakhs. This is not accounting for the fact that a very significant number was assimilated during the 1971 war. At the time, Indira Gandhi had said, absolutely no question of citizenship for either Hindu or Muslim refugees from Bangladesh. That worked out really well! Now, a Congress MP Shashi Tharoor himself admits there could be 20 million illegal immigrants.

Soon, the coverage inevitably veered towards the favorite pastime of seculars, blame game. We quote from the HRW report:

In May, Bodos and Muslims were injured in clashes that also caused injuries to police attempting to contain the violence. On July 6, two Muslim men were shot dead, and during protests that followed a Bodo man was severely beaten. On July 19, unidentified gunmen reportedly shot two Muslim youth leaders. The next day, unidentified attackers killed four Bodo men, presumably in retaliatory attacks. This sparked full-scale riots where rival groups from both sides attacked communities, beating people to death and burning down homes.

Now, by no stretch of imagination can that be called "Bodos attacked the Muslims", especially when both groups possess automatic weapons, but that appears to have become the tagline for this event in the secular press. Currently some 266 thousand Muslims are in the camps, while there are about 111 thousand Bodos. Surely, if Bodos were unilaterally attacking Muslims, they would not be living out in the camps (tragically, in their own homeland), would they?

What Bodos are experiencing is a full scale home invasion and they have a right to claim back their territory. But they have messed with the wrong group of people, those who come up aces in secular narratives no matter which side they are, whether they are the aggressors or even whether they are legitimate citizens. From "minorities have the first claim to resources" we have progressed or regressed to, "illegal immigrants have first claim to resources" in a matter of two terms of the secular party.

(... to be continued.)

Even as 'Saffron' terror unravels, local links to 26/11 emerges

2012-07-04T16:46:00.002-04:00

In the recent weeks, two major developments took place.

The first is the implosion of the 'Saffron terror' fairy tale with the startling revelation that terror mastermind, linchpin, explosive procurer and trainer Lt. Col. Purohit was apparently a state appointed spook tasked with infiltrating radical Hindu organizations. Now, if the central figure of this vast rightwing conspiracy is not what he was supposed to be, it casts a shadow on the entire narrative.

The second is the arrest of an Indian turned Pakistani called Jundal who was deported from Saudi Arabia and who is now apparently singing to Indian agencies and thus heavily implicating Pakistani military establishment in the 26/11 terror attack. Jundal's arrest only proves what everyone suspected, that the 26/11 attacks were accomplished with considerable help from the inside.

We are just looking at the picture. It looks like the problem is right in front of eyes, the Congress leader who claimed to have a direct line to anti-terror task forces. The erstwhile filmmaker turned pornography producer whose son "unwittingly" assisted in the 26/11 reconnaissance.

This time, architects of the secular narrative have clearly gone too far. Like the novelist who triggered a war in Africa in order to capture war in its stark realism, these guys have been playing very dangerous games. This story is definitely not going to have a happy Bollywood ending.

Did the Sonia Gandhi Government protect a known child molester?

2012-03-18T18:06:00.001-04:00

One priest. (At least) Two minor girls.

Balke wrote that Jeyapaul took a sixteen year old girl to his rectory in the Diocese of Crookston and "kissed her repeatedly, pulling her on top of him and at one point touching her beneath her clothing .... there were other incidents of similar behavior between Fr. Jeyapaul and [the sixteen year old girl]." The abuse happened between 2004 and 2005. Bishop Balke also stated that "because of the recent date of the alleged misconduct, it is impossible to say that Father Jeyapaul does not at present pose a risk to minors." Balke also asked the CDF to take the matter and penalize Jeyapaul as it sees fit. (Ex. 60)

Bishop Balke wrote to Cardinal Levada, the Vatican's head of the CDF, that Jeyapaul had been accused of sexually molesting a second girl. In the letter Balke told Levada that the allegations were that "Fr. Jeyapaul had 'rubbed up against her' in the rectory at Middle River, in the confessional at Middle River, and then fondled her breasts, exposed himself to her, and forced his penis into her mouth." Balke wrote that "it is impossible to say that Father Jeyapaul does not at present pose a risk to minors." Balke wrote that due to this second allegation possibly a more severe penalty was necessitated.

We certainly gagged reading about the disgusting behavior of the priest. But what is truly alarming is the fact that after the aforementioned cases, the priest not only returned to India but was allowed to continue in an official capacity. This despite a letter from a priest in Minnesota to the Indian counterparts that the priest was a danger to women and kids.

Finally, the law caught up with him and he was arrested on the basis of an interpol notice.

It is quite clear the religious establishment in India was protecting him and had full knowledge of his whereabouts. Given the virtual gag on Indian media it is not clear when the interpol notice materialized. We suspect it came out at the latest in 2010. If this is true, it would be a disturbing extension of secularism. It also figures, since we have had political changes in the state of Tamil Nadu since. Perhaps with the ouster of MuKa and his lot, the priest lost his political patronage.

Also disgusting is the lack of coverage on Indian media. Contrast this with the "Sex Swamy" case where no rape or minors were involved. That case was on the headlines and on TV shows for months, with lurid coverage. Here, media seems to have no regard for the safety of children and the willful neglect of the same by religious and Govt authorities at the highest level possible.

This is a community that blows hard, really hard on "atrocity", "justice" etc. Guess practice is harder than preaching.

The "deep state" is here and now ...

2011-12-09T17:42:00.001-05:00

The secular party has created an Orwellian regime of censorship, vendetta and propaganda by taking the worst elements from China and Islamic states.

Kapil Sibal flew off the handle when he saw some unsavory content related to the Queen on the internet. Well, at least that's what he claims, but within days, from being disturbed by morphed images of the royalty he went straight to being the valiant crusader who wants to preserve communal harmony by shielding innocent citizens from offensive religious content. To understand what this is all about, a little bit of context is necessary.

Public intellectuals of the "liberal" kind had a big problem on their hands when the secular party was back in power in 2004. The problem got exacerbated even more in 2009. Obviously, the old templates could not be used any longer, they would sound nutty even to the dimple enamored segment. Thus, the "deep state" was invented. This omnipotent and omnipresent (but invisible) creature was remotely controlled by Hindus and "corporates" (the latter seldom named though) and was causing all sorts of problems - killing tribals and minorities, enriching Hindus wrongfully, waging nuclear war against Pakistan, melting Himalayan glaciers by over consumption etc. Despite being in power, the secular party was helpless against the tide of evil that the "deep state" unleashed. Invisible Godzilla was wrecking dreams and cramping the style of secular intellectuals.

The secular party was quick to insert itself into this game of political fantasy football and soon we would see the beginning of the biggest con game in the history of democracy. While the liberal intellectual was battling the "deep state" (and barely able to contain it, mind you), their political counterparts were valiantly struggling with a mysterious entity called the - "Government". Government messed things up. Sonia Gandhi fixed it. Government did not allot grains for minorities. The Prince rode in with his cavalry and slayed the Government monster. Granaries were opened up and milk and honey flowed. Rahul Gandhi has started to outdo the likes of Evo Morales of Bolivia (who is known to fast against his own Government). The party had mastered the art of dissociation.

In a normal world, this is where editors and opinion makers stand up and call out in unison: BULLSHIT.

But India's public faces have been enthusiastically participating in and perpetuating the fraud.

Only problem is, skills in the art of dissociation and propaganda does not necessarily translate into Governance. So, we have the "dream team" suddenly deliver us the nightmarish prospect of another balance of payments crisis. Yet, India Inc. is largely oblivious to the train wreck that lies ahead. This was not achieved by accident, careful planning and execution went into this.

Consider this:

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has remembered that he had once ordered allotment of a plot of land to the yoga guru for his institution in Guwahati. Gogoi has warned Ramdev that the same plot may be taken back if not used for proper purpose or left unused.

"He (Ramdev) had once approached me. I remember allotting him a plot of land. However, I do not know whether it was actually allotted or not. If the land was allotted and is not being used for the purpose it was given, it might be taken back as per the recent decision taken by my government on such land," Gogoi said. [Rediff.com]

There are at least a half dozen things that are wrong with the above passage, but one thing stands out - vendetta. Tarun Gogoi does not even know if any land was issued, but he was ready to confiscate such land, assuming such land had been issued and was being adversely used. This guy might have been a Subedar of Aurangzeb.

The Congress party and its minions have taken intimidation of dissenters to the level of fine arts. They have covered the entire breadth of political discourse. Corporate executives issue a statement, next day they are forced to issue a clarification. Government bureaucrats issue statements, they get transferred. Media for the most part has been pliable and willing. For instance, consider this: Tehelka's Shoma Chaudhury, appeared on an NDTV show to defend the Home Minister P. Chidambaram on the 2G scam issue. This is not her area of expertise or even demonstrated interest. Among other things, she seemed to suggest ministers can not be liable for policy decisions. Even when they are malafide? This coming from someone who rues exploitation of mineral resources? This is bizarre. A man like PC needs defending?

How do the odd dissenting voice in the media treated? Simple, by cutting off their life line. Consider this rare and brave editorial By DNA Editor Aditya Sinha:

This was not surprising because DNA recently has faced suspicion and hostility from the government which has apparently adopted an attitude of “you’re either with us or against us”. The prime minister’s media advisor has privately accused DNA of an agenda against the government, and its Editor-in-Chief of being close to a political party in the opposition. [Ambika Soni’s adventures in arm-twisting, DNA India]

If the stick is wielded against the wayward, the compliant majority is duly given their crunchy carrot treat. The chief editor of an investigating journal is suddenly bestowed with properties in exotic locations at Nainital and Goa. The latter acquisition having raised the hackles of the locals too! A leading TV channel is nearly insolvent and miraculously kept afloat by fund inflows from mysterious unknown institutional investors. The Govt of Maharashtra allots affordable housing to hundreds of journalists. Junkets and awards flow continuously in the right direction. Various advert campaigns glorifying the dynasty add up to several hundreds of crores and go to the obedient papers. The list continues.

Coming back to Kapil Sibal, in this environment of more or less controlled dissemination of info, what explains his sudden hissy fit? One could attribute it to one of three factors, and all of them likely played a role in this specific instance.

The first being peer pressure. It is a well known fact that career media persons (described above) have been at the receiving end of social media fact checking. It is becoming increasingly difficult to spin stories and external players (eg. Justice Katju) are sensing an opportunity. Clearly, it is an uncomfortable situation if it continues until 2014, when extra dozes of propaganda and misinformation will require to be served. So, while social media content by itself does not constitute a big electoral threat, coupled to a ground level agitation like the Lok Pal movement or a few strident newspapers and magazines, they can deal a fatal blow to the machine.

The second factor is internal palace intrigue of the Congress party. The online content is more likely to alarm the "young turks". Most likely, a certain young turk recently saw some content and flipped out. Sibal took that opportunity to play one over Chidu and Pranab. Pride could have played a role here too, if Sibal can armtwist every segment of the opinion industry, why can't the internet be tamed? Feasibility and priorities be damned. So, pre-screening internet content is just another Tughlaqian experiment logically extended to the virtual world from the $35 tablet.

The third and most important factor is of course UP elections. Congress has been going all out on sops and dropping $$$ like confetti. In fact it has ventured into a hitherto uncharted territory of Muslim quotas. Intriguingly, Mullahs and clerics have opposed quotas because they fear a fragmentation. Congress needs something drastic to neutralize this resistance.

For quite sometime now, Arab states have been demanding formalizing anti-blasphemy laws as part of UN charter. It will be a devastating blow to freedom of speech across the world. So far, it was been resisted. Having been turned away by Western nations (although plenty sympathetic voices within Left-Liberal polity there), the Arabs believe the key to achieve this is through China and India. China already favors censorship. stridently and violently muzzling its citizens' voices online and offline. If India can be brought around, it will give a fillip to their cause. Arab states are often able to inject their agenda into Indian politics, the most recent being the endorsement of "East Jerusalem" as a Palestine state capital by the Prime Minister.

Therefore, it is obvious that the secular party plans to dangle the carrot of a Sharia law for the internet in front of the UP Mullahs right in time for the elections.

If you think all this is new or recent, you would be terribly wrong. The secular party has been going about it for quite sometime now, albeit a bit more discreetly. Actually, not all of it has been all that discreet, but thanks to a pliant media, not that widely disseminated. For instance, how many do know that Abhishek Manu Singhvi actually participated in burning an unauthorized biography of Sonia Gandhi by a Spanish author? How many know senior Congress leaders showered blows (yes, actual physical blows) to protesters? But we digress.

While the party has always indulged in widespread espionage and unauthorized eavesdropping, it just went up to mind blowing levels in recent years. There has been pervasive phone tapping, bugging and even old styled straight up espionage against political opponents. Less than a third of IB staffers are actually used for national security, rest are engaged in spying for the secular party. Adverse information about political opponents tend to show up on media - for instance Kiran Bedi's TA bills.

As far as internet content goes, the party has been steadfastly pulling content off the net. For instance, as the Google transparency report shows, politically adverse content has been routinely removed. Likewise, content has been removed from other social networking sites like the Facebook.

All this might just have been the tip of the iceberg. While Sibal might have achieved limited success with Global players like Google or Facebook, local content providers have been far more pliable.

The Orwellian concept of pre-screening internet content predictably kicked up a firestorm of protests, but did this deter Sibal? Hardly. With the help of unofficial propaganda machine, Sibal has started spreading the canard that all this is to preserve communal harmony. India's allegedly toughest host did not venture to ask Sibal a simple question: why not do a private screening of the content that has already been removed to select few journalists? Instead Sibal could get away with showing a few cherry picked offensive material.

Now, truly Congress style, an Income Tax notice has been sent to Google. Sibal plans to continue his overtures with the internet companies.

To Summarize: The UPA dispensation has actually managed to implement 1984 and most people don't even know it. Political dissenters have been brought in line and the Government plans more. Forget about removing a few critical pieces from the internet, they actually plan Chinese style complete command and control over the entire information economy. In their sordid design, most of the country's intellectuals are willing and active participants - a few critical voices have been muzzled. UPA's censorship and propaganda has far transcended polemics and entered the hitherto uncharted territory of massaging sacrosanct national accounts figures like the GDP. As the country heads into fiscal armageddon because of unbridled spending, UPA's (dis)information minister Kapil Sibal locks horns with global internet giants - with the uneasy prospect of turning them away, deepening the crisis.

27% was the bait, here comes the switch ...

2011-12-04T18:40:00.001-05:00

Other Backward 'Classes', say hello to secularism:

8.6% OBC quota for minorities

NORA CHOPRA 4th Dec


	The UPA Government is all set to announce 8.6% reservation for minorities under the 27% OBC quota. The quota has been worked out on the lines of Kerala and Karnataka. Muslims will get 5% reservation, and the other minorities 3.6%. The matter will go to the Cabinet for final approval within two weeks of the final decision. [source]

It's only talk

2011-11-27T17:03:00.001-05:00

We have always said and sometimes it can be easily demonstrated that behind every human right / secularist or other type of bleeding heart lies a political motive. They consistently maintain that they condemn all human rights violations with the same fervor. Alas, their actions do not stand up to their claims. How do they get away with it? For one thing, they monopolize the opinion industry. For another, and there is a complex set of reasons behind this, they have usurped the international representation of Indian human rights. Ergo, when the US state dept. or various missionary fronts prepare their "religious freedom reports", who are their go to guys in India? A certain set of people.

The result is quite obvious. The groups that fall out of favor fall through the cracks. Human rights violations against Hindus that live as localized minority (WB, Assam, Kerala, pockets of TN/AP etc.), Kashmiri Pandits, Sikhs are some examples that come to mind.

The brutally violent pogroms of 1984 against Sikhs was one such chapter that was closed and shoved under the carpet by our Human Rights wallahs, ironically to be opened about a couple of decades later. We know how the essays read, or the TV shows factor it in. We also condemn ... Their heart is not in it and it shows.

If they were true to their words, and if they really wanted to make it up for the victims, for the last two days you should have read, heard and seen only this everywhere:

Sikhs targeted

As soon as the news of attack on Pawar reached NCP stronghold of Kolhapur and Satara, party workers staged demonstrations and called for a bandh. A Sikh youth, who was selling household utensils near the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation, was beaten up badly by NCP activists. However, he managed to save his life. In Satara, four trucks belonging to Sikhs were stoned.In Sangli, a bandh has been called on Friday. The activists stoned showrooms and vehicles. In Sangli, the activists burn the effigy of the attacker.

In Nashik, hundreds of NCP activists came out on the streets in protest against the attack on Pawar. Rasta roko, tyre burning and stoning of vehicles were reported. [DNA India]

But you did not, unless you really tried. Excuses were issues, covering communal violence reports apparently fuel "anger". Isn't that nice? Coming from lead journalists whose channels have kept certain items on loop, for nearly a decade, 365/24/7? Or consider this anguished editorial by a leading journalist - how she completely glosses over the episode.

The fact of the matter is, there are no rules. There is a war out there, and they want to prevail. "Human Rights" is merely a propaganda tool, never really there when it is most needed.

The King's speech

2011-09-25T13:00:00.001-04:00

A meta joke that has been making rounds recently is in the form of a picture with the caption "The most politically correct cartoon" or something to that effect. The picture is actually non-existent, clean white space gleams from within the borders where it should have been.

The Prime Minister's speech at the 66th UN General Assembly evoked that joke vividly. The contrast with the Israeli PM Netanyahu's rousing, passionate speech could not have been starker.

No one can claim that the ability to make excellent speeches is a necessary condition for being a successful leader. It is also most definitely not a sufficient condition, we have seen a supposedly grand speaker fall from grace within a couple of years and what a great fall it was. The fact that Manmohan Singh is rather deficient in the speech department is well known. As a matter of fact, it has been noticed and written about by the international commentariat rather widely, for instance:

When India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appeared on Indian national television a full 18 hours after terror attacks started ripping apart Mumbai, he achieved quite an amazing feat. He turned a national emergency, crisis and tragedy into a Grade A snooze fest.

The speech - which can be viewed here for anyone suffering from chronic insomnia - had all the urgency of a road safety public service announcement. Even the static graphic headlines "40 Held Hostage at Trident!" and "101 Killed in Attack!" plastered across his face on the TV screens had more life than Dr Singh, who read the autocue as if he was struggling through an on the spot translation of Pig Latin. [India's Prime Minister Hosts Pajama Party, Virginia M. Moncrieff / HuffingtonPost]

What is lacking in delivery, can be made up in content. But PM Manmohan Singh certainly wasn't trying, neither were his speech writers. Deeply scared of offending sensibilities, the speech was dumbed down until it resembled an incoherent rambling of platitudinous BS taken out of boilerplate speeches of various socialist leaders - with some bits from occasional psychotic rants of various middle-eastern despots. Add deep layers of masking tape to take out anything too edgy.

Dr. Singh the economist put the blame for economic and political crisis squarely on the "traditional growth engines" of US, Europe and Japan. India is willing to contribute, only if UN shows the way. The root of all problems is inflation. This is caused by bad effects of globalization. But please let's not erect barriers to trade. Terrorism is a problem. But the villains shall not be named. We support Palestine. By the way, with East Jerusalem as capital and hope Palestine and Israel become friends. Hail Rajiv Gandhi! All this is his vision. Ok, I am done. [Hey, where's all the people gone?]

At a time of deep political and economic crisis, Dr. Singh and a large part of his cabinet (up to 9 key ministers) are currently in New York. That is to say, like Bollywood movie song and dance numbers that suddenly teletransport protagonists to Switzerland, Singh and his men have taken the palace intrigue to the New York city. Perhaps this is just as well, since the true ruler is back in India.

One presumes that various foreign policy experts will be able to pick out nuggets of deep strategic thinking from this gibberish. But they are the experts, the kind that has been calling the shots for over six decades.

Policy wonks and think tanks and experts will likely congratulate themselves while picking up this award or that junket assignment - but the truth is, the clever by half approach is not working. The world is looking for results and action, all Dr Singh delivered was a speech. And a desperately bad one at that.

Our Hope for Peace Never Wanes ...

2011-09-24T12:28:00.001-04:00

Violence in Bharatpur

2011-09-18T23:47:00.000-04:00

"There could not have been a more communal rifle"
- Kavita Srivastava (PUCL)

The recent communal violence in the Gopalgarh village in Bharatpur district, Rajasthan, could be an interesting case study of how communal violence starts, how various stakeholders (including NGOs, human rights etc.) jump in and muck up the scene, the challenges involved for an administration to control such situations and last but not the least, how media goes about covering (or not covering) those incidences.

Rajasthan, like other parts of the country, has seen a steady stream of communal clashes in recent years. They have involved both internecine clashes within Muslim groups as well as clashes of Muslims with other groups. In this case, the clashes involved Meo Muslims and Gujjars.

Background:

Gopalgarh appears to be the only Muslim majority (60%) village in the Kaman assembly constituency which is held by MLA Zahida Khan of Congress. The rest of the six seats in the district are held by BJP. It is a neighboring district to Haryana's Mewat district, which is dominated by Meo Muslims. The Haryana Meo community holds massive clout over the Kaman constituency. Note: A Sunday Guardian report calls Gopalgarh a "Gujjar majority village" of 5000 with only 100 Muslim families.

Despite the curious demographic mix in this village which is influenced also by neighboring districts in surrounding states, the area has been largely free of communal trouble even during historical periods of communal strife.

Reason behind the dispute:

The reason behind the dispute was a plot of land which Gujjars claimed was a pond, while the Meo Muslims wanted as a graveyard. The dispute has existed for 42 years. In the 1950s, the land, which is part of a pond dug by kings in ancient times was by mistake clubbed with the graveyard near the mosque by a patwari (revenue official). There has also been court cases.

Graveyard related land issues create communal tension all over India, they have occurred in Delhi, West Bengal, all over. This is a contentious issue for which there is no easy solution. Naturally land requirement for burial grounds will keep going up. Where will this land come from? Land is a scarce resource everywhere, isn't it the root of all problems?

How the violence started:

Tension flared up in the few days preceding the violence, it is unclear what increased the tension - whether a legal move or an attempt by district admin to solve the dispute. There were meetings held with local Congress MLA Zahida Khan and a neighboring BJP MLA with community leaders but they failed to pacify the mobs that had gathered.

The exact trigger for the violence is unclear, with both communities blaming one another. What is clear is that the political leadership, including Congress MLA and district administration was already in the area. The Meo Muslims claim that Gujjars had barged into a Mosque, beat up the Imam and some others. Gujjars claim Meo Muslims set Gujjar houses on fire and looted their money. Then there was some issue about idol immersion in the pond and a cow slaughter.

It appears that in light of increased tension, there was already heavy deployment of cops in the area. The administration (at least the saner part of it) got wind of Meo Muslims from Haryana gathering in strength at the Mosque. Violence broke out either at the meeting or just after it. Both parties started firing at each other. Fearing an escalation, police opened fire to disperse the crowds. Since Meo Muslims were present in much larger strength in the area, they got the most of it.

Administration puts the death toll at 9, with dozens injured. Most (all?) of the dead are Muslims, the identified ones appear to be from outside the village, which would prove that there was indeed a large Muslim deployment from neighboring states.

Aftermath, NGO and Government Reaction:

Congress MLA Zahida Khan initially claimed that: "... considering the seriousness of the situation a heavy police force was rushed to the spot but when the situation went out of control, police opened fire". She also claimed to have witnessed the police firing herself: "I saw the police firing at the people. It was horrifying to see what was happening. I demand from the administration that the senior police officers in Bharatpur district be removed. There should be an inquiry by an independent agency into the incident".

However, later she made the curious claim that: "Denying reports of communal violence and exchange of fire between Meos and Gujjars, Zahida said it was a "sponsored programme" by police and RSS". - It is hard to see a violence not communal in nature, yet somehow instigated by a nexus of Police and RSS.

MLA Zahida Khan also made a statement that: "The district collector and SP were fair. But Additional SP O P Meghwal, Inspector Brijesh Meena and lower rank policemen were blatantly partisan. They misled the collector and the SP." Strangely enough though, both the District Collector and SP has been axed over the incident.

NGOs and Human Rights Groups poured into the village otherwise under curfew and heavy police protection and a virtual no go zone except for carefully selected people. Among the groups present were The People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind and the NGO Anhad. Kavita Srivastava of PUCL and noted secularist Shabnam Hashmi were also there and variously made allegations at RSS and district administration.

Other groups involved were Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghatan and Suchna and Rozgar Adhikar Abhiyan. Basically it was pouring NGOs. While the village was off limits to mainstream media, the Muslim news website TwoCircles and Sunday Guardian reporters made it there by being part of NGOs.

Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot has announced a compensation of Rs. 5 Lakhs for each of the victims families. It appears that aside from throwing a few mud balls randomly just to check if it will stick, Hindu organizations are no longer being blamed, at least with any amount of conviction. Congress is trying to find an escape route by putting the blame on police and district admin. Reportedly Sonia Gandhi has got involved into cleaning up the mess and the Congress is in "damage control" mode. Whatever that means.

Media Coverage:

Open any national (and many regional) TV news channel and you are likely to catch something about "riots" and "justice" etc. within 5 minutes, any day of the year, any time of day. Same thing if you open any national (and many regional) newspaper. Why is it then major riots such as the one we just discussed are being given a complete miss? Why don't the news broadcasters associations insist that Government allow them some access to communal violence affected areas?

Despite claiming the importance of "justice" over all other issues, media seems to be curiously shy in covering riots when they actually happen, like when it happened in Delhi or Adoni, AP or in Gopalgarh, Rajasthan.

Final Thoughts:

The Gopalgarh violence yet again demonstrated the challenges in preserving communal harmony in a socialist country - with vague notions of property rights and scars of a long tumultuous history, coupled with vested interests. It also raises serious questions about the role of certain NGOs. It is natural for groups involved in medial care or post trauma care to be sent to riot affected area. What were these ultra political outfits doing out there? Also, what's with that statement by PUCL General Secretary Srivastava (see picture) - even before all the inquiries are completed? She wasn't there when the firing happened, MLA Zahida Khan was. Even the autopsies aren't completed.

So, here we are, with a Secular Government at the center, a Secular Government at the State of Rajasthan, local MLA a Muslim belonging to the Secular party - yet, all the kings horses and all the kings men could not put communal humpty dumpty together in a tiny hamlet of Rajasthan.

Caught in the vice grip of secularism and socialism

2011-09-18T20:29:00.001-04:00

The recent New Delhi High Court blast and the even more recent Agra Hospital blasts were stark reminders of the fact that in terms of vulnerability we have not progressed one bit beyond the lofty promises made after 26/11, neither have we progressed beyond the usual meaningless rhetoric by secular intelligentsia.

The National Investigation Agency, set up with much fanfare, has not been able to solve any case in 3 years. It has been deployed as a political PR arm of the Congress party's core political machine. Meant to be an independent agency which would stitch disparate agencies across the country, cut down on rumors and be a force to reckon with, the agency has bickered with state polices, kept leaking vital information and generally been a nuisance. It directly reports to the vaunted Home Minister of UPA, P. Chidambaram. Media can't get enough of either the agency or its supreme head. After the Mumbai blasts, media tried level best to try and find "things that had improved since 26/11". Unfortunately, the stark images of blast injured being carried like cattle in India's maximum city in a dirty truck and headless chicken like contradictory statements issued by NIA officials put a spanner in media's let's make PC look bright project. Public saw through it.

The country is at the time of the post a victim of natural calamity as well, floods in Orissa, Earthquake in North East area. The army is involved at both places, thankfully as it is relatively independent of political interference.

It is clear that we are caught in between two false ideologies neither of which is able to serve their intended purpose. If socialism is slowly starving us, secularism is merely hastening the job for some of the more unfortunate among us, like those at Mumbai, Delhi or Agra.

Suzie's shenanigans

2011-08-31T00:40:00.004-04:00

It wasn't much of a surprise to see Arundhati Roy come out all guns blazing against the Anna Hazare movement. In an insinuation and innuendo laden interview with CNN-IBN, she "alleged" that the key members of the movement had received $ 400,000 from the Ford Foundation.

Arundhati Roy: [...] Just in order to point to the fact, a short article can just indicate the fact that it is in some way an NGO driven movement by Kiran Bedi, Arvind Kejriwal, Sisodia, all these people run NGOs. Three of the core members are Magsaysay award winners which are endowed by Ford foundation and Feller. I wanted to point to the fact that what is it about these NGOs funded by World Bank and Bank of Ford, why are they participating in sort of mediating what public policy should be? I actually went to the World Bank site recently and found that the World Bank runs 600 anti-corruption programmes just in places like Africa. Why is the World Bank interested in anti-corruption? [...]

[Link: Jan Lokpal Bill is very regressive: Arundhati Roy / CNN-IBN Interview transcript]

On this blog, we have always taken the position that fund inflow to NGOs, especially the undisclosed / underhanded variety is highly dangerous. So, we decided to investigate. The Ford Foundation keeps a detailed list of grants and provides a search page.

Some of the interesting grants:

Centre for Study of Society and Secularism

2007: $110,000

2009: $191,000

Interesting members: Ram Puniyani

Center for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS)

2008: $350,000

2008: $200,000

Interesting members: Ashis Nandy, Madhu Kishwar, Yogendra Yadav

Sabrang Trust

2009: $250,000

Interesting members: Teesta Setalvad

Ford Foundation also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Milia Islamia, Center for Policy Research, Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Christian Dalit Liberation movement and many other NGOs. Their funds appear to reach practically the breadth of India's Left-Liberal-Secular establishment.

In other words, in terms of taking monies from the "evil" Ford Foundation, Suzie's friends aren't doing too badly.

How the "civil" society got its groove back

2011-08-27T15:49:00.011-04:00

Most of us have heard this fable in one form or another:

A patient came from afar to see a doctor. After a thorough examination, the doctor asked him to come back the next day for his prescription. The patient was a bit peeved - "Doctor, couldn't you give me my prescription today? I come from far away". "Nope", said the adamant doctor. The next day, when the patient arrived, the doctor prescribed him some ordinary vitamins - and oh, by the way, he must go on a strict sugar free diet. The patient was visibly rueful that just for this he had to make a second trip, but he thanked the doctor anyway, and left. The doctor's assistant felt curious about this, he had known the doctor to be a very reasonable man. "Doctor, I am curious, why did you make him come back again? Couldn't you have prescribed this yesterday? Poor fella had to make the long trip twice". The doctor smiled enigmatically. "You see, yesterday I had several boxes of sweets sent by my classmate right here in the chamber. It would be a bit odd to ask the patient to go on a sugar free diet, wouldn't it?"

After successfully subverting the democratic process of elections and converting the entire policy debate into a "civil" society led agit-prop movement for over a decade, the Congress party now expects the people to suddenly become fond of democracy and constitutionalism and start hating "civil" society. Right. That is working really well.

Let's take a brief look at the dangerous road to anarchy the Congress party has led us down:

A "civil" society body called the NAC - completely illegal and extra-constitutional, now runs major policy decisions. The members of this NAC are hand picked from a group of Sonia Gandhi loyalists and dangerous subversionists, with manifest links with both the Maoists and now as it has come to light recently, even Pakistan's ISPR. Just check out news reports - NAC is everywhere. Sonia Gandhi is the self-styled permanent chairman of this body, with no term limits and no provision for her removal.

=> The constitutional experts who sprouted after Anna Hazare's fast started ostensibly had no reason to worry about this dangerous subversive institution.

After 2004, the Congress party led state Governments and not to mention the Central Govt has indulged in a massive orgy of loot. While #2G, CWG and the Adarsh remain the iconic scams against which public ire is directed, a brief look at the situation at Andhra Pradesh provides a worrying picture of hidden scams from which Congress has successfully dissociated itself. Former star CM of AP and the late YSR's son's house is being raided by CBI, this sordid chapter has revealed just how much the Congress party looted from Andhra Pradesh. The whole state now resembles a Jesus camp.

=> Media and public intellectuals simply did not find it worthwhile to dig into the AP story and nail the lies while camping out in non-Congress states for sniffing out even minor transgressions. Try convincing the Anna Team why we don't need a Lok Pal?

Despite their self-proclaimed and oft repeated claims of love for Dalits, the contempt they have shown for Mayawati simply boggles the mind, including planted stories of rape. The Congress party and its media contingent descended in full force (accompanied by a small battalion of "civil" society activists) in a quaint UP hamlet and tried to scuttle a land deal. The Gandhi dynasty scion did his second best impression of Naavi Prince after Odisha and needless to say got completely friendly coverage in the media and hailed by activists. Meanwhile, the Congress run state Govt in Maharashtra was shooting at agitating farmers. The latter news was mostly blacked out.

=> We would like to hear from the suddenly democratic Congress intellectuals exactly why is politics of agit-prop bad? What would they like to tell Team Anna about why Rahul Gandhi defying 144 is constitutional and a-okay while Team Anna wanting permission to hold a rally dangerous?

A famous Diva journalist of a top news channel enthusiastically covered the "Arab Spring" earlier this year. She was nowhere to be seen at the Ramlila grounds. Overnight she had become a champion of stability, democracy etc. Too bad for her, because her credibility had been shot to pieces in the Radia tapes controversy. The entire MSM seemed to be completely depressed over the whole affair. Unfortunately for them, they had already been exposed for hunting with the foxes and running with the hare. Too late.

=> It would be interesting to see these morally compromised and corrupt individuals of media do a debate with Team Anna about why media should or should not be under the Lok Pal.

Let us take a look at the Bills the Congress party itself has in the pipeline. These include the Right to Education (RTE), Right to food, Communal Violence Prevention (CVB) and Land acquisition bill. Each of these bills were written unilaterally by the NAC. Each of these bills suffer from the same problems - amorphous and skewed selection process, massively anti-reform, creates gargantuan bureaucracies, hands out enormous powers into the hands of a select few individuals, destroys federal structure, has the potential to create major communal rift. All these bills also contain a spawn clause - i.e. the commissar can create new rules as he deems fit. The CVB does not even entertain the possibility that Hindus can be victims of communal violence. It also does not specify the conditions under which the extra-judicial powers can be exercised. If boys playing street cricket breaks a Church window, Harsh Mander can walk in and take over that district. Worse, if the minority community feels peeved at some movie or book (which they often do), even then Harsh Mander can walk in. Prevention, see? Does not matter who initiates or starts burning trains. The gist of the Right to Food bill is to divvy up foodgrains into communal quotas and don't you dare touch the minority pot!

=> Now, what were the points again about the Lok Pal being too powerful, can undermine democracy etc.?

The Congress party has led us down the garden path and converted the country into a giant NGO, a carnival of continuous discontent, intrigue and subversion. They have been completely aided and abetted by country's top intellectuals who have not spoken up even on a single instance of countless transgressions of their favorite political outfit - worse, they actively cheered them on. Now that the shyte has hit the fan, Congress intellectuals should just hold their Padmashris in their hands and spare us the sanctimony.

What causes corruption?

2011-08-23T19:41:00.003-04:00

Man is as corrupt as his options.

UPA II came to power amid accusations of grave misconduct, known as the cash for votes scam. Soon they were hit by a tsunami of scam accusations. By early 2010, the 2G scam had been busted wide open, with more to follow, such as the CWG scam and the Adarsh society scam.

Finding their favorite political outfit in this quagmire, the nation's leading TV news channels embarked upon a psyop to convince us that corruption is a cultural issue rather than a systemic one. Both the IBN Face the nation (eg. Does the subcontinent's culture breed corruption? Sept 2010) and NDTV We the people (eg. India: Game for corruption? Oct 2010) flagship talk shows attempted to draw ethno-cultural roots to corruption. Public intellectuals and Left-Liberal intellectuals pretty much drew the same conclusion - only some of them went even a step further. Corruption, according to them, was related to a certain religion.

Is that so?

Let's take a few examples. Among the prime accused in the current scams are Hasan Ali, Shahid Balwa, Father Jagath Gasper Raj. The party that is embroiled in the gargantuan scandals is headed by - not even an ethnic Indian. Leave aside the fact that many scam riddled politicians of the party and its allies are just about nominal Hindus (or HINOs, if you prefer).

Even across the world, evidence simply does not bear out the assertion that Indians (or Hindus for that matter) are culturally more corrupt. The less said about our neighboring Pakistan, the better. Even China, a completely different political system and distinct ethnic people - loads of scandals, including the high profile recent scam involving the architect of their high speed train system. To take a random example from the West, US First Lady Michelle Obama was accused of a patient dumping scam. Similar accusations were made in the past about former First Lady and current US secy of state Hillary Clinton. Following 9/11, there were numerous scandals of people usurping monies meant for actual victims of the terrorist incident.

We will leave aside this rather unproductive investigation (you can't really dump about 800 million people into the Arabian sea) and look at some actual data.

Research by India's emerging think tank clearly shows corruption is highly correlated (negatively) to economic freedom. This is also confirmed by our own findings. Countries with higher economic freedom (or more capitalistic) are less corrupt and vice versa.

This is no surprise. Fundamentally, corruption is merely what is known in economics as the agency problem. Politicians are the agents we select through the election process to look after our interests. They seldom do. Instead, they look after their own interests. How do we make them look after our own interests? Simple, by setting up a reward-punishment system. Unfortunately for us, our country's leading intellectuals and opinion makers have concluded that there is no alternative.

QUIZ:

Your agent (i.e. politician you elected) is behaving badly. But there is no alternative (TINA).

(a) Your agent will continue to look after his own interests

(b) Your agent will suffer a sudden attack of conscience and become all goofy?

The answer is rather obvious.

Socialism, especially the carte blanche variety with loads of accepted and unchallenged holy cows provides a grand excuse for politicians to act with impunity against their principal's (voter) interests and get away with it time after time. The holiest of our holy cows unsurprisingly is secularism. To paraphrase a Hindi film song, they will practically chant the secularism mantra while simultaneously picking your pocket in broad daylight.

This is exactly what is happening in our country.

Dark clouds over our freedom ...

2011-08-15T00:20:00.001-04:00

There is a thin red line.

The line that divides between freedom and slavery.

If you let the others make all the rules, you have crossed over. Actually, you have been kicked across and you don't even know it.

Consider this:

- Those who play with the ISI are today's top architects of social justice

- Dreadful Naxals occupy top health policy positions

- They take all your money and make monuments of leaders you despise, or at least do not respect

- In the end, they blame you for it!

The choice is clear and it must be made. Do not get kicked around by those leeches who live off your blood and sweat. Don't let them tell you what makes you nice.

Happy Independence Day.

Fee-fai-fo-fum

2011-07-21T23:15:00.004-04:00

Are Indian intellectuals on the take from Pakistan's spy agency?

The indictment of Ghulam Nabi Fai, Executive Director of Kashmiri American Council (KAC) by US authorities, has blown the lid off what must have been an open secret in the secu-liberal crowd and what we had long suspected.

Fai ran one of the many Pakistan affiliated NGOs in America that purport to fight for human rights and Azadi aspirations of Kashmir folks. Well, it turns out he was actually being funded by ISI, Pakistan's well known spy agency. In order to subvert US policy, Fai would funnel millions of dollars into the US, even donating to political campaigns of American politicians, including President Barack Obama. Fai's organization paid $250 to the presidents campaign kitty.

Unfortunately, the source of funds and their use ran afoul of the US laws.

Fai also cultivated Indian 'intellectuals' to further his cause. Dozens would attend his seminars in the US as guest speakers. Indian intellectuals speaking against India and for the Kashmir cause in front of an audience of American lawmakers and academicians gave KAC's agenda a certain type of legitimacy. Did they know?

As far back as 2003 (update: maybe even 1994), Indian Embassy circles knew that "it wasn't a real conference but an anti-India shop". There is no reason to believe various Indian intellectuals who attended those seminars did not know the true nature of Fai's organization. Did they willfully ignore the danger signs?

Was there any quid pro quo? Did all it take to turn Human Rights wallah into the public relations equivalent of a tactical nuclear weapon against India just a round trip ticket to the US of A?

The list of Indian 'intellectuals' who attended Fai's seminars runs about a mile long, virtually all the biggest blowhards of secularism can be found on this list. Some of the names that are making the rounds are: Kuldip Nayar, Justice Rajinder Sachar, Gautam Navlakha, Siddharth Varadarajan (editor, The Hindu), Harinder Baweja (Tehelka), Praveen Swamy, Subramanian Swami, Bharat Bhushan (Mail Today editor), Dilip Padgaonkar, Harish Khare, Rita Manchanda, Kamal Chenoy, Praful Bidwai, Ved Bhasin.

Justice Rajinder Sachar authored the controversial Sachar report.

Dilip Padgaonkar is one of the Government appointed Kashmir 'interlocutors'.

Harish Khare is the media adviser to the Prime Minister.

This is serious. Some of them owned up to attending Fai's seminars and/or provided reasonable explanations, among them are Sid Varadarajan and Subramanian Swamy. The rest seems to have clammed up.

* * *

So, what we have here is a club of self-anointed high priests of virtue which turns out to be no better than a cottage industry of cheap hustlers. Between fake affidavits and anti-national rants for bits from a very hostile entity, there isn't much left of one's conscience to be compromised.

The Government is likely to question the intellectuals involved. It remains to be seen how they go about this. This investigation might provide vital clues as to whether the Congress establishment has remained merely corrupt and exploitative or has transitioned into the dark zone of open subversion.

Truck

2011-07-13T23:42:00.003-04:00

There is something disturbing about blast injured being ferried in what looks like a filthy truck - not just anywhere, but in the country's largest and most financially important metro. Also known as the maximum city, where artists, writers, rich people, liberals, Bollywood etc. reside.

There is also something disturbing about that large and very important city's hospitals not being able to cope with perhaps 200 odd injured. Hospitals of a city of 12 million can't deal with 200 trauma victims?

Our condolences to the victims and their families. Stay safe.

Perfect metaphors

2011-07-04T09:59:00.002-04:00

Rs 75,000 cr and counting: More treasure tumbles out of shrine in Thiruvananthapuram

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Treasure continued to tumble out of the Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday with a Supreme Court-appointed committee finding more gold idols, coins and other assets on the sixth day of inspection in the shrine's hidden vaults. [TOI]

Here we go again. Ancient temple wealth keep tumbling out of secret hidden chambers faster than Marxist historians can sanitize our history to secular tastes. Official versions would like us to believe loot of temple wealth by various alien invaders never happened, it is all a product of communal imagination. Apparently various rulers such as Tipu Sultan were totally beneficent and it is a communal conspiracy to suggest otherwise. But this cache flies in the face of such theories. This will also force a reprint of various religious propaganda literature for sure. But we digress.

The big problem now is what to do with this massive ancient Hindu wealth. Of course, the answer to this question is when. Already various indignant socialists are demanding this wealth be distributed among the poor through schemes such as the NREGS. One only hopes the wealth doesn't make it to Congress party's 2014 election coffers. Already ultra rich from 2G, CWG and various real estate scams covering practically every inch of the country - this would really skew the race.

In the larger scheme of things, this is what has been going on, Hindu wealth for secular causes. Typically some land or productive asset is appropriated in the name of social justice, a scheme created under the name of a member of Gandhi family, and the wealth is then distributed to the people who need it most. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. See, how easy it is?

* * *

Boy drowns in Congress leader's chemical tank

GHAZIABAD: A 10-year-old boy was killed after he fell in a tank used for cleaning bottles containing chemicals for a local Congress leader's plant.

According to the police, Bilal fell in the pool in Nasib Vihar Colony in Loni on Friday evening while playing and became unconscious. He later passed away at a hospital yesterday, they added. [TOI]

Barkha Dutt, group editor, NDTV, writes a weekly column for the Hindustan Times. If you look at the topics about two years ago - they are all about big global problems, international big ticket items etc. This is a confident Barkha, firm on her feet, the preferred party solidly back in power. Things are as they should be. Fast forward two years - what do we see? Despair, sadness, depression - everything is falling apart, coffee and cigarettes in the cutting room, late nights in the studio ...

So, what happened? Things haven't changed much in concrete terms. Aside from food price inflation, not much has changed for the masses. No changes in political scenario or outlook. Going by the recent assembly polls, the party has grown stronger in the expected areas, received a shellacking where it used to.

Why then does Barkha marinate in the soup of her discontent?

The answer is in the dramatic divergence between the narrative and ground realities. Electronic media is hard to control, the beast has broken free and rampaging around, demolishing plot lines, damaging credibility of characters, rendering editorials and op/eds obsolete even before they hit the press.

Fortunately for her, this is also the precise reason things might just continue in the desired direction. Politics does not follow the studio scripted plot. It mostly follows demographics and flow of benefits to the right kind of people.

Unfortunately for us, we will have to continue to live around Congress party's social justice factory, carefully lest we fall into the toxic juices of secularism. All the major institutions are already in the tank, corroding away what is left of our democracy.

The shrinking Hindu space

2011-06-07T23:36:00.004-04:00

Perhaps nothing illustrates the extreme prejudice and visceral hatred this administration harbors towards Hindus quite like this video. A senior Congress leader and designated mentor to the crown Prince, no less, mercilessly kicking an would be shoe attacker. That video basically sums up what Congress would do to us, given a chance.

As we have been saying for quite sometime, what we have here is not mere hardball politics, we have long transitioned into a different ballgame. From mere socio-economic re-engineering, we have transitioned into genocidal territory.

The completely needless and strategically foolish police action of last Saturday when a battalion of handpicked Delhi Police converged in on the Ramlila grounds, where tens of thousands of devotees, as many as half of them women and children, had already retired for the night, was designed to inflict casualties - which it did. Up to a 100 people were injured, many of them critically. A woman still remains comatose. The fact that it did not result in a stampede is a miracle in itself and perhaps speaks for the discipline and self-restraint of the devotees. The police had fired so many teargas shells that beat journos had irritation and tears in their eyes until late next morning.

This operation had to be authorized at the highest levels. No one at a lower level who would have the gumption to order a lathi charge and teargas shelling in a tent containing so many women and children.

This operation was also a live demonstration of what is going to happen when the proposed Communal Violence Prevention Act (aka Right to Riot with impunities act for minorities) comes into effect. That act will give enormous and unprecedented powers into the hands of a group of hostile and prejudiced people. Under any flimsy pretext, they can take over any district administration. They can then run off any people deemed undesirable, like they did with the tens of thousands of devotees. Within a stretch of 4 hours, the ground was completely deserted, people scattered all over Delhi without shelter and belongings. Some dropped off at potentially unsafe places. Post-op, the administration declared random and arbitrary section 144 and ordered externments without court orders.

Then we have the RTE act, which essentially shrinks education space for Hindus. We also have the Food Security Act, again, designed by the same contingent, which divides the food doles recipients into "general" and "priority" categories, the latter being euphemism for ... you know who.

A day after the operation, Sonia Gandhi offered a chaadar at Ajmer Sharif. A day later, Manmohan Singh followed suit.

Still think you are safe under this administration?

Do we need a Lok Pal bill?

2011-04-18T23:18:00.003-04:00

Scene of protest: Tahrir Square, Cairo. Many have likened the Jantar Mantar gathering

surrounding a fasting septuagenarian Gandhian with the Egyptian uprising

Did we just have a revolution? Well, if we did, it certainly didn't quite have the effect it brought about elsewhere. The ruling dispensation that is engaged in massive scale Economic Terrorism (scam is too mild a term for what we have here) continues to rule the country.

Sandwiched conveniently between the World Cup and the IPL, the "revolution" brought all sorts of people out from the woodwork. Pretty soon, Anna Hazare was seen sharing the dais with a motley crowd of career activists, human rights types, various political entities, wheeler dealers, curious media personnel trying to get a slice of the action and even some Maoists.

Now, let's consider for a moment what we are really asking for. Frankly, the Lok Pal concept is fairly overrated. The wikipedia entry clearly suggests an ombudsman system is neither essential nor sufficient for a corruption free society. One can't just jump at every novelty item every other country has. For a good analysis of what this Lok Pal bill controversy is about, look no further than two stellar post by Reality Check: (1) Jan Lok Pal, (2) Lok Pal - report generator or jail sender?

As a matter of fact, the group that is pushing this Lok Pal bill simply does not have a good track record at drafting good legislations. Good intentions do not result in good laws. The RTI Act is a case in point. The act has led to disappearance of all info from public domain ("need to know") and given rise to a new breed of activists. Having passed the law, the Govt abrogates itself of all responsibilities of making info publicly available. So, keep filing RTI petitions hombres, and keep in mind, such laws actually prevent the weak (such as a person with no access to a powerful RTI lobby) from getting access.

Some clauses in the original proposed draft such as having the two most recent Magsaysay awardees in the selection committee came across as awfully self-serving. This clause has been subsequently removed. On the other hand, the Govt draft mandates jail time for false complaints - a definite red flag.

Any chance of a good bill is further dimmed by the fact that Kapil "Zero Loss" Sibal is on the drafting committee. So is former Enron lawyer Harvard Chidu, whose name is mysteriously missing from the CBI 2G charge sheet. Noted wheeler dealers Moily and Pranab Mukherjee are also on the drafting committee.

The need of the hour is justice for the deprived sections, whose money has been stolen by a ruthless mafia type ruling faction. The drama about this bogus bill shifts focus away from the central issue.

A central omnipotent Lok Pal has some significant shortcomings. First of all, it will lead to legitimization of our central planning tendencies. India is a very large and complex economy now, it is absurd to expect an 11 member body to be able to handle all its scams. This is where most of the bill's designers are being terribly short-sighted. The bill simply does not address prioritization.

Finally, the bill is probably dead on arrival anyway for the same reason the women's reservation bill died. There are already clamors for representation for special classes. Pushed to its logical limit, this will eventually morph into a collective desire for the Lok Pal to yield the same outcome as the political process - why not just have an election then?

Thank you, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi

2011-04-03T21:52:00.004-04:00

We must confess that often we find it hard to understand socialists, sometimes it is due to their better education from institutes like St. Stephens or Jamia Milia Islamia or JNU etc. or sometimes it is simply due to their superior religion. Therefore, we often find ourselves at a loss as to what would be an appropriate and correct response to an event.

All of us has the experience of being confronted by socialists at some point or another. For instance, say you just heard a joke or something and have a wide grin on your face. Suddenly, you meet your socialist friend. Chances are he will read you several statistics such as how 50% of India's kids are malnourished etc. He will prove that you should not grin like that. Of course, your socialist friends have likely lost a bit of their enthusiasm since 2004, but you get the general idea.

Now, cricket is just a sport, nothing more, nothing less. So, should we celebrate India's victory in a cricket match? Sounds simple, isn't it? If you are a fan of the sport, you will probably feel elated, for a few hours anyway, then go back to your daily life in the socialist state. If you do not follow the sport, no problem. Go watch a movie or take your dog out for a walk or something.

Unfortunately, it is not so simple. It could easily go like this:

Cricket fan: Yayyy giggity omg LOL ROFL! We won the world cup, how cool!
Socialist: 50% of India's kids are malnourished.
Cricket fan: Agreed, but can I just burst this last firecracker?
Socialist: NO! You jingoistic nationalistic chauvinistic a-hole from the bad religion!
Cricket fan: :(

Therefore, we were mighty concerned when India did pretty well this world cup and actually went on to win the cup. We were concerned for our cricket loving friends, we had no way to guide them and no help was forthcoming from the socialist circles.

Fortunately, the Queen came to our help. Not only did she attend the important matches with the Prince, but she came out after the win and broke out into an impromptu dance. Was that cha cha cha? Or was that the bhangra? Let's call it the Spectrum Twist, but that's not really important.

The important thing is, now it is totally appropriate for you to celebrate India's cricket victory, at least until 2014 and your socialist friends ain't gonna bug you, not one bit. We guarantee it.

Secret things ....

2011-03-22T21:38:00.005-04:00

We all know that secular media and intellectuals are nuts about the Prince. According to a devastating cable from wikileaks, published by The Hindu, the Prince may have a few - um, nutty issues of his own:

Naqvi claimed that it is increasingly common knowledge that Rahul suffers from "personality problems" of an emotional or psychological nature that are severe enough to prevent him from functioning as PM.

Who would have known! Actually, that's not quite true. We have always believed there was something odd about the Prince. For instance, during the 2009 election cycle, we blogged about it. The cable mentions Congress leaders' growing disenchantment with the Prince and that they thought he "is causing more harm than good" and has "made no impression on the people of the state."

In the same blog post, we unambiguously stated that the Princess came across as a much smarter and polished political leader. The last part of the cable echoes the same sentiments, about how everyone wanted the Princess to join politics and how Sonia Gandhi had chosen the Prince against her own better judgment etc.

The cable also mentions "he continues to be the subject of press reports that rave about his participation in the early January Congress Youth training camp" - which is like, hardly a secret. Read another blog post where we described this in some detail.

The lunatic is on the grass

Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs ....

- Brain Damage, Pink Floyd

Whither revolution?

2011-03-13T14:44:00.005-04:00

Continuing our thoughts from a previous post, the question that stares us squarely in the face is simply this - if Egypt, Libya, Tunisia etc. have opted to oust their autocratic leaders through violent revolutions, why not us? Democracy is obviously not a good answer. The said countries had democracies of sort, elections too.

Now, consider these two snippets, from India's largest circulation daily, The Times of India:

SNIPPET 1: I still remember Nehru stepping into our living room and inviting Sir Alladi, my father-in-law, to join the drafting committee," says Lalitha Krishnaswami. "We were caught by surprise when someone informed us that Nehru who had come to attend a function at the nearby Andhra Mahila Sabha had decided to drop by. But to Sir Alladi's horror, no picture of the prime minister framed our walls. My husband was immediately asked to get one. He rushed to Luz Corner, got the first picture of Nehru he saw, framed it and rushed back home just minutes before Nehru himself walked in. Over the discussions that followed, Sir Alladi accepted his invitation to join the Constitution drafting committee," she says. [link]

SNIPPET 2: As she took her seat in the front row next to NCP chief Sharad Pawar, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee handed her the one-paragraph statement the PM had just read out.Going through it carefully, Sonia nodded briefly to herself, signalling her approval and put the paper down. Looking up, she saw MPs thanking her for ensuring that the government accepted including caste as a point of enumeration in the national headcount. As is her wont, Sonia was quick to gesture towards Congress's chief troubleshooter while Mukherjee sat unmoved. [link]

Remarkably, these are from the news section of the newspaper. Qualitatively, we are not really different from those regimes, the same state run or controlled media and its intellectuals singing glory be.

We have gargantuan scams going on, not only do these scams deprive the very same social justice classes the rulers and their PR agents claim to benefit, but they have grave national security implications. What are some of the beneficiaries of these scams? Aside from the obvious holy cows and calves, these names are Hasan Ali, Shahid Balwa, Jagath Gasper Raj etc.

Minister after minister have been allowed to brazenly perjure themselves on national TV without so much as a murmur of protests from TV show hosts.

Secular intellectuals, whose raison d'etre seems to be to constantly decry deprivation of certain sections, have remained mum. Worse, some have actually blamed 'neo-liberal economic framework' etc. for the scams. Diabolic plans have been put in place to somehow retroactively blame folks who have not been in power for two terms. Attempts to put the right sort of people in charge of the vigilance department has backfired for the time being. The state machinery has made significant progress in blocking out any signs of dissent.

Yet, there are no signs of revolution. We remain hopeful though.

The crosses we bear ...

2011-03-11T00:44:00.004-05:00

More pictures at Flickr

MUMBAI: Fresh demolition notices pasted by the BMC on several crosses across the city on Saturday drew a sharp reaction from the Christian community. Around 400 Bandra residents from the community gathered on Chapel Road in Bandra (W) in the evening to protest against the notices, prompting cops to rush there. [link]

Funny thing is, this thing has been going on since 2003 - when people started noticing illegal structures of all types sprouting all around the city.

Feb 18, 2011: Demolition stayed for 4 days - Priya Dutt (CONGRESS MP) et al do what secular politicians are supposed to do. Religious groups incensed.
Mar 1, 2011: 7 day stay on notices to crosses
Mar 2, 2011: 30 day to prove legality of crosses
Mar 5, 2011: Chief Minister says sorry
Mar 8, 2011: Locals did not seek BMC permission to re-erect cross

What we have here is a vivid illustration of competitive secularism. If Waqf board can do this (albeit a lot more violently and with a lot less media coverage), why can't Minority Team B? There is obviously no good answers to these questions. Hence, the shrines will not get demolished or alternately they will be demolished but community leaders will get sops elsewhere.

Rinse. Repeat.

The troubling thing is, due to the British legacy, the community owns disproportionately high amount of real estate, in prime locations all over. They are obviously out of bounds. But of course, they have nothing to fear, forget about those large swathes of tax free land - the municipal body of India's largest city can't even touch tiny recently built structures for almost a decade.